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| 1662513917
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| 1662513917
| 3.49
| 597
| Mar 19, 2024
| Mar 19, 2024
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it was amazing
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Podcast interview on the way... Around the time that Del Toro’s amazing Pan’s Labyrinth was being discovered as a part of the Oscar season, there was a Podcast interview on the way... Around the time that Del Toro’s amazing Pan’s Labyrinth was being discovered as a part of the Oscar season, there was a rush or a push to find Horror novels that connected to fairy tales. I remember agents in their manuscript wish lists asked for dark fairy tales constantly. Certainly, there are plenty of those novels if that is your thing from directly related takes like Sarah Pinborough’s Tales from the Kingdom Trilogy or modern retellings like Victor LaValle’s The Changeling. The former is a book that I would compare to Pelayo’s dark fairy tale and vivid Chicago gothic. These books are natural cousins. I grew up one state over from Chicago but had family and friends in the city and spent much time there, so I enjoyed the setting. Chicago is a character in this book make no mistake, and as such you get both a gritty ground-level description of the city while learning some history about the city. The novel is connected to one of the city’s most tragic events the shipwreck of the SS Eastland. Anna and Jennie live in an older house along the Chicago River, it is one of those old creaky houses that echo the past. “A house is alive, as we are alive. In many ways a house is always recording, and when ready it will recount to us images and sounds, maybe more of the secrets it holds. A house always watches, waits, and listens for its caretaker, but it also recognizes when a new tide is coming, and it will warn us.” The relationship between the two sisters is deep but know that (without spoiling) it is complicated. This is a feature, not a bug. Anna is your main POV, although ever few chapters we get the point of view of the detectives working a murder case. This is an interesting choice in a first-person narrative. The mystery involves a series of bodies being found in or around the Chicago River. The victims are in various forms of decay. Anna had a unique way of seeing the city, obsessed with the dark history and corners of a city that was once centered around the industry of slaughter. Much of what makes Anna a compelling character is confirmed in the final acts, so if you want to know my non-spoiler thoughts. I think this is a great novel for fans of Chicago. Urban horror, modern fairy tales, and character. This is a very good novel, that didn’t fully win me over until the final act when parts I was unsure about ended up paying off nicely. I want to be careful of hyperbolic over-the-top reviews because I very much enjoyed this novel, but it is not perfect. I was a bit confused by the choice of first-person when the POV shifts so often. That might be a writer problem, I don’t think many readers worry about who or why the story is being told that way. I was engaged enough with the story I forgot all that stuff. I understood the choice in the final and thought the pay off was worth it. So, if you have read it and want my thoughts… here-be spoilers as the reason I dug it is mostly in the details of execution. I am serious about SPOILERS… The best elements of this novel certainly involve spoilers, and yes there were moments where I thought this book lost me. There were 10 or 15 pages when I was confused about what exactly was happening. There is a confusing POV shift in the final act when Anna’s sanity and grip on reality is tested. The good news is I stuck it out. The setup and pay-off worked for this reader. What makes Forgotten Sisters special is the blending of modern and historical. CP works with a foundation for this ghost story on two tracks. The Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid on one track and on the other the historical Tragedy of the SS Eastland, a ship that crashed in the Chicago River killing 800 people. A ghost story inspired by two sisters who died on the ship, this novel is about a haunting, but the ending works because the twist that Anna’s sanity and break from reality was in front of us the whole time. The tragic thing is Anna lost her sister, and the reason she was afraid the leave the house, the reason her sister did want her to leave is the haunting couldn’t follow her. “Can't you finally understand? Can't you finally see that it's that city will not let you leave? You are the steel in the skyscrapers. You are the cobblestones hidden beneath the asphalt-covered streets you are the Chicago River.” The fairy tale, gothic and crime elements are the building blocks but the final act is when the novel becomes a modern horror novel. The twist is heartbreaking the nightmare of the faces in the water, the bodies in the river…truth is Anna is alone. Great reveal. “I want to tell her about my nightmare last night and the waking terror I experienced. I suppose they were both nightmares, seeing those faces in the river and the siren in my room, who seemed so real.” Cena Pelayo is an author now officially on my radar. Forgotten Sisters is a wonderfully structured genre-blending novel. Big thumbs up. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 08, 2024
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Sep 13, 2024
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Sep 08, 2024
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Paperback
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| 1039467474
| 9781039467477
| 1039467474
| 4.20
| 5
| unknown
| Sep 24, 2024
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really liked it
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Years ago, homey Anthony Trevino lent me The Last Projector by David James Keaton. It sounded good, and Anthony swore by it. I can’t explain it, but t
Years ago, homey Anthony Trevino lent me The Last Projector by David James Keaton. It sounded good, and Anthony swore by it. I can’t explain it, but that book has been unread on my TBR pile in four apartments. Probably 8 years now. For the life of me why I have not read it is a mystery and at this point, I think I am just being stubborn. I mean I read Head Cleaner his last novel, and Interviewed David on the podcast. That fucking book was one of my favorites of that year. I even made it Dick-like Suggestion on the Dickheads podcast. So, think about it. I talked about Keaton’s weird SF VCR time travel novel on not one, but two podcasts. I also think of him every time a character in a movie takes a decompression shower, seriously once you notice it they are as pervasive as giant massive grave holes that magically happen in movies. Why do I think of DJK when a character stands in the shower and just thinks about their horrible situation? Because whenever he sees it in a movie or TV he posts a picture of it. I can’t unsee them because of him. That should serve as a reminder, of that book still sitting on the TBR. The point is I have plenty of reminders and reasons to read The Last Projector and I have not. Then last month a package showed up on my porch. In the package mailed by David James Keaton there was a DVD for Innocent Blood. A movie I saw in the theater that I used to call ‘European Vampire in Pittsburgh’. Get it? John Landis the director of American Werewolf in London directed it. It had the same horror comedy tone. They should’ve called the movie by that title. There was also a CD for the band Yes: The Yes Album. I was listening to the Misfits this morning. Now for the rest of this review, I will listen to that Yes album. I am not a Yes Fan, so this may become a commentary on Prog rock. I like Prog metal, so maybe I will like it. Bye, bye Danzig and the boys. Here comes Yes. The package also contained a novel by David James Keaton. Which I have read already despite not reading The Last Projector, and even though he sent me this hippie bullshit in the mail. Yes is the hippie bullshit to be clear. Shallow Ends is the novel. In one way it is a throwback. In the Golden Age of Science Fiction, authors would break up novels and sell them as short stories, later compile them into what were called Fix-up novels. As best I can tell Keaton took seven short stories that he published in various places and recycled them into this novel. You can call it smart or shroud because the common wisdom is that readers don’t want to buy short story collections. They want novels baby. One long story with characters that grow and have character arcs over a complete book. So here is David James Keaton the author of seven published short stories and what does he do with them? Publishers don’t want a collection. So I am sure he turned on a hot shower let the water run on him and closed his eyes. As the steam rose cinematically around him in his moment of despair an idea! I will put them together in one novel with a single story to tie them together. (I can’t take anymore Yes, I might have to cleanse with Morbid Angel. Speaking of YES – Why didn’t Weird Al ever make “Donor of a Faulty Heart?”) You maybe asking now? Who could make that work? The Answer is clearly the author of the Last Projector David James Keaton. This is a pretty solid act of writing, not everyone could take seven stories seemly slide them into one novel, thankfully the stories are thematically themed and stylistically suited for the task. The story of the fire truck converted into a nightmarish party bus sets perfectly for Keaton's hilarious Clerks meets Twilight Zone vibe. Add a bit of Speed (the movie, not the other stuff) and you have all the ingredients for a fun read. The party bus heads out of Louisville, where the novel starts on a lost highway, it won't stop, the poor bastards are afraid it will never stop. As the characters try to figure out how they ended up in this hell the guilt brings up memories. The short stories! Damn you for making me listen to YES hippie shit, but thank you for the novel Keaton! Some of the stories, like the shark one, are better than others but the story tying them together was fun. I laughed many times. I had fun with this book. Podcast interview is coming. It will be about Shallow Ends. Not The Last Projector. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 2024
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Aug 10, 2024
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Aug 01, 2024
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| 9798987747124
| B0C8C2B7RK
| 3.96
| 23
| Sep 2023
| Sep 13, 2023
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it was amazing
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One of the weird things about social media is becoming friends and feeling connected to folks you never met in the real world. The first time I record
One of the weird things about social media is becoming friends and feeling connected to folks you never met in the real world. The first time I recorded a podcast with James Reich we were talking about Barry Malzberg’s genius and his underrated science fiction novel Beyond Apollo. We share a love for very niche writers and styles of storytelling. I have always felt connected to James. His novel Song My Enemies Sing for one example is a very strange book that seems almost designed for my sensibilities. For one thing, it takes place on a very real and still unreal Mars. By real I mean one that exists two hundred percent in the imagination of readers of bygone pulp fiction Mars envisioned by Burroughs, Bradbury, Bradbury, Brackett, and of course Philip K. Dick. In our real universe, this Mars doesn’t exist but whatever. Reich’s Mars is not too different from the lyrical surreal New York of the Great Depression in this novel. James Reich is a writer I greatly admire and as of a couple of weeks ago, I got to hang out with him in person and pick up a signed copy of this. Spending time with James was a highlight of the weekend but I assure you if I didn’t honestly like this novel, I would have just not finished it. I found this novel to be further proof that James Reich is a super underrated writer. You need to listen to me on this point. I am overdue to read this one, which I went into super blind. I trusted James and didn’t read the back cover, or ask him about it. I knew the title was a reference to Poe, and that it was a quote from Fall of the House of Usher. I did need to google it to remember. “It is the desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us – but a wild effort to reach the Beauty above…” ― Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher Is it about the attraction to beautiful things that hurt us? I am not sure I want to try to answer something the novel makes us ponder. The Moth for the Star is part paranormal mystery, romance, and in subtle ways an alternate history that will fly over most heads, as nothing that happens is major global events. The story of Varmas and Campbell is globe-trotting, but in a way I didn’t see this happening in our past, I pictured a stylized slightly off-beat dark version of our past. The two main characters drink heavily to forget something, and for most of the novel, we don’t know what mystery they are trying to out run. What makes this novel sing is the fine-tuned lyrical prose here I selected a paragraph at random as an example. “If he could get up he might crawl to the living room and find a telephone to call Campbell, but his flesh held him down his blood let in his remorse would toil at him in the night. For now it floated threateningly across the surface of his being. Varmas dreamed of something like a dark star. Too late saw it plunging into the earth. Now he slid into that coffin of his unconscious where Campbell slept, his image of her waxwork warm from the cast her throat was lifted and dreaming, her mouth was open, as if to rainfall.” This novel is filled with passages like this. If I can be critical of anything, it is the beauty of the prose distracted me from the story at times. That is a good problem to have in the same way that Liggotti for example builds such beautiful paragraphs that I can lose the narrative thread. This of course adds to the surreal feeling of the overall book. Feature not a bug. The characters are hiding from darkness and that is the mystery at the core, the answer is heartbreaking. “The wasteland has found the city it always does I imagine.” he thought of the marionettes broken like eggshells, masonry falling like clotted blood, ancient scaffolding breaking away, and a vast column of dust rising over the yellow earth. “I'm sorry I don't want to be bleak I thought I might be distracting to talk, but when I opened my mouth, all that came out. “I don't mind,” Campbell said. “One dark thing brings the rest of the darkness with it.” The rest of the darkness in this story is buried in a vibe that contrasts some of the gothic beauty. The bottom line is Moth for the Star is a darkly beautiful book. It is a vibe and experience you should have if you like elevated dark fantasy and horror. The ending will surprise some but the source of the darkness is so very close to Campbell and Varmas that the tragedy drips off every page. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 18, 2024
