July Books Read

Another indoor month, due to heat and humidity here this time of year, means lots of time for reading.  Having run out of Silverberg SF books, I am now reading his trashy pulp novels, which actually are pretty gritty and not half bad.  I am giving Michael Moorcock a rest for a few months, and returning to James Blish.  Blish wrote several dozen critical essays about the stories in SF pulp magazines in the 50s and early 60s, under a fake name.  I have a few of those books in hand.  There were among the rarest of books by Blish, and unavailable for decades.  However, thanks once again to the magic of Kindle publishing, I now have books I had given up hope of ever finding in stores.

 

Besides my five Avon/Equinox books, I plunged ahead with Delphi classics, beginning with stories by Wilkie Collins and Joseph Conrad, and also read some from beyond that incomparable series.

 

Gang Girl is from 1959 and is penned under the name Don Elliot (Silverberg). She's seventeen and has a body that can turn young males into her own personal playthings.  They will even kill for her.  Lora Menotti is one bad girl, striving to get to the top of the gang when her family moves into new digs in a different part of New York.  Silverberg manages to get inside this kinky girl's head, and we see what makes Lora tick.  Mostly it's sex, violence, drugs, and booze.  The book has a lot of each of those things.  Like most bad people in 1959 movies and books, she does get her comeuppance in the final chapter--she has made too many enemies not to escape gang justice.  The story is gritty and probably not too far fetched for its time.  I would not even wish to contemplate what contemporary gang life is like. 

 

The first half of A Sword For Kregen, the 1979 novel by Kenneth Bulmer that continues the adventures of Dray Prescott, is standard fare for the series, meaning that it is fun to read and advances the overarching plot.  Dray has been given a warning by the gods that his services as a warrior will soon be needed again.  He manages to tie up business at home before he is yanked away again to a distant corner of Kregen.  The second half of the book is Bulmer's homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel The Chessmen of Mars.  Burroughs' Martians love to play chess, and that book in the author's Martian series features a game of human chess where the pieces must fight to the death when moved to an occupied square.  On Kregen the board game of war is called Jikaida, and is played everywhere, including at the beginning of this novel, as a  game is taking place between Dray and his wife (she wins, with a ruthless strategy).  And so Dray later becomes a piece in the game, and must fight. Besides redoing Burroughs (Bulmer also gives instructions on how to play his game at the end of the novel, as did Burroughs), a few tropes pop up in this story.  For one, the climax is yet again two males having a swordfight to the death.  How original.  For another, Dray is the underdog against a much superior swordsman.  So of course Dray loses until the very few final seconds on the match, when his opponent finally makes a mistake.  Dray, with his very last strength, just somehow manages to kill him.  Yawn.  Despite this, the book is again very well thought out and executed.  The series continues, with 15 more novels in store.  So far, so good.  I can't believe I have last through 20 books.

 

From 1956 comes The Curse of Quantrill, a Civil War era historical western, starring that scourge of the North William Quantrill.  Quantrill was a Southern Captain in the Rebel army.  This story takes place near the end of the Civil War, and near the end of Quantrill's short life.  It is a completely fictional account of the later years, with no mention of the James brothers being part of Quantrill's Raiders.  There are many nearly forgotten stories of the Civil War.  The criminal and violent things that Quantrill and his men did, and those of the rival Jayhawkers, are quite unspeakable, yet they are a part of almost any war.  The same with a victorious Union army as they marched through the South, burning, robbing, raping, and causing economic disaster for the losing side.  Even after the war a lot of very nasty things went on that are best never forgotten, but always are.  Tubb gives a creditable account of life near the end of the Civil War, and pulls no punches.  A good read, and it made me research the facts about Quantrill. 

 

The Bend At The End of the Road is another good collection of short essays by Malzberg concerning SF writing in the 50s.  Lamenting the demise of SF and trying to reason why might drive a person crazy.  Tolkien, Star Wars, and Star Trek seem to be the main cause, as well as editors who only accepted certain types of SF for publication.  The great comeback in the 60s was due to the British, mostly Moorcock's New Worlds publications, and within that, thanks mostly to Ballard.  This essay collection, published in 2018, contains essays written between 2007-17.  It apparently did not help that more than one Hugo was given out to works that were not SF at all.  

Malzberg is one of the most creative and funniest writers of SF I have come across in the Avon Rediscovery Series.  After reading even a few of his works, it can be seen why he did not become more famous as a writer--his stuff does not fit the category of SF that editors had been hammering into young minds since day one.  However, it is a shame that he did not even attempt to talk about some modern SF writers.  Given the dates of the essays, he does not discuss a single contemporary writer.  Not good, Mr. Malzberg.

