November 2025 Reading Summary

I read ten books in November, two from my Avon/Equinox authors and the rest from my vast collection of fiction from Delphi Classics on Kindle. 

 

 

In the 1985 Storm Over Valia (#35 in the Dray Prescott series) Bulmer lets us in on what has been happening with Dray's #1 son.  We have heard a bit about his doings, but he has never had his own volume until now.  Drak is attempting to rid the mainland of Valia of traitorous enemies.  It takes several battles and reinforcements before he is able to turn the tide in his favour, but then he is kidnapped by the enemy.  #35 in the Dray Prescott series is filled with the usual amount of fighting, carousing, intrigue, humour and outrageous incidents, even though Dray is not present.  While he has been battling the witches' plagues, we learn what else has been going on in other parts of Kregen.  While Drak is a mere shadow of his father, he hasn't had the same amount of time to have his character developed.   Drak shares plot time with Silda, daughter of Dray Prescott's best friend.  Silda is a Sister of the Rose, highly trained in all manner of combat, and she gets a good chunk of the story to herself and her deeds, too.  In fact, she is a more interesting character than Drak.  This is a good entry in the series, allowing the readers to gain a more multi-dimensional view of what exactly is going on.

 

 

It's unfortunate that Tubb is an artful dodger.  In his Dumarest series Tubb never allows his hero to get near the original Earth, as if a change of direction for the series would be detrimental.  And in his Cap Kennedy series Tubb never allows us to stay long enough to learn more about the Zheltyanians, that ancient race that has left traces of itself across the galaxy.  I think most readers would like to see Dumarest getting closer and closer to Earth, and they would also like to see Cap learning more about the mysterious old ones.  But each time they make a discovery, it has to be destroyed for reasons to do with the main story plot.  In Spawn of Laban (1974; 127 pages), Cap and his team have to deal with giant insects, scorpions and spiders that will be used to devastate Earth in the near future.  A twisted professor is mixed up in the plot, and perhaps his lovely daughter.  It's a good story, except for the blowing up of the Zheltyana artifacts which are destroyed at the end.  It appears that giant wasps are using one of their ancient structures as a nest.  So much for getting clues from there.  Many of Tubb's stories would make fantastic movies, and this is one of them.  Any filmmakers out there listening?

 

Cover by Jack Gaughan. 

 

Turning now to Delphi Classics on Kindle, I began the month with an end of the world story by Arthur Conan Doyle.  The Poison Belt is from 1913 and undoubtedly influenced writers like John Chrisopher.  However, Doyle's story is somewhat spoiled by a chicken-out ending, where everyone wakes up next morning as suddenly as they had passed out and were presumed dead the previous day.  This is a Professor Challenger story (The Lost World), and the same team is together again as a poisoned bit of ether seems to have crossed Earth's path.  They survive the night with oxygen, and the best part of the story has them heading for London next day in a motor car to see the devastation.  And while the ending is a cop out, there has been great devastation as a result of people passing out amidst their duties.  There are train wrecks, shipwrecks, completely burned cities and other disasters.  So Earth does not get a get out of jail free card without considerable bumps and bruises.  If you like the stories of Christopher then you will certainly like this one, from one of the great storytellers.

An interior illustration for Doyle's story. 

 

 

Edgar Wallace wrote a few books featuring a London detective from Scotland Yard. The first of these novels is The Nine Bears from 1910. A group of men attempt to manipulate the stock market, causing a major London bank to fail if their plot succeeds. T. S. Smith has his hands full in this cracking crime thriller that has a global reach, including a climax at sea. Wallace writes well and craftily, setting up the capture of the group and their leader time and again, only to be foiled and outwitted. There is a master criminal mind behind the whole thing, and even the best at Scotland yard seems to be no match. My Delphi edition had colour plates of a few scenes. Highly readable, with the bad guys finally done in in the end.

 

 
Next up was T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, from 1922. This is only the 2nd time I've read this work, and the only time I had a clue as to what is about. My Delphi Classics edition includes the author's notes. The title and much of the mood of the text refers to Jessie Weston's book From Ritual To Romance, about the Grail legend. Eliot claims he was thinking a lot about the Fisher King, his wounded condition and how the landscape reflected that condition. Other influences include Dante, Ovid and Chaucer. The poem is divided into 5 segments, with the 4th being my personal favourite. However, I also love the opening to the 3rd part, and a part of the 5th. 

