Books Read June 2026

 

 I only read one book per month now from my Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery series, alternating between Kenneth Bulmer and E. C. Tubb, though a few other related authors may still trickle in now and again.  In addition I read four books from my Delphi Classics collection and then one more not related.  I finished up with two essays by Stephen Jay Gould.  So, six books and two essays.

Scorpio Ablaze is #41 in the Dray Prescott series of fantasy novels by Kenneth Bulmer, who writes as Alan Burk Akers.  This is one of the poorer entries in the series, as Dray attempts to unify the rest of Paz against the evil fish heads. The fish heads are the Daleks of this world, mostly one-dimensional mass murderers.  This reader is growing quite sick of them.  Once again there are epic battles, including a pretty decent air ship versus airship one.  The highlight of the book is the reunification of Dray with Delia and the rest of his main buddies, an invincible group of allies if ever there was one.  But Bulmer once again relies on yet another evil wizard to thwart Dray's plans, as if the fish heads weren't enough.  How many times has Dray had to defeat an evil sorcerer or sorceress in this series, one who is backing the bad guys?  It grows thin after six or seven times.  And, unashamedly, there is no ending to this book.  Dray is once again captured by the Star Lords and whirled out of his most recent crisis--Delia has been captured by the fish heads and he was giving chase.  Really?  Yawn. ** stars. 

Next up came another ten stories by Edgar Allen Poe, one of them a novella.  Many of these stories from the 1830s aren't that famous, though a few are and a few more should be.  Several of them show Poe's predilection for humour at the time, though a few are very serious from beginning to end.  Lionizing was a quite funny account of a man born with a unique nose, which he puts to his advantage during his life.

  

Henry Clarke's illustration for Lionizing.  

 

There follows a SF adventure novella in what would inspire Jules Verne.  Using junk science of his day Poe writes The Unparalled Adventures of One Hans Pfall, a humourous account from 1835 of a man's journey to the moon via balloon.  Filled with some very funny parts, the more serious science bits often resembles Verne's later writing.  I enjoyed this story a lot!

The finest story of the ten came next.  King Pest is a macabre tale of two sailors, one extremely tall and thin and the other very short and stout.  They stumble into a meeting of a very unique society, barely escaping with their lives.  Part horror and part fantasy, we again see a direct connection between Poe and a future writer: this story could be called the origin of Fritz Leiber's Faffrd and Gray Mouser tales, among the best fantasy every written.

The Shadow is a very short story about the shadow of death visiting a group of carousing friends.  Yet again we can see from this tale Poe's influence on yet another future writer: Lord Dunsany.

Four Beasts In One is a very funny tale of a time and place long ago (Antioch), in which the king in full giraffe costume parades for his people.  Elsewhere, the tame lions and panthers stroll among the people without causing alarm or harming anyone.  Until they spot that prancing giraffe...

Mystification is classic Poe showing his wit and humour to great effect.  The writing is high level.  When a certain Baron Ritner is insulted by a fool of a guest, he gets back at him in a most unique and refined way.  Rich reading.

Silence is the tale told by a Demon to the narrator about a dreary region in Libya where he watched a man amidst the solitude.  The description of what occurs there stirs the narrator greatly, but he incurs the anger of the Demon by not laughing at the tale.  Strange but very atmospheric.

 

 

 From Poe's Silence, by Henry Clarke. 

 

Ligeia is from 1838 and is one of Poe's most famous tales.  It is a true horror story, and as I read it I could clearly hear the voice of Vincent Price.  This helped rather than hindered the reading. The final few pages are still among the best horror events ever written.

 

  

  Original Ligeia illustration by Harry Clarke, included in my Delphi Classics Kindle edition. 

 

Finally come two linked stories, both very funny.  How To Write A Blackwood Article is followed by the article itself, called A Predicament. An enterprising young woman, very well dressed and highly educated, talks with Mr. Blackwood about getting an article published in his magazine of strange events and occurrences.  He is very specific about how this should be handled, and the woman dutifully takes hasty notes, not always accurate.  This meeting is very funny in itself, as the things that Mr. Blackwood indicates would make for a successful article include the writer having to die some strange and original horrible death.  In the follow up story the woman does indeed die (in her article, at least) in a most strange way.  This is very original writing, however, it is also very racist as there is a black servant involved in the woman's escapade.

 

Swallowdale is from 1931 and is the second book in the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome.  John, Susan, Titty (Titania) and Roger are back for another summer vacation at the lake.  They waste no time returning to their beloved island to camp out and rough it in the wild.  Roughing it in England is a bit different than in Canada.  These kids would likely be eaten by a bear on their first night camping in Ontario, but on an island in England's Lake District they are free to store their food near their tents, and even travel each day a short distance across the water for fresh eggs and milk.  Roughing it indeed.  Nancy and Peggy, the two pirate girl friends of the children, are back, too.  What is amazing about this story, which is over 400 pages long and would likely take a child the entire summer to read (unless it rained a lot) is that there are no robbers or criminals of any kind.  Just six kids having fun and small adventures during their summer holiday.  While parts of the story might seem quite dull to older readers, the book does teach children all about camping, cleaning up after yourself and leaving your campsite as if no one had ever been there, responsibility towards one's siblings, and even quite a bit about sailing a small boat.  My favourite parts of the book had to do with the foggy day adventures the children had, including Roger's foot injury.  The injury is turned into pure gold for Roger, and he has his own adventure.  The children discover a cave, climb a mountain, have a sailing boat race and eat a lot of food.  It sounds like the perfect summer holiday.  Remember those?  *** stars.

 

 

I read the Kindle edition, which included all of the author's original art.

In the bottom right corner Roger (the youngest) is not being spanked.  He is having his

pants sewn from wearing them out sliding down a rock. 

