Book Review: Book of the Dead

Book Review: 'Book of the Dead' edited by John Skipp and Craig Spector

4 / 5 Stars

'Book of the Dead' (390 pp.) was published by Bantam Books in July 1989. The cover artist is Richard Kriegler.

I remember picking this book up the instant I saw it on the shelf of Waldenbooks in downtown Baltimore in the late Summer of 1989. A zombie anthology..........and not only that, but one that showcased graphic horror !

I wasn't yet aware of the term 'Splatterpunk', but 'Book of the Dead' was indeed the world's first Splat anthology. As the back cover advertising blurb states,

This is a book that goes too far.

And invites you along for the ride.

Yep, no Charles L. Grant 'Quiet Horror' in this volume.

My capsule summaries of the contents (all of the entries were written exclusively for 'Book of the Dead'):

Introduction: On Going Too Far, by John Skipp and Craig Spector: the Editors make an overly earnest pitch that instead of giving a middle finger to the horror establishment, the goal of 'Book of the Dead' is to show that only by going too far, can we learn more about Our Humanity. 

Yeah, sure, boys. 

The first two stories, 'Blossom' by David J. Schow (as 'Chan McConnell') and 'Mess Hall' by Richard Layman, both deal with women revenging themselves on predatory males. Both gleefully display in-your-face Splat, and anyone proceeding further into the volume after encountering these two tales cannot make any excuses about being unprepared for the awaiting Carnography.

It Helps If You Sing, by Ramsey Campbell: Bright, a man living in a depressing English council house apartment, is visited by some religious canvassers who are a little......strange. Lacking any Splat content and featuring mild, deracinated zombies, this story compares poorly to the others in the anthology.

Home Delivery, by Stephen King: Mainers living on Jenny Island display folksy wisdom in confronting the risen dead.

Wet Work, by Philip Nutman: what if zombies could be made to work as paramilitary hitmen ? This short story later became expanded into the eponymous novel.

A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned, by Edward Bryant: Martha, the waitress at the Cuchara Diner in Fort Durham, Colorado, thinks that patrolman Bobby Mack Quintana is just fine. But then a Zombie Holocaust erupts............can romance persevere ? Given Bryant's prediliction for New Wave-style overwritten prose, I approached this story with skepticism. But while it takes its time getting underway, it is redeemed by the closing pages, which revel in Splat.

Bodies and Heads, by Steve Rasnic Tem: Nurse Elaine is on duty at a Denver hospital when the Zombie Plague begins. She witnesses some disturbing things.

I had mixed feeling about this story, which is an early example of the 'Weird Horror' genre (of which, Steve Rasnic Tem would go on to be a foremost practitioner). Plotting is subordinate to the emphasis on the lead character's psychological state, her awareness of bodily decay and corruption, her perceptions of the collapse of the world around her, etc. The closing segments of the story emphasize the fantastical quality of Weird Horror rather than traditional zombie tropes. 

Choices, by Glen Vasey: a man named Dawson roams the USA in the aftermath of the Zombie Apocalypse, chronicling his interactions with the wary survivors. His experiences are related in the form of poetically phrased journal entries.

This over-long, and over-written, novelette is the worst entry in the anthology. The author is so focused on using the zombie theme to say something Profound about the Human Condition, that the narrative quickly becomes trite, and finishing it was a chore.

The Good Parts, by Les Daniels: what happens when a 483 lb. Incel becomes a zombie ? Gross-outs, that's what..........

Less than Zombie, by Douglas E. Winter: a Splat parody of the 1985 novel 'Less Than Zero' by Bret Easton Ellis. Given that Ellis's novel is quite forgotten nowadays, the premise is a bit hollow, and I doubt many contemporary readers will 'get it'.

Like Pavlov's Dogs, by Stephen R. Boyett: Sailor the Wasteland Raider decides to target a Biodome occupied by self-centered 'technoweenies'. A bit too long and overwritten to really provide much of a jolt, although I was rooting for the demise of the Biodome-ers.

Saxophone, by Nicholas Royle: in a dystopian, near-future Yugoslavia, a team of zombie criminals seeks to acquire contraband goods. While the plot is a bit contrived, this story has a cyberpunk flavor that makes it one of the more imaginative entries in the anthology.

