Ihe
About this ebook
when it puts the bite on you
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Almost before the current book/film/TV boost to closeted vampires, there was Ihe, the vampire-wolfman. Almost before the current book/film/TV boost to closeted werewolves, there was Ihe, the wolfman-vampire. And this goes to show extinction is forever, and that those aren’t teeth but fangs! Even before this reprint, Ihe was about a life in shock to any with eyes or ears or noses with sensors attached.
A dud Ihe comes off a dud anti-personnel mine and is not blown to smithereens, for both are duds. In his subsequent search for the last living Thylacine -- the Tasmanian wolf or tiger -- Ihe becomes the last living Tasmanian wolf or tiger, as only duds can. Who could be surprised at that? Can it be seen or heard or smelt that his is the search the search for a mate? If so, can that be borne? Who of human kind left living might know?
Among any recluses unfamiliar with vampires or wolverines arose the alternative question: is he a modern Don Quixote taking his ravishing strides towards his red-blooded quarry, tilting’n’tearing at windmills, getting entangled in the twines of adventures magical or comical or historical or pastoral or classically-literature or however the yarns around really lonely campfires would have it?
For the original 1982 printing of Ihe, now unearthed, the blurb related:
‘Laugh or cry, Ihe rides the nightmare familiar to modern man. On the fringe of our consciousness lurks the Thylacine, come dilly or dally – that there is that which will trip us up as we wander in a world where Dracula lives, where the packs howl through the midnight mists, where gubernatorial elections in Tasmania are just that, where lies extinction for all.
‘In this sensitive and closely-reasoned book, there is the sanity of the psychopath, the logic (put hairily and hair-shirtedly) of the leer or of a Lear. Poor Tasmanian wolfman, are we I or He? We are reminded that extinction is forever and is not to be slurped over or upon.’
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Originally a well-known and widely-performed playwright, Bill Reed began writing fiction in the mid-1970s. He has worked as journalist, editor, publisher both in Australia and overseas. He now resides in Sri Lanka.
About the author
Bill Reed is a novelist, playwright and short-story writer. He was born in Perth, Australia. His nine professionally-produced plays include Burke’s Company, Mr Siggie Morrison with his Comb and Paper, Truganinni, Cass Butcher Bunting. His twelve novels have included Dogod, The 1001 Lankan Nights books 1 and 2, Me the Old Man, and the novel tetralogy Throw Her Back, Are Your Human?, Awash and Tasker Tusker Tasker. Burke’s Company was his first play and has been performed widely on the Australian stage, as well as in London. He has worked as editor and journalist both in Australia and overseas. In 1980 his novel Stigmata won the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ANA award. Since then he has won national competitions in all three categories of drama, novels and short stories. He now lives in Sri Lanka.