Alien Resurrection by Joss Whedon

 

(pb; 1997: screenplay)

From the back cover

“This is the real thing: the ultimate insider’s look at the fourth Alien film, Alien Resurrection, the new blockbuster starring Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder. You are about to see the film as the stars saw it.

“This studio-authorized edition contains the final script of the film as it appears on the big screen: unexpurgated and unaltered, detailing every live action scene, every chilling minute of suspense, every unforgettable line of dialogue, and every startling special effect from the eagerly awaited fourth film in the most popular sci-fi thriller series of all time.”

 

Review

Whedon’s script is excellent, fast-moving, suspenseful, mood- and character-effective in its word-spare description and dialogue, which left plenty of room for Resurrection’s director to fully flavor the resulting film with their (hopefully) unique vision. In this case, the director was Jean-Pierre Jeunet, known for being artsy and structured (to the point of obvious artifice); also consistent with Jeunet’s style, Resurrection bustles with eccentric, disturbing characters, and visual and aural elements —this made the actual film less great than it might've been. Still, a deft, entertaining and masterful screenplay, one worth owning and learning from (if you’re an aspiring writer of scripts or fiction that is screenplay-friendly).

Alien Resurrection was released stateside on November 26, 1997. Details for its cast and crew on here on Resurrection’s main IMDb page.

Apeship by Carlton Mellick III

 

(pb; 2024: third book in the Apes**t series)

From the back cover

“An intolerable prick takes his weird daughter, his college-aged girlfriend, her douchey brother, and her awkward best friend on a boating trip to show off his new yacht. But when they come across an abandoned cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, they find themselves hunted by a group of sadistic mutant killers hellbent on keeping them as their immortal playthings for all eternity.”

 

Review

Mellick returns to the risible, out-there horror of the pink crystals (which keep the dead, however mutilated, alive and alert) with Apeship, this time set on the ocean, first on “Daddy Cool”’s yacht (The Crotch Moistener) and later on the long-lost-at-sea The Pacific Princess (its exterior seen in the first season of the television show The Love Boat, 1977-87). As with the first book, Apes**t, there’s little/no explanation how the decades-at-sea Pacific Princess became a floating home to the pink crystals and new(?) mutants, so those craving backstories in their entertainment might see that as lacking; if Mellick writes a fourth Apes**t novella—an idea he mused about recently—he might do what he did in Clusterf**k and provide more background about the pink crystals and specific characters.

Another recurring Apes**t element: cringey characters with strange and wild secrets. This time out, they’re less cringey and almost likeable at times. Also revisited are Mellick’s piss takes on political correctness and generational differences (e.g., the ‘r word,’ cultural appropriation), 1970s/1980s television, sex (tacky, gory, horrific), and other social affronts, all spot-on hilarious, and not recommended for the easily offended.

For the rest of us who appreciate deviant humor, unkillable mutants and often-horrible people, Apeship may prove to be a laugh-out-loud, equally over-the-top entry in the Apes**t series.

 

Note to new Apes**t readers: Apeship can be read without reading the books before it. They also can be read in any order. That said, those who enjoy the series may get more enjoyment reading them in publication order because they are loosely linked via character. In this most recent Apes**t entry, Lily and her father (Blaise, aka “Daddy Cool”) are cousin and uncle to frat bro “Extreme Dean” (from Clusterf**k)—early on in Apeship it’s noted that he “went missing last fall.”

Clean Break by Lionel White

 

(pb; 1955)

Review

Fans of Richard Stark’s twenty-four-book Parker series might enjoy Clean Break, with its blunt, succinct descriptions and dialogue, its swift pacing, its character-based twists, all of which start from the first word and doesn’t let up until the last one. This is a great, blueprint-for-the-hardboiled-novel book, one worth owning.

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The resulting film, The Killing, was released stateside on June 6, 1956. Stanley Kubrick directed it, also serving as co-author (with Jim Thompson) of the screenplay.

Sterling Hayden played Johnny Clay, ex-con brainchild of the heist. Coleen Gray played Fay, Johnny’s girlfriend.

Jay C. Flippen played Marvin Unger, court stenographer-turned-heister. Elisha Cook Jr. played track cashier George Peatty. Marie Windsor played Sherry Peatty, George’s bored, faithless wife. Vince Edwards played Val Cannon, Sherry’s secret lover.

