February Reading Summary 2026

It was a short month, but the first half was cold enough to be inside a lot.  There are seven books to report this month

 

Scorpio Reborn is from 1995 and is 252 pages long, the first book of the Lovian Cycle by Kenneth Bulmer, itself part of the extensive Dray Prescott series.  Our hero now finds himself in the southern hemisphere, sent on another mysterious mission by the Star Lords.  He arrives amidst a dwelling fire and barely manages to save a woman before he is knocked cold by a falling beam.  She ends up dragging him from the building.  In a neat twist, Dray Prescott is paralyzed for the first few chapters of the novel, watching events transpire but unable to participate.  He gradually recovers the use of his limbs, then comes speech, and finally he is his old self again.  He is paired with another of the Star Lords' servants, this time a female.  She thinks that she saved him from the fire, instead of the other way around.  Dray allows her to lead, but when he thinks matters should be handled differently he goes his own way.  A good tale filled with evil and cruel bad guys who get their just desserts in the end.  There are three novels in this volume.  

 

The Kindle volume contains three novels.  I read the first one, above.

Cover art by Ken Kelly. 

 

Prison of Night is by E C Tubb and is from 1976 and is somewhat unusual in this series.  Earl Dumarest stays on the same planet for this direct sequel to the previous story, something that has never happened before.  Readers should be glad he did, as some of the mystery of this very strange planet gets solved.  Every day its two suns come close together, and when they do an effect termed Delusia occurs, which enables dead people from a person's memory to come forth and speak with them.  It can be a very unnerving experience, though in some cases it is healing and beneficial.  That is one mystery that does not get solved in this story.  However, this planet has another surprise to claim as its own.  Humans can only be outside during the daylight hours; should they remain out after dark it is the Sungari that rule the world.  These are mysterious creatures that kill people who leave home after dark.  When curfew is called people must remain indoors.  Dumarest stays out and attempts to meet up with these mysterious night time things.  As a result part of the mystery of their existence is revealed to readers.  The rest of the book is standard adventure, with a war to fight and a woman who loves Earl and wants him to settle down with her and raise babies and stock animals.  It won't be a surprise to readers of this series that Dumarest blasts off for other worlds at the end of this book, continuing his search for Earth and his avoidance of the deadly Cyclan.  They are after information in his brain, so he remains on the run. 

 

Cover art by Don Maitz. 

 

I began a Michael Moorcock epic novel called The Whispering Swarm.  It is the first volume of a series called The Sanctuary of the White Friars.  As the large first volume is divided into three books, I shall report when I have completed all three.  I am reading one a month for now.  If things go well I will tackle volume two.

 

Turning now to the Delphi Classics series, I began the month with a novel by Jerome Jerome.  Tommy and Company is from 1904 and consists of a group of short stories loosely linked into a very readable type of novel.  The year is significant, as the stirrings of feminism began to appear in the London public.  Jerome has a field day poking fun, mostly at men, and how they react to modern women.  Tommy/Jane is the central character, a sexless waif at the beginning who is taken in by Peter Hope and eventually adopted by him.  The first story describes their meeting and establishes both characters in a most hilarious fashion.  While the book is far from farce, it is often very very funny.  It can also be quite touching.  Overall, however, the stories are simply great fun to read, and give insights into the times and the people of London.  We meet characters one or two at a time, and though they usually star in their own story, Tommy/Jane is usually working behind the scenes in all of them.  While making only brief appearances after his/her first story, Tommy/Jane provides the main reason to keep on reading.  He/she is one of the most original characters in literature.  The final story is one of the finest endings to a novel this reader has ever encountered.  Full marks for Mr. Jerome.  **** stars.

 

I have added D. H. Lawrence's complete works to my Delphi Classics collection. I began with a novella of his, The Ladybird from 1923.  It's an emotionally packed story that takes place from 1917 to sometime after Armistice.  A young woman visits an English hospital to see a badly wounded German officer known to her family from before the war.  Her own husband is fighting somewhere in Europe of Africa,and is eventually wounded himself.  The wounded German and the young wife become closer and closer, until when her husband finally returns, she is faced with her great problem.  A good read that delves into the psychological problems that wars create, as well as the physical ones.  It also demonstrates how war can change certainties (her love for husband) into uncertainties.  When one thinks one is happily married and then encounters a soul mate, what can one do?  *** stars.

 

Next came a rereading of George MacDonald's Phantastes, his first novel published in 1858.  I first encountered this fairy tale for adults in Lin carter's Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series (see separate blog) as #14.  On first reading I loved the book and awarded in four stars.  On second reading I sitll love the book, but rated it down slightly.  This is mainly due to the main character and the many terrible choices he makes through his dream journey to fairyland, thus causing hardship and misery to others.  The main character is Anodos (ascent in Greek), and his adventures are epic.  They begin in the fairy woods, then on the the fairy castle, then deep underground and opening out onto a vast sea.  This book, more than other other, helped start the adult fantasy trend, and direct links can be found in many places to later works by William Morris and Lord Dunsany.  It likely also influenced Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis, who read the book at 16, was forever changed by it.  Even Arthur Machen's writing can be traced back to episodes in this book.Therefore, anyone interested at all in adult fantasy will find this a must read novel.  It isn't terribly long, and there is a lot of poetry and stories within stories.  Definitely recommended.  *** 1/2 stories.

 

Cover art by Gervasio Gallardo.  See my Ballantine blog link at upper left margin.
 

