Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

to do with it) but the wait has been worth while. Nothing Burns in Hell is not a science fiction novel, it
is a private eye detective novel, but it still has the distinctive Farmer touch.
The novel is set in Peoria, where Farmer himself lives. Corbie is a private eye married to a wiccan called
Glinna who will only sleep with him when the stars are propitious. There are crystal balls and pyramids
arranged in hexagrams under the bed in order to focus the most intense sexual energy. Corbie claims
to be so conditioned that he can't drive past a crystal shop without getting a hard on.
Corbie is hired to witness an illegal transfer of money in a cemetery. The transaction goes bloodily
wrong. One of the villains has cancerous growths sprouting like tendrils from his around his mouth. In a
fight with the woman who hired Corbie, one of the tendrils is bitten off (to the accompaniment of great
cries of pain and much blood). Later Corbie finds the tumour lying like a worm near the gravestone
where the fight took place. He chases the villains and ends up a prisoner of the tendrilled man, his
brother and the enormously fat wife they share; truly a gruesome hillbilly threesome. Tortures and
humiliations (lovingly described) are heaped upon him and murder is about to be done. But Corbie
escapes, wounding the villain most cruelly with a snapping turtle.
It is unclear just what is going on (and why) but Corbie now has a motive to get to the bottom of this
business. Greed, venality, hatred and noisy neighbours are Corbie's constant companions. The body
count (and the mutilations) mount steadily. This is pure pulp fiction, no punches pulled and no holds
barred. Gruesome and funny by turns, and definitely not for the weak of stomach, it is a very powerful
and very odd book.
It is by Philip José Farmer, after all.
Work finished on Friday and I wasn't due to fly home until Sunday. I had a whole day free to do the
tourist thing. I booked a cruise to Malamala, an uninhabited island, total surface area about six acres.
You can walk around the entire island in about ten minutes (I timed myself).
On arrival the boat crew gave us a traditional Fijian welcome and served yaqona (kava). It looks and
tastes rather like dirty dishwater and contains a narcotic that numbs the mouth. If you drink enough,
the numbness spreads across the face and over the body. It is traditionally drunk sitting down since the
numbness prevents you from standing up. It is an extract from the root of a local variety of pepper
plant and the very best kava is prepared in the traditional way by toothless old women who chew the
root and spit into a communal bowl. This extract is then diluted with water and drunk with great
ceremony. In deference to the sensibilities of their guests, our crew prepared the drink from dried kava
root -- not a spitting old lady to be seen. I felt vaguely disappointed.
The slang name for kava is "grog". In Nadi I saw a kava bar -- it was called "The Olde Grogge Shoppe".
I left the other cruise people to their own devices and went over to the opposite side of the island to be
alone. I sat beneath a palm tree and sipped a cold beer. The only sound was the gentle lapping of the
waves on the beach. I watched the fierce sunlight dance across the waves. On the horizon more islands
beckoned mysteriously. The sense of utter solitude and complete isolation and tranquillity was restful
and relaxing. It seemed the world had gone away. I emptied my mind and let the tensions drain.
I rejoined the rest of the group and we went out on a glass bottomed boat to view the coral. An
enormous brain coral sprawled and vivid blue fish swam hither and yon. A baby shark swam innocently
by and I saw a furiously bustling jellyfish with a purple centre.
The boat moved further out to the edge of the reef and some of the group went snorkelling. One of the
boat crew threw bread into the water and the sea boiled as hundreds of zebra striped fish appeared
seemingly from nowhere to gorge upon the bread. A young snorkeller found herself in the middle of the
shoal and she giggled uncontrollably as they tickled her in their feeding frenzy.
When the snorkellers returned to the boat they were all scratching furiously. The water was aswarm
with sea lice and as we headed back to shore the people began to develop red lumps.