Cheaper Ironies

Books I'm Looking Forward to in 2012

2011-12-27T18:15:00.000-08:00

SFGate.com has already posted my list of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2011. So, what books am I eagerly awaiting in the coming year? Here's a short list, a mix of crime and sff/horror:

1. Liminal People by Ayize Jama-Everett (January)
Small Beer Press seems to be pushing this one hard, and Jama-Everett is currently local to the Bay Area, so I'm intrigued. A mix of thriller, science fiction and superhero saga, the novel doesn't seem to lend itself to easy description.

2. The Chalk Girl by Carol O'Connell (January)
O'Connell's feral cop Mallory was kicking ass and taking names long before that girl with the dragon tattoo arrived. Glad she's coming back for further adventures after a brief hiatus in the series.

3. The Mirage by Matt Ruff (February)
Ruff's "Set This House in Order" is one of my favorite novels of psychological dissociation, and I like his "Bad Monkeys" quite a lot. His latest sounds mightily ambitious and is set in an alternate Middle East after Christian fundamentalists have flown jetliners into the Tigris & Euphrates World Trade Towers in Baghdad. Yikes.

4. The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett (February)
Bennett's "The Company Man" was my most pleasant surprise of 2011. I've described it as similar to an "X-Files" episode written by Clifford Odets. I can't wait to see what he's up to next.

5. Hide Me Among the Graves by Tim Powers (March)
Powers never fails to surprise and amuse. Details are unclear, but this new novel seems to be about vampires and painters in the mid-1800s. We'll see.

6. Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway (March)
Harkaway's first novel, "The Gone-Away World," was smart and ambitious, but didn't seem to take off in the U.S. as I thought it might. Now he's back with a book about clockmakers, doomsday devices and superspies.

7. Point and Shoot by Duane Swierczynski (March)
The conclusion of Swierczynski's paperback-original Hollywood trilogy. Should be a blast.

8. Poison Flower by Thomas Perry (March)
Perrry is one of the most consistent crime writers in the business, and his Jane Whitefield novels are always good to great.

9. The Wind through the Keyhole by Stephen King (April)
Another chapter in the Dark Tower sequence, this time featuring a tale-within-a-tale.

10. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 2009 by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill (June-ish)
It's been a long time coming, but the concluding installment of the third series promises to be suitably apocalyptic.

What I Learned from NaNoWriMo 2011

2011-12-05T10:07:00.001-08:00

The big take-away: I SUCK at this.

That may sound unduly harsh, but it's the truth, so I might as well put it out there. And it's nothing to be ashamed of, I guess. It's just that I now have empirical data proving that I'm not the kind of writer who can extrude 50,000 words of fiction in a 30-day period. Especially not a 30-day period that includes: a cross-country family vacation; the preparation of college applications by a stressed-out offspring; a national holiday that encourages, nay, demands time away from the keyboard; three-and-a-half work weeks filled with International Auto Show goodness; multiple freelance deadlines; a suddenly unpredictable water heater that mocked my limited do-it-yourself skills (it's fixed now); and assorted annoyances and distractions too penny-ante to mention here.

Not to mention the pre-Yuletide funk that arrives with the realization that another year is ending and that, no, you're not going to write that 50,000-word piece of fiction.

Ah, well. It was worth a shot. I did accomplish some useful outlining, fleshed out some characters in my mind, got a handle on the setting. And I did post some nifty writing-related and/or inspirational links that I and others found interesting. Here are most of them, all in one place.

Write a novel in three days, the Michael Moorcock way
Write a novel in two months
Paradigm shifts in publishing
Practical writing tips from 23 "brilliant" authors
Brutal tips for breaking into comics
How to be a sideshow talker
Carny Dog
The Cult of Done Manifesto
Cut your word-count by 10%
Try something new for 30 days
Adventures in self-publishing
Why should anybody care about your novel?
Kurt Vonnegut is told "No, thanks" for early Dresden article
Research a novel the Greg Rucka Way

Why I'm Participating in NaNoWriMo 2011

2011-10-29T05:06:00.000-07:00

Being the cynical cuss that I am, I generally look askance at online group activities such as National Novel Writing Month. I mean, c'mon. Who honestly thinks they can write a publishable 50,000-word novel in 30 days? I'm not some precious urban hipster who has the time to don his pork pie hat and clear-lensed horn-rimmed glasses and spend the day noodling around on his Apple Air at the local Starbucks. I'm a writing professional, man!

But I've had a change of heart this year, and I've signed up for NaNoWriMo (*shudder*), as it's known. Why?

1. Whatever I produce will most likely not be 50,000 words long or a novel or publishable. And I'm cool with that.
I'm trying to get over worrying about what kind of writer I'm "supposed" to be and instead just explore what kind of writer I actually am. I know -- how Zen of me. But I can see the value of charging through a first draft, letting the proverbial chips fall where they may, not stressing about where I'm heading but going as far as I can as fast as I can. Even if I only complete 5,000 words, that's more than I've got right now.

And if I do succeed in finishing a real manuscript at some unspecified point in time and I'm sufficiently pleased with it to send it off into the world, it will be published, even if only on the Kindle or the iPad or whatever device the cool kids are using in the future.

2. NaNoWriMo has a better track record than I do.
Number of years NaNoWriMo has been in business = 12
Number of novels I've produced in the past 12 years = 0

3. I have a workable idea for a short book.
What I have in mind isn't particularly innovative or grandiose. But it's intriguing and unusual and fits within the parameters of existing marketing categories. It's not like I'm striving to one-up Nabokov's "Pale Fire" over four consecutive weekends. Gotta have perspective.

4. I want to have some fun.
Remember what it was like to roll a fresh sheet of 20-pound stock into a vibrating electric typewriter and let your imagination run free while your stubby little sausage-fingers struggled to keep up, so intense was the outpouring of sprightly prose? Yeah, neither do I. But there have been plenty of times when I've enjoyed the creative process, from the grubby mechanics of grammar to the endorphin high of watching plot points snap together with a satisfying 'Snik!' And I want some more of that, please.

5. The world could use a novel entitled "Squidface."
Need I say more?

So there you go, boys and girls, my plan for the month of November. It's not perfect. The month is short already, Thanksgiving is in there somewhere and I've got a kid applying to colleges right now. Whee!

But each day, I'll endeavor to post on Twitter and Facebook links to sites that I'm finding particularly inspirational or germane to the task at hand. You can follow along and imagine what I'm constructing, as well as read enticing synopses and excerpts (one hopes). I'll also post my running word-count, so that you can cheer/jeer as you see fit. Carpe deum. Que sera, sera. And all that.

Happy (*grits teeth*) NaNoWriMo!

Mommas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Book Critics

2011-10-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

I used to write a lot of fiction. I didn't publish a lot of fiction, but I wrote it. I even finished a horror novel in the late 1980s, one about voudoun in the San Francisco Bay Area. That's right, I was 20 years ahead of the Shambling Dead Curve, all you zombies-come-lately!

Too bad the novel wasn't very good. A couple editors and a handful of agents looked at it and politely passed. They knew what they were doing.

And then a funny thing happened. I started writing lots of book reviews and other non-fiction pieces and got paid for every single one of them. This was on top of my 9-to-5 job as a marketing copywriter, where I wrote in-paper ads, sales collateral and TV and radio spots, plus edited a weekly automotive section.

Then I had kids. The fiction output dwindled down to nothing and finally dried up entirely.

Correlation is not causality.

There are plenty of writers out there who manage to raise a family, work a day job and produce a steady tide of novels and short stories. I guess I just ain't one of them. This used to cause me a fair amount of distress, but not so much anymore.

I've come to the conclusion that the biggest drag on my fiction writing isn't the kids, isn't the day job, isn't the crippling ironies of a godless universe. It's just that, as I've become more confident in my critical abilities, I've become less sure of my talent as a storyteller.

Thanks to a quarter-century of reviewing, I now have a better grasp of what it takes to produce a good book or story. And how much more it takes to be noticed for having published said piece of fiction. I sit amid piles and piles of ARCs and finished books and know that I won't crack the spines of ten percent of them. And they aren't even a tenth of the other unread books stacked in the basement.

The book critic that lives in my own head asks, "Who the hell are you to think about writing a novel? Do you know how much work that takes? Do you really think you have the chops for it? And if you do publish anything, why do you think anyone would notice?"

I'm making more of an effort these days to shut that guy up. He's become a bore, even to me. In recent months, I've completed a short story and a one-act play.

It's a start. I've got plans for more projects.

The great thing about the web is that there is such an abundance of good advice about storytelling to be found on it, if you know where to look. If you're interested in science fiction, fantasy, horror and fiction in general, you should check out Making Light. It's always worth a look and often features truly invaluable advice, such as this four-item formula for turning story into fiction.

Books You Oughta Read -- Sondheim & Co.

2011-10-18T22:59:00.000-07:00

My son is currently performing in a youth theater production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's musical, "Merrily We Roll Along." Parental pride aside, it's a first-rate show, with strong leads, a lively ensemble and a truly excellent orchestra. See it, if you live in the East Bay and have a spare couple of hours. Tickets are available through Brown Bag Tickets.

The real point of this post, however, is to spotlight one of my favorite books about Sondheim in particular and musical theater in general. The second edition of Craig Zadan's "Sondheim & Co.," published in 1986, follows the career of the legendary composer/lyricist from "By George," the school musical he wrote with two classmates, through the first steps toward "Into the Woods." It's smart and thorough and dishy, written by an insightful show-biz insider. Zadan began his career as an investigative reporter but served as Director of Theater Projects for Joe Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival and co-produced "Sondheim: A Musical Tribute" on Broadway. He also co-produced the original film version of "Footloose." He knows what he's talking about.

"Sondheim & Co." has plenty of anecdotes about "Company," "West Side Story," "Follies" and so on, but it's unusual in that, in addition to the usual chronological account of successes and failures, it also contains chapters on the aspects of professional musical theater that are sometimes overlooked. Zadan details how casting, musical direction, orchestration and poster art each add to or detract from a production as a whole. It's easy to think that a show is only about its songs and libretto, but Zadan expertly punctures that myth.

The book's chapter about "Merrily We Roll Along" is a good case in point. It's a sobering account of how even seasoned professionals like Sondheim, Furth and director Harold Prince can persist in making one mistake after another and ruin what looks like a sure thing. "Merrily" ran only 16 performances in its original Broadway production. Audiences and critics hated the costumes, the scenery, the dancing, the eager-yet-unseasoned cast, the modular score and the way the plot moves in reverse. Zadan methodically recounts how every wrong turn was made.

"Merrily" has been significantly revised since 1981. Even if there probably aren't many people out there who rank it as their favorite Sondheim musical, the score is lovely and clever and the story can be quite affecting in the right hands. (See above.)

Either edition of "Sondheim & Co." is hard to find these days, but copies are well worth hunting down. I wish Zadan would take time out from his big-shot Hollywood producer duties and produce a third edition bringing Sondheim enthusiasts up to date with "Bounce."

One caveat about the second edition: my hardcover copy seems to have been bound with sparrow spit or something. It lasted only one gentle reading before splitting into 200 individual sheets. I plan to keep it no matter what, but it's insanely difficult to browse through.

Off-the-Cuff Review: "Satori" by Don Winslow

2011-03-07T06:37:00.000-08:00

As I noted in my last "Books You Oughta Read" post, Trevanian's thriller "Shibumi" is not a novel that cries out for a follow-up. It's been more than 30 years since the book's publication, and the narrative arc of its protagonist, master assassin and Go player Nicholai Hel, ends quite decisively in its denouement.

Now, however, there's "Satori," "based on Trevanian's 'Shibumi'" and written by Don Winslow. Winslow, author of "Savages," "The Dawn Patrol" and other well-regarded crime novels is not the first name to pop to mind as a natural successor to Trevanian, aka Rodney Whitaker, the film studies professor who wrote "The Eiger Sanction," "The Summer of Katya" and other best-sellers. "Satori" is not a sequel, nor even a prequel, to "Shibumi," but is set within the quarter-century of Hel's life that his creator did not choose to dramatize.

"Satori" opens in 1951, just as Hel is released from the Japanese prison where he has spent three years in near-total isolation after killing his mentor/father-figure (an act of mercy, rather than of malice.) The CIA chooses to spring him with the proviso that he travel to Mao's China and assassinate the Soviet commissioner. Hel takes the assignment, falls in love his beautiful instructor Solange and adopts the identity of a French arms dealer. Once in Beijing, he discovers that his target, Voroshenin, has connections to his own childhood back in Shanghai, which makes the mission slightly more palatable.

The ingenuity of the original "Shibumi" lay in its being simultaneously an edge-of-your-seat thriller and a satirical commentary of the very same thing. It's a difficult mode to master. While taking a much some straight-forward narrative strategy,Winslow does a pretty good job of it. His version of Hel, about 25 years younger than in the main action of "Shibumi," isn't quite as standoffish and world-weary, but there's a good measure of cynical humor at play. Most of the call-backs to the earlier book work well, although the character who will go on to become "The Gnome" in "Shimbumi" oddly has the speech patterns of another supporting character in that novel.

I can't decide how I would feel about "Satori" if I came to it cold. Even without his full back-story, Hel is a fun character, adept as he is at hoda korusa, "the naked kill," and employing his extraordinary "proximity sense" to locate danger in total darkness. In Winslow's hands, "Satori" has good character work, a twisty plot and some excellent scene-setting.

It's clear that more installments of the Hel saga will be forthcoming. For the moment, anyway, I'm along for the ride.

Comics Review -- "iZombie: Dead to the World" by Roberson and Allred

2011-02-28T06:20:00.000-08:00

At this point, the living and/or walking dead hold almost no interest for me. Over the past five years, I've received more zombie and vampire novels, comics and pop cultural detritus than I can deal with, and still it keeps coming.

There are a few writers, however, that do I trust to do something interesting with the tired old tropes, and Chris Roberson is one of them. I've enjoyed his science fiction, including the novels "Here, There & Everywhere" and "End of the Century." So, when he comes along with a new DC/Vertigo zombie-starring monthly, my interest is piqued, especially when the art is by Michael Allred, the creator of "Madman."

"iZombie" focuses on Gwen Dylan, a gravedigger who also happens to be a zombie, and her friends: Ellie, a girl-ghost stuck in the Sixties; and Scott, aka "Spot," a "were-terrier." Gwen needs to feed on brains, otherwise she'll become a mindless, shambling husk. The trouble is, after a meal she is overwhelmed by the thoughts and emotions of the recently deceased, spurring her to resolve their unfinished business.

There's a very cool "Groovie Ghoulies" vibe about this whole project, and Roberson's dialogue and Allred's art mesh perfectly, creating a welcome balance of humor and horror. Unfortunately, "Dead to the World," which collects only five monthly issues, is mainly set-up. The characters are introduced, including a pair of monster hunters, a pack of female vampires and a resurrected Egyptian mummy. Some plot complications are set in motion, but nothing gets resolved in this initial collection.

Which is fine, given the narrative potential on display here. It's a fun start, and Roberson and Allred have the chops to ferry this story through many more volumes.

Books You Oughta Read -- "Shibumi" by Trevanian

2011-02-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

When I was a college sophomore, I had a conversation with my faculty adviser about popular fiction. She said something like, "Oh, yeah, I have a friend who writes spy novels. He uses the pen name 'Trevanian.'"

Rather than saying, "Holy crap! Tell me more!", I kind of blew her off. Nobody knew the identity of Trevanian, the author of "The Eiger Sanction," "The Loo Sanction" and "The Main." Surely my adviser didn't know what she was talking about.

Well, it's a good bet she did, and because I was a callow dope, I missed any opportunity to be introduced to one of the most secretive best-selling novelists of the past 40 years.

Trevanian was the pseudonym chosen by University of Texas, Austin film professor Rodney Whitaker when he published his first novel, the spy spoof "The Eiger Sanction." Most readers failed to see the satirical nature of the exploits of Jonathan Hemlock, art professor and master assassin (despite villains with names like Yurassis Dragon), so Trevanian upped the ante and made its sequel, "The Loo (think British toilet) Sanction," even more ridiculous. "Loo" proved even more popular with the reading public, and when Trevanian returned to espionage fiction with "Shibumi," he kept but muted the satirical edge and added historical detail and philosophical content that elevated the novel well above the aspirations of its predecessors.

"Shibumi" is an oddly structured thriller. Its protagonist, retired assassin Nicholai Hel, doesn't appear in the first 50 or so pages, and doesn't become an active part of the present-day action for almost another 200. The early chapters are concerned with either exposition provided by the antagonists or flashbacks to Hel's early life in Shanghai and in Japan before and during World War II. Then, there's a long sequence involving Hel mucking around in underground caverns in the Basque mountains. Eventually, as in Go, the classical Japanese board game that Hel has mastered, all the pieces are set in place and the plot moves to its inevitable conclusion.

This narrative strategy really shouldn't work, but it does. Somehow, Trevanian manages to build suspense in unexpected ways, orchestrating set pieces filled with remarkable characters, dazzling action and elegant wit. There's no other spy novel like it.

Rodney Whitaker died in 2005, having published three other novels -- a historical psychological thriller, a revisionist Western and an autobiographical novel about growing up in Albany, NY -- under the Trevanian monicker. In a few weeks, Don Winslow, author of "Savages" and "California Fire and Life," will publish a "prequel" to "Shibumi," and I'll post a review of it. In the meantime, track down the original.

Oscar Predictions 2011

2011-02-22T06:40:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again, when Hollywood goads me into seeing more movies in a month than I see in the other 335 days. In previous years, I was spurred to make predictions by the thought of winning the Oscar pool at my local, independently operated video store. But now they've gone the way of the local blacksmithery and dry goods emporium, so it will be no more free credits for me!

However, I somehow managed, without really thinking about it, to see eight of the 10 contenders for Best Picture. Armed with that many opinions, how can I possibly refrain from voicing them? So, here goes:

Best Supporting Actress
Melissa Leo
I think it's likely to go to Melissa Leo for her work in "The Fighter." It's a brassy, yet nuanced, performance. I don't think Amy Adams from the same movie will be strong enough to split the vote. Leo always comes across as smart, dedicated and personable in her interviews. Besides, she was Kaye on "Homicide"! She therefore deserves whatever fresh acclaim comes her way.

Best Supporting Actor
Christian Bale
Bale is really good as the punch-drunk/cracked-out brother in "The Fighter," another strong performance in an only-so-so picture. He looks like death on toast, and big fluctuations in weight always impress the Academy. Plus, he isn't doing that annoying Batman voice. I don't think there are any other significant contenders in this category, although Geoffrey Rush and Mark Ruffalo both did stellar work in their respective films.

Best Actress
Natalie Portman
I have not yet mustered the energy to see "Black Swan." Just can't seem to generate the necessary enthusiasm for an ornithological ballet freakout with lesbian overtones. But Portman is the front-runner, and she's cute as a button and pregnant, so she's likely to snag the Oscar.

