A Guide to the Dark by Meriam Metoui (Henry Holt, 2023)
By Warner Holme: Meriam Metoui’s A Guide to the Dark is a novel of love, friendship, and death. Arguably these are the three aspects one can find in any completed happy life, making them very common elements in writing. It’s also a book of horrific deaths and the way such matters can seem to linger long after they should. Wrapped in a shell relating to a road trip and a seemingly cursed location, it’s a story that should be easy to grab genre fans who with a taste for this certain subdivision of YA.
The leads are Mira and Layla, a pair of girls ending high school and looking forward to their potential University years. The loss of one’s brother is a shared tragedy from their pasts, but a larger secret builds between the pair. This secret, a romantic interest that is mutual but hidden, is a source of much drama for them both due to family and interpersonal concerns. The entry of other individuals, such as a young man named Ellis living at the hotel with an easily learned tragedy of his own, only further complicates the dynamic between the pair.
This is a novel of a haunted hotel room, going back to the likes of The Shining or The Green Man in 20th century influences. This volume feels decidedly more 21st century, with the Arabic queer leads and thoughtful use of digital photography being far more aspects of current genre fiction. The use of these aspects are more subtle than in many more recent works, indeed far more subtle than in the uses by Stephen King alone, yet never quite fall into the realm of comfortable.
Calling the book horror or a thriller might be odd for many upon reading. It is quieter and less flashy than the majority of the genres in question, even spending a fair number of pages in it.
The photography in the book is interesting due to the in universe conceit. Specifically all of the images allegedly are taken by and of people and events in the book. This allows a number of clever uses of photo manipulation throughout the book, but in light of the fact one of the leads is supposed to be an experienced photographer it will leave the reader looking for style or exceptional levels of quality which will not always be found. On the other hand the character in question is a student, and many of the photographs are quite candid. As a result they all feel believably the work of the individual in question, it’s merely a matter of what a reader will think that says about the character.
Risk is a major element of life, as is fear. Both are major pieces of this story. When to take a risk or not, and the upsides and downsides of what can result are key. The nature of fear, and how it connects both before and after to the concept of loss, is also quite important down to the well chosen words originally by C.S. Lewis before the bulk of the text.
Overall this is a quick breezy read, with characters the target audience should appreciate and find aspects of themselves in. The occasional pop culture reference is rare, such as one to the detective series Monk, leaving it far more an independent work than one relying on the knowledge of readers in these areas.
What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier #1) by T. Kingfisher Tor Nightfire, July 2022
Review by Lis Carey: This is a retelling of Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Kingfisher discovered on a rereading that Poe’s story was much shorter than she remembered, and that there was room for…more.
More background and explanation of why this happened, in particular.
It’s 1890, and Alex Easton is a retired soldier, plagued by tinnitus, from a tiny European kingdom called Gallacia. Kan is a “sworn soldier,” a status which requires an exchange of gendered for nongendered pronouns. Kan is also the childhood friend of Roderick and Madeline Ussher, and travels to their ancestral home in Ruritania, in response to a letter from Madeline.
Madeline says she’s dying.
Easton is nearly there when they encounter Miss Eugenia Potter, a knowledgeable and practical English mycologist, who shows them some of the creepier mushrooms of the area. This proves to be important information.
Arriving at the Ussher home, Easton is shocked by its state of decay. The Usshers themselves — Madeline is fragile, pale, clearly very ill. Roderick isn’t really in much better shape. There’s also another visitor, an American doctor, who is clearly confused by Madeline’s condition. He says she’s suffering from catalepsy, but that this is more a description than a useful diagnosis. He can’t identify a cause.
Roderick, meanwhile, says he hears sounds in the walls. It’s not rats. There are no rats, which is abnormal in itself.
Madeline sleepwalks, and speaks very oddly when Easton finds her doing so.
Around the manor house, there are hares, very strange hares who move very unnaturally, and don’t stay dead when you shoot them. The local tarn, or lake, which the manor house sits on the shore of is both strangely dark, and strangely lit at night by what, at sea, might be bioluminescent algae.
Easton’s batman, Angus, catches a fish and wishes he hadn’t.