 

I haven't had the best of luck with the novels of Vita Sackville-West.  Her Grey Wethers, from 1923, is a romantic novel in the tradition of Wuthering Heights, though far less effective.  Clare and Nicholas Lovel are the two main characters.  She is above his class.  He is a gypsy and has the reputation of being a bit of a rogue.  They have always got along, though they realize that their class difference stands in the way of their being together and living happily ever after.  She is 19 and he is in his late twenties.  He is a shepherd, among other things, and they spend days and days together on the Downs.  We are led to believe that they have a platonic relationship, sharing a love of nature and the openness of the country around their village, which lies within a prehistoric stone circle (the grey wethers).  Nicholas has a brother, Olver, who is simple-minded and devoted to him.  Clare lives in the manor house with her father, a doddering scholar who seldom ventures outdoors.  A nearby gentleman, Calladine, is at least 50 and has eyes only for young Clare.

The novel is divided into two books, the first one being quite long and mostly expository.  Book Two contains the main events, including life after marriage for Clare to Calladine, a meek indoors type who prefers reading by the fire to wandering the Downs, and also the marriage of Nicholas to village girl Daisy.  She is madly in love with him and gets him to marry her under a false pretence.  Neither marriage works in any way, shape or form, and eventually the two true lovers abscond to live a rustic life on the Downs, as they were meant to do all along.

Likely written for an audience of young ladies, hopefully it steered a few of them away from unhappy marriages.  Though readable, the book is hardly great romantic literature.  ** 1/2 stars.

 

Next came a Shaw play, Arms and the Man from 1894, first published in 1898.  It is a dated play, attempting to teach audiences at the time that war was not a glorious event, and that bravery in battle was something entirely different than what was thought then.  And yet, though we learned the truth about war the hard way two decades later, we still treat soldiers as heroes and believe that they don't really feel fear the same way as we normal human beings.  I feel at least as admiring of inner city school teachers, police and firefighters.  That is not to say that I have no respect for all the war veterans who saw action and suffered greatly, mentally and physically, but their profession is not the only one to be thankful for.  Anyway, Shaw's play remains a gem, and the fact that he can get such a serious message across through humour makes him one of my favourite writers.  **** stars.

 

Paul Aster's The Locked Room from 1986 is the third novel of his New York Trilogy.  While I liked the first one of the series, I did not like the 2nd one at all.  The third one is readable but I did not find any of it enjoyable.  The writing and story is very claustrophobic, like an annoying dream from which one cannot awaken.  It is also humourless.  Someone who is much better at this kind of thing (losing a grip on oneself) is Barry Malzberg, who, like Shaw, can have us rolling with laughter while digging deep into human psyche and psychosis.  Malzberg never achieved the recognition he so deserves.  I was also reminded in this novel of the superb writing and stories of Patricia Highsmith, especially the Ripley novels.  Now there is some great storytelling, again about losing one's personality by taking over someone else's.  Auster's way of telling a story seems to dull my mind as I read, whereas the other two authors mentioned above make me want to keep reading.  At this point I doubt I will pick up any more of Paul Aster's novels.  There is so much better to be found.  ** 1/2 stars.

 

I finished the month with two more essays by Stephen J. Gould's book of essays on evolution.  Pick up any one of his ten books of essays and read any essay and one will instantly be more aware of the reasons that evolution is important for us to know about.  I read the final essay in his section on biographies, about Vladamir Kovelevsky (and about his more famous wife, Sophia, a mathematician).  Vladamir contributed good science towards solving the problem of the evolution of the horse, a thorny issue back in the day.  As it turns out the horses of Europe were simply a branch of horse development, with the main activity going on in the New World.  It makes fascinating reading.  

Next came the first chapter in a section Gould calls Human Prehistory.  The first essay was about prehistoric cave paintings in France and Spain, and how early interpreters of the art, while agreeing on the extremely high quality of the wall art, tried to organize a chronology based on more primitive drawing becoming more and more realistic as time went on.  Gould points out the flawed thinking in presenting such a theory, especially when even earlier cave art was discovered later and proved to be the best art of the bunch.  This was a really good chapter!  The book I am reading the essays from is Gould's 1998 essay collection called Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and The Diet of Worms.

Mapman Mike

 

  

 

March Reading

You Can't Stop Me is from 1963 and is 158 pages.  It was written by "Don Elliot," one of Silverberg's many false names.  This one takes the prize for the most outrageous novel I have ever read.  It's about a serial killer (58 victims no less) who strangles the women either during sex with them or just before.  This is a story about a real sicko, and I find it hard to believe that Silverberg needs cash so badly that he would allow this one to be republished.  He even writes a short intro to the volume, excusing himself because "times were different then."  Umm.  Not so different, really.  Silverberg wrote more sleaze novels than all his other fiction and non-fiction combined.  And I used to wonder, when reading his SF, why women never played major roles in a majority of his stories.  I truly think the man had a problem with women, and anyone brave enough to read this book would likely agree.  One for the trash heap.  There is nothing I can think of about the story that redeems it.  If I needed an excuse to stop reading Silverberg, this is it.  Avoid this one.

From 1984 comes Kenneth Bulmer's 154 page novel Delia of Vallia, #28 in the Dray Prescott series.  It makes a terrific change to finally find out what Dray Prescott's counterpart gets up to while he is off on his adventures.  The Empress is a Sister of the Rose, a secret organization of females trained as warriors but out to do good.  They work with hospitals, orphans, women in perilous situations that need assistance, as well as helping out in putting down rebellions in Vallia.  When some of the sisters are being recruited by a rival women's group to help bring down Vallia, Delia is sent to the hot spot to find out what is going on.  The plot mostly concerns women, though there are some memorable male characters as well.  Delia goes through nearly as many hardships as her galavanting husband, and by the end of this tale readers have even more respect for this true Empress of a woman.  Bulmer pulls no punches in showing how Delia is humiliated before she strikes back.  Highly enjoyable and a much needed change of pace for the series.  My Kindle edition included a very short story by Bulmer taking place in the same world, but not directly related to this series.  Called "Lallia The Slave Girl" it recounts the revenge one such female gets on her brutal master.  The story has become a legend and oft told on Scorpio.  

