July Books Read

 

From 1975 comes the 124 page SF thriller The Ghosts of Epidoris by E. C. Tubb.  For the third time Cap's old arch enemy Kaifeng is back and as bad as ever.  Kaifeng is the Fu Manchu of Cap Kennedy's galaxy, or the Master from Dr. Who's universe, a man who is evil through and through.  He loves to punish people who fail him, though in this story he admits that he failed at something yet doesn't mention any self punishment.  Could he be a hypocrite?  Once again the ancient Zeltyana race is at the forefront of Kaifeng's evil plan to rule the galaxy, as the evil one is using old alien technology to hide his doings from the rest of a planet's population.  Did I mention yet that he is evil?  Are there really ghosts wandering at night on Epidoris?  Or, is there a scientific explanation to what is happening and what people are seeing?  As usual, Tubb has a good SF premise and reasonable enough sounding explanation.  There is plenty of action, and even a bit of high culture talk between Cap and Kaifeng's equally evil female assistant, who harbours a bit of a crush on Cap.  My main complaint has to do with Tubb's ridiculous brief ending.  Less than half a page from the major climax the book suddenly ends.  No doubt the author wanted to bring back Kaifeng in a future story and didn't want to deal with his possible escape.  My secondary complaint is that any time relics of the ancient race are found, the bad guys get to it first and then Cap has to blow it all up at the end.  Seriously?

** 1/2 stars.

 

 

Original publication with cover by the great Jack Gaughan.

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Next month I will return to Kenneth Bulmer's engrossing Dumarest Saga, but now it's time for more Delphi Classics reading.  Clark Ashton Smith was up next.  Smith has written some of the best horror and fantasy short stories I have ever read, so I always look forward to him when his turn comes around again.  This time its a collection of 14 stories published in 1948 under the title Genius Loci and Other Tales.  The first story is the title one, very much influenced by H P Lovecraft (Poe is another influence on this terrific writer).  A young artist visits a friend in the country and discovers a very dismal swamp.  He becomes fascinated by the atmosphere and strives to capture its likeness on canvas and in sketches.  Alas, the swamp has its own plans, not only for him but also his young fiancee.  Smith writes so much better than Lovecraft, even though many of his ideas are borrowed from him.

"The Ninth Skeleton" and "The Phantom of the Fire" are minor efforts but told well, though the skeleton story has some nice touches (no pun intended) and the fire story sounds like something supernatural that could actually happen to someone.

"The Eternal World" is almost a novelette, combining influences as disparate as H G Wells and Olaf Stapledon.  It is the story of a man who builds a kind of time machine and encounters two different kinds of intelligent life, a good kind and a bad kind.  It's the kind of story that Jack Williamson might have written back in the day.  Quite good reading for classic SF fans. 

"Vulthoom" is top notch Smith SF writing, as two men stuck on Mars encounter a much older and stranger being than the current Martians who trade with Earth.  In this novelette Vulthoom is a legendary god among the Martians, one who awakens every 1000 years, but as the two men discover, the godlike alien being is all too real.  As good as the story is, the ending is also one of the best.

"A Star Change" sees a depressed human approached by two aliens from Mlok while he is sitting on a mountain top.  They sense his depression and offer him a lift to their distant planet.  He refuses, but they later visit him in his San Francisco apartment.  He finally agrees.  On Mlok he has trouble adjusting to the new sensations.  Despite the friendliness of the aliens he spends much of his time shrieking in terror.  They perform some medical procedures on him and he is finally able to adjust.  Pangs of homesickness hit him, however, and he wishes to return to Earth.  He gets his chance when Mlok is invaded by a space born parasite, dooming the world and its people.  Meanwhile back on earth, his adjustments he received back on Mlok make him unfit for life on Earth.  Only Smith could come up with these bizarre but fascinating stories and their tragic endings.  Great stuff!

"The Primal City" is a great little horror story about two adventurers who trace down the location of a vast lost city in the mountains of northern India.  They and their guide trek for many days, at last coming to the ruins.  The city seems to have been made for giants, and was destroyed by some unknown force.  Soon, however, that force will make itself known once again. Only one man and one camel survive.

"The Disinternment of Venus" takes place in a Franciscan monastery in 1550, and is one of those stories that could easily have been a local legend.  A masterpiece of Roman sculpture is dug out from a monastery garden by two monks.  Afterwards, discipline breaks down and rules are constantly being broken.  Anyone who sees the statue is affected.  One non-viewing monk sets out to destroy it with a hammer.  He is found next day locked in the arms of the statue,  His body cannot be freed and he is buried forever with the statue and the garden is abandoned.  A terrific short story!

"The Colossus of Ylourgne" is a novella detailing the doings of an evil dwarf wizard seeking revenge on all those who wronged him in a small area of France in the early 1200s.  This is by far the best story of conjuring a demon-like being that I have ever read.  The gripping tale is filled with violence, both as the beast is being formed from buried corpses, and after it goes on its countryside rampage.  First two monks fro ma nearby monastery attempt to deal with the conjurer, but are sent back dully punished.  What I love about Smith's writing in this genre is that religious beliefs hold no sway over evil magic; churches are destroyed, the monastery is destroyed and many monks die as they pray.  A one time student of the wizard decides to give it a go, and while he pays dearly for his attempt, his eventual success gives the novella's climax a ring of truth and lasting freedom.  An excellent story and, like many of Smith's tales, would make a great film.  Highly recommended for sword and sorcery fans.