Speaking of Arthur Machen, next came his earliest published short tales.  The Chronicles of Clemendy, or The History of the Ix Joyous Journeys Carbonnek.  In these linked tales from 1888 of medieval love and loss Machen harkens back to Rabelais, Chaucer and Boccaccio.  His stories feature during a journey among fellow Silurians (lovers of wine, joy, music and letters), and are told by various men.  One tale tells of a mechanical clock knight that usually hits the bells with his weapon, but appears to be walking about town after dark and catching people doing things with members of the opposite sex that they really shouldn't be doing.  Another tale explains how a man wasted his life digging for treasure after overhearing some monks discussing the subject.  There are two with wizards and maidens, the first one a sad tale of woe as a lovely maiden is kidnapped and ravished by an adept, then killed.  The second tells of a wizard father who does not wish his daughter to see other men, afraid that his dark magic might be called out.  Other tales tell of a knight trapped in a high tower, more than a mile above ground, while another tells of a knight trapped in dungeon far beneath the earth.  In all it is a good collection of tale, though after a while they have a similarity that makes it difficult to remember and distinguish between them.  I could see James Branch Cabell being influenced by these tales, though his writing is more erudite and dryly humourous.  Machen does inject humour into the tales, however, sometimes waiting till the moral of the tale is revealed.  Well worth reading, especially if you have only read his novels and later stories.

*** stars.

 

Ghosts (1986) is the second tale in Paul Auster's New York Trilogy.  It is short, more a novella, and seems to repeat a lot of what was encountered in the first book.  Again we have a private eye (a real one this time, supposedly) staked out in an apartment and keeping an eye on a man.  That's pretty much the story in this disappointing sequel to the first book.  Auster seems to get some of his inspiration from the final episode of the 1960s The Prisoner TV series, where Patrick McGoohan finally discovers "who is Number One."  I will eventually get around to book three, but now I am in no rush.  ** stars.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 
 

December Reading Summary

 It was a good month for reading, with 14 books read.  My usual times are 1:30 to 2:45 every day, and 10:30 pm till 11:45 pm at night.  On Sundays I manage an extra hour of reading, since that is a non-piano day for me.  In addition I often get time to read while taking Deb to her medical appointments.  It was a fairly cold month, so a good month to be indoors.  Let us begin.

 

I read #25 of the Dray Prescott series by Kenneth Bulmer.  Legions of Antares is from 1981, this 153 page continuation of the epic story of life and death on the planet Kregen contains a few surprises.  The bad queen of Hamil has caused much destruction in surrounding countries.  Her cruelty has been the bane of many a good man.  The evil wizard who has been using her for his own greedy purposes has also been a major thorn in the side of good guy Dray Prescott.  Low and behold, they both get their comeuppance in this volume!  It's almost as if Bulmer were wrapping up the series, with perhaps one additional title forthcoming.  Alas, there are still several books remaining.

Dray is by now so used to danger and fighting that he is nonchalant about the telling of it, though after fighting a Cthulhu-like creature underground, he does express himself rather well in words as to how difficult it was.  To this reader the entire capture of the main city of Hamil by the good guys is a bit anti-cimactic, as if it was a done deal from the start.  The action scenes and bloody battles are minimized, but the politics and planning are brought forward.  I would have preferred a bit more sense of climax, with at least one battle given more description.  There is also a final battle between wizards, but that too seems to be hurried and written without much passion.

It is still a good entry in the series, but the defeat of the main foes of the last 24 books just seems rushed to this reader.  As the series could really have ended here (perhaps it was originally supposed to), I am curious to see what comes next.

 

The evil queen of Hamil finally gets her just desserts.

Original cover art by Ken Kelly.

 

For once, the cover of a Tubb western has something to do with the story.  Even the title, The First Shot, fits.   The story is from 1957 and is 117 pages long.  A man returns from the Civil War, having fought for the losing south.  This is a familiar opening in most of Tubb's westerns.  He had been a p.o.w. for two years, and was quite sick when the war ended.  He heads home to his father's Texas ranch to find turmoil and misery, mostly due to the now valueless southern currency. He encounters neighbouring ranchers who accuse him of rustling cows, and they beat him badly.  With help from a few friends he sets out to set things right.  This is a good story, and well represents what most people think a "western" novel should be.  Once again Tubb treats the Indians with respect, and makes one of the bad guys a crooked government Indian agent.  There is a high stakes poker game, and a climactic shoot out at the very end.  A good story that would make a fine film.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Originally contracted for ten books, Malzberg's vigilante hero series made it to 14.  Detroit Massacre does take place in Detroit, though there is no massacre.  From 1975, the novel is 152 pages long.  Detroit was still humming in 1975, but one would never know it from this novel.  Hudson's was still downtown, and the Ren Cen complex was being built.  Obviously the author had never been there, as the city is so sketchily represented as to be laughable.  The absence of a massacre in Detroit (there are two murders, and a man dies in an explosion) left me scratching my head.  Who wrote the titles for these books?  Malzberg, as noted frequently in this blog, can get inside the head of a crazy person better than almost any other writer.  Burt Wulf is going mad, and is beginning to crack at the seams.  So is a Detroit police lieutenant, who totally goes off the deep end.  Heroin is being smuggled into Canada hidden inside new Cadillacs, but the perfect system gets disrupted when an assembly line worker spots a bag of heroin sitting in a half assembled car.  From there things go downhill rapidly.  Meanwhile back in New York Wulf is being held in solitary until the system can figure out what to do with him.  With help from his cop friend Williams he manages to escape and make his way to Detroit.  Wulf's method of cleaning up the distribution of heroin is to blow up the vast Cadillac assembly plant.  Go figure.  Not the best in the series, but still readable.  Three more books to go.

