October Reading Summary

 Bulmer continues to rely on witches and their curses to move the action forward in Witches of Kregen, the 34th book in the Dray Prescott fantasy series (1985), though there is a grand traditional battle as well.  The opening chapter's rain of frogs is unique in fantasy literature, as I'm sure is the attack of stinging wasps.  Other plagues are thrown at Dray until he finally agrees to meet the female witch face to face.  It appears she has a crush on him, so we'll have to see how that turns out.  All of Dray's main warrior buddies are collected in this story for the first time, so I assume that nothing mortal could stand up to them when fighting together.  Thus the need for witches and their abominable black curses.  Fair enough, I suppose.  The Star Lords summon Dray yet again, unexpectedly as usual, but there is a neat twist this time around once he has completed his task.  This event sweetens the story somewhat, distasteful as the witchcraft is becoming.  Better than the previous book by far, but still a bit sub par for the series.

Cover by James Gurney. 

 

 #15 in the Dumarest series (The Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun) sees Earl besotted by a beautiful woman.  Does she really love him, or is she working for the evil Cyclan?  We visit several new planets (this series never seems to return to previous worlds) and Earl makes more tiny bits of progress in his search for Earth and the Sun.  Tubb must have sensed his fans' frustration with the series, but he never allowed Dumarest to reach Earth.  In this reviewer's opinion this was a tragic mistake.  Finally reaching Earth did not have to be the end; a good writer could have made it into an entirely new adventure series.  But Tubb seemed blind to the possibilities as he kept cashing his paycheck for writing these books with no end.  Once again Earl has to fight in a death match while a bloodthirsty crowd watches.  This has become a cliche of the series so far, happening far too often.  While the books are still fun to read, and I am continually amazed at Tubb's ability to write good stuff, I weary of much of it.  Whereas Bulmer manages to keep my interest fairly high in his nearly endless Dray Prescott series (more fantasy than SF), Tubb can't seem to get past a certain wall, making his readers suffer.  A good entry in the series, but not the best.

 

Moving now to the Delphi Classics Series, I began the month with a short play by Samuel T. Coleridge called The Fall of Robespierre, written in 1794.  Co-written with Robert Southey, it was meant more for recitation than stage performance.  There seems to be little sympathy for the man who began the purge of traitors to France and ended up accusing nearly everyone of that crime.  eventually fate caught up to him, though not soon enough for many victims.  French history is filled with rogues like this who thought they were saints.  Easily read at one sitting.

 

Wilkie Collins is a favourite writer of this reader, and his 1857 epic novel The Dead Secret is a somewhat readable story with Gothic overtones.  The big secret can be guessed by most modern readers very early on.  Since the story was written as a magazine serial, it tends to go on and on.  This would fit the category of women's fiction in its day.  I was hoping for a more supernatural spin to the story, but it never came.  The ending (it is in six "books") is very drawn out and very long.  Cut by about a third this could have been a much more effective book.  Not a favourite novel of mine by this author.

 

Two illustrations from the edition that I read. 

 

Next came Typhoon, a novella by Joseph Conrad from  1902.  Like the Collins story, it was first serialized in a magazine.  Unlike the Collins tale this one is to the point, with no extra words, sentences, or chapters present. The adventure novella takes place on board a British built steamer plying the China Sea.  Good descriptions of the captain, the ship and some of her crew preface the stormy weather, and preparing us for what is to come.  On board the ship are 200 Chinese workers returning home after a 7 year stint abroad.  They are all returning with money earned and saved.  In an introduction by the author, her stresses that it wasn't the storm or the captain that he wanted to highlight, but what went on below deck during the storm involving the 200 Chinese men.  Conrad says very little about them in the story, leaving a lot to the imagination (even it was something so terrible that I would rather not imagine it).  The storm is a major one, and as usual Conrad gives vivid pictures of what the ship and crew (and passengers) are up against.  The storm is so bad that it is difficult to imagine what it would be like, but we are given a rather good idea.  Parts of the storm are so bad that it seems almost comical, or so beyond normal comprehension that one can only laugh or cry.  If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is to trust the barometer.  This captain, greatly changed by his experience, could have taken measures to avoid the storm.  However, his reasons for not dodging it are given in his own words, and, being the captain, his word is law on board the ship.  Highly recommended, especially if you have ever been in a bad storm.

