The Ghost Pirates and Others: The Best of William Hope Hodgson: edited by Jeremy Lassen (2012)

The Ghost Pirates and Others: The Best of William Hope Hodgson: edited by Jeremy Lassen (2012): containing the following stories: 

The Ghost Pirates (1909): Brilliant short novel of the sea and its terrors is a fine, tightly plotted work of horror and disquieting weirdness. A careful, fairly slow build of suspense climaxes in a rapid-fire and horrifying climax. See full review here. 
A Tropical Horror (1905): Monsters from the sea attack a sailing ship. Gruesome stuff.
The Sea Horses (1913): Bittersweet but overlong and a bit treacly modern folktale set at sea.
The Searcher of the End House (1910): One of the weaker Carnacki the Ghost-Finder stories seems an odd choice.
The Stone Ship (1914): More weird but pseudo-scientifically plausible events at sea. Really a nice little tale of mounting terror.
The Voice in the Night (1907): You'll know what movies have lifted the central premise of this horror story once you read it. Probably Hodgson's most-reprinted piece.
Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani  (1919): Unusual tale set on land applies really, really odd pseudoscience to the events of Christ's crucifixion. The last few paragraphs are the most Machensque writing Hodgson ever did.
The Mystery of the Derelict (1907): Yet more weird but pseudo-scientifically plausible events at sea. Actually, remove the 'pseudo.' This could actually happen. Also one of Hodgson's tales of the Sargasso Sea. 
We Two and Bully Dunkan (1914): Humourous tale of revenge on the high seas. Certainly shows Hodgson's range.
The Shamraken Homeward-Bounder (1908): Odd, almost fabulistic sea tale.
Demons of the Sea (1923): Monsters from the sea attack a sailing ship. A minor work.
Out of the Storm (1909): Strange, disturbing tale involving shipwrecks and telegraph signals.

Overall: Really more of a career survey than a 'Best of,' as some of the selections are dubious (well, "The Searcher of the End House," "Demons of the Sea," and  "The Sea Horses").   Nevertheless, highly recommended.

The Ghost Pirates by William Hope Hodgson (1909)

The Ghost Pirates by William Hope Hodgson (1909): William Hope Hodgson's brilliant short novel of the sea and its terrors is a fine, tightly plotted work of horror and disquieting weirdness. A careful, fairly slow build of suspense climaxes in a rapid-fire and horrifying climax. 

Hodgson's early days as a merchant sailor come into full play in this tale of the cargo ship Mortzestus, plying the seas some time early in the 20th century or late in the 19th. The Mortzestus is a sailing ship on an Atlantic run. But she's also a ship whose crews have felt her to be more and more strange as the years have passed. And strange she is, and becoming moreso.

The joys of The Ghost Pirates lie in a lot of areas, from the unusual but intelligibly delivered dialects of the sailors (and of this particular sailing milieu itself, really) to the gradual but accelerating accumulation of details and events that give the novel its name. 

From the beginning, we know something has happened -- the narrative is framed as being the written testimony of Jessop, last survivor of the Mortzestus. Jessop has been rescued by another ship. Rescued from what? Well, that's why there's a novel.

The Ghost Pirates is one of two Hodgson weird novels of the sea (The Boats of the Glen Carrig is the other). Hodgson also wrote dozens of other stories set at sea, from comic pieces to thrillers to horror and the supernatural. He also wrote in a sub-genre I'd probably call 'Fictional Sea Cryptids,' tales of unusual animals and other... things... which come into conflict with human beings on or near the sea. 

The Ghost Pirates is part ghost story, part cryptid fiction, part pseudo-scientific horror story. Perhaps. Jessop offers an explanation for the events of the novel that's not a tale of actual ghosts, but he doesn't necessarily know what really caused the events of the novel. 

Nonetheless, Jessop's quasi-scientific explanation of the horrors he and the rest of the crew of the Mortzestus are beset by is in line with many of Hodgson's other stories and novels in which supernatural events are given disturbing, visionary explanations. A model of narrative economy, The Ghost Pirates is one of the treasures of weird fiction. Highly recommended.

Button, Button: Uncanny Stories by Richard Matheson (2009)

Button, Button: Uncanny Stories by Richard Matheson (2009) containing the following stories:

• Button, Button (1970)
• Girl of My Dreams (1963)
• Dying Room Only (1953)
• A Flourish of Strumpets (1956)
• No Such Thing as a Vampire (1959)
• Pattern for Survival (1955)
• Mute (1962)
• The Creeping Terror (1961)
• Shock Wave (1963)
• Clothes Make the Man (1951)
• The Jazz Machine (1962)
• 'Tis the Season to Be Jelly (1963)   

So-so collection of stories by TV, movie, and horror-fiction great Richard Matheson. This volume was quickly re-titled The Box and reissued within the year as a tie-in to the enjoyably weird and sort of dreadful movie The Box, very tenuously based on Matheson's "Button, Button." A story, by the way, about ten pages long. 

