jdcorley's Reviews (191)

Oates layers hatred and blindness stop each other in a suffocating and intoxicating mix, and the birthing of monsters and murder throughout it just feels like the skin crawling operation of the hideous crimes of history. An incredible achievement, thoroughly absorbing, and, perhaps most astonishing, she lands the plane, in a bravura combination of fable, sermon and hallucination. Almost unbelievable in it's towering success. I'll never forget it, or forget Lieutenant Bayard disappearing into the occupation of the Philippines, and what stopped in Princeton, and what I know started there.

Stross' horror comedy spy outing is a delight whether or not you've read Deighton or any of the other "English spy bureaucracy" thrillers, where the cynicism and make-work is inextricably tangled with the violence and high stakes. Imaginative use of techno-magic, often thrown into other stories very unthinkingly, adds to the top notch world building. Yet unlike Deighton and the other spy bureaucrats the characters lack the melancholy and depression of seeing the world as it is. Nobody in The Laundry is sad, a major misstep in adaptation. Nevertheless you'll have a real good time, and Stross' end note essays are an interesting look into how he considered it all.

An above average anthology: a few real gems, including the long novella at that end, a few bombs (we shall pass by in decorous silence), and a few interesting twists on the "cursed film" concept. Even the rather staid idea of "the extra who died while filming" is given a phantasmagorical revision. Well worth a look.

Here, a few books in, Stout has his formula down to a razor's edge.  This one's wonderful in part because Wolfe is active - in his way - from the very beginning of the book. There's no long break where Saul Panzer is doing something off screen that eventually cracks the case, but instead, right from the beginning Wolfe is cooking something up.  And Stout gives sufficient implications and hints to cause us to question the basis of the mystery itself, leaving us both susceptible to and excited by every twist and turn.  Hell, even the racial slur a character drops is subject to immediate, dry correction by Wolfe. This is just about as good as Wolfe gets and it's superbly constructed and executed.

Although Burke's core cast is still here, doing their thing, there's a reluctance on his part, or perhaps an inability, to turn the screws on them to the degree that he previously has, and which gives much of the texture to his earlier triumphs. There's some inclination to try to imply a greater, cosmic force to the mysteries of the novel, but this doesn't ever really land given how personal everyone is with each other and how much has been resolved "offscreen" (in reality, in earlier books).  Perhaps this is an example of a bit of rot in a great series. I feel like this review is too negative; it's still a Burke mystery with all our favorite folks doing the things we love them for, including suffering. It just doesn't reach the heights of our favorite stories because, well, we've already been there.

How to rate a Charlie Chan book in 2023? Do you remember the decades of yellowface movies, the stilted use of proper vocabulary and improper grammar in the mouth of Chan, the repeated stereotypes of many ethnicities... or do you look to a book that, when published, attempted to convince the derangedly racist pulp action/mystery audience that, actually, an ethnic "melting pot" wasn't just a good thing, but was a chief feature in the uniquely enchanting world of pre-Statehood Hawaii.... or do you look to the books to its left and right in that genre and timeframe and, with dawning horror, realize that this may be the most sympathetic portrayal of a Chinese person in a pulp mystery until the Mr. Wong short stories of Hugh Wiley over a decade later?  There truly isn't a good answer. Let us therefore say this:

 This is a book where Chan is depicted charismatically and in a complimentary fashion, but it isn't his book. It's a book about a guy from a stilted background who goes West (further West even than the shore of California) and discovers a land of enchantment where he falls in love, gets tangled up in the history of piracy, robbery, murder, slavetrading and - fortunes made - people hiding from the consequences of those actions in the now "tamed" West.  The experience changes him for the better and he gets the girl and the murder is solved.  If we kept to Chan's point of view, perhaps we would be able to find out for ourselves about his interiority.  Through the perspective of our Easterner, we have no such insight.  Without it all we have is the surface and while there are charming things about the portrayal of Chan - certainly you can see how an audience might fall in love with him, a big fat detective who never gives up and is always able to shift to a new point of view when things get cloudy - the author essentially fails to overcome the caricature.  Comparing Chan to the white characters and their priorities and internal experiences is instructive. They are all individuals, not deep characters by any means, since this is a pulp mystery, but not just a surface collection of statements and traits.  In the end, by any criteria you care to choose, this is the real downer of The House Without A Key. And from that point you can see, stretched out before you, all the wildly racist shit that would come with Chan adaptations over the years, despite, perhaps, the author's intentions.  I just can't recommend it.

Although the voice of the narrator is lively and interesting (in all it's guises), the plot is thin and obvious, and even a bit of violence and uncertainty at the end can't bring to life a very by-the-numbers "possession" thriller.

Barron's first novel suffers from short-story-itis to the point of literally having a character tell a ghost story about 35 percent of the way through the book. Similarly, the same descriptions are repeated and repeated as if we were reading them for the first time and not the ninth.  The other rather grotesque flaw is an early diversion to Mexico that winkingly toys with racist stereotype - ah, the characters just making fun of the clueless white narrator, don't get mad, maybe it's you who are the real racist! (extremely obvious wink) 

Despite these speed bumps, Barron clearly stakes out a fairytale Lovecraftian story, a Bluebeard's husband scenario where a guy is in love and so blinds himself to what's happening around him. And that, specifically, is the thrust of the novel. All the shit about adventuring academics and government agents can and do drop out of mind when considering the relationship at the core and how it evolved. One seeks in re-reading to understand how it must have looked from the other side. A marvelous first novel, and, thankfully, slowly tacking away from Barron's usual tics.

A decent enough Lovecraftian collection, but there is something a little perverse about trying to stand inside the Mythos (as McGuire and others do) and lugubriously say "what if we took the point of view of the monsters!"  If there is anything salvageable from Lovecraft after you dig through the racial animus and Victorian cowardice, it's a fear of the alien and unknowable. Taking the point of view of a Deep One just doesn't come across right.  

I've addressed Barron's pulpish dive into Lovecraftiana in my review of his more-extended Xs For Eyes, which includes his story from here. Suffice to say that without anyone lovable at all and full deconstruction on all sides, there's no place to stand.  The rodeo clown story by Tailley is a much more exciting and cackling-fun pulp ride than Barron's because it's so much more straight-faced.  And Lansdale's contribution is uncharacteristically flat, just a full-on recapitulation with nothing new brought to the table.  

Nevertheless the other stories really do pop, with the fear of dementia and helplessness, of poverty and seeing too much when you're too vulnerable to really do anything about it, and the illustrations are a nice touch. It's worth sitting down with; better than a lot of Lovecraftian anthologies lurking around various ebook sites.

Others have covered the content warnings better than me, don't take anything from my lack of offering them.

A real romp, with Archie's good heartedness on display from the first chapter. Sometimes the wisecracking and bickering covers up the morality of Wolfe and Goodwin, but not here. However the death of Faith Usher occurred, it was a tragedy, and they work to honor the tragedy while others walk away, move on, close the door or cover it up. And Purley Stebbins gets a compliment from Wolfe! What a day.