ESCARDY GAP by Peter Crowther and James Lovegrove (Earthlight 1998 543pp £5.99)
Perhaps a mind worm has been let loose, infecting its victims so that they lose their sense of judgement. Under the influence of that worm, some unfortunate soul might go into a bookshop with six pounds and see these two paperback releases from Earthlight. Unfortunately, they can afford only one. It will be the imp of the perverse that makes them pick up Ray Bradbury, find some rationalization come into their mind, such as "Oh, he's old", and then take ESCARDY GAP to the counter, feeling happy that they're getting twice as many pages for their money. Because the worm will be rejoicing.
The worm is in ESCARDY GAP already. It has arrived in a train at this small mid-American town, where nothing ever happens, and it is forever 1954. And the worm is in the mind of an unnamed narrator, a man who has sat down at a typewriter in hot New York City, taken a copy of some unidentified SF author from the past, and then found that the typewriter wants him to start feeding it. From the story that follows, the typewriter was manufactured by the same firm that made Theodore Sturgeon's "Professor's Teddy Bear" - the train brings monsters who will feed on the townsfolk they have isolated.
The town of Escardy Gap is cut off, and only one young American boy may be able to use his wits to overcome the intelligence that drives the monsters. Otherwise the only other escape is the one that narrator makes a couple of times - from his fiction back to his New York City home.
Strangely, the unidentified SF author who drove on the nameless narrator must be Ray Bradbury, and ESCARDY GAP is a pastiche of SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. But what the gap of thirty or forty years shows is that the market has changed. ESCARDY GAP is a "conte cruel" writ large - a closed community in which near-invincible creatures can inflict any cruelty they wish. Crowther and Lovegrove have the opportunity to describe this cruelty in more detail.
By contrast, what Bradbury himself has done is something completely different. Some time near DEATH IS A LONELY BUSINESS he seems to have been reborn and in his latest short story collection he re-discovers the magic of everyday life, and discovers that it need not be treated tweely to be magical. There is some science fiction, such as "The Finnegan" or "Dorian in Excelsus", where the creature that maintained Dorian Gray is discovered to be something more alien. But Bradbury also discovers the magic much closer - out of a window, on the lawn, in the stairs at the side of the house. There in a house on a step LA hillside a couple hear the spirits re-working their act on the concrete staircase below their window - Laurel and Hardy forever. A composer listens to the birds in the trees bringing him new melodies. Or the ultimate story of Los Angeles, a family discover the old highway beside the big freeway, winding so much it can never run parallel to the interstate as it takes them through the interior and what remains of the old America.
Of course, Bradbury was there in 1954, so his accounts should be more accurate. Unless he is also a greater fiction-maker. I struggle against the worm to find out.