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Book Review: Classic Philip Jose Farmer, Volume One

Very often in writing classes, students are challenged to create “elevator pitches”, challenging them to summarize the premise of a story in one or two sentences. When it comes to Philip Jose Farmer, good luck with that. It was a struggle even for me and I consider myself well practiced at it.

The Classic Philip José Farmer, 1952-1964 is my first exposure to Farmer’s work and if nothing else, it has instilled a respect for his unorthodox approach to storytelling. There is little one could call conventional about Farmer’s style and imagination. His worlds are replete with bizarre aliens and even more peculiar humans.

In the first of two anthologies published by Crown Classics, we are presented with three short stories and three novellas, albeit the final story could easily be classified as flash fiction.

In “Sail On! Sail On!”, we are given a glimpse into an alternate history of Columbus’s expedition across the Atlantic wherein a bibulous monk uses a mysterious device that sends ship to shore communications through the intervention of angels. When his messages are disrupted by signals from the moon, might it spell danger for their voyage?

An apathetic, fragile young man and his doting mother are the only survivors of a crashed ship. While exploring their alien surroundings, the boy is taken captive by an alien who becomes his surrogate “Mother” and protector.

In “The God Business”, a former college professor invents a libation called the Brew that liberates people from all inhibitions, elevating himself to godhood in the process. When two investigators are sent in to gather intelligence where military incursions previously failed, they find a strange destiny awaits.

“The Alley Man” claims to be last of the Neanderthals. Living in a trailer beside a garbage dump, he accepts payment from a local research scientist to allow her to study him in his daily routine—until a strange attraction overcomes her.

“My Sister’s Brother” tests the prejudices of the sole survivor of a Mars expedition when he stumbles across an attractive alien with a surprising sexuality.

A biologist provides a guided tour of a zoo that recreates specimens from various extinct species, including one that is considered “The King of Beasts”.

In “Mother” and “My Sister’s Brother” particularly, I found Farmer’s detailed descriptions of the aliens and their respective biologies remarkable. “The God Business” was my favorite of the collection. I look forward to volume two and then moving onto Farmer’s acclaimed Riverworld series.

Classic Philip Jose Farmer 1952-1964
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Book Review: The Best of Lester Del Rey

You will find no shortage of robots and strange religions in this collection of stories from Lester Del Rey. Del Rey was an award-winning speculative fiction writer active from the late 1930s through the early 1990s before his death in 1993. He was awarded SFWA Grand Master in 1990.

As with any collection, there are stories ranging from mildly interesting to absolute gems. My favorites included:

Helen O’Loy – Robotics experts Dave and Phil create a female robot complete with emotions and decide to name her Helen O’Loy, a derivative of Helen of Alloy, which is a pun on Helen of Troy. Got that? The only problem is that she falls in love with Dave, making his life miserable…at least at first.

The Coppersmith – Industrious elf Ellowan Coppersmith emerges from a long sleep in the Adirondacks looking for work among humans only to find that his skills in repairing copper and brass items are no longer in high demand. Worse, mankind has developed horrid combustion engines. Perhaps Ellowan could use his skills to bring an eventual end to that…

Hereafter, Inc. – Righteous and judgmental Phineas Theophilus Potts returns to work after a long illness, forcing himself to be kind to the disgusting sinners around him, until he begins to realize that something is amiss. Some of his colleagues had died before his illness, so what are they doing here? Perhaps the question should be, what is Phineas doing there?

The Wings of Night – Two astronauts land on the moon to repair their ship and encounter a bizarre but benevolent alien named Lhin. Through trial and error, the astronauts find a way to communicate with the alien and learn that Lhin is the last of his kind, but with a small supply of copper could repopulate his species.

For I Am a Jealous People – A preacher’s faith is shaken when aliens attack the Earth claiming to be on a holy mission from the Lord Almighty to eradicate humans from the planet. This is one of three novellas in the collection.

Vengeance is Mine – A robot named Sam is left behind on the moon when the humans are evacuated to Earth. Shortly thereafter, Sam notices bursts of light on the Earth’s surface before the planet goes completely dark. Believing that aliens had attacked, Sam finds his way back to the planet only to eventually learn the truth behind the death of mankind. The last of three novellas.

 

Best of Lester Del Rey

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Book Review: Phoenix Without Ashes by Edward Bryant and Harlan Ellison

In an ultra-religious agrarian community known as Cypress Corners, young Devon has become an outcast not only for questioning authority, but also for falling in love with Rachel, a farmer’s daughter who has been betrothed to Garth, the local blacksmith. Garth and Devon had been friends since childhood, and since Rachel and Garth do not love one another, the blacksmith is all too happy to turn a blind eye toward the “secret”—and forbidden—romance.

While living out his temporary exile in the hills beyond the town, Devon survives on care packages brought by Rachel, who sneaks away from town after evening prayers. When his penance is complete, the town elders escort Devon back to Cypress Corners, expecting him to repent. Yet Devon remains recalcitrant and soon discovers that the Creator’s Machine, from which the Elders receive their instructions for leading the community, is broken. The Elders have since learned how to record their own orders into the machine and play them back at will.

After attacking the Elders and stealing the recording device, Devon tries to reason with Rachel and her parents, but they do not believe him. Knowing he will soon be arrested, Devon flees for the hills. While there, he discovers a portal that leads to a strange and wondrous place. Devon soon learns that he, and everyone in Cypress Corners, is aboard an ancient interstellar Earth vessel known as the Ark.

Upon finding a library computer, Devon learns that the Ark’s purpose was to transport millions of humans from a dying Earth to a new home across the galaxy—until an accident diverted the ship from its course and sent it on a path directly toward a star. If the Ark cannot be repaired and its course corrected, the ship and everyone aboard will be dead in five years.

