March 2024 Reading Summary

March saw us do a week of travelling, and though I managed to read some at airports and at night in hotels, I did lose a lot of reading time overall.  There were also several astronomy nights in there, where I traded my night time reading for star gazing.  Despite this, I managed to get through 11 books, one of them a slim volume of poetry.  So here they are....

 

This month included my last Silverberg SF reading.  All done.  Tout fini, as they say in Montreal.  This time I read the last volume of his short stories, published in chronological order.  So these were stories from the late 90s  up to around 2010.  VOLUME 9:  THE MILLENNIUM EXPRESS 1995-2009 contains 16 stories, each one introduced by the author.  Several are novellas, which was Silverberg's preferred length of story (70-90 pages, usually).  Many of the stories are quite poor and not really worth reading, but there were a few gems.  "A Piece of The Great World" is from 2005, and is 72 pages long.  This novella is directly related to Silverberg's brilliant full length novel series told in At Winter's End and The New Springtime.  He had plans to write a third novel in the series, but it never came to be.  However, a detailed outline was written, and this novella relates one part of that unfinished trilogy.  Though a good enough story, it cannot replace the missing epic novel we all hoped would be forthcoming one day.  The story takes place 200 years after people have left the long winter cocoons.  Readers get to fly across the country this time, and then visit part of the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, on an anthropological expedition to find the last remaining group of a vanished race.  The entire premise of the story is quite sad, though.  Well worth reading for fans of the two novels.  "Defenders of The Frontier" is from 2010, and is 40 pages long.  A depressing but well told tale that Silverberg wrote for an anthology of stories about warriors.  This would make a great little film, or even a theatrical live stage production.  11 men at a frontier outpost have lost contact with their home city over the years.  When no other enemies can be located, they contemplate leaving their fort and attempt to return home.  Well done!

 

Cover art by Tomasz Maronski.

 

Savage Scorpio is the 16th book of Kenneth Bulmer's Dray Prescott series, and the second one in the Valian Cycle.  Bulmer is now so comfortable with his Dray Prescott hero, as are we, that we can enjoy seeing his character trying to grapple with his own character development.  He considers himself a peaceful man, even as he goes about chopping up enemies with his sword.  These enemies, however, are usually asking for it, and attack first.  The ones who survive an encounter with Dray are usually conked on the head and put to sleep while he carries out various clandestine actions.  There is usually some form of humour on nearly every page, which also helps keep the pages turning.  In this adventure, the Emperor of Vallia, Delia's father and Dray's father-in-law, is being poisoned by enemies, and Dray and Delia must get him to the sacred pool in time to save his life.  There is no love lost between the two men, and Dray only helps because of Delia.  This adds to the frustration level of things for readers, for Dray is never thanked for his life saving heroic deeds, but it also adds to the humour, as the tense scenes between the two men are often quite funny.  As usual for each successive volume, we learn a bit more about the Star Lords, those mysterious figures who seem to control Dray as if he were their puppet.  This is another solid entry in the series.

 

From 1956 comes E. C. Tubb's Trail Blazers the kind of story that most people would recognize as a 'true' western.  It concerns a cattle drive from Texas to Cheyenne, Wyoming, before there were any cattle trails to follow.  Besides natural obstacles such as desert, gullies, rivers, mountains, etc. there were also Indians to consider, and an evil bunch of gangsters in Kansas called the Jayhawkers.  Once again Tubb's very enlightened view of Indians comes through loud and clear in the voice of his hero.  But that doesn't stop a lot of Indians from getting killed, as well as whites who get in the way of the drive.  One of my favourite TV shows as a kid was called Rawhide.  It starred a very young Clint Eastwood as the assistant head drover, and Eric Fleming as the man in charge.  It ran for 8 seasons and a total of 217 50 minute episodes.  The unforgettable theme song was by Dmitri Tiomkin.  Tubb's novel predates the series by 3 years, but is so close to the Rawhide series in spirit that it's hard to believe that it wasn't part of it.  As usual with Tubb, this is a good read, and not far from the truth of what the early west was like.

