Our end-o’-week roundup of what you missed while working for The Man!

Has anyone here ever had a song stuck in their head that they just couldn’t shake? For me, it was Prince’s “Erotic City,” which I couldn’t excise from my frontal lobe for the entirety of 1999 (ironic, eh?). But for the last year myself and my colleagues here at BOOKGASM HQ have only one obsession: books. Whether they’re good, bad or middling, we’ve been on watch. I don’t have to remind longtime readers of this, but newcomers should heed me now: I eat, sleep and breathe for You, the reader. Here’s a recap of what the House of BOOKGASM served up this week:

MONDAY >> 8.7.06
Comic book novelizations suffer, in my view, from a lack of immediacy. The lag time between writing and printing is so long in the world of books that spinoffs must either:
a) exist outside the normal continuity of the comic;
b) have few lasting consequences;
c) take place in the interstices of previous storylines; or
d) all of the above.

SPIDER-MAN: THE DARKEST HOURS, according to Rod Lott, whom I’ve never doubted, is a combination of B and C. Despite being written by Jim Butcher of DRESDEN FILES fame, the plot is just not enough to satisfy true believers. One of these days, they’ll do a comic novel right the way Eric Nylund did video game novels right with HALO: FALL OF REACH.

Bruce Grossman is never one to be caught napping, unless he’s got a loaded pistol in his hand, and he started the hamster ball rolling early this week. He found Barbara Cleverly’s THE PALACE TIGER agreeable, but I get the feeling that if this book were a castaway, it would be Mary Ann, not Ginger. He actually said it’s “nice.” Yawn.

Yay, deviance! Thomas Tessier’s RAPTURE seems to be an ode to ’80s excess, whether they be drug-, sex- or psychosis-induced. In the vein of AMERICAN PSYCHO, which I thought was rather pedestrian, RAPTURE gets Rod Lott’s attention and keeps it, which can sometimes be tough, with his jet-setting lifestyle.

TUESDAY >> 8.8.06
Our boss Rod takes his lettering seriously, and he had a bone or two to pick with Marcus Smith, the artist of HALLOWEEN: AUTOPSIS. While Mr. Lott liked the story in this DVD pack-in comic, the art left him cold as a disemboweled cheerleader. Let’s just meditate on that image for a bit, shall we?

Oh, Ralph Dibny, you are what Mr. Fantastic dreams he could be. Taking advantage of your enhanced equipment in every way possible, you even call yourself The Elongated Man, leaving little to the imagination. But you managed to entertain Rod Lott this week, as he seemed positive about SHOWCASE PRESENTS THE ELONGATED MAN: VOL. 1. What’s up for you next, guy? A guest spot on RED SHOE DIARIES?

SUN STORM, a pregnant cop book from the Land of the Midnight Sun, has been widely touted, and neither this nor the author’s diacritical meanderings can keep Mark Rose from enjoying it. Having been there, I know Sweden is creepy: They put black pepper on their potato chips and mashed potatoes on their hot dogs. Add to that a rich tapestry of deceit and murder, and you’ve got me sold.

It was all Western for the BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS column this week, and you can tell Bruce Grossman has been saving things up for this. He’s got a virtual smorgasbord of frontier thrills, and there isn’t a stinker among them. From Max Brand to Ed Gorman, he’s got all our favorites covered, so saddle up and click on through.

WEDNESDAY >> 8.9.06
It’s time for another chapter of “Doctors Are Idiots!” This week, we study the sad case of Jeffrey Anderson, M.D., author of SECOND GENESIS. You see, since Mr. Anderson is an M.D., he is treated like a god by mere mortals. Because of this, he has thoughts like this: “I just got $15,000 for putting a cast on that kid’s leg. I bet I’m this good at anything I try! I could even become, dare I say it, a novelist!! I’ll be the next Michael Crichton!” The good news: He is. The bad news: He’s become the STATE OF FEAR Michael Crichton, not the ANDROMEDA STRAIN one, at least according to Rod Lott. But if you like pages and pages of people talking about boring-ass scientifo-babble, this one’s for you.

