Balls and Walnuts
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Category Archives: Books ‘n’ Authors
already bought the sequel
Already Dead by Charlie Huston*, 2005.
Joe Pitt’s a Philip Marlowe kind of vampire, a white knight among bloodsuckers. He lives in modern-day Manhattan, where thousands of vampires survive by aligning with one of several factions, ranging from the Mafia-like Coalition to those oh-so politically correct revolutionaries, The Society. Yet Pitt lone-wolfs it, surviving as an independent only because the factions find him more useful that way.
The novel opens with Pitt cleaning up a messy zombie problem. Zombies, in Pitt’s world, are folks who have become infected with flesh-eating bacteria that give the host a hunger for human flesh (yes, especially brains). Pitt takes out the zombies, who because of their mindless carnage tend to draw unwanted attention to the whole undead community. That’s good. But he leaves behind a high-profile crime scene, and worse, a carrier of the zombifying bacterium. That’s bad.
In the classic noir formula of “put your main character in a fucked-up situation, then make it worse,” Pitt’s life keeps getting more and more complicated. No one’s happy with his work, least of all the well connected Coalition, to whom falls the job of political cleanup. To zero the balance sheet, Pitt has to find the carrier and make nice with some old Manhattan wealth — the Horde family, whose 14-year-old daughter, a repeat runaway, has gone to ground somewhere in Pitt’s turf. Pitt’s HIV-infected girlfriend thinks he’s developed a fondness for blue blood, and worse yet, someone — or something — has stolen his ten-pint stash of refrigerated blood.
Shelf-hogs at Borders Santa Rosa
Of course I’m delighted to see that old-friend-of-Balls-and-Walnuts Lilith Saintcrow has half a shelf at Borders, but two shelves for Orson Scott Card? I have nothing against Jim Butcher (I’ve only read one of his books, which left me kind of meh, but at least I didn’t need the eye bleach like with O.S.C.), but four shelves? Mercedes Lackey has nearly two shelves. Used to be that the only shelf-hogs were folks like Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, or Piers Anthony, with fat little clusters for folks like Tolkien or Heinlein or Asimov. The old-timers take up far less shelf space these days (not much Bova or Heinlein; PK Dick is still considered cool, though — 1/4 of a shelf, not bad for a dead guy), so you would think there would be lots and lots of room for newcomers.
And that’s really what I’m getting at. When I go to a bookstore, I want to browse for new authors. If I want known quantities, I can shop online. So what I would prefer to see at Borders or Barnes and Noble is MUCH less shelf space devoted to single authors and more shelf space given to newcomers.
Yes, I realize I’m being hopelessly naive, since market forces must drive these decisions. In which case Jim Butcher must be red hot right now, and Charlaine Harris (whose new book was stacked next to every checkout stand) is molten. And don’t even mention Stephenie Meyer.
The interesting thing about Stephenie Meyer is her appeal across sex and age boundaries. I base this on my N of 2: my son read the whole series, and I read and enjoyed the first two books. She’s doing something right. Still. Sometimes it seems like there’s a whole Stephenie Meyer section of the bookstore (approximately where YA used to be).
How does a guy go about finding new voices? It’s the easiest thing in the world to walk into Borders and buy a Terry Pratchett I’ve never read before (I’m convinced I’ll die before I ever finish all of his books), or a Carl Hiaasen. But I want something new.
Anyway, today I picked up Charlie Huston’s Already Dead, which, from what I can, tell fuses the noir/hard-boiled genres with vampire foo. Three pages into it and the writing is crisp though hardly luminescent. On the luminescent front, I recently finished Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, which rocked — great story, plot, characters, writing, everything. Comparable to Martin Cruz Smith for quality . . . a bit more heavy-handed than Smith, but Chabon’s plotting is better.
Read anything excellent lately?
D.
A fundamental misunderstanding of time travel
From Cracked Dot Com: Worst Excuse Ever?
Okay, here’s a question for you: has anyone out there read Jonathan Stroud’s (he of the Bartimaeus Trilogy) new book Heroes of the Valley? Any good?
Am currently reading Michael Swanwick’s The Dog Said Bow Wow. Interesting. Interestingly bad. I love Swanwick’s novels — just got done with Dragons of Babel, which I recommend without reservation — but his short stories never fail to disappoint. Most of them were pubbed in Asimov’s, and it shows. They all have that same cheesiness which turned me off Asimov’s and F&SF years ago.
Only one story thus far has intrigued me (if only briefly) — The Bordello in Faerie, about a young man who discovers he likes being whored to the magical beings of Faerie. Wonderful premise, great follow-through, but then the whole thing fizzled. It felt like Swanwick had had a great idea but not a great story.
