JAY RUSSELL REVIEWS   

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The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King
Published by Hodder & Stoughton (Donald M. Grant US $45.00)
Stephen King made yet another splash in publishing last year with his serial novel THE GREEN MILE. The six chapters of THE GREEN MILE were published in consecutive months to critical and (of course) commercial success. Some thought it a gimmick (the thin volumes were outrageously overpriced), others a return to the grand tradition of bygone storytelling. In either case, it was a bold and unusual project for an author who *could* coast as much as he wanted to. THE DARK TOWER is, of course, King's other serial project, though one that rather more strains the patience of faithful readers. The first volume, THE GUNSLINGER, was published in 1982; since then, a new (and progressively lengthier) chapter has appeared every five years or so. WIZARD AND GLASS, the fourth volume in this self-consciously epic fantasy saga, inspired by Robert Browning's "Childe Rowland to the Dark Tower Came," has come six years after THE WASTELANDS, which ended in a maddening cliffhanger. That's an awfully long time to let readers dangle. Was it worth the wait?
The short answer is yes. WIZARD AND GLASS is every bit as enthralling, exciting and inventive as the previous volumes, and perhaps a bit more emotionally rewarding than what has preceded it. King clearly revels in his return visits to this particular corner of his imagination, and it shows in the detail and richness with which he sketches Roland, the "hero" and last Gunslinger, his peculiar fellowship, and his strangely familiar world. The US hardcover, with 18 lovely colour plates by the brilliant Dave McKean, weighs in at nearly 800 pages, but does not read as nearly so bloated as some recent King doorstops. The pages turn like fan blades on a hot afternoon and for all its heft, the book is a toughie to put down.
King has, however, taken the risk of seriously annoying readers by not really moving the story forward in WIZARD AND GLASS. Although the first hundred pages resolve the cliffhanger (somewhat anti-climactically, though perhaps that was inevitable), the next 600 pages offer a flashback telling of Roland in his youth, his first love, and how and why he came to embark on his endless quest for the still mysterious Dark Tower. The flashback is effectively a western with fantasy/horror elements, brilliantly told and ultimately quite moving -- and it does provide important information about Roland's world and his personality -- but effectively leaves us back where we started six years ago. Some may find that disappointing.
The pages which do take place in the saga's "present" provide several tantalizing and provocative glimpses of things to come, including the revelation that THE DARK TOWER connects directly with King's other epic novel, THE STAND. In an afterword, the author indicates that future volumes (at least three still to come) will touch on other King novels and characters as well. At this rate we'll all be collecting our pensions before the story concludes, but then it's always nice to have something to look forward to .

Bad Chili by Joe R. Lansdale
Published by Gollancz at £9.99 on 30 October 1997
It is a pleasure, indeed, to report that the fourth go-round in this immensely enjoyable series about Texas trouble-magnets Hap Collins and Leonard Pine shows no sign at all of author fatigue. BAD CHILI is an irresistible concoction of spicy gunplay, tasty characterization and jalapeno-hot dialogue.
The plot is as screwy as a rabid squirrel, involving illicit videos, a dead biker, grease-snatching (!), a chili king, a tornado, and -- oh, yeah -- a rabid squirrel. Leonard is the chief suspect in a murder involving his ex-lover's new boyfriend and Hap is out to clear him. The story has more twists and turns than a moebius pretzel, and while I'm not sure it all makes perfect sense, it manages to be both gripping and very, very funny. It is impossible to read this book without a finding dopey smile plastered across your puss. Nobody, but nobody, turns a phrase quite like Joe Lansdale. What do I mean? How about his description of an unseasonably hot April day as "like two rats in caps and sweaters fucking in a wool sock under a sun lamp."
As in the previous books in the series, voice and tone are the author's main concerns. If BAD CHILI's narrative is a little less taut than TWO-BEAR MAMBO, it makes up for it in sureness and precision of character. As absurd as story events sometimes get, Lansdale never surrenders credibility or reader identification. We always care about even the secondary characters because they are so fully and immediately defined, and Hap and Leonard become a little richer, a little more real with each new adventure. Lansdale ices the BAD CHILI cake with the introduction of Joe Bob Luke, a private investigator and serious Texas bad-ass. If Lansdale doesn't go ahead and write Joe Bob his own book, I'll personally institute a class-action suit on behalf of all aggrieved readers.
As Lansdale matures, the best point of comparison to his work is probably James Crumley. Both writers have distinctive and powerful voices and set their tales in an iconic, but not cliched geography of the American west. The hilarious opening chapters of BAD CHILI bring to mind the perfect first chapter of Crumley's masterpiece, THE LAST GOOD KISS. Lansdale has not quite reached the pinnacle of that work -- then again, who since Raymond Chandler has? -- but it's very clearly within his sights. Maybe that Joe Bob Luke novel...

