Justin Robinson's FIFTY FEET OF TROUBLE

The best Halloween present a pulp/noir/monster fiction fan could possibly get is a new Justin Robinson novel, and that is exactly what happened this year.* A sequel to his almost-illegally-too-fun City of Devils, it's Fifty Feet of Trouble.

Once again, our guide through the madness is Nick Moss, the last human private eye in Los Angeles, finder of missing persons, encounterer (sure, that's a word. Now.) of the titular trouble.** Which starts off in sort of the same vein as last novel, but has with it a whole weight of emotional baggage that you just don't have to deal with when a doppelganger of no previous acquaintance asks you to find her missing mummy husband.

This time around, Nick's quarry is human (Still. We Hope.), but not only is she human, she is a little girl, and not only is she a little girl, but she is the daughter of two close and dear friends who fought with him in the Night War (the conflict after WWII when the Monsters Took Over), and not only are they his close and dear friends but they already lost a child to the monsters and... see where this is going? There are several sub-plots that tie into this main one, but the missing little girl quest is the armature on which all of the other stuff hangs like a fifty-foot [REDACTED] off a giant floating stone [REDACTED].

So where City of Devils was mostly a slapstick romp with some moments of hilarious danger, there is a mature and emotionally powerful undertone to our hero's quest this time around. Be assured, though: this doesn't detract from the fun of reading it; it enhances it. And yes, there's still silly monster stuff. For instance, one of Nick's other assignments is finding a magical missing toad, so a witch friend of his can continue casting spells.

So, as I said on GoodReads, I wasn't expecting this to be Justin Robinson's best novel yet, but it's his best novel yet. The comedy and tragedy set each other off to perfection (a paragraph after a line that makes you howl with laughter and want to read pages aloud to some hapless stranger, there's a gut punch ready to knock you out cold), the new characters are beautifully realized, and the new over-the-top villains are used with admirable and judicious restraint,*** and no plot thread is left dangling. Like Nick and not-his-lady-friend off a giant floating stone [REDACTED].

So, if you're anything like me, you'll want to set aside a block of time to just utterly devote to this novel. Have some snacks ready. And some holy water. And some garlic. And some silver. And some salt. And a camera. And a bullhorn. Useful things, bullhorns. You just never know when you'll have to talk down a giant rampaging [REDACTED].

And, psst, best of all, Nick Moss has more adventures coming Not Soon Enough. Werewolf Confidential. Okay.

*What. Halloween presents are totally a thing. Where have you been? Well, yes, this first time I did have to buy it for myself, but I trust that this won't always be the case. Right? RIGHT?

**Now that I know Justin better -- he even blurbed my upcoming book -- I know exactly how much he loves words like "titular."

***You'll be glad of this. Reverend Bobo. I need a brandy.

Justin Robinson's CITY OF DEVILS

First of all, look at the cover. Just look at it! Isn't it the most pulptastic thing you've seen since those covers Kelley Jones did for Steve Niles' Edge of Doom a few years back? Serioiusly, if that cover doesn't make  you want to drop everything and go get you a copy of City of Devils, I... I question your capacity for joy in this life!

OK, I'm going to calm down in a moment here, I promise. But, you know, this is the new novel from Justin "Mr. Blank" Robinson, so a little gushy excitement on my part is entirely in order.

This time around, Robinson has taken a page from Angry Robot's team playbook and come out with a classic bit of genre mashing. There have been plenty of crime/noir-meets-fantasy/horror novels in the last few years, but did we really need yet another one, however good?

Well, yes, yes we did. Because this isn't just horror noir, this is movie monster horror noir, you guys. Campy movie monster horror noir, even.. As in the world in which this novel is set is one in which, sometime not long after World War II came another gigantic and world-changing war as the result of a violent unknown event* that transformed a sizable portion of humanity into real-world movie monsters of every kind, from mummies in cheesy faux Egyptian regalia to wolfmen to werewolves (there's a difference, you know) to Frankenstein's monster (which I guess now should be plural) to witches to gremlins to doppelgangers to... you get the idea. And not only are movie monsters now real, but each and every one of them has the power to make more monsters -- by "turning" ordinary humans into whatever monster the turning monster is. Which all of the monsters are very keen to do. Really really keen.

This results in a Los Angeles, ca I'm guessing the late 1950s or early 1960s, in which plain old human beings are a persecuted minority, hunted and despised, and in which there is exactly one human private eye left in the city: our man Nick Moss. Who just got hired by a famous movie star/doppelganger to find her missing husband, a prominent and powerful mummy.

