”There was, and was not, a nakhudha named Amina al-Sirafi who sailed with a cunning crew all over the Indian Ocean, dashing after magical treasures an”There was, and was not, a nakhudha named Amina al-Sirafi who sailed with a cunning crew all over the Indian Ocean, dashing after magical treasures and talismans, outwitting cruel sorcerers and battling incomprehensibly powerful creatures from legend. This is her story.�
This is a fascinating historical fantasy, set in the maritime world of the Indian Ocean in the early twelfth century. Though festooned with fantasy elements, this setting is well researched, and creates an alluring picture of this rich, medieval world. The tale is told in the first person voice of Amina al-Sirafi herself, a long retired pirate/smuggler coaxed out of retirement to take on a final adventure.
This book is a light entertainment, as insubstantial as ocean foam, yet a fast and fun read. The narrator/hero portrays herself as extremely human and flawed, yet is able to competently rise to fantastical challenges, including sea monsters, evil, Frankish wizards, supernatural avian bureaucrats, legendary, enchanted chamber pots, and even an infuriating estranged demon husband. The book also introduces several interesting members of her crew, yet fails to develop any of them as fully as the narrator.
I really enjoyed this book � it is a solid 3.5 star effort. It appears to be setting up a continuing series, and if another book appears, I will certainly read it. Yet there are several reasons why I’ve rounded my rating down rather than up. The book’s premise � the old rogue coming out of retirement and putting the old crew back together for one, last, rich job —works here, but is still incredibly hackneyed. The primary villain is completely one dimensional, and is supernaturally unbeatable until it becomes necessary for him not to be. As previously mentioned, Amina al-Sirafi’s primary crew appear to be interesting characters, yet are underutilized in favor of developing the narrator protagonist. These things do not ruin the story, which remains fun and recommend, but they did keep me from rating it higher....more
”Was there enough disinfectant in the world to cleanse the House of Usher?�
”The dead may walk, but I will not walk among them.�
This atmospheric retell”Was there enough disinfectant in the world to cleanse the House of Usher?�
”The dead may walk, but I will not walk among them.�
This atmospheric retelling of Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher contains all of the gloomy dread of the original, but actually manages to ratchet up the creepiness. Who knew that fungi could be so utterly alien, or that hares could radiate such menace?...more
Do you remember that scene from Bull Durham when the team is on the bus and Kevin Costner’s Crash Davis is schooling Tim Robins� Nuke LaLoosh on how tDo you remember that scene from Bull Durham when the team is on the bus and Kevin Costner’s Crash Davis is schooling Tim Robins� Nuke LaLoosh on how to give an interview?
Crash Davis: “You’re gonna have to learn your cliches. Your gonna have to study them, you’re gonna have to know them. They are your friends. Write this down. We gotta play ‘em one day at a time.�
Nuke LaLoosh: “That’s pretty boring…�
Crash Davis: “Of course it’s boring. That’s the point. Write it down.�
That scene always struck me as funny and spot on � an honest baseball moment. It also explains the problem with this book. Clint Hurdle has spent his lifetime in baseball, as a player, as a coach, and as a manager. He had to learn the simplified, positive thinking, cliche-speak of baseball necessary to keep young athletes focused on their game and skills. In this book, he shares that simplified wisdom with us.
This isn’t the book I was hoping for. It’s not a baseball book at all. It’s a self help book � a most basic one, built around 25 sayings Hurdle has learned to live by. He leads off by listing all 25 of them, then moves forward to fill each of them out. “One day at a time� is not one of the 25 Hurdle-isms, but it does get mentioned a couple of times as a backup cliche. Hurdle mentions a few baseball related incidents tangentially along the way, but not at all as baseball stories. They are simply illustrating incidents for his 25 phrases to live by. He drops some baseball names as well, but the book isn’t about the players or their stories, it’s about the Hurdle-isms to live by.
I have a lot of good will for Clint Hurdle. I’m old enough to remember when he came up as a hot, young, can’t miss player who missed. He was the manager who led my favorite team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, out of their 20 year losing streak and into three straight seasons of post season contention. He was an upbeat, affable guy. I picked up his book because of that, hoping some of the “wit and wisdom� advertised in the title would involve substantial stories from those years. He disappointed me here, just like his Pirates team’s disappointment me by failing to move deeper into the off season. But I still have good will for him, which is why I gave this book an extra star. ...more
”Everyone believes in haunted houses. Ghosts are a function of the movement of time. Places become marked by the things that have happened to them, th”Everyone believes in haunted houses. Ghosts are a function of the movement of time. Places become marked by the things that have happened to them, the things they’ve done.�
”I can’t tell the difference between grief and ghosts; both seize the body and take what they will.�
Ghosts have been part of the human story since we started telling stories. The first ghost in literature literally appears in our earliest surviving written story (Gilgamesh, 10th century BCE). Ghost symbolize and substitute for the mysterious fears and horrors that accost our lived experience � they allow us to experience them at a remove.
