Many Thanks to the Woman Who Dumped Harlan Ellison for Inspiring This Collection

I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream *
by Harlan Ellison
p. 1967

This collection of short stories was my first introduction to science fiction writer, Harlan Ellison, lent to me by a friend who knew I would enjoy Ellison’s style. Indeed, the man does have a certain offbeat approach to science fiction which focuses on the characters over setting and plot. Ellison is not afraid to disgust his readers, to challenge them to form opinions on his writing. The titular story—which details the horrific, torturous lives of the five remaining humans in the wasteland reality that was the result of a vengeful supercomputer taking over the world—is an ugly, violent picture of a dystopian future of our own doing. In each of his stories, Ellison is nothing if not insistent that we bring our greatest pain on ourselves.

My favorite story of the bunch was “Delusion for a Dragonslayer,” the dreamlike account of a man’s immediate entry into the afterlife after living an unfulfilled life. Upon arrival, he is given the opportunity to achieve the more eminent life he’s always coveted, but only upon completion of a quest... which he promptly fails in a hilarious rejection of convention that I was not expecting. It’s only then he is confronted with the reality of his failures in life as the ‘dream’ turns into a hellish nightmare. I particularly liked the unusual intro to this story, a list of unplanned and peculiar deaths reminiscent of the protagonist's own untimely demise.

If I had one complaint about Ellison’s collection presented here, it’s that almost every single story in the bunch had a female character who betrayed the male protagonist or at the very least failed to love him. As a consequence, the female characters—even if they did nothing to deserve it—are frequently abused, verbally or physically, and not given much care or consideration, much less characterization. It’s hard not to wonder how much of Ellison’s true character is peeking through in these depictions; if I had to hazard a guess I’d say Ellison’s own experience with feminine betrayal inspired a great deal of these stories.

Ellison had the unique habit of preceding every story in this book—and the collection as a whole—with his own personal introductions, a little slice into the mind of the man poised above the typewriter. I found them to be a little cheesy but it was interesting to get an idea of what Ellison was all about when he conceived of each story. Near the end, he mentions that some people hate the intros, some people abide them, and a select few absolutely love them and wish he would write an entire book just using his real voice. As I generally liked his self-deprecating and conversational style, I probably would the idea of some sort of creative nonfiction book by Ellison, assuming he had an interesting story to tell and not one about the bitch who double-crossed and abandoned him. Otherwise, that might get a little tedious. Until then, I will stick to his detours into the darker side of science fiction.

* Bonus points for the best title I've ever seen on a pulp sci-fi novel. As soon as Zach told me what this book was called I knew I had to read it for myself.

An Unconventional Prophet

The Complete Persepolis
by Marjane Satrapi 
p. 2000

Persepolis is a bit unlike most of the other books I’ve read this year, not only because it is a graphic novel, but because it is an autobiographical account by the author, Marjane Satrapi, and covers a topic that not many westerners see a whole lot of in their day to day lives: life growing up in Iran from the point of view of a young girl. My friend Kristy lent me her complete Persepolis, which includes the first two volumes of Satrapi’s story. It covers her childhood and young adulthood during the war between Iran and Iraq, the Islamic Revolution, and Satrapi’s adolescence as a student in Austria.

I had the opportunity to read another of Satrapi’s graphic novels, Chicken with Plums, about six years ago for a college course. I wish I could remember the details better but I could not keep the copy I employed for class and admittedly all that is left is the vague impression of being impressed. Thanks to this and all the good press I’ve heard about Persepolis (particularly after the film version was released in 2007), I had reasonably high expectations going into this endeavor and I do not feel I was disappointed.

Satrapi’s narration and art has an extremely minimalistic style. The narration is probably due in part to a loss in translation, but the subject matter Satrapi covers carries no less weight. The stylistic choice works incredibly well for the story, because so much of it is from the point of view of a child and children possess a remarkable wisdom their adult peers lack. Viewing through the lens of a child offers a much wider perspective of the restrictions and complexities growing up as an Iranian woman. And so much about this topic was unknown to me that it was an eye-opening experience.

At fourteen, due to the rising tension in her country, Satrapi’s parents send her away to study in Vienna, Austria. There’s a moment as Satrapi is leaving home, never knowing when or if she would ever return, when you feel simply gutted. It took me completely by surprise and when I was wiping away the tears I never thought I’d shed over a comic book, I realized that the minimalist art approach really works for this story. Like the traditional Iranian woman—who is forced to hide so much of herself behind a veil—there is so much there beneath the surface that begs to be seen, and Satrapi offers such an intensely personal take on that.

The second half of the book has a different feel, focusing more on Satrapi’s awkward, lonely adolescence and highlights her inability to feel like she fits in anywhere. It focuses more on the woman little Marjane grew into and the outside influences that shaped her. There is a return to her home but you get the feeling that the story is not really done, and seeing as the real life Marjane Satrapi is still out there doing what she can to bring awareness to the rest of the world, I have no doubt there will be more story to tell.

