Books I read August 2010

Well, August means a return to the classroom for me, and therefore much less time at my disposal to fuel my reading obsession for the next 10 months. So be it. I am still able to find some, though seemingly always diminishing, time to myself. The month of August 2010 will go down as one of the poorest in recent memory, as none of the books I read this month were that great. Though I must say that as I refocus my energies into my job it is hard at times to completely engage with my reading material, but be that as it may here's what I read.

William Gibson and Bruce Sterling-The Difference Engine

Co-authors Gibson, of whose books I never miss, and Sterling, of whose books I've read one other, imagine a world in which Charles Babbage actually created his Difference Engine, a sort of steam-driven, monstrous computer. This advance has placed England on even a larger pedestal then the one they actually occupied, their machinations are felt the world over, particularly in the United States where there is not one united nation but four: the northern states, the southern states, and the republics of California and Texas, and scientists occupy the highest strata in society.

Gibson and Sterling cleverly constructed a world featuring real people in, obviously altered roles from the one they played in our timeline. Charles Babbage, Sam Houston, Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Byron, and even Percy Bysshe Shelley as a staunch Luddite, are all featured.

The plot is fairly convoluted and would require more typing that I want to do, but I did enjoy this book. In fact now that I am writing about it I realize I actually like it better than I thought at first. This book had the misfortune of sitting on my shelf for years and then being the first book I read upon the resumption of the school year.

Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon-Preacher Vol. 7 Salvation

This installment of the 9 volume series is actually quite tame compared to its predecessors. I get the feeling it sort of serves as an interlude before the series begins to be wrapped up in the final two volumes. A good read as far as comics go, but seriously lacking the punch that made the earlier installments so much fun.

Dashiell Hammett-The Glass Key
I have now read all of Hammett's novels and I'm disappointed that it seems, in my opinion, I saved the worst for last. All of Hammett's other novels I have supremely enjoyed in one degree or another, but there was something in this tale of big-city corruption, gangland warfare, and murder mystery that did not work for me. I found the protagonist largely unsympathetic and many of his actions and interactions with the other characters contrived and illogical.

Apparently this was Hammett's favorite, so what the hell do I know.

Joe Pernice-The Smiths Meat is Murder 33 1/3 series

If you consider yourself a music fan and you are not all over this series of books from Continuum publishers I seriously question your devotion. Obviously I will never read all of these because, frankly, I don't give a damn for some of the albums covered in the series.

Joe Pernice of the Pernice Brothers here tackles the greatest album by one of the greatest bands of the 80's. Unfortunately Pernice's approach here is not usually what I look for in rock journalism. In fact this is not journalism at all, but a short story about a teenaged boy, Pernice perhaps?, dealing with all the shit we all go through as a teenager. He just happens to love The Smiths.

Even though I didn't love this, it exemplifies what is so cool about this series. You never know what you're going to get. Whether it is a song by song analysis of an album, a social commentary on the influences and impact of a given work, or like here, and in John Darnielle's entry for the series on Black Sabbath's Master of Reality, simply fiction, you're getting a fresh and more often than not engaging take on music you love.

Ward Moore-Greener than you Think

In the 80's Crown Books re-issued 10 forgotten sci-fi books from years gone by. I have now read them all and this book was excruciating. It was an absolute slog to get through. It actually starts out pretty good, although the premise is way out there. A scientist has developed a chemical to help plants grow, and hires a salesman to sell it to farmers. The salesman says screw the farmers, look at all the dead lawns here in the city, sprays it on some Bermuda grass, and look out! the world gets overrun by Grass! I can't go on....sorry

Johnny Pate Outrageous

Johnny Pate is a jazz musician, composer, producer, and arranger. In the early 1960's he came to reknown for his collaboration as producer and arranger for Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions and other Chicago soul acts.

In the 70's he composed some of the most killer blaxploitation soundtracks. He was responsible for Shaft in Africa which, in my humble opinion, is better than the original. He also did the soundtracks for Brother on the Run, Bucktown, Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, and others.

In 1970, prior to the soundtracks, he released an amazing, funky, orchestral, sweeping, cinematic opus entitled Outrageous. At the time, the album was a departure for Pate, but it was the forerunner of all the smokin', funky shit he recorded for film in the years to come.

