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Book Review: My Friend Jackson by Christopher D. Ochs

My Friend Jackson by Christopher D. OcsAfter moving out of the Projects and into an apartment building in a slightly less dangerous part of town, high school student Jasmine Price and her mother befriend an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Fieldings.

While her mother works two jobs—and her father is serving overseas in the Army—Jasmine often spends time after school in the company of Mrs. Fieldings, who becomes her surrogate grandmother. As their friendship blossoms, Jasmine comes to call her “Bibi,” a term of respect and endearment.

The move also includes a transfer to a new high school, where Jasmine becomes the target of bullying and intimidation, mostly by her fellow players on the girls’ basketball team.

A short time after the first incident at school, Bibi introduces Jasmine to her three-horned Jackson’s chameleon named Mlinzi. The lizard’s colors change during the encounter, indicating an immediate trust and affection for Jasmine. Noting this, Bibi gifts the chameleon to Jasmine, who renames him Jackson.

Meanwhile, the baseless hatred toward Jasmine escalates at school until she is cornered in an alley by the basketball team’s captain, Nevaeh, who accuses Jasmine of making a play for her boyfriend. It becomes clear that Nevaeh intends to kill Jasmine—until something preternatural intercedes…

Christopher Ochs masterfully introduces all the key players in medias res and maintains steady tension throughout this believable tale of girl-on-girl bullying in an urban public school. There are scenes in which the dialogue among the teenagers is more mature than expected, given their callow and puerile behavior in other parts of the story. However, Jasmine’s brief transformation from prey to predator as a result of her relationship to the creature is well crafted. I applaud the portrayal of Jasmine’s mother as a harried, and mostly absent, mother struggling to make ends meet while dealing with her daughter’s deteriorating situation and fretting about her husband after he is wounded in the line of duty in Afghanistan. Overall, the blending of the harsh realities of inner city life with the fantastical elements of a unique monster story is both seamless and subtle.

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Book Review: The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer

The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose FarmerAfter crash landing on a primitive and barbaric planet, Earth astronaut Alan Green becomes a slave to the Duke of Tropat and paramour to the duke’s termagant wife, all while married to a gorgeous slave woman named Amra. Green has one daughter with Amra, but her other three children are each from different “owners” who bought and sold her over the years.

When Green learns that two Earthmen recently landed near the distant city of Estorya and were taken prisoner as “demons,” he strikes a deal with a trader, Miran, to hide aboard his ship on his next voyage across the vast, grassy plain of Xurdimur. For on this world, boats travel not only by sea, but also over land using a series of large wheels.

It is Green’s plan to free the imprisoned Earthmen before they are executed during an upcoming festival, then return with them to Earth aboard their ship.

After a perilous escape from the duke and duchess, Green disguises himself as a monk and boards Miran’s ship—only to be confronted by Amra and her children, who he had planned to leave behind for they would never be able to adapt to life on Earth.

During their trek across Xurdimur, Miran cleverly evades an attack by pirates, but a day or two later, his ship collides with one of the fabled roaming islands that levitate across the plains of their own volition. Many of Miran’s crew are killed in the crash. Most of the survivors are slaughtered shortly after by the savage cannibals inhabiting the island. Although wounded, Green evades capture, but is separated from Amra and the children. He soon learns that they were imprisoned by the natives.

No sooner does he rescue them than Green encounters a disheveled Miran who also survived the collision. In the middle of the night, they manage to steal a smaller boat from the island and continue across the plain to Estorya. Will Green be able to liberate his fellow Earthmen before Miran betrays him to the authorities? Will their ship be undamaged and able to depart this godforsaken world and if so, will there be enough room for Amra and the children?

The Green Odyssey was Philip José Farmer’s first novel-length publication and is more fantasy-adventure than science fiction. While the setting has a few unique elements, the characters are two-dimensional. Overall, the story is reminiscent of the Barsoom novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and seemed to be a precursor to Jack Vance’s Planet of Adventure series in which an Earth astronaut named Adam Reith crash lands on a barbaric alien world named Tschai and after acquiring several companions, ventures off across the planet to find the means to return to Earth.

