Ihe

Extinction is foreverespecially when it sinks its fangs into youAlmost 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. 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 might know? Among any recluses unfamiliar with vampires or wolverines arose the alternative 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 around really lonely campfires would have it?For the original 1982 printing of Ihe, now unearthed, the blurb ‘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 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.’------------about the authorOriginally a well-known and widely-performed playwright, Bill Reed began writing fiction way back. He has worked as a journalist and editor both in Australia and overseas. He now resides mostly in Sri Lanka.