 

F. Marion Crawford's novel A Roman Singer from 1884 takes readers to sunny Rome.  The story is told by Cornelio Grande, step father to young Nino Cardegna.  As a child Nino loved to sing, eventually studying with a good teacher and becoming something of a sensation as a tenor on the opera stage.  He falls in love with a German girl and courts her.  Her Prussian ex-soldier of a father totally disapproves and removes her to a secluded location far from Rome.  It's up to Cornelio to track down her whereabouts while Nino is singing in Paris and London.  The novel reads much like a Gothic opera plot, complete with dark castle in the hostile mountains of northern Italy.  While not a great novel, it certainly isn't a bad one.  There is much humour in the telling, as Cornelio is against Nino's singing as well as his courting.  A older wandering violin virtuoso, who is also a rich Russian banker, also has hopes of landing the daughter for himself, after falsely pledging to help Nino win her.  It was a fun book to read, though hardly one that I would casually recommend.  There are better ones by the author.

 

     

Lastly this month comes Lord Dunsany's 1935 novel Up In The Hills.  The entire novel is told tongue in cheek by the narrator, but is true to its source.  The novel has a totally bizarre opening, with several archaeologists from Liberia descending upon a lonely bog outside a tiny village in Ireland.  The events take place in 1922, just after the country has won its independence from England.  The Black explorers end up digging up human bones along with the pottery and spear tips that they find.  This brings out the local wise women, who put daily curses on the diggers.  This makes everyone in the village terribly afraid of the near future.  The young local lads (around 20 years of age) decided to take to the hills for a spell until the dig has ended or the curses have come true.  It doesn't take them long to become in a "war" with a neighbouring army.  Micky, the young leader of his army of 9 souls, is up against a true fighter who was renowned for fighting the British and his 100 or so lads.  But both armies are interrupted by the arrival of the more official Irish army, after reports of shots fired in the hills have come down to them.

Dunsany has an ear for how the Irish would talk, and it is both humourous and musical to read parts out loud to oneself.  Conversations, even serious ones, tend to be pretty funny in this story, especially the ones young Mickey has with his grandfather, a wise old one who advises Mickey throughout the story.  Highly readable, chalk this one up as just another truly odd story I have come across and dutifully reported to you, my readers.  Recommended, though even Dunsany fans may be surprised by this one.  Pleasantly surprised, I would hope.  I will also add that this is probably one of the most off-beat novels I have ever read.

 

Mapman Mike 

July Books Read

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

I read the Delphi Kindle edition.

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

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

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

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

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

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

Book One of the series of three. 

 

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

 

Original cover of the first edition.

 

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

 

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

Mapman Mike

 

 

 
 

 

August Reading

Last night was a blue moon (the 2nd full moon within a given month) as well as a super moon (the moon being very close to Earth when it appears at full phase).  We try to celebrate each full moon, usually with a round dessert such as a special cake or pie (this time we have cherry pie!).  In addition, we often listen to an opera throughout that day.  Yesterday we listened to a short opera by Haydn, in two acts.  It was written for his marionette theatre at Esterhazy Palace, and is only one of two such operas to survive.  A devastating fire at the palace burned many of his original manuscripts, most of which had no outside copies.  He wrote dozens of operas that were lost forever.  Die Feuersbrunst (The Conflagration) is a comic opera that shows Haydn in a light that many listeners never get to see.  It is a very charming work, and imagining the puppets carrying out the action is part of the fun.  We also saw the super moon, finally rising above our trees around 11 pm.  It was really big!

Turning now to the month's reading, I made it through 10 books.  Five were required reading for completion of my Avon/Equinox project, and five were picked from my endless collection of other books to read, mostly on Kindle and from the Delphi Classics collection.

Robert Silverberg used 3 stories by Asimov to write different versions of them.  The Ugly Little Boy is an early story by Asimov that Silverberg has expanded into a full novel.  I talk about the Asimov story in my May reading blog from this year.  A little Neanderthal boy is essentially kidnapped by modern time travel science in order to study him.  He is assigned a nurse to look after him.  The main difference in Silverberg's expanded version is the addition of "Timmie's" tribe to the story, before, during, and following his captivity in present day Earth.  We get to see the tribe facing a grave danger, and the time spent with them is quite memorable.  As much as I enjoyed reading the Asimov story, I much prefer this version.  The ending is still somewhat open ended, but a lot more optimistic than the original could have allowed.  A good tale, well told and updated.

From 1976 comes Kenneth Bulmer's 140 page addition to the on-going sea saga of Mr. Fox, #13, Sea Flame.  He is still on land for the first half of the story, fighting the French near Alexandria in a gruesome battle based on historical truths.  Bulmer writes for Fox on land as well as he does at sea, but Mr. Fox makes things very clear that he would rather be at sea.  He has opportunity to capture some French soldiers, including a truly miserable colonel, a man who loathes Fox.  There is also a beautiful young English woman, a prisoner of the French, whom Fox frees and takes under his protective wing.  Returned to sea after the battle, Fox is assigned to take the prisoners back to England, as well as a lot of wounded soldiers.  It doesn't take long for a French ship to find them and attack, and then all hell breaks loose on board, as per normal for Mr. Fox and his crew.  With only one book remaining in the series, I look forward to its conclusion with some apprehension.  My life without a regular fix of Fox just will never be the same.  He is one of the great pulp action heroes of all time.

