Monday, December 8, 2014

Off the Bookshelf: NO DAWN FOR MEN, by James LePore and Carlos Davis

Sometimes you read a book blurb and your immediate reaction is WHATTTTT??????

Part of you immediately insists, "No way." And another part says, "I gotta read this. It's just too ..." And you can't finish that statement because you're not sure what it's "too" of ...

NO DAWN FOR MEN takes J.R.R. Tolkein (Hobbit, LOTR) and Ian Fleming (Bond, James Bond) and tosses them into pre-WWII Nazi Germany for a little Indiana Jonesing ....

When I mentioned it on my Speculative group on Facebook, one person's reaction was to picture Gandalf walking into the Prancing Pony and asking for a vodka martini, shaken, not stirred. Or Gollum doing a Goldfinger speech.

Bottom line: FUN read. Very clever. A few spots where you want to say, "Okay, so that's where the author got the idea" for that character/event/detail in one or another of their famous books. Then a moment later you say, "Uh, wait a minute, that never happened!" I don't want to give anything away, but there's a search for a dangerous item that Hitler wants, that has to be destroyed, and the person carrying it is worn down by the burden, and a beautiful girl, and daredevils and nasty villains and ... READ IT.

I really, really hope the authors weren't playing with us, and I wasn't reading too much into a casual line, and there will be another adventure of Prof. Tolkein and Mr. Fleming.

No comments: