Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

The Universe Hates Me
Phoenixine One-Hundred and Two, Feburary 1998
When I cook, I have a strange relationship with the laws of physics. Effectively they cease to work
(which is an enormously science-fictional situation, if you think about it). Time after time I read a recipe
that says "fry the onions for 5 minutes until golden brown". Without a word of exaggeration, I swear
that I can fry onions over an enormously high heat for half an hour or more and they show no indication
whatsoever of going brown.
Then there are the recipes where one is supposed to "boil vigorously for a few minutes to reduce the
sauce". I can boil sauces for (literally) hours at a time and they never, ever reduce. If anything they
become more voluminous, if one can use such a word about a sauce. Evaporation? Never heard of the
concept -- it is merely a figment of the imagination. Sometimes I think I live in a different world from the
writers of the recipe books and the television chefs.
Maybe that's why I'm so fond of tales of alternate worlds. If such and such an historical event had
happened differently, what would the world look like now? Back in the USSA is a collaborative fix-up
novel by Eugene Byrne and Kim Newman. The stories that make up the book were originally published in
the British SF magazine Interzone. Their pseudo-historical assumption is that there was a communist
revolution in America in 1917. This is the tale of the United Socialist States of America (the USSA of the
title).
Part of the fun of books of this kind is to place recognisable people from our own world into odd
positions in the parallel world of the story. Byrne and Newman have a wonderful time with this -- Al
Capone becomes president (he is the Stalin equivalent). In the 1950s, Buddy Holly, Howard Hughes and
Jack Kerouac are rebels against the communist state. But because both Byrne and Newman are British,
the vast majority of their references are to British personalities which makes you wonder why the book
has been published in America, with no sign yet of a British edition. What on earth will the Americans
think of the political assassin William Brown? Or Nigel Molesworth, the army officer sent into Vietnam
(along with Jennings and Darbishire) to arrest his old school pal Fotherington-Thomas ("Hello clouds,
hello sky, hello pile of severed human heads"). All of this is observed (and told) by Bob and Terry, known
as "The Likely Lads".
If you enjoy the game of "spot the reference" you will love this book. If you enjoy amusing and exciting
stories you will love this book. If you enjoy good writing you will love this book. If you...oh to hell with it.
You will love this book.
The latest Connie Willis novel returns to the same time and place and cast of characters as her award
winning novel Doomsday Book. The time travel unit at Oxford University is in a bit of a pickle. A rich
dowager called Lady Schrapnell has invaded the unit and practically taken it over in her attempt to rebuild
Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in an air raid a hundred years before. Using the resources of the time
travel unit she is determined to investigate the events surrounding the air raid, to document the
artefacts that were destroyed (and those that survived) so the rebuilt cathedral will be as true to the
original as possible.
To this end, Ned Henry finds himself in the nineteenth century investigating the bishop's bird stump
(don't ask) and entangling himself with dogs, cats, romance and the peculiarities of time paradoxes.
Unlike the previous novel, To Say Nothing of the Dog is played strictly for laughs. It is a light hearted
romp as only Connie Willis can do it and the jokes come thick and fast and funny. I read it in a sitting and
chuckled all the way.
The new Douglas Adams novel is by Terry Jones. As Adams explains in the introduction, he doesn't have
time to write a novel because he is too busy working on the computer game on which the book is based.
So Terry Jones (who plays the parrot in the computer game) agreed to write the book -- but only if he
could write it in the nude. Adams quickly said yes to this and Starship Titanic is the result.