Mike Resnick launches preacher, explorer, and con man Lucifer Jones on adventures where he crosses paths with dragons, drug lords, white slavers, gamblers, ghouls, assorted magical creatures, and beautiful movie stars. Put Indian Jones in a blender with Hunter S. Thompson and you’ll get the Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones.
Mike Resnick’s accomplishments include 64 novels, 21 short story collections, 40 anthologies, two screenplays, and approximately 250 short stories-resulting in a couple of shelves of major awards (including five Hugos from 35 nominations).
The blurb on Lucifer Jones says it all: “Being a Thrilling Chronicle of Romance, Danger, Spectacle, High Adventure, Narrow Escapes, and Uplifting Triumphs Over Sinister Villains and Mystic Mages in the Exotic Continent of the East, as Recounted by the Bold, Daring, Handsome and Modest Christian Gentleman Who Experienced Them.”
If you’re in the mood for some wacky, funny, bizarre, and slap-stick adventures, this is the book for you! GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
PART I: EXPLOITS (1926-1931)
- The Master Detective — 3
- The Sin City Derby — 20
- The Insidious Oriental Dentist — 39
- The Great Wall — 55
- The Abominable Snowman — 71
- The Land of Eternal Youth — 83
- Secret Sex — 96
- The Flame of Bharatpur — 111
- The Scorpion Lady — 126
- The Other Master Detective — 141
PART II: ENCOUNTERS (1931-1934)
- The Home-Made Man — 157
- Doubled and Redoubled — 172
- Treasure Hunting — 190
- The Lost Continent — 204
- Exercising Ghosts — 219
- The Werewolf — 231
- The Clubfoot of Notre Dame — 242
- The Crown Jewels — 257
- The Loch Ness Monster — 275
- A Tabernacle Is Not a Home — 286
- Death in the Afternoon — 297
The first thing I thought when I read your review was, “Bill Crider would have loved this.” Sounds like fun.
Jeff, I’m sure Bill Crider was a Mike Resnick fan. These Lucifer Jones stories, full of fun and weirdness, run the gamut from High Adventure to Super Silliness!
I believe I’ve read a few Resnick short stories in collections over the years, but nothing novel length. This does look fun. Darrell K. Sweet is one of a handful of artists whose cover work instantly takes me back in time to my days of working in a bookstore and expanding my fantasy and science fiction reading beyond a handful of novels I had read. His covers used to be everywhere on store shelves. A friend gave me a few art books of his work several years ago and they are books that I treasure.
Carl, it will come as no Surprise to you to learn I bought a lot of books because Darrell K. Sweet did the covers! But, here’s a book with a Sweet cover that I actually read…and enjoyed!
My first exposure to Sweet’s art was when I was a kid and my younger brother bought me the paperback of Patricia A. McKillip’s The Riddle-master of Hed, because he thought the cover looked like something I might like. It was my first exposure to both of their work and made me a lifelong fan of each. I need to reread that trilogy, it has been far too long. Was sorry to see McKillip passed away recently.
Carl, I loved the artwork on Fantasy paperback covers back in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, Fantasy novels started selling so they got into hardcover formats with even nicer cover artwork!
Perhaps not so oddly, the first Resnick book I bought was his guide to fantastic-fiction collectibles (from 1977 iirc, and thus signed Michael Resnick). The most recent one so far has been his joint collection of essays for the SFWA Bulletin, where each entry was (and remains) a conversation between Resnick and Barry Malzberg…
Todd, I have that Resnick/Malzberg book…but haven’t read it yet. At one time, Resnick books were on every spinner rack, in every BORDERS, and on the shelves of used bookstores. Now, I only see a Resnick book at a Library Book Sale…and it’s usually a beat-up copy.