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 

 

 

 

 

 

  

April 2024 Books Read

 There were nine days of travel last month, which seriously cut into my reading time.  The long eclipse day and the week in Sudbury cut my reading time down by nearly a third.  Though I did manage some reading in Sudbury on our week long visit, it wasn't anywhere near the usual time allowed for such pursuits.  Two of the books read last month were 500 pagers, also limiting the number of books read.

I have finally run out of SF from Robert Silverberg.  This month I dove into his recently republished crime and sex novels.  Though pretty mild by today's standard best sellers, in the 1960s he chose to use a different name on those book covers.  From 1960 and republished in 2022, even more of Silverberg's early output is now making its way into mainstream publishing.  I have the Kindle edition of The Hot Beat, now published under his own name.  The story is short, though there are 25 chapters.  A news reporter and a former girlfriend of a suspected killer try to prove his innocence.  The police don't care; they have a suspect in custody and he looks guilty to them.  Though not up to top notch crime writing standards set by Hammett and Chandler, the book gets to the nitty gritty aspects of sordid lifestyles.  The girl, Terry, gets pawed by creeps, and we get a queasy enough feeling when it happens.  The suspect is a former popular big band leader who hits the skids via alcoholism.  Two people put him at the scene of the crime.  The novel is preceded by a short intro by Silverberg, who seems as amazed as this reader regarding the republication of his crime stories.  In addition, there are three short stories included.

 

Jailbait Girl is from 1959.  Sorry readers, but the girl is 23.  She has a scam going with her boyfriend.  After finding guys to seduce her, the two crooks return later, she dressed as a high school girl, to extort money.  They score four times, but the fifth time turns out quite different.

 

The Drunken Sailor is from 1958.  A young sailor looking for his first time with a woman is sold out by a buddy, who has a scam going with the girl who does the trick.

 

Naked In The Lake is from 1958.  A murder story with an ironic twist at the end, like most of these tales.  A man kills his pregnant lover, but his wife manages to outdo him without violence.

 

I own the Kindle edition. 

 

From 1976 comes the 157 page on-going troubles of Dray Prescott, titled Captive Scorpio.  Dray goes off in search of a daughter he has never seen, who is living with scoundrels and trouble makers.  Imagine his surprise when he does encounter her (see cover art, below).  Of course she hates him; he is a coward, etc.  He ends up having to leave her among the group of traitors planning his death and that of the Emperor.  Meanwhile, back in the capital city, the Emperor's armies have been tricked and defeated.  The evil Wizard of Loh, 'Phu-si-Yantong' is behind the attacks on Vallia, and there seems little that can be done to stop him.  In the shocking finale, another very important person close to Dray and Deliah is killed, forever altering the leadership and destiny of Vallia.  Along with the shocking revelation regarding Dray's daughter, and the death mentioned just above, it is obvious that Bulmer is taking his series very seriously.  None of these happenings were expected, and end up shocking the reader, who expects most things to continue on as as before.  Nope.  A very good entry in the series. 

 

Cover by Josh Kirby. 

 

From 1973 comes Monster of Metalaze, a 125 page pulp SF novel from one of the best of the trade.  This time around Cap Kennedy works with a (male) team on the planet Metelaze to stop the government there from completing a series of towers that are supposed to give limitless energy to the planet.  It's obvious to the Terrans that the towers will kill all life on the planet when turned on.  To find out what is going on, Cap gets himself into the planet's dictator's good side, eventually becoming his body guard.  Assisted by a professor, a large and very strong man, and a person who is able to blend in anywhere like a chameleon, they go to work to find out the truth.  The story jumps back and forth between the various Terran operatives, and becomes quite complex at times.  Once the truth is known, the political ruling council has to be convinced they are in danger.  Some suspect it, but others support the dictator in everything.  To add to the confusion, a fake religious leader out for power is harnessing his followers to overthrow the present system so he can take over.  It's all very messy, and not a terribly satisfying read.

 

From 2013 comes the 482 page 3rd part of Moorock's epic series detailing the life and adventures of Colonal Pyat, Jerusalem Commands.  The events now take place between 1925 and 1929.  At some point in this wonderful series I suspected that I would begin to tire of Pyat, and that process is now well underway.  I am reading the volumes too close together, so I will rest Pyat for a while, and possibly even rest Moorcock for a time.  Pyat is the cocaine sniffing Cossack from Kiev who continually denies his Jewishness.  His rants against Moslems and what they ultimately represent to the world are pretty much non-stop, as are his rants against Jews.  Sometimes his insights are quite enlightening, and at other times one wonders why there isn't a fatwah laid upon the author.  I guess not many people have read it or drawn undue attention to these books.

Pyat is an entertaining person, very full of himself, and his fictional memoirs are among the best travel writing ever laid down on paper.  This time we begin in the USA, slowly making our way to New York from Los Angeles and back again, with many adventures in between.  Pyat is a 1920s silent movie star, as is his best friend Mrs. Cornelius (mother of Jerry).  With his beloved Esme, they embark on a ship to Egypt (from LA) to make a desert epic film.  The journey is long but great fun to read.  Filming doesn't end up going so well in Egypt, and Pyat and Esme become sex slaves, forced to make pornographic films.  Mrs. Cornelius, who knew better and gave fair warning, leaves the country unhindered.  Poor Pyat.  He goes through a living hell, and doesn't talk much about the details.  These are left to the readers' imaginations.  Esme is now taken fgrom him, never to be seen again.  Then it's finally an escape into the desert, followed by a balloon ride to Morocco.  In Morocco Pyat slowly recovers from his nightmare in Egypt, but again gets into deep trouble, becoming a captive of the rich Arabic leader of Marrakech.  Escape finally comes, but not in the expected way.