This is clearly a very bad place to be, and Madeline and Roderick both hate it. Why won’t they leave? What holds them there?
Easton, Angus, Denton, and Miss Potter all want explanations, and the more information they uncover, the darker their speculations get. The mushrooms Miss Potter showed Easton aren’t the only, or the strangest, fungi in the area. When they cut open first a fish, and then a hare–which doesn’t stay put even after a second killing blow — they realize it’s time to be very, very scared.
But how can they fight a fungus that’s in the lake, and the local wildlife, and, they realize to their horror, in Madeline?
Read this, and you might never eat mushrooms again. Or hare, if hare meat ever comes your way. Or fish you haven’t caught and cleaned yourself.
I haven’t half done this story justice. Just read it, and see for yourself how good it is. How creepy, atmospheric, peopled by good characters, and with a real scare awaiting you.
Summer’s Endby John Van Stry My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Review by Dann Todd: This is a 3.5-star review. Every time I talked myself into rounding it up to 4 stars, I found another reason to make it 3 stars.
I picked up Summer’s End because it is a finalist for this year’s Prometheus Award given to works of fiction that explore or incorporate libertarian themes. Prometheus Award winners are almost always pretty good. This is a worthy finalist.
Our protagonist is Dave “Mongoose” Walker. A former gang-banger who was literally scared straight and made it through enough college to get a certificate as a 5th-class engineer. In the opening pages, his brother tells him trouble is coming Dave’s way. His brother has acquired an engineering position for him on a tramp starship. Go now. Dave does.
The author does a great job of using Dave to bring us into a reality of interplanetary travel and settlement. Dave learns a bit about repairing/maintaining various parts of the ship. But we are spared the description of weeks of travel between destinations. This keeps the story/action moving and interesting.
Dave has all sorts of unusual challenges tossed his way. His biological mother’s new-ish husband wants him dead for political reasons. Dave ends up being taken by pirates/buccaneers (there apparently is a useful difference). He just happens to have a skill that he can use to negotiate for his release.
This leads to one major criticism of the book. Coincidence. While every book has to have a specific set of narrative circumstances occur for the book to make sense, it begins to strain credulity when, later in the book, so many of Dave’s issues are either caused by and/or resolved by people that were tangentially introduced earlier in the book. And in most cases, those people all know each other in some capacity or another independent of their relationship with Dave. The world is a small place, but it ain’t that small. Also, there are more than a few occasions where a character that is of interest to Dave for one reason just happens to have the skill set needed to solve an unrelated problem that Dave is dealing with.
A second criticism is basic spelling, grammar, and wordsmithery. A common complaint that I hear about books published by Baen is that there isn’t any clear indication of editorial input. The spelling and grammar errors were just enough to tip my inner editor. There were a few instances where I found the phrasing of a sentence or a paragraph needed to require required* re-reading a few times to determine what the author was intending to say.
A third criticism is how the author treats a sizeable number of female characters. They are “hot”. Hot as in “Hot babe sittin’ beside me in my ‘Cuda.” At least one other review notes that female characters are “frustratingly” undeveloped. With the exception of Dave and one or maybe two other main characters, all of the other characters are undeveloped.
Take away (or diminish) two of those criticisms and this becomes a solid 4-star review (maybe 4.5) as the author does a very good job of incorporating a lot of real-world social structures and issues. He dials them up a bit and projects current trends to create a believable future where people are leaving Earth to avoid overregulation. He also points out that leaving Earth is not a panacea; some new polities develop some pretty horrendous beliefs and corporations really aren’t to be trusted.
The slow burn in the book is about social structures and trust. Dave succeeds because he demonstrates himself to be worthy of trust primarily because his life has shown him that trust is the only real value a person has. Gangs, families, business partners, corporations, neighborhoods, cities, and societies all rely on high levels of trust if they are going to continue to exist.
The characters and plot were compelling enough to keep me reading all the way to the end. The conclusion was satisfying. I’d like to read more about all of these characters in the future and see if the author can develop them more fully.
*Read the text that was striked out. Read the replacement. Which one reads more clearly. This book contained too many similar passages.
