Warren Rochelle's Blog, page 27

A Review of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter,by Seth Grahame-Smith

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Who knew?

The Lost Colony--done in by vampires. Slavery in the US-maintained with the active assistance of vampires--as a captive and available food source. Jefferson David, a tool of the vampires. The Civil War, good vampires on the side of the North, and very bad ones on the side of the South--their goal, to create a country for immortals, with us, the lesser mortals, bred as blood on the hoof.

And Abraham Lincoln, whose mother was done in by the bloodsuckers, a vampire hunter--brought to you by the same man who wrote, according to Booklist, "the most wacky by-product of the busy Jane Austen fan-fiction industry—at least among the spin-offs and pastiches that have made it into print," Pride and Prejudice and the Zombies, "expanded edition” of Pride and Prejudice, 85 percent of the original text has been preserved but fused with “ultraviolent zombie mayhem.”

You get the idea. This isn't the history I learned in school--but then, maybe vampires wrote those text books .... I did grow up in the South ...

Seth Grahame-Smith skillfully adapts Lincoln's journals, letters, and his speeches, and the biography that we are all familiar with into what the LA Times called "an original vampire tale with humor, heart, and bite" (and the puns in the reviews get worse, by the way). The vampires have always been amongst us. Controlled in Europe, they seize opportunity to get their own territory here in America--and once we get our independence, they get busy. When Lincoln learned his mother's death can be attributed to vampires, as well as those of his grandparents, and that his father is somehow complicit in this, he vows to kill every vampire in America. He conducts this crusade with ax and stake and the continual assistance of a good vampire, Henry Sturges, all of which Grahame-Seth weaves into the Lincoln biography. It turns out, of course, people are not as they seem, as Joshua Speed is enlisted in the cause, and more than a few other historical figures.

Yes, tongue is in cheek, but this well-researched novel is mostly dark, as the reader experiences the death of two of Lincoln' sons and the collapse of his wife and the ongoing misery of slavery--exacerbated by the abuse of the vampires. And even though we all know how Lincoln's life turns out (or think we do), the narrative is compelling and engaging: I kept reading, all the way to Ford's Theatre.

As dark as it is, this novel is an enjoyable read and I recommend it. As Mary Ellen Quinn, Booklist reviewer asks, "What’s next? Wuthering Heights and Werewolves?"



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A Review of The Monk, by Matthew Gregory Lewis

The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I read this odd novel because one of my students asked me to supervise his individual study on Gothic Literature, and this 18th century novel (1796) is clearly in the line of descent. All the elements are there: the supernatural, women in distress, corrupt clergy--one in particular is sexually obsessed, plus murder, incest, and torture, and yes, this "lustful and devious" abbot sells his soul to the devil--just ahead of the ecclesiastical authorities. Hellbound he is. Scandalous in its time, The Monk is considered a "masterpiece of Gothic storyteling," and, according to one critic, the novel remains as Coleridge described it, "rich, powerful, and fervid."



Well, I know why The Monk is on the reading list for this individual study--I see the Gothic markers clearly. But, overwrought comes to mind--but then, that is a marker of Gothic fiction as well. Let's just say the Gothic novel does improve over time.



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A Review of South of Broad, by Pat Conroy

South of Broad by Pat Conroy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


South of Broad is a page turner, even if it is occasionally, as another reviewer said, over the top, and as I would add, a bit overwrought. And sometimes that deus ex machina is a bit busy, especially when it takes the form of Hurricane Hugo. And yes, I get it: racism can be overcome, so can class prejudice, and homophobia, a few other sins, and we can all love one another.



That said, this tale of Leopold Bloom King (yes, he was named after the character)kept me reading and reading--at the dinner table, in the bathroom, up and down the stairs. Leo has grown up in a family as the ugly duckling, in the shadow of Steve, his golden brother, his mother's favorite. The family is broken when Steve takes his own life. Leo recreates family with a group of high school outsiders--even though one is another golden boy of an old Charleston family, as his girl friend. The story becomes about this group--and here is an example of Conroy not trusting his readers to get it--one black, one gay, a movie star to be, two orphans from the Appalachians, Leo, aka Toad, the ugly one, and so one--and how they love each other over the years and bad and good marriages, "unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes, and devastating breakdowns," and secrets kept and exposed. Charleston itself, a city clearly loved by Conroy, is a character in this novel. Language, too, rich, lush, and thick, is a character, or rather a force.



