10 Days of Halloween Horror Day 8: You Can Beat a Classic

Welcome to Day Eight of the 10 Days of Halloween Horror 2011!  We'll be featuring horror-related reviews right up until the big day!  You can find the Halloween Horror posts for Panel Patter here, and don't forget to check out the Book Stew for book-book horror, too!

I recently got out an audio book of classic ghost stories, a sampling of public domain stories from names both familiar (Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Saki) and unfamiliar, at least to me.  The production value was top notch, with a venerable Brit providing the narration in a variety of tones and voices.  Unfortunately, however, I wasn't impressed with the stories themselves.  They felt extremely antiquated, slow-paced, and generally bored me more than thrilled me.

This came as quite a shock to me, because in the past, I found these gothic-style stories to be quite enjoyable.  as recently as Summer 2009 I was singing the praises of Dracula.  But I noticed upon re-reading some Poe that I was kinda non-plussed, and last year, I barely made it through a classic ghost story I'd downloaded for my nook.  This neutral attitude towards the classic ghost stories collection is part of a pattern:  I'm just not into old horror in the way that I used to be.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Tastes change over time.  I think I've probably read too many Stephen King books by now (and other novels that move quickly) to appreciate the slow-building horror that comes from the older writers.  Perhaps I'm just losing my attention span, as I find myself more pressed for time.  Get to the gruesome details, because I have ten other things to do today, you know?

I'm not sure that's true, though, because I still enjoy a classic horror film.  Slow-pacing is okay for me, but it has to have a powerful set-up.  If I can tell what is going on a mile away--and in the case of a lot of the classic horror I've read lately, that was exactly the problem--then I'm just not interested.  I think the reason I prefer newer horror, as long as it doesn't involve excessive violence, is that it either gets to the point quickly or the build-up is worth it.

At the end of the day, I think I may stop trying to read classic horror for awhile.  Let it sit for a bit. It's certainly not going anywhere.  How about you?  Still reading the old school stuff, or have you moved on?

Vampire Slayers edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

Part of the 10 Days of Halloween Horror! You can see the rest here and here.

And here's where all my reading credibility goes out the window, because this was totally a guilty pleasure...

The purpose of this anthology was to restore the evil to vampire stories, as based on the introduction that bemoans the humanization of vampires. I picked this one up on a larp--er, I mean lark--just to see if it was any good. Like the five hundred million other Greenberg anthologies, this one is a mixed bag.

I was a bit surprised at the lack of name authors in this anthology. I guess maybe I just don't read enough spec fiction to know some of these folks. The only two named I recognized were Hugh B. Cave and Charles deLint. Overall, this collection's not bad, but there are some clunkers. Skip Special, a psuedo-porn story, entirely if you value your eyesight. The opening story, while not offensive, isn't all that interesting, either. However, the story by classic pulp author Hugh B. Cave is a nice nautical vampire story, which was something I hadn't seen done before.

I also liked Midnight Sun, about an outpost of humans in North Canada facing almost certain annihilation by the vampire hordes. Revelations in Black is a very literary take on a way to stop a vampire's rampage, though the pacing is a bit slow. Charles de Lint has a nice short short about the costs of appeasing vampires and one woman's fateful decision, and there's a vampire noir detective story by Tanya Huff that I liked but due to its protagonist's undead status, felt was out of place in the anthology.

The last story, Midnight Mass, works well as a closer, with a disgraced priest returning to his town to try and save the parishioners who once abandoned him in his time of need.

All in all, this one's not bad--nothing here is award-winning, but I liked them all in all, except of course for Special. If you like your vampires menacing, this is a good choice. As a fan of short fiction, I had a good time. Greenberg's anthologies may never be 100% amazing, but he's got a pretty good eye for putting together material, and this is no exception. However, this is your last warning, if you get this out, don't read Special. Just trust me, ok?

Year's Best SF 15 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Kramer

I've picked up a few of these collections by Hartwell over the years, but as with a lot of books I own, I hadn't really sat down to read them. They went in the mental "someday" list and kinda got forgotten.

