Book Review: The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood's Kings of Carnage by Nick de Semlyen

 

The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood's Kings of Carnage by Nick de Semlyen

352 pages, Hardcover

Published June, 2023 by Crown

 

This will be a short review as this is not the kind of book you come here to commentary on. Well I consider myself a pretty high-brow fan of all things speculative and dark literature I also love 80s action movies. I consider Commando the citizen cane of bad action movies. I have read Outlaw Vern's book on Steven Segal, and I have followed the behind-the-scenes articles, and commentaries about all these action stars so I didn't read this book.

Don't get me wrong Nick de Semlyen (whom I know from the Empire podcast) did his job. Most of the details were things I already knew. I knew that Chuck Norris's real name was Carlos but his friends stories of the early days were pretty cool, Van Damme's first stage name was Frank Cujo and the scope of Segal's derangement on the set of On Deadly Ground were the things I felt I learned for the first time. Seriously a biopic TV series about the making of On Deadly ground would be hilarious.

It is great to have all this history between the covers of one book, for that, I give this book five stars.

In the spirit of this book:
Ahhhnold- Commando
Sly - Rambo (IV)
Chuck - Invasion USA (just beat the Octagon)
Van Damme - Sudden Death
Segal - Marked for Death
Bruce Willis - Last Boy Scout
Jackie Chan- Supercop 3

Book Review: The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Ann Older

 

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Ann Older

169 pages, Hardcover
Published March, 2023 by Tordotcom

 Sometimes the concept of a novel is so good you marvel at the fact that it wasn't done before. The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Ann Older is  The first of a novel series of novels meant to invoke a cozy gaslamp mystery feeling.  In the  Holmes and Watson tradition, our detectives are two characters Mossa & Pleiti who have survived the ecological devastated earth to live in tightly packed platforms high in the atmosphere of a gas giant we assume is Jupiter but referred to through the book as Giant.

This is my second time reading Older and I really enjoyed the blend of social justice activism and near-future world-building of Infomocracy. That novel had more in common with political thrillers than the weird works of the Cyberpunks although the comparisons were out there. Think the Ryan Gosling movie Ides of March meets Leguin. It is part political and part spy thriller.  So yeah I am still four years later suggesting Infomocracy.

This novel which was born out of the isolation of the pandemic, is a great high concept that is not exactly for me. I am not a cozy gaslamp mystery reader but I highly respect the idea and execution. Someone who is Holmes-head (I don't know what they are actually called) would probably find lots of easter eggs and stylistic touches that are sailing over my head.

The mystery is cozy in the sense that the unexplained suicide of a character who didn't seem like he wanted to die is low-stakes. It is not the fate of the universe. There are details that set a Holmes-like mystery with facts that twist and turn the story.

The novel is written in first person from Mossa's point of view. I am rarely a fan of novels told in first person but the story was told well enough that I forgot about it. Unlike Ascension by Nicholas Binge it CONSTANTLY reminded me.

The thing that worked for me was the world-building that expressed the details of an ecological crisis and Earth's postmortem. Page 31 of this book is an info dump but it does an amazing job of answering the many questions the first thirty pages gave me. I liked the way you are through into the world and that was just the right amount of pages to leave the reader wondering.

"There had after all, been many species on earth, once.
Even the small subset of that number whose genetic information had been collected before they were driven out of existence,  and a smaller faction of those who had been resurrected for the Mauzooluem, still resulted in an extremely large panoply of species."

The setting provides a set of stakes and pressures that counterbalance the so-called "cozy" nature of the mystery. The world-building is so well done, subtle at times, intense at others but always handled with skill.  As a real-life Animal rights person I noticed a shout out to my peeps in this future.

"There were of course Animal rights activists who argued that the animals shouldn't  have been reconstituted to live in what is essentially captivity."

Mossa points out that few have taken up this view because that is what humans are dealing with. What is interesting to me about this is what this means for this mystery series. All the mystery cases will be a result of the characters essentially existing in captivity.