It has taken me almost a year, but I have finally completed the four Colonel Pyat books by Michael Moorcock.  I hope I am able to reread this complex but highly entertaining series of books all over again.  The Vengeance of Rome is from 2013, and is 638 pages long.  The 4th and final volume of the Colonel Pyat series is a truly remarkable achievement.  Moorcock has been able to take a complex and virtually untreatable subject--the history of the western world from the early 1900s to present day London, and make it read like a novel.  Which it is.  While the main characters are fictional, the events enwrapping theses characters are not.  Think of Woody Allen's Zelig film, where he was able to take his character and insert him into old newsreels to make it look like he was really there at the time.  Moorcock goes much deeper, though, taking 2000 pages to firmly insert Pyat into 20th Century history.  And by all indications, the century, especially the first half, was nothing but a series of unspeakable horrors, culminating in Hitler's rise to power and subsequent events.

The character of Pyat is difficult to describe.  He uses cocaine when available (though claims he is not addicted), is against Jews (in the end denies his own mother and his Jewishness), is an engineer who designs futuristic ideas, often dealing with flight, makes love to women and men (though he much prefers women, especially younger ones), and travels the world, getting into serious difficulty no matter where he happens to be.  Pyat is a marvel of a man, and I dare say he is "everyman," one who seems to embody not the worst nor the best of the male sex, but fits just about in the centre.  However, his lows are very low, but his highs are also remarkable.

The story continues where volume 3 left off.  Pyat is soon in Italy, and we are immersed in the world of Mussolini.  After his Rome adventures the setting moves to Germany in 1930, remaining there until just before WW II.  Pyat's one personal encounter with Hitler must go down as the most shocking scene in the entire series, and there have already been several doozies.  Pyat spends time in German prison camps before managing to finally get to England, his destination since volume 1.  Mrs. Cornelius continues to provide him with literature's weirdest sidekick.  The book's final scene, where Pyat denies he is Jewish (as he has already had to do hundreds of times in the story), seems to be a perfect ending to one of the greatest series of books ever written.  Really, it could not have ended any other way.  The books are definitely worth a reread, in perhaps five years or so.  Until then, Pyat's adventures in 20th C. history will never be forgotten.  Very highly recommended series, ending with perhaps the best book of the four.

The four previous novels continue my exploration of SF authors who were represented in the Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Series (see my entire blog, link in upper left).  After finishing up the Moorcock, which I split into two months of reading, I moved on to the next author in the incomparable Delphi Classics series.  Paul Kelver is the first serious novel of Jerome Jerome, and is from 1902.  It's a 400+ pager, but is quite fun to read.  It is semi-autobiographical.  The first part of the book (the book is divided into 2 books, each with 10 fairly long chapters) is seen from the perspective of a 7 year old boy, as his parents go through a crisis.  The scenes all take place in various parts of London.  Jerome cannot help but write with a wit that often leaves a reader laughing out loud, and this part of the book strongly reminded me of Kenneth Grahame's incomparable series of short stories called The Golden Age.  One quite tender scene has the young boy unwittingly come across Charles Dickens, sitting on a park bench, and their interaction is quite stirring and memorable.  A sort of hearty snideness pervades the novel, and often the humour becomes the main event.  One of the funniest and at the same time most uncomfortable scenes is when Paul gets drunk for the first time on sweet champagne.  He ends up proposing to a somewhat large young woman from his rooming house, and spends many pages afterwards trying to undo the damage.  However, before he can is dragged by his fiancee to meet "the family," a scene so unforgettable and so claustrophobic that it is a true wonder how Jerome manages to make us laugh all the way through it.  One of the most vivid scenes of any novel I have read.  Essentially, Paul wants to write serious drama, but is dragged by the collar, so to speak, into the world of comic writing.  His coming of age takes a rather long time to arrive, but along the way we get to share Paul's highs and lows, all of them entertaining and great fun to read about.  Filled with a large cast of wonderful secondary characters, this is a lengthy novel I am most happy to have rediscovered.

George MacDonald's The Portent is a ghost story first published in 1864.  Or rather a love story in which the two people have some type of deep psychic connection.  The opening scene and the conclusion are in Scotland, but the main part of the book takes place in a great house in the English countryside.  Working as a tutor to three children, Duncan Campbell encounters as pale young woman also living there.  However, she is kept closely watched by the Lord and Lady of the house, mostly for selfish reasons.  The girl gradually takes to Duncan and attends his classes, as she can neither read nor write.  The Lord and Lady seem to like things that way.  Hmmmm.  Suspicions are aroused.  The two become lovers and meet clandestinely in an old unused part of the house.  That is, until they are caught, and Duncan knocked unconscious and left in the woods.  The lovers become separated for about 8 years before Duncan finally makes an attempt to rescue her from her captors.  An easy read, the book has very short chapters and a short length.  Not great MacDonald, and not a great ghost story, it is still easily readable.

The Green Round is a supernatural story by Arthur Machen from 1933.  It was his fourth and final novel.  The tale is told in a somewhat confusing way, mirroring the problems that occur to a few different characters, but mostly to the main character.  Told both in his own words and by a therapist who treated him, it is a fascinating if often told story.  What makes this one so unusual is that the ghostly trickster causing the problem follows its victim home from his holiday beach location, where he had been causing problems already.  Once back in London, the entity begins to cause all sorts of nasty events to occur.  For the most part, the victim assumes he is imagining the presence and the events.  But the therapist checks his story and finds that witnesses confirm that events did happen.  Then what is causing them?  Why do some people see a dwarf accompanying the victim, and others do not?  Why does the victim eventually begin to see this dwarf?  As in any well told tale, there is no definite answer or conclusion to the mystery.  Is the victim's mind conjuring this demon and the events, or is some ghostly presence responsible.  There is a lot of discussion about dreams, along with the basic story.  Intelligent and quirky, this makes for an interesting read.

