At Hobart

At Hobart
November, 2022

Hobart, New York, is a strange little place. It's a 'middle-of-nowhere' sort of place. 

It's a hamlet in Delaware County, about a half-hour drive east from Oneonta. To get to Hobart, you take a scenic drive on two-lane blacktop roads that wind through the Catskill mountains and landscapes showcasing valleys, rolling fields, and farmhouses. And a power line maintenance depot (below). 

Hobart's Main Street, which isn't very long, has - depending on the source - anywhere from five to eight used book stores, all operating out of repurposed residential and commercial buildings (the site of Liberty Rock Books, pictured above, is a former car dealership / garage).

I went there on a rainy, stormy Saturday after Thanksgiving. I found some nice old paperbacks (below) in Liberty Rock Books. 

I didn't have sufficient time to check out the other stores on the main street, but I think I will return to Hobart in the future. 

Other than the bookstores there's not much else in Hobart, besides a little antiques place and a Mirabito gas station. If you want a restaurant meal, or overnight lodging, you'll likely have to head north up Route 10 to Stamford. So a visit to Hobart is best approached as an all-day affair dedicated solely to looking at books............

Book Review: Blue World

Book Review: 'Blue World' by Robert R. McCammon

 4 / 5 Stars

'Blue World' (435 pp.) was published by Pocket Books in April, 1990, and features cover art by James Warren. The book is long out of print, and good-condition copies are highly priced. I was able to get a beat-up copy for $8.

Robert R. McCammon (b. 1952) is arguably the most commercially successful of the splatterpunks, with many of his novels, starting with 'Baal' in 1978, published by such well-known paperback publishers as Avon and Pocket Books. Others of his novels have been published in hardback by firms such as Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. Since 2002, McCammon has focused on historical thrillers featuring his character Matthew Corbett.

'Blue World' is an anthology of 12 short stories written by McCammon during the interval from 1981 to 1990, some of these seeing print first in other anthologies, or Twilight Zone magazine. Also included in 'Blue World' is an eponymous novel.

[A reprint of 'Blue World', featuring three additional stories, was issued by Subterranean Press in 2015.]

My capsule summaries of the contents of 'Blue World':

Yellowjacket Summer: Jerome Bixby's It's A Good Life, with nasty vespids. 

Makeup: petty thief Calvin Doss heists a makeup case formerly owned by the horror film actor Orlon Kronsteen. There are consequences. A fun story, with a fun ending.

Doom City: Brad wakes up from a bad dream, only to find reality is even worse.

Nightcrawlers: just when it's dark and stormy, Bad Company arrives at a diner in the Alabama countryside. 

Yellachile's Cage: prison, and a Magic Negro. McCammon shows he can do the theme as well as, if not better, than Stephen King.

I Scream Man ! : a Twilight Zone - style tale set in what seems to be an idyllic suburban neighborhood.

He'll Come Knocking at Your Door: life in Dan Burgess's suburban Alabama neighborhood is really nice.....maybe too nice. A nice treatment of the 'deal with the Devil' theme.

Chico: in a sweltering tenement apartment, the odious Marcus Salomon copes with the unfairness of life. The story's subdued splatterpunk flavoring works well with its offbeat premise. One of the best entries in the anthology.

Night Calls the Green Falcon: an elderly man who portrayed a costumed hero in prewar serials decides to reprise his role in the seedy landscape of modern Los Angeles. This story fulfills its goal of being an affectionate homage to the heroes of the Pulp Era (one character is named Lester Dent). 

Pin: a psycho, and his monologue. Not that exciting.

The Red House: in a joyless Factory Town, the arrival of an eccentric family brings with it an appreciation for Diversity, and the awareness that Being Different can be a Good Thing. 

The virtue messaging in this story is very earnest (the eccentric family obviously are stand-ins for Black People). 

Something Passed By: the End of the World comes to a small Nebraska town. Imaginative, and another of the better entries in the anthology.

