Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

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hero because of them. I read Frank Richards' Billy Bunter stories and was grateful that Quelch was not my teacher. (Bunter himself has a minor mention in the book). Almost every sentence resonates with symbols. It is the quintessential twentieth century novel and yet it could not exist without the nineteenth century romantics that Moorcock loves so much. In style it is firmly a hundred years old. In content it is pure Moorcock. Which is to say, brilliant. If there is a theme to this essay, then so far the theme seems to be sequels and to this end allow me to point you at Executive Orders by Tom Clancy a sequel to his monumentally boring Debt of Honour, but don't let that put you off. The book opens where the previous one closes. Jack Ryan assumes the mantle of President of the United States after the incumbent president and most of the Congress are killed by a kamikaze piloting a 747. Ryan is politically naive and several world leaders take the opportunity to settle old scores with the USA, secure in the knowledge that they know more about the way the world works than Ryan does. The plots are Machiavellian and the book is 874 pages long and the tension never lets up. This really is a good old fashioned page turner, Clancy back on the top of his form (his last few books have been almost unreadably tedious). Towards the end, when the obligatory war breaks out, the book degenerates into incomprehensible military jargon and interminable descriptions of planes taking off and ships manoeuvring. You should stop reading on page 798 and resume again on page 868 to get the full flavour of the highly satisfactory ending. My major complaint is that throughout the book, characters drive around in an HMMWV. Does anybody have any idea what one of those might be? You do, of course, read Dilbert, don't you? If you don't, you are missing one the funniest of contemporary cartoons. Go immediately to your bookstore and browse the humour section for the cartoons of Scott Adams. You will meet Dilbert, Dogbert, Ratbert and Catbert, and in books with titles like Bring me the Head of Willy the Mail Boy you will find an hilarious expose of life in the modern office. You will find your fellow workers here, you will find your boss. If you are unlucky you will find yourself. Adams' contributions to that stultifying shelf of books on management theory are The Dilbert Principle and Dogbert's Management Handbook. To give you the flavour, let me quote from the latter: When we are born, all humans are clueless, self-absorbed and helpless. Most babies grow out of it. Those who don't become managers. I can't get away from it -- so far this month has been sequels and connected stories. I went back to Lord Dunsany and another instalment of the Jorkens tales. Age has not treated these well. The sophistication of life at the end of the twentieth century has caught up with and passed these stories from its youth and sometimes they seem naive. But there is nonetheless a period charm about them that is hard to deny. Talking of Dunsany, I recently came across Fifty One Tales. This slim volume (the tales are VERY short) was originally published in 1915. Mine is the second edition, published in 1916 and wartime austerity shows in its cheap binding and untrimmed edges. Still I doubt if many of today's novels would be as solid as this one is after such a long passage of time. They built them to last in those days. The frontispiece shows a very young Dunsany dressed in his army uniform. He looks quite gallant and dashing. The photograph is adorned with a facsimile signature. In style, the stories follow on from his earlier Gods of Pegana. In substance they are very slight but the language (flowery and purple though it is) is quite powerful and moving. These vignettes (they are not really stories) are regarded by many as being his finest works. Certainly they are his oddest -- and I am not sure he ever reached such heights of intensity in such a small space ever again. Lindsey Davis' latest novel about Falco (her private detective in ancient Rome) bids fair to be her best. I wasn't all that fond of Last Act in Palmyra, but I put that down to having read five of her novels in a row and becoming somewhat jaded. However subsequent discussion with other Davis fans revealed that I was not alone in that opinion so I approached Time to Depart with a certain trepidation. I needn't
have worried. She is on the top of her form. Balbinus, one of Rome's top criminals has been caught and must depart into exile. Falco supervises his placement on the ship that will carry him away. However the criminal vacuum he leaves behind does not remain empty for long and soon Rome is shocked by a series of enormous crimes (with, presumably, enormous profits for somebody). Falco investigates and the plot soon becomes thick. Along the way there are many satisfying moments, not least of which is that Lenia the Laundress finally marries Smaractus (Falco's hideous landlord) and Falco has to cast the oracle at their wedding. And that means he has to find a sheep... One of my favourite contemporary novelists is David Lodge, a writer whose praises I have sung before in these and other pages. Write On is a collection of essays published between 1965 and 1985. Lodge is a lecturer in