Mossa as a character has Holmes's careful considerable intelligence when he calls the academic Pleiti we get the idea that their partnership is more than the mystery. As curious as I was about them I admit I was also interested in the street preacher who only appears on page 46. I am probably the only reader who felt that way but I wanted to know his deal.

Mossa calls back to the street preacher in chapter 17 and that was the first time in a while I really thought about the first-person narrative. Really cool high-concept science fiction and an excellent translation of the concept.

Audiobook Review: Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov, William Dufris (Narrator)

 

 Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov, 

William Dufris (Narrator)

399 pages, Paperback
Published November, 1984 by Del Rey/Ballantine Books

 Literary awards: Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel (1984), 

Locus Award Nominee for Best Science Fiction Novel (1984), 

Prix Cosmos 2000 (1985)

Series  Robot (#3), Robot, chronological order (#3), Greater Foundation Universe (#4)

My copy of Robots of Dawn has yellowed paper but I bought it brand new first edition paperback at Waldenbooks when I was too young to understand what I was reading for the most part. It sat on the shelf for a few years then. My first read of this trilogy (there is a fourth book that will come later)  was when I was in 8th grade if my memory serves me.

 Our understanding of Issac Asimov has changed as much as robotics have in the years since this trilogy started with Caves of Steel in 1954 and The Naked Sun in 57. Thanks to wonderful research most famously in Alec Nevala Lee's Fantastic must-read book Astounding, we have a warts and all history of Asimov who kept detailed notes on his own life. In the past, there was a lot of shoulder-shrugging about the heroes of Science Fiction who had some pretty ugly behavior. I remember Watching Harlan Ellison speak to a packed house at Worldcon he made a joke about another writer’s breasts and he paused for laughter and was met with disgusted silence. The community has changed dude,  and soon after a veil of silence was lifted we know some ugly things about Asimov. He groped women, made sexist comments, and was generally gross about using his stardom in the community.  It also appears before his death his behavior had gone away. Did he get it? I hope so.
 
 I like lots of art by problematic artists. For me, it is a case-by-case basis. I am not a fan of British SF writer Neal Asher’s right-leaning views, but I don’t mind that we don’t agree. Dan Simmons on the other hand crosses a line into racism. I have been turned off on his books. With Simmons and Crichton it began to affect the fiction in a way that I couldn't ignore.  I think what we have learned about Asimov affects this book more than most of his canon. Mostly I try to judge books on their own merits but as you’ll see it is hard in this case.

I have no idea if Asimov was planning a trilogy featuring Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw when he wrote the first book Caves of Steel, it is hard to say because it was decades between books two and three. To mirror that a bit I intended in 2019 to re-read this trilogy and The Naked Sun was one of my wildly too close to reality lockdown reads of 2020. I admit also that I listened to this novel on Audiobook. Something I normally reserve for tie-in novels.

That first book was a very character-driven spin on the detective noir that was augmented by the fantastic world-building. The world of the first book was Earth in the far future, although set in the same universe as the Foundation centuries before the events of that series. Part of the strength of the first book was the dynamic between Baley and Olivaw. One of the complaints about genre works from this era (the 50s) and Asimov, in general, is that he was more focused on the gee-whiz than the actual characters.

None the less The Naked Sun is an excellent sequel to Caves of Steel. Robots of Dawn is more complicated, written in the 1980s it serves a very important role in the Asimov canon. On the surface, it is the story of a Humaniform robot Jander that is “killed” on the colony world of Aurora. It is almost impossible to discuss without spoiling the ending. Caves and Naked Sun feel like they could be translated into exciting detective movies/ TV shows.

Robots of Dawn is talky book, and the tension comes mostly from interactions written by an admittedly awkward scientist writer who was not exactly known for his characters.  
Sometimes it works…

“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ Is that it, Daneel?”
Daneel paused, then said, “I am not certain what is meant by the smell of a rose, but if a rose on Earth is the common flower that is called a rose on Aurora, and if by its ‘smell’ you mean a property that can be detected, sensed, or measured by human beings, then surely calling a rose by another sound-combination—and holding all else equal—would not affect the smell or any other of its intrinsic properties.”
“True. And yet changes in name do result in changes in perception where human beings are concerned.”
“I do not see why, Partner Elijah.”
“Because human beings are often illogical, Daneel. It is not an admirable characteristic.”

