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 Summary

 

With Allies of Antares (1981) now behind me I am halfway through the Dray Prescott series by Kenneth Bulmer, writing as Alan Burke Akers.  Yikes!  At about 150 pages per book, I have read nearly 4000 pages so far.  That's much more than Tolkien wrote of Middle Earth (how I wish there were more!).  In the last book Dray's Vallians had finally defeated the hated enemy that had invaded and spoiled their country.  That war was all thanks to a nasty empress.  Now that she and her evil wizard are both dead, a true king is being raised in her stead, with the full support of Vallia and her allies.  But a rogue band of enemy soldiers will not bow to the new king and are set on destruction of all Vallians, and wish to usurp the throne with their own ninny king.

The book opens with the comical equivalent of Tolkien's long chapter "The Council of Elrond," as a massive peace conference is underway.  The opening paragraph of the novel is a classic one, and sets the tone for the impossibility of the task at hand.  Dray tries to keep out of it, as he gets too easily frustrated.  He is a warrior and not so much a diplomat.  The novel details the roundabout and dangerous way that events take before things are finally settled.  There are several exciting chapters filled with action, including the assassination attempt on the new King in the public baths, and of course the climactic battle scene.  All along Dray has been passing himself off as one of the enemy, so the book is filled with surprised friends of his who did not know he was Emperor of Vallia.  A lot of politics gets settled here, as well as battle outcomes.

Dray has become a very engaging hero, somewhat like his Mr. Fox from his sea adventure books (see below).  His relationships with his sons and daughters have mostly been clarified.  Some of the disguises he had to use in earlier volumes made them think he was a coward and an enemy, but that has mostly been cleared up.  With one exception.  He still has a rogue daughter out there somewhere who is out to kill him due to more misunderstandings.  So the adventures will continue for another 26 books.  See you then!

 

Who needs an author's name on a book cover.
 

 From 1974 comes The Gholan Gate, the 7th book in the Cap Kennedy series by E. C. Tubb.  It's 124 pages can be read at one sitting.  Throughout the special agent series we have heard of the Zheltyana, an extinct civilization that spread throughout the galaxy perhaps a million years ago.  One of Cap's team, the old professor, has made a special study of any traces left behind from these people.  At last we discover one of those artifacts.  The Gholan Gate is likely one of these leftovers from a vastly superior race.  The gate, once entered, can make a person's wishes and beliefs come true.  If someone, for instance, fantasized about living in Camelot, then that fantasy would be recreated by the mind's link to the powers of the gate.  No one knows what the purpose of the gate originally was, but now it is being used by a sinister religious cult to recruit assassins.  Potential victims are led to the gate, and allowed to experience it several times.  They are told that if they commit their assassination they will be allowed to remain permanently within the world of the gate.  It's up to Cap and his team of three assistants (the old professor, a strongman, and a chameleon-like person) to put a stop to things.  Of course that means destroying the gate and the cult, something that the professor is against.  A good entry in the series, but with a very abrupt ending (it's all about word count in pulp fiction). 

This is very little of Phoenix, and certainly no inferno in Malzberg's next book in a series about a lone vigilante taking on the drug empire.  The denouement takes place outside of Mexico City.   The 12th book in the Burt Wulf series is from 1975 and is 165 pages long.  Called Phoenix Inferno I admit to be getting quite sick of Wulf, and I'm sure Malzberg was, too.  The series was supposed to be ten books, but that got pushed to fourteen.  Two more to go.  We don't get as much about Wulf in this book as in many of the other ones, though his sad story does get retold in some detail, with a few new nuggets added.  A lot of the book gets into the heads of the men Wulf is after, notably Carlin, who has control of the heroin scene in the southwest US.  Carlin's fear gets the better of him when he learns that Wulf is again on the prowl, and he sends men out to hunt him down.  But he knows that will never stop Wulf, and he panics.  He murders his girlfriend and one of two bodyguards he keeps at his house, then heads for Mexico City, thinking he will be well looked after there by his supplier friends.  Malzberg is quite the expert at describing people going insane, and the way they rationalize their outrageous actions.  This is another good entry in the series, especially the part where Wulf buddies up with one of the failed assassins sent out to get him.  His sympathy for the two bodyguards of the Mexico City boss also pays off, and provides an unusual moment in the story.

