Paperback Writher



Quick. Look at the cover of the paperback book right up above.

What comes to mind when you look at it?

I know what comes to mind when I look at it. And though I know in my heart that the image on that cover has almost nothing to do with the contents of the book, I can’t help but find it more than a little creepy. I have read rumors that that image was based on an actual person but it doesn't seem like the image of an actual person.

Which is probably the reason why it was chosen for the cover of the book to begin with...

Of course, when the movie came out, I could not help but anticipate a similar creepy image appearing in the movie itself. But it did not.

The radio ads for said movie were way creepy. But the movie itself did not seem all that scary. I have seen it on TV and on the big screen and the only part that ever came close to frightening me was the scene in which the priest is listening to a tape recordings of the demon-possessed girl and then suddenly the phone rings.

Perhaps the movie was ruined for me by all too many parodies. After all, I had no problem being scared by The Omen -- a film that were admittedly more lowbrow in its artistic ambition than The Exorcist -- and I had went into that film knowing a lot less of the film’s plot than I had known of The Exorcist’s plot the first time I saw it. On the other hand, a Mad Magazine parody had informed me of every major plot development in Chinatown long before I saw it and yet I still enjoyed that movie. And reading endlessly detailed reviews of Apocalypse Now did little to kill my enthusiasm for that film once I had a chance to see it on cable because no matter how much of the movie had been “spoiled“ for me, there was still much of it that seemed fresh.

Unfortunately, the more dependent a movie is on shock effects and cheap stunts, the less likely it is to survive pre-screening spoilers, much less repeat showings. I would like to believe that I would have been genuinely scared by The Exorcist had I seen it when it first came out. And that might even be true. After all, I found the "Tubular Bells" theme used in the movie to be creepy. I found the radio ads to be eerie. And I definitely found the cover of the paperback book to be disturbing.

And yet the movie did not move me all that much.

I guess that fetus demon on the cover was a hard act to follow.

What I'll Be Reading for Thanksgiving



I've always loved Sarah Vowell's writing even if she tends to be more of a political southpaw than most conventional history writers. And of course, I love books about American history.

Hopefully this will be as interesting a combination as her previous book Assassination Vacation:



I hope so.

What I've Read for Columbus Day -- and Afterwards



I've always liked Tony Horwitz's writing and this book -- about the early days of America -- was no exception. A lot of what he wrote about wasn't exactly old news to me, After all, I'm an American History buff and have been especially interested in early America (especially the Spanish explorers he wrote about in this book) -- but I appreciate how he wrote about it in a way that would interest even non-buffs.

Of course, some of the things I learned from this book weren't always flattering to my Hispanic ancestors. For example, I was more than a bit shocked to learn that the main reason that Florida's St. Augustine is America's oldest permanent settlement was that its Spanish founder did his damnedest to wipe out the remnants of an older French Huguenot colony that was close to the same location. Indeed, he had been sent to the New World specifically to wipe out such settlements.

Of oourse, not all the events detailed in this book were that depressing but Horowitz did present a more complex picture of early America than I normally see in history books. So much so that it was almost a shame to see Horwitz tapering off when he got to the Anglo-American colonists. (Though to be fair, not everything he wrote about those colonists were all that flattering either.)

Anyway, the book was a good read and though I'm embarrassed to admit that I had to check it out from the library twice before I finished it, I suspect I will checking it out again in the future for a second and third read, if not more.

Pensamientos Acerca de Libros (Thoughts About Books)

All the Books That I Have Read (More or Less)
Ay, Robot!
Darkness Invisible: Robert Cormier's Fade
Ghost Writers in the Sky
Harry Dresden Is the New Repairman Jack
Libro de la Semana (Book of the Week)
Libros de la Semana (Books of the Week)
More Science Fiction Short Stories I Wish More People Were Familiar With
Paperback Writher
Repairman Jack Redux
Right Turns on the Inside Outside
Science Fiction Short Stories I Wish More People Were Familiar With
The Mayas Never Predicted This Disaster
The Not-So-Family-Friendly Side of Pottermania
The Sorrows of Not So Young Tonio
Well, I Suppose It Was Only a Matter of Time Before They Published a Novel with This Title

Science Fiction Short Stories I Wish More People Were Familiar With

1. “Journeys End” (1957) -- Poul Anderson.

