Adventures in SciFi Publishing is the Place to Be.

The other website I write my reviews on, Adventures in SciFi Publishing, was recently nominated as a finalist for a Hugo Award in the category of "Best Fancast." I want to say congratulations to the producers of the podcast and website and I wish them the best of luck.

I figured this is a good time to plug the last few reviews I've done on the site.

Black House Rocked by Emril Krestle and Paul Bingham

The Bizarro Starter Kit (Purple)

The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq

I'll continue to write reviews of books that don't fall under the category of "speculative fiction" on this blog, so don't abandon it completely. 

Book Review: XXX Shamus by Red Hammond

I became interested in XXX Shamus because the publisher compared it to the work of Hubert Selby Jr and Irvine Welsh. Since Selby is one of my favorite authors and I've enjoyed what I've read of Welsh, I picked this up. While it certainly has the nastiness of those two authors, it's a little more plot driven. Personally, I'd say it's like a more lucid and explicit Kiss Me, Judas.

Hooper Garland is a private investigator in New Orleans who specializes in finding missing girls. A young woman comes into his office one day and asks him to find her missing sixteen year old sister, Yasmin, who disappeared after she got pregnant. Hooper is reluctant to take the job, because the last girl he found didn't want to be found and tried to kill herself. He's persuaded to take the job, because he has another major problem with women.

All Hooper knew is that when women got near him, it was like flicking a switch on their lust. They lost control. They took control. It had started to make him nervous.

As Hooper works the case he meets the despicable, pitiful and fascinating people involved in Yasmin's life, as well as trying to deal with the ones in his own.

One of the best things about XXX Shamus is that it manages to keep its plot tight and fast moving, like a pulp mystery novel, yet is able to explore the psychology of its characters in depth. This is what keeps Hooper's problem of being irresistible to women from being more than just a male fantasy. All of Hooper's trysts come back to bite him. He grows tired of his inability to form real intimate relationships.

Like Divinity had said, Hooper's entire life was a porno flick, but he wished it to be a romantic comedy.

Hammond's hardboiled prose is what really makes this book. It's straightforward yet vivid and visceral. Reading this book is like a classic noir film playing in your head. Except there's no cutting away when things get dirty or bloody.

Thinking if this were the Fifties, if he were Mike Hammer, there would be all the innuendo and hints but none of the flesh and bodily fluids and smells and sounds. Back then flirting wasn't an invitation for a no-strings-attached fuck.

From the title alone, you can tell this book is not for everyone. It's extremely graphic and very depressing at times. Despite that, I would recommend it to any fans of crime fiction and neo-noir.

Something to note is that Amazon removed this book from their store. Not just from the Kindle, but they refuse to sell new copies as well. Although you can still buy used copies off of it. Why they chose to remove this book for violating the terms of service, when you can buy actual porn that advertises itself as porn off Amazon is a mystery. It sets a really bad precedent for independent authors and publishers on Amazon as well. However, you can still buy XXX Shamus through the crowdfunding site FanBacked.com

UPDATE (10/03/2015): The FanBacked campaign has ended, but Broken River Books is now selling it direct. Buy XXX Shamus from BrokenRiverbooks.com.

UPDATE (03/05/2018): The Broken River Books edition is now out of print. You can pick up the new edition from Down and Out Books here.

New Photo Blog

Since I got a new phone a few months ago, I've been taking a lot of photos because it's got a pretty good camera on it. I've been putting them up on my Facebook, but Facebook compresses photos to crap. So I decided to start a new Tumblr to post my favorite ones.

Yeah, Tumblr has a pretty awful community, but it's actually easy to avoid it. I just don't interact with anyone and stick to posting or reblogging stuff I like.

You can follow the photo blog Tumblr blog here.

My main Tumblr is here. It's mostly reblogs of art, pictures, gifs and so forth that I like.

Top Ten Favorite Reads of 2014

2014 was a crazy year for me. I'm not going to go into the details, because I'd like to forget most of it. Not that there weren't good things that happened, like getting picked up by Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing. Here are ten more good things about last year.

10. Sad Movies by Mark Lindquist

I enjoyed this Brat Pack novel way more than it probably actually deserves.

9. Swamp Man by Donald Goines

This is a hell of a read. It's like the literary equivalent of a 70s exploitation film. I think I may even like this better than Dopefiend.

8. Dodgeball High by Bradley Sands

This novella is just funny as hell. Here's something interesting. Did you know that the moon is actually a dodgeball? Full review here. 

7. Kiss Me, Judas by William Christopher Baer

A surreal neo-noir thriller. When you finish reading this book, it's like waking up from a bad dream.

