Showing posts with label Alternate Realities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alternate Realities. Show all posts

Thursday, August 3, 2023

The Music Of The Spheres


The Music Of The Spheres, by Allister Thompson
April, 2021  Independently Published

I recently went on another of my rock novel kicks and started trying to find a novel I’d come across the mention of years ago, something about a prog rock band. At the time I wasn’t into prog rock so didn’t look further into the book, the title of which now escapes me. But I’m into prog rock now, baby, so I went on a hunt for “novel about a prog rock band.” I never did manage to find the novel I’d come across the mention of years ago, but somehow I did manage to end up finding out about a writer named Allister Thompson and his recently-published rock novel The Music Of The Spheres, a sort of alternate-history rock novel (set in 1968) in which psychedelic rock bands are the vanguard of free speech in a corporate and drug-controlled world. 

Running to 270 pages, The Music Of The Spheres does a fine job of bringing to life this strange alternate 1968; Thompson sprinkles background material into the narrative instead of shoehorning in all of his world-building. But we learn that for one, the United States never existed in this timeline, with the Americas still a colony of the Empire. Also, despite being set in 1968, there’s an almost sci-fi vibe to the novel, with entire cities covered in domes and such advanced technology that compact discs have recently been introduced into the late 1960s music market. 

Despite this, the rockers of our real world still proliferate, though in alternate forms and with names that are jokes on their real-world counterparts. For example, psychedelic voyagers The Peuce Frank, with lead guitarist Bill Fillmour and acid casualty former lead singer Ned Barrett, is clearly intended to be Pink Floyd, just as jazzy psych voyagers The Flying Teapots are intended to be Gong. Better yet, we have meat-eating, right-winged Ned Loogeant and his band the Muttonchop Killers, known for their hatred of all things hippie – not to be confused, of course, with Ted Nuget and the Amboy Dukes. Thompson fills the novel with jokey fake band names that are plays on real-world bands, but occasionally will slip in reference to a real group – for example I caught references to The Pretty Things, Kaleidoscope, and Fairport Convention. 

The opening of The Music Of The Spheres is especially cool. Hero Simon Hastings (the novel is told in third-person, by the way, but we have a first-person opening by a narrator – a scholar telling us this story in the format of a novel – who will occasionally pop up in the narrative) is with his band the Spheres in New York, about to play a concert with the Muttonchop Killers and The Asparagus Stalks, “a group of white Hundu vegetarians who propounded their creed via the new hard rock genre, a style of music highlighted by an overpowering use of distortion.” 

Thompson slowly brings us into this world, in which all drugs have been legalized – at least, those that are not deemed to be addictive. It’s a sort of dystopia, with the Cartels running South America (again, the novel’s 1968 seems to be taken from future decades) and the corporations running the West, and the rock groups are allowed to exist so as to be heroes for the people. It’s a cool conceit, with these pyschedelic rockers nearly seen as superheroes by the downtrodden masses, their art welcomed by a drug-addled community. Visionaries who are given free reign to pursue their most crazed excesses – in other words, it’s a late ‘60s in which the whole space rock/prog rock thing was fully formed…and the more out-there musicians are the ones at the forefront. Time moves so fast in this world that even previous trendsetters “The Beach Bums” and whatever the fake Beatles name was (I forget) have been pushed aside by the burgeoning space rock scene. As for the Rolling Stones, they’re a Mick and Keith-lacking group called the Wylde Flowers which goes more for improvisation on drums, bass, and organ. 

Our hero is referred to as “Hastings” throughout, and I thought it was strange that we’d refer to our “hippie” hero by his last name. But then, Simon Hastings doesn’t come off much like a hippie…he’s in his early 30s and is a bit too posh and reserved. I mean, “hippie” is a pretty specific term, referring to a specific type of person, and not an accurate description of Simon Hastings. I just chalked this up as another of those alternate reality differences, as Hastings is called a “hippie” by all and sundry, including his dad when Hastings goes back to London to visit him. 

For me the main problem with The Music Of The Spheres is this cool world of free drugs and cosmos-soaring acid rockers isn’t as exploited as it could be; instead, we take a turn in the first quarter into a murder-conspiracy angle, and despite returning to the “rock novel” setup around page 150 Thompson still keeps focusing on the murder and the conspiracy. I just didn’t find this nearly as compelling as the world itself; the fifty-page opening sequence alone, in which Hastings and his band, the Hawkwind analogue The Spheres, take a variety of drugs in perparation for their upcoming gig, watching as the Muttonchop Killers get in a fistfight with the Asparagus Stalks (who just want to do a little group meditation). 

But then Guy Calvert, charismatic lead singer and poet of The Spheres (not to be confused with Robert Calvert of Hawkwind, of course), ODs on stage – a parallel of the climactic incident in the earlier rock novel Triple Platinum. And, as with that novel, we’ll find that there was more behind this death than just wanton drug use, though that’s what the cops chalk it up as. Thompson has it that the rock scene is so hated by straight society that cops rarely investigate claims of murder or foul play in the hippie world, thus the cops on the scene declare that Guy got what was coming to him, what with all his drug use, and there’s no “murder” to investigate. 

So the frustrating thing is…we don’t even get to see anything with the Spheres! The first pages build up this world, with Hastings and his group about to have their big gig, supporting their latest album…and Calvert dies almost as soon as the gig starts (though of course first he confirms that his mellotron is set up!), and next thing you know the band’s broken up and Hastings is on his way down to Colombia to track down the man he thinks murdered Guy – a Hispanic type who showed up with a lot of new drugs for the band to try, eagerly encouraging them and then watching from the wings as if waiting for something bad to happen to them. In other words, he was an assassin, psychedelic drugs his weapon of choice, and Hastings spends some pages finding out who he is and where he came from. 

As mentioned the novel takes place in a world that seems curiously modern, so this South America is run by the cartels (even the airlines!), and cocaine dust is funnelled into the air pumps for the domed city. I did really enjoy this “drugged-out future” scenario but don’t feel that it was sufficiently exploited, either; Hastings starts off the novel as a partaker of these weird drugs, but after Guy’s murder he abstains for the most part. But those opening 50 pages are cool, though – Hastings, for example, starts off the novel taking something called a “C-Enhancer,” a drug which allows him to feel the emotions of those around him. 

Actually, the first half of The Music Of The Spheres had me experiencing déjà vu. The psychedelic superhero protagonists, the wanton drug use, the alternate ‘60s setting, the general British vibe – finally I realized it reminded me of the obscure British comic Storming Heaven, which I reviewed here back in 2010. The Music Of The Spheres is similar in many regards to that comic, minus of course actual superhero stuff. I found the odd little touches the coolest, like a minor mention of a current craze in which London juveniles wear eerie blue lenses that cover their eyes, making them look like little aliens. 

The novel also picks up the vibe of another book I reviewed here: namely, The Psychedelic Spy. Hastings hooks up with a cartel operative in Colombia who gives him a special pistol, which reminded me of the special gun used in that earlier novel. Not that Hastings becomes a spy. Instead, he heads back to London and here, near the midway point, the novel gets back into the “rock novel” vibe, with Hastings and his former bandmates putting together a new group, to be named Astronomy. Again they are essentially Hawkwind, and also Hastings’s American girlfriend Teresa plays keyboards. 

That’s right, girlfriend. For a novel about a drugged-out rocker, The Music Of The Spheres is G-rated in the sex department. Typical of a novel written today, there is zero exploitation of any female characters – the only characters who show any libido are the pricks in the Muttonchop Killers, and given the derision everyone treats them with, it’s clear these inclinations are to be seen with dismay. My Trash Senses were already tingling in the first few pages, in which Hastings thinks of his girlfriend, and we’re told he’s always been “a one-woman guy.” Sadly, the Sleaze-O-Meter stayed at one or below for the entirety of the novel; even when said girlfriend, Teresa, finally appears halfway through the book, she spends the majority of the novel ranting against the establishment and pushing Hastings to fight for socialism. 