But often entire chapters are mucked up in which characters set up how impossible the mystery is. I admit as this was a re-read (well Audio) I knew the ending, and since it is the most interesting part that may have added to my annoyance with these conversations. This is when we get into the uncomfortable Asimov zone that has to do with the character Gladia Delmarre and her relationship with the victim Jander.

“Did they know that you had a robot husband?”
“I had a husband. Don’t call him a robot husband. There is no such expression.”

There is a lot of talk in the section about her needs sexually, this is where Asimov is clearly a man writing a woman, and it feels super icky. At some point in the 70s Asimov was accused of writing prude-ish sterile Science Fiction and considering how grown-up the new wave was writing it did make his books feel a little old-fashioned. Considering the new wave included voices from Malzberg to Joanna Russ, Asimov's lack of sexuality both in horny stuff and political gender stuff was noticeable. For readers anyway. Considering that mutton-chopped minor celebrity had at conventions a bad reputation for being all hands and horribly sexist maybe it was better he left it off the page.  In Robots of Dawn, it is not so much the plot, but the red herring and misdirection of the story.  As such it takes up many pages and all that stuff that made me cringe.

At the end of the sixties, most of Asimov’s publishing was non-fiction books, and he was constantly on National TV for moon shots but the reality was Asimov was in a 15-year Science Fiction drought. That ended when he released the excellent 1972 The God Themselves. This second part of that book is a reaction to Asimov being called him a prude, and there is tons of para-dimension sex just because. I know it sounds weird and it was. I also believe that Robots of Dawn is a reaction to the prude accusations. That is the kindest possible way to look at it, as there is another.

Asimov was very intent on making colony worlds like Solaria (in Naked Sun) and Aurora in Robots of Dawn have very different moral values from Earth where the human species was born. This is most glaring in how these societies view sexuality. There is a whole storyline involving incest and Galdia’s anger over being rejected sexually by her father.  The ick factor is bad no matter who wrote it but considering who wrote it adds an extra level.

Someone writing a  review who was not a part of the SF community probably wouldn’t devote so much attention to this minor aspect, but I can’t help it in this read.  There is one excellent scene where Bailey is trapped in the rain, which doesn’t sound like anything but for a person raised on earth his terror is really felt. From a pure storytelling perspective, this moment of terror from Bailey is one of the better individual scenes of Asimov’s canon.  It is one born purely of the world-building and character-meeting concept.

We also know famously that Foundation was an idea John W. Campbell handed A young Asimov, he wrote the first stories not even thinking of a novel, let alone a saga stretching multiple books. Asimov is dinged for not being able to write characters. Bailey and Olivaw are not exactly the most dynamic characters but they are memorable. Because Asimov started Foundation it really until the second book when The Mule is introduced that you get any sense of plotting at all. The Twist ending of Robots of Dawn is right in the title, which reminds me of Matherson’s  I Am Legend in that sense. Asimov hinted that these stories took place in the Foundation universe just centuries before. The twist is that this roboticide was committed as part of a plan to spread humanity through Humaniform colonies. This connects these robot novels directly to the Foundation series. 

That is one reason I think of this book as the end to the trilogy. The story is continued in Robots and Empire, but is that a Foundation book? I think it is.  Robots of Dawn is a book with ups and downs. There were moments I thought this was a 2-star book, but the ending makes up for a lot. It is impossible in 2023 to not read this any other way than the acknowledgment of creepy Issac. That makes the misdirection of the mystery really tough to read. It is talky, but it is the Science Fiction version of a locked door mystery that in the final act opens up to a wider universe.

