leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (09/17/85)
Second Helpings
Book reviews by Mark R. Leeper
Each of these books is from a series that I have reviewed at some
point in the past. All the things I said before still apply to the
series as a whole; I am reviewing only one entry in each series:
BOOKS OF BLOOD I by Clive Barker
Sphere, 1984, L1.50($3.25).
I read the three books of this collection in reverse order. Three
more volumes have been published and sit on my shelf; I'll review them
eventually. Of the first three volumes, this is the best, and the best
story in the volume is "Midnight Meat-Train," about a Jew from Atlanta
living in New York and getting involved in a string of serial murders on
the subways. "The Yattering and Jack" is a whimsical tale of a demon
having problems frightening a man. A cut lower are "Pig Blood Blues,"
"In the Hills, the Cities," and especially "Sex, Death, and Starshine."
The last spends 36 pages on a story with only an okay idea. All the
stories in the series are bound together by the framing story "Book of
Blood," not much of a story in itself (framing stories rarely are).
Barker is my idea of a really creative horror writer.
New James Bond Series: ROLE OF HONOR by John Gardner
Berkley, 1985, $3.95.
This series is by a distinguished British author slumming,
continuing the adventures of Fleming's unflappable hero. In ROLE OF
HONOR, Bond is fighting a super-plot by a computer genius. The book in
fact, plays a little subtle trick on people who are computer-literate.
The entire book is leading up to a master caper called "The Balloon
Game," the nature of which is revealed only in the final chapters. I
would quibble with Gardner in that it seems that the results of the
Balloon Game could be undone in minutes, but if the book had made that
impossible, the Balloon Game would have been a clever idea. It is a
pity that Bond is always playing for such high stakes. A cryptanalysis
decoder is plenty high stakes in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. The films and
this book seem to imply that a Bond story is not effective unless Bond
is saving the entire Free World.
VALLEY OF THE FAR SIDE by Gary Larson
Andrews, McMeel & Parker, 1985, $5.95.
Larson is starting to lose his touch. A good three-quarters of the
cartoons in this book are not hilarious. Most of those are only very
funny. My favorite of the lot betrays my own prejudices: "French
Mammoth" shows a caveman giving a prehistoric mammoth an absurd poodle
haircut. The great indignities are timeless.
200 "Far Side" cartoons pack a lot of ideas and a lot of humor in a
compact space.
Mark R. Leeper
...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper