Mark Frost's The Six Messiahs has been an interesting beast to solve, what with figuring out partway through that it's a follow up, ordering the first book, then realizing I already own the first book.Which will make reading through that volume more interesting, since some of the major characters here have a history there.
Anyway, we open on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his brother Innes getting ready to board a ship for America for tour to celebrate Doyle's most famous creation, who had recently been revealed to have gone flying off a cliff with his archnemesis Moriarty. Mind you, people in both England and the US spend most of the book asking Doyle how Sherlock survived the fall, since no one can believe he died.
As the ship sails, we get glimpses of other characters, some of whom are already state side, like Walks Alone, the Dakota assassin; Rev A. Glorious Day, who's busy building a utopia west of Flagstaff; Jacob, the Chicago Orthodox rabbi and kabbalah headed to Arizona; Kanazuchi, a Japanese man hiding among the Chinese with a quest of his own.
On the way over, Doyle meets Lionel, Jacob's nephew; and in New York, Presto, a Indian man with a quest of his own. As the book continues, we find that most of the characters are seeking stolen holy books, most of which have been stolen by a German man, who a few decades later would have been an Aryan ideal.We also connect with Jack, who Doyle knew ten years prior, and whom served as the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, it would seem, including falling off a cliff while killing his evil brother. Most of the characters have been having dreams of tunnels under the sand, and standing with five others to do...something. None of them particularly remember the dream well enough to figure that part out.
It becomes a very merry chase through New York City to Chicago, then west to Phoenix and eventually The New City as we finally find the destiny of the Six Messiahs (from a Jewish concept that the Messiah is less a single person destined to throw off oppression and more a handful of people throughout time who hold the world on their shoulders) and the redemption of some while others fall.
I really enjoyed the book, although frankly, the ending is quite abrupt. We get several big revelations, followed by wrapping up 400+ pages of ecumenical mysticism with about 2 pages of doing the thing and finishing the story, which leaves several dangling plot threads. It would have benefitted from a bit of expansion here.
Monday, May 25, 2020
Monday, May 18, 2020
Ain't No Canyon Low Enough
So, in finishing up Gregory Hinton's published works, we close with Santa Monica Canyon, which is another California story, this time set in and around Los Angeles. Focused on Mark, a younger man dating a big time film actor, and John, an artist living in the eponymous canyon, we watch as their lives entwine and connections that shouldn't exist between them become apparent.
We open on Mark, who teaches poetry at a city college, swimming in the Pacific, getting noticed coming out of the sea by John, who needs models for his paintings and sketches. John has taken to hiring in models from various agencies, but this hasn't worked out well, since the first one we meet is on drugs and wants to be an escort more than a sitter. We see Mark returning to the stylish DeMille estate home he shares with long time lover Edward, who's hosting the Lame Ducks, the inner circle and the only people who particularly know about the relationship between Mark and Edward. Mark is uncomfortable with the trappings of fame and the severe closet Edward is forced to reside in. Edward is also over 10 years older than Mark, and uses "Boy" as a pet name. Besides the obvious stresses there, a video of Edward getting serviced by an anonymous john has been making the rounds, leading to the favorite game of rumor quashing.
Eventually, John does approach Mark on the beach, and convince him to be a sitter for his art. What eventually causes Mark to relent is finding sketches of Edward among John's drawings that he knows nothing of. Edward gets an offer from an up and coming actress to star in a project she's working on, and ends up leaving Mark for the summer to film, citing Mark's need to heal from the recent death of his father as a reason for Mark not to tag along. Mark hits a local lit store and gets more information on John from a gossipy frenemy of John's, who discusses how John's lost talent since his break up with Danny, a caterer who also served as a model for John.
As John and Mark grow closer, Mark's distance from Edward leads to fighting between them. Edward eventually calls and tells Mark he sent him a letter that he wants Mark to burn without reading. Which spirals into Mark finding the full series of sketches John did of Edward that reveal the truth about a lot of things between all sets of lovers.
In the end, we are left to decide for ourselves what we think of everything, as we see everyone without masks or pretenses, and like viewers of the portraits, it's up to us to see what the artits wants us to see and make up or own minds about the truth in the picture.
Like the last one, this one also name drops quite a bit, as we in flashback meet Christopher Isherwood and his partner and their circle of friends.
It's also kind of a heavy trip, and I find myself understanding but hating the choices made in the end.
We open on Mark, who teaches poetry at a city college, swimming in the Pacific, getting noticed coming out of the sea by John, who needs models for his paintings and sketches. John has taken to hiring in models from various agencies, but this hasn't worked out well, since the first one we meet is on drugs and wants to be an escort more than a sitter. We see Mark returning to the stylish DeMille estate home he shares with long time lover Edward, who's hosting the Lame Ducks, the inner circle and the only people who particularly know about the relationship between Mark and Edward. Mark is uncomfortable with the trappings of fame and the severe closet Edward is forced to reside in. Edward is also over 10 years older than Mark, and uses "Boy" as a pet name. Besides the obvious stresses there, a video of Edward getting serviced by an anonymous john has been making the rounds, leading to the favorite game of rumor quashing.
