Book Reviews

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The Killing Joke - Alan Moore

“There were these two guys in a lunatic asylum . . . ”

Joker has again escaped from Arkham. This time, he’s not content with replenishing depleted funds to gain world power, he doesn’t want to punish society and he’s not looking for revenge. He wants to prove everyone in the world is just one step away from becoming him. And to do so he goes after the soft spot, the tender area for any father. He takes down Jim Gordon’s daughter.

Joker cripples, strips, and photographs Barbara during a home invasion. He kidnaps Gordon and hauls him off to a shuttered amusement park that he’s filled with funhouse horrors, including a barrage of images of the commissioner’s tortured daughter. The Joker maintains that every man, no matter how strong, is just one horrific day away from total insanity. The villain’s backstory is also filled out more here. We get to see who he was before he became The Joker—what series of events led to his own downfall.

“Madness is the emergency exit.”

The World’s Greatest Detective arrives at the park where the scene is unfolding. Despite the thousands of lives he might save by doing so Batman will not kill The Joker, a critical aspect of the character. One of the interesting angles of this story is Batman reaching out to Joker, trying to find some way to avert the collision course the two are on, a course he predicts will one day result in one or both of their deaths.

And then there’s the joke, the perfect ending illuminating the razor’s edge of sanity.

The Killing Joke, now nearly 30 years old, broke new ground and gathered enough notoriety even casual fans have heard of it. If you want to know the iconic character, you need this one under your belt. This is horror. This is Batman.

5 stars

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Hellblazer Vol. 3: The Fear Machine - Jamie Delano

“You could bet your soddin’ life if I was one of those poncy, media-darling super-heroes and a couple of civilians got creamed in the crossfire, no one’d even mention it. Christ, somebody would’ve bought the movie rights by now.”

Written by Jamie Delano with covert art by mostly by Dave McKean with Kent Williams credited for the final cover, this run collects the individual comics of Hellblazer #14 – #22, all part of The Fear Machine story arc. Most of the interior art is by Mark Buckingham with guest artists Richard Piers Rayner, Mike Hoffman and Alfredo Alcala. The arc tells the story of a powerful group of individuals attempting to create a new world order by assembling psychic energies and channeling them into an ultimate destructive force.

“Touching the Earth” – Constantine is on the run from the law and is nearly captured when hitchhiking. He escapes into the woods and runs into a hippie, Mercury, a psychic child who invites him to her commune to rest and recover.

“Shephard’s Warning” – John’s beginning to enjoy life in the commune. A member recognizes him from the newspaper and he enters her mind to make her forget, which she repays later by dosing him with a hallucinogen. John and Mercury are chased away from a fenced-in stone monument. After he’s dosed John witness a man doing strange things with stones along the local ley lines. At the end of his trip he winds up in bed with Mercury’s mother, Marj.

“Rough Justice” – Fake police raid the compound and kidnap Mercury and her mother. John recovers a drugged and confused Marj from a local police station and returns her to the compound which is packing up to move. He decides to go to war to get Mercury back to her mother.

“Fellow Travelers” – The people who kidnapped Mercury are after the partner of the man John saw in his trip. They use one of their psychics to track him to a train that John also happens to be on and use a Stonehenge-like structure to magnify the power of one of their psychics to induce fear and stop the train so they can capture the man.

“Hate Mail & Love Letters” – John is back in London, gathering information on the organization that kidnapped Mercury, Geotroniks. He runs into an acquaintance from the police and learns he’s no longer a suspect. Mercury begins a diary where she explains the psychic training she’s undergoing involving gathering, trapping and storing fear.

“The Broken Man” – John saves the life of a journalist found hanging in the closet and learns he’s been investigating Geotroniks. Mercury learns her kidnappers are creating a fear-machine that they don’t understand and she threatens to release the monster within. An escalating campaign of suicides sweeps the nation and a homeless man who’d been following John stuffs a note in his hand as he jumps in front of a train.

