Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

One of the rising new generation of British SF writers is Eric Brown. For the last few years, he has been
exploring the so-called nada continuum in a continuing series of novels and short stories. Blue Shifting
is the latest collection and the stories are typical of what we have come to expect from Brown. They are
emotionally wrenching and very lyrical.
One of the falling old generation of British SF writers is the late Eric Frank Russell. His reputation is still
high today, despite the fact that he has been dead for more than 20 years and most of his books are
out of print. He wrote funny stories which generally showed aliens at a disadvantage and Earthmen
triumphant. Alan Dean Foster has taken an old Russell short story and expanded it to a novel called
Design for Great-Day and in doing so has quite destroyed the old Russell magic. All the lightness of
touch that characterised Russell has gone and Foster walks all over the jokes with lead lined, size 24
concrete boots. The result is dire. If Russell were still alive, he'd be spinning in his grave.
In my opinion Barry Crump is one of New Zealand's greatest writers. His latest book, Crumpy's
Campfire Companion has done nothing to disabuse me of this notion. The book is a semiautobiographical
collection of anecdotes and it enthrals and amuses from beginning to end. I have a
complete collection of Crump, and I have enjoyed every one immensely.
Bob Jones is another New Zealand writer that I admire, and recently, in a second hand bookshop, I came
across a 1990 collection of essays called Prancing Pavonine Charlatans. The articles are culled from
his regular newspaper column and it makes interesting retrospective reading since his comments on the
contemporary scene of the late 1980s contain several predictions which have now come to pass in
almost every particular. Of course he blots his copybook with some clangers as well, but no prophet is
perfect. Like or loathe his politics, you must admit that the man has a brain, a wonderful wit and a vastly
entertaining writing style. What more could you ask of an essayist?
The same second hand bookshop disclosed a copy of Insanely Great by Stephen Levy; a history of the
Apple Macintosh computer. Now let me confess that the Mac is a machine about which I know nothing
and care less, so it seemed unlikely that Levy's book could interest me. However on the strength of
Hackers (which I discussed in an earlier column) I decided to give it a go. Well, despite my total Mac
ignorance (or perhaps because of it?), I still enjoyed the book enormously. Levy is a skilled writer who
makes his subjects come alive.
Sometimes nothing will work but a quirky adventure and when I want quirky adventures I turn to Mike
Resnick, a writer who has never disappointed me. Fortunately he is prolific and so I can enjoy him lots. A
Miracle of Rare Design concerns an explorer, one Xavier Lennox, who has himself surgically altered
to fit in with the inhabitants of the strange worlds he investigates. There are several natural narrative
pauses in the story and every time this happened I started the next chapter convinced of the direction
the story had to take -- and every single time I was wrong! And it is these hiatuses (hiati?) which for me
converted the book from a rather traditional narrative into something quite special. However there is one
irritation. In the first alien episode Xavier comes upon a mystery -- why do the fireflies throw themselves
to their deaths from the summit of the pyramid? Although the reason is hinted at (very obliquely) it is
never specifically resolved. This is annoying.
John Barnes' latest novel is Kaleidoscope Century. Joshua Ali Quare wakes in 2109 at the age of 140
with no memories of his earlier lives. The bulk of the novel investigates these earlier lives as his memories
return and they are memories of a century growing ever more bitter and violent. Quare has taken part in
many of the century's seminal events. Few of them are pleasant. This is a grimy, violent and depressing
book. Just the way I like them.
I have long been a fan of Christopher Fowler, a masterful horror writer. He is generally seen at his best
in the short story -- his novels often run out of steam towards the end. His latest story collection is
called Flesh Wounds and is stuffed full of paranoia and blackness with a light leavening of gore.
Fowler has a quirky sense of humour. In one of the autobiographical snippets that decorate books of
this kind, he once said that "...like a fire, I go out at night". Many of his short stories are set in and
around London's night clubs. I don't think I want to visit clubs like that. Maybe I'll stay at home and read