 

Tubb wrote at least 11 westerns, currently available on Amazon Kindle for $0.99 each!  I bought them all.  Since the Kindle price went way up on his Dumarest novels (from $4.99 each to $7.99), I have halted any further reading in that series until the price returns to something more decent. So get out your old set of spurs, your six gun, and that saddle you haven't used in years, and head out on the lonesome prairie with me for a spell.  The Gold Seekers comes from 1955, and is 117 pages long.  It is a fast read, and a darn good one.  I haven't read a western novel in many years, though I still enjoy many old western films, including the Anthony Mann directed ones (usually with James Stewart).  The hero of our story today is Marc, a former captain in the southern army during the Civil War.  With the war over and his plantation burned and kinfolk killed, he has become a lone cowboy wanderer.  After a saloon adventure (two of them, actually), he is forced to leave town.  He takes the job of scouting for a wagon train of 15 wagons and families, heading for the gold fields in California.  While all the usual western cliches are there, including plenty of Indian fighting, some of the cliches are turned on their heads.  For example, Marc has taken a 12 year old boy under his wing, training him to be a scout.  When the boy's Pa is killed by Indians in a battle, he becomes an Indian hater.  Tubb takes almost a full chapter (in a book of only 11 chapters) to explain to the boy why he shouldn't hate all Indians.  He gives a full and complete picture of the position the Indians are in due to the encroachment of the whites into their territory, including having all their buffalo slaughtered.  The only thing he omits is the giving of pox-filled old blankets to them.  I give Tubb a lot of credit here for presenting the Indian side of things.  This is a rousing good tale, and though the wagon train makes it to California, their original goal has broken apart to the point where none of them head for the gold fields; they take up farming instead.  And less than half of them have made it through the journey alive.  I am hoping his other westerns are as good as this one.

 

The Golden Barge is a dark fantasy novel from 1979, and is 120 pages long (189 pages in the paperback edition from 1979, above).  It is a flawed work by Michael Moorcock, but quite interesting nonetheless.  A man, Tallow, heads down river in a small boat, following a mysterious golden barge.  He can never quite catch it, though, and his adventures along the river make up the bulk of the book.  He sees it one day at home, and soon abandons his mother to follow the mysterious boat.  He comes across a castle and becomes involved there with a beautiful woman.  Later he becomes imprisoned in a city, held "for his own good."  After escaping, his adventures continue, and include becoming involved in a small country's revolution, finding an abandoned baby, kidnapping a young boy who he thinks can help him find the barge, and he even makes a quick journey across dimensions to a mysterious fairy land.

I believe that Moorcock was inspired by Lin Carter's fabulous Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, and if the series had continued no doubt Carter might have published this one as part of it.  A bit like Dunsany and a bit like Fletcher Pratt, and a bit like many others, including William Morris.  In turn, Moorcock may even have influenced P. J. Farmer in his memorable Riverworld series.  What is this strange tale all about?  Firstly, we all make a voyage, and it is called Life.  Along the way we make choices, choices which not only affect us, but others around us.  Tallow makes some very poor choices, some very selfish choices, and he is the cause of much death and tragedy around him.

 

Cover of the month goes to Amano Yoshitaka.  The volume contains short stories, novellas, and a novel, The Golden Barge.  Next month I will report on the shorter fiction.

Tallow seems to be searching for something mysterious, hoping to find it aboard the barge.  What does he hope to find?  Inner peace, for one thing.  His urge to keep searching is so strong that he cannot turn it off after a time, even though he has had more than enough opportunity to do so.  He is a man in search of a soul, in search of his own humanity, which continues to elude him at every bend in the river.  He is so deeply lost that he cannot find his way out, and it is difficult to blame him for the bad things that happen because of his choices.  He is what he is, and seems incapable of change.  Do you know anyone like that?  I'm certain that you do.  They are everywhere among us, causing pain and destruction as they blindly follow their own path, unseeing as they go.  Moorcock has created one of the strangest fantasy characters ever penned.  If nothing else, Tallow is unforgettable once you have met him.

