Jeff Noon's and Steve Beard's LUDLUDA (With a few remarks on GOGMAGOG)

"What's wrong with him?"

"A demon is wanking off inside his head."

"Oh, I hate it when that happens."

One of the things I love best about the genre that we still tend to call "the New Weird"' is how just plain funky it is. The best work of its major propagators -- Jeff Vandermeer, China Mieville, Alastair Reynolds, et al -- oozes with fluids and crusts, seepages, saps, slimes, scabs, but never gets too too gross. Though your mileage might vary. 

Another master of the New Weird, though not traditionally as enraptured by the Grand Guignol as the guys I mentioned above, is Jeff Noon, who in his diesel punk/steampunk/biopunk (at what point do we just drop the modifiers and call it plain old "punk?") (but then an even better catch-all term occurs to me: Analog Punk) diptych with Steve Beard, gunks it up with the best of them from the very beginning of the first of the two novels. 

I'm here officially to talk about the second book, Ludluda, which I was so excited for after loving the first one, Gogmagog, back in April that when I saw it on Netgalley I realized I didn't want to wait any longer than I had to. I didn't review Gogmagog on this here blog back in April, though, mostly for health reasons, but I'm going to make up for it here, or try to.

Just, you know, it's Ludluda I'm honor-bound to review. I just don't think I can talk coherently about it without also talking about Gogmagog.

Which, Gogmagog is so richly imagined, baroquely plotted and populated with so many bizarre variations on what constitutes a person, a natural phenomenon, a creature or a monster, and is chiefly concerned with wild hybridizations of any or all of these, that I had to quickly read it again to recall what all was going on and who everybody was and which kinds of people have little wings of varying degrees of functionality and which sprout cute little psychic antennae at puberty but only after a ritual that involves fusing themselves with funny little insects and how many different ghostly entities (with very different priorities and personalities and orientations toward the world) were spawned when an enormous, as in 60-mile-long, dragon was killed by a heroic king from outer space. Yep.

So, you see, it's not that Gogmagog isn't vivid and memorable, just that it's a lot, and I read a lot of books every year, and I'm happy to re-read good ones anyway so, why not? 

But so, Ludluda. Which picks up the day after most of the events of Gogmagog as the ragtag crew of the steamship Juniper, after traveling upriver through the ghost body of the ghost dragon to the great capital city of Ludwich for a great festival and the chance for one passenger to maybe experience her strange psychic bug puberty and for the ship's captain maybe to get her about-to-bloom flower buds pollinated by the city's king's very special flower so the captain can finally reproduce after centuries and centuries of life.

Buckle up. 

Gogmagog kicked off as our protagonist, Cady Meade, retired steamboat Captain, met a strange pair who desperately wanted her to resume her trade and take them to Ludwich in time for The Hesting -- a festival when tons of people flock to the city to celebrate and trade while scores of young members of the tribe/species that has the weird puberty in which they grow their psychic antennae undergo their rite of passage. The pair are Lek, a glitchy old robot of a decidedly low tech/magical kind, and his tiny young charge, ten year old Brin, who is due to "Hest" there in just a day or so.

Cady, a character I just adore, is crusty, gross and cranky, a belching, farting, pooping, smoking, drinking and coughing old sea dog (river dog), who doesn't seem to have much left to look forward to except a dwindling life of cadging cough drops and rotten food (she prefers it when her vittles have gone a bit off -- we kind of learn why later) from local shopkeepers and friends, but of course has a heart of gold and lets herself be persuaded to make the trip despite the dangers she operatically warns about.

And off they went through many bizarre adventures, sailing up a filthy river and through the ghostly body of the dragon Haakenur.

A sort of semi substantial dragon Griaule is Haakenur, dead but still very much a force in her world and inhabited by all kinds of supernatural and mundane creatures, and very much a resource for all kinds of magical energy and effluent around which entire weird ecosystems and economies have grown up. But nobody calls her Haakenur anymore; Haakenur was the living dragon, and her physical body is long gone. What Cady and co. must steam through is her ghost, Faynr. And occasionally they must deal with incursions from her other, more evil ghost, the Gogmagog that gives the first volume of the dyptic its name.

