Book Reviews

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Ellison Wonderland – Harlan Ellison

“There is no home, if there is no rest. There is no rest if there is no Home.”

Yesterday morning I was in the middle of an upcoming novel from one of my favorite publishers and somehow got sidetracked into reading Neil Gaiman’s introduction to Harlan Ellison’s The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World. I still haven’t read that particular collection, had no intention of reading it at then and couldn’t tell you the precise steps that led to that introduction, but when you surround yourself with books and follow the rabbit-hole that sort of thing happens. Soon I found myself reading “Commuter’s Problem” from an entirely different collection, this one. And I couldn’t stop. Like that commercial in The Simpsons, “I don't know what's in 'em; I just know I can't stop smoking 'em.”

Story after story pounds the brain, and I repeatedly found myself at the point where I needed to stop, reflect on what I’d read. Slow down for Christ’s sake, they’ll be there tomorrow. So I did, and picked it back up today, and they continued to pound.

Right off the bat we get “Commuter’s Problem” and get hit directly in the face with the type of force this guy is going to bring to the table over his career in speculative fiction, where a man accidentally finds his way onto a subway that wasn’t meant for him and learns a few things about our universe.

Next is the superb “Do-It-Yourself” (with Joe L. Hensley), where a wife, sick to death of her husband, receives her mail-order Do-It-Yourself Murder Kit and goes about trying to follow the instructions to get rid of the man.

Then “The Silver Corridor” where two statesmen are locked in illusory combat in a corridor that allows the courage of their respective convictions to decide the winner while the loser dies.

A few stories later comes another topper, “The Sky is Burning,” where people on Earth are dying as meteor-like objects are falling through the atmospheres of all the planets of our solar system. But they’re not meteors, and they have a message.

“The Wind Beyond the Mountains” is told mostly from the perspective of an alien race experiencing first contact with visiting Man, here’s a commentary on our necessity to wander, spread, to never be content with what we have at home.

Other amazing stories were “Hadj” and “In Lonely Lands,” commentaries on religion and friendship, respectively. And those were just my favorites in a book filled with highlights.

This is already a long review so I've hidden the synopses for the rest, but besides the already listed highlights everyone should really read the stories “Mealtime,” “Battlefield,” “The Very Last Day of a Good Woman” and “Back to the Drawing Board” (for those who read on Kindle).

Spoiler!

“All the Sounds of Fear” – A stage actor submerges himself in the lifestyles of the subjects of upcoming roles and is well-rewarded for his top-notch method acting but takes it too far.

“Gnomebody” – A hip cat is kicked off the track team and stumbles across a gnome who he thinks will grant his wishes.

“Mealtime” – Racial parallels galore, here we have men traveling the cosmos mapping planets when the crew of 3 stumbles across something new, showing us there’s no such thing as better until all the facts are known, until all angles have been considered, and since neither will ever happen everyone should just STFU.

“The Very Last Day of a Good Woman” – 44-year-old Arthur knows the world is about to end, he’s seen it. And he doesn’t want to die a virgin.

“Battlefield” – Mankind has decided to settle its differences with war on the moon instead of ripping up the Earth, and every Monday the Black army and the White army gets into vehicles to travel up and every Friday the survivors come back down for the weekend. It’s war as an occupation and the point is well made.

“Deal from the Bottom” – Maxim Hirt’s an idiot, and when his career in showbiz fizzles he commits a crime that lands him on death row where he accidentally summons a demon ready to make a deal.

“Back to the Drawing Boards” (this story was not in the original release nor is it the PS version. Kindle version includes it and it’s also in another collection) - An inventor gives birth to AI, and the military takes it over to use it on a mission to explore outer space, but before launch the inventor modifies some circuitry and gives the machine free will.

“Are You Listening?” (this story was is the original release and the PS version. Kindle version does not include it) – Mr. Winsocki wakes one day to find the world cannot see him. He is physically present but everyone ignores him, even when he punches them or throws them out of elevators.

“Nothing For My Noon Meal” – When his spaceship is destroyed and his wife killed a man is stranded on a strange planet with very little oxygen and evolution springs forward to help him adapt.