We have some stuff with Astronomy touring around Europe – including an appearance of a pseudo-Can (twenty years ago I was obsessed with Can, but these days I can barely stand to listen to them). And Thompson actually describes the music (according to his bio, he himself was once in a prog band), so unlike a lot of the “rock novels” I’ve reviewed here we actually get an idea of what some of these songs sound like. I also loved how a mellotron was mentioned throughout the text. But gradually the “conspiracy” angle comes back, climaxing in a cool scene where Hastings uses that special sonic gun he was given in Colombia. The finale of the novel has Hastings finding out that someone is targeting the top “radicals” in the rock movement, Guy having been one of the victims and Hastings finding his own name on the target list. It all climaxes with Hastings infiltrating the fortress of a German pharma company that is the main psychedelic drug provider of the West – again, all like a spy novel. 

I haven’t mentioned yet, but The Music Of The Spheres is self-published. I have to say though, judging from the self-published books I’ve read over the years, the old saw about self-published books being poorly written should be dismissed these days. What I’m trying to say is, the novel is very well written, and Thompson keeps the narrative moving, though sometimes he summarizes events that I felt should have been dwelt more upon. My main contention was that the book panned out to be something different than what I expected – I still think the concept of a legion of drug-fueled psychedelic shaman-rockers acting as the “voice” of the collective masses is ripe for potential, so maybe Thompson could do another book in this world and remove the crime and conspiracy angles.

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Logan’s Search (Logan’s Run #3)


Logan’s Search, by William F. Nolan
October, 1980  Bantam Books

“With this volume the Logan trilogy is complete.” So claims author William Nolan in a brief but somewhat self-congratulatory Preface, which is funny given that in the second volume he promised to keep Logan “running for a long time.” I guess Nolan must’ve plumb run out of ideas, thus a potentially long-running series was changed to a “trilogy.” Logan’s Search would be proof of Nolan’s paucity of ideas for this particular character and his world, given that it’s basically a rewrite of Logan’s Run. I have to admit though…perversely enough, Logan’s Search turned out to be my favorite book in the trilogy!

It’s some time after Logan’s World, at least nine months, as we’re informed at the outset that Jessica is in the late terms of pregnancy. It will be a boy, and she’s finally succeeded in convincing Logan that they should name the child Jaq, after their previous son – ie the young boy who was almost casually killed in the previous book. Humorously, Jaq is mentioned more here than he was in the entirety of Logan’s World. It’s almost as if Nolan realized, “Wait a second – I killed Logan’s kid in the previous book. That’s kind of a big deal!” Whereas Logan and Jessica practically took the loss of their prepubescent son in stride in Logan’s World, here we finally get a bit of emotional content from both characters, particularly Logan.

I say “particularly Logan” because once again he’s the star of the show and Jessica’s cast out of the narrative. Actually, this Jessica, ie the one we know from Logan’s Run, is cast out of the narrative, but more on that anon. If you’ll recall, Jaq was murdered and Jessica was adbucted and abused in Logan’s World because our “hero” Logan just flat-out abandoned them, not even leaving them with a gun for protection. Well folks you’d think Logan would’ve learned his lesson from all that. But nope. Because as Logan’s Search opens, someone from Chicago flies in, says his people have plenty of medicine but hardly any food, and strikes up a bargain with Logan’s D.C. commune. Logan offers to fly the food to Chicago and return with the meds, given the Chicago guy’s injuries prevent him from making a return trip. That’s right – Logan once again plain abandons Jessica, though I guess this time at least she’s with a community.

One thing I should mention is that Nolan thankfully decides to describe things this time around. Logan’s World approached the vibe of an outline at times, with hardly anything described or explained. Logan flew in a “paravane” and the reader was expected to come up with his own interpretation of what the hell a paravane even was, let alone looked like. So we get a little more depth of description here, as well as more of a glimpse into Logan’s thoughts and feelings. Characters and costumes still aren’t much described, but then the book runs to around 150 pages so again my impression is Nolan’s intent was to deliver something quick.

On the way to Chicago Logan is zapped onto the massive spaceship of glowing, amorphous aliens. Hey, it could happen! These beings draft Logan into going to an alternate Earth, one that’s ten years behind Logan’s Earth and thus still enforces “Lastday” and the like – life is gloriously hedonistic but ends at 21. It’s the same as Logan’s Earth of ten years before, the aliens explain, but subtly different – enough so that Nolan can pretty much rewrite Logan’s Run but not be accused of plagiarizing himself. Here there’s no Sanctuary, but there is a thing called “Godbirth,” in which select Sandmen are afforded the mysterious opportunity to live beyond 21. The alternate-Logan is about to be granted this privilege, but the aliens have frozen him and want to send Logan to the alternate Earth in his place: his goal to destroy the system.

Logan doesn’t have much choice. These godlike aliens tell him it’s either do the job or be erased or something; he’ll never see Jessica or his soon-to-be-born son unless he goes to the other Earth and destroys the System…in two weeks! The aliens, who are humorously omniscient and omnipotent but somehow unable to alter the course of this alternate Earth on their own, warn Logan against meeting the alternate Jessica. They also don’t know what makes this alternate Earth so different from Logan’s, claiming there’s some sort of supernatural element at play which prevents Sanctuary, Ballard, or the other resistance movements that allowed Logan to help topple the system of his own world.

Here we return to the first half of Logan’s Run, which was by far my favorite part of that book (and the movie), in that it occurs in a psychedelicized future of pleasure domes and rampant hedonism. Nolan downplays the latter element this time, even though when Logan comes to on this alternate world he’s in bed with a dancer named Phedra, and ends up giving her some mostly off-page good lovin’ (“He thrust into her” being the extent of it). But again I had a hard time buying this Logan’s Run world of the novels, given that everyone is under 21. The movie got it so much more correct by increasing the age cutoff to 30. Nolan himself seems to forget at times that no one here is over 21. 

Logan, who by the way has been made to look younger by those omnipotent aliens, has a hard time adjusting to this alternate Earth. He’s once again a Sandman but is sickened by the job. And he’s once again hanging out with best bud and fellow Sandman Francis, who of course became Logan’s enemy in Logan’s Run. He’s also overwhelmed with his task, and has no idea how to take down this system in such a short time with no Sanctuary, Ballard, or etc. He’s again in the Angeles Complex, same as in the first book, but this time he’s about to undergo the mysterious Godbirth ritual; he hopes he can use this to destroy the system. As mentioned there’s more emotional content this time and Logan’s driven by the desire to see Jessica again and to be there for the birth of the second Jaq.

The novel follows the course of the first book. Logan and Francis chase a Runner, one who turns out to be Jessica’s brother, and same as in Logan’s Run he dies. Then Logan, despite the aliens’s warning, seeks out Jessica – who has heard of the great Logan and doesn’t seem much bothered that her brother is dead. She engages him in some good lovin’ that’s entirely off-page. Jessica seems to be like the version Logan is married to on his Earth, but her lack of care about her brother turns him off. But here the minor variations begin. Logan’s hauled off by some cops on suspicion of carrying an illegal drug called “death dust” (aka cocaine), and it’s clearly a setup thanks to sluttish dancer Phedra. Jessica is also accused and summarily punished alongside Logan.

Once again we’re pulled out of the more-interesting future world and sent into random, arbitrary plot detours, same as the previous two books. First Logan and Jessica are chased across the Serengeti by massive robot ants. Then Jessica reveals that it was she who set Logan up, in revenge for killing her brother – her icy carelessness about his death was just an act. However she didn’t plan to get set up herself. She also didn’t plan to fall in love with Logan. After several adventures the two make their way to Moscow, where the aliens have told Logan he can find a local contact, Kirov. This part is incredibly arbitrary, as Logan must steal a Sandman Gun for Kirov, and this leads to a humorous bit where Logan tricks a trusting robot that’s responsible for the Guns. After this Logan ventures to Jamaica, where he fights off barracudas to save a nearly-drowned Francis(?).

Meanwhile Jessica’s hit her Lastday, same as in the first book, but another pair of Sandmen go after her when she runs. Like other female Runners, though, she disappears before they can set in on her; we don’t see this happen, just hear about it when Logan asks the Sandmen what happened. They claim Jessica vanished. Meanwhile it’s finally time for Godbirth, which sees Francis and Logan being plied with drugs and taken to Egypt. I forgot, those thoughtful aliens also implanted Logan with defenses against drugs, despite which he goes on a chapter-long trip which sees snatches of surreal events taking place, similar to the stuff in Logan’s World when Logan was high on R-11.

