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Clean by Alex Hughes
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I suppose I must classify myself as having been an addict. I grew up at a time when more or less everyone smoked so, being one of the herd, I followed. Looking back, this was less than rational. I was born an asthmatic and was plagued by a wide range of allergies. To have begun smoking was a tragic error. With breathing an increasing challenge, I then recognised the only approach to quitting is abstinence. It’s the psychology of the process. If you are serious, you give it up and never go back. If you are less than serious, you switch your dependence to something supposedly less dangerous. Why? Because perpetuating addictive behaviour means you don’t want to make a full recovery. As part of the process of getting clean from the more dangerous drugs, many in the counselling industry advocate different versions of the 12 Step Programs. Obviously you should not try to beat addiction alone so regular meetings with other addicts reinforce the commitment to stay clean. It’s helpful to know others are struggling with the same problems and holding out. This package of measures may include finding a “higher power” This is often taken to mean you should pray to God, but prayer and reading the Bible are not actually necessary so long as you develop the self-discipline to avoid relapse. Feeling you have someone stronger in your corner fighting for you helps. Why are we starting in this way?
As the title, Clean by the gender-neutral Alex Hughes A Mindspace Investigation Novel (Roc, 2012), suggests, our nameless Level 8 telepath with precognitive skills is a recovering Satin addict. As a first-person narrative, we’re therefore given a ringside seat as our “hero” struggles not to relapse (again). In the general run of genre classifications, this makes the book a dystopian, noirish, urban fantasy, thriller, science fiction police procedural story about identity and redemption (assuming he can stay clean, of course). Ah, you noticed the labelling confusion. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I despair of the publisher/retailer conspiracy to categorise books. Although I concede it’s useful to know which part of a big store to visit to find books I’m likely to want to buy, it’s not constructive to label with increasing particularity. This forces authors to write to a predetermined formula so their book fit, i.e. it stifles creativity. For what it’s worth, I approve of books like this which conflate elements into the whole as needed to build a world in which the action is to take place.
Alex Hughes with a promising first novel
So we have a telepath who works for the police force. There’s a serial killer on the loose so our hero and Homicide Detective Isabella Cherabino are off on the trail. The writing style is reasonably hardboiled or noir, but we’re set in a future following Tech Wars in which sentient technology tried to take over the world. Humanity was saved by those with Abilities and there are serious consequences including the abandonment of many types of technology. This has left the survivors in a very rundown city environment in which many aspects of life are unpleasant. To relieve the pervasive dystopian gloom, there are elements of romance between our hero and the Detective. Finally, the general level of threat and the need to fight to survive allows us to consider this a thriller. Thematically, if our hero stays clean, he may be considered redeemed and this will say something important about him as a person.
As a not wholly irrelevant aside, I wonder whether a part of the author’s intention is actually Edenic. Although it would be literally absurd to consider a dystopian environment anything like the Garden of Eden, we have a man who is struggling not to eat the apple. I also note that one of the 12 Steps is establishing a relationship with a higher power. In the Biblical sense, we distinguish between two types of covenant with God. Some are unconditional, i.e. God holds to His side of the bargain no matter what we do. Others, as in the Garden of Eden, are conditional, i.e. to avoid the loss of God’s bounty, Adam and Eve had to obey the covenant about the apple. What was the penalty for breaching this covenant? Instead of being able to live free off the land, Adam and Eve would have to work hard as farmers to grow their own food. Now return to one of the unconditional covenants. If you are redeemed from sin, you are allowed into Heaven. By hard work, you earn the ultimate reward.
So the essential questions are what Satin is, how and why our hero was first exposed to it, and whether he has sufficient strength to avoid relapse. In the midst of it all, there’s a serial murder case to crack and considerable personal danger to overcome. I find Clean very interesting. Although this may sound as if I’m damning the book with faint praise, this is not intended as a negative review. One reads books for many reasons and while this may not be the best science fiction book I’ve read this year and it’s certainly not the best noir thriller I’ve read, it does have a genuine willingness to explore the city and the implications of the Tech War that proved so devastating. The interaction between the Guild responsible for those with Ability and the police is intriguing. And the underlying motivation of those involved is revealed in a distinctly pleasing way. Clean is worth reading. For the record, the second book in the series is titled Sharp is due around Spring 2013 and I shall look out for it.
