Reviews Archive: A through G
Adams, John Joseph, ed: Seeds of Change
One book that I have read recently is the John Joseph Adams-edited anthology Seeds of Change, in fact, this was my in-flight reading on the long, long flight back from Worldcon (and may have been one of the only things keeping me sane on said flight). Seeds of Change is a short collection (240 pages) of nine original science fiction stories by the likes of Jay Lake, Tobias S. Buckell, Ted Kosmatka, and K.D. Wentworth, each of which marks the turning point, the paradigm shift, between now and "the future." The collection's agenda is quite progressive, with stories tackling racism, peak oil, scarcity, and electoral politics, among other themes, but never coming across as preachy or polemic. Perhaps my favorite story of the collection is Blake Charlton's "Endosymbont," which deals smartly with the question of artificial intelligence and what it is that makes one human. You can read an excerpt from "Endosymbont," as well as complete stories by Jay Lake, Tobias S. Buckell, and Jeremiah Tolbert, at the Seeds of Change website. And while you're there, check out the very cool trailer. Trust me on this one. [9/2008]
Aguirre, Forrest, ed: Leviathan 4: Cities
If all you think the fantasy genre has to offer is endless scenes of elves and orcs battering one another's brains in, then you really need to get out more often, or at the very least, pick up this book, which offers a convincing rebuttal. Contained herein is modern urban literary fantasy, a double handful of stories by the likes of K.J. Bishop, Jay Lake, and Ben Peek. With a touch of what they tried to sell you in college as "magical realism," a dash of Surrealism, a dollop of pulp, and a sprinkling of noir, and not an orc or elf in the bunch, this collection deftly demonstrates just how wide a literary playground fantasy can be. [3/2007]
Armstrong, Jon: Grey
Brilliant high-fashion dystopia, and I did the jacket copy. Trust me, you want to read this book. [1/2007]
Asamatsu, Ken: Straight to Darkness
I'd heard good things about Kurodahan Press's Lairs of the Hidden Gods, a four-volume original anthology series marrying the talents of many of Japan's hottest horror writers and H. P. Lovecraft's oft-pastiched, oft-parodied, but only rarely equaled Cthulhu Mythos. Straight to Darkness, the third book of the cycle, makes a compelling argument for the series as a whole. Sandwiched in between an introductory essay by Robert Price that compares Lovecraft's elder gods with the rampaging daikaiju of Toho's Godzilla films and a closing essay examining Lovecraft's influence on heavy metal music are seven tales of terror, each one translating Lovecraft's themes of alienation, mysticism, and cosmic horror to a uniquely Japanese perspective. Standouts are Sano Shiro's "Horror Special," an ambiguous tale of strange happenings on the set of a television adaptation of "The Dunwich Horror"; Kobayashi Yasumi's "C-City," in which the world's top scientists attempt to battle the machinations of the Great Old Ones; Aramata Hiroshi's "The Road," a chilling story following a young Japanese businessman (and Lovecraft fan) as he walks the streets of Providence, hoping to place himself in the footsteps of the master, but finding himself, through the perverse peculiarities of time and space, somewhere else entirely; and, of course, the title story, Tomono Sho's "Straight to Darkness," an action-packed splatterpunk showcase featuring a Deep One, a Ghoul, and more Mythos cameos than you could safely shake a shoggoth at. For fans of J-Horror and Lovecraft's legacy, Straight to Darkness: Lairs of the Hidden Gods, Volume 3 not only illuminates a previously-unexplored corner of the Cthulhu Mythos, but does so with style, panache, and aplomb. I, for one, plan to investigate the remaining three volumes. [1/2009]
Asimov, Isaac: Cosmic Critiques
Imagine, a Writer's Digest book that doesn't suck! No wonder it's out of print. Asimov and Greenberg present ten short science fiction tales, each of which is followed by Ansen Dibell's explicit examples of what makes each succeed as fiction. While not every story included is a classic, all are memorable, excellent illustrations of Dibell's points. Stand-outs are "Transstar" by Raymond E. Banks, "Billenium," by J.G. Ballard, "The Last Question," by Isaac Asimov, "Dial F for Frankenstein," by Arthur C. Clarke, and "Carcinoma Angels," by Norman Spinrad. [4/2007]
Barron, Laird: The Imago Sequence and Other Stories
I'm half convinced that Laird Barron is the love child of Jack London and H.P. Lovecraft, and his writing evokes both authors, fusing hardboiled naturalism with unflinching cosmic horror. Amazing stuff, well worth picking up for the title tale, an update of Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model," but all nine stories are top-notch horror fiction in the vein of Lucius Shepard, Thomas Ligotti, or Peter Straub. [6/2007]
