Like its subject, Sharon Tate: A Life debuts with much promise before things go south. In Tate’s case, it wasn’t her fault; in counterculture icon Ed Sanders’ book, the fault is all his.

Since the Valley of the Dolls star died so young — at age 26, slaughtered in the murder spree of Charles Manson’s “Family” in the summer of ’69 — her life story prior to marrying enfant terrible director Roman Polanski (Rosemary’s Baby) is hardly household knowledge. It’s a largely charmed existence from loving military family to accidental model-cum-actress — a woman who, despite incredible beauty, was less interested in the world of glitz and glamour in which she found herself than settling down and raising a family.

Sharing that anti-Hollywood story is why Sanders’ biography starts strong, even considering his penchant for the hyperbolic; many a sentence begins carrying the weight of overimportance, e.g. “The Fates had their say …” Clearly, his writing voice is a unique one, given to spontaneity and whimsy, such as his freewheeling description of Polanksi, “obviously propelling himself Up Up Up. … He could Get It Done! He was a picture-per-year triumph.” It begins to work against Sanders, though, especially with his habit of sporadically repeating one particular thought/sentence throughout the text:
• “The past is like quicksand,”
• “The past — often like quicksand,”
• “The past can be like quicksand,”
• “Quicksand of the past”
• and, in eventual shorthand, “Quicksand.”

We get it.

Larger cracks in the narrative appear earlier, in the form of needless tangents. For instance, it’s one thing to discuss Tate’s audition for the classic movie musical The Sound of Music, as that was something I did not know. But since she didn’t get it, what point is there is then diving into a couple paragraphs of plot synopsis, complete with mentions of the performers who were cast, not just in Tate’s role but all the other major parts?

Even a film in which Tate did star in, Polanski’s 1967 horror comedy, The Fearless Vampire Killers, why devote several pages going through its plot, scene by scene, beat by beat? It’s almost as if Sanders wants us to know that he actually did his research — something readers automatically assume of nonfiction. He tells us anyway: “In the course of writing this book, I watched a DVD of Fearless Vampire Killers …” I should hope so!

And then there’s the curious case of 1969’s The Thirteen Chairs (aka 12+1), a forgotten Italian farce in which Tate starred opposite Vittorio Gassman. Sanders again gives us a full synopsis, but what sticks out this time around is … well, just read this two-paragraph excerpt first …

Sharon and Gassman track the chairs to Paris and then to Rome. They run into an assortment of unusual characters, among them a driver of a furniture moving van named Albert (Terry-Thomas), a prostitute named Judy (Mylène Demongeot), the head of a roaming theater company that stages a strange version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Orson Welles), the Italian entrepreneur Carlo Di Seta (Vittorio De Sica), and his curvy daughter Stefanella (Ottavia Piccolo.) [sic]

The chase for the jewels concludes in Rome, where the chair containing the treasure finds its way into a truck, and is collected by nuns who auction it off for charity. With nothing much left to do as a result of the failure of his quest, Mario travels back to New York City by ship, as Pat/Sharon sees him off and waves goodbye to him.

… and now compare what you just read to the summary on the film’s Wikipedia page:

… the two then set out on a bizarre quest to track down the chairs that takes them from London to Paris and to Rome. Along the way, they meet a bunch of equally bizarre characters, including the driver of a furniture moving van named Albert (Terry-Thomas); a prostitute named Judy (Mylène Demongeot); Maurice (Orson Welles), the leader of a traveling theater company that stages a poor version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; the Italian entrepreneur Carlo Di Seta (Vittorio De Sica); and his vivacious daughter Stefanella (Ottavia Piccolo).

The bizarre chase ends in Rome, where the chair containing the money finds its way into a truck and is collected by nuns who auction it off to charity. With nothing much left to do as a result of the failure of his quest, Mario travels back to New York City by ship as Pat sees him off and waves goodbye to him.

Hmmm.

These off-course flights happen regularly, putting Sharon’s life story on hold to a point that the reader wonders if Sanders forgot about whom he was writing. Most egregious is the procedural account of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, tying Tate to a conspiracy theory — one of several (another being an underground sex-film ring) that Sanders never quite knots.

With its last third, Sharon Tate: A Life ceases being even moderately compelling, giving itself over to rehashing the misdeeds of the Manson Family — not just the grisly slayings of That August Night, but in general; all of that, of course, is material well-trod before, from Vincent Bugliosi’s seminal Helter Skelter to Sanders’ own acclaimed book on the topic, 1971’s The Family.