Dusty Groove has thankfully reissued this album and it is marvelous. Check out these tunes:

Blast from my past #3

Siouxsie and the Banshees live in '81 playing their greatest song and featuring the late, great John McGeogh on guitar.

Calibro 35 Redux

I've got Calibro 35 on the mind again because I just got their new album 'Ritornano Quelli Di...'. If you're not familiar with this band you are really doing yourself a disservice. On their first album they brought us an amazing batch of classic Italian soundtrack covers with a couple original tunes that are so lovingly composed in the vein of the great poliziotteschis that, if you were none the wiser, you would have thought were composed by Cipriani or Micalizzi. I'm pleased to say they've given us the reciprocal here. Just a few great covers, but a whole bunch of originals. Again they wear their influences on their sleeves, but what influences! These guys are a must for any fan of 60's and 70's Italian cinema and the music of Morricone, Umiliani, Ferrio, Ortolani, and of course Micalizzi and Cipriani.

Have a listen

Books I read July 2010

Neil Gaiman-Anansi Boys

Gaiman's Anansi Boys is similar in a lot of ways to his novel American Gods. Although I think most people would probably disagree with me, I actually liked this better than American Gods. I really enjoyed the main character Fat Charlie. I think the main reason I liked this better is because a friend of mine had been hyping American Gods to me for years before I finally read it, and it didn't really live up to the hype. Gaiman is a natural storyteller though, and I've enjoyed all his books so far.

Dashiell Hammett-The Dain Curse
Clever novel by Hammett following the Continental Op as he works a series of cases over a few years all centered around the same family. You can't go wrong here.

Dan Simmons-Muse of Fire
Simmons novelette takes place in the far future when humans have become subjected by a hierarchy of greater and more powerful beings, and a space-faring Shakespearean troupe holds the fate of mankind on their stage. Quite entertaining.

Beach Reading-I read these 5 novels at the beach this month




The Hard Case books, The Cutie and The Murderer Vine, were trite yet engaging forays into two very different American underbellies. In Blue City MacDonald has written a novel similar in theme to Hammett's Red Harvest, which many have claimed to be the basis for Yojimbo, Fistful of Dollars, and Walter Hill's Last Man Standing. Corwainer Smith writes strange sci-fi which didn't do much for me, and as for A Voyage to Arcturus, I picked it up because I had heard it was a lost classic, with some luminaries going so far as to call it the best novel of the 20th Century. I was hoping for something along the lines of The King in Yellow, or House on the Borderlands, or even The Worm Ouroboros, but alas it was not so. A rambling, metaphysical, albeit imaginative, and meandering novel that didn't really do anything for me. 

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky-Noon: 22nd Century
I have lavished praise on the Strugatskys in these pages before, and I'll do it again. I think there's nothing I would rather read these days than one of their novels. This is actually a collection of short stories written between 1960 and 1966 which feature many recurring characters collected loosely together as a novel. Striking, far-sighted, insightful, and always human. I love these guys.

Translated by W.S. Merwin-Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Written around the 13th or 14th Century, but probably based on older legend, this extremely readable verse translation is highly entertaining. Honor, chivalry, love, lust, timeless themes in a timeless poem.

Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon-Preacher

Someone recommended I check out Preacher. I found the first six volumes of the series at a second hand book store, snatched em up and plowed through them voraciously. This is not the best comic series I have read, but with its loads of profanity, graphic violence, blasphemous rants, and tits, it's one of the funnest. Now I've gotta find the last 3 volumes.

Savage

Don't know much about the flick, except that it has one of the greatest tag lines I've ever seen, and that it stars the actor who played Randy, the football player, in Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, but I do know the soundtrack kicks out some seriously funky jams motherfucker. I am so glad these scores are available, even if the flicks aren't. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, more often than not the scores for these films are the best part. I don't know much about Don Julian except that he provided the score for this and another blaxploitation flick entitled 'Shorty the Pimp'. If you like funky, latin-tinged blaxploitation fare, you need this.

Books I read June 2010

Alastair Reynolds-Thousandth Night/Minla's Flowers

Subterranean Press released these two novellas back-to-back in the fashion of the old Ace double novels. Finish one, flip it over, and start the next. In my humble estimation, Reynolds is the best sci-fi writer going today, albeit I don't read

a ton of sci-fi. In these two stories Reynolds is in solid from. Thousandth Night is the genesis of Reynolds' novel House of Suns. In Minla's Flowers Reynolds shows mankind, even under the threat of annihilation, unable to work together to

resolve our issues. Good stuff.

