Book Review: Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

Book Review: 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome' by Joan D. Vinge

5 / 5 Stars

This novelization of the screenplay of ‘Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome’ (Warner Books, 1985, 219 pp.) was written by Joan D. Vinge; she is of course a well-known SF writer (‘The Snow Queen’, ‘Psion’).

There’s nothing in the novelization that does not appear in the film, but it does provide some little bits of detail, nuances, and backstory that will be appreciated by fans of ‘Thunderdome’. For example, the reason why Master uses pidgin English in the first half of the film (“No energy, no town. Me King Arab !”) is so that Blaster can follow the conversation. It’s later in the film that Master reverts to correct English (“My name is Elvis Ford…I’m thirty-five inches tall…Sixty-six years old…And my life is over…”).

We also learn that the little shaven-headed man, sporting the mask and plume of hair atop an aerial fixed to his back, is named ‘Ironbar Bassey’, and the convict who befriends Max in the pigpens of the Underworld is named ‘Pig Killer’ (an unforgiveable offense in Bartortown). The Master of Ceremonies at Thunderdome, the man with the slicked-back hair, is named Dr Dealgood, and the tattooed, blind saxophonist in Aunt Entity’s palace is named…appropriately….. Tonton Tattoo. These are the little bits of Australian humor that give the story its quirky, offbeat character.

The novel makes clearer the reasons for the increasing enmity between Aunt Entity and Master, and thus Max's mission to the Thunderdome. As well, the segment of the film that takes place in the camp of the lost children, which I found confusing (due in some part to the Australian accents of the actors and their heavily stylized dialogue: "we're be doing The Tell so that them's who come after, be in the knowing of the why and the how") is easier to understand as described in the novelization.

Even if you are familiar with the movie the novelization is a worthy read; Vinge is skilled at relating events via a smooth and well-paced narrative that can be very engaging at times. Indeed, ‘Thunderdome’ is one of the better script novelizations I’ve encountered. Recommended to Mad Max fans, and those who enjoy a good post-apocalyptic adventure story.

As of October 2009, there are reports that director George Miller will start filming the fourth installment of the series, tentatively titled 'Mad Max: Fury Road', in Australia in 2010. Rumored casting choices include Sam Worthington (from 'Terminator: Salvation'), Tim Worthy, and Charlize Theron (Mel Gibson is apparently adamant that he will not reprise his role as Mad Max).

'Heavy Metal' magazine, December 1979

 

It’s December 1979 and the decade of the 70s is drawing to a disillusioned, exhausted close. The economy is still recovering from the effects the past Summer’s crude oil / gasoline shortage, and now some fanatical Iranians have imprisoned US embassy staffers. It seems as if the US is in the grip of a downward spiral politically and economically.

On the radio, Dionne Warwick is getting heavy airplay for her single ‘Déjà vu’, as is a timely new holiday song, ‘Wonderful Christmas Time’ by Paul McCartney and Wings.

The December 1979 issue of Heavy Metal features a suitably sci-fi themed cover illustration, ‘He’s Comin’ to Town’, by Richard Cohen and John Townley; the back cover art is ‘Sweet Dreams’ by Thomas Warkentin.

Inside, we find part two of Corben’s ‘Rowlf’, and excerpts from two gift books released in time for the holidays: ‘Giants’, and ‘Gnomes’. Harland Ellison provides a reprint, with an updated Introduction, of his 1969 short story ‘Santa Claus Vs Spider’.

Among the other comics in this issue are ‘Suburban Scenes’ by Caza; ‘Formalhaut’ by Algora; ‘A Tale of Christmas’ from Moebius; and ‘Slim Kentucky’ by Cornillon.

But the best piece in the issue is yet another demented gem of a story from Arthur Suydam: ‘Christmas Carol’, which I post here. Brilliant pen-and-ink artwork, a creepily memorable plot, and some twisted scenes unlike anything you'll see in a conventional horror comic….enjoy !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Holdstock, author of 'Mythago Wood', passes away at age 61

I haven't read much of Robert Holdstock's fiction over the years, but I do remember reading 'Mythago Wood' back in 1986. It was a worthy read, all the more so for depicting the forest-bound, bronze-age Mythagos in all their rather dirty, briar-scratched, and unbathed glory. 'Mythago' was definitely one of the best fantasy novels published in the 80s.