 

The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf

Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind

Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.

 

Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song. 

 

And.... 

In this decayed hole among the mountains
  In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
  Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
  There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
  It has no windows, and the door swings,
  Dry bones can harm no one.

 

Jacques Futrelle (real name John Futrell) was an American writer who wrote mystery and crime novels.  He was a passenger on the Titanic and died as a result of the sinking.  I read his first novel, The Chase of the Golden Plate from 1906.  The author sets up a man as being just about as guilty a person could be of committing a crime, with all evidence pointing to him ass the culprit.  Of course the man is innocent, and the reader must read on to find out how the author gets him off the hook.  Some of the tactics used are a bit much, such as the girl who is engaged to be married to him, and with whom she is eloping the very night of the robbery, does not recognize the fact that she is with someone else.  She thinks it is her lover the whole time.  Hmmmn.  Week, he did have a face mask on.  In the story we are introduced to The Thinking Machine, Futrelle's version of Sherlock Holmes.  He is a man who uses only logic to solve crimes.  It was an okay read, but not the kind of crime novel that I am a big fan of.

 

 

Next came a collection of stories by Gogol, an 1835 set of four tales collectively called Mirgorod.

"The Old Fashioned Farmer" is a tribute of sorts to the author's grandparents.  Minute descriptions of the house interior, exterior and lands surrounding it are given, painting a wonderful picture of a Ukraine ("Little Russia") homestead at the time.  Despite being silently robbed by the workers and overseer, as the old farmer no longer tends to the farm himself, they still get by without enough to keep them happy in their older years.  Not so much a story as a celebration of a way of life.

 

"Taras Bulba" is the tale of a Cossack's life back in the good old days.  It was a manly man's world, leaving wives and young children behind to live in a large permanent encampment upon the steppes of central Asia.  Everything you have wanted to know about Cossacks is here, and perhaps everything you did not want to know.  I would equate the true Cossack to its modern equivalent of the football (soccer in North America) hooligan, out looking for trouble for no real reason other than to prove 'manhood.'  In the famous story, which is quite a long one, Taras introduces his two sons to the life of a Cossack.  The eldest lad takes to it quite well, but the youngest is a bit soft on the emotional side and ends up falling in love with a beautiful woman.  Silly lad.  Several films were made from the story, including a famous Hollywood one.

 

"Viy" is a supernatural horror tale, one of the best!  A young seminary student, a philosopher, has a life or death meeting and struggle with an evil witch.  When he bests her and she dies his troubles begin.  This is a such a great story that I hesitate to give any of the plot away.  Last March we watched the 1967 Russian film version, which, as it turns out, closely follows the story and has incredible effects for the time. (see my review from the March 23rd/25 blog).  A must to read for horror fans. 

 

"The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled With Ivan Nikiforovich" is a tragic/comedy story about two very close friends who have a serious falling out and are unable to reconcile.  The story follows the men as their differences escalate into a court drama, and shows the negative effects it has on their aging and quality of life.  Told with humour, it is a good story that would also make a good film.

 

 

