August Reading Summary

 I was slowed down in the middle of the month by some medical issues, taking a very long time to read the Dunsany novel discussed below.  But at least the first five novels, all related to my Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery authors, went by quickly.  Let us begin, as usual, with Robert Silverberg.

His next crime novel to be recently republished is called Blood on the Mink, first published in Trapped Magazine, 1959.  Besides the main short novel, there are also two shorter tales.  The author gives a modern afterword to his stories.  The plot has to do with a federal agent taking the identity of a criminal, and trying to stop the flow of counterfeit cash coming out of Philadelphia.  There is a lot of tension and a lot of plot thickening in this decent story of underworld crime and violence, which includes a few dames and lots of shooting.  It is a short novel, and I easily read it over the course of a day.  There is some humour regarding night life in Philly.  Worth a read for pulp crime fiction fans.  It would make a decent noir film, even today.  Also included were:

Dangerous Doll, a story from 1960, also to do with counterfeit money.  A Chicago hoodlum is to deliver some plates, but things go wrong when he is tested by the syndicate.  He sells them down the river the first chance he gets, but afterwards he realizes that he is out of chances.

One Night of Violence is from 1959.  An innocent Wisconsin furnace salesman involves himself in an altercation in the motel room next to his, and soon regrets his interference.  It leads to a shootout between two Chicago gangs in the motel and parking lot.  A lively story!

 

Cover art by Michael Koelsch.  I read the Kindle edition. 

 

In A Fortune For Kregen, we have arrived at the 21st book of the Dray Prescott series, one in which Bulmer's imagination continues to impress readers.  Things take yet another different turn in this novel from 1979.  At first it seems like the same old thing, as Dray once again is captured and becomes a slave.  But soon things develop, and the adventure we read about could easily be transferred to a Lara Croft Tomb Raider game.  Dray is a slave in a large expedition that heads to a vast underground burial site, protected by traps and wizardry, including monsters, ghouls, walls that close in, and even stinging insects.  Most people are out for loot from the burial tombs.  The underground caverns have grown vast over the centuries, and the traps more diabolical and dangerous.  Dray just wants to get out, alive if possible.  Though never quite up to the sword and sorcery standards of Fritz Leiber, Bulmer has created a world filled with excitement, adventure, and danger.  That includes wizardry, which takes a front seat in this story.  A fun read, and quite different from most of the other entries in this enticing series.

 

The fifth book of E C Tubb's Cap Kennedy series (he is a secret agent for Earth) is called Jewel of Jarhen, dates from 1974, and is a brief 111 pages.  It features a good opening chapter, as the cruel leader of a medieval-type world is killed while on a hunt, and his more rational younger brother has to take over.  The title jewel itself is quite intriguing, and forms the central plot line of the story, nicely mixing science with sorcery.  Cap and his boys are charged with a diplomatic mission, even though they are warriors rather than diplomats.  This puts a different spin on the story as well.  Science and magic and superstition meet on the planet Jarhen, as three civilizations compete for the right to trade with the backward planet and help it along its course of growth.  When the previous Earth diplomat is found drowned in his bed, far from any water, Cap is called in.  Good thing Cap can swim.  How did someone drown when they weren't near water?  Read this fun pulp adventure story to find out.

Barry Malzberg's (writing as Mike Barry) Peruvian Nightmare is from 1974 and is 137 pages long.  The story picks up directly after #6 in this series, about a lone wolf out to exterminate the North American drug trade after his girlfriend was killed by an overdose.  Burt Wulf lands in Peru, where he is trapped in a large hotel.  The bad guy from book 6, Calabrese, just wanted Wulf out of the country and out of his hair, but realizes too late that he should have had him killed instead.  Wulf is helped out by the hotel owner, who has a little job for him, and who promises to get him out of the country at the same time.  Book 7 includes a narrative recap of many of the events that happened in earlier books, but finally gives us some details about his relationship with his deceased girlfriend.  The book spends a lot of time inside Wulf's head, and the on-going killings, still a goodly number of them, seem to take a backseat to the man's introspective life.  In Peru Wulf takes a bus to Cuzco, where his bus is ambushed by Calabrese's men.  He is ambushed again at the climax of the novel, on a narrow ledge along a high mountain trail.  The death of two horses in this scene is very unpleasant, and is treated in a thoughtless and mostly carefree way.  Kill all the bad people that you want, but leave the animals alone, svp.  We are now halfway through the series, and so far Malzberg is able to make each story not only different, but interesting and mostly fun to read.  Let's hope that Wulf succeeds in eliminating the drug trade, and that in 2024 there will not be anymore overdose deaths (add heavy sarcasm to preceding statement).