 

E. C. Tubb's Hills of Blood, an aptly named western from 1965, is 145 pages long.  The basic story involves a group of Confederate prisoners of war being asked to help man an understaffed western fort, thus aiding the Union troops.  There is considerable resentment, but the captain of the imprisoned men tells them it's better than starving and freezing to death in prison.  There is a secret gold mine involved in the plot, and a few rebel soldiers not too anxious to fight Indians for the Union.  As per usual, Tubb sympathizes with the Indians and their great loss of land and lifestyle.  He has also had a very upstanding Confederate soldier or former soldier in a lead role more than once in his westerns.  Just reading this series of novels one can learn a lot about Plains Indians from that time.  All of his western novels are recommended reading.  I had expected something quite different when I began reading them.  This is the final one.  Recommended.

 

In the final volume of the violent Lone Wolf vigilante series, we finally witness the complete collapse of Wulf's sanity, and his final demise at the hands of his one-time partner and friend Williams.  Philadelphia Blowup is from 1975 and is a brief but intense 120 pages.  Malzberg has created a memorable character in Wulf, one that is beyond human in his actions and abilities.  His one goal is to eliminate the upper echelon of drug dealers, but once he has eliminated them his task has barely begun.  This is what finally drives him to madness; the fact that despite all he has done, he has barely started in making a dent on American drug use.  During the series Malzberg gets to deal alot with bigshot people who are about to die, despite the fact they believe themselves invulnerable.  There is a sameness to the boldest of the kingpin men, which quickly evaporates when they realize that Wulf will now kill them.  Malzberg also gets to use one of his strongest points as a writer, that of a madman justifying his actions any way he can.  Inner voices are a specialty with Malzberg, and he gets plenty of opportunity in these novels.  The story ends with two afterwords from Malzberg, dated 2022, where he continues to sound off about the real reasons for the Vietnam war, as well as what really happens during the "war on drugs."  He is an interesting writer with plenty of ideas and strong opinions, and even in this offbeat series he manages to delve deeper than many hard fiction writers into today's problems and their root causes.  It is a difficult series to recommend because of all the violence, and the fact that it is all aimed at a male audience.  There are too many killings and too much of the same kind of storyline, though the final five books do deviate considerably from the first nine.  At least the author brought things to a definite conclusion, unlike many other long running series.  

 

Moving on to my unrestricted reading choices, I began with the second crime novel by Ghanian author Kwei Quartey.  Children of the Street is a sometimes shocking and heartbreaking story of life in Accra, the capital and largest city in Ghana.  A serial killer is murdering teenage street kids, using ritualistic methods that are cruel and outrageous.  Detective Darko Dawson tackles the crime series, and we get more than a glimpse of life on the streets in a poverty stricken zone of the city.  The problem is almost unbelievable for a western observer, but the long list of acknowledgements at the end of the novel indicates how much research went into the story.  The author is also a practicing M.D.  Like in the novels of Tony Hillerman, set on lands populated by the Navajo Nation, we learn a lot about Ghana and its people in these stories.  The first book was set in the smaller places in the north of the country, but here we are hit full face by modern Accra and the problems it faces.  Quartey writes in a simple fashion, not using large words or complicated sentences or overly constructed plots.  The writing and story is simple and straightforward, suitable no doubt for high school age children, though the material is considerably dark.  Highly recommended.

 

I read the Kindle edition.
 

I keep hoping I will come across a novel by Vita Sackville-West that I actually enjoy reading.  Challenge, written in 1920, is not it.  Sackville's writing seems to me vague, wispy, and without grounding.  The novel was banned in the UK until 1974 or 1976, though I cannot see nor think of a single reason why.  It is a pretty fluffy concoction, set in the Greek Isles at the time they sought independence, but Greece was coming for them.  There is nothing in the story except petty politics and a perverse kind of selfish love.  Julian and Eve are cousins, both very young (22 and 19).  though they fight and argue constantly, they are in love.  She wants love unconditionally, and admits that even if he had a dog she would be too jealous of it to live peaceably with Julian.  His interest in helping some of the islands revolt against their Greek masters is, to her, too much to compete against.  So she aids the Greeks in reconquering the islands, and sees Julian exiled.  She then realizes that she has destroyed him by taking away his fight for freedom, so she goes out and drowns herself.  At the last minute she has second thoughts, but alas, it is too late.  She is likely one of the most unlikable female characters I have ever encountered in a novel, with almost no redeeming qualities.  I say almost, for she does love, but her kind of absolute love is a perversion of the word, in my opinion.  She is not even above luring on a priest who takes to her, driving him mad with desire for her.  When he is rejected, he kills himself (or trips over his garment, we never know for certain which).  Not recommended.  But stay tuned; her next novel is Orlando, so maybe there is some hope yet.  For a much better novel showing a female writer pushing boundaries (sand having them come back to bite her) read Kate Chopin's The Awakening, from 1899.