The Mystery of Philip Bennison's Death is a murder mystery from 1894 written by Richard Marsh.  Two older men, who have been best friends for many years, have a discussion about the Art of Murder one night.  Next morning one of them, Bennison, is dead.  It appears to be heart failure.  But this is a murder mystery, so we know better.  So does the surviving friend, Otway.  Despite the inquest proving no foul play, we and Otway are soon on the track of how Bennison died and why.  There is a butler who may have stayed out all night.  Did he do it?  Mystery readers know for certain that the butler did not do it.  Did Otway do it?  He walks in his sleep, and did dream of being in the room that night where the murder took place.  Was it the gambling nephew who always needed money from his uncle, who was none too fond of him?  Or perhaps it was his loving stepson, or even his more loving stepdaughter.  This is a good story that seems to have disappeared off the radar of this well known and still fairly popular author.  

Tony Hillerman's 1978 Navajo mystery novel Listening Woman contains most of the traits for which Hillerman has become justly well known.  Read many years ago, it was time for a reread.  This paperback has been on our shelf a very long time, even after we gave away the rest of Hillerman's works to my dad (who also got seriously hooked on them).  It is one of Hillerman's best novels.  Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Police is all alone on this case, and before the end he has gone through enough physical hardships to last for several more novels.  Poor Joe!  The basic plot involves a radical band of Indians.  They have robbed a bank in Santa Fe, and now their new plot involves kidnapping 11 children (Scouts) and three adults, in retaliation for a similar number of Indians that were massacred by soldiers in the 1800s.  But the best part of the story isn't the story itself, but rather what we learn about Navajo religion and sacred rites.  One can learn much about the Navajo from reading Hillerman, as well as people from Zuni, the Hopi, and even the Utes.  The contrast between other tribes and the Navajo is quite startling at times.  A very fine read!

 

No cover art credit is given.
 

Harp of Burma is from 1966.  Written by Michio Takeyama, my translation is by H. Hibbett.  The story concerns a group of Japanese soldiers operating in Burma (now Myanmar) in 1945.  The story begins just before Japans surrenders, and continues until the men are sent back to Japan sometime afterwards.  The captain is a music graduate, and teaches his men how to sing.  They bond together strongly as a result.  One of the men, Mizushima, constructs a Burmese harp and learns to accompany the singing men.  Burma at the time was a very peaceful and strongly Buddhist nation that Japan wanted to conquer.  Once the men are placed in a temporary POW camp after Japan surrenders, they begin to reflect on their previous actions and those of their now defeated countrymen.  They begin to realize the errors of Japan's previous way of thinking and acting, and they wish to return and help rebuild their country.  But Mizushima had undergone a series of separate adventures from his troop, and decides to remain in Burma after the war and try to help bury the thousands of dead soldiers lying in forests and jungles.  This is a very moving account of a part of the war that is mostly unknown to people.  It also has a strong anti-war sentiment.  Highly recommended.  I have watched the film, but a very long time ago.  I will put it back in the queue for a near future viewing.

A scene from the book, by Motoichiro Takebe. 

 

Meanwhile back at the mystery book shelf...  The Man Who Went In Smoke is the second Martin Beck novel, written by Swedish husband and wife team Sjowall and Wahloo and published in 1969.  No matter where one reads about mystery novels, these ten books always come up as among the best ever written.  Martin Beck is no super detective, and sometimes doesn't have a clue what to do.  Though he has above average intelligence, he is often stymied in his investigations.  He usually works with a partner, but in this one he is alone a lot.  In this case, the disappearance of a successful magazine writer in Budapest doesn't interest him at all.  But off he goes, abandoning his wife and kids on holiday to accept the case.  While most of the story takes place during a hot and sunny summer spell in Budapest, the final denouement takes place back in a cold and rainy Sweden.  One of the interesting things I am noting as I begin this series is how much detail the writer includes, along with advancing the plot.  Rooms are described in detail, as are characters, some of whom have habits (such as drinking a lot of coffee each day) that help delineate the man.  And this seems, so far, to be a series that male readers might enjoy more than female ones.  The only lead female character in this book is a nymphomaniac.  The policeman's wives are using at home waiting for them to come home from work.  Though the books are slightly odd and different from most mystery stories, they don't yet come close to those written by Stanley Bennett Hough, who also wrote SF until the name Rex Gordon.  Still, I enjoy the European locations, as it doesn't take long to tire of New York or LA in mystery writing.  A fun read.

 

The Mugger is Ed McBain's 2nd 88th Precinct novel, from 1956.  Set in a fictional big city which is remarkably similar to New York, the title pretty much gives the plot of this one away.  However, when it appears that the mugger, who uses violence in his attacks on females, has killed a young woman at last, things heat up in the precinct.  In book one, a beat policeman got shot off-duty by a gang in a case of mistaken identity.  He makers an important appearance in this novel, actually solving the murder part of the mystery on his own.  this earns him a promotion, and if he appears in future novels, he will be detective 3rd class.  We get to see other detectives on this case, as the first detective from the previous book is on his honeymoon.  All in all a pretty decent read, though all the police detectives are men.  A female officer is used to try and snare the mugger.  The books were inspired, according to the author, by the Dragnet TV series, and often read much like one of those episodes.  This novel had a lot more humour in it, despite the seriousness of the cases.

 

Oscar The Detective, or Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective wins this month's award for best book title.  Written by The Old Sleuth, it is from 1895.  Detective Oscar Dunne was born with very feminine good looks and mannerisms, which he often uses to advantage to catch the bad guys.   For beneath his effeminate exterior, he is a real tiger.  Hee hee hee, as Oscar would say.  His type of man was called a dudie or a chappie in the day, so there you go.  Ever read a story about such a detective before?  Me neither.  But it seems to work, as the bad guys fall one by one, and an innocent woman is saved from a life surrounded by criminals.  The story is mostly about a gang of thieves who robbed a noble household in Rome, Italy before escaping with the goods to New York.  It's great fun watching Dudie Dunne work his magic.  A most unique mystery novel.

