Review: Peter & Max: A Fables Novel

I've been reading BIll Willingham for years, ever since he started putting out the second volume of his comic book series The Elementals back in the late 80's. Since that time he's created and written all the issues of Fables for Vertigo; with 12 Eisner wins, a Hugo nomination and a couple of awards from YALSA's best graphic novels for Young Adults Fables has been one of the more critically successful comic book series of the last decade. Willingham now steps into the world of straight prose with his first novel, a charming fantasy set in his Fables world titled Peter & Max.

For the uninitiated, the Fables series takes characters from fairy tales, folklore and other open properties and– referring to them all as "Fables" – forces them out of their Homeland, a mystical realm that sits parallel to our own. Peter & Max begins in modern Fabletown, a magical village hidden in New York City where many of the immortal Fables now live. Peter Piper---the same Peter who picked a peck of pickled peppers and challenged the great wolf---is warned that his older and very evil brother Max, aka the Pied Piper, has been causing major problems out in the world. Peter heads for Hamelin, Germany to challenge his brother and put a stop to Max's dark ways for good.

Readers then get a series of flashbacks that take things back to medieval times and set the stage for the final conflict. Fiercely jealous when their father gives the Piper family heirloom, a magical flute named Frost, to the younger Peter Max murders his own father and seeks out dark magical secrets to someday take Frost for his own. After wandering for months in the Black Forest Max meets a powerful witch who gives him his own magical flute, which he quickly dubs Fire. Max learns to use the powers of Fire, first using it to enact the his legendary theft of the children of Hamelin and later to spread disease, chaos and fear everywhere he travels. We also get some snippets of Peter's early life as a thief, as well as his marriage to the trained assassin Bo Peep. Yes, I said trained assassin Bo Peep. The flashbacks feed into a nice, albeit somewhat short, final clash between the brothers.

Fantasy readers new to Fables will get a nice a taste of Willingham’s rich and satisfying world while fans of the comic series will find themselves treated to cameo appearances by popular characters like Bigby (aka the Big Bad Wolf), the Beast and Peter’s wife, Bo Peep. Artist Steve Leialoha (Fables, New Mutants) contributes several black-and-white drawings that very smartly enhance the fairy tale feeling of story.

Unfortunately, the early chapters of the novel have some big problems. Readers are given a brief historical tour of Fabletown as Rose Red tracks down Peter Piper to tell him about his brother. These long sections sit mired within a quagmire of exposition explaining the extensive background of Willingham’s inventive world; all written in a faux-Brothers Grimm style they weigh down the early pages of the book and might scare away readers who need to be grabbed right away. While many of the details given are necessary, they would have worked more effectively had they been sprinkled and used throughout the wider narrative. Readers willing to dig past this slow section, though, will find an action-packed fantasy built around two absolutely captivating characters.

Excelsior

Review: McSweeney's 31

The whole concept behind McSweeney's 31 is a pretty fun one: dig up some old forms of literature, toss the ideas to contemporary writers and see what they can come up with.

From an editorial standpoint, I really like the issue. They cover a real wide breadth of styles in a fairly short volume: whore dialogues, Nordic sagas, Socratic Dialogues, pantoums and so on. Each section gives an example, or part of an example for the longer forms, and includes footnotes and marginalia so readers will know what the hell is going on, both formally and culturally.

I don't know if it's because the poems are shorter and didn't have a chance to wear out the gimmick or that poets are just more used to playing with a variety of constraints, but by and large I thought the poets did a better job. From Tony Trigilio's pantoum "Jack Davis"----a wonderful piece on the JFK assasination----to Chris Spurr's funny senryu they are all really strong. The narrative work, by and large, seems to peter out once they get ahold of the form.

But I don't want to make this a bitch session; there were some narrative pieces I liked. Douglas Coupland was a phenomenal choice to play with the Chinese form called Biji. Like a lot of Coupland's normal work "Surrender" mixes narrative, odd facts and rumors into a whole that's both timeless and postmodern. Add to it that it's a parody of reality television, and you have a piece that's not just an experiment in form but also a fun piece of cultural criticism.

David Thomson's stab at Socratic Dialogue by creating a hilarious and philosophical argument between Susan Sontag, Virginia Woolf, Charlie Chaplin and Ernest Hemingway is also fantastic, especially if you have a handle on film criticism. I also wasn't surprised to enjoy Shelley Jackson's take on the Conseutudinary, a unique type of writing for monks that includes instructions on day-to-day activities and religious thought. Jackson's version entitled "Conseutudinary of the Word Church, or the Church of the Dead Letter" is a deep but disturbing examination of semiotics, religion, philosophy and power.

All in all, a fun issue. I look forward to the next one.

Excelsior

Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

I can't think of any other book people have asked me about at the library this summer more than Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The idea is captivating---in a perverse stare-at-the-car-wreck-as-you-drive-by kind of way. I'm sure I'm being asked because I've become known as the horror guy at work, but this book has received a shocking level of press, both good and bad. And I have to say, it's not as bad as you might think, but it's also not as good as you might think.

The idea itself is pretty simple---use the story of Austen's classic novel as a foundation for a zombie horror tale. The familiar characters are all there: the annoying Bennets, strong-willed Elizabeth and even darkly mysterious Mr. Darcy. But zombies---and later ninjas----abound, crashing through windows, breaking down doors and eating plenty of brains. The characters have been played with a bit to accommodate this terrible world. Elizabeth isn't just a strong women---she, and all the women, are highly-trained zombie killers fast with the daggers. It works out to something oddly funny and cartoony, especially at moments when Zombies burst onto the scene right after a very Victorian conversation of manners and romance. It comes together as something you shake your head and laugh at. Not because you think it's riotously funny, but because you can't believe someone put this all together into a novel.