 

Mrs. Warren's Profession, from 1893, is another early play by G. B Shaw, one that was banned from performance for several years after publication.  The play is prefaced in my Kindle edition (Delphi Classics) by a long tirade against censorship by the author, and indeed is more interesting to read than the play itself.   Not put on the stage until 1902, it tells the story of a woman who runs a house of prostitution, using the earnings to ensure her daughter receives the best education available to her.  The play was savagely attacked as "unnatural."  Shaw's lengthy response is, as one can imagine if one knows of Shaw's critical skills, right on the mark.  The play itself is in 4 acts, each taking about 20' to read.  Apparently even mention of such a woman was enough to cause apoplexy in the theatre critics of the time.  the opening performance audience loved the play, especially the women.  However, the next performance was for the critics,and thus history is made.  If anything, Shaw's a bit overboard on his "modern" woman, casting her a person not seeking love, adventure, beauty, or truth.  Instead, she wants to work in an office and use her skills of higher calculation (she is a university graduate in high standing), and never wants a vacation.  While it is admirable that she wants to leave her background and dubious friendships behind, I'm not too impressed with her life goals.  She sounds remarkably like an AI version of a calculator.  The play has amusing moments, but is mostly a scathing social commentary and assessment of the options for employment open to women of the time.  It is easy reading, and overall brings up many valid points about the English labour market of the time as it pertains to females.  Recommended.

 

Lost Worlds is a vast collection of 24 stories from 1944 by Clark Ashton Smith.  Smith's stories, for me, put most of Lovecraft's work to shame.  Smith is a writer, whereas Lovecraft was not.  Smith can set an eerie atmosphere with very few words, capturing an entire setting easily and craftily.  Smith is best at hinting at horrors, rather than trying to always describe them outright, and telling us how horrifying they are.  He lets readers decide what is horrifying and what isn't.  The first story is classic Smith.  "Empire of the Necromancers" is set in Zothique, the last continent to survive near the end of the Sun's life.  Earth is mostly dust and gloom, but two evil wizards decide to use their evil skills to repopulate a province that was decimated by plague.  They conjure up the dead people that once lived there, and turn them into zombie slaves.  Smith set many of his best stories in Zothique (see the Ballantine Fantasy volume edited by Lin Carter), and this one is characteristic of them.  If you are looking for a unique atmosphere for tales of wizardry, look no further.  

Next comes "The Isle of the Torturer," a much less successful story no doubt written to bring to life some lurid cover for Weird Tales.  A King sees his kingdom vanquished by a plague called the Silver Death.  His chief wizard gives him a ring that saves the king alone.  So far so good.  He sets sail for a friendly island and is shipwrecked instead on the title isle.  From here on the story degenerates quickly into nothing but horrible tortures.  One neat twist is the cruel girl who pretends to be trying to help him, but is only keeping him and his hopes alive so that he might live to be tortured for one more day.  His original wizard told him to never take off his ring, for the Silver Death will emerge.  At last it is time to take off the ring, but how?  He is tied up and on a torture wheel.  Read and find out how the king gets his revenge.

"Necromancy in Nat" sees Prince Yadar's intended bride kidnapped while he is on a hunting trip.  He goes on a worldwide search for her.  He ends up shipwrecked on Nat, an island of wizards and their zombie slaves.  This story is a bit more coherent than the one above, and begins as as normal kind of adventure, but quickly jumps into Sinbad the Sailor territory.  The ending is very unexpected yet perfect.  One of the author's better tales.

"Xeethra" is one of the best.  A shepherd boy wanders into a strange and lush valley with his drought starved and thirsty sheep, one that he has never before seen.  He discovers a cave entrance and following the dark passage emerges in a strange land filled with springs, healthy trees, and promising lands.  He plucks a fruit from a tree and eats it and his life is transformed.  The fruit brings back ancestral memories of when he was King of a great city on the seashore, and he sets out to find his city.  People he meets think he is quite mad, but after a long and harrowing search he comes to the ruins of a once-great city.  This adventure story is very well written and full of surprises, and as atmospheric as any by the author.  It is like reading the very best Dunsany adventure.

"The Holiness of Azerdarac" is a tale from medieval Averoigne, oen of several such tales written by Smith.  A young priest is sent to investigate a bishop suspected of foul magical deeds.  Brother Ambrosa discovers more than he wishes to, and sets out on his return journey to his own city to report on his findings.  But he never makes it home.  Instead, he has adventures where he journeys back 700 years, encounters a seductive sorceress, than is sent back into a future time, and then back again to the sorceress who tried to send him back to his own time.  It's not as confusing as it sounds, and is actually well written.  Many of these tales would make an excellent series of short films!

"The Beast of Averoigne" takes place in the year 1369, describing events near an abbey as a bright comet slowly passes through the heavens.  This is another very effective tale, and again would make for a great short film, or even a feature if handled well.

"The Letter From Mohau Los", or "Flight Into Super-Time" is a very poor time travel tale, characteristic of many badly written SF stories from the late 30s and 40s.  Stick to H. G. Wells on this theme.  Most of the story is description, with very little in the way of plot.  So many loopholes....

"The Light From Beyond" is a novelette about an artist (he likes to illustrate stories by Poe), who, while in seclusion in an isolated mountain cabin, has an other-worldly experience that changes him forever.  Inter-dimensional travel to an alien world will do that to a person.  He eats a somewhat forbidden fruit there and undergoes what might be regarded as an LSD trip.  Interesting story, especially the lead up to solving the mystery before he travels.

"The Hunters From Beyond" is about a writer of macabre tales and his cousin, a sculptor of devilish creatures.  Very few, if any, of Smith's stories have a happy ending.  The burden this time falls on the innocent artist's model, who is kidnapped by demons.  She isn't at all the same when she returns.  As usual, the story has an interesting exposition.

"The Treader of the Dust" is a short tale about a man deeply into studying the dark arts.  He ends up conjuring an entity that rapidly ages everything around it, including his butler and himself.

