Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali

Love sports? Love biography? Love poetry? If any one of these is true, then have I got the book for you.

When I was a kid, boxing was in one of its golden ages. Reigning champs were Joe Frazier, George Foreman and Muhammad Ali. I watched Ali fight on TV, and talk smack on TV, and make political points on TV. And he wasn't just on TV - he was talked about on the radio, too. Back then all the good music was on AM radio, and before channels that are now all-news, all-talk all the time took over the AM airwaves, that's where the best pop music could be found. Including Johnny Wakelin's "Black Superman", to which you can listen for free at this link. (You can also hear his song "In Zaire", also about Ali and Foreman's "Rumble in the Jungle".) But it was "Black Superman" that I used to wander around singing:

Muhammad, Muhammad Ali
He floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee
Muhammad, the black superman
Who calls to the other guy I'm Ali catch me if you can

What does this have to do with poetry? Well, first, I should note that during his smack-talking days, Ali was quite the slam poet. "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, your hands can't hit what your eyes can't see" is just one example. Many more can be found in his press conference appearances pre- and post-fights.

But the reason I'm talking about Ali is because at the very end of last year, Candlewick Press put out a wonderful book by Charles R. Smith Jr. called Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali, illustrated by Bryan Collier. This book is a biography of Ali, told in Ali-like verse that is separated into twelve chapters.

Each chapter is a poem that describes part of Ali's life - his birth in the segregated south into a family in which his ancestors had been slaves; his childhood and development as a boxer; his early boxing career and his Olympic achievement in Rome; the development of his brash public persona; his boxing bout with Sonny Liston that earned him his first heavyweight championship; his decision to embrace Islam, ditch his birth name, Cassius Clay, because it was rooted in slavery in favor of the name "Muhammad Ali", and his position as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war; the career ramifications of his decision to refuse to fight in the war; his loss in the fight with Frazier in Georgia (where he could fight because there was no boxing commission, including Ali's derision of Frazier as an "Uncle Tom") and subsequent fights setting up his challenge to reclaim the heavyweight championship; the "Rumble in the Jungle" - a title fight against reigning champ George Foreman in Zaire ("Ali! Boo-ma-YAY!"); his rematch against Smokin' Joe Frazier and the ferocity of that particular match; a loss by decision to Leon Spinks, making Spinks the new heavyweight champion, followed by a decision to retire; the post-retirement bouts in order to earn a few paychecks, and the reasons for the need for money explained; and his out-of-the ring life as a father and, in later years, man with Parkinson's syndrome. The text of the book ends in 1998, with Ali lighting the Olympic torch in Atlanta. The timeline following the text runs through 2005, and his receipt of a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the opening of the Muhammad Ali Center in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, and his being awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Germany.

All of this could be the stuff of legend, but Charles Smith avoids the book becoming a panegyric. He keeps it real by including some of the bad along with the inspiring and the good. Ali was an inspired fighter and an inspirational speaker, but along with his uplifting words on race and the horrors of war, Ali generated some truly ugly taunts when it came to dealing with other fighters. Along with his dedication to the Muslim faith and his search for peace and integrity, Ali's personal relationships were not always terrific, whether it was with women or some of his staff. Smith doesn't go into graphic detail, but enough information is given to present at least the basic facts faithfully, without whitewashing any of it.

And right about now, I'm guessing this is what you're thinking: This biography sounds great, Kelly, but I thought you were going to talk about poetry. Where's the POETRY?

Ask, and you shall receive. And if you'd like to hear it as well as (or instead of) reading it, Charles is only too happy to oblige, and you can access this (and three other poems) as audio files at his website.

