Corey Redekop's Blog, page 36
February 13, 2013
What I’m reading lately, Vol. 1:1
When I recently ended the late, lamented (by me, anyway) Shelf Monkey blog, I also shut down my habit of publicly reviewing whatever works struck my fancy. This has actually … More →
The post What I’m reading lately, Vol. 1:1 appeared first on Corey Redekop.
February 3, 2013
Take Five, with Corey Redekop (from Suduvu.com)
The following online interview was originally published on Suduvu.com, 27 January 2013. Corey Redekop is the contributor for this week’s Take Five, a regular series where we ask authors and … More →
The post Take Five, with Corey Redekop (from Suduvu.com) appeared first on Corey Redekop.
January 27, 2013
What a long, strange reading year it’s been (2012, that is)
In terms of life events, for me 2012 was a humdinger. For example, in October I finally reached an age where I can apply terms like “humdinger” and not seem … More →
The post What a long, strange reading year it’s been (2012, that is) appeared first on Corey Redekop.
October 30, 2012
So, that's that then.
And with nary a bang nor whimper, I draw the Shelf Monkey experiment to an ignoble close.I've enjoyed this blog. Starting it as a way to promote my novel, Shelf Monkey quickly became a safe place for me, a venue for books reviews and things that annoy me (sometimes both at the same time).
But eventually, all blogs die, and I think this one, while it may sputter onward for a while, is done. I've been writing reviews less and less, and with my second novel Husk now out and about, I find myself with precious little time and/or energy to devote to writing projects of the non-paying variety. I want to write more, and publish more, and something has got to give.
I'll drop by occasionally, when the mood hits. I owe some people reviews, and I'm too polite to ignore them. I'll miss getting free books, but as it stands, I've got enough material to be reading well into the next decade.
I'll still keep irregularly blogging at my website www.coreyredekop.ca, to keep people up to date on my whereabouts and whyabouts and howabouts. I may expand it to include quick little shout-outs to books and people I admire, but the reviews will be, on the whole, much shorter and less time-consuming. I hope you'll drop by, I always enjoy company. Just wipe your feet first.
So, thanks for the memories, Interweb. It's not you, it's me.
September 29, 2012
Boo-yah, baby!
Well, I gotta say, while I'm sure the rug will soon be yanked out from under me, I'm really enjoying the reviews for Husk thus far.
I've already listed a few (here), but there's a few more I'd like to draw your attention to:
First, the venerable American publication BookList (which many libraries and such consult for ideas on orders), gave me this sterling nugget of awesome:
I've already listed a few (here), but there's a few more I'd like to draw your attention to:
First, the venerable American publication BookList (which many libraries and such consult for ideas on orders), gave me this sterling nugget of awesome:
Redekop follows up his 2007 debut, the very funky Shelf Monkey, with the story of Sheldon Funk, a struggling actor, who wakes up during his own autopsy. Undead but still functional, Funk looks for a way to keep himself out of the wrong people’s hands, land a plum acting job, and (eventually) weather the storm of zombie superstardom before decomposition inevitably gets the best of him. Featuring Funk’s ambitious agent and an unsavory doctor who finds gruesomely clever ways to keep Sheldon’s body from falling apart too quickly, the story is a lesson in practical zombieing: what to do when you become a member of the walking dead, how to pass yourself off as (relatively) normal, how to learn to speak and walk again, and how to deal with your new meatcentric dietary requirements. Very funny and full of nifty surprises, the story has a big heart, too, presenting Sheldon as an ordinary fella trying to come to terms with his extraordinary new situation. The ending is appropriate and packs a serious emotional wallop. Highly recommendable—perhaps to more than zombie geeks.And now, on the eve of actual publication (October 1!), The Toronto Star, which had already labelled Husk as one of their Top 20 Fall Reads of 2012, weighs in with a full review that completely and utterly gets me:
There's a point near the end of Husk where the narrator, long dead and without much of a body left to drag around, decides to embrace his "pop culture heritage" and start acting more like a traditional zombie...That heritage isn't essential to enjoying Corey Redekop’s book, his second novel, but some background helps...Redekop tosses so much into this zombie stew that instead of wearing out his premise quickly it almost seems as though he needs a bigger pot. By the time we get to the end, which involves a reclusive billionaire's bid for immortality and an apocalypse that stirs together pages torn from Philip K. Dick and H. P. Lovecraft, one feels there's no more ground to cover. Zombiedom's entire pop culture heritage has been thrown against the wall in bleeding chunks, where much of it sticks.Feeling pretty warm in the belly right now. Hmmmm. Warm.
