Books Read April/May 2026 and Annual Summary

Because of travel I have combined the last two months.  We were away for the last week of April and the first week of May.  As a result I only read one Tubb and one Bulmer instead of one each month.  I also managed to get through a lengthy Moorcock novel.  The rest is free reading, including four from my Delphi Classics series on Kindle.

 

But the end of May is also the time I look back on another year of reading. It is now ten years since I began the Avon/Equinox SF project (see separate blog).  I am now down to mostly two authors, E C Tubb and Kenneth Bulmer.  I am stepping back even from these two authors somewhat, and will read one book a month by one or the other, instead of both in the same month.  This frees up my time for the Delphi Classics series, as well as for my ever growing list of unrelated fiction.

 

Here is the summary for June to December 2025 January through May 2026.  In total I read 98 books.  22 of those were by authors from the Avon/Equinox SF series, while 71 one of them were novels by various and sundry authors, many from the Delphi Classics series.  My ten year total for Avon/Equinox authors is now at an astounding 898 books!  In the same period I have read 361 books by other authors.   That makes 1259 books over ten years, all reviewed.  I'm a busy guy when not looking at maps.

 

Scorpio Invasion is from 1992 and is 238 pages long.  It is #40 in the Dray Prescott series by Kenneth Bulmer, and we find Dray face to face with the Star Lords once again, after defying them in the previous book.  All is well, however, and he even manages to talk them into following his advice for his next step in serving them.  The Shanks ("Fishheads") are a savage and evil bunch attempting to take over the entire planet and enslave everyone.  Dray has fought them before, but this time he volunteers to go into a city that they have captured and are terrorizing.  He enlists the help of some renegades and like-minded slaves in hopes of timing his attack from within the city with the upcoming one from without.  Bulmer's attention to detail is an awesome feat; I don't know how he kept track of events from earlier books, but he even footnotes where readers can go back and check if they so wish.  Also, his sense of humour seldom lets up, leaving behind all of the much more serious fantasy adventure novels in this aspect.  The novel ends at a cliffhanger moment, so we will have to wait awhile to find out what happens next.  Will Dray Prescott be able to save his friends from slavery, or will he be captured and enslaved himself?  This fun and fascinating series continues to interest me, even forty books on.  *** stars.

 

Incident on Ath is from 1978 and is 188 pages long, #18 in the on-going saga of Earl Dumarest written by E C Tubb.  Any book in this series would make a fantastic SF movie, though the same could be said for virtually any book by Tubb.  But Star Wars marches on.  This time we begin on planet Juba, a place that Dumarest is trying to now leave.  He is being searched for the Cyclan, that race of Cybers--part human, mostly machine) for knowledge he has tucked away in his brain.  This knowledge will advance their cause greatly in their scheme to rule the galaxy, so our hero is always on the run.  Where is he going?  This is the one weak link in this series.  He wants to return to earth, where he was born, but no one has heard of it and thinks it's a myth.  His reasons for returning are never given--when he left as a boy it was a world devastated by war and environmental disasters.  So why not go back and see the old homestead.  Anyway, he hears of the planet Ath, which sounds like the planet he is looking for.  As things turn out, Ath likely had all the answers he needed, but, like the old TV series The Fugitive, Tubb can never give him what he wants.  The computer with the knowledge gets blown up in a man's failed scheme to take over the planet, which has something very much like Herbert's spice.  And so we move on to the next volume.  Tubb weaves an amazing story around these events, with a lot of science mixed in for good measure.  He even includes the arts, with a disillusioned painter and a very beautiful and talented ballerina.  This is one of the better entries in the series.  *** stars.

 

The Whispering Swarm is from 2014, the first book of The Sanctuary of the White Friars series by Michael Moorcock.  The book is 470 pages and is divided into 3 shorter books.  I read one of the shorter books each past month, the first one 190 pages long.  90% of this first book is Moorcock's autobiography, and he throws in a little bit of mysterious goings on in London for seasoning.  I wish he had just stuck to autobiography or to fiction; the two do not mesh very well.  In fact, Moorcock comes out looking like a total idiot, one of the stupidest heroes of any book I have ever read.  Even though he continually wanders into a fantasy London area, he attributes it to LSD.  Really?  Is anybody that dumb?  While he goes on and on about how great his imagination is, the best he can come up with for explaining the strange goings on behind the big gate he sometimes has access to is to say it was LSD.  Very good, Michael.  Very believable.  He becomes one of those characters you want to shake very badly, or see him get run over by a bus.  The fantasy part shows promise, whenever he decides to get more serious about it.  The autobiography is interesting since Moorcock has met so many influential writers.  Right now I have very mixed feelings about the book, as it took 190 pages to convince himself that something strange is actually happening to him.  Great deduction.  More to follow next month.

