The first book I ever read by Robert Silverberg was called Lost Cities and Vanished Civilizations, back in the 60s. 60 years later and I am once again entranced by his non-fiction writing, this time The Pueblo Revolt. From 1994, it is 227 pages long. It is a thorough and well written book. The subject is very complex, and Silverberg begins at the beginning. We get to see virtually every expedition that set out from Mexico and El Paso for the Rio Grande pueblos. From Socorro in the south to Taos in the north, and from Quivira in the east and Zuni to the west, virtually every one of the pueblos is discussed. Why the Spanish even bothered trying to gain a foothold here is hard to say, especially once they'd found out there was no gold. The summers were brutally hot and the winters direly cold. There was often no rain for years at a time during the crop growing season. Their main goal became converting the native population to Christianity. Mostly it is a story of brutal colonialism, of natives put into slavery working for the priests to build churches, and for the settlers, to farm their land for them. It is a fascinating part of American history, and very little known in any detail by most people, even American historians. Indispensable for those of us who love New Mexico, and the thriving pueblo culture that managed to live on until today. Recommended reading.
I read the Kindle edition.
From
1990 comes the next in the Dray Prescott series, A Victory for Kregen, lasting 177 pages. It includes a
vast glossary of Kregen terms. A remarkable thing about this series
(there are many) is that it is one long and continuous novel, perhaps
one of the longest stories ever written. It could probably stand inch
for inch with the Mahabharata on a bookshelf! The story begins with the
continuing adventures of the nine survivors of the previous underworld
story. As the group eventually makes its way to safety it breaks up,
with some members staying with Dray and travelling on to Vallia. In
Vallia we have the continuing war against invaders, as the country
strives to regain its lost kingdoms. A side adventure sees Dray rescue
his old friend Turko the Shield. The side stories are always fun and
interesting, even as the main plot advances more slowly and
methodically. Another pretty high quality addition to the series.
From
1956 comes E. C. Tubb's The Dying Tree, a 139 page western novel. It takes place on the frontier
just after the Civil War. The whites were settling the West, stealing
treaty land from the Indians, killing the buffalo, and laying train
tracks right through Sioux territory. It would only be a matter of time
before things exploded into violence. The title is nonsensical and has
nothing to do with the story. Tubb does not write traditional "John
Ford" westerns, and is to be commended for showing so much understanding
and sympathy for the native people. We learn much about their customs
and habits, especially as it pertains to gaining coup and fighting
wars. The opening chapter is one of the best western opening chapters I
have ever read, as an old man, his young grandson, and a drifter from the
defeated southern army fend off an Indian attack at the old man's
lonely supply post. A corrupt and greedy former Union officer soon
enters the picture, and is the cause for the major eruption of a war
pitting many tribes against the pony soldiers at an outlier fort deep in
Indian territory. Quite a good read, with thrilling action scenes
alternating with both sides searching for peace. Highly recommended,
especially if you have never read a western novel before.
From 1974 comes Los Angeles Holocaust, Barry Malzberg's 152 page continuation of the story of Burt Wulf,
as he attempts to single-handedly wipe out the drug trade in America.
From its gruesome title I was expecting a
very high body count this time around. Alas, there wasn't. The set up
seemed to indicate there would be. Recently escaped from Peru, Wulf
makes his way to LA with two million dollars worth of heroin. He's
hoping it will lead him to some kingpin who he can wipe out. He gets
together with his San Francisco girlfriend, but things don't go well
(two dead bodies so far in the count). He calls up his former police buddy,
Williams, who heads west with a virtual arsenal to help out Wulf.
Williams is waylaid on a lonely stretch of highway. Two more bodies are
left behind. They meet up in LA at a racetrack (a classic Malzberg
setting), and hide out in a very constrained trailer park. They don't
get along, and soon Wulf wishes he were alone again. After three
assassins fail in their attempt at killing the pair (total book body
count is seven), they split up and Williams heads east again, with the
arsenal unused. So no holocaust. But when Williams is kidnapped by
arch enemy Calabrese, Wulf decides its time to head to Chicago once again and
settle the score. A solid entry in the series, as we watch Wulf
continue to spiral down into the deepest layers of madness, exploring
unknown circles of Hell and seeming to know no other way forward.
