Riverwords

I’ve had sitting on my shelf for a couple years now an unread copy of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Much more recently, when Gentlemen of the Road caught my eye as another prospect, I was sold the minute I opened to the dedication. It said “To Michael Moorcock.” Moorcock’s a favorite author of mine since my high school days.

In an echo of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser tales, Chabon casts two very different sword-swinging wise-crackers. Both are Jews from disparate backgrounds. Amram is a hulking African who wields a Varangian axe and a command of languages far and wide (he’s served the emperor of Byzantium). His counterpart is Zelikman, a lanky Frank physician with a gloomly disposition. Both are wildly clever and ably skilled. Chabon makes both endearing, but Zelikman usually steals the scenes with his obnoxious hat and anti-hero antics.

Chabon writes one hell of an adventure tale. Each chapter is a fun twist and a healthy dose of cliff-hanging. The tale is almost effortless in its tidyness, yet somehow manages not to be predictable. After swindling some townsfolk, the pair get caught up escorting a prince who is not everything he appears to be, and yet is more. By the end of the  tale, they’ve jaunted about the foothills of the Caucasus, allied themselves with elephants against Rus invaders, fought — and then recruited — Muslim knights, and ushered in a coup.

The banter is fun, the action exciting, and Chabon sneaks beneath it all some commentary on Jewishness (and Islam) quite relevant to today. His prose in the book is baroque and obscure, deliberately so. It’s a nod, I think, to the idiosyncracies of many admirable pulp adventure writers. It’s at once a joke and tribute, and it also manages to keep the text’s voice lively and smart. It works.

Wonderfully, the book includes a brief afterword cum apologia by Chabon explaining his forays into the lands of adventure writing. He more famously treads in, as he calls it, late-century naturalism a la Wonder Boys. He also explains his only slightly tongue-in-cheek working title for the book, “Jews with Swords.” The afterword is well worth a read for anyone on either side of that absurd divide between serious fiction and everything else.

Gentlemen of the Road: A-

If you’re looking for books on writing, look no further than the one-two punch of The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner and What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter. Oh, and don’t let that subtitle fool you on Gardner’s. It’s the best text there is for any writer. Thing beginning writer maybe, rather than young writer.

Tags: Fiction, John Gardner, writing

This week, I’m the Mystery Reader at my daughter’s 3rd grade class. So, I decided to write a story to read. It’s a children’s story about a sassy girl pirate. It may be a touch too immature for the sassy 3rd grader I know. She’ll get over it. 

Captain Molly McScowl and Her Birthday Adventure
By Matt Snyder 

Not too far away, across the seas there was a fearsome scourge of a pirate named Molly McScowl. She sailed the pirate ship Terrible under the black flag of the skull and bones. She captained a crew of thirty-three pirate boys. She struck fear into the hearts of good ship captains across the southern seas. And most importantly of all, Molly McScowl was in the third grade.

Continue Reading »

Tags: Fiction, Pirates, Stories

I discovered Arturo Pérez-Reverte earlier this year with his endearing Spanish adventure novel, Captain Alatriste. My discovery started a chain that ended most recently with The Club Dumas. I now gather that Pérez-Reverte is a wildly successful author in Spain and elsewhere, and more recently finding success in the U.S. Of course, American editions are translations of his work in Spanish. I have no idea how capable they are as translations, but I do enjoy his books so far.

The Club Dumas is a mystery thriller with shades of the noir detective. In this case, protagonist Lucas Corso is a book detective. He’s a mercenary hired by rich — and usually corrupt — book collectors to buy, sell, trade and find rare books. I found Corso fascinating. (My wife, who read the book with me, found him deplorable. Ce la guerre!) He’s a weasel of a man, exceptionally clever, and lonely. He occupies his time drinking gin and romanticizing his Napoleonic ancestor. Oh yes, and books — very expensive, very rare books.

The story begins with a book collector’s suspicious suicide. Corso gets hired to verify the dead man’s possession – a rare manuscript written by Alexandre Dumas. It’s a chapter from The Three Musketeers. Subsequently, he’s hired by an obsessive collector of the occult to discover which of three extant editions of The Book of Nine Doors is a forgery.

Thus begins a twin strand of narrative where Corso races to find eccentric book collectors and examine their occult tomes while he’s pursued by a modern-day Milady and Rochefort (Dumas’ famous villains) as a strange conspiracy re-enacts The Three Musketeers with him at the center. The eccentrics wind up dead, and Corso demonstrates his cleverness.

Along the way he finds the girl. The alluring woman gives Corso fictional names and careless excuses. She’s slightly infuriating to read. Corso asks her questions I wanted to know, and she’s just aloof. There are many hints that she’s supernatural – a guardian angel maybe, or even the Devil. Through her shining, green-eyed seduction we learn that Corso once loved and lost. It explains his emptiness and callousness. And, in the end, explains why the green-eyed girl is so fond of him. She is, it turns out, rather diabolical.

