A surprisingly clever and blood-soaked take on Charles Dickens's beloved classic, Jim McCann's "Zombie Christmas Carol" is the story of how Ebenezer SA surprisingly clever and blood-soaked take on Charles Dickens's beloved classic, Jim McCann's "Zombie Christmas Carol" is the story of how Ebenezer Scrooge both ruined---and then saved--- Christmas.
A word of warning: Do NOT read this as a bedtime story for your kids or let your little ones look at the pictures, unless you are willing to suffer the consequences....more
Written in 1987, Tom Clancy's novel "Patriot Games" was an intense thriller about something that Americans didn't have to worry about for another decaWritten in 1987, Tom Clancy's novel "Patriot Games" was an intense thriller about something that Americans didn't have to worry about for another decade: terrorism.
Not that terrorism wasn't a major international issue at the time. America, however, was miraculously one of the few countries that hadn't suffered a major terrorist attack on its soil. (It wouldn't be until 1996 when terrorists set off a bomb in the North Tower parking garage, killing six people and injuring hundreds.)
I remember reading this shortly after it came out. I would have probably been in eighth grade. The extent of my knowledge of current events was that I knew Ronald Reagan was president and there was this scary place called "The Middle East" in which lots of horrible things happened. I occasionally caught glimpses of it, in between episodes of "Happy Days" and "Laverne & Shirley". What I saw of the news, I didn't like. It made me anxious. (Strangely enough, I'm 52 and I still don't watch the news for the same reason.)
Anyway, "Patriot Games" was one of those Books and Authors That I Loved But Haven't Read in a While and Need to Revisit. I remember reading this book multiple times, mainly because Clancy could write some of the most intense and exciting action scenes. He was also great at building suspense over long periods of time involving multiple actors. Very few contemporary authors have emulated this quality of Clancy's. (Vince Flynn comes the closest.)
I remember liking the inevitable movie with Harrison Ford, but it honestly couldn't hold a candle to Clancy's book....more
"The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of"The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain---a malign and particular suspension of defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of umplumbed space." ---H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
Preeminent Lovecraft scholar and amateur literary critic S.T. Joshi ("amateur" is not intended to be insulting; he admits it in the first paragraph of the introduction) spends a large chunk of his introduction in his book "The Weird Tale" trying to describe what a "weird tale" isn't and ultimately finds himself going back to the above definition. It's as good a definition as any.
Joshi's book is, admittedly, for a niche audience. Only a select group of readers actually know what "weird" fiction is, and not everyone in that group actually likes it, so Joshi's book has a very limited appeal.
If, however, you have actually read---and enjoy---stories by Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, M. R. James, Ambrose Bierce, and H. P. Lovecraft (bonus points given if you're actually familiar with at least half those writers), then this might be a worthwhile book to read.
Lovecraft may be the most familiar name on the list and, according to Joshi, the author who is still widely read. Joshi himself is somewhat biased (again, he admits this), as he is a huge Lovecraft fanboy.
Some of the other authors are hardly remembered for their oeuvre, having been relegated to, at best, a literary footnote. Dunsany, for example, essentially invented the "sword-and-sorcery fantasy" genre, which was immediately taken up by, and vastly improved upon by, J.R.R. Tolkein.
Joshi tries to encourage readers to pick up some of these authors, as they were certainly gifted in specific, albeit self-limiting, areas. For example, James was widely regarded as one of the best writers of Victorian-era ghost stories, but that's about all he ever wrote.
While I have read, and love, some of the works of Blackwood ("The Willows" is a chilling horror novella) and Bierce, I have tried to read Machen and Dunsany to varying degrees of success. Machen's style is so overwrought as to almost be unreadable, and Dunsany's fantasy is, while beautifully poetic, just pure silliness. James's ghost stories are, by today's standards, laughably un-scary.
Of course, there is something to be said for reading these old 19th-century gems. Many of them are brilliant and wonderful snapshots of a particular era in our history of a pre-industrial world unsullied by fears of world-wide global destruction. Fears were so much simpler then......more
Of the eleven stories chosen for the Penguin Classics compilation of Arthur Machen's "The White People and Other Weird Stories", edited by S.T. Joshi,Of the eleven stories chosen for the Penguin Classics compilation of Arthur Machen's "The White People and Other Weird Stories", edited by S.T. Joshi, only about two or three may raise the hairs on the back of one's neck. By today's standards of horror, they aren't that scary.
If, however, you only read one really well-crafted---and truly gruesome---horror story from this collection, read "Novel of the White Powder". Even by today's standards, this story is super-gross. I'm waiting for Shudder to turn it into a movie soon.
Seriously, though, it's important to remember that these stories were written at the turn of the 20th century; what people considered shocking and horrifying was vastly different than what we consider shocking and horrifying today.
