October Reading Summary

It was a short month of reading, due to an extended road trip.  After hiking and/or driving much of the day I was usually too tired to read in bed at the motel, though I did manage to read one novel on the journey and begin another.

 

I have not completed reading all the Silverberg that is available to me.  It seems that every month or so something old of his comes back into print, so watch this page for updates.  His simplified recap of the 100 Years' War, or The War of The Roses: Challenge For A Throne, is from 1967 and is 293 pages long.  Suitable for upper level history oriented high school students, it gives enough detail for the lay reader to get a good sense of what all the usurping, backstabbing, and change of loyalties in England of the 1400s is all about.  It was a very confusing time, and historically it lay the ground work for the subsequent Tudor reign of England in the 1500s and beyond.  Charts and maps help to keep things understandable, and Silverberg's writing is easy to digest.  Though a lot more research has been undertaken of this troubled time since 1967, the basic facts of who followed who and how they got to the throne hasn't really changed much, at least based on the Wikipedia article I read afterwards.  Trying to remember all of the facts can be quite daunting, though battles were few and everyday life for the peasants didn't really change much, no matter who was King.  It was the nobility that paid the price of the civil wars, with the houses of York and Lancaster virtually wiped off the map.  Even today it is all but impossible to trace one's ancestry beyond the Tudors, since so many previous families were summarily wiped out.  Such an interesting time, though I am happy to have not been around for it.

 

From 1980, the 160 page novel Beasts of Antares by Kenneth Bulmer continues the adventures of Dray Prescott at full throttle.  The book opens with an effective brawl at a small inn, and concludes with an exciting life or death struggle with some escaped and very dangerous lizard men.  Prescott's life is seldom boring, and though he prefers not to kill (he will usually put guards to "sleep", allowing them to wake up later with a headache), he will do so effectively and quickly when necessary.  This adventure begins in the Vallian capital city, but Dray soon leaves there to rescue three friends in a far off dangerous city.  Dray is an Everyman hero, usually going about his business with equal parts humour and ferocity.  He often manages to escape dire circumstances without striking a blow, and these events are usually quite funny and fun to read.  Each adventure in the series can be read as a separate stand-alone work, but it is much more fun to read them in order.  The series began with some weak points and frustrating events, but Bulmer hit his stride here long ago, and the books are a delight to read.  Though filled with violence, there is no sex.  Women are far from helpless, too.  There is often necessary nudity, but nothing crude.  In other words, the books can be read by older kids.  Bulmer continues to not only expand his world of Kregen, but to deepen our understanding of it, too.  A rewarding series to read.

 

Seetee Alert by E C Tubb is from 1974, and is 111 pages long.  Cap Kennedy and his aides must save the Earth from a madman's scheme to destroy it.  Sound familiar?  Remember, this is Tubb, one of the best pulp fiction writers who ever lived to write.  A routine plot turns into something quite special under his pen.  Cap and his team are up against a complicated plan that will use anti-matter, an asteroid, and a tunnel though space to rain fire and destruction upon Earth.  Cap goes underground in disguise to try and figure out what is going on, and it takes him a long time to figure it out.  And when he does, there is little time to act to stop the scheme.  Tubb writes short novels, but they are so crammed with action and plot development that they always seem an epic size by the time they are read.  Cap is a sort of James Bond of the galaxy, also a type of Doc Savage character (with a team to match).  Tubb is always rewarding to read, and this entry in the series is no exception. 

 

I have also read all of the available fiction and non-fiction by James Blish.  Next time I will return to Michael Moorcock, at least for a time. 

 

Outside of my Avon/Equinox SF authors, I managed to get through two books.  The first novel, Roadside Picnic, is a book I have wanted to read for decades.  Written by brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, it became the takeoff point for Tarkovsky's film Stalker.  I read the translation by Olena Bormashenko from 2012, with an intro by Ursula Le Guin.  The novel was first published in novel form in 1972.  It is a truly amazing novel, nothing at all like the film.  I've always had a love/hate relationship with the film.  Tarkovsky is the best at creating environments and imagining spaces, though his storytelling skills leave a lot to be desired.  Roadside Picnic gives us a real nitty gritty first contact story, where humans have encountered the detritus and litter left behind after an alien ship has landed, then departed.  The authors' imaginations run wild with what has happened to the location where the ship had been, and the story reads as much horror as SF.  Stalkers risk their lives to bring out alien artifacts left behind by the aliens, and most of them end up dead.  The lead character, the best of the stalkers, ends up siring a child that resembles nothing ever seen before.  We learn gradually what it was like on the day of the landing and departure, and it wasn't pretty.  The zone is fenced off, but it doesn't stop diehard professional and amateur looters from trying their luck.  A book that could easily be reread more than once.  At the end is an afterword by the authors, detailing the painful process of getting the work published in Russia at that time.  Sadly, it would likely be harder to do there today.  A must read for SF fans, as well as lovers of the Tarkovsky film.

 

I read the Kindle edition.

 

Lastly came my lone read this month from my Delphi Classics collection.  Roderick Hudson, by Henry James, was first published in 1875.  James considered it his first real novel, though it was actually his second.  It is a sprawling work, published in three volumes in James' day, and running to about 400 pages today.  It is a coming of age novel, one that exposes the pitfalls of growing into a man, as well as the opportunities.  American Roderick Hudson has artistic merit as a sculptor, and Rowland Mallet, an independently wealthy man, offers Roderick a chance to move to Rome for a few years and work there.  Away they go, and at first all is well.  Roderick creates some beautiful sculptures.  He had become engaged to an American girl just before leaving.  When he meets a beautiful young woman in Rome, he immediately seeks no other existence than her company.  Things proceed downhill from there, at first gradually, and then more precipitously.  The main problem with the novel is that Roderick is a stinker of a human being, even though his artistic value is very high.  And Rowland, his benefactor, who loves the girl that Roderick is engaged to back in America, is too much of a saintly presence.  95% of the novel takes place in Europe, much of it in Rome.  James gives a good account of Rome in 1875, at least from an American's point of view.  I found the novel difficult to become interested in at first, and even some of the latter stages made me yawn.  But the author can get inside people's heads and express thoughts that rarely, if ever, are discussed out loud.  The novel moves along at a fairly consistent pace, until the very end pages.  The social constraints of certain women are dealt with well, despite all the wondering why they might be endlessly unhappy.  Who wouldn't want to marry a rich Italian prince, a man who is kind, gentle, and forgiving of much?  Well, perhaps someone who does not love him.  James' dealings with artists is quite honest, as he shows more than one kind.  Whereas Roderick burns hot or cold, we are also introduced to artists who work at their trade day in and day out, no matter what their mood might be.  This is not a novel I would reread, but I have no regrets at having lasted through it.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

August Reading Summary

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

A book with very special powers to enchant the reader. 