 

From 1973 comes Malzberg's Night Raider, the first of 14 volumes about a lone man trying to end the drug scene in New York.  Good luck with that. One would have to be a murderer, a sadist, and a masochist.  Bert Wulff fits the bill.  A former Vietnam vet, he becomes a drug cop in New York.  But because he tries to play it straight, he makes few friends around the department.  He is shipped back to a patrol car, and is called to the scene of his girlfriend's death, apparently killed by an overdose.  He knows that she was not a user, and suspects the cartel of using her to get back at him.  Not likely.  More likely it was the NYPD that set it all up.  This might be made clear later, but in this first volume he goes after the cartel, after turning in his badge.  Malzberg takes us on a journey in this first book, as Wulff begins with the small fry.  The street corner pusher has to pay off his collector.  Wulff captures them both, tormenting them until they give the name of who they report to.  After disposing of them, he goes up the line.  And so on, until he gets the top man that we know of so far.  Six murders later, he still hasn't done much to clear up the street drug trade.  But give him time.  Though he is a lone wolf, he gets some help from a black rookie cop who partnered with him for a time.  Wulff is tough as nails, and reminds me a bit of a loose cannon version of Doc Savage.  The book is filled with violence of the vigilante kind, and moves along smartly.  It is an easy read, and follows a logical path up the chain of command.  There are virtually no women in major roles in book one.  This is a man's world.  It is a guilty pleasure to see the big men squirm under Wulff's unkindly intentions towards them, after acting so self assured and superior prior to meeting him.  Not great writing, but I'm sure the style will evolve.

 

Moving on to books by non Avon/Equinox authors, I began with F. Marion Crawford's second novel, Dr. Claudius, from 1883.  Approaching 400 pages in length, it is a sprawling tale of love and high seas adventure, in the high tradition of such writers as E R Eddison.  Women are to be adored and waited on hand and foot by men of the highest moral standards, preferably rich ones.  To be called a gentleman is likened to be called one of the gods, and indicates a man of unquestioned moral standards, and usually wealthy to boot.  Though at heart it truly is a love story, in detail this is a very amusing and highly likeable adventure.  It begins in Heidelberg, with philosopher Dr. Claudius living an isolated and scholarly life among his books, living in cheap and crowded rooms.  He comes upon a large inheritance from an uncle living in New York, though he has no plans to change his lifestyle or use any of the money.  Amusingly, this is no grey beard scholar, but a very tall, handsome, and sturdily built Swede.  A chance encounter with a beautiful woman on one of his private walks changes his entire outlook, and, of course, his life.  We get to cross the Atlantic on a steam yacht, and then we spend the rest of the story in New York and close by.  Though this is one of those books where very little actually happens, it encapsulates a lot about life in its humble pages.  Crawford himself was a friend to Isabella Stewart Gardner, and the woman in the story likely represents such a woman.  Rich reading, and rewarding.

The Blessing Of Pan was published in 1927, and is Lord Dunsany's 4th novel.  His first three novels, and many of his short stories, were published by Ballantine in the Lin Carter Adult Fantasy series back in the 1960s and 70s.  Had the series continued, Carter undoubtedly would have also published this gentle fantasy, about a parish vicar trying to save his flock from reverting to Paganism.  Like the other novels by this writer, I seemed to hit spots that were hot then cold.  Sometimes I felt that he was heading in exactly the right direction with the story, when it would take a sudden turn and I thought he was losing the thread.  But alas, Lord Dunsany knew better than me how to write a delicate tale about ancient practices returning to supplant Christianity in one small English village, and by the end of the novel I was convinced I had read something very rare, precious, and unusual.  Think of this as a kinder, gentler "Wicker Man."  The moods that this writer can create, evoking other times and other sensibilities, is most remarkable.  His descriptions of encroaching evening, and of the dawn, are rich beyond what words should be able to conjure.  There is humour in the tale, and much wisdom.  A fun book to read.

 

T. S. Eliot is a long way from Dunsany,  I read his chapbook collection (twice) published in 1917 called Prufrock and Other Observations, which includes 12 poems written between 1910 and 1917.  Born in St. Louis, he moved to England at the age of 25 (1914), settling there and eventually renouncing his American citizenship.  The lead poem of the set is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," a man who seems to be in the skids emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  It can be seen as a devastating look at life in the modern era, and the loneliness and isolation that can ensue.  The opening ten lines seem to encompass an entire modern novel!  And much later:  

"But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter.

I am no prophet--and here's no great matter,  

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid."

 

The other poems don't really compare to the main poem, though a few are humourous ("The Boston Evening Transcript," and "Cousin Nancy," and a few are quite profound, and several have lines that are entirely astounding.  Then there is the bizarre "Hysteria," which is a bit hard to describe, as a man watches a woman have a laughing fit.  The first poem, at any rate, is worth many more readings.