 

Lastly from SF writers comes James Blish's More Issues At Hand.  Blish's second group of essays dates from the late 1950s to 1970.  There is more focus here on single novels, rather than shorter stories.  I find myself disagreeing with Blish much of the time, though he speaks many truths and bursts many bubbles.  He seems, to put it bluntly, to be an old fogey.  I do not blame him for trying to raise the standard of SF literature, and for blasting poor writing.  He blames writers, editors, and readers for the problems.   Why does some real drivel get published, and why does some of it even win coveted awards?  Well, Mr. Blish, the universe is filled with mysteries, many of which will never get solved.  Why do voters vote for criminal and psychotic politicians?  Why do people eat tons of junk food every day?  Why do hideous billboards appear on highways that have beautiful natural scenery?  Why do so many women marry male crumb bums?  I could go on.  There isn't much that Blish can do about it, except insult writers and make enemies of them, which he seems to have done rather well.  Among his other incisions, he tears apart the British New Wave SF writers, often with very prescient comments.  I agree with much of what he says here, but what's done is done.  He loves SF literature, but never once mentions the many horrible SF movies that helped lower the bar even further for writers.  For most people, SF means monsters, aliens, and flying saucers, all threatening our existence (are you listening, Dr. Who?) instead of well plotted stories about characters dealing with some form of science problem.  He blames SF writers for trying out new forms, ones which have been prevalent in regular literature for decades.  Since many writers never come to terms with Joyce's writing, nor even attempt to, why belittle SF writers when they try something new in the genre that has never before been done here?  Even failures have their value, providing that the writer and others can learn something from them.  Sometimes he swill rip apart a story without even saying why, though most of the time he gives his reasons for disliking a book.  While some may boil and fume at Blish's criticism, at the time he was only one of two writers even doing such a thing.  Overall, like the first book, this one is well worth reading for SF fans, especially if well read in others areas of literature.  Highly recommended. (The second SF writer to turn critic was Damon Knight--I have seen purchased his book of such from Kindle).

Now comes the free reading period of the month, when nearly anything can turn up.  First up was Curse of the Wise Woman by Lord Dunsany, from 1933.  This is a very special book only to those who have known a piece of land well, and been changed and formed by it.  The Sudbury landscape where I grew up is now completely changed, though for the better.  Still, I cannot return here and see what I saw growing up.  The bare rocks have now sprouted forests, and Sudbury is now green instead of black.  Lake Penage, where our summer camp was located, probably shaped me as a person just as much.  Though the landscape remains much the same, since we sold the camp I can never go back.  My third major influence from the land was New Mexico, with deserts and alpine mountains in heaping quantities.  Much of it remains unchanged, and I am free to visit whenever I can.  Those three landscapes--early Sudbury, Penage, and certain parts of New Mexico will always be with me, even if I cannot always be with them (the former, never again).  Anyone with similar experiences will understand Dunsany's book, and his attempt to show one young man's connection to a vast Irish bog that is about to undergo transforming development from an English peat company.  All that stands in their way is an Irish witch.  This is a story with deep, deep roots in the land, and despite the person being a 'sportsman', the message still comes across loud and clear.  Will the witch be able to save the bog from developers, or will it be lost for all time.  It would be a spoiler to tell, but the ending and the story isn't was this book is about--it's about the land.  A masterpiece.

A book with very special powers to enchant the reader. 

 

T. S. Eliot's Poems 1920 contains 12 poems written up to that year.  Like most Eliot poetry, the surface seems easy to read, but understanding the inner meaning of words and phrases is beyond most casual readers, including this one.  To make matters more difficult, 4 of the poems are entirely in French!  What is a reader to do?  In my case, Genius.com came to the rescue.  This site not only will translate back to English, but will carefully annotate and explain the poem, often line by line.  I found it invaluable in understanding the meaning and relevance of the poem.  Two favourite poems for this reader were the incomparable "Hippopotamus", where a hippo's life is compared to that of the Church.  Biting satire at its finest, not to mention quite funny.  The other is "Dans le Restaurant", one of the French poems.  Chilling and somewhat mystifying.  The poem ends with an early version of Death By Water (written for a good friend killed in the Gallipoli fiasco.