ROUND ONE: The Golden Child
"I always felt like God made Muhammad special,
but I don't know why God chose me to carry this child."
—Odessa Clay, Cassius Clay's mother

Bathed in beautiful light
from parental love,
brown skin shimmers
with a glow from above.
In 1942, the seventeenth of January,
you entered the world
in Louisville, Kentucky.
Whites Only stores
and Whites Only parks
sifted you out
because you were dark.
No Negroes Allowed
and No Colored signs
created separate worlds
and drew color lines,
but your middle-class parents
managed to survive
through hard work and faith
and were able to provide
you, their first child,
and your little brother later,
with food, shelter, clothing,
and something much greater:
love
that was passed
to you from day one,
love
that was passed
to you, the new son
of mother Odessa
and father Cassius Clay,
who also passed the torch
of your name
that birth day,
passed down to you
from a white farmer who
inherited a plantation
and your great-grandfather too.
But Clay freed his forthy slaves
during America's dark days,
then fought to end slavery
and fought to change ways
and laws
and thinking
deep in the South,
using newspapers,
knives,
fists,
and his mouth.
He fought with a spirit
that lives in you today,
reflected in your name,
Cassius Marcellus Clay,
reflecting love from your parents,
who had faith and belief
that God would watch over you
and provide inner strength.

Now, in the actual book, this poem appears on one page, split into three columns, with a piece of art by Collier on the facing page showing the infant Ali lying atop a quilt. It is one of the shortest poems in the book, some of which go on for pages with multiple columns per page, which gives you an idea of the commitment that Smith had to getting the information right. The illustrations throughout the book are a combination of watercolor and collage, and they add a tremendous amount of impact to the text.

Now, I feel it incumbent upon me to address a possible question about all these lengthy, skinny-lined rhyming poems about Muhammad Ali. Because when I first got the book and opened it, I thought "Egad - that's a lot of skinny-lined rhyming text. Won't it get old fast?" And I'm wagering that some of you are wondering the same thing, or would be if you were thumbing through the book. And in all seriousness, the answer is yes and no. Yes, it gets a bit old for your eye to see so many skinny columns on the page, so from a book design standpoint, it was rough going. But they broke up the text with illustrations and occasional insertions like REALLY BIG QUOTES, and with page turns, and with art placement in different ways, so it's not so overwhelming.

But the NO is so much more important, because the actual reading of the poems doesn't get old at all. This book comes in at 80 pages, and those skinny columns and punchy rhymes (pun intended) push you along at a pretty good clip. And the word choices are wonderful, particularly in the fight scenes which actually get a bit too graphic for really young readers or squeamish girls in places, but I imagine that boys would read those same passages and call their friends over and read them again, looking at each other with awe and in glee and exclaiming "COOL!"

A sample of what I'm talking about, from "Round Seven: "Who You Callin' Tom?":

Out of nowhere like lightning
came a leaping left hook
filled with Uncle Tom anger
as Frazier's fist shook
your brain in your skull,
snapping your neck back,
when his fist met your jaw
with one mighty CRACK!
sending millions of ants
into your body as the mat
rose up to smack
your beaten brown back.

From later in the same chapter, and a fight with Ken Norton:

Ten fights,
ten wins,
all led up to Ken
Norton, a boxer
and former marine who
posed a big problem
for you in round two
when his rock-solid fist,
released from way back,
slingshot your cheek
and broke your jaw with a CRACK,
pooling your mouth with blood,
marinating your mouthpiece;
you continued to fight
using your ring expertise.

In all those 80 pages there are only a handful of what might be considered forced rhymes or manipulated line breaks, and to be honest, they're still in keeping with the nature of Ali's delivery style, which Smith channels extraordinarily well. Earlier this year, as part of this year's Summer Blog Blast Tour, I posted an interview with Charles Smith, the remarkable poet who has managed to tell Ali's life in Ali-like rhyme, complete with brutal fight scenes, upright integrity, and inspirational triumphs. During that interview, Smith talked about the large amount of research that went into this book as well as his process in selecting what to include and what to omit:

The frustrating thing that turned out to be a blessing in disguise was the fact that a lot of the info on him was scattered in various books; some books focused on just his fights, some focused on his politics, some focused on his battles with particular boxers such as Frazier, so much so that I said, “I wish there was just one book that had everything.” That’s when a light bulb went off and I said, I’ll do that book. To that end, I felt I needed to show him as a man with vulnerability, hubris and dignity that would reflect a whole person not just a caricature. My editor helped in that regard because she didn’t want a sanitized version of his life and when I read somewhere that he wanted people to know his whole story, not just the highlights, that’s when I knew I had to do his wishes justice by showing every part of him.

