Magic Reviews: Shambling Towards Hiroshima

Final Grade: This is the best book I have read this year.  

(Well ok it's tied for first place, but still...wow)

Shambling Towards Hiroshima is a novella set at the end of World War II.  The main character is an actor in B horror films.  The settings, characters, and conversations are throwbacks to this delicious campy time in Hollywood.  With oddball characters and the larger than life pomp of Hollywood in the 40's as a backdrop our main character finds the role of his life in a top secret military operation involving the impersonation of a familiar fire-breathing giant lizard.

  This story gets four things perfectly right:
 
   Storytelling
  Sci-fi
  Backdrop
  Fun

Storytelling

It's written in first person, which I generally dislike, but in this case it fits.  The main character plays a monster in the monster movies, so he spends much of his time looking out from inside monster costumes.  This allows us to be in there with him in the cramped darkness as he spins his yarn.  The story jumps a bit from the main character telling his story of how he got involved in the top secret operation, but it provides a sense of mystery in the face of this otherwise straightforward narrative. 

The perspective allows the detail to shine through and provide more than just a setting for the story, but pulls in the backdrop as part of the story itself.  It's really quite well done, and not pretentious in the least.  Quality fun to read.

Sci-fi

Some of the stuff I read lays the sci-fi on really thick.  For example, the story I am currently reading has aliens that save the human race form total annihilation and provide up wormholes to other habitable worlds where other aliens used to live and the main character is a cop trying to keep dangerous technology out of the hands of would-be transhumanists.  Whoa.  Still with me?

Shambling lays the sci-fi on matter-of-factly, and very slightly.  There are monsters, but they make cameos and then are only heard from in anecdotes.  There are fantastical applications of science in this barely alternate reality, but only the tiniest stretch of the imagination is needed to get there.  This could be a book for novice sci-fi enthusiasts.  Great stuff, but a little more palatable for the less nerdy among us.

***********SPOILER ALERT********************

Here's the sci-fi & plot in Shambling:  Before the A-Bomb was developed the military made a bunch of godzillas to send to Japan to stop the war.  Instead of sending them and unleashing total destruction, they want to show the awesome power of the beasts off to a Japanese delegation to get the Japanese to surrender.  So they create some mini-godzillas and plan on them destroying a perfect scale model of Shirazuka in a live performance.  The mini-zillas are too docile however, so the military hires our hero, the perfect monster from Hollywood to play the part instead.

**********SPOILER DANGER OVER*************

Backdrop

Talked about this already, but it's worth mentioning again.  The detail of the people who work on the sets, make-up, production, direction,. lights, and everything in these monster movies is just so perfectly done.  It has the name-dropping feel of a real Hollywood situation, and the details make it feel real.  

You can picture the films he describes as if you've seen them yourself, when many of them are simply manifestations of imagination.  Brilliantly done.

Fun

The fun corresponds with the whole attitude of the book. I would say "It's a romp", but I don't want to be that reviewer.  It's fast.  It's filled with chuckles and head-scratches and smirks.  It's a really good time to read.  

Some of the most fun I had was explaining the plot to my wife in pauses between chapters.  The smirks were mutual, and fun was had by all.

Ending quote from Shambling Towards Hiroshima: 

"Boil me in oil!" I shouted. "tear out my teeth! But right now we've got a war to win!"

 -Syms Thorley