Carson McCullins' Clock Without Hands (pub. 1961) is the 2nd story by her I have read.  The lives of four male characters intertwine much like themes in polyphonic music, though decidedly in a minor key.  J.T. Malone is a small town pharmacist in southern Georgia, a man who failed to pass his second year of medical school.  Now 40, he blames Jewish students for his failure.  He soon finds out that he has leukemia and has just over one year to live.  One of his close friends is Judge Clane, a widower whose lawyer son committed suicide many years earlier.  The judge is a southern bigot, and his big scheme to become even richer than he is, is to get the federal government to redeem confederate money.  The time is the early 1950s.  The judge weighs over 300 pounds and has type two diabetes.  He hires Sherman, a blue-eyed young Black man, to help him administer his shots and to be his personal secretary, writing the letters dictated by the judge.  Sherman's blue eyes attract the judge's grandson, Jester, a homosexual young man yet to act on his leanings.  Sherman can also sing really well, and play piano.  The relationship between Sherman and Jester, between Sherman and the judge, and between Jester and his grandfather form the basis of the book, with Mr. Malone and his terminal illness providing a 4th narrative line.  They keeps the book interesting from start to finish.  There are a lot of f-bombs dropped during the tale, as well as liberal use of the n-word.  This is the deep south of the the 1950s, and it isn't a pretty place for Black folk.  But it's a time of change, too, and more Blacks are speaking up for their constitutional rights, though few are receiving them.  Malone himself is the main 'clock without hands', a man who cannot find himself in life until he is upon his death bed.  But none of the characters really know or understand what they are doing.  The judge fights for whites, in the end separating himself from Sherman.  His son who died by suicide had attempted to defend an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman, and this really put a chasm between the father son relationship.  The same thing happens with Jester, the judge's grandson.  Once Jester figures out what his grandfather really stands for, he rejects him and goes his own way.  Sherman finally finds a cause and a reason to stand up for himself and his race, but it is a useless sacrifice.  Though depressing in many ways (as a piece of music in the minor key can be), it is nothing but an honest glimpse at life in those "good ol' days" white Americans like to think about, the golden age of the 1950s.  I didn't like the book quite as much as The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, though I am left with similar feelings after reading Clock.  Definitely a book worth reading, as this woman is a terrific writer.

 

 

Next came a collection of eight stories of childhood by Kenneth Grahame.  Dream Days was first published in 1888, and illustrated by Maxfield Parrish in a 1902 edition (the one I read).  Of the eight stories four of them are excellent, with one of these being among the best things ever written regarding childhood.  It is a follow up collection to his remarkable Golden Days of 1885.  My four favourite stories are "Mutabile Semper," where our young hero meets a new girl his age and what befalls their brief affair.  Funny and poignant at the same time with an irresistible point of view.  "The Magic Ring" opens with a warning to adults to be careful what they say aloud when children are present, illustrating perfectly how a broken promise can affect a child.  Again our hero becomes momentarily infatuated with not one, but two different females as he unexpectedly is brought to see the circus, after finding out that he would not be going with his parents after all.  We get to experience the lowest and highest points of childhood in one short story.  "The Reluctant Dragon" is one of the most famous stories of all time, and certainly worth reading.  Filled with dry humour and life lessons for accepting others as they are, the tale is a story within a story.  Two of the children, our young hero and his youngest sister, follow what they imagine might be dragon tracks in the snow.  It eventually leads them to the garden of a well known local man who works in the circus.  Once he discovers their mission, he offers to walk them back home, as it is now dark and very chilly.  Along the way he is prompted to tell a story, and out comes the tale of the reluctant dragon.  A beautiful package, indeed.  The final story of the set is the best of them all.  "A Departure" is the story of how the children parted with their toys once they had officially, though not emotionally, out grown them.  As they are packaged up to be delivered to a sick children's hospital, the two youngest, observed by the eldest, undertake to save at least a few of the precious and once-loved toys and give them immortality.  Very touching and moving if read by anyone that had well loved toys as a child.  Like the previous Golden Age stories, this set is indispensable reading.

 

One of ten plates included in my Kindle Delphi Classics edition of Dream Days.

The Man In The Moon watches as the children say good bye to a few of their old toys.
 

 

 

I finished up the month with a detective story by Anna Katherine Green.  XYZ--A Detective Story is a very readable novella about a detective hunting down a gang of counterfeiters, but inadvertently getting mixed up in another crime instead.  From 1883, the story involves a father estranged from one of his sons, and the efforts the other brother and a sister make to reunite the family.  When the father is murdered, however, the detective,thanks to several mix ups and misunderstandings, is right on the scene, and it doesn't take him long to collar the criminal.  Easy to read and quite a fun story.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

July Books Read

Another indoor month, due to heat and humidity here this time of year, means lots of time for reading.  Having run out of Silverberg SF books, I am now reading his trashy pulp novels, which actually are pretty gritty and not half bad.  I am giving Michael Moorcock a rest for a few months, and returning to James Blish.  Blish wrote several dozen critical essays about the stories in SF pulp magazines in the 50s and early 60s, under a fake name.  I have a few of those books in hand.  There were among the rarest of books by Blish, and unavailable for decades.  However, thanks once again to the magic of Kindle publishing, I now have books I had given up hope of ever finding in stores.

