The Damned Busters

Matthew Hughes The Damned Busters (2011)
I've been reasonably knocked out by Hughes' pseudo-Rennaissance Raffalon stories in Fantasy & Science Fiction, and enough so as to find his name imprinted on my admittedly short mental list of authors whose work I look out for when in Half Price - Murray Leinster, Katherine MacLean, Moorcock, Robert Moore Williams, and those six A. E. van Vogt novels that I still haven't read; and so it was that I came to The Damned Busters, which is actually the first part of a trilogy in an approximately contemporary setting; so it wasn't quite the Hughes I was looking for, or at least which I expected to find, but it seemed worth a go.

The Damned Busters is, of all things, a superhero novel, sort of, although you could probably call it urban fantasy if you felt so inclined. Our guy acquires his powers when accidentally summoning a demon and inadvertently driving all the minions of hell to industrial action, resulting in a period of nothing bad happening anywhere on Earth, which turns out to be disastrous; and the aforementioned powers come as part of the settlement deal. Thus does he embark upon a career fighting crime, inspired by a favourite comic book - naturally - and thus does his life become greatly more complicated than he could have anticipated.

It's an odd book in that it reads nothing like you would expect from the description, or how you might imagine superhero prose fiction would read for that matter. Our man is a high-functioning autistic and might therefore be described as tightly wound - which hopefully isn't too insulting to anyone - and although the story isn't directly told from his perspective, his somewhat analytical tone informs the narrative, lending everything an unusually even pace. This apparently put some readers off, but I personally found it quite refreshing to read this kind of story without having to wade through the sort of overwritten gothic melodrama which may as well have been Bauhaus lyrics. It also helps that Hughes is witty without feeling the need to crack jokes all the time, so The Damned Busters feels like a distant relative of Pratchett, albeit with aesthetic parallels to certain Vertigo comics from the nineties. Most surprising of all are interludes of philosophical debate on the nature of morality - amongst other ideas pertaining to the field of sin and punishment - with some depth, or what felt like some depth to me - certainly very satisfying and without assuming the reader needs everything spelled out in primary colours. I'm looking at you, John Bunyan.

If I have a complaint, it's probably that the book could have been a little shorter; but The Damned Busters was otherwise highly satisfying, quietly impressive, and I'm now particularly looking forward to the Raffalon book which Mrs. Pamphlets gave me for Christmas.

Desperate

Alexandrine Ogundimu Desperate (2020)
In which, it might be argued, Amphetamine Sulphate somehow slip a title in amongst the yuletide canon inhabited by A Christmas Carol, Frosty the Snowman, A Charlie Brown Christmas and others by virtue of V, the central focus of Desperate, spending the happiest time of year with family and taking entirely non-ironic delight in all its trappings. V is some sort of student of literature resident in New York, just about getting by, drinking more than seems advisable, and occasionally standing upon a subway platform wondering what might happen should he step in front of the next train.

It would probably be lazy to describe Desperate as stream of consciousness, although that's sort of what it is with its long, long paragraph length recursive, rambling sentences following V through the landscape of his own approximately functional existence; but the effect is a kind of sensory overload which works very well in conveying a sense of the territory, the disorientation, and occasional excursions away from the sexual mainstream. It feels somehow like a map of New York and, for my money, does a better job of it than Steve Finbow's Mindshaft - the last Amphetamine Sulphate title I read - not least because it's shorter and sharper, yet not without a certain tender quality; also because the text somehow lends itself to the cadence of Lydia Lunch.

I'm very glad Amphetamine Sulphate hasn't completely turned its back on the chapbook format because this otherwise might not have seen the light of day, and it's a cracker. Once again I'm impressed by how each new addition to the catalogue seems to bring something different to the table.

Time Tolls for Toro

Robert Moore Williams Time Tolls for Toro (2014)
Regular readers may possibly be aware that I've developed a bit of a fascination with Robert Moore Williams, generally overlooked author of an almost uniquely peculiar body of science-fiction writing. He was a populist who churned them out, very much at home in the digests and so easily dismissed as pulp, and while his writing style allows for the occasional poetic flourish, he reads very much as the self-taught enthusiast bashing them out without concessions to literature or even basic literary conventions. His stories tend to follow their own internal logic, probably made up as he went along complete with disorientating dramatic swerves and elements which seem so poorly fitted to the narrative that it's tempting to think of Williams as having been the science-fiction equivalent of Henri Rousseau or L.S. Lowry.

