Alrightreads: T

Shaun Tan, Tales from Outer Suburbia

2008 / Ebook / 96 pages / Australia

***

Memorable imagery supplemented by forgettable text, pre-literate kids making up their own stories will get the most out of it and be rewarded with benevolent nightmares.

Fave: 'Distant Rain'

Rhys Hughes, Twisthorn Bellow

2009 / Ebook / 256 pages / UK

**

The first story about the sun giving itself skin cancer was funny, but the stream-of-consciousness exploits of a xenophobic mad scientist and his cartoon character creations got less rewarding as they went on, scraping the barrel of porn puns at one point.

Fave: 'The Wings of Phœbus'

Rob Williams, Steve Scott and Bart Sears, Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Gods

2008-09 (collected 2009) / Ecomics / 120 pages / UK/USA

***

Like the standalone novel that came out at the time, this failed to kick off a resurgence of Indy comics, maybe because the weak 2008 film didn't muster the enthusiasm expected or because the premise of tracking down three pieces of a mysterious artifact is so generic even within Indiana Jones comics. The actor likenesses are a lot better than they used to be, at least.

Iain Banks, Transition

2009 / Audiobook / 416 pages / UK

**

Iain [M.] Banks does Sliders as Quantum Leap, with more drugs, sadism and more of the same generally. Whatever happened to thin SF paperbacks?

Jonathan Lethem, Talking Heads' Fear of Music

2012 / Ebook / 141 pages / USA

***

A treatise on the art disco punks is inevitably going to provoke chapter titles like 'Is Fear of Music a Text?' It is now. Paced well for listening along, with leeway for stumbling over sentences or skimming analogies.

Alrightreads: Surreal

Maurice Richardson, The Exploits of Engelbrecht: Abstracted from the Chronicles of the Surrealist Sportsman's Club

Collected 1950 / Ebook / 128 pages / UK

****

When tepid vintage comedies from the likes of Wodehouse remain so lauded, it's a shame that more imaginative works like Richardson's surrealist gothic sports horror comedy classic fell through the canonical cracks. Each account of witch shooting, clock boxing and more laid-back leisure pursuits such as plant drama (not for the impatient) serves to prise open the reader's awareness a little more, so that when the full-scale chess apocalypse arrives, it's almost comprehensible.

Fave: 'A Quiet Game of Chess'

Samuel Beckett, Endgame: A Play in One Act, Followed by Act Without Words, a Mime for One Player (Fin de partie, suivi de Acte sans paroles)

1957 / Ebook / 122 pages / Ireland

**

Some plays work well on the page, where you can mull over the verse at your own pace. But when it's a minimalist play that largely relies on comic timing and chemistry, followed by an entirely visual silent piece, it didn't take long to realise I'd made a huge mistake.

Shaun Tan, The Lost Thing

2000 / Ebook / 32 pages / Australia

****

This junior Kafka is better than any Kafka. It didn't dazzle me like Tan's The Arrival did, but I would have been well into it as a boy. What are? Why are? That's a keeper.

Marcia Landy, Monty Python's Flying Circus

2005 / Ebook / 120 pages / USA

***

The series was clever, groundbreaking and resonant enough to earn a stuffy academic analysis, but this is mainly just someone summarising and categorising the jokes (and sometimes getting things wrong). Monty Python described matter-of-factly is still funny though.

Rhys Hughes, Engelbrecht Again!

1999-2000 (collected 2008) / Ebook / 288 pages / UK

***

A fanfic sequel I didn't really need, the influence of Richardson's Engelbrechts on the author's style was clear when reading the originals, but he gets a bit carried away with the boundary-pushing as his cumulative story cycle gains meta momentum and the exploits increasingly drag. It was quite annoying even as a fan, so I don't know how other readers would fare.

