In Derrick Ferguson’s introduction, he says that Tommy Hancock knows of Harlan Ellison’s mythical idea factory. And as someone who knows Tommy personally, I can definitely attest to that—the man’s got a million and one ideas, and that’s a low-ball number. Anyone who knows anything at all about the New Pulp Movement knows the name Tommy Hancock. I don’t know if he’s the originator of New Pulp, but to my knowledge he coined the term and I don’t think there’s a person alive who will argue with me when I say no one has done more for the movement than him. Whether it’s his work as the editor in chief of Pro Se Productions, running the All Pulp and New Pulp websites, his great promotional work, or his willingness (and eagerness) to talk to anyone who might have a question about pulp.

Other than hearing his ideas, YesterYear is the first time I’ve actually had a chance to experience Tommy’s writing. As I said before, Tommy’s got a million and one ideas, and they’re all winners. So the expectation I had going into this book was that Tommy’s writing ability would match the high quality of his ideas. Such an expectation started to worry me, because I was afraid that there was no way Tommy could possibly have lived up to the standard I set up in my mind.

I’m happy to admit my fears were unjustified.

Tommy constantly talks about one of the facets of New Pulp being plot-oriented. Some might cringe at this—I know I did at first—thinking it might imply sacrificing character development for plot development. But that’s not what happens in YesterYear. In fact, the characters are probably the best thing about this novel.

YesterYear takes place in the present when J.C. Smithenson, himself a former boy detective, is now a writer and publisher. One day, he finds a mysterious package on his doorstep, a package that holds a leather-bound book. This book contains personal journal entries and newspaper clippings of reporter Ramsey Long, who reported on the heroes of the 30s and 40s. The book details the personal histories (and thus, identities) of a number of heroes from back then. Smithenson wants to publish the journal, but there are other forces who want to see it suppressed.

The book is intercut with excerpts from the journal, showing articles and personal stories of the various heroes. Some of them are pastiches of familiar comic book and pulp characters. Others are 100% original. Each one is extremely interesting and could easily headline a novel of their own (my personal favorites being the Night, G.I. and Mind’s Eye).

Now, with all that being said, I do have a few criticisms. World-building is an important aspect of creating fiction and Tommy definitely does build his world very effectively. But sometimes, this world-building comes at the expense of the story. Some characters who appear one way in the excerpts from Ramsey’s journal later show up in the main story completely different from how they were introduced, with little to no explanation as to how they got that way. I think a few less excerpts and a few more chapters focused on the main story would definitely have helped this. As it is, some of the excerpts, although very entertaining, seem to have very little connection to the main story.

A few people have criticized the use of different fonts to differentiate between journal entries. Personally, I thought this was an effective choice and it reminded me of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. But that praise comes with a caveat. While I applaud Tommy’s decision to vary things up, I feel some of the font choices weren’t as strong and provided more of a distraction. I think some more careful selection would have helped this a lot more. There were also some inconsistencies with typography—one example that popped up a lot was how often quotation marks interchanged between curved and straight. Granted I’m a letterer so I’m more sensitive to typography than most, but it was a distraction for me. Another stylistic choice was the constant capitalization of the words Heroes and Villains. I understand why this was done, but it caused some confusion as one of the characters is called Hero. So every time the word Hero popped up, it caused a bit of confusion whether they were talking about the character or using it as a generic descriptor.

Another distraction was the illustrations. No offense intended to the artist, I’m certainly not capable of drawing anything close to that, but I felt they could have used a bit more detail in terms of rendering and shading. As it is, they appear very flat on the page.

These criticisms are of course minor in the larger scheme and more of a technical nature than anything else. The writing is of high quality and I’m looking forward to more stories featuring the YesterYear characters.

YesterYear can be purchased for $12.00 from my Amazon store.

My first introduction to Ryu Murakami came not with his books, but when I saw the film adaptation of Audition. That movie was a massive turning point for me in a lot of ways—it was my introduction to director Takashi Miike and it sparked my interest in both horror movies and Japanese cinema. If I’d never seen that movie, I may have never developed an interest in Japanese cinema that eventually led to me moving to Japan.

Despite the film adaptation enjoying immense popularity in the west, and despite other Murakami novels being translated into English, for reasons that have never been made clear to me, Audition went un-translated for around a decade.

A year ago, I finally found it was translated and put it on my pile of books I’ve yet to read (a pile that never appears to shrink). By the time I read Audition, I had already read another of Murakami’s books, In The Miso Soup, and absolutely loved it. So given my love of the film and my appreciation of Murakami’s work, I was really excited to read this book.

Audition focuses on Aoyama, a documentary producer whose wife had died several years earlier of cancer. When his teenage son, Shige, tells him he should remarry, Aoyama seriously considers it. He talks to his friend Yoshikawa, who works in television and film, and says he wishes he could interview several different women and then choose his ideal one. Yoshikawa suggests having an audition.

Aoyama is immediately infatuated with twenty-four-year-old Asami when he reads her application and essay. A former ballet dancer, Asami suffered a hip injury that forced her to give up her passion. When Aoyama meets her in the audition, it’s difficult for him to keep himself contained. He starts dating Asami and discovers that she suffered a lot of abuse as a child. Asami has a few other dark secrets, however.

If you’ve seen the film, you already know the story. The movie is a very faithful adaptation with only some minor differences. Some scenes take place in different locations compared to the novel and the book also has some additional scenes not included in the film (and the film plays around with the chronology a bit in such a way that it leaves the ending a bit ambiguous—that ambiguity is nowhere in the novel).

For the most part, the movie is not only a faithful adaptation of the novel, but also does a better job of telling the story. This is particularly seen in Asami’s sinister nature and a lot of that is due to actress Eihi Shiina’s amazing ability to switch between vulnerable and innocent to seductively deadly, sometimes at the drop of a hat. The novel doesn’t do as good of a job—in the movie, you know there’s something darkly unsettling about Asami. In the novel, you mostly feel sympathy for her. And the climatic scene is not as nail-bitingly intense as it is in the film (if you haven’t seen the movie, I’m not saying another word about it).

But there are ways in which the novel goes beyond the movie. One of these is in the depiction of Aoyama. For the most part in the film, Aoyama is seen as almost a complete victim. There is some suggestion that he’s not exactly the most moral guy in the film, but Murakami makes it very clear in his book that Aoyama is not necessarily a good guy. You sympathize with him, yes, but the novel makes no secret of the fact that Aoyama has no problem getting sex and even pays for it as well. And he was doing so while his wife was still alive (presumably while she was suffering from cancer). So there’s a sense of vindication with Asami’s actions, even if the event which sets her off is an extreme over-reaction.

Despite this, Murakami does a great job of portraying Aoyama’s love for Asami. You never get the sense that Aoyama might just be using Asami for sex—it’s obvious that he is deeply, passionately in love with her. And it makes the ending all the more sad—for both of the characters.

If you’ve seen the movie, I encourage you to read the book. And if you’ve never experienced either, you should definitely rectify both those.