B.W.'s Book Report: The Tomb

So this is what all the fuss is about. Count me in as hopping on the Repairman Jack bandwagon.

F. Paul Wilson's character doesn't repair appliances; he repairs "situations." And my, what a situation he encounters in The Tomb, the first book in the series. I read the "Author's Definitive Edition" of this 1984 novel, which was first published in 2004, so I don't know if it's a radical change from the original or just a tweaking of details - I noticed Jack is watching his private James Whale movie festival on DVD, for example - was it VHS originally? or is the concept of watching movies at home not even part of the original novel? I got my first VCR in 1988, although I think I may have been late to the party.

Be that as it may, it is lovely to have a hero who deliberately avoids contact with our beloved nanny government and does all he can to stay under its radar. I find it interesting that Jack stayed where he was at the end of The Tomb for 14 years, and Wilson revived the character for what has become a series of nine books so far. I'm looking forward to diving into those, but first I'm going to check out An Enemy of the State, another Wilson novel described on the cover as "both a philosophical tale and an action yarn." You could describe The Tomb the same way, in a sense, but it sounds like this "story of the birth of the LaNague Federation" has a bit more philosophical meat in it.

I'm being a bit vague about the details of The Tomb because my sense is that I'm definitely late to this party - most of the people who regularly check out this blog know all about Repairman Jack and wonder what took me so long. If you're arriving even later, let me just add my voice to the chorus encouraging you to seek out and read this stuff!