September 12, 2012
Monkey droppings - The Blondes - Just a trim, please. Wait, put down that knife!
The monkey decides to lighten up his doldrums and make himself feel pretty.
And how shall he do this? With highlights. Lots and lots of highlights. And a perm!
Ever seen a monkey with a perm? Not good. Like one of those elderly C-list stars who've had way too much plastic surgery yet somehow feel they're presentable enough to parade down Rodeo Drive looking to buy purses that cost more than you make in a year.
You know the ones I mean.
I don't know...I don't think the highlights worked.
The Blondes (Random House, 2012)
Emily Schultz
Personally, I've always preferred brunettes, or redheads. Just a matter of personal preference. But if the events in Emily Schultz's The Blondes ever come true, I'm going to be very happy I didn't fall hard for a dame with golden locks.
Because Blondes is every fashionista's worst nightmare come true. A mysterious virus begins infecting women with blonde hair (even those who've gained blondedom through dyeing), turning them into violent mindless people who attack at random, and kill without a second thought. Kind of like a zombie novel with split ends. Ba-zing!
Schultz being Schultz, however — which means, being the author of Joyland and Heaven is Small, that she is a damned talented individual — there is far greater depth to The Blondes than the surface would indicate (see what I did there?). As much a satire of society's obsession with looks as it is a Outbreak-like contagion thriller, Schultz expertly entwines a speculative fiction premise with social commentary, making Blondes akin to Dawn of the Dreadfully Good Looking. Ka-pow!
I'll stop punning now.
Our hero, Hazel Hayes, is a young grad student working on a thesis on the media obsession and transformations of standards of female beauty. She is also new to New York, newly pregnant with the child of her (married) thesis advisor, and understandably freaked out a little. Her bad luck, then, to be at what appears to be ground zero of the new epidemic, soon dubbed "the blonde fury" by media wags. When a woman randomly attacks a young girl, Hazel tries to help, but find that her fellow citizens aren't the type to rush to anyone's aid:
Corollary to this epidemic scenario is Hazel's own crisis of begin pregnant, alone, and when the borders increase security, suddenly cut off from family. Being a redhead, she is close enough to blonde to be a cause for suspicion, and while I do not wish to give away spoilers, suffice to say that North America goes down a very dark path indeed, one that has all-too-obvious parallels to historical and present events.
Yet being as Hazel's work is in female body image, the bulk of the subtext is a concise examination of women as they are, as they are seen, and as they regard themselves. Hazel begins her tale with the phrase, "Women have stupid dreams," and from there Schultz unearths an entire world in thrall to appearance rather than substance. Baldness becomes chic, and wigs become de rigueur. Interestingly, while Hazel goes on about the myriad of ways women look to attack each other (not physically like the infected, more of a passive-aggressive taunt-her-into-an-eating-disorder sort of way), it's her friendships with women that allow her to make it through to the (hopefully) other side. In a world without hope, Schultz finds the key to survival, and it is others.
Blondes gives us not only a fine novel, but a fine author completely coming into her own. Schultz deserves all the accolades she gets.
VERDICT: MONKEY LOVES
And how shall he do this? With highlights. Lots and lots of highlights. And a perm!
Ever seen a monkey with a perm? Not good. Like one of those elderly C-list stars who've had way too much plastic surgery yet somehow feel they're presentable enough to parade down Rodeo Drive looking to buy purses that cost more than you make in a year.You know the ones I mean.
I don't know...I don't think the highlights worked.
The Blondes (Random House, 2012)Emily Schultz
Personally, I've always preferred brunettes, or redheads. Just a matter of personal preference. But if the events in Emily Schultz's The Blondes ever come true, I'm going to be very happy I didn't fall hard for a dame with golden locks.