Still, these essays are essential reading for people interested in 50s SF, and in discovering why SF writing disappeared (think dragons and elves).  You'll laugh, you'll cry, but you will continue to read the next essay, until there are no more.  Highly recommended for readers of this blog.

 

James Blish wrote critical essays about SF in the 1950s and 1960s, ostensibly to help budding writings in the genre.  He wrote under the name of Atheling, and his cover was not guessed for many years, when he finally came out.  He wrote about the magazine stories from the time, which was virtually the only place to publish SF stories.  The essays contained in The Issue At Hand are full of insight, and make a very good handbook for young writers and older editors.  Having recently read many essays by Barry Malzberg on the subject, Blish excels at getting to his point and proving it, something that Malzberg's essays often lack.  He was a very erudite writer, and not above criticizing his own works in his essays.  His emphasis on stories of humanity often fell on deaf ears for those writers engaged in space opera, but the essays invariably helped many writers, even the pros.  An invaluable gem of a book, unavailable for many years until it appeared on Kindle.  Praise Kindle!

On to the Delphi Classics!  Wilkie Collins wrote a short novel in 1856 called A Rogue's Life.  He made some revisions in 1879 for its first book publication (it had been serialized in a magazine).  He wanted to expand it, but didn't have the time.  A good thing, as it's perfect as it stands.  The son of Dr. Francis Softly tries hard to make a go of things, to uphold his family's high position (through his mother).  He tries learning medicine, but finds it not to his taste.  Next come several very funny episodes where he tries caricature, goes bankrupt and is sent to jail; next comes portrait painting, also a complete flop.  A friend gets him into painting old masters to sell as original works.  A few times he runs into a beautiful young woman who makes his heart flutter.  When the old masters racket is exposed, he flounders for a time.  The young Softly is a terrific character for a novel, and I was very surprised to see that nothing has been done for TV or film with this work.  It is a fun read, just long enough, with one of the most original endings I have ever come across.  A rogue indeed!  If you are a reader who has been put off by Collins' very (very) long novels, this would be a great place to dip into his writing.  Highly recommended!

Next came a strange tale by Joseph Conrad, co-written with Ford Maddox Ford.  The Inheritors is from 1901.  Ford was a neighbour at the time, helping Conrad write in English.  I didn't care much for the novel.  Without the sea it doesn't seem like Conrad, yet.  The book is well written, yet lacks action and emotion.  It is a political thriller that takes place in London, the countryside, and Paris.  The downfall of the old regime is in the hands of a heartless woman, who claims to be from the 4th dimension.  Forgetting that, it is interesting to speculate on how many humans there are that we might know who don't seem quite human.  Conrad digs up a few here, and shines a light upon them.  The main protagonist, a journalist, is used by the lady to help achieve her ends.  He is a pawn on her chessboard, who thinks that he has free will.  He falls in love with her, and needless to say it is unrequited.  At the very end, however, when the cataclysm has stopped its rumbling, she does confess a small bit of feeling for him.  The book ends with the man a lost soul, with nothing to do and nowhere to go.  The novel makes for an interesting read, but certainly not an engaging one.  For Conrad completists, and those trying to assess the influence Ford had on the story.

I read the Delphi Kindle edition.

 Anne Hillerman's latest mystery novel is called Lost Birds, published in 2024.  Continuing to write in her father's footsteps, retired Navajo cop Joe Leaphorn returns to centre stage for this story, mostly set in New Mexico's northwest badlands.  Ms. Hillerman's job is not an easy one.  First, she must use the characters introduced and developed by her father, putting her own spin on things while remaining true to Tony Hillerman's vision.  Second, she must reflect the current Navajo scene without offending anyone, using Native advisors as well as historical truths as a base.  Trying to deal with real problems facing the Navajo Nation is a pretty tough task for a white person to undertake these days.  She must also be very familiar with not only how the Navajo police do their job (and what their job actually is), but also with the NM State Police and the FBI.  Crime scene work today is much different than when Tony Hillerman wrote The Blessing Way, his first novel, back in 1970 (highly recommended reading).

Sometimes those tasks are so daunting that creating a workable plot with new characters can be overwhelming.  Ms. Hillerman has three main characters to deal with in her novels.  They are retired Lieutenant Leaphorn, police lieutenant Jim Chee, and his wife, officer Bernadette (Bernie) Manuelito.  The author jumps back and forth between these three characters throughout most of her 8 or 9 novels.  She not only deals with their police work (the retired Leaphorn is now a private investigator), but also their private lives.  Both sides of the characters are usually dealt with really well.

