Search Results for: grendel

When Grendel is drawn up from the caves under the mere, where he lives with his bloated, inarticulate hag of a mother, into the fresh night air, it is to lay waste Hrothgar’s meadhall and heap destruction on the humans he finds there. What else can he do? For he is not like the men who busy themselves with God and love and beauty. He sees the infuriating human rage for order and recognises the meaninglessness of his own existence.

GRENDEL is John Gardner’s masterpiece; it vividly reinvents the world of Beowulf. In Grendel himself, a creature of grotesque comedy, pain and disillusioned intelligence, Gardner has created the most unforgettable monster in fantasy.

Knud Axel Syrup, chief engineer of the spaceship Mercury Girl, sat and drank his favourite beer and thought about the coming war he was so anxious to avoid. For Grendel – the planetoid on which he was stranded – had been occupied by a band of fiery Irish revolutionaries. And once the rival Anglians discovered this, there response would be speedy and violent.

Then, as Herr Syrup shook up a bottle of brew and let the foam shoot out of its top, he realised suddenly what could be done to get him off Grendel.

And so came about a marvellous spaceship – built of beer kegs, bound by gunk, upholstered with pretzel boxes, and powered by the mighty reaction forces of malted brew!