Reviewed February 2nd/26 

 

The 2nd book of The Whispering Swarm continues pretty much in the same tradition as the first, except that Michael now is beginning to believe something strange is going on.  Ya think?  Was there ever such as moron in fiction who lived to tell the tale?  Michael divides his time between telling us more of his autobiography, how much his loves his wife and daughters, how much he loves the girl from behind the gates he's shagging, and how his tinnitus stops when he goes there.  Yet he still makes no real connection.  In most horror novels such a dimwitted hero would likely die and no one would miss him.  I am coming around to wishinf for that idea in this case.

Reviewed March 1st/26 

 

In the 3rd book of The Whispering Swarm Moorcock continues to use the kitchen sink approach to writing.  He uses autobiography a lot (changed somewhat, of course), fantasy, SF and, in this book, increases the use of historical fiction.  British history is filled with opportunities to write fictional accounts of what might have happened, and is a major genre of fiction writing today.  Moorcock taps into this with his Cromwell versus King Charles I.  He joins a party of loyalists who attempt to rescue the King from prison the night before he is to be executed.  Moorcock and readers know that Charles was beheaded, but with Moorcock and his use of multi universes one never knows where this angle might be going.  Be reassured that history does follow its course, but the reason that the rescue does not come off is that Charles refuses to be rescued.  There follows a climactic scene on the frozen Thames at night during a winter thunder snowstorm.  While the third book in this volume is the best of the three, it still can't really save a sinking ship.  Planned as a series of four volumes, at least one more has been written.  I may or may not get around to it.  If I can pick up the next volume cheaply I will, but that is still no guarantee it will get read and reviewed.  I wish Moorcock had simply written an autobiography.  For now, Moorcock reading and reviews will be rested for a time.

** 1/2 stars

 

My used hardcover edition was read over a period of three months. 

 

Turning now to Delphi Classics I began with another round of stories featuring martin Hewitt, private detective. Just as smart as Holmes, and much more personable, Hewitt and his sidekick Brett tackle a mastermind criminal this time.  Arthur Morrison's The Red Triangle is a series of six stories from 1903.  Mastermind Maes is behind all of the crimes investigated, and though the stories can be read as separate tales, there are ingeniously woven together to form a novel.  Similar to Moriarty and Holmes, Maes is thwarted in all of his misdeeds by Hewitt, and though they do have a final encounter in the sixth and final story, it ends very differently in this telling for the detective.  All of the stories are well written and worth reading, and the linking device used to make us keep reading is a good one.  All of Morrison's Martin Hewitt tales are recommended highly to fans of Sherlock Holmes, and they can stand up against most of Doyle's tales.  *** 1/2 stars.

 

An early edition. 

 

Next came another book by E. Nesbit concerning the Bastable Children.  The New Treasure Seekers is from 1904 and contains several shorter stories loosely linked.  In the first story one of the boys tries to stowaway to Rome, hiding in a clothing basket dressed in a clown suit.  It becomes a true childhood misadventure.  In the next story the children try to concoct a superior Christmas pudding.  This story is pretty funny and more than plausible.  Don't forget to wash the raisins and currents before using them.

The third story is about a distant cousin who visits and is slightly older than the Bastable children. Archibald is also a cad of the first order, but proves no match for his more sensible and decent younger cousins (and their female servant).  In "Over The Water To China" the children get into a situation when they go searching for their lost dog.  It takes them across the Thames from Greenwich and into a very poor area as they follow a lead on their missing dog.  Three of them, led by Alice, end up in a street fight with five thuggish and unpleasant boys tormenting an elderly Chinese man.  After a day long adventure it turns out that the dog wasn't missing after all.

In "The Young Antiquaries" they venture to Red House to meet again with the famous writer who lives there, and this time meet Mrs. Red House, who turns into a very good sport and super fine person.  In the next story their Red House adventure continues, leading to an undiscovered extra room in the cellar and the treasures found there in. 