"The Last Incantation" is another brief story, this one about a sorcerer in Poseidonis, the last standing isle of Atlantis.  Smith wrote a number of tales about the lost continent.

"A Voyage To Stanomoe" describes how two powerful wizards of Poseidonas, after failing to find a solution to the island's destruction, flee in their spacecraft to Venus.  A very weird tale with a remarkable ending.  Smith's imagination is beyond categorizing. 

"The Death of Malygris" is classic Smith, a tale of an evil and all-powerful wizard in Poseidonis who takes taxes from traders.  the king has finally had enough, and summons 12 wizards to aid his main wizard in doing away with Malygris.  It turns out that Malygris has been dead a long time already, and is just sitting in his chair atop his tower.  Or is he dead?  Two expeditions set out to find the truth.  A wonderful tale of black sorcery!

"The Tale of Zatampa Zeiros" is one of the best short stories of wizardry ever written, and it is likely that it greatly influenced a young Fritz Leiber.  Two fearless thieves set out to loot a cursed and forbidden ruined city.  Unfortunately, their luck has run out on this mission.  Great writing, showing a humourous side to Smith.!

"The Doors To Saturn" is a bizarre tale of a wizard who becomes interested in dark magic and a god that might be worth visiting.  He is being pursued by an inquisition priest.  After creating a method of visiting the god, who happens to dwell on Saturn, he disappears in a most unusual way.  But he is followed by the priest, who wants him arrested for worshipping a dark god.  The two eventually become entangled with a low grade civilization on Saturn, before escaping certain death and moving on to a somewhat higher life form.  More humour can be found here than chills, but again proving Smith's nearly limitless imagination.

"The Seven Geases" is yet another humourous look at human interactions with gods.  A royal hunter disturbs a wizard, ruining it with his intrusion.  As a punishment the hunter is sent into the netherworld to serve an evil god.  When that god has no need of him, he is sent on to a 2nd god, and so on until the 7th god is reached, releasing him from his fate.  along the way the hunter, weaponless, encounters all manner of nasty beasts that wish to devour him, but his protected by a primitive bird from the original wizard, to ensure he makes it safely to the intended god.  The sudden ending of the story satirizes the writer's problem of having to stop writing when a certain amount of words have been reached, as laid out by pulp editors.

"The Coming of The White Worm" tells of a giant iceberg and its evil being that flow south, freezing everything and everyone in its path.  One wizard will someday possess the key to destroying the awful beast.  Will he be able to do it?  With Smith, one never knows.  Again, this is one of the most bizarre stories I have ever read.  It would make a good folk tale explaining the ice age.

"The Maze of Maal Dweb" is one of Smith's best tales, as a barbarian matches wits with a wizard who has kidnapped his intended bride.  In Smith's writing, barbarians do not have much of a chance.  Atmospheric but also humourous.

"The Flower Woman" is a sequel to the above story, where the wizard Maal Dweb heads off seeking new adventures.  The story has a very abrupt ending, but is a pretty good one up to that point.  Dweb pits his resources against seven other wizards who are trying to elevate themselves to a dangerous lever of wizardry, and must be stopped before that happens.

"The Demon of the Flowers" tells of an evil power that inhabits a flower, and gives them dominance over humans.  When a female human is to be sacrificed to feed the evil power, the king tries to finally put a stop to things.  This is as Smith story, so his success is somewhat tempered by failure.

"The Plutonian Drug" is a silly story with an ending that is far too predictable, and makes the main protagonist look like a complete idiot.  A man takes a drug that allows him to see so far into his past and into his future.  But his future goes dark as he enters a lane way shortcut at night.  Hmm.  Wonder what might happen.  When the drug wears off he wonders that exact thing, as he takes the shortcut through the lane way.

"The Planet of the Dead" is a trans-dimensional love story, cloaked in sadness and lost memories.  A good tale as an antique collector and amateur astronomer leaves Earth for another existence in another place and another time.  He spends a brief month there before returning.

"The Gorgon" is the real thing.  The head of the Gorgon is well and living in London, and still turning direct onlookers into stone.  A man grieving his dead wife travels the world, stopping in London where he is accosted on the street and promised a mirrored look at the real thing.  He accepts, and his adventure begins.  Unusual, even for Smith.

 

Original hardcover publication.  I read the Kindle edition. 

Mapman Mike
 

January Books Read

January was a good month for reading.  Cold weather will do that for one.  In addition to the 5 books by Avon/Equinox authors, I managed to finish 8 others.

 

First published in 2001 as a three part story in Asimov SF Magazine, Robert Silverberg's The Longest Way Home is the story of a young teenage boy growing up the hard way.  Joseph is the 15 year old eldest son of a Master, on a planet where two waves of humans have usurped the planet from the native inhabitants.  The first wave was mostly simple farmers, and they were struggling when the ruling class came and took over, making things work.  But Joseph, visiting a distant House in the far north, gets caught up in a serious rebellion.  He makes his escape with the help of a servant, and then is basically on his own, marching south to his home at least ten thousand miles away.  On his journey, several times in which he nearly dies of starvation, he encounters allies where least expected.  His journey is a harrowing one, to say the least.  Brought up with a pampered existence, as the eldest son it will be his job to take over his father's great House someday, and manage it.

Essentially aimed at high school aged boys (sorry, girls, yet again), the story is very simple and never very deep.  Boy walks and walks, encounters obstacles, and somehow gets through them.  At least the story is relatively short, and seldom challenges the reader's credulity.  From what Joseph learns along the way, by the end of the story we expect him to be a far better Master than he would have without his journey.  Quite a good story, but far from exceptional.  It almost sounds as if Silverberg took a very old idea from his pulp days and did his best to update it for modern readers.