Of course Mr. Moss uncovers a much deeper and more intricate plot than just a missing husband, as we quickly learn when his fellow (hee) humanitarians start getting bumped off one by one.

The resulting book is dense, deeply silly and a whole lot of fun. As a follow-up to Mr. Blank it comes off as something of a lesser work but pretty much anything would probably seem that way, though, nota bene for those who got annoyed by some of the gender/body image politics that crept into Mr. Blank (as I did, slightly), who will be happy to learn that there is none of that to be had in City of Devils.

And in its place is loads of crazy, inventive over-the-top fun as Mr. Moss escapes from werewolves, phantoms (as in "of the opera"), wolfmen (remember, there is a difference), a lovesick pumpkinhead who dreams of connubial bliss after he's turned Moss into another pumpkinhead, ogres, giant crawling eyeballs, gremlins, cops and movie studio executives. Some of whom fill more than one role.

Ridiculous good fun, this!

*Wink, as always, at the Peter Greenaway fans out there.

JOHN CARTER - A Mistitled Film That Did Not Deserve To Flop

When I first heard that Disney, of all studios, was going to be the people that finally brought Edgar Rice Burroughs' wonderful Barsoom books to the big screen, my feelings were as mixed as anyone's. Of course this would mean that the violence would be sanitized, that Dejah Thoris and the rest of the Red Martian gang would be wearing far too much clothing, but, I told myself, with the Mouse calling the shots, we might actually get a good treatment of that chivalrous pulp hero, John Carter, in all his uncomplicated and hokey glory. And this thought pleased me: cynicism and sarcasm were old and stale long before David Foster Wallace pointed out the dreariness of the tyranny of irony. A nice, earnest do-gooder would be just the thing to perk everybody up again. Plus, modern special effects technology would do visual justice to the wonders of Barsoom and the beings inhabiting it.

Well, I was mostly right. I'm quite gutted not to see Captain John Carter of Virginia in this film -- he's been replaced by a bog-standard cynical Hollywood anti-hero who has the same name -- but pretty much everything else about this film is so right that when I'm watching (which I did again today, bringing a pal who had never read the books)* I don't care. The Green Martians look great. The Red Martians look great. The White Apes are far scarier and more awesome than I'd ever imagined them. The airships are nothing like I'd imagined at all, but are so cool that I'm going to write to Santa Claus and ask for one for Christmas. And, too much clothing or not, Lynn Collins made a perfect Dejah Thoris the titular** Princess of Mars whose beauty is really the least of her qualities -- she's a top-notch scientist and a leader and a spectacular fighter, really a more rounded character than she ever gets to be in the books (wherein she is often reduced to a thing that must be rescued). Which makes up for a lot, as in maybe even making up for the substitution of an unshaven pretty boy asshole for the manly and upright Captain Carter.

But, while you get glimpses of the airships and the Martians in this trailer, does it in anyway convey the sheer awesome action and pulpy goodness of the Barsoom books? Go read one, any one you can get your hands on, if you're not familiar with them, then watch this trailer again. Your head will spin from the disconnect, the moody, dreary music, the dirge-like tone of the dialogue clips, the emphasis on Carter as a dude walking in the rain in New York and on the fictionalized Burroughs' loss of him. Would you want to see this film based on that trailer? Would you know you were in for a glorious bit of fantasy and action and old-fashioned romance? No. "Find your destiny." I'm gonna hurl.

Seriously, though, there is so much to like about this film it makes me all but gnash my teeth when everyone focuses on how much money it's losing. Because Disney made a pretty good film despite themselves, and have only their marketing department to blame for its commercial failure. And this makes me mad, because there are so many other good Barsoom stories that would be fabulous on the big screen (and better than some of the dreck that is getting greenlit, judging from the previews I saw today. Battleship? Really? Talk about something that needs to be a flop...) and now probably won't ever get made unless Disney decides it needs another big fat loss leader or tax write-off or whatever it is they thought they were going to get when they decided to make John Carter.

So I'll just have to dream. And of course, get the DVD when it's available, because screw you guys, it was a fun movie.

*And who told me as we walked out of the theater that he'd liked the movie very much indeed and it wasn't what he'd been expecting at all.

**Well, should be titular. This film adapted the very first of Burroughs' Barsoom books, A Princess of Mars, and what moron had the idea of changing the film's title to just John Carter and how the hell did he/she persuade all the other morons that this idea was a good one? I want to kick that person's ass all day long.