In the current novel, "lost birds" is an actual moniker for Navajo babies who were adopted into white families to help them escape their origins, and assimilate them into white culture.  This went on, protested by natives, until 1978.  This novel deals with a 50 year old woman trying to find out who her birth mother was.  There is also a murder, and explosion, and packs of wild dogs causing havoc (a real problem on the vast reservation).  The several plots winding through the novel have some holes, but overall it is a good read.  There is a vast area of NM we have yet to visit (next year, fall 2025?), as well as Monument Valley in Arizona, and some essential sites in Utah.  Reading any Hillerman story, by Tony or Anne, puts me in places I would rather be.  Though I can highly recommend most of the books by Tony, Anne does not always measure up to dad's level.  She does come pretty close this time, though.

 

I read the Kindle edition. 

 

F. Marion Crawford's To Leeward was published in 1883.  It is a mostly depressing novel that takes place during a hot summer in Italy.  It begins optimistically enough, with a young and intelligent Leonora marrying Marcantonnio, a well off man from a noble and old Italian family.  He loves her deeply, but it takes her a few months to realize she does not love him.  She is a romantic young thing, and longs for a sweeping heroic manly man to come along and sweep her off her feet.  Along comes Julius Bastiscombe, friend to Marcantonnio's sister.  He sees the lovely Leonora and decides that he must possess her.  Things escalate until the inevitable happens, and she elopes with the rogue.  Marcantonnio goes mad and sets out to kill them both.  So yes, a depressing story.  It is well written, and the characters (there are four main ones, including the sister) are well drawn and quite believable.  To me this would make a decent Merchant/Ivory type of film.  If you like your love stories tragic and very warm, you might like this novel.  However, the sudden and very brief ending to the story was disappointing.  I prefer my endings to epic stories to be somewhat more spacious.

Griffin and Sabine by Nick Bantok was published as three small, very artistic books beginning in 1990.  The second book is called Sabine's Notebook, and the third being The Golden Mean.  These works were first brought to my attention by a friend when they were published in the form of a sort of game for PC.  We bought the books afterwards, and gave them to my father.  When he passed away earlier this year I got the books back, and read them.  The story is told through letters and postcards only.  The first book is the best of the series.  Griffin is a designer of postcards, while Sabine is a stamp designer for a fictitious South Seas Islands country.  He lives in London, and they began to communicate.  A mystery lies at the heart of their relationship, and it is a great pleasure to gradually discover the mystery and its development.  The second book seems to me too much of a frustration, as they each travel across the world to meet, but never do.  Do they ever get to meet?  Read the third book to find out.  Besides the writing, the art is eccentric and quite fabulous, from the postcard designs and including the stamps.  A fun idea well executed, and worth discovering for lovers of things odd and unusual.

Book One of the series of three. 

 

Lastly comes one of the great adventure books of all time, The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle.  Published in 1912, this influential SF novel still makes for fun reading.  Somehow I had never read it before now, despite reading dozens of its imitators.  Of course it was heavily influenced by Jules Verne, but so what.  My Delphi Kindle edition included the original pencil illustrations.  Readers can immediately tell that this is the way adventure books were written back in the good old days, since it takes six or seven chapters to really get going.  But the entire exposition is priceless reading, especially where it concerns Professor Challenger, the man who claimed to have visited a site up the Amazon where prehistoric beasts still roam.  He is certainly one of the more colourful characters from early adventure fiction.  I found this to be a very fun read, despite the lack of female characters (though the lone female character does provide a chuckle or two at the end).  Of course a Mary Kingsley type of character could have easily been introduced as one of the party, but that probably would have stretched readers credulity at the time more than the dinosaurs.

 

Original cover of the first edition.

 

One of several original sketches included in the Kindle edition, done on site by Malone, the reporter who went on the  journey with three others. 

 

That's all the reading news for this month.  See you in August. 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 
 

 

July Reading

 As I am down to five remaining authors in my Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Project, I have more time each month to read beyond it.  My secondary main reading project comes from the almost unbelievable Delphi Classics series on Kindle, as I attack the complete works of so many great authors.  The rest comes from more laissez faire choices, including impulse reading.

