About the author
Rory Barnes (b.1946) was born in England, moved to Rhodesia, and then when he was 10 to Australia, where he’s mostly been ever since. School was a battle: he was dyslexic, but he still managed a university career. During this, he wrote a couple of novels, neither of which was published. When he was on a fellowship at Stanford University, California, Damien Broderick read his novel of politically active school teachers in the sixties and told him the novel would work fine if only it were set in a different time and a different planet. You do it then, said Barnes, and Valencies was the result. They co-authored other novels, and since then Barnes has written whatever he can be paid to write. His subjects include epigenetic cancer, blue-green algae, and an off-the-wall children’s series about Spud, the Horsehead Boy.
Finding the books
Available in Kindle format in 2013.
Sources and links
Rory Barnes’ website
Bibliography (pony books only)
Horsehead Boy
HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia, 1998, 170 pp.
Despite the title, not actually horsey as such: horses (sort of) appear later. This is the first in the trilogy, and introduces Spud, the hero. He has a very nasty accident, and is whizzed off to a futuristic laboratory where he is about to become a wheelie-bin with attachments and bio-feedback mechanisms. It does not quite work out like that, however.
Horsehead Man
HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia 1999, 164 pp.
Spud Wilson is now a 16-year-old brain in Bluey Doig′s adult body. Bluey’s body (and of course Spud’s brain) are kidnapped by his mates. They realise what they’ve got, and are delighted. Their original plan was to get Spud′s brain from Snood′s lab, put it in a racehorse called Staxa Fun and win, win, win. With the help of the two young neurosurgeons, Rachel and Gazza, they can still do it.
Horsehead Soup
HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia 2000, 199 pp.
Previously…. Spud and the horse fell into a tank of liquid nitrogen and were frozen solid for years and years. Now they’re awake. They find out it’s the future, and they’re exhibits in a Year 2000 theme park