Conroy fans will enjoy this and should read it. I had a good time reading it--flaws and all.



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Apocalypse with A Twist: A Review of The Last Men on Earth, by Mark Allan Gunnells

The Last Men on Earth by Mark Allan Gunnells

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Mark Allan Gunnells' story, The Last Men on Earth, takes some very familiar science fictional themes: the end of the world, the apocalypse, and the last survivors of the final disaster, and gives it a neat and surprising and dark twist. I don't want to say much about it, as I think other fans of Gunnells--and by now, I am hoping he has quite a few!--will want to add this tale to their Kindle.



But, to entice fans, present and future, to read this dark tale, let me share this: yes, there are two last men, survivors of a global disaster. One is straight; one is gay. Then, enter a third survivor, a woman, and a not so simple triangle has to be sorted out.



My big complaint: not long enough! This needs to be longer!



Available via Amazon/Kindle as an e-story:

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Men-Earth-ebo...



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Review of The Story of a Marriage, by Andrew Sean Greer

The Story of a Marriage: A Novel by Andrew Sean Greer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I wanted to liked this book more than I did. It has earned a great many accolades, including earning a place on several Best Book of the Year lists, and such rave reviews as:



"Bewitching ... A book whose linguistic prowess ad raw storytelling power is almost disruptive to the reader. It's too good to put down and yet each passage is also too good to leave behind."

Deborah Vankin, Los Angeles Times



And

Khaled Housseini: "a book about love, and it is a marvel to watch Greer probe the mysteries of love to such devastating effect."



And

"A beautiful, lyrical novel ... a book full of urgent questions."

O, The Oprah Magazine, Recommended Summer Reading.



The Story of a Marriage is a love triangle. It is 1953. Pearlie Cook, a young African American housewife, "lives in the Sunset District in San Francisco, [and is] caring not only for her husband's fragile health, but also for her son, who is afflicted with polio." Enter Buzz, a former soldier, like her husband, Holland, and her husband's wartime lover, and Buzz wants Holland back. Yes, clearly there are urgent questions that each must ask and attempt to answer. And Greer's writing is beautiful and lyrical, and he is probing the mysteries of love, as Holland, Pearlie, and Buzz make the painful and necessary decisions to go on with their lives.



So, why did I only give this two stars? I did so because I wasn't convinced; I wanted more answers to these questions. I wanted to understand why Holland makes the choice he does, and why Pearlie accepts it and why Buzz does as well. Yes, the mysteries of the human heart are many, and maybe that is the point: some questions can only be asked. Any answers must be understand as a life is lived.



I also wanted more passion. Greer is a thoughtful, intelligent writer. Here, I felt the need for a greater sense of the passion, and the pain for these people. There was, for me, an odd flatness. True, Pearlie tells her story as one who is looking back and trying to make sense of the different choices made-some detachment seems inevitable and natural. But pain and passion do survive in memory.



But the front pages are filled with critical praise. Sometimes individual readers differ.



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A Review of Ghosts in the Attic, by Mark Allan Gunnells

GHOSTS IN THE ATTIC by Mark Allan Gunnells

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Ghosts in the Attic

Mark Allan Gunnells

Crossroad Press, 1st Digital Edition, 2011

Dark, macabre. Disturbing and provocative—and funny and wise, and gentle. These are some of the adjectives I would use to describe the fifteen stories in Mark Allan Gunnells’ latest collection, which provides compelling evidence of the author’s range and his depth of talent. This collection includes ghost stories, a tale of a demonic pizza delivery boy, a story of rock stars literally living off their fans, and a reverse werewolf story that is also a gay love story. Yes, I am quite sure Gunnells wants to disturb his readers, and perhaps even induce a few nightmares; even so he wants them to think and consider the world in which they live, and on storytelling itself: why do we do it, what do we get from it, what does it give us, and what do we give to the telling, to the stories? How is the interpretation a transaction between the reader and the text and the writer, between the reader and the cultural mythos from which the story comes? In Gunnells’ deft and sure hand, as evident in this collection, we begin to get some possible answers to these questions.

