September Reading Summary

I hit the jackpot with the first novel of the month, Robert Silverberg's Kingdoms of the Wall, a lengthy novel from 1992.  Joining books that take us on great journeys such as some of my favourite reads of all time, this one easily ranks as a don't miss masterpiece of hiking.  It has more than a bit of The Hobbit in it.  It also has some Gormenghast elements, especially at the beginning, and quite a bit of Well at The World's End, too.  Then come memories of the two volume set of The Night Land, not to mention Dante's Inferno.  Which brings to mind the paintings of Bosch.  The Voyages of Gulliver are here, and David Lindsay's A Voyage To Arcturus, and, of course, Homer and Ulysses.  In short, Silverberg's novel is an epic in every sense of the word, a quest akin to searching for the Holy Grail.  So I guess Arthurian tales should also be mentioned here.  It is a vast fantasy novel wrapped in thin science fiction paper.  It is a tale of people on a strange planet, searching ever for their gods.  What they eventually find no one could have predicted, though it drove many of its discoverers mad.  A great novel in every sense.

 

Next came Armada of Antares, the 11th volume in the tales of Dray Prescott, written by Kenneth Bulmer.  It concludes a large block of a continuing story line, which taken altogether is pretty good fantasy writing.  Beginning with the 6th book and continuing through the 11th, the Havilfar Cycle is an impressive read, inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian series.  This last book finally sees the greatly anticipated battle take place between Hamil and Vallia.   But the final book in this segment of the story isn't one of the better entries, and the battle itself is told quickly and without much detail.  So much for building to a climax.

The Captive is another western (he wrote 11 of them) by E C Tubb, written in 1955.  This one takes place near the end of the Civil War, in a western desert.  The South is losing, unable to feed or pay its troops.  They try to smuggle a gold shipment from California to help their cause.  A man is given the task of finding the wagon train shipping the gold, and to see that the gold does not reach the South.  Along the way he is captured and tortured by Commanches.  But again (see last month's read by this author) Tubb gives two sides to the story.  The Indians are fighting a losing battle against white encroachment, and are desperate to die fighting.  However, some want peace, no matter how many treaties the whites have broken.  There aren't enough soldiers to deal with Indian raids, due to the Civil War.  So the white general is also hoping for peace.  A decent pulp action novel with some strong characters, including Native ones, and even Southern ones (well, one anyway, a female).  And what happens to the gold at the end will keep adventurers searching for it forever.  Good luck with that!

 

I finished up a large Moorcock volume, Earl Aubec, which contains a novel (see last month) and a whole slew of short stories, written between 1962 and 1993.  Two stories stand out, while several others are worth reading.  "A Dead Singer" is from 1974, and is 8 pages long.  I think Iain Banks would have loved this story, and some of it reminds me strongly of his writing.  Jimi and a roadie take a little trip.  Highly entertaining!  "Hanging The Fool" is from 1989, and is 17 pages long.   One of Moorcock's Euro-tales, of which I am immensely fond.  No fantasy elements here, but the Tarot Deck plays an important role in the story, and it has a grisly side to it.

 

Lastly (from my Avon/Equinox authors project) came a new collection of old stories by Barry Malzberg.  Called Ready When You Are And Other Stories, the author gives a short introduction, and then follows each story with a brief afterword.  The stories date from 1979 through 1997, with most of them written in the 1980s.  "The Twentieth Century Murder Case" is an ingenious crime caper, with a very unusual victim.  "The Trials of Rollo" is a humourous piece about a man travelling back in time to have a second chance at landing the girl of his dreams.  "Grand Tour" is one of two stories where a man gets three wishes from a genie.  Even after getting his three wishes, he is still depressed and at the end of his rope.  Why?  Because he is who he is, and he did not wish for any kind of real change in himself.  "Celebrating" is quite a charming tale about a man with a gifted young daughter, who teaches him a very important lesson.