 

The Skraling Tree is from 2003, another Michael Moorcock fantasy featuring Elric, The Albino.  I am reminded of so many Dr. Who series that feature the Master.  After a few appearances he became nothing but a TV trope.  He would appear with new allies, a new evil plot (to take over the universe, or some such idea), and was completely invincible until the final 4 or 5 minutes of the final episode of the series.  After being defeated soundly (for the upteenth time) he would somehow escape, ready to go again in a new series.  Yawn.  And so we have Elric, Oona, and Count Bek out to save the universe yet again (or rather, all of them) from the same old bad guys we have seen in several past Elric stories.  These bad guys have been defeated so many times, but they do have stamina, since they keep reappearing like the Master, ready with a new and surefire scheme.  Yawn.  This time Moorcock tries to set his story in North America, sort of.  He does a lousy job of it.  Mixing in Indian mythology with Norse, and several layers of his own invention, the book is a sketch of a book, and nothing more.  The author doesn't bother to give us any real feel for where we are or what our heroes are doing, or are supposed to do.  We follow along as if on a journey where we not only do not know where we are or where we are going, but why we are going.  This gets old very quickly.  He tells his story from three different perspectives, adding to the confusion and overall senselessness of his tale.  Moorcock can be a very good writer, and often is.  But he can certainly turn out poor and boring work, too.  The story will appeal to people who really don't want any idea of what is happening or why.  My favourite part of the story is when an old dinosaur is located and killed; we get a sense of Moorcock's ability to really hit home with strong feelings and sympathy.  And my favourite character in the book, by far, is Bes the mastodon.  Her appearances are always welcome additions, since most of the other characters are made of pure cardboard.  Not a recommended Elric story. 

We now leave the Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery authors and move on to the Delphi Classics series.  I keep adding authors to my collection, and this month I read a collection of early short stories by H. C. McNeile, or "Sapper" as he was often called.  We'll get to Bulldog Drummond eventually, so hang in there.  The Lieutenant and Others is from 1915 and contains a dozen stories.  Written during WWI, the first story sets the mood, offering readers a glimpse into the degradation and inhuman pastime of trench warfare.  Called "The Lieutenant: A Fortnight In France May 10-24 1915," it tells of a young man with privileges due to a rich father becoming an officer in the Great War and heading over to the trenches near Ypres.  His short-lived experiences are harrowing enough to change his entire outlook on life, and on the 14th day he is wounded and sent back home.  This is one of those stories that makes one really wonder why there are still wars.  Haven't we had enough yet?  A truly solid and very good piece of writing.  Next came a much shorter tale along the same lines, as a man visits Ypres before and after the bombardment.  Called "The End of Wipers," today it might be called The End of Kiev, or The End of Palestine, or even The End of Khartoum.  Etc.    Very effective in a very short story.  Third came "The Black Sheep," about a lowlife man who enlists, but still remains a lowlife.  His end, however, is not different from any number of fine upstanding young men who also enlisted.

"James and The Land Mine" details how a soldier who doesn't care much for what is going on around him sets off a land mine charge ahead of schedule.  "The Sixth Drunk" describes an Irish soldier whose highlight of the week is his ration of rum, and how a dying colonel got that soldier's character so wrong.  "The Mine" is the story of Davy Jones, a Welsh miner tasked with building an underground cavern beneath a German trench, in order to set explosives.  A lot of the stories, such as this one and the one before, are not only poignant but quite humourous.  "Driver Robert Brown" is one of the best war stories I've ever read, about an average guy who enlists, wins no medals, but whose humanity strikes at the heart of what it means to be compassionate.  A truly wonderful tale.  "The Coward" is the type of story that most writers would foul up, as they would simply revile the character.  But McNeile gets deep, and instead of pouring scorn on the man who deserts his company as they head once again into the trenches, he gets into his head to see what exactly is going on there.  While no one can really like a coward, it helps to understand exactly where he is coming from.  This story manages to do that, in a few short pages.

