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Book Review: Penetralia

Posted on September 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

PenetraliaPenetralia by Jordan Krall

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Okay, we need to get one thing out of the way: The title of this book, Penetralia, is not actually as dirty as it sounds. The definition is:

1. the innermost parts or recesses of a place or thing.

2. the most private or secret things.

Okay, so you can get your mind out of the gutter.

Okay, now put your mind right back in that gutter.

Penetralia by Jordan Krall is a hard book to get your head around. You’re constantly slapped around by images of physical and sexual violence, and yet there’s a constant promise that there’s going to be a grand revelation of wisdom through these actions. The story follows a family who is seeking through violent experiments on unwilling subjects/victims for an ultimate Wisdom as prescribed through ancient texts. The grown-up brother and sister, Philip and Elizabeth, are conducting these experiments on their own in their father’s absence, who dresses in a plague doctor costume and is away for unknown reasons but will be returning soon.

Right away, you will realize that it takes a strong stomach to get through Penetralia. Krall has never shied away from gross and violent gross imagery before. In some books, like Squid Pulp Blues for example, he seemed have a strange obsession with characters releasing their bowels at inopportune times. In Penetralia, Krall has kicked it up more than a couple of notches. Almost from the get go, you’re shown that this is a very incestuous family, and that some of the experiments performed on their subjects/victims to reveal the ultimate Wisdom involve extraction and consumption of numerous bodily fluids and substances. Seriously, do not read this right after you’ve eaten. I have a cast-iron stomach, and even I felt a little queasy after one of the early scenes where Philip consumes one of their subject’s vomit.

If you can get past this (or even if these parts were cut out or rewritten), it’s not so much a story about torture, murder, and incest, but becomes a story of an extremely dysfunctional family that suffered continual and extreme abuse at the hands of their patriarch. While Philip resents his father for the abuse with every fiber of his being, he still does everything he can to continue his father’s work knowing full well that he will never earn his father’s approval. Elizabeth, on the other hand, has a case of Stockholm syndrome, loving her father deeply even for or because of the abuse she has suffered, despite knowing in the back of her mind that what she has suffered through was horrible and violent.

This made the book very frustrating. Krall is a great writer, and the prose is brilliant throughout, clean (not counting the gross imagery), and quick to read, even with making you stop to reread something or think about a particular scene carefully. But the imagery felt unnecessary to what would have been a fascinating story, and even distracted from it. The disturbing images felt like they were put in for sheer shock value. In that respect, they do their job well. But the story underneath it is actually very interesting. The story of a dysfunctional family who finally come to terms with the abuse they’ve suffered and confronting their abuser is actually quite engaging, but it becomes buried in the shock scenes so heavily that it’s difficult to see. You practically get two separate books, one for shock value and one for a heartbreaking story, but the two don’t mesh well and are constantly fighting for your attention.

Overall, Penetralia has some great writing, a potentially powerful story, and vivid if disturbing imagery. I know that Krall has recently moved away from writing bizarro fiction, and Penetralia may have been his swan song in the genre. It’s certainly a strong and powerful way to bow out, but it was a little too extreme for my tastes. I sort of wish he had bowed out sooner and written Penetralia with more focus on the story than the imagery, which based on his False Magic Kingdom series he can clearly do. Don’t get me wrong. Krall has a real talent for descriptive imagery and storytelling, but in Penetralia, those to forces seem to be at war with each other rather than support each other, making it confusing and not my particular cup of tea.

Penetralia by Jordan Krall earns 3 plague outfits out of 5.

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Book Review: Help! A Bear is Eating Me!

Posted on September 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

Help! a Bear Is Eating Me!Help! a Bear Is Eating Me! by Mykle Hansen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Help! A bear is eating Marv Pushkin!

And, uh, that’s pretty much it. That was the easiest review I’ve ever written.

Well, okay, maybe that’s not all of it.

What happens when you have a complete narcissist stuck in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness (insert Sarah Palin joke here) underneath his SUV getting eaten by a bear? You have Help! A Bear is Eating Me! by Mykle Hansen.

It’s been said that there are three basic plots: Man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. himself. While this book at first seems like it would be man vs. nature just by the title alone, it quickly becomes apparent that this plot is actually man vs. himself. This book is a character study in its purest form. It’s told in a complete stream-of-consciousness style where you read Marv’s entire thought process during the days he is trapped under his SUV being slowly eaten by a bear and waiting for rescue. He flashes back to his version of events throughout his life and how it led up to him being in this predicament. There’s nothing left out of this stream, so you’ll read everything he’s thinking, hallucinations and all.

Marv Pushkin is probably on the most unlikable characters you will ever read about, which tests the literary hypothesis that the protagonist, while flawed, always needs to be likable, or at least redeemable, to the reader. Marv has no redeeming values. He’s an ad executive, a bully, a philanderer, and completely self-centered. He thinks of himself as a gift to the universe and that through the power of positive thinking, the universe is there to serve him. As the book progresses, though, you discover that everything is not peachy-keen with Marv. He’s got some serious demons and has a history of mental illness. At times, you’re not entirely sure if what he’s describing is what’s actually happening or if it’s just happening in his head. So, while he doesn’t have a redeeming value, he does have a certain sympathetic value, and the reader come to feel sorry for him. Whether the reader roots for him to get out of the situation is up to each individual reader and how sympathetic they actually are.

