Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

Our ongoing series reviewing audio adaptations of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror works. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.

By John J. Joex

Book Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 Stars

Audio Book Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

Back when I was in Junior High (more commonly known as Middle School these days), there was a period when the Logan’s Run novel became all the rage among the boys. Partly because the movie was due out shortly in the theaters, partly it was a cool science fiction book that you could argue had some “social relevance”, and partly because it had sex in it. Well, what do you expect from boys? I personally became a Logan fanatic, reading the book, watching the movie, reading the sequel novels (Logan’s World and Logan’s Search), buying the comic book, and watching the TV series (Logan was a hot property for a short time before Star Wars). So I still have a soft spot for the original book, and when I heard about the upcoming new movie adaptation, I decided to seek out the 1967 novel as an audio book (it’s available through Audible.com) and give it a listen.

I’d still say it is a pretty cool novel and a fun read, but it has not held up as well over the years. It takes place in the 22nd century after the “Little War” resulted in the ever-increasing population of young people taking control of the world governments and creating a dystopian society in which people are terminated at age twenty one in order to control the global population. The people live in a hedonistic society where they can pretty much do as they please, but those who decide to escape their ultimate fate and become runners are hunted down and terminated by the Deep Sleep agents known as Sandmen. Logan 3 (people have numbers instead of last names) is one of these Sandmen and on his “Last Day” he decides to make himself a legend by hunting down and destroying the underground railroad that helps runners to escape to a place known as Sanctuary where they can live beyond the age of twenty one. He hooks up with a girl named Jessica 6 who is part of this network helping runners and convinces her that he wants to run too. They then begin a flight that takes them to all parts of the world as Logan seeks his place infamy.

I have a particular love of both dystopian and post-apocalyptic stories, so obviously Logan’s Run appeals to me. But this one is more like a pulp-style dystopian story with some adult themes (read: sex) thrown in as well, so don’t look too deeply here for any enlightening grand statements. Written as a reaction to the youth boom of the 60’s (which seems to be going the other way of late), its prediction of young people taking control of society seems like somewhat of a quaint concept nowadays (though if Facebook could link into the world governments, who knows . . . ). In some ways, it treads the same territory as Brave New World, exploring a culture based on instant gratification of personal pleasures in order to keep the population docile. But that is really the window-dressing to what is essentially an adventure novel with a love story of sorts tacked on. I say tacked on because at the end of the book when Logan changes his mind about destroying Sanctuary in part because of his love for Jessica, you feel like the book made that leap without really developing the relationship (which they had for less than twenty four hours). What really makes this book come alive, though, is the world that authors William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson bring to life with its myriad colorful characters and intriguing futuristic extensions of present day concepts (the “New You” shop, heat-seeking handguns, the worldwide network of trams, etc.). The authors also have a masterful grasp of the English language and write at a breathless pace that keeps you turning the pages (or leaving the audio running).

For those who have only experienced Logan’s Run from the 1976 movie starring Michael York and Jenny Agutter, that version differed widely from the original book. The novel did not have the domed cities or Carousel or people living to the age of thirty. In fact, the movie (which Nolan wrote the original script for) shares little more than a distant relationship to its source material. I would recommend the book to all Science Fiction fans even though I would say it falls just short of being a true classic of the genre. Still, it’s great fun as was the follow-up novel Logan’s World (Logan’s Search not so much).

To find an audio book version, I had to do some digging but eventually turned it up at Audible.com. They are the only ones that have it available and actually that’s what convinced me to go ahead and sign up for their service (you can buy it for only $11 without signing up for the service, though). Co-author William F. Nolan narrates the book which at first blush might seem like a great choice, but I have found that authors are not always the best voice talents for their works. And it definitely doesn’t help that Nolan has a bit of a lisp that provides an additional distraction while listening. My advice to authors is to keep writing and let the professionals do the narrating. This audio version also follows the annoying trend of Audible.com books of being all in one big file instead of broken into smaller, more maneuverable chunks. But then it is a quick listen at under two and a half hours (the book was pretty short to begin with), so these are really just nitpicks and it is still an enjoyable book and well worth seeking out for Science Fiction fans.  Consider it a guilty pleasure.