The last quarter reminds me of Zardoz; Logan and Francis are whisked up to a secret floating city above the clouds, ruled by an older guy named Sturdivent. Like the “gods” in Zardoz, Sturdivent has surrounded himself with the great works of antiquity – he’s even had the Great Pyramid taken apart and rebuilt for him in his palace. Former Sandmen are at his beck and call as mind-controlled vassals. And those missing female Runners are now his “Dreamers,” kept in stassis and only brought out when Sturdivent wants some female company for the night. Of course, Jessica’s one of the Dreamers, and Logan makes prompt plans to save her, making various excuses for Francis.

Francis acts as a deus ex machina throughout the final quarter, turning out to be on Logan’s side and helping him figure out how to get around Sturdivent’s inner chambers. This is all explained in the climax, which first sees the head of the Sphinx getting sheared off by Sturdivent’s city as it crashed down into Egypt, then has Francis revealing his own story to Logan. Here Logan learns that those wily aliens were lying to him all along, and tells Jessica he’ll probably never get home despite their promises. I suspected Nolan was headed for a ‘70s-mandatory downbeat ending…but it’s the ‘80s now, baby!

Instead Logan’s first zapped back to the alien ship, then back to his own Earth, where he discovers that no time at all has passed. In fact Jessica wonders why he hasn’t left for Chicago yet! Logan has finally learned his lesson, though, and brings Jessica along with him. We don’t get to see the new Jaq, as here Nolan ends the tale, thus also ending the “trilogy.” Someone commented on one of my earlier reviews that there was a Logan short story many years later, and maybe some other planned novels, but these three books will be sufficient for me. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy Logan’s Search, as there was just a goofy charm to it, but I’d still rather watch Logan’s Run than ever read this trilogy again.

Monday, December 3, 2018

Glimpses


Glimpses, by Lewis Shiner
August, 1995  Avon Books
(original hardcover edition 1993)

I first read Glimpses back in the late ’90s, when I was on an inexplicable Beach Boys kick(!). In fact this is how I discovered the novel, as at the time it was quite famous among hipster Beach Boys fans for its altertnate reality look at the making of Brian Wilson’s never-realized psychedelic masterpiece Smile. (Which of course Wilson ended up completing in 2004.) Learning this I couldn’t get the book soon enough, and I believe this mass market papberback was one of the first things I ordered off of the just-launched Amazon.com.

This is another of those novels that’s stayed with me over the years, both the good and the bad of it. Given that I’ve been on a classic rock kick lately, in particular Jimi Hendrix stuff, I thought I’d give it another read. Betrayed by a sci-fi label on the spine, Glimpses is about a former child of the ‘60s who discovers that he can channel the unfinished rock albums of that era. Further, he eventually discovers he can even go back in time and meet the rock stars themselves. In this regard the Beach Boys stuff is key, as Brian Wilson is given the most spotlight – telling, then, that his portrait isn’t shown on the cover. At the time Brian Wilson hadn’t yet achieved his current status with the hipsters, I guess. Perhaps this book helped him to achieve it.

It’s a great concept, and my understanding is Lewis Shiner is/was a rock reporter, so he certainly has an appreciation for the topic and brings the music to life. But boy oh boy has he saddled us with a loser of a protagonist – a narrating protagonist at that. This is Ray Schackleford, and it is his material which I still recalled as the “bad” of Glimpses. And sadly, he and his sad-sack bullshit account for around 75% of the novel. You crack open the book expecting to read about the Beatles, the Doors, Brian Wilson, and Jimi Hendrix (especially Jimi Hendrix), but instead for the most part you get the navel-gazing banalities of a potbellied 38 year-old with that patented ‘90s cliché of a plot: Daddy Issues. This soon becomes quite a beating over 328 pages of small print.

It’s even more of a beating that Daddy Issues is the theme that unites the novel. Ray in the course of the novel will encounter Jim Morrison, Brian Wilson, and Jimi Hendrix; each of them, Ray’s sure to tell us, had overbearing fathers: Morrison cut off all ties with his parents once he became famous, Brian had a dad who once told him “You’re not the only genius in the family, Brian” (which honestly I’ve always thought was pretty funny), and finally Jimi’s dad never cared much for Jimi or his work while Jimi was alive, and it was only after Jimi died that Ray Hendrix became such a champion of his son (or so Ray argues).

An Austin, Texas-based stereo repairman, Ray identifies himself for us as a “college-educated liberal” (as if there’s any other kind); to ensure we grasp this he finds the odd moment to complain about President Bush (the first one), global warming, and heavy metal. He even manages to make an off-handed apology for Muslim terrorists, claiming that “desperation,” due to the global economy and exploitation of their land and whatnot, has driven them to acts of terror. I guess it’s that “desperation” that also makes them strap bombs onto their own children. Ray, just a teenager in the late ‘60s, was the drummer in a rock group (before he was unceremoniously sacked – cue more woe-is-me bullshit), had all kinds of dreams and the like, but of course was eventually beaten down by life.

And you know, I could deal with all this stuff if Ray wasn’t such a goddamn loser. Practically the entire book is him worrying over his feelings, or crying, or dreaming about his recently-dead dad, who wouldn’t you know it, never really showed Ray any love. Ray is such a navel-gazer that he turns away pretty much everyone (not just the reader!), though he’s so self-involved he doesn’t even appear to realize it. Oh, and there’s his growing realization that he’s a drunk, so we also have that other ‘90s-approved subplot going for us: coping with addiction.

Honestly, you read this book and you want a roller-coaster ride into the rockin’ sixties, but instead Shiner has clearly struggled to write a “Real Novel,” as literary and weighty as could be, something to be pondered over while sipping your latte at Starbucks. Ray Shackleford carries the brunt of the blame, and eventually I started to wonder if this is why Shiner named him thusly: that we readers are “shackled” with a loser protagonist. Hell, I woulda been more entertained if we had been given a Church Lady type, or a Tipper Gore type or something – someone who went back in time to prevent rock albums from being completed. I mean anything would’ve been better than this sad sack.

Well anyway, Ray’s our hero so here we go. The novel opens in November, 1988, a week before Thanksgiving (ironically, exactly when I was re-reading the book), and Ray’s dad recently died in a scuba-diving mishap in Mexico that might’ve been suicide. Well Ray’s worrying himself over that – as he will frequently for the next 300+ pages – and he’s listening to Let It Be. Ray works on stereos so there’s lots of audio gear namedropping, which I appreciated, though I did get a chuckle out of Ray telling someone in the ‘60s that the CDs of his future era are “perfect reproduction” of music(!).

Shiner includes nicely concise backgrounds on the various albums Ray listens to, though I’d imagine the audience for Glimpses would already know all this stuff. Like for example here, that this infamous Beatles album was the result of Phil Spector’s postproduction tinkering, and that the Beatles’s originally-envisioned album (which was to be titled Get Back) was never properly captured. Ray sort of drifts off while listening to the album, and next thing he knows he’s hearing a completely different version of “The Long And Winding Road” on his stereo, one clearly done live in the studio and featuring a musicianship the Beatles never succsessfully attained in the real recordings of the track.

So really, the novel is more magic realism than sci-fi, as Ray’s newfound talent is never much explored or even explained. But basically he’s able to zone into the music, hear what was not but should have been recorded, and pull it back into his reality. More importantly, he’s able to capture it on tape. After finding that Elizabeth, his wife of several years, isn’t much interested (big shock, huh??), Ray eventually hooks up with wheelchair-bound Graham Hudson, owner of Carnival Dog Records in Hollywood. Graham is appropriately blown away by this “new” Beatles song, and sort of becomes Ray’s taskmaster – he’ll suggest a never-completed ‘60s album, hook Ray up with research material on the artist and era, and then get it all on a digital recording to be released as a bootleg CD(!).

First up is the Doors’s unrealized “Celebration of the Lizard,” an epic piece that was to encompass the full side of an LP of the same title. Mostly due to Jim Morrison’s hard drinking – booze having supplanted LSD – the group never got their shit together and eventually released an album titled Waiting For The Sun. Graham is a Doors fan, the name of his record label taken from a Morrison lyric, and he proposes that Ray make this his first project.