The Poor Man's Magnificent Seven Heads Out West

The Outcasts Series

by Jason Elder

War Hatchet

Pistols and Powder
p. 2000

 

I decided to try my hand at a western series after finding a few of them on the discount rack of a used book booth at Gibraltar. After browsing for a minute or so I snagged the only two of what appeared to be a long running series, the Outcasts series, by Jason Elder, which is a damn fine western name if ever I heard one.

Upon further deliberation, I probably should have been a bit more scrutinizing.

What I thought were two random books in a lengthy series turned out to be books three and four... of a series that only lasted four books. I can’t find a whole lot of information about Jason Elder or the Outcasts series, so I have no idea why he quit after four books, but it probably wouldn’t be off base to assume there just wasn’t enough demand to continue.

I feel like Elder watched a lot of old westerns and movies to prep himself for writing this series, as it is chock full of cliches and offensive stereotypes. The plot is simple and easy to stretch out—you have a group of diverse characters thrown together by circumstances and they are traveling west in hopes of finding a better life in California. Here is a rundown of the Outcasts; we’ve got:

• Freed ex-slave
• Noble savage
• Kentucky-fried southern gentleman
• Disgraced ex-army man who can't quit thinking like a soldier and assumes unofficial leadership
• Drunken Irishman who likes to blow things up
• And... horny young idiot?

And those cliches are every bit as empty as you’d expect them to be. No one has a really dynamic personality and there isn’t enough time spent on any of them in the books I read, especially the so-called leader, who is a dud. After spending most of book 3 in a saloon, the horny young idiot gets particular focus in “Pistols and Powder,” but he’s like the poor man’s Joe Cartwright, without the sufficient wits, nobility or charm that character possessed.

Hilariously, Elder wrote several of his character’s dialects into the story. The ex-Confederate southern gentleman is full on Foghorn Leghorn, referring to himself with “Ah” instead of “I”, “Ah’ve instead of I’ve” and so forth. This dialogue quirk was distracting enough but it was nothing compared to the awful mess that was the freed slave’s dialogue. There was not a single line in which Elder hesitated to fuck up the black man’s speech, producing cringeworthy sentences like “Well, yo’ done found yoreself de right company... We am all orphans—in a manner of speaking.” I get the value of writing dialect, in theory, and I understand wanting to write ‘realistically’ but for fuck’s sake, these books were written in 2000.

In addition to this travesty of the written word, “War Hatchet” was the first book I read, and less than half of the book actually centered on the Outcasts, the rest being dedicated to an obnoxiously plucky orphaned boy and a trio of inept villains. Choosing to steer the focus away from your main characters in book 3 of a series was a mistake and possibly a damning one. “Pistols and Powder” brought the focus back to our main characters and offered a more balanced story, but it wasn’t enough.

The Outcasts series had the feel of an old-timey western television series, something that would have had a long run and better company back in the fifties and sixties, but seeing a series like this written near the end of the millennium seemed a bit outdated. Elder’s characters just aren’t interesting enough nor is his writing intriguing enough to snare readers so it’s not the least bit shocking that the series just ended without resolution. Did the Outcasts ever reach California? Did the southern gentleman open his own fried chicken restaurant chain? Did the drunken Irishman ever find a decent saloon? How many STDs did the young guy pick up along the way? Alas, these are questions which we shall never know the answers to.

Little Miss Sociopath

Alias Grace

by Margaret Atwood
p. 1996
 

Since being introduced to her by my favorite professor a few years back, Margaret Atwood is increasingly becoming one of my favorite authors. Alias Grace is further proof of this, a sprawling work of historical fiction that sticks with you a long time after you finish reading it.

Alias Grace is, for all intents and purposes, a work of fiction, but it is based rigidly in real events. It centers on the 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and his servant and lover, Nancy Montgomery, by the hands of two other servants, James McDermott and 15-year-old Grace Marks, ostensibly the protagonist of this novel, though her actual moral alignment is deliberately left ambiguous, just like the real outcome of the gruesome crime.

Atwood details the life of Grace from her humble beginnings, leading up to a series of meetings with the fictional Dr. Simon Jordan, a student of psychology who becomes Grace’s primary doctor in order to root out the truth of the crime and the girl’s true nature—victim or perpetrator. Grace relates to Jordan her entire history while she lives out her humble life as a servant to the governor of the penitentiary at which she has spent the better part of two decades. In the meantime, Jordan interacts with some of the other women in his life—his desperate, hapless landlord, a forward young admirer, his lonely mother and her choice for Simon’s prospective wife, while trying to sort out his increasingly inappropriate feelings for Grace and his opinion on her guilt.

