Book Review: Horror Library, Volume 7 by Eric J. Guignard

 

Horror Library, Volume 7 by Eric J. Guignard

Paperback, 342 pages

Published March 1st 2022 by Dark Moon Books

As a reviewer, I get offers for books from time to time. I first started taking book reviews seriously around 2008 and one of the first books I had offered to me was an early volume of the Horror library. This series started by RJ Cavender at Chopping block press is a series I have always been fond of. As the series went on it passed through a few different hands one editor retired and another passed away. Sorry to hear about the loss of Patrick Beltran, but the Horror Library is now in some of the most capable hands in the indie horror publishing world.

Eric J. Guignard is one of the best eyes for short horror fiction outside of maybe Ellen Datlow, one of the things that makes him so good goes beyond taste. I  mean he has good taste and knows the Genre but through Dark Moon books he has worked hard to build a respectable database of writers to work with that are diverse in culture, race, gender, and perspective. The international voices Eric brings to his anthologies are one of his amazing strengths.

If this book can be summed up, it would be this way. A blend of established names, but lots of new voices. The stories all have a classic feel, most are short, and there are almost 30 of them. The subjects and styles are diverse as the locations that the authors hail from. All the stories were well written there were known that I hated.  But of course, I have favorites.

There are some big names, and familiar voices, among the best of those stories including the infamous Luddite Bentley Little, who often gets overlooked because he has zero internet presence. His story is one of my first favorites. ‘In the Valley’ was a fun story written in country dialect. It is a weird and interesting story, it will quickly remind you to have many established works this writer has. There is an undeniable skill. Some of the other established writers who wrote stand-out stories included a boxing tale by Gene O’Neil and a stand-out prison tale called Hand of Glory by Cody Goodfellow.

Of the authors that were new to me some of my favorites included ‘Just Keep Walking’ by Texas writer David Afshrirad. This zombie tale is written in an experimental style. It made me slow down to consider each sentence. Probably my absolute favorite was a creepy surreal stunner by Greek writer Natalia Theodoridou called ‘The Mouth.’ Samuel has a mouth to feed. Just a mouth. Better if you find out on your own but I loved this bizarro tale. Last I really enjoyed a weird one called 'The Test' by Zoe Kaplan.

Also really cool the book ends with a neat multi page artist galley the work of Allen Koszowski. All cool stuff. This is a fun book. Most importantly the Horror library tradition continues. Guignard is the right person for the job, and I expect to see many more editions.

Book Review: Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan

 

Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road  by Kyle Buchanan

Hardcover, 384 pages

Published February 22nd 2022 by William Morrow & Company

 

As a huge fan of the Mad Max movies, I followed every step of the 15 years of development of this movie hoping it would happen. I admit there were times I never thought we would see it as I am sure most of the people making it felt the same. As someone who reads making of books listens to commentary tracks and understands what goes into making movies I understood how crazy Fury Road is. As a movie, it is an insane updating of Road Warrior. A movie without a script, written in storyboards, and almost all action is not what you think of when you think of a feminist masterpiece but that is part of the magic of Fury Road.

Told through quotes Kyle Buchanan didn’t have to do a ton of writing but did a wonderful job of piecing together TONS of interviews with nearly everyone involved with the movie, critics, other directors, and more. That was the hard work. Plus organizing the statements and putting them together.  It is an amazing book don’t get me wrong. This is a really impressive book.

Fury Road is a movie I already loved deeply, but this makes clear the insane amount of work that went into it, and how unlikely it was. In each stage, development, filming, post-production to the surprise award season. I know this is a short review but non-fiction is not my bread and butter.
Blood, Sweat, and Chrome is a must-read for film nerds, those interested in the history of film, the filmmaking process, or just fans of the movie.

