We'll Always Have Paris:

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS, by Ray Bradbury. Harper Luxe, 2009, 212 pp., $24.99. ISBN 978-0-06-171977-6

Bradbury continues to mark many of his collections with wide-ranging nostalgia, reminding me of my own father as he aged, recalling details of his childhood with great clarity. I can remember Dad talking about the arrival of the motion picture to his town called Sheppton, in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Dad recalled how people would watch the movie screen as the train hustled down the track, seemingly into the theater, and they would wave their hands in the air and run out of the theater, fearful for their life!

At the same time, Dad could remember the owners, where they lived, and who would visit the theater and when. His short-term memory was ailing, but his long-term memory was clear as a bell!

No wonder Bradbury would be concentrating on his work as a young man – with tales that bring back Bradbury’s own memories of his loves and passions early in his career.

In his introduction to this collection, Bradbury calls “Massinello Pietro” a true story. When Bradbury was a young author, he visited a curiosity shop in downtown Los Angeles. The shop owner was passionate about animals (keeping his own licensed petting zoo at the store), and the man protects them fiercely – a colorful vignette about an earlier, more innocent LA.

“The Visit” is inspired by a true story in 1984 of a young actor’s death and his heart placed into the body of another man. This story relates a tale of a woman who visits a man who, in his surgery, replaced his heart with that of her own deceased son. What magic our strange new technological world brings!

In “The Twilight Green,” a young man visits the golf driving range to see a bunch of old men playing. One guy calls the bunch “golf widowers,” men who would rather hit the ball down the gorgeous greens than be at home where there is no real life – or hope – for them, in marriages gone sour or gray.

“We’ll Always Have Paris” gives us American tourists in the city of romance who are up late one night when the husband decides to go to get some pizza, and enters his own “Twilight-Zone”-like experience, with what could only be described as ghosts.

In “Pieta Summer,” two boys watch the arrival of two separate circus acts. One remembers, after the exhaustion of the day, being carried home by his father – and all the wonders of the circus to cherish in memory.

“Fly Away Home” has two rockets that arrive on Mars, and the astronauts realize how distant from their homeland Earth is, and how lonely they are on the Red Planet.

“Apple-core Baltimore” gives us two older gentlemen visiting a graveyard who reminisce about childhood friends and enemies, and sometimes the very humiliating moments those friends and acquaintances put them through.

“Miss Appletree and I.” In this tale, romance may have only temporarily left the marriage, as one man’s mid-life crisis is fixed with a little fantasy role-playing.

In his poem, “ America,” Bradbury points out how we are a country that others only dream to be. This poem explores the many ways in which America still remains a golden place of hope and opportunity.

Muse Of Fire:

MUSE OF FIRE, by Dan Simmons. Subterranean Press, 2008, 2009, 105 pp., $35.00. ISBN 978-1-59606-181-1

The MUSE OF FIRE novella first appeared in the anthology THE NEW SPACE OPERA. Humans are turned into slaves by superior beings. Despite all of this, the old story applies – aliens think our art is superior and worth keeping us alive.

“The universe ages, Earth loses its oceans, the human race is subjugated and turned into cultureless futureless slaves, but actors still count lines.” (page 50).

I was reading this book as “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is about to be placed on stage for the aliens, for the Archons, at the 445 th birthday of the Bard. Only one more performance among many and, perhaps the great enslaving civilization will let humankind live.

Beasts Of Love:

THE BEASTS OF LOVE, stories by Steven Utley. Wheatland Pres, 2005, 288 pp., $24.95. ISBN 0-9720547-9-0

BEASTS represents an magna opera of Utley, who gives us several great tales here that will inspire you to buy this volume:

•“The Country Doctor.” Graves in this small town are interred to find the reasons behind many physical defects present in individuals in one community – even a country doctor was apparently not who he said he was. Where did he come from, and why?

