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wr ting siibriiitted ti. Hie /d/i'r website llie flit, ttlllllt", are ranked ,\ itf"llllll¥()l‘)fl()'.'/ humiliating. dangerous. disgusting. badly paid or sou! destroying they are tut what riiakres this (lt'llllllltrly depressing is the hideous truth that so Concurrently alien and truly worldly. ()hina MieVIIIe's third New (Ziobu/on novel is again
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SAIIHIUAI llllilU [ it CARL HIMSEN Skinny Dip
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When thirtysomething millionairess Joey Perrone hits the surf after falling from a cruise liner she’s in no doubt that her husband Chaz did the pushing. After she spends the night clinging to a bale of the finest Jamaican grass, hermetic ex-policeman Mike Stranahan comes to her rescue. But now she (out of anger and curiosity) and he (out of lust for her) must piece together the mystery of Joey’s attempted murder (the pre-nup leaves her husband with nothing). It‘s a mystery that will lead them right to the heart of the polluted Floridean Everglades.
Carl Hiaasen has been producing these kind of pseudo pulpy melodramatic thrillers for over a decade now and, at its best, his work puts some of the
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Silmarillroiz has in t .e. been ruled out. Firmware, fate and destir‘, .lle' l()ll’.fl"lf lllr' '. trut new-i to the detri'rir-i". of the hook". r'orie|.iti‘.e anrl r.()l‘fl.'(:l(]lll() 'litllztl’.“."-
A grotesque di-light. /ro/J (,‘ourriii/ is a singular novel ir: its r)'.'v’l‘. right. though neuw‘r )iiieis to New ()robu/on may prefer ti. start with. the much acclairiied Perri/do Street .‘Jtt'rtiori. (Zhina Mieyille is a fascinating. idiosyncratic writer of great poise. but of whom suspect we still await the magnum opus, (Mark l-.diiiundsoni
Putting the great American satirists to shame
more supposedly serious great American satirists (Updike, Mailer, Vidal) to shame. With a style that has clearly been honed from hours reading James D MacDonald‘s Travis McGee pulps, Zora Neale Hurston‘s superb collection of short anthropological tales Spunk and the more laid back novels of Elmore Leonard, Hiaasen is now a master of his form. Easily slipping between accomplished characterisation and snarling satire. when
it bites, it bites hard.
Here Hiaasen loads all his disaffection with the States into Chaz Perrone, Joey's corrupt. ecology-exploiting biologist of a husband, as his supposedly deceased wife says of him: ‘The guy’s a primitive and I never saw it; a primitive with a PhD.’ This is a joy which should be filed next to Hiaasen‘s Sick Puppy and that DVD of the first series of Columbo.
(Paul Dale)
106 THE LIST Cd SOD 1' Oct $00.1
comicsGlist.co.uk
Litjl’r Ftl lE_l?£; i)»\l«\)[ )‘v EIGHTBALL NO 23
Daniel Clowes
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deals and a bah. haw“ ‘f()l‘.“ nothing to sr iftwr‘. Daniel (Lli >wes' uneiiingly (,‘y’lllt,(tl. \.‘v./i<:l«.ed|j.' funny outlook on the world. In the latest ssue of his far too occasional coriiir. ()lowes ridicules the superhero iiivth .vrth a book length story titled 'lht- [)eath my. It's the flipside of a (geitairi popular “.'/(3f)3;flll(llll(] lycra clad Vigilante Here. ‘.‘/e meet Andy. orphan and nerd. a kid who can't get a girl and has one friend. the psychopath in the making I ouie.
lhen Andy accidentally unlocks secret superpowers. bequeathed to him by his dead scientist father and activated when the pubescent kid starts smoking cigarettes. When Andy fires up he can beat foes to a bloody pulp. And he has a gun that makes things disappear '.‘.’llfl a (iuiet ‘pop', V‘Jllfl great power comes greater iriesiionsibility. as Andy starts making people vanish jllf3l because they annoy flllll.
Beautifully rendered as a series of episodic cartoon strips. ‘lhe Death Ray is a terrifically twisted slice of sociopathy, iMiles f—lU'd‘L‘lr
LITLHAHY (Qt, ASSN, lHANSl/‘xl IUN JIMBO IN PURGATORY Gary Panter (Fantagrai)hicsi 0..
Size does matter. With its large format page and panelling. detailed bOrdering and mix of image and text. Gar, Panter's four years iii
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Mark Bode seeriis destined to be the Nick Cassavetes of graphic art. .Just as the latter's attempt to complete a project begun by his father John only succeeded lll showing up his own limitations 119973; She's So Love/yr. this re- iriiaginirig of L Frank Baum's classrc children's tale ll)\/liQS an unflattering comparison between Mark and his late father Vaughn.
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THE SEARCHER AND THE SWORD
Wendy & Richard Pini l[ t' L (It units) .0.
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I//()ue_'.t fantasy (Loiiiii, about
elves that mixes thr- sword’ri'sorrxrr,r adventures of / ord of the Ring}, With Manda inspired art is. 2“) years on. sorriethiiig of a legend, [his all ll‘r.'/ story the first in years sees the adopted human daughter of VVUlfllffffl ll HUI/est", print iiile heioi alteriiptirig to unite elves and humans in peace lhel’ini's fantasy world has (,‘I‘n’lrl,’ lost little of it'. /est, spirit or /ll)l)/ pace for long time fans. l or new readers. there is much to be hooked by here. despite a lack of ‘edginess' and the fact that there's an enormous back story to get to grips .‘Jlifl. fiut this is easily : ssuaged by the array of early Quest reprints available. lliis falls into many of the traps of it's genre with all it's AD8D connotations) but at heart it is still a charrriirig no brainer. rDanny Gra/doni