A friend of mine noticed a copy of Poppy Z. Brite’s THE DEVIL YOU KNOW on my coffee table, picked it up and said, “That’s … different.” She was referring to the misshapen cat sprawled across the cover, but as I’d come to find shortly thereafter, her first impression was spot-on.
The stories within aredifferent. A couple of them, most notably the FIRESTARTER-esque “Burn, Baby, Burn,” may appear derivative upon first glance, but while readers are likely to think Charlie McGee for a time, they’re more likely to remember Liz Sherman from the Kansas side of Kansas City (Hellboy fans already know her, anyway) with as much fear and cautious adoration. And “System Freeze” is set inside the world of THE MATRIX movies, though Brite tells us in her introduction that the characters are hers. Not a big fan of the films themselves, it’s easily my least favorite story in this volume of gems.
The title story kicks things off after a telling foreword by the author (I sometimes skip these things but even after Brite’s permission to do so, I kept reading). “The Devil You Know” is strange, funny and, like most of the book, compulsively readable. In fact, if you’re looking for the slow, Gothic style employed in Brite’s previous collections like WORMWOOD, you’ll either be disappointed or pleasantly surprised.
Throughout the collection, the writing is tight, the author’s sense of humor soars and the dialogue especially rings true. I’d say that the style lies somewhere between the saturated trappings of the aforementioned WORMWOOD and Brite’s horror novels like EXQUISITE CORPSE, but even that’s not quite right. There’s a maturity here that was never actually missing from her previous efforts, with the best example of this probably being the poignant coming-of-age tale “Lantern Marsh.” Though I never read it in its original form, the author explains that it is an old story — written around 1983 — that she reworked for the Halloween anthology OCTOBER DREAMS.
“The Heart of New Orleans” is current and moving, and “Marisol” will have you remembering the old adage about dishing it out and taking it, and you’ll be smiling and cringing at once. Believe me, it’s possible.
If you’re familiar with the author’s post-horror offerings, you’ll find plenty of familiar characters and voices sprinkled throughout this thin volume. If you’re not, don’t worry — it’s still her best collection yet. –Jason Light
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Scouring out the weekly singles scene … in comics!
I’m really happy – if I were an imbecile, I’d be “jazzed” – at all the positive attention the first installment of SERIOUS ISSUES received. I guess the rumors are true: Positive attention whoops negative’s ass any day of the week. Except for the WEEKEND REGASM calling me a “weird kid.” How so? Because I wore an ERASERHEAD T-shirt in high school? I’d like to know!
ARMY OF DARKNESS #10 (Dynamite Entertainment) Despite Dynamite’s need for a proofreader (this issue is part three of the “Ash vs. Dracula” story arc, yet it’s labeled as part four, and, if that’s not bad enough, at one point the mag’s called ARMY OF DARKENESS), AOD is whole lotta fun, eschewing all logic in favor of a “fan fic” approach, with Ash being his one-lining, badass self, traveling through time, fighting not only Deadites, but in this arc, Dracula, werewolves and even Frankenstein. It’s everything VAN HELSING should have been. I’m looking forward to the DARKMAN VS. ARMY OF DARKNESS crossover.
BLADE #1 (Marvel) Hey, Marvel: Honestly, how hard is it to fuck up Blade? Apparently, judging from this first issue, not very. It’s starts off promisingly enough, with the bad mutha daywalker taking on a vampiric Spidey, but soon enough, that’s abandoned in favor of a tired tale about S.H.I.E.L.D. – and its supernatural branch, the Howling Commandos – being overrun by vampires. Yawn. And if that weren’t bad enough, Blade loses his leather threads and sword for a S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform – talk about emasculating the black man! The immensely overrated Howard Chaykin does art duties, and not very well at that, but even that is forgivable when compared to Marc Guggenheim’s wholly unpromising start. And, as if to add insult to injury, in his letter to the reader, he tells us that if you’re a fan of the movie or of the old comics, you’re going to be sorely disappointed with this take on the character. Truer words were never spoken. Go back on that, Marc, and make it the Blade we know and love and I’ll give you another chance.
GHOST RIDER #3 (Marvel) Speaking of low expectations, here’s the newest incarnation of GHOST RIDER, just in time for the Nic Cage movie. Like BLADE, I love GR and all his supernatural elements, but they are doing absolutely nothing with the character – three issues in and he escaped Hell, went to a truck stop and now is messin’ around with Dr. Strange, in a manner that comes off like a rather played-out episode of THREE’S COMPANY. For whole pages, the two bicker back and forth: “I’m Dr. Strange!” “No, you’re not!” “Yes, I am!” Ghostie deserves so much better than this, especially with the upcoming film to piggyback off of.
HELLBLAZER #224 (Vertigo) I really want to like HELLBLAZER. I read issue after issue, but honestly, I have no idea what’s going on. Of course, I keep all that to myself because, in the comics world, HELLBLAZER is such a revered title that, if you don’t like, you’re a dumb asshole who should stick to reading ARCHIE’S PALS ’N’ GALS. So in that case, everybody read HELLBLAZER! It’s great! As the Brit John himself would say, “Pip, pip! Spit spot!”
