Glorified fan fiction masquerading as a serious sequel to one of the greatest horror novels of all time. Only in this case, to borrow one of the few cliches left out of this book, the fan is demented and his object is to destroy that which he most loves. On its own, The Un-dead is a grotesquerie of roll-your-eyes writing, adolescent thinking, and the sort of vampire worship that would turn these undead denizens of Earth into tortured, godlike souls. Souls? Oh, yes. This "sequel" begins with the premise that Stoker got everything wrong. Rewriting his novel -- its plot, characters, and themes -- is the backdrop for a new alternative history story that features the likes of Elizabeth Bathory and Jack the Ripper, not to mention Stoker himself. Though Dracula lives (never mind how...and how...and how), Bathory is the lesbian badass here, an evil Supergirl with virtually unlimited powers and no kryptonite to keep her in check (because, of course, religion has no effect on her). Her confidence in her ultimate victory is understandable, given that the former vampire hunters now all have problems of their own: Dr. Seward is addicted to morphine, Arthur Holmwood is still pining for his lost Lucy, Jonathan Harker is an alcoholic, and Mina, his wife, can't stop thinking about that time "her dark prince" had his way with her. And Van Helsing is just awfully old. The wild card is Quincey -- not Quincey Morris (Stoker miraculously got that part of the story right), but Quincey Harker, Mina and Jonathan's son. But then he's a rebellious young man who has set his sights on a career in the theater, not in that stuffy old law office where his overbearing dad works. Where but the theater could he hobnob with a man like Basarab, a tall, mysterious European seemingly destined to be the world's greatest actor. "I have met someone," Quincey hilariously tells his mother. "Someone wonderful." (Mina naturally thinks he's speaking of a girl.) With lots of blood and gore, and modern special effects that tell a compelling tale of the source for much of the authors' inspiration for this unimaginative travesty. Not to be confused with Freda Warrington's novel Dracula the Undead, which sounds a whole lot more interesting. Dacre Stoker, by the way, is Bram Stoker's great grand-nephew.
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Glorified fan fiction masquerading as a serious sequel to one of the greatest horror novels of all time. Only in this case, to borrow one of the few cliches left out of this book, the fan is demented and his object is to destroy that which he most loves. On its own, The Un-dead is a grotesquerie of roll-your-eyes writing, adolescent thinking, and the sort of vampire worship that would turn these undead denizens of Earth into tortured, godlike souls. Souls? Oh, yes. This "sequel" begins with the premise that Stoker got everything wrong. Rewriting his novel -- its plot, characters, and themes -- is the backdrop for a new alternative history story that features the likes of Elizabeth Bathory and Jack the Ripper, not to mention Stoker himself. Though Dracula lives (never mind how...and how...and how), Bathory is the lesbian badass here, an evil Supergirl with virtually unlimited powers and no kryptonite to keep her in check (because, of course, religion has no effect on her). Her confidence in her ultimate victory is understandable, given that the former vampire hunters now all have problems of their own: Dr. Seward is addicted to morphine, Arthur Holmwood is still pining for his lost Lucy, Jonathan Harker is an alcoholic, and Mina, his wife, can't stop thinking about that time "her dark prince" had his way with her. And Van Helsing is just awfully old. The wild card is Quincey -- not Quincey Morris (Stoker miraculously got that part of the story right), but Quincey Harker, Mina and Jonathan's son. But then he's a rebellious young man who has set his sights on a career in the theater, not in that stuffy old law office where his overbearing dad works. Where but the theater could he hobnob with a man like Basarab, a tall, mysterious European seemingly destined to be the world's greatest actor. "I have met someone," Quincey hilariously tells his mother. "Someone wonderful." (Mina naturally thinks he's speaking of a girl.) With lots of blood and gore, and modern special effects that tell a compelling tale of the source for much of the authors' inspiration for this unimaginative travesty. Not to be confused with Freda Warrington's novel Dracula the Undead, which sounds a whole lot more interesting. Dacre Stoker, by the way, is Bram Stoker's great grand-nephew.
