Review Category: Books

REVIEW: TARZAN – IN THE CITY OF GOLD / AUTHOR: DON GARDEN / ARTIST: BURNE HOGARTH / PUBLISHER: TITAN BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1912, Tarzan of the Apes remains quietly, enduringly popular, drifting in and out of the zeitgeist when occasionally reimagined for a new TV series or animated feature film. The main reason for Tarzan’s success is pretty simple: he is what he is and there’s nothing in the character’s fictional DNA which allows modern writers to tamper with him without turning him into an entirely different character. He’s the noble savage, a son of aristocratic British heritage orphaned and lost and raised by gorillas in the wild heart of Africa, growing into a mighty loin-clothed, tree-swinging adventurer. He’s the King of the Jungle and all he surveys.

Tarzan was an instant hit and this beautifully presented new coffee table book focuses on the classic weekly comic strips published by United Features Syndicate in the 1930s. Original artist Hal Foster quit the strip series in 1936 and was generally considered a tough act to follow. Chicago-born artist Burne Hogarth, just twenty-five when he took over the strip, stepped in and gave Tarzan’s adventures a new dramatic fluidity, and his illustrations of Tarzan’s Africa literally spring out of the page in vibrant, glorious colour. Hogarth took over the strip halfway through the ‘City of Gold’ storyline which gives this collection its title (many of the stories would run for months, ‘City of Gold’ itself stretching to 70 instalments) and his version of the strip – densely-packed, detailed frames bursting with action and often graphic violence – seems to chime with the image of Tarzan which remains to this day.

The stories themselves are simplistic, eventful affairs. Tarzan finds himself siding with besieged frontiersmen striking out across the African veldt and helping them fight off the advances of hostile savage tribes, battling vicious pygmy ‘lingoos’ and consorting with a tribe of shapely, spear-wielding Amazons. Intrigue and romance are here, too, as Tarzan is regularly the object of the affections of various supporting character ladies who swoon at his manly feet and fall instantly in love with him. There are human foes to fight as well in a tide of ruthless explorers and ruffians out to exploit raw Africa’s riches. Hogarth excels in depicting the landscape – all sharp-edged trees and rocky escarpments, dense forests and deep ravines – but his real strength is his depiction of the wild animals Tarzan befriends or battles. All manner of apes, baboons, lions and tigers crop up throughout the stories which not only anthropomorphise the creatures but also never shy from displaying the ugly, brutal violence they’re capable of. Frequently we see baboons and lions tearing people apart or clubbing them to death; blood flows freely and frequently in Burne Hogarth’s Tarzan world.

Utterly, unashamedly enjoyable if occasionally a little quaint and naïve (although perhaps not quite as uncomfortably racist as we might expect from strips nearly ninety years old and from an entire different world) In the City of Gold is rattling good escapist jungle fun, the first in a collection which will eventually make Hogarth’s entire Tarzan oeuvre fully available for the first time in decades. Here’s to the next one.

 

THE SEVENTH MISS HATFIELD

Would you leave your family if it meant you had a chance at immortality, at living beyond your natural span? Some people don’t know, some have concluded they definitely wouldn’t, and some of us have already written notes to our families in anticipation of such an event. The fact that we are able to answer the question to our satisfaction makes it all the worse that the titular heroine of The Seventh Miss Hatfield doesn’t really get a choice in the matter. The call to adventure has already been made on her behalf.

A lot of works about immortality make a big deal out of the fact that the immortal hero is destined to be alone, or has to move on every so often, but it’s rare that a work like this comes along which does such a great job of explaining quite why that is. Usually it’s a line or two about how agelessness gets one noticed, which is undoubtedly true but probably not to the extent they think. But in this novel, it’s all explained away with the fact that prolonged time travel makes Cynthia feel ill and out of place. Having said that, quite why she can’t go back to her own time and then return once she feels better is something we felt was unclear when reading.

However, this is an aberration in an otherwise tightly-plotted novel. 17-year-old Caltabiano also writes a romance that is amusing, enjoyable to read and doesn’t slip into using prose like ‘he took me roughly and crushed me to his chiselled chest’. One of our only complaints was that one of the revelations is almost an incidental detail and far too telegraphed; anyone well versed in genre fiction will see it coming a mile away. However, one failing isn’t enough to condemn this, which has the potential to be an ongoing story. Perhaps, in time, the seventh Miss Hatfield will prove to be as enduring in the real world as she is in the fictional one.