Of the other stories, the sexy tee-hee stuff of "A Flourish of Strumpets" really doesn't date well; neither the sincere racial angst of the long poem (!) "The Jazz Machine." They would best have been saved for completists only.

The rest of the stories are solid in their own ways, from the satiric apocalypses of "The Creeping Terror," "'Tis the Season to Be Jelly," and "Pattern for Survival" to the more straightforward mystery-thriller "Dying Room Only." "Mute" is really the stand-out here, a story of telepathy and normal human empathy that shows Matheson in what seems like eerily similar form to Theodore Sturgeon. Overall, lightly recommended.

Weird Heroes Redux

Nexus: Into the Past and Other Stories: written by Mike Baron and Steve Rude; illustrated by Steve Rude (2012-2014; collected 2015): The latest group of stories that continue Mike Baron and Steve Rude's Nexus universe sends Nexus back in time to the 21st century in pursuit of a serial killer he's already executed twice, Clayborn. Meanwhile, back at home on the planet Ylum, partner Sundra and son Harry deal with all the problems of Ylum's fractious immigrant population. But as baby Harry is one of Clayborn's targets, things at home won't stay home for long.

Slightly impenetrable at times when it comes to just who certain characters are (Clayborn and Zanzibar being the main problems, along with location The Library). Hey, it's been a long time since I read many of the stories being referenced. But the narrative establishes the characters' personalities and agendas pretty well over the course of a 100+ pages. The ending was originally meant to be the ending for the series, but events have already brought the adventures of Nexus into the world of Kickstarter. So... never the end? Recommended.

Attack on Titan Volume 4: written and illustrated by Hajami Isayama and others; translated by Sheldon Drzka (2011/ This translated edition 2013): The present-day events of the narrative book-end a lengthy tour several years into the past of our young, giant-fighting protagonists. Politics and culture are sketched in more fully. And the flashback contextualizes some of the deaths we've seen over the first three volumes. Pretty essential in sequence -- and some much-needed explanation of how those 3-D maneuvering harnesses work. Recommended.

The Twelve: written by J. Michael Straczynski and Chris Weston; illustrated by Chris Weston and Gary Erskine (2008, 2012/Collected 2012): Penciller/inker Chris Weston and inker Gary Erskine do terrific work in The Twelve. They give the world of these Golden Age super-heroes dropped unexpectedly into their future (and the Marvel Universe's present) a weight and an emotionality that serves the project well. 

There are certainly many nods to Watchmen here, but the story is more low-key than Watchmen and occasionally trapped in the stereotypes it seeks to explode. Contact with Marvel's current superheroes doesn't really occur in the main story, though the 1945-set "Spearhead," written and illustrated by Weston, puts The Twelve in the thick of things with Marvel's more famous 1940's heroes. 

There are some storytelling problems caused by having The Twelve set in the normal Marvel universe. A couple of the super-heroes have origins that other heroes feel are too odd to be true. But this being the Marvel Universe, and not a more realistic milieu, it's hard to see any one 'fake' origin as being goofier than the 'real' one offered up afterwards. Recommended.

Shakespeare in Love, The Devil's Bride, and The Woman in Gold

The Devil's Bride (a.k.a. The Devil Rides Out): adapted by Richard Matheson from the Dennis Wheatley novel The Devil Rides Out; directed by Terence Fisher; starring Christopher Lee (Duc de Richleau), Charles Gray (Mocata), Nike Arrighi (Tanith), Leon Greene (Rex), and Patrick Mower (Simon) (1968): Fun, tightly plotted period piece (it's set in England in the 1920's) pits Christopher Lee in a rare heroic turn against the forces of Satan himself as conjured up by Aleister Crowley-esque black magician Mocata.

The great Richard Matheson does solid work turning a novel by the often clunky Dennis Wheatley into a crisply executed occult thriller that clocks in at barely 100 minutes. Lee commands the screen as a reluctant, learning-on-the-fly white magician who must battle the powerful Mocata (a terrifically oily, ingratiating Charles Gray) for the souls of two people who have been pulled into Satanic worship. 

The rites and spells sometimes sound so odd that you'd swear they were lifted from H.P. Lovecraft or William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki the Ghost-Finder series and not from actual occult sources. This Hammer film has a fairly low budget, as Hammer films always did, but the cinematography, direction, and set design mostly make up for it. There are a couple of goofy moments involving visual effects, but a couple of things also work quite well.

The film is at its creepiest when it keeps its demons off-stage, but that's true of virtually all horror movies. Wait for the moment in which a crucifix operates pretty much like the Holy Hand-grenade of Antioch. Reportedly this was Christopher Lee's favourite of his many Hammer Horror Films, partially because he himself suggested they make it and partially, I assume, because he got to be a commanding good guy for once. Recommended.