No connection at all to a recent Dr. Who episode with a similar title. And yes, that title is spelled correctly. (It's based on a Shakespeare quote.)

A short story about two telepathic would-be lovers who learn way too much about each other to enjoy a decent relationship, a fate that oddly enough appears to anticipate the pitfalls of today’s cyber-dating. True, we don’t learn as much about our would-be significant others online as the protagonists of this story learn, but we do share the all-too-common temptation to share way too much personal information with our would-be acquaintances in an effort to jump-start an intimacy on which we might otherwise miss out. It doesn’t exactly help that modern society often seems to discourage alternative ways of building a relationship on the grounds that meeting people offline is just so unfashionable.

2. “Snake And Ocean, Ocean and Snake” aka “The Affair” (1984) -- Robert Silverberg.

A telepath carries on a long-distance romance with a fellow telepath.

Another story that appears to have anticipated modern cyber-relationships, although this time the love story has a happier ending. It does, however, anticipate the disappointment many would-be cyber-daters feel when they meet their cyber-partners face-to-face. And it appears to suggest that a purely non-physical relationship with one’s significant other can sometimes be preferable to even the most daring of physical relationships. (Perhaps because it‘s one thing to share one‘s body with another person, but yet another thing to share one’s mind.)

3. “Tomorrow's Children” (1947) -- Poul Anderson.

Mutations become the norm in a post-World War III society. One of the first short stories I ever read that did not argue that the only good mutant was a dead mutant, though one suspects the story was actually meant to reflect contemporary fears about the aftermath of an atomic war, with mutation meant to be just another side effect that would discourage would-be Cold Warriors from promoting the likelihood of World War III.

4. “Multiples” (1983) -- Robert Silverberg.

A woman decides to pose as a sufferer of MPD--in San Francisco, natch. No doubt this story is meant to be Silverberg’s sly comment on bisexuality but it's a moving one, nonetheless. Of course, the woman’s decision to reject her conventional identity at all costs rings a bell even with those of us who are not inclined to reject heterosexuality.

5. “Absalom” (1946) -- Henry Kuttner.

A man experiences a generation gap with his genius-level son. Interestingly enough, it was written before the generation gap of the 1960s.

6. “A Sound of Thunder” (1952) -- Ray Bradbury.

A butterfly plays havoc with history. No doubt this story was inspired by the Kennedy-Nixon presidential race of 1960 although modern readers will be reminded of a more recent presidential race.

7. “Mute” (1962) -- Richard Matheson.

The story of a young telepath who gets adopted by a childless couple after the death of his birth parents and who is later pressured by the local schoolteacher to reject his telepathic abilities in favor of “conventional“ speech. This story was once adapted for a Twilight Zone episode.

Oddly enough, I find it difficult to read this story today without seeing it as a parable of ethnic assimilation. Indeed, the process the story’s schoolteacher uses to force the telepath to become more like the rest of her class seems uncannily like the process used in some stories I’ve read about English immersion. (Though as one who himself went through the English immersion process, I find it odd that it took me years to pick up on this. Sometimes one can be too close to a subject to see certain things.)

8. “Hobson’s Choice” (1952) -- Alfred Bester.

A story that dares to pose the question of whether even the most rugged individualist can be truly happy outside of his own time and culture. Perhaps the story was meant to be Bester’s response to the Miniver Cheevy syndrome, which glorifies the idea of the man born outside his time.

9. “The Last of the Deliverers” (1958) -- Poul Anderson.

The last Communist and the last Republican kill themselves in a society that no longer recognizes the importance of either philosophy. One of the few short stories to anticipate the fall of the Soviet Union but not necessarily the aftermath.

10. “All You Zombies” (1959) -- Robert Heinlein.

A man has identity issues, to put it mildly. The one science fiction story I keep mentally referencing the more time I spend on the Internet because it's so hard not to wonder about the identity of a lot of the people I communicate with. Are they real people like myself or corporate employees pretending to be real people? That question gets harder to answer every year -- and I've already been fooled once.