The next story is one of revenge, but the result is far from sweet.  In the next story the children try to do their writer uncle, who is in Rome, a favour by convincing his London editor that the chapter returned for a rewrite is worth printing as it is.  Good intentions always seem to go off the rails with these children, and this episode is no different.

The final three stories take place at the seaside, after the children are sent there to recuperate following a measles outbreak.  Along with Mr and Mrs Redhouse, a new adult friend is made, the sister of the woman they are lodging with.  It ends by the narrator (Oswald, of course) informing us that there will be no further Bastable stories.  And he was correct.

*** stars. 

 

P D Wodehouse wrote a number of books about upper grade public school boys, usually involving cricket as a central theme.  The Head of Kay's is from 1905 and follows the day to day adventures of several boys at boarding school.  The funny thing about these books, and probably why they were popular with boys at the time, is that there is no mention of actual school work or in-class scenes.  The story revolves around life before and after classes and on weekends.  Girls play no part in the stories, either.  Sport, mischief and getting along with others is a recurring theme, though Wodehouse is such a fine storyteller that a reader can sail through the book effortlessly and not be minded about themes or ideals very much.  Kay's is one of the school houses, identified by the teacher put in charge of it, and old Kay himself is a character to be reckoned with.  His house has a bad reputation and so he pilfers a senior from a different house to try and bring some order to his realm.  *** stars.

 

I brought two books to London with me, one to read at the hotel at night and the second to read on the long plane ride home.  Roddy Doyle's The Deportees and Other Stories was published in paperback in 2007 and contains 8 stories.  All of the stories are concerned with the immigrant experience in Ireland, and while each story has something important to say on the topic, a few say it better than anything I have ever come across.  "Guess Who Is Coming To Dinner" is about a black man coming to dine in a typical working class Irish household, and the father's reaction to the event.  The story is priceless and very well told.  The title story is a sort of followup to the author's best known novel, The Commitments.  This time the band is built using only immigrant talent.  The story is very funny and worth reading just as a lark, never mind the deeper meaning it may have.  It is worth the price of the book.  "New Boy" is a terrific tale of a young black schoolboy enduring his first day in a new school in a new country.  A virtuoso telling of a traumatic experience.  "57% Iris is a funny story about what it means to be Irish, and how such a concept can be broken into a mathematical statement of fact.  Funny and very original.  "The Pram" is a first rate horror tale about a haunted pram and the Polish woman who must push it every day with the baby she looks after for an Irish family.  This is one of the grimmest tales of immigrant experience I have ever read.  All in all this is a rich collection containing several unforgettable tales.  Highly recommended.

***1/2 stars.

 

A terrific story collection! 

 

Outside Looking In is a truly remarkable story by T. C. Boyle from 2019.  It is a fictional look at the history of LSD and its use among early researchers.  The story begins in a Swiss lab during WW II, then jumps to the early 1960s at Harvard.  This is a not very thinly disguised history of Timothy Leary's LSD experiments.  The story centers around Fritz, a grad student studying Psychology, and his wife Joanie and their young son Corey.  Fritz comes under the influence of the very charismatic Tim(othy) and he and his wife begin using LSD for research purposes.  Timothy Leary remains one of the most fascinating characters of the 20th C, polarizing people's views as to his research methods and his use of drugs to gain enlightenment.  While the novel focuses on the early years of experimentation, including several seasons at Millbank and the Mexico summers, the book really dives deep into the milieu of early 60s drug experimentation, with Boyle's focus on one family as a way to show outsiders what was really going on.  Fitz's inability to free himself from the group experience (his wife eventually pulls out with their son), and the fact that his life is going absolutely nowhere, is the tragic outcome of a science experiment that ditched the science and went with the drug experience instead.  Fritz essentially fell into a black hole and was unable to extricate himself.  The final words of the novel are shocking, though we knew all along what was happening and what wasn't.  The search for Truth evaporated into an alcoholic and drug induced haze of existence; it became a never ending party, fundraising event and nothing more.  This is a story that I didn't want to end, but the ending was perfect, as we watch the (sinking) ship sail on.  And on.  **** stars.

 

Timothy Leary and friends get exposed. 

