Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

(hb; 1990)

From the back cover:

"According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.

"So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.
And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . . "


Review:

Omens is a mostly fun, laugh-out-loud hilarious and clever tale of a divine, bureaucratic apocalypse with engaging characters, (mostly) fast action and Hitcher-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy-ish silliness. I say "mostly" because during certain bits -- particularly those involving the Them (eleven-year old Adam and his three adventurous peers), Aziraphale (an angel) and his various books, and Shadwell (a witch-hunter) -- could have been trimmed, cutting the book down by a quarter of its length, making Omens a better read. (Part of my boredom with the aforementioned, overlong parts may be due in part to my not being an Anglophile, as most of these parts are uber-British giggly in tone. . .  the interview at the end of the book confirms that those overlong parts were likely written by Pratchett, something worth noting.)

This is a worthwhile purchase for fans of silly-Brit humor, and a decent -- if sometimes a chore of a read -- book to borrow from a local library for those who are not Anglophiles.

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In April 2016, Neil Gaiman said in interviews that he was three-quarters of the way through a six-episode teleplay version of the book. (Pratchett died in 2015.) Thus far, there is no release date for resulting cable miniseries. I will update the information about this miniseries when I get more information about it and have time to post it.

I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales of a Happy Life Without Kids by Jen Kirkman

(hb; 2013: nonfiction, humor)

From the back cover:

" 'You'll change your mind.' 

"That's what everyone says to Jen Kirkman—and countless women like her—when she confesses she doesn't plan to have children. But you know what? It's hard enough to be an adult. You have to dress yourself and pay bills and remember to buy birthday gifts. You have to drive and get annual physicals and tip for good service. Some adults take on the added burden of caring for a tiny human being with no language skills or bladder control. Parenthood can be very rewarding, but let's face it, so are margaritas at the adults-only pool.

"Jen's stand-up routine includes lots of jokes about not having kids (and some about masturbation and Johnny Depp), after which complete strangers constantly approach her and ask, "But who will take care of you when you're old?" (Servants!) Some insist, "You'd be such a great mom!" (Really? You know me so well!)

"Whether living rent-free in her childhood bedroom while trying to break into comedy (the best free birth control around, she says), or taking the stage at major clubs and joining a hit TV show—and along the way getting married, divorced, and attending excruciating afternoon birthday parties for her parent friends—Jen is completely happy and fulfilled by her decision not to procreate."


Review:

Barely is a smart, funny (in a dark-ish, underlying-serious way) book that entertains even as it, with Kirkman's well-articulated arguments and autobiographical bits, lists many of the reasons why she -- like many of us who decide not to have kids -- have made that decision. Her humor and points, sharp and not intended for children and the thin-skinned, are empathetic to those who are parents -- further showing Kirkman's humanity, even when she is making jokes and going against the stated grain.

This is a good read, worth owning for those inclined toward Kirkman's logic and wry, dark-ish sense of humor. If you like this book, you might want to check out her follow-up, I Know What I'm Doing and Other Lies I Tell Myself.

Tower of the Medusa by Lin Carter

(pb; 1969)

Review:

Carter packages Tower's science fiction elements with pulp-vivid aplomb. Its action-packed plot involves a master thief (Kirin), who is hired by the rich, portly Doctor Temujin to steal a legendary jewel -- the well-guarded Heart of Kom Yazoth, a demon associated with widespread destruction. Kirin and Temujin are en route to enact the dangerous theft, when they are taken prisoner by Azeera the Witch Queen, who also wants the jewel, with which she will rule the known universe. 

Other characters in this fast-paced, exciting mix include: Caola, an Amazonian War Maid of Nar, whose wits and physical prowess may prove valuable to Kirin and Temujin; evil wizards of varying power, Pangoy the Nexian and his magickal master (Zarlak), who also commands the vicious Death Dwarves, whose job it is to guard the Iron Tower, where the jewel -- also called the Medusa -- lies beyond a series of elaborate traps.