When I think of teamwork, of total selfless giving to a cause, I used to think Dr. Zaius. But now I don’t. I think Ken Davis. A ponderously slow reader, Mr. Davis has upped his monthly contribution to the BOOKGASM Repository by, like, infinite percent with his look at HIGHLY IRREGULAR STORIES by Richard Grayson. And it looks like he’s got a winner on his hands. Anything that makes Ken read this quickly must be comic gold.

Ed McBain has been eating up a lot of our ink lately, but that’s usually a good thing. The short story collection LEARNING TO KILL is a compilation of McBain’s early work, as he learned how to become a master of the crime fiction domain. I like the idea of this collection, because McBain obviously isn’t afraid to share some early mistakes with us. That kind of down-to-earth bestselling author stuff is nice nowadays.

THURSDAY >> 8.10.06
Did somebody say “crazy poetry”? I am actually running out at 5 p.m. today and finding myself a copy of John Edward Lawson’s THE TROUBLESOME AMPUTEE. I can think of few things sweeter than going up to a be-turtlenecked struggling poet, giving the sullen fellow a copy of this book, and saying, “Nice angst there, Raven, but your poems don’t have nearly enough werewolves.”

When Del Rey’s NEW JEDI ORDER saga started in the so-called “extended universe” of the STAR WARS mythos, I ate it up. There was a new enemy that used solely organic technology, and best of all: The Force didn’t affect them. It eventually started to bog down with philosophy, but that was well after EDGE OF VICTORY I: CONQUEST. Telling the story of one of Han Solo and Princess Leia’s sons, Anakin, this book got Christopher Sharpe back into the series again. I’m right with you there, buddy: This is one of the best parts of the whole epic. Just be prepared for the dullness to come.

In this week’s NEWSGASM, there was news about kids books, there’s a Tom Clancy double entendre, 25-cent comics, and free stuff from Del Rey and Chimericana. All of that pales in comparison to the big news of the week: There’s a DEATH CLOUD on the bestseller list. Yes, Paul Malmont’s tour de force of lies, intrigue and pulp fiction has hit number 12 on the L.A. Times’ bestseller list. Malmont was gracious enough to give us part of the credit, but really, if we had used our influence, would it really have come on the charts after several months in print at number 12? Give me a break, Paul. We don’t roll like that. That’s why my book is … well … you see, I’ve been busy, and then there was this thing … and the Xbox…. Pitiful digressions aside, any fan of THE CHINATOWN DEATH CLOUD PERIL should check out Malmont’s photos of the locations in the book right here. They’re really cool.

FRIDAY >> 8.11.06
Everyone knows that all cowboys, even the gay ones, are pretty tough customers, and I wouldn’t want to mess with any of the dudes in GUNSLINGER AND NINE OTHER ACTION-PACKED STORIES OF THE WILD WEST by Ed Gorman. You know with Gorman writing that there’s going to be some serious adventure going on, and with that title, further explanation is not only unneeded, but will probably get you shot in some parts.

Writers that can create worlds out of whole cloth deserve some praise, but whether that praise is snickering or reverent is the true test of imagination. Anybody can grab the emo crowd with a couple angst-filled elves and an epic tale of royal manners and imperial dilemmas. But Mark Rose says that Dave Duncan has gone the extra mile with CHILDREN OF CHAOS. It’s got the required complex jargon and super-detailed familial relationships, but there’s meat to the story, too, which sets it apart from the typical endcap fantasy claptrap that’s colonizing bookstores nowadays. But I’m not bitter.

Finally, fittingly, our girl Friday Danielle Wegelin wrote up a paean to the unflinchingly meta SNAKES ON A PLANE, the novel based on the Internet phenomenon movie. YTMND, YTMN.

That’s a wrap for this week, folks. Big stuff is coming up on Monday, so keep you eyes peeled. Pick up a copy of DEATH CLOUD while you’re at it. It’s enough to make James Bama weep with joy. –Ryun Patterson

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