Both known for supernatural thrillers, authors Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker team up for the first time to bring you HOUSE, a well-designed horror novel with built-in wide appeal.

Jack and Stephanie are an on-the-rocks married couple whose car is sabotaged by road spikes, stranding them in the middle of nowhere (aka Alabama backwoods), but conveniently near an old inn, where they seek help. So do Randy and Leslie, an unmarried, selfish pair whose car also mysteriously was felled. Their hosts are an inbred family of three, the son of whom is mildly retarded and wants to make Leslie his wife. HOUSE immediately subverts your expectations by making these kooks into “Jesus freaks”; true, plenty of horror novels do the same, but given Peretti and Dekker’s allegiance to evangelical themes, it’s a bit of a surprise. However, they actually have a reason for doing so.

Our castaways’ hope for a safe and pleasant evening are summarily dashed and then outright shattered with the appearance of the Tin Man, a local serial killer so named become of his jagged-metal mask. He wants to play a game: They have until dawn to give him a dead body, or they all die. The foursome retreats into the basement for safety – a bad move, since it’s a cavernous maze of pitch-black tunnels, demons, dopplegangers and strange rooms in which the impossible comes true.

Early on, HOUSE elicits a major case of the creeps. That power is diminshed somewhat by an overlong chase (roughly two-thirds of the book), which further serves to underwhelm the ending. Still, its premise and pacing recall some of the down-and-dirty thrillers of Dean Koontz (not to mention elements of SAW and DELIVERANCE), and predictable it is not, partly because the authors withhold as much information from us for as long as possible, lending the events in the basement a surreal, nightmarish quality. Their writing style is simple but effective, drawing you in early on and refusing to loosen its grip.

The mark of any good scare story is whether it can rack the nerves. HOUSE certainly does, even if its nihilism-free outlook and outcome is more positive than others. This metaphorical good vs. evil tale is still violent, with lots of bloodletting, so it’s sure to please fright fans. If so, the supplemental material allows you to sample the authors’ other recent solo works, SHOWDOWN and MONSTER. And if that’s not enough, the publishers have handily supplied a DVD full of trailers, behind-the-scenes material and trivia games for Hollywood’s Peretti and Dekker adaptations (HANGMAN’S CURSE, THE VISITATION and THR3E), a club to be joined by HOUSE in 2007. –Rod Lott

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The new Tami Hoag book PRIOR BAD ACTS returns to Minneapolis and features the likable detective duo of Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska, previously seen in DUST TO DUST. Before they get on the scene, we open with the discovery of a truly brutal and heinous crime that involves the death and violation of a woman and two foster children. Hoag really isn’t a member of the gross-out group, those writers who lovingly detail every single aspect of a gruesome crime, but she is damn creepy. Her set pieces all have this cinematic feel about them, and the visual payoff is often wildly disturbing and intriguing at the same time.

The police force likes a drifter named Karl Dahl for the crime and they have a ton of circumstantial evidence against him, including a pattern of past criminal behavior. But Judge Carey Moore states that Dahl’s prior bad acts cannot be used as evidence in the trial, hence the title. This infuriates the force and the community, and the judge is threatened. As she heads to her car, an assailant strikes and beats her badly. Right around the same time, Dahl gets into a prison fight and is taken to hospital. With a remarkable stroke of luck, he escapes from the hospital and is now at large. Not good times for the judge, the cops or the city.

This would be enough for most novelists to work with, but Hoag has a lot more surprises in store for her readers. And I don’t want to ruin the fun you’ll have reading the book, but they include things like a busted marriage, a budding romance, more than one homicidal maniac and an uneasy feeling for just about everyone associated with the case. Everybody’s got something going on. You might be able to see a few of the twists telegraphed, but not all of them at the same time.

What makes the story work is Hoag’s craft with her characters. She provides an emotional certitude to the whole proceeding. You believe that Judge Moore acts the way she does for a reason, and you understand why and how Kovac and Dahl are acting the way they do. Their motivations and behaviors are proper and exact, with the sole exception of Judge Moore’s husband David, who seems a little inconsistent and doesn’t always act in his own best interests.

But that’s a minor quibble. The book is quite satisfying with a thrilling ending, and a hook that provides an opportunity for more Kovac and Liska books, which would be welcome. –Mark Rose

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Ah, March. That’s the “in like a lion, out like a lamb” month, right? What a crock. Things around here are so fierce and hairy that we almost forgot it was time for our end-o’-month roundup of search terms that bring people to our fine corner of the Internet. You’ll notice we’re doing it a little bit differently now.

Is there some big-money contest going on I don’t know about? Perhaps one that hinges on arcane plot points from “The Monkey’s Paw”? Because that takes the top slot this month, followed by “Eleanor’s tit.” I don’t know who Eleanor is, but I hope she finds it. And speaking of, Mimi Rogers and Uschi Digard make their usual appearances, joined now by Kristin Chenoweth. And a scant few actual terms involving books. Enjoy, you pervs.