Blue World: Father John Lancaster, a priest at the Cathedral of Saint Francis, befriends Debbie Stoner, a beautiful but witless young woman who works in the porno industry in San Francisco's Tenderloin district. Things get quite complicated when Father John's emotions turn from the brotherly to the romantic, emotions reciprocated by Debbie. Father John finds himself distressed by the tension between his priestly avocation, and his infatuation with an adult film star. 

Making things worse, a serial killer is leaving corpses strewn in the Tenderloin........and he has a particular interest in Debbie Stoner........ 

'Blue World' is an effort by McCammon to write a novel devoid of supernatural trappings, focusing on Humanistic Issues and Psychological Suspense. 

The novel starts promisingly, with a man reading a Slash Maraud comic book inside of a XXX Live Show Theatre. But the remaining narrative never fulfills the early promise. It tends to lumber along, handicapped by its low-gear prose (on wet pavement, neon lights stream like the rivers of Hell; leg muscles scream; grins are big-toothed; when people sweat, they sweat cold sweat; voices take on a hint of acid, etc., etc.) and a sense of indecision as to whether it's meant to be a suspense novel with Melodrama, or a Melodrama novel with suspense.........  

The verdict on the anthology 'Blue World' ? There are enough good stories to justify a four-star rating. I will note that over at Too Much Horror Fiction, Will Errickson was much less impressed with the book than I was. Let's just say that McCammon fans will want to have a copy in their collection.

'Stranger' by Shakatak

'Stranger' by Shakatak

Looking through the old singles charts for the UK always is interesting. 

For the last half of November, 1982, at position No. 53 we find the single 'Stranger', from the band Shakatak.

According to their Wikipedia entry, Shakatak was a jazz-fusion band, formed in 1980 by Nigel Wright and Kev Roberts. 'Stranger' was a track on the band's second album, Invitations. 

'Stranger' is a very listenable song, a well-composed jazz / disco fusion number with silky smooth guitar and piano motifs. 

Shakatak continues to record and release, issuing the studio album In the Blue Zone in 2019, and the live album Live in Lockdown in 2021.  

Burton and Cyb: The Next God Will Be A Better One

Burton and Cyb

'The Next God Will Be A Better One'

from Heavy Metal magazine, March 1989

The March, 1989 issue of Heavy Metal magazine features cover art by Luis Royo. By now, editor Julie Simmons-Lynch was firmly dedicated to filling the magazine with softcore porn and cheesecake content and abandoning the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror pieces that had made the first five years of Heavy Metal interesting and worthwhile. 

That said, the centerpiece of this issue, the lengthy 'Leo Roa' comic written and illustrated by Juan Gimenez, is reasonably entertaining (although it does channel the sensibilities of Jodorowsky and Moebius and 'The Incal').

Also of value in the March, 1989 issue is another episode of 'Burton and Cyb'. Here, the galaxy's favorite con men find themselves engaged in more trickery, this time involving some fractious aborigines............

National Lampoon November 1979

National Lampoon, November 1979

It's that time to travel back in time, 43 years, to November, 1979. On the radio, in heavy rotation, are 'Babe' by Styx; 'Escape (The Pina Colada Song)', by Rupert Holmes, and 'Heartache Tonight' by the Eagles. Anticipation is building for the release next month of the blockbuster films Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Steven Spielberg's 1941.

The November issue of National Lampoon is on the stands. This is a 'Love' themed issue, and it's not very good (too many mediocre pieces from editor P. J. O'Rourke). The advertisements actually are some of the more interesting examples of pop culture detritus in this issue. For example, we get Bruce Jenner selling cameras...........

Fleetwood Mac's double album, 'Tusk', gets some promotion.......

Smoking 'Camel' brand cigarettes, and wearing flannel shirts and bellbottom jeans, will get you noticed by foxy ladies.....

I never imbibed any liqueur from 'Bols', but they still are in the beverage business to this day.

I never thought much of Steve Martin and his type of comedy, but back in '79, he was a big deal.

And buying ad space in the back pages of the magazine are purveyors of prophylactics, and 'Mr. Bill' tee shirts...........