Next came three novellas by Gogol, contained in a volume entitle Arabesques, from 1935.  The first is called The Portrait, and is a lesson for writers in how to tell a good story.  It is a supernatural tale, but one that could also be explained in more rational ways.  In two parts, the first part tells how the purchase of a portrait in a junk shop alters the life of a young artist, in mostly negative ways.  In the 2nd part we learn about the artist who painted the portrait, and the man depicted in the picture.  Though not a hair raising tale and not likely to appeal to fans of Stephen King, it is an extremely well crafted story.  All the information required for readers is eventually given out in Part 2, and after experiencing Part 1, we can make our own judgment of whether or not "the devil' was involved.  An excellent read.

Nevsky Prospekt was next.  The exposition is dedicated to detailing the life of the famous street in St. Petersburg from dawn to dawn.  Then the author begins to tell his story, which is actually two stories.  Two young men, one an artist and one a lieutenant each follow a different beautiful woman they encounter on the boulevard.  The two stories and their outcomes are very different, the second perhaps more unexpected than the first.  These are the kinds of stories that could have produced an entire volume unto themselves based around that street, and perhaps Gogol had such an idea in mind.  But the second story ends so abruptly that it seems as if he tired of the idea and wanted to move on.  Not nearly as satisfying as the first story.

Third and finally came Diary of a Madman.  Some people might actually read this thinking that it is a comedy.  Though not exactly a case study for madness, it does get the idea across of how delusions, often of grandeur, accompany some forms of madness, as well as auditory hallucinations.  The wretched clerk in the story is pretty far gone before the story proceeds very far.  The most entertaining part of the story for this reader was the dialogue and letters between two lap dogs.  But the story becomes more and more horrifying as it proceeds.  Definitely a unique story for its time.  In the present, the streets are where many schizophrenic people end up.  Back then it was in an institution, where treatment was so often brutal and inhuman.

 

Anna Katherine Green's The Sword of Damocles is her third novel and is from 1881.  It is an epic tale, well planned, and divided into five books.  The fun of reading books about love, courtship, and honour from the 1800s is to undertake it like an expedition in archaeology.  What was it like back then for middle and upper class people to get married?  What was expected of the man?  Was it all up to the father of the bride?  All these questions and more will be answered when a book such as this is read.  Besides the love interest of two couples, there is a mystery or two to be solved, including the mysterious reason for Mr. Sylvester's clouded brow.  There is also a type of bank robbery, which casts doubt on the character of one of the young suitors.  Though it is a long novel, it is an easy read.  Occasionally the story itself is interrupted while one of the characters relates a background story.  One of the interesting things about the book, which proves its careful planning, is that virtually every character one meets has a crucial role to play, sometimes much alter in the story.  Just what is the sword that figuratively hangs over the head of Mr. Sylvester?  Nothing much, by today's criminal and moral standards.  But back then it was enough to ruin a man's reputation, and cause him to lose the woman he loves.  Overall it is quite a good novel, and well suited for adaptation to a TV series.

We are watching a crime and mystery literature course on The Great Courses.  This is a very thorough investigation of the genre, beginning with its creator Edgar Allen Poe, through much of Conan Doyle's creation, Sherlock Holmes, delving deeply into Agatha Christie's contributions, continuing on through the American hard boiled detective years of the 1930s, right up to contemporary writers.  One of the episodes spent a lot of time discussing dime novel detectives.  These stories sprang up in the 1800s between the time of Poe's three detective stories and those of Conan Doyle.  One of the most prolific writers of that time, and one which had a huge influence on later detective fiction, went under the by-line of The Old Sleuth, AKA Harlan Page Halsey.  He wrote hundreds of dime novel mysteries back in the 1880s.  I read #12, called The Twin Detectives, or The Missing Heiress, from August 1885.  Written well before Conan Doyle's Holmes stories, I was surprised how many little connections there were between the two.  Doyle was obviously a fan of dime novel detective stories before he set out on his own enterprise.  The dime novels originate in the US, and it is interesting to note that the first Holmes and Watson novel takes place there.  In this story, the detective has to find a missing man and the person to whom he left a fortune.  He has very little to go on, and we follow this brilliant man from step to step as he pieces the puzzle together, one step at a time.  There is considerable humour in the story, as well as tragedy and sadness.  His method of extracting information from people is one similar to one that Holmes uses, and at one point in the story, after telling his client how he ingeniously figured out one part of the puzzle, the client replies that he guesses that being a detective isn't so difficult after all.  Doyle used this quite often in the Holmes stories, with Watson claiming that solving the puzzle was rather easy, after the fact.  I have six more of these short novels on hand, and will likely get through them over the next few months.