Because Blondes is every fashionista's worst nightmare come true. A mysterious virus begins infecting women with blonde hair (even those who've gained blondedom through dyeing), turning them into violent mindless people who attack at random, and kill without a second thought. Kind of like a zombie novel with split ends. Ba-zing!
Schultz being Schultz, however — which means, being the author of Joyland and Heaven is Small, that she is a damned talented individual — there is far greater depth to The Blondes than the surface would indicate (see what I did there?). As much a satire of society's obsession with looks as it is a Outbreak-like contagion thriller, Schultz expertly entwines a speculative fiction premise with social commentary, making Blondes akin to Dawn of the Dreadfully Good Looking. Ka-pow!
I'll stop punning now.
Our hero, Hazel Hayes, is a young grad student working on a thesis on the media obsession and transformations of standards of female beauty. She is also new to New York, newly pregnant with the child of her (married) thesis advisor, and understandably freaked out a little. Her bad luck, then, to be at what appears to be ground zero of the new epidemic, soon dubbed "the blonde fury" by media wags. When a woman randomly attacks a young girl, Hazel tries to help, but find that her fellow citizens aren't the type to rush to anyone's aid:
Then cellphones came out into palms, and people punched into them, some reticently, some frantically. The punching continued for what seemed like forever, but no one lifted a device to an ear. Lack of reception. A couple of the high school kids didn't even bother trying to phone; instead, they held up their devices and calmly filmed.Such inaction is a major plot device here, the idea that the 'other' (government, the CDC, etc) knows best, so we shouldn't get involved. Leave it to the professionals. Which the world does, and Hazel soon discovers herself in a world of rampant security, hysterical paranoia, and increased insanity (the idea that men will pay scads of money to have sex with infected blondes being one of the more memorable/disturbing).
Corollary to this epidemic scenario is Hazel's own crisis of begin pregnant, alone, and when the borders increase security, suddenly cut off from family. Being a redhead, she is close enough to blonde to be a cause for suspicion, and while I do not wish to give away spoilers, suffice to say that North America goes down a very dark path indeed, one that has all-too-obvious parallels to historical and present events.
Yet being as Hazel's work is in female body image, the bulk of the subtext is a concise examination of women as they are, as they are seen, and as they regard themselves. Hazel begins her tale with the phrase, "Women have stupid dreams," and from there Schultz unearths an entire world in thrall to appearance rather than substance. Baldness becomes chic, and wigs become de rigueur. Interestingly, while Hazel goes on about the myriad of ways women look to attack each other (not physically like the infected, more of a passive-aggressive taunt-her-into-an-eating-disorder sort of way), it's her friendships with women that allow her to make it through to the (hopefully) other side. In a world without hope, Schultz finds the key to survival, and it is others.
Blondes gives us not only a fine novel, but a fine author completely coming into her own. Schultz deserves all the accolades she gets.
VERDICT: MONKEY LOVES
September 3, 2012
Some early reviews of HUSK
The book is still warm from the printers, and bookshelf appearances are weeks away. Nevertheless, Husk has already garnered a few remarkably positive reviews (I say remarkably because I have some issues with self-loathing which cloud my judgement on such things).
From Quill & Quire: “Despite all the violence and jokes about viscera, what gradually emerges is a tender portrait of a profoundly lonely man who finds love and acceptance only after his body has betrayed him . . . an enormously funny book that has real emotional heft underneath all the blood.”Now that's a review, no? I slept very well after reading this, quite content with my place in the cosmos. Then, as the days crept by, my good vibes began to curdle in the lime juice of my low self-esteem. "Must have been a fluke," I thought.Then, the Toronto Star saw fit to include my crazy ramblings as one of their Top 20 Reads of the Fall. Please check out the list, it's very likely the only time you'll ever see 'Corey Redekop' on the same honoured list as Alice Munro, Rawi Hage, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, and Orhan Pamuk.And then, there's these wonderful blurbs that'll appear on the final cover, accolades from some of my favourite authors who were way too kind in their praise.“A superb blood-splattered comedy. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll puke!” — Andrew Kaufman, author of All My Friends Are Superheroes and The Waterproof Bible
“A wild vicious romp through pop culture, Husk rips the heart out of the rotting zombie genre and shoves it down your throat. Infection never hurt so good.” — Peter Darbyshire, author of The Warhol Gang and Please
“Camus meets Palahniuk in a darkly comic, but surprisingly light-hearted, mind-meld in Corey Redekop’s Husk. Sure, the protagonist is a zombie, but this is 2012, and as Redekop rightly observes, we’re all zombies now.” — Andrew Pyper, author of The Killing Circle and The Guardians
I gotta say, I'm feelin' pretty fine right now. I'm sure it'll pass, so I'm going to do my best to enjoy the moment.