45 who was responsible for herbert’s death in the monkey’s paw by w w jacobs
30 eleanor’s tit
24 the last templar
21 uschi digard
17 kristin chenoweth fhm
15 24 declassified
14 bookgasm
14 john twelve hawkes
13 kristin chenoweth breasts
11 kristin chenoweth
9 scary movies
8 juggin joe
8 mimi rogers
8 sexy movies
8 evangeline lilly naked
7 snuff films women stomping men
6 kristin chenoweth nude
6 dean koontz’s frankenstein book three
6 chenoweth fhm
6 mimi rogers nude

Parents! Talk to your children about sex! Lest they end up a WITNESS TO MYSELF!

Alan should know. In Seymour Shubin’s newest crime novel, he was a good but overprotected kid, being an only child. Girls were an utter mystery to him when he hit puberty 15 years ago. On vacation in Cape Cod with his folks, his sexual curiosity gets the best (or worst) of him when a chance encounter in the woods leaves a 12-year-old girl dead. Or at least he thinks so. Never caught nor questioned, Alan is haunted by the memory of that day half his life ago.

Now a lawyer and falling in love for the first time with a sympathetic nurse (they meet cute as he recovers from gall bladder surgery), he can’t rest until he finds out what exactly happened to the girl. Did she die at all? And if so, was he really to blame? Despite the nagging guilt he already harbors, Alan will wish he’d left well enough alone.

His paranoia slowly but markedly escalates, and I felt it as well every step of the way. WITNESS TO MYSELF is literally a pulse-pounder. Narrated by Alan’s loving cousin Colin – a crime writer – the novel has a shuddering, you-are-there intimacy made all the more uncomfortably close as it deals with all-too-familiar pangs of adolesence. In that aspect, it’s a different shade of noir for Hard Case Crime; their books are always harrowing, gritty and even violent … but poignant? Shubin’s sobering tale is definitely that, full of very real emotions, while also earning high marks for highest-order suspense. This demands to be read in a single sitting, and earns it.

Despite his huge childhood mistake, I really felt for Alan, who is otherwise a good person. Certainly this was Shubin’s intention, and he does a masterful job of making you think the story will go this way, or this character will do that. Instead, he arrives at a heartbreaking end that’s a sucker-punch to the groin, and I mean that as a compliment. Few writers can make you feel that kind of pain. For that, I call WITNESS TO MYSELF as the finest book Hard Case has issued so far, new or old. –Rod Lott

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Tony Shalhoub is a tremendous actor. Whether he plays Antonio Scarpacci in the old WINGS TV show, or as Primo the chef in BIG NIGHT or now as Adrian Monk in the USA Network series MONK, Shalhoub brings a vulnerable quirkiness to every role. His range is surprising, and his attention to detail is what can make a relatively minor character (like Scarpacci) into a vital part of the whole. The subtle touches he provides, especially to a damaged character like Mr. Monk, make you watch him and become engrossed in the story.

Former police detective Adrian Monk is a character not every one appreciates. An outstanding detective who lost mental focus after the murder of his wife – a crime he cannot seem to solve – Monk’s eccentricities devolve into full-blown obsessive-compulsiveness. He’s a clean freak. He’s obsessed with symmetry. He boils his toothbrush after brushing. He is freaked out by odd numbers. He is germophobic. In essence, he’s a brilliant mind wrapped in a protective shawl of fear, paranoia, inhibition and a committed belief that there is only one right way, the Monk way, to interact with the world. Spontaneity does not enter into the picture.

Based on a character by Andy Breckman, Shalhoub plays Monk perfectly. But there’s a little something missing in an hour-long show devoted to both an intricate mystery and the character’s oddness. There usually isn’t enough time to explore Monk and why he’s doing what he’s doing. So enter Lee Goldberg and another excellent TV tie-in book, the first in the series, entitled MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE. A book-length exploration of Monk is just so much more satisfying because we get to see more of the detective’s odd little world.

Monk’s house is being fumigated so he must temporarily move in with his long-suffering assistant, Natalie Teeger. The book is written from her point of view, a clever shift that allows us to be a voyeur on Monk’s behavior without the constraints that would come from having Monk explain his own obsessions. Teeger has an adolescent child and surprisingly, Monk and the child get along well, even though he notes to the mother that children are “walking cesspools” of disease. The child is upset because a local firehouse dog has been killed by some ax-wielding maniac. Monk takes the case.

