it's been a while since i've posted, and even longer since the time before that.
there have been a number of personal upheavals and i'm in the process of moving.
once i'm fully relocated and relaxed a bit, expect new reviews at least once a week.
until then- blargh.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
'city pier: above and below' by paul g. tremblay
trade paperback, prime books, 2007.
paul g. tremblay's second book, 'city pier: above and below,' may be one of the best works of fiction describing a fictional city since china mieville's 'perdido street station.' unlike that particular book, however, tremblay's 'pier city' is remarkably concise. seamlessly blending noir, horror, fantasy, and sf it's a remarkable work that breathes life into one of the strangest metropoles in current fiction... and does so in under a hundred pages.
a novella comprised of four distinctly separate yet connected stories, it describes a vast city, referred to only as 'City,' which is located on top of a bizarrely mammoth pier creating a distinctly literal underworld populated by the homeless and the bizarre.
the first piece shows us 'Pier' by way of a seemingly small time hood and his trip through this waterlogged world in search of an arms dealer, and the subsequent shenanigans that ensue. tremblay manages to introduce the sf elements in this tale without sacrificing the hardboiled tone of the piece and succeeds in setting up the strangeness that follows in the second tale of a wayward priest in over his head while dealing with crooked cops, homeless lunatics who escaped from the pier (where all the homeless of the city are sent to), and his own psychic powers. the most nihilistic and chandleresque piece, it also contains some rather memorable lines of dialogue that wouldn't be out of place in a cornell woolrich story.
the novella continues with some incredibly interesting questions about identity, and the very nature of the concept, as well as the absolute strange horror of... balloons. many writers have tried to make normally harmless and pedestrian things and make them objects of terror, and few succeed as tremblay does with balloons.
finally, tremblay ends with a bleak story of a woman wanting to escape the confines of the city and may very well have stepped from a fritz lang movie by way of gormenghast.
all in all, tremblay's 'piper city: above and below' is an utterly fantastic work that boldly skips through and beside a number of genres and comes out on the other side as a unique landmark in contemporary strange fiction that deserves its place beside the works of mervyn peake, cornell woolrich, and jeff vandermeer.
paul g. tremblay's second book, 'city pier: above and below,' may be one of the best works of fiction describing a fictional city since china mieville's 'perdido street station.' unlike that particular book, however, tremblay's 'pier city' is remarkably concise. seamlessly blending noir, horror, fantasy, and sf it's a remarkable work that breathes life into one of the strangest metropoles in current fiction... and does so in under a hundred pages.
a novella comprised of four distinctly separate yet connected stories, it describes a vast city, referred to only as 'City,' which is located on top of a bizarrely mammoth pier creating a distinctly literal underworld populated by the homeless and the bizarre.
the first piece shows us 'Pier' by way of a seemingly small time hood and his trip through this waterlogged world in search of an arms dealer, and the subsequent shenanigans that ensue. tremblay manages to introduce the sf elements in this tale without sacrificing the hardboiled tone of the piece and succeeds in setting up the strangeness that follows in the second tale of a wayward priest in over his head while dealing with crooked cops, homeless lunatics who escaped from the pier (where all the homeless of the city are sent to), and his own psychic powers. the most nihilistic and chandleresque piece, it also contains some rather memorable lines of dialogue that wouldn't be out of place in a cornell woolrich story.
the novella continues with some incredibly interesting questions about identity, and the very nature of the concept, as well as the absolute strange horror of... balloons. many writers have tried to make normally harmless and pedestrian things and make them objects of terror, and few succeed as tremblay does with balloons.
finally, tremblay ends with a bleak story of a woman wanting to escape the confines of the city and may very well have stepped from a fritz lang movie by way of gormenghast.
all in all, tremblay's 'piper city: above and below' is an utterly fantastic work that boldly skips through and beside a number of genres and comes out on the other side as a unique landmark in contemporary strange fiction that deserves its place beside the works of mervyn peake, cornell woolrich, and jeff vandermeer.
