Golems, Mitzvahs, and a burning bush

The Anarchist Kosher Cookbook

Maxwell Bauman

CLASH Books 

December 12, 2017

4 stars

Upon reading the last page of The Anarchist Kosher Cookbook and putting it down, I began to mull over the lack of multi-cultural influences and references in Bizarro literature. Frankly, it is not a genre that encourages the liberal use of ideological, ethical, or religious references. Its surrealism and its tendency to stretch imagery to unbelievable levels don't always gel well with presenting ideas and humor of a down-to-earth ethnic and cultural nature. Yes I sure there are exceptions but none jump out at me immediately.

Except for Maxwell Bauman. The author has presented a sort of "cookbook" on how to meld the traditions of Judaism into the passages of horror and Bizarro. Here are a half dozen tales all centering around Jewish culture and traditions and all unique. Hail the birth Kosher Bizarro!

It is that weird and bizarre turn on Jewish myths and traditions that make the collection. The first story, "When the Bush Burn" is a take on Noah and the burning bush without Noah and that particular type of bush. "The Messiah in New York" is all about the coming of the Messiah. Unfortunately he gets a little carried away with the raising of the dead. "You've Lost That L'Chaim" Feeling" takes place in 1831 is both a love story and a ghost story. It's has a clever winsomeness for its rather Orthodox setting ("Granted, all the girls looked that way for modesty's sake, but something about Isha made Chaim hot under the yarmulke"). It also tells us what what spirits do for kicks. It's my second favorite piece of short fiction in the book.

"The Leviathan Blues" is about the Creation. It is the saddest story of the collection, sad and beautiful. The title story of this collection is just what is should be, a recipe or more accurate a set of instructions. It might come in handy if you ever need to make a Golem when the Nazi hordes invade.

The gem of the book though is "Baphomitzah", involving two twins who are about to have their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. It's a funny and eventually horrific tale of becoming 13 and being a insecure middle class Jewish girl with a touch of evil...or is it just teenage angst?... in her. It alone is worth the price of admission.

Themed collections based on ethnic or religious themes, rise or fall on the ability to install an authentic sense of culture in the stories. You wouldn't think that is easy when you are writing horror and Bizarro but these six stories succeed quite well. The short fiction is also less enmeshed with the usual excesses of horror and surrealism found in this genre. This book would actually be good for those reader who just want something different and not necessarily caught up in genres. I am not sure The Anarchist Kosher Cookbook would be rabbi approved but Maxwell Bauman should certainly be pleased with his finished product.

Working for the mob

Blood Standard

Laird Barron

G.P. Putnam's Sons 

May 29, 2018

4 stars

 

 Isaiah Coleridge is muscle for the mob. He is half Maori, very big, and amazingly intelligent for a man whose job it is to hurt people. He lived most of his life in Alaska working for the Anchorage branch of the Mafia but has recently barely escaped execution after foiling a made man's scheme to slaughter walruses and profit from the black market in ivory. He is given a reprieve though and is sent to a farm in the East Coast near New York which can best be described a retirement home / rehab for forcibly retired gangsters temporarily resting before they are hit again. While there, he meets a young girl who also had her share of trouble. After Coleridge saves her from an abduction she ends up missing. Not the kind of man to stay out of trouble, he begins to search for her and gets into another spider web of black ops mercenaries, crooked cops, viscous gangs, and spoiled rich brats.

Blood Standard is a rough edged story of the crime underground but is particularly one about a man who precariously leans between feeling at home with the violence and wondering if he has his own moral code that is more important than that of the mobs. Coleridge is a fascinating protagonist and there is lots of background that rounds him into a person you can admire in a way. Mystery literature is full of anti-heroes but here is a particular good one whose darkness and violent ways struggles to be in balance with his own personal code. Coleridge is talented in the witty comeback manner shared by many of the best hardcore stalwarts of the mystery genre and he has his share of sidekicks of the dubious variety. He is a bit like a Jack Reacher on the wrong end of the law. But what really sets this crime noir thriller apart is Laird Barron's very literary style that comes out like a cross between Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet with a rural twist. The author is mostly known for his horror novels and this is his first mystery. That probably explains his darker than usual turn on the genre that is only lightened up a little by a wise guy sense of humor.

The main joy here is watching Coleridge battle against the odds and the guns. While he has the crime solving smarts, in most cases he just barges in like a organized crime Conan the Barbarian. Unlike Conan though, he has his tender side and can count without using his fingers. He even has some literary creds in his choice of reads. This appears to be the first of the series but stands alone with no real "cliff hanger". My guess is you will heartily welcome the second Isaiah Coleridge novel when it comes along.

 

 

Keep digging!