The idea of merging two very different forms is nothing new. Jonathan Lethem did it early in his career when he merged Raymond Chandler with Philip K Dick in Gun With Occasional Music. Kathy Acker did it with books like her Great Expectations by merging the Dicken's classic with pornography, poetry and horror. And of course William S. Burroughs based his whole career on it, by merging anything and everything he ever read----sci fi, westerns, high literature, gay porn---into everything he wrote. While I love all of these books, there's something missing for me with Grahame-Smith.

Part of it is a lack of writing mechanics. Grahame-Smith didn't just lift characters and scenery for his book, he lifted whole phrases, lines and even paragraphs from Austen's novel. Some of the reviews I've read refer to this style as a "literary-mashup", I guess giving a nod to those dj's who will spin two or more music tracks together so they'll line up and play off of each other. When it works it's a lot of fun, but when it doesn't work the missed beats and odd blends of melody make you cringe. This is much the same way. Grahame-Smith is pretty good with the dialogue, not surprising since it's already been put into development as a movie----but his descriptions lack the poetic flair Austen wrote with.

I also wanted more from the horror----more blood, more scares, more blood, more ham-fisted political commentary, more blood, more something to make this something stronger than just a satiric romp and yes, even more blood. That said, it's still a fun and fast read and if you go in with an open mind and fair-to-middlin' expectations you'll have fun with it.

If you end up liking it, I have good news. With Vampire Darcy's Desire, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim, there are A LOT of imitators coming up over the next year. If you don't like it, I have good news for you, too. This is sure to be a passing fad that will fade away in a couple of years----or even less. Just close your eyes as you walk by the displays in the bookstores and you'll be fine.

Excelsior

Review: Local by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly

Easily one of the best things I've read in any format over the last few weeks is the comic book series collection Local, written by Brian Wood (DMZ, Demo, Northlanders) and illustrated by Ryan Kelly (Lucifer, Northlanders).

The series began as an experiment for Wood and Kelly; they wanted to write a limited series with each issue set in a different city in North America. They avoid the major cities like New York and L.A., focusing on mid-sized cities that offer lots of color and personality. To help with the local flavor they partnered up with artists in each city to get sketches and/or photos of key places---Bryan Lee O'Malley, for example, contributed a bit to the look of the chapter set in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Megan McKeenan---a punky twenty-something woman with wanderlust----works as the thread tying the twelve issues together. Each year she moves to a different city, and we watch her life as she finds a job, makes friends, searches for love, and tries to find herself. In the beginning Megan is primarily a device. She's the focus of the opening story, but for several in a row she functions as a secondary character.

I was intrigued by Local but not really wowed until chapter 3, a story called "Theories and Defenses". The chapter looks at a successful rock band that started in Richmond and what happens to them after their own success drives them apart. The band members return to their hometown and we see how each band member deals with their new state in life. This chapter not only displays lots of local landmarks that I know---southern row houses, the Fan, Plan 9 Records---but it really nails all the personalities you get with a band. There's the cocky lead singer who wants to do a solo album, the bass player who just wants to go out and get laid every night and the guitarist who seems perfectly happy tackling the coffee shop scene with his acoustic guitar.

But by chapter five Wood and Ryan return to Megan full force and the story becomes solely about her. She works at a historic movie theatre in Halifax, changing her name every day to confuse the patrons. In Minneapolis she develops a relationship with an odd guy who breaks into her apartment every day and leaves her a polaroid photo of himself. Later Megan has her life stolen and put on display by an art student in Toronto. As someone who switched jobs several times and spent way too many hours in my early twenties soul-searching, Megan's awkwardness, confusion and even anger come across to me as very real.

Kelly's artwork is a great match for Wood's story; the black and white indie look equates with the vagabond spirit of the story. If you are familiar with the city in a particular chapter, you will definitely see landmarks that look and feel like the real places. I also really like how he does faces; each face, be it a main character like Megan or someone who just walks by, has their own unique personality and they come across very well.

As the series develops we slowly learn the reasons why Megan moves every year, what she's searching for and what she's running from. For something that started as a quirky experiment in comics, by the end it develops into one of the more emotionally effective stories put out over the last year.

Excelsior

Review: Humpty Dumpty in Oakland by Philip K. Dick

Best known for his psychedelic, mind-bending sci-fi, Philip K Dick wrote all kinds of stories early in his career. Humpty Dumpty In Oakland is a rare realistic novel of his written in 1960; rejected by his publisher and finally published after his death in 1986 by UK publisher Gollancz, it became available in the US this past fall.

Set in San Francisco during the late 1950's, Humpty gives us the story of used car salesman Al Miller and his elderly landlord, Jim Fergusson. Miller's view on life quickly descends when Fergusson decides to sell his land and open up a car repair shop in the developing suburbs just outside the city, leaving Miller to fend for himself and search for a new way of life. Miller also fears Fergusson will be ripped off by the shady businessmen putting the deal together, so Miller tries to uncover the truth to protect his friend. Instead Miller bumbles into and backs out of a job in the recording industry, causes Fergusson to have a heart attack and makes the final move that ends his marriage with his overbearing wife. Despite the grim plot PKD works in some odd touches of dark humor, particularly when writing about the pop culture of the day.