I did see Annette Bening in "The Kids Are All Right." The movie was alternately entertaining and annoying, but I thought she was spot-on in every scene. If not Portman, then definitely Bening!

Best Actor
Colin Firth
No one's betting against Firth, and with good reason. Not even James Franco will come close, even after chewing off his own arm. (That is what happens in "127 Hours," right?) Firth's performance as "Bertie" is impeccable and quite moving. If I had to make a second pick, I would choose Jeff Bridges, but he's not going to take the Oscar two years running.

Best Director
David Fincher
My money's on David Fincher for "The Social Network." C'mon, who really thought that would work so well as a major motion picture? Perhaps the award will go Tom Hooper for "The King's Speech," but I would definitely pick the innovative veteran over the competent newcomer.

Best Picture
The King's Speech
The Academy eats up stuff like this: period pieces about royalty, especially royalty with physical disabilities. It's a fine movie, but "The Social Network" was the film that most entertained and impressed me -- more than "True Grit," more than "Toy Story III." But I'll be shocked if "The King's Speech" doesn't take Best Picture.

Some of the other categories about which I have an opinion include: Best Original Screenplay, "The King's Speech"; Best Adapted Screenplay, "The Social Network"; and Best Documentary, "Inside Job" (because it's the one documentary I've seen this year).

That's it. Now I can go back to ignoring nine-tenths of the upcoming theatrical releases!

Books You Oughta Read -- The Hog Murders by William L. DeAndrea

2011-02-14T06:13:00.000-08:00

That has to be one of the best-designed paperback mystery covers of the Seventies. Look at it. That is one bad-ass swine in a business suit.

William L. DeAndrea made a big splash in the crime genre when he won back-to-back Edgars in 1979 and 1980: a Best First Novel for "Killed in the Ratings" and a Best Paperback Original for "The Hog Murders." DeAndrea went on to publish nearly 20 other novels and won another Edgar for his non-fiction "Encyclopedia Mysteriosa." He died of a rare form of brain cancer in 1996.

Set in upstate New York during a bitter winter, "The Hog Murders" opens with a horrific traffic accident, in which a freeway sign falls on a carload of young women, killing two of them and leaving one badly injured. Within a short span, an old man dies from a fall down a staircase, and small boy is nearly decapitated by a falling icicle. The deaths seems unrelated and accidental -- until the local newspaper starts receiving taunting letters from someone who signs his name as HOG, has information only the killer could know and claims responsibility for each of the murders.

DeAndrea was an enthusiastic fan of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books, and "The Hog Murders" is very much a homage to The Great Detective and his ilk. In this case, the eccentric detective is one Nicolo Benedetti, an elderly professor of philosopher who enjoys flirting with women of a certain age, is a notorious cheapskate and demands as his fee the right to interview the culprit alone for two hours.

As the body count increases, Benedetti and his right-hand man, private investigator Ron Gentry, work with the local cops to catch the killer. At times, it seems as if everyone in the town of Sparta is somehow connected to the deaths; at others, the crimes seem utterly impossible.

"The Hog Murders" isn't a book that rewards re-reading. It's designed to work once and deliver a short, sharp shock at the end. It does so with cleverness and precision. The final line is a stunner, so don't peek.

Comics Review -- "Daytripper" by Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba

2011-02-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba are twin brothers from Sao Paulo, Brazil, with more than 15 years of experience in comics. I wasn't familiar with their work until I picked up the two collected volumes of "The Umbrella Academy," written by Gerard Way. Their ability to depict hyperkinetic surrealism adds a lot to that gonzo superhero series. So I was intrigued when I received the non-superheroic "Daytripper, both written and illustrated by the brothers.

"Daytripper" is a much more somber affair. When we first meet Bras de Oliva Domingos, he's 32 years old, unenthusiastically composing obituaries for a daily newspaper. His stand-offish father is a revered and best-selling writer, and Bras finds it difficult living in the older man's shadow, especially since he wants to write a book of his own. On the way to a black-tie tribute to his father, Bras walks into the wrong bar and comes face-to-face with death in its most concrete form.

The subsequent chapters of "Daytripper" shuttle back and forth in time, presenting a day in Bras's life at 21, at 11, at 38. He falls in love for the first time, loses his best friend, awaits the birth of his son. But each time, the day ends with an unforeseen, often utterly capricious, tragedy.

I'm not sure I would have stuck with "Daytrippers" had I read it as a monthly pamphlet. Across ten issues, ending each chapter with a version of Bras's death begins to feel gimmicky by about Chapter Four. But as the clues begin to pile up, and Bras's continuing encounters with mortality hint of a possible resolution, the narrative becomes clearer and compelling.

"Daytripper" is a trippy, thoughtful piece of Latin-flavored magic realism, serious in intent, but joyous in its details. I'm hyped to see the next Umbrella Academy limited series, but this graphic volume was a welcome side-trip.

First SF Column of 2011 -- Walton, Rickert & Bear

2011-02-07T06:09:00.000-08:00

Always happy to see my byline in The Chronicle or on SFGate.com. This one covers two novels and one story collection: "Among Others" by Jo Walton, "Hull Zero Three" by Greg Bear and "Holiday" by M. Rickert.

All three are worth seeking out, but the real stand-out is "Among Others." I am a big fan of Walton's alternate-World War II thrillers, but her new book is even better. If you love reading -- and reading science fiction and fantasy in particular -- it's a marvelous mix of fantasy and memoir that will remind you of how powerful fiction can be at the right time in your life.

Warren Zevon Should Be 64 Today, Goddamn It

2011-01-23T06:15:00.000-08:00

Note: Warren Zevon's date of birth was 1/24/47. This post went up a day early. Stupid typing fingers. Carry on.

I'm not a big fan of Judd Apatow, and I'm no fan at all of Adam Sandler, but there's a moment in their movie "Funny People" that really moved me. It's when Ira Wright, played by Seth Rogen, is flipping through an iTunes playlist he's made for dissipated comedian George Simmons, played by Sandler. At this point of the movie, George believes he's terminally ill. The two are bantering back and forth, joking about the inappropriateness of Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" and a selection from "Dirty Dancing."

Then Warren Zevon's "Keep Me in Your Heart" comes up. And suddenly, nothing's funny any more, not in the face of that beautiful song written while Zevon was dying from mesothelioma, a kind of lung cancer he believed might have come from playing among the carpet remnants in his father's store when he was a child.

With no dialogue, Rogen and Sandler play the moment perfectly. Faced with Zevon's croaky baritone and poignant lyrics, they're overwhelmed by the song's urgency and with just a few glances convey how it cuts too close to the bone.

OK, boys, now you've got my respect.

I don't think there's a late 20th-century American rock singer/songwriter who speaks to me as deeply as Warren Zevon. He lived hard, screwed up, made a comeback, died too young and was always underrated. I've written about him before, and I don't intend to get all "I bought 'Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School' on vinyl, man!" today.

But if you're unfamiliar with the man's work or know him only from the fun-but-overplayed "Werewolves of London," there's a huge catalogue of great songs by him, just waiting for your discovery. If you're a long-time fan, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Either way, check out some of the clips below.

Excitable Boy

Lawyers, Guns & Money

Part #1 of Zevon's Last Appearance on Letterman

My Shit's Fucked Up

Keep Me in Your Heart

Books You Oughta Read -- "Set This House in Order"

2011-01-21T06:00:00.000-08:00

I'm a sucker for a good story about multiple personality disorder. Or, as I've learned that it's now called, dissociative identity disorder.

The best non-fiction account on the subject that I've read is "When Rabbit Howls," by Truddi Chase and the Troops. The best depiction of the disorder in a comic book has to be in Grant Morrison's "Doom Patrol" (whose super-heroine with MPD, Crazy Jane, really kindled my interest in the topic).

The best novel I've read about MPD/DID has to be "Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls," published by Matt Ruff in 2003. It's a marvelously constructed book: smart, heartfelt and full of surprises.

"Born" only two years before the story begins, Andy Gage is the alternate personality that deals with the outside world, with more than 100 other souls hidden away in the imaginary house he's constructed within his head. Through his workplace, he meets Penny Driver, another multiple, one who doesn't quite suspect that she has any alternate personalities. When some of her souls ask Andy for help, he finds himself vulnerable to his own long-suppressed secrets, ones that threaten to destroy the safe interior landscape he's built for himself.

It's hard to write about something as complicated and as emotionally fraught as DID, which usually has its origins in horrific childhood abuse. But Ruff manages to suggest the impact of Andy's and Penny's backstories without letting them become grotesque and exploitative when finally revealed. The novel's subtitle marks, I think, an important distinction. "Set This House in Order" is ultimately a hopeful book, one that overrides the seeming outlandishness of its premise and reveals something true about identity and love.

Ruff, by the way, is also the author of "Bad Monkeys," another twisty tale of identity, which I reviewed favorably in my Chronicle column back in 2007. If you haven't yet discovered him, you're missing out.

Review -- "Mr. Toppit" by Charles Elton

2011-01-19T08:07:00.000-08:00

I have a soft spot for novels about adult children who have been screwed up by the artistic legacies of their famous fathers. Jonathan Carroll's "The Land of Laughs" is one of the best of that bunch, and I'm now enjoying "The Unwritten," the Vertigo Comics series written by Mike Carey.

So when I saw "Mr. Toppit" by Charles Elton, I figured it would be right up my alley. And it is, mostly. Although I can't recommend it without reservation, this first novel does have its charms.

When semi-successful children's author Arthur Hayman is run over by a cement truck on a London street, the first person to offer him comfort is Laurie Clow, an awkward American tourist on a break from all the domestic drama back home. Before Arthur's family -- wife Martha and offspring Rachel and Luke -- have a chance to convene at the hospital or to even learn that Arthur has, in fact, passed away, Laurie has begun taking control of Hayman's posthumous career.

Largely through Laurie's manipulations, "The Hayseed Chronicles" become a multimedia phenomenon, inspiring new illustrated editions and a BBC miniseries. Of the Haymans, it is unstable Rachel who most enjoys the spotlight, while irritable Martha retreats from it completely. Luke, who shares his first name with the series' young protagonist, can most clearly see celebrity's alluring double edge.

Elton, a former literary agent, worked for the estate of A.A. Milne and knew well the story of Christopher Robin Milne, perhaps the ultimate ambivalent literary inspiration, who eventually grew tired of answering questions about Winnie the Pooh and that damned 100-Acre Wood. In Luke Hayman, Elton captures what it might feel like to be famous for nothing more than being the apparent namesake of a character beloved by children worldwide.

Unlike "The Land of Laughs" or "The Unwritten," there is no supernatural aspect to "Mr. Toppit." The eponymous character is a shadowy figure who haunts "The Hayseed Chronicles" without appearing until the last page of the fifth, final volume. And "Mr. Toppit" itself feels incomplete, somehow lacking the narrative cohesion that would make it succeed completely. Elton creates interesting characters and writes individual scenes with a sure hand, but "Mr. Toppit" ultimately measures as a near-miss.

Late to the Party -- 5 Neat Things I Only Recently Discovered

2011-01-17T20:15:00.000-08:00

One problem of being a critic is that you can lose sight of interesting material that doesn't conform exactly to your expectations. There's so much stuff out there that it's often impossible to keep track of books, comics, movies or TV shows that are not right in front of you but that you would really enjoy if someone would simply push you in the right direction..

The folks at the AV Club offered their own take on this dilemma a little while ago, but I have my own selections and undoubtedly thought for this article idea first. Ahem..

Comics
The Umbrella Academy
I would normally be wary of any comic created and written by a rock star, since most such books would reek of "vanity project." But "The Umbrella Academy" by My Chemical Romance member Gerard Way, with art by Gabriel Ba and covers by James Jean, is actually pretty great.

Imagine the X-Men crossed with the Doom Patrol, add you've got some idea of what the Umbrella Academy is all about. There's time-travel, an approaching apocalypse, hit-men who dress as cartoon characters and a disbanded group of superheroes with a lot of excess emotional baggage. "The Umbrella Academy" has the weird whimsy of Grant Morrison at his most accessible but manages to remain true to its own hinky vision.
So far, there are only two collected volumes, "Apocalypse Suite" and "Dallas," though a third arc, "Hotel Oblivion," has been announced. I hope it comes to fruition soon.

Scalped

I've grown tired of bad-ass bald guys in Vertigo books, but the shaven-headed protagonist of Jason Aaron's "Scalped" isn't a retread of Grant Morrison's King Mob or Warren Ellis's Spider Jerusalem.

Dashiell Bad Horse returns to South Dakota and starts working for Chief Lincoln Red Crow, the local crime boss obsessed with opening a new casino that will supposedly improve the lot of every Oglala Lakota on the rez. Turns out, though, that Bad Horse is working for the FBI, and his superiors aren't above blackmailing him into stepping outside the law for their own purposes.

This is American noir of the bleakest sort, and Aaron keeps everything off-balance by continually upping the stakes and revealing new depths to his characters. After a while, it's easy to lose track of who the good guys really are, but that's rather the point.

It's unclear how long Aaron plans to spin this story out, but there are six collections available and seventh due in February. You can read the first issue of the series here.

Hark! A Vagrant!

Kate Beaton's online comics are a marvel, and I can't recommend them highly enough. They're literate and silly, knowing and well constructed. Favorites to sample include "Wonder Woman," "Dude-Watching with the Brontes," The Great Gatsby," "Mystery Solving Teens," and, especially if you're a Bowdoin College grad, "Henson and Peary."

Beaton has started selling to Harper's and The New Yorker, and now she has a book deal with Drawn + Quarterly, which is the best news of the year so far. And don't ignore her Twitter stream, upon which she posts links to sketches that are more personal but just as amusing as her more polished offerings.

TV
Jekyll
Everybody thinks they can do a new twist on Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," but few adaptations add anything really fresh to the endeavor. Watch the cold opening of the 2007 BBC six-episode series written by Stephen Moffat and starring James Nesbitt, though, and I defy you not to want more.

The whole series is clever combination of conspiracy thriller and horror with a comedic edge. The ending doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I guess they were hoping for a second series. "Jekyll" is hard to find at your local video store, but it's easily available through Netflix.

Music
Pomplamoose

Yeah, they're the cute, almost twee, couple in those Holiday Season Hyundai TV ads, but they've been around YouTube for a couple of years now. Good originals, clever covers, joyful videos and Nataly Dawn is freakin' adorable. And they've gathered more than 60,000 book donations for the Richmond School District, so don't be hatin' on them. Their covers of "Mr. Sandman" and "September" are especially good and worth checking out.

Gores Is Gone

2011-01-13T21:28:00.000-08:00

I haven't read deeply into the body of work produced by Joe Gores, the Bay Area crime novelist who passed away this week. But I liked the few of his novels I did try. Oddly, I believe only one of them, "Contract Null and Void," was from his signature "Daniel Kearney Associates" (DKA Files) series.

Two stand-alones from the mid-90s have stuck with me, though, both of them clever tales of revenge. "Menaced Assassin" combines murder and paleontology, as a college professor seeks justice for his wife's killing. "Dead Man" also features a bereaved husband, one who rebuilds himself after the death of his wife and children to infiltrate the Mob as an accountant.

Although he won an Edgar for his first novel, "A Time of Predators" and wrote scripts for many detective TV shows, including "Kojak" and "Magnum PI," Gores is probably best known for his association with the quintessential hard-boiled detective, Sam Spade. In the Eighties, Gore wrote, "Hammett," in which the author of "The Glass Key" himself becomes embroiled in murder mystery. In 2009, he was authorized to pen a "prequel" to "The Maltese Falcon," "Spade & Archer."

Gores was a writer who understood the everyday realities of the private detective game but still managed to find deep wells of humor and suspense in it. His clear-eyed vision of the trade will be missed.

Ten Books I'm Looking forward to in 2011

2011-01-11T21:46:00.000-08:00

There are always plenty of books out there that I would be happy to read, had I enough time and energy. But a handful of upcoming titles fill me with genuine anticipation, whether I'll have the chance to review them or not.

Started Early, Took My Dog -- Kate Atkinson
I'm already nearly a 100 pages into the latest by "Case Histories" and "When Will We Have Good News?" An impulsive purchase at a mall, the rescue of a small dog and a search for a client's natural parents lead to violence and other unforeseen complications. According to Atkinson, this is likely to be her last Jackson Brodie book for a few years, so enjoy him while you can.

A Drop of the Hard Stuff -- Lawrence Block
Lawrence Block is among the last of the great crime fiction traditionalists, and he's returning to Matt Scudder after a long hiatus. This new entry in the series jumps back in time to when Scudder was still struggling with his alcoholism. That strategy worked well in "Before the Sacred Gin Mill Closes," so we'll see whether Block can construct another satisfying flashback.

Satori -- Don Winslow
You wouldn't think that Trevanian's "Shibumi" calls out for a follow-up after 30+ years, but Winslow, author of "California Fire and Life" and "The Death and Life of Bobby Z," has decided to resurrect Nicolai Hel. Will Winslow be able to emulate Trevanian's tongue-in-cheek tone in the midst of all the super-assassin hugger-mugger? I'm certainly intrigued.

The Wise Man's Fear -- Patrick Rothfuss
Rothfuss's "The Name of the Wind" was one of the most intriguing fantasy debuts of the mid-2000s. Fans have been impatiently clamoring for more ever since, and finally a new installment is ready. Middle volumes are notoriously tricky, but Rothfuss managed to sidestep many of the high fantasy pitfalls with his first book, so perhaps he'll be able to beat the sophomore slump.

Flashback -- Dan Simmons
After three big historical novels, Simmons returns to science fiction with a near-future thriller. A new drug allows users to re-live their favorite moments from the past, and one ex-detective strives to break his addiction while investigating a murder. Simmons does "hardboiled" well, and this book might given him a welcome chance to stretch those muscles.

Fuzzy Nation -- John Scalzi
The author of "Zoe's Tale" channels H. Beam Piper, for reasons that aren't quite clear but which will undoubtedly prove amusing. Note: Ewoks and Fuzzies are not related.

Listener -- Warren Ellis
Few details are available about the second novel by the co-creator of "Planetary" and "Transmetropolitan." His first novel, "Crooked Little Vein," didn't quite live up to its promise, but Ellis knows his way around a

Other Kingdoms -- Richard Matheson
Matheson's recent output hasn't matched the standards of his early classics, but I keep hoping that he'll muster some more of the mojo that powered "Hell House" or "I Am Legend." This latest novel is set in England after World War I and involves fairies, witches and the like.

Embassytown -- China Mieville
Mieville is hit and miss for me. I lost patience with "The City and the City" but really enjoyed last summer's "Kraken." "Embassytown" promises more "New Weird" weirdness, so I'm eager to see what Mieville has come up with this time.

iZombie -- Chris Roberson with Michael Allred
I'm done buying monthly pamphlets, but I liked the sample first issue I received of this on-going Vertigo series. Allred's art is always awesome, and I trust Roberson to do something interesting with the overworked "The dead are back!" scenario. The first collection will be available later this spring.