Friday, June 6, 2008
'a whisper of southern lights' by tim lebbon.
'a whisper of southern lights' by tim lebbon.
signed and numbered trade paperback. necessary evil press, 2008.
the word 'apocalypse' is often used to denote the end of the world, either the greater world or the world of any smaller part. it's a term that captures the spirit of the bulk the of tim lebbon's work quite well. from the endings to the world at large in 'the nature of balance,' 'white,' 'hush' (written with gavin williams), and other various tales of ruin to smaller and more personal apocalypses such as the end of a family's world in 'face.' another meaning of the word 'apocalypse' is 'revelation.' this too works well to describe the works of tim lebbon- within the ruins of a man, a family, a time, or a world there is much revealed, both personal and cosmopolitan.
in 1997 tim lebbon published his first, and weakest novel. it was a novel that dealt very much with the end of one man's personal world, with vast implications toward the greater world. it was a novel that first introduced us to a villainous character by the name of Temple, who is something much more and much less than a man and may just be the being that brings about armageddon. unfortunately, the novel, while being incredibly ambitious and full of rather interesting ideas, is also greatly flawed. it shows glimpses of the brilliant artist that lebbon would become, but it fails to live up to its own ideas.
thankfully, that wasn't the end of Temple in print.
a few years later, lebbon began a series of novellas about this charming fellow (who is, quite honestly, one of the more nihilistic and sadistic fictional characters to come from horror/dark fantasy fiction) and his opposite, a man known as Gabriel. this series, in which the two meet throughout history, began auspiciously enough with 'dead man's hand,' a tale set in the despairing and ruinous time of the american 'old west' and continued with 'pieces of hate' which takes the two to the caribbean during the age of piracy and slavery. both of these novellas manage to show the absolute horror of their place and time with lebbon's now well honed prose.
which brings us to the newest of these novellas- 'a whisper of southern lights' in which Gabriel and Temple meet in the ruin of world war two singapore.
switching between first and third person, it's a work that almost approaches minimalism with its sparse prose and it's built on a conceit that is all too easy to stumble with (again, the perspective shift.) lebbon rises to the particular challenge, and manages to create one of the best works of his career, so far, with a piece that is so monumentally depressing, nihilistic, and despairing that few other writers currently working in the horror field could even begin to approach the level of actual horror within.
by building on what is generally considered the single most defining horror of the 20th century and reducing that conflict to the perspective of a single soldier, lebbon manages to create a work that is truly nightmarish and beautiful at the same time.
and, to be honest, in a time when so much fiction about that particular conflict is grounded in sentimentality and dishonest concepts of heroism, 'a whisper of southern lights' is refreshing in its honesty.
war truly is hell, and 'a whisper of southern lights' shows it as nothing but that.
signed and numbered trade paperback. necessary evil press, 2008.
the word 'apocalypse' is often used to denote the end of the world, either the greater world or the world of any smaller part. it's a term that captures the spirit of the bulk the of tim lebbon's work quite well. from the endings to the world at large in 'the nature of balance,' 'white,' 'hush' (written with gavin williams), and other various tales of ruin to smaller and more personal apocalypses such as the end of a family's world in 'face.' another meaning of the word 'apocalypse' is 'revelation.' this too works well to describe the works of tim lebbon- within the ruins of a man, a family, a time, or a world there is much revealed, both personal and cosmopolitan.
in 1997 tim lebbon published his first, and weakest novel. it was a novel that dealt very much with the end of one man's personal world, with vast implications toward the greater world. it was a novel that first introduced us to a villainous character by the name of Temple, who is something much more and much less than a man and may just be the being that brings about armageddon. unfortunately, the novel, while being incredibly ambitious and full of rather interesting ideas, is also greatly flawed. it shows glimpses of the brilliant artist that lebbon would become, but it fails to live up to its own ideas.
thankfully, that wasn't the end of Temple in print.