Death: The Time of Your Life by Neil Gaiman
Illustrated by Chris Bachalo, Mark Buckingham and Mark Pennington
Published by Titan Books at £7.99 28 November
Although there's been a bit of a backlash against his success and popularity, Neil Gaiman stands as one of the very few real writers to emerge from mainstream comics. His work on SANDMAN stands as one of the medium's great achievements, and in short stories like "Murder Mysteries" and his recent novel NEVERWHERE, he's shown that his talent extends to straight prose. DEATH: THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE collects the second three-issue spin-off series from SANDMAN, and adds four pages left out of the original printing. It is very good stuff indeed.
Comics don't offer much of a way in for those not already involved with the form and this mini-series suffers somewhat from an expectation that readers will already know the background material out of SANDMAN. "Death" herself, incarnated as an attractive goth-y punkette, is sister to Morpheus -- the Sandman -- who are two of seven siblings representing key aspects of existence/philosophy (Desire, Despair, Destiny, etc.). If that sounds a bit goofy, well, it is, but it works surprisingly well under Gaiman's subtle guidance, not at all as pretentious or portentous as one might fear.
The main characters in TIME OF YOUR LIFE, pop star Foxglove and her lover Hazel, also previously appeared in SANDMAN, in the very moving "A Game of You" story arc. Here they are facing an emotional crisis brought on by Fox's growing fame and a tragedy involving their little boy. A deal is struck with Death -- ain't that always the way? -- and the payoff calls into question the nature of love, loyalty and desire (albeit with a small "d"). This may be a comic book, but the characters feel very real, the emotions true. Gaiman's greatest talent is the way he renders believable people and situations against fantasy backdrops of staggering imagination.
The artwork neatly fleshes out Gaiman's characters and conceits. Bachalo and Buckingham's pencils are seamlessly interwoven bringing an expressiveness and solidity to the faces and figures, and suitable sense of wonder to the more phantasmagorical elements. The panel and page design is simple, effective and non-intrusive. Dave McKean's covers are, as ever, wonderful.
THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE will probably work best for those who do already know the characters, but it is not so hermetic or self-involved as to baffle new readers. This may not be the perfect introduction to intelligent comics (try Gaiman and McKean's MR. PUNCH), but it is accessible and highly rewarding to those willing to give it a chance.

Preacher: Proud Americans by Garth Ennis
Published by Titan Books at £9.99 on 10 October 1997
and Steve Dillon PREACHER has been the one real commercial success to emerge from DC's Vertigo line of "mature" comics in its post-SANDMAN period. PROUD AMERICANS is the third collection of the monthly comic, collecting issues #18-26. These chapters advance the series' on-going story line, but offer a pair of more accessible one-off tales to boot.
The main plot, which is deliberately over-the-top in the worst (best?) dead-baby joke tradition, is too absurd to summarize, but has something to do with battles amongst god, the angels and a conspiratorial religious cult. Jesse Custer, the Preacher, is possessed by some mystical force and hangs out with a vampire named Cassidy and a gun-toting babe called Tulip. It's all sort of fun, in an exceedingly puerile way, but Ennis is too devoted to crude splatter violence and cheesy jokes to make the story sufficiently involving. The whole war-amongst-the-angels plot (which Ennis first set out in his stint on the more interesting HELLBLAZER series) reeks just a little too much of similar, vastly superior work by Neil Gaiman in comics and straight prose. Steve Dillon's art is adequate if spare, but his palette remains far too limited and dull, the faces of his characters too bland.
PREACHER is passable entertainment for undemanding fans of gratuitous violence (a club to which I usually belong), but the annoying thing about the comic is that Ennis is so obviously capable of much more. The last two issues collected in PROUD AMERICANS hint at just how good a writer Ennis could be. These stand-alone chapters tell the tale of how Cassidy became a vampire during the 1916 Easter Uprising, and of his subsequent, non-supernatural life. As previously demonstrated in his best HELLBLAZER work, Ennis has a real affinity for Irish settings and politics. He is so good at developing characters and writing convincing dialogue for them -- abilities sorely absent in the flat world of comic book storytelling -- that his continued wallowing in the silliest of genre excesses seems almost criminal in comparison. If Ennis tacked a post-it above his desk, with the reminder "More character, less castration," the work would benefit enormously.

