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I hate doing these seemingly random columns. I know you three and a half readers hate them. Unfortunately these things happen. This meal is going down a lot like Jumble Pie only without a crust. Though sometimes there is nothing better for you than a bowl of soup in those strange few weeks where autumn has clearly ended and the cold winds of winter have yet to blow.
- M*A*S*H* Goes to Morocco By Richard Hooker and William E. Butterworth:
The first M*A*S*H* novel- and the movie that followed it, was one of the seminal anti-war comedies of the 1970s. The TV series that followed- while very different- followed in that same vein. The series of books after that - not so much. Each book focuses more on Hawkeye and Trapper John and their adventures with their new friends after the war. Only each book (of which this is the fourth) spends less and less time with Pierce and McIntyre and more time with the new characters. Each book gets progressively less funny. While there are many segments in these strangely interconnected series of vignettes that are very amusing, overall it really lacks direction. Unlike the TV series the comedy is not really character driven. The book relies a little more on topical humor which makes it feel extremely dated. I think at this point Hooker's severe dislike of the way the TV series turned out shows in the book as he seems to go out of his way to bash a thinly veiled parody of CBS every third chapter.
The next entry is sort of a cheat. It is part of a short story collection that has been reprinted in several forms in the decades since most of it entered the public domain. The book store I bought it from had it in a boxed set of paperbacks and one giant hardcover with exactly the same text. My copy is the big fat hardcover because it was cheaper the day I bought it. A friend got the four softcovers so I know exactly where the divides are.
- H.P. Lovecraft - The Complete Fiction Volume One By H.P. Lovecraft:
The stories in here are a bit of a surprise. While Lovecraft is known primarily for his early twentieth century horror tales, there are all sorts of stories in this book. There are tales of fantasy, mostly proto-Sword and Sorcery, science fiction and even some tales that are out and out parodies of popular authors of the day without any fantastic elements at all. The reason he is best known for his horror fantasy tales is because he pays attention to the details of his craft. He is without a doubt the poet laureate of horror fiction. There is so much talent in the work that I really wish I could get past a lot of the racism. Yes, it was the 1920s and 1930s where this is to be expected but in some stories- by which I mean The Rats in the Walls- where the inclusion of much of the racist language appears for no real reason. Furthermore unlike certain white authors who use such language to parody racism, Lovecraft uses it with dead seriousness. It makes stories I might otherwise have liked a lot less enjoyable. As I said- most of the stories are great. Others seem a little hokey and of the campfire variety though perhaps they would have been considered horror at the time. And a whole bunch of them I skipped because they were also in the collection I read back during year one.
I've said many times that there are three types of Star Trek books: ones that would have made great episodes or movies, those that are really damn entertaining but not quite at the "I wish this was canon" stage and then those which make it seem like the so called Richard Arnold Imperatives are like the Prime Directive. It is a double edged sword. If you followed them to the letter most if not every Star Trek book Diane Duane or Peter David ever wrote would never have escaped the outline stage. Not having them--- well that could lead to something like:
- Star Trek: Black Fire By Sonni Cooper:
This starts off with a premise that even at book #8 in the Pocket Books series was already becoming standard for Star Trek novels going back as far as some of the Bantam Books. A new, seemingly primitive yet somehow highly advanced culture tries to lure the Federation, Romulans and Klingons into a war. There are some twists though. Spock gets a spinal cord injury. Spock, Scotty along with assortment of Romulans and Klingons get captured. Then about three alien women fall in love with Spock. Kirk comes to the rescue and McCoy treats the injury. The first act- while it has been done many times- runs smoothly. In most cases this would be the end of the book not the middle. So I'll give the book props for not taking that route. However afterward Spock commits treason by trying to warn the surviving Romulans and Klingons on the ship what is coming. Then the book sort of loses its focus. It spends a chapter as a court room drama, then a prison movie, then a jailbreak movie, then something about pirates, then back to typical Star Trek style politics before finally becoming a spy novel. Somehow Spock's betrayal being one long black ops mission surprises Kirk. This seems way out of character. Kirk is portrayed as a complete and total idiot throughout most of the book. Two other things that seem off about this book- first Spock claims Kirk was his only friend in Federation space. Cooper much not have watched much Star Trek: The Original Series because it is clear Spock has other friends. Cooper's portrayal of the relationship between Spock and Bones is purely adversarial which is a serious but very common misinterpretation. They actually enjoy each other's company. They just enjoy bickering and insulting each other. Secondly- Scotty gushing over the beauty of any ship not named Enterprise is just plain wrong. He might get impressed by it but he wouldn't drool over it like a school girl the way he does the Enterprise. Unlike Kirk, Scotty is a one woman man. While this book isn't as indescribably bad as The Killing Time, I wouldn't recommend reading it.
- Star Trek - Deep Space Nine - The Never Ending Sacrifice By Una McCormick:
The Cardassians are one of the most interesting alien species in the entire Star Trek universe. The Cardassian soul is a nice mix of Orwellian nightmare, over eager imperialist with a little bit of deceit, self-delusion and unhealthy dose of paranoia thrown in. Una McCormick captures this almost perfectly while resolving one of the few remaining loose ends from Deep Space Nine. Whatever happened to Rugal, the Cardassian who was raised for most of his life on Bajor? This character with his outsider in a society where everyone is potentially the dangerous other is the perfect guide to Cardassia. There are ways he fits into the society he's found himself trapped in and ways that he doesn't. In spite of hating it there- he finds friendship. He almost makes a home for himself. Of course the first rule of being Cardassian is to never get too comfortable. The book covers that long period from the second season of Deep Space Nine to the end of the first wave of the relaunch books. To make sure it doesn't seem like a rehash of the series McCormick takes events of the Cardassian/Klingon conflict and The Dominion War and flips them on their head. You get to see the Cardassians as heroes. Yes, even Dukat for a chapter or two. Though the thing she gets right about Dukat- that so many writers of the novels and comics don't- is the Bajorans hate him because he was involved with atrocities during the occupation. The Cardassians hate him for more reasons than can be counted but one of the biggest is because he was too nice to the Bajorans during the Occupation. Almost every major Cardassian character shows up in the story at some point. All of them, including everyone's favorite tailor. Who sort of invokes the symmetry inherent in the piece of Cardassian literature from which this novel gets its name.
- Myth-Ing Persons By Robert Lynn Asprin:
You know the drill. Aahz and Skeeve are minding their own business. Someone comes along and messes it up. They've got to talk struggle, talk and con their way out of it. This time they've left the comfort of Skeeve's home dimension of Klah. They even leave their new home of the Bazaar on Deva. Instead they head to Limbo which just happens to have a low level of magic and very high population of vampires. Oh' and Aahz goes off on his own first and gets framed for murder. So it is up to Skeeve and his reserve squad to come to the rescue. So there's that. There's a lot of really goofy stuff. It's another rich comedic tour de farce. It even manages to do some neat and interesting things with vampires which take quite a bit of doing. If you only read one vampire book this year it should probably be this one.
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