 

Besides my five Avon/Equinox books, I plunged ahead with Delphi classics, beginning with stories by Wilkie Collins and Joseph Conrad, and also read some from beyond that incomparable series.

 

Gang Girl is from 1959 and is penned under the name Don Elliot (Silverberg). She's seventeen and has a body that can turn young males into her own personal playthings.  They will even kill for her.  Lora Menotti is one bad girl, striving to get to the top of the gang when her family moves into new digs in a different part of New York.  Silverberg manages to get inside this kinky girl's head, and we see what makes Lora tick.  Mostly it's sex, violence, drugs, and booze.  The book has a lot of each of those things.  Like most bad people in 1959 movies and books, she does get her comeuppance in the final chapter--she has made too many enemies not to escape gang justice.  The story is gritty and probably not too far fetched for its time.  I would not even wish to contemplate what contemporary gang life is like. 

 

The first half of A Sword For Kregen, the 1979 novel by Kenneth Bulmer that continues the adventures of Dray Prescott, is standard fare for the series, meaning that it is fun to read and advances the overarching plot.  Dray has been given a warning by the gods that his services as a warrior will soon be needed again.  He manages to tie up business at home before he is yanked away again to a distant corner of Kregen.  The second half of the book is Bulmer's homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel The Chessmen of Mars.  Burroughs' Martians love to play chess, and that book in the author's Martian series features a game of human chess where the pieces must fight to the death when moved to an occupied square.  On Kregen the board game of war is called Jikaida, and is played everywhere, including at the beginning of this novel, as a  game is taking place between Dray and his wife (she wins, with a ruthless strategy).  And so Dray later becomes a piece in the game, and must fight. Besides redoing Burroughs (Bulmer also gives instructions on how to play his game at the end of the novel, as did Burroughs), a few tropes pop up in this story.  For one, the climax is yet again two males having a swordfight to the death.  How original.  For another, Dray is the underdog against a much superior swordsman.  So of course Dray loses until the very few final seconds on the match, when his opponent finally makes a mistake.  Dray, with his very last strength, just somehow manages to kill him.  Yawn.  Despite this, the book is again very well thought out and executed.  The series continues, with 15 more novels in store.  So far, so good.  I can't believe I have last through 20 books.

 

From 1956 comes The Curse of Quantrill, a Civil War era historical western, starring that scourge of the North William Quantrill.  Quantrill was a Southern Captain in the Rebel army.  This story takes place near the end of the Civil War, and near the end of Quantrill's short life.  It is a completely fictional account of the later years, with no mention of the James brothers being part of Quantrill's Raiders.  There are many nearly forgotten stories of the Civil War.  The criminal and violent things that Quantrill and his men did, and those of the rival Jayhawkers, are quite unspeakable, yet they are a part of almost any war.  The same with a victorious Union army as they marched through the South, burning, robbing, raping, and causing economic disaster for the losing side.  Even after the war a lot of very nasty things went on that are best never forgotten, but always are.  Tubb gives a creditable account of life near the end of the Civil War, and pulls no punches.  A good read, and it made me research the facts about Quantrill. 

 

The Bend At The End of the Road is another good collection of short essays by Malzberg concerning SF writing in the 50s.  Lamenting the demise of SF and trying to reason why might drive a person crazy.  Tolkien, Star Wars, and Star Trek seem to be the main cause, as well as editors who only accepted certain types of SF for publication.  The great comeback in the 60s was due to the British, mostly Moorcock's New Worlds publications, and within that, thanks mostly to Ballard.  This essay collection, published in 2018, contains essays written between 2007-17.  It apparently did not help that more than one Hugo was given out to works that were not SF at all.  

Malzberg is one of the most creative and funniest writers of SF I have come across in the Avon Rediscovery Series.  After reading even a few of his works, it can be seen why he did not become more famous as a writer--his stuff does not fit the category of SF that editors had been hammering into young minds since day one.  However, it is a shame that he did not even attempt to talk about some modern SF writers.  Given the dates of the essays, he does not discuss a single contemporary writer.  Not good, Mr. Malzberg.