Bester, Alfred: The Stars My Destination
From the author of The Computer Connection (a personal favorite). As impressive today as it must have been in 1956, The Stars My Destination continues to be ripped off by every SF filmic franchise out there (The Matrix and The Chronicles of Riddick come to mind most easily). This is SF done right. [2/2007]
Bishop, K.J.: The Etched City
I picked up The Etched City because it was name-dropped in the jacket copy of Jay Lake's Trial of Flowers, along with texts by China Miéville and Jeff VanderMeer. Like Lake, Miéville, and VanderMeer, Bishop's novel is Fantasy, but a branch of Fantasy that owes more to the Surrealist, Magical Realist, and Noir literary movements than to the swords and sorcery of epic fantasists like J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard. Although it does occasionally get bogged down, particularly near the novel's middle (as first novels are wont to do), The Etched City features captivating storytelling, memorable characters, and outstanding set pieces (including a battle on a statue-covered bridge that manages to affect a tone both epic and personal). Unlike Lake, Miéville, and VanderMeer, however, whose City Imperishable, New Crobuzon, and Ambergris actively become characters within their novels’ narratives (in the mode of M. John Harrison's Viriconium), Bishop's lush and teeming Ashamoil, while evocative and picturesque, never quite rises to the occasion, remaining a setting that is well-imagined, yet never quite real. Bishop's leading characters, the gunslinging soldier for hire Gwynn and his female counterpart, the outlaw surgeon Raule, are compelling, charismatic, and believable. While the duo technically share protagonist duties, peacock-coat clad Gwynn quickly moves to the narrative's center, becoming a peacock himself, taking the more active, adventurous role as Raule spends most of her time on the sidelines, observing, philosophizing, speculating, and tending to the wounded. Although Gwynn cuts a flamboyant figure with an affectation of glam-rock panache, for a novel that name-drops Aubrey Beardsley and J.K. Huysmans in its jacket copy, The Etched City depicts a surprisingly heteronormative world, with a touch of tacked-on exotic orientalism included to make the city seem decadent. Frankly, Lake and Miéville both do decadence better. Still, I would call The Etched City an easy recommendation, an enjoyable and thoughtful bit of fantastic escapism with plenty to offer. [1/2007]
Brooks, Max: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Max Brooks's World War Z is another easy recommendation, though I knew, based on Mike the Gorehound's fervent recommendation and the novel's high concept (Studs Terkel's The Good War meets Dawn of the Dead) that this was going to be a book I couldn't help but like. While World War Z is categorized by its publisher as humor (actually "War—Humor"), this genrefication is a bit of a misnomer, and likely based more on Brooks's genetics than anything else. Sure, the book's got plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, but these are not only few and far between, but are far outnumbered by the novel’s anxious, tearjerking, angering, and, ultimately, crowd-pleasing scenes. This is a novel with something for everyone. Fans of current events will find plenty of allegorical connections to today's headlines and will have a blast identifying the thinly-veiled avatars of newsmakers and politicians. Fans of action will find a relentless pace. Fans of military novels will be fascinated by the day-after-tomorrow tactics and hardware on display. Fans of voice and character will be astounded by the way in which Brooks channels hundreds of distinct personalities. And fans of zombies…well, let's just say there are lots and lots of zombies. [1/2007]
Calder, Richard: Dead Girls, Dead Boys, Dead Things
I'm only about two-thirds through this one, since other books keep jumping up and yelling "read me!" But so far I'm far enough down the rabbit hole to say that Calder's trilogy is a Trevor Brown painting come to life, told through lush, decadent prose reminiscent of Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition or Burroughs's The Ticket That Exploded by way of the Marquis De Sade. Not a book for the faint of heart, but if the prospect of adolescent schoolgirls transformed into vicious vampiric gynoids holds an appeal for you, then look no further than Dead Girls, Dead Boys, Dead Things. [2/2007]
Campbell, Ramsey: The Height of the Scream
I was recently reminded that Poppy Z. Brite dedicated her collection Are You Loathsome Tonight, To Ramsey Campbell, Master of the Form.
