Photo credit: ihave3kids via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
Hurray for friends who work in publishing!
One of the regulars at my Read Harder IRL book group brought copies of this little jewel by Robert Zelazny because her company recently republished it. She handed out copies and I quickly snagged one, which I then had to read right away because my mom kept bugging me to finish it so she could read it.
According to my friend, someone bet Zelazny he couldn’t write a story in which Jack the Ripper was a good guy. Zelazny took that bet and wrote this novel. It’s narrated by Jack the Ripper’s dog, Snuff, and has 32 chapters: one chapter for every day in October, plus an introductory chapter. The chapters start out pretty short and get longer as the story moves into the second half of the month, which meant I zipped through the first hundred pages or so because I could just pick it up, spend a few minutes reading one chapter, and put it back down. The last 180 pages or so took me a little longer because I had to make time for it.
It also took me a while to get into this book because it’s so weird and Zelazny drops hints as to what’s going on without explicitly explaining much. Basically, once or twice in a century, there will be a full moon on Halloween and this provides a chance to open a gateway to another world and let the Elder Gods come back to Earth. I can’t remember if Cthulu is specifically mentioned, or if I just mentally inserted that as I was reading, but the point is that the successful opening of the gate will likely not be in humanity’s best interests.
Jack is far from the only famous character to play a role in this book. There’s also a witch, a werewolf, a vampire who is only ever referred to as “the Count,” Dr. Frankenstein (who is only ever referred to as “The Good Doctor”) and his monster, as well as Sherlock Holmes (who is only ever referred to as “The Great Detective”), etc.
The opening of the gate on Halloween night is referred to as “the Game” and everyone spends the first half of October trying to figure out who all the players are, which side everyone is on, and where the gate will be opened. But because they all have the Game in common, and they’re the only ones who know what’s at stake, there’s a certain amount of camaraderie, even between those who are on opposite sides. There’s a great deal of cooperation with everyone during the first two weeks to trade information. After the 15th, things generally start to get tense, but Jack and Snuff remain friendly with Jill and her cat, Graymalk, after that point. This friendship is unusual and possibly dangerous because Jill and Graymalk are openers while Jack and Snuff are closers. Apparently things don’t usually go well for the members of the losing side.
So Jack is a good guy because he was trying to prevent the Elder Gods from returning to Earth and possibly destroying humanity and it just so happened that he needed certain human organs (among other things) in order to accomplish that goal. I’d say it’s another case of the misunderstood villain, but this book is really so much better than that.
My only complaint was the illustrations. They’re fun, but one was placed so early in a chapter as to be a serious spoiler. Rude.
What did you guys read this week? Any other new takes on old characters?