More Pretense of My Still Being a Reviewer

More reviews—

This is Now, by Michael Marshall Smith (Earthling). Three stories: "This is Now", "Open Doors", "The Seventeenth Kind". With Mr Smith’s kind permission, I’m going to dismiss the last one out of hand as being far more black spec-fic comedy than horror—sort of like Dan Simmons’ "Gianni Fucci…", only (due too a distinct lack of flaming bolgias) not one-tenth as funny. "Open Doors", OTOH, is a full-on thriller with a very nasty kick. And "This is Now" has a really amazing mixture of middle-aged rue and outright weird—it scares through its omissions as much as through what it shows directly, through what the narrator assumes is simply public knowledge. And I love that shit. (All three are written in Smith’s U.K. voice, rather than the U.S.’ed up voice he uses for "Marshall" stuff like The Intruders, his latest novel, which deserves an entry all to itself. But won’t get one today.)

"A Taste Sweet and Salty", "Memories of the Dead Man" and "The Last Ride", by Douglas Smith. Every time I go to a con, I collide with Smith, who’s usually handing out free one-shot copies of various short stories he has in competition for various awards; he’s a true gentleman and a cottage industry, and I’m both envious of and appalled by his apparently offhand work ethic. Of these three, my favorite is "Memories of the Dead Man", though it also managed to gross me out enough—with one particular image—to make me momentarily unable to continue reading it; it’s post-Apocalyptic far future SF, a sort of Mad Max meets X-Men/Shane pastiche, a very effective. And it’s not like the others aren’t worth your metaphorical money too, but that’s the one which stood out for me personally; good on ya, Doug.

General Slocum’s Gold, by Nick Kaufmann (Burning Effigy). What "Words Written Backwards" wants to be when it grows up…and that reminds me, I have to start thinking about cover art. But to return to my original thesis: The main character of General Slocum is a petty thief with unexplained powers who’s spent most of his life in the criminal underground of New York, more Law & Order than X-Men (even for a Morlock). He’s cynical, verge-of-moral even in his amorality, and extremely likable. Then there’s the gold itself, which may or may not be a melted-down version of the fabled German Rheingold; it, too, has inexplicably bad effects on everything around it. They’re obviously made for each other. A tight read, bleak and black, just the way I like ‘em—and certainly a cool example to live up to.

Now we pass on to "recent" out-of-con purchases. Three weeks ago, on one of our infrequent bobo-less Friday night jaunts, Steve and I picked up The Black Stranger and Other American Tales, by Robert E. Howard (Bison Books, with a gorgeous Mike Mignola Cthulhu design on the cover) at Pages. It’s prime Howard freakery, through there’s only one Conan story—the title tale—and Conan himself is a bit of a red herring/secondary character in it. Best entires otherwise (aside from the inimitable "Pigeons from Hell") include: "The Gods of Bal-Sagoth" and "Black Vulmea’s Vengeance" on the swashbuckling tip, "Black Canaan" and "The Thunder-Rider" on the crazy-ass/blithely racist tales o’ Texas tip. Many are rescued from his post-mortem notebooks, and thus sketches or even treatments rather than fully-realized stories—particularly so in the case of "Nekht Semerkeht", which just sort of lightning-skips to its conclusion after a certain point: "Aaaaand then I killed the guy, freed the city, ran off with the gal, the end. Print it, y’all!"

Your Love Is Murder, or the Case of the Mangled Pie, by Paul Hong (Tightrope Books) actually dates earlier, since I picked it up at the Small Press Book Fair after hearing Hong read ahead of me. This is extremely Diners-friendly stuff, consisting of tiny, surreal stories full of wordplay and sharply-observed human behavior, along with the usual UFOs, amnesiac robots, jello-eating sharks, etc. Half Kelly Link, half Dan Piraro. Best entries: "Baby Descending", "Shark", "Lake Superior", "Official Reports".

And finally…Stolen, by Annette Lapointe (Anvil Press), which happens to be the true name of one of the single best writers I’ve ever come across during my (oh Lord) ten-year jaunt on the fan- side of the fic blanket. She got a Giller Prize nomination for this, and should have. Interestingly, it displays a lot of the same old tropes which annoy me in much Canadian literary fiction: A singular lack of actual stuff happening directly—we eavesdrop a lot on the protagonist’s memories, revealing a life driven by passive aggression, compulsive mad science, other people’s craziness, drug and alcohol abuse, aimless lust, doomed love—and a general case of "beautiful losers" syndrome. But even though I’m distanced from it regionally, being an uptight "cool" Torontonian and all (rather than somebody from the area in and around Saskatoon), so much of it strikes me like a fist to the soft, protected cultural underbelly; maybe it’s just all the Headstones references, the mix-tapes, the gothery, or the fact that I just know Rowan (our antihero) is the perfect part for Canada’s Next Callum Keith Rennie to break out in. Or the fact that he has my best friend’s last name! One way or another, I’d love to see more from her whenever she has the time, and in whatever genre she thinks best suits her.

And what have I been doing all this time, you may well ask? Getting ready for the Monday maelstrom. Trying to catch up on sleep. This morning, I woke up with the third successive case of black tongue I’ve had this week, which might mean something. And I’m truly struggling with myself over what The Mercy Seat, which was supposed to be my next project to concentrate on, wants to be—a screenplay? A novel, serialized or not? My heart’s yearning towards the latter, though that may just be because I’ve been thinking a lot about OZ. God knows, there’s lots of other stuff to turn to, if it doesn’t work out…but I’d like it to, and as long as I make a few adjustments, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be able to. Anyhow.

Okay…wash, post, and out into the day. Ta, all.

Amended to read: jodylinn has just posted some very kind words about "Spectral Evidence" in particular and me in general over at her blog. Thanks, Jody!

Like Anybody Cares

Third draft of Crazy Dutch Story is off. I've appended a note which says that if they want me to cut it down further, here's where I could do it; one way or another, I now consider us done. So here's where to send the cheque, and thanks, and 'bye.