“Hadj” – Humans have finally been visited by the Masters of the Universe, who have asked for a single representative of Earth. After an exhaustive process one man is chosen, a man who had bent the entire planet to his will, to travel to the alien world and speak on our behalf.

“Rain, Rain, Go Away” – A man in a mundane job where he’s not appreciated repeats the title song to himself whenever it rains, and sometimes it feels as if he’s really pushing it back.

“In Lonely Lands” – Pederson is dying, waiting for the Gray Man to come and take him away. He’s gone blind in his old age and is alone until an alien comes along and befriends him, becoming a valued companion for his remaining few years.

Unless written by the author and it’s the book's initial publication I usually avoid Introductions the first time reading new collections. I almost always read them the second time through. This can be controversial, and lots of folks will say I’m wasting some of the book’s production value and they’re correct if I never give the book a second read. But if the heart of a book isn’t good enough to warrant a second read why would I want to read what someone else thinks of it? And if it is good enough to pick up a second time, I’ll read the Intro’s then, so they’re not really wasted, right? Well that’s all good and logical but the real reason I ignore Intro’s on the first read is sometimes other writers talk about key story points as if everyone’s already read them, including spoiling endings.

This excellent, PS Publishing version of Ellison Wonderland has over 130 pages of introduction, and I skipped it all except Mr. Ellison’s original 4-pager. A good part of the book has been ignored in doing so, but it won’t be the next time, and there will be a next time. The Afterward by Josh Olson was outstanding, and his story about his 9^th grade English teacher handing him Ellison Wonderland was touching and a perfect way to end this potent collection.

These were early works and language and technique was further refined in his career, but this book ripples with raw power. Even more-so than later, “better” works. So what if it’s not honed to a razor’s edge? Blunt force can still do massive damage. This was my 6^th book of his short stories, and that list includes the lauded Deathbird Stories and Shatterday, both of which are show-stopping, breathtaking collections. But this one might be my favorite. He improves form later on, but that’s just gravy. You can tell from this collection he really didn’t need to, already serving gold. And shame on the editors who turned him away before he became THE Harlan Ellison®. You guys nearly cost the entire planet something beautiful.

In the world of speculative fiction Mr. Ellison is a tornado, a fiery death-ball with messages to everyone, especially those too stubborn to open their eyes and realize we’re in big trouble. And here’s where he was born.

“Night had come to the lonely lands; night, but not darkness.”

4 stars

*props to PS Publishing for an exemplary edition, worthy of the author
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Man Drowning – Henry Kuttner

“The first step, I thought. After this I can't go back. I've made the first move and it leads right on to the last."

Nick Banning, traveling east, stumbles across a well-off, eccentric couple on a ranch outside of Phoenix. He accepts a job as a kind of handyman for the couple alongside their two servants, partly because his ex-wife now lives and works in the city. Sherry left Nick for a reason, his temper and his propensity for letting it get him into trouble, but if he can just scrape together the money Sherry needs to get her start in showbiz he might still have a chance with her.

This is a short book, barely novel length, and reads quickly. It’s not a mystery but carries that dark, gumshoe feel we associate with noir as Nick finds his way into violent situations over the course of trying to win Sherry back. The two servants are oddly withdrawn but friendly enough, and the owners of the ranch, the Count and Countess, are bizarre creatures straight from an asylum—the kind of characters that are well developed enough to be both unsettling and unknowable.

The last 20 or 30 pages ratchet up both the action and insightful writing to the point many of my favorite lines were from the end of the story. In fact, while I enjoyed the read all of the way through, it’s really the ending that firmly situated the book into "very good" territory for me.

Man Drowning was lean and fast, intimate and violent without being over-the-top, and its characters were just far enough outside of crazy to be real. Noir fans are going to find a lot to like here.

“You’re all alone, on the desert, under the sky. It takes quite a while, sometimes, to find out that there’s only one person on earth. Only one real person alive. Yourself.”

3+ stars

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[Dave1442397]

Thank you, Brian. And Dave, I'm currently trying to figure out whether or not to finish out the trilogy now by the third book's release date or dive all the way back into short stories. I've managed to get my hands on some great collections and am really itching to take each for a spin. Sometimes I feel like Henry Bemis from that Twilight Zone episode.

Yeah, I know what you mean. My kindle never seems to drop below 200 books, and I delete them as soon as I read them. The physical to-read pile is a lot smaller, maybe five books that I need to get to.