Even Though I Knew the End by C. L. Polk Tordotcom, ISBN 9781250849458, November 2022
Review by Lis Carey: This story was definitely not for me.
I had bad feelings just reading the title. It telegraphs that there’s something not positive about the ending, right? And the publisher’s blurb for it cheerily states that the protagonist, Helen, sold her soul to save her brother’s life. This is accurate.
As a direct result, she and her brother are no longer on good terms, or even in contact. She also got kicked out of the magical order they belonged to because, of course, damned soul.
Then years later, her time is almost up, and she gets pulled into the investigation of Chicago’s White City Vampire, a serial killer who is apparently a demon. She doesn’t want to be involved; she has only three days left and wants to spend them with her girlfriend, Edith. Her client offers irresistible bait, though–the chance to win her soul back, and have a lifetime with Edith.
It turns out Edith has her own secret, and also the White City Vampire isn’t a demon, although they are something closely related.
Helen, Edith, and Edith’s secret start investigating the killings, the victims, and seeming bystanders who had mental breakdowns shortly after each killing. It’s what happens to those bystanders that makes the real identity of the killer even more appalling.
There’s so much I want to say about what happens here and why I dislike the story. Unfortunately, I can’t say what I want without spoilers, and it probably doesn’t matter because probably most readers, or at least enough readers for this story to have the audience that made it a Hugo Finalist, either wouldn’t agree with me, or wouldn’t care.
It is a very well-written story. It’s a good mystery, and a good romance, despite the thing that spoils the enjoyment of it for me. It doesn’t, however, have the substance and depth that made me consider “Rabbit Test” a serious candidate for my first place vote in the short story category, despite also being dark and depressing in a way that made it hard for me to read. This story is supposed to be just a fun story, and maybe it is for many, but not for me.
I received this story as part of the 2023 Hugo Voters Packet.
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds (Trantor Audio, 2009)
Review by Lis Carey: Chasm City is set in Reynolds’ Revelation Space universe, a century or so after the events of The Prefect and Elysium Fire. Or, put another way, some years after the end of the Belle Epoch, the golden age of the height of human civilization in the Yellowstone system, where Chasm City on the planetary surface, and the Glitter Band, made up of thousands of orbital habitats, offered the near-idyllic life of your choice, until the Melding Plague brought it crashing down.
The Melding Plague infects all nanotechnology, including nanotech implants in human beings, and causes it to mutate and distort in ways that in machinery is disturbing and dangerous, and in humans is horrific. The near-utopian life of the Belle Epoch civilization in the Yellowstone system depended on that nanotech and what it made possible. The wealthy who were able to get their implants out, or who sealed themselves into high-tech coffins that allow them to live lives with the tools and pleasures of implants, live in relative comfort in the Canopy of Chasm City. The non-wealthy live in much less desirable areas lower down, and the lowest and worst of those areas is the Mulch.
The main character is Tanner Mirabel, or at least, he sincerely believes he is. He comes to Yellowstone from the world of Sky’s Edge, and he’s hunting the man who killed his friend and employer, Cahuella, an arms dealer and, by many accounts, a sadistic monster. Tanner has a better opinion of him than many others, indeed thinks of him as being in some ways a good man. Cahuella’s wife tells Tanner he’s better than Tanner realizes, that he was better than his reputation when she met him, and has continued to improve since.
Tanner is one of the two narrative voices in the book, the other being Sky Haussmann, born on a slow colony ship from Earth to the intended colony world of Journey’s End. The ship has a crew of about 150, and a cargo of tens of thousands of sleepers, who will be awakened on arrival at their new home. We meet Haussmann as a young boy, and follow him as he rises through the crew, by intelligence, hard work, and, oh yes, treachery. He becomes both the hero and the villain of the story of how the planet–now called Sky’s Edge–was successfully settled.
He also becomes a religious figure, inspiration for a cult, and his followers have created a virus that gives those infected visions of his life.
Tanner’s home is Sky’s Edge, and he has become infected with the virus.