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

Original 1934 publication.  Cover by Walter B. Baumhofer. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

May Books Read, and Annual Update

I commence my 9th year of reading works by Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Series writers.  I still have 5 writers on the list, though Silverberg is nearly done.  Malzberg and Moorcock have about a year to go, while E C Tubb and Kenneth Bulmer are still in for the long haul.  This past year I managed to add 60 books by the Avon authors to my list, which is now at a total of 829.  I doubt I'll make it to a thousand, but one never knows.  Books unrelated to the SF series equaled the series books for the very first time this year, as I also got through 60 books of free reading, many of them from the Delphi Classics series.  Added to the accumulative series total, I have now read 226 books unrelated to any particular project.  And total books read from June 2023 to end of May 2024 is 120.  That's a book every three days!

This month I finished the 'required' reading (5 books) and was on to freestyle by May 14th.  Only 5 of the 24 Equinox/Avon authors remain for me to finish up within the stable of SF writers, as well as dozens from the Delphi Classics series.

I am all out of Silverberg SF, so once again I had to resort to recent reprints (on Kindle) of his soft core porn crime novels.  The reality of trying to make a living as a professional writer in the 1960s is on full display in this 1965 novel The Killer, originally called Passion Killer.  For a decent SF writer to have to resort to writing this stuff is not only sad, but also not very surprising.  Its 156 pages contain a short story about a hired killer about to double cross the man who hired him to kill his wife, but in the end someone else also gets double crossed.  The actual story is about 40 pages long; the rest consists of people having sex nearly every which way.  And the top heavy females, who just love to have sex, consist of a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead.  Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, the flavours of the 60s.  All bases covered.  The basic story is okay, similar to any number of crime story plots from period novels and or films.  The sex described in the book, which was probably sold under the counter in those days in certain types of book shops, is likely milder than found in most best sellers of today.  Some may call this progress.  I call it something else.   A must read for Silverberg and pulp fiction fans.  The rest of you may safely pass by.

 

Cover by Ernest Chiriaka.

 

Golden Scorpio is the final book in the exciting 4-part novel series dealing with the capture, destruction, and recapture of Vallia.  It is from 1978, and is 159 pages long.  Bulmer now writes as if he lives in this world, and it can be disconcerting, even to readers of the whole series so far, to hear him spouting so many invented foreign language words.  Kregan is a complicated planet, with many more kinds of people and animals than Earth.  There is a glossary provided, but it gets to be a pain to always have to go back and refer to some word or type of person or place or thing.  Other than that, this is turning into quite an epic effort of storytelling.  A TV series could run infinitely long based on these books, and I'm only at #18 of 52 volumes.  Bulmer has gone far beyond what E. R. Burroughs ever hoped to achieve.  But how is the writing?

Aside from so many strange words, and so many characters to keep track of (some disappear for volumes, then return), this story is one of the best in the series.  Essentially, Dray has to train an army from scratch, mainly made up of citizens who have been conquered and whose cities have been captured by enemy soldiers. The problem with Vallia is that it has always relied on mercenary soldiers to defend its borders.  But if the mercenaries are bought out by a higher bidder, they are no longer useful to Vallia, which is then left to itself.  So Dray begins training civilians, and it is quite a job.  The possible influences on Bulmer here are many, and he has masterfully taken from several sources.  Firstly, Roman warfare and how Roman troops were trained in such a disciplined manner.  Secondly, I see a strong influence from Kurosawa's epic film The Seven Samurai.  Then comes Tolkien's Battle of the Hornburg (but without the cavalry coming to the rescue).  And of course, Burroughs himself.  Bulmer outdoes himself in this book, and even manages to keep some sense of humour during the bloody and horrifying events.

Vallia is not out of the woods yet, however.  But with Dray now as Emperor, and the capital city and palace regained, things are certainly looking up.  What will happen in the next 34 books in this series?  Likely not even Bulmer knew at this point.  But if the quality of writing can be maintained, I will stick with it till the end.

 

From 1957 comes Cauldron of Violence, a 119 page western with events beginning in 1859, continuing through the Civil War, and then ending sometime afterwards.  The well written story focuses around Collin, who was 12 when Indians attacked his parents' homestead, killing them and his uncle, and burning down the house.  He managed to escape, and doesn't seem to exactly have a love affair with Indians afterwards.  He lives with a host family until he joins up with the union army during the war.  After being badly wounded in a successful attempt to blow up a southern railroad bridge, he recoups in hospital, wondering what lies next for him.  After the war he leads a small wagon train of settlers heading west, through dangerous Indian territory.  Most of the story describes this adventure.  Though not too far from the plot of The Gold Seekers, previously read, Collin is a very different character.  The wagon train encounters hostile Indians and must fight to the death until help arrives.  As is now expected in a Tubb western tale, the Indian side of things is told well, making the inevitable outcome seem like a foretold prophecy.  Another high quality tale from a pulp writing master.

 

There is only one true fantasy plot for a novel in that genre.  A really bad guy, who seems to have unlimited and endless evil powers, plans to take over the world/universe.  The good guy is helpless to stop him, and undergoes horrible ordeals, suffering mightily.  Until the last few pages of the book, when evil is defeated.  Tolkien did not invent this age-old plot; he just happened to write the best version of it, ever.  So anytime this plot is encountered (just open any fantasy novel), that writer is up against some mighty stiff competition.  In this case, Moorcock falls far short of writing a memorable and lasting work of fantasy fiction.

Michael Moorcock's The Dreamthief's Daughter is from 2001, and is 241 pages long.  I couldn't wait for it to end, never a good thing when reading a book.  The author tries a lot of new tricks.  Instead of one Elric, there's two (Elric and Ulrich).  It is revealed that he has a daughter, referring back to a much earlier and very fine Elric tale called "The Fortress of the Pearl."  His evil cousin is back, unfortunately.  One can quickly get very tired of this 'cousin', who has appeared in many Elric tales. And then there are the Nazis, on the rise.  Of course there would have to be Nazis.  And might as well throw in the Holy Grail.  He does.  And dragons over England, helping defeat the German air attack on London in 1940.

I know this is fantasy, and Elric, and all that.  But I found it very tiring reading.  A low point for me in the Elric saga.

