April Books Read

Not a lot of volumes were read this past month.  Two of them were quite long and one of them was very intense and required careful and somewhat slow reading.  I also enjoyed 4 nights of astronomy last month, which always cuts into evening reading time.

 

Fires of Scorpio by Kenneth Bulmer, #29 in the Dray Prescott series, is a direct continuation of volume 27, beginning where Dray has just come out of the mountain tunnels.  He becomes reunited with his friend, but is immediately dragged away again by the Star Lords to another location and assignment.   His main purpose now seems to be to interrupt the religion of the Silver Leem.  He arrives at a point where a female child is to be sacrificed to their god.  Of course he saves the girl, and the first part of the story is enlivened by the presence of the child accompanied by Dray.  She has a personality (she is just under 4 years of age) and adds humour to the proceedings.  The latter half of the story is more serious.  Dray is reunited with another warrior friend who is also a chosen one in aiding the Star Lords in whatever it is they are trying to accomplish.  They team up again and the adventures are nonstop until the end of the book.  Though they have managed to disrupt the religion, there is a lot more to do.  And on it goes....  Another solid entry in this remarkable series. 

 

 

From 1974 comes Eater of Worlds, the 126 page on-going adventures of Kennedy and his male cohorts.  This time they are assigned to a case where a prisoner who was being transferred escaped with help.  Many innocent people were killed, and so Cap is trying to find out why this prisoner, with only a year left in his sentence, escaped.  This is one of those rare truly SF stories.  The bad guys think they are about to dig up secret treasure from a lost civilization, and the escapee was the only one with the coordinates to the site.  The location is on a barren planet (we find out later why it is barren), in a sandy desert prone to fierce wind storms.  They discover that the "treasure" lies within a protective shell in the form of a skull (I wonder what that could mean?).  Once they get inside, a very dangerous type of alien life form is released, killing anyone it touches in its form as first a liquid, and then a vapour (after someone panics and shoots it with a blaster).  It begins to spread, and it's now up to Cap and his team to try and stop it.  This is actually a very good story, and would make an excellent SF film.   

 

Collecting Myself: The Uncollected Stories of Barry Malzberg is a 2024 publication and 259 pages long and contains about 35 short stories by Malzberg.  He also contributes a very brief essay at the beginning.  The stories move chronologically from 1970 to 2022.

 

Terminus East is from 1970, and is about the failed colony on the moon.  It is a violent story, and not that appealing.  ** 1/2 stars.

 

Making Titan is from 1970 and details the bizarre 6th attempt by humans to land on Titan, Saturn's largest moon.  Will this one fail like the others, or be the first successful mission?  Remember, this is Malzberg. *** stars.

 

Exploration is from 1971 and is a Malzberg special; no one else writes about how being in space makes you crazy so well as this author.  The captain of a Mars exploratory mission loses it. **** stars.

 

Conquest is a silly tale from 1972 about first contact, which turns out to be a test for the human candidate who will be sent out to greet the aliens.  *** stars.

 

Two Odysseys Into the Center is from 1972.  This one has some pulp fiction humour attached, which ups the rating.  *** stars.

 

Dreaming and Conversions: Two Rules By Which To Love is from 1973.  Another great story of insanity and its self justification.  Of course aliens are involved.  **** stars.

 

Conversations With Lothar is from 1973.  This story and a few others were to become the 1975 novel Conversations, reviewed above.  It works well as a very short story, but the novel is quite incredibly good.  *** stars.

 

Triptych is from 1973 and is as much a satire of pulp SF as it is an homage.  Several possible pulp novels are condensed into a few paragraphs each.  Entertaining to read, and I find myself wishing I could read some of those novels.  *** stars.

 

The Wonderful, All-Purpose Transmogrifier is from 1974, and is way ahead of its time, as it describes addiction to virtual reality gaming.  Dated, obviously, but at the time well ahead of itself.  ** 1/2 stars.

