October Books Read

 

 A fine double cover by Fred Gambino. I read the Kindle edition with a boring yellow cover.

 

From 1978 comes the 19th Dumerest book The Quillian Sector.  It is 158 pages long.  This story has it all--a miserable mining planet, the Cyclan giving chase (this time hiring a bounty hunter to capture Dumerest alive), a space ship adventure and a crash landing and grim survival on a hostile alien world.  Tubb went all out on this one, and it shows.  It's a great story, though he is no closer to finding Earth.  Other than calling it his home, he never gives any reason why he wants to return to his planet of birth, even though everyone else thinks it's merely a legend.  He left it because it was a planet of no hope, so go figure.  One of the better books of the series.

*** stars. 

 

My less than exciting Kindle cover. 

 

It's time to restart my Delphi Classics project, normally back at the "A" authors.  But Kindle placed a recent purchase up front (before Anderson), so I began reading their Medieval Poetry Collection.  First up was a poem by Caedmon, a dude from the 7th C.  He is the earliest English poet whose name is recorded.  He cared for the animals at a monastery in what is now known as Whitby Abbey.  He worked there during the abbacy of St. Hilda (657-680).  He later became a monk and Christian poet.  Hymn is his only known surviving work and it is a praise in honour of God.  It is only 9 lines long, so it doesn't take a long time to read.  The collection gives a translation and the original text, then both together one line at a time for comparison.  Pretty neat.

 

Next came three longer poems, two anonymous but the middle one is by Cynewulf, active in the 8th C.  Entitled Christ I, II and III they are also called The Advent, which deals with the virgin birth of Christ; The Ascension, by our poet, and Doomsday.  The first two are not that long, but Doomsday really gets itself in a froth and runs on for a good while.  The translation is in prose, which is easier to read and understand, but the original is also provided, with counted lines.  I actually enjoyed reading these, as it brought back memories of my childhood Catholic upbringing, which I ended up rejecting at age 13.  Most enjoyable are the dialogue segments.  For example in "The Advent" we hear of Joseph's trials as he is mercilessly hounded by his neighbours.  Mary patiently explains to him about the virgin birth, the angel Gabriel, and who it is in her womb.  Still, the guys are razzing him a lot.  "The Ascension" is the better written of the three, being concise and sticking to its subject without belabouring it.  Yet again it all sounds like SF to me, with a spaceship, advanced science and medicine and alien beings stopping by for a chat with the locals.  "Doomsday" does give both sides of the story, as we are introduced to what will happen not only to the bad guys at the end of the world, but also to the good guys.  Based on what I read here I sincerely hope I am one of the good guys.

 

Next up in this series (many months from now) is the William Morris translation of Beowulf.  Though I've read it twice before, I am looking forward to reading it again.

 

The cover of my Kindle edition. 

 

Next on my reading list was Sherwood Anderson's 1923 novel Many Marriages.  It was one of the oddest books I have ever read, satisfying in some ways and quite disturbing in others.  The main character is John Webster, who relates much of the text and dialogue to the reader.  His wife Mary, his daughter Jane and his new girlfriend Natalie are important secondary characters.  A lesser role is played by Katherine, the housekeeper.  John Webster is a somewhat successful washing machine manufacturer in a small town in Wisconsin.  According to him he has been sleeping through much of his life, partially dead.  One fine morning he suddenly begins to notice things, details he had never seen before.  For one thing he had never really looked at his secretary, Natalie, before.  He begins an inner monologue, with occasional out loud conversation, which will last throughout the entire book.  It's like he has awakened from a lifelong coma and begins to feel alive for the first time since he was in college.  He quickly comes to realize that he does not love his wife, but he cares for Jane, his 17 year old daughter.  He decides to leave them both, and most of the book is his own way of doing just that.  His reasons are valid; if he truly wishes to come alive he will need to begin an entire new life.  He wonders later on if he is suffering from temporary insanity (no doubt he is) and that he will soon regret his new direction in life.  He and Natalie plan to sneak out of town on a 4 am train and never return.  The night before the big day he manages to get his wife and daughter and himself in one room, and he talks mostly to his daughter about why he is about to do what he is about to do.  She slowly awakens to him, not really having known him at all before now.  By the end of the novel she has grown up and matured a lot, but the wife is shattered.  This is the disturbing part of the book, as no one seems to really care about her at all.  This might still be one of the best books about a male mid-life crisis (or a male undergoing a bout of temporary insanity, likely both linked together anyway).  The writing is incredibly good, and simple enough to understand what is happening here.  I'm not sure who I could recommend the novel to, but I do recommend it.  A unique style of writing on a theme that could happen in any marriage.

**** stars.

 

I move back into the "B" authors next with J. M. Barrie's 1891 A Window in Thrums.  The book is in 22 short chapters, each telling a short story without necessarily being linked, except by the characters, to the one before or after.  They are like individual jewels in a small crown and are eminently worth reading.  The narrator is a man who stays at the house atop the brae, overlooking the village of Thrums.  His observations provide us with everything we need to know about Jess, the invalid woman who sits in her chair each day by a small window, observing life as it passes by.

 

The frontispiece was included in my Delphi Classics Kindle edition. 

