Police!!! [Paperback]

Robert W. Chambers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2002

POLICE!!! is a volume of xenobiology: cryptozoology. Weird monsters and strange relics from the fossil eras; things which ought never to have walked upon the face of this earth. But they have walked among us. And I have seen them. And I have told the world. It has caused a certain madeness among the people. I can't be hold to account, can I?

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Product Details

• Paperback: 188 pages
• Publisher: Borgo Press (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592248446
• ISBN-13: 978-1592248445
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,976,720 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mediocre Supernatural Romance, February 7, 2011

By 

J. Shurin "carnivore" (London) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Police!!! (1915) (Hardcover)

Police!!! (1915) is a collection of romantic comedies with a vaguely cryptozoological theme. Each story features a young hero out to scrounge up a new discovery and/or get laid. Or the 1915 version of "laid", which involves swooning, smooching (implied) and marriage (explicit).

Ten years earlier, Mr. Chambers wrote one of his best works - In Search of the Unknown (1904) - a classic of the Weird that combines macabre humor with genuine scientific curiosity. Halfway between H.R. Haggard and Dorothy Parker, Unknown collects the adventures of a single man (in both senses of the term) as he wrestles dinosaurs and women alike.

Police!!! is a putative sequel and is remarkably inferior in almost every way. It is, in fact, syrupy goo.

As a short story collection, rather than a single (slightly fragmented) narrative, Police!!! quickly defines itself as formulaic, repetitive, and dull. Each tale follows an identical structure: scientist goes on mission, scientist finds girl, scientist finds monster, scientist loses monster, scientist loses girl. What a lark!

Most of the stories then end with some variation of "It was ok that my career was crushed and the love of my life eloped with my workmate... there's a hot typist at my new job". Although it reminds us not to take anything too seriously, this punchline gets old very quickly.

Even the cryptozoology - one of the delights in Unknown - is somewhat watered down. Whilst the 1904 collection gives us dinosaurs (repeatedly) and lizard-men, Police!!! treats the readers to really big trout and scantily-clad cavegirls. And it isn't just about the monsters - Mr. Chambers does chuck in the occasional 3-eyed swamp-person - it is about the balance of the Weird and the Goofy. Unknown manages to make bedfellows of the romantic and the supernatural (or hyper-natural). Police!!! does not. When it comes down to it, Police!!! is like hearing one's senile great-uncle combine a fishing story with how he met his future bride. (And then winking inappropriately at the end.)

When Mr. Chambers focuses his humor in other areas, Police!!! somewhat redeems itself. The final story, "The Eggs of the Silver Moon" is something of a mystery - two competing professors each trying to hatch the best butterfly for an exhibit. The protagonist is the (slightly whiny) administrator caught in-between them. The pompous combatants steal the show (and the butterflies), goofily hatching plot after plot against one another. Imagine a Tom & Jerry cartoon as written by your grandmother (if she had a serious thing for Lepidoptera).

Mr. Chambers' merciless portrayal of the bombastic, chauvinistic clutch of professors in "One Over" also merits a few giggles. Whilst scheming against their new (female) leader, the professors pound the table, drink too much, fall asleep, yell in German and generally make asses of themselves. It is a fun little scene - albeit one ruined by the ceaseless slapstick of the "adventure" that follows.

Mr. Chambers has been cursed with a reputation for being a "disappointment" (that is, in a literary sense - he was a commercial success). He is remembered solely for The King in Yellow - his second book in a career that saw him write almost one hundred. And, admittedly, many of them are absolutely dire - treacly historical romances that are remarkable only for their mediocrity. Others deserved to be resurrected - including In Search of the Unknown. Police!!! despite its superficial resemblance to that particular book, does not.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars police is not obeying enough rules, April 9, 2003

By 

jan erik storebø (norway) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Police!!! (Paperback)

original and inventive, as always. the stories worked better than usually by the author. some with real interesting concepts. but he never knows how to stick only to the story, to obey sensible literal rules, how to form the stories in a sensible way.