Books You Oughta Read -- The Rat on Fire

2011-01-07T09:05:00.000-08:00

When I travel, I often like to take along a book with some connection to my destination. Back in November, I was headed to Boston, so I read "The Rat on Fire" by George V. Higgins while I was shuttling between Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

If readers today remember Higgins at all, most know him for his first novel, 1972's "The Friends of Eddie Coyle," and the movie adaptation starring Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle. It's truly a great and game-changing crime novel – grimly honest, bleakly funny and eminently quotable. (My favorite line: "This life is hard, but it's harder if you're stupid.") In contrast to "The Godfather" with its sleek and confident Mafiosi, Eddie Coyle is an unlovable, small-time Irish mope who barely comprehends the forces he's set in motion against himself.

Before he became a novelist, Higgins was an attorney and a journalist. Some critics called "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" an overnight success. Higgins would reply, "That was one hell of a damned long night, lasting seventeen years..." He wrote 14 unpublished novels in those 17 years and eventually destroyed them all.

Dialogue was Higgins' forte, and he wasn't afraid to employ it in huge swathes of rhetoric that run for pages at a time. His 1981 novel "The Rat on Fire" is as good as example of this strategy as any of his books. The book runs a little over 200 pages in paperback, but I'd bet there's not more than 25 pages of descriptive narrative in the whole thing.

Lawyer/talent broker/slumlord Jerry Fein wants to get rid of the buildings he owns, because most of the tenants refuse to pay rent and keep damaging the apartments. The tenants won't pay rent, because the buildings are rotting away and full of rats. The only way to break this impasse might be to hire someone like arsonist Leo Procter, who isn't adverse to setting rodents on fire and sending them up through the walls to spread the flames. What Procter doesn't know is that agents from the attorney general's office have him under surveillance, hoping to catch the fire marshal Procter has been bribing.

Now that we're in the middle of another recession, "The Rat on Fire" seems more relevant than ever. Everyone in it – cops, crooks, politicians – worries that they don't have enough money and is convinced that the System is irredeemably broken. There are no good options anymore, and all you can do is tell stories about how unfair it all is.

Higgins's dialogue is often described as realistic, but it's really not. Nobody, short of Shakespearean actors, spouts the kinds of soliloquies that Higgins constructs. But Higgins knew exactly how Bostonians spoke in the Seventies and Eighties, and there's never a false note in his characters' diction and their references to local customs and landmarks.

In 1999, Higgins died of a heart attack just short of his 60^th birthday, but he managed to publish 27 novels. As a Chronicle reviewer, I have covered only one novel by Higgins, "Sandra Nichols Found Dead." It was a good later work, but not great. But having read "The Rat on Fire," I'm looking forward to going back and discovering more of them.

2010: Look Back in Peevishness

2011-01-04T21:40:00.000-08:00

What did I write in 2010? Not many blog posts, that's for damn sure. As far as book reviews went, I probably contributed one or two fewer to The Chronicle than usual.

Round-ups are supposed to appear every six weeks, but there were some extended gaps, due to a frequent lack of space on the newspaper's part and sometimes a lack of concentration on mine. Here are the titles covered the past year:

January 24 -- Peter Straub's "A Dark Matter"," "Things We Didn't See Coming" by Steven Amsterdam and "Northwest Passages" by Barbara Roden.

March 7 -- Dan Simmons' "Black Hills," "Horns" by Joe Hill, "The Extra" by Michael Shea and Kage Baker's "Not Less Than Gods."

April 25 -- "Expiration Date" By Duane Swierczynski, "Blockade Billy" by Stephen King, "Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror" edited by Ellen Datlow, and "Planetary: Spacetime Archaeology" by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday.

June 27 -- Christopher Farnsworth's "Blood Oath," "I Am Not a Serial Killer" by Dan Wells, "Stories" edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

August 8 -- "The Loving Dead" by Amelia Beamer, "Kraken" by China Mieville and Matt Kindt's "Revolver."

October 3 -- "Shades of Milk and Honey" by Mary Robinette Kowal, Charles Yu's "How to Survive in a Science Fictional Universe" and "The Fuller Memorandum" by Charles Stross.

December 5 -- "Dreadnought" by Cherie Priest, "The Dead Path" by Stephen M. Irwin and Catherynne M. Valente's "The Habitation of the Blessed."

I summed everything up in a "Best of the Year" column , although I prefer to think of it as a "Notable Books I Happened to Read and Like" list.

I also wrote a handful stand-alone reviews for The Chronicle:

"Known to Evil" by Walter Mosley
"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest" by Stieg Larsson
"The Passage" by Justin Cronin
"Zero History" by William Gibson
"Skippy Dies" by Paul Murray

What's up for 2011? I've almost finished reading the next batch of books for my January column, and I've got dibs on a stand-alone for Kate Atkinson's "Started Early, Took My Dog." I'm also going to make more of an effort this year to pitch to other markets. I'll let you know what happens.

Tharn

2011-01-03T08:02:00.000-08:00

Tharn: Stupefied, distraught, hypnotized by fear. But can also, in certain contexts, mean "looking foolish," or again "heartbroken" or "forlorn." – Watership Down

Turning 50 didn't just kick my ass. It kicked my ass, hit it with a tire iron, dumped it into the trunk of a Chevy Impala, drove it out to the desert, made it get out and dig its own grave, then pulled a gun, grinned and said, "Hey, just screwin' wit' ya."

Maybe you could have deduced my midlife malaise from the utter lack of entries following my birthday in January. Wait, there was one, a rumination on the death of Kage Baker, one of my favorite writers, who died of a brain tumor in her mid-fifties. After that, I kind of threw in the towel, blogging-wise.

What was up? Well, the details don't really matter. Let's just say that I've worked nearly my entire adult life in an industry currently undergoing cataclysmic change. I've got aging parents and kids in college and high school. I've got gout and I've got a mortgage. Sometimes I feel like I've got plenty of nothing, but nothing is definitely not plenty for me.

It got to the point, almost exactly midway through the year, when I simply "went tharn," as Mr. Richard Adams might put it. Like a bunny caught in the headlights, I froze – creatively, emotionally and nearly physically. At least inside my own head, I couldn't move forward, and I definitely couldn't move backwards. I just stayed still and hoped that nothing would run me over or swoop down on me from a great height.

I started re-reading "Watership Down" this summer, partly spurred by Sawyer's fondness for it on "Lost" and partly because it was a book from a time when I pretty much only read for pleasure, when there were few deadlines, when I took the adventures of Hazel, Fiver and Bigwig at face value. I bought a used copy of the mass-market paperback, my preferred reading format, and reacquainted myself with the rabbits and their quest for a safe home.

Did you know that Richard Adams was 52 when "Watership Down" was published in 1972? He was civil servant for most of his private career and created the story as an entertainment for his daughters on long drives. The "Watership Down" manuscript was rejected by seven publishers before the small firm Rex Collings took it on, but it soon sold more than a million copies worldwide. It won the Carnegie Medal, and now its sales total more than 50 million copies.Adams went on to write "Shardik," "The Plague Dogs" and other well-regarded, best-selling books.

Adams turned 90 in May of 2010. He published a new story, "The Knife," just this year, in "Stories," edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio.

I haven't quite finished "Watership Down" this second time around. I don't particularly feel like rushing it. I can pick it up and put it down without losing the thread of the tale. In a lot of ways, it's simple story, but it says some important things: about perseverance, about friendship, about self-reliance.

I've begun to feel a lot better since this summer, and I've started to write more. It wasn't just Richard Adams and "Watership Down" that gave me a renewed sense of perspective about myself and my career at age 50. There were definitely other, more important factors. But the novel helped, not only through the wisdom of its story but by the example of its author.

Novelists can start their careers after 50. They can publish into their 90s. The Black Rabbit won't ever stop chasing you, but you can still give it a run for its money.

Move. Run blindly, if you have to. But move.
Don't go tharn.

Kage Baker, 1952-2010

2010-01-31T17:50:00.001-08:00

Kage Baker, short story writer and novelist, died today at age 57, far too young. I don't think it's hyperbole for me to say that, of all the science fiction and fantasy writers I reviewed during that awful decade from Jan. 1, 2000 to Dec. 31, 2009, Baker afforded me the greatest amount of unalloyed reading pleasure.

I tend not to get caught up in long-running sf/f series, like those by George R.R. Martin or Robert Jordan. As good as individual installments might be, most multi-volume sagas run out of steam or become so unwieldy with plot complications that it becomes a chore to keep up with them to the bitter end. Even Stephen King's "The Dark Tower," which amazed and delighted me for most of its 3,000 pages, wound up something less than I had imagined.

Not Baker's novels about The Company, though. She kept every damn promise she made in that first book, "In the Garden of Iden." She found a glorious new wrinkle in time-traveling immortal cyborgs, and she played fair with it across 10 volumes, adding complications and fresh faces with panache, but never betraying her premise or her characters or her readership. By the time she reached the final volume in the main sequence, "The Sons of Heaven," she had tied up all the loose ends and delivered a climax and denouement worthy of all the delicious build-up.

I came to The Company novels late, foolishly starting with "Mendoza in Hollywood." It didn't particularly grab me, so I'm glad I persevered with "The Graveyard Game." That did the trick, making me go back to the books I'd missed. From that point, I was hooked, and I eagerly awaited each new volume. None of them disappointed.

I saw Baker at the World Fantasy con in October. I'm not very out-going, and it often takes some real effort for me to introduce myself to a stranger. But I approached her and let her know how much I enjoy her work.

I'm glad I did. I had no idea her time with us would be so short. I'm just glad there will be a few more books and stories with her byline, starting with a new Company novel, "Not Less Than Gods," to be published by Tor in March.

If you haven't read any books by Kage Baker, start with "In the Garden of Iden" or the story collection, "Black Projects, White Knights." If you want just a small taste, Subterranean Press has posted a new story, "The Bohemian Astrobleme," online.

If you're already a fan, read Marty Halpern's lovely appreciation of her and her work.

A Superfluity of Neat Stuff

2010-01-31T10:25:00.000-08:00

Somehow, I didn't expect the early months of 2010 to be filled with so many good books deserving my attention as a reviewer. In last week's column, I covered three recent science fiction/fantasy releases, including Peter Straub's "A Dark Matter," "Things We Didn't See Coming" by Steven Amsterdam and Barbara Roden's "Northwest Passages."

Straub's "A Dark Matter," scheduled to arrive in stores on Feb. 9, is the best of the bunch. A tricky tale of five high school friends revisiting a terrible event that occurred 40 years earlier, it's Straub's first novel since 2004's "In the Night Room," continuing his long string of literate and ambitious supernatural thrillers. You can watch book trailer/teaser above.

With that column behind me, I thought I would have a little breathing room, but that's not the case. February brings horror/fantasy novels by two heavy-hitters in the field, Owen Hill's "Horns" and Dan Simmons' "Black Hills." Not to mention two new books by Michael Shea: "The Extra" from Tor and "Copping Squid" from Perilous Press. Plus, "Blackout," the first half of Connie Willis's World War II time-travel epic, is due any day now and really ought to be considered. Charlie Huston's "Sleepless" occupies the borderlands between science fiction and crime, so it, too, is tempting to throw into the mix.

Finally, in March Tor will publish "Not Less Than Gods," Kage Baker's latest book about The Company. Baker is one of my favorite authors, and a new novel from her would normally be a cause for unalloyed celebration. She is, however, near the end of her struggle with cancer.

Which puts the problem of having too many good novels to read into perspective, doesn't it?

Arts & Culture Junk Direct Marketing Mail

2010-01-21T14:05:00.000-08:00

Because I occasionally buy tickets for plays, concerts and other artsy things, I wind up on mailing lists and receive more direct mail marketing pieces than I can stand. I wrote this goofy little piece a few years back as a reaction to all those earnest, yet somehow annoying, solicitations.

For its 2009-2010 season, the Symphony of Greater California has gathered the most innovative artists in the West to perform an exhilarating repertoire of international classics and exciting new music. Under the baton of Music Director Seiji Tilson-Williams, the symphony and its guest artists will deliver an unparalleled musical experience for anyone willing to pony up 75 bucks per ticket.

The season is sponsored in part by the Pecksniff Charitable Trusts and HyperCorp. International -- "We Know What's Good for You"

September 10 through October 15
THE EVOLUTION OF MUSIC
Follow the progress of world music, from two wooden sticks struck together in a Paleolithic village to a Web page that plays an endless loop of "My Heart Will Go On." See how Darwinian theory applies to everything from the symphony orchestra to your local skiffle band. Discover how the wily and agile violin schemed its way to the top, while the slow-witted and awkward bassoon took a turn down an evolutionary dead-end. Witness a duel to the death between a harpsichord and a clavier. Program may be too intense for young children.

October 20 through November 15
THE GERMANIC GIANTS
A three-concert series, consisting of "Mostly Mozart," Basically Beethoven" and "Completely Weill."

November 26 through December 24
BABES IN ICELAND
Our Children's Holiday Program
Does the thought of sitting through yet another production of either "Peter and the Wolf" or "The Nutcracker" cause you to break into hives and uncontrollable muscular spasms? Then you're in luck this Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Solstice season! Based on Gunnar Gunnarson's 15th-Century, 34-volume epic poem, this 45-minute program brings Scandinavian folklore to life, complete with live reindeer, on-stage ice skating and freakishly huge marionettes of Glinka the Frost Witch and the evil ice dragon, Frigidaire. With a lively score by Bjorg Bjorgenson and the Umlaut Quartet, "Babes in Iceland" is sure to entertain privileged children for generations to come. Special guest Robin Williams will perform the part of Snorri, The Annoying Troll Who Weeps and Grins Simultaneously.

January 5 through February 20
MASTERS OF ATONAL MINIMALISM
An evening of no discernible harmonies or melodies, using as few notes as humanly possible. Highlights include Bromffman's "Amplified Dripping Faucet" and Chayefsky's "The Sensory Deprivation Blues."

Here are just a few of the rave reviews this program has garnered.
Minimalist Monthly: "This music is good."
Tortured Intellectual Weekly: "Never before has a white-noise generator been taken to such rhapsodic heights!"
Elmer Hobart, long-time subscriber: "For the love of God, kill me now!"

February 28. One Night Only.
TOM WAITS PERFORMS "THE RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN SONG BOOK"
America's favorite sandpaper-voiced troubadour interprets tunes from "Oklahoma," "The King & I" "South Pacific" and "Carousel." The highlight of the show comes when Waits dons a wimple to sing "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" from "The Sound of Music." Special guest Lou Reed provides a touching rendition of "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair."

March 1 through April 15
CORPORATE BRANDING TOONAPALOOZA
You hear them on the radio, on TV, at the movies, even through your computer speakers. They're the songs that have been co-opted by giant, faceless corporations to promote their products, services and Orwellian ideologies. Now these tunes have been woven into a musical tapestry that will set your toes tapping and put your mind in a free-spending groove. Selections include "Rhapsody in the Public Domain," "Fanfare for the Common Consumer," "Sixties and Seventies Sell-Outs" and "The Music from That Volkswagen Commercial Where Everything's Moving to the Beat of the Windshield Wipers."

Tickets for all concerts may be purchased at the box office, online or through an antiquated and vaguely frightening voice-mail system. Subscribers will eventually be harassed with dinner-time telephone solicitations, while one-time ticket buyers will be left to contemplate their cheapness in ominous silence.

RIP Robert B. Parker

2010-01-19T19:36:00.000-08:00

I was saddened to learn of the sudden death of Robert B. Parker, author of "The Godwulf Manuscript" and 37 other mysteries featuring the Boston PI known only as Spenser. For a long while, Parker was one of my very favorite mystery novelists and, even if I haven't pick up a new book by him in nearly a decade, I still have a lot of respect for him and his prodigious output.

I started reading Parker in my late teens, probably around the time of "The Judas Goat." Part of his appeal for me lay in the fact that he was a "local boy," that he wrote about Boston, a city only an hour away from my hometown. But there was plenty else to appreciate about those early books -- their wit, the pared-down prose, the way Parker worked in, and reacted against, the traditions laid down by Hammett, Chandler and Ross Macdonald. Like two other literary New Englanders hitting their stride at that time, Stephen King and Gregory Mcdonald of "Fletch" fame, he was demonstrating that old forms of pop lit could be given fresh, interesting spins.

The first dozen Spensers are the best, and a few -- "Mortal Stakes," "Looking for Rachel Wallace," "Early Autumn" -- rank with the best crime novels of the 70s and 80s. "A Catskill Eagle" in1985 seemed to me to be a turning point, the book where the conversational byplay started to turn into shtick, where Hawk and Susan and the supporting cast grew more predictable, where Parker seemed to give in to the temptation to set his word processor on Cruise Control and just let the new installments roll out.

I continued to read new Spenser books as they became available, and some of them were enjoyable. I have vivid memories of parts of "God Save the Child," "Ceremony" and other early entries, but I don't think, however, that I can recall any individual scene from any novel post-"Taming a Seahorse." After "Potshot," I gave up. I could deal with the increasingly insufferable Susan Silverman, put up with the recycled plots, but it was Spenser's damn dog Pearl that finally did me in. The magic was gone, but I didn't particularly mind.

But I'm sorry he's left us. The reports indicate that he died at his desk, and that's as fitting a conclusion to such a durable and distinguished career as I can imagine.

Lots of others are weighing in with tributes. Check "Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind" for a thorough round-up.

5 Writing Lessons from H.P. Lovecraft

2010-01-07T20:09:00.000-08:00

Another reprint, a bit more tongue-in-cheek than the previous.

****

Howard Phillips Lovecraft is now regarded as one of the pre-eminent figures of twentieth century horror literature. Born in 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island, he wrote some of the genre’s most influential stories and novellas, including “The Call of Cthulhu,” “At the Mountains of Madness,” “The Rats in the Walls” and “The Dunwich Horror.” His vision of a hostile universe, in which humanity survives at the whim of terrible Elder Gods, still holds considerable power 70 years after his death from intestinal cancer.

Here are five writing lessons I’ve learned from H.P. Lovecraft:

1. Be polite to editors.

In March, 1923, Chicago publisher J.C. Henneberger and editor Edwin F. Baird inaugurated “Weird Tales,” a pulp magazine devoted to horror fiction. Lovecraft submitted a stack of material with a cover letter almost guaranteed to alienate its recipient:

“If the tale cannot be printed as it is written, down to the very last semicolon and comma, it must gracefully accept rejection. Excision by editors is probably the one reason why no living American author has any real prose style…”

To his credit, Baird didn’t tell Lovecraft to take a flying leap. Despite his bizarre sense of salesmanship, Lovecraft sold five stories to “Weird Tales” with that submission.