For a review of the second in the series, see Sharp.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
No Sale by Patrick Conrad
Those of you who read these reviews will know that, although there’s never any chance of film or television replacing my love for books, I do in fact enjoy the visual media. It therefore comes as a pleasant surprise to encounter a book where the love of film is intrinsic to the plot. No Sale by Patrick Conrad (translated from the Dutch by Jonathan Lynn) (Bitter Lemon Press, 2012) is a wonderful, not to say magnificent, piece of metafiction dressed up to look like a police procedural and murder mystery. For those you you who like the jargon, the primary devices are intertextuality and the use of an unreliable narrator.
In the world of semiotics, the concept of intertextuality has been rather overdone of late but, if you wanted to find an example of it, this comes as close as it’s possible to get. At more or less every point during the narrative, we get examples of vertical intertextuality with references to films, or to the dialogue within films, or to the real-world identities and lives of those involved in the making of films, or to songs and their lyrics, the lives of the singers and composers, and so on. We also have significant horizontal intertextuality with long quotes from different sources based on separate literary conventions incorporated into the narrative, thereby connecting the reader to different views of the same set of circumstances. Naturally, all the text appearing in the book is written by the same author except where otherwise attributed, but the sense and meaning of the words is being drawn from the work of different creative individuals. So, for example, one character may describe the scene of a murder and, later, a second character may give the synopsis of a film plot which has features matching the initial murder. This is art mirroring cinema with the fictional serial killer meticulously staging the murders to recreate actual film scripts or real-world events associated with film stars. The author is reminding us that we should never see one work in isolation. Our understanding is always enhanced by being able to relate elements of the text being read to other texts and symbols.
Patrick Conrad: thriller writer, poet, screenwriter and film director
I need to note one other semiotics-related irony. The author has gone to much trouble to translate many lines from US noir films into Dutch for his intended readership, only for Jonathan Lynn to translate them back into English for us to read. Presumably the meanings stayed the same even though the languages were different.
There are two narrative tracks through the text. The key figure in the expanding investigation is Professor Victor Cox who teaches the History of Cinema at the Institute of Film and Theatre Studies. He comes to the attention of police when the body of his wife, Shelley “Dixie” Cox, is fished out of one of the docks in Antwerp. The initial signs are that of a hit-and-run with the dead body thrown off a bridge. The second thread features Chief Superintendent Fons “The Sponge” Luyckx, and Detective Inspector Lannoy who assume the responsibility of trying to unravel a number of murders which, at first sight, appear unrelated. The Sponge is the quiet thoughtful one who hates to be beaten by any problem, while Lannoy is quicker to feel the frustration of being unable to make progress through the mass of detailed information that emerges.
At first, the Professor appears entirely normal insofar as anyone so obsessed with the study of any single subject can be considered normal. He’s amazingly encyclopaedic on early American cinema and we’re treated both to excepts from his lectures and memories that suddenly seem relevant given events around him. There’s also a direct link with Lolita by Nabokov in that our “good” Professor seems perpetually drawn to young women, preferring those who resemble the heroines of his favorites films. It’s at this point we encounter a real problem because he’s not proving to be consistent in what he remembers nor how he sees the world. Indeed, there are distinct indications he may be mentally ill — schizophrenia would be a distinct possibility if, in the usual way it’s shown on the screen, this involves twin personalities as in Jekyll and Hyde. The structure of the book is carefully managed so we’re never sure whether the Professor is a retired academic helping the police solve a series of murders or the murderer hiding in plain sight and misdirecting the police.
