Book of the Week, Episode IV

I'm gonna do something a little different this week. Instead of discussing a recent small press title and explaining that you have to order it NOW NOW NOW!!! if you don't want to miss out, let's turn back the clock a few years to James A. Moore's novel FIREWORKS, a mass market release which is readily available at Amazon for a mere $6.99.

Though Jim Moore achieved worldwide fame, the respect of his peers, and a bunch of extra cash to feed ducks when I allowed him to collaborate with me on our eternal masterpiece THE HAUNTED FOREST TOUR, it's a little-known fact that he had dabbled in fiction on his own before our association. I know I was surprised to walk into my local Barnes & Noble and see a whole slew of Jim Moore books on the shelves. "Look!" I said, tugging excitedly on my wife's sleeve. "That's the guy I wrote that book with! How cool that he doesn't need me to hold his hand anymore!"

But my excitement quickly turned into dark jealousy as I flipped through the books and realized that most of them were published before we wrote even the first word of our novel. How DARE he write books without me? Who the bleep did he think he was, building a successful career and hiding it from me like a shameful infidelity?

My dark jealousy quickly turned into despair. I thought I'd plucked Jim Moore from obscurity, but was it possible that he didn't need to ride my coattails to get a book contract? I'd always assumed that his top billing on THE HAUNTED FOREST TOUR was strictly alphabetical...but was that really the case? Was it I who was the leech? Was Jim Moore...slumming?

I wept.

Anyway, FIREWORKS was the first Jim Moore novel I read, before he knew who the hell I was. On the surface, it's about aliens, but the last thing you want to do is go into this one thinking "Yeee-haw! I'm-a gonna read 'bout Martians disintegrating people!" This book contains nary a disintegration. The twist is that FIREWORKS is barely about the aliens at all. It's about what happens to a small town when a spacecraft crashes into a lake, and the government steps in to take control of the situation.

Yep, FIREWORKS deals entirely with the human reaction to the spacecraft and not the alien contents. It's a fascinating novel, filled with the rich and believable characterizations that you'll find in all of his work, and you never quite know where things are headed. Very highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/103-1204403-8405452?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=james+a.+moore