Kids, don’t try this at home…

2. Sometimes tone and mood are the most important elements of a story.

I defy anyone to read “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” my favorite Lovecraft tale, and not be creeped out by it. The prose is clunky, the characters stereotypical, the premise queasily racist. But Lovecraft puts you right in the middle of that haunted, decaying seaport and makes you believe that hideously devolved fish-men are going to rise up from the depths if you don’t watch out.

Although frequently overwritten and often repetitive, Lovecraft’s stories are unique in their ability to convey a sense of cosmic horror, that the universe is inhabited by beings whose enormity could crush the human mind. And that’s a good thing.

3. You really ought to learn how to write realistic dialogue.

Lovecraft’s attempts at dialogue are sometimes laughable. It’s almost certain that no one has ever spoken like Zadok Allen, “the half-crazed liquorish nonagenarian” who tells tales of old Innsmouth. A tiny sample:

“Them things liked human sacrifices. Had had ‘em ages afore, but lost track o’ the upper world arter a time. What they done to the victims it ain’t fer me to say, an’ I guess Obed wan’t none too sharp abaout askin.”

Lovecraft admitted that he didn’t much like people below his perceived social class. As he wrote in a letter, “I could not write about ‘ordinary people’ because I am not in the least interested in them.” In addition to being morally repugnant, this attitude prevented him from creating dialogue with any kind of verisimilitude to actual human speech.

4. A solid social network is crucial.

Although reclusive by nature, Lovecraft maintained elaborate correspondences with mentors and protégés alike, including Robert E. “Conan the Barbarian” Howard, Robert “Psycho” Bloch and Fritz “Fafhrd and Gray Mouser” Leiber. During his career, Lovecraft wrote more than 100,000 letters. Think of what he might have accomplished with Twitter.

5. You never know how you’ll be viewed by posterity.

It’s likely that Lovecraft held no hope at the time of his death that his work would be remembered by a general readership. But his friends August Derleth and Donald Wandrei formed Arkham House and published “The Outsider and Others” in hardcover in 1939. Other editions followed, and eventually Lovecraft’s work was reprinted in paperback and circulated around the globe. Many of the modern masters of horror, from Stephen King and Peter Straub to Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell, have paid homage to him, and the Cthulhu Mythos continues to inspire novels, comics, movies and plush figures.

Is This Your Homework, Larry?

2010-01-05T20:20:00.000-08:00

I saw "A Serious Man" over the weekend, did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would, but am still mulling over its implications. Here, however, is a reprint dealing with a Coen Brothers film that I unreservedly admire.

*********

In the wake of the Oscars and the multiple achievements of “No Country for Old Men,” I’ve been thinking about the Coen Brothers a lot lately. Especially about what good writers they are. They do all kinds of things with dialogue and structure and symbolism that really shouldn’t work, but because they’re really good literary craftsmen, they pull them off with aplomb.

Over at Ken Levine’s blog, screenwriter Bob “Back to the Future” Gale instigated a brouhaha with a post about all the perceived lapses in logic in “No Country.” Some of the nitpicks I can agree with, but I think Gale is really misreading the movie. “No Country” only looks like a conventional cat-and-mouse thriller. Worrying about why Anton Chigurh chooses to carry around that cattle gun is like wondering why the eponymous protagonist of “Barton Fink” isn’t at all concerned about the inferno raging in the hallway outside his hotel room at that movie’s climax. There are bigger issues at hand.

If I had to choose a favorite Coen Brothers movie, I think I’d have to select “The Big Lewbowski.” For me, it delivers the highest ratio of laughs to lines of most movies I can recall. It’s a film that truly improves with each viewing.

I recently picked up “I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski: Life, The Big Lebowski and What-Have-You,” a book by the guys who organize LebowskiFest. It contains interviews with members of the cast, bits of trivia, a glossary of Lebowski-speak. It gets a little repetitive, but like the Dude himself, its heart is in the right place.

The best part of the book, however, speaks to why the Coens are such smart writers and where they find their inspiration. The authors investigate the origins of one of the movie’s signature sequences, when Walter (John Goodman) and the Dude (Jeff Bridges) interrogate Larry, a silent junior high school student, about a piece of homework found in the Dude’s car, which had been stolen and recently recovered. I can’t do justice to it in summary, but the scene starts in a suburban living room containing a man in an iron lung and ends with Walter destroying a sports car with a tire iron while screaming, “This is what happens when you f* a stranger in the a*!!!!” (Or as the censored version on Comedy Central would have it, “This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!!!”)

It’s hilarious. Trust me.

What’s great, though, is that this scene is based on a true incident, at least according to “I’m a Lebowski…” Twenty-odd years ago, USC film professor Peter Exline had his car stolen, got it back and found some fast food wrappers and a kid’s homework assignment in it. He and a friend, private detective “Big” Lew Abernathy, tracked the kid down, visited him at home one night and tried to get him to confess. Just like in the movie. There was even an old man confined to a hospital bed in the living room, the boy’s father, elderly screenwriter Everett Freeman, author of “Larceny, Inc.” and “The Glass Bottom Boat.”

The Coens heard this story from Exline and, without telling him, vowed to use it someday in a movie.

The ultimate kicker is that the authors of “I’m a Lebowski…” contacted the “real Little Larry,” who was not a joy-riding delinquent and did not learn what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps. And as they report, “…until we called, he had no idea that the day in his living room when two strange men arrived with his homework in a baggie had been a pivotal inspiration for ‘The Big Lebowski.’” The interview with 32-year-old Jaik Freeman proves to be one of the book’s highlights.

I don’t know why this convoluted anecdote told from multiple perspectives tickles me so. I guess I just like the sheer improbability of it, the way the most absurd aspects of real life can be transmuted into — wait for it — art. With the Coens, there’s no use looking for logic, because what you’ll find in its place is a whole lot more interesting.

5 Writing Lessons Learned from Donald Westlake

2010-01-04T22:53:00.000-08:00

I wrote this a few years ago for a blog that died a-borning. I'm re-printing it here as part of an effort to tidy up the various facets of my online presence, and also because Westlake has been on my mind recently. He passed away unexpectedly on New Year's 2009.

*********

Donald Westlake, screenwriter of “The Grifters, author of “The Hot Rock,” “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?” and many other novels, is one of my favorite thriller writers. Pick up any of his books at random, and you can learn something valuable from it, as well as be guaranteed hours of first-rate entertainment.

Under the pseudonym Richard Stark, Westlake also writes about no-nonsense thief Parker. The character has appeared, always with a different name, in a handful of movies, some of them good (”Point Blank”) and some of them not (”Slayground”). There are currently 23 Parker novels, and many of them epitomize what their author does best. They’re fast, lean, gripping and darkly, darkly funny.

Here are five lessons I’ve learned from Westlake/Stark:

Choose a strong title.
Some of the early Parker novels have titles so terse that they don’t really stick in the memory: “The Score,” “The Outfit,” “The Seventh,” “The Hunter.” I have trouble keeping track of them in my head. But after a 24-year break from writing about Parker, Stark brought him back in “Comeback.” Which was followed by “Backflash.” Followed by “Flashfire,” “Firebreak” and “Breakout.” The titles are down to one word, but they’re evocative and the progression from one to the next is clever without being distracting.
Waste no time getting the story started.
In the early books, the first sentence always started with “When…”
When the woman screamed, Parker awoke and rolled off the bed. He heard the plop of a silencer behind him as he rolled, and the bullet punched the pillow where his head had been. — “The Outfit”
When he didn’t get any answer the second time he knocked, Parker kicked the door in. – “The Split”Even without that gimmick, the openings are always active and compelling.
Parker jumped out of the Ford with a gun in one hand and a packet of explosive in the other. — “Slayground”

These aren’t books that begin with long ruminations about the weather. There’s action on the very first page.
Understand structure.
Many of the Parker books are organized around a four-part structure. The first two parts are from Parker’s perspective. The third offers multiple viewpoints of a critical plot turn. The final portion wraps things up, again from inside Parker’s head.It’s a particularly effective technique. The third-person limited perspective keeps everything focused and leaves little room for extraneous business. The late-in-the-game breakout from the protagonist’s perspective allows the author to ramp up the suspense by dramatising conflicts that Parker can’t foresee.
Don’t be afraid to change your style. Westlake has said that he once grew frustrated with a draft in which Parker kept losing the thing he was trying to steal. Rather than bull his way through a book that wasn’t working, Westlake decided to turn it into a comedy, thereby creating his long-running character John Dortmunder, who first appeared in “The Hot Rock.”
If you don’t work to avoid obsolescence, you may wind up having to kill someone to keep working. Although not published with the Stark pen-name, “The Axe” is one of the bleakest novels Westlake has ever written. The tale of a middle-aged middle-manager who strikes back against downsizing by killing off his competitors, “The Ax” is cautionary tale for anyone who has become too complacent about their job security.

5 Trilogies Worth Re-reading

2009-12-18T22:10:00.000-08:00

The short days and cold nights put me in the mood for longer, more involved storytelling. I just finished Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who Played with Fire," the middle volume of the Milllennium Trilogy, bookended by "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and the forthcoming "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest." (Larsson planned 10 volumes in the thriller saga but died after turning in only the first three.)

These books are clever and absorbing, with a dynamic female protagonist. But I doubt I'll ever want to re-read them, no matter how good the final book turns out to be. Their clumsy translations, eye-glazing info dumps and the ridiculousness of the male protagonist's irresistibility to the opposite sex are likely to prevent me from picking up the books for a second go-round.

There are some trilogies, however, that, at various intervals, spur me to re-read up to 2,000 pages. I've made it through three of the following multiple times, and the other two are on my One of These Days, Soon list. Only one is an out-and-out fantasy, and it's not very well known, even within the genre.

1. The Quest for Karla by John Le Carre
These may be the best three espionage novels of the last quarter of the 2oth century. (The first volume was published in 1974, but close enough.) I could read again and again "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," the story of George Smiley's search for the Russian mole within British intelligence. "The Honourable Schoolboy" takes an entirely different tack and takes some getting used to, but it has its deep pleasures, especially the scenes in Asia. The overly talky "Smiley's People" is in some way the least successful of the three, but it does bring everything to an extremely fitting, and moving, end.

2. Game, Set, Match by Len Deighton
Deighton made his name with the "unnamed spy/Harry Palmer" books, beginning with "The Ipcress File" in 1962. As good as those swinging-Sixties novels are, I believe they are eclipsed by "Berlin Game," "Mexico Set" and "London Match," from the Reagan-era Cold War. Old Berlin hand Bernard Samson is pulled away from his desk job and back into the field when Brahms Four, one of his informants on the other side of the Wall, wants out. Samson's investigation brings to light the presence of, what do you know?, another mole. Only this time the betrayal is intensely personal for Bernard.

Deighton takes a cheekier, more working class attitude toward the spy novel than does Le Carre. He's also more slippery in his narrative. Samson is not a reliable narrator, over-confident in his own talents and too quick to dismiss his blue-blooded superiors.

These books constitute the first of three trilogies, the other two being "Spy Hook, Line and Sinker" and "Faith, Hope and Charity." The sequence, published well past the dismantling of the Soviet Union, runs out of steam before the end, but all of the books have their interesting bits, and there's a huge reversal in "Spy Line."

3. The Blue Rose Sequence by Peter Straub
Straub didn't intend for "Koko" and "Mystery" to be part of a trilogy, not until he dreamed up "The Throat" and saw how the third book could swallow the other two whole.

"Koko" follows a group of Vietnam veterans as they discover that one of their former platoon-mates has become a serial killer, hunting journalists who have written about a massacre that occurred in a village called Ia Thuc. "Mystery" is set on a Caribbean island and in the Midwest, where a young man nearly killed in a car accident investigates two sets of murders. In "The Throat," Tim Underhill, the secret hero of "Koko," reveals his connection to the characters in "Mystery" and then solves, once and for all, what have come to be known as the Blue Rose murders.

You can read an extended interview with Straub that I conducted during his tour for "The Throat." In it, he discusses the origins of the books and of the short stories that are peripheral to them.

4. The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies
I haven't read "Fifth Business," in nearly 25 years, so perhaps it's time to go to the garage and dig it out, along with "The Manticore" and "World of Wonders."

A boy throws a rock-filled snowball at this friend/rival. The friend ducks, and the missile strikes a pregnant woman, causing her to give birth prematurely. Out from that simple set of actions spirals a saga that comes to span decades and continents, touching on subjects as diverse as Jungian psychoanalysis and stage magic.

Davies -- journalist, academic, playwright -- was particular fond of three-book sequences. Also of interest are the Salterton Trilogy and the Cornish Trilogy.

5. The Chronicle of the King's Tramp by Tom DeHaven
DeHaven is the author of a trilogy about the history of comics, consisting of "Funny Papers," "Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies" and "Dugan Under Ground," of which I've read only the middle volume. (It stands well enough on its own.)

"Walker of Worlds," "The End of Everything Man" and "The Last Human" make up DeHaven's other trilogy, an out-and-out multiversal fantasy that rivals Zelazny at his best. I'm not sure I can begin to give a decent summary of it. It features sentient dogs, evil monks, mud monsters, homeless savants and whole bunch of weird stuff. It's a kick from start to finish.

The Posthumous Crichton

2009-12-05T17:39:00.000-08:00

Michael Crichton, author of "The Andromeda Strain" and "Jurassic Park," died of cancer last year, but there's a new novel out with his name on it. "Pirate Latitudes" was apparently found in his files as a completed manuscript. Indeed, it doesn't read like something patched together from notes, drafts and narrative stitching provided by some after-the-fact collaborator. It's creepiness factor is therefore pretty low.

It actually feels like a throw-back to some of Crichton's early work, either the potboilers penned under the John Lange byline or the historical novels published under his own name, including "The Great Train Robbery" and "Eaters of the Dead." It's a pirate novel, all right, but not an ironic pirate novel. There's no outrightly fantastic element in it, as in Gene Wolfe's recent "Pirate Freedom." What you expect is pretty much what you get.

"Pirate Latitudes" is entertaining, though, and that opinion is reflected in my review of the novel in this week's Sunday Chronicle. And, as a bonus, here's a link to the appreciation of Crichton I wrote for The Chronicle at the time of death.

Holiday Books -- Science Fiction/Fantasy 2009

2009-11-27T19:59:00.000-08:00

The San Francisco's Holiday Books section will be published on Sunday, but you can already read my column online at SFGate.com. It's not really a "Best of the Year" list, though some will view it that way. There's just too much good material and too little time for me to say definitively, "Yeah, these are the genre's finest selections, no doubt about it."

And for the first time, I've hedged my bets a little, adding a handful of books I've heard good things about but which I have not found time to review. Check it out, and consider adding the latest from Richard Kadrey, Cherie Priest, Jeff VanderMeer and others to your shopping lists this summer.

In Defense of Stephen King

2009-11-15T18:24:00.000-08:00

My review of Stephen King's "Under the Dome" ran in today's Chronicle, and it was not 100% positive. The book's too long and filled with too-familiar characters and situations. On a "weird doings in Maine" scale from the atrocious "The Tommyknockers" to the sublime "'Salem's Lot," I place it squarely in the middle. I enjoyed it well enough but will never be tempted to read it again.

My review prompted a reader to write and inquire about my opinion on why King has become a "literary darling." My correspondent threw around the words "hack" and "onanistic."

Stephen King is probably my favorite living writer. There are others whom I admire more and who have disappointed me less, but I can't imagine a time will ever come when a new King novel arrives and I'll just shrug and put it aside. I was imprinted on his prose too forcefully, at too early an age, to ignore what he offers.

I clearly remember sitting on our back porch in Portsmouth, NH, one summer day and reading a library copy of "'Salem's Lot." I was maybe 15, and I had no idea what the book was about. Not a clue, because the jack copy didn't give it away. The frisson I experienced in the instant when I suddenly realized that it was about vampires in Maine, set little more than an hour north of where I sat, remains one of the most delicious thrills I've ever enjoyed as a reader.

In quick succession, I read "The Shining," "Carrie," "The Stand" and "Night Shift," and I was hooked for good. I met him face-to-face at a signing for "Firestarter" at the Portland Mall and attended a press conference with him in Santa Cruz, when he was touring for "Insomnia" via motorcycle. One of my regrets is that I've never been able to arrange a one-on-one interview with him. I tried with "Under the Dome," but he's not coming to the Bay Area. So, sorry, Charlie.

"Hack" is one of those dangerous words like "nymphomaniac," used to judge people who give or get more than we think is proper. Whatever he may be, King is not a hack; he clearly cares about language, about his readers, about his characters, about the fate of the novel and the short story. Few critics recognize how experimental a lot of his work is, how willing he is to set new challenges for himself. He can be clumsy, sloppy, distracted and too in love with his own voice, but there's no doubt he means what he says.

At The Chronicle, I've reviewed at least 20 of King's books -- many good, many not -- during the past 25 years. I imagine I'll keep doing so as long as he, the newspaper and I are all still functioning.

From Garp to Twisted River

2009-11-10T21:35:00.000-08:00

I've been reading John Irving for just a tiny bit more than 30 years. I picked up "The World According to Garp" in paperback during the second semester of my college freshman year, and I was enraptured by it. I couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end. It was one of the most purely pleasurable reading experiences of my life.

Of course, I think I read it at exactly the right moment, at 19, in 1979. I hadn't read much mainstream literary fiction at that point. I did fancy myself as a writer, so I liked the stories-within-a-story and the debates about the differences between fiction and autobiography. I was thrilled to read a book by someone who shared my experience as a resident of New Hampshire, who wrote about Exeter, a town only a few miles from my own.

I re-read "Garp" five or six years ago, and it holds up pretty well, though its mid-Seventies attitudes about feminism seem a little off and more than slightly creepy. What still works perfectly, though, is the tour de force "Walt Catches Cold" chapter, in which Garp tries to deal with his two obstreperous sons while his wife attempts to break up with her weaselly lover. Everything in that chapter is perfectly calibrated, balancing humor and suspense and irony and foreboding. Its last lines are among the most heart-stopping I've ever read, and Mr. Irving will forever be cut a lot of slack on my part because of how masterful that chapter and its aftermath are.

Unfortunately, I've never quite found an Irving book I like as much as "Garp." Some are just awful. I couldn't get more than 3o pages into "Until I Find You," and does anybody love "The Fourth Hand"? Others seem overly self-important, especially "The Cider House Rules." But I hold "A Widow for One Year" in high esteem, and though I'm not ga-ga about it like some readers, I see the appeal of "A Prayer for Owen Meany."

When I heard about Irving's new novel, "Last Night in Twisted River," I lobbied to review it for The Chronicle. (Truthfully, there didn't seem to be much competition.) And I'm glad I did. It gave me everything I want in a John Irving novel, but without most of the elements that make his lesser novels so irritating. Read the review and, if you're a fan of "Garp," see if it doesn't sound like something you'd enjoy.