[bugen]

Thank you, Brian. And Dave, I'm currently trying to figure out whether or not to finish out the trilogy now by the third book's release date or dive all the way back into short stories. I've managed to get my hands on some great collections and am really itching to take each for a spin. Sometimes I feel like Henry Bemis from that Twilight Zone episode.

[Dave1442397]

The Passage - Justin Cronin

It's a complex, largely adventurous book and has a number of intense scenes of horror I’m thinking will be more frequent in the final two volumes. Mr. Cronin draws vivid, scary pictures that will burn into your brain when the virals are present. And these are the true monsters vampires were before they were neutered over the last few decades—the kind of monsters if you see, you’re already dead.

I liked that one too. I found the second book to be slow and plodding, and I was disappointed with it. The third book was much better. I found myself tearing through it in a day, and was much happier with it.

[Brian861]

Another great review, Andrew! Can't wait to get to this one. I'm so far behind on my reading. Ugh!!

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The Passage - Justin Cronin

“It’s all over, isn’t it, Amy?” He looked down at the girl’s sleeping form and gently touched her hand. “Over at last.”
Wolgast could stand it no more. “What’s over?”
Lear lifted his face; his eyes were full of tears.
“Everything.”

Vampires. If I somehow get duped into reading one more book where the smart, rebellious young girl falls hopelessly in love with the tough but misunderstood vampire I’m going to stake someone. But this isn't that kind of novel.

At well over 300,000 words, major thematic sections make this first book in the trilogy feel much like three separate novels itself. The first section is a modern experiment where a particularly interesting virus is discovered deep in a jungle. The project is quickly militarized and human subjects, mostly career criminals on death row, are given a chance to live past their upcoming death sentences if they’ll voluntarily participate. The experiment is huge, expensive and disastrous.

The second section, 100 years after the events in section one, is much like the Wool novels but significantly slower, where a post-apocalyptic group of survivors eke out existence in a small, enclosed community while the rest of the world is presumed destroyed. But lives in this self-contained community are soon to change as a key component to the power source they’ve been depending on for the last century is about to fail. And it’s nearly impossible for them to set foot outside the walls of the community because of the monsters, called virals, roving the country at night.

The third section mainly uses a handful of the characters from the second and chronicles a journey from an entrenched habitat in California back to where the story began in Colorado. Action is bumped back up again and this feels much more akin to the first part of the book and also has the kind of pioneering spirit you find in westerns.

My takeaway is there are three major working emotions tied to the novel, each to a main section. The first is excitement, building to a fever as the stage is set. The agents running around picking up the prisoners are especially likeable and easy to relate to, getting you involved in the story quickly. But even the facility caretakers, and the prisoners themselves, take root nicely.

The second is really a kind of bored frustration as the story sags under the weight of introducing a slew of new characters in desolate, somewhat hopeless existences. The day-to-day seems petty compared to the overall scope we’re expecting from a book like this but the stark contrast with the rapid-fire first section may also have played a role in perceiving things slowing down.

And in the third movement, the journey with a strong sense of adventure where our characters are put to the test, I finally fell a little in love with the story—a deeper, affectionate appreciation. It's not a point A to B journey, either, but has constant obstacles cropping up that keep the characters second-guessing. I devoured the first section, plodded through the second and savored the third.

It's a complex, largely adventurous book and has a number of intense scenes of horror I’m thinking will be more frequent in the final two volumes. Mr. Cronin draws vivid, scary pictures that will burn into your brain when the virals are present. And these are the true monsters vampires were before they were neutered over the last few decades—the kind of monsters if you see, you’re already dead.

“Lacey felt no fear, only wonder at the magnificent workings of God. That He should make a being so perfect in his design, fit to devour a world.”

4- stars

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[bugen]

Thanks Dave, I really appreciate that. And thanks for posting the great pics!

[Dave1442397]

The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury

“Amoebas cannot sin because they reproduce by fission. They do not covet wives or murder each other. Add sex to amoebas, add arms and legs, and you would have murder and adultery.”