Still, these essays are essential reading for people interested in 50s SF, and in discovering why SF writing disappeared (think dragons and elves).  You'll laugh, you'll cry, but you will continue to read the next essay, until there are no more.  Highly recommended for readers of this blog.

 

James Blish wrote critical essays about SF in the 1950s and 1960s, ostensibly to help budding writings in the genre.  He wrote under the name of Atheling, and his cover was not guessed for many years, when he finally came out.  He wrote about the magazine stories from the time, which was virtually the only place to publish SF stories.  The essays contained in The Issue At Hand are full of insight, and make a very good handbook for young writers and older editors.  Having recently read many essays by Barry Malzberg on the subject, Blish excels at getting to his point and proving it, something that Malzberg's essays often lack.  He was a very erudite writer, and not above criticizing his own works in his essays.  His emphasis on stories of humanity often fell on deaf ears for those writers engaged in space opera, but the essays invariably helped many writers, even the pros.  An invaluable gem of a book, unavailable for many years until it appeared on Kindle.  Praise Kindle!

On to the Delphi Classics!  Wilkie Collins wrote a short novel in 1856 called A Rogue's Life.  He made some revisions in 1879 for its first book publication (it had been serialized in a magazine).  He wanted to expand it, but didn't have the time.  A good thing, as it's perfect as it stands.  The son of Dr. Francis Softly tries hard to make a go of things, to uphold his family's high position (through his mother).  He tries learning medicine, but finds it not to his taste.  Next come several very funny episodes where he tries caricature, goes bankrupt and is sent to jail; next comes portrait painting, also a complete flop.  A friend gets him into painting old masters to sell as original works.  A few times he runs into a beautiful young woman who makes his heart flutter.  When the old masters racket is exposed, he flounders for a time.  The young Softly is a terrific character for a novel, and I was very surprised to see that nothing has been done for TV or film with this work.  It is a fun read, just long enough, with one of the most original endings I have ever come across.  A rogue indeed!  If you are a reader who has been put off by Collins' very (very) long novels, this would be a great place to dip into his writing.  Highly recommended!

Next came a strange tale by Joseph Conrad, co-written with Ford Maddox Ford.  The Inheritors is from 1901.  Ford was a neighbour at the time, helping Conrad write in English.  I didn't care much for the novel.  Without the sea it doesn't seem like Conrad, yet.  The book is well written, yet lacks action and emotion.  It is a political thriller that takes place in London, the countryside, and Paris.  The downfall of the old regime is in the hands of a heartless woman, who claims to be from the 4th dimension.  Forgetting that, it is interesting to speculate on how many humans there are that we might know who don't seem quite human.  Conrad digs up a few here, and shines a light upon them.  The main protagonist, a journalist, is used by the lady to help achieve her ends.  He is a pawn on her chessboard, who thinks that he has free will.  He falls in love with her, and needless to say it is unrequited.  At the very end, however, when the cataclysm has stopped its rumbling, she does confess a small bit of feeling for him.  The book ends with the man a lost soul, with nothing to do and nowhere to go.  The novel makes for an interesting read, but certainly not an engaging one.  For Conrad completists, and those trying to assess the influence Ford had on the story.

I read the Delphi Kindle edition.

 Anne Hillerman's latest mystery novel is called Lost Birds, published in 2024.  Continuing to write in her father's footsteps, retired Navajo cop Joe Leaphorn returns to centre stage for this story, mostly set in New Mexico's northwest badlands.  Ms. Hillerman's job is not an easy one.  First, she must use the characters introduced and developed by her father, putting her own spin on things while remaining true to Tony Hillerman's vision.  Second, she must reflect the current Navajo scene without offending anyone, using Native advisors as well as historical truths as a base.  Trying to deal with real problems facing the Navajo Nation is a pretty tough task for a white person to undertake these days.  She must also be very familiar with not only how the Navajo police do their job (and what their job actually is), but also with the NM State Police and the FBI.  Crime scene work today is much different than when Tony Hillerman wrote The Blessing Way, his first novel, back in 1970 (highly recommended reading).