 

From what she observes she pretty much knows everything that goes on in her environs.  Her husband is Hendry, their daughter is Leeby and the living son is Jamie, a friend to our narrator.  Jamie is way off in London finding his place in the world, but visits home for two weeks each summer.  Joey, her first son, was killed when he was ten, run over by a cart.  Jess never got over that loss.  Many of the stories are humourous, a few are tragic and others get across everyday life in a way that I have never experienced before.  Jess is wise and very observant, but also a bit too close to Jamie.  The novel ends in a tragic manner, but by then we have experienced entire lifetimes of the folk being discussed.  I really enjoyed reading this book.  *** 1/2 stars.

 

J. K. Bangs'  A Rebellious Heroine is from 1896.  This is quite a fun romp through the world of 4th dimension writing.  Bangs tells us of a writer who receives a badly needed commission for a romance novel and sets out to create his masterpiece.  He soon has a big hurdle to overcome; his heroine is not one to take matters as they come.  She comes to life from the page and makes things very difficult for the author, who has big plans for her, including marriage.  She stands up for her rights and refuses many of the actions intended for her by the writer.  For its time this is quite a good version of early women's rights, as the heroine does not buckle until the end.  But by then she had got exactly what and whom she wants.  A most amusing novel, quite short and easy and fun to read.  *** 1/2 stars.

 

Next came the 3rd book in Asimov's Foundation trilogy.  Second Foundation was published in 1953 and caps off the original series, though other books do follow.  I really enjoyed reading the third novel, but beware.  The ending is a bit like the solution to an Agatha Christie novel.  The main plot concerns the continued search for the Second Foundation.  At four different answers appear for this question, and all seem practical.  The reader is led on a wild goose chase before the final final final answer is revealed.  And it is a surprise!  Not only where they are but who they are.  The series still holds up pretty well today, and I can recommend it not only to lovers of classic Sf, but also to modern readers who may have been left more than confused by the Apple TV series of 30 episodes (so far).  I think I liked the third book best of all.  *** 1/2 stars.

 

Ann Hillerman's 2025 novel Shadow of the Solstice continues the story of Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito, two officers of the Navajo Nation police department.  This adventure takes place mostly in New Mexico, centered around the mines in the northwest corner in and around Shiprock.  A secondary story takes place in Phoenix, with Bernadette's sister getting involved in helping NM Navajos return home after being duped by a phony rehab scheme.  The two stories running side by side make it seem like two different books are being read, as there is very little contact between people in Phoenix and back in Shiprock.  Both adventures are okay, though not great, but are based on real problems facing the Navajo Nation.  Uranium mining in the 40s and 50s not only desecrated the land but made many native workers very ill.  Once it was known of the dangers of uranium, that information was not passed on to the native workers.  Likewise, there are schemes today to gather alcoholic and drug addicted natives to Arizona, where they are enrolled in phony schemes.  The enlisters get money from the government but never aid the sick people, even keeping them on alcohol and drugs so they don't cause a stir.  Of course Bernadette gets knocked out and nearly killed, and Chee gets captured, tied up and gagged and given enough dope to kill him.  Somehow they manage to survive and kill the bad guys, all without doing a whole lot of paper work or court appearances.  Joe Leaphorn is barely mentioned in this story.  Not one of the best in the series.

 

I read the kindle edition. 

 

Lastly came more essays by Stephen J Gould from his collection called Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and The Diet of Worms.  I began a four-chapter section called "Egolutionary Facts and Theories.  #1 is called "Non-Overlapping Magisteria" and discusses the Pope and Catholic Church's views on evolution.  Because of Pope John Paul's update on Pius' encyclical, apparently there is no longer any conflict between Catholic teaching and evolution.  The Church believes in the presence of a soul in humans, and since science can neither prove nor disprove its existence, there is no conflict in teachings.  The Church accepts evolution, thus does not meddle in things that are provable.  It was actually a pretty good read.  Gould casts off creationists as largely an American fringe group who believe in everything the bible says, literally.  There is no reasoning with such people.

 

#2 is called "Boyle's Law and Darwin's Details," stressing again on a point that Darwin was able to clarify and eventually overtake.  Boyle believed that evolution, via God, ultimately led to perfection, with the top most end of it all being human beings.  Darwin proved that natural selection, not God, did the work, and perfection comes from many failures and dead ends.  So far I have found every single essay in this book to be invaluable reading for those curious about Darwin and current progress on defining evolution.

 

See you all next month.

 

Mapman Mike 

 

 

 

 

July Reading Summary

July was a fairly good month for reading.  It was too hot and humid to do much outdoors, though I did get four wonderful nights of observing with the 12" scope.  This took four nights away from my reading, but overall there were so many medical appointments between us that I got to read a lot in waiting rooms.  I continue to give Moorcock's fiction a rest, so my Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery project only features two authors now: E C Tubb with two on-going SF series, and Kenneth Bulmer with one Fantasy series.

