November Reading Summary

A pretty normal month for reading, as astronomy nights were few and far between.  I read nine books, and parts of others.  Since I seem to have run out of works by Silverberg (at long last), my reading now begins each month with a pulp novel by Kenneth Bulmer, followed by one by E. C. Tubb.  Then comes Barry Malzberg, and, every other month, a novel by Michael Moorcock.  Following those four authors I am in free reading mode for the remainder of the month, choosing whatever I feel like reading.  I have a large pile of real books to get through, as well as literally hundreds of Kindle novels.  So here we go....

 

Rebel of Antares is from 1980, this continuing saga of Dray Prescott by Bulmer is 151 pages.  One of the things that can get tedious in a long series such as this (this is #24) is the types of predicament into which the hero can be placed.  A favourite with Bulmer (and Tubb) is the arena, where the Roman tradition of gladiatorial combat is intensified in sadism and cruelty.  Once again Dray finds himself in the arena, starting out yet once more at the bottom of the barrel.  This is the same arena where he escaped from in an earlier volume, and rescued Delia.  Though it does advance the plot somewhat, Dray still ends up in the dungeon, and he could have got there without all the trouble of fighting in the arena.  But what do I know?  I haven't published 24 books (not even one).

The action is high pitched, and often humourous, as when Dray must rescue a princess from a high tower.  This is a fantasy story trope, but it is quite updated and well done nonetheless.  It is a dark and stormy night, and Dray sneaks, climbs, and fights his way to the princess.  She has been a captive a long time, and has often fantasized about who her rescuer would be, and how it would be accomplished.  "I see they've give you books to read," comments Dray.  It goes without saying that the rescue does not exactly fulfill the dreams of the young lady, especially when Dray grabs her and they jump from the castle wall into a muddy moat.

This book actually comes to an ending, not a cliffhanger, though we know that Dray has more work to do.  He reconciles with one of his lost daughters, and his son gets married (to the rescued princess).  A happy ending!

 

The Kindle reissue usually features 4 novels.  The updated covers are a reprint of one of those volumes.  This was the cover of the original Rebel of Antares, by Ken Kelly.  Though the cover art may make it appear that females are helpless critters who need rescuing by manly men, more often than not the women in this series can take care of themselves quite nicely.
 

 From 1994 comes Zenya, a 157 page story, #11 of the on-going adventures of Earl Dumarest, a man searching for his birth planet, which happens to be Earth.  Earth was essentially a disaster area when Earl left it as a child stowaway, and since then has been searching for clues as to its location.  We are never told why he wishes to revisit a worn out, stripped down, ecologically dead world, but on he goes, adventure after adventure.  He's had many opportunities to settle down and enjoy a bit of life, but Earl would rather risk that life hopping from planet to planet, asking questions about Earth's location.  In this story, on the very last page, he gets some clues.  Big deal.  This has become a very thin thread trying to hold together a series of individual stories of adventure.  We visit two new worlds this time, with most of the action occurring on the 2nd planet.  Farming settlers appear to be having some problems with the primitive natives, and Earl gets himself hired to end the war that is ready to explode.

It's a good enough story, but not one of Tubb's best Dumarest ones.  Two female characters form a backdrop to the manly action scenes, but they are shallow and only interested in themselves.  In addition, they both have mental health issues.  So no great women characters here, I'm afraid.

 

From 1975 comes the 168 page sequel we've all been waiting for in Malzberg's vigilante crime series.  In Harlem Showdown (#10) Burt  Wulf returns to New York to figure out his next move.  He has taken out drug kingpin after kingpin, and lived to tell the tale.  Lying low in a Harlem rooming house, he begins to take on small time dealers, before realizing that his game is up.  He has done all that one man could ever hope to do.  Malzberg, in an afterword, says the same thing.  Events could not continue, as they just began to repeat themselves.  What to do next?  Williams, the ex-friend of Wulf, is back on the NYPD force, this time part of a special unit to find and capture Wulf.  They were once patrol car partners, until Wulf left the force.  Wulf finally figures out who killed his girlfriend, even though we've strongly suspected it from the start (no, it's not Williams).  He goes after the bad lieutenant cop, and the end comes soon afterwards.  I won't spoil the ending, but it's got to be either Williams or Wulf, right?  Wrong.  Mostly.  Let's just say that with four books remaining in the series, Wulf likely isn't going to die yet. I have a feeling I know what will happen to him, and it involves some kind of arrangement with the police.  There is a lot of introspection in this story, something that has been happening more and more in the series.  Malzberg is very good at writing about inner thinking, especially within crazy minds.  The series will continue for a bit longer, but likely with a different spin on things.