 

Lastly, I finished a book I have been reading off and on for the past few months.  Tales From the Road is a collection of 33 short stories by various authors, all having something to do with a road trip.  Excerpts from Steinback, Kerouac, Hunter Thompson, and short stories by Ballard, Moorcock and many more kept my interest up throughout.  Quite a few of the stories are SF.  I will mention a few of my favourites.  A chapter from Thompson's The Rum Diaries really grabbed me, and I am now interested in reading more of his novel.  The chapter included here first appeared as Chapter 7 of the book with the same name.  It details a drunken adventure he had in Puerto Rico with some friends, an episode that reminded me of the song Sloop John B.  Michael Giorgio's "The Two Ton Turtle of Tattler's Terrace" is a fun little piece about a man's brief visit to a small mountain town following a stop to remove a turtle from the road.  Roxane Gay's "The Myth of Fingerprints" is a superior piece of writing that details the days before a woman's nervous breakdown.  It manages to be comical and dramatic in its 14 pages.  Brian Hodge wrote Miles To Go Before I Weep, about how a travelling salesman meets his lady, and the adventures that occur both before and after their unlikely meeting.  This one packs a few surprises, and somehow manages a happy ending.  "The Blood Like Milk" is a SF like no other, taking place in a pollution-filled future when gangs of roving and half-crazy drivers seek out moments of sunshine, to experience its effect on themselves and local fauna.  It is possibly the best story I have read that deals with ancient Mexican gods.  Coincidentally, the same Mexican god that messed up our third and final Mexican vacation, does its work on the hero of this story.  Quite unforgettable.  "That'll Be The Day" is a fantasy that gives an interesting look at Buddy Holly's final gig, before he died in a plane crash.  All in all a truly good collection of stories.  The Moorcock and Ballard stories are also both good, and I have read them and commented elsewhere.  They are "The Mountain" (Moorcock) and "The Mountain Dances" (Ballard).

 

See you in a month!

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

November 2023 Reading Summary

 Again it was a mixed month for reading, with 5 clear nights of astronomy wiping out 5 nights of reading.  I still managed to get through several books, a few of them quite long.

Beginning with Robert Silverberg, Starborne is from 1995, and is a novelization of a 1973 short story called "Ship-Sister, Star-Sister."  I always have mixed feelings about taking a really good short story and turning into a full novel.  Why do such a thing?  Well, for one thing, it makes putting another novel out there a lot easier for the writer.  And perhaps there is an inner pull to expand on certain parts of the story that were rushed over at the time of first writing.  For this book, I go with the former reason.  Silverberg was lazy, needed to publish his novel a year, and was likely burning out from writing so many great works lately, including his enormous Majipoor series.  And besides, who would ever remember that short story from 1973?  Ah.  Welcome to the world of reprinting everything that certain authors have ever written.  Hardly anything is hidden from view anymore, and indeed with the publishing of all of Silverberg's short fiction in a marvellous series of large edition paperbacks (see my first Silverberg page in this blog), it is so.  In brief, then, the short story is pretty amazing.  But the novel adds nothing much that is needed to enjoy the tale.  Do we really need more background on the several characters aboard the first star ship sent out to colonize new worlds?  Hardly.  The best parts of the novel deal with the first two planets encountered that might be able to support human life.  These parts contains wonderful SF writing, giving a good sense of alien landscapes, and teaching us the difference between what scientific instruments can tell us about a planet, and what human feet on the ground can tell us.  If you cannot find the short story, then read the novel.  Otherwise, the short story will do just fine.

The Tides of Kregen is the 12th book in Kenneth Bulmer's huge fantasy series featuring the adventures of Dray Prescott.  Dray is now involved in a new series of adventures, and starting to learn a bit more of the strange powers that are controlling his destiny.  He has been stripped of one of his most cherished titles, and must find a way to earn back his place among his warrior brethren.  I have no doubt that he will eventually do it.  A decent addition to the story.

From 1956 comes another short (118 pages) but effective western from the pen of one of the greatest of the pulp writers of the 50s, E C Tubb.  I wonder if the author could have ever imagined that someone would read and review The Liberators (also known as "Vengeance Trail", a much better title), in the year 2023.  What remarkable times we live in.  Not so remarkable were the times that fictional General Grant lived in.  A lone Confederate general returns home after the war, to find that his plantation and home have been burned to the ground, his parents murdered by rogue Union soldiers, and his slaves have left the area.  One loyal black servant remains.  Joseph gives readers the side of what it was like to be a slave, and Tubb pulls no punches about the topic.  Joseph is a great character, and he and Grant embark on a search for the killers.  Of course the five men they are seeking are low life outlaws, and the story heads to a dusty and thirsty small Mexican town.  Into the saloon we go, and eventually one of the men is found.

The book has a tight focus, with a small number of main characters.  The action takes place in the saloon first, and then out in the wilderness, where the rest of the outlaws are tracked.  When the Indians make an appearance, again Tubb seeks to educate the reader about their customs, way of thinking, and ultimately hopeless situation that they face in their battle to keep their land.  Add to this the addition of a credible black character (Joseph the freed slave), and the defeated Confederate general, and Tubb's novel would make good reading even today, possibly even in a high school English class, where the concept of vengeance, which is central to the story, could also provide lots of room for discussion.  A quick but decent read.