literature and his literary preoccupations show as he presents his opinions on writers as diverse as Lawrence and Salinger, Joyce and Mailer. He discusses films and rock music (he seems to be a fan of Shakin' Stevens), American culture and John Updike, the rabbit reviewer. This small but stimulating collection makes an excellent companion piece to his other essay collection The Art of Fiction. Damn! Another sequel. Sometimes I wonder whether there exist books which are not sequels to other books. They are thin on the ground, I have to admit, but there are some. This month I found three. Not much of a ratio, is it? Moving On represents my on-going attempt to catch up with Larry McMurtry's modern day novels. For once I was not impressed. The book is overlong and ultimately dull and I found it hard to care about Patsy and her footloose husband as they travel America looking for rodeos for Jim to photograph. There was a certain small interest in the descriptions of rodeos and the odd characters they attract (McMurtry's usual gallery of grotesques) but once Patsy gets pregnant and Jim goes back to college it quickly becomes tedious. Better by far is Buffalo Girls which is about Calamity Jane and Buffalo Bill. Did you see the mini series on TV2 earlier this month? It was a faithful rendition of the book and highly enjoyable. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that Poppy Z. Brite is among the best of the contemporary horror novelists. Lost Souls is the ultimate vampire book. Forget your soi-disant Lestat decadents. Vampirism is embodied in Zillah, Molochai and Twig. It is Mardi Gras in New Orleans and for the vampires this is just the latest incarnation of the party that has been going on for centuries fuelled by sexual frenzy, green chartreuse and blood. Zillah casually impregnates a young human girl and the baby she brings to term, being of vampire stock destroys her in its birthing. The baby is christened Nothing and this is his book. And a sordid, murderous, blood-soaked, evil book it is. There is no lightening of the tone, there are no jokes here save the sadistic blood and semen soaked amusements of Zillah, Molochai and Twig. And Nothing. But what of science fiction? My favourite living SF writer is Frederik Pohl and his latest novel The Other End of Time has just been published and it is a little beauty. The Earth has received two enigmatic pictures of alien creatures transmitted from space. There is evidence that a derelict orbiting observatory has been visited by aliens. Five people investigate. Five people return to Earth with false memories. Five people are transmitted to another planet where they become specimens in a high tech cage, some of them several times in several different cages. The aliens are the Beloved Leaders, at war with the Horch. Five people must choose sides and the evidence for and against is contradictory at best. Bitingly satiric (as always), this is vintage Pohl and they don't come any better than that. Michael Kurland The Unicorn Girl Pyramid Richard Bachman The Regulators Harper Collins Stephen King Desperation Harper Collins Michael Moorcock The War Amongst the Angels Orion Tom Clancy Executive Orders Harper Collins Scott Adams The Dilbert Principle Harper Business Dogbert's Management Handbook
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Trimmings From The Triffid's Beard
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Foreword Unlike most holics, (if, a
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Buster Keaton and the lateral mind
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Movie Go Round Phlogiston Thirty-Fi
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crisps and a most revolting orange
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Lingua Frankly Phlogiston Thirty-Si
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tranquil islands of San Serif as th
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linguistic analysis. It is a theme
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up is laughable (feudalism across t
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perhaps over six feet." or "The per
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A Dozen Drabbles Phlogiston Thirty-
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This sort of thing had been going o
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In the story Jack Connie Willis cho
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(assuming the author describes them
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You should also consider whether or
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The Lesser Spotted Science Fiction
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. . . She peered at the cracked man
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stick. He hit the bed, and it was s
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Funny Business Phlogiston Forty-One
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...A large bottle. And in the bottl
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His wit and wisdom are highly prais
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16 novels, a Companion and a Mappe,
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weekends, many fine fictional works
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Zelazny brought Corwin's struggle t
