Ice

Anna Kavan
Penguin Modern Classics

No one knows why the ice has come, and no one can stop it. Every day it creeps further across the earth, covering the land in snow and freezing everything in its path. Through this bleached, devastated world, one man pursues the sylph-like, silver-haired girl he loves, as she keeps running - away from her husband; away from the sinister 'warden' who seeks to control her; away from him.
 It was the cover image by Jim Stoddart that caught my eye and the possibility of a post-apocalypse novel that clinched the deal but what I got was something very different.

Anna Kavan was an English writer and painter born, Helen Emily Woods and first published under her married name of Helen Ferguson, she adopted the name of a character from one of her stories as her legal name in 1939 shortly after her divorce from her second husband.

Kavan started using heroin in the mid 1920s having been introduced to it by either racing drivers on the French Riviera or by her tennis coach, reports vary.  It was an addiction that was to follow her throughout her life to the extent that, according to reports, when heroin was prohibited in the UK she stockpiled so much that at the time of her death in 1968 her flat in London's Notting Hill contained "enough heroin to kill the whole street'

'Ice' was written a year before her death and is a Burroughsian fever dream of broken perspectives and Kafka-esque monolithic impenetrability. Now regarded as a 'slipstream' novel - one that falls between the cracks of the various genres - it is notionally sci-fi in its post-apocalyptic setting as a sheet of ice moves inexorably to cover the Earth but Kavan's tale of helplessness, brutality, rejection and loss is very far from most tales that characterise the genre.

Our narrator spends the book chasing after, occasionally catching, occasionally losing the young, fragile albino woman he claims to love, seeking to rescue her from the brutal 'warden' who keeps her cowed, but who is often just as violent and domineering in his ways.

Such are the novel's vagaries, full of jarring perspective shifts and hallucinations, that it remains open to interpretation.  That it is a meditation on the role of women seems self evident but alongside this I felt like I was being offered an insight into the authors internal world as the various aspects of Kavan's psyche play out in one long heroin addiction metaphor.

On a straight forward readability level this isn't a novel to pick up - as I did - for a quick read and indeed I found much of it to be a bit of a chore but equally that's not something I'm necessarily put off by and in the final analysis it was beautifully written and showed an imagination free and unfettered by common constraints.

Buy it here - UK  /  US
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Chocky

John Wyndham
Michael Joseph

Matthew, they thought, was just going through a phase of talking to himself. And, like many parents, they waited for him to get over it, but it started to get worse. Mathew's conversations with himself grew more and more intense - it was like listening to one end of a telephone conversation while someone argued, cajoled and reasoned with another person you couldn't hear. Then Matthew started doing things he couldn't do before, like counting in binary-code mathematics. So he told them about Chocky - the person who lived in his head.

I have a slight thing about reading certain editions of books.  There are quite a few novels I'd like to read but haven't yet because I've not found one with the right cover art.  Chocky was one of them until I scored this rather lovely 1970 2nd impression hardback.

I've a long standing love affair with one Wyndham book in particular (the one with the plants) although I like many of them very much.  I'm a long time fan of (post) apocalypse literature so those books in his canon - The Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids, The Kraken Wakes - are the ones that jumped out at me, Chocky less so.  A story of a kid with a telepathic alien chatting in his head never really appealed all that much but I always knew I'd get to it someday and despite my reservations I knew I'd probably enjoy it and I was right.

Chocky is very much what we'd now call a YA novel (but without twinkly vampires) which surprised me as I was kind of expecting something more in line with 'The Midwich Cuckoos' but this is a fairly gentle affair.  Most, if not all, the action happens off the page and we essentially get a second hand account with commentary from Matthew's father.

It's hugely enjoyable and is a very different sort of YA book that I just don't think would fly anymore which is a real shame because it's kinda lovely.

Buy it here - Chocky

Watch the TV adaptation here - Chocky

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The Children of Men

P.D. James
Penguin Books

The Children of Men is a story of a world with no children and no future. The human race has become infertile, and the last generation to be born is now adult. Civilization itself is crumbling as suicide and despair become commonplace. Oxford historian Theodore Faron, apathetic toward a future without a future, spends most of his time reminiscing. Then he is approached by Julian, a bright, attractive woman who wants him to help get her an audience with his cousin, the powerful Warden of England. She and her band of unlikely revolutionaries may just awaken his desire to live . . . and they may also hold the key to survival for the human race.

I've been after reading this book for a good while now.  I'm a sucker for a piece of post-apocalypse cinema and had very much enjoyed the film which I found to be very evocative of the British film and TV dramas of the early 70 that shaped my tastes and when I discovered who had wrote the original text it seemed so out of character that I was more than a little intrigued.  It's taken me a little while to track down a copy but I'm very glad I did.

