"Exit Without Saving" by Ruth Nestvold

“Exit Without Saving” is the story of Mallory, an operative of the Softec Corporation. The United States government has fractured into geographic zones controlled by large corporations. Corporate espionage is all the rage, and it is Mallory’s job to commit it. Softec has developed a new technology that allows their operatives to create clones and insert their own intelligence into them. They use this technology to clone the corporate officers of their competitors in order to gain access to privileged information and trade secrets. It is called morphing, and it can be addictive and very dangerous.

“Exit Without Saving” is the first story I have read by Ms. Nestvold, and it has the feel of an old episode of The Twilight Zone. It is technology based, but it also has meaning in the form of identity. Ms. Nestvold examines not only the fragile sense of identity, but she takes it one step further by making the point that sometimes one must escape identity. I enjoyed “Exit Without Saving” very much, and as I read it, it reminded me why I read anthologies—often you find the most interesting stories and discover great new writers. And Ruth Nestvold is a writer I plan to keep an eye on.

“Exit Without Saving” originally appeared in Futurismic in 2006. It is also currently available in the anthology Science Fiction: Best of the Year 2007 edition, edited by Rich Horton.

To read this story online at Futurismic click Here

THE CRIMES OF JORDAN WISE by Bill Pronzini

This is a repeat post. It was origianlly posted August 26, 2006, but most of my readership has arrived since then, so many of you probably haven't read this review. I wanted something original today, but unfortunately the world conspired against me. I'm in finals, my air conditioner died, and a myriad of other less interesting happenings. I do have some original reviews in the works however, including Kickback by Garry Disher, and another older novel Act of Passion by Harrison Arnston.

The Crimes of Jordan Wise was the best novel I read in 2006. It is a modern noir with a heck of storyline and writing that is wonderful and all Bill Pronzini.

Bill Pronzini is best known for his spectacular Nameless Detective series, but his stand alone work more than holds its own. I look forward to his non-series books because they have a similar atmosphere and style of the old noir novels, but they are anything but cheap copies--they are unique, sparse, heavy with meaning and melancholy, and all Pronzini.

The Crimes of Jordan Wise is a nifty thriller with an anti-hero who has committed three perfect crimes in his life, and as his life draws to a close he wants to share the story. Pronzini is an old hand at plotting and you can tell—there is nothing out of place; no missing segments, and nothing left hanging. The prose is simple, almost haunting in a melancholy way, and easily disguises the complexity of the story: the layers peel away to reveal something deep and meaningful. It says something about life, friendship, and love, all while navigating the darkness that burrows its way into the human soul. The Crimes of Jordan Wise is sad, gritty and dark, at times sweet and tender, and always entertaining.

Bill Pronzini, particularly his stand alone novels, deserves a larger audience than he has. His writing yearns back to the old days, but his style, talent and voice are uniquely his own. The Crimes of Jordan Wise is, if not the best, one of the best novels I have read this year.

3:10 to Yuma -- Trailer

There is a new big budget wide release western scheduled for release this September. The title: 3:10 to Yuma based on an Elmore Leonard story. It is directed by James Mangold, and stars Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, and Peter Fonda. The Yahoo!Movies database description reads:

A rancher struggles to support his ranch and family during a long drought. Desperately needing money to build a well, he takes an assignment to transport a notorious felon, in the hands of authorities, to Yuma for imprisonment. But, once the two meet, the criminal tries to tempt him with--in exchange for allowing him to escape--an offer of much more money than the rancher ever expected, the result of a hidden loot.



This is the second film based on Elmore Leonard's 3:10 to Yuma. The first was released in 1957. It was directed by Delmer Daves, and starred Glenn Ford and Van Heflin.

Clcik Here to visit the Yahoo!Movies site for this film.

Mirror Lake Highway & The Uinta Mountains

I don’t know how interested you are in this, but I’m going to tell you about it anyway. This past weekend my girl and I took a day trip into the Uinta Mountains in Northeastern Utah. The Uintas are an offshoot of the Rocky Mountains. They are high—they range between 9,000 and 13,528 feet above sea level at the summit of King’s Peak, the highest peak in Utah. They average somewhere above 10,000 feet and their beauty is magnificent, noble, and very nearly without description.

The Uinta range is rugged, and the vast majority is accessible only by foot. As a boy I spent the best weeks of my summer vacation following my father across the rugged trails that cut through the land. The names and titles of the places still swim fondly in my recollection: The Highline Trail, Naturalist Basin, Four Lake Basin, Dollar Lake, Fox Lake, Henry’s Fork, White Rocks, Queant, and so many more that I could fill a page or better with nothing more than their names.

One summer our dog ran afoul of an unfriendly porcupine in Naturalist Basin; we met an early snowstorm on Labor Day weekend walking to Four Lakes Basin, and when I could no longer carry my pack my father hefted it onto strong shoulders and carried it for me; my great-grandfather walked twenty-some miles when snow came early to Fox Lake; and some seventy years later I followed a similar path, less the snow, and my fondest memory of that trip is my mother, an eagle foiling carelessly across the endless blue sky, and the solitude that snuggled up like an old lover.

The Uinta Mountains are the place I go—in my mind—when I need to escape the everyday stresses and pressures of life. I remember the good times I spent there. The fish I caught. The frolicking play with my brother and cousins. The awe I felt for the skill and knowledge of my father. I thought he knew everything; and most days I still wish he did. I remember the mystery night visitor we had one summer in Four Lakes who would take all our fish, but leave the heads dangling from the aluminum line that was attached to a tall pine. The amazing thing is we never heard a sound.


I don’t get up into the Uinta Mountains as much as I would like, but each summer we try to make at least two visits. And this past weekend the first trip to paradise finally happened. We didn’t do much but take the drive up Utah Highway 150 to Mirror Lake and have a picnic before walking around the lake. It was crowded—every time I go back there seems to be a few more people, a little more trash, and a whole lot more noise, but still it is the best place I have ever been. And I know that it is very probably the best place I will ever be.


The photographs were all taken Saturday July 28 at Mirror Lake. The really good stuff is off the beaten path in the backcountry. There are places where you won't see another person for weeks, and better yet places where it is easy to believe in something beyond oneself.

HARM by Brian W. Aldiss

My latest review for SFReader is live and online. This month I reviewed Brian W. Aldiss’s latest novel HARM.

HARM—an acronym for Hostile Activities Research Ministry—is a satirical novel based in the near future. It is the story of Paul Ali, a writer and British citizen of Islamic heritage, who is being held as a political prisoner in a terrorist detention camp. Inside the prison he is known only as Prisoner B. His crime: a few characters in his comic novel "The Pied Piper of Hament," drunkenly joke about the assassination of the British Prime Minister. His only human contact is with his interrogators, who practice torture and violence with a particularly frightening glee.

HARM is a thought provoking science fiction novel that examines the surge of government sponsored fear and violence since September 11, 2001, and no matter your political views, it is a novel that will expand your perspective on war, hate, and fear.

To read the review click Here.

THE SHOOTER by Barry Sadler

In the 1980s and early-1990s men’s adventure fiction was in style. There were more action-thriller series than you could count with all twenty digits. My local bookstore even had a small section devoted to them—a section I went directly to upon entrance and then again on my way out.

I spent many hours reading the exploits of Mack Bolan, Barrabas, Casca, Remo Williams and so many others it would take me days to remember them all. I loved them as a teenager, and they—the books and the writers—have a fond place in my memory, so when I saw Forge’s reprint of Barry Sadler’s 1987 novel The Shooter I couldn’t help myself. I picked it up and read it, and it was the best two hours I’ve spent this week.

