BOOK REVIEWS, OF A SORT

I’ve officially ejected on Gaiman and Pratchett’s Good Omens. This is the second time I’ve tried to read it, and the second time I’ve failed. Too many characters; I can’t keep them all straight. I mean, I’ve read novels with a lot more characters than Good Omens, but I could keep them straight, because I actually cared who was whom. Not with this book, though. Maybe I’m a little too close to the subject matter, but it struck me as too clever by half. It was sort of like the “Left Behind” books as conceived by Douglas Adams and, while I know this puts me in a minority, I never did care for Douglas Adams’ writing.

Ben Elton’s Popcorn was a different matter, partially because the novel only has five or six real characters, and mostly because the ridiculous plot keeps the enterprise from bogging down. Popcorn tells the story of an Oliver Stone/Quentin Tarantino archetype who makes insanely violent movies, but denies that his films have any effect on society. A pair of mass-murderers suspiciously like Mickey and Mallory from Stone’s Natural Born Killers decide that their only hope for avoiding the electric chair is to get this producer/director to admit that they are his creation; they wouldn’t have gone around killing people if he didn’t make it look so goshdarned cool. It’s an interesting concept, but Elton, a Brit, just can’t hide his contempt for Americans, their guns, and their media. In the end, the whole book gets torpedoed by the thought that TV cameras can do for these lowlifes what they did for OJ or the Menendez brothers. Following a Die Hard-style bloodbath, Elton caps off the novel with a ridiculous epilogue in which, with a heavy hand, he tries to claim that no one, ultimately would claim responsibility–or be held responsible–for the mass-murder spree. One gets the sense that Elton would like to blame Hollywood and gun manufacturers. Popcorn was, to borrow a media cliche, a real page-turner, but the conclusion is so unsatisfying that I can’t recommend it. In the real America, these two killers would fry like chickens.

Back to American authors for me. Next on the docket are Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons and Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! trilogy. Thence it’s on to the Sean Stewart book Zombyboy recommended.