Housekeeping

2009-10-23T22:19:00.000-07:00

What with the Twitter and the Facebook and other distractions, I took a long time away from blogging and am trying to get back into the rhythm of it.

Since July, I've contributed but two book columns to The Chronicle. The first covered new novels by Lev Grossman and Richard Kadrey, plus a graphic novel written by Ian Rankin, creator of the Inspector Rebus mysteries. I wholeheartedly recommend the first two and was less than impressed by Rankin's interpretation of one of my favorite comics characters, John Constantine.

Earlier this month the paper ran my round-up of recent kids'/YA books of note. I covered the latest from Kage Baker, John Connolly and Laurence Yep. All three are good, but Connolly's is the stand-out, I think.

I should have plenty to post in November. I'm doing full-length reviews of John Irving's "Last Night at Twisted River,"Michael Crichton's posthumous "Pirate Latitudes" and Stephen King's "Under the Dome," as well as another round-up featuring new releases from Iain M. Banks, Anne Rice and Peter Straub. Plus, I'll be doing some kind of version of my "holiday books/best of the year" column.

And still the books keep coming...

Five Semi-Obscure Horror Novels Worth Your Time This Halloween

2009-10-17T18:22:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago, I played with one of those Facebook widgets that let you pick your favorite five things in a certain number of categories. The topic was Great Haunted House Novels and I made five respectable choices: The Shining, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, The House Next Door, lost boy lost girl (get the capitalization right, LivingSocial!) and Ghost Story. Later on, though, I started fretting that those are very obvious choices, that anybody fond of horror fiction would already be aware of them.

So, here are five more horror novels – from the 1970s and early '80s -- that can make your Halloween that much creepier. They may, however, take a certain amount of effort to track down. I live in a place blessed with great bookstores and libraries, and few of these selections were readily available in the obvious outlets.

1. The Auctioneer by Joan Samson

Set in small-town rural New Hampshire, the novel focuses on John and Mim Moore, farmers struggling to look after their young daughter and John's elderly mother. When new auctioneer Purly Dunsmore comes to town, folks are happy to drag junk out from their cellars, attics and barns and donate them for a sale said to benefit the local police. But as the weeks drift by, Purly and his friends on the force become more demanding in their requests for donations, and soon John and Mim find themselves making sacrifices they truly can't afford.

"The Auctioneer" is Samson's only novel. She died of cancer before the book became a best-seller in paperback. But it's a very accomplished first effort – astute in its understanding of mob dynamics and the lure of conformity. If you've read Stephen King's "Needful Things," you can see Samson's clear influence on him.

I originally read "The Auctioneer" as a high school junior and didn't see anything scary in it at all. Then I re-read it near the end of George W. Bush's seemingly never-ending second term and thought, "Oh, yeah. Now I get it."

2. The Ceremonies by T.E.D. Klein

When I got out of college and was rummaging around for a career, I thought T.E.D. Klein had the coolest job in the universe as the editor of "Twilight Zone" magazine. I've since learned that years of reading slush pretty much extinguished his enthusiasm for horror fiction, but those are the breaks, I guess. "The Ceremonies" is his only novel, but it's a good one.

An expansion of his novella, "The Events at Poroth Farm" (recently reprinted in the very fine "American Fantastic Tales," edited by Peter Straub), "The Ceremonies" follows academic Jeremy Friers as he leaves New York City for the summer, renting a house in the rural community of Gilead, NY. Friers intends to spend his time preparing for a course on supernatural literature, but he doesn't sense that he's being manipulated by an elderly sorcerer who wishes to facilitate the return to Earth of a vast, ancient and malevolent entity. Also caught in the sorcerer's snare are Friers' virginal girlfriend and his hosts, the deeply religious Poroths.

"The Ceremonies" isn't an easy read. It's overlong, repetitive and the characters are all rather chilly and unpleasant. But Klein nails the sense of dread that can be elicited in the face of raw nature, where human intelligence doesn't mean much of anything. (The book also includes one of the nastiest felines in the genre.) The more you're familiar with the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Machen, the more you'll take away from "The Ceremonies."

3. All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By by John Farris

I haven't recently re-read this gonzo Southern gothic by the author of "The Fury," but it certainly made an impression on me. Not very many novels open with a wedding scene in which a good portion of the participants either go insane or are decapitated with a military saber.

"All Heads…" is about the slave trade and a legacy of terror that extends from Africa to the American South in the 1940s. It may be one the best supernatural novels about vodoun ever written, and it almost defies summarization. Maybe it's best to come to it with no expectations, because Farris finishes by up-ending all of them anyway.

As a bonus, the Tor paperback edition features one of my favorite covers, boasting an Ann-Margret lookalike as a bosomy snake-goddess!

4. The Other by Thomas Tryon

Along with ""The Exorcist," Thomas Tryon's "The Other" ranks as one of the most popular horror titles in the period between Ira Levin's "Rosemary's Baby" and Stephen King's "Carrie." It may be the best "freaky twins" novel ever published.

Holland and Niles are born 20 minutes apart, but their temperaments are vastly different. Born with a caul over his face, Niles seems the more empathic of the two, while Holland is more prickly and secretive. Growing up on a Connecticut farm in the mid-1930s, the boys are inseparable, but do they also share dangerous psychic powers? And by the way, who's responsible for the various fatal "accidents" that happen around the homestead? (I'll never forget that baby floating in the wine bottle!)

Tryon was an actor before turning his hand to fiction. (Apparently it was the tyrannical Otto Preminger who provided the last straw that made Tryon dump his Hollywood career.) The neatly plotted "The Other" is a fine debut, and Tryon continued his streak with other well-received novels, including "Harvest Home," which is kind of an Americanized version of "The Wicker Man."

5. Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco

Stephen King provided the essay about "Burnt Offerings" in the original "Horror: 100 Best Books," edited by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman. He ranks Marasco's book just below Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" in the "haunted house novel" sweepstakes. That seems a fair assessment.

Eager to get out of the city, the Rolfe family – Ben, Marion, son David and Aunt Elizabeth -- finds a summer rental that seems almost too good to be true. The country house owned by the peculiar Allardyce siblings is a bit run down, but the rate is cheap. Old Mrs. Allardyce lives on the top story, but she's no trouble at all, never venturing from her rooms.

The horror in "Burnt Offerings" is the quiet kind. As the house begins to mysteriously regenerate itself, the Rolfes always have the option of leaving. But even when the worst things happen, they fail to do so. If "The Auctioneer" is a fable about the dangers of letting go of what's valuable, "Burnt Offerings" is a cautionary tale about being imprisoned by what's not essential.

Quickie Review -- Fragment

2009-07-24T14:50:00.000-07:00

I was going to review Warren Fahy's "Fragment" in my last San Francisco Chronicle column, but I ran out of both space and interest.

This first novel is a Michael Crichton-esque scientific thriller about a mysterious island in the South Pacific that's actually a fragment of a lost continent. Cut off from the rest of the world's on-going process of natural selection for half a billion years, Henders Island is home to bizarre and super-lethal lifeforms that would chew through the rest of the planet's eco-system in nothing flat. And guess what's headed right toward Henders? That's right, a TV reality show crew!

There are, of course, human characters in "Fragment," but none of them are particularly compelling and some of them make no damn sense at all, so I'm not going to bother to list them. The real attraction is, of course, the monsters, and Fahy does a fine job of concocting some truly wild evolutionary throwbacks and developing action sequences around them. I don't know whether the biology lectures he uses as exposition are a bunch of hooey, but they work well enough dramatically.

"Fragment" seems to have aspirations to be this decade's "Jurassic Park." It's not up to that challenge, but it might be a welcome diversion for a dreary day at the seashore.

Link Salad Surgery

2009-07-23T15:33:00.000-07:00

No time. No time. No time. So just a smidgen of links...

Justine Larbalestier on what happens when your book's cover betrays its story.

Thanks, David J. Montgomery. I'm reading "Chinaman's Chance" by Ross Thomas, and it's great!

Scott McCloud has interesting things to say about David Mazzucchelli's "Asterios Polyp."

The good folks at Making Light point the way to the worst author intro ever.

Spilling Your Guts Online

2009-07-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

I regard Penelope Trunk, author of "The Brazen Careerist," with nearly equal amounts of admiration and dumbfoundedness. Sometimes I find her advice useful and clear-eyed, and sometimes I regard what she writes as absolutely, well, nuts. A nod of agreement, a wince of embarrassment -- those are my two main reactions to her columns.

Take her latest post -- How to decide how much to reveal about yourself. Pretty powerful stuff. I could never be that forthright online. But given her history, perhaps Trunk has no other choice:

So what I’m telling you here is that I’m scared of secrets. I’m more scared of keeping things a secret than I am of letting people know that I’m having trouble. People can’t believe how I’m willing to write about my life here. But what I can’t believe is how much better my life could have been if it had not been full of secrets.

My life has been nowhere near as dramatic as Trunk's appears to have been, but I make a distinction between secrets, which are destructive, and private matters, which, with any luck, are not. Call me an uptight New Englander with a metaphorical stick up his fundament, but I keep a close watch on how much personal information I put online. Although I'm free with my opinions, I don't post pictures of my kids, complain about my parents and even acknowledge my birthday on Facebook. (You do know that it's fairly easy to predict a SSN given a place and date of birth, right?)

I don't delude myself into believing that anyone with sufficient interest (or a powerful resistance to tedium) could build a fairly thick dossier on me from public sources, but neither do I feel a compulsion to make the task easy on them.

Books You Oughta Read -- The Land of Laughs

2009-07-21T10:36:00.000-07:00

It may be memory playing tricks on me after a quarter century, but I still consider Jonathan Carroll's "The Land of Laughs" to be one of the books that welcomed me to California. It may not have been the first paperback I purchased here, but I can't remember any others that preceded it.

I know I bought it at Dark Carnival, then located on Telegraph Avenue, where it intersects with Stuart Street. The store was within walking distance of my apartment, and when I arrived here in 1983 with no job, no car and few friends, I spent a lot of time checking out the local bookstores. I have a clear memory of reading "The Land of Laughs" while commuting on BART, so perhaps it was the promise of a steady paycheck that allowed me to feel sufficiently flush to unlimber my wallet.

In any case, it was the David B. Mattingly cover that attracted me to the book. It's weird and whimsical and menacing, from the George Boothian bull terriers to the shadowy figure glowering through the front door. But what instantly sold me on the book is its voice, the assured cadence of its first-person narration.

"The Land of Laughs" is the story of Thomas Abbey, slacker son of a fabled movie star, who decides to ditch his teaching job and write a biography of his favorite author, Marshall France. The reclusive France died young and left behind a magical series of children's books, including "The Land of Laughs." Abbey and his girlfriend Saxony Gardner travel to France's hometown, Galen, Missouri, and, having been told that they might not be welcome, find themselves unexpectedly embraced by France's daughter and the other townspeople.

Of course, nothing in Galen is as it first appears. To say much more would be to spoil the pleasurable twists and turns of a plot that combines elements of mystery, fantasy and horror. Everything builds to an inevitable, yet shocking conclusion. It's a very well-constructed first novel.

Jonathan Carroll is one of my very favorite writers. His books wrestle with the big questions about life, death, the imagination and the hereafter, but with an easy humor and a cockeyed perspective that's unmatched. I always find something of value in each of his books, but the ones I especially like include "After Silence," "Bones of the Moon," "Sleeping in Flame" and "The Wooden Sea."

I recommend them all, but if you're coming to Carroll fresh, why not start with "The Land of Laughs"? And then start following his Twitter feed, checking his blog and reading the assorted short stories at his site. You're not likely to be disappointed.

Link Hodgepodge

2009-07-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

Here's a small mishmash of links. Enjoy responsibly.

Nabokov, on TV in the Fifties, talking about "Lolita."

The final issue of Ellis and Cassaday's "Planetary" is on its way, swear to God!

Hard Case will publish a posthumous novel by the late, great Donald Westlake.

Your brain enjoys learning.

"The Friends of Eddie Coyle" is the quintessential Boston crime novel. The film adaptation is pretty good, too.

Who's better informed, newspaper readers or web surfers?

Precautionary Measures

2009-07-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

So, I'm taking a course through SFSU, "Introduction to Internet Marketing," and part of the weekly assignment is to write a blog post every single day.

And that partly explains the sudden burst of activity here.

And the brevity of this note.

New Column -- Del Toro/Hogan, Koontz and Connolly

2009-07-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

My latest science fiction/fantasy column is up at SFGate.com. Finally.

The theme is summer reads, and the books include "The Strain," "Relentless" and "The Lovers."

Guess which two I liked.

Review -- "Madame Xanadu: Disenchanted"

2009-07-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

I didn't pick up the first issue of the new Vertigo on-going series "Madame Xanadu" when it appeared, for a number of reasons. To start with, I've stopped buying monthly comics, the habit having become both expensive and frustrating. Then there's the fact that Madame Xanadu, as a character, didn't hold much fascination over me. Finally, Issue One was set in the sylvan forests surrounding Camelot and I'm rarely in the mood for anything druidic in comics. So I took a pass.

But if the new collection of the first 10 issues is a reliable indicator, "Madame Xanadu" has much to recommend it. Written by Matt Wagner of "Grendel" and "Sandman Mystery Theater," with art by Amy Reeder Hadley, the story follows the enchantress formerly known as Nimue as she travels across the centuries from Britain to the court of Kubla Khan to Paris before the revolution to the U.S. in the Thirties. She crosses paths with Marco Polo, Marie Antoinette, Jack the Ripper and other assorted historical figures, but her chief companion/adversary is none other than the enigmatic Phantom Stranger. Again and again, Madame Xanadu and Ol' Blank Eyes spar about free will versus determinism. She feels a need to help people avoid disaster. He's all for leaving destiny undisturbed.

What's nice about "Madame Xanadu" is that it's the kind of Vertigo book you don't see much anymore. It's adult in tone, yet thoroughly connected to the DC Universe, allowing for cameos by such fan favorites as the Demon Etrigan, the magician Zatara in his prime, and Neil Gaiman's version of Death. Wagner keeps the action lively, and Hadley's art is expressive and bouyant.

I'm not sure "Madame Xanadu" is sufficient to entice me back to the monthly comics. But I definitely look forward to the next collection.

Review -- "The Nobody"

2009-07-16T10:57:00.000-07:00

DC Comics has a couple of minor characters who appear bandage-swathed in nearly all of their adventures — Rebis, the hermaphroditic energy being from Grant Morrison’s weird and wonderful run on “Doom Patrol,” and The Unknown Soldier, originally from “Our Army at War.” It’s a cool, if disconcerting, look.

Neither of those characters, unfortunately, appears in the new Vertigo hardcover written and illustrated by Jeff Lemire, creator of the “Essex County Trilogy.” Rather, the enigmatic protagonist calls himself “Griffen,” a name familiar to readers of H.G. Wells or, more likely, Alan Moore.

When Griffen, sporting bizarre goggles and wrapped from head to toe in weird bandages, arrives in the small town of Large Mouth, he evokes immediate suspicion. After he takes up residence in a run-down motel, a young waitress named Vickie tries to befriend him and gradually learns about the events that drove Griffen into seclusion. Meanwhile, a series of crimes ratchets up the level of distrust and paranoia among the locals.

Lemire’s scruffy black, white and blue artwork isn’t to my taste, and although I appreciate his feel for a tourist town in the thick of winter, I found the plot of “The Nobody” rather slow, pedestrian and predictable. I’ve seen the “caterpillar into butterfly” metaphor employed to greater effect elsewhere, and I wish there was more beneath Griffen’s bandages than, well, what I expected to be there.

If I had not received a review copy, I would begrudge the $19.99 cover price of “The Nobody.” If DC ever wants to do a new hardcover devoted to Rebis, though, I’ll be flinging cash at them.

Hi-Def Printing: What It's Good For

2009-07-15T20:07:00.000-07:00

After a lot of preparation, the San Francisco Chronicle has officially begun printing on new, state-of-art presses based in Fremont, CA. Some of the advantages were immediately obvious -- more color at higher resolution; fewer wrinkles; a smaller, more convenient width. Other changes will roll out over the coming months -- heatset glossies, different ad configurations, innovative marketing products. I've spent a lot of time over the past few months working on the marketing campaign announcing "Chronicle HD," as it's called.

For the purposes of this blog, though, I want to publicly state how pleased I was with the first Hi-Def Sunday edition. My article about recent comics and comix was the cover story in Books and ran as a double-page spread, illustrated with color panels by Jason, Darwyn Cooke, David Mazzucchelli and others. And it looked gorgeous! The colors were accurate, the registration was correct, the pictures "popped." For the first time in five or six years, I made an effort to track down hard copies. The archived Web page doesn't do it justice.

I'm not about to make any prognostications about the long-term health of the newspaper printing business. But in terms of my column, I'm really happy with this new development.

Books You Oughta Read -- The Ditto List

2009-07-11T19:36:00.001-07:00

During the Eighties and Nineties, Stephen Greenleaf wrote a series of well-regarded mysteries featuring P.I. John Marshall Tanner. There were 14 in all, beginning with 1979's "Grave Error" and finishing up with "Ellipsis" in 2000. Many volumes were set in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, including one of the best, "Beyond Blame," whose climax occurs just a few blocks from where I sit now -- in Berkeley's People's Park.

Greenleaf is unusual in that he voluntarily retired the Tanner series and didn't feel the need to keep pushing them out in the face of diminishing sales. He discusses his reasons in this interesting interview from MysteryFile.

My favorite Greenleaf, however isn't one of the Tanners; it's a stand-alone, mainstream novel entitled "The Ditto List," published in 1986. It's not exactly a "legal thrilller," as these things have come to be known in the post-Grisham era, but rather the story of a down-on-his-luck attorney attempting to re-discover his purpose in life.

My, that doesn't sound appealing, does it? Let's try again: "The Ditto List" is the story of D.T. Jones, a divorce lawyer still in love with his ex-wife, who does the best he can for his female clients, even though he can barely make payroll. He tries to protect them from serial abusers and cold-blooded misogynists while trying to sort out his own problems with creditors, staff and former colleagues.

Greenleaf works hard to keep the proceedings from beginning too grim. D.T. is handy with a wisecrack, but there are a number of plot complications that require him to dig beyond his usual glib responses.

The best part of the book, the thing has brought me back to it more than once, is its penultimate chapter. It's a thing of beauty, as cleverly constructed as "Walt Catches Cold," the pivotal chapter in John Irving's "The World According to Garp." It's a courtroom scene, of course, with D.T. facing down a doctor who has abandoned his wife, now nearly crippled by MS. Everything -- theme, plot, characterization -- snaps together in a totally unexpected, totally satisfying way in that chapter. Sometimes I take the paperback edition of "The Ditto List" from the shelf just to re-read those 16 pages, they're that funny, pungent and compelling.