I was hooked from the outset because I love a good mystery and am a sucker for noir films. There are also some rather pleasing jokes as the book goes along. However, I’m forced to raise one slight caveat. In a way, the book is slightly too clever for its own good. It has to twist the events so that they fit the needs of the immediate plot while staying faithful to the sets of circumstances being replicated. This gives the whole a slightly surreal form. In the more general sense of the word, mysteries need not be credible. If we’ve willingly suspended our disbelief, authors can convince us their murderers can do anything. But it does raise a slight problem when we’re in a police procedural. This subgenre is somewhat more real than reel, i.e. the police should be seen chasing down criminals based on the evidence that emerges. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely anyone could actually commit these murders. That said, No Sale is a masterful piece of writing and creates a genuinely tragic figure in Professor Cox. He’s a man who seems to have the capacity for great suffering and, when reality becomes so unpleasant, who would blame him for retreating into the world of his own imagination and, perhaps, acting out what he finds there.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Stalking the Vampire by Mike Resnick
Humour is one of these slightly irrational human reactions. If A prods B with a sharp stick, excluding situations where scantily clad partners intend erotic reactions, it’s reasonable to predict an angry response. It’s more difficult to predict what will amuse or make people laugh. Assuming, of course, that the ultimate point of humour is laughter. Indeed, that assumption may be putting the cart before the horse. Does humour actually have a point? Often the things we find amusing are the results of situations where someone looks ridiculous or is the victim of an unfortunate accident. Yet people actively seek amusement which would suggest that humour has a social function. We obviously enjoy different types of stimuli and, whether by reading or joining in some activity, hope to relieve the tedium of existence with the resulting smile or laugh.
Let’s put aside what others find comic. When I look back at a lifetime spent reading, I recall rarely cracking a smile when ploughing through P G Wodehouse more than fifty years ago, but falling about in helpless mirth when absorbing some of the early Tom Sharpe. I suppose the best comedy lies in the contemporary moment when authors are able to address their audience in real time. Once even a decade has gone by, so many of the allusions and assumptions have changed, it grows harder to remember what people might have found amusing. As to humour from America, there were standout moments. Back in 1962 before onboard terrorism became a threat, an air stewardess asked me to stop reading Catch 22 because my laughter was disturbing the other passengers. But, in general, I’ve found even less to make me laugh in US fiction with the exception of some short stories in the 1950s and 60s by Henry Kuttner, Robert Sheckley and the pseudonymous William Tenn. I have the sense that comedy does not comfortably pass over linguistic and cultural borders unless the content is universalised as satire or absurdism. For the most part, I appreciate the cleverness of what’s intended to be comic writing. The craftsmanship of the wordplay can be genuinely pleasing. But it doesn’t make me laugh (or smile very often, for that matter).
All of which brings me to Stalking the Vampire by Mike Resnick (PYR, 2008). This follows the exploits of John Justin Mallory, a PI stranded in an alternate Manhattan and featuring in Stalking the Unicorn (1987), Stalking the Dragon (2009) and a collection of short stories titled Stalking the Zombie due later this year (2012). The hook is reasonably conventional. Our hero starts off his miserable existence in our New York. Like all noir PIs, his wife has succumbed to the charms of his partner and, left to his own devices, his business is going from worse to diabolical. As with any hero down on his luck, he takes to the bottle and so is less than impressed when an elf appears and offers him money to track down a unicorn that’s gone AWOL. This moves his business into an alternate reality in which the supernatural is accepted as perfectly normal by all who live there. Not surprisingly, our laconic Mallory takes everything in his stride, cracks the case and settles down in this new world. This leaves him down on his luck and struggling to earn enough to cover the rent on his new office. Plus ça change and then some.
Mike Resnick offers free coaching on belly dancing
So how does Stalking the Vampire measure up in the comedy stakes? Following the rescue of the unicorn, this book continues the strict adherence to the Aristotelian unity of time. As has now been popularised by the television serial 24, each chapter follows real time with the clock progressing an identified number of minutes. The convention is that the action in each book or story should be completed in no more than 24 hours. Second, this is the fish-out-of-water trope with noir meeting whimsy. The humour is intended to flow from our practical gumshoe’s reaction to the madcap world around him. Except, of course, many of the supernatural beings are as deadly in this world as they have been in ours. So our hero can’t verbally brush off all-comers. He needs the help of locals to navigate the waters safely. Hence, the regulars are Felina, a real catwoman, and Col Winnifred Caruthers who’s a female big game hunter. For the purposes of this book, we add Bats McGuire, a pusillanimous vampire, and Scaly Jim Chandler (better known as Nathan Botts), a dragon who writes very bad PI novels —a sample is included as one of the appendices. Finally, there’s Grundy who, in Sherlock Holmes terms, represents the local Moriarty. Were they not on opposite sides, they would be friends if only because Mallory is completely unimpressed by the demon’s villainous approach to life (or should that be afterlife — difficult semantics when talking about a demon interacting with the human world).