Author Rivers Solomon has upended the traditional ghost and haunted house story by moving the actual horrors of lived trauma to the foreground and building her story around that. While their ghost is always present as an ambiguous mystery, the horror in their story is powered by the mundane � racism, childhood abuse, dysfunctional and estranged family, and the personal brokenness that these things can affect. This is harsh. It is raw. It is horrifying. It is effective. But be warned, if you are highly sensitive to these issues, this book could be too much for you.
Solomon is an effective prose stylist. Their story is well written and flows easily despite its emotionally difficult subject matter. And I highly recommend the audiobook version of the book � narrator Gabby Bean’s� performance is simply brilliant.
One final note � a trigger warning of sorts. If you are part of the MAGA snowflake crowd who gets hysterical and finds your panties all in a twist over the terrifying bugbear you call “Woke,� maybe take a pass on this one. Solomon has loaded their book so full of such things that even a committed Leftist might find it a bit much. (The difference being that the Leftist will still enjoy the outstandingly written story, while the MAGA snowflake may be irrevocably traumatized.)...more
”The mere independence of America were it to have been followed by a system of government modeled after the corrupt system of English government would”The mere independence of America were it to have been followed by a system of government modeled after the corrupt system of English government would not have interested me with the unabated ardor it did. It was to bring forward and establish the representative system of government, as the work itself will show, that was the leading principle with me in writing.� ~Thomas Paine
The central thesis of this short book is that Thomas Paine was far more than the firebrand propagandist of the Revolution, the role he is usually credited with. The author emphasizes Paine’s role as a political thinker, imagining and suggesting new forms of government in his Common Sense, his pamphlet that stirred the colonists to revolution for independence. And he further credits Paine with inspiring John Adams to write Thoughts On Government in response to Paine’s Common Sense, which the curmudgeonly and conventional Adams griped was ”far too democratical.�. Adams� pamphlet ultimately had a far more direct impact on the development of the American Constitution and form of government, but by casting Paine as the impetus for Adams to first publish his thoughts, the author further credits Paine’s direct political impact.
This book was less than what I was hoping for. It suffers from being far too respectful and staid. While it adequately lays out the conflict between Adams� and Paine’s political ideas, it utterly fails to convey the bitterness of the conflict (even as it directly quotes some of the acerbic Adams� nasty slurs on Paine). Despite a title that promises an emphasis on conflict, what it delivers is a respectful reiteration of the early formation of the American government out of the conflicting ideas present in the Revolution. This wasn’t what I was expecting, and I feel it was a missed opportunity for a far more interesting book.
What this book hints at but underplays, as it strives to remain respectful of all, is the underlying conflict in the idea of America that has been present from its origins. That conflict is bitter and irreconcilable. It is the Yin and Yang of our national character, and remains in increasingly bitter conflicts about what exactly America is and what ideals it represents to the present day. Adams didn’t just disagree with Paine’s democratical ideas � he despised and hated Paine the man because of them. Paine learned to give back in kind, eventually alienating even old friends like George Washington with the bitterness of his personal attacks. John Adams vs Thomas Paine was the perfect exemplar of this ongoing conflict over the idea of America, but the author simply used it to deliver a conventional history lesson on America’s origin.
”By the end of the 16th century, philosophy had stopped. It was Descartes who started it up again.�
“Cogito ergo sum,� (I think, therefore I am) is the”By the end of the 16th century, philosophy had stopped. It was Descartes who started it up again.�
“Cogito ergo sum,� (I think, therefore I am) is the most famous, the most quoted line of philosophy in history. I’m certain that I had heard it by middle school, making Descartes the first philosopher to crack my awareness.
Strathern emphasizes in this introduction just how thoroughly Descartes revolutionized philosophy. Of philosophy practiced before Descartes Strathern writes:
”Scholasticism was the philosophy of the Church and prided itself on its lack of originality. New philosophical ideas resulted only in heresy.�
But the primacy of that long stasis had been shattered by both Renaissance and Reformation, and Descartes became the thinker to first apply new ideas to philosophy. He started by introducing a new method in his treatise Rules for the Direction of the Mind:
”In order to discover the universal science, he argued, we first had to adopt a method of thinking properly. This method consisted of following two rules of mental operation; intuition and deduction. Intuition Descarte defined as the conception without doubt of an unclouded, and attentive mind which is formed by the light of reason alone. Deduction was defined as necessary inference from other facts which are know for certain. And Descartes celebrated method, which came to be known as the Cartesian Method lay in the correct application of these two rules of thought.�
Though Descartes set about writing A Treatise on the Universe, he circumspectly put it aside after observing what the Inquisition had done to Galileo who had covered much of the same material with many of the same conclusions. He would eventually include some of the less controversial parts of this treatise in later work. He was a careful man with no drive to be a martyr.
