Fantastic Metropolis

The novel in question, Chekhov’s Journey (1983) left critics both exasperated and exhilarated. Was it really possible to be so prolific and so good? Chekhov’s Journey is a fine reconstruction of 19th Century Russia, samovars and all, and at the same time a mad frolic. A Soviet actor, hypnotised into talent by his film-crew, is responsible for a warping of history. The real Chekhov’s Siberian voyage transmutes into an investigation of the Tunguska explosion. Comedy and science mesh perfectly, making this one of Watson’s slickest books.

His second short-story collection, Sunstroke (1982), contains two brilliant stories, ‘Returning Home’ and ‘The Milk of Knowledge’, and is a fascinating development on the contents of The Very Slow Time Machine. The ideas are barmier than ever, but the strangeness of the pieces is no longer even a partial point. The stories in Sunstroke are relevant to the present in terms of social and political commentary as well as an examination of meaning and transformation. Watson was even toying with Classical ideas on change. An overt expression of this came with a sly wink to the Roman poet Ovid in his next novel.

Converts (1984) is both a modern fable of metamorphosis and an anti-dogmatic satire. Fiddling with DNA produces some beastly results, in the form of a drug that enables people to become the creatures of their dreams. In Slow Birds (1985), his third story collection, the Roman philosopher Lucretius is the focus of some equally improbable and delightful events—the tale ‘Ghost Lecturer’ is one of his best. Slow Birds is a doubly rich cornucopia of themes and forms. The title story, nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula award, is set in a village-green world into which graffiti-covered cruise missiles materialise. Other highlights include ‘The Width of the World’ and ‘White Socks’, chilling whimsy and whimsical horror respectively.

A tangent in Watson’s career occurred about this time with a set of novels that were firmly in the exotic adventure tradition. The ‘Yaleen’ trilogy, with its endearing and spirited narrator, consists of The Book of the River (1984), The Book of the Stars (1985) and The Book of Being (1985). These novels are much looser than anything he had written before and slightly easier on the brain. Yaleen is a character that seems to have escaped Watson’s precise machinations. The scene is set on a world permanently divided by a great river into two sections. On one side, a male-dominated tyranny grumbles along; on the other, a water-loving culture of civilised river-women show how it should be done. The river that separates them, the alien creature that prevents communication across the water, is gradually explored and its nature charted. Those already versed in Watson’s work may find these a little slow, a little too uncluttered, but the individual volumes are still prow and oars above most bookshelf fantasies.

A reasonable guess as to the rationale of this trilogy is that it was an attempt to gain wide readership. There comes a time when the highly-acclaimed genius wishes to be on sale at airports. But his next novel, Queenmagic, Kingmagic (1986), was a return to complexity, partly based on chess and recalling Barrington Bayley’s own fancy on the theme, ‘The Exploration of Space’. The disappointments came in the following two years. The Power (1987) and Meat (1988) are pure horror, complete with absurd covers, but not grand enough to appeal to the folk who made Koontz and King rich. Watson is unable to compete on their terms. His hectoring of that market was ineffective and thankfully brief. A doctoral thesis is due on why modern horror really is an American speciality. Wooden houses are one essential ingredient, no less than wooden horses when invading a real Troy.

Evil Water (1987) was Watson’s fourth short-story collection, and perhaps his weakest. Many of the tales are slightly disappointing, the endings not delivering the promise of the virtuoso beginnings. This is agonisingly true of the first, ‘Cold Light’, with its photon-eating bird creature and only marginally less so with the title story, an indolent yarn of witchcraft in a village straight out of The Archers. The most successful pieces are the shorter ones: ‘The Great Atlantic Swimming Race’, ‘The Wire Around the War’, both now utterly outdated, and ‘The People of the Precipice’, a daft but poignant political parable.

The excellent novel, The Fire Worm (1988), on the other hand, is an enthralling read from start to finish. Raymond Lully, medieval alchemist and obscurist’s folk-hero, creates a magical salamander: nothing less than the Lambton Worm. Here, alchemical method replicates an illusory reality, whereas in the novel Whores of Babylon (1988), it is virtual reality programming that recreates the past. The city of Babylon is generated anew in America, like some Boolean Las Vegas. In true Dick fashion, the characters begin to suspect they are also computer models, a discovery that rather upsets them.