Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!
If you’re a zombie – or just into zombie porn – you’ll dig D.L. Snell’s novel from Permuted Press with a rather windy title: ROSES OF BLOOD ON BARBWIRE VINES. Phew! Fortunately, anything that could be remotely connected to any of Anne Rice’s boring bloodsucker books is absent. Instead, we get shock scene after shock scene, but there’s enough of an underlying story to keep you moderately interested. ROSES disturbs and titillates, but maybe not in the right order unless one is ready into this genre. Like Mexican wrestling, there’s a niche for these kinds of stories and Snell revels in all its glory: Nazi zombies, sex swing amputees, zombie sex, vampires and – last but not least – an Uzi gun battle. Snell is an acquired taste and has skill, but if this were a movie, it would be a German snuff film. For those into shocking monster lit with heart – and brains and eyeballs – this is a quickly paced read. –Matt Adder
A highlight of my after-school ritual growing up was watching reruns of WELCOME BACK, KOTTER on TV. I always liked how star Gabe Kaplan ended each episode by telling a joke. He’s been somewhat reclusive ever since, but now he’s written a book called KOTTER’S BACK: E-MAILS FROM A FADED CELEBRITY TO A BEWILDERED WORLD, in which he compiles e-mail pranks he’s pulled on one person/company or another. He has some good ideas – offering himself to a porn producer as its newest performer, for instance, or proposing an audiobook interviewing the thousands of women he claims (in jest) to have slept with – but the execution couldn’t even crack a smile out of me. Too many of these exchanges go nowhere, die on the vine or simply stop before it gets good. As far as I’m concerned, only one person ever did the prank-letter thing correctly: Don Novello, in THE LAZLO LETTERS and CITIZEN LAZLO! All you wannabes – that means you, IDIOT LETTERS, LETTERS FROM A NUT and (sorry, Gabe) KOTTER’S BACK – all mere pretenders to the throne.
Being a champion of short stories – which find fewer and fewer outlets for publication as the years progress – Steve Cohen thought about starting a short-fiction magazine. Knowing that would fail financially, he instead decided to seek out stories that were tailor-made to be adapted into movies. He recruited various creative types to handpick the tales, and the result is NEXT STOP HOLLYWOOD: SHORT STORIES BOUND FOR THE SCREEN. Such potential is entirely subjective, but a mixed bag is to be expected among the 15 contributions. After all, do you want to see all two dozen movies showing at your local multiplex? No, you’re going to stick with the genres you like, which is why I dug E.E. King’s clever advertising/religion satire “Dirk Snigby’s Guide to the Afterlife” and Russell Bittner’s disturbing, sexually charged psycho-thriller “Waltzing Matilda,” and avoided, say, the emotional, feel-good treacle of Janet Neipris’ “The Piano.” There are a few here I’d pay to see as movies, so in that aspect, NEXT STOP can be viewed as a success.
As part of the Smart Pop series of pop-culture essay collections, WEBSLINGER: UNAUTHORIZED ESSAYS ON YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN includes 17 pieces on everyone’s favorite wallcrawler. Edited by legendary comics scribe Gerry Conway, the book casts light on various aspects of Spidey, perhaps a few too many on his guilt/shame. Rather amusingly, Darren Hudson Hick looks at Peter Parker’s transformation as an allegory for puberty, working in a discussion about Fredric Wertham’s anti-comics crusade. Keith R.A. DeCandido gets fanboyish with an article on whether Spider-Man or Superman is better, while Robert Taylor examines how Sam Raimi and Brian Michael Bendis have changed the character for today’s times, and Lou Anders examines scientists’ real-life efforts at creating webbing. If you go nuts for Marvel’s multiple monthly titles, you’ll want this. –Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• FAST FORWARD 1: FUTURE FICTION FROM THE CUTTING EDGE edited by Lou Anders
• THE UNDEAD: ZOMBIE ANTHOLOGY edited by D.L. Snell & Elijah Hall
Related posts:
- QUICKGASM >> 4.30.07
- QUICKGASM >> 4.11.07
- QUICKGASM >> 3.5.07
- QUICKGASM >> 2.5.07
- QUICKGASM >> 11.10.06
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Matt, thanks for reviewing my zombie/vampire novel, Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines. It’s a fair review…although I don’t remember there being any zombie sex