December Reading Summary

 It was a good month for reading, with 14 books read.  My usual times are 1:30 to 2:45 every day, and 10:30 pm till 11:45 pm at night.  On Sundays I manage an extra hour of reading, since that is a non-piano day for me.  In addition I often get time to read while taking Deb to her medical appointments.  It was a fairly cold month, so a good month to be indoors.  Let us begin.

 

I read #25 of the Dray Prescott series by Kenneth Bulmer.  Legions of Antares is from 1981, this 153 page continuation of the epic story of life and death on the planet Kregen contains a few surprises.  The bad queen of Hamil has caused much destruction in surrounding countries.  Her cruelty has been the bane of many a good man.  The evil wizard who has been using her for his own greedy purposes has also been a major thorn in the side of good guy Dray Prescott.  Low and behold, they both get their comeuppance in this volume!  It's almost as if Bulmer were wrapping up the series, with perhaps one additional title forthcoming.  Alas, there are still several books remaining.

Dray is by now so used to danger and fighting that he is nonchalant about the telling of it, though after fighting a Cthulhu-like creature underground, he does express himself rather well in words as to how difficult it was.  To this reader the entire capture of the main city of Hamil by the good guys is a bit anti-cimactic, as if it was a done deal from the start.  The action scenes and bloody battles are minimized, but the politics and planning are brought forward.  I would have preferred a bit more sense of climax, with at least one battle given more description.  There is also a final battle between wizards, but that too seems to be hurried and written without much passion.

It is still a good entry in the series, but the defeat of the main foes of the last 24 books just seems rushed to this reader.  As the series could really have ended here (perhaps it was originally supposed to), I am curious to see what comes next.

 

The evil queen of Hamil finally gets her just desserts.

Original cover art by Ken Kelly.

 

For once, the cover of a Tubb western has something to do with the story.  Even the title, The First Shot, fits.   The story is from 1957 and is 117 pages long.  A man returns from the Civil War, having fought for the losing south.  This is a familiar opening in most of Tubb's westerns.  He had been a p.o.w. for two years, and was quite sick when the war ended.  He heads home to his father's Texas ranch to find turmoil and misery, mostly due to the now valueless southern currency. He encounters neighbouring ranchers who accuse him of rustling cows, and they beat him badly.  With help from a few friends he sets out to set things right.  This is a good story, and well represents what most people think a "western" novel should be.  Once again Tubb treats the Indians with respect, and makes one of the bad guys a crooked government Indian agent.  There is a high stakes poker game, and a climactic shoot out at the very end.  A good story that would make a fine film.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

Originally contracted for ten books, Malzberg's vigilante hero series made it to 14.  Detroit Massacre does take place in Detroit, though there is no massacre.  From 1975, the novel is 152 pages long.  Detroit was still humming in 1975, but one would never know it from this novel.  Hudson's was still downtown, and the Ren Cen complex was being built.  Obviously the author had never been there, as the city is so sketchily represented as to be laughable.  The absence of a massacre in Detroit (there are two murders, and a man dies in an explosion) left me scratching my head.  Who wrote the titles for these books?  Malzberg, as noted frequently in this blog, can get inside the head of a crazy person better than almost any other writer.  Burt Wulf is going mad, and is beginning to crack at the seams.  So is a Detroit police lieutenant, who totally goes off the deep end.  Heroin is being smuggled into Canada hidden inside new Cadillacs, but the perfect system gets disrupted when an assembly line worker spots a bag of heroin sitting in a half assembled car.  From there things go downhill rapidly.  Meanwhile back in New York Wulf is being held in solitary until the system can figure out what to do with him.  With help from his cop friend Williams he manages to escape and make his way to Detroit.  Wulf's method of cleaning up the distribution of heroin is to blow up the vast Cadillac assembly plant.  Go figure.  Not the best in the series, but still readable.  Three more books to go.

