Author of adventure/thriller and horror fiction

13 REASONS WHY

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13 REASONS WHY is a beautiful ordeal of a series that deals with teenage suicide, bullying and rape.

After Hannah’s suicide, she leaves behind a series of cassette tapes explaining why she killed herself. These are delivered to her friend Clay, one of a group of people who listen to the tapes and all, in some way, contributed to her decision to end her life. What follows is a story told in two expertly meshed timelines, the past in which we see Hannah alive and struggling to make it through high school, and the present in which Clay slowly comes to understand what was going on inside her mind and what led to her death.

The other kids want Clay to keep the tapes secret, worried what he’ll do after he finishes them. As Clay listens, he becomes increasingly motivated to seek justice for Hannah. All of this occurs while the school girds itself for a lawsuit from Hannah’s grief-stricken parents.

The show really sucked me in. This is an emotionally exhausting, powerful, crushing, heartbreaking story. The intrigue and central plot questions–notably, what did Clay do to contribute to her decision–beg for a binge watch, though I found it too harrowing for that.

What made it all come together for me was its realism. The show has been criticized for trivializing and even glamorizing suicide. There may be something to these criticisms, but I was drawn to the themes and how they are dropped on us. For a show about kids, it treats its viewers as adults by introducing moral ambiguity everywhere. Right and wrong are not spoon fed to us. What we’re given is two sides of an event and challenged to evaluate the intended and unintended consequences of actions both large and small. There is no systematic bullying, no sustained malice. Just high school–high school culture and young people struggling to find themselves, fit in and avoid social embarrassment. Just kids acting out to protect themselves in some way, hurting Hannah in the process until she becomes road kill and loses hope. Even the show’s real villain callously regards women as objects but treats his buddies with love and support. Most of the parents, while clueless what’s going on in their kids’ lives, are portrayed as trying their best. How the school responds is by the book but unfit to the task, unable to address small things that create a hostile climate for some, and big things as experienced by victims unable to speak up for themselves. Hannah herself is not perfect and makes mistakes, and neither is Clay, though his pursuit of justice for her takes on an Old Testament feel after a while. And while we sympathize with Hannah, we can’t help at times being angry at her.

I did have some problems with the storytelling. One episode involves a character hallucinating out of despair or guilt, a device that never works for me. And the last episode fails to tie up many loose ends, which I found disappointing. There are plenty of seeds planted for a second season, but I don’t really want to see it. For me, 13 REASONS WHY is a complete story and doesn’t need it. In any case, the show’s creators could have wrapped everything up more neatly while still drawing people to watch a season 2. That last episode could have been a 2-hour episode.

In the end, 13 REASONS WHY is a grueling watch that tells a powerful story, doesn’t instruct us where to put our sympathies, and puts all moral judgment on us as the viewer based on presented facts. For me, that makes it great television.

AMERICAN WAR by Omar El Akkad

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american warAMERICAN WAR, a debut novel by Canadian journalist Omar El Akkad, is a beautifully written portrait of a Southern family affected by, and then affecting, a future civil war between the Northern and Southern United States.

In 2074, rising sea levels due to global warming have wiped out the coasts, pushing millions of refugees inland, and the lands near the equator have grown nearly too hot for human habitation. After the President signs into law a complete prohibition on fossil fuels, several Southern states declare independence, which ignites a second Civil War.

The story focuses on the Chestnut family living in Louisiana when war breaks out, chronicling them losing everything, and the commitment of Sarat, one of the Chestnut daughters, to fighting the North to the bitter end to gain revenge for her family’s suffering.

The novel has been hailed as being prescient and a cautionary tale for our times, but for me, it widely missed that mark. The story reads more like the old Civil War was lifted out of history and placed in the future, with fossil fuels instead of slavery being the issue that ignites the war. Artifacts such as short articles and transcripts punctuate the chapters, providing background on the war, but while they add somewhat to the setting, they don’t really get into the key political and cultural roots of the conflict. Despite the rising sea levels and use of vehicles and modern weaponry such as drones, the novel really feels like the last Civil War being refought. In my view, the result misses the real divide in the USA, which is more about class versus class, rural versus urban, and Red versus Blue tribal worldviews. So for me, I hard a hard time connecting El Akkad’s world with the one I live in.

The real strength of the novel isn’t its ideas but its execution. The setting is beautifully rendered and lived-in, the characters and dialogue natural and engaging. It’s a literary civil war, one that’s a joy to read purely for its narrative prose. There isn’t a lot of action, so it’s this prose and general intrigue with the war itself that keeps it moving. Instead, the rich and deep setting is front and center in the book, and for me made AMERICAN WAR worth reading.

Recommended for readers who enjoy literary dystopian fiction.

THE EXPANSE

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I’m furious with everybody I know for not drilling into my head that I needed to watch THE EXPANSE. I’m nearing the end of the second season. In my view, it’s one of the best things on television, as good as GAME OF THRONES, and [gets ready to duck tomatoes] better sci-fi than even FIREFLY and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

Based on the series of novels by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (writing under the name James S. A. Corey), this sprawling epic is set in a future in which humanity has colonized the solar system using pre-FTL propulsion technology, but is hardly united. Three factions push against each other in constant tension that threatens to break out into all-out war. Run by the UN, Earth is polluted and decadent, filled with teeming unemployed, but remains the strongest faction. Its corporations operate mining operations along the asteroid belt and outer planets, where a recluse and rough Belter faction longs for independence. In between is Mars, strong, independent and militaristic.

