I hit the jackpot with the first novel of the month, Robert Silverberg's Kingdoms of the Wall, a lengthy novel from 1992. Joining books that take us on great journeys such as some of my favourite reads of all time, this one easily ranks as a don't miss masterpiece of hiking. It has more than a bit of The Hobbit in it. It also has some Gormenghast elements, especially at the beginning, and quite a bit of Well at The World's End, too. Then come memories of the two volume set of The Night Land, not to mention Dante's Inferno. Which brings to mind the paintings of Bosch. The Voyages of Gulliver are here, and David Lindsay's A Voyage To Arcturus,
and, of course, Homer and Ulysses. In short, Silverberg's novel is an epic in
every sense of the word, a quest akin to searching for the Holy Grail.
So I guess Arthurian tales should also be mentioned here. It is a vast
fantasy novel wrapped in thin science fiction paper. It is a tale of
people on a strange planet, searching ever for their gods. What they eventually find no one could have predicted, though it drove many of its discoverers mad. A great novel in every sense.
Next came Armada of Antares, the 11th volume in the tales of Dray Prescott, written by Kenneth Bulmer. It concludes a large block of a continuing story line, which taken altogether is pretty good fantasy writing. Beginning with the 6th book and continuing through the 11th, the Havilfar Cycle is an impressive read, inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian series. This last book finally sees the greatly anticipated battle take place between Hamil and Vallia. But the final book in this segment of the story isn't one of the better entries, and the battle itself is told quickly and without much detail. So much for building to a climax.
The Captive is another western (he wrote 11 of them) by E C Tubb, written in 1955. This one takes place near the end of the Civil War, in a western desert. The
South is losing, unable to feed or pay its troops. They try to smuggle
a gold shipment from California to help their cause. A man is given
the task of finding the wagon train shipping the gold, and to see that
the gold does not reach the South. Along the way he is captured and
tortured by Commanches. But again (see last month's read by this author) Tubb gives two sides to the story.
The Indians are fighting a losing battle against white encroachment, and
are desperate to die fighting. However, some want peace, no matter how
many treaties the whites have broken. There aren't enough soldiers to
deal with Indian raids, due to the Civil War. So the white general is
also hoping for peace. A
decent pulp action novel with some strong characters, including Native
ones, and even Southern ones (well, one anyway, a female). And what
happens to the gold at the end will keep adventurers searching for it forever.
Good luck with that!
I finished up a large Moorcock volume, Earl Aubec, which contains a novel (see last month) and a whole slew of short stories, written between 1962 and 1993. Two stories stand out, while several others are worth reading. "A Dead Singer"
is from 1974, and is 8 pages long. I think Iain Banks would have loved
this story, and some of it reminds me strongly of his writing. Jimi
and a roadie take a little trip. Highly entertaining! "Hanging The Fool"
is from 1989, and is 17 pages long. One of Moorcock's Euro-tales, of
which I am immensely fond. No fantasy elements here, but the Tarot Deck
plays an important role in the story, and it has a grisly side to it.
Lastly (from my Avon/Equinox authors project) came a new collection of old stories by Barry Malzberg. Called Ready When You Are And Other Stories, the author gives a short introduction, and then follows each story with a brief afterword. The stories date from 1979 through 1997, with most of them written in the 1980s. "The Twentieth Century Murder Case" is an ingenious crime caper, with a very unusual victim. "The Trials of Rollo" is a humourous piece about a man travelling back in time to have a second chance at landing the girl of his dreams. "Grand Tour" is one of two stories where a man gets three wishes from a genie. Even after getting his three wishes, he is still depressed and at the end of his
rope. Why? Because he is who he is, and he did not wish for any kind
of real change in himself. "Celebrating" is quite a charming tale about a man with a gifted young daughter, who teaches him a very important lesson.
My first free choice read of the month was H. Rider Haggard's second novel, "The Witch's Head" from 1884. It is an epic read, originally published in three volumes. I nearly gave up part way through book 2, but I am glad I persevered. For a while it looked like a typical late 19th C soap opera kind of story, which I found surprising for Haggard. He has long been one of my favourite authors, for reasons that will become obvious the further along we go with his works. But Haggard soon has turned the Victorian novel much on its head, and written a very entertaining piece of fiction. Three women love the same man, but he only loves one of them; the most beautiful of them, Eva. Eva's jealous older sister, who also loves poor Earnest, contrives to ruin their relationship. She does a masterful job of it. Young Dorothy, almost like a sister to Earnest, also loves him, but realizes that she is far out of the running. After getting engaged to Eva, Ernest is off on an adventure which will lead him far from most other young men's adventures abroad. He kills a man in a duel (a cousin) and flees with a friend to South Africa. He ends up fighting in the first major encounter of British versus Zulus (Battle of Isandhlwana) on January 22nd, 1879, in which the British were totally demolished. He comes out alive, but blind, due to a lightening strike. Where does the witch's head come into things? At the very beginning, and at the very end. Why did the face of the witch look like Eva's older sister, the one who spoiled everything for the lovers? Who knows. Still a cracking good adventure novel, with lots of courting, shooting, and fighting. For his time, Haggard was fairly advanced in his written treatment of women and Blacks, though today he would be called sexist and a racist.
Next up on the Kindle reader was Dashiell Hammett's first novel, Red Harvest, from 1929. The only kind of non-wartime story that would have a higher body count would be a samurai film. And guess what? Kurosawa took this novel and made it into Yojimbo, one of his biggest popular hits. A private detective arrives in a small city to find a seething den of crime and general iniquity. An old man hires him to clean up the town and discover who killed his son, who had just taken over the town newspaper. The son had actually hired him first, but was gunned down before he could give his scoop to the detective. The plot and characters are nearly impossible to follow; there are at least three criminal gangs and the entire corrupt police department to deal with, so the detective goes about setting them all against one another. While the writing style is crude, it is effective and often very dry and funny. An amazing first novel, and great fun to read.