It has taken me almost a year, but I have finally completed the four Colonel Pyat books by Michael Moorcock.  I hope I am able to reread this complex but highly entertaining series of books all over again.  The Vengeance of Rome is from 2013, and is 638 pages long.  The 4th and final volume of the Colonel Pyat series is a truly remarkable achievement.  Moorcock has been able to take a complex and virtually untreatable subject--the history of the western world from the early 1900s to present day London, and make it read like a novel.  Which it is.  While the main characters are fictional, the events enwrapping theses characters are not.  Think of Woody Allen's Zelig film, where he was able to take his character and insert him into old newsreels to make it look like he was really there at the time.  Moorcock goes much deeper, though, taking 2000 pages to firmly insert Pyat into 20th Century history.  And by all indications, the century, especially the first half, was nothing but a series of unspeakable horrors, culminating in Hitler's rise to power and subsequent events.

The character of Pyat is difficult to describe.  He uses cocaine when available (though claims he is not addicted), is against Jews (in the end denies his own mother and his Jewishness), is an engineer who designs futuristic ideas, often dealing with flight, makes love to women and men (though he much prefers women, especially younger ones), and travels the world, getting into serious difficulty no matter where he happens to be.  Pyat is a marvel of a man, and I dare say he is "everyman," one who seems to embody not the worst nor the best of the male sex, but fits just about in the centre.  However, his lows are very low, but his highs are also remarkable.

The story continues where volume 3 left off.  Pyat is soon in Italy, and we are immersed in the world of Mussolini.  After his Rome adventures the setting moves to Germany in 1930, remaining there until just before WW II.  Pyat's one personal encounter with Hitler must go down as the most shocking scene in the entire series, and there have already been several doozies.  Pyat spends time in German prison camps before managing to finally get to England, his destination since volume 1.  Mrs. Cornelius continues to provide him with literature's weirdest sidekick.  The book's final scene, where Pyat denies he is Jewish (as he has already had to do hundreds of times in the story), seems to be a perfect ending to one of the greatest series of books ever written.  Really, it could not have ended any other way.  The books are definitely worth a reread, in perhaps five years or so.  Until then, Pyat's adventures in 20th C. history will never be forgotten.  Very highly recommended series, ending with perhaps the best book of the four.

The four previous novels continue my exploration of SF authors who were represented in the Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Series (see my entire blog, link in upper left).  After finishing up the Moorcock, which I split into two months of reading, I moved on to the next author in the incomparable Delphi Classics series.  Paul Kelver is the first serious novel of Jerome Jerome, and is from 1902.  It's a 400+ pager, but is quite fun to read.  It is semi-autobiographical.  The first part of the book (the book is divided into 2 books, each with 10 fairly long chapters) is seen from the perspective of a 7 year old boy, as his parents go through a crisis.  The scenes all take place in various parts of London.  Jerome cannot help but write with a wit that often leaves a reader laughing out loud, and this part of the book strongly reminded me of Kenneth Grahame's incomparable series of short stories called The Golden Age.  One quite tender scene has the young boy unwittingly come across Charles Dickens, sitting on a park bench, and their interaction is quite stirring and memorable.  A sort of hearty snideness pervades the novel, and often the humour becomes the main event.  One of the funniest and at the same time most uncomfortable scenes is when Paul gets drunk for the first time on sweet champagne.  He ends up proposing to a somewhat large young woman from his rooming house, and spends many pages afterwards trying to undo the damage.  However, before he can is dragged by his fiancee to meet "the family," a scene so unforgettable and so claustrophobic that it is a true wonder how Jerome manages to make us laugh all the way through it.  One of the most vivid scenes of any novel I have read.  Essentially, Paul wants to write serious drama, but is dragged by the collar, so to speak, into the world of comic writing.  His coming of age takes a rather long time to arrive, but along the way we get to share Paul's highs and lows, all of them entertaining and great fun to read about.  Filled with a large cast of wonderful secondary characters, this is a lengthy novel I am most happy to have rediscovered.

George MacDonald's The Portent is a ghost story first published in 1864.  Or rather a love story in which the two people have some type of deep psychic connection.  The opening scene and the conclusion are in Scotland, but the main part of the book takes place in a great house in the English countryside.  Working as a tutor to three children, Duncan Campbell encounters as pale young woman also living there.  However, she is kept closely watched by the Lord and Lady of the house, mostly for selfish reasons.  The girl gradually takes to Duncan and attends his classes, as she can neither read nor write.  The Lord and Lady seem to like things that way.  Hmmmm.  Suspicions are aroused.  The two become lovers and meet clandestinely in an old unused part of the house.  That is, until they are caught, and Duncan knocked unconscious and left in the woods.  The lovers become separated for about 8 years before Duncan finally makes an attempt to rescue her from her captors.  An easy read, the book has very short chapters and a short length.  Not great MacDonald, and not a great ghost story, it is still easily readable.