Seg The Bowman is from 1984 and is 142 pages long, not including the final glossary.  This completes the Pandahem Cycle Part 2 of the Dray Prescott series.   In this story we get Seg's side of the story after he and Dray were separated at the end of Volume 29.  29, 30, and 32 detail Dray's adventures, while #32 tells Seg's story.  Seg has rescued who he believes is the Queen's handmaiden, and pledges to deliver her safely back to her home.  The King and Queen were killed in the cave adventure (#28).  Seg's adventures pretty much mirror the kind of things that usually happen to Dray, and Seg is pretty much the same hero type as well.  Other than his romantic interest in Tilsi, we could pretty much substitute Dray in this adventure.  This is unfortunate.  At least the volume about Deliah's adventures provided contrast to the adventure series.  New characters are introduced, both good and bad.  There are prisons, escapes, injustices, creatures and a battle.  Two pygmy forest natives add some zest to the proceedings, as they wish to escape the jungle and assimilate into the outer world.  A good entry in the series, but there is very little that is very new.  Seg makes a landmark bow shot and marries Tilsi, who, it turns out, really was the Queen after all. 

Cover art by Ken W Kelly, from vol. 32 of the series. 

 

Jack of Swords is #14 from the Dumarest series by E C Tubb.  It is from 1976 and is 152 pages long.  I am continually amazed at how pulp writers of Tubb's quality can continually reinvent the Dumarest myth.  Take the same character, plunk him into similar situations and often facing the same type of enemy, and make it a readable offering.  Tubb and Bulmer both do it over and over, and while the stories do vary somewhat in quality, overall they maintain a high enough standard to make readers continue buying the books.  Having said that, I wish both series were over and I could get on with more literary aspects of my reading and reviewing project.  But like a comfortable bed one returns to gladly night after night, these stories continue to provide just enough interest and quality to keep readers like me going. 

In the latest adventure Dumarest is hired on as bodyguard to a merchant seeking out the Ghost Planet, called Balhadorha.  A mythical world, it offers those can find it the promise of untold riches.  As a result, a lot of rather greedy people go seeking this dangerous world.  We end up on a truly alien planet with a city that is seemingly unreachable from without its walls.  But our intrepid explorers, thanks to Dumarest's help, manage to get inside.  I love these kind of SF stories, where strange uninhabited futuristic cities from a distant past lure the explorer and reader ever deeper into its mysteries.  This one doesn't disappoint, and while it is true that a lot of what was promised could be delivered by this strange world, in the end no one risks their life to find out if true happiness ever would be achieved by partaking in the strange mist (a la H. Rider Haggard) except for one old and very sick woman who has nothing to lose.  Another decent entry in the series, though Dumarest's goal of finding out more about Earth's location comes to nothing.

 

Original 1976 cover by Tom Barber.

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Once again I am giving Michael Moorcock a miss this month, so it's now on to the Delphi Classics!  First up was Sherwood Anderson's 3rd novel, called Poor White. From 1920 it is a long and somewhat meandering look at the late coming industrial revolution to the quiet towns and byways of middle America.  With the railroads well in place, industry was confined to the major cities for many years.  Bidwell was a typical quiet Ohio town until Hugh McVey arrived.  McVey grew up poor along the Mississippi River in Missouri south of St. Louis, with a drunk for a father.  Hugh was a dreamer and destined to sleep his life away and become nothing more than another poor white without a dream to follow.  But he is given a job at a small railroad depot and taken in by the husband and wife who manage it.  The wife eventually educates Hugh so he can read and write, and instills in him a work ethic that goes against his nature.  He struggles to keep focused on getting ahead.  When the couple move away Hugh takes over the station, eventually moving on to Bidwell in the northeast of his home.

A newer long segment then introduces us to Clara Butterworth, whose father believes himself to be a big man in Bidwell.  He and Clara do not get along and she eventually completes three years of college in Columbus, where her mind is expanded, especially by a female friend she makes there.  When she returns to Bidwell things are stirring, and industry has finally arrived.  Hugh has turned out to be an inventor, and his patents soon make him a wealthy man.  His painful shyness, however, will not allow him to make any male friends, and he cannot even look at a woman, let along speak to her.  

Later episodes deal with the strange marriage between Hugh and Clara, until at last she gains an understanding of him and he learns to trust her.  More than anything this is a story of industry coming to sleepy parts of the Midwest.  Farms and orchards disappear to make way for factories, and by the end of the novel there are motor cars speeding along the dirt roads.  The author has a true grasp of the situation and how it affected small towns, turning them almost overnight into powerhouses of industry and innovation, with Ohio at the centre of much of it.  The novel is a good read, despite the frustratingly shy and insecure character of Hugh.  At least we get a break from him as Anderson explores many other characters in his story besides Hugh and Clara.  America was just beginning its great love affair with "progress" and industry and power, at the cost of Nature and Humanity, as Anderson so deftly illustrates.

 

J K Bangs' Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica is from 1895.  Try to imagine if Dave Barry or some such funny man had written a general biography of Napoleon.  Bang's finds humour everywhere, and does historically cover all the main events of Bonaparte's very eventful life.  While the humour is often dry and relies heavily on puns, it is still quite readable and seems very modern.  I would not wish to use quotes in a scholarly paper, but it makes for fun history reading aimed at the general public.  If one knew nothing about Napoleon before reading this book, one can come away with important dates and events secure, at least.  The rest is pure stand up comedy.