Photographs related to the Manson Family’s carnage pepper these pages, but oddly, don’t seek pictures of Tate. Instead, Sanders has commissioned the highly talented comic book artist Rick Veitch (Swamp Thing) to provide illustrations. This creative choice would be more welcome if it didn’t leave such a bitter aftertaste; Veitch’s last drawing depicts Sharon and unborn child in heaven, hovering over her gravestone, in a classless manner that suggests you could purchase a velvet painting of it from a dude in a van parked in the lot of that abandoned gas station on the corner. Sanders himself contributes to that ill feeling by closing the book with a poem from his own pen, reading in part:

O Sharon
Your son’d be
what
well into his 40s by now
& you’d be
if still acting
playing comedic grandmother roles

Quicksand. —Rod Lott

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Like a less pretentious (and thereby more bearable) Chuck Klosterman, Ryan Britt mines pop culture for freakishly accessible essays — a full 14 of them soaked and sautéed in sci-fi for Luke Skywalker Can’t Read and Other Geeky Truths. In the Plume paperback, Britt reminisces about his sexual awakening to the groove of Roger Vadim’s corny-porny Barbarella; considers the power and allure of sci-fi soundtracks; compares various screen Draculas; recalls how Doctor Who saved his life; and praises Sherlock Holmes (and not so much George Lucas). Even if the author can take a while to reach his ultimate point — and can tend to repeat himself along the way — you keep reading because his voice is fresh, because humor acts as a salve against minor transgressions, and because I appreciate his pointed message to foamed-mouth fanboys to (in so many words) calm the fuck down. That said, I remain irritated by the haphazard method by which Star Wars goes unitalicized roughly half the time. Guess lonely Luke isn’t the only one with comprehension troubles … right?

I wonder if there’s an afterlife; if so, I wonder if it has a library; if so, I wonder if it stocks new releases; if so, I wonder if Alien Next Door is among them; if so, I wonder if H.R. Giger will run across it; if so, I wonder if he’ll find a way to come back and cause bodily harm to author/illustrator Joey Spiotto. In the square-shaped hardcover from Titan Books, Spiotto (2014’s Attack! Boss! Cheat Code!: A Gamer’s Alphabet) has turned the Giger-designed Alien into an adorable cartoon character who lives a quiet suburban life; each page is its own standalone joke, with the creature performing mundane household chores. Cute on the surface, the book boasts several clever gags hiding in plain sight, mostly references to the still-going franchise, facehuggers and otherwise. Spiotto’s approach amounts to sacrilege … but only if you don’t have a sense of humor.

As Fantastic Planets, Forbidden Zones, and Lost Continents’ subtitle promises, the University of Texas Press hardcover counts down The 100 Greatest Science-Fiction Films. “Greatest,” says who? Says Douglas Brode, if that means anything. Whether or not it does, such endeavors are entirely subjective and debatable, which is at least a good half of their appeal. Devoting a few pages to each, Brode covers them not in “Casey Kasem” order, but chronologically, starting with 1902’s A Trip to the Moon and ending at 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy. He often “cheats” during the trip, jamming several slots with pairs and trilogies, whether official or merely thematic. Don’t expect much in the way of criticism; extracting nuggets of trivia and backstories is what’s truly on the menu. Occasional baffling errors are forgiven by appendices of shorter, niche-oriented lists; Derek George’s impressive design work; and Brode’s own brave, oddball choices, e.g. the Wachowskis’ Cloud Atlas or Disney’s Flubber-fueled The Absent-Minded Professor.

Following similar genre-celebratory collections on vampires, zombies, ghosts, adventurers and pulp heroes (all from Vintage Crime’s Black Lizard line), anthologist extraordinaire Otto Penzler rounds up 83 — repeat: 83! — tales of the great detective for The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories. “Today,” as Penzler notes in his introduction, “Holmes continues to be a multimedia superstar” on screens both big and small, which hopefully (as I’ve counted on ever since Robert Downey Jr. took the role to blockbuster status) will continue to expose more and more readers to the joys of Arthur Conan Doyle’s canon of four novels and 56 short stories. It’s important to note Penzler’s collection is not that. It does contain a couple of Conan Doyle contributions — just not the kind you expect, which is a theme carried throughout this wonderful treasury, short on neither suspense or surprise. You get imitations, tributes, pastiches, parodies and so on, from authors as skilled and varied as O. Henry, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, James M. Barrie, Manly Wade Wellman and even Anonymous. No Penzler collection — much less a mystery anthology in general — would be complete without a whodunit from the late, but forever exquisite Edward D. Hoch; his inclusion is simply elementary. —Rod Lott