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Jun 20, 2024
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Jun 18, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0593595750
| 9780593595756
| 0593595750
| 4.05
| 2,972
| Aug 15, 2023
| Aug 15, 2023
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it was amazing
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How in the holy hell did I not hear of this book sooner? Weird crime, occult horror, a wee bit of metal, and some (punk)rock and roll set in many of m
How in the holy hell did I not hear of this book sooner? Weird crime, occult horror, a wee bit of metal, and some (punk)rock and roll set in many of my old haunts in Portland. I have no idea how I missed this one that would have made my best of 2023 list had I read it in time. It was a best-of-the-year ranking from the Talking Scared podcast that got this book on my radar. I like crime novels, but I LOVE weird crime novels. I know the Pulp Fiction comparisons will be beaten to a pulp but think more about Elmore Leonard. I was thinking of Lansdale a bit, I know he feels so geographic it is hard to make that comparison to anything set outside of the South. Fever House is maybe not quite as laughter-inducing, although I chuckled often enough. This is a fun read, disturbing at times but I read it fast over a couple of commutes and almost missed my stop. Fever House is the story of several characters spread out around Portland Oregon. It opens on tough guy Hutch Holtz. You might be thinking this is his story and you wouldn’t be far off. I read this book cold, knowing nothing of the plot. I thought OK we are chasing down a gangster’s money, then Hutch finds the hand in a wonderbread bag in the freezer. That is when things start to get weird. The hand affects people around it. Makes them violent, quick to anger. I think the freezer might have blocked it. Hutch is afraid that the hand might implicate him and his friend takes it to dispose of it but the chaos starts right away and also opens the mystery of what the hell is this thing? We get introduced to Hutch’s boss, a Dark Ops agent looking for the hand, a friend Nick Coffin, and his former rock star mom Katherine who went from touring to agoraphobia. Nick and Katherine interestingly become the protagonists of the book after we start on Hutch. It is an interesting narrative switch-a-roo that had me wondering if that was an accident by the author. Had Rosson intended to center the book on Hutch? Nick and Katherine and their character elements were as interesting to me as almost anything in the book. Hutch drops out of the book and I could see some editors or storytelling Gurus saying that was a mistake structure-wise. It didn’t bother me but it was a strange choice to give me a hundred to like a character who disappears. That said Katherine is a fascinating character, and alongside her son Nick that novel is in good hands. If you trust me and want to go in unspoiled let me just assure you of some things. This is a horror crime novel that mixes street-level brutality, humor, and supernatural elements. Much was made in the review of the hard rock or metal edges to the book but I thought those were minor. The crime aspects are where Rosson hooked me. Good crime novels excel in characters and dialogue, and this novel does those moments well. The horror elements work but not as effortlessly as the crime. It is a banger, and despite being long-ish it works. One of the best moments in the novel highlights for me the excellent writing and storytelling chops at play. This happens late in the novel when Katherine after suffering from intense agoraphobia has to escape into the night. “Katherine steps out, expecting gunfire and helicopters Men in a perimeter around the door, screaming at her with their weapons drawn. Instead the night smells of rain. A city street, a boxy white moving van parked at the curb. A street of featureless office parks and garages. More warehouses. Alleyways dark with tangles of blackberry bushes. Lights shining from windows like squares cut out of dark paper. The door clicks shut behind her. Katherine breathes for a single moment and then runs out into the world with her gun.” Fever House is filed with powerful moments like this. Many reviews with focus on the brutal bits, and the humor. That is much of the appeal. The writing is excellent on all levels. This is really cool hybrid novel, and I am excited to read the sequel. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 19, 2024
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Jan 24, 2024
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Dec 24, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 014303569X
| 9780143035695
| 014303569X
| 3.62
| 35,568
| 1997
| Mar 28, 2006
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really liked it
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In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami Last year in our best reads of the year podcast Marc said to me I should read this book and in April he gave it to me In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami Last year in our best reads of the year podcast Marc said to me I should read this book and in April he gave it to me and still it took me until December to read it. The combined pressure of library books and stuff for the podcast kept pushing this back. On paper I should dig, Tokyo Vice was one of my favorite shows, I like international-based crime novels, and the idea of a Japanese 8MM is a pitch that works. I have seen comparisons to American Psycho. Not for me. Kenji is our point who is tour guide for perverts that come from other countries. You see American perverts do this. Most of them are not savvy enough to get around a foreign country. I am sure they are party to some awful shit. Kenji has a bad feeling about the homely-looking Frank who is visiting from America. As he takes him around to the various clubs and places it becomes apparent Frank is a scary dude. I don’t know much about the author Ryu Murakami but it sounds like he is like a combo of Conan O Brian, and David Lynch. For a guy who is a popular celebrity this a violent, violent book. I suspect some of the noir vibe of the Tokyo streets is lost in translation. I have read about some horrible places so honestly until the serial killing started I thought this seemed tame. Having watched Catch a Predator, and seen documentaries about sex tourism I found this first bit of this novel to be not very shocking. What I did like was a few moments of off-hand observations that seemed to express Kenji’s way of seeing the world. Some were dark… “You don't know what cold is until you've experienced the cold you feel when the blood is draining out of your body.” That one gave me a little shudder, but I tended to find those moments less interesting than the moments of commentary. Like this one that stopped my reading flow. “All Americans have something lonely about them. I don't know what the reason might be, except maybe that they're all descended from immigrants.” So he was hanging out with an American serial killer but he is commenting on all of us. He is making a sly comment on how we don’t have the national identity they do. I don’t think that is the reason, but it was interesting that he thought so. Anyone who reads my reviews knows I look for mission statements. A part of the novel that I think expresses what it is all about. In The Miso Soup, I feel the author is exploring how his country becomes a vacation spot for people like Frank. At the same time, he is clear. Don’t blame the art. Perhaps my favorite passage makes this point. “People who love horror films are people with boring lives... when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether, I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news.” In The Miso Soup is a good horror novel, and the setting is fascinating. It should appeal to horror and noir readers but it didn’t knock my socks off. I thought it was a good read but I was hoping for a great read. Now I want to see this dude’s movie and talk show. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 19, 2023
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Dec 22, 2023
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Dec 19, 2023
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Paperback
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| 1803363991
| 9781803363998
| 1803363991
| 3.47
| 19
| Sep 26, 2023
| Sep 26, 2023
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it was amazing
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Almost two decades ago I went to a coffee house to meet a local horror author to see if there were ways we could work together to promote our small ho
Almost two decades ago I went to a coffee house to meet a local horror author to see if there were ways we could work together to promote our small horror community. I read his debut novel before we hung out and frankly, I couldn’t believe how good it was. I had first heard of Cody Goodfellow in an intensely hyperbolic review in Cemetery Dance Magazine by Splatterpunk legend John Skipp. (Skipp would go on to team up with Cody on a couple of novels) Throughout the years there have been lots of reviews and blurbs that will tell you how genius Cody Goodfellow is. Skipp and I are far from alone. I assumed once the secret got out he was on track to become the biggest writer of our generation, a household name, bestselling novels, home on paperback racks that kind of thing. To me, he was that good. Over time I learned that happens to your Ray Bradburys and Isaac Asimovs. When the people doing really crazy original stuff like Barry Malzberg and Norman Spinrad you get respect from the hardcore but it took death for Octavia Butler and Philip K. Dick to be recognized as the towering giants they were. They didn’t play it safe; they wrote revolutionary genre fiction and sometimes it helps to be a mad scientist. That is what Cody Goodfellow is at heart, a mad scientist, who unlike most literary freakazoids from those earlier generations Cody grew up with more than a massive library, but also punk rock, alternative culture, and an open attitude toward mind-altering genre and chemicals. The kind of alchemy that creates in Cody Goodfellow a human who writes novels that are so good, so weird the world is just not ready for them. I once asked Cody what he was working on. He responded “A body horror novel about a haunted house with bees that turn you into communists.” The result was a horror novel Perfect Union. This novel is a masterpiece, but when Cody shopped it to major publishers the silence was deafening. In my opinion - they didn’t get it. This novel recently reissued by Ghoulish Books is STILL ahead of its time. It is better in my opinion than hundreds of mainstream horror novels and stomps most Stoker award-winning milk toast. Didn’t matter if he wrote weird mystery noir like Repo Shark or SF dystopia in Unamerica it was equally good. I was ready for him to write a straight-ahead action techno-thriller like Vertical. I knew that this project was brought to Cody by Alcon Entertainment. He was given a Screenplay in development, but as a long-time Goodfellow reader I wouldn’t have guessed, because the characters feel like his and the action and details elevate what could be a simple action adventure in a less dynamic storyteller’s hands. Vertical is the story of an Urbex crew of adventure activists who pull off daring stunts sometimes with a message. Outlaw athletes who pull off political pranks they broke up after the last stunt almost killed them. Michael Foster has moved on to working as tech-bro when Cam and Maddie from the crew recruit him for the ultimate prank. Climbing the unfinished tallest building in the world being built in Moscow and billed as Vertical City. Once up the plan is to send a friend to launch in a dangerous wing-suit flight. The Korova Tower on Russia Day is a prank for the ages. The location and set-up are one that Goodfellow doesn’t rush. The characters are key in thrillers and Cody fills them with reasons, flaws, strengths, and motivations. They are not plot chess pieces, and that is important because when shit gets crazy you need a reason to give a shit about them. Let's start by talking about how well Goodfellow sets the stage for the location. “As they passed out of the tunnel, a gargantuan shadow fell across the highway, eclipsing the pale, rising sun. Twice as tall as the cluster of gleaming spires around it, Korova Tower looked like a ladder to the stars. Its one hundred and ninety stories dominated the skyline, surmounted by a forked crane that made the already imposing tower look like it has horns.” The reputation Goodfellow has for writing bonkers stuff and that kind of hides how powerful and poetic his prose can be. That is an example of excellent writing. This book is filled with moments like that it in a book designed to be a commercial vehicle. Another thing that elevates the book is the balance between knowledge of the gritty underground world matched with above-average knowledge of historical and literary details. Vertical has a urbex crew a reference to the Illiad, and former punk rock Russian cop who makes jokes about Sex Pistols in his narrative POV. Speaking of that guy’s band The Great Train Robbery whose records were pressed on the vinyl on old X-rays, a detail Goodfellow uncovered doing intense research. That is key Vertical is intensely researched. It has to talk about the white-knuckle action of the final act without spoiling the action, so if you want a spoiler-free experience go read Vertical meet me back here at this part of the review. Going into the book I assumed it would have Die Hard feeling, with the Russian agents or Mob chasing the team around the building but a few set pieces in particular drive the action. The one I didn’t see coming was an earthquake under Moscow. The reason for this is one I appreciate but won't give away. It is one thing for a city not used to earthquakes to suffer one during the Russia day party, that is enough to add chaos to your adventure story but… “Like its neighbor, the Federation town, Korova stood on a shelf of sedimentary rock separated by a thick stratum of alluvial clay from deep but perennially depleted aquifer, which served as a perfect transmitter for the longest wavelengths of the distant quake to strum the skyscraper like a taunt string. Built to suspend 190 stories of concrete, steel, and glass on a minimal footprint with little consideration for seismic endurance, the skyscraper’s tripod shaped foundation core tisted against itself as if some greater force was wringing it dry…” Now imagine your prankster crew of activists are trapped on the half-finished top floors. Once the building starts to fall part of the adrenaline ride of the story starts. Like another horror or suspense thing you have to put yourself in the shoes of the characters and the whole thing would be gut-wrenching and terror-inducing, not just for the fear of heights but the building falling apart. Goodfellow figures out dozens of crazy ways the building and events would kill a character, and who survives drives the tension. Of course, this would make an incredible movie, just the scene of Tom Cruise hanging off the building of Mission Impossible was nail-biting, a whole movie of it done right could be crazy good. We don’t need to wait for it. We have to story already playing out in this novel with the unlimited budget of your imagination. Cody Goodfellow is a wordsmith hell-bent on giving you the literary feeling of looking over the of high-up building. Now imagine that building starting to crumble apart. Vertical is an action thriller that works on the page. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 2023