Find out about more sources for Audio Books at this link

Alan Dean Foster’s adept Adaptation of the 2009 Film hits Mass Market Paperback finally

By Carl Lawrence

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 Stars

This is a broad overview of Alan Dean Foster’s Novel Adaptation of last year’s Star Trek movie in which the focus will be how well the book matches up to the film, or deviates from it, and also takes into account statements related to plot points made by screenwriter Roberto Orci just after the release of the film to theaters last year. (Orci and co-writer Alex Kurtzman wrote the screenplay for the 2009 film and share writing credit for the novel adaptation as well.)
There are a few noteworthy discrepancies that quickly caught my attention while reading this book that I shall cite.

To help illustrate my initial point, I would ask that you first read the following excerpt from the Foster novelization . . .

The fence was not particularly high, but it was strongly charged. The invisible energy beams that hummed through the traditional metal latticework and rose higher than his head could not be interdicted without setting off multiple alarms. Vertically aimed beams meant that a would-be intruder could not simply soar over it. Kirk made no attempt to do so. Instead, he pulled up just outside the perimeter. Within, wrapped in a web of metal and composite scaffolding, a starship was under construction.

Its presence was no secret. Starfleet had chosen central Iowa as the site of this particular construction yard not only because of its proximity to Mississippi shipping and the industrial-commercial hubs of the Midwest but because if something blew, few people outside the yard itself would be at risk. There was ample room to work, plenty of territory for subsidiary firms and support industries to set up shop, and the ground was flat and tectonically stable.
(Pages 55, trade paperback edition)

I felt it necessary to provide that excerpt so you the reader can more fully appreciate the significance of what isn’t there. More specifically, Roberto Orci stated shortly after the release of the movie that the Enterprise was being built in Iowa for the purpose of honoring George Kirk, Jim Kirk’s father. Yet nowhere in the novel adaptation does this supposed fact appear.

Likewise, it would have also been easy to mention that what occurs on Vulcan is happening during the spring season, hence, a blue sky rather than the red sky longtime fans would have naturally expected instead. If either of those points were addressed in the book, it would have been easier to take what Orci has had to say more seriously even if some viewers of the film felt inclined to disagree on either front anyway. (What is also bothersome about the appearance of Vulcan is how easily CGI could have been utilized to change the sky from blue to red in the movie if the producers were interested in being consistent with how the planet was depicted in prior stories centered around the original cast of characters.) This lack of supporting evidence in the novel leads one to question the veracity of Orci’s statements all the more concerning such matters.

Beyond that, Foster’s novel differs from the movie mostly in small ways. Instead of it opening with the Kelvin and her crew seeing the Narada emerging from the singularity, it starts with Spock’s birth, which is short and runs only a few pages, but that change was not an unreasonable decision on the part of the author. There are also some minor modifications in terms of character dialogue, such as where Kirk and McCoy meet on the transport ship. In the film, McCoy remarks that he ended up there as a result of a recent divorce, with his wife having pretty much left him with only his bones, and his being fortunate that he still had those once she was done with him. (That’s very different from the way in which he had acquired the nickname “Bones” in the original series by the way, where it was a term of affection apparently assigned to him by Kirk as a reference to his old country Southern American roots). In the novel in contrast, McCoy refers only to his “skeleton” rather than his bones upon meeting young Kirk on the transport ship out of Iowa. (I wonder if Alan Dean Foster did that intentionally, having rejected the manner by which the nickname had been assigned to McCoy in the film by its writers.)

The novel deviates a bit more so from the movie a little past the halfway point in the book, where Foster devotes significantly more time to character dialogue in various places, particularly with respect to the timeline issue and its implication for this new cast of characters compared to the original players. The problem is however that despite all that extra effort, one is still left wondering whether the original timeline has actually been overwritten by the events of this story, or whether it remains intact. This novel is well written and an easy read however, and Foster is due credit for at least injecting the possibility that a multiverse scenario is at issue in contrast to the film, which hints at it only very indirectly at best, and if anything leaves the viewer more so with the impression that the original timeline is being rewritten instead (viewers who turned to the Internet and found solace with Roberto Orci’s talking out of both sides of his mouth on the matter notwithstanding).

The book also does a notably better job of delving into and explaining Nero’s motivation than the film does by comparison. The reader is left with a clearer, more concise insight into his thinking concerning his genocidal planet-destroying reign of terror.