There is not much in this story that will surprise readers familiar with science fiction-pulp tropes, but Carter's well-sketched characters, lean-and-mean storytelling and cinematic-friendly writing keeps Tower fun and thrilling: worth owning, this.

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Tower of the Medusa was packaged as a reverse-bound "Ace Double" novel, which means that if readers flip the book upside down and over, there was another science fiction novel, penned by another author, on the other side. (Considering that these books sold for 75 cents a pop, this seems like a great deal, even back in the Sixties.)

In this case, the flipside novel is George H. Smith's Kar Kaballa.

Points and Lines by Seicho Matsumoto

(hb;1958: translated by Makiko Yamamoto and Paul C. Blum)

From the back cover:

"A senior official in a ministry tainted with scandal. A dining car receipt. A name missing from a passenger list. And a young man and woman dead on a beach in an apparent suicide. Disconnected points, but not to a determined detective who keeps searching for the lines that link the living and the dead."


Review:

Points is a clever, word-exact police procedural that immediately immersed me with its crisp, hyper-focused prose and well-sketched characters (as well as its Japanese milieu and abbreviated social commentary). This is a compelling how-the-crime-was-committed read, worth owning.

The Two-Bear Mambo by Joe R. Lansdale

(hb; 1995: third book in the Hap and Leonard series)

From the inside flap:

"Florida Grange, Leonard's drop-dead gorgeous lawyer and Hap's former lover, has vanished in Klan-infested Grovetown while in pursuit of the real story behind the jailhouse death of a legendary bluesman's blackguard son. Fearing the worst, Hap and Leonard set out to do the kind of investigating the good ole boy cops can't - or won't - do. In Grovetown they encounter a redneck police chief, a sadistic Christmas tree grower, and townsfolk itchin' for a lynchin'. Add to this a dark night exhumation in a voodoo graveyard, a thunderstorm of Biblical proportions, and flat-out sudden murder. Hap and Leonard vow to face the hate and find Florida, even if Leonard has to put a hole in anyone who gets in the way. Besides, they've packed a lunch."


Review:

This third entry in the Hap and Leonard series is darker, more violent and harrowing than its predecessor books, Savage Season and Mucho Mojo. When Leonard Pine and Hap Collins' investigation into the disappearance of Hap's ex-girlfriend (Florida) leads them into an entire town populated by pernicious racists, even Hap and Leonard's junkyard dog attitudes, trenchant wits and general bad-assery may not be enough to pull them through this rain-drenched nightmare that will shake them to their cores.

Two-Bear is my favorite Hap and Leonard novel thus far, another impressive, character-expansive work. This, like its previous books, is worth owning.

Followed by Bad Chili.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

(pb; 1897)

Review:

Told through a series of various characters' journals, notes and cables, this nineteenth-century, milestone novel of vampirism, slow-burn horror, desire and other emotions is an enthralling, descriptive work, one that deservedly has been acknowledged as the blueprint for most vampire-themed art and writing. Stoker crafted the perfect bloodsucker book when he wrote this (I rarely use the word "perfect" to describe any writing); for this reason, this is one of my all-time favorite reads.

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Dracula has inspired so many other works, visual, literary, aural and cinematic, I will not even attempt to show the creative strands stemming from it.

The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida

(hb; 2015)

From the inside flap:

". . . a woman travels to Casablanca, Morocco, on mysterious business. Almost immediately, while checking into her hotel, she is robbed, her passport and all identification stolen. The crime is investigated by the police, but the woman feels there is a strange complicity between the hotel staff and the authorities—she knows she’ll never see her possessions again.

"Stripped of her identity, she feels both burdened by the crime and liberated by her sudden freedom to be anyone at all. Then, a chance encounter with a film crew provides an intriguing opportunity: A producer sizes her up and asks, would she be willing to be the body-double for a movie star filming in the city? And so begins a strange journey in which she’ll become a stand-in—both on-set and off—for a reclusive celebrity who can no longer circulate freely in society while gradually moving further away from the person she was when she arrived in Morocco."