100 Books #17 - Robert E. Howard's THE BLOODY CROWN OF CONAN

Lately, the more I read of Conan the Cimmerian's adventures, the more I want to. So I can totally understand why there are a whole mess of novels -- homages, really -- by other writers that feature this character in store for me, but for now, for now my Conanical heart belongs entirely to Robert E. Howard. And to Del Rey books for releasing these magnificent collections.

This second one contains just three tales ("People of the Black Circle," Hour of the Dragon and "A Witch Shall Be Born") where the first one contained a passel. But one of these tales is a novel, folks, and that is a fine, fine thing, because Hour of the Dragon is one fine novel, if short by modern standards.* Therein, we see Conan on the throne of Aquilonia (a situation to which the films starring a future governor of California in the title role loved to allude to as "another story" they teased us they'd adapt some day but of course never did) (but maybe Jason Mormoa will get a shot doing same, though I pray to Crom that if there is another Mormoa Conan movie they'll use more than the odd out of context line from Howard's outstanding original source material, AHEM), AND leading armies into battle AND chastely falling in love with his future queen AND doing battle with an undead sorceror AND questing after the magical jewel that is said undead sorceror's weakness... Yeah, man, this is Conan complete with kitchen sink (err... pail of water dashed vigorously at his gigantic muscle-y self?). If it doesn't make you want to strap on some mail and rush out to wave a sword around and have over the top adventures, then you've definitely been in your cubicle too long.

And then there are two other stories, both full of swords and sorcery and evil plots and deceptions and slaying!

A beloved friend and I were just chatting last night about how reading Conan as adults has enhanced our commitment to physical fitness. The idea of actually becoming that badass is irresistible. Or at least of trying. And never in my life have I tried so hard as I am now. I think I need to get audio versions of these books to play on the boombox in my garage gym. I bet I do twice as many pull-ups listening to them as I do listening to music, even to ska!

So hey, you market tappers out there, you Nerd Fitness guru types -- you're missing out on a fantastic opportunity. I propose a set of exercise videos: the Cimmerian Workout. Jason Mormoa can be the presenter.

I know of at least two, maybe even three, people who would buy them sight unseen.

*Though in this age of giant doorstop fantasy novels that are in themselves incomplete without half a dozen giant doorstop fantasy sequels, this is actually, probably, a virtue, however.

John Carter

As you might guess, I'm a big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and especially of his Barsoom books. When I first heard a few years ago that a film adaptation was at last in the works, I sat down and re-read them all from the beginning and found that they hold up incredibly well. They're exciting, imaginative, romantic, everything that pulp sci-fi should be (in fact, they pretty much defined the genre). I believe I undressed once or twice and tried to come up with a Dejah Thoris outfit as a young'un (and my Own Dear Sinister Mom, who reads this blog, is either saying "what what WHAT?" or laughing and nodding). I see from this and other clips that Disney has decided movie-Dejah Thoris needs more clothing, which is too bad, but we live in puritanical times. Anyway, it's Barsoom, so I'm going. Probably on opening day. What about you?

100 Books #2 - Edgar Rice Burroughs' RETURN OF TARZAN

Was there ever such a paragon of all manly virtue as Monsieur Jean Tarzan, aka John Clayton Lord Greystoke, aka John Caldwell of London, aka Tarzan Lord of the Apes? Well, perhaps Captain John Carter of Virginia, but that just begs the queztion, doesn't it!

A modern reader approaching this stuff has to suppress the eye-rolling instinct - from the open and enthusiastic hunting of elephants for their ivory to the the racism that isn't so much thinly veiled as simply as unashamedly naked as Tarzan himself to the continued helplessness of Miss Jane Porter, there are lots of triggers for it. But in the midst of these is glorious pulp adventure, whether its on board a classy steamship, in a Paris alley, or in the jungle to which a series of meticulously timed and located shipwrecks returns the action and the action hero.

Extra fun for me was realizing that something I'd snickered at in the Saturday morning cartoon of my childhood - that all the jungle beasts had names (Numa the Lion, Tantor the elephant) but there only ever seemed to be one of each, always the same one answering to the name - was not that at all. Rather, the names are personifications of a kind. All lions are Numa. All elephants are Tantor. All apes are Bogali. I can dig that.

But I can't help noting that these animals are far less helpful in the novels than in the cartoon. Not a single Team Tantor pulled down a single tree trunk at Tarzan's request in this story.

But then, Tarzan isn't about that, is it?