Take Machen's most popular horror story "The Great God Pan" (a story which is shockingly absent from this collection, so one will have to look elsewhere for it), which is a supreme example of the Victorian-Era predilection for "Skirting the Issue". The story is basically about Naughty Sex, which Machen (and most Victorian-Era Brits) found not just distasteful but actually terrifying. Sex scared them, mainly because it made people crazy. There was also nudity involved, which was a big no-no.
The brilliant thing about the story (and several other stories in this collection) is how Machen was able to so clearly write about Naughty Sex without actually writing about sex. Everything was hinted at, subtly suggested, and/or implied with (really weird) symbolism. Nuance was everything.
Besides sex, though, the other thing that terrified Machen was secularism. A devout Catholic, Machen didn't like anything that strayed from traditionalism and a posture of reverence toward Nature and the Divine. This helps to explain some stories ("A Fragment of Life") which, to modern audiences, may not seem frightening at all. Indeed, it may lead one to wonder what the point of the story is at all, unless one looks at it from Machen's perspective of anti-materialism and anti-consumerism.
Later stories were very journalistic, owing to the fact that Machen was a journalist. From a documentarian standpoint, many of these stories are wonderful at capturing a time and place, namely Britain during the First World War. Horror and supernatural aspects were often subtle to the point of nonexistence, although the collection's final story (and the longest), "The Terror" is a creepy little story about "Nature Run Amok", one that predates Daphne Du Maurier's "The Birds" by about 30 years. ...more
So, apparently those fans that young women waved in front of their faces back in the Victorian Era actually served a purpose. Based on the placement, So, apparently those fans that young women waved in front of their faces back in the Victorian Era actually served a purpose. Based on the placement, movement, and how it was folded, those fans were used as code to communicate messages to each other.
When Enola Holmes sees her friend, Lady Cecily, wave her pink fan in a code saying "Help me", Enola is thrust into a bizarre kidnapping case. Cecily is being held against her will in an orphanage to fulfill an arranged marriage that her mother is dead-set against. Cecily's mother hires the famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, to find her daughter, but Enola (Sherlock's younger---and arguably more clever---sister) may have advantages of her age and gender that Sherlock doesn't. Does she work with her brother to save Lady Cecily? Or go it alone and risk losing her friend to a horrible marriage... to a (Egad!)man!
"Enola Holmes and The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan" is the fourth book in Nancy Springer's wonderful young adult series. I am definitely hooked. On to Book 5!...more
Dr. John Watson is missing! His friend and partner-in-deductive-ratiocination, Sherlock Holmes, is clueless! It looks like a job for Sherlock's young Dr. John Watson is missing! His friend and partner-in-deductive-ratiocination, Sherlock Holmes, is clueless! It looks like a job for Sherlock's young sister, Enola!
Enola Holmes, still on the lam from her brothers and still looking for her mom, decides to help her famous brother. Besides, she'd met Dr. Watson once before and found him to be a nice enough fellow. After disguising herself to meet Watson's young wife, she is more determined to find the missing doctor. Unfortunately, her only clue is a bouquet of flowers sent to Mrs. Watson containing weirdly inappropriate plants, including asparagus.
Nancy Springer's third book to feature her young detective, "Enola Holmes and the Bizarre Bouquets", is another excellent entry in one of my new favorite young-adult series.
P.S. The Netflix movie series is wonderful, but don't watch them expecting them to be close adaptations of the books. They're not. The books are definitely targeted more for middle-school/early high school readers, while the movies are definitely targeted for older teens. ...more
Eoin Colfer's "A Big Hand for the Doctor" is one of twelve adorable little books in a boxset celebrating the 50th anniversary of the BBC TV show "DoctEoin Colfer's "A Big Hand for the Doctor" is one of twelve adorable little books in a boxset celebrating the 50th anniversary of the BBC TV show "Doctor Who". I grew up watching the show when it aired on PBS during the '80s. Sadly, many of the original episodes have long since been lost to posterity due to the fact that the BBC didn't start archiving these until the late-'80s. Each little book in the box set is about one of the twelve Doctors, including the most recent (at the time of publication), played by Peter Capaldi.
Colfer's book is about the first Doctor, played by the late actor William Hartnell. He has parked his TARDIS in Victorian England after losing his hand in a fight with one of the many alien species he has encountered over the centuries. While waiting for a prosthetic, his granddaughter and several other children are kidnapped by Space Pirates. The Doctor dons a hook for a hand and finds his way aboard the Pirate ship, called the "We Never Land". (I hope you are catching all the obvious references.)