6. Humanity is the Devil by Jordan Krall

Misanthropy and Gnosticism. Full review here.

5. The Irreal Reader: Fiction and Essays from The Cafe Irreal 

Strange and excellent short fiction from all over the world. Full review here. 

4. Necrophilia Variations by Supervert

This is one of the best short story collections I've ever read. Every single one is either beautiful, disgusting, thought provoking or hilarious if it's not all of those at the same time. Supervert is just a damn good writer.

3. Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr

This is Selby's most well known novel because of the Aronofsky movie. The movie's really good, but Selby's painful, white hot prose is impossible to fully translate to film.

2. Down Where the Devil Don't Go by Paul Bingham

This is a short collection with only four stories in it, but goddamn if they aren't some amazing stories. I find myself randomly thinking of the characters and quotes from this book. It really gets stuck in your head. Full review here.

1. Les Chants de Maldoror by Comte de Lautréamont

This book is as beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella.

Honorable Mentions

- The Final Trick of Funnyman by Bruce Taylor
- Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet
- Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
- The Mustache He's Always Wanted but Could Never Grow by Brian Alan Ellis
- Museum of Terror Vol. 1 & 2 by Junji Ito
- No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert A Glover

Book Review: Suffer The Flesh by Monica O'Rourke

This book drew me in at first with its premise and with its reviews comparing it favorably to Stephen King's short story "Quitter's Inc." I was happy when I learned that Deadite Press was reprinting it and sent me a review copy. It ended up being a fun read, but still a huge let down.

The story seems simple enough, but I found it to be an intriguing premise. Zoey is an overweight woman who's struggled with her size all her life. One day she meets a woman who tells her about a program that's guaranteed to get her to lose the weight and keep it off. Unfortunately for Zoey, participation is not voluntary.

Given the premise, you'd think this short novel would be a commentary on beauty standards in the modern world or a psychological thriller about the lengths one will go to make themselves better. Unfortunately, it turns out to be neither. In fact, it throws the whole weight loss premise out so fast that I had to re-read the blurbs to even remember that it was supposed to be a central part of the book.

The book really has two parts. It starts off as BDSM porn. I don't mean that in a good or bad way. It's porn, and I can't really say that it's bad porn, but it's porn. I would have been okay with this, except it decides it wants to have a plot in the last 40 pages. The plot's a little cheesy (I'm avoiding spoilers here), but it does turn into a fun thriller towards the end. It just doesn't mesh with everything that came before. Had the book been shortened by close to 90 pages, it might have worked. Except for the epilogue. The epilogue is easily the worst part of this book. It's tacked on and seems designed to piss off the audience for no real reason. If I had a physical copy instead of an e-book, I would have thrown it to the ground and stepped on it.

All of this and the fact that the bonus short story, "Nurturing Type," works far better as a piece of fiction makes me think that O'Rourke works better in short form rather than long. So while I didn't like this novel and don't recommend it, I will check out some of her short stories in the future.

Buy Suffer the Flesh by Monica O'Rourke here.

Book Review: Humanity is the Devil by Jordan Krall

This review was originally meant to be posted on Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing, but the guy who runs it decided that this book didn't fit there. I'm not entirely surprised. This book is basically horror, but it's experimental to the point that a lot of speculative fiction fans might not get much out of it.

Hey, they took me on as the weird book guy, but I guess the stuff I read can get a little too weird for them. So let's take a look at Jordan Krall's Humanity is the Devil.

Giving a plot summary is difficult, because the plot is rather loose and scatter shot. The best summary I can give is that it revolves around a scheme by a Gnostic cult lead by a man named Seth to destroy all of humanity and, ultimately, the Demiurge. They engage in bombings, mass shootings and other terrorist actions.

Most of them could be defined as "acts of terror" but Seth wouldn't agree. They were his acts, yes, but he didn't consider them terrible.

In between the activities of the cult, we get glimpses into Seth's psyche in the form of his interactions with other members of the cult, his personal rituals and his visits with his therapist. For all the literary experimentation in this "anti-novel," Krall still manages to give significant development to his main character. It gives the book a center for those more used to conventional story-telling something to latch on to.

"Is that what you're afraid of? Being viewed as not being a good son?"
"I don't think so. I mean, I already know I'm not a good son. I just don't want to fight about it."

Many times, the narrative shifts focus to other characters who justify the claim made by the book's title. One of the more alienating parts readers may find in this book is Krall's short narratives about the worst that humanity has to offer. Rapists, child molesters and underground pornographers all make appearances. The stories within the larger story about these people would almost have you rooting for Seth's cult, but Krall doesn't go that route. Krall doesn't shy away from showing the pain and horror that Seth's cult inflicts on people, giving the book a heavy moral ambiguity.