Fave: 'Surfing the Solar Wind'

Alrightreads: Sun

Frans Masereel, Le Soleil: 63 images dessinées et gravées sur bois

1919 / Ebook / 63 pages / Switzerland

***

I've always liked medieval woodcuts, and the sharp, jagged form made a perfect fit for expressionism, or whatever you'd call this. Not many of these wordless tableux are wall-worthy artworks on their own, but together they make a pleasing flipbook.

Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun (Le Temple du Soleil)

1946-1948 (collected 1949) / Ecomics / 62 pages / Belgium

***

More or less a clip show of previous death-defying entanglements relocated to the Andes and the Amazon, I saw the ending coming miles away, but maybe because I'd seen it on the cartoon. Wartime delays almost excuse the author forgetting to address the mystery carried over from the previous book until the last couple of pages, resolved with customary disinterest.

Ray Bradbury, The Golden Apples of the Sun

1945-53 (collected 1953) / Audiobook / 192 pages / USA

****

Twenty-two tales of assorted quality and theme, but tending towards the classic and macabre.

Faves: 'The Fog Horn,' 'A Sound of Thunder,' 'Powerhouse.'

Worsties: 'The Flying Machine,' 'I See You Never,' 'The Big Black and White Game.'

William Shatner with Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Steve Erwin, Star Trek: The Ashes of Eden

1995 / Ecomic / 96 pages / Canada/USA

**

I buy that The Shat suggested the characteristically vain Kirk action plot, making "his" first 'Trek novel less deceptive than the later ones, filled out with repetitive set pieces and gratuitous back references by his dependable "co-"writers. As an alt-universe Star Trek VII, it would have been even lamer than the real one, as demonstrated when they basically recycled it for Star Trek IX.

Martyn Conterio, Black Sunday

2015 / Ebook / 110 pages / UK

***

An over-appreciative tribute to stylish shlock and the spaghetti gothics, but positivity's to be encouraged. It goes on a bit with the unnecessary vampire lore to fill pages, but we all suffer for mandatory word counts sometimes.

Alrightreads: Strange

Reggie Oliver, The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini & Other Strange Stories

2001-03 (collected 2012) / Ebook / 333 pages / UK

***

I was expecting a bit of a joker, based on some later titles, but in this debut at least he doesn't stray far outside the comfort zones of hauntings, theatre and academia, occasionally overcompensating by going hi-tech. His strength is in lingering on paintings, old photographs and other images so their subjects are burned into your imagination. I'll read more.

Fave: 'In Arcadia'

Haruki Murakami and Chip Kidd, The Strange Library (ふしぎな図書館)

2014 / Audiobook/ebook / 96 pages / Japan/USA

***

Relatably nightmarish in its labyrinthine setting and academic slavery, it's a shame it's so short (originally a short story) and a shame it was the version with unimaginative '90s album booklet "art direction."

Jack Stevenson, Witchcraft Through the Ages: The Story of Häxan, the World's Strangest Film, and the Man Who Made It

2015 / Ebook / 130 pages / USA

**

The obscene blasphemy's all in good fun, but learning about the harsh and egotistical production has taken the shine off the oddball classic. Most of the book covers the director's other, less interesting films, seemingly out of obligatory fairness.

Rebecca Lloyd, Seven Strange Stories

2014-17 (collected 2017) / Ebook / 245 pages / New Zealand

***

Another author content to keep the gothic tradition alive for unambitious subscribers without doing anything interesting with it. To expect readers to consider these tales of rural hauntings and fleshier apparitions 'strange' would be optimistic even a century ago. Nothing personal, just hitting the inevitable ennui of brand loyalty.

Fave: 'Jack Werrett, the Flood Man'

Nick Cave, Darcey Steinke and Janine Barrand, Stranger Than Kindness

2020 / Ebook / 276 pages / Australia/USA

*

I'm not obsessed enough a fan for this intimate exhibition of notebooks, photos, miscellanous junk and hoarded women's hair to be meaningful. Meanwhile, some random guy sits on the porch and rambles about Cave, Faulkner and Elvis.

