Customer Reviews

A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above

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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."

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.

...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!