The El by Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

Published by Vintage on August 12, 2025

The El takes place in Chicago during the summer of 1979, when VCRs were still a novelty. From the perspectives of young males who are trying to find their place in the world, the story illustrates the role that gangs, like any other social group, play in the evolution of cities and their inhabitants.

According to Wikipedia, the Simon City Royals were founded in Chicago during the 1950s as a greaser gang. In The El, the Royals are a diverse group, its members bound primarily by their gang identity. One or two are doing well in school or getting lucky with girls, but they devote most of their time together to petty crime and nonlethal violence.

Teddy, a Native American known to his friends as Midget, is the novel’s historian and central character. Teddy credits the Royals’ mid-century founder with understanding that the “whole white alliance thing was bunk, that the future was mixed, that their future, our future depended on cross-racial bonds, just like America if it wants to have a future.”

Chapters are narrated by different characters. Teddy’s chapters are the longest, but other characters — Miguel, Mikey, Mikey2, Walter, Henry, Lil Demon, and more — also contribute their perspectives. An occasional outsider — a cop or a transit worker — narrates a scene from his own perspective, but most of the story is told by gang members.

The chapters are not narrated in markedly different voices, but it isn’t surprising that members of the same age and social group would share the same speech patterns and vocabulary. It becomes clear, however, that Teddy is the smart one in the gang, the one who appreciates books and other art forms, who understands government and culture in the abstract. The others are more impulsive, although they might just be better at living in the moment.

The story unfolds over the course of a very long day. The novel’s first half leads to a meeting with members of other gangs (Latin Eagles, Imperial Gangsters) with a view to creating a unified Nation. Mikey is among the skeptics because he believes the “only Folks that got your back is your folks.”

Attending the meeting requires travel through territory controlled by hostile gangs — every station is like an outpost in a foreign war — while the destination has not been well explored by the homeboys. They rehearse stories to tell the police if they are questioned outside of their neighborhood and take note of exit routes if they need to flee from a violent confrontation.

The meeting goes well enough, but it’s followed by a clash at a subway station that leaves a character frying on the third rail, although not for sufficient time to delay the subway. “You’d think a dead kid on the third rail would hold things up, but I guess since it wasn’t a whiteboy they just moved on,” Teddy notes.

A spirit taking the form of a Coyote helps Teddy in the brawl after appearing at other consequential moments in his life. Coyote offers life rules on occasion, but — like the novel’s author — he encourages people “to think deeper about it all. At the end you knew way more than when you started.”

Teddy muses that Coyote might not be real, but understands that Coyote is part of Native American ancestral history and deserves to be part of the story. After all, “stories are truths we tell to keep ourselves sane, but they’re also lies we tell to keep others from losing it, too.” Teddy learned from his grandfather that he has a duty to tell his people’s stories because the stories keep them alive.

The story gains speed as the subway begins to move. The novel gives the impression of multiple lives flashing by in a city where neighborhoods are identified by strict boundaries — lives glimpsed and gone, something new occurring and forgotten in every instant. Clashes in the second half, with other gang members and with the police, combine the excitement of a thriller with the gritty realism of true crime writing.

Teddy’s story is to some extent autobiographical. The story rings with the powerful truths conveyed by lived experience. It presents its theme of racial division from the narrow perspective of a teen who only knows his neighborhood. It is easy to understand Teddy’s hope for a more harmonious future — his hope of gangs united against a common enemy, people who hold wealth and power — given his status as the only Native in his relatively diverse social group.

Toward the end, Teddy skips ahead and visits his future a few years down the road. Gang violence is on another level. “Humbugs and jumping each other in alleys mostly disappeared, drive-bys were the standard, and dealing had moved up to coke with lots of folks starting to hit the pipe.” Occupants of busses and subway cars are now “packed with Big Ten state school assholes who were gentrifying the neighborhoods farther north. They looked sweaty as fuck in their cheapish suits and power blouses with running shoes, uncomfortable in their own pale skins, lives of lame office hookups and hopes for big suburban houses already carved deep in their sad, doughy faces.” Harsh, but an understandable assessment from a person in Teddy’s position.

