After reading 13 novels and a handful of short stories and novellas about Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, I do not just feel like I know them . I'm feelAfter reading 13 novels and a handful of short stories and novellas about Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, I do not just feel like I know them . I'm feeling like I am a part of their East Texas town. Hap and Leonard would be the two guys my parents would tell me to steer clear of and the first person they would call, reluctantly, if they got into a jam. As police chief Marvin Hansen would say, they are assholes and hardheads but he would trust them with his life.
Jackrabbit Smile has all the fixings of a Hap and Leonard novel. The duet is fronting their own detective agency, owned by Hap's old time girlfriend and brand new wife Brett. They are given a job to find a missing woman, Jackie aka Jackrabbit. Hap and Leonard are hired by Jackie's extremely racist mother and brother who gay and black Leonard pounces on like a cat and treat in his psychologically aggressive style like a chew toy. The job takes them to Hap's childhood stomping grounds Marvel Creek and they find out that the town has added a bunch of questionable characters that includes a white supremacist called Professor. Of course, the big question is; is Jackrabbit missing or dead and how was she involved in Marvel Creek's chaotic mix of low life schemers and racemongers?
There are always social issues of race and class lurking in a Hap and Leonard novel but novel #13 really brings them to the forefront which goes far to make it one of the best book of the series in a long while. We get all the snappy dialogue and hard ass action we would expect. Brett plays a minor role which is OK since the meat of the plot is always centered around the rapport of liberal and idealistic Hap and conservative and overly aggressive Leonard. But here is where I need to discuss something that is both disturbing and exciting that I am catching in the last two novels.
As the series goes, we always expect Leonard Pine to be the one most likely to kick ass. Hap kicks ass too but it is usually reluctantly. Yet as the last two novels plays out, and all the novels are in the first person perspective of Hap Collins, Leonard is more blatantly expressing a darkness that was always there. Hap realizes it and seems to know that he has no control over Leonard and that darkness. The thing is, after 13 novels, where is Joe R. Lansdale leading us? Will this bode well or ill for the macho bromance that is Hap and Leonard. I hope the author follows through on this because it could be taking the series out of its very popular formula and leading us in new and very tense territory. For this book, it is one of the thing that vaults this book out of the formula and keeps me guessing where the two friends may be headed. Do the other readers of the series agree with me or do they think I'm off the rails a bit? Let me know.
The Hap and Leonard series is one of those series that I highly recommend starting from the beginning. However if you are reluctant to do that, this one is stand alone enough to enjoy on its own merits. Ten to one odds though, after you are through you will be picking up the rest of them. ...more
Andy Weir's follow-up to his bestseller The Martian again takes place in the hopefully near future. But instead of barely surviving on Mars, we have aAndy Weir's follow-up to his bestseller The Martian again takes place in the hopefully near future. But instead of barely surviving on Mars, we have an established city colony on the moon. It comes complete with all the class struggles and daily problems we earthlings have except it's a lot more compact. Artemis is both the name of the book and the city. Weir's structuring of the city and city life is in fact the best part of his novel. We see it through the eyes of Jazz Bashara, a Saudi woman who spent her entire life on the lunar city. Her father is a welder and she has the ability to either take her father's occupation or do even better. But instead, partially due to her conflicts with her father and some bad life choices, she is a struggling porter with a smuggling operation on the size. But a rich friend offers her a challenge, illegal of course, that will make her rich or get her deported or possibly killed.
Those who enjoyed The Martian will see the same things about this book that thrilled them in the first. Both main characters are basically smart and resilient but underdogs in the environments. It is the thrill of watching Jazz fight through the odds that is mostly entertaining. It is not just the odds when she is on the unforgiving surface of the moon but also the unforgiving economic and class struggles of the city. It is what works best in the book. Weir structures well and writes some tight passages especially in the action scenes.
That is why, like his first book, it will be a bestseller. however, as a lover of science fiction, color me a little cynical. Weir writes well but, and forgive me for the slaughtering of the English language, he doesn't write good. Weir has all the Moon stuff, the science, the technology, and the physics down pat. But it just didn't have the spark for me that crisply realized science fiction has. Jazz Bashara is a marginally likeable character but she is also selfish and greedy whose bad judgement never quite gels with her perceived smarts.. The next step to empathy never quite made it. Yes, we root for her but we never root with her.