The Green Round is a supernatural story by Arthur Machen from 1933.  It was his fourth and final novel.  The tale is told in a somewhat confusing way, mirroring the problems that occur to a few different characters, but mostly to the main character.  Told both in his own words and by a therapist who treated him, it is a fascinating if often told story.  What makes this one so unusual is that the ghostly trickster causing the problem follows its victim home from his holiday beach location, where he had been causing problems already.  Once back in London, the entity begins to cause all sorts of nasty events to occur.  For the most part, the victim assumes he is imagining the presence and the events.  But the therapist checks his story and finds that witnesses confirm that events did happen.  Then what is causing them?  Why do some people see a dwarf accompanying the victim, and others do not?  Why does the victim eventually begin to see this dwarf?  As in any well told tale, there is no definite answer or conclusion to the mystery.  Is the victim's mind conjuring this demon and the events, or is some ghostly presence responsible.  There is a lot of discussion about dreams, along with the basic story.  Intelligent and quirky, this makes for an interesting read.

The Mystery of Philip Bennison's Death is a murder mystery from 1894 written by Richard Marsh.  Two older men, who have been best friends for many years, have a discussion about the Art of Murder one night.  Next morning one of them, Bennison, is dead.  It appears to be heart failure.  But this is a murder mystery, so we know better.  So does the surviving friend, Otway.  Despite the inquest proving no foul play, we and Otway are soon on the track of how Bennison died and why.  There is a butler who may have stayed out all night.  Did he do it?  Mystery readers know for certain that the butler did not do it.  Did Otway do it?  He walks in his sleep, and did dream of being in the room that night where the murder took place.  Was it the gambling nephew who always needed money from his uncle, who was none too fond of him?  Or perhaps it was his loving stepson, or even his more loving stepdaughter.  This is a good story that seems to have disappeared off the radar of this well known and still fairly popular author.  

Tony Hillerman's 1978 Navajo mystery novel Listening Woman contains most of the traits for which Hillerman has become justly well known.  Read many years ago, it was time for a reread.  This paperback has been on our shelf a very long time, even after we gave away the rest of Hillerman's works to my dad (who also got seriously hooked on them).  It is one of Hillerman's best novels.  Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Police is all alone on this case, and before the end he has gone through enough physical hardships to last for several more novels.  Poor Joe!  The basic plot involves a radical band of Indians.  They have robbed a bank in Santa Fe, and now their new plot involves kidnapping 11 children (Scouts) and three adults, in retaliation for a similar number of Indians that were massacred by soldiers in the 1800s.  But the best part of the story isn't the story itself, but rather what we learn about Navajo religion and sacred rites.  One can learn much about the Navajo from reading Hillerman, as well as people from Zuni, the Hopi, and even the Utes.  The contrast between other tribes and the Navajo is quite startling at times.  A very fine read!

 

No cover art credit is given.
 

Harp of Burma is from 1966.  Written by Michio Takeyama, my translation is by H. Hibbett.  The story concerns a group of Japanese soldiers operating in Burma (now Myanmar) in 1945.  The story begins just before Japans surrenders, and continues until the men are sent back to Japan sometime afterwards.  The captain is a music graduate, and teaches his men how to sing.  They bond together strongly as a result.  One of the men, Mizushima, constructs a Burmese harp and learns to accompany the singing men.  Burma at the time was a very peaceful and strongly Buddhist nation that Japan wanted to conquer.  Once the men are placed in a temporary POW camp after Japan surrenders, they begin to reflect on their previous actions and those of their now defeated countrymen.  They begin to realize the errors of Japan's previous way of thinking and acting, and they wish to return and help rebuild their country.  But Mizushima had undergone a series of separate adventures from his troop, and decides to remain in Burma after the war and try to help bury the thousands of dead soldiers lying in forests and jungles.  This is a very moving account of a part of the war that is mostly unknown to people.  It also has a strong anti-war sentiment.  Highly recommended.  I have watched the film, but a very long time ago.  I will put it back in the queue for a near future viewing.