And from there, the case gets progressively weirder, as do Monk’s habits. First, another body is found, then Teeger becomes romantically involved with one of the firemen, and all the while, Monk is slowly driving his assistant crazy with incessant demands and whacked-out behavior. But there is always a method to Monk’s peculiar madness, and the way he solves crimes and deduces facts throughout the plot is thoroughly entertaining. He sees more than we do, because he sees things that are out of place. We might see a mess, but Monk sees a catastrophe, and because of that vision, he is able to know when things are not only not right, but downright sinister.

While there are some rather contrived plot points, most of the book sails through on its good humor and the likeability of the protagonists. If you like the series, you’ll love the book, and if you’re just lukewarm about the show, the book is even better and stays true to the character that Breckman and Tony Shalhoub have helped to create. –Mark Rose

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Moon Knight is kind of like the poor man’s Batman. This white-masked, white-caped superhero is a multimillionaire bachelor who spends his nights protecting the city from evildoers. But Bruce Wayne would never spend his days masquerading as a cabbie when there are models to bang. But that’s not to say Moon Knight isn’t worth hanging out with. On the contrary, he’s an absolute blast, judging from Marvel Comics’ new ESSENTIAL MOON KNIGHT: VOL. 1, collecting his first 26 appearances.

Aiding Moon Knight on his adventures are his super-hot girlfriend, Marlene; a sassy black diner waitress; a homeless man who always has a cloud of flies around him; and his personal helicopter pilot, a Frenchman named (now pay attention, because this is awfully subtle) Frenchy. The man first appeared in a pair of WEREWOLF BY NIGHT issues in 1975, as an anti-heroic, former Solider of Fortune turned bounty hunter, on assignment by a shady corporation to capture the living lycanthrope.

After that – and a bite from the wolfman that only strengthened his powers – he moved on to the straight superheroics in the MARVEL SPOTLIGHT tryout title, as well as the obligatory battle with Spider-Man and appearance alongside The Thing in MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE. A heretofore just fine ESSENTIAL title gets truly essential from there, reprinting eight appearances from the black-and-white THE HULK! magazine of the ’70s. Because this mag was not technically a comic book (and thus not regulated by the Comics Code Authority), the stories are grittier and racier (i.e. Marlene sure does disrobe a lot), on a PUNISHER level.

These helped catapult Moon Knight into his own series, and the first 10 issues of that early-’80s title close out this collection. Commendably, the transition to it from the previous stories is seamless, because – with the exception of the aforementioned Spidey/Thing team-ups – all the issues were penned by Moon Knight’s creator, Doug Moench. You can tell he loves his own character, because the stories are invested with more creativity and imagination; they don’t often use the monthly “hero fights blank” formula.

Instead, they’re about ideas and concepts, like Moon Knight’s powers waning during a full lunar eclipse, a bioterrorism attack on the Chicago water supply that turns people mad or a trip to St. Lucien where the locals are disappearing and turned into zombies. And when the issues do fall into the villain-of-the-month category, at least the situations are interesting, like placing Moon Knight and his foe on a lifesize chessboard, booby-trapped with explosives.

Prior to ESSENTIAL MOON KNIGHT, my experience with the character was extremely limited. Now, some 500 pages later, I feel like I’ve known him for years. With ace art from Bill Sienkiewicz and others, this is not to be missed by fans of Marvel’s more idiosyncratic heroes. –Rod Lott

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Polish sci-fi writer Stanislaw Lem died of heart failure yesterday at the age of 84.

He is best known for the existential space novel SOLARIS, later made into the 1972 Russian classic film by Andrei Tarkovsky, as well as the 2002 underrated, misunderstood remake from Steven Soderbergh.

With the release of a 14-disc ULTIMATE DVD COLLECTION, BOOKGASM thought it apt to check out three books in the PLANET OF THE APES universe: the original novel, a tie-in and a non-fiction book about the whole phenomenon.

Recently I breezed through Pierre Boulle’s classic novel PLANET OF THE APES (originally titled MONKEY PLANET). It’s more than a bit different from the movie, though a few of the characters are the same, and more satire than science fiction. The first 20 pages are a drag, but I quite enjoyed the rest. Plus, it has not one, but two twist endings! Damn you, Pierre! Damn you all to hell!

In addition to a novelization of Tim Burton’s remake, author William T. Quick also penned two original novels tied to the remake, the first of which is THE FALL. Remember the beginning of the film, where Mark Wahlberg’s character leaves the spaceship Oberon in pursuit of the monkey and falls into the time warp? The book stays behind on the ship, where Lt. Gen. Vasich decides to send more monkeys out in pods into the disturbance to rescue his lost astronaut. However, this triggers a massive implosion which rocks their mighty ship, sending it crash-landing onto a mysterious planet.

This is where you’d expect the downed crew to have adventures with all the intelli-ape characters from the film, but nope. Instead, Quick makes the menace be a snotty mass of flesh-eating insects that grow into scorpion-wolverine hybrids known as Brax. And these creatures are all linked so they can see what each individual one is seeing, making their forced extinction more difficult for our crew. Luckily, they have genetically engineered one of their test monkeys to give birth to a super-smart ape whose head his so big he busts his poor momma’s pelvis during delivery. This monkey learns to walk and talk just like a human, and if you smell “prequel,” you’ve got quite a nose on you.