This was fun, albeit extremely short. This box set was later published in book form....more
Imagine if your athlete's foot or yeast infection had an evolutionary boost and took over half your body. This is the frightening (and, frankly, downrImagine if your athlete's foot or yeast infection had an evolutionary boost and took over half your body. This is the frightening (and, frankly, downright yucky) premise of Harry Adam Knight's 1985 fungal-horror novel "The Fungus", which reads like a James Herbert novel with a more sci-fi edge.
Body horror creeps me out, and this is crazy-weird body horror involving mushrooms and fungus. Knight's descriptions are pretty vivid and real, more of a clinical mycological look at what would happen if a bio-engineered fungus were accidentally unleashed upon a big city; in this case, London. Spoiler alert: it's yucky.
If you're wondering where the producers of the HBO TV show (and the video game it was based on) "The Last of Us" got their idea for a global fungal takeover, look no further than this book. I'm fairly sure it was a major inspiration....more
Michael Robotham’s novel “When You Are Mine” is a thriller that starts out being about one thing and gradually becomes about something else. It is hanMichael Robotham’s novel “When You Are Mine” is a thriller that starts out being about one thing and gradually becomes about something else. It is handled so adroitly that the transition is seamless and the suspense never lets up.
Philomena McCarthy is a cop. She’s a good one, too. Unfortunately, during a domestic disturbance call, she arrests a man named Darren Goodall for assaulting his mistress, a woman named Tempe Brown. This encounter, with both people, will unalterably ruin her life.
There are really two stories going on at once. One is a “bad cop” story. There is nothing more dangerous than a bad cop, and Robotham deftly illustrates how a corrupt, patriarchal brotherhood like the police can create, sustain, and protect loose cannons with deadly consequences. It is true: when good men do nothing, evil wins.
The other story is more complicated. It is about female friendship but an unnatural, unhealthy, and toxic relationship. It is a relationship built on deception, unhealthy obsession, extreme possessiveness, and psychological control.
This is an excellent suspense thriller in the vein of Dennis Lehane, Harlan Coben, and Patricia Cornwell....more
Lydia Gregovic's debut novel "The Monstrous Kind" is, essentially, Bridgerton with zombies, although that description is a bit reductive and fails to Lydia Gregovic's debut novel "The Monstrous Kind" is, essentially, Bridgerton with zombies, although that description is a bit reductive and fails to take into account the strange beauty of the novel.
Gregovic clearly loves, and is heavily inspired by, the works of Jane Austen. As an unabashed Austen fan myself, I have a great respect for what Gregovic is doing. To be fair, other authors have done this before; most notably, Seth Grahame-Smith's 2009 parody novel "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", which was exactly what it sounds like.
I loved Graham-Smith's novel for what it was, but it must be noted that Gregovic is doing something very different in "The Monstrous Kind".
Through fascinating and well-constructed world-building, Gregovic has created a completely unique genre piece that is a mash-up of two genres (Victorian romance and zombie apocalypse) that is done so seamlessly as to almost create its own genre.
The plot---like most Austen-esque plots---is a bit complicated to explain in depth. Like most Austen novels, it involves the relationship between sisters, a love story, and a not-so-subtle castigation of Victorian high society.
The horror backdrop: the novel is set over a hundred years after what can only be assumed is a global event (any contact with the outside world no longer exists, so it's unknown what is happening elsewhere) called the Turning, in which an oppressive fog surrounded the British Isles. Inhabitants managed to push back the fog with giant bonfires and continuously-burning lanterns that surround what is left of the country. That was just the beginning.
For some unfortunate inhabitants, the fog "infected" them by turning them into violent zombies that survivors call "Phantoms". A small percentage of the population appear to be immune to the effects of the fog. These select few immune families created the 12 houses which rule the country. Together, they have created a new government called the Council, housed in New London, built from the literal ashes of old London. They are responsible for the well-being and protection of the surviving inhabitants of the country.
Gregovic took a big risk in creating this genre mash-up, but it ultimately yields rewards. This is a fun, fascinating young adult novel that has the potential to be a series....more
When unrealistic ideals of beauty, social media, and teenagers collide, the results are never good. When you throw in supernatural evil entities and rWhen unrealistic ideals of beauty, social media, and teenagers collide, the results are never good. When you throw in supernatural evil entities and rogue quantum physics, the aftermath could be worse than Thanos’s finger-snap.
This is the problem that Jessica Jones faces in her first novel (targeted for adults), “Breaking the Dark”, written by best-selling author Lisa Jewell. It is the first of a proposed series of Marvel Crime novels, written by well-known mystery/crime writers. The second book, due out next year, is a Luke Cage novel written by S.A. Cosby.
Former superhero and current private investigator Jessica Jones reluctantly takes on a case of two teenaged twins who have returned from a trip from England. Their mother thinks something happened to them over there, but she can’t exactly articulate what. For all intents and purposes, the kids are fine. Perfect, really. And that’s the problem.