Next came 2 volumes of short stories by Nikolai Gogol.  Published in 1831-32, there are 4 stories in each volume, the whole called Evenings On A Farm Near Dikanka.  Gogol was born in the Ukraine, and grew up there.  These tales of peasant village life are among the best short stories ever written!  Having said that, there are small but blatant examples of anti-Semitism in nearly every story, despite there being no major Jewish characters. 

 

Vol. 1

"The Fair At Sorochinsti" is a straight forward tale about a young girl's first visit to the big wide world, as she, her father, and her stepmother visit the annual fair together for the first time.  Being 18 and sweet to behold, the young girl soon attracts the attention of a handsome young man, who determines that she must be his wife.  However, getting past the wicked stepmother is not an easy task.  A funny tale that keeps one reading until the very end.  The incredible superstitious fears of villagers is introduced in this story, which will blossom forth in future tales.

 

"St. John's Eve" is a story about the devil and how he was able to talk a young man into doing his evil deeds, in exchange for enough gold to wed the village girl whom he loves.  The story is framed humourously, but the tale itself is a classic horror one, with a very sad ending.

"May Night" nails down several aspects of Ukrainian village life.  Courting a girl is given top priority in this tale, as are the village night pranks of youths, both male and female.  Another supernatural tale makes its way into the narrative, and capturing an evil witch finally allows the village headsman's son to marry his girlfriend, Hanna.  Obviously Gogol is writing down some of the tales he heard growing up, preserving them for future generations, and building his narrative around such tales.  Wonderful atmosphere, with simple and direct writing.

"The Lost Letter" is another tale of the devil and witchcraft, and again not without humour.  A village man is given the task of delivering a letter to the Czarina in the capital city, and rides his horse towards completion of his goal.  He encounters the devil on the way, and has a very funny conclusion to his first attempt at delivering the letter, ending up back at his house, but up on the roof.  His second attempt is successful, however.  A grandfather tells this story to his grand kids, after much coaxing, as he does not relish the memory of it happening to him.  A gem of a tale.

Vol. 2

"Christmas Eve."  Many of these stories (this one is a novella) are very much like paintings by Marc Chagall--they are colourful, bizarre, folk-like, whimsical, and different from most other short stories in many ways.  This one might have been called 'The Enchanted Blacksmith,' as a young man goes far out of his way to win Oksana, the girl he desires.  His mother is a witch, the devil helps him get the Czarina's slippers, and all of this (and much else, including a lot of mayhem) takes place on Christmas Eve.  Expect the unexpected in these totally delightful early tales of Ukraine village life, seemingly unchanged from medieval times.

"A Terrible Vengeance" is a serious novella lacking any humour, and featuring some truly evil deeds.  A warped sorcerer wants to marry his beautiful daughter (I warned you), even though she is already married and has a baby son, and he goes to some pretty sick lengths before disaster strikes one and all.  An epilogue explains how it was that the sorcerer finally met his doom.  Grim but fascinating reading.

 "Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt" is an incomplete novelette about a shy man retired from the army who returns to his family farm to work on it.  His aunt has been looking after things for him, but she can no longer manage it on her own.  She wants to see him married, but he is too shy and doesn't want anything to do with it.  The story ends abruptly, hinting at a continuation which never came.

"A Bewitched Place" is a short story about a place where nothing will grow.  Fully expecting to find a treasure beneath the ground, a man finds an old urn.  With great effort he brings it forth and rolls it home to unpack his treasure.  What was inside?  Mud.

Espedair Street, from 1987, is Iain Banks' fourth novel.  It is a mock autobiography of a fictional Scottish lad who becomes a very big rock star.  This tragi-comedy is a very fun thing to read, all 361 pages of it. Daniel Weir (as Weir, D. on his school record, and thus nicknamed "Weird") thinks he can write hit songs, and goes looking for a band to play them and make him rich and famous.  Low and behold, he finds a band and they soon land a record contract for an album.  The album turns into a great seller, and they sign a three album contract.  The tours begin, and the money pours in.  All the cliches of rock band tours are here: the fast cars, the alcohol, the drugs, the mansions and parties, the deaths.  But they are handled with Banks' usual flair for writing, leaving readers amused, shocked, and saddened, sometimes all on the same page.  Danny is 6' 6", quite homely and clumsy, and mostly likes to stay in the background.  This makes him a much more likeable character than if he'd been an egomaniac rock star, looking at himself in the mirror over and over.  We also get a nice peek at some backstreets of Glasgow, where Danny grew up.  This is a very entertaining and highly readable novel.