 

Next comes the 223 page (original 1977 edition) conclusion to Bulmer's Krozair trilogy, in which Dray Prescott loses, then finally regains, his status as a Krozair warrior.  Krozair of Kregen again shows that Dray doesn't take much interest in poetry, art, or music.  He is a savage killing machine, and not much else.  The first part of the book sees Dray yet again serving as an oar slave aboard a Grondin ship.  It takes time, but he finally escapes with the help of several slave companions.  They become pirates for a while, before splitting up and going their own way.  Dray has a score to settle with a certain king who murdered his daughter at the end of the last book.  He ends up defending a besieged city, but not before encountering a monster from the depths, something directly borrowed from H P Lovecraft (see original cover painting to the 1977 edition, below).  Though he rescues a maiden from her doom at the hands of the monster, she more or less disappears from the story immediately afterwards.

Once on land, the remainder of the story deals with the defence of the city where he has chosen to meet the bad king.  In his usual bold manner, Dray takes the bull by the horns, storming into the enemy camp in disguise, capturing the king, and flying away with him.  Since Dray has been hounded (mistakenly, of course) from the membership in the elite warrior class, his three sons have taken to being shamed by him, and they in turn speak words of hatred about him.  None of them recognize Dray as their father, and there is a very funny scene at the end when they finally come to realize that their "cowardly" father is the brave man they have been fighting with all along.  He is reunited with Delia, his wife, his status as a Krozair is reinstated, and they live happily ever after.  Until Book 15.  A good entry in the series, if readers can get past him being a slave for a time, yet again.

 

Cover art by Josh Kirby.  

Originally published in 1955 as "Men of the Long Rifle," The Pathfinders  is not a traditional western novel.  Lasting only 13 chapters and about 120 pages, there are no cowboys here.  The time is 1830.  The East has been settled and civilized, and things are just starting to move towards the northwest.  There are Indians, and some of them are hostile.  There are scattered frontier forts and trading posts, but not much else.  Ben is a mountain man who meets up with young Dan, running from the corrupt law of a small town where he and his mother are farmers.  They are hired to lead a small expedition from the plains over the mountains, as the search is on for good wagon routes west.

According to Tubb, mountain men are real men, not like those sissy farmers that eat vegetables and wheat and stuff like that.  Real men eat meat, often raw, and nothing else.  Hmm.  Wonder how they avoided scurvy.  Imagine going an entire winter and not eating anything but meat.  And real men will kill a man first if needed, and ask questions later.  Talking only makes things worse.  Hmm again.

Anyway, the basic story is a good one, and it's fun to read a novel about the time before cattle, pony soldiers, and any kind of well travelled trail.  Most travel was done by river in barges, rafts, and canoes.  Only the mountain men ventured much beyond the rivers, trapping and trading to make their way in the world

There is a lot to mull in this book.  With the urge to settle in the west growing, was there a different way of handling things then the way it was done?  A British/Canadian captain near the end does suggest a different way, the way it was done in the north.  In the end, though, Canadian Indians did not fare much better than their American cousins.  The whole thing turned into a disaster, not only for the Indians, but also for the wildlife and vegetation.  Cattle grazing (over grazing, to be precise) has decimated western lands to this day.  One could make a list a mile long to see what went wrong.  Today, we face newer problems, as people from less fortunate areas of the world try to press their way into safer and more prosperous areas.  While they cannot be blamed for wanting a safer and more prosperous life, the strain upon resources, both human and natural, goes on and on.  The planet must be getting tired by now.  And still we ask more from it.

 

From 1981 comes Michael Moorcock's 1981 epic novel Byzantium Endures, the first book of a most promising series.  My hardcover edition runs 373 pages, with large pages and small printing.  The very best books that deal with historical events are sometimes not the ones that deal with overall views and after-the-fact analysis; sometimes the best books about history are from the 'man on the ground,' so to speak.  Biographies are often useful in learning about certain places at certain times, as are autobiographies.  What Moorcock has achieved with his fictional "Colonel Pyat" character is to perhaps invent a new kind of historical fiction.  Born in Kyiv in 1900, this first book follows the young boy through one of Russia's darkest times, up to about 1920.  He lives through the Great War, the Revolution, and the Russian Civil War before finally fleeing from Odessa to Constantinople at the end of this first book.

By confining his hero to Russia and Ukraine in the first volume, readers are able to digest a lot of history as it happened.  Despite being a fictional autobiography, the events depicted were real, though of course not all the details.  Pyat is an engineer, interested in all things mechanical and modern.  He grows up in Kyiv, moves to Odessa on the Black Sea to live with an uncle for a time, who then sends him to a school in Petersburg to gain an engineering degree.  Of course the war interferes with plans, and he is never able to gain his piece of paper, though he does pass his exams with flying colours.  Back to Kyiv, and then, through a very long sequence of mostly bad events, makes his way again to Odessa.

The character of Mrs. Cornelius (to be Jerry's mother in a different series of book) becomes a veritable guardian angel to the young Pyat.  She is a truly inspired creation, and totally unique in the history of literature.  Readers will either love her or hate her; this reader loves her.  The present story is told by a very old Pyat, who operated an antique shop in Portobello Road in London until his death.  He and Mrs. Cornelius remained good friends all their lives, and we can look forward to more of their adventures and meetings in the next three volumes.

I learned more about early 20th C Russia and Ukraine from reading this book then anything else I have ever read throughout my life.  It is a time of great darkness, despair, cruelty, extreme hardship, and, to put it most simply, a time of complete chaos.  I finally understand what makes a Russian tick, as well as that of a Ukraine citizen.  This is a very fascinating book, one of the best historical fictions I have ever read.  Highly recommended.