His most original work, Discourse on Method, cover a lot of ground. It changed the face of mathematics, made revolutionary advances in science, laid the foundations of modern, analytic geometry, and introduce Cartesian Coordinates. In optics, it proposed the Law of Refraction, and suggested an explanation of rainbow. But most important of all was its brief introduction, which would change the course of philosophy. Strathern writes of it:
”In clear, autobiographical prose he describes how he goes about his thinking, and the thoughts that occur to him in the process. When you read Descarte, you experience what it is like to be a great mind thinking original philosophy.�
Strathern, the irreverent, cynical philosopher seems almost romantically smitten by Descartes and his times. Of them he writes:
”Descartes was alive during a brief and possibly unique era of human thought. The new explanations put forward by the finest scientific and philosophical minds of his time were in many cases both plausible and comprehensible. They also tended to be rational, and in their overall conception simple, with the aim of leaving space for the contemplation of ultimate mysteries. Humanity is unlikely to experience such an era again.�
Indeed, Strathern almost entirely abandons the snarky wit that has made this series pop. He does manage a couple small hits, as in the way he introduces the fact that Descartes financed his philosophical work entirely through his significant personal fortune:
”Descartes never did a stroke of useful work in his life.�
And again he takes a little shot when discussing how Descartes published Discourse on Method:
”Having had the courage to doubt the entire universe, Descartes typically chose to publish his work anonymously.�
But apart from these minor snarks, Strathern seemed too impressed with Descartes to attempt his usual, witty demystifications. Fortunately, the philosopher and his work were interesting enough to get on without it.
”Possibilities, when you get down to it, are rainbows, beautiful, and meaningless.�
From its earliest beginnings, its deepest roots, science fiction ha”Possibilities, when you get down to it, are rainbows, beautiful, and meaningless.�
From its earliest beginnings, its deepest roots, science fiction has been a tool used to address social and cultural issues. H.G. Wells� The Time Machine, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein are but two of the best known, early examples. With her impressive duology (The Space Between Worlds and Those Beyond the Wall) Micaiah Johnson joins this time honored tradition. She spins a great, gritty tale, full of action and suspense, love and violence, but were you to excise from the story her overriding themes of racism, classism, and privilege (along with a more minor, but still potent one of transphobia) nothing would remain but a hollow shell. Johnson is not at all subtle is delivering her message, but neither is she ham-fisted and awkward with it. Her social message rings out clearly while functioning seamlessly within the fascinating story she is telling. It is impressive work.
Those Beyond the Wall is a sequel, part two of what feels to be a completed duology that began with The Space Between Worlds. It’s not impossible to read it independently, but I would not advise it. Not only did Johnson do most of her world building in the initial novel, but she there introduced powerful characters, infused with complex backstories and emotional resonances that are important in this book. A reader needs that background to fully appreciate this story. Indeed, though the novels are narrated by different first person protagonist, and are divided by about a decade of in world time, they feel more like a single story divided into two volumes than anything else. You need to read these books together.
Several final, important notes are necessary. One: Johnson has a true mastery for writing compelling characters. She seems to have a particular knack for creating massively damaged and flawed people who remain strong and resilient in the face of their past or ongoing traumas. Two: a minor theme that runs through her story is the conflict between science and religion which Johnson handles in a deft way. Instead of representing this as a dichotomy between irreconcilable differences, a zero sum game, she presents it with a lens similar to quantum mechanics � a wave/particle duality where the observer become part of the answer. I found this impressive and satisfying. Three: despite the fact that this book is harsh, gritty, and sometimes near grim dark, full of violence, murder, duplicity, systemic racism and classism, Those Beyond the Wall falls firmly into the tradition of optimistic science fiction rather than its pessimistic dark mirror. Johnson tells a story that believes in the possibility of redemption, both personal, and for our world.
Separately, I would rate the individual books of Johnson’s story 3.5 stars (rounded up), but the 5 star rating I am giving this book reflects my opinion of the impact of the combined duology. Together, these books tell a thrilling, fascinating, and significant story....more
This is Bierce’s most famous story. It’s been endlessly anthologized, and taught in schools. It inspired a famous French film short that won awards atThis is Bierce’s most famous story. It’s been endlessly anthologized, and taught in schools. It inspired a famous French film short that won awards at Cannes and the Academy Awards, and was adopted into a Twilight Zone episode. The story is crisp, economical in its language, and experimental in its technique, and though written in 1890 still feels fresh and modern.
Set during the American Civil War, it opens with preparations for hanging a Southern saboteur by Union troops from the Owl Creek Bridge. From there, Bierce began to play with irregular time jumps, flashing back in time to give context, then back forward as the execution commences. From there Bierce used a stream of consciousness narrative as the hanging was botched and the traumatized prisoner is plunged into the swirling creek where he must fight against the elements and Union rifle volleys to try to escape certain doom. The story ends abruptly with a brutal, unforgettable twist.
I started, then immediately stopped reading Lost in the Moment and Found last year when it first came out. Seanan McGuire created her Wayward ChildrenI started, then immediately stopped reading Lost in the Moment and Found last year when it first came out. Seanan McGuire created her Wayward Children series as brilliantly creative, fast paced YA fantasy adventure, but every volume also includes McGuire’s passionate social commentary on the endangerment, neglect, and abuse of children. In her best books, she wields this like a scalpel, and it synergizes perfectly with her tale. But in some books it feels more like she’s cutting with a hammer, and it can overwhelm her storytelling. That’s what this book felt like when I first attempted it.