Unfortunately, the final chapter of "The Ditto List" is more than a little hokey, a rom-com fantasy ending that doesn't live up to what's gone before. But, hey, what are you going to do? If you like lawyer novels and want something different from the usual super-serious, "conspiracy in every corner" claptrap, seek out "The Ditto List."

Books I'm Not Reading -- Hylozoic

2009-07-11T19:02:00.000-07:00

The books continue to stack up, but Rudy Rucker's "Hylozoic" isn't one of them. Why? I'm not really sure. I never received an ARC or a finished copy of the latest from the author of "Postsingular," "Mathematicians in Love" and "Frek and the Elixir."

Books reach me at The Chronicle via two streams. Many come directly addressed to me and wind up in my personal mailbox. Others are addressed just generally to The Chronicle and get shuttled down to the basement, where the Books editor sorts them by month or category. Anything that looks vaguely "sciencie fictiony" ends up on my shelf.

What's weird is that Tor, the publisher of "Hylozoic," is pretty good about sending material directly to me. But some stuff just seems to fall through the cracks. Such was the case with "Hylozoic." It didn't even appear in the basement.

Not that I was likely to read the novel, anyway. I'm a big fan of Rucker, having reviewed his work at least as far back as "The Hollow Earth." But there's a lot of other books that need my attention. And "Hylozoic" is a sequel to "Postsingular," another book I haven't read, and that might mean double the work. And if I have to go to all the trouble of picking up the phone or writing an e-mail to get a copy...

Oh, well. Rudy's a prolific fellow. I'm sure there will be other opportunities for me to write about him. In the meantime, here's a swell review of "Hylozoic" from io9.

Books You Oughta Read -- Stone City

2009-07-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

I’ve been making an attempt to clear some space in the house, which — surprise! — has necessitated moving lots of books around. One upside of the process is re-discovering titles, often in paperback, that I liked enough to keep around for up to 15 years or more. In general, they’re not huge best-sellers or even critically well regarded. They’re just good books that hit my critical sweet spot once upon a time.

Over the next little while, I plan to write about some of them, under the rubric Books You Oughta Read. I don’t actually plan to re-read these books, at least not immediately, so my comments should taken as semi-informed, if not 100 percent reliable.

First up — “Stone City” by Mitchell Smith!

I have not read all of his work, but the bulk of Mitchell Smith’s output can be described as — uncompromising. Mr. Smith does not screw around. If he sets up a premise and a theme, he is going to follow them to the bitter, bitter end.

Case in point, 1990’s “Stone City,” easily the best prison novel I’ve ever read. (A small field, admittedly.) Set in a hellish state penitentiary, it focuses on ex-college professor Charles Bauman as he attempts to find a serial killer preying on his fellow inmates. Bauman is what’s known as too smart for his own good, and the narrative of “Stone City” concerns his continuing education as he moves through the various social strata in the prison and tries to solve a mystery while keeping himself -- and his family on the outside -- alive. Caught in a mesh of conflicting agendas, he mixes with black, Hispanic and Aryan gangs, lone psychopaths and transvestite punks.The narrative tension never slackens, and Bauman's complexities and foibles are explored with bleak, unflinching eye.

“Stone City” was published seven years before Tom Fontana’s “Oz.,” the hour-long prison drama on HBO. The novel's originality may seem obscured at this point, but I'd never read anything like it when I picked up the paperback in 1991. I don't know how Mitchell researched the book, but every aspect of it feels real, sometimes terrifyingly so. (Mitchell's bio notes that he worked in Intelligence in Cold War Berlin; I wish he had tackled a novel of espionage.)

The ending of “Stone City” is genuinely shocking, and it pisses off a lot of readers. But I find it absolutely apt, as would anyone else with an appreciation for classical tragedy, I suspect.

There's not a whole lot of information about Smith available on the Web. This profile from the Seattle Times is particularly informative, though. As for his other novels, "Karma" and "Reprisal" are the two that stand out among those I've read, but they don't match the intensity or craft of "Stone City." I regret not at least sampling his final work, the science fictional "Snowfall Trilogy."

“Stone City” is out of print, which is a shame. If you see a used copy, grab it.

In a Stoppard Frame of Mind

2009-07-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

I'm way behind on my Tom Stoppard blogging chores. Apologies.

The Duke of York Theatre's revival of "Arcadia," running through September 12, has been well received. It was reviewed in the Telegraph, in the Oxford Times, in the New York Times, in the Times Online and on Reuters.

Stoppard's son Ed talks about appearing in the London revival.

"Arcadia" was also recently produced at the Folger Theatre.

Meanwhile, the Independent asks whether "Arcadia" is the greatest play of our age.

Sam Mendes' Bridge Project, having returned to England, paired Stoppard's adaptation of "The Cherry Orchard" with Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale."

Finally, program the "Rock 'n' Roll" playlist onto your iPod.

Books I'm Not Reading -- The City and the City

2009-07-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

Way back in 2007, I instituted a feature on this blog that has since fallen into silence: Books I'm Not Reading. Nobody else seems to be covering this hot topic, so I believe it's time for another installment!

As a reviewer, I receive dozens of books each month that I can't/won't/shouldn't read. It doesn't mean that they're bad books, necessarily, just that there are only so many hours in the day, so much space in the newspaper and who over the age of 13 really, really needs to read the latest GI Joe novelization, even if it is written by Max Allan Collins? So nine-tenths of the books I get wind up in Postal Service containers down in The Chronicle basement and never receive any kind of mention from me at all, not even in casual conversation. Books I'm Not Reading therefore sheds light on some of the recent releases that, for one reason or another, get short shrift from me.

Sometimes it all comes down to bad timing. I was, for example, all prepared to read and review "The City and the City," the latest from China Mieville, author of "The Scar" and "Un Lun Dun." But I made the tactical error of trying to do so while on jury duty.

Back in May, I spent about a week trundling back and forth to the Superior Court in Hayward, worried that I would be stuck on a jury for up to a month. Traveling by bus and BART and being forced to sit for hours with nothing better to do, I did manage to whip through two science fiction/fantasy thrillers in quick succession, "Fragment" by Warren Fahy and "The Lovers" by John Connolly. But "The City and the City" was a different story.

While nominally a murder mystery, Mieville's book has a fantastical element that requires a good deal of special attention on the part of the reader. In an off-hand Tweet, I referred to it as "Gorky Park as written by Italo Calvino," and that's not far off. Unfortunately, I didn't seem to have the patience for "The City..." while on jury duty. Somehow, I kept losing my thread of concentration.

Eventually, the defendant in my trial took a plea, and I was released from my duties. But even then, I wasn't able to finish Mieville's novel. The Books editor at The Chronicle wanted me to review "The Strain" by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan in my next column, plus read 18+ graphic novels for a special feature on comics. And even though I kept a bookmark at around page 150 of "The City and the City," I never got back to it.

Maybe I will later this summer. I feel kind of bad, because I was intrigued by what I read, and I've certainly heard lots of good things about the novel. But I'm pretty sure I've lost the necessary momentum. Sorry, China.

What I've Been Up to Since March

2009-07-04T20:37:00.000-07:00

The past four months have not been particularly happy nor productive. No need to go into details. Those who know me can extrapolate why.

But having reached and passed the year's midpoint, it's probably time to reconnoiter and post links to some of the things I did manage to accomplish. So --

I did a couple of stand-alone crime fiction reviews for The Chronicle, Walter Mosley's "The Long Fall" and "The Way Home" by George Pelecanos. I liked both books, well enough.

Due to a shortage of editorial space and other factors, my science fiction column has appeared more irregularly than usual. However, in April, I covered horror/supernatural/urban fantasy novels by S.G. Browne ("Breathers"), Will Elliott ("The Pilo Family Circus") and Patricia Briggs ("Bone Crossed"). Later that month, I reviewed two YA post-apocalyptic novels, "Bones of Faerie" by Janni Lee Simner and Carrie Ryan's "The Forest of Hands and Teeth." In my most recent column, from back in May, the books selected were Michael Marshall's "Bad Things," Chris Roberson's "End of the Century," "The Best of Gene Wolfe," and the re-issue of Robert Silverberg's "Dying Inside."

I have at least two stories planned for July -- a big, double-spread review of recent comics/graphic novels in hardcover and trade editions and the return of my column, featuring work by Dean Koontz, John Connolly and others.

Stoppard Catch-up

2009-03-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

By most accounts, it looks as if Sam Mendes' production of Stoppard's adaptation of "The Cherry Orchard" was a success. (It ends tomorrow, by the way.) Here's a review from New York Magazine to refresh your memory.

Newsweek ran an interview with the playwright, but it was James Mustich at the Barnes & Noble Review who scored the most illuminating conversation with Stoppard this season.

Of course, there are plenty of other plays in the Stoppard repertoire. "Travesties" is set to open at the Sydney Opera House on March 9. For those unfamiliar with the play's literary and historical background, Jonathan Biggins provides a decent summary in the Sydney Morning Herald.

"Rock 'n' Roll" continues to roll out at various venues around the Globe. Productions are planned in Chicago and the Twin Cities. Right now it's playing in Manchester, UK.

Meanwhile, "The Real Thing" is playing at the Salisbury Playhouse in Salisbury, UK.

Bob Crowley, the five-time Tony Award winner, will receive the 2009 Robert L. B. Tobin Award For Lifetime Achievement In Theatrical Design at the TDF/Irene Sharaff awards on March 27 in New York City. Crowley designed the Lincoln Center production of "The Coast of Utopia."

Finally, Stoppard's son Barny has opened a healthy fast-food restaurant.

Photo credit: Jonathan Biggins as Henry Carr in the STC's Travesties.
Photo: Sandy Nicholson

Review: "Drood" by Dan Simmons

2009-03-01T17:47:00.002-08:00

I had a lot of trouble with "Drood," the latest novel from the highly versatile Dan Simmons. For starters, it's nearly 800 pages and the narrative sags badly in the middle. Then there's the fact that its narrator, semi-forgotten novelist Wilkie Collins, is the least reliable biographer this side of Charles Kinbote, so it takes considerable work out what's really happening in the story. Finally, if you're not already steeped in Dickensian lore and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," you'll miss some of the twists that Simmons sets up.

Ultimately, though, it's a captivating and innovative historical thriller. Not quite up to the standards of Simmons' arctic horror novel "The Terror," but still audacious and impressive in its execution.

Read my review from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Review: Air: Letters from Lost Countries by G. Willow Wilson & M.K. Peker

2009-02-27T20:28:00.000-08:00

DC Comics did G. Willow Wilson and M.K. Peker's new on-going series a serious disservice when it previewed "Air" in its other books from the Vertigo line. The disjointed pages excerpted from the first issue did little to convey the charm of this tale of air travel through the not-so-friendly skies. Now the first five issues of "Air" have been collected in "Letter from Lost Countries," and it's an introductory volume well worth picking up.

When acrophobic flight attendant Blythe becomes intrigued with Zayn, a mysterious male traveler of indeterminate national origin, she helps set in motion a violent on-board incident that culminates with her and the stranger jumping from the plane with only one parachute between them. After Blythe recovers from her minor injuries, Zayn leaves on a mission to Bangladesh, only to disappear in another presumed air crash. A letter with a return address from Narimar, a country that appears on no map, gives Blythe hope that, with the help of two co-workers, she can rescue her lover, wherever he is.

Wilson and Peker are the team behind the Vertigo black-and-white hardcover "Cairo," and they seem to be developing a comfortable groove for their first monthly series. Blythe is a good antidote to the usual Vertigo heroine. She's complicated but not kooky, she's a genuine adult, not an angsty teenager, and she seems free of the usual daddy and mommy issues. The antagonists are little over-the-top and too on-the-mark in their dialogue, not to mention too fond of explaining their nefarious plans exactly where they can be overheard. At the ends of the fourth issues, though, Wilson and Peker stage a reveal that pushes the premise of "Air" in a promising and unexpected new direction.

I'm not sure I'll become a regular reader of "Air," but I'm sufficiently impressed by "Letter from Lost Countries" to keep that possibility open.

Review: Datlow, Berry and Sterling

2009-02-20T18:50:00.000-08:00

This week's Sunday Chronicle includes my regular science fiction/fantasy column. The featured books are Ellen Datlow's "Poe" anthology, "The Manual of Detection," a first novel by Jedediah Berry and "The Caryatids" by Bruce Sterling.

All three are worth your time, with Sterling's novel as the stand-out. "The Caryatids" feels very much in tune with the tenor of these awful, uncertain times, but it also manages to provide a ray of hard-won hope.

Now I start reading for my April 5 column. Suggestions welcome!

Oscar Fever, Chills and Vague Nausea

2009-02-19T22:12:00.000-08:00

I'm usually pretty excited in Oscar Season, but not this year. My friendly neighborhood video store isn't being very friendly, having discontinued its annual Academy Awards contest. Times are tough all over, I guess, but without the prospect of winning an armload of free credits, I'm not mustering much enthusiasm.

I've actually seen three out of the five Best Picture nominees, so I'm better informed than usual. But I don't feel a personal stake in any of them, and I find the conventional wisdom about who will win to closely match my own guesswork.

Best Supporting Actress -- Penelope Cruz. Woody Allen has an excellent track record for directing the women who take home this award, so she gets my vote. Viola Davis is pretty amazing in "Doubt," but I think that voting block will be split.

Best Supporting Actor -- Heath Ledger. I think he'd be the top contender even without having met a tragically early death.

Best Actor -- Sean Penn. I'm not a big Penn fan, but I thought he was truly outstanding in "Milk." I'm even less of a Mickey Rourke enthusiast, so while I wish him and his freaky chihuahuas well, I'm not rooting for him.

Best Actress -- Kate Winslet. You couldn't pay me enough to sit through "The Reader," but everybody seems to like Winslet on general principles and feel it's past time she got an Oscar.

Best Director -- Danny Boyle. "Slumdog Millionaire" won me over against my better judgment, and it took a sure and inventive hand to pull that off.

Best Picture -- Slumdog Millionaire. See above.

Yeah, no surprises or dazzling insights there. But I've at least made my choices known.

Review: Tom Piccirilli's "The Coldest Mile"

2009-02-13T21:48:00.000-08:00

One of the drawbacks of being a reviewer is that you have to make a lot of snap decisions just to keep up with the tide of material that washes over you. I get literally hundreds of ARCs and finished copies every year, and it's a little frightening to realize how arbitrary my methods for selecting the 30-35 titles for review really are.

For one thing, I very rarely review mass-market paperback originals, and usually only if there's a local connection. (Currently, a lot of urban fantasies with covers depicting well-toned, bare-midriffed young women wielding edged weapons go directly into the rejects bin. Sorry.) And sometimes I later regret not holding onto these books for my own reading pleasure. Case in point: the novels of Tom Piccirilli.

I know I received copies of his horror novels "The Midnight Road" and "The Dead Letters." But I didn't hang onto them, and now I'm kicking myself. Because I read his Edgar-nominated crime novel, "The Cold Spot," last year, and I immediately wanted more. Luckily, the sequel, "The Coldest Mile," is now available.

The new book picks up pretty much where the earlier volume left off, with wheelman Chase at loose ends after the death of his wife and his act of vengeance against her killers. He takes a job as a chauffeur for a Mob family, trying to figure out how he can rip them off and then be on his way to hunt down Jonah, the grandfather who raised him and betrayed him.

Chase wants to find his grandfather in order to protect Jonah's two-year-old daughter, whom he doesn't want to be raised by a sociopath. Chase's quest takes him to Florida, where he falls in with various small-time hoods, all the while girding himself a confrontation he's not at all sure he will survive.

"The Coldest Mile" can probably be enjoyed on its own, but you need to have read "The Cold Spot" to get its full effect. And it's pretty damn powerful. Chase and Jonah are great characters, the plotting works smoothly and Piccirilli both pays tribute to the likes of Goodis, Thompson and Stark and gives them a fair run for their money.

It's likely that Piccirilli isn't done with these characters, so this has the feel of a middle book in a trilogy. Whatever happens, I won't make the mistake of overlooking any more of Piccirilli's books that come my way.

Review: Joe Hill's "Gunpowder"

2009-02-03T22:02:00.000-08:00

I've enjoyed pretty much everything I've read by Joe Hill, starting with his novel, "Heart-Shaped Box," and continuing on through his collection of short fiction, "20th Century Ghosts," and the first volume of his on-going comics project, "Locke & Key."

Now comes a new, 26,000-word novella, "Gunpowder," published in various editions by PS Publishing. It's set on a planet being terraformed by a gang of young psychics under the tutelage of a lone teacher/mother figure. The boys squabble among themselves and scapegoat Charley, the only one who doesn't seem to have The Talent. Everything works well enough until a starship arrives and sends down an emissary with new orders for the kids.

To the best of my knowledge, this is Hill's first published foray into outright science fiction, and he does a good job of setting up the premise and delineating the shifting allegiances within this cohort of young mutants. My problem with "Gunpower" lies in its climatic confrontation. Hill doesn't precisely fall back on cliche, but it's clear too soon that the narrative is going to head toward its expected conclusion. The details are unguessable, but the overall shape of the showdown between the children and the interloper is too predictable.

Is it worth the money and effort to track down this hardcover edition? Depends on how fervent a fan you are. Hill has the potential to be prolific. Wait a few years, and perhaps "Gunpowder" will be part of a larger collection.

Review: "House of Mystery: Room & Boredom"

2009-01-23T22:53:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before that I seem to be closing in on my final days as purchaser of monthly comics. Two more issues of "100 Bullets," and I'm done, I think.

For a long while, I stuck with Bill Willingham's "Fables," but even its clever take on folklore and fairy tales couldn't keep me reading past Issue 75. Now Willingham and Matthew Sturges are collaborating on a monthly series, "House of Mystery," with art by Luca Rossi and various guest contributors, and the first five issues have been collected in a new trade.

One of DC's longest-running series, the original "The House of Mystery," an anthology of short horror stories hosted by homicidal "caretaker" Cain, was open for business from 1951 through 1983, most notably under the editorships of Joe Orlando and Karen Berger. (Its counterpart, the House of Secrets, was home to Cain's hapless brother/victim Abel.) Alan Moore put a new spin on the concept in his "Swamp Thing" saga, and Neil Gaiman gave Cain and Abel the spotlight in a few episodes of "Sandman."

Sturges and Willingham's incarnation of the House of Mystery abruptly evicts Cain for reasons unknown. The focus of the main narrative is now a young woman named Fig Keeler, who finds herself within the house and unable to leave. She's one of five permanent residents who attend to the needs of various visitors who stop in its bar, where the cost of a drink is a good story. The others seem mostly resigned to their fates, but Fig is determined to escape.

Sturges and Willingham employ a light touch with this material, introducing some genuinely creepy elements without getting all dour and angst-y (as happened with the "House of Secrets" reboot of the late 1990s). But somehow the biggest questions about where the main narrative is heading are not terribly compelling yet. The five- to six-page bar tales offer little bursts of humor or terror and hint at future connections, but they don't offer the one-two-punch ironies that characterize the best of, say, the old EC horror comics.

