Reviews of four books: Fairy, Creatures, Phantoms and The
                 Cat That Came In From The Cold.
                          By James Judge

FAIRY - Raymond E. Feist

After reading and marvelling at his Riftwar Saga I was excited, to
say the least, when James Jillians lent me this book. So, after
finishing the book I was reading at the time (a rather boring
book, if I remember correctly) I dived headlong into this piece of
literature.

The book centres about a family who have moved from the big city
to a small rural community that is steeped in Irish tradition.
Their house is large and is steeped in German tradition with a
strange wood behind it.

In the community there are a few notable characters such as the
Irish odd-job man, the old lecturer and the two people who study
the supernatural or, in the case of this book, fairies.

After a slow start the book starts to get interesting with strange
things living under a bridge and an ancient smith appearing on the
4th of July. Gradually these occurrences happen more and more
often, even to the extent that the young daughter of the family is
assaulted by a young lad.

The weird thing, though, is that no-one can remember after a
while, what happened to them. Other people can but for the people
who actually experienced the incident it is all a blurred memory.

Gradually the book lets you in on things, holding your attention
and teasing you with tit-bits of information but the whole scheme
of things isn't really revealed until the end of the book when
there is a foray into fairy land and the fairies, once again, find
somewhere else to live.

If you enjoy Feist's books, have got an interest in fairies or
ancient Irish/German folklaw and legend or you just want to read

something different this is a great book. It's interesting,
informative and, most importantly of all, great fun to read.
------------------------------------------------------------------
CREATURES - Richard Masson

This is a book about alligators in New Guinea. Not very
interesting and not at all enthralling.

An airliner crashes into the swampland of New Guinea and the
handful of survivors have to go through an ordeal of sieges by the
ol' 'gators and attacks and threats from a psychopathic group of
hunters, all of whom have got their own personal vendetta against
one another and every other member of the human race - not to
mention alligators (apart from one who is after the perfect
'gator).

If this book was made into a film in the mid-seventies it would
probably have been a minor success with a small group of loyal
followers who just want it for the violence.

A few sociological points are raised in the book, but nothing
really that is of interest. It starts off well but as soon as the
skirts start rucking and the plane starts diving it, along with
the plane, goes suddenly downhill.

Boring.
------------------------------------------------------------------
PHANTOMS - Dean R. Koontz

I am not a fan of horror books or films. The films are never scary
(and the make-up is usually tacky) and the books tend to go off on
a tangent every second paragraph with long passages of sex, rape
and torture, not to mention eyeball sucking, bone snapping and
genital crushing.  This is a different horror book, though,
because it starts from a viable point and goes to another viable
point without deviating too much to make the book boring.

Two sisters arrive back in a small town of about 500 inhabitants
to find their maid dead on the floor with uniform bruising all

over her body. There is no signs of a struggle and the body has
only been dead for about an hour.

Rushing to their neighbours they find the house deserted with
little evidence apart from a warm Sunday meal to suggest that
anybody had been there at all.

A quick trip to the local police station reveals another bruised
body and a few gruesome scenes in the Bakery, all done tastefully.

As the book progresses we learn of an 'Ancient Enemy' that may
have caused similar incidents throughout history and there seems
to be no way of ridding the Earth of this threat.

As with all good books everything ends up hunky-dory, but the way
that the author achieves this is very well done with a feeling of
tension running throughout the book.

Although the ending seems a little rushed overall the book is a
great read especially if you, like me, haven't read many horror
books (or found the ones that you have read mind-numbingly
boring).
------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CAT THAT CAME IN FROM THE COLD - Deric Longden

A nice cutsy book to finish with.

This book fits into a trio of books that look into the life of
Deric Longden.

Written in the first person this gives a personal account of the
experiences of a new kitten and its owners getting used to all of
its idiosyncrasies and habits.

Thermal used to belong to the neighbour but it seemed so wretched
out there in the cold and wet, not able to enter the house as the
owners were out Deric had to take it in - just to keep it warm.
That short two hour stay quickly turned into a couple of months
stay until the neighbour finally told Deric that he knew what had
been going on for a long time.

As with all kittens they get up to a few strange things and
Thermal isn't any different. From befriending an old sultana to
(supposedly) being able to control its bladder for three days
while on a staple diet of milk and fish.

The book documents all of these funny incidents very well with
conversations between the cat, Deric and the sultana being, by
far, the funniest.

There is no way that I can do credit to this book in this short
review as throughout the book I had, according to people who saw
me, a strange mushy grin on my face all the time (it was meant to
be extremely off-putting). I can't blame myself as, those of you
who know me know how much I love cats and this book captures all
of a cat's characteristics and personality in a few beautifully
illustrated pages.

Great - especially if you've got a soft spot for felines.

ROUNDUP
From the above all but Creatures are worth reading with TCTCIFTC
being, by far, the best and Fairy coming a close second. Phantoms
may not satisfy a Steven King addict, but for the light horror fan
it is a good read. Creatures is Creatures - complete rubbish (I
don't think you would be able to get it now apart from in the
library).

PRICES -
Creatures and Phantoms - Don't know as the copies I had are very
old (back in the good ol' days when 400 page paperbacks cost
95p). The publishers, though, are:
                         Creatures - Futura
                         Phantoms - Star
TCTCIFTC - Again, I don't know the price (it hasn't got one on
the book (which is hardback)) but Bantam Press are the publishers.

Fairy - probably Legend and costs about œ5.99

                              - o -