 

Revelation in Seven Stages is from 1980.  Malzberg comes up with quite possibly the most bizarre and unusual use for ancient Eygptian mummies ever conceived.  Funny and weird.  *** 1/2 stars.

 

There The Lovelies Bleeding is from 1981, and tells of a blossoming romance in the far future, where such liaisons have been much frowned upon until now.  Progress against the repression is slow, but gaining momentum.  *** stars.

 

1984 is a one page story from 1985, on the expected theme.  Not too successful, in my opinion.  ** stars.

 

J. S. Brahms is from 1985 and features Sigmund Freud undertaking a cognitive test.  A pretty funny story no doubt related to Malzberg's novel.  Music afficianados will appreciate the humour more.  *** stars. 

 

The Queen of Saigon is from 1987, a story about the Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of a Saigon prostitute.  Fine storytelling of a still touchy topic.  *** stars.

 

Ambition is from 1987.  A SF story in which a communications officer is responsible for the planet of Jubilation's inhabitants rebelling against the Earth invaders.  Offbeat and very short.  *** stars.

 

No Hearts, No Flowers is from 1989.  This is a funny mob-related story, where a casual social reporter thinks he has erred in mentioning a recent mob massacre one day before it happened.  He is summoned to pay a visit to "Bruno" and realizes his time is up.  But Bruno gives him more than he bargained for.  A fun read. *** stars.

 

Safety Zone is from 1990, a somewhat bizarre tale of a barfly and a man she meets one night.  A bit puzzling, but still some fine writing.  *** stars.  

 

One Ten Three is from 1991, and is one of the funniest stories I have ever read.  A race horse talks to a betting man and tells him he will win the next race.  The man bets $80.  Did the horse win?  In a way.  A truly wonderful story, and laugh out loud at times.  **** stars.

 

Dumbarton Oaks is from 1992, a story in which the devil is given tasks by the big boss.  A bit weird.  ** stars.

 

Gotterdammerung is from 1992, and is the story of a wizard who is visited by interested parties in finding the magic ring that was lost in the river.  The wizard is outsmarted, though the ring still remains lost. *** stars. 

 

Is This The Presidential Palace? is from 1992, a typical Malzberg story about an alien with an agenda meeting a human.  Quite amusing.  ** 1/2 stars.

 

It Comes From Nothing is from 1994 and is a spin on the end of King Lear.  Not a very nice spin, either.  In fact, kind of a cruel spin.  * star.

 

Sinfonia Expansiva is from 94, and is a somewhat sex-obsessed story that doesn't really work very well. ** stars.

 

Of Dust and Fire and The Night is from 1994, and is the author's take on the star of Bethlehem and three wise men.  It never hurts to throw the legend of the phoenix bird in, either.  A bit silly, but fun. ** 1/2 stars. 

 

Close-up Photos Reveal JFK Skull On Moon is from 1994.  A bizarre story where JFK ends up on the lunar surface, Elvis is now in France after having plastic surgery to alter his face and singing in small clubs.  He is being pursued by a 102 year old female fan who just birth to twins, who turn out to be JFK and Elvis reborn.  Marilyn Monroe reveals her unsuccessful pursuit of Elvis.  *** stars.

 

Getting There is from 2002 and is another powerful Vietnam anti-war story.  **** stars.

 

The Third Part is a view of Revelations as seen from the perspective of a southern redneck.  Most odd. *** stars.

 

Crossing the Border is from 2003 and deals with a man who has a sex change.  *** stars.

 

These The Inheritors is from 2006, and tells of the revenge of the insect world on humans, with a Jewish slant. ** stars.

 

The Passion of Azazel is from 2008.  A man who recently attended therapy and made a revealing discovery about himself make a golem in the form of a goat.  Inspired by a quote from Leviticus. ***1/2 stars.

 

Why We Talk To Ourselves is from 2011, and is a meditation on the 9/11 destruction of the Twin Towers in NYC. ** stars.

 

Richard Nixon Saved From Drowning is from 2014, as we hear words and thoughts from the not so great former president.  ** stars.