Book Review: The Last Storm by Tim Lebbon

 

The Last Storm by Tim Lebbon

Paperback, 368 pages

Expected publication: July 5th 2022 by Titan Books

 
Tim Lebbon is one of those writers for me that I trust.  The dude knows what the hell he is doing telling a story, building worlds and characters. The novel that won me over was The Silence that in 2015 was my favorite read of that year. While I was disappointed by A Quiet Place (when I saw the trailer I thought when did The Silence cast Emily Blunt?), the movie The Silence was a valiant attempt but for this fan of the novel, I just couldn’t go there. For real seven years after reading The Silence there are scenes that still haunt me. What did I say at the time…

“This novel is in the tradition of British dystopias ranging from Day of the Triffids to 28 Days Later. The Silence is a high-concept monster novel that creates terror in the reader by milking every drop of the idea. There is a moment 2/3 of the way through the narrative that was the most brutal scene I have experienced since the ending of the Mist. I knew this scene was coming, it was obvious and Lebbon gave the reader plenty of warnings. Despite all the warnings reading it still hit me like a gut punch.”

We are not here to talk about The Silence, as Tim Lebbon has a new novel called The Last Storm, but I wanted to highlight the moment I fell into the hands of this storyteller. I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy as Tim is coming on the podcast, but my interest is high as a huge fan of Cli-fi, climate, and environmental horror. I mean I was nominated for the Splatterpunk award for best novel for my entry into the sub-genre with Ring of Fire. I am passionate about this sub-genre.

The sustainability of earth is my most gnawing personal fear, many of my favorite most disturbing reads include The 60s Ballard novels eco-horror novels, The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner, or The Bridge by Skipp and Spector. Stuff like that. I had to read this one. Somehow his novel Eden escaped me, I will fix that. Thank you to Tim for sending me this one and coming on the pod. (Recording soon)

The Last Storm takes the climate horror in an exciting new direction. It seems like it could possibly be in the same universe as Eden but I am not sure about that. Lebbon has always been a writer who was good at using the family dynamic to build and maintain suspense. I get the feeling that environmental fears are becoming a theme for this horror writer and of course, I think it is natural.
One of my favorite reads last year was John Shirley’s underrated Cli-fi novel Stormland. It took very modern climate fears – unending hurricane seasons and combined what he does best by adding Cyberpunk elements. It is a great novel. Lebbon does a similar trick here, by writing about a brutal climate future and giving it a personal spin. The family dynamic and some cosmic horror beasties. This was a bit shocking for me as I went in only knowing “Climate horror- Tim Leboon” (I was sold right there)

I admit for some reason I was expecting a cold realistic post-apocalypse drama like The Road. My fault. Regardless this novel is a supernatural horror novel set against an American dust bowl that is our future if we don’t start making changes. The narrative follows multiple points of view, and the rhythm of how we go from character to character is perfect. My only real nitpick is using first person in multiple points of view book sometimes takes me out of a story reading me I am reading a book. For the most part, the story and writing are strong enough that I was lost in the story, but I don’t think this will affect most readers.

Jesse is the character I would consider our main point of view. As the story really starts with him. He is living alone in the desert. He inherited an ability that makes him a folk hero in this future. He has the power to make rain appear, and this power had me thinking we were getting something like the John Farris novel The Fury or King’s Firestarter meets McCarthy’s The Road, and I wasn’t that far off.  

In this world the rainmakers have become almost mythical, reports on the internet and TV have made these people mythical. Jesse and his (ex)wife Karina scattered after one of the storms Jesse made caused destruction that included their lost daughter Ash who they believed dead. We also meet Jimi who is a soaker, who collects and sells water. He hates Jesse whose storm really messed with him. He has been seeking him for revenge. This all comes to head when Karina thinks she has seen Ash on a video and their daughter is alive and starting to make rain, this means as she grows stronger, she will eventually bring the monsters. The race is on to find Ash.

The dynamic that being a rainmaker sets up in this world is fascinating, because why wouldn’t they just bring the earth back? The problem is this magic is supernatural, the price is high. It is painful and dangerous, and in the end, it actually opens holes to other worlds filled with monsters.  That is where the cosmic horror comes in. I love the idea of the slow dusty painful climate death that creeps by inches across a dying landscape versus the wet madness of the storm hiding a dread from another reality.