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Nov 02, 2023
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Nov 01, 2023
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 161696376X
| 9781616963767
| 161696376X
| 3.61
| 264
| Jul 12, 2022
| Jul 12, 2022
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really liked it
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As a podcaster who does a whole show devoted to Philip K. Dick, I am interested each year in the book that wins the award with his name on it. Our fir
As a podcaster who does a whole show devoted to Philip K. Dick, I am interested each year in the book that wins the award with his name on it. Our first interview was with Carrie Vaughn on her underrated Bannerless novel when it won the award. The prize each year goes to a paperback original, and the idea is that most of Phil’s books debuted in paperback. Unlike most winners, Kimberly Unger’s novel actually sounds Dickian in the nature of the plot, not just in format. The concept of fake virtual worlds is a theme Phil wrote about, including the idea that someone could get stuck in one of these worlds. That is part of the nightmare in Phil’s masterpiece The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and of course, the short story that inspired Total Recall, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale just to name two. So, Unger’s modern take on the subject from Tachyon Publishing is a pretty solid bet for an award winner. As I get started I want to say I enjoyed this book, I think it is good and worth the time of modern Science Fiction readers. If I seem hard on it, it would be the status as the PKD award winner. The history of virtual reality science fiction had its first mind-bending classic a decade before Cyberpunk became a thing with John Brunner’s Shockwave Rider. The reality is that decades later it is easy for these types of stories to feel old hat, certainly 20 years after The Matrix was in theaters, we are at the point when that movie has already had a legacy sequel. This setup has a long history often the question I have with books in this genre is how do you separate your take on Cyberpunk and do something original. “Excellent, but where is the body? I’m here to perform an extraction right?”Mckay asked. She had extracted people from some of the oddest setups, but so far there was always a body, somewhere, to write the persona back to.” The title character Eliza McKay is an expert in Extraction, when powerful people get stuck in “The Swim” virtual worlds, they pay an agent/ mercenary to get them free. This requires skills in the real world and the swim. The action moves from Singapore to San Francisco and back again. Much of the action takes place in the Swim. As you can see from the above quote she can free her client but back to his body…Where? In her world that is unethical, he must be alive, or his mind would stop working but where? That sets off the mystery and espionage parts of the story. One of the keys for a near future cyberpunk-ish novel like this is the world-building. I think some readers believe the dynamic has to be a plausible “few years from now” feeling, but I am a Dickian so I can live with surreal. I don’t understand the idea of wanting this type of Science fiction to feel grounded. Even Hard SF, when it sits on the shelf like say an Arthur C. Clarke novel will transform from grounded and realistic to surreal when the march of passes stories like 2001: A Space Odyssey. That novel has become an alternate reality novel that it was intended to be. Build me a consistent world and I am good. “Once settled on the Skybus, she sealed her sunglasses on and closed her eyes. The Overlay helpfully slid Brighton’s contract into her line of sight, hazard terms and rates picked up in red. She hadn’t taken on a project with questionable components for a while, the figures looked low compared with the feeling of panic she’d been trying to avoid for the past several hours.” Tattoo sinks, the Skybus, and the sealed glasses give this world a different feeling from ours. That is well done natural bits of world-building that will rightfully swim right over most readers. As a Sci-fi writer and critic, I look for such things. The Overlay is the internal net access that appears in the vision of the person operating in the real world. Most of the world-building was well done. There were several times that The Extractionist lost, me, and details went over my head. Unger is a techie, I am not so, and perhaps that is why I didn’t get everything. Honestly, it didn’t hurt my feelings toward the book. I don’t mind as long as I am getting most of it. The above quote also hints at something I felt was missed. Why is Eliza taking these dangerous jobs? In a PKD novel, she would be broke, and have an ex-wife or business partner she owed money to. In world, a better explanation might be a loss of connection to the Swim if she didn’t do this one gig. Those are noir clichés but they exist for a reason. You can’t do a haunted house novel without a logical reason to stay (for a totally different example) and I think I needed more of a reason for Eliza to HAVE to take this case. So this gets back to the question of how you separate your story. That is important but the balance of hitting clichés in the right moments is like playing the power cord correctly as a rhythm guitar She has a brother and that gives the character a little depth but I thought one part on page 87 gave Eliza a strange internal world depth. In the novel she is attacked, what they do to her body is almost an afterthought. They connect to her swim and the violation is brutal. “The Overlay spun up in response to the unexpected input, leaping at the chance to reconnect with the headset, then recoiling as it made contact with the unexpected system. No. No. No. Never had McKay imagined something like this. The Overlay was firewalled and secured against all manner of virtual threats, but direct input was something else entirely. She felt a sick twisting in her gut. They can access everything.” The terror and violation in this scene make clear that the importance of the virtual world, the shifting importance. The Tech overwhelms the lead character as it sometimes does the book. Like I said that never bothered me, less tech-savvy readers will likely not enjoy the experience. Overall this a very good novel, it is entertaining. The most important judgment I can give you is that I intend to read more of Kimberly Unger. ...more |
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Sep 06, 2023
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Sep 12, 2023
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Sep 06, 2023
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Paperback
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| 195590409X
| 9781955904094
| 195590409X
| 3.17
| 1,026
| Aug 16, 2022
| Aug 16, 2022
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it was amazing
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This one will be an interesting review. Off the bat, I should mention this is a Clash Books release which means. Author Michael Seidlinger and I share
This one will be an interesting review. Off the bat, I should mention this is a Clash Books release which means. Author Michael Seidlinger and I share an editor as my book next summer is coming from CLASH. I generally avoid reading and more importantly reviewing books that might be perceived as coming from bias. I just kept hearing good things, very good things. Then I happened to be at the library and saw it on the new release shelf. OK, I am going to do it. Before it came out editor Christoph Paul explained how this book worked and I admit I was skeptical. A home invasion novel is written in second person speaking to one of the invaders. The experimental form seemed like a huge risk for a narrative. While home invasion movies are a prolific home subgenre. There are far more movies than books, with Paul Tremblay’s Cabin at the End of the World getting the M.Night treatment that is probably the most well-known. That being said I think the comparisons are a bit overblown to me. Very different books, I have seen some base comparisons. Anybody Home? Kinda stands alone, I know everyone likes to say their book is like nothing else but in this case, I think Seidlinger has more of an argument than most authors. This novel is a psychological horror that manipulates the reader more directly than ever before because it is talking to us directly. Not everyone has a family but everyone can be the invader so one of the interesting concepts at play is MS is making us the invader. He is making the reader a bystander to the crime, and with each detail of the nameless family, we almost feel guilty watching and judging. There is no way to talk about this without spoiling a bit of what makes it special. This is in a sense a very experimental horror novel that worms into the reader by looking deeply into the home and family being invaded for reasons I don’t want to spoil that could be anyone. Trust me? Then read this book – it is recommended now I am going to spoil away. Anybody Home? Is not a light easy read. I am normally a quick reader because often I learn the style of the author and develop a flow. That is impossible with this novel which lacks a normal narrative flow. I had to read slowly and carefully at times. I am not complaining. That is cool. It is not just the second person, although that is part of the reason. The characters simply being Victim #1-4 Or Invader 1-4 were important to the theme but it forced to work harder to keep it straight. That was on purpose and Siedlinger smartly plays with our confusion more than a few times. It also gives the book a clinical feel, the invaders do this all the time, and they could be watching your family. Indeed Anybody Home is about the family as much as the invasion… “The important stuff goes right onto the page. After seeing it happen a few times, you won't even second guess their actions. You’ll know the ins and outs of their day.” It is not just that the invaders watch the family, that makes the novel creepy. It is the idea that someone, a group of someones is watching and studying your every move. It is interesting as the Numbering of characters and lack of names creates a dehumanization That Siedlinger balances with the exploration of their nature. Amid all that, there is one moment I found fascinating. “The dog,” Number 4 points at the body, “It went missing like a day ago.” Victim #1 looks over at the body, sighs, “She.” “What?” “It’s a she.’ You shouldn’t refer to your pet like it’s an object.” Amid the dehumanization and the lack of names, this moment strikes me as important. Speaking as someone who would rather misgender a pup than ever call them an “it.” This struck me. The reason I came back to it is that when the characters have no names it adds a certain feeling. It makes for a moment the lack of a name stick out like a sore thumb, it also reminds me of how people can’t take violence towards dogs in media. I mean the reason is simple dogs are innocent, and like forever children in our care, so that is why people watch armies of humans get destroyed in movies but can’t take one dog hurt. This novel taking the dog first is another smart detail. Anybody Home? The act of invasion is called the performance, there is a hint of a cult but even when the novel gives details of other performances, the mystery is smartly preserved. This novel is an experiment and I was impressed that Siedlinger was able to stay consistent with the voice of this novel throughout. It is a genius work of horror fiction. That said the form sometimes challenged me as a reader, just with flow. That is my bad, not a reflection of the novel. Understand this is not a light read, but this is minor nitpick that I just think potential readers need to mentally prepare for. I mean that is a great thing for a horror novel, similar to Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door or Brite’s Exquisite Corpse it is a novel that should come with a warning. Anybody Home? Is a masterpiece, I don’t say that lightly. Not an easy light read, it is a challenging book in multiple ways but worth the investment. ...more |
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Jan 17, 2023
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Jan 17, 2023
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| 0316426911
| 9780316426916
| 0316426911
| 3.67
| 10,862
| Aug 02, 2022
| Aug 02, 2022
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it was amazing