"The Satyr" is a short horror story about two lovers accosted not only by the woman's husband, but by Pan.  The cuckolded husband is the least of the worries for the woman.  Ever since my dream about Pan several years ago (I actually met him and he is a very scary guy), I suspect that this story and others like it are true.  Once again a terrific ending, and not a happy one (unless you are Pan).

"The Garden of Adompha" is another dark tale of black sorcery, with quite a hideous theme.  With the King's permission his cruel wizard grafts human parts onto various trees and plants in the King's secret garden.  This is one garden door readers do not ever want to open.

"The Charnel God" is another one of those stories about strange gods and customs.  A young couple stop overnight in a strange town.  She is cataleptic and has an attack and is pronounced dead by a local doctor.  Anyone who dies in this city has their body given over to the god.  Her boyfriend tries his best to rescue her, and he is unwittingly aided by a trio of body thieves.  A very unusual tale.

"The Black Abbot of Puthom" is a tale that Fritz Leiber would have greatly enjoyed reading, as did I.  Two body guards and a eunuch are sent to fetch a girl for the harem.  Her beauty is renowned and is coveted by the king.  The trip home is fraught with danger and adventure, as the four people are kidnapped by an evil sorcerer and brought to his monastery.  He wants to have his way with the girl but the two loyal bodyguards stand in his way.  A great adventure with even a touch of humour at the end.

"The Weaver In the Vault" (such great titles on some of these tales) 

 

Cover of the first edition (1948) by Frank Wakefield.

 

From a 1974 edition, with cover by

Bruce Pennington.
 

Olaf Stapledon is a very strange SF writer, likely well into the spectrum for autism.  If he was an artist he probably would be drawing those incredible detailed maps and drawings produced by people with such gifts.  Darkness and Light (1942) presents his best and worst case scenario for humans on Earth.  In past novels he has taken on the entire universe, with Earth as a mere dust mote in the grand scheme of things.  Well, this time he devotes the entire book to this dust mote and the people who dwell upon it.  Like a good Tarot card reading, Stapledon is not making predictions.  He is providing a framework for some grand ideas to be played out.  In the first half of the book we get the bad stuff.  Try to imagine the world in the near future if more Trump-like leaders emerge in the world's most important countries.  He does, and it isn't pretty.  In the second half of the book he provides a vision for Utopia, a vision that very few people today would ever accept.  Joining together for a common cause?  Ya, right.  Growing until we rise above consumerism and then leading more spiritual (not religious!) lives?  I don't think so.  As grand and hopeful as the author is, his first scenario is much more likely to happen, and sooner than most of us would want.  Stapledon's books could spark endless discussion, and they lead off in so many directions that a person could spend his life tied to any one of his visionist novels.  Even his best case scenario is frought with problems that defy correcting.  Well worth reading, but don't wait around for any of the good stuff to happen soon.

*** stars. 

 

Rabindranath Tagore's Fruit Gathering is a collection of 86 short poems from 1916, mostly dedicated to nature or god.  While reading these peaceful lines it's difficult to believe that the Great War was in full swing.  Many of the poems are worth quoting in their entirety, while others produce lines that are truly heaven-sent.  Often meditative, never frivolous, this is poetry with some weight holding it up.  A few brief examples: "I throw away all that is not one with my life nor as light as my laughter.  I run through time and, O my heart, in your chariot dances the poet who sings while he wanders."  "Cling to this living raft, my body, in the narrow stream of my earthly years.  I leave it when the crossing is over.  And then?"  How about this one?  "Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield but to my own strength."  One more:  "Let the mantle of tender darkness cover me in its folds, and cover my pain awhile from the pressure of the world."  This is good stuff, with nearly every poem offering up something of worth.  Recommended.  **** stars.   

 

Josephine Tey (1896-1952) was a Scottish author known best for her Inspector Grant murder mystery novels.  She has two of her books in the top 100 best mystery books of all time, including the #1 position! (The Daughter of Time).  The Man in the Queue is from 1929 and was her first in the Grant series, and her second novel ever.  She has a highly detailed style, always told from one perspective by the narrator.  The story is actually a police procedural, as we tag along with the inspector to try to solve a seemingly unsolvable murder.  Clues and witnesses are few and far between, and along the way the highly intelligent inspector makes several large errors, not entirely his fault.  This is one of those mystery stories where the evidence is so stacked against one man that we wonder all along if he did do it, and if not, then who?  Does the inspector solve the case?  Actually, no he doesn't.  But he has enough of a bad feeling about the arrested man to keep digging for evidence that might help him.  No luck there.  He strongly feels that the wrong man was arrested and will likely be hung for the crime.  To find out how it all turns out, read the book.  Tey has a witty style of writing also, and brings in some uncanny but perfect small details along the way.  There are even a few Holmes and Watson jokes.  Well worth reading for mystery fans.

