BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEW #1
TWO FROM SCI-FI/HORROR LEGEND
WILLIAM F. NOLAN:
SHIPS IN THE NIGHT
2005 CAPRA PRESS
and
ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT
2005 HELLBOUND BOOKS

William F. Nolan has written premier science-fiction and horror
literature for radio, television, movies and the written page for the
past 50 years. While he is best-known for the ground-breaking
science-fiction dystopian epic LOGAN’S RUN (1967), Nolan’s
writing has been selected for more than 300 anthologies and
textbooks, and he’s had over 700 articles and items printed in over
250 magazines and newspapers (including at least 165 short
stories); as a founding member of the Southern California Group of
Writers (commonly called The Group), Nolan’s output has set the
standard for greatness in science-fiction and horror. Along with
the talents of fellow Group members Ray Bradbury, Charles
Beaumont, and Richard Matheson (and a slew of other American
visionaries), Nolan’s artistry represents the best of an era where
these particular literary genres were first being embraced by
popular culture based on the strength of these authors and their
bold, pioneering, futuristic visions.
William F. Nolan also has 80 books of his own to his credit, with no
indication of slowing or petering out, as he capably demonstrates
with his two latest collections, SHIPS IN THE NIGHT (Capra
Press) and ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT (HellBound Books). The
former, SHIPS IN THE NIGHT, represents an ideal Nolan career
retrospective within its ten short selections, encompassing the
author’s passion for the genres of the Western, the detective
story, sports literature, as well as science-fiction. These stories
were originally printed over a 35 year span, from 1957 to 1992;
three of the stories have never been printed in book format until
now. The short story collection, according to Nolan’s introduction
to SHIPS IN THE NIGHT, “ is unique, my first collection to be
published without regard to genre considerations.” The collection
gives fans of Nolan a rare, marvelous opportunity to experience why
his work has been so enduring and treasured by several generations
of readers, outside of the label generally attached to his writing:
Nolan, the science-fiction writer. What makes ILL MET BY
MOONLIGHT equally unique is that it puts together not only
several flavors of his prose, but also his lesser-known (though no
less significant) contribution to poetry; five of the eleven poems
were written exclusively for this collection, while the six others
appeared for a limited time in a very out-of-print pamphlet of
Nolan’s verse that appeared in 1986. ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT is
the first book to include a selection of Nolan’s collected artwork,
though he has been active as an artist even before his career took
off as a writer, once having worked for Hallmark Cards as an
illustrator.
SHIPS IN THE NIGHT opens with a story from which the
collection is named; first written in 1992, the story “Ships in the
Night” seems to be a largely autobiographical self-inventory of a
consummate outsider, looking inward as the sands of time slip
through his fingers. After a near-brush with death, the
protagonist finds solace in the endless lists he creates; through
these lists, the narrator (clearly Nolan) attempts to regain a sense
of purpose and control over his own life by striving to recollect his
personal impact in a world where each of us is very much on our own.
The documentation of his lifetime memories through these lists
becomes his only drive, the only tangible reality in a sea of passing
ships. This simple metaphor of listmaking demonstrates a facet of
Nolan’s attitude toward his 50 plus years as a professional writer
and the craft of writing itself--an all-consuming, tenacious need to
record the memory and significance of people and places above all
else; these lists become the only reality when everything else
fades away.
“The Ragged Edge”, an award-winning motor racing story from
1957, is based on the real life driving exploits of Dr. William
Eschrich, who competed and lost in every major West Coast
competition back in the day, and examines what happens when a
perpetual loser’s luck changes. While the good doctor, an avid
racing enthusiast of this story fears losing yet again in the story’s
race, he discovers that his real fear lies within the boon and
burden of success as a catalyst for change in his life. Confronted
by the fear of what truly lies within those changes causes the
protagonist, a typical Nolan everyman who is measured largely by his
actions, to intentionally lose so that he may retain a sense of choice
in his own life, even if it is only to return to the status quo that
he’s ultimately comfortable with and is afraid of losing.
Nolan plays another variation on the theme of success and failure,
clearly a favorite topic of contemplation with the author (and
certainly an appropriate mirror to these unusual times), with a later
story, 1966’s “Encounter With a King”, a boxing story which
suggests through the protagonist’s inability to take out the aging
contender that the world’s view of success forces the individual to
harden themselves against others; sensitivity to the dignity of
others is a quality that humans may possess, but that true
champions cannot. There are repercussions associated with the act
of mercy just as there are with the instinct of violence.