All months now begin with something by Robert Silverberg, and will continue to do so until his works are complete.  I estimate about nine more months to spend with this great SF author.  The Positronic Man was a collaboration with Asimov, based on one his his earlier stories.  Silverberg has attempted to make a novel out of it, with limited success.  Short stories usually have one main idea that gets developed, whereas a novel can have several, depending on its length and the skill of its writer.  As a novel, this story of a robot that wants to become human is very single minded, never once deviating from its set course.  In fact, it often becomes monotonous.  Stretching it to novella length might work well, but extending it to a medium sized novel seems to be pushing things too far.  Within the Avon/Equinox series I have read much better and more profound stories about robots seeking humanity.  Top honours would have to go to John Sladek for his robot novels: 2 "Roderick" novels, and his "Tik-Tok", both wicked and funny; and Jack Williamson's brilliant pair of robot novels "The Humanoids", and "The Humanoid Touch".  All of these put Silverberg's novel into perspective very quickly.

 

Avenger of Antares is the 10th novel in the everlasting Dray Prescott series by Bulmer.  Our hero continues to search for the secret to the Havilfar flying machines.  They seem to sell ones to other countries that are prone to crashing, but the ones they keep for themselves fly much more consistently.  Under an assumed name he lives in their major city trying to find out more information.  But his plans (as ever) go awry when the teenage daughter of a good friend is kidnapped.  His friend is badly wounded in the attempt, so Prescott sets out to get her back.  She is no helpless child, though, and when she is finally rescued she manages to fight back quite efficiently, aiding Prescott in her escape.  This is a good addition to the series, which, unlike that of Tubb's Dumerest saga, are novels directly linked to one another.  There is endless material here for an ongoing TV series.

 

E C Tubb's own endless series features SF hero Dumarest, and I read #10, Jondelle. This story is also mainly about a kidnapped child who needs rescuing, but this time it's a boy about 6 or 7 years of age.  Our hero makes a pledge to the boy's dying mother that he will get the boy back.  There is a lot of death and mayhem in this tale, but overall it is a very good entry in the series.  At the very end Dumarest gets yet another clue to the location of Earth.  Will he ever find it?  No, since Tubb never saw fit to allow him to.  That is the real tragedy of this whole series.  Tubb died in 2010, and in 2008 the last volume of the series was published.  So don't expect Dumarest to finally end his quest.  Sadly, it will never end.

 

Moorcock's Elric is back in a novel called The Sleeping Sorceress.  Three linked stories are put together as a novel, with Elric aiding a woman sorceress against a common enemy wizard.  The first two stories are OK, but nowhere near the level of writing one might encounter in Fritz Leiber's word and sorcery writings.  In addition, Leiber's works are filled with wit and humour, whereas Elric is a rather dour old soul.  But the final story, "Three Heroes With a Single Aim," (also previously called "The Vanishing Tower") is right up with the very best of the genre.

 

Cover of the month.  The artist is John Picacio.
 

Lastly came another soft core porn novel, Machine, by Barry Malzberg (under an assumed name, but newly released under his real name) written in the late 60s.  Another small time loser loses big, as his newly opened pinball business is shut down by the local police, and his machines destroyed.  Mixed in with the main story is his relationship with two women, one a college coed and the other his ex wife.  Funny, tragic, and mostly very readable.  His thoughts often turning to pinball game  comparisons as he makes love are quite priceless.  Perhaps a little more "erotic" than his other similar novels, there is still a large helping of literary merit to the book.

Turning to "other" books, Kate Chopin's first novel did not find a publisher.  She published it herself.  Written in 1890, At Fault has its clumsy moments, but overall is well worth reading.  Part of the adventure in reading Chopin's works (I've read most of her short fiction) is trying to decipher and sound out her patois.  The way the French Creoles talk, and the way the Louisiana Blacks talk, is rendered as closely as is humanly possible by the author, and most of it is laugh aloud fun to read.  The story concerns a widowed plantation owner, who takes up the work her husband used to do.  She is a morally strong woman, and will not marry the man who comes to love her because he has been divorced (she is Catholic).  Instead, she talks him into going back to St. Louis and remarrying the girl, and to bring her back to the plantation.  Well, that doesn't work out so well.  Various subplots interweave with the main story, most ending tragically.  But never fear, there are happy endings for some of the folk we have come to know.  A highly readable tale, if you are not put off by the local dialogue rendering.

