Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

deserves to win every award going.
By contrast, Stephen King's Wizard and Glass (the fourth volume in the Dark Tower sequence) is dull
and boring. I simply could not get interested. The enormous middle section is an episode from early in
the life of Roland the gunslinger and it concerns his first great love affair. I think it is meant to be
romantic, but I found it tedious. I might have enjoyed it more had it been half the length.
However, King's one time collaborator Peter Straub has just published The Hellfire Club and this was
so engrossing that I stayed up until 3:30am to finish it. The publishing company Chancel House has built
its reputation on one cult novel Night Journey. Davey Chancel (grandson of the founder of the
publishing house) is obsessed with the book. Nora, his wife, is not. Enter Dick Dart, cunning, depraved,
a vicious killer. He kidnaps Nora and takes her on a terrifying trip that seems motivated by the events of
Night Journey and the mysterious circumstances surrounding the writing of it. Nora soon realises that
her only chance of escaping the living nightmare of Dick Dart is to unravel these mysteries. The book
has everything; grue and gore, humour, mystery and nerve wracking tension. I could feel it manipulating
me and I didn't care.
The sea seemed to stretch into infinity. Was there no end to this grim, grey surf? Then suddenly the
runway appeared, racing past like a greyhound. This was going to be a powered landing -- very high
powered, and that meant a speed which caused me to worry that we might run out of runway before
we ran out of momentum. We banged down, and the engines screamed in an agony of reverse thrust
and slowly (ever so slowly) our frightening speed bled away and we dropped to a seeming crawl. The
sports team all applauded. Physical co-ordination like that was meat and drink to them. Who needs a
brain cell? "Awwww, mate. What a landing, eh mate?"
Nobody knows more about the art and craft of writing than Damon Knight. His book Creating Short
Fiction is distilled from decades of writing criticisms, editing anthologies and teaching in the Clarion and
Milford workshops. The witty advice in this book cannot be bettered. I have never been certain as to
whether or not it is possible to teach someone how to write, but if it is possible, this book will do it.
In Mall Purchase Night Rick Cook tells us about the events that take place in a glossy new shopping
mall that happens to have been built over an entrance to fairyland. All that stands between the forces of
Faery and thousands of innocent shoppers is one bemused security guard. As always it is Cook's
lightness of touch with his absurd plot that keeps the book flowing. In the hands of a less competent
writer this would quickly have degenerated into weak jokes, puns and/or thud and blunder. But Cook
keeps it warm and witty. The jokes are good ones and the characters are well drawn.
Similarly, Tex and Molly in the Afterlife works only because Richard Grant never once loses control.
Tex and Molly are two ageing hippies whose sudden deaths free them to observe (and partly control) the
events surrounding an environmental protest. With the help (and hindrance) of forgotten deities and
some down and out woodland spirits (I particularly liked Beale, a cynical dryad) they bring together
witches, wolves, hackers, survivalists and marketroids into a dance of life and death.
The whole farrago of nonsense hangs together simply because of the enormous wit and cleverness with
which Grant plays with his ideas and characters. It would have been so easy to lose this one, but he
never does. Instead he dances lightly and wickedly and it held me enthralled and enchanted.
We were so far off our scheduled time now that there were no free gates and so we crawled slowly over
to the international terminal. "Please remain seated with your seat belt fastened until the plane has come
to a complete halt outside international gate 20." You could hear the note of surprise in the cabin crews'
voices.
The plane stopped and the engines were switched off. Now that we were no longer under our own
power the full force of the wind could be felt and the plane shuddered and rocked as the wind howled
around it. Through the window I could see the airbridge inching towards us. It too shook alarmingly in
the wind. Eventually it seemed to mate with the plane and the crew opened the door. A huge gust
immediately howled through the rubber seal and bounced off every seat. Several open locker doors