Tanner leaves Sky’s Edge and goes to Yellowstone, after Cahuella and his wife are killed, pursuing the killer. Without FTL, the trip takes fifteen years, and it’s during those fifteen years that Yellowstone goes from the very height of civilization to collapse under the effects of the Melding Plague, and struggling to preserve any civilization at all. The Glitter Band is now the Rust Band, and only parts of Chasm City are civilized and pleasant–and even that part has a bloodthirsty edge that perhaps was just not so apparent before. Along the way, he meets the religious order that cares for those who awake from cold sleep with their minds not yet fully reintegrated, the entrepreneurs who, for a price, will remove your implants, hopefully before the Melding Plague gets you. He meets some interesting people, some of whom are part of one of Chasm City’s more bloodthirsty sports, and some very attractive women who may or may not be his friends.
His sleeping visions of the life of Sky Haussmann become more frequent, more intrusive, and start to depart from the official version of Sky’s life.
In his waking hours, outside the visions, he starts to learn some confusing and disturbing things about himself and those around him.
And we start to ask ourselves, as he is, who is Tanner Mirabel, really?
There are twists on twists, here, and the answer may not be what you think.
Tanner, Sky, and the people Tanner meets, are interesting and compelling characters, not necessarily likable, and not necessarily who you think.
Knight’s Wyrd by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald (Tor, 2023)
Review by Warner Holme: Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald’s Knight’s Wyrd is a short medievalist fantasy book that makes a large number of unusual decisions. A short novel like this can slip through the cracks easily, and the focus Tor Essentials is giving it with this re-release shows someone thinks it’s deserved.
The story centers on a young man named Wil Oddosson. He is betrothed, well intentioned, in line for a knighthood, and has a certain sense of honor. At the beginning of the story he is out with some others and an old lady’s pig is nearly stolen by outlaws. He ends up in a fight killing them and finds the whole thing uncomfortable yet a certain kind of necessary.
From this and to his knighting shortly afterward it becomes increasingly clear that there are any number of pitfalls that might happen to a young knight and his friends. Odd incidents of large creatures in the water, accidentally fatal sojourns through the woods, and dire portents follow wherever they go.
While Will is not the only character of note on the story, focusing on them heavily ignores that the story is not focused on that material. Instead this is a plot and atmosphere that serve as greater pillars, feeling more medieval than most fantasy yet maintaining a steady unnatural and off putting ambiance that draws the reader deeper page by page through the journey the young man goes through.
The introduction, while well written, does much to subvert the ending, so spoiler fearing individuals would do well to skip it. On the other hand for an experienced reader of this story, or merely one who is not concerned about such matters coming to light, it is a well written introduction that helps to illustrate the many ways in which this story can grab a reader.
For most of the book the narrative feels very much out of the medieval storytelling tradition. Wizards rarely have big flashy powers, fights against strange monstrosities are heard about second or more hand and likely mere fanciful tales, and honor is met with treachery. In spite of all of this the idea that there are innately worthwhile acts is put into place and generally holds. The chief separation from medieval texts tends to be the permeating and deliberate air of uncertainty, of worry and precarious existence that holds throughout the text.
While set in a medievalist society complete with obvious class divides and confusing mixtures between the real and Fantastical this book is not one to simply rest on assumptions. There are few women as major characters, but the ones who appear are as well thought out as many of the men. The supernatural events and tasks, weather dream like visions or happening in the present, serve to illustrate a world filled with grays.
Knight’s Wyrd is a short and strange novel. It is also utterly brilliant. A carefully constructed combination of realistic and fantastic elements for a level of society create an atmosphere that shifts from disturbingly mundane to dreamlike on a pin yet never seem out of place. Thoroughly recommended to all (even curious) parties.
Review by Brown Robin: This is an old favorite; I’m happy to report it’s still a favorite. As usual, there are spoilers herein.
Twentieth-century suburban peasant Charles Forrester is brought back to life in the 26th century, after dying horribly and being stored at liquid helium temperatures. He has an awful lot of learning to do to survive in the brave new world he is reborn into, but he’s a slow learner….
He meets Adne cute at his resurrection party, is murdered by a Martian gang, resurrected by the doctors again, hired by an ET, fired by the ET, goes on the lam with the Forgotten Men who live without technological trappings, hunted by that pesky Aresian, is hypnotized into helping his former ET employer escape house arrest, and saves humanity from the Ned Lud society and the Sirians.
