Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Book Review: The Ganymedan R.T. Ester
Book Review: A Spectre is Haunting Texas by Fritz Leiber
A Spectre is Haunting Texas by Fritz Leiber
197 pages, Ace Books Mass Market Paperback
First published, 1968
Full review on the way.
Book Review: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
163 pages, Hardcover
Published August, 2025 by Tordotcom
Full Review on the way...
Book Review: Horror Library, Volume 9 edited by Eric J. Guignard
340 pages, Paperback
Published February 3, 2026 by Dark Moon Books
special guest-artist's gallery of Michael A. Livolsi!
Full review on the way...
Book Review: The Gatepost by Tim Weed
264 pages, Paperback
Expected publication: May 26, 2026 by Podium Publishing
(Full review on the way...)
Monday, March 23, 2026
Book Review: The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck
112 pages, Paperback
Published November, 1995 by Penguin Books
So I found this book in a tiny library in my neighborhood, and I am sorry to admit I didn’t know it existed. As the author of The Last Night to Kill Nazis, I was a tad embarrassed. This book interested me for many reasons. Clearly, I enjoy WW II fiction in general. I like political fiction, and unlike some readers/writers, I don’t think the word propaganda is a dirty word, as I have written lots of well-intentioned propaganda in my life.
You can’t blame Steinbeck for wanting to write something that helped the cause after he helped farm workers with The Grapes of Wrath. When this was written in 1941 and published in ‘42 no one was sure the Nazis would be defeated. I think it is easy to say in hindsight, hey Steinbeck, keep politics out of your novels.
The origin of this novel is very interesting. Steinbeck wanted to do something to help with the war effort. He wanted to write something about what effect fascist occupation would have on people. The first draft titled “The New Order” (also the name of a thrash metal album by Testament), had a more speculative nature and was almost pre-Red Dawn. It was set in a cold unnamed American town. This is of course, would have given the novel a more Man in the High Castle, or It Can’t Happen Here feel than it ultimately did.
Steinbeck submitted this to the OSS (which ran spy efforts in World War II), which had a Foreign Information Service, which was also doing Radio Free Europe and making flyers to drop. Wild Bill Donovan, the founder of OSS appealed to Steinbeck, suggesting that American defeat in fiction would be bad for morale. This led to an interesting artistic choice in the next draft. At this point, Steinbeck implied that it was set in Norway, but the invading army is not named.
The Moon is Down is a moralistic fable focused on a small town and how it deals with military occupation. It is a short and fantastic drama, even if I think the first draft sounds more interesting. The message is front and center and often directly on the nose, but to me, this was part of the power. Several lines are quotable and stand out.
How you handle defeat…
“Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat. Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars.”
Being the spark of resistance…
“I am a little man, and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into flame.”
When you lose, and you lose again…
“Defeat is a momentary thing. A defeat doesn't last. We were defeated and now we attack. Defeat means nothing. Can't you understand that? Do you know what they are whispering behind doors?”
Humanity of your enemy…
He paused for a moment, and then he said, “Hunter, I'm a good, loyal man, but sometimes when I hear the brilliant ideas of headquarters, I wish I were a civilian, an old, crippled civilian. They always think they're dealing with stupid people. I don't say that this is a measure of their intelligence, do I?”
Courage in the face of occupation…
The mayor spoke proudly. “Yes, they will light it. I have no choice of living or dying, you see, Sir, but I do have the choice of how I do it. If I tell them not to fight, they will be sorry, but they will fight. If I tell them to fight, they will be glad, and I, who is not a very brave man will have to be a little braver.”
The Moon is Down may not be the pure classic of Grapes of Wrath or Of Mice and Men, but it is a powerful piece of propaganda, and my opinion is that there is nothing wrong with that. I personally consider this an important, but I really wish we could read The New Order.
Book Review: Dead But Still Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay
“Without getting too ontological on your ass how do you know anything is real?”