There are a number of individual moments when I smiled in admiration of a nice touch. Unfortunately, Mike Resnick relies on running jokes that, after the first few miles, grow lame. As the miles rack up, they get blistered and limp. In other words, at this length (248 pages of novel plus 20 further pages of appendices and a biography), the repetitive nature of the different styles of humour wears out its welcome. Had this been 150 pages in total, there would be less chance of the jokes recycling too many times. But every time Mallory talks with Felina, their conversation follows exactly the same pattern. She’s heavily into cupboard love and skritching, while he’s always negotiating to get her constructive co-operation in the investigation. Goblins relentlessly try to sell him silly things at inflated prices. And so on. When not into situational humour, we get verbal humour. When not into absurdity, we get nonsense. Even puns appear from time to time. You have to admire the dedication of the author to the cause.
So here’s the final view. Stalking the Vampire is well-imagined and, in short bursts, highly readable. But, unless your sense of humour is on this single wavelength, you will not find this uproariously funny. I understood where I was supposed to find things amusing, and one or two of the individual jokes do hit the mark. But, to my jaded palate, the set-piece passages slow down the development of the urban fantasy plot. Ah yes, the plot. This is very professional as, without a description of the vampire in question, Mallory and his sidekicks must find the fiend and bring an end to proceedings before the clock runs out. It does all hang together, but you need to be strong to get to the end in a single sitting.
As a final thought, Mike Resnick has sold the film rights to the John Justin Mallory books and stories, so this is yet another film we almost certainly will never see.
For reviews of other books by Mike Resnick, see:
Blasphemy
The Cassandra Project with Jack McDevitt
Cat on a Cold Tin Roof
Dreamwish Beasts and Snarks
The Incarceration of Captain Nebula and Other Lost Futures
The Trojan Colt
Low Town by Daniel Polansky
Sometimes you pick up a book and, when you finish it, you have a sense of satisfaction that a new author in his first published book has not simply produced a good book. In fact, Low Town by Daniel Polansky (Doubleday, 2011) is a very good book. It bodes well for the future assuming, of course, he can be persuaded to keep on writing. In some senses, I suppose we should classify the book as being fantasy noir. As a benchmark, we can think of Alex Bledsoe’s Eddie LaCrosse, who, for twenty-five gold pieces a day, plus expenses, will act the part of an archetypal PI like Philip Marlowe in a fantasy setting. The problem with this kind of book is that it takes the original pulp model too literally. Yes, such books are a very good translation of the concept from crime to fantasy, but they simply recycle the clichés rather than reinvent the concept in a different setting.
In her introduction to the superior anthology, Supernatural Noir, Ellen Datlow emphasises the need to find the spirit of what made noir great in the hands of exponents like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and somehow recreate that. That’s why this book by Daniel Polansky is so good. Yes, we have a tough guy as our hero and he’s walking down the mean and dirty streets of some slum area where the poor and the fallen spend what’s left of their lives. But this is a fascinatingly rounded character that manages to capture all the things the best heroes have. He’s a loner but understands the need for friends and others he can either trust or make deals with. That makes him potentially very loyal. He hates authority, but is intelligent enough to know you can’t survive unless you can compromise with those who have power. He’s able to fight and is not afraid to kill but, if at all possible, he prefers to make his point without leaving too many bodies in his wake. Like the best of the American pulp heroes, he learned his trade as a soldier and, if a fight is unavoidable, he prefers not to die. That means he will ignore customs and conventions that might limit self-defence. He always goes into a fight intending to win. There used to be a girl before he went off to war but, no matter what the temptations, he’s put that behind him. Relationships would slow him down. Except, once when he was young, he rescued a waif from a fate worse than death and the same sentimental streak runs through him now.