 

I also read 2/3rds of the last Colonel Pyat novel by Moorcock.   This has been a very rewarding and fun series to read.  I will report on it in the December reading summary.

Doctor In The Swim by Richard Gordon is from 1962, and makes for very light reading.  This book has been on my shelf for years, and is finally on its way to the charity shop.  In this episode the doctor gets engaged not once, but three times, twice to the same girl.  He also gets Sir Lancelot Spratt out of a a New York prison cell, helps his cousin to not get a divorce, and manages a troupe of delinquent girls at a holiday camp.  More or less in the tradition of Wodehouse, the novel can be read at one or two sittings.  Some very funny moments, and some not so much.  Not the finest of the series, by any means.

 

The Shaman's Game is a crime mystery novel by James D. Doss from 1998.  Influenced heavily by the Navajo mysteries of Tony Hillerman, Doss writes about a Ute reservation in southwestern Colorado.  I found the book at an antique store on our recent road trip, and picked it up along with a Hillerman novel.  The plot concerns strange deaths that occur during tribal Sun Dances at various reservations.  Rumour has it that a Native witch is responsible, making everyone nervous.  Officer Charlie Moon, a Ute who has some difficulty in believing old timers' tales about the power of witches, is about to learn some lessons.  The character of Moon himself is not a very interesting one, at least compared to the officers in Hillerman's novels.  He is quite bland, in fact, though efficient in his own way.

The most interesting characters seem to be two old women, Moon's Aunt Daisy, a shaman, and Popeye Woman.  Aunt Daisy provides a lot of the interest in this novel.  There are also two young women who are after Charlie Moon for a husband.  One of the things I enjoyed about Doss's writing style is his following up spoken dialogue with the inner thoughts of the speaker immediately afterwards.  A speaker might smile and say hello, but their inner thoughts carry a very different message.  I also like how he builds towards his climax, though perhaps it takes just a bit too long, especially after a very slow opening exposition.  The book is part of a series, the third volume.  I may look out for at least one more before passing final judgement.  I did like the book, and most of the characters, especially the women, were very well drawn.  The ending keeps on surprising, even after the alleged bad guy is caught.  The book, like Hillerman's novels, also offers a chance to learn a bit about Native American culture.  By the end of the novel, my thoughts were also turning towards the writing of M R James, a writer of ghost stories.

Next came a collection of ghost stories by M R James from 1919.  A Thin Ghost and Others contains five tales: The Residence at Westminster; The Diary of Mr Poynter; An Episode of Cathedral History; The Story of An Appearance and A Disappearance; and The Two Doctors.  All are quite good, though not equally spine tingling.  The Appearance/Disappearance one is probably the strangest tale of the set, involving a Punch and Judy show; the first tale is probably the scariest of the bunch, though I suppose it depends on what frightens a particular reader.  Always worth reading, James' style is sometimes mundane and matter of fact, though he can build up nicely to a suitably grim finale.

Original 1919 publication. 

 

Tony Hillerman novels are now quite expensive, considering that they are all reprints and require no further editing etc.  Even Kindle costs are quite high.  So I was pleased to find a bunch of his novels at an antique store in Moriarty NM on our recent road trip.  I took The First Eagle, a later work from 1998.  Having just read a copy cat novel by Doss, and not having read a Hillerman in many years (he has passed on and his daughter now writes the new ones), it was good to revisit the old days.  I think by chance I picked up a novel I hadn't read before, as I remembered nothing about this Navajo mystery.  As usual, two stories intertwine.  Joe Leaphorn, retired from the Navajo police force, takes on his first private investigation.  A woman is missing and he is asked to find her.  The second story sees a police officer killed in the line of duty, and acting lieutenant Jim Chee, who was Leaphorn's protege, is convinced he has arrested the write man.  But of course he hasn't.  Hillerman weaves his magic, taking us deep into Navajo landscape, this time in Arizona.  I can't say if this is one of his best novels, but it was really good.  I have one more sitting on my shelf, one I know I have read.  So I will read that one, and perhaps keep looking for more Hillerman on second hand shelves.  Hillerman teaches as well as entertains.  We learn much about traditional Navajo ways in most of his novels, and this one is no exception.  He also tackles the thorny problem of reservation cops having to respond alone to most calls, with backup often up to an hour away.  In First Eagle we also learn a bit about Hopi traditions.  And there is science, in the form of flea catching.  Bubonic plague is still a threat in the southwest, due to infected fleas that bite rodents, which then get into people's homes.  So there is a sprinkling of microbiology, too.  Highly recommended, even if you've never read one of his books before.