Jonathan Lethem-The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye

This is the first book I have read by Lethem, and I after finishing this collection of short stories I think I would like to try one of his novels. These stories were strange and insightful, not quite gripping, but very entertaining nonetheless.

Joe Gores-Spade & Archer The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon

My mom knows I love vintage crime novels, so when my wife and I were going out of town, and she came over to get her grandsons, she gave me this book to read on the trip. I was dubious at first. I can be snobbish about books, film, and music (my friends all know this) and this 'contemporary' crime novel didn't really fit into my idea of the classic crime oeuvre. But, being the dutiful son, and not wanting to seem unappreciative, I read the damn thing. It was pretty good after all. I'm not going to go out and get any more Gores novels, but the overall effect of this book was a positive one.

Various-The SFWA European Hall of Fame

This collection of sci-fi short stories features 16 stories from across the European continent. I was not familiar with a single contributor to this book, but it was a fantastic read. I really enjoy short story collections and this was as eclectic and varied, yet strong in quality, as they come. Not one of these stories was a bomb and all of them were quite entertaining. I have my eyes open for a number of these writers now, and hope I can stumble across some other volumes of their work.

Alexandre Dumas-Georges

If you've read these posts before, then you know I love Dumas. When I saw that Modern Library was releasing this I was very excited. I finally got a copy and was not disappointed. If you've never read Dumas this novel of pride and racial inequality is probably not the place to start, but for the well-read lover it is like sweet music. I guess you can tell I enjoyed it.

Stephen King-Blockade Billy

It is hard giving up something that has been with you through thick and thin. I have been reading Stephen King since middle school, trust me, a long time ago, and even though I haven't really loved a novel of his since, hmmmmm, hold on, let me think...since I don't know when, I still read everything he publishes. I don't buy them anymore, but get them from the library, I've learned that much. Blockade Billy is a short somewhat grisly story about baseball. There is also a second story included called Morality, a...correct! moral fable. Again King can still keep my interest, he was pushing it though with Under The Dome, but just.

Stanislaw Lem-The Futurological Congress

In this slim volume Lem imagines a future society where drugs and hallucinogenics are more real, or at least more appealing, than reality. Lem is one of my favorite writers, but this was not his strongest work. Read it after you've read The Cyberiad and others.

Robert Kirkman-Invincible Vol. 1 Family Matters

I like a good graphic novel, and am an avid follower of Kirkman's Walking Dead series (looking forward to the AMC series), so when I came across a cheap copy of volume one of Invincible I thought I'd give it a try. Nice, easy, entertaining, unchallenging read that I will follow assuming I can continue to find used copies.

Zoran Zivkovic-Steps Through the Mist

This is my first book by Serbian fantasist Zivkovic and I'd like another please. This collection of stories are linked thematically by the idea of the future, the mist of the title, and the possibilities it holds.

William Beckford-Vathek

Another seminal work of the gothic tradition. Beckford's arabesque is essential if you are a fan of the gothic novel. Other readers will probably find it boring and melodramatic.

See you next month.

Chainsaw Maid

This is the best claymation I have ever seen.

Stelvio Cipriani

I can never decide who is my favorite film composer, but he is definitely Italian. One moment it's Piccioni, the next it's Micalizzi, and some days it's Stelvio Cipriani.

Cipriani started, like many of the greats, with soundtracks to spaghetti westerns, but really made his mark with his amazing scores to some great poliziotteschis like Mark Il Poliziotto,

his scores to horror films like Incubo,

his scores for giallos like La Morte Cammina Con I Tacchi Alti,

and his scores for more sensual fare like Femina Ridens.

If you have not heard these scores you are missing some truly groovy music. Enjoy!

The Origin Story, or how Vampyros Lesbos changed my life forever

It seems that every film franchise, or book series eventually gets around to doing the origin story. How so-and-so met, how this rag-tag bunch all came together, you get the picture. Well this is the tell-all, pull no punches, down and dirty, (fill in your own cliche) story of how I became a soundtrack freak.