If the prior 14 volumes are as good as this one, I'm going to have to move them up the to-read list pretty quickly.

Year's Best SF had everything I'd want from a collection in this genre--a few alternative histories, a few space stories, a few tales that might happen someday soon, a few literary pieces, and a few that blend between sci fi and other genres. More often than not, these stories featured a combination of those elements, which was even better.

The fact that I liked almost all 24 stories spread across nearly 500 pages is no small feat. I'm usually happy when an anthology gives me about a 2:1 ratio of like to dislike, so this was a pleasant surprise. There were really only a few tales that just didn't do anything for me, mostly the hard SF material that gets so bogged down in showing off the author's technical knowledge that they forget to hook me on the characters.

Hartwell and Kramer give a short introduction to each author, which is quite helpful to see what they've done before and what they're working on. They also talk about why they selected a particular story, allowing the reader to either agree or disagree after finishing the tale. I liked this feature, as it gave me some insight into the editor's minds, even if I didn't always agree.

My disagreements were few and far between, however. The editors felt that Charles Oberndorf's "Another Life" might have been the best SF story of the year, and it's hard to argue with them.

A man who lives in a world where bodies can be changed as they age (for the right price, of course) talks about his past selves to a woman who's opted out of the world of changing people. It's his confession to a person who loves him but never got to know him, and all the pain of telling the most intimate details of your life--and waiting too long to do so--come through in every page. If that's not enough, the body switching also means gender-swapping as well, adding a layer of complications that soon become clear as the story goes on. "Another Life" shows that you can include sexual themes in your fiction without them feeling forced or used to get a reader's attention.

The pain and unintended consequences of the future technology shine here, as Oberndorf quietly lays out the problems inherent in losing yourself over and over again. The ending is as perfect as it is heartbreaking. To me, this is the perfect science fiction story, because there is no way this could be told using the reality of today, and yet it also features the same emotions and complications that can happen in our world.

It's a shame this didn't get a Hugo Nomination, but I am really glad to have had a chance to read it. Sadly, Oberndorf does not write very often anymore, which is a shame because I'd love to have more of this to read.

From a comics geek perspective, it was nice to see Paul Cornell make it in for his story that did get nominated for the Hugo, "One of Our Bastards is Missing," a tale of intrigue in a world where the royalty of Europe still rules the day and an independent-minded royal princess is the subject of a plot to redraw the political map. His main character is your typical hardened black ops person, able to deal with any situation, even one in a world where guns can be hidden in "pockets" of the world. The concepts are not all that new, but the ways in which Cornell uses them made this another of my favorites.

I'm afraid the other Hugo-nominated story in this collection, "The Island" by Peter Watts, just didn't do anything for me. It was just too focused on the situation and not enough on characters that I wanted to read more about, and that's my main hook for any story. Those who prefer more technical stories than I do will probably have reverse feelings about these two tales.

Other former Hugo winners are in this collection, such as Nancy Kress, who pens a story that's a bit overly clever about how objects aren't the only thing that can have different interpretations over time. I found the idea to be cute, but I'm not sure I'd think of it as something to label the best for a given year.

Robert Charles Wilson, who did not impress me when I read Spin a few years ago, is also a Hugo veteran for that same book. I liked him a lot better here in the short story, "This Peaceable Land; or The Unbearable Vision of Harriott Beecher Stowe." An alternative history where the Civil War never happens and slavery is fazed out in a way that leads to a horrible, racial purity solution, Wilson makes sure that the reader is uncomfortable with this peace that came at a similar price to the Civil War, albeit in a different way. When the two main characters are forced to think about the cost of peace, the words unsaid are larger than those that are. It's a great use of historical what-if to address a philosophical question. If this is more typical of Wilson's prose, I'll have to give him another chance.

"Edison's Frankenstein" is another alternative history that references the Civil War, though in a far more casual way. Chris Roberson pens a world in which a technology from the sea powers the world, instead of electricity. Tesla is a famous sci fi novelist (great touch) and Edison is trying to find a way to keep his life going. What lengths has he gone to prove his point? It's a bit of a gotcha story, but the clues are there when you stop to think about them. I don't think the author quite hit this one as strongly as he might have in a longer form, but it was entertaining.