When it came to creating the poetry, Smith explains his process over at his website. Here's a quote from his site that gives some insight on what he did:

I wanted the book to represent every part of this remarkable man and do it in such a way that hasn’t been done before. Once I had all the facts, double and triple checked, I then had to put it into verse. Each word was chosen with care, which made each line strong, which made each verse strong, which made each chapter strong, which made the book strong. Since it’s about boxing, I wanted it to feel like a boxing match, so to do the fight scenes, I watched old movies of the actual fights and wrote down what I saw, starting with the introductions of each fighter and where it took place.

Most of the images inside the book include people, usually composed in collage format. The only inside spread I could find available on the 'net, however, is the image at the start of the final chapter, which appears not to involve collage, but to be a straight-up watercolor. Feast your eyes on the image that leads off the last chapter, "Round Twelve: Muhammad on the Mountain":


As I said at the start, if you love sports, biography or poetry, this book is for you. And maybe, just maybe, if you pick it up because you love sports, you'll find out that you like biography or poetry just fine. Sports fans are encouraged to try some of Smith's other sports-related books, including several about basketball.

io9 on the Ten Best Batman Books

Wellll, I can't say I agree with all of these - in fact some are really lame. What should be on the list and isn't? How about Gotham by Gaslight, an "Elseworlds" alt-history involving Jack the Ripper, Long Halloween which is a great look at Gotham's crime syndicates and shows Batman at his detective best (very noir for you Raymond Chandler fans)and Batman: Absolution where Batman confronts a terrorist years after she bombed Wayne Enterprises and caused the deaths of many of his employees but claims to have changed. (Not everybody likes this gn but I thought it was pretty good.)

One major fave of mine that was overlooked though is Detective No. 27, another alt history which takes place in the 1920s and involves Bruce Wayne joining a long line of detectives (many of them real historic figures) who solve government conspiracies. Here's a bit of the Fourth Rail review:

For 75 years, a secret society of detectives -- founded by the legendary Allan Pinkerton in the wake of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination -- has fought a quiet war against a group of nihilists known as the Knights of the Golden Circle. Each member of the Secret Society of Detectives is given a number rather than a name. A young man named Bruce Wayne returns home to Gotham City in 1939 after a decade of studying abroad, and he has one goal on his mind: to avenge his parents' murder. His skills and background have attracted the attention of the Society, though, and soon, Wayne finds himself dubbed Detective No. 27.

The best thing this ambitious project has going for it is Peter Snejbjerg's artwork. Those who have sampled his work on Starman, The Books of Magic and JSA knows it boasts a dark edge, one that's in keeping with the conspiracy-theory aspects of this story. He also does an excellent job of capturing not one but two historic periods here. The likenesses of historical figures are strong as well. Snejbjerg brings a gothic quality to the story that puts one in mind of Mike (Hellboy) Mignola's style, and there's an exaggerated, twisted quality in his style that's appropriately unsettling and surreal.

Be sure to read the comments at the io9 piece - lots of opinions on good and bad Batman stories.

What Happened by Peter Johnson

Posted by Alex

I'm supposed to review What Happened by Peter Johnson, and I will,in a sense. There are two ways of looking at this book, and perhaps a lot of the books covered here: the pure literary opinion, and the perspective of our hypothetical, all-purpose teen boy. Sometimes they may converge; in this case, I suspect they're a total dichotomy.