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+++ This is an odd book, and that goes whether you've seen the movie or not. If you have seen the movie, be prepared for one surprise after another. Oh, it's still about a Chief of Police unwillingly forced into battle with a mammoth great white shark that is eating people off the beaches of his small resort town. It's peopled with the same characters: Chief Brody himself; his wife; the cynical mayor; Matt Hooper the ichthyologist; and Quint, the colorful fisherman Brody eventually hires to kill the shark. Beyond that, however, it's a different story, for though their names and occupations are the same, these aren't the same people, and their unique motivations and personalities lead them (and the story) into waters uncharted by the film. If you haven't seen Steven Spielberg's blockbuster, its weirdness lies in what Benchley has done to fashion his fish tale into a bestseller. To draw in a female audience, he's added an intimate subplot involving Brody and his wife. But he's done it so ham-handedly that if it isn't hijacking the book, it's lurking in the background with empty threats of making a meaningful difference. Strangest of all is that this subplot doesn't kill the book: it may be extraneous, but at least it's suspenseful. (One of the best scenes in the book -- albeit a book about a killer shark -- has Brody hosting a very tense dinner party.) The mashup doesn't work, narratively speaking, but the various pieces are compelling enough in their own right to make the book a reasonably enjoyable one. ++++ Gripping account of the last night of the Titanic's maiden voyage, reconstructed from official reports, news articles, and interviews with survivors. Lord's blow-by-blow account begins late on the night of April 14, 1912, just moments before the ship struck an iceberg in the freezing waters of the Atlantic, opening a gash in the hull. Lord can't put us on the bridge at the fateful moment (the captain, of course, didn't survive), but by utilizing the words and testimony of survivors, he is able to take us all over the rest of the ship (and, later, into the lifeboats), revealing the degree to which human nature is a strange and varied thing, a spectrum from the laudable to the contemptible -- with a bit of whimsy on the side. This is a short book, barely over a hundred pages, with an enormous "cast" that can make things confusing at times, but Lord does an admirable job of pulling it all together, mixing technical detail with human reaction to create an exciting and intensely dramatic story. All while leaving room for a few pages of social commentary and the intriguing story of J. Bruce Ismay, the Managing Director of the White Star Line, of which the Titanic and its sister ship the Olympic were the crown jewels, who, we learn, rarely spoke and became something of a recluse following his rescue. If you've never been particularly interested in the story of the Titanic, this book -- which is, in a way, the story of all of us -- might just change your mind. Made into a film in 1958. ++++ Fourteen-year-old girl hires the toughest Federal Marshall she can find to help her track down and bring to justice the man who killed her father in cold blood. Somewhat to her consternation, their party is joined by a handsome Texas Ranger who has been after the killer for months for another murder. Young Mattie Ross is a force to be reckoned with -- self-possessed, strong-willed, and educated (by cowboy standards); she is, however, utterly humorless, and much of the charm of the novel, which is told by Mattie a quarter century after the fact, lies in the way she is perceived by others, and how those perceptions fly right over her head. The style is simple and formalized, giving the humor an understated quality that can creep up on you, but also making the book highly readable (it's a pleasure, for instance, not to have to slog through a lot of broken English and cowboy slang). The marshal is Rooster Cogburn, a fat man with only one good eye, who early on seems to recognize something of himself in Mattie's indomitability. Ultimately, it's all about Mattie, but Portis never wanders far from the plot, which makes this thoroughly enjoyable book exciting as well as funny, and even a little touching. Made into a film the following year starring Kim Darby and John Wayne. First Line People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. +++++ Distinctly Victorian, pleasurably Gothic, and immeasurably influential novel about a centuries-old vampire who travels from Transylvania to England where he is opposed by six confederates. One of those allied against him is an old but constitutionally open-minded Dutch professor named Van Helsing; the vampire, of course, is Count Dracula. One of the finest and most engrossing horror novels of all time, written with a richness and depth that makes the whole thing not only believable but positively inevitable. Stoker scrimps on nothing (including, be warned, a rather roundabout manner of communication between characters that is replete with the sincerest flattery and concern you will ever read); otherwise, the books drips atmosphere when appropriate, it's spooky, it's horrifying, and it is exciting, as well, with plenty of action and a number of memorable scenes. And, of course, it's a treasure trove of vampire lore, including perhaps most notably for modern audiences the idea that vampires can move about during daylight, only without their un-dead powers. Dracula's Guest Stoker's book begins with Jonathan Harker's written words, "Left Munich at 8:35 p.m." He is on his way to meet with Count Dracula in Transylvania. What it doesn't tell us is what happened to Harker while he was in Munich. This story, "Dracula's Guest," is the tale of those events. First published in 1914, it was originally written as the first chapter of Dracula, from which it was excised as either superfluous or simply in order to shorten the manuscript. In any case, Stoker must have revised it before publication, for the style is different, Harker isn't specifically named, and, though written in the first person, it isn't framed as an entry in his diary (which, had it been included that way, would have been at odds with the epistolary format of the rest of the book). That said, it worked out for the best, and we can be thankful that Stoker never produced an "author's cut" of Dracula. The slow build of the novel toward Harker's meeting with the Count is exactly the right beginning, while, taken alone yet in context, "Dracula's Guest" is a terrific horror story, full of dread and weird happenings -- as well as something else. The Signet Classic edition of the book claims on its cover that Dracula is "the dread lord of the un-dead." With only the novel to go by, this isn't saying a whole lot; the only other vampires we see are the three "sisters" in his castle. Here, in the story, we finally see that there are more of them in the world and that Dracula does indeed hold some sway over them. ++ High school English teacher Jake Epping travels to the past in order to stop the assassination of JFK. While biding his time in a small Texas town (his jaunts always begin on the same date in 1958), he falls in love with a school