The book is often tiring to read, though admittedly it is very good.  I recommend taking a lot of time to read these novels.  I have been gobbling them.  Pyat's Egypt experience is certainly a low point, but there are many high points to balance things out.  Whether amidst a bustling city or stranded in the middle of the Sahara Desert, Moorcock always uses just the right words to get the mood and the atmosphere down perfectly.  Highly recommended series.

 

#6 in the Lone Wolf Series, Chicago Slaughter, is from 1974 (Malzberg was writing one of these per month) and it is 165 pages long.  The tone of these books is shifting.  Wulf is now sick and tired of killing, and the killings that he does undertake get more and more difficult.  He is on his way to Chicago with his now famous briefcase of pure cut heroin.  He wants to turn it into the DA there, where a grand jury is trying to get to the bottom of the country's drug problem.  But as the story moves along, sometimes over familiar ground and sometimes not, Wulf begins to realize that the system is rotten from top to bottom.  The Chicago DA gets his orders from that city's drug kingpin.  Wulf goes through an amazing thought process at one point where he realizes that even the Vietnam war is being fought so that the supply of drugs from Asia can continue, rather than be stopped in its tracks by the Communists.  And closer to home it appears that the CIA wants the drug trade to continue, though reasons for that are obscure.  Williams, his one time partner on the NYPD, is badly knifed on an undercover operation, and spends much of the book in hospital.  But he finally wakes up to the fact that Wulf has been right all along--the system is rotten, and it's rigged.  Today we might ask "So what else is new?"  There is a short postlude by the author at the novel's completion.

 

On to Delphi Classics, beginning with the continuation of the complete works of Virginia Woolf.  Night and Day was published in 1919, four years after her first novel, The Voyage Out (See January 2023 Books Read entry).  Lasting for 579 painful pages, the 2nd novel is a huge disappointment.  It's a love story involving two couples and an odd person out that takes place mostly in London, though it is a cardboard London, a city we get no feel for.  Had there been some humour involved it might have been a less painful read, but alas, it is all so serious.  Katherine, daughter of a prestigious family, becomes engaged to William, whom she does not love.  She loves Ralph.  When William takes notice of her younger cousin Cassandra, the engagement is called off.  But no one tells her father.  Ralph proposes to Mary, but she realizes that he is in love with Katherine, and refuses him.  It is all so dreadfully boring.  The 'young' people (the youngest is 22, the others 25 or over) act like tongue tied high school students when they encounter one another.  No one seems to know anything about love and what it truly is.  The only non-hopeless person is Mary.  She works at a society trying to garner the vote for women (but after a while she doesn't work there).  The novel seems truly endless, but I stuck it out, being stubborn enough.  It sounds like something Woolf might have written for close friends to hear it read to them.  In most articles about her writing, Day and Night isn't even mentioned.  I wonder why.  I think she was trying to achieve a prose version of something vaguely Shakespearean.  Or not.

A collection of poems and a play by Yeats came next.  The play and poetry were first published together in 1892.  The play was revised and published separately later, as was the poetry, under the title The Rose.  The play, a mystical one, is called The Countess Cathleen.  I really liked three of the poems, one of which is probably his most famous one.  "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" was written in 1888, and served the poet's needs much as Knight Peak in NM does for us--somewhere spiritual and pleasant to think about during the duress of living and working day to day.  "When You Are Old" and "A Dream of Death" are also quite remarkable works.  As to the play, it is in five scenes, and according to Yeats should take about an hour to perform.  A woman gives up her land, house, and gold to feed the poor and starving of Ireland by selling her soul to agents of Satan.  At the end, the angels find a loophole in the bargain and manage to save her soul.  Not exactly an engrossing bit of theatre.  However, it was part of the search for something home-grown in Ireland.

Lastly came Sherwood Anderson's 2nd novel.  Marching Men is from 1917, and follows the fortunes and misfortunes of the son of a Pennsylvania coal mining family, as he escapes the small dreary town where he was raised and goes out into the world (Chicago) in search of something bigger and better.  This is one of fiction's strangest characters, and one of the strangest novels I have ever read. Nearly as strange as Vita Sackville-West's 2nd novel (see January books read blog).  I won't say much about this book (stop me if I do), but Mr. McGregor has some serious social issues to deal with.  His attempt to bring order to a chaotic world by having men march around after work is, of course, symbolic.  They do that sort of thing in China, perhaps, but it would never catch on over here.  The brotherhood of men is a widely misunderstood concept, and Anderson realizes this.  But his shallow attempt of proving it likely turned off most readers (at least I would hope).  Today we have sporting events and Taylor Swift concerts to unite people.  The college football stadium in Ann Arbor Michigan holds over 100,000 people, and autumn football weekends are always sold out.  That is just one example.  Books like Harry Potter have united millions of people in ways Anderson could never have dreamed about.  A professional symphony orchestra is probably the best example of a finely tuned brotherhood, uniting with one goal in mind.  Though a mighty strange book by almost any standard, it is at least capable of starting discussion about topics most writers never touch.

Mapman Mike