Posted with Blogsy
From Quill & Quire: “Despite all the violence and jokes about viscera, what gradually emerges is a tender portrait of a profoundly lonely man who finds love and acceptance only after his body has betrayed him . . . an enormously funny book that has real emotional heft underneath all the blood.”Now that's a review, no? I slept very well after reading this, quite content with my place in the cosmos. Then, as the days crept by, my good vibes began to curdle in the lime juice of my low self-esteem. "Must have been a fluke," I thought.Then, the Toronto Star saw fit to include my crazy ramblings as one of their Top 20 Reads of the Fall. Please check out the list, it's very likely the only time you'll ever see 'Corey Redekop' on the same honoured list as Alice Munro, Rawi Hage, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, and Orhan Pamuk.And then, there's these wonderful blurbs that'll appear on the final cover, accolades from some of my favourite authors who were way too kind in their praise.“A superb blood-splattered comedy. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll puke!” — Andrew Kaufman, author of All My Friends Are Superheroes and The Waterproof Bible“A wild vicious romp through pop culture, Husk rips the heart out of the rotting zombie genre and shoves it down your throat. Infection never hurt so good.” — Peter Darbyshire, author of The Warhol Gang and Please
“Camus meets Palahniuk in a darkly comic, but surprisingly light-hearted, mind-meld in Corey Redekop’s Husk. Sure, the protagonist is a zombie, but this is 2012, and as Redekop rightly observes, we’re all zombies now.” — Andrew Pyper, author of The Killing Circle and The Guardians
I gotta say, I'm feelin' pretty fine right now. I'm sure it'll pass, so I'm going to do my best to enjoy the moment.
Posted with Blogsy
August 24, 2012
Monkey droppings - Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies: you read that correctly.
Today, the shelf monkey asks: "Who would win in a fight: zombies, pirates, or ninja?"
The answer? We all do.
The second answer? The monkey. No one beats the monkey.
Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies
(2012, ChiZine)James Marshall
So I'm habitually inclined to trust the judgment of its editors when it comes to delivering fascinating genre fiction. I've got Gemma Files' third Hexslinger book on deck, as well as The Steel Seraglio and In the Mean Time.
But even if you take ChiZine out of the equation, quite frankly there was no way I was not going to be interested in a book titled Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies (hereinafter NVPFZ). It's got three of my favourite pop culture things right in the title: zombies, ninja, and versus (you put versus in a title, you're guaranteed my attention; I'm looking at you, Godzilla versus Mothra).
Whatever I was expecting, however — battles of enormous bloodshed, adventure on the high seas, stealth kills in the shadows, some amalgam of all three — I did not get it in NVPFZ. What I got was a good old-fashioned spin-your-head-around-twice mindfu@#. Even now, weeks later, I'm not precisely sure what to make of it; I only know that I had a rollicking good time.
Ostensibly, NVPFZ is the tale of Guy Boy Man, a character whose name now goes on my list of favourite literary names, a list including Billy Pilgrim, Major Major Major Major, and Hiro Protagonist. Guy Boy Man is an exceedingly rich sixteen-year-old who sees himself as a pirate (although he wears the Pope's hat), trying to survive what appears to be a hellscape of a school populated by zombies with the help of his best friend Sweetie Honey, an African-American ninja. In addition to battling said zombies and his arch-nemesis The Principal with the help of a cadre of extremely attractive women, Guy Boy Man has fallen for a precocious pink-haired girl names Baby Doll15. Alas, he cannot proclaim his love for her, for if he does, he shall lose his trillions of dollars; so say the centaur from Fairyland who bequeathed him the money, a tidy sum which may have caused the collapse of the American financial system.