Next up was a mammoth novel by Wilkie Collins, his 3rd.  From 1854 (he and Dickens were very close friends) comes Hide and Seek, an engrossing tale of lost identity, a woman abandoned by her family (at least by her nutcase aunt), and a kind man who adopts a girl child with an unknown past, though he wants to keep her past secret to prevent anyone finding her and taking her away.  Rescued from a life of hardship and beatings in a circus, Valentine Blyth is determined to save her and take her home.  She has the face of a Raphael Madonna, and Blyth adopts her and brings him home to live, to learn how to draw, and keep his invalid wife company.  Due to a circus accident at a young age, the girl is deaf and dumb.  Collins researched this handicap carefully, and besides the young girl's affliction we also have his wife permanently kept in bed because of a painful spine malady.  Quite unusual main characters for a story from the 1850s!  The first of two books within the novel is called "Hiding," and deals with the girl's history and what little is known of her.  The second book is called "Seeking," and deals with how the truth was discovered about her background, and what happened as a result.  Collins is a master storyteller, with no wasted characters or scenes; everything fits and is required to advance the plot along a fairly seamless line.  The characters of Zack, Mat, and Blyth are very well drawn, the women less so.  Still, this is an engrossing novel, and hard to put down once begun.  Recommended.

I always get very excited when the Delphi reading roster approaches Joseph Conrad again.  Lord Jim, published in novel form in 1900 (it was originally serialized), is one of the most legendary books in literature.  For all its length, it tells a very simple tale.  Jim is the focus, and over time and many pages we learn pretty much there is to know about Jim.  His downfall came during a steamship journey carrying pilgrims towards Mecca.  Jim was the first mate.  Their ship struck something during the night, and was in imminent danger of sinking.  There were not enough lifeboats to rescue all the passengers, nor likely even time to get the boats afloat.  The captain and two crew left the ship by launching one boat.  A fourth man died of a heart attack helping launch the boat.  Much went through Jim's mind in the few seconds he had to decide.  He ended up jumping into the lifeboat.  Well, it turns out the ship did not sink, and the pilgrims were rescued by a French boat that towed them to shore.  The captain ran off before the hearing, the two surviving crew members were hospitalized with shock (and alcoholism), while Jim stood his ground to face the music.  The rest of the novel is his search for inner peace, knowing and accepting what he had done.  With the help of Captain Marlow, he eventually finds a tiny corner of the south east jungle that he can rebuild his character.  However, he is ultimately undone by a Gollum/Wormtongue character.  The book is rich in character development and observation, but the storytelling is somewhat awkward.  Marlow tells the entire tale.  Not once do we get inside Jim's thoughts through his character.  Only his words and actions are reported by Marlow, often from second hand sources.  The tale is not told in a straight forward chronological order, but more or less how things pop into Marlow's mind.  This can be confusing and disconcerting at times, and almost requires a second reading.  Still, a truly amazing novel about a man's lost honour and his search to recover at least a portion of it.

Next came Malzberg's choice for best novel of the 1970s.  Stanley Elkin's The Franchiser has to be read to be believed.  From 1976, its 300+ pages spoof an America caught up in the energy shortage and at a time when franchises were making virtually every city appear the same if looked at from a certain angle.  Ben Flesh owns franchises of about 13 different kinds of stores, including Radio Shack, Mr. Softie Ice Cream, a photo booth, a dry cleaners, etc.  He longs for the day when he will be able to drive into any American city and not know where he is, since every place looks the same.  It is a wonderful send up of an America just beginning to spin out of control.  Left a strange type of inheritance by his dying godfather, he must rely on the old man's 19 off-spring (all identical twins and triplets) to be able to borrow money from the estate at the prime interest rate.  He is on the road for much of the book, and we glimpse his version of America in hilarious scene after scene, all played quite straight by our man Ben Flesh.  His god cousins eventually begin to die tragically but uproariously of strange diseases related to their inferior genes, and poor Ben himself has an onset of MS, which he faces as well as can be expected.  This is the 2nd novel this month to treat disease and handicap in the forefront of the plot.  I have never read a novel  like this before, and can highly recommend it to anyone looking for a nostalgic look back to what America was like 50 years ago.  Or wasn't like.  A truly great, highly creative and unusual novel.