 

My first free choice read of the month was H. Rider Haggard's second novel, "The Witch's Head" from 1884.  It is an epic read, originally published in three volumes.  I nearly gave up part way through book 2, but I am glad I persevered.  For a while it looked like a typical late 19th C soap opera kind of story, which I found surprising for Haggard.  He has long been one of my favourite authors, for reasons that will become obvious the further along we go with his works.  But Haggard soon has turned the Victorian novel much on its head, and written a very entertaining piece of fiction.  Three women love the same man, but he only loves one of them; the most beautiful of them, Eva.  Eva's jealous older sister, who also loves poor Earnest, contrives to ruin their relationship.  She does a masterful job of it.  Young Dorothy, almost like a sister to Earnest, also loves him, but realizes that she is far out of the running.  After getting engaged to Eva, Ernest is off on an adventure which will lead him far from most other young men's adventures abroad.  He kills a man in a duel (a cousin) and flees with a friend to South Africa.  He ends up fighting in the first major encounter of British versus Zulus (Battle of Isandhlwana) on January 22nd, 1879, in which the British were totally demolished.  He comes out alive, but blind, due to a lightening strike.  Where does the witch's head come into things?  At the very beginning, and at the very end.  Why did the face of the witch look like Eva's older sister, the one who spoiled everything for the lovers?  Who knows.  Still a cracking good adventure novel, with lots of courting, shooting, and fighting.  For his time, Haggard was fairly advanced in his written treatment of women and Blacks, though today he would be called sexist and a racist.

Next up on the Kindle reader was Dashiell Hammett's first novel, Red Harvest, from 1929.  The only kind of non-wartime story that would have a higher body count would be a samurai film.  And guess what?  Kurosawa took this novel and made it into Yojimbo, one of his biggest popular hits.  A private detective arrives in a small city to find a seething den of crime and general iniquity.  An old man hires him to clean up the town and discover who killed his son, who had just taken over the town newspaper.  The son had actually hired him first, but was gunned down before he could give his scoop to the detective.  The plot and characters are nearly impossible to follow; there are at least three criminal gangs and the entire corrupt police department to deal with, so the detective goes about setting them all against one another.  While the writing style is crude, it is effective and often very dry and funny.  An amazing first novel, and great fun to read.

Fergus Hume followed up his successful first novel with a shorter one called Professor Brankel's Secret, from 1886.  This is a very quick read about a mad chemistry professor who finds a formula that will allow him to travel back in time.  There is also a formula that will allow him to travel into the future, but that part requires having the missing 2nd volume of an old chemistry book.  He tracks down the 2nd book to an English collector, looking for the missing formula.  This is a Gothic tale along the lines of Stevenson's Jekyll/Hyde story, but not nearly so carefully written.  Fun to read, and does not require much from the reader.

Watch and Ward was written in serial form and published in 1871, then revised for book publication in 1878.  Henry James' first novel is a very minor and bizarre tale about a man who takes in an orphaned 12 year old girl and raises her to be his wife.  Try writing that kind of story today!  Of course she knows nothing of his ultimate purpose, and grows up well cared for and happy.  To begin at the beginning, after her father commits suicide, a young girl is left homeless and without family.  Our hero steps in quickly to look after the child, as he was first on scene after the shooting in a hotel.  Before any readers panic, he has an older female housekeeper who helps raise the child, who is soon sent off to boarding school.  A year in Europe follows for the girl, accompanied there by a friendly and rich female friend of the rescuer, and sees her return at age 18 a beautiful and highly educated young lady, in whom three men are very interested.  One is supposedly a long lost cousin of hers, who turns out to be quite a cad.  The other is our hero's cousin, a preacher.  She falls for him, but in the end realizes how weak the man truly is.  In short, the only man whom she can fully trust is her rescuer and guardian.  When he proposes marriage at long last, she at first refuses and runs off to London.  After a few sordid epidsodes there, and having her eyes opened wide to life,and especially men, she returns to marry him after all.  Though the subject matter is somewhat strange, what really defeats the novel (which James disavowed later in life--it's very hard to find a copy of it, but my complete set of his works from Delphi Classics has it) is its simplistic outlook and very simple plot.  While I am glad that for once nothing seriously wrong happens to the child, other than witnessing her father's suicide, the characters are little more than cardboard, and seem to have very little depth.  Probably meant to be a heart warming tale of a man who finds true love (and the woman, too, eventually), James goes out of his way to avoid the story becoming creepy or sentimental.  While it is neither of those, it still lacks enough energy and power to stand even in the middle of the pack as a good read.  Probably best read by James' completists and scholars, or those curious as to the subject matter.  It was first published in serial form in 1871, and considerably improved for its 1878 book publication.  I read the 1878 version.

