Has it been a week already? It seems like only yesterday that I was glowering over my keyboard, chuckling to myself about my wit and style, only to knock a diet Coke over with my elbow and nearly electrocute myself. Yes, I’m smooth like that.

MONDAY >> 6.12.06
Ashamed by the revelation that it was indeed his legs in the logo and after legal threats from Anne Rice, Sue Grafton and Nora Roberts, our “esteemed editor” Rod Lott apparently has sent the BOOK WHORE packing. In her (his? its?) place is NEWSGASM: capsulized tidbits from the book world that don’t need to be tied together with a narrative, making the segment 85% easier to write.

We get paid a lot, but narrative coherence? That’ll cost you.

Anyhoo, Universal picked up the rights to TALENT, the Horror Guild nominees were announced (sorry, Marlon Brando, horrible doesn’t count), Tokyopop announced a new line and Dean Koontz’s third FRANKENSTEIN detective book has been delayed. Man, that Koontz has written some scary books. I listened to some of them on tape as a youngster when I’d drive the 20-odd hours home from college, and I nearly crashed the car about 15 times during MIDNIGHT. Um … I’m sure the Frankenstein detective thing is good, too.

L. Ron be praised for the work of Mark Rose. I haven’t exactly been writing many reviews lately, and Ken Davis is both a master of disguise and a slow reader, so we never know what he’s up to, but Rose always steps right up and spills his heart and soul out* with every review, no matter the subject. This time he critiqued Craig Johnson’s THE COLD DISH, a Wyoming wilderness murder mystery, and found it good.

To tell you the honest truth, I didn’t read Rod’s review of Preston and Child’s THE BOOK OF THE DEAD. It’s not that it’s too long (I’ve written veritable novellas concerning lesser works) or that he’s a bad writer (though he is) – no, it’s because I still haven’t read DANCE OF DEATH, the second book in this trilogy, and I don’t want to spoil it. If you’ve read the review, let me know if it’s spoiler-safe, okay? I really like these Preston/Child books. From THE RELIC to RELIQUARY, THE CABINET OF CURIOSITIES, STILL LIFE WITH CROWS and BRIMSTONE, these characters are pretty groovy, and I pity the fool who hasn’t checked them out yet.

TUESDAY >> 6.13.06
Despite the price (two bits) and the cover (sexy techno-organic terrorist), Rod still takes issue with BATTLESTAR GALACTICA #0 from Dynamite Entertainment comics, saying frugality and sexuality are no substitutes for plot and professional art. A friend of mine’s brother has worked on licensed comics like this (in his case it was SILENT HILL), and apparently they don’t need to make sense at all, because the license will guarantee a certain amount of sales. Well, that attitude will get you nowhere with me, at least until I can license out REGASM: THE LOST YEARS to some hack and make a mint.

Bruce Grossman took us once again into pulp fantasyland with this week’s installment of BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS, and he once again transported me to the misspent days I spent as a youth scouring the shelves of every used bookstore I saw. The covers are all awesome in and of themselves, even if THE LONG WAIT and THE LAST COP OUT are head and shoulders above the forgotten aborted franchise of THE DELTA FACTOR in the Mickey Spillaine hierarchy. While I twiddle my thumbs and think of terrible puns, Grossman proved his worth to this organization yet again.

WEDNESDAY >> 6.14.06
And it looks like I’m going to have to eat some crow, seeing as how we’ve seen two weeks with two positive reviews of books featuring slasher film icon Jason Voorhees. That’s right, Rod Lott has finally taken a stand and proclaimed to the hills his love for FRIDAY THE 13TH: CARNIVAL OF MANIACS. Sorry, Louis. It is I who am misinformed and/or smelly. Lott rose further above the masses with these priceless phrases:
• “psychic link with the disembodied head”
• “taking it home to spit-roast”
• “traveling freak show”
• “porn-star wife”
• “horde of zombies”
That’s why he’s the boss, folks.

This has been an extremely personal week for me here at BOOKGASM, and the next review, Rod Lott’s take on Paul Malmont’s THE CHINATOWN DEATH CLOUD PERIL, is no exception. This book is a fictional tale starring Lester Dent and Walter Gibson, creators of Doc Savage and The Shadow, respectively. My dad has a copy of every single Doc Savage paperback. All of them. So of course, I’ve read every Doc Savage book as well, and I think this is possibly one of the coolest ideas of the year. The title is even pretty good, somewhere among the best (DEATH IN SILVER) and far from the worst (WORLD’S FAIR GOBLIN, anyone?) Plus the cover is freakin’ sweet.

THURSDAY >> 6.15.06
Leave it to scientists to find a way to destroy both the world and their personal lives simultaneously. That’s the in-a-nutshell version of THE RUIN OF J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER AND THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN ARMS RACE by Priscilla J. McMillan. Mark Rose seemed to like it well enough, but the title would have to be THE RUIN OF J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER AND THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN RACE OF ZOMBIE ROBOT MONKEYS to really get me interested. Oh, and that Teller guy from Penn & Teller is a real jerk, I guess.

As if you hadn’t noticed, BOOKGASM is all about pulpy crime fiction, so when a company like Stark House Press releases a book like SHAKE HIM TILL HE RATTLES and IT’S COLD OUT THERE, we’re all over it. We like it even more when the books are worth a damn, which Bruce Grossman deemed to be the case with this twofer. As an added bonus, you can read this book knowing full well that it was written in prison. Awesome.

FRIDAY >> 6.16.06
The "book by its cover" cliché gets disproven once again today with our review of GREASE MONKEY by Tim Eldred. Kids won’t even like that cover. And the monkey wears a muscle T-shirt under an orange vest? Who is he, Walrus Man? Fingerless gloves? Bang that gong, Jamie Farr – this guy’s out of here.

I always say that golf and mystery go together like Walrus Man and crappy comics (that is to say, very well). Mark Rose unknowingly agreed with me with a mostly shining review of MURDER IN THE ROUGH, an anthology that mixes birdies and murder. Most anthologies have a bad seed or two, but after weighing the (golf) pros and (ex-) cons, Mark came away feeling good about this book, especially Lawrence Block’s portion of it. Well, duh.

Wow, that week-in-review went by almost as quickly as the actual week did. Guess I should get started on next week’s. Oh, and I’ll have at least a couple reviews ready, so see you next time, when I’ll get to make fun of myself for a change. –Ryun Patterson

*And one time he cried.

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