“Just Like Wild Bob” (1964) probably offers more than a few
autobiographical parallels to the relationship Nolan shared with his
own father, who was a pioneering race car driver. This story seems
pessimistic as surmised by the tone of the narrator, is especially
revealing into the dark part of every human’s psyche--a fear of
aging and the loss of artistic sensitivity and sensibility--yet this
story of a troubled relationship between father and son is
ultimately optimistic as it pits familial pride against a lifetime of
bitterness, with the love of family firmly established as the victor.
Nolan, perhaps deceptively, refers to this brilliant and poignant
story as the mainstream selection of the the collection but the
metaphor of the aging father as a reflection of what the son
ultimately fears to become strikes an obviously deep chord with
both the narrator, clearly Nolan, as well as the reader.
Also worthy of note is the story “Two Coffees” (1969), which is a
vividly accurate and frightening depiction of the helplessness of
the individual trapped within the clutches of indentured servitude,
namely a sales office. On one level, the story expertly grapples
with the question of how to sell the phoney institution of
salesmanship, and yet also serves to function as the author’s
heartfelt personal exorcism of his own civil servant ghosts and the
realization that such an environment squashes the dreams and
hopes of an individual.
The collection’s next two selections demonstrate Nolan’s
chameleon-like quality as a writer in the realm where he is best
known and loved--namely the world of science-fiction. “The Grackel
Question” (1978) serves as a humorously zany take on the question
of whether or not mortality is a curse or a blessing in an
increasingly self-denying world. However, it is within the story
“Of Time and Kathy Benedict” (1984) that the artist offers some
of his most carefully camouflaged yet profound revelations. Using a
female protagonist (an appreciated rarity in itself, contrasting the
typically masculine point of view in the majority of Nolan’s work),
who is forced to leave her own time epoch because of a freak
cosmic accident and start anew, the author suggests that
sometimes we must allow the old parts of ourselves to perish
altogether to gain a new lease on life, as well as a lesson in the
foundation and meaning of love itself consisting of a relative,
constantly changing quality. Those seeking fixed immutable
universals in life and love may look elsewhere, and good luck.
The collection ends with a humorous and occasionally suspenseful
homage to the genre of detective stories popularized by writers
like Dashiell Hammett, “Helle On Wheels” (1992). Hoping to end
SHIPS IN THE NIGHT on a characteristically Nolan-esque
“lighter note”, the author has retooled this story from an A-TEAM
teleplay (written strictly for his own pleasure as a fan of the
popular television show, with no intention of publishing) into a story
for Nick Challis, a reoccurring detective protagonist Nolan has used
in earlier stories. Nolan is clearly a fan of this genre and tradition;
his use of the old fashioned detective story conventions to propel
the action in a fast-paced, urgent manner are honest and loving as a
tribute without being too precious, its effect highly entertaining,
even at moments possessing a timeless quality.
ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT is another tasty melange of Nolan’s
artistic vision, consisting of four short stories written within the
past six years, as well as a retooled version of an unpublished story
from 1963; eleven selections of the author’s verse from 1984 to
the present; and for the first time in book form, a gallery of
collected paper napkin art as well as a selection of “serious art”
taken from Nolan’s sketchbooks, revealing successfully yet again
the effortless, chameleonlike quality Nolan possesses to express
himself earnestly in one media or another.
This collection opens up with a short story from 2005 entitled
“The Clown’s Daughter”, an homage to the comic strip adventure
indicating more than a few loving nods to the epic Batman pantheon,
with a revolving point of view seen through the eyes of the Robin
character, who is called Nightboy, as well as the actual Batman
character, referred to as Nightman, pitted against the Clown, an
evil genius bent on assassinating the President of the United
States. This seemingly innocuous adventure story capably
demonstrates Nolan’s reflections on the bittersweet, fleeting
nature of love, as seen through the brief though intense love affair
between Nightboy and the Clown’s daughter which results in her
untimely death; humans are unable to grasp the mysteries of love
without some level of self-sacrifice. Once we do begin to crack the
shell of its enigma, it slips away through our fingers.
“Just Call Me Dash” (2005) is a ghost story which essentially
functions as a biographic encapsulation of the life of mystery
writer Dashiell Hammett, revealing Nolan’s love of the legacy and
mystery Hammett left behind upon his death, as well as Nolan’s
personal theories about why Hammett stopped writing mystery
novels and embraced radical politics. The story also recognizes the
problems associated with substance abuse without heavyhanded
moralism, as well as Nolan’s personal beliefs about reincarnation and
the concept of higher purpose.