According to this article in the Guardian, Robert Holdstock has passed away at age 61 of an infection with E. coli. He had evidently been ill since November 18, and died on November 29, 2009, after being placed in intensive care with multiple organ failure. Holdstock appears to have been in good health prior to being exposed to the E. coli, which makes his death all the more unexpected and unfortunate.


While it is unclear what strain of E. coli was responsible, it is quite probable that E. coli O157:H7, an 'enterohemorrhagic' strain historically associated with the consumption of rare hamburger meat,  spinach, sprouts, and other foods, may have been the culprit.


E. coli o157:H7 is a serious public health problem in Great Britain. Over the past few years outbreaks have taken place among fish n' chips shop patrons, consumers of lunch meat and  children visiting a petting zoo. Some of the more well-known patients include Elton John and Johnny Depp's daughter. 


What makes the infection difficult to combat is the fact that by the time many individuals are diagnosed, intervention with antibiotics may not be sufficient to prevent fatal damage to the kidneys and other organs. 

Heavy Metal December 1977: Making My Own Christmas Card

For Christmas 2009 I decided to do something different in terms of my Christmas cards; rather than picking up some styles from the Hallmark store, or the rack at 'The Crystal Fox' (a New Age boutique on Main Street in Laurel, Maryland), I would make my own.

I investigated a number of custom ‘photo card’ websites, and eventually settled on Vistaprint, mainly because their pre-formatted styles allowed for a design with the photo occupying the entire front of the card, as opposed to being shrunk and nested within an ornate border or frame. Vistaprint also provided a template ‘blank’ 5” x 7” folded card with a vertical (portrait) orientation.

For the card, I used a 200 dpi scan (2.5 MB jpeg) of the cover of Heavy Metal magazine’s December 1977 issue: a priceless Jean Solè portrait of Santa Claus as a menacing biker (!), with a ‘Joyeux Noel’ message displayed on a banner across the bike’s handlebars.

So how did the whole experience go ?

The pluses:

-the image on the cards reproduced with good quality

-at $20 total (including shipping and handling) for 10 cards, the per-card price of $2 was reasonable.

-the price includes 10 white envelopes sized to hold a 5” x 7” card

-the interval from when I placed my order online until I received the cards in the snail mail was 9 days.

The minuses:

-the Vistaprint card design webpage is a pain to use. Basically, you click thru successive screens to upload your image, and then you go thru various menus to select the options and features you want, such as text on the front of the card. This sounds good in theory, but there are annoyances; for example, I was forced to include text and an image on the inside the card, when I didn’t want this option.

-I also tried selecting different colors for the interior text (as opposed to just b &w), but the user interface was so poorly designed I had no way of telling if my selection had registered in the final card design (it hadn’t).

-after finalizing your card design, getting to the payment and order screens involves a numbing click-through of 7 – 8 further screens, offering all sorts of cheesy tchotchkes and come-ons (placing your card image onto a poster, or putting it on a coffee mug; orders for personalized address labels, pencils with your name embossed on them in gold script, etc).

These screens are deliberately set up to make it very easy for you to mistakenly click the wrong button and inadvertantly add 5 – 10 dollars’ worth of stuff, or unnecessary card features, you don’t really want.

And of course, there are all sorts of cunningly hidden ‘opt-out’ buttons that you must find and select in order to avoid being deluged with regular email sales pitches from Vistaprint and its business partners.

All in all, making my own card was a worthwhile endeavor. Just be careful as you go about the process with the online ordering. And, as Christmas time draws closer, I’m sure the custom card manufacturing services will get ever-heavier traffic, so you may want to allow for sufficient time between ordering and receipt of the finished product in order to get your cards mailed before the holiday arrives.