 

J. M. Barrie's When A Man's Single was first published in 1888.  All the ingredients of a late Victorian novel are here.  A handsome and ambitious small village Scotsman wishes to become a reporter.  Angus meets Mary and his life turns upside down.  She is a sizable station above him in British class life.  She loves Angus but is destined to marry a baronet whom she does not love.  A wilful father will not have things turn out differently for his only daughter.  Angus moves to London after hearing of Mary's engagement (which never happened), and after months of hard work gets himself a position in Fleet Street.  Will Mary have him now?  Will her father give way?  Does anyone really care?  Well, actually, yes.  Barrie is fast becoming a very good writer, and his characters are often unique (Mary's older brother, for one).  His pages have humour, despite a very tragic opening chapter (Mary's younger brother, for example).  As it it is not a long novel (one volume instead of the expected three) I can recommend it.  After reading the opening chapter I was reminded of a longer musical piece by The Chieftains called "The Lost Child."  If you've never heard it, give it a listen.

 

 The Gates of Wrath is a novel by Arnold Bennett from 1903.  It is a tale of crime and passion and madness, quite a fun read for the most part.  A widower, her older male friend and her 18 year old daughter (also a widower) scheme to steal a fortune from a young man, left to him by his father but as yet unknown to him.  First, the young one marries him.  Then they get him to make out a will leaving everything to her.  Then they tell him about his inheritance, expecting him to be overjoyed.  Afterwards, they plan to kill him.  The plotters remind me a lot of Boris and Natasha from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.  Each time they begin to enact their dastardly plans, they are foiled in one way or another.  Firstly, the young man already knows about his inheritance but has no wish to claim it.  Secondly, the young woman falls in love with him, eventually spilling the beans about her evil mother and her plot.  It is a short novel but certainly readable.  Some fun steam train passages, too.

 

Algernon Blackwood's The Education of Uncle Paul is from 1903.  It comes close to being a truly great novel.  Uncle Paul is a strange man, almost as strange as his young niece Nixie (she is 9 or 10).  Together they explore a wonderful world of imagination, mostly through interactions with Nature. The book will immediately remind readers of the works of Arthur Machen, whom Blackwood greatly admired.  Paul River is 44 years old, and left England at an early age, eventually becoming a person who scouts the deep woods of Minnesota and Canada for good hardwood trees to harvest.  He has formed a deep bond with Nature, though the book never deals with how many trees he has caused to be exterminated.  He is comfortable living off the land, and is often gone for weeks via canoe on his scouting missions.

When his sister's husband dies, who was also Paul's best friend back in England, he decides to return to England and spend some time with her.  He takes a one year leave from his job and as his ship approaches the old world he realizes how unfit he is to live in such a modern world.  The house is surrounded by a small woodland, however, and Paul soon immerses himself in the surrounding lands.  His companion on his voyage of discovery is Nixie, oldest child of four in the household, and a kindred spirit to his own.

While some deep and penetrating discoveries are made, the book overdoes things somewhat in the final section, going a little bit too far into the realm of the unknown.  While the ending is comforting and would appeal perhaps to older children, as this is mainly a novel for adults I find the final portion of the book too over the top.  It no longer seems like a novel but someone's own spiritual experience embellished with a lot of tinkling laughter and dancing lights.  However, I do recommend the book, as it is unique in my experience.  One man's search for truth and enlightenment through Nature and childhood experience makes for reading that doesn't come around very often.

 

Damon Knight's In Search of Wonder (1956, 1967, 1996) is not only the best book of SF criticism I have ever read, but the best book of literary criticism I have ever read.  He essentially founded SF criticism with this epic book, which is over 450 pages long.  While it most thoroughly covers the 1950s, the updated editions bring things a little closer to most people's foggy remembrances of some of their first SF reading material.  All the great writers are here, and they often get skewered nearly as much as the true junk writers.  While there is a lot of things I disagree with, I find Knight so clear and concise and thorough that he is often hard to argue with.

This is the book of criticism that Michael Moorcock did such a hack job with, those his field was Fantasy.  Often Moorcock's writing made no sense, and more often than not he did not present any sort of case.  It wasn't a book of criticism, but a book of his likes and dislikes.  Quite a different thing than Damon Knight's masterpiece here.

There are 33 chapters, and I think I found something to enjoy in each of them.  The "Chuckleheads" chapters are priceless, as some of the writing being skewered is just so bad that it hurts.  Besides tackling individual authors, I found his most fun chapters to be on Symbolism (a truly outrageous bit of writing!), and a chapter dealing really well with the question of What Is Science Fiction, Anyway?  The book ends with a chapter on how to write SF.  There is also an extensive bibliography.  I should have read this book for the first time 40 years ago, but I'm glad I finally discovered it (thank you to James Blish).  I cannot recommend this book highly enough to old school SF fans.  It was a great way to finish off the month.

 

April 2024 Books Read

 There were nine days of travel last month, which seriously cut into my reading time.  The long eclipse day and the week in Sudbury cut my reading time down by nearly a third.  Though I did manage some reading in Sudbury on our week long visit, it wasn't anywhere near the usual time allowed for such pursuits.  Two of the books read last month were 500 pagers, also limiting the number of books read.

