Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!
A companion piece to Gauntlet Press’ recent MATCH TO FLAME: THE FICTIONAL PATHS TO FAHRENHEIT 451 anthology, the chapbook THE DRAGON WHO ATE HIS TAIL rounds up some miscellanea for the Ray Bradbury completist. The title story – all three pages of it – has never been published before, though Bradbury fans will recognize his patented brand of speculative nostalgia right off. A vacationing couple time-travels in “To the Future,” here reprinted with its original (read: awesome) Collier’s illustrations, and Bradbury’s screenplay adaptation also appears. Lastly, there’s “Sometime Before Dawn,” both in story and typewritten/hand-edited format. All of this is supplemented with simple but charming doodles. It’s not essential Bradbury, but it’s good Bradbury.
Right from the start, William Dietrich’s new thriller NAPOLEON’S PYRAMIDS reminded me of James Morrow’s THE LAST WITCHFINDER – one of my 2006 favorites – with its intoxicating mixture of the historical, the fantastic and the literary. Set in revolutionary France in the late 18th century, it follows the trouble that befalls American adventurer Ethan Gage when he acquires a cursed medallion. In other words, his life immediately is placed in danger. More high-minded than most, Dietrich’s novel has a real wit about it as it jumps from location to location, but does get bogged down in archaic language – shades of Neal Stephenson – that detracts from the action and ultimately underwhelms. Soon I’m going to give it another try, however, because I’m that intrigued. Given I rarely ever reread books, that’s saying something.
Helping to make our world smaller — even if only in the literary sense — is WORDS WITHOUT BORDERS: THE WORLD THROUGH THE EYES OF WRITERS, an anthology of 28 foreign writers and their work, which has never been published in English before. Editors Samantha Schnee, Alane Salierno Mason and Dedi Felman selected short stories, poems, essays and excerpts from novels to show Americans that authors the world over can be just as skilled and talented. And, unfortunately, just as pretentious. Of the works I read — and I’ll admit I couldn’t finish them all — I found them rather stale, more interested in the construction of this pretty word with another than in telling a great story. Part of this could be due to the translation process, but I’m doubting. Awesome cover, though.
Speaking of worlds, Eric Fogle covers not only ours but also that celestial one where the gods reside, in his debut novel FORGE OF THE GODS: THE LAST KNIGHT. The fantasy details what happens when time in the heavens comes to a stop, threatening its existence, and a handful of warriors are sent to stop it. Pieces of FORGE reminded me of recent great sci-fi novels like Neil Gaiman’s AMERICAN GODS and Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter’s TIME’S EYE (much moreso the latter), even if it doesn’t quite sit at their level. But Fogel’s story is engaging, combining various elements of high adventure to ensure readers come back for the rest of the series. As a first-time author, he makes some missteps here and there – one being an overreliance on impossible-to-pronounce names, which often prevented me from fully wrapping my head around the narrative – but this has real potential to become a small-press fave.
Truth in advertising: THE PICASSO FLOP by Vincent Van Patten and Robert J. Randisi is indeed a flop. Set in Las Vegas, this “Texas Hold ‘Em mystery” follows an ex-con in a high-stakes poker tourney, where he’s coaching a young woman on knowing when to hold ‘em and knowing when to fold ‘em (ignite, sparks!). He gets to play detective when dead bodies start turning up with playing cards on the corpses, as if communicating a message. Call it THE DA VINCI CARD. The mystery is so-so, but what really lost me was all the poker talk. I don’t play poker, I don’t know poker, so it’s like a foreign language to me. Van Patten is a horrible actor (MASTER NINJA), so his fiction debut was destined to be a step up regardless. That this comes branded with the World Poker Tour logo suggests quality wasn’t necessarily an issue as much as just getting something out before the craze plays itself out. I expect better from Mysterious Press; CASINO ROYALE it ain’t.