On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks, by Joe R. Lansdale, and Jerry's Kids Meet Wormboy, by David J. Schow: outrageous and over-the-top, these two stories fully exemplify the Splatterpunk ethos.... and provide laugh-out-loud humor in the bargain. These, more than the other entries, give the 'Book of the Dead' its status as one of the best horror anthologies of the 1980s.

Dead Giveway, by Brian Hodge: what happens when you mix zombies with a television game-show ? 

Eat Me, by Robert R. McCammon: love, in the time of decaying tissues. McCammon shows he can Splat with the best of them, and even work some humor into the gore.

The verdict ? 'Book of the Dead' deserves a solid four-star rating, which I rarely hand to out horror anthologies of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. 'Dead' set out to bring Splatterpunk to a wider audience and it succeeded, as well as sending a clear message to the practitioners of 'Quiet Horror' that not everyone shared their supercilious attitudes towards graphic horror. 

The impact of the success of 'Book of the Dead' can be seen in the inclusion of 'Jerry's Kids Meet Wormboy' in the venerable anthology The Year's Best Horror Stories: XVIII (1990). Editor Karl Edward Wagner, who primly refused to feature graphic horror in any of the previous volumes in the series, could no longer dismiss the Power of Splat - ! 

If you are a horror fiction fan, then having a copy of 'Book of the Dead' in your personal library is warranted.

(For another take on 'Book of the Dead', readers are directed to the Too Much Horror Fiction blog). 

Deathblow: Sinners and Saints

Deathblow: Sinners and Saints
by Brandon Choi, Jim Lee (script) and Jim Lee and Tim Sale (art)

Image, 1999

'Deathblow: Sinners and Saints' (256 pp) compiles the first twelve issues of the Image comic 'Deathblow', originally published from April 1993 to January, 1995.

There is another compilation of these same issues, in hardback, titled 'Deathblow: The Deluxe Edition', that was published in 2014.

Michael Cray, aka Deathblow, first appeared in March 1993 as a nine-page story in the single-shot anthology 'Darker Image' from Image comics. Cray showed up again a few months later in the four-issue series 'Team 7', as one of the members of the eponymous special forces unit. In 1993 Image gave him his own series, which lasted for 29 issues, till August 1996.

Deathblow was envisioned as the quintessential early 1990s, Great Comic Book Boom-era superhero: tree-trunk legs, torso, and arms, topped with a tiny head, wearing a do-rag:

The twelve-issue story arc featured in 'Sinners and Saints' is interesting for placing Deathblow, and various supporting characters from the Image lineup, into a Book of Revelation-style Apocalyptic Crisis. 

As the story opens, our hero is tormented by guilt over his violent actions as part of a covert U.S. special operations team:

He nonetheless agrees to participate in a commando raid on an Iraqi data storage facility. But even as the corpses pile up during the raid, a sinister development takes place in a monastery in the remote desert: servants of the demon known as the 'Black Angel' have contrived to open the gates of Purgatory, and free him from his entombment.

The Black Angel promptly sets out to fulfill a number of earthly tasks necessary to pave the way for Satan to come into power and invade Heaven. 

At first, Deathblow is simply an unwitting pawn in these schemes, but over the course of the story he undergoes some personal revelations, and willingly takes up the battle for the fate of the planet.

Choi and Lee's plot is a decent melding of superhero action and horror / occult themes, although it sometimes goes a bit over-the-top in its melodrama.

The artwork, which primarily was done by Tim Sale (Jim Lee did only the first three chapters) is the main selling point for 'Sinners and Saints'. It clearly was influenced by the visual style of Frank Miller's Sin City, which had debuted in 1991, but Lee and Sale were much better artists than Miller, and, according to Keith Dallas's American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1990s, Image / Malibu had the industry's best color printing facilities.

All the stylings of Sin City are present and accounted for in 'Sinner and Saints': limited color palettes, heavy-duty chiaroscuro effects, rain slashes and gunsmoke trails forming decorative motifs, oversize sound-effect text, dames with immense clouds of colorless hair, black-and-white silhouette panels, etc. It certainly gives the book a 'look' that is markedly different from the visual style used in other Image, Marvel, and DC comics from the early 90s.