 

Boston Avenger is a direct continuation from Burt Wullf's San Francisco adventure, the 3rd book in a long series about a lone wolf crime fighter trying to take on the drug lords of America.  This time the mayhem he causes happens to be in Boston.  A good story, this 155 page novel is from 1973, as Malzberg cranks them out but maintains a unique style and definite narrative flow.  Wulff is only able to accomplish what he does through his belief that he is a dead man anyway, so taking huge risks is never a problem if there is a chance they might come off.  One of the more riskier tricks he pulls off is to retrieve a briefcase filled with heroin from a convoy of four police cars on their way to the downtown station with a suspect in custody.  The entire action scene is a complete movie setup.  We have seen so many police chases in movies that it's not difficult to visualize this madcap adventure, which, however, ends quite differently than a movie chase.  This ends up being one of the better parts of the book, and does convince us at last that Wulff is a madman after all.  Lots of killing and shooting, it runs along similar lines to many Samurai and gangster films.  A good addition to the extended book series.  At the end of the book Wulff is on his way back to New York, possibly to look for his girlfriend's murderer.  Stay tuned for more adventure. 

 

The first book read this month not related to Avon/Equinox authors was called Castle Crespin, a medieval adventure story taking place around in France in 1225.  Francis of Assisi has began influencing religious monks, and two of them are featured in this tragic tale.  Written in 1982 by Allen Andrews, it also features talking animals.  Oddly enough the two monks cannot understand them, but the girl Adele can.  Aside from talking animals, this well written story tells of the evil perpetrated by a rogue knight, a traditional all round bad guy, when he stops to visit a local castle.  Though he gets it in the end, as all bad guys should in a good story, he takes a lot of good folk, human and animal, down with him.  

The story begins with a fox getting what he can from a farmer's poultry collection, driving the man nearly mad in his outrageous attempts at killing it.  We gradually meet other animals and people, quite a few, actually, in a well thought out exposition.  The story builds nicely to a major and devastating violent climax.  There may be talking animals, but this does not seem in any way to be a children's book.  There is a good deal of humour as some of the animals complain of the things Nature has them do to keep their species populations vibrant and growing.  Wolves, bears, rabbits, boars, birds of prey, a hunting beagle and the fox make a worthy team against the evil knight and his minions.  

This is the second such book by this author.  Deb found this book in a London charity shop, and paid 50p for the hardcover edition, complete with full colour dust jacket.  A good bargain indeed.

Jacket art by Martin White. 

 

Next came some poetry by Edgar Allen Poe.  I don't exactly have a love affair with 19th C poetry.  I read four collections of Poe's.  The first three (very early) left me glassy eyed.  His earliest collection was published when he was 19, which might explain a lot.  He was heavily inspired by Byron.  Tamerlane and Other Poems came out in 1827.  Tamerlane is an epic poem about the dying conqueror.  It would end up being republished and revised for the next two collections as well.  In 1829 came the publication of Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Other Minor Poems.  Tamerlane is shorter now, and considerably more readable.  Al Aaraaf is Poe's longest poem, inspired by a 1572 supernova.  The star supposedly lies between heaven and hell.  In this purgatory there is no punishment, and also no fulfillment.  To this reader it seems unintelligible.  Both Tamerlane and Al Aaraaf are reprinted again in 1831, in Poems.  Even the revision does not help me with Al Aaraaf, but Tamerlane has once again been improved.

In 1845 came The Raven and Other Poems.  Now we are getting somewhere!  Poe was paid $9 for the original publication of what has literally become the world's most popular poem.  He worked hard at it, and it certainly is a great little piece of writing.  My Delphi Classics Kindle edition comes with three illustrations, two of them by Dore.  Also included in the collection is Lenore, The Conqueror Worm, and Eulalie.  The latter is mentioned in case a reader should come to the conclusion that all of Poe's works are about death.  Left for next time are many uncollected poems.  The above are the ones that were published in actual volumes during his lifetime.

Gustav Dore's illustration to Poe's The Raven. 

 

Arthur Ransome is a new addition to my collection of Delphi Classics complete works.  I will begin with his lone solo non-children's novel from 1915 called The Elixir of Life.  Written in St. Petersburg when the author was a war correspondent, the story concerns a young man who becomes involved with an evil man who kills people to continue living longer.  The events take place in 1716, and are retold 20 years later.  The book has a promising beginning, and the ending at least brings a fitting conclusion to the story.  But beware all those pages in between.  Ransome obviously read his Poe and especially Lovecraft.  By saying that his book is at least as good as some of Lovecraft's writing is not necessarily a compliment, as for the most part Lovecraft was a man with some fun ideas, but he was quite a terrible writer.  Ransome's novel suffers from lack of originality, as there are no ideas here new to 1915.  It also causes its readers to suffer from boredom, as nothing much happens in the story, and everything important takes place in one location, a large house with a rose garden.  In addition, the young hero is actually quite stupid.  Of the five main characters, three of them end up dead, as well as some horses and villagers.  The elixir itself is a preposterous concoction that seems to know when someone has been killed, thus strengthening it mysteriously and magically.  It is not very sophisticated thinking for a 1915 reading audience.  Needless to say the book met with virtual silence upon publication.  I am looking forward to his S & A books next time around.

P. G. Wodehouse's earliest novels are his so called School Stories Books.  This past month I read the second in that series, called A Prefect's Uncle, published in 1903.  It is a mere trifle of a book, barely amusing, and 90% of its content has to do with cricket.  It's another book for boys in boarding school, who it seems must love sports or die of nothing else to do.