Daniel Polansky not quite pulling off the heroic pose
So here we have a man who’s earned the nickname Warden in Low Town. He’s a one-man crime syndicate, earning his money as a dealer but also prepared to keep order in an area where the official law enforcers are loath to appear. When he left the army, he spent some time as an investigator. He was very good at his job but, as is always the case, his face didn’t quite fit and he left. The man in charge of the unit is dangerous to cross but, when interests overlap, there’s always the possibility of co-operation. It’s ironic that, by virtue of his criminal connections, he’s a more effective investigator in Low Town than the official police could be. When someone starts abducting and killing children, Warden is the one man most likely to be able to solve the case.
On the way, we meet the usual cast of fantasy characters. Our hero lives in an inn run by a long-time friend and his wife. This is a giant of a man who lost one eye in the war and, if he’s roused to anger, leaves broken bodies behind him. There’s the street-smart kid who’s just poking his head above the parapet to see the adult world in all its violent glory, the tetchy police officer who used to partner our hero and will still do the odd favour for him, and the corrupt police officer who just wants to see our hero dead. And, of course, since this is a fantasy novel, there must be a good magician who looks after Low Town with wards and spells to keep disease at bay. Working her way up through the ranks of magicians is the young girl our hero used to love. In the upmarket part of the city, the wealthy still play with swords and fight duels when they feel their honour has been besmirched. They are all familiar faces.
Put all this together and, despite the classic cast of characters, the setting of Low Town itself proves something of a triumph. It’s beautifully described. Better still, the flashbacks to times on the battlefield are engaging, particularly when we see how magic was used on a fairly massive scale to end a major campaign. All this fits together nicely to blend the supernatural and the mystery elements. Although I can’t say the solution to the mystery of who’s killing the children is all that surprising, the attempt to drag herrings of different shades of red across the page are pleasing enough. There’s such authorial enthusiasm all around that, in a sense, you stop caring and just go along with the flow. Low Town is a must-read for everyone who enjoys either the noir style or carefully crafted fantasy where magic works. Watch out for the name Daniel Polansky in the future. As a final note to avoid confusion, Low Town is the American title. The same book was published as The Straight Razor Cure in the British market.
Steal the Show by Thomas Kaufman
Steal the Show by Thomas Kaufman (St Martin’s Press, 2011) is a classic PI novel which, of course, forces us to consider what elements conspire together to produce a “classic” noir novel. I suppose the first time we see an iconic private eye is when a lone figure stops being the mere gumshoe, shamus, private dick or snooper — a wonderfully pejorative word — as found in the pulps like the Black Mask which promoted the hard-boiled, penny-a-word, detective fiction, and becomes more universal character. The first point to note is that these more iconic figures are not good-looking heroes. They can be short and fat, old and grizzled. Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op and Sam Spade, and Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe inhabit seedy offices in run-down city blocks. They drink in cheap bars, struggle to make a living on the streets, but can hold their heads up if invited into the Bel-Air mansions of the increasingly decadent well-heeled. They’ve seen it all before and are not afraid of anyone based on reputation or class. Many have been soldiers or have the soldier’s mentality. They understand the need for violence and, because it can threaten them, they are always vigilant. They have few friends. This includes women. But they are always strongly heterosexual in outlook, preferring the prospect of beauty to the alternative of violent death. In manner they’re acerbic, laconic and wont to make witty retorts. Summing it up, these men are socially rejected by the majority in conventional society, despised by the police and treated with contempt by criminals. They are tolerated only because they perform an essential social service. Their mood tends to be desolate, like the bleak landscapes of New York’s back streets or LA’s soullessness as captured by James Ellroy. This presents the PI as a voice of rationality in a world that’s often a practical nightmare with gothic murderers like Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep and Phyllis in Double Indemnity by James M Cain stalking the street. It’s hyperreal crime literature populated with figures we can say embody evil, hence the universality of the noir novel as good vs evil, the best of three falls to decide the winner.
In Steal the Show, Willis Gidney is struggling to stay in business. No-one is giving him any work. This is making him desperate enough to consider giving up his licence and getting a regular job. What makes his situation all the more precarious is that he’s in the process of trying to adopt a little girl whom he found next to a dead body. He’s an orphan, the product of Washington’s failing child care service, having grown up on the streets learning survival skills like how to lie and steal. Had it not been for Captain Shadrack Davies of the D.C. Police, he would have become a career criminal. Indeed, it was the Captain who named him and began the slow process of reforming him. Now he’s doing his best to put his past behind him and “do the right thing”. Except poverty may force him back into a life of crime, or to protect a client, he may have to break the law. Fortunately, his life skills and a small army of people he grew up with on the streets are consistently there as back-up should he need it.