Artemis is a science fiction story with emphasis on the mainstream. Good science fiction challenge. Artemis placates. There are a number of bestselling authors who write in their selected genre but never really transcends into what the genre at its best can be. Dan Brown, John Grisham, Dean Koontz, James Patterson. Good writers all and writers that know how to sell their wares. But they are not the names that the true lover of their genre will recite as the best. I hope I'm wrong but Andy Weir with two books already seems to be writing himself into that kind of niche with science fiction.
But maybe I'm being too cynical. Artemis is a good novel, maybe a better thriller that a science fiction book. Either way, it plays a bit too much by the number. Yet, if you like an easy to handle and entertaining book then it will meet your needs...until the next bestseller comes along.
I believe I have read all the novels that Joe Hill has written and published. So I feel fairly secure in saying that he has a certain weakness that heI believe I have read all the novels that Joe Hill has written and published. So I feel fairly secure in saying that he has a certain weakness that he shares with a particular relative. he is subject to long novels that tend to have too much filler.It is no coincidence that his best novel, Heart Shaped Box is also his first and shortest. In my opinion, last novel The Fireman was impressive but way too long for the plot. On the other hand, NOS4A2, was just as long and fantastic so what the hell do I know?
Here in Strange Weather we have four short novels. Novellas. I do not believe any goes over 200 pages. From the strength of this book, I would say novellas are something he might want to focus on more. Each one has the right length, stays on track and, for the most part, rocks and rolls. All of them has elements of horror although at least two are not technically a horror story and one has no supernatural elements. This would be a good book for the Joe Hill novice to wade in to see what he can do.
Let's go over all four.
Snapshots is a very clever supernatural thriller that involves a boy who meets a strange man with a strange camera. Without giving it away, it's a clever gimmick and Hill makes it works partially because the teenage boy is so believable in his vulnerabilities. It is the closest to a straight horror tale in this collection and is the closest to the type of story that the other relative made so famous. For those who remember the old Polaroid cameras, it will make you wonder a bit. Five stars.
Loaded is by far the best novella here. It is not so much a horror story as much as a topical suspense thriller. There is definitely a sociopolitical message here. It starts with the murder of an innocent boy by a policeman then moves some years into 2013 to pick up another situation is unnerving and unfortunately way too possible today. There is some really good development of characters for such a short novel and the ending is explosive. It makes me hope that the author writes some more non-supernatural suspense in the future. He certainly has the skills. Five Stars
Aloft is fantasy where a skydiver lands on a strange cloud and is held prisoner. It felt a little Lovecraftian to me although it really isn't. It has a nice imagery while describing this strange trans-formative cloud. Four stars.
Rain is the only one that lost me. It has a great starting idea for a world wide catastrophe but it simply didn't hold me. The usual well-define characters didn't make it here to this party. There appears to be a social allegory in this one too but I don't think it took hold as nearly well as the allegory took place in Loaded. But Hill can't write a bad story so three stars.
So seventeen stars altogether averages to 4.1 stars. But the first two stories are so good I'm going to say 4.5 stars easily. What is really important is that Joe Hill has delivered 4 quite different short novels and hit it out of the ball park twice, gave a solid effort on the third and...well most people loved that one so let just say I am in the minority. As I stated, this is a good beginning read to learn what the author can do. But if you, like me , just happen to love novellas then it is pretty much essential reading....more
Sweetville sounds like a place I'd want to visit but wouldn't want to live there. At least that is true for the part of Sweetville that Chad Stroup exSweetville sounds like a place I'd want to visit but wouldn't want to live there. At least that is true for the part of Sweetville that Chad Stroup explores in Secrets of the Weird. At first it doesn't seem all that different than the shady parts of any city that include the downtrodden, hopeless and outcasted. It has its share of people who choose a marginal and conventionally frowned upon lifestyle. We got neo-nazis, drug addicts, prostitutes...you name it. They make what is the skids of Sweetville. But then we get to find out about those residents who don't necessarily fit our own world. We have an odd cult called The Withering Wyldes whose emaciated bodies seem anything but natural. A transforming Angelghoul who sells a drug called Sweet Candy and feeds upon human flesh. A dwarf plastic surgeon who seems to love his job too much. If the city of Oz was created by Williams S. Burroughs it might be something like this. The author's depiction of this normal yet not normal city is a strong aspect of the book. It seems like an environment meant to be visited again. I thinks we are only getting the tip of the iceberg and what a tip it is.