•“Tom Sawyer’s Sub-Orbital Escape” by Lisa Tuttle and Steven Utley. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer decide on another adventure, this time to build a “moonship” to travel you know where. They almost get it right, too, but fear and distraction work their ways on these kids, who have attention deficient disorder, for one thing.

•“The Mouse Ran Up the Clock.” Butler decides to use the temporal pak to travel back in time to steal, as a baby, the Lord Reformer of Earth and alter history for the better. Sometimes that technology can fail – and the pak ends up taking her far into the past of dinosaurs and brutal survival.

•“Leaves.” Teenage visitors to a graveyard witness a meteorite fall to the earth, crashing and possibly deploying some kind of alien creature. Townsfolk end up chasing and killing it. Ghosts are created by violent death. What to make of ghosts that haunt a gravesite, that are alien?

•“Ants.” One man’s war against an increasingly intelligence species of ant gets more consuming and more desperate as he realizes that the world could have another evolving species to deal with. He decides to deal with the ant-creatures NOW.

•“Flies by Night” is a collaborative story by Lisa Tuttle and Steven Utley. It’s the story of Clarisse, married to Dan, who, like her mother, is actually a fly in a human body, desperate to be free. Is Clarisse, like her mother, going to be resigned to the merely human, or can she somehow shed her carapace and join the realms of the winged?

•“Outlaw Glory.” A Texas high school reunion reinforces the feelings Bruce Holt had as a graduate – a rebel, a nonconformist, a troublemaker, distant from his peers. Bruce is finally recognized by a high school friend, Michelle Patterson, and for once, Holt begins to truly live.

•“Someone is Watching.” A voyeur finally finds his dream location and dream woman, who invites him in. Maybe not ALL invitations to a celebration should be taken.

•“Die Rache.” “The revenge,” a translation, gives us a German SS officer who finds the story of punishment given for his war crimes a bit excessive.

•“The Beasts of Love.” A deformed child who has developed incredible powers of observation sees the parents’ marriage crumble – yet also watches as they attempt to make the best of their situation.

•“The Goods.” Beck, a private investigator, does indeed find that Mrs. Carona is having an affair. But Beck remembers a conversation with his own estranged wife about keeping private things PRIVATE, and has a revelatory way of dealing with the circumstances of his client.

Veterans Stadium:

VETERANS STADIUM: Field of Memories, by Rich Westcott. Temple University Press, 2005, 226 pp., $24.95. ISBN 1-59213-428-9

VETERANS STADIUM leans very heavily in favor of the Phillies, of which Westcott is an absolute fan, putting the Eagles on the back burner (most likely because of the lack of a Superbowl trophy).

As an Eagles fan, I think former Eagles linebacker Bill Bergey’s quote says it all about Vet’s Stadium (from page 37):

“It was a dump. It was a stinkhole. It was a piece of garbage. But it was OUR stinkhole. It was OUR garbage. And it was HOME, and we loved it.” (emphasis mine).

Lots of comments were made by many, many people who contributed to the success of both the Eagles and the Phillies.

Only one glaring error in the book: on page 122 there is a major gaffe. The game in 1992 where the Eagles stopped the Arizona Cardinals seven times at the one-yard line was NOT a Monday night game, it was a Sunday afternoon game. Why do I know this?

Because I was THERE -- on the visitors’ side platform, with hundreds of other Eagle fans, chanting and screaming and carrying on, creating the noise that stopped them. It was my very loud boots banging on the rickety aluminum platform that created the noise so the signals could not be heard. Fans are also part of many wins, out of sheer intimidation.

Marionettes:

MARIONETTES, Inc., by Ray Bradbury. Subterranean Press, 2009, 118 pp., $35.00. ISBN 978-1-59606-215-3

Ray Bradbury brings together several “robot stories” in this collection.

The best:

•“I Sing the Body Electric.” In this classic tale, a man loses his wife but worries for his kids. How to keep them happy and at home, with him? Why not bring home a mechanical grandmother?