One of the more interesting comedy pieces in the November issue is a comic from Shary Flenniken, titled 'Perfect Pickup', that plays on the singles bar scene of the decade's end, and uses an unusual, ankle-level perspective in its narrative.

'Foto Funnies', a staple of the early years of the magazine, has been replaced by 'Michael Brennan's True Experience':

Cartoonist Charles Rodrigues contributes '22 Houston Street', which mocks people dealing with substance abuse. You could get away with a lot of stuff, back in '79.

We close with a three-page comic, 'Love Under Laboratory Conditions', from Ted Mann, Blaine Schlosser, and Bernie Wrightson. I can't say the story is all that engaging, but as always, Wrightson did a fine job with the artwork.

There you have it. Laughs and culture from 43 years ago..........!

Book Review: Software

Book Review: 'Software' by Rudy Rucker

1 / 5 Stars

'Software' (211 pp.) was published by Ace Books in January, 1982. The cover artist is uncredited. It's the first volume in the so-called 'Ware' series, followed by 'Wetware' (1988), 'Freeware' (1997), and 'Realware' (2000).

'Software' is set in 2020. The protagonist, 70 year-old robotics expert Cobb Anderson, is spending his retirement on the coast of Florida. In his younger days, Anderson was responsible for stimulating robots to evolve their intelligence according to Darwinian mechanisms. This in turn led to the development of sentience among the robots, and initiated a revolt of the automatons staffing a mining and construction facility on the Moon. The Moon now is a redoubt of robotkind, and while the robots are not overtly hostile towards humans, neither are they convinced that humanity deserves to inherit the universe.

Indeed, the Moon robots believe the world will be a better place once all of the human race are converted into androids, and emplaced within the consciousness of robotkind. Having developed what they believe is a successful technology for transferring a human's thoughts, memories, and personality - in other words, his or her 'software' - into an android body, the robots, in a demonstration of sentimentality, are interested in converting their creator, Cobb Anderson, into an android.

Anderson is intrigued by the idea of acquiring immortality through technology. But so doing will require travel to the Moon, where the robots are carefully vague about just how Anderson's personality and consciousness will be implanted in a android body. Will the reconstituted Anderson be solely a software construct, slaved to the commands of his robot saviors ? Or will Anderson the person persevere ? 

For Anderson, time to decide his own fate is running out, for a policeman named Mooney has suspicions that a conspiracy is in the offing...........with Cobb Anderson a key element in its designs..........

'Software' was, for me, a dud. I'm not much of a fan of the genre of comedic sci-fi, which, more than cyberpunk, 'Software' belongs to. Had the novel been longer than 211 pages of large-font type, I might have given up on it at the half-way mark.

Like many comedic sci-fi novels, 'Software' relies on a breathlessly paced prose style, as if taking too long between gags might risk sinking the narrative. There is a reliance on cutesy mannerisms (one character is named 'Sta-Hi', another 'Haf-N-Haf'), one-liners, witty quotes, sarcastic comments, and Southern slang rendered phonetically (never a good sign). 

The plot has a haphazard, throwaway quality, as if the author considered it simply a backdrop upon which to post one humorous escapade after another. When the denouement finally arrived, I found it but a small return on my investment in reading 'Software'.

The verdict ? I finished 'Software' with no desire to read the additional novels in the series. If you are a fan of the fiction of Ron Goulart, Robert Sheckley, Douglas Adams, and Terry Pratchett, then you may like Rucker's novel. Otherwise, there's no penalty for passing on it..........

At the Library Sale, Fall 2022

At the Library Sale

Fall 2022

Well, it was time once again for the library's used book Sale, and I stuffed some bills in my pocket and headed off to the shopping center where the Sale was to take place. 

These were fine Fall days, and I was in good spirits, confident that some nice PorPor books were destined to be in my possession.

I made multiple visits and did pretty well each time. I sidestepped the resellers who were pulling David Gemmell, Neal Stephenson, and Mercedes Lackey titles from the shelves, and saw that someone had donated a bunch of yellow-spine DAW paperback books, published in the 1970s, all in very fine (or even 'like new') condition. And they were priced at only a buck each ! I picked them up. 