 

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Book Review: To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose FarmerShortly after his death in 1890, British explorer, linguist, and writer Richard Francis Burton reawakens in a massive chamber filled with bodies suspended in mid-air. He is then confronted by men in a flying craft who fire upon him, knocking him unconscious.

Burton and many others from the chamber are revived, hairless and naked, along the shores of a massive river in what at first appears to be paradise. Although for some, it does not resemble the afterlife as described by their religious doctrine.

It is soon learned that they had been resurrected from different eras of Earth’s history from Neanderthal through the 21st century—including an extraterrestrial from Tau Ceti who died on Earth in 2008.

Each is equipped with a container, later called a “grail,” tethered to his or her wrist. As they explore this pastoral land, noticably devoid of animal and insect life, the people discover large rocks every few miles. These “grailstones” provide supplies including many of the familiar foods and beverages of Earth as well as cigarettes, marijuana, and a “dream gum” that induces everything from hallucinations to loss of sexual inhibitions.

For mutual protection, Burton forms a group consisting of a Neanderthal who calls himself Kazz, a 20th century science fiction writer named Peter Frigate, the famous Victorian-era aristocrat Alice Liddell-Hargreaves, and Monat, the alien from Tau Ceti.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose FarmerEventually, Burton and his group build a crude sailboat and make their way down the river until, after a lengthy battle, they are captured and brought into a village ruled by none other than former Nazi leader Hermann Göring and Tullus Hostilius, the third King of Rome. Burton leads a successful escape from the village during which, Göring is killed—albeit temporarily. Almost everyone who dies on the river world is eventually resurrected elsewhere.

More importantly, Burton and company capture an agent of the “Ethicals,” the scientifically advanced beings who modified the planet onto which they resurrected millons of Earth’s dead. However, the man commits suicide before providing any helpful information.

Burton, now a target of the Ethicals, continues his quest to uncover their true motives—even if he has to die nearly a thousand deaths to do so.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971) is the first book in Philip Jose Farmer’s groundbreaking magnum opus Riverworld saga, which continued with The Fabulous Riverboat (1971), The Dark Design (1977), The Magic Labrynth (1980), Gods of Riverworld (1983), River of Eternity (1983) and a few anthologies.  Each book introduces true  figures from Earth history including Richard Francis Burton, Alice Hargreaves, Samuel Clemens, Tom Mix, Mozart, Cyrano de Bergerac, Jack London, Marcellin Marbot, King John of England, Baron Lothar Siegfried von Richthofen, and others.

No science fiction reader’s journey should be considered complete without a journey to Farmer’s Riverworld.

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Book Review: Tongues of the Moon by Philip Jose Farmer

Tongues of the Moon by Philip Jose FarmerIn the distant future, the two major political powers on Earth consist of Soviet North America and the Argentinian-South African coalition (aka the South Atlantic Axis). The uneasy truce between them is shattered when the planet is destroyed in a nuclear holocaust.

The surviving colonies on the moon and Mars—both led by militant dictators—continue waging war on one another for dominance over what remains of the human race.

Assuming leadership of the moon colonies by killing or imprisoning his enemies, Colonel Scone of Soviet North America sends his most loyal ally—and romantic rival—Doctor Broward to the ruined Earth to retrieve a planet-busting bomb from a secret location beneath the ocean.

From there, the doctor is ordered to Mars to release the bomb and destroy the Argentinian colonies ruled by the brutal General Howards, but during his journey, Broward forms a different plan…

All told, Tongues of the Moon was little more than a space adventure story with two-dimensional characters and a simple, uncomplicated plot. Nevertheless, it was a fun, fast read.