As a novel Robots of Dawn shows the strengths of Asimov’s imagination while showing many of his weaknesses as a writer. Overall I think it is an important book in SF canon, as long as the reader can balance the context. I understand if readers might want to focus on writers of the past who were not as problematic, or not problematic at all. To me the books outlive the person and the behavior, the question is does Robots of Dawn highlight the problems with Asimov? It gets damn close, a writer who deserves the benefit of the doubt might not get the same critical to the uncomfortable sexuality. Robots of Dawn is interesting because I believe it is canon and a 3/5 star book at the same time. Important, at a few key moments great but not something I can’t fully get behind.  

Book Review: Vertical by Goodfellow

 

Vertical by Cody Goodfellow     

336 pages, Paperback
Published September, 2023 by Titan Books

Almost two decades ago I went to a coffee house to meet a local horror author to see if there were ways we could work together to promote our small horror community. I read his debut novel before we hung out and frankly, I couldn’t believe how good it was. I had first heard of Cody Goodfellow in an intensely hyperbolic review in Cemetery Dance Magazine by Splatterpunk legend John Skipp. (Skipp would go on to team up with Cody on a couple of novels) Throughout the years there have been lots of reviews and blurbs that will tell you how genius Cody Goodfellow is. Skipp and I are far from alone.

I assumed once the secret got out he was on track to become the biggest writer of our generation, a household name, bestselling novels, home on paperback racks that kind of thing. To me, he was that good. Over time I learned that happens to your Ray Bradburys and Isaac Asimovs. When the people doing really crazy original stuff like Barry Malzberg and Norman Spinrad you get respect from the hardcore but it took death for Octavia Butler and Philip  K. Dick to be recognized as the towering giants they were. They didn’t play it safe; they wrote revolutionary genre fiction and sometimes it helps to be a mad scientist.

 That is what Cody Goodfellow is at heart, a mad scientist, who unlike most literary freakazoids from those earlier generations Cody grew up with more than a massive library, but also punk rock, alternative culture, and an open attitude toward mind-altering genre and chemicals. The kind of alchemy that creates in Cody Goodfellow a human who writes novels that are so good, so weird the world is just not ready for them.

I once asked Cody what he was working on. He responded “A body horror novel about a haunted house with bees that turn you into communists.” The result was a horror novel Perfect Union. This novel is a masterpiece, but when Cody shopped it to major publishers the silence was deafening. In my opinion - they didn’t get it. This novel recently reissued by Ghoulish Books is STILL ahead of its time. It is better in my opinion than hundreds of mainstream horror novels and stomps most Stoker award-winning milk toast.

Didn’t matter if he wrote weird mystery noir like Repo Shark or SF dystopia in Unamerica it was equally good.  I was ready for him to write a straight-ahead action techno-thriller like Vertical. I knew that this project was brought to Cody by Alcon Entertainment. He was given a Screenplay in development, but as a long-time Goodfellow reader I wouldn’t have guessed, because the characters feel like his and the action and details elevate what could be a simple action adventure in a less dynamic storyteller’s hands.  

Vertical is the story of an Urbex crew of adventure activists who pull off daring stunts sometimes with a message.  Outlaw athletes who pull off political pranks they broke up after the last stunt almost killed them.  Michael Foster has moved on to working as tech-bro when Cam and Maddie from the crew recruit him for the ultimate prank.  Climbing the unfinished tallest building in the world being built in Moscow and billed as Vertical City.  Once up the plan is to send a friend to launch in a dangerous wing-suit flight.

The Korova Tower on Russia Day is a prank for the ages. The location and set-up are one that Goodfellow doesn’t rush. The characters are key in thrillers and Cody fills them with reasons, flaws, strengths, and motivations. They are not plot chess pieces, and that is important because when shit gets crazy you need a reason to give a shit about them.  

Let's start by talking about how well Goodfellow sets the stage for the location.

“As they passed out of the tunnel, a gargantuan shadow fell across the highway, eclipsing the pale, rising sun.

Twice as tall as the cluster of gleaming spires around it, Korova Tower looked like a ladder to the stars.  Its one hundred and ninety stories dominated the skyline, surmounted by a forked crane that made the already imposing tower look like it has horns.”