I also got a decent copy of the notorious 'Space Relations', by Donald Barr, along with some rather obscure action, historical, sci-fi, and fantasy paperbacks from the 1970s, like 'A Thunder of Stars', 'Kiteman', 'Azor !', 'Harkfast', 'The Stork Factor', etc., I hadn't heard of. 

What can I say ? Collecting old sci-fi paperbacks is a cheap, but rewarding, thrill..............

Killraven Epic Collection

Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds
Marvel Epic Collection, 2021

'Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds' was published in 2021. As an entry in Marvel's 'Epic Collection' imprint, it's designed to be an affordable trade paperback reprinting the comic books of the 1970s that featured the Killraven character. In the 504 pages of this Epic Collection, you get all of Killraven's entries in Amazing Adventures from issue 18 (May 1973) to 39 (November 1976). Also bundled in the book are the May, 1976 issue of Marvel Team-Up featuring Spider-Man and Killraven, and the 1983 Killraven graphic novel, 'Last Dreams Broken'. 

The last section of the Epic Collection contains various editorial essays, draft script and art pages, and Marvel encyclopedia entries for Killraven and his allies. In his editorial essay for the debut of Killraven in Amazing Adventures #18, Roy Thomas reveals that he first conceived of the character in 1971, but his pressing writing and editorial duties kept him from presenting Killraven until two years later.

One thing that should be noted is that the comics in the Epic Collection are recolored and are significantly brighter than those of the original comics. Purists might object to this process, but even making allowances for the inevitable fading of the original comic, in the scans compared below, I think the recolored version is better:

left: panel from Amazing Adventures issue 33 (November 1975), right, panel from the Epic Collection reprint

I still remember encountering Amazing Adventures #18 in the Spring of 1973 on the rack in the Seven-Eleven in Elmira Heights, New York, and thinking, 'this is a cool comic !' It had a far-out, sci-fi flavor quite unlike anything else on the comic book rack.

The Killraven stories had a level of violence, and gruesome deaths, that stretched the boundaries of a Comics Code book of the mid-1970s, which added to its hip quality. The  mutants and monsters and villains in the pages of Killraven had no qualms about snuffing out Earthlings in order to bring about the subjugation of the planet at the hands - or rather, tentacles - of the Martian invaders.

Indeed, in issue #27 (November 1974) readers learned of a facility where human females were housed in cages and regularly impregnated by their hapless husbands, so that their infants could be served up to the Martians as culinary delicacies - ! Pretty strong stuff for a superhero comic, back in the day.

The Killraven saga also offered some eccentric content that could only have been approved in the 1970s, such as the episode where Killraven encountered an underground city peopled by blacks who had fled the Martian invasion in order to establish a blacks-only realm, free of white racism. 

When Killraven stumbled across the city, its inhabitants were none too pleased to see him...........written by white writer Bill Mantlo, the story featured dialogue that exemplified 70s Black Power !  

The initial issues of the Killraven storyline were straightforward sci-fi adventure, and well illustrated by Marvel veteran Herb Trimpe. But with Amazing Adventures No. 27 (November 1974) P. Craig Russell joined as the permanent artist. Russell's artwork, with its Art Deco / Art Nouveau sensibilities, made Killraven stand out from Marvel's other titles. 

Unfortunately, with issue 27, writer Don McGregor's proclivities to overwrite were given free rein, a decision that was to handicap the remaining two years of the series. 

Too often, Russell's ornate pencils, and the imaginative color schemes of a revolving cast of colorists, were overwhelmed by McGregor's pretentious verbiage.

The plots became more contrived and unconvincing, and divorced from the 'war with the Martians' theme, in order for McGregor to demonstrate that, even though comics books are for juveniles, he was an immense literary talent who rose above the limitations of the medium.

The 1983 graphic novel is a disappointment. The opportunity to tie up some loose threads plot-wise is available, but McGregor can't resist overwriting things, and too many panels are burdened with excessive speech balloons, too many of which are stuffed with grandiloquent text.  