“Betrayal” – John begins connecting the Geotroniks organization with the Masons. The lead scientist who’s been training the kidnapped Mercury allows her escape and suffers the consequences by a leader who is readying to unleash his world-toppling forces on everyone.

“The God of all Gods” – The Masons have withdrawn support of their plan, but Webster, who’s been running the operation, continues to release the monster with ritual sacrifices. John encounters Mercury and returns the child to her mother and astral-projects to find the terror-thing, which threatens to overwhelm him. Mercury pulls him out of the spirit world.

“Balance” – Webster continues the sacrifices and the god nears its release. Constantine, Marj and the leader of the pagan community the commune moved to when ousted by the police perform their own ritual to balance against the elemental force releasing into the world.

The nine-issue arc deals with Earth awareness in addition to the occult. The magic of ley line energy is heavily featured as well as psychic energy with formations such as Stonehenge serving as focusing structures. The mild police-state we’ve all grown accustomed to is also targeted a few times with things like people expecting to be beaten by police and John lamenting Stonehenge, one of the world’s oldest ritual sites, chained off to the public and regulated to the point you’ll be physically assaulted if you visit without proper permission. We also see the recurring theme of our relative size to Earth, with our biggest plans as just so much dust, paling to the forces of the planet. You can tell John is whipped at the beginning of the story and gains strength and perspective by his rest in the woods despite being a die-hard city boy.

Complete arcs like this are compulsive reading, so if you pick it up expect to finish in a sitting or two. It’s a solid collection of issues with excellent, heavy writing and great artwork, with stepped-up environmental and social themes and with less focus on Constantine’s own magic.

“Sometimes frozen centuries can elapse while all you do is scream, wondering if you’ll take another breath.”

4 stars

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[Theli]

I absolutely love it! Great interior art for damn sure, perfect to match some killer stories. Howard was a master of the genre.

[Brian861]

Yeah, this one's pretty spectacular. Check my site if you want to see all of them--there's like 50 black and whites in addition to the color illustrations. Greg Staples achieved something special with this book.

Indeed he did.

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Yeah, this one's pretty spectacular. Check my site if you want to see all of them--there's like 50 black and whites in addition to the color illustrations. Greg Staples achieved something special with this book.

[Brian861]

Very nice art in that one. Really dig the slipcase as well.

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The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard - Robert E. Howard

“Man was not always master of the earth—and is he now?”

Here he is, the legendary creator of the Sword and Sorcery genre, in his element. Even in their adventure tales it was horror and darkness that shaped Conan’s stoicism and provided the motive for Solomon Kane. Bran Mok Mon lived it, as did the Picts. Along with many others these characters are represented here with either an undercurrent of terror or a tidal wave. The book is a monster, a massive collection so rich in dread it’s best to take it slow. Let ‘em sink in, there won’t be any more.

One of the recurring motifs is the fever dream, when a person is ripped from normal, current life and deposited into a violent Earth long since passed in order to experience war or other monstrosities. Another is the idea we’re barely scratching the surface of what’s actually happening in our world, that unknowable mysteries are not just everywhere, they’re the foundations upon which everything is built. Lovecraft used this too, that we’re better off not knowing what’s really going on, and a great example of Mr. Howard’s use is “The Black Stone.”

There’s a lot to love in this collection, but this is old horror. You won’t find torture porn here. Nor will you find graphic depictions of gratuitous, naked college girl dismemberment; this is the real deal. With this book containing a whopping 60 stories and poems, here are a few favorites:

“The Dream Snake” – A man is telling his friends about a recurring dream he’s had since childhood where he believes he’s being hunted by a giant serpent, but the dream is more vivid than ever before and the serpent is getting nearer.

This was an excellent story but not actually a favorite. It deserves special callout because there was something extraordinary about the atmosphere here. The author draws a real, palpable horror even though it’s just a character explaining a dream. Study this one carefully.

“Dead Man’s Hate” (poem) – A man is glorifying the hanging of his enemy, mocking his enemy’s curse upon him, when the corpse reanimates and gives chase.