The Shooter is the story of Rossen and Tommy, two Vietnam veterans now working as mercenaries across the globe. They pick the jobs, love the action, and want nothing more than another day of the exhilaration that comes with the lifestyle. Then they get a visit from an old friend who tells them he has proof that U.S. troops are alive and still being held captive in Laos. It doesn’t take a genius to guess the rest of the story, but the journey is fun, exciting and extremely enjoyable.

The Vietnam MIA / POW storyline was common in the 1980s—it started, as far as I know, with J.C. Pollock’s Mission MIA, and then found itself in Hollywood with the film Uncommon Valor. After that there were several more novels and films with the same premise including Rambo 2, and even an episode of Magnum, P.I.

The Shooter holds its own against these tales: The writing is quick, the characters are trustworthy and noble without being self-righteous bores, and the action is top-notch. I don’t remember being overly impressed with Barry Sadler’s prose before, but with The Shooter I am. It is simple and smooth with subtle textures of both cynicism and melancholy that manifest themselves throughout, but are particularly visible at the height of the climax. Mr. Sadler also describes the jungles of Laos very well:

This was a deluge where a man could drown if he looked up, where the skyflood beat so hard that it could knock animals to their knees. And with the rains came the winds whipping the storm into a blinding sheet.

The Shooter isn’t for everyone, but if you like this kind of fiction, you won’t be disappointed. It represents everything good about those old action novels, with very little of the downside. It will never be deemed high literature, but it is definitely a fun and worthy read.

An Additional Note: Barry Sadler penned and sang the song The Ballad of the Green Berets, and he was murdered in 1989. I can still remember the short segment about his death on A Current Affair. In my memory he died suspiciously at his home in Mexico City, but the bio in the back of Forge's new edition of The Shooter says: Sadler died tragically in 1989, the victim of a brutal robbery in Guatamala City.

Wikipedia has an article that confirms he died in Guatamala City, but apperantly there is some controversy about his death. He was shot in the head while in a taxi. According to the article: It has been claimed that he committed suicide, that he shot himself accidentally while showing off to a female companion, and that he was assassinated for allegedly training and arming the Contras. It is also possible that he was simply a victim of random violence.

Interesting. It sounds like his life may have been more interesting than his fiction.

To read the Wikipedia article click Here.

The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. -- Main Theme

I've been thinking about westerns more than usual recently—check out the discussion going on in the Dwindling Supply of Westerns post from last week, and join in if you are so inclined. And, I have been watching The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. on DVD. Brisco is a guilty pleasure. It is part western, part science fiction and all goofy fun. The intro is terrific. The music never fails to get me excited, and here it is. Enjoy!

Devious Advertising, or...?

There is a mystery brewing in my office: I have an anthology—Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition edited by Rich Horton—and on the cover there are three names (all of them belong to significant writers in the genre) and not one of them has a story in the anthology. The names: Joe Haldeman, Alastair Reynolds, and Michael Swanwick.

Unless I’m missing something—which very well could be the case—this seems like devious marketing. These are authors who sell well, have a strong fan base, and could very well be the deciding factor between purchasing the book or not. And unless you go over the table of contents you would never know they are not represented in the anthology.

Fortunately the works represented in this anthology really are pretty great, even if there isn’t a Joe Haldeman story in the bunch. I haven’t read every story, but the few I have, have been well written, interesting and thought provoking. But still, what is the deal with the Haldeman, Reynolds, and Swanwick names on the cover?

Strange.

UPDATE: If you haven't clicked on the comments link for this post, do so because the editor, Rich Horton, has explained what happened with the cover design. It was a mix-up, and the contributors from last year ended up on the cover this year. I knew there had to be an explanation.

"Born Bad" by Jeffery Deaver

“Born Bad” is a cleverly plotted short story written by Jeffery Deaver. It is a simple yet powerful story that uses repetition—in one case the clatta, clatta, clatta of an operating sewing machine, and in another the mindless ebb and flow of an old fairy tale—to slowly build and maintain tension. And it works, very well.

“Born Bad” is the story of Liz Polemus, an aging woman who is nervously awaiting the return of her prodigal daughter—her daughter, Beth Anne, is a disappointment. She refused the love and affection of her parents, chose the wrong crowd in high school and then abruptly left home when she could. Now on a chilly and rainy Oregon night Liz is awaiting Beth Anne’s return. She doesn’t know what to expect—she feels fear, trepidation, and even guilt at what she did wrong as a parent. But still she waits.

This is the first story written by Jeffery Deaver I have read, and I was more than impressed. The plotting was nifty—he turned the story on its head in one paragraph without confusing or annoying me. The atmosphere was vivid: I could hear the rain pelting against the roof and windows, feel the damp night, and see Liz sewing and humming the old fairy-tale as she waited. The prose was light, swift and very readable. In short, “Born Bad” was very, very good, and it certainly won’t be the last Jeffery Deaver story I read.

“Born Bad” was originally published in the anthology Dangerous Women, edited by Otto Penzler, in 2005. It can also be found in The Deadly Bride and 21 of the Year’s Finest Mystery Stories, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg.

The Dwindling Supply of Westerns

I’ve been thinking about westerns recently. I have always read them, but until recently—the last few years—I hadn’t really given much thought to their strength in the marketplace or longevity as a viable genre. Then I noticed, belatedly, that the western section at my favorite local bookstore was shrinking, almost on a monthly basis, and the supermarkets and other non-bookstore outlets simply quit carrying western titles.

I did a little sample—very unscientific—on Amazon this morning to see how many new western titles they currently have scheduled for release in August. The total: 34. Of these 34 titles 14 of them are large print editions, 18 are mass-market paperbacks, and two are hardcover. It should be noted that the bulk of the large print editions are also in hardcover.

By my reckoning nearly all of the large print editions are reprints; the 18 mass-markets are a mixture of original and reprints—probably about 50-50. And the two hardcover editions are both reprints: Peter Dawson and Lewis B. Patten. So out of the 34 titles scheduled for sale on Amazon in August, nine or ten of them are original, and of that number probably half are from an adult western series like Longarm, The Gunsmith, The Trailsman, etc.

Which means that in August we will have a total of five or six original western novels published and available through Amazon. Wow. The western novel really is disappearing. Buy’em while you can. While I'm thinking about it, are there any viable markets--print or Internet based--that still publish western short stories?

A selection of the titles that will be available in August:

Cavalry Man: Doom Weapon by Ed Gorman, Aug. 1

Death Head Crossing by James Reasoner, Aug. 7

Remember the Alamo by William W. Johnstone, Aug. 7

The Mother Lode: A Man of Honor Novel by Gary Franklin, Aug. 7

Ralph Compton’s The Bloody Trail by Ralph Compton & Marcus Galloway, Aug. 7

The Fugitive by Max Brand, Aug. 28

Heaven is a Long Way Off: A Novel of the Mountain Men by Win Blevins, Aug. 28

Night Riders by Giff Cheshire, Aug. 28

***

A note: I'm excited by a couple of these offerings--Cavalry Man: Doom Weapon by Ed Gorman and Death Head Crossing by James Reasoner. I have never read a novel by Reasoner, although I have read several of his short stories, including a few westerns and enjoyed each of them. Especially Hacendado.

American Gangster -- Trailer

There is a cool-looking new film scheduled for release this November titled American Gangster. It stars Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, and Cuba Gooding, Jr. It is directed by Ridley Scott. The description on Yahoo! Movies reads, in part:

Based on the life of drug-kingpin-turned-informant, Frank Lucas, who grew up in segregated North Carolina where he watched as his cousin was shot by the Klan for looking at a white girl. He eventually made his way to Harlem where he became a heroin kingpin by traveling to Asia's Golden Triangle to make connections, shipping heroin back to the US in the coffins of soldiers killed in Vietnam.

The trailer makes it look great. Hopefully it is.



To visit the Yahoo! Movies page for American Gangster click Here.