Future Teddy has served a hitch in the Navy to avoid serving time in prison. He took an entry level job at the Board of Trade, but he wanted more from his life than financial success. His laudable goal was not just to make art, but to live for it. “If we don’t have art, what do we have? What’s the point? To make money for some asshole?” This novel, he reveals, is a contribution to art, and indeed it is. While The El has a limited reach, its snapshot of young men in a particular social mileau at a particular time in American history is an insightful addition to the genre of gang fiction.

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Corvus by Marko Kloos

Published by 47North on August 19, 2025

Corvus is the second in a series of military science fiction novels called Frontlines: Evolution. The new series began with Scorpio [https://www.tzerisland.com/bookblog/2023/12/20/scorpio-by-marko-kloos.html] and is set in the same universe as Marko Kloos’s Frontlines novels.

In Scorpio, Alexandra “Alex” Archer was a colonist who survived her childhood by living underground on a planet that was occupied by Lankies. Lankies are really big aliens that like to stomp humans, as well as their vehicles and structures. The aliens are difficult to kill but humans, as well all know, excel at killing.

Having been rescued at the last moment from the Scorpio colony by the military, Alex decides to enlist. In Corvus, Alex has finished basic training and is assigned to a regiment that is traveling to the Corvus system to check on a colony that has gone silent.

The novel features the military jargon, command structures, and weaponry that appeals to fans of military sf. Alex and her squad are investigating abandoned buildings on the planet when, as the reader will expect, the Lankies attack. Battles ensue. Much of the regiment is wiped out, but Alex uses the knowledge of survival tactics that she gained in Scorpio to help most of her squad members avoid death.

During much of the novel, Alex and her squaddies are walking or using commandeered vehicles to reach destinations where they hope to dig in and await rescue. One of those destinations is occupied by friendly Russian soldiers who join the battle when their building (a terraforming facility) is attacked by the Lankies.

Like many military sf novels, Corvus features more than one “saved by the bell” moment. That’s not unusual in military thrillers, although it’s a bit more common in military sf, which tend to read like novelizations of mediocre military sf movies. While saved-by-the-bell moments make the story predictable, they also add to the excitement.

Alex is an agreeably modest and fast-thinking protagonist who has just enough personality to keep the reader rooting for her success. Kloos writes energetic action scenes and, if the story as a whole is predictable, he at least keeps it moving with a variety of ways to kill or elude the evil Lankies. Kloos is a capable military sf storyteller, and if there is little to distinguish Corvus from similar works, there is little reason to believe that the novel will fail to satisfy military sf junkies.

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Jump Tribe by Clive Barker

Published by Subterranean Press on July 31, 2025

The Jump Tribe consists of 240 creatures painted by Clive Barker and exhibited at a comic book convention in 2005. Barker’s plan was to turn the creatures into plushies that would be packaged with stories that Barker would write about them. A few plushies were manufactured. They are apparently something of a collector’s item.

In “Yaboo’s Tale,” Yaboo finds a hole. Twoth believes it is dangerous and wants to take it to the police. As Yaboo and Billum fight over the hole, they fling it into the air. It comes down on top of Yaboo, who disappears, only to reappear with wings that he grew after learning magic from the Jump Tribe. Yaboo explains the purpose of the holes, avoids a visit from Kungo Nah, and begins an adventure with his two friends.

The next story, “Tale of Kungo Nah,” explains the origin of a villain who puts greed ahead of family and loses himself as he jumps through holes. Twoth becomes an accidental hero in “Twoth’s Tale.” In “Billum’s Tale,” Billum meets a 7-year-old human (“They lived on a round world called Urt, and they were always fighting.”). The stories are rounded out by forgettable poetry from the Jump Tribe.

Subterranean packages the stories in a collector’s edition and a less pricey trade edition. Both are printed in full color. The signed limited edition has illustrated end sheets and comes in a slipcase. A digital edition provides access to the stories for curious readers who don’t want to spend money on the limited or trade editions.

No plushies come with the book. As I understand it, the plushies never made it into stores because the company that made them went out of business.

Without the plushies, neither print edition seems likely to entertain kids for very long. Barker likely envisioned a long and lucrative series of stories tied to more plushies but abandoned the enterprise when the plushie manufacturer failed.

