Vampire A Go-Go and The Deputy by Victor Gischler

I reviewed Victor Gischler's Vampire A Go-Go and his forthcoming The Deputy for bookspot.

To give that shit a looky-fucking-loo, click right here.

Yes, I just tried to make the term looky-loo seem badass.

Excuse me while I go hang myself.

Ruminating In My Pants #8: The REAL Crime Summer Reads

While pissing away the evening on twitter, I found out from the always informative Sarah Weinman that NPR has put up a summer reading list on their website. How nice of them, right? I checked that shit out, found that they had a section for mystery/crime novels.

A quick peek at that list and you can tell that the Nerd's blood was no doubt angried up toot-fucking-sweet.

After voicing my disappointment via the sad soapbox that is twitter, short story wunderkind Keith Rawson suggested that I do my own anti-NPR summer reading list. I, you know, fucking concurred and lo, here is the fucking list.

The Nerd Pimpeth Thusly:

1. FAKE ID by JASON STARR (Hardcase Crime, May 26. 2009)

Now you're thinking, Nerd, doesn't Jason Starr have a book coming out in August called PANIC ATTACK? Why isn't that one on your list? Well, dear reader, I'm sort of excited about that one, but Fake ID is one from Starr's early period where he was just letting it rip. After The Follower I have begun to fear that Starr has moved too far into the main stream with his fiction. I mean, The Follower had some great frat boy douchebag characters in it, but the overall story was much more pf a traditional thriller than noir ass-kicker. I've been waiting for Fake ID to hit America for years now, and thanks to Charles Ardai and the Hardcase crew, the dream is fucking well realized at last.

2. HOGDOGGIN' by ANTHONY NEIL SMITH (Bleak House Books, June 1, 2009)

Unlike everything else on this list, I've read Hogdoggin' already. Hell, as you well know I've fucking pimped for it already by participating in Smith's kick ass HOGDOGGIN' VIRTUAL MOTORCYCLE RALLY. My review of the book will be up on Bookspot Central on June the fucking first, also known as HOGDOGGIN' MONDAY. In other words, I've supported the shit out of this beast of a book. Well, dear reader, I've said it before and I'll say it a-fucking-gain: I don't pimp for shit I don't fucking straight-up love. Order that shit now, thank the Nerd later.

3. BURY ME DEEP by MEGAN ABBOTT (Simon & Schuster, July 7, 2009)

I've reviewed all three of Megan Abbott's books here at the site and she started out super fucking strong and has only gotten better as she goes along. Not to put the pressure on, but hopes are sky-fucking-high for her latest. Abbott's one of the true originals working today, and her take on the forties and fifties that has been covered in countless films is unlike any Widmark or Mitchum black-and-white classic you'll ever see.

4. THE DEPUTY by VICTOR GISCHLER (Bleak House Books, August 2009)

Gischler's Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse sure as shit kicked my ass and I'm definitely pumped as all hell for Vampire A Go-Go to drop on September 1st, but I'm even more excited for Gischler's return to crime with The Deputy. Expectations are high, but fuck, this is the dude that wrote The Pistol Poets. You better believe his ass is gonna deliver the goods like fucking John Holmes...before coke and AIDS and all that shit did him in, that is.

5. STAIRWAY TO HELL by CHARLIE WILLIAMS (Serpent's Tail Press, August 20, 2009)

Charlie Williams hasn't given us a book since 2006 when he wrapped up the Mangel Trilogy, one of the most fucked up and hilarious series in recent years. Stairway to Hell marks his triumphant return. It's got soul-swapping and David Bowie and Jimmy Page and...it sounds fucking insane is what I'm trying to say. Here's hoping it kicks more ass than Royston Blake on a crazy night bouncing at Hopper's.

So there you go, dear readers, my list to cancel out the lame-fest that is the NPR list. Granted, that won't hold your noir-craving junkie ass for the three whole fucking months of summer, but it's a damned good start. Expect reviews of all of the above as I catch 'em, dear reader.

Expect it like death and fucking taxes. And pledge drives.

The Gischler goes all sci-fi on your ass!

Victor Gischler is one funny-ass novelist. Pistol Poets is probably the funniest book this side of the early Carl Hiaasen stuff. Shotgun Opera makes you laugh just at the pure ridiculousness of the characters. Suicide Squeeze had the ultimate hard-luck protagonist and one of the more clever MacGuffins I've encountered. But what makes Gischler the real deal is not just that he's funny and silly, but that the laughs don't shit on the stuff the die hard crime folks want, i.e. the blood and guts and depravity.

Now he's gone all Charlie Huston on us and got himself a little shelf space in the sci-fi/fantasy section. Granted it has a great title, Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse, but I was still skeptical of this book. From the descriptions I'd read online about the novel it seemed more like an adventure novel than a hard-boiled novel, and adventure I don't really...do. I tried to a while back with Mario Acevedo's vampire series, but couldn't get it into it. The hero was too much of a pussy, the story too cute to really justify my wanting to read anymore of it. For some reason I worried that this was what would plague The Gischler's latest book, that it would be all the whacky without the nasty.

I was wrong.

My fears were put to rest in the first chapter where Mortimer Tate, our hero who has waited out the end of the world on top a Tennessee mountaintop for almost a decade, blows away the first three people he's seen in nine years. And I mean blows away. Gischler is not of the Elmore Leonard belief that violence should merely be, "Tom shot Kevin." and other simple phrases like that. He's all about blowback, blood, bone fragments, geysers, spurts, brains, and the like. He relishes violence with the glee of a twelve year old watching Predator for the first time. I applaud.

His post-apocalyptic world is one where men either reinvent themselves (Mortimer's sidekick Bill takes up wearing two six-shooters on his belt) or are merely savage Darwinian beasts, where a strip club franchise is the key to rebuilding society, and where women are looked upon more as trade items than people. There are plenty of great ideas in every chapter (a train run a handcart powered by speed-fed body builders, a war fought with hybrids and MINI Coopers to preserve precious gas) as Mortimer and his merry band seem to constantly make it out of the frying pan into the fire as he searches for his ex-wife throughout the Southeastern United States.

But through all these satirical ideas and characters and situations he manages to keep the action brutal and the story moving. Sex, violence, and satire. What else do you reall need. This is one of those that I'll be passing around to everyone I know (anyone who wouldn't be interested in something called Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse is not a friendship you need to hang on to) in hopes of further discussing our favorite characters and aspects of this world Gischler has set up. It'd be fine with me if the author wanted to make more books set in this world, maybe earlier or later in the timeline with different characters. He's got a knack for this sort of thing. That being said, if this book really takes off and he goes strictly into the sci-fi genre, I'd be disappointed.

I'd still eagerly anticipate each new novel, though.