"The Abelard Sanction" by David Morrell

In 1984 David Morrell published a thriller / espionage novel titled The Brotherhood of the Rose. It featured two foster brothers who had been mentored into the spy business by a man who they thought of as their father. I don’t want to say too much about Brotherhood, because if you haven’t read it I don’t want to spoil the story, but it is a terrific action novel filled with clever plotting, betrayal, and intrigue. Mr. Morrell then wrote two closely related novels: The Fraternity of the Stone and The League of Night and Fog.

The Brotherhood of the Rose and The League of Night and Fog featured CIA specialist and hit man Saul Grisman and his wife Erika Bernstein, a Mossad agent. The novels—particularly Brotherhood—are based on the idea of Abelard safe houses: defined locations where spies can go to get protection. No violence is allowed, and any operative who violates the sanctity of an Abelard safe house will be hunted by every intelligence agency in the world and killed.

The League of Night and Fog was the final novel in the trilogy, but it was left open for a sequel that never came. David Morrell’s son died about the same time and Mr. Morrell lost interest in the series and never came back to it. In an interview I once read—I forget where—he said, to paraphrase: these books were about a son searching for his father, and when I lost my son, I was a father searching for a son. Which brings me to the point: I recently read David Morrell’s short story “The Abelard Sanction”—the first story to feature Saul and Erika since League was published in 1987, and it was everything I liked about these books. It was fast, action-packed and very literate.

“The Abelard Sanction” opens with Saul Grisman driving through a dark and rainy New Mexico night. His destination is the Monastery of the Sun and the Moon, an Abelard safe house. The Monk’s are not happy to have him, but the sanction demands they give him shelter. To give more of the plot would give the story away, but rest assured “The Abelard Sanction” is just as sure-footed and fun as any of the novels. It turns the emphasis of the series away from a son looking for his father, to a father (and mother) looking for a son. It is a short read—17 pages—that reintroduced me to these characters and the world they occupy. It is a great addition to the trilogy, and made me wish again for that sequel that never came.

“The Abelard Sanction” was published in the anthology Thriller, edited by James Patterson, in 2005. It can also be found in The Deadly Bride and 21 of the Year’s Finest Crime and Mystery Stories edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg.

J.C. Pollock Update

To read an updated post about J. C. pollock click Here

A few Internet searches—one site was in Japanese and another had a racket to sell me porn protection, whatever that is—a few misleads, and a little advice from a reader have led me to a pseudonym used by J.C. Pollock in the mid-1990s.

The pseudonym: James Elliott.

A couple Internet articles made the assumption that the James Elliott pseudonym belonged to husband and wife writing team Jim and Carolyn Hougan who write under the name John Case, but I found an article on Variety that made the connection between Pollock and Elliott. The pertinent portion of the Variety article said:

Pollock's credits include the novel "Mission MIA," which was the basis for the film "Uncommon Valor," starring Gene Hackman; and "Cold Cold Heart" (written under the pseudonym James Elliot), which was optioned to John McTiernan. Pollock has also optioned part of his forthcoming novel "Sometimes When We Touch" to Quentin Tarantino.

J.C. Pollock published two novels under the Elliot moniker—Cold, Cold Heart in 1994 and Nowhere to Hide in 1996. I vaguely remember the covers—especially the cover of Cold, Cold Heart—but I have never read, or even considered reading, either of them. Hopefully one of the few remaining used bookstores around here has a copy of one or both so I can at least take a look at them. Now I just need to figure out what happened to the Sometimes When We Touch novel that was optioned to Quentin Tarrantino. Hmmm. Any ideas?

There is also a film—End Game—starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Anne Archer, and written by J.C. Pollock released straight to DVD in 2006. The same guy? Maybe.

If any of you see any errors with my analysis, or have any new information, please share.

UPDATE. (4-Aug-2008). Good news. I received an email from J. C. Pollock over the weekend and he confirmed the James Elliott pseudonym is his, that he wrote the screenplay for the film End Game (he was disappointed with the end result), and (here comes the really good news)he has a new feature film being produced by New Line Cinema titled The Venus Fixer, and there is another published novel under the Elliott moniker; End Game. There is no relationship with the film other than the title.

THREAT CASE by J.C. Pollock

I have been a voracious reader since I was a kid—I started with the Hardy Boys and moved on to Encyclopedia Brown and then somewhere between then and now found the espionage, thriller, and techno-thriller genres. And what a find it was. As a teenager my reading diet consisted of Tom Clancy, Jack Higgins, David Morrell, J.C. Pollock and a bevy of other thriller writers, which brings me to my point. I just finished J.C. Pollock’s Threat Case, and it was everything I remembered it to be. Cool, fast and engrossing entertainment.

Threat Case is Pollock’s second novel to feature former Green Beret and Delta Force Operator Jack Gannon. In it we find Gannon smack in the middle of a plot to assassinate the President of the United States. The drug war is having its affect on the cartels, and they want a little vengeance, so they hire a professional hitman to send Western leaders a message: no one is safe. Gannon is dragged into the mess when he learns of the murder of a friend who helped him through hard times, and it turns out her killer and the assassin are one and the same, and Gannon can’t believe it when he realizes he is hunting an old enemy who he thought had been dead for twenty years.

Threat Case was published in 1991, and its plot is reminiscent of the era—there are street gangs, cocaine, and Vietnam vets behind every tree. The protagonist—Jack Gannon—is tough as nails, and an all around great guy who not only has a sense of duty, but also has a very strict definition of justice and fair play. He is willing to kill, but the killing does not define him—corny sounding, but in its own literary sense very comfortable.

The plot is large: It begins in the Caribbean, but quickly moves to the Peruvian jungles and then on to Washington, D.C. and New York City with plenty of stops in between. The cast is large also, but the novel is at its best when Gannon is on stage struggling to stay in the game and stop the madness before it can change the world. He is a protagonist that, while not well developed, the reader can cheer for because he is representative of everything that is right with the world. He is bold, brave and honest as the day is long.

This is my second reading of Threat Case, and I enjoyed it as much, maybe even a bit more, than the first. It is the perfect length for a thriller, clocking in at 356 pages in mass market, and while it suffers the usual weaknesses of the genre—a little bloat, too much character description, and too much space to set-up the storyline—it makes up for it with heady you-are-there action, and a story that has just enough realism that it could maybe be happening right now. J.C. Pollock was one of the better thriller writers working in the Eighties and early-Nineties, and Threat Case is probably his best.

A little extra: J.C Pollock authored seven novels between 1982 and 1993. Then he disappeared from the world of fiction. His work disappeared at about the same time the genre imploded—one week there were dozens of new military-type thrillers, and the next they were gone. The short biography included with his books says, in part, that he: is a member of the Special Operations Association and the Special Forces Association and a contributing editor to the National Vietnam Veterans Review.

My question: what happened to this guy? He was an above average seller—most of my local bookstores carried everything he wrote up through the mid-1990s—and his work was a notch above most of the thrillers being written at the time. Is he still around? Does he write under a pseudonym—hell, was J.C. Pollock a nom de plume? If anyone out there knows anything about what happened to Pollock—and I know someone does—please send me an email. I would love to hear the story.

Cavalry Man: Doom Weapon by Ed Gorman

I have good news for all the Ed Gorman readers out there. His next Cavalry Man novel is slated for release July 31.

The title: Cavalry Man: Doom Weapon

The publisher's description, in part:

When hard-living, hard-drinking federal agent Arnold Grieves came to Junction City, he saw a town overflowing with vice—the kind of place where an unscrupulous lawman could feed his twisted hungers and make a serious killing. Now the old Grieves is gone and the new one's hell-bent on getting rich . . . by selling a doomsday weapon to evil men who are not reluctant to use it. Click Here to read the full description.

Needless to say Noah Ford--reformed alcoholic and philosopher--is sent in to do something about it, and, I'm sure, he will find more than his share of trouble.