•“Marionettes, Inc.” is about a man named Braling who realizes his marriage is on the rocks and wants to finally travel to Rio (a lifelong dream) without her. So he replaces himself with a robot – only to find that what goes around comes around.

As Bradbury so masterfully explains in “Changeling”:

“Life-size marionettes, mechanical, stringless, secretive, duplicates of real people. One might buy them for ten thousand dollars on some distant black market. One could be measured for a replica of one’s self. If one grew weary of social functions, one could send the replica out to wine, to dine, to shake hands, to trade gossip with Mrs. Rinehart on your left, Mr. Simmons on your right, Miss Glenner across the table.” (page 84).

In this tale, Leonard arrives home to his dear wife Martha, who wants nothing more than to kill him. She believes, with his recent behavior, that he is not what he seems to be – and she wants to know the truth of his actions.

•“Punishment Without Crime.” George Hill wants to punish, not kill, his wife Katherine – so he goes to Marionettes, Inc. to create a simulacra – taking out his frustration on a machine instead of a person. However, recent rulings indicate marionettes are real people – or at least should be treated as such – so George must be put to death.

•“Murder By Facsimile” is an outline for a screenplay based in large part on the story, “Punishment Without Crime.”

Moon Flights:

MOON FLIGHTS, by Elizabeth Moon. Night Shade Books, 2008, 401 pp., $7.99. ISBN 978-1-59780-110-2

MOON FLIGHTS is the definitive collection of Moon stories, including one original to the collection: “Say Cheese.” The tale is set in the Vatta’s War cosmology, when a bad trade deal leaves the crew of the Polly with lots of cheap and smelly Gumbone cheese. But proportioning the Gumbone with ingenuity and good cheese making skills – good old fashioned space faring resourcefulness and creativity – allows them to make their own private cheese rolls that really steal the show.

Empties:

EMPTIES, by George Zebrowski. Golden Gryphon Press, 2009, 166 pp., $24.95. ISBN 1-930846-59-2

New York City homicide detective Bill Benek is left to solve a bunch of mysterious murders. When some victims are found dead of unknown causes, their brains removed from their bodies, the investigators are puzzled: who is the perpetrator and what are the reasons?

Into Benek’s life steps the alluring and demoniacal Dierdre Matera. When Benek finds out what is really going on, how does he prevent his own squad from being killed, as Dierdre simply wants to reproduce and continue her own line of sadism?

EMPTIES is an homage to Fritz Leiber’s CONJURE WIFE, of which Zebrowski prepares a “Remembrance” of at the novel’s end.

POE:

POE: 19 New Tales of Suspense, Dark Fantasy, and Horror, ed. by Ellen Datlow. Solaris (www.solarisbooks.com), 2009, 351 pp., $15.00. ISBN-13: 978-1-84416-595-7

POE is a collection of stories in honor of a classic horror writer.

In “Illimitable Domain” by Kim Newman, American International Pictures Company is on a roll to produce some really B-rated Poe story adaptations. But their zeal to outdo anybody else regarding Poe on the silver screen creates a tidal wave of Poe-like alternations to a LOT of events both on and off the screen.

The collection includes tales by Melanie Tea, Gregory Frost, Laird Barrow, Sharyn McCrumb, Glen Hishberg, Barbara Roden, Delia Sherman, M. Rickert, Steve Rasnic Tem, Pad Cadigan, Nicholas Royle, and others.

The Empire of Ice Cream:

THE EMPIRE OF ICE CREAM, by Jeffrey Ford. Golden Gryphon Press, 2006, 2009, 324 pp., $14.95. ISBN 1-930846-58-4

One of the most memorable tales in EMPIRE comes early in this collection of stories from a pre-eminent fantasist, the mesmerizing “A Night In the Tropics.” In this, a man returns to an old haunt, a bar his dad would visit with him, where the son would stare at a mural depicting a beautiful tropical scene. The son returns to the bar to see if the mural is still there – and he meets a childhood protector, who also happened to be the neighborhood thug: Bobby Lenin. Bobby reveals a tale in which an old man, blind and crippled, was robbed of a very ornate, very ancient, very solid gold chess set – the chess set from hell. Bobby is plagued by the set, cursed by the set, and completely ruined by the set he should not have stolen in the first place. What to do to rid himself of the curse?