Review:

Diver's Clothes is a love-or-hate novel. Vida not only tells the story through a second-person point-of-view (told in the present tense, with lots of "you"s), but her protagonist -- a flighty, irrational woman -- often makes bizarre, ill-advised decisions that may be off-putting to some readers. (The reasons for the protagonist's irrationality are eventually, somewhat revealed.)

Normally, a book like this would not appeal to me. What compelled me to read Diver's Clothes was that I am a fan of Vida's work, which consistently has an exotic surreality, a dangerous dreaminess to it, as well as her swift-paced, turn-on-a-dime storytelling. Also, this book has the feel of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, where the protagonists plunge headlong into unpredictable situations whilst panicking -- and trying not to think too long on the consequences of their wild, criminal decisions. (I am not the first person to note this; the same person who made the Vida-Highsmith connection also suggested an Alfred Hitchcock link, which makes sense: Hitchcock filmed a loosely adapted version of Highsmith's Strangers on a Train.)

If you can get past the second-person POV and the protagonist's bad decisions (which threaten to bury her even as their repercussions amass), this is a hard-to-put down read. The tale's finish is open-ended, keeping with the tone of what precedes it, with Vida providing sufficient foreshadowing to suggest that this, too, while a bad choice, is also an exhilarating (and character-true) one.

Borrow it or check this out from a library before you buy it, if you are iffy about Diver's Clothes: better to spend money on something where you are fairly certain you will like it.

Cannibal Island by Michael Faun

(pb; 2014: novella)

From the back cover:

"In the 1920s, a British expedition sets out to investigate a crater caused by a meteorite on an uninhabited island in the Zanzibar archipelago -- a four-week-long journey by boat that culminates in a nightmare. But when they finally arrive at the island, no nightmare could compare to what they discover."


Review:

This entertaining, fast-moving homage to men's adventure magazines and cannibal films is a short and to-the-point read, one worth owning. Characters are well-sketched (familiar caricatured meat puppets who are funny, sometimes in a horrible ways), the sense of calamity ever-present and the gore (while intermittent) effective and vivid enough to pay proper respects to the genres which Faun clearly is smitten with. Fun, brief work, this -- worth your time and cash.

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At the time of this writing, Faun has posted several exuberant Facebook posts pertaining to his current authorial endeavor: a sequel to Cannibal Island. When more information is available, I will update this review.

High-Rise by J.G. Ballard

(pb; 1975)

From the back cover:

"Within the walls of an elegant forty-story tower block, the affluent tenants are hell-bent on an orgy of destruction. Cocktail parties degenerate into marauding attacks on 'enemy' floors, and the once-luxurious amenities become an arena for technological mayhem. In this visionary tale, human society slips into violent reverse as once-peaceful residents, driven by primal urges, re-create a world ruled by the laws of the jungle."


Review:

High-Rise is a timely, could-be-mistaken-for-prescient novel whose tone of almost-antiseptic, sociological distance consistently maintains a fine balance of  showing gradual, deteriorating civility  while simultaneously mimicking the form of an effectively paced thriller. Its multiple characters, who get varying amounts of 'air time,' are well-sketched out and their motives are understandable and clear, even when their behavior seems quirky and inconsistent -- that is, after all, an aspect of individuals, of human nature.

Fans of William Golding's Lord of the Flies and Ballard's Crash may well appreciate High-Rise's subtle underlying and black-hearted mirth even as the tenants enact escalating savagery and other tribal-minded displays. Those who like their thrills light-hearted and optimistic should avoid this book (as well as the movie) -- for them it may feel like an insufferably long nightmare of pointless nihilism.

This is a great book, one that may resonate well with those who are fascinated by (and sometimes horrified by) the darker corners of human nature and society, as well as tightly-written prose penned by a forward-looking wordsmith.

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The resulting film is scheduled for stateside release on April 28, 2016. Ben Wheatley directed the film, from Amy Jump's screenplay.

