Book Review: 2054 by Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis

 

2054 by Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis

304 pages, Hardcover

Published March, 2024 by Penguin Press

Full review on the way... 

Book Review Electric Forest by Tanith Lee

 

Electric Forest by Tanith Lee

160 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published August, 1979 by DAW

Full review on the way... 

Book Review: 2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis

 

 2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis 

320 pages, Hardcover

Published: March, 2021 by Penguin Press

Full review on the way... 

Book review: The World Jones Made by Philip K. Dick

 

The World Jones Made by PKD (second read)

199 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1956, Ace Books.

My 2018 review: 

So in 1956, in his second novel, PKD felt the need to make the point that Hitler was bad. There is also a story about eugenics and bred for Venus test-tube babies, a society based on relativism, a circus with sex-changing performers, and lots more. Crazy considering it was released the same year that Elvis had his first hit single. If you want to get my review, you'll have to listen to the third episode of Dickheads:

The 2018 DHP episode on Soundcloud

The same episode on Apple podcasts 

2026 Re-read:  

When we first started the podcast, I wasn’t as serious about it as I am now. When I read The World Jones Made in 2018, I got it from the library. A couple of books in I started highlighting the books, writing notes in the margins, and now I have an almost complete collection researched like that. I needed to get my own copy and highlight it for my complete collection.  I needed my copy to be dog-eared and marked up with a Yellow highlighter, and, much like my Solar Lottery re-read, it was a totally different experience. Since the podcast, I have re-read about ten of the novels a second or third time, and it always highlights deeper levels.

I was a novice Dickheads early in the journey when we recorded the first episode, and I barely knew anything about Phil, his life, and process. You can hear my thoughts on it in the links above.

Now I have consumed almost all his novels for the podcast, read almost 20 books about him,  I have worked on two Non-fiction PKD books of my own, visited his houses, and become an expert in his formula, which this novel was an early attempt at. So reading The World Jones Made this time was a very, very different experience.

This was Phil's second published he had written more than half a dozen at the time, written only a decade after WW II and heavy on the thing of “Nazis bad” this is a strange novel about a mutant pre-cog mutant who starts a movement, and has lots of really strange world building bits, from a post nuclear mutant freakshow/ circus, Sex changing dancers, Religons that worship pre-cogs, Venus test-tube babies, astronauts training in micro realities, weird drifter pollen like aliens (that are an awkward stand-in for Jews), there is enough weird ideas to populate four novels. 

The first chapter is terribly written with info-dumpy dialogue that had me worried, I was like, oh shit. This is gonna suck. One mutant reminds another, “We’re superior mutants, remember?” The quality of the book improved almost instantly after that chapter. I started to wonder if editor Don Wollheim didn’t rewrite some of those first pages; they didn’t read right. 

Pre-cogs were on his mind he finished this novel and the novella Minority the same month in December 1954. Floyd Jones is more than a pre-cog, but it is often misunderstood by the characters in the book and readers who think he is a fortune teller or sees the future. “After all, fortunetelling was ninety-nine percent showmanship and the rest shrewd guesswork”

No guesswork, but he doesn’t “see” the future; he exists both in the present and one year ahead. I didn’t understand the first time that he was not seeing the future he was living it. It was painful, hard to deal with. What he sees is limited, but enough that it gives him power in this world that is trying to rebuild. This was PKD’s first attempt to run various plotlines and multiple POVS.  He wanted even more, as he said in a letter. “Originally, the MS was much longer. ACE agreed to publish it if I'd cut it. I cut out the mutant-thread entirely”

 You can see elements of the PKD Formula (as he laid it out in a 1964 letter to fellow SF writer Ron Goulart in how the novel has three themes, two levels, and ends with a human act. Jones fits the formula's ideas of a protag, but the novel doesn’t open on a clear subhuman.

From his typewriter in the dining room of the Francisco Street house in Berkley PKD was not shy about adding his political opinions.

“To me, the spectacle of demagogues sending millions of people to their deaths, wrecking the world with holy wars and bloodshed, tearing down whole nations to put over some religious or political ‘truth’ is—” He shrugged. “Obscene. Filthy. Communism, Fascism, Zionism—they’re the opinions of absolutist individuals forced on whole continents. And it has nothing to do with the sincerity of the leader. Or the followers. The fact that they believe it makes it even more obscene. The fact that they could kill each other and die voluntarily over meaningless verbalisms . . .” 

While PKD is clearly not aligning with the right or left, he was bothered when Thomas Disch, around this time, called him a Marxist. The only ideology that gets a target here is Nazism.

While not a perfect entry in the PKD canon, this one is entertaining, thought-provoking, and weird. While I like the earlier Solar Lottery better, this one feels more PKD.