| This is a book I was massively overdue to read and I don’t know what took so long. I met Gabino briefly at a Con, I am not even sure which one, world This is a book I was massively overdue to read and I don’t know what took so long. I met Gabino briefly at a Con, I am not even sure which one, world Horror, BizarroCon…honestly not sure. I know him mostly as a positive force for years on Twitter, offering writing advice and being very posi all the time. So I admit I have always been rooting for this book and his success. According to good reads over 600 people are reading it! That is amazing. I have seen it suggested on the NPR website etc. The direct comparisons in the book world are easy. This fits into the same crime noir that S.A. Cosby’s genius Blacktop Wasteland fits. Like that novel, TDTYH forces the reader into an emotionally heavy crime tale that even the most straight-laced of readers can understand. Comparisons to Breaking Bad are lazy two-dimensional takes. This is the story of Mario a young father who ends up with a sick and dying daughter, his plans for a straight life and family are destroyed. A typical book would have Mario risking everything to save his daughter, but not this book the depths are so much deeper. He needs money and his ability to bury his feelings cold-bloodedly kill a man sets off a series of events that drive this narrative. Hope wouldn't make sense the early moments of this book. Mario, our point-of-view character is no Walter White, that show was a very different journey. Yes, we have the desert, a father, and a crime story. This story starts in a crushing, heartbreaking fashion, it softens up the reader before pushing us into a violent and hardcore direction. You may think you are prepared but there was a genuine WTF’s for this lifelong reader of the dark. The Devil Takes You Home is a novel reviewers struggle to not spoil as Iglesias plants his feet in the noir but takes massive swings in the third act I didn’t see coming. If you want to preserve that surprise then I suggest you take my word before I get into spoilers. I read this book based on the strength of the Author, and never once read the insert. Glad I didn’t as this tonal shift is right there in some of the comparisons. I get it, I really do - but it would have soured the best a reveal a little OK The first act does a fantastic job stripping away any fucks for Mario to give. “Shaken I walked back to the sofa and sat down. I hated God, but I needed him. I resented my mom for passing on her stupid devotion to me. Sometimes, I think faith is like a disease in our genes, something we can’t despite knowing we should.” The typical "Save the cat" formula would have Mario needing to have the money to save his daughter Anita. It is a little thing but the early heartbreak and despair set the novel and Mario's role in it apart from other stories. This darkness gives the events a serrated edge. This doesn't just serve the characters. The Devil Takes You Home is Bario-noir, southern noir, and a road trip story. The cruelty of the early chapters also sets the stage for frank talk. Set on both sides of the Texas/ Mexico border the story is political, and opinionated. Thin-skinned readers will be turned off by the heartbreak at the beginning and that might be for the better because the honest reflections on racism and classism will be too much for them. “What people with money don’t understand is that most poor people’s problems can be solved with money. There are problems that won’t go away no matter how many bills you throw at them, but for people like me, for folks whose nightmares have names like hunger and eviction, money is a wonderful thing that can make tribulations disappear in a matter of seconds.” I made the mistake of reading angry reviews that felt attacked by this novel. It is a hilariously stupid position. What are you afraid of? Personally, I love when a book makes morons angry, that is a sign the author is challenging mainstream thought. Gabino Iglesias has his priorities straight, first and foremost he is telling a story but like all the best writers he is doing so with a voice. He is commenting on Texas, politics, poverty, racism, crime, and lots more. Take this chapter opener and what it says about Texas... “The connective tissue between large Texas cities is brown nothingness. Buildings sprout from the flat ground in the distance when you get close enough to a city, their tallest structures reaching up to the sky like the blocky dark fingers of some buried giant from an alien race, but before you get there, the only thing around you is dirt, a few weathered shrubs, and an endless blue sky that sometimes makes you think it’s close enough to shatter if you throw a big rock at it. It’s like whichever deity was in charge of the terrain just gave up and copied and pasted the same mile over and over again all the way along I-10.” This is familiar to anyone who has driven through Texas. It makes Texas sound unappealing to me but I know it, I recognize it. I think people who get mad at this novel and talk of white shame are embarrassed to see themselves in the description. The other element that makes The Devil Takes You Home a superior work of noir is the characters. the thin line between cartoon and meaningful villains is a tough needle that Iglesias threads. The coolest thing for me however was the massive tonal shift I hinted at before. For two chapters the novel goes supernatural, well maybe it does? The moments of horror in the tunnels under the border both seem impossible and inevitable. This is a big swing to take so late in a novel that has not established that tone at any point before. Gabino Iglesias has a passion for writers, and books and he supports the book-a-sphere for that reason, I really WANTED to like this book. Lucky for me I loved it. After massive hype, this book lived up to every word of it. Even the haters that fear what it has to say, to me that makes the book even better. ...more |
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Nov 29, 2022
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Dec 04, 2022
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Nov 29, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 9780062856845
| 0062856847
| 3.70
| 28,005
| Mar 30, 2022
| Apr 12, 2022
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it was amazing
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Insomnia I am going to try not to repeat myself too much from my last review of her work, but I know I have many more readers now. When last I reviewed Insomnia I am going to try not to repeat myself too much from my last review of her work, but I know I have many more readers now. When last I reviewed a work of awesomeness from Britain's queen of feminist thriller Sarah Pinborough it was her last book Dead to Her. Honestly, I would read a furniture catalog if it had her name on it. For those of you who do not know or have been living under a rock, SP is a bestselling author most famous for the novel Behind Her Eyes which became a Netflix series and was one of the most talked-about shows in the platform’s history. No small feat Behind Her Eyes is miracle in many ways. It was marketed as having the most insane ending in both novel and TV streaming form and pulled off the much-debated ending. I remember when the book was released Sarah signed it at our local bookstore Mysterious Galaxy. At the time during the Q and A, I admitted as a fan of her work I was worried that the marketing was setting an impossibly high bar. Then I read the book. Like many others in the last few pages, my jaw dropped. The other magic trick BHE pulled was completely rebooting the publishing career of Sarah Pinborough who was known for her excellent horror novels that had modest sales. Forget the sales for a minute The Dog-Faced Gods Trilogy (Forgotten Gods in the states) is a dystopian horror masterpiece that has some of the creepiest serial killings I have read almost ever. The speculative elements written Pre-Brexit are underrated, and perhaps it is time I revisit. While those three books are personal favorites probably the best novel in the Pinborough canon might be her pandemic novel The Death House released five years before the real thing. Behind her Eyes started a new era for Pinborough who has found a sweet spot in the growing genre of thrillers for women about women. This area was made famous by Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train but Pinborough is becoming the master. She wrote a YA thriller 13 minutes that in many ways was the bridge between eyes but it was BHE that marked the new direction. As I said in the review of Dead to Her, the last book SP has created a series of subtle feminist thrillers. What do I mean by subtle, They are feminist not in a raised fist militant way fighting against the system. Sure novels like the Handmaid’s Tale for example are obvious statements against systematic patriarchy. The last couple Pinborough novels are about the day to day death of a thousand cuts, and daily patriarchy in every way that Margaret Atwood deals with the system. Dead to Her is a book that appears to be a book about the “other younger woman” but that is misdirection and ends up sparking a very different conversation. I am sure in the wake of Gone Girl there are thousands of women trying to write the novel to inherit the tone. What made Sarah Pinborugh different is she had a long career beforehand. She had written trilogies, Fairy tale adaptations, and media-tie-in novels, and let's face it she knows what the hell she was doing. She was an English teacher, and born storyteller. Her grasp of structure, narrative drive, plotting and subtle character moments is all top-notch. Much of the publishing industry has treated this phase like she is a new author on the scene, but you don’t write novels like Insomnia if you are a newbie. Oh yeah, I reviewing Insomnia. I am going to talk about this novel, but again I went in cold and suggest this reading experience. More than any of the other feminist thrillers this one leans on horror, and Sarah’s horror skills more than ever. I am not sure it is for everyone but the target audience will gobble this up for good reason. I am not the target audience, I likely would not read this novel if I wasn’t a fan of the author. There are authors I will anything they write, and she is one of them. Insomnia is the story of Emma, the mother of two, and it was interesting coming off Sundial by Catriona Ward because some of the dynamics of motherhood were strangely similar. Both have novels with mothers who have strained relationships, with their daughters. It was interesting back to back for me. Emma is a professional mother, a divorce lawyer with two kids, and a stay-at-home husband. Everything seems grand until her 40th birthday approaches. You see Emma has kept a secret all these years from her family. Her mother is not dead, but alive and in mental hospital where she has been since she went crazy and tried to kill Emma’s older sister Phoebe. This happened on their mother’s 40th birthday. Emma has dreaded her 40th birthday fearing her mind will slip too. Suddenly 40 doesn’t seem that old to me but one of the subtle feminist themes SP is working with here is the fear of aging that many women live with. As a man I feel a little out of place talking about this, but it is the theme of the novel. 40 is one of those ages when people stop talking about their ages and don’t forget we as men are advised never to ask a woman her age. This novel will be marketed as a thriller as they attract a larger audience but let us face the truth. Insomnia is a horror novel whose monster is a woman’s 40th birthday. Sound interesting. It is and you should read it. Considering the space the industry wants Pinborough stories to live in, it is a genius turn. OK, last warning before I get into details… That sense Insomnia is a paranoid feminist horror masterpiece. As the date approaches day by day, Emma loses everything through a series of plot twists. If there is a challenge to the book some of these twists are complicated, but no problem for SP. As Emma starts to lose sleep the events quickly spiral into paranoia and the reader will question her sanity just as Emma does herself. The 40th birthday becomes a monster lurking in the shadows, excellently off screen like the shark in Jaws. It is coming, stepping closer, day by day, hour by hour. Emma loses her mother, husband, her sister, and kids one at a time. The pain of betrayal building to the worst moment when she loses her job. Lets talk about Emma’s job for a moment. There is a scene when Emma is on the phone with a man who she represented in a divorce who flirts with her. She is nice to him, even goes to dinner with him because of her job, but as wires start to fray she gets mad at him. “Why did you take the children from Miranda if you never have them?” She goes on to say “Because it smacks of sexism and the worst of the 1970s behavior.” Emma as a character benefitted from sexism, she hurt other women in the process, but as all the walls start coming down she sees the strings of Patriarchy start to tug at her. I don’t know if SP plots these novels to craft this message or just the nature of Patriarchy worms his ugly head in. This scene is important to make a statement one of the worst things of sexism is how women end up doing it to each other. There are moments in the novel where Emma gets herself into further trouble by trusting the woman she thinks she can relate too. So that moment when Emma comforts the sexist man flirting with her is the turning point for her to solve the mystery. One of the best moments of the book comes when Emma goes to speak to that man's wife Miranda. Miranda talks about the fights “I expected him to behave like an adult” she’s saying “Instead I let him wind me up like some toy and play games with me that made everyone think I was crazy.” The fear of aging is not just a monster these characters fear, but the paranoia is used against them. This makes Insomnia an immersive paranoid thriller that is deeply relatable to women that are Sarah Pinborough’s target audience. A genius work of feminist horror that will probably be overlooked for that aspect. Like Dead to Her, it provides some uncomfortable moments for us male readers, but you know what? It ain’t about us. ...more |
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Jun 05, 2022
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Jun 10, 2022
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Jun 05, 2022
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| 3.95
| 870
| Feb 08, 2022
| Feb 08, 2022
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really liked it
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One of the best things about science fiction becoming more international is we get more international voices. Napper is out of Australia but according