Any Doors fans should steer well clear of Glimpses, in particular fans of Morrison. I wonder why Shiner even included them in the book, as he doesn’t seem to care much for them at all; it’s almost as if he wants to get this section over and done with as soon as possible. But Morrison comes off as a loutish drunk with no redeeming features at all; this might even be a true indication of the guy, but what’s worse is that later in the novel Ray and Graham are almost embarrassed by this album because it’s so “evil” and etc. Instead it becomes apparent that Jim Morrison is just too much of a natural born rocker for sad sacks Ray and Graham; one gets the feeling these two would be happier listening to the gentle pan flute of Zamfir.

Here Ray discovers there’s an extra avenue to his new gift: he can sort of travel back in time. This time he just sees the past, sitting in on a “Celebration” session that goes nowhere. So Ray plays god, thinking back to how Morrison seeing a bunch of dead Indians when he was a kid was an image that plagued and inspired him his entire life. Ray pulls astral strings and has Morrison run over a bum; this serves to reinvigorate Jimbo’s creative juices, and he and the band tear up on a killer take of “Celebration of the Lizard.” Ray says it’s even more powerful than their epic “The End.”

After this the ensuing album is almost rushed over, and is seldom mentioned again in the text. Graham takes the resulting digital tape, mysteriously culled from Ray’s brain – again, there’s no study into how it’s even happening – and burns it onto CD. With an embossed cover and fancy packaging, Celebration Of The Lizard goes for a hundred bucks(!), Graham releasing it via a secret subsidiary of his label. If the album is referred to at all anymore, it is in a deragtory light, and Ray ultimately is apologetic about it. At the end we learn Graham’s let it go out of print and doesn’t mind if bootlegers bootleg him, as he wants nothing further to do with it!

Much, much more time is spent with Brian Wilson in 1966 as he works on Smile. This is the centerpiece of the novel and almost serves as a novella; indeed, the rest of the book almost comes off like filler. And speaking of filler, we have to get through more interminable stuff with Ray and his moaning before we even get to Smile, in particular his suddenly-failing marriage with Elizabeth. Who by the way comes off as a fine wife, as far as I’m concerned – she basically lets Ray do whatever he wants, up to an including going to Mexico by himself.

After the usual background research, including more concise history on this famous never-realized Beach Boys album (which I myself was obsessed with back in the day – I even got a 3LP bootleg on colored vinyl at one point), Ray puts together his “work tape” of tracks in the order he thinks they’d go, and starts zoning out. The ensuing section is really enjoyable, though I’ll admit it was more enjoyable back when I was into the Beach Boys stuff. Or maybe now that all of the Smile sessions have been officially released, with countless fan recreations of the album available for free download, the whole thing has sort of lost its magic. But Shiner, uh, “shines” here, and it’s a testament to his word-spinning that I found myself thinking of this book when I watched Love And Mercy (2014); parts of that biopic were very similar to scenes in this novel.

Here Ray himself goes back in time – this after blasting the obscure track “Glimpses” by the Jimmy Page-era Yardbirds while driving in a half-asleep state on the streets of Los Angeles. He passes out in his car in ’89 and wakes up in ’66. With his future knowledge he’s able to bluff his way into Brian’s home; conveniently, he’s appeared right outside the front door! Here Ray finds a portly, childlike Brian Wilson surrounded by nervous family and band members who fear he’s losing his mind in his all-consuming quest to record a psychedelic pop album that will beat the Beatles.

Shiner develops a nice rapport between Brian and Ray, who initially poses as a record label rep but is quickly outed by Brian’s suspicious wife, once she calls the label to verify his story. But Brian is trusting and innocent, and takes Ray in. All of it is very memorable and engaging as Ray smokes hash with Brian and goofs off with him, trying all the while to push him to finish Smile. There’s the inevitable confrontation with Brian’s band members/family as he plays them some of these new tracks, Brian at this point recording all the music with session musicians and just bringing the boys in for vocals.

This part also features an unintentionally hilarious scene: a desperate Ray employs the progressive liberal version of Scared Straight to get Brian to finish his album. Ray makes 1989 sound like a dystopian hell, sort of implying off-handedly that it’s all Brian’s fault because he never completed Smile, which could’ve brought happiness into the world!! Ray describes his hellish future, with its global warming, its “sexual cancer” called AIDS that killed free love, and most horrifically of all its “heavy metal music.” And Brian starts to cry, my friends. It’s no wonder the Brian Wilson section is the longest in the book, as Ray has finally found almost a big a loser as himself.

Brian is awoken and plunges into finishing the album, even doing new pieces Ray’s never heard of before. Here’s another part that’s stuck with me over the years, as Brian does a solo rendition on piano, for the “Air” section of his “Elements Suite,” and when Ray says he always thought “Wind Chimes” was the Air piece, Brian just looks at him, as if he were seeing all those future fans looking back at him, fans who have mistakenly believed this for decades. Shiner describes the ensuing Smile album in a way that makes one want to hear it, unlike the harried Doors album; individual songs are described, as well as linking pieces. It would be interesting to hear a fan mix that followed Shiner’s idea; he even pulls in the avante-garde studio goof “George Fell Into His French Horn,” with the horns serving as “laughter” between some tracks.

All of this 1966 material has been very entertaining, so we must be punished for it. Ray heads to Mexico for a recounting with his dead dad, planning to scuba dive in the same area in which his father drowned. Along the way he’ll ponder his failing marriage and fall in love with someone new. This goes on from pages 134 to 207 and will be a trying read for most, as it too comes off as its own novella, though one that doesn’t have the draw of the previous section. In fact, skimming is advised, and is advised for the majority of the parts focusing on Ray.

The crux of all this is that Ray hooks up with a frosty-exterior gal named Lori who happens to be in a relationship with an old friend of Ray’s dad. But she listens to his magical story of the making of Smile, complete with how he traveled back in time, and this alone is enough to make Ray go head over heels. He’s finally found a woman who will listen intently as he talks about his favorite subject: himself. But this initially is a relationship of heavy petting, neither Ray nor Lori willing to go all the way. This made me chuckle – I thought AIDS killed free love, Ray! Instead it’s Ray’s own anxiety that keeps him from knowing Lori in the Biblical sense. Meanwhile we get lots of scuba diving mixed with emotions-plumbing (Ray cries frequently and often), including a part where Ray pushes himself too far, just like his dad did, and almost drowns.

By the time this part is over you’re pretty much exhausted. It doesn’t help that it just keeps going and going, even when Ray returns to Austin. Now the plot’s about him and Elizabeth splitting up and Ray pining for Lori, wishing she’d come stay with him. Meanwhile Graham returns, as if trying to rein the novel back together: his latest assignment is for Ray to do Jimi Hendrix’s never-completed fourth studio album, First Rays Of The New Rising Sun. Well, this would be fine reward after the previous pages of doldrums, but Shiner is determined to deny us our pleasures. Ray is deadset against it, not wanting to go into the coma-like state which befalls him while traveling back in time, but nonetheless he does his research and even goes to London to take a look at Jimi’s old stomping grounds, including the place where he died. Along the way his guide is rock journalist Charles Shaar-Murray, author of the Hendrix bio Crosstown Traffic.

I didn’t remember much about Jimi being in the studio from my first reading of Glimpses; I just remembered random stuff, like Ray telling Jimi that he was still ranked as the greatest guitarist of all time in the future, and also a part where Jimi took Ray to eat at a soul food place in Harlem. Upon this re-read I realized why – there are no parts with Jimi in the studio!! I couldn’t believe it, friends. Because when Ray finally decides to do the job and ventures back to 1970 London, his goal to save Jimi’s life and help him finish his album, Lewis Shiner makes one of the more “interesting” authorial decisions I’ve ever encountered. He decides that we readers will be more interested in Ray’s story than we would be in Jimi Hendrix’s!!!

That’s right! It’s all about Ray Schackleford now, folks. His own reality is melding with these alternate pasts he visits, again giving the impression Ray has been visiting his own imagination all along. Soon Jimi Hendrix will be asking Ray shit like, “How’s it going with your dad?” At least before we get there Shiner promises to give us what we want; after a little background on Jimi’s intended album, along with the now-discredited “facts” on how he died (ie Shiner relies on the b.s. story told by Monika Danneman), Ray’s off to the past. I was really looking forward to this. If you could imagine any ‘60s rocker being open-minded about a visitor from the future, it would be Jimi Hendrix. 

