Flaming Zepplins

Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal by Joe R. Lansdale
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Flaming Zeppelins contains Zeppelins West and Flaming London by Joe Lansdale.

In that hazy time before Goodreads, I read both of these books. While I love Hap and Leonard, these were the crazy ass books that made me a Joe Lansdale fan. Thanks to the magic of getting older, I remember almost nothing about them so I need a refresher course before I read the concluding book in the trilogy, The Sky Done Ripped.

Zeppelins West is the tale of a rescue mission that went tits up, sending our heroes out of the frying pan and into the fire, as the cliche goes. Wild Bill Hickok, Annie Oakley, Sitting Bull, and Buffalo Bill Cody's head in a jar try to save Frankenstein's Monster from the Japanese and wind up on the island of Doctor Momo.

Crude humor, witting lines, and violence abound as Lansdale hits a lot of Jules Verne and HG Welles high notes with spoofs of Doctor Moreau and Captain Nemo, with guest spots from the Tin Man and and a lot of other turn of the century literary characters. I forgot what a shit storm the second part of this novella is. The love affair between the Tin Man and SPOILER is my favorite part of the story.

Flaming London is what really happened when the Martians invaded London, with Mark Twain, Jules Verne, and Ned the Seal stranded on Misty Island for a while as the fabric of space and time unravels.

Mark Twain has hit rock bottom at the beginning of Flaming London, with only a dead monkey and two books to his name. He eventually teams up with Jules Verne and some old and new friends. Tears in the space time continuum abound as the heroes make a last stand in London, with Ned the Seal in tow. The Martians meet their end the old fashioned way, as they usually do.

Joe Lansdale isn't often mentioned as a steampunk author, probably because steampunk is all gears and goggles these days, but these are steampunk books as they were originally intended, throwbacks to the works of Jules Verne and HG Wells. Joe Lansdale might not be the father of steampunk but he's definitely steampunk's hilarious, foul mouthed uncle that isn't welcome at family gatherings. 4 out of 5 dead Martians.

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