I have finally run out of SF from Robert Silverberg.  This month I dove into his recently republished crime and sex novels.  Though pretty mild by today's standard best sellers, in the 1960s he chose to use a different name on those book covers.  From 1960 and republished in 2022, even more of Silverberg's early output is now making its way into mainstream publishing.  I have the Kindle edition of The Hot Beat, now published under his own name.  The story is short, though there are 25 chapters.  A news reporter and a former girlfriend of a suspected killer try to prove his innocence.  The police don't care; they have a suspect in custody and he looks guilty to them.  Though not up to top notch crime writing standards set by Hammett and Chandler, the book gets to the nitty gritty aspects of sordid lifestyles.  The girl, Terry, gets pawed by creeps, and we get a queasy enough feeling when it happens.  The suspect is a former popular big band leader who hits the skids via alcoholism.  Two people put him at the scene of the crime.  The novel is preceded by a short intro by Silverberg, who seems as amazed as this reader regarding the republication of his crime stories.  In addition, there are three short stories included.

 

Jailbait Girl is from 1959.  Sorry readers, but the girl is 23.  She has a scam going with her boyfriend.  After finding guys to seduce her, the two crooks return later, she dressed as a high school girl, to extort money.  They score four times, but the fifth time turns out quite different.

 

The Drunken Sailor is from 1958.  A young sailor looking for his first time with a woman is sold out by a buddy, who has a scam going with the girl who does the trick.

 

Naked In The Lake is from 1958.  A murder story with an ironic twist at the end, like most of these tales.  A man kills his pregnant lover, but his wife manages to outdo him without violence.

 

I own the Kindle edition. 

 

From 1976 comes the 157 page on-going troubles of Dray Prescott, titled Captive Scorpio.  Dray goes off in search of a daughter he has never seen, who is living with scoundrels and trouble makers.  Imagine his surprise when he does encounter her (see cover art, below).  Of course she hates him; he is a coward, etc.  He ends up having to leave her among the group of traitors planning his death and that of the Emperor.  Meanwhile, back in the capital city, the Emperor's armies have been tricked and defeated.  The evil Wizard of Loh, 'Phu-si-Yantong' is behind the attacks on Vallia, and there seems little that can be done to stop him.  In the shocking finale, another very important person close to Dray and Deliah is killed, forever altering the leadership and destiny of Vallia.  Along with the shocking revelation regarding Dray's daughter, and the death mentioned just above, it is obvious that Bulmer is taking his series very seriously.  None of these happenings were expected, and end up shocking the reader, who expects most things to continue on as as before.  Nope.  A very good entry in the series. 

 

Cover by Josh Kirby. 

 

From 1973 comes Monster of Metalaze, a 125 page pulp SF novel from one of the best of the trade.  This time around Cap Kennedy works with a (male) team on the planet Metelaze to stop the government there from completing a series of towers that are supposed to give limitless energy to the planet.  It's obvious to the Terrans that the towers will kill all life on the planet when turned on.  To find out what is going on, Cap gets himself into the planet's dictator's good side, eventually becoming his body guard.  Assisted by a professor, a large and very strong man, and a person who is able to blend in anywhere like a chameleon, they go to work to find out the truth.  The story jumps back and forth between the various Terran operatives, and becomes quite complex at times.  Once the truth is known, the political ruling council has to be convinced they are in danger.  Some suspect it, but others support the dictator in everything.  To add to the confusion, a fake religious leader out for power is harnessing his followers to overthrow the present system so he can take over.  It's all very messy, and not a terribly satisfying read.

 

From 2013 comes the 482 page 3rd part of Moorock's epic series detailing the life and adventures of Colonal Pyat, Jerusalem Commands.  The events now take place between 1925 and 1929.  At some point in this wonderful series I suspected that I would begin to tire of Pyat, and that process is now well underway.  I am reading the volumes too close together, so I will rest Pyat for a while, and possibly even rest Moorcock for a time.  Pyat is the cocaine sniffing Cossack from Kiev who continually denies his Jewishness.  His rants against Moslems and what they ultimately represent to the world are pretty much non-stop, as are his rants against Jews.  Sometimes his insights are quite enlightening, and at other times one wonders why there isn't a fatwah laid upon the author.  I guess not many people have read it or drawn undue attention to these books.

Pyat is an entertaining person, very full of himself, and his fictional memoirs are among the best travel writing ever laid down on paper.  This time we begin in the USA, slowly making our way to New York from Los Angeles and back again, with many adventures in between.  Pyat is a 1920s silent movie star, as is his best friend Mrs. Cornelius (mother of Jerry).  With his beloved Esme, they embark on a ship to Egypt (from LA) to make a desert epic film.  The journey is long but great fun to read.  Filming doesn't end up going so well in Egypt, and Pyat and Esme become sex slaves, forced to make pornographic films.  Mrs. Cornelius, who knew better and gave fair warning, leaves the country unhindered.  Poor Pyat.  He goes through a living hell, and doesn't talk much about the details.  These are left to the readers' imaginations.  Esme is now taken fgrom him, never to be seen again.  Then it's finally an escape into the desert, followed by a balloon ride to Morocco.  In Morocco Pyat slowly recovers from his nightmare in Egypt, but again gets into deep trouble, becoming a captive of the rich Arabic leader of Marrakech.  Escape finally comes, but not in the expected way.