 

The Engines of the Night is a collection of essays published in hardcover in 1982, lasting 199 pages. Most of these very short essays were published elsewhere around 1980.  Malzberg, as usual, tells it like it is (was), giving readers a good handle on what it was like to write SF in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.  There are some fun essays, and some very bitter ones.  Both kinds are very well written and required reading for fans of the history of the genre.  I have many favourites, among them being the chapter discussing Cornell Woolrich; two essays on the 50s; one called Science Fiction as Picasso; the obit essay for Mark Clifton; and a chapter giving Malzberg's choice of the ten best SF stories of all time (to 1980).  I'd only read read two of them!  A pretty amazing and wonderful collection of essays.  He has an updated collection of essays that I am greatly looking forward to reading.  The final essay in this collection, the longest, tells the tale of a typical pulp SF writer from the time.  Unforgettable.

 

After Malzberg, it was time to go freestyle.  I can read anything I want!  Sort of.  I really enjoy picking away at the Delphi Classics series, available on most type of e-readers.  For about $3 readers get the entire collection of writing from an author now out of copyright, and often out of print.  These are very well edited editions, too.  A most highly recommended series.  I now have about 50 authors in my library, and that includes thousands of novels, stories, novellas, poetry, plays, and original art work.  And I never have to decide whether to keep or discard a book, or give it away to charity.  I can keep it with me till I die!

First up was J. K. Bangs' first children's novel, Tiddledywink Tales.  Published in 1891, it is 161 pages of some wonderful but harmless prose and poetry for very young children, perhaps aged 4-7.  Filled with wit including riddles, jokes, funny poems and even a few jokes for adults (the book is meant to be read to children), it's 20 chapters each offer some special kind of delight.  I'll bet readers here didn't even know that tiddleywinks (today called tiddlywinks) could even talk, let alone crack jokes, have pageants, and entertain guests.  Obviously influenced by Alice In Wonderland (1865), it offers somewhat different pleasures.  It is probably closer to Wizard of Oz (1900) in its style of jokes and witticisms, though (as yet) is not nearly as adventurous.  These little stories are mostly forgotten today.

 

 

Next came a novella by J. M. Barrie.  It is called Better Dead, and is from 1888.  It was his first novel (-la), published at his own expense.  Later he tried to not have it republished, but it was anyway.  It is a darkly humoured look at the London Society For Doing Without.  Many readers manage to miss the black humour of the novel entirely, somehow.  A young Scotsman fresh from university and armed with good references, arrives in London to seek his fortune.  He is befriended by the president of a unique private society of men who murder other men.  If someone thinks that the world would be better off without a certain person, then he simply murders that person.  The young man observes such a killing, and becomes quite interested in joining the club.  He is given his probationary task of writing his thesis, and sets about righting perceived wrongs.  One of the funniest parts of the book has a leading female suffragette speaking to the club, demanding equality.  She believes they should be murdering women, too, not just men.  In the end, the young man is nearly undone by his enticingly visible neck, as well as the theses he presents to the club.  He believes everyone over 45 should be killed, including most members of the club, thus giving young people a chance to briefly shine.  His presentation does not go over well.  A brief but entertaining read.

Barrie's self published novella of 1888.

 

Arnold Bennett's Anna of the Five Towns was published in 1902.  Set in the Midlands region of England, the towns were the centre of pottery manufacturing.  Think of Hobbiton after Sharky had spent some time there.  Anna is 21, and lives with her father, the miser of town, and her 12 year old half sister Agnes.  Her father is rich, and upon Anna turning 21 she is given her inheritance from her deceased mother, amounting to about L50,000, a sizable fortune.  She also has investments which bring high annual returns.  Of course she is not allowed to spend any of it.  Her father is at least as rich, but is about the most miserly person ever met in literature.  He also has a wrathful temper, and continually browbeats Anna.  The dreariness of her life is relieved by a two week holiday on the Isle of Man.  She is invited by neighbours, who are able to convince her father to let her go.  Agnes is happy to keep house while she is gone.  During the trip she becomes engaged to a man she once liked, but she grows less fond of him every day.  A man in debt for his rent to her father (and now her, as she owns the property) becomes central to the story, as does his son, a simple boy whom Anna takes to her heart.  The great tragedy of their downfall becomes a symbol of what awaits Anna.  Married to a man she doesn't love, she performs her duties to him, as she once did to her father.

Yes, it is a grim story.  But it is so well told, and we get so many insights into what Anna is thinking, things she never shares with others, that her character becomes not only memorable, but unforgettable.  She is not a mousy woman, but she has lived under paternal tyranny and abject misery for so long that even being married to man she does not love or greatly respect is a giant step away from her father, albeit a sideways step.  Bennett is a wonderful writer, and hopefully still being read, somewhere.  Paternal tyranny and the woeful place of a woman at this time have never been more clearly illustrated.  A town is brought to life, and the characters perform their duties, in a way that seems drawn from experience and some deep thinking about female and male roles in society.  Highly recommended.

 

 

I have previously read two books of short ghost stories by Algernon Blackwood.  This time I retreated to his first novel, called Jimbo: A Fantasy.  From 1909 it is a tale of childhood, but it is not meant for children to read.  However, it could work if it was read to them.  Jimbo (James) is eight, and has an accident that renders him unconscious for several hours.  During this time he becomes trapped in another world, in a castle tower, a prisoner of Fear.  A former governess of James helps him prepare for an escape.  James grows wings over time, and learns to use them.  A true fantasy, and very much in the tradition of Iain Banks' The Bridge, from 1986, where an unconscious man (we don't know this until later) finds himself trapped on a mysterious bridge and tries to get off of it.  However, Bennett's tale is also a bit of a ghost story.  Fairly well done, and could form the basis of a terrific animated version of the story.

 

Five Go Adventuring Again, from 1943, is Enid Blyton's 2nd novel in her popular long running series featuring four kids and a dog.  Blyton hit on a winning formula, one that kids loved.  A secret hidden passage, an important formula stolen, a cryptic note, and some bad guys thrown in is repeated again and again in her stories.  They were so popular that she was not allowed to stop writing.  Some differences between this one and the first story include the fact that it is winter and Christmas holidays, rather than summer holidays, and that the entire story takes place on land.  Also, there is no treasure, just a stolen formula that must be retrieved.  While three of the children are your standard cardboard children, two older boys and their younger sister, George, their cousin, is a female with a difference.  She remains an interesting character, being not only rebellious to the extreme, but one who trusts her instincts, despite others not thinking she is very wise to do so.  Certain kids still might like to read the book today, though most now require certain amounts of magic and fantasy.  There is no magic in Blyton's book, but plenty of adventure.

