Warm Words & Otherwise: A Blizzard of Book Reviews (29 page)

Fat Ollie's Book

by Ed McBain

Simon & Schuster, 288 pages, hardback, 2003

It was over forty years ago that I first came across Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series, by then already well established; yet here's another novel from a writer who's still very much in his creative prime. A horrifying realization.

Fat Ollie Weeks of the 88th has written most of his first novel – a full 36 pages, no less – and is on his way to get it copied when he's called to a murder scene: rising right-wing politician Lester Henderson has been gunned down. As Fat Ollie is busy alienating witnesses, a junkie robs his car and steals the manuscript, of which Fat Ollie has no copies. Because the murder happened in the 87th Precinct, it's agreed that Fat Ollie will share the investigation with Steve Carella and Bert Kling. In the event, of course, while Carella and Kling investigate the murder, Fat Ollie shifts heaven and earth to try to get his manuscript back.

What Fat Ollie doesn't know is that the thief – who only wanted the smart attache case the manuscript came in – assumes Fat Ollie's police-procedural novel is a genuine report, but coded. If the thief could only decode the information he could find a fortune in diamonds and a beauteous babe police officer – for Fat Ollie has written in the persona of one of the young female cops whose asses he's always trying to grab.

Fat Ollie also doesn't know that the title of his novel (
Report to the Commissioner
) and its format (written as if a genuine report) echo precisely a crime novel of the past: James Mills's 1972 bestseller. In fact, Fat Ollie doesn't even know who John Grisham is. His knowledge of literature extends thus far: (a) bestselling writers make a pile; (b) if you read the reviews on Amazon.com it's plain that the way to write a bestseller is to make your novel as witless as possible.

So amidst all the rest of the plot we're treated to extended parodies of the efforts of bad amateur writers. Unfortunately, although some parts do raise a smile, Fat Ollie's text is actually not bad
enough
to have that true ring of authenticity – you can read far worse in print, thanks to the crusading efforts of companies like xLibris and iUniverse, and certainly you can easily uncover far worse, and far funnier, in the average slushpile. To put it as politely as possible, McBain has clearly quailed at the prospect of the sort of in-depth research we have come to expect of crime writers.

Still, the novel is beautifully constructed and the prose rattles along with all the speed and wit of vintage McBain; a couple of nice little sideswipes at the lemming-like "bestsellers only" mentality of too much of today's publishing industry spice the brew. The juxtaposition of the humour – not just in the parodies but also in "real life" – with the pathos exposed by the murder investigation is poignant. All in all,
Fat Ollie's Book
offers as much as you could expect, but just a tad less than you might have wanted.

—Crescent Blues

Rules of the Hunt

by Hugh McCracken

BeWrite, 232 pages, paperback, 2002

Five young boys on a small Scottish island are exploring a grove that has the reputation of being haunted for twenty-four hours each year; during this single noon-to-noon period, people often disappear. Sure enough, the five are suddenly timeslipped back several centuries – to a time when the local Duke has the winsome habit of conducting an equivalent of the Wild Hunt on that same one day. There has been puzzlement that quite often strangers in weird garb turn up during the Hunt, but none of them has ever survived it. The boys immediately encounter the Duke and his huntsmen, but are granted their lives until next year's Hunt – although not before one of them is accidentally killed.

During the twelvemonth they spend in the past the four – Pete (the narrator, an American staying with relatives on the island while his parents divorce), Davey (his cousin), Keith (a working-class lad subjected to physical abuse at home) and Mike (the natural leader) – integrate themselves with the locals, in particular being befriended by Andrew, a cousin of the Duke's and also leader of the Old Ones, a society that offers a sort of Gandhi-like passive resistance to the Duke's rule. The four boys come to be widely regarded as warlocks, and indeed Pete starts displaying some supernatural powers – dreaming prophetic dreams and establishing telepathic contact with the Duke, who proves to be his distant ancestor. Even so, Keith is seized and tortured on the rack; by the time he can be rescued it is evident he will never walk properly again. And always the day of the next Hunt draws nearer, and with it the enigma of whether the boys will ever be able to get back to their own time ...

Timeslip novels for young adults are not exactly thin on the ground at the moment, but
Rules of the Hunt
is certainly among the more interesting of them that I've encountered – and the among the more readable. The action, after a slightly slow start, fairly cracks along, to the point that once or twice I wished it would crack along a bit less enthusiastically, because a couple of plot developments went by so fast they almost rang of perfunctoriness. The setting, fascinating in itself, is very nicely realized; it has the feel of a fantasyland while at the same time being firmly rooted in a historical reality. The characters likewise come alive, although the boy Keith takes a while to do so.

What is additionally refreshing about this novel is that it is genuinely for adolescents rather than, as is too often the case with YA novels, being over-sanitized. The killing, early on, of the boy Colin, whom one had assumed was going to be one of the central protagonists – one of "our merry gang" – hammers it home that this isn't going to merely the customary romp in which all dangers are survived without much damage to life or limb; and this tenor is maintained by such events as the torturing of the boy Keith. Keith's catchphrase is "No funny stuff", referring to his only semi-joking fear of homosexual advances, the implication being strong that it's not just beatings he's suffered at home from his father and elder brothers. Pete is going through that phase of adolescence when erections pop up at all sorts of unexpected moments, and his embarrassment about this is treated with charming honesty rather than the whole matter being ignored entirely. None of this is stuff from which children should be shielded – to the contrary, it contributes to their healthy development – but most writers (and, much more importantly, most children's editors) would blench at the prospect of some bible-blinded parent in Texas taking exception and would censor reality accordingly.