The basic story is quite different to the movie.  Obviously the baby bit is there but the circumstances of the mother and the events are all different.  Here we have a middle aged university lecturer named Theodore Faron who is essentially an uncaring loner who's closest friend is an uncaring sociopath who runs the country.  Into his life arrives a small group of wannabe revolutionaries determined to bring down what they see as an unjust and uncaring government but with no practical ideas as to how to do so or what to put in it's place (other than themselves).  Theo is increasingly drawn into their incompetent revolution and finds himself on the run with the first pregnant woman in 25 years.

What I liked about the book was it had a real old school Britishness  about it.  The revolution is feeble, the tyranny is measly, the characters are petty and everything is entirely amateurish and slapdash.  The movie version felt a bit more American - I'm going to stress the 'bit' part - and I suppose more up to date but I like the griminess of the book more.  It's got the feel of a Le Carre but one wrapped up in a Survivors or Threads like post apocalypse setting all of which went to making it irresistible to me.

Buy it here - The Children of Men

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Horror Stories

E. Nesbit
Penguin Books

A groom promises to be at the church on time, even if he has to come back from the grave to do it. A man inherits a property where he discovers a portrait of a woman that will change his life forever. Two newlyweds find their dream country cottage, unaware of an ancient curse from the previous owners. A gripping, unsettling and utterly chilling collection of short stories from a best loved storyteller.

For many people Nesbit will forever be tied to her books for children such as 'Five Children and It' and the perennial classic 'The Railway Children'.  I've not read either of them and my experiences with the good lady have entirely revolved around occasional appearances in ghostly anthologies of stories such as 'Man-Size in Marble' and 'John Charrington's Wedding' both of which, unsurprisingly, feature here.

In this instance 'here' is a brand new collection of her supernatural stories from Penguin which is part of an odd set of five books that also features John Christopher's 'The World in Winter', the feminist sci-fi of Joanna Russ' 'We who Are About to...', cyberpunk romp 'True Names' by Vernor Vinge and the urban fantasy of 'War for the Oaks' by Emma Bull.  As I said, an odd assortment and all presented in garish day-glo cover art.

Inside the giant pink skull that adorns the book in hand we find ourselves in very capable hands indeed. Ms Nesbit has an assured touch and her stories are taught and deliciously macabre.  Aside from the wandering statuary and ghostly nuptials she presents us with stories of love lost ('Hurst of Hurstgate' and 'The Ebony Frame'), about the price of revenge ('The Violet Car'), about the madness of guilt ('In the Dark') and the destructive selfishness of pride ('From the Dead').

Scattered amongst these are a couple of standout tales such as the cosmic Jekyll & Hyde of 'The Five Senses' and 'The Three Drugs', the obsessive revenge of 'The Head' and the entertainingly gossipy story of 'The Shadow'.

These sort of collections often offer up a couple of duff tales and this is no exception but it is unfortunate that they constitute the final three in the book which means it all ends on a bit of a downer. 

This is though a pretty enjoyable selection. There's nothing here that you'll lose any sleep over but as a fun excursion into a vivid imagination it's a bit of a treat.

Buy it here - Horror Stories (Penguin Worlds)

The World in Winter

John Christopher
Penguin Books

The World in Winter is the terrorising story of what happens when a new Ice Age devastates the Northern Hemisphere, when civilisation disappears into a voiceless polar night, when men and women turn into wolf packs in their agonised struggle for survival.

 A few years ago before I started writing this blog I listened to an audiobook of John Christopher's other, more famous, apocalypse novel, 'The Death of Grass'.  It's a brutal and uncompromising story that showed the ease in which social conventions crumble and morality is cast aside in the pursuit of survival.

'The World in Winter' is a perfect companion piece.  Here it's a new ice age that has wreaked devastation on the UK, along with the rest of Europe and the US, but has left the African nations untouched.  This turn of events results in hordes of refugees making their way south and the balance of power tipping in favour of the former colonial subjects over their disenfranchised former masters.

We view this change of circumstances through the eyes of one Andrew Leedon a film maker evacuated from London to Nigeria.  There he finds himself in drastically reduced circumstances before a simple act of kindness made some years before comes to his aid.

Where 'The Death of Grass' is a story of a group of people finding refuge and a hope for survival within a devastated environment this book tells a different story.  It tells of power, control and revenge but it also tells of ideas of intolerance and racism and at times makes brutally uncomfortable reading in the language it uses and the attitudes expressed.  Sometimes it's hard to differentiate between what is intentional and what is a product of the time the book was written (1962) and a reflection of the concerns of the times as Britain's former colonies break free of it's governance and the sun seems to be finally setting on an empire still not entirely recovered from the deprivations on the second World War.  

