Hi all,
       I've just read TRIGGER by Arthur C Clarke and Neville Nobody.
I'm always wary of these co-productions especially knowing that old
Arthur is a few years past his use-by date. This one was obviously
written by Nev while old Artie gave it his name. Whatever else, Arthur
C. Clarke gets his science right. Neville doesn't bother with that
sort of thing... there were a few good laughs in it.

 But the real fascination, wading through 540 pages of utter rubbish,
was in discovering that *whoever* wrote it, meant it!

 It's basically anti-gun-nut propaganda.

 The plot is that a genius stumbles onto way to detonate all classes
of explosive nitrate compounds... the idea being that this TRIGGER
device may be used as a shield. Put it in your home, and any burglar
inside the 500-metre perimeter is embarrassed when his ammunition
blows up. Terrorists don't stand a chance, no more hi-tech war, the
TRIGGER is an anti-gun weapon! There are whole pages of highfalutin
ideals discussing the evils of guns, all stereotyped, low IQ and
boring, not that I bothered to read any of them...

 OK. I can go along with that, it *is* SF after all, although why a
swept electromagnetic wave would single out nitrates stretches my
credibility and why it doesn't explode crops and people has to be set
to one side or we'd have chaff and blood all over the place... what
I found insane, was the morality of these dorks writing it!

 At one stage, a family is being monstered by gang-boys shooting up
the house (I didn't say it was well written, the whole book is just
stereotyped propaganda), so the scientist takes the truck with the
trigger and blows up three kids when their guns explode. He seems to
think this is perfectly okay... someone fires a gun through a window
(no one is hurt) so deadly force is the answer, three premeditated
murders is all the day's work! I thought it was satire! He's anti-gun,
anti-violence, so he kills three kids! 

 Tote that barge, adjust the squiggle whatsis valve, bend up a
bracket, invent a new mathematics, and murder three schoolkids. And
this is just a scientist... the engineers are worse. Rambo rides
again, except that Rambo was well written and had something to say.

 It was about here, that I began to suspect that ole Arthur was going
to pull something out of the hat. Surely, he *must* see that a triple
murder and deadly force for possession of a gun is a bit over the
top... it's a trick. He''s going to come up with a really clever
twist, a surprise ending, this is clever satire.

 Nope. He's serious.

 I'd like to know who actually wrote the book. I can't recognise any
of Arthur C in there (not that I was ever much of a fan, the only
thing he ever wrote of quality was RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA), but whoever
wrote it has a serious mental problem. He does not have a clue about
morality, decency, or even simple humanity. The poor man is a psycho.
A sociopath.

 As it turned out, I couldn't be bothered finishing the book, but I
read the last page. Not only was it simplistic propaganda, it was
repetitive, "proving" the same silly point over and over (guns are
norty). The interesting part was that the book proved the opposite.
The poor idiots writing it couldn't work out what side they were on,
or where the hell they were going. Rambo as a pacifist? Murder as an
answer to assault? Their "President" was supposed to be a really nice
man, a caring charismatic leader, but the sociopath author made him
into an idiot.

 And of course, the "unexpected" twist was that the new weapon was a
hundred-times worse than guns. Gee... I didn't see that one coming.

 I swore off Arthur C. Clarke when he kept rewriting 2001, and got
up to 3027 (or something) with exactly the same plot, recycled, and
with increasingly shaky science. Has no one told him that it was the
Kubrick's *FILM* that was the classic, not Clarke's boring book?

 Not only can't poor-old Arthur think up a new plot or write it, he
can't even pick a decent sane author to ghost it for him. Didn't he
read the book at all? Or doesn't he care? How the mighty have
fallen...

Regards,
Bob
       


--- BQWK Alpha 0.5