Finally came the 17th novel in the Doc Savage series, called The Thousand-Headed Man.  From July 1934, it was written by Lester Dent, a prolific author who wrote over 159 novels.  The book cover gives the house name of Kenneth Robeson as the writer.  When I read these books as a young teen, I was completely unaware of any racism in the stories.  Doc went after bad guys (or they went after him), and they battled it out with guns and wits until Doc finally got the upper hand.  This book has an Oriental bad guy, and some of the worst racism I have ever come across fills the pages.  The dialogue consists of the Chinese men speaking in that horrendous English that writers often used back in the day, and it is truly cringe worthy.  One fun part of the book is that the early part takes place in London, with Doc arriving on the scene to awaiting crowds at Croydon Airfield.  Once the story takes off, literally, and Doc and his comrades fly to Indochina, Dent is at his pulp writing best.  Into the jungle we go, finding lost and isolated pagoda temples and, finally, a vast abandoned city.  The city holds a great mystery, and even Doc is captured and taken prisoner.  But not for long.  Escape for him and the people he has come to rescue seems impossible.  Can he do it?  Dent has a good eye for detail, and after allowing the creation of numerous mystical-seeming events, explains everything by the end.  Except for the racist attitudes to Orientals, the adventure itself is quite a good one.  This reader is a sucker for lost jungle cities and the secrets they hold.

Original 1934 publication.  Cover by Walter B. Baumhofer. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

July Reading

 As I am down to five remaining authors in my Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Project, I have more time each month to read beyond it.  My secondary main reading project comes from the almost unbelievable Delphi Classics series on Kindle, as I attack the complete works of so many great authors.  The rest comes from more laissez faire choices, including impulse reading.

All months now begin with something by Robert Silverberg, and will continue to do so until his works are complete.  I estimate about nine more months to spend with this great SF author.  The Positronic Man was a collaboration with Asimov, based on one his his earlier stories.  Silverberg has attempted to make a novel out of it, with limited success.  Short stories usually have one main idea that gets developed, whereas a novel can have several, depending on its length and the skill of its writer.  As a novel, this story of a robot that wants to become human is very single minded, never once deviating from its set course.  In fact, it often becomes monotonous.  Stretching it to novella length might work well, but extending it to a medium sized novel seems to be pushing things too far.  Within the Avon/Equinox series I have read much better and more profound stories about robots seeking humanity.  Top honours would have to go to John Sladek for his robot novels: 2 "Roderick" novels, and his "Tik-Tok", both wicked and funny; and Jack Williamson's brilliant pair of robot novels "The Humanoids", and "The Humanoid Touch".  All of these put Silverberg's novel into perspective very quickly.

 

Avenger of Antares is the 10th novel in the everlasting Dray Prescott series by Bulmer.  Our hero continues to search for the secret to the Havilfar flying machines.  They seem to sell ones to other countries that are prone to crashing, but the ones they keep for themselves fly much more consistently.  Under an assumed name he lives in their major city trying to find out more information.  But his plans (as ever) go awry when the teenage daughter of a good friend is kidnapped.  His friend is badly wounded in the attempt, so Prescott sets out to get her back.  She is no helpless child, though, and when she is finally rescued she manages to fight back quite efficiently, aiding Prescott in her escape.  This is a good addition to the series, which, unlike that of Tubb's Dumerest saga, are novels directly linked to one another.  There is endless material here for an ongoing TV series.

