There were nine days of travel last month, which seriously cut into my reading time. The long eclipse day and the week in Sudbury cut my reading time down by nearly a third. Though I did manage some reading in Sudbury on our week long visit, it wasn't anywhere near the usual time allowed for such pursuits. Two of the books read last month were 500 pagers, also limiting the number of books read.
I have finally run out of SF from Robert Silverberg. This month I dove into his recently republished crime and sex novels. Though pretty mild by today's standard best sellers, in the 1960s he chose to use a different name on those book covers. From
1960 and republished in 2022, even more of Silverberg's early output is
now making its way into mainstream publishing. I have the Kindle
edition of The Hot Beat, now published under his own name. The story is short, though there are 25 chapters. A news
reporter and a former girlfriend of a suspected killer try to prove his
innocence. The police don't care; they have a suspect in custody and he
looks guilty to them. Though not up to top notch crime writing
standards set by Hammett and Chandler, the book gets to the nitty gritty
aspects of sordid lifestyles. The girl, Terry, gets pawed by creeps,
and we get a queasy enough feeling when it happens. The suspect is a
former popular big band leader who hits the skids via alcoholism. Two
people put him at the scene of the crime. The novel is preceded by a
short intro by Silverberg, who seems as amazed as this reader regarding
the republication of his crime stories. In addition, there are three
short stories included. 
I own the Kindle edition. 
Cover by Josh Kirby.
Jailbait Girl
is from 1959. Sorry readers, but the girl is 23. She has a scam going
with her boyfriend. After finding guys to seduce her, the two crooks
return later, she dressed as a high school girl, to extort money. They
score four times, but the fifth time turns out quite different.
The Drunken Sailor
is from 1958. A young sailor looking for his first time with a woman
is sold out by a buddy, who has a scam going with the girl who does the
trick.
Naked In The Lake
is from 1958. A murder story with an ironic twist at the end, like
most of these tales. A man kills his pregnant lover, but his wife
manages to outdo him without violence.
From
1976 comes the 157 page on-going troubles of Dray Prescott, titled Captive Scorpio. Dray goes
off in search of a daughter he has never seen, who is living with
scoundrels and trouble makers. Imagine his surprise when he does
encounter her (see cover art, below). Of course she hates him; he is a
coward, etc. He ends up having to leave her among the group of traitors
planning his death and that of the Emperor. Meanwhile,
back in the capital city, the Emperor's armies have been tricked and
defeated. The evil Wizard of Loh, 'Phu-si-Yantong' is behind the attacks
on Vallia, and there seems little that can be done to stop him. In the
shocking finale, another very important person close to Dray and Deliah
is killed, forever altering the leadership and destiny of Vallia. Along
with the shocking revelation regarding Dray's daughter, and the death
mentioned just above, it is obvious that Bulmer is taking his series
very seriously. None of these happenings were expected, and end up
shocking the reader, who expects most things to continue on as as
before. Nope. A very good entry in the series.
From
1973 comes Monster of Metalaze, a 125 page pulp SF novel from one of the best of the
trade. This time around Cap Kennedy works with a (male) team on the
planet Metelaze to stop the government there from completing a series of
towers that are supposed to give limitless energy to the planet. It's
obvious to the Terrans that the towers will kill all life on the
planet when turned on. To find out what is going on, Cap gets himself into the
planet's dictator's good side, eventually becoming his body guard.
Assisted by a professor, a large and very strong man, and a person who
is able to blend in anywhere like a chameleon, they go to work to find out the
truth. The
story jumps back and forth between the various Terran operatives, and
becomes quite complex at times. Once the truth is known, the political
ruling council has to be convinced they are in danger. Some suspect it, but
others support the dictator in everything. To add to the confusion, a
fake religious leader out for power is harnessing his followers to
overthrow the present system so he can take over. It's all very messy, and not a terribly satisfying read.
From
2013 comes the 482 page 3rd part of Moorock's epic series detailing the
life and adventures of Colonal Pyat, Jerusalem Commands. The events now take place
between 1925 and 1929. At some point in this wonderful series I
suspected that I would begin to tire of Pyat, and that process is now
well underway. I am reading the volumes too close together, so I will
rest Pyat for a while, and possibly even rest Moorcock for a time. Pyat
is the cocaine sniffing Cossack from Kiev who continually denies his
Jewishness. His rants against Moslems and what they ultimately represent to the
world are pretty much non-stop, as are his rants against Jews.
Sometimes his insights are quite enlightening, and at other times one
wonders why there isn't a fatwah laid upon the author. I guess not many
people have read it or drawn undue attention to these books.
Pyat
is an entertaining person, very full of himself, and his fictional
memoirs are among the best travel writing ever laid down on paper. This
time we begin in the USA, slowly making our way to New York from Los
Angeles and back again, with many adventures in between. Pyat is a
1920s silent movie star, as is his best friend Mrs. Cornelius (mother of
Jerry). With his beloved Esme, they embark on a ship to Egypt (from LA)
to make a desert epic film. The journey is long but great fun to read. Filming
doesn't end up going so well in Egypt, and Pyat and Esme become sex
slaves, forced to make pornographic films. Mrs. Cornelius, who knew
better and gave fair warning, leaves the country unhindered. Poor Pyat. He goes
through a living hell, and doesn't talk much about the details. These
are left to the readers' imaginations. Esme is now taken fgrom him, never to be seen again. Then it's finally an escape into
the desert, followed by a balloon ride to Morocco. In Morocco Pyat
slowly recovers from his nightmare in Egypt, but again gets into deep
trouble, becoming a captive of the rich Arabic leader of Marrakech.