A second collection of ghost stories by M. R. James is simply called More Ghost Stories, and was published in 1911.  There are 7 stories, and while all of them are worth reading, I will mention two that stand out.  "Casting the Runes" was made into a superior horror film by Jacques Tourneur called Night of the Demon, which was only spoiled at the very end when the monster is shown.  James' tales are so different from those of Lovecraft, an inferior writer who dwells endlessly on how horrible and terrifying everything is.  James is one of those writers that seems to get the facts of the matter down without emotional baggage attached, and still provide a spine tingling thrill by the final page.  Even though I knew the story well, I was biting my nails towards the end of Runes, as if the ending might somehow turn out differently, and the innocent fall victim to the evil.  Another great story is "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral," dramatized for British television many years ago.  This one involves carvings that were made from a very old, dead oak tree for the church, and depict frightening creatures that seem to be able to punish anyone who touches them who happens to have blood on his hands (meaning that he has murdered someone).  There is also a good tale about a haunted rose garden, and another about a haunted maze.  Fun reading, especially on a windy night!

 

1st edition of James' 2nd set of ghost stories. 

 

Jerome K. Jerome also had some things to say about Victorian ghost stories.  He early and short collection of stories is called Told After Supper, and was published in 1891.  The author pokes fun at the English tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve.  Here in North America we usually prefer Samhain, or Halloween as it is now known.  The stories are few and they are very short.  This is a very easy read, perfect for a damp and dark afternoon.  Parts of this book are very funny indeed, my favourite being the story told about the man who killed an entire host of annoying street musicians.  Highly recommended, and makes a perfect after dinner mint after reading the M. R. James stories.

The 1st edition. 

 

I pressed on with a slightly longer, though still short, story collection by Jerome called John Ingerfield and Other Stories, published in 1893.  The lead story is the longest of five tales, three of them very serious ones.  This first story is a very well written one called "In Remembrance of John Ingerfield and His Wife Anna."  Jerome bases this story on a tombstone the narrator seeks out in a poor section of London on the grounds of an old and run down church.  At its heart it is a very unusual and touching love story, set in a time when typhoid fever was running rampant in parts of London, mostly in the poorer areas.  "The Woman of the Saeter" is an old fashioned ghost story that takes place in the mountains of Norway.  I guess he wanted to prove that he could write a real ghost story.  "Variety Patter" details the humourous adventures of a 14 year old boy making his first visit to a music hall.  He smokes cigars, drinks too much, and does it all again when he is 16 or 17.  A pretty funny story.  The final two stories are not very memorable.

 

Lastly came the next Oz book, the 7th, by Frank Baum, called The Patchwork Girl of Oz, from 1913.  All of the Oz books are so odd that by the 7th book they don't seem very odd anymore.  Baum had ended the series at book 6, but decided to bring out another one due to popularity and the income it brought him.  Oz had been sealed off from our world, so he had to come up with a way for the new story to get to him.  New characters in this story, which was his first "quest" adventure, include the namesake Patchwork Girl, as well as the Crooked Wizard, Ojo the Boy Munchkin, the Glass Cat, and the Woozy.  As they seek ingredients for a magic formula that will free Ojo's uncle from an accident with a magic spell that turned him into a marble statue, along with the wizard's wife, they gradually encounter most of the old friends we have all come to know from previous books.  Baum claimed that this was his best Oz book to date.

 

Back by popular demand.
 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

June Reading Summary

 Besides the usual 8 books by my remaining Avon/Equinox series writers, I managed to read 4 others, and parts of four others.  I am taking my time reading 4 books over many months, including one on American paintings in the DIA, the Beethoven biography by Swafford, a book of folk tales, and a coffee table book on great train journeys of the world.  Those will be wrapped up eventually, but I am in no hurry.

My monthly reading always begins with Robert Silverberg.  This time it was the epic Lord of Darkness, from 1983.  At 612 pages, it is one of the longest novels by the 24 Avon/Equinox authors I have come across.  Silverberg divides the story into 5 books.  Essentially it is the true story of Andrew Battell, from Leigh in England.  The action takes places in the latter part of the 16th C and the early part of the 17th.  Silverberg is a renowned history writer, where I first encountered him as a youth.  While the historical details of Battell's surrealistic life are scant, Silverberg fills in the narrative skillfully and with great attention to historical detail.  If proof is needed that truth is stranger than fiction, look no farther than the life led by Battell.  Stranded in South America on his first voyage abroad, he is enslaved by the Portuguese and eventually brought to Angola, in Africa.  Here the adventures truly begin, and never stop.  While Silverberg invents details such as a family for Battell, for the most part his story jives with the facts (available on the internet in full).  This is a tale of darkness and suffering, and a harrowing account of  Portuguese rule at the time.  If this were pure fiction, no reader would believe it remotely possible that such events ever happened.  And even if only 1/3 of the things told in this tale did actually happen, and the rest never did, then Battell still would have led the most remarkable life one could ever imagine.  Highly recommended.