Before they went, they were normal teenagers. Since returning, they are more well-behaved, stronger academically, and they are performing better in sports and activities that they were merely decent in before. Oh, and they are also beautiful, with perfect skin. But they are also acting slightly weird. All of their friends say so, and even their mom notices. Something’s not right.
Jessica takes the case, and she’s soon off to the English countryside, in an idyllic little village called Barton Wallop. (Don’t ask.) The case may get her mind off some things she’s dealing with, like nightmares of the Purple Man and the fact that she’s pregnant with her on-again off-again boyfriend Luke Cage. (He doesn’t know yet.)
But her investigation soon uncovers something dark and evil lurking within the town, and her case is definitely linked somehow to a several-year-old case involving the abduction of three teenaged girls as well as a 30-year-old case of a New York serial killer called the Harlem Vampire.
Jewell, a British crime writer, tells a riveting yarn. She keeps one guessing as to what the hell is happening until the very end, and trust me: you’ll be guessing. And it’s clear that she’s a Jessica Jones fan, not just some writer assigned to write a novel featuring a comic book character. Fans would be able to see right through that shit anyway.
If the subsequent Marvel Crime novels in the series can maintain the quality started in this first one, I’m looking forward to reading them all. ...more
Lucas Pender hates rats. After rats killed and ate his entire family during the Rat Outbreak of London in ’74, he has wanted nothing more than to eradLucas Pender hates rats. After rats killed and ate his entire family during the Rat Outbreak of London in ’74, he has wanted nothing more than to eradicate rats from England, especially the large mutant black rats that left thousands dead. Now working for the government as an official ratcatcher, Pender strives to prevent the next mutant rat outbreak. Unfortunately, when it inevitably does happen, small-minded government officials and bureaucrats make the situation worse…
Thus begins James Herbert’s 1979 novel “Lair”, a sequel to his 1974 novel “The Rats”. Herbert, who clearly believes that it’s foolish to mess with a formula that works, basically wrote a redux of the first novel, changing only the size of the rats (they’re bigger), the amount (there’s more), and the body count (many more people die in far more gruesome detail), which—-unless you are expecting grandiloquence on the scale of Shakespeare—-is pretty damn perfect for a Herbert horror novel.
Seriously, this book is overflowing with blood and guts, so be forewarned if you have a squeamish stomach. Entire elementary schools, trailer parks, and army platoons are torn to bloody pieces by ravenous giant rats. If that sentence immediately turns you off or offends you in anyway, steer clear! If, however, 10-15 pages of gloriously graphic descriptions of people having their faces ripped off, their genitalia being eaten, and intestines being tossed around by rats like drunken frat-boys playing hackey-sack, then this is definitely the book you should be reading.
If Eli Roth is shopping around for more movie ideas, this series is just dying to be remade. (A 1982 American horror film “Deadly Eyes” has been the only film adaptation of “The Rats”.) A third book, “Domain”, exists but is, sadly, out of print and extremely hard to find. An even-rarer out-of-print fourth book, “The City”, also exists. ...more
The late James Herbert, perhaps Britain’s greatest horror novelist, did two things really well:
1) He had a gift for character development, even when wThe late James Herbert, perhaps Britain’s greatest horror novelist, did two things really well:
1) He had a gift for character development, even when writing minor characters. He seemed to have a preternatural instinct for getting into the hearts and minds of a wide range of characters—-young or old, male or female, gay or straight. He seemed to possess a very strong inclination for empathy. He treated his characters as human beings first and characters in a horror novel second. And he was also very good at
2) Killing those characters off in some of the most graphically gruesome and gory ways.
This coming year, Herbert’s novel “The Rats” celebrates its 50th anniversary. For a horror novel that was written during the mid-1970s, it still holds up as a page-turner.
The story is straightforward: giant mutated rats run rampant through the streets and sewers of London, eating and maiming any and all humans in their path. The ones who survive with bites die of a horrible disease within 24 hours. There’s no explanation for where they came from or how they mutated. (Well, actually, there is, but Herbert doesn’t go into great detail or any detail, really. He kind of gives the reader the impression that it doesn’t really matter, and, in truth, it really doesn’t.)
“The Rats” isn’t great literature, but it does what it’s meant to do: give one the heebie jeebies. If you already detest rats and other vermin, this is definitely not the book for you. If, however, you like good ol’ fashioned man-v.-nature horror stuff—-“The Birds”, “Jaws”, “Piranha”, “Anaconda”, “Cujo”, to name a few—-this is definitely one of the better ones.