Yet beyond the occasionally tangible influence of Abraham Merritt's hard-boiled adventure, Williams writing always seems to hint at some intense pseudo-spiritual undercurrent, something almost theosophical and doubtless drawn from the author's own idiosyncratic understanding of reality, itself informed by his schizophrenia; so even when he's writing what amounts to a hard-boiled thriller with some minor element which just about tips it over into science-fiction, it feels somehow biblical in essence. As may not come as much of a surprise from the above description, he was approximately living on the same island as A.E. van Vogt, and given van Vogt's significantly having influenced Philip K. Dick, it probably shouldn't raise too many eyebrows that 1950's Danger is My Destiny - one of the eleven short stories in this collection - features a detective on the trail of a suspect who turns out to be himself; and the other ten stories are of equivalent quality - both wonky and startling, or containing startling ideas, at the same time.

After six novels by this guy, I've anticipated a degree of burn out, as can often occur with the work of those taking what may seem like an exclusively intuitive approach, but it hasn't happened yet; and while some of these are clearly the work of someone who wasn't playing with quite the same deck as the rest of us, there's always something new and unexpected thrown up by the sparkly, crackly energy of Williams' narrative.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Archie Goodwin, Walt Simonson & Klaus Janson
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1978)
Having been obsessed with science-fiction and flying saucers as a kid, I'd pretty much already decided Close Encounters was the greatest movie of all time before I even bought this adaptation at my local newsagent, let alone seen the thing - partially based on my sincerely held belief that it revealed the truth and was probably made so as to get us all accustomed to the idea of extraterrestrial life, meaning we wouldn't shit ourselves when the big day came - as it definitely would. Unfortunately, as I eventually came to realise, once you subtract this emotional upswell of belief from the equation, Close Encounters barely even counts as a story, the plot being bloke sees flying saucer and believes they are real, which they are. Much as I loved the movie as a kid, probably mostly thanks to Doug Trumbull, by the time Spielberg issued the remix with an extra ten minutes of Richard Dreyfuss crying, even I'd begun to doubt.

So what am I to make of a comic book impersonating something which was never as amazing as I maybe thought it was, and which doesn't even have the advantage of all which Mr. Trumbull wrought with squeezy bottles and bits of Airfix kits, and which I bought entirely because I remember having it as a kid?

Well, a lot of memory sherbert went off, as you might expect, but it's additionally interesting for the reason that I had no idea who Walt Simonson or Klaus Janson were at the age of thirteen; and if they would go on to draw better, even here you can feel the formative greatness emanating from the page. The double page splash of the mothership near the end is not only fucking gorgeous but an entirely acceptable substitute for Doug Trumbull. It helps that Archie Goodwin always knew his way around a typewriter, and was particularly a master at the sort of chatty narrative which Alan Moore had banned because comic book panels which pretend to be a fancy foreign film will always be much cooler, so what story there is to be had, is told well, and - crucially - is told in about thirty minutes as distinct from a patience testing couple of screen hours. It was a decent film for the most part, but a decent film mainly because it distracts you from its own massively sappy message about what happens when you wish upon a star; and somehow I prefer the comic book.

So You've Been Publicly Shamed

Jon Ronson So You've Been Publicly Shamed (2016)
It's a coincidence that I read this immediately following something by Andrea Dworkin, herself significantly publicly shamed for being the wrong sort of lesbian, but I suppose this kind of thing has been on my mind of late. Here Ronson unpacks the mechanics of media outrage, both social and tabloid, revealing the whole thing to be more complicated than one might imagine from a quick glance at whoever last described you as worse than Hitler. Indeed, the complexity is such as to seem comparable to Dworkin's arguments in Intercourse in terms of how the subject seems to inform the entire dynamic of our society, and to additionally provide pointers as to much that is wrong with it. It's shocking, mostly depressing, but argued with a lively wit and where Ronson finds anything positive to be had from his investigation, he makes sure we know about it.

As with Intercourse, here we find pointers as to means by which we might actually make the world a less shittier place, but as usual we probably won't take any notice, instead preferring to carry on in the same stupid direction as before, not one lesson learned; but at least Ronson has given it his best shot.

I've never been entirely convinced by this guy, I must admit, having initially taken him for a slightly more weasely Louis Theroux. I liked the Goats book, but disliked that reimagined Frank Sidebottom movie quite profoundly. So You've Been Publicly Shamed on the other hand feels substantial and unusually nourishing given the subject, with none of the slightly prurient taint which I perhaps imagined informed his previous undertakings.