 

The Terminal Villa is from 2014, and was inspired by a quote from Dick Cheney, who had dramas while recovering from heart surgery.  Meant as a tribute to J G Ballard.  ** stars.

 

The Phantom Gentleman is from 2022, and has some musing of Malzberg on his upcoming "final Journey."  ** 1/2 stars.

 

January 2018 is from 2018, and isn't much of a story to end this pretty decent collection.  ** stars. 

 

Cover by Jeff Jordan.

Mother London is from 1988, a mostly disappointing novel by Moorcock that is 496 pages long.  It purports to give glimpses of London from the 1940s through 1988, mostly through the eyes of three people who survived by were greatly affected by the Blitz.  We get a pretty strong sense of what it was like to live under the threat of German bombs during WW II, especially the dreaded V2 rockets.  David, Joseph, and Mary meet in an institution some 15 years after the war.  Mary has been in a coma since she was 15, awakening at 30.  The three become very good friends, often interacting during the story.  The problem with the book is the storytelling itself, as well as Moorcock's complete inability to depict a troubled mind.  Both Mary and Joseph seem to have some type of psychic ability, and the novel is filled with italicized inner dialogues, sometimes of others near them and sometimes of their own thoughts.  I eventually learned to just skip over these sections, as they offered up nothing for the reader.  It's a silly attempt to be avante garde, or modern, and these passages often show just how clueless the author is about inner voices.

 

The storytelling is often divided into chapters that take place in a certain year, anywhere between 1941 and 1988.  The problem is that the chronology is completely messed up, with a 1970s chapter followed by a 1940s one, and then one from the 60s.  It destroys any kind of continuity the story badly needs to build up a sound picture of the main characters and their friends and acquaintences.  At one point we attend the funeral of a friend of David's before we even know who the person is.  Although I could go back and reread the novel and try to do it chronologically, the story itself and the characters are simply not interesting enough.  Much of the book is quite dull, and it was a struggle to get through it all.

 

With a title like Mother London, we get a rather superficial glance at the great city, possibly the greatest city of the world.  I had high expectations, but alas they were not fulfilled.  I found the parts dealing with the bombing and its aftermath the most interesting part of the book, but much of the rest held little to no interest for me.  I think much of that has to do with the way Moorcock (and his editor) chose to tell the story.  It's confusing enough trying to keep track of three main characters, but to have the time jumps interfere and confuse readers further, I found a lot of this book to be a waste of time.

 

Cover by Greg Ragland.

 

 

Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker from 1937 gives the reader everything.  Literally.  The full history of not just the Universe is here, but of everything else, including god (to humans) the creator.  Stapledon simply calls him Star Maker.  Stapledon creates not a novel in any sense, but a blow by blow description (highlights only) of life in the galaxy, in all of its myriad forms.  He imagines any kind of life that is even remotely plausible, bringing it into our minds as a done deal.  He explains the many pitfalls that doomed civilization after civilization on world after world, and how gradually the galaxy somehow (he explains how, don't worry) banded minds together and began a vast collective.  The author leads us by the hand as he gradually increases the scale of discovery until we have galaxy minds contacting other galaxy minds, and as the galaxies' lives come to their inevitable end, finally reach a state of total understanding.  

 

Stapledon goes on to then to describe the creator, the Star Maker, from his (he uses the masculine but by now we know what he means) own creation from pure matter, on to his juvenile creations, to his later masterpieces as he reaches his prime.  His final definition of the Star Maker did not please a lot of people, C. S. Lewis for one.  To this reader it is a totally brilliant concept, so far beyond and removed from the simplistic version of god held by most religious doctrines as to make it seem more than a possible answer.  Of course the author is limited to what was known about astrophysics in 1937 (stellar evolution is all wrong here, for one thing), but I think he can be forgiven this.  Considering this is fiction, his facts are pretty secure.