One final thought about the films’ writers. It had been reported prior to the release of the movie that Alex Kurtzman was more of an original series and cast fan, whereas his colleague, Orci, had a preference for Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Graphic Novel Comic series prequel to the 2009 film, titled Star Trek: Countdown, appears to indicate that both men are actually TNG fans first and foremost, however. Being an original cast and series fan myself it’s nice to know that one of them had a preference for classic Trek over what followed much later on, but neither of them felt inclined to review episodes of the original series before sitting down to write the script for their first Star Trek movie. I consider that rather unfortunate. They claimed to have read a number of the novels however, none of which are considered canon, and the one book it appears they made no attempt to get their hands on apparently was The Making of Star Trek, which was co-authored by Gene Roddenberry in the late 1960s. Were they in any way required to do that kind of background research? Obviously not, although it would have been welcome, and the kind of movie they produced in the end had an obvious bearing on the form and shape the novel adaptation would take on as well, ultimately. The film fared well with critics and audiences alike nonetheless, however, but it was a very different kind of Star Trek compared to the original. More modern, yes, but the dynamic between the characters, and indeed the characters themselves have taken on a new and different tone in this post-Roddenberry age. Your father’s Star Trek it ain’t, as the early promotional ads boasted prior to the film’s release. For better or for worse, this is now where we are and where things stand.

Bemoaning about what might have been versus what is aside, though, Foster’s book is an enjoyable read, well worth the time if you’re a devoted Trekker, and particularly if you would like more insight than the film itself provides. It’s the same story, following very much the same path, so it’s easy to relive the events of the movie in its pages while reading it, and while it offers relatively little in the way of new or additional material, it leaves the reader with a better and fuller understanding of the film overall, nonetheless by filling in some of the more noticeable gaps.

I read the first edition that was published as a trade Paperback last year to coincide with the release of the movie, which was a New York Times Bestseller. A new edition in Mass Market Pocket Paperback is set for release at the end of this month.

Related:
Movie Review: Star Trek
Comic Book Review: Star Trek: Countdown

Buy the Novel, The Countdown Graphic Novel, and the Movie from Amazon.com:

Our ongoing series reviewing audio adaptations of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror works.

By John J. Joex

Book Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

Audio Book Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

I got my start in Science Fiction and Fantasy literature with the classics. Among the first books I recall reading (not including juvenile fiction) were those written by the early masters like Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and H.G. Wells. And while I don’t recall if The Time Machine was my first Wells novel (I seem to remember reading The Island of Doctor Moreau before that), I definitely got around to it sooner rather than later. And while War of the Worlds still stands as my favorite Wells novel (and one of my all-time favorites among all authors), The Time Machine probably comes in as a close second.

For the unfortunate few unfamiliar with the book, it follows an inventor from the late 19th century who creates a time machine and uses it to travel far into the future to the year 802,701. There he meets up with childlike humans known as the Eloi who live a life of leisure but who seem to have lost any capacity for personal attachment or any spirit of engagement. At first he thinks this peaceful, content society may have resulted in the human race conquering its environment and therefore no longer needing to concern themselves with things that may cause anguish, distress, or a threat to their persons. But then he discovers that a subterranean race of devolved humans known as the Morlocks lives in the tunnels beneath the ground and he surmises a much more sinister explanation for the state of affairs of the human race.

The novel acted as a social satire and comment on an English society that Wells felt had become increasingly stratified as the wealthy grew further apart from the downtrodden working class (certainly no similarities to modern day society . . . ). Then he added the vicious twist in which the elite humans grew to such a state of laziness and dependence on those who worked for them that the tide turned in a matter of speaking (read the book for the full, grisly explanation). The time traveler (who is never given a name in the book) deduces this through a series of observations of the people of this advanced age and he asserts several hypotheses at various points during his stay in this future age that ultimately lead to his final conclusion.

If you have never read the book but have seen George Pal’s excellent big screen adaptation from 1960 staring Rod Taylor, the movie follows pretty closely to the spirit of the story, though with less emphasis on the social satire and with a few revisions to help it play better to theater-goers. But the movie does unfortunately lack the ending passage from the book. This comes after the time traveler barely escapes from the time period of the Morlocks and the Eloi and he goes even further into the future to watch as the Earth dies. Wells’ description of the waning Earth in its last days was both eerie and desolate and gives me the chills every time I read it (I’ve revisited this novel at least four times now). It definitely provides an engaging, contemplative epilogue to the larger book.

I downloaded the audio book version of The Time Machine on MP3 from eMusic.com, and it does a good job of bringing Wells’ words to life. Scott Brick narrates and his proper British voice fits quite will with a book written by a 19th century author from England (there is also a version of the book available from Blackstone audio narrated by Bernard Mayes). This one is a relatively quick listen at under four hours because the original novel was fairly brief as well. But it is definitely worth your time to take the journey into the future with one of the earliest and all-time great authors of Science Fiction.

