It's always a treat to get Grady Hendrix's newsletter and read about whatever insane Paperback from Hell he just finished with. Usually the tone is "so bad it's good" or "so bad this review of it is all you should ever read". But in his last newsletter he wanted to tell us about a book that he thought was really seriously good. In fact, he urged us to stop reading the newsletter, go get the book and read the book and then come back to the newsletter. This was an unusual request. But I went ahead and did it. The book, The Tulip Touch by Anne Fune, is, surprisingly, a "children's book". Anne Fine is, also surprisingly, the author of the book Mrs. Doubtfire. Our heroine is Natalie, a young girl whose parents manage a large hotel called the Palace. The family is completed by Natalie's younger brother, Julius. Julius takes up a lot of Natalie's mother's time and the hotel takes up a lot of her father's time, so she's free to explore the hundred or so rooms and the hotel's expansive grounds. One day she meets a neighbor girl in a corn field. She's holding a kitten and her name is Tulip. Natalie asks her if she wants to be friends. From this moment, it's going to be constant suspense and gradual reveals, layer upon layer of subtle detail and insinuation. Fine is an incredible writer and this is a very sophisticated, mature and unsettling book for anyone, let alone children. Presumably the authorial decision to tell the story in Natalie's voice, using the vocabulary and plain speaking that would be natural to her is what makes this a "children's book". That and marketing. You know Tulip's going to be bad news. Roald Dahl-level bad news. It's always little things at first. Not quite lying, for instance, but still being dishonest and misleading. Her endless inventing of bizarre games for her and Natalie, which have sinister and disturbing names like "Rats in a Firestorm" or "Road of Bones". This is a horror novel but no blood, nothing supernatural. The real horrors of the world originate with abuse and neglect and indifference and the potential for harm and sadism is part of being human. As bad as Tulip's actions become, the fact that Natalie is there as her friend and collaborator insures that the finger doesn't point only at Tulip. Natalie is the "normal" one, yet this is the choice she makes, to go with Tulip. Natalie, like everyone, has capacities for cruelty and sadism. And Tulip didn't really stand a chance. Her parents and teachers and peers all contribute to an environment that directed Tulip to go her damaged, dangerous, lonely way. Evil, however you define it, is a link in a chain, often the last link. It might be where someone ends up but it's never where they start. And nobody gets there by themselves. The Tulip Touch is an extraordinary book and a great one as well. I don't think I'm likely to forget it. The first line is "You shouldn't tell a story till it's over, and I'm not sure this one is".
2024 February 19 • Wednesday
Anthony Boucher was quite a force in mystery and science-fiction writing, as author and critic both. He really did too much to go into here but you find his name attached to blurbs on many books from the 1940s, '50s and '60s, often from reviews published in the New York Times. I'd been wanting to read Rocket to the Morgue for a while, partly because of the striking cover art for this edition—which does in fact faithfully depict a scene from the novel with no embellishment—and partly because it's a locked-room mytery. This is actually a sequel to another novel featuring the same police detective and mystery-solving nun working together a second time. But this time the case involves the science-fiction writing community: authors, agents, publishers, fans, royalty holders. Some of the characters are supposesd to be, more or less, Robert Heinlein ("still the undisputed Master", says Boucher in an afterword) and L. Ron Hubbard, people Boucher knew in real life This is a fun book, not great or even realistic, but light and amusing. Many of the characters are little more than types and the mystery itself is an excuse for Boucher to dote on the world of sci-fi as it's in the throes of development. There are even some samples of simplistic pulp writing, intentionally funny and unsophisticated. And there's a made-up legendary famous writer, deceased, who's basically Arthur Conan Doyle with a bit of Edgar Rice Burroughs thrown in. The plot has enough twists and turns to make keeping the description of it brief. Everybody hates the heir of the aforementioned famous writer, for his incredible stinginess and greed as the custodian of an extremely lucrative intellectual property. After a few close calls that appear to be attempted murders, he reaches out to our police detective hero for help and protection—but a little too late. And the body is discovered in a locekd room with no way for anyone to have entered or exited. The SF gang can offer theories of teleportation or fourth-dimensional travel and while the nun is perhaps there to represent a religious perspective, she's actually the most down-to-earth and discerning character, who recalls Chesterton's Father Brown and the "Invisible Man" case, and eschews fantastical explanations entirely. The first line is "Leona Marshall stretched her long legs out on the bed and clasped her hands comfortable behind her red head".