INFO: THE SEVENTH MISS HATFIELD / AUTHOR: ANNA CALTABIANO / PUBLISHER: GOLLANCZ / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 11TH

 

REVIEW: THE ANNUAL YEARS – A CELEBRATION OF THE WORLD DISTRIBUTOR DOCTOR WHO ANNUALS / AUTHOR: PAUL MAGRS / PUBLISHER: OBVERSE BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: MAY 30TH

For 21 Christmases between 1965 and 1985, the children of the United Kingdom were able to indulge in a seasonal Doctor Who treat without any recourse to their television sets, and with no evidence of a Kylie Minogue or a Giant Spider-Lady in sight. Well, apart from maybe a Zilgan or two, that is.

I’m talking about the mad universe of the World Distributor’s annual of course, that yearly insanity that pretended to be Doctor Who but never quite convinced. I myself partook of the experience in the early 1980s, during a period in which the television series was taking itself possibly a little too seriously, and I must confess to having occasionally wished it was the stories in the annuals that I was watching instead…

I digress. After decades of independent episode guides for everything from televised Doctor Who to the audio dramas of Big Finish and lately even The Target Book, it now feels inevitable that those old annuals should be dusted off and given the same treatment, although prior to the publication of The Annual Years, you might well be considered just as mad as the stories they contained for thinking so. Long considered an external activity bearing only the most vague of resemblances to the series from which they had sprung, the Doctor Who annuals have become something of an embarrassment to a fandom that has lately been more used to spun-off media that treats its source more reverentially. In his opening chapter to The Annual Years, Paul Magrs spells out how this might not have ended up the case: “Right at the very start the annual was going to reflect what Doctor Who was like on TV. Fidelity was the key,” Magrs informs us, in an informative and evocative dance through the history of the publication and its background.

This opening chapter, entitled – rather cheekily – The Making of Doctor Who, serves both to dispel the myths that have surrounded the World Distributor series (as well as to underline the reasons why the character became known as “Dr Who” in the books), and also to canonise those contributors whose place in the pantheon of Doctor Who creatives has hitherto remained unreserved. John Pemberton’s name might not trip so readily on the tongue as Victor Pemberton’s, but his responsibility for the enchantment of several generations of children is surely the greater. The Making of Doctor Who forms only as an aperitif to the main body of The Annual Years, but it is a fascinating and thoroughly researched account of the history behind the volumes, and an absolute must-read for enthusiasts of the television series, even if – in fact, especially if – they are as ignorant of the work that went into producing the annuals as I was.

We then come to the main course, and this is perhaps where I found The Annual Years a slight disappointment, preferring my histories of the show’s bygone years to take the form more of critique than simple episode guide. But this is also where Paul Magrs comes into his element, and demonstrates the wisdom in having an established writer of fiction such as Magrs as the author of such a book. For instead of simply taking us by the hand and walking us through the many and varied contents of the twenty Doctor Who annuals (and several related World Distributors’ titles), Magrs’ droll commentary provides all the analysis necessary to thoroughly understand quite what a bizarre but enjoyable universe World Distributors presented. The summaries for the stories contained in each of the books are written with a wry eye for the absurdities of the plots, but Magrs stops becomingly short of pointing out such incongruousness for the reader. After all, for some of us these stories are cherished if all-but-forgotten memories, while for others, ignorant of the source material, Magrs’ sardonic synopses are evocative of an alternative account in which the series might have taken on an altogether more peculiar approach – something to which the new series has on occasion seen fit to pay homage.

The main chapters fill themselves out with a number of shorter sub-sections, detailing the dovetailing between annual and television canon – and the divergences thereof – in a similarly light turn of prose. Magrs is keen to point out the similarities as much as the differences in the characters we know, and the What I Learned From… segments are as amusing as they are would-be illuminating.

Magrs then makes the last section of his tribute into a series of appendices collecting together interviews with some of the authors and artists who worked on the annuals, and a selection of letters both to and from the people at World Distributors who produced them, and thus The Annual Years ends as eye-openingly and as absorbingly as it began.

To many, the World Distributor annuals represent no more than a footnote in the many-avenued atlas of Doctor Who, but for countless thousands of children they symbolised the potency of Christmas, and were every bit as effective as the Target books in awakening that latent fan-gene. Here then, is Paul Magrs’ particular, and personal – but not excessively so – account of those special, in oh so many ways, publications. The Annual Years is a volume that, thanks to its idiosyncratic but very accessible approach, will grace the shelves of any self-respecting Doctor Who fan, whether versed in the subject matter or not – and should slot happily in between The Television Companion and The Amazing World of Doctor Who. Just make sure you have enough money left in your account for a potentially expensive excursion to eBay before you start reading it, though…

 

REVIEW: WORLD OF TROUBLE / AUTHOR: BEN H. WINTERS / PUBLISHER: QUIRK BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 15TH

Following on from The Last Policeman and Countdown City, World of Trouble is the final instalment in Ben H. Winters’ Edgar Award-winning Last Policeman trilogy.