During a conversation with Paul at Stokercon in 2024, which was with Jim Ruland about our favorite Bad Religion songs, I mentioned that we needed to talk about his favorite PKD at some point. I forgot to come back to that, assuming someday I would get him on the podcast. When this title was announced, everyone was very curious about my opinion. I mean, I do a PKD podcast and have multiple books in progress that are Phil-related. I am also a big fan of Paul Tremblay, who has yet to disappoint me with any of his novels. I believe that Pallbearer’s club is underrated.
Because of his massive and well-deserved mainstream success, Paul can experiment with form as he did in Horror Movie, and he carried that over into this novel. It seems to me this novel is a reaction to the AI- theft case (of which Paul was a true hero of all writers) as he served as plaintiff. AI is not just stealing our fiction; it is creeping into many aspects of our lives. I certainly am glad Paul is going for something on the topic.
As for the influence, I am a tough customer on what makes a piece of fiction “Phil-Dickian,” just as my brother Cody Goodfellow is with Lovecraft. So I admit I was a bit nervous. The marketing of this book also set a high bar: “Philip K. Dick meets the Coen Brothers.” I admit I bristled at that because I think the marketing was avoiding the reality that PKD is almost always hilarious, and felt the publisher was trying to say weird but also funny. This book certainly has dark humor, and made this reader laugh. Now, let's get into the story.
“You want me to remote control this dead dude across the country.”
Julia is a gamer who doesn’t know what to do after graduating from college, living with her uncle, no skills except playing games. She is offered a job by her estranged mother, who is working for a massive tech company. They want her to use her gamer skills; she has to transport a patient in a vegetative state using a game controller across the country to end up in a right-to-die state. The tech company using human beings to test experimental technology becomes a fantastic vehicle for this exploration of reality and the growing exploitation of people that the tech companies are getting away with. This is one author’s attempt to tackle the AI issue in real time. Back to Julia.
She is an old school movie fan, it is part of what makes her character, and she has watched The Big Lebowski enough times to recite it, and it makes perfect sense that she sees this gig as a bit of “Weekend at Bernie's,” and thus calls her traveler Bernie. When the mission comes down, she is rightly uncomfortable about it. Yes, Tremblay is setting up the darkest possible road trip buddy movie ever.
She doesn’t like it when they compare the trip to being just like jump-starting a car.
“And didn’t you say you were transporting him to the East Coast? That’s hardly a short distance.”
“I acknowledge the metaphor falls apart at the end, which is a shame. Anyway, the implanted tech will enable and facilitate electric communication between the man’s remaining healthy brain cells. Again, the man will not be conscious or aware of any of this. The man is gone. There is no him left of him. Only the machine of his body. And the tech allows a remote user—” Brady points at Julia, and her insides turn to liquid “—to regulate and control his large muscle groups.” Brady smiles, chuckles softly to himself, and relaxes his posture. “We have achieved context.”
Only the machine of his body remains. This is, of course, a science fictional concept, but the story comes with the appropriate darkness. The idea that the “machine” of our body is kept alive is a technological nightmare. Tremblay really does a fantastic job of making this process creepy. Brady, in this, says the man is gone, but as the novel progresses, we know that is not true.
“They inserted arrays of wireless power-sourcing electrodes between the patient's skin and his skull, even smaller electrodes within brain blood vessels. They also scattered what they're calling neural dust directly onto targeted brain areas, specifically the known sections of control motor function. The dust is comprised of microscopic electrodes that send signals as well as collect data, along with their first generation, the protein-based nanobots. The nanobots have the ability to temporarily bridge electrical gaps between live and dead neurons, as well as being able to produce and replicate more bots using proteins from dead neurons if the AI-enhanced software detects the need.”
It is a subtle thing, but the fact that nonobots are carried on dust, which is an entropic source of doom in Dick’s Electric Sheep, is a great easter egg (intentional or not). The technology is changing, and I find it scary to think about it changing our biology.
I don’t think it is a spoiler to say that the company behind this technology is full of shit; much of the book's most powerful moments are in Bernie’s dying brain battles with the technology trying to control him. The enemy he calls the clicks. Much of this is text is in boxes, and changing sizes all over the place.
