Number 39 - 668 - the Neighbor of the Beast - Lionel Fenn - aka Charles L Grant

Many years ago, I was at a book signing by Terry Pratchett.  Someone asked him is there was going to be a sequel to Good Omens and, quick as a flash, he said "You mean 668, The Neighbour of the Beast?". We all laughed and thought it was a jolly funny joke.  I'm pretty certain this book existed back then, whether the venerable Mr Pratchett knew about it or not will never be known.

It's certainly one of my favourite punny titles of all time.

Lionel Fenn is (as suggested by the title of this entry) a nom-de-plume of Charles L Grant.  Charlie Grant is one of the greatest horror writers bar a very small few.  He wrote incredibly atmospheric and downright scary horror fiction, with a minimum of gore and a maximum of creeping you the hell out. 

Under the name of Lionel Fenn, he skewers his own genre mercilessly, as well as taking wide ranging pot shots at science fiction. He takes the cliches from the genres and works them into ever increasing levels of ridiculousness.

This one is no different.  It's book 5 in the Kent Montana series of books.  Kent was introduced to the world in the book Kent Montana and the Really Ugly Thing from Mars.  Since then he's fought the reasonably invisible man, the Once and Future Thing, and a moderately viscious vampire.

As per the back cover of all of the books in this series - He's the descendant of Scottish nobility, or so he claims. He's an out-of-work actor. He never gets a good script... but his life is more exciting than any science fiction movie. In fact his life IS a science fiction movie.

In this, sadly the last of his adventures, he faces off against the elder gods and assorted demons, and a street full of characters whose lives make the the cast of the most OTT soap opera seem entirely not dysfuntional.

When writing this type of over the top parody, there is a very fine line between writing accurate pisstake on the worst the genre has to offer and actually writing badly.  The casual reader is asked to take a lot on trust.Thankfully, Charlie was such a good writer that these books hardly ever cross that boundary.  The plethora of genuinely funny gags helps enormously.

Mr Grant was clearly having a ball writing these books and that really shines through. There are many laugh out loud moments in this book, often at the expense of the French for no particular reason.The style of writing is razor sharp, letting the silliness inherent in the demonic/cthulu type story shine through whilst still showing a huge amount of love for the source material.

I'm not sure the plot entirely made sense, but I don't care in the slightest.  Great fun to read and highly receommended if you're in the mood for something very silly indeed.

All the Fenn books are currently available in e-book format.