Posts Tagged by charlie huston
Skinner by Charlie Huston
| 23 May, 2013 | Posted by Erik Carlson under Uncategorized |
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Skinner
Charlie Huston
Mulholland Books
Charlie Huston is a master of the medium.
In his Hank Thompson trilogy, Huston strips the flesh fromf mayhem-fiction as an ex-baseball player and ex-barfly becomes a force of nature as he rips across the US leaving blood stained streets and a salted earth in his wake.
In the Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death, Huston pens my 3rd favorite novel (following Of Mice and Men and Snowcrash). In this novel, Huston switches from a thrill-ride of bloody carnage to professional slacker Webster Fillmore who mops up human remains for Clean Team crime scene cleaners while avoiding his own emotional wounds.
The Joe Pitt series is about a vampire detective whose self- destructive streak is made mute by his immortality. It’s an innovative series and the best well-written alternative to the ebbing tide of vampire lore.
In Shotgun Rule, Huston creates a compelling look into the dysfunction and horror of suburban life in the 1980’s. I’d be a flat out liar if I didn’t admit to tearing up a few times during this novel about several friends who steal a bag of crank and end up unleashing Hell upon their friends and family.
Charlie Huston has shown, over the course his novels that he is in no way a one trick pony. His control over plot twists, emotional gut punches, and character development, is far and away better than most of the novels kicking it on the book shelves of contemporary fiction. So it is with no surprise that his latest outing, Skinner, should be not only a rabid page-turner but a move from his already impressive body of work.
Skinner is a high-tech trans-global spy-thriller that grabs your full attention ties it to a chair and pulls a Clockwork Orange on it. Skinner, the character, works in the field of ‘asset protection’. He excels at protection and ensuring the that the cost of acquisition is greater than its value. For example, any attack on one of Skinner’s assets will be dealt with so severely it was never worth the initial attack. Thanks to this mission statement and Skinner’s repeated application of it, he isn’t typically messed with. Until his handlers decide he has become too good. Now, after several years in exile, Skinner is forced back into the game to protect a technophile while she hunts down the perpetrators of a cyber-assault on America.
Skinner’s reappearance and ‘old-school’ methods are a brilliant POV into the world and workings of Jae, the computer savant. Huston bridges the gap between spy-fiction and cutting edge techno thrillers in a manner that alienates no one. And this bridge holds allowing him to a freedom to integrate real-world tech with things that are only 5 minutes down the road. In an age of thinned out content and music which is ‘tinny, sleight, cranked up, always referencing the past…” Huston’s prose cut through the noise and punch into the future.
Someone had to do it.
I’m glad it was Charlie Huston.
Review: Point & Shoot by Duane Swierczynski
| 24 January, 2013 | Posted by Erik Carlson under Books and Authors, Reviews |
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Point and Shoot by Duane Swierczynski
Mulholland Books
“Unkillable” Charlie Hardie is the most abused protagonist in the annuls of adrenaline pumping hyper-violent Mayhem Fiction (a genre I just coined for this review). In Fun & Games and its sequel Hell & Gone, Hardie, unknowingly evokes the ire of the Accident People, a group bent on the black-ops puppetry of murder and world domination and, in the space of 608 pages, he is shot repeatedly, stabbed, sprayed with death mace, body bagged, caged in a secret maximum security prison, and fired off into space. Yeah, things are pretty tough for Charlie Hardie who just wants save his family from the numerous barbs and arrows of the Accident People.
In this final installment, Point & Shoot, Swiercyznski demands that we suspend our disbelief long enough to bring Hardie home. By which I mean bring him back to earth. Literally. After all, the last we saw of Hardie, he was babysitting a satellite in low-earth orbit from inside it. I’d love to hint at how Hardie gets down, but that’d be telling. I do promise that if you can sit back and enjoy the implausible, you will see a master storyteller tie up dozens of loose ends like a stripper with a cherry stem.
What I appreciate about Mayhem Fiction is that it reads like a blood-soaked Looney-tunes episode; characters are demolished and torn asunder, but manage to survive because, hell, it’s fiction and they never really existed. What Swierczynski does in Point & Shoot, is expand the narrative a bit resolving arcs and sub-plots which most other authors would allow to flap wildly in the breeze. In most cases I’m content to go from A to D and skip rationale for an author’s best violence, but Duane isn’t prepared to let us leave Hardie that easily. Instead, we find out things that, if I told you now, men in masks would drag me from my slumber and beat me mercilessly. The one I will share is a particularly heartwarming scene where Hardie empathetically converses with a massive irradiated cockroach. It works and it is wonderful.
If you’ve read the previous books, this is the finale you couldn’t see coming: I’m quite convinced that most of the events were chosen via those paper fortune telling games elementary kids play. If you are just now checking out the trilogy, strap yourself in for 800 pages of raucous and improbable nonstop character abuse and thrills to make every other adrenaline pulp adventure seem like young adult fiction.
More Mayhem Fiction:
Charlie Huston’s Caught Stealing Trilogy
Duane Swierczynski The Blonde and The Wheelman
Joe R Lansdale The Complete Drive-in
Victor Gischler Shotgun Opera
Seth Harwood Jack Wakes Up
Something Nice
| 17 April, 2012 | Posted by Erik Carlson under Uncategorized |
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If You Had Ears, You Could Not Ignore It: Mainstream Responses to Punk by David Bloom - This article looks at the reaction of pioneers like Springsteen and Young to the birth of punk in ’77.
For those looking for an interesting read, here are a few books I’ve finished this month:
The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death – Charlie Huston
This is easily one of the best novels I have ever read. I’m not saying it’s Steinbeck or DeLillio, but it holds its own amongst the top ten. Webster Fillmore Goodhue is an ex-teacher profession slacker who has decided the time has come for employment. Unfortunately, the only one willing to hire him is Clean Team – a family run trauma cleaning business. And a woman who needs a favor.
Huston creates compelling characters – believable in their characterization and motivation. You not only feel for each one despite their foibles, but you find yourself empathizing with them as well.
Caught Stealing – Charlie Huston
For years I have been hesitant about reading more Huston for the fear that nothing could compete with The Mystic Art….Well, Caught Stealing doesn’t quite make it there, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t completely intense and captivating in its own right. Caught Stealing is another ‘wrong place/wrong time’ scenario and for protagonist Hank winning out in the end comes at a such a loss, it almost is easier to accept just laying down and dying as a resolution.
Joe Golem and the Drowning City – Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola
This quick read started with a mystic, a half sunken New York, and a 14 year old street rat, it quickly found itself running out of steam. I love the work of Mignola and Golden, but the severe lack of subplots creates a literary mouse wheel effect, you feel like you’re getting somewhere but the incessant metal squeaking could drive you mad. Joe Golem looks to be a great core character (in the way that Baltimore did), and his continued quest will certainly fill the pages of Dark Horse spin-off books, but overall its feels like its missing the same sense of fun Hellboy or BPRD does.
