From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Nov 27 12:32:26 1991 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!news.funet.fi!fuug!mcsun!uunet!indetech!pacbell!pbhyc!djdaneh From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: BY BIZARRE HANDS by Joe R. Lansdale Message-ID: <1991Nov26.192030.28848@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> Date: 26 Nov 91 19:20:30 GMT Sender: djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) Reply-To: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) Followup-To: rec.arts.sfwritten Organization: Pacific * Bell Lines: 42 Approved: djdaneh@pbhyc.pacbell.com BY BIZARRE HANDS by Joe R. Lansdale A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper I don't normally read horror, but I made an exception in this case. First, there were reportedly two alternate history stories in this book, and I'm an aficionado of alternate history stories. And second, Joe Lansdale has a reputation for writing unusual stories. (I think of him, rightly or wrongly, as the Howard Waldrop of horror.) Of the sixteen stories, I will comment specifically only on two--the alternate history ones, of course. "Trains Not Taken" is a fairly straightforward alternate history: the Japanese settled North America from the west as the Europeans settled it from the east, leaving no frontier or "Wild West." So the great heroes of that era ended up as politicians instead. This is fairly mundane and the historical underpinnings don't bear close scrutiny (what happened to the Spanish if the Japanese had the West Coast sewed up?). "Trains Not Taken" is an interesting character sketch but not much else. "Letters from the South, Two Moons West of Nacogdoches," on the other hand, is a gem. Like "Trains Not Taken," it's set in a world in which the Japanese got involved in North America, but there the similarity ends. And to tell any more would be unfair--suffice it to say I didn't think an author could put that many twists in a five-page story. The other fourteen stories are closer to my definition of horror and range from merely well-written to memorable. There are no clunkers, and I don't hesitate to recommend this book to you even if you don't read that "horror stuff." %B BY BIZARRE HANDS %A Joe R. Lansdale %C New York %D September1991 %I Avon %O paperback, US$3.99 [1989] %G ISBN 0-380-71205-9 %P 242pp Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Jan 24 11:08:46 1996 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!fizban.solace.mh.se!paladin.american.edu!hookup!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.kei.com!uhog.mit.edu!news!nobody From: rickk@emu.com (Rick Kleffel) Subject: Review: 'The Two-Bear Mambo' by Joe R. Lansdale Message-ID: <9601221456.AA16463@virgil> Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Keywords: author= Rick Kleffel Sender: news@media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 20:25:35 GMT Approved: wex@media.mit.edu (Alan Wexelblat) Lines: 42 The Two-Bear Mambo Joe R. Lansdale Texan writer Joe R. Lansdale loves his two ne'er-do-wells Hap ( goal-less and white) and Leonard (angry, gay and black) so much it's difficult for the reader not to feel the same. In "The Two Bear Mambo", Lansdale's third Hap and Leonard book, the two friends manage to find themselves a whole bunch of trouble while looking for Florida, Leonard's one-time lawyer and Hap's one- time lover, in a nasty little burg out in the wilds of east Texas. It seems that Grovertown doesn't cotton too much to blacks who "don't know their place", and Florida, a black woman layer investigating the death of the son of a blues prodigy in Grovertown's jail, surely qualifies. Clueless but motivated, Hap and Leonard blunder into Grovertown. Fortunately for the reader, the main attraction of "The Two- Bear Mambo" is Hap's voice and not his plans. Lansdale has found an easy-going tale-spinner's first person narrator in Hap, and more than in the first two books, he lets the voice itself, rather than the plot shape the story. Every page contains a clever phrase or a description that gives the reader a good, if lowbrow laugh. But beneath that lowbrow invective is a careful characterization of a man who is going nowhere at an easy pace. Hap, for all his wit, is a good friend to Leonard and not much else. He needs a career, a goal, something that Florida chastised him for that still rings in his brain. Finding Florida in a godawful backwater town full of dangerous hate mongering morons barely lasts out the novel. Leonard, on the other hand, at least has plans beyond his friendship with Hap. He has his lover, Raul, and his uncle's house to take care of, and his neighbor's house to burn down periodically, when the crack dealers who inhabit it get out of line. The plot of "The Two Bear Mambo" is linear, and not particularly full of surprises, but the delivery is pretty rootin' tootin' funny, in a making-fun-of-rednecks fashion. Still, by the end of the novel, the reader is inclined to want Hap to take Florida's advice to get a life. There's only so far you can go on a voice alone, and Lansdale goes farther than most. "The Two-Bear Mambo" is an enjoyable, hilarious novel and sometimes frustrating novel, where the main character talks so much and so well, in the end, the reader will be talking to the writer. %T The Two-Bear Mambo %A Joe R. Lansdale %G ISBN 0-89296-491-X %I Mysterious Press %O $19.95; US hard cover %P 273 pages