Thomas Kaufman with the new point and shoot camera
Needless to say, as a single man, the state is not looking too kindly on his application to adopt a young girl. When he’s refused permission, he needs money to pay a lawyer to appeal. Fortunately a client comes along with cash and what, to Gidney, would be a simple job of breaking and entering. He salves his conscience that the burglary is all in a good cause and the cash will help cover the cost of the appeal. So he discovers evidence of a small factory duplicating a stolen film. When this evidence is passed on to the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, Gidney secures continuing work to track down yet more illegal duplication operations. There’s just one problem. He’s upset the gang apparently running the Washington operation and they’re out to kill him. When someone tries to frame him for a murder, he’s even more determined to find out what’s going on.
This is a highly engaging novel that strikes a nice balance between the need to provide a good puzzle for us to solve, enough action to make it exciting, and an increasingly revealing study of Gidney’s character. Having been a victim of uncaring foster homes, he want to keep this girl out of the system. But the force of this need is a distraction from his work as a PI and hampers his survival as the gang goes public in its attempts to kill him. Worse, he’s almost committing himself to love, but his refusal to talk about his past or to share anything of his emotional life drives a wedge between them. Ironically, if they were together as a stable couple, his application for adoption would look better on paper. It seems many sacrifices may be required to solve this part of the puzzle. As to the operation for duplicating films which he disrupts, this gives us an insight into the world of film-making and distribution. It also introduces the two stars of the film being stolen who also turn out to have their own problems. As more bodies pile up and the threats to Gidney get closer to home, the tension ratchets up and reaches a point when several successive revelations show who’s doing what to whom and why. It’s all highly entertaining and the results on all issues are credible and satisfying. Steal the Show is not a happy-ever-after fairy story where people get to end their lives stirring rainbows into pots of gold. Life goes on — a major triumph in itself. So I confirm the excellent promise of the first novel, Drink the Tea and look forward to the next in the series.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Shadow of a Dead Star by Michael Shean
So this guy comes into the pub and, before you can say, “I’ll have another pint of [insert name of favourite ale],” he’s gathered a small crowd and starts to tell one of those interminable jokes. You know the kind of thing. It’s long, structured with intermediate amusing mini-climaxes which always get a smile and reinforce the listeners’ enthusiasm as they wait for the anticipated punchline, and all in the best possible taste. Too often, jokes rapidly head south and only emerge after a long period in a bedroom or wherever the protagonists are protagging each other. The guy holding forth is vaguely familiar and, as a regular barfly, you’ve been caught up in circle around him. From the out, you’re hooked. Like this story is hot even though not pornographic — a rarity indeed. You’re hanging on every word. And when it comes to the punchline, he wrecks it. He should have said, “. . .and he thought it was a disaster!” but what he actually said was, “. . .and he thought! It was a disaster.” I should have explained. I like to deconstruct jokes so I can savour the finer points of the humour. Shame really. He had us all in the palm of his hand to the very end. We all thought this was going to be the best joke in the universe. Guess the joke was on us for listening so long except I’ve added it to my repertoire. With the right punctuation and my storytelling ability, I’ll always get the laugh instead the groan.
Michael Shean with a superimposed brass flower falling from his shell-like ear
Shadow of a Dead Star by Michael Shean (Curiosity Quills Press, 2012) is a first novel falling into the always potentially pleasing SF/mystery subgenre. By this I mean the author moves us forward in time and then has a law enforcement officer or investigator of the age, show us round the new place as he/she/it tries to decide whodunnit. In this case, sixty years has produced a slightly dystopian Seattle in a world with some improvements in technology. Body enhancements are quite common and include the usual jacking ports to allow the wetware direct interface with the hardware and wifi access to those with the right onboard equipment. Genetic manipulation has moved forward to produce a range of treatments in the pharmaceutical industry (both prescription and street) including a real way of extending life span. This starts us off nicely as our unmodified agent, Thomas Walken, is tasked with intercepting an incoming flight alleged to be carrying three Princess Dolls. This is a particularly dark and pleasing idea — the bodies of dead girls animated and sold to paedophiles. The operation looks to be routine but, on their way to headquarters for examination, a group hijacks two of the Dolls (the third is irreparably damaged). Surprisingly, these trigger-happy bandits turn up dead a few hours later. When Walken goes to talk to an informer who may actually be the importer, the nark and his enhanced bodyguards are also found dead. In other words, the trail rapidly goes cold with two Dolls missing. Then the autopsy suggests the hijackers may have been killed by the Dolls. That would certainly be an unexpected development.
