A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above [Paperback]

Johnny Strike (Author), Richard Sala (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 2007

A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above is a collection of twelve stories by Johnny Strike, six of them never before published. All of them feature the genre-bending, hallucinatory style that distinguished his novel, Ports of Hell (Headpress/Diagonal), of which William Burroughs said: These are real maps of real places. That is what marks the artist, he has been there and brought it back. Among A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above s settings are a hellish prison workshop, a profiteering methadone clinic and a hotel where the suicidal find a terrible reason to live; among the characters are the unlucky, the sociopathic, the absurdly delusional and those who see reality with crippling clarity. It features twelve interior illustrations and a full color cover by Richard Sala, creator of such graphic novels as Evil Eye.

Editorial Reviews

Review

I sometimes despair of finding good new writers, then along comes someone like Johnny Strike. --Geoff Nicholson, Ambit

A collection of twelve short stories: a mix of noir, new wave fabulism, and pulp writing, they are all really great. --Thera Webb, MaximumRocknRoll

About the Author

Johnny Strike is a lifelong inhabitant of the underworld. Evading prosecution for parole violation as a teenager in Pennsylvania, he moved to San Francisco and eventually cofounded the legendary punk band Crime.

Product Details

• Paperback: 165 pages
• Publisher: Rudos and Rubes (October 19, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977895203
• ISBN-13: 978-0977895205
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,918,506 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Noir Reinvented, November 6, 2007

By 

Supervert "supervert-dot-com" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above (Paperback)

Loud Humming Sound is a collection of stories whose style is rooted in noir fiction, which often makes the book resemble early Burroughs (Junky, Queer). The scenarios of the stories seem to echo a thousand B movies but are subverted by fantastic twists reminiscent of headlines from the Weekly World News: otherworldly powers, catastrophes, the sort of stuff covered in contracts by a force majeure clause. It's a concisely written collection of stories from the musician who penned the punk classic "Hot Wire My Heart."

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sala fan's review, September 7, 2009

By 

Eric Hanson (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above (Paperback)

I bought this book knowing nothing about Johnny Strike, but as a fan of artist Richard Sala. If you are a fan of Sala's art, I would recommend it. His beautiful full color cover is worth the price of the book alone. In addition, each of the twelve short stories is accompanied by one of Sala's fantastic black and white ink drawings. These illustrations would be right at home in a Kafka collection, with their starkness and sense of dread. As far as the stories, I found them to be mostly interesting premises, but just as they started to get intriguing the story would end. It seemed like Strike enjoyed presenting odd, surreal elements in his stories, but didn't know how to truly expand upon his own ideas. If you are looking for interesting, creative fiction, I would pass on this. But if you looking for interesting, creative art, I would buy it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dreamlike..., January 18, 2009

By 

Jay Aitch - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above (Paperback)

...in that these stories are brief, colorful, brimming with walking and talking symbols, and build toward unexpected conclusions. Sala's cheerfully morbid illustrations are a perfect compliment to Strike's tales. The two would could produce an excellent comic/graphic novel together, in fact!