A Frankenstein of a different kind figures prominently in "The Consciousness Problem," where Mary Robinette Kowal provides an ethical dilemma in cloning I'd never considered. Her solution may not be one you agree with, but it's definitely food for thought. Ethics also frame Marissa K. Lingen's "The Calculus Plague," where a scientist tries to infect people with smarts and sees it all go wrong.

Science fiction often allows a writer to explore themes in a way we can't in non-fiction, and I could probably add "The Fixation" and "Erosion" to the list of stories in this collection that ask us to look at what we're wishing for. The former is science without considering the consequences and the latter reminds us that asking to live on beyond our time may not be the best plan, even as we try ever-harder to live longer and in places we were not meant to go. All of these stories remind us that in our rush to do things not even imagined 100 years ago that sometimes we may need to take a few minutes to think, "should we do this?", a lesson the nuclear bomb should have taught us but we never stopped to pay attention to.

Not every story is so serious, however. "The Highway Code" by Brian Stableford reminded me of a children's story, and not in a bad way. A self-aware engine breaks the rules, at great cost. Is he a hero or a villain? There are a few underlying concepts if you look hard enough, but it's also fine as just a fun surface read. Its placement at roughly the halfway point makes for a nice breather. I have a feeling it's also the story most likely to be one readers either love or hate. Some readers may find it too childish for their taste.

I can't talk about every story in the collection, but I do want to mention, "The Last Apostle" by Michael Cassutt, the best near future sci fi story in the collection. Written when there is only one person left in a rather familiar moon landing party, we follow a man who made choices that compromised his life but allowed him to lead a long, famous existence. As he reflects on what happened to him, we get bits and pieces of the past and why his last act is so important to him. Ultimately, it's a story of hope and the possible, without being unrealistic about humanity's actions. This was another of my favorites and makes me think I need to investigate reading more near-future texts when I'm looking for new genre fiction to read.

I'd soured a bit on reading science fiction in the past few years, despite really liking it in college and shortly afterwards. I'm glad I picked this book up, as it showed me that there's a lot of people writing excellent genre fiction and that I need to get out there and try more of it. My taste may have changed over time, but there's so many different kinds of science fiction that I (and anyone reading this review) am sure to find something I'll like, provided I allow myself to look.

Year's Best SF 15 is not a perfect book, but the overall quality is very high, and shows you the possibilities that are out there. And after all, isn't that what science fiction is all about? Those who like reading about the future should definitely check this book out. You'll be glad you did.

Poe's Children edited by Peter Straub

I'm a big fan of classic horror, but for some reason, I have a hard time managing to find good new horror writers. I was hoping that maybe this anthology, collected by a veteran of the horror genre, would help me find a new voice or two.

Fortunately for me, it did, but overall, I'm not sure that there's enough quality stories to make this anthology one I'd recommend to others. There's just not quite enough there worth reading, at least for me, to balance out the stories I didn't like.

I really enjoyed the first story, "The Bees," where a man trying to run from his past may have it brought back on him no matter what he does. It's a classic horror trick, using a character's failings to drive the narrative and Dan Chaon uses it to good effect. I was left with a strong hope that maybe this would be the time I got the stories I wanted in a horror collection.

Sadly, that vibe didn't last long, as most of the other stories just didn't have enough going on for me to want to read more from that writer. They weren't bad, per se (though I found Elizabeth Hand's story to be offensive and skipped it after about getting halfway through), but I didn't really get into the writing or feel anything, positive or negative, towards them.

In a few cases, the author tries a bit too hard. "The Man on the Ceiling", a joint effort between Melanie and Steve Tem, probably overreached in its attempt to be experimental. I'm still not sure I understood what they were trying for, other than their lives impact on the stories they write? "Louise's Ghost" didn't seem to have a reason to be a ghost story, which is clearly a problem. A simple re-write, and it's a standard piece of literary fiction.

