November 1, 2006

2 Reviews

So North of Sunset got its first bad Amazon review, from someone who liked Oscar Caliber Gun. I’m not totally surprised, but it’s still a bummer. I figured this would happen with some people who read OCG and liked the hard-boiled, angry narrator which is not as present in NoS. I think more people will like NoS than OCG, actually, it’s broader, but those who like OCG seem to believe in it more. If you read NoS and liked it, feel free to leave a comment on Amazon (now available) and tell him how wrong he is.

Matthew Selznick, author of Brave Men Run, writes up the book. Mostly very nice, but says the first third is too slow. Another thing I was anticipating being criticized. Spends some time setting up the characters. I justify it by saying it’s like a Hollywood movie, where in the first ten minutes people get to speak dialogue outside the lines of the plot, and after the plot starts rolling it’s all they think about.

The new novel’s getting even further away from hard-boiled noir writing. I don’t feel like going back there. Closer to Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus trilogy and PK Dick’s Valis novels. If I do it right. Different sorts of readers read that than crime fiction. I just ordered up RA Wilson's Masks of the Illuminati, which I haven’t read. Found a copy of Caleb Carr’s Killing Time and Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon the other day for two dollars. That’s where my head’s at.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

A pox on reviewers! I loved NoS, and fiction has to be beyond superexcellent for me to read it.

Now I am looking forward to this PKD-like book you're writing. What's it called? How soon will it be finished? How long is it going to be?

Right now I'm watching On The Beach with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, and reading Black Order by James Rollins (reformed Nazi stuff). Next up is The Collector, with Terence Stamp. I tried the book, but couldn't ensconce the brain in it.

Henry Baum said...

Care to make a comment over there? The new novel's called "The American Book of the Dead." I've got around 100 pages. It'll probably be 300 pages, maybe less, maybe more. Hope to be done before 2012.

Killing Time isn't so good. More Jules Verne than George Orwell. Probably shouldn't say that given the subject of this post. I've seen On The Beach, haven't read it. I think there's a recent remake. Loved the novel The Collector, General Zod was good in the movie.

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