 

 

Ernest Bramah's The Mirror of Kong Ho is a brilliant and very funny book from 1905.  Brahma was included in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series with two splendid novels.  Though this one is not a fantasy, it retains the same idioms of speech and the same intent of those tales.  Never has a clash of cultures been better brought to light than in these eleven letters that Kong Ho writes home to his Chinese father, detailing his experiences and misadventures during his visit to London.  Each chapter tackles several misunderstandings and their consequences based on cultural differences between England and China.  We learn how and why Kong Ho is kicked out of his rooming house.  Grim but hilarious.  Kong Ho visits a pub and causes a riot.  He thinks it is a temple of worship.  He plays cricket; he rides the Tube; he visits a country estate; two con men attempt to rob him.  Whatever it is he experiences, it all gets included in the truly hilarious letters home.  Not being British, I did not get all the jokes, but most of them sunk in just fine.  It's one of those books that will drive the person you live with mad, due to sudden outbursts of laughter, and the obligatory rereading aloud to them of passage after passage.  A wonderful book!

 

Warlord of Mars is Edgar Rice Burroughs 3rd Martian tale, published in 1918.  It's interesting to read this series in light of reading Kenneth Bulmer's similar Dray Prescott series.  While Bulmer takes the Martian tales of Burroughs as his base (as did Michael Moorcock in his Martian trilogy), his world is much more complex, and his lead character much more interesting.  Burroughs used many of the same writer's tricks over and over again, and they can become tiring after a time.  Having said that, Burroughs can write a good yarn with the best of them.  This book is a direct continuation of the 2nd Martian novel, as he begins his attempts to rescue Dejah Thoris, his wife and Princess of Mars.  We travel back to the root of the evil from Book 2, where the religion of the black men is stomped out and destroyed.  Of course the main bad guy gets away, kidnapping Dejah.  The chase is on.  It culminates in a huge battle at the North Pole.  Poor John Carter, the hero.  At one point he actually gets Dejah in his arms, but she is cruelly whisked away yet again as he battles for their lives against the yellow men (there are also green men and red men).  The book finishes up a series within the series, with all well that ends well.  Looking forward to new adventures next time.

 

An early cover from 1919, one of dozens since published.  

Art by J. Allen St. John.   

 

Lastly came a short book by Sir Richard Burton.  Falconry In The Valley Of The Indus is from 1852, one year after his first travel book, also set in India.  I have little interest in falconry, being a non-hunter.  And yet I was curious to learn something about it.  This short book told me just about everything I needed to know, so I can say with confidence that I am now versed in the ways of falconry.  Burton deals with the actual hunting part, of course, but also with the training of the various kinds of birds of prey that are/were used in the activity (I cannot call it "sport", as very little hunting has anything to do with sport).  However, the best of the book was a 10 or 11 page postscript by the author, dealing with English critics of his writing to date.  This is a very well written retort to the imbecile critics who had never set foot outside of England, and who could not imagine that any British person would behave ignobly towards natives of other lands.  A diverting book.

Mapman Mike

 

 

February 2024 Reading Summary

 Not many books were read, but two of them were epic novels.  One of them required 9 days!  I usually have about 2 to 2 1/2 hours per day to read, with sometimes an extra hour on Sundays, when I often don't practice piano.  I will begin with my regular five remaining Avon/Equinox authors, though this month I read Silverberg's last big novel.  I have one large volume of his short stories remaining, and then I'm in to a few of his reissued pulp trash novels from early days.  So Silverberg will likely be wrapped up by summer.  Tubb and Bulmer will go on for years yet, as will Moorcock.  And I still have at least ten more Malzberg pulp crime novels remaining.

 

First published as a whole in 2003, the 449 page Roma Eterna is historical fantasy fiction, though it can't really be called a novel.  At least not in the traditional sense of that term.  Silverberg postulates that the Roman Empire managed to survive, rather than fall apart as it did.  Each chapter carefully explains how it managed to overcome some of its biggest obstacles, such as the rise of Christianity, the northern barbarian invasions, and the rise of Islam.  The chapters were mostly published separately, then combined to make this one long story.  It's always  interesting to think how certain trivial events might have altered history if they had not happened, and this book is full of such ideas.  I must admit that more than a few places were pretty boring to read, unless readers are fans of Roman history.  I'm sure I missed many small connections, though I easily got the big picture.  Again there is a great shortage of female characters.  the ones that do appear seem to be there mostly to satisfy males for companionship and pleasure.  Though hardly my favourite book by the author, it is a solid piece of writing by a man who was quite obsessed with much of history during his creative lifetime.

It felt good to jump into an easily readable novel by Bulmer, the 15th Dray Prescott one called Secret Scorpio.  Though it many ways it's just more of the same, he is a good enough author not to repeat himself too often, and each volume adds something new.  In fact, Bulmer is a terrific writer, with a great sense of pacing and an ever lurking sense of humour.  Many of these stories rise well above the usual pulp level encountered in so many books from this time.  The guy was a veritable work horse, with a very demanding publishing schedule.  Secret Scorpio introduces a fake religion, one promising riches and rewards in this life, as well as in the afterlife.  Many people can not resist such promises, it would seem.  Even people who should know better.  For once, the Emperor, whom Dray has insulted and thus has banished him from the main city, is ahead of Dray.  He does have his finger on the pulse of his people, it would seem.  Dray will have to face him again in the next book.  They do not like one another very much, and Delia, the Emperor's daughter and Dray's wife, is caught between the two men.  A good addition to the series.

 

Tubb's 2nd Cap Kennedy book, by contrast, seems to rehash many of the tales already told by this prolific pulp master.  Cap ends up becoming a mining slave, and must orchestrate a break out before he can set things to right.  A brutal race of reptilian people are being led by a particularly greedy member of their race, though he in turn is being tricked out of his mining fortune by two humanoids.  In addition to becoming a slave, Cap also has to fight in the arena.  How many times has this already happened in a story by Tubb?  The title is there to attract boys to the genre, but there are no female slaves.  Sorry, boys.  There is only one woman in the story, and she is there very briefly.  This is a man's world.  Girls keep out.  Oh, there is also a giant worm burrowing deep in the planetoid being mined.  We have to have a giant underground worm.  No marks for originality here.  We've read it before, both in single novels by Tubb and in his Dumarest series.  I hope the other books in this series can raise themselves a bit higher.