2025 February 17 • Monday
The 844th Soundtrack of the Week is James Horner's music for The Land Before Time.
This was a few years before Jurassic Park and a much more family-friendly animated feature. Horner starts out "The Great Migration" with a gradually building orchestral theme with his trademark arpeggiated strings. In the second half of the cue he directs the music to a jauntier and adventurous sound with some soaring lines and angelic choir. A similar feel begins the long "Sharptooth and the Earthquake" cue with the heavenly sounds giving away to more earthy brass and percussion, which outline tension and action before relaxing into sinuous modalities. Soon enough it's danger time again with propulsive orchestral action that can stand with the best of John Williams. "Whispering Winds" is another long track, beginning in a low-key and wind instrument-driven fashion with the cue being taken over by the choir again. Horner has written some absolutely lovely, lyrical pieces for this film. There are moments of humor in "Foraging for Food" with different parts of the orchestra popping up here and there, bringing us eventually to a spare and staccato passage. This register, somewhere in between playful and apprehensive, is picked up for the beginning of "Journey of the Dinosaurs", which features tuba. For "Separate Paths", the strings create a beautiful atmosphere of wonder but yield to darker orchestral colors that sound menacing, soon to be replaced by the ethereal choir. Then there's more string writing and some very sharp percussion stings. The longest track here, "The Rescue/Discovery of the Great Valley" is almost 13 minutes long. As you can imagine, there's a lot going on here. It starts with the choir before going into sounds of danger and action, which perhaps includes a chase. Then there's some lovely underscore that's slightly reminiscent of Horner's Star Trek work. A quick introduction of some slightly comic writing, then more menace, then a settling down. The "End Credits" don't just reprise the cues you've heard but start really strong with some different ideas alternating with familiar pieces. One of the themes heard a few times in the score was also given lyrics and made into a song, "If We Hold on Together", performed here by none other than Diana Ross, who sounds great, as usual!
2024 February 14 • Friday
Paired with Leigh Brackett's Shadow Over Mars (a.k.a. The Nemesis from Terra) in an Ace Double Novel paperback is Robert Silverberg's Collision Course. Interestingly, while Brackett's novel is all action, constant and non-stop, careening from one heart-racing set piece to another, Silverberg's book is pretty much no action at all, basically all talk. Both books are tremendously exciting and suspenseful, though. While opposite in so many ways, they're both page-turners. The The Nemesis from Terra is really a fantasy novel wearing a slight sci-fi disguise but Collision Course is true science fiction. The basic story is that in 28th-century Earth a faster than light drive has completed its first successful run. The ship's crew has zipped over to another galaxy and back again. This is big news because humans have already colonized all the nearby planets and are naturally planning to take the rest of the universe once that becomes practical. But the first time out, they run into an alien species who are doing the exact same thing. So a diplomatic mission is sent out to discuss the matter with them. Contact is made, the alien language is learned and a proposal to share the universe with this other culture is made. And the aliens say nope. You keep what you've already conquered but everything else is ours. Or else. That's the set up. The mechanics of both the journey through space and the journey through communication with previously unencountered life-forms, as well as the personalities of the characters, who are well drawn and also serve to make some observations about religion, science, psychology, etc. are the bulk of the book. There is a significant bend in the plot that I won't reveal because it's a cool surprise. But the story is similar to Childhood's End, though I thought it was better than Childhood's End. This future society is governed by officials called Archons and early in the book Silverberg rattles off the names of several of them. Archons of Education and Health and Agriculture and so on. It's almost certainly a reference to Sherlock Holmes that the Archon of Security is named Lestrade. The first line is "Only a month before, the Technarch McKenzie had calmly sent five men to probable death in the name of Terran progress".