Ted de Corsia, billed as DeCorsia, played debt-saddled Patrolman Randy Kennan. Jay Adler played “Leo the Loan Shark.” Joe Sawyer played Mike O’Reilly (cinematic stand-in for “Big Mike” Henty in the source novel). Timothy Carey played creepy sniper Nikki Arcane. Joe Turkel, billed as Joseph Turkel, played Tiny.

The Big Meat by Carlton Mellick III

(pb; 2017)

From the back cover

“The creature was finally dead. After months of fighting it, trying desperately to stop it as it rampaged across the American countryside, turning city after city into a landscape of rubble, we finally managed to beat the damned thing. We actually saved the human species. We survived.

“But the corpse still lingers.

“In the center of the city once known as Portland, Oregon, there lies a mountain of flesh. Hundreds of thousands of tons of rotting flesh. It has filled the city with disease and dead-lizard stench, contaminated the water supply with its greasy putrid fluids, clogged the air with toxic gases so thick that you can’t leave your house without the aid of a gas mask. And no one really knows quite what to do about it. A thousand-man demolition crew has been trying to clear it out one piece at a time, but after three months of work they’ve barely made a dent. And then there’s the junkies who have started burrowing into the monster’s guts, searching for a drug produced by its fire glands, setting back the excavation even longer.

“It seems like the corpse will never go away. And with the quarantine still in place, we’re not even allowed to leave. We’re stuck in this disgusting rotten hell forever.

“The Big Meat is a gut-wrenching, nerve-squirming survival story of loss, addiction and claustrophobia.”

 

Review

Meat, like Mellick’s other nailing-it works, deftly mixes genres, in this case: kaiju, drug addiction, plague and grief dramas as well as science fiction and icky horror. Less light-hearted than works like The Girl with the Barbed Wire Hair, Meat flirts with the saturnine-horrific tone of Village of the Mermaids and built-up dread of Quicksand House—it’s an inspired, entertaining 162-page novel, with its protagonist literally going through a “gut-wrenching” situation, looking for his disappeared Blue Food-addicted brother (David) while struggling to survive physically and economically in what appears to be a lose/suffer-more existence.

One of the many things I love about Mellick’s work is how he, with seeming ease, slips in backstory details without sacrificing its odd genre mix pacing, solid storytelling and relatable emotion impact.

Meat, less flashy in its setup and delivery than some high-profile Mellick's books, sports a profound maturity within its sometimes gory, genre-true (especially for kaiju fans) and inspired situations, a work worth owning—one of my favorite reads this year.

The Rubber Band by Rex Stout

 

(pb; 1937: third book in the forty-six-book Nero Wolfe detective series)

From the back cover

“What do a Wild West lynching and a respected English nobleman have in common? On the surface, absolutely nothing. But when a young man hires his services, it becomes Nero Wolfe’s job to look deeper and find the connection. A forty-year-old pact, a five-thousand-mile search and a million-dollar murder are all linked to an international scandal that could rebound on the great detective and his partner, Archie, with fatal abruptness.”

 

Review

Rubber Band has the erudite, stubborn Wolfe reluctantly harboring a pretty fugitive (Clara Fox) who’s suspected not only of monetary theft but murder—and those seeking her are not limited to wanting to arrest her. While the cops (often led by the sometimes-friendly Inspector Kramer) and dubious characters try to pound down Wolfe’s door, Archie Goodwin and Wolfe’s reliable butler Fritz Brenner actively form a further bulwark to the urgent invaders while Wolfe susses out the details of Fox’s three-prong difficulties, an effort that should earn him an impressive, calculated payday.

Rubber might be my favorite Wolfe novel thus far. It’s dead-on, from its characterizations, its editing and clever writing, and often laugh-out-loud smart dialogue. In some ways, Rubber feels like the crystallization of the first phase Stout’s iconic detective (considering there are forty-six Stout-penned Wolfe works), and it’s a great entry not only in Wolfe series but the mystery genre in general. Followed by The Red Box.

The Girl with the Barbed Wire Hair by Carlton Mellick III

 

(pb; 2022)

 

From the back cover

“This is a ghost story.

“It is also a love story.

“It is a story about obsession, desperation, loneliness, and depravity.

“It is not a story that will make you happy.”