The stream-of-consciousness style of writing is often something that puts off a lot of people. I’m actually drawn to it. It’s fascinating to actually get into another person head and read every thought that goes through their mind, rather than the selected thoughts that many authors choose to show for the sake of plot. Marv, however, is the plot. In a sense, he’s correct in that he is the universe, at least as it pertains to this book.

The stream-of-consciousness does get a bit choppy at times, but for the most part it flows well with a few bumps here and there. I’m not entirely sold on the ending either (which is probably not what you’re expecting), but in its own way it worked, especially given what we learn about Marv during the course of the novel.

While this book is technically classified as bizarro fiction, the most bizarre thing about it is that it’s published by Eraserhead Press. There’s really nothing that bizarre about it. So if you’re expecting a genuine bizarro book, or what you may think of when you think about bizarre fiction, you’ll probably be disappointed. If you’re looking for a genuine character study of a severely broken man who doesn’t know he’s broken, then you’ll definitely want to read this.

Help! A Bear is Eating Me! by Mykle Hansen earns a solid 4 bear cubs out of 5.

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Book Review: The Emerald Burrito of Oz

Posted on August 31, 2013 | Leave a comment

The Emerald Burrito of OzThe Emerald Burrito of Oz by John Skipp and Marc Levinthal

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

From the Files of Sheldon Nylander:

I came across a publication the other day called The Emerald Burrito of Oz, put together by John Skipp and Marc Levinthal. It was an account of Gene Spielman of Los Angeles’ visit to his friend Aurora Jones, the proprietor of the Emerald Burrito which is the only Mexican restaurant in Oz, a magical world that seems to exist in parallel with our own and is the true world which L. Frank Baum based his books on. The gate exists in Salina, Kansas, but it requires special government permission to pass through. This would explain the recent influx of Munchkins working around Salina in recent years.

This world of Oz plays by its own rules, right down to the laws of science. Things don’t work the same as they do over here, especially when it comes to technology. In Oz, only the simplest of technologies work. When any man-made technology passes through the gate, the results are…unpredictable, which leads to some odd situations, especially when reading through Gene’s account written on the computer he took with him.

It becomes very easy to feel lost with this account, especially if you are only familiar with the Judy Garland movie (and to a lesser extent the much darker “Return to Oz” with Fairuza Balk; this book was originally published back in 2000, before “Oz, the Great and Powerful” was even a gleam in a studio executive’s eye). There are references to individuals and creatures that, to my knowledge, are only accounted for in the L. Frank Baum books, which I haven’t read.

The book has more violence than you might initially expect from something related to Baum’s children’s books, but then you remember that is the real life accounting of time in Oz during a civil war as they face off against someone known as the Hollow Man. When you get the real life counterparts of an axe-wielding Tin Man or the Lion, there’s going to be violence and blood.

While the book seemed interesting for what it is, I had a hard time getting into it. Admittedly, this may be because, as I mentioned above, I haven’t read Baum’s original books, so there was some sense of feeling lost in a world that I should have reviewed the map for before traveling there. The players are interesting, with Aurora being the traditional tough hero while Gene is more of a wimp, but I would have liked to learn more details about the real life counterparts of the Scarecrow or the Lion. Still, you get quite a bit of story, character, and world-building, and The Emerald Burrito of Oz is one of the longer books to fall into the bizarro genre with very little padding, so you’ll get more substance out of your reading.

The Emerald Burrito of Oz earns 3 flying monkeys out of 5.

Note: Just in case you can’t tell (and there some are some out there who might not), this review was written in character. Yes, I know it’s not real.

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Book Review: Her Fingers

Posted on August 29, 2013 | Leave a comment

Her FingersHer Fingers by Tamara Romero

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ya broke my heart, Tamara.

I have to state something to start off. In reading Her Fingers by Tamara Romero, it’s quite possible that I simply didn’t get it. There’s a strong feeling that it’s the kind of book that requires more than one read through, and despite its short length I simple haven’t had the time to give it a second read. However, it is not at the point where I can simply turn a blind eye to this book’s issues, so this deserves a more detailed explanation.

Her Fingers is described on the back cover as a very lyrical book, which is accurate. Romero’s prose is without a doubt absolutely beautiful. What makes this even more striking is that she originally wrote this book in Spanish. She also translated it into English herself, which removes the debate over whether the translator should be considered as the writer. It makes me wish I could read Spanish just to see how it read in its original form.

This novella is about…well I’m not entirely sure how best to describe it. You don’t really know what it’s about at first other than the description on the back cover. In short, a witch woman washes up near an isolated cabin occupied by a researcher. A witch woman with metal fingers on one hand (hence the title). The story mostly gets told through flashbacks. Unfortunately, this style of storytelling is the book’s greatest strength but eventually turns into its biggest flaw.

