HIGHLANDER THE SERIES: AN EVENING AT JOE'S

By: Abbie Bernstein
Date: Tuesday, September 25, 2001

TV tie-in books are not exactly a novelty. However, HIGHLANDER THE SERIES: AN EVENING AT JOE'S would seem to be breaking new ground by including only writers who worked in some capacity either as cast, creative staff or technical crew on the series that serves as the basis for the book's stories.

Gillian Horvath, who worked on HIGHLANDER: THE SERIES on Seasons 2-5 and shares story credit on the film HIGHLANDER: ENDGAME, serves as editor. She has given her contributors leave to interpret the mythology of HIGHLANDER and its sword-wielding Immortals as they see fit. The result is a riot of styles and viewpoints.

The quality of authorial talent on view ranges from brilliant to serviceable, although which is which may be in the eye of the beholder. There are stories that have ferocious action, passionate romance and philosophical contemplations of mortality and everlasting life, although most of the pieces tend to treat these elements separately love and steel do not often cross paths here. It's hard to imagine that any HIGHLANDER fan won't find at least one story among book's twenty-two entries to rave over and something else to complain about (except for those souls who embrace all things HIGHLANDER on the Mt. Everest because-it's-there principle).

Three of the EVENING AT JOE'S longest pieces are among the best-written. Valentine Pelka's "The Staircase" is affecting and humorous, with an atmosphere of deep magic it just doesn't have any Immortals or swords in it. Pelka's personal connection to HIGHLANDER is that he played the villainous Kronos. As a writer, Pelka is simultaneously dry and sweet, whimsical without being farcical, in the tradition of English fantasists like Neil Gaiman and P.L. Travers.


In an entirely different but equally effective vein, there's "Death Shall Have No Dominion" by F. Braun McAsh, who served as swordmaster on Seasons 3-6 of HIGHLANDER: THE SERIES and HIGHLANDER: ENDGAME. McAsh's rendering of bladed combat in 15th-century Europe bristles with burly, kinetic combat as ruler Vlad Dracula, no vampire here but still a mightily tough s.o.b., struggles to hold onto his crown. Dracula's chief counselor is his uncommonly resilient bodyguard Ritter Hans Kirschner, the character McAsh plays in the series episode "The Modern Prometheus" (he is cuckolded, then killed, by fellow Immortal Lord Byron). McAsh writes involving (if not particularly likable) characters, employing HIGHLANDER's mythos and full-tilt swordplay with excellent results, while omitting the moral dilemmas that often stymied the principled hero Duncan MacLeod (who is absent from the story, although two other regular characters show up in amusing postscript cameos).

A third novella, comprised of eight linked stories, differs thoroughly in theme and mood from the above-mentioned pair. "Postcards From Alexa" by editor Horvath and her fellow former HIGHLANDER creative staffer Donna Lettow (who previously wrote the HIGHLANDER novel ZEALOT) follows the relationship of the young-looking but actually 5,000-year-old Immortal Methos and dying mortal Alexa Bond from the time the audience sees them drive away from Joe's bar in the episode "Timeless" through the offscreen end that Methos describes in "Through a Glass Darkly." The "Postcards" stories often put a playful "scenes we'd like to see" spin on a tale that is at heart a tender and sad romance. Methos' voice sounds much as it does in the aired episodes (unsurprisingly, as Horvath and Lettow both were involved in shaping the original character). There is a bit of action that brings home the HIGHLANDER trick of turning what would be a horrendous situation in any other universe into a humorous predicament, but primarily this is a love story. The intense romanticism will please readers who wanted to see more of this hinted-at side of Methos than was available in "Timeless" and "Indiscretions."

One of the other unique bonuses to AN EVENING AT JOE'S is that a number of actors from the show have contributed stories about/from the point of view of their characters. These perhaps convey the performers' take on their roles better and more directly than any interview, as there's no third-party interpretation standing in the way of the commentary.

Peter Wingfield's presentation of his character Methos, "A Time of Innocents," is arguably the most eye-widening piece in the anthology, by an actor or anyone else. The story is brief, authoritative and to the point, while creating a conundrum that may provoke a year's worth of debate.

Jim Byrnes' "Letters From Viet Nam" plays to a more comfortable reader view of his character Joe Dawson (although, ironically, Joe in his story is a lot less at ease than Methos is in Wingfield's contribution). Byrnes' recreation of Joe's voice is pitch-perfect, and his quick riff on the different attitudes people adopt depending on who they're communicating with has real-world poignancy.

Stan Kirsch's "From the Grave" consists of first-person letters from Richie Ryan, who met a particularly untimely end in the series (his best friend and mentor Duncan killed him by mistake). Although one can quibble with Kirsch's depiction of the afterlife, the thrust of the piece is gently in-character the various missives sound exactly like what the series' Richie would write, given opportunity and may even provide some closure for those fans who still mourn the manner of his departure.

Line producer Ken Gord's "He Scores!" wins points for finally setting something from the HIGHLANDER universe in Canada (where much of the series was in fact filmed). It's a funny, entertaining story (with a bit of real-life trivia to back it up) that falters due to an overly-jokey finish. Prop master Don Anderson's "The Methos Chronicles Pt. 1" introduces some genuinely intriguing notions about early Immortals, but doesn't quite capture the character's distinctive voice. Director Dennis Berry and Darla Kershner's "The Other Side of the Mirror" and composer Roger Bellon's "Down Towards the Outflow" are original if somewhat opaque exercises in HIGHLANDER surrealism that take a Lewis Carroll look at the entire phenomenon.

HIGHLANDER THE SERIES: AN EVENING AT JOE'S comes with a friendly, informative introduction from Horvath, explaining the genesis of the project, and a few words from producer William N. Panzer, expressing pleased astonishment that the anthology ever became a reality. The anthology has gone into its fourth printing, which attests to some happy readers making strong recommendations. It's worth reading on its own merits, as well as an example of the results of an unusual authorial-recruitment process. The fact that so many people involved with HIGHLANDER can still conjure its essence clearly enough to write about it in their off-duty hours speaks well of both the writers' imaginations and the source of their inspiration.

HIGHLANDER: AN EVENING AT JOE'S

Grade: B+

Author(s): Don Anderson, Roger Bellon, Dennis Berry, Laura Brennan, Jim Byrnes, Anthony de Longis, Ken Gord, Gillian Horvath, Peter Hudson, Stan Kirsch, Donna Lettow, F. Braun McAsh, Valentine Pelka, Peter Wingfield; Editor: Gillian Horvath

Publisher: Berkley Boulevard

Price: $12.95