“He reeled on buckling legs that failed, yet on and on he fled;
So through the shuddering market-place, the dying fled the dead.”

“The Spirit of Tom Molyneaux” – Our narrator, a boxing trainer, tells the tale of his top shelf fighter taking on the recently emerged champion, a man of such ferocity no one can stand in the ring with him. Prior to the fight our trainer witnesses his boxer speaking to the portrait of another champion fighter, 100 years gone, for advice.

Most of this story unfolds in the ring and it’s expertly told. Not only can you picture in vivid detail the blows raining down like sledge-hammers, you can hear their impacts; you can feel them. And you can smell the blood on the canvas as the warriors dig into each other among the cheers. Even the mighty Hemingway’s boxing tales get dropped to the mat and counted out by Mr. Howard. Highest marks and congratulations are due to a perfect boxing story.

“The Song of a Mad Minstrel” (poem) – This poem was killer, the story of a man who has seen and reaped it all bringing gifts of horror and death.

“Worms of the Earth” – Bran Mak Morn, in disguise, witnesses one of his men crucified unjustly by the Romans and exacts revenge through an alliance with unspeakable creatures from below.

Everyone is familiar with the thirst for revenge, and some have taken the idea far enough to enlist Hell for aid. But rarely do we see Hell quail in the face of human mastery. This isn’t sweet, sweet revenge, it’s bittersweet, and a fantastic end to a horrific story.

“Man on the Ground” – Two men who’ve hated each so hard and for so long they can’t even remember why have trapped each other in the rocky hills, pinning each other down with rifle fire, each unwilling to give an inch and may the best man win.

This one was extra special in a collection of special stories. We’ve all seen countless stories about the power of love, some of them excellent. This one’s about the power of hate.

“The Dead Remember” – Bill has received a stack of letters. The first is from his brother, Jim, detailing an incident with a witch that has left his life in danger. He explains the ill luck he’s suffered since the encounter. The rest of the letters are from witnesses.

Not only was the story superb here, the structure lends it extra power as we begin to guess what’s happening before events revealed in the letters.

These five stories and two poems are outstanding, but the list of show stoppers is limited to them only to keep the length of the review down. This book is incredible and is packed with the monstrous in the classical tradition, and there are a ton of other 5 star entries to be found.

Accompanying the numerous stories and poems is a striking series of color and black and white illustrations by Greg Staples, who captures the darkness repeatedly in a heavily illustrated volume released by Subterranean Press.

Robert E. Howard was a talented craftsman, no doubt, known not only for his world building but his genre building. There’s something else here, too … something harder to name. Other, successful world-builders start with characters interacting with environments and we eventually learn about the worlds they inhabit through those interactions. Mr. Howard’s worlds seem to rise up out of the mists, materializing somewhere between our mind’s eye and our nightmares.

“Darkness and silence were the natural state of the cosmos, not light and the noises of Life. No wonder the dead hated the living, who disturbed the grey stillness of Infinity with their tinkling laughter.”

If you’re a student of horror, this is one of the ultimate single author collections.

5 stars

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Thanks, Brian.

[Brian861]

Those are really beautiful editions!

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Endymion - Dan Simmons

“Sometimes . . . the shortest route to courage is absolute ignorance.”

Set a few hundred years after the conclusion of The Fall of Hyperion, our narrator, Raul Endymion, trapped in a jail cell that will kill him at any moment, recalls the adventures leading up to his incarceration.

The Cruciform, a cross-like, parasitic organism discovered centuries earlier on planet Hyperion which gives its bearer resurrection after death, was taken over by the Church, who used the power of everlasting life to seize control of the universe. While a cruciform revives a person from death, he comes back slightly reduced in mental and physical capacity. The Church has perfected resurrection technology, avoiding this pitfall, and gives members the cruciform as everlasting life as long as they give 1 year of every 10 in service to the church, as long as they tithe.