 

Stapledon influenced virtually every serious SF and fantasy writer, from E. R. Eddison, Jack Williamson, James Blish, Frank Herbert, Iain M. Banks, and on and on.  From this volume comes every story ever told, every story that will ever be told, and stories by the trillions that will never get told, due to a shortage of time remaining for our universe to exist.  The book, like his earlier Last and First Men, is all-encompassing.  Like it or not, Stapledon has given us a comprehensive and plausible history of everything that ever was or ever will be.  Rich reading.  A masterpiece.

 

Cover by Bip Pares.  I read the Kindle edition by Delphi Classics. 

 

Gitanjali is a set of 103 verses by Rabindraneth Tagore.  Written in Bengali in 1910, Tagore did his own translation into English in 1912.  He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 largely due to these amazing verses.  Ideally a person would read one of these a day for 103 days, and meditate on them.  Many are similar, though, and can be read carefully over a few days, as I did.  They can and should picked up at whim and opened to any verse.  Most of them deal with a human being trying to see and communicate with his god.  The verses made a nice follow up to Star Maker, placing human endeavour fairly high on the scale of evolution.  It's always nice to know that a few humans have made a significant spiritual journey during the short time allotted to us.

Prior to this came the short poem "My Golden Bengali," written in 1906 shortly after Bengal had been divided into two different religious states.

 

Mapman Mike

 

March 2024 Reading Summary

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

 

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

 

Cover art by Tomasz Maronski.

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

First English edition cover art.

 

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

 

The original cover from the 1877 edition. 

 

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

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

Mapman Mike

 

 

Last and First Men: The Movie

Springlike weather continues, though near the Detroit River it has been perpetually foggy.  I haven't seen a ship pass by in days now, but they can certainly be heard.  Foghorns are sounding nearly every minute at certain times.

In music news, I have succeeded in gathering a small group of performing pianists to meet occasionally to try out pieces on one another.  So far there are 3 of us, but this could easily grow larger quickly.  First meeting is tentatively scheduled for the morning of January 23rd.  Looking forward to it!!

In further music news, we were able to locate a recent film based on Olaf Stapledon's 1930 novel First and Last Men.  Conceived originally as a multimedia presentation with images, a narrator, and music, the film worked its magic for us from the opening shot to the closing one.  The film and music is by Johann Johannson, from Iceland in 2020.  He shot the incredible black and white (!) photography mostly in Yugoslavia, at a sculpture park in the mountains, and composed ambient music that is nothing short of alien and futuristic.  Tilda Swinton narrates, speaking words of Stapledon's that give a sense of the final part of the book.  There is no way that the entire book could have been filmed in one go.  Johannson died shortly after the film was made, thus destroying any hope for more chapters from the most incredible SF book ever written.  Now it has a suitable film companion.

Now showing on Mubi. 

We made some fun discoveries this week as a result of chasing down a copy of this film.  One of them is a streaming service called Mubi.  It is a good partner for Criterion, though this one does not have as large a library.  Still, there are enough films now in our queue to keep us going for months, even if we stopped watching Criterion (which we hopefully never will).  Another discovery we made was Spotify (I know, but we're old; these things take time for us).  Here we found the album of music from the film, and have now hooked the computer via Bluetooth into our stereo.

We originally got into Spotify by reading a recent article in the Guardian.  One of the writers has selected a different short piece of music to listen to every day in January, and in the article there is a direct link to the piece on Spotify.  Except that yesterday's (the 3rd) was on Youtube, and it came with an accompanying animation.  Fun stuff!!  So we now have a long listening list awaiting in favourites on Spotify.

Getting back to films, I finished up my December Film Festival with two more by Jasujiro Ozu.  Tokyo Chorus is a silent film from 1931 that follows the life of a young man.  Seen first as a student in a military type school, he is later encountered as an insurance salesman who loses his job when he stands up to the boss over the firing of an older employee.  There is comedy mixing with drama, and the picture is easy to watch.

Now showing on Criterion. 