Lebbon has a reputation for writing horror, but he has written lots of science fiction, even if much of that is for media tie-in franchises. He does a wonderful job with the world-building. One thing I really liked is this rare case of a post-apocalypse, that still has parks, phones, TV, cars, and the internet.

“The park itself is marked by drought. Grass is dead. A large pond contains a mere puddle of muddy water, and a few scruffy ducks pad across its oily surface. Hardy trees persist here and there, but planting beds are home to cacti and a few swathes of invasive devil grass. Even in the city people are fighting against the painful truth of change. They don’t call it the climate crisis anymore, or global warming, or any other name that might have once have been used to urge positive action. Now, this was the norm.”  
 
When I read a book, I dog-ear pages I want to talk about in my reviews, and in this case, most of the things I took note of were world-building, but so much of the horror of this world is the novel and a glimpse into our future. Lebbon gives us a supernatural thriller but the bones are built on the speculative horror of this future.

“The fire raged across the desert after starting in scrubland.  There are a thousand ways for such a blaze to begin: sun shining through on to a scatter of dried plants; sparks from a passing vehicle; Sometimes it’s intentional. On a landscape fried dry by terrible drought and baked day after day by a merciless sun. Fire was a demon that stalked from place to place, searching for where to settle its blazing roots.”

I want to also point out that the prose is some of Lebbon’s best. Not flowery at all but perfectly calibrated for the story giving moments of dark beauty. Several chapters end with powerful moments that hit hard. “Eight in the morning, clear sky, already ninety degrees in the shade, the world was nothing like it had been yesterday.”

That weather report is an important detail. These powerful chapter-ending shots are throughout the novel. Perfectly timed cliffhangers and gut punches at the end of chapters keep you reading.
Before I write about spoilers let me just say that I loved this novel, and had fun reading it. Like many novels the more I thought about it. I enjoyed elements I missed in my first reading. So I recommend this book for fans of SF climate horror hybrids. Tim Lebbon fans will be there. I still think the silence is a better novel to start one, but both are great.

OK spoilers…

The Last Storm is a CLI-FI novel, it has effective world-building, but it also has rich characters, and as Lebbon does so well there is a strong family dynamic. Jessie and Ash are tragic figures who have such important talents but it ends up being a curse.  This is a powerful story on many levels as a piece of science fiction it would be easy to focus on the dynamic of the rainmakers and the allegory they represent in the drought-stricken future. That is the heart of the story part of the story.

“The rain felt good,” Cee says. “Like…no rain I’ve ever felt before.”
“Fresh,” I say. “Pure.”
“Right, until it started raining blood.”

Besides being a fun Slayer reference, this is the price that rainmakers makers pay. It is the fear Ash’s family lives with. What do the creatures falling in the raining blood represent? “The fires are closing, a glimpse of hell in the rear-view mirror. The wipers smeared blood, and for the first time he wondered where it all came from, and the pain that must be suffered there to make so much.”

They represent but the ghosts of the world we have killed off. The price of returning the water to our world is the ghosts of the world humanity has killed off. The best kind of science fiction uses the future to reflect on how we live our lives today. The sad reality is it is harder and harder to write a novel about the future without grim, dark horror. This novel is a cross-genre classic. Science Fiction horror at its finest.
   
 

Book Review: Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough

 

Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough

Hardcover, 322 pages

Published April 2022 by William Morrow & Company

I am going to try not to repeat myself too much from my last review of her work, but I know I have many more readers now. When last I reviewed a work of awesomeness from Britain's queen of feminist thriller Sarah Pinborough it was her last book Dead to Her. Honestly, I would read a furniture catalog if it had her name on it. For those of you who do not know or have been living under a rock, SP is a bestselling author most famous for the novel Behind Her Eyes which became a Netflix series and was one of the most talked-about shows in the platform’s history.