The book, by an award-winning poet, is described as a "prose poem." The nameless sixteen-year-old narrator initially tells us, "if my story seems erratic it's because I think that way," then relates the night he, his brother and two friends run over a man during a snowstorm. The rich kid driving, Duane, wants to pretend it didn't
happen; the narrator and his older brother Kyle are more conflicted. For soap-opera color, Kyle is dating Duane's sister Emily, on whom the narrator also has a crush, and Duane's rich, powerful father once romanced the narrator's late mother.

This is a thin book--"sparse" being the positive spin--and yet it spends most of its time away from its central dilemma. The narrator is on psychiatric meds, although his exact diagnosis seems unknown to him, and he's prone to digression. He's extremely passive, and ultimately the story resolves with no direct input from him; he even sleeps through the moment the other characters make a crucial decision. In fact, the story only tangentially affects him, since it's his older brother who's in actual danger.

As I read this, I tried to imagine a teenage boy's response to it. First there's the cover image of a very feminine young man, eyes closed and wispy blond hair to his shoulders. The first thing I thought of (and this may say more about me than the book) is that What Happened would detail a gay teen's struggle with his sexuality.

As it turns out, this cover (or this interpretation of it) is completely off-base. I wonder how many young men, some of them doubtless struggling with their own sexual identity, would avoid the book simply because of this (or alternatively, read it for that reason and be disappointed).

Then there's the style. Calling something a "prose poem" is pretty daunting if you want teens to read it. I've always thought the term "prose poem" was a bit arch anyway, a way of saying "pretentious" without using the word. And since the story is pretty simple and limited to the narrator's scattershot perspective, the author has
plenty of opportunities to make observations on philosophy, morality and the vagaries of self-knowledge. But will the intended audience of ages 13 and up care to wade through this?

That's where I think the book fails. It may be about teenage boys, it may be aimed at teenage boys, but I can't imagine most teenage boys reading it. It's too slow, it's too diffuse, and ultimately it features characters with whom most boys won't want to identify. For a short, slender book it's a slog at first, and while it does pick up steam toward the end when real conflict occurs, the fact that the conflict happens to other characters and not our dazed narrator robs it of its immediacy.

Interesting in the abstract, thin in the concrete, I think most teenage boys would not be terribly entertained by What Happened.

WWII reading for teens

The Millons blog ran a great post last month of books on WWII for teens. There are several titles that sounded really good (and I highly recommend checking out the full post) but this one really stood out for me:

A Boy at War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor by Harry Mazer - "Adam Pelko has lived for only two weeks in Honolulu, where his father is an officer assigned to the USS Arizona in nearby Pearl Harbor. When he befriends Davi Mori, a high school classmate whose parents are Japanese, Adam's rigid father forbids him to associate with Davi, fearing that the anti-Japanese sentiment so rampant on the island will tarnish the Pelko family and Lieutenant Pelko's navy career. When his father is called back to the ship unexpectedly, Adam slips away from his house the following morning-December 7, 1941-to go fishing with Davi and another classmate. Rowing close to the fleet in Pearl Harbor, they witness the horrific Japanese air attack and are nearly killed themselves, their boat shot from beneath them by a low-flying fighter plane. Desperate to reach home and find out if his father is alive, Adam is spotted by an officer who mistakes him for a young enlisted man and orders him into action to help rescue survivors and restore order."

Lifeblood: Darkside, Book 2 -- Tom Becker

In Darkside, Jonathan Starling discovered the existence of a secret part of London ruled by the descendants of Jack the Ripper and populated by werewolves, vampires and other creepy-crawlies, as well as human criminals of every imaginable type -- blackmailers, thieves, con men, cat burglars, bounty hunters.

Now, in Lifeblood, a gruesome murder has Jonathan and Carnegie, his PI werewolf friend/mentor/protector on the case. They quickly discover that their investigation is connected to the Ripper family and may also shed light on Jonathan's mother's disappearance twelve years ago. Just as quickly, they discover that there's someone out there who will kill to prevent them from solving the case...