Allowing Quick to further screw with the timeline and overall mythology is intriguing, but I’m afraid THE FALL simply fails when it ceases being about apes in favor of bugs. After all, the franchise is not PLANET OF THE INSECTS.

I literally waited for a book like PLANET OF THE APES REVISITED for years. Back in 1994, I had sent in my check for a copy; it was never cashed, as the title was canceled and shopped around from house to house before finding a home to St. Martin’s, thanks to renewed interest in the series (likely granted by Tim Burton’s version).

Overall, it was worth the wait, with authors Joe Russo, Larry Landsman and Edward Gross exhaustively covering each movie in the five-film franchise, with exclusive insights from the creative parties involved. The TV show and cartoon show also are discussed to good effect, but the chapter on Burton’s 2001 reimagining just reads like tacked-on PR fluff. The boys’ approach occasionally reads fanboyish, but not to an extreme that ruins their credibility or your enjoyment.

I thought that having seen the excellent BEHIND THE PLANET OF THE APES documentary, I might have learned all there is to know, but the book reveals plenty more, from Kim Hunter’s claustrophobic reaction to the ape makeup to the odd choice who almost directed the landmark original: Blake Edwards!?!

Strap on those belts, kids. There’s a lot of ground to cover in New Releaseland this week, and we’re going to make it quick.

• Anyone out there not read THE DA VINCI CODE yet? If so, Dan Brown’s thriller is set to take them prisoner as it hits paperback today, while the hardcover still rakes in it on the Top 10. It’s been almost three years since I read it, pre-success, pre-parodies, pre-movie, pre-lawsuits; what’s been lost since then is that it’s an extremely well-done read.

• HIS MAJESTY’S DRAGON is the first book in a fantasy trilogy from Naomi Novik, about giant dragons fighting wars. BOOKGASM reviewed it last week here; it made our reviewer cry. Twice. In public. Must be damn good.

• Michael Gruber’s NIGHT OF THE JAGUAR is a supernatural thriller that serves as a follow-up to TROPIC OF NIGHT and VALLEY OF BONES. One review I read mentioned something about a shapeshifting jungle cat, which spells “intriguing” to me.

• For those seeking behind-the-scenes dish on the films ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, SWAMP THING and CREEPSHOW, search no more! Buxom ’80s actress Adrienne Barbeau busts out with her autobiography, THERE ARE WORSE THINGS I COULD DO. We give the cover two thumbs up.

• Egyptology nuts could do worse than TOMB OF THE GOLDEN BIRD, Elizabeth Peters’ 18th entry in the Amelia Peabody mystery series.

• GONE is where Jonathan Kellerman hopes his latest crime novel goes from store shelves. It’s the 19th in his Alex Delaware series. Suck on that, Peabody!

• Ruth Reichl recounts her experiences as an undercover food critic for The New York Times in GARLIC AND SAPPHIRES: THE SECRET LIFE OF A CRITIC IN DISGUISE. Part memoir, part recipe book, it made me all hungry.

• Hitting paperback is ONE SHOT, the most recent Jack Reacher thriller from Lee Child. Dig in before Reacher returns this summer in THE HARD WAY. Me, I’m still two books behind!

• The third book in Raymond E. Feist’s CONCLAVE OF SHADOWS series, EXILE’S RETURN, arrives in paperback to appease fantasy fans.

• From 2003, Jane Jensen’s DANTE’S EQUATION gets reprinted in this heady sci-fi thriller combining codes and the Kabbalah. Piece of red yarn not included.

As the third book in Christopher Fowler’s ongoing Bryant & May detective series, THE WATER ROOM is such an exceedingly well-done mystery that I’m now anxious to read all the others.

The elderly, bickering, longtime partners Arthur Bryant and John May head up London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit, which takes on only the strangest cases around. This time, the unusual matter at hand is an old woman found drowned in her inexplicably dry basement. It seems to be an isolated incident until someone else on the same street dies in an equally bizarre manner. This revelation forces the duo to step up its investigation, all the while persuing a wayward professor in the underground sewer tunnels on a seemingly different case.

Imagine if the gang at CSI were replaced by cranky, anti-social old men, yet the strikingly odd cases remained the same, and you’ve got a pretty good idea what to expect from THE WATER ROOM. The characters are a big part of what I liked so much about the book; both leads are distinctive and good-humored, and each member of their support team – bumbling in his or her own way – stands out as well and serves an actual purpose (as do the many suspects). But no matter how strong the players are, a mystery just isn’t a mystery without the mystery, and this is one I couldn’t figure out for the life of me. And no wonder; it’s so complex, it takes Bryant about a dozen pages to explain it all.

