Instruction Manual for Swallowing by Adam Marek

First published in Great Britain in 2007; published by ECW Press on April 1, 2012

Adam Marek's best stories explore the oddness of life, or perhaps the odd ways that people live their lives. Many of the stories might be characterized as science fiction or fantasy or horror or alternate reality, but in the end, they defy conventional categorization. The stories are sui generis.

Some of the stories in Instruction Manual for Swallowing reminded me of Monty Python sketches. "The Forty-Litre Monkey" is about a pet shop owner who competes to raise the world's largest monkey (as measured by volume). A man's attempt to have an affair is disrupted by an adverse reaction to sushi (or guilt) in "Sushi Plate Epiphany." In the strange future imagined in "Robot Wasps," terrorists hack advertising zeppelins to make them display anti-government messages while a man does battle with the robot wasps that have taken over his garden. In "The Thorn," a child's grandparents struggle to pull a stubborn thorn from a boy's foot, only to discover that it isn't a thorn at all. The narrator in "Instruction Manual for Swallowing" gets in touch with his inner-self: the guy who runs his autonomic nervous system, who happens to look just like Busta Rhymes, is none too happy with the narrator's self-abuse.

In the absence of any better way to categorize the remaining stories, I'll lump them together according to my impressions of them:

Grotesque: Told from the father's point of view, "Belly Full of Rain" is the story of a woman who, pregnant with 37 fetuses, enlists the help of an "expert" to help her achieve the medically impossible by giving birth to all of them. A carnivorous centipede saves a man from a bear trap in "The Centipede's Wife," but haunting guilt about its past prevents the centipede from devouring the man.

Morbid: In "Jumping Jennifer," college girls are unsympathetic to the student they've nicknamed "Barbie" after she falls (or is pushed) from her dorm room window. A cat alerts two young people to an older man's unbecoming fate in "Ipods for Cats."

Bizarre: "Testicular Cancer vs. the Behemoth" asks which is worse: learning that you have an advanced case of testicular cancer or discovering that your family and friends are preoccupied with the Godzilla-type monster that is tearing up the city. "Boiling the Toad" is about a man who comes to fear the painful sex games his girlfriend wants to play. An art exhibit comes alive (with deadly intent) in "A Gilbert and George Talibanimation." Zombies with voracious appetites need a credit card to eat at the restaurant staffed by "Meaty's Boys"-- but what exactly are they eating?

Mysterious: A man meets a teenage girl he images to be the incarnation of his infant daughter in "Cuckoo."

Marek writes in a deceptively simple style that enhances the reader's ability to accept his wild imaginings as if they are ordinary events faithfully reported by a reliable narrator. In other words, Marek makes the extraordinary seem ordinary, perhaps because his characters are ordinary people who view zombies (for instance) in the same way we might view bad drivers:  irritating but commonplace.  I didn't like all of these stories equally, but I liked them all. 

RECOMMENDED

House of the Hunted by Mark Mills

Published by Random House on April 3, 2012

House of the Hunted begins in midstream, as if it were the sequel to a novel that had already set up the plot and established the characters.  It is 1919 in Petrograd.  As Irina Bibikov is surreptitiously released from prison, Tom Nash, who orchestrated her escape and is the father of her unborn child, flees from Cheka patrols.  Little by little, Mark Mills fills in the backstory.  We learn that Nash was working for the British Foreign Office until, after barely escaping from Petrograd during the Russian Revolution, he joined the SIS to better his chances of assisting the woman he loves.  His attempt to spirit Irina out of the country goes disastrously wrong; Nash has been betrayed and is lucky to make a second escape from Russia.

After that tense beginning, the story flashes forward to 1935.  It again begins in mid-stride, introducing new characters in a new setting (Toulon, France) as if they were already familiar to the reader.  The focus nonetheless remains on Nash, who is haunted by his failure to rescue Irina.  Despite his retirement from a life of danger, Nash becomes the target of an assassination attempt.  Even worse, he suspects he has been betrayed by one of his friends.  At that point the novel blends suspense and mystery as Nash tries to figure out who wants him dead and why.  The threat forces Nash to look back upon his life, giving the reader an abbreviated view of the events that shaped him, including some ugly childhood memories.

The characters in House of the Hunted are all erudite, well-educated and often artistic.  They make impossibly witty dinner conversation while consuming bottle after bottle of fine wine.  They are nonetheless a believable mix of Russians, Americans, Germans, French, and British, the sort of folk who might have summered (or lived) in a charming harbor town in the south of France between the two world wars.  Nash’s relationship with a goddaughter who is blossoming into adulthood adds an interesting dimension to Nash’s character as he tries to decide what to do about their changing relationship.