If you have never read an Ed Gorman western you are in for a treat--his westerns are less than traditional. They have the feel of a good mystery that just happens to be set in the late-1800s with a backdrop of brothels, Sheriffs, blacksmiths, horses, saloons and wagons. They are westerns that will appeal to a much wider audience--urbanites, women, as well as the traditional baby-boomer males.

I really enjoyed the first two titles in the Cavalry Man series, and my guess is Doom Weapon will be a great addition. Ed Gorman has always been a reliable storyteller.

To read the review I wrote for the last Cavalry Man novel--Powder Keg--click Here.

A note on finding this title: The last two Cavalry Man novels have been abundant in grocery stores and super markets, but hard to find in bookstores. Hopefully this one will be as easy to find--and the price, at $5.99, is oh so right.

Time Trax -- Main Theme

Time Trax was a syndicated television program in the early-1990s. It aired, at least in my market, on Saturday evening for two seasons--44 episodes. It was a fun little science fiction program similar in atmosphere and content to Quantum Leap. It was about a cop from the future who is sent back in time--the early-Nineties--to catch and send back criminals who had fled prosecution in their own time. It could be a little cheesy, but I liked it.

Hard Case Crime Double Artwork

More cool news from Hard Case Crime. I received a very nice email from HCC editor and co-founder Charles Ardai this afternoon with the artwork for their recently announced Robert Bloch "Double," as it will actually look--the the back-to-back format along with the spine.



While I had his ear I also asked him about the selection process of the titles they publish; particularly how they choose between reprints and original novels. His response was terrific and very kind. In part he said:

As for originals vs. reprints, to some extent it's the luck of the draw -- we'll have a run of reprints, then a batch of originals all clumped up. It's not intentional, it's just the result of when authors happen to finish writing their books, and also of the variable quality of the submissions we get. (I'll always choose to buy a great reprint rather than a second-rate original novel, if that's my only alternative.)

Which probably sums up why HCC has had so much success in the marketplace. I'm always pushing for HCC to release more originals, but I can't argue with the overall quality of the titles they have chosen to bring back into print. How can I when they are reprinting hard-to-find novels from authors like Lawrence Block, Ed McBain, Max Allan Collins, Day Keene, David Goodis, John Lange and so many more? But still....

Thanks for the artwork and the email Charles.

Hard Case Crime Double

Cool news from Hard Case Crime: They have just released the artwork and titles for their much anticipated—by me, at least—“Double.” This style goes back to the old ACE Doubles, which featured two short novels back-to-back with a separate cover for each story. ACE published mysteries, westerns and science fiction; their science fiction line was the most popular, and today is the easiest to come by, with westerns a close second, and mysteries a very distant third.

The titles for the new HCC Double are both Robert Bloch novels—it would be cooler if they had two different writers, but still Bloch is a pretty kick ass choice—and the artwork is, as usual, top-notch.

The titles: Shooting Star and Spiderweb.

The cover artists: Arthur Saydum and Larry Schwinger .

HCC says the titles have been out-of-print for fifty years—who am I to argue—and the descriptions on their website make the novels sound pretty cool.

Unfortunately we have to wait until April 2008 for its release.

Click Here to go to the Hard Case Crime promotion page for a description and a sample chapter their first Double novel.

Post-Postmodern Fiction--Lit or Trend?

My local newspaper--The Salt Lake Tribune--printed an interesting article about the newish literary genre that it calls “post-postmodern fiction.” The genre, as described by the article, is defined by a group of young writers—mostly male—who are playing with narratives and the way we read:

This new breed of writers…think nothing of breaking up prose with graphics, maps and comic strips. They vary their font sizes, add extensive footnotes, format their text into strange shapes on the page. Sometimes they even read the text upside down.

The article goes on to talk about the originality of the form, even going so far as making the comparison between what these new "post-post modern" writers are doing and what Faulkner, Woolf, and Joyce did in the early-Twentieth century:

[T]he current wave of young writers, in their own way, are doing what modernist novelists such as William Faulkner, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf did in the early 1900s with stream-of-consciousness, voice and other groundbreaking narrative devices.

The genre, according to the article, has been around for about a decade—its roots can be traced to David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, and now includes writers such as Mark Z. Danielewski, Jonathan Safran Foer, Mark Haddon, Evan Kuhlman and David Mitchell. It has a cult following, and is beginning to make gains in sales and even appearing in mainstream bookshops.

When I first read this article yesterday morning I didn’t know what to think about it. I’m not the target audience for these “post-postmodern” works, but my first thought was: This is why people don’t read anymore. But then I eased off a little. Maybe there is something to this—heck, can anything that brings people away from the television, telephone, video game console, and back to the written word be bad?

I would prefer new and innovative novels that I can read without getting a decoder ring in the mail, or turning the book upside down and back again every few pages, but—

—at least it is out there in the marketplace, and someone is reading it.

I would rather have literature that is progressive in its narrative power and story-telling,than progressive in how it is presented—a job primarily achieved by a the very non-literary graphic design companies that have designed the nearly indecipherable menus in every chic chain restaurant around the country—but maybe this is a move in the right direction.

Not that I want the text shaped into elephants on each page—or any page—but rather a reevaluation of how we deliver literature. We need to be progressive in using new formats and media—how can we use the Internet, email, PDFs, or any other piece of technology to improve the accessibility, readability, and desirability of the written word?

Maybe this “post-postmodern” trend will help give us some answers, not how to write quality literature, but how to think creatively in presenting it in new formats, which younger readers will find appealing and illuminating. And hopefully benefit not only those of us who love the written word, but our entire culture as well.

Click Here to read the article in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Zingers 2: More First Lines With Grab

We all know the rules: the first few sentences of a novel have to reach out and grab us. If they don’t we generally pass on the novel and move down the shelves until something does grab us. Here are three more novels with openings that not only have grab, but have stayed with me since I first read them. Interestingly enough, they all are mystery novels.

1. Sweating, thirsty, hot, uncomfortable, and tired to the point of explosion.

Cynically I counted my woes.

Considerable, they were. Considerable, one way and another.

I sat in the driving seat of a custom-built aerodynamic sports car, the castoff toy of an oil sheik’s son. I had been sitting there for the best part of three days. Ahead, the sun-dried plain spread gently away to some distant brown and purple hills, and hour by hour their hunched shapes remained exactly where they were on the horizon, because the 150 m.p.h Special was not moving.

Nor was I.

Dick Francis was a favorite writer of mine in the mid-1990s—heck, he still is, and this opening from his novel Smokescreen is why. His writing is interesting, his voice is very working class, and his mysteries are top-notch. Not to mention they are exciting as hell.

2. Around eleven that night, the hostess broke out the Johnny Mathis and the Frank Sinatra, and everybody quit talking about their kids and their jobs and their mortgages and their politics, and got down to some serious slow dancing out on the darkened patio in the warm prairie night of summer 1961.

This is the first paragraph of Ed Gorman’s novel Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool featuring part-time P.I., part-time lawyer, and full-time small town fix-it man Sam McCain. The Sam McCain novels are a melancholy journey into a past that no longer exists, and the opening line from Everybody's Somebody's Fool fits the mood, temperament, and relaxed sorrow that is woven into each novel of the series.

The Sam McCain novels are my favorite P.I. series still being produced—the most recent, Fool’s Rush In, is scheduled for release later this year. I hope! It was originally scheduled to be released in March, but according to Amazon.com is now scheduled for the end of August.

3. I’m sitting on the porch of a bungalow on the Yucatan Peninsula with lit cigarettes sticking out both my ears.

This first line from Charlie Huston’s super-cool novel Six Bad Things begs the question: What? It also makes me want to read further, if for no other reason than to figure out why the guy has lit cigarettes stuck in his ears. And the great thing is, the novel only gets better.

