Besides the usual 8 books by my remaining Avon/Equinox series writers, I managed to read 4 others, and parts of four others. I am taking my time reading 4 books over many months, including one on American paintings in the DIA, the Beethoven biography by Swafford, a book of folk tales, and a coffee table book on great train journeys of the world. Those will be wrapped up eventually, but I am in no hurry.
My monthly reading always begins with Robert Silverberg. This time it was the epic Lord of Darkness, from 1983. At 612 pages, it is one of the longest novels by the 24 Avon/Equinox authors I have come across. Silverberg divides the story into 5 books. Essentially it is the true story of Andrew Battell, from Leigh in England. The action takes places in the latter part of the 16th C and the early part of the 17th. Silverberg is a renowned history writer, where I first encountered him as a youth. While the historical details of Battell's surrealistic life are scant, Silverberg fills in the narrative skillfully and with great attention to historical detail. If proof is needed that truth is stranger than fiction, look no farther than the life led by Battell. Stranded in South America on his first voyage abroad, he is enslaved by the Portuguese and eventually brought to Angola, in Africa. Here the adventures truly begin, and never stop. While Silverberg invents details such as a family for Battell, for the most part his story jives with the facts (available on the internet in full). This is a tale of darkness and suffering, and a harrowing account of Portuguese rule at the time. If this were pure fiction, no reader would believe it remotely possible that such events ever happened. And even if only 1/3 of the things told in this tale did actually happen, and the rest never did, then Battell still would have led the most remarkable life one could ever imagine. Highly recommended.
For Love of Evil is the 6th book in Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series. Published in 1988, this is one of the best of the series, if not the best so far. What I do like about the series is how Anthony relates some of the same events from different perspectives. Book Six concerns the doings of Satan, and while he has been featured in each of the first five books, he finally gets to tell his own story here, and we see his side of things for the first time. The action starts in the late 12th C, and is quite brutal. The opening scene of a frightened village girl entering the hut of a sorcerer is one of the best openings to a fantasy novel I have ever read. At some point I asked myself where this medieval tale, good as it was, was going. Knowing Anthony's writing as well as I do, I was confident it would all tie in. And it does, quite beautifully. We meet many old characters, and a few newer ones. I seriously don't know how Anthony can keep track of all this without continually rereading the earlier volumes. He seems to write a book from many different series each year, so how he can keep them all straight in his mind is really something. A winner!
The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus, Harrison's novel from 1999, is another very fun entry in the beloved series. What is special about this one is that he is aging, and beginning to think that the insane and dangerous life he leads, with his beautiful and equally deadly wife, Angeline, is getting to be a bit much. Retirement seems like the thing to do, as soon as he finishes up this adventure. He does briefly join the circus as a magician, as he tries to find out who is committing a series of bank robberies on various planets. The whole family gets in on this one, with their twin boys taking up much more of the slack than in previous adventures. Only one more book in the series remains to be read. Then I shall have to start them over.
I am hooked on Kenneth Bulmer's late 18th C early 19th C Fox series. Number 4 is called Siege, and is a complete historical look at the great battle of Aden, Arabs and British against the ground forces and navy of Napoleon. We get a first hand view of the action and intrigue from the perspective of Mr. Fox, an officer in the British navy. He and his men happen to become embroiled in the great siege, though Bulmer follows all details of the events very closely to what actually happened. A great read, as I continue to learn some obscure history from these authors.
Ironhead, a collection of stories by E C Tubb from the 1950s, was first published in 2018 for Kindle. There are five stories, the best of which is "Iron Head", about a lowly man who looks after cattle. 40 pages later he is the top leader of the joint planets. An amusing story with a great last line, this could have taken up a series of four or five huge books by lesser writers (I think of the endless prequels and sequels to Dune written by Herbert's kin). No need, since someone like Tubb can say it all in a novelette! "Memories Are Important"--What would happen if a person lost all access and connection to every one of his/her memories? If they only lived in the moment, in the "now". A fun but scary question, which is answered by Tubb in this engaging what-if story. It also has a very unique answer to the "escape from the locked room" trope used by so many mystery story writers. Two of the other three stories are also of high quality and fun to read.