In THE WATER ROOM (and, I suppose, FULL DARK HOUSE and SEVENTY-SEVEN CLOCKS which precede it), Fowler has crafted a thoroughly winning novel, both clever and charming. He’s made me an instant fan of a unique detective twosome I didn’t expect to warm up to. At a time when it seems the mystery shelves are overpopulated with entries from the feline-and-felony school, it’s refreshing to find a whodunit that follows the old-school formula in entirely original ways.

Next up for the Peculiar Crimes Unit is this summer’s TEN SECOND STAIRCASE, a preview of which is included in this paperback edition. –Rod Lott

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DC Comics’ attempt at a TALES FROM THE CRYPT-like horror anthology was the long-running THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY, hosted by a wisecracking (but less punny) caretaker named Cain, whose hair spiked up like devil horns. Now nearly four years of Cain’s comics are collected for the first time in the trade paperback SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY: VOLUME 1.

Following the establishment of the Comics Code that forced E.C. and its CRYPT out of business, THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY couldn’t afford to be gory, so it has to settle for being more suggestive than sickening. Luckily, that forced that creative teams to be more imaginative, and the result has a cozy, campfire-tale aspect to it that made this read completely effortless, totally fun and all too quick.

Each of the 21 issues here (from 1969-1971) features anywhere from a couple to a few individual stories, involving ghosts, hauntings, voodoo, mummies, curses and creatures of all kinds, from a dinosaur to a human wave. (Yes, a human wave.) Though simpler than a CRYPT tale, they’re not as predictable, as they’re not all dependent on a gruesome, 180˚ twist. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, but – like my children – I loved them all just the same.

What makes this HOUSE all the more charming are the one- or two-page filler features that bridge the main stories. These include “Cain’s Game Room,” which has Sergio Aragonés cooking up MAD-style macabre single panel gags; “Cain’s True Case Files,” in which a supposedly real-life supernatural event is shared; “Odds and Ends from Cain’s Cellar,” a fact feature a la “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”; and “Room 13,” an anything-goes 13th page, which isn’t afraid to interrupt an in-progress story to make itself known.

Though HOUSE OF MYSTERY will never be as revered as DC’s flagship titles, its lineup of rotating artists boasted such greats as Alex Toth, Al Williamson, Wally Wood, Jack Kirby, Bernie Wrightson, Gil Kane, Jim Aparo and Neal Adams, who did all the covers. The writers were equally as talented – witness Joe Orlando, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein and Gerry Conway. For fans of this DC era or horror comics in general, the purchase of this 550-page SHOWCASE is an absolute no-brainer.

I commend DC for another outstanding SHOWCASE collection, following the recent JONAH HEX. I just hope they follow suit with another volume of MYSTERY, as well as those for its companion series, THE HOUSE OF SECRETS. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

According to the official website of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Child’s next novel will be the thriller DEEP STORM, his first since 2004’s excellent DEATH MATCH.

The plot is described as thus: “It is the most spectacular science research facility ever constructed – 12,000 feet beneath the icy waters of the Atlantic, below the ocean floor, lies Deep Storm. This heavily guarded facility has one sole purpose: to excavate a recently discovered undersea site that promises to be the most stunning archaeological find in history - the remains of what is believed to be humankind’s most sophisticated ancient civilization, Atlantis. Now that the cloaked excavation is underway, several mysterious medical problems have been surfacing. Peter Crane is a former naval doctor who has been summoned under a veil of secrecy to investigate the strange illnesses spreading through the population of scientists and engineers working within Deep Storm. Before long he learns that something far more covert may be underway. The further Peter probes, the more astonishing – and alarming – the truth becomes.”

His writing partner Preston’s most recent solo work was TYRANNOSAUR CANYON. Together, the bestselling Preston/Child duo are set to release THE BOOK OF THE DEAD – a follow-up to BRIMSTONE and DANCE OF DEATH – on June 6. DEEP STORM will be released sometime in 2007.

I’m officially disenchanted with Richard Laymon. Because after reading his latest posthumous release, AFTER MIDNIGHT, the Laymon books I’ve disliked outnumbers the Laymon books I enjoyed.

When Laymon is good, he’s great, but when he’s bad, he’s terrible. Unfortunately, AFTER MIDNIGHT falls into the latter category. Like THE LAKE, it smells as if Laymon wrote a single draft in one long night and turned that in. It’s lazy, and there’s no need for it to be more than 400 pages; when something this loose gets that long, it’s not plotting, but typewriter masturbation.

This particular session is narrated by Alice, a young woman who lives in her best friend’s guest house, and housesits her nice home while the family is on vacation. One night while enjoying the big-screen TV and microwave popcorn, Alice notices a strange man emerge from the woods, strip naked and take a dip in the pool. Paranoia sets in, and before you know it, Alice is in for a night of killing and screwing, killing and screwing, and yes, killing and screwing.