Book Review: Orbit 6

Book Review: 'Orbit 6' edited by Damon Knight

2 / 5 Stars

Damon Knight’s ‘Orbit’ anthologies, 21 of which appeared sometimes twice-yearly from 1966 to 1980, were quintessential New Wave story collections. Earlier volumes (i.e., 1 - 15) featured attractive cover art, usually of an abstract or figurative nature.

As the Editor of the Orbit series, Knight was on a mission to demonstrate that SF was not a frivolous, adolescent-centered endeavor, but in actuality a subdivision of the emerging genre of ‘speculative fiction’ that offered a quality of prose that was equivalent to that of mainstream Literature.

I remember checking some of the volumes out from the library in the early 70s, and I remember being underwhelmed by the story selection.

So are things better when read with adult eyes almost forty years later ?

My brief comments on the stories in ‘Orbit 6’ (Berkley, 1970, 222 pp.):

‘The Second Inquisition’ by Joanna Russ: the narrator is a teenage girl whose family takes in a mysterious woman boarder in the summer of 1925. ‘Inquisition’ mixes elements from C. L. Moore’s classic tale ‘Vintage Season’ with bits of F. Scott Fitzgerald; this is not necessarily a bad thing, but Russ uses an oblique prose style that tends to make the story a laborious read. When overt SF elements appear at the climax of the story,  they are introduced in a rather clumsy manner. A tale that would have benefited greatly from good editing.

‘Remembrance to Come’ by Gene Wolfe: set in a student-controlled college campus of the near future, the narrative deals with an instructor who may be having a nervous breakdown. Readers will probably guess the underlying ‘surprise’ element well ahead of the story’s ending.

Wolfe also contributes another story, ‘When the Whip Came Back’, a dull entry about a socialite-turned-activist who is asked to endorse a global mandate to dispose of the prisoner population in a new and troubling way. These two stories by Wolfe reinforce my assumption that he is one of the more over-rated SF writers to have emerged from the New Wave era.

‘Goslin Day’ by Avram Davidson: a very brief story in an absurdist vein. Solomon Faroly witnesses the advent of a plague of Jewish gremlins. Davidson mixes stream-of-consciousness wordplay with Yiddish terms in an effort to be Avante Garde; like catnip to the witless Damon Knight. This is one of the more hapless entries in the anthology.

‘Maybe Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, Was A Little Bit Right’ by Robin Scott: only in the New Wave era could a short story with such a title have been considered the height of style. The story deals with the last woman and the last two men on earth; it tries to say something caustic and cynical about human nature, but does so in a profoundly uninteresting manner.

‘The Chosen’ by Kate Wilhelm: a man on a time-traveling mission wanders an idyllic far-future earth; he resolves to stay rather than return to his point of origin. There is something of a surprise ending.

‘Entire and Perfect Chrysolite’ by R. A. Lafferty: another overly artsy title. This story deals with recreational hallucinations and their unpleasant side effects. Lafferty had quite a bit of stature during the New Wave era, but this story has aged poorly.

‘Sunburst’ by Roderick Thorpe: this story’s unadorned, direct prose style makes it seem out of place in the anthology, but it’s a competent tale of sunspots and their less than salutary effect on human nature.

‘The Creation of Bennie Good’ by James Sallis: another absurdist tale with negligible merit; it’s plain that editor Knight selected it to demonstrate his ardor for  ‘Speculative Fiction’.

‘The End’ by Ursula Le Guin: as a rustic seaside village decays into madness and suicide, a brickmaker tries to make real a dream of leaving for islands far offshore. Moody and slow-paced, with an ambiguous ending; more fantasy than SF, but nonetheless one of the better entries in the anthology.

‘A Cold Dark Night With Snow’ by Kate Wilhelm: A young wife has doubts about her husband’s work on a secret government project. Wilhelm tries to be a dedicated New Wave stylist by confronting the reader with several narrative threads representing different events taking place at different times; almost inevitably, the end result is….not impressive.