You might be induced to strangle Forrester as he blithely stumbles into trouble after peril after contretemps due to his inability to focus on the basics, but I forgive him because it’s difficult to be confronted with new technology without a real support system. The future here is no utopia, it is our world, with its pretensions, its perils, its perquisites, its picayune peeves. In short, it’s Sartre’s hell.
This is Fred Pohl in full Galaxy mode, not a slap-dash effort at satire with a glib denouement and a pivot to the next story. There’s quite a bit of detail and texture providing much food for thought. I especially found the passages about the nature of inflation insightful: if a person as primitive as Forrester, as primitive as I was when I was a child, were willing to forego the high tech lifestyle of the truly advanced human ape, they could still survive on very little money, but the modern condition is prohibitively expensive and requires a little hustle, like living in San Francisco or New York or Tokyo takes today.
Adne provides a good foil for Forrester, as well as an introduction for the reader to a future in which the social contracts have been meaningfully and beneficially shifted. Her children are a hoot, a savvy yet still childish brace of gentle smart-alecks you might encounter at your next family reunion. I enjoyed all the characters in this novel, and the Hawksish dialogue too.
I thought “crawling,” where citizens abase themselves, and commit slander against one another in a drug-induced fugue state sounded like something someone is already organizing on weekends in New Jersey or LA.
In addition to being a witty, droll story, it is a perspicacious prognostication. It seems the Earth has been coasting on a crowd sourced machine-run government, years before the word “crowd source” was coined. It has the feel of our present, the way our excessive casuality, our addictive relationship to play and frivolity, our obsessive need of comfort, convenience, and checking-out from the hard moments have formed a kind of decadent artifice fronting a rotting essence. With just a hint of chaos theory.
The story presents functional immortality, allowing for a system of murder and resurrection through legal means and great fungible wealth, and the human psyche has not yet adapted to such vistas, even in the 26th century. The moment real death faces them, nearly every single human runs to the freezers.
Age of the Pussyfoot remains possibly my pick for best twentieth century sf novel. And funny as ever, if not funnier.
“D.I.Y.” by John Wiswell Tor Books, ISBN 009781250870209, August 2022
Review By Lis Carey: The opening of this story does not bring us to a happy world. Climate change has had a major impact, most strongly felt in the heat and the shortage of potable water.
The tech that’s involved here, though, includes magic. The companies expected to address the problem are the great magic academies, among them Ozymandias Academy, where once upon a time, a young man named Noah hoped to become a student. When he’s finally accepted, though, it’s without any financial aid, and his mother, struggling just to support the two of them, has no money. Noah, being a bright young man, puts the blame where it belongs, and in some ways, that sets up later events.
Noah meets up with a podcaster, who goes by MX_POTLUCK, or, to friends, simply “Manny.” Both shut out of any serious magical training, they do their own research and experimentation, including coax water out of the air into glasses. The amounts are small, but it’s a start. They proceed to build on their start, especially as Ozymandia Academy gets more control of the limited water supply, and gets more restrictive, and more elitist, in its distribution of water.
But both Noah and Manny have serious health problems, and when they make a real breakthrough, it coincides with Manny having a major health crisis.
I’ll just say that these are two tough, clever, young men with integrity. This is a more hopeful story than “Rabbit Test,” and I enjoyed it. Sadly, while I think it deserves its nomination, I think “Rabbit Test,” which I will never voluntarily reread, really is the better work.
I received this story as part of the 2023 Hugo Voters Packet.
“Rabbit Test” by Samantha Mills Uncanny Magazine, Issue #49, 2022
Review by Lis Carey: In this rather dark short story, we follow the troubles of Grace, whom we meet as an 18-year-old girl who has gotten pregnant, in a late 21st century society where technology has been weaponized to make it almost impossible for pregnancy to evade detection. She’s not paranoid and careful enough to be able to terminate it before it’s detected, and this basically eliminates most of her life choices.
