Ahhh. Summertime. The season of lemonade, fireworks and boating fatalities. There’s nothing like a good book, a hammock and a cold iced tea in the summertime, and BOOKGASM has you covered in the book department. Get your own damn iced tea.

MONDAY >> 6.5.06
You know, BOOKGASM is a surprisingly noir website. Everywhere you scroll, there’s a detective, a prostitute (that means “ho,” kids) or a snarky commentator, each nihilistic in his or her own way. This proud tradition was upheld Monday, as Rod Lott spread the word about SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE: THE SCORPION. This series is a huge achievement in the comics medium, and it’s nice to see that kids who like their funnybooks deranged and expressionistic can once again get their fill.

Louis Fowler can’t be bound by convention. Grooming, hygiene, Shriners – he goes against the grain; he isn’t willing to conform. That’s readily apparent as he raved about Nancy Kilpatrick’s JASON X: TO THE THIRD POWER. I’m no book snob, but he is obviously insane. To wit: his use of the phrase "JASON X mythos." I rest my case.

TUESDAY >> 6.6.06
Rod reread David "Alka" Seltzer’s novelization of his own screenplay for THE OMEN, which is a great reminder to all of us of how good movie novelizations used to be. That Damien kid is scary enough, but I think Seltzer glosses over the ultimate horror: living in England. Shudder!

BOOK WHORE tackled not only John Updike’s TERRORIST and THE SABOTEURS by W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV, but apparently there’s a prequel to the LEFT BEHIND series out. When I imagine a post-Rapture planet, one word comes to mind: Party. I hope this crap is true.

Bruce Grossman took some bullets for us this week. It looks like he’ll pull through, but he read THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE THOUSAND COFFINS AFFAIR, NINJA MASTER #3: BORDERLAND OF HELL, and MODESTY BLAISE: LAST DAY IN LIMBO for this week’s BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS. What little respite he received came in the form of FUNERAL IN BERLIN by Len Deighton. I feel for you, brother.

Scarier still is Lord Byron, as portrayed in the non-fiction book THE MONSTERS: MARY SHELLEY AND THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Weird sex, constant nagging, self-obsession – I had no idea that the NBA had borrowed so much from 19th-century poets.

WEDNESDAY >> 6.7.06
Playboy has released its list of the 25 sexiest novels ever, and, if you believe it, there are no Spongebob books to be found. I think people make these lists just to stir up controversy.

After recovering for Wednesday’s brush with evil, Rod got himself back to normal by talking up MARVEL ROMANCE, a collection of ’60s and ’70s comics that strike me as weirdly surreal. First of all, what’s up with all the blonde guys having black eyebrows? I just went around my office, and not one blonde guy had black eyebrows. Oh, I get it. They’re mutants. That’s how they can show their emotions so well.

Mark Rose kept us on our steady diet of detectives with his take on Boris Akunin’s THE DEATH OF ACHILLES. Despite it being well-received by respectable literary publicaitons, Mark still gets something out of this one, and it’s not just door-stopping power, either.

THURSDAY >> 6.8.06
Surprise, surprise. Bruce Grossman read a noir book. No, really. I’m surprised. This time it’s Western noir, in the form of Ed Gorman’s GHOST TOWN. Heists, malaria and … murder? Sign me up, buckaroo!

FRIDAY >> 6.9.06
BOOKGASM has done some seriously awesome interviews. None of those other sites even try. They’re just in it for the free books. Not us. We like free books okay, but our main satisfation comes from helping you, the reader, get the inside scoop on the world of contemporary publishing. Case in point: We caught up with David Wellington, author of the Internet sensation MONSTER ISLAND. One of the many juicy tidbits gleaned from Wellington was that the whole thing started off as a dare. Sounds like my career.

So, picked out your book for the weekend yet? It’s JASON X, isn’t it? I knew it. Nobody can resist a virtual summer camp in which unwary campers are being picked off one by one, even if it is on one of Earth II’s moons. Now get me my iced tea. –Ryun Patterson

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