With just two weeks until a giant asteroid collides with Earth, Hank Palace leaves the safety of the country home he’s been sharing with a handful of other law enforcers and their families, and sets out to find his sister Nico, with a little help from Houdini the dog and his unlikely sidekick, Cortez. Along the way they meet a handful of people, all preparing for the end of the world in their own way, but as he slowly tracks Nico down there is no way that he could prepare himself for what he will find and no way he can predict where he will spend his final day.

After two emotional investigations with Hank you cannot help but tear into this novel, dying to know how it will all end but slowing in the final pages to make the most of it. Hank is the classic American cop and good guy, keeping to his word and sticking to the law. This finale is obviously a little bit more philosophical and heartfelt than the previous two novels as the main storyline is based around what is left of his family, Nico and the small amount of time he has left to find her. As always, he has to throw himself into some tricky situations to discover the truth, leaving him beaten by a horse, locked in a barn and tasered, although not shot this time. Full of twists, turns and surprises it is hard to give any plot details without spoilers but Hank is a great hero and World of Trouble really delivers the gripping story that you would be expecting after the previous excellent books. There are no easy ways out, happy endings or ‘it was all a dream,’ Winters full on faces his character’s predicament with refreshing logic and realism.

The entire Last Policeman trilogy is excellent and World of Trouble is no exception. We can but hope Ben H. Winters has another character just as great coming in the future to replace the lovable Hank Palace.

REVIEW: THE ART OF JOHN HARRIS – BEYOND THE HORIZON / AUTHOR: JOHN HARRIS / PUBLISHER: TITAN / RELEASE DATE: MAY 30TH

For fans of sci-fi and art, John Harris is more than likely a familiar name, his work having fed into the genre since the mid-’70s. For the uninitiated, imagine Monet painted spaceships. He presents the future as something real, filled with wonder but also danger, moving from sweeping landscapes to broken vessels.

The book itself is beautifully and simply presented, some pages offering an insight into the composition and evolution of a given piece, but often the paintings need only themselves. The dates too are often irrelevant as his body of work is timeless; some hark back to classic ’30s sci-fi like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, while others are moodier, the palette comprised of purples and blacks: The Twin Parliaments of Pyrrhus is a particularly overwhelming example.

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of the collection, and indeed Harris’ work, is that it incorporates all sci-fi. Some of the paintings like The Big Generator and Noise are reminiscent of Blade Runner’s resident futurist Syd Mead, while others evoke prog-rock cover artist Roger Dean’s hallucinogenic landscapes, and some of them are altogether more abstract, specifically those in the Beyond the Horizon chapter, comprised of textures and surfaces.

While his art is all-encompassing, it’s also fun to cherry-pick your favourites, from Migration which conjures Ra’s pyramid ship over the Abydos desert in the Stargate motion picture, to Armies of Memory, which is reminiscent of the Citadel in the Mass Effect trilogy, with more than a few winks to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Harris’ paintings never appear static, he captures motion in his work. There’s a preoccupation with mass, machinery and wreckages in space that, while weightless in the vacuum, are vast, from wounded spaceships, huge red planets that dominate the canvass and debris that tells a story only by its presence.

The book is broken into chapters, each focusing on specific themes and elements of his work. Floating Mass will really get sci-fi fans salivating. While most of the paintings are strictly impressionist and imaginative realism, some of the works are more tangible and informed by speculative thought, bridging the space between art and innovation.

The collection showcases Harris’ thirty plus year career, offering the reader a chance to admire the ambition and evolution of an artist. There’s a symbiosis on display, his work inspiring others who then inspire him. The back of the book collates those of his works that have adorned some of sci-fi’s most interesting writers, from Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game, Ultimate Iron Man) to John Scalzi (Old Man’s War series, Redshirts), who wrote the forward.

There’s no need for any prior understanding of art to appreciate this collection, or indeed a love of sci-fi (though it definitely helps). The paintings tap into something primal, a part of you that may very well be comfortable with Harris’ portrayal of the future.