Laymon unwisely chose Alice to serve as the book’s narrator. Though she’s supposed to be 26 years old, her voice is as immature and grating as a spoiled teenager. Just as I couldn’t stomach listening to someone like that for 10 minutes in real life, I didn’t want to spend 10 pages with Alice, either. She’s neither likable nor sympathetic, thereby violating one of the cardinal rules of fiction. Not to say that rules can’t be broken, but if they are, you’d better have a damn good reason for doing so. AFTER MIDNIGHT doesn’t. It’s certainly not the best legacy Laymon left behind. –Rod Lott

“His tongue got me. I gasped and flinched with the sudden shock of it. His mouth lifted off me. ‘Looks like I’ve awakened Sleeping Beauty. Does this mean I’m a prince?’ He went crazy on me, plunging and ramming as if he needed to get someplace where nobody’d ever gone before. By damn, I think he succeeded. When he was done, he stayed inside and settled down heavily on top of me. When he could talk, he said, ‘Are you okay?’ I answered by flexing some muscles down there.”

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Apparently I am the big baby of BOOKGASM’s reviewing staff, because I cried twice, full out, while reading Naomi Novik’s HIS MAJESTY’S DRAGON, published as TEMERAIRE in the UK. Now, you may blame it on some kind of hormonal imbalance, but I choose to believe it’s because Ms. Novik is a tremendously capable writer, and gives both her human and non-human characters such endearing attributes that one cannot but help to care about their lives. This powerful, engrossing book is the first in a trilogy, with THRONE OF JADE to be released at the end of April, followed by BLACK POWDER WAR in May.

This isn’t your parents’ Tolkienesque fantasy, either. The book is set in the heyday of the Napoleonic Era, when Britain and France are fighting bitterly across the Channel, when England has the greatest naval forces in the world and the French have one of the greatest generals ever to stride the earth, Napoleon Bonaparte. Amidst all of this comes the fantastic element: There be dragons here. That’s right, both sides have an air force, consisting of gigantic dragons of all colors, sizes, breeds and abilities. Almost everything else is spot-on historically correct for the era; it just happens that dragons are a realistic component of society. And these dragons aren’t just beasts of burden, but intelligent and thoughtful creatures who forge intimate bonds with their handlers and flyers, somewhat reminiscent of dogs in a theater of war.

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There’s a certain purity in the art of the short story: Beginning, middle and end are never far apart, and ideas can be conveyed with more immediacy and impact than they ever could in longer forms. The Brian M. Thomsen-edited NOVEL IDEAS: SCIENCE FICTION illustrates this point swimmingly, taking original short works that inspired longer, more well-known (or infamous, as the case may be) siblings and letting the authors write introductions that set the stage for the stories’ beginnings.

Some of these stories are hints of later success (Anne McCaffrey’s “Lady in the Tower,” Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game,” Greg Bear’s “Blood Music” and Connie Willis’ “Fire Watch”). Others are known mostly by their celluloid accompaniments (John Varley’s “Air Raid,” which became the novel and movie MILLENNIUM, and unfortunately, David Brin’s “The Postman”). And at least one (Nancy Kress’ “Beggars in Spain”) provides a more recent testament to the survival of the short story.

Indeed, with the exception of Kress’ contribution, all of the works in NOVEL IDEAS are more than 20 years old, with McCaffrey’s story dating back to 1959. Yet all fit in today’s literary landscape, and not just through their pedigrees. NOVEL IDEAS provides an excellent, economical jumping-off point for These Kids Nowadays who think that science fiction started with NEUROMANCER and really hit its stride with SNOW CRASH.

To wit:
• “Lady in the Tower” shows that McCaffrey is one hell of a writer, despite being bogged down in the machine that is the enormous popularity of the THE DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN.
• “Fire Watch” is a great introduction to Willis’ time-travel masterworks THE DOOMSDAY BOOK and TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG.
• While “Ender’s Game” and “Blood Music” serve as significant spoilers to seminal works of science fiction, there’s no doubting their power.
• A word about “The Postman.” This is a great short story, resulting in a great book that got turned into Amazonan abomination of a movie. Don’t hold it against Brin; he’s really a gifted writer, and “The Postman” works as sort of a kindler, gentler Max Max. Really! If society collapses, are we really going to ride around smashing each other over the heads all day? Not likely.
• “Air Raid” is the weak link of a world-beating bunch, but that may be because it and the resulting novel aren’t as well-known as the rest. Varley’s an extremely literate writer, and “Air Raid” is enough to make readers thirsty for the whole story.
• As for “Beggars of Spain,” it’s easy to see why this short story won both a Hugo and Nebula award. The less-well-known trilogy spawned by this story will hopefully get a well-deserved sales boost from this. Who can resist spooky kids genetically engineered to never sleep?