The book is often tiring to read, though admittedly it is very good.  I recommend taking a lot of time to read these novels.  I have been gobbling them.  Pyat's Egypt experience is certainly a low point, but there are many high points to balance things out.  Whether amidst a bustling city or stranded in the middle of the Sahara Desert, Moorcock always uses just the right words to get the mood and the atmosphere down perfectly.  Highly recommended series.

 

#6 in the Lone Wolf Series, Chicago Slaughter, is from 1974 (Malzberg was writing one of these per month) and it is 165 pages long.  The tone of these books is shifting.  Wulf is now sick and tired of killing, and the killings that he does undertake get more and more difficult.  He is on his way to Chicago with his now famous briefcase of pure cut heroin.  He wants to turn it into the DA there, where a grand jury is trying to get to the bottom of the country's drug problem.  But as the story moves along, sometimes over familiar ground and sometimes not, Wulf begins to realize that the system is rotten from top to bottom.  The Chicago DA gets his orders from that city's drug kingpin.  Wulf goes through an amazing thought process at one point where he realizes that even the Vietnam war is being fought so that the supply of drugs from Asia can continue, rather than be stopped in its tracks by the Communists.  And closer to home it appears that the CIA wants the drug trade to continue, though reasons for that are obscure.  Williams, his one time partner on the NYPD, is badly knifed on an undercover operation, and spends much of the book in hospital.  But he finally wakes up to the fact that Wulf has been right all along--the system is rotten, and it's rigged.  Today we might ask "So what else is new?"  There is a short postlude by the author at the novel's completion.

 

On to Delphi Classics, beginning with the continuation of the complete works of Virginia Woolf.  Night and Day was published in 1919, four years after her first novel, The Voyage Out (See January 2023 Books Read entry).  Lasting for 579 painful pages, the 2nd novel is a huge disappointment.  It's a love story involving two couples and an odd person out that takes place mostly in London, though it is a cardboard London, a city we get no feel for.  Had there been some humour involved it might have been a less painful read, but alas, it is all so serious.  Katherine, daughter of a prestigious family, becomes engaged to William, whom she does not love.  She loves Ralph.  When William takes notice of her younger cousin Cassandra, the engagement is called off.  But no one tells her father.  Ralph proposes to Mary, but she realizes that he is in love with Katherine, and refuses him.  It is all so dreadfully boring.  The 'young' people (the youngest is 22, the others 25 or over) act like tongue tied high school students when they encounter one another.  No one seems to know anything about love and what it truly is.  The only non-hopeless person is Mary.  She works at a society trying to garner the vote for women (but after a while she doesn't work there).  The novel seems truly endless, but I stuck it out, being stubborn enough.  It sounds like something Woolf might have written for close friends to hear it read to them.  In most articles about her writing, Day and Night isn't even mentioned.  I wonder why.  I think she was trying to achieve a prose version of something vaguely Shakespearean.  Or not.

A collection of poems and a play by Yeats came next.  The play and poetry were first published together in 1892.  The play was revised and published separately later, as was the poetry, under the title The Rose.  The play, a mystical one, is called The Countess Cathleen.  I really liked three of the poems, one of which is probably his most famous one.  "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" was written in 1888, and served the poet's needs much as Knight Peak in NM does for us--somewhere spiritual and pleasant to think about during the duress of living and working day to day.  "When You Are Old" and "A Dream of Death" are also quite remarkable works.  As to the play, it is in five scenes, and according to Yeats should take about an hour to perform.  A woman gives up her land, house, and gold to feed the poor and starving of Ireland by selling her soul to agents of Satan.  At the end, the angels find a loophole in the bargain and manage to save her soul.  Not exactly an engrossing bit of theatre.  However, it was part of the search for something home-grown in Ireland.

Lastly came Sherwood Anderson's 2nd novel.  Marching Men is from 1917, and follows the fortunes and misfortunes of the son of a Pennsylvania coal mining family, as he escapes the small dreary town where he was raised and goes out into the world (Chicago) in search of something bigger and better.  This is one of fiction's strangest characters, and one of the strangest novels I have ever read. Nearly as strange as Vita Sackville-West's 2nd novel (see January books read blog).  I won't say much about this book (stop me if I do), but Mr. McGregor has some serious social issues to deal with.  His attempt to bring order to a chaotic world by having men march around after work is, of course, symbolic.  They do that sort of thing in China, perhaps, but it would never catch on over here.  The brotherhood of men is a widely misunderstood concept, and Anderson realizes this.  But his shallow attempt of proving it likely turned off most readers (at least I would hope).  Today we have sporting events and Taylor Swift concerts to unite people.  The college football stadium in Ann Arbor Michigan holds over 100,000 people, and autumn football weekends are always sold out.  That is just one example.  Books like Harry Potter have united millions of people in ways Anderson could never have dreamed about.  A professional symphony orchestra is probably the best example of a finely tuned brotherhood, uniting with one goal in mind.  Though a mighty strange book by almost any standard, it is at least capable of starting discussion about topics most writers never touch.