Lifeblood is a strong follow-up to Darkside. It's heavy on the action, awash in gallons of blood and features a fight scene every three or four pages. The descriptions of the different parts of Darkside continue to be imaginatively gruesome and easily, the highlight of the book. Definitely recommended to fans of Darren Shan's Cirque du Freak novels.

While I've totally enjoyed both books currently available to those of us in the US, they are geared towards an audience a bit younger than the books we usually cover here at Guys Lit Wire. But I chose to highlight them for a specific reason -- the story behind them. According to an article I found via J.L. Bell's Oz and Ends, the storyline and the ideas behind it didn't come from the author, but from focus groups:

Hothouse uses a market research company to put story ideas to children, who are observed from behind a one-way mirror. Using dummy covers, short excerpts and blurbs to prompt conversation, researchers ask the children their opinions on which characters, plots and ideas they enjoy most. Each child is also visited at home by a researcher, who finds out what kind of books they already own and read. Drawing on this research, Hothouse commissions a team of writers accordingly.

It's similar, I think, to what book packaging companies like Alloy do, and even to what the Stratemeyer Syndicate used to do -- but it seems like Hothouse has gone a step further. I'd love to know what you all think of the idea.

Previously:

Darkside

(cross-posted at Bookshelves of Doom)

Writing Bluesman

Johanna had a a great interview last week with Rob Vollman, writer of the graphic novel Bluesman (which is due out in a new hardcover edition in August):

JDC: What’s a white guy from Oklahoma doing writing a graphic novel about a black guitar player during the Depression?

RV: My impulse on my first two graphic novels, both in collaboration with Pablo G. Callejo, was to write best about what I knew best; the places I lived, the things I’ve done, the passions I’ve developed over the years. So writing Bluesman played to what I felt like were strengths in several ways.

First, I’m a guitar player. I appreciate that there are experiences that only an African-American can have and experience, thus de-legitimizing to a certain extent my ability to write his voice authentically. I know also that there are experiences common only to musicians that I have in common with people of every ethnicity, gender, age, and sexual or political persuasion who, like myself, all happen to be musicians.

Second, I have been an ardent listener and student of blues music since I was fifteen years old. I’ve seen and played a lot of shows, good and bad. I’ve listened to a lot of music. I’ve read a lot of books. For me, the blues is not a topic of research but a passion that has accrued into a rich body of information that was just waiting for me to draw upon it for the guts of a good graphic novel.

Last, and probably least convincingly, I’ve lived in Arkansas and felt comfortable about my ability to convey the dynamic changes in its landscape as Lem made his way across the state. People who have never been to New York might feel some comfort in staging a scene based on their vicarious knowledge of the place and its landmarks. Bluesman is set in places I’ve been, places I’ve felt under my feet. It makes a difference, I think.

So, coming back around to your question, I wrote what I thought I knew best and Bluesman was the result.

Here is a review from Comic Book Galaxy of the earlier multi volume paperback edition:

The historical fiction premise of Bluesman focuses on Lem Taylor and Ironwood Malcott, two African American musicians at the forefront of the American Blues movement of the 1920s. In many ways this story is a natural progression for this creative team (their first collaboration, The Castaways, was set during the Depression), whose love for this particular era of American history is obvious on each page. The lead characters are clearly based on some of the early blues masters – Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, etc – but are original and authentic at the same time. Vollmar writes natural-sounding dialogue, using language and terminology appropriate to the rural South of the 1920s and creating genuine voices for his two main protagonists. Pacing is also something Vollmar has a knack for, wisely breaking the narrative into four chapters, each prefaced by a gorgeous splash page. Callejo’s distinctive black and white artwork is richer and more detailed than in The Castaways. He also introduces some scratchboard pages to great effect. There had been a lot of buzz online leading up to the release of this first volume, but somehow Vollmar and Callejo still managed to exceed my expectations. This is an outstanding, unique story, crafted by an artist and a writer who are passionate about their subject matter and took the time to do extensive research in order to create a realistic period piece.

