A Hell of a Woman

This story by Jim Thompson might not be for everyone. It is very dark and disturbing. But, it will keep a reader's interest, I think.

It is the story of a door to door salesman named Dillon, and how he gets involved with a troubled young woman with an evil aunt. The aunt has a BIG stash of money. One thing leads to another and several people, including the aunt and Dillon's wife, end up dead. Dillon's boss ends up arrested for a crime he did not commit, but there is poetic justice there. Dillon runs off with the young woman, but things turn out badly for her.

The writing is very good - a reader can really feel like he/she is in the midst of the story. Very gritty, noire and all that. Some of the slang is a bit outdated and hard to follow - the book was written in the 1950's - but the context makes it understandable I thought. Dillon's mental state is "questionable" as the story progresses.

In the original edition of the book, the last part was written as two columns side by side. One was the story as Dillon was seeing it, and the other was the story as actually happening. In this edition, they are mixed as alternating lines in regular type and italics in one column which makes things a little hard to follow. BUT, be patient and read slowly. The ending is rather shocking and surprising.

Not recommended for the faint of heart as they used to say.

Slan Hunter

This book, Slan Hunter, is the sequel to Slan written by A E Van Vogt in the 1940's. The present book was started by Van Vogt but not finished at this death; Kevin Anderson recently finished it from Van Vogt's start. Overall, I liked Slan Hunter; looking at some other reviews, I wonder if we all read the same book given the negative comments of some reviewers.

Before reading this book, I would recommend reading Slan, or it may be a bit hard to follow Slan Hunter. One thing readers of both may notice is that Anderson did a decent job on continuity with Slan and modernized the wording somewhat, so it does not appear as dated as Slan does today.

In this book, a slan baby is born to two people who appear human and all hell breaks loose. Kier Gray is deposed and held by John Petty of the secret police; Petty is often called the slan hunter as in the title, but it seems to me that the title was intended to point to something else - but I am not sure what. Jommy and Kathleen, both are slans, are back and in love. Granny is also back as are some other characters from Slan.

The tendrilless slans start an invasion of Earth from their base on Mars and really damage Earth. As the action proceeds, the regular slans, who had been hiding for years, make an appearance and put a stop to the fighting. Jommy has his tendrils cut off before this, but has them restored.

The book ends with the slan baby from the first part of the book getting the identity of an important person who lived long before the time in either book. A possible setup for another sequel? Perhaps.

If you liked Slan, but thought it a little dated, you should really like Slan Hunter. Happy reading!

Aurora Rising

Aurora Rising is the latest anthology of works from Aurora Wolf, the Literary Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy. It is available on amazon.com and elsewhere.

Full Disclosure: One of the stories in this anthology, The Next Stage, was written by me. Of course, I think it is a great story - hope readers do too.

I have read some of the other stories and liked them as well. Many of the authors are just starting out (like me) and/or trying to get established. Hopefully, people reading this review will give the anthology a try and help to get some new talent "discovered" by the public at large.

One point of potential interest is that all the stories have an illustration, many of which I found to be very clever.

Well, see what you think. Thanks.