Jonathan Lethem (pronounced, in case you are curious as I was, leeth´-em) is one of those rare science fiction/fantasy authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Tom Robbins whose novels are shelved in the mainstream fiction sections of book stores. If you had read only his masterful Motherless Brooklyn, about a detective with Tourette’s syndrome, you might feel that justified. Yet beginning with his inaugural novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, the majority of the author’s work has involved genetic mutations, futuristic scenarios, space travel and other elements of the fantastic. This year’s Chronic City is an expedition into the surreal that takes place in an alternate Manhattan where winter has apparently come to stay, and either a giant tiger or a mad robotic tunneling machine or both are laying waste to the city.
Locke and Key: Head Games, the second hard-cover volume of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s terrific graphic novel set in the East Coast village of Lovecraft was released earlier this month.
Volume 1, Welcome to Lovecraft, started with the brutal murder of high school counselor Rendell Locke. His wife Nina and three children left their West Coast home to move in with Rendell’s brother Duncan in the family mansion in Massachusetts. There Bode, the youngest child, begins to find a series of magic keys that give the owner powers. Unwittingly, Bode has released an evil spirit from a well.
A generation ago Lucas Caravaggio, Lovecraft’s charismatic bad boy, disappeared, and now the spirit has taken Lucas’s body, still in good shape after all those years, and it now goes by the name of Zack. In Volume 2, still just as charismatic, Zack befriends the Lockes and obviously has nefarious plans for both the family and the town.
I once read that less than 1% of all novels submitted are actually published; one source actually put it at .03%. If those statistics are true, imagine the odds of an author having two new novels published on the same day. On October 13, Joe Schreiber saw the publication of his Death Troopers, “the first-ever Star Wars horror novel,” and No Doors, No Windows, a pretty scary haunted-house ghost story, and both just in time for Halloween.
Before the start of Death Troopers, readers are provided with a handy timeline, which places dozens of Star Wars books chronologically in reference to the motion pictures. Death Troopers takes place just before Star Wars: A New Hope—Year 0.
[A bit more about Death Troopers and No Doors, No Windows after the break...]
Let me confess first, I am a major Berke Breathed fan. I wore a black armband the last day the Bloom County comic strip appeared in my local paper. People frequently come up and ask me as I get out of my car, “Are you a musician?” I have to explain that my vanity license plate that reads OPUS has nothing to do with music. When I first heard about the great Richard Dreyfuss film, Mr. Holland’s Opus, I thought it was about a penguin in Amsterdam. Imagine my disappointment. So it is hard to be very objective about Mr. Breathed’s first novel. Of course, I thought it was awesome.
Terry Brooks hasn’t written about the kingdom of Landover for 14 years. But this fall he has dropped by for a short visit with Mistaya Holiday, the mostly human princess of the realm. For those who don’t remember or weren’t around as the series began in 1986, it all started when depressed millionaire Ben Holiday answered a come-on in a Christmas wish book advertising a magic kingdom.
In Magic Kingdom for Sale (Sold) Holiday discovers that the ad is not a ruse, and he buys the kingdom. In the first novel and the four ensuing books, Holiday interacts with a host of fantastic characters, many of them stereotypes, but some really fun and original. The saga kind of ran out of gas with Witches Brew in 1996.
Back in the days of 10- and 12-cent comic books, the only place you could find an illustrated version of a novel actually would cost you 15 cents. Classics Illustrated was a reasonably good way to pretend a knowledge of quality literature and a darned good way to come up with a last-minute book report. As I recall, science fiction was only represented by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, and a few works by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, none of which would have been acceptable for book reports by the nuns who taught me.
Today’s graphic novels may be a bit more pricey, but the number of titles available is daunting, the artwork is amazing, and science fiction, fantasy, and horror occupy center stage. For new readers who just want a taste of what to expect, graphic novels can be great introductions. And established fans should enjoy visiting these interpretations of their favorite works.
It is hard to imagine that it has been nearly a half century since the debut of The Twilight Zone on October 2, 1959. Each of us who were glued to the black-and-white screens of our 21-inch RCA televisions (or Sylvania or Zenith, perhaps and some smaller screens) has a scene from at least one episode fixed indelibly in our minds. For me the strongest image is of Burgess Meredith as Henry Bemis in “Time Enough to Last.” The last man alive on earth prepares to enter a library and happily while away the rest his life reading all of the great works, only to break his glasses.
