This Lou Feck cover makes me want to find out what the book is about.
This Frank Cazzorelli cover has a German expressionist quality to it, as if the woman’s terror were distorting the surroundings
This Richard Powers cover is from a Y/A book I read as a teen. It’s not as wild as many of his covers but it conveys the sense of Olympics+Science Fiction well.
All rights to images remain with current holders.
First the East Coast — John A. McDermott’s THE LAST SPIRITS OF MANHATTAN is a literary novel about what the author says was a real party Alfred Hitchcock threw in the 1950s at a house owned by McDermott’s relatives. I don’t know if it’s really based-on-truth (authors fudge that stuff a lot) but I also don’t mind. I picked the book up for the historical fantasy aspect — as I write it, it’s interesting to read it — and for the cool cover (my apologies to the artist for forgetting to note the name).
Carolyn, one of the lead protagonists in the ensemble cast, is an upperclass young woman contemplating a marriage proposal; she’s not really into him but then again, what else is she going to do with her life? Meanwhile Peter, a hustling young Manhattanite winds up hunting for a haunted house for Hitch’s party; trouble is, Manhattan’s developed and redeveloped and built up to the point old haunted houses are rare. As it turns out, Carolyn’s family have a house that looks spooky enough — it’ll do even though obviously there won’t be any real ghosts there to disturb Hitchcock, his wife Alma, Henry Fonda (then acting in Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man) and the other guests.
It’s an interesting setup but as I’ve mentioned often enough, literary fiction isn’t usually to my taste. McDermott’s literary stylings didn’t hold my interest, which is not his fault; I also found the more interesting stories (Carolyn and Peter) lost amidst the ensemble cast — I was much less interested in Henry Fonda’s tormented angst, for instance. Ultimately this didn’t work for me.
Now, the West Coast — ECOLOGY OF FEAR: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster by Mike Davis is a late 1990s jeremiad showing the utter insanity of massive multi-million dollar development in Southern California given what an insanely unstable environment it is. Earthquakes. Wild animals becoming increasingly dangerous as we move into their territory. Drought. Tornadoes. Wildfire. All of which Big Money makes worse.
Malibu homeowners, Davis says, oppose sensible firefighting measure such as controlled burns because the ash and smoke hurts their property values; nevertheless if they lose their homes they can count on the state government reimbursing them. By contrast, frequent tenement fires in LA’s poor districts leave tenants unhoused, with little support, and the fire department can’t even bother to make the required fire inspections on the rat-traps.
It’s an interesting read that branches into disaster movies set in LA (he dismisses Blade Runner as having little to do with the real city’s architecture and locations), then a closing chapter on the future that predicts the growth of exurbs and gated communities will kill the suburbs as the suburbs killed the downtown. This stuff was interesting, even if I don’t buy his conclusions, but it also left me feeling like I’d finished one of the 19th century fin de siecle prophesies of doom like the Victorian books Stephen Arata writes about. I’m curious whether much has changed in the quarter-century since the book came out, but not enough to research it.
All rights to image remain with current holder.
Filed under Reading
First this paperback cover. “A century ahead of her sex” refers to the adversaries being homo superior, I believe.
Second, this one, which the source credited to Bergey. Those are some comical looking aliens, aren’t they?
For more Bergey covers, click here.
All rights to images remain with current holders.
More than a decade ago, I listed Steve Englehart’s Captain America run as one of my top 10 favorite comics. It was an unpleasant shock when he left the book, Cap-creator Jack Kirby took over and proceeded to ignore everything Englehart had developed in favor of doing his own thing (for reasons explained here, Kirby wanted to ignore the rest of the Marvel Universe as much as possible). I’ve been following Alan Stewart’s recounting of the Kirby run and I can safely say I don’t like it any better than I did at the time. While I admire a lot of Kirby’s Silver Age and Fourth World work, at this point nothing he was doing impressed me (e.g., Devil Dinosaur).
Discussion on Alan’s blog got me to check out CAPTAIN AMERICA’S BICENTENNIAL BATTLES, one of the big treasury-edition books DC and Marvel were putting out back then — bigger size, bigger price, more profit per issue.
