February Books Read

 Mazes of Scorpio is from 1982 and is #27 in the Dray Prescott series by Kenneth Bulmer, writing as Alan Burt Akers.  It was too good to be true when, in the last volume, the evil wizard was finally killed off.  And for a painful few moments it looked as if Bulmer was going to cheat readers and revive him.  Well, thank goodness he didn't.  However, we have now met his wife, a dark witch, and their offspring, a little something or other; we're not yet exactly sure what he is, other than a hermaphrodite.  And also very evil.  Mazes is an adventure novel much in the tradition of Fritz Leiber, still the reigning King of sword and sorcery writers.  Though Bulmer doesn't do too badly, as readers of this series (and this blog) will have found out long before now.  Dray and best friend Seg go chasing after an escaped female prisoner in a flier, and they end up in Pandahem, where it appears they and their readers will spend a lot of time in the upcoming books.  The adventure really begins when they crash (a common occurrence in these novels) and find themselves in a very nasty jungle.  They make their way to a small riverside town, and join up for an expedition to find treasure.  Their adventures are non-stop, as the small group are attacked by nearly everything under the sun and from under a rock.  A lot of time is spent in an underground maze that would challenge Lara Croft to her utter limits of resources and luck.  At last, separated from Seg and the rest of the party, Dray finds himself alone, underground against all comers.  Lots of action, and a finally a bit of help from the gods that have being using Dray for their own purposes throughout the series.  And so on it goes....

 

Original printing of the novel (I read the Kindle omnibus version).

Cover art by Richard Hescox. 

 

From 1975 comes Eloise, a 150 page novel by E. C. Tubb detailing the adventures of Earl Dumarest in his fruitless and endless search for Earth.  He was born there, left as a young boy, and can't seem to find his way back.  Not only that, but no one has ever heard of Earth.  How frustrating for him.  Once in a while he picks up a clue, but not in this story, which is #12 in the series.  He and a musician friend (note the instrument depicted on the DAW cover) crash land on a barren and very snowy and cold planet.  They make their way to a city, and are rescued as they are on their last approach.  We actually have a truly SF story presented to us.   The city is some kind of forgotten experiment, a planned Utopia that has continued to exist longer than its mysterious and long-forgotten creators.  Run by a central computer with a sort of semi-humanized army of robots to control the human population, this reminds me of several stories from the Magnus Robot Fighter comic books.  No, that is not Marilyn Monroe of the cover of the DAW edition; that's Eloise, a dancer who was trapped in the city after coming to entertain the people there.  No one is allowed to leave once they arrive.  Of course, Dumarest will be the exception to that rule.

So many male heroes seem to turn out to be the same guy.  Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, Dray Prescott, Earl Dumarest, Doc Savage, Hercules, Odysseus, Elric; no wonder Michael Moorcock was able to come up with the idea of the Eternal Hero for his many novels featuring supercharged (but human) action heroes.  Interchange any he-man hero for Dumarest, or put him in any of another hero's predicaments, and Voila, the problem gets (eventually, with much strain and muscle and clever and fast thinking) solved.  It's almost miraculous.  

Anyway, Eloise falls for Dumarest and tries her darndest to hang on to him.  But alas, he is caught up in his struggle to find Earth, though we are never told why.  He has a billion other planets to explore.  A good entry in the series.  However, as Dumarest muses at the end, he regrets not getting a chance to ask the city's central computer about Earth.  It was so old that it might have known something.  But he gained nothing towards his goal in this story.  And neither do we.

 

Original printing of the novel (I read the Kindle omnibus version).

Cover art by George Barr.