"Ebeneezer The Goat" is the humourous account concerning Driver Robert Brown, whose demise occurred in the previous story.  Brown was a man who was kind to animals, and he inherited a goat.  Somehow the goat always intersected violently with the major, drawing the ire of the officer.  Brown tries to hide the goat in an underground unused mine, but this leads to the Belgians believing that the Germans are tunnelling beneath.  And so forth.  Whereas the story of Ebeneezer is humourous, "The Pepnotised Milk" is truly hilarious.  A bottle of special milk is sent to the men in the trenches, courtesy of an aunt of one of the men.  Very, very amusing.  "Will You Take Over His Horse, Sir?" is another hard hitting tale of the death of a young officer.  McNeile manages to almost casually tell stories that are truly heart-rending.  In this one the author speaks mostly to a cavalry horse that outlives his master.  Truly devastating.  "The Aftermath" is the final story, and it details what happens after a battle has been wone and the clean up crew takes over.  For one thing, there are a lot of human and horse bodies and less complete remains to be buried.  Told quietly but with effect.  All in all this is a first rate collection of stories of the Great War, told in small doses that are much more effective than describing big battles.  Not a bad story in the lot, and quite a few are among the best I've ever read.  Highly recommended.

George Meredith is an author I first came across in reading and reviewing the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series (see separate blog).  He is one of the wittiest writers I have ever come across, certainly on a par with Oscar Wilde and Shaw, though his style is very different.  Readers of his 1861 novel Evan Harrington have to read a lot between the lines, and fill in some blank spaces between events.  This is a very long novel which took me 8 1/2 days to read.  I likely read it too quickly, as I am certain that a reread would showcase even more of the author's genius in dissecting the hypocrisy, contradictions and two-faced lives of the born aristocrat.  Evan is the son of a tailor, and when his father dies he must assume debts and pay them off.  His father was a wannabe gentleman, and Evan's three older sisters are trying to raise him as a gentleman.  The eldest sister, Louisa, is really the star of the show here, and Meredith throughout the narrative describes her as a military General leading her forces into battle, building allies and fighting off enemies as she tries to insert her brother into an aristocratic family (who really are not any such thing) by marrying him to the daughter.  Skirmishes, battles, setbacks and more setbacks are encountered by Louisa, yet each time she seems to emerge able to handle the new challenges ahead.  There is really no other character quite like her in literature, and though vile, untrustworthy, and scheming, she does it all for the good of her family, especially Evan.  This is a true wonder of a novel, and why it has not been adapted as a mini-series is a gross oversight that I hope someday will be rectified.  Perhaps it's still too scathing for believers in an English class system to swallow.  Highly recommended.

**** stars.

A. Merritt's Seven Footprints To Satan is from 1927, a crime thriller that has elements of fantasy.  Arch criminal "Satan" kidnaps Kirkham and forces him to undertake a museum robbery.  Satan is a mastermind on the level of Moriarty and Fu Manchu, and his isolated mansion is a warren of secret doors, elevators, and passageways.  Through drugs he controls the minds of many henchmen, but he has also attracted many intelligent and faithful followers.   His main claim to fame is his stairway with seven steps leading up to his throne, each with a footprint on it.  One takes one's chances by choosing any four footprints to step upon.  Step on the correct ones and Satan promises happiness and riches beyond belief.  Step on the wrong ones and one might expect to do a single service for the master, or owe him a year's service, or a lifetime of service, or instant death.  What his followers don't realize is that the footprints are rigged, so that Satan chooses the outcome he desires for each person.  It's up to Kirkham and his few allies to outwit Satan and prove to his followers that he has cheated them all along.

Satan's other claim to fame is the vast number of world treasures he has stolen, keeping them in his mansion for his own pleasure.  This is a cut away from the usual master criminal.  In Kirkham's words, "It came to me that he loved beauty even more than he did power; that he considered power only as a means toward beauty.  And that, evil though he was, he knew beauty better than any one alive."  Merritt has written a pretty decent crime novel, and it was made into a film in 1929.  I will be on the lookout for it.  The novel is certainly great fun to read, certainly one of the author's better efforts.

One of many editions of this still popular novel. 

