A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above

by Johnny Strike, Richard Sala (Illustrator)

A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above is a collection of twelve stories by Johnny Strike, six of them never before published. All of them feature the genre-bending, hallucinatory style that distinguished his novel, Ports of Hell (Headpress/Diagonal), of which William Burroughs These are real maps of real places. That is what marks the artist, he has been there and brought it back. Among A Loud Humming Sound Came From Above s settings are a hellish prison workshop, a profiteering methadone clinic and a hotel where the suicidal find a terrible reason to live; among the characters are the unlucky, the sociopathic, the absurdly delusional and those who see reality with crippling clarity. It features twelve interior illustrations and a full color cover by Richard Sala, creator of such graphic novels as Evil Eye.

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy

165 pages, Paperback

First published October 19, 2007

About the author

Gary John Bassett known as Johnny Strike, was an American writer, mostly known as songwriter, guitarist and singer of the proto-punk band Crime based in San Francisco.[

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was initially attracted to this book because of the Richard Sala cover and interior drawings, as I'm a huge fan of his work. I read the book in about four hours, and wasn't initially impressed, as many of the stories are incomplete chapters. The writing is good, but stories can end abruptly.

Then, because I was caught without anything to read, I flipped through the book a second time and became more engrossed. I think it was because I started to equate these stories with chapter installments from the old pulp magazines, and once I quit worrying about the lack of endings (which, in my mind, were in the next issue of Astounding Stories, or Weird Tales, or other classic old pulp magazines) I was able to enjoy the writing for what it was. So, yeah, I like this book now.

Oddly, I'm writing two reviews today, and the other one is for Bat-Manga, where I crab incessantly about how the stories are incomplete, and how that really bugged me. Why is it okay with me this time? I don't know. I suppose I must either be overly complex, or simply a cretin.

[Sydney · Rating 2 out of 5]

So close to really good. All of the stories had potential, but too many of them didn't go anywhere/ended to early for them to be enjoyable. Some of them made no sense, and others were anticlimactic, so the good ones were drowned out.

[Kurt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice collection of weird tales. Unfortunately, a few of them go nowhere.

[Monte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic wonderful images