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

January Books Read

I read 13 books last month, including the 7 authors remaining from my Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Series, and 6 from the miscellaneous shelf.

 

Volume 7 in The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg is called We Are For The Dark.  Each of the ten stories is introduced by the author, and he also has written a 5-page intro to the volume.  The finest tale is the title one, a novella.  One of my very favourite kinds of SF stories has to do with found ancient alien technology, art, and/or music.  Silverberg has written a masterful story about true exploring, which is usually a search within oneself.  But he has done both types here, by combining it with an outward search.  We visit several planets, and learn why humans are going beyond the 100 light year radius decreed when colonization began.  One of his best stories, it is from 1988.  Lion Time in Timbuctoo is from 1990, also a novella.  The African story setting takes place in the same world as the author's 1967 novel The Gate of Worlds.  In that alternate history story, the plague decimated Europe until only about 10% of the population survived.  As a result, there was no European colonialism in the new World or in Africa or Asia.  The Turks rule a huge swathe of Europe, the Aztecs and Incas are still in control on their side of the ocean, and China remains a small player in world affairs (as does England).  This is the second of what Silverberg had planned as three stories set in that world, and it's a good one, more political intrigue that anything else, but very well written and fun to imagine.  Also noteworthy is Enter A Soldier. Later. Enter Another One, from 1989.  It is a novelette built around a discussion between Pizarro and Socrates about right and wrong.  

 

Under A Velvet Cloak, from 2015, is Piers Anthony's 8th and final book in his Incarnations of Immortality series.  This is not a slight series by any means, though Anthony often treats the material very lightly.  The series is needlessly complicated as it backtracks through time, moves into the future, and sees events from the perspectives of many different characters.  Most of the time reading I was not exactly lost, but in so deep that I didn't really care very much, except for wondering when the book would end.  If you like the first book you will probably enjoy reading the others, but beware.  Things get overly complicated.

 

Bulmer's 7th Dray Prescott novel is called Arena of Antares, and is from 1974.  This new adventure sees Dray captured (yet again) and made a fighting slave of an evil queen.  Yawn.  On it goes, with the remainder of the novel set in a gladiatorial arena, with fight after fight, usually uneven, for the delight and satisfaction of the bloodthirsty populace.  I was quite bored soon after the arena scenes takes over the plot.  Luckily for us, Dray and Delia are saved at the last second by their friends in an airship, who rescue them from the arena and take them to safety.

 

Tubb's 4th Dumarest novel is called Kalin, and is from 1969.  So far this is a pretty good series. 

Dumarest has a habit of ending up on dead end worlds, those that are depressing, have no honest work or way to earn money, and are nearly impossible from which to escape.  This time he hits a poisonous mining colony, worked by slaves.  The few free men have to scramble hard to find enough food to eat, and enough warmth to keep them alive over the winter.  The local wildlife is on the dangerous side, too.  He and Kalin, a psychic woman, arrive there after their passenger ship explodes, and they manage to escape in a life pod.  They are picked up by a slaver, but luckily for Dumarest he has enough money to buy his way to freedom, and Kalin's.  Her story becomes more complicated the further one reads, and by the end we are left dazzled by Tubb's plot.  Making their usual beneficial appearance are the religious brothers; making their usual harmful appearance are the Cyclans.  This is one of the better entries so far, in a series that will run for a very long time.

 

Cover of the month for January 2023.  The artist is John Schoenherr.

 

I finished up the 4th volume of The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, reading the first half in December, and finishing it up in January.  There are volumes in the series that I do not have, but they cost hundreds of dollars and I have no interest in getting them.  His early stuff is mostly so much juvenile crap anyway.  So this ends my affair with Jack's fiction, except to read his highly anticipated autobiography in February.  The volume of short stories I finished up is called Spider Island.  The only decent story of his from the January reading is called Released Entropy, from 1939.  The story raises the question of how strongly was Williamson affected by Olaf Stapledon's writing.  A lot, it would seem.  Worlds within worlds, and universes within universes.  Despite the cop out ending, this is a fun story to read.

 

Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock contains four linked novellas from 1963-64 (updated slightly more recently) on the further--and final--adventures of Elric.  While none of the stories really stand out, they are fun to read.  Elric is certainly a unique sword and sorcery type of hero, so different from Conan, the heroes of Edgar Rice Burroughs, or even from Fafhrd and Mouser by Fritz Leiber.  All of Elric's adventures are tied up with sorcery, and especially with his soul stealing sword.  If this is your thing, then Moorock and Elric are for you.

 

Malzberg and Pronzini teamed up for their final novel in 1979.  Night Screams is a bit frustrating to read as a murder mystery.  The reason is that the story is written so that virtually anyone could be the murderer.  The writers wouldn't even have to make up their own minds until the last chapter.  So it's a cheat if you want to try guessing who did it.  And it you are correct, then it is likely that you guessed, or drew the name from a hat.  The story uses psychics as the victims of gruesome murders, with the setting a snowed-in village in New England.  As usual, there are too many victims for one novel.  The authors have collaborated on a few books of short stories, which will be reviewed here someday soon. 

