Book Review: Lola on Fire by Rio Youers

 

 Lola On Fire by Rio Youers
Hardcover, 400 pages
Published February 16th 2021 by William Morrow

This is my fourth Rio Youers novel, and he has now achieved with me a very important status. As an author, he has become his own genre and one I am willing to follow anywhere. My first experience was his beautifully weird debut novel Westlake Soul. That novel is about a champion surfer who transcends his body after an accident. It is a sorta modern sarcastic Johnny Got His Gun. It is a slow burn but a perfect showcase of his talent and I was sold.

Youers took a few years to work his way into the mainstream and his first novel with a major publishing house was one of my top read of 2017. The Forgotten Girl is a weird crime thriller that pleasantly paid stylish homage to psi-thrillers like John Farris’ The Fury or King’s Firestarter. That is just the plot, but it is the characters and the easy flow of the pages that made this weird crime thriller a must-read.

Youers third novel Halcyon didn’t work quite as well for me but it cemented for me what we are getting are novels like great popcorn flicks by an arthouse director.  That third novel seemed like a thriller about a cult on the surface but it was a pretty neat exploration of trauma.  Don’t get me wrong I liked this novel but compared to the strength of The Forgotten Girl and now Lola on Fire it just didn’t floor me.

OK, enough history lesson we are here to talk about Lola on Fire. The blurb on the front cover invoked John Wick a movie I loved, but besides that, the title and the strength of the author I went into this reading experience knowing nothing. I avoided reading blurbs, dustjacket anything, and opened this book knowing as little as I could.

So if you trust me enough let me just say this thriller is worth a read by any measure. I read this 400 pages in three days, while still managing to get stuff done in my life. The characters are so rich that you will be sucked in and you will find pages flying past. The action is great, the story engrossing and it is one that on paper doesn’t sound that appealing to me but that didn’t matter.

By that I mean, I read science fiction and horror because I like mind-expanding concepts and ideas. I like with authors can write real and extraordinary characters in weird settings. There is absolutely nothing special about the plot of this book. Normally I would think it was a great idea for a movie probably starring Charlize Theron who seems to do the insane action movies well. That may sound like an insult but Youers proves here that does matter if you focus on the right things.

A story doesn’t have to have something you never have seen before if it is well told. That is 500 words before I get into the nuts and bolts of this novel. This is a revenge story, and it would be fair to say it is a gender-flipped John Wick. Comparisons to Kill Bill and Killing Eve seem less fair to me but you will see them.  Lola Bear is a character who through a set of circumstances, namely her war hero grandpa and the gangster who recruited her at a young age has become a legendary killer.  The story opens in 1993 when Lola burns down that gangster’s empire.  This prologue is great and feels part Elmore Leonard / Part Kill Bill.

“I mean I’m Jimmy Fucking Latzo. I don’t lose. You fucking know that. And geuss what, baby doll…you tried to bring me down-fucking end me- I brought you down. The unstoppable Lola Bear. I’m going to go from legendary to godlike.”

And if he killed her, he probably would. It didn’t matter that his army was torn apart and his house in ashes; killing Lola Bear would add considerably to his resume.”

For this reader who didn’t know the plot came 100 pages of reading with new characters and I was not sure how they connected. The style of the prologue doesn't push through with the change in characters, and story wise that made sense. That said the opening is probably the most fun part of the book. Because I didn't read about the plot I was wondering how these characters connected but I trusted Youers and I am glad I did. Eventually, it is clear these new characters Brody and Molly are Lola’s children. After their father’s murder, and their mother leaving them they are struggling to survive. Brody is coming to the conclusion that crime might be the only way out.

Holding up a liquor store was his first step into crime and it backfires. The next steps in the plot are a bit of a stretch until you figure who is pulling the strings.  Brody and Molly are forced to run and the only person who can save them their mom. If only they can find her and deal with the War that would bring.

Minor spoilers from here on…

One crazy thing is my hometown of Bloomington Indiana is one of the locations the characters travel to and one of the most important scenes of the book takes place in the park where I played basketball growing up. It is a scene when Renee a family member Brody and Molly tracked down tells them the truth and finally convinces them of the depth of the trouble they are in, and the level of killer their mother was.

“It was a set-up, Brody. Jimmy is using you to find Mom.”

While everything in this scene is elaborate it is unrolled in a way that works. This is a hard narrative trick not every scene of exposition can be smooth. Brody could come off in this scene like a moron, but instead, Youers did a wonderful job of making me feel sorry for Brody and Molly.