The nature of storytelling is perhaps a core theme in “Ghost of Winnie Davis Hall,” set on the Limestone College campus (a real school in Gaffney, SC, and one of Gunnells’ favorite settings, something akin to his “postage stamp of earth”). A student comes to her professor’s office in the newly renovated Winnie Davis Hall, a building allegedly haunted. Lights flicker, doors unlock mysteriously, heat comes out when the vents should be releasing cool air—strange things happen. Dr. Rob tells his student the story of this ghost and then proceeds to tell her why it is completely bogus. The weeping spirit haunting the building, is supposed to have been a young woman, Patty Montgomery, who threw herself off the top of Davis Hall’s tower over the loss of her boyfriend in the American Civil War. Unfortunately Winnie Davis Hall was built in 1903.

But Dr. Rob gets a phone call from a weeping woman and he goes looking for a ghost that shouldn’t exist, and he finds her, a “legend that created a person . . . a representation created over the years by the collective belief of students whose knowledge of history was probably tenuous at best.” Patty is “the ghost of a person who never lived.” And Dr. Rob wonders, as Gunnells is asking his readers to wonder, does belief create, is myth born out of what we need to believe? “Did devout worship of certain deities actually give form to these gods, a reverse creation story?” Storytelling itself is a creative act, and readers are asked to willingly suspend disbelief—does this creation become literal? Can a ghost belief has created survive when belief wanes?

Gunnells asks this question in a slightly different fashion in “A Hell of Deal,” his interpretation of a classic horror motif: the bargain with the devil. For Lisa, the protagonist, the bargain was to “the best singer in the world.” But, as always with such deals, the devil is in the details, the fine print: she didn’t ask to be successful. She didn’t ask to believe in herself, as the Devil very gently reminds her. Belief in the expected, the assumed, is questioned in another tale, “The Delivery Boy.” Pizza, now an iconic American food, despite its Italian origins, is usually delivered by iconic young men and women, in ramshackle cars, trying to make a buck, earn their tuition. All very mundane—yet a part of the American cultural mythos. But Gunnells uses what I would call the reverse or anti-icon, a favorite of the horror genre: the evil delivery boy, who relentlessly brings the unordered pizzas and equally as relentless, informs Grayson of the escalating bill. Until he comes for the final collection.

Gunnells uses this myth reversal quite effectively in “A Stranger Comes to Lipscomb Street.” The story begins, as do many of Gunnells’ stories, with an intersection of the mundane and the magical: “Justin glanced out the window and saw a nude man walking down the street.” And what does one do when one sees a nude man in the middle of the street: “there wasn’t exactly a set of proper etiquette on which Justin could draw.” The man—Ty, or the Swift One, as Justin later learns—doesn’t seem well, and is having difficulty walking upright, so, of course Justin offers to help and takes him in and, risking everything, eventually to bed. The next morning, the man is gone; instead there is a wolf—a werewolf—who turns into a man during the full moon, and a gay man at that. The legend is reversed and instead of a destructive creature, this wolf-into-man is a gentle man, who apparently falls in love with Justin. The myth of the werewolf is the story of a monster, the beast within that we dare not let out, yet here, it is a gentle tale, a love story.

Gunnells is inviting the reader into his skewed world via these stories and the rest in this collection, an invitation into his explorations of the intersections of the real and unreal, in which love is often present, yet not as it might be expected to be. Icons, myths, legends are reversed, turned around—giving the reader a new perspective, a new way of seeing the world and thus of being human, creatures who live in both the dark and the light, are both good and evil, funny and sad, wise and foolish.

Recommended.



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A Review of A Day at the Inn, A Night a the Palace, and Other Stories, by Catherine Lundoff

A Day at the Inn, A Night at the Palace and Other Stories by Catherine Lundoff

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This fine new collection of stories from by two-time winner of the Golden Crown Literary Award and Lambda Literary and Tiptree Award-nominated author, Catherine Lundoff, is labeled on its back cover lesbian fiction.

True enough. The protagonists of these stories are lesbians and lesbian relationships are prominently featured, as one might expect. But to apply that label and to stop there is limiting and suggests that one's sexuality is all that defines a person, and that one is gay or straight or bisexual before one is anything else. Yes, these protagonists, these heroines, are lesbians, but they are also swashbuckling female pirates, opera singers and witches, a lovelorn editor of anthologies about cats, the Queen of the Fey, and Shakespeare's twin sister (just who did write those plays?), and even highway men (sort of).

