The Electric Mayhem: Imaginary Man

Escape from Hell! By Hal Duncan

Escape From Hell! is like a John Carpenter/Walter Hill late 70’s-early 80’s movie in book form. If you understand the references then you get it right off. I mean if the bridge scene doesn’t take you back to Escape from New York then nothing will. The action is ramped up to insane levels, and it just keeps pumping forward at a relentless pace.

If you like stripped down narritives then the length of the book becomes a strength because there isn’t space for long expository passages that explain the mechanics of Duncan’s version of hell. We become immersed in the various levels of Hell at a break neck speed as our four main characters do. It’s a tricky thing to do, describing a world while keeping the reader on the run, but this as good an example as I’ve seen.

The characters are a little over the top but they are supposed to be, I think it’s to Duncan’s credit that he didn’t make all 4 characters bad-asses. This allows for richer interactions between them and the book is stronger for it.

But underneath all of this action there is also a satire brewing here. A satire of religion and society, fundamentalism and rigidity. While the action is par excellence the satirical elements are maybe a little less so. For example what does it mean that the gay kid actually DID get sent to hell for being gay? It would also appear that another character actually WAS cured of his homosexuality. One could also argue that the gay kid doesn’t belong there; also the prostitute and suicide probably don’t belong there. But doesn’t the hit-man belong there? These are just a couple of things on my mind after reading it.

In an interesting perspective twist near the end Duncan has portions of the book in the second person. This, by its nature, directly address and involves us, the reader. Then it turns out that Satan’s portions of the book are the ones in second person so Duncan directly involves us in the story in a sly and inventive ways. If Satan isn’t us then we certainly are incriminated right along with him. Duncan presents us with a Miltonian-type Satan who isn’t necessarily evil, just free and in the Encyclopedia of Fantasy John Clute used the phrase literary satanism, though I had been aware of certain works this was the first time I had encountered this phrase, it certainly applies here.

My favorite moment by far in the book was Lucifer telling the gay character that the best way to use the flaming sword is to use jazz hands.

The Knights of the Cornerstone by James P Blaylock

30 pages in I couldn’t shake the feeling of deja-vu; that I had read this story before. A few pages later it struck me that I felt like I was firmly in Last Call/Expiration Date/Earthquake Weather era Tim Powers here. This wasn’t a bad thing given that Last Call is one of my favorite novels but over the course of my reading it became more and more apparent that The Knights of the Cornerstone was Last Call-lite.

There was also an undercurrent of status quo ante that didn’t sit right with me; this idea that small town life is better and protection of a more basic way of life is essential to move forward struck a false chord with me.

Ultimately it was my love of Blaylock’s previous work that led to me finishing The Knights of the Cornerstone but I came away more then a little underwhelmed by it. There wasn’t anything wrong with it but nothing was extraordinary about it also. I look forward to the next great Blaylock novel since this wasn’t it.

Valley of Day-Glo by Nick DiChario

I can’t say that I had heard of DiCharo or his work before but I really liked Valley of Day-Glo and once I started reading it I couldn’t stop, and that has to be just about the highest compliment one can pay a book.

On one level it was a thoughtful and multi-faceted far future satire that engages in a lot of different ways. Some of the satirical targets include consumerism and our general disdain for the environment. These elements aren’t rammed down your throat but are subtly integrated into the narrative.

Another element of the story is how the narrative bounces from the zany to the tender in a thoroughly messy voice that could be any of us if we were only that honest.

With a talking corpse; movie titles that will never be looked at the same way again; a giant talking coffee pot, and a shaman who speaks in limericks there is more then a touch of the weird here that adds yet another dimension to this tale that already mixes fantasy and science-fiction.

Bottom line is that Valley of Day-Glo is a great book not appearing on a lot of radar screens but deserves a wider audience.

About Brian

Brian loves both kinds of books -- fiction and non-fiction. He is an all around book john and reviewing roustabout. His semi-regular columns at BSC include BSC Radar Screen, The Electric Mayhem, Conversations with the Bookless and Short Thoughts on Short Fiction. He blogs at Observations From the Balcony.