For Love of Evil is the 6th book in Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series.  Published in 1988, this is one of the best of the series, if not the best so far.  What I do like about the series is how Anthony relates some of the same events from different perspectives.  Book Six concerns the doings of Satan, and while he has been featured in each of the first five books, he finally gets to tell his own story here, and we see his side of things for the first time.  The action starts in the late 12th C, and is quite brutal.  The opening scene of a frightened village girl entering the hut of a sorcerer is one of the best openings to a fantasy novel I have ever read.  At some point I asked myself where this medieval tale, good as it was, was going.  Knowing Anthony's writing as well as I do, I was confident it would all tie in.  And it does, quite beautifully.  We meet many old characters, and a few newer ones.  I seriously don't know how Anthony can keep track of all this without continually rereading the earlier volumes.  He seems to write a book from many different series each year, so how he can keep them all straight in his mind is really something.  A winner!

The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus, Harrison's novel from 1999, is another very fun entry in the beloved series.  What is special about this one is that he is aging, and beginning to think that the insane and dangerous life he leads, with his beautiful and equally deadly wife, Angeline, is getting to be a bit much.  Retirement seems like the thing to do, as soon as he finishes up this adventure.  He does briefly join the circus as a magician, as he tries to find out who is committing a series of bank robberies on various planets.  The whole family gets in on this one, with their twin boys taking up much more of the slack than in previous adventures.  Only one more book in the series remains to be read.  Then I shall have to start them over.

I am hooked on Kenneth Bulmer's late 18th C early 19th C Fox series.  Number 4 is called Siege, and is a complete historical look at the great battle of Aden, Arabs and British against the ground forces and navy of Napoleon.  We get a first hand view of the action and intrigue from the perspective of Mr. Fox, an officer in the British navy.  He and his men happen to become embroiled in the great siege, though Bulmer follows all details of the events very closely to what actually happened.  A great read, as I continue to learn some obscure history from these authors.

Ironhead, a collection of stories by E C Tubb from the 1950s, was first published in 2018 for Kindle.  There are five stories, the best of which is "Iron Head", about a lowly man who looks after cattle.  40 pages later he is the top leader of the joint planets.  An amusing story with a great last line, this could have taken up a series of four or five huge books by lesser writers (I think of the endless prequels and sequels to Dune written by Herbert's kin).  No need, since someone like Tubb can say it all in a novelette!  "Memories Are Important"--What would happen if a person lost all access and connection to every one of his/her memories?  If they only lived in the moment, in the "now".  A fun but scary question, which is answered by Tubb in this engaging what-if story.  It also has a very unique answer to the "escape from the locked room" trope used by so many mystery story writers.  Two of the other three stories are also of high quality and fun to read.

Jack Williamson hits yet another home run with Terraforming Earth, a SF novel from 2001 that is written on a scale obviously influenced by Olaf Stapledon.  This is a truly great SF novel, one that should be read by all fans of the very best of the older stuff.  The action takes place on a moon base, and on Earth, but through many generations and centuries.  Divided into 5 sections, it was originally published that way.  Highly recommended, and easy to read.

Cover of the month, by Stephan Martiniere.

Michael Moorcock's The Warlord of the Air was originally written in 1971, but reworked for this 1993 edition, which contains 3 stories starring Oswald Bastable (a minor character from a story by E Nesbit).  In this story, he carried into the future, an alternate 1973 in which steam power and airships still reign supreme, and the world ha been without war for nearly a century.  However, there is a catch; colonialism is still going strong, and native inhabitants are still being subdued and ruled by Britain and the other colonial powers.  An interesting look at an alternate future, one that Bastable finds quite baffling.  A good story, and I am looking forward the other two.