Sin City: That Yellow Bastard by Frank Miller
Published by Titan Books at £10.99 on 17 October 1997
Frank Miller is another frustrating study in comic book underachievement. Miller's brilliant BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS remains a stellar accomplishment, but his work in the subsequent decade has been largely disappointing. Miller has been mining the hardboiled, black-and-white SIN CITY world for several years now, in tales which mark an admirable departure from the world of caped superheroes. Miller clearly aspires to the gritty heights of Raymond Chandler-meets-Jim Thompson in these dark stories, but despite some genuinely striking visuals and a convincingly grim take on human nature, rarely achieves more than bargain basement Mickey Spillane.
Like Garth Ennis on PREACHER, Miller is more concerned with specific effect than with good storytelling. SIN CITY is rendered in the starkest possible black and white, both visually and dramatically. The effect of Miller's white scratchings on black backgrounds is often bold and eye-catching -- Miller has style up the wazoo -- but the story is so cliched and unidimensional as to be, well, cartoonish. That may seem a redundant description of a comic book, but no less than film or prose, good comic book stories are rich, multi-layered and compelling. Miller, for all his design grace, and talent for panel flow and radical page effects, happily shortchanges character and narrative to indulge silly plot conceits. (Please, please, please, let there be no more crime stories set on the eve of a policeman's retirement.) A good genre tale need not be terribly innovative -- there's still lots to be done even within the familiar conventions of crime/mystery -- but at some point, a work must be more than just a recapitulation or exaggeration of those conventions; for all his panache as an artist, Miller comes up seriously short in this regard. SIN CITY is yet another title which, I fear, will not win any new converts to the medium.

Spawn by Todd McFarlane
Published by Titan Books at £7.99 each on 14 August 1997
SPAWN: CREATION
SPAWN: EVOLUTION
SPAWN: REVELATION
I'd normally skip reviewing anything this manifestly awful, but with the SPAWN movie upon us, something has got to be said. These three volumes collect fourteen of the first fifteen issues of Todd McFarlane's ongoing, immensely popular and utterly dire comic book. McFarlane has made millions off this dreck for reasons which will escape anyone over the age of fifteen. I truly love comics -- a wondrous medium that has desperately under-achieved for sixty years -- but SPAWN represents everything that's lousy about the form: sloppy, meandering storytelling, dreadful dialogue and annoying adolescent angst. The story is horror-cum-superhero, but doesn't make any particular sense even within its own fuzzy logic. Though McFarlane definitely has a talent for drawing eye-catching (not to mention eye-gouging) panels, he has no sense for panel to panel movement, or larger scale composition. The action/fight scenes, normally the mainstay of such fare, are indecipherable and dull. Some of the drawings are incredibly detailed, but manage to convey only confusion rather than depth or complexity, and what small appeal the artwork initially has grows quickly tiresome. Even when McFarlane gives such proven talents as Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore a chance to write an issue, there is nothing they can do with the subject matter. If you want to understand what some of us see in comic books check out Dave McKean's CAGES, or FROM HELL by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, or Seth's IT'S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN, or best of all Chris Ware's astonishing ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY. There is much more to comics than SPAWN. Honest.

Bright Darkness by Jeremy Dyson
Published by Cassell at £14.99  August 1997
BRIGHT DARKNESS is a readable, almost desperately friendly survey of classic horror films that has no obvious reason to exist. Dyson retreads extremely familiar material here, offering chatty commentary but little fresh insight into the subject matter. In fact, it is not clear what Dyson's subject matter really is, for while he declares an intent to focus on "supernatural horror," which he claims is a lost art, he provides no meaningful definition of the term, and happily discusses manifestly non-supernatural films if they happen to be ones that he likes (e.g. a chapter on KING KONG). Dyson makes clear that he is not writing an academic book -- fair enough -- but while one need not engage with the often obscure discourses of modern film theory, a writer must articulate a thesis of some sort for a coherent book. Lacking any such thesis, Dyson's rambling discussions of individual films fail to hang together or suggest a larger meaning or genre understanding. So much has been written about the horror film by now, much of it extremely sophisticated, that this sort of casual, gee-whiz discussion reads as merely fannish. Carlos Clarens did a far better job covering most of this material in his classic ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE HORROR FILM thirty years ago. (Clarens is glaringly absent from Dyson's meagre bibliography.) Readers who know absolutely nothing about the horror film may get something out of BRIGHT DARKNESS, but others will be puzzled or bored by it. All concerned would do better to track down a copy of Clarens for basic history and analysis.