*** stars. 

Brain Fruit by Stephen Oram was a gift from a friend following a recent visit to London, UK (thank you again, Caroline).  From 2025 it is a SF/Fantasy novelette published in hardcover format, something one does not see very often.  A limited edition, mine is 104 of 500.  The story concerns a bee, a bug and a piece of fruit trying to make peace with a village of androids, to the mutual benefit of everyone.  The closest thing to it that I have read before is T. H. White's The Book of Merlin, where readers get inside the lives of wild geese and later an ant colony.  I think that very often individual short stories and novelettes can get lost in 'collections' of same.  Publications like this one are not cheap and likely have very limited numbers of buyers.  But it is refreshing to see original short works receive what one might term royal treatment.  Worth reading, but good luck finding a copy.

*** 1/2 stars. 

 

After recently watching 30 episodes of Apple TV's Foundation series, it was finally time to reread the books (it's been decades).  The first novel, Foundation, is from 1951.  I read this series as a teen and remembered very little of it, except that music plays a major role somewhere.  Not in book 1.  There are two main flaws with this first novel.  The first is that it's not really a science fiction novel.  It's mostly a political story, with traders and phony priests mixed in.  The second problem is an almost complete lack of female characters.  The only woman with speaking lines is a shrewish wife after more riches and more power, and she is a very minor character.  The TV series at least made the story more science fiction than the novel, and they did add several important female characters, badly needed.  However, they totally destroyed Asimov's story.  They muddled it badly.  After watching 30 episodes I can honestly say that I don't know what the hell is going on, or who is who or why this happens.  It's a great series to look at, but it has very little skill at telling a story.  Asimov's book is very clear cut and makes perfect sense, at least.  I somewhat enjoyed the book, more than the series.  *** stars.  

 

I am reading the Kindle editions. 

 

I finished off the month with two more evolution essays by Stephen Jay Gould, finishing a 3-chapter section called Human Prehistory.  "A Lesson From the Old Masters" refers again to prehistoric cave painting, specifically a few depictions of a giant deer, and how the discovery of this art helped bolster evolutionary theory and tie up a loose end or two.  In "Our Unusual Unity" Gould takes on biases that insist that evolutionary progress is linear, something the author consistently argues against.  In a linear theory only one type of humanoid can exist at any one time, like today.  Gould argues that today's unity is not the norm, but the exception, showing how bias can affect a scientist's theory even when evidence strongly suggests otherwise.  Bush theory says that several types of early man once existed at the same time, and may have interacted in some ways. 

 

See you in a month (or perhaps two) or so.  My reading time is slowly being reduced so I don't get through as many books as I once did.  We'll see how things go, but if you don't see an August summary, there will be one in September for sure.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

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 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 2025 Reading Update

January was a very cold month, perfect for plenty of reading.  I got through 12 books, one of them a graphic novel.  Besides my two regulars (Tubb and Bulmer) I read 4 from my Delphi Classics collection and 6 others.

From 1988 comes the 255 page conclusion to Kenneth Bulmer's Witch War Saga, Warlord of Antares, with the sudden though somewhat expected death of Cistra the evil witch woman.  She has lusted after Dray Prescott for several volumes now, and finally, just as she has him within her grasp, she is undone by a jealous wizard who wanted her for himself.  One of the many things I like about this series is the unexpected turns.  Though many things are predictable, just as many are not.  We have seen people get killed who we wish had still been alive, and we have seen battles lost that we wish had been won.  Another thing I like about the book is the comaraderie between Dray and his best friends.  Though they take seriously events that need to be taken seriously, they are also keen to show light-heartedness as much as bravery.  Delia, Dray's wife is once again in the background for this story.  This is the first volume where Drak, son of Dray, is Emperor, after Dray's (and Delia's) abdication.  And so a new series of adventures will begin with the next volume, as Dray attempts to unite a vast continent of small kingdoms again the dreaded Shanks.  A good entry in this remarkable series. 

Cover art by Ken Kelly. 

 

Cap and his team are up against an old and very evil enemy, one they thought they had eliminated in a past volume, in this pot boiler by E. C. Tubb.  In The Genetic Engineer Cap has to infiltrate the top secret and very hidden laboratory run by this evil scientist, and of course it must be blown to smithereens once discovered.  There really isn't too much to say about this one.  The mad scientist is designing and making clones with the help of kidnapped scientists.  He will program them to fight to the death, and they will feel no pain so will continue to fight until unable to do so.  His great plan to sell his soldiers to the highest bidder is undone by a female captured scientist, who programs the clones to run away in fear instead of stand and fight.  So for once a woman helps save the day!  Not the greatest of the stories, but not a terrible one, either.

 

Turning to four of the Delphi Classics for this month I began with William Hope Hodgson's The Dream of X.  The Night Land by Hodgson is a masterpiece of fantasy horror writing that I first encountered in the the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series many years ago.  I reread it fairly recently and still loved the book.  However, it is 200,000 words and quite a commitment to sit down and read.  If you have ever wanted to wander about inside of a hellish painting by Bosch or Bruegel, then this is the book for you.  In 1912 the author published a 20,000 word version, which is the above named story.  Reduced by 90%, this is exactly what the reader gets: 90% less of everything.  This is a very disappointing novella and not recommended.  The full version is just that; a full version.  Imagine any great novel or film cut by 90%.  Read the full version of The Night Land.  Please.