The first segment of my reading month concluded with Barry Malzberg's The Cross of Fire, one of his finest novels.  From 1982 we watch as Harold Thwaite of Denmark is undergoing an administered hypnotic procedure, in which he is able to step into the shoes (sandals) of historic religious figures.  The year is 2219.  The problem with Harold is that he has a martyr complex, and when it is time to come out of his trances it becomes more and more difficult.  Eventually he refuses to come out, wishing to remain, be crucified, and to rise again a few days later.  Besides scenes of Jesus with the apostles, and Jesus with Mary Magdalene, and Jesus with Lazarus, we also have Harold as God, disputing and wrestling with Satan.  In addition there are scenes with Moses and Aaron, including the parting of the Red Sea, scenes with the suffering of Job, scenes of his being the Lubavitcher Rabbi (an old testament judge), and various conversations with his wife, Edna, back in real time.  The book is totally fascinating, and of course very sacrilegious.  It is often quite funny, as we get a future man's version of some of the great men of the Bible.  But as the book goes on, and it becomes more and more obvious that Harold is deluding himself into believing everything that happens to him, I begin to get reminded of present day fanatics.  Not so much the religious ones, but more like the ones who deny certain events every happened, such as the Sandy Hook massacre, or Trump's inability to come to terms with his election loss.  to him, the only way he could ever lose is if the other side cheated.  Reality holds no hope for such people, and Harold is similarly doomed.  This is one of Malzberg's finest books, and would pair nicely with a reading of Moorcock's Behold The Man, though they have very little in common.  Recommended.

I read four books off the shelf last month, though really only one came from a real shelf.  The rest came from my Kindle shelf, which is now thousands of books.  Tony Hillerman's Landscape is a work of non-fiction, pairing each of Tony's Navajo mystery novels with photographs of where the action takes place.  The book was begun during Tony's later years, but he died long before it was completed.  His daughter Anne took up the torch.  She writes a long intro, as well as gives a description of each of the novels, showing the original cover.  Tony provides his thoughts on each volume.  The photos are stunning, and the book is a must for fans of Hillerman.  Since his death, Anne is now writing similar mysteries, but focusing more on a female Navajo officer, one who played smaller roles in her father's books.

Next, I had the great pleasure of reading Lord Dunsany's 2nd book of tales featuring Jorkens, called Jorkens Remembers Africa, from 1934.  These 21 tales are among the most imaginative and humorous tales of fiction and fantasy ever written, and are often ignored by Dunsany fans.  I never had access to them before, but I now have all of Dunsany's writing on Kindle, thanks to Delphi publishing.  While all the stories are fun, particularly notable are the following: The Lost Romance; The Escape From The Valley; Ozymandias (the best!!!); In The Garden of Memories.  A real treasure chest of short tales of the imagination of a genius.

 

The cover to my Kindle version of stories, lasting 300 pages.  

The unicorn story is one of the best! 

Next came the first novel by Anna Katherine Green, a mystery writer who inspired Doyle and many others, including Agatha Christie.  The Leavenworth Case is from 1878, and while not a truly great detective novel, it was one of the earliest published by a woman.  Though American and set in New York and upstate, it is a thoroughly Victorian novel.  As soon as the reader realizes that neither of two beautiful women, cousins, could possibly have been the murderer, the rest is academic.  Even though all evidence points to one of the women especially, it just was not fitting nor acceptable for a woman to commit such a crime.  Besides the original murder that gets the whole case going, there is only one other murder, something for which I was grateful.  Too many contemporary novels of this type never know when to stop with the killings.  I liked the police inspector, who will feature in other novels by Green.  In an odd twist, he has rheumatism quite badly.  Well worth a read for mystery fans who want to find the source of such things.

Near the end of a month, if I only have a day or two remaining before I need to restart my Avon/Equinox, I turn to L Frank Baum.  I read his 4th Oz book, from 1908.  Called Dorothy and The Wizard In Oz, it begins with an earthquake, and Dorothy, Zeb (a young boy), her kitten, and an old horse, falling into a crack and ending up in a strange country of plant people.  This is yet another amazing adventure, brought into being by the author because of all the children who kept writing to him for more more more.  Luckily for all of us, he complied. The book is great fun!

Cover and interior art by John R Neill. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

February Reading

It turned into an amazing month for reading, as I got through no less than 14 books.  That's an average of two per day!  Some excellent reading in there, too, including the first two Oz books, with original illustrations.

