Books: The Ballad of Perilous Graves By Alex Jennings (2022)

“Nola is a city full of wonders. A place of sky trolleys and dead cabs, where haints dance the night away and Wise Women keep the order, and where songs walk, talk and keep the spirit of the city alive. To those from Far Away, Nola might seem strange. To failed magician, Perilous Graves, it’s simply home. Then the rhythm stutters. Nine songs of power have escaped from the magical piano that maintains the city’s beat and without them, Nola will fail. Unexpectedly, Perry and his sister, Brendy, are tasked with saving the city. But a storm is brewing and the Haint of All Haints is awake. Even if they capture the songs, Nola’s time might be coming to an end.”

The Ballad of Perilous Graves is the debut novel of Alex Jennings, and it’s both brilliant and frustrating. The first half is really great, as we see the adventures of Perry. His sister Brendy, and superhero-ish young lady, Peaches as they battle for the soul of New Orleans, or as the book goes along, Nola, which is New Orleans but magic, and is attached to our world as a kind of pocket dimension. A lot of this is not fully explained and was perhaps why it took me longer to finish it than it should’ve. Jennings slips between these two universes with –as noted- no elucidation. But you do get swept up in the story to certain extent and the three kids are wonderfully drawn –especially Perry (say what you will about authors who create alternate universe versions of themselves and put them in their books, but it seems clear to my Perry is version of Alex Jennings). The book does require you pay attention then, if only because little is clarified until the last quarter of the book.

Despite the beauty of blending music, magic, street art in what amounts to an imaginative and vivid way, the book does have a bunch of secondary characters that distract from the main narrative (as much as I like Casey and Jaylon, they seemed only there to represent the “real” New Orleans, a lode stone for the non-fantasy reader to latch onto). And while it’s clear this tale is about Perry (it’s in the title), I think both Brendy and Peaches are up to equal tasks. I would be curious if the title of the book was a publisher’s choice or the writers.

Still, the book is magical and different from what is out there. It does not quiet get the “epic” fantasy label, but in the end, I enjoyed it. It may also be a book I might revisit, if only because I probably missed some stuff.

Books: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon By Stephen King (1998)

“On a six-mile hike on the Maine-New Hampshire branch of the Appalachian Trail, nine-year-old Trisha McFarland quickly tires of the constant bickering between her older brother, Pete, and her recently divorced mother. But when she wanders off by herself and then tries to catch up by attempting a shortcut, she becomes lost in a wilderness maze full of peril and terror. As night falls, Trisha has only her ingenuity as a defense against the elements, and only her courage and faith to withstand her mounting fears. For solace, she tunes her Walkman to broadcasts of Boston Red Sox baseball games and follows the gritty performances of her hero, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. And when her radio's reception begins to fade, Trisha imagines that Tom Gordon is with her - protecting her from an all-too-real enemy who has left a trail of slaughtered animals and mangled trees in the dense, dark woods.”

There are a handful of Stephen King novels I’ve not read, for whatever reason. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was one of them. A minimalist tale, King is able to keep the story going for a while. Trisha, like a lot of King’s kids, is resourceful, with a lot of wisdom that belies her young age. For me, I’m not used to King creating a one character based story and found myself, by the middle of the book, a bit restless and feeling the repetitiveness of Trisha’s issues grounded the narrative to halt. Still, it’s King, and he’s a genius for attempting such a literary experiment. Like his Richard Bachman tales, I appreciate when a well established author can color outside the lines.

Despite King’s success, he still has problems with endings. While you knew the ending, it became also anti-climatic. Trisha finally faces the thing, the It, that she felt has been stalking her, only to have it wrapped up pretty neatly and then the book ends. Maybe I was expecting more? Or maybe I didn’t know what to expect. It’s not a bad book, but I can certainly say it’s one I’ve read now -25 years after it’s release.

Beyond finishing out the Bachman books –Rage, The Running Man, The Long Walk- I still need to read Misery (which King was writing to be released as a Bachman book when he was outed), Gerald’s Game, Delores Claiborne, and Rose Madder.

Books: Roadwork By Richard Bachman (1981)

“Barton Dawes’ unremarkable but comfortable existence suddenly takes a turn for the worst. Highway construction puts him out of work and simultaneously forces him out of his home. Dawes isn’t the sort of man who will take an insult of this magnitude lying down. His single-minded determination to fight the inevitable course of progress drives his wife and friends away while he tries to face down the uncaring bureaucracy that has destroyed his once comfortable life.”

Like a lot of Stephen King’s work, Roadwork (released under Richard Bachman name) takes another ordinary person and shows us how the universe can really screw up what you thought was a good life. And Dawes had a semi-charmed life until things happened. And while he was able to somewhat recover from his wife’s miscarriage, but the death of their second child from a brain tumor began his slow descent into madness. But that’s not really an apt description, though. In the introduction, King writes about Barton coping with the death of Charlie (an interesting flip on how a husband and wife cope with the loss) and uses the death of his own mother to some answers to the conundrum of human pain: "I think it was an effort to make some sense of my mother's painful death the year before – a lingering cancer had taken her off inch by painful inch. Following this death I was left both grieving and shaken by the apparent senselessness of it all.”