One of the best things about science fiction becoming more international is we get more international voices. Napper is out of Australia but according to his bio, he has lots of experience with Southeast Asia. His experience really makes this novel unique on many levels but we are here to chat about it. This is a noir cyberpunk novel that is not set in an amorphis random city, the world-building and setting is one of the best features of this novel. Set a hundred or so years in the future in Chinese occupied Ha Noi. The future of this novel is Sino-dominated like the classic China Mountain Zhang, but unlike the Maureen McHugh masterpiece, the majority of those details are beyond the narrative. This is a fine choice as we know what we need to know, and that leaves Napper room to expand. April was one of the best reading months I have had of modern Science fiction in a long, long time. So at any point, if it seems like I am being negative, I am not. I loved this novel. I thought it was great but my bar is pretty high at the moment. I read a succession of masterpieces in the last month and while I think this novel is very good to great that M word is one I don’t take lightly. Before I get into spoilers let me get into a few things I thought were really cool. For the most part, I enjoy that the speculative fiction community is getting progressive. I like the diversity, I like the new voices. I also like the occasional old-school action-adventure sci-fi story. I don’t want sad puppies bullshit so 36 Streets is perfect. Plenty of diversity in setting, characters, a progressive message but strong guns-blazing action. So if that sounds good and you trust me stop right here, go read it, and come back. Still need more convincing. OK let's get into the story Lin Vu is a gangster living in the streaming technology hybrid world of this future. There are all kinds of neat details. People in this future are on the net through contact lenses. Lin grew up in Australia even though she was born in Vietnam. She doesn’t speak the language she gets English subtitled in her retina [like this] something that fades into the background. Lin learned badassery in a series of flashbacks under the of a gangster Bao Nguyen. Family, country, and gang loyalty are all tested in occupied Vietnam. While we follow Lin a simulation VR game Fat Victory becomes all the rage. In the game, the US-Vietnam war is replayed and has become addictive. We dive more into the game as one of the designers comes to the city to track down the murderer of a friend. What happens is a noir mystery and action tale that is woven together with excellent world-building and a reflection of how mega-corporations, crime, and colonization come ahead in 22nd century Ha Noi. The World-building is summed up nicely with this passage early in the novel. “Paved alleyway, close on all sides, the old quarter. The men at Bia’Hoi She just watched her go, sullen, red-eyed. The heat beating down, worse than unusual, night but still unbearable, air thick. Tempers on edge, the aftermath of a Chinese crackdown the week before. A prism grenade thrown into a high-end restaurant popular with the Chinese military; two dead officers, two dead waiters, and a dozen were injured. Not the most notable of attacks, except one of the dead officers was a general. So there were raids and arrests and bodies turning up, young men and young women, tortured and aired out and worse. Everyone an informant, everyone Viet Minh, no one able to talk or trust. She lurch-stepped down the alley. The thirty-six streets they called it.” Once the novel gets into the video and there are several mentions of the classic novel of the Vietnam War from the native side The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh. This is an important book to the story of 36 Streets, and while I have read it I like Napper does a good job explaining the importance through quotes straight from The Sorrow of War “The tragedies of the war years have bequeathed to my soul the spiritual strength that allows me to escape the infinite present.” That novel for the people of that country is All Quiet on the Western Front, and Platoon all in one. A haunting and amazing reading experience. It really sets up the idea that the creators of Fat Victory are trying to erase not only national pride but the spiritual earthquake that the conflict was for the tiny nation. The simulation/game was being used to make the “Chinese Dream” more acceptable to people who fought the French and Americans out of their land. “What they tried to do with Fat Victory was a war crime. I mean, these pricks tried to mind-fuck an entire population, turn them against the country of their birth.” The mission statement could get lost in all the action, which is lots of fun. If you are focused on gun battles, swords, weapons, and how the technology works then you might miss the subtle way Napper told you what the message is. “To one side were the windows, looking out over the city. Oceans of people passed, in the spaces between the neon and the streetlight. Towers of steel and glass, lighted windows, a universe in each one. People living their lives, side by side, yet so far from each other. Lin’s line of sight was the halo-billboard of the girl in a red dress, twirling it, smiling and mouthing the words: The Chinese Dream is my dream.” Lin is a stranger in a strange land, but so are all the people of the 36 streets and the game, the technology is trying to make them into something they are not. At the heart of this cyberpunk noir. That is your theme. I am on record as preferring novels under three hundred pages. I liked this novel from beginning to end but I do think it could have been streamlined a bit. That is a minor nitpick. I loved the setting most of all, but really enjoyed the characters and the story. More than anything I am dying for more stories in this city. 36 Streets by T.R. Napper is overdue old school cyberpunk. Put on your mirrorshades and read it. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 24, 2022
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May 03, 2022
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Apr 24, 2022
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Paperback
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| 0345304543
| 9780345304544
| 0345304543
| 3.75
| 8,129
| 1979
| Apr 12, 1980
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really liked it
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While a major bestseller in the 70s and recently made into a TV mini-series SS-GB by Len Deighton was a novel I never heard of. It is an alternate his
While a major bestseller in the 70s and recently made into a TV mini-series SS-GB by Len Deighton was a novel I never heard of. It is an alternate history but it is not considered a work of science fiction like Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. Famously Phil’s two most important editors and publishing mentors Don Wollheim and Tony Boucher initially dismissed the novel as not Science fiction. It is Science fiction as it has Nazis on Mars and multiple realities, but I think their initial reaction was surface-level and missed the nuance. Beyond High Castle, there is a wide variety of novels, movies, and stories that explore different outcomes of WWII with or without Science Fiction. I have been wanting to explore this field more. SS-GB has more in common with straight alternate history like Roth’s Plot Against America. It first came on my radar when I read Gavriel D. Rosenfeld’s The World Hitler Never Made, a genius academic book. Rosenfeld had my interest with this quote “SS-GB was most significant for its nuanced depiction of collaboration.” SS-GB is a genre novel just not a SF novel, it is a detective noir that exchanges Chandler’s LA for England in 1941 if the British empire fell to the Nazis. Deighton is a member of the generation who survived the war, and as such it is a fascinating look at fascism, occupation, collaboration, spy craft and it is all kicked off by a murder mystery and Scotland Yard detective who is not just trying to solve a crime and also deal with the infighting of the SS and various branches of the Nazi war Machine. As the author of Unfinished PKD, I am very aware that PKD intended for at least one of his attempts to do a sequel to Man In the High Castle to be very much about that infighting in the factions of Nazi Germany. So in that sense, I found the connections interesting. SS-GB plays with the conventions of the genre, starting with a dead body that was murdered in a situation that doesn’t make sense to the lead investigator Detective Douglas Archer. The victim seems badly burned but there is no sign of fire, he was shot. There is a curious reporter from An American paper who is reporting in Nazi-occupied Britain. She knew the victim. “He was helping me with a piece I’m writing about Americans who stayed here right through the fighting.” Little lines throughout this book suggest wider stories, and despite not being SF the World-building is very well done. If you don’t want any spoilers at all this is almost time for you to back out of this review. This book is mostly effective. By modern standards the prose is thin but I prefer the thinner more direct storytelling. It is a good noir, a better Alt-history and it is worth reading. The deeper reasons why this book is good and should be read involve a bit of spoilers. The mystery turns out to be connected by SS efforts to create an atomic weapon, but that is just one part of politics that drives the parts inside of the machine. There is a resistance plot, to free the King, double agents, and various forces involved in the occupation. There is some action, and the mystery is solved with lots of novel to go. The overlooked part of the reaction to this novel is the theme of ‘it could happen here.” The point is not as forceful as The Plot Against America or as on the nose as the pre-war warning It Can Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis that suddenly became relevant again when Trump was close to getting his Vice President murdered for not handing him the country. The worst moments of SS-GB involve the action to free the king, the best are in the acceptance of evil and the pain of the British characters living under occupation. The parts of the story that relate to the development of atomic weapons make sense and work far better than the stuff about the King. SS-GB works best when it is focused on the stress of living under occupation. The Blitz was awful but it is interesting to think how the Brits would have reacted and compare it to the French experience. Doing this through the lens of a detective novel is effective. I approve. ...more |
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Feb 23, 2024
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Feb 28, 2024
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Apr 21, 2022
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 1250274362
| 9781250274366
| 1250274362
| 3.52
| 3,715
| Oct 05, 2021
| Oct 12, 2021
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really liked it
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Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner with Jamie Durst As a Star Trek fan old enough to remember the syndication of TOS fondly, I was one of those viewers when E Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner with Jamie Durst As a Star Trek fan old enough to remember the syndication of TOS fondly, I was one of those viewers when Encounter at Far Point aired. It seemed impossible that a new crew would come to matter to me as much as Kirk and Spock did. It took a few seasons for TNG to get its legs under itself, but one of the first scenes to really work was the passing of the torch from Deforest Kelly playing a hundred plus old McCoy, and Lt. Commander Data played by Brent Spiner. Spiner always had one of the toughest jobs in that series. Playing an android and often straight-man must have been a serious challenge for a funny dude like Spiner. Because the Star Trek fandom and internal families of casts are unique things, we fans feel like know the stars. Lots of Star Trek actors have written books because frankly, people want to read them. Spiner has written my favorite so far. Leonard Nimoy gave us a candid look at his life, Shatner a window into his ID, Nichelle Nichols a view of her powerful work off-screen. Spiner gave me several laughs. I only learned after finishing the book, that he read the audiobook, at some point, I will have to return to that. Spiner has called this a Mem-noir, which already gave me a chuckle. Sure he gives insight into his life on the set, his back story going back to his childhood in Houston. Instead of giving us an accounting of his life Spiner and his co-author gave us a murder mystery tied directly to the show and the character he is most famous for. It was an interesting choice for a memoir, and certainly made the difference in why I sought it out right away. Another autobiography might have gotten my attention had I seen it at the library, but I have lots to read. The fact that Spiner was clearly having fun doing added to it. It just so happened that I sponsored the episode of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy he was on to promote my novel (Goddamn Killing Machines – Clash books) and he really sold me. Spiner didn’t have any interest in just another Trek actor blah blah. So Fan Fiction tells the story of a Brent Spiner stalker, who claims to be Data’s daughter during the filming of the series 4th season. The Spiner of the book becomes worried that he will be murdered. So in true Noir mystery fashion, there is a femme fatale, well two, I don’t want to give it away. The mystery is not exactly Anthony Boucher worthy but that is not the point. The humorous observations and anecdotes about the actor’s life and fandom is like the crème filling in an oreo, The mystery is like the hard cookie part. Because it is fictionalized Spiner gets to be extra playful with his castmates with really funny moments for all of them. It is clear onscreen and off this cast is a family and Spiner has fun with them. Franks and Dorn get the funniest needling in my opinion. It makes you wish you could see more of these moments as a fan. A moment in Spiner’s real-life retold here that was important for him, and me too was recalled in the most powerful moment of the book. A famous doctor had visited the set and asked to talk to him. “Mr.Spiner I have many patients with autism and Asperger’s syndrome. They often have extreme difficulties with basic social interaction. For many of them, you or rather Data is their icon. Their hero.” I am momentarily speechless, taking this in. “I’m not sure I understand.” “You see Mr. Spiner- the inner world of a person of a person with autism or Asperger’s syndrome is very much like the feeling of being an emotionless android in a society of emotional humans.” I have worked for two decades with persons with autism, it is not just Data, but Spock, and Seven of Nine who served as icons of neurodivergent persons. The doctor was right though Data most of all. Spiner pointed out that it was good he didn’t think about that as he was developing the character. It was clearly important to the actor as it is to those of us who work with or live with autism. Lastly, I want to say part of what makes this book sing is that Spiner fills the book with moments like this one. “They are qualities of a fictional character who is very different from me. This is a mirage called acting. Surrounded by another mirage called celebrity.” The young woman speaks again. “I thought this wasn’t about you?” She challenges. An interesting look not just at the life behind the curtain, but an insightful self-reflection that managed to also be funny and move the story forward. The book is filled with moments like this. Spiner is not a novelist so I am not going to say it was the best-written noir I ever read, but there were enough moments like these that no other human being could have written. That is a very cool thing with a book. A singular voice and point of view that no one else can bring to the table. Most important of all – I had fun reading it. That makes up for anything lacking in skill. I would read a sequel in heartbeat. Make it so. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 22, 2022
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Mar 24, 2022
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Mar 22, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 1250782953
| 9781250782953
| 1250782953
| 3.29
| 1,823
| Jan 25, 2022
| Jan 25, 2022
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it was amazing
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Why do you read Science Fiction? What is it that really draws you in? I could list many things that attract me. When I was a super young reader I was
