Originally published in 1981
221 pages
I’ve always liked the idea of druids, calm, at one with nature, and Celtic, or so I thought until I read Doomflight. Guy N Smith paints a chilling picture of these formerly happy larrikins, no longer do they wander dreamily in meadows, no, and in fact it’s quite the opposite. Lurking around sacrificial circles, always on the hunt for innocents to slaughter to their cruel gods, boy, what bunch of killjoys!
Doomflight manages with some aplomb to serve as both an anti Druid polemic and a saucy thriller-horror, set in that most contemporary of locations, the Airport. Young love competes against both the realities of modern life, and the ancient dread that are the druids, apparently. It is a kaleidoscope of themes, sexual innuendo, and straight down, town hall local planning discussion.
There are two main storylines to follow, which is not much of a trial, even for my fevered brow. A group of ruthless businessmen seek to build a new airport for central England, one that will make them rich, and be dammed the consequences! The locals are angry, fearful of losing their quiet, rustic lifestyle to the wheels and wings of progress. Now usually this would be a heart-warming story of local grass roots action organising against the rich developers, but sadly, the ancient world intervenes. The filthy druids are also angry, the new airport has been built upon their sacred sacrificial circle, and this is apparently a bad thing. Now speaking for myself, I don’t want to be involved with a religion that thinks that cheap flights for the masses is sacrilege.
Now if such goings on make you yawn, never fear, Doomflight is more than just druids, developers, and tiresome locals, indeed, there is sufficient raunchy content to make the most straight-laced of readers loosen their necktie. Sue and Lance are a lusty young couple, both of whom work for the airline that flies into the new airport. They should be happy, their lives are good, they get paid a lot, they travel for free, and, well, they have urges. Or so you would think, but its hard work living life when your employers are money hungry rats, and evil druids are trying to kill all those involved with the airport.
This makes it hard for the young love to blossom, damn external events, I hate them. To make things worse, the druids have got some sort of weird sexual power that make Sue sleep around with the other pilots. That isn’t cool, not in my book. Dead druids should not mess with that kind of thing. Things look grim for all involved, well except for those druids, boy, everything goes their way, makes me wonder why they’re so angry. They should rename this book Dead druids get irrationally angry, kill people, sacrifice virgins, everyone else has a rough time. At this point I should remind readers that Doomflight is a horror novel, and my position may be slightly unreasonable.
Doomflight is an enjoyable read, Guy N Smith after all is an accomplished short fiction horror writer. He hits the necessary buttons and does so in an England of about thirty years past. Near-contemporary history and horror, all in one book, what more could one want? To prove the point that people often write to put across their own peculiar opinions Smith has made Doomflight a powerful anti-Druid polemic, which I respect. Writers should not be over friendly to crazy religions with odd, kind of irrational ceremonies.
However there is a down side. In a vain effort to bring Doomflight to a suitably climactic finish Smith decides to introduce a catastrophic WMD explosion into what would normally be a believably sad plane explosion. This effectively destroys south-central England, and leaves poor Sue’s face covered in blistering (possibly from radiation). This seemed kind of an over-reaction to the building of an airport on a stone circle, but then druids are apparently chumps.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has half an hour to spare and could do with a laugh, suitably tinged with delightful, saucy horror. If you don’t expect a fair, balanced examination of the issues facing undead contemporary druids and are quite happy to learn more about the futility of opposing airport development in rural areas, then Doomflight will satisfy your needs.
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