A scene from the book, by Motoichiro Takebe. 

 

Meanwhile back at the mystery book shelf...  The Man Who Went In Smoke is the second Martin Beck novel, written by Swedish husband and wife team Sjowall and Wahloo and published in 1969.  No matter where one reads about mystery novels, these ten books always come up as among the best ever written.  Martin Beck is no super detective, and sometimes doesn't have a clue what to do.  Though he has above average intelligence, he is often stymied in his investigations.  He usually works with a partner, but in this one he is alone a lot.  In this case, the disappearance of a successful magazine writer in Budapest doesn't interest him at all.  But off he goes, abandoning his wife and kids on holiday to accept the case.  While most of the story takes place during a hot and sunny summer spell in Budapest, the final denouement takes place back in a cold and rainy Sweden.  One of the interesting things I am noting as I begin this series is how much detail the writer includes, along with advancing the plot.  Rooms are described in detail, as are characters, some of whom have habits (such as drinking a lot of coffee each day) that help delineate the man.  And this seems, so far, to be a series that male readers might enjoy more than female ones.  The only lead female character in this book is a nymphomaniac.  The policeman's wives are using at home waiting for them to come home from work.  Though the books are slightly odd and different from most mystery stories, they don't yet come close to those written by Stanley Bennett Hough, who also wrote SF until the name Rex Gordon.  Still, I enjoy the European locations, as it doesn't take long to tire of New York or LA in mystery writing.  A fun read.

 

The Mugger is Ed McBain's 2nd 88th Precinct novel, from 1956.  Set in a fictional big city which is remarkably similar to New York, the title pretty much gives the plot of this one away.  However, when it appears that the mugger, who uses violence in his attacks on females, has killed a young woman at last, things heat up in the precinct.  In book one, a beat policeman got shot off-duty by a gang in a case of mistaken identity.  He makers an important appearance in this novel, actually solving the murder part of the mystery on his own.  this earns him a promotion, and if he appears in future novels, he will be detective 3rd class.  We get to see other detectives on this case, as the first detective from the previous book is on his honeymoon.  All in all a pretty decent read, though all the police detectives are men.  A female officer is used to try and snare the mugger.  The books were inspired, according to the author, by the Dragnet TV series, and often read much like one of those episodes.  This novel had a lot more humour in it, despite the seriousness of the cases.

 

Oscar The Detective, or Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective wins this month's award for best book title.  Written by The Old Sleuth, it is from 1895.  Detective Oscar Dunne was born with very feminine good looks and mannerisms, which he often uses to advantage to catch the bad guys.   For beneath his effeminate exterior, he is a real tiger.  Hee hee hee, as Oscar would say.  His type of man was called a dudie or a chappie in the day, so there you go.  Ever read a story about such a detective before?  Me neither.  But it seems to work, as the bad guys fall one by one, and an innocent woman is saved from a life surrounded by criminals.  The story is mostly about a gang of thieves who robbed a noble household in Rome, Italy before escaping with the goods to New York.  It's great fun watching Dudie Dunne work his magic.  A most unique mystery novel.

 

Lastly, I finished a book I have been reading off and on for the past few months.  Tales From the Road is a collection of 33 short stories by various authors, all having something to do with a road trip.  Excerpts from Steinback, Kerouac, Hunter Thompson, and short stories by Ballard, Moorcock and many more kept my interest up throughout.  Quite a few of the stories are SF.  I will mention a few of my favourites.  A chapter from Thompson's The Rum Diaries really grabbed me, and I am now interested in reading more of his novel.  The chapter included here first appeared as Chapter 7 of the book with the same name.  It details a drunken adventure he had in Puerto Rico with some friends, an episode that reminded me of the song Sloop John B.  Michael Giorgio's "The Two Ton Turtle of Tattler's Terrace" is a fun little piece about a man's brief visit to a small mountain town following a stop to remove a turtle from the road.  Roxane Gay's "The Myth of Fingerprints" is a superior piece of writing that details the days before a woman's nervous breakdown.  It manages to be comical and dramatic in its 14 pages.  Brian Hodge wrote Miles To Go Before I Weep, about how a travelling salesman meets his lady, and the adventures that occur both before and after their unlikely meeting.  This one packs a few surprises, and somehow manages a happy ending.  "The Blood Like Milk" is a SF like no other, taking place in a pollution-filled future when gangs of roving and half-crazy drivers seek out moments of sunshine, to experience its effect on themselves and local fauna.  It is possibly the best story I have read that deals with ancient Mexican gods.  Coincidentally, the same Mexican god that messed up our third and final Mexican vacation, does its work on the hero of this story.  Quite unforgettable.  "That'll Be The Day" is a fantasy that gives an interesting look at Buddy Holly's final gig, before he died in a plane crash.  All in all a truly good collection of stories.  The Moorcock and Ballard stories are also both good, and I have read them and commented elsewhere.  They are "The Mountain" (Moorcock) and "The Mountain Dances" (Ballard).