"House of Mystery" has potential, but it doesn't yet succeed as a serial or an anthology -- or as a unique hybrid of the two. I won't start buying the series monthly, but I'll welcome the next trade collection.

"Every Good Boy..." Revival

2009-01-22T20:21:00.000-08:00

Tom Stoppard and Andre Previn's 1977 orchestral drama, "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour," is being revived in the National Theatre's Olivier Auditorium, starring Toby Jones and Joseph Millson. Set in Soviet Russia, "EGBDF" "contrasts the circumstances of a political prisoner and a mental patient in a Soviet insane asylum, to question the difference, if any, between free will and the freedom to conform."

The Mail Online admires the score but says "the politics have moved on." The Oxford Times finds the piece less dated: "The violence at the core of the debased political system under scrutiny is graphically revealed in a shocking display of balletic beatings-up among and around the orchestra, during which the players continue to bow and blow with vigour."

Variety says of the 65-minute piece: "the production reveals the piece as more theatrical than dramatic, more a premise than a play." The Financial Times admires the production's ambition, but deems it "a play for yesterday." The Independent is even less enthusiastic.

Nevertheless, Bloomsberg.com finds the play still chillingly relevant. And musicOMH praises it, deeming it "a timely revival of a politically acute and quirkily engaging work."

As it requires the presence of a full orchestra onstage, "EGBDF" is rarely performed, so my advice to any Stoppard fans visiting the West End is that they not pass up the chance to see this production if given the opportunity.

UPDATE: The Sunday Times weighs in, and Liz Hoggard on the Evening Standard sings the praises of short plays that inspire long friendships.

Lisa Rogak's "Haunted Heart"

2009-01-18T12:20:00.000-08:00

I've been following the career of Stephen King for more than 30 years now, and Lisa Rogak's "Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King" (St. Martin's; 310 pages; $25.95) didn't initially strike me as something I absolutely needed to read or review. I haven't seen every story in the media about King in the last three decades, but I'm certainly well acquainted with the major turning points in his life story. Although Rogak has published more than 40 books, I wasn't familiar with her work enough to trust her immediately as an authority, as I did Douglas Winter when he published "The Art of Darkness" back in the Eighties.

I'm glad I picked up "Haunted Heart," though. It's smoothly written, respectful and non-exploitative, a straight-forward chronological biography that treads lightly when it comes to literary criticism. In addition to the usual rags-to-riches-with-a-slight-detour-through-alcohol-and-drug-abuse narrative, Rogak elicits fresh comments and anecdotes from King's mentors, friends and colleagues. She also sheds light on King's relationships with his wife and children, rounding out her portrait of an artist obsessed with the darker side but usually also focused on traditional values of family, charity and hard work.

I caught a couple of minor errors (Tom Clancy's "The Hunt of Red October" was his second book, but his first novel), some odd interpretations of King's fiction (the ending of "Thinner" is very, very far from "upbeat") and a strange omission or two (after emphasizing so heavily King's love of the Red Sox, why no mention in the main text of "Faithful," his non-fiction collaboration with Stewart O'Nan?).

In general, though, Rogak's presentation of the material gibes with what I know about her subject, and she provided sufficient new tidbits to keep me interested. I'm not sure what the audience for this book might be -- truly devoted King fans may be tired of the umpteenth retelling of how "Carrie" was rescued from the garbage pail -- but it's the kind of easy-going biography that might appeal to a high school or college student who wants to know what it's like to be one of the most influential popular writers of the past half-century.

Stoppard's "Cherry Orchard"

2009-01-17T16:04:00.001-08:00

Sam Mendes of "American Beauty" and "Revolutionary Road" is directing the Bridge Project production of Stoppard's new version of Anton Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard." It boasts a stellar Anglo-American cast, including Sinead Cusack, Simon Russell Beale, Rebecca Hall and Ethan Hawke. So far, the critical consensus has been favorable.

Ben Brantley of the New York Times calls it a "nimble new version...that invites fresh comic shadings, pushes that sense of the incongruous not so much into farce (although there’s some of that) as into 'Alice in Wonderland' absurdity."

Terry Teachout has a review in the Wall Street Journal.

The review in Variety says: "The chief strengths of Stoppard's adaptation are its conversational ease and erudite humor, but there's a slight chill to the playwright's gaze that undercuts the melancholy strains of a great Chekhov production."

The New York Daily News also likes the production.

Charlie Huston's "The Mystic Arts..."

2009-01-17T15:10:00.000-08:00

I've been a Charlie Huston fan since I picked up "Caught Stealing," the first volume of the Hank Thompson Trilogy. (The other books are "Six Bad Things" and "A Dangerous Man.") I was impressed most by their immediacy, the way Huston lets the characters' weaknesses and bad decisions cascade ever closer to disaster. Hank's adventures are harrowing, profane, tragic and funny, well worth the time of anyone who enjoy crime fiction.

I am less enamored of Huston's work on the Joe Pitt vampire detective novels. I reviewed the first for The Chronicle and never felt a need to seek out the others. Their central conceit is clever enough, but the series really doesn't give me anything I can't find elsewhere. Huston's first stand-alone novel was 2007's "The Shotgun Rule," and it shared an approach and viewpoint similar to the Thompson Trilogy. I thought it rocked.

Now Huston gives us "The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death," and it looks as if it may be his breakout book. (The blurb from Stephen King can't hurt.)

"Mystic Arts…" is narrated by Webster Fillmore Goodhue, a former teacher traumatized into slackerhood. Desperate for cash, he reluctantly joins trauma specialists Clean Team and begins to learn the trade of mopping up after people who have died messily. His first gig leads to an after-hours job in a hotel room for a suicide's pretty daughter, and everything begins to spiral out of control from there.

Over at John Scalzi's Whatever, Huston writes about the origins of his new novel and confirms some of the suspicions I had about the book. I hadn't picked up on its debt to "The Rockford Files" (which is clear once you've been tipped to it), but I'm glad to hear that Huston regards this as the first of a new series. It's fast, funny and bracing, similar to "Caught Stealing" but with a much more positive vibe.

If you haven't read Huston, this is the perfect place to start.

New Chronicle Review -- Reed, Priest & Langan

2009-01-10T16:31:00.000-08:00

SFGate has already posted my book column for this month. The books under discussion are "Enclave" by Kit Reed, "Fathom" by Cherie Priest and "Mr Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters" by John Langan.

I'm a big fan of Reed, but "Enclave" was a bit of a disappointment. Great set-up, smooth execution, but I felt the ending felt too neat. As for Priest, I hadn't reviewed any of her work since her debut, so it was good to see what she's up to these days. "Fathom" is an odd, sometime unfocused, book, but it pulls itself together at the end.

I was unfamiliar with Langan's work, but I'm glad I took a chance with his new collection of novellas. He's somebody I'll keep an eye out for in the future.

Books I'm Looking forward to in 2009

2009-01-01T21:16:00.000-08:00

There's never enough time to read everything that catches my eye during any season of the publishing year. I know I won't be able to crack all of what's listed below, but it's always nice to dream...

The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston -- I've been a fan of Huston since "Caught Stealing." I prefer his straight crime novels to his vampire detective series, so this new one, about a crime scene clean-up technician, is especially appealing. It's getting a big push from his publisher.

Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King by Lisa Rogak -- Not sure if it'll reveal much I don't already know, but this seems to be a low-key, non-exploitative bio of Mr. King.

The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry -- "An unlikely detective, armed only with an umbrella and a singular handbook, must untangle a string of crimes committed in and through people's dreams." Could be an enjoyable bit of literary gamesmanship. Could be an annoyingly pretentious wank-a-thon.

End of the Century by Chris Roberson -- The search for the Holy Grail, set in three eras. I'm always impressed by Roberson's creative energy, and it's been a while since I read "Here, There & Everywhere."

Poe edited by Ellen Datlow -- Nineteen tales inspired by Edgar Allan.

The Caryatids by Bruce Sterling -- I'm sure Sterling's take on clones will be an interesting one.

Escape from Hell by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle -- The long-awaited sequel to "Inferno." I haven't read much Niven/Pournelle since college, so there's a nostalgia factor here.

Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald -- A collection of stories set in the same milieu as the award-winning "River of Gods."

Under the Dome -- Stephen King's next major work, said to rival "The Stand" and "IT" in page count.

Donald Westlake/Richard Stark RIP

2009-01-01T16:09:00.000-08:00

Damn. Mystery writer Donald Westlake is dead at age 75.

Westlake surely ranks within my dozen favorite writers, regardless of genre. Under his own name, he's the creator of the Dortmunder series of comic caper novels, starting with "The Hot Rock."As Richard Stark, he's the genius who chronicles the adventures of Parker, the ultimate professional criminal. He adapted Jim Thompson's "The Grifters" for the screen and wrote the original screenplay for "The Stepfather."

I've been reading Westlake since I was about 15, and although some of his books are better than others, I don't think I've been genuinely disappointed by any of them. He made it all look easy -- plotting, character, scene-setting, humor, irony. He had the kind of career that's deeply enviable and most likely will never be matched.

If you've never read Westlake, I particularly recommend "The Ax," a newly relevant look at middle-aged and middle-management malaise. "Slayground" is one of the best Stark books, but it's currently hard to find, so you might as well just start with "The Hunter," filmed as "Point Blank" with Lee Marvin (good) and "Payback" with Mel Gibson (not so). Among the Dortmunders, I'm fond of "Jimmy the Kid" and "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" If you want a real change of pace, try "Kahawa," about diamonds, coffe and Idi Amin, and "Smoke," a clever riff on "The Invisible Man."

Sarah Weinman has posted a list of worthwhile Westlake-related links. The Onion AV Club interview and the chat with John Banville are especially good.

I'm thankful for everything Westlake gave us, but I still wish there were more.

Back to Stoppard Blogging

2008-12-22T14:34:00.000-08:00

Been a while since I've added any Stoppard links. Here are a few from England and around the U.S.

Stoppard and Andre Previn are gearing up for a revival of "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour" at the National.

Stoppard recently visited Yale to speak to a class by Paula Vogel. He was in town to see a revival of "Rough Crossing" at the Yale Repertory Theatre, reviewed here, here, here and here.

Really sad to hear that Shakespeare Santa Cruz has been pushed to the financial brink. Glad to know that Stoppard is lending his support.

Two recent productions of "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern": one in Surrey, UK, the other in Melbourne, Australia.

John Cullum and Tony Roberts are slated to star in the New York premiere of "Heroes." (Not the superhero television series.)

And Stoppard is still opposed to the publication of Nabokov's final novel, "The Original of Laura."

List of Science Fiction Review Sites

2008-12-12T18:56:00.000-08:00

John Ottinger of Grasping for the Wind is collecting links to science fiction and fantasy reviewers. Here's what he's compiled so far:

The Accidental Bard
A Dribble Of Ink
Adventures in Reading
The Agony Column
The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.
Barbara Martin
Bibliophile Stalker
Bibliosnark
BillWardWriter.com
Blood of the Muse
Bookgeeks
Bookslut
Bookspotcentral
The Book Swede
Bookrastination
Breeni Books
Cheap Ironies
Cheryl's Musings
Critical Mass
Dark Wolf Fantasy Reviews
Darque Reviews
Dave Brendon's Fantasy and Sci-Fi Weblog
The Deckled Edge
Dragons, Heroes and Wizards
Dusk Before the Dawn
Enter the Octopus
Eve's Alexandria
Fantasy Book Critic
Fantasy Cafe
Fantasy Debut
Fantasy Book Reviews and News
Fantasy and Sci-fi Lovin' Blog
The Fix
The Foghorn Review
From a Sci-Fi Standpoint
The Galaxy Express
Galleycat
Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
Grasping for the Wind
The Green Man Review
Highlander's Book Reviews
io9
Jumpdrives and Cantrips
Literary Escapism
Michele Lee's Book Love
Monster Librarian
Mostly Harmless Books
My Favourite Books
Neth Space
NextRead
OF Blog of the Fallen
The Old Bat's Belfry
Outside of a Dog
Pat's Fantasy Hotlist
Piaw's Blog
Post-Weird Thoughts
Publisher's Weekly
Reading the Leaves
Realms of Speculative Fiction
Rob's Blog o' Stuff
ScifiChick
SF Diplomat
SciFiGuy
Sci-Fi Songs [Musical Reviews]
Severian's Fantastic Worlds
SF Gospel
SF Reviews.net
SF Revu
SF Signal
SF Site
SFF World's Book Reviews
Silver Reviews
Speculative Fiction Junkie
Speculative Horizons
Sporadic Book Reviews
Stella Matutina
The Sword Review
Tangent Online
Temple Library Reviews
Tor.com [also a publisher]
The Road Not Taken
Un:Bound
Urban Fantasy Land
Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic
Variety SF
Walker of Worlds
Wands and Worlds
The Wertzone
WJ Fantasy Reviews
The World in a Satin Bag
WriteBlack

Foreign Language (other than English)

Cititor SF [Romanian, but with English Translation]

Elbakin.net [French]

The Latest from King, Hill and Baker

2008-11-29T20:12:00.000-08:00

SFGate has posted my review of new books from Stephen King, Joe Hill and Kage Baker. King's latest is a collection of 13 short stories, most of which are pretty good. It's not my favorite gathering of his short work, but there's enough of a mix to make it worthwhile for most fans. Stand-out stories include "The Gingerbread Girl" and "Ayana."

Joe Hill (who happens to be King's son, just in case you hadn't heard) created an on-going comics series for IDW. It's called "Locke and Key," and the first six issues are collected in hardcover as "Welcome to Lovecraft." (Minor quibble: I don't think H.P.'s surname works as a New England place name. Just sayin'.)

As crazy as I was for Baker's Company books, I'm really conflicted about her fantasy novels. I know they're well-written, but they just don't grab me. It seemed to take me forever to read "The House of the Stag," but don't let that stop you from giving it a try.

Holiday Books 2008

2008-11-22T21:18:00.000-08:00

The San Francisco Chronicle publishes its annual Holiday Books section tomorrow, and it once again includes my list of recommended science fiction and fantasy titles.

It's not really a Best of the Year list, as I'm not able to read enough of the year's selections to make any kinds of definitive judgments. But I try to choose an interesting mix of authors working in a variety of modes. So, in addition to books by heavy-hitters like Neil Gaiman, Stephen King and Neal Stephenson, I give props to lesser-known authors like Jo Walton, Daryl Gregory and Jeff and Anne VanderMeer.

George C. Chesbro and the Last of Mongo

2008-11-19T20:11:00.000-08:00

I was sad to hear that George C. Chesbro, author of the Mongo mysteries, has passed away, as noted at Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, The Rap Sheet and the author's official site. With his dwarf protagonist, Chesbro brought something unique to crime fiction, a willingness to mix elements of the paranormal with the traditional gumshoe mystery, well before "The X Files" and its many imitators.

I started reading Chesbro with "The Beasts of Valhalla." (C'mon, look at that cover! How can you not want to pick it up?) It's an astounding mash-up of Wagner, "The Lord of the Rings" and a mad-scientist science fiction plot. I highly recommend it and its two immediate follow-ups, "Two Songs This Archangel Sings" and "The Cold Smell of Sacred Stone."

A few years ago Clayton Moore wrote an excellent column about Chesbro for Bookslut. It's worth reading now as an eloquent remembrance.

Remembering Michael Crichton

2008-11-08T18:52:00.000-08:00

I think I read one of Michael Crichton's pseudonymous thrillers before I got around to his better-known work under his own name. It was the paperback original "Binary" (or as I pronounced it in my 13-year-old brain "bin-arry"), about a plot to release nerve gas at the Republican National Convention. (I guess that would be bad.) Anyway, it impressed the hell out of the teenaged me.

Throughout high school, I picked up "The Andromeda Strain," "Eaters of the Dead" and "The Great Train Robbery." I saw "Coma" and "Westworld" at the movies. "Sphere" was among my first assignments as a professional reviewer, and I was amused to see that the paperback edition prominently featured cherry-picked adjectives from my less-than-glowing critique.

Like a lot of folks, I was startled to learn on Wednesday that Crichton had died of cancer at age 66. He'll be missed by a lot of readers. I'm glad I was given the opportunity to write an appreciation of him for the Sunday Chronicle.

"Octavian Nothing -- The Kingdom on the Waves"

2008-10-25T17:01:00.000-07:00

M.T. Anderson has published the concluding volume of "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation." I review it this weekend in the San Francisco Chronicle's kids' books pages. Highly recommended.

Nelson DeMille: When Will I Learn?

2008-10-24T19:46:00.000-07:00

I don't really know why I thought it was a good idea to read Nelson DeMille's new novel, "The Gate House." It's a sequel to "The Gold Coast," the very funny and well-observed Gatsby-Meets-The Godfather thriller from 20 years ago. I had managed to resist picking up his previous best-seller, still bearing a grudge from "Night Fall," which used 9/11 as a shoddy deus ex machina.

Maybe I was looking for a palate cleanser after "Anathem."

Anyway, I picked up "The Gate House" and was suckered in by DeMille's smart-ass dialogue and the return of some well-liked characters. Then it all started to fall apart. The characters began acting like idiots, the chief antagonist disappeared for half the book and nothing much happened. Perversely, I continued reading.

Finally, after more than 600 pages, everything was resolved by a stupid shootout and the arrival of a letter that could have been read at nearly any point in the narrative and thereby stopped everything in its tracks.

So, if you ever see me reading another new Nelson DeMille "thriller," please slap it out of my hands.

New Review: Walton, Gaiman and Carroll

2008-10-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

This week's Sunday Chronicle features my science fiction/fantasy column. Books covered include "Half a Crown" by Jo Walton, "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman and "The Ghost in Love" by Jonathan Carroll.

Although all are good and well worth your time and attention, I think my favorite of the three is "Half a Crown." Walton brings her alternate history trilogy to a rousing conclusion. It's a genuinely impressive feat, one that should be acknowledged by a wider, more mainstream audience.

Stoppard Does Chekhov, Plus More "Rock 'n' Roll"

2008-09-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

In London, Kenneth Branagh stars in the Donmar West End production of Anton Chekhov's "Ivanov," newly adapted by Stoppard. The production has been well received, for Branagh's performance and Stoppard's adaptation. Critics are reportedly unanimous in their praise.

The reviews for the San Francisco production of "Rock 'n' Roll" keep streaming in:
San Francisco Bay Times
Sacramento Bee
The Bay Guardian
The Daily Californian

Meanwhile, in a Times Online video interview, Stoppard claims that his approach to theater is "very, very lowbrow." You betcha.

Stephenson Is to Stoppard As...