librarian. If that sounds as though it might be two entirely different books, it isn't without reason. In fact, the first third of this 842 page whopper is largely unnecessary and could have been a book in itself, it's certainly long enough. So, this is really three books: one (the best of the three) is set in Derry, Maine, the setting of the author's It (Jake even meets a couple of characters from that book), and establishes the rules of time travel; the second involves the assassination, in which King clearly has no interest (Jake knows next to nothing about it going in and learns nothing new along the way); and the third book is a "nostalgic" paean to mid-century romance (the quotation marks are deserved, for King's small-town characters exhibit awfully modern, big-city ideas). King claims to have read a stack of books taller than himself about the assassination, but you'd never know it; his real research was the period, and evidence of that fairly drips from every page. Still, with his treacly characters and his skill at emotional manipulation, many will no doubt love this book. ++++ Two British diplomats, an American, and a female missionary are kidnapped while trying to escape a political revolution in India and flown to the mountains of Tibet where they are welcomed into a hidden lamasery (or monastery) called Shangri-La, which proves to be a place that is as difficult to leave as it is to find. The question Hilton poses is, Why would you want to leave, if you had found paradise? The story merges character and ideas to paint a complex portrait of a man (Conway, the elder of the two diplomats) who is neither hero nor coward and none the better for it: though he deserves his new-found peace and happiness (after surviving the trenches of World War I and his exemplary public service following the war), the only way to preserve it is to be what he is not, as he discovers in what can only be described as the intellectually exciting climax to this outstanding novel. A novel that is, as well, Hilton's pointed yet rather gentle critique of modern life -- frantic, chaotic, and violent; Shangri-La, his alternative, is built on the principle of moderation in all things, including moderation itself, a place as equally suited to the pursuit of philosophical as physical pleasure. And while Hilton makes a number of good points about how humans do (and, conversely, should) conduct themselves, he is wise enough to show us, in dramatic fashion, that paradise, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Modern readers should note that this book is hardly one that would comport well with any feminist ideal. The novel has been adapted twice for film, first (and most famously) by Frank Capra in 1937, then as a musical in 1973. +++ Psychological horror novel in which a young mother is forced to confront a shattering reality: that her 8-year-old daughter is a murderous sociopath. That this is the mother's story and not the child's demonstrates March's understanding of the little girl's condition: she herself is quite uncomplicated, having no conscience or sense of morality to shade her personality. It is the mother -- who gradually learns more than she could ever have wanted to know about the girl's condition -- who faces the hard, frightening decisions about what to do with her. It's a dark premise, but one that March executes faithfully and, for the most part, with psychological insight. It is, however, all a bit detached, even dry at times, which might save it from the excesses another author might have imposed upon it, but which also keeps it from burrowing as deeply into the limbic system of our brains, where reside our emotions and our memory, as it might have with a somewhat more emotive approach. (Not that the book is without humor: one character -- a rough, uneducated caretaker -- unconsciously develops the hots for this little girl who is every bit as anti-social as he is, yet discovers, in the end, that she is far more practical about it than he could ever be.) Adapted three times, first as a Broadway play the same year as publication, then as a film in 1956 -- based on the play and the book -- and finally as a TV movie in 1985. ++ Three girls from the sticks come of age in the big city; Chicago, in this case. One is a bored country girl who would like to find an exciting man, one is just religious enough to want to wait for the right man, and the third is so messed up she doesn't want any man, ever. Naturally they hook up with all the wrong guys. It seems a little odd that this book about women, written by a woman should make such a case for misogyny, but oh these girls are stupid. Of course, then you remember how young they are and how innocent, and you can't help but hate the men who would take advantage of them. Most of them are hateful anyway, though, which explains the subversive purpose of the book, and its particular pulp genre, for one of the girls eventually discovers the sweet release of the love that, once upon a time, dared not speak its name. True to form, the novel covers a good deal of sordid ground, delving into such topics as premarital sex, drug use, rape, unintended pregnancy, and a creepy sort of would-be incest. Yet, for all that, this book is neither raw nor particularly messy; it is, in fact, remarkably restrained, almost impersonal. Not by design, but because Taylor is only capable of scratching the surface of her subject matter and her characters. Worse, she writes as though she'd made a deal with the Devil: guilt-free lesbianism in exchange for the tacit acceptance of every other lifestyle, however odious. The reader has nothing to hang his (or her) hat on: if the girls themselves condemn nothing, what can the reader do? Except perhaps write a review of the book condemning it as a travelogue of depravity that, somehow, against all odds, manages to work out all right in the end. Republished by the Feminist Press in 2012, as The Girls in 3B. +++1/2 Alternate history (and I Ching symposium) about several people whose lives intersect in a post-World War II world dominated by the Germans and the Japanese. Sweeping the globe, however, even though banned by the Nazis, is a novel (written by the mostly unseen titular character) that posits a different ending to the war, one in which the United States and her allies won. In spite of the inclusion of action elements like spies, political intrigue, and mortal threats to civilians, Dick's book isn't really about any of that: it's an examination of culture and ethnicity -- Japanese, German, and American, roughly in that order -- each with its own strengths and weaknesses, and all of them subject to the forces of fate and chance, represented by the I Ching (which, being Chinese, stands apart). On that level, this is a fascinating book with a fully-realized setting and interesting and introspective characters. The plot, on the other hand...well, you may find yourself halfway through the book and still wondering where, exactly, it is all heading -- even if, by then, you will have gained some insight into why it has never been turned into a movie. (A TV series began last year, in 2015.) Winner of the Hugo award for Best Novel for 1963. |
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