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Book Review: We Can Remember It For You Wholesale and Other Classics by Philip K. Dick

Classic Stories by Phil K. DickI read this collection of 27 speculative fiction tales immediately after The Philip K. Dick Reader, also by Citadel Press. Both collections are outstanding, with “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” as the only common story between them.

My favorites include “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” (on which the 1990 film, Total Recall, was based), “The Cookie Lady,” “Jon’s World,” “The Cosmic Poachers,” “The Commuter,” “The World She Wanted,” “The Adjustment Team” (on which the 2011 film, The Adjustment Bureau, was loosely based), “A Present for Pat,” “The Hood Maker,” “Human Is,” “The Impossible Planet,” “Imposter,” “Small Town,” and “Survey Team” (albeit, the ending was predictable).

Of those mentioned above, it should be noted that “The Commuter,” “Human Is,” “The Hood Maker,” and “The Impossible Planet” were among ten Phil K. Dick stories adapted for the 2017 Netflix mini-series Electric Dreams.

Blog, Book Reviews

Book Review: The Dying Earth by Jack Vance

The Dying Earth by Jack VanceOne of Jack Vance’s most influential works and the first in a series, The Dying Earth is comprised of six fantasy adventures that are tangentially connected. They take place in Earth’s far future, during a time when the sun is approaching the end of its life and has become, it seems, a red dwarf. The human population has diminished significantly and most of the planet’s history long forgotten.

Each story involves magic and sorcery with a loose foundation in science. Some level of technology still exists, but it is not always well understood by the characters.

The six thoroughly enjoyable tales include:

“Turjan of Miir” – Although skilled in creating humanoid life, a magician seeks the necessary spells to imbue it with intelligence. To do so, he must travel to another realm and seek the legendary sorcerer known as Pandelume.

“Mazirian the Magician” – The diabolical Mazirian captures Turjan and tortures him into revealing the necessary spells to imbue his creations with intelligence. However, Mazirian is distracted by the appearance of a beautiful young maiden who visits his property each day on horseback but flees whenever he confronts her. Eventually, Mazirian decides to set off in pursuit.

“T’sais” – An artificial woman created by the wizard Pandelume, T’sais once despised all living beings, including herself. This personality flaw made her combative, unreasonable, and violent. After speaking with her “twin sister” T’sain—created by Turjin to be gentle and kind—T’sais is persuaded to end her treacherous ways. She journeys to Earth to find love and encounters a benevolent man named Etarr who once made the mistake of falling in love with an evil witch. The witch exchanged his face for that of a demon, forcing Etarr to wear a mask. Together with T’sais, Etarr sets out to confront the witch and reverse the spell.

“Liane the Wayfarer” – In order to win the heart of a beautiful but reclusive young witch, an arrogant, callow adventurer undertakes a quest to retrieve the other half of a tapestry that hangs in the witch’s home. To do this, he must steal it from the castle of the dreaded creature known as Chun the Unavoidable.

“Ulan Dhor Ends a Dream” – An apprentice wizard arrives in the city of Ampridatvir on a quest to recover a pair of ancient tablets that, according to myth, provide access to ancient and powerful magic. Ulan is immediately mistaken for a raider due the color of his clothing and soon learns that color has meaning in this strange land. He meets the lovely Elai, who instructs him on the ways of her people and accompanies him on his quest. After a series of mishaps, the pair awaken the high priest of the region who is perturbed by the population’s lack of intellectual progress and decides to do something about it.

“Guyal of Sfere” – Rather than continuing to vex his father and the other elders of Sfere with his unquenchable thirst for knowledge, young Guyal sets out in search of the legendary Museum of Man and its omniscient curator. During his journey, Guyal encounters several dangers, including a hovering ghost on his way into the village of Saponce, where he inadvertently breaks a law and is sentenced to a strange punishment—he must choose the fairest maiden in the village during a pageant. He chooses Shierl, the daughter of a high-ranking Saponce official. In doing so, Guyal unwittingly dooms Shierl as a sacrifice to the demon that resides in the Museum of Man.