Our end-o’-week roundup of what you missed while working for The Man!
This has been a thriller of a week here at Bookgasm HQ. We started of with tearful remembrances and a flurry (well, six or so) of comments and followed that up with a new column by a hard-boiled, two-fisted, honest-to-God crime novelist! If you missed it, here’s the skinny:
SUNDAY >> 8.13.06
With a new flag at the top of the site and a warm but not sappy retrospective column by Rod Lott, the Big Boss himself, breaking the Sabbath, BOOKGASM’s birthday celebration began. If you’re new here and really want to get a feel for us, start here. If you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, why don’t you start at the very beginning? It’s a very good place to start.
MONDAY 8.14.06
The anniversary party continued well into Monday, as I offered up my favorite things about BOOKGASM. It starts out warm and teary-eyed but eventually just devolved into smartassery. Just like my life.
We’re huge on graphical elements, whether they be Cylon, ape or water-skiing squirrel variety. So it should be no purpose that we’ve broken down our coolest swag of the past year and flaunt it for all to see. Not mentioned were our swag lowlights, which included:
• FAN-TAN novelty poop;
• GHOST all-day suckers;
• CHILDREN OF THE COMPANY recycling bags;
• BELLY LAUGHS blue Twinkies; and
• SNAKES ON A SUDOKU.
Need I say more?
Though it should be praised merely for raising the profile of a great magazine of short stories, Rod raved about ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE PRESENTS FIFTY YEARS OF CRIME AND SUSPENSE, as it provides a great historical primer on the evolution of the short-form thriller. Now this is obviously our kind of book, so go buy it already.
TUESDAY >> 8.15.06
It’s nice to see the "family" editions coming back to comics. I always wanted to know what the hell Jimmy Olson does in his free time or which bitches Krypto got all up into. Sarcasm aside, Rod seemed to dig SPIDER-MAN FAMILY: AMAZING FRIENDS, and I’m inclined to agree, if only for some old-school Hembeck action. He and his curlicue knee joints are pure comic genius.
Writing a mystery has got to be one of the toughest jobs in fiction. The planning and resourcefulness to leave the audience enough clues to do some sleuthing themselves but not enough to give the ending away must be immense, and Faye Kellerman’s short stories in by THE GARDEN OF EDEN AND OTHER CRIMINAL DELIGHTS don’t quite cut the mustard. If I were her, I, too, would be too busy counting my money to care, so more power to her.
Bruce Grossman headed to the early 1970s with his BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BABES column this week, firing off a trio of reviews of books that were made into movies. These are all winners, but title of the week goes to THE FREEDOM TRAP, because the oxymoronicity blows my mind.
WEDNESDAY >> 8.16.06
Moving up a decade, crazy ’80s vampires are loose in NYC, and the fate of the city rests with … a reporter? Finally, LIVE GIRLS by Ray Garton gives some credit for the noblest profession. All the time it’s the reporters who get to be the hero: Kolchak, Lane, the dude from the first BATMAN movie. According to Rod, this book holds nothing back, but aside from the reporter hero, I find some things a little too improbable for my taste. For instance, a strip club in Times Square? That will never happen.
Staying on the dark side of things, Bruce Grossman has seen Dennis Lehane’s ugly world and likes it. Grossman says of Lehane’s CORONADO, "You feel like you want to just scrub yourself raw after reading these stories.” Awesome.
THURSDAY >> 8.17.06
Louis Fowler likes the direction that Black Flame is going with their New Line Cinema horror novels, and the newest one off the shelf is A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: THE DREAM DEALERS. I bet that most of these movie-tie-ins have a guaranteed sales threshold no matter the quality, so it warms my heart that Louis is finding more and more books in this series that go beyond the normal fan-fiction quality of similar works. One thing though: Is it me, or does Freddy Krueger seem a lot less scary now than he was 20 years ago? Maybe it’s just in comparison with Johnny Depp.
Ed Gorman is writing a column for BOOKGASM, called WHAT ED READ. I shit you not. There’s no way I’m going to make fun of that.
FRIDAY >> 8.18.06
I’ve always agreed to disagree with Rod about the whole HIGHLANDER mythos. Sure, most of it is of dubious quality, and Mario Van Peebles was a part of it, but I have a soft spot in my heart for it, for whatever reason. But for all of 12 pages of Dynamite Entertainment’s HIGHLANDER #0, Rod finally drank the Kool-Aid and enjoyed himself some sword-fighting. It didn’t hurt that he loved the LONE RANGER preview in the back, either.
Mark Rose is fast becoming the Ingmar Bergman of BOOKGASM reviewers. Many of his recent reviews are completely wordless, delivered as pantomime by dwarves who unicycle into the front doors of BOOKGASM HQ. But the ones that are actually written are all over Scandinavian detectives written by people who possess interesting diacritical marks above their names. Case in point: SUN AND SHADOW by Åke Edwardson. Pedigree and nationality does not a book make, however, and Rose finds gobbets of unyielding prose that lead him not to Valhalla, but to somewhere much less romantic: mediocrity.
This historic week concludes with a decent DA VINCI clone, for a change: Rod Lott liked THE RIGHTEOUS MEN by Sam Bourne. It stars a reporter (boo!) who writes about a pimp (yay!) who is murdered (boo!) and involves a mysterious cult (yay!). You’ve got me hooked, Bourne. Rod finds the journalism in the book realistic and the plot acceptable for a first effort. Remember: Decent first efforts need to be rewarded, so hop to it people. –Ryun Patterson
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