This is far from a perfect novel, and not anywhere near PKD's best or most interesting. With a story that flip-flops between Miller and Fegusson, it's hard to tell whose story PKD is trying to tell here. Honestly, anyone new to PKD reading this probably won't get the cult following around his books. But people familiar with his Sci-fi will see a lot of familiar ideas. Like with many of his novels, Humpty looks at a society on the cusp of change and tries to show how this change will shape the lives of ordinary, everyday folks. Instead of contact with an alien race or the rise of androids who want to live their own lives, Humpty looks at the more down-to-earth issues of Suburbanization and the growth of Corporate culture. There's probably a paper in this somewhere, looking at PKD's major themes and doing a compare/contrast in how he deals with them in his realistic work vs. his imaginative work. But I'll save that for an industrious English major to tackle.

Excelsior.

Review: The Country Nurse by Jeff Lemire

I loved, loved, loved the first volume of Jeff Lemire's Essex County, a little graphic novel called Tales From the Farm that I reviewed last year. The second volume Ghost Stories delved into the family history and turned a sports story---something I don't always like---into a pretty powerful book about a rift between two brothers. The third and final volume in the trilogy shifts the focus a bit to Anne Quenneville, a traveling nurse who cares for many in the rural community of Essex County, Canada.

Anne primarily works as a device reintroducing us to the disparate members of the Lebeuf family. Lester, no longer donning his toy superhero cape, is a little more grown up but seems quite lonely while Jimmy continues to hide himself in his job at the town filling station. Anne decides to help the family heal by urging Jimmy to step forward and finally get to know his young son Lester, giving more formal answers to questions of lineage and familial tragedy that were only hinted at in the earlier volumes.

Lemire’s mildly cartoony art is more cinematic than ever here, making full poetic use of the wintry Canadian landscapes to force readers to pause and really feel the emotions of the characters. Lemire even makes some bold experiments in page layouts that he hasn't attempted previously. Plot-wise the story includes a side-tale of flashbacks featuring Lawrence, a Lebeuf ancestor who grew up in a desolate orphanage managed by a nun and a gruff caretaker. Although these flashbacks don’t have a direct impact upon the modern-day Lebeufs the past events do bring a deeper layer of history to the family.

The first two volumes worked exceptionally well as standalone stories, but this volume is completely dependent on what occurred in the first two; anyone new to this story will miss a lot of the subtext. In fact it might even work best when published with the other two in a single-volume book. That said, anyone who enjoyed the rest of the trilogy will enjoy the closure this one brings, but anyone new to Lemire should pick up the earlier volumes first. The talent and power he's shown in this trilogy promises years of good work to come and I'm really excited to see what Lemire does with his upcoming project with Vertigo Books.

Excelsior

Review: Zeroville by Steve Erickson

It seems the older I get the rarer it is that I'm really grabbed by a book. Oh, sure, I find books I admire, books I like, even books I love. But one that grabs me, that sticks with me when I'm driving, walking, working, even sleeping....those are rare books indeed. Steve Erickson gifted me with one with his novel Zeroville.

Although the concepts in the book are kind of a Pynchon meets Delillo ingested and spewed out via a transliterated chat with Luis Bunuel, the plot is actually pretty straightforward. It's the late 60's and a man named Vikar is booted out of the Architecture program at Mather Divinity College----he made the confounding error of designing a church without a door for his final project. Vikar responds to this letdown by following the lure of his other love---film--by getting a picture of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in From Here to Eternity tattooed on the side of his shaved head and hopping a bus to Hollywood.

The early sections of the book transform into a guided tour of Hollywood through the eyes of a man who has ingested nearly every bit of film trivia possible. Vikar moves into the Roosevelt hotel---which may or may not be haunted by D.W. Griffith--- and can't help but tell everyone around him everything he knows about the history of film. His architecture background serves him well when he's hired as a set designer at a studio. He gradually works his way up to the role of film editor meeting an odd cast of characters as he learns, lives and breathes the world of film.

His career takes some odd turns. Sent to Spain on one job, Vikar's kidnapped by a revolutionary faction that wants to use his talents to create propaganda films to help their cause. Later, he becomes the first film editor to win an award from the Cannes Festival all because no one really understands what he's trying to do. When the late 70's hits like a tire iron across the face Vikar develops a near-violent obsession with punk rock.

Vikar will likely drive some readers batty. He's knocked around by circumstances, rarely making choices or decisions of his own except at a couple of key moments. He's also inexplicably odd. A more traditional author would spend time getting us more firmly into his life and history so we can understand or even feel his mental state. Despite its readability this book is anything but traditional. Erickson more often than not uses Vikar not so much as a character but as an easel to lean his satire, jokes and theories on.

Erickson's writing is highly referential. Classic films and actors fill every section, but he also tosses out bits about cult films, art films, the lives of studio execs and industry business. But the references often blur the lines between real film history and fabrication. One character who continually pops up throughout the novel is a mildly revolutionary script writer/director we know only as Viking. But through various clues dropped throughout the book----that he co-wrote Apocalypse Now and worked on the Conan movies---you can figure out that Viking is probably based pretty solidly on John Milius. Soledad, a sexy actress who never quite makes it, seems to answer the question of what would have happened to Soledad Miranda if she hadn't died at such a young age. Other characters like Dotty Langer, who seems more real than anyone in this hyper-real book, seem to be completely born out of Erickson's imagination.

Criticism and meta-art also play a large role. Several characters---Vikar included---launch into page-long diatribes on the role of film that are both funny and fascinating. Vikar, for example, believes a film and its true meaning exist beyond the constraints of sequential time and we only structure movies that way to make the meaning more easily interpreted. Erickson slyly uses this idea for structuring his own novel by referencing moments that occur at the end of the book as early as page 50.