A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse by Brian Kaufman

Reviewed by Sam Christopher

Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

I had to think about this one for awhile. I finished reading it a couple weeks ago, and I knew I liked it. The story of Kevin and Angel trying to stay alive in the city during the end of the world is interesting, even though Kevin frequently gets on my nerves. He just seems to make a lot of dumb choices, and he’s so unsure of himself. And Angel… what a ditz most of the time. All she does is whine, it seems, about everything that goes on. And then the two allowed Angel to get pregnant during all of this. I mean, one can only take so much irresponsibility.

But all of this really just means they are realistic characters. People are like this. Really. No matter what’s going on, no matter how weird and horrendous and tragic it all may seem to us sitting here in the relative comfort and ease of our own space, people will always in the end be who they are. Some people are natural-born leaders, for good or ill to be determined by their own sense of morality and innate respect for the rights of others, while most are followers, floating along doing what they have to do to make it in whatever situation they find themselves. Sometimes, of course, a leader may be forged in the crucible of violent experience, gaining a commanding air through learned proficiency at keeping others safe. Kevin and Angel make it on none of these levels, really. Which, again, is what makes them realistic. Kevin does have a good sense of survival for the most part but that doesn’t really translate into leadership. And Angel just kind of hangs around with Kevin, following his lead. Basically, they just try and survive. Like anyone would. The two meet up with all manner of crazies along the way (I loooooove Kaufman’s sensibilities in regard to collectivist intelligentsia), all the while keeping their eyes on staying safe and alive more than anything else.

I know all of the above sounds pretty average for a zombie novel. It’s the end of this book I had to think about the most. The novel itself ends with a cliffhanger of sorts. Kaufman says he thought it pretty self-explanatory what would have happened next, but I think he left himself a lot of wiggle room there. Either way, he tacks on a novella to take us into the future of that world. I hated this ending. I mean, really HATED it! It just seemed so pointless and gratuitous to me. Not the kind of pointless where the writer just kills off a character for lame shock value, though, and that’s a telling point. Even when I was turned completely off by the ending I was still vaguely admiring of its brutality and unwavering glare at absolute power corrupting absolutely. If I had any problem with the ending at all it would be with Kevin having stayed where he was for so long in the first place. What comes from the decision to stay may be horrific but it’s not unexpected. Not precisely, anyway.

This is a book I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys this type of speculative fiction. While some of the characters here and there are mere ciphers, that comes more from point of view and lack of time in place than anything else. While the end will probably not be popular with some I believe it revealing and more realistic than we’d like to think.

Buy Dead Beyond the Fence from Amazon.com:

Our ongoing series reviewing audio adaptations of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror works.

By John J. Joex

Book Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Audio Book Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Larry Niven’s Ringworld (first published in 1970) is a seminal science fiction novel about the exploration of an alien-constructed world that circles around a distant star in our galaxy. The book starts off introducing us to the 200 year old human Louis Wu (whose life has been extended through advanced medicine and “boosterspice”) who gets recruited by an alien named Nessus; a two-headed creature known as a Pierson’s Puppeteer (one of several aliens from Niven’s “Known Space” universe). Nessus is looking for people to help him explore this Ringworld, though he is a bit coy about his intentions at first because of his race’s cowardly and manipulative nature. He also recruits a member of the feline warrior race known as the Kzin who has been assigned the title “Speaker-to-Animals” for his dealings with other races (he has not proven himself worthy yet to earn an actual name). A human female named Teela Brown rounds out the party and we later find that Nessus has included here because of her inherent luck (that’s already a spoiler and there’s a whole backstory behind it). As payment for their involvement in Nessus’ expedition, he promises them the plans to the warpship known as the Longshot which can travel well above the speed of light and traverse the distance between stars relatively quickly. This team heads out with Nessus guiding them and comes across the Ringworld which was built on the Dyson Sphere principal, though its architects only constructed a ring instead of a full sphere. After an initial investigation of this alien mega-structure, the travelers crash after an unfortunate encounter with one of its defense systems. Once on the Ringworld, they find it mostly deserted with signs that the civilization that once lived there has died out leaving only small remnants of their population scattered across the ring. The travelers then begin to explore this Ringworld to find out more about its mysteries and also to find some means of escape.