 

William Morris has written some of the best fantasy novels ever created.  Many of them have already been read, and I've reviewed them on my Ballantine Fantasy blog (see left column for link).  One of his earliest novels predates his true fantasy writing, but with The Roots of the Mountains from 1889 we get as close to fantasy as regular fiction can ever get without crossing the border into it.  This is an epic tale (534 pages), and Morris's influence on Tolkien can be seen everywhere.  While this novel does not approach the author's masterpiece The Well At The World's End, it lays all the necessary groundwork.  The hero of the tale, one Face of God, declines the adventure of a journey to foreign places to gain his manhood, choosing instead to remain at home.  This in itself is anathema to a good fantasy yarn, but don't go away just yet.  As things turn out, staying home was the correct choice in this case.  The lead character can be compared to Aragorn.  The Bride, a female lead, can be compared with Eowyn, and her eventual mate can be compared with Faramir.  The evil Dusky Men are similar to orcs.  The prose is filled with poetry and song, something Tolkien also included in his epic writing.  The Dale sounds a lot like Hobbiton.  And instead of having different groups of men such as shepherds, woodsmen, hunters, etc. as Morris does, Tolkien brought in different races from mythology such as Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits.  The climax of the book is the great battle to recover the Silver Dale from the evil dusky men, and free the slaves they have captured and abused.  But the real core of the book is in the details which the author takes painstaking care to bring to the reader.  The strength of the family, the community, and the wider world of the allies; the rituals that musts be enacted at certain times of year; the continuity of life and love; and the importance of friendship and helping those less fortunate are all important qualities stressed by Morris.  He creates a small Utopia, then presents it to us as gravely threatened, and continues on to demonstrate how the threat can be banished with good leadership and a bond between strong allies. This is a long read, and not all of it marches along smartly.  Readers need to slow down and breathe deeply of the fine, clear air within these pages.  Their reward will be a very unique book, well written, and the harbinger of even greater things to come.

 

The Adventures of Martin Hewitt is from 1896, and contains six more stories of the great detective.  Fans of Sherlock Holmes should love these stories.  This is the third volume, all written for monthly publications by Arthur Morrison before being collected into volumes and republished.  "The Affair of Mrs. Seaton's Child" is one of those cases that Hewitt was not able to solve before it was resolved, and the missing child was safely returned home.  However, he followed up afterwards and was able to solve the mystery of who took the child, how, and why.  An engaging story, though with a somewhat far-fetched premise underlying it.  "The Case of Mr. Gerald's Elopement" sees Hewitt involved with a missing husband, whom the wife accuses of having eloped with a former maid.  Hewitt solves a very peculiar case that eventually sees the husband not only located and without having eloped, but put into custody for making and selling alcohol illegally.  A tale with twists that keep up the reader's interest.  "The Case of the Dead Skipper" is a story that fits more neatly into the Homes canon, as Hewitt and a police inspector solve the mystery of the captain's death and apparent robbery.  Nothing too unusual in this one, though well told.  "The Case of the Flitterbat Lancers" is a creatively titled story about a piece of badly written music that doubles as a cipher.  And "The Case of the Late Mr. Rewse" takes Hewitt to Ireland to solve a well planned murder--or was it?  Finally comes "The Case of the Ward Lane Tabernacle," and though humourous overall, it does have a tragic ending.  The case concerns a sacred relic left to a widow by her uncle, and she believes that a certain green grocer is after it.  As usual, Hewitt confounds his client when he comes up with the solution, and this leads to a continued friendship between them.  The character of the widow is a very colourful one.  All of Morrison's Martin Hewitt tales are highly recommended.

 

Turning now to E. Nesbit, it's time for The Wouldbegoods, the 1901 sequel to 1899's The Story of the Treasure Seekers.  The book is quite long, though each of the chapters are just about the perfect length for a bedtime story if read to children by an adult.  Each chapter is more or less a separate story or adventure, though the book is continuous and events do tie in from story to story.  In my opinion there are just a few too many stories, with the children acting pretty much the same in each story.  Once again the tales are told by Oswald, the elder Bastable child.  Though cleverly written as if by a maturing child, even this gets somewhat tedious after a time, with the "author" praising himself at every turn.  And though the criticism of girls is humourous (by a young boy), it could definitely be taken wrong, even by modern readers.  In other words, by 2025 standards the sexism is quite outrageous.  However, if reading the story to modern children, it would make a good opening for discussions on the topic of what girls can and cannot do.  Overall I did enjoy the book; however, I just found it a bit too much of a good thing.

 

Another classic children's book came next, Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome.  From a much later date of 1930, we once again see a group of siblings heading off into adventure.  There are two boys and two girls, with the the eldest being a boy again.  They are spending the summer in the Lake District and they have a sailboat.  They end up spending several nights camping on an island in the lake.  They meet the