Yeah, this is weird. Quirky. Chaotic. Borderline nonsensical.
It's also extremely loveable, if you can get past the sometimes-unbearable precociousness of Guy Boy Man's narrative voice. He's a pretty unlikable hero: petty, manic, narcissistic; at one point he uses disabled children to protect himself from a horde of troubled zombie teens. He plays the tough guy, complete with hardboiled quips, yet cannot properly handle a gun in a firefight. Yet James Marshall's book wouldn't work without it; the voice is precisely why the book maintains any sort of narrative thrust. Guy Boy Man never stops talking, creating a story that's almost ideal for this ADD generation. He's also one of the most unreliable of unreliable narrators I've come across; just how much is real and how much is the fevered imagination of a deranged adolescent mind. Guy Boy Man is a prototypical disenfranchised teenager, raging against everything and anything, and warping his view of thw world on a minute-by-minute basis to make it better conform to his nebulous ideology. NVPFZ plays fast and loose with the rules of its own reality, becoming a psychotropic mindscape where you cannot be surprised when a unicorn starts killing your soldiers, or a bevy of exotically beautiful Eastern European girls turns out to be genetically modified assassins. It's par for the course in Guy Boy Man's universe, and you either dig it or you don't.
Marshall promises that this is only book one in the How to End Human Suffering Series, with Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos soon to come. I just don't know where else this story can go, but I have confidence Marshall will bring his A game.
Verdict: Monkey really enjoyed, once he screwed his brain back in
The answer? We all do.
The second answer? The monkey. No one beats the monkey.
Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies
(2012, ChiZine)James MarshallI look away from the TV and back to the road. I'm drunk-driving for safety, but to double up on safety, I'm driving a bulldozer. It isn't one of those puny little bulldozers you see toppling trees sometimes. No. It's an enormous mining bulldozer. It's the kind of bulldozer you'd use to push down a mountain. I find that when I get into an accident while driving a gigantic bulldozer, it doesn't really bother me. And huge bulldozers are also excellent for zombie outbreaks because there are always a bunch of abandoned cars and pickup trucks in your way. The driver's area of my bulldozer is encased in (pock-marked) bullet- and sound-proof glass, overlaid by a chain-link cage that locks in order to protect occupants (me) from the undead and the few living people who escape the Zombie Acceptance Test and fend for themselves in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.I've made quite a fuss over ChiZine Press the last little while. The Canadian publisher has introduced me to the works of David Nickle, Gemma Files, Robert J. Wiersema, Tim Lebbon, Gord Zajac, Claude Lalumière, Tom Piccirilli, Craig Davidson, Simon Logan, Nicholas Kaufmann, Douglas Smith, and Michael Rowe. Combined, these authors make up most of the top books I've read over the past three years. The worst I've ever said about a ChiZine release is, "That was pretty darn good."
So I'm habitually inclined to trust the judgment of its editors when it comes to delivering fascinating genre fiction. I've got Gemma Files' third Hexslinger book on deck, as well as The Steel Seraglio and In the Mean Time.
But even if you take ChiZine out of the equation, quite frankly there was no way I was not going to be interested in a book titled Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies (hereinafter NVPFZ). It's got three of my favourite pop culture things right in the title: zombies, ninja, and versus (you put versus in a title, you're guaranteed my attention; I'm looking at you, Godzilla versus Mothra).
Whatever I was expecting, however — battles of enormous bloodshed, adventure on the high seas, stealth kills in the shadows, some amalgam of all three — I did not get it in NVPFZ. What I got was a good old-fashioned spin-your-head-around-twice mindfu@#. Even now, weeks later, I'm not precisely sure what to make of it; I only know that I had a rollicking good time.