Nine out of every million people are cursed (blessed?) with a condition known only as synesthesia, a “mixing up” of the senses. An example from people with this condition: the number 10 smells like an over-ripe cherry, or the sound of a police siren feels like sandpaper on your wrist. An only child with this condition escapes the confines of his home to visit an ice cream shop to taste, for the first time, coffee-flavored ice cream. In the eating of the treat, a sultry, mysterious woman appears. Who or what is she?

And what of his world compared to the woman who appears every time he has something with coffee in it?

The revelatory nature of mild narcotics help in providing insight into the disappearance and eventual rescue of a girl in “Coffins on the River.” And in “The Weight of Words,” one man is caught up in the philosophy and revelations of Albert Secmatte, the “chemist of printed language.” Secmatte believes there is an actual physics with words. Words work in the way actual chemical combinations do – and the effects can be used to manipulate people to various degrees.

Buyout:

BUYOUT, by Alexander C. Irvine. Del Rey, 2009, 321 pp., $14.00. ISBN 978-0-345-49433-7

Martin Kindred, brother to a cop who is eventually murdered, is your ordinary insurance company bureaucrat tasked with one duty: organize and disseminate “buyouts.” Since it cost, over the long haul, too much to keep a felon imprisoned, why not simply add up the expected cost for a lifetime without parole and pay a much smaller fee to the felon, then execute him? A great idea, and Kindred’s company, Antelope Valley Casualty, has figured out all the stopgaps. Only one problem: Priceless Life, an association formed to stop the idea of “life term buyouts.” While there are efforts to reform a system in bad need of it, Priceless Life and others will stop at nothing to eliminate the buyouts, imperiling many, including Kindred.

Living With The Dead:

LIVING WITH THE DEAD, by Darrell Schweitzer. PS Publishing, 2008, 66 pp., Price not listed. ISBN 978-1-905834-69-1

In Old Corpsenberg, the dead are just everywhere, like dandelions in a spring meadow: you just have to deal with them. The zombies arrive during the night, ambulatory, until the dawn, when they simply are – and the citizens must take them in. Very few ask why the corpses are there, they just are, in Old Corpsenberg. The first three episodes of this collective novel, or chapters, were published in Interzone in 2003-2004, and the final two appear here for the first time.

The Hotel Under The Sand:

THE HOTEL UNDER THE SAND, by Kage Baker. Tachyon Publications, 2009, 181 pp., $8.00. ISBN 978-1-892391-89-6

Emma, a young girl, loses her world, swept by the sea into the Dunes, where she learns to survive. She meets a ghost, Winston the Ghostly Bell Captain, who worked at The Grand Wenlocke, built by Masterman Marquis de Lafayette Wenlocke the Fifth, embedding within it a temporal delay field, basically locking up the passage of time from within. The hotel suddenly and mysteriously rises from the sand at the Dunes. Thus begins an adventure for Emma and the ghost, who must use their wits even as they meet Captain Doubloon, who sees riches as he has been waiting for the appearance of the hotel for quite some time.

More Recommendations:

STRANGE ANGELS, by Lili St. Crow. Razorbill/Penguin, 2009, 301 pp., $9.99. ISBN 978-1-59514-251-1

AFRAID, by Jack Kilborn. Grand Central Publishing, 2009, 370 pp., $6.99. ISBN-13 978-0-446-53593-9

THE UNINCORPORATED MAN, by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin. TOR, 2009, 479 pp., $25.95. ISBN-13 978-0-7653-1899-2

GOLD OF KINGS, by Davis Bunn. Howard/Touchstone/Simon and Schuster, 2009, 344 pp., $24.00. ISBN 978-1-4165-5631-2