2024 February 12 • Wednesday
Happy birthday! Those Ace 2-in-1 paperbacks ("Double Novel") are always fun to look at. They're also often surprisingly inexpensive. And every once in a while I actually read one! Here's one I probably picked up at Bucket o' Blood. I was interested in this one because I'd never read anything by Robert Silverberg before even though he's a big name in the genre. I seem to recall that he came across favorably in the Alice Sheldon biography and Lawrence Block also noted how Silverberg didn't try to distance himself from early pseudonymous hack writing, as Block himself had done. I've read at least a few Leigh Brackett books and have seen several movies she wrote screenplays for, so I started with her. The Nemesis from Terra takes place on Mars and is non-stop action. Only some futuristic technology backs op its claim to be science fiction. It's really pure fantasy, with a hero fulfilling a prophecy and breaking his chains to control the destiny of a planet. Much of it would fit in with John Carter or Tarzan or Conan. The hero and the villain are both interested in the same woman, who of course is only interested in the hero. In addition to the fate of the planet, her own fate worse than death hangs in the balance. There's political intrigue involving the political and corporate powers on Mars, who run mining operations that are basically slavery. (They have Venusians as their enforcers.) The hero, Rick, leads an uprising, which results in a frantic journey for him. There are monsters and mind readers, space ships and robots. The story zips along breathlessly and it would probably crash if Brackett weren't such a creative, imaginative, skillful and deft writer. You can read this one very quickly and enjoy it quite a bit, if it's your kind of thing. Apparently it's also known as Shadow Over Mars. The first line is "Rick stood perfectly still in the black blind notch of the doorway".
2025 February 10 • Monday
Sometimes I really like a movie but I wouldn't actually recommend it to anyone I know. My reasons for liking it seem unlikely to be shared by my friends and family. Such a movie is Challengers and its music, by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, is the 843rd Soundtrack of the Week.
Look, I like mid-century soapy melodrama. I like Douglas Sirk. I like Harold Pinter's Betrayal. If you combined all of this but made it a 2024 movie about professional tennis you'd end up with something like Challengers. Being into tennis and having experienced the levels of psychology and emotion that can run rampant through a player on the court during a competitive match that matters will probably help you enjoy this movie. Or possibly not. It helped me. The music is a pumping electronic soundtrack that might pleasantly remind you of the score for Run Lola Run. The movie has really good photography and editing and sound. The story jumps around chronologically, gradually revealing information that increases suspense and interest. And your toes will be tapping almost the whole time. It starts with a very high-energy title track that really surges forward and keeps its heart rate up. Occasional sound effects are mixed in and this one ends with a cell phone alarm. A more laidback and swinging feel follows in "'I Know'", which has a tennis ball sound effect break in the middle. The next track is aptly named "Yeah x10" as it features the word "Yeah" repeated as lyrics. There's a heavy bass line that creates most of the song's shape and it occasionally drops out, giving it a pleasing variety. A dreamy and hypnotic piano line with some angelic textural sounds surrounding it comes up next in the beautiful "L'oeuf" and then it's dance time with the irresistible club beats of "The Signal". "Brutalizer" raises the intensity with a pounding but spare track. It's almost immediately repeated in "Brutalizer 2", after "Stopper" reprises "Yeah x10". Lean rhythm with some perky staccato dancing around on top, eventually giving way to some long tones make up "The Points That Matter". "Lullaby" is less than a minute long and lullaby-sounding, played gently and quietly on solo keyboard. The sound of a door opening and closing brings us seamlessly from there into "Final Set", which reprises the piano from "L'oeuf". "Pull Over" likewise reprises "Brutalizer" and "Challengers: Match Point" unsurprisingly returns to the main title theme. There's an actual song with lyrics beside "Yeah" at the end of the record: "Compress/Repress" leans heavily on its title for its lyrics but throws in some other thoughts such as "No one here / Stays the same / Something else / Breaks the rules / Of this game". It's good. There's also "Friday Afternoons, Op. 7: A New Year Carol" by Benjamin Britten thrown in here. Just to be complete, I guess.