No small feat Behind Her Eyes is miracle in many ways. It was marketed as having the most insane ending in both novel and TV streaming form and pulled off the much-debated ending. I remember when the book was released Sarah signed it at our local bookstore Mysterious Galaxy. At the time during the Q and A, I admitted as a fan of her work I was worried that the marketing was setting an impossibly high bar. Then I read the book. Like many others in the last few pages, my jaw dropped.

The other magic trick BHE pulled was completely rebooting the publishing career of Sarah Pinborough who was known for her excellent horror novels that had modest sales. Forget the sales for a minute The Dog-Faced Gods Trilogy (Forgotten Gods in the states) is a dystopian horror masterpiece that has some of the creepiest serial killings I have read almost ever. The speculative elements written Pre-Brexit are underrated, and perhaps it is time I revisit. While those three books are personal favorites probably the best novel in the Pinborough canon might be her pandemic novel The Death House released five years before the real thing.

Behind her Eyes started a new era for Pinborough who has found a sweet spot in the growing genre of thrillers for women about women. This area was made famous by Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train but Pinborough is becoming the master. She wrote a YA thriller 13 minutes that in many ways was the bridge between eyes but it was BHE that marked the new direction. As I said in the review of Dead to Her, the last book SP has created a series of subtle feminist thrillers. What do I mean by subtle, They are feminist not in a raised fist militant way fighting against the system. Sure novels like the Handmaid’s Tale for example are obvious statements against systematic patriarchy.

The last couple Pinborough novels are about the day to day death of a thousand cuts, and daily patriarchy in every way that Margaret Atwood deals with the system. Dead to Her is a book that appears to be a book about the “other younger woman” but that is misdirection and ends up sparking a very different conversation. I am sure in the wake of Gone Girl there are thousands of women trying to write the novel to inherit the tone. What made Sarah Pinborugh different is she had a long career beforehand. She had written trilogies, Fairy tale adaptations, and media-tie-in novels, and let's face it she knows what the hell she was doing. She was an English teacher, and born storyteller.

Her grasp of structure, narrative drive, plotting and subtle character moments is all top-notch. Much of the publishing industry has treated this phase like she is a new author on the scene, but you don’t write novels like Insomnia if you are a newbie.

Oh yeah, I reviewing Insomnia. I  am going to talk about this novel, but again I went in cold and suggest this reading experience. More than any of the other feminist thrillers this one leans on horror, and Sarah’s horror skills more than ever. I am not sure it is for everyone but the target audience will gobble this up for good reason.  I am not the target audience, I likely would not read this novel if I wasn’t a fan of the author. There are authors I will anything they write, and she is one of them.

Insomnia is the story of Emma, the mother of two, and it was interesting coming off Sundial by Catriona Ward because some of the dynamics of motherhood were strangely similar. Both have novels with mothers who have strained relationships, with their daughters. It was interesting back to back for me. Emma is a professional mother, a divorce lawyer with two kids, and a stay-at-home husband.  Everything seems grand until her 40th birthday approaches.

You see Emma has kept a secret all these years from her family. Her mother is not dead, but alive and in mental hospital where she has been since she went crazy and tried to kill Emma’s older sister Phoebe. This happened on their mother’s 40th birthday. Emma has dreaded her 40th birthday fearing her mind will slip too.

Suddenly 40 doesn’t seem that old to me but one of the subtle feminist themes SP is working with here is the fear of aging that many women live with. As a man I feel a little out of place talking about this, but it is the theme of the novel. 40 is one of those ages when people stop talking about their ages and don’t forget we as men are advised never to ask a woman her age.  This novel will be marketed as a thriller as they attract a larger audience but let us face the truth. Insomnia is a horror novel whose monster is a woman’s 40th birthday. Sound interesting. It is and you should read it. Considering the space the industry wants Pinborough stories to live in, it is a genius turn.