Finally came a guilty pleasure.  Since beginning my SF reading and review project I have read a lot of pulp SF, mystery, etc, written by the 24 Avon/Equinox authors.  I have a ton of respect for these highly underpaid professional writers who cranked out story after story to pay the rent and feed the family.  One of the superhuman heroes of my early teenage years was a character named Doc Savage.  Lester Dent wrote under the house name of Kenneth Robeson, churning out novel after novel of the adventures of Doc and his five sidekicks.  Unlike Conan, these were no barbarians.  They were intellectuals as well as muscle men.  Doc trained (hilariously) every muscle of his body two hours each day (though he never seemed to have the time during any of his adventure novels).  Doc could hypnotize, talk any language (even ancient Mayan!), and do just about anything else that circumstances demanded.  I read about eighty of these before finally giving up.  Philip Jose Farmer continued to develop the character in his own novels (and Tarzan, too!), and wrote a truly amazing biography of Doc (reviewed in my Avon/Equinox blog) which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.  In fact, it got me interested in rereading some of the original tales again.  I bought a kindle version of 10 novels, and finally got around to reading the first one.  Man of Bronze, from 1933, is where it all began.  Doc's father is killed for mysterious reasons by a secret cult, and Doc is soon thrown into his first adventure to make it to print form.  We learn all about Doc and his aides, about their headquarters, and some of their gadgets used to fight crime.  After 50+ years, I think I am enjoying the book more than I did as a youth, but for different reasons.  I read the adventures in earnest as a boy, wanting to be like Doc someday.  Now I read and find myself chuckling at every other paragraph, as Doc undertakes feats no other human being could possible undertake.  Great fun! 

Cover of the first novel.  Art by Walter Baumhofer. 

 

See you next month!

 

Mapman Mike

May Reading Summary

I easily made it through my usual 8 books by remaining authors in the Avon/Equinox project.  The only author I am really tired of is Piers Anthony.  I am going to finish reading the actual books of his I have in my possession, and not purchase any ones I don't have.  I hit some amazing stories this time around by the other writers, so here we go.

First came the next volume of the collected stories of Robert Silverberg, called The Palace At Midnight 1980-82.  Volume 5 of the collected stories contains 23 stories and an intro by the author.  Each individual story also has a short intro by the author.  Seven of the stories turned into top notch ones, with several others being excellent as well.  The best of the them was Homefaring, a novella; The Changeling, Jennifer's Lover, Thesme and Gayhrog (from a short story collection tied to the Majipoor series), The Pope of the Chimps, Gianni, and The Man Who Floated in Time.  Details of these and other stories and books mentioned here can be found at my Avon Equinox blog site.

So things got off to a roaring start.  Then came a novel by Piers Anthony.  The book likely sold well, due to a brilliant cover (which wins this month's Cover of the Month), and the name attached to the story.  It was called Mercycle, and must be avoided by readers at all cost.  If you want proof that just about anything will be published once an author's name is out there, look no further.  First written in 1971, the book was rejected by numerous publishers.  For once, Anthony agreed with them; it was his worst novel.  So he dusted it off, rewrote it, added 25,000 more words, and ended up with--a total mess that should not have been published.  Published in 1991, it is a crime against science fiction and fantasy.

Cover of the Month, by Barclay Shaw.  This colourful and intriguing cover hides a very bad novel. 

Mercifully, along cames Harry Harrison to the rescue.  King and Champion, from 1996, is the third and final book of the author's totally brilliant historical fantasy trilogy, The Hammer and the Cross.  By now it has gone beyond being a totally fantastic series of Vikings versus the English.  The action shifts to the Mediterranean Sea, and the action is almost nonstop.  We learn the real truths behind not only the Grail (which is not a cauldron after all), but what happened to Jesus once he was taken down from the cross (hint: he did not resurrect, because he never died).  This book is the best of the three, and the other two were fantastic to read!  Each book is very long, exceeding 500 pages, but they literally fly past.  Great story!!

Kenneth Bulmer's continuing seafaring adventure series was next.  While very short, these novels are great examples of the best king of pulp style writing.  Fox 3: Prize Money is among the best of Bulmer's writing.  He is not shy to show his great sense of humour, and the way Mr. Fox ends up at the end of the story is quite hilarious.  His prize money (loot from captured galleons) isn't quite what he expected.  He also manages to mostly save the British navy in each book, and not get any credit for it (he is not high born).  A fun series, but devastating at the same time.

Next came Iron Head, a collection of five stories by E C Tubb, another great writer of pulp SF.  The title story is the best of the bunch, detailing what it might be like to be the only non-telepath in a society of telepaths.  Would there be advantages to such a situation, or only condemnation and third class citizenship?  Mr. Tubb will be pleased to tell you all about it.

