Mamatas, Nick: Under My Roof 2/2007 Under My Roof is narrated by a smart-assed telepathic twelve-year-old whose father builds a nuclear weapon in a lawn gnome and declares his home a sovereign nation. If that doesn’t draw you in, nothing will. Part biting political satire, part humorous YA novel, Under My Roof invokes a rare sense of optimistic anarchism while daring to imagine a better future. Pick up a copy for the smart-assed twelve-year-old in your life.
Miéville, China: Un Lun Dun 2/2007 Un Lun Dun is the sort of book that promises the staying power of a classic. Though intended for young readers, Un Lun Dun can be enjoyed by adults as well, and Miéville does an excellent job of setting up, and then thwarting, the clichés and expectations inherent in YA quest motifs, from the idea of a “chosen one” to the intricacies of the quests themselves. At times, Un Lun Dun is reminiscent of the linguistically-playful tone of Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth or Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, and, like those authors, Miéville isn’t afraid to resort to a clever pun. Well worth reading.
Moore, C.L.: Jirel of Joiry If Swords and Sorcery is the brand of fantasy you’re looking for, then C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry is just the girl for you. Red-haired, armor-clad, and dealing out destruction with her massive two-handed sword, Jirel set the standard for tough warrior women decades before Xena, Warrior Princess or even Tolkien’s Arwen and Éowyn. Girl power, indeed.
Moorcock, Michael: The Elric Saga: Part II 6/2007 Rounding out the second half of the six original books of Moorcock’s celebrated Elric Saga, this compliation of The Vanishing Tower, The Bane of the Black Sword, and Stormbringer continues to deliver the sword and sorcery thrills, weird epic adventure, and fantasy counter-stereotypes initiated in Elric of Melnibone. With literary chops like Moorcock’s, it is no wonder that the Elric Saga has inspired generations of heavy metal-listening, socio-sexual identity-questioning, scrawny, bookish, longhaired, teenage boys to shout “Blood and Souls for my lord Arioch” at inappropriate times. Still, the conclusion to the saga begs one question: After your evil magic sword kills your fiancé, your traveling companions, your child bride, your best friend, your arch-enemy cousin, your arch-enemy's armies, your arch-enemy’s gods, your god, and yourself, what do you do for an encore? I guess the answer to that may lie in The Elric Saga, Part III, comprised of the more recent Elric novels The Fortress of the Pearl and The Revenge of the Rose, but maybe not, since there are three more books (chronicling the Albino’s adventures in America, I understand) that follow.
Moorcock, Michael, ed: New Words: An Anthology 7/2007 A mixed bag, too often marred by the hallmarks of psychedelic-era literary cleverness (think Burroughs meets Ballard). High points are M. John Harrison's “Running Down,” a story that puts a remarkable human face on entropy, and Daphine Castell’s ‘In the Realms of Tolkien,” a heartfelt essay on The Lord of the Rings that is written with unexpected tenderness and aplomb. My copy includes an odd typographical hiccough: Plural possessives are often marked by an end quote instead of an apostrophe, rendering dialogue confusing.
Moorcock, Michael: The Elric Saga: Part I 6/2007 I attempted, but never made it through, this series as a kid, inspired its pantheon’s inclusion in the original Dungeons and Dragons Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia (the Melniboné mythos, along with H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu Mythos, were removed from subsequent printings - and my sister's ex-husband swiped my copy from a box in my parents' garage, the rat!). Now, mid-way through the first six books (the series has, over the last twenty years, grown to nine, er, eleven books – no wonder I’m series-phobic), and having read much more of Moorcock’s work, I better can appreciate melancholic Melnibonéan Monarch, his adventures, his inspirations (Anthony Skene’s Monsieur Zenith and the The Kalevala's Kullervo, and his integration into Moorcock’s overall Eternal Champion cosmology. Besides, it’s a fun, quick read, with lots of “hack and slash” action, memorable characters and monsters, and far fewer songs than Tolkien.
Moorcock, Michael: The Cornelius Quartet 1/2007 Michael Moorcock's The Cornelius Chronicles contains 974 pages of absurdist, non-linear, psychedelic-era science fantasy featuring as its protagonist Jerry Cornelius, "a sexually ambivalent, amoral (but exceedingly oral) portmanteau anti-hero who was part saint and part devil, an instant myth of the pop sixties whose tastes in music, clothes, cars, drugs, wombs, technology, and apotheosis all seemed to make him an authentic emblem of Swinging London and (more narrowly) of the New Wave in sf which Moorcock had instigated" (vii-viii). continue
Pollack, Neil: Never Mind the Pollacks 3/2007 Neal Pollack skewers fifty years of rock-and-roll idol worship in this mean-spirited, yet laugh-out-loud funny, piss-take on rock criticism. From its cough-syrup swilling anti-protagonist, the out-Lester Bangs-ing critic Neal Pollack (yeah, you read that right) to its swipes at everybody from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen to Iggy Pop to Johnny Rotten to Kurt Cobain, Never Mind the Pollacks is a wild, decadent, and fun ride through rock-and-roll excess. Sure, it’s nothing Hunter Thompson didn’t already do years earlier, but it’s still fun.
Pratt, Tim: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl 2/2007 The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl does some neat new tricks with the old fantasy convention of world-to-world portals. An easy recommendation.
Rauch, Stephen: Neil Gaiman's The Sandman and Joseph Campbell: In Search of the Modern Myth 3/2004 Many of those who have discovered the universe of Neil Gaiman's groundbreaking Sandman series of graphic novels have been captivated by the literate and mythic qualities of these works which elevate the comic book medium from the realm of popular entertainment to literature. One person so enchanted by the series is Stephen Rauch, author of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman and Joseph Campbell: In Search of the Modern Myth. continue