A film version (the only one, that I know of) was made in 1982 under the name “Deadly Eyes”. It is, by all accounts, a relatively forgettable affair, but the trailer looks fantastic. Herbert also wrote three sequels to this book....more
Despite the fact that it is 135 years old, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short novel; "A Study in Scarlet"---which introduced the world to Sherlock Holmes-Despite the fact that it is 135 years old, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short novel; "A Study in Scarlet"---which introduced the world to Sherlock Holmes---is still immensely readable. While detective tools and methods may have evolved over the past century, good storytelling is still good storytelling.
Wounded vet Dr. John Watson is back from a tour of duty in India and looking for a roommate. He stumbles across a gentleman roughly his own age also looking for a roommate. Slightly odd, Sherlock Holmes is a fascinating and befuddling character. Watson's not completely sure what Holmes actually does for a living, but he begins to get an idea when visiting detectives from Scotland Yard arrive to ask Holmes for assistance in a murder case.
Not to give too many spoilers, but the case involves two dead Americans, a missing wedding ring, and Mormons. There is even a weird, almost incongruous, detour within the story that is set in Utah. Indeed, Doyle almost shifts the genre from a detective story to a western, but it is all cleverly explained in the end. By Holmes, of course, who apparently figured out the mystery fairly early on. (A common modus operandi for the brilliant detective.)
While Doyle didn't invent the detective story (Holmes and Watson even, at one point in the story, gives due credit to Edgar Allan Poe's "Auguste Dupin" stories, which pre-dated the Holmes stories by about 30 years. Commonly uncredited is British author Wilkie Collins' novel "The Moonstone", which predates "A Study in Scarlet" by 20 years, and is considered the very first detective novel ever written), he certainly made them ridiculously popular and essentially jumpstarted the genre....more
It says a lot for a horror/dark fantasy graphic novel series to have a successful run of nearly 30 years. That’s a good run in any genre, especially iIt says a lot for a horror/dark fantasy graphic novel series to have a successful run of nearly 30 years. That’s a good run in any genre, especially in the comic book industry. “John Constantine, the Hellblazer”, the longest-running series in the DC Vertigo line, started in 1987 and ran until 2013. It was resurrected in other titles, and, as of today, is still going. The series inspired a major motion picture and a short-lived NBC TV series.
I’m not sure why I waited this long to finally read “Hellblazer”. Part of it might be due to the 2005 film starring Keanu Reeves, a movie that I didn’t like at all and, frankly, still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Yet, the comic series had been running for nearly two decades before the movie, so I can’t exactly blame it on that.
I do know that in 1987, I was in eighth grade. I had other things going on then, and my tastes in comic book genres did not include brooding, philosophical working-class British dabblers in the occult heavy on socio-political commentary with a strong liberal bent. I liked superheroes wearing Spandex, and I was also discovering that I liked magazines with naked women in them. So, there’s that...
Regardless, I’m just glad that I decided to start reading them now. “Hellblazer” is, hands down, one of the coolest graphic novel series I have ever read.
The origins of Constantine are still a mystery to me. Supposedly, Constantine first appeared in the pages of Alan Moore’s now-famous series “Swamp Thing” (It’s on my “to read” list, to be sure), and then writer Jamie Delano and artists John Ridgway and Alfredo Alcala decided that he deserved his own series.
Constantine, as a character, essentially represented everything I didn’t like as a teenager. He had no actual super powers. He was kind of a dick. He smoked. And he didn’t actually help anybody, except maybe occasionally by accident. He also spent a lot of time making fun of Christianity, liberal do-goodism, happy people, etc.
As a 47-year-old, the guy’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a perfect anti-hero.
The first volume, “Original Sins”, compiles issues #1-9 of the series. The very dark (and British) comic book artwork reminds me of a few things---the British comic books “2000 A.D." featuring Judge Dredd (a series that I discovered young and have loved ever since) and some of the early EC horror comics of the 1940s and ‘50s (a late-in-life discovery).
If you were not aware of his origins, in the first several issues, Constantine sets himself as a kind of stereotypical old-school detective, replete with a trenchcoat and a cigarette always dangling from the corner of his mouth. Everything about the comic book screams “noir”. There’s a catch, though, because Constantine isn’t solving the typical crimes. The crimes he’s after have a sinister and supernatural fragrance. They are crimes that most cops or shamuses would write off as unsolvable or too weird.
Constantine is reminiscent of John Connolly’s series involving another brooding detective named Charlie Parker, who also engages in supernatural and otherworldly investigations. Unlike Constantine, though, Parker is empathetic, compassionate, and a decent human being. Strangely enough, I think the two would probably get along, because despite their vast differences in personality, they are, basically, working on the same side.
