Books: The Fugitive Pigeon By Donald E. Westlake (1965)

“Charlie Poole is an apathetic young man who’s perfectly content to run a neighborhood bar in Canarsie, New York. The bar is owned by Charlie’s Uncle Al, who’s a mid-level gangster. Occasionally, Charlie has to hold a package at the bar for somebody until it’s picked up later, and while he suspects this has something to do with his uncle’s criminal activities, he never asks for details. He doesn’t want to know. But then late one night as he’s about to close up, two strangers come in, and Charlie quickly realizes that they’re hit men sent there to kill him. He has no idea why anybody would send killers after him, but when he manages to escape with his life, he decides that he’d better figure it out in a hurry, because the two assassins are still on his trail. This is the beginning of a whirlwind three days in which Charlie tries to find out who wants him dead and why, an investigation complicated by the fact that he has to keep dodging the two hit men. Along the way he runs into a murder (for which he’s blamed, naturally) and a beautiful young woman (for whom he falls, naturally).”

The Fugitive Pigeon was sort of a watershed moment in Donald E. Westalke’s writing career. After publishing some heavy crime fiction novels, this one became his first comic caper. According to the Westlake Review site, Pigeon started out as a serious mystery/thriller “involving a young man in a dangerous situation with organized crime, much like two of his earlier novels for Random House, and as Westlake put it, “’It’s been coming out funny.’” Told to “curb his comedic impulse” by Henry Morrison, who worked at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, due to American humor not translating well overseas, Westlake eventually ignored that advice. Lucky for him, The Fugitive Pigeon went on to outsell his previous serious-minded Random House mysteries by roughly a two-to-one margin. And thus this set up everything that came after, as he vacillated between some serious crime thrillers and some laugh-out-loud humorous capers. Also, the book was originally entitled The Dead Nephew, “but it got changed to The Fugitive Pigeon, because Lee Wright, Westlake’s talented but quirky editor at Random House, didn’t like titles with the word ‘dead’ in them.”

There is not much in the way of slapstick humor that would show up in Westlake’s later works, but The Fugitive Pigeon is still a fast paced thriller/mystery. It’s a tightly plotted, linear first-person narrative that unravels like a traditional whodunit. It’s fun, and sometimes funny, book that also marked a huge transitional shift in Westlake’s publishing career. It proved to the publishers that a writer is not always the sum of his or her parts, that they don’t have to be stuck in one genre –or for Westlake- the same genre, but could write both serious and comedic tales.

Books: Mostly Dead Things By Kristen Arnett (2019)

"One morning, Jessa-Lynn Morton walks into the family taxidermy shop to find that her father has committed suicide, right there on one of the metal tables. Shocked and grieving, Jessa steps up to manage the failing business, while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her mother starts sneaking into the shop to make aggressively lewd art with the taxidermied animals. Her brother Milo withdraws, struggling to function. And Brynn, Milo’s wife—and the only person Jessa’s ever been in love with—walks out without a word. As Jessa seeks out less-than-legal ways of generating income, her mother’s art escalates—picture a figure of her dead husband and a stuffed buffalo in an uncomfortably sexual pose—and the Mortons reach a tipping point. For the first time, Jessa has no choice but to learn who these people truly are, and ultimately how she fits alongside them."

With the neon green cover, and pink Flamingo and the stylized font of the title, one can assume (as I did) that Mostly Dead Things was going to be quirky, humorous, though sometimes serious, book about a dysfunctional Florida based family. But the book really is about sad people caught up with family issues, death, and trying to cope when everything seems to falling apart. There is juxtaposition here with the detailed descriptions of taxidermy and how Morton’s family is carved up in pieces, with this merged with that.

Jessa-Lynn is likable, yet distant here –even as she narrates. It took a while for me to like her, but she is strange and unusual –I could see Goth people finding her as a soul mate. Milo, her brother, is sort of manchild, who loved his wife, even though she seemed not to love him (and I’m unsure if Brynn truly loved Jessa-Lynn either. It’s great to see a bisexual character here, but Brynn comes across more as someone who can’t decide on what life she wants to live, so she splits). The two kids, Lolee and Bastien are rendered very well –though I question how close Bastien is to being a serial killer, as there is some questionable ways some animals are acquired. There’s also, from my point of view, too much detailed description of creating a taxidermy mounting. It would not be for the squeamish.