The problem is the main character starts out as an endangered five year old girl. Though (as the author assures her readers in an opening note) the child escapes before her abuser can physically harm her, her sever gaslighting, grooming and endangerment in her own home dominates the first section of the book, and I found it overwhelmingly distressing to read. Even knowing that these books can be dark, it was more trauma than I was ready to deal with in a short, YA fantasy adventure.
But McGuire drew me back to this book through her next volume, Mislaid in Parts Half-Known., which I recently finished and enjoyed. The two books share the same protagonists, young Antsy, and both feature the same alternative world � a nexus world where lost things go and are organized in a magical junk shop. Antsy has come into her own in the later book, and was such a wonderful character (and her junk shop world so interesting) that I was compelled to return to this volume in order to know her full story.
I was still seriously distress by reading through the mental anguish and severe endangerment of such a young child in the book’s first section, but the reading became far more enjoyable once Antsy found her door to a truly remarkable magical land. Still, the trauma inflicted in the book’s beginning keeps me from rating this one more than three stars.
Here I am on Election Day Eve, tomorrow’s election an absolute toss-up, all the important polls within the margin of error, seeming Do you feel lucky?
Here I am on Election Day Eve, tomorrow’s election an absolute toss-up, all the important polls within the margin of error, seeming like the last shreds of democracy and over 200 year of American political process are the stakes. I’ve just finished reading this appropriately name history of the 2020 presidential campaign, and I feel like tomorrow is one of those old slasher movie sequels � you saw the monster destroyed in the last movie, but now, somehow the horror is back and you’ve got to do it all over again.
Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency is a solid campaign book. It details the drama, the political strategies, the personalities of the crowded Democratic primary field, and the rather extraordinary circumstances that allowed an aging Joe Biden, perhaps the least dynamic candidate, to outlast the rest and gain the nomination. It recreates the historic, crazy election season where a deadly pandemic, the police murder of George Floyd, and the street action of the Black Lives Matter movement that murder sparked created a perfect storm that allowed Biden to run a passive, jujitsu style campaign to take down the sitting president. It was a close thing, and he needed every break he got.
And now, here we are on the eve of the sequel, and I’m just hoping the luck holds. ...more
Across the pond and back to the Jazz Age! That’s the setting for this Rivers of London novella, as Thomas Nightingale comes to New York to take care oAcross the pond and back to the Jazz Age! That’s the setting for this Rivers of London novella, as Thomas Nightingale comes to New York to take care of some personal magic business. His host in the city that never sleeps, and our charming narrator, is Augustus Gussie Berrycloth-Young, a foppish young English gentleman reminiscent of Bertie Wooster, if only Bertie had been fabulously gay and his school had trained him in the forms of magic. Gussie was a underclass man to Nightingale, and though he has chosen to lead a rather feckless life in America, he is not entirely without grit and resources.
Follow Nightingale, Gussie, and friends as they sleuth out the origins of a magical, talking saxophone, contend with gangsters, crooked cops, and mysterious flappers, and explore the Harlem nightlife through jazz clubs and speakeasies. Their adventures climax at a fabulous masquerade ball for Harlem’s underground queer scene. This novella is a lovely little valentine to the Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance....more
I finished listening to The Complete Ghost Stories Collection of M.R. James on Devil’s Night. Today, Halloween, I read this tribute, The Conception ofI finished listening to The Complete Ghost Stories Collection of M.R. James on Devil’s Night. Today, Halloween, I read this tribute, The Conception of Terror: Tales Inspired by M.R. James, Volume 1, while James� original tales are still fresh in my imagination. This Audible Original recording contains four of James� ghost stories, altered, modernized, and adapted as full cast audio plays.
Casting the Runes: The original story is one of James� best � a top shelf offering. This adaptation by Stephen Gallagher actually kicks the terror and emotion up a notch. In the original, the loathsome Anton Karswell proved his power with an offstage death brought about by his black magic. The reader had no connection to that death, which therefore had limited emotional impact. In this adaptation, Karswell’s magic inflicts a death that the reader feels, which leaves the remaining story not simply a suspenseful race to survive, but a seeking out of righteous revenge. 4 1/2 ⭐️
Lost Hearts: Adapted by A.K. Benedict. The original tale was one of James� weaker efforts, in my opinion � strained credulity a bit that no one guessed what was going on with the disappearing kids. The adaptation improves on the original by adding a Rosemary’s Baby style twist that partially addresses the problem of suspension of disbelief. It also fills out the character of the child protagonist, and adds on a far darker ending. The changes made it a marginally better story. 3 1/2 ⭐️
The Treasure of Abbot Thomas: Adapted by Jonathan Barnes. Once again, the James original of this story was not among my favorites. The adaptation has put the chapel and the well where the treasure is hid into an active boy’s academy. Rather than being a centuries old clergyman, Abbot-Thomas was a strangely charismatic past instructor at the school who dies of old age as the tale commences. The story is brought right up to date by complicating the plot with a massive pederasty scandal. Problem is, I simply don’t buy in to the thin motivations for the principle characters to do what they do, which ruined my suspension of disbelief. As with the rest of these tales, the ending is a harsher shade of dark. 2 1/2 ⭐️
A View from a Hill: Adapted by Mark Morris Comedian. The original protagonist is replaced by a couple on holiday recovering from the shock of losing a child. Their relationship is not holding up well under the strain of their grief, and neither of them are sympathetic. (Let me expand on that � both of them are bloody awful annoying and are the reason this is the least successful of these adaptations.) A central idea of the original tale � the old binoculars built by a long deceased evil alchemist � is eliminated, although the couple does view things no longer there from an ordinary pair. Like the rest, this adaptation adds a far more horrific ending than the original. 2 ⭐️...more
If I were editing a collection of the one hundred greatest ghost stories of all time, The Mezzotint would be in it. The same if it was a collection ofIf I were editing a collection of the one hundred greatest ghost stories of all time, The Mezzotint would be in it. The same if it was a collection of the ten greatest ghost stories. Ditto if it collected just the five best. You get the idea. The Mezzotint is an ideal example of everything that a ghost story should be. It does it with style and leaves lingering chills.
