WATER RITES

YOU NEED TO READ THIS ONE!!!

This is by far my favorite Guy N. Smith novel so far.  (Published by Zebra in 1996; ISBN 0821755536.)  It's like a DREAM COME TRUE for fish operatives, a sort of fairytale with a happy ending written JUST FOR US.

The story revolves around the anxieties of Phil Quiles, the manager of a pumping station in the woods outside an English village called Hopwas.  When you go inside the little station house, you are confronted with an underground reservoir lit from above by buzzing flourescents, from within by something that seems to be a glowing fish, and monitored for Shaved Monkey purposes by an electronic panel.  What Phil HAS NEVER GUESSED is that a local eccentric millionaire -- and doesn't every out-of-the-way English country village have one?  -- has been sneaking in with his followers to makes obesiances to Mukasa, an ancient African fish goddess.  He has BIG PLANS for this reservoir...But does even he realize what has been digging its way out through the wall of the pumping station house?  WILL ANYONE SURVIVE?

CLIFFIE'S NOTES ON THIS REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT:

>> This book has plenty of typically irritating, self-absorbed Naked Ape characters but they NEVER SEEM TO LIVE VERY LONG.  Bravo!

>>  Only those willing to ADAPT TO AN AQUATIC LIFE survive this story, in fact.  Unless they tick off the ancient African fish goddess, that is.

>> Can someone explain to me why every ancient African goddess in every story I read is a white-skinned blonde?  Huh?

>> The Shaved Monkey recruit thinks he is the one making all this happen -- probably because he is a millionaire who thinks he's pretty smart -- but in fact Mukasa is in charge at every point in this story.  EVENTUALLY HE FINDS THAT OUT.

I want to repeat:  READ THIS ONE!!!