Moving on.  The Dragon in Shallow Waters is Vita Sackville-West's 2nd novel, from 1920.  It's a bit of a gut wrenching story centred on two brothers in a dingy and poor factory town in Lincolnshire.  Silas Dene is blind, and very very angry about it.  Gregory is deaf and dumb.  Silas murders his own wife, then tricks Gregory into believing that his wife is cheating on him.  Nan is Gregory's wife, and she is caught between the two brothers, who live in attached but separate cottages.  Silas is the main focus of the novel, his outrageous outlook on life affecting nearly everyone in the village.  Most people stay clear of the Denes.  Nan is bullied mercilessly by both brothers, finally finding words that give her a weapon to use against Silas.  His long hoped for downfall is well written, and well deserved.  Like most evil characters, Silas is rather unforgettable.  However, he does finally do a good deed for Nan before his final fall.  He ends up saving her from a fate worse than death (staying married to his brother).  Coming from Silas, that is a rather good deed.  A very strange tale, but it has  its rewards.

The Philanderer is a play by Shaw from 1893.  However, due to censorship issues it was not produced until 1902.  It is the first of his early plays that reveals his wit, as we recognize the writer that he was to become.  There are several very funny scenes in the play, which is in four acts and is still occasionally mounted on the stage today.  Shaw deals well for his time with the women's movement, as he shows us characters (fathers and daughters) who are caught between the old world view of what a woman is and should be, and what the modern world now demands of the fairer sex.  The young philanderer himself, however, doesn't seem to be affected by any changes around him, and seems destined for bachelorhood.  A very readable play, and it would be fun to see a live production.

Carson Mccullers wrote her first novel at the age of 23.  Born in the southern US, her writing is imbued with hot, sultry days and nights, and characters so real that they seem to leap off the page into one's room while reading.  The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter is from 1940, with the title being suggested by her editor, from a poem, The Lonely Hunter, by Scottish poet William Sharp (as Fiona MacLeod).  The working title for the novel was The Mute.  This novel has probably had a lot of essays and reviews written about it, and for good reason.  It is a fantastic novel.  After so much reading and film watching, this writer can only conclude that the best fiction tells simple stories about average people.  Life and people can be very complicated, so it takes a very special talent to be able to simplify things enough for readers or film viewers to understand exactly what is happening to a character, why it is happening, and where things are likely headed for this individual.  Though there is a very good film version of the story, the book is far superior.

The main character in this novel is Mr. Singer, an intelligent deaf mute who works in a jewellery shop in a small southern US city, repairing watches and clocks, as well as doing beautiful engraving.  Mr. Singers best friend is also a deaf mute.  He and Antonapoulos share a room together, and though the latter character is a simpleton who loves food more than anything else, the two get along really well.  They both talk with their fingers, but Singer does most of the talking, pouring out his thoughts to his friend, who really doesn't listen and usually doesn't really care.  But at least Singer has someone with whom to talk.  It is this theme that is most prevalent in the novel--having a listening ear when you need to talk.  Singer ends up, after Antonapoulus is sent to a care home for causing his uncle a lot of trouble in town, being the person who has to listen to everyone in town who needs an ear for their thoughts.  He can lip read, though he does miss a lot of context.  But after many repetitions, he is able to get the drift.  But like his friend, he doesn't really have much interest in what people tell him.

 

Dr. Copeland, a Black medical doctor, often turns to Singer.  He is the only white person the doctor has ever met that seems to understand his people and the causes the doctor is trying to undertake on their behalf.  Likewise, an alcoholic drifter by the name of Jake Blount finds that Singer is a good friend who listens and understands what he is trying to achieve.  Blount is a Marxist and tries to bring about change in the attitudes of poorly paid and overworked cotton mill employees in town.

 

The most tragic character of all is Mick Kelly, a 13 year old girl who lives in the house where Singer boards.  She, by far, is the book's most interesting character.  She lives and dreams of becoming a musician and composer and conductor.  Her limited experiences with hearing classical music are among the greatest writing on the topic one could imagine.  After watching the filmed version of the book, it was her character more than anything else that eventually drew me to read the novel.  There are some obvious autobiographical elements to her character, as the author herself wanted to become a concert pianist.  Those plans ended when she lost her tuition money somewhere in the New York subway.  Likewise, it is financial matters that keep Mick from ever hoping to achieve her goals.  Her family is dirt poor, and she eventually, at age 14, has to take a job at Woolworths and drop out of school.  Poverty is another huge theme that runs throughout the novel, in addition to loneliness.  American poverty, especially in the deep south, is second to none anywhere else in the world.

There are other themes and many other characters, and the author treats them all in enough detail to make them live for readers.  The town and the people in it become very real, even after a few chapters.  By the end of the novel we feel that we have lived among these people, blacks and whites.  Many black critics have said that McCullers completely gets the Black experience and is able to write about Black characters better than any other white writer.  The short climax hits the reader like a sledgehammer, and with no warning.  Loneliness, frustrated ambition, poverty, and doing what one must do might sound like a rather bleak read.  It isn't.  This is one of the finest novels I have ever read, and I highly recommend it to one and all.

Lastly, I finally finished The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World: The Great Monuments and How They Were Built.  A Thames and Hudson book from 1999, edited by Chris Scarre, I bought this on a journey to London many years ago. This is my second reading.  With 333 illustrations, 140 in colour, the book also has plenty of text.  The 70 chapters are grouped as follows: The Seven Wonders; Tombs and Cemeteries; Temples and Shrines; Palaces, Baths & Arenas; Fortifications; Harbours, Hydraulics & Roads; and Colossal Statues & Monoliths.  Though most of the amcient works are centred on Mediterranean countries, there are still plenty elsewhere spread across the globe.  We have visited the three sites discussed in the US, and 2 of the 4 in Mexico.  That's about it for us.  A trip to Rome would add a lot to our list, so it might just happen.

A multi-month reading project was finally completed. 

 

Mapman Mike