BLAZE by Richard Bachman

Stephen King has a new novel just out called Blaze. It is published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, and like the first three novels he published under the Bachman moniker, it was written before his first novel Carrie was published. In his frank and enlightening Introduction King makes it clear that Blaze is a trunk novel. He says, “It’s a revised and updated trunk novel, but that doesn’t change the basic fact.”

Blaze is the story of Clayton "Blaze" Blaisdell, Jr. He is a giant of a man—6’7” and approaching 300 pounds. He is slow of thought, a criminal, and alone. The novel opens with Blaze stealing a car—his partner, George, leaves him to hotwire an old pickup by himself. Blaze isn’t too bright, and he gets angry and scared. Fortunately he finds a key hidden under the floor mat, and in a huff he decides to leave George in the bar and go home. That’s when Blaze remembers George is dead.

The trouble is, Blaze forgets George is gone a lot, because he still hears him speak sometimes, but always from another room, talking through the door, giving Blaze advice about this and that: how to steal a car; rob a convenience store; and plan the big one. The one job that will get him out of the life and transport him to someplace warmer and safer than Maine. George planned that final job—the kidnapping of the infant child of a local wealthy family—before he died in a knife fight. And now Blaze decides he wants to do it. He’ll do it alone, but he’ll have George their to talk him through it.

I can’t say enough good things about Blaze. It is an old style novel. The voice is crystal clear and the theme is very much like an old noir. The protagonist, Blaze, is a good man who has never gotten an even break. He has never been at the right place at the right time, or any other cliché you can think of. He is likable, chummy and in his own way one hell of a good person. His father beat the intelligence out of him and the unfairness of life took everything else. Blaze is a novel about love, need and just plain bad luck.

As for the trunk novel thing, my only thought: Damn if I don’t wish I had a novel this good hidden away in a dark, lonesome trunk.

I am Legend v. The Omega Man

A few weeks ago I saw the trailer for the upcoming film I Am Legend, which is based on the spectacular Richard Matheson novel. It stars Will Smith, and is scheduled for release this December. It looks decent: exciting, dark, and coolish. Although it doesn't seem to fit my memories of the novel much, but then again what movie based on a novel does?



And speaking of films based on Matheson's I Am Legend that don't follow the book much at all. Here is the trailer for the semi-cool (can I admit I sort of like this one?) Charlton Heston film The Omega Man. It is cheesy, over-dramatic, and takes itself way to seriously, but it is still has its moments. One of those moments is the ringing telephones. Too cool. Enjoy.

NO DOMINION by Charlie Huston

Charlie Huston is a favorite writer of mine. I read his novel Six Bad Things a couple years ago and it blew me away. The action was non-stop, and the characters—particularly the protagonist—were rendered as believable and served the story without fault. I have since read every novel Huston has published, and it is a list quickly growing.

He finished his Hank Thompson trilogy less than a year ago, and the second novel in his Joe Pitt series—a tough guy vampire based on Manhattan—was released earlier this year. Charlie Huston also has a crime novel scheduled for release sometime in August titled: The Shotgun Rule, and if there is anyone out there reading this—I want a review copy! [SFReader only gets the vampire stuff.]

With that said, my review for his second Joe Pitt novel, No Dominion, is live and online at SFReader. No Dominion starts where Already Dead left off, and it takes the reader on a fast, mean, and violent tour of the Manhattan vampire underbelly. It is quick, fun and very entertaining.

Click Here to read the review

GRAVEROBBERS WANTED (NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY) by Jeff Strand

Jeff Strand is not a household name in the horror genre, but he should be. He has written a series of novels featuring a smart-ass protagonist named Andrew Mayhem. The first title in the series, Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary), is a wonderfully humorous interpretation of the horror novel.

The novel begins when Mayhem attempts to earn money—without getting a real job—to cover the expenses of a car accident he recently caused. It happened not too long after his auto insurance expired and he wants to keep it secret from his wife. A friend offers Mayhem a job videotaping her cheating husband. He likes the idea of playing private eye until he loses (it is smashed to bits) his wife’s video camera and gets beat-up.

The next week Mayhem and his best friend Roger are in a bar waxing melancholy over the injustices of life when they are approached by an attractive blonde. She hands them an envelope with five hundred dollars inside, just to hear her story. The money is theirs whether they help or not, but if they accept the job she promises another $20,000.

The deal is, they have to dig up her recently dead husband and find a key that was buried with him. Mayhem feels like a slug, but he needs the money too badly to turn it down. His brief foray into grave digging leads Andrew Mayhem into a maze of terror and death. He is caught in a game designed by a psychopath and everything he has, his family, his friends and his sanity, will be threatened before the final page is over.

Graverobbers Wanted is a humorous novel, but don’t mistake it for a silly one. The action sequences are wonderful, the suspense is harrowing and the plot is tight and full of surprises. The characters are well drawn and add to the depth of the novel. The only funny thing about the story is Andrew Mayhem’s place in it. He can’t have a conversation without letting some witty, mocking sarcasm (often self-deprecating) slip out, and he is perfectly set-up in Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) as a dupe and a very much abused—he gets beat-up routinely—hero.

This is a novel that should be at the top of every horror fans list of books to read. If you haven’t read this book yet, you should.

The Inflation of Reading

I am a notoriously cheap person. I save every penny I can, and with the rest I purchase books—new, used, and everything in between. I like my books unsoiled, uncreased, and in mass-market paperback editions. There is something special about the mass-markets—they are small and comfortable to read, with (usually) great artwork, and they are light to pack around in a bag or suitcase. I can sneak them to work and read them on my break, at lunch, or any damn time I have a minute.

I also like to complain about how expensive books are—specifically mass-market paperbacks. I’m still stuck in 1992 when the expensive paperbacks were $5.99—and most of what I read was between $3.99 and $4.99. So when I walk into the bookstore and nearly everything has a retail price of $7.99 I gasp, bitch and moan and then buy a couple—and always think, damn, a few years ago I could have walked out of here with three.

Where is this going? Well, all this complaining and comparing got me thinking about what the inflation rate on mass-market paperbacks is, and how it compares, in general, with the overall inflation rate of the U.S. economy. So I put together a few numbers—in a very unscientific manner—to see just how much the price of books have increased on an annual basis over the past sixty years.

The numbers are rough, and the sampling is far from complete, but I had a good time doing it, and I hope you have a good time with it to. My only request is that you don’t take the numbers as perfect, because they aren’t. I used a discount method of present value of money to calculate them, and while they should be in the neighborhood, they certainly could be improved.

General Genre Rates

The westerns are a comparison between the common price of the 1949 Gold Medal editions and the common price of 2007 westerns. The mysteries compare these same GM editions and the current line of Hard Case Crime novels. The science fiction is a comparison between the old ACE Doubles in 1956—I have several of these, and that is where the price came from—and the most common price of ACE science fiction books today. I did this by sampling the science fiction area in a local bookstore last weekend.

Western

The 1949 price was: $0.25
The 2007 price is: $5.99
The annual inflation rate is: 5.63%

Mystery

The 1949 price was: $0.25
The 2007 price is $6.99
The annual inflation rate is: 5.91%

Science Fiction

The 1956 price was: $0.35
The 2007 price is: $7.99
The annual Inflation rate is: 6.33%

Some Particulars

The particular series and title numbers came from editions that I either own, or could easily find comparison prices on the web. When possible I compared the first edition of a book with the most current edition. For The Executioner series I compared a recent release with the 1976 edition of #26: Acapulco Rampage. The Gunsmith series is a comparison between the 1982 first printing of #1: Macklin’s Women and the 2006 release of #294: Farewell the Mountain. The individual titles should be self-explanatory. I hope.