From 1995 come the first book in Michael Moorcock's Second Ether Trilogy.  It is called Blood: A Southern Fantasy, is 336 pages long, and is a truly awful book.  Mixing SF pulp fiction (the really bad kind) with some kind of avant garde style of writing, there isn't a single redeeming page in this unholy mess of a novel.  This isn't the first Moorcock novel this reviewer has panned, but I hope it will be the last.  There are four main characters, two men and two women.  They are gamblers, after the Earth has pretty much been swallowed up by a vast black hole sort of thing near Biloxi, MS.  After all, what else do people in Mississippi do but gamble.  Our heroes inject themselves into the Game of Time, and play for stakes that only Moorcock might understand.  As usual, it's Chaos against Law, and the gamblers are hoping to keep a balance in the multiverse.  So what.  Many reviewers of Moorcock are truly afraid to call him out when he goes off the rails and wastes our time.  This novel goes way off the rails (deep into the muddy Mississippi River) and wastes our time.  I dread the thought of reading the two sequels, and may not...

 

Lastly from the Avon/Equinox stable of writers comes the next book, Havana Hit, from 1974, in the exciting series of adventures undertaken by Burt Wulf, vigilante.  It is 154 pages and is book #5.  Formally of the NYPD narcotics squad, and before that a Vietnam veteran, Wulf is out to single handed take down the drug trade in America.  So far he is doing a pretty good job, too.  Though this one has its share of murder and explosions, and even a sort of car chase, it is a much more restrained story than the previous ones.  Leaving Las Vegas for New York with his valise of recaptured heroin, Wulf's plane is hijacked to--where else--Cuba.  Virtually everyone there who comes in contact with the valise becomes instantly corrupted by the financial possibilities.  Wulf wants his captured valise back, where he has plans to take it to New York, where it had been stolen from the evidence room at the precinct by a bad cop.  But he has his work cut out for him in Havana.  There is a lot more introspection and existentialism in this novel, mostly involving thinking about death.  Wulf is helped by an American freelancer, before ultimately being betrayed by him.  For the second time we see Wulf getting close to someone, but this relationship goes sour at the end.  As usual, Malzberg's writing can get the reader's blood flowing quickly and the heart pounding at times.  Chapters often fly past without readers even knowing they have begun a new one.  A good series so far, and definitely a guilty pleasure.  Still, it's not that much different from a good samurai tale.

 

Now we can move on to my collection of Delphi Classics writers, which seems to grow each month.  Moving alphabetically through the list of writers use to take about a year before I'd be back at the "A" authors.  Now it's more like a year and a half.  I began with a collection of 40 poems by Rabindranith Tagore.  Called The Crescent Moon, it is from 1913.  Several poems, each one about a page long, are accompanied by watercolour images done by friends, harkening back to the tradition of Indian miniature painting.  The earliest poems express feelings towards a new baby (which he compares to a crescent moon), while later ones give a child's perspective looking out towards mother and father.  "Authorship" is quite charming, as the child questions his mother as to why father is always writing at the desk.  They are easy to read, but offer no hint as to what is to come from this man's pen.

 

Next is Olaf Stapledon's third novel.  Odd John is from 1935, and purports to be a case study of a rare and unique child growing up in England.  The author acknowledges the influence of another British writer.  J. D. Beresford's The Hampdenshire Wonder is from 1911, and it's genius child, Victor Stott, is mentioned in Stapledon's book more than once.  Beresford in turn credits Jules Verne for influencing his writing.  Now we just need to establish who influenced Verne.   John's  life is short (he will die at 23, we are told near the beginning).  After 11 months he is finally forced from the womb, but is still premature and only just manages to survive.  He finally decides to walk at six years, and his talking starts late, too.  By ten he is a criminal and murderer, but manages to get his life back on track, though his 'experiments' continue on Homo Sapiens.  The narrator is a journalist, a friend of the family, and becomes John's companion in many of his adventures.  The book becomes much more interesting in the final chapters, as John and others like him establish a colony on a remote South Sea island.  Many races are represented, including two Africans, something I cannot recall from any other novels until recent time.  All are telepaths, and far beyond humans in most things.  In addition, these people are not just freakish in their intelligence, but also in their physical features, which are more than somewhat grotesque.  The main thing that the book makes clear is that a very few people are so far beyond being human in intelligence that they find it impossible to remain sane while living among them.  Stapledon, so far as I have read (first 3 novels) is not so much a storyteller, but a chronicler.  The difference between an author telling us a story and a journalist, if you like.  But he is a pretty amazing journalist.  This book is an odd one, like its main character.  It's difficult to put it into a category of SF, as like his two previous books, it pretty much stands alone.  Worth a read, especially if you sometimes feel like you don't really belong to society.