The reputation Goodfellow has for writing bonkers stuff and that kind of hides how powerful and poetic his prose can be. That is an example of excellent writing. This book is filled with moments like that it in a book designed to be a commercial vehicle. Another thing that elevates the book is the balance between knowledge of the gritty underground world matched with above-average knowledge of historical and literary details. Vertical has a urbex crew a reference to the Illiad, and former punk rock Russian cop who makes jokes about Sex Pistols in his narrative POV. Speaking of that guy’s band The Great Train Robbery whose records were pressed on the vinyl on old X-rays, a detail Goodfellow uncovered doing intense research. That is key Vertical is intensely researched. It has to talk about the white-knuckle action of the final act without spoiling the action, so if you want a spoiler-free experience go read Vertical meet me back here at this part of the review.

Going into the book I assumed it would have Die Hard feeling, with the Russian agents or Mob chasing the team around the building but a few set pieces in particular drive the action. The one I didn’t see coming was an earthquake under Moscow. The reason for this is one I appreciate but won't give away.

It is one thing for a city not used to earthquakes to suffer one during the Russia day party, that is enough to add chaos to your adventure story but…

“Like its neighbor, the Federation town, Korova stood on a shelf of sedimentary rock separated by a thick stratum of alluvial clay from deep but perennially depleted aquifer, which served as a perfect transmitter for the longest wavelengths of the distant quake to strum the skyscraper like a taunt string. Built to suspend 190 stories of concrete, steel, and glass on a minimal footprint with little consideration for seismic endurance, the skyscraper’s tripod shaped foundation core tisted against itself as if some greater force was wringing it dry…”

Now imagine your prankster crew of activists are trapped on the half-finished top floors.  Once the building starts to fall part of the adrenaline ride of the story starts. Like another horror or suspense thing you have to put yourself in the shoes of the characters and the whole thing would be gut-wrenching and terror-inducing, not just for the fear of heights but the building falling apart. Goodfellow figures out dozens of crazy ways the building and events would kill a character, and who survives drives the tension.

Of course, this would make an incredible movie, just the scene of Tom Cruise hanging off the building of Mission Impossible was nail-biting, a whole movie of it done right could be crazy good. We don’t need to wait for it. We have to story already playing out in this novel with the unlimited budget of your imagination. Cody Goodfellow is a wordsmith hell-bent on giving you the literary feeling of looking over the of high-up building. Now imagine that building starting to crumble apart. Vertical is an action thriller that works on the page.

Book Review: Alien: Enemy of My Enemy by Mary Sangiovanni

 

Alien: Enemy of My Enemy

416 pages, Paperback
Published March, 2023 by Titan Books

A young or new musician composing a song requires the musician to create something out of nothing. It is different when Tony Iommi plugs in his guitar and goes to write a Black Sabbath song he has certain expectations. He has chords, a guitar sound, and he has Ozzy or Dio’s voice in his head, I know Geezer wrote most of the lyrics but you get the idea.

Writing a tie-in novel is a tricky thing.  Fans of the franchise, are like fans of a band. You have to hit the recognizable notes like a power cord. This novel has to feel like it is in the Alien universe, some readers will complain if something is too different, it has to simply feel like something they have seen before. At the same time, other readers will complain if they don't get something new. I enjoyed it when Brian Evenson (written as B.K. Evenson) did something wild and out there with his Alien: No Exit. That novel was a like Noir with a detective who sleeps in hypersleep until Xenomorph events happen.  Some readers complained it wasn’t Alien enough.  Threading that needle in this novel is a great writer.

Mary Sangiovanni is a knowledgeable writer who has been on my podcast a few times to bring her expertise on all things cosmic horror.  I was excited to see Mary write a science fiction novel, I was personally less interested in Xenomorph of the whole thing as  I was at seeing what Mary did with Sci-fi. This is the third in a self contained trilogy, but I didn't read the other books and I think I was fine.