As with Brian, Shiner does “get” Jimi; he is very believable and sounds like the real thing. As in reality, Jimi’s eager to please everyone and he is indeed open to Ray’s harried story about being from the future – though you can tell he’s just being polite. Something that occurred to me as I was writing this review is that Ray is never really taken aback by these rock gods in their prime…it’s all very matter of fact in a way. He goes back in time, he meets them, he tries to help them record their albums. But there’s never a part where Ray’s like, “Holy shit! I’m talking to Jimi friggin’ Hendrix!!” Perhaps yet another indication that all this is the product of Ray’s own imagination, and the resulting music too is being channeled from his subconscious.

The Jimi sequence does feature some nicely dark comedy, though: despite Ray’s best efforts, Jimi keeps dying. From choking on his own vomit (as in reality) to being shot in the street, even run over by a truck, Jimi keeps dying and dying, and Ray becomes increasingly desperate in his trips to the past. At this point everything else is unraveling for Ray, and it has become clear even to him that a rock album, despite how great it is, cannot save the world. The reader looking to see some of the making of Jimi’s album will be just as disappointed as the Doors fan.

Jimi’s last death, which occurs outside that Harlem soul food joint, results in Ray too being dead – or at least in a sort of limbo where he walks through an endless park, once again running into the rock stars from the previous chapters. Here we also learn that Ray’s a bad guy, folks. In one of the more cringe-worthy scenes in a novel filled with them, Ray not only meets Jim Morrison but also the nameless drunk Ray made Jim run over. Seriously. Morrison takes a moment to shame Ray for being a murderer, and the vagrant himself gets in a few jibes. Cue more woe-is-me shenanigans from Ray. 

After this the novel goes into an interminable free fall; the plot is now all about Ray, back in reality, and how he’s getting his life back together…even looking up (and hooking up) with old girlfriends. I mean we coulda had another trip to the past to meet a dead rocker…how about Janis Joplin? Or maybe Ray could go to 1980 and save John Lennon? Or, I don’t know, maybe a more satisfying part with Jimi Hendrix?? But as mentioned Shiner has decided that we readers are now invested in the doldrum, mundane story of Ray Schackleford and his tedious life.

Again, Glimpses has a great concept, and Shiner capably brings these dead (or forgotten) rock stars to life, letting us see them in their prime. I just wish that more of the novel had been focused on that…it would’ve been so much more satisfying if the whole of it was about Ray being stuck in the psychedelic sixties, and if the tedious “grownup worries” stuff had been relegated to a subplot. But for inexplicable reasons Shiner has reversed this, so that Ray’s story is the center of Glimpses. It’s a testament to how well he did handle the rock stuff that one wishes there were more of it.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Doomsday Warrior #10: American Nightmare


Doomsday Warrior #10: American Nightmare, by Ryder Stacy
March, 1987  Zebra Books

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I returned to the post-nuke saga of the Doomsday Warrior. And this strange volume sees a much-needed change to the series formula, as hero Ted “Doomsday Warrior/Ultimate American” Rockson finds himself transported back in time to the pre-holocaust days of 1989.

As expected, this volume picks up immediately after the last, with only cursory background to help out the new reader – one of the reasons I was never able to get into this series as a kid. But as we’ll recall Rockson flew a commandeered Russian jet all the way from Alaska down to Utah, chasing after a nuclear missile, which after much struggle he finally destroyed in the air. But now Rockson is alone on the desert wastelands of Utah, his fellow FreeFighters back in Alaska, and his home base of Century City far away in Colorado.

As we meet him Rockson has been walking in the desert for three days, and a lone vulture has constantly been watching him. Starving and dehydrated, Rockson comes across a big mutant fruit called bloodfruit and eats its juicy core. But it turns out to be different from the bloodfruit in Century City and sends him into a night of turmoil on the desert ground, collapsed from the pain and nausea. (Apparently the vulture has lost interest in him at this point, as it isn’t mentioned again.) Rockson comes to feeling better in the morning, and promptly walks into a massive thunderstorm, which at least provides him with some drinking water.

Then a jeep filled with KGB sadists appears and they start having fun chasing after the near-death Rockson. They’re led by Lt. Lev Streltsy, this installment’s stand-in for Colonel Killov. Like his former superior, Streltsy is a jackbooted bastard who dreams of taking over the country some day. He captures Rockson and takes him back to his KGB base which is in this remote section of Utah, where Rockson is beaten and tortured.

Rockson challenges Streltsy to a game of chess (author Ryder Syversten showing the moves and scores in an obvious page-filling gambit), but when Rockson wins Streltsy goes back on his word and punishes him anyway. Hitching Rockson to the back of his jeep, Streltsy joyrides around the desert in the middle of a sandstorm…and Rockson’s able to use the limited visibility to free himself and get away unseen. He finds himself in the middle of a “Kala-Ka,” ie how the “Indians” of the post-nuke world refer to a mega-storm that combines the power of a typhoon and a hurricane. Rockson’s pulled from his meager shelter and thrust into the maelstrom.

This sequence retains the psychedelic vibe the series sometimes attains as Rockson is flung around in the bizarre storm. Somehow he lands on his feet, in the middle of a bustling metropolis; we’ll soon learn that it’s Salt Like City, and the date is September 6, 1989…five days before the nuclear war that destroyed civilization. (As I mentioned in my review of Doomsday Warrior #1, the coincidence of that “September 11” holocaust date still gets me.) Interesting note: we learn here that Rockson has come from the year 2092, meaning that the series has finally progressed beyond the “2089 AD” that was constantly mentioned in the earliest volumes.

However this is not the Salt Lake City of our reality. Bland “elevator muzik” constantly plays on the city streets and the place is patrolled by red-jumpsuited “rooks” in mirror-lensed helmets who tote machine guns and flamethrowers. Rockson, dressed in a shredded sealskin parka, is refused entrance everywhere and treated like a derelict. He ends up taking the advice of an actual derelict and bathing in a public fountain, only to be arrested by those jumpsuited stooges. They take him down to the station, where Rockson gives his name to a “consultant.” The man “seems to have heard” of Rockson.

Things become progressively weirder, which is just what you want and expect from this series. Rockson is given a shower and then put in a cell in which muzik blasts at him all night. When he comes to the next day, his real world of 2092 appears to be a hazy dream; he thinks he imagined it all. The cops now know him from “the files:” his real name, they tell him, is Theodore Rockman. And plus, his “wife” is on the way to pick him up! This turns out to be Kim, Rockson’s blonde “true love,” though Syvertsen doesn’t inform us how she looks in this pre-nuke world; in fact, he doesn’t even bother to describe her at all.

Syvertsen also doesn’t bother to describe Rockson’s kids(!); we’re informed that he and Kim have sired a young boy and girl, but they have like a line or two of text space. I mean, do they have differently-colored eyes, like their father? But the story’s less about Rockson being a stranger in a strange land and more of a headfuck sort of thing…clearly the people of this alternate reality Salt Lake City are under mind control, and even Rockson falls prey to it. Soon he is thinking of this as his “real” world, the 2092 stuff a dream, and a soon-forgotten dream at that. Nope, “Ted Rockman” is just a CPA(!).

Kim is as annoying as ever, even in this alternate reality, always fretting and nagging…but then, in some ways she’s THE GREATEST WIFE IN LITERARY HISTORY, cooking Rockson a juicy steak, sitting worshipfully at his feet as he watches TV, asking him if they can have sex that night, and then telling him, “After a hard day, the best thing is a blow job,” before promptly treating him to one! Indeed, after the Ryder Stacy-trademark graphic-but-goofy sex scene which ensues, one wouldn’t blame Rockson if he just settled right into this strange new world and forgot all about the blasted post-nuke wonderland of “2092 AD.”