 

Jules Verne's From The Earth To The Moon was published in 1865.  Like other novels by Verne, this story is filled with the latest up to date science from its day, as well as geographical knowledge of America.  But it's not all about the science; the satire is priceless.  Parts of this book, especially the early chapters, are among the funniest things I have ever read.  Largely poking fun at Americans and their love of guns (some things never change), many other countries also take a hit, especially Britain.  But the author also pokes fun at France, Switzerland, Spain, and many others.  Having recently visited the Florida State Highpoint (345'), it is amusing to see the giant gun built atop a Florida hill over 1800' high.  Also at the time, the highest point in the American Rockies was 10,600', where a large telescope was needed to build to see the projectile once launched (!).  And that mountain was in Missouri!  But geography and science facts aside, Verne hits a home run with this fanciful tale of three men launched to the moon from Earth.  Great fun!  The sequel came later, and will be reported upon here someday.

 

First English edition cover art.

 

Next came another great old classic, H. G.Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau, from 1896.  This is much more a horror story than a SF one, and indeed becomes quite horrifying at times.  Some of the atmosphere comes through well in the 1930s Charles Laughton version, but the book itself provides all the necessary inner pictures necessary to imagine the island, the doctor, and the native inhabitants.  There have been so many novels set on uncharted Pacific islands, but this must remain as one of the best of them.  What the storyteller has to go through by the end of the novel has to be one of the most harrowing adventures ever told in fiction.  Permanent damage is done to his pysche; even once back safely in London he can no longer view people as harmless and with the ability to love one another.  Moreau's vivisection experiments and his alteration of beasts into men would likely drive anyone mad.  Some parts are actually difficult to read.  A completely amazing and original novel, and one that I would likely read again.

 

The original cover from the 1877 edition. 

 

The Duchess of Padua is a five act play from 1883, and was Oscar Wilde's 2nd play.  It was written for a specific actress, who refused it.  The play has never done well, though in the late 1890s it played in New York for 3 weeks.  It reads like a weak Shakespeare entry.  The action centres around a young man who is groomed to avenge his father's death at the hands of a cruel duke, and the duke's wife, who falls in love with the young man.  It's all been written before, and there are no new lines of any value here, despite a bit of Wilde's wit coming through in the later acts.  It certainly shows promise, however, as the events, action, and writing show the writer to have been very well read and able to maintain a certain tradition and uphold its values.  But we must be patient.  Soon the Wilde we all know and love will be ready to show his stuff.

I finished up with an early Edgar Wallace crime novel called The Four Just Men, from 1905.  The story is about a small group of vigilantes who carry out assassinations of people worthy of being murdered.  In this case, an unjust law (in their humble opinion) is about to be passed in the British House, and they threaten to kill the minister in charge unless he retracts the bill.  Wallace stretches credibility somewhat in his attempt to make the four men super intelligent and infinitely resourceful.  However, in the end, while they do achieve their goals, they barely manage it, and one of them gets killed.  This is pretty good writing, and the pages turn almost on their own.  It helps that the novel isn't overly long.

Mapman Mike

 

 

December 2022 Books Read

It was a foggy and mild New Year's Day here at the Homestead, and the ships along the Detroit River sounded mournful as they passed by.  If one is looking towards hopeful new things for 2023, today's weather will not be very inspiring.  Even so, this is typical weather for us at this time.  We have seen more foggy New Year's Eves than any other type.  Last weekend was the coldest and windiest it ever gets here, whereas this weekend it's been raining since Friday, not to mention quite dark.

We had an enjoyable party for two last night, with wood fire, lasagna, some music, and talk of Olaf Stapledon's writing.  That led us on a search for a recent film of his novel Last and First Men, on a streaming channel with a 7-day free preview.  So watch for that review soon!  And we ordered the blu ray disc of Aniara from Amazon.