‘Fame’ by Jean Cox: an ambitious spaceman embarks on the first trip to Proxima Centauri; traveling at near-relativistic speeds means he will return to earth a century after departure, hopefully to receive a hero’s welcome. The ending features the sort of twist encountered in  the stories of Roald Dahl. One of the better entries in the anthology.

‘Debut’ by Carol Emshwiller: a tale that weaves hints of ancient mythology into its first-person narration of a young girl destined for a sacred duty.

‘Where No Sun Shines’ by Gardner Dozois: in the near future, rebellion and social unrest  grip the US; a man driving on the back roads of New Jersey becomes an unwilling participant in a violent confrontation. This also is one of the better stories in the collection.

‘The Asian Shore’ by Thomas Disch: an American tourist in Turkey finds himself haunted by two of the locals. Of all the stories in Orbit 6, this one suffers the most from a self-conscious effort to be ‘literary’. More a vague, existential horror story than SF, the tale is hampered by too many superficially profound but empty sentences.

For example: 

It was the thesis of his first book that the quiddity of architecture, its chief claim to an esthetic interest, was its arbitrariness.

(‘quiddity’ is a rarely-used noun that refers to the intrinsic character or essence of a thing)

Whatever momentum the narrative possessed at its start leaks away as the tale unfolds, and by the time I reached its midway point I found continued reading to be a chore. The story’s ending is predictable; it’s insult to injury that I had to wade through such turgid prose to get there.

In summary, 'Orbit 6' is best experienced only for die-hard fans of the New Wave era and those willing to take in an extra-large dose of 'speculative fiction'.

'The Burial of Katharine Baker'
and 'Witchfinder General'

Some readers may be familiar with the 1968 ‘cult’ film ‘Witchfinder General’ (also released under the title ‘The Conqueror Worm’). The film was a historical drama set in 1645, during the English Civil War; amidst the chaos and violence of the combat between Cavaliers and Roundheads, a Protestant religious fanatic named Matthew Hopkins pursues ‘witches’ with the seeming approval of Parliament. As portayed by Vincent Price, Hopkins is a scheming hypocrite who readily promises to spare accused young women interrogation, and even execution, if they agree to sleep with him.

Despite its modest length (barely 90 minutes) and very low budget (at one point leading man Price purchased lunch for the hungry cast and crew) upon its release the film generated quite a bit of controversy in the UK for its depiction of torture, which was considered graphic by the standards of the time.

As well, the film was a powerful repudiation of the rather gilded picture of the English Civil War which had been promulgated in the popular culture. Far from being a quasi-romantic duel between the King and his dashing Cavaliers on one side, and Cromwell and his dour Roundheads on the other, the conflict in reality was a very brutal guerilla war with plenty of atrocities visited upon not only the combatants, but the civilian population of rural England.

The 7th issue of the Hellboy series ‘The Wild Hunt’ (October 2009) features a six-page comic written by Mike Mignola and Scott Allie, with art by Patric Reynolds, titled  ‘The Burial of Katherine Baker’. This strip borrows heavily from the film ‘Witchfinder General’, even so far as depicting the ‘Harry Hood’ witchfinder character with a strong resemblance to Price’s Matthew Hopkins. However, while one might initially think the comic is yet another treatment of the ‘religious fanatic harming the innocents’ theme, it provides a neat twist that makes it a memorable little story.

(NOTE added December 1, 2009: excerpted pages of 'The Burial of Katharine Baker' removed following request by Ken Lizzi,  Dark Horse Comics)

Neither Mignola nor Allie provide attribution to ‘Witchfinder General’ in this installment of the story, but according to Ken Lizzie, "...attribution was given in the first appearance of his version of the character in the Hellboy comic 'Darkness Calls' ". 


I recommend looking for the film on DVD; the ‘Midnight Movies’ edition from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is the most complete and uncensored version available.

And, for a reasonably well-written, if somewhat reserved,  book on the English Civil War (although it says nothing about Hopkins) I recommend Christopher Hibbert's  'Cavaliers and Roundheads: The English Civil War 1642 - 1649' (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993).