Salt Lake City is a Nazi-like hellhole, overcrowded, with armed rooks toting flamethrowers. Prices are astronomically high, everything’s made of plastic, and the poor are treated like dirt. Criminals are killed on the spot by rooks, and bums are hauled to prison. Rockson’s corporate job is the epitome of the mindlessness of the modern day, but things get even weirder with the appearance of hotstuff redhead Rona, who turns out to be the secretary (and, apparently, the mistress) of this alternate reality Ted Rockman. In fact she pleads with him to meet with her that night. Rockson refuses, still feeling awkward; this whole sequence is strange, because for the most part Rockson has become Rockman.

But a restless Rockson goes out into the hinterlands of Salt Lake City, rents a fleabag hotel room, and has arbitrary, off-page sex with a hooker who stays across the hall. This, combined with the lack of muzik in this section of the city, allows him to remember who he really is. There follows a goofy, ‘80s movie-type moment where he starts yelling “I’m the Doomsday Warrior!” into the mirror. He goes out, sees a punk get incinerated by a rook, and then beats the stooge to death in a hand-to-hand brawl. He even manages to gut another rook as he escapes; Rockson has truly returned.

The cover shows a fist with a shotgun, but the artist should’ve detailed the bizarre contraption Rockson assembles in another goofy scene. After he kills the two rooks, Rockson sneaks into a gun store and starts grabbing guns. He finds an Uzi hidden beneath the floorboards, and “modifies” it with “a Browning antiair World War II vintage weapon,” along with a Colt .45 and a Widley .45 Magnum. Working for “two and a half hours” on a lathe in the shop, Rockson creates for himself an “Uzi-Colt-Widley-Browning antiair hybrid weapon. A beauty of deadly power!” It’s big and bulky, but still capable of being hidden beneath his clothes. I would’ve loved to see cover artist Joe Devito’s attempt at it.

In his brief time here Rockson has already become aware of a brooding underground; the poor of Salt Lake City are like the Free Americans of Rockson’s world, the rooks the Russians. A revolt is brewing, and Rockson will of course be its champion. He soon discovers the ruler of this corrupt, crazed city: Chessman, a red-visaged psychopath who has been appearing in Rockson’s overly-detailed dreams. Rockson learns that he was a Russian chess master who took on “The American” in some match but lost, only to find later that the American cheated. Chessman had him killed and took over the city.

Okay… The reader will of course recall the opening chess match with Streltsy and deduce that all of this is the heartfruit-generated hallucinations of Rockson. And it gets increasingly goofy; Rockson learns that a mist covers Salt Lake City, preventing exit. There’s also a “time-door” on the city’s main bridge, which has a wormhole-type portal of an entrance near the city dump. We get a bizarre sequence where Rockson keeps trying to run through the portal, even stealing a Jaguar and racing through it because he assumes he needs “more energy” to use the wormhole to get back to his own time. He fails on all accounts and uses “logic” to figure out that he can’t get back home yet because his home was created after the nuclear war, and the nuclear war doesn’t start for a few more days!

There are patches of somewhat-gory violence as Rockson runs roughshod over the rooks and “Red knights” who come after him, mowing them down with the “compound gun.” But when Rockson sneaks into the Salt Lake City Tabernacle, which is now the fount of Chessman’s skewed religion, he’s discovered, dosed with a tranquilizer, and captured. More psychedelic stuff ensues as Rockson finds himself in a windowless cell which blasts muzik at him ceaselessly. Bed and food appear magically at his thought, proof to Rockson that the muzik controls the mind of the listener. He uses the “KA” teachings the Glowers taught him to combat it, and spends two days in mental combat.

After which he’s right back where he started; freed by the Bishop who runs the Tabernacle, Rockson is briefly reunited with Kim and then immediately sent back to work. Rockson has meanwhile become friendly with the rabble of Salt Lake City, the bums who live in constant fear of the Chessman’s minions. Barrellman, their leader, encounters Rockson again, and leads him to their underground world in the sewers. They’re known as “The Runners,” as they’re always running from the Chessman’s people, and the man who started them years ago prophecized that “the White King” would one day come to lead them to victory. Guess who they think the White King is?

Armed again with his compound gun, Rockson leads his hobo army on a raid of the police armory, and from there they attack “the Tower,” where the Chessman lives. Clad in a white “karate gi-like” garment which was made for the White King (and which turns out to be bullet proof), Rockson scales the Tower – as a Colorado native, he claims to be an ultra-expert at climbing anything. While the Runners battle the rooks on the ground, Rockson smashes into the top floor of the Tower and blows away a few guards, before confronting the Chessman, who turns out to be a skeletally-thin man wearing a skull-like mask.

Ryder Syvertsen gets far out in the battle, with the Chessman using hypnosis against Rockson, who defends himself with the KA power of the Glowers, as well as the mantras they taught him. And after defeating his evil opponent Rockson discovers that he’s none other than Streltsy, who belittles Rockson for being surprised, as he too has come over to “this world,” which he prefers to 2092. He also seems unconcerned that it’s now Sept. 11, 1989, and the nuclear war is about to occur within hours. Rockson tosses him out of the penthouse window and Streltsy/the Chessman plunges to his gory death, his body ripped in half.

Doomsday is fast approaching. Syvertsen gets real far out here; Rockson happens to recall that the nukes hit at 6:04 PM, and guess what, that’s like an hour away. Or is it? The clocks are going nuts because Salt Lake City is leaving the time-loop (or something) and the place is mired in chaos thanks to the death of the Chessman and the breaking of his mind control over the populace. It’s all real goofy, with the rooks, who had been trying to kill Rockson, now being all polite to him and helping him escape. Rockson rounds up Kim, his kids, and a few of the Runners and steals a car, racing for the portal.

We’re treated to possibly the most psychedelic sequence in the series yet, which again destroys my old theory that Jan Stacy was the New Ager of the two authors; even though Stacy departed the series with the fourth volume, we’ve still been treated to the occasional psychedelic touch. American Nightmare features a doozy of one, with Rockson stepping through the portal and being cast into what comes off like the finale of Kubrick’s 2001, flung into the blacklight poster-eque depths of time and space. He watches as the universe spins beneath him, he voyages through the Big Bang, and he experiences hundreds of thousands of lifetimes in the blink of an eye!

And, as expected, he comes to right back where he started, in the desert outside the ruins of Salt Lake City in 2092. Surprisingly, Kim, the kids, and Barrellman have made it over with him. Rockson scavenges the destroyed Russian base – no doubt torn apart by that Kala-Ka storm – and they begin the long journey to Century City. But then Kim and the others become transparent and slowly fade away, Kim sadly telling Rockson “Goodbye” as she disappears. Bizarrely enough, this actually hit home for me – I once had a dream-within-a-dream where there was a dream-world version of my wife, who came into “reality” with me (ie, the second dream), and I watched heartbroken as she slowly began to disappear…!

Anyway…it gradually dawns on Rockson that the entire damn thing might’ve just been a dream. Even his bulletproof white gi is gone…did it disappear too, or was his sealskin parka blown off in the Kala-Ka storm while Rockson was hallucinating everything, all of it the product of that poisonous heartfruit? Rockson figures he’ll never know, and the ultimate hell of it all is that it doesn’t really matter – frustratingly enough, Rockson ends American Nightmare exactly where he started, 250-some pages before: in the middle of the Utah desert, walking for his home in far-off Century City.

In other words, this volume of Doomsday Warrior is the men’s adventure equivalent of Bobby in the shower, the whole thing amounting to a big dream. While it’s filled with interesting touches, ultimately it’s undermined by its inconsequential nature. And for that matter, while the tone of the series is generally goofy, American Nightmare is just too goofy, even more cartoonish than the other volumes. That isn’t to say it’s bad, though. At the very least, it makes one want to read the next volume.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Fringe: The Zodiac Paradox (aka Fringe #1)


Fringe: The Zodiac Paradox, by Christa Faust
May, 2013  Titan Books

Fringe ran for five seasons, from 2008 to 2012, and I never watched it during its original broadcast run on Fox. I was aware of it, though; I recall a coworker sometime in 2009 raving about it, and I was like, “You mean that show with the guy from Dawson’s Creek?” But I never watched it. 

Then last year a friend who shares many of my interests was telling me how much he enjoyed Fringe, and how much he knew I’d like it. So I went out and got Seasons 1-4 on Blu Ray for a pittance, thanks to Black Friday deals (getting the fifth season for cheap a year later, as well).  Still I procrastinated on watching the show. I mean, I watched Lost as it aired, and I grew to hate that show, and I didn’t want to be burned again.