YA article

Over at boingboing, SF writer Cory Doctorow notes that "Writing for teens kicks ass," a reference to his article over at SF/Fantasy magazine Locus about his experiences writing Little Brother, his first foray into YA:

Take away quote? "That's one of the most wonderful things about writing for younger audiences — it matters."

Here's the article. It's part of Locus's special YA focused issue (check out the table of contents).

Slumberland by Paul Beatty

Slumberland
Paul Beatty
BloomsburyUSA
Available Now

I first read Paul Beatty in college when my African American lit professor assigned The White Boy Shuffle. Everything about Beatty's writing was unlike I'd ever read before. It was edgy and rhythmic. Powerful and hilarious. It was in-your-face and I loved every minute of it. Since then, I've read his two books of poetry and both of his novels (Tuff being the second). One time, I even drove four hours just to see him give a reading. I remember driving down to the event and seeing one of the most amazing sunsets I'd ever seen. Something about that event etched itself in my mind. So it is not surprising that when I saw an advanced copy of his latest book arrive in the mail, I greedily took it home to read.

DJ Darky has created a near-perfect beat. All that's missing from perfection is for legendary jazz master, Charles Stone, to add his own track. The only thing is that Charles Stone hasn't been seen in ages. But when DJ Darky hears a song on a snuff film that is unmistakably Charles Stone, DJ Darky journeys to a still Berlin Wall-split Germany to find his musical hero. It is here that DJ Darky takes a job as a juke-box sommelier at the Slumberland Bar (where white German women seduce black men with the help of DJ Darky's music).

Beatty returns to familiar themes in his latest novel--black identity, music, and urban sub/counter-culture. It starts a bit rough and feels a little too over-stylized in places, but once DJ Darky gets into his quest, the story really picks up. Be aware that the novel is at times filthy, but somehow Beatty's writing makes you fall in love with the language. While not his strongest novel, Slumberland is still a good book and worth reading.

Big love for "Mind the Gap"

Greenman Review liked Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon's latest:

The book is Jazz' story, starting with her return home from school to find her somewhat mysterious mother murdered and her very mysterious "Uncles" running amuck in her house and looking for her. Sensibly, she flees and winds up in the world of the Underground, off the maps and off the grid, and falls in with the Fagin-esque Harry as a result. Harry and his merry band of underaged thieves take her in, but the mystery of her mother's murder isn't put aside so easily, as the Uncles come looking for Jazz even in the deepest tunnels, and it turns out that the beneficent Harry has perhaps more of a link to them than he originally let on.

And, just to complicate matters, there's a handsome thief, a generations-old conspiracy, a cute boy who's a little too grown up for his own good, and, swirling all around them, the howling memories of London itself, enough to drive the unwary mad.

That's the plot, anyway. The real story is what Jazz chooses to do, as the secrets she uncovers lead her back and forth between worlds. There's temptation in each place, and a life to be made there, but there's also the call of discovering why, and it's that urge to know that keeps Jazz, and the book, moving forward toward an unexpected but deeply satisfying conclusion.

Mind the Gap is not a gentle book, and it is not necessarily kind to the innocent. At the same time, it shies knowingly away from starry-eyed romanticism, and from the neat happily-ever-ending one might expect of this sort of through-the-looking-glass tale. That being said, the heart of the book beats true all the way to the end, and Jazz herself could find no other ending and remain true to herself.

I was hoping to review this one (for my July Bookslut column actually) but there was not a single sign of life at the publisher when I emailed. Sigh. It goes on the holiday list now - I'll report back in the distant New Year after I read it.