This isn’t a novel of jaw-dropping developments, and in that low-key sense House of the Hunted is more credible than many espionage thrillers.  Several small interpersonal dramas substitute for blockbuster international intrigue, although those dramas give birth to intrigues of their own.  There is nonetheless a significant surprise at the end, as well as a smaller one, neither of which I anticipated.  This is a novel without loose ends; all the storylines are carefully knotted together as the story reaches its climax.

Mills’ prose is as smooth as the cognac the characters love to drink.  He tells a smart, engaging tale.  While I felt emotionally detached from Nash and the other characters (maybe I’m just not a cognac kind of guy), I appreciated the skillful storytelling and enjoyed the unexpected plot developments.  The final chapter sets up the possibility of a sequel that I would love to read.  Nash is a worthy heir to James Bond, sophistication and grit without all the flash and gadgetry.

RECOMMENDED

Omega Point by Guy Haley

Published by Angry Robot on March 27, 2012

My reaction to Omega Point is similar to my feelings about Reality 36, the first Richards and Klein novel: Guy Haley's attempt to introduce an element of comedy detracts from the action-adventure science fiction story that dominates the plot. It's possible to write a tongue-in-cheek action-adventure sf novel -- John Scalzi did it quite well in The Android's Dream -- but Haley's comedy doesn't quite work for me: it's funny enough (sometimes), but it doesn't mesh with the rest of the story. I nonetheless enjoyed both novels, Omega Point somewhat less than its predecessor.

When we last saw Richards and Klein, the renegade AI known as k52 had seized control of a portion of the Reality Realms. In Omega Point, the cyborg Otto Klein, recovering from his injuries, is trying to track down a hacker who can infiltrate the Realms without alerting k52 -- but first he must get past Kaplinski, a holdover from the last novel. The AI Richards, stuck in human form and unable to turn off his pain receptors, is stranded inside the vanishing Realms, where a bear and a purple giraffe have taken him prisoner. Suffice it to say that if you haven't read Reality 36, you should do so or Omega Point won't make any sense. Even then, I'm not sure Omega Point will make perfect sense to anyone.

Nor am I sure that most of Omega Point does much to advance the overall plot. The last three or four chapters (the second to last is the best in the novel) bring the "investigation" to a conclusion, but much of the meandering story prior to those chapters is sort of pointless. Early on, Richards manages to discover what k52 intends to do with the Reality Realms he has infiltrated; after that, Richards chases around the Realms with pirates and toys. Klein, meanwhile, spends most of his time fighting Kaplinski. All well and good for action fans (and I'm one of those), but the action is a poor substitute for the substance that the first novel seemed to promise.

As was true in the first novel, the scenes that take place in the Reality Realms are too cartoonish for my taste. I understand that they're supposed to be funny and maybe they are -- some of Haley's humor made me smile -- but they seem out of place in the context of a futuristic action-adventure story. Talking teddy bears and armored weasels and dogs with Richard Nixon's head just don't mix well with cyborgs and androids and theoretical physics. The Reality Realm scenes go off on endless tangents (a battle between air pirates and the Punning Pastry Chef, for instance) that distract from the main plot.

I give Haley credit for having a big imagination. The framework of the two novels, the concept of the Reality Realms, and particularly Omega Point's ending, are well conceived. I also give Haley credit for developing the implications of a common sf theme: vesting Artificially Intelligent constructs with human rights. Haley takes the concept to an amusing extreme: what rights, for instance, should be given to an intelligent vibrator? Reality 36 develops that theme in greater depth than Omega Point. For that reason, and because less of Reality 36 takes place in the Reality Realms, I think Reality 36 is the better of the two novels. Still, I would like to meet Richards and Klein again, provided their next investigation doesn't involve talking teddy bears.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Last Hiccup by Christopher Meades

Published by ECW Press on April 1, 2012

Vladimir lives in Russia. In 1929, he develops a case of the hiccups. This is a normal affliction for an eight-year-old, but Vladimir's won't go away. No matter how many people shout "boo" at Vladimir -- his mother, his teacher, his doctor -- he continues to emit a hiccup every 3.7 seconds. Specialists are called in, using a series of increasingly drastic treatments that nearly kill Vladimir but fail to cure him. Unable to find a physical cause of Vladimir's condition, his treating physician decides the problem is psychosomatic and confines him in an asylum -- where, of course, his constant hiccuping drives the patients even madder than they already are.

Vladimir's physician is perplexed when a psychiatric specialist who asks Vladimir about love -- and then nearly every person Vladimir encounters -- comes to view Vladimir as a monster, "an evil spirit bathed in malice." That conclusion, adopted by others, leads to the search for a cure that lies beyond the realm of medicine, a cure that can only be found in Mongolia.