I won’t lie; Alias Grace is a long novel, and it took me awhile to get into it, but there is something about Atwood’s writing that draws you in, lulls you into a sense of certainty about these characters that can easily be dashed in a few short words. She does a fantastic job not only of fictionalizing these very real people who lived and lusted so long ago but also of crafting a tale that is complete without ever revealing the truth—because who can know that, really, but the only survivor of the affair, Grace herself?

Indeed, we can’t ever know whether Grace was an unwitting victim wrapped up in events beyond her control, or a scheming seductress who orchestrated the whole thing, but Grace’s guilt is not really the point of this novel. Atwood’s real intentions are to get the reader to question their beliefs on whether or not Grace is capable of such a thing, and if not, why we think that way.

Atwood is a well-known feminist writer and it’s easy to see how Grace Marks could captivate her and inspire this work of realistic fiction. The events surrounding Grace’s life and incarceration are sensational, and the details of her conviction controversial. Could a young girl really be capable of such a heinous murder? Should Grace have paid more dearly for her crimes or did she deserve freedom? Atwood tells it in such a way that Grace seems simultaneously pitiable and suspicious. To date I cannot decide which way my opinion swings. On the one hand, it would be unfair to lock up someone swept into insurmountable events and young Grace was an easy target; on the other hand, Grace, in this story, comes off almost as a sociopath—emotionless, totally lacking in remorse—and if there is truth to this description, it’s easy to see why so many believed her to be every bit the celebrated murderess she was for three decades.

This is definitely a novel that prompts you to reconsider your beliefs on very relevant matters. Is it not more misogynistic to think that Grace could not possibly be guilty, simply because of her sex? Did the sweeping misconceptions about the virtue of the fairer sex, so prevalent in those times, get in the way of justice for Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery? And what is to be said of the fact that servant girl Nancy’s murder was not even tried in the wake of the conviction for Kinnear’s murder? Was it her gender or her stature that prevented justice for Nancy?

Atwood’s story is full of unreliable narratives, from Grace’s detailed but confusing firsthand account (her portion of the story lacks in punctuation, often making it difficult to discern what is being spoken or thought), to Simon Jordan’s general mistreatment of women and lust for Grace as a famed murderess, a kind of misogyny in its own right. Since we’ll never know the whole story, all we have are the bits and pieces. Atwood did her best assembling them, but even if the picture is completed, it will only tell a fraction of the story. It’s up to the reader to decide how to deconstruct the work of art from there.

Expanding the Whedonverse

Tales of the Slayers

& Tales of the Vampires

Various Authors/Illustrators
p. 2002
  

My sister procured this anthology of Buffy the Vampire Slayer-related comics and loaned it to me last month. I blew through it in a day and a half, since, as previously mentioned, I am not as big on comics as I am on graphic novels. It is a collection of comics from the Tales of the Slayer series, which tells selected accounts of past (and future!) slayers, Tales of the Vampires, centering on unconnected vampire stories in keeping with the mythology, and a few miscellaneous comics. Joss Whedon and Amber Benson (Buffy’s Tara) are among the writers of these vastly varied sagas.

I found the slayer series much more intriguing than the vampire stories, on the whole. It starts off with the First Slayer, who actually appeared in the TV series. All of the past slayer stories are rather tragic and reveal quite a bit of drama in so few pages. I was most impressed with “Righteous,” the tale of the medieval slayer forsaken by the town she protects and burned at the stake, and “Nikki Goes Down!” the 1970s-era slayer avenging her cop boyfriend’s death at the hands of monsters, but I liked the art in the all-too-short “The Glittering World” best. I would easily read individual novels (graphic or otherwise) about almost any of these slayers. It’s so fascinating to see this world expanded upon further than we ever got in the series.

As far as canon is concerned, our chief cast is not well-represented in these particular comics. Apart from a Spike and Druscilla comic, a cheeky, early-seasons Buffy and Willow jaunt, and a few cameos and references (Dracula, Harmony and Mayor Wilkins among them), the characters we watched for seven years are mostly absent. This is not a story about them; it felt more like a collection of musings and plot bunnies by the people behind the show, exploring avenues only briefly touched upon prior.

Interspersed with the standalone comics is a serialized story of a group of children in the Watcher’s academy interacting with an ancient vampire, regaling them with his wisdom. I wasn’t terribly fond of the art or the story in this one and I found all the twists disappointingly predictable. I probably would have enjoyed it more had they presented it as a whole, long comic instead of drawing the suspense out. 

As I’ve said, very few of the vampire tales resonated with me. Vampire mythology has never interested me terribly. Whedon’s take on the creatures has been the only time I’ve found them remotely interesting and even then I was always rooting for the humans, not the vampires. Some of their stories were interesting, even sympathetic, but overall, more tedious than the struggles of the various slayers.

For fans of the Buffy and Angel series, this is a fantastic read, but it wouldn’t be very interesting to anyone else. The anthology is proof positive at how expansive and full of possibility the Whedonverse can be.