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Without question, the ideal gift book for genre film enthusiasts this holiday season is The Art of Horror: An Illustrated History, a beautiful book depicting ugly things. Edited by Stephen Jones, the full-color hardback from Applause Theatre & Cinema Books presents thousands of images from several centuries past to about a year or so ago, all neatly organized among 10 themed chapters (Halloween, aliens, ghosts, etc.) with accompanying text by an expert in that field. (For example, David J. Skal tackles vampires; S.T. Joshi handles H.P. Lovecraft.) It will surprise that no one that film posters and pulp magazines figure heavily in the mix of monsters and madmen, as do comics and original art, but Jones curates deeper to showcase 3-D sculptures, rare collectibles and even stained glass! Within the chapters, spreads are devoted to more specific studies, from spiders, Cthulhu and Jack the Ripper to Italian zombie movies, various book covers for Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Halloween postcards of John O. Winsch circa 1910. Opulent in its scope and sporting a fright-friendly foreword by Neil Gaiman, The Art of Horror is that rare kind of coffee-table book: the kind its target readers actually want to read. You’ll get lost in it for hours, and love every minute, making it a more-than-worthy investment.

Like art, what is funny is all in the eye of the beholder. I get that. But with The Top 100 American Situation Comedies, Mitchell E. Shapiro and Tom Jicha set themselves up for a good ribbing, even by subtitling their book An Objective Ranking, because at the bottom of their list stands Family Matters. I mean, if only 101 sitcoms existed, I might see Urkel earning the grade, but as is, it makes the cut, while the likes of Parks and Recreation, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show and, heck, even The Brady Bunch do not. Arrested Development is on the list, yet considered inferior to Coach, Night Court and — gag — Full House. All over the Internet as blog posts, these kinds of lists — wholly subjective, yet presented as definitive — are silly, and even sillier expanded to nearly 300 pages. Devoting a full essay to each of their selections, however, Shapiro and Jicha prove themselves fine writers who make their arguments concisely and credibly — just not always convincingly. Prepare to be further enraged by the appendix, which presents rankings all the way to No. 377.

Books on American horror movies are dime-a-dozen. Not so with our friends to our north, so I welcome any book on Canada’s counterpart. Enter the University of Toronto Press’ The Canadian Horror Film: Terror of the Soul, edited by Gina Freitag and André Loiselle. As Andrea Subissati puts it in her piece on 2008’s Pontypool, “There are uniquely Canadian stories to tell, and … they are stories worth telling.” With 14 essays from almost as many authors, the collection touches on topics of gender, belonging, national anxiety and the environment, while also discussing and dissecting films both little-known (Death Weekend, Rituals) and higher-profile (Orca: The Killer Whale, Ginger Snaps). You may learn more about the Great White North’s tax-shelter system and the history of animation house Nelvana than you ever dreamt possible (if at all), but that’s the point in a text leaning heavily academic. While the book does a terrific job of proving that the country’s contributions to cinematic terror don’t begin and end with David Cronenberg, the pieces on his work from William Beard and James Burrell prove the strongest. —Rod Lott

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I knew that private dick John Shaft — as immortalized by Richard Roundtree in the 1971 blaxploitation classic — was a multimedia character; what I didn’t know was just how wide his net reached! Shut your mouth and get schooled with The World of Shaft: A Complete Guide to the Novels, Comic Strip, Films and Television Series, Steve Aldous’ examination of the groundbreaking hero. With the trade paperback being published by McFarland & Company, it shouldn’t surprise you that Aldous has done his homework; the aforementioned Shaft film figures heavily, as do its two sequels, the short-lived (and near-emasculating) TV series and the 2000 Samuel L. Jackson remake. But it seems like anyone could discuss that; not so with Ernest Tidyman’s 1970 novel that started it all and the six subsequent crazy-sounding adventures (an actual title: Shaft Among the Jews), each detailed here. And who knew that Shaft did his thing in the funny pages, too? His brief life as a syndicated comic strip is covered (with examples, thankfully), which brings us full circle to the present day with the current run of Shaft comics penned by BadAzz MoFo zinester David F. Walker, who provides this book’s intro.

In respect to Tadhg Taylor’s Masters of the Shoot-’Em-Up, calling his subjects “masters” may be overstating the case. This is, after all, a book about “would-be Don Siegels,” as he lovingly dubs them, but that’s not to deny their contributions or the project at hand. Subtitled Conversations with Directors, Actors and Writers of Vintage Action Movies and Television Shows, it gives both voice and due to those journeymen helmers of the 1950s to the 1980s who kept busy cranking out hours of studio-backed entertainment without ever breaking big (or at least to household-name status). For perspective, one of the biggest names among Taylor’s two dozen or so interviews is arguably Jeff Kanew, director of Revenge of the Nerds, but he’s here to talk Eddie Macon’s Run and Tough Guys (yet not, oddly, the gun-toting gal pic that effectively halted his career, as well as that of its star, Kathleen Turner: V.I. Warshawski). Kanew’s recollections of studio interference and dueling egos are told with candor — a refreshing theme carried out by others, perhaps most notably actress-turned-screenwriter Leigh Chapman, who seems awfully dismissive of her own work, ranging from “black flick” Truck Turner to the Chuck Norris vehicle The Octagon. This is a breezy, fact-packed read for fans of Hollywood’s fringes.