Copies of the 1999 paperback edition of 'Sinners and Saints' are available for under $10 at your usual online retailers, and the 2014 'Deathblow: The Deluxe Edition' also is affordably priced. If you're a fan of comic book art, or a fan of Combat Nuns, or someone who likes Omen - style occult thrillers, or are just looking for a story that represents the early 90s comic book aesthetic at its most idiosyncratic, then getting a copy is worth your while.

Protective bags for your paperbacks

Protective Bags for Your Paperback Books

UPDATE, JANUARY 1, 2023: GT Bag is now a subsidiary of Action Bags of Bensenville, Illinois. The GT Bag catalog No. #E5B5.75x8.625, is now the Action Bag catalog No. E6B5.75x8.625, a pack of 100 selling for $13.

I've been collecting mass-market paperbacks since 1974 and I don't know how many I own, as most of them are stored in boxes in my basement. I'm guessing it's more than 2,000.

Lately I've been thinking that I should make an effort to secure some of the older and more treasured titles in plastic bags, much like the comic book collectors do.

I have found two vendors of polypropylene bags for storing mass market paperbacks:

BCW sells their 5 “ x 7 3/8 “  bags on amazon. These bags can accommodate thinner (i.e., ~ 225 pages) mass market paperback books.

For thicker mass market paperbacks, you're going to want to visit the website of the GT Bags Company of Petaluma, California. GT Bags sells 5 3/4 “ x 8 5/8 “ bags which can accommodate paperbacks like the 544-page 1967 edition of ‘Dune’ from Ace Books (see accompanying photo). You also can easily fit two slimmer paperbacks into one GT Bags 5 3/4 “ x 8 5/8 “.

A sack of 100 of the GT Bags are slightly more expensive than a sack of 100 of the BCW bags, but they also feature an adhesive strip on the back of the bag that you can fold the lip over onto and fasten (you have to scotch-tape down the lip of the BCW bag). You can purchase the GT Bag products in smaller lots (i.e., 100 bags) or in bulk lots (i.e., 1000 bags)

The GT Bag 5 3/4 “ x 8 5/8 “ bags are [not] going to accommodate monster-sized mass market paperbacks, like the 1280-page Brandon Sanderson book ‘The Way of Kings’. I’m guessing a GT Bag 6” x 9” may accommodate such a monster size, but since I don’t buy the Sanderson tomes, I really don’t know.

Hopefully this post has given you some ideas of your options for storing and sheltering your paperbacks.

Book Review: The Year's Best Horror Stories Series IV

Book Review: 'The Year's Best Horror Stories Series IV', edited by Gerald W. Page

2 / 5 Stars

`The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series IV' (208 pp., DAW Books, November 1976) features cover art by Michael Whelan.

Most of the stories in this anthology first were published in 1974 and 1975; some in other anthologies, such as Whispers, and others in magazines like Playboy and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

Editor Gerald Page provides a brief Introduction.

My capsule summaries of the stories:

Forever Stand the Stones, by Joe Pumilia: a prehistoric incident at Stonehenge has reverberations throughout the future. This story evokes a ‘cosmic’ sensibility and at times reads like something Harlan Ellison would have written. The denouement is underwhelming, but ‘Forever’ deserves recognition for being ambitious in scope.

And Don’t Forget the One Red Rose, by Avram Davidson: laborer Charley Barton makes the acquaintance of a mysterious man who sells the very rarest of books.

Christmas Present, by Ramsey Campbell: Christmas-time in Liverpool, and the first-person narrator allows an argumentative young man to join a houseparty…..with unforeseen consequences. 

I’ve become so inured to Campbell’s purple prose and elliptical plotting that I didn’t blink my eyes at this segment: 

….the tune led toward recognition and then fled squealing and growling into impossible extremes, notes leaping like frogs and falling dead. The voices squirmed between the suffocated tones of the bell, voices thin and cold as the wind, thick and black as wet earth, and paced toward us up Canning Street. 

A Question of Guilt, by Hal Clement: in ancient Rome, a little boy named Kyros suffers from a bleeding disorder. Could a form of ‘vampirism’ save him from premature death ?