Jack Williamson was 91 when The Silicon Dagger was published. From 1999 comes this 334 page misnamed adventure thriller.  Any SF element does not become apparent until almost page 190.  Up till then it is a political thriller, with rednecks from Kentucky trying to take over the USA.  A better title would have been The Silicon Shell (as in domed city). The author has a lot to say about the information age and internet (which he calls infonet in the story), as well as freedom, overreach of government, racism, armed militias, and lots of other things that seem to be more current each and every day.  I liked the book up until the SF element makes a rude entrance.  Williamson was not around to see the thing on live TV as we did, when Trump and his supporters tried to take over the White House, claiming that they had not lost the election.  As ugly as that scene was, Williamson's is much uglier when one digs underneath just a little bit.  Try to imagine nearly every county in the US (thousands of them) suddenly deciding they wanted "freedom."  To call this book politically incorrect doesn't  go far enough; it is dangerously politically naive, despite several good points the book brings out.  Read it for yourself and decide.

Next to Harrison's volume, the best book of the month (and best book of many months) was Michael Moorcock's highly imaginative and very effective look at moments in history, called Breakfast In The Ruins, from 1971.  Forget the interludes between two gay men.  Forget the ridiculous "What Would You Do?" segments after each chapter.  Just read the main text, a group of very loosely related historical tales featuring the same character in each story, at a different age.  This is high octane writing at its finest, and the segments would make such a great series of short films.  My favourite one is longer than most of them, and involves Karl as a child getting unwittingly involved with Russians escaping the secret police in Russia, coming to 1905 London to start new lives, and still having to deal with them.  The story is devastating not just for what happens, but for the setting itself, and the people who are trapped by their poor paying jobs, working all hours of the day and into the night.  Each of the tales is a window into worlds that people don't often shine lights into.  They are parts of true history best forgotten, according to many.  But Moorcock gives us scenes of horror from many different countries and times, each one sacrificing a different version of Karl.  The stories don't really even have to be read in any particular order, if the linking story is ignored.  This book must be read.

Lastly came a novel by Malzberg, who hits the 3rd home run of the month (after Harrison and Moorcock), with his unforgettable Lady of a Thousand Sorrows, from 1977.  It is a fictional account of the inner life of Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, and is so brilliant and devastating that Istill can't believe that someone wrote this, and that I stumbled across it.  To a certain generation, the Kennedy assassination was the most traumatic event of our childhood, showing us for the first time that the world could change overnight, and not for the better.  Malzberg gets into  the head of a very private person.  She either would have died laughing if Jackie had read this story, or tried everything in her power to sue for damages.  This a story of stories, told by a master of being able to get inside the minds of warped people.

I began my project of reading the Avon/Equinox SF Rediscovery Series, and then expanded to reading the complete works of those 24 authors represented in the series, six years ago June 1st.  Since then I have read 684 books by those authors (all male, unfortunately).  In this year (#6), I read 102 books, mostly by the remaining 8 authors.  However, in addition I also read 46 books unrelated to my main reading project since last June.  These I call my off the shelf reads, as I try to clear a backlog of novels and non-fiction that have been accumulating on my shelves, awaiting their turn.  This month I managed to read 6 of those, though only one was truly off the shelf.

That one was called A Book of Five Rings, a translation of the famous strategy guide by Musashi.  He had a unique way of killing opponents that seems to have worked well for him, but his ability to communicate his methods to readers is woefully inadequate.  His aversion to schools of martial arts means that we can only try to guess at what he says most of the time.  Still, a lot of his words have been incorporated into these arts for a very long time, likely because they are common knowledge and logical in the first place.  As a person who has studied judo, karate, and iado, I can vouch for the benefit of schools and teachers.  Trying to learn these things from a book just doesn't work very well.  However, a person must also carve out some individuality within these teachings, as must a good piano student from their teacher.  Not a very helpful book, though it does contain several nuggets worth considering.

Next, I greedily read five books from different authors in my Kindle editions of Delphi Classics.  First came Basil, by Wilkie Collins, his first non-historical novel, published in 1852, with some corrections and a new introduction from 1862.  Ah, there is nothing quite like the fever pitch that can be reached in a true Victorian novel, and Basil does the job magnificently.  Consider poor Basil.  Younger son in an old and well established English family, he falls hopelessly in love at first sight with a beautiful young woman (a girl, actually) on an omnibus, a draper's daughter.  He marries her, but promises her father that the marriage will not be physically fulfilled for one year, when the girl will turn 18.  Everything must be kept top secret from his family, of course, as papa is completely intolerant of having anything to do with mere trades people.  The plot thickens as the emotionless, mysterious draper's business aid is seen to have almost total control over the young woman (Margaret).  The story becomes thick and involved, and of course the dreaded "brain fever" strikes our poor hero when he realizes he has been betrayed.  This being only Collins' second novel, by mid-19th C standards it's a pretty good story.  But the hero, Basil, is such a milquetoast that this reader wants to grab and shake him violently at several key moments in the plot, shouting "Do something, you incompetent fool!"