One of the better books I’ve ever bought off of Barnes & Noble’s bargain rack was H.P. LOVECRAFT’S BOOK OF HORROR, edited by Stephen Jones and Dave Carson. It made jury duty fly by. Now, a dozen years later, Jones has produced a sequel, H.P. LOVECRAFT’S BOOK OF THE SUPERNATURAL. The concept remains the same: Utilizing excerpts from Lovecraft’s own critical essays of various writers, Jones has the author unwittingly “host” an anthology of classic scare stories, from such lit luminaries as Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Ambrose Pierce, Rudyard Kipling and Washington Irving. Even Henry James is here with his classic novel THE TURN OF THE SCREW printed in full. Grab it.
Don’t have a Playmate-worthy woman sharing your sheets? Look at it this way: At least you can spend your nights catching up on your reading; may we recommend THE NEW BEDSIDE PLAYBOY: A HALF CENTURY OF AMUSEMENT, DIVERSION & ENTERTAINMENT? Edited by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, the anthology covers 50 years of the mag’s non-pictorial contents – namely, short stories and commentary from some of literature’s brightest lights. We’re talking Ray Bradbury, Saul Bellow, Ian Fleming, Michael Chabon, Joyce Carol Oates, Arthur C. Clarke, Donald E. Westlake, Mario Puzo and many, many more. But don’t think they’re ignoring sex altogether – there’s a funny piece on bachelor stories that went awry and an eye-opening transcription of several women sitting around talking about what gets them off. The color section of cartoons and other pages of whimsical filler may do the trick for you.
Attention, Jerry Bruckheimer: Robert Liparulo’s GERM looks readymade for you. This virus thriller begins with a frenetic car chase – one of many – and even when it ends, the story doesn’t. In fact, that may be part of the problem: At nearly 500 pages, it’s far too long for the plot Liparulo has crafted. In creating a biological bug that hunts down victims according to their DNA, it’s clear the author wants to be an evangelical Michael Crichton, and – given an editor with more red pens – he could be. But for a big breakthrough, he needs to know when to ease off the pedal; his equally lengthy apocalyptic debut, COMES A HORSEMAN, also suffered from keyboard diarrhea. Tighter reins would result in a more pleasurable, credible time-killer.
The super-cool first-issue cover of the comic HERETIC: THE TEMPLAR CHRONICLES promises great things, and mostly delivers on them. Based on the BOOKGASM-approved novel of the same name by Joseph Nassise, the six-issue series follows Templar Knight-cum-ghostbuster Cade Williams, and remains pretty true to its source material, even if Cade doesn’t look a lick as I imagined he would. But what the title does right is bringing out the details of the horror-fantasy adventure in lurid, eye-popping detail. We’re talking like blown-away-kneecaps detail. Chuck Satterlee is responsible for the faithful script, while Bruce McCorkindale provides the visuals. Sometimes his characters look ridiculously out of proportion, but for this kind of he-men hoo-hah, exaggeration is not necessarily a bad thing.
Now that Darwyn Cooke has resurrected Will Eisner’s signature character, it’s as good a time as any to get acquainted with – or revisit – the source. DC Comics makes this easy with THE BEST OF THE SPIRIT, collecting 22 memorable tales. These originally appeared as multipage newspaper supplements, and it’s fun to see how Eisner used that now-dead format to his advantage. The Spirit is a unique comics character: Though a masked detective, he’s no superhero, and to be honest, he usually takes a backseat to other players of the story. Two of these stories I first read in grade school and have been singed in my memory ever since. Perhaps they’ve even haunted me, and that’s the key to Eisner’s genius: Making what’s considered inferior kid’s stuff into a groundbreaking art form that can stand up to the best hard-boiled crime novels. Neil Gaiman pays tribute to Eisner and his creation in the intro to this must-have for any serious “Action! Mystery! Adventure!” comics fan. –Rod Lott
Buy it at Amazon.
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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• THE BEST HORROR FROM FANTASY TALES edited by Stephen Jones and David Sutton
• HERETIC: THE TEMPLAR CHRONICLES by Joseph Nassise
• HORROR: ANOTHER 100 BEST BOOKS edited by Stephen Jones & Kim Newman
• LONE STAR LAW edited by Robert J. Randisi
• THE PLOT: THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION by Will Eisner
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