 

Turning now to the six books from the shelf, five of them were taken from my Delphi Classics collection on Kindle.  Only one book actually came off a (dusty) shelf.  Black Cloud Rising came from an honest to goodness bookstore in Detroit (Source).  I went in and asked if they had anything on the American Civil War from a Black perspective.  I was shown this book by D. W. Falade from 2022.  A work of fiction, it has many truths to tell.  We follow a Black sergeant and a Black regiment of soldiers as they go about their day to day marching and fighting in the South during the Civil War.  There were no surprises to this reader regarding the rampant racism in the North and South (but especially the South), and to the higher standard that the Black regiment was held.  Though led by whites, the leaders (the colonel, anyway) are willing to learn about their men as they go.  There are no major battles, but there are opportunities for the regiment to show their stuff, and as they did in real life, they accounted themselves very well.  One does not have to have an interest in the Civil War to read this wonderful story about growing up Black, becoming a freed slave, and enlisting in the Union army.  Highly recommended.

 

Next came a truly delightful and slightly mad story by H G Wells called The Wonderful Visit."  From 1895, an angel accidentally crash lands on Earth, is shot and wounded by the vicar (a nature lover and collector who thought it might be a rare flamingo), then brought home to rest and recuperate.  This is not an angel of God, but one of art, like a muse.  This one is a violinist.  The story stabs at the heart of Christian society, however, and almost every page sends out a zinger or two.  I had not expected much from this story, but it turned out to be a real gem.  Chapter Two, where the author discusses English gentlemen scientific nature "collectors," has never been bettered.  Definitely worth a read.  Apparently Joseph Conrad loved the book.  Marcel Carne made a filmed version in 1974, which I have yet to track down.

 

Vera is from 1892, an early play by Oscar Wilde.  Loosely based on a real Vera, it tells of the Nihilists in Russia who wish to overthrow the Czar.  Political intrigue, hard socialism, and the defeat of monarchy is at the heart of this adventure tale, in four acts.  It was performed for a week in New York around the time it was written, before closing suddenly.  I doubt if it ever sees the light of day much anymore.  It certainly isn't a terrible play, though I doubt that Americans would have cared for the plot.

The Voyage Out was written between 1912-15, and was Virginia Woolf's first novel.  A lot of this novel is sticking with me.  It's one of those books where nothing much happens, but everything happens if one is aware.  A little bit autobiographical, a woman of 24 years ships out with her father, who owns a shipping company.  They are off to Brazil.  Also on board is her uncle, who is a scholar, and her aunt, who takes the girl under her wing.  The young Rachel Vinrace has been raised by maiden aunts in Richmond, and is pretty much clueless about life, men, and about love.  The novel traces her slow awakening, and of her first love.  The novel is slow to grip the reader, and it didn't really happen to me until we'd been in Brazil for some time.  There are a lot of minor characters, and we even get a brief trip up the Amazon.  But most of the action takes place in a small town not far from the river, in the villa where Rachel lives with her aunt and uncle, and in the hotel where the other British travelers stay.  Born in 1882, Woolf is about the same age as Rachel, and was obviously a thoughtful and observant woman.  Her first few drafts were heavily revised on the advice of friends, who found her original story too harsh an attack on society.  It's easy to read between the lines to see what she often meant, however.  It is an amazing first novel, and well worth reading.  It is a long one, at just over 500 pages. 

Next came a volume of poetry by W B Yeats.  The Wandering of Oisin and Other Poems was published in 1889.  The title poem is an epic ballad from Irish mythology, and is quite good.  Having read the Mabinogian, this one recalls similar doings.  It is about a normal man who falls in love with an eternal spirit, and they dwell in happiness for many a hundred years.  Eventually, however, he wants to return home, somehow expecting everything to be as it was.  Though warned that he would never be able to return, he heads for home.  It is the only early poem that Yeats liked in years afterward, and I must say that the rest were not very memorable at all.

Lastly came Sherwood Anderson's first novel, Windy McPherson's Son, published in 1916.  Divided into four books, the first deals with Sam's youth, growing up in a small town in Iowa.  He sells newspapers, and his enthusiasm and flair for selling and getting ahead impresses the locals.  He is guided by an artist, and a former school teacher.  His father is the town drunk, and his mother is the local washerwoman.  In book two he heads for Chicago to earn his fortune in sales, and indeed he prospers beyond anyone's wildest expectations.  He becomes a ruthless businessman, working tirelessly to make more and more money.  In book three he chucks it all and heads on the road, becoming a (rich) wandering vagabond.  He is in search of meaning to his life.  He and his wife had planned to raise children as their main goal, but their attempts result in three failures, all nearly killing his wife.  And so he goes in search of the big something.  Book four is very short, and brings him to the end of his journey, and at least a partial answer to his still burning questions about life, the universe, and everything.  The book will not be everyone's cup of tea, but for those lost souls who still haven't found what they seek (luckily, this reader has), the book will be a welcome journey into oneself.  Surprisingly good writing, though the novel is not critically acclaimed.

Mapman Mike