I want to give a compliment to this novel that may sound like an insult. Lola on Fire is an action movie more than it is a novel. Rio plays power cords like any good writer but the notes he effectively hits are the stuff of movies more than novels.  In this case that is perfect because the bottom line is always, always the story.

Blair who sets up Brody is the new Lola, in her job and training. She is the hot young replacement with that one thing that makes her more dangerous. Her ability to plan and stay one step ahead. She and Lola are like two cars driving full speed toward each other in the same lane. We know they will collide and in the end, the only advantage Lola has is what she became free of Jimmy.

She is a mother.

This leads to my favorite part of the whole book when Brody gets Molly to safety and tells her he has to go back. On page 339 of this narrative, I was conflicted reading. Wanting to yell at the book, get out of their Brody, but knowing he had to go. Why? Because Jimmy Latzo is a perfect action movie bad guy. Ruthless beyond reason who wanted to hurt their mother more than he wanted all the money and power in the world.

“His eye drifted back to the drop of blood on the hood. It had lost its shape, but not its color – its redness. And it was no longer just his mom’s blood. It was his dad’s, Renee’s, and Karl Janko’s. It was every drop of blood that Jimmy had ever spilled. It was every vile he’d done.”

He could return to the farm with Molly, leave his mother to die in pain, but he would spend his life consumed by the same hated. The action films are built on the same foundation that every great story is. Anyone can stage a car chase or have Chow Yun-Fat run around with two guns killing a million people. The best action stories are built on parallels and reversals. Character arcs are even more important in stories that appear action-driven.

I suspect Rio Youers wanted this to be the action movie that played in his head. He is a novelist so that is how he told the story. All the reviews and blurbs will tell you about the action and thrills but I am happy to recommend this character-driven coming of age that has lots of bullet casings.
 

Graphic Novel Review: Gideon Falls, Vol. 1: The Black Barn by Jeff Lemire (Writer), Andrea Sorrentino (Artist)

 

Gideon Falls, Vol. 1: The Black Barn
(Gideon Falls #1)
by Jeff Lemire (Writer), Andrea Sorrentino (Artist),
Dave Stewart (Colorist)
Paperback, 160 pages
Published October 2018 by Image Comics
 

I don’t know what I am doing reviewing comics so I will keep this a little short but I wanted to acknowledge that I read this and enjoyed it. In this last year I tried to read a few comic series. I started and enjoyed East of West and Saga because in part they felt like they would be impossible to exist in any other form. No way a Saga TV show or movie would make sense. That is the thing that attracted me to those series more than anything. I did enjoy the stories and the art was fine, but it was a different feeling.

That is not the case with Gideon Falls, which feels like a lost TV series. I see how it would be filmed, I am hearing a score in my head. That is a totally different trick but one writer Jeff Lemire and artist Andrea Sorrentino can feel good about it. I have no idea where the mystery of the murders and truth behind the black barn is going but I am here for it.

The art is amazing, and the way the panels are organized is great, don’t try reading it in low light as I did the first evening I was reading this book. The story and the setting is creepy with a big fat capital C. When our point of view character a washed-up Catholic priest asks what happened to the man he is replacing the fear to answer is really earned.

Norton the paranoid character trying to solve the mystery is two years ahead of the curve wearing a mask. His murder wall is one you really spend some time with while reading the book.

Atmosphere, mood, tone, and vibe. That is what this book is about. Really interested in where it is going.

Book Review: The Dark Veil (Star Trek: Picard #2) by James Swallow

 

The Dark Veil (Star Trek: Picard #2)
by James Swallow
Paperback, 335 pages
Gallery books Jan 2021 hardcover
Expected paperback publication: September 2021 by Pocket Books/Star Trek

There are a couple of issues I have to address first. I am one of the Star Trek fans who really like Picard and Sir Patrick’s return to the franchise. It should be noted that TNG is not my favorite of the Berman era so it was not a given. When I review franchise tie-ins I don’t expect high art although I know the authors are giving it all and they are often written by very talented who are being underrated.

One of the best moments of Star Trek Picard had little to do space battles or Romulan conspiracies but it was the touching reunion of Picard with the Riker-Troi clan. There was a real satisfaction seeing these old friends hug and break bread. I thought a lot about it and having a reunion like that not only felt like one for us but it added weight to the universe. Not only the reunion but the idea that Riker and Troi had a family in our absence.