A Look Into the Future from the Past, Part I. Or The Mostly Philip K. Dick Hour

The Reel Stuff
Edited by Brian Thomsen and Martin H. Greenberg

The book is always better than the movie, isn’t it? That’s what we’re supposed to say, anyway, when our English teachers are listening, but secretly, just sometimes, we like watching the movie more; secretly, we might even believe the movie is better than the fiction it’s based on. That’s OK, say Brian Thomsen and Martin H. Greenberg, co-editors of The Reel Stuff. In fact, you’re allowed to like both the film and the literature; you’re even allowed to like them for completely different reasons.

To encourage such discussions and musings Greenberg and Thomsen have compiled a collection of thirteen stories and novellas upon which contemporary science fiction movies have been "based.: Here are collected the texts which inspired Mimic, Screamers, Amanda and the Alien, The Outer Limits: Sandkings, Total Recall, Millenium, Candyman, Johnny Mnemonic, Enemy Mine, Nightflyers, Reanimator, The Thing, and The Minority Report.

Not all of these were great movies, and not all of them are great stories either. In fact, some of the fun of reading The Reel Stuff is discovering mismatches between the film and the literature, how a marginally good story (like Minority Report) can become a great movie or how a killer story like Johnny Mnemonic can get translated into a pretty sorry film.

In many ways the comparison isn’t fair at all. Movies cost millions of dollars to make and involve dozens if not hundreds of people all with schedules and careers on the line. Nearly every commercial movie has to fall within a prescribed length. To make back the money put into it, a movie has to have broad appeal, or what the directors and producers think is broad appeal, anyway. A sci-fi movie, thus, will tend to have fight scenes, chase scenes, a love interest, some snappy one-liners and an unambiguous (usually happy) ending.

A story, on the other hand, largely composed by a single person, requiring only time and some way of recording words (many of the stories in this volume predate personal computers and were probably drafted with pen and paper or clunky typewriters), can be more flexible. In fact, it almost has to be. A story can be short and taut, or expansive and rambling. It can enter a characters’ head in a way a film cannot. It can create dazzling visual images, but it doesn’t have to. It can end surprisingly. It needs, in short, to compromise a lot less. To Thomsen and Greenberg’s credit, none of the stories in The Reel Stuff are laden with Hollywood clichés. None of the writers of these works seems to have been worried at all about their stories becoming movies.

There science fiction here is both classic and edgy, from contemporary masters William Gibson (Johnny Mnemonic) and Clive Barker ("Forbidden" which was made into the film Candyman) back to the profoundly influential H.P. Lovecraft ("Herbert West—Reanimator" which inspired Reanimator ). Anchoring the collection are no less than three short stories ("Second Variety" – Screamers, "We Will Remember it for You Wholesale" – Total Recall, and Minority Report) by the prolific and enigmatic Philip K. Dick whose novels also inspired the films Bladerunner and A Scanner Darkly. Although in the introduction Thomsen makes mention of Asimov and Clarke, you won’t find their stories here. The Reel Stuff leans toward a darker, more subversive kind of fiction. Most of the writing here, in fact, is so surprising, even startling, that you just might find yourself agreeing with your English teacher.

Still, movies can do all kinds of things stories can’t. Movies are communal experiences, shared like buckets of popcorn, often the center of evenings out, dates, parties, and family nights. You can talk with your friends about a book, but you can’t share the experience since so much of it occurs in your own head (at least not until we can open up our minds with the technologies imagined in Total Recall or Johnny Mnemonic). To be wowed by a film is to grow closer to the people you’ve seen it with.

Because of this, film and literature are linked. Many, maybe most, movies take works of fiction as their inspiration. Screenwriters and directors are driven to share their individual experience of a great work of fiction. So it’s probably best, in the end, to take in both. See the movie, read the story. Or read the story and then see the movie. It doesn’t really matter. Let them be distinct and separate indulgences that nonetheless inform and enrich each other. The Reel Stuff is a good place to start.