To paraphrase one of the iconic cable channel’s early jingles, great movies were just the beginning at Home Box Office, now known (and beloved) as HBO. For years an employee in its departments of marketing and consumer affairs, Bill Mesce gives readers an insider’s view of its roots and ultimate revolution in his brand bio, Inside the Rise of HBO: A Personal History of the Company That Transformed Television. As someone who remembers the days when if HBO wasn’t airing a movie, it was a boxing match, I was seated and safely buckled in for the trip back in time as soon as saw the cover. Mesce gets off to a rough start, rehashing the narrative of the medium’s birth before even reaching the realm of pay TV and specifically HBO. Once he does, however, it’s a hoot to recall such ill-fated tries at “original” programming as the footballs-and-tits sitcom 1st and Ten — a long, long way from current fare like Game of Thrones, which somehow has found critical acclaim and Emmy love and kept the tits. Ironically, the things I found most interesting are found in the appendices, in which Mesce shares the job details of those who select the movies to show and then put the schedule together like a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. —Rod Lott

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Think back to the beginning of summer 1999, when Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace was about to hit the American multiplex with the fervor of an Ebola outbreak: In just one of untold marketing tie-ins, everyone from Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu to (shudder) Jar Jar Binks adorned specially designed cans of Pepsi — a lot of cans of Pepsi.

So many, in fact, that there were more of those cans on the market “than there were people on the planet,” according to Chris Taylor, author of How Star Wars Conquered the Universe. I share that statistic to let you know Taylor isn’t fooling around with his book’s title. George Lucas’ little 1977 tribute to the beloved Flash Gordon serials of his youth was so unloved by its own studio that embarrassed 20th Century Fox execs considered the “kiddie” movie second fiddle to the Sidney Sheldon adaptation they just knew would be the season’s surefire smash.

As we now know, it wasn’t. Instead, Star Wars was the film to which moviegoers flocked, making it the hit by far (and far, far away). From legitimizing science fiction as a box-office draw to making a mint off something called action figures, cinema was never the same. Before The Force Awakens this Christmas, you owe it to yourself to read how it came to be and what all it has done.

Now available from Basic Books in a trade-paperback edition that’s been expanded and revised to include information on that upcoming J.J. Abrams film, How Star Wars Conquered the Universe is not a rehash of countless making-of narratives. Had Taylor just stuck to telling that story, the book still would be good, because the way he tells it is unlike any I’ve read before. While he harbors reverence for the original trilogy, he’s not beholden to fan worship/service; Lucas’ early drafts are, with evidence, rightly dismissed as “ponderous,” and Taylor is able to remain his journalist’s objectivity: “We tend to go overboard with hindsight when examining the history of something successful. We build creation myths out of the creation of myth. The creator himself … is often more than happy to help in this deception.”

Where this project really succeeds is, again, in keeping with the book’s title. In every other chapter, Taylor examines in depth the franchise’s penetration into — if not impregnation of — our pop-culture consciousness. It’s one that exists even within people who never have seen the movies, and the initial chapter finds the author attempting to find a Star Wars virgin. Other side routes introduce the reader to cosplay groups, the unwitting viral-video star known as the “Star Wars Kid,” the cottage industry of Del Rey novels, Jedi as a religion, taking lightsaber-duel classes, the Kenner action figures, the parodies (including Ernie Fosselius’ still-brilliant Hardware Wars), the rip-offs (including Luigi Cozzi’s still-hysterical Starcrash) and the or-all-the-wrong-reasons-immortal Star Wars Holiday Special.

Its sheer comprehensiveness and galaxy-wide scope make it a must for lovers of film and, in particular, the business of film. Star Wars fanatics might be put off by the occasional brusqueness; no better example exists than marketer Charlie Lippincott’s recollection of his then-unique strategy of spreading word and prepping the masses by saturating comic-book conventions: “What I did led to something I’m appalled at.” I don’t take such comments as a negatives.

But the errors, certainly. Although Taylor writes in his new introduction that this 2.0 version corrects the boo-boos of last year’s hardback, some big ones were missed. Referenced on seven pages, special-effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull (2001: A Space Odyssey) is misspelled as “Trumball” every single time, and twice, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner somehow acquires an extra “F” in his last name. More than once, you’ll find the book’s very subject listed as “Stars Wars” — a perfectly understandable typo, but one easily remedied by a find/replace search in your friendly desktop/laptop word-processing program of choice.

Maybe the third edition will see those mistakes fixed, because we know with certainly that even after Lucas’ retirement, the story of Star Wars is far from over. One suspects it’s only just begun. —Rod Lott

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