The Executioner series

The 1972 price was: $1.25
The 2007 price is: $4.99
The annual inflation rate is: 4.03%

The Gunsmith series

The 1982 price was: $2.25
The 2006 price was: $5.99
The annual inflation rate is: 4.16%

Off Season by Jack Ketchum

The 1981 price was: $2.50
The 2006 price was: $6.99
The annual inflation rate is: 4.19%

Among the Missing by Richard Laymon

The 2000 price was: $5.99
The 2007 price is: $7.99
The annual inflation rate is: 4.20%

Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter

The 1993 price was: $5.99
The 2007 price is: $7.99
The annual inflation rate is: 2.08%

The Totem by David Morrell

The 1980 price was: $2.50
The 1995 price was: $6.50
The annual inflation rate is: 6.33%

The numbers really aren’t terrible, but they aren't good either. Every category except Stephen Hunter’s Point of Impact exceeded the national inflation rate by between one and three points—if you figure the overall inflation rate in the economy over the same period at about 3%. The general genre rates were around double the overall inflation rates, while the individual titles were slightly less.

It might not be a huge inflation rate, but it is enough above the overall inflation rate to give me grounds to gripe. I hope the little extra growth is headed towards the writers, but somehow I doubt it.

The Girl Next Door -- Movie Trailer

The movie trailer for Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door has been floating around the Internet for a month or so, and I finally discovered it last week. It looks pretty good. There are even a few familiar faces in the cast: Grant Show from Melrose Place fame, and William Atherton.

The Screenplay was written Daniel Farrands and Philip Nutman, and it was directed by newcomer Gregory Wilson.



Click Here to visit the IMDB page for The Girl Next Door

THE GIRL NEXT DOOR by Jack Ketchum

This is the week of Jack Ketchum here at Gravetapping. I reviewed his novel Offspring earlier in the week, and now here is a review I wrote for The Girl Next Door when it was released by Leisure Books in the summer of 2005. It is long, and at times meandering--the review, I mean--but the book is absolutely terrific. It is a novel that should be read by everyone, and not just the genre regulars. Make sure to come back tomorrow when there will be something kind of cool about the film version of The Girl Next Door.

The horror genre, like any other genre of fiction, has a few legends, stars, and icons. Jack Ketchum is one those writers. He burst onto the scene in 1981 with the devilishly horrid Off Season--the story of a clan of cannibals living in a cave off the coast of Maine. The novel was instantly reviled and censored by all of the right people: a core group of do-gooders, and several mainstream newspapers. In spite, or perhaps because of the bad press, it went on to sell more than 250,000 copies and guaranteed a place for Ketchum and Off Season in the canon of horror literature.

Unfortunately most of Ketchum's early works are unavailable in affordable editions today. There is good news however: over the past several months Leisure Books has released in mass market paperback two of Jack Ketchum's early novels, She Wakes and The Girl Next Door. These titles have been long out-of-print, and their re-appearance is a welcome sight for readers. The Girl Next Door, released by Leisure Books in June 2005, is the best of Ketchum's early work. Warner Books originally published it in 1989, but its impact was negligible. It was out-of-print nearly before it hit bookstore shelves. With the new Leisure release this novel should reach a larger and more appropriate audience.

"You think you know about pain?" The novel opens with this line, and it is the main crux of the story. It is about pain. The pain one human being forces upon another. The pain one culture visits upon another--it is a story within a story. The small neighborhood setting fills in for the big, dangerous and mean world. It is the story of a twelve-year-old boy named David, as told by his adult self. A kind of epistle really. A confession.

"So here's my check. Overdue and overdrawn." It is revenge against his neighbor. The mother of his best friend: a woman he admired, and maybe even loved. Revenge against her acts--against her spiral into madness. It is revenge against the world--our world--for allowing terrible, violent acts to go unchallenged every day.

The Girl Next Door is Jack Ketchum's masterpiece.

It is set in rural New Jersey in the 1950's: a quiet street, perfectly manicured yards and houses, beautiful mothers and working fathers, the sound of neighborhood kids playing in the streets. It is idyllic. Ketchum's simple prose captures the mood of the time: The glossy innocence, as well as the seamy underside, the cover-ups. The quiet things polite people don't talk about. It is all here. Nothing is pure, the text seems to shout. Nothing is as wholesome, as inviting and open as it is seems.

David's small seemingly perfect world changes forever when two orphaned sisters move in with his next door neighbor and best friend, Donny Chandler. The girls were in an automobile accident. They lived, but their parents were killed. The older sister, Meg, is fourteen, strong and beautiful in that clean teenage girl way. Her little sister, Susan, was hurt badly. She can't walk without crutches and heavy metal braces on her legs. She is small and weak. The sisters are polar opposites. Meg is strong, athletic; Susan is broken, dependent.

Donny's mother, Ruth, takes the sisters in--they are the children of a distant cousin, and Ruth is their only relative. David--the narrator--instantly smitten with Meg. He meets her one afternoon at the brook, a place the neighborhood kids call the "Big Rock," hand fishing for crayfish. The two seem easy together. Their conversation is fluid and agile. The scene is light and friendly, but it is haunted with a feeling of doom. A darkness that is not shown, but hinted at. What starts out as an innocent, quiet memoir of childhood quickly turns into a horrific tale of madness and evil. It is the story of a woman's madness, and how that madness affects the neighborhood. Ruth is a woman who talks of a glorious past. She came from wealth, prosperity. She ran the office of a large company, but now she is stuck in a small New Jersey berg with no husband and three boys. She has failed, and is totally lost.

The sisters (Meg and Susan) become the targets of Ruth's rising anger, and later her brutal insanity. Meg, especially, can do nothing right. She is punished for her wrongs, both real and imagined. She is punished for being young, strong and female. The punishment and torment escalates quickly, yet somehow quietly (none of the adults in the neighborhood know what is happening, but the children all know and are involved either through participation or as willing voyeurs) through the summer months until the final, crushing, terrifying climax.

David watches the torture of Meg. "I was like an addict, and my drug was knowing. Knowing what was possible. Knowing how far it could go. Where they'd dare to take it all. / It was always they. I stood outside, or I felt I did." It begins with little disciplines: no dinner, no friends, a spanking, a derogatory word, mocking. But then things get scary. Hard. They take her into the basement, into an old bomb shelter. They take her there and leave her. Then they begin to play games with her. Punish her. Torture her, and even rape her.

David wants to be separate, apart from both Meg and her tormentors. He isn't participating, but only watching. It is like television: unreal, exciting. But everything changes when he is faced with a moral dilemma so powerful, so frightening that he must choose sides. The dilemma is real. It is a metaphor for much larger issues: genocide, fascism, war. It is the same dilemma a good German faced every time the Nazis stole away a Jew. The same dilemma we all face when we witness violence--random, horrible violence that affects more than just the victim. It affects society, casts a shadow over humanity and makes us realize: This is what it is to be human. This is what we are capable of.

Jack Ketchum is a master of technique, and The Girl Next Door is a prime example. The prose is tight, the plot fine tuned and quick. He understands the story, and he understands how the audience will react to it. He has a reputation for splatter and gore, but you will find nothing gratuitous here. In fact, at a moment of supreme violence, the narrator backs away from the action. The violence. "I'm not going to tell you about this. / I refuse." The memory is too harsh for him to share, to allow an outsider unfettered access.

The Girl Next Door should be on every reading list, but if that is too much to ask it should at least be on your reading list. Get it. Read it, and take it seriously. Mr. Ketchum is a brilliant writer who deserves more respect and a larger audience than he has.

OFFSPRING by Jack Ketchum

In 1981 a first time author published a slim horror novel that would change the genre forever. The novel: Off Season; the author: Jack Ketchum. Off Season was a paperback original published by Ballantine Books, and sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000 copies. Unfortunately the novel was deemed as repulsive, and unfit for human consumption—his next novel, Hide and Seek sold less than 50,000 copies.
In 1989 Jack Ketchum published the sequel to his legendary Off Season, and it disappeared from bookstore shelves nearly as quickly as it arrived. And it has been almost impossible to find without getting a second mortgage on the house ever since. This June Leisure Books re-released Offspring, and I finally got my hands on it.