 

A good read to follow up with was Paddy Chayefsky's 1978 novel Altered States.  I have seen the film many times and have always wanted to read the novel.  The author did a lot of research before he began writing it, but he still takes us where no man has ever gone before.  This is a fascinating SF novel about one man's search for Truth, and finding it.  There is a good deal of science talk and the main characters are all doctors of some sort, including medical.  This should not turn off a general reader as the story is as fascinating as it gets.  In the previous novel reviewed above we saw Leary and others fail in their search for Truth through the use of LSD.  In the end they just became addicted to the high.  It would be like just watching the trippy light show scene from 2001 over and over again, rather than the entire film.  The hero in Altered States is just as crazy as Leary, but a bit more serious about achieving his goal.  What a fascinating line of thought to realize that within us might be locked away the entire history of evolution.  Is there a way to tap into it?  Edward Jessop tries an isolation tank, then drugs, then a combination of both before hitting on the bullseye.  Though the film version is terrific, the novel is much better, with clearer goals and outcomes than the film.  The book is pretty short, highly readable and very highly recommended.  **** stars.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

The Starless Sea is a book that I was greatly looking forward to reading.  Erin Morgenstern had written a fantasy masterpiece in her previous work The Night Circus.  I was excited to finally see her second novel arrive at the top of my reading list.  Published in 2019, I can honestly say that the book was a great disappointment.  It is a muddled mess with cardboard characters (less than dolls), no line of direction, and an ending so confusing that I doubt many readers (if they even read that far) came away with anything.  It's the kind of novel that some people might encounter and think they are reading something very profound.  While the ideas behind the book are original and very intriguing, their handling leaves so much to be desired.

 

For starters, the book is way too long. It needs a brutal edit.  That would hopefully knock off about 150 unnecessary pages. The author needs to focus on what it is she is doing, saying and trying to achieve.  None of the characters appear to know, usually a bad sign in a novel.  The lead character is a gay male gamer who gets caught up in a whirlwind of fairy tale activity, most of it below ground.  He is constantly off balance, wondering what is happening to him.  None of the characters grow or change in any way during the novel.  The author seems lost herself in a world of fairy tales, with the Alice stories uppermost in her mind as she writes.  While her fantasy world creations are every bit as enchanting as those found in the Alice stories, Morgenstern's wit and writing skills fall far below those of Lewis Carroll.  I cannot recall a single funny line in the current book, nor any attempt to link what is happening underground to anything above.  Humourless fantasy books become very tiring after a while, and this one really tuckered me.

 

As to the writing itself, there are some passages better suited to poetry; good poetry.  Most of the time, however, the writing is less than stellar.  I will give two examples; if you require more I can  easily provide them.  These examples are from Book V "The Owl King."

 

"A sword and a crown surrounded by a swarm of paper bees.  A ship without a sea.  A library.  A city.  A fire.  A chasm filled with bones and dreams.  A figure in a fur coat on a beach.  A shape like a cloud or a small blue car. A cherry tree with book-page blossoms." 

 

Seriously?  What the hell is that suppose to contribute to a 500 page novel?  Necessary?  Illuminating?  She is supposedly writing for adults.  I feel offended.  Another paragraph:

 

Zachary Ezra Rawlins looks down at words he has been longing to read, near delirious to have finally found another sentence that starts with the son of the fortune-teller in a familiar serifed typeface on a piece of paper removed from a book before being turned into a paper star and then gifted to him by a small owl and then he stops.

 

Quite the run on sentence, is it not?  Did this book even have an editor?  If you want more examples, message me or better yet read the book and keep count.  I stopped counting after a while.  Now we come to the ending, such as it is (spoiler alert).  Zachary Ezra Rawlins (as he is always called in the book by the author) dies.  But his boyfriend (luckily) found a beating heart in a box.  When they finally meet up, after searching for each other a long time, he places the heart (surgical technique not specified) in Zach and brings him back to life.  Afterwards, I believe they live happily ever after.  How's that for a terrific ending, after 499 pages of wandering around aimlessly and trying to figure out what is happening?  You may be wondering about that starless sea we hear so much about.  It's really far underground, and it consists of honey.  Yup.  Honey.  It rises up at the end, too.