I’ve always considered Hal Clement to be one of science fiction’s more boring authors, and this novelette does nothing to alter that judgment. It’s more of a melodrama than a horror story, and its inclusion doesn’t bring much to this anthology.

The House of Stillcroft Street, by Joseph Payne Brennan: a quiet New England village, an eccentric uncle, and a house that has seen better days……what could possibly go wrong ?

The Recrudescence of Geoffrey Marvell, by G. N. Gabbard: Editor Page apparently included this tale as a favor to the author, who was a friend / acquaintance. It’s about a 17th century English cavalier who encounters some spooky goings-on in the Black Forest. The dialogue, which is modeled on Old Tyme plays by Shakespeare and Marlowe, seems to be designed to allow author Gabbard to display his wittiness in writing prose. I was unimpressed.

Something Had to Be Done, by David Drake: a modern take on vampires; one of the better entries in the anthology.

Cottage Tenant, by Frank Belknap Long: disturbing events at a seashore home in New England, where someone apparently is conjuring up monsters from the mists ?! The story’s premise is too contrived to be effective.

The Man with the Aura, by R. A. Lafferty: the story takes the tradition in which two gentlemen sit with their brandies in a drawing room, sharing a ghostly tale, and neatly subverts it. One of the better entries in the anthology.

White Wolf Calling, by Charles L. Grant: an early-career tale from Grant. In a wintry countryside, viewing an apparition of a white wolf means someone is going to die. The ending, like too many Grant tales, is too oblique to render the story effective. 

Lifeguard, by Arthur Byron Cover: Bob Strawn has a part-time job as a pool lifeguard and a carefree summer in Blackton, Virginia………that is, until he takes a toke of some really powerful ‘grass’……

The Black Captain, by H. Warner Munn: old-school pulp tale about a man under an unusual curse. 

The Glove, by Fritz Leiber: disturbing goings-on in San Francisco apartment house. Surprisingly well-plotted, and devoid of pulp prose; sometimes Leiber could get it right.

No Way Home, by Brian Lumley: George Benson finds that the narrow roads of rural England can lead you into places that aren’t on any map. 

The anthology closes with an essay, ‘The Lovecraft Controversy: Why ?’ by ‘Weird Tales’ writer E. Hoffman Price. Price, who at age 77 (in 1975) still was hale and hearty. Price intervenes in a dispute over L. Sprague de Camp’s 1975 biography of Lovecraft; it seems Lovecraft supporters were very unhappy over de Camp’s depiction of their beloved writer. Price makes a rather strident argument that both de Camp’s biography, and Frank Belknap Long’s 1975 Lovecraft memoir, are genuine tributes to The Master in their own ways. The main value of this essay is to show that even back in 1975, Fanboy-dom was alive and well among the fantasy literature cognoscenti……..

Summing up, the entries from Brennan, Drake, and Lafferty aren’t enough of a counterweight to the other material to make this volume worth searching out. I can’t give it more than two stars.

October 2020 is Spooky Stories Month

October is Spooky Stories Month at the PorPor Boks Blog

In the spirit of Halloween, here at the PorPor Books Blog we devote every October to reviewing horror fiction. With the arrival of unusually early, cool, and crisp Fall weather here to central Virginia, the mood is right to offer up some verdicts on a number of shorter novels and anthologies (mainly because I am reluctant to dutifully wade through those 400-page horror novels that too often turn out to be duds).

For October 2020 we have a promising lineup of books representing traditional 70s horror, Splatterpunk, and Brit-flavored Harvest Home-style weirdness. Stand by for reviews all this month !

My Fall Reading

 My Fall Reading

Back in August, I discovered my monthly water bill was decreasing from $42 per month to $14 per month, a savings of $28 per month. Quite a drop........I'm not sure how long it will last, as the local politicians will undoubtedly find a way to increase the monthly bill back to what it was (if not more). But for the time being, I cheerfully decided to apply my savings to the purchase of vintage paperbacks (above) for my Fall 2020 reading.

I'm confident that many of the books pictured above are truly awful, but that's all part and parcel of the art of collecting these things.....isn't it ........?!