In reading news, I begin as usual with the seven remaining authors of the Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery series.  Incidentally, that blog site of mine remains very popular with readers.  Lately, someone from Hong Kong has been delving into my Michael Moorcock page, though most hits seem to come from the USA.  However, recent large numbers of hits also came from Netherlands, Portugal, and Switzerland.  Reliable author Robert Silverberg got things started for me with his 1990 Letters From Atlantis.  Written in epistle format, it tells of two time travelers visiting Atlantis, sharing the mind and bodies of two natives of that ancient time.  The book is also a prequel of sorts to Silverberg's Star of Gypsies from 1986.  Though the present book can be read unaccompanied, it makes a decent series with the original.  Incidentally, the method of taking over an earlier mind goes back to Olaf Stapledon in his first two novels.  It is a direct ripoff of the earlier author, who continues to influence SF writing to this day.  Letters is not a particularly good book, and teenagers would likely have trouble getting through it (a lot of the short novel is description of buildings, rituals, daily life, etc. in Atlantis.

Next came Alien Plot, a 1992 collection of 17 short stories by Piers Anthony.  None of the stories are great, but a few are worth reading.  My favourite was called Soft Like A Woman, from 1988, about a woman crew member of a secret military mission who single handedly saves the day.  Also fun to read was a half page story called To The Death, about a martial arts expert challenging an ascetic to a duel.  This was the first of 3 stories that had to be 50 words or less, and this one is very good.  Revise and Invent is a very funny tale about a writer trying to follow various editors' advice to get his story published.

Kenneth Bulmer's Fox series continues to entertain me, being one of the best sea faring adventure series ever conceived.  Bulmer's sense of humour and deadly irony are ever present , as well as enough action to satisfy any pulp novel reader.  In Fox #9: Cut and Thrust we again spend a long time on shore between missions.  When he is recalled to active duty, he is given command of a gunboat, and ends up saving a disastrous mission against the French navy.  Most of Bulmer's writing is very consistent and top notch, and this book is a great example of that.

Book 3 of E C Tubb's endless series about Dumarest, a planet-hopping adventurer, is called Toyman, and is a good entry in the series.  Like Bulmer, Tubb is usually a very reliable writer.  We now have the goods on the series, with Dumarest's character (such as it is) mostly predictable in most situations.  Even his situations are now mostly predictable (he will have to fight a lot; he will never stay in one place; he keeps searching for Earth, his home planet).  In this adventure, which takes place entirely on the planet of Toy, Dumarest has travelled there to use their famous main library computer to find out anything he can about Earth.  People always mock the name of Earth, saying it is a quite ridiculous name, while in turn living on a planet called "Toy."  Go figure.  There are a few neat plot twists near the end, and a final symbolic kick in the teeth for Dumarest, as he finally gets his wish to ask the library for information about Earth.  The fight scenes are some of Tubb's best, and the finale in the maze is also quite well done.  Overall a worthy pulp fiction read.

Next came the first half of a large hardcover compilation of early stories by Jack Williamson.   Spider Island: Vol 4 of the Collected Stories contains 12 stories, 9 essays, and many images.  I read the first half in December, and will finish the volume in January.  The stories, all from the mid 30s, range from the ridiculous to the barely readable, suitable for a 14 year old in the 1930s, perhaps, but not many others.  Considering what Olaf Stapledon was writing in the 30s.....  The main problem here is the one dimensional character, both good and bad.  The Blue Spot is probably the most readable of the lot, as it at least has two strong female characters (always called "girls" in SF from this time).  There are also two stories that aren't too bad from a type where the final explanation has to have no supernatural cause, but during the story it might seem that such was the case.  One of them, The Mark of the Monster, is very much in the Lovecraft tradition, and does provide some chills.