 

On to Michael Moorcock and the 2nd of his Colonel Pyat novels, called The Laughter of Carthage.  The first book dealt with Russia and Ukraine in the years of the Revolution, roughly 1917-20.  At the conclusion, Pyat was on a boat heading for Constantinople.  It is a roundabout journey, but he makes it.  His adventures in and around the city eventually involve him in the Greek and Turkish war, revealing how the Greeks were betrayed by the Americans and British during their failed attempt at conquering the Islamic nation.  After a lengthy stay, in which he more or less adopts a 13 year old girl as his lover, daughter, and bride to be, they both head to Rome, and then on to Paris.  Like its predecessor, it is a very long book and covers a lot of ground.  Including the introduction we are looking at around 534 pages.  In some ways this story is as engaging as the first one, but in other ways it isn't.  Pyat's madness becomes much more evident in this volume, and his asides and comments that interrupt the narrative flow grow longer and more manic.  The story itself, when it is told, is as fascinating as the first book.  Another thing that makes this volume a bit less fun to read is the amount of untranslated foreign language rants and sentences that occupy the paragraphs.  French, German, Russian, and possibly other languages are used, and most readers will have no idea what they say.

 

While Pyat may be a fictional character, he is situated in the true happenings of the 1910s and the 1920s.  He meets many real characters from the time, and sometimes becomes involved in events that actually occurred.  This is not historical fiction at all, but a unique way of telling the complicated story of just what was going on in Europe at the time.  While no one person could possibly understand all of it, Pyat has opinions on just about everything.  His anti-Semitism and general racism become even more outlandish.  He supports the cause of the white (male) protestant, and is against the pope and all that Catholicism stands for.  And don't get him started on Islam.  So we are not too surprised when this Pyat character, who loves D. W. Griffith and all that his films stand for, supports the work of the Klan once he arrives in the US.  At first I wasn't thrilled with the American portion of the book, but by waiting patiently for several pages the story became completely fascinating again.  Despite its great length, this is a series worth reading.  at the conclusion of book 2 Pyat is about 22 or 23 years of age and about to be reunited with the love of his life once again, after a lengthy interval.  After a suitable break, I will look forward to reading the 3rd book.

 

Burt Wulf lands in Vegas with a bang in Desert Stalker, a 1973 thriller that is the 4th in a series.  Malzberg hit his stride in this series at least one book back, and the roller coaster life of this lone vigilante keeps the pace moving forward.  Though all the books are loosely connected, they are not tied down to the same characters.  In fact, most of the main characters are dead by the end of each novel in which they appear.  This time Wulf takes on the Vegas racket, and takes a hotel and its crooked proprietor hostage.  Just when it seems like the story will focus around a kind of unusual hostage situation, it explodes into a major pulp fiction action adventure tale.  Again the car chase is unique, and the way it is resolved.  Hollywood seems to know only one type of car chases; Malzberg is way ahead of them.  At one point we see a bit of life come back into Wulf, who has been essentially a killing machine since the overdose death of his new York girlfriend.  He has another female friend from two books ago, whom he met in San Francisco and managed to pull away from drugs.  He calls her in a moment of desperation, badly needing to talk to someone.   And so we are confronted with at least a trace of humanity reawakening in the man.  There are 14 books in the series.

 

Moving on to my free reading for the month, I managed to get through [ ] books.  The first one is called Seven Brief Lessons In Physics, by Carlo Rovelli, a book suitable for non-science majors to help them understand the modern world.  Beginning with simple but very effective explanations of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, the book (really it's barely a novella) moves outward to cosmology and inward to atoms and electrons.  It succinctly summarizes our knowledge to date in the most simple terms I have ever come across.  The book would be suitable for Gr. 11 Physics students, or anyone who has even a passing interest in what has been going on for the past hundred years or so regarding our material world.

 A simple and easy to understand primer on the state of modern physics.

 

Next came Clark Ashton Smith's 2nd collection of shorter tales, called Out of Space and Time.  It was published in 1942, though Smith had pretty much done with writing by 1936.  Heavily influenced by Poe, he wrote in the tradition of Lovecraft, Dunsany, and Robert E. Howard.  But he definitely outclassed those latter writers, except for Dunsany.  Smith's horror fantasy stories are unique in the literature, and well worth seeking out.  This collection has 20 tales.  One of them, "The City of the Singing Flame," is given in its early shorter version and in its revised novella version.  I read the novella version.  A man steps through a kind of dimensional warp in time and space and emerges in a fantastic landscape, with a city in the distance that sings like a siren to any who hear.  Filled with good descriptions of strange people, places, music, and architecture, it ends with the complete destruction of what should have been the gate to Utopia.  I can see the early stories of Jack Williamson being heavily influenced be Smith's writing to mention A. Merritt.  "The Second Internment" is straight out of Poe's stories, as a man who fears premature burial has it happen to him not once, but twice.  The description of him suffering inside the coffin is true horror writing at its finest.  "The Chain of Aforgorman" is an Orientalist horror/fantasy tale about a man who uses a rare drug to achieve his goal of reading from a forbidden text.  Guess where it gets him?  Not to heaven, at any rate.    "The Unchartered Isle" is a shipwreck fantasy, about a man who encounters some very strange humans where he ends up landing.  Though he leaves with proof of his strange adventure, still no one believes him. 

 

Once we get to the Zothique stories, we have come upon some of the finest fantasy horror fiction to have ever been penned. "The Dark Eidolon" is a prime example of Smith's ability to create a kind of fiction that has never been surpassed, even by Fritz Leiber.  A vengeful and powerful wizard takes revenge of the cruel and selfish king that once wronged him.  Though the wizard does take his revenge, despite dire warnings from his patron evil god, a few unexpected turns make his revenge far from satisfying.  Great stuff!

 

Original cover jacket for first edition by Hannes Bok.  Arkam House was the publisher. 

 

Another tale from the continent of Zothique is "The Lost Hieroglyph," where a hapless 2nd rate astrologer takes his final long and rather complicated journey into the hereafter.  One thing (of many) that I like about Smith's writing is that his endings are often unexpected and unusually harsh at times.  Assuming a certain ending, the reader is likely to be surprised.  "Sadastor" is very much in the tradition of Lord Dunsany, a short piece that is mostly descriptive.  "Oh," says one creature to another, "so you think you are woeful.  Well, wait till you hear my story...".