All the Books That I Have Read (More or Less)

1. All the Classic Books That I Have Read, Part One
2. All the Classic Books That I Have Read, Part Two
3. All the Classic Horror Novels That I Have Read, Part One
4. All the Fantasy Novels That I Have Read, Part One
5. All the Not So Classic Books That I Have Read, Part One
6. All the Not So Classic Books That I Have Read, Part Two
7. All the Not So Classic Books That I Have Read, Part Three
8. Books That Scared the Hell Out of Me When I Was a Kid

Harry Dresden Is the New Repairman Jack

Okay, that's a callous way to put it since I'm sure that Harry Dresden creator Jim Butcher did not intentionally mean to imitate Repairman Jack creator F. Paul Wilson. But he did.

Moreover, Butcher's last two books in the Harry Dresden series, Dead Beat (2005) and Proven Guilty (2006) have a certain vibe and energy that used to exist in the earliest books of the Repairman Jack series but exist no longer.

Reading the latest Repairman Jack books has become tiresome. Jack is no longer that interesting a character and the troubles he faces have a tedious predictability. Even the plot twists in which yet another of Jack's loved ones ended up facing harm have become predictable -- and shameless. (Indeed, one would think that a good writer like Wilson would able to come up with a better plotline than "Jack's so-and-so faces mortal peril -- yet again.")

However, reading the latest Harry Dresden books is exciting. Harry Dresden is interesting in a way that Jack used to be but is no longer and his stories tend to blend genuine moral conflicts with good old-fashioned derring-do. Not all his storylines involve Harry's nearest and dearest facing mortal peril (which makes the few instances in which that plot device arises all the more powerful). Moreover, the latest books build on each other so that each can be read separately but are more effective when read as a series.

Of course, part of the problem with the Repairman Jack books is that Wilson has written himself into a corner. He can't really do anything all that new with the Repairman Jack character that would negate the events in an earlier novel (Nightworld) but he can't move on to a new character either. Anyone who has ever read The Tomb (the book that first introduced Repairman Jack) can understand Wilson's reluctance to drop the character, but unfortunately, it's difficult to love the characters Wilson introduced in that book and still applaud the events in the latest books. Even the big twist in the last Repairman Jack book I read (Harbingers) which essentially pits Jack against God isn't as intriguing as one would think.

Harry Dresden's still not as popular as that other Harry fellow who fights evil wizards and stuff but he is definitely worth reading.

The Harry Dresden TV series, alas, is something worth skipping. Oh, well, even Harry can't win 'em all...

The One Book I Most Look Forward to Re-Reading This Christmas Season

One of my favorite anthologies from one of my favorite modern sci-fi writers. (And yes, I suppose she can be considered a fantasy writer too.)

Among other things, this book includes Ms. Willis' take on the original Christmas Story, plus the definitive argument as to why the original Miracle on 34th Street is a better movie than that other Christmas movie associated with the 1940s. (The one directed by Frank Capra, and no, I don't mean Meet John Doe.)

And, of course, it has more than a few of Ms. Willis' own short stories, which is never a bad thing in my book.

More Things I'm Thankful For

1. The fact that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is back (even if it's in comic book form):

2. The fact that one of my favorite published authors, Shanna Swendson, had another book published this year:

3. The fact that I finally caught up with this movie (which is proving to be one of my favorite musicals):

4. The fact that I caught up with this flick as well:

5. The fact that this book finally came back into print this year after being out of print for all too long:

Darkness Invisible: Robert Cormier's Fade

Wouldn't it be cool to be invisible? To be able to go anyway you want without anyone who might stop you being able to see you? To see anything you want without ever getting caught? Wouldn't that be neat?

Then again, maybe it would not be that neat. Suppose you ended up going places you didn't really want to go? Or seeing things you didn't really want to see?

As you might guess, Robert Cormier's novel Fade is based on the latter premise. His protagonist is a young French-Canadian kid named Paul Moreaux who lives in Depression-era Massachusetts. One day he discovers that he has inherited the gift of invisibility from his ancestors. His uncle Adelard -- who also has the gift -- tries to clue him in on the various drawbacks of the gift but, alas, the lesson does not quite go far enough.