A Strange Disappearance is from 1880, written by mystery writer A. Katherine Green, her second novel.  The novel features Inspector Gryce, who featured prominently in her first novel.  He has a large role in this story, too, but a younger inspector relates the story and really gets the credit for solving the mystery of a young woman's disappearance.  I found this story easier to swallow than the first novel by Green, though it also suffers from that fear of scandal that seemed to foretell doom to influential families in stories from this time period and later.  For one thing, the novel is shorter and much more tightly written.  There is very little, if any, extraneous material, and much of the action takes places in two houses in close proximity to one another.  However, we do get outside of New York for a fascinating trip to Vermont, where a further mystery and adventure awaits the young inspector.  For another thing, we get to meet a young woman whose father and brother are criminals to their core, yet she remains clean and decent despite her upbringing.  They are truly ugly characters, and the mysterious disappearance comes directly from their actions.  One strange thing, though.   A girl was kidnapped, apparently for ransom, and is kept hidden.  However, no clear way to offer her up for ransom ever emerges.  Were they going to just keep her there forever, always having to guard her?  Anyway, a short and enjoyable mystery novel awaits curious readers.

In conclusion, I continue to make progress on two long term reading projects.  Joseph Jacob's 1750 page volume Complete Fairy Tales is a treasure worth seeking out.  It not only contains a ton of tales, but it is also a scholarly work where he discusses the sources and different versions of each story, and comments upon them.  I am about 60% of the way through.  My Kindle edition cost me around $3.  I am also slowly making my way through 70 Wonders of the Ancient World, a book purchased many years ago in London.  I read I through back then, but am rereading it now.  It's well worth tracking down.

An older purchase, this is a fascinating book.  I am on my second time through it.

 

An indispensable volume for lovers of fairy tales.  I am taking my time with it. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

May Reading Summary

I easily made it through my usual 8 books by remaining authors in the Avon/Equinox project.  The only author I am really tired of is Piers Anthony.  I am going to finish reading the actual books of his I have in my possession, and not purchase any ones I don't have.  I hit some amazing stories this time around by the other writers, so here we go.

First came the next volume of the collected stories of Robert Silverberg, called The Palace At Midnight 1980-82.  Volume 5 of the collected stories contains 23 stories and an intro by the author.  Each individual story also has a short intro by the author.  Seven of the stories turned into top notch ones, with several others being excellent as well.  The best of the them was Homefaring, a novella; The Changeling, Jennifer's Lover, Thesme and Gayhrog (from a short story collection tied to the Majipoor series), The Pope of the Chimps, Gianni, and The Man Who Floated in Time.  Details of these and other stories and books mentioned here can be found at my Avon Equinox blog site.

So things got off to a roaring start.  Then came a novel by Piers Anthony.  The book likely sold well, due to a brilliant cover (which wins this month's Cover of the Month), and the name attached to the story.  It was called Mercycle, and must be avoided by readers at all cost.  If you want proof that just about anything will be published once an author's name is out there, look no further.  First written in 1971, the book was rejected by numerous publishers.  For once, Anthony agreed with them; it was his worst novel.  So he dusted it off, rewrote it, added 25,000 more words, and ended up with--a total mess that should not have been published.  Published in 1991, it is a crime against science fiction and fantasy.

Cover of the Month, by Barclay Shaw.  This colourful and intriguing cover hides a very bad novel. 

Mercifully, along cames Harry Harrison to the rescue.  King and Champion, from 1996, is the third and final book of the author's totally brilliant historical fantasy trilogy, The Hammer and the Cross.  By now it has gone beyond being a totally fantastic series of Vikings versus the English.  The action shifts to the Mediterranean Sea, and the action is almost nonstop.  We learn the real truths behind not only the Grail (which is not a cauldron after all), but what happened to Jesus once he was taken down from the cross (hint: he did not resurrect, because he never died).  This book is the best of the three, and the other two were fantastic to read!  Each book is very long, exceeding 500 pages, but they literally fly past.  Great story!!

Kenneth Bulmer's continuing seafaring adventure series was next.  While very short, these novels are great examples of the best king of pulp style writing.  Fox 3: Prize Money is among the best of Bulmer's writing.  He is not shy to show his great sense of humour, and the way Mr. Fox ends up at the end of the story is quite hilarious.  His prize money (loot from captured galleons) isn't quite what he expected.  He also manages to mostly save the British navy in each book, and not get any credit for it (he is not high born).  A fun series, but devastating at the same time.

Next came Iron Head, a collection of five stories by E C Tubb, another great writer of pulp SF.  The title story is the best of the bunch, detailing what it might be like to be the only non-telepath in a society of telepaths.  Would there be advantages to such a situation, or only condemnation and third class citizenship?  Mr. Tubb will be pleased to tell you all about it.