Very simply, I was at a friends house scanning his CD's (if I'm ever at your house, I will likely spend the whole evening poring over your books and music) when I happened upon an interesting CD called Vampyros Lesbos Sexadelic Dance Party (?!?!) released by a German label called Crippled Dick Hot Wax(?!?!).

Asking my friend about said CD, he said I should borrow it, that it was 'pretty cool'.

Intrigued I took the CD home and put it on that night. CRASH! BANG! BOOM! and my world was changed forever. "Pretty good" did absolutely nothing to sum up this music, but sexadelic dance party said it all.

Of course from this point onward I had to see the movie, get more music like this, on and on in a never-ending cycle, because when it comes to books, music, and movies I'm compulsive like that. I'm still, about 12 years later, trying to get more.

Turns out the CD is actually music from 3 movies directed by Franco, all starring the lovely Soledad Miranda. They are Vampyros Lesbos, She Killed in Ecstacy, and The Devil Came From Akasava. I have still not seen the third on this list.

The music is from collaborators Manfred Hubler and Siegfried Schwab, who recorded the music under the moniker Vampires Sound Incorporated. I have searched high and low for other music from these two, but have only succeeded in finding some German jazz comps that feature one or the other, never both together. Oh well, the legacy they left is priceless.

If you've never heard it you are in for a treat:

Books I read May 2010

Based on the stories of Thomas Ligotti-The Nightmare Factory

Thomas Ligotti is a writer who I have just recently become aware of. Based on what I've read of his writing, it sounds like stuff I would love. Problem is his books are not easy to find, or inexpensive. Then I found this graphic collection of adaptations of some of his stories. This particular collection was not very impressive, but I want to read the stories as they were originally written, not in these severely altered and edited editions.
Brian K. Vaughn-Y The Last Man Deluxe Edition 3

Excellent ongoing graphic novel about the last man on earth. No, not The Omega Man. The catch here is that females survived the catastrophe. Vol. 3 continues the excellent story with outstanding artwork by Pia Guerra. Looking forward to Vol. 4 in October.
James M. Cain-Double Indemnity

Cain's classic noir, which was made into the classic film with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, is a taut and concise thriller of pre-meditated murder which explores the depths of greed and lustful abandon.
Dan Simmons-A Winter Haunting

I keep reading Dan Simmons though none of his novels, and I've read a lot, has ever blown me away. I guess they are kind of a guilty pleasure. Easy to read and ultimately entertaining. A Winter Haunting is no different. Here Simmons brings back a character from his earlier novel Summer of Night, to the place where many of his personal demons still exist. A well-written, sometimes overly-detailed piece of fiction that, once again, entertains, but not much more.
Horace Walpole- The Castle of Otranto

Seminal, yet slim, piece of gothic fiction fails to ignite the flames like so many of the later works which it influenced. Try Lewis' The Monk, Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, the works of le Fanu or Radcliffe for a more satisfying gothic read.
Philip K. Dick-A Maze of Death

Another excellent mindfuck from Dick. Even his shitty novels are fun, and this one isn't shitty.
Ross MacDonald-The Ferguson Affair

Easily the best non-Lew Archer book I've read by MacDonald, which makes sense considering this one was written much later than his other non-Archer books. In fact the Archer novels were in full swing when this was written and could easily have been improved by replacing the less-engaging main character, an attorney, with Lew.

Arturo Perez-Reverte-The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet

Reverte, Spain's foremost literary export, delivers in the fifth of the Captain Alatriste series. Another fine swashbuckling affair. Though Reverte often becomes bogged down in his narrator's lament on the condition of his mighty, beloved Spain of the 17th Century, these books are pure fun.

Anton Chekhov-Shadows and Light

It is a marvel at how few pages Chekhov needs to express the woe and misery of peasant life, or the beauty and majesty of Russia itself. These nine stories are no exception. An excellent selection that would serve well as an introduction to Chekhov, or a pleasure to the seasoned Chekhov reader like myself.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky-Tale of the Troika

In April I re-read Roadside Picnic. At the beginning of May I read the other story in this volume Tale of the Troika for the first time. The Strugatsky's absurdist look at stratified Soviet society is both humorous and subversive. It's hard to comprehend how their stories escaped the Soviet censors. Another brilliant story by the Strugatsky's.