Tom Hiddleston played Laing. Jeremy Irons played Royal. Sienna Miller played Charlotte. Luke Evans played Wilder. Elisabeth Moss played Helen. James Purefoy played Pangbourne. Keeley Hawes played Ann. Peter Ferdinando played Cosgrove.

Mucho Mojo by Joe R. Lansdale

(hb; 1994: second book in the Hap and Leonard series)

From the inside flap:

"Under the blister of a Texas sun, you distract your mind or watch it die. For Hap Collins, slaving in the rose fields of July, the diversion is fantasies of iced tea and willing women. For Leonard Pine's Uncle Chester, the mental deterioration is too fatally advanced. Dying in the slums of LaBorde, he  no longer despises with the same passion his gay nephew Leonard. He ignores the crack house next door. And he forgets about what he'd buried under the floorboards of his house.

"He does remember to erect a forbidding 'bottle tree': a ragged post festooned with glass, designed to ward off black magic.

"When Leonard and his old friend Hap clean out Uncle Chester's house, they dig up a small skeleton, wrapped in pornographic magazines -- along with a grotesque link between an unsolved series of child murders and Leonard's late relative and guardian. Thinking white, Hap wants to call the police. But Leonard, intimate with the unwritten codes in his black part of town, persuades his partner to help clear Chester's name, sans outside reinforcement. Together, they unearth the deepest, ugliest truth of all."


Review:

Mucho builds on the Texas-based, neo-pulp-saturated world of Leonard Pine and Hap Collins (first introduced in Savage Season), resulting in another all-around entertaining and burn-through read in the Hap and Leonard series. As with Savage, Hap and Leonard's longtime friendship provides the banter-punctuated core around which the action revolves, the action this time perhaps more personal than that of the first book (Leonard's Uncle Chester may not have been as noble in his gruff worldview as he seemed).

This is another great read, an impressive, character-organic expansion in this series -- and, like its source novel, worth owning.

Followed by The Two-Bear Mambo.

The Howling by Gary Brandner

(pb; 1977: first book in The Howling trilogy)

From the back cover:

"Karyn and her husband Roy had come to the peaceful California village of Drago to escape the savagery of the city. On the surface Drago appeared to be like most small rural towns. 

"But it was not.


"The village had a most unsavory history. Unexplained disappearances, sudden deaths.
People just vanished, never to be found."


Review:

Howling is a waste-no-words, excellent read, one of my favorite werewolf works in the horror genre. It illustrates, in a cinematic, lycanthrophic and terror-toned manner, the disintegration of a marriage in the wake of a brutal, no-one-is-safe-anywhere rape, even as the husband and wife (Karen and Roy) change in startling ways.

At the time of this writing, this type of story has become common (with varying degrees of quality) in the horror genre. What sets Howling apart from other shape-shifter-based tales is Brandner's superb focus and editing, which keeps its storyline entertaining and palatable, without sacrificing the efficacy of its underlying, disturbing and personal themes.

This standout work is worth owning, one of the best furs-&-fangs genre entries of recent memory.

Followed by The Howling II.

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The loosely linked, resulting film was released stateside on April 10, 1981. Joe Dante directed it, based on a script by John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless.

Dee Wallace played Karen White. Christopher Stone played R. William 'Bill' Neill. Dennis Duggan played Chris. Belinda Balaski played Terry Fisher. Kevin McCarthy played Fred Francis.
Patrick Macnee played Dr. George Waggner. John Carradine played Erle Kenton. Slim Pickens played Sam Newfield. Elisabeth Brooks played Marsha Quist. Robert Picardo played Eddie Quist. Don McLeod played T.C. Quist.

An uncredited Roger Corman played "Man in Phone Booth". An uncredited John Sayles (mentioned earlier as the film's co-screenwriter) played "Morgue Attendant". An uncredited Jonathan Kaplan played "Gas Station Attendant".

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For those interested in the entire book series, all of the The Howling novels have been collected into one omnibus volume, The Howling Trilogy.