Throughout the book, Corso works to unravel the pictorial mystery within The Book of Nine Doors. The book contains nine engravings, and the novel actually shows the images. This teases out one of the most captivating mysteries of the book. I desperately wanted Corso to unravel this occult puzzle. And, he does. But, the result is disappointing.

Pérez-Reverte gives us a lesson in narrative; I’m still not sure I needed it. At times, the characters actually imagine that their absurd situations are so dreadful that perhaps they’re merely fictional characters in a book. Of course, they are. The author’s teasinge. This itself, I don’t mind. He’s not the first to dabble in post-modernism. But, Pérez-Reverte has another, grander trick up his sleeve. To spoil it for readers, his trick is a lesson in how we perceive narrative. Those twin strands of narrative are ruses. They’re not intertwined. Corso – and therefore readers like me – have impressed upon these twin strands interconnectivity.

And what is the result? Corso, for all his cleverness, learns that he’s lost his soul long ago. He’s Faustian. And, in the end, he knows it. He’s smitten with the girl, and she’s pulling the strings behind it all, wrecking selfish interests for her own amusement. Let’s just say the devils in the details.

Like I said, I’m not sure I needed the lesson in constructing narrative. Fortunately, I the lesson entertained the hell out of me. It had all the wonderful trappings of that Umberto Eco style occult mystery (Eco himself actually has a cameo in the story!) in a tidy detective fiction package. It’s a good read with some frayed ends.

The Club Dumas: B-

Tags: Arturo Perez-Reverte, Review

I joined up with Intrepid Media — a long-standing independent writers and community site. My co-worker, Tracey Kelley, is an active member, and she introduced me. I just posted my first column there, a well-meaning rant about these crazy kids today: Generation Y not.

Tags: column, Intrepid Media

No doubt like every other aspiring wordsmith, I read Stephen King’s On Writing. I’ve never been much of a King reader — just a few short stories and The Gunslinger. Still, I appreciate his work and success.

His memoirs on writing amused me. They might even have inspired. It’s not much of a book to review (Oh hell, ok: B+). But, it is full of great lines. Here are some of the best:

When you’re six, most of your Bingo balls are still floating around in the draw-tank.

If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that’s all. I’m not editorializingm, just trying to give you the facts as I see them.

It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remidn yoruself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around.

You go on the third level, of course, and begin to write real fiction. Why shouldn’t you? Why should you fear? Carpenters don’t build monsters, after all; they build houses, stores and banks. They build some of wood a plank at a time and some of brick a brick at a time. You will build a paragraph at a time, constructing these of your vocabulary and your knowledge of grammar and basic style. As long as you stay level-on-the-level and shave even every door, you can build whatever you like — whole mansions, if you have the energy.

But you need the room, you need the door, and you need the determination to shut the door. You need a concrete goal, as well.

Tags: On Writing, Stephen King

Last time I covered A Gentleman’s Game by Greg Rucka, an espionage thriller with a solid graphic novel pedigree from Rucka’s Queen & Country.

I also tore through Private Wars, the next novel in the Tara Chace series.

Here, Tara Chace is out of the service with a baby. This is serious business given the thriller ending of the previous book. Meanwhile, Paul Crocker, her chain-smoking, hard ass boss deals with bureaucratic hell. His own boss is out to get him, and Tara’s replacement sends an operation into chaos. These first several chapters make for the most interesting reading in this more uneven book. In particular, Crocker’s at his most compelling here as Crocker plays politics and juggles his own home life some. He tends to be the best character in the series.

The rest of the thriller is set in Uzbekistan, where a dying dictator’s daughter and son squabble over who will assume control of the country. The daughter is a Machiavellian nymphomaniac whose lover is a secret police sadist. Turns out, this guy’s the real villain. So, the story pits Chace against him as she tries to smuggle the brother out of the country and maybe figure out where some rocket launchers are along the way.

The story is about Tara’s comeback to special operations and Paul Crocker’s desperation to avoid a lousy demotion. Again, Rucka is willing to do awful things to his protagonist. The effect is a build-up to Tara’s torture and near rape at the hands of the secret police antagonist. It’s tense, but it’s a no-brainer figure out Rucka won’t go that far. No rape is imminent, and her rescue is minutes away.

This willingness to torture Tara (figuratively and literally) is what makes Rucka’s writing so great. Here, it almost works as well as the previous novel. But, not quite. The plot becomes to uneven, particuarly at the fast-forward moment following Tara’s rescue. Rucka actually interrupts the narrative chapters with a psychological profile about Chace, who has post-traumatic stress disorder (who wouldn’t!) and a bloody obvious need for revenge. While a bit of interesting verisimilitude, the suspense suffers.