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ordinary). He has also written some
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using them. Such ideas are reinforc
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that is quite frightening in the ra
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(v = velocity of aeroplane, c = spe
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press in recent years about people
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John Kilian Houston Brunner (1934-1
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In the Beginning Phoenixine Seventy
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It's Only Words Phoenixine Seventy-
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Alan Dean Foster Montezuma Strip As
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Drachenfels is absolutely brilliant
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There's a Pigeon in the Hole Phlogi
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detective story. Currently, under t
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Shock -- The unofficial Iain M Bank
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Page 103 and 104: To Be Continued Phoenixine Seventy-
Page 105: searching out and nullifying sabote
Page 108 and 109: various acquaintances. Most of the
Page 112 and 113: The Mixture As Before Phoenixine Ei
Page 114 and 115: Paul J. McAuley's new novel Fairyla
Page 116: John Barnes Kaleidoscope Century Mi
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Page 121: outside of these areas it is corres
Page 124 and 125: Bushell of the Royal American Mount
Page 127 and 128: Genre? Phoenixine Eighty-Two, July
Page 129: example, it is genuinely moving. On
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Page 135 and 136: Living in an SF Novel Phoenixine Ei
Page 137 and 138: Robyn Gossett is an entertaining wr
Page 140 and 141: Youthful Vices Phoenixine Eighty-Fi
Page 142 and 143: story is ever continued, I will be
Page 145: Connections Phoenixine Eighty-Six,
Page 150 and 151: New Things Phoenixine Eighty-Eight,
Page 152 and 153: novel with a lot of libertarian pre
Page 155 and 156: Oh Frabjous Day Phoenixine Eighty-N
Page 157: Falco, the detective in Vespasian's
Page 160 and 161: autobiography and several smaller a
Page 162: anyone to be proud of. But Malafren
Page 165 and 166: It sounded good and I dived into it
Page 168 and 169: Real Hols Phoenixine Ninety-One, Ma
Page 170 and 171: few months ago and complained that
Page 173 and 174: I Can't Lift up My Book Phoenixine
Page 175 and 176: There was a time, many years ago, w
Page 178 and 179: Moronicity Phoenixine Ninety-Three,
Page 180 and 181: my body opening in anticipation of
Page 183 and 184: Cats Phoenixine Ninety-Four, June 1
Page 185 and 186: With Higher Education, Sheffield an
Page 188 and 189: Food Phoenixine Ninety-Five, July 1
Page 190 and 191: through. His books pull you up with
Page 193 and 194: Snot Phoenixine Ninety-Six, August
Page 195 and 196: I have no hesitation in recommendin
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Tower Blocks and Graffiti Phoenixin
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picture had appeared on the wall an
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As I collected my luggage, the clou
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the Kay Scarpetta stories. Other th
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Ah -- so now I was having earthquak
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went back to the dentist. "Oh yes,
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Tony Phoenixine One-Hundred, Decemb
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ut when she puts her mind to it she
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Bouncy Phoenixine One-Hundred and O
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slammed shut as the wind screamed p
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A series of bizarre murders is shak
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The Universe Hates Me Phoenixine On
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humour with which this farrago of n
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Diatribe on Language Phoenixine One
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unless your school principle says s
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with large gaps in his memory and a
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Toilets Phoenixine One-Hundred and
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wall rather than recessed into it.
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Richard Matheson I am Legend Orb Ro
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almost a reprise of the war of 1812
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McConnell's book Code Complete proc
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Fiji Phoenixine One-Hundred and Six
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Every night the resident trio of mu
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The next day I flew home and the vi
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Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

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