Our end-o’-week roundup of what you missed while working for The Man!
Autumn is upon us here in North America, and with the change of season comes a chance to reflect: Have we been doing our best as humans to make sure genre fiction survives for our children to read with a flashlight under the covers? Take a hard look in the mirror. If you don’t like what you see, take a time trip with me through the past week’s genre gems – redemption is only a Hard Case Crime away.
MONDAY >> 9.18.06
Bruce Grossman kicked the week off with a thoroughly lukewarm review of Robert Harris’ IMPERIUM. I’m all for writers exploring their literary boundaries and all, but if there’s one thing Robert Harris does well, it’s Nazis. IMPERIUM is a self-proclaimed “novel of ancient Rome,” so there’s nary a goose-stepper to be seen. Seeing the steaming pile of mediocrity that resulted, I can’t help but think how awesome the book would have been if it had ended with Hitler and Caesar fighting each other and a pair of man-eating lions in the Coliseum. Are you not entertained?
You know all those great ideas for books that you have all the time? They’re better off as ideas. Witness Michael Norman’s HAUNTED HOMELAND, a book that’s way better as a happy-hour conversation than as an actual book.
Author: “What if I wrote a book of ghost stories from every one of the United States, plus Canada?”
Yes Man: “That would be awesome! You’d sell a least a couple of books in every state, and you’d be set for life!”
Author: “I’m totally doing it. Get me a pen, a dictionary, a map, a thesaurus and a shitload of those cocktail napkins.”
Hence, a gimmick is born, and despite her inclination toward all things otherworldly, Rebecca Brock found HAUNTED HOMELAND to be a soulless read, indeed. It happens.
TUESDAY >> 9.19.06
A role model for disfigured cowboys everywhere, Jonah Hex is right up there with Edward Munch’s painting of that HOME ALONE kid as an expressionist icon. He’s a human battle between light and dark, struggling to find peace in the duality of his soul. In short, he’s a badass, and anyone disputing that will quickly find themselves on the wrong end of a six-shooter. Eschewing the post-apocalyptic and horror themes of previous incarnations, JONAH HEX: FACE FULL OF VIOLENCE is straight-up Western, and in the capable hands of Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, Rod Lott found much to appreciate. Also, Rod has the temerity to write “There’s gore in them hills.” That’s good, dude, but I had the nerve to write “pulled a Rabbi out of his hat,” so we’re even.
Spies are a cornerstone of genre literature in the Western world, and Bruce Grossman uses this week’s BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS to take a look at British spies specifically. Len Deighton and James Munro come up winners, and even I could have told him that Desmond Cory’s JOHNNY FEDORA novels were probably crappy and derivative. Just look at the cover: it’s a total Destroyer ripoff, except that the art is by a drunken third-grader. It’s this kind of keen observation that makes my criticism so incisive.
WEDNESDAY >> 9.20.06
If you haven’t noticed already, Rod Lott loves to think that everything’s about sex. Like a high school freshman in his first health class, Rod can turn the utterly innocent utterings of Batman’s sidekick into dirty lizard-brain lust. In spite of my never being able to look at Robin’s fist the same way ever again, Rod’s look at SHOWCASE PRESENTS BATMAN: VOLUME 1 has spurred my interest. But it’s for the explosive gorilla, not the tiger licking, I swear.
I was just about to read Jay Bonansinga’s FROZEN when I stumbled across Rod’s review of the author’s new book, TWISTED, which totally gave away the plot. Way to go, dude. You want to shake my Sea Monkeys while you’re at it? Ill-advised reveals aside, the book is apparently not as good as FROZEN, though I will probably never know.
THURSDAY >> 9.21.06
Hard Case Crime is a cornerstone of the BOOKGASM universe, and seeing a new entry to the line makes me all weepy and nostalgic for 2005, when we were all vaguely innocent and unspoiled by the sex, drugs and corruption of the blogosphere. That said, Pete Hamill’s THE GUNS OF HEAVEN is another solid entry to the series, reprinting a 1983 tale of political intrigue and murder in Northern Ireland. With all the killing in that conflict, why didn’t they kill Bono before he became immense and immortal? The only thing that can hurt him now is a fragment of the True Cross, and that shit’s expensive.
The first time I met Louis Fowler, it was a furtive exchange amid the stacks of some library of other in the metro Oklahoma City area. My second
thought upon meeting him* was that his skull’s shape perfectly lent itself to clipping out and sticking on a column-heading graphic. Lo and behold, I was right (again!). Feeling left out after seeing Bruce Grossman’s bevy of BBB&B groupies, Louis started his own column. LOUIS’ SERIOUS ISSUES made its debut last week, with plenty of Western musings, a hippie-filled zombie prologue and another spinoff from Michael Chabon’s THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY.
FRIDAY >> 9.22.06
There were plenty of happenings chronicled in Friday’s NEWSGASM, with Marvel beginning the hype for its adaptation of Stephen King’s DARK TOWER series, some juicy Hannibal Lecter tidbits, and Tolkien’s last epic work finally getting a release date. BTW, Christopher Tolkien can bite me.
Some would say it’s strange that we can have flattering reviews of both JONAH HEX: FACE FULL OF VIOLENCE and Michael Cox’s THE MEANING OF NIGHT within days of each other. That’s the BOOKGASM difference: Comics and literature are equal in our unflinching gaze, and even a 700-page doorstop of Victorian rivalry will get a good look if it passes the 100-page test. That said, NIGHT might not be for everyone, but if you’ve got the time, we’ve got the books.
That’s it. Remember to take stock as the leaves change – there’s more out there than can be seen by the naked eye, and lots of the time it involves decapitations, exploding gorillas or spies named Johnny Fedora. –Ryun Patterson
*The first: “What a weird kid.”
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