Carol Serling, the wife of Rod Serling, the late genius creator of TZ, celebrates the semi-centennial anniversary by editing an anthology of 19 new stories written in the style of the seminal series.
Since The Limits of Enchantment appeared in 2005, Graham Joyce has spent most of his time writing young adult novels. TWOC and Do the Creepy Thing (The Exchange in the U.S.) have been printed in the United States. Three Ways to Snog an Alien and this month’s The Devil’s Ladder still are available only in the U.K.
Finally, Joyce’s first adult novel in four years is being published by Night Shade Books in the U.S. this fall. A year ago Memoirs of a Master Forger came out under the pseudonym William Heaney in England. Heaney is the narrator of the story. Joyce was not secretive about the use of the nom de plume. He announced it on his web site. He was just curious to see how a new book would sell without the baggage of his previous work. The book sold amazingly well. However, in the U.S. the novel has a new title, and is being released under the author’s real name.
[An introduction to How to Make Friends with Demons follows...]
Coming from the generation that remembers the 5¢ candy bar, the nickel ice cream cone and the terrible shock when the price of a comic book, after several decades at a dime, increased to 12¢ in the early 1960s, it is hard for me to imagine shelling out $20 or more for a graphic novel. I sure wish my parents had used a Mercury dime and popped for an Action Comics #1 back in 1938 and put it in a safe deposit box for me. Then I wouldn’t worry about the price of a graphic novel. But, hey, I’ve been hanging out at Starbucks a lot lately, so that premium comic book doesn’t seem so bad next to a $4 frappucino. And I’ve bitten the bullet and given these luxury comics a try, some original stories, some adaptations of previous novels and some new looks at heroes from the past.
Ten years ago Al Sarrantonio edited one of the best horror anthologies of all time. 999 featured original stories of varying lengths by many of the best and most popular writers of the day: Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Joe Lansdale, David Morrell, Ramsey Campbell and Neil Gaiman are just a few of the major talents featured in the book. One of the longest tales in this massive tome came from the pen of Exorcist author William Peter Blatty (see a personal note at the end).
Now, for the first time, Blatty’s Elsewhere has been published alone in book form. This version comes in three states from Cemetery Dance Publications: a trade edition at $25; a signed/limited and slipcased edition of 350 copies for $75; and a signed/lettered traycased edition of 52 copies bound in leather that comes in at $250. All three states feature some spooky interior illustrations by Alex McVey.
It is hard to imagine that Secret of the Seventh Son is Glenn Cooper’s first book. The debut author deftly juggles several plot lines and genres that eventually come together in a satisfying climax. His characters are believable and charismatic, and each new element he reveals is well planned, while just shocking enough to keep readers from saying, “I knew that was coming.”
The dialogue is particularly impressive, as each character speaks in a distinctive and appropriate voice and does this in a way that is hardly noticeable.
This is a fast, exciting read, so I’ll just reveal a bit about how Cooper uses each genre as the novel bounces back and forth from place to place and time to time.
[Read about five different genres in one book after the break...]
I still have the first Stephen King book I ever bought. Unfortunately, it is not a hardback first edition, but the first paperback version of ’Salem’s Lot (well used as you can see). And I will always remember how I chanced to buy it. It was late summer in 1976, and I was going on a trip. I didn’t have anything to read, so I stopped in a supermarket to grab a book. The first one to catch my eye had a black cover with the embossed face of a girl and a single red drop of blood. There was no title. I had to pick it up and see what it was. And once it was in my hands and I read the words on the back, “The town knew darkness...but no one dared talk about the high, sweet, evil laughter of a child...and the sucking sounds...,” it was as good as sold.
(I have a daughter named Carrie. She was born in March of 1976. The ’Salem’s Lot paperback came out in August of 1976. If she had been born a year later, I would have read Stephen King’s first novel, and she probably would have had a different name. But it all worked out, because Carrie just seems to fit her; she is a Stephen King fan; and an original framed Carrie movie poster decorated her bedroom all through high school—now surely worth far more than my tattered paperback.)
So, what does all this have to do with Sandman Slim? It’s all in the marketing. I am sure I would have eventually begun reading Stephen King; in fact, since I started writing about books in 1977, I have reviewed every book he has written, except, for some reason, The Dark Half. But it was a clever marketing idea—black cover, no title—that got me to pick up and buy that first novel. And it was a clever marketing idea that got me to pick up Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim and read it.
