New English Library 1984 (UK)
ISBN 0 450 05708 9 		Ace 1985 (US)
ISBN: 044168680X

 

 

Funtopia review: Earth is under the dominion of the Wasps, an alien race who pursue their own mysterious purposes and rarely interact with humans except through Protector Trenhyass, a hard-headed bureaucrat who, to preserve humanity from casual destruction by the Wasps, must keep the lid on political intrigues among the elite while stamping on subversion from the masses. Down in the gutters, though, forces are at work which will see the Wasps expelled from Earth, only to be replaced by a new set of alien overlords. Again, Farren drives his story along with some choice cultural archetypes – medieval city life, Moses leading the tribes through the wilderness, the brutal clearing of the Warsaw ghetto, mass religious hysteria. The theme of mankind as hapless pawns in a vast alien power-struggle surfaces again in Their Master’s War.
Other reviews:  
Other information Check out Angus McIntyre's site, Other Worlds, which contains two beautiful graphical renderings of the scene in which Protector Trenhyass confronts the Wasps.  The rest of the site's pretty good, too.
Author's comment See Mick Farren's Collected Works.
Availability Out of print, but both UK and US versions are fairly easily available from online booksellers.

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Excerpt (by permission) AT THE prearranged signal, the drums of the Killers thundered out. The sound rolled and echoed through the roots of the towers, it crashed and rang from the walls of buildings and throbbed through tunnels and conduits. There was no mistaking the drums of the Killers. These were not the ordinary drums that beat out a rhythm for dancers or that played before a performance of actors or jugglers. These drums were brutal and violent. Their purpose was to spread a primitive terror, to drive all before their relentless pounding. The Killers had brought their drums to strike terror deep into the soul of all that heard them. The Killers' drums were heralds of a terrible slaughter.
    The Killers had dropped into the lowers in the quiet hours before dawn. The lowers were as close to silent as they ever were, sleeping off the drinking and dancing that had gone on twenty-four hours earlier. All through the previous night and well into the morning, the whole area had celebrated what was being hailed as a Gywannish victory over the Wasps. When the Killers arrived there were few still out and about to see them. The Killers came quietly but they came in force. They drifted down between the towers like formations of bats or black night-birds. The few drunks and street wanderers who spotted them fled in terror. There was no general alarm or warning. The Killers massed their forces at four central assembly points. Once they were in position and there had been no incident, they waited for the signal. Each assembly point had its own massive two-man war drum. The huge drums, nearly two metres across, hung in ornate frames that were decorated with centuries-old trophies and battle honours. There were those who said that the drum heads were made from human skin. Each individual drum was the symbol and sacred object of one of the four divisions of Killers. They were only brought out on solemn or serious occasions. Presumably someone had considered the purging of the lowers to be one of these. The Killers seemed to be treating their mission as some great cleansing of all that was corrupt about their species.

As well as the big war drums, each squad of Killers had a dozen or more drummer boys who would march in front of them. The Killers' preoccupation with the ceremony of drums was viewed by outsiders as less than healthy. It was seen as an atavistic reaching back to a more savage, barbaric age. It was as if the Killers believed that the grim throbbing would put them beyond the confines of any civilised restraints on their use of power or weapons. The throbbing of the drums would make them grow to fit their name. The drums would make them Killers.
    When the Killers first landed, the drums were silent. Rank upon rank of black-clad figures waited with the trained impatience of hunting dogs. Each face was hidden behind an identical blank helmet. Pulsers were clutched at the port and a ceremonial dagger hung from each belt. Officers in black capes and decorated helmets paced or conferred in tense, anxious groups. Finally the word came. A small red light winked on the talkie of each of the four division commanders. Each one spoke briefly and then turned to the two Killers manning the drum and nodded. The heavy wooden hammers were raised. They dropped. The noise split the night. The hundreds of smaller drums crashed in behind. the big ones. The sticks laid into the skins with clenched-teeth aggression. With a roar, the Killers began to move. Some silently rose into the air on their flying- belts. Others crashed down sleeping streets with the massed clatter of steelshod boots.
    They spread out across the Oldmarket kicking over stalls and smashing everything that got in their way. They invaded the Stoneplane, breaking windows, kicking down doors, rousting people from their beds and driving them into the streets. All through the lowers there were screams of pain and outrage and the sounds of destruction. Behind it all, the drums went on and on. Then there was the dull throb of the first pulser. It was followed by another. All over the city the pulser thuds started to come in nonstop volleys. At first it was a simple slaughter. People thought that they were being arrested. Why else would the Killers be breaking down the door and dragging them into the street in the middle of the night? People were scared out of their minds, but they were docile. Nobody suspected it was to be a massacre. When they were herded into groups in the middle of the street they thought that they were going to be taken somewhere, to some kind of camp or holding pen. Then the pulsers cut in. People started falling. Some of the Killers were among them, using their daggers. There was blood on the cobbles. Hysteria spread like wild-fire. The nature of the screaming changed.
    'They're killing us! They're killing us!'
    Somewhere a building was burning and smoke added to the confusion. The people of the lowers weren't docile now. Some fled in panic, others fought back. A teenager with a bapgun took out four Killers before they pulsed her. Some more kids got up on a lean-to roof and were hurling down tiles at the Killers until they too were brought down. It wasn't long before the discipline and organisation of the Killers began to disintegrate as a murderous intoxication took over. The formations blurred and broke up and the Killers rapidly became nothing more than a deadly, raging mob that bowled and screamed bloody homicide through the streets as they ran down their victims. Their frenzy was so out of control that individual Killers even put themselves at risk. They'd become separated from their comrades and found themselves jumped by gangs of vengeful citizens. Bit by bit, quick-witted groups equipped themselves with stolen pulsers and determinedly fought their way out towards the Blackwater. Swiftly, the refugees from the carnage became a human tide. Killers in flying-belts swooped down on them, picking off individuals at random. For a while it looked as though the Killers were bent on exterminating everyone in the area, but as those who fled in the direction of the Blackwater and the disused area discovered to their considerable relief, the Killers hadn't ringed the entire area. For anyone who cut and ran towards the Blackwater, the attacks stopped after a while.