Film and Censorship edited by Ruth Petrie
Published by Cassell
A reader of articles collected from INDEX ON CENSORSHIP to celebrate its 25th anniversary, this volume unsurprisingly shares the virtues and shortcomings of that generally worthy publication. Graced with a cover photo from CRASH -- though there's nothing about the Cronenberg film in the book -- FILM AND CENSORSHIP reprints 31 essays and articles about various forms of repression of cinema by an impressive array of filmmakers and critics from around the world. There are a number of articles about mainstream American movies, but as in the magazine, the editor has made a conscious effort to incorporate a broad range of commentary about the entirety of world cinema, including pieces on Brazil, Chile, Turkey, China, Iran, Africa and Eastern Europe. Predictably, some of the articles have dated badly -- James Ivory's cringe-inducing whine about merciless Hollywood being the worst offender -- though there is much of interest to students of both cinema and politics. As is so often the case in INDEX ON CENSORSHIP, the good articles are much too short -- e.g., Mark Kermode's piece on horror films -- but then that is the house style. Notes about the contributors really should have been included, but otherwise this is a useful volume to keep on the shelf and a cause worth supporting.

 Shadows Over Innsmouth  Edited by Stephen Jones
Vista Paperback £5.99. See INTERVIEW with Stephen Jones
H.P. Lovecraft is one of those iconic figures whom it is pointless to critique. His devotees won't hear a word against him and, well, if you're not already a devotee you probably couldn't care less. There's no denying Lovecraft's historical importance within horror, particularly the influence he has had on several generations of rather vastly superior writers, from Robert Bloch and Fritz Leiber to Ramsey Campbell and Stephen King. I think everyone who reads horror has had a go at Lovecraft at some point -- probably in their teen years, when his Cthulhu Mythos of Elder Gods, bizarre rites and that holy of unholies, The Necronomicon, echo with a special profundity.
Editor Stephen Jones has taken one of Lovecraft's better stories, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," as a point of departure for a themed anthology of Lovecraftian tales by contemporary horror writers. Originally published as a small press volume in 1994, it is now available as a trade paperback from Gollancz. The anthology shares some traits (and contributors) with Jones' recent MAMMOTH BOOK OF DRACULA, working out a kind of broad history of the blighted town of Innsmouth across the years. The book, with seven original stories and ten reprints, is quite good fun -- and manifestly lovingly assembled -- but falls short of the DRACULA volume largely because of the inherent limitations of Lovecraft's material: the king of all vampires simply offers greater opportunity for literary variation than do Lovecraft's batrachian horrors from the Deep.
Jones opens the volume by reprinting the Lovecraft tale which inspired it. "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" is a surprisingly readable Lovecraft effort, less hyperbolic than some, though typically clumsy and ill-paced. The tale introduces us to the cursed Massachusetts town of Innsmouth, and the Deep Ones, the ancient Dagon-worshipping race who dwell beneath the sea. Lovecraft simply wasn't very good at moving a story along, though here, at least, he conveys an impressively enduring sense of repulsion. Several of the contributors -- Basil Copper, Brian Lumley, Guy N. Smith -- attempt to adhere to Lovecraft's own tone and style, and succeed and fail in much the way that Lovecraft himself does. The Lumley tale, "Dagon's Bell" is as absurdly overblown as old H.P. on his goofiest day.
The more interesting stories are those which expand on Lovecraft without falling prey to the basic silliness of his premises. Peter Tremayne's "Daoine Domhaine" is an impressive blending of Lovecraftian lore with Irish myth, while Brian Mooney's "The Tomb of Priscus" interweaves the Deep Ones with mysterious aspects of the Roman occupation of Britain. The interplay of mythologies in both stories proves most appealing.
The best stories, though, are those which depart more radically from the Lovecraftian mode. Kim Newman is represented by two stories (one under his pseudonym of Jack Yeovil): "A Quarter to Three" is a slight, Robert Bloch kind of thing, existing only to reach to the punchline of its final sentence; "The Big Fish," a tongue-in-cheeky mixing of Raymond Chandler and Lovecraft, rises well above the level of mere pastiche suggesting that Newman, one of the finest writers in horror, could well be as brilliant a crime writer if he so desired.
Nicholas Royle goes the furthest afield with "The Homecoming," a dour, dismal and rather literary tale of a return to Bucharest after the fall of Ceausescu. It is by far the most challenging piece in the book, and Royle is, as ever, an enviably elegant stylist, though perhaps he does share with Lovecraft a certain casual approach to pacing.
The best work in the book comes, as is the case in most books in which he appears, from Michael Marshall Smith. "To See the Sea" features yet another of Smith's painful, perfectly rendered male-female relationships. The Lovecraftian element retains a powerful solidity, yet effectively serves as mere metaphor for a damaged psyche. Played as metaphor, Lovecraft is much more digestible and ultimately more horrific. Smith is as fine a short story writer as is working today -- last year's "Not Waving" in Ellen Datlow's TWISTS OF THE TALE is sheer brilliance -- so ignore him at your peril.
Other good work comes from Neil Gaiman, Brian Stableford and David Langford. As a major bonus, the book is delightfully (which is to say disgustingly) illustrated by Dave Carson, Martin McKenna and Jim Pitts. It is, on the whole, a book well worth reading, though perhaps not all in one go. If Lovecraft remains something of an acquired taste, Stephen Jones has at least made him a little more palatable in this form.

