I easily made it through my usual 8 books by remaining authors in the Avon/Equinox project. The only author I am really tired of is Piers Anthony. I am going to finish reading the actual books of his I have in my possession, and not purchase any ones I don't have. I hit some amazing stories this time around by the other writers, so here we go.
First came the next volume of the collected stories of Robert Silverberg, called The Palace At Midnight 1980-82. Volume 5 of the collected stories contains 23 stories and an intro by the author. Each individual story also has a short intro by the author. Seven of the stories turned into top notch ones, with several others being excellent as well. The best of the them was Homefaring, a novella; The Changeling, Jennifer's Lover, Thesme and Gayhrog (from a short story collection tied to the Majipoor series), The Pope of the Chimps, Gianni, and The Man Who Floated in Time. Details of these and other stories and books mentioned here can be found at my Avon Equinox blog site.
So things got off to a roaring start. Then came a novel by Piers Anthony. The book likely sold well, due to a brilliant cover (which wins this month's Cover of the Month), and the name attached to the story. It was called Mercycle, and must be avoided by readers at all cost. If you want proof that just about anything will be published once an author's name is out there, look no further. First written in 1971, the book was rejected by numerous publishers. For once, Anthony agreed with them; it was his worst novel. So he dusted it off, rewrote it, added 25,000 more words, and ended up with--a total mess that should not have been published. Published in 1991, it is a crime against science fiction and fantasy.
Mercifully, along cames Harry Harrison to the rescue. King and Champion, from 1996, is the third and final book of the author's totally brilliant historical fantasy trilogy, The Hammer and the Cross. By now it has gone beyond being a totally fantastic series of Vikings versus the English. The action shifts to the Mediterranean Sea, and the action is almost nonstop. We learn the real truths behind not only the Grail (which is not a cauldron after all), but what happened to Jesus once he was taken down from the cross (hint: he did not resurrect, because he never died). This book is the best of the three, and the other two were fantastic to read! Each book is very long, exceeding 500 pages, but they literally fly past. Great story!!
Kenneth Bulmer's continuing seafaring adventure series was next. While very short, these novels are great examples of the best king of pulp style writing. Fox 3: Prize Money is among the best of Bulmer's writing. He is not shy to show his great sense of humour, and the way Mr. Fox ends up at the end of the story is quite hilarious. His prize money (loot from captured galleons) isn't quite what he expected. He also manages to mostly save the British navy in each book, and not get any credit for it (he is not high born). A fun series, but devastating at the same time.
Next came Iron Head, a collection of five stories by E C Tubb, another great writer of pulp SF. The title story is the best of the bunch, detailing what it might be like to be the only non-telepath in a society of telepaths. Would there be advantages to such a situation, or only condemnation and third class citizenship? Mr. Tubb will be pleased to tell you all about it.
Jack Williamson was 91 when The Silicon Dagger was published. From 1999 comes this 334 page misnamed adventure thriller. Any SF element does not become apparent until almost page 190. Up till then it is a political thriller, with rednecks from Kentucky trying to take over the USA. A better title would have been The Silicon Shell (as in domed city). The author has a lot to say about the information age and internet (which he calls infonet in the story), as well as freedom, overreach of government, racism, armed militias, and lots of other things that seem to be more current each and every day. I liked the book up until the SF element makes a rude entrance. Williamson was not around to see the thing on live TV as we did, when Trump and his supporters tried to take over the White House, claiming that they had not lost the election. As ugly as that scene was, Williamson's is much uglier when one digs underneath just a little bit. Try to imagine nearly every county in the US (thousands of them) suddenly deciding they wanted "freedom." To call this book politically incorrect doesn't go far enough; it is dangerously politically naive, despite several good points the book brings out. Read it for yourself and decide.