After a flash-forward to 1941, the adult Vladimir experiences an epiphany while standing in a waterfall, and it is time for him to leave. Vladimir's journey from Mongolia to Moscow is eventful, to say the least. Dodging the Red Army, the German Army, the Japanese Army, an irate farmer concerned about the virtue of a daughter who has none, a batty woman who refuses to acknowledge the death of her son, and hiccuping all the way, Vladimir returns to the hospital where he was once treated, and learns of the surprising impact his life (and hiccups) had on the people he once knew. His story goes on from there. And, difficult though it may be to believe, the story becomes even stranger.

What to make of the adult Vladimir? He might be deranged or he might be unusually focused. He lives in a society that condemns him but there are those who love him. It is easy for a reader to be both sympathetic to and a little repelled by the man Vladimir becomes. To what extent he is a creature of his own making (epiphanies notwithstanding) is unclear given the brutal history he has endured, yet in the end there is something admirable about this strange man. He is, in some ways, more pure, more innocent, less a monster than many of those his society holds in higher esteem.

The fascinating but bizarre tale that Christopher Meades tells is difficult to classify. Not quite a horror story, not quite a love story, not quite a war story, but with elements of each, The Last Hiccup is sort of a macabre comedy. Apart from mining the comic potential that inheres in hiccups, Meades generates laughs with professional jealousy, lust, war, religion, and a variety of other topics that the naïve Vladimir isn't quite equipped to comprehend. Yet what seems to start as light comedy becomes progressively darker as Vladimir becomes ever more aware of life's cruelty. Still, even the novel's darkest moments are brightened by the slapstick humor of absurd events.

Meades writes with droll wit while moving the story forward at a brisk pace. Supporting characters (like a narcoleptic nurse) are imbued with qualities that enhance their comedic appeal. All of this makes The Last Hiccup a thoroughly enjoyable story.

RECOMMENDED

Distant Water by Bruce Gray

Published by Live Oak Book Company on January 27, 2012

Twin mysteries unfold in Distant Water, both involving missing daughters in Asia. The first story is sometimes told in the first person by Bryan Paton, an American lawyer who has just joined a Hong Kong firm that represents a prominent businessman, Li Dak-chung. As the novel opens, Dak-chung's daughter, Fiona Li, is entering China. When we last see her, she is on the brink of being abducted. When the Chinese government notifies Dak-chung that his daughter's dead body has been recovered, Paton is dispatched to China to identify the body and to arrange for its return to Hong Kong. The reader soon begins to wonder whether the body is, in fact, Fiona's.

The second mystery, which dominates the second half of the story, gives the novel the flavor of a political thriller. It revolves around General Zhu Fangguo, whose daughter is also missing. Zhu supports the moderate political faction in its struggle for power after Chairman Mao's death -- a position that puts Zhu squarely at odds with Mao's far-from-moderate widow. Zhu is both the instigator and the victim of political intrigue. Zhu hopes to use the recent death of Chairman Mao as "the cover for exacting cold revenge," although the meaning of that phrase does not become clear until late in the novel.

For that matter, it's unclear how the stories of the two missing daughters are related until late in the novel, although the connection isn't difficult to guess. The plot is nonetheless clever. Distant Water easily held my interest from the first page to the last, in part because the cast of characters is so diverse. From British diplomats to Chinese civil servants, Bruce Gray gives each character a unique personality. I can't say that I became emotionally attached to any of the characters, but I enjoyed reading about them.

In addition to the power vacuum that follows Mao's death, the novel delves into the political situations in Taiwan (where Dak-chung's sister is a powerful and ruthless figure) and in Hong Kong, while offering a history lesson that begins with the Treaty of Versailles and the May 4th Movement. Readers who don't know much about the twentieth century history of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong may need to breeze through a Wikipedia article or two, as I did, to get a better handle on the story. The struggle of a faction that included Mao's wife for leadership of the government, popularly characterized as "the Gang of Four," as well as the complex relationship between China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong are all integral to the novel.

Gray paints a convincing picture of the authoritarian regime that has Paton (and other characters) in its clutches. Gray builds tension as the characters wonder who to trust in a treacherous environment. On occasion Gray indulges in unnecessary lectures about the evils of communist dictatorships, exposition that has less impact than his descriptions of the unease (at best) and terror (at worst) his characters experience at the hands of authoritarian thugs.

Putting aside the improbability that a young man with zero legal experience would be given such a high profile position in a law firm, Distant Water tells a believable story, at least as compared to most modern thrillers. One aspect of the ending is a bit of a stretch, but the "surprise" is well integrated into the cohesive plot. Despite my emotional detachment from the story, I found it fascinating and I do not hesitate to recommend it to thriller fans.

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