All of this, of course, is wonderfully funny---and fun---if you have a love of film and film history. For readers who don't it can become a bit like watching a Simpson's episode where you just don't know any of the cultural references. You think the jokes might be funny or even profound, but you really aren't sure because you have no real idea what the jokes are about.

Excelsior

Review: Out Backward by Ross Raisin

Previous to the events in Ross Raisin’s gripping first novel, teenager Sam Marsdyke was dogged by accusations of rape, forcing him to leave school and live out the rest of his adolescence working on his family farm in Yorkshire, England. When a new family moves in next door with a beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter named Jo, Sam’s father orders Sam to keep his distance.

But Sam’s obsession with the forbidden drives him to stalk the beautiful Jo and the two eventually meet. A friendship develops and it doesn’t take long for the friendship to turn physical. They run away together and all goes well until Jo decides it’s all too much for her and wants to return home to her family.

Sam’s tenuous hold on reality slips as events careen out of his control. This could have easily moved into a thriller direction; but while the story often points towards Sam and his psychopathic tendencies, Raisin plays with the lines of power in the relationship by suggesting that Jo knew all about the rumors of Sam’s past and sought him out as much as he sought her. This nice echo of themes from Nabokov’s classic on the deep examination of the characters and what drives them instead of creating fast-paced action. Written in Yorkshire dialect that recalls the visceral lyricism of Irvine Welsh, some readers might be put off by the prose but those able to soak into it will find a rewarding---if somewhat disturbing---tale of fear, obsession and sexuality.

Excelsior

Review: Heavy Metal Islam by Mark Levine

In the 1970’s heavy metal acts like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden created dark, violent music that worked as much as political and social protest as it did as adrenaline-laced sounds energizing the mosh pit. In his new book Heavy Metal Islam, Mark Levine looks at the current Heavy Metal, Punk and Hip Hop scenes of the Middle East in this very way, presenting the backgrounds of each scene and exploring the social import of their messages.

With lyrics crying for political and social change these are the screams of angry youth, but angry youth that for the most part still regard themselves as devout Muslims. It's this dichotomy that makes the core of the book: these musicians trying to understand a bizarre, often violent world that doesn't match up to the promises made in their religion.

Broken into easily read chapters each one examines a different nation and its music scene. Although it’s not surprising that the most active centers are the more westernized nations like Morocco and Israel, the most fascinating chapters are those that cover places like Iran where the music is not just looked at with suspicion but often considered illegal. Many of the musicians are in their late teens and early twenties, making this a book Western teens will be able to read and use to make rare connections with their counterparts in the Middle East.

Unfortunately Levine does a poor job describing the music itself, throwing out terms like Grind Core and Black Metal without defining them. Readers already knowledgeable of different forms of Heavy Metal won’t have a problem with this, but anyone coming from the outside might find all the undefined labels a little confusing. Levine does, however, provide a useful list of websites (mostly Myspace sites) that provide samples of the music; a companion audio CD is sold separately.

What stops me from giving this a rave review more than anything is his writing style. Levine opens each chapter with a first person account of him sitting in cafe, heading to a club or hanging out in a record store. Levine as narrator and arbiter of taste keeps floating into the writing, whether it's an explanation of a band's history, and interview or a well-written description of a concert. It becomes obvious Levine sees these musicians as a force for positive change and this view intrudes quite a bit. I would have preferred he pull back a bit and let the readers make these conclusions for themselves. Sometimes you just have to have faith in the readers to figure things out. Although a more journalistic approach might make this work more convincing, it’s still a fascinating read about a unique subculture few will have the opportunity to experience for themselves.

Excelsior

Review: Mind the Gap

Combined, authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon have put out more than 30 books. Now they've joined forces with Mind the Gap to bring a thriller set inside an urban fantasy world.

Teenager Jasmine “Jazz” Towne returns to her London home one afternoon to find her mother murdered and the killers searching for her. With a little guile and a lot of luck Jazz manages to slip away from her pursuers by plunging into London’s Tube and hiding in old, abandoned stations and forgotten bomb shelters. Jazz then falls in with a group of teenaged thieves led by the Fagin-esque Harry Fowler, a man who is beguilingly both enigmatic and welcoming. She takes to thieving quite well and quickly becomes the charmed member of the crew Fowler sends out on the most difficult jobs.

Emboldened by her new skills Jazz sets out to rob the mansion of one of the very men who killed her mother. There Jazz meets Terence, another thief she catches robbing the same house. Through Terence Jazz learns that everything---her mother’s murder, the father she never knew and even Fowler----are all wrapped into the plot of a secret society striving to revive the ancient spirits and magic hidden below the streets of London and use it for their own dark gains. The only way to get revenge for her mother’s death and to guarantee her own safety is to help Terence set the spirits free.

The premise is unique, in fact I'm not sure I've seen one quite like it before. Most urban fantasies focus on the clash between the real and the fantastic, and often feature the fantastic dying or fading because humanity is too lazy to see it anymore. But the twist with the good guys fighting to release the magic and remove it from London for the greater good is a fresh take. The basic setting of the story, with the underground tunnels and mysterious magic, reminds me a lot of Gaiman’s Neverwhere. The fantasy elements, though, are more toned down, making this a fantasy novel for people who don't normally like the genre.

Of course it all really works because of Jazz. Jazz herself is the perfect young heroine: capable, confident and possessing both a love of trouble and enough smarts to generally get out of it. The other characters all feel like stock characters, people pulled from other tales to fill a role. But Jazz and her unique outlook on life gives this fantasy thriller a little more emotional weight than the normal fare.