Or the chapter’s called You (as opposed to Julia). These are written in second person, odd as that makes two books I’ve read in a row, major science fiction releases due out in June that use this technique.
“Your right foot lands on the shadow bridge, the bridge she made with her shadow body, her shadow body spanning across a void, one of many voids.
Within your right foot and leg there is a sensation of contact, similar to but not the same as having pressed against the pavement or the wooden footbridge. The shadow bridge is indeed solid, but it's not rigid….”
These chapters are when Tremblay reaches moments of Dickian flavor; the chapters with Julia are very solidly written. Julia is a solid, fully realized character. Her Uncle is only in the narrative for a short amount of time, but he is vivid in a natural way. The YOU chapters were wild and untethered in a Dickian way. The weird design is one thing, but the text itself feels wonderfully and disturbingly unhinged. But as strange as they were, those chapters got deep at the same time.
“There are bigger questions to be asked, including, but not limited to; Is Bernie alive? Is he feeling pain? Is he experiencing everything as a prisoner looking through bars of his own body? Has his consciousness been winnowed to A metaphysical keyhole where does consciousness begin or end? How is consciousness defined? Julia is a morosely thoughtful person in the way all thoughtful people are morose, will later ponder and weigh these questions and more.”
The novel is very much inspired by the battles over AI slop, and nothing makes this more clear than an interlude when Tremblay talks directly to the audience in a section that might be more Vonnegut than anyone. It ends up being one of the best turns in the story and happens in a section called “From a brief interlude on page 110: “writing a novel is difficult. That isn't to say it's more difficult than any other endeavors that require anyone from six months to two years, on average to complete, That average refers to human written work that did not rely on or imply the idea algorithms and bots that you used to write in separate emails and to complete other tests, short sightedly greasing the skids for your eventual replacement within the workforce. This shouldn't be a controversial statement, but writing requires experience, not writing experience, though that of course helps, but the living, existing, everyday kind of experience writing is not computation and is not pattern recognition, as some narcissistic adults claim, otherwise more mathematicians would be writing books, and who the hell wants that? Nobody, so, sorry, but not everyone has a book in them, any more than everyone has a house they can frame, wire, and roof in them….”
Speaking for many writers in the wake of the Shy Girl drama, writing a novel is hard work. The pain and the struggle is part of the process, and if you don't like the hard parts, maybe you just were not meant to be a writer. I was so happy to see Paul come out and say not everyone has a book in them. It may seem like this is a on the nose attempt to shortcut the message, but it is a smart way to play with the reader, and I loved the feel I got at the end of the interlude.
“And what is the purpose of this interlude, you ask? Without spelling it out, underlining, and going all caps on your ass, a few questions for you to ponder: Have you, to this point in the novel, wondered who the narrator is? Who is telling and relaying the story? And Why?”
Of course, I can’t speak to what the answers are, if any, because you have to read the book. The fact is, this interlude was next-level fourth-wall breaking, and I loved it.
“Are you fucking serious?” Her terror at having her background and past ten hours described in detail is now matched by a burgeoning technophobia. She doesn't believe the simulation talk, not really; she still wants Lisa to reach into her brain and take back everything she said.”
How PKD is the final product? Paul Tremblay is almost too smart and talented to write a book that is totally Dickian to obsessive like me. I like how Phil’s books feel like a dude yelling on the street corner wearing a tinfoil hat. I study PKD way to closely, and have experimented in writing in his style, so I am not objective on this topic. The parts in Bernie’s brain have that dangerous quality, and they are very Dickian, and made it is sacrilege to say, but Paul Tremblay is ALMOST too good for this.
What I can say very clearly is that Dead, But Still Dreaming of Electric Sheep is a treat for Philip K. Dick fans. It is a great feeling seeing his themes and fears handled with such quality; it makes for a high-tech nightmare that will have you pondering what it all means long after you finish it.
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