"Oddly Enough": The Writings of Bruce Coville

So, there seems to be a general outcry (mostly just Eric) for the lack of a Bruce Coville entry, as promised earlier. Mea culpa.

I promise I hadn't forgotten; I had taken the time to dig out my old Coville books and re-read them. It was quite enjoyable, let me tell you. I recommend you do the same - they're even better seen through an adult's eyes.

My best Coville-related moment (and there were many, many) is the heady anticipation of being old enough to read the My Teacher is an Alien series. They were fascinating things: a cover that pictured a glowing, radioactive looking alien peeking out from under its human mask; it's placement in the library in the YA section - big kids territory only! - and that wonderful, salacious title. Coville, if you haven't already guessed or had the pleasure of reading him, has a tendency to take the extraordinary and fantastic and make them tangible enough for children to grasp. He never explained away the otherworldly in that annoyingly cheerful Scooby-Doo kind of way when the zombie mask was pulled off to reveal Old Man Withers who owned the amusement park. No, Coville always made it clear that there were simply strange, unexplainable things in the world. His protagonists, often without of the help of parents (as, we all know, Will Smith put best: "Parents just don't understand"), are often thrown into crazy, dangerous situations with nothing but their good intentions to see them through.

You can see how that was appealing to YA crowd, as pre-teens found themselves deep in a world where the rules of adulthood are only just beginning to be employed and where they struggle to act in a society that is often oppressively acting upon them. His characters aren't without hope, however. Each - male and female - as Coville moves between each gender with ease, are gifted with the best tools a human being can be endowed with: good sense and decency. And, simply enough, that's all you really need to be successful in life.

I've made it no secret that I harbor a deep, unending love for Monster of the Year, sadly no longer in print, as Coville himself pointed out to me. Nor is it as popular, Coville went on to say, as the My Teacher is an Alien, Nina Tanleven, or Rod Albright Alien Adventures series, which is a pity.

But what makes Coville's work so damn entertaining, comes down to two important factors:

1. Coville's creative use of the vernacular.
What still amazes me is that the man can write a book with big enough words to challenge children's vocabularies, but as the same time use such funtastic words as "slopnuggets" (Nine and her father's slap dash cookies), multiple references to boogers (the best is when Grakker yells it when the good ship Ferkel won't enlarge in Aliens Ate My Homework) pooper-mucky, and other wonderful turns of phrase. And you always understand, no matter how weird and inventive, exactly what he means. Remarkable.

2. Coville's use of the fantastic.
I'll just list a few: Aliens, werewolves, witches, monsters of sundry types, taking toads, baby dragons, ghosts, unicorns, goblins, giants, etc. For fans of the fanastic, Coville is not only a treat, it's a well-written, knowledgeable, takes-his-horror-very-seriously kind of treat. It's obvious from his writing that he enjoys the hell out of his work and subject matter, which makes me like him and his writing even more.

Saying all that, it's still a mystery to me why none of Coville's books has ever been made into film. Anyway, if you haven't read him already, pick a couple books up. Also, feel free to drop Bruce a line on his website here. He loves to hear from his grown-up fans and talking about horror. And he's a super nice guy.

P.S. Anybody out there ever wished they lived in a Bruce Coville world? I was desperate one summer to visit Camp Haunted Hills, Elive's magic shop, rocket to planets strange and unknown with Madame Pong and Tar Gibbons, or have Nina Tanleven's ghost hunting skills.

I even named my cat after the man (well, him and Bruce Campbell, and Bruce Wayne, and Robert the Bruce) because he kicks all kind of ass. As of now, he's sitting next to the keyboard, desperately trying to lick me. Ferocious, right?

This is him: