Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

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novel with a lot of libertarian preaching and paeans in favour of how it is every person's right to go around armed to the teeth and blow away anybody who gives you offence (Smith is big in the gun lobby). Despite all that I actually enjoyed the book a lot -- unlike many people with an ideological axe to grind, Smith can write reasonably well and he tells an exciting tale. The broach of the title is a gate between alternate realities and the narrator of the story accidentally stumbles through from our world to a libertarian paradise on the other side. The hero is a homicide detective and the book is a gritty policeprocedural which never fails to entertain. My only gripe is that the alternate world on the other side of the broach is an alternate America which has arisen because of some changes in events that took place during and shortly after the American revolution. Presumably all American children learn this history at school, but I didn't and the historical minutiae discussed by the characters meant nothing to me. Smith made too many assumptions about the nature of his audience here. Full Spectrum 5 is the latest and least in what has been a distinguished anthology series. The enormously fat book (593 pages) contains only two stories of merit. Jonathan Lethem's The Insipid Profession of Jonathan Hornebom and Gene Wolfe's The Ziggurat. Lethem's story is a deeply felt (and funny) homage to Heinlein's The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag and if you haven't read it, much of Lethem's story will pass you by. Wolfe's story is ... a story by Gene Wolfe. Now that Robert Harris has made a name for himself as a best selling novelist, his earlier non-fiction works are starting to reappear on the bookshelves. Selling Hitler is the story of the Hitler diaries, one of the more notorious literary forgeries of modern times (it even eclipsed Clifford Irving's biography of Howard Hughes in notoriety). The story of how the diaries came into being is a fascinating story of greed and desperation. A journalist on Stern Magazine was a collector of Nazi memorabilia. He bought Hermann Goering's yacht when it came up for auction and rapidly went head over heels into debt trying to maintain and repair it and also populate it with Nazi paraphernalia. One thing lead to another. It is a story of greed and naivety. The only astonishing thing is that so many people were taken in for so long. A lot of distinguished people ended up with egg on their faces. That's what makes the story so fascinating. It isn't really about the Hitler Diaries -- it is much more a study of human frailties and our almost infinite capacity for believing what we want to believe despite the evidence to the contrary. As I drive around feeling cool with the air conditioning on, demonstrating how to make a yo-yo sleep, pointing at things and indulging in interesting computing, I am occasionally asked what books to recommend to those who express an interest in SF but don't know what to read next. I have several stock answers, but now that I have read Jack McDevitt's Ancient Shores I have another book to add to the list. Tom Lasker, ploughing his wheat fields, digs up the remains of a yacht. Thousands of years ago, during the last ice age, his wheat fields had been on the shoreline of an ancient sea. When the yacht turns out to be made of strange materials, and when subsequent excavation unearths an igloo-like structure with possible portals to other worlds, the truth has to be faced. We have been visited by aliens. The ideas of the book are common coin to us old, jaded SF fans. But seldom have they been handled as convincingly as they are here. This is the sort of thing that got us hooked in the first place and the magic still works. I started with a horror novel, so I'll end with one. Dean Koontz is incredibly prolific and his books tend towards a sameness of plot and character. I can seldom remember which I have read and which I have not and therefore I have mostly stopped buying them just in case I duplicate something already on my shelves. But Ticktock received glowing reviews which claimed that it was that most difficult of things, a screamingly funny horror novel. Well who could resist? Certainly not me. So I bought it and read it and I must admit that while I would not go as far in my praise as other reviewers, I did enjoy it. It is neither as funny nor as horrible as the reviews suggested, but it is certainly light-hearted. Tommy Phan, a Vietnamese national who has adopted America as his preferred homeland but who cannot escape the effects of his Vietnamese inheritance (and his Vietnamese family), finds a rag doll on his doorstep. Its thread eyes unravel and a demon with green eyes stares out at him. The chase is on! Tommy has until dawn to escape from a supernatural entity that grows larger and more fearsome as the night progresses.
The book has everything -- a beautiful, enigmatic woman, immense peril, high speed car chases, and a dog. It can't fail. And I've got a yo-yo. Now if I hold it like this... Poppy Z. Brite Exquisite Corpse Orion Robert Rankin Nostradamus ate my Hamster Doubleday Peter James & Nick Thorpe Ancient Inventions Michael O’Mara Frederick Forsyth Icon Bantam Mario Puzo The Last Don Heinemann Ben Elton Popcorn Simon & Schuster L. Neil Smith The Probability Broach Tor Various editors Full Spectrum 5 Bantam Robert Harris Selling Hitler Arrow Jack McDevitt Ancient Shores Voyager Dean Koontz Ticktock Headline
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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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worlds (The Two Timers), interstell
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that were published in the Azazel c
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they came out and his new one is ju
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
Page 119 and 120: and move hastily on. It is also qui
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
Page 132 and 133: ody, and the game is afoot. The res
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 and 146: Connections Phoenixine Eighty-Six,
Page 147 and 148: have worried. She is on the top of
Page 150 and 151: New Things Phoenixine Eighty-Eight,
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
Page 198 and 199: Tower Blocks and Graffiti Phoenixin
Page 200: 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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