Books

Yesterday I treated myself to Frederick Manfred's CONQUERING HORSE, a wonderful novel told entirely from the point-of-view of a young Sioux experiencing various rights-of-passage before leading his tribe of Yanktons. The book is beautifully written and remarkably detailed — either Manfred did an extraordinary amount of research or he had a particularly vivid imagination. I suspect that it's equal parts of both.

Manfred, who also wrote as Feike Feikema, is probably best known among western readers for LORD GRIZZLY and RIDERS OF JUDGEMENT, and writers like Larry McMurtry (who adapted RIDERS for a mini-series some years back) consider him influential in their work. Over the years, I've collected signed copies of all of Manfred's books — most of them first editions — and even have some signed & annotated volumes from his personal library (like the complete works of Edgar Alan Poe). Manfred died in 1994, so I ration myself to one or two of his books each year. (I know that's silly, but I do the same thing with John D. MacDonald and some other writers). It's a shame that most of his books have fallen out-of-print.

Duane Swierczynski's SEVERANCE PACKAGE reads
like a novelization of a screenplay based on a video game. A group of people are called into the office on a Saturday…and then told by their boss that the company they work for is shutting down, that they are locked in the building (which is boobytrapped with sarin gas, bombs, etc), and that they are all going to be executed…unless they choose to drink a poison cocktail instead.

It's a high
concept idea that ultimately has no substance beyond that. It never
really pays off in terms of character or plot…instead, what we get is
one violent fight sequence after another which would play
much better on screen than it does on the page. On paper, it's monotonous rather than thrilling.
All the fights tend to blend into one another after a while, even though
Duane keeps dialing up the gore in an effort to keep our attention. Overall, the book reads like a
martial arts/espionage twist on the familiar FRIDAY THE 13th/HALLOWEEN
slasher movie formula…with a bunch of victims up against an
unstoppable, almost superhuman, killer.

It's obvious that that Duane
is a wonderfully imaginative, highly skilled writer…but, in my
opinion, he's skating on flash here…he's taking the easy way and not
using his considerable talent to its full potential. He could be
writing great books…noir classics…but instead he's going for
gimmicks, in-jokes, and fights. It's as if in every scene he's trying
to impress his friends ("hey, look at this guys,
it's gonna be cool!") instead of trying to create interesting, believable characters and tell a
compelling story. It's a shame that he's devoting his efforts to superficial splatter-fests when he's clearly capable of writing
something with real substance and staying power.

SEVERANCE PACKAGE would have worked much
better as a comicbook…which it, essentially, is (the cover and the
artwork that's interspersed throughout the book make that comparison
inevitable) or a screenplay, which it probably will become (if it hasn't already). And yet, as hip and edgy as the book wants to be, there's
actually a really dated feel to it all…like you're reading the novelization of the fifth
sequel to BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER. Haven't we seen the super sexy, invincible, gun-toting martial arts babe a thousand times now?

As I said when he wrote the far superior THE WHEELMAN…he's got a great book in him, but this isn't it. SEVERANCE PACKAGE reflects all the weaknesses of THE WHEELMAN and few
of its many strengths.

A reader alerted me to this review of my book .357 VIGILANTE from Johnny La Rue's Crane Shot blog:

"It's straightforward and clean without
subtext, symbolism or suspense. Some of the dialogue could easily come
out of David Hasselhoff's mouth, it's puerile enough. The book's also a
bit long at 214 pages. But it's a good, brisk read with plenty of
action and pop culture references to make it a slicked-up, dumbed-down
PG-13 version of the Executioner"

I'm always amazed when people discover the .357 VIGILANTE books, since they were obscure even when they were published nearly 25 years ago…

…but the reader won't. DEVIL MAY CARE is billed as a new 007 novel by Sebastian Faulks "writing as Ian Fleming." But he's not. He's writing as Richard Maibaum, the Bond screenwriter, only not as well. This feels like a limp effort to rip-off GOLDFINGER…the movie, not the book…and it fails on just about every level. This isn't a bad book, it's not just a very good one. It's literary cool whip and, as an adventure-thriller, not nearly as satisfying as even the weakest book by Barry Eisler (the RAIN series) or Lee Child (the REACHER series). It feels as if Faulks, the brilliant author of the amazing BIRDSONG, dashed this off in a weekend, making it up as he went along. Here's an example of the prose:

Bond lit a cigarette. It was pointless to argue with M
when he had one of these bees in his bonnet. "Is there anything else I
need to know about Dr. Gorner?"

Bees in his bonnet? Not
only is that a cliche, it's not something I would I would expect Bond
to say…Miss Marple maybe, but 007?

DEVIL MAY CARE is filled with references — direct, indirect, figurative, and pastiche — to previous Bond novels and films, characters and situations. Most of all, he tries to evoke FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and GOLDFINGER, practically lifting scenes and characters from those tales and rewriting them in new locales. It doesn't work and only makes you realize how much better those books — and movies — were than this thin and unimaginative novel.

Faulks' own creations are familiar and, at the same time, preposterous. The mwa-ha-ha bad guy is a pale imitation of DR. NO…with a simian hand. Yeah, you read right, one of his hands is exactly like an ape's. And he has a sidekick that's yet another variation of Oddjob and, dare I say it, Jaws.

The biggest problem with the book — beyond the thin writing and familiar scenario — is the depiction of Bond himself, who comes across slow-witted and strangely chaste…and not the least bit dangerous. He may have "cruel eyes," but that's all that's nasty about him. He knocks out bad guys instead of killing them (when doing so puts his own life in jeopardy) and refuses to bed women who offer themselves to him. Ho-hum. Even worse, he makes one dumb move after another… and the reader will be way, way ahead of Bond when it comes to the "twists" in the book, which are so loudly telegraphed that they might as well be emblazoned across the cover.

All in all, DEVIL MAY CARE is a weak tie-in and a poor continuation of the literary franchise. I expected much, much more from an author of Faulks' talents.

UPDATE: I just read an interview with Faulks where he says he purposely wrote the book in six weeks to mirror Fleming's own work-pace. It reads like he wrote it faster than that. By comparison, I wrote most of my DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MONK books in eight week to 12 weeks, often while also writing and producing a TV show or movie, to meet rigid publisher deadlines. My brother Tod wrote his BURN NOTICE tie-in in eight weeks and, though I am obviously biased, it is a hell of a lot better than DEVIL MAY CARE.