 

The Girl From Malta, an 1889 crime novel by Fergus Hume, also left me quite disappointed.  For one thing (spoiler alert), after all is said and done and we have tried for nearly 300 pages to figure out who the murderer is, it turns out there was no murder.  What a chicken poop ending!  Obviously Hume himself could not decide who killed the victim.  It was either one of two sisters (likely the older one with a violent temper), or their male cousin.  Obviously too scared to have one of the women as the murderer, the author sets up the male cousin.  But in the end it was a suicide!  Right.  The guy stabbed himself in the heart with a letter opener.  Happens every day.  Yawn.  Moving on....

 

Daisy Miller is a novella by Henry James from 1878.  At times it is quite a brilliant story, though at the end the author cops out (spoiler not provided here).  A young American girl is spending a year in Europe with her mother and 9 year old brother.  The young boy provides much entertainment for the reader, and also provides a genetic excuse for the young woman.  Daisy (likely 15 or 16 in the book) is very immature, very beautiful and talks a lot.  She is allowed to go out with men unsupervised by her mother, and this eventually leads to her being ostracized by "society."  Our hero cannot make Daisy understand her predicament, and she is incapable of doing anything except flirting with him and especially a handsome Italian musician, with whom she spends most of her time in Rome.  Though she likes the hero very much, she is unable to relate to him.  They fall out when he attempts to advise her of her worsening social flaws.  Rather than try to put a fitting conclusion to the story, James takes the easy way out.  It's a shame, as much better endings could be devised.  Highly recommended.

 

M. R. James' final published collection of horror stories is from 1925 and is called A Warning To The Curious and Other Ghost Stories. This was the final published volume of all new stories by James, though his collected short stories (to follow) include four never before published.  Of the six stories included here "The Haunted Dollhouse" is certainly worth mentioning.  The tiny inhabitants of an old dollhouse enact a gruesome ritual late each night.  Very creepy.  The five other stories are all good and worth reading, though not particularly scary.

 

The Con Man is from 1957, and is Ed McBain's fourth 87th Precinct novel.  Carella, a detective from the precinct, was badly wounded in the first book.  The author wanted to kill him off, but the editor would not allow it (!).  So Carella is back in book 4, trying to catch a serial killer.  He gets some unasked for assistance from his deaf and dumb wife.  This is the best of the series so far, with a lot of tension building towards the end.  The detectives from the precinct rotate in each story, which is a pretty cool idea.  Hard boiled and top notch big city crime writing.

 

Akira is a comic from 1988 by Katsuhiro Otomo.  It is the second (of three) outstanding comic/graphic novel to recently enter these hallowed walls of bloghood.  It is thirty years after an atomic bomb devastates Tokyo, and the outskirts of Tokyo are coming back to life, sort of.  This is essentially a Japanese version of the much earlier Mad Max film, though it gets even more cynical and outrageous.  Tokyo was bombed because of an out-of-control ESP experiment that went awry.  Of course a secret group is trying to revive it.  Original art was in black and white, but it was coloured for release as a 36-comic (six volume) graphic novel once its popularity had hit the roof.  The author was given a huge amount of control over the animated film version, too.  If you enjoy reading about 15 year old sex-crazed male juvenile delinquents on super fast motor bikes, then you are sure to love this series.  Watch as they out ride and out fight Japan's military and top secret agents, just like in real life.  The plot thickens as we learn that a top secret project has been working with mutants who are psychic deadly weapons.  After the first six issues we have not learned what "Akira" is, but it sounds like really bad news.  The art and colouring are totally fantastic, and the story shows promise.  But it's hard to accept young boys being so adept at nearly everything.  How they afford their bikes, repairs, gasoline and how they get so much time away from their reform school is kept a mystery.  Let's hope they can save the world, though.

 

I read Vol. 1, which contains the first six comics.  There are 6 volumes (36 comics).

 

Paul Aster's 1985 novel City of Glass eventually became three books, now known as the New York Trilogy.  Paul Quinn writes cheap detective novels.  A few years ago his wife and son died and he is becoming a stranger to the world and to himself.  When a strange phone call for Paul Aster reaches him and asks for private eye help, Quinn decides to become Paul Aster and accepts the case.  A dangerous man will soon be released for prison, and his son, damaged at an early age from his father's social experiment on him, is terrified that his father will find him again and seek revenge for getting him sent to jail for 13 years.  Quinn/Aster follows the father, William Stillman, and keeps watch on him.  As the case goes on Quinn becomes completely engaged, to the point of eventually losing himself and seeming to disappear eventually into thin air.  At the beginning of the book we see Quinn observing street people and rough sleepers and wondering how a man could ever reach such a low point.  By the end of the novel he has become such a man himself, one of the worst cases.  This is a strange yet engaging story, with many sharp turns and bumpy rides.  I am looking forward (next month) to continuing the trilogy.  Recommended.