Sometimes those tasks are so daunting that creating a workable plot with new characters can be overwhelming.  Ms. Hillerman has three main characters to deal with in her novels.  They are retired Lieutenant Leaphorn, police lieutenant Jim Chee, and his wife, officer Bernadette (Bernie) Manuelito.  The author jumps back and forth between these three characters throughout most of her 8 or 9 novels.  She not only deals with their police work (the retired Leaphorn is now a private investigator), but also their private lives.  Both sides of the characters are usually dealt with really well.

In the current novel, "lost birds" is an actual moniker for Navajo babies who were adopted into white families to help them escape their origins, and assimilate them into white culture.  This went on, protested by natives, until 1978.  This novel deals with a 50 year old woman trying to find out who her birth mother was.  There is also a murder, and explosion, and packs of wild dogs causing havoc (a real problem on the vast reservation).  The several plots winding through the novel have some holes, but overall it is a good read.  There is a vast area of NM we have yet to visit (next year, fall 2025?), as well as Monument Valley in Arizona, and some essential sites in Utah.  Reading any Hillerman story, by Tony or Anne, puts me in places I would rather be.  Though I can highly recommend most of the books by Tony, Anne does not always measure up to dad's level.  She does come pretty close this time, though.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

F. Marion Crawford's To Leeward was published in 1883.  It is a mostly depressing novel that takes place during a hot summer in Italy.  It begins optimistically enough, with a young and intelligent Leonora marrying Marcantonnio, a well off man from a noble and old Italian family.  He loves her deeply, but it takes her a few months to realize she does not love him.  She is a romantic young thing, and longs for a sweeping heroic manly man to come along and sweep her off her feet.  Along comes Julius Bastiscombe, friend to Marcantonnio's sister.  He sees the lovely Leonora and decides that he must possess her.  Things escalate until the inevitable happens, and she elopes with the rogue.  Marcantonnio goes mad and sets out to kill them both.  So yes, a depressing story.  It is well written, and the characters (there are four main ones, including the sister) are well drawn and quite believable.  To me this would make a decent Merchant/Ivory type of film.  If you like your love stories tragic and very warm, you might like this novel.  However, the sudden and very brief ending to the story was disappointing.  I prefer my endings to epic stories to be somewhat more spacious.

Griffin and Sabine by Nick Bantok was published as three small, very artistic books beginning in 1990.  The second book is called Sabine's Notebook, and the third being The Golden Mean.  These works were first brought to my attention by a friend when they were published in the form of a sort of game for PC.  We bought the books afterwards, and gave them to my father.  When he passed away earlier this year I got the books back, and read them.  The story is told through letters and postcards only.  The first book is the best of the series.  Griffin is a designer of postcards, while Sabine is a stamp designer for a fictitious South Seas Islands country.  He lives in London, and they began to communicate.  A mystery lies at the heart of their relationship, and it is a great pleasure to gradually discover the mystery and its development.  The second book seems to me too much of a frustration, as they each travel across the world to meet, but never do.  Do they ever get to meet?  Read the third book to find out.  Besides the writing, the art is eccentric and quite fabulous, from the postcard designs and including the stamps.  A fun idea well executed, and worth discovering for lovers of things odd and unusual.

Book One of the series of three. 

 

Lastly comes one of the great adventure books of all time, The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle.  Published in 1912, this influential SF novel still makes for fun reading.  Somehow I had never read it before now, despite reading dozens of its imitators.  Of course it was heavily influenced by Jules Verne, but so what.  My Delphi Kindle edition included the original pencil illustrations.  Readers can immediately tell that this is the way adventure books were written back in the good old days, since it takes six or seven chapters to really get going.  But the entire exposition is priceless reading, especially where it concerns Professor Challenger, the man who claimed to have visited a site up the Amazon where prehistoric beasts still roam.  He is certainly one of the more colourful characters from early adventure fiction.  I found this to be a very fun read, despite the lack of female characters (though the lone female character does provide a chuckle or two at the end).  Of course a Mary Kingsley type of character could have easily been introduced as one of the party, but that probably would have stretched readers credulity at the time more than the dinosaurs.

 

Original cover of the first edition.

 

One of several original sketches included in the Kindle edition, done on site by Malone, the reporter who went on the  journey with three others. 

 

That's all the reading news for this month.  See you in August. 

Mapman Mike