Book Review: Psychedelic Modernism: Literature and Film by Raj Chandarlapaty

Psychedelic Modernism: Literature and Film by Raj Chandarlapaty

268 pages, Hardcover

Published: February 7, 2024 by Vernon Press 

This will be a short review because I admit I read only the first one hundred pages about Audlus Huxley and the two chapters on Philip K. Dick. The other is presenting one of the chapters on Phil at the PKD Fest. (I am very much looking forward to that)

This is a topic I didn’t know much about; drugs and Psychedelic literature are something I have an interest in despite being straight edge myself. The first 100 pages taught me a lot about the author of Brave New World Audlus Huxley, I didn’t know that he was pretty much a campaigner for mind-expanding adventures, that the Doors got their name from his book all new to me. RC's research and details about this author’s life are worth picking up this book. 

The two chapters on PKD are certainly strong. The statement that I really liked was this one. “Author D. Scott Apel summed up the terminological axis most favorable to our inquiries: The unknown side of Phil was that he probably was a philosopher in a world where philosophy and philosophy had been replaced by technology. Now we have science, what do we need philosophy for? We can find out what works and what’s real. Nobody needs to speculate about it. If you want to be a philosopher, be a physicist. But Phil was a traditional classical philosopher.”

I am sure there is excellent, well-researched material throughout the book, but the Dick and Huxley stuff worked really well for me. I look forward to this lecture at PKD fest.

The Donut Legion by Joe R. Lansdale

 

The Donut Legion by Joe R. Lansdale

Audiobook, 9 hours. Narrated by 

Joe R. Lansdale

Kasey Lansdale

Finlay Stevenson

January LaVoy

Marc Vietor

Greg Littlefield

Brad Sanders

 

 

I accidentally happened upon the audiobook of this.  I was searching the Libby app for an audiobook, and found this. I didn’t know Joe R. Lansdale had written a book loosely influenced by the COVID era. In this mystery, an East-Texas writer, Charlie, and his PI brother try to solve a mystery surrounding the disappearance of Charlie’s ex-wife.  

The Audiobook is read by a cast, but the main narration is Lansdale himself, which is great because he is a fantastic reader. The cast also includes his very talented daughter, who is a great storyteller in her own right. 

Why is this COVID era??? Charlie follows the clues a Q-Anon-like UFO cult that owns Donut shops around the area. This book is pure Lansdale, character-driven with funny twists of the language, and excellent deployment of irony that is one part Fletch, one part Regional, and Elmore Leonard-like crime. 

The audiobook is well produced, but I wish I had read it with my eyeballs instead of my ears.

 

 

Book Review: Dan O'Bannon's Guide to Screenplay Structure: Inside Tips from the Writer of Alien, Total Recall and Return of the Living Dead by Dan O'Bannon & Matt Lohr,

 

 Dan O'Bannon's Guide to Screenplay Structure: Inside Tips from the Writer of Alien, Total Recall and Return of the Living Dead by Dan O'Bannon and Matt Lohr

272 pages, Paperback 

Published: 2013 by Michael Wiese Productions

 

There are a multitude of reasons I wanted to read this book about Screenwriting. I personally love the craft of screenwriting, and movies like most people. I respect the films and productions of Dan O’Bannon, who started at the USC film school and made his mark on cinema in less than a decade with Alien.  I was interested in DOB’s book for PKD reasons; he is credited with two films based on the short fiction of the master SF writer. Total Recall, co-written by DOB, was my entry point to PKD.

DOB was also PKD’s introduction to Hollywood. His interest in Second Variety, which would become an unfaithful film, Screamers. I have read DOB's very faithful screenplay based on PKD's masterpiece, Second Variety, called Claws. It is amazing. While it is true that Blade Runner was the movie that opened Hollywood to the possibility of PKD films, DOB was the first serious writer to consider really adapting him, and sparked interest around the industry. I am not sure Blade Runner would exist without that CLAWS script.

There is plenty of practical writing advice, mostly taken from breaking down classic films are looking at their structure. He also spends some time looking at the origins of narrative story to the origins of Plato.  This is all good stuff. The chapter on Crouching Tiger is great, also a great chapter on SEVEN. 

The various chapters have exercises, and different worksheets built into them. It is a very practical book for beginners. It was however, not exactly what I was looking for. I wanted more personal experiences and examples taken from DOB’s long career behind the camera. The end result is a screenwriting textbook but anyone could’ve written it, I was looking for something more personal.  Examples drawn from his own writing experience, from scripts produced and unproduced in his personal career. 

Still, it is pretty Great.