It's a novel that is bleak in setting, events, attitude, outlook and execution that I found to be a compulsive but not necessarily enjoyable read that, I think, will haunt me for some time to come.

Buy it here - The World in Winter (Penguin Worlds)

Ancient Sorceries and other stories

Algernon Blackwood
Penguin Books

I'm still fairly new to these books of Victorian & Edwardian ghostly / horror / weird fiction that I've been reading on and off over the last year so many of the writers that are considered key to the genres - let alone the more obscure - are still unknown quantities for me.

I've always had a soft spot for the film and TV versions but horror books never were a thing for me (except for a short lived teenage binge on Shaun Hutson books).  So now that I'm giving them a go there are a few names at the top of my hit lists that I've been slowly ticking off;  Blackwood is one of them.

I was pleased to unearth a copy of this in a local charity shop in time to take on holiday to Ireland with me.  I sat and read it in a park in Dublin, a derelict graveyard in Glendalough (see photo), the castle grounds in Kilkenny and it was in my back pocket when I fell down a flight of stairs in Mullingar and broke my leg, arm and rib which kinda put a hold on reading, as did the ensuing operation and couple of months of morphine and frustrating, fidgety recuperation.  But now, two months on from starting it, I've finished the final story.

The book contains 4 short stories, 2 longer ones and each offers up an individual slice of the odd and the creepy.

Algernon Blackwood

Opening proceedings is 'The Empty House' wherein a young man accompanies a curious elder aunt on her ill-conceived nocturnal exploration of the local creepy pile.  He then trumps the whole haunted house idea with an entire haunted island that finds a student terrified by two native Americans on a deserted island.

The third story is my only previous experience of Blackwood, a great little story where a student entertains a visitor from his past in 'Keeping His Promise'.

My favourite story here is up next, 'A Case of Eavedropping' tells of a guest house haunted by echoes of an old crime.

The two remaining stories that make up the back half of the book both feature Blackwood's paranormal investigator Dr. John Silence.  In the first of the pair, 'Ancient Sorceries', he really is little more than the narrator of a tale of love and cats whereas the second has him centre stage investigating strange fiery occurrences at the country residence of a retired soldier in 'The Nemesis of Fire'.

In all a thoroughly enjoyable read that has greatly endeared me to Blackwood.  His prose is significantly less dense than many of his contemporaries and so I found him more readily readable and minor detours into the joys of surgery aside this was a very enjoyable read.

Doctor Who, Penguin style

I'm a sucker for good design and as such, like I suspect is the case for many of you reading these words, the covers of the holy trinity of British book design - Penguin, Puffin & Pelican books - bring me immense amounts of eyegasm.

Check out this glorious page of Penguin sci-fi cover art.  There's so much pretty!

I know I'm anything but alone in my appreciation of these and I love it when people with more time and talent than me take that love and do something fun with it.

So, with that in mind, you might like to have a look at these pages of Doctor Who stories reimagined as Penguin books - http://doctorwhopenguin.tumblr.com.

Kudos to all involved.

The Art of Penguin Science Fiction

If ever there was a website that brings the pretty then it's this little labour of love.

I find myself going back to this website again and again.  Sometimes I just want to look at the covers other times I'm after something specific.  The amount of work and knowledge put into it is just staggering and I am truly in awe of the author(s).

As I'm sure is the case for many people reading these witterings the artwork of the Penguin science fiction range are things of utter beauty and adorned many of the books that defined my tastes over the years. So, to find them all in one place is magnificent.

Hope you enjoy wandering around this site as much as I have.

http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/

(BTW - in case you don't spot it (I didn't) click the book marked 'contents' in the top left corner of the images for a helpful guide around the site)

The War of the Worlds

H. G. Wells
(Penguin Books)

The night after a shooting star is seen streaking across the sky, a cylinder is discovered near London. Armed with just a white flag, the locals approach the mysterious object – only to be burned alive by heat-rays as horrific, tentacled invaders emerge.
Soon, the whole of human civilization is under threat, as powerful Martians move across the land in massive killing machines, armed with black gas and burning rays. The aliens are determined to win the Earth for themselves.

I always said I’d read this one day and I finally have. It was pretty much well worth the wait too.

Like the Time Machine, which I read last year, the protagonist / narrator remains a nameless figure. His journey remains also at the heart of the book. Like the main fellow you are very much along for the ride as he stumbles from one encounter to another. His adventures are as mundane as they are extraordinary such as when trapped in the cellar for days on end with an increasingly mad curate he barely relates the activities of the Martians outside and instead focuses on the struggle within over their food supplies.

I must admit I didn’t expect it to be as readable as it turned out to be but then so was Time Machine. Wells had such an easy and personable style that you’re easily drawn along by his characters and absorbed by his plots. Wish I’d read this sooner and I think I need to tackle the Invisible Man next.