Next came the first half of an Elric volume by Michael Moorcock.  Two sets of four novellas are collected under two umbrella titles.  I read The Stealer of Souls, which actually contained two excellent Elric stories read previously.  The Dreaming City and When the Gods Laugh are both from 1961, and are featured in the Elric collection Elric: Song of the Black Sword (see above).  Next came two novellas new to me, both from 1962.  Stealer of Souls is a decent story in which Elric seeks help from his homeless kinsmen in taking down an evil wizard.  At first he is hired by merchants to kill the most successful merchant in the city, but plans evolve.  Lots of magic, some grim fighting, and some humour.  In Kings In Darkness Elric and his friend rescue a girl and agree to lead her safely home, after her family and guards were attacked and killed (though most of the mercenary guards ran away).  On the way they take a detour through a creepy forest, and have dealings with the murderous king who dwells there.  A pretty dark adventure.  Elric ends up marrying the young woman they rescue.

There was one other good Elric story as well, from 1962.  The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams has a barbarian hoard bearing down on the city where Elric lives with his wife.  Well now, did those barbarians ever pick the wrong city to molest.  With cats, dragons, magic, and bloodshed, this is a worthy addition to the Elric chronicles.

Last in the Avon/Equinox authors read last month was a brilliant early novel by Barry Malzberg called In My Parents' Bedroom.  From 1971, this 125 page non SF novel was the author's way of telling some of his personal story to readers when he turned 30.  And while the tale is autobiographical, it is also so much more.  Rather than tell a straight forward story of what it was like growing up with his parents and sister in the 1950s and early 1960s, he takes us on a guided tour of the former apartment where they all lived.  The apartment is now a National Historic Site, and the Westerfield family has become the picture postcard of a bygone era.  All of the family's rooms are preserved as they were, as well as many of their personal belongings.  Though Michael, as a family member, is not supposed to visit the home, he takes his girlfriend on the half day tour.  There are no surviving photos of him, so he is not recognized.

The tour begins in the main living room, then proceeds to the kitchen, bathroom, and three bedrooms upstairs.  By the time we finally get to the gift shop and restaurant (a totally hilarious experience), we have come to know the small tour group and guide as well as we now know the Westerfield family and how they lived.  There are many priceless moments along the way, though most people who don't get Malzberg's dark humour and cast iron irony will be left thinking that the book is shallow, with too much sex.  I am so happy that Malzberg is being republished today.  Virtually all of his literary works are again in print and available on Kindle.  I came upon this author just in time for my reading project.  This particular novel had not been available again until very recently.  It is a small masterpiece of storytelling, and besides showing the banality of life "back then", we read it today and ask ourselves, has anything really changed much?

 

******************

With the 7 Avon/Equinox authors' works read before the middle of December, I had time to read 7 more books taken off the shelf and from my Kindle collection of complete works of certain authors.  I begin with the 2nd novel of Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry Trilogy, called The Wandering Fire.  Still an early work from 1986, there are nevertheless hints of what was to come forth from this incredible writer.  This 2nd novel could also have been called "Everything But The Kitchen Sink," as the author throws the entire Arthurian mythology into the soup mix.  At first I found it quite funny and more than a little off putting, but once the magic settles down for a little while the premise becomes acceptable and fun.  Not a great fantasy novel by any leap of the imagination, but miles ahead of most people writing fantasy garbage today, who seem to have learned nothing from their predecessors.  The final act of reaching the enchanted island and trying to defeat the evil wizard is worthy of the best of Fritz Leiber or Michael Moorcock.  I am looking forward to the concluding book in the series, and then moving on through the rest of Kay's books.

Cover of the month goes to Ted Nasmith's wraparound painting for The Fionavar Tapestry. 

 

Next came some poetry and a novel by Vita Sackville-West.  She was born at Knole House, Kent, a calendar house.  It had 365 rooms, 52 staircases, 12 entrances, and 7 courtyards.  She grew up there, but the house went to her younger brother on the death of her parents, something which she was quite bitter about (eldest son gets the goods).  Two early poetry collections yielded a few gems.  Constantinople is a collection of 8 poems from 1915, of which "Muezzin" is noteworthy.  From 1917 came a larger collection called Poems From East and West.  Two of these stand out: "To Knole," a poem about growing up at her ancestral home; and "A Creed," a poem which immediately sets her apart from most of mankind at that time.

 

Then I read her first novel, Heritage, from 1919.  Told in three parts, as many books were then, it follows the life and love of a young man from the city and a girl from Kent farm country.  Not a great novel in any sense of the term, it is still readable and enjoyable in its small scale tale of love lost, and then won.  There are memorable moments, and no doubt it would make a good PBS TV series.