Still, Barton seemed unsympathetic at the start, almost selfish, and, at times, a boorish loser. You get the sense, at first, this was a man who was finally pushed to his limit and decided to make those who (somehow) screwed up his life pay the price. But the book does surprise me because what does happen, at the end, is rather anticlimactic. While I think Roadwork (the third of five novels King released before being outed as Bachman), much like Thinner, could’ve been a short story or even a novella, it works better for me than Thinner. I don’t know, perhaps it’s my state of mind of late, my feelings of inadequacy and the sense that I have not lived a life of even semi-success. Dawes is a bit of a depressive, as I am. So in some ways, I felt for him. I understood him, somewhat.

I still three other “Bachman” books to read (and a few King books as well, as I’ve skipped and hopped over some is books over the decades (like The Tommyknockers). I will try and get through them over the coming months, but how much I plow through will always depend on factors.

Until next time…

Books: The Library at Mount Char By Scott Hawkins (2015)

"Carolyn's not so different from the other people around her. She likes guacamole and cigarettes and steak. She knows how to use a phone. Clothes are a bit tricky, but everyone says nice things about her outfit with the Christmas sweater over the gold bicycle shorts. After all, she was a normal American herself once. That was a long time ago, of course. Before her parents died. Before she and the others were taken in by the man they called Father. In the years since then, Carolyn hasn't had a chance to get out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father's ancient customs. They've studied the books in his Library and learned some of the secrets of his power. And sometimes, they've wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God.  Now, Father is missing—perhaps even dead—and the Library that holds his secrets stands unguarded. And with it, control over all of creation. As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her, all of them with powers that far exceed her own. But Carolyn has accounted for this. And Carolyn has a plan. The only trouble is that in the war to make a new God, she's forgotten to protect the things that make her human."

Even as I struggled with the horror and graphic aspects of The Library at Mount Char, the novel is fairly original and very twisty. It’s clever and unlike anything I’ve ever read in a long time. As the plot unfolds, you are never sure quite what is going on, why it’s going on. And writer Scott Hawkins reveals little, until the end, when you realize all the threads of plot are brought together in a satisfying ending. To reveal more would to tread on spoiler territory.

But to break it down, it’s like a weird, coming of age urban fantasy that deals with children being taught the darkest and powerful arts by a God, I guess. The Library exists outside time and space –or maybe a pocket universe- where these children’s new “father” raises them in the ancient art of the pelapi –and those lessons are often horrifying. So with Carolyn, as the literary device of the coming of age genre shows, we see the psychological damage and the moral corruption of her and her new family. But eventually you realize that this also a tale of vengeance. And in this vengeance plot, as we see Carolyn playing a long game, that power she has, they have, doesn't only just corrupt, it also dehumanizes. And that’s where Steve comes in.

As I noted, the book is filled with violence and may trigger animal lovers, as it also contains multiple animal deaths, but it is also darkly funny, thrilling and very human.

My niece recommended me this book, and while it has been a few months since her suggestion, I’m glad I read it. Much like Drew Magary’s The Hike, I’ve not felt such a visceral feeling of reading such a bizarre and original tale.

Books: The Goblin Tower By L. Sprague de Camp (1968)

“King Jorian was rather attached to his head. Hence, he felt his promise to steal the Kist of Avlen, a treasure trove of ancient manuscripts containing magical lore, was a small enough price to pay for a chance to escape his own beheading. But when the quest pitted him against one peril after another - a murderous wizard and his giant squirrel, a castle full of executioners, a marauding troupe of ape men, and a voluptuous 500-year-old princess who was also a serpent - Jorian began to wonder whether he'd made such a good bargain.”

The Goblin Tower is the first book in The Reluctant King series. This tale seemly owes more to Robert E. Howard’s style of sword and sorcery than say Tolkien (though there are touches here). While the gist of the story is about a warrior who must steal a magical artifact on the orders of a wizard, the rest of the book (or most of it, from my perspective) has Jorian on a bunch of random adventures that mostly go nowhere. It’s a thin premise, to be honest.

The book also uses the device of Jorian being a skilled storyteller, which allows him to tell tales that convey something of the background and history of this universe. While this might seem clever, and negates the need for lengthy pages at the back of the book to explain it all, for me, it slowed whatever momentum the L. Sprague de Camp was going for. Still, this device allows for some odd plot changes, where the author is able to use some deft humor here, and when the action and adventure do kick in, it can be exciting.

I’ve known for decades the respect that de Camp has among older (mostly gone now) fans of this genre. There were many fan conventions in the 1970s and 1980s dedicated to the art of folk tales and Filk music, which is a type of fan labor, a sub-genre of musical culture that is primarily tied science fiction, fantasy, and horror fandom. The genre has existed since the early 1950s and but gained more popularity since the mid-1970s when The Lord of the Rings began its second wave of popularity. I’ve never followed it, don’t completely understand it, but like people who go to Renaissance Fair’s, it has a dedicated following. 

In the end, this 55 year-old tale does hold up very well, but it’s also not very deep. If you can get past some the folk tales, it’s a very pleasant read.