The Church has timed when the young girl Aenea, having disappeared into the Time Tombs hundreds of years ago (The Fall of Hyperion), will finally reappear in the future. They know the prophecy that the girl will bring knowledge and freedom to mankind, and as its current ruler, the church has positioned entire armies to seize the girl when she exits the tomb. But The Shrike appears alongside Aenea, and the entrenched armies and the battleships orbiting the planet don’t stand a chance against this creature of legend.

The girl escapes and an emissary of the Church is given unlimited papal authority to chase her across the universe, expending any and all resources he dreams necessary, to bring her back, and this chase is the bulk of the story.

First, there’s pacing. The book is the longest of the Cantos so far, tells the most linear story, and is the fastest paced, alternating like gunshots between Raul Endymion’s story and that of the Church emissary, De Soya, tasked with chasing down Aenea’s party. De Soya’s chase is complicated by the fact the girl’s party is able to use the farcasters, instant transport portals which were outlawed and disassembled in the previous centuries. The Church emissary is desperately trying to catch the group while the perilous farcaster journey through ocean worlds, ice caves and the paradise of God’s Grove keeps changing locales, and the skill and speed which the author alternates between the two main stories makes the entire book difficult to put down once you’ve read a couple of pages.

Second, there’s the science. It’s not mired in terminology, but we can safely categorize this as hard science fiction using a lot of physics. An aspect other writers have probably covered, but I’ve not yet encountered, is the fantastic idea of death by acceleration. In order for De Soya to chase down Aenea and her party, he’s given command of a ship that is so fast it can cross the universe in a couple of days. The forces exerted reaching these speeds mean using it kills everyone on board, and they are subsequently resurrected through cruciform technology at the end of each journey. You may begin to image the horror of multi-staged trips across space by this method, and Mr. Simmons really brings this home.

Third, The Shrike in action is brief but glorious. I mean glorious. We’re all used to the idea of one-man armies. Movies like Robocop and The Terminator have given us visuals on the firepower these individuals can bring to bear, but that’s nothing compared to the instant violence with which The Shrike dispatches his enemies. An army of 10,000 terminators wouldn’t stand the slightest chance against him because of his ability to manipulate time, so seeing him single-handedly rip apart armies that would shatter worlds is a spectacle.

Fourth is the Church, one of the more complicated facets of humanity which this work uses to tell its story. The symbolism is obvious here with the cross-like cruciform, the three-day resurrection, the prophecy of the return of someone who will teach us the way, and towering above all of this is the institution of the Church itself.

Major religions postulate it’s through submission to a power higher than ourselves we find inner peace. It’s through relinquishing control, and much more dangerously, relinquishing personal responsibility for our actions, that people find freedom. And it’s religious institutions that give us maps, permission, and encouragement to do so. Because human beings are so corruptible, this is a really big issue. It’s in our nature to abuse power. Any decent investigator knows what to look for first when unraveling a series of events—motive. Now what possible motive would an institution have to incite people to give 10% of their lives to it? To what lengths would they go to attain this level of contribution? To what lengths would they go to preserve it? Knowing these things, it’s outrageous we’d let modern interpretation of written words, however ancient or venerated by authority, dictate right vs. wrong. Inform, fine, yes. Dictate? That’s not an argument in which I can calmly participate.

Fifth, and finally, the theme that power corrupts. Why must power corrupt? In the event a person in power wasn’t an evil bastard to begin with, it’s not the power itself that exerts an evil influence. My belief is our limitless adaptability combined with our instinct for self-preservation exposes us to corruption. For instance, a person in power often attains the top spot for a good reason. But things change, things mutate, new technologies are discovered. Like heaving ground during an earthquake events change the landscape of society itself. The king of the world may sometimes find the circumstances which rightly led him to the throne no longer apply after these changes, and instead of yielding to the new order and relinquishing his power, he considers his power equal to his life and quite naturally acts to preserve it. We attain power, we adapt and get used to it, then we mistake the power for life itself. No wonder we’re so screwed up.