"The Voice of the Beach" by Ramsey Campbell, was probably my favorite story. Our narrator finds that a part of a beach has a strange attraction for certain people, and finds that call is irresistible. As with Chaon, Campbell uses a classic concept to good effect, and I guess it shows my story bias that I like these tales more than the rest. (In addition, I see that Campbell is not a new writer, either, which makes me a bit sad.)

As my reading went on, I just wasn't satisfied with the selections made by Mr. Straub, finding that they had the same problems I've seen in other anthologies of this type, with writers adding sex to give an otherwise boring story some shock value. Others seem to wander too much and don't ever end up really giving me a thrill in the way that I can get by reading the atmospheric horror of Poe or others from the 19th Century.

I think the problem is that horror is a much harder genre to write than people give it credit for. You almost have to write it over and over again, and know that you're going to have some hits and misses. I think Stephen King is the best example of this. Cujo is horrifying but Needful Things was just annoying. Spend too much time grossing people out, and you lose me. But if you don't give me some really terrible stuff to imagine in my head, then I'm wandering off to other stories.

In this book, there are more misses than hits, which is why I can't really recommend it to someone else. There's the obvious good stories by King, Straub himself, and Neil Gaiman, but you can get those writers elsewhere, either in other anthologies or in their own collections or full length books. Beyond that, it gets a bit tricky.

For every "Plot Twist," where David J. Schow places his characters in a Twilight-zone like scenario where nothing seems to change except the characters' ability to wrong each other, there's a "Leda," the story before it, where I feel like a victimized woman's feelings are reduced to story fodder for a weird fantasy that involves predatory animals.

After awhile, I became rather disheartened because an anthology where you're only getting stories you like about a third of the time is a bit rough. I usually hope for at least better than half, between love and like. Straub's selections, when you take out the major writers, just didn't click with me sufficiently for this book to be one I'd want to read again.

If you go into Poe's Children looking for some new voices and can deal with hitting more than a few tales you won't remember for long after reading them, it should be okay. But if you are iffy on anthologies in the first place, and only want a book that features a level playing field, I think you're best served to look elsewhere.

Drive, They Said Poems About Americans and Their Cars edited by Kurt Brown

Anthologies are always a tricky thing, but I love the mystery that goes into reading one. You never quite know what you're in for, even if you're familiar with some of the authors. A lot of times, it all adds up to luck, even if the book comes with the backing someone you trust.

Drive, They Said was recommended to me by a person I usually agree with in terms of poetry, but this time we're as far apart as a highway with a scenic divider. The theme of this collection is poetry about how Americans relate to their cars, and at least to me, it made for some pretty bland reading.

I probably am not the target audience for this. While I might ogle a classic car, it's the age of the item, not the item itself, that wows me. I can appreciate a fine corvette, but I have no desire to get behind the wheel, not even for a test drive.

I own a car, but it's strictly utilitarian. I don't tinker with it. I don't fret that it's got a few dings from parking lots. I would no sooner change its oil myself than I would volunteer to clean up Three Mile Island. Hell, I've never even washed it. In other words, I'm not in love with cars, just what they can do for me when I need it.

Thus, this was an odd choice but I tried it anyway. Unfortunately, it just didn't register for me at all.

The first problem is that from the get-go, we're separated into gender before we do anything else. I hate gender separation as a rule, and given the subject of cars, that just made matters worse.

So the men get poems that try hard to sound masculine, with references to speeding, drinking, and leaving people behind. The women leave bad men, worry about the danger of being alone, and of course, the safety of their children. There's nothing wrong with these poems, but it feels like Brown as editor tried hard to make sure he ticked off ever gender cliche when compiling his opening sections. That turned me off, and made for tough sledding the rest of the way.

The other sections feature exactly what you'd expect, with no surprises to be found. "Driving into Yourself," "Stopping by the Side of the Road," "Head On," "Driving as Metaphor," "On the Bus," and "Passing Through" all do what they need to do in a way that passes muster but doesn't stretch the reader's comfort zones in any way. It's as though every poem was tested in front of an easily-offended church group. Unlike a highway in the rain with traffic moving far too fast, these poems gave me no sense of danger or thrill.