Or a mercenary, as is the protagonist of the title story, "Corporal Maeve the Red, swordswoman, last of the Prince of Surest's Company, at your service," who wakes up feeling that "Morning has hit [her] like a kick from a horse" (187). Not the most auspicious of ways to start one's day, to say the least. Beside her on the floor is the Princess Miaqi, one of the Sunborn, hereditary rulers of the country, and daughter of the reigning king. Or is she? Where is Maeve's companion in arms and crime, her cousin, Raven? Things are not quite what they seem--a running motif in this collection and one of its strengths, as Lundoff is constantly asking the reader to question reality as is presented, as is perceived, and to question the truth of such constraints as gender definitions imposed on us by society, by custom. The supposed princess, whose presence on the floor of a room smelling of stale beer sends Maeve into something akin to a panic, isn't--she--or rather he--is her cousin, Raven, who now happens to be in the wrong body. Which means the Princess must be in Raven's body, inside the palace . . .

This does not bode well.

So, then, Maeve's adventures commence, with the help of Ginn, a quiet attractive woman (who seems quite interested in Maeve), plying her trade at the Inn and Ginn's sister, a spit girl (she turns the meat spit in the kitchen) in the palace. Like any good adventuress, Maeve has a quest to complete, with particular tasks to perform: how to get into said palace, figure what the hell is going on, find the Princess-who-is-in-Raven's body, make the switch, and get out without being caught or killed. As Raven-as-Princess says, "Maeve, I want my body back. I want it now" (200). Complications definitely ensue, as Maeve and Raven-as-Princess find themselves in the middle of sibling rivalry taken to new heights: which child of the dying King can take and hold the throne, never mind which was born first. And there is the mage who is apparently responsible for the magic necessary--will he cooperate? That switching bodies proves far more complicated than expected almost goes without saying. If there is a happy ending or not--will bodies and souls be reunited, will Maeve come back to Ginn?--I leave for the reader to discover.

That all of this seems like a dark comedy of errors of some sort (albeit a very dangerous one) is, I would argue, no mistake. Another strong feature of Lundoff's writing is its current of wry humor. How else could Maeve survive what seems to be one misstep after another? So it is with Selena, the heroine of "Spell, Book, and Candle," who is the proprietress of Lovejoy's Magical Books and Mystical Goods Emporium and is still lusting after her college girl friend, Mona Santiago, she of the corporate magic world. Six or seven years after their breakup, Selena still has dreams "about her almost every night" (150). Then, Mona shows up in Selena's store wanting a love spell to ensnare another woman. The temptation is too great: with some magical assistance, Selena can make Mona fall in love with her all over again--or can she? Complications definitely ensue, including Selena's magic causing Mona to fall in love with Selena's cat, not her--that and the cat is now hosting a ancestral practitioner of the black arts, Lady Isabelle. Attempting to fix things .... more trouble.

These are but two of the ten excellent and well researched stories that comprise this collection, stories of the unexpected, often funny, and always something of a commentary on the human condition, and on the human heart. Lundoff notes in her introduction that she grew up reading "Dumas and Sabatini and Hope, dreaming about more active roles for their women characters" --and in this collection she has created just these kinds of roles, as is illustrated in the historical tales included here, such as "The Letter of the Marque," about the real-life pirate, Jacquotte Delahaye, and the equally real opera singer, Aubigny Le Maupin, in "M. LeMaupin." And as she also notes in her introduction, "Other events and other stories are more speculative . . . other worlds, things that might have been, all of these have been a source of fascination and inspiration for [her]" (10).

And always: these are stories about what it means to be human. There are many ways to answer that question and readers will find many possible answers in these ten stories. Readers will find themselves thinking about gender as a social construct, and hear the voices of strong and powerful women, queer voices that have long needed hearing. They will ponder second chances and what could have been; what should have been. Readers will find themselves at the intersection of love and magic, thanks to this powerful storyteller.
Highly recommended.



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A Review of Under the Poppy, by Kathe Koja

Under the Poppy by Kathe Koja

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Under the Poppy won the 2011 Spectrum Award for Best Novel (given for positive GLBT content in speculative fiction), an award well deserved. Set in an alternate 19th-century Europe, in a brothel, and somewhere a train ride from Paris, with war imminent, this is the story of a love triangle. Decca, who is the co-owner of the brothel with Rupert, is in love with him. Rupert loves her brother, Istvan. When Istvan returns, with his puppet troupe, these old desires resurface, sharpened by the coming war. They prove as potent as ever, as they are influenced by these puppets who are more than they seem.