This is a very nicely produced book from a new publisher; there are quite a few typos, especially in the last thirty pages or so, but otherwise it's a handsome trade paperback, with a good cover by Alan Geldard.

All the best children's and young adult novels hold many riches for adults, and this is one of them.
Rules of the Hunt
had me gripped; even if one ignored its various subtexts, therefore, it deserves recommendation.

—Infinity Plus

Deepsix

by Jack McDevitt

HarperCollins Eos, 432 pages, hardback, 2001

In the year 2204 a survey party led by Randall Nightingale landed on ice-age-locked Deepsix, one of the few life-bearing planets the human species has so far discovered during its expansion outwards into the Galaxy. The party was attacked by carnivorous birds and retreated in disarray, with the loss of several lives. Nightingale was made scapegoat by his Academy bosses for the "failure" of the expedition, and since then no further study of the planet has been authorized.

Now, however, nearly 20 years later in 2223, Deepsix is about to be destroyed in a collision with a wandering Jovian planet, and several vessels are here so the human species can observe the cataclysm, for purposes of either science or thrill. From orbit are noticed various abandoned artefacts: clearly Deepsix nurtured not just life but at some stage intelligent life, and a civilization of sorts, a fact overlooked during the hastily aborted earlier mission. Although time is short before the collision, a small investigatory party, which happens to include the disgraced Nightingale, is sent down in one of the two available landers to discover what they can; an overweening journalist commandeers the other to make a landing for purposes of self-glorification.

One of the quakes induced by the growing proximity of the rogue Jovian destroys both landers – and the race is on to recover the surviving members of the team from the increasingly hostile surface of the planet. Meanwhile, those team members are discovering technology of incredible sophistication, showing that Deepsix holds unsuspected mysteries ...

Embarrassing though it might be to admit, this is a page-turning, nail-biting, pulse-pounding sf adventure novel of the highest order: it is, quite simply, a riveting read. "Quite simply" in more than one sense, because it is unladen with any particular philosophical subtext – it is not a book that requires head-scratching analysis to reveal layers of meaning – save the customary hard-sf one that the search for knowledge is paramount over all other concerns save humane ones, the word "humane" being extended to cover other species. What you find here, instead of what can often be illusory or even puerile metaphysical profundity, is an example of quite superb tale-telling.

Blurb and cover quotes compare McDevitt to Clarke and Asimov, but he is a wholly different writer from either of them, with different preoccupations and territory. Instead, the book's feel is strongly reminiscent of the heyday of Larry Niven, back before all the increasingly mechanical collaborations, although it is better written and has more of a conscience. There is an acute and infectious sense of awe as the humans uncover the alien artefacts, whether these be the quasi-medieval ones of the planet's original species or the hi-tech ones of their visitors; perhaps these passages are even more powerful than the straightforward adventure sequences, although those are powerful enough. And, although the characterization and character development are often pretty rudimentary and the accounts of behind-the-scenes political shenanniganery are likewise on the simplistic side, they are nevertheless all perfectly convincing and persuasive in the context of this engrossingly helterskelter tale.

Deepsix
is an excellent antidote to any belief that the day of the redblooded sf adventure is long gone. It is an unashamedly exciting novel that draws you into its universe almost immediately and then tears along at an accelerating pace. Your reviewer has desperately been trying to avoid clichés like "I couldn't put it down" and "it left me gasping", but unfortunately this is an unequal struggle and he must finally succumb.

—Infinity Plus

Guilty Until Proven Guilty

by Brian McNaughton

Betancourt and Company, 212 pages, hardback, 2003

Be warned: You're not going to
like
anyone in this bizarre serial-rapist/killer novel. Most are little higher on the moral ladder than the rapist/murderer is: the least vile are guilty of the corruption born of weakness, while the rest are thoroughly venal and at least borderline psychopathic.

Oh, a correction. Two of the characters, Bill and Melody, are reasonably okay, so far as we see them. Unfortunately, they're sadistically murdered in the opening chapter.

Armitage, a town in the thrall of its almost sole employer, the Burroughs Thread Company, has been terrorized by the Full Moon Maniac, who preys upon courting couples. Corrupt trigger-happy cop Frank Buchanan would like to catch the perpetrator to increase his chances of promotion, and is little concerned about anyone who gets in his way. He's convinced the killer is Sonny Corcoran, vicious dimwit son of local sex maniac Ma Corcoran, who has a history of prostituting her daughters, not to mention forcing them to have sex with Sonny so she can watch. Katy Burroughs, wife of company boss Walter, has been chaste as a nun for years, but decides to kick over the traces by seducing Sonny in a public park. Sonny violently rejects her, because he knows Walter is his biological father. Frank turns up and beats the shit out of Sonny (who recovers with miraculous speed for succeeding episodes), then half-rapes Katy – who loves him for it. Together they play the game of "Snuff Walter", which after a while stops being just a game ...

