Reading Roundup, August 2009

If I were to list all the books my grubby ink-stained fingers have rifled through this last month I’d bore us both before too long. From the book on Late Antiquity by a nineteenth century German historian I gave up on half-way through, to the crop of anthologies that now sit on my shelves sprouting bookmarks that my ADD brain insisted on starting one after another, August has been a month of buffet reading — sampling things here and there and leaving a whole lot of unfinished meals.

But I did manage to finish a few things. Firstly, there’s Joe R. Lansdale’s latest, Vanilla Ride, the review of which you can read right here. Not being content with just one dose of Lansdale this month, I also read his novel Freezer Burn. It tells the story of a screw-up named Bill who goes on the lam after he botches a robbery at a Firecracker Stand. He ends up with a traveling freak show, and at once beholden to the manager and infatuated with the manager’s wife. Add in a bit of murder, a dog boy, bearded lady, pinheads and some pickled punks — oh, and a frozen corpse that may be the preserved body of Jesus Christ — and you’ve got a recipe for classic Lansdale. A fun book, and one that manages to inject real humanity into an assorted cast that could have been played purely for their surface shock.

I also read an anthology in which I have a story, Cinema Spec, and blogged about it here. I won’t repeat myself except to say that this is a consistently strong offering from Raven Electrick Ink that should be a must read for those interested in films and how they reflect and influence our culture.

And then there was Brian MacNaughton’s unlike-anything-you’ve-ever-read-before collection The Throne of Bones, first mentioned back in May, which I finally finished. Perhaps the purest blend of horror and fantasy I’ve ever read, written in a voice every bit as distinctive as classic authors such as Dunsany, Lovecraft, and Ashton Smith, Bones is concerned primarily with ghouls. In one perfectly turned short story after another MacNaughton explores the history of ghouls and the odd people that are in turn fascinated and repulsed by them. Deliciously weird names like Vomikron Noxis, Lady Glypht, Crespard Vulnavon, Weymael Vendren, and Quodomass Phuonsa populate the story and add to the otherworldly effect. And this collection is not for the faint of heart, containing as it does strong violence and sexual content — those among us who don’t mind that sort of thing are in for a treat.

James Enge‘s debut Morlock novel, Blood of Ambrose, was also on my list. Readers of this blog know I’m a Morlock the Maker fan, Enge’s hunchbacked serial character first seen in Black Gate magazine, and his first full-length outing does not disappoint. Revolving around the succession troubles of a young king who has not yet reached his majority under the regency of Morlock’s sister, Ambrosia, Blood of Ambrose runs the gamut from palace intrigue to  full-blown weird tale. Both in style and content Enge’s novel draws comparison with Fritz Leiber, as it melds humor with horror, and is big on imagination and cleverness. This book hearkens back to older kinds of fantasy that didn’t just spin out a story based on a single premise, but constantly pushed forward to give us new and stranger things. Full of invention, there is plenty here that will stick with the reader, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next two in the Morlock series.

I closed the month with another debut novel, Cindy Pon‘s Silver Phoenix, a YA story set in a fantasy world based on ancient China. In it, Pon’s protagonist — an unusual young girl with seemingly poor marriage prospects — goes on a quest to find her father and encounters all manner of demons and creatures of Chinese folklore on the way, while discovering her own hidden powers. While I must acknowledge that I was not the target audience for this book — it seems about right for teens and pre-teens or thereabouts — I enjoyed Pon’s drawing upon so many Chinese myths and monsters, and thought the premise of the character was great. And this book also reminded me why Pon’s website is perhaps the most dangerous place to visit on the internet — for the continual loving description of food throughout this book was probably the cause of me having to let my belt out a notch last week.