Reading in April

Yes, I'm aware that this is a tad late. As is probably fairly obvious, I've been quite busy lately, but, on the upside, my summer's shaping up to be filled with nothing but hot air and writing, redundant as the combo might prove to be. Future articles might - might - be a shade more on the timely side. In the meantime, let's bust out a time machine and figure out what I was reading two months ago.

Tau Zero boasts shallow characters, lax pacing, and a hard Science Fiction core so incredible that I'm still shaken a week after reading it. For the first time, I understand Hard Science Fiction. As it happens, there really are ideas strong enough to carry novels entirely on their own.

There's no denying that Aickman is a masterful writer. His prose is elegant, his atmospheres pervasive, his ideas fascinating. And yet I'm not sure that we're always on the same wavelength, to speak (as Robert Aickman certainly would not) in clichés. The Model felt like one of the lesser stories in Cold Hand in Mine. Masterfully done and subtle, certainly, but composed of a subtlety too urbane to bother with meaning or gratification.

Classics are always an odd experience. The light jokes of the time are, when looked at from six decades' distance and through a classic's deific airs, bizarre. The Martian Chronicles feels dated in parts, and some of the stories felt too reliant on unbelievable actions to me. That being said, there's no denying the brilliance of several of Bradbury's pieces here, including There Will Come Soft Rains, Usher II, and The Million-Year Picnic. This was my first Bradbury, but I'll be reading more for sure.

Crass, rude, and absurd, Exponential Apocalypse is a hilarious read. Review here.

Daniel Kraus's YA horror novel is equal parts grave robbing and coming of age, and both are pulled off with skill and wit. There are a few discolorations here and there, but they do little to damage the whole. Review here.

Death Poems is one of Ligotti's rarest works and getting it probably serves as a good road sign of the purchaser's loss of sanity. So, is Death Poems worth the exorbitant price (while I won't quote what I paid, I will say that most editions go for over a dollar a page)? In an objective sense, no, it's probably not. Death Poems is interesting and often highly amusing, but it is not Teatro Grottesco. This is the kind of work that's enjoyable, perhaps even thought provoking, but is certainly not life changing. And, for that price, life changing would be a fair expectation. Then again, if you're at the point where you're even considering such an insane purchase, I can almost guarantee that you'll find yourself sliding into it, wise decision or not. Ligotti becomes a bit of an obsession like that.

Like most Ligotti, I read Death Poems twice.

Kafka on the Shore has talking cats, jobs in the library, murderous corporate icons, teen runaways, and gateways to isolated dimensions, and it’s all painted in Murakami’s beautiful but understated prose. This book feels like the fulfillment of much of the man’s style, complete with the bizarre ordinary world of After Dark and the questions of identity and humanity filling Hard Boiled Wonderland. If I can ever wrap my mind around this properly, there will be a review. In the meantime: highly, highly recommended.

Black Halo improved on many of Tome of the Undergates’ flaws and proves a damn entertaining read. Review here.

Valente writes with imagery so thick it would be suffocating if it weren’t so deftly handled. Almost every paragraph here is filled with wonders, but Deathless is not just great prose. Valente manages to create a gripping plot of bizarre creatures and circumstances out of folklore and dreams. This is the rare book than can – and should – be called magical in every sense of that word.

Simply written but awesomely imaginative, Scott Westerfeld's YA steampunk novel is an engrossing read. The ending is rather abrupt, but Westerfeld twists world war one into a shape both amusing and fascinating. Recommended.

The Picture of Dorian Gray’s an interesting horror-style concept wrapped around a book of witty dialogue and fascinating ideas. There’s the occasional moment that drags – such as the seemingly endless chapter describing the minutia of our dubious protagonist’s life – but Wilde proves equally adept at making the reader laugh and think.

I won't be reviewing Historical Lovecraft due to the whole being in it thing, but I will say that it's filled with excellent stories, including Tobler's If Only to Taste Her Again, Meikle's Inquisitor, Reiss's The Chronicle of Aliyat Son of Aliyat, Joshua Reynolds' the Far Deep, and Tanzer's The Infernal History of the Ivybridge Twins among others. You know you're interested...