The story has a simple plot. The curator of a university art museum receives a mezzotint from an art dealer. Initially, he feels that its price was too high, for though it is skillfully done, it depicts a nondescript nighttime scene of a house without even any figure. But as he and colleagues continue to observe it, the curator reconsiders its uniqueness and value. Impossibly, its scene changes as night falls. It depicts a moonrise where once there was no moon. Then a partially concealed figure appears at the very edge of the print. The next night the figure can be seen crouched and menacingly crawling toward the house in full view. The mezzotint does not change by day, but each night a new change depicts a sinister scenario playing out. Now the figure is gone, but a house window, originally closed stands open. Just describing the eerie and unexplainable process happening on the print creates a menacing sense of dread and doom.
The tale’s ending is seeming anti-climax. It reveals discovered history of the mezzotint’s artisan and his personal tragedy, and the eventual fate of the work � hanging in a gallery and never again displaying the changes that played out the chilling drama the curator observed over several nights. Yet even this just serves to center the uncanny and disturbing events played out within the mezzotint’s frame, and leaves the reader with tingling, long lasting, and long remembered fear-flesh. ...more
This is a clever story collection, but falls well short of the “greatest collection� that many Ellison fans label it. In too many of these tales EllisThis is a clever story collection, but falls well short of the “greatest collection� that many Ellison fans label it. In too many of these tales Ellison tripped over his own cleverness, and they come across as more pretentious than profound. One of the collection’s most praised stories is built around an ugly lie that became an urban myth and Ellison’s nasty, cynical story helped to amplify and perpetuate the lie.
There are several excellent stories here, (though a couple of my favorites were already published in earlier collections) and the book’s concept of examining the passing of old gods and establishing of new ones is boldly creative and was a significant influence on other writers. I think I just came to this collection too late in my life. Many of the concepts examined here could well have been mind blowing, even life changing if I first read this book as a teen or a young man. Yet through the alchemy of living, ideas that would have been mind blowing forty years ago have become little more than truisms at this life stage.
Forward: Oblations at Alien Alters: The author presents some dramatic words on the collection’s theme � Gods. ”There is one rule, one Seal of Solomon that can confound a god, and to which all gods pay service to the letter. When belief in a god dies, the god dies.� 3 ⭐️
The Whimper of Whipped Dogs: I absolutely despise this story. It is an obscenely violent, ugly, nihilistic, and cynical take on life in the city, riffing off the infamous (and inaccurate) myth of the Kitty Genovese murder. The story is an aggressively brutal assault on the reader � horror delivered with a maniacal grudge. Sure it’s well written, but Ellison was a bloody bastard to write it. ”When the new god comes to the Big Apple, its Kyrie Eleison turns out to be a prayer Kitty Genovese simply couldn’t sing. But thirty-eight others knew the tune.� 1 ⭐️
Along the Scenic Route: Along freeways of the future, aggressive driving and road rage has been officially systematized into a legally controlled highway dueling protocol, and cars are equipped with lethal weapons and defense systems. A family man out for a scenic drive with his wife allows his bad temper to bait him into an official road duel with a hot shot young blood. Insecure egos and toxic masculinity collide in this lethal thrill ride of a story. ”In the world of the freeway there was no place for a walking man.� 4 1/2 ⭐️
On the Downhill Side: New Orleans! Ghosts! Unicorns? A story of the follies of love, and redemption beyond the grave. Unfortunately, it all comes out as a cold, tasteless gumbo, pretentiousness masquerading as profundity. ”There’s a little book they sell, a guide to manners and dining in New Orleans. I’ve looked � nowhere in the book do they indicate the proper responses to a ghost.� 2 ⭐️
O Ye of Little Faith: Cynical asshole protagonist with commitment issues fights with girlfriend after her abortion, punches an old, Mexican fortune teller, and then has to fight a Minotaur? Actually, the story leads with minotaur fight and fills the rest in later. Interesting fusing of realistic relationship story with trippy doom in the land of forgotten gods. ”In a land without a name, his name was Niven, but it was no more important a name than Apollo, or Vishnu, or Baal, for it was not a name that men believed in, only the name of a man who had not believed.� 3 ⭐️
Scartaris, June 28th (note: this story was not part of the original collection, and is included as an untitled stealth track with the story above.) We meet him first in Alabama being lynched for assassinating a KKK goon, and afterwards resurrecting. Next he’s in Beloit in a working man’s bar buying a drink for his little brother who has no big brother, and encouraging him in an unorthodox way. We meet him again on an international flight baiting a pompous minister about gods and what happens to them when their worshippers are gone, and bringing the peace of release to another family. He has encounters in Greece and Zurich, conversing and transforming. He is lonely, because his people and his home are long gone. Poets don’t even write of it, he says, but once he mentioned his home to Plato who penned a couple lines about it. This story unfolds slowly into something quietly magnificent. 4 1/2 ⭐️
