Bohumil Hrabal ~ The Death of Mr. Baltisberger
just finished reading Bohumil Hrabal’s collection of short stories, The Death of Mr. Baltisberger. perpetual thanks, as always, to Ann and Stona Fitch for introducing me to one of the 20th Century’s undersung masters. my favorites were the final two, The World Cafeteria and Want To See Golden Prague? (but even their late placement in…
Lucius Shepard ~ The Taborin Scale
Just finished reading The Taborin Scale by Lucius Shepard, a novella of majesty and magic, part of the mythology surrounding the the centuries-old apparently moribund dragon-god, Griaule. Lucius’ recent collection, The Dragon Griaule is the volume wherein you’ll find this and other treasures telling of this bewitched and bewitching deity. I purchased this slim volume…
Ross MacDonald ~ Find A Victim
just finished reading FIND A VICTIM by the legendary Ross MacDonald. i’ve been steadily making my way through Kenneth Millar’s (Ross’ given name) ouevre, but it’s been a while since the last one i read. no one in the noir world has a better sense of atmosphere, and no one has much troubled empathy and…
DBC Pierre ~ Vernon God Little
just finished reading DBC Pierre’s debut, Booker Prize winning novel, the Columbine-inspired black comedy, VERNON GOD LITTLE. supplants Salinger’s coming-of-age novel in my mind for its insight, satire and sheer beauty of writing. really brilliant.
Alan Glynn ~ Bloodland
just finished reading Alan Glynn‘s third novel (i’ve read them all, starting with the brilliant THE DARK FIELDS, retitled LIMITLESS starring Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro in the film version, WINTERLAND about city politics and vast corruption) BLOODLAND, in which the death of an actress and others in a helicopter crash off Donegal is the…
Sara Gran ~ Saturn’s Return to New York
just finished reading Sara Gran’s SATURN’S RETURN TO NEW YORK. i’d previously loved her tale of revenge wrought supernaturally in NYC, COME CLOSER, and so had bought reams of her work. had i known that the book i just finished was basically a chick flick surrounding the astrological stress of Saturn reemerging 29 years after…
Lucius Shepard ~ Vacancy/Ariel
just finished reading a beautiful tome, Subterranean Press’ homage to the Ace Double Novels of decades passed, two unique and essential novellas by the King of Speculative Fiction, Lucius Shepard, VACANCY and ARIEL. both of them have equally far-flung premises, one centering on his evocatively-maligned hometown of Daytona and very odd goings-on in a certain…
Charlie Williams ~ King of the Road
just finished reading the latest of Charlie Williams’s novels set in the downtrodden UK burg of Mangel centering around the thoroughly politically incorrect, recent mental patient, inadvertent murderer (new father?) and town hard-man, Royston Blake. Blakey is Mayhem Personified, and the argot Williams weaves is truly addictive, and one roots for this rube and malcontent…
Dan Simmons ~ The Terror
Just finished reading THE TERROR, 2007 novel by American author Dan Simmons, a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to the Arctic to force the Northwest Passage in 1845–1848. Franklin and his crew are plagued by starvation and scurvy and forced to contend with mutiny and…
Hari Kunzru ~ Gods Without Men
just finished reading Hari Kunzru’s novel, GODS WITHOUT MEN, an unabashed mashup of CLOUD ATLAS (complete with a blurb from David Mitchell himself: “A beautifully written echo chamber of a novel”; he would know first-hand the bases for such echoes) and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. not as wholly reducible as that, as the…