Fantastic Metropolis

In bringing on the swans, Lint retakes that old world in which actual progress was maybe possible. Man and the swan seem in agreement on attempting to make life a bit more bearable rather than fussing about whether humanity represents the pinnacle of creation: this issue can be sorted out later if, by some ‘bizarre yet boring’ twist, the matter becomes important. (That notion of ‘bizarre yet boring’ recurs in Lint as the telltale quality of human affairs; its drab flag and flavour.) Bork has observed that ‘the taboo position of honestly admitted powerlessness blasts a purifying light through Lint’s novels’. This allows Lint’s protagonists to start a tale with an accurate view of the circumstances to be confronted (a point which other author’s protagonists rarely reach by the end). Critics have complained that Lint’s stories lack conflict—they do, in fact, conflict with every story written by everyone else.

Footnotes

¹ Some of which ended up in Chris Caccamise’s crappy but successful novel-length plagiarism, Empire of Flamingos (not to mention the appalling British feature-length cartoon Attack of the Piglets, voiced entirely by Bernard Cribbens).

² Lint friend and fellow pulp author Marshall Hurk wrote a variation on the ‘locked room’ mystery, in which Cameo Herzog seems to come up with an idea, in a bare, locked, soundproofed room. All means of communication are tested, all possibilities eliminated, and yet Herzog has thought of one more idea than he had when he entered the room. The trick, of course, is that this is another man who happens to have that name. Hurk had never described the man’s appearance, nor explicitly stated that the prisoner was the critic and journalist Cameo Herzog.

³ Such hallucinations of brave men feature in Lint’s prophetic ‘Too Fat to Riot’.

Sources

Mask of Disapproval, Jeff Lint (Rich & Cowan, 1961)

Giant Feather (Collected Tales), edited by Allen Walsh (Chaffee, 1976)

‘If I Could but Kill,’ Cameo Herzog (collected in Dust We Shall Become: Collected Reviews of Cameo Herzog, Balkan Books, 1969)

‘Look Here, Upon This Picture,’ Marshall Hurk (Bewildering Stories, 1959)

‘Deep Vanishing’ in Jeff Lint’s Science Fiction, Alfred Bork (Portland State University, Oregon, 2003)

‘Swans, Apes, What’s the Fucking Difference?,’ Ian Watson (Jellysump Zine)

‘Swan Lee, Swanley and Swans: the Barrett/Kent/Lint Connection,’ Debra Copelan (J-Lint fanzine, 1994)

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This article is not part of it, but Aylett has written an entire book about the life and books of Jeff Lint, entitled LINT, out from Thunder’s Mouth in May 2005.