Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

catastrophic damage to your favourite files, you should chastise it severely. This will cause it to pull itself
together and behave better in future. If it happens to be on a network, it will also tell all its friends what
you did to it and your reputation as someone not to be trifled with will spread and all the other
computers will be so scared of you that they will start behaving themselves as well. That's why
networked computers are so much more productive and efficient than isolated machines.
Both Frederic Forsyth and Mario Puzo have new novels out. I group them together because in many
ways they are similar writers, though I think Puzo might object to being placed in the company of a
"mere" thriller writer -- he tries to claim more for his books that that. Similarly Forsyth might be puzzled
to be linked with a literary writer since he has never claimed to more than an entertainer. Both, I think,
are fooling themselves.
Icon, the Forsyth novel, is as good as anything he has ever done. It is set a short while in the future, in
a Russia reeling under the effects of Yeltsin's reforms and with many competing influences looking to
restore order out of the chaos. One politician who seems certain to win the forthcoming election and
whose stated policies seem to offer some degree of hope is discovered to have a secret agenda. A
document known as the Black Manifesto comes into the hands of British Intelligence. At first they simply
don't believe it, but as its truth becomes more apparent they are faced with the difficult moral problem
of interfering with the fledgling democratic process of the new Russia for the sake of what is perceived
to be the greater good. How they resolve this moral dilemma, and the mechanics of the elaborate plan
they put in to effect are the meat of the book and while at the pure mechanical level it is a nail-bitingly
tense and perfectly managed thriller, the moral and ethical undertones (and overtones!) make it more
than just a pleasant way to pass a few hours.
Puzo, on the other hand, tries to load so much significance into The Last Don that the book falls over
under its own weight. As the title implies, we are back in heavy Mafia territory. However most of the
novel is set in Hollywood and Las Vegas, and the larger than life irrealities and the fat veneer of glitz and
glitter reduce the whole thing to the level of a Harold Robbins pot-boiler. And you know what? That is
exactly what it is. I just couldn't get involved with it. Puzo seems to think that this world matters in some
deep significant way, when the plain fact is that it is so shallow and superficial that it can't even stand as
a metaphor. Puzo tries too hard and it shows.
Ben Elton was very funny about ecological catastrophe in Stark. He followed it with a series of books
where he became progressively less funny about less serious subjects. Now in Popcorn he isn't funny
at all and he isn't funny about the same things that Puzo isn't funny about -- Hollywood glitz. His hero is
a Quentin Tarantino look-alike called Bruce Delamitri. Two psychotic killers of the kind he glorifies in his
movies hijack him after the Oscar ceremony which is his crowning glory. From the heights, he is plunged
into the depths and he gets a taste of the reality he has faked in his films for so long.
The book belabours its message, sings it, shouts it, underlines it, and then just in case you missed it,
yells it out in capital letters. The whole thing is overwritten and dull.
Not satisfied with my other new toys, I went and bought a car. I wasn't sure what I wanted, but I did
know that it wasn't going to be white. I have owned five previous cars during my stay in New Zealand,
and four of them have been white. This one had to be different. I also wanted a manual gear change
(none of this poofy automatic nonsense, thank you very much). My tour round the car yards was highly
depressing and served mainly to convince me just how many white, automatic cars there were in my
price range.
As I was about to give up, I found a grey Mazda Familia with electrical everything (it is stuffed full of
gadgets, and I like gadgets) so I bought it. Its only drawback is that it has maroon upholstery and it
looks like a tart's boudoir. But I can put up with that for the sake of the electric windows and the switch
that makes the wing mirrors fold in to the body of the car so it is easier to park in narrow spaces. It also
has a cup holder. But best of all, it has air conditioning and since we are now approaching the time of
year when Auckland gets humid and muggy I am really looking forward to using it. Vroom, vroom!
Tor have recently republished L. Neil Smith's The Probability Broach. It is a sub-Heinlein adventure