Excelsior

Teeth Move Lacks Bite...sorry, couldn't resist

This past week I watched the movie Teeth, a horror/black comedy flick directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein and starring relative newcomer Jess Weixler. It's been out for about a year and has been making the rounds of various film festivals across the country. It's also been getting talked up a lot on a bunch of blogs and horror-related websites I read so I added it to my Netflix list.

Weixler plays Dawn, a pretty, perky high school girl who's obsessed with keeping her virginity until marriage. I say obsessed because it's all she talks about. Dawn's also part of group that preaches and pulpit-pounds like the most ardent Christian Revivalist Minister. But being a high school girl she gets led astray anyway. Dawn is the victim of date rape when she discovers she has Vagina Dentata, or a set of teeth down inside her genitalia. The rapist is mortally wounded when he loses his own genitalia mid-coitus; things then speed up and get stranger as more people die, an OBGYN loses a hand and the story takes some odd turns into matricide, fratricide and incest.

While I love the concept, the delivery left me a bit bewildered. What I think they were going for was a horror/comedy in the same vein as Kentucky Fried Movie, while also poking fun at things like teen comedies and having a bit of fun with social mores. But it just didn't work for me.

I blame it partly on the cheesy dialogue and partly on the acting----there really was no discernible talent in anyone save with some small moments with Weixler. But mostly I blame the direction. After the first incident you can see the jokes and the scares coming from a mile away. The bar is never really raised and the joke stays pretty much the same throughout the movie. Some more accomplished techniques and a tighter plot could have at least raised the tension level a bit. But when Dawn's dates are wounded and they start screaming I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be horrified, shocked or amused. In the end I wasn't any of those things. If I was anything, I was bored.

Excelsior

Review: Breath by Tim Winton

In Breath, the eighth novel by two-time Booker nominee, Winton transforms the dangers of surfing and thrill seeking into a powerful metaphor for the transition from childhood to adulthood. Bruce “Pikelet” Pike and his best friend Loonie are twelve-year-old boys looking for a way of life different from what home and school offer them. Living in a small working class town on the west coast of 1970’s Australia, they turn to surfing as their ultimate escape.

At the beginning the two manage little beyond paddling offshore on flimsy boards. But everything changes when they meet Sando, an aging hippie-guru with a love for sports and danger. Sando takes the two boys under his wing, first by simply letting them store their boards at his Oceanside home and later by encouraging them to chase after increasingly dangerous waves. Ordinary life becomes boring and colorless to the boys when compared to the exciting magic they feel when blasting through the churning surf. The surfing sequences are beautifully and excitingly describing, giving an easy hook to an otherwise emotionally complicated novel.

Jealousy enters the relationship when Sando takes Loonie on a surfing tour through the Pacific Islands, leaving Pikelet behind with Sando’s bitter wife Eva. Pikelet and Eva bond through their pain at being left behind and both question the place of thrill seeking in their lives. Their friendship takes an sexual turn that’s likely to make many readers uncomfortable, especially when the sex becomes as extreme and dangerous as surfing with Sando.

To be honest, I'm not sure what people will make of the sex. It kind of comes out of nowhere and seems slightly out of place with the story. I suspect the edgy ending, which is hinted at in an opening frame with Pikelet as an adult, was Winton's initial idea for the novel and the marvelous surfing sequences grew out of it. It works for me, in that both explore the idea of crossing boundaries and finding where your own personal limits are. But some readers I fear will be so shocked by the ending content they'll miss the point of Winton's otherwise pretty potent message.

Excelsior

Review: Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow

Ok, I admit it. I was a little worried when someone first sent me a note that I had to read this book. I mean a book-length epic poem about werewolves? It would either be touched by genius or be complete trash. Fortunately, Toby Barlow's first novel Sharp Teeth leans more towards the genius side of things than trash. I'll never doubt suggestions from friends again.

Ruled by competing packs of werewolves, the seedy underside of L.A. is far stranger than anyone ever imagined. Lycanthropes hire themselves out as hitmen and pushers, both driving and feeding off of the criminal world. The center of the story is Anthony Silvo, a self-professed loner and dogcatcher who falls in love with a mysterious woman; this unnamed woman leads a second life as a werewolf and works for Lark, the leader of the most dangerous werewolf pack on the streets. The growing relationship with Anthony causes the woman to regret the wild choices of her past and seek out a new life. Meanwhile, Lark suspects competing packs of lycanthropes are after his power and he prepares for a massive, city-wide conflict. Other side-plots include a Detective Peabody’s investigations into werewolf-related murders and a hysterical bridge tournament that might have ties to the L.A. drug trade.

Now about the poetry. I'm a poor judge of what makes a good poem; I just don't have the expertise to judge it fairly. But I can say that Barlow's style is free verse and it seems like he uses it well. The line breaks are used mostly to play with rhythm and to highlight particular words or phrases. After a page or two you get used to the flow and really enjoy what he's put together. It’s also to Barlow’s credit as a storyteller that the genuinely touching moments between the woman and Anthony work as powerfully as the most graphic violence in the story.

The dark humor and mix of high brow/low brow culture---Barlow makes just as many references to Greek philosophy as he does old horror movies----is good fun. It's like a slasher horror movie told through the words of someone who can actually write without (too many) cheap tricks. I debated over reviewing this, because it's already gotten a fair amount of good press. But I loved this enough that I felt compelled to share anyway.

Excelsior.