From 1978 (my edition is from 1986) comes this sprawling 378 page fantasy, Gloriana, owing much to the Gormenghast books of Mervyn Peake, to whom this volume is dedicated.  Besides Peake, other influences could be Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare. Think of Gloriana as a substitute for Queen Victoria, living in the largest palace ever conceived.  Gormenghast, as sprawling as it is, would fit into one wing of Moorcock's palace, which is in London.  Also, think of some of the American colonies as still loyal to England, as is Arabia, India, China, etc.  The empire still glows mightily.

Gloriana's biggest problem is that all lovers leave her unsatisfied; she has never experienced a proper orgasm.  She has rooms and rooms of decadent sexual inhabitants, to which she visits on whims.  This is the first main fantasy novel I have read that brings sex well into the picture, and uses it as it probably is and would used; to gain loyalties and to seal bargains, as well as for pure amusement.  In that sense it harkens towards the writing of Fritz Leiber.  But like Leiber, the book uses sex, but does not dwell upon it.  Queen Gloriana soon has more problems facing her than probably any other monarch in fiction or fact.

The novel begins slowly (like Peake's series), but continues to build throughout.  There are perhaps too many characters for a single book, even such a long one, but eventually most of them will become familiar to the patient reader.  There are so many surprises and twists and turns to the plot that I won't attempt to convey anything of what takes place to move the story along.  But move along it does, to its rapturous conclusion.  The ending itself is one of the novel's biggest surprises.  Certainly one of the best fantasy novels ever written.

 

Published in 2023, Collaborative Capers contains 25 SF stories that Malzberg wrote with different authors.  There is a short interview at the beginning between the editor and Malzberg.  The volume is 273 pages long.  Most of the stories are pretty short, with the longest being about 20 pages.  It is quite a fascinating collection, with Malzberg's voice sounding very clearly in many of the stories, and more subdued in others.  It is a collection probably best read a few stories at a time, rather than at once, which is how I read it.  Two stories are connected; the rest are individual.  There is a story about the Mona Lisa, another two about Van Gogh's painting Starry Night (Stars Nit), one that mimics the writing of Falkner, there is a tie  in to Cheever, as well as a story about Mozart.  Of course the Kennedy assassination (attempt) is also in there, and a few with Jewish themes.  Many stories are light-hearted, though, like the final one, sometimes have a serious underlay.  All in all a very worthwhile collection to acquire and to read.  It is probably a good way to get introduced to Malzberg, or to enjoy him more if you find his solo writing too much to bear.  There are several stories here to which I will eventually return.

That covers the five Avon/Equinox authors, my required reading for the month.  After this I found myself footloose and fancy.  First up came an early novel by Arthur Machen.  The Secret Glory was written between 1899 and 1908, but not published until 1922.  And the final two chapters were not included in that edition, nor were they published during the author's lifetime.  It is a story about a schoolboy, 15, 5th form, at a public school.  He is a loner but must face up to the horrors of such a life, of which he is ill suited.  The story jumps back to memories he has of his late father, and their excursions into the forests and mountains of Wales.  His father instilled a love of deep Nature in his son, and Ambrose has not forgotten those lessons.  In fact, it is those past memories of walks with his father that sustain him and enable him to face the realities of day to day life at boarding school.  While everyone at school finally sees him settling in after receiving a brutal caning, he is in fact in full rebellion.  The story sometimes jumps ahead, as well, to his 18th year when he leaves the school, tries university for a half term, then virtually disappears from the map.

So many people face demeaning lives and are unable to fit into society.  Ambrose is religious, but has been taught by his father about the older Celtic form of Christianity, which he can accept much more readily than the weekly trudge to chapel and the inevitable sermon.  He keeps certain secrets of past events locked in his heart, and this clarifies his vision and sees him through his troubled years.  A quite brilliant scholar, he realizes that what he wants to learn he won't learn at university.  He is a very strange boy, and only an outsider would be able to understand him and what he seeks.  This is a compelling novel and virtually required reading for those who feel that they don't fit in, and enjoy things that most others do not.  His search for what he wants was actually completed at ten years, and he is able to use his past experience to elevate himself spiritually in the present.  One gets a strong feeling that rather than turn out scholars, sportsmen, and jolly good fellows, the public schools in England at the time were great crushers of spirit and innovation.  In Ambrose's case, he was able to stay above the worst of it, keeping his values and beliefs strong within him despite the best efforts of the system to beat them out of him.  A recommended read.

Next up was the 2nd novel by Richard Marsh, Daintree, from 1883.  I enjoyed his first novel immensely.  The Devil's Diamond, also from 1893, was a funny and very original tale (see blog entry from October 1st, 2022).  Daintree, on the other hand, is a tough nut to crack.  In fact, it just might be the worst novel I have ever read.  The story, in one sentence, concerns two sons who wish to leave the farm life behind them, despite their father's wishes that they carry on the good work.  That's it; the whole enchilada.  This novel has more bible quotations than the actual Bible.  Seriously.  Avoid avoid avoid.

I needed a reward, big time, after that.  Dave Barry came to the rescue.  Or so I thought.  His first novel is called Big Trouble, from 1999.  Barry is a very funny guy.  There are plenty of funny things in this novel, which is a crime caper a la Elmore Leonard.  But the pace is unrelenting, with things happening every single paragraph.  And there are plenty of paragraphs.  There is some good satire, especially about voting, and airport security (pre 911 days), and radio programs.  But there is also a good deal of sadism, mostly aimed at women.  And after a while the reader notices that the author is using the same few jokes over and over again (dog and toad get way too much mileage, for one example).  So despite the rave reviews, and the book being made into a film, I would not give it more than 2 1/2 stars.  The beginning showed promise, but ultimately I was left rather chilled and worn out by it all.