Read any good books lately?
D.
An Interview with Paul Meloy
My interview with Paul is posted at The Fix. And a damn fine interview it is, too. Here’s one of my favorite bits — we got into it on the way dreams figure into his work:
I don’t believe dreams are there just to do us a favour. As if the unconscious is some benign sorting office. There’s no reason to believe that the unconscious isn’t as polluted and pathological as our conscious mind. I think you have to apply a bit of discernment with dreams. Sometimes it’s easy to recognise a symbol and interpret it, or attribute aspects to your anima or animus, or your sexuality. Sometimes it’s a bit of wish fulfilment, a bit of fantasy or frustrated desire being played out. Sometimes dreams are plagued by a sense of nostalgia or longing that remains in your psyche and dogs you all the next day. And maybe there’s a receiving apparatus for visions built in there, too.
Enjoy.
D.
Dumb Dorky Dexter
I’m not sure what it says about us that we’re a Dexter family. Worse, Karen and I prefer the book to the first season, since Jeff Lindsay’s vision of Dexter was far more uncompromising than Showtime’s version.
Showtime’s Dexter is soft. He has feelings. He even seems to enjoy human company. Not so Lindsay’s literary Dexter; that Dexter is a human simulacrum who never loses touch with the inner monster.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the series, here’s the premise: due to childhood trauma, Dexter becomes a serial killer. His adoptive cop father, Harry, channels Dexter’s inner monster so that his son will only prey upon other killers. He teaches young Dexter enough forensics to keep the kid from getting caught, raising him to follow the Code of Harry. Dexter grows up and becomes a blood spatter analyst for Miami PD. This satisfies his intellectual love of blood while also giving him access to the databases he needs to track down his quarry.
Season One was mostly true to the book, with some notable exceptions at the ending. Let’s just say Showtime made Dexter too human and let another character live who should have been Too Stupid To Live. Season Two had some annoying plot twists and a bothersome ending (Dexter kills for convenience, pushing the limits of his Code). Murder becomes a sort of Deus Ex Machina, tying up all those troublesome loose ends. Still, Season Two had Jaime Murray.
Woof.
Karen’s reading the second book, which I gather diverges significantly from Season Two. I’m politely waiting my turn.
But Season Three, jeez. Last night really tweaked me. Yeah, you want your hero (or antihero, or whatever he is . . . really, TV Dexter has become far more vigilante than monster, so “hero” might well be the most appropriate designation) to be in danger, but never never never make him stupid. And last night he was STUPID. He underestimated his rival, even after his rival gave him ample cause for concern, and now he’s in deep shit.
He’s so dumb, he deserves this parody. From BangitoutVideos, Dessler:
. . . which will probably strike you as funny only if you’re Jewish and a Dexter fan. Kate, you’re probably Jewish enough.
D.
Still on my mind
You know how some books and movies linger? I still have The Road on my mind. That whole what does it mean to be human theme gets to me, I guess. McCarthy’s point (one of his points, anyway) is, we’re not solitary creatures, and even the family unit does not raise us to a much higher level. Altruism is key. And sometimes you have to take risks on people.
At least, I think that’s what this book is all about.
Somehow this seems appropriate:
And besides, Natalie’s a cutie.
D.
Post-apocalyptiana
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
Fallout 3 by Bethesda Software
As a kid, I read Mordecai Roshwald’s Level 7, a grim post-nuclear holocaust tale in which humanity ekes out a few final weeks of existence in underground bunkers. This stuff fascinated me. The time was the 70s and the Cold War was very much alive and frigid; we had regular duck-and-cover drills, and you could set your watch by the local Civil Defense siren’s weekly howl. I still dream of blinding flashes, of the anticipatory horror before the arrival of a flesh-vaporizing shockwave. Level 7 wasn’t great literature, but its uncompromising lack of sentiment gave it an enduring place in my memory.
I read Earth Abides back then, too, and I recall it as an almost romantic vision of post-apocalyptia. The holocaust is viral, not nuclear, and the humans are struggling but not doomed. Apathy is a far greater threat than man’s darker nature, which appears only in scattered incidents. A man uses a loose woman as bait for a trap. Another man carries a venereal disease and is disposed of by a community that would just as soon not deal with that particular vestige of the past.
It’s a fun book, in a way, because Stewart (who was a Berkeley English Professor) seemed to care less about the question, “What will a few survivors do with an empty Earth?” and more about the question, “What will the Earth do without Man?” It’s an ecologist’s fantasy, a rumination on the decay of society’s trappings and the response of the creatures who live because of or in spite of humanity.