Review: Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin

Inspired by The Aeneid, Ursula K. Le Guin’s newest novel Lavinia takes the smallest character from Vergil’s epic poem and creates a thoughtful, moving tale of prophecy, myth and self-fulfillment. Lavinia is the teenaged princess of Latium, a small but important kingdom in pre-Roman Italy. As she moves into womanhood Lavinia feels pressure from her mother and father to choose one of her many suitors as both her husband and the future ruler of the kingdom. Being a princess and having a kingdom as her dowry, Lavinia's definitely a popular girl around the Mediterranean. The most ideal suitor is Turnus, young ruler of a neighboring kingdom who performs brilliant on the field of battle and makes all the women swoon. All the women, that is, except Lavinia. She finds him pompous, and lacking any shred of true piety. Torn by the desires of her parents and her own Lavinia travels to the oracles of the sacred springs, hoping they will lead her a proper path.

The oracles of the sacred springs say she will marry an unknown foreigner. This stranger ends up being none other than Vergil’s Aeneus, proud hero, king without a country and the man who will lay down the foundations of the Roman Empire. Their marriage sparks a war to control the region, and while we don’t see the glorious battles of Aeneus we do get the surprisingly moving perspective of the home front through Lavinia’s eyes.

Although best known for her works of fantasy Le Guin takes a more historical approach by toning down the magical elements; gods and prophecies play a vital role in Lavinia’s life but they are presented as concepts and rituals, not as deities playing petty games with the lives of mortals. This shifts the focus of Vergil’s plot from action to character, allowing Le Guin to breathe life into a character that never utters a word in the original story.

I'll be curious to see what the Feminist SF folks will make of this work. While I couldn't help but think of what Marion Zimmer Bradley did for the women of Arthurian legends in her Mists of Avalon, Lavinia is a very different book. It's been several years since I've read The Aeneid, but she's kept the basic plot the same. It's just with this we get a view backstage and discover that other factors besides the glorious battles played a major part in shaping one of the greatest Empires the world has ever seen. She doesn't go to unbelievable lengths to establish how important Lavinia's role was, but she does make it feel like Lavinia played an important part in this mythical story.

Lavinia herself is quite compelling as she transforms from a spirited princess into a queen full of wisdom who makes a profound impact on the lives of her people. While I think readers looking for action or plot oriented fantasy will not know what to make of this novel, anyone who appreciates deep layers of character development will be awed by what Le Guin does here.

Excelsior

Review: Welcome to Shirley by Kelly McMasters

Most readers will have never heard of Shirley, a small, working-class town located 65 miles outside of New York City. But essayist Kelly McMasters, whose work has appeared in publications like the New York Times and The Washington Post, called Shirley home for most of her childhood. Her first book takes the tools of memoir, local history and science writing to create a disturbing yet loving portrait of her childhood home.

The town of Shirley began in the 1950’s when Walter T. Shirley, a retired Vaudeville huckster, established it as a place for people tired of big city life to settle down and return to small town values. But Shirley was a town that grew without a plan and never really took off; it faced constant problems with unemployment, poor services and even an unhealthy atmosphere. In the town’s backdrop is the Brookhaven National Laboratory, a government-funded facility that specializes in energy and medical research. In the 1990’s the lab mistakenly leaked tritium into Shirley’s groundwater supply, sparking a lawsuit as many felt the town’s unusual numbers of cancer victims were related to Brookhaven’s experiments.

McMasters’s style simplifies the complicated subjects of environmental science and economics into easily understood explorations of her own life. The personal moments revisited by McMasters are powerful and haunting, particularly the illness and death of her next-door neighbor caused by exposure to Brookhaven’s chemicals. The book includes maps and references that expand on the already information-packed narrative.

This was a review I agonized over. Individually each chapter is well written, thoughtful and meaningful. But the separate sections don't quite tie together, or at least they didn't for me. The chapters flip back and forth from memoir to historical essay to science writing, but it's hard to tell what big point McMasters wants us to take away. It's partly my own fault, my own narrative brain that craves a rising action, climax and epilogue with most everything I read. I wanted to see McMasters doing something to improve her town. But what we end up with is reportage, a book that exposes the world to all the hardships Shirley has endured over the last fifty years. If you go in expecting and accepting this her book will probably be a better read.

There's one thing I never questioned, though. McMasters still loves this town. It comes across so well that it might spur some readers to appreciate and even protect their own hometown. And any book that does that holds a power that makes it well worth reading.

Excelsior

Memories and Poetry: a Quasi-Review

This week I read Words in Your Face, a new book by poet/spoken word artist Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz on the history of the Slam Poetry movement. It's a decent book---maybe a bit overly NY City focused, but still a nice overview from the beginnings, to the mass popularity with shows on MTV and the current trends. All to be expected, I guess.

But what I wasn't expecting was how many memories this book would dredge up for me. I did my undergrad a couple of hours south of DC at James Madison University. I worked at the campus radio station WXJM, and helped edit the school's small literary journal. Like most kids, it was a formative time of my life, a time that exposed me to music, art, fiction and poetry that shaped my tastes and preferences more than any other point in my life. And while my classes certainly played a part it was often my outside-school activities that really shaped me.

I saw a flier for a Slam Poetry night at the Little Grill and I just thought it sounded cool. I had no idea what the term meant when I first heard it my sophomore year. Just the sound of those two words together, Slam and Poetry, was interesting to me. One so aggressive, the other so pensive, I didn't quite know what to make of it. I had to go, just to see what it was all about.

The LIttle Grill was a special place. It was a teeny-tiny vegetarian diner on the outskirts of town. Plain white walls decorated with old guitars and photos of Bob Dylan, it was a pretty popular lunch spot for the veggie crowd. At night the owner put on special events like small concerts, fiction readings and even Slam Poetry.

