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| Posted By : Dave Hardy - 8/19/2006 12:15 PM | I read two short novels by Joe Lansdale this week: ZEPPELINS WEST and THE MAGIC LANTERN. Lansdale’s been a favorite author of mine for a while.
ZEPPELINS is a flat out crazy tall-tale that manages to use just about every character from 19th century popular fiction. Lansdale is one of the few authors who really can crack me up. I read a humorous passage by anybody else and I smile. Lansdale's stuff has me rolling.
MAGIC WAGON was his first novel I understand. It sort of merges two trends in his stories: the story that is built on allusions to old pop fiction and the East Texas coming-of-age tale. The characters in WAGON find themselves living out a dime novel plot. The narrator is an orphan who's attached himself to these two men with some mysterious link. It's got a wrestling monkey too, which is just pure gold.
In all truth, everything I've read by Lansdale has been excellent. I’ve never been disappointed by his work.
I've got a couple of reviews of other works. CAPTAINS OUTRAGEOUS is one of his Hap & Leonard crime novels and HIGH COTTON is short stories.
http://www.fireandsword.com/Reviews/captainsoutrageous.html
http://www.fireandsword.com/Reviews/highcotton.html
Dave Hardy
Fire & Sword
Fire & Sword Blog |
| Posted By : Bill Ward - 8/19/2006 2:44 PM | | Ever since I saw Bubba Hotep I've been very interested in Lansdale, Dead in the West is the only novel of his I've read so far and I enjoyed it. I really wanted to get ahold of some of his collections--I'll check out your review of high cotton for sure. |
| Posted By : Thirdy Lopez - 7/20/2007 9:29 AM | This may be an old thread, but I'm a big fan of Lansdale. Anything he writes is simply worth reading. He has a wonderful, dark sense of humor, and some of his tales can be downright chilling.
- Thirdy
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| Posted By : Charles Gramlich - 9/19/2007 11:15 PM | Nightrunners is my favorite by Lansdale. But I do want to read Zepplins west
Charles Gramlich
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| Posted By : Thirdy Lopez - 9/20/2007 2:18 AM | Charles, I've never gotten around to reading that one.
Aurelio Rico Lopez III aka "Thirdy" has had fiction featured in COLD FLESH (Hellbound Books), THE BLACKEST DEATH I, II, and III (Black Death Books), STAR-SPANGLED ZOMBIE (Maniac Press), RAW MEAT (Sideshow Press), SHADOW BOX (Brimstone Press), TRIP THE LIGHT HORRIFIC (RAGE machine Books), DEAD MEN (AND WOMEN) WALKING (Bards and Sages), and THE BOOK OF SHADOWS VOL. I (Brimstone Press). His poems have appeared in Mythic Delirium, Star*Line, Dark Animus, Goblin Fruit, Scifaikuest, Electric Velocipede, Sybil's Garage, The Horror Express, Down In the Cellar, and elsewhere. |
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