Jack Williamson was 91 when The Silicon Dagger was published. From 1999 comes this 334 page misnamed adventure thriller.  Any SF element does not become apparent until almost page 190.  Up till then it is a political thriller, with rednecks from Kentucky trying to take over the USA.  A better title would have been The Silicon Shell (as in domed city). The author has a lot to say about the information age and internet (which he calls infonet in the story), as well as freedom, overreach of government, racism, armed militias, and lots of other things that seem to be more current each and every day.  I liked the book up until the SF element makes a rude entrance.  Williamson was not around to see the thing on live TV as we did, when Trump and his supporters tried to take over the White House, claiming that they had not lost the election.  As ugly as that scene was, Williamson's is much uglier when one digs underneath just a little bit.  Try to imagine nearly every county in the US (thousands of them) suddenly deciding they wanted "freedom."  To call this book politically incorrect doesn't  go far enough; it is dangerously politically naive, despite several good points the book brings out.  Read it for yourself and decide.

Next to Harrison's volume, the best book of the month (and best book of many months) was Michael Moorcock's highly imaginative and very effective look at moments in history, called Breakfast In The Ruins, from 1971.  Forget the interludes between two gay men.  Forget the ridiculous "What Would You Do?" segments after each chapter.  Just read the main text, a group of very loosely related historical tales featuring the same character in each story, at a different age.  This is high octane writing at its finest, and the segments would make such a great series of short films.  My favourite one is longer than most of them, and involves Karl as a child getting unwittingly involved with Russians escaping the secret police in Russia, coming to 1905 London to start new lives, and still having to deal with them.  The story is devastating not just for what happens, but for the setting itself, and the people who are trapped by their poor paying jobs, working all hours of the day and into the night.  Each of the tales is a window into worlds that people don't often shine lights into.  They are parts of true history best forgotten, according to many.  But Moorcock gives us scenes of horror from many different countries and times, each one sacrificing a different version of Karl.  The stories don't really even have to be read in any particular order, if the linking story is ignored.  This book must be read.

Lastly came a novel by Malzberg, who hits the 3rd home run of the month (after Harrison and Moorcock), with his unforgettable Lady of a Thousand Sorrows, from 1977.  It is a fictional account of the inner life of Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, and is so brilliant and devastating that Istill can't believe that someone wrote this, and that I stumbled across it.  To a certain generation, the Kennedy assassination was the most traumatic event of our childhood, showing us for the first time that the world could change overnight, and not for the better.  Malzberg gets into  the head of a very private person.  She either would have died laughing if Jackie had read this story, or tried everything in her power to sue for damages.  This a story of stories, told by a master of being able to get inside the minds of warped people.

I began my project of reading the Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Series, and then expanded to reading the complete works of those 24 authors represented in the series, six years ago June 1st.  Since then I have read 684 books by those authors (all male, unfortunately).  In this year (#6), I read 102 books, mostly by the remaining 8 authors.  However, in addition I also read 46 books unrelated to my main reading project since last June.  These I call my off the shelf reads, as I try to clear a backlog of novels and non-fiction that have been accumulating on my shelves, awaiting their turn.  This month I managed to read 6 of those, though only one was truly off the shelf.

That one was called A Book of Five Rings, a translation of the famous strategy guide by Musashi.  He had a unique way of killing opponents that seems to have worked well for him, but his ability to communicate his methods to readers is woefully inadequate.  His aversion to schools of martial arts means that we can only try to guess at what he says most of the time.  Still, a lot of his words have been incorporated into these arts for a very long time, likely because they are common knowledge and logical in the first place.  As a person who has studied judo, karate, and iado, I can vouch for the benefit of schools and teachers.  Trying to learn these things from a book just doesn't work very well.  However, a person must also carve out some individuality within these teachings, as must a good piano student from their teacher.  Not a very helpful book, though it does contain several nuggets worth considering.

Next, I greedily read five books from different authors in my Kindle editions of Delphi Classics.  First came Basil, by Wilkie Collins, his first non-historical novel, published in 1852, with some corrections and a new introduction from 1862.  Ah, there is nothing quite like the fever pitch that can be reached in a true Victorian novel, and Basil does the job magnificently.  Consider poor Basil.  Younger son in an old and well established English family, he falls hopelessly in love at first sight with a beautiful young woman (a girl, actually) on an omnibus, a draper's daughter.  He marries her, but promises her father that the marriage will not be physically fulfilled for one year, when the girl will turn 18.  Everything must be kept top secret from his family, of course, as papa is completely intolerant of having anything to do with mere trades people.  The plot thickens as the emotionless, mysterious draper's business aid is seen to have almost total control over the young woman (Margaret).  The story becomes thick and involved, and of course the dreaded "brain fever" strikes our poor hero when he realizes he has been betrayed.  This being only Collins' second novel, by mid-19th C standards it's a pretty good story.  But the hero, Basil, is such a milquetoast that this reader wants to grab and shake him violently at several key moments in the plot, shouting "Do something, you incompetent fool!"

