Genre Fiction – Page 7 – Ash Clifton, Writer

Classic Sci-Fi Book Cover

One of the first books I ever checked out by myself from the library was Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man. I was a tween-aged sci-fi nerd at the time (as opposed to a middle-aged sci-fi nerd now), and this book started my life-long love affair with Bradbury’s fiction. More magical realism than actual sci-fi, his work always evokes a sense of the wonder I first felt when reading great science fiction.

Like Bradbury’s other masterpiece, The Martian Chronicles, this book is actually a “fix-up”—a collection of previously published short stories that are grouped together by a framing device. In this case, the “frame” is an unnamed drifter and former carnival worker who has tattoos all over his body (except for one crucial, bare spot on his upper back; you’ll have to read it to find out why). If you stare at any of the tattoos long enough, it comes to life and shows you a story—which leads directly into the short story in question.

It’s a very clever idea, and hauntingly rendered. Some of the more famous stories in the collection are “The Veldt,” “Zero Hour,” and (my favorite) “The Long Rain.”

The cover for the book’s first edition, by artist Dean Ellis, is still the best, and is also the one on the edition I checked out from the library, lo those many years ago. A work of trippy surrealism, the man in the painting does not look like the character in the book (who is flabby and middle-aged and has hair) but it captures brilliantly the sense of intellectual lyricism and magic, of which Bradbury was a master.

What I’m Reading: “`Salem’s Lot”

I love Stephen King. I watch his interviews and lectures on YouTube, and I re-read his book, On Writing, once or twice a year, finding it one of the best meditations on the craft around, not to mention a very fine memoir. I follow him on Twitter (er…X), and you should, too (he’s @StephenKing, if you’re interested).

And yet, in one of the stranger ironies of my adult life, I went over twenty years without reading a King novel. Sure, I once devoured books like The Stand and Firestarter in high school, but then I became an English major and, for a multitude of reasons, I stopped.

Sherlock Holmes was a Fixer

With all the innumerable recent scandals that have erupted over the last decade or so, I find myself wondering when, exactly, did the term “fixer” enter the national lexicon?

Recently, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was referred to as a “fixer” by the national press. Similarly, the popular TV show Ray Donovan is about a “fixer”. As far as I can tell, the term “fixer” denotes any ostensibly legitimate person—usually a lawyer but sometimes a private investigator—who can be called upon to act a kind of bridge between the underworld and the legitimate world. His mission is (usually) to stifle some impending scandal or P.R. disaster. (In Cohen’s case, it was arranging the payment of hush-money to women who had had affairs with Donald Trump.)

Of course, there is nothing new about this concept of a “fixer”; only the name is new. In fact, any student of classic literature will recognize that on at least one occasion the great fictional detective Sherlock Holmes played exactly the same role as Michael Cohen (albeit with a just a bit more intelligence and wit).