Then something happens. With the interesting city building taking place, Stroup throws us a curb ball . Amidst the insanity a personal story develops. Trixie is a boy who is really a girl. The first sentence of the book set her dilemma up. "Trixie loathed her penis". Trixie is quite a character. She struggles through some of the roughest of situations slowly making her life tolerable yet knowing she won't be really accepted in society as she is. Kast, the plastic surgeon who is allied with The Withering Wyldes, has offered her a dubious solution and she is reluctant to go the full mile. Then a boy shows up, Christopher who is a member of a punk band called The Civilized Cannibals. He is one of the good guys and it would be nice to say he accepts her how she is but then we wouldn't have a story.
Now we come to the intriguing issue of the novel. There really isn't too much of a plot here. The real story is Sweetville and the interaction of its denizens. Yet Trixie plays a key role and brings us the real human condition of the story. Stroup does a very good job creating a character who may elude some readers unless they actually are personally intimate in the trials and emotions of being transsexual. The author makes this all work. Though the heart of the narration is third person and seen though the perceptions of several characters, there is plenty of back story received through the pages of Trixie's diary. Stroup also adds interludes through magazine ads and articles that give us a stronger glimpse of the topsy turvy consumerism in Sweetville. They tend to be more amusing than revealing. I wish I could say both city building and personal story comes together but I'm not sure they do. They seem disjointed when brought together but they are both very strong and I kept reading for both.
Secrets of the Weird is often more like a painting than a novel. It is a both landscape and portrait. One cannot help becoming immersed in this urban world with its body horror and psychedelic terrors but you also feel for the character of Trixie. If there isn't a slam bang thank you ending, you still are dumbfounded by the time you get there. I previously described Sweetville as the city of Oz as seen by Burroughs but perhaps it's more like Cannery Row as written by Phillip K. Dick. I think Stroup's influences for this novel are a bit of all four but for a debut work it has a lot of individual brilliance. While I had minor issues with the book, in the last analysis I cannot give such a strong first novel anything but 5 stars. Perhaps the true secret of the weird is that it is nothing without a strong dose of humanity....more
Tucker, Fix and Bodie are three 19th century American outlaws in the desert and mountains of Mexico. They have already fought a gang of werewolves to Tucker, Fix and Bodie are three 19th century American outlaws in the desert and mountains of Mexico. They have already fought a gang of werewolves to save a small village for little profit. So they are about to rob a train to make up for that loss of profit margin. It looks like an easy job but they are unaware that there is a troop of Mexican Federales abroad guarding a shitload of silver. On top of that, the sister of the leader of the werewolves they killed is hunting them down for revenge. Outlaws, soldiers, werewolves and silver is not the kind of mix that will ends in any way but terror and violence.
Eric Red's The Wolves of El Diablo is a sequel to The Guns of Santa Sangre where the outlaws meet The Men Who Walk Like Wolves for the first time. I have not read the first book and there may be some back story in it that might help in this one. However not reading it didn't lessen my enjoyment of the second book. The author gives enough background so you can understand what took place previously and whiz through this enjoying every minute. If your idea of a novel is action packed and full throttle adventure then that is exactly what you will do. There is a very cinematic feel throughout the book which makes sense considering the author's day job as screenwriter. The action scenes are as descriptive and tight as one would want. But what I like is how, mixed in with the endless action, we get some actual character development. The three outlaws are about as three-way bromance buddies as you can get. There is a tough but honorable captain who is out of his element when confronted with the supernatural. There is even a bit of a romance with Tucker and a girl from the village, However that girl is definitely not the weeping willow type and holds her own through all the shooting and attacking. But the real star of the novel is Azul, the she-wolf. We get an lot of back story for her that explains her obsession and viciousness. This is all top notch pulp adventure. The author keeps you interested in what will happen and makes you care about what will happen later to the main characters. For while the novel does have a satisfactory ending, there will definitely be a third one. I'm looking forward to it.
Eric Red writes tight horror and tight suspense. The Wolves of El Diablo has both. It is basically a western in wolves' clothing. Red writes visually. He envisions each scene and communicates it so well that you can see it too. For this type of novel it is what makes it works. But when a writer writes like this you don't need to ask if they can write and ask for their credentials. You just enjoy it. . He don't need any stinkin' badges....more
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