I went with one of my good friends at the time, a guy who went by the name of MC Legit. No, that wasn't his real name. He was a heavy set white kid with glasses from a posh suburb of northern Virginia and had a normal, white kid name. But he loved hip hop and had already recorded some singles on a DC label by the time he hit college. As odd it sounds now everyone called him Legit or Git, and never by his real name. Even now I barely remember what his real first name was.

We got there a few minutes early, and both got some vegetarian chili and cornbread. After a little bit, the owner of the Little Grill stood up and started to talk. The owner was a soft-spoken aging hippie type. Scruffy beard, ratty hair and so skinny I could have slung him over my shoulder and carried him around campus all day without any problem. Anyway, he went over the rules and who the judges were and people started reading. There would be three rounds and the winning poet would get a free meal.

It wasn't anything like what I would see on MTV a few years later. It was relaxed, casual---just a bunch of people getting up and reading their work straight off of the page. There were confessional poems, folk singers reading lyrics, rappers, imagist stuff, prose work, genre work, and more. Students read, professors from the University read and some people from the town read. It was a great event and I, eventually, got over my own shyness and read my own work aloud for the first time.

Nowadays when I go to readings I often hear people comment negatively about Slam events, all because they have this in your face NYC-MTV image in their minds of what Slam Poetry means. But in my experience, and it seems in Aptowicz's, there is a Slam event out there for every type of writer. Her book draws a wonderful portrait of a movement that's broader, fuller and deeper than I was expecting. And while it may not be as critical as some readers might want, it's a solid, informative read and well worth picking up for anyone interested in more recent trends in poetry, writing and performance that academia often ignores.

Excelsior

Review: Sky Pirates of Valendor by Everett Soares

It's no secret that I like comic books and that I like high fantasy. But I have a general dislike when the two are crammed together. There's something about the imagery combined with the tropes of the story that make it feel awkward and rote to me. There a few exceptions, like the Wildstorm version of Red Sonja and the series Sojourn put out by the short-lived publisher CrossGen. And after reading the the premier issue, I'm hoping I can add Everett Soares's Sky Pirates of Valendor to the short list of fantasy comics that I enjoy.

Soares has created an unusual world, an almost Steampunk realm that mixes different levels of technology. Pirates don't command boats limited to the water but ships that fly in the sky. And characters with robotic arms might battle with swords and muskets while others may raise high-powered sniper rifles in their own defense. Magic seems to be present as well, complete with talking bears, Elves and prophecies.

Valendor sits ruled over by the Valen Empire, a rich but seemingly restrictive kingdom. The series hero is Tobin Manheim, the swashbuckling captain for the pirate ship Rogue's Revenge. He's Strong-headed, easy to anger but obviously has some leadership capabilities and a good sense of conniving. Our introduction to Manheim is a humorous scene dragging a dockmaster off of his boat for interrupting his time with a lady friend.

Manheim's hired by the Valen Empire to hunt down a ship that kidnapped a ranking official of the Empire. The catch is that he has to work with Gearz, a sexy but equally hard-headed woman with robotic arms. There's a history between the two we aren't privy to yet, but I can only imagine that coming to terms with their bad history will play a part of the series.

Drawn by Brian Brinlee and inked by Michael W. Keller, I have mixed feelings about the art. Some panels are gorgeous, especially those that focus on action or faces. But others seem like they were drawn more quickly, particularly the landscapes. They do Make some interesting choices with page layouts, most noticeably on the first page where they use a series of circles instead of the standard square panels to get across a first person point of view.

It's hard to say exactly where the story is going. This first issue is about setting the stage. We get glimpses of a world that seems large and well fleshed out, and it's a testament to Soare's writing that I'm curious to see more. While this will definitely be a series high on action, there are hints intrigue and clashes of personality as well. I'm curious to see how the different levels of tech really play out in this world. I like the suggestions of what's to come and only time will tell if the team can deliver that image to the page.

Excelsio

Review: Death of the Little Match Girl by Zoran Feric

If you've never heard of Zoran Feric, you're not alone. Although he's published several novels in his native Croatian language, little other than the odd short story has made it into English. Autumn Hill Books corrects that with Tomislav Kuzmanovic's translation of Feric's darkly odd novel Death of the Little Match Girl.

The story opens simply enough. Fero is a pathologist who lives and works in Romania. The death of a childhood friend's daughter draws him back home to Rab, a small island in the Adriatic Sea, to attend the funeral. The opening chapter is a parade of odd characters as Fero reminisces about his past life in this small town. It becomes quickly apparent that this is not a normal funeral when the priest reads the wrong eulogy and the resident crazy man of the town---who looks like Balzac in flip flops--- insists on reciting a non-sensical bit of prose at the podium.

Things are all told through Fero's darkly comic mouth, which gives us an unending supply of comments that range from the funny to the unnerving. Pontificating on the fate of the little girl's soul in the afterlife, Fero thinks: What would happen to her now in heaven's open fields, where all sorts of wishes come true? Would she grow a tiny wee wee?.

A number of Fero's thoughts made me chuckle, others made me say "Huh?", and a few---like the above---kind of did both. Especially all the jokes about Auschwitz. I'm not sure America is quite ready for holocaust humor.

A death occurs shortly after the funeral and the island's police inspector, an old buddy of Fero's, asks Fero to lend his expertise as a pathologist. You see, it's not just anyone who's died. It's the towns only stripper and prostitute. But this stripper had a big secret, yes she did. Or is it a he? No one's really quite sure.

After that things just get weird.

