Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were a reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
So now that we’re done with Transformers: Exodus it’s time to start reading a brand new book. At last year’s ConnectiCon (I sadly missed this year) I was lucky enough to meet writer C. J. Henderson. (See the first video.) While I don’t care about the world of H. P. Lovecraft (he is the estate-approved writer of the public domain franchise), he did have another book that he wrote for:
The Phantom Chronicles is an anthology series, and hopefully someday I’ll actually review a book that I go through one chapter at a time rather than a group of chapters or a series of short stories. Future editions will involve me reading old books that I haven’t read in years, rather than ones I haven’t read at all. For our first installment of the new Chapter by Chapter, we’ll have an overview of the next book to read.
Now for these Chapter by Chapter openers I want to start with a bit about the writer, look over the back of the book, and then the prologue. However, since each chapter/story is written by a different writer I’ll go over him or her when I get to that story. So let’s start with the cover. It’s a cool shot of the Ghost Who Walks, his face covered in the shadows. I don’t know why they had to put his name in there, when it’s in the book title, though.
Now in the original comic strips, the Chronicles are a series of journals (because girls keep “diaries” and boys keep “journals”, although they’re the same thing, really, like “dolls” and “action figures”) kept by every Phantom. The Phantom who comes after studies these journals to learn about their ancestors’ adventures, some of which may even relate to a current issue. Memorizing these stories even helps the Phantom keep the illusion of being immortal. That’s where the name comes from, I’d wager. Now for the text on the back of the book.
To the outside world, this man, seemingly immortal, has always worn the mask. As the legend grew, it transcended the life of any one mortal. And that legend became THE PHANTOM!
For the VERY first time anywhere…the first team-up ever of The Phantom and the Green Hornet…
Wait, who ever asked for that team-up? Could it be cool? Sure, any crossover can be. It could also turn out to be bad fanfic (or yes, even good fanfic). So who’s writing this story?
… a brand new story fragment written by master wordsmith Harlan Ellison!
I admit I’ve never read Ellison’s original works, but I’ve seen interviews and his own segment on an old Sci-Fi Channel show about science fiction writers. (It was a non-fiction roundtable about fiction, but I don’t remember the name.) The man has his own ideas about what makes a good story, and hates and science fiction (and the shortened term “sci-fi”) that doesn’t match his idea about what SF should be. Oh, and he tried to tell Gene Roddenberry how to write his characters. OK, that’s a bit cynical, but Ellison did write a Star Trek episode, “City On the Edge of Forever”, and apparently his ideas about what Kirk should do (originally he was supposed to try to save Edith rather than McCoy) was deemed out of character for Kirk (and for a woman he’s only known a few weeks vs. his duty to Starfleet and the future of Earth) and changed. He wasn’t happy, but I’m on Roddenberry’s side on this one. It would have been out of character and McCoy at least didn’t know what he was doing would lead to a very different future.
So I’m not sure what I think about him writing a story with two (more) characters I like and he didn’t create. This is the last story in the book, so we’ll have to wait the next 15 editions to see how well he does with these two.
Instead of a prologue, we get an introduction by Lee Falk’s daughter, Diane. In it, she discusses her late father’s love of theater, his drive for social justice, and writing four stories a week (both The Phantom and his other creation, Mandrake The Magician, had a separate story on Sundays from the weekday run, and still do), but also what a good father he was, loving and open-minded, encouraging his kids as best he could.
This should be an interesting book to read, and that’s what we’ll do in the next installment of Chapter by Chapter, with Tom DeFalco’s “Ghost Story”.
Related articles
- Book Report: Transformers: Exodus (clutterreport.wordpress.com)
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