Woman in Gold: adapted by Alexi Kaye Campbell from the life stories of E. Randal Schoenberg and Maria Altmann; directed by Simon Curtis; starring Helen Mirren (Maria Altmann), Ryan Reynolds (Randy Schoenberg), Tatiana Maslany (Young Maria), and Max Irons (Fritz Altmann) (2015): Fascinating true-life story of the 1990's quest of an Austrian-American Jewish woman who strives to get her family paintings back from the Austrian government more than 50 years after they were stolen after the Nazi occupation of Austria. The kicker is that these aren't just any paintings -- five of them are by Gustav Klimt, and one of those is Portrait of Adele, aka Woman in Gold, Klimt's most famous painting and one valued in the 1990's at over $100 million.

Apparently I found the narrative and the legal manueverings more interesting than 45% of all reviewers. So it goes. Helen Mirren is wonderful as usual, as are the actors playing her character and others in flashback. Ryan Reynolds is surprisingly sturdy as the young Jewish-American lawyer who reluctantly takes on Mirren's case. Perfunctory scenes between Reynolds and Katie Holmes as his initially doubting wife could have been cut from the film. 

As judges, Elizabeth McGovern and Jonathan Pryce steal their only scenes. And I think the film does a laudable job of showing some of the moral horror of the Holocaust, and of anti-Semitism, still hanging on in the modern world: Austria's attitude towards attempts to get stolen art back show a government and a group of people who still regard certain types of people as objects to be eliminated. But there are also "good" Austrians, as the film shows, both past and present. Recommended.

Shakespeare in Love: written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard with additional dialogue by William Shakespeare; directed by John Madden; starring Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare), Gwyneth Paltrow (Viola de Lesseps), Colin Firth (Wessex), Judi Dench (Queen Elizabeth), Ben Affleck (Alleyn), Rupert Everett (Christopher Marlowe), Geoffrey Rush (Henslowe), and Tom Wilkinson (Fennyman) (1998): 

Hollywood insiders generally consider Shakespeare in Love to be a masterpiece -- specifically, producer/studio head Harvey Weinstein's masterpiece of lobbying for awards. It took down the heavily favoured Saving Private Ryan for the Oscar for Best Picture of 1998, and garnered six other Oscars besides, including Best Actress for Gwyneth Paltrow and Best Supporting Actress for Judi Dench.

It's a very tight movie, wittily written and ably performed by pretty much everyone. The greatest weakness on the acting side isn't Ben Affleck but Joseph Fiennes as Shakespeare -- he makes for a lovable romantic lead, sort of like a puppy dog, but there really isn't a moment where one believes that he has much of an intellect or any artistic ability. Dench's Oscar win now looks like the Academy voting for a showy piece of work in heavy make-up and costume: as Queen Elizabeth, Dench is a prickly, sarcastic lawn ornament.

The movie's bathed for the most part in golden light for the romantic scenes; the rest of the time, it's realistically lighted for the dirty streets and alleys of Elizabethan London. The wit of the screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard can get a bit twee, and there's a self-congratulatory air in the movie's view of the Greatness of Theatre that can get a bit wearing at times. 

Nonetheless, it's funny and at times quite moving, never moreso than in its final few minutes. I don't know that its Oscar win was that much of an upset -- it's certainly better written than Saving Private Ryan, and unlike that film, Shakespeare in Love doesn't have major third-act plot problems. Recommended.

Alan Moore's The Completist

Alan Moore's Magic Words: adapted by Art Brooks, Fred Torres, Ailantd, Sergio Bleda, and Juan Jose Ryp (2002): Interesting collection of adaptations of short Alan Moore prose pieces and poems by a variety of European comics artists. Really for Moore completists more than anyone, but I enjoyed it. Recommended.

Alan Moore's Another Suburban Romance: adapted by Antony Johnston and Juan Jose Ryp (2003): Comics adaptations of three Alan Moore performance pieces, ably translated into comics form by writer Antony Johnston and artist Juan Jose Ryp. I have absolutely no idea how these were staged because they seem unstageable except as spoken-word pieces. Recommended.

Alan Moore's Light of Thy Countenance: adapted by Antony Johnston and Felipe Massafera (2009): Excellent comics adaptation of an Alan Moore short story actually works much better as a comic than as a short story. That may be because so much of the piece is visually oriented, dealing as it does with the history of television. But as this is a work of fiction, television itself is posited as a living god. Fascinating juxtapositions and wordplay abound. Highly recommended.

Alan Moore's Writing for Comics (1985/2003) by Alan Moore; illustrated by Jacen Burrows: Famous Alan Moore prose series on writing for, well, comics, got reprinted for the first time in 17 years with added illustrations and a new afterword/rebuttal by Moore. Even for non-writers, it's a fascinating glimpse into Alan Moore's process circa 1985, as well as a brief look into what he thinks of that process nearly 20 years later. Highly recommended.

Blackhawk Up

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