OK, last warning before I get into details…

That sense Insomnia is a paranoid feminist horror masterpiece. As the date approaches day by day, Emma loses everything through a series of plot twists. If there is a challenge to the book some of these twists are complicated, but no problem for SP. As Emma starts to lose sleep the events quickly spiral into paranoia and the reader will question her sanity just as Emma does herself. The 40th birthday becomes a monster lurking in the shadows, excellently off screen like the shark in Jaws. It is coming, stepping closer, day by day, hour by hour. Emma loses her mother, husband, her sister, and kids one at a time. The pain of betrayal building to the worst moment when she loses her job.
Lets talk about Emma’s job for a moment. There is a scene when Emma is on the phone with a man who she represented in a divorce who flirts with her. She is nice to him, even goes to dinner with him because of her job, but as wires start to fray she gets mad at him. “Why did you take the children from Miranda if you never have them?” She goes on to say “Because it smacks of sexism and the worst of the 1970s behavior.”

Emma as a character benefitted from sexism, she hurt other women in the process, but as all the walls start coming down she sees the strings of Patriarchy start to tug at her. I don’t know if SP plots these novels to craft this message or just the nature of Patriarchy worms his ugly head in. This scene is important to make a statement one of the worst things of sexism is how women end up doing it to each other. There are moments in the novel where Emma gets herself into further trouble by trusting the woman she thinks she can relate too. So that moment when Emma comforts the sexist man flirting with her is the turning point for her to solve the mystery.

One of the best moments of the book comes when Emma goes to speak to that man's wife Miranda.  Miranda talks about the fights “I expected him to behave like an adult” she’s saying “Instead I let him wind me up like some toy and play games with me that made everyone think I was crazy.” The fears of aging is not just a monster these characters fear, but the paranoia is used against them.

This makes Insomnia an immersive paranoid thriller that is deeply relatable to women that are Sarah Pinborough’s target audience. A genius work of feminist horror that will probably be overlooked for that aspect. Like Dead to Her, it provides some uncomfortable moments for us male readers, but you know what? It ain’t about us.  

Essay: Moon is more Philip K. Dick than Blade Runner by David Agranoff (re-edited and moved to Amazing Stories)

 

 

Moon is a better Philip K. Dick movie than Blade Runner by David Agranoff

 An updated and re-edited version will be a part of my column from Amazing Stories (search 25th century Five and Dime)

Book review: Sundial by Catriona Ward

 

 Sundial by Catriona Ward

Hardcover, 304 pages

Published March 2022 by Tor Nightfire

 

This is my second Catriona Ward novel and the first one was very interesting, without referring back to my review of The House on Needless Street I remember it being a masterpiece or at least close to one. I made sure my horror friends went and read it right away. I reserved Sundial at the library on the strength of that novel and forgot about it until it was waiting on my hold shelf at the library. I knew the title was a Shirley Jackson homage but never anything about the plot going in.

For the first 70 pages, I was hooked starting the book close to my bedtime I had to make myself put the bookmark in and go to bed. In the morning I told a co-worker who is a reader that I might have a book for her. That is how strong I think the opening of the book is.

Ward is a great writer of prose who makes character and inner monologue have a drive to them that makes you interested in the characters. Here our point of view shifts between Rob and her daughter Callie. There is also a time shift in Rob's point of view. If pressed to explain what Sundial is by the first act I would say it was a Psychological horror novel about motherhood. It starts very focused on these feelings.

“I don't know what it's like for other people, but love and nausea are often indistinguishable to me”

The first hundred or so pages feel like a very straightforward exploration of tough issues facing Mothers, and parents. Many of them have to confront the fact that they feel they have made a mistake when all society pressures them to love their children no matter what. This was a very interesting place for the novel to go.

In that first act, we knew that Rob suspected her husband of cheating and that she is willing to put up with it if it keeps the family together. She loves her youngest daughter but Callie her oldest is a challenge. Callie is mean, and cruel sometimes. She is close to her father but drives Rob away at every turn. Then Rob finds some disturbing art that Callie is making from the bones of animals. This alarms her.  