Ringworld is a hard Science Fiction novel, but it is also a whole lot of fun. Niven delivers some truly interesting characters and fleshes them out quite well as the story progresses and you can also feel the depth of the universe he has created (which he has delved into with stories prior to this one). He does tend to get overly technical at times as he explains the scientific principles of the concepts he explores. This may put off some readers/listeners, but if you just kind of coast through those sections it does not detract from the rest of the novel. Most interesting is the exploration of the Ringworld itself and the travelers’ attempts to determine what happened to its builders and to communicate and interact with the pockets of civilization that still remain. The book only touches on purpose of the Ringworld, though, and leaves more to be explored in subsequent stories. If you have never read Niven’s seminal novel (and I had never previously worked this one onto my reading list), you should definitely seek it out as a good example of hard Science Fiction that never succumbs to the weight of the lofty concepts it explores and that provides a pretty enjoyable read.

I purchased the audio book version of this through Audible.com and it definitely did justice to the novel. Read by audio book veteran Tom Parker, his narration is clean and fast-paced and he does an excellent job of distinguishing between the main characters with different voices. It is pretty lengthy at just over eleven hours, but Niven’s writing and Parker’s narration should carry you through the duration.  And this audio book is different from the majority of Audible.com books that I have encountered in that the recording is broken into small, manageable fragments of about ten minutes each as opposed to the larger files running as much as five hours. This makes it easier to maneuver through the sections of the book, especially if you switch over to playing music between listening to parts of the books (newer MP3 players may handle this better, but my four year old model does not have a way to fast-forward through lengthy recordings). At Audible.com, this book retails for $21, but you can get it for $15 by using one of your monthly credits (or for $7.49 or free if you sign up with one of their promotions, click on this link for more info).

Overall, Ringworld is an excellent, must-read Science Fiction book and the audio adaptation that I listened to did a superb job of bringing it to life. And this also acts as a good jumping on point if you want to start exploring Larry Niven’s “Known Space” universe, and I know that I am definitely hooked after listening to this book.

Buy the Audio Book from Audible.com, or

Buy The Ringworld Novels in Print from Amazon.com

Our ongoing series reviewing audio adaptations of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror works.

By John J. Joex

Rating (for all three volumes): 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

I know I encountered H.P. Lovecraft, master of horror fiction, early on when I began to devour Science Fiction and Fantasy books on a regular basis, but I never really followed his work closely, just read the odd short story here and there. A couple of years back, though, when I first started listening to audio books to make my commute more bearable, I rediscovered him all over again with the Audio Realms series The Dark Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft. I stumbled upon the first volume in the series (they have done six total so far) in my local library of all places and that set me on an amazing, alluring journey into the bizarre and macabre.

My library has volumes one, two, and five which I quickly, feverishly poured through. Following are the stories contained on each:

Volume 1:
The Dunwich Horror – A novella in which a strange, demonic child named Wilbur Whateley is born near the backwoods New England town of Dunwich and begins to grow at a rapid rate. As he reaches adulthood in appearance (though in truth only ten years old) he begins to search for the accursed tome the Necronomicon for his own evil purposes which eventually leads to an unfathomable beast descending upon Dunwich bringing unspeakable horror to the town. This is one of Lovecraft’s absolute best stories and provides a good introduction to the Cthulu mythos and also introduces words and concepts that would later seep into our culture such as the Necronomicon and the town of Arkham.
The Call Of Cthulhu – In this short story, a man goes seeking the truth of a cult that worships a being known as Cthulhu which leads him on a descent into horrors unimaginable and ultimately madness. This is another great story in the Cthulhu mythos and along with The Dunwich Horror (and Wayne June’s spot-on narration, more on that below) makes this the quintessential Lovecraft audio book.

Volume 2:
The Shadow Over Innsmouth – This novella echoes The Dunwich Horror a bit as a man journeys to a decrepit New England coastal town and finds a horror from the depths that the townspeople have hidden from the rest of the world. Another great Cthulhu mythos story.
Dagon – In this short story, a sailor stranded at sea encounters a strange land that seems to appear from the depths and that seems to act as a portal for nightmarish creatures who seek to dominate the planet. Though not considered part of the Cthulhu mythos proper, this story was the first that introduced elements of that mythology, primarily the sea god Dagon.

Volume 5:
The Lurking Fear – In this short story, a man goes to Tempest Mountain to investigate the “lurking fear” he has heard rumors about. He and two other men enter the dilapidated Martense Mansion there, but only he survives, though he is driven to madness by what he finds.
The Thing on the Doorstep – In this wonderfully disturbing tale, a man tells the story of how he killed his best friend but claims that he is not a murderer because an evil being had taken control of the man’s body.
Haunter of the Dark – The only Cthulhu mythos story on this volume, this one involves the nefarious Shining Trapezohedron and a cult that uses it to summon up the Old Ones.