Ostensibly, NVPFZ is the tale of Guy Boy Man, a character whose name now goes on my list of favourite literary names, a list including Billy Pilgrim, Major Major Major Major, and Hiro Protagonist. Guy Boy Man is an exceedingly rich sixteen-year-old who sees himself as a pirate (although he wears the Pope's hat), trying to survive what appears to be a hellscape of a school populated by zombies with the help of his best friend Sweetie Honey, an African-American ninja. In addition to battling said zombies and his arch-nemesis The Principal with the help of a cadre of extremely attractive women, Guy Boy Man has fallen for a precocious pink-haired girl names Baby Doll15. Alas, he cannot proclaim his love for her, for if he does, he shall lose his trillions of dollars; so say the centaur from Fairyland who bequeathed him the money, a tidy sum which may have caused the collapse of the American financial system.
Yeah, this is weird. Quirky. Chaotic. Borderline nonsensical.
It's also extremely loveable, if you can get past the sometimes-unbearable precociousness of Guy Boy Man's narrative voice. He's a pretty unlikable hero: petty, manic, narcissistic; at one point he uses disabled children to protect himself from a horde of troubled zombie teens. He plays the tough guy, complete with hardboiled quips, yet cannot properly handle a gun in a firefight. Yet James Marshall's book wouldn't work without it; the voice is precisely why the book maintains any sort of narrative thrust. Guy Boy Man never stops talking, creating a story that's almost ideal for this ADD generation. He's also one of the most unreliable of unreliable narrators I've come across; just how much is real and how much is the fevered imagination of a deranged adolescent mind. Guy Boy Man is a prototypical disenfranchised teenager, raging against everything and anything, and warping his view of thw world on a minute-by-minute basis to make it better conform to his nebulous ideology. NVPFZ plays fast and loose with the rules of its own reality, becoming a psychotropic mindscape where you cannot be surprised when a unicorn starts killing your soldiers, or a bevy of exotically beautiful Eastern European girls turns out to be genetically modified assassins. It's par for the course in Guy Boy Man's universe, and you either dig it or you don't.
Marshall promises that this is only book one in the How to End Human Suffering Series, with Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos soon to come. I just don't know where else this story can go, but I have confidence Marshall will bring his A game.
Verdict: Monkey really enjoyed, once he screwed his brain back in
Monkey droppings - Ninja Versus Pirare Featuring Zombies: you read that correctly.
Today, the shelf monkey asks: "Who would win in a fight: zombies, pirates, or ninja?"
The answer? We all do.
The second answer? The monkey. No one beats the monkey.
Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies
(2012, ChiZine)James Marshall
So I'm habitually inclined to trust the judgment of its editors when it comes to delivering fascinating genre fiction. I've got Gemma Files' third Hexslinger book on deck, as well as The Steel Seraglio and In the Mean Time.
But even if you take ChiZine out of the equation, quite frankly there was no way I was not going to be interested in a book titled Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies (hereinafter NVPFZ). It's got three of my favourite pop culture things right in the title: zombies, ninja, and versus (you put versus in a title, you're guaranteed my attention; I'm looking at you, Godzilla versus Mothra).
Whatever I was expecting, however — battles of enormous bloodshed, adventure on the high seas, stealth kills in the shadows, some amalgam of all three — I did not get it in NVPFZ. What I got was a good old-fashioned spin-your-head-around-twice mindfu@#. Even now, weeks later, I'm not precisely sure what to make of it; I only know that I had a rollicking good time.
Ostensibly, NVPFZ is the tale of Guy Boy Man, a character whose name now goes on my list of favourite literary names, a list including Billy Pilgrim, Major Major Major Major, and Hiro Protagonist. Guy Boy Man is an exceedingly rich sixteen-year-old who sees himself as a pirate (although he wears the Pope's hat), trying to survive what appears to be a hellscape of a school populated by zombies with the help of his best friend Sweetie Honey, an African-American ninja. In addition to battling said zombies and his arch-nemesis The Principal with the help of a cadre of extremely attractive women, Guy Boy Man has fallen for a precocious pink-haired girl names Baby Doll15. Alas, he cannot proclaim his love for her, for if he does, he shall lose his trillions of dollars; so say the centaur from Fairyland who bequeathed him the money, a tidy sum which may have caused the collapse of the American financial system.
Yeah, this is weird. Quirky. Chaotic. Borderline nonsensical.