 

See you in a month!

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

September Reading Summary

The first book I ever read by Robert Silverberg was called Lost Cities and Vanished Civilizations, back in the 60s.  60 years later and I am once again entranced by his non-fiction writing, this time The Pueblo Revolt.  From 1994, it is 227 pages long.  It is a thorough and well written book.  The subject is very complex, and Silverberg begins at the beginning.  We get to see virtually every expedition that set out from Mexico and El Paso for the Rio Grande pueblos.  From Socorro in the south to Taos in the north, and from Quivira in the east and Zuni to the west, virtually every one of the pueblos is discussed.  Why the Spanish even bothered trying to gain a foothold here is hard to say, especially once they'd found out there was no gold.  The summers were brutally hot and the winters direly cold.  There was often no rain for years at a time during the crop growing season.  Their main goal became converting the native population to Christianity.  Mostly it is a story of brutal colonialism, of natives put into slavery working for the priests to build churches, and for the settlers, to farm their land for them.  It is a fascinating part of American history, and very little known in any detail by most people, even American historians.  Indispensable for those of us who love New Mexico, and the thriving pueblo culture that managed to live on until today.  Recommended reading.

I read the Kindle edition.

From 1990 comes the next in the Dray Prescott series, A Victory for Kregen, lasting 177 pages.  It includes a vast glossary of Kregen terms.  A remarkable thing about this series (there are many) is that it is one long and continuous novel, perhaps one of the longest stories ever written.  It could probably stand inch for inch with the Mahabharata on a bookshelf!  The story begins with the continuing adventures of the nine survivors of the previous underworld story.  As the group eventually makes its way to safety it breaks up, with some members staying with Dray and travelling on to Vallia.  In Vallia we have the continuing war against invaders, as the country strives to regain its lost kingdoms.  A side adventure sees Dray rescue his old friend Turko the Shield.  The side stories are always fun and interesting, even as the main plot advances more slowly and methodically.  Another pretty high quality addition to the series.

 

From 1956 comes E. C. Tubb's The Dying Tree, a 139 page western novel.  It takes place on the frontier just after the Civil War.  The whites were settling the West, stealing treaty land from the Indians, killing the buffalo, and laying train tracks right through Sioux territory.  It would only be a matter of time before things exploded into violence.  The title is nonsensical and has nothing to do with the story.  Tubb does not write traditional "John Ford" westerns, and is to be commended for showing so much understanding and sympathy for the native people.  We learn much about their customs and habits, especially as it pertains to gaining coup and fighting wars.  The opening chapter is one of the best western opening chapters I have ever read, as an old man, his young grandson, and a drifter from the defeated southern army fend off an Indian attack at the old man's lonely supply post.  A corrupt and greedy former Union officer soon enters the picture, and is the cause for the major eruption of a war pitting many tribes against the pony soldiers at an outlier fort deep in Indian territory.  Quite a good read, with thrilling action scenes alternating with both sides searching for peace.  Highly recommended, especially if you have never read a western novel before.  

