Who would have suspected? I damned sure didn't, and I seriously doubt that Joe R. Lansdale did, either. No one can predict this sort of thing.

In 1990 Joe Lansdale published a terrific crime novel as a paperback original. It was called Savage Season, and it featured two odd, funny, tough-guy characters. I was there, right at the beginning, having been a rabid Lansdale fan ever since I read The Drive-In two years prior to the publication of Savage Season. The cover of the Bantam paperback of Savage Season is one of the most memorable I've ever seen, and that was just the icing on the proverbial cake.

Readers responded strongly to Hap and Leonard, but it took a while for Joe to continue with the characters. Mucho Mojo came out in 1994, and he was off and running.

For a while--quite a while--the Hap and Leonard phenomena was a cult thing, but gradually more and more readers latched on to the series. I personally handed the books into many hands, some willing and some not so willing, but I don't believe that I have ever known anyone to dislike them.

Now, here we are, twenty-seven years after Savage Season burst onto the literary landscape, and Hap and Leonard are everywhere. Let's see, we recently had a new collection of Hap and Leonard short stories, called, appropriately, Hap and Leonard (Hap and Leonard Ride Again in ebook form), there has been a wonderfully faithful Sundance Channel TV series based on them, a novella called Hoodoo Harry was just published by The Mysterious Bookshop. And coming up?

Season Two of the Hap and Leonard show begins on March 15. A major novel, Rusty Puppy, streets on February 23rd. The very good folks at Subterranean Press unleash another novella called Coco Butternut (Don't you just love his titles?) which is coming right up on January 30th.

Is that all? Could there possibly be any more? Oh yes.

On February 20th, yet another collection is coming from Tachyon Publications. And this one is very special indeed.

We've come to expect outrageous humor, situations, and violence in Hap and Leonard stories, and there is some of that stuff in Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade. But this collection is a more somber bunch of stories. Some feature crime and bloodshed. Some are funny. Some are wistful. Some are sad and thoughtful. Joe, slippery bastard that he is, even slips a ghost story into the mix.

Blood and Lemonade shows another side of Hap and Leonard. While, yes, there are introspective moments in each of the books up to now, these stories are often quiet. They give the reader pause; time for contemplation.

Joe calls Blood and Lemonade a mosaic novel. I always called this sort of thing a story cycle. Both terms amount to the same thing. There are connecting sequences with Hap and Leonard woolgathering about past events. Each story is a slice of life from when they were young, before the events of Savage Season. Some are not even Hap and Leonard stories, but simply Hap stories. That isn't surprising as Hap's perspective has always been the driving force of the series.

Tachyon also published the previously mentioned Hap and Leonard short story collection. Unlike that one, which contains a lot of reprints, Blood and Lemonade features mostly new works, and works that will be new to most readers. Both are essential to any fan, but as I noted before, Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade, is something truly special. You are going to love it. Regardless of whether, like me, you are a (savage) seasoned Hap and Leonard veteran, or are new to the characters. Trust me.

No comments

The author does not allow comments to this entry