Fans of the Trek novels have been treated to several novels set on Riker’s new command the U.S.S. Titan. It is a cool ship that officially became canon when it showed up on Lower Decks for a brief scene. That being said the novels were cool because the ship was designed to have non-humanoid crew and was an interesting little corner of the Trek universe. The job the author James Swallow was given was basically to tell the back story of the Riker-Troi events that fed Picard while tying them as best he could to tell a story the readers of the novels would recognize.

While it has been a while since I read a Titan novel but several of the characters appeared in the novels which is not a surprise as Swallow has written Titan before. All the Trek moments and feels are there, but I suspect Swallow could do that in his sleep.

The novel itself is a fun Star Trek yarn that is pretty solid science fiction that includes a generation starship, a rescue mission that requires Romulan help, and some Tal Shiar conspiracy. The narrative switches perfectly between various locations and points of view. There are several chapters from the Romulan perspective that really help to give the story a bit more suspense.

This is a fine science fiction tale and maybe I was spoiled by McCormack’s Last Best Hope which I added mountains of depth to Picard as a series, and as a character. That book had a certain depth to it, with so much depth given to the inner-workings of the crisis. There was an element that Last Best Hope took on extra meaning as the most powerful governments in the world were fumbling the handling of the Coronavirus.  

 I think in this case Swallow’s most important mission was more focused but not exactly easy to fix narratively. He had to deepen one-story element that seemed contrived in the series. Why was Thad’s disease so specialized that the positronic ban would doom him to death in the late 24th century? Why had the Riker-Troi falling given up Starfleet for living in the Hobbiton Pizza kitchen?

Swallow did some smart things in the concept phase for tying the Titan’s mission to the TV show’s android hating Romulans and he gave the generation ship species Jazari a cool secret. This story involved a prime direction debate, a hopeless rescue mission, and lots of examples of Riker showing Starfleet ideals. My favorite aspect is Swallow didn’t forget to put Titan in space and give them the kinda engineering problems really space involves. I worry that sometimes Star Trek writers forget that they are starship in space.

The novel is filled to the brim with fun Star Trek moments, I like seeing Riker trick the Tal Shiar commander in a very Kirk-style move. More than anything the novel sets up one of the best most emotional scenes between Troi and Picard in the series. That is the best thing a prequel can do right?  Add depth to the existing show.  If you are not a fan of the show but like the characters, this builds some of those mental bridges. If you are a fan the depth will help and the cool adventure will be worth your time.
 

Book Review: Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr.

 

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
by James Tiptree Jr.
Paperback, 508 pages
Published November  2004 by Tachyon Publications (first published  1990)
Locus Award Nominee for Best Collection (1991)

For any other author, this life story would be the case of truth being stronger than fiction, but in the case of Uncle Tip, AKA James Tiptree Jr., AKA Alice Sheldon the fiction is really fucking strange. The truth about this writing life is strange for sure. She led an interesting life that is often misunderstood. Let’s get one thing clear, Alice Sheldon didn’t choose a man’s name to get published in the 60s and 70s science fiction community.

While there is evidence of DC AKA Dorothy Fontana had done this to sell western scripts in TV at the time, the science fiction community had several active female voices at the time. Judith Merrill, Joanna Russ, and Ursala K Leguin were just some of the giants in the field at the time. When Lisa Yasek collected stories for the Library of America’s The Future is Female there was no shortage of stories and authors to choose from. Sure Judith Merrill may have needed to make party part bets to break John W. Campbell’s personal glass ceiling, but since we have agreed to his need to retroactively fuck off let's remember women were publishing in Sci-fi, and Tiptree was a pen name for other reasons.

No, Alice Sheldon was an intelligence officer for the Air Force and later with the CIA and that is the reason she created a  pen name, and the idea of making a man’s personality that could trade letters just seemed away to hide her identity even better. "A male name seemed like good camouflage. I had the feeling that a man would slip by less observed. I've had too many experiences in my life of being the first woman in some damned occupation."

She grew up in Chicago and first read Weird Tales in 1924, her parents were University of Chicago academics who brought her traveling around the world. The ingredients that make her special as a writer are all there. The fierce intelligence, the mind opened to other cultures, and young readership of the fantastic. The final piece was her time as a spy, in the Air Force and eventually the CIA. It appears she analyzed photos and did not overthrow countries. None the less it gave the stories another edge of knowledge and experience as well.