This is all just my takeaway from a complex story, my feelings on the deeper constructs beneath one hell of a novel, all housed in a kind of adventure tale more deliberately paced and action oriented than either of the preceding books. But it’s this kind of depth that makes speculative fiction the modern man’s philosophy. Yes, person A went to place B and events C and D happened along the way, but what does it all mean? There’s the real rub, and one of the most compelling reasons to look at speculative fiction in the first place.

Dan Simmons, probably the smartest writer I’m reading these days, did it again way back in ’96. The man has my highest respect as a writer of complex, compelling and stimulating fiction. Also, a deep nod to Subterranean Press for a luxurious presentation, the four-book Cantos now comprising the cornerstone of my library.

Endymion is an incredible work of science fiction and philosophy, and a 200,000 word reason to read books.

5- stars

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Cybele, with Bluebonnets - Charles L. Harness

Gene Wolfe’s words to the publisher sold me on this title, reprinted here:

“There are perhaps a thousand wonderful books. Most of us are fortunate if we so much as hear the titles of them in the course of a lifetime. Very few of us ever touch the covers of more than half a dozen. This is one of them. If you do not buy the copy you are holding, you are not likely to see one again.”

I started the e-book and quit it twice; it was just too good. In a span of the first few paragraphs, I knew I wanted a hardcopy and set the reader down. A couple of days after that initial start I thought, “Screw it, I’ll go ahead and read the e-copy now and just pick up a physical copy later.” So I picked it back up, read a chapter, then set it down again. It was just too good, and I wanted a hardcopy.

A boy crawls into a cave then exits immediately, running for his life from what dwells inside. Joe Barnes grows up and falls in love with his chemistry teacher and with chemistry, both of which impact his next few decades in unexpected ways. Joe struggles through the Great Depression, he tries to get himself drafted and he holds multiple jobs while attending night classes. Even in jobs not normally related to chemistry it’s his knowledge of the field that is repeatedly called upon. Elements of magical realism like ghosts and the Holy Grail permeate the story as Joe spins tales, saves people and blows things up. “Yes, chemists love explosions. If they say they don’t, they lie.” As he narrates the events of his life we’re swept along with the character and touched deeply as he loves, hurts and triumphs.

The book is short, about 65,000 words, but it’s enriched in ways I can’t begin to explain. Novels three times this size can’t cover the ground here, let alone the emotional content that seems so effortlessly conveyed. As in the very best fiction, it doesn’t matter that the events in this story never happened, because they did. It’s a true story, in any meaningful sense of the term. It will touch souls, even those badly burned. Not only do you owe it to yourselves to read this, you owe it to the person next to you. Convince someone you love they need to read it, and that someone can convince someone else in turn, and we can catalyze a positive reaction, leaving the earth we’ve traveled better than it was when we first passed.

“May I tell you a fable?”
“Sure.”
“A great explorer lifted his eyes and scanned the horizon, far and wide, in all directions, looking for the North Pole. But he never found it, because he was standing on it.”

5 stars

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[bugen]

Hey guys, I posted this yesterday on my site and hadn’t planned to include it on CD as it’s about 1,000 miles away from horror. It’s speculative fiction and has some magical realism to it, but it’s really a love story all the way. I’m posting it here now because part of the write-up talks about how we should share these things with each other, hype things like this, and I’m not doing that if I keep it contained on my little site.

The story is as good as they get. I hope you read the book and pass your thoughts to people you care about.

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Worlds of Weber - David Weber

Every time I’ve gotten into trouble in my life, it’s been because someone convinced me it was the ‘right thing to do.’

This career retrospective collection covers a range of speculative fiction including some decently hard science fiction, some military fantasy and some historical fiction. It’s a massive book with a quarter of a million words but only 9 stories, and only the first and the last are short. But settle in and take your time. No matter what you paid, this book is worth it.

A full story list with simple descriptions is below, but there are a few here that need special attention:

A Beautiful Friendship – Half of this story is 11-year-old Stephanie and her two parents, among the first settlers of a new world, about to discover a sentient species living in the forest. The other half is the People, the sentient species, studying humans unnoticed. Climbs Quickly and Stephanie meet and a bond is formed between the two on first contact.