 

 

REVIEW: THE JACKPORT KILLER: A VIRULENT NOIR – A KURT LOBO CASEFILE/ AUTHOR: KNEEL DOWNE / PUBLISHER: LULU.COM / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

“The floor’s covered in eyes…”

Once more unto the Blurb, my friends… Taking place twelve months before the events in Downe’s first self-published work, VirulentBlurb: Fractures, this is the first in a planned series of mini-adventures focusing on the popular wolf-spliced detective, Kurt Lobo. The character has always had the manner of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer crossed with Philip Marlowe, only with the features of a large, talking wolf.

Narrating the story into an audio journal, the tough talking (the language in this volume is particularly profane) cop investigates the return of a brutal serial killer who appears to be taunting him with tokens left at – or more precisely – in the crime scene. It’s no ordinary procedural narrative, which keeps the interest and certainly throws a curveball or two, but the story moves along at a swift pace and is thoroughly engrossing.

Written in Downe’s distinctive manner – as fiction born from Twitter – he has kept the staccato, segmented pace in the storytelling – and is assured and competent enough to allow a minimal amount of description to paint a vivid picture. There’s also a distinctive flow to the spacing of the text. It may look odd at first glance; but you begin to read the pauses as part of the rhythm of the piece.

New readers should have no problem becoming absorbed by the Blurb world, but to get the effect and enjoyment of the incidental characters, it’s preferable to have read them. Despite the unique style, it is very easy to read, and you will soon find yourself completely immersed into the bizarre, cyberpunk, dystopian world Downe has created, and find yourself wanting more.

You can buy The JackPort Killer: A Virulent Noir – A Kurt Lobo Casefile from Lulu.com, and find out more about the Blurb Universe at the VirulentBlurb website, and follow on Twitter.

 

 

 

 

REVIEW: CUCKOO SONG / AUTHOR: FRANCES HARDINGE / PUBLISHER: MACMILLAN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Frances Hardinge is one of the most talented writers of novels aimed at a younger audience out there today. Her work has a tendency to be off the wall and her latest offering, Cuckoo Song, is a heady mix of dark folklore, period drama and surreal body horror, presented in a way that is suitable for anyone who enjoys a spot of creepiness.

Set in a sleepy English town still recovering from the devastating events of World War One, it follows the unfortunate adventures of an eleven-year-old girl namedTriss. Something horrible has happened to her, but Triss can’t quite remember what. Things get worse when she discovers that she has a terrible and bizarre hunger, one that cannot easily be sated. To make matters even worse, pages are missing from her diary and her little sister, Pen (short for Penelope) seems to have taken an intense dislike to her. What follows is a fast-paced adventure filled with dark myth, marvellous and complex villains and lashings and lashings of ginger beer.

Hardinge’s talent is to take a slightly odd story and make it utterly bizarre. Because of the perspective the author has taken here, we get a fairly simple and traditional tale told in a unique and exciting way. Hardinge doesn’t hesitate to slam the reader with revelation after revelation; just as the reader thinks they’ve gotten a handle on what’s going on with Triss’ family, another event smashes apart their assumptions, drawing the reader in further. The characterisation is so strong that it is easy to imagine the story from other points of view as each antagonist feels like a real person with strong motivations.

Cuckoo Song is suitable for pretty much anyone over the age of ten. There is no content here unsuitable for younger readers though it has some gloriously scary moments that will raise the eyebrow of almost anyone, but then that’s the point. Architect of delicious creepiness that she is, Hardinge invites the reader to come with her on a wild midnight ride and you would be fool not to accept.

REVIEW: WIT, WISDOM AND TIMEY-WIMEY STUFF – THE QUOTABLE DOCTOR WHO / AUTHOR: CAVAN SCOTT, MARK WRIGHT / PUBLISHER: BBC BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: MAY 22ND

Cavan Scott and Mark Wright’s follow-up to their Sunday Times Top 10 best-selling Who-ology is exactly what you’d expect from the title: a vast collection of quotes curated from the show’s 50 years on the box and organised into various themes from First Lines to Famous Last Words, calling at many topics in-between. Amongst many favourites are ‘Fancy a Brew?’ which looks at the importance of tea and the obvious Bigger on the Inside. There are of course less whimsical sections including Love, War, Death, Fear and Loneliness.

The book is littered with drawings by Ben Morris which help to break the text up. If the book has a weakness it is that it is better suited for dipping into rather than as a serious trawl, after a while the pages of quotes become repetitive, especially compared to Who-ology, which made a particularly good job of varying the material. That said, the quotes do stand on their own and many of them are quintessential Doctor Who.

Where Wit, Wisdom and Timey-Wimey Stuff scores well is that, by virtue of being published more recently, it is able to include not only the War Doctor but also Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor (if we may call him that). This helps round the book out and makes it feel complete.