Why do you read Science Fiction? What is it that really draws you in? I could list many things that attract me. When I was a super young reader I was here for the spaceships, as an adult, my favorite thing in speculative fiction is the political stuff that challenges society. That is one reason why my favorite era of SF in the 20th century is from the New Wave on. As that is when the genre really began to challenge everything. That is the key to this book CHALLENGE EVERYTHING. This is my first-time reading Tochi Onyebuchi and I was more than just impressed, this is a masterwork of speculative (rightfully) angry activism that is equally literature. If you are going to read this book there are a few facts you are going to have to accept. This is opinionated fiction, that is meant to challenge the reader not only with a message but in narrative form. The narrative has a throw you in the deep end feel to it. The story is not told in a direct timeline, the structure of the narrative completely changes in the third part which is a major stylistic change for almost a hundred pages. Despite the radical change in form, this part of the book is the beating heart of the story. The narrative also doesn't hold your hand, it is abstract at times and always requires a mind willing to think deeply about the text. There are times that the story might be confusing for some readers. Not me, but some readers. The challenges go even deeper. I laughed when I saw a list of trigger warnings for this book in a review. It is not that these things are funny but in a speculative fiction novel that highlights where systematic racism/ Classism collides with global climate and environmental disaster things will get ugly. As Fishbone would say U-G-L-Y Goliath ain't got no alibi. So trigger warnings will include references to rape; graphic instances of drug use; lots of murder, and death; racism, and racial slurs; references to lynching and suicide; descriptions of police brutality, incarceration, gun violence, and a whole bunch of violence in general. How about this, Tochi is keeping it very very real. There is nothing soft, gentle, or politically sensitive about this novel. Which is kind of a pleasant (from my perspective) divergence from much of modern fiction that at times is afraid to push boundaries. I think the reaction will be interesting as it is a very progressive story politically, but the delivery is zero fucks given warts and all depiction of the post-climate world. Of course, the future TO envisions is one where most of the wealthy have escaped earth to orbital colonies while the marginalized struggle to survive in our mutual home. I consider this book a masterpiece that has shades of one of my favorite novels of all time John Brunner's 1969 Hugo award-winning Stand on Zanzibar. I thought this book was so damn good that I was curious and looked up a few bad reviews just to see what the negative peeps were saying. TO did lose a fair amount of readers in the first act because people were lost with the slice of life all over the place nature of that first act. This to me was an effective tactic for giving a wide picture of this world. I don't mind being confused as long as the writing is good and interesting moments are involved along the way. It provided excellent moments like... “The bedsheets chilled their bodies with sweat-soak, rumpled beneath them. They lay side by side, David and Jonathan, and, behind their blindfolds, they traced the arc their drones made over the earth. Lux levels rose in golden bars just outside their vision as the drones dipped through clouds cover and flew past domed cityscapes. Chicago glowed through a blanket of clouds. The drones swooped upward and dwarf galaxies turned from cosmic smudges into multihued ninja shurikens.” This is not only great prose but excellent world-building where we get a view of the have and have nots. The idea that the wealthy colony folk monitor the earth and wistfully watch the planet they left doesn't drive the story forward but it builds the world. In the moment that will sail past many readers. I wasn't sure at the moment what it meant but I was curious. I am not sure why everyone wants to understand everything right away. John Brunner in 1969 used a similar tactic of storytelling wise, not confining the story to one point of view, and giving a wide scope of points of view. Goliath does this in way fewer pages. Both books separated by half a century share themes and methods, but of course, the points of view of the authors are radically different. It is funny to see come of the same negative comments too. Not me both books are masterpieces and value radically different takes on the same general idea. Sadly SOZ is hailed now as prophetic for predicting school shootings and reality TV to name just two things, we can only hope Goliath is warning we need, and we avoid this future. The message as I saw it move from the page into my eyes and straight to my heart was clear. This novel is about the intersection between Racism/Classism and the growing climate change apocalypse. That was Brunner's message as well, but TO's window into it is fresh and vital in a way a book by a radical white Brit in 1968 just can't do anymore no matter how amazing it still is. “Had nothing to do with the type of life I lived beforehand. Because I think everybody comes to prison, deep down, wanting that. Or at least some version of that. Who comes to prison wantin’ to be turned into an animal?” During that third part, the book takes on a historical feel. Based on some real events but pushed into the future and fictionalized this part is inspired by the Attica prison riots. It was at this point that I thought I was detecting the wavelength this book was putting out. There is no greater example of the dehumanization of modern racism than the modern prison industrial complex, something I know far too well as I experienced it as an activist. There are many punishments involved in the imprisonment system but the lack of dignity is the root of so much and this novel expresses that very well. There is no way to write about prison without admitting its dark nature of it. The masks come off, racism is open, the class strata of who is fully given human dignity and who is not is open and on the surface so to me this was a really great choice. How about an example... “…Your population of guards is pulling from the rural South Carolina job Market? Lotta poor white people bein’ eft behind while the planet’s getting’ warmer and the rich folk are fucking off to space. A lot of the bad stuff white did to Black folk, they did to these kids. Some of these kids came in beyond hope. They watched their parents get spied on by police and picked up in unmarked vans. Had their first taste of first-gen toasters. They just knew how the whole system was. They knew and didn’t give a fuck. I think it just made them more likely to blow the whole place up. Ain’t no cage for their kind of angry.” This is already a reality of the prison COs and the inherent problems in the system but TO extrapolates this into his speculative future perfection. The first generation toasters are AI mech fighters who alongside drones take high-tech police repression to support the ruling elite of this future. The prisons are full of frontline rednecks but the system is supported by technology. So is the mission statement of this novel this simple... “And that is how it started. That’s how…all this got started. The red dust storms, the radiation, the fallout, the war, The Exodusters. All of it.” A short but powerful moment, but nearly every page of the book contains powerful statements. It is a book that might not be understood when you first go through it. As I started this review I kept talking about the challenge of it. A brutal and literary David Versus Goliath re-mix that never flinches anyway from the hard is what the genre needed this year. Give Goliath all the awards next year at least nominate it for everything. This is as vital a new sci-fi book as I have read in years. Maybe since Carrie Vaughn's Bannerless, or Rivers Solomon's Sorrowland. The thing is TO has such a powerful voice, singular in tone, training, and writing ability this book is a miracle of awesomeness I have to celebrate. I am dying to have the author on my podcast, to break down this amazing work. I will have to read Riot Baby, but this book feels like an author unleashed. Even though it is my first time reading him. So more than anything I can't wait till the next one. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 26, 2022
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Apr 03, 2022
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Dec 16, 2021
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Hardcover
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| 1250812623
| 9781250812629
| 1250812623
| 3.85
| 108,902
| Mar 18, 2021
| Sep 28, 2021
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it was amazing
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The Last House on a Needless Street I was very excited when I heard about Tor spinning off horror novels into Tor Nightfire, a smart move of course bec The Last House on a Needless Street I was very excited when I heard about Tor spinning off horror novels into Tor Nightfire, a smart move of course because in the last few years the horror novel has come raging back to the forefront. So this novel, which appears to be the U.S. edition of a British release of a horror novel by an American novelist living across the pond. With blurbs from favorites like Sarah Pinborough and Paul Tremblay. Giants like Mike Mignola and Stephen King also blurbed this book so I feel like a bit of a poser for never hearing of Catriona Ward before. Well, mistake fixed she is on my radar now. I know I say this often before I developed a system for reading books without knowing what they are about. I put this on hold and forgot about it until it came in at the library. No clue what it was about. I certainly think the reading experience was more wild for that reason. Here is the strange thing. While I considered this a 5-star book, It was closer to a DNF or a 2-star book than a 4, and I know that doesn’t make sense, but hear me out. I think this book is great, and impressive but the line between a terror-inducing, bonkers experience and unreadable crap was super thin. I absolutely understand why someone would feel differently than I did. It is very hard to get into why without spoilers. Try to explain the genius of Hitchcock’s take on Psycho without spoiling the Marion Cane twist. Before I say fuck it and go into spoilers let me say that I found Ward’s writing sublime at times. This book is quotable in a thousand places. Just strange stuff like… “I am not dead, I can tell, because there is a strand of spaghetti on the green tile floor. What happens after death may be bad or good but there won’t be spilled spaghetti.” But I could do a hundred examples like that through the course of the novel. Funny, smart, and insightful while being off-beat, bizarro, and just plain creative. So many turns of phrases I was jealous of. The story itself remains better spoken of with a spoiler warning in the rearview mirror but I will say this. It is a puzzle inside of a puzzle. Every time you think you have a handle on it, the goal gets pushed back. When Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes came out it worried me that they were marketing the ending. How could it live up to the hype? It did. Much is made about the secrets withheld in this book and it is true when they get revealed it is in the same dangerous place as Behind Her Eyes. If you make that far do you accept the ending? It tied the room together like the Dude’s rug and for that reason I suggest this book to ALL lit horror readers. From the very beginning, the book has a disconnected, and strange first-person style. All the clues are there but the amount of confusion it causes is one hundred on purpose. I am fine with confusion as long as I am entertained. The funny, wry prose was enough to carry me but I get that many readers would not be able to hang. You have to make it to the end but it all pays off. If a cat POV and first-person narrators who lie and contradict each the other narrators or invent characters that don’t exist in one chapter to the next sounds confusing. It is. If you hang it will make sense. Yeah, I think this is one you should read. OK Spoilers…. I going to assume you read the book or don’t care about spoilers. The first clue was from the cat on page 58 of the hardcover. I just thought it was a cute gag to have the cat be a POV character and first-person narrator. It was a relic of earlier draft according to the afterword but smart. The Last House on Needless Street on the surface appears to be a novel taking a massive dump on the rules of first-person. It is not because the twist (you have been warned) is that the POV is a person with Dissociate Identity Disorder. Multiple personalities and they are very different to each other. Part of the fun of the novel is that Ward does an amazing job of holding out details long enough that I read hundreds of pages and guessed incorrectly multiple times what was happening. So the cat… “I looked and looked for ways to escape, but there weren’t any. A couple of times I just ran straight at the door when it opened. I am not a natural planner. Ted scooped me up in a friendly sort of way. Then when we were on the couch and he stroked me or we played with a piece of yarn, until I stopped crying. “There are bad people who would hurt you or try to take you away from me.” Totally normal thing to say to a cat. Well, the people out there who will hurt you part is normal. Not so sure about the "They take you away from me," thing, that is not normal. So it got me thinking, OK Ted what the fuck is up with you? A kid is missing from the lake. They searched your house. Found nothing. Somebody wants to study you. Maybe you have a daughter, she goes away sometimes, where is mom? I had tons of questions about Ted. People who want answers right away are going to DNF the hell out of this book. For me, the cat finding blood and searching for the flip-flop in the kitchen was when I really started to think I understood. Lauren is not his daughter, and the cat is going to somehow save her. Then the Cat tells us he is not real. This reveal on page 190 strips another layer comes off the façade. At that point, you think you understand. Fuck Ted am I right? It makes sense that Lauren would invent the cat. When Ted tells us he is protecting her, triple locking etc. We KNOW now that the fucker is crazy, he took the girl at the lake. That is Lauren she invented the cat tried to escape. Hey look at us smart readers we figured it out. Awesome. There are almost 200 pages left. I kept reading and doubted myself. It was a smart twist to reveal that the cat was made up but in many ways, it throws readers off the scent of the twist. “The first time I tried to run he took my feet.” A lazy reader or even me will assume that Ted tortured her, cut off her leg. but the reality the leg is nothing more than an invention of the mind. and if it is not convient for her to have a leg anymore it is gone. We are still to invested in hating creepy Ted. You will hate Ted for such a long period of the book when he ends up bleeding in the woods you won't be ready for another layer but it won't make the effect any less powerful. Wait Ted is bleeding, good. Right? In the back end, you are not even sure who is the dominant personality and by the end, that is not clear. Some of the narrators are evil and some are not. The line that really got me… “One of us is imaginary,” she says “and it’s not me.” Over time the various ways the layers come off reveal problems the characters only begin to accept… “I had always felt that there was something wrong with me. I was like one of the tracings I did on her baking paper, a bad one, where the comic book underneath slipped; the lines slewed across the page, and the picture became a monstrous version of itself.” This makes for a powerful ending when it is revealed that the girl in the lake was the POV character's sister, that she was not kidnapped but died in an accident and the whole thing is an elaborate internal cover-up. Yep, this is a powerful ending. What a crazy ride of a reading experience that will leave you shocked and confused. Most importantly for me, I was entertained. On page 341 when a character comes right out and tells us exactly what is happening with identity disorder but we have been so fooled that our brain rejects it. When Ted in the last chapters sees his mother in the mirror and promises to stop hurting the body if she promises to leave them alone it is heartbreaking. An excellent conclusion that wraps it all together. The marketing of this book is hilariously off. For fans of Gone Girl, this book besides having a twist and being good is not a fair comparison. Haunting of Hill House, yeah maybe but that is pure misdirection. This novel is in a tradition with Robert Bloch’s Psycho but it is so much more expansive and experimental. Overall Genius and will be on my top ten of the year for sure. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 05, 2021