Tiptree stories started appearing in the late 60s and while the author was not active in the scene beyond letters the stories were popular and the work celebrated. For good reason, a Tiptree story is one of powerful ideas and artfully composed prose. To me, the greatest strength found across the board depth of these stories is the power of the concepts and themes. Some genre writers who come up with powerful themes fail to overlook the human element. Not Alice Sheldon.

The characters are so rich that forty years later people are still laughing at Robert Silverberg for insisting that these stories had to be written by a man. Once the truth was revealed Ursula Leguin had it correct when she said "[Tiptree's work is] proof of what she said, that men and women can and do speak both to and for one another if they have bothered to learn how."

This collection is serious business, and if there is an actual canon of 20th century speculative or weird fiction this volume should be in it. Beyond it having absolute classics of the genre like The Nebula award-winning “Screwfly Solution” and Hugo winning stories like the robot tale “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” it is a high watermark of quality.

These eighteen stories balance Sheldon’s skill for the high concept with her very unflinching eye for the brutally cold universe. The best moments of Sheldon’s stories have a cosmic horror level of species self-reflection and intellectual misanthropy from a woman who was not fucking around. She was willing in more than one fictional journey to put this whole species on trial including this book’s opening shot. "The Last Flight of Doctor Ain" is a short and bitter-sweet fictional trial for humanity’s mistreatment of the one and only planet we depend on. The ending is harsh but earned.

“Screwfly Solution” is the best story in the collection and probably her ultimate classic. To me this is a top ten horror fiction story of all time, it one I realized I had read before collected elsewhere. This is one of two stories in this collection that explores the loss of one of our two genders. In this case, men are compelled to murder in what becomes global femicide. Although the ending twist is hidden in plain sight, a title that goes over the head of most readers. This story hits lots of end of the world tropes but all very well done. There are some very creepy moments with the young girl trying to pass as a boy. This story is an absolute masterpiece.

While that story is easily the best, my favorite is “Houston, Houston Do You Read?” Which is a great flip of that story with post-men earth. It is done in a space-based story, that has some interesting if not slightly out-of-date space science. Time warps, planetary motion, and astronauts doing fuel calculation were all fun stuff before we get to the gender issues. I loved it.

Sheldon always tackled deeper themes. Also, sexuality beyond gender, what drives our species. Tiptree stories were intelligent and written to make you think.

When I say she was not fucking around. All these harsh and brutal judgments in her stories ended when the author of this book killed herself and her husband in a suicide pact. I think that has important meaning to how you can and should read these stories. Alice Sheldon judged this species, and she was not above that judgment. She wasn’t some softie whose motivation was impressing the cool kids at Worldcon.

“It’s an overreaction, my dear. History goes by swings. People overreact and pass harsh unrealistic laws which attempt to stamp out an essential social process. When this happens, the people who understand have to carry on as best they can until the pendulum swings back.”

I don’t want to sound like Tiptree was writing nothing but dour sad stories. This is not poetry written by some goth edge lord. These are serious pieces of work by a serious thinker. James Tiptree AKA Alice Sheldon is one of the best this genre produced. Essential reading period.

“Hope is a terrible thing, it brings fear that the hope won’t be realized. Suppress the fear and it surfaces as symbol.”

Book Review: The End Of October by Lawrence Wright

 

The End of October By Lawrence Wright
Hardcover, 400 pages
Published April 2020 by Knopf Publishing Group

“At best, Henry had only slowed an inevitable, history-shaping pandemic. Governments would fall. Economies would collapse. Wars would arise. Why did we think that our own modern era was immune to the assault of humanity’s most cunning and relentless enemy, the microbe?”

This novel is a really singular kind of experience, and one that I am surprised is not getting more traction not only in the science fiction community but in mainstream society. Science Fiction’s track record of prediction is hit or miss. For every time a John Brunner novel like Shockwave Rider that predicts the internet there is as many 2001 Pan Am flight to the moon base predictions that seem silly now. 2020 as a year will go down in history as a shit show for lockdowns, race riots, and dysfunctional man-child presidents but the year was great for Science Fiction and Horror novels at the very least.

Within that amazing output, there were a variety of novels released during this year that left the author having to explain that they couldn’t have known what was coming. Sarah Pinsker’s A Song for New Day pre-dated the pandemic by a year but its heartbreak at the loss of live music dripped off the pages. Josh Malerman’s sequel to the sensation of Bird Box was a horror novel that seemed like a purposeful analogy for the mask debate. Paul Tremblay released his pandemic novel Survivor Song and had to explain over and over that the book was researched and written when he could not possibly have known.