In between parts of the story of Grace and her daughter, Olivia, we get bits about the history of pregnancy tests, including the iconic “rabbit test,” as well as earlier tests, dating back to ancient times, many (but not all) of which were surprisingly effective. As society changed to put women more completely in the power of men, many of them became illegal, and termination, when available, also became illegal.
Grace and Olivia aren’t the only women we get to know, at least a little bit, and none of these included stories are happy reading. It’s a powerfully told story, but also dark, and hard to take, at least for me. The nonsequential telling of it gives a good understanding of the history of pregnancy detection, abortion, and the struggle for women to control their own bodies and make their own life decisions. I’m not sorry I read it, but honestly, if it weren’t short, and weren’t a finalist for the Hugo Awards 2023 Best Short Story, I probably wouldn’t have finished it.
As in all things, make your own decision. (While it’s still legal?)
I received this story as part of the 2023 Hugo Voters Packet.
The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown by Lawrence Block
By Daniel Dern: As a fan of both Lawrence Block and Fredric Brown (their stories and books, that is), I was intrigued and ready-to-be-excited by an announcement back in August 2022, which I saw I-don’t-remember-where and then here in File770, in Item #2, about Block’s then-upcoming novel, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown (which I’ll now refer to as TBWMFB), Block’s thirteenth book about bookseller/burglar (or vice versa) Bernie Rhodenbarr.
(Cavil/Quibble/Note: Thirteenth book but twelfth novel, because Block’s previous Rhodenbarr, The Burglar In Short Order, is a (highly enjoyable) collection of short stories about Bernie.)
This is intended to be a spoilers-free write-up. (If you’ve read or otherwise know the underlying gimmick — I’m not sure it qualifies as a MacGuffin — in Fredric Brown’s What Mad Universe, then you already have a non-unreasonable expectation of what happens early on, but Block takes it in a different tone and direction from Brown, and since it’s the premise, not a spoiler anyway IMHO.)
I’ll start with my opinions/recommendations, rather than leave them to the end. Arguably much of what’s after this list is snakes-hands; it’s definitely more about Lawrence Block (and why and what I recommend reading his stuff) than TBWMFB.
(1) I enjoyed The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown. I’ve read all the previous Bernie The Burglar books, although, other than …In Short Order, probably none more recently than a decade or more ago. I’ve read lots of Lawrence Block; over half a dozen re-re-read. I’ve read a fair amount of Fredric Brown — lots of the sf stories, in the sf magazines and anthologies and collections as I grew up, some recently.
(2) If you’ve read at least a few of Block’s previous Bernie books, odds are pretty good you’ll like The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown. This Bernie book is different from previous ones, so if it turns out to not be your cup of tea (or klava, for Steven Brust Vlad Taltos-verse fans), click here for 50% of your time back. (Not responsible for ripple-effect changes.)
(3) If you’ve read other Block but not his Burglar books (though this seems unlikely), ditto — but I suggest you read one or two of those first, to meet the characters first. The Burglar In Short Order should suffice; more won’t hurt.
(4) If you haven’t read any Block, (a) see (3) above and, (b) good news, Block’s got LOTS of great reads. My favorites include the John Keller Hit Man series (five books – note, many parts show up, particularly in e-form, as individual stories. Best read in order. Note to author: More Keller, please!); the Evan Tanner books (in particular, I commend the first, and also the currently-last Tanner On Ice, which has an sf-adjacent not-quite-a-MacGuffin a la Heinlein’s The Door Into Summer (but no cat), in particular); the Ehrengraf for the Defense collection(s?); his other story collections; and his non-fiction collections (his stamp collector columns, and The Crime of Our Lives (essays and anecdotes). (I’m also fond of A Random Walk, which is perhaps arguably sf or adjacentish.)
There are many reasons to enjoy and savor reading Block. The characters, perfect-timing zinger endings, the New York City bits, and the prose itself, including, like Donald Westlake, drop-in bits that may or may not serve the movement or character, but are simply delightful. (The Westlake one that comes to mind is from one of his Dortmunder stories, inventorying the passengers in a goonmobile, including “stately, plump Buck Mulligan.” (Also used, with more context, in Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely’s superb All-Star Superman run.)