Smith is again at his very best in the relatively short "The Death of Ilalotha."  A handmaiden to the Queen, both these women are in love with the same man.  He flees for a week to recuperate.  It is the hand maiden whom he loves, and is at a loss at what to do.  When he returns he finds Ilalotha dead, as well as the King.  A 3-day orgy and drunken feast is just ending, apparently the way funerals are run in this kingdom.  Again there is a truly wonderful ending, as readers expect something quite different.  A real treat to read!  By comparison, "The Return of the Sorcerer" is pretty much pure Lovecraft, and nowhere near as good.  Twin brother sorcerers fall out and one kills the other.  The dead one comes back for some revenge.  But he has been cut up into pieces, which have been buried separately.  So it takes him some time to get his act together, so to speak.

"The Testament of Athammaus" shows a humourous side to Smith.  A city's axeman tells the tale of a criminal whose head would not stay attached to his body.  Each time the man reappears from his grave, the neck area becomes more deformed, until at last his head comes back attached at his chest.  Needless to say, the citizens are quick to abandon the city after the third reincarnation.  Athammaus is the last to leave.  He now has the same job in a different city.  Another somewhat light-hearted tale is "The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan."  Avoosl is a money lender, and somewhat on the greedy side.  After refusing to give pitiful beggar a coin, something that always obdes ill in a Smith story,  the beggar predicts an unholy death for the man.  One day a thief comes to Avoosl, selling him two beautiful emeralds.  But the emeralds are called back to their owner, and Avoosl follows them, not wanting to lose their investment.  He discovers a veritable Aladdin's cave of jewels, and literally bathes in them.  However, he soon meets the even greedier owner of the jewels.  "Ubbo Sathla" concerns a jewel found by a man in a London antique shop.  Could it possibly be the jewel that old texts say was once owned by a powerful wizard eons ago?  Why of course it is!  And by staring into it, the new owner of the jewel gets to meet his ancestors from way back.

The next story is a SF novelette called "The Monster of the Prophecy."  A down on his luck London poet contemplates jumping into the Thames one night.  He is interrupted by a man who tells him that he is an alien from the Antares system, and that he wants to bring back a human with him to help fulfill a prophecy.  Off they go, and a large part of the story is a description of the city state where the alien, having timed his appearance with the strange man from Earth (the people from the Antares system have three legs and five arms and three eyes), is able to claim leadership over the people.  But things don't go smoothly for either the new leader or the man from Earth.  A decent enough story, but not the kind that Smith excels at.  For that we turn to the final longer tale, "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis."  Forget "Alien."  For a really good SF/horror story, look no further than this tale of a group of Martian archaeologists researching a 40,000 city on Mars.  Like many Martian cities, this one has a vast underground component. What a great film this would make!  Though the ancient city dwellers of Yoh-Vombis are long gone, there is still a very nasty lifeform dwelling down there beneath the old city.  Classic Smith story telling!

Next up was Solaris, the 1961 novel by Stanislav Lem.  Unlike the two movies I have seen loosely based on the book, the novel is about the planet Solaris.  As Lem himself stated, "If I wanted to write a romance, I would have called it "Love In Outer Space."  Two quotes by Dr. Snaut early on clarify things nicely.  "We don't need other worlds--we need mirrors."  In other words, humans are a long way from claiming to be ready to visit other planets and to understand them.  And then, "We are unlikely to learn anything about it [the planet Solaris], but maybe about ourselves.

This is hardly the first great alien contact story I have read.  There are excellent ones by many of the Avon/Equinox authors, such as The Man In the Maze by Robert Silverberg, and The Shores of Another Sea and Unearthly Neighbours by Chad Oliver, to name only three.  But Solaris is different in many ways.  For one thing, humans have already been studying the great ocean planet for decades before Dr. Kelvin comes aboard.  His psychology degree is useless in his search for answers as to why people are appearing on the planet (he does seem to be a bit thick), since his entire outlook, and that of other humans trying to communicate with Solaris, is totally human centred.  They have no reference point other than themselves in which to experiment.  Thinking outside the box, in this case, leads quickly to so many quack theories that are untestable that the subject can not really proceed in any direction but the usual one.  Lem is painstaking in describing the planet, and takes a full 38 page chapter to let us know what has already been learned.  Besides this chapter, there is much more about Solaris, too.  But none of it allows for any kind of communication.  Oliver's Unearthly Neighbours comes closest to this conundrum,and would make a good companion read with Solaris.  But Lem offers no plausible answers.  His only solution is for Kelvin to stay on the station and keep trying.  By now he has realized the futility of getting back his wife/girlfriend, but the great ocean (there is some land on Solaris, too, by the way) and the mystery of its existence will not let him return to Earth.  And so he stays on at the end, and will continue to experiment.  A true "science" fiction book, and one worth more than one reading.  And forget about the Soderbergh film, which has absolutely nothing to do with what Lem is attempting to write about.

That's it for this month.  I am coming towards the end of my Silverberg books, with only one more SF story collection remaining.  When that author is finished, I will replace him with a reread of all the works by Fritz Leiber, still a great favourite.  Besides the man who coined the term 'Sword and Sorcery', and who wrote many of the best stories in that genre, he is also a great SF author, as well as a horror writer.  His stories are often filled with humour, too.  So expect lots of Leiber in the months ahead.

Mapman Mike

 

December 2023 Book Reviews

Robert Silverberg got things rolling again, though now I only have two of his SF books remaining!  I have not included his non-fiction books, but might add one in from time to time.  There are some of his early pulp fiction being republished now, too.  First published in 1998, this epic 488 page SF novel has undergone many reprints since.  The Alien Years takes two effective short stories and transforms them into a fairly wonderful novel, all things considered.  I have already voiced my opinion on writers who expand short stories into full length novels, so I was admittedly biased going into this read.  However, I emerged at the end convinced that for this time, Silverberg had scored a big win.  "The Pardoner's Tale" is a short story from 1987 that pits a human computer hacker against the might of alien invaders who have taken over the Earth, erected enormous walls around major cities (LA in this case), and are receiving a lot of help from humans who have accepted the aliens as their masters and work for them.  The second story comes first chronologically in the novel, as well as being written first.  "Against Babylon" from 1986 tells of the invasion day in California, and how tremendous fires are accidentally ignited from the engines as the aliens land their huge ships.  All in all it's quite a splendid book, and should make us think seriously about not attracting attention to ourselves from out there.  Let's face it--if aliens have technology to get here, they are going to be rather superior to us in many other ways.  And maybe their intentions will clash with ours.  Silverberg seals the door nicely in this novel, making resistance more a thought game that a real life killing game.  What if we can't resist?  Human ingenuity did not save us in this book, at least.  Could it ever happen?  You bet it could.

