Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Dead Aim - Joe Lansdale


So, the simple review: Joe Lansdale has a new novella (that's a short novel) out, Dead Aim

It's Hap and Leonard.

Which, if you are a Lansdale fan, is all you need to know. If you aren't a fan, you should be. 
Hap and Leonard, an East Texas redneck and a gay black guy, respectively, are constantly getting into trouble, and this outing is no different, all axe-handles and boomware and bodies, and what they see isn't what they get. 

With Hap and Leonard, the road is never straight and easy for them to get where they need to go. 

Lansdale is an absolute pro when he sets pen to paper, he's written everything from horror to mysteries to animation for TV, and far as I can tell, has never written a bad paragraph. He's also something like fifty years deep in martial arts, which doesn't hurt when he crafts a fight scene. 

The original novella was from Subterranean Press and the collector's version is sold out, but you can get an epub version from Amazon.com.

You should. 

If the work has a problem, it's that it's too short. It' s lean and mean, but you don't get that experience of hunkering down and spending quality time with Hap and Leonard, which is always a fun thing.

If you go looking for it, link Lansdale's name to it–there are at least two other novels with the same title, including a fine one by Thomas Perry (no relation.)

4 comments:

  1. I just finished Mucho Mojo, and enjoyed it. Got turned onto Lansdale by a friend who's a big fan, and met him at a local con a couple of years ago. Nice guy, great writer.

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  2. Great! yet another Hap and Leonard story I can't get from my library. After all the cuts the past few years they no longer do inter-library loans. Severely limits my choices and I like these as Audio's. Sounds like this one isn't an audio anyway so Nook here I come.

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  3. I think there is an audio version, though that doesn't help if the library can't afford it.

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  4. We used to have a libary cooperative (it still exsists but for what) and you could get great stuff on loans. state Funding dried up and it was cut. Has severely limited what is available to me. I can see they have it but can't get it!

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