You Tell Me Where The Real Ends And The Pulp Begins

He felt something explode off the back of his head, and he sank to his hands and knees, bolts of pain radiating through his body like the energy waves broadcasting from the RKO Studios’ theatrical emblem.
- The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril, p. 281-282

I really am pretty mad at myself for waiting so long to read Paul Malmont’s much-lauded debut The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. Last year, when it was new, I saw it in a bookstore and was immediately hooked, pretty much by the title and cover alone. When Bookgasm went on to declare it their all-time favorite book of 2006, I became even more sure that I absolutely had to read it. But I am a cheap bastard, so I waited for paperback, and I also got distracted, so I really didn’t read it until just now. I don’t know if I’d go for “best of the year,” but it is pretty good.

The concept, in the most simply of nutshells, is that Walter Gibson (creator of The Shadow) and Lester Dent (creator of Doc Savage) find themselves caught up in the sort of outlandish story that could only happen in the pulps… and it all begins with the mysterious death of H.P. Lovecraft. So yeah, it’s a rather unique book. It goes on to incorporate many figures of the pulp era, including a major part by L. Ron Hubbard, (yeah, that’s right) and perennial favorite of mine E. E. “Doc” Smith in a smaller supporting role. The book ends up coming across as a sort of bizarro version of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, in that as opposed to fictional creators of old, trashy literature living through somewhat realistic events, it comprises real creators living an entire fabrication in the same time period.

Death Cloud… may aspire to a bit more than it can manage, though. Because while the idea is to give us a modern-day pulp, of sorts, it honestly hardly comes across as one. Yes there are zombies, secret rituals, a warlord, and a strange gas… but they all really come in rather late in the book. For the most part, it’s really a novel in the current mold: alot of character development and a long time until much actually happens (barring the odd bit of foreshadowing earlier on, which is always welcome). That isn’t to say, however, that the book is bad, by any stretch. It does that characterization very well, and all with fun little winks at the rest of us fanboys who recognize the names that Malmont incorporates into his story.

Unfortunately, there are times when those little winks and nods get a bit overplayed. Of course it’s all about suspension of disbelief to even think that these real people would all have taken part in this one adventure, but a few of the creators who get shoe-horned in (especially the comic book writers and artists) really do feel forced, as though the author simply had to get them in somewhere, and had to make every character, no matter how minor, end up being someone in the world of old-fashioned escapist entertainment.

That aside, however, most of the cameos (like Orson Welles) are inspired, and again strengthen some of the similarities to Kavalier & Clay (again, like Orson Welles). In fact, there even is a quick little mention of Joe Kavalier in Death Cloud… that thankfully didn’t feel as forced as it easily could have, because the moment makes sense. Clearly, Malmont has decided that his book takes place in the same basic canon as Chabon’s… although I wonder how Chabon feels about that. Any problems I had with the uses of real people, however, vanished entirely upon the appearance of Chester Himes, who is one of my all-time favorites.

But enough nitpicking, overall Malmont has given us a very good first novel. Although it lacks a bit in the promised adventure, it does a good job of taking the basic pulp staples and transmuting them into a more modern, “serious,” book. Even without much happening the story and characters do pull you along, especially in the two sections of the book that intersperse short chapters about the rise of a Chinese warlord in-between those of normal action. This little bit of history, and the very enjoyably unspecific way in which the exact time in history in which it’s set is not (at first) made clear makes for an interesting read, and gives the proceedings a great feel of scope.

It’s also a nice example of one of the best things about the book. Right at the beginning, when Lester Dent is explaining the various elements you need in any piece of pulp fiction, one of the things he rattles off is “the Yellow peril.” It’s no secret to most people that the old pulp writers were perfectly happy to fill their stories with evil, over-the-top, Fu Manchu stereotypes. I’m not too familiar on the exact history of why it became the Chinese who were so often the evil ones in those old stories, but the fact is that that particular strain of racism was especially healthy in the fiction of those days. Now, the point of Death Cloud… is to incorporate many old pulp tropes into its story, and Malmont addresses that particular one by filling the story with Chinese history and mythology, as well as entirely realistic Chinese characters, and thereby fitting in that bit of “foreign mystique” that the old stories strove for, but without the uninhibited bigotry. That may not sound like much of a feat, but he hits the balance perfectly.

When the plot finally does get going in the last third of the novel, the action is overall quite fast and exciting. Although, unfortunately, an inordinately large number of the suspenseful moments are resolved through pure luck, which is always frustrating in a thriller of any sort. A last minute rescue is good, but too many of them, and too many other fortunate happenstances, begin to take their toll on the suspense itself.

Nonetheless, The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril is, for the most part, an engrossing read that manages to draw us into the very real concerns of its characters, and then plunge them into fantastical situations that do make putting the book down pretty difficult. It’s not perfect, but for a first novel it’s shockingly good, and as a sort of synthesis of genres it works very well. It isn’t cover to cover excitement, but it is page after page of very good and compelling writing, in many different modes.