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Dec 11, 2021
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Dec 05, 2021
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Hardcover
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| 1250776643
| 9781250776648
| 1250776643
| 4.12
| 460
| unknown
| Jun 29, 2021
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really liked it
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I heard a funny discussion on a podcast recently that made me think of this author. It was a sports show and they were talking about players that seem
I heard a funny discussion on a podcast recently that made me think of this author. It was a sports show and they were talking about players that seemed to operate with cheat code. That is something in a video game that makes you more powerful than you are supposed be. There are times that F.Paul Wilson feels like he is writing with a cheat code. His Repairman Jack novels are so well-plotted and conceived that many people miss the effortless genius involved. The books are fun thrillers and bestsellers so many literary sobs and zealot seat of panters don’t get it. I do, and yes, I bias because I have made it my mission to learn from Paul in every way I can. There is a structure and feel to an F.Paul Wilson novel and for this reader it is like putting on a cozy sweater at the first chilly day in autumn So, enter his latest thriller Double Threat which is a bit of a shake-up. I really like that FPW built this story on a narrative device that forced him out of his comfort zone. The other thing that is exciting is that this novel is sort of a spin on his space opera Healer from early in his career. The story has been reworked to fit into modern times and directly into his ongoing Secret History of the world timeline. It also shares some DNA with the Adversary Cycle novel The Touch. Oh yeah did I mention that the majority of FPW’s forty years of novels are tied together in a single story/universe. It is as intense a timeline as anything a single author has done and unlike the Dark Tower series single books exist in more than one series and the author is keeping track of it. Yes, Double Threat is in that universe. That is really only established on page 180 and it is a blink and you might miss it thing. The book also contains a Secret history timeline and establishes that this book takes place just a few months from the end of the world as seen in Nightworld which is the final book in both the Repairman Jack and Adversary Cycle series. That being said if you are feeling daunted. Don’t. Double Threat stands alone just fine, but I am not sure about the sequel. Yes, be warned it ends on a cliffhanger. So why is F.Paul Wilson out of his comfort zone? The idea was given to him by screenwriter Chris Morgan who suggested to him he wanted to adapt Healer. The novel mostly takes place in the main character's mind, while he communicates with the symbiont named Pard that gives him healing powers. According to the introduction, Wilson asked Morgan how he would adapt it and he said he would make Pard a person only he could see. The idea stuck with Wilson and this novel forced him to flex new muscles by having an invisible character who was created mentally by the main character. That point of view is Daley a Twenty-six-year-old woman who is given this power and curse during a rock-climbing accident in the desert. She returns to the desert attempting to use her new skills. The plot involves Daley opening up a healing business off the radar in the small desert town, UFO cults, and earthquakes. Keep in mind the end of the world is coming and Wilson is playing with the cheat code. I am not entirely sure we know yet how this connects. It had me considering that maybe I needed to re-read The Touch from the Adversary Cycle. This is a very southern California novel, and by So Cal I mean south and east of LA. Imperial County and touches of San Diego. As a 619 resident I enjoyed this aspect. The novel uses the Salton sea and the setting to establish something very believable for the area. A UFO cult. I know but it has happened here before. The most interesting elements of the novel of course are the relationship between Daley and Pard. If there is any weakness Daley doesn’t feel to me like a young person, but I work daily with people that age so your mileage may vary. That said, she is an interesting character, and the dynamic with Pard, who grows in her mind and thus is a part of her is interesting. In this sense, it is a retelling of an earlier novel, and there is nothing wrong with that. Stephen King has recycled plots many times (Dark half/ Secret window or The Shining/Christine) but FPW is upfront here and I think it is an awesome Experiment. I admit I read Healer decades ago and direct comparisons are just not something I can do at this point. The narrative is built on the same structure Wilson tends to use. The main chapters are based on days and dates. There are sub-chapters that switch between Daley and the UFO cult POV. Even though the connections to the Secret History are minor, having feelings for Wilson’s work will help here. I can’t say how this book will read for a general audience without a basis in the whole thing. As someone who reads everything, Wilson does I can’t divorce myself. My favorite thing in the novel was a character who feeds Daley information by a series of notes. This was a really cool scene and an interesting character. You don’t know me. He’s slipping me notes? (Well, he’s honest, at least) Pard’s commentary is all written with ( ) instead of quotations. I was worried that this would be distracting but I got used to it quickly. Double Threat is a must-read for Wilson or Secret History fans. If you are new to FPW, I don’t think you should start here. Start at the beginning, don’t commit to reading them all because that is daunting, but after you finish one or two you’ll be hooked. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 16, 2021
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Oct 21, 2021
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Oct 16, 2021
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Hardcover
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| 0759557918
| 9780759557918
| 0759557918
| 3.51
| 4,650
| Oct 26, 2021
| Oct 26, 2021
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it was amazing
| Tade Thompson has been on my reading list for a long time. I follow him on Twitter and generally meant to get here soon. As it so happens this novel w Tade Thompson has been on my reading list for a long time. I follow him on Twitter and generally meant to get here soon. As it so happens this novel was nominated for The PKD award just as I was starting to read it. I am sure months ago I saw what it was about and put a hold on it at the library. Thankfully I had no idea what the plot was when I started reading. The way I like it. Far From the Light of Heaven is a fantastic modern Afrofuturist novel that not only deserves to be nominated for the Philip K. Dick award but in my opinion could get a nod for the Raven award at the convention named PKD’s mentor Tony Boucher. That award goes to mystery writers and Boucher was known for those locked-room murder mysteries. In the afterward Thompson mentions Agatha Christie and it is not much of a spoiler to say her books influenced this novel. Set on a long-haul transport space ship Ragtime with hundreds of hyper-sleeping passengers the mystery is kicked off when the first officer Michelle sends out a distress call. The ship has just arrived at Lagos and while she was asleep a couple of dozen passengers not only were awakened but killed, and dismembered. Responding to the call investigation is handled by Rasheed Fin and his artificial partner Salvo. This pairing pleasantly reminded me of the Asimov robot mysteries. Indeed Thompson plays all the mystery tropes perfectly. That is a feature, not a bug. Thompson plays all the expected, tried, and true story beats and formulas like a skilled rhythm guitar player playing perfect power cords. That makes the surprises along the way work more powerfully. The mystery feels familiar while the universe, the world-building, and the third act twists feel fresh because they are fresh as produce straight from a garden. The setting… “Lagos was established by mainly Black Afrofuturists. Space is the Place. With considerable effort, all their fiscal and human resources, and a rich, funky cultural history mixed with African myth and mythmaking, they willed the space station into being. More than a few white supremacists liked the idea of a large proportion of Black people leaving Earth. They were disappointed when Lagos flourished.” The colony world of Bloodroot is equally original and when we eventually get there, it is, without doubt, we are on a different world. The culture of Lagos is one that will be new to most SF readers, those of us who make an effort to read Afrofuturist SF on the regular will feel pretty comfortable. The story is set in the far future with FTL bridges, this world is neat. The story is also fun, Rasheed and Campion are great characters and the story kicks into gear Rasheed has her arrested as the most likely suspect. The narrative switches POVs perfectly so we know she is not guilty, except there is a little question of self-doubt and the issue of sanity that being a deep-spacer might cause. The bodies are surgically and neatly torn-up so it is not the random wolf running around the ship. Oh yeah, did I mention the wolf that is running around the ship? The way the narrative moves back and forth between settings, time and location is all done with great skill. Thompson seems to have planned this novel well and anyone who reads my reviews knows I love structure. There are some political elements to the final act and the ultimate reveal which I found satisfying, which is the main thing we all want in a mystery. I did not figure it out, but that is a good thing. The writing, pacing, story, characters, everything was top notch so in the end, Far From the Light of Heaven is a five-star book. Would it have made it into my top ten last year? It might of it was that good, we got lots of year left but this is a good start. Tade Thompson has made a fan out of me. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 25, 2022
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Jan 31, 2022
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Oct 14, 2021
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Paperback
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| 1683692152
| 9781683692157
| 1683692152
| 3.56
| 6,266
| Apr 06, 2021
| Apr 06, 2021
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liked it
|
I don’t remember how or why this book got on my radar; I am assuming a friend talked about it on Twitter but my normal plan worked perfectly. I put th