Eirik Gumeny - Exponential Apocalypse

There have been twenty-two apocalypses to date. There were now four distinct variations of humanity roaming the Earth – six, if you counted the undead.

It had been suggested that there really should have been a new word to describe "the end of everything forever," but most people had stopped noticing, much less caring, after the tally hit double digits. Not to mention the failure of "forever" in living up to its potential.

The last apocalypse wasn't even considered a cataclysm by most major governments.

It was just a Thursday. (p. 7)

Eirik Gumeny's Exponential Apocalypse is one hundred and ninety-five pages and eighty four chapters. In those pages, everything that transpires can be summed up as one of the following: Explosions, Slapstick, Exposition, or Dialogue. This is a novel wholly unconcerned with traditional ideals like setting up characters, like pacing or moderation, or like logical and foreshadowed plots. No, Exponential Apocalypse is focused on spectacle, and the spectacle on display is hilarious.

It's difficult to envision a successful plot summary, but I'll try to at least hit a few of the major elements (there are, in case you're wondering, a truckload of generally unrelated characters doing totally unrelated and hilarious things). A group of three reincarnated world leaders is passing time, barbecuing, and getting into scraps with assorted tough guys and mutants. Employees at a Holiday Inn happen to be cyborgs or Norse gods and grouse about fetching extra pillows. An Aztec god philosophizes about world domination with English majors. A telekinetic squirrel…

…see, this just isn't possible. Exponential Apocalypse is not, as we've already established, particularly concerned with making sense or building to much of anything. Instead, the various groups of characters wander around, get into ludicrous mishaps, and somehow get out again, if they don’t end up being destroyed in some incredibly gruesome fashion. There is, in the end, a main plot, but it doesn't come into play until we're closer to the end than the beginning, and the feeling of random what the fuck?-ness doesn't end until the last page is turned.

An example of the humor is probably warranted by this point. Our introduction to one of the main characters – the aforementioned Aztec deity – is this:

Quetzalcoatl stared at the clock. The digital representation of time stared back.

Quetzalcoatl stared even harder at the clock. The time did not blink.

Quetzalcoatl stared as hard as he fucking could at the clock. The clock burst into flames.

Granted, this didn't stem so much from the staring as it did the clock's position on top of a lit stove, but Quetzalcoatl didn't care. He hated that clock.

Quetzalcoatl was not well. (p. 19)

All of this…quirkiness (a word that does not even come close to describing the monumental strangeness of this book) is made comprehensible by Gumeny's world building. As well no doubt come as no surprise, the Earth of Exponential Apocalypse is not subtly constructed. Ideas are brought up, then ramped up, and then, when there's nothing left to do with them, declared an apocalypse while the book goes on to find the next huge explosion. All of this is narrated in a humorous style that renders the novel's many info dumps entertaining. Often, the exposition is balanced by a scene – generally one involving some form of over the top violence – and the juxtaposition often works, though there is the occasional passage made weaker by the rests in between.

Much of the humor here comes from Gumeny's truly monolithic irreverence. Nothing mentioned is safe, and it's plain that Gumeny takes pleasure in smashing through your sensibilities as often, and as forcefully, as possible. English majors (Sixty Two: This One Goes Out To All the English Majors (p.139)) , American foreign policy (OK, fine, we'll do it your soft, fuzzy way," the president continued. "Release the murder drones." (p. 116)), and scientific responsibility (It probably wasn't the best idea cross-breeding a werewolf and an atomic mutant, engineering it to be excessively belligerent, starving it, and then insulting its mother repeatedly. (p. 56)) are just some of the things brutally attacked here. By the end, the whole thing can become a tad desensitizing, but Gumeny is generally able to get laughs from more than just shock, even if that is a significant part of his armory.

I realize that this is, really, a pretty poor review. I feel more tour guide than critic, just pointing out various aspects rather than really commenting on them. But I'm not sure what else there is to do. Exponential Apocalypse is crass, ludicrous, and occasionally nonsensical. It's also hilarious and entertaining. If you liked the Quetzalcoatl quote or the cover blurb, you'll like the book. If not, you'll despise it by the end. There's not much more to say.