Lastly came a very long novel by George Meredith.  Called by some the first truly modern novel, The Ordeal of Richard Feveral is an epic by any consideration.  In many ways it is an astounding novel, and though somewhat bloated with prose in places, it does cut to the quick when needed.  A baronet raises his only son under his own devised scientific System, hoping to turn out the perfect human to sit at his side and eventually take over the estate.  Being separated from his wife, his view of women is not only very low, but he even leaves them completely out of his System.  So when Richard, at eighteen, falls in love with the girl next door, things begin to go awry very quickly.  Meredith has written a novel that was included in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series called The Shaving of Shagput, which is how I came to know him.  Last October I read his second novel, a brief and not very substantial affair.  This, his third novel, has garnered several tons of literary criticism, which quickly becomes an entire study in itself.  Definitely recommended.  What an improvement in the relating of the eternal father/son struggle compared to Richard Marsh's effort, also read this past month.

 

December reading now commences with one of Robert Silverberg's final novels, The Alien Years.

Mapman Mike

September Reading Summary

 It's that time again, when I look back and see what I've been doing with some of my time.  In this case, reading books.  There were three clear nights used for astronomy, thus cutting into my night reading time last month, and of course the passing of Deb's mom.  Even so, I managed to get through all Avon/Equinox books (eight of them), and four others.  One of those was an epic novel which took some time to get through.  Seven books in total were read on Kindle.

Robert Silverberg started out the month with a collection of short tales, volume six in a nine volume oversize paperback edition, all with great covers.  The stories are from 1983-87.  Silverberg introduces each story, and provides a forward as well.  There were fourteen stories, including three novellas, lasting over 400 pages.  The stories "Multiples," Symbiont," and "Sailing to Byzantium" are singled out for recommendations to readers.  "Multiples" is a fascinating story about the near future, when people with multiple personalities are the envy of people who only have one.  A young woman tries to fake her way into the "club" of multiples, only to be found out.  But perhaps there is a way for her to become more than a single person after all.  Intriguing story telling.  "Symbiont" is Silverberg's throwback to the days of monsters in pulp fiction, and this is a great little story about future war and its hideous weapons and after effects.  Highly recommended for pulp fans!  On to "Byzantium."  Nearly every SF writer in the 80s wrote a version of this kind of story--are we real or just a computer construct?  When The Matrix film came out in 1999, everyone freaked out about the concept.  But it had already been done many times by some fine writers.  When a man is brought to the 50th C from 1984 New York, he finds the inhabitants a queer lot.  They resurrect 5 cities at a time, people them with semi-intelligent AI human types, and use the cities as tourist attractions.  But when a man from the 20th C eventually meets up with another captive like himself, but from the 25th C, he learns that he isn't really who or what he thinks he is.  A great story, with an interesting love interest.

Next came a one-off novel co-authored by Piers Anthony and Philip Jose Farmer, entitled The Caterpillar's Question.  I had been anticipating reading this for some time. Though a good enough story, it suffers from a confusing and disjointed plot line.  One book doesn't really do justice to the theme, and might have been a series if the authors had so decided.  All in all, it's rather a restless story that some might find appealing.  However, it does win Cover of the Month.

Cover of the Month for September, by Romas Kulkalis. 

Next came Volume 2 of Harry Harrison's Stars and Stripes series, called Stars and Stripes In Peril.  Though devious Brits are up to no good, and looking for revenge against Americans after their defeat in Vol 1.  Harrison has concocted one of his best series here, and I zoomed through Vol 2 as easily as Vol 1.  There is very little variation in the quality of Harrison's writing--let's just say that he has the knack and loves to use it.  High adventure and fun to read!

Kenneth Bulmer has written a winning series about the British navy in the time of the Napoleonic wars.  Set mostly in the Mediterranean Sea, the series of 14 books called Fox are must reads for Bulmer fans, as these might be his best books, and fairly consistent in quality.  #7 was called Court Martial, as Fox gets his reward from the British navy for risking his life, saving his crew, and picking up after the mess left by his captain.  Hilarious in one way, but quite believable.  Bulmer's sense of humour is at its best in these books, too.  I love books about the sea that have a great authenticity about them, and these books rank highly.

Next came another group of stories by E C Tubb.  Though I still have a massive SF series of his to read (Dumarest saga), I am reading his other stuff first, and mostly enjoying his short story writing.  Mirror of the Night is a collection of ten of his weird stories, many published in the 50s and 60s in Weird Tales magazine.  At least three of the tales are worth reading.  They include "The Ancient Alchemist," "The Artist's Model," and "Sell Me A Dream."  In this last tale, a man hunts through junk shops to find something worthwhile.  He eventually does find something of considerable interest.  Like a story by Dunsany.  The first two are traditional ghost stories, but well told.

I have read all of the novels of Jack Williamson, and what a fantastic adventure it was!  I am now reading his shorter fiction from the early 30s, but I found People Machines in my collection, a group of 9 stories written between 1939-1969.  The author discusses writing technique (he taught SF writing at a New Mexico university) and how it is applied to short story writing, with each story illustrating one or more of the techniques discussed beforehand.  The best story is called Jamboree, and is from 1969.  Have you ever been to Girl Guide or Scout camp?  Me neither, and this story reminds me how glad I am never to have gone.  Both humourous and horrifying at the same time, this is a very good story.  Other good stories abound.  I will only mention one more,"Starbright," from 1939.  A man acquires a small piece of a meteor in his brain, and it gives him almost magical powers.  The first part, dealing with the man's family and financial problems, is quite priceless.  A fun story.