[Read about about Sandman Slim's return from hell and a marketing coup after the break...]
Just out from Subterranean Press are two steampunk novellas, James P. Blaylock’s The Ebb Tide and Kage Baker’s The Women of Nell Gwynne’s. Both take place in Victorian England. Both have great illustrations from J.K. Potter. In both stories the protagonists are trying to keep anti-gravity devices from the hands of evildoers. One is pretty good; the other is really good.
James Blaylock’s The Ebb Tide reprises his hero, Langdon St. Ives, adventurer, scientist and member of the Explorers Club, and his narrator, Jack Owlesby, who is really the star of the show. St. Ives first appeared in “The Ape-Box Affair” in 1977, and, thus, Blaylock can be considered one of the founding fathers of the steampunk movement in fantasy and science fiction. Although there have been several other St. Ives stories, The Ebb Tide is the first new adventure in nearly 20 years.
The tale begins as Owlesby, St. Ives and their friend Tubby Frobisher await dinner at their favorite pub, The Half Toad. An acquaintance comes in with a copy of Merton’s Catalogue of Rarities. Listed for the reasonable price of two pounds six is a “hand-dawn map of a small area of the Morecambe Sands, the location not identified.” The mention of a small letter K followed by a figure-eight drawing of a cuttlefish leads the trio to suspect that this may be the long-missing map fashioned by Bill “Cuttle” Kraken which may lead to one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the age.
Dinner is forgotten as the three adventurers begin a quest that will take them to the an underground laboratory containing a Nautilus-like submarine and an amazing diving bell apparently created by the nefarious Dr. Hidalgo Frosticos.
[More about The Ebb Tide and The Women of Nell Gwynne’s after the break...]
Maybe this has happened to you before. You read a book that is pretty good, but instead of enjoying it the way you might, you keep thinking back to another book that did something similar and did it so much better. That is what happened to me as I read Warren Fahy’s first novel, Fragment. I kept thinking of Robert Charles Wilson’s Bios—a bit about Bios later.
Fragment tells of a tiny island in the South Pacific that has never been thoroughly explored, a premise that is highly unlikely in the 21st century. The island is actually a fragment of a lost continent on which evolution took a different turn millions of years back. The result is a place filled with monsters that would likely wipe out the human race if they ever made it to the mainland.
[More about Fragment and Bios (with just a few spoilers) after the break...]
If you have ever met David Morrell, it is hard to imagine him with a machete strapped to his back slogging through the wilderness or driving fast cars in skidding defensive maneuvers or handling sophisticated weapons or mastering subtle forms of martial arts. Yet the soft-spoken and seemingly gentle-natured author has done all of these things and more, as he has stepped into the lives of the protagonists and antagonists in his books so he could know how they would act and how their minds would work. For his latest novel he spent hundreds of hours earning his private pilot’s license. But more about that later.
Sixty-two years ago this month something happened in Roswell, New Mexico (postal abbreviations didn’t exist then). I didn’t make it to the UFO festival over the Fourth of July weekend this year, though a lot of folks did. I doubt I will make the trip next year. In fact, I have never been to Roswell, though I live just over 500 miles from there, only about a nine-hour drive. I even had a close friend, now deceased, who was born and raised in Roswell. Although he was only two years old in 1947, he claimed his parents were convinced until they died that the government was involved in a cover-up. Somehow I have just not made it down to Roswell.
So why did I fly all the way from Denver to Halifax, NS, and then drive several hours to visit the UFO museum at Shag Harbour, site of the second best-known UFO sighting in North America—although second by a long, long way? To see the lighthouses, of course.
[See a picture of me at the museum and learn about the UFO after the break...]
A couple of weeks ago it was announced that Joe Hill’s Gunpowder is on the short list for the British Fantasy Award. If there is any justice, this great science fiction novella will win, and other awards will follow from this side of the pond.
I like novellas best. I have friends who just love to sit down with big, fat novels and who become addicted to series. I have other friends who love short stories, who say they just don’t have time to devote to a “whole book.” Of course, I have other friends (curse them) who don’t read at all. I read short stories and big books and even, occasionally, series, but I like novellas best.