“Kids are mirrors, reflecting back everything that happens to them. You’ve got to make sure they’re surrounded by good things.”

It is around this time that Rob takes Callie for a little mother-daughter time at the place where she grew up in the desert. Once up there the novel lost steam. The back story of Callie and how she came into the family, the reasons by Rob was strange to start coming in back story. Those elements getting revealed as they did would have made more sense to mean if Callie was the main point of view character.

It seemed convenient that she didn’t think about or explain in her internal monologue that she was a part of animal experiments and cult behavior growing up. Does that sound like a different novel? It felt like a different novel. For whatever reason, it felt different to me.

 I loved the last novel I read by Ward and I was equally confused but the threads wove together and the unreliable narration made sense within the context of the structure. Here the plot of the second half didn’t bring clarity for me, it made it murkier. I think I wanted the novel I thought I was getting for 75 pages at the start. Catriona Ward is a great writer and based on the strength of the first novel I will be back.  In the end, a great start and an ending that didn’t work for me ends up being a just OK book.

Book Review: Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction Edited by Lisa Kröger, and Melanie R. Anderson

 

Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction Edited by Lisa Kröger, and Melanie R. Anderson 

Hardcover 320 pages

Published September 2019 by Quirk Books

 I tend not to write long detailed reviews of non-fiction books, as I don’t think that is what people who read my reviews are looking for. Monster She wrote is a super cool book that I got from the library and regretted it. Meaning at some point I am going to buy it and put it on my reference shelf and I will have to re-read it to highlight it.

Before I get into the content the design of the book is amazing. Lots of blacks and Green but it has cool designs that include pulling quotes that take up entire pages. I liked that as it gave weight to the quotes for sure. There is cool art throughout, so the look and design is just fun and cool.

As for the content. I knew some of the deep histories of women who have written genre fiction and thought I knew it well. I learned a lot. I have said with confidence for example that Mary Shelley wrote the first Science Fiction, but it was this book that taught me about Margaret Cavendish. She wrote a novel The Blazing World in 1666 that was clearly science fiction. Life forever changed with this tidbit of information.

I added probably 50 to 60 books to my good reads “Want to read” shelf while reading this book, but the blazing World is at the top of that list. I learned tons about the gothic era, which is good because I want to know about that era but have zero interest in actually reading much of it. I was excited to see CL Moore get representation.

This is an important book for the history of Horror and Speculative fiction. There are plenty of histories that have focused on famous men. I can’t stress enough how cool and important this book is. 200% recommended.

Essay: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The first 2 pages (for the Blade Runner 40th)

 

What can we learn from the first page of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By David Agranoff

 Welcome to our Blade Runner anniversary coverage of Philip K. Dick’s classic novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? One reason I wanted to do this celebration is to highlight the novel that often gets overlooked by fans of the movie.  So this month we are going to celebrate the novel with deep care.  I have written a couple of essays to go with our coverage. The first one is about the first two pages and their deeper meaning of them. This is pages 3 and 4 of the Del Rey trade paperback.

We should start with the first sentence. 

“A merry little surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard.”

It is an interesting choice that Phil opens the novel with our main character asleep and awakened by a machine whose purpose is to control emotions. The idea for the mood organ is that people control what they feel setting on the machine. Right from the opening sentence, the table is set for a world in which even sleep is controlled by technology.

According to the PKD dictionary “The Mood organ is defined as Developed from the brain-mapping of the mid-1960s and the discoveries about the mid-brain (hypothalamus) and depth-electrode techniques of Penfield, Jacobson & Olds. The keys of the organ trigger off different depth-electrodes in the hypothalamus, allowing one's mood to be adjusted artificially - and even to produce entirely new emotions. The Hammerstein Mood Organ and the Waldteufel Euphoria are just such instruments, and render the conventional musical organs obsolete.”