The verdict ? If you are a Baby Boomer, like me, and you want to recapture the fun of encountering the Killraven storyline once again, then the Epic Collection is a very affordable way to do so. Just be prepared to see the writing for the series evolve from sci-fi fun, to self-indulgent circumlocutions. 

The art, however, remains strong even after the passage of nearly 50 years.

Book Review: Psi High and Others

Book Review: 'Psi High and Others' by Alan E. Nourse

2 / 5 Stars

'Psi High and Others' (157 pp.) was published by Ace Books in 1967. The cover art is by Don Ivan Punchatz.

Alan E. Nourse (1928-1992) is perhaps best known for his 1974 novel The Bladerunner, and his 1963 anthology The Counterfeit Man and Others, a perennial selection of the Scholastic Book Club during the Baby Boomer years. 

'Psi High' consists of three novellas. All are set in the 22nd century, and are framed using the plot device of benevolent aliens watching over human affairs from afar, forbidden to interfere. At the same time, however, the aliens are inclined to see that mankind rises from his self-inflicted handicaps and achieves emancipation among the other intelligent races of the galaxy. 

In 'The Martyr', a complicated medical procedure known as Rejuvenation can restore youthful vigor, and lengthen the lifespan, of the privileged few allowed to receive it. Given that the politically powerful and well-connected control access to Rejuvenation, such access has become a tool for coercion and control. Senator Dan Fowler, a genuine Man of the People, is using all of his considerable conviction and statecraft to try and make Rejuvenation available to the masses. But what if Rejuvenation isn't the remarkable gift it would seem to be ?

In 'Psi High' a malevolent alien, disguised as a Terran, roams the Earth on a mission of mayhem. Only telepaths, those with 'high' psi capabilities, can detect the alien. But of course, those with psi capabilities are hated and feared by some of their fellow humans. Can those gifted with psi powers nobly act to save their fellow humans - however bigoted these might be - from the alien threat ?

In 'Mirror, Mirror', hostile aliens have secreted their ship in the clouds covering the surface of Saturn. From a nearby space station, the story's protagonists try to find and destroy the aliens by mentally piloting attack drones down into the murk. But the aliens have thwarted these efforts by responding with devastating psychic attacks. Can Dorie Kendall from the psi academy discover a way to defeat the aliens, or is the Earth doomed to fall under an extraterrestrial invasion ?

I finished 'Psi High and Others' underwhelmed. While Nourse is certainly a more gifted prose stylist than those of his contemporaries who were writing sci-fi in the 1960s, the fact is that these three novellas are dull and unexciting. The narratives in these novellas are reliant on protracted dialogue passages, in which the characters indulge in melodramatic exchanges. The denouements of 'Psi High' and 'Mirror Mirror' rely on gimmicky contrivances that fail to live up to the overheated nature of the emotional and psychological confrontations that underpin the narratives.

These stories do promote a note of confidence and optimism in the human potential. But by 1967, when these stories were published, the burgeoning New Wave movement was expressing a more skeptical, and more nuanced, attitude towards humanism, and the meliorism of Nourse's stories already was becoming passe.

Return to Normals

Back to Normals

It was a mild Autumn day, warm, with hazy sunshine, and it had been 4 1/2 years since my last visit, so I risked the badly damaged, potholed, decaying streets of Baltimore to travel to Normals Books and Records on East 31st Street.

Not much has changed with the store or with the neighborhood (still sketchy and Inconclusively Gentrifying) since I first started going to Normals in the early 1990s. 

They always have some interesting things on display in their window............stopping to examine the displayed items always confers some instant Hipster Credit.

I came away with a modest collection of sci-fi titles and a 1985 copy of the book of the Friedman brothers' comics from Heavy Metal and National Lampoon, Any Similarity to Persons Living Or Dead Is Purely Coincidental. 

I'll have a post up about the Friedmans' book pretty soon. 

Always nice to be at Normals, on a nice Fall day..........