In the end, I found I had mixed feeling for this book. There are some quirky aspects, some dark, almost gallows humor here, but Mostly Dead Things takes too much glee in its descriptions of rendering the dead things, and the humor is too wildly spread; it’s a sad and strange tale about getting through the grieving process. 

Books: Battlestar Galactica: Armageddon By Richard Hatch and Christopher Golden (1997)

“The commander of the Galactica after the death of his father, Adama, Apollo is forced to battle charges of treason, while struggling to defeat the deadly Cylons and their ally, Count Iblis, and investigating rumors that his friend, Starbuck, missing after a Cylon raid, is alive.”

There were several attempts to revive Battlestar Galactica after its cancellation in 1979, with Bryan Singer, Tom DeSanto and eventually series star Richard Hatch all making some effort. Most of the ideas were going to be a continuation from the last episode, The Hand of God, and would ignore the events of the misbegotten spin-off Galactica 1980 (now rebranded as season two of the original series). Berkley Books, for their part, continued to adapt popular episodes into novels well into the 1980s. They also released four original novels before bringing the publishing line to an end.

It’s well known that before ABC settled on what the failed spin-off became, most of the principle cast was asked back (Terry Carter’s Colonel Tigh, Noah Hathaway’s Boxey, Maren Jensen’s Athena, and Laurette Spang’s Cassiopeia would be written out to save money). But Hatch grew concerned with the direction and felt the spin-off had altered his character too much. Thus he declined. But in the 1990s, as he continued to appear at conventions, Hatch was reconsidering the role of Apollo and set out to convince Universal Studios –the rights holders for the franchise- to bring back the series by co-directing and executive-produced a trailer called Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming (which can be found on Youtube). Hatch's idea would have be a direct continuation of the original 1978 series, and featured original actors John Colicos (Baltar),Terry Carter (Colonel Tigh), Richard Lynch, and Jack Stauffer (Bojay). Though the trailer won acclaim at science-fiction conventions, Universal was not interested in Hatch's vision for the revival and instead opted for a remake that launched in 2004. Even though he was disappointed and angry, he began to write (with various authors) novels based on his idea for that revival.

The first of these books is Battlestar Galactica: Armageddon and is set 18 years after the events of last episode aired in 1979. It opens with what was a staple of the series, a “crash of the week” plot where both Apollo and Starbuck are on a recon patrol. They’ve encountered the Cylons again after years and years of no contact with them.  But Starbuck’s viper is damaged and crash lands on a planet swarming with Cylons. Apollo leaves him behind to warn the fleet, but by the time he arrives, his father, Commander Adama has died. And all hell breaks loose within the rag-tag fleet. But like his father, Apollo follows a vision that tells him about Adama’s faith and that Starbuck is still alive and needs his help.

This novel also continues the Mormon themes that series creator Glen A. Larson introduced in the original series, such as marriage for "time and eternity", the “council of twelve" and the “lost thirteenth tribe of humans, and a planet called Kobol.” But it adds much more violence and sees the fleet falling apart after Adama’s death, as those citizens don’t seem to have any faith in Apollo as their commander. I found this an interesting change and something I'm sure never would've been done had the series continued on TV. It reintroduces Count Iblis, the “demon” the crew encountered in two-part episode War of the Gods (and Iblis promised they would see him again). It also details the origins of the Cylons and sees them creating Cylon/Human hybrids.

While Apollo is not the big hero as he was portrayed in the series, he still is too much a boy scout for my liking. Still, Hatch and Golden do capture much of roguishness of Starbuck, but the rest of the writing is a bit dry and never achieves what writer Robert Thurston did back in the 1970s and 80s (he adapted four episodes of the series and penned four original novels). It was nice, however, to see the women in the Galactica universe having something to do other than play worried sister, lover, or friend. Both Athena and Cassiopeia get strong arcs here (though I wonder what happened to Dr. Salik, as Cassiopeia is still a Medtech in this series) and we are introduced to new character like Dalton, the daughter of Starbuck and Cassiopeia. Boxey is still here, but is now about 24 and goes by the name of Troy (the one hold over kept from Galactica 1980).

Seven books were released between 1997 and 2005.