March Books Read

In Scorpio Assassin (1992; #39 in the series)) Dray Prescott is still teamed up with a female, with both of them assigned by the Star Lords to a certain task.  Of course they are not told what that task is exactly, other than protecting someone.  After several of the people they were trying to protect are killed they are finally able to figure out who needs to be protected and why.  By the end of the 39th volume in this series the Star lords are angry with Dray for "failing" his mission, and they round him up for his punishment.  But he is so angry with them because of their lack of full disclosure that it is the Star Lords I pity, not Dray.  Another good entry in the series, which has rarely if ever been reduced to pot boiler status.  Each plot is carefully worked out, considerably different from previous books, and the list of characters and races is so vast that we seldom tire of a particular character.  The novel was first published in Germany, then finally came to the English speaking world in 1996.  It is 234 pages long.  I read the Kindle edition.   *** stars.

 

A World Aflame is number 13 in the Cap Kennedy series, Tubb's  SF version of Doc Savage and his earthbound exploits.  I am alternating two series by the author, this and the Earl Dumerest saga.  Cap has three assistants, each one a very special man.  Published in 1974, the novel is a brief 128 pages.  Tubb harkens back to a 1952 novel of his, Tide of Death, also known as World At Bay.  Essentially an atomic energy experiment goes wrong and begins eating up a planet, with its consumed soil creating a hole that grows exponentially hour by hour.  In this update, Cap must contend with a powerful woman in charge of her planet, who wants no interference from Earth agents.  She hopes her power experiment will keep her world independent, and the extra energy exported to make her planet rich. 

The experiment begins with a found object of the Zheltyana, an ancient and nearly forgotten race that once had ruled the galaxy.  Only traces of their great discoveries are occasionally found, and the object in question, the Xuyen Torus, was stolen from a museum that scientifically studies any found remnants of this civilization.  Of course in the right hands such knowledge might be useful if approached cautiously.  But working in a hurry causes the experiment to quickly get out of control.  Can Cap and his boys save the day yet again?  Read for yourself and find out.  A decent entry in the series.

*** stars

 

Turning now to the Delphi Classics on Kindle, I began with Richard Marsh's 1897 crime novel The Crime and the Criminal.  The novel is divided into four books.  Book 1 is told by Thomas Tennant, the almost innocent nincompoop who becomes embroiled in a young woman's murder.  Riding a train from Brighton to London, his ends up sharing a carriage with a woman known to him previously.  She attacks him, they struggle briefly, and she ends up falling out of the train.  The nincompoop does not press the emergency button, nor tell anyone about what happened.  He is cut from broken glass from the door banging open and shut, leaving a lot of blood behind.

Book Two is told by Reginald Townsend, a very handsome man and a scoundrel of the blackest sort.  He belongs to a secret Murder Club and has drawn short straw.  He must kill someone within the month, and does so.  He knows Thomas, knows that he is innocent, but says nothing.  Thomas is eventually caught, put on trial by a maddened English public who is horrified by his crime of murdering a young woman.

The third book is told by Mrs. Caruth, a widow who falls in love with Reginald, and has a soul as black as his.  She was the woman in the carriage with poor Thomas.  She knows of his innocence also, since the woman supposedly murdered is herself and quite alive, but she wishes to marry Reginald so keeps silent.  She knows that Reginald is the murderer, and plans to blackmail him into marrying her.  So who was murdered?  Another girl, murdered by Reginald, in the same location and at the same time that Mrs. Caruth falls out of the train.

The fourth and final book is told by the author, who has much to say about criminal trials of the time and "evidence" presented and witness statements.  There is only one decent character in the entire book, and that is the wife of the accused, Mrs. Tennant.  She is a brick.  The final book is well written and all the plots are tied together.  My main quibble with the book is the sheer volume of coincidences that occur in order to keep the story alive.  I like the idea of the four different perspectives, and rather than repeating what the previous person has reported, the author briefly reviews prior happenings and then moves the plot forward again.  By the time we get to the fourth book things are bubbling away nicely, and the author can tie up all of the characters and the plot very neatly.  Fun to read, though a bit hard to believe.

***1/2 stars.

 

From an early edition.  My Kindle version had two pictures. 