 

Review

Girl is an instantly addictive (in a good way) read, seamlessly incorporating integral facets of Japanese horror (aka J-horror) into a relatively straightforward, sometimes clever-twisty tale: a kind, quiet boy (Yusuke) is thrown into wild situations after helping a strange street girl (Akiko Mori) and, while doing so, attracting the weird-affection attention of his popular, pretty and casually cruel junior high classmate (Narumi Wada). Events spiral out of bloody, community-threatening control when Akiko’s true nature is revealed, playing out in a way that feels true to J-horror and its well-developed character while maintaining a fresh take on it. Girl, Mellick’s sixty-fourth book, is less bizarre in tone and execution, but still a wild, entertaining and standout work, one worth owning.

Chamber of Horrors by Robert Bloch

 

(pb; 1966: story anthology)

 

Overall review

Chamber is an excellent, twelve-story collection by an often-excellent author. All the tightly written and twisty tales shine, even if Bloch-familiar readers guess/sense the character- and fate-based turns within the works. Worth owning, this—a master class in effective, get-regularly-published writing.

 

Review, story by story

“The Living End”: Nobel Prize-winning scientist Herbert Zane is unpleasantly distracted from his groundbreaking work by his shrewish wife (Hilda), in a life-altering way. While some readers may guess how Herbert might be undone, it’s still—especially for the period it was originally published (1963)—effective, clever, and rings true.

 

“The Headhunter”: Otto Kranz, an axe-wielding executioner for the SS (and full of wonder at the mysteries of life and death) risks death to seek answers to nagging, core questions. Good story.

 

“Impractical Joker”: A heartbroken, disgruntled bartender (Teddy), working his final shift at the Fun House (a bar), goes for broke (im)practical joke-wise. For Bloch, this is a relatively gentle work shade-wise, but still moralistic (in a good way) with its twist(s).

 

“Pride Goes—”: Alice Aiken, an adulteress, plots her husband’s murder, and finds even the most no-fuss killing too easily becomes tangled. Masterfully foreshadowed finish, one of my favorite stories in this anthology—and one of my all-time favorite Bloch stories.

 

“The Screaming People”: A post-car accident amnesiac (Steve Edmundson), dream-led by “The Voice,” suspects he might’ve committed a murder. Thankfully, there’s his loving wife (Roxie) and Dr. Carl Wagram (a neuropsychiatrist) to guide him back to complete sanity. . . maybe.

Bloch, again, masterfully mines noir tropes and converts them into pulpy, twisty gold with his deftly placed foreshadowing, gray-shade characters, sly humor and overall excellent writing.

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“Fat Chance”: A longtime-married husband plots his wife’s (Mary) death after she puts on seriously unhealthy weight and he meets Frances, a stimulating, weight-healthy woman. Readers familiar with Bloch’s writing style and structure may see what “Fat Chance”’s twist-finish is likely to be, but it’s still the work of a superb writer spinning a worthwhile, clever tale.

 

“The Unpardonable Crime”: Sherry,  a desperate, lowlife actress, returns to her husband (Roger, a film director) after disappearing for three years. She hopes to revitalize her career, but things have changed in ways she couldn’t foresee. Fun, Hollywood-dark read, offbeat and excellent twist.

 

“Method for Murder”: Madness—contagious?—dominates this tale about a woman (Alice), sick of her husband’s obsession with his thriller work; she finds an illicit and dangerous way to deal with it. Fans of Bloch’s 1982 novel Psycho II might especially appreciate “Murder.”

 

“Two of a Kind”: A wealthy man (Preston Lambert) offers a young couple (Mary Dexter and her husband) a life of luxury if they’ll work with him on what seems like mad lark. Memorable, great twist-finish in this story.

 

“Untouchable”: Race Harmon, an arrogant and racist filmmaker in India, goes stir crazy beyond his usual, drunken actions and slurs (which are language-explicit and may be shocking for sheltered/sensitive readers). This being a Bloch tale, there’s a heavy price to be paid for such behavior. Nasty, blunt and excellent story.

 

“Beelzebub”: A fly torments a Hollywood writer (Howard). Fun story.

 

“ ‘Frozen Fear’”: Walter Krass realizes that his Cajun wife (Ruby) intends to kill him, so he tries to respond in kind—but murder isn’t always the answer, nor is it the end of certain situations. Good, solid work.