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

One of the best aspects of writing this feature on the weekends is the solitude: BOOKGASM HQ is nearly deserted, save for a skeleton crew of janitors and security guards, and I get to rifle through everyone else’s desks and cherry-pick the best books from Saturday’s mail. The sweet quiet of the deserted workspace is just the atmosphere needed to reflect on life, morality and all the great reviews and tidbits we’ve put up over the last week.

Like what, you ask? Well, lemme tell you:

MONDAY >> 8.28.06
Marvelous Mark Rose is a super genius. Whereas I believe virtually everything I read, Rose has the mental agility debunk even the most authoritative of debunkers, as in the case of Brian Thomsen’s THE AWFUL TRUTHS: FAMOUS MYTHS, HILARIOUSLY DEBUNKED. Rose’s steel-trap noggin catches BOOKGASM pal Thomsen in at least several sports-oriented mistakes, showing our love for You, the reader, and proving once again that I never want to be across the table from Mark Rose in a match of Trivial Pursuit.

We here at BOOKGASM like to review books that we are already inclined to like. It’s a philosophical thing, really. While it’s fun and easy for me to review a book about, say, gardening, just to make fun of the hobby, the end result is very little of value is passed on to people who might actually enjoy such a book. All the more sad, then, is Bruce Grossman’s assessment of Tom Franklin’s SMONK, a noir-ish Western that Grossman says is all about ill-conceived weirdness that never really gets under his skin. Much like this column.

Love is full of little mysteries: Whose turn is it to cook dinner? Who took the blankets from me in the middle of the night? Why does a simple two-day mini-vacation require five suitcases, three backpacks and a crate of lotion-type supplies? None of these eternal questions are answered in MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA PRESENTS DEATH DO US PART: NEW STORIES ABOUT LOVE, LUST, AND MURDER, but Rod Lott says this Harlan Coben-edited love-and-crime anthology is worth the price of admission anyway. Different strokes, I guess.

TUESDAY >> 8.29.06
Thank God for censors. If not for their prissy excisions, publishers and writers alike would never benefit from the profit-bringing miracle of the “uncut” edition. The latest incarnation of this sensational strategy is Zane Grey’s RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE, but be on the lookout for WEEKEND REGASM: UNEDITED, with 25 percent more typos. I’m going to make a mint.

Books filled with family politics and parallel-world conspiracies (such as Charles Stross’ THE CLAN CORPORATE) always tickle my paranoid bone, but apparently that person looking at me on the bus wasn’t sent to kill me. Sorry about that.

Since we’re an online entity and not a hugely popular magazine (hint hint, Condé Nast), we miss out on cover art.* In compensation for this, we have Bruce Grossman’s every-Tuesday BULLETS, BROADS, BLACKMAIL & BOMBS, which dives into the author’s pile o’ paperbacks and comes up with a handful of great covers and smashing stories. Nazis are on tap this week, and while he didn’t come away with a sure-fire winner, BLUES BROTHERS referencesn are always a hit.

WEDNESDAY >> 8.30.06
Chris Sharpe is picking up the pace. His review of the first STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER episode kicked off this hallowed publication lil’ more than a year ago, but the prospects of his finishing the whole series looked grim at about the fifth book. But much like the plucky Rebel Alliance itself, Sharpe has managed to weather literary adversity and make it all the ever-lovin’ way to STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER – EDGE OF VICTORY II: REBIRTH, the eighth book of the cycle. But be warned: There are books dropping out of hyperspace that will test your newly found powers. Scared yet? You will be.

I could make a lot of jokes about Nikki Persley’s SERPENT OF ETERNITY. But you know what? Rebecca Brock liked it, so I’ll rise above the usual drivel I slobber out, even though the last sentence of the review has a twist ending I never saw coming in a million years. No way!

Brian Winkeler graced us with the third edition of his PANEL DISCUSSION column in roughly 12 months, and while that’s a more regular schedule than Warren Ellis’ PLANETARY, I didn’t need to wait this long to find out that Jack Kirby was a god among men. Fortunately there’s other good stuff in this column, like BIZARRO WORLD and a new showcase from Drawn & Quarterly.

THURSDAY >> 8.31.06
If I got paid for every click I drew to this publication, I would be a rich dude right now, because my off-handed mention of a nude Charo from June 30 has sent our click-throughs through the roof, at least according to the latest FUN WITH BOOKGASM stats. Way more than “topless Hasselhoff” or “Suri Cruise-Holmes breastfeeding” would ever do, that’s for sure.

Note to Matthew Warner: If I want to know what paranoid schizophrenia is like, I’d stop taking my pills. Bruce Grossman reiewed Warner’s EYES EVERYWHERE, and while it may be harrowing and horrifying, I’m not sure it captures the fun side of mental illness. Stupid small press.

Miracle of miracles! Ed Gorman not only wrote one WHAT ED READ column for us, but two! Holy Charo! This week the Gormeister looked at some great magazines, reveled in the reprinting of LIVE GIRLS, gave some love to Millipede Press, and offered up a list of books that includes both MADAME BOVARY and CUJO. No punchline needed.

FRIDAY >> 9.1.06
Include this on the list of publishing gaffes: According to NEWSGASM, there’s a Shannon Tweed book out. With a foreword by Gene Simmons. Can’t at least one person with literate fans be involved?

In the third installment of our BOOKS 2 FILM column, Rod recommends POSEIDON for a rental, water-logged effects spectacle that it is. I can’t help but wonder, though, what it could have been if the film’s cross-section of stereotypes had been turned on their heads figuratively, rather than literally. Damn my fancy tastes.

INFOQUAKE is a great, dense work of speculative fiction. Remember that I said “work,” though, because this isn’t one to take to the beach.

In the tradition of THE CHINATOWN DEATH CLOUD PERIL (yes, again!), Jed Rubenfeld’s THE INTERPRETATION OF MURDER, takes a historical figure (Sigmund Freud) and plops him into a mystery (murder in NYC). Also, there’s a “Chinaman.” Rod liked it well enough.

I hope everybody is having a relaxing weekend. My Merry Pranksterism in the BOOKGASM offices is complete – Rod’s going to go ballistic when he finds out I hung his Uschi Digard pin-up calendar on the bulletin board—and so is the roundup. See you next
week. –Ryun Patterson

*My ideal cover for BOOKGASM MONTHLY would be a Frank Frazetta vista of dragons, barbarians and Charo in a metal bikini reading Hard Case Crime books and battling Unspeakable Evil, i.e. Bob Saget.

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