a few years later, lebbon began a series of novellas about this charming fellow (who is, quite honestly, one of the more nihilistic and sadistic fictional characters to come from horror/dark fantasy fiction) and his opposite, a man known as Gabriel. this series, in which the two meet throughout history, began auspiciously enough with 'dead man's hand,' a tale set in the despairing and ruinous time of the american 'old west' and continued with 'pieces of hate' which takes the two to the caribbean during the age of piracy and slavery. both of these novellas manage to show the absolute horror of their place and time with lebbon's now well honed prose.
which brings us to the newest of these novellas- 'a whisper of southern lights' in which Gabriel and Temple meet in the ruin of world war two singapore.
switching between first and third person, it's a work that almost approaches minimalism with its sparse prose and it's built on a conceit that is all too easy to stumble with (again, the perspective shift.) lebbon rises to the particular challenge, and manages to create one of the best works of his career, so far, with a piece that is so monumentally depressing, nihilistic, and despairing that few other writers currently working in the horror field could even begin to approach the level of actual horror within.
by building on what is generally considered the single most defining horror of the 20th century and reducing that conflict to the perspective of a single soldier, lebbon manages to create a work that is truly nightmarish and beautiful at the same time.
and, to be honest, in a time when so much fiction about that particular conflict is grounded in sentimentality and dishonest concepts of heroism, 'a whisper of southern lights' is refreshing in its honesty.
war truly is hell, and 'a whisper of southern lights' shows it as nothing but that.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
the shirley jackson awards must live, and jack haringa must die!
in a strange bit of news, i've had my first piece published outside the most obscure micropresses in the anthology 'jack haringa must die!' which is a heartfelt tribute the editor, writer, and gadfly as well as being a fund raiser for the shirley jackson awards- which i'm incredibly excited about since i have long felt that the horror field needed a sensible juried award.
the following is the press release and order info.
buy many and buy often!
the following is the press release and order info.
buy many and buy often!
Jack Haringa Must Die!
"Within the pages of this book are the tales, scenes, confessionals, and dare I say, fantasies of the many deaths of Jack Haringa: the people, they just love to kill him." So writes Paul Tremblay, in his tongue-in-cheek introduction to the Jack Haringa Must Die! Twenty-Eight Original Tales of Madness, Terror and Strictly Grammatical Murder, edited by Nicholas Kaufmann.
Jack Haringa Must Die! (104 pp) is now available from Merricat Publications. Proceeds from the book will benefit the Shirley Jackson Awards.
Jack M. Haringa is a member of the Board of Advisors to the Shirley Jackson Awards. He is an author and teacher, as well as co-editor, with S.T. Joshi, of the critical journal Dead Reckonings. The contributing authors to Jack Haringa Must Die! are his friends and respected colleagues.
In February of 2008, while in attendance at the Boskone convention in Boston, a group of writers discussed the fictional fate of characters named after Jack Haringa: he'd already been killed in two works by Brian Keene and in a book by AJ Matthews. Thusly inspired, friends organized "Kill Jack Haringa on Your Blog Day" for March 7th, 2008. Reports of Jack's death circulated throughout the blogosphere, with scores of participants. Jack Haringa Must Die! is a compilation of the best of those blog entries, plus original, never-read-before death scenarios from James A. Moore and best-selling author, Christopher Golden.
All contributors offered their unique talents and their time to this endeavor, and under the guidance of Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Nicholas Kaufmann what was once only in the ether is now in print. Deep appreciation goes out to Jack Haringa for loaning his name to this endeavor, without which this book would not have been possible.