Next came the best book about late 19th C sea travel ever written, saddled with the most unfortunate title of Nigger of the Narcissus.  Joseph Conrad's 1898 novel also uses the "n...." word copiously in the story, thus dooming it from school reading lists, and probably many libraries, today.  While the story centres around Jimmy, a black East Indian sailor, it is mostly about shipboard life on a sea journey from Bombay to London.  Hell, thy name is shipboard life in 1898.  Things don't go too badly until the feared passing of the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa.  This is still a very bad area in which to sail a ship.  The good ship Narcissus encounters a storm of storms, and its fate is narrated with such vivid and detailed descriptions that it will seem as if you, the reader, are on board the boat.  I have never read this Conrad novel before, no doubt put off by the title (which was changed for American publication at the time).  It turned into one of the best novels I have ever read, with drama, humour, insight, a fight against Nature to the death, and more demonstration of sea and ship knowledge than I have ever encountered.  Very highly recommended.  Readers will never think of the ocean in quite the same way after this book.

 After that came another tremendous highlight of my reading career, F Marion Crawford's first novel, Mr. Isasacs, from 1882.  Paul Griggs, an American, is in northern India, working for a newspaper (The Howler!).  He meets the most extraordinary man he has ever met, a Mr. Isaacs, who turns out to be Persian (Iranian), and a learned and very charismatic man.  They become fast friends, and when Mr. Isaac falls madly in love with an English girl, Griggs is there to help him out.  The story takes place after a disastrous encounter in Afghanistan with the British army, and the plot involves rescuing the Emir of Afghanistan from British custody.  However, the plot aside, what make this book so wonderful are the lengthy and varied philosophical discussions the two main characters have, at all hours of the day and night.  It is like an Indian version of My Dinner With Andre, only the discussions here are much more interesting, stretching from females, men, humanity, mysticism, through to the soul.  I found the book fascinating, despite the tiger hunt.

Next was Edgar Wallace's first great mystery novel, the one that nearly bankrupted him when he turned it into a contest to see if anyone could guess the solution to the word puzzle.  A Case For Angel, Esquire is from 1908, and is almost a direct rebuke of the Holmes and Watson stories.  Here we have a most competent and highly intelligent and well informed Scotland Yard detective on the trail of a group of bandits (they are almost comical, and remind me of the Beagle Boys from the Scrooge comics) trying to steal the inheritance of a young lady.  Wallace might be the most prolific author England ever produced, so I look forward to many more hours of fun and pleasure with his upcoming stories.  The lead character, detective Angel Esquire (his odd name is explained near the beginning) also featured in two short stories, which were included with the novel at this point.  "The Yellow Box" is an amusing tale, simply told and easily solved by the detective, reminds me of the first story in the successful African detective series by McCall Smith.  Much longer and more serious is "The Silver Charm," from 1910, which also has amusing aspects, telling a bit about the hero's time in west Africa, which leads to the solution to a mystery.  Several hundred short stories and novels await me.

Lastly came the 3rd Oz book by Frank L Baum, written at the request of children who sent him letters asking for more about Oz.  Ozma of Oz features Dorothy and all her original Oz friends, in addition to some new ones.  The wind up man Tiktok is introduced to readers, and Bill (Billian) the hen.  Dorothy's adventures take place mostly in another kingdom across the desert from Oz, but once her friends arrive to help free 11 captives of the Nome King, things seem as if they are back in a part of Oz.  The writing is truly delightful and fun for an adult to read, and the colour and black and white illustrations, beautifully rendered in my Kindle edition, add zest and energy to the story.

The original cover of the 3rd Oz book.

One of many colour illustrations from the novel, reproduced in my Kindle version from Delphi Classics.  Dorothy and Ozma bargain with the Nome King. 

And so begins a new year of reading within the Avon/Equinox authors, and a continuation in the pruning of my miscellaneous book shelf.  As promised near the end of the last blog entry, I am about to reveal a new reading project, that I will hopefully undertake in the near future.  Since the Avon/Equinox project was an entirely male author reading project, I am going to try and make some amends by embarking on an all female SF author reading project.  I will begin with the Hugo and Nebula winners, and possibly branch out from there.  I will likely bypass the fantasy winners (such as J K Rowling), and try to stick to SF authors.  More later as I develop a reading program.

Mapman Mike