He Digs a Hole

Danger Slater

Fungasm Press

February 14, 2018

4 stars

Harrison Moss decides to dig a hole. It isn't so much a desire as a compulsion and it may have something to do with the seed that he swallowed that came from the unusual tree in his backyard. He goes into the tool shed, cuts off his hands, and replaces them with digging implements. His wife Tabitha is understandably upset with this and his neighbors are a little confused. Yet this is nothing compared to what happens when Harrison and Tabitha falls into the newly dug hole.

Not all Bizarro novels are horror but this one certainly is. Yet Danger Slater is not happy with just scaring you and grossing you out. There is something else happening here. The author occasionally takes a Italo Calvino styled look at the mechanics of the novel, letting the reader look inside his mind. In doing so, he involves the reader and addresses the reader as the pages are turned. From the books I have read by the author I am fairly sure he has some kind of obsession with insects and he does not back down on that obsession. It is difficult to describe what goes on in this book except to say Slater has a gift at describing the grotesque. However among all the weirdness, this seems to be a novel about relationships, separations, and reunions. He Digs a Hole is a joy to read. No matter how strange it gets, the author still has both feet on the ground and knows the reader must see some type of connection between holes, bugs and their own life. It is a feat Slater completes effortlessly.

Yet it is important to state when all is said and done, this is a horror novel. There is much about physical transformation which puts it into the strange and uncomfortable genre of body horror. For those who can understand and revel in such weirdness, He Digs a Hole will be well received. It also will be well received by anyone who enjoys masterful writing.

Just another apocalypse

Hold for Release Until the End of the World

C.V. Hunt

Atlatl Press

January 1, 2018

4 stars

Currie lives in the city of Daxton (Are you sure you spelled that right?) and it does not sound like a nice place. She has a terrible crazy neighbor and a roommate named Kebin (Thank God you didn't spell that A-n-b-y) who pursues any monetary scam possible without consulting her. She is humiliated constantly at her job, and buying groceries seems like a good way to get shot. Oh, and there just might be an apocalypse complete with rampaging fires heading for Daxton.

Hold for Release Until the End of the World is a look at Mid-East America as might have been envisioned by Hieronymous Bosch. But what makes this one intriguing is how C.V. Hunt expresses this nightmare. It is with comic resignation and the sense it is just another day. This is maybe the author's funniest novel to date and "funny" isn't necessarily a word I would use regularly for her writings. Yet it is a "Shake your head" and "isn't that the way it always is" laughter that meets these outrageous and surreal incidents that the narrator regularly gets into. Of all the awful things that happens I am sure there is one or more that everyone can identify with. The novella is essentially black comedy and, as such, speaks to us even if we don't necessarily have a psychotic neighbor and corpses piled up in the back shed.

Oh. And CV. I still think you and you-know-who really need to consider moving.

Dinosaurs in the Amazon

Monsters in the Clouds

Russell James

Severed Press

January 29, 2018

4 stars

Grant Coleman is a paleontologist with a best selling novel and a greedy ex-wife. What few people know is that his novel is actually a true story about a cave in the southwest with huge scorpions, giant bats, and other creatures. He wrote it as a novel since he is afraid that making the unsupported claims of what he actually found would not bode well for his reputation. Thana Katsoros, a shady employee of a exploitative energy company (is there any other kind in novels like this?) enlists Grant's help using monetary encouragement and blackmail. They are going to check out an area in the rain forests of the Amazon that may still have dinosaurs or other supposedly long extinct creatures. Grant is hoping for a new discovery and excitement but doesn't necessarily want to relive the terrors of his last adventure. Of course, that is exactly what happens. It doesn't help that the trip isn't really what the organizer said it was and it doesn't seem to matter to her if some of the participants don't return.

Monsters in the Clouds is the second novel by Russell James that feature the amiable and somewhat harried paleontologist. The first, Cavern of the Damned, is a exhilarating mixture of giant monster movies and Jules Verne-like cave adventures. In this second book the author appears to be channeling a little Arthur Conan Doyle of The Lost World variety. Indeed, Grant feels like a bit of a stand-in for Professor Challenger although Grant is a likeable, less explosive type than Doyle's hot tempered protagonist. The similarity to The Lost World quickly dissipates though, mainly due to a more modern corporation conspiracy theme and the addition of a mild love interest for our paleontologist. Just like the first novel this is an equally fun ride that evokes the early pulp novels and those grade B horror movies with monsters and big creatures that shouldn't be big. Grant Coleman is a bit faster on the clever comebacks here and it suits him. There is an interesting array of companions for him to play against. A few are simply fodder for what attacks them but enough have an important role in the on-going tension of the book.