The section "Driving as Metaphor" ended up feeling far too forced, with the editor choosing the most obvious examples available. The comparisons are forced more often than not, reading more like an exercise for a college class than something I would want to read. In their own context, they probably aren't bad. However, when you read tortured line after tortured line trying to fit in the idea of cars relating to other parts of our life, it just gets to be a bit too much.

Of these sections, only "Head On" features any poem that wasn't apparently given an "inoffensive test" before making it into the collection and even those are edgy only in comparison to what is around them. As a result, I enjoyed it the most, but not enough to make up for the banal nature of the poems I read in the other areas.

There are a few well-known names in here. Joyce Carol Oates has a few entries in the women's ghetto, Robert Bly appears, as does Charles Wright. Wright's poem is one of the best in the collection, using the idea of a road to discuss the various ways people interacted by going to different neighborhoods. ee cummings also makes an appearance in a clumsy poem comparing driving a car to a person new at sex. I admit I've read very little of cummings' work, but I'd like to think he's done better.

Overall, I took a chance on this one, and feel like I came up with a lemon. The theme isn't close enough to me to forgive some bad poetry and the desire to make sure that no one reading this would get upset at a blatant sexual reference or overtly foul language just killed it for me. I'd recommend cruising to a different poetry book, but if you have a car-loving reader in your family, preferably an older one, this book might just work better for them than it did for me.

Baltimore Noir edited by Laura Lippman

This is the third book in Akashic's series of crime anthologies set in cities across the United States and in some cases, the world. I'd really liked the first two books I'd read, but unfortunately I was not charmed at all by the one set in Charm City.

The book starts off pretty good, actually, which is why I was so sad when I hit the second part of the three-section collection and very quickly ran into three adventures that left me cold. Editor Lippman's introductory piece, "Easy as A B C", finds us with a corrupt contractor that cheats on his wife but can't stand it when his lover turns him away. That's a textbook noir plot, and Lippman's snappy writing from the perspective of the killer sets the mood for what I hoped would be more stories in this vein.

The problem is that somewhere along the line, whether to pad the page count (this entry is nearly 100 pages longer than the other two I read, give or take a page) or because she was lacking in stories with a true sense of desperation and grime, we end up getting to the point where there's a cozy with a huge cliche for a solution in the middle of the book.

Now I understand the idea of what makes a story fitting of the noir label is variable depending on who you talk to, and I bet if you asked me twice a few months apart, I might even give you a different answer. But when "Almost Missed It by a Hair" features a woman who does PR for hairdressers solving the crime for her cop sister by using an amateur trick that was old when fellow Baltimorean Edgar Allan Poe invented the genre in the first place, I'm going to cry foul.

That was the only story written by an African American about a city that's overwhelmingly African American and I'd be lying if I said that didn't bother me a bit, especially given the fact that it's not like this anthology is jam-packed with writing gems. I find it a bit hard to believe that there weren't more crime stories written by black authors and set in Baltimore. I find it even harder to believe this when Ben Neihart's "Frog Cycle," possibly the worst story in the collection, doesn't even have any cultural link to Baltimore at all. (Move the exhibit to any other city and it would have worked fine.) I also failed to see anything crime-related about it.

The point of these collections is to spotlight the dark edges of the cities in which the stories are set. And sometimes they do. Robert Ward's "Fat Chance" places a man of Hollywood back into the hells he tried to escape. "Pigtown will Shine Tonight" has a disturbing premise and a character that wants to do the right thing, but also save his skin. "As Seen on TV" by Dan Fesperman skewers the idea of a noir story by having his main character think that he can relive the glories of fictional drama. Those are all great stories that fit the theme.

However, there are just too many that don't. A simple murder to take control of a business or a Scooby-Doo style ghost story, "Goodwood Gardens", do not provide the reader with anything grimy or creepy. I'm afraid that the multiple inclusions of violence against women don't count, either.