The story, such as it is, has the mystical Mr. Buda challenging Captain America about his belief in America, then sending him across time to experience it: the Chicago fire, a boxing bought with heavyweight legend John L. Sullivan, helping John Brown’s son protect a runaway slave, inspiring Betsy Ross in her design for the new flag she’s working on. There’s no plot, just a set of set pieces followed by an uninspired Why America Is Cool message. Like most of Kirby’s work after his return to Marvel, this had my wondering why people thought Kirby was such a genius.
I had more fun with ULTIMATE OZ UNIVERSE: The Lost Lands by Cullen Bunn and Mike Deodato. It’s the kick off of a new Oz series, adapting Land of Oz with Ozma of Oz to follow (I’m curious if they thought the ur-book was done too much, worried about flak from MGM which made the ’39 movie or what). It looks good —
— stays close enough to the story to satisfy me and the changes (adding a special ops Oz team working for Glinda, amping up Mombi’s powers) don’t annoy me. The exception is that I’d have preferred the Hungry Tiger and Cowardly Lion as animals rather than biped beast-men, and that in stripping Wogglebug of his personality as pompous academic, they’ve made him utterly blad. I’m also surprised given the reveal, that they don’t lean into the trans overtones. Still, a solid start.
Art by Kirby and Deodata, all rights to images remain with their owners.
As I said last month, when I budgeted time off for emergencies into my year’s goals, I didn’t anticipate losing a week to dog problems this soon.
Similarly, while I budgeted several hours for errands into my plans for March, I didn’t expect to use them up last Monday.
I knew it would be a long day because we were taking the dogs to their PT session and it included Plushie’s recheck, adding time. Plus TYG had a couple of necessary errands on the way home, adding time. Still, I’d planned for that: my writing time would be all Savage Adventures. Proofing it doesn’t require the same creative energy as writing fiction and if the workday broke into chunks I could adapt to that too.
Unfortunately Trixie had been peeing in the house the past couple of days, or getting really frantic to go out, so we’d scheduled an afternoon vet visit for her. Still had hopes of getting stuff done … but on the way to PT, our rear left tire took a nail. No immediate threat — it served as its own hole plug — but once we got back I had to take it down to a tire place. They said probably a half-hour; it wasn’t. In fairness I’d asked about patching and they decided it needed replacing. I thought about getting a second opinion but TYG said go ahead and pay it. I was happy not to take more time.
So Monday was a wash as far as doing anything writerly. An hour of Savage Adventures, nothing more. However Trixie’s on antibiotics for a UTI and improving and the rehab vet is very pleased with Plush Dudley’s progress — we may not see much improvement but she doesn’t anticipate things getting worse or having to go through another surgery. Yay.
That said, the week went reasonably well; it helped that The Local Reporter is still on hiatus (I do hope we’re back in action soon, though). I got about 10,000 words done on Let No Man Put Asunder and around 7000 on The Impossible Takes a Little Longer. Part of the work on the latter book was rewriting Chapter Two — normally I don’t go back until a draft is finished but so much bugged me about the chapter I took the time to fix it.
And that was it, other than a post about awkward film endings over at Atomic Junk Shop. Yesterday the cleaners were in and that never works out well for getting anything done. Still, getting some fiction written always feels good. Ditto knowing the dogs are in good health.
I’m not sure when it occurred to me that getting feedback from other people before I submitted my work might make it better.
While memory isn’t always accurate, I’m pretty sure I didn’t show my first novel to anyone until after I sent it off to DAW Books (came back with a “not bad, submit again,” which was quite a thrill). I showed my second novel (currently a new WIP as Let No Man Put Asunder) to my friends Martin and Cindy because I remember their feedback. Cindy, in particular, pointed out that my protagonist Adrienne (Mandy in the current WIP) didn’t have a purse or anything else to carry her stuff. I rewrote accordingly.
I’m a good self-editor. I can spot plot holes. I can sense places where my work needs something more, even if I can’t define what it is (eventually I do). I’m not an infallible self-editor. Showing my work to beta readers has made it so much better.