BTW: There are two compilations of this volume. One was published in 1988 and the other was published in 2011, with two different covers. They both include issues #1-9, but the more recent publication also includes issues 76 and 77 of Swamp Thing, which was where Constantine was first introduced to readers. ...more
Genocide: (n) The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or grGenocide: (n) The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
It is a sad irony that a nation-state built primarily for a group of people who suffered a near-successful genocidal campaign by a psychotic world leader in the 20th century has, in the 21st century, engaged in a similar genocidal campaign against another group of people, an almost-perfect textbook example of the oppressed becoming an oppressor.
Please don’t twist my words, either. I am not being Antisemitic in that statement. Criticizing the colonial policies of the Israeli government should not imply a hostility or hatred of the Jewish people. Unfortunately, the world being what it is, such a statement will inevitably be misinterpreted.
The truth, though, is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has used the Israeli-Hamas War that started on October 7, 2023 as the impetus to continue a deliberate ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip that began roughly more than a hundred years ago.
Rashid Khalidi’s 2020 book “The Hundred Year’s War on Palestine” is an immensely eye-opening history of the conflict that has turned an area of the Middle East that is considered sacred by three of the major world religions into a profane killing field.
Blaming Israel is disingenuous, of course, as British Imperialism is as much at fault as the popular Zionist movement at the turn of the last century for creating the Palestinian displacement. In what has now become known as the Balfour Declaration—a single sentence recorded in a November 1917 cabinet meeting by the secretary of state for foreign affairs, Arthur J. Balfour—-Britain essentially declared its support for the eventual creation of a Jewish state in what was the country of Palestine. Perhaps nothing more than a statement to appease the growing number of Jews supportive of the Zionist movement in Europe at that time, this statement threw open a door that led directly to the creation of Israel many years later, a prospect that many indigenous Palestinians feared.
Jewish settlements, with the support of Britain, began to appear in Palestine after the First World War, bringing an already-existing Jewish population of roughly 6% of the whole to roughly 18% by 1926.
In 1947, The United Nations General Assembly voted for the partition of Palestine. Known as resolution 181, the plan provided an area of the country (42%) for the Arab population, an area of the country (56%) for the Jewish population, and the remainder (2%)—-an area comprised of the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem and surrounds—-designated as an “international zone”.
It was only a year later that Israel officially became a country, under David Ben-Gurion, head of the Jewish Agency. Helping to establish legitimacy was U.S. President Harry Truman’s recognition of the state on the same day it became the State of Israel, May 14, 1948.
Almost immediately, the violent upheaval that resulted in roughly 750,000 Arab Palestinians expelled from their homes began in earnest by the new Israeli government. Called the “Nakba” (an Arabic word meaning “catastrophe”), this ethnic cleansing of Palestine ushered in a new era of violence on both sides.
The Israeli narrative of this event vastly deviates from the Palestinian perspective. The tendency by some Israelis even today to downplay, ignore, or completely refute the violence committed by its own government during this time period ironically earns it the expression “Nakba denial”.
Palestinian militancy grew stronger in the subsequent years, eventually culminating in the foundation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), initiated by the Arab League (comprised of the seven countries of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, North Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Transjordan), in May 1964. This was the first organization to officially represent the Palestinian people.
The group Hamas was formed many year later, in 1987.
The late 1960s was the beginning of what Khalidi refers to as “the classical period of the Arab-Israeli conflict”, in which the United States and Israel became unofficial “partners” during the Cold War against Russia, which “unofficially” offered support to militant Palestinian groups.
Amidst the violence perpetrated by Israel and militant Palestinian groups, it is important to keep in mind the vast number of innocent Palestinian people—-children, especially—-caught in the crosshairs of this conflict. Just as it is wrong to lump all Israelis together as anti-Palestinian, it is equally wrong to lump all Palestinians as terrorists. Unfortunately, this is essentially what happened.
Over time, the PLO denounced many of its own militant tactics, such as suicide bombing, and became simply a political arm of the Palestinian people. Many times, the group came close to getting countries such as the U.S. and Israel to recognize the legitimacy of the Palestinian people as a nation-state without a nation. But a two-state solution has never been adequately devised.
If any progress was made with the countless talks and accords over the years (and, frankly, there hasn’t been much), President Donald Trump set the conflict back considerably with his proposed peace plan announced in 2020, a plan rejected almost unanimously by Palestinians.
Then, October 2023 happened, where Hamas launched a full-scale attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip. According to recent data, roughly 1,200 Israelis have been killed and 5,341 injured; roughly 35,091 Palestinians have been killed and 78,827 injured.
Khalidi’s book is a good start if you want to understand the situation overseas. He lays bare his own personal history, one that divulges some of his own potential biases, but his book manages to be as objective an account of the last hundred years as is possible....more
I now understand and appreciate the potential inspiration for “Carrie”, Stephen King’s now-classic horror novel about a shy young girl with telekinesiI now understand and appreciate the potential inspiration for “Carrie”, Stephen King’s now-classic horror novel about a shy young girl with telekinesis who gets revenge on the people who wronged her. Clearly, he based it on Roald Dahl’s “Matilda”.