Mary stuck close to the formula, which is fine because there are many times she gave it her special touch – namely reminding the reader that these monsters are a creation of the darkest corners of the cosmos. Space is always trying to kill us. Consider this moment on page 78…

“Another pass of light showed even larger holes in the floor and more yellow acid that had eaten through the floor around the medical pods.
“Blood can’t do that,” Siobhan said, shaking her head. I don’t care what kind of experiments they’re doing here. How could any living thing have blood like that?”

A moment of suspense for sure, that will remind us that feeling we got watching the movies. The question at the end of this quote speaks to cosmic horror at the heart of these killing machines. It is the reason that the corporation in this franchise want to make the Xenomorph into a weapon. Some writers doing Alien novels just set up the action scenes. No moment of cosmic dread is left behind in moments like this. Many of the best moments of this novel are in the execution.

The set-up is an interesting one. I don't know how much comes from the first two books in the trilogy.  A Weyland-Yutani bioweapons lab is under the gun to provide results as the Moon they are stationed on is in sudden danger as the orbit is collapsing into the planet Hepaestus. Again, the cosmos itself working to kill the characters and creating an added ticking clock besides the Xenomorphs running around. There is another research labs near  and they are a different corporation making drugs. They are all waiting to be evacuated just as a major peace conference is set begin on the nearby conference.  

Quickly, maybe too quickly the Xenomorphs escape the lab, and in the prologue start the killing. This maybe a function of being a third book, and I get why you do that as a writer to open with action and give yourself some room for a little more build-up  later. Sangiovanni certainly uses build up and tension through the rest of the book so this is minor complaint and I absolutely understand  why you would start this way.

There are a couple of elements that give the framing story something original to the alien franchise. The concerns of the two corporations, the ticking clock of the dying moon, the peace conference. These are balanced with moments that feel very familiar, dynamics between the colonial Marines, the lead character, but those are features not bugs.

If you want to go in cold that stop here, buy and read the book and meet me back here. I really enjoy when writers like Tim Lebbon or Mary Sangiovanni play with the tropes and make solid as a rock Alien novels.  I think I personally enjoy the weird B.K. Evenson No Exit style but we are not here to talk any other Alien books and this one is super fun.

For those of you who complain there is nothing new here, let me stop you and present a scene for further evidence.  In the first one hundred pages the local wildlife who are like massive elk on the dying moon are seeded into the background. This pays off on page 120.

“The Xenomorph clinging to the outer wall was enormous, two or three times the size they’d seen so far. Tufts of fur grew between the jutting blades of its shoulders and black spines, and it’s chest was much broader. Most notable, though-  most terrifying – was the set of gigantic bony antlers protruding from the curved, eyeless heads.”

I kinda always understood that the Xenomorphs we’ve seen face hug a human and then they are a human like version. This scene really got me. Cool stuff.

I admit I don’t know the Alien universe, but when the novel get into world-building and background of the conference is when we get details of the wider universe which in the main franchise is mostly expressed in corporate greed. We knew they wanted bioweapons so in this we get some information about the seeds of the conflict, it is light seasoning, a pinch of salt but it did tons for this reader. I am assuming there is more details in the first two books. I suppose I will have to go back and check them out at some point.  
 
The most interesting character was Weyland-Yutani researcher Dr. McCormick, who created meds he thought could slow down the process of Xenomorph gestation up to three weeks. Running out of time this crazy fucker allows himself to become a host, figuring he can prove his science, and in a sense make himself valuable to be saved after he realizes the whole mission will be written off.

This character might be the most interesting thing in the novel, and I was impressed by this whole storyline. It is a interesting wrinkle that comes logically out of the world building we've seen. I also liked that the novel touched on the Prometheus/Covenant events as I am one of the rare fans of Prometheus and the bold swing it took mythology-wise.

Alien: Enemy of My Enemy is a strong powerful power cord that is played with great skill. A fun read for fans of the franchise who want to familiar story with elements of cosmic horror and minutes of elevation. As a writer I was playfully jealous  that Mary got to play in this sandbox and was constantly thinking about more Alien novels that could be. That shows that this novel was stimulating my imgination, telling a fun story and entertaining. Mission accomplished.