THE EXPANSE focuses on multiple characters and interweaving storylines without a weak link in the lot. The main storyline focuses on James Holden and his crew of Belters, who have taken over a Martian warship and are riding freelance between the factions. At the heart of the conflict is an alien lifeform that offers either an amazing leap for humanity or its extinction, depending on who is judging it. Additional storylines involve a Martian marine, Belter detective and senior UN official.

The world building is deep and richly detailed, the dialogue crackling, the plot ebbing and flowing just right with tension, the characterization perfect even with minor players, and the action heartpounding. I really don’t have anything negative to say about the show other than lament it might end after the third season, based on rumors it might be canceled.

If you like great sci-fi, check it out if you haven’t already!

LITTLE HEAVEN by Nick Cutter

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little-heavenNick Cutter (Craig Davidson) roared onto the horror scene with his novel THE TROOP, quickly following up on that success with THE DEEP, THE ACOLYTE and most recently LITTLE HEAVEN.

His books hit me in a unique way, a completely mixed reaction. The writing is always terrific. The pages fly by. The dialogue is generally good. The monster element is the real star of the show. It’s fantastic, especially in THE TROOP. Those freaking worms. He packed so much skin-crawling horror out of one simple device that it’s clear the guy’s a genius at the horror game.

On the other hand, for some reason I never really connect with his characters, who strike me as stereotypes, and the books often feel kitchen sinked to me. THE DEEP starts off with a horrible pandemic that is largely tangential to the plot; the second half is basically one very well-written, horrifying but ultimately fatiguing set piece after another. About 80% into it, completely numbed, I was flipping pages past brilliant horror scenes just to get to the end. Otherwise, there are plenty of conventions popularized by Stephen King, resulting in books that read like King on crack.

LITTLE HEAVEN is his most ambitious work to date and probably his best. A big book with plenty of action, plenty of horror, an intriguing evil, and parallel timelines that come together nearly flawlessly to double the tension and final impact.

The novel begins with introduction of three major characters, Micah, Ebenezer and Minerva, outlaws who decide to join forces after a gunfight. As I said, their story is told in two timelines. In the past, they’re hired by a woman to travel deep into the wilderness to Little Heaven, a community built by a religious movement similar to a cult, and maybe rescue her nephew. They arrive to find the community under siege by an ancient evil that wants them all. In the present, they must return to the black rock overlooking the site to confront the evil one last time.

Again, I didn’t quite connect with the characters, whom I found unlikable. But Cutter does his magic, sweeping me, a horror snob, through his epic. Every night I returned to its pages to see what happened next, finding the narrative, story development, descriptions and the antagonist all executed brilliantly.

If you like mass market horror, Cutter’s a must read, and LITTLE HEAVEN is one of his best.

THE DISCOVERY (2017)

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Starring Robert Redford and Jason Segal, THE DISCOVERY (2017, Netflix) starts off with a fantastic premise. What if a scientist discovered proof that human consciousness departs the body at death?

It’s months after the Discovery, and the world is not a happy place. Millions have committed suicide, opting out of this existence–maybe in hopes of something better, to join loved ones they’ve lost, or because their lives on Earth have become too difficult. Will (Jason Segal) rides a ferry to the island where he grew up. He wants to see his father, Dr. Thomas Harbor (Redford), with whom he worked to achieve the Discovery. Will meets a woman named Isla (yes, all these names are symbolic) on the ferry, and we come to understand he think the Discovery was a mistake.

His father is now living in a secluded mansion with Will’s odd brother, which is overrun by people directly impacted by the Discovery–suicides and those who lost loved ones to suicide. These people live at the house organized in something like a cult, and they’re helping Harbor with the Discovery’s next phase–to see where the soul goes after death.

Wow, right? But the result is pretty mixed.

The film has gotten some criticism for being a bit of a slog. It is slow and a bit dreary, true, but I liked the low-key aspect of it, how it worked with the fantastic nature of the Discovery itself. There’s quite a bit of philosophy in the dialogue, as people question life and death in light of knowing with certainty something comes after. Big ideas are made deeply personal within the context of the relationships between Will and both his family and Isla.

In the second half of the film, however, it started to get off track for me for one big reason: it started to scream ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND ripoff. Charlie McDowell, the writer-director, was previously compared to screenwriter Charlie Kaufmann for his debut THE ONE I LOVE. In the beginning of THE DISCOVERY, we have a lot of similar elements as ETERNAL SUNSHINE–downcast man meets and spars/flirts with wacky but troubled girl with dyed hair, there’s a fantastic invention that changes everything, a funny lab tech, etc. By the second half, THE DISCOVERY became so blatantly aligned with ETERNAL SUNSHINE that I knew exactly how it would end far before it happened. Even the score sounded the same. But unfortunately without the same strong emotional chemistry that Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet achieved.

The result is a thoughtful film with good writing and terrific potential that falls flat, especially if you’ve seen it before in ETERNAL SUNSHINE.

WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP (1999)

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In 1890, hard times fell on the town of Black River Falls, Wisconsin. The mines shut down, dooming its residents to poverty. Over the next 10 years, many people left, and those who stayed–mostly German, Norwegian and other immigrants–succumbed to despair and madness.

A woman is buried alive. Two boys run away from home, find a farm, and promptly murder its owner. A young woman takes her three children to the beach and drowns them, one after the other, while other people watch. A woman is repeatedly arrested for smashing windows. A Norwegian farmer goes insane every winter. Another farmer commits suicide by blowing his head off with dynamite. A woman, afraid the rash on her back was lethal, burned herself alive with gasoline.

In 1973, Michael Lesy collected images by Charles Van Schaick and newspaper articles depicting murder, insanity, hauntings, suicide, disease and devil worship in his book WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP. In 1999, the book was made into a documentary, which you can watch below. Grim stuff.