Richly drawn characters draw the reader the reader into a world that is at once familiar and at the same time, not our own. I must admit at first, based on the jacket which sets this novel in 1870s Brussels, that I was a bit misled--to the point I reviewed European history. The major war of the 1870s is the Franco-Prussian War, which passed by Brussels. Rather this war with its protagonists deliberately ambiguous, serves as the backdrop for machinations of love, the manipulations of hearts, the mysteries of desire.

Well done, well written, and worth the effort.



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A Review of The Throne of Fire, by Rick Riordan

The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Riordan has found a magic formula indeed: translate the old gods into the 21st century, wreak havoc of various kinds, mundane and magical, bring the world to the edge of the brink, and the young heroes, in this case, Carter and Sadie Kane (met previously in The Red Pyramid, Book 1 of the Kane Chronicles) and various friends (who are recruited from the masses for their powers, treated in a sort of hidden place), save us in an amazingly short time, usually with minutes to spare. Plus suffer teenaged angst. Or put it this way: "And now their most threatening enemy yet--the Chaos snake, Apophis--is rising. If they don't prevent him from breaking free in a few days' time, the world will end. In other words, it's a typical week for the Kane family."

The smartass humor works, as do the smartass heroes. Carter is the more serious and nerdy of the two; Sadie, the cooler. Both are powerful magicians, from a long line of magicians going back to the House of Life in Ancient Egypt. They are also teenagers, with all the self-doubts and worries and emotional turmoil that implies, including first love--with a twist. Carter falls in love (in Book 1) with a girl who turns out to be an animated clay copy of the real thing. Sadie has a crush on Anubis, the god of funerals and death, who takes the form of a "teen boy with dark, windblown hair and warm brown eyes. He wore a black Dead Weather T-shirt and black jeans that fit him extremely well (108)." The family cat turns out to be Bast, the cat-goddess. Carter and Sadie--and crew, divine and mortal, are engaging, and the pacing works: the race to save everything in a few days' time. The target audience--adolescents--will recognize themselves, I think.

And, they will learn something about Egyptian mythology. Riorda has done his homework, as he did in his successful Percy Jackson series with the Olympians and Greek mythology, and Roman mythology in The Lost Hero (book 1 of another series underway, the Heroes of Olympus).

It's a page turner; I had fun. I am sure Book 3 is on the way--and I am looking forward to it.



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A Review of Gypsy Boy, by Mikey Walsh

Gypsy Boy by Mikey Walsh

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I found this book this summer when I was in London. It was my last day and I found myself browsing in a bookstore--Waterstone's, I think--on Piccadilly, down the street from the tube station. I needed a book to read on the plane home. Gypsy Boy looked liked it might make a 7-8 hour flight.

I don't know a lot about Gypsies (and I thought Roma was the now-preferred term, but Walsh uses Gypsy throughout the memoir), other than what I have picked up via popular culture. As I write this, I am remembering a scene from the Andy Griffith Show, of all things, when Gypsies passed through Mayberry and had convinced the locals that they could predict the weather (done by having a radio that picked up long-range forecasts--why this was not available to Mayberry folk remains a mystery). These Gypsies were the stereotype: hoop ear rings, olive skin, colorful clothes, bandannas, and tambourines and they sang a song about the Gypsies being wild and free every time any outsider showed up.

So much for the mythology of popular culture and stereotypes. Mikey Walsh was born into a Romany Gypsy family in England and grew up in an insular, closeted world that had little connection to the greater non-Gypsy or Gorgia community. Rather the caravan was Mikey's world--and this world, as he tells it in this frank and sometimes shocking memoir, has a "vibrant and loyal culture," and yet it is a culture that hides abuse, taught him how to commit fraud, and it is a culture that apparently has no place at all for a gay boy.

Mikey Walsh obviously survived and escaped and today has a partner to whom he is married. His uncle, who sexually abused him for years as a child, was finally caught. Mikey's father bullied his family for years--which only ended when a younger brother finally stood up to the man. Mikey had been his father's punching bag. Mikey learned how to read, got the education he missed growing up and he is now bearing witness, even though as he says, "You can take the boy away from the Gypsies, but you can't take the Gypsy out of the boy."

A powerful book.



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