 

Renegade of Kregen is the 13th book in a very long fantasy series written by Kenneth Bulmer.  From 1976 comes the 192 page continuation of the story of Dray Prescott, a man who seems to get little rest and relaxation.  He has previously been stripped of his membership in an elite warrior society, and realizes that he will never get home to Delia unless he somehow regains his status.  He hatches a plan to capture an enemy king and his #1 striker.  Some of Dray's plans work really well.  This is one of those that doesn't.  One of the things about reading a series that is already published is knowing that the hero will never die, at least until the final volume.  So no matter what Dray has to put up with, we know that somehow he will come out of it okay.  But as we learn in this volume, not all of his friends and or family receive the same guarantee.  Someone very close to Dray dies in this book, and it is quite shocking.  And yet again he has to pretend to be loyal to an enemy by infiltrating it and serving the wrong side.  That part seems to go okay.  But with this sudden unexpected death at the end of the book, Dray has entered a new and deeper region of emotion than he is used to.  We can be certain of one thing; someone will pay dearly for his loss.

 

Next, I began another series by E C Tubb.  Galaxy of the Lost is the first book of the Cap Kennedy, Secret Agent of the Space series.  If that sounds somewhat juvenile, the first book really isn't.  From 1973 comes the 125 page first novel.  He seemed to toss these stories off at least one per month.  What a guy!  Cap Kennedy is an agent, or investigator, for F.A.T.E, Free Acting Terran Envoy.  He works with a small team, but has the backing of the major Earth intelligence and defence organizations.  In this first exciting adventure, he is trying to solve the mystery of why space ships are disappearing from space, leaving no trace behind of what happened to them or where they went.  Now this sounds like a typical SF pulp adventure plot.  But wait.  1973 is not the 1950s, and Tubb, despite his writing speed, is not a hack writer.  And besides, this is the post Star Trek years, so stories had to have some substance to them.  And Tubb (writing as Kern) gives us our money's worth (75 cents back in the day, and $3.99 Can. today).  The adventure begins like many another tale, even ones by Tubb.  But it quickly heads off into true SF territory.  An unmanned, very ancient alien device in another dimension is malfunctioning, drawing in ships from our universe, where they end up crashing and being used by scrap robots to feed energy to the machine.  Our hero and his small company of survivors go through quite an ordeal to find out this information.  I'm hoping more will be learned about this ancient alien civilization as more books are read.  Apparently the same aliens left some traces of their technology in our galaxy, but no one can make heads or tails of what remains.  Again, as with so many of Tubb's stories, this would make a terrific SF film, simply by adding at least one major female character (alas, they are all males here).  A good read, and a promising beginning to this new to me series.

 

From 1991 comes another adventure, The Revenge of the Rose, featuring everyone's favourite albino sword and sorcery hero.  This 233 page novel features a traditional story arc, with Elric having to retrieve a casket containing his father's soul.  And so he goes on a quest featuring a dragon, the lords of Chaos and their underlings, a family of clairvoyants, a poet (who lived in the time of Gloriana!), and Rose, Moorcock's answer to Red Sonja.  While the story arc follows a traditional path (including the inevitable battle between Elric and the main bad guy, Gaynor), the story ingredients are anything but traditional.  While in the same general league as Tolkien, Peake, and E R Eddison, Moorcock has always been more a sketch artist than a true old master.  He seldom takes enough time with his characters and situations, choosing instead to move things along almost at the pace of a pulp writer, forgoing details for action.  That is not to say there is no introspection or good conversation in his stories, but these features are not the main reason one reads Moorcock.  Having said this, Revenge of the Rose seems to probe deeper than other Moorcock novels, and along with the lovely plot twists, turns, and revelations, proves again that Moorcock can write literature when he wants to take his time and do so.  Besides being a very good writer, this novel shows off his incredible imagination, as the places Elric and company visit are certainly on another plane of existence.  If the story seems to begin like any other old tale of sword and sorcery, hang on a bit.  You will enjoy this epic tale, guaranteed. 

 

Usually, Malzberg's porno novels (written under various pseudonyms) are less about sex and more about literature.  A Bed of Money has more graphic sex than the other two put together, but still manages to come out strongly as literature.  From 1970, this 141 page novel, only recently re-released, concerns a certain Mr. Foster, another in the long line of losers who devote their life to the racetrack.  Malzberg's racetrack stories are incredibly detailed accounts of the psychology of players, getting so far into their heads that we end up knowing literally everything about the person involved.  I was never the least bit interested in horse racing until I discovered Malzberg.  The author's gift for black humour is also on full display here, as Foster relives many of his past sexual experiences, besides being involved in his current round with Dolores, a woman he picked up at a bar after finally winning big at the track.  She goes back to a hotel room with him, but of course has two male accomplices who soon make it clear that they want his $23,000.00 in winnings for themselves.  The novel has a certain madcap keystone cops element to it, but the rapid deterioration of Foster's mind after he wins is the real story.  Most people, myself included, might profess a dislike or disinterest in racetrack stories.  But Malzberg, if no one else, might convince you otherwise.  At least I am a full convert. 

 

Turning away from these five remaining Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Series authors, my first free choice read came again from the Delphi Collection of books on Kindle.  These books include the complete works of various authors, many of them early writers of SF and Fantasy.  They are professionally edited, and usually illustrated with original covers and any interior art that may have been published with the earliest editions.  It was time again for a novel by A. Merritt, the early 20th C. SF and Fantasy writer, who has as large a cult following today as Lovecraft.  I read The Metal Men, published in 1920. The same protagonist who appeared in his The Moon Pool from the year  before is back, this time wandering amidst the Himalayas.  This time he encounters an alien race made from metal, that uses the Sun's energy to grow and develop, that happened to find itself on Earth one day.  They seem to be under the control of a woman who was once human, but has now become a very different sort of being.

 

First published as an 8 part serial in 1920, it didn't come out in paperback until 1946.

Cover art by Glen White.   

 

Also involved is a Saracen horde led by Xerxes and his son, somehow surviving up here for over 2000 years.  Whatever.  Though much of the storytelling is merely wide-eyed description of the fantastic aliens, how they function, and what they do, there are still many fine and memorable moments from this early science based story.  The very earliest and best SF writers clung earnestly to real science to make their case for their stories, and though the science is a wee bit outdated, once can still be amazed at Merritt and how well read he must have been, not only in science but in ancient history! This is a movie in the making, and would be a truly stupendous undertaking.  Now that special effects are finally caught up to 1920s story telling, perhaps someone will take one of Merritt's novels and bring them to the big screen.  Even an animated version of this story would be welcome.  A fun read, though the descriptions at times give one a headache, like hearing about someone's long dream.