Book Review: The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 8

Book Review: 'The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 8' edited by Arthur W. Saha

2 / 5 Stars

‘The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories: 8’ (DAW book No. 501, 1982, 191 pp.), edited by Arthur W. Saha, contains stories published during 1981. The cover illustration is ‘Talena’ (of Tarnsman of Gor fame), by Oliviero Berni.

(Arthur W. Saha, 1929 - 1999, edited the 'Year's Best Fantasy Stories' series for volumes 7 through 14. He also was the father of Heidi Saha, who is famous for having appearing costumed as 'Vampirella' at sci-fi conventions in 1973 and giving the male attendees heart palpitations.)

Editor Saha ranged farther afield in the literature for selections than did the series’ previous editor, Lin Carter. This may have reflected a dearth of worthy material (at least in Saha’s opinion) in the dedicated fantasy magazines of the time. Or, Saha may simply have decided to include stories that pushed the boundaries of the genre. But in my opinion the overall results, at least for this volume, are underwhelming. There are too many tepid tales from 'name' authors.

Brief summaries of the stories are as follows:

‘When the Clock Strikes’ by Tanith Lee: the Cinderella fairy tale re-told, with a darker atmosphere. Whatever appeal this approach to fantasy writing possessed was wilting by the time Lee published the collection ‘Red As Blood’, an anthology of these recycled fairy tales, in 1983.

‘Midas Night’ by Sam Wilson: a young artist and a strange old man together in a diner on a cold January night…and three  menacing figures in the shadows across the street…an urban fantasy tale.

‘Unicorn Variation’ by Roger Zelazny: a former chess prodigy encounters a unicorn and winds up playing for very high stakes. One of the better stories in the anthology.

‘The Only Death in the City’ by C. J. Cherryh: the author tries too hard to create an existential atmosphere in this over-written, turgid story of doomed lovers. An unsuccessful effort to produce something akin to the ‘Viriconium’ tales by M. John Harrison.

‘The Quickening’ by Michael Bishop: more of a horror or SF tale than fantasy. After a strange event instantly teleports all the world’s population to random destinations, a man struggles to retain his sanity and sense of self.

‘Skirmish on Bastable Street’ by Bob Leman: another urban fantasy tale, this time about a demon confronting some bar patrons. Not particularly memorable.

‘A Pattern of Silver Strings’ by Charles de Lint: a precious tale of a harpist, his wife, and a music contest with a Bad Tinker. Very insipid and very cloying (people are 'enspelled', they engage in 'roadfaring' and 'worldwalking', 'yearning oaks keep watch', etc., etc.). But I finished it, as might I finish a sickly-sweet, 4,000 calorie sundae purchased from Cold Stone Creamery despite knowing that my gastrointestinal tract will eventually rebel…..

‘A Friend in Need’ by Lisa Tuttle: yet another urban fantasy tale. A chance encounter with a woman at an airport leads the narrator to some conclusions about strange childhood events. Reasonably well-written, but the fantasy element is quite subdued and one wonders why editor Saha thought it qualified for inclusion.

‘Pooka’s Bridge’ by Gillian FitzGerald: a Celtic myth serves as the inspiration for a tale set in medieval Ireland. One of the better entries in the collection.

‘The Belonging Kind’ by John Shirley and William Gibson: in 1981 the literary tsunami we now know as Cyberpunk was still in gestation, and to-become-giants Shirley and Gibson were some promising young writers looking to create something different and original from the withered remains of the New Wave movement.

‘Belonging Kind’ is more of a understated horror story than urban fantasy; it deals with alienation in the city and its nightclub and bar patrons. A New Wave author may have drenched the tale in highly stylized writing, probably using long passages of overly artsy prose intended to convey the sense of existential angst experienced by the lead character. But Shirley and Gibson utilize a more spare, unadorned writing style which makes the story’s creepy goings-on all the more effective.  This is one of the better tales in the anthology.

All in all, ‘The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories: 8’ doesn’t come across as one of the more rewarding entries in the series. Readers must be willing to overlook most of the tales in the collection in favor of a small number of ‘keepers’.