Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

Food
Phoenixine Ninety-Five, July 1997
Nunc Dimittis. I've found the last of Sharyn McCrumb's Appalachian novels that I've spent the last year or
so trying to track down. And yes, it was worth the wait. The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter is the
best of the four; moving, lyrical and grim with just a touch of mysticism. This one kept me up all night.
Four members of the Underhill family lie dead. Josh Underhill has killed his parents and his young brother
and then turned the gun on himself in a gruesome murder-suicide. Mark and Maggie Underhill return
home from a rehearsal of the school play to find the grisly remains.
There is no mystery here; this is not a whodunit. The only minor unexplained detail is why Josh took a
shotgun to his family, and even this is resolved almost as an aside towards the end of the book. The
main magic of the story lies, as always, in the interactions of the characters as they try to remake their
lives in the shadow of tragedy. Laura Bruce, the parsons wife, eight months pregnant, who stands in
loco parentis for Mark and Maggie Underhill. Sheriff Arrowood who takes on the cares of the community;
his deputy Joe LeDonne the Vietnam veteran who can't get a dead rabbit out of his mind, and Nora
Bonesteel who has the sight. The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter is magnificent shiver-down-thespine
material.
To keep the wolf from the door I teach people how to use their computers to the best advantage. Such
intense intellectual effort over the course of a very long day requires that the brain and body be suitably
refreshed. Until recently we took our students to a lunch bar known as Peppercorn Park wherein they
imbibed soothing food and drink, to the benefit of all. However one recent Friday morning at 8:55am we
received a telephone call from the proprietors of Peppercorn Park informing us that they had gone
out of business and would be closed until further notice. Panic! We had a lunch crisis! What to do?
We ordered pizzas. What else would you do? But the chapter of events of that evil Friday was not yet
done. The pizza delivery man crashed his van on the way to the office and no lunch eventuated. Hungry
students ask vicious questions.
Larry Niven and multiple collaborators have brought us a sequel to their 1987 novel The Legacy of
Heorot. As I recall the original novel, it was rather dull. Once the central mystery of the grendels was
solved it turned into just another thud and blunder book. I'm pleased to say that The Dragons of
Heorot is much better. The new generation of pioneers on the colony planet of Avalon want to leave the
safety of their island and explore the mainland. After all, didn't they come here to explore and colonise a
planet? However their parents, still running scared from being almost wiped out by the grendels when
they first landed, are opposed to the idea. The stage is set for inter-generational conflict and the politics
of the colonising mission are explored in fascinating detail. Add to this a truly alien biology and
biochemistry and you have the makings of a fascinating straight down the middle of the road science
fiction novel. Which is exactly what The Dragons of Heorot is; and what's wrong with that?
Niven's new solo novel, Destiny Road is set in the same universe as the Heorot books. It describes
another colonisation attempt on a planet called Destiny. The story takes place some 250 years after the
original landing on the planet. The colonisation ship Argos is long departed. In Spiral Town the hulk of the
lander Columbiad supplies electrical power. Mechanisms are starting to fail and cannot be repaired; there
is an air of decrepitude. Generations before, the other landing shuttle Cavorite left Spiral Town, using its
fusion engines to melt a long road into the rocky landscape. The ship never came back and now the
road stretches off seemingly into infinity. Jemmy Bloocher kills a man in a tavern brawl; the only safety
lies along the road...
Actually this isn't a novel, it's a series of three interlinked novellas. It stands head and shoulders above
anything Niven has produced lately but is still severely flawed. Niven's total inability to convey any sense
of place renders the geography of Destiny highly confusing and his irritating habit of introducing
anything up to eight characters within a single paragraph makes it impossible sometimes to figure out
who is doing what to whom and why. But all that aside, it still isn't a bad quest novel, and the invention of
alien lifeforms never flags.