Lastly came a 1936 film called The Only Son.  Leaving his small village for Tokyo, a young man goes to seek his fortune.  His mother has sacrificed everything to pay for his education.  When she pays a surprise visit to him, she finds him married, with one child, and teaching night school.  She is not impressed, until she sees him act kindly towards a poorer neighbour.  She goes back home with good memories of her visit.  Back at home, the young man has decided to continue his education so that he can get a better paying job.  Ozu's films are always intelligent, and never stretch things beyond what might likely happen in a certain situation.  He is excellent at establishing character, and at getting across emotions in people who are usually reluctant to show what their true feelings really are.

Now showing on Criterion.  

Deb's going away choice for this week was a Sam Fuller western called Forty Guns.  It stars Barbara Stanwyck as a rancher with forty hired guns as helpers, and she mostly gets her way in the world.  The opening scene, with Stanwyck riding hard and followed by her tribe, is very much like watching the opening to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.  The characters of both are very similar, too.  A Federal marshal comes to town to arrest one of her helpers for robbing the mail.  Things get tense, people get shot, and the bad guys stir things up.  An unusual western, with Stanwyck doing her usual fine job in the leadership role.  Unusual scenes include the outdoor  town baths, complete with singer and guitar player, and dinner time at Stanwyck's ranch, among others.  Filmed in b & w Cinemascope!

Leaving Criterion January 31st. 

Mapman Mike

 

  

December 2022 Books Read

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

 

December Books Read Part 2

 January has welcomed us with our first snowstorm of 2022.  That didn't take long!  Much colder air is arriving as well.  At least we are quite used to staying indoors by now.  That is one of the reasons why I read so many books in December.  I was finished my required reading last month by the 15th, so on the 16th I began the first of 6 books not related to the Avon/Equinox SF authors.  Three of the six books were real, live books, and three were Kindle reads.  Three were SF, one was an art book, one was classic fiction, and one was a mystery story.

First up was Station Eleven, a tale of post-apocalyptic Ontario and western Michigan after a virus has ravaged the world, killing over 99 % of the people very quickly.  Imagine my surprise as I neared the end of Emily St. John Mandel's absorbing novel to read in the Globe and Mail newspaper about a new HBO series just coming out called Station Eleven.  I will have to subscribe to another paid channel if I wish to see it, and I probably will.  The first episode should tell me if I will continue to watch.  I have read so many books in the past 5 1/2 years that I now much prefer them not to be made into anything to do with TV or movies.  But I will give this one a try soon.  There are ten episodes, and so far 5 have been released for viewing.  I liked the book a lot, though Emily owes much to writers like John Christopher and Edgar Pangborn, both who have written exceptional novels of post-apocalyptic life.  Highly recommended, the book was written in 2014, not long after the SARS scare.

Next up was Olaf Stapledon's first novel, called First And Last Men.  There are very few writers with superb imaginations that are able to put down on paper exactly what they are thinking, in terms that we mere mortals might comprehend.  This is a novel (from 1930) that greatly influenced generations of SF writers, and is still regarded as one of the best SF tales ever told.  It relates two billion years of human history, from today through then, in a most astonishing tale of success and failure.  What Stapledon has managed to do is provide enough material for future SF authors to write literally thousands of additional novels, filling in the details he has forced to skim over.  If ever there was a SF novel to end all SF novels, here it is.  It is a fairly long book, but broken up into manageable units, and not difficult to read if taken a bit at a time.  There is a lot of food to chew on, so chew slowly and enjoy.

Next up was another SF classic, this time a reread for me.  The House On The Borderland is from 1908, written by William Hope Hodgson, the man who brought us The Night Land.  I haven't read it in many years, and though it is much easier to see the flaws today, it is just as easy to become engrossed in one of the best horror novels ever composed, one that Lovecraft would try and copy many times.  The setting is a large, lonely house on the Moors, and it happens to sit atop a gaping hole that goes deep into the earth.  Very strange and threatening things happen at the house, and we are there for all of them.  This is a must read for fans of the genre.  Don't expect great writing, but expect some wonderful chills and mysterious doings.