 

From 1974 comes Los Angeles Holocaust, Barry Malzberg's 152 page continuation of the story of Burt Wulf, as he attempts to single-handedly wipe out the drug trade in America.  From its gruesome title I was expecting a very high body count this time around.  Alas, there wasn't.  The set up seemed to indicate there would be.  Recently escaped from Peru, Wulf makes his way to LA with two million dollars worth of heroin.  He's hoping it will lead him to some kingpin who he can wipe out.  He gets together with his San Francisco girlfriend, but things don't go well (two dead bodies so far in the count).  He calls up his former police buddy, Williams, who heads west with a virtual arsenal to help out Wulf.  Williams is waylaid on a lonely stretch of highway.  Two more bodies are left behind.  They meet up in LA at a racetrack (a classic Malzberg setting), and hide out in a very constrained trailer park.  They don't get along, and soon Wulf wishes he were alone again.  After three assassins fail in their attempt at killing the pair (total book body count is seven), they split up and Williams heads east again, with the arsenal unused.  So no holocaust.  But when Williams is kidnapped by arch enemy Calabrese, Wulf decides its time to head to Chicago once again and settle the score.  A solid entry in the series, as we watch Wulf continue to spiral down into the deepest layers of madness, exploring unknown circles of Hell and seeming to know no other way forward. 

 

Published in 1987 and updated with a new foreword in 2016, The Tale That Wags The Dog contains more essays by Blish.  Blish died in 1975.  The essays date from the early Sixties to the early Seventies.  His first two collections were specifically aimed, first at pulp magazine SF, and then later at certain novels.  This volume is a little more general in outlook.  Part 1 contains five essays, with titles such as The Function of SF, The Science in SF, and The Arts in SF.  I thoroughly enjoyed all of them, but especially the one where he talks about music and art in SF, what little there was of it back then.  Part II contains four essays:  Poul Anderson-The Enduring Explosion; The Literary Dreamers; The Long Night of a Virginia Author; and Music of the Absurd.  In the second and third essays Blish writes about a trilogy of novels written by James Branch Cabell, separating them neatly from Finnegan's Wake, with which it has become associated.  The chapter on music brings out Blish's grief at the state of new music in the 60s (especially John Cage).  He needn't have lost sleep over it--it's all gone away now, more or less.  Part III contains two chapters:  A SF Coming of Age, where Blish brings in some theories of Spengler, explaining why the "great" SF novel has never been written, and never shall be written.  The final chapter is an interview with Blish conducted by Brian Aldiss.  This is a don't miss collection for fans of early SF writing, as are the two previous books of his essays.  I only hope that eventually all of his critical essays will be published.  These three volumes contains only a small percentage of his non-fiction work. 

 

With the completion of works by Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery authors, I moved on to novels published in the Delphi Classics Kindle series.  First came H. Rider Haggard's world changing adventure novel King Solomon's Mines.  Published in 1885, it set off a chain reaction that continues to this day.  The lost world adventure novel never seems to grow old with many readers (including this one), and so many major writers have used Haggard as a springboard to fame and fortune.  Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt and dozens of others have virtually copied Haggard's premise, though much of it written today takes place off world or in other dimensions.  Allan Quatermain is the main narrator, and his adventure, though not quite plausible today, was more than plausible in 1885, when much of Africa was still unexplored, and survey flights were decades away.  The book is a classic tale in many ways, though it's colonial outlook and racist beliefs (Quatermain is a lion and elephant hunter and certainly believes that Blacks are not the equal of Whites) seem almost beyond belief to enlightened readers today.  So one must read this as a child or youth from 1885, and I'm certain that a few small heads nearly exploded with excitement back then.  There is a running joke about one of the white explorers' white legs, which are astonishing to the Blacks.  And by the end of the novel, the Blacks have proved to be as brave and fearless in battle as any white man, excepting Quatermain himself, who is an admitted coward.  Despite the human and animal body count, it is a first rate adventure novel.  It is still in print today, which says something about its effect on readers.

Cover of the 1st edition. 

 

Next I jumped all the way over to Dashiel Hammet, and his novel from 1929, The Dain Curse. This story consists of three novellas, linked by characters, though pretty much complete in themselves.  The first part deals with a suicide and murder, in which Hammett's unnamed private detective first arrives on the scene to find missing stolen diamonds.  His case switches in part 2 with more murders, and a strange cult that has more at heart than people's spiritual welfare.  Lastly comes more murders, a kidnapping, and a bomb explosion.  As each part of the case ends, the detective always suspects there is more to it, until, by the end of part 3, we finally get to the rotten bottom of things.  At the heart of story is young Gabrielle, who thinks she is the recipient of a family curse.  Each novella ends with a lengthy explanation of the very complicated plot up to that point, with the final explanation the longest and most complicated of them all.  Though it is a fun read, it is not really one of the great mystery stories, mainly due to the large number of main characters and the complications that ensue.  One of the best parts of the story occurs in Part 3, when the detective talks Gabrielle into believing there is no curse upon her, and that she can kick her heroin habit if she wants to, with his help.  In this part at least, the sun is shining briefly on a very depressed and lost soul.

