While looking through the new arrivals in the hardcover fiction section at Northtown Books, I was drawn by a book that was more square than usual. While it's not enough to make me buy a book, books with unusual dimensions, formats, titles, etc. do catch my eye on the shelf. Sometimes (read House of Leaves by Danielewski or most anything by Eggers) such oddities can show a creative thinker--or at least one able to convince the publisher to spring the extra $$ for off-standard volumes. Looking further, I was enticed by the cover blurb of praise by Cory Doctrow, and on the back cover, I encountered further laudations from Kim Harrison, Charlaine Harris, Charles de Lint, and William Gibson--all authors I know and love, in ascending order. Come to find out, as the subtitle of that book in my hands indicated, that it is the fourth in the Sandman Slim supernatural fiction series. So, I wandered down to the paperbook fiction and quickly selected the first in the series, appropriately named Sandman Slim.
Not quite as quickly--but fast nonetheless--I galloped through this action-packed, violent, and funny novel depicting your average guy who has just been spewed out of hell after 11 years of living there (he never did die, you see, but was sent there by a pack of evil magicians). One minute he's in the underworld, and the next James Stark (aka Sandman Slim) is in an L.A. cemetery, getting acclimated to daylight and plotting to kill the band of magicians who sent him Downtown--and killed his girlfriend. It's not a simple task, and one that includes encounters with angels, Hellions, magicians, fallen angels, jades (vampires), and the Kissi (a type of forgotten celestial splinter off of god's original creation, set on wreaking havoc on earth. The first book was creative, had some interesting good vs. evil themes, and makes me look forward to heading back to Northtown and picking up the rest of the series soon.
Wattpad is an free app that provides readers with access to free books and reading material. Many of these books are written by amateurs, rife with fan fiction and the like, but some of the material shared is of high quality. Corey Doctorow has released his recent book on Wattpad, and Margaret Atwood has jumped on board--first with some poetry and now with this novella, co-written with Alderman in alternating chapters.
While one might expect an author best known for her dystopic novels about our future to have a negative view of technology, Atwood is quite the opposite. She was among the first adopters of Twitter and tweets out regularly--her own tweets, versus those created and posted by a publicist or staffer. So, her support of the Wattpad platform is not surprising in this regard. And, the change of platform has allowed for a bit more frivolity and fun. The piece, as described in the title, it about zombies. And, as much as I like zombies, how could I not like zombies as seen by my favorite author?
(For those interested in more of Atwood's digital productions, two recent short stories are available in eBook format only: "I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth" (a follow-up to Cat's Eye) and I'm Starved for You" (the first in a post-apocalyptic serial now titled Positron--and in its fourth installment). Both are available via Amazon/Kindle.
I've been on a Joe Hill kick lately--reading all three of his novels in the last month. Horn's is his second novel, and it's actually my favorite of the bunch. It tells the story of Iggy Perrish, a young man who is the prime suspect in the murder/rape of his girlfriend. Without enough evidence to find him guilty, he is released to live his life under suspicion. One morning, however, he wakes up with the power to touch people and know about their past transgressions--and folks are compelled to share their darkest secrets with him. The results are both enlightening and horrifying, leading Iggy to the truth about what happened to his love. It's a compelling read, and one that kept me up reading well past my bed time.
For sheer entertainment and crazy, intelligent fun, this comic is unmatchable. I've laid out the premise in earlier reviews (Volume 3 and 4/5, and I'll simply say that this volume--focusing on Tony's sister Toni--is more of the same quality. Without giving more away, I will say that this story arc concludes in a pretty grisly and sad way, but it doesn't make me want to stop reading, Instead, I look forward to seeing how Layman and Guillory spin off from here into a new landscape both serious and comical.
This is one of the most unsettling comics I read. The Walking Dead has zombies and The House of Mystery has surreal and dangerous characters, but the seemingly normal backdrop on which the magical premise of this series--a Keyhouse, with keys that unlock magical powers only for for children--is set, can prove both comforting and disturbing. Volume 5 takes readers further into the world accessible through the keys, as the Locke children confront their nemesis by venturing into the past with the Timeshift Key. This key allows them to see the history of the keys, including the role they played in their father (deceased) and uncle's lives. Since all memory of such magic is erased once children leave the house and enter adulthood, these stories have been lost between generations, and Tyler and Kinsey's knowledge of their past use may offer the best hope for their own futures, and that of their little brother Bode.
When I picked up this trade, the clerk at the comic shop said something about the end of the series. I truly hope he was mistaken--or that we have at least one more story arc to come--as it's hard to imagine this world concluding at this point of the narrative. Stay tuned...
I've always enjoyed Kingsolver's books, most notably Prodigal Summer (2000) and The Poisonwood Bible (2005), and I've read them all. In the range of her work, I'd say Flight Behavior falls right below the two mentioned above--a bit higher than her earlier work, but not quite as strong as those favorites. Essentially, the book is a slow build and it took me some time to become engaged with the protagonist--a poor, young mother in rural Appalachia who lives in a house with her husband and two children on his parents' sheep ranch. As I read on, however, I became more engaged, seeing how her life--and the life of the surrounding community--is affected by the arrival of a global-warming influenced phenomenon. It's a story both modern, for the environmental aspect, and as old as time--a coming-of-age story set in today's rural America.
This is Hill's first book, and for an author's debut novel, it's not bad. Truthfully, though, if this was the first Hill book I had read--if I wasn't already a fan of Locke and Key comics and hadn't read his most recent novel--I may not have picked up another of his works. The book is average in development, although it gains momentum as it continues. I felt that the writing even improved within this one novel; at the beginning, I skimmed whole pages or sections I found extraneous, but later in the book things seemed more focused and relevant. I'm looking forward to reading his second novel, Horns, and watching him grow into the skilled author he becomes by NOS482.