 

Was there anything I liked about the book?  I liked the possibility of books being important in more than obvious ways.  I liked the idea of a fairy tale for adults.  I like some of the author's descriptions, and even her original fairy tale stories were quite good.  So it wasn't all a bad dream.  But it was a disappointing one.  ** stars.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

I finished up with "Killer's Choice", #5 in Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series and published in 1957.  These are hard boiled police procedures along the lines of Dragnet, but the writing is amazingly good.  In 1957 detective work was an all boys club, and the 87th is no exception.  Usually more than one crime is dealt with in a book, and this one has two murder investigations going on at the same time.  A detective new to the squad arrives from a somewhat softer precinct, and he makes a  mistake that almost gets his partner killed.  Luckily he learn fast.  A brutal thief kills a cop during a robbery, and a woman is murdered at her liquor store workplace.  Both are interesting cases, but the woman's murder is better written in every way.  Two things stand out about the investigation into her murder.  Firstly, every person who knew her and was interviewed by the detectives give vastly a different version of who she really was.  Her ex, her mother, her employer etc all paint almost totally different pictures of her character.  This is not something readers encounter very often in detective stories, and it adds an intriguing dimension.  The second stand out feature is the woman's young daughter.  Monica is 5 and in kindergarten and lives with her mom (now deceased but she is never told in the story) and grandmother.  She is a charmer from the first time we meet her and proves to be a reliable witness after taking a phone call and telling the detectives about it.  All about it.  She has a flawless memory.  We really feel for this girl, who will have to live her life without her mother.  A very good entry in the series.  ***1/2 stars.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

See you next month.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February Books Read

 Mazes of Scorpio is from 1982 and is #27 in the Dray Prescott series by Kenneth Bulmer, writing as Alan Burt Akers.  It was too good to be true when, in the last volume, the evil wizard was finally killed off.  And for a painful few moments it looked as if Bulmer was going to cheat readers and revive him.  Well, thank goodness he didn't.  However, we have now met his wife, a dark witch, and their offspring, a little something or other; we're not yet exactly sure what he is, other than a hermaphrodite.  And also very evil.  Mazes is an adventure novel much in the tradition of Fritz Leiber, still the reigning King of sword and sorcery writers.  Though Bulmer doesn't do too badly, as readers of this series (and this blog) will have found out long before now.  Dray and best friend Seg go chasing after an escaped female prisoner in a flier, and they end up in Pandahem, where it appears they and their readers will spend a lot of time in the upcoming books.  The adventure really begins when they crash (a common occurrence in these novels) and find themselves in a very nasty jungle.  They make their way to a small riverside town, and join up for an expedition to find treasure.  Their adventures are non-stop, as the small group are attacked by nearly everything under the sun and from under a rock.  A lot of time is spent in an underground maze that would challenge Lara Croft to her utter limits of resources and luck.  At last, separated from Seg and the rest of the party, Dray finds himself alone, underground against all comers.  Lots of action, and a finally a bit of help from the gods that have being using Dray for their own purposes throughout the series.  And so on it goes....

 

Original printing of the novel (I read the Kindle omnibus version).

Cover art by Richard Hescox. 

 

From 1975 comes Eloise, a 150 page novel by E. C. Tubb detailing the adventures of Earl Dumarest in his fruitless and endless search for Earth.  He was born there, left as a young boy, and can't seem to find his way back.  Not only that, but no one has ever heard of Earth.  How frustrating for him.  Once in a while he picks up a clue, but not in this story, which is #12 in the series.  He and a musician friend (note the instrument depicted on the DAW cover) crash land on a barren and very snowy and cold planet.  They make their way to a city, and are rescued as they are on their last approach.  We actually have a truly SF story presented to us.   The city is some kind of forgotten experiment, a planned Utopia that has continued to exist longer than its mysterious and long-forgotten creators.  Run by a central computer with a sort of semi-humanized army of robots to control the human population, this reminds me of several stories from the Magnus Robot Fighter comic books.  No, that is not Marilyn Monroe of the cover of the DAW edition; that's Eloise, a dancer who was trapped in the city after coming to entertain the people there.  No one is allowed to leave once they arrive.  Of course, Dumarest will be the exception to that rule.

So many male heroes seem to turn out to be the same guy.  Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, Dray Prescott, Earl Dumarest, Doc Savage, Hercules, Odysseus, Elric; no wonder Michael Moorcock was able to come up with the idea of the Eternal Hero for his many novels featuring supercharged (but human) action heroes.  Interchange any he-man hero for Dumarest, or put him in any of another hero's predicaments, and Voila, the problem gets (eventually, with much strain and muscle and clever and fast thinking) solved.  It's almost miraculous.  