Next came the best book about late 19th C sea travel ever written, saddled with the most unfortunate title of Nigger of the Narcissus.  Joseph Conrad's 1898 novel also uses the "n...." word copiously in the story, thus dooming it from school reading lists, and probably many libraries, today.  While the story centres around Jimmy, a black East Indian sailor, it is mostly about shipboard life on a sea journey from Bombay to London.  Hell, thy name is shipboard life in 1898.  Things don't go too badly until the feared passing of the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa.  This is still a very bad area in which to sail a ship.  The good ship Narcissus encounters a storm of storms, and its fate is narrated with such vivid and detailed descriptions that it will seem as if you, the reader, are on board the boat.  I have never read this Conrad novel before, no doubt put off by the title (which was changed for American publication at the time).  It turned into one of the best novels I have ever read, with drama, humour, insight, a fight against Nature to the death, and more demonstration of sea and ship knowledge than I have ever encountered.  Very highly recommended.  Readers will never think of the ocean in quite the same way after this book.

 After that came another tremendous highlight of my reading career, F Marion Crawford's first novel, Mr. Isasacs, from 1882.  Paul Griggs, an American, is in northern India, working for a newspaper (The Howler!).  He meets the most extraordinary man he has ever met, a Mr. Isaacs, who turns out to be Persian (Iranian), and a learned and very charismatic man.  They become fast friends, and when Mr. Isaac falls madly in love with an English girl, Griggs is there to help him out.  The story takes place after a disastrous encounter in Afghanistan with the British army, and the plot involves rescuing the Emir of Afghanistan from British custody.  However, the plot aside, what make this book so wonderful are the lengthy and varied philosophical discussions the two main characters have, at all hours of the day and night.  It is like an Indian version of My Dinner With Andre, only the discussions here are much more interesting, stretching from females, men, humanity, mysticism, through to the soul.  I found the book fascinating, despite the tiger hunt.

Next was Edgar Wallace's first great mystery novel, the one that nearly bankrupted him when he turned it into a contest to see if anyone could guess the solution to the word puzzle.  A Case For Angel, Esquire is from 1908, and is almost a direct rebuke of the Holmes and Watson stories.  Here we have a most competent and highly intelligent and well informed Scotland Yard detective on the trail of a group of bandits (they are almost comical, and remind me of the Beagle Boys from the Scrooge comics) trying to steal the inheritance of a young lady.  Wallace might be the most prolific author England ever produced, so I look forward to many more hours of fun and pleasure with his upcoming stories.  The lead character, detective Angel Esquire (his odd name is explained near the beginning) also featured in two short stories, which were included with the novel at this point.  "The Yellow Box" is an amusing tale, simply told and easily solved by the detective, reminds me of the first story in the successful African detective series by McCall Smith.  Much longer and more serious is "The Silver Charm," from 1910, which also has amusing aspects, telling a bit about the hero's time in west Africa, which leads to the solution to a mystery.  Several hundred short stories and novels await me.

Lastly came the 3rd Oz book by Frank L Baum, written at the request of children who sent him letters asking for more about Oz.  Ozma of Oz features Dorothy and all her original Oz friends, in addition to some new ones.  The wind up man Tiktok is introduced to readers, and Bill (Billian) the hen.  Dorothy's adventures take place mostly in another kingdom across the desert from Oz, but once her friends arrive to help free 11 captives of the Nome King, things seem as if they are back in a part of Oz.  The writing is truly delightful and fun for an adult to read, and the colour and black and white illustrations, beautifully rendered in my Kindle edition, add zest and energy to the story.

The original cover of the 3rd Oz book.

One of many colour illustrations from the novel, reproduced in my Kindle version from Delphi Classics.  Dorothy and Ozma bargain with the Nome King. 

And so begins a new year of reading within the Avon/Equinox authors, and a continuation in the pruning of my miscellaneous book shelf.  As promised near the end of the last blog entry, I am about to reveal a new reading project, that I will hopefully undertake in the near future.  Since the Avon/Equinox project was an entirely male author reading project, I am going to try and make some amends by embarking on an all female SF author reading project.  I will begin with the Hugo and Nebula winners, and possibly branch out from there.  I will likely bypass the fantasy winners (such as J K Rowling), and try to stick to SF authors.  More later as I develop a reading program.

Mapman Mike