With a strong sense of wonder but also with themes familiar to us all, this was an outstanding story of compassion and would easily be the best story in nearly any collection—this is the full 5 stars, even for those who are stingy with ratings. But it just so happens there’s an upcoming story that’s as good as it gets and makes some wish an even higher rating had been reserved.

Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington – Fresh out of the academy, young Honor Harrington is on her “snotty” cruise, her first real test as a spacer in the Navy, before she will finally be welcomed as an officer. She’ll be tested by fire, far beyond what anyone could have expected on the voyage. As the captain says,“no plan survives contact with the enemy.”

Honor Harrington is David Weber’s greatest creation, his most beloved character, and it appears she’s starred in at least 14 novels. The author states in his introduction that he does not want to write any prequel novels, citing his style has developed over time and he doesn’t want to jar the chronological reader, but this novella was a way for him to develop Honor’s history without a full-blown novel.

Miles to Go – This is it. This one will knock you over.

Merrit is dispatched to a sparsely inhabited planet where he learns the government’s files are woefully out of date and the entire planet has basically been lost under the blanket of bureaucracy for a century. He’s tasked with the recovery of an old Bolo.

All Bolos, gigantic, nearly indestructible, artificially intelligent battle-tanks, have had most of their capabilities crippled by design unless engaged in combat as protective measures for their human masters. This particular Bolo, 80 years out of date, has undergone special modifications at the hands of her deceased programmer, unlocking her intelligence.

Meanwhile, certain unscrupulous, enterprising individuals have realized the planet will be worth a boatload of money relating to trade routes after an upcoming change in space travel and have launched plans to kill everyone on the surface to pave the wave for their profits. An invasion is launched against an unsuspecting world.

Most surprising here in this novella is the emotional relationship developing between the Bolo named Nike and Merrit—a man and his war machine, reading poetry together. A particularly moving scene occurs when the machine, on a training exercise, encounters a large cat-lizard. The decisions she makes along with her rationalizations when questioned by Merrit go a long way in establishing a rich, intelligent, empathetic character.

There are a few complicated sections with some hard science fiction that’s not always easy to follow, but the intricate data-flow is necessary to contrast personality with programming. Most important, the story has a huge heart. When it’s ending and the final words are rolling, you will clench your fist, you will stand, and you will cheer.

Science fiction, fantasy or horror, this novella is what speculative fiction is all about—highest marks.

full story list

Subterranean Press has really assembled something special in this 600 page behemoth. The kind of fiction David Weber presents here shines a bright light, and should sit proudly next to your all time favorites.

There’s a whole, weird, cyberpunk world ahead of us, and sooner or later we’ll turn this planet into Cybertron if we can survive long enough. But survival continues to be a problem and it’s getting worse, as is to be expected when you have a bunch of power mad, libido driven, barely conscious apes running amok in a nuclear facility with blinking red end-of-the-world buttons in every office. Nevertheless, this kind of high concept, emotionally charged speculative fiction is encouraging. We can do this.

4 stars

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Thanks, I may ask you for that spreadsheet one of these days.

I have:

Black Country
Free Dirt
Night Rider
Selected Stories
The Beautiful People

Once i get through those I may need to look for more.

Great stuff there, for sure. I thought "Black Country" and The Beautiful People were both excellent, "Night Rider" was good and was "Free Dirt" was OK, but having read more Beaumont now I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the old ratings start to creep up when I get to the stories again.

In Selected Stories, wait until you hit "Fair Lady," "Last Rites" or "Perchance to Dream." I'm jealous you get to read these for the first time, no joke.

If you end up wanting the spreadsheet I uploaded it at the end of the old Mass for Mixed Voices review on my site so you can view or download it there. It may look ugly but functions well enough when you apply filters.

[bugen]

I love your website Andrew! Very cool indeed!!

Thanks, Tommy! I'm still tweaking things, but think I've got it set up now so folks can leave comments anonymously. I always hated in when I saw a site and a post I wanted to talk about but was asked to register first.