What I liked best about these books is a central idea they embody that I don't see in a lot of weird/fantasy fiction: that magic and magical processes have byproducts and produce waste and leave scars on the land, like industry does in our world. So the landscape through which the Juniper chugs is blighted with various effluvia and junk and hazards left behind by a recent war (including unexploded bombs; the war that took place here is very much a parallel with World War II, and we learn in Ludluda that the story takes place in the 1950s of this world and ours), and the inhabitants of that landscape are grudgingly living with the effects of this, with varying degrees of success. 

This is all exacerbated by the fact that Faynr, the ghost body of the great dragon through whose body the ship is also traveling, is very sick and getting sicker. My favorite illustration of this comes when they pass the ghost dragon's gall bladder, which is developing gallstones in the form of great chalk cliffs to either side of the water, from which chunks have fallen. The chunks accrete more and more chalk and become serious navigation hazards until the river's course is almost entirely blocked and the Juniper is in danger of becoming another "chalkberg" as the material starts building up when the ship finally grinds to a halt.

Within the ghost organ of a ghost dragon. As one does.

But of course, since there is a sequel, we knew our heroes would get through this somehow, and they do, hence Ludluda.By the time the party reaches Ludwich, by the way, it has grown a bit with the addition of one Numi Tan, a sort of clay golem magically animated by the spirit of a dead girl who seeks the long lost lover with whom she romantically drowned herself (but the lover has never turned up among the clay golem people for a joyful reunion) and Pok Pok, another Thrawl that Lek rescued from a decrepit factory that used to churn out their kind. Pok Pok is too damaged to be a fully independent crew member but happily serves as a new figurehead and navigation assistant for the Juniper and utters gnomic observations in between steering directions.

As Ludluda gets underway, a few of the crew's quests are meeting successful ends, or at least apparent resolutions, even as others begin or continue. This results in the sundering of the company, who, after all, were newly met traveling companions who have reached their destination. Will we ever see some of them again? Will they appear as friends or foes? 

We also gather some new companions, like Jed Yeomanson, a promising young man (if he does say so himself) who attaches himself to the group just before everybody splits off, helps one achieve a stated end by dubious means, and signs on as the Juniper's cabin boy. And Leopold Hill, half of a famous cartography house, co-author of the river navigation charts that are Cady's most prized possessions, and possible holder of the secret Cady most seeks: the location of the flower that will allow Cady to seed a new generation of her plant-hybrid people!

Cady and her new friends are no sooner acquainted then sent off on a new quest that is only kind of a continuation of the original one; Brin has been revealed to be something other than the gormless little innocent she appeared to be and now must be stopped from pursuing her true aim, which threatens not only Cady's world but the good old mundane world that we know, too, kind of, meaning that yes, this second volume manifests as a sort of reverse portal fantasy for a little while when Cady enters the world of postwar London in pursuit of insights and artifacts from her old friend (remember, Cady is really, really old) Doctor Dee. Like you do.

I will confess to not having been at all prepared for this development, but I can't complain that it's not an organic one within the story. When fantasy is weird enough, it can go anywhere it pleases, after all, and Cady's adventures in de-mob London are every bit as tense and involving as those along the river Nysis or in the various districts of Ludwich. As are her experiences after this visit, which take her to incredible (and gross; it might seem hard to top the levels of disgust flavoring Gogmagog but Noon and Beard would very much like you to hold their funky, murky, smelly beers, please) depths and heights and leave her with as satisfying an ending as an ancient nature spirit-cum-river hag could ask for.

Noon remains a writer whose work is on my automatic buy list; Beard is not one I had heard of before but I will be seeking out his work soon, starting with his other team-ups with Noon. Meanwhile, they have my enthusiastic permission to continue this partnership and take it wherever the hell they want. I'm here for all of it. But then, I have a strong stomach. Do you?