Eventually, John does approach Mark on the beach, and convince him to be a sitter for his art. What eventually causes Mark to relent is finding sketches of Edward among John's drawings that he knows nothing of. Edward gets an offer from an up and coming actress to star in a project she's working on, and ends up leaving Mark for the summer to film, citing Mark's need to heal from the recent death of his father as a reason for Mark not to tag along. Mark hits a local lit store and gets more information on John from a gossipy frenemy of John's, who discusses how John's lost talent since his break up with Danny, a caterer who also served as a model for John.
As John and Mark grow closer, Mark's distance from Edward leads to fighting between them. Edward eventually calls and tells Mark he sent him a letter that he wants Mark to burn without reading. Which spirals into Mark finding the full series of sketches John did of Edward that reveal the truth about a lot of things between all sets of lovers.
In the end, we are left to decide for ourselves what we think of everything, as we see everyone without masks or pretenses, and like viewers of the portraits, it's up to us to see what the artits wants us to see and make up or own minds about the truth in the picture.
Like the last one, this one also name drops quite a bit, as we in flashback meet Christopher Isherwood and his partner and their circle of friends.
It's also kind of a heavy trip, and I find myself understanding but hating the choices made in the end.
Monday, May 11, 2020
Rocky Mountain High
The Way Things Ought To Be by Gregory Hinton tells a variation on coming out that becomes odd in its contemporary historical narrative. I think some of this comes from being published in 2003, but telling a story from 30 years earlier, in 1974 Boulder, Colorado.
We open on the break up of our main character, Kingston James, and his boyfriend, Lex, following witnessing an airplane crash while hiking. We hear bits and pieces out their foibles, from moving to California and back, how they met in a bible study group, how their Study group leader Nicolas called King's parents and told them about their son's sins.
King ends up moving out, taking on a rental room in an off campus apartment, where his new roommates share a bedroom with a bunk bed. The one roommate's girlfriend, Jen, makes lot of noise when she visits. He starts dating Sam, but Sam worries that King is growing too attached. Sam and Theo get King to attend a dance, where same sex couples dance to gain visibility, seeing one of Jen's sorority sisters on the floor. This leads to his roommates kicking him out, leading King to move into a studio courtesy of Theo, who's the brains behind the local Gay Rights organization. (Theo isn't comfortable being the face of the movement, so that falls to Sam; Theo is the one behind the scenes organizing everything.)
King goes back to a hotel with Matthew, whom he meets at a bar. Matthew is a romantic, like King, but Matthew, who's real name is Ralph, is also married to a woman in Pittsburgh. He buys King a leather jacket and goes back to Pittsburgh.
Jen winds up pregnant and moves in across from King and adjacent to Theo. When King's friend Tim gets killed by the cops after being caught doing lewd acts behind the Taco Bell, Jen joins the protest with King.
We see King meeting his Creative Writing teacher. Connie, at Le Bar, one of the 3 bars at the Boulderado hotel. She shows up with her bisexual boyfriend, Robert, because Allen Ginsburg will be there reading his work. (There's a bit of name dropping in here, as Ginsburg and William S. Burroughs both show up. By far the best moment is a few pages when Ginsburg and King wind up doing Transcendental Mediation together later on.)
King and Theo hook up, but despite Theo's insistence on sex being sex, it becomes obvious he has feelings for King; indeed, when Theo winds up dating Barry, Theo starts bringing home as many men as he can to make enough noise to annoy King through the walls.
Barry is the UC quarterback whom King meets at the local bathhouse. While Barry is very closeted (indeed, he has a fiance) due to his football stardom and likely draft by the Miami Dolphins, he and King share a very nice romance. Which ends rather abruptly one night as King sends Barry home so he can think, and the next thing we as readers know is King is in the hospital having been raped and bleeding profusely. Given Barry is the one who called the ambulance, everyone thinks he did it, but King denys that. (We do find out later on what actually happened.)
King's father gets drunk and drives to the hospital, but he takes a header off a cliff on the way. (King's family relations are a long involved subplot of the book. Dad's a drunk who gets sober; Mom hates sober dad. His brither is distant from the parents, and is also gay.)
Anyway, eventually all the plots come around and we finish with King graduating.
So, ultimately, I can't really comment on how close to reality this is in terms of 1974 Boulder. I will say it is nice to read a book about gay folks of the 70's which isn't coastal or all about rich gay folks, or worse, some midwestern morality play. On the other hand, most of the language of liberation and assimilation take on more modern terminology, and no one gets referred to as a homophile. While I'm sure someone will point out where I am wrong here, I don't think there was any kind of coordinated national movement quite this early, most of the organization was regional at best.
However, I think King is kind of Shakespearean in his own way, I'm sure more than a few readers can identify with his struggles with love and sex, and how the two, while separate, intertwine.
We open on the break up of our main character, Kingston James, and his boyfriend, Lex, following witnessing an airplane crash while hiking. We hear bits and pieces out their foibles, from moving to California and back, how they met in a bible study group, how their Study group leader Nicolas called King's parents and told them about their son's sins.