This mysterious catastrophe, having occurred 400 years ago, also terminated communications between the thousands of communities aboard. As a result, no one in Cypress Corners is even aware of the other societies, or the truth about their very existence.

Can Devon convince the Elders of this new information and enlist their help in repairing the ship, or will they sentence him to a brutal end for his blasphemy?

Edward Bryant did an admirable job of adapting Harlan Ellison’s screenplay for The Starlost into the novelization. The chapters are brief, averaging about 5 pages, and the pacing is solid.

It would not be a Harlan Ellison book without an introduction as interesting as the story itself. This time, Harlan describes the debacle that ensued from the time he pitched The Starlost all the way through the ineptitude of the producers in marketing it, and their ignorance in utterly misinterpreting the series bible that they had pressed him into writing on an impossible deadline.

As a result of his experiences, and his dissatisfaction with the quality of the production, Harlan removed himself from the television project and demanded that his nom de plume, Cordwainer Bird, be used in the credits. Harlan was known to employ this pseudonym as a symbol of his objection to the mistreatment of his work by others.

 

Phoenix_Ashes-Ellison

 

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Book Review: Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison built his career on the short story format and as a result, became one of the most awarded living writers.  I have many of his collections in my library, which was why I recognized most of the material in this anthology.

Deathbird Stories consists of 19 tales, originally printed between 1960 and 1974, all loosely gathered here under the theme of modern gods.  While some of the stories, such as “Neon”, “Along the Scenic Route”, and “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes” seem to miss that mark, many of the stories directly fit the theme or at least, contain supernatural elements.

Some of my favorites include (along with Harlan’s taglines for each):

The Whimper of Whipped Dogs – When the new god comes to the Big Apple, its Kyrie Eleison turns out to be a prayer Kitty Genovese simply couldn’t sing. But thirty-eight others knew the tune.

Along the Scenic Route – God, in the latest, chrome-plated, dual-carb, chopped & channeled, eight-hundred-horsepowered incarnation. God’s unspoken name is Vroooom!

On The Downhill Side – Posing the question: does the god of love use underarm deodorant, vaginal spray, and fluoride toothpaste?

Neon – Kurt Weill and Max Anderson wrote, “Maybe God’s gone away, forgetting His promise He made that day: and we’re lost out here in the stars.” And maybe He/She’s just waiting for the right signal to come back, whaddaya think?

Basilisk – Have you ever noticed: the most vocal superpatriots are the old men who send young men off to die? Well, it might just be that the heaviest reverential act when worshipping the god of war is to be the biggest mutherin traitor of them all. Check Spiro, I think he’s having a seizure.

Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes – The god of the slot machine: new religions, new souls, new limbos.

Paingod – If God is good, why does He send us pain and misery?

Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans – Reality has become fantasy; fantasy has become reality.  35mm constructs have more substance than your senior congressman, but Martha Nelson is real, no matter what you think. And the search for your soul in a soulless world requires special maps.

Deathbird Stories-Ellison

 

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Book Review: Mr. Monk on the Couch

While investigating a death in a cheap motel, our favorite obsessive-compulsive detective becomes enamored with the crime scene cleanup crew and volunteers to assist them on their next job. Monk does not need to wait long as a series of bizarre murders begins, seemingly centered around a thrift store couch.

Meanwhile, Monk’s assistant, Natalie Teeger, decides to put her own investigative skills to the test as she delves into the identity and background of the John Doe from the motel, who died of natural causes but was in possession of fake ID and a photo of a woman and little girl. As if all of that isn’t enough, Monk decides to play matchmaker and setup a date between Natalie and Jerry Yermo, the team leader of the crime scene cleanup crew.

While investigating the serial killings, Monk concludes that it is not the couch, but items hidden within it that are the motive behind the murders. Those items lead Monk to a disappointing conclusion.

I enjoy all of Lee Goldberg’s MONK novels and this was no exception. However, I felt that Monk’s theory as to the identity of the murderers was arrived at by an astounding leap of logic that had only a modicum of supporting evidence. Nevertheless, Goldberg once again perfectly captures these characters and maintains a perfect pace.

 

Monk Couch

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Book Review: Mr. Monk on the Road

After solving two San Francisco murders in typical Adrian Monk fashion, the detective decides to do something special for his agoraphobic brother, Ambrose, who has not left his house in over 30 years. After lacing his slice of birthday cake with sleeping pills, Adrian and his assistant, Natalie Teeger, carry Ambrose into an RV that Adrian had rented with the intention of taking Ambrose on a tour of California then out to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas–with Natalie as the designated driver, of course.

Understandably, Ambrose is at first furious over being abducted from his home, but begins to relax as the trip progresses. He marvels at the sights and sounds of the outside world. During their travels, the trio encounter two murders that naturally intrigue Adrian, but he is reluctantly dissuaded by Natalie from participating in their investigation. They are on vacation, after all. Along the way, they meet several interesting characters in various trailer parks and are nearly run off the road by an enraged tractor trailer driver.

It isn’t until they reach Vegas that Detective Monk has an epiphany and realizes that all of the events and people they’ve encountered have a deadly connection…

This story takes place after the end of the television series and the events of the final episode are summed up in the first chapter. If you have never seen the final episode, you may wonder what on Earth would inspire Adrian Monk, a man whose phobias are surpassed only by his brother’s, to take a sightseeing tour in an RV. Well, let’s just say that both Detective Monk and his brother has overcome some of their fears, have loosened up a little, and realized there is more to life than solving puzzles and disinfecting everything in sight–except for the RV’s bathroom and dinette table, of course.

monkHats off to Lee Goldberg for yet anothe marvelous Monk mystery. I’ve read about six of his Monk novels to date and have never been disappointed.