Claremont Tales II [Hardcover]

Whatever happened to Richard Lupoff? While not as active as he was in his heyday a generation or so ago, Lupoff is still producing solid work, as shown in this collection of 13 stories, an eclectic mix of SF, fantasy and mystery, ranging from pastiches like "The Devil's Hop Yard" (a sequel to H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror") and "The Turret" (after Ramsey Campbell) to alternative histories like "News from New Providence" (the Duke and Duchess of Windsor investigate a real-life unsolved murder) and "31.12.99" (that's a British calendar date). "Green Ice," written especially for this collection, features the Japanese detective Ino Hajime, who first appeared in the tale "Black Mist." The best of the mystery stories, "Whatever Happened to Nick Neptune?," uses the pulp magazine lore lovingly detailed in the author's nonfiction (All in Color for a Dime, etc.) as the milieu for its crimes. The better work here transcends genre: in "Stream of Consciousness" an endless nocturnal visit to the bathroom cosmically (and comically) prevents the sun from exploding, while in "The Heyworth Fragment" a film projectionist discovers an eerily Borgesian reel from another universe. Perhaps the best of the pastiches is the lightest, "The Adventures of the Boulevard Assassin," in which Jack Kerouac substitutes as Sherlock Holmes's amanuensis. The third major collection of Lupoff's short fiction (after 1996's Before... 12:01... and After and 2001's Claremont Tales), this is sure to please existing fans even if it's unlikely to win the author many new ones. (Feb.)Lupoff's novel Lovecraft's Book (1984) is due out late this year.
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Golden Gryphon's second Lupoff collection includes sf, fantasy, horror, and mystery stories, some of which resist easy classification as just one of the above. "A Freeway for Dracula" deals with the Vietnam War, while "The Devil's Hop Yard" and "The Turret" are Lovecraft pastiches of the high quality that has come to be expected of Lupoff. "Whatever Happened to Nick Neptune?," one of his better-known stories, reflects his long years as a collector of pulp magazines and other stuff, while "The Adventures of the Boulevard Assassin" employs the voice of Jack Kerouac in a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, and "You Don't Know Me, Charlie" is at once a good hard-boiled detective story and a good satire of that genre. Lupoff is more adept at the short story than at the novel, so hurrah for Golden Gryphon for rescuing his work from the here today, gone tomorrow limbo of periodical publication. Roland Green
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"This collection is pure pleasure from the first page to the last." -- Dean R. Koontz

These 13 tales twist the conventions of science fiction, mystery, horror, humor, and adventure into one gripping collection. In "Green Ice" unassuming Mr. Ino is assigned to recover a missing extraterrestrial artifact, believed to be from the icy moon of Europa. "The Devil's Hop Yard" is a sequel to H. P. Lovecraft's classic "The Dunwich Horror." The perils of being a too-avid book collector are illustrated in "Whatever Happened to Nick Neptune." A most peculiar visit to the bathroom and its ramifications on the safety of the sun yields the story "Stream of Consciousness."

Richard A. Lupoff is the author of The Comic Book Killer, The Radio Red Killer, and Before 12: 01 and After. He lives in Berkeley, California.