 

The Night Circus is from 2011 and written by Erin Morgenstern. Deb recommended it, though she liked her second book even more.  So I finally got around to the first one.  This is not so much a novel as an experience, one that is unlike any other that I have had.  First off, it is about a circus, and the circus only opens at night.  Now that we have that cleared up, what kind of circus is it?  Well, imagine if a circus was controlled by someone (or perhaps two someones) who had strong psychic energies.  Imagine that some of the acts are a bit enhanced, to the point where attendees are not only totally amazed at what they see, but are unsure if what they see is real or something else entirely.  Imagine a circus that arrives at night in secret, and is fully set up and ready to go the very first night after arrival.  After entering, attendees wander at will, visiting smaller and larger tents to see any of the acts available of their choosing.  No sitting in one spot and watching a performance.  There are dozens of different places to visit, and they are all amazing.  There is an overarching story about two dueling wizards using a student each to see who "wins."  Filled with interesting characters both in and out of the circus, the novel holds things together really well and our interest never flags.  That is a pretty amazing achievement in a book nearly 400 pages long.  Though the story bounces back in forth in chronology it is easy to follow thanks to dates supplied with each chapter.  Also, the chapters are mostly very short, from 1 minute to 4 minutes in length to perhaps 10 at the outset.  This far exceeds Piranesi, another quite special novel read earlier.  Now I am very curious to see just what the author can do in her second book.  Very highly recommended, especially to fantasy fans looking for something completely different.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life (republished as Arrival after the success of the film) is a collection of short stories and novellas first published in 2002, though most stories were written considerably earlier.

 

"Tower of Babylon" is from 1990, and is a wonderful fantasy no doubt influenced by Bruegel's paintings of the same name.  Imagine a storyteller in ancient Babylonian times relating the tale of not only the building of this miles high edifice, but of its reaching its goal, namely heaven.  This is the story of an Elamite miner who was called from afar to break through the ceiling to reach heaven once the tower was finished.  They climb for days and days to reach the summit, passing the sun, which shines upward after a time instead of down.  There is no science in this ancient tale, at least none we would recognize.  A deliriously magical tale!  **** stars.

 

"Understand" is from 1991 and is a story that begins well.  A man who had remained underwater for too long is revived and given injections of a new drug.  They give him nightmares for a while, but then his intelligence increases by a vast amount.  His doctors try a third injection, and once again he receives what might be called a Krell brain boost.  The CIA wants him for their own purposes, and he he is forced to go on the lam.  He can hack into computers and manages to find a 4th dose, which elevates his intelligence further.  this part of the book is a cross between a Jason Bourne adventure and Odd John, a novel by Olaf Stapledon.  there is even some Cyril Kornbluth thrown in for good measure.  However, the story stakes a nosedive when our hero discovers a 2nd man (of course it's a man) who is 15 days ahead of him with the drugs.  So what would the two most intelligent men do when they finally meet.  Yup.  You guessed it.  Fight to the death, mind against mind.  Sigh.  It's one man who seeks truth and beauty versus the other one who wants to use his knowledge to help humanity.  We all know where that one would soon lead.  A very disappointing ending.  ** stars. 

 

"Division By Zero" is from 1991 and is a story about arithmetic.  And empathy.  Apparently the statement that 1 equals 2 cannot be disproved by math as we know it.  The possibility is there.  And does empathy always bring closer together two people who have shared similar situations, or can it bring them more apart?  Read and weep.  An effective short story. *** stars.

 

"Story of Your Life" is from 1998 and is the one that the Arrival film is based upon.  The film is a great one, one of the better SF films to be sure.  As usual, however, the novella is even better.  It's a much more matter-of-fact telling of first contact than the film.  There is no vast structure, but rather a two way mirror that allows communication to proceed between Earth and the aliens.  What sets this story apart from the many other first rate first contact stories I have read (see my Avon/Equinox blog) is the second story that is interwoven with the main story.  The female linguist who is tasked with learning the alien language tells a story that happens in the future, and tells it in flashback, if you please.  This is a beautifully handled counterpoint to the first contact one, as we soon realize that she can know, with certainty, what will happen to her in the future.  How can she do this?  It turns out that the alien language(s) is completely different from ours.  Their spoken language cannot be properly sounded by humans, so she focuses more on their written language.  It is a language that has no bearing on the spoken one, however, and is based upon knowing all about a thing before being spoken.  In other words, she learns how to know things, once she has mastered it, before they are finished happening, such as her future life.  Her future life, as it turns out, contains much sadness and much joy.  She does have free will, and can reject her future life with one simple remedy.  What will she choose?  The story contains some really great physics and math discussions, not too difficult to follow, and is a highly recommended read.  **** stars.

 

"Seventy-two Letters" is from 2000.  It is a tiresome story/novella about nomenclature and Kabbalah.  In an altered future world scientists have animated golems to do single menial tasks.  A breakthrough came when naming them increased their capabilities.  I couldn't wait for this story to end.  * star.

 

"The Evolution of Human Science" is from  2000 and is a three page story.  It was first published in Nature.  Humans no longer do original research; thanks to genetic engineering this task is carried out by meta-humans.  Problems arise when humans can no longer understand the research, so a special branch of research is set up to study ways to interpret results from meta-human research.  Prescient if nothing else.  *** stars.

 

"Hell Is The Absence of God" is from 2001.  Chang usually takes an alternate Earth existence and builds his story assuming we have lived in it always.  In this novelette angels from heaven make occasional appearances in different locations, usually unexpectedly.  Their appearance causes a few people to benefit, but more often many others are killed or injured as a result of blinding light, chasms suddenly appearing, hurricane force winds or accidents caused by being the way of the angel.  When people die people on scene can watch their souls float up to heaven, or disappear into the earth on their way to hell.  This is pretty much a very original story, whose conclusion is that one should not depend upon God to give them salvation; anything that happens to a person is either by their own design or total randomness.  God neither punishes nor rewards.  An interesting parable of a story.  I'd be curious to get a religious person's perspective after they read it.  *** 1/2 stars.