The selection of stories these three volumes offers gives a good sampling of H.P. Lovecraft’s work as well as a well as an essential introduction into the Cthulhu mythos that would work their way into many of his stories. In the seven works represented here, Lovecraft demonstrates his mastery of the horror tale whether on the smaller more personal scale with stories like The Thing on the Doorstep or on the grand, cosmic scale with the Cthulhu stories, seeping with dread and a universal horror that could overcome us at any moment. It is with Cthulhu mythos that Lovecraft crosses genres and injects elements of Science Fiction and Fantasy into his Horror tales, thus giving his work broad appeal.

But not only do these audio books offer an excellent collection of Lovecraft’s work, they are brought to life by a voice perfectly fit to this material. Wayne June is a voice talent who has narrated other audio books as well as worked in advertising and radio, but I believe that reading the works of Lovecraft is his one true calling in life. His monotone, droning voice meshes perfectly with these direful tales of dread and terror, lending itself audibly to the bleakness and chilling atmosphere that Lovecraft invokes with his words. June sounds much like a wizened old sage reciting past lore while intent on conveying the horror implicit in the tales. I don’t know if they could have found a better voice talent to bring these stories to life, but June’s voice take these from simple audio recordings to exceptional performances in the Horror genre.

As mentioned above, Audio Realms has produced six total volumes of Lovecraft’s works so far. I started with the three above because they were available in my local library, and I have since purchased volume three and plan on acquiring four and six as well. You can buy them through Amazon.com, or you can go directly to the Audio Realms website (and actually get them cheaper). There, they offer these as CD audio books for around $20 per volume, or as MP3 CDs or MP3 downloads for around $10. And they are definitely a bargain at that price and right now you can download the MP3 recording of The Statement of Randolph Carter for free to their Lovecraft adaptations. If you have never read the works of H.P. Lovecraft before, then here is the place to get started. And if you have, you will still want to check out these incomparable audio editions that bring to life the works of the master the way they were meant to be heard.

Read about sources for more Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror audio books at this link

A Book Review for Two Volumes by Ira Nayman

Reviewed by Sam Christopher

Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used to Be Rating: 3 ½ Stars (out of Five)
What Once Were Miracles Are Now Children’s Toy Rating: 3 ½ Stars (out of Five)

Every once in awhile an author comes along who defines his genre. I’m talking about the rare author who writes so well and so eloquently, who speaks so fervently to the human soul, who makes such an impact on his readers that he becomes synonymous with wonder and beauty and excellence. That rarest of writers, the one that makes his readers feel like they’re better human beings for having read him. But enough about me… (you had to see that coming, heh)

Seriously—and that’s not easy to do with a review of this kind of material—what do you think is the most irritating thing for a reviewer to do? It’s always difficult to say that a book is awful, with no redeeming value whatsoever, if only because I know how hard it can be to write a story in the first place. It’s not easy to work slavishly over every detail, to agonize about this plot point and that bit of dialogue, to wonder which character reaction would be most believable for the person you’ve created from whole cloth. And then to have some jerk that spent a few hours reading that story you’ve sweated and fretted over for months, maybe years, to finish say it sucks… I can tell any author reading this it’s no less tough for that reviewer to write it than it is for you to read it. This is why I always try and give a constructive criticism with a negative review, especially when it comes to a new author. Most take it the way I mean it, some are still unhappy, but at least I know I tried to be helpful. But none of this is what I started this paragraph to talk about, so let’s try again.

Take two: What do you think is the most irritating thing for a reviewer to do? For me, and I just found this out as I finished What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys, it’s trying to think of a hook for the review, the one thing I want the reader to take away from it, besides my general impression of the material of course, coming up with something I really like that captures the essence of my thoughts about the book… and then seeing nearly that precise thing written on the back of the book already. I finished these two books, thought about it for awhile, came up with what I wanted to say about them, kinda glanced around at the back of one of them and there it was: “This is a great little volume to leave lying in the bathroom. Or on the coffee table. Anywhere people might pick it up and leaf through.” A review written by some hack named Charles de Lint (and if you’ve read anything by him you know that’s a joke; he’s a very good fantasy writer). And I hate to quote like that but it’s almost word for word what I was going to say, except that I was going to extend it to both books.