These Grant Coleman books are a hell of a lot of fun. Again, James places enough science in it to avoid a total pulp feeling but still remains quality pulp adventure. There are a lot of thrilling action segments. The one that sticks with me the most involves a jungle bridge that has a surprise to it. Monster in the Cloud qualifies as pure entertainment. That may not sound like much but how many novels have you read just for the visceral escape quality. Anyone wanting to write a horror or science fiction based adventure novel could learn something by either reading Cavern of the Damned or Monster of the Cloud. Despite a rather open ended conclusion that screams novel three. I still highly recommend this to any lover of adventure and monsters.

Of Skeptics and Spectres

The Elvis Room

Stephen Graham Jones

This is Horror

March 13, 2014

4 & 1/2 stars

"There’s a reason that other guest pacing you, three steps ahead, is so silent. It’s that, under his hat, he has no eyes."

When I think of writers who can do no wrong, Stephen Graham Jones immediately comes to mind. By that, I mean that he has such impeccable skills as a writer he will transform any plot line he brings to his pages. The short but haunting The Elvis Room is a good example of this. With its scholarly professor set-up and its "skeptic is challenged" beginning, it is reminiscent of older works from Blackwood and Machen. Yet it is thoroughly contemporary and has its own devious twists and turns.

A scientist studying sleep behavior has a subject who is terrified of the dark because she thinks she is haunted by the her unborn twin sister. He rigs an experiment to prove to her there is nothing in the dark with her but it tends to suggest the reverse. As this gets out in the tabloids, he is labeled as sort of a paranormal crackpot. He looks for a clearly provable incident that lifts him back into the reputation of a serious scientist. He discovers that every time a hotel books the very last empty room someone dies. He becomes obsessed with proving the hypothesis of "The Elvis Room".

Both the first incident in the story and the scientist's Elvis Room experiment become connected and that is where the horror is. This is a tightly structured story that wastes few words. Its power hinges on everything coming together at the right time. In others words, it is a good example of why SGJ is as good as he is. I would call this a excellent beginning novella for those who want to delve into his work. Then as soon as you finish it run out and get Mongrels. You will get my drift.

The Ring trilogy becomes a series

S:Es

Koji Suzuki

Vertical

December, 19, 2017

4 stars

 

 Ring Trilogy by Koji Suzuki, who is often called the Japanese Stephen King, is an amazing set of three books. While everyone knows the first Ring novel mainly due to the movie, few have read the second two books, Spiral and Loop, and hence do not know the strange twists and turns the plot takes. I heartily recommend all three books.

But until recently I did not know there were other books is the series. Book #4, Birthday, is a collection of short stories based in the Ring universe. Now for the first time in English, we have the fifth book, E:Es, originally written in 2012 but released in English at the end of 2017. I would have initially wondered if two more books were needed since the Ring Trilogy wraps up beautifully and needs no followup. But Suzuki disagreed obviously and the author is always right.

S:Es is said by the publisher to be a stand alone novel set in the Ring universe. I'm not sure I agree with "stand alone" but the author gives you enough back ground to understand what is going on. I'm going to make the assumption every one knows the premise of Ring and the cursed videotape where people die seven days after watching it. The problem is the next two novels add so much more and I'm a little afraid to spoil it by saying what it is. So let's see if I can give an adequate synopsis of S:Es without giving too much away.

Takanori Tando, the son of a character in the trilogy, has come across a video of a hanging execution. The one executed was a killer of four women. But as Takanori watches the video several times he sees the perspective of the video is changing. His fiance Akane who is currently pregnant watches the video by accident and something connects with her. Takanori begins to realize Akane has a deeper connection and may be related to some of the personages involved in the original Ring videos and the virus it carried. The novel becomes a race for knowledge during a time when both Takanori's and Akane's lives may depend on that knowledge.

First, I think it is important to mention this is not about a tape that kills people in seven days even though that part of the story does figure into the final resolution. The plot has gone way beyond that. It is partly a mystery tale, partly a technological thriller thanks to all that computer and video equipment, and very much of a horror tale. S:Es succeeds because it fits so tightly into the sum of the trilogy's scenario but mostly because Takanori and Ando are interesting characters with fully realized dilemmas. They are embarking on a new life with child but Takanori is not sure this will be possible due to what he now knows. Kayane is also perplexed at the vague implications but dives into the fog hoping to see clearer skies ahead. This is not an easy book to follow, especially if you haven't read the first three, but Suzuki does manage to pull the complex plot together.

I'm not sure I can recommend you read this unless you read at least the first three books. However, if you have it fills in a number of areas and manages to be vastly entertaining. E:Es, like the others, are intellectual horror thrillers with a dose of science fiction. They are in some ways a mind game and I feel for that reason one is richer to have read them. E:Es is not as riveting as the Trilogy but still solid in its four stars.

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