The stories are imaginative but too short to be substantial. If there were more stories, kids might get hooked on them, but the series ends with (spoiler alert) Billum rescuing the human kid as members of the Jump Tribe, who seem to be experiencing a food shortage (apart from the grossly overweight Lady Zoxi), make a plan to open more holes so they can raid Urt and eat everything they find. Fantasy world addicts might find value here, but casual readers won’t miss much by giving the book a pass. There is simply too little content to make the volume anything other than a curiosity.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Kingfisher Seven by Shawn Klomparens

Published by Thomas & Mercer on August 12, 2025

The protagonist of Kingfisher Seven is Jake Moran because (take note, aspiring thriller writers) every thriller hero must be named Jake or Jack. Jake is a former Marine because all thriller heroes named Jake or Jack are former Marines unless they are former Navy Seals. Jake had classified military experience with rocket launches and now has his own business that provides services to companies that launch rockets.

Helena Nash (we are told) is a model for female entrepreneurs. Engineers and other tech-savvy people dream of working for her. Why that’s true is never made clear. Perhaps she generates the same enthusiasm as Elon Musk did when he was only seen as a tech entrepreneur, although we see none of that in the narrative. Helena operates Kingfisher, a company that might remind readers of SpaceX, except that Helena doesn’t dance around with chainsaws. Perhaps doing so would make her more interesting.

Jake’s company is providing Kingfisher with meteorological data to support its tests of a rocket that is carrying a nuclear generator. Helena’s son Dylan is among the environmental protestors who question the wisdom of sending plutonium into space, given the tendency of rockets (at least those of SpaceX) to explode before they enter orbit.

Jake’s helicopter crashes on its way to the island that houses Kingfisher. It is obvious to everyone that the helicopter was hit with a drone, but it takes the pilot and passengers a surprising amount of time to draw that conclusion. It takes them even longer to identify the specific target of that attack. To be fair, that’s part of the puzzle and the answer isn’t easily guessed.

Helena hires Jake to do a complete audit of the company and its security. This happens just in time for Jake to become an action hero and foil an attempt at sabotage. Russian criminals are carrying out a complex and improbable plot to hack Kingfisher’s systems and turn one of its tests into an actual launch, transforming the rocket into a weapon. They kidnap Dylan to further their goal. Their motive for attacking the US is again part of the puzzle that the reader and Jake must solve. The answer is plausible.

To save a city from radioactive fallout and figure out how to rescue Dylan, Jake enlists the usual sidekicks: the ex-Navy pilot who flew the helicopter that crashed; his beautiful and highly competent business partner Tamara Rinaldi, his genius tech employee Stu Gallagher; and Kingfisher’s flight director (another former colleague of Jake because Jake knows everyone) Andy Lang. All the central characters together have less personality than a bag of uncooked rice. A mild conflict between Stu and Andy fizzles away before it can add tension to the story.

Kingfisher Seven delivers the usual action scenes that justify its label as a thriller. The plot is unsurprising, but the action scenes are credible, in part because Jake isn’t required to be a superhero. He spends less time fighting and more time climbing launch platforms as he races to save the day before burning up in the rocket’s exhaust.

Shawn Klomparens apparently did a good bit of research into the mechanics of a private rocket launch. The detailed atmosphere helps the plot sustain credibility. While I can’t say that the characters are memorable, the story delivers just enough excitement to merit a recommendation.

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People Like Us by Jason Mott

Published by Dutton on August 5, 2025

Jason Mott’s fourth novel, Hell of a Book, won a National Book Award. So did the protagonist of People Like Us. Soot calls the National Book Award the real N-word because uttering it might hurt book sales. I don’t know how well People Like Us will sell given the American reading public’s preference for genre fiction over literary fiction, but People Like Us tells an engaging story that open-minded readers should enjoy.

Soot has experienced the tragedy of a daughter’s death by her own hand. A moving soliloquy spotlights his guilt at surviving her death, his recognition that the world kept spinning despite his grief, his inability to understand why he sometimes has a good day in her absence. When Soot meets a kid at a book signing who is grieving over the deaths of classmates killed in a school shooting, “Soot just signs the book and offers the kid a smile and he hopes it’s enough.” But nothing is ever enough and, at the same time, nothing stops the world from spinning.