I just finished a much different book, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Surprisingly, it has a happy ending, or as happy an ending as one could hope for from such a grim creation. A man and his (six-year-old?) son walk south over a burned-out wasteland of a continent. The son’s obsession that they remain “the good guys” in this world of roving cannibals provides all of the drive and much of the tension: how can they possibly remain the good guys? The father-and-son relationship provides the story’s heart. If you can get past McCarthy’s love of sentence fragments and hatred of quotation marks and apostrophes, the writing is beautiful, even though the subject matter couldn’t be more stark.
What horror overtook this world? McCarthy mentions “concussions” in a flashback, suggesting explosions; but if the apocalypse was nuclear, everyone would have long since died. As it stands, humans have done far better than plants and animals. McCarthy’s wasteland is almost too grim to be believable.
I suspect Fallout 3 got me in the mood for death and devastation on the grand scale. Fallout 3 takes place a couple hundred years after a nuclear war. Some fragments of society persist in a few dozen scattered Vaults, underground shelters with insular, vaguely autocratic societies. Above ground, which is where most of the action takes place, civilization lingers in scattered settlements (Auntie Entity would be proud). Out in the wild, you battle radscorpions, giant mole rats, and various and sundry other ghouls and super mutants. Oh, and this “wild”? It’s the Capital Wasteland, the ruins of Washington D.C., dotted with remnants of the Capital Building, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument.
The charm of Fallout 3 derives from its premise: we’re not fighting for our lives in a post-nuclear Earth, but an alternate universe, one in which human culture froze circa Leave it to Beaver. A local radio station plays great hits from the 40s: The Ink Spots “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire,” Bob Crosby’s “Way Back Home,” Billie Holiday’s “Easy Living.” My favorite, perhaps: Danny Kaye and the Andrew Sisters singing oh-so-politically incorrect “Civilization”:
Each morning a missionary advertise with neon sign
He tells the native population that civilization is fine
And three educated savages holler from a bongo tree
That civilization is a thing for me to see
So bongo, bongo, bongo I don’t want to leave the congo
Oh no no no no no
Bingle, bangle, bungle I’m so happy in the jungle I refuse to go
Don’t want no bright lights, false teeth, doorbells, landlords
I make it clear
That no matter how they coax him
I’ll stay right here
Here’s a full review of Fallout 3 over at PC World.
What’s the appeal of these doomed worlds, I wonder? Do they appeal to the misanthropes among us, or the humanists who believe that human nobility is most manifest in the direst of worlds? They’re stories of survival, most of them (Level 7 being the notable exception) so perhaps we like to think that we, too, have what it takes to make it through to the other side. And what a Darwinian jackpot for the survivors! George R. Stewart certainly understood this; his survivors reproduce like rabbits in the aftermath of the plague.
I wish I had something profound to say, particularly regarding The Road. My sister tells me they’re teaching it in high school these days — not bad for a book with a pub date of 2006. But I’m feeling bereft of profundity today, so I’m left with a piss-poor take-home message.
People who eat people are bad people.
D.
Crocodiles in England
My review of Paul Meloy’s Islington Crocodiles is up at The Fix.
I haven’t been this excited about an author in a long while. If you haven’t already left a comment for the contest to win a copy, please do so!
Least favorite thing about this collection: the cover. This is NOT a bunch of vampire stories. The cover couldn’t be more misleading.
What is it with publishers?
D.
Roll call, with contest
I may be sending out a mass emailing soon, so I wanted to make sure I had all my li’l pals in my address book. In the comments below, stand up, wave your hands, make a scene. And I’ll sweeten the deal, too: I’ll choose one of you at random to receive Paul Meloy’s short story collection, Islington Crocodiles, which is just plain WOW. (My more literate review should appear soon at The Fix.)
Note that it’s especially important to respond if you haven’t commented lately. I have lots of folks on that blogroll who rarely if ever comment. I don’t know if you’re still reading me or not!
Thanks for the comments to yesterday’s post, by the way. I thought it was a little over the top, but maybe I’m selling myself short. I do know that Karen and Jake dislike it when I get literary. If I ever did get “serious,” I think I’d have to find different beta readers 🙂
As an aside: writing this stuff sure is different than writing humorous genre fiction. It’s a whole different mindset — almost a poetic or dreamlike space I need to get into. It hasn’t been intentional. Each time, I was in that space to begin with, and that’s the stuff I wrote. Is this making any sense? And now that I’ve found that space, perhaps I could re-imagine it in order to write more.
In one of the many self-help-for-writers books I read five or six years ago, one author said that when he writes, he imagines himself to be a much better writer than what he truly is. When he does so, he creates material that is far better than his usual fare.
Some pretty weird mystical shit, eh?
D.