Every newspaper, magazine and blog seems to be running a summer reading list right about now. So who needs another one? You do, friends. How many, we ask, are going to be as chock-full of geeky and creepy goodness as ours?
John Picacio
“Plus or Minus” by James Patrick Kelly
Just finished reading a short story by Nebula Award-winning author James Patrick Kelly. It hasn’t appeared publicly yet and is slated to appear in the December 2010 issue of ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION. I’ll be creating cover art for this issue based off of this story, which is titled “Plus or Minus.” Note that the cover you see here is the cover I did for the September 2009 issue of Asimov’s, and has no bearing on what I’ll do for the December 2010 Asimov’s. I’m posting it here because it’s the most recent thing I’ve done for the magazine, and a solid issue in its own right to boot. Kelly’s a terrific writer and I’m really looking forward to doing a new Asimov’s cover.
Scott Cupp
I just finished reading a three novel series featuring the pulp character the Spider (see Thursday’s Forgotten Books post) entitled The SPIDER VS. THE EMPIRE STATE (Age of Aces). Socially relevant, violent, and pure pulp madness. I have also been reading THE COMPLETE BLOOM COUNTY, VOL. 2 by Berkeley Breathed (Idea & Design Works). I read Bloom County regularly once I discovered it in 1983 and so there are some strips I missed in this (and Vol. 1). I had not reread the strip in a while (about 20 years) and it is still refreshing and biting. On my Kindle on the iPhone I have been reading Charles Dickens’ BLEAK HOUSE for the last few months. It runs over 1,000 pages and I am loving it but I tend to read it when I am waiting to see the doctor, waiting for food in a restaurant, or waiting for a move. Consequently after six months I am about a quarter of the way through it, Finally, I just started re-reading Robert Stallman’s THE ORPHAN which may be my Forgotten Book next week. It is the first of three volumes that Stallman published featuring a shape shifting alien who lands on Earth in the 1930’s. They were a terrific read when I read them a long time ago with great Don Maitz covers and there is a fascinating back story about them and Stallman.
Sanford Allen
SKIN by Kathe Koja (Dell)
I’ve had this one on my to-read list for a few years now, and it finally floated to the top after spending a couple of weeks with Einsturzende Neubauten in heavy rotation on my iPod. Horror writer Koja uses her third novel to explore the performance art scene and the industrial subculture of the early ’90s — and true to life, what starts out as an artistic statement rapidly devolves into a self-destructive mess. Sculptor Tess Bajac integrates her constructs of jagged metal into dancer Bibi Bloss’s often-violent performance pieces, and their artistic partnership soon blossoms into a physical and emotional one as well. Tess is dragged to edge as her partner and collaborator becomes obsessed with cutting, scarring and otherwise modifying her body. Using language that draws as much from William Burroughs and Kathy Acker as it does contemporary horror, Koja welds together an unsettling novel that effectively captures the reckless, boundary-pushing spirit of the industrial subculture.
Pete Barnstrom
Just finished Christopher Moore’s unnecessary but hilarious sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends, 2007′s You Suck. He’s apparently putting out yet another, even more unnecessary sequel, Bite Me. I’ll probably read it, too.
Currently in the pool bag is Retro-Pulp Tales, a Joe R. Lansdale-edited collection of modern genre writers working in the style of the old pulps. The F. Paul Wilson entry was quite nifty, a “Yellow Peril” story that gradually feeds in another classic genre of the period, which I won’t talk about because half the fun is figuring it out. (I can still remember the time I spoiled Psycho for a friend… who doesn’t know about Norman’s mother?)
Also slogging my way through Mamet’s slim little treatise, On Directing Film, which isn’t a bad book at all, but I’m having trouble concentrating on the subject these days.
Paul Vaughn
THE DEVIL IN GREEN by Mark Chadbourn (Pyr)
The Devil in Green is the first book in Chadbourn’s The Dark Age trilogy which is a follow-up to his Age of Misrule trilogy. The book takes up in the world left after the events of the first series, the age of reason is over, magic is back in the world and with miracles on every corner people have lost faith in the religions with which we are all familiar. Chadbourn explores the consequences of a world where technology has broken down, where creatures of myth and nightmare roam the land and the human population has been decimated.
I have only just started this book and we have not yet encountered any of the characters from the first series. Those characters were memorable and I hope to meet some of them again. The sweet John Picacio cover leads me to believe that we will at least encounter the god-like being (or simply god?) Cernunnos. I’m definitely looking forward to this one being a compelling page-turner, just like the books of the Age of Misrule were.