Next I read An Alien Heat, Michael Moorcock's first book in his "Dancers At The End of Time" series.  The action takes place a million years in the future, amidst the most decadent society ever imagined on paper.  Jherek Carnelian is the main character.  We first meet him at a lakeside picnic with his mother.  Here we discover that Jherek was "born," something that appears to be a rare event in this time.  Next we attend a grand party, where the full picture of the decadence of the age is fully illuminated.  We follow the adventures of Jherek that lead from the events of the party, until he is hung for murder in 1896.  In between, quite a bit happens.  The book, while mostly refreshing, is quite tedious in places, especially as it deals with Jherek's naivete when he returns to the 19th C to look for a woman, who was sent back to her time.  It becomes very tiring, and we are often reminded of the Eloi in the film version of "The Time Machine."  Jherek has no skills whatsoever in dealing with events in the 19th C, and becomes even less than a child in the hands of people from that era.  He is incapable of dealing effectively with any situation that arises.  For even a child would learn minute by minute, and begin to deal more effectively with events than Jherek ever does.  So at times one wishes to throw the book against the wall.  Be warned.

Barry Malzberg again teams up with Bill Pronzini in Acts of Mercy, a murder mystery from 1977.  Who is murdering the opponents of the current President?  Is it the First Lady?  Is it the President himself?  Is it a secret service agent?  A friend? Foe?  Read and find out.  A good yarn, and easy to read.

I am running low on books by Harry Harrison and Jack Williamson, and will soon have only six authors remaining.  I can also the see the end of the Silverberg books approaching.

Turning to books off the shelf and sitting around on my Kindle, I read one actual physical book and three from Kindle.  The 7 Wonders is by Steven Saylor.  I use to e-mail Steven a long time ago, before I realized how major an author he was (tons of books published).  He had a website about sword and sandal movies, such as Hercules, as we had some fun discussions.  Then I began getting notifications from him regarding books of his being published, about a character in ancient Rome called Gordianus.  Gordianus is a detective, possibly the fictional world's first big solver of mysteries and murders.  His books are set in ancient Rome, and he deals with actual events happening as his stories develop.  We both have read many of his books.  The present book tells of a journey Gordianus made when he was 17-19, with a trusted scholar, to see the 7 ancient wonders of the world.  The book is extremely well researched and great fun to read.  First published as a serious of short stories, he has grouped them chronologically and added material to sew them together.  In addition to visiting all 7 ancient wonders, we also spend a lot of time in Alexandria, so the lighthouse and library are included.  This book caused me to dig out a Thames and Hudson book I bought many year ago in London, UK, called 70 Wonders of the Ancient World.  I read the section pertaining to the 7 Wonders, and am now carrying on reading the rest of the book, one wonder at a time.  Great fun (and educational, too)!

Turning to Delphi Classics complete works of authors (which continue to come out with new titles every month), I read three.  First up was an epic 3 volume novel by George MacDonald.  His second novel is called David Elginbrod, from 1863.  It is supposed to be one his less overtly Christian works.  Oh boy, but there is still a lot of Christianity in it, especially the further one reads.  The author is against most churches and preachers, the less imaginative the worse things get for him.  He ties in Nature to God most strongly, and seems to get at a truer Christianity that most Christians and churches ever do.  I first came across MacDonald from the Ballantine Fantasy series, where he contributed three books, including Phantastes (his first novel, and absolutely fabulous), Lilith, and a book of shorter novellas which Lin Carter named Evenor, agains which is totally worth seeking and reading.  I have also read a children's fantasy novel by him called At The Back of the North Wind.  So I already have some experience with the author.

 

The first volume of  David Elginbrod has a setting in rural Aberdeenshire, and remains there for the entire time.  This part in itself makes the novel worth seeking out, with its limited, barren setting, and very small number of characters.  The reading can be a bit of a tough go, however, since he writes dialogue in local dialect.  The author provides a vast glossary at the back from Scots to English, but I dinna pay no attention to it.  At first it is pretty slow going, and some sentences passed right over my head.  But after a while I began to get the gist, and could score 50% understanding much of the time.  Luckily, the rest of the book is in a more normal English.  Volume Two moves us on to a rural area close to London, and eventually we get to London itself.  Later, the novel becomes part ghost story and part mesmerism, as one of the leading ladies succumbs to the evil power of a man from the continent.  All in all this is a truly amazing story, even though it takes a long time to get through it (around 650 pages, with about 200 of those having some very tricky dialect).  The settings and characters are written so strongly that they will likely never be forgotten by readers.

 

Next came a short novel by Arthur Machen.  The Terror (1917) is written on a similar theme to Hitchcock's film The Birds, but on a much wider scale.  Not only birds rebel against humans in Machen's horror story, but bees, horses, sheep, cows, and especially moths and rats!  What I found truly remarkable about the story (which could make the scariest film ever made) were the reasons people came up with to explain what was happening.  They capture what true paranoia actually is, as people would believe the strangest ideas of something that is truly unexplainable and beyond experience.  Quite a harrowing read.

 

I finished up with an early novel by Richard Marsh, from 1893.  Part farce, part Looney tunes cartoon, and part horror story, The Devil's Diamond is a novel unique in my experience.  A priceless diamond with supernatural powers must be given away, and not sold.  While in possession of this diamond, the worst of bad luck will happen to its owner.  With many laugh out loud scenes, as well as some that will make the hair on your head stand up, the only other author I know who can do this sort of thing as well is Eric Frank Russell.  If you are looking for something fun to read, and well off the beaten track, look no further than this story about a rich business man who thinks (at first) that been given the diamond by his deceased brother is the best thing to have ever happened to him.  Like when the hunter Elmer Fudd first spots wabbit twacks.

 

In viewing news, which will be discussed in more detail in my next post, we have finally turned our attention to Prime Video's The Rings of Power.  We watched episode one last night, and by the end of the weekend we will have seen five.  If the first episode is any indication, we have a major winner on our hands....

 

Mapman Mike