|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 11, 2014 16:42:41 GMT
Phil Smith - The Saxonbury Printout (Nel 1979) Blurb: Saxonbury is a pleasant English market town; medieval church, seventeenth-century town houses, a new estate, a gleaming, ultra‑modern computer factory.
But Liz Ambler senses what lies beneath its placid surface, as her interest in the romantic past draws her helplessly towards the deep-buried secrets of a crueller age.
While his wife is obsessed with the past, Roger Ambler is totally involved in the EKO 6 computer, the key to the future and the culmination of his research.
Now EKO 6 is ready for trials, waiting for the vital pulse of the electrons to throb through its circuits and awaken - what? "Died in childbirth 7 August 1753 .Buried in the dark earth. Help!"The Amblers, Roger, Liz and children Sally and Dee, leave California for a new life in the Pennines. Liz, conscious of her American roots, overcompensates by throwing herself into local historical research as she can't abide that ghastly local woman, Judith Harper, looking down her nose at her as some intellectual pygmy. Visiting Rev. David Henshawe, the vicar of St. Oswalds, Liz learns of a Saxon tomb in the crypt, said to be a monument to St. Wulfric, a ninth century Saxon King, decapitated by the Danes in a massacre on what is now her property. Much to Liz's disgust, little Dee, foraging around in the garden, has soon amassed a collection of yellowed human bones. Sally, meanwhile, is suffering the most appalling nightmares. Liz grows obsessed with a particular eighteenth century grave in the churchyard, that of Elizabeth Ward. The vivid nightmares she shares with Sally grow increasingly horrific. Roger, an accomplished computer technician, is busy overseeing the development of his brainchild, the souped-up 64 Ram EKO 6, a data processing machine so powerful it can almost think for itself. To demonstrate its prowess, Roger scans in every snippet of Liz's research. Astonishingly, the printout is in Saxon. It is as though the dead are using the new technology to communicate their despair! Fearing a grisly re-enactment of the massacre in the present day, the Amblers and Rev. Henshawe use EKO 6 to locate the unhappy bones of Dunnere, a falconer buried alive by the Danes, and rebury him in consecrated ground. Can a Windows 98 prototype prevent catastrophe? And so The Saxonbury Printout slowly builds to it's sombre conclusion. A very different beast to Mr. Smith's spectacularly silly and much loved novelization of The Incredible Melting Man. And what happened to super-shallow Judith Harper?
|
|
|
|
Post by Johnlprobert on Oct 12, 2014 19:19:45 GMT
Bought this last month. Very sorry to hear it doesn't reach the nauseating heights of Mr Melty, but I'll probably read it anyway.
|
|
|
|
Post by killercrab on Oct 13, 2014 1:12:24 GMT
I liked it.  |
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 13, 2014 8:54:13 GMT
The computer is a lot of fun (i'm using worse) and i loved snooty Judith. Phil Smith wrote at least one more novel, The Resurrection Machine, which, from Nightreader's review, sounds v. similar to The Saxonbury Printout. |
|
|
|
Post by Jojo Lapin X on Oct 13, 2014 9:37:04 GMT
Computer science holds many mysteries!
|
|
|
|
Post by bluetomb on Oct 13, 2014 12:56:21 GMT
Nice, I remember this from way back, though mostly the amazing cover and an ending that seemed very abrupt and even had me wondering whether my copy was missing a final chapter. Was about 140 pages or so, and didn't have any further titles lists or blurbs at the end. Might have to have a rummage and see if I still have it.
|
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 13, 2014 15:55:02 GMT
Nice, I remember this from way back, though mostly the amazing cover and an ending that seemed very abrupt and even had me wondering whether my copy was missing a final chapter. Was about 140 pages or so, and didn't have any further titles lists or blurbs at the end. Might have to have a rummage and see if I still have it. That is some remarkable memory - 140 pages exactly. Without wishing to give too much away (but SPOILER ALERT anyhow), its the abrupt ending - which leaves no doubt the worst is yet to happen - makes the book for me. I like 'em miserable. Welcome to Vault, btw, mr. bluetomb. I hope you have fun here. |
|
|
|
Post by bluetomb on Oct 16, 2014 12:10:20 GMT
Thanks, I'm sure I shall. It's been some years since I last read any pulp horror but lately have gotten access to the lions share of Hamlyns and a whole lot more besides so I've been rediscovering my old taste for the stuff. Hope to get around to reading and writing about a good deal, especially the quirkier ones.
|
|