Today it came to my attention I’ve approached Ray Bradbury like an idiot, which doesn’t surprise me because it’s from that same direction I’ve approached all kinds of things. Most of my experience with the celebrated author has come from more modern anthologies often using tales that don’t properly represent him. Cheaper tales, maybe. I allowed those stories to form an initial opinion of the writer as well as dictate the urgency for his main works to be read. That was a mistake, and I understand I’m possibly the last person on these boards to have read this.

The Martian Chronicles consists of a series of short stories stitched together to form a cohesive whole, which I’d heard is ‘greater than the sum of its parts’ and I agree. The version of the book I read is the updated one, changing dates to be more futuristic for the modern reader and removing the tale “Way in the Middle of the Air” for PC sensibilities (don’t get me started) which I tracked down and placed back into its proper order after “Musicians.” In 1997 when this tale was removed from the collection and all story dates were moved out 31 additional years two other shorts were added in, “The Fire Balloons” and “The Wilderness.” All are considered here.

At the beginning mankind has perfected rocketry and launched a series of expeditions to Mars, which is a surprise to the Martians because their scientists had always told them that the atmosphere on Earth was too oxygen-rich to support life.

The first couple of humans meet opposition all too familiar to us today. The next aren’t believed to be Earthlings and try to prove themselves to the inhabitants. The third has humanity revealing some of the weaknesses that caused people to want to abandon Earth in the first place. Martian and man meet at the same time while thousands of years apart. Inhabitants realize colonization is inevitable and retreat. Man exerts his will on the planet, removing signs of previous ownership. These are some of the stories, and familiar characters weave in and out throughout the book.

Overall it’s a kind of Wild West on Mars as people on Earth rush to escape war, poverty and oppression and take their chances on new lives. But man will be man, and most of the heavier thinkers among the early pioneers know that it’s only a matter of time, maybe 100 years, before all earthly problems have migrated to the new world.

And that’s what happens. And that’s the point. We can’t escape ourselves, ever, and while man is capable of breeding individuals with the drive to change, to do good works, eventually the sheer weight, volume and volume of humans drowns out sense. No one has yet solved this problem on our world today, and Mr. Bradbury knew this and wrote about it. This book is an examination of those foibles, the issues that keep us from being better than we are even when we give it everything we’ve got. But there’s hope. Every time one of us does something good, something that makes the world just a little bit better there’s a little bit more hope, and I guess that sounds cheesy but it’s still about the most important thing we can do. Will it help? Will we survive? We can hope.

Great review! In fact, all of your reviews are great I just got a copy of this book from The Folio Society (along with 2001, A Space Odyssey). I haven't read either of these since the '80s, and I'm looking forward to reading them again. I had never ordered a book from TFS, and I was curious to see how well made they were. The slipcases are nothing special, but they do a good job of protecting the books. The books themselves are well constructed, and I like the new introductions and artwork. For around $50 each, I'm happy with them.

Some shots of the book:
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This is a pic from 1983, when The Martian Chronicles was on TV back in Ireland. We didn't even have a VCR back then, so I had to book the TV ahead of time and bar the rest of my family from their normal viewing

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[jigertz]

Nice review bugen! I agree that Palahniuk can be extremely offensive and almost mean-spirited in some of his work but there's something about how he does it that makes me forgive him every time. There are other stories that are worth reading from Haunted that are less severe than those two. Some of them are actually very funny.

I don't know what that teacher was thinking letting his class read "Guts". I would have been furious if my kid came home from school and told me they had read "Guts". Mainly because I wanted to read it to them first!

I am a huge Palahniuk fan, and I think Haunted is a brilliant satire, especially since some of the methods a satirist uses are shock and grotesquerie. Things like The Onion and The Daily Show have caused us to think that satire is all about humor, but that isn't the case. I think that something like "Guts" has a quality like American Psycho--it makes us think because we get so disgusted and disturbed by it that we're forced to stop for awhile. Satire is supposed to shock us out of complacency, and I'd say Palahniuk consistently does that.

All that being said, I read Haunted when it first came out, and it was my first Palahniuk book. I remember having no idea what was up with that guy. But after reading all of his other books, when I reread Haunted a few years ago, I was blown away. It's actually near the top of my TB(re)R pile now.

[Tommy]

Well, I’ve now checked out both “Guts” and “Exodus,” skipped everything else from Palahniuk’s Haunted, and have a couple of things to say.