 

Kwei Quartey is a practicing M.D. who has written several mystery novels set in Ghana, mostly Accra.  His first novel is from 2009 and is called Wife of The Gods.  Not having too many scoops into central African daily life and customs, I found this book as refreshing as the Navajo mysteries of Tony Hillerman.  Like all good Hillerman mysteries, the reader walks away from the finished book with a lot more than just a solved mystery.  While Quartey does not have the skills in this first book to really draw characters well, he does have a gift for story telling, and for holding our (mostly white) hands as he leads us through the good and the bad of African life.  Wife is set mostly in a very small town several hours away from Accra, where Detective Inspector Darko Dawson lives with his wife and six year old son.  So we learn much about village life in modern day Africa, and not so much about Accra (yet).  The mystery revolves around the murder of a young female medical student in a forest, volunteering at a local Aids clinic.  We meet many characters who are suspects, as well as ones who are helpful in tracking down the real killer.  We come across superstitious belief in witches, purveyors of traditional medicines, two bully local policemen, as well as a distrust of people from the city.  The book is crammed with local colour, and was an eye opening read for me.  Darko is a flawed character, too often flying off the handle and beating arrested suspects.  But he has good friends around him, including a retired detective that inspired Darko to become one himself.  More than one murder mystery gets solved in this book, too.  Fun to read and recommended for those mystery readers who need to be somewhere besides London, New York, or LA.

 

The Moth Presents All These Wonders is the first of three hardcover collections of true stories told by various people, many of them professional writers, actors, comedians, or celebrities in other fields.  The Moth is a type of club where people meet to tell their stories to one another in many different locations across the world.  From 2017, this collection contains 45 stories told by the people that they happened to.  Each of the 45 stories is worth hearing/reading, but there will be some that really strike to certain people's hearts.  I had a number of favourites including the first story, "The Moon and The Stars Talk."  A teenage girl has her mind opened up by conversations she has with Mark, a millionaire whom her mother worked for.  In "The Girl From Beckenham," a school dropout turned hairdresser gets to leave her own mark upon the world in a very unique manner.  "God, Death, and Francis Crick" again pairs a young person with a venerable older and wise person.  "Fog of Disbelief"tells the story of a nuclear plant engineer at Fukishima, and what happened to him on that fateful day.  "Walking With RJ" tells of a mother and son relationship after he has a terrible and debilitating accident.  "Go The %&# To Sleep" tells how a dad became a professional writer after putting down his inner monologue when his young daughter takes hours to fall asleep at night.  The stories vary between almost unfathomable tragedy to hilarious comedy.  "Stumbling In The Dark" is told by John Turturro, and the relationship he has with his mother and his brother, the latter of whom lives inside an asylum.  It recounts his experience during the great blackout of 2003, which affected us here at the Homestead as well.  "On Approach To Pluto" tells the story of what a female mission specialist felt when the Pluto mission encountered severe problems just before its arrival.  The final story is "California Gothic," a very funny tale of life as a 12 year old in LA during the early 1970s.

I will be ordering the other two volumes soon.  In the meantime, the Moth website is filled with podcasts and a library of stories to hear.  I cannot recommend this book, and the website, highly enough.  It is a life changing experience to hear these stories. 

 

The Three Mulamulgars is a children's story from 1919 by Walter de la Mare.  Recommended by my friend Thierry in Paris who publishes fantasy novels at his French press Callidor, it's taken me a while to get to it, but I finally got around to reading it.  First off, let me say that this must have been a real challenge to translate into French!  There are so many nonsense words in the vocabulary that reading it in English is challenging enough.  The story of three monkey brothers leaving their homeland to follow in their father's footsteps is an epic tale of hardship in the tradition of The Hobbit and Wizard of Oz.  The journey undertaken by large-sized Thumb, skinny bones Thimble, and youngest and smallest Nod will certainly appeal to lovers of Bilbo and Dorothy.  It seems unlikely that this tale would have been as good without Baum's tales.  And it seems unlikely that Tolkien's novel would have been as good without de la Mare's classic.  Having said this, of course all three novels mentioned above are among the most original children's fantasy novels ever written.  That de la Mare's can stand up there with the best of them will be evident to anyone having read the book.  There are unforgettable adventures along the way, including meeting characters such as Andy Battle, Ghiba, and the Water Midden.  The usually warm jungle is suddenly hit with a winter that no one has ever seen, greatly complicating the expedition.  The way the author blends real geography with fantasy geography is quite a marvel, especially through the sailor Andy Battle and his songs and stories.  All in all this is one of literature's great adventure novels, suitable for young and old, and worth reading more than once.  It was a great choice for Callidor, too.