 

W. H. Hodgson's Carnacki, The Ghost-Finder is a collection of six short tales published in 1913.  They were previously published in magazines between 1910-12.  He reissued the set in 1947, adding two more stories (not reviewed here yet).  Carnacki sometimes finds a supernatural cause for what has occurred, but just as often is able to come to a rational and scientific explanation.  thus the reader never knows at the time if events are supernatural or not.  This is a pretty neat writing trick!  The stories are quite frightening, too.

"The Gateway of the Monster" is the first tale.  The set up is always the same: four guests come to Carnacki's house for dinner, one of whom is the narrator, after which the host tells his most recent tale.  This is the story of a haunted room.  Something about the room is serving as a gateway for an evil presence to make itself known.  Carnacki himself, though a very brave man, is not above being very, very afraid at climactic moments, and sometimes even running away.  And though he often gets to the bottom of a mystery, sometimes he cannot explain it.  This story involves a mislaid ring. 

"The House Among The Laurels" is another very scary tale, and even though there are explanations at the end, they do not really satisfy the reader.  No one knows how the candles were put out, or why someone went to so much trouble to 'haunt' the large house.  Three dogs die violently in this story, and in the previous one a cat.  Animal lovers be warned. 

"The Whistling Room" is a very strange tale about a horrible whistling sound that comes from one room in a castle.  Again the climax is very frightening.  Most of these would make great TV episodes for a horror anthology.  And why has no one made a film about Hodgson's The Night Land? 

"The Horse of the Invisible" has something to do with local old tales, as many of these stories often have.  Not as scary as the first three, and again the explanation hardly explains everything that happened.  And can everyone who fired a gun in this story have missed the culprit?  This is a story that has both a hoax at its heart, and a real ghostly event.

"The Searcher of the End House" is another story that has both a logical explanation for a haunting, and a supernatural one.  Thus there are two mysteries, one quite terrifying and the other more mystifying.  The first mystery is Lovecraftian, while the second one is a classic ghost haunting.

"The Thing Invisible" is the final story in the first collection.  A butler is seriously wounded by a dagger that seemed to fly out of nowhere from inside a small chapel attached to a castle, and Carnacki is called to help solve the mystery.  Once again he spends a very scary night inside a dark and dangerous place, and once again he runs out of it, terrified, in the middle of the night.  The mystery is finally solved, however, and the ghost-finder lives to tell the tale to his friends.

 

Next came Fergus Hume's Madame Midas, from 1888.  A sprawling Victorian novel, it is a thriller that is loosely based on a real woman, one who owned and managed mines in Australia.  Despite the usual warnings concerning the man she is about to marry, she goes ahead with her plans.  Of course he turns out to be a louse, and causes her nothing but grief throughout the novel.  Not only that, but another man, an escapee from a French prison island, worms his way into her confidence and is offered a job managing her books.  What could go wrong?  She is not the only female in the story who is wronged.  It would appear that there are a lot of dangerous predatory males out there.  Can this possibly be true?  It is a pretty decent novel, and its 400+ pages go past quite quickly.  A few years transpire between the opening scene and the finale.  References are made to the author's previous detective novel, The Mystery of the Hansom Cab.  In fact, the lead woman here ends up renting the same house where much of the plot of the previous novel was centered.  A neat writer's trick to get readers to read the other novel, if they haven't already.

 

Finally, I read another American dime novel by The Old Sleuth.  A Successful Shadow is from 1885, and is a direct sequel to the one I read last month, called Two Wonderful Detectives.  These short mystery stories are actually quite fun and worth seeking.  I bought a small collection of this for pennies on Kindle, but they seem to also be available on Project Gutenberg, on-line for free reading.  In this story the detective is finally able to restore a large inheritance to its rightful owner, after a considerable battle of wits against a young criminal.  The detective, like a certain other later detective, is a master of disguises.  I look forward to reading more of these creations.

 

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