Paul Moreaux quickly discovers the darker side of his “gift” and eventually discovers an even darker side to it when it gets passed on to an illegitimate relative. He tries to do the right thing but finds that that is not so easy to do. And then...

But to say much more is to spoil the story and Robert Cormier's story does not deserve to be spoiled. This novel was nominated for the 1989 World Fantasy Award and quite frankly, it deserves its nomination. It also received a recent shout-out on the Byzantium's Shores site so I felt obliged to give it a shout-out on this site as well.

I read this book over fifteen years ago and I still find the novel worth re-reading. Unfortunately, the book has never been made into a movie but then given the bizarre things Hollywood often does to great novels, that is probably more a blessing than a curse.

And the Big Secret about the Latest Harry Potter Novel Is

It's a book.

Not a cure for cancer. Not a proposal for world peace. Just a book.

Yes, I was shocked too.

The Not-So-Family-Friendly Side of Pottermania

Twenty-five bucks! Fuck that shit!
--Asylum Street Spankers, “Smells like Thirty Something”

Okay, the new Harry Potter book isn't quite twenty-five bucks in most locations. (In fact, some are selling it for thirty-five bucks. Though if you buy a copy there really soon, you might be able to get it at a forty percent discount. Which isn't much cheaper than twenty-five bucks but, hey, every little bit counts.)

And yes, that Asylum Street Spankers song wasn't written about Harry Potter books.

And yet one can't help but wonder how many poor kids are going to be buying this new book anyway?

Yeah, I know. Those poor kids read too many books anyway. And are there no libraries or Goodwill stores to provide these kids with free or cheap copies long after every other rich kid in the universe has done their best to make them feel like shit for not reading the latest installment?

I don't hate the Harry Potter series. I'll be the first to admit that J. K. Rowling is one heck of a storyteller and that she has done a good job of writing something that people in my age-group -- I'm in my mid-forties -- can enjoy as much as the average grade school student.

But I'm not worried about people like me.

I'm worried about people far younger and poorer than me.

Yes, I realize access to cheap books isn't the worst problem poor kids in America are facing right now. But it does seem kinda funny to see people charging boodles of money to have rich people read about a poor kid like Harry Potter while at the same time ensuring that any real-life Harry Potter not be able to afford said book. In other words, the latest book is more likely to be read by a rich kid like Draco Malroy (one of the villains of the series) than a poor kid like Harry Potter.

Heh. Irony.

Libro de la Semana (Book of the Week)

It was inevitable. I just had to buy this book. With my family background, I had no choice.

Right Turns on the Inside Outside

Strengthen them, oh Lord,
And keep them from the strangers' ways.
--Topol, Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm dating a Baptist girl right now or the fact that I've been romantically involved with a number of Protestant girls despite being a good Catholic boy who has dreamt since childhood of marrying a fellow mackerelsnapper, but I seem to be reading a lot of books lately about interfaith relationships.

Of course, a relationship between Protestants and Catholics seems less controversial than a relationship between Christians and Jews. And yet I find it impossible to read a book about Jews and Christians dating one another without comparing it to my own experience.

The latest such book is author Herman Wouk's Inside, Outside, a novel I considered at best so-so until the author introduces the main character's Gentile girlfriend, Bobbie Webb. Then suddenly I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

Of course it didn't hurt that Wouk was writing about a beautiful showgirl and I -- like most straight men -- have a weakness for stories about beautiful showgirls.

And yet this book seemed different.

Perhaps because in this book, the author doesn't gloss over the feelings of the Gentile girl. True, the author's main emphasis is on the Jewish character's feelings but he does not gloss over the girl's feelings like some authors would. He does not ignore the irony of a Jewish character who spends much of the book feeling like an outsider in the gentile world treating his own beloved as an outsider. Nor does he pretend that the Jewish character's eventual decision to pass up Bobbie Webb in exchange for a relationship with a nice Jewish girl is painless to either party.