Despite its European setting, gun violence in America is a central theme of People Like Us. Soot flashes back to an orientation video at a college campus in South Carolina that not only teaches students the appropriate response to an active shooter alert, but encourages students and their parents to believe that active shooters are everywhere. In another flashback, Soot attends a school drill that trains students to hide in metal boxes called “Safe Spaces” when an active shooter appears. While the novel makes the point that hurricanes are more likely to harm students than a school shooter, another character experiences blackouts that are apparently triggered by stressful memories of trying to text his mother during a school shooting. It isn’t paranoia that drives fear of school shooters, even if society’s protective responses are over the top.

Of course, American gun violence isn’t restricted to schools. A woman named Kelly fled to Europe from her American hospital job because she was tired of seeing so many young men brought down by bullets. Soot put into practice the lesson of the video at his daughter’s campus — “sometimes escape is the best weapon” — when he moved to Europe, but he learned that guns are not the only weapon that an enemy might wield. A man named Remus has threatened to kill Soot and, as he follows Soot around Europe, he almost does.

The Remus subplot is puzzling. I suppose Remus advances the theme of violence, if only because it forces Soot to consider whether his own fascination with guns makes him any safer. Yet Remus' motivation is never made clear. He seems content to have proven a point by exposing Soot's fear and goading him into a violent act that harms another character, but the act seems to have none of the consequences that the reader might expect.

Soot has a history of interacting with a kid who apparently isn’t there, unless he’s invisible to everyone else. In France, a billionaire (Soot calls him Frenchie) offers Soot a huge sum of money that he can keep if he doesn’t ever return to America. Why he does this is another "why" that the story doesn't answer. The billionaire has an assistant named Dylan. Soot is convinced that Dylan is the invisible kid, a role Dylan has no interest in assuming. While the Dylan is a less puzzling character than Remus, his role in the story is also a bit murky.

The novel’s larger theme is home. What does the concept of “home” mean to Black Americans whose ancestors were slaves? They can go to Africa in search of their roots, but they won’t recognize the language or culture. It won’t feel like home. They can stay in the city of their birth but white racists still won’t accept them as belonging in the country. They might face less discrimination in Europe, but they are still regarded as belonging to the Other, together with all the other nonwhite Europeans. Dylan is jealous of Jamaicans because they have a country they can call home. If home is where you fit, where is home if you are constantly made to feel that you don’t fit anywhere?

Perhaps home is the place where you feel at peace. Soot feels peaceful in Frenchie’s library, spending his days reading books with Dylan and Kelly and Frenchie’s African-Scottish assistant Goon. Locked away from reality, Soot wonders if he should make this his home, even if he must leave America behind. And he comes to understand that we don’t find home by looking for it. It isn’t even where we decide to stay. We find home by waking every day and deciding not to leave.

One of the most telling themes contrasts the desire to fix things with the reality that we can’t fix everything. Perhaps the inability to fix the world explains the novel’s multiple suicides. Perhaps people give up in the face of futility. As Soot wrote about an uncle who ended his own life: “He lived with the need to fix the world churning in his belly, weighing him down, keeping him tethered to this earth when, in some other life, if that ball of grief wasn’t there, he’d literally be able to fly. Maybe each day he struggled with wishing the world was one way, but waking up, again and again, to see it be a different way.” We can only fix ourselves, the story seems to say, and we can’t always do that. If we fail, maybe death is the home we seek, the place where we finally find peace.

The themes are bleak but the story is not oppressive. Jason Mott peppers the novel with humor. Nor does he leave the reader without hope. Soot has always been afraid of people. He feels safest when he’s alone. He craves invisibility. Yet by the novel’s end, when Soot admits he is the author’s alter ego, he comes to realize the importance of facing his fears. Maybe the way to “fit” into a place is to embrace others who share the same fears, to build a community of more than one. People Like Us — people who share those fears — tells a rich, sometimes funny, and ultimately heartwarming story about what it means to feel unwelcome and what we can do to ease the burdens of others (and perhaps our own) even if we can’t fix the world.

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