The Show That Smells by Derek McCormack

Published by Akashic Books on July 1, 2009

The Show That Smells is a short novel (more novella length, if that) that casts its author, Derek McCormack, as a reporter for Vampire Vogue ("the bible of the fashionable fiend"). Vampire Vogue is published by Elsa Schiaparelli, an Italian fashion designer who (Wikipedia tells me) was Coco Chanel's most prominent rival between the two world wars. Coco Chanel is also a character in the novel; Chanel No. 5, being blessed, is as effective against vampires as holy water. Singer Jimmie Rogers, actor Lon Chaney, and the vampire hunting, gospel singing Carter family round out the cast ... unless you count the carnival freaks (but they only show up as dressmakers).

The novel is part of the Little House on the Bowery series so you know there's going to be blood ... but you knew that as soon as you heard about the vampires, didn't you? There's very little true gore, however, even during the descriptions of a vampire carnival (where babies are awarded as ring toss prizes).

This is a fun if slightly bizarre story. I am probably not a member of this novel's target audience. I know nothing about the world of women's fashion, and according to Schiaparelli, vampires are gay (this should come as a shock to the millions of women who elevate ridiculously bad vampire novels to the top of the best seller's lists).  I don't know that I related to the novel as well as other readers might, but I thought it was quite funny (most of the time) and I appreciated the luxurious rhythm of the sentences (all of the time). Open minded readers of offbeat fiction should enjoy it.

RECOMMENDED

The Power by Frank M. Robinson

First published in 1956, revised edition published by Tor Books on March 2, 2000

Why are some people better at survival than others? The committee overseeing a Navy project researching that question discovers that one of its members possesses the qualities of the ultimate survivor -- never ill, never stressed, impossibly intelligent -- but they don't know which one it is and the gifted member refuses to identify himself. Soon one committee member dies and another nearly commits suicide, feeling compelled by an outside force to harm himself. As the body count mounts, Professor William Tanner's only hope of staying alive is to track down and kill the man who has the power to control minds.

The Power has the feel of a thriller with elements of a horror story rather than a science fiction novel. There isn't much science; no real attempt is made to explain the individual's extraordinary abilities. As a thriller, however, the novel succeeds. It has a fast-paced, action-filled plot that keeps the reader guessing. Even if the reader manages to deduce the killer's identity, the ending is completely unexpected.

My only quibbles are these: The ending and Tanner's schemes to solve the mystery are a bit over-the-top. More importantly, at crucial moments the plot depends upon unlikely coincidences. I was willing to swallow my skepticism on both counts for the sake of plot advancement. The story is so fun that the flaws are easy to overlook. I recommend it to fans of thrillers, horror stories, and science fiction.

A final note: This 1956 novel was revised in 2000. It's not clear that the revision amounted to much more than changing the names of wars. Tanner "thumbs the starter" of a car he steals and he sees "hoods" hanging out on street corners, "hair thick with Vaseline and combed straight back, their sport coats too long in the sleeves and too big in the shoulders" -- not really a popular look for gang members in 1999 (athletic jackets, baggy jeans, and shaved heads having replaced the sport coat wearing greaser look). Also, I'm pretty sure the lunch counter was gone from the Walgreens on State Street in Chicago before 2000. Nonetheless, I didn't find the inconsistent revisions to be a significant distraction from the story.

Traitor's Kiss by Gerald Seymour

First published in 2003

A British fishing trawler, assisting a distress call, puts into a Russian port. A Russian naval officer gives the captain an envelope and asks that it be delivered to British intelligence. The envelope contains classified information and an offer to provide more. The Russian officer, Viktor Archenko, is assigned codename Ferret.

Four years later, Rupert Mowbray learns that Archenko is in trouble. Mowbray, recently retired from the SIS and Ferret's former handler, is one of the few who recalls Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall with fondness. They symbolize "a world of certainties, and a place of brave men"; they are a reminder of a time when Mowbray's work was unquestionably relevant. Now Mowbray is a relic, viewed by young operatives as a cold warrior stuck in the past. Yet Mowbray engineers a return to action when a confidante tells him that Archenko needs to be pulled out of Kaliningrad and that the SIS decision-makers would prefer to let Ferret rot rather than risk an extraction. Because of his former status and his stirring reminder that disloyalty to its assets will cripple the ability of SIS to recruit new ones, Mowbray convinces the powers to allow him to select and direct an extraction team -- a team of expendables whose relationship to the British government can be denied if the operation doesn't succeed.

Traitor's Kiss is not a novel for those who want nonstop action involving larger than life heroes battling cartoonishly evil bad guys (when they aren't busy seducing beautiful women). Seymour writes stories that are more realistic than escapist, featuring dedicated, multidimensional servants of government who (unlike their politically minded, job-protecting superiors) try to make sound decisions in a morally ambiguous world. Seymour's novels are not for those who crave instant action, high tech weaponry, and perfectly happy endings. Nonetheless, they are far from dull. Although Traitor's Kiss gets off to a slower start than some of Seymour's novels, suspense builds steadily after he sets the scene. As the crisis looms, tension becomes palpable. The rescue attempt, when it finally comes, is exciting enough for the most jaded action junkie -- and a reward for those whose attention spans allow them to progress deeply into this carefully constructed novel. The ending is immensely powerful and poignant, really quite brilliant.

Seymour brings life to the characters in Traitor's Kiss, investing even second string players with detailed backgrounds. Some readers find that boring because it slows the pace; I think the emphasis on character makes the novel more interesting than the predictable action stories manufactured by less talented writers of spy fiction. As Mowbray matches wits against a Russian interrogator, the minor characters become pawns in the manipulative games played by their masters. An unexpected love story lurks in the background (the product of Mowbray's manipulation), contributing to the tension by giving the reader even more reason to care about the main characters.