In a similar vein, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist turned Playwright, screenwriter and novelist Lawrence Wright has been thinking, researching, and planning this pandemic novel for a decade before it was released. I am sure he knew it would come someday but who could have guessed that the real thing would beat the book by a month.

Lawrence Wright went from an author unleashing a novel meant to be a Silent Spring style warning to watching it come to life on cable news. I can see why many already tired of Pandemic living might not want to read a book that is about a deadly-er virus one that started for Wright as a writing prompt from director Ridley Scott. Something like “Hey Lawrence you know that super bleak novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy? I was wondering how did they end up there?”

This novel went from warning to a game where the reader is seeing what Wright got right or wrong. In fairness to any author speculating about the future, it is a hard game. There is a lot of stuff that you will be shaking your head at how close the novel is to reality, some things where I thought Wright was being optimistic. Honestly, this is an unintended entertaining aspect of this novel. As much as that might annoy Wright.  

“If you paid any attention to the role of disease in human affairs, you’d know the danger we’re in. We got smug after all of the victories over infection in the twentieth century, but nature is not a stable force. It evolves, it changes, and it never becomes complacent. We don’t have the time or resources now to do anything other than fight this disease. Every nation on earth has to be involved whether you think of them as friends or enemies. If we’re going to save civilization, we have to fight together and not against each other.”

Wright is a unique person to write this novel, his training as a journalist led him to write the book the Looming Tower. This was an exhaustive history of the root causes of the 9/11 attacks. This gave Wright the experience and contacts in government to spend years researching a pandemic. I know I have said lots and lots of words before actually diving into this novel properly.

As a novel and a story leaving aside for a moment the reality, we lived through in the last year the End of October IS a good novel. The story follows a few characters invented but also has real-life figures like a science fiction fan Richard Clarke (former War on Terror chief for GW Bush and Obama) who I assume Wright knows and approved of being used. Without saying their names, a familiar Vice President heads up a Corona Virus task force. Probably the most unbelievable thing was the President being portrayed as even slightly thinking about the situation but whatever.

“What leadership? Tildy thought. The president had been almost entirely absent in the debate about how to deal with the contagion, except to blame the opposing party for ignoring public health needs before he took office.”

So yes Wright saw how callous and selfish Trump would be in reality but he certainly didn’t have him suggesting people drink bleach or have Hermain Cain dying because he went to his rally. So I still think the novel is to positive on the presidential front.

Our main point of view is CDC expert Henry Parsons, who leaves home in Atlanta for a short overseas trip with his car in short-term parking. He tracks the start of this disease from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia. I found Henry’s Journey to be epic and heartbreaking. His struggle to get home and be useful as society falls apart drove this novel forward. The disease in this book is a deadly influenza and followed the exact surge timing we saw in historical 1918 and 2020. The death toll was higher, but this novel also plays with the international conflicts with Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as nasty actions taken by Putin that make matters far worse.  

If there is a problem that most readers will have is that Wright digresses from the story often to work through and explain the working of the disease, the geopolitical situations. Some of this probably seemed more important a few years back when the history of 1918 was not being used as historical background on the news every night.  It was fine with me and a smart reader can skim those moments and get to the character stuff. That is if you feel you have gotten too much pandemic info in real life.

“Those laboratory animals have done us no harm. They are tortured and murdered in the name of science. I know, I used to do it myself to my great shame. Is the benefit to humanity worth the sacrifice of so many animals lives? I say, No.”

The vegan animal liberationist in me raised an eyebrow at this. Henry was an interesting character, a vegetarian ex-vivisector who struggles through most of the novel just to survive. At times we know more about the fate of Henry’s family than he does and that also makes the journey a painful march at times, but of course, the storyteller in me enjoyed every page of this stuff.

It is hard for me to talk about the character’s journey which ended up being my favorite aspect without giving away the final act. Also, towards the end, the origins of the disease take on a plausible climate change connection that is something I briefly explored in my climate horror novel Ring of Fire. So, a tip of the hat to Lawrence Wright on that.

