UFO Info Week-End

Through the open door she could hear George going on about how wonderful Liddy

Through the open door, she could hear George going on about how wonderful Liddy was, and Liddy fizzing with ideas for places to go on a honeymoon with children. She longed for Dennis to get back, not just because now she was desperate for a drink, but also because the more of them in the house who were in on the problem, the better. She’d feel less of a traitor to her starry-eyed sister if everyone in the silent conspiracy, the conspiracy not to be silent any longer, was gathered under the roof feeling just as uneasy, just as much of a louse.And guilty, too They should have seen this coming Did see it coming, in fact. Why don’t I go back to sleep and maybe I’ll dream about turning into Stevie Ray Vaughan instead, he thought, but somehow he knew this was going to be impossible.He heard the voices of his mother, father and sister outside the door of his room, all urging him to get up.”Greg, you’ll be late for work. Again,” his mother shouted.He tried to reply and gave a start when he heard the sound of his own voice; unmistakably his, but blended with it was the sound of a humbucking pickup.

Fortunately he was plugged in to a small practice amp.”I’ll be right down,” he said, musically.Telling Liddy by Anne Fine (Bantam, pounds 15.99)Meekly, Bridie allowed Stella to prise the knife she’d chosen from her grip, and give her another with which to make a better job of cutting the smoked salmon things into neat, bite-sized pieces. It showed Bonnie Raitt cradling her trademark blue StratocasterGreg’s attention shifted to the window. Raindrops hit the glass in a loose four-four beat, and he felt as though he finally knew what the blues were all about. His room, a normal human room except perhaps a little too small to allow him to play electric guitar at the volume he would have liked, lay peacefully between the four familiar walls. Above the table, which was littered with guitar tutors, CDs and guitar magazines, hung the picture he had recently cut out of a magazine and stuck to the wall.

He was lying on his back, which was of a lacquered hardness, and when he lifted his headstock a little he became aware of his belly with scratch plate and tremolo arm. His strings, of a pitifully light gauge, vibrated ineffectually.What’s going on? he thought.This was no dream. When Prins spoke it sounded as if he was enclosed by a net of frozen water.Flesh Guitar by Geoff Nicholson (Gollancz, pounds 9.99)Greg Wintergreen woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into an electric guitar. Prins kept grinning and saying, “Snow,” as if he was naming it for the first time. Garden walls, and the leaves of my neighbour’s evergreen shrubs in the front garden, were turning fuzzy with this quietly growing whiteness The sound level of the whole neighbourhood had dropped.