My short story “You Are What You Eat,” for instance, has the food in a married couple’s house possessed by ghosts. Every editor I submitted to said the ending disappointed them. Cindy made me see what was wrong with it: it had become a standard revenge story when it needed something weirder. I rewrote accordingly; it sold to Tales of the Talisman.
It’s hard as writers to see our work clearly. Once I’ve written a story I tend to think of the finished work as the only possible way it could have been done. Even if I can see alternatives, they’re clearly not as good. Obviously the reader will see that … right. Someone outside my head, reading cold, may (and usually does) have a completely different reaction. Sometimes it’s the aesthetics — the ending lacks oomph, the character’s issue got left unresolved. Sometimes I left out a point on the page that was very clear in my head, leaving the story an illogical mess. Plus the little things like changing a name between drafts and not catching all of them, head-hopping, etc.
This hasn’t always been an option. There have been stretches of time where for whatever reason I didn’t have anyone to provide a critique. I’m pretty sure I wrote Questionable Minds without any feedback; it’s a little too gruesome for Cindy and I didn’t have anyone else to ask at the time. I think it turned out well, and it got positive responses from some editors (even an acceptance, right before the publisher shut its doors). Still who knows if a more thorough beta-reading might have helped.
Now that I have my writer’s group here in Durham, that’s not a problem. I have feedback on almost everything, including my film reference books. They were great help on The Aliens Are Here and Watching Jekyll and Hyde, for instance — pointing out where I wasn’t clear, where I’d gotten bogged down in synopsis, where I’d wandered off topic.
Beta readers are not infallible either. And when you have 10 or more of them, there are inevitable outliers. The ending of my short story “The Schloss and the Switchblade,” for instance, has the lead hooking up with his long-ago crush. One of my beta readers had issues with that; I kept it in. Still, when you have a solid majority of people saying “that was a mistake,” it’s worth thinking about. And even one person can be right when they’re pointing out an obvious mistake.
Occasionally beta reading goes sour. About 30 years ago, I showed an intense, angry short story to one of my writer friends. She didn’t think it was marketable. This threw me enough I don’t think I ever tried to sell it — a shame, because what’s the worst that could happen? A no, that’s what, and I’ve had plenty of those. I didn’t submit it, which guaranteed it would never be accepted (and for various reasons, I don’t think it’s good enough now). I’ve no idea why that critique shook me so much, but it did.
Overall, though, beta reading has been a big win for me. I highly recommend it.
Rights to all images remain with their current holders. Questionable Minds cover by Samantha Collins.
Filed under Sherlock Holmes, Writing
COYOTE NATION: A Natural and Supernatural History by Dan Flores paints the coyote’s history and its clashes with Homo sapienx as “a nature story where nature wins!” — despite a century of trying to wipe coyotes out, they’re thriving more than ever.
Flores covers the coyote’s role in indigenous legend (something I’ll come back to in a later post), it’s evolutionary history (no, it’s not a species of jackal), and the European colonists and explorers having early encounters with the “prairie wolf.” In the 19th century things took a turn for the worse as Americans began seeing the coyote as a cowardly, sneaky, no-good varmint (Mark Twain vents on this line in Roughing It). It didn’t matter: coyotes adapted to us just fine. When various wildlife agencies began butchering wolves (Flores shows protecting livestock was an excuse to justify a much larger budget), coyotes adapted to that too (wolves have been known to prey on them), expanding their range and growing in number. Eventually that led to the same agencies justifying continued big budgets by killing them too, at various times using poison, bear traps and shooting them from the air (one “researcher” explains sheep farmers, the main ones demanding this, want to see corpses rather than being told sterilizing adults gets the job done).
Again, coyotes won. Unlike wolves, they can hunt as pack animals or go solo after small prey, giving them more options; they’re even able to eat vegetables. Coyote howls are a guide to population density: if they don’t hear many of their kind, they produce larger litters. Suck it, killers. While solidly on the coyotes’ side, Flores does thing we should be hostile when we encounter them in urban areas — keeping them afraid of us minimizes things going bad.
It’s an excellent book though when Flores gets away from the core subject his science is wonky — Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene is not about the genetic basis of selfishness, for instance.