For me, 20,000-25,000 words is just the right length for a science fiction or fantasy story, long enough for the author to establish a plot and develop a charismatic character, or even several, but short enough that I haven’t forgotten those characters’ names as I approach the climax. I can usually read the tale in one sitting, so I don’t let the vicissitudes of life get in the way. And I know that, when I reach the end, I won’t be surprised to discover that I need to read the next volume to find out what happens to those characters.
Unfortunately, it seems most major publishers don’t agree with me. And, in these economic times, many book buyers are even more concerned with the cost per page than the quality of what they read, so the fiscal reality is that not many novellas see print, except those published by (all gods bless them) small presses.
Since I try to avoid getting involved in series titles (not always successful, I admit), I have to confess that I haven’t read anything by Jacqueline Carey until now, but I have heard her name since Locus named Kushiel’s Dart Best First Novel in 2001. When I discovered that Carey had written Santa Olivia, a stand-alone novel, I was eager to give her a try. Now I may have to go back and start reading the Kushiel books.
Think of what might have happened if Charles de Lint and Charles Dickens combined to put out a Marvel comic, and you have a pretty good idea of the kind of story Carey tells here.
I hope I am not too far off base in suggesting that the title Tex-Mex town, Santa Olivia, owes at least a little something to Oliver Twist. If the allusion wasn’t intentional, at least it works for me. See what you think.
And, as I was reading the novel, though the stories are entirely different, there was something about the narration, the mood and the tone that kept reminding me of The Mystery of Grace, de Lint’s engrossing recent modern fantasy, also set in the Southwest.
[Read more about Santa Olivia, but be warned of a few spoilers from early in the book…]
Want to write a Dean Koontz novel? I can give you an outline. Over the years I have reviewed over 30 of Dean’s books. Most of the time, but not always, my reviews have been positive, even though most of the time, but not always, the stories follow the same formula. Here it is:
A man and a woman are, or soon will be, in love;
One or both of them have a lot of money;
Both of them are fantastically good looking, but the woman is super-fantastically good looking and may be a martial arts or weapons expert (or both);
The guy is probably a man of peace, but he is tough and has a hidden aptitude for martial arts or weapons (or both);
The guy can’t believe a woman as super-fantastically beautiful, smart, funny and popular would go for him, but, of course, she does;
Even with all these attributes, the man and the woman have strengths they don’t know they possess;
One (or both of them) has a dark and violent secret in his or her past;
Despite the past violence both are honorable, good people and loyal to a fault;
One or more amoral villains, who enjoy torturing and killing folks, are after one or both of them;
The villain or villains also have a lot of money and resources the average sadistic serial killer would never have;
The couple may or may not have a child, but, if they do, the child is not normal—he or she (usually he) has a disability, is autistic, is a prodigy, is a super-genius or has some combination of these traits;
Most of the time the couple has or gets a dog, and the dog may or may not be normal, but, by the end, you will want the dog or one of its puppies really badly, because no one can write dogs like Dean Koontz;
There may or may not be an element (or elements) of science fiction or fantasy or both, but, usually those elements are minor parts of the story and not revealed until near the end.
One of the reasons you have to read all of these novels is that you never know whether the protagonists will make it through the book. You can just about guarantee that the bad guys will find poetic justice by the end, but the good guys may or may not live happily ever after.
Guillermo del Toro, director of the Academy Award-winning Pan’s Labyrinth, and crime- fiction writer Chuck Hagan have joined forces to co-author The Strain, the first volume in a vampire trilogy that should be one of the “big books” of the summer. Released simultaneously in 20 languages, it will be difficult to walk into a book store anywhere in the world after June 2 and not find a display of The Strain putting the bite on you for your book-buying dollars.
I’m betting you will find piles of the books in every airport bookstore, but The Strain may not make the best in-flight reading.
If you watched the first episode of Fringe on Fox this year (and thanks to the powers that be, unlike most TV series I enjoy, this one returns in the fall), you will wonder who thought of the scenario first. A passenger plane lands at a major airport (Boston’s Logan in Fringe and New York’s JFK in The Strain), and everyone on board is dead. Okay, in The Strain, it turns out that four people aren’t quite dead, but that’s just a technicality. Those four folks have sore throats, and you shouldn’t expect them to live happily ever after.
[More about The Strain follows. I promise not to give much away...]