Anyway, Eloise falls for Dumarest and tries her darndest to hang on to him.  But alas, he is caught up in his struggle to find Earth, though we are never told why.  He has a billion other planets to explore.  A good entry in the series.  However, as Dumarest muses at the end, he regrets not getting a chance to ask the city's central computer about Earth.  It was so old that it might have known something.  But he gained nothing towards his goal in this story.  And neither do we.

 

Original printing of the novel (I read the Kindle omnibus version).

Cover art by George Barr.

 

William Morris has written some of the best fantasy novels ever created.  Many of them have already been read, and I've reviewed them on my Ballantine Fantasy blog (see left column for link).  One of his earliest novels predates his true fantasy writing, but with The Roots of the Mountains from 1889 we get as close to fantasy as regular fiction can ever get without crossing the border into it.  This is an epic tale (534 pages), and Morris's influence on Tolkien can be seen everywhere.  While this novel does not approach the author's masterpiece The Well At The World's End, it lays all the necessary groundwork.  The hero of the tale, one Face of God, declines the adventure of a journey to foreign places to gain his manhood, choosing instead to remain at home.  This in itself is anathema to a good fantasy yarn, but don't go away just yet.  As things turn out, staying home was the correct choice in this case.  The lead character can be compared to Aragorn.  The Bride, a female lead, can be compared with Eowyn, and her eventual mate can be compared with Faramir.  The evil Dusky Men are similar to orcs.  The prose is filled with poetry and song, something Tolkien also included in his epic writing.  The Dale sounds a lot like Hobbiton.  And instead of having different groups of men such as shepherds, woodsmen, hunters, etc. as Morris does, Tolkien brought in different races from mythology such as Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits.  The climax of the book is the great battle to recover the Silver Dale from the evil dusky men, and free the slaves they have captured and abused.  But the real core of the book is in the details which the author takes painstaking care to bring to the reader.  The strength of the family, the community, and the wider world of the allies; the rituals that musts be enacted at certain times of year; the continuity of life and love; and the importance of friendship and helping those less fortunate are all important qualities stressed by Morris.  He creates a small Utopia, then presents it to us as gravely threatened, and continues on to demonstrate how the threat can be banished with good leadership and a bond between strong allies. This is a long read, and not all of it marches along smartly.  Readers need to slow down and breathe deeply of the fine, clear air within these pages.  Their reward will be a very unique book, well written, and the harbinger of even greater things to come.

 

The Adventures of Martin Hewitt is from 1896, and contains six more stories of the great detective.  Fans of Sherlock Holmes should love these stories.  This is the third volume, all written for monthly publications by Arthur Morrison before being collected into volumes and republished.  "The Affair of Mrs. Seaton's Child" is one of those cases that Hewitt was not able to solve before it was resolved, and the missing child was safely returned home.  However, he followed up afterwards and was able to solve the mystery of who took the child, how, and why.  An engaging story, though with a somewhat far-fetched premise underlying it.  "The Case of Mr. Gerald's Elopement" sees Hewitt involved with a missing husband, whom the wife accuses of having eloped with a former maid.  Hewitt solves a very peculiar case that eventually sees the husband not only located and without having eloped, but put into custody for making and selling alcohol illegally.  A tale with twists that keep up the reader's interest.  "The Case of the Dead Skipper" is a story that fits more neatly into the Homes canon, as Hewitt and a police inspector solve the mystery of the captain's death and apparent robbery.  Nothing too unusual in this one, though well told.  "The Case of the Flitterbat Lancers" is a creatively titled story about a piece of badly written music that doubles as a cipher.  And "The Case of the Late Mr. Rewse" takes Hewitt to Ireland to solve a well planned murder--or was it?  Finally comes "The Case of the Ward Lane Tabernacle," and though humourous overall, it does have a tragic ending.  The case concerns a sacred relic left to a widow by her uncle, and she believes that a certain green grocer is after it.  As usual, Hewitt confounds his client when he comes up with the solution, and this leads to a continued friendship between them.  The character of the widow is a very colourful one.  All of Morrison's Martin Hewitt tales are highly recommended.