I’ve learned that tahini, the basis of hummus, has a lot of uses in cooking — in many recipes that use peanut or other nut butter, it makes a tangy alternative, for instance. That led me to check TAHINI BABY: Bright Everyday Recipes That Happen to Be Vegetarian by Eden Grinshpan out of the library. I’ve made one — a fruit dish with a tahini/oat crumble on top — and might try a couple more before I take it back, including a variation on regular hummus. Others simply aren’t practical for someone who relies heavily on leftovers (I have that problem a lot) — a shakshuka sandwich with poached eggs isn’t something I want to leave in the fridge. And there’s not quite as many tahini recipes as I was hoping for — still, it’s a good book if your taste runs to Israeli/Middle Eastern cooking.
Despite the title, William K. Everson admits his CLASSICS OF THE HORROR FILM: From the Days of the Silent Film to the Exorcist isn’t attempting to pick the best of the best as much as to select a wide array of great films. Overall I think he succeeds as he looks at Frankenstein, The Undying Monster, Night of the Demon and The Exorcist.
This 1974 book did its job as it whetted my interest for a number of the films contained within. Enough I can live with the times I disagree strongly — he doesn’t care for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and while he’s delighted to see a modern horror movie make big bucks, he dismisses The Exorcist as more shock than art. Overall, interesting, though dated by coming out before cable, VCRs, DVDs and now streaming made many movies he laments are never seen easily available.
All rights to images remain with current holders.
Filed under Reading
Which is to say, not much done.
In fairness, part of that carried over from last week’s dog chaos. We’ve only now reached the end of all the added drugs they’re getting. and spacing them out, adjusting them to the “don’t give with food” rules, etc. means the regimen sucks up more time (plus Plush Dudley is increasingly uncooperative about eating his meds). And Monday Trixie had her recheck at Peak Paws (our PT place) and with added errands on the way home, I wound up starting work Monday way later than usual.
(No, I don’t know why she’s sniffing Plushie).
I rewrote the introduction to Savage Adventures when it hit me that I bog down in the history of the pulps instead of selling why Doc Savage is cool to read (and read about). I turned in two Local Reporter articles, one on how Carrboro’s funding stormwater management projects and a debate in Chapel Hill on taking a stand against President Toddler’s anti-immigration raids. And I got a bunch of stuff done on various tasks — picking up pet meds, contacting contractors, etc.
And that was pretty much it. The week kind of evaporated. I always have a fear that if I let that happen once, I’ll let it happen again, and again, and I’ll end up with nothing but a hatful of rain (to borrow from the title of an old film). I know that’s not true, but still.
The flip side: as the 501(c) non-profit Local Reporter takes a two week pause I have more time but now I have less money coming in. Not that the wolf’s at the door but I do take pride in contributing to household bills.
February overall was disappointing for fiction writing. Between the dogs and the snow I got almost no fiction written. On the plus side I did complete the latest draft of Savage Adventures; updated my “in case of my death” paperwork; provided my obligatory critiques for some of the stories in Break the Sky (as it’s a collaborative anthology, we all edit each other); donated blood today; and made more money than usual, thanks to The Local Reporter. On the downside, my social life has been quiet, as either my schedule or my friends’ proved unworkable (one coffee date, very short due to an emergency on their part).
However the week wasn’t all wasted. Monday I got an FB message from a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor (an excellent paper — I subscribed for years). Between the president declaring a release of the government’s UFO-related files (I do not expect any shocking revelations) and the upcoming movie Project Hail Mary, reporter Stephen Humphries came up with the idea of interviewing me, as an expert in ET-visitor films, about movies, real-life UFO beliefs and how they interact. One reason I didn’t get more work done is that I pored over The Aliens Are Here, refreshing my mind on the subject. It paid off — it was a 45 minute interview and I think I talked intelligently for all of it. I’ll link to the article when it comes out.
On that note, have a good weekend. All rights to images remain with current holders; Doc Savage cover by James Bama.
I did read a couple of books this week but I’m still exhausted from coping with sick dogs so the reviews will be postponed. Instead, here’s a cover by Ralph Brillhart —
— and two uncredited covers.
