2054 by Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis
304 pages, Hardcover
Published March, 2024 by Penguin Press
Full review on the way...
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
Book Review: 2054 by Elliot Ackerman and James G. Stavridis
Book Review 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
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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.
Monday, June 15, 2026
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
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.
Sunday, June 14, 2026
Book Review: When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy
I admit this is my first time reading Nat Cassidy, and certainly it won't be the last. I realized something dangerous. I feel like I know the guy; we have plenty of mutual friends. I have been listening to Nat on Talking Scared with their Dark Tower series for a while now. I feel like I have gotten to know his taste, and so this is very much like reading a book written by a friend.
The storytelling skill is very smooth, and it may have been influenced by reading it directly after a book that didn’t work for me. This one felt effortlessly written. Like a pure jump shot in hoop, nothing but net.
It was an accident, but I went in cold on the plot, and that helped because major reveals worked perfectly for me. I say accident, as when Nat appeared here in San Diego, I planned to go to the event and hear him talk about the book. The problem was Nat’s website said 7 PM, and even though I know Saturday events at Mysterious Galaxy are typically in the afternoon, and the store is not open. I took the bus across town and showed up at 7 PM. There were two other people as confused as me. They helped me feel less stupid.
When Judge Rothenberg had this on his best of list last year (we do my year-end review together annually on my podcast) I joked that I refused to read it, but the truth is I was planning to buy a copy and it took me a while to get one, after the wrong time event.
None of that matters to you; the question you have is whether this is a good book. This is a spectacular horror novel, with SF elements that put it in a similar vibe to King’s Firestarter or the John Farris classic The Fury. This modern take on those types of stories has to break new ground, and it does, if you want to be completely unspoiled, you have to trust me and stop here.
With the title When the Wolf Comes Home, many have mistaken this novel for a werewolf novel, but the wolf of the title is not a werewolf at all. That is not the only narrative misdirection, and with each turn, Cassidy got me. The theme is inspired by lost or missing fathers.
Firestarter, The Fury, and the underrated recent film Midnight Special are all similar, stories with magical supernaturally powerful kids. Jess, our POV for this story, is a flawed but likable lead. She makes questionable calls but I understand her fine. Her co-worker Margie is an example of a character with a short page count but I remembered her better than main characters of the book I read before this. The kid is someone we feel for even as he becomes the source of terror.
Cassidy has moments where the horror is perfectly calibrated, if we didn’t care about the kid it wouldn’t work this scene in the early pages between Margie and The Kid is everything the novel needs.
“With another groan, Margie straightens up and quickly jogs out of the room. The boy hears the door open nearby, and then she's back, “Tada.” She presents him with a radial blanket. Threadbare and dulled from untold washes... But still surprisingly soft to the touch.
“What is it?” he asked.
“That right there, my friend, is an invisibility blanket. Do you know what invisible means? It means, whenever you're scared, if you hide under this blanket? The things you're scared of can't see you.”
Cassidy subverts the reader's expectation and reverses the trope of the genre but first he has to make the father as scary as he can. It works.
“Kid, I'm not sure what is going on tonight, but whatever that was that wasn't your daddy. I don't even think it was human.”
“It was daddy,” he repeats with an edge of frustration. “He's still mad. And when he gets mad, he..”
“He what?” No answer. “OK, look. She has no idea what to say or how to say it. “Your dad was a bad guy, I get it. And I definitely know what it's like to build up your dad in your head. But daddies are just people, your dad's just a person in fact, I'm sorry to tell you this, but he's probably dead. That thing at my apartment, the wolf thing? I don't think anyone besides us, you know got away. Including your daddy. Do you know what dad means?”
The reversal is an absolute spoiler, but holy hell did the progression work. When the Wolf Comes Home is a testament that we can take a well-explored subgenre and breathe powerful life into the modern horror novel. I would also say this one has speculative elements. An instant classic that has sold me on reading Cassidy deeper.
Sunday, May 24, 2026
Book Review: The Franchise by Thomas Elrod
“It’s not reality TV. It is storytelling, at the grandest and most immersive scale. Imagine going to see a Malicarn movie and knowing it really happened.”
I was curious about this book long before I was able to sit down and read it. While I am not a big fantasy guy, and a Game of Thrones comparison does not sell me, The Truman Show was the one that worked. I am a PKD guy after all (and that movie felt PKD). The idea of a fantasy world where it is manufactured to fool one or more people that is the real thing that made me curious.
It should be noted that I root for every book that I read, and I never want to be critical, but writing reviews is one of the things I do. I have to be honest. This novel has many good elements, and it is clear the author is talented, but it also felt like there were several clear signs to me that this was a first-time novelist. I don't think it was ready for prime time, and whoever edited this didn't do it any Elrod any favors. It is not a bad book, and honestly, it was a great idea. I think maybe some readers who not into structure to the nerd level I am will actually have a better experience. Personally, I didn’t like the structure, and another draft could have fixed this in my opinion.
The Franchise is more Westworld than Truman Show, and it needed, in my opinion, to be more Time Out of Joint, and without spoiling that specific difference, let me talk for a minute about how PKD does horror Vs. Lovecraft. I think it is instructive about the limitations this book has.
Both writers deal with a certain amount of horror at the vast insanity of the universe. Lovecraft opens his stories with POV characters already crazy. Think of his characters as untuned guitar strings. PKD’s characters often are strings that slowly get pulled out of tune. The Franchise has a cool idea at its heart, but it needed the approach of stings slowly untuning. If I am really going to murder this analogy. The structure of the novel explained how strings were put on the guitar, tuned, and then they started to come undone.
This novel almost had the structure it needed, opening in the fantasy world of Malicarn, then there is interesting stuff about the creation of it. How it is maintained, for me, these were the best parts of the novel. The problem was it was just done at the wrong time.
I think Westworld meets Game of Thrones is actually a truly fantastic pitch. Elrod clearly understands the genre. I certainly related to the origin of this fantasy world that started in a thinly veiled Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The problem is he front-loads this in the story.
There is a pretty effective part on page 85 that expresses the concept, and shows how the idea works..
“Do the advisors know?”
“No, Nobody does.”
“Except for you.”
“Yes and a few others. Kreek among them. Kreek is not his actual name, and he is not from Malicarn. His Real Name is Brian Doyle.”
Could’ve been an interesting reveal, but we were already time jumping in the early chapters with the development of the novels and the interesting backstory. The problem is I felt this should’ve been back-loaded.
I would rather be thrown into the deep end and be confused at first. If the answers are revealed, that is exciting. The first time author thing comes into play here, because I felt like Elrod or an editor thought the reader had to understand what was happening from early on. What this novel needed was characters we were hooked into, so we don’t mind being confused, and then we keep turning pages because we care about the characters and want the mystery solved.
The reality is that when I closed the novel, I remembered a lot about the setup, but I couldn’t name any characters. The Franchise is a perfect set-up for a TV series. Honestly, I think it will have a better life in that media than as a novel. Expanding the back story and the inner fantasy world is also something a show could do well. The theme of commercialism and disrespect for authorial intent was pretty well said. I am interested in what Elrod does next.
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