Neon: A man in Times Square fears he is going mad because the signs are trying to communicate with him. Something is trying to woo and seduce him through neon signage. A strange tale that didn’t quite work for me. 2 1/2 ⭐️
Basilisk: A soldier is horribly wounded and captured in Vietnam. His captors torture him forcing him to reveal all the information he has. But he is touched by the god of war, who transforms the broken soldier into a weapon � a weapon that not only destroys his sadistic captors, but continues to work on the mindless patriots who see him as a traitor and torment him when he is sent home. Mars is an awesomely wicked god. 3 1/2 ⭐️
The Face of Helene Bournouw: She could make or break the men who desired her with a smile,or a word. She crushed and controlled millionaire industry titans, brilliant artists, highly connected priests by granting or withholding her charms. But who controls Helene Bournouw? (I feel that this story owes a large debt to Fritz Leiber’s tale The Girl with the Hungry Eyes.) Richard Strike the only one of the Broadway columnist with a valid claim to literacy once referred to her as “The most memorable succubus he had ever encountered.� 3 1/2 ⭐️
Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitide 38*54� N, Longitude 78* 00� W: Larry Talbot cannot gain the release of death until he finds his lost soul. His best friend Victor, a brilliant scientist, agrees to assist. With Victor’s expertise and a map obtained from a man named Demeter, Larry seeks for his soul on a (blessedly) moonless inner journey. This story is sadly hypnotic, with fine writing and low-key, clever inclusions of MGM classic monsters. ”That’s not cosmic irony, Larry. That’s slapstick.� 3 1/2 ⭐️
Rock God: This tale was originally published as a comic book story. It begins with a ritual at Stonehenge by the ancient Wessex people to raise the god of rock, Dis, for his once a century manifestation. It tells how the god announced his long sleep, as he created seven rock manifestations of himself around the world, including the Blarney Stone, the Stone of Scone, and the Kaaba, holy Black Stone of Mecca, that contained his essence. The great Soul Mote Dis created finally came to rest in the corner stone of a boondoggle of a NYC skyscraper. And there, Dis stirred. ”Dis was not a god of promise.� ”Above the city the bulk of Dis rose, enormous.� 4 ⭐️
Bleeding Stones: Activated by smog, the gargoyles of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral come to horrifying life and reek vengeful, chaotic slaughter. Ellison was able to present raw and obscene violence as humorous slapstick. ”Come to life after a hundred years is the race that will inherit the Earth...The gargoyle throws back its head and the stone fangs catch the sunlight...The inheritors rise from their crouched position, their shapes black and firm edged against the gray and deadly sky. Then, like the fighting kites of Brazil, they dive into the crowd and begin the ritual slaughter.� 4 ⭐️
Ernest and the Machine God: We start with the manipulative woman who always wins, always gets her way. Then on to a murder, an accident, a weird service station staffed by useless slack jaws, an idiot savant youth with mechanical magic, and a seduction that angers the gods. A bunch of elements clanging about in this story, and it feels like some of them are just extra parts that don’t fit. It reads as a better story than it actually is. ”God is mad. The god of music is mad. The time god is punctual, but he is mad. And the machine god is mad. He has made the bomb and the pill, and the missile, and the acid, and the electric chair and the laser and embalming fluid in his own image.� 3 ⭐️
Delusions for a Dragon Slayer: A kind of Walter Mitty afterlife tale. A nonentity drudge of a man is killed in a ridiculous urban freak accident, and immediately wakens as a bronzed warrior hero in an afterlife something like a John Norman Gor novel, the afterlife created by his dreams. But can he prove himself worthy of those dreams? ”This was reality, and only reality for a man whose existence had been, not quite bad, merely insufficient, tenable, but hardly enriching. For a man who had lived a life of not quite enough this was all there ever could be of goodness and brilliance and light.� 3 ⭐️
Corpse: A second rate professor, a mediocrity, a bore, a religious man (as he mentions repeatedly)as a goof at an intolerable dinner party devised a theory of automobiles with sentience, society, and a grudge. He comes to find his fickle fancy more potent than he could imagine. 3 ⭐️
Shattered Like a Glass Goblin: Lovecraftian horror story or a screed against the excesses of the youth drug culture, this is a horrific tale. Rudy was discharged from the army and came to reclaim his former fiancée from the Hill � a house full of druggie, free love, freeloading kids. But the Hill claimed Rudy. When the full horror show is revealed, Ellison played on the ambiguity of whether what Rudy is experiencing is traditional horror or the hallucinations of a really bad trip, with the uncertainty amplifying the horror. 4 ⭐️
Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes: A Vegas looser at the end of his rope puts his last silver dollar in an antique slot machine. The machine is possessed by a dead prostitute, and pays off for him, beyond all possible odds, over, and over. But the uncanny blue eyes that he keeps seeing come up trouble him, and she haunts his dreams. And he forgot to ask, what’s in it for her? ”If there’s a buck in it there’s rhythm and the onomatopoeia is Maggie Maggie Maggie.� 4 ⭐️
Paingod: The god of pain throughout all the worlds becomes curious about his work, and he incarnates to learn what pain does to creatures. The story reads as if it’s trying to impart a profound truth, yet it’s message is commonplace to anyone who managed to survive to midlife. It struck me as more maudlin than profound. 3 ⭐️
At the Mouse Circus: A clever tale, loaded with cultural references, of a man enticed from childhood to chase the American Dream and finding only a surreal Nightmare. 3 1/2 ⭐️
The Place With No Name: So, there’s this junky pimp who commits a murder, then makes a deal with some floating gnome man to escape, and finds his consciousness merged with Harry Timmons, an obsessed and feverish jungle explorer searching for the forbidden Place with No Name. And, oh yeah, there’s Prometheus, chained there. Ellison questions the nature of identity. And justice. And mercy. He really makes you work for it. Is it worth it? 2 1/2 ⭐️
Deathbird: A story predicated on the Gnostic idea of God as Demiurge, malevolent and mad. Our hero is tasked with releasing the beloved from the misery of existence � first a loved dog companion, later his dying mother, and finally the Earth itself. There are also tests administered throughout. Clever. Poignant. Powerful. The snake was the good guy, and since God wrote the PR release, old Snake simply got a lot of bad press. ”I know,� he said. And she died. And he cried. And that was the extent of the poetry in it. 5 ⭐️
”There’s a rumor that there’s a new America growing in the Deathlands, an America that never need kill again. But don’t put too much stock in it � not”There’s a rumor that there’s a new America growing in the Deathlands, an America that never need kill again. But don’t put too much stock in it � not too much.�
Fritz Leiber was a genius. In this novella, first published in Amazing Stories in 1960 (during the height of the Cold War), he created a post-apocalyptic America less than three decades removed from the nuclear war that destroyed civilization. Vast, radiation-created wastes, known as the Deathlands, are roamed by murder hobos, scarred both physically and emotionally by the fallout and aftermath of the late war. Murder has become more than survival strategy to these Deathlands denizens � it has become a compulsion as strong as the sex drive. And after setting up this gruesomely grim scenario, Leiber proceeded to spin a breezy tale that feels almost lighthearted and humorous. Almost.
Leiber was playing four-dimensional chess with this story. He started with a subject that was the great fascination and fear of his audience � a scenario straight out of their nightmares. He then told the story in such a matter of fact, easygoing manner that the incongruity of the first person narration, which often felt unintentionally humorous, took the sting from the deadly scary setup. Introducing into the mix things like Murders Anonymous, patterned after the 12 step program, gave it a sense of lighthearted, unseriousness. And just when the reader has been set at ease, Leiber casually slides in, subtle and off the cuff, a deadly serious message about the values and philosophy of war verse mutual aid and cooperation, so that you barely notice you’ve been preached at. The man was a Dog damned genius!...more
In The Hamilton Scheme William Hogeland tells a sprawling story that begins during the American Revolution and continues through the Andrew Jackson adIn The Hamilton Scheme William Hogeland tells a sprawling story that begins during the American Revolution and continues through the Andrew Jackson administration (and beyond). His concentration is on the political and economic machinations that built the early financial system of the new nation � how and why it was done, who benefited, who was hurt, who opposed the process, and the lasting ramifications. The initial protagonist of this story is Alexander Hamilton, whose dream of creating in the new nation a financial empire on the model of Great Britain, combined with his machiavellian genius in implementing his ideas, created the foundation that all others would either attempt to build on or rip apart.
While Hamilton begins as the principal focus, there’s a fascinating supporting cast to this history of a nascent financial empire. Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution was Hamilton’s mentor in finance, and a chief ally in his political machinations. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison usually (but not always) provided the spirited opposition, both theoretical and political, to Hamilton’s vision. Albert Gallatin takes over the main focus at some point of the story, as a financial genius who tried to deconstruct the financial scheme Hamilton created. Most interesting are the characters who became the biggest losers of this history � those men the founders derisively called “the Democracy,� who supported the idea of truly radical democracy (which they believed represented the spirit of the American Revolution) where laborers and common folk would receive equal treatment to the moneyed class enriched by Hamilton’s plan. These include the propagandist of the Revolution, Thomas Paine, and a back country radical prophet of Democracy, Herbert Husband.