Steven Saylor writes fiction that takes place in ancient Rome, and is a master at it.  For a while, a long time ago, we carried on an e-mail discussion about Sword and Sandal movies.  It took me awhile to get around to read his books, but when I finally did I was hooked!  Roman Blood is the first book of his Rosa Sub Rosa novels, featuring the detective Gordianus The Finder, published in 1991.  More of Saylor's books get high reviews, and for good reason.  Along with fictional characters, Saylor uses real historical figures.  In this book, for instance, the young Cicero is the lawyer who defends the accused murderer.  He hires the (fictional) Gordianus to gather information for him.  Sulla the Dictator is ruling (an actual person), and there are several other real characters in the story.  But Saylor goes even further, taking an actual case of murder that Cicero accepted, and uses parts of his actual summation in the story.  The interweaving of fact and fiction is seamless.  The best parts of Saylor's books are his ability to bring day to day life in Rome to life in a way that even a good movie cannot.  This happens to be a very hot summer, with a merciless sun beating down upon the city every afternoon.  The flies, are there, the rats, the filth, the low life, a spectacular tenement fire, and or course the crime.  The injustices heaped upon slaves and the poor are also in the forefront, in case anyone wants to glamorize life in the Rome of around 70 B.C.E.  My only complaint about the book is the large number of violent and bloody episodes it contains, including several assaults on Gordianus.  Would someone who came so near death by misfortune so many times within just a few days still be happy to carry on his work for 15 more volumes in the series?  Not if he had half a brain.  Anyway, the series does not have to be read in any order, and all that I have read so far are very good reading.

Cover painting by Antonio Basoli. 

 

William Morris created some of the best fantasy novels ever written (see my Ballantine blog), and was a huge influence on Tolkien and other writers who took up fantasy.  His earliest fantasy tale was published in 1889, called The House of the Wolfings.  Morris translated many of the northern sagas, and here he has written one of his own.  Told mostly in prose, there still is a good deal of rhyming couplets to keep authenticity.  The first part could easily be drawn from an earlier time in Middle Earth, when the men of the Mark were divided into clans though allied against trouble makers from outside their range.  Morris includes a magic hauberk, as well as women, men, and a boy who can "see" what might befall.  Once we realize that these Goths are about to fight the Romans, we are somewhat brought back to our own Earth.  The river that Tolkien eventually called the Anduin is here called the Mirkwood, since it runs in and out of dark woodlands, mostly bordering them.  The various clan houses are arrayed along this river north to south.  While the story focuses on the Wolfings, several other clans also feature prominently in the tale.  The story tells the story of the preparation for battle, continues with the several major battles that occur, and follows up with the aftermath.  All in all it is a rousing tale, filled with myth-making heroes and great deeds, including the bravery and strength of the enemy Roman legions.  Originally meant to be the first book of a trilogy, Morris did write one more, but not the third.  Looking forward to reading it!

 

Next to last came the second collection of detective stories by Arthur Morrison, the 1895 The Chronicles of Martin Hewitt.  There are six stories featuring the great detective, who mostly works alone, or in concert with the police, and are related to us by his friend and confident.  In "The Ivy Cottage Mystery," Hewitt solves a murder and a jewel theft, using much the same method as Holmes.  Indeed, this is one of the stories that might have led people to believe that it was Doyle writing under a different name, as was the case when the original series was printed.  In the next story Hewitt gets into 19th C. diving gear to solve "The Nicobar Bullion Case."  When a ship sinks off the coast of Cornwall carrying gold bullion, a crime of opportunity presents itself to one of the salvage workers.  Try to picture Sherlock Homes in diving gear and going underwater to look for clues.  Unfortunately, the whole plot is too far fetched to be believable, but it makes a nice change from the streets of London.  "The Holford Will Case" is involved with hypnotism upon an innocent though weak willed woman by the conniving nephew of her deceased step father.  She has been left the bulk of the estate in her father's will, but the nephew attempts to steal and destroy the will, which would leave everything to him.  Fortunately for one and all, Hewitt saves the day again.  "The Case of the Missing Hand" adds a touch of gruesomeness to the collection.  A cruel and conniving man is found hanged in the woods with his right hand missing.  Two brothers are arrested for murder, until Hewitt proves otherwise, and is able to explain what really took place.  Next up is "The Case of Laker, Absconded," a straight forward case of robbery.  That is, until Hewitt gets involved, proving that the man thought of as the guilty one is quite innocent.  Lastly comes "The Cost of the Lost Foreigner", about anarchists attempting to set off a series of bombs in London.  One of the gang backs out at the last minute, and they don't take kindly to his change of heart.  One never knew that bread could be so dangerous.

The last book completed in December was E Nesbit's first childrens' book.  Called The Story of the Treasure Seekers, from 1899, it is almost as much fun to read as the slightly earlier masterpiece by Kenneth Grahame, The Golden Age.  Writing as if a 12 year child had written the story, it is mostly a charming tale of five children trying to raise money to help restore the Bastable fortune.  Oswald Bastable tries to keep it a secret that he is the one writing the book, but of course his slips and oversights quickly give away the secret.  The children first try digging for buried treasure in their garden.  No luck.  One of them, an 8 year old, is a poet, and they try to sell his poetry to a major London newspaper.  Very minor results.  They kidnap Albert-next-door and hold him for three thousand pounds ransom.  A ransom note is sent to his family.  Alas, it just doesn't work out for them.  They try to sell mail order sherry.  Another flop.  But the best chapter of them all tells of the newspaper and its contents that the children create, in hopes of selling 100 copies at a shilling apiece.  Some very rich writing here, indeed.  All in all the short book is great fun to read, especially for an adult.  A 1996 British film of the book can be seen on Youtube--it will be reviewed soon in the next blog entry.  Unfortunately, girls are not rated very highly by Oswald as persons in this story.  He is a complete misogynist.  And there is a single use of the "n" word, which hopefully is expunged from modern editions (not used by the children, but by an adult)  Michael Moorcock used the name of Oswald Bastable as the storyteller for three of his connected alternate history novels, in an effort to help capture that time in the late Victorian period when men ruled in the house and beyond.

Mapman Mike