Fergus Hume followed up his successful first novel with a shorter one called Professor Brankel's Secret, from 1886. This is a very quick read about a mad chemistry professor who finds a formula that will allow him to travel back in time. There is also a formula that will allow him to travel into the future, but that part requires having the missing 2nd volume of an old chemistry book. He tracks down the 2nd book to an English collector, looking for the missing formula. This is a Gothic tale along the lines of Stevenson's Jekyll/Hyde story, but not nearly so carefully written. Fun to read, and does not require much from the reader.
Watch and Ward was written in serial form and published in 1871, then revised for book publication in 1878. Henry James' first novel is a very minor and bizarre tale about a man who takes in an orphaned 12 year old girl and raises her to be his wife. Try writing that kind of story today! Of course she knows nothing of his ultimate purpose, and grows up well cared for and happy. To begin at the beginning, after her father commits suicide, a young girl is left homeless and without family. Our hero steps in quickly to look after the child, as he was first on scene after the shooting in a hotel. Before any readers panic, he has an older female housekeeper who helps raise the child, who is soon sent off to boarding school. A year in Europe follows for the girl, accompanied there by a friendly and rich female friend of the rescuer, and sees her return at age 18 a beautiful and highly educated young lady, in whom three men are very interested. One is supposedly a long lost cousin of hers, who turns out to be quite a cad. The other is our hero's cousin, a preacher. She falls for him, but in the end realizes how weak the man truly is. In short, the only man whom she can fully trust is her rescuer and guardian. When he proposes marriage at long last, she at first refuses and runs off to London. After a few sordid epidsodes there, and having her eyes opened wide to life,and especially men, she returns to marry him after all. Though the subject matter is somewhat strange, what really defeats the novel (which James disavowed later in life--it's very hard to find a copy of it, but my complete set of his works from Delphi Classics has it) is its simplistic outlook and very simple plot. While I am glad that for once nothing seriously wrong happens to the child, other than witnessing her father's suicide, the characters are little more than cardboard, and seem to have very little depth. Probably meant to be a heart warming tale of a man who finds true love (and the woman, too, eventually), James goes out of his way to avoid the story becoming creepy or sentimental. While it is neither of those, it still lacks enough energy and power to stand even in the middle of the pack as a good read. Probably best read by James' completists and scholars, or those curious as to the subject matter. It was first published in serial form in 1871, and considerably improved for its 1878 book publication. I read the 1878 version.
A second collection of ghost stories by M. R. James is simply called More Ghost Stories, and was published in 1911. There are 7 stories, and while all of them are worth reading, I will mention two that stand out. "Casting the Runes" was made into a superior horror film by Jacques Tourneur called Night of the Demon, which was only spoiled at the very end when the monster is shown. James' tales are so different from those of Lovecraft, an inferior writer who dwells endlessly on how horrible and terrifying everything is. James is one of those writers that seems to get the facts of the matter down without emotional baggage attached, and still provide a spine tingling thrill by the final page. Even though I knew the story well, I was biting my nails towards the end of Runes, as if the ending might somehow turn out differently, and the innocent fall victim to the evil. Another great story is "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral," dramatized for British television many years ago. This one involves carvings that were made from a very old, dead oak tree for the church, and depict frightening creatures that seem to be able to punish anyone who touches them who happens to have blood on his hands (meaning that he has murdered someone). There is also a good tale about a haunted rose garden, and another about a haunted maze. Fun reading, especially on a windy night!
Jerome K. Jerome also had some things to say about Victorian ghost stories. He early and short collection of stories is called Told After Supper, and was published in 1891. The author pokes fun at the English tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve. Here in North America we usually prefer Samhain, or Halloween as it is now known. The stories are few and they are very short. This is a very easy read, perfect for a damp and dark afternoon. Parts of this book are very funny indeed, my favourite being the story told about the man who killed an entire host of annoying street musicians. Highly recommended, and makes a perfect after dinner mint after reading the M. R. James stories.
I pressed on with a slightly longer, though still short, story collection by Jerome called John Ingerfield and Other Stories, published in 1893. The lead story is the longest of five tales, three of them very serious ones. This first story is a very well written one called "In Remembrance of John Ingerfield and His Wife Anna." Jerome bases this story on a tombstone the narrator seeks out in a poor section of London on the grounds of an old and run down church. At its heart it is a very unusual and touching love story, set in a time when typhoid fever was running rampant in parts of London, mostly in the poorer areas. "The Woman of the Saeter" is an old fashioned ghost story that takes place in the mountains of Norway. I guess he wanted to prove that he could write a real ghost story. "Variety Patter" details the humourous adventures of a 14 year old boy making his first visit to a music hall. He smokes cigars, drinks too much, and does it all again when he is 16 or 17. A pretty funny story. The final two stories are not very memorable.
Lastly came the next Oz book, the 7th, by Frank Baum, called The Patchwork Girl of Oz, from 1913. All of the Oz books are so odd that by the 7th book they don't seem very odd anymore. Baum had ended the series at book 6, but decided to bring out another one due to popularity and the income it brought him. Oz had been sealed off from our world, so he had to come up with a way for the new story to get to him. New characters in this story, which was his first "quest" adventure, include the namesake Patchwork Girl, as well as the Crooked Wizard, Ojo the Boy Munchkin, the Glass Cat, and the Woozy. As they seek ingredients for a magic formula that will free Ojo's uncle from an accident with a magic spell that turned him into a marble statue, along with the wizard's wife, they gradually encounter most of the old friends we have all come to know from previous books. Baum claimed that this was his best Oz book to date.
Mapman Mike
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