 

"Liking What You See: A Documentary" is from 2002.  The story discuss and dissects Lookism, where a person or persons look at someone.  Often it is the most beautiful faces that gather the most looks, while plain ones attract very little attention by comparison.  Truly unattractive people might gather a few curious looks, while deformed faces might gather even more than beautiful faces.  The story tells of an implant that takes away the differences, making everyone look average.  A university campus is considering making having this implant a pre-requisite to attending its campus, and the subject is to be put to a vote.  The story is enthralling, taking the form of a documentary film with student interviews dominating the pages.  Recommended reading,  *** 1/2 stars.

 

I read the Kindle version. 

 

Finally came another entertaining tale by the Old Sleuth.  Cad Meth, The Female Detective Strategist, or Dudie Dunne and His Lady Pal is from 1895.  Old Sleuth wrote over a hundred detective stories that were published cheaply in newspaper-like format, and so far the several I have read have been quite good, in a quaint and humourous way.  The dialogue portions of these stories are usually quite fun to read.  This one features a very intelligent and beautiful female detective working alongside Dudie Dunne.  She saves his neck at one point, after he fell for a villainess' wily story about helping her poor brother.  It is refreshing to see a story from 1895 feature a heroine like Cad Metti.  She does return later in another adventure, though I don't think I have that one.

 

See you in a month.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

December Reading Summary

There were 8 novels completed this past month, one of them a graphic novel.  

From 1985, Bulmer's 121 page novel Omens of Kregen continues the main line of two plots that have been on-going for several volumes now.  Firstly, the battle for freeing Vallia from its enemies from within gets settled, with several key battles being won and the rogue "king" of the northlands vanquished at last.  More importantly is Dray Prescott's return to the lair of the witch Csitra and her evil spawn Phunik.  Dray and Seg join yet another doomed treasure seeking expedition into the hellish cave system of Coup Blag, a trap-laden maze that would challenge the greatest player of the Lara Croft games.  Hardly anyone ever comes out alive, and this expedition is no exception.  At long last, however, the witch is finally dealt with, and Dray now needs to reunite with his own expedition, which was separated when they were attacked on route to the caves.  However, at the very end of the story Dray is recalled to face the anger of the Star Lords.  We will have to wait till next month to see how that encounter turned out.  A good entry in the series, finally closing some of plot lines that have been around for a long while. 

Haven of Darkness is from 1977 and is 173 pages long.  Two story threads eventually intertwine in Tubb's 16th entry in the Earl Dumarest series to form a highly entertaining novel.  The thread with Dumarest is pretty much like so many of his other adventures.  For one thing he starts out on a run down planet with virtual slave labour.  He is being hunted by the Cyclans, and there happens to be one on that planet.  To earn money to hire computer time to find the location of Earth he has a knife fight with a viscous killer.  But we are soon off that planet and en route to another one, again familiarly traveling in a beat up old spacecraft trading goods.  His arrival on planet 2 allows his story to unite with strand number two.  That story features a beautiful woman on the high council of a peaceful planet, but a planet where it is only safe to travel during daylight.  With two suns, a unique event termed Delusia causes hallucinations when they align, and after dark sudden death comes by the mysterious creatures that rule the planet then.  A pact has been arranged between the human daytime inhabitants and the aliens that take over at night.  One man is threatening that pact by attempting a coup.  Dumarest is just in time to put a stop to it.  This story has a different ending; it appears that Dumarest is going to stop off for a time, something that hasn't happened yet in this series.  Perhaps we will learn more about the mysterious deadly night inhabitants in the next story. 

 

Josh Kirby did the cover art for one of the editions. 

 

And now it's on to Delphi Classics!  I keep buying single Kindle novels but I get so engrossed in reading the classics that I seldom have time to consider reading something more contemporary.  So I am limiting myself to four classic authors per month, with any time left over for more recent literature.  We'll see how that works out.

 

First up were the tales of the Brothers Grimm.  The first English translation of the fairy tales was published in 1826, 55 stories in all told by Edgar Taylor.  By no means complete, this first foray into the collection covers most of the basic tales many of us grew up with.  The Cinderella story is the real deal, with the step sisters cutting off a big toe and shaving their heel to fit into the slipper.   Of course at the time the Brothers assumed they were collecting only German stories.  Not till later was it even suspected that most of these tales had origins far beyond Germany and even of Europe, many of them coming to us from the Near East and India.  Many of the tales share similarities, for instance three sons setting out to seek their fortune, with only the youngest succeeding.  We meet many kinds of folk critters, from elves, witches, talking animals, evil step mothers, imps and kindly old people who give magical gifts to the right person.  Having read the complete Joseph Jacobs collections (see the books read blog entry for May 2025), many of these are very familiar in some form or other.  I may not read more into this collection for a while because of this.  Still great fun, mostly for all ages.