And to finish up, here’s an old favorite, Gervasio Gallardo’s cover for The Last Unicorn.
All rights to images remain with current holders.
In a recent substack post, Celeste Davis of Matriarchal Blessing discussed the many rich and famous guys who’ve gone from pudgy and nerdy looking to buff and muscular, including Jeff Bezos and Christ Pratt. I don’t find this terribly remarkable — while the pressure on men to look good isn’t as intense as with women, it does exist. In our modern world I don’t think it’s that far off from someone forty years ago getting rich and switching to bespoke suits.
Davis argues that what this is really about is becoming invulnerable: “The invulnerability arc shows up in just about every myth, story and hero we have for boys—be they modern or ancient, religious or secular. The story goes like this: once upon a time there was a weak, shrimpy boy, who eventually through pain and violence is transformed into a fortress of muscle and power. Now no one makes fun of him. Now he is a hero.” Cases in point, Disney’s Hercules, Harry Potter, Batman, Captain America. Davis goes on to argue that if your goal is a long, healthy life (and for a lot of these dudes, it is), becoming buff or paying for radical medical treatments won’t work as well as having a community of friends around you.
That conclusion I do not dispute. Davis’ interpretation of the “invulnerability arc” as the essential Boy’s Journey … not so much. Since she brings up the Marvel and DC cinematic universes, let’s look:
Iron Man: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr. of course) discovers his munitions manufacturing has made the world worse. Sets out to atone. And far from being invulnerable, he starts the movie in good health, then ends up a guy relying on the world’s most advanced pacemaker. The comic book doesn’t start Tony out in such a guilty place, but does emphasize even more that he’s not invulnerable —drain his armor’s power, he’s dead. Jack Kirby cover below.
Superman: No arc. He’s an invulnerable child who grows up into the world’s most invulnerable man.
Thor: Arrogant jackass whose arc is learning not to be such a jerk.
Captain America: (Steve Rogers in the Jack Kirby scene above is saving a Cap imposter, by the way). No question his origin involves going from a scrawny 4-F into the perfect man. But I think it’s more significant that his quest isn’t to become strong, it’s to fight fascists. That’s why he applies in the comics (and IIRC in the film). That’s what drives him. And it’s not that he’s invulnerable —
— it’s his indomitable spirit, as in the Gene Colan image above.
Hercules? Disney’s take is an outlier, portraying him as a wimpy kid; in mythology, Hercules strangles venomous snakes while he’s still in the cradle. Marvel’s Hercules (at the bottom of Kirby’s cover) and most other pop-culture presentations are much the same — superhuman from the get-go.
Harry Potter is far and away the worst argument for her position. Her synopsis: “A shrimpy nerdy orphan is shunned by his family, forced to live in the hall closet and be beat up by his cousin. Eventually he fights in some battles and after securing The Deathly Hallows, becomes the master of death and savior of the world.”
Okay, that’s technically true, but only technically. The real story is a miserable lonely good gets away from his abusive caregivers, make friends, finds a parental figure who isn’t shitty and learns to be happy. The books are an endorsement of exactly what Davis says we need, community. Harry wouldn’t have made it to book two if he didn’t have Ron and Hermione (particularly, of course, Hermione) fighting alongside him. He wouldn’t have finished the series alive if he hadn’t trained his fellow students into Dumbledore’s Army.
Harry is all about community. In a sense that’s what makes him the perfect opposing player for Voldemort, who has no use for other people except as pawns or followers.
Likewise, few superheroes these days come without a supporting cast. Green Arrow and Flash on the CW have sizable backup teams, for instance. Movie Batman is probably the closest to what Davis talks about; I think he’s more an anomaly than a template.
Looking at pop culture more broadly, I think the post underestimates the number of characters who don’t have origins in a conventional sense. In cop shows we may get some backstory but a lot of the time they’re simply there, no origin. Jack Bauer on 24 ditto — his childhood and how he came to be a tough guy is never detailed that I recall.
In short, I don’t think the post nailed the zeitgeist as much as she thinks.
All rights to images remain with current holders.
Filed under Comics, Movies, Reading, TV, Undead sexist cliches