Readers familiar with the above books should at least give NOVEL IDEAS: SCIENCE FICTION – a companion to the current NOVEL IDEAS: FANTASY a look. The author-penned introductions are great windows into the creative process and provide some useful caveats. Top-shelf stuff. –Ryun Patterson

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A good labyrinth should curve around with so many twists and turns that you lose all sense of direction and aren’t sure where you’re headed. It should intrigue, stupify and ultimately lead to a satisfying end (and hopefully not at the mercy of a minotaur). Kate Mosse’s LABYRINTH, already a hit in her native UK, mostly succeeds.

In present day, Dr. Alice Tanner is serving as a volunteer at an archeological dig when a falling boulder reveals a crack in a mountain that leads to a pitch-black labyrinth. Inside, Alice finds two skeletons, an unusual ring and other artifacts. When she regains consciousness, the police are asking her questions and her friends soon find themselves in potentially fatal trouble. Meanwhile, in the year 1209, Alaïs – the daughter of a powerful Frenchman – finds a dead body floating in the river near her home, which sparks worry and devious plans amongst her father and his band of Crusade-fighting warriors. He entrusts her with one of three books containing the secret of the Grail.

As with similar novels of the thriller genre, Mosse jumps back and forth between these two stories, which we know are inexorably linked, even though we may not know how. Parallels can be drawn between the two strong female protagonists; however, there stories are markedly different, and it is to Mosse’s credit that both are commanding of your attention.

And attention you will need. Mosse’s prose is dense, but not dull. Full of historical detail (sometimes too much) and rich in character, this is not a book to be rushed through. Prepare to spend a lot of time with it, and you’ll want to. I’d argue that LABYRINTH is roughly 100 pages too long, but at least when it finally reaches its end, you feel rewarded. –Rod Lott

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There is a fine line between a cozy mystery and one bundled in swaddling clothes, and unfortunately, Gillian Roberts’ A HOLE IN JUAN falls in the latter category. There are powerful themes to be explored here, but Roberts is too constrained, never letting her main character Amanda Pepper loose among these interesting concepts.

Pepper teaches English at a prep school in Philadelphia. The time is Halloween, and Mischief Night is approaching. While all the fake ghouls and goblins are preparing for the festivities, there is a more disturbing undercurrent of malice and dread that seems to threaten the school. Is it just pranks and mischief that seem to bedevil the school or is it something far more sinister?

Predictably, and frustratingly, Pepper keeps her feelings and suspicions to herself, even when confronted by people who ask her specifically about the situation. Even when fellow teacher Juan Reyes is critically wounded in the chemistry lab (hence the hole in Juan – no, it’s not a golfing mystery), she still seems unwilling to believe that anything truly untoward is happening. And so, of course, she withholds information from the police. No wonder cops hate amateur detectives.

If that isn’t bad enough, the astute reader is given a vital piece of the puzzle early on, and we spend much of the rest of the book waiting for Pepper to catch up with us. At every opportunity, Pepper seems to take the counterintuitive route to resolving her problem, not communicating in some instances, oversharing in others, and always misreading everyone around her.

Mix that with a slew of wild improbabilities, including the end – where Pepper can’t even be the hero, but seems to need the help of three drunken frat boys – and it all comes out a little sour. Which is a shame, because Roberts is not a bad writer. Her style is slick and readable, dialogue is often pitch-perfect, and her themes could provide for some really strong stuff. The motive for what occurs is quite hideous and I would have liked to have seen Roberts – and, by extension, Pepper – really take off the gloves and explore it in depth. Maybe she just needs to unravel the swaddling clothes and let loose a little. –Mark Rose

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Several new, big titles poised for chart success this week. And perhaps the biggest? It’s A DIRTY JOB, and Christopher Moore’s gotta do it. (Zing! Damn, aren’t we clever?) This time, the humorous fantasist behind the perennial fave THE STUPIDEST ANGEL gives birth to an over-the-top tale of Death, Goth chicks, hell hounds and a big green guy named – no joke – Minty Fresh. This seems like as good a time as any to ask if you read BOOKGASM’s interview with Moore back in December. If not, make things right.

• Tami Hoag returns with the police thriller PRIOR BAD ACTS; check back before too much longer for our review.

• No, that’s not a Perry Ellis catalog cover to your right. It’s THE JURY MASTER, the debut novel from Robert Dugoni. It’s a legal thriller (if the title didn’t tip you off) about a wrongful death attorney. But don’t expect a courtroom drama; this one’s more concerned with murder and conspiracy than gavel-banging and pompous windbagging.

• Finally, there’s Javier Sierra’s THE SECRET SUPPER. Already a hit in his native Spain, this thriller documents Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper, and the artist being accused of coding heretical messages into it. It’s decent but unspectacular; you can read our review of it here.