This history spans the Revolution, Shays Rebellion, the Constitutional Convention, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Louisiana Purchase, the War of 1812, and more, all seen through the lens of how they functioned in advancing or complicating the Hamilton’s financial schemes as well as those who opposed them. It covers the administrations of Washington through Jackson. The Epilogue traces the lingering effects and political myth-making up to our present time.
Hogeland’s telling of the story is riveting, but it does sprawl out of control, losing focus in the book’s last third, sometimes almost as far as losing the point. He also has a noticeable point of view; while acknowledging the impracticality of the ideas of Husband, Paine, and the other radical democrats who were crushed by the money men who built a financial empire for their own class, it seems obvious that his sympathies are more clearly aligned with them than with the financial founders who triumphed. ...more
It blazed � great God!…But the vast shapes we saw In that mad flash have seared our lives with awe.
H.P. Lovecraft is not a name usually associated withIt blazed � great God!…But the vast shapes we saw In that mad flash have seared our lives with awe.
H.P. Lovecraft is not a name usually associated with poetry. Cosmic horror, Eldritch terror, gibbering madness, and tentacles (lots of tentacles) � these are the things we connect with Lovecraft and the unique brand of horror fiction that he created.
But Lovecraft did fancy himself a poet, and wrote more than a few poems. Like his fiction, these were truly weird poems, poetry of eldritch terror. Much of what he wrote was awful; sing-song rhymes, and poems derivative of Poe. Some of his prose poems, like Nyarlathotep actually worked well, but most of his rhymed efforts are to poetry what long-time residents of Lovecraft’s town of Innsmouth are to humanity.
And that is why this volume is so surprising. A cycle of thirty-six sonnets tell a tale of a scholar of antiquities who reads and steals a book full of occult wisdom and forbidden knowledge, and the terrifying consequences that follow. The tropes of the tale are familiar to any Lovecraft fan, but the medium of its delivery � the cycle of sonnets � makes it unique.
These poems work effectively to create that creepy, unsettling atmosphere that was the hallmark of Lovecraft’s best work. As poetry, the sonnets are closer to competence than to brilliance, but, perhaps because Lovecraft was observing the traditional rules of sonnet composition, the poetry is truly effective in magnifying the atmosphere of dread and terror that Lovecraft created so well. The medium of the sonnets amplify his usual affect, making this book of eldritch poetry a unique artifact of horror literature. ...more
”It is never enough for the reader of your words to be convinced; the goal is to haunt.�
”We are plagued by dead language and dead stories that serve p”It is never enough for the reader of your words to be convinced; the goal is to haunt.�
”We are plagued by dead language and dead stories that serve people whose aim is nothing short of a dead world.�
Words and stories are powerful, for they shape the meaning we give to the world. This is why established orders put such high value on controlling the stories you hear, determining what is newsworthy, shaping the dialogue that it is possible to have. Which is why Ta-Nehisi Coates, who has an extraordinary talent with these tools combined with bedrock values that disincline him toward establishment viewpoints, is so subversive. And it’s why you should read this book.
The first few essays in this collection are well done, thoughtful, incisive. They contain powerful scenes, like Coates illuminating first journey to Africa, or his attending a school board meeting in rural South Carolina in support of an English teacher whose job was threatened because she assigned his book. But good as those essays are, that’s not why you are here. It’s the final essay, The Gigantic Dream, that electrifies and packs the power. He opens that essay with these words: ”On the last day of my trip to Palestine…� and before he can even finish the sentence, you know that the battle lines have been drawn, the glove has been thrown down, and the shit is about to hit the fan.
Because, of course, to refer that that part of the world as Palestine has come to be seen by right-thinking establishment source as an incendiary political statement. It just isn’t done in polite society, or really anywhere outside of wild-eyed, naive student protestor encampments. So when one of the most thoughtful and brilliant voices of our era articulates viewpoints and stories that almost never make it onto our newscasts, into our newspapers or magazines, when he makes comparisons between the Zionist government of Israel and Jim Crow America, or when he invokes the word Apartheid to describe what is happening, the firestorm of outrage is inevitable.
When I come to read a non fiction book, I always read the one star reviews first. Are they articulate? Well reasoned? Or not? You can tell a lot about a book by what people hate it and why. The outpouring of one star reviews for The Message are pure Id. They rage against the author for daring to write what he did. Challenge his knowledge. Challenge his motivation. Call him antisemitic. Shout him down. What they don’t do is present any counter argument to what he has written. They call his essay one sided, but don’t challenge the side Mr. Coates presents here. They are all invective and outrage, incensed that Coates dared to pen what he did, dared to speak what has been collectively agreed should remain silent.
No reasonable person should decide any matter of import based on a single source, no matter how eloquently and powerfully presented. I certainly have not. But any reasonable person, presented with such an eloquent and powerful piece, should have further questions, not least of which is why am I not hearing this elsewhere? And reasonable people should resist the absolute shutting down of difficult dialogues because the damning word antisemitic has been wielded as a weapon. Also, reasonable people should be wary when negative mention of a political ideology, Zionism, is suddenly equated as being synonymous with antisemitism, and therefore verboten. Ta-Nehisi Coates won’t stand for that kind of bullshit, and neither should you. ...more
Loading...
