AltWeeklies Wire
It's an Irresistable Literary Conceitnew
Since 1969, George McDonald Fraser's "Flashman" series has been arguably the funniest -- and most educational -- series of novels being published.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
11-10-2005 |
Fiction
Eden Moore Sees Dead Peoplenew
If you're looking for a Stephen King-style, piss-your-pants fright fest, Four and Twenty Blackbirds will disappoint. Priest is at times overly clinical, and many of the main character's ghosts hold no more terror than a kiss from your stinky Aunt Edna.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
10-27-2005 |
Fiction
How Popeye Lost His Eyenew
Little Red Riding Hood, Dick Tracy, Popeye the Sailor Man ... don't let the characters fool you. Big Lonesome isn't written for kids, at least not for the pasteurized milk-fed children of the Disney generations.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
10-13-2005 |
Fiction
A Near War on Junk Foodnew
Like the film Traffic on sugar and triglycerides, Christopher Largen's novel Junk takes us on a tour of a near future "war" on junk food, complete with a food czar, a Food Enforcement Agency, and mandatory sentences for possession of hamburgers, doughnuts and milk shakes.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
10-06-2005 |
Fiction
Novel Goes For Something Sweet Rather Than Scandalnew
A 20-year-old Elvis Presley -- a hillbilly with a funny-sounding name who's just beginning to get noticed on the country music scene -- shares an extended, intimate correspondence with the straight-talking Achsa McEachern, a prodigal 14-year-old Atlanta girl who has skipped three grades in school and is racing toward a bright future in New York City's theater scene, even as her family slowly self-destructs.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
09-01-2005 |
Fiction
At Play in the Fields of the Borgnew
Paul Di Filippo is not a sci-fi master -- not yet, anyway -- but he is a skilled journeyman who has explored more of the sci-fi universe than most.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
08-25-2005 |
Fiction
Book Written as Letter to Bin Ladennew
The novel is written as a letter to Osama bin Laden from a distraught unnamed woman whose husband and son were killed in an al-Qaeda bombing of a London football stadium. It was released in Britain on the same day as the real-life bombings of the London mass transit system.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
08-04-2005 |
Fiction
Author Channels Monty Python In New Booknew
Though there are no Knights Who Say "Ni" in Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail, author Christopher Dawes was clearing channeling Monty Python in his real-life quest aimed at "converting [my] loft and/or finding Holy Grail."
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
07-28-2005 |
Fiction
Sixth Book Concludes the 'B-Boy Blues' Seriesnew
For those of you who have been following the now six-book saga, James Earl Hardy is at last giving these two black same-gender lovers the happy ending they deserve in A House Is Not a Home.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
07-07-2005 |
Fiction
It's Easy to Forget Violent Forces That Create Artnew
Kassten Alonso has translated the same techniques of ceramics into literature in Core: A Romance, a gorgeous, fractured novel about a homicidal sculptor of stone and ceramics.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
06-30-2005 |
Fiction
Tags: Core: A Romance, Kassten Alonso
Book Has Plenty of Requisite Wild Flourishesnew
The People of Paper's dispelling of magic realism is plenty funny and as exhilaratingly freeform as the best of the McSweeney's canon.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
05-26-2005 |
Fiction
Good Read for a Day of Not Doing Muchnew
Atlanta author Patti Callahan Henry's novel is the story of a middle-aged Buckhead woman who suddenly realizes that she's faking her way through life and rushes off to find her true unedited self at ... the beach!
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
04-28-2005 |
Fiction
Author Steve Almond Chows Down Againnew
Steve Almond's new collection includes an entire family of yacht-club-credentialed Republicans, convinced they have all been abducted and implanted with "cartridges" by our alien caretakers; an analysis of the meaning of Michael Jackson's dick; and the pleasures of equine and eye socket sex.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
04-07-2005 |
Fiction
Novel Has Deep and Twisted Centernew
After a 20-year absence, Peter Rushforth has finally given us his second novel, Pinkerton's Sister. (His first was Kindergarten. Think Hansel and Gretel meet the Holocaust.) It's set in fin-de-siecle (Alice likes French, too) New York City, and a plot summary wouldn't tell you a damn thing about it.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
03-03-2005 |
Fiction
Oracles of Things Pastnew
Author Jonathan Odell takes The View from Delphi beyond the typical indictment of segregation's moral absurdity to the historical absurdity of thinking you could ever succeed in keeping people apart.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Thomas Bell |
02-17-2005 |
Fiction