Intercourse

Andrea Dworkin Intercourse (1987)
Intercourse is the tract wherein Andrea Dworkin famously stated that all men are rapists and that heterosexual sex is rape, just like the joyless dungaree wearing dyke she was. However, bothering to read the book reveals that she never said anything of the sort, and that her argument as set forth herein is not actually unreasonable. That being said, it's no walk in the park either. Dworkin is not an easy read. She's absolutely uncompromising and unwilling to soft soap, prettify or simplify her argument. The reader is expected to shut the fuck up, pay attention, and no fidgeting if they know what's good for them; and actually, it is good for them, certainly potentially educational.

Essentially it's nothing less than the history of sexual politics mapped out in our changing, evolving attitudes, at least for the last five-hundred or so years, as revealed in the fiction of Tolstoy, Lawrence, Hemingway and others. Dworkin pulls apart established models of human intercourse, social and sexual, with surprising deference reflecting her genuine appreciation of at least a few of these authors, but she pulls no punches and is very good at revealing that which has been staring us in the face all along and which suggests we, as the testicular half of a species, might like to think about growing the fuck up.

To be specific, Dworkin doesn't say anything as blunt or stupid as all sex between men and women is rape, but rather that it can't be anything but rape within the context of the patriarchal structures which inform society; and she's unfortunately right. The revelation is just how much is tied in with those structures, in which respect she's also very thorough, extending her analysis to the extremes of the Nazi death camps and how even there we find echoes of the man sticking his thingie in because he believes it to be his due. It's a solid argument, but one of such composition that there's not much point trying to break it down. Intercourse is, by some definition, an academic narrative, but the dialogue by which it sets forth its argument seems partially intuitive and therefore possibly of such complexity as to defeat being broken down into anything bite-sized.

Intercourse is intense but incredibly rewarding, and if you haven't read it, there seems a reasonable chance that it probably isn't what you think it is. If you're not already on board, it may be time to get over whatever has been holding you back and listen to what the woman had to say.

Also - for what it may be worth - I found Dworkin's filleting of Bram Stoker's thoroughly mediocre Dracula highly satisfying because I was beginning to think it was just me.

Lord of the Flies

William Golding Lord of the Flies (1954)
I was approaching the point at which it had begun to feel almost embarrassing to admit I'd never read Lord of the Flies. I recall my mother owning a copy with a severed pig's head on the cover but it wasn't among those few titles half-heartedly shunted in our direction at school, and I never saw the movie either; so it seemed like time.

As I'm sure you all know, it's about a bunch of kids getting marooned on an island and acting like wankers - which I believe was actually Golding's original title. Published in 1954 and without bothering to check, it strikes me as likely that it may have been inspired by the populist politics which brought about the second world war, and more specifically how so many people fell hook, line and sinker for all that rabble-rousing tribal bullshit. Lord of the Flies also therefore works fairly well as a commentary upon our own times, and so much so that I'm surprised no point-missing edgelord twat has yet claimed it for a warning against the perils of socialism, as has happened with Orwell's 1984 on a couple of bewildering occasions. It does approximately the same thing as Conrad's Heart of Darkness - positing that we are all capable of acting like wankers - and has the sort of unambiguously direct impact which justifies its reputation as a classic.

All the same, I really didn't enjoy it like I thought I would. Golding's prose is mostly tight and functional with an occasional flourish of admittedly dark poetry, but unfortunately spattered with slightly clumsy passages which cause the narrative to stumble somewhat, such as when Ralph allows the swollen flap of his cheek to close his eye again at the beginning of chapter eleven. He's been in a fight, so I assume he's been punched in the face - although it isn't specifically mentioned so far as I can see - but a flap?

Simon was speaking almost in his ear. Ralph, found that he had rock painfully gripped in both hands, found his body arched, the muscles of his neck stiff, his mouth strained open.

'You'll get back to where you came from.'

Simon nodded as he spoke. He was kneeling on one knee, looking down from a higher rock, which he held with both hands; his other leg stretched down to Ralph's level.

'It's so big, I mean—'

Simon nodded.

What's so big? I can't even tell who has spoken, and although this particular game of Twister is occurring as the lads circumnavigate a cliff face, the activity is implied rather than stated; so from time to time the novel does that thing of omitting some vital piece of information from a sentence, disorientating readers by obliging us to figure it out; so it's a little like reading A.E. van Vogt in places, except Alfred Elton did it on purpose for the sake of atmosphere.

So it's good, and the reputation is probably deserved, but I thought it would be better somehow.