First, Tommy, repped. And I need to rep more people, but same to you, Theli, as just based on these two stories alone I can see where you’re coming from. These things are pretty sick, and no, they don’t represent huge portions of our society like I feel some of Mr. Palahiuk’s other works do. Although “Exodus” masquerades like it does and is a strong story, it’s not fair to judge all of us like it does by proxy with the detectives. I’m not sure reading this whole novel/collection is worth it and will probably save time by skipping it, at least for now.

But back to Tommy, I really appreciate you calling these two particular stories out. I read a little about “Guts” before picking it up and according to Wikipedia the count is now up to 73 people who have fainted at public readings, and a teacher in New York was suspended for letting his 11^th grade class read it. And the three instances in the story are all supposedly based on true events.

Like the first couple of sentences say, “Inhale. Take in as much air as you can.” By the end of “Guts” I don’t know how long I’d been holding my breath or if I’d just been breathing shallowly, but there was a marked change after finishing—I certainly hadn’t been breathing normally.

“Guts” IS NOT for all horror fans and is available free online but I’m not linking it here. It’s truly disturbing and I’d expect a ton of people to have nuclear-powered reactions. It’s tough to recommend to anyone but explorers looking for the edge and it pushed me out of my comfort zone. I'm glad I read it as well as "Exodus."

Thank you guys again for your comments.

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*Most of the other pics I found for this story are pretty nasty and there's no way I'm posting them here

Nice review bugen! I agree that Palahniuk can be extremely offensive and almost mean-spirited in some of his work but there's something about how he does it that makes me forgive him every time. There are other stories that are worth reading from Haunted that are less severe than those two. Some of them are actually very funny.

I don't know what that teacher was thinking letting his class read "Guts". I would have been furious if my kid came home from school and told me they had read "Guts". Mainly because I wanted to read it to them first!

[bugen]

Well, I’ve now checked out both “Guts” and “Exodus,” skipped everything else from Palahniuk’s Haunted, and have a couple of things to say.

First, Tommy, repped. And I need to rep more people, but same to you, Theli, as just based on these two stories alone I can see where you’re coming from. These things are pretty sick, and no, they don’t represent huge portions of our society like I feel some of Mr. Palahiuk’s other works do. Although “Exodus” masquerades like it does and is a strong story, it’s not fair to judge all of us like it does by proxy with the detectives. I’m not sure reading this whole novel/collection is worth it and will probably save time by skipping it, at least for now.

But back to Tommy, I really appreciate you calling these two particular stories out. I read a little about “Guts” before picking it up and according to Wikipedia the count is now up to 73 people who have fainted at public readings, and a teacher in New York was suspended for letting his 11^th grade class read it. And the three instances in the story are all supposedly based on true events.

Like the first couple of sentences say, “Inhale. Take in as much air as you can.” By the end of “Guts” I don’t know how long I’d been holding my breath or if I’d just been breathing shallowly, but there was a marked change after finishing—I certainly hadn’t been breathing normally.

“Guts” IS NOT for all horror fans and is available free online but I’m not linking it here. It’s truly disturbing and I’d expect a ton of people to have nuclear-powered reactions. It’s tough to recommend to anyone but explorers looking for the edge and it pushed me out of my comfort zone. I'm glad I read it as well as "Exodus."

Thank you guys again for your comments.

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*Most of the other pics I found for this story are pretty nasty and there's no way I'm posting them here

[bugen]

Thanks to both of you guys for weighing in and Tommy for the list. I can say I’m about ¼ through the collection Make Something Up, loving it, and will probably write about it here when finished unless it takes a huge downturn.

[Tommy]

"Guts" is a stunning piece of work and the best part of Haunted in my opinion. I did not like all the stories in Haunted but the ones I did have never left me. "Exodus" is also really disturbing. The connective story of the writers' retreat did not work that well for me and I think the book would have been better if it had simply been a collection of short stories.

My favorite Palahniuks are Invisible Monsters, Fight Club, Survivor, Lullaby and Choke.

[Theli]

Fair point! Thanks for the recommendation. I also kind of do that, read novellas or collections to break up longer reads, especially series. I don't want to take a huge break and lose track, but it's sometimes nice to have a respite.