 

A recent used book purchase. 

 

Thanks to a 36 part lecture series on mystery writing and its long legacy, we have been jotting down several authors of interest.  The first of these I have explored is about the Swedish police detective Martin Beck.  The first book of a series is called Roseanna, from 1967.  The books were co-authored by Maj Sjowall and Per Whaloo, and are among the favourite mystery books of the lecturer.  Beck is a detective on the national police force, like the FBI in the US or Scotland Yard in the UK.  He is called in when local police don't have the resources to deal with a serious and unsolvable crime.  And this one really seems unsolvable.  A woman is murdered on board a tourist cruise boat and her body dumped overboard in the canal.  The body is found soon afterward during a dredging operation.  The book is a police procedural,f and we soon realize how difficult and how boring the job can be.  The body is found in July, soon after the murder, but it is not until after Christmas that the case finally gets resolved.  Sometimes the authors write with a grim and very dry humour.  Beck himself is a physical wreck; he smokes too much, he never eats properly or sleeps much, and is often sick.  He has no meaningful relationship with his wife and two young children.  He is away from home nearly all of the time, either in his Stockholm office or travelling to other towns to investigate leads.  I have a few problems with this first book, though overall it is a very engrossing story and generally very well crafted.  First all, Beck only seems to have one crime on his caseload, with all the time in the world to solve it.  He must be the envy of a lot of detectives.  Secondly, the climax of the story, while gut-wrenching, is hardly plausible.  On their way to catch the criminal in the act of murdering a decoy policewoman, on a quiet Sunday morning, they are suddenly involved in a massive car pileup, and all their doors won't open.  When they finally get out, they have to run the 650 yards to the scene.  This past is quite amusing, anyway, though so improbable as to be laughable in itself.  And it's quite inexplicable as to how the killer just manages to walk into the apartment, considering it has always been locked and chained up till now.  I will read the second book eventually.  We'll see if any of these quibbles get ironed out, or if they will repeat.  

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Lastly comes another first book of a large detective series.  Ed McBain's 50+ book series about the 87th precinct takes place in a fictional city remarkably like NYC.  Whereas the Martin Beck novel was gritty and showed a realistic look at European crime solving, the 87th precinct novels are far grittier, and show a realistic look at American crime solving.  Cop Hater is from 1956, and McBain (real name Evan Hunter; before that he was Salvatore Albert Lombino) attempts to show the workings of a busy police precinct (district) when one of its detective is murdered, shot from behind when he was going to work.   A police procedural, there are virtually no clues at the beginning of the serial cop killer's rampage.  When all is said and done, three detectives are murdered.  However, the third, aware of the danger, manages to wound the perpetrator, and leave a few other clues behind before he dies.  Being 1956, the women are all wives of cops, so McBain, at least in the first novel, shows us a man's world, ruled by violence, bad jokes, and lots of cigarettes.  McBain/Hunter wrote the novel Blackboard Jungle, as well as the screenplay for Hitchcock's The Birds.  I purchased the first ten books in this series from Kindle for a bargain (less than 2$ per book).  So I will likely read the first ten, at least.  This recommendation comes from our television lecture series on great mystery writers.

 

I'm also chipping away at two large books, the fairy tale one by Joseph Jacobs, and a compilation of short stories edited by M. Jakubowski and M. Christian, called Tales From the Road.  It's a Mammoth Book, one of their series.  It includes chapters or stories by Moorcock, Ballard, and Kerouac, among others.  Some of the stories have been very disturbing.  More on this book when it is finished. 

 

Mapman Mike