This isn't Seymour's best work -- it lacks the complexity and moral dilemmas that make Home Run so engrossing -- but it is a fine, nuanced piece of writing. The more I think about this novel, the more I like it.

RECOMMENDED 

Pennterra by Judith Moffett

Published by Congdon & Weed in October 1987

Isaac Asimov and Brian Aldiss are among the science fiction writers who have incorporated the Gaia theory into their writing. In Pennterra, Judith Moffett exports the concept to an alien world where everything, living and inanimate, is interrelated and in constant communication. The world of Pennterra is in perfect balance until its disruption is threatened by the technology, agriculture, and lifestyles of settlers seeking refuge from the devastated Earth they've fled.

Quakers are the first to colonize Pennterra. Before they can build their civilization, they encounter the hrossa, an intelligent species that communicates by empathy. They make peace with the hrossa, just as the Quakers who colonized Pennsylvania made peace with the Delaware Indians. To co-exist with the hrossa, the Quakers must agree to use no machinery, to limit their population growth, and to live only in a designated valley. But just as later settlers in Pennsylvania were willing to displace the Delaware, the Earth colonists who follow the Quakers are unwilling to abide by hrossa-imposed restrictions. The first part of the novel sets the stage for that conflict. The second part is written in the form of field notes as the Quakers engage in a scientific and anthropological investigation of a hrossa village. Living closely with the empathic hrossa during breeding season proves problematic, as the Quakers feel and share the intense and urgent sexual desires of the hrossa. The novel's third and final part resolves the conflict between the non-Quaker colonists and the hrossa (or more specifically, the spirit of the planet, for lack of a better brief explanation). There's also a bit of wilderness adventure toward the end.

Pennterra is the first novel written by Judith Moffett, whose background as a poet is reflected in her careful use of language. Although she makes Pennterra and the hrossa come alive, she does so without sacrificing development of the novel's human characters. This is, above all, a character driven story, and the main characters each have a unique, fully developed personality. The reader comes to know them well, and to appreciate their struggles.

Although I greatly admired Pennterra, it is not a novel that all readers will enjoy. The story unfolds slowly and is all the more enriching because of its languorous pace, but readers who want fast action in their sf won't find it here. Fans of hard sf might not like this novel; there's a bit of hard (biological) science, but the story depends on people, not science. Finally, there is a fair amount of sexual activity, some involving minors, that violates nearly every imaginable sexual taboo. If this were not a work of science fiction, there would probably be calls to ban and burn it. Science fiction is a literature of ideas, however, so I would expect most sf fans to understand and appreciate Moffett's rather daring concept: what is taboo on Earth may be accepted as normal behavior in an alien environment. Readers who would be put off by frank discussions of that nature should avoid Pennterra.

In an age when so much sf is the same old same old, Pennterra offers something completely different. It is a beautifully written, moving and thought-provoking novel.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Absolute Risk by Steven Gore

 

Published by Harper on October 26, 2010

FBI Agent Michael Hennessey enhanced his career by participating in the arrest of financial mathematician Hani Ibrahim for funneling money to foreign terrorist groups. After leaving the FBI, Hennessey pursued his suspicions that Ibrahim was framed. As the novel begins, Hennessey has arranged a meeting with Fed chair Milton Abrams to discuss Ibrahim but Hennessey apparently commits suicide just before the meeting is to occur. Ronald Minsky, CEO of Relative Growth Funds, is supposedly using Ibrahim's theories about fractal analysis to operate the world's most successful hedge fund. Abrams believes Minsky is making money illegally, a fact Hennessey may have stumbled onto. Abrams wants Graham Gage to uncover the truth. Gage's search leads him to a scheme that could cripple the world's economy.

In a related subplot, Gage's wife Faith finds herself in the midst of a worker's rebellion in China following an earthquake. Workers are unhappy about unsafe buildings that were constructed with the help of foreign corporate bribes. Yet another subplot involves the vice president, who has been suckered into endorsing a National Pledge Day that expressly excludes all Americans who do not adhere to the Christian faith.

I liked Absolute Risk more than the previous Gage novel, Final Target. The insufferable smugness that characterized Gage in the first novel is gone and the plot is more straight-forward. On the other hand, I didn't think Absolute Risk maintained quite the degree of suspense that makes a thriller memorable. The subplot involving Gage's wife in China creates more dramatic tension than Gage's investigation into Relative Growth, yet it's a less significant part of the story. Having said that, I disagree with the reviewers who felt bored by the discussions of economics that occur throughout the novel. I thought they were interesting and integral to the plot; I never got the sense that Steven Gore was lecturing me about economics, nor did I feel that the characters' perceptive opinions about economic theory hindered the story. While I don't have the kind of economics background that would permit an informed opinion about the credibility of the scheme that Gage eventually uncovers, I can say that if it could happen (and Gore makes it seem plausible), we should all be very afraid.

There is a political component to the story that will turn off some readers. It didn't bother me, but some readers might think Gore is unduly critical of politicians who fail to keep church and state separate. It's a timely social issue that has been handled well in other novels, but it was a bit out of place in this one. That component of the novel seemed unnecessary and even distracting, although all three of the novel's storylines do tie together nicely in the end. Still, it isn't a large part of the story and it contributes amusement value, if nothing else. Be warned, though, that if you don't want to read about religion and politics in a thriller, you should find a different book.

Gore's prose is polished and free of clichés. His sentences are never awkward.  I look forward to reading the next Gage novel; something I wouldn't have predicted after reading the first one.

RECOMMENDED