The Table of Contents for Jack Haringa Must Die! is:
Death to Haringa! - Jack Ketchum
Scratch - Seth Lindberg
Grammar of the Dead - Brian Keene
fisticuffs in broad daylight!: a lance polynomial adventure! - s.j. bagley
The Fate of Poor Jack Haringa - Paul G. Tremblay
Jack Haringa in Hell - Lisa Morton
Suicide, They Said - James A. Moore
All Furious and Fuming - Michael Kelly
Woolly Solution - Stephen Mark Rainey
True Fashion - Daniel G. Keohane
Haiku - Hannah Wolf Bowen
Going After Eliot - F. Brett Cox
The Unthinkable - Craig Shaw Gardner
Kids - John Langan
…And a Dark Wolf Will Touch You Back - Nicholas Kaufmann
They All Shrugged - Marcy Italiano
Jack Haringa Must Die! - Gregory Lamberson
Jack's Night Out - Meghan Knierim
Jackie the Slayer - Lee Thomas
The Three Bad Deaths of Jack Haringa - Lon Prater
Room Service - Christopher Golden
Killing Jack Haringa - Geoff Cooper
Bad Tin - Nick Mamatas
The Foraging - Livia Llewellyn
The Doom That Came to Jack H. Aringa - Mary SanGiovanni
Jack Catches the A Train - Michael Oliveri
A Post-Apostrophic Tale - Bev Vincent
The Lonely Death of Mr. Haringa - Laird Barron
ISBN-10: 0809573113
ISBN-13: 978-0809573113
Each copy is $10.
To order directly from the publisher, plus $2.00 shipping:
If you want a book hand delivered to you at NECON or Readercon, (no shipping) send an e-mail to MerricatPublications@gmail.com.
Friday, April 25, 2008
'zencore!' edited by d.f. lewis. (a non-review.)
trade paperback, megazanthus press, 2007.
in the vast (and often vastly misunderstood) realm(s) of speculative fiction, there occasionally appear writers gifted with such monumental talent and difference of vision that the word genius can honestly be applied with glee. it is my opinion that d.f. lewis is one of these people. his unique aesthetics combine with a monumentally bleak vision, that exists somewhere sideways of actual nihilism, and what may be one of the driest humours I’ve seen to create a body of work that stands truly outside of most attempts to define it. it also consists of somewhere close to two-thousand works in the short form, long form, points in between, and a staggering array of collaborative works.
however, an in-depth look at lewis’ fictions is a task for another time, and it’s his most recent work as editor and publisher that i’m looking to discuss here.
in 2001, lewis released the first in a serious of anthologies bearing the title ‘nemonymous,’ a word coined by lewis to mean a multi-authored anthology of anonymous stories (and which has since become synonymously used with anonymous, in regards to the work and ideas of lewis). since then, each annual volume has attracted critical acclaim and his editorial vision has even been compared to harlan ellison’s in his prime, due in no small part to the stunning range of authors selected for the series.
now, the idea that anonymity can and does lead to creative freedom is a softly marxist idea that’s been with us since before the birth of the 20th century, but rarely has it proved its value as it has in this series, and rarely have i seen it seem to allow writers to engage in such a depth of strangeness.
in 2007, the seventh volume was quietly released. entitled ‘zencore!’ (the first volume not directly titled ‘nemonymous’) it managed to become, quite possibly, the best anthology of the year and a watermark in independent british publishing, standing alongside the best releases of ps publishing and elastic press. containing some of the more elegant and unrestrained prose i was able to read last year, it also managed to contain some truly horrific work. there are echoes of both ballard and m. john
Saturday, February 16, 2008
'ghoul' by brian keene.
'ghoul' by brian keene.
limited edition hardcover. delirium books, 2007.
mass market paperback. leisure books, 2007.
brian keene's 'ghoul' is the sort of book that instantly reminds you of, quite literally, dozens of other books. thankfully, said feeling passes quickly. while being grounded in one of the most cliché and basic concepts to regularly pop up in horror fiction - that of the smart and sassy young kid(s) fighting some ancient evil while the grown ups refuse to believe them - it somehow manages to overcome the inherent weaknesses in said oft used idea and grow into something quite a bit more.
