Lucifer Box Esquire Commands Your Attention
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| Box,
Lucifer Box. Click here to see a gallery of large-size images. |
Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen,
step right up. It's time to enjoy that most delectable of pleasures. No,
not that -- save that for later. I'm talking about buying a book, and not
just any book, but the kind of book you generally dont hear about
until years after its publication, the kind of book that carelessly breaks
the rules and gets away with it on the wings of genial invention and flawless
execution.
Yes, I'll admit that it took me two months to get the UK-only hardcover
of 'The Vesuvius Club' by Mark Gatiss (Simon & Schuster UK ; November
1, 2004 ; £15). But some things are worth the wait and this is clearly
one of them. For readers who loved Mark Frost's 'The List of 7', for readers
who loved 'The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited
Diseases', for readers who loved '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea', or for
readers who simply would enjoy sitting reading any of the previous titles
in a stuffy English gentleman's club -- this is the book for you. And not
only does the text itself look deliriously entertaining, the book is spectacularly
produced. From stem to stern, from cover to cover, S&S have allowed
Gatiss and his illustrator Ian Bass to create a wonderfully oddball illustrated
novel that you can't get in the United States, and you wont hear
about from the genre journals because it doesn't hail from an author previously
associated with genre fiction. A year from now, count on it, that won't
be the case.
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The
cloth cover design. Click here to
see a gallery of large-size images.
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Mark Gatiss is currently best known for being one of the men to write,
produce and star in the UK's hit TV comedy The League of Gentlemen. Perhaps
one of the most bizarre comedic television shows ever produced, The
League of Gentlemen centers on the town of Royston Vasey, where tetchiness, paranoia
and psychosis are the norms that bond the citizens. Author Mark Gatiss
is one of the three actors who portray over sixty characters in an archly
surreal and silly series of stories. Murderers, toad-breeders, a transsexual
taxi driver and an inept veterinarian strut the stage. The League of
Gentlemen offers the kind and level of weirdness that rarely gets exposure in any
art form, let alone television.
Gatiss and his illustrator Ian Bass have actually ratcheted back the weirdness
for this spectacular debut. Lucifer Box, portrait painter, Edwardian dandy
and his majesty's most daring secret agent is the man who is called when
Britain's most prominent vulcanologists start showing up dead. Before you
can say "secret base in an extinct volcano", Box has killed a
customer and taken on the assignment. And lest you think this is only the
tale of an Edwardian secret agent, the illustrations clue you in that this
book is chock-a-block full of science fiction, horror and fantasy staples.
Ghosts, monsters, madmen and mad women haunt the pages and peek out from
them.
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| Quirky
endpapers.
Click here to
see a gallery of large-size images. |
Gatiss writes with a
very dry wit and sense of humor, but have no fear other than fear itself.
If you're the kind of person who laughs at phrases
like "I have a peculiar horror of artichokes" or when, describing
London, "it smelled of roasting excrement," why then, I believe
that you've found your next purchase. Gatiss is clearly having too much
fun with a plot that includes giant insects, helmeted monsters and active
volcanoes. Here's a guy who blows up a lot of shit but does so in high
style.
Of course, all this would be quite excellent served up in standard book
format, but the illustrations and design touches provided by Ian Bass take
this book to another level. Stylish and numerous, the illustrations in
'The Vesuvius Club' are the kind of extra that move this book from the
want-it to the must-have-it column. The faux aging of the dust jacket,
the design imprinted on the cover of the book itself, the quirky endpapers
with their old-timey advertisements all add substantially to the appeal
of this title.
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Illustration
by Ian Bass. Click here to
see a gallery of large-size images.
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While I mentioned that Gatiss is not presently known for genre work, you
can be assured that he will become known. He's one of the writers for the
upcoming new episodes of 'Doctor Who', and the only books of his you'll
find in the US version of *.com are novelizations of the scripts he wrote.
But the science fiction world is not exactly inhospitable to writers of
episodic science fiction. The late great James Blish, one of the first
professional critics of the science fiction genre fictionalized episodes
of the original 'Star Trek' TV series. And David Gerrold, who wrote the
Star Trek episode 'The Trouble with Tribbles' went on to a very respectable
career writing science fiction novels. Douglas Adams managed to turn un-filmed
'Doctor Who' episodes into bestselling novels like 'The Restaurant at the
End of the Universe' and 'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'. It's
not as if there is no precedent.
No matter what the precedent, it's the present that matters. And in the
present, we have a present in the form of 'The Vesuvius Club'. Step right
up! There's a new book in town, and it looks damn well worth buying. Tell
the butler to bring it here, please. With a martini. Shaken, not stirred.
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