Nick and the Glimmung
by Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick began publishing fiction in the 50s and continued until he died in 1982. But his first and only YA novel is being published this year for the first time in the US by Subterranean Press.

Dick is a favorite of movie directors these days, but Nick and the Glimmung is unlikely to ever become a blockbuster sci-fi flick. This isn’t because it lacks spectacle or adventure, but because its vision is far too bleak for Hollywood sci-fi, especially Hollywood sci-fi that features a young protagonist, and his cat.

The future earth which Nick Graham inhabits is dystopic, to say the least. The planet is so overpopulated by humans that they all must live in massive apartment buildings that also extend high into the sky and deep into the earth. Employment is scarce. Many of the "jobs" that people are expected to be grateful for are mere busy work. Nick’s father, Peter Graham, for instance, must check forms to insure that the man sitting next to him has signed the form. Not once has a form gone unsigned. Feeling that he contributes little to society, Nick’s father has grown deeply restless and depressed.

On this future Earth, pets of any kind are illegal on the grounds that they use resources much needed by humans. Nick has an illegal cat named Horace. When Horace is discovered and reported to the authorities, the Graham family chooses to emigrate from Earth and settle with Horace on a new and distant world, Plowman’s Planet. The family is full of hope as they set off, but their new planet is at least as bleak as the old, though far more strange and dangerous. Besides humans, Plowman’s Planet is populated by a range of beings, including "wubs" who speak only through pre-printed cards, "father-things" which produce a kind of clone of those they grow near, chatty "spiddles," wise and productive "printers," devious "werjes," and an evil entity known as the Glimmung.

Nearly all the humans on both Earth and Plowman’s Planet seem fully resigned to a desperate fate--on Earth to their crammed and bureaucratic society, and on Plowman’s Planet to a futile attempt at settlement that has degraded to base survival. When the Grahams arrive on Plowman’s Planet they get immediately lost. After they find their home they are faced with an almost total shortage of water and the self-protective behavior of those around them. They cannot go out at night because of nightmares lurking in the darkness. Their neighbors reveal that no one has been successful farming anything at all.

Finally, even Nick’s hopeful father is affected. When Horace runs away, and when the family first obtains and then loses a book that could help defeat the Glimmung, Nick’s father can do little more than shrug. But there is hope in youth. Nick alone draws on stores of courage and perseverance, setting off to recover Horace and to aid in the planet’s struggle against darkness. Whether Nick succeeds is ambiguous (another reason Hollywood would flee from this story), but out of all this bleakness, Nick’s adventure ultimately invites a belief that the future might be brighter.

Much of Dick’s work might be described as experimental, relying on alienating shifts in point-of-view. Reality blurs for his characters through a haze of drug use, or the confusion of precognition and time travel. Still Nick and the Glimmung may be his most experimental book. Its style recalls absurdist and expressionist writers like Samuel Beckett and Franz Kafka. Here Dick adopts a formal language that is often both distancing and comic as in the anti-pet man’s dialogue when Horace tries to escape:

From his belt the anti-pet man brought out a metal tube which he pointed towards the kitchen. "I will put him to sleep," he said, "and that will end his illegal activity, his illegal walking backwards into the kitchen."

There is also a deep meta-fictional element that tempts comparisons to Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges. Central to Nick’s adventure is a book which comes into his possession. The book both records and predicts everything that occurs on the planet. When the Graham family look themselves up the book, they discover a synopsis of the story in which they are involved:

"They cannot find their farm. The map has been eaten. The creature which smells of fish misleads them until it is too late. They are undone by their love."

More than any of his other novels, Dick’s subject here is not really the future or technology or alien worlds but the human soul in all its facets from its hungry greed to its fearful resignation to its hopeful perseverance to its restorative love. Nick and the Glimmung is a fable that will leave readers puzzled and disturbed but also with a renewed belief in the power and resilience of humanity and especially of humanity’s youth.

You can preorder Nick and the Glimmung from Subterranean Press.