 

Next came George Bernard Shaw's earliest play, but preceded by two even earlier fragments of plays.  The longer of these fragments is from 1878 (he was 22), called Passion Play, and is a very funny look inside the house of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph during his early years.  Totally sacrilegious in its vocabulary and unstinting take-down of the great myth of Jesus (and especially Mary), it's a shame this was never completed.  Of course it would have never been performed anywhere anyway, and he likely realized that at a certain point and just stopped writing.  Well worth seeking out.  Next came a short play fragment from 1889 called The Cassonne.  There isn't much distinctive about this later work, of which only a few pages were written.  Then comes his first completed play, called Widows' Houses, from 1892.  It is a social commentary play, and tackles the tricky subject of housing the poor, and making money from the suffering of others.  Parts of it are very well done, but the final outcome is rather unsatisfactory, as there is no easy answer to the problem.  Still, it likely got people talking.

 

The Double Shadow and Other Fantasies is a 1933 collection of stories by Clark Ashton Smith, a writer who is much better than Lovecraft at certain types of tales, and far surpasses Robert E Howard.  Lin Carter published most of his stories in his own made up thematic collections throughout the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, and Smith was one of the best discoveries I made at that time.  So I am now reading the stories in the order they were published.  The first three stories are among the best fantasy tales ever put to paper, equal to the very best Jorkens stories by Lord Dunsany.  "The Voyage of King Euvoren" shows the influence of the Arabian Nights tales on a young Smith, especially the Sinbad tales.  "The Maze of the Enchanter" turns the typical Conan story on its head, and the ending is so brilliant that I won't even discuss it.  Let's jsut say that Roberet E. Hoard wold not have approved, though he might have laughed a lot.  One of the finest tales of sorcery ever written.  Likewise "The Double Shadow,"a story that pits a sorcerer and his apprentice against the oldest and most feared magic ever imagined.  A horror tale like no other.  Of the remaining three stories, only "The Willow Landscape" is worth mentioning.  This is a much more gentle tale of magic and sorcery.

 

Stargazer is a 2021 Navajo mystery novel from Anne Hillerman, and it takes place in parts of New Mexico with which we are very familiar.  It involves astronomy, too, so I enjoyed it even more.  My one complaint about the main character, a female Navajo police officer, is that she is essentially given the characteristics of a child, rather than an adult.  She drinks too much pop, eats burgers, doesn't eat any fruit or veg, and only takes pepperoni on her pizza.  Her day to day thoughts are usually so mundane as to be almost scary, mostly concerned with her aging mother and somewhat wild younger sister.  However, there are times in this book when looking up at the night sky seems to ground her a bit, and lift her thoughts to the more spiritual aspects of living.

 

Olaf Stapledon's second novel was written two years after his first, and has a direct connection to it.  Called Last Men In London, it is from 1932 and perfectly complements his first one, called Last and First Men.  Stapledon's works are worth seeking out for those of us looking for spiritual gratification in our reading.  His books read much like what a documentary film is to viewers, and do not necessarily follow any traditions of what a novel, especially a SF one, should be.  In this book, a future human from 2 billion years in the future returns to explore the mind of a man from London in the years before, during, and after the First World War.  I eventually had to stop bookmarking pages, as I would have ended up bookmarking virtually every page.  As much philosophy, ethics, and spiritual guidance as it is fiction, it is a must read book (though one reading will not be satisfactory).  One does not rush through a Stapledon book, and I highly recommend keeping a notebook handy.  One of the highlights, among many, is the section or chapter that has to do with the birth of a child, and following it through its early years.  Priceless and unforgettable.

 

Lastly read was Jules Verne's 3rd novel (his 2nd was not yet available for my Delphi Collection), one of his most famous and entertaining ones.  I first read Journey To The Center of the Earth (1864) as a young high school student, perhaps age 15.  The title is a bit of a misnomer, as the professor, his nephew, and Hans never make it to the center, but the adventure is great fun anyway.  There is a lot of humour in the story.  The professor is a madman, and reminded me a lot of Beethoven (I also read a long chapter of his biography by Swafford this month).  The book heavily influenced Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose Pellucidar series takes place beneath the Earth.  Even as a boy, I liked how the book was slow to start, gradually building up to the trip to Iceland, then across the barrens to the mountain they would climb, and then descend within.  Once underground, things happen more quickly, and the ending is one of the great ones from adventure writing at its best.