Book Review: Winter in the Blood

Book Review: 'Winter in the Blood' by James Welch

3 / 5 Stars

‘Winter in the Blood’ first was published in 1974; this Bantam Books paperback edition was released in November 1975. The artist who provided the excellent cover illustration is uncredited.

This was the debut novel for Montana-born author and poet James Welch (1940 – 2003) who was of American Indian ancestry, and educated at the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation school system. Welch went on to write additional novels focusing on the past, and present, experiences of American Indians. ‘Winter in the Blood’ was made into a 2012 film of the same title. 

The first-person narrator of the novel (his name never is provided) is a Blackfoot Indian man in his early 30s who lives with his mother Teresa, her husband Lame Bull, and his grandmother (referred to simply as the Old Woman) on the Fort Belknap reservation in Montana. The household raises cattle and is comparatively prosperous, but the narrator is unable to find satisfaction in this simple rural lifestyle and finds himself compelled to travel into town, where he finds himself more or less willingly engaged in drunken endeavors and escapades, some of which leave him the worse for wear. 

As the novel progresses the narrator comes to learn about his heritage and lineage, and makes hard-won progress in coming to terms with the tragedies that have defined both his past, and the past of his tribe. Whether these personal revelations will be sufficient to overcome his existential passivity is for the reader to decide.

‘Winter in the Blood’ is written in a straightforward, declarative manner and avoids treading in the clichés that sometimes come to define ‘Indian’ literature: there are no mystical conversations with the Great Spirit, no lodge ceremonies, no Vision Quests, etc. It is set in a landscape of small and struggling towns covered in mud and drizzle; cattle roundups in the cold air of late Fall; and pickup trucks with cardboard substituting for missing windows. 

In many ways the book is as much an examination of working-class life in the American West in the mid-70s as it is an ‘Indian’ novel; all of the characters, be they whites or Indians, are caught in some degree of anomie that is enhanced by the vast and indifferent landscape surrounding them.

Summing up, ‘Winter in the Blood’ is successful both as a novel about contemporary Indian life, and as a novel about the modern American West. If either category appeals to you, then getting a copy is well worthwhile.

CD Review: Spaghetti II: 'Revenge !'

CD Review: Spaghetti II: 'Revenge'

Million Dollar Records, 1999

Well, the reception for 'Spaghetti: Duck You Suckers !' led to the crafting of a sequel, titled 'Spaghetti II: 'Revenge !' from One Million Dollar records. Released later in 1999, the CD features many of the same bands as from 'Duck You Suckers !'.

The entire CD is available at this YouTube link.

As was the case with 'Duck You Suckers !', the opening track on 'Revenge' is rather modest, but the second track, 'Gunman Left Standing' by The Hellbenders, is pure gold and will quickly put you in the mood for some Spaghetti Western action. 

The remaining tracks on the album stay pretty true to the concept, so it doesn't get any more Spaghetti than this........

Ron Cobb RIP

 Ron Cobb RIP
September 21, 1937 - September 21, 2020

Ron Cobb, cartoonist, artist, and designer, passed away at age 83 on September 21.

Back in the early 80s I was fortunate to obtain a copy of the 1981 trade paperback 'Colorvision', which showcased Cobb's work. My overview of the book is available here. Given that used copies of 'Colorvision' have exorbitant asking prices, the time would seem to be right for a new printing to be issued.

One of the paintings featured in 'Colorvision', 'Autumn Angels', for the cover of the 1975 novel by Arthur Byron Cover, is a favorite of mine and one I always post, year after year, during the Fall months.

Other works featured in 'Colorvision' also demonstrate Cobb's genius for composition and color. If you should happen to see a copy of the book on a shelf in a used bookstore, by all means grab it !

RIP Ron Cob,, 1937 - 2020.

Book Review: Edge: The Loner

Book Review: 'Edge: The Loner' by George G. Gilman

4 / 5 Stars

'Edge: The Loner' (125 pp., February 1972) was the first entry in the 'Edge' series of western novels issued by the New English Library (NEL) in the U.K. In the U.S., 'Edge' was published  by Pinnacle Books. 

The striking cover illustration is by the great British artist Richard Clifton-Dey (1930 -1997), who provided cover art for the first fifteen Edge novels, as well as for the 'Gringos' and 'Jubal Cade' western series, among other NEL titles.