2008-09-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

It took me close to two months, but I finally dragged myself through Neal Stephenson's 900-page philosophical science fiction epic, "Anathem." Oy. I'm a big fan of the author of "Cryptonomicon" and "The Baroque Cycle," but this tale of cloistered scholars making their way into the outside to deal with extraterrestrial visitors was a struggle all the way through. I nearly gave up a couple times, but I persevered, mainly because I knew that The Chronicle should cover the book and that no one else was going to step forward to do so.

It got a little easier once I found a hook for the review. After seeing "Rock 'n' Roll" last week, it struck me that Stephenson is to science fiction as Tom Stoppard is to contemporary drama. Sound far-fetched? Well, read my review from today's Chronicle and see if you agree.

"Rock 'n' Roll" Opens at ACT

2008-09-20T18:22:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, Stoppard's "Rock 'n' Roll" opened at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater, the play's first post-Broadway outing. I saw it on Wednesday, taking last-minute advantage of ACT's "Pay What You Wish" program.

It's a solid production of a play that doesn't rank among my favorites. The sets, lighting and sound design are especially impressive. I found the male lead, Manoel Felciano as Jan, to be problematic. Perhaps he was merely tired after Opening Night, but his energy level seemed off and he didn't connect with his counterparts as he should have. Jack Willis was more in the groove as Max, the aging Marxist professor, and his scenes with Rene Augesen as his dying wife/regretful daughter were beautifully handled.

In the Friday San Francisco Chronicle, Robert Hurwitt gave the production an enthusiastic review. On his blog, Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle takes special note of Augesen's performance.

Pat Craig at the Contra Costa Times had good things to say about this "Rock 'n' Roll," as did Lee Hartgrave at BeyondChron. Chad Jones at The Examiner was equally positive in his appraisal.

If you have tickets, be sure to take a moment to read the timeline printed in the program. The historical context is greatly helpful.

Various and Sundry

2008-08-30T22:11:00.000-07:00

I was on vacation last week and managed to post a few items to my other blog. I wrote about good advice from Nick Mamatas, the new series of Richard Stark comics from IDW, Books editor Oscar Villalon's departure from the San Francisco Chronicle and three new first novels.

Breaking Radio Silence

2008-08-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't been in the mood to blog for quite a while. But that doesn't mean that I haven't been writing.

In July, I contributed to the Barnes & Noble Review for the first time, with a spotlight review of "Saturn's Children" by Charles Stross.

I'm a big fan of Stross, so I wanted to like this novel more than I did. Maybe I'm just not as fond of late-period Heinlein as I should be...

For The Chronicle, I reviewed three trade paperback originals in my last column: Victor Gischler's "Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse," "Dogs" by Nancy Kress and "Superpowers by David J. Schwartz. The Gischler is the standout among those three, but each has its merits.

And last week, the Sunday Chronicle published my stand-alone review of Arthur C. Clarke and Frederick Pohl's "The Last Theorem."

It's unclear exactly how much Clarke contributed to the book, but it's worth checking out.

Now I'm reading a trio of first novels for my August column, including "The Gone-Away World" by Nick Harkaway. And Neal Stephenson's 900-page "Anathem" taunts me from the bedroom shelf. I'm not making swift progress through it.

Miscellaneous Stoppard Productions, Appearances and Interviews

2008-04-18T16:45:00.001-07:00

I've been remiss in keeping tracking track of various Stoppard productions since "Rock 'n' Roll" closed on Broadway. Here are links to a handful around the country and globe:

In Boston, The Publick Theatre is presenting "Travesties." The Boston Globe has a review. And so does the Boston Herald.

"Hapgood" is being revived in Britain, but it's still seen as a transitional piece.

"Rock 'n' Roll" has opened in Sydney.

The Queensland Theatre Company performed "Heroes," but you probably missed it.

Stoppard granted a rare interview to the Oxford student newspaper, on the occasion of receiving the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence.

Stoppard will take part in the HighTide theater and film festival in Halesworth, May 1-5.

At Harvard, "Angels in America" author Tony Kushner criticized "The Coast of Utopia" but praised "The Wire."

I Am NOT Dwight Shrute

2008-04-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

Somebody at my workplace knows I'm a fan of "The Office." This tempting office supply/dessert was on my desk after I momentarily stepped away this afternoon.

Blogging Malaise

2008-03-27T22:09:00.000-07:00

It had been a long time between posts here. I'm not sure what happened. I was enveloped by some kind of malaise and had trouble pulling myself out of it.

I did contribute a few items to my other blog, though. In case you missed them, I wrote about "The Big Lebowski" and its real-life inspirations, new books by Toby Barlow, John Meaney and Mark Evanier, and the passing last week of Arthur C. Clarke.

I'm particularly happy with the Clarke tribute. The Chronicle gave me a decent amount of space in the paper and, thanks to StumbleUpon, my blog post pointing to the online version was one of my most popular entries ever.

The next couple of weeks promise to be super-busy and stressful. I don't know whether I can regain a regular blogging rhythm. I'll do what I can, I guess.

ACT Nabs "Rock 'n' Roll" for Fall '08

2008-03-26T21:56:00.000-07:00

No surprise, really. Back in January, Carey Perloff strongly hinted she would soon produce Stoppard's latest play at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre. Today it was announced that it will be the season opener for '08-'09. Excellent!

One of the great advantages of living in the San Francisco Bay Area is the opportunity to see some really first-rate theater. I'm especially excited by Berkeley Rep's next season, which will feature Martin McDonagh's "The Lieutenant of Inishmore," August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" and "Yellowjackets," a world premiere by Itamar Moses about Berkeley High School in the Nineties.

The redoubtable Shotgun Players also have an interesting season ahead of them. I'm looking forward to their version of "Beowulf.

I'm unsure whether a trip to Ashland, Oregon, is in the cards this year. Nothing in the 2008 season besides "Fences" really grabs my attention. (And they're staging "The Music Man in '09? What's up with that? I don't need to travel six hours and pay $60 a ticket to hear "'Til There Was You.")

Now I just have to find the spare cash to see all these plays...

Stoppard Roundelay

2008-02-14T19:19:00.000-08:00

The Baltimore Sun's critic thought the unconventional casting of the Centerstage's production of "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern..." gave the "old play new relevance." Broadwayworld.com begged to differ, saying that the production "has set the new standard for bad theatre." Ouch.

Stoppard weighs in on the debate about whether Dmitri Nabokov should, per his father's wishes, destroy the final manuscript by the author of "Pale Fire" and "Lolita." Stoppard comes down on the side of "Burn it!"

John Madden, director of "Shakespeare in Love," writes about working with Stoppard on that breakthrough film. Then Stoppard himself gets a chance to discuss the production. (And, holy crap, has it really been 10 years since its release?)

In an interview on the Guardian Unlimited, Stoppard discusses his support of the Belarus Free Theatre.

And everybody covets Stoppard's book-bag.

Striking a Balance

2008-02-09T21:46:00.000-08:00

I haven't yet found the perfect balance between my old and new blogs. Two-Fisted Freelancing Tales gets more attention from me, largely because I'm really trying to learn how to build traffic on it. But I know that Cheaper Ironies has its regulars, including some who might be wondering about my latest reviews.

So, check out my recent Chronicle reviews of "Runemarks," a children's fantasy by Joanne Harris, and of Stephen King's "Duma Key," "Hunter's Run" by George R.R. Martin, Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham, and "The Dragons of Babel" by Michael Swanwick.

Also, if you're a fan of King, I recommend to you Bev Vincent's "Tales from the Dead Zone" and Lilja's Library.

"Quantum of Solace" Means What Now?

2008-01-24T18:57:00.000-08:00

"Quantum of Solace." Wow, could there be a worse title for the next James Bond movie? Sure, it's taken from one of the stories in "For Your Eyes Only" (one in which 007 barely makes an appearance). But it's so dementedly overreaching in its attempt to be poetic that I almost suspect that someone is taking the piss, as they say in Ian Fleming's homeland.

If you have any affection at all for Bond, you really should read Simon Winder's "The Man Who Saved Britain." It's a fascinating look at how "Casino Royale," "Dr. No" and "Goldfinger" pulled Britain out of the funk it had been in since World War II. Winder is both captivated and repelled by Fleming and the super-spy ethos he invented, and he dissects the Bond books and movies with great wit and insight.

Saturday Stoppard

2008-01-11T19:56:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, I attended a "conversation" with Tom Stoppard at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater. Sponsored by the Koret Foundation, the event was hosted ACT artistic director Carey Perloff.

Beginning at 10 on a storm-swept morning, the program attracted a sell-out -- and peculiarly geriatric -- crowd, but their enthusiasm for the author was evident. Settled in armchairs on the otherwise empty stage, Stoppard and Perloff discussed the recent success of "The Coast of Utopia" and "Rock 'n' Roll" for just under an hour. Some highlights for notes scribbled on the program:

Stoppard talked about his first trip back to Zlin, in what used to be Czechoslovakia. There he met the daughter of one of his father's medical colleagues, and the now-elderly woman told him how Dr. Straussler had stitched up her hand after she smashed it through a window in a childhood accident. Stoppard said that he was moved by the tangible evidence of his late father's handiwork.

Perloff recounted an anecdote about a student at ACT asking Stoppard to name the most important quality that an actor should bring to his scripts. Stoppard's answer: "Clarity of utterance."

Now devising a new translation of a Chekhov play, Stoppard said he works best at night, although he sometimes wakes to find that what he has produced reads "as if the Polish au pair girl had rearranged it." Also in regard to the Chekhov project, he reported that he's found a way not to worry about the presumed artificiality of characters speaking to themselves while alone on stage. "Breaking the fourth wall doesn't break the play."

Perloff kept the conversation rolling, but there's something a little off-putting about her manner, which borders on the fawning. I reap the benefits of her friendship with Stoppard, in that it enables events like this Koret program and the U.S. premieres of "Indian Ink" and "The Invention of Love." But it's a little icky to watch her gaze at him and proclaim him to be "the greatest living writer in the English language." It may be true, but c'mon.

She also apparently burnishes his bon mots a bit. After relating a story with the supposed punchline of "The problem with America is that you don't seem to have an Irony button on your keyboard," Stoppard gently corrected her, saying that he only wished for a typeface that could identify the ironic lines in his playscripts.

The biggest news of the day came at the beginning, when Perloff let slip that she is angling to bring "Rock 'n' Roll" to the Bay Area. Let's hope she's able to complete that negotiation successfully.

Announcing "Two-Fisted Freelancing Tales"

2008-01-02T21:16:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to keep some of my resolutions for 2008, I've inaugurated a new writing blog, "Two-Fisted Freelancing Tales." It's up and running and ready for visitors, so won't you please drop on by?

Regular visitors to "Cheaper Ironies" will remember that I tried to do something similar back in July and that the results were somewhat... semi-posteriored. This time I've learned my lesson and not slapped the blog together a day before an extended vacation. There's content already written and waiting to be published throughout the month. I plan to discuss the art of the book review, sites of particular use to writers, lessons that can be learned from authors famous and otherwise and making money online.

The inspiration for the site's title comes, of course, from the EC Comics series edited by the inimitable Harvey Kurtzman. Freelance writing can be a tough gig. Not quite as bad as going one-on-one against a mean s.o.b. with a pointy hook for a hand, but close.

Avast! It's Another Chronicle Review

2007-12-23T14:24:00.001-08:00

Today's San Francisco Chronicle includes my latest science fiction and fantasy roundup. Discussed are Gene Wolfe's "Pirate Freedom," "Ha'penny" by Jo Walton, "Black Dossier" by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill and "The Gunslinger Born" graphic novel from Marvel.

By the way, I do happen to know that the correct term for a story set in a timeline different from our own is an "alternate history," not an "alternative history."

Most of the time, copy editors are our friends. But not always.

Winter Solstice Stoppard Roundup

2007-12-21T19:47:00.000-08:00

Great googly moogly! Where has the month of December gone? On to the collected Stoppard links!

With the stagehands' strike over, "Rock 'n' Roll" is still "humming along" on Broadway, hitting its highest box office gross to date. Early in the month, the PBS NewsHour presented a lengthy feature on the production.

Nicole Ansari, actress and wife of Brian Cox, discusses what it's like to perform "Rock 'n' Roll" with one's spouse.

As the Prague Herald reports, the Plastic People of the Universe are making hay while the sun shines.

The Moscow Times includes the Russian version of "The Coast of Utopia" among the best theater productions of 2007. The Times also recently examined the life of Herzen, one of the play's principle characters.

Given the lukewarm reception of the film adaptation of "The Golden Compass," Stoppard is probably relieved that none of the blame can be laid at his feet.

Finally, Stoppard will provide the first lines for three plays to be written in four hours by Daniel MacIvor, Morwyn Brebner and Claudia Dey.

Speaking of Utterly Calm Killers...

2007-11-27T18:53:00.000-08:00

I've elsewhere noted my high regard for crime novelist Donald Westlake. He's also known as "Richard Stark" when writing about Parker, inveterate thief and all-around bad-ass.

With thanks to Sarah Weinman, here's a great interview with Westlake/Stark in the Times Online.

Call It, Friendo

2007-11-27T18:24:00.000-08:00

If you like the Coen Brothers, you're going to like "No Country for Old Men." If you sat through "Intolerable Cruelty" and "The Ladykillers" and wondered whether the boys would find their groove again, you're going to love it.

I haven't read the Cormac McCarthy novel from which the movie has been adapted, but I've heard that the Coens stuck pretty close to it, reportedly lifting big chunks of dialogue out of the book. It's basically a gussied-up "find the stolen money and wind up in hell" thriller, but it works mighty fine on the screen. Some people have problems with the book, but that's a different issue.

I don't think there's a bad performance in this film. Josh Brolin exhibits the right degree of close-mouthed working class fatalism, and Glaswegian actress Kelly Macdonald transforms herself into a young Texas housewife who's smarter than she first appears. Tommy Lee Jones keeps the folksiness to manageable portions. Tess Harper, Barry Corbin and Stephen Root lend their usual stalwart support. Even Woody Harrelson is fine.

The stand-out, though, is Javier Bardem as the utterly calm, terrifyingly implacable killer, Anton Chigurh. Watch the scene between him and Gene Jones, as Chigurh engages a gas station owner in an existential game of Heads-or-Tails. It's brilliantly shot, edited, acted and sound directed.

Best movie I've seen this year.

Sooper Geenius

2007-11-19T18:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what this signifies. It's not like I spend a lot of time discussing the finer points of string theory on this blog. Still, I'll take whatever approbation I can get, not matter how specious.

So, if your IQ's less than 150, back on out of here, pardner!

Recommended SF/Fantasy for the Holidays

2007-11-18T12:41:00.000-08:00

The San Francisco Chronicle published my list of recommended science fiction and fantasy reading for the holidays. This is usually interpreted as a "Best of the Year" list, but it's really only 10 books I particularly liked among those I happened to read between January and October, sorted alphabetically by author's last name.

Have a look if you're interested in good books by Kage Baker, Christopher Barzak, Emma Bull, Joe Hill, China Mieville, Naomi Novik, Patrick Rothfuss, Matt Ruff, Dan Simmons and Charles Stross.

Reckless Disregard

2007-11-16T21:59:00.000-08:00

Here's a heartbreaking and infuriating story via Romenesko.

A socially awkward 13-year-old girl named Megan befriends Josh, a hot-looking 16-year-old boy via MySpace. She's all excited until other local teens begin leaving online bulletins calling her "fat" and a "slut." Then Josh turns on her and allegedly writes that "the world would be a better place without you."

So Megan hangs herself in her closet.

You probably think you know the kicker to this awful tragedy. That's right, there never was any Josh. Somebody created a false account and purposefully set out to humiliate Megan. But here's what you probably didn't guess -- the hoax was perpetrated by two adults, the parents of one of Megan's former girlfriends.

Read the story in the St. Charles Journal. The writer omits the name of the -- what's the word I'm groping for -- evil people who exploited the trust of a child they'd previously vacationed with. He does, however, paint a vivid picture of the hell Megan's parents currently occupy.

Some readers see the newspaper's reticence to identify the culpable neighbors as cowardly. I'm not sure I agree. But I'm not sorry that others have done some elementary online sleuthing and identified the creators of "Josh."

I hope there's some payback. Legal recourse would be better than not. But I hope someone other than Megan's poor parents is losing some sleep tonight.

Vertigo Fatigue

2007-11-16T17:05:00.000-08:00

Comics from Vertigo, DC's "mature" imprint, just make me tired these days.

Back in its heyday, I used to read practically everything from this imprint. Gaiman's "Sandman." Morrison's "The Invisibles" and "The Filth." Ennis's "Preacher." "Hellblazer" by Delano and Ennis. Carey's "Lucifer."

Not anymore.

"Hellblazer"? Stopped when Mike Carey left.

"Y: The Last Man"? Bailed about 40 issues in. Figure I'll get around to reading all the trade collections one of these days.

"DMZ," "Scalped," "Crossing Midnight." "American Virgin," "Exterminators," Testament"? Read review-copy trades and was never tempted to pick up another single issue on its own.

"Army @ Love," "The Un-Men," "Faker," "Jack of Fables"? Nope, nope, nope, nope.

The only Vertigo books I buy anymore are "100 Bullets" and "Fables." "Fables" alone has the momentum and personality to keep me engaged month-to-month. I purchase "100 Bullets" more or less out of habit. I want those characters to just start killing each other and be done with it. I'm ready for the bloody saga to end. I get the sense series creator Brian Azzarello is too.

Have I aged out of the Vertigo demographic? Am I just too damn cheap to spend more tha $7 a month on these comics? Or maybe I just need a nap?

"Rock 'n' Roll" Takes a Breather

2007-11-16T16:10:00.000-08:00

Broadway's largely dark because of the stagehands strike, but folks keep writing about "Rock 'n' Roll."

Irene Backalenick writes about the play for All about JewishTheatre.

At Broadway World, Michael Dale discusses the play, in between notes about the Ziegfeld Follies and "Richard III."

Carolyn Clay covers it for the Boston Phoenix.

Nicholas Wapshott provides an opinion piece for the New York Sun.

"Rock." Papers. Scissors Not Required.

2007-11-13T20:45:00.000-08:00

More newspaper articles about "Rock 'n' Roll":

Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune calls the play "one of this remarkable writer's most profound and personal works."

Louise Kennedy in the Boston Globe deems it "a hymn to the great god Pan."

In the New York Times, John Pareles writes, at length, about the music of the Plastic People of the Universe.

Autumn Reading

2007-11-11T12:01:00.000-08:00

This week's Chronicle science fiction and fantasy review covers four titles that provide a high level of entertainment and range in genre from near-future high-tech caper to retro-superhero adventure. The books discussed are "Halting State" by Charles Stross, Naomi Novik's "Empire of Ivory," "Eat the Dark" by Joe Schreiber and Jeff Smith's new version of "Shazam!"

Next week, look for the Holiday Books issue, with my 10 picks for the year's notable Science Fiction and Fantasy Releases.