The new month always gets started with something by Silverberg.  I have collected all 10 volumes of Silverberg's shorter fiction, and read Vol 4 last month (which is really Vol 5, as the first volume was not numbered).  It contains 14 stories from 1972-73, lasting for 411 pages.  I had read only one of them previously.  The best them is listed here: The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov IV, where a Jewish colony on another planet has to deal with the reappearance of one of their recently dead in the body of an intelligent native.  A wonderful story; Ship Sister-Star Sister is a very good story about the first starship to leave Earth for the great unknown.  It carries a female telepath, while her twin sister, also a telepath, remains on Earth.  This becomes the main way of communicating from space.  Very well done; This Is The Road is the first of two novellas in this volume, and seems to be a perfect example of what a good novella should be.  A group of four people are travelling west along a road to escape pillage and worse from invading barbarians (does this sound contemporary enough--Russia invade Ukraine as I write this).  They come up against a wall built to block the road, and must decide what to do.  An excellent story, well contained within itself; and In The House Of Double Minds, an intriguing right brain/left brain story.  This book also wins best cover on the month.

Best cover for February, art by Thomas Moronski.  He does all the covers for this series, and they are all amazing.

Next up was a very well done stand alone novel by Piers Anthony, lasting over 520 pages.  Called Tatham Mound, it is a story about a Florida Indian tribe in the mid 1550s.  Well written and well researched, the fictional story is based upon people who were actually uncovered in the excavation of a rare burial mound find in northern Florida.  This is like something Silverberg might write, or Harry Harrison.  The 20-page concluding essay by the author is also well worth reading.

Stainless Steel Visions is a collection of 13 short stories by Harry Harrison, as well as a short essay by the author on what makes a short story good, and what doesn't.  I had read many of the stories in other collections, but I will list three of the new ones that I really liked.  Toy Shop is from 1962, and is 8 pages long.  A fun tale about trying to get one's important invention noticed.  Commando Raid is from 1970, and is 14 pages long.  Were there lessons learned from the Vietnam War?  Harry Harrison learned them, but apparently not everyone who should have did. The Golden Years of the Stainless Steel Rat is from 1993.  It is 20 pages long.  A prison break is nothing unusual for slippery Jim deGriz.  But this time he springs the entire geriatric population.  The Stainless Steel Rat (and Angelina) are still in top form, despite the aging years.

I began another new series by Kenneth Bulmer, writing under the name of Bruno Krauss.  It's a series about German u boats in early WWII, before American got involved.  Their mission is to sink British ships.  It must have surprised a lot of people when they out that a British writer penned the series.  The first book is called Steel Shark.  The missions are harrowing, both for the crew of the submarine, and for the British sailors above, and we get good looks at both sides of the coin.  I have always believed that submarines attempting to sink civilian ships is a very cowardly undertaking, and the book didn't change my mind about that.  Is it a coincidence that Das Boot, the incredible movie about the same subject, came out in 1981, three years after Bulmer's series was underway?  I think not.  Though the movie is based on a 1973 novel, Bulmer's books were quite popular, especially in Germany.  I will likely read one or two more eventually, but not the entire series (8 books).

Next was a pretty terrible SF pulp novel by Tubb, from 1953.  This man could crank out incredible stories one after another, but not this time.  Maybe he had the flu when he wrote it.  The Wall is a mysterious barricade blocking access to the heart of the galaxy, where the answer to eternal youth lies.  It's an interesting enough premise, but it handled very routinely, and the book never really gets things into gear.  At least at 130 pages, it was short.

Even Jack Williamson turned out a clunker for me this month.  Beachhead is from 1992, written when Jack was 82.  It's about the first human trip to Mars.  It is actually worse than the previous pulp novel by Tubb, which I awarded two stars.  This one got one and a half.  Avoid.

After a disappointing start last month to Michael Moorcock's Elric series, the next book I read was much improved.  Written in 1989, many years after the first novel, Moorcock returned to the series to fill in some gaps of events during Elric's years of travel.  Since I am trying to read them in chronological order (not the order in which they were written), the next book was The Fortress of the Pearl.  It seems to be a compendium of styles, from Lovecraft, Dunsany, E R Eddison, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E Howard, Frank Baum, and Fritz Leiber, not to mention Homer, who started it all.  They actually blend well!  My oversize version is 164 pages, but the original paperback version is 248 pages.  A really great read!