Alrightreads: Stories

William Rotsler, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock – Short Stories

1984 / Ebook / 126 pages / USA

**

Forcing further adventures into the loosely-sealed middle of a serial was a strange decision (one they repeated from the previous film), but an interesting alternative to a straight novelisation. The author gets what he can out of the restrictive setting and explores the characters' feelings at this specific point in time before he runs out of ideas and segues into flashbacks to tell slavishly traditional 'Trek tales.

David Massey, Moira Sheehan and Kathy Dickinson, Frontier: Elite II – Stories of Life on the Frontier

1993 / Ebook / 82 pages / UK

**

A world-building story cycle of standard sci-fi tropes to help you pass the tedious autopilot time or escape to the polygon universe during silent reading sessions at school. I never took it up on either of those options while this sat in the box of Amiga manuals for years, but better never than late.

Fave: David Massey's 'All That Glisters...'

Kate Schatz, PJ Harvey's Rid of Me: A Story

2007 / Ebook / 112 pages / USA

***

This apocalyptic goth-chick-lit was the best of the fictional entries, even if the bar was set very low. I'd get more out of this personal reimagining if I was familiar with the album, rather than just enjoying having a bespoke reading soundtrack and trying to spot connections on the fly. Or maybe that'd just annoy me.

Rhys Hughes, The Brothel Creeper: Stories of Sexual and Spiritual Tension

1995-2011 (collected 2011) / Ebook / 230 pages / UK

***

Non-comprehensively collecting the stories the author would probably least like his mum to read, they're not all rapey, but enough of them are to make it his least palatable collection. Including the whimsical Fanny Fables seems irrelevant until the author succumbs to temptation and enters his story and character at the end, there it is.

Fave: 'The Sickness of Satan'

Susan Hill, Dolly: A Ghost Story

2012 / Audiobook / 153 pages / UK

***

I appreciate that this authentic gothic pastiche didn't commit itself to period padding, feeling more like a film where we're not forced to spend more time with these neurotic kids than we have to for the story. It's still a bit too long to maintain a consistent atmosphere or spookiness, mind.

Alrightreads: Stones

Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin: The Castafiore Emerald (Les Bijoux de la Castafiore)

1961-1962 (collected 1963) / Ecomics / 62 pages / Belgium

***

A well-earned staycation from the relentless globetrotting and occasional space travel, Tintin's Lwaxana Troi episode is more domestic sitcom than fiendish mystery, but non-Francophone foreigners will be a couple of pages behind.

Colin MacCabe, Performance

1998 / Ebook / 87 pages / UK

***

The juxtaposition of Swinging London and gangster slags didn't do it for me, but the story of its scandalous semi-improvised pisstake production is more interesting than most.

Bill Janovitz, The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street

2005 / Audiobook / 169 pages / USA

**

Makes an emotional case for this being the best rock album, up to that point anyway. Since it's not exactly an obscure position, he doesn't get defensive about it like some writers, but nor does he contribute much that hasn't been told already in the more substantial works he quotes from.

Alex Green, The Stone Roses

2006 / Ebook / 140 pages / UK

***

What I mainly like about these books is being able to listen and read along in real time (preferably neither lingering for too long after), so I appreciated the meaty (stony?) song-by-song guide to the cocky Mancs' ecstasy choons, even if it didn't convert me.

Iain Banks, Stonemouth

2012 / Ebook / 368 pages / UK

***

The Crow Road with low-key gangsters. I think he's writing my generation this time, but it's so far removed from my own experiences that it didn't register. I'm glad we got the more grimly-positive The Quarry to bow out on.

Alrightreads: Stars

Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin: The Shooting Star (L'Étoile mystérieuse)

1941-42 (collected 1942) / Ecomics / 62 pages / Belgium

**

It's been long enough since the unambiguous Eastern mysticism that I was taken aback by the exploding mushrooms and giant spiders in Tintin's first sci-fi adventure. But before we get there, there's a nautical wacky race to run against unseen dastardly opponents to fill out the sagging middle.

