“ There is a box. Inside that box is a door...and beyond that door is a whole world.”
You know, the older I get the less attracted I am to reading new fiction, to reading fiction in general. When I do read the stuff – and that's less and less - it's generally volumes I first read forty or fifty years ago: the odd novel by Hemingway or D.H. Lawrence, most recently some Richard Hughes, Ian Fleming and Charles Whiting, and the occasional short story by the now almost forgotten Denys Val Baker, whose work from the 1950s and 60s still stands head and shoulders above most British writers of the period. There are one or two exceptions to the new fiction reading rule, most notably Guy Adams, if only to see if he can regenerate my interest in new fiction.
The answer is yes and no.
Guy is an excellent writer whose genre is the fantasy thriller, with his latest novel, The World House, an extremely enjoyable journey through the dark – very dark – corners of his mad imagination, and our fears – a very fertile place - where, after he has led expertly down a terrifying dead end, he diverts us into another, deeper, horrifying dimension.
What Guy Adams is not though is another Stephen King, who, as a writer, can never bring to life the dusty Gothic world ( the now moulding world of Sherlock Holmes) that is fast becoming Adams' territory, and a territory where the 'now' and the 'then' come hurtling together with great chunks of humour and dread.
And The World House is quite a journey, and one at times that reminds me of the writing of H.G. Wells – always a good mix of humour and horror – without the political preaching that was thought a necessary requirement of the times; although Guy does offer lessons in decision making, in helping one another:
“ As soon as he'd lifted her on to his shoulders he realised this was the wrong thing to do. You weren't supposed to move someone who had been in an accident, just in case you made things worse. He paused, not knowing what to do next. He wasn't a man used to making executive decisions, definitely a 'go with the flow' kind of guy. Well, there was little point in worrying about it now; he'd picked her up, the damage was – if there was any – was done and there was no going back from it...”
The story of the Good Samaritan.
And the more I read The World House, and became a part of the discovery of the inside of that box - and of the journey of the disparate group of people who find themselves there - the more I realised we were inhabiting something akin to Purgatory:
“ ' It's no life,' Hawkins admitted, ' working all hours with little hope of seeing a friendly shore. They gave themselves to the water. You have seen the opiate effects of the ocean here: it lulls you to its breast and smothers you until you are lost.' He noticed the quizzical look on Alan's face, ' Oh yes, friend, had we left you or the girl in the water for much longer I fear we would never have been able to fish you out. The body breaks down, dispersing into the water like sugar in a cup of tea. The waves we ride on, even now, are thick with the essence of those it's stolen...' “
What Guy has written is as much a Christian tract as a fantasy adventure, in the same way that John Bunyan's, A Pilgrim's Progress, is an epic 17th century adventure as well as a moral Christian tale. It is the same with Tolkein's world, as it is with most fantasy literature – the journey toward faith.
The World House is a beautifully written book (although in places Guy's editors let him down a bit, which is unforgivable), but I do feel that Guy is too good a writer to get stuck in the fantasy genre, which, for all its weird and wonderful notions is extremely limiting for a writer like Guy, who, in the short 'interludes', suggests an interest in the world of historical fiction, which other fantasy writers, such as Garry Kilworth, have ventured into. I would dearly love to see Guy pick-up on a historical character, or period, as Conn Iggulden has done for instance, and give us a series of historical novels that will knock the literary worlds socks off.
But in the meantime we have The World House, which is a wonderful read - and a book that deserves to be in the best-seller lists - by a writer who will at least keep me reading his new fiction.