The last novel related to my Avon/Equinox authors was called Chorale, written by Barry Malzberg.  It is a weirdly structured time travel novel, where the people of the near future have to keep going back in time to make certain that important events actually happen.  While the book gets bogged down in its own philosophy (did the past really happen, or did we create it from the future), there are enough moments of brilliance to make this a compelling read.  A man is chosen to go back in time and reenact key events in the life of Beethoven, the great composer.  Quite a challenge, since the man neither speaks German, is a musician (in fact he doesn't care about music at all), and is more than slightly demented.  There are several hilarious events and moments, all dark and conspiratorial, but we do end up learning a good deal of Beethoven, and the almost hideous times in which he lived (especially regarding public health and personal grooming habits).  Definitely worth checking out, even for non musicians.

After reading my required 8 books in my ongoing project (see separate website for the Avon/Equinox series), I turned my attention to unrelated books from my "miscellaneous" shelf.  I managed to read six, including two by female writers.  First came Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt, an incredible and memorable tale of a young woman meeting an older woman and falling in love with her.  They end up going on a road trip together across the US.  Written in 1952, this is probably the best book I read all month (a tie with one other--see further down).  Exceptionally well written, and we also got to watch the 2013 film, called Carol, based on the book.

The Dragon Scroll, by Irina K Parker is part of a very long series of murder/mystery books taking place in 11 C Japan.  I read several many years ago.  Though this one was written later, it is the first of the books chronologically, and I have had it on my shelf for many years.  The parts about Japanese society, customs, and life styles are well researched and form the main interest for reading these books, much in the same way that Pat McIntosh writes her mysteries in medieval Glasgow. The book was okay, but as per most modern mystery stories, there are simply too many murders for one book.  Find something else to keep a reader's interest, instead of continually murdering someone else.

I dipped into my vast library of Delphi Classics on Kindle for the next four books.  First of these was called Toppleton's Client, by J K Bangs, his second novel.  Written in 1893, it is a very funny tale about a one man trying to help a spirit regain his body, which was stolen by another spirit 30 years earlier.  Extremely well written, and the premise is given sufficient time and breadth to develop before we really get into the nitty gritty of things.  The ending was actually a surprise, but perfect for the story.  Not only are Americans lampooned, but the British who receive them are raked over the coals as well.  Courts and lawyers are not spared either, but it's never nasty, only fun.

Next came a serious work, A Man From The North, by Arnold Bennett.  Partly autobiographical, it's about a man coming to London from a smaller city, and hoping to become a writer.  He takes a room, gets a clerk's job, and occasionally sends in an article or short story to a publisher.  They are always rejected.  The story follows him for years, and was a surprisingly good read.  The author allows us good access to the man's inner thoughts, and his constricted lifestyle, with occasional episodes of hope, keep us reading on page after page.  He has no real friends, seems unable to meet women, and has no sense of true ambition to work at being a writer.  However, he has a strong sense that he is far above his fellow men, despite his lack of success with women and with writing books.  If he didn't have his strong ego he would undoubtedly fall apart quickly.  The book could also be called Ambitious Hopes Meet Reality.  Highly recommended.

I finished off the short month by reading the first two Oz books.  I have read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz before, but only in a text version.  This time I had access to all of the original art that accompanied the story.  There is so much to love about this book, and it certainly remains as relevant today--to kids and adults--as when it was first written in 1900.  There is wonderful satire, brilliantly imaginative locations, characters, and adventures, and a total sense that somehow this is all real, somewhere.  A must read, for everyone.

  

Dorothy, with her green spectacles, meets the Wizard of Oz.

Echoing the adventures of Homer's Ulysses, our four heroes become bogged down in a field of poppies that make two of them very sleepy.

Never having read The Marvelous Land of Oz, the 2nd book in the series, I pressed on.  Though not as good in many ways as the first book, the 1904 sequel has its own rough charm.  The humour is back, and a different artist takes over.  The Scarecrow is chased off his Emerald City Throne by a band of girls with knitting needles, and sets off westward to find the Tin Man and get his help.  The girls chip off all the precious stones from the walls of the Emerald City, force the men to do all the home labour, and the women relax and make fudge.  After an unsuccessful attempt to get his throne back, the Scarecrow and friends set out to get Glinda's help.  New characters in book two are Jack Pumpkinhead, H M Wogglebug, T. E., a bad witch, a sawhorse, and a flying thing made from palm leaves and two sofas, and a boy who turns out to be a girl.  All the greatest fun one could ever have, so read it soon.

Two illustrations from The Marvelous Land of Oz, Book 2 in the series. 

Mapman Mike