Deckard starts to get up. His wife Iran is still asleep and he wonders why she is not awake too. “You set your Penfield too weak,” he said to her. “I’ll reset and you’ll be awake.”

Iran doesn’t want him touching her settings preferring to stay asleep. He tries to convince her to change her settings. The narrative reason is simple. PKD is trying from the first page to establish the blurred lines between humans and technology. It is a part of something as pure as a married couple waking up beside each other.

Deckard puts his hand on her should and Iran tells him “Get your crude cop’s hands away.” It is awkward dialogue but important. She has already told him once to not mess with the machine that controls her emotions and this time she makes an insult taking a dig at him for being a “Cop.”

“I’m not a cop.” He felt irritable, now, although he had not dialed for it.

Excellent world-building here. Not only does it show that the bounty hunters (given the name Blade Runners in the Hampton Francher first draft of the script dated in 1980) are not police officers, but the public, even his wife see them that way.  Also, the line “although he had dialed for it.” Is subtle but excellent to express his feelings and explain the different aspects of this future in a sentence. 

Then Iran responds:

“You’re worse,” his wife said, her eyes still shut. “you’re a murder hired by the cops.”

“I’ve never killed a human being in my life.”

Right here on the first page, the debate on the humanity and ethics of artificial persons begins between Deckard and his wife. PKD of course was well known for writing about the question of what is human? He wastes no time bringing the debate into the story. The argument gets worse when Iran expresses sadness for the “Poor Andys.” Note the term Replicant was a creation of David Peoples in the second major draft of the screenplay.  Deckard gets mad at the suggestion and points out that Iran lives off the spoils of his bounties. In this scene, he also talks about their need for more money so they could buy a real sheep, not an electric one. This is a nice way to introduce an aspect of the story that will play a large role later. It establishes a couple of things but most important what may seem like a weird throw-away line about Sheep is actually setting up the important “keep up with Joneses aspect of collecting real live animals in a world where they are going extinct.  World War Terminus and the mass extinction have yet to be introduced but the effects of them are hinted at here.

Deckard also in the interior monologue debates dialing for a suppressant to wipe away his anger or send his rage through the roof. Iran sees this.

“If you dial,” Iran said eyes open and watching, “for greater venom I’ll do the same.”

The second page also highlights PKD’s underrated humor.

At that point, Deckard agrees to set his mood organ to his scheduled mood which for January 3rd, 2021 is a “Businesslike professional attitude.” Too bad for him his wife had scheduled a “six-hour self-accusatory depression.” Like the reader, Deckard is darkly amused that is a possible setting. This scene highlights PKD’s ability to write satire, as this scene uses the mood organ technology to mock a typical marriage fight.

The first two pages are a great example of Philip K Dick’s often overlooked strengths. It is absolutely nothing like the tone of the movie and provides a great example of how much deeper and different the journey of the novel is. That said the nature of the stage is set subtly but there. A dying world where emotions are tied to technology, animals are nearly extinct and bounty hunters are hired to hunt and kill Androids. All in the first two pages. Done with a little marriage satire it is powerful, funny, and weird right out of the gate. 

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One City, One Reads: Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Blade Runner with the PKD Podcast and Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore! June 25th, 5 PM!

 June 25th, 1982: BLADE RUNNER, one of the genre-defining classics of science fiction film, was released in theatres. Based on Philip K. Dick's 1966 classic novel DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?, both the novel and the film still have an important place in the speculative genre. So this June 25th, Mysterious Galaxy will host a live event celebrating BLADE RUNNER’s 40th anniversary and we want you to take part. As a community, we will be re-reading the classic novel leading up to the June 25th event. So pull DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? off your shelf, or swing by Mysterious Galaxy to pick up a fresh copy and to support the store. Then, join us on Saturday, June 25th at 5 PM for a discussion led by the authors behind the Philip K Dick-themed podcast, (PK)Dickheads podcast. This discussion will be recorded for the (PK)Dickheads podcast show.