Horrific crimes aren't noir, they're terrible crimes. They no more fit into a book like this than an armchair detective piece. You have to give them a feel like the characters have no way out. Time and time again as this anthology progressed, I just wasn't feeling that sense of desperation or situational helplessness. I got in in bits and pieces, such as when David Simon provides us with a drug addict who can't do the right thing in "Stainless Steele," but that's just not enough to carry this anthology through.

Anthologies rest on the backs of their editors, and in this case, I think Ms. Lippman and I have a different definition of what makes for a good noir story. She seemed to be going for a very general idea of revenge crime, if you look at all the stories as a whole. Had this been called "Uncharmed Lives: Baltimore Gets Revenge" I might have felt better about the contents, some of which were pretty well written. But I don't think revenge automatically equals noir, nor do I feel that Ms. Lippman explored enough avenues of possible stories (a lot of these authors all have ties to the Baltimore Sun) to give us a good variety of material.

Overall, Baltimore Noir was a disappointing entry in the Noir series. But after taking a break to finish up things before the move--to Baltimore, as things happen--I'll definitely keep reading more of these anthologies. I'd just recommend that you give this particular volume a pass.

Mexico City Noir edited by Paco Ignacio Taibo II

This almost never happens to me--I actually read a book that came out only a few weeks ago! Someone check my temperature and make sure I'm feeling okay!

This was a library impulse grab, one of my favorite things to do. It's a little hard to tell from the size of the cover to the left of this text, but when you see a skeleton in a wedding dress, it's hard not to just run up to the shelf, grab the book with both hands and shout MINE! shortly before getting banned from the library in question. I resisted the temptation to do so, but not by much.

Mexico City Noir is the latest in a series of short story books by Akashic Books, a small press that states on its website that they want "reverse-gentrification of the literary world." That's a philosophy I can get behind, and it's obvious in the sometimes course nature of the material in this book that they are not afraid to publish work that might not be considered "refined" enough for another publisher.

The stories themselves are set across the landscape of Mexico City, with a helpful map marked by dead bodies giving the location of each treacherous tale. Editor Taibo divides them up into three sections, "Above the Law" (exactly what you think), "Dead Men Walking" (not at all what you think), and "Suffocation City" (not quite what you think). He opens by talking about the worst possible aspects of Mexico City--corrupt police, rampant killings, and streets of crime--but then also mentions the best, such as being a city with more movie theaters than Paris. As with all major cities, Mexico City is a place of grand contradictions. And those that love the city, such as the folks contributing to this anthology, embrace their city, warts and all.

Those contradictions play out in this volume time and time again, right from the beginning of the collection. Eduardo Antonio Parra features a homeless man trying to make sense of his world as it collapses around him for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Benardo Fernandez's protagonist is a pillar of the community--and a ruthless killer. Myriam Laurini features a cop who can laugh at a literary pun but also shoves his gun in a suspect's mouth to get a fake confession. In the best story of the final third of the book, Victor Luis Gonzalez's narrator won't off the man that killed Kennedy but refuses to let a man who harms animals go unpunished.

These are writers creating very human characters. You immediately feel sympathy for people who are going to lose no matter what, like the homeless man in Parra's story. There's rage as powerful men like the actor in F.G. Haghenbeck's story (or even the writer who moves crime to another block in editor Taibo's contribution) get whatever they want because of their position in the social hierarchy. These may be fictional creations, living on on the printed page, but the concepts are very real--and not limited to a crime ridden city south of the US border.

I'm a very character-driven reader, so the contributors' ability to make people I could either believe in or relate to made this small (it's only about 170 pages) anthology work really well for me. Taibo definitely worked hard to ensure there was a solid overall quality to the stories. There were no stories I disliked, which is rare for me in a work like this. In addition, the voices of the authors are quite varied. Taibo mentions in his introduction that the writers use various styles, and that's definitely true.

