Flaming Zeppelins

by | Jan 31, 2011 | Reviews | 0 comments

1. If you love, or even just like Joe R. Lansdale then you must get this book.

2. If you have already read Lansdale’s novellas Zeppelins West and Flaming London then you can skip this book as it just collects those previous works.

3. If you haven’t read the two titles in number 2, then shame on you, what were you thinking? But fear not and rejoice for you now easily can rectify that grievous oversight in one handy package here.

4. If you have never read any of Lansdale’s weird, wild fiction then wow, where have you been? Luckily it’s never too late to join their cool kids club and find out what everyone rave when big poppa Joe comes up in a conversation. This book is a great place to start to get you Lansdale mojo on.

5. What, you want more? Ok, read on…

It is hard to describe these two Lansdale novels without sounding like a total loon off their meds but by God, that’s what makes them so wonderful. In the first book, Zeppelins West, Buffalo Bill’s famous Wild West Show travels by Zeppelin to Japan to perform for the next emperor. Once there, Bill (who’s now just a living head in a jar filled with whisky and pig urine) and his crew of old west legends rescue the Frankenstein monster from a fate worst then death. The heroes flee the shogun’s wrath but their zeppelin gets shot down over the ocean by imperial biplanes. Luckily they are saved by Captain Nemo…I mean “Bemo” and met the real star of both book, a hyper intelligent seal named Ned who has a love of dime store novels.

In short order the ever expanding motley crew finds their way to the horrible Island of Dr. Moreau…sorry, I mean “Momo” and witness first hand his horrible experiments in combining animals and humans. Along the way Frankenstein’s monster comes out of the closet and openly expresses his love for the Tin Man from the Wizard Of Oz, a number of historical celebrities, both real and fictitious, pop up such as Dracula, the Red Barron, and Charles Darwin, and things soon turn very violent and bloody at Momo’s island for misfit monsters.

Flaming London picks up where the carnage of Zeppelins West left off. Ned the Seal is one of the very few survivors from the first book and he is saved from becoming shark snacks by authors Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) and Jules Verne. The trio of authors (hey, Ned writes too, in fact most of this story is from his journal) and a few other historical oddities then get embroiled in the Martian invasion of London a la The War Of The Worlds. Luckily Verne has a super-duper speedboat which can transform into a balloon and they managed to escape certain disintegration by traveling to an island overrun by scurvy pirates who managed to capture a King Kong-sized intelligent red ape from Mars. As if that wasn’t insane enough there are rips in time and space, the Flying Dutchman pops up, and the Steam Man of the Prairie.

Both of these novellas are on the short side, but man do they cram a lot of off the wall (and often crude and icky) humor, bloody horror, and sci-fi pulpy goodness in very few pages. That means the action moves at a rocket pace and once you get caught up in the story, and believe me when I say you will, you can rip through each book in a single sitting. At least, I did. Individually each of these novellas is great, so together in one handsome and reasonably priced volume; Flaming Zeppelins is much loved must have. It doesn’t get any better than this.

About Brian Sammons