Various, The Star Wars Album

1977 / Ebook / 80 pages / USA

****

I'll always take a flimsy time capsule over a definitive retrospective, and this stocking fodder captures a brief moment in time when the 'Droids were considered the breakout stars and Star Wars was primarily celebrated as a successful amalgamation of cinematic styles, rather than sweeping those out of memory to become the new default. This slim guide satisfyingly spends longer than is really sensible exploring those influences, from Flash and Buck to Laurel and Hardy, so there's only time for a skimming overview of the production after the mandatory film synopsis, interesting itself for the alternate dialogue. It doesn't get into Joseph Campbell or Freudian symbolism, but they needed some space for photos.

Tom Braunlich and Bill Muldowney, Official Player's Guide: Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game

1995 / Ebook / 265 pages / USA

***

I longed to play this acknowledged Magic: The Gathering rip-off back in the '90s, when I bought a Deep Space Nine set, but everyone I knew was into Pokémon cards or proper roleplaying.

Reading this introduction caused a recurrence of the quarter-century itch that I'll have to scratch one day, and maybe realise I just like looking at them after all.

Rhys Hughes, The Percolated Stars: An Astro-Caffeine Romp in Three Cups Featuring Batavus Droogstoppel Merchant and Scientist and Bourgeois Monster – One Lump or Two?

2003 / Ebook / 210 pages / UK

****

Episodic adventures become a de facto novel when the third story concocts continuity twixt its predecessors and then just doesn't stop. The first voyage into Earth's inner microcosmos is one of my favourite things he's written, layering insanities like a hilarious lasagne. The globetrotting sequel and brothel intermission considerably less so.

Fave: 'Ultima Thule'


Jo Storm, Frak You!: The Ultimate Unauthorized Guide to Battlestar Galactica

2007 / Ebook / 251 pages / Canada

***

More like 'penultimate,' as the unofficial chronicler of 80% of Stargate SG-1 moves on to cover 75% of a superior sci-fi drama, also never updated once the journey was over and Ti(gh)-ins less in demand. Not as in-depth as it could have been, even then, but still a nice reminder of why the series is a candidate for the best.

Alrightreads: Silents

Anthony Slide and Edward Wagenknecht, Fifty Great American Silent Films, 1912–1920: A Pictorial Survey

1980 / Ebook / 144 pages / UK/USA

***

"The telephone pole is something of an anachronism for a scene set in 900 A.D."

A whistle stop tour of the first and least interesting decade of feature-length film production from one of the less interesting countries making them. The brief reviews are usually unsentimental, except when they're worshipping D. W. Griffith and prickling at accusations of racism like someone banging on about 'SJWs.'

Lucy Fischer, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

1998 / Ebook / 79 pages / USA

***

Murnau's silent hallucinatory fable is a godsend for academic overanalysis and this cinephile doesn't hold back from the onset. I enjoyed all of that, and I didn't mind all the big screencaps making a short book even shorter, since that space is normally taken up by redundant plot summary.

Cristina Massaccesi, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror

2015 / Ebook / 130 pages / Italy

****

Enthusiastic reading and formal analysis that also explores some of the nuttier interpretations and conspiracy theories surrounding the timeless terror.

Paul McEwan, The Birth of a Nation

2015 / Ebook / 96 pages / USA

**

Mainly a recap of the pioneering racist classic that clarifies who the heroes and villains are supposed to be for the benefit of modern audiences, since it's often confusing.

Pamela Hutchinson, Pandora's Box (Die Buchse der Pandora)

2017 / Ebook / 112 pages / UK

***

A more thorough overview than these books usually manage, even if it can't escape the gravitational pull of its star, as is the fate of all commentaries and internet comments about this work.