Over the course of this collection, we have a broken narrative, a private eye procedural, a dying man's last few moments of thought, a GOTCHA story (my definition of this being a short story that takes a hard left turn in the final moments), a series of taped interviews, and even a back-and-forth style, to name just a few. Some of these are pretty experimental, too, and require the reader to take time to follow the story. For a small anthology like this to take those kinds of literary chances really impresses me (and makes me want to read more in this Noir series). After all, not only are almost half of the contributions written in a style I'd say was non-traditional, they are in translation to boot!

This is as good a place as any to compliment translator Achy Obejas, who does an amazing job bringing this sometimes challenging narratives into English while still retaining the quality of the material. "BANG!" in particular (by Juan Hernandez Luna) works very well despite the change in languages.

As I mentioned, this is one of those rare times where I liked every story, so I won't do what I normally would in an anthology review, highlight my favorites. If I had to pick the story I liked best, it would probably be Haghenbeck's "The Unsmiling Comedian" because it features a private investigator whose client is only just a bit better than the criminal foe. I'm a sucker for those kind of stories, and he nails the theme perfectly. I wouldn't mind reading more stories with the protagonist from this story in the future.

There's only one minor complaint that I do have and that's the level of swearing and gay slurs. I am not a prude by any nature, and I understand that sometimes you have to be vulgar, particularly in dark stories like these, but there were a few times where I felt it was just piling on. If you're sensitive to that sort of thing, be warned. However, there's so much good in this book that I was willing to overlook it. I really don't read a lot of new fiction--perhaps this is just a norm today that I don't know about?

Mexico City Noir is a winner on several levels for me. It's a quality anthology, it features crime stories, and it uses a variety of narrative styles, some of which are quite experimental in nature. I've found a new series of books to love and some new authors to explore. This is an early candidate for my "Favorites of 2010" list, and I definitely highly recommend it to those who like experimental fiction, short stories, or crime books. Those who like all three need to grab this book with both hands right away--and try not to shout MINE! while you're at it.

Dick Tracy The Secret Files edited by Max Allan Collins and Martin H. Greenberg

Since I was able to read the comics page in the newspaper on my own, I've been a fan of Dick Tracy. He's a cartoon embodiment of my detective fiction, Dragnet rerun, Columbo-watching childhood, and he will forever be fond to me because the Warren Beatty-Madonna movie is the first movie I ever saw in a theater behind my mother's back. (Sorry Mom!)

He's kinda fallen on hard times, only appearing in like 50 newspapers now and being written and illustrated by a team that doesn't quite seem to know how to tell a consistent story. I follow the strip online now, and it's great one day--or even for a few days--then falls into artistic issues (a motorcycle that dwarfs two men) or plot problems (how do two men keep moving with bear traps on their legs?).

So getting a chance to read a book edited by the man who succeeded Chester Gould was too good to pass up. Almost certainly a movie tie-in, Collins puts together a fairly solid set of stories about the yellow-clad detective, with Tracy ranging in age and time period from today's dark crimes and violent drug offenders to some that harken back to the days of Gould's run (which I am reading in the collections from Fantagraphics and will be reviewing over on the sister blog, Panel Patter).

I'm going to highlight the stories I liked best and worst, which should give you a pretty good feel for if this is the book for you.

Origins by Mike Resnik opens the collection with a young Gould working on finding his niche in the comics world and aided by a man who will end up seeming very familiar. This may be the best in the collection, which is no surprise given Resnik's resume.

Ron Goulart sends Tracy to Hollywood to interact with a recurring character of his. While they're filming a Dick Tracy movie, a suspicious suicide happens on the set. Can Tracy spot the crime in time to prevent a miscarriage of justice? Playfully written, Goulart's ability to write about 1940s Hollywood (as shown in his Groucho books) always puts his stories a cut above the rest.

Cereal Killer takes things in a darker direction, being the first of many stories placing Dick's family in danger--or at least, perceived danger. (This also happens in Auld Aquaintance, Homefront, and Chessboard's Last Gambit, to name a few.) I like the trick Rex Miller uses here, but some readers may feel cheated.

Rockabilly is notable for bringing back Tracy's nemesis Mumbles as a singer in a band. The story itself is pretty straightforward, but I found that idea so funny that I forgave the story itself any flaws it may have had. Tracy almost ends up one for the record books in this caper, and of all of them, it feels like the one most likely to have appeared in comic form.