Guilty Until Proven Guilty
is a novel packed with sex, violence and more sex. Sadly, because the author has striven to make his characters entirely despicable, it's impossible to believe in them as real people (always excepting the ill fated Melody and Bill, of course); thus the various beatings-up, tortures and sadistic murders have all the emotional affect of a Tom & Jerry cartoon. Something analogous can be send for the sex, although I confess I've never seen a Tom & Jerry movie to compare: there are plenty of bodily fluids splashing about, plenty of grunts and thrusts, but nary a scintilla of eroticism.

The book is an extremely quick read, partly because it's short (208 pages, big print) but partly because McNaughton's prose does have a swing to it. It's a pity he's settled for writing something so undemanding.

At $32.95 this is an expensive hardback novel. This is even more so when its production standards are so low. As a LightningSource PoD item, it's reasonably poorly produced to begin with, with an ill fitting dustjacket; not much can be done about that. However, the publisher could certainly have done something about the typographical errors, which are rife; while presumably a late change of mind, inadequately executed, means that one character's name alternates between Ronnie and Bonnie. It's to be hoped a proofreader will be employed for the paperback edition – and LightningSource's paperbacks are much better than their hardbacks anyway.

—Crescent Blues

Northern Gothic

by Nick Mamatas

Soft Skull, 86 pages, paperback, 2001

There's a strong tradition within fantasy literature of the timeslip romance, in which an individual from one era falls so profoundly in love with an individual from another that somehow love conquers the intervening decades and the pair are united. To cite an obvious example of the form, there's Richard Matheson's
Bid Time Return
(1975), whose pleasant but rather lacklustre filmed version was
Somewhere in Time
(1980).

Nick Mamatas's short novel
Northern Gothic
can be viewed as an obverse take on the timeslip romance, with the potent emotion in question being not love but hate.

In 1863 New York unskilled Irish labourer William Patten is caught up in the Draft Riots; sparked by the iniquitous ordinance of Lincoln's whereby those who could pay $300 towards the North's war effort were released from the risk of being drafted, these righteous demonstrations swiftly degenerated into an orgy of mob looting, pillage, arson, mayhem and lynch-murder of, primarily, blacks, who were blamed for all evils. Patten enjoys a full murderous role in these, culminating in his playing a part in the most nauseating incident of the whole nauseating episode, the assault on the Colored Orphans' Asylum in which the mob aimed to burn alive scores of black children. Finally, as the Army takes back the streets, he is given summary justice and executed.

In 1998 New York gay, broke, wannabe actor, black country boy Ahmadi Jenkins, newly arrived in the big city and still finding his feet, is tormented by intermittent full-sensory hallucinations of fire and rapine that he is completely unable, during his lucid periods, to comprehend or relate to anything in his own life. Progressively more disastrous events occur, climaxing in the burning down of the building that houses his crummy apartment and, shortly afterwards, his incarceration in the mental hospital Bellevue. There, as he drifts in out of reality, the temporal gateways are opened for Patten's blind racist hatred to reach him across the decades ...

This book has many fine qualities, not the least of which is its portrayal of the hellish emotional atmosphere of the Draft Riots; Mamatas cites as source Iver Bernstein's
The New York City Draft Riots
(1990) in his Acknowledgements, but his depiction accords with other historical accounts I have myself read and thus must be reckoned to be as historically accurate as any century-and-a-half-later depiction can ever hope to be. From the pages of
Northern Gothic
there drifts the stench of smoke and burning and blood and shit and piss and, most of all, fear – not just the fear of the hapless blacks who were hunted down, mutilated and slaughtered by the mobs but also, more centre-stage, the fear of the mobs themselves, particularized by Patten, that their own individual worlds were ending, that they would starve while the fatcats and the blacks prospered. I stress this historical veracity because it is unusual in the modern ghost story or horror story to find such an integrity: there is a story beyond the front-of-stage story, and Mamatas is not afraid to draw us into it.

That aside, the real protagonist of this short novel is neither Patten nor Jenkins – Patten's polar opposite – but the city of New York itself, a city that is, then as now, robust with vitality precisely because it is also a melting pot of violence and tensions not just between races and communities but also, on an astonishingly widespread scale, between individuals. If a spark analogous to Lincoln's War Draft Act were offered to the tinder that is New York today, then there is every chance there'd be an outbreak of something all too terrifyingly like the Draft Riots as the city – personified by its inhabitants – responded in the only way she knows how. Seen in this context, the interaction between Patten and Jenkins is less of a timeslip, more a sort of Aristotelian identification between like and like.

Despite its short span –
Northern Gothic
can't be more than about 25-30,000 words long – this story, with the fresh perspectives it skilfully offers on both a historical episode that is widely forgotten and on the nature of New York, delivers more of interest than many a novel five times as thick. The telling is absorbing; you will not feel short-changed through having read the book at a sitting, because reading at a sitting is what it demands.

—Infinity Plus