 Disturbia by Christopher Fowler
Warner Paperback £5.99
Writers and publishers exist in a kind of reluctant symbiosis; each would much prefer to live an idyllic existence in which the other wasn't necessary, but as in the case of those teeming micro-organisms that keep our guts from exploding, everybody gets something out of the arrangement. (Though again, writers and publishers could never agree about who owns the gut and who is the crud-eating parasite.) In several of these reviews, I've remarked on the dire state of horror publishing at the present moment, and note again the general reluctance of publishers to admit that a new novel bears even the most tenuous relationship to the genre. (Indeed, one half-suspects that if Lovecraft were writing today, the publisher would try to market tales of Cthulhu as "Cosmic Romance" or some such.) It thus seems odd that Warner Books have chosen to so visibly tack the horror label on DISTURBIA, which really is not a horror novel at all. Maybe Warner know something, and an upturn in the market is on the way. (I can dream, can't I?)
More likely, because most of Fowler's previous work was horror, they're afraid of confusing readers. (publishers don't think much of readers, you know.) Given Fowler's solid name and reputation, none of it is likely to matter, because ultimately DISTURBIA is a gripping and enjoyable, if slightly daft mainstream thriller.
Would-be investigative journalist Vincent Reynolds stumbles upon the League of Prometheus, a secretive rich men's club whose power and influence is all-pervasive. His efforts to expose the cabal, and its games-loving leader, traps him in a Hitchcockian scenario in which he must race around London in order to solve a series of puzzles in the course of single night. The stakes, of course, are his life, though as the night progresses, Vincent learns that rather more extreme consequences hinge on his actions. The puzzles are inhumanly difficult, the rules of the game impossibly severe, and the result is a foregone conclusion. Or is it?
Fowler wrings quite a lot out of what is obviously not the most innovative of story lines. He does it with crisp, sharp writing, concise characterization, and a focused eye for detail. Fowler knows and loves London and communicates his own keen sense of the city on every page (with Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE, this is the second terrific "hidden" London book to appear in recent months). Vincent is likeable, but also a bit of a jerk, and Fowler is not afraid to show us that fact. A few of the secondary characters feel a bit like Ealing comedy remainders, but for all the suspense at the center of the story, the tone of the book is essentially lighthearted. The plot doesn't entirely convince or always make sense, but Fowler's underlying good-humour redeems any such shortcomings. DISTURBIA, like Fowler's previous two novels, also features terrific cover design. Surprise, surprise, Fowler is director of a film promotion company and supervises the designs himself. But you'll have to excuse me now; I feel something bubbling away in my gut.