[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 138: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 150: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 151: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 152: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 153: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 154: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 155: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 156: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 157: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 158: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 159: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 160: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/book.php on line 161: Trying to access array offset on value of type bool [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4130: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3009) [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4130: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3009) [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4130: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3009) [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4130: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3009) The Internet Book Database of Fiction - Detailed view for the Book: Claremont Tales (Collection)
The opening tale, "Black Mist," about a Japanese space station on a Martian moon, gets bogged down in its Japanese idiom. Similarly, "The Second Drug," a pastiche of the overwritten, exotic stories of a century ago, is a heavyweight exercise in nostalgia. Humor is Lupoff's strong suit, for he can be quite funny, though again he can overindulge. "Lux Was Dead Right" flounders in a welter of "inside" referential puns. In "Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley," an homage to H.P. Lovecraft, the author's weakness for Yiddish humor slows down the story. Even in a more serious effort at using Lovecraft, the kaleidoscopic "Discovery of the Ghooric Zone," which has an unexpectedly poignant scene of the death of HPL's aunt, Lupoff is compelled to drag in the old pop tune "Bei Mir Bist du Schon" for irony. Fortunately, when he is in control, as in "The Tootsie Roll Factor," about a compulsive gambler saved by Lady Luck as an 11-year-old freckled girl, he knows precisely when to stop. And in "At Vega's Tacqueria" he offers an alternate world story to end the genre, with worlds changing every paragraph. "So laugh a little already," Lupoff seems to say.