The style of storytelling is unique and very interesting, but unfortunately Romero doesn’t follow through. While the style was well done while it lasts, it stops abruptly. There’s an axiom in the literary world that in most books we’re only seeing a small portion of the iceberg and the rest is hidden under the surface. Unfortunately, Her Fingers feels like barely any of the iceberg is being shown up until the end when the whole thing suddenly surfaces at once. The story ends completely depending on telling instead of showing. Literally, everything is explained by one character at the end without much build up.

I can’t begin to tell you how disappointing this is. The writing style is so gorgeous and the world is incredibly rich and detailed, with such a wonderful buildup in the story. It feels like this book should (not “could”) have easily been about three time as long as it is. But then it felt like Romero got tired of it or got backed into a corner with a deadline (I don’t know if this is what actually happened; it just feels like it) and decided to end the story then and there. I really hope that this story is not something that she leaves behind. There is clearly so much more to tell about this world that it would be a crime against literature to abandon it.

This novella is part of the New Bizarro Authors Series of 2012-2013. I give Romero a lot of credit for her absolutely gorgeous use of language and daring to try something different. But the storytelling becomes so frustrating and falls apart near the end in dramatic fashion that it’s difficult to give it a strong recommendation. I wanted to like it so much more, and I’m one of those people who loves artful writing, but the storytelling problems are so pronounced that I can’t recommend this book to a wider audience. If you like strong lyrical prose and a very unique and beautiful world, and can overlook major storytelling problems, give it a shot. Otherwise, you might want give it a pass.

Her Fingers by Tamara Romero gets some extra credit for the writing style and daring to try something different, but ultimately earns only 3 Amalis rings out of 5.

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Book Review: Shatnerquest

Posted on April 20, 2013 | Leave a comment

ShatnerquestShatnerquest by Jeff Burk

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don’t usually do this, but I need to warn about spoilers for this one, because it’s pretty much impossible to write a review for this book without revealing certain things. You’ve been warned.

Shatnerquest by Jeff Burk is odd to review. Not necessarily difficult, just odd. There’s something about it that works. It’s silly. It’s violent. It’s plain weird. But somehow, the stars aligned for this one, and it works…mostly. It’s also odd in that it wasn’t actually supposed to happen. When Jeff Burk published Shatnerquake, he listed among his works Shatnerquest and Shatnerpocalypse. At the time, this was supposed to be a joke. These books didn’t actually exist. So, Shatnerquest is a satire born out of another joke. Jeff Burk needs to be careful or else he’s going to create a satirical black hole that will swallow all comedy as we know it.

The first thing you may ask is how this book relates to Shatnerquake, given the way that one ended. Well, it does and it doesn’t. That one’s hard to explain. Starting out during a Magic: The Gathering tournament at SuperCoolCon, the apocalypse occurs. Again. And this one is both a bad one and awesome at the same time. Every being from science fiction and fantasy becomes real and lays waste to civilization. Godzilla, zombie Borg, etc. There’s even a Dalek that is an actual exterminator of tribbles. Benny, Janice, and Gary, along with Benny’s cat Squishy, all wearing Starfleet uniforms (including Squishy in a red shirt) decided that the thing to do during this apocalypse is to go save William Shatner. Hey, everyone needs a hobby, even during Armageddon. On their cross-country trip to Los Angeles, they are pursued by Koloth, another nerd who’s dressed as a Klingon and leads a white supremacist biker gang who all wear Klingon forehead ridges. Yep, you read that right.

While Shatnerquake was a satirical tribute to William Shatner, Shatnerquest is a satirical tribute to all things nerdy. Even as passing mentions, just about everything nerdy appears in this book. It’s like one gigantic ComicCon, all the way up to the final confrontation with Shatzilla and the Takei (who’s portrayed as a parody of Mothra; guess what his battle cry is; go on, I dare you!). How does this story relate to Shatnerquake? Well, again, it does and it doesn’t. It makes reference to the events of that book, but that’s all. So you should be safe in reading this book if you haven’t read the other one.

As for Jeff Burk’s writing style, you can tell how much he’s matured since writing Shatnerquake. Well, matured in a relative sense. His prose is a lot cleaner and he can get the ideas across much better. Not that he was bad to begin with, but his experience since writing Shatnerquake shows. He even dares to break the fourth wall a couple of times, as the characters state at one point that some things aren’t how they’re portrayed in the source material and that they’re firmly in parody territory now. It was rather striking when he did that, but funny all the same.

There are still some editing issues, which has always been a sticking point for me. They’re not as bad in Shatnerquest though, especially given that this book is twice as long as Shatnerquake, so they’re spaced out a little better. Granted that they still add up, but it’s not as much of an issue here. Yes, this is a much longer novel than Shatnerquake, and it works in that form very well, although by the end I was ready for it to stop. Burk does push it right up to the line of tolerance. Still, it shows that Burk can writing a longer-form novel, and I’d actually like to see what else he can write in that form.

A good tribute all things nerdy, Shatnerquest by Jeff Burk earns 4 redshirted cats out of 5.

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