Except there’s a major problem with that theory: King wrote and published “Carrie” in 1974, and Dahl wrote and published “Matilda” in 1988.
Is there anybody else confused by that? I was absolutely certain that “Matilda” pre-dated “Carrie”.
Whatever. Dahl’s book about a precocious young girl with an excess of brain power is basically an elementary-school/middle reader version of “Carrie”, minus the overzealous Christian Fundamentalist mother, the bucket of pig’s blood, and the prom massacre.
Instead, we have Matilda’s parents who are absolutely horrible people, a school headmistress who hates children and is possibly a murderer, and Matilda’s telekinetic ability to overturn glasses of water and write messages in chalk with her mind.
“Carrie” was, of course, a horror novel, while “Matilda” is played for laughs, but the treatment Matilda receives at the hands of her parents and her school headmistress are horrifying. They are truly awful, and would actually fit just as easily in the pages of a King novel.
The only source of human kindness stems from the wonderful Miss Honey, Matilda’s fourth-grade teacher, who truly loves her students and does what she can to protect them from the evils of the world. Unfortunately, in many cases, her hands are tied, which is perhaps a more honest and terrifying social commentary.
My daughter and I enjoyed “Matilda”. It was very funny and moving, but it’s very obvious that Dahl had it in for certain groups of people: namely, asshole parents who don’t deserve to have kids and school administrators who hate children and are only doing the job for their inflated and undeserved salaries....more
Ah, weddings: I’ll be perfectly honest with you—-I’ve never liked them. My own wedding was nice—-beautiful venue, respectable turn-out, gorgeous brideAh, weddings: I’ll be perfectly honest with you—-I’ve never liked them. My own wedding was nice—-beautiful venue, respectable turn-out, gorgeous bride, decent food—-but, to be honest, the day was kind of a blur for me. All that nervous excitement and rush to get to the honeymoon (ifyaknowwahtImean… nudge nudge wink wink…).
I remember having to go table to table meeting family members I hadn’t seen in years and new family members on my wife’s side I was meeting for the first time; barely getting a chance to drink anything because the photographer kept pulling me away to get a shot in with a third cousin I barely knew; that annoying ting-ting-ting of forks on glasses as every pervert in the place wanted to see my wife and I suck more face.
The only upside was the dancing, as my wife and I picked the music. (Lots of ‘80s music, including Billy Idol’s “White Wedding”, which was really a slap in the face to everyone who berated me for including it due to its “inappropriate” lyrics. Whatever. It’s a good song.) Okay, to be fair: my wife was a beautiful bride and my only source of stability and sanity during that whole crazy evening.
It could have been worse, I suppose. There could have been a lot of carousing, drunken arguments and fist-fights, ancient family resentments coming out into the light, illicit sexual one-night stands, and murder. I guess there’s that.
Lucy Foley, I’m guessing, doesn’t like weddings all that much either. A big event wedding on an island off the coast of Ireland during a big storm is the setting for her novel “The Guest List”, which is the best kind of Agatha Christie-style English murder mystery that I had no idea that we—-in this Trump, Covid-19, fuck-2020-I’m-done Era—-truly needed.
Seriously, there is something so cynically brutal, brilliantly nasty, and strangely cathartic about this book. It does for contemporary British murder mysteries what Robert Altman’s 2001 film “Gosford Park” did for the 1930s tea-party murder mysteries. Like the film, Foley’s novel is darkly satirical with some caustic social commentary, but Foley’s feminist approach is vastly different than Altman’s somewhat misogynistic subtext.
Without giving too many spoilers, the novel begins in medias res with the discovery of the body. It is late into the night of the wedding. Everyone is drunk. The lights have gone out. A woman screams. There is sudden talk of lots of blood. No mention is made of who has died.
Flashback to the day before, as the bride and groom and the bridal party arrive to the island, along with all of their baggage. Both literal and emotional.
Each chapter is a first-person perspective of the key players: Jules, the bride, a well-to-do independent businesswoman who runs a popular news/gossip website called The Download who is marrying Will, the incredibly attractive star of a popular reality TV show called Survive the Night; Johnno, the best man, and Will’s best friend since their days at the exclusive boy’s prep school they attended together; Olivia, the maid of honor, and Jules’s younger sister; Hanna, the wife of Charlie, the man who has known Jules since they grew up together as kids; Aoife, the wedding planner, a mousy, conservative woman who stands in the shadows and choreographs the event.
Needless to say, not everyone wants to be at the wedding, and all of them are arriving with deep-rooted hostilities and terrible secrets that could destroy reputations, careers, and marriages.