Escape finally comes, but not in the expected way.
The
book is often tiring to read, though admittedly it is very good. I
recommend taking a lot of time to read these novels. I have been
gobbling them. Pyat's Egypt experience is certainly a low point, but
there are many high points to balance things out. Whether amidst a
bustling city or stranded in the middle of the Sahara Desert, Moorcock
always uses just the right words to get the mood and the atmosphere down
perfectly. Highly recommended series.
#6
in the Lone Wolf Series, Chicago Slaughter, is from 1974 (Malzberg was writing one of these per month) and it is 165
pages long. The tone of these books is shifting. Wulf is now sick and
tired of killing, and the killings that he does undertake get more and
more difficult. He is on his way to Chicago with his now famous
briefcase of pure cut heroin. He wants to turn it into the DA there,
where a grand jury is trying to get to the bottom of the country's drug
problem. But as the story moves along, sometimes over familiar ground
and sometimes not, Wulf begins to realize that the system is rotten from
top to bottom. The Chicago DA gets his orders from that city's drug
kingpin. Wulf goes through an amazing thought process at one point
where he realizes that even the Vietnam war is being fought so that the
supply of drugs from Asia can continue, rather than be stopped in its
tracks by the Communists. And closer to home it appears that the CIA
wants the drug trade to continue, though reasons for that are obscure. Williams, his
one time partner on the NYPD, is badly knifed on an
undercover operation, and spends much of the book in hospital. But he
finally wakes up to the fact that Wulf has been right all along--the
system is rotten, and it's rigged. Today we might ask "So what else is
new?" There is a short postlude by the author at the novel's
completion.
On to Delphi Classics, beginning with the continuation of the complete works of Virginia Woolf. Night and Day was published in 1919, four years after her first novel, The Voyage Out (See January 2023 Books Read entry). Lasting for 579 painful pages, the 2nd novel is a huge disappointment. It's a love story involving two couples and an odd person out that takes place mostly in London, though it is a cardboard London, a city we get no feel for. Had there been some humour involved it might have been a less painful read, but alas, it is all so serious. Katherine, daughter of a prestigious family, becomes engaged to William, whom she does not love. She loves Ralph. When William takes notice of her younger cousin Cassandra, the engagement is called off. But no one tells her father. Ralph proposes to Mary, but she realizes that he is in love with Katherine, and refuses him. It is all so dreadfully boring. The 'young' people (the youngest is 22, the others 25 or over) act like tongue tied high school students when they encounter one another. No one seems to know anything about love and what it truly is. The only non-hopeless person is Mary. She works at a society trying to garner the vote for women (but after a while she doesn't work there). The novel seems truly endless, but I stuck it out, being stubborn enough. It sounds like something Woolf might have written for close friends to hear it read to them. In most articles about her writing, Day and Night isn't even mentioned. I wonder why. I think she was trying to achieve a prose version of something vaguely Shakespearean. Or not.
A collection of poems and a play by Yeats came next. The play and poetry were first published together in 1892. The play was revised and published separately later, as was the poetry, under the title The Rose. The play, a mystical one, is called The Countess Cathleen. I really liked three of the poems, one of which is probably his most famous one. "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" was written in 1888, and served the poet's needs much as Knight Peak in NM does for us--somewhere spiritual and pleasant to think about during the duress of living and working day to day. "When You Are Old" and "A Dream of Death" are also quite remarkable works. As to the play, it is in five scenes, and according to Yeats should take about an hour to perform. A woman gives up her land, house, and gold to feed the poor and starving of Ireland by selling her soul to agents of Satan. At the end, the angels find a loophole in the bargain and manage to save her soul. Not exactly an engrossing bit of theatre. However, it was part of the search for something home-grown in Ireland.
Lastly came Sherwood Anderson's 2nd novel. Marching Men is from 1917, and follows the fortunes and misfortunes of the son of a Pennsylvania coal mining family, as he escapes the small dreary town where he was raised and goes out into the world (Chicago) in search of something bigger and better. This is one of fiction's strangest characters, and one of the strangest novels I have ever read. Nearly as strange as Vita Sackville-West's 2nd novel (see January books read blog). I won't say much about this book (stop me if I do), but Mr. McGregor has some serious social issues to deal with. His attempt to bring order to a chaotic world by having men march around after work is, of course, symbolic. They do that sort of thing in China, perhaps, but it would never catch on over here. The brotherhood of men is a widely misunderstood concept, and Anderson realizes this. But his shallow attempt of proving it likely turned off most readers (at least I would hope). Today we have sporting events and Taylor Swift concerts to unite people. The college football stadium in Ann Arbor Michigan holds over 100,000 people, and autumn football weekends are always sold out. That is just one example. Books like Harry Potter have united millions of people in ways Anderson could never have dreamed about. A professional symphony orchestra is probably the best example of a finely tuned brotherhood, uniting with one goal in mind. Though a mighty strange book by almost any standard, it is at least capable of starting discussion about topics most writers never touch.
Mapman Mike
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