Like a certain thriller with an omnipresence over the bestseller lists, Javier Sierra’s THE SECRET SUPPER also bases a great deal of its plot on clues hidden in Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece The Last Supper. But that’s as far as commonalities go, as this is no mere copycat.

Rather than being a contemporary, adrenaline-fueled ride, THE SECRET SUPPER is set in the late 1400s as da Vinci paints his depiction of Jesus Christ and his disciples. da Vinci’s even a central character, as the Catholic Church – tipped off by the Soothsayer that da Vinci may be hiding heretical symbols and ideas in his artwork – dispatches Father Agostino to Milan to use his code-bustin’ skills to uncover the truth. What he finds, of course, is far more complicated, what with all the dead bodies and all.

Already a bestseller in Sierra’s Spain, THE SECRET SUPPER is likely to find success on these shores as well, given our nation’s unwavering enthusiasm for everything da Vinci. But the love may be short-lived, as the words on the page fail to come alive. This could be a fault of the text’s translation from Spanish to English; at least the appeal of the underlying mystery remains intact.

And even as my mind – awash in a sea of similar-sounding Italian names, hampering distinction between characters – was tested from start to finish, Sierra’s idea is strong enough to have held my interest. But I’m afraid his big revelation left me asking, “Is that all there is?” –Rod Lott

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I first read Iron Fist in the seventh grade. My mom drove me to New World Comics every week to spend my allowance, and sometimes twice a week on special occasions. In this instance, she had just taken me to the doctor and I was feeling rotten. I don’t remember what I had or what was wrong or why I had to go back to school for the afternoon instead of home, but before she dropped me off, she let me buy a comic book.

Because it was her money being spent that day instead of mine, I decided to do something risky and tread untested waters by buying an issue of POWER MAN AND IRON FIST. While I suffered through science class, I had the issue wrapped in a brown bag sitting atop my notebook. I couldn’t wait to get home and read it. For those couple of miserable hours, it was my security blanket, back when 60 cents could still buy you a half hour’s worth of escape.

And I needed it. I was a big nerd. Nearly a quarter of a century later, I’m no longer that person, but the nerd left in me can greatly appreciate ESSENTIAL IRON FIST: VOL. 1, collecting 31 issues of the minor Marvel hero’s first appearances.

Iron Fist was born in issue 15 of MARVEL PREMIERE in 1974, taking advantage of the kung-fu craze then sweeping the nation, but placing it within the Safe White Guy masses. Young Daniel Rand accompanies his parents on a business trip to Asia, which ends in tragedy when the elder Rand’s ruthless partner Meachum offs his father and wolves rip apart his mother. Daniel, however, is saved by a mystical cult in a fabled city and is taught the ways of the dragon. Ten years later, he vows to put his newly acquired martial arts skills to seeking revenge on Meachum – a plot that comprises the first several issues.

By the time his 11-issue stint in MARVEL PREMIERE ended and segued directly into his own title, the formula already had been set: Iron Fist battles a different villain – a robot, a flipped-out Vietnam Vet or even a goateed French kickboxer: “Zere ees no need for any introduction, mon ami. For nowhere in zis world are zere ears zat ‘ave not heard of zee skill and sheer powair of … BATROC ZEE LEAPER!” And they fight and fight until near the end, when Iron Fist draws all his power into his hand so it glows and smolders until “it becomes unto a thing of iron” and then he deals a deadly blow. You wonder why he doesn’t just do it outright.

Later issues deviate a little, like when Fisty takes on the four-man Wrecking Crew. They’re on a mission to kill Thor, and persuade Iron Fist to infiltrate the Avengers Mansion and slay all the superheroes. Soon our hero is sneaking in through a window and trading blows with Captain America. For a superhero, he sure doesn’t get along with fellow do-gooders, as other issues have him sparring against Iron Man and the X-Men; only alongside Spider-Man – in a two-parter from MARVEL TEAM-UP – does he make nice.

Of course, Iron Fist is forever linked with Luke Cage, the African-American Hero for Hire, with whom he starred in POWER MAN & IRON FIST, but even that relationship started off rocky, as the first three issues of that long-running title here show. Chris Claremont, who scripted all but the first eight issues in this volume, does an excellent job of threading a storyline throughout this entire run, while also making the issues be able to stand alone. However, I could do without the annoying, overwrought, omniscient narrator, constantly spitting out needless exposition: “You are Iron Fist – and the odors that assault your tender nostrils this night fill you with a growing feeling of revulsion.”

IRON FIST is so packed with action – some pages require literally a dozen panels to fit it all in – and with interesting characters like the Daughters of the Dragon, that you can’t help but have a two-fisted, tough-talkin’, high-kickin’ good time. –Rod Lott

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