With five clear nights in October used for observing with my telescope, I basically lost 5 days/nights of reading. My daytime reading is used to write up observing notes and prepare for the upcoming night. My nighttime reading is...well, spent at the telescope eyepiece. I still managed to read 10 1/2 books, so all is not lost, and a few were quite long.
The month began with a Robert Silverberg book. I am now reading novels and stories he wrote in and around his gigantic Majipoor series, but not related to those books. So his writing has matured and really developed. Even so, his short time travel novel Project Pendulum might not appeal to all readers of such stories. His concept involves wending twins forward and backward in time simultaneously, in a sort of Powers of Ten manner. One brother goes forward 5 minutes in time, while the other goes back 5 minutes. The next jump is 50 minutes, then 500 minutes, etc. The final jump takes them 950 million years from their starting time! At the end of the book, they begin their trip homeward. It's a very strange idea, and though the book, like the time jumps, begins slowly, it gradually gathers momentum and interest the further the brothers travel in time. I enjoyed the book, and it would make a fantastic basis for a TV series.
Next came a dreary fantasy novel by Piers Anthony and Mercedes Lackey called If I Pay Thee Not In Gold. This is the type of book I try to avoid at all costs. Based on an idea by Anthony, it was penned by Mercedes Lackey. Then Anthony went over it with a fine tooth comb, adding ten thousand words. The first two hundred pages take place in a city ruled by women, who make slaves of the men. Women can conjure magic, but men can't. That part is never really explained very well. The Queen is a bitch and tries to kill the young girl, Xylina, who shows much prowess in magic. She tries to kill her over and over again, but somehow always fails. This is too bad, since the story could have ended much sooner. From 1993, this 398 page waste of time is one of the most boring books I have ever read.
Harry Harrison finishes his USA versus England trilogy with Stars and Stripes Triumphant. It's a delicious series to read (and the third book is no exception), except by the English. But Harrison, who lives in Dublin, is writing here for the Irish and the Scottish reader, as well as other countries colonized by England back in the good old days. It really is a fun series, and looking at England's standing in the world at the present moment, it resembles the situation where England ends up at the end of the series.
Bulmer's Fox #8: Battle Smoke keeps up the humour and adventure in his epic sea going series,with Lieutenant Fox spending time back in Limehouse, London, with his family. But he is itching to get back to sea, and after some local exploits, off he goes, finally aboard a class 1 battle ship, under Captain Staunton again. this means that Fox is virtually in charge of everything aboard the ship, a de facto captain in all but name. The climax is another great sea battle, this time between four English ships and seven French and Spanish ones. With an incapacitated admiral aboard, Fox takes command of the fleet and leads the charge! Great stuff for sea loving adventure fans.
I finally began E C Tubb's mammoth series featuring the adventures of Dumarest. The Dumarest Sagas contains about 36 novels, and I am now underway. The first book, published in 1967 as one half of an Ace Double, is called The Winds of Gath. The lead character is a space wanderer and adventure seeker, and through mischance he ends up on a planet from which it is virtually impossible to leave. He undergoes some hardships, but gets a big break when he defeats a strongman in an entertainment battle. He earns a ticket off the planet. But many more adventures await him on Gath, in itself a totally fascinating planet. I like how the story stayed focussed on the one planet, and seems to cover nearly every aspect of its (limited) possibilities. Very well written, and a very promising start to the series.
I am reading three huge volumes of stories by Jack Williamson. Wizard's Isle contains 16 stories by the author, published between 1933 and 1937. I read half of this vast volume last month, and will read the rest of it in November. Lots of fun stories about mad scientists, and good people who just won't listen to reason. The Wand of Doom has a nice bayou atmosphere to it, and The Plutonian Terror is a good horror story with a neat surprise ending. Using an original pulp magazine cover as its cover for the this hardbound volume, I have awarded the prestigious Cover of the Month to this book.
Next came Michael Moorcock's 2nd book in his Dancers At The End Of Time series. Called The Hollow Lands, it is from 1974, and takes up where volume one left off. Jherek Carnelian is still in search of his time lost lover, Mrs. Underwood. He is able to return to her time in London, and finds his way to her house. Before that are some truly bizarre adventures involving a robot nanny and a homicidal alien, he meets up with H G Wells in London and is soon off on more hilarious adventures. The entire London adventure reminds me somewhat of a Carry On movie. Overall the book is quite readable. If you don't like something you are reading, it will soon change to something else, so carry on....
Lastly came a long volume of 37 short stories by Barry Malzberg. There is a wide range of tales here, some SF and some not, some almost beyond classifying. A Galaxy Called Rome is the novelette version of his novel Galaxies (see above). It is a brilliant concept, about a story that a writer might or might not actually write, but if he did write it this is what he would do, and what he would include. Very well done. Agony Column is a very funny, but very devastating, story that contains nothing but various letters written by a Mr. Martin Miller, and the various replies he gets, mostly form letters. A real gem! Corridors is about Ruthven, an older, tired SF writer from the pulp days. He has finally had some financial success, but it came too late to help with the bitterness he feels about his life and his writing. This is a very moving tale about the "golden" days of SF pulp writing, and its effect on one writer. Recommended. A valuable collection for fans of this highly underrated writer.
Next came a book off the dwindling book shelf, and two Kindle books from my nearly endless Delphi collection. With The Tale Teller, Anne Hillerman comes closest so far to equaling her father's writing. This is her best book of the series, in which Joe Leaphorn returns to action, after she nearly killed him off in her first book. Intertwined with the mystery story is more Navajo lore, including things about the Long Walk they were forced to undertake when the US government forced them off their sacred lands. Tony and Anne Hillerman are both recognized by the Navajo as true friends, and in a book like this it is easy to see why. Highly recommended, and the empty landscapes of Arizona and New Mexico resonate strongly in this novel.
Next came a short novel by one of my favourite Ballantine Adult Fantasy authors, George Meredith. His first novel was The Shaving of Shagput, an Orientalist fantasy that I read and reviewed on my Ballantine blog page. His second novel is called Farina, written in 1857, a year after Shagput. It is in every sense a minor effort, though still fun to read. It is a medieval fantasy that takes place in Germany, and concerns the beautiful daughter of a merchant who is the centre of attention of most young men in the vicinity. It has humour, an easy-going story, and some supernatural events. It is a bit of a let down after Shagput, but then that book is unique in the literature to begin with. I look forward to his third novel, and didn't mind reading this one.
A. Merritt is one of the great fantasy writers from the late teens and early twenties, influenced by H Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs, who in turn went on to influence a whole generation of writers, including H P Lovecraft. His first novel was The Moon Pool, from 1919. I had never read this one before, and while I found the fantasy element imaginative and somewhat engrossing, his writing style is quite poor. Expanded from two novellas, the book often bogs down in descriptive detail. When there is action, the book is fun to read. When the descriptions go on for page after page, not so much fun. The climax is exciting, and the ending is well thought out. There is considerable humour, too, as Larry O'Keefe, an Irish American and the adventure hero of the story, woos Lakla, handmaiden of the Silent Ones. The story begins at the ruins of Nan Madol, off the island of Pohnpei, in Micronesia. It is narrated by Dr. Goodwin, who sets out to investigate the disappearance of a good friend and his family. I really liked the gradual development of the story and the action,which eventually leads to a massive underground kingdom.
Mapman Mike
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