Jack Williamson hits yet another home run with Terraforming Earth, a SF novel from 2001 that is written on a scale obviously influenced by Olaf Stapledon. This is a truly great SF novel, one that should be read by all fans of the very best of the older stuff. The action takes place on a moon base, and on Earth, but through many generations and centuries. Divided into 5 sections, it was originally published that way. Highly recommended, and easy to read.
Michael Moorcock's The Warlord of the Air was originally written in 1971, but reworked for this 1993 edition, which contains 3 stories starring Oswald Bastable (a minor character from a story by E Nesbit). In this story, he carried into the future, an alternate 1973 in which steam power and airships still reign supreme, and the world ha been without war for nearly a century. However, there is a catch; colonialism is still going strong, and native inhabitants are still being subdued and ruled by Britain and the other colonial powers. An interesting look at an alternate future, one that Bastable finds quite baffling. A good story, and I am looking forward the other two.
The first segment of my reading month concluded with Barry Malzberg's The Cross of Fire, one of his finest novels. From 1982 we watch as Harold Thwaite of Denmark is undergoing an administered hypnotic procedure, in which he is able to step into the shoes (sandals) of historic religious figures. The year is 2219. The problem with Harold is that he has a martyr complex, and when it is time to come out of his trances it becomes more and more difficult. Eventually he refuses to come out, wishing to remain, be crucified, and to rise again a few days later. Besides scenes of Jesus with the apostles, and Jesus with Mary Magdalene, and Jesus with Lazarus, we also have Harold as God, disputing and wrestling with Satan. In addition there are scenes with Moses and Aaron, including the parting of the Red Sea, scenes with the suffering of Job, scenes of his being the Lubavitcher Rabbi (an old testament judge), and various conversations with his wife, Edna, back in real time. The book is totally fascinating, and of course very sacrilegious. It is often quite funny, as we get a future man's version of some of the great men of the Bible. But as the book goes on, and it becomes more and more obvious that Harold is deluding himself into believing everything that happens to him, I begin to get reminded of present day fanatics. Not so much the religious ones, but more like the ones who deny certain events every happened, such as the Sandy Hook massacre, or Trump's inability to come to terms with his election loss. to him, the only way he could ever lose is if the other side cheated. Reality holds no hope for such people, and Harold is similarly doomed. This is one of Malzberg's finest books, and would pair nicely with a reading of Moorcock's Behold The Man, though they have very little in common. Recommended.
I read four books off the shelf last month, though really only one came from a real shelf. The rest came from my Kindle shelf, which is now thousands of books. Tony Hillerman's Landscape is a work of non-fiction, pairing each of Tony's Navajo mystery novels with photographs of where the action takes place. The book was begun during Tony's later years, but he died long before it was completed. His daughter Anne took up the torch. She writes a long intro, as well as gives a description of each of the novels, showing the original cover. Tony provides his thoughts on each volume. The photos are stunning, and the book is a must for fans of Hillerman. Since his death, Anne is now writing similar mysteries, but focusing more on a female Navajo officer, one who played smaller roles in her father's books.
Next, I had the great pleasure of reading Lord Dunsany's 2nd book of tales featuring Jorkens, called Jorkens Remembers Africa, from 1934. These 21 tales are among the most imaginative and humorous tales of fiction and fantasy ever written, and are often ignored by Dunsany fans. I never had access to them before, but I now have all of Dunsany's writing on Kindle, thanks to Delphi publishing. While all the stories are fun, particularly notable are the following: The Lost Romance; The Escape From The Valley; Ozymandias (the best!!!); In The Garden of Memories. A real treasure chest of short tales of the imagination of a genius.
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