QUICKGASM >> 8.15.07
Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!
For whatever reason, I have travel anxiety. The anthology SUMMER CHILLS: STRANGERS IN STRANGE LANDS offers 20 good reasons why my condition is justified. Edited by Stephen Jones, the horror collection follows people journeying to faraway places they’ll wish they hadn’t … assuming they stay alive, of course. Christopher Fowler’s greedy American couple runs up against Muslim tradition – and curses – in “The Threads,” while a vacationer in Michael Marshall Smith’s “Being Right” finds an invocation that allows him to know what his wife truly is thinking. The spookiest tale is Karl Edward Wagner’s “In the Pines,” set in a cabin in the mountains, which slowly turns a man insane as his affections drift away from his spouse and to a female ghost who visits him and tells him to do naughty things. Also included are Clive Barker, Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg, as well as two British writers whose work I continue to find impenetrable: Ramsey Campbell and Brian Lumley.
Having listened to and loved the music of John Wesley Harding a lot (as in, I wore out his 1989 debut album HERE COMES THE GROOM on tape and had to buy another), I shouldn’t be surprised that the man can write fiction as well. Under his real name of Wesley Stace, he’s written two novels, the latest of which is BY GEORGE. Like his music, it’s characterized by smart, sharp wordplay and clever turns of phrase. Its premise, however, spans way beyond a five-minute folk-rock number, following two characters named George over two different time periods: one is an English schoolboy in the ’70s, and the other is the boy’s grandfather’s ventriloquist dummy – who, even stranger, narrates. But don’t expect DEAD SILENCE-style horror; this is a serious – if seriously weird – novel filled with angst, nostalgia and a family of theatricality, in more ways than one. If Wes the singer finds influence from Dylan, Wes the writer draws from Dickens.
A Midsummer Night’s Press offers THE GOOD-NEIGHBOR POLICY by Hard Case Crime’s fearless leader Charles Ardai. Pegged as “a double-cross in double dactyls,” this thin – and I do mean thin – tale presents a murder mystery all in verse. The whodunit concerns a home invasion at the abode of Theo Gregg and his hot wife, Melanie. Gunfire is exchanged and Melanie is the only survivor. But does her story corroborate that of nosy neighbor Mr. Algernon, who – REAR WINDOW-style – spies on them with binoculars? All will be solved in the span of 21 pages. (See, I told you it was thin.) It’s a clever exercise that Ardai pulls off with expected wit, but the $6.95 price tag is hard to stomach for a 10-minute read, even if the tiny tome is well-designed.
Dear Stacey Grenrock Woods: I love you, but you’re going to hate me. I love your monthly sex column in Esquire, with its sharp answers, snarky sense of humor and that devilish postage-stamp pic of you shooting That Look. You’re a brainy sex goddess for the sophisticated men’s magazine world. but I dislike your book, starting with its unwieldy title: I, CALIFORNIA: THE OCCASIONAL HISTORY OF A CHILDHOOD ACTRESS/TAP DANCER/RECORD STORE CLERK/THAI WAITRESS/PLAYBOY REJECT/NIGHTCLUB BOOKER/DAILY SHOW CORRESPONDENT/SEX COLUMNIST/RECURRING CHARACTER/AND WHATEVER ELSE. Whereas your column is so tight and punchy, your memoir is a near stream-of-consciousness, shapeless, rambling thing. Plus, it reads like every other memoir: took some drugs, had an abortion, but lookitmenow! Adding in gratuitous Peter Frampton references just doesn’t cut it. When you’re back to penning orgasm jokes, I’m all yours. (But I’d love to see your rejected Playboy pic. Hey, I’m just sayin’…)
Even if you detest pigeons, I recommend flocking to PIGEONS: THE FASCINATING SAGA OF THE WORLD’S MOST REVERED AND REVILED BIRD by journalist Andrew D. Blechman. Despite having been pooped on by them, he happens to love the feathered fiends, and takes us on a witty, wondrous, you-are-there trip as he attends New York’s pigeon racing contest, visits Pennsylvania’s pigeon show, meets a pigeon doctor who removes tumors via the eye socket, frustratingly participates in a pigeon shoot, goes on a pigeon population-control mission with firm Bye Bye Birdie, finds a pigeon stud farm and tries to interview reputed pigeon lover Mike Tyson. In between these true-life adventures, Blechman deals the dish on the role of pigeons through history and explains why they like to fly into windows so much. This is the kind of non-fiction book I love best: one that takes an entirely bizarro subject matter, immerses itself into the world, and has a shitload of fun doing it. –Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• THE BEST HORROR FROM FANTASY TALES edited by Stephen Jones and David Sutton
• THE BOOK OF SKULLS by Robert Silverberg
• CREEPSHOWS: THE ILLUSTRATED STEPHEN KING MOVIE GUIDE by Stephen Jones
• HORROR: ANOTHER 100 BEST BOOKS edited by Stephen Jones & Kim Newman
• H.P. LOVECRAFT’S BOOK OF THE SUPERNATURAL edited by Stephen Jones
• THE RETURN OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS by Isaac Asimov, edited by Charles Ardai
• SONGS OF INNOCENCE by Richard Aleas
• TEN SECOND STAIRCASE by Christopher Fowler
• THE WATER ROOM by Christopher Fowler
• WHITE CORRIDOR by Christopher Fowler
[...] a try, beginning with “The Threads,” the ill-fated vacation account I first read in the SUMMER CHILLS anthology. The only other entry I was familiar with was party piece “The Uninvited,” [...]