The longer Fero stays the more involved in the general oddities of the island of Rab he gets. He meets more old friends, and meeting more old friends leads into more bizarre cases. We've get a a thief who steals the endings out of library books, a gravedigger, Franciscan monks performing exorcisms, strange metallic statues appearing across the town overnight and a snuff film making the rounds of everyone's VHS player that may or may not be evidence in the stripper's murder. A large part of what Feric's doing is lampooning the style of the crime novel by smacking it on it's behind and sticking his own tongue out at the same time. The hero stumbles into his cases and pretty much solves them in the same way---if you can really say he solves them. It's not Inspector Clouseau slapstick or hardboiled Philip Marlowe, but something indefinably between the two.

I get the same feeling from Feric's writing that I get from Terry Pratchett and Christopher Moore, that he's laughing the whole time he's writing. But his jokes are a lot dirtier and profoundly politically incorrect, at least by U.S. standards. The novel's title, for example, has nothing to do with the old folk tale of the little match girl. It's a bad sexual pun about the size of the dead prostitute's male genitalia.

I can't personally vouch for the quality of the translation, because I don't know the first thing about translating from Croatian. I can say it's phrased in a style that's descriptive and sometimes even thoughtful, but still easy to read in a commercial, mainstream kind of way. I have a nagging suspicion I'm missing something because I don't know enough about that part of the world. Some secret joke, some cultural reference, something that takes this to a higher level of meaning. But for the life of me I can't begin to tell you what it might be. While its lewd content prevents me suggesting this to just anyone, I can say I had a good time with this. It's all smartly written, embarrassingly funny and I enjoyed it despite myself. Readers with a thick skin and an open mind will have a good time, but sensitive souls would do best to stay away.

Excelsior

Review: A War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card

Set in the war-torn future of Card’s acclaimed Ender’s Game series, the focus for this short novella A War of Gifts moves from the series hero to Zeck, son of an abusive fundamentalist preacher. Zeck’s phenomenal abilities for memorization and judging a situation make him an ideal candidate for the International Fleet’s Battle School, an academy that trains boys to be brilliant military leaders in an ongoing interstellar war. Despite his mental aptitudes, Zeck proves an unwilling pupil when he refuses to participate in battle simulations, claiming them to be against the pacifism of his religion. This clash of personal religion vs. duty to society comes up early on, when Zeck is first "recruited".

Children have no religion," said the stranger. "That's why we take them so young---before they have been fully indoctrinated in any ideology."
"So you can indoctrinate them in yours," said Father.
"Exactly," said the man. p 22

Zeck's beliefs make him a pariah within the school, pushing him to cry foul when he sees two Dutch students quietly celebrate Christmas---or Sinterklaas Day---by exchanging satirical poems. This kicks off a cultural revolt, pitting students of different religions against each other and against the school in the name of religious freedom. Ender himself plays a small but pivotal role in the end of the story by confronting Zeck and forcing him to deal with the dark issues of his past.
I'll be honest, I wasn't sure what to think when I got this in the mail to review. The whole concept of a Sci-fi Christmas Story left me a little worried. Also, I've never read Card. For whatever reason he's one of those many authors I've just never picked up. But he handles it all well; what could easily have turned into an all-too-sweet mess developed into a thoughtful parable about religious freedom, cultural differences and knowing yourself.

Reader reviews on Amazon and other places claim Card put out this little novella---a slim, 128 page volume---to meet publisher deadlines. But I think what they are reacting to is not so much the thinness of the book but Card's approach; Sci-Fi purists will likely be let down by the lack of technology and big-scale military drama Card is often associated with. The overall approach here is one of a character-driven drama and not one based on intricate plots and Sci-Fi concepts. While this might disappoint some fans, it has a chance of drawing in readers who wouldn't otherwise pick up a Card novel.

Excelsior

Review: Dark Warrior Rising by Ed Greenwood

Ed Greenwood's new novel Dark Warrior Rising delivers a fantasy world heavily inspired by Norse mythology; dark elves known as Niflghar control a vast underground kingdom of pleasure and magic. Stolen from the surface world as a small child and forced to live as a slave under Niflghar rule, Orivon Firefist has grown into a skilled blacksmith and the most important servant for the beautiful yet cruel Lady Taerune Evendoom. When violence erupts in the city Taerune loses an arm and, because of her newfound ugliness, is banished by the beauty-worshipping Niflghar.

Although Orivon has dreamed of revenge since a small child he instead chooses to kidnap Taerune and forces her to guide him back to his home on the surface. On the run from skilled hunters and vicious monsters, the two must trust each other long enough to get through the dangers of the tunnels and to the freedom that waits for them above ground. A number of side-plots develop as different Niflghar families and even members within the same family use the chaos as an opportunity to raise their political stature by killing off rivals.

Greenwood is most widely known as the creator of the Forgotten Realms roleplaying universe (that’s old-school D&D, folks), and he puts his worldbuilding skills to wonderful use here. The system of magic has clear rules and the complex politics between families wonderfully heighten the dramatic tension throughout the novel. Although he tries to work in some minor sexual tension between Orivon and Taerune, it’s obvious it won’t come to be so it’s really no tension at all.

It reminds me of nothing more than Robert E. Howard’s Conan series----the basic events, the way he uses the language, the almost uncompromising dourness of the world all come together in a similar fashion. This dark, often grim tale doesn’t work in humor or romance, so while this action-packed novel will definitely satisfy fans of traditional sword-and-sorcery, unlike many other titles coming out these days it offers little to draw in readers who usually shy away from fantasy.

Excelsior