Parodies Lost
Chris Blenkarn
A one-author (almost) zine, but you wouldn't know it by the contents.
The zine is a collection of parodies of different writing styles,
ranging from merciless lampooning of mail order gift catalogues to Inga
as a Jane Austin heroine. I found most of it funny even when I wasn't
familiar with the source material. There are a lot of short pieces, with
a few longer ones, so it's an excellent zine for dipping into at random.
One of my favourite pieces is the first one in the zine, a wickedly
funny parody of those automated call answering systems that involve
listening to a never-ending maze of recorded messages at premium rates.
I can very easily see Avon setting up such a system with messages that
don't bother to hide his opinion of the callers:-)
My other favourite is one of the long pieces. This one's the diary of an
attendee at the Way Forward Conference in the New Federation, along with
all the bits of paper one gets in the application pack. It's horribly,
horribly familiar... Will appeal mightily to those who have had such
things inflicted on them by their managers, and should appeal even to
those who have escaped this. Some of the political satire poking fun at
Britain's New Labour government may go over the heads of non-UK
residents, but the gist of it should be clear.
The zine is a lot of fun, and recommended for those whose tastes run to
parody.
--
Julia Jones "Science is not about building a body of known
'facts'. It is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a
reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us
feel good." - The Science of Discworld