Of course, Tara enacts her revenge, and regains her hard edge as Britain’s finest “Minder” (Rucka’s slang for special agent). Best of all, she sneaks in one surprise decision at the close of the story that turns out to be the clearest sign that Tara Chace really is back, motherhood and all.

Private Wars: B-

Tags: Greg Rucka, Review, Tara Chace

The Internet is changing Des Moines, and it’s about time. I’ve started using Twitter in the past few weeks. It took me a while to appreciate it beyond some freakish obsessive compulsion to share what we’re all having for lunch. It turns out, it’s a very interesting peep hole into a growing scene of digerati in Des Moines.

I now follow a bunch of strangers who are really excited about Internet technology and social media. And, that alone is pretty interesting to me. It’s part of my profession, and how I spend far too much leisure time. But, along the way, I get glimpses of far more interesting things. What people are like. What they’re doing. What they’re passionate about.

None of that’s particularly new. What’s new is that they’re right here in flyover country trying to get together with like-minded souls to make the most of their home town. I find it hopeful. Even a little inspiring to get discover some new things for myself.

Tags: Des Moines, Iowa, Social Media, twitter

Several months ago, I was flipping channels and watched coverage of a comic book convention on the G4 channel. One of the reporters shared her favorite pick of the convention with the show hosts in the studio. It was something called Queen & Country, a  hard-boiled modern espionage comic featuring female protagonist, Tara Chace.

The very brief review intrigued me.  I actually managed to remember the name of the book. It took me several weeks, but I tracked down Queen & Country: The Definitive Edition volume 1 at my local comic store. I was hooked.

I found volume 2 later on, and read it with the same enthusiasm. Tense writing, tought issues, modern relevance, and a complicated woman hero that was more interesting to read about than just the lady James Bond I first figured her to be. I still await volume 3. But, in the mean time, I caught on that author Greg Rucka penned two Queen & Country novels as well. I chewed through that 1,000 or so pages faster than any reading I’ve done in a while.

A Gentleman’s Game is the first novel, which squeezes in somewhere between other mission “arcs” in the comic book volumes. It’s easily the best Tara Chace story I’ve read (I later caught on that Rucka is more novelist than graphic novelist; fortunately he’s no slouch either way). It’s a story revolving around Tara Chace’s need to feel useful, perhaps seek some revenge on Islamic fundamentalist terrorists active in the UK and beyond. And, it also has Chace chasing after a genuine love interest in her former colleague.

Rucka does an admirable job shifting perspective among Chace, her hard ass boss Paul Crocker, and an English born Muslim terrorist antagonist. Rucka’s not shy about putting his protagonists in ugly territory, trusting that the reader will stick around. similarly, his work at making a messy character in the terrorist both utterly disgusting and fascinating. He manages to make a fanatic — and the terrorist truly is that — interesting. We get the inside voice on the terrorist’s resolve, but we’re not foolish enough to buy his madness and see it for the manipulative evil that he performs.

The book’s a thriller, and fills that role well. While I saw the dramatic ending coming in those final chapters, the pacing and excitement throughout makes for a great read with enough carefully considered real-world relevance to avoid the escapism route.

A Gentleman’s Game: A

Up next, Private Wars, the second Tara Chace novel, and a bit more about the woman character.

Tags: Greg Rucka, Review

Over a month ago, my wife and I visited Colorado. We went to Ft. Collins and went rafting on the Cache le Poudre, a beautiful mountain river that turns out to be a lot of fun in a raft and wetsuit! Ft. Collins is a cozy little ag college town, and we had a fine time.

Then it was off to Denver to see my sister-in-law. She and her husband have lived in Aurora for a couple years now. We shopped and ate and saw a ball game. A wonderful  trip all around.

The whole thing had a particular purpose, though. We went to see Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at Red Rocks. The concert didn’t disappoint. Krauss’ voice is incredible live. Plant was infecting everyone with his grooving enthusiasm. And Red Rocks. It is the most spectacular venue in America. Breath taking. You could tell the performers were more excited to see this place than the audience was!

Now, all of that was great. I really hoped that would be my impression. But, they snuck one in on me, too. Plant and Krauss teamed up with T Bone Burnett. He’s a legendary producer and a performer in his own right. They let him play a couple songs with just the band. The guy looked like an outlaw undertaker. He wore a long black coat, which just made his tall frame look leaner and meaner.

I had never heard his music before. It was good. Probably still not my style, but I enjoyed it. But, he played a song that just knocked me out. It’s called The Primitives. I had to go look it up later; the studio version is just as stirring. The chorus makes me smile and damn near frown at the same time:

Primitives dress in feathers and masks
To scare away their enemies
The frightening thing is not dying
The frightening thing is not living
Scientists guess which is worse we will ask
The medicine or the disease
The frightening thing is not dying
The frightening thing is not living

I’ll drink to that.