King ends up moving out, taking on a rental room in an off campus apartment, where his new roommates share a bedroom with a bunk bed. The one roommate's girlfriend, Jen, makes lot of noise when she visits. He starts dating Sam, but Sam worries that King is growing too attached. Sam and Theo get King to attend a dance, where same sex couples dance to gain visibility, seeing one of Jen's sorority sisters on the floor. This leads to his roommates kicking him out, leading King to move into a studio courtesy of Theo, who's the brains behind the local Gay Rights organization. (Theo isn't comfortable being the face of the movement, so that falls to Sam; Theo is the one behind the scenes organizing everything.)
King goes back to a hotel with Matthew, whom he meets at a bar. Matthew is a romantic, like King, but Matthew, who's real name is Ralph, is also married to a woman in Pittsburgh. He buys King a leather jacket and goes back to Pittsburgh.
Jen winds up pregnant and moves in across from King and adjacent to Theo. When King's friend Tim gets killed by the cops after being caught doing lewd acts behind the Taco Bell, Jen joins the protest with King.
We see King meeting his Creative Writing teacher. Connie, at Le Bar, one of the 3 bars at the Boulderado hotel. She shows up with her bisexual boyfriend, Robert, because Allen Ginsburg will be there reading his work. (There's a bit of name dropping in here, as Ginsburg and William S. Burroughs both show up. By far the best moment is a few pages when Ginsburg and King wind up doing Transcendental Mediation together later on.)
King and Theo hook up, but despite Theo's insistence on sex being sex, it becomes obvious he has feelings for King; indeed, when Theo winds up dating Barry, Theo starts bringing home as many men as he can to make enough noise to annoy King through the walls.
Barry is the UC quarterback whom King meets at the local bathhouse. While Barry is very closeted (indeed, he has a fiance) due to his football stardom and likely draft by the Miami Dolphins, he and King share a very nice romance. Which ends rather abruptly one night as King sends Barry home so he can think, and the next thing we as readers know is King is in the hospital having been raped and bleeding profusely. Given Barry is the one who called the ambulance, everyone thinks he did it, but King denys that. (We do find out later on what actually happened.)
King's father gets drunk and drives to the hospital, but he takes a header off a cliff on the way. (King's family relations are a long involved subplot of the book. Dad's a drunk who gets sober; Mom hates sober dad. His brither is distant from the parents, and is also gay.)
Anyway, eventually all the plots come around and we finish with King graduating.
So, ultimately, I can't really comment on how close to reality this is in terms of 1974 Boulder. I will say it is nice to read a book about gay folks of the 70's which isn't coastal or all about rich gay folks, or worse, some midwestern morality play. On the other hand, most of the language of liberation and assimilation take on more modern terminology, and no one gets referred to as a homophile. While I'm sure someone will point out where I am wrong here, I don't think there was any kind of coordinated national movement quite this early, most of the organization was regional at best.
However, I think King is kind of Shakespearean in his own way, I'm sure more than a few readers can identify with his struggles with love and sex, and how the two, while separate, intertwine.
Monday, May 4, 2020
Valley of the long Elven names
So, Blade of Empire by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory picks up not long after the last book, as Vielessar Gets physically throned on the Unicorn throne. She sends a few folks north and westm and we hear no more of her forf the rest of th ebook, instead mainly focusing on her unwilling bonded,
Runacar, who goes from War Prince of one of the 100 Houses to leader of a rag tag army of Beatstling, basically sentient Otherkin, like centaurs, minotaurs, gryphons, and bearkin. We get a few interludes, as the dark ones begin the Red Harvest in the Windsward, and more than a little bit of politicing around the Sanctuary of the Star, but yeah, we're mainly focused on Runacar as he sweeps folks to take the coast.
Which is odd, since most of the Otherkin hate the elves. Yet he earns their trust, and ultimately leads them to victory over the remaining coastal cities with help from the Waterkin.
It's one big campaign, and it's mentioned that no one has heard from Vielessar since the enthronement, in what they refer to as the Great Silence.
By far the biggest problem here is that any concept of time goes out the window. I think by the end, we figure out 10 years have passed between the beginning and end, but the sense of time is really awkward.
PAst that, it's a good follow up, and I hope they actually finish the trilogy eventually.
Runacar, who goes from War Prince of one of the 100 Houses to leader of a rag tag army of Beatstling, basically sentient Otherkin, like centaurs, minotaurs, gryphons, and bearkin. We get a few interludes, as the dark ones begin the Red Harvest in the Windsward, and more than a little bit of politicing around the Sanctuary of the Star, but yeah, we're mainly focused on Runacar as he sweeps folks to take the coast.
Which is odd, since most of the Otherkin hate the elves. Yet he earns their trust, and ultimately leads them to victory over the remaining coastal cities with help from the Waterkin.
It's one big campaign, and it's mentioned that no one has heard from Vielessar since the enthronement, in what they refer to as the Great Silence.
By far the biggest problem here is that any concept of time goes out the window. I think by the end, we figure out 10 years have passed between the beginning and end, but the sense of time is really awkward.
PAst that, it's a good follow up, and I hope they actually finish the trilogy eventually.
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