 

Next came one of my favourite books from high school reading days.  H Rider Haggard is still a favourite of mine, and his first Ayesha novel, She (1886) is the one that helped start possibly the biggest fictional tradition in literature--the fantasy adventure novel.  Taken up by Edgar Rice Burroughs (whom I read as a youth before I discovered Haggard), and even influential with Tolkien's writing, this remains one of the great adventure novels of all time.  Lasting 28 chapters, the first three are taken up with preparations for a great journey into unexplored East Africa.  Chapter 4 is the great storm that washes the heroes upon the beach, from which they must make their way into the interior, first by small boat, and finally as prisoners.  Chapters 5-10 tells of the adventures they underwent (4 men) in the great swamp that must be crossed, and the terrible fever that ensued for some of them.  We finally meet She herself in chapter 13.  The setting is in an abandoned Kor, a vast group of cities built thousands of years before the Egyptians built their great monuments.  Canals that once reached to the sea and vast hollowed out mountains are only a few of the achievements of this once great society.  It ended in a plague, so that the ruins have not been destroyed by war or natural disaster, but were left to age more naturally.  We are given some information about this ancient society, whose survivors fled and likely founded Egypt.  She herself is 2000 years old when we meet her, and Kor ruled long before her time.  We spend several chapters among these caves and ruins.  One of the more interesting things to come from the novel are the discussions about philosophy and religion that She and Holly, one of the male adventurers, have.  She wins most arguments, as she has had a lot of time to develop her theories of religion and philosophy.  Her reason for wanting to live for so long is so that she can be reunited with the reincarnation of her one true love.  Leo fits the bill nicely, the other main member of the adventurous party.  In chapter 24 the journey to the great life-giving cave is made, and the final chapters tell how Holly and Leo managed to escape their doom, something that Ayesha was unable to do.  She tried to double dip in the flame of life, and things did not go well at all.  Great fun to read, with excellent pictorial descriptions, some lively and interesting dialogue, and main characters not too hard to swallow (compared to many modern fantasy novels).

 

This is the edition I read as a teen. 

 

The Maltese Falcon was first published in 1929.  This was my first reading of the Dashiell Hammett novel.  I had one major problem while reading the book: I could not help hearing Bogart's voice in the part of Sam Spade.  Spade looks nothing like Mr. Bogart, as he is blonde and has features that make him look almost satanic.  But as Bogart speaks many of the same lines, it is his voice I hear.  Same with the fat man, played by Sidney Greenstreet, and the kid, played by Elisha Cook, Jr.  I have seen the film so many times that the actors' voices speak the lines while I read.  The film does a credible job of making the story and characters come alive, too.  A bit more time is spent in the book explaining what exactly the Falcon is, but otherwise things pretty much follow the course of the movie plot.  Of course there are many more subtleties in the book, and it is a must read for lovers of the film.  Hard-boiled detective fiction and Noir film itself owe so much to this very story.  An easy read and great fun!

 

Kwaidan is a series of collected Japanese ghost tales translated and retold by Lafcadio Herne and published in 1904.  Once again we have a top knotch film of the book, or at least some of its stories, this time from 1964.  I will mention a few of the best tales.  The first story, "Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi", is the first story told in the movie version as well.  It is a great story about a blind ballad singer who is requested by a powerful lord to visit his palace and sing of times before his clan was wiped out by enemies.  The film version calls it "Hoichi the Earless," perhaps giving too much of a hint of what is to follow.  An all-time great ghost story.

"O-Tei" tells about a young couple engaged to be married, but the girl dies before it can happen.  She makes him a promise on her death bed, and in a creepy scene manages to fulfill her promise.

"Of A Mirror and a Bell" is somewhat humourous, but "Mujina" returns to the pure horror format, as a man wandering late at night encounters not one but two spirits, either one of which would be enough to destroy a man. 

"Jikininki" tells of  a priest's visit to a village just when their head man had died.  The villagers, by tradition, leave the village for a night, but the priest agrees to remain with the body.  An evil spirit comes and eats the corpse and the food left as offering.  The priest is able to solve the mystery of the hungry ghost, freeing the village from its curse and rescuing the man who had been cursed.

"Rokuro-Kubi" tells of a priest's encounter with five evil spirits who wish him harm.  When their heads separate from their bodies at night he listens in to their conversation and thus learns how to thwart them. The story continues in a bizarre fashion with the head of the lead rogue fastened to the priest's cloak, until a robber takes it from him.

"Yuki-Onna" is another of the filmed stories, this one a winter scene.  A woman in white saves a man from freezing to death during a bad snowstorm, but makes him promise not to ever tell what has happened.  Years later he opens his big mouth and tells his beautiful never-aging wife.  As usual in such fairy tales, there is no penance for the mistake, only sorrow and hardship.

"Aoyagi" tells the sad tale of three willow trees, two old and one quite young.

"The Dream of Akinosuka" takes us deep not only into the dream world, but the story leads to a further discussion of ants.  Yes, ants.  Don't ask yet.  Just read.  This is a pretty good story.

"Horai" is a brief story that reminded me of some Dunsany tales.