Published in 1987 and updated with a new foreword in 2016, The Tale That Wags The Dog contains more essays by Blish. Blish died in 1975. The
essays date from the early Sixties to the early Seventies. His first
two collections were specifically aimed, first at pulp magazine SF, and
then later at certain novels. This volume is a little more general in outlook. Part 1 contains five essays,
with titles such as The Function of SF, The Science in SF, and The Arts
in SF. I thoroughly enjoyed all of them, but especially the one where
he talks about music and art in SF, what little there was of it back then. Part II contains four essays: Poul
Anderson-The Enduring Explosion; The Literary Dreamers; The Long Night
of a Virginia Author; and Music of the Absurd. In the second and third
essays Blish writes about a trilogy of novels written by James Branch
Cabell, separating them neatly from Finnegan's Wake, with which it has
become associated. The chapter on music brings out Blish's grief at the
state of new music in the 60s (especially John Cage). He needn't have
lost sleep over it--it's all gone away now, more or less. Part III
contains two chapters: A SF Coming of Age, where Blish brings in some
theories of Spengler, explaining why the "great" SF novel has never been
written, and never shall be written. The final chapter is an interview
with Blish conducted by Brian Aldiss. This is a don't miss collection
for fans of early SF writing, as are the two previous books of his
essays. I only hope that eventually all of his critical essays will be
published. These three volumes contains only a small percentage of his
non-fiction work.
With the completion of works by Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery authors, I moved on to novels published in the Delphi Classics Kindle series. First came H. Rider Haggard's world changing adventure novel King Solomon's Mines. Published in 1885, it set off a chain reaction that continues to this day. The lost world adventure novel never seems to grow old with many readers (including this one), and so many major writers have used Haggard as a springboard to fame and fortune. Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt and dozens of others have virtually copied Haggard's premise, though much of it written today takes place off world or in other dimensions. Allan Quatermain is the main narrator, and his adventure, though not quite plausible today, was more than plausible in 1885, when much of Africa was still unexplored, and survey flights were decades away. The book is a classic tale in many ways, though it's colonial outlook and racist beliefs (Quatermain is a lion and elephant hunter and certainly believes that Blacks are not the equal of Whites) seem almost beyond belief to enlightened readers today. So one must read this as a child or youth from 1885, and I'm certain that a few small heads nearly exploded with excitement back then. There is a running joke about one of the white explorers' white legs, which are astonishing to the Blacks. And by the end of the novel, the Blacks have proved to be as brave and fearless in battle as any white man, excepting Quatermain himself, who is an admitted coward. Despite the human and animal body count, it is a first rate adventure novel. It is still in print today, which says something about its effect on readers.
Next I jumped all the way over to Dashiel Hammet, and his novel from 1929, The Dain Curse. This story consists of three novellas, linked by characters, though pretty much complete in themselves. The first part deals with a suicide and murder, in which Hammett's unnamed private detective first arrives on the scene to find missing stolen diamonds. His case switches in part 2 with more murders, and a strange cult that has more at heart than people's spiritual welfare. Lastly comes more murders, a kidnapping, and a bomb explosion. As each part of the case ends, the detective always suspects there is more to it, until, by the end of part 3, we finally get to the rotten bottom of things. At the heart of story is young Gabrielle, who thinks she is the recipient of a family curse. Each novella ends with a lengthy explanation of the very complicated plot up to that point, with the final explanation the longest and most complicated of them all. Though it is a fun read, it is not really one of the great mystery stories, mainly due to the large number of main characters and the complications that ensue. One of the best parts of the story occurs in Part 3, when the detective talks Gabrielle into believing there is no curse upon her, and that she can kick her heroin habit if she wants to, with his help. In this part at least, the sun is shining briefly on a very depressed and lost soul.