 

E C Tubb's own endless series features SF hero Dumarest, and I read #10, Jondelle. This story is also mainly about a kidnapped child who needs rescuing, but this time it's a boy about 6 or 7 years of age.  Our hero makes a pledge to the boy's dying mother that he will get the boy back.  There is a lot of death and mayhem in this tale, but overall it is a very good entry in the series.  At the very end Dumarest gets yet another clue to the location of Earth.  Will he ever find it?  No, since Tubb never saw fit to allow him to.  That is the real tragedy of this whole series.  Tubb died in 2010, and in 2008 the last volume of the series was published.  So don't expect Dumarest to finally end his quest.  Sadly, it will never end.

 

Moorcock's Elric is back in a novel called The Sleeping Sorceress.  Three linked stories are put together as a novel, with Elric aiding a woman sorceress against a common enemy wizard.  The first two stories are OK, but nowhere near the level of writing one might encounter in Fritz Leiber's word and sorcery writings.  In addition, Leiber's works are filled with wit and humour, whereas Elric is a rather dour old soul.  But the final story, "Three Heroes With a Single Aim," (also previously called "The Vanishing Tower") is right up with the very best of the genre.

 

Cover of the month.  The artist is John Picacio.
 

Lastly came another soft core porn novel, Machine, by Barry Malzberg (under an assumed name, but newly released under his real name) written in the late 60s.  Another small time loser loses big, as his newly opened pinball business is shut down by the local police, and his machines destroyed.  Mixed in with the main story is his relationship with two women, one a college coed and the other his ex wife.  Funny, tragic, and mostly very readable.  His thoughts often turning to pinball game  comparisons as he makes love are quite priceless.  Perhaps a little more "erotic" than his other similar novels, there is still a large helping of literary merit to the book.

Turning to "other" books, Kate Chopin's first novel did not find a publisher.  She published it herself.  Written in 1890, At Fault has its clumsy moments, but overall is well worth reading.  Part of the adventure in reading Chopin's works (I've read most of her short fiction) is trying to decipher and sound out her patois.  The way the French Creoles talk, and the way the Louisiana Blacks talk, is rendered as closely as is humanly possible by the author, and most of it is laugh aloud fun to read.  The story concerns a widowed plantation owner, who takes up the work her husband used to do.  She is a morally strong woman, and will not marry the man who comes to love her because he has been divorced (she is Catholic).  Instead, she talks him into going back to St. Louis and remarrying the girl, and to bring her back to the plantation.  Well, that doesn't work out so well.  Various subplots interweave with the main story, most ending tragically.  But never fear, there are happy endings for some of the folk we have come to know.  A highly readable tale, if you are not put off by the local dialogue rendering.

Next up was a mammoth novel by Wilkie Collins, his 3rd.  From 1854 (he and Dickens were very close friends) comes Hide and Seek, an engrossing tale of lost identity, a woman abandoned by her family (at least by her nutcase aunt), and a kind man who adopts a girl child with an unknown past, though he wants to keep her past secret to prevent anyone finding her and taking her away.  Rescued from a life of hardship and beatings in a circus, Valentine Blyth is determined to save her and take her home.  She has the face of a Raphael Madonna, and Blyth adopts her and brings him home to live, to learn how to draw, and keep his invalid wife company.  Due to a circus accident at a young age, the girl is deaf and dumb.  Collins researched this handicap carefully, and besides the young girl's affliction we also have his wife permanently kept in bed because of a painful spine malady.  Quite unusual main characters for a story from the 1850s!  The first of two books within the novel is called "Hiding," and deals with the girl's history and what little is known of her.  The second book is called "Seeking," and deals with how the truth was discovered about her background, and what happened as a result.  Collins is a master storyteller, with no wasted characters or scenes; everything fits and is required to advance the plot along a fairly seamless line.  The characters of Zack, Mat, and Blyth are very well drawn, the women less so.  Still, this is an engrossing novel, and hard to put down once begun.  Recommended.

