Foursight by
Peter Crowther
hbk out March 00
Published by Gollancz
at £16.99
Foursight is a commendable experiment on the part of Gollancz: a volume featuring four novellas - a commercially
awkward, but aesthetically appealing length of fiction - by Graham
Joyce, James Lovegrove, Kim Newman, and Michael Marshall
Smith. All four previously appeared as limited edition chapbooks
from Peter Crowther's small press PS imprint, but make no
mistake: this is top-drawer writing. The Smith story is the most
entertaining, and the Newman the most impressive, but all four
novellas are worth reading. Saddled as the book is with that
clumsy, meaningless title and cover typography apparently stolen
from some godawful heavy metal album, one suspects it may have
trouble attracting readers. But if you can ignore that cover - do
publishers have even the slightest bloody clue? (that's a rhetorical
question; the answer is very clearly NO!) - there's great stuff to be
found within.
(Conflict of interest notice: devoted readers - both of you - will note
that Smith and Newman provided the introduction and afterword to
my own collection, Waltzes & Whispers. If one were to assume that I am somewhat partial to these gentlemen, one would not be wrong. So sue me.) "Leningrad Nights" by Graham Joyce is a slightly strained, but richly written tale of life in the titular city during its siege in the second world war. Joyce details the survival tactics of a boy who makes the salvation of a prostitute and her newborn baby - and the city itself - a kind of mission in order to keep himself alive. There may or may not be a supernatural element, depending on one's reading, and the tale suffers from Joyce's overly self-conscious
lyricism - Joyce is a lovely writer, but insists on proving to you that
he knows it. Any flaws, however, are redeemed by a wonderful
final paragraph.
James Lovegrove's "How the Other Half Lives" is the weakest of the four novellas, though it's not bad. The story of the world's most successful businessman and the horrible thing he has done to make himself successful is overly familiar, Twilight Zone type material. While broadly engaging, Lovegrove tries too hard to detail and explain the fantastic elements of his story, ultimately undercutting his own credibility through inconsistency. The author seems not to trust his audience - or himself - enough to keep
things simple. "Andy Warhol's Dracula" is the latest entry in Kim Newman's ongoing, ever- mesmerizing Anno Dracula chronicles. The saga moves to America in the seventies, where Romanian immigrant Johnny Pop, the spirit of Dracula roaring through his undead veins, takes on vampire king Andy Warhol for control of the New York night and, more importantly, nightlife. The usual, astonishing assortment of real and fictional figures wander through the tale - Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver was the highlight for me - and Newman intersperses the story with excerpts from a convincing, would-be scholarly tome about Warhol. It's all pure delight.
Michael Marshall Smith, whose star keeps on rising, completes the book with "The Vaccinator." This is Smith in raw
entertainment mode, mixing up hardboiled detective attitude with
an alien abduction plot. The patently silly story takes a series of
left turns which may not make perfect sense, but it is enormously
fun to read. Smith is one of the purest and most compelling
storytellers around with a voice that could drive Nina Simone to
take a vow of silence. The novella did make me think that if Smith
ever set his mind to writing straight detective fiction he'd be top of
the heap in no time, but since he's so successful doing the mixed
genre thing that he does, why fix what ain't broken? Foursight is a solid volume, offering a diversity of stories and styles, and is entertaining and intelligent. Editor Crowther has excellent taste.
(
Jay Russell
- one of the greatest talents the horror industry has produced for some time… (Black Tears))
Foursight by
Peter Crowther