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 Thoughts on Life and Death from the Tarkaha/Magic Box
32 pages A5. £1.50 from Ankh press, 18 Lansdowne Road, Sydney, Crewe CW1 5JY, Cheshire, England.
reviewed by Roelof Goudriaan
Original appearance: Albedo one issue 18, Autumn 1997
Albedo One story award winner Noel K. Hannan hates to see his own stories go out of print, so he prints or reprints them in a series of entertaining chapbooks, most recently under the "Ankh" label. Basic in production values perhaps (photocopied folded & stapled sheets), Hannan's affinity with graphic novels guarantees that all chapbooks look good, using both cover and interior art by accomplished local artists. And the contents is interesting indeed.
Thoughts on Life and Death from the Tarkaha is 95% dialogue, so it shouldn't work as a story. But it does, very much so, because it is one of those rare stories that has a worthwhile statement to make about the Human Condition. Read this one! If you're too cheap to buy the booklet (and miss out on Derek Gray's elegant artwork), read it on the excellent Infinity Plus website, but read it. The booklet, by the way, combines this story with Magic Box, a light-weight but colourful travelogue through the galaxy in search of the Magic Box that can save the human race.
 The Brightside and Monger War / Gossamer Beach /The Hallelujah Man / Medical Ethics
The Brightside and Monger War: 24 pages A5. £1.50
Gossamer Beach: 44 pages A5. £1.50
The Hallelujah Man: 44 pages A5, £1.50
Medical Ethics: 32 pages A5, £ 1.50
All from Ankh Press, 18 Lansdowne Road, Sydney, Crewe CW1 5JY, Cheshire, England. reviewed by Roelof Goudriaan
Original appearance: Albedo one issue 18, Autumn 1997
The Brightside and Monger War is a Romeo and Juliet retelling set in a generation spaceship, whose inhabitants have split in two camps. The differences between the "good" and the "bad" side are peeled down during the course of the story, until all we have left are the people in the middle, refugees of a battle between two uncaring powers. Though the superficial goodness of the Brightside wears a bit thin, the story keeps you reading and the scenes between Brightsider Ankh and Monger Banshee are especially well portrayed.
Gossamer Beach is the silicon spot where young surfer Hiroko meets with his virtual lover. He's a real-water surfing devotee - which he does as a virtual surfer, lying in his immersion tank. But what can you do when the real seas are all polluted? Out of his tank, he discovers the love for books as objets d'art, and is taken on as an apprentice by one of the last book connoisseurs. Confronted with the extremes of both virtual and psychical existence, he has to choose, and to find his own solution for the statement that "death is what makes us alive". The background and unfortunately also the punch-line are stereotyped; but Hiroko's lively character still makes "Gossamer Beach" a fun read.
The Hallelujah Man has the power of Resurrection. Unfortunately, the talent is somewhat flawed compared to wishes the local townsfolk might have had... Offering just the right kind of ambiguity and sense of wonder, and a great set of colourful characters, "the Hallelujah Man" is subtle & subdued in build-up, emotionally powerful and inviting the reader's own conjecture. Perhaps the first in a series of "Weird West" dark fantasies, this is one of the best small press stories I have read this year.
Medical Ethics leaves "Doc" Clute in a life-or-death dilemma. The location is Purgatory: an extrapolated Mean Street, USA environment. It's a solid, bad-guy packed action story.
Buy four of these chapbooks: for the same price as a mass market paperback, you get something different. You might miss the spine that fits so well with the hundreds or thousands of other books you have, but you get a sizeable word count, attractive art, and booklets that not many people will own. Above all, with jewels like "the Hallelujah Man" and "Thoughts on Life and Death from the Tarkaha" you get a damn good read!
  The Fuzagi Virus / Divide by Zero /
Hyper Golgotha and Parlour Games
All published by Ankh Press, 18 Lansdowne Road, Sydney, Crewe CW1 5JY, Cheshire, England. Priced at roughly £ 1.50 per copy. Enquire about postage rates for addresses out of the UK.
reviewed by Roelof Goudriaan
Original appearance: Albedo one issue 21, May 2000
Noel K. Hannan has been publishing a series of entertaining chapbooks featuring his own stories. Basic in production values perhaps (photocopied folded & stapled sheets), Hannan's affinity with graphic novels guarantees that all chapbooks look good, using both cover and interior art by accomplished local artists. These are the latest three chapbooks to appear.
Divide By Zero is a bleak story- in too extreme an extrapolated future for my liking. A teenage computer hacker gets caught by a corrupt government, and is forced to continue his hacking as a slave for the government. The boy's neighbourhood and family are 100% hopeless, the government 100% corrupt, and I miss the nuance and subversive humour that would add strength to the story.
The Fuzagi Virus is superior fare. We're dropped without explanation in a sensawonda gigascale idea (and I won't commit the crime of giving you a spoiler), which keeps you on your toes while the scale of events increases and increases and you're guessing what the heck is behind this all.
Parlour Games and Hyper Golgotha offer two tales of human tension: one set against a global disaster backdrop, the other against imaginative, vivid scenes of an artist's recreation of the crucifixion. In Hyper Golgotha, Hannan has again succeeded to create that sense of wonder. The life 21st century hill of Golgotha is larger than life, while its audience has real and normal people. The sparks that create contain real emotion. The marital conflict that drives the plot is sharp, biting and to the point.
These chapbooks are worth buying, and if you consider to do so, I'd recommend reading all the reviews on this page to complete your order.
The Amazing Adventures of Captain Cadwallader
32 pages A5. £1.50 from Ankh press, 18 Lansdowne Road, Sydney, Crewe CW1 5JY, Cheshire, England. llustrated by Frazer Alex Irving.
Reviewed by Roelof Goudriaan.
Original appearance: Albedo one issue 21, May 2000
Noel K. Hannan's enjoyable aventure story, first presented in Albedo One 20, is now also available as one of the chapbooks which Noel K. Hannan publishes through his own publishing venture Ankh Press. It offers a few more illustrations than Albedo did. Hannan's series of chapbooks is worth getting complete - though if you don't know this particular story yet, you could of course always order your back issue of Albedo One...
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