But man, when I finally got around to watching Fringe, my initial reaction was, “Where’s this show been all my life?” Within the first half hour of the pilot episode resident “mad scientist” Walter Bishop was clapping his hands and announcing, “Let’s make some LSD!” The series covered a lot of ground in its five seasons, from X-Files-eque procedurals in the first to a final season that took place in a dystopian 2036. And it was all great, and unlike most shows it was made to be watched over and over – and unlike Lost, the finale was actually memorable and effective.

Fringe was never a killer in the ratings, but the fanbase was strong enough that Titan Books must’ve decided there would be a market for some TV tie-ins. It appears that they then approached Christa Faust, an author known for TV tie-ins (as well as her own material), and hired her to write a trilogy of Fringe prequels. (“Everybody loves prequels!” – Homer Simpson)  Also these books would apparently be “official,” and not only part of the show’s cannon but even approved by production company Bad Robot. (Though I admit, the jaded half of me figures this “approval” was mostly relegated to: “Okay, how much are we gonna make offa these books?”)

The Zodiac Paradox then is the first of this prequel trilogy, and details a backstory concerning Walter Bishop, easily my favorite character in the series. But this is a much younger Walter, 22 years old and fresh out of doctoral school when the novel opens in August, 1969. Faust shows that she’s at least familiar with the characters by opening with Walter in the middle of an LSD experiment, conducted with his colleage Dr. William Bell (Leonard Nimoy in the actual series).

The two young doctors are looking to meld their minds (surely a Star Trek in-joke) with a new LSD batch as they sit near Reiden Lake, a spot that only exists in the world of Fringe, in New York state. Meanwhile, in the alternate universe (a Fringe mainstay that wasn’t fully introduced until the second season), a killer named Allan Mather is on the run from the cops. Despite stalking his prey in the alternate-reality Reiden Lake, Mather too is hopped up on LSD – personally I don’t see how the guy would be able to even hold a knife, let alone run through the countryside as the cops chase him.

Through some nebulous means Walter and Bell open a rift between the universes with their LSD-linked minds, and, given his own altered state, Mather not only links minds with them, but also sees the rift on the other side, and falls through it as the cops surround him. Now this killer is loose in our world, Walter and Bishop having no idea where he came from. In fact this prequel has it that only during this adventure do the two men realize there even is an alternate reality…but then, given that a serial killer comes from over there, one must wonder why Walter and Bell would’ve gone on to so desperately try to breach the rift between the two worlds in later years, per Fringe lore.

In the early half of the book Faust spends more time with Mather, as we see him slowly realizing that he’s in an alternate reality. And after killing his alternate-reality self he decides to stick around and continue his killing spree here, under the guise of the Zodiac Killer. Personally I think this was a mistake on Faust’s part; I think the novel would’ve been stronger had Mather not been a real-life killer. And anyway, the Zodiac’s murders began before 1968. But regardless, Mather now calls himself the Zodiac Killer, and you have to at least give the guy credit for quickly adapting to changing environments!

Faust next cuts forward to September, 1974, and the focus is back on Walter and Bell. Both of them are now in San Francisco, conveniently enough, delivering a lecture. Of course, SanFran is the Zodiac’s stomping grounds, and Walter’s on edge because, on that night back on Reiden Lake when his mind was briefly linked with Mather’s, Walter saw Dead Zone-style a murder Mather would commit sometime in September, 1974. Walter, hardly ever getting out of his lab, let alone Boston, hasn’t heard much about the Zodiac Killer, but once some locals tell him about the murderer he realizes that this must be the man he and Bell encountered on Reiden Lake.

Walter and Bell take it upon themselves to stop him. At least they try to go to the cops first, but after hearing their crazy story the police brush them off – only for an FBI agent named Latimer to take them into custody. In one of the novel’s many logic lapses, Bell instantly deduces that they shouldn’t trust Latimer, and the two escape, only to run into another FBI agent, this one named Iverson. Claiming to be the originator of a “fringe” division in the Bureau, Iverson is on the outs with his colleagues and has been receiving notes from the Zodiac, who claims to be from another universe. Iverson hands over his casefiles to Walter and Bell, figuring they’ll have a better chance of cracking the complex Zodiac ciphers.

The novel now becomes a bit trying as Walter and Bell become amateur crimebusters, making one idiotic move after another. True, Walter would often rush off into the fray with little forethought in the series, but then this was an older Walter, one who’d recently gotten out of an insane asylum and had portions of his brain removed (more of which below). So for the same sort of thing to happen here, particularly with Bell going along, comes off as kind of dumb. Eventually Walter and Bell meet up with Nina Sharp (a perfectly-cast Blair Brown in the series), a young acquaintance of Bell’s (who is set up by Faust as a ladykiller here…seriously, did women find ‘70s-era Leonard Nimoy sexy??).

Nina and Bell had a strange romantic history in Fringe, the writers never making clear what actually happened between them (not helped by the fact that Leonard Nimoy only appeared in a handful of episodes, and never shared a scene with Blair Brown). At any rate here young Nina is herself a doctorate student, as sharp and ingenious as the boys, and she and Bell share a playful bantering. Having recently rewatched Altered States, it was easy to picture a younger Blair Brown here, and Faust does a good job of bringing her character to life.

In fact Nina is the only one with a square head on her shoulders, smart enough to bring a revolver along when rushing out into the fray with Walter and Bell. She also brings the early ‘70s acid rock movement into the story, as her San Francisco home is currently occupied by various members of Violet Sedan Chair, a Fringe universe rock group often stated as being Walter’s favorite band. Faust goes too far with the in-jokery, though, with Walter meeting group leader Roscoe Joyce, a keyboardist who was played in a Season 3 episode by Christopher Lloyd; Faust has the two meet, and Roscoe makes a prophetic utterance that they will meet again someday, but neither of them will remember having met here in 1974. Pretty lame.

Speaking of ’74, Faust also does a good job of capturing the era. Unlike most modern-day creators who santize the past, Faust actually has Nina going out to buy cigarettes! Drugs are also rampant, with mass partakings of LSD. Even better, Faust understands the whole New Age/self-help movement that was all the rage at the time, with talk of biofeedback and mind expansion. There’s even a brief visit to a clinic wholly devoted to biofeedback research, and you can just picture the white-garbed, frazzled-haired post-hippies in attendance. But unfortunately most of this is obscured by the bumbling Keystone Cops-esque shenanigans of Walter and Bell.

Things gradually build to a head as Walter and Bell crack various Zodiac ciphers, thwarting a few of his kills, but putting themselves (particularly Nina) in jeopardy. But once the duo realize that their LSD mind-meld caused the rift between worlds, they invoke a masterplan involving a batch of biofeedback enthusiasts and more of that special LSD. The finale plays out more on the metaphysical realm, as Walter and Bell dose up and try to lure Mather into a trap near the Golden Gate Bridge. And Mather’s fate appears to be another reference to the show, being very similar to the one suffered by villain David Robert Jones (no, not that David Robert Jones) in Season 1.

Online reviews for The Zodiac Paradox are pretty consistent in that most fans didn’t enjoy the novel. The biggest stated criticism is over Walter, who herein acts like the Walter of the show: bumbling, given to grandiosity, but very likable despite his faults. Fans know however that the Walter of the show was a result of brain surgery; Walter, in the late 1980s or so, felt that he was becoming too grandiose, too “evil,” and thus asked Bell to remove portions of his brain(!). In the two ‘80s flashback episodes (from Seasons 2 and 3), Walter was a different man, arrogant and abrupt (John Noble’s acting was truly legendary on this show). Readers of The Zodiac Paradox wonder then why this 1970s Walter isn’t the same.

But to defend Faust, I don’t see where this is necessarily a mistake. We never learned when exactly Walter started his slide toward “evil genius,” and there’s nothing in the series (that I can remember, at least) which would indicate he was always like that, and only became “likable Walter” after the brain surgery. In fact from the backstories doled out throughout the five seasons, it would seem that Walter was always the same, but only became deranged once his son Peter was born and developed health issues, something which didn’t happen until the late ‘70s/early ‘80s and is thus outside of the era of this novel.