Ed Gorman nailed it, in his introduction to the Hard Case edition of Block’s Borderline (although it feels like I read it in some other essay/intro collection: “A long time ago I said that Lawrence Block writes the best sentences in the business. I don’t see any reason to change my mind.” (Possibly I’d read Gorman’s original remark. I’d thought it was said by Stephen King, but the web says it was Ed Gorman; who am I to disagree?) Some of my favorite places are from Block’s John Keller stories; somehow, for example, the beginning of Keller’s Designated Hitter. I can’t explain it, but I know when I’m enjoying prose as it goes.
(4) If you haven’t (yet) read any Fredric Brown, tsk! but that’s not an impediment to reading The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown. (I subsequently reread Brown’s What Mad Universe, and stand by my opinion.)
Where to get TBWMFG:
I read the paperback, courtesy of my library (also available as an e-book), a belated several months ago. (My fault, I’d gronked my initial library reservation.) So I’m very belatedly getting back to this write-up.)
For serious fans/collectors; Subterranean Press is doing a deluxe signed-and-limited hardcover, scheduled for release October 1, 2023. I can’t see (from listings) whether there are any “extras.” (Note, many of Block’s e-book versions include essays, bio info, photos, etc. — worth checking out via HooplaDigital or Libby library borrows!)
And there’s an audiobook, available through various sources.
This is probably as good a place as any to mention some places to get your Fredric Brown. NESFA Press has two Brown collections (in paper and/or e-book): From These Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown, and Martians and Madness: The Complete SF Novels of Fredric Brown. E-library-wise, Hoopla, Libby, and OverDrive (which has been replaced by Libby, but this search may burp up different results than Libby’s).
Plus there are numerous non-SF reprints/collections, from various publishers, many in your library’s physical stacks, bookstores, and your friends’ shelves.
CLEARING THROAT AGAIN. Before I launch into talking about The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown one more note (for now), and one disclaimer:
Bernie Rhodenbarr doesn’t actually meet Fredric Brown in TBWMFB. (To be fair, while none of the previous titles make similar “met” claims, Bernie doesn’t meet any of the other title-name-dropped people.)
This write-up isn’t really a review, by my definition. (In case you haven’t yet figured that out from the title or the text so far.)
BLOCK AND/OR SF: Unlike Fredric Brown, who wrote a fair amount of SF alongside a lot of crime/mystery/detective stuff, Lawrence Block, like Donald Westlake, John D. MacDonald, and others, has only a few excursions into or dalliances with sf.
(I don’t consider Tanner On Ice to be sf in any way, and I’m not sure how to categorize A Random Walk, but IMHO it’s not genre sf. That doesn’t stop me from periodically re-reading either of these books, but it makes me mildly curious where my town’s library — which has separate-from-general-fiction zones for mystery/crime, sf/fantasy, and romance — would file it.)
Conveniently, Janet Rudolph got deets straight from the author’s mouth (or email, in her interview cited in Item #2 of File770’s August 23, 2023 scroll, her “An ‘Impertinent’ Interview with Lawrence Block” at Mystery Fanfare. Talking with Block about TBWMFB:
You ever write any SF?
I had a story in a magazine, Science Fiction Stories, in 1959, and it was chosen for Judith Merril’s best-of-the-year collection. And in 1984 Fantasy & Science Fiction ran “The Boy Who Disappeared Clouds.”
But there’s no doubting that (like Stephen King), Block knows and enjoys sf. Here’s Block’s post about Fredric Brown.
Where Brown’s What Mad Universe is a mix of grim plot and cultural satire, TBWMFB is (give or take Bernie The Burglar’s inevitable caper-turning-into-having-to-solve-a-murder-he’s-blamed-for) a romp, where characters and author are clearly having fun. And, hopefully, so will you.
IN SCROLLS TO COME: Block, and Westlake, both have non-fiction collections of various articles, essays, book introductions, correspondence, etc. (including some about each other, they worked in the Scott Meredith Agency contemporaneously or near, and were good friends. I’m brooding about a post on these books; they’re informative, engaging, and entertaining — and it’s interesting to hear them speaking directly, as themselves, rather than through a narrator or character.