So, however you want to look at this, we’re pitched into a great story with an unenhanced cop chasing down the enhanced importers of sex toys for sale at inflated prices to the perverted. Except it gets better. About a third of a way through, our fearless defender of justice is framed and has to go on the run — so there’s almost certainly corruption in the police department. Enter a hacker with a helping hand and an accommodating interface for dongles of all types. Now we have a tag team to pursue the bad buys and deprive the perverts of their toys. All this against the clock because, sooner or later, the police force will catch up with our duo as they rapidly climb to the top of the most wanted list.
Now, as is always the way when you write reviews, you reach the boundary with spoiler territory and have to decide whether to cross over the line. In this case, I’m going to stay on the “right” side. Why? Because Shadow of a Dead Star is a terrific read which everyone who enjoys science fiction merged with a noirish mystery should try. The fact my first paragraph tells you I think the reveal is deeply annoying should not put you off. This is only one jaded old man’s opinion. You may think the ending a dramatic coup to cap a book which, in all other respects, is right on the money. I leave it to you to decide.
For a review of the other books in the Wonderland universe, see the direct sequel to this book Redeye and Bone Wires.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Supernatural Noir edited by Ellen Datlow
Supernatural Noir edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse Books, 2011) is an anthology that conflates two different subgenres as its theme. We’re all familiar with the notion of the supernatural, so the more important element to understand is the reference to the word noir. For me this is indelibly associated with the pulp style which reached the maximum quality in the work of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. I suppose the primary characteristic of classic pulp is that the PI or detective is always a tough guy but smart. That way, he can take being hit with a sap, get up, dust himself down and, in due course, nab the villain. The implicit reference to darkness (noir is French for black) comes from the works which get past melodrama into worlds without pity where we see through the eyes of the victims and the criminals. In such stories, there’s always less hope for the safety of those involved. An introduction that brings us to the first story as an example of the problem inherent in the anthology’s theme. “The Dingus” by Gregory Frost reminds us of a truth. When you torture and kill a young woman, you’d better be sure she hasn’t got a sister with the power to take revenge. As seen through the eyes of an old boxing trainer, now driving a taxi, this is a case of people being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The idea is compelling, but I think the language and tone apes the period style just a little too well. I would probably have loved this fifty years ago. Today, it feels a little tired.
“The Getaway” by Paul G. Tremblay is the story of a simple heist that goes inexplicably wrong. It should be so easy to knock over a pawnshop but, as the three robbers and their driver discover, nothing is easy. This is hardboiled with a modern voice and increasingly powerful as the driver tries to outrun their fate. “Mortal Bait” by Richard Bowes sees humans caught up in a supernatural conflict. This nicely captures the sense and feel of the immediate post-WWII America with a veteran trying to make a living as a PI. In this, he has an edge given his link with the fey except, of course, having any kind of attachment leaves you potentially vulnerable should the enemy be looking for leverage. “Little Shit” by Melanie Tem is a disturbing story about the entrapment of paedophiles. It succeeds because, when you consider the facts, it’s obvious why Lourdes would be in a relationship with the titular Little Shit, yet not so obvious why someone with mind-manipulating capacity would not realise that reason. “Ditch Witch” by Lucius Shepard is a marvelous atmosphere piece in which imagination (and a liberal quantity of street drugs) combines to convert a hitch-hiker into someone who, when provoked, might just be able to do magic. It charts the sense of menace as the driver begins to see the world in a slightly different way.
