The Bodhisattva

Time for another one of these damn Forgotten Fridays. Simply put, my weekly contribution to a group of bloggers that  I don’t know that each choose a book that not enough people are talking about that we think are hot. As this is way too easy for me I add the stipulation of not mentioning otherwise qualifying books that I already champion or have championed in my rather pathetic blogging career, as realistically I could just phone this in on rewind/repeat and just spout off stuff like Minions of the Moon, Lint, Kangaroo Notebook, Voices of Thunder and we’d have to start calling the feature Forgotten Age.

*waits as you search for those titles*

So to make this interesting for myself I kind of dig in the crates a bit more  - even than usual - and try to find books from either back in the day or cool books I read that may possibly just not be  book mentioned in my own circles (and otherwise be mega-popular elsewhere) thus naturally making me feel nobody of proper gravity is talking about it. These are not reviews, but just a brief pointer to a book that may be of interest. Now, last week my humble contribution indeed was included with the others, though grudgingly as I was caboosing the list.  While certainly there is something to be said for “the best for last”, I was upstaged by bigger names (at least in the writing business - not at the bank and the Doll House baby!) with I dare say substantially weaker efforts. In my effort and overwhelming desire to fit in, this will be a special edition of Forgotten Friday here at the Bodhisattva - a turn the other cheek edition - where I will emulate the headliners, the stars, and not be pushed into the ‘character blogger” role - I’m a leading man, damn it, few words and all action!

This week I came damn close to throwing some Sharon Shinn at you because in my pre-book mogul days I really enjoyed her Samaria work but I decided to be a bit more contemporary and pick a book that’s a part of my whole “See what’s cool with crime/mystery phase so we can take over that world in a year or so”. A couple things that apply to this book - that was published in 2006 -  and my thought process: One, I’m a comic book fan, but I’m not one of these morons that make fandom political where I only read Indie shit or mainstream Superheroes.  I read everything that looks reasonably well written from Sandman to Tiny Titans, from Larry Hama to Will Eisner, from Daniel Clowes to Geoff Johns - I don’t give a damn, I don’t need cliques to back me or have to haggle with to substantiate, I’m autonomous in my awesomeness (except when I’m riffing on VanderMeer’s recommendations). I’ll tell with a straight face, to an adult, that a book called Magnus: Robot Fighter might be something you need to check out right after  I recommend Delany’s Dhalgren to you. Now, when you are both a comic fan and a collector (and have some common sense) the relationships to pulps becomes evident and I’m an absolute sucker for anybody throwing pulp material into a novel these days. I just think anytime you bring something from the Golden Age into contemporary fiction you are doing some kind of service for man as an odd ting occurs when you read these pulp stories. You find a basis for some of the most ‘experimental’ works out there - and instead of being in awe, you sit there and realize that gentleman or lady  just added some dressing  to pulps, and since pulps cover all the genre prisons - Mystery, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, etc its presence is everywhere so when somebody just puts it out there and revels in it I just lose my ability to even judge real merit, I just…what is that…we used to have it when we were kids, when it wasn’t considered anti-intellectual…oh yeah…

…fun

So what I have here today is The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril, which for all I know may have been a bestseller, but it’s a work that I admired for actually not going into minutia and didn’t try to be too crafty with this - big ideas, given rather loudly, a rather deliciously irreverent homage that was also smart, but not so smart to make one feel it had ulterior motives. The barebones description is that this book is a mystery as we follow Walter Gibson (creator of The Shadow) and Lester Dent (the central writer of Doc Savage) along with some other recognizables try to solve the mystery of a death of a friend. I want to put this in a bit of context for people. A comic book these days is deemed and overwhelming hit if it sells over 200 thousand copies and most comics are well below 100k in circulation. In the era of the pulp, millions were reading, this was mainstream and you in some manner this feeling is not just missing as object could be, it’s feels like it  - fiction that was not only alive, but larger than life - had died from the mainstream and when reading The Chinatown Death Cloud (or something like Carter Beats the Devil), one wonders why.

A two fisted tale that features within its pages H.P. Lovecraft, Orson Welles, Doc Smith, Ron Hubbard, Henlein, with zombies, grand adventure - duels, shootouts, Chinese gang wars, and of course it would not be pulp without a vixen kicking ass as well - stories from an era not without examination, but did not forget the celebration - there is a pride that seeps through, a rare pride that we can actually be proud of in pulps that while contain stories that too some may seem rather non-liberal, they aren’t (for the most part - unless you were part of the axis powers) with malice. These books were about adventure, when the idea that such could occur and I’m starting to think that ‘literature of ideas’ banner I have been representing for some years now may actually be more well described as ‘ideas of literature’ and somewhere we misplaced the former. We stopped thinking of different and better ways of kicking ass and instead seemed to look for eclectic and esoteric reasons not to. In short, we need more writers like Matt Stover.

That spewl that started this post  was just an excuse to write a shorter piece this week, I have some E-Daimyo stuff to do this weekend (like watch an entire DVD set this weekend) but my ending thought is that there is nothing wrong with just kicking ass and Paul Malmont’s asskickery deserves not to be forgotten; indeed it needs some disciples - a new generation of boy commandos and blonde phantoms to take over a world too full of bloggers and webmasters.

*also, that UK cover is the hotness people.

Previous Forgotten Fridays:

Last Hot Time by John M. Ford

The Steam Magnate by Dana Copithorne

Dossier by Stepan Chapman

Black Brillion by Matthew Hughes

Pandora, by Holly Hollander by Gene Wolfe

Coelestis by Paul Park

Sarah Canary by  Karen Joy Fowler

Brittle Innings by Michael Bishop

Special Note:

Patti is saying that next week’s edition of Forgotten Fridays is being MC’d elsewhere next week. I’m not sure if I’m trying to support that lame site as Patti must have been left with no options to go to a ‘bookspot family related site.

In all seriousness though , It’s about time this feature hit the big time and the ‘bookspot crew is proud to host a feature that displays many more talented people than me, the original Kamen Rider, and we are pleased that Patti honors us (or rather Brian - most likely despite me) with the nod.