 

Next came another set of WW I stories from H.C. McNeil ("Sapper").  From 1915 there are 16 tales, most of them very brief.  Sergeant Michael Cassidy, R. E. tells the author, an officer and fellow engineer, a number of stories while in hospital recovering from a foot injury.  Many of the stories are light-hearted and humourous, no doubt for the benefit of  wounded soldiers recovering from war wounds and trauma, and for their nurses and doctors.  However, there are a few deadly serious ones, too.  "A Word To the Shirkers" hits upon the young men who did not volunteer to serve their country, and does not hold back.  "The Christmas Truce" is quiet and poignant, while "The Terrible Danger of Funk" warns of the dangers of complacency.  Like the previous volume (see January 2025 reading summary blog), this is a must read for those of us who want to remember what war really is.  Though the writing not always top quality, the stories are.  Highly recommended.

*** 1/2 stars.

 

Emilia In England (later changed to Sandra Belloni) is a novel from 1864 by George Meredith (republished with its new name in 1887) that follows the fortunes of a country family trying to align itself with famous and rich people.  The fortunes of three daughters, a son and their father are told in three volumes, with Emilia, a common girl with a very good singing voice, at the center of the plot to attract a higher class of people to the family to improve their fortunes.  Emila is the main attraction because of her singing voice.  She falls for Wilfrid, the brother, but he is pretty much a wishy washy cad.  His father wishes him to marry Lady Charlotte, and he agrees, though he loves Emilia.  She trusts him for a while, but eventually realizes that he is otherwise destined.  There are a lot of characters and there is a lot of tragedy.  However, Meredith is a sophisticated writer of literature and handles all with great dexterity and aplomb.  One of the most compelling parts of this very long novel is when Emilia is at her lowest point.  She wanders London for several days and nights, eventually becoming starved, filthy and ready to immerse herself in the oily black Thames River.  She is rescued by a close friend who had been searching for her everywhere.  However, his discovering her was not by chance, as she had left a trail of clues behind her among some street children she had befriended.  The ending is somewhat unexpected for its time.  Emilia and Wilfrid--well, never mind the spoiler.  It was a very good ending, as I had expected "the usual" happy ever after sort of thing.  Much better than most writers of his time, his work seems totally ignored among the cult of the Brontes, Jane Austen and their ilk.  Stories like this are ripe for a TV series.

 

Finally comes a great adventure story by A Merritt.  From 1931 it is called The Face In The Abyss.  It is a suitable title, and when you hear it think of Sauron.  This book, more than any other I have read, seems to have more of Tolkien in it.  There are no Hobbits, but there are orc-like creatures, an important fellowship, a Sauron versus Gandalf finale, and any number of other similarities.  The main character Graydon could easily stand in for Aragorn.  One improvement that Merritt made over Tolkien is that he resisted cliche animal characterizations.  Snakes and spiders are good, for example, though lizards not so much.  This is a long novel, a combination of two that were serialized much earlier in Argosy Magazine.  The second novel was called "The Snake Mother".  

An explorer wanders deep into the Andes in search of gold, stumbling upon an ancient race of white people.  There are Indians, too, but the whites have been there since before the mountains rose up.  While their science has made great advances, their morals haven't kept pace.   Sound familiar.  In this passage, the Snake Woman (a Gandalf-like character) talks to Graydon after he has described outside civilization to her.  "I am not so enamored with your civilization, as you describe it, to wish it extended here.  For one thing, I think you are building too rapidly outside yourselves, and too slowly inside."  And again later... "Some day you will find yourselves so far buried within your machines that you will not be able to find a way out--or discover yourself being carried helplessly away by them."  Wow!  Heavy stuff for 1931 fantasy writing!

The adventures themselves are truly epic and vast in scale.  The final battle rises to a fitting climax, with most tropes avoided.  It probably won't spoil your reading if I tell you that Sauron is defeated in the end, and the ancient ones are given a second chance.  So far this is the most enjoyable work by Merritt that I have read, and is recommended for fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs, H. Rider Haggard, and Tolkien.

 

An early reprint; cover by Paul Stahr.  I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Note:  There will be no update for April books read next month.  However, I will combine the April/May summaries in my next update around June 1st.

 

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