we're given a relatively straightforward plot as young timmy graco finds the summer of 1984 to be the turning point in his life from childhood toward adulthood and the catalysts for said change being the discovery of a ghoul (based on the arabic and persian ghul- a nonhuman mythical race said to be the eaters of the dead) under the local cemetery, the caretaker of which just happens to be the father of one of timmy's two best friends and the renfield-like servant of the ghoul, the conflict with his father that arises from his discovery, and his first taste of *choke* love.
the monster itself is a seemingly more sympathetic character than the adults in the novel... that is until one takes a good look at what it's true goal is- propagation of it's race at any cost and the rhetoric it uses in reference to its goal is disturbing in it's similarities to the rhetoric used by various parts of the white supremacist movement. while i don't know if that aspect of the monster was intentional, it does elevate it to a new level of horror toward both the ghoul and with our ability to feel moved toward sympathy for it.
one thing that keene succeeds at, where many other novelists fail when it comes to this sort of novel, is creating, in timmy and his friends, characters with a more honest sense of place and realism without the rose tinted nostalgia that usually mars similar works. timmy and his friends, doug and barry, feel more like extensions of keene's conscious present, than misremembered shades of his past, giving them more believability than is normally common in works grounded in nostalgia (which, i would say says quite a bit about keene's skill, since nostalgia is almost always a misstep in fiction.) while keene's authorial voice looks fondly upon these children of a long dead summer, it does so without resorting to saccharine and maudlin displays and without too much heavy handed pop cultural references. in fact, one is left with a feeling that the adult keene isn't really all that far removed from the things that he loved about his childhood and that sense does much to leave the reader feeling more present in the novel and less like they are intruding on some reminiscence of times gone by.
also, while the threat of both sexual violence (the ghoul takes female victims with which to forcefully propagate his race) and the promise of sexual discovery (timmy's tentative first foray into sexual/romantic relationships) hover above the novel, neither one is used in a prurient manner, and the sexual violence is done almost entirely offscreen, as it were, to the benefit of the book.
timmy's conflict with his father is shown to be traumatizing, but it pales in comparison to the physical and emotional abuse that barry, the caretaker's son, suffers at the hands of his father whose grasp of objective reality is rapidly disintegrating due to his servitude to the ghould and it seems even more childish in light of the revelation that his portly and artistic friend, doug, is being routinely molested by his mother. while timmy's trials (his father not believing him, not trusting him, and destroying timmy's comic collection while attempting to deal with the recent death of his father - timmy's grandfather) seem so utterly consuming and devastating to timmy, their overall effect is lessened due to the revelations about the daily nightmare of life for both of his best friends and keene is able to put all of these situations in perspective in a way that truly feels like it would be seen by a rather intelligent boy on the verge of adulthood nad, truth be told, when doug is finally killed by the ghoul it seems almost merciful compared to his suffering at home.
also, throughout the book there are consistent references to marvel comics, thematically as well as directly, and this furthers the sense of timmy's place in time and manages to help flesh out his character in a rather unique manner.
all in all, i found 'ghoul' to be an interesting an entertaining novel, well crafted with the lean prose (although not as willfully minimalist as that of 'terminal') that brian keene is known for and a welcome edition to both modern horror and the coming of age tale, marred only by an overly freudian epilogue in which we're led to believe that children are fated to become their parents.
(really, they aren't. while that *can* happen, and often does, it sure as hell isn't an absolute, and it's one of the many things that freud was simply wrong about... but that's a topic for another day.)
limited edition hardcover. delirium books, 2007.
mass market paperback. leisure books, 2007.
brian keene's 'ghoul' is the sort of book that instantly reminds you of, quite literally, dozens of other books. thankfully, said feeling passes quickly. while being grounded in one of the most cliché and basic concepts to regularly pop up in horror fiction - that of the smart and sassy young kid(s) fighting some ancient evil while the grown ups refuse to believe them - it somehow manages to overcome the inherent weaknesses in said oft used idea and grow into something quite a bit more.
