On July 28, Rick Moody will publish The Four Fingers of Death. This 736-page novel contains a fictional novelization of the real B-movie classic, The Crawling Hand.
In the video embedded above for your weekend viewing pleasure, you can watch the complete movie online before reading the book. This GalleyCat editor is a fan of the classic B-movie. If you only watch one scene, we recommend you check out the prophetical soda jerk in the diner scene.
This excellent io9 post explains the premise behind the novel: “It’s the year 2025, and the NAFTA bloc has fallen into such a perilous decline that we barely have an economy or a functioning society any longer, and we’re at the mercy of the much more powerful Sino-Indian economic bloc. A failed writer, Montese Crandall, wins the rights to novelize a trashy science fiction movie called The Four Fingers Of Death, in a chess game. The bulk of Moody’s 700-plus page book consists of Crandall’s sprawling novelization of this 2025 film, which is a remake of the 1963 classic The Crawling Hand.”