The book is rather short, and perhaps to lengthen it enough for publication he includes three essays: Butterflies, Mosquitoes and Ants.  The butterfly chapter discusses butterflies in Chinese and Japanese lore, and is quite fascinating.  A few more tales are included as well.  The mosquito chapter is fairly amusing, as Hearn discusses ways of eliminating the pests, which particularly bother him where he lives.  Then comes the chapter on ants, one of the more unique essays I have ever read.  The author compares ant society to human, wondering if humans will ever learn to work together the way ants do.  A good followup to reading this chapter would be to read T. H. White's 2nd volume in his Arthurian tales, The Queen of Air and Darkness, the darkness referring to life as an ant.  All in all, a most remarkable book, and highly recommended.  Make certain that the three extra chapters are included in the edition read.

 

One of many cover editions of this still popular book. 

 

In 1986 writer Frank Miller collaborated with artists Klaus Janson (inker), Lynn Varley (colorist) and John Constanza (letterer) to create the new and much darker Batman.  Batman: The Dark Knight Returns was a 4 series comic that changed forever the direction that comics would go.  My edition was the 30th anniversary one, with all 4 comics contained within one graphic novel volume.  The comics spawned the new Batman series and spinoffs.  This story features a Bruce Wayne who is now 55 years old and has been out of the loop for some 30 years.  Most civilians have forgotten him or think he was just a myth.  His comeback is at a time when Gotham city is at its lowest, most crime-ridden era.  He is soon joined by a new Robin, a 13 year girl gymnast.  Superman plays a major role in the story, and even Green Arrow makes appearances.  The story is darker than almost anything I have ever read.  Batman is hunted as a cruel vigilante by the police, and public opinion is turned against him.  Gangs of young people calling themselves Sons of Batman roam the streets acting against crime in his name.  The city is a complete mess, and then things get worse.  The Joker escapes prison and goes on a major killing spree.  Superman fights against Russia in a war, but after defeating them they unleash a nuclear bomb, a neutron bomb, that devastates the planet.

Many people still think that Batman is a superhero; he is not, and he has no superpowers.  His inventions are all science based, his luck in escaping dangerous situations is supreme, and he has good help.  But he is human.  I was never much into superheroes in my day.  My comic reading trended towards Tarzan, Conan, Magnus Robot Fighter, and their ilk.  The only other comic I have read on this return of Batman level of literary value and artistic quality has been The Watchmen.  Both graphic novels are well wroth seeking and reading.

 

Finally comes a novel from 2004 (trans. English 2007) by acclaimed Japanese writer Haruki, Murakami called After Dark.  It's a strange novel and hopefully far from the best by this prolific author, whom I am just discovering.  To me it seems like one of those novels that could fool readers into thinking they are reading something profound, when actually it's all rather prosaic with a few puffs of mist and smoke to dazzle us.  A 19 year old girl spends a long Tokyo night in family restaurants.  A young man who barely knows her and her sister invites himself to her table and they talk.  He is a jazz trombone player on his way to an all night practice session.  This meeting leads to most of the other events that occur in the novel, which is fairly short and easy to read.  I find very little to recommend this novel, though it won't stop me from trying a few of his more famous ones, such as Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.  While it's common for great authors to write works of lesser quality, it's a bit disheartening when one of them is the first one read.  The novel might work for younger readers who are ready to try something different than young adult novels or Harry Potter.  A 19 year old reader could possibly find this novel mysterious and fascinating in so many ways.  But not this old buzzard.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Sometimes at the end of a month I have a day or two extra, not enough time to begin a new novel.  In the past I have used the Oz stories and other quick reads, or the massive volume of fairy tales by Joseph Jacobs, taking many months to complete.  This month I began reading Stephen J Gould's 8th book of science essays, called Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and The Diet of Worms, compiled in 1998 from monthly articles he writes for Natural History magazine.  In the past I have read some of his earlier collections and found them fascinating and highly readable.  I don't know why I got away from them, but I am happy to be back.  The book is divided into six sections, and I read section 1 which contains three essays.  There is also a long intro by the author.  "The Upwardly Mobile Fossils of Leonardo's Living Earth" discusses how the great thinker discovered the fact that fossils, often found on high mountains, were once beneath the sea.  Leonardo's greatest efforts were towards proving the connection between man and planet, something he worked on till his dying day but never solved.  His fossil discovery, however, proved half of his theory.  Quite a fascinating read.  "The Great Western and the Fighting Temeraire" discusses how technology often progresses at the cost of earlier ways of achieving goals.  But of even greater interest is his discussion of Turner and artists in general, and how they are remembered as compared to great engineers or scientists.  Though a fun argument to read about, Gould forgets the fact that many artists, musicians and writers are totally forgotten today, though were once the talk of the town.  Finally comes "Seeing Eye To Eye, Through a Glass Clearly."  Here he points out how the invention of the aquarium not only popularized the study of sea and lake creatures, but how our point of view affected the study of natural history.  Seeing fish eye to eye was a new perspective and it revolutionized how we study such creatures today.  Before that, scientific illustrations usually showed the sea creatures looking like they do, but washed up on shore or leaping up out of the water.  All three essays make for a fascinating beginning and I look forward to continue with part 2 next month.

 

This painting in the Detroit Institute of Arts by Jan Van Kessel illustrates how water creatures were usually depicted before the invention of the aquarium 

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 2025 Reading Summary

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

Cover by Jack Gaughan. 

 

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

An interior illustration for Doyle's story. 

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind

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

 

Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song. 

 

And.... 

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

 

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

 

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

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

 

 

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

 

Mapman Mike