On the road again

REVIEWS BY GAVIN J. GRANT

Gentlemen of the Road is the kind of book I would have said no one writes anymore—except that Michael Chabon has done just that. Chabon is an enthusiastic genre multitasker who has written everything from mysteries (The Yiddish Policeman's Union) to young adult novels (Summerland), and who has now turned out a rollicking adventure that could have fit comfortably in Thrilling Wonder Stories (which makes it all the more fun that the story was commissioned and serialized by the New York Times). Zelikman and Amran are traveling companions who will be satisfyingly familiar to fans of fantasy writers Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard. The mismatched pair comes across a kidnapped young heir to the Khazar kingdom and, lacking anything urgent and getting a whiff of one of their favorite aromas, money, they decide to help him along his way. The charismatic but annoying heir, Filaq, or Little Elephant, wants to regain his kingdom from a general who has deposed and murdered his family. Not believing that Zelikman and Amran will take him home, Filaq repeatedly attempts to escape and eventually steals Zelikman's most prized possession, his horse Hillel. This guarantees the pair's pursuit and as they follow Filaq, they see the result of a compelling leader let loose in a country full of unrest. Filaq is able to turn his landless position into one of strength and gather an army to fight for his birthright. His return to his homeland is full of twists and turns, setbacks and newfound friends, mistaken (and hidden) identities. In the fast-moving Gentlemen of the Road, Chabon takes readers on an exhilarating journey—hopefully one of many continuing adventures in genre for this talented author.


The end of the world as we know it

Like his previous books Stamping Butterflies and 9Tail Fox, Jon Courtenay Grimwood's End of the World Blues is another novel that blends the latest physics theories with the feeling of dislocation from modern-day life. In the near future, Kit Nouveau is successfully hiding from the fact that after 15 years in Tokyo, his life isn't great. He's addicted to drugs, his bar is a hangout for bikers and dealers, and he and his wife are simply going through the motions. His wife, Yoshi, is a potter famous enough to be referred to as an important intangible cultural property, but Kit knows barely anything about her. He is haunted by his time as a sniper in Iraq, the death of his best friend in England, and the girl the two boys both loved. In a turning point that is key to the novel, Kit eventually realizes that although he can't right these wrongs, he might be able to help other people. One of the people he has been helping is Lady Neku, a 15-year-old homeless girl. On cold mornings he brings her coffee and sometimes gives her money. Lady Neku is, of course, more than she appears. She's at once the last surviving member of a yakuza family and/or the last surviving member of a Moorcockian far-future aristocratic family. Grimwood's descriptions of modern Japan are as much fun as his imaginative end-of-the-universe world and as terrifying as his offhanded depiction of England as a police state.


Yo, ho, ho

Pirate Freedom, the latest from longtime critical favorite Gene Wolfe, is the confessional tale of a time-slipping, fighting priest, Chris, born some years from now in Cuba who drifts back a couple of centuries and becomes a pirate—complete with a gun-toting bride. Wolfe doesn't hold back on the extreme violence of pirate life, although Chris steps back a couple of times to point out discrepancies in his pirating career from other modern portrayals. Most of the pirates he fights with are young and have brief life expectancies, but they vote on what to do and who to follow. Captains have to follow the pirates' will, not the other way around. Young Chris is attacked again and again and soon the first of many people is killed—in that sense Pirate Freedom is more like The Godfather than Peter Pan. The pirates are judged better than their contemporaries because they don't torture for fun, only for profit. The one issue Wolfe tap-dances around is slavery. Chris treats slaves as fellow men and frees them whenever possible without anything more than the occasional light question from others. Wolfe's writing is reminiscent of Carol Emshwiller, a fellow World Fantasy Award Life Achievement winner. There's the same concrete level of detail mixed with an occasionally hazy sense of time and events. The novel is as simple as Wolfe's straightforward, lean prose and easily pulls the reader through to an enjoyable circular ending.


Gavin J. Grant is the co-editor of the anthology The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.

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