Alrightreads: Sevens

Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin: The Seven Crystal Balls (Les 7 Boules de Cristal)

1943-1946 (collected 1948) / Ecomics / 63 pages / Belgium

***

Ramping up the pratfalls to help distract his fellow Belgians during Nazi occupation, the background that saw this serial interrupted in the middle is more interesting than the customarily stalling setup to an action-packed part two, but the nightmare sequence was nicely creepy.

Unknown, Terry Nation's Blakes 7 Annual 1980

1979 / Ebook / 62 pages / UK

**

I like to play 1970s childhood sometimes, and it's been long enough since I binged the show that the real nostalgia blended with the imaginary one. These prose stories with variable art aren't great, but they're on brand for the series, more than the series was a lot of the time. Which is more than can be said for the features in-between, which aren't the expected in-universe profiles or makings-of, but instead cover general astronomy facts and demand an unreasonable level of space trivia for readers of any age.

Jean "Moebius" Giraud, Mœbius 7: The Goddess

1990 / Ecomic / 88 pages / France

**

Part three in the philosophical sci-fi trilogy that began as a lavish car advert, Moebius' subterranean dystopia has classic Twilight Zone charm, but it's not especially original or interesting. Better than his mad shit like The Airtight Garage though.

Stella Bruzzi, Seven Up

2007 / Ebook / 160 pages / UK

***

A nice celebration and fairly redundant analysis of the real-time period drama as it self-consciously entered the reality TV age.

Joan Mellen, Seven Samurai

2002 / Ebook / 80 pages / USA

**

There aren't many layers to this simple story, and the themes and compositions aren't so subtle that they need pointing out, but providing the historical and cultural context probably helps if you're on the fence about its classic status. I found it quite a chore to sit through, but it's stayed in the memory.

Alrightreads: Sixes

Roald Dahl, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More

1942-77 (collected 1977) / Audiobook / 225 pages / UK

***

A broad sampler from wartime autobiography to paranormal philanthropy, turtle-hugging wildlife conservation to sadistic animal cruelty and drab tales of vintage Britain. That should probably mean there's something for everyone, but none of it really got me going.

Fave: 'The Boy Who Talked with Animals'

Worstie: 'The Swan'


Jean "Moebius" Giraud, Mœbius 6: Pharagonesia and Other Strange Stories

1974-80 (collected 1987) / Ecomic / 66 pages / France

***

By Moebius' standards, these stories aren't any stranger than usual, one of them being depressingly down to Earth, but I'd struggle to come up with an overarching theme too. As ever, the silent ones are the most interesting.

Faves: 'Shore Leave on Pharagonesia,' 'Absoluten Calfeutrail.'

Worsties: 'The Hunt for the Vacationing Frenchman,' 'The Apple Pie.'

Dean Motter and Mark Askwith, The Prisoner: Shattered Visage

1988-89 (collected 1990) / Ecomics / 208 pages / Canada

**

The 'authorised sequel' to the philosophical series, for whatever that's worth, this feels more like a failed next-generation pilot until we're back in the Village, then the record gets stuck in a meaningless catchphrase groove. The art was nice, anyway.

John Irving, Mozart: The 'Haydn' Quartets

1998 / Ebook / 116 pages / UK

***

With six works to get through, the writer doesn't spend too much time on the background to this falsely modest usurping before speeding through the forms, themes and theories. Not being able to get too deep and technical makes this more approachable to laymen than most of these books, even if we still need a glossary.

Jay Jericho, 666 Phenomenon

2019 / Ebook / 46 pages / Australia

*

A small sample of Satanic numerology in American pop culture and corporate logos featuring swirls and circles that you can superimpose some sixes onto if you're an absolute nutcase. He runs out of examples surprisingly soon, so leaves us to ponder some other random numbers and symbols with little to no commentary, his call for us to investigate for ourselves being a handy excuse for laziness.