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Hugh Paxton’s Homunculus
is
a
fanasy
horror
novel
that
draws
upon
many
real
events
to
highlight
the
issues
of
child
soldiers
and
the
horrors
that
face
them
and
those
that
they
inflict,
this
horror
fantasy
action
novel
is
set
in
Sierra
Leone
during
the
recent
fighting.
This
story
has
also
been
worked
into
a
screenplay.
Hugh
has
also
written
two
sequel
novels
that are ready for publication.
Reviews
BBC RADIO CUMBRIA INTERVIEW
Tuesday, July 18, 2006,
BBC Radio Cumbria
[Man] Would you like to give me the précis? Helen, this is your
genre, isn’t it?
[Helen] Yeah, Andrew knew that I would like this.
[Man] Is that because it is gritty and a book with balls?
[Helen] Because it had a bit of a fantasy element, I think that’s
why he thought it would appeal to me. It is a really grim book to
be honest; it is fantastic, I loved it, but the basic plot is
it’s set in modern day Sierra Leone in Africa and this man
masquerading as a Catholic priest has invented these little men,
homunculi out of like Voodoo magic and scavenged body parts from
other dead people and he’s turned them into fighting machines
that are infected with the Ebola virus and (laughs) it’s a great
plot. And he decides he wants to sell out and move to South
America, instead, to retire and he gets a South African mercenary
to arrange an auction [for] all the worst people in the world to
come to Sierra Leone to bid for these little men to fight in
their guerilla wars. And it’s set on this back-drop of civil war
and strife and some of these passages are brutal and grim and
it’s just relentless. It’s incredibly funny and you love it, but
you’re like “I shouldn’t love it; I feel guilty” and you feel
like you need a wash afterwards. It’s just totally in your face.“
THEN MORE IN THE SAME VEIN UNTIL AUTHOR INTERVIEW (SLIGHTLY
INCOHERENT FROM AUTHOR'S SIDE DUE TO AUTHOR ENJOYING A HIGH
FEVER)” —H
THE JOHANNESBURG STAR REVIEW
Thursday 31 August 2006
Reader’s Choice: Homunculus: By Hugh Paxton
Best Piece of new fiction for a long time
By James Mitchell, Books Editor
“Apologies for starting with the back end of this novel, but Hugh
Paxton’s afterword bears quoting. "I’m proud to say” writes this
splendidly immodest British journalist, “that Homunculus is
probably the most bizarre work of fiction ever to emerge from the
African continent (African presidents’ memoirs and
autobiographies excepted).” Bizarre it certainly is. Also
horribly political incorrect and remorselessly downbeat on our
current continent. In Paxton’s defence, let me say at once that
he’s cynical not only about Afro-lunacy, but also about everyone
who sticks their nose into our affairs, do-gooders not excepted.
These include foreign mercenaries (South Africans especially);
foreign intelligence agencies, foreign correspondents (such as
Paxton himself);
UN aid agencies and ‘peacekeeping’ forces; and the Japanese
doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo (remember Tokyo subway sarin gas
attack?). Even those with frankly commercial – okay, homicidal as
well – involvement are not spared Paxton’s satire. Its inevitable
cynicism about his own occupation that has Paxton reserve a
particularly horrible fate for an intrusive CNN crew: they are
videotaped undergoing South Africa’s contribution to peace and
understanding … death by car tyre.
The tale is set in Sierra Leone, notionally towards the winding
down of its civil war.
“The first man encountered on the road to Lalapanzi was not a
man. Not really. He was a boy, a kid, wearing nothing but a pair
of large, shabby sneakers and holding an AK-47. Like his regional
commander, General Butt Naked, the teenaged Revolutionary United
Front (RUF) rebel was – apart from his sneakers – butt naked.”
“He also had a handbag.”
In a few more pages we learn that in the bag were six hands, “two
pitifully small; two adult female, their nails smudged with the
ancient ghosts of mauve polish; two adult male, all recently
parted from their owners but already flyblown.”
Too unbelievable for you? Perhaps you missed the reports out of
Sierra Leone at the time. Or perhaps, like most of the world, you
didn’t care.
Anyway, Paxton makes his point: Africa is a land of monsters…and
then he adds some of his very own.
At Lalapanzi, seat of a former Catholic mission station, resides
the Cape brandy swilling Father Jack, Irish alchemist
extraordinary and creator of what he describes as eco-friendly
homunculi.
