REVIEWS: End of Month Reviews #19 - July 2005 [spoilers]

[Tom Russell]

Saxon Brenton wrote:

>  The only thing which was
> truly thematically relevant about talking gorillas was Frothing-At-The-Mouth
> Lad's rant about how people *use* talking gorillas in a hollow attempt to
> recapture a particular type of nostalgia - which recursively comes back and
> convicts the story of (possibly) the same flaw.  Interesting.  I hadn't
> really
> realised that until now.

I think, first of all, that the undead subway pirate angle is
sufficiently bizarre to counter *any* charge of manufactured nostalgia.
 And, one could argue, that if the author is aware of the dangers of
what he's doing and says as much in the text, then he has already
overcome it.  In the hands of the wrong author, however, it would come
across as being an excuse.  I. E.: in a film, you have a character
denounce the use of gratuitious female nudity just before a bevy of
naked cheerleaders come prancing through the room.  Or someone
denouncing violence before a character's head explodes.  Both of those
would probably come across in poor taste, and are examples of what some
people call the Cecil B. DeMille effect: religious epics with lots of
sex and violence (fifties-style sex and violence, but sex and violence
none-the-less).

But it doesn't seem like that in your gorilla story, Saxon.  It doesn't
came across as cheap nostalgia, but as something that's just plain fun.
 Which, if you look back at those classic gorilla stories of the Silver
Age, are exactly what gorilla stories are about.  Hell, it's exactly
what the classic LNH stories are about, and it's always nice when
someone writes a story in that mode.  I'd say most of Martin's work
falls into this category, as I've said before at some length.  I've
tried to work in that mode myself sometimes with varying levels of
absolute failure.  Some of the Joltin' One's stuff-- not just the
recent LNH series that he's launched and that Saxon and Martin have ran
with so well-- I'm thinking in particular of his library special.  And
Saxon with most of his body of work that I've read.

Anyone who says the LNH is dead or on the wane is being patentedly
ridiculous.  Is it less active than it was in its hey-day?  Perhaps.
But material of quality is still being written, some of it in the mold
of the oldschool stuff, and some of it a little more on the serious
side.  And you know what?  That's as it should be.

Long live the LNH!

> ---
> Saxon Brenton     Just musing before going to work another loans desk
> shift...

Tom, feeling sheepish about the fact that he hasn't written an LNH
story in long over a year.