Perhaps the bigger problem with The Zodiac Paradox is that it doesn’t feel like Fringe. Sure, it’s got Walter, Bell, and Nina, it’s got drugs and mind expansion, and it’s got inexplicable phenomena. But despite all that, it’s sort of plodding and dull at times, and lacks the momentum of the actual show. At any rate, if this was an episode, it would be one of the skippale ones – and there were precious few skippable episodes in Fringe. (For my money, all of them were in the regrettable fourth season, which featured an “altered timeline” in which the first three seasons never happened.)

A few months after this novel, the second volume was released: The Burning Man, which details a backstory about series protagonist Olivia Dunham as a teenager. The online reviews for this one are even more merciless – and it appears that these reviews got through to Titan Books, who postponed the publication of the third volume (which will be about Walter’s son Peter); originally scheduled to come out soon after The Burning Man, this third novel, Sins Of The Father, is now scheduled to come out in August 2014! Speculation has it that production company Bad Robot actually checked out the manuscript this time and likely ordered rewrites.

Monday, July 1, 2013

The Ultimate Solution


The Ultimate Solution, by Eric Norden
May, 1973  Warner Paperback Library

This slim paperback original imagines an alternate 1973 in which the Germans won WWII and now the entire Western world is under the control of the Nazis (the “Empire of Japan” rules the East). And yet for all of that The Ultimate Solution is really just a police procedural, narrated by New York cop Lt. Bill Hadler as he is tasked to hunt down an actual Jew – the only one left if the world.

Norden throws us right into this bizarre world and doles out background detail at his leisure; it isn’t until the very end that we even find out how exactly the Germans won. (Basically, the US stayed out of the confrontation until it was “too late,” by which point the Germans had the atom bomb, which they used on Europe and then a few US cities…including Pittsburgh! Why would anyone want to bomb Pittsburgh??) Instead Norden places us square in this alternate 1973, with Hadler’s narrative cynically detailing the strange Nazi-run world as if there’s nothing unusual about it…which obviously there isn’t, so far as he’s concerned.

What most impressed me is how economically Norden tells his tale, not to mention bringing to life a whole alternate world – the novel runs a brisk 142 pages. Despite the short length we get a fast-moving plot, good characterization and dialog, and some well-rendered action scenes. The novel’s actually a great teacher on how to keep a story moving while still doling out a modicum of background and information; never once does Norden resort to exposition or info-dumping. As I say, he treats the tale as if it’s just a regular cop story; while Hadler might have a few issues with the society in which he lives, never once does he question anything about it. He’s just a cop doing a dirty job.

The job’s actually more than dirty – Hadler gradually realizes that it’s a no-win situation. Called in by the Gestapo (aka the “Feds” – the FBI of Hadler’s world), Hadler reconnects with a Gestapo colleague he worked with in the past. A German VIP is on his way to New York, and he’s contacted the Gestapo to find a good New York cop to handle a highly secretive and important case. The VIP is Von Kleef, an old man who started with Hitler in the earliest days, and thus is now at the very pinnacle of the Nazi world; Norden presents a very interesting picture of how Hitler’s henchmen would’ve profited had the Nazis won the war.

Von Kleef personally oversaw the extermination of all the Jews, and takes it very personally that one of them might still be alive. It turns out that a few weeks ago someone robbed an antiques store in New York, the culprit being an old man who freaked out at the display of Jewish skulls on display – “nothing pieces,” we’re told, so ubiquitous as to have no value, usually used as ash trays. The man left behind a telltale piece that Von Kleef is certain could only belong to a Jew – a mezzuzah. Von Kleef wants this old man tracked down, and he wants to keep it secret; Germany is closing in on war with the Japanese Empire, and the “ContraAxists” who are pro-war don’t want it leaked out that a Jew might’ve escaped the Nazi “final solution,” as it could be used as propaganda against them.

Hadler isn’t thrilled to take the case, but he has no choice. He works it with Ed Kohler, the aforementioned Gestapo agent Hadler worked with in the past. Together they scour this bizarre and sadistic NYC as they track down clues. Here Norden doles out more of his background detail, and we see that this alternate world is incredibly grim. Blacks have their tongues excised at birth and are raised to become “bucks” that fight like ancient gladiators, millions of people watching and betting as they fight to the death. Slavs too have their tongues removed and are now imported as either sex-slaves or as the chained victims of torture clubs. There are even whorehouses staffed solely by children.

Norden gives more background on this “ultimate solution” as Hadler and Kohler visit a concentration camp outside New York, where the thorough destruction of all American Jews was carried out years before. The pointedly-ironic element here is the camp commandant, who comes off like your average all-American, square-jawed and buzzcutted military type, who happily regales Hadler and Kohler with tales of the major Jewish purge he helmed a few decades ago. We also learn that this concentration camp is now an amusement park, and also that “these kids today” are disinterested in the history of the camp and could care less.

The book works mostly as a police procedural/mystery, but Norden provides a few action scenes. In one of them we learn that Hadler packs a Schmeisser, which apparently is police standard in this alternate world; he uses it on a homeless man who attacks him with karate. But the bum is wearing a Mission: Impossible-style mask, beneath which Hadler discovers the face of a Japanese man. Here Norden works in some conspiracy angles as it turns out the Japanese also know about “the Jew” and thus are trying to not only capture him for their own propaganda purposes, but are also trying to take out anyone else who is searching for him.

There’s very little about the novel that is sci-fi, until toward the very end, when Norden introduces the idea that the Jew is actually from a different world: ours. This element isn’t fully elaborated, but when we finally meet the Jew he claims that he “died” on our world and woke up to find himself in this alternate reality. One of the characters, who happens to be sheltering the Jew, believes that the man has been sent here as a harbinger of a better world, that the universe sometimes makes “mistakes” and attempts to rectify them, this Nazi-ruled world being one of those mistakes. (Sometimes I feel the same way about our own world, though.) This sci-fi stuff appears to be leading to a sci-fi ending, but Norden retain his tone and delivers a climax more grounded in the grim world he has created.

My main problem with The Ultimate Solution is that this alternate world is just too evil, almost comic bookishly so. I had a hard time believing that the entirety of the world could so easily give over to such brutal and sadistic leanings, especially within just one generation. (But then, a generation ago who would guess that within 30 or so years people would avidly take photos of their meals and other mundane aspects of their life and then upload them to the internet for others to comment on and “like?”) Still though, live torture acts on tongueless Slavs? Whorehouses comprised solely of children? Even pet hamsters which are specifically sold so as to be tortured and crucified? It’s just all too much.

And some of the stuff doesn’t even fit into what I know about Nazism…for example, Hadler states that homosexuality is preferred and heterosex is “frowned upon” by the elite, with male/female relationships only condoned for breeding purposes. But weren’t the SA drummed out of the Nazi party over allegations that they were made up of gays? Sure it was just slander, but the very fact that it was used as slander would indicate that homosexuality was not openly viewed as acceptable…and that is the issue here. All “evil” things are openly acknowledged by the ruling Nazis in Norden’s world, whereas to me it would seem more realistic that they would retain their “clean cut” image and do all the dirty stuff behind the scenes.

I read somewhere that Eric Norden was the pseudonym of Eric Pelletier, and that he was born in 1899 and died in 1979. I'm not sure if this is accurate. I have the June 1969 issue of Playboy, which features an article by Norden ("The Paramilitary Right"); the issue has a photo of him on the contributors page, and Norden looks like a young man in it, not a 70 year-old. (The brief author bio states that Norden is a "free-lance writer who is currently in London researching a novel.") After a handful of short stories in the early ‘70s he published The Ultimate Solution in 1973; it was his only novel. In 1978 he published Starsongs and Unicorns: Journeys Through Time and Space, a Manor paperback original which collected his sci-fi short story work. I've read a few of the stories and they're all good, if not as memorable as this novel. After this it appears Norden dropped off the map, though of course it's possible he passed away in 1979.

Also I need to mention that this novel is exceedingly rare, not to mention overpriced. But guess what, I got my copy via InterLibrary Loan. And the unknown librarian at the lending library (The University of Texas) is to be commended – the person actually bound a hardcover overtop the original book, thus perfectly preserving the front and back covers of the old paperback.