It's also extremely loveable, if you can get past the sometimes-unbearable precociousness of Guy Boy Man's narrative voice. He's a pretty unlikable hero: petty, manic, narcissistic; at one point he uses disabled children to protect himself from a horde of troubled zombie teens. He plays the tough guy, complete with hardboiled quips, yet cannot properly handle a gun in a firefight. Yet James Marshall's book wouldn't work without it; the voice is precisely why the book maintains any sort of narrative thrust. Guy Boy Man never stops talking, creating a story that's almost ideal for this ADD generation. He's also one of the most unreliable of unreliable narrators I've come across; just how much is real and how much is the fevered imagination of a deranged adolescent mind. Guy Boy Man is a prototypical disenfranchised teenager, raging against everything and anything, and warping his view of thw world on a minute-by-minute basis to make it better conform to his nebulous ideology. NVPFZ plays fast and loose with the rules of its own reality, becoming a psychotropic mindscape where you cannot be surprised when a unicorn starts killing your soldiers, or a bevy of exotically beautiful Eastern European girls turns out to be genetically modified assassins. It's par for the course in Guy Boy Man's universe, and you either dig it or you don't.
Marshall promises that this is only book one in the How to End Human Suffering Series, with Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos soon to come. I just don't know where else this story can go, but I have confidence Marshall will bring his A game.
Verdict: Monkey really enjoyed, once he screwed his brain back in
The answer? We all do.
The second answer? The monkey. No one beats the monkey.
Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies
(2012, ChiZine)James MarshallI look away from the TV and back to the road. I'm drunk-driving for safety, but to double up on safety, I'm driving a bulldozer. It isn't one of those puny little bulldozers you see toppling trees sometimes. No. It's an enormous mining bulldozer. It's the kind of bulldozer you'd use to push down a mountain. I find that when I get into an accident while driving a gigantic bulldozer, it doesn't really bother me. And huge bulldozers are also excellent for zombie outbreaks because there are always a bunch of abandoned cars and pickup trucks in your way. The driver's area of my bulldozer is encased in (pock-marked) bullet- and sound-proof glass, overlaid by a chain-link cage that locks in order to protect occupants (me) from the undead and the few living people who escape the Zombie Acceptance Test and fend for themselves in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.I've made quite a fuss over ChiZine Press the last little while. The Canadian publisher has introduced me to the works of David Nickle, Gemma Files, Robert J. Wiersema, Tim Lebbon, Gord Zajac, Claude Lalumière, Tom Piccirilli, Craig Davidson, Simon Logan, Nicholas Kaufmann, Douglas Smith, and Michael Rowe. Combined, these authors make up most of the top books I've read over the past three years. The worst I've ever said about a ChiZine release is, "That was pretty darn good."
So I'm habitually inclined to trust the judgment of its editors when it comes to delivering fascinating genre fiction. I've got Gemma Files' third Hexslinger book on deck, as well as The Steel Seraglio and In the Mean Time.
But even if you take ChiZine out of the equation, quite frankly there was no way I was not going to be interested in a book titled Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies (hereinafter NVPFZ). It's got three of my favourite pop culture things right in the title: zombies, ninja, and versus (you put versus in a title, you're guaranteed my attention; I'm looking at you, Godzilla versus Mothra).
Whatever I was expecting, however — battles of enormous bloodshed, adventure on the high seas, stealth kills in the shadows, some amalgam of all three — I did not get it in NVPFZ. What I got was a good old-fashioned spin-your-head-around-twice mindfu@#. Even now, weeks later, I'm not precisely sure what to make of it; I only know that I had a rollicking good time.
Ostensibly, NVPFZ is the tale of Guy Boy Man, a character whose name now goes on my list of favourite literary names, a list including Billy Pilgrim, Major Major Major Major, and Hiro Protagonist. Guy Boy Man is an exceedingly rich sixteen-year-old who sees himself as a pirate (although he wears the Pope's hat), trying to survive what appears to be a hellscape of a school populated by zombies with the help of his best friend Sweetie Honey, an African-American ninja. In addition to battling said zombies and his arch-nemesis The Principal with the help of a cadre of extremely attractive women, Guy Boy Man has fallen for a precocious pink-haired girl names Baby Doll15. Alas, he cannot proclaim his love for her, for if he does, he shall lose his trillions of dollars; so say the centaur from Fairyland who bequeathed him the money, a tidy sum which may have caused the collapse of the American financial system.