You are but a clay vessel. You exist only to hold what is given to you by the Designer, the Grand Builder, the Demiurge. I will empty you of your broken light.

There are also several chapters that consist of free associations. These chapters contribute to the oppressive, disorienting and pessimistic mood of the book. They assault you with (seemingly) random words and phrases that are sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful and often beautiful in their ugliness.

defiant disorder behavior disorder a weight reactions black to pain low animal lack of remorse strangers lack of ritalin clallam classical oppositional cruel and father operant release

I personally loved Humanity is the Devil. I found it to be a powerful attack of language on modern values, but it's a difficult book to recommend because of it's subject matter and because of how different it is from most books. I'd recommend it to any readers feeling particularly adventurous. If you've enjoy books such as William S. Burrough's Naked Lunch or JG Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition, you'll definitely enjoy Jordan Krall's Humanity is the Devil.

Buy Humanity is the Devil by Jordan Krall here. 

Book Review: Down Where the Devil Don't Go by Paul Bingham

Down Where the Devil Don't Go is Paul Bingham's first published work. Based on the interviews I've read with him, the stories were written during the Bush years but weren't published until this year. What's scary is that these stories are just as relevant as ever.

The first story is "Population I." A writer finds himself unable to work on his novel. He starts believing himself to be fake, and he resents his promiscuous, smut-writing roommate. Eventually, he finds inspiration in a convict he's mentoring. 

   My mind goes blank and Jamal thinks of another word.

The writer becomes more and more fascinated with Jamal until his feelings turn sexual.

Neither of us are homosexuals, but if I were sentenced to the penitentiary I would allow Jamal to fuck me; I would bend over and let him fuck me in exchange for protection and the right to touch his muscled biceps and to let him know someone other than this mother cares for him. 

This darkly comedic story is a funny and disturbing satire of the modern literary scene and establishes the themes that run through all the stories very well.

Next up is "What Dead Men Fear." John Wayne Cash Brazil is a body guard for a young country singer. When she's kidnapped, her grandfather puts the responsibility of finding her entirely on Brazil.

There is an art to pain. Overwhelming kills you, knocks your mind out. Too little, and you forget you’re nothing. Just the right amount and you’ll hurt bad like everybody else. It’s all in the application—how you manage it.

This noir story is probably the most fun to read. It's like a classic pulp story that also mocks the modern country scene and the celebrity culture around music in general. The passage I quoted above is also one of the best in the book. Like a lot of great noir writers, Bingham's prose is straightforward but hard hitting.

The next story, and probably my favorite in the book, is called "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Hollywood." That title alone would probably get some people shaking their heads. Mort Schnellenhammer is a network executive who finds himself the target of a massive protest after canceling a popular TV show. To save his own skin, he hatches a plan to get rid of the creator of the show.

"Could I do that?"

Reassurance came quickly.

Of course you can, you're Mort Schnellenhammer, Executive. You make things happen; people die. It has a purpose. Your fucking neck is on the line this time.

Like the previous stories, "The Protocols..." is a dark satire, this time on modern media culture. Mort is a completely despicable man, yet Bingham paints him in such a way that he can't simply be dismissed as a caricature. Bingham also manages to use the story to comment on the plight of Palestinian Christians, without it feeling preachy or out of place, through Mort's friend Hasan.

"They talk of Zionist oppression while they kill Christian children and collect the moneys on them, because it is a democracy and we are the minority too minor for anyone to care. God I hate the fucks. They speak in platitudes and fuck democracy in the ass."

The final story, "I Feel Alright", stands out in that it doesn't have the humor or satirical aim of the of the rest of the book. It's just as powerful though. A veteran of the Iraq war returns to Texas and tries to adjust to civilian life again.

Alienation, that's what was missing.

"You just gotta get used to what you was used to before," Sandy has said at the very last minute, before Josh drove away

Sandy had never been to Iraq. Sandy had never left Texas.

Josh soon finds himself involved with his old drug-dealing friends which leads to a violent confrontation with a cop.

Got all satisfied. For the last time in a lifetime. I’ll lose that later, but right now, I feel alright. Better than I ever felt.

This collection of stories is a hell of a debut. Bingham's prose is amazing, and he creates insightful and entertaining looks into the lives of lost and broken people searching for meaning and direction in the cultural wreckage of modern America. I can't recommend this book highly enough, and I can't wait to see what Bingham will be coming out with in the future.

Buy Down Where the Devil Don't Go here.