“Both sides had entered the war already weakened by the disease, and just as in 1918, armies propagated the contagion. Hospitals, already overfilled by flu victims, we're unable to treat more than a fraction of the wounded. And yet the war raged on, pulling both countries and their neighbors back into the pre-industrial world. Little was left of modernity except for weapons.”

Once the world as we know it ends the reality behind this fictional pandemic unfolds in an interesting answer to the mysteries. Henry’s journey to get home is one I can’t spoil but there were moments of anguish, heartbreak, and range of feels. I felt all of them as the book closed and that is probably the best thing I can say for this novel.

There are many reasons to read this book. The fun game of seeing what Lawrence got correct is a good reason. A better reason is to lose yourself in a novel that can remind you how much worse it could be. The best reason is it is an effectively told story even if the warning came a little late.

The Dickheads Podcast for Hugo Consideration...

 

 

For Hugo consideration…

 

I know a podcast called Dickheads might seem a long shot for a Hugo nomination but I am writing this post to advocate for our show! So between now and March 19 members of Worldcon (The biggest science fiction convention of the year) are allowed to nominate entries in the various categories. In relation to this show, we wanted to remind folks they can nominate The Dickheads Podcast in the fancast category.  There are several deserving podcasts some of my favorites Seth Healsey’s shows Hugo’s There and Take Me to your Reader. Also, we have worked with and enjoyed Coode Street, Hugo Girl, and SFF audio to name a few. Behind the scenes, these podcasts share guests, notes, and talk it is a cool online community.

I want to use this moment to promote the reasons why we think Dickheads is worthy of a nomination for the award.

Since our start, we have profiled Philip K. Dick’s prolific novels starting with his first published novels to the late 60s through 2020.  During the pandemic year, we hosted publishers, scholars, and Three NY Times bestselling authors to talk about the range and depth of the science fiction genre both classic and modern.

We hosted a quarantine panel early in Pandemic featuring Lisa Yasek, Alec Nevala-Lee, and Gary Wolfe that we co-hosted with Seth Heasley of Hugo’s There. We also did a panel with academics, editors, and Translators on Asian Science Fiction and Translation. We did a panel on the impact of Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction co-founder Anthony Boucher, this panel featured Bestselling author F.Paul Wilson, The current magazine owner Gordan Van Gelder, and academic Gary K. Wolfe. Boucher was Philip K. Dick’s first mentor and most important influence.

His other most important influence was Don Wollheim, the long-time ACE books editor, and DAW books founder. This man’s influence on Science Fiction is often overlooked but he gave many authors their start and was the first editor to put the words Science Fiction on a book cover.  The episode of the year we are most proud of was our interview with this founding father of the genre’s daughter Betsy Wollheim. She is still an important figure in publishing but her insight into her father was so important.

In our Blade Runner coverage, we also hosted one of the world’s foremost experts in brain mapping professor Chris Firth. We also did interviews with Philip K. Dick’s last wife Tessa and hosted a few live events.

Over the year we also added to the conversation by continuing to cover the Hugo winners of the 60s including an episode about A Canticle for Lebowitz featuring professor and award-winning author Brian Evenson.  

In our Philip K Dick novel episodes we also had guest appearances by author-scholars like D.Harlan Wilson on Lies inc., and NY Times bestselling Author Stephen Graham Jones on Ubik. We also did panel episodes on important works of the 60s and 70s including Spinrad’s The Iron Dream and John Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up.

 

Academic guests in the last year have included …

Lisa Yaszek is Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech.

Alec Nevala-Lee is an American novelist, biographer, and science fiction writer. He is a Hugo and Locus Award finalist.

Gary K. Wolfe is an American science fiction editor, critic and biographer. He is an emeritus Professor of Humanities in Roosevelt University's Evelyn T. Stone College of Professional Studies.

Brian Evenson is the author of more than a dozen books of fiction and teaches in the BFA program at Cal-Arts.

D. Harlan Wilson is an American novelist, short-story writer, critic, playwright and English professor at Wright State University. His body of work bridges the aesthetics of literary theory with various genres of speculative fiction.

Christopher Frith, FRS FBA is a psychologist and professor emeritus at the Welcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London.

Stephen Graham Jones is a NY Times bestselling author and the Ivena Baldwin Professor of English, as well as a Professor of Distinction at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Nathaniel Issacson is an Associate Professor of Modern Chinese literature and cultural studies at North Carolina State University.

