Reviews by Writer Dan

Anyone else just LOVE the movie Mary Poppins? Yes, the one put out by Disney. Of all the movies I watched as a child, this is one of the few that I really remember enjoying every time I watched it. As I read this novel, my mind ran back to those days: I kept seeing that view over London when Dick Van Dyke took the group across the rooftops, I kept tapping my foot to Step in Time, and at random moments I would begin to whistle Feed the Birds. The atmosphere of this book was just… ah, well, I get ahead of myself.
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For some unknown, benevolent reason, we fantasy readers have fallen into the good graces of the genre gods. Why is that? you ask. I simply don’t know. Truly. But isn’t it obvious? We’re smack in the middle of a veritable geyser that has brought, or will bring to our greedy little eyes and hands titles from those authors that we most love: WAY OF KINGS, THE HEROES, WISE MAN’S FEAR, THE WHITE-LUCK WARRIOR, BLUE REMEMBERED EARTH, THE CRIPPLED GOD. And who can forget the recent announcement for A DANCE WITH DRAGONS (maybe it will actually happen this time)? Enough big-name books to keep any good fantasy reader satisfied for most of a year, entire. And yet, despite the excitement, despite the fervor, despite the sheer giddiness of it all, there was no other book that I anticipated more than this one. It wasn’t even close (sorry KJ Parker, even this one trumped you).
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Hypothetical situation for you. You live in the US, and one day you get a phone call from a doctor that tells you your father has just suffered two major heart attacks, possibly received some brain damage as a result, and that he has consequently sunk into a deep coma. Naturally you rush to his bedside, forget about your life entirely, and fret over every blink and shift until finally, several weeks later, he wakes up. When he does, he starts rambling about how he’s traveled forty years into the future to a little village in South America where he made enemies with some bad ghosties, and that he needs to get back there to figure things out. Then he leaps out of the bed, grabs the lamp, and proceeds to smash it into the wall, stating that one of the ghosties has come to get him. Again, naturally, the doctors at the hospital throw him in the psych ward.

What do you do?
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Buzz, buzz, buzz. Can you hear it? Bees? you wonder, but no. Not bees. Did someone leave the stereo speakers on? No. Not that. Huh. Then what? I’ll tell you what. It’s the buzz of advertisement. Every once in a while we see it pop up. There’s some new book or author that gets people talking and soon it’s all over the place and everyone wants to know more. There was a bundle for NAME OF THE WIND, a grip for TOME OF THE UNDERGATES, and yes there was enough for this book that I got caught up by it. Thus.
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The Wild West. Dusty towns. Empty streets. Tumbleweed rollin’ ‘cross the prairie. Tombstone, Arizona. Ain’t nothin that better describes it. But this ain’t no normal town. No. It’s got electric cars. Magic Indians. Undead and vicious monsters alike. Read em all and weep, people, cause Resnick’s come to town.

THE BUNTLINE SPECIAL (Amazon) is a weird Wild West tale stripped out of the historical annals of the region and twisted to decent effect by the master of science fiction, Mike Resnick. Think “electro-punk western” and you won’t be far off.
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THE HAMMER (Amazon) is KJ Parker’s third stand-alone book since the completion of her Engineer Trilogy, all of which have ostensibly been set in the same fantasy world. Though, if you know anything about her past works, you’ll know that her fantasy (fantastic as it is) isn’t necessarily “fantastical”, as magic is curiously absent throughout most of them. The thing that they do have though is character, and setting, and story. This is one of the many reasons why I love her stuff so much. Just good reading. Well, that, and they make me laugh.
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STALKING THE DRAGON by Mike Resnick (Amazon) is apparently the third in the John Justin Mallory series of fantastical detective stories. It was reprinted by Pyr a bit ago, and I hadn’t read a whole lot by Resnick, so thought I’d pick it up.

Our story starts out with a brief intro of Mallory, the detective and main character of our story, staring into a magical mirror on Valentine’s Day and getting ready to take his partner out to dinner. Then this big, hulk of a man with horns on his head hires Mallory to find his prize-winning, toy dragon by 4pm the following day, at which time it’s supposed to compete in a pet show (think dog-show and you won’t be far off). Normal detective-like happenings ensue.
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You know what I’m getting tired of? Book covers that have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the book. I get the whole “first impression” bit. I understand the very essential concept of getting a potential buyer to just pick up the book. I also know that publishing books is a business. But honestly? The amount of false advertising present on book covers today just ticks me off. Then again, I have no idea what kind of cover might have persuaded me to pick this book up in the first place had it had only dealt with the concepts presented therein, and not been entirely based on a metaphor of the story instead. So, a quandary for you: False-advertising? Or no sales? Option number three, if you ask me.
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To all those looking for my review of this book, I have two words for you:

talking cats

THE END

Oh, hold on, my phone’s ringing…

((beep, beep, boop, eep, eep, boop, oop))

((…ring))

((…ring …click))

Hey, Steve. How’s it going?

((wah))

Cool. So yeah, I just finished reading that POISON THRONE (Amazon) book you guys gave me and I’m throwing a complete blank on how to write the review for it because just about nothing happened in the whole thing. I–

((wah, wah, waah?))

Yeah, really. Nothing. Well, nothing interesting anyhow.
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Right from the moment you pick up a Dan Simmons novel and first set eyes upon the page, you know you’re in for a whole new kind of reading experience. It took me an entire paragraph (yes, the first one, because it’s just that obvious) to realize this would be the case. There is detail, flow and a sense of perfection in the way Simmons has crafted the first scene in BLACK HILLS (Amazon), and I have to admit that I readily gobbled down every delicious bite of it. What’s more, I found that I continued to devour the pages by great sheaves despite the growing concerns niggling at the back of my neck.

Dude can write.
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