we're given a relatively straightforward plot as young timmy graco finds the summer of 1984 to be the turning point in his life from childhood toward adulthood and the catalysts for said change being the discovery of a ghoul (based on the arabic and persian ghul- a nonhuman mythical race said to be the eaters of the dead) under the local cemetery, the caretaker of which just happens to be the father of one of timmy's two best friends and the renfield-like servant of the ghoul, the conflict with his father that arises from his discovery, and his first taste of *choke* love.
the monster itself is a seemingly more sympathetic character than the adults in the novel... that is until one takes a good look at what it's true goal is- propagation of it's race at any cost and the rhetoric it uses in reference to its goal is disturbing in it's similarities to the rhetoric used by various parts of the white supremacist movement. while i don't know if that aspect of the monster was intentional, it does elevate it to a new level of horror toward both the ghoul and with our ability to feel moved toward sympathy for it.
one thing that keene succeeds at, where many other novelists fail when it comes to this sort of novel, is creating, in timmy and his friends, characters with a more honest sense of place and realism without the rose tinted nostalgia that usually mars similar works. timmy and his friends, doug and barry, feel more like extensions of keene's conscious present, than misremembered shades of his past, giving them more believability than is normally common in works grounded in nostalgia (which, i would say says quite a bit about keene's skill, since nostalgia is almost always a misstep in fiction.) while keene's authorial voice looks fondly upon these children of a long dead summer, it does so without resorting to saccharine and maudlin displays and without too much heavy handed pop cultural references. in fact, one is left with a feeling that the adult keene isn't really all that far removed from the things that he loved about his childhood and that sense does much to leave the reader feeling more present in the novel and less like they are intruding on some reminiscence of times gone by.
also, while the threat of both sexual violence (the ghoul takes female victims with which to forcefully propagate his race) and the promise of sexual discovery (timmy's tentative first foray into sexual/romantic relationships) hover above the novel, neither one is used in a prurient manner, and the sexual violence is done almost entirely offscreen, as it were, to the benefit of the book.
timmy's conflict with his father is shown to be traumatizing, but it pales in comparison to the physical and emotional abuse that barry, the caretaker's son, suffers at the hands of his father whose grasp of objective reality is rapidly disintegrating due to his servitude to the ghould and it seems even more childish in light of the revelation that his portly and artistic friend, doug, is being routinely molested by his mother. while timmy's trials (his father not believing him, not trusting him, and destroying timmy's comic collection while attempting to deal with the recent death of his father - timmy's grandfather) seem so utterly consuming and devastating to timmy, their overall effect is lessened due to the revelations about the daily nightmare of life for both of his best friends and keene is able to put all of these situations in perspective in a way that truly feels like it would be seen by a rather intelligent boy on the verge of adulthood nad, truth be told, when doug is finally killed by the ghoul it seems almost merciful compared to his suffering at home.
also, throughout the book there are consistent references to marvel comics, thematically as well as directly, and this furthers the sense of timmy's place in time and manages to help flesh out his character in a rather unique manner.
all in all, i found 'ghoul' to be an interesting an entertaining novel, well crafted with the lean prose (although not as willfully minimalist as that of 'terminal') that brian keene is known for and a welcome edition to both modern horror and the coming of age tale, marred only by an overly freudian epilogue in which we're led to believe that children are fated to become their parents.
(really, they aren't. while that *can* happen, and often does, it sure as hell isn't an absolute, and it's one of the many things that freud was simply wrong about... but that's a topic for another day.)
Thursday, January 3, 2008
coming attractions!
within the next week or so i hope to have reviews or ellen datlow's new anthology 'inferno,' cherie priest's 'four and twenty blackbirds,' joe r. lansdale's 'god of the razor,' and the criterion edition of terrence mallick's 'days of heaven.'
i also intend to stick up a belated post discussing some of the best and worst media from last year.
right now, however, i need to find my shoes.
i also intend to stick up a belated post discussing some of the best and worst media from last year.
right now, however, i need to find my shoes.
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