“The Dickheads Podcast is personally my favorite podcast. I particularly enjoy the amount of research that goes into each episode, collecting interesting insights and quotes from Dick and those close to him. Like many authors, PKD doesn’t get the amount of in-depth discussion he deserves, but the Dickhead’s are rectifying that in their absorbing, studious , and humorous way.” - Listener Christian Wylde

"The Dickheads Podcast provides history, insights and straight up entertaining discussion about Philip K Dick and his impact.  A dedicated broadcast, with visits from other D-Heads and notables, this does not remain anchored in the past but also casts lines into his impact on Pop Culture, as well and well as lifting the veil of Phildickian perspective and prophecy into the reality of our Now." – Zack Wood of the Phildickian.com

"The Dickheads Podcast has been a wonderful addition to the field of SF scholarship focusing on the novels of PKD. The three friends of the DHP are reading PKD's SF novels chronologically, and this has been an innovative approach. I find their discussions about PKD's novels - those I have read, and those I haven't yet read - to be equally as interesting. I also highly enjoy the "Dick Adjacent" and interview episodes, which feature conversations with other authors, editors, and scholars which address specific works or sometimes the entire history of SF literature and cinema. I have found the episodes of the Dickheads Podcast to be not only fascinating but also inspirational as well." – Librarian Russell Stone.

 

The nomination process is open until March 19th, please consider giving up a nod!

 

More details on the Hugo Awards

Book Review: Stormland by John Shirley

Stormland by John Shirley

Hardcover, 300 pages
Expected publication: April 13th, 2021 by Blackstone Publishing


This is the kind of review that can turn into a bit of a history lesson unintentionally. I know many of you will not need a refresher on the award-winning novelist and screenwriter John Shirley. His most famous project is probably the classic Brandon Lee goth action movie the Crow, it was Shirley that gave Eric a guitar after all. I am sure many readers have been coming to Shirley in the last few years because of his tie-in work where he elevated franchises like Predator and Hellblazer with really above average tie-in novels.

That said Shirley had decades of producing short stories and novels that were groundbreaking enough that William Gibson blamed him as cyberpunk patient zero in his introduction to his Science Fiction Masterpiece City-Come-A- Walkin.  Shirley’s return to the novel let alone a Science Fiction one is a welcome relief.  The last novel we got from Shirley was the criminally underrated historical western Wyatt in Witcha about the young Wyatt Earp in 2014. This was one year after his fantastical after-life mystery Doyle After Death, the last time we got some speculative fiction from Shirley in the novel form.

It was clear with those two novels John was chasing passion projects and the silence on the novel front only led to an active time in short stories, novellas, and more importantly punk rock. With a move back to Shirley’s native Pacific Northwest he re-united with some of the musicians he played with during the pioneer days of Portland punk rock to form a new band the Screaming Geezers. We got a full-length CD and before COVID they were gigging in Portland including opening for Blue Oyster Cult.

With the John Shirley special issue of Weird Book last year, we got a taste of Lovecraftian and Jack Vance-influenced fantasy. Those short works showed that JS was still operating at the master level despite his focus being on his Rock and Roll. So Stormland is a welcome return to form that sees John Shirley slipping back into three subgenres he is known for all at once. The political Science Fiction novel with environmental and cyberpunk themes.

This is not the first high concept environmental novel from JS, the novel this most reminds me of is his 2002 novel Demons. That novel is about massive environmental disasters that are used by evil corporations to raise evil demonic creatures.  Stormland in the same way has a very thin line between serious horror and tension and light social satire. I should not have to remind people but not all satire is funny. JS recently did this in a novella published in the Outspoken author series about Arizona being turned into a privately run prison.

The savage social critic that revolutionized Sci-fi in 1978 with a novel about Cities developing a soul and defending themselves is back. He is not wearing dog collars to conventions but the wiser and sharper writer that wrote Stormland is firing on all cylinders.

Set in a future South Carolina that is constantly battered by climate change-driven tropical storms Stormland presents an exaggerated to clarify the future. That said the science behind the wariming of the Atlantic waters is a hell of a lot more possible than many tropes in so-called hard sci-fi that hand wave away plenty of nonsense.  The very idea that anyone would choose to stay there is hard to wrap your mind around. At the same time, the novel explores not just the climate future but the future of how we interface with technology seen through this bizarro setting.