W. H. Hodgson's Carnacki, The Ghost-Finder is a collection of six short tales published in 1913. They were previously published in magazines between 1910-12. He reissued the set in 1947, adding two more stories (not reviewed here yet). Carnacki sometimes finds a supernatural cause for what has occurred, but just as often is able to come to a rational and scientific explanation. thus the reader never knows at the time if events are supernatural or not. This is a pretty neat writing trick! The stories are quite frightening, too.
"The Gateway of the Monster" is the first tale. The set up is always the same: four guests come to Carnacki's house for dinner, one of whom is the narrator, after which the host tells his most recent tale. This is the story of a haunted room. Something about the room is serving as a gateway for an evil presence to make itself known. Carnacki himself, though a very brave man, is not above being very, very afraid at climactic moments, and sometimes even running away. And though he often gets to the bottom of a mystery, sometimes he cannot explain it. This story involves a mislaid ring.
"The House Among The Laurels" is another very scary tale, and even though there are explanations at the end, they do not really satisfy the reader. No one knows how the candles were put out, or why someone went to so much trouble to 'haunt' the large house. Three dogs die violently in this story, and in the previous one a cat. Animal lovers be warned.
"The Whistling Room" is a very strange tale about a horrible whistling sound that comes from one room in a castle. Again the climax is very frightening. Most of these would make great TV episodes for a horror anthology. And why has no one made a film about Hodgson's The Night Land?
"The Horse of the Invisible" has something to do with local old tales, as many of these stories often have. Not as scary as the first three, and again the explanation hardly explains everything that happened. And can everyone who fired a gun in this story have missed the culprit? This is a story that has both a hoax at its heart, and a real ghostly event.
"The Searcher of the End House" is another story that has both a logical explanation for a haunting, and a supernatural one. Thus there are two mysteries, one quite terrifying and the other more mystifying. The first mystery is Lovecraftian, while the second one is a classic ghost haunting.
"The Thing Invisible" is the final story in the first collection. A butler is seriously wounded by a dagger that seemed to fly out of nowhere from inside a small chapel attached to a castle, and Carnacki is called to help solve the mystery. Once again he spends a very scary night inside a dark and dangerous place, and once again he runs out of it, terrified, in the middle of the night. The mystery is finally solved, however, and the ghost-finder lives to tell the tale to his friends.
Next came Fergus Hume's Madame Midas, from 1888. A sprawling Victorian novel, it is a thriller that is loosely based on a real woman, one who owned and managed mines in Australia. Despite the usual warnings concerning the man she is about to marry, she goes ahead with her plans. Of course he turns out to be a louse, and causes her nothing but grief throughout the novel. Not only that, but another man, an escapee from a French prison island, worms his way into her confidence and is offered a job managing her books. What could go wrong? She is not the only female in the story who is wronged. It would appear that there are a lot of dangerous predatory males out there. Can this possibly be true? It is a pretty decent novel, and its 400+ pages go past quite quickly. A few years transpire between the opening scene and the finale. References are made to the author's previous detective novel, The Mystery of the Hansom Cab. In fact, the lead woman here ends up renting the same house where much of the plot of the previous novel was centered. A neat writer's trick to get readers to read the other novel, if they haven't already.
Finally, I read another American dime novel by The Old Sleuth. A Successful Shadow is from 1885, and is a direct sequel to the one I read last month, called Two Wonderful Detectives. These short mystery stories are actually quite fun and worth seeking. I bought a small collection of this for pennies on Kindle, but they seem to also be available on Project Gutenberg, on-line for free reading. In this story the detective is finally able to restore a large inheritance to its rightful owner, after a considerable battle of wits against a young criminal. The detective, like a certain other later detective, is a master of disguises. I look forward to reading more of these creations.
Mapman Mike
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