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I didn't receive this till 07 but it was published in 06. M Press is the offshoot of Dark Horse Comics and Rob Simpson, the editor there has been publishing a series of novels that are related to classic novels. So far, I know that Paul Witcover, Paul Di Filippo, and Elizabeth Hand have written novels for him. Bottom Feeder by B.H. Fingerman (M Press) is a debut novel by a writer better known for his graphic novel writing. A reluctant vampire from Queens, New York is turned at age twenty –seven by an unknown attacker and loses his wife, his home, and his job and forced to make it on his own in his strange new world. His only friend is a total loser he’s known since high school who just won’t let go. Funny, ironic, and ultimately even moving as the guy meets other vampires and see the possible lifestyles he could be “living.”
Remainder by Tom McCarthy (Vintage) is a first novel about a man who received an 8 ½ million pound sterling settlement for an accident in which he almost died. The reader never finds out what actually happened but upon the guy’s recovery, he becomes convinced that he has lost his connection to the world and that the only way he can recover is to recreate a specific living condition that he remembers. Hiring a facilitator, he does this by buying up property and peopling it with hirelings who will follow a specific script that he supplies—on call to his every whim. The pianist upstairs must practice a specific piece of music and when he makes mistakes, he has to practice over and over again. The concierge must stand by the door all day –in a mask—as the employer doesn’t remember the actual face of the original concierge. Black cats must roam the red slate roof across the way. His fraying mind demands that he re-enact scenes that he has viewed in life and his wealth makes it possible to do so. The end result is inevitable—monstrous, terrifying, and in a way funny.
Deadstock by Jeffrey Thomas (Solaris) is a “Punktown” novel, and like all of Thomas’s fiction in his world, is absorbing and well told. I love his world building…I was a bit put off at first by some clunkiness in the writing, but ultimately the story carried me along. A private eye is hired by a rich man to find the missing, very expensive and unique doll that he has bioengineered for his daughter. In the meantime, an abandoned apartment building defends itself by bloodily slaughtering all intruders and a young girl has disappeared.
Stalin’s Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith (Simon & Schuster) brings back Arkady Renko, the Moscow detective first introduced by Smith in Gorky Park. Since then, Renko has returned in novels several times since, including the Chernobyl novel Wolves Eat Dogs. In the new book, the ghost of Stalin appears to a subway car full of Muscovites, starting a chain of events that lead to political chicanery, death, revisiting past atrocities in Chechnya, and some nicely done plot twists.
Remainder by Tom McCarthy (Vintage) is a first novel about a man who received an 8 ½ million pound sterling settlement for an accident in which he almost died. The reader never finds out what actually happened but upon the guy’s recovery, he becomes convinced that he has lost his connection to the world and that the only way he can recover is to recreate a specific living condition that he remembers. Hiring a facilitator, he does this by buying up property and peopling it with hirelings who will follow a specific script that he supplies—on call to his every whim. The pianist upstairs must practice a specific piece of music and when he makes mistakes, he has to practice over and over again. The concierge must stand by the door all day –in a mask—as the employer doesn’t remember the actual face of the original concierge. Black cats must roam the red slate roof across the way. His fraying mind demands that he re-enact scenes that he has viewed in life and his wealth makes it possible to do so. The end result is inevitable—monstrous, terrifying, and in a way funny.
Deadstock by Jeffrey Thomas (Solaris) is a “Punktown” novel, and like all of Thomas’s fiction in his world, is absorbing and well told. I love his world building…I was a bit put off at first by some clunkiness in the writing, but ultimately the story carried me along. A private eye is hired by a rich man to find the missing, very expensive and unique doll that he has bioengineered for his daughter. In the meantime, an abandoned apartment building defends itself by bloodily slaughtering all intruders and a young girl has disappeared.
Stalin’s Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith (Simon & Schuster) brings back Arkady Renko, the Moscow detective first introduced by Smith in Gorky Park. Since then, Renko has returned in novels several times since, including the Chernobyl novel Wolves Eat Dogs. In the new book, the ghost of Stalin appears to a subway car full of Muscovites, starting a chain of events that lead to political chicanery, death, revisiting past atrocities in Chechnya, and some nicely done plot twists.
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