William F. Nolan made a decision in 1956 that would end his possibly
lucrative career as an aspiring commercial artist after his first
successful sale of a story to Playboy magazine. According to Nolan
in his introduction to ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT, “ I realized that
I had much more talent as a writer than I did as an artist, so I
turned away from art to concentrate on professional writing.
However, despite several decades at the keys, I never totally
abandoned my early passion. This is evident in the cover art I have
created for more than a dozen of my books and pamphlets, and in
some 90-plus art pieces reproduced over the years in magazines
and newspapers.” Nolan goes on to explain the significance of his
napkin art: “Whenever I eat out with my wife in a restaurant or
coffee shop I usually end up drawing some kind of cartoon figure on
a paper napkin to amuse her. She has preserved all of these, and
occasionally jokes about my mounting a gallery show: ‘Napkin Art by
Nolan’ “.
Nolan’s napkin art is unusual to say the least, and often sheds light
on the comic and nostalgically bittersweet atmosphere Nolan’s
literary work exhudes. His ability to capture the flawed side of
humanity as well as its despair is as notable as his penchant for
humor and outright silliness. Nolan’s subjects in his sketches are
clearly people with stories as interesting as Nolan’s reasons for
choosing their faces and bodies in the first place. He often
successfully captures that familiar yet uncomfortable place in a
viewer’s memory which typifies a timeless, universal quality.
The selected works from Nolan’s sketchbooks further
demonstrate his unique sensitivity to a flawed humanity; on one end
of Nolan’s spectrum, this is simply portrayed as comic reaction to a
given subject, though more often than not is revealed in a sublime
empathy for his subject, especially capturing well a sense of quiet
sadness in many of his sketches. Nolan wastes no time with
idealized beauty or mirth in the majority of his subjects, choosing
instead to focus his sensitivity on the less-than-perfect, the
accepted despair of an outsider or the failure of a misfit; one is not
overwhelmed by a lot of smiles in Nolan’s highly stylized subjects
--perhaps growing up in Depression-era Kansas shaded this
particular aspect of Nolan’s artistic vision. Maybe this is what
Nolan sees as truthful, the less-than-phoney aspects of the human
condition.
Nolan is always an enjoyable read and, unlike the majority of the
esteemed Southern California Group of Writers, still remains a
literary force to be reckoned with, as both SHIPS IN THE
NIGHTand ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT clearly emphasize. The fact
that he is still an active and eternally prolific participant in a
subculture of writing that has been essentially defined by the
influence of his pioneering example is testimony to his greatness of
character and tenacity of vision. His work is immediately engaging,
actively challenging the reader’s imagination through an often
infectious mastery of pace and a unique approach to bare bones
stylization that sets him apart within the pantheon of truly vital
science-fiction and horror writers. There is a tone of moralism in
Nolan’s work that represents a different time, place and value
system that we
are familiar with and that some of us yearn for
through recurring memories and dreams. Nolan’s world represents
the best and worst values of a time when men and women were
judged on the strength of their actions, weighing in with a
pragmatist’s take on the true nature of the human condition and
the motivations that drive it. This point of view is masterfully
shaded with an idealist’s sense of the governing laws of fairness
and the restoration of the downtrodden. Add the yearning of an
eternally romantic outsider fighting for impact in a world of
sinister intentions, and you realize you’ve picked up a book by
William F. Nolan. Like the best of career writers, Nolan is a true
chameleon, as he continues to faithfully demonstrate a commitment
to his audience and the craft through the mastery of many genres
of writing; his work continuously and quite uniquely conveys
thoughtful social commentary from the point of view of a seasoned
literary veteran who still has a lot to say to his lifelong fans as well
as newer generations of readers of horror and science-fiction.
How can you obtain these books? Details in obtaining ILL MET BY
MOONLIGHT are highlighted in the INTERVIEW section at the
end of the Hermetic Order of Arcana’s lively talk with William F.
Nolan. Copies of SHIPS IN THE NIGHT may be ordered directly
from Nolan at a special sale price of $12.00 ($10.00 for book,
$2.00 for shipping). The original price was $17.95, so this is a
bargain--and all copies will be signed by Nolan, with a small cartoon!
You can send your checks to:

WILLIAM F. NOLAN
2600 NE FORUM DRIVE (APT. H 67)
BEND, OREGON 97701