And now that I’ve told you about my problems, let me tell you about the books. They are essentially collections of “news stories” from the Alternate Reality News Service, which reports the goings-on from various alternate dimensions. This style leads to a bit of a fractured sensibility for the books, meaning they are more easily enjoyed when read in pieces than straight out the way one would read a novel. And they remind me of news stories in another way: Some are compelling and cutting, while others fall a little flat, a condition that lends itself more to the interests and thoughts of the reader than to anything else. The bottom line here is that Ira Nayman is a pretty funny guy who has written a couple of pretty funny books here that are worthy of your time and dollar. (I know that’s not as cool a review as de Lint’s but then he stole mine, a “time crime” for the ages. Wonder if I can interest a reporter from the Alternate Reality News Service in the story.)

Buy Both of These Books from Amazon.com:

An audio adaptation of the zombie novel by Max Brooks

Reviewed by John J. Joex

Book Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

Audiobook Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

Some time back I discovered that listening to audiobooks on my daily commute can make a laborious drive into an at least tolerable experience (assuming of course it’s a good book).  I first started with several of the classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy literature (and there are quite a few selections available in this format) which I was either revisiting or taking the opportunity to fill in long-standing gaps on my reading list.  I have also kept my eye open for interesting new entries in the genre and Max Brooks’ World War Z caught my attention, in part because of Sam Christopher’s favorable review of the book and also because it is very reasonably priced for an audiobook (under $15).

The setup for the book is simple: the world has survived a massive zombie outbreak and the book follows an interviewer sent by the United Nations to talk with people who made it through the holocaust.  Max Brooks (son of Mel Brooks and who has voiced characters in animated shows like Batman Beyond and Justice League) provides the vocals for the narrator and an all-star cast voices the characters interviewed which includes Alan Alda, Mark Hamill, Henry Rollins, Rob and Carl Reiner, John Turturro, and many more.

World War Z uses the genre in a way that we have seen before in that it utilizes the Zombie-apocalypse as a means of delivering social commentary on society and human nature.  But Brooks manages to take this to the next level and really deliver a riveting comment on the human condition and he makes it seem that much more authentic by delivering the message through the words of the interviewees.  Their personal connection to the very real and nightmarish events, as well as their comments on what they saw and experienced, ring true and bring the horrors described to a personal level.  And the amazing voice cast energizes the message through their well-acted performances.  Whereas an audiobook usually has a single narrator, in World War Z each character is handled here with a different voice (though sometimes the same actor) which make them distinct personalities and which separates each of their stories.

Brooks’ novel on its own is an excellent addition to vast world of Zombie tales (and I concur with Mr. Christopher’s rating for the book), yet it also delivers a story that transcends that genre and that non-zombie fans can enjoy as well.  And the audiobook manages to fully capture the spirit of the novel and perhaps even enhance it with the excellent performances that unfold the story.  It is relatively short for an audio production (5 discs at about 6 hours), so it is a fairly quick listen and definitely worth the time (also worth the money as it runs cheaper than most audio adaptations).

There are still rumors of a movie version of the book, but I have my doubts on how well it would translate to that medium.  However, J. Michael Straczynski has allegedly worked up a script for the film, so it stands a chance.

Read Sam Christopher’s Review of the Book

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A Novel by TW Brown

Reviewed by Sam Christopher

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Samuel Todd has problems. He’s a divorced father of a teenager, he sings for very little money in a band that basically does frat parties and such, and his main job is as a paper delivery guy. Oh, and he lives in a world overrun by walking dead people whose sole aim is to eat anything or anyone living. And he writes about it, first on the Web, later in a notebook he keeps constantly at his side. This is the setup for this excellent novel by TW Brown. It appears to be self-published, as Mr. Brown appears to be the sole proprietor of May-December Publications. This makes it the best self-published book I’ve read to date.

Reminiscent of Z Day is Here, this tale follows our protagonist through all sorts of travails and troubles. First, of course, he has to figure out what’s going on and then get himself to believe it. This is always, for me, the most important part of any story that shows the beginning of the “zombie plague”. It would be a difficult thing to swallow but at some point even the most hardened skeptic has to buy into it—hopefully before their disbelief gets them killed. And that would make for a short story. That’s what makes this the single toughest thing in a story like this: the reader has to see the narrator’s point of view on this changing and it has to be a natural thing, a logical consequence of the action the narrator is observing or experiencing. If it doesn’t have the right feel to it the reader just shuts it off and disbelieves virtually everything after it. Or at least I do. After Todd believes in the problem and understands the meager remedies at his disposal, the story moves on to one of pure survival, as Todd moves from place to place, from group of survivors to group of survivors, completely at the whim and mercy of both the undead and the one thing that may be worse: the living who are dead inside.

