About a year ago I came across an old Ron Goulart book, The Hellhound Project, and immediately started it with much internal fanfare. As I blogged about here, I was kinda disappointed with it, especially since I fondly remember his novels when I worked my way through the Science Fiction shelves at my local library as a kid.
I found Hawkshaw in the used book section at B&N early this summer, and since I keep an open mind when it comes to my SF, I picked it up and threw it in the queue.
Verdict: I liked it; I really did.
However, about a hundred pages in, I found myself wrestling with how to review the book. Somehow a straight summary followed by my non-professional opinion did not seem adequate to what I felt needed conveyance. Then, on the exercise bike, Hawkshaw in hand, it came to me.
This is begging to be a movie. In an alternate universe, it was made into one sometime around 1973 or 74.
It’s visual, it’s fast-paced, it’s perfect for pioneering shaky-cam work during the surprisingly frequent action scenes. I also found myself reminded of that cinematic technique, first seen on the tube in early-80s cop dramas, where the camera follows the main characters through a crowded room, picking up snippets of conversation here and there then refocuses back on the heroes. As I read the book, all these visual cues jumbled about in my mind.
Hawkshaw is perfect fodder for a first-time director enamored with Luc Besson and Terry Gilliam, and who writes dialogue like David Mamet. If I could hop into that parallel universe, I fully expect to see a colorful, bizarre, overstimulated, perfectly-paced 89-minute flick, populated with wisecracking, pre-Tarantino Tarantino characters with a generous streak of Mel Brooks humor.
It starts off somewhat slow, I must admit, but from the halfway point to the end comes more and more genuine laughs. Example:
“Look up there.” The rental agent ignored Noah’s card, pointed upward.
“Your sign? Very handsome. Ronald Crosby, Car Rentals.”
“My name is Roald Cosby,” corrected the freckled man. “No n, no r. But that’s not the point …”
What a detail! I love it! It’s a little piece of ephemera that brings life to a character who’s only supposed to be alive for a page or two. Those two sentences convey more than a five-hundred word paragraph about poor Mr. Cosby, the living-breathing literary device.
Or how about this –
Rudy studied the plan of the ambush of Noah. “Say, Len. I only just noticed the little circle you have drawn here to represent me is twice as large as the circles for Ned or you. Is that one of your satirical jabs at my weight problem?”
Of course it isn’t, but the fact that hapless, girth-challenged, would-be tough guy Rudy brings it up is, well, funny. Funny that I laughed out loud.
The politics are petrified in the early-70s, but that’s okay. We’re in the futuristic late-90s. Everything’s in robotic overdrive. It’s a reporter-chasing-the-big-story story, only this one has werewolves, underground hippies, biological warfare, conservative revolutionaries led by the second coming of George Washington, an American Pope, the New Jersey mafia, cannibals, pornographers, Uncle Kidnapper the clown, mate swap conventioneers. And, of course, there’s always the sneaking suspicion that no one is who they seem to be, and there are a couple of really neat twists.
All in 149 pages. Can’t beat that!
So, I liked Hawkshaw and I didn’t like The Hellhound Project. Now to track down Spacehawk Inc, Crackpot, and Talent for the Invisible …
I found Hawkshaw in the used book section at B&N early this summer, and since I keep an open mind when it comes to my SF, I picked it up and threw it in the queue.
Verdict: I liked it; I really did.
However, about a hundred pages in, I found myself wrestling with how to review the book. Somehow a straight summary followed by my non-professional opinion did not seem adequate to what I felt needed conveyance. Then, on the exercise bike, Hawkshaw in hand, it came to me.
This is begging to be a movie. In an alternate universe, it was made into one sometime around 1973 or 74.
It’s visual, it’s fast-paced, it’s perfect for pioneering shaky-cam work during the surprisingly frequent action scenes. I also found myself reminded of that cinematic technique, first seen on the tube in early-80s cop dramas, where the camera follows the main characters through a crowded room, picking up snippets of conversation here and there then refocuses back on the heroes. As I read the book, all these visual cues jumbled about in my mind.
Hawkshaw is perfect fodder for a first-time director enamored with Luc Besson and Terry Gilliam, and who writes dialogue like David Mamet. If I could hop into that parallel universe, I fully expect to see a colorful, bizarre, overstimulated, perfectly-paced 89-minute flick, populated with wisecracking, pre-Tarantino Tarantino characters with a generous streak of Mel Brooks humor.
It starts off somewhat slow, I must admit, but from the halfway point to the end comes more and more genuine laughs. Example:
“Look up there.” The rental agent ignored Noah’s card, pointed upward.
“Your sign? Very handsome. Ronald Crosby, Car Rentals.”
“My name is Roald Cosby,” corrected the freckled man. “No n, no r. But that’s not the point …”
What a detail! I love it! It’s a little piece of ephemera that brings life to a character who’s only supposed to be alive for a page or two. Those two sentences convey more than a five-hundred word paragraph about poor Mr. Cosby, the living-breathing literary device.
Or how about this –
Rudy studied the plan of the ambush of Noah. “Say, Len. I only just noticed the little circle you have drawn here to represent me is twice as large as the circles for Ned or you. Is that one of your satirical jabs at my weight problem?”
Of course it isn’t, but the fact that hapless, girth-challenged, would-be tough guy Rudy brings it up is, well, funny. Funny that I laughed out loud.
The politics are petrified in the early-70s, but that’s okay. We’re in the futuristic late-90s. Everything’s in robotic overdrive. It’s a reporter-chasing-the-big-story story, only this one has werewolves, underground hippies, biological warfare, conservative revolutionaries led by the second coming of George Washington, an American Pope, the New Jersey mafia, cannibals, pornographers, Uncle Kidnapper the clown, mate swap conventioneers. And, of course, there’s always the sneaking suspicion that no one is who they seem to be, and there are a couple of really neat twists.
All in 149 pages. Can’t beat that!
So, I liked Hawkshaw and I didn’t like The Hellhound Project. Now to track down Spacehawk Inc, Crackpot, and Talent for the Invisible …
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