This is excellent, juicy stuff, and Foley does an excellent job of doling out tidbits of information little by little, like breadcrumbs leading to a bear-trap.
By the time one reaches the end of the novel, the murder has almost—-strike that: definitely—-become the least horrible thing to have happened during this wedding night....more
I was in 8th grade in 1987, which was the same year that I saw “Hellraiser” in theaters. Apparently, back in those more innocent days, an “R” rating dI was in 8th grade in 1987, which was the same year that I saw “Hellraiser” in theaters. Apparently, back in those more innocent days, an “R” rating didn’t mean much, as I was not with a parent or adult guardian when I saw it. I distinctly remember seeing it with about four other guys in my class. Our parents literally dropped us off in front of the theater, gave us $10 (because in those days, one could buy a movie ticket AND popcorn and candy and a drink for $10), and sent us on our merry way. We could have been buying crack cocaine in the alleyway behind the theater for all they cared, but whatever.
Anyway, I don’t think any of us knew what to expect with “Hellraiser”. I remember digging the poster, showing some pale dude with pins sticking in his face. I remember us laughing going in, probably thinking how bad can this be…
Holy mother of God. We were unprepared.
“Hellraiser”, I remember, set me on a path of loving horror movies. To be fair, I loved horror movies before seeing “Hellraiser”, but to be honest: there was never a horror movie quite like “Hellraiser” before “Hellraiser”. It set the standard for that holyshitholyshitholyshit-makeitstopmakeitstop kind of horror.
It also introduced me to a horror writer that I have admired ever since: Clive Barker.
Barker wrote and directed the movie, but it was based on a novella that he wrote called “The Hellbound Heart”, and I’m ashamed to say that I just recently read it for the first time now. I have no excuses, really.
In any case, the novella wasn’t bad. It is pretty typical Barker fare: extremely well-written, beautiful prose, gory as all get-out, and disturbing as fuck.
I do have to say that this may be a case in which the movie was actually better than the book, for a few reasons.
One reason is that, since Barker wrote and directed the film, he had the freedom and the ability to tweak and improve upon his own story, which he did. Little things, like changing Kristy’s character from a family friend to the daughter of Rory (Larry in the film). Kristy’s character in the book was sort of one-dimensional and acted simply as a foil, whereas she was a more developed character in the film.
Another reason is the practical f/x in the film were phenomenal. This is a case in which the gore straddled the fine line between gratuitous and necessary. We needed to be horrified by the blood and guts to show how truly horrifying and desperate Frank’s search for pleasures beyond our world was. Frank is an evil guy, but he isn’t a capital “E” evil. He’s a lower-case “e” evil, the evil of the banal and everyday, the evil of selfishly always wanting more and never being satisfied with what one has. It’s the evil of boredom. It’s a perfect contrast to the truly bad-ass Evil of the Cenobites, the priests of Hell, who come to collect their pound of flesh.
The book’s good, and I’d recommend it for Barker fans, but the movie is awesome, if you can stomach it....more
One of the best young adult series for girls is a series by Nancy Springer featuring a tween-age detective living in London. Her name is Enola.
It is One of the best young adult series for girls is a series by Nancy Springer featuring a tween-age detective living in London. Her name is Enola.
It is important to note two very important facts: 1) The setting is Victorian England, roughly the latter-half of the 19th century. Not the best time and place for young girls, and women in general, looking to make a career for themselves. 2) Enola’s last name is Holmes. She is the younger sister of another famous detective, the one that lives on Baker Street. Yes, that Holmes.
In the second book, “The Case of the Left-Handed Lady”, Enola is still looking for her mother. In the meantime, she has set up shop in a small office advertising her skills as a perditorian. (In case you didn’t know, a “perditorian” is a finder of lost things and people.) Actually, she has set up shop for a Dr. Ragostin, perditorian extraordinaire, and she is his secretary. Never mind the fact that Dr. Ragostin exists only in her mind, but she’s smart enough to know that people will certainly not take up her services if she advertised as herself, a 14-year-old who is, technically, still on the run from the law and her two brothers, Mycroft and Sherlock, who want to send her away to a boarding school.
In this book, Enola takes on the case of a missing young girl named Lady Cecily. She disappeared one night without a trace, and the police are baffled as to whether she was kidnapped or simply ran away. There are no clues.
What the case needs is, of course, a young lady’s touch. After all, who better to look for a missing young lady than another young lady?
These are fun, suspenseful, and intelligent mysteries. Springer has a goldmine of a series here.
P.S. The “Enola Holmes” movies on Netflix are equally excellent, although the screenplays deviate greatly from Springer’s books. Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven, from “Stranger Things”) is wonderful as the precocious titular character....more