 

I'll be back soon with a film update, and any other news that's fit to print.

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

June Reading

 In addition to getting through books by my ten remaining Avon/Equinox Rediscovery authors, I managed two non-related books as well.  Reading continues to be a major pastime for me, with no end in sight yet for my project, now in its sixth year.  As usual, the month began with a novel by Robert Silverberg.  Tower of Glass is from 1970, and Silverberg already had captured the essence of a multi-billionaire's ego.  Krug is the richest man alive, with ambitions to match his wealth.  When a signal from space arrives indicating intelligent alien life, he sets out to build a communication tower.  This tower will be able to return a signal faster than light.  Krug wants to meet aliens before he dies, or at least talk with them.  The tower is being built west of Hudson's Bay, and it's a big one, all right.  However, the main theme of the novel appears to be the relationship between the fully human and the somewhat human AIs who do all the actual work.  Both themes intertwine to make a fascinating tale of the near future.  As we watch today's billionaires compete to be the first in space, and AI intelligence continues to be refined, this is not such a far fetched story 51 years after it was written.

Next I read Kiai! by Piers Anthony, a very early work by him focusing on a judo expert entering a mixed martial arts contest.  This work is quite terrible, and no doubt contributed to the disdain and disbelief most people have today regarding martial arts.  It is the first of a series, so I might try one more later on.  At this point I am trying the first book of each series Anthony wrote before deciding to continue of with them.

Winter In Eden is Harry Harrison's 1986 sequel to West of Eden, his major "what if" series about what might have transpired if the big meteor had not struck Earth.  In general I am bored by books about prehistoric humans.  But Farmer wrote a great one, and Harrison, a much better writer, has written a wonderful history novel.  The characters and races become a bit more complex, and new people are added to the epic tale.  All in all a good read, with one more novel in the set to go.

Roller Coaster World is from 1972, and is Bulmer's last single novel.  Now I only have his series to attack.  Bulmer sort of lost his way lately with exposition, but if readers stick to it, another good, solid SF novel emerges from the initial chaos.  At heart it's a hopeless love story, and would make a great film or series.  Several of  Bulmer's latest books go to a lot of trouble to set up an entire world and culture, only to end it permanently after the first book.  He seemed to have a mind for series later on, but managed to keep things to only the first book.  This story is about a human colony that thrives on the life-giving radiation a planet gives off.  Only the radiation has been dying out, leaving people feeling very poorly, indeed.

E.C. Tubb's Pandora's Box was written in 1954, but not published until the mid 1990s.  The story is really constructed well, and involves the smuggling of dangerous spores to Earth from Venus, sent by a mad professor to end all life on the planet.  But before we get near that aspect of the story, it begins on the Moon, at a customs station.  We meet John Weston, an honest customs agent who has a unique knack for finding smugglers.  He is saddled with Marge, a wife who likes to spend big.  John was once a space pilot, but lost his commission, along with his big salary.  Marge continues to spend regardless.  And so we come to the set up.  If John will allow one smuggler through, he will be well paid.  Once the smuggler has clear access to deliver his package (which he thinks are seeds for illegal drugs), then the story shifts to Venus.  A really good tale, by one of the best pulp writers to have ever taken up a typewriter.

Wall Around A Star, from 1983, concludes the Saga of Cuckoo, by Jack Williamson and Frederik Pohl.  The series consists of two books, both confusing due to the number of major characters involved, and the number of alien races.  It seems unusually cluttered, with enough characters to have lasted for five or six books, if they had been slowly introduced to us over time.  But concepts, ideas, plots, characters, and races are all thrown at us quite breathlessly.  The central story is excellent, about an incoming solar system size entity about to invade our galaxy.  In book one, everything was still pretty much a mystery regarding this object (called Cuckoo by the investigators).  Book two provides full explanations for everything, which is a relief.  However, some of these explanations are a bit far fetched and difficult to swallow.  This second book isn't as fun as the first book, and the series itself is certainly not required reading for diehard SF fans.  Still, there is a lot to ponder in here, if you can keep the characters straight in your mind.