'George Gilman' was the pen name of the writer Terry Harknett, one of a number of British authors, designated the 'Piccadilly Cowboys', who churned out western fiction for U.K. paperback publishers during the 70s and 80s. Harknett was born in 1936 and, according to a Dedication in the 2020 Hot Lead: Most Wanted special, passed away in January 2019. 

Through 1983, 61 Edge novels were published, all of them by Gilman. A detailed post on Harknett's writing career, with lots of cover art, is available here.

Google 'Edge: The Loner' and you'll get no shortage of reviews, many of them quite lengthy and in-depth, so I'll restrict my own critique to straightforward observations that are colored by my main occupation of reviewing sci-fi, fantasy, and horror fiction originating in the era from 1968 - 1988.

The transgressive nature of 'The Loner' is advertised by a blurb on the back page: 'Edge is A New Kind of Western'. And Gilman certainly set out to establish this aspect of the Edge series with 'The Loner'. 

While plot-wise the novel is a revenge tale in which Josiah Hedges, a former Union Army officer, sets out to kill the men who tortured his brother to death, what little exposition exists in the short chapters of 'The Loner' serves to frame one episode of violent action after another. And Gilman doesn't rely on oblique or euphemistic prose to communicate the violence; tissue and skin are sliced, torn, and punctured in graphic detail for a work of fiction issued in 1972.

 

The passage below is one of the milder ones appearing in the pages of 'The Loner':

‘He died for ten dollars you ain’t going to get either,’ Edge said as he sidestepped the knife thrust with ease and chopped down with his hand, the razor sliding forward, to be gripped by the handle with the blade fully exposed. It’s keen edge made a faint hissing sound as it sliced off the kid’s right ear.

The kid dropped the knife, his hand flying to where his ear had been. ‘Oh, my God,’ he whispered hoarsely.

‘He wasn’t on your side,’ Edge told him.

The kid blinked, gasped, stooped and snatched up the useless lump of severed flesh. Then he spun and ran back down the alley, away from the street. Edge picked up his hat, dusted it off, donned it and continued his interrupted stroll towards the restaurant. ‘Real nice town, Sheriff,’ he muttered.

The appearance of this style of graphic mayhem signals that, in 1972, the western genre was considerably ahead of the horror genre in leavening its works with a Splatterpunk sensibility. And this was done only three years after the publication of Harlan Ellison's 'The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World', and two years before the appearance of James Herbert's The Rats (1974) and The Fog (1975), which are considered by Paul M. Sammon to be among the foundational novels of Splatterpunk.

It's noteworthy that in his 75-page essay 'Outlaws', from his 1990 book Splatterpunks; Extreme Horror, Sammon describes the roots and background of the Splatterpunk movement and mentions quite a variety of authors and their works. 

But missing from his essay is any mention of the 'spaghetti' -style western fiction that came of age in the 1970s through the 'Edge' novels and other works from the Piccadilly Cowboys (as well as from select U.S. authors). 

After reading 'Edge: The Loner' and other entries in the series, it's clear that George Gilman and his contemporaries belong to the illustrious ranks of those who practiced 'Extreme Horror' and pioneered the Splatterpunk genre. They arguably are just as deserving of being honored as Splat Pioneers as Harlan Ellison, James Herbert, and Shaun Hutson.

Of course, I haven't read every one of the 61 novels in the 'Edge' franchise, but for the handful of titles that I have indeed read, Gilman doesn't slacken in his dedication to the transgressive nature of the series. Witness this charming vignette from 'Edge: Slaughterday' (No. 24, Pinnacle Books, October 1977):

At the instant of impact, the deputy was lifted and slammed against the wall. He seemed to remain there for a long time, frozen into immobility. Then the sheened covering of blood flowed. And shiny white bone could be seen......The bunched intestines were a yellowish color. There was a ragged hole in the stomach and half-digested food ran out, looking like vomit. 

Summing up, Edge was indeed a 'new kind of western hero' and the Edge novels were indeed a new paradigm for western fiction. If you are a fan of Splatterpunk, then you'll want to keep an eye out for those few Edge books that still remain on the shelves of used bookstores........