I know it's not fair to compare fiction to nonfiction but I can't resist thinking of an account of a similar relationship in Michael Medved's autobiography Right Turns. Medved, too, eventually gives up his shiksa girlfriend in favor of a nice Jewish girl but for some reason, his account rings kinda heartless. True, he deserves props for not disguising the fact that he cheated on his gentile girlfriend and for not making her out to be worse than she was. (In fact, she comes across as being far more sympathetic a person than he is.) But his decision to give up his girlfriend and return to his Jewish roots is presented in such a positive unambiguous light that one can't help feeling sorry for Medved's ex-girlfriend and wondering what she ever saw in the guy.

Oh, well.

I'm not yet sure what I learned from Herman Wouk's book or how it relates to the current amor de mi vida but I'm sure I'll find out eventually. If nothing else, I pray I treat her more kindly than Medved treated his ex-novia. And that I don't end up calling her Bobbie...

Ghost Writers in the Sky

I loved Gary Jennings' book Aztec as much as the next guy but there's something just so wrong about seeing the series continued after his death. Especially since the original book never really needed a sequel to begin with.

The Sorrows Of Not So Young Tonio

I just finished Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, a novel which made Goethe a celebrity in his day. What a sad commentary on how times change that few people apart from German Lit students even hear of it today.

Anyway, the novel still holds up quite favorably today, and the most amazing part is not the romantic conventions it obviously inspired but the conventions it chooses not to follow. Unlike many “romances” one sees today, Goethe does not choose to make young Werther's romantic rival a hopeless clod or a brutal sadist. Instead, he's just an ordinary guy who is genuinely deserving of happiness. Nor is the object of his affection necessarily a woman who “needs” rescue from a loveless marriage or an involuntary engagement. In fact, there is never any indication given that the woman in question -- Charlotte -- regrets not being romantically involved with Werther or desires escape from her current relationship.

Alas, Werther doesn't see it that way and in the end, he kills himself, an act that not only ends his life but worsens the life of the woman he supposedly loved.

There's a lesson there, methinks...

An Exception To The “No Mexicans in Outer Space” Rule?

Alas, I haven't read this book yet, but it is tempting...

Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Yeah

I've been trying to resist the opportunity to comment on the recent James Frey scandal if for no other reason than (1) I haven't yet read his book A Million Little Pieces, and (2) I have no intention of reading it.

However, one can read only so many variations on the old “why make a big deal out of James Frey's lies when Bush lied worse?” line that has been going around the Internet before one feels compelled to say something. After all, I'm no Bush fan but I don't quite see what his lies have to do with Frey's. Granted, Frey's lies are by no means as terrible as the ones that provoked the current Iraqi War, but that doesn't mean that they're insignificant.

Any thought I might have had to the contrary was promptly banished by this op-ed piece I read by author Stephen King, who makes his case against Frey more eloquently than I can ever dream of doing.

28 Calls Later

Stephen King has a new novel out about the evils of cell phones. A fact that I can't help but find ironic since my friends and family have been bugging me to get a cell phone for years.

Repairman Jack Redux

I used to like F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack character. In fact, back in 1987, when I first came across the character in Wilson's novel The Tomb in a Michigan library, I used to visit the local library every day just to read another few chapters of that book. (I didn't have a library card for that library so just checking out the book like a normal library patron wasn't an option.)

And yet Wilson's new Repairman Jack novel Infernal makes me wonder why I bothered.

Repairman Jack has gone from being a genuinely interesting character to a fairly predictable one. Nor is the plot any help. Yet another mysterious relative of Jack's -- this time his brother -- is introduced, yet another mysterious entity shows up and yet more time is marked between the events of The Tomb and its sequel (of sorts) Nightworld.

I realize Wilson doesn't exactly have a lot of room for flexibility in this storyline, but geez, he used to be better.

Perhaps the adventures of Repairman Jack were better ended with Nightworld. After all, it's a little hard to care too much about Repairman Jack's latest adventure with the Adversary when we readers of Nightworld already know what happens to Repairman Jack in the long run.

Besides, I for one would like to see F. Paul Wilson move on to a new character. Preferably before readers like myself start moving on to another author...