“The Amazon forests?” Webb asked, opening the medicine box. He looked at the label, then put a med patch on his arm. “Yes, yes, the forests. Mostly gone, turned into savannah and gold mines and palm oil plantations and beef ranches. Oh yes. The natural moisture pump is gone, don’t you know? Far more moisture gathers out over the sea instead, along with the growing heat, and that increases wind shear. And then . . . then . . . Why, the Gulf Stream weakening as the ice caps melt . . . Of course, that’s a good way north of here but it’s all one system, domino effect of weather cells, do you see . . .” His eyes lost focus; his voice drifted away.”

The novel never gets bogged down in the science of it, but there is enough to carry the story. The power of the storm is always there in the background, like the howling winds that rattles the windows. There are lulls but the storms constantly batter the coast but the power is such that you can't entirely get used to them. Stormland has become a place people have adapted to because they have no choice. Who would stay in New Orleans in the post Katrina world? Who would stay if Katrina kept happening? John Shirley is using speculative fiction to remind a part of the world this may be something they ask themselves soon.

“But this was Stormland. There was always another front coming remorselessly at the coast. A Category Four was coming from the mid-Atlantic, angling to cross their northward flight path. The Butcher Bird should be turned inland to try to dodge the worst of it. But Noel
Leuman had insisted they stay on this course. Leuman was a stormrider.”

Cory Leuman and his father fly in to the area as storm riders, Daryl Webb, an ex-marshall hired to track down a killer in the storm zone. Gerald is there for reasons I don’t want to spoil. There are the people who are there because they have nowhere else to go, thrill seekers who host experiencers who streamed from the outside world by VR and several other neat ideas. The sad reality is there are just people with no where else, no escape because of money and circumstance.  

A lot of the most cutting and intense aspects of satire happen in sub-plots and moments of world-building. The privatized FBI is probably the most direct obvious example of Shirley in social satire mode.

 “Whenever it was over, I was supremely depressed. Finally—I turned myself in to Justice Incorporated.” The name Justice Incorporated always nettled Webb. He could remember when it was a bureau. The FBI.”

Drug-dealers, Medicated ex-serial killers being used for clinical studies of anti-psychotics, and thrill-seeker online avatars the population of Stormland is made of interesting and remarkable characters. In the hands of a less skilled writer they could become cartoons of themselves. The tension between the characters is well executed with quickfire dialogue but the unspoken elements of making the story crawl under the reader's skin were done with skill.

One aspect of the writing I found most impressive was the way the never-ending storm built-up and drove the narrative in a series of storms and cycles as they doing in the world of the book. I love how JS built the suspense with tiny details ranging from slow-spreading crack in submarines and to the feeling of tilting buildings. The reader certainly feels as though they spent time in Stormland.


“Supposedly, it was dawn. He shook his head. Was this what really passed for dawn around here? It was dark as coffee with a few drops of skim milk as they filed along the concrete strip under the veiled, hissing sky. He wore a loaned rain slicker, but the rain worked its way in at his collar and cuffs, making his legs and upper back wet.”

And

“Isa looked out a porthole. Cory looked too, and they watched a hefty piece of weighty debris fall by, so coated with slime mold it was unrecognizable. It missed them by inches as it spun downward, trailing bubbles. “Out here,” she said, “it’s better if the boat’s computer pilots us. It reacts faster than people. Sees farther ahead.”

Stormland is a warning novel no different from classics like Alas, Babylon or 1984. The issue at hand is the temperature in the Atlantic ocean. The linage is more directly connected to the eco-Science Fiction of John Brunner's bleak horror novel The Sheep Look Up.  The best we can hope for is the world moves to avoid this fate.

“You haven’t been here that long. Just wait. I don’t go for it either, but who’s in charge of Stormland, really? The perpetual storm system is! We crawl around under it hoping it doesn’t stomp us. These people feel like they’ve got to appease it. Easy to get superstitious in all that. Desperate people can go for magical thinking pretty easily, Webb.” After a thoughtful pause, he went on, “A lot of folks around here believe that one day the storms will pass. From what I’ve heard, it might take a century for the cycle to finally stop. The storm system here is—it’s like the red spot on Jupiter, with what we’ve done to the planet. The big storm had to settle somewhere.”

Stormland is a welcome return of the master of social satire science fiction with a razor-sharp punk edge. It is a fierce and angry book that confronts climate change with the proper venom the topic needs. It is written with skill and a quality of prose that will remind you quickly how strong of a voice John Shirley has honed over the years. It is not to far from tone and attitude he expresses with a rock and roll beat. It is every bit as urgent. A must science fiction read for 2021.