These cobbled-together mini-monsters can be programmed to be
extremely unfriendly. Which is were Christian Rindert, 15 years a
“security consultant” in Africa, senses the unique selling
proposition. It’s a long way from his boyhood on a run down
cattle farm in Zululand, but what Christian learned there about
the power of witchcraft now stands him in good stead. In short,
he is a true believer, and so happy to arrange an auction. Hence
the gathering of Aum, Zionist fanatics and Columbian drug
smugglers. They all want to get their hands on the ultimate
killing machines.
But first there has to be a field test.
It takes a mere 17 Indian UN peacekeeper, 3 Liberians and 14 RUF
as casualties, versus nil homunculi down, for the manoeuvre to be
pronounced a success. There’s an added bonus: all the resultant
bodies were taken in for processing. For, of course, homunculi
are assembled out of human bits and pieces. (Although Father Jack
has advanced alchemy into the 21st century with addition of solar
cells and other techno whatnots.)
Furthermore, notes Rindert (he’s one of your bureaucratic
killers): “The Homunculus shows a cost effective tendency to
initiate and improve on mechanical repair regimes, particularly
with respect to vehicle mechanics and direct human anatomical
work. They are impressively adaptable and show attractively
appropriate inclinations to adjust behaviour to achieve optimum
results, while remaining within the boundaries of instructed
orders. We have here organic robots. Good ones.” Don’t you just
bet the good scientists of SA’s very own Project Coast wrote such
memos in their time?This kind of black comedy drags you into its
insane world of reality. Which is more weird, more impossible?
Exploding Ebola-poxed monsters, or the fruit cakes of Japan’s Aum
sect, campaigning for political power while jogging about on bus
roofs dressed as pink elephants? Yet Aum was real; the homunculi
– so far – not. But I bet there are some who wish they
were.Although Homunculus appears under the imprint of Macmillan
New writing, Paxton is no stranger to full-length (as opposed to
journalism-length) writing. The blurb claims seven un-named non-
fiction books to his credit. Curiously, both Amazon.co.uk and the
British Library catalogue show a blank in regard to this “secret
seven”. He is said to be in his early 40s, and working in
Windhoek. I well recall the impact Tom Sharpe made on the
literary scene in 1971 with his first novel, Riotous Assembly,
set in the “Piemburg” of those days. Where Kommandant van Heerden
of the SAP longed for the heart of an English gentleman.
Published at the height of apartheid, its fierce mockery exposed
the idiocy at the heart of the system.If only Homunculus could do
the same for West Africa. Those who pretend possession of a flag
and a kleptocratic president-for-life is enough to qualify for
statehood will be appalled by this novel, and even more upset
because it is so well written, and thus likely to succeed in the
market place of ideas. Realists, however will page through
Paxton’s epilogue, where he reminds us that “General Butt Naked
exists”; that “there is an anti-RUF ‘Born Naked” unit in Sierra
Leone”; and that “Choppings, monstrous legions of doped-up
adolescents, Kamajor witchdoctors wearing sea shells and waving
swords, the St Peter’s church massacre, 8-yearolds with
Kalashnikovs” are “All strange, as Ripley would say. But true.”
Lest we cry racism too easily, Paxton reminds us of the
peculiarly South African dimension to this large continent of
horrors. Again, from the epilogue: “Dr Pleasant is a fiction
, but a gentleman working with apartheid’s Civil Co-operation
Bureau did his bit for civil co-operation by body-bombing Swapo
rebel fighters out of planes over the Skeleton Coast and
suffocating captives with muscle relaxants. The same gent
poisoned the Dobra wells (unsuccessfully) and did rather
appalling things to lots of people. He’s not in jail. Had an
engaging laugh. And could conceivably be living next door to
you.” Proofreading is not of the highest standard, and I wonder
about some of the passing references. For instance, is the “St
Peter’s church massacre” in the epilogue not meant to be the St
James’s Church massacre in Cape Town? But that’s a quibble. Quite
simply, Homunculus is outstanding, the best piece of new fiction
I’ve seen for a long time. However, although Paxton threatens a
“Homunculus II. More of the same”, I Hope this doesn’t happen.
The pace of this one is too frenetic to bear repetition. Let’s
hope for something totally different, for a novelist of such
skill can surely tackle another genre with equivalent success.
*Homunculus is published by Macmillan New Writing at R211, 46 but
is available in another edition at R128.”