Offspring has taken a few hits over the years. It has been challenged by a few top critics in the horror genre as nothing more than a derivative jumble of over processed crap. I had never read it, and so I held judgment, and I’m glad I did, because I enjoyed Offspring a whole lot.

Offspring takes place eleven years after Off Season, and the books are very much connected. The Sheriff of Deep River, Maine—George Peters—is haunted by the events of 1981; he has retired, his wife and only friend died a few years earlier, and his only solace is in the bottle. That changes on the evening of May 12, 1992 when the new Sheriff of Deep River pays him a call with a story of two brutal murders. The Sheriff asks for Peters help, and the scene is eerily familiar. The murder victims have been disemboweled and literally cannibalized. George Peters knows who is responsible, and he fears they won’t be able to stop the clan before they wreak havoc on the town.

Offspring is a well-written tale of gruesome, violent, and horrifying terror. There are no vampires, ghosts, zombies or anything else of the netherworld here, there is just good old fashioned human evil. The type of evil Jack Ketchum does better than anyone else. And it is scary as hell simply because gruesome inhuman stuff like this happens.

Offspring has the feel of a well-executed horror movie, although the themes and underlying meaning has much more depth than many of the current crop of films. The characters are likable; the description is tight and serves the storyline well. Jack Ketchum is my favorite writer of horror tales, and Offspring lived up to my expectations. It wasn’t quite at the level of Off Season, but it was tight, scary and very well plotted.

Now if we could get Mr. Ketchum to churn out a new novel or two.

“The Blood Beneath When the World Draws Back” by Tom Piccirilli

Tom Piccirilli is best known as a horror writer, but he has published two western novels—Grave Men and Coffin Blues—and several western short stories. I recently read his western short story “The Blood Beneath When the World Draws Back” and it had the same power as his best horror—the prose sharp as a dagger, the story literate, and very entertaining.

“Blood Beneath” is the story of Smoke, a Texas Ranger, who is hot on the tracks of two outlaws: rapists, murderers and overall bastards in the worst way. They left a child to die in the hot sun and raped her mother. Smoke quietly follows the outlaws across the open country of Texas until he hunts them down in the small town of Last Chance where he seeks justice and more than a little vengeance.

“The Blood Beneath When the World Draws Back” is one of the best stories I have read this year—short story or novel. It has the feel of a 1970s Spaghetti western, and as I read I couldn’t help but picture Clint Eastwood with his quiet strength, compassion, and tough-as-nails exterior. Smoke is the champion of the downtrodden, the protector of the weak, and basically one tough dude—an anti-hero to root for. Mr. Piccirilli brings a solid story to life with a bare, stark, cynical and violent style. The opening is pitch perfect:

“Smoke found the dying child in the rocks about midday, gave her water and shade for the two hours she lasted, and buried her beneath a red plum bush.”

The power of the prose never lets up, and the story glides seamlessly to its inevitable conclusion. Mr. Piccirilli is a terrific writer who deserves a larger audience, and “The Blood Beneath When the World Draws Back” not only gives hope to a shrinking genre, but is also one hell of a good tale.

“The Blood Beneath When the World Draws Back” was originally published in the anthology Texas Rangers—edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg--in 2004.

Renegade -- Main Theme

Renegade is a show that one doesn't want to admit one likes. At least I don't--but alas, as a teenage male I loved it. Renegade was a syndicated show produced by Stephen J. Cannell that aired in my local area late Saturday evening--maybe eleven?--in the early-1990s, and it was well worth staying up a little late to watch. What's not to like? A cool motorcycle, a fight every 4.3 minutes, and the occassional scantily clad female. Damn. I miss that show.

Fanzines: "Ted White Still Scares Me" by Ed Gorman

Ed Gorman has published, over at eFanzines, a little piece on science fiction fanzines--mostly a reminiscence piece about his association with, and enjoyment of the fanzines in the late-1950s. It is an enjoayble article that features several great scans of old fanzine covers and memories of a time when science fiction was still new and progressive.

Go Here to read the article.

EARTH ABIDES by George R. Stewart

I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic stories: I finished Cormac McCarthy's The Road a few weeks ago, and loved it. I planned to write a review, but I didn't know what I could say that hadn't already been said: It is great; it is science fiction; read it. Enough? Stephen King's The Stand made me forget its 1,000-plus pages and truly ushered me into a world that I not only enjoyed, but wanted to experience more of--no slim feat for such a long tale. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson is a classic. I even enjoyed James Herbert's '48.

You may be asking yourself: What's the point? The point is, my review of the classic post-apocalyptic novel Earth Abides by George R. Stewart is live and online at SFReader.

Earth Abides is advertised as one of the best post-apocalyptic stories ever written, and while I wouldn't go nearly that far, it is an interesting read. The prose, at times, feels a tad archaic--much older than its original publishing date of 1949--and the story can be frustratingly slow, but overall there are a good many ideas in this novel that are still applicable today, and those ideas alone, make Earth Abides a worthwhile read.

Click Here to read the entire review at SFReader.

MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS by Lee Goldberg

The USA Network’s series Monk is one of the most enjoyable programs on television. It chronicles the adventures of the obsessive-compulsive and very brilliant Adrian Monk. Monk is a former San Francisco police detective who lost his job, his handle on life, and very nearly his sanity when his wife Trudy was killed by a car bomb. The television series has been turned into a series of novels written by Lee Goldberg.

The fourth novel in the series, and the latest, is Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants. As the title suggests we get a visit from Monk’s former assistant Sharona Fleming, and she is a lively addition to the normal cast. When her husband is accused of murder Sharona is heartbroken, and finds herself back in San Francisco working as a nurse. She doesn’t call on Monk to solve the murder because she thinks her husband is guilty, but as luck would have it, her and Monk find each other at the hospital were she works.

Monk is instantly awestruck—when he first sees Sharona he is speechless. Then as the realization dawns on him that she is truly back, Monk offers Sharona her old job as his assistant. Needless to say this doesn’t go over well with Natalie, and the rest of the novel unwinds to reveal not one murder, but three—and Monk is at his lovable best as he tries to figure out just who killed whom, and why, without getting dirty or into too many unpleasant germs.

Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants is a humorous whodunit. It is written in the voice of Natalie, who—in this novel especially—feels very much like Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick Dr. Watson, and it is great fun to watch her struggle through the twists and turns of the plot. She is often just as lost as the reader when confronted with the powerful deductive abilities of Adrian Monk, and the wonderfully outlandish murders he solves.

Mr. Goldberg does an admirable job of portraying the characters. The novel is at its best when the entire gang is on hand—Captain Stottlemeyer, Lieutenant Disher, Monk, Natalie, and Sharona. The dialogue is pitch perfect, and the atmosphere of the television series is captured very well, except, instead of a single episode it feels like a two-part extravaganza.

Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants isn’t the best of the Monk novels—that is a slot thoughtfully reserved for Mr. Monk and Blue Flu—but it is an enjoyable, relaxing, and very fun read with an ample amount of mystery and deduction. If you are in the mood for something light, quick and devilishly funny, give Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants a try. You won’t regret it.

An aside: Goldberg introduces a character named Ian Ludlow, who is in reality a nom de plume of none other than Lee Goldberg. In the mid-1980s Mr. Goldberg published three novels in a men’s adventure series under the name Ian Ludlow. The series: .357: Vigilante.

Johnny Cash Does Elvis

This is a great little video of Johnny Cash doing an Elvis impersonation. It is funny, and a view into Johnny Cash's personality--maybe--that we don't often see. Enjoy.