 

Cover of the Callidor Press (French) version of the novel.  Art by 

Anouk Faure.  Check out their website!   

 

Mapman Mike

 

November 2023 Reading Summary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

Mapman Mike

October Books Read

With five clear nights in October used for observing with my telescope, I basically lost 5 days/nights of reading.  My daytime reading is used to write up observing notes and prepare for the upcoming night.  My nighttime reading is...well, spent at the telescope eyepiece.  I still managed to read 10 1/2 books, so all is not lost, and a few were quite long.

The month began with a Robert Silverberg book.  I am now reading novels and stories he wrote in and around his gigantic Majipoor series, but not related to those books.  So his writing has matured and really developed.  Even so, his short time travel novel Project Pendulum might not appeal to all readers of such stories.  His concept involves wending twins forward and backward in time simultaneously, in a sort of Powers of Ten manner.  One brother goes forward 5 minutes in time, while the other goes back 5 minutes.  The next jump is 50 minutes, then 500 minutes, etc.  The final jump takes them 950 million years from their starting time!  At the end of the book, they begin their trip homeward.  It's a very strange idea, and though the book, like the time jumps, begins slowly, it gradually gathers momentum and interest the further the brothers travel in time.  I enjoyed the book, and it would make a fantastic basis for a TV series.

Next came a dreary fantasy novel by Piers Anthony and Mercedes Lackey called If I Pay Thee Not In Gold.  This is the type of book I try to avoid at all costs.  Based on an idea by Anthony, it was penned by Mercedes Lackey.  Then Anthony went over it with a fine tooth comb, adding ten thousand words.  The first two hundred pages take place in a city ruled by women, who make slaves of the men.  Women can conjure magic, but men can't.  That part is never really explained very well.  The Queen is a bitch and tries to kill the young girl, Xylina, who shows much prowess in magic.  She tries to kill her over and over again, but somehow always fails.  This is too bad, since the story could have ended much sooner.  From 1993, this 398 page waste of time is one of the most boring books I have ever read.

Harry Harrison finishes his USA versus England trilogy with Stars and Stripes Triumphant.  It's a delicious series to read (and the third book is no exception), except by the English.  But Harrison, who lives in Dublin, is writing here for the Irish and the Scottish reader, as well as other countries colonized by England back in the good old days.  It really is a fun series, and looking at England's standing in the world at the present moment, it resembles the situation where England ends up at the end of the series.

Bulmer's Fox #8: Battle Smoke keeps up the humour and adventure in his epic sea going series,with Lieutenant Fox spending time back in Limehouse, London, with his family.  But he is itching to get back to sea, and after some local exploits, off he goes, finally aboard a class 1 battle ship, under Captain Staunton again.  this means that Fox is virtually in charge of everything aboard the ship, a de facto captain in all but name.  The climax is another great sea battle, this time between four English ships and seven French and Spanish ones.  With an incapacitated admiral aboard, Fox takes command of the fleet and leads the charge!  Great stuff for sea loving adventure fans.

I finally began E C Tubb's mammoth series featuring the adventures of Dumarest.  The Dumarest Sagas contains about 36 novels, and I am now underway.  The first book, published in 1967 as one half of an Ace Double, is called The Winds of Gath.  The lead character is a space wanderer and adventure seeker, and through mischance he ends up on a planet from which it is virtually impossible to leave.  He undergoes some hardships, but gets a big break when he defeats a strongman in an entertainment battle.  He earns a ticket off the planet.  But many more adventures await him on Gath, in itself a totally fascinating planet.  I like how the story stayed focussed on the one planet, and seems to cover nearly every aspect of its (limited) possibilities.  Very well written, and a very promising start to the series.