 

Turning now to E. Nesbit, it's time for The Wouldbegoods, the 1901 sequel to 1899's The Story of the Treasure Seekers.  The book is quite long, though each of the chapters are just about the perfect length for a bedtime story if read to children by an adult.  Each chapter is more or less a separate story or adventure, though the book is continuous and events do tie in from story to story.  In my opinion there are just a few too many stories, with the children acting pretty much the same in each story.  Once again the tales are told by Oswald, the elder Bastable child.  Though cleverly written as if by a maturing child, even this gets somewhat tedious after a time, with the "author" praising himself at every turn.  And though the criticism of girls is humourous (by a young boy), it could definitely be taken wrong, even by modern readers.  In other words, by 2025 standards the sexism is quite outrageous.  However, if reading the story to modern children, it would make a good opening for discussions on the topic of what girls can and cannot do.  Overall I did enjoy the book; however, I just found it a bit too much of a good thing.

 

Another classic children's book came next, Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome.  From a much later date of 1930, we once again see a group of siblings heading off into adventure.  There are two boys and two girls, with the the eldest being a boy again.  They are spending the summer in the Lake District and they have a sailboat.  They end up spending several nights camping on an island in the lake.  They meet the rival Amazons, but soon become friends.  So there are actually four girls in the story, and two boys.  The best characters are Titty (Titania?) (such an unfortunate shortened name for present day readers--I never could have read this aloud to my fourth and fifth grade class back in the day), who is perhaps the second youngest, and Roger, the youngest.  Though there is considerable humour throughout the novel, there are also some wonderful insights into a child's thought process.  When Titty is left alone on the island overnight and has her big adventure, followed up later with a treasure hunt, we feel we have met a character with some depth.  The others, especially John, Susan and Peggy, are cardboard characters with little depth and not much to say.  I have never read the book before, but have seen several very good TV adaptations from England, so the story was familiar to me.  I think I enjoyed it a bit more than the E. Nesbit novel, above, though both show incredible imagination and insights into the golden days of childhood.  Highly recommended, and I look forward to the sequels.

 

Lastly came some short work by Edgar Allan Poe.  An unfinished play from 1835 is called "Politian."  Essentially one act was written, from a story based on a real murder case in Kentucky.  Poe transposed the setting and time to 16th C Rome, and is written in pseudo Shakespearean prose.  Just as the story begins to get interesting, it ends suddenly.  He gave up on novels and plays based on advice from friends, and continued to write short fiction for the remainder of his life.

"Metzengerstein" is a fantasy horror tale that involves two feuding families.  It was Poe's first published fiction and is from 1832.  It involves a tapestry with a horse in it, and the decadent lifestyle of a very young man.  The story makes little sense, but it does show that early on Poe was obsessed with certain themes, such as violent death and ironic justice being meted out to those in need of it.

"The Duc de L'Omelette" is the first of Poe's somewhat silly series of tales, and not a very good one.

"A Tale of Jersusalem" tells of an incident at the walls of that city in the times of Roman invasion.

"Loss of Breath" tells of a man who, while raging at his wife, has his breath stolen.  Though he continues to live, he becomes more or less a silent zombie, unable to communicate with other living people.  By chance he meets the man who stole his breath in an undertaker's place, and manages to get it returned.  Another so called humourous tale that does have its moments.

"Bon-Bon" is from 1832, and is just what it claims.  Bon-Bon is the finest chef in Rouen, and also a self-taught philosopher.  His encounter with the devil goes quite well, he thinks.  Or did it?  More dark humour from Poe.

"MS. Found In A Bottle" is from 1833, and is one of Poe's more famous tales.  A sailor and his ship are carried to the far south after being caught in a fierce gale.  Only he and one other man survive the ordeal.  However, there is worse to come.  A ghost ship crewed by elderly sailors smashes the original ship to pieces, and the lone survivor, the writer of the manuscript, ends up on board.  A decent story with a most unhappy ending.

"The Assignation" is an extremely well-written tale that reminded me sometimes of the writing of E.R. Eddison, and even Michael Moorcock, in his European fiction.  The story is set in Venice and concerns two lovers who will never be together in this world, so they plan to meet in the next one.  A very memorable tale.

"Berenice" tells of a man driven mad who extracts the teeth from his dying wife.  Don't ask.  The story, even in its revised edition, takes too long to get going and the reader must wade through a lot of prose before getting to its core.

"Morella" is classic Poe.  A woman dies, leaving a daughter behind with the man who is her father.  An eerie tale, though somewhat confusing.  The daughter ends up actually being the mother, reincarnated, though by the time it happens it is hardly a surprise to the reader.

 

See you next month.  And keep reading!

 

Mapman Mike