Homefront is by Max's wife Barbara, and it didn't do anything for me. I felt like Collins ran Tess through every possible woman-in-danger cliche, and that didn't work for me. It's possible she was trying to be ironic, but the irony was lost on me. This was my least favorite story in the collection.

Paradise Lake Monster tries to take Dick out of his usual environment by giving him a simple mystery on vacation. I solved the crime within the first few pages, so the rest wasn't all that engaging for me. It may also just be anthology fatigue--sometimes I get a bit tired halfway through a book of this nature.

Old Saying is a playful story with a lot of verbal wordplay. Tracy and Sam must go after a gang with a member who can change into anyone for a brief period of time, leading to sight gags and peril. Can they catch the crooks--once they figure out who they are? Any story with puns gets points with me, so while I guffaw, you may groan at this one.

Whirlpool, Sizzle, and the Juice and Living Legend are by far the darkest of the bunch, with the violence pushed to the forefront and ham-handed commentary on the 1980s gang wars and Tracy struggling to deal with the new realities of the world. They're technically fine but I just felt like the writers were laying it on too thick.

Edward D. Hoch, who seemingly has written everything but a chapter in the Bible, provides a compelling story of misdirection in Chessboard's Last Gambit (I'm not giving anything away by saying that, as that's what a gambit is--making a stunning move to try and throw your opponent off) as Tracy must try to sift through the clues and attempt to beat the system to save the day--and maybe, just maybe, his wife. Hoch shows more modern realities in his story, too, but in a way that doesn't jar the reader.

Last up is Collins, writing a fractured Christmas tale that involves the murder of children and one horrible Santa Clauss. The tale is dark without being too gory, Collins allowing the reader to fill in the nastier pictures. I love how Tracy and Co. react to the crime--it's one thing to go after a killer, but a child-killer is another thing altogether. A great ending to the series.

I didn't touch on all 16 stories in the collection, but they are similar in nature, featuring Tracy taking on criminals odd and mundane, often with Sam and Lizz in tow. Pat is mostly the Chief here, but he gets in some good licks, too, when the time is right.

If you like Dick Tracy or simple detective fiction, this is a great, fun read. As with most Greenberg anthologies, the stories are always quality--nothing here sticks out as being badly-written, even if I didn't love it. On the other hand there's no chances here, either--a story about Gould himself and a few nods to meta-Tracy are all you'll get in the way of experiments. All in all, while the stories are definitely a product of their time, it's a writing style I enjoy and I think most of you would, too.

Outsiders edited by Nancy Holder and Nancy Kilpactrick

Everyone needs to step out of their comfort zones now and again. Try some ethnic food, walk an extra mile, root for the Cleveland Browns, that sort of thing. So I, despite my reservations, thought I'd give this a try.

After all, there's a Neil Gaiman story in here.

Except that it's a Gaiman poem, and was over all too quick. From there, it was a steady slide into the type of fiction that I really have no interest in:

vampire lust
borderline bestiality, guised as "fantasy"
infodumps larger than a garbage scow
thinly veiled pornographic writing (just write porn and be done with it)
gratuitous violence

This is not to say the entire anthology was like that, but it seems the editors opted to decide that "edgy" and "out there" meant picking things that pushed the envelope for the sake of doing it rather than to tell a good story. It leads to overly clever stories like "Lighten Up" about a group of people who rob those who dislike smoking in bars. That's not outsiders, that's just ridiculous.

None of the stories really have anything going for them. Even those that aren't bad, such as "Ruby Tuesday", a takeoff on RHPS with a grieving girl using a cult movie to assuage her pain, can only be best described as, well, not bad. "Craving" was rather creepy, but the narration style is so narrator-heavy that the reader doesn't get to feel anything or be surprised.

All in all, I just need to accept that this just isn't fiction geared to me. But if you like any all all kinds of fantasy and can stand sex in places it doesn't belong--and I know there's a huge market for that--you might like this better than I did.