At a more festive time of year we would describe this as an essential stocking filler for Whovians of any age; for now all we’ll will say is that the boys have done good and we wonder what they will produce for us next time.

REVIEW: OUTER LIMITS – THE FILMGOERS’ GUIDE TO THE GREAT SCIENCE FICTION FILMS / AUTHOR: HOWARD HUGHES / PUBLISHER: I.B. TAURIS / RELEASED: OUT NOW

The sci-fi movie guide has been a staple of the publishing industry since… ooh, about 1977. Can’t think why. Here’s another one and the twist here is that it’s a “filmgoers’ guide”. Mind you, one assumes a fisherman or taxidermist’s guide would be a fairly pointless exercise. But what makes it different and is it any good?

Well, Howard Hughes’s approach is to pick 26 popular movies and use them as “launch pads to discuss lesser-known influences and follow-on derivatives”. So the chapter titles are “Regarded this Earth with Envious Eyes” in which he discusses War of the Worlds (1953) or “My God, It’s Full of Stars” in which he discusses 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) despite that not being a line from the film (just saying), and so on. You get the idea. The biggest criticism one could make is that these essays do feel like rather meandering info dumps where Hughes discusses the plot of his main movie, then the production, then back to the plot, wanders off onto a couple of related movies in surprising depth and then lurches back into the plot and/or production of his main flick. In fact the secondary movie discussions nestled into the narrative are often more tightly written than the primary ones.

Overall the research seems pretty good even if one gets the impression we’re just getting all the movies that the writer has seen rather than the important ones. Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) and Plan 9 From Outer Space (1958) might be fun but we’re not entirely convinced you’d call them “influential” (or are they “follow-ons?). But it’s a good read if you’re interested in the subject matter (which we assume you are). If you’re already an expert on the history of sci-fi movies then you probably won’t find too much here that you needed to know but if you’re just a regular filmgoer or there’s areas you’d like to know more about, this is probably the kind of thing you’re after. It’s a bit like going to the pub with the STARBURST crew without the alcohol, mayhem, embarrassing dancing, unavoidable kebab, inevitable shame, existential despair etc, etc.

 

REVIEW: SUBVERSIVE HORROR CINEMA – COUNTERCULTURAL MESSAGES OF FILMS FROM FRANKENSTEIN TO THE PRESENT / AUTHOR: JON TOWLSON / PUBLISHER: MCFARLAND BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

While it’s widely known that horror films are reflections of society and the times in which they are made, Towlson’s study takes a further approach: that rather than just reflecting the troubles the world was facing, certain artists would use the genre to attack and challenge society’s ideals by adapting the tropes and formulas to their own idealism.

Discussing Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932), for instance, Towlson shows how the film was attempting to ridicule the eugenic theories of the day by demonstrating the ugliness inside the ‘beautiful’ and ‘perfect’ antagonists, and the empathy and caring of the unfortunate ‘freaks’. Other chapters delve into the works of Val Lewton, the teenage horror films of Herman Cohen such as I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), the British anti-establishment films of Michael Reeves and Pete Walker. During a chapter on the films which were made in the wake of the Vietnam war, Towlson discusses the often overlooked Bob Clark film Deathdream (1972). It’s a disturbing re-imagining of the classic short story The Monkey’s Paw, with the returning son this time a soldier who died in Vietnam, and the analysis Towlson gives adds a new perspective to what is often dismissed as a piece of exploitation.

We learn how directors such as Reeves and Wes Craven used the extreme violence in their films, not for sensationalist reasons, but to show the true consequences of the protagonists’ actions; that killing isn’t ‘fun’ or ‘heroic’, as many US soldiers found out in the Vietnam conflict. The ‘splatstick’ films of Brian Yuzna and early Peter Jackson, which appeal to the same demographic as the ’50s Cohen B-movies, show the cycle never ends; it merely gets more gruesome and explicit.

Bringing his appraisal up to date with the brilliant but disturbing Mum and Dad (2005), and unique rape-revenge films such as Teeth (2007) and the Soska Twins’ American Mary (2010), Towlson shows that there’s still plenty to be said through the medium of body horror.

It’s a fascinating and thought-provoking book, not only from a film history viewpoint, but as a work of social record too. Putting the films in the perspective of their contemporary origins allows Towlson to guide the reader to the subtle (and not-so-subtle) subtext of the films; such analysis is not often covered in today’s media. If you are looking for an intelligent, well written and insightful read, Subversive Horror Cinema is highly recommended.