2024 February 07 • Friday
I'd heard that the novelization of Invasion USA was a high point of the form. That would be enough for me but an additional incentive to read it was that I always struggled to figure out what was happening in the movie. It's a Christmas movie, of course, though rarely mentioned as one. It has at least as much Christmas stuff as Die Hard but perhaps not as much as A Force of One. That these aren't considered Christmas movies is some kind of weird anti-Chuck Norris bias, presumably. Anyway, there's lots of random violence and Chuck Norris kind of lumbering around all over the place. But what are the bad guys actually trying to do? And what happens to Chuck's pet armadillo? Lots of good news here. The book is actually quite good and has a lot more in it than the movie. The evil plan is a wasp/false flag strategy, with small commando units all over the country committing acts of violence and destruction designed not just to destabilize and demoralize the populace but also to sow fear and distrust. For instance, they'll show up dressed as police officers or members of the National Guard, so when the real police or guards show up, people attack them. One scene shows the terrorists dressed as Nazis and barging into a synagogue and spray painting swastikas on the walls. And it's at this point that it's worth mentioning that "Jason Frost" is actually Raymond Obstfeld. His Wikipedia page includes this relevant passage: "His parents owned and operated Obstfeld's Jewish Delicatessen, which was the target of various hate crimes during Obstfeld's youth, from Nazi swastikas painted on the doors to arson, which gutted the building". In addition to connecting with Obstfeld's real-life experiences, the book improves on the movie in every way. Readers will learn the reason why Chuck's character, Matt Hunter, goes around intoning "Time to die" all over the place. A scene in the movie in which the main villain attempts to eliminate his nemesis, Matt Hunter, Chuck's character, is comically inept and totally unbelievable. In the book this becomes an intense and exciting action scene with actual good-faith efforts to kill the protagonist. Hunter's friends in the bayou are much more developed and the character of the woman journalist, who has practically nothing to do in the movie, is a major player in events in the book, often driving the action and ahead of other characters in figuring out what's happening. Likewise with the various members of law enforecement. The book does have one shocking lapse, however. There's no pet armadillo! I really wanted to learn more about the little creature, particuarly its ultimate fate. Did it die in an explosion? Did Hunter just leave it behind and not give it a secon thought? There aren't a lot of movies with armadillos in them. It's one of the things that made Invasion USA special and a big part of the reason that I read the book in the first place. The book is still absolutely worth reading, though. The first line is "There was blood on her hands".
2024 February 05 • Wednesday
Maybe it's because I grew up without a TV that I've always had a soft spot for novelizations as well as original novels based on television shows and movies. (You might be surprised to learn about the latter but there are original Dirty Harry and Man With No Name novels.) There doesn't seem to be much in popular culture that hasn't attracted at least a cottage industry of attention and analysis. But is it possible that the novelization
continues to be a neglected form? That's an idea and I have no wish to prove or disprove it by any kind of internet search. Instead, I'll just continue to read such books. Claire Donner's novelization of the movie Splice is one of the best I've ever read and, unlike many, would be excellent as an original work of its own, without the story's previous existence in another medium. I actually know the author personally and am always enriched and educated by conversations with her. This has been going on for a long time. But that doesn't mean that I put my thumb on the scale while reading this book. The identity of the author was not a critical factor. But the book is so good that after finishing it and remembering who wrote it I found myself thinking, "I can't believe I know her!" The story is about two scientists, Clive and Elsa (Colin Clive played Dr. Frankenstein in Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein and Elsa Lanchester
played both Mary Shelley and the title role in Bride of Frankenstein),
whose genetic experiements lead them to create a new creature that combines human and non-human DNA. If you've seen the movie then you know what happens. That is, you know the actions. And indeed it is a Frankensteinish tale. What Claire Donner has done in this book is to give depth and nuance and history and context to the characters and what they do. She makes them emotionally and psychologically complex and realistic while also adding personal touches that make them as real as people you know in real life. I mean, Clive is a Melvins fan! I can relate! And this fits him perfectly. And Elsa's childhood is a major factor in this story, brought powerfully to life in the book. There's also considerable erudition and sophistication brought to bear, with scientific language flowing elegantly in both the characters' conversations and the authorial voice. You don't have to do the research because Donner has done it and conveys what you need to know adroitly and, often, amusingly. To put it simply, this is an example of a great novelization and a great novel. You could, you know,
get a copy right here and find out for yourself. If you've seen the movie and liked it, then I think you really have to read this book. The first line is "In the beginning, there was nothing".
2025 February 03 • Monday
I guess we might as well listen to the music from another Koji Wakamatsu movie. Why not? He actually just produced this one. Branded To Kill co-writer Atsushi Yamatoya was the director. The movie itself is called The Gun That Sprouted Hair (of course) and its presumably improvised jazz score by tenor saxophonist Seiichi Nakamura and drummer Takeo Moriyama is the 842nd Soundtrack of the Week.
With the exception of two solo harpsichord classical music pieces performed
by "an unknown university student", the music here is all sax/drums duos. They're mostly pretty short and sure sound like they were freely improvised. They cover quite a range of moods and feels, however, and are all really great. Nakamura has a great tone and plays with sensitivity and depth while Moriyama is a perfect partner, assuredly providing energetic and tasteful rhythmic support. Nakamura gets track 7 to himself and track 8 features the drums with only occasional contributions from the sax. Track 9 is so reverbed out it you wonder where the hell they recorded it. But really all you need to know is that this is a great free jazz tenor sax and drums
duo record that just happens to be a movie soundtrack.
APPEARANCES