Yeah, this is weird. Quirky. Chaotic. Borderline nonsensical.
It's also extremely loveable, if you can get past the sometimes-unbearable precociousness of Guy Boy Man's narrative voice. He's a pretty unlikable hero: petty, manic, narcissistic; at one point he uses disabled children to protect himself from a horde of troubled zombie teens. He plays the tough guy, complete with hardboiled quips, yet cannot properly handle a gun in a firefight. Yet James Marshall's book wouldn't work without it; the voice is precisely why the book maintains any sort of narrative thrust. Guy Boy Man never stops talking, creating a story that's almost ideal for this ADD generation. He's also one of the most unreliable of unreliable narrators I've come across; just how much is real and how much is the fevered imagination of a deranged adolescent mind. Guy Boy Man is a prototypical disenfranchised teenager, raging against everything and anything, and warping his view of thw world on a minute-by-minute basis to make it better conform to his nebulous ideology. NVPFZ plays fast and loose with the rules of its own reality, becoming a psychotropic mindscape where you cannot be surprised when a unicorn starts killing your soldiers, or a bevy of exotically beautiful Eastern European girls turns out to be genetically modified assassins. It's par for the course in Guy Boy Man's universe, and you either dig it or you don't.
Marshall promises that this is only book one in the How to End Human Suffering Series, with Zombie Versus Fairy Featuring Albinos soon to come. I just don't know where else this story can go, but I have confidence Marshall will bring his A game.
Verdict: Monkey really enjoyed, once he screwed his brain back in
August 18, 2012
Husk - The pictures! They're coming...ALIVE!
In addition to being a stunningly successful author in my own mind, did you know I'm also a talented screenwriter/director?
Yet what I have in obvious greatness, I lack in resources. So instead of an AVID editing suite (oh, those were the days!), I have iMovie software on my laptop. Instead of John Williams to compose a score, I have Creative Commons.
BUT...I have a secret weapon at my disposal. Or rather, seven secret weapons; a volleyball team's (plus one alternate) worth of nieces and nephews who are willing to work for...well, not peanuts, one has an allergy. But they work for far below scale, needing only words and hugs to get the job done right.
And so, without further rambling preamble, I present for your entertainment the next best thing to owing my book itself (out October 1, check your nearest independent bookseller for your orders) -
Husk : The Book Trailer!Please enjoy!
Thank you, nieces DeGroot and niece and nephews Redekop, your weeks of toil have not gone in vain. Expect a nice new lolly in your stockings come xmas.
If you've enjoyed this trailer, you may do two things to repay me: 1) purchase the book, and 2) share it with friends via the usual social networks (Twitter, Facebook, blogs, MySpace [does that still exist?]). Please do not share via the unusual social networks. Those places are creepy!
Yet what I have in obvious greatness, I lack in resources. So instead of an AVID editing suite (oh, those were the days!), I have iMovie software on my laptop. Instead of John Williams to compose a score, I have Creative Commons.
BUT...I have a secret weapon at my disposal. Or rather, seven secret weapons; a volleyball team's (plus one alternate) worth of nieces and nephews who are willing to work for...well, not peanuts, one has an allergy. But they work for far below scale, needing only words and hugs to get the job done right.
And so, without further rambling preamble, I present for your entertainment the next best thing to owing my book itself (out October 1, check your nearest independent bookseller for your orders) -
Husk : The Book Trailer!Please enjoy!
Thank you, nieces DeGroot and niece and nephews Redekop, your weeks of toil have not gone in vain. Expect a nice new lolly in your stockings come xmas.
If you've enjoyed this trailer, you may do two things to repay me: 1) purchase the book, and 2) share it with friends via the usual social networks (Twitter, Facebook, blogs, MySpace [does that still exist?]). Please do not share via the unusual social networks. Those places are creepy!