"Pumpkin-Witch" by Tim Curran

“Pumpkin-Witch” is a spooky little horror story written by small press regular Tim Curran—he is the author of the novels Hive and Dead Sea. It is the story of an abused housewife named Maria, who finds solace, and maybe a little justice, on a chilly Halloween eve. Maria has a penchant for carving pumpkins—lots of pumpkins—and it is a tradition not shared, or understood by her abusive husband. She normally carves her pumpkins with happy poses, until this Halloween, when they seemingly take on a sinister look. And then Maria—or something darker and far more sinister—decides to makes a few changes in her life, in a very supernatural way.

“Pumpkin-Witch” is a quick, fun and very atmospheric horror story. It is written in an eloquent, and very literate style:

October was its own magic, its own spell and whispered conjuration. You could hear it in windy stripped trees and smell it in the aroma of cut pumpkins and feel its ice down in your bones like frost on a windowpane, locking something down, holding it there until the first kiss of spring let it loose.

The plot is smooth and, while I did guess the climax, the journey was anything but dull. “Pumpkin-Witch” made me yearn for autumn winds and Halloween nights—it made me think of the invitingly chilled air, and glowing orange Jack-o-Lantern’s. Not to mention, it gave me a good spook, and more importantly, made me smile.

“Pumpkin-Witch” was published in the Shivers IV anthology edited by Richard Chizmar and published by Cemetery Dance Publications in 2006.

JOHN RAMBO--Trailer

I found the trailer for the new Rambo film: John Rambo. It actually looks pretty good. On the violent side, but I am an action slut. It stars Stallone as Rambo, Julie Benz--she played Darla on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel--and Sam Elliot. It was co-written by Art Monterastelli who was a producer of the magnificent television series Nowhere Man. It couldn't that bad, right? Anyway, here is the trailer.

JOHN RAMBO--News of the latest Rambo film

David Morrell has some news about the film Rambo IV—firstly, it is currently titled John Rambo; secondly, the production company wants nothing to do with David Morrell; and thirdly, there is a three-minute trailer floating around the Internet.

Firstly, the title sucks—but it is better than the lame Rambo IV. And maybe the title itself bodes well for the film—the best film of the first three was First Blood (not Rambo I, II, or III), and as a teenager I loved it. I must have watched First Blood five or six times—the first night my neighbor rented it from the video store. Then maybe (probably?) a few more times over the next few days.

I wish I could say that I didn’t like the second and third, but—ahem—I did. And it would also be downright dumb of me to make the claim that I won’t see the fourth film, because I will. I’m a sucker for an action flick. Good or bad. I should also mention that Morrell wrote the novelization for the final two films, and they were pretty good—they developed Rambo’s character much more than the films, and they were—to put it bluntly—much more entertaining than the movies.

Secondly, David Morrell has spoken before about his exile from the project; a situation he is seemingly not very happy with. Today on his website he said:

As I said in an earlier edition of this page, the producers of the current Rambo film have gone out of their way to keep me at a distance from the project. That doesn't make sense to me--to alienate the creator of the character--but sometimes the movie business is far from logical.

Click Here to read David Morrell’s entire comment on the new Rambo film.
Click Here to go to the IMDB page for John Rambo

TIME TO HUNT by Stephen Hunter

International thrillers have been a staple of my reading diet since I stumbled across the early works of Jack Higgins, Alistair MacLean, Desmond Bagley, and a little later that of David Morrell, Noel Hynd and—don’t hate me—Tom Clancy. In the early-1990s I found a novel by an author I was not familiar with. The novel was The Day Before Midnight, and the author was named Stephen Hunter. I read The Day Before Midnight, and loved it. Then I promptly forgot about Hunter until I picked up his masterful novel Point of Impact, featuring sniper Bob Lee Swagger.

Unfortunately—after reading several of Hunter’s novels—I promptly forgot him again. I went some six or seven years without reading any of his work. (Admittedly this was, at least in part, due to my disappointment with many of the authors who dominate the genre with poor writing and bloated, uninteresting plots.) Well that changed a few weeks ago, because I—influenced by the film Shooter, which is based on Point of Impact—picked up a Stephen Hunter novel and literally read it overnight. The title: Time to Hunt.

Time to Hunt is the third, and presumably final, novel featuring former Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger. It opens in 1971 Washington, D.C. as Donny Fenn navigates his way through more than one sticky situation only to find himself back in Vietnam working as the spotter for Sergeant Swagger.

The first half of Time to Hunt is a Vietnam novel, and a damn good one, but then it is transformed into a modern thriller with a plot full of questions and a hero not only worthy of the action, but very much worthy of his audience. Bob Lee Swagger battles an old enemy, his alcoholism, a separation from his wife and daughter, and even a few ghosts from Vietnam as he crosses the continent in search of the man who tried to kill him.

Time to Hunt is one of the best thrillers I have read. The plot is flawless, the characters are strong, and the forward momentum is astonishing. Hunter ratchets the tension with the finesse of an old pro, and with Bob Lee Swagger, he has created one of the most likable, able and well-drawn action characters ever created. He is all man—intelligent, tough and more than able to take on the bad guys. Simply put, Stephen Hunter is the best writer of thrillers still practicing the trade, and Time to Hunt is one of his best.

Good news: I just discovered that Stephen Hunter has a new Bob Lee Swagger novel scheduled for release on September 11, 2007—the title: The 47th Samurai; the publisher Simon & Schuster.

"The Underdweller" by William F. Nolan

I have enjoyed reading short fiction since I was a boy—the stories have to be compact, exciting and complete. They, just as a novel, must have a beginning, middle and ending. When a short story is done well, it is a delight. And for a moment the author leads us into a world that exists nowhere else. It exists only in the ink and on the pages of the magazine, collection or anthology where it was published.

Unfortunately the popularity of the short story is waning, to say the least, and as a form for storytelling it is very nearly dead. With this in mind, I want to introduce a new regular segment here at Gravetapping—a segment that is exclusively dedicated to short stories. Once or twice a month I will review one or more stories—they will be presented very much as I present everything here at Gravetapping with the randomness of my own reading. If I enjoy the story, I’ll tell you about. If I don’t, I won’t.

In this premiere post I want to talk about a story many of you have probably read: “The Underdweller” by William F. Nolan. “The Underdweller” was originally published in 1957 as “Small World” in Fantastic Universe, but Nolan later revised the story—he expanded it significantly—and published it under the title “The Small World of Lewis Stillman,” and later still the title changed to the more familiar “The Underdweller.”

“The Underdweller” is a last man story. It features Lewis Stillman, the last man to survive an alien attack. He lives in the storm-drain system beneath Los Angeles, where he survives by stealth. The city streets teem with an unidentified menace; a menace that will surely kill Stillman if he is discovered. He is alone, lonely and desperately in search of not only survival, but also acceptance by a world that no longer exists.

“The Underdweller” is a science fiction story, but it is more. Nolan has created a world that is our own, with one exception—we, all of us, are gone, but unfortunately the memory, the fear, and the disappointment that riddles us is still very much alive in Stillman. It is a tool Stillman uses—or a tool that uses Stillman—to berate himself into an action that will define his existence, or, put another way, give his meaningless life reason.

If all that sounds pompous—and it probably does—don’t worry, because above all else “The Underdweller” is a helluva well-told story. It is fast—the prose is light and readable, and Stillman is an everyman. He is likable, real and very much someone worth spending twenty minutes with once a year. Heck, maybe even two or three times a year.

“The Underdweller” has spent most, if not all, of the past fifty years in print. It has been anthologized multiple times and included in various William F. Nolan collections. It can currently be found in Nolan’s collection, Dark Universe, published in paperback in 2003 by Leisure Books.

If you are an author or publisher and have a short story, collection, anthology, or novel you think I would like to review please send me an email at: zulu1611@yahoo.com