Claremont Tales II [Hardcover]

Richard A. Lupoff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2002

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."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

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
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 290 pages
• Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press; 1 edition (February 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193084607X
• ISBN-13: 978-1930846074
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,650,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extremely enjoyable restrospective collection, May 20, 2002

By 

Richard R. Horton (Webster Groves, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Claremont Tales II (Hardcover)

Veteran Science Fiction and Mystery writer Richard A. Lupoff is back with a second retrospective collection of his best short fiction. Last year, Golden Gryphon published Claremont Tales, and now we see Claremont Tales II. This collects several fairly early stories (1969 through 1978), and some recent stories (including a brand new story for this book).

Immediately noticeable is Lupoff's versatility. Included are some straight SF, some supernatural horror, and some straight mystery stories, as well as some amalgams of all of the above. Always noticeable, too, is Lupoff's assured storyteller's touch, his engaging voice, and his ability to alter that voice in service of his aims, most notably here in "The Adventure of the Boulevard Assassin", a Sherlock Holmes story written in the style of Jack Kerouac.

The above-mentioned Holmes piece, a very sly divertissement, is one of the more impressive entries here. I also quite liked "Jubilee", an Alternate History of a Roman Empire where Julius Caesar survived his assassination attempt. And despite my general lack of sympathy for Lovecraft, I was rather taken with the two Lovecraftian pieces in Claremont Tales II, "The Devil's Hop Yard" and "The Turret". The new story in this book is "Green Ice", a sequel to an earlier story called "Black Mist". This is an SF mystery, in which Japanese-Martian detective Ino Hajime is called in to investigate the activities of a descendant cult to Aum Shinrikyo (the Japanese cult which perpetrated a poison gas attack on a subway a few years past) on the Jovian moon Europa. It's an intriguing, rather mystical, story, which perhaps leaps a bit too quickly to its conclusion, but which is a good read nonetheless. "31.12.99" is an evocative and moving story of the new millennium. "News from New Providence" is a somewhat mordant account of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor investigating a murder in the Bahamas. "Whatever Happened to Nick Neptune?" is a very enjoyable story of a very special pulp magazine. And so on -- top to bottom this is an extremely enjoyable collection.