Next to Harrison's volume, the best book of the month (and best book of many months) was Michael Moorcock's highly imaginative and very effective look at moments in history, called Breakfast In The Ruins, from 1971. Forget the interludes between two gay men. Forget the ridiculous "What Would You Do?" segments after each chapter. Just read the main text, a group of very loosely related historical tales featuring the same character in each story, at a different age. This is high octane writing at its finest, and the segments would make such a great series of short films. My favourite one is longer than most of them, and involves Karl as a child getting unwittingly involved with Russians escaping the secret police in Russia, coming to 1905 London to start new lives, and still having to deal with them. The story is devastating not just for what happens, but for the setting itself, and the people who are trapped by their poor paying jobs, working all hours of the day and into the night. Each of the tales is a window into worlds that people don't often shine lights into. They are parts of true history best forgotten, according to many. But Moorcock gives us scenes of horror from many different countries and times, each one sacrificing a different version of Karl. The stories don't really even have to be read in any particular order, if the linking story is ignored. This book must be read.
Lastly came a novel by Malzberg, who hits the 3rd home run of the month (after Harrison and Moorcock), with his unforgettable Lady of a Thousand Sorrows, from 1977. It is a fictional account of the inner life of Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, and is so brilliant and devastating that Istill can't believe that someone wrote this, and that I stumbled across it. To a certain generation, the Kennedy assassination was the most traumatic event of our childhood, showing us for the first time that the world could change overnight, and not for the better. Malzberg gets into the head of a very private person. She either would have died laughing if Jackie had read this story, or tried everything in her power to sue for damages. This a story of stories, told by a master of being able to get inside the minds of warped people.
I began my project of reading the Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Series, and then expanded to reading the complete works of those 24 authors represented in the series, six years ago June 1st. Since then I have read 684 books by those authors (all male, unfortunately). In this year (#6), I read 102 books, mostly by the remaining 8 authors. However, in addition I also read 46 books unrelated to my main reading project since last June. These I call my off the shelf reads, as I try to clear a backlog of novels and non-fiction that have been accumulating on my shelves, awaiting their turn. This month I managed to read 6 of those, though only one was truly off the shelf.
That one was called A Book of Five Rings, a translation of the famous strategy guide by Musashi. He had a unique way of killing opponents that seems to have worked well for him, but his ability to communicate his methods to readers is woefully inadequate. His aversion to schools of martial arts means that we can only try to guess at what he says most of the time. Still, a lot of his words have been incorporated into these arts for a very long time, likely because they are common knowledge and logical in the first place. As a person who has studied judo, karate, and iado, I can vouch for the benefit of schools and teachers. Trying to learn these things from a book just doesn't work very well. However, a person must also carve out some individuality within these teachings, as must a good piano student from their teacher. Not a very helpful book, though it does contain several nuggets worth considering.
Next, I greedily read five books from different authors in my Kindle editions of Delphi Classics. First came Basil, by Wilkie Collins, his first non-historical novel, published in 1852, with some corrections and a new introduction from 1862. Ah, there is nothing quite like the fever pitch that can be reached in a true Victorian novel, and Basil does the job magnificently. Consider poor Basil. Younger son in an old and well established English family, he falls hopelessly in love at first sight with a beautiful young woman (a girl, actually) on an omnibus, a draper's daughter. He marries her, but promises her father that the marriage will not be physically fulfilled for one year, when the girl will turn 18. Everything must be kept top secret from his family, of course, as papa is completely intolerant of having anything to do with mere trades people. The plot thickens as the emotionless, mysterious draper's business aid is seen to have almost total control over the young woman (Margaret). The story becomes thick and involved, and of course the dreaded "brain fever" strikes our poor hero when he realizes he has been betrayed. This being only Collins' second novel, by mid-19th C standards it's a pretty good story. But the hero, Basil, is such a milquetoast that this reader wants to grab and shake him violently at several key moments in the plot, shouting "Do something, you incompetent fool!"
Next came the best book about late 19th C sea travel ever written, saddled with the most unfortunate title of Nigger of the Narcissus. Joseph Conrad's 1898 novel also uses the "n...." word copiously in the story, thus dooming it from school reading lists, and probably many libraries, today. While the story centres around Jimmy, a black East Indian sailor, it is mostly about shipboard life on a sea journey from Bombay to London. Hell, thy name is shipboard life in 1898. Things don't go too badly until the feared passing of the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa. This is still a very bad area in which to sail a ship. The good ship Narcissus encounters a storm of storms, and its fate is narrated with such vivid and detailed descriptions that it will seem as if you, the reader, are on board the boat. I have never read this Conrad novel before, no doubt put off by the title (which was changed for American publication at the time). It turned into one of the best novels I have ever read, with drama, humour, insight, a fight against Nature to the death, and more demonstration of sea and ship knowledge than I have ever encountered. Very highly recommended. Readers will never think of the ocean in quite the same way after this book.
After that came another tremendous highlight of my reading career, F Marion Crawford's first novel, Mr. Isasacs, from 1882. Paul Griggs, an American, is in northern India, working for a newspaper (The Howler!). He meets the most extraordinary man he has ever met, a Mr. Isaacs, who turns out to be Persian (Iranian), and a learned and very charismatic man. They become fast friends, and when Mr. Isaac falls madly in love with an English girl, Griggs is there to help him out. The story takes place after a disastrous encounter in Afghanistan with the British army, and the plot involves rescuing the Emir of Afghanistan from British custody. However, the plot aside, what make this book so wonderful are the lengthy and varied philosophical discussions the two main characters have, at all hours of the day and night. It is like an Indian version of My Dinner With Andre, only the discussions here are much more interesting, stretching from females, men, humanity, mysticism, through to the soul. I found the book fascinating, despite the tiger hunt.
Next was Edgar Wallace's first great mystery novel, the one that nearly bankrupted him when he turned it into a contest to see if anyone could guess the solution to the word puzzle. A Case For Angel, Esquire is from 1908, and is almost a direct rebuke of the Holmes and Watson stories. Here we have a most competent and highly intelligent and well informed Scotland Yard detective on the trail of a group of bandits (they are almost comical, and remind me of the Beagle Boys from the Scrooge comics) trying to steal the inheritance of a young lady. Wallace might be the most prolific author England ever produced, so I look forward to many more hours of fun and pleasure with his upcoming stories. The lead character, detective Angel Esquire (his odd name is explained near the beginning) also featured in two short stories, which were included with the novel at this point. "The Yellow Box" is an amusing tale, simply told and easily solved by the detective, reminds me of the first story in the successful African detective series by McCall Smith. Much longer and more serious is "The Silver Charm," from 1910, which also has amusing aspects, telling a bit about the hero's time in west Africa, which leads to the solution to a mystery. Several hundred short stories and novels await me.
Lastly came the 3rd Oz book by Frank L Baum, written at the request of children who sent him letters asking for more about Oz. Ozma of Oz features Dorothy and all her original Oz friends, in addition to some new ones. The wind up man Tiktok is introduced to readers, and Bill (Billian) the hen. Dorothy's adventures take place mostly in another kingdom across the desert from Oz, but once her friends arrive to help free 11 captives of the Nome King, things seem as if they are back in a part of Oz. The writing is truly delightful and fun for an adult to read, and the colour and black and white illustrations, beautifully rendered in my Kindle edition, add zest and energy to the story.
And so begins a new year of reading within the Avon/Equinox authors, and a continuation in the pruning of my miscellaneous book shelf. As promised near the end of the last blog entry, I am about to reveal a new reading project, that I will hopefully undertake in the near future. Since the Avon/Equinox project was an entirely male author reading project, I am going to try and make some amends by embarking on an all female SF author reading project. I will begin with the Hugo and Nebula winners, and possibly branch out from there. I will likely bypass the fantasy winners (such as J K Rowling), and try to stick to SF authors. More later as I develop a reading program.
Mapman Mike
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