Michael Moorcock's conclusion to his 2nd Corum trilogy is called The Sword and the Stallion.  It marks a strong finish to a really decent sword and sorcery series featuring a troubled and put upon hero (Corum), helping for the sixth and final time to put down evil and restore decency to the world.  The only problem with Moorcock's final solution (as per usual for him), is that the evil has rendered such destruction, mayhem, and murder that there really isn't much of a world remaining.  I will continue with his eternal champion theme next month, as I begin a new series with a (mostly) new hero.

Next up was Volume 2 of Ballard's shorter fiction, another 750 pages of mostly very good short stories.  I have once again chopped it into three segments, meaning that I still have two months of Ballard reading remaining.  Last month I read 14 stories from 1964 to 1968.  Despite a few clunkers.  The best of them, the ones that should seriously be sought out, include The Lost Leonardo, The Terminal Beach, The Illuminated Man (the first, much shorter version of The Crystal World), The Recognition, and, perhaps the finest story ever written (I know I've said this before with Ballard's works--I can't help it), The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D.

The Sodom and Gomorrah Business by Barry Malzberg is from 1974, and continues his long winning streak in writing some of the most provocative fiction ever penned.  And there is always great storytelling going on, too.  This could be considered one of the weirdest road movie plots every created, as two cadets sneak out of their safe training haven in a 1964 Cadillac, and encounter the real world, head on.  Inspired by Anthony Burgess and Kubrick, the beginning owes a lot to Clockwork Orange.  The rest reminds me a bit of Budrys' writing, with a good solid chunk of Malzberg thrown in the mix, too.  A truly awesome writer.

Galactic Cluster contains 8 stories by master SF writer James Blish, all from the 1950s.  Six of the eight are truly fantastic tales, still resonating after almost 70 years!  Common Time, A Work of Art (Iain Banks??), Nor Iron Bars (in which a space ship ends up orbiting inside an atom!), Beep, and This Earth of Hours would all go on to influence SF writing for decades to come.  It's easy to see how and why.

Now we turn to the two books read not relating to my overall reading project.  These are books that have been on my reading shelf for years.  I am trying to clear off that shelf (about 20 books remaining on it), and it is slowly happening.  The hard part is trying not to add anything new to it!  Most new books are going on my Kindle, once the hard copies are read.  Even though I hope to read the complete Jules Verne (Kindle, $1.00), I had a hard copy of Carpathian Castle, a science based Gothic horror novel set in and near a small Carpathian village.  The story is told with humour, especially regarding the superstitious beliefs of the locals, but all the usual Gothic nonsense is also included.  The book is hard to put down once begun.  Despite all of the weird things that (seem) to go, they all have a scientific basis, explained at the end.  But the book's main flaw, which isn't explained, is why the (bad) Baron had to blow up his castle at the end.  He actually had done nothing wrong!  I am going to use parts of this story in my upcoming third Valeria the Vegetarian Vampire story, as her family goes to Eastern Europe on holiday.

Lastly comes a truly amazing and wonderful book by Kenneth Grahame, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish, called The Golden Age.  When we were studying for our education degree back in 1979-80, we learned all of the major theories of learning, and how children's minds work at different stages of their lives.  Piaget comes to mind here, especially as to his theory about concrete versus abstract thought processes.  This Grahame novel consists of many very short tales of childhood adventures and doings, wonderfully told (for adults) from a child's perspective, and illustrating better than anywhere I have ever seen exactly how children think concretely.  There are continuous laughs on every page, as well as some of the tenderest moments one could ever hope to live through.  This book is a real treasure, published by Dover.  I bought it new years ago from a store in Detroit, and wish I'd read it when I was still teaching.  It should be required reading for beginning teachers.

That (almost) takes care of this month's reading.  But I am going to add a new feature starting this month, for those of you not willing to tackle by Avon/Equinox webpage (see left margin for a link).  I will choose the best cover of books read over the past month, and post it here for your viewing pleasure.

Best cover of the month award goes to Charles Moll. 

Mapman Mike