Rock With Wings, by Anne Hillerman, is a continuation of her father's famous mystery stories set in Navajo land in new Mexico and Arizona.  She uses the same characters as Tony, but we now see things from a female officer's perspective.  Bernie Manuelito and Jim Chee are a couple, and they both are sworn officers of the Navajo police.  Their beat covers a vast area, thinly populated, where cell phone service is often absent, and even police car two way radios don't work.  This is her second book (she has six so far, and another on the way), and it is quite good.  We get a mix of police work and life on the reservation.  This plot involves a zombie movie production on location at Monument Valley.  Well done.

The Cincinnati Museum of Art has long attracted our attention, and when Deb had films accepted in the Cincinnati Film festival two years in a row, we visited the city again both times.  I was able to spend a luxurious day at the main art museum, one of two in the city.  I recently reread Dutch, Flemish, and German Art In The Cincinnati Museum of Art, a catalogue of paintings.  I was reading this while reading the above novels, focussing on a painting or two each day.  While the collection is much smaller than the one at the DIA (for example, Detroit has more 17th Century Flemish paintings than all of Cincinnati's Dutch, Flemish, and German art from all ages combined), there are choice paintings here that too many people will never see.  Like many museums, their choice Rembrandt selection was downgraded a few years ago to Studio Of..., but there are still plenty of autogrpah masterpieces to see.  I also have their Italian paintings catalogue, but now I am embarked on a DIA catalogue of American Art, Volume Three of their American painting collection (which is vast beyond words).  Cincinnati is a beautiful Midwest city of the shores of the Ohio River, and their main art museum is a world class institute that will never disappoint visitors, even ones like me who have been there many times.

Last, but not least, was Joseph Conrad's Outcast Of The Islands.  This was his second novel, though the events in it are related to Almayer's Folly, his first novel.  The events in Outcast take place prior to those in Almayer, with several of the same characters present.  No one writes like Conrad, or as well.  That man could handle a sentence, a paragraph, and a chapter in such masterful ways as to leave readers gaping open-mouthed at his prowess.  His use of nature as a foil to human emotions and deep, inner thoughts is brilliant and unique.  He tackles racism and White feelings of superiority head on, portraying characters not so much as mean or evil towards their "inferiors", but merely clueless as to what they are really like, their thinking and their potential.  Why are dark people inferior?  Because white people say so!  The story revolves around Wilhelms, a Dutchman with a respectable job with a major trading company.  He loses at poker and borrows from the company to pay his debts.  He is caught, disgraced, and forced to leave the area forever.  Captain Lingard (who is in all three related novels) takes him to Almayer, where he proves to be not only his own worst enemy, but Almayer's and Lingard's as well.  In my early 30s I first got seriously interested in reading Conrad.  Now that I have the Delphi collection of complete works, I can finally read his entire canon.  With greatest of pleasure.

If you have a few more minutes, I will go on to show another work of art from the DIA collection.  It's been awhile!  I think from time to time about one of the exhibits we saw in Vienna in December 2018.  The museum chooses a celebrity, allowing him or her to select anything from the storage rooms and to create an exhibit.  We happened upon one created by Wes Anderson, and it was totally brilliant!  I like to fantasize about me being allowed into storage at the DIA (I was allowed in once!), and being able to form an exhibit based on what I came across.  The last print exhibited here (False Faces), and this one, would likely be involved.   

Le Stryge, 1853.  Charles Meryon, French, 1872-1907.  Etching printed in black ink on Japan paper.  13" x 10".  Collection Detroit Institute of Arts.

2 details of above. 

There is some fresh snow on the ground, and the temp will remain below freezing all day today and tomorrow.  It feels like January.  On the bright side, the days are growing longer, and we are already 12 days into winter, being that much closer to Spring.  I would linger here, but there are books to read, movies to watch, piano pieces to practice, and laundry to do.  Until next time.

Mapman Mike