I don’t remember how or why this book got on my radar; I am assuming a friend talked about it on Twitter but my normal plan worked perfectly. I put this book on hold at the library and by the time it came in and I picked it up I remembered nothing about it and went into reading this totally cold. I will say I was rooting for this book and while I didn’t love it, I liked it and was impressed enough that I will be reading more books by Clay McLeod Chapman. The reason I didn’t fall in deep love with this book may be less on the book and more on my personal taste. This novel is about the satanic of the 80s. I am old enough to remember this happening. While I had smart parents who didn’t hide the world from me, I was aware of this stuff happening. I mean our generation grew up despising Tipper Gore and PMRC (google it youngins) so this topic is one I was excited to see tackled in a horror novel. I think once the novel started, I found myself sorta wishing for a less personal and more global take on the whole Satanic Panic thing. That however would require more shifting points of view like lawyers, cops, political figures. Sounds interesting, but this story could not do that as its narrative is deeply personal. The narrative structure shifts from two points of view and timelines. Richard in 2013 and Sean in 1982. Richard ends up living a teacher’s worst nightmare, an accusation of abuse in his classroom. At the same time, we are cross-cutting with the Sean storyline where he might be connected to abuse and even SATAN. All caps to invoke Dana Carvey doing the church lady. The second act twist wasn’t much of one but again that was the story and Chapman told it correctly. It is a spoiler (you are warned) but going back and reading the dust jacket (I didn’t do that till starting this review) it should be obvious. The stories are of course connected and of course, Sean and Richard are the same person. For that reason, the book had to have a tight narrow focus. The book was not exactly what I wanted but it was what it needed to be. The best and most impressive thing about this novel is implied in the title. Whisper Down the Lane is another name for the game of ‘Telephone.’ How a story can mutate as it spreads as a rumor. That makes this a great title for a novel about this topic. In some ways, this novel is as much about manipulation. Chapman puts amazing amounts of attention to the moments where investigators manipulate and twist Sean into lying and making an accusation. False confessions are a huge problem. Investigators use leading questions to plant seeds. So Chapman for very good reason puts entire interviews in the book. It is clear he did his research and that the details mattered. For that reason, Sean’s storyline required a certain detachment and I am assuming that is his storyline is in third person and Richard’s was first person. Again that could also be to preserve the twist. On pages 170-74 during one of the interviews has a perfect chilly example. Kinderman (Exorcist easter egg) the investigating cop first gently works to earn the trust of Sean. Gives him a trick to feel comfortable telling him a secret and then berates him for being afraid. These are some of the most harrowing moments of the book. This is a good novel, but I just didn’t love it like I felt I could have. The story is well told, but the events feel a little cataloged to me. I didn’t feel much dread outside watching the trainwreck of the interviews. For example, there is a scene where Richard goes to a meeting about the abuse accusations, in order to preserve the ‘Twist’ we don’t know his history, I actually think knowing this and building off his anguish and fear of his history turning on him would have been a scarier experience for the reader. Inspired by true events Whisper Down the Lane weaves commentary on the real-life events and fiction into the story. I caught many of the references to Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist but I don’t know the real-life case, so there may be elements I was missing. In this novel paranoia is like gas being thrown on the fire of a rumor. The ingredients are there for mass hysteria. This is a case where I think my personal taste got in the way. I think Chapman wrote an important horror novel. I think many readers will like it more than I did. The best thing I can say about it is that Chapman just sold a reader on checking out his other books. I am excited to see what he can do outside of a novel inspired by a true case. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 07, 2021
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Aug 11, 2021
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Jul 09, 2021
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Hardcover
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| 1684057035
| 9781684057030
| 1684057035
| 3.32
| 793
| Sep 15, 2020
| Oct 27, 2020
|
really liked it
| I have not read as much of the Joe Hill comics as I would like. This was an impulse grab at the library, based simply on Joe Hill and the promise of a I have not read as much of the Joe Hill comics as I would like. This was an impulse grab at the library, based simply on Joe Hill and the promise of a good story. I assumed with the title and the kinda pointed surreal art that it was a horror story. Dying is Easy is not in fact a horror story but a hard-boiled crime story. After reading it I kinda wish it had been a short Hard-case crime novel. That is the kinda story Dying is easy turned out to be. This will not be a long review I gotta be honest I am ass deep in a writing deadline and don't have a ton of mental bandwidth for reviews right now. That said I enjoyed this graphic novel quite a bit, although a film or a pulp novel are two formats I felt better represented what I was looking for out of this story. Syd Homes is an ex-cop and a perfect hard-boiled character what makes him a little different is he is a wanna-be comedian. He is not exactly super funny, most of his jokes draw on his shitty life as a cop to make the bulk of jokes which are not very PC, or really funny. I enjoyed this part and it provided an interesting set-up for the mystery. A comedian who has been stealing jokes ends up dead and Syd is framed for it. The story is well crafted and the art is weird. I could see how the sharp surreal lines and edgy style might turn off some. Me, I enjoyed it quite a bit. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 11, 2021
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May 13, 2021
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May 11, 2021
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1789096499
| 9781789096491
| 1789096499
| 3.97
| 132,522
| Mar 02, 2021
| Mar 02, 2021
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it was amazing
|
I love Stephen King on many levels. I love his impact on the genre, his commitment to story-telling, his dog, his support of other writers. No writer
I love Stephen King on many levels. I love his impact on the genre, his commitment to story-telling, his dog, his support of other writers. No writer is going to have a perfect track record when they release as many books and written as many words as he has. The early novels come from a unique place and some mistake the quality as being a product of a pre-clean author. There is a false idea out there that the quality dipped after the intervention during the writing of Tommyknockers. The change had more to do with King becoming an institution. The world’s bestselling storyteller with no asterisks. There are more books on shelves with the name Stephen King than anyone alive. It is not exactly a hot take to say that Salem’s Lot, The Stand, and The Shining are works of genius. A victim of his own success in the latter year's King has become a writer who could write books hundreds of pages longer than they need to be and no editor would stop him. That said I still read them, I am a constant reader even if I am 60/40. 60% good to great and 40 percent doesn’t connect with me. I don’t love them like I used to. My tastes as an older reader really don’t mesh with King. I like well-plotted and structured stories without extra fat. SK famously rarely (he says never) plots or outlines and writing by the seat of his pants means diversions happen, stories he doesn’t know how to end happen. I think the best stories in King’s 21st-century output are the ones where the ending was clear and he had no choice to build to that target. Doctor Sleep is an example of that, his novellas are almost always stronger for that reason. The Outsider started strong but lost me at 150 pages in, Elevation was OK, and The Institution felt recycled. I have been dying for this. A truly great Stephen King novel from start to finish. Released from the Hard Case paperback line this book is a pulp crime story but it is also straight horror fiction and firmly in the wider King mythos. As a horror fiction tale, it might be the most effective novel for turning on the creeps that King has written in a long time. The story of Jamie who sees dead people. Yes, it has the same set-up as Sixth Sense and Jamie addresses that. This is a similar set-up but goes in a very different direction so don’t worry about that. Jamie lives with his struggling single mother, who is dating a woman who is a dirty NYPD detective named Liz. Long after Liz is supposed to be out of their life she can’t forget Jamie’s talent. Seeing the dead, being able to talk to them. Even against their will, they speak the truth to Jamie. I was thinking about how I normally don't enjoy the first person in novels. If a story is good enough, I will forget about it, but I constantly nitpick moments when authors cheat. I always point to Stephen King's Delores Claiborne as an example where the narrator NEVER cheats. Later is GREAT first-person written in a kid's voice and it NEVER cheats. SK has skills for writing children and speaking in their voices. In this novel, he is doing subtle and genius things to those moments of a young person’s POV. Jamie is telling this story as a young man and SK is in perfect command of this. The word LATER is so important to the narrative not just because it is the title. Jamie is telling this story of his childhood with the gift of insight, so he often gets ahead of the boy in the story. I didn’t understand that until later, or I would learn later. The information that is ahead of Jamie or to be revealed later is often the driver of the story. It is a neat trick and it was the only way Jamie could tell this story without cheating. You see Stephen King knows Jamie is not the storyteller he is, but SK uses this method to pace out the story. A weaker storyteller would have withheld elements because of the plot. SK wisely knows that Jamie lives in fear of telling his secret to anyone. Jamie has to convince you the reader first of what he can do before he can hit you with the last two reveals. So, he is choosing to withhold things for a reason. Jamie is trying to build the reader’s trust. Along the way, events happen that tie the novel to one of King’s classic novels. I had this spoiled for me but honestly, I have not read that book in 30 years so it didn’t affect me as a reader at all. I would have totally missed it if I had not heard. The connection however is deeper than it appears on the surface, readers paying close attention to little details will make a neat connection. In my opinion, this is the best King novel since Doctor Sleep or maybe 11/22/63. It might be his best in this century. The quality is up there with his Full Dark novellas like Good Marriage or 1922. It may sound like hyperbole but I really happy to report this. I don’t want to spoil the twists but the first one is gnarly and scary, the second is just gross and disturbing. I don’t entirely know how I feel about except once again King got me in the feels. ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Apr 25, 2021
not set
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Apr 28, 2021
not set
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Apr 25, 2021
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Paperback
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my rating |
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| 3.49
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it was amazing
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Sep 13, 2024
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Sep 08, 2024
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| 4.20
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really liked it
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Aug 10, 2024
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Aug 01, 2024
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| 3.96
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it was amazing
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Jun 20, 2024
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Jun 18, 2024
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| 4.05
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it was amazing
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Jan 24, 2024
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Dec 24, 2023
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| 3.62
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really liked it
|
Dec 22, 2023
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Dec 19, 2023
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|||||
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| 3.47
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it was amazing
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Nov 02, 2023
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Nov 01, 2023
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| 3.61
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really liked it
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Sep 12, 2023
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Sep 06, 2023
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| 3.17
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it was amazing
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Jan 22, 2023
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Jan 17, 2023
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| 3.67
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it was amazing
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Dec 04, 2022
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Nov 29, 2022
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| 3.70
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it was amazing
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Jun 10, 2022
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Jun 05, 2022
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| 3.95
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really liked it
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May 03, 2022
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Apr 24, 2022
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| 3.75
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really liked it
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Feb 28, 2024
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Apr 21, 2022
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| 3.52
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really liked it
|
Mar 24, 2022
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Mar 22, 2022
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| 3.29
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it was amazing
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Apr 03, 2022
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Dec 16, 2021
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| 3.85
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it was amazing
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Dec 11, 2021
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Dec 05, 2021
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| 4.12
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really liked it
|
Oct 21, 2021
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Oct 16, 2021
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|||||
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| 3.51
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it was amazing
|
Jan 31, 2022
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Oct 14, 2021
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|||||
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| 3.56
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liked it
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Aug 11, 2021
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Jul 09, 2021
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|||||
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| 3.32
|
really liked it
|
May 13, 2021
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May 11, 2021
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|||||
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| 3.97
|
it was amazing
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Apr 28, 2021
not set
|
Apr 25, 2021
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