I am reading three huge volumes of stories by Jack Williamson.  Wizard's Isle contains 16 stories by the author, published between 1933 and 1937.  I read half of this vast volume last month, and will read the rest of it in November.  Lots of fun stories about mad scientists, and good people who just won't listen to reason.  The Wand of Doom has a nice bayou atmosphere to it, and The Plutonian Terror is a good horror story with a neat surprise ending.  Using an original pulp magazine cover as its cover for the this hardbound volume, I have awarded the prestigious Cover of the Month to this book.

SF cover of the month for October 2022.  

Next came Michael Moorcock's 2nd book in his Dancers At The End Of Time series.  Called The Hollow Lands, it is from 1974, and takes up where volume one left off.  Jherek Carnelian is still in search of his time lost lover, Mrs. Underwood.  He is able to return to her time in London, and finds his way to her house.  Before that are some truly bizarre adventures involving a robot nanny and a homicidal alien, he meets up with H G Wells in London and is soon off on more hilarious adventures.  The entire London adventure reminds me somewhat of a Carry On movie.  Overall the book is quite readable.  If you don't like something you are reading, it will soon change to something else, so carry on....

Lastly came a long volume of 37 short stories by Barry Malzberg.  There is a wide range of tales here, some SF and some not, some almost beyond classifying.  A Galaxy Called Rome is the novelette version of his novel Galaxies (see above).  It is a brilliant concept, about a story that a writer might or might not actually write, but if he did write it this is what he would do, and what he would include.  Very well done.  Agony Column is a very funny, but very devastating, story that contains nothing but various letters written by a Mr. Martin Miller, and the various replies he gets, mostly form letters.  A real gem!  Corridors is about Ruthven, an older, tired SF writer from the pulp days.  He has finally had some financial success, but it came too late to help with the bitterness he feels about his life and his writing.  This is a very moving tale about the "golden" days of SF pulp writing, and its effect on one writer.  Recommended.  A valuable collection for fans of this highly underrated writer.

Next came a book off the dwindling book shelf, and two Kindle books from my nearly endless Delphi collection.  With The Tale Teller, Anne Hillerman comes closest so far to equaling her father's writing.  This is her best book of the series, in which Joe Leaphorn returns to action, after she nearly killed him off in her first book.  Intertwined with the mystery story is more Navajo lore, including things about the Long Walk they were forced to undertake when the US government forced them off their sacred lands.  Tony and Anne Hillerman are both recognized by the Navajo as true friends, and in a book like this it is easy to see why.  Highly recommended, and the empty landscapes of Arizona and New Mexico resonate strongly in this novel.

Next came a short novel by one of my favourite Ballantine Adult Fantasy authors, George Meredith.  His first novel was The Shaving of Shagput, an Orientalist fantasy that I read and reviewed on my Ballantine blog page.  His second novel is called Farina, written in 1857, a year after Shagput.  It is in every sense a minor effort, though still fun to read.  It is a medieval fantasy that takes place in Germany, and concerns the beautiful daughter of a merchant who is the centre of attention of most young men in the vicinity.  It has humour, an easy-going story, and some supernatural events.  It is a bit of a let down after Shagput, but then that book is unique in the literature to begin with.  I look forward to his third novel, and didn't mind reading this one.

A. Merritt is one of the great fantasy writers from the late teens and early twenties, influenced by H Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs, who in turn went on to influence a whole generation of writers, including H P Lovecraft.  His first novel was The Moon Pool, from 1919.  I had never read this one before, and while I found the fantasy element imaginative and somewhat engrossing, his writing style is quite poor.  Expanded from two novellas, the book often bogs down in descriptive detail.  When there is action, the book is fun to read.  When the descriptions go on for page after page, not so much fun.  The climax is exciting, and the ending is well thought out.  There is considerable humour, too, as Larry O'Keefe, an Irish American and the adventure hero of the story, woos Lakla, handmaiden of the Silent Ones.  The story begins at the ruins of Nan Madol, off the island of Pohnpei, in Micronesia.  It is narrated by Dr. Goodwin, who sets out to investigate the disappearance of a good friend and his family.  I really liked the gradual development of the story and the action,which eventually leads to a massive underground kingdom.

Mapman Mike