Howard Phillips
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Howard Phillips
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Howard Phillips was once thought to be one of the most promising young sci-fi poets of his generation, but that was before alchohol started to take its toll on his critical faculties. Now he is a mere shell of the man he once was, both intellectually and physically. As a youngster, Howard never played with the other children. He spent his time in a special place in his head, where the grown-ups were scared to look. As a result, he slipped through the system, so to speak, becoming a typically dysfunctional adult. The danger signs were there from the beginning, for those that had the courage to see. For example, he spoke in tongues six months before saying “dada” for the first time. Even then, it was only in reference to the nihilistic surrealistists. He was trying to explain to his parents why he’d pushed his sister’s Barbie into the electric heater. When he was six years old his mother brought a kitten home for him to look after, in a desperate attempt to awaken the gentler emotions within his breast. You don’t want to hear the rest of that story. If those early factors weren’t enough, at the age of fourteen he declared his ambition to become a poet. What were the fools thinking, leaving him out on the streets? That most auspicious of moments, the first appearance of his poetry in print, took place within the pages of New Words #3. In the well-received “Cordophilia” he expounded upon the life of Cordwainer Smith, but in a second, he cruelly disparaged the work of the excellent Francois Mottier, just for the sake of an idiotic rhyme. This kind of artistic compromise was to be the stamp of his work from then on. Since 31 January 2001, Phillips worked for Silver Age Books as Marketing Manager, a job he filled with his usual appalling lack of ability. Nevertheless, Silver Age Books, in their infinite kindness, gave him one last chance to redeem a wasted life. To that end, he began work on a trilogy of detective novels, the first of which was to be entitled The Cartesian Conundrum. The second and third novels of the sequence were to be The Hieronymous Hideout and The Socratic Solution. All are unfinished. Despite our patience, Howard then indicated his desire to write a zombie novel, of all things, by the ghastly title of First the Eyes, Then the Brains. At Silver Age Books, though, none but the muses call the shots, and so we had no choice but to let him go ahead with it… He also wished to be known from then on as the “Master of the Mysterious”. In the summer of 2002, Howard commenced yet another project, A Journal of the Earthquake Year, an experiment in fiction writing – a novel written in real time! The earthquake that shook most of England that year sent Howard’s head a-spinning, and he planned to set his thoughts down in his diary every day for the next year or so. Like so many others, this project remains incomplete (or perhaps you could argue that it is complete, and just very short). Be
warned, though: Howard does not see the world in quite the way others do. On 1 May 2003 the staff of Silver Age Books received the following message by email from Howard Phillips, to their great dismay: “With this email, I put you all on notice of my intention to quit Silver Age Books immediately. I resign my post as marketing manager, and renege upon the contracts I signed regarding the writing of Alpha One and other titles. Please do not read too much into this decision. The high-level pressures of the publishing world have taken their toll upon my already fragile constitution, and where once I tired easily, now there never comes a time when I am not tired. When I approach the keyboard, my fingers twitch. When I approach the SAB building, my knees seem to absent themselves from my legs. And when I think of disappointing SWT, who put so much faith in me, giving this tired old poet a second chance to redeem himself, I can only weep. My good wishes go on with all of you, don’t hold back in your future endeavours, but perhaps at the Christmas party, remember a single toast to your friend, Howard Phillips.” What could I write, later in July 2003, other than that he would be missed? His novels, promised for so long, promised so much, and we could only imagine at that point what might have become of this would-be prince among authors of speculative, horror and romantic fiction. In November 2004 two cataclysmic events occurred, or rather three, as the other two were announced by the return of Howard Phillips to the Silver Age fold. With the launch of our new publications at that point, he doubtless realised that we might once again provide a home to his dishonest muse. One of those events was that Howard finally began work on his zombie novel. The second was that he has formed a band - The Sound of Howard Phillips. In February 2005 he pulled himself together long enough to produce a novella for the highly esteemed journal, Theaker's Quarterly Fiction. This bizarre piece of writing is apparently the transcript of a film Howard directed once while sleeping. Speculation by others suggests that it is simply a hastily adapted film script, rejected by the studios a decade earlier, perhaps the very thing that prompted his near permanent decline as the new millennium dawned. However, later that year, after producing the incredible sounds of his musical version of The Fear Man, Howard set to work on an autobiographical chronicle of the making of the album, My Rise and Fall, which was set to lead into his greatest epic yet, the Saturation Point Saga. Whether the saga will ever be complete, given Howard's history, is a matter for conjecture, but in 2006 he did knuckle down to work. His Nerves Extruded, Howard's first finished novel, but in theory the second in the Saturation Point Saga, was serialised in the pages of Theaker's Quarterly Fiction during 2006, causing astonishment to anyone who had followed Howard's career to date. Not only had it actually been written, it was also reasonably entertaining. Even more amazingly, the third novel in the series, The Doom That Came to Sea Base Delta, followed swiftly on its heels, being serialised in the same magazine during 2007. Howard hopes to pursue paperback publication of his novels, but must first complete volume one of the saga, The Ghastly Mountain. Poetry SF Poetry (1995) New Words #3 Short Fiction Aproo Stsoori (1995) New Words #2 Dadylosa's Big Day (1996) New Words #5 A Journal of the Earthquake Year (2002) Read it! (pdf) Novella The Power of Death (2004) TQF #4 The Saturation Point Saga Editorial: Introducing the Band (2005) TQF #7 My Rise and Fall (2005) TQF #8 His Nerves Extruded (2006) TQF #9 #10 #11 The Doom That Came to Sea Base Delta (2007) TQF #16 #17 Non-Fiction Time to Take Stock (1995) New Words #1 New Hip Writer of the Quarter (1995) New Words #2 Howard Phillips' SF Dictionary of Received Ideas (1995) New Words #4 Editorial: Which Button Should I Press? (2005) TQF #6 REVIEWS Weirdmonger, by DF Lewis (2007) TQF #16 Music Howard Phillips and the Saturation Point Planned but as yet unwritten Novels First the Eyes, Then the Brains (originally due 2003) The Cartesian Conundrum (originally due 2004) The Hieronymous Hideout (originally due 2005) The Socratic Solution (originally due 2006) Howard's Recommendations Philip K Dick Is Dead, Alas, by Michael Bishop Lovecraft's War, by an author whose name Howard cannot remember, having accidentally given the book away. Weirdmonger, by DF Lewis HP Lovecraft Omnibus 1 HP Lovecraft Omnibus 2 HP Lovecraft Omnibus 3 Necroscope, Brian Lumley Bob Morane: L'Integrale, Henri Vernes Carnacki the Ghost-Hunter, William Hope Hodgson The Time of the Hawklords, Michael Moorcock and Michael Butterworth. The Dark Tower, Stephen King The Adventures of Tintin, Herge Philip Jose Farmer conquiert l'univers, Francois Mottier To the Land of the Living, Robert Silverberg |
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