Ellen Datlow — one of the best editors working today
“The Last Triangle” by Jeffrey Ford flirts with pulpy language but has enough modern sensibilities in tone and plot to make this an outstanding effort. With a runt of a protagonist as the point of view, we see an addict more or less getting clean with the help of an old but determined lady. Unfortunately, as he gets more healthy, this pitches him into an attempt to avert a possible murder, tracking the man who might kill. What makes it so successful is the fact there’s no actual evidence of anything supernatural. It could just be a man with delusions derived from reading all the wrong history books. Jeffry Ford masterfully exploits the uncertainty to keep it a more traditionally noir story. In exactly the same vein, “The Carrion Gods in their Heaven” by Laird Barron details a battered wife on the run with the emotional support of her lover. They take up residence in a cabin in the woods. There are tales about an earlier occupant, but it’s only slowly the couple realise how believable old tales can be. Again the story is firmly rooted in reality although there are ways in which the mind can play tricks and no-one could be entirely certain where the battered wife ended up. “The Romance” by Elizabeth Bear is an elegant story about relationships: the ones you can see in the now, and those that may by some uncanny means, transcend time. I think it a very good supernatural tale but am less convinced it’s genuinely noir. “Dead Sister” by Joe R. Lansdale has the author’s trademark style which always tends to be noirish in spirit as a PI bites off more than he can chew when a vampish lady pays him to watch over her sister’s grave. This soon develops into a meeting of interested parties at an old sawmill where the rollicking adventure is terminated in an appropriate way. “Comfortable in Her Skin” by Lee Thomas changes the mood quite dramatically darker. Some people are shaped by things done to them. Other shape their own lives, while a very small percentage are able to shape others in their own image. This rare ability proves a powerful partnership is possible when interests match. “But For Scars” by Tom Piccirilli continues in darker vein as a criminal finds himself persuaded to look into a six-year-old murder case by the unexpected return of the victims’ daughter from a mental hospital. Again we have a fundamental truth about human nature. Once you get past the scars and under the skin, most young criminals are the same.
“The Blisters on My Heart” by Nate Southard asks and answers the age-old question of what a jealous man will do if his girl is humiliated in a way that challenges his prowess. “The Absent Eye” by Brian Evenson is a particularly fascinating story. I’m not sure it’s noir except that it does have a man who becomes a kind of detective, but it does offer an interestingly secular, rather than the more traditionally religious, view of the soul. “The Maltese Unicorn” by Caitlin R. Kiernan is terrific fun as our bookseller gets caught up in a con and then has to find a way out of it without dying in the process. I suppose it’s raunchy noir as our more open view of sexuality bends the pulp rules in a way that would never have been possible fifty and more years ago. “Dreamer of the Day” by Nick Mamatas is genuinely and delightfully creepy with a contract killer who can recite even the minutest details of the way in which the whole death scenario will play out. This is an outstanding effort. Finally, “In Paris, in the Mouth of Kronus” by John Langan shows us how two who made the headlines as torturers for the US Army in Iraq try to make a living in civilian life. Again, I think this works well as a supernatural story but I’m less convinced of its noir qualities. As the title suggests, we are into ancient gods and the scale of the problem confronting our duo lifts it out of the pulp subgenre for me. Somehow, I always feel true noir lies in more intimate details.
So there you have it. Ellen Datlow has put together another outstanding anthology. While I might differ slightly in my interpretation of the editorial brief requiring a noir tone, I take nothing away from the actual stories included here. They are all of a high standard with one or two outstanding. By any standards, this is an anthology to savour.
As an aside, I can’t say I like the jacket artwork by Greg Ruth very much. Although the idea of a raven is OK — it is, after all a noir bird with Poeish supernatural connotations — but the perspective has been bent to make the eyes fit vis-a-vis the bird. This leaves the head in the wrong position which just goes to show how subjective all this editing, publishing and reviewing business is.
For reviews of other books edited by Ellen Datlow, see:
Alien Sex
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume One
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Two
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Three
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Four
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Five
Blood and other cravings
Lovecraft Unbound
For the record, the 2011 Stoker Awards have been announced. The anthology was shortlisted for Superior Achievement in an Anthology. It has also been nominated as Best Edited Anthology in the 2011 Shirley Jackson Awards. “Ditch Witch” by Lucius Shepard and “The Last Triangle” by Jeffrey Ford are nominated as Best Novelette in the 2011 Shirley Jackson Awards.
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