21st out of 143 books
—
86 voters
It Came from del Rio
There are borders and then there are borders. Between right and wrong. Between Texas and Mexico. The first is a joke to Dodd Raines, the second a payday. Then there's the borders he's made. Between himself and his estranged daughter, the border patrol agent. Between himself and his one-time employers. And there's another border, one he cares about even less than the Rio Gr...more
Paperback, 212 pages
Published
October 22nd 2010
by Trapdoor Books
(first published 2010)
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Border town dark and brilliant, as much noir as SF as neither, just as the borderlands are never one thing or the other. I raced through this the way I haven't done in a while. Since Moorcock. Jones is a great writer, both in his language and in his eye for the curious and crazy details that make character unforgettable, both in people and places. Those are the details I've always loved and if you want eccentric details, the southwest's sure got them. Of course I love it more that this is my pla...more
A very unique novel by local Colorado author Stephen Graham Jones, It Came From Del Rio is a postmortem account of what the main character, Dodd Raines, intends to be his last job. A criminal forced to flee to Mexico with his daughter after a failed bank heist, he now earns his living transporting contraband across the border. When he gets a call and discovers his employers know too much about his daughter, he plans to finish this one last job.
Divided into two parts, the novel is narr...more
Divided into two parts, the novel is narr...more
I don't know the last time I've been this blindsided by a book--Jones takes a decidedly pulp premise (and title, with accompanying great cover!) and delivers an absolutely heartbreaking, brilliant two act novel. The first half follows accomplished mule Dodd as he attempts to make one last border run with a mysterious cargo, but from the very beginning we know that Dodd is in too deep and we're not in for a storybook ending in the second half, where things take a radical but immensely satisfying ...more
One thing you can say about Stephen Graham Jones – you never know what you’re going to get, but you won’t be let down. Such is the case with It Came From Del Rio. This is one book you really can’t judge by it’s cover. That cool, man-eating bunny on the cover belies the real heart of this story.
Perhaps the cover was a clever ruse, a meta-trick on the reader. Where one would expect a riveting page-turner of man versus zombie rabbits, what you actually get is the story of a connectio...more
Perhaps the cover was a clever ruse, a meta-trick on the reader. Where one would expect a riveting page-turner of man versus zombie rabbits, what you actually get is the story of a connectio...more
I wasn't exactly sure about this one for the first 30-some pages. It wasn't bad, but I wasn't really all that into it either. Yet, I pressed on--and glad I did.
Soon enough, Jones had me totally pulled into the world he'd created, the humor, the horror, and the downright bizarre. I'll admit, I don't think that Jones is the most eloquent of wordsmiths, but he sure knows how to tell a story, keep his readers interested, and even give a few nuggets of downright brilliance to his readers.
...more
Soon enough, Jones had me totally pulled into the world he'd created, the humor, the horror, and the downright bizarre. I'll admit, I don't think that Jones is the most eloquent of wordsmiths, but he sure knows how to tell a story, keep his readers interested, and even give a few nuggets of downright brilliance to his readers.
...more
( This review was originally published at at The Nervous Breakdown:
http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/rthom... )
Once Stephen Graham Jones has you, once you’re invested, and want to see what’s going to happen next, that’s when he elevates his game. He’s one of those rare authors (like Brian Evenson, William Gay and Cormac McCarthy) that can write, and publish, and exist in two worlds: the land of genre fiction, with the horrific, the fantastic; and also the high towers of the acade...more
http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/rthom... )
Once Stephen Graham Jones has you, once you’re invested, and want to see what’s going to happen next, that’s when he elevates his game. He’s one of those rare authors (like Brian Evenson, William Gay and Cormac McCarthy) that can write, and publish, and exist in two worlds: the land of genre fiction, with the horrific, the fantastic; and also the high towers of the acade...more
The cover literally screams genre fiction, but under the hood we realize that Jones is using genre conventions and plotting (zombies, chupacabras, border cops, etc.) in this tale of what might otherwise be considered lit-fic, given his sharp prose and characterizations. The "voice" he adopts for the daughter's POV in the second half is rendered perfectly and really draws you in as she pieces together her father's fate. My only disappointment (which doesn't linger in hindsight, only dur...more
This "little book" is going to sneak up and devour people in giant incisor bites. Easily one of the most cool,fun, perfectly written books I've read in a while. In a lesser writer's hands, this story could have drifted away, but with It Came from Del Rio, Stephen Graham Jones wrangles it all together, delivering a novel that blurs the line between comic book aficionado and "serious" reader. Effortlessly. In truth, this book should have both of these type of readers either h...more
I've never read a book quite like this before. The unnaturally earthy characters come across so well, just seep into you. It's poetic. People can call this horror, but it's neither gory nor particularly suspenseful; that's not what it's trying to be. It's a story about taking something and twisting it, making it unrecognizable, then loving it anyway. Five stars well-deserved.
A really engaging, very creative noir crime fantasy. I liked both narrators and found the book to be a very quick, very enjoyable read. I have to take issue with the packaging though--the cover makes this sound like a wacky romp a la A. Lee Martinez. While there are some wacky elements, it's really quite dark in tone and subject matter and not at all the zany creature feature suggested by the cover.
Not my typical read...and I probably won't continue the series, but I'm glad I read it. It's bizarre -- a crazed rabbit chupacabra seeking revenge. Yeah. Very cool. But it's primarily about a father/daughter relationship, and the lengths a dad will go to prove his love. The first half is told from the dad's POV, and the second half is from the daughter's. The author's descriptions are creative and refreshing. Give it a try.
I wrote a long review of this over at the Velvet, but I'll say this here: IT CAME FROM DEL RIO is one of those rare, fun reads that touches something deep inside you, that moves you even when what's going down crosses the border into the world of the absurd, but still, this book, it's fun in a way that few things can be. So, you should probably read it. I mean, who doesn't want to read a book about a zombie with a bunnyhead?
What a fantastic original, moving, compelling book that really defies categorization. It's kind of a noir, revenge, sci-fi/horror, border road trip thing with unforgettable characters and real emotional gravitas. I loved it.
The rumors are true. It Came From Del Rio is beautiful and bonkers. It's sort of what Leonard Gardner's brutal, sparse and elegiac boxing novel Fat City would have been if it had gremlins in it.
And my, that cover.
And my, that cover.
This story about a bunny-headed zombie shouldn't work, shouldn't be so moving and gritty. But it is.
Kris Saknussemm
marked it as to-read
Looking forward to this one. I dig Jones big time.
This book is as awesome as its cover. And its cover is 100% awesomeness. Read this for all your rabbit-headed zombie chupacabra needs!
This is an amazing, genre-shattering, read. I never thought I'd read a book about a zombie and find it so beautiful, so eloquent about love and loss, and end up being moved to tears.
A marvelous hard-edged, sometimes bloody, modern western about a widowed drug smuggler forced to abandon his young daughter when he’s tripped up by something really bad that he’s pressured into carrying across the Mexican-US border. Dodd Raine’s voice and plight engaged this reader totally. How can you not pick up a novel in which the legendary chupacabra is crucial to the plot? Highly recommended
Awesome book. here's my review (some spoilers. maybe.): http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/a-bunny-t...
I knew the writing would be good, but I didn't expect the story to grab me the way it did. So, so good.
Jimmy Callaway
added it
Brian Smith
marked it as to-read
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