EXILES #86 (Marvel) For the past five or so years, the one book that I have read consistently is Marvel’s alternate-universe-hopping EXILES. Sure, the artwork’s usually subpar and the storylines kinda lame, but much like that TV show SLIDERS – which also wasn’t very good – I love storylines about alternate universes and realities. The past few issues of EXILES, storywise and artwise, have been on an upswing, especially with the two-part “New Exiles” storyline wherein hundreds of alternate Wolverines are gathered into one superbeing, and it’s up to Weapon X, ORIGIN’s James, Zombie Wolverine, DAYS OF FUTURE PAST Logan and Patch to bring it down. If they can keep this pace up, this book may finally live up to my expectations. Which are low to begin with.
Next time: Stan Lee! Zombie! She-Hulk! –Louis Fowler
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DARKLY DEBUTING ‘DEXTER’
For a sneak peek at DEXTER, Showtime’s new series based upon Jeff Lindsay’s novel DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER, the cable net has posted some clips on YouTube. SIX FEET UNDER’s Michael C. Hall stars as Dexter Morgan, a perfectly charming police forensics expert who moonlights as a serial killer. The series premieres Oct. 1. BOOKGASM was all hot and bothered to screen the entire rated-MA episode via an exclusive, super-secret link Showtime supplied us, but damn those online streams and their tendency to freeze up every three seconds. I couldn’t ev … en make it t … o the cred … its.
IT’S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PIMP
Hard Case Crime is profiled in the current issue of Time magazine in the “Innovators” section. Says editor Charles Ardai, the article comes “complete with a full-page photo of me trying desperately to look stylish and noir. It’s a doomed attempt – I’ll never look like anything other than the scrawny, effete New Yorker I am – but the handsome Remington manual typewriter in the foreground and the willowy blonde in a slinky red dress in the background make up for it.” We’re glad to see Hard Case get some big-time national publicity, but we didn’t even notice anything in the photo beyond the blonde.
R.I.P. JOSEPH HAYES
Joseph Hayes, author of the novel THE DESPERATE HOURS, died Sept. 11. Once adapted to a Tony Award-winning play starring Karl Malden and Paul Newman, HOURS also became big-screen material twice, first in William Wyler’s 1955 film with Humphrey Bogart, and again in 1990 with Michael Cimino’s Mickey Rourke-led remake.
CHESS: THE HOME GAME
If you haven’t read David Shenk’s THE IMMORTAL GAME: A HISTORY OF CHESS like we told you to, get on it. And you can also play along at home, if you’re the lucky winner of Shenk’s chess set giveaway. The set is “a reproduction of the 12th century Lewis Chessmen, the most vivid and important historical chess pieces of all time. Found in early 1831 on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland they are believed to be a Norse design carved from walrus tusk and whale teeth.” You can register to win here, and if you’re picked, you have to gift it to us. Deal? Deal.
CUE THE SILVER SHAMROCK JINGLE…
With Halloween now a month away, get ready for BOOKGASM’s 2nd Annual Halloween Horror Anthology Month. Last year, we covered a dozen of them. This year, while we aren’t likely to hit that many, we’re digging back in time a little and have a few gems already picked out. Just look for the disturbo pumpkin-head graphic at right; it’s your seal of approval for short-attention-span scares!
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A look in the life of your BOOKGASM editor: Sees it’s the last weekday of the month. Remembers that means it’s time for the monthly roundup of incoming search terms to the site. Runs the report. Reads the results. Shakes his head. Weeps for our nation.
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Children’s books these days aren’t quite the same as when I was growing up. You’re more likely to run across MAGGIE’S FIRST DATE RAPE or BOBBY’S ENCOUNTER WITH AL-QAEDA than you are titles like THE POKY LITTLE PUPPY. That’s why George R.R. Martin’s THE ICE DRAGON is so refreshing.
This is a traditionally styled tale featuring fantastical dragons and children who have angst because they are different from those around them – a staple of most children’s fiction. Though the blurb notes the book is geared for children ages 10 and up, it should also play well with the younger crowd, as well as appeal to both boys and girls. Martin does not write down to his readers and includes some nicely difficult words (such as “translucent” and “rime”), which I think is a better tactic than deliberately trimming the vocabulary. The only caveat is that the book is a bit unsettling and isn’t a happy romp through fun candy land.
Adara is a young girl who lives with her father, elder brother and sister on a farm in an unnamed land. While the family seems fairly normal, Adara is distant. She identifies with the cold and icy winter, while all around her are summer people. Adara is literally cold to the touch. Her love of the winter season and its weather allows her to play with the delicate ice lizards, which burn if a warm-blooded person touches them, and it also allows her to befriend an unusual ice dragon.
While dragons are fairly commonplace in this world, and even are used as mounts for warriors, ice dragons supposedly have never been tamed and thus, can’t be ridden. But Adara manages to do just this, and she finds keeping company with her new reptilian friend to be the haven she has longed for. She hates for the winter to end because the dragon flies to the north and Adara must stay behind. But she patiently waits for the cold weather to return every year, and to bring with it the ice dragon.
This parable of companionship, emotional distance and empathy gets twisted around a little in the book’s short 100+ pages. It’s a strong story, well told, with layers of meaning that can be explored with a young reader who may have some questions at the end. Overall, the illustrations by Yvonne Gilbert are serviceable, though they have too light a line in my advance reading copy, and it’s a shame that chapter headings are the same throughout.
This is Martin’s first children’s book, even though it was written in 1980 and published as part of the book DRAGONS OF LIGHT. Martin is a phenomenally popular fantasy writer and one can see why from this work – he also should be a popular children’s author and one hopes to see more along these lines. This title is certainly recommended for your tykes. –Mark Rose
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