Maybe two? This is what befell O'Connor.

Amazingly, he claims he was told to "go away and cry". Instead, he used his "inner pharmacy" to fight MS. The way he tells it, this does not sound so kooky. He cites Lance Armstrong. Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer but fought back and won the Tour de France.

How To Survive Your Mother By Jonathan Maitland Pocket Books £8 299pp BILLED as "a son's true story". This may well be, but is it a true son's story?

Maitland could have written a misery memoir. He opted, instead, for comedy.

There is fun, yes, but overall, any sensitive reader's heart will go out to Mrs Maitland.

Can any woman who opened a hotel for gay men and named it 'Homolulu' be all bad? Course not. In fairness, Maitland doesn't paint her as all bad, but he should have made more of the fact she had a severe personality disorder.

My Lucky Star By Joe Keenan Arrow Books £8 361pp LIBRETTIST Philip Cavanaugh and writing partner Claire Simmons travel to Hollywood to work on a sure-fire hit. It turns out to be a rip-off of Casablanca. To prevent a charge of plagiarism, They have to write a new story. Into this well-told, tangled tale step movie goddess Diana Malentant and her son, Stephen, every woman's dream, who is, however, gay. If that weren't fun enough, Philip develops the hots for Stephen, Diana's bitchy sister is about to publish a family memoir and the LA district attorney wants to unmask Stephen. Orchestrated skilfully.

The Helmet of Horror By Victor Pelevin Canongate £8 274pp DIFFICULT going, this 'novel'. It deals with what actually is and what is perceived reality. I think. The book's eight characters are in an internet chat room. They can leave, but on doing so they enter a labyrinth where a minotaur stalks.

Following a description of the nature of his helmet of horror, the book settles down - somewhat - to a discussion on the act of perception that comes across as pieces of Socratic dialogue.

Impenetrable.

The Vengeance of Rome By Michael Moorcock Vintage Books £8.00 618pp MOORCOCK'S final volume of the Pyat Quartet opens in North Africa in the early 1930s and winds down in London in the 1970s. The great sprawl of a yarn has Pyat working out of Mussolini's Ministry of Overseas Development. From there to the Nazi rat-hole that was Munich, where he has sexual bouts with Ernst Roehm.

He witnesses Roehm's murder, ends up in Dachau. His resourcefulness gets him out. People, he argues, judge you too readily. . . they don't realise you can gradually slip into situations from which you cannot escape. Oh yeah?