I always get very excited when the Delphi reading roster approaches Joseph Conrad again.  Lord Jim, published in novel form in 1900 (it was originally serialized), is one of the most legendary books in literature.  For all its length, it tells a very simple tale.  Jim is the focus, and over time and many pages we learn pretty much there is to know about Jim.  His downfall came during a steamship journey carrying pilgrims towards Mecca.  Jim was the first mate.  Their ship struck something during the night, and was in imminent danger of sinking.  There were not enough lifeboats to rescue all the passengers, nor likely even time to get the boats afloat.  The captain and two crew left the ship by launching one boat.  A fourth man died of a heart attack helping launch the boat.  Much went through Jim's mind in the few seconds he had to decide.  He ended up jumping into the lifeboat.  Well, it turns out the ship did not sink, and the pilgrims were rescued by a French boat that towed them to shore.  The captain ran off before the hearing, the two surviving crew members were hospitalized with shock (and alcoholism), while Jim stood his ground to face the music.  The rest of the novel is his search for inner peace, knowing and accepting what he had done.  With the help of Captain Marlow, he eventually finds a tiny corner of the south east jungle that he can rebuild his character.  However, he is ultimately undone by a Gollum/Wormtongue character.  The book is rich in character development and observation, but the storytelling is somewhat awkward.  Marlow tells the entire tale.  Not once do we get inside Jim's thoughts through his character.  Only his words and actions are reported by Marlow, often from second hand sources.  The tale is not told in a straight forward chronological order, but more or less how things pop into Marlow's mind.  This can be confusing and disconcerting at times, and almost requires a second reading.  Still, a truly amazing novel about a man's lost honour and his search to recover at least a portion of it.

Next came Malzberg's choice for best novel of the 1970s.  Stanley Elkin's The Franchiser has to be read to be believed.  From 1976, its 300+ pages spoof an America caught up in the energy shortage and at a time when franchises were making virtually every city appear the same if looked at from a certain angle.  Ben Flesh owns franchises of about 13 different kinds of stores, including Radio Shack, Mr. Softie Ice Cream, a photo booth, a dry cleaners, etc.  He longs for the day when he will be able to drive into any American city and not know where he is, since every place looks the same.  It is a wonderful send up of an America just beginning to spin out of control.  Left a strange type of inheritance by his dying godfather, he must rely on the old man's 19 off-spring (all identical twins and triplets) to be able to borrow money from the estate at the prime interest rate.  He is on the road for much of the book, and we glimpse his version of America in hilarious scene after scene, all played quite straight by our man Ben Flesh.  His god cousins eventually begin to die tragically but uproariously of strange diseases related to their inferior genes, and poor Ben himself has an onset of MS, which he faces as well as can be expected.  This is the 2nd novel this month to treat disease and handicap in the forefront of the plot.  I have never read a novel  like this before, and can highly recommend it to anyone looking for a nostalgic look back to what America was like 50 years ago.  Or wasn't like.  A truly great, highly creative and unusual novel.

Finally came a guilty pleasure.  Since beginning my SF reading and review project I have read a lot of pulp SF, mystery, etc, written by the 24 Avon/Equinox authors.  I have a ton of respect for these highly underpaid professional writers who cranked out story after story to pay the rent and feed the family.  One of the superhuman heroes of my early teenage years was a character named Doc Savage.  Lester Dent wrote under the house name of Kenneth Robeson, churning out novel after novel of the adventures of Doc and his five sidekicks.  Unlike Conan, these were no barbarians.  They were intellectuals as well as muscle men.  Doc trained (hilariously) every muscle of his body two hours each day (though he never seemed to have the time during any of his adventure novels).  Doc could hypnotize, talk any language (even ancient Mayan!), and do just about anything else that circumstances demanded.  I read about eighty of these before finally giving up.  Philip Jose Farmer continued to develop the character in his own novels (and Tarzan, too!), and wrote a truly amazing biography of Doc (reviewed in my Avon/Equinox blog) which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.  In fact, it got me interested in rereading some of the original tales again.  I bought a kindle version of 10 novels, and finally got around to reading the first one.  Man of Bronze, from 1933, is where it all began.  Doc's father is killed for mysterious reasons by a secret cult, and Doc is soon thrown into his first adventure to make it to print form.  We learn all about Doc and his aides, about their headquarters, and some of their gadgets used to fight crime.  After 50+ years, I think I am enjoying the book more than I did as a youth, but for different reasons.  I read the adventures in earnest as a boy, wanting to be like Doc someday.  Now I read and find myself chuckling at every other paragraph, as Doc undertakes feats no other human being could possible undertake.  Great fun! 

Cover of the first novel.  Art by Walter Baumhofer. 

 

See you next month!

 

Mapman Mike