There are two things here that make this a superior work in this genre. The first is the most obvious. Brown is simply a very good writer. His plot choices are generally very good and logical, with events in the story nearly always flowing organically from what has preceded without being too obvious. Even his pseudo-Hitchcockian twist in the story (which I won’t give away here) worked well, even though I wanted to hate it. His characterizations and personality mix is likewise interesting and well-done. The second thing is that he takes a premise from Romero, that premise being that the walking dead are a problem but it’s the people still living who have allowed the situation to reveal the worst of their inner selves who are most to be feared, and ramps it up to a whole ‘nother level. The people around our hero here are generally all right but it seems that nearly everyone else in the world… wow, these are the people who got superpowers in The End League. Bad, just rotten to the core.

Luckily for readers of dark sf, the same can’t be said about this book.

Buy Zomblog from Amazon.com

A Zombie novel by Max Brooks

Reviewed by Sam Christopher

Rating: 5 out of Stars (Highest Rating)

I’ve never made any bones about my love for zombie fiction. I love the movies, mainly the Romero style but I can deal with virtually any set of parameters for the dead rising, ever since I snuck into a theater to see the original Dawn of the Dead. Then, years later, I ran across the paperback for Dawn of the Dead in a comics store I frequented. I never bought it but over the course of a couple weeks I read the whole thing, and would even read it again later. Then one day I came in and the book was gone and I found myself wishing I’d bought it. Within a week, though, I had found the novelization for the original Night of the Living Dead at another book store. I flipped through this one but didn’t have the money to buy it right then. When I came back a few days later it was gone. I then went for years without seeing any kind of zombie prose. I’m sure it was out there but I just didn’t see it for whatever reason. In the last few years, though, horror and fantasy aimed at the zombie-loving audience has skyrocketed. There are many, many anthologies filled with “walking dead” fiction, novels—some good, some not so good—published that might never have found an audience without an organization like Amazon.com to reach its market on a large scale. These are things that years ago would likely have been relegated to the comics and oddball shops run by someone who happened to love the genre, and nowhere else.

Thus, the genre might never have attracted someone with the talent and background of Max Brooks. Brooks, son of comedy great Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft, worked as a writer for Saturday Night Live in the early 2000s. He has also appeared as an actor, from what I gather, on various shows in bit parts, and as a voice actor on episodes of Batman Beyond and Justice League (both of which I’ve watched, but never really paid attention to the actors on them). His first book, The Zombie Survival Guide, is an excellent resource for anyone trying to survive a zombie holocaust (my first rule is: always keep at least half a tank of gas in your car) and also gives a little of the history of zombie outbreaks and attacks on humanity through the ages. I’m guessing Brooks, like me, has always had a fascination with this sub-genre, and so he might have written these books anyway, but one can never know. I do know that having a family to feed can sometimes make decisions for you. Irrespective of that, there is a market for these books now and he did write them.

So let’s talk about World War Z now. This is the story of a man sent by the UN to interview various people around the world on their perspective of the latest zombie outbreak; one that very nearly ended Man’s dominance of the planet. In The Zombie Survival Guide, we were shown various zombie outbreaks from history but these were always shown to be sporadic and, while dangerous locally, never really a threat to Humanity as a whole. This book is different. Even though it is being shown to us in flashback, through the memories of those who have survived it, and we know the war is supposedly over, one never really knows where they stand in the world Brooks has created. They think they’ve beaten the Dead back and ended the threat, but then they’ve always thought that before. The book is almost entirely presented in the voices of those who fought first-hand, and gives a truly diverse account of the war from various perspectives and through the lens of different experience. Some of the interviewees are clinical and detached, some are more obviously affected—all are shown to have been marked by the events. Brooks does an excellent job of imbuing these characters with their own personalities, their own mannerisms, and does so in a very believable manner. The reader is really drawn into the story and sometimes we even feel as though we are interviewing the survivors.

For those who haven’t read this book, read it; if you have read it, read it again. One last thing, too: I’ve heard rumor for the last couple of years that this was being made into a motion picture, usually said to be on option to Brad Pitt’s studio with Joe Straczynski having already written the script. No idea. I hear that on occasion but I never see anything being done with it. I know I’d love to see it. But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see on it.

Read John J. Joex’s Review of the Audiobook Version

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