This early collection of shorter works, assembled in 1976 by Arkham House, provides ample evidence of that mastery. The Height of the Scream exemplifies "quiet horror," that fear based in an unmistakably building, paralyzing dread, inevitably arriving at that point where every shadow, every speck of ash contains a malevolence darker than the darkest imagination. Herein, protagonists of every stripe are terrorized by things as seemingly benign as whimpering dogs, windblown bits of trash, strange mailings, telephones, and the compulsion to dance. Some, it seems, are terrified by their own very Britishness. But it works, often to horripilating effect. Not to say that The Height of the Scream is all goosebumps and dread; Campbell's humor and light touch shine throughout. His word choices are exquisite; his descriptions cinematic and resonant; his themes universal. For frequent tourists to those darker reaches of the imagination, The Height of the Scream is well worth seeking out. [2/2009]
Cook, Glen: Old Tin Sorrows
Fantasy meets noir, but much closer to Rex Stout than Dashiell Hammett. A fun read, even if it is just high fantasy with an affected hardboiled drawl. Swords and Sorcery purists would probably prefer A Cruel Wind: A Chronicle of the Dread Empire. [3/2007]
Davin, Eric Leif: Partners in Wonder
Eric Leif Davin's Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction 1926-1965 is an impressive work, skewering the myths of female involvement (that is, the lack thereof) in the formation of science fiction. Davin applies the scientific method to the "common wisdom" that women writers have been criminally underrepresented in the genre. I'm about a hundred pages in as I write this (early August 2008), but this quote summarizes Davin's arguments well: "If any woman believes that science fiction and fantasy publishers are closed to women, she is either gravely misinformed, or she is making excuses for her own incompetence by attributing her failure to editorial prejudice" -- Marion Zimmer Bradley (1977). [8/2008]
Delaney, Samuel R: The Jewel-Hinged Jaw
While some of these essays are repeated in Delany's About Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters, & Five Interviews, herein the anecdotal tone is more pronounced, reproducing journal entries and critical essays alongside a master author's indispensable advice. Well worth seeking out. [7/2007]
Delany, Samuel: Babel-17/Empire Star
Through sublime craftsmanship and a thorough understanding of human relationships, these two oddly-interrelated novels (Empire Star is a work of fiction within the universe of Babel-17, and was written by a former lover of the novel's protagonist) are wonderful examples of just how "literary" science fiction can be. [6/2007]
Delany, Samuel: Trouble on Triton
Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy has sex change operation and then attempts to get girl back, all with a devastating interplanetary war erupting in the background. A classic of the genre. [4/2007]
Delany, Samuel: Einstein Intersection
A decade before Trouble on Triton, Delany offered a primitive post-human future in which man has been replaced by a three-gendered mutant race and the Beatles have become mythology. While some of the novel's big ideas have since become Saturday-morning sci-fi commonplaces, its take on gender and society remains revolutionary, and should be considered alongside Joanna Russ's The Female Man and Michael Moorcock's The Final Programme as an example of how science fiction trends happen decades ahead of mainstream fiction. [4/2007]
DeNiro, Alan: Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead
Great imagery, but too often reads like a grad student's perilously purple prose, erring on the side of experimentation and self-consciousness when a concise plot might have better served the story. Still, DeNiro's narratives have a haunting staying power marking him as an author worth watching. Oh, and Small Beer Press makes great looking books. [7/2007]
Dick, Philip K: Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s
Philip K. Dick was an author ahead of his time. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich imagines a rapidly-heating earth ruled by ruthless businessmen intent on profiting on dubiously-legal psychedelic drugs that allow those drafted expatriates living in lackluster and dangerous planetary settlements to experience a drug-induced vicarious earthlike existence through Barbie-like "Perky Pat" dolls and props. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the basis of the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner), on the other hand fills its earth with Radioactive dust and a collapsed ecosystem, in which living animals become the ultimate in hopeful status symbols while synthetic humans are hunted down and killed for daring to act human. Both of these novels (along with the other two collected here, The Man in the High Castle and Ubik) are classic Dick, visionary, spiritual, and strange, and this Library of America presentation is nothing short of impressive. A great introduction to a master of fantastic literature, and a volume well worth purchasing to replace your tattered Vintage paperbacks. [7/2007]
Disch, Thomas M: Camp Concentration
Camp Concentration's clever premise is quickly awash in the literary mannerisms and peculiarities of the late-sixties New Wave, and its privileged prisoners seem a fixture of that era better explored in William Peter Blatty's Twinkle Twinkle Killer Kane (the basis of Blatty's film The Ninth Configuration) and Peter Watkins' Punishment Park. Even so, Camp Concentration exhibits brilliant, poetic language, and it's no wonder Samuel R. Delany has so often lionized this novel's praises. [7/2007]
Donaldson, Stephen R.: Lord Foul's Bane
I've been reading Lord Foul's Bane lately, the first of Stephen R. Donaldson's epic fantasy series The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, which I picked up in hardcover at the last library sale, drawn in by the "S.C. Wyeth" jacket illustrations (they reminded me of Richard Pellegrino's cover art for Jay Lake's Trial of Flowers by way of Maxfield Parrish). Lord Foul's Bane is essentially, to borrow a term from Farah Mendelsohn, a portal-quest fantasy (like C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, and L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz) deepened by adult themes and situations: suicidal depression, hopelessness, hallucination vs. reality, and sexual violence… continue [6/2008]
Dungy, Camille: What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison
Most contemporary poetry leaves me cold, so I expected more of the same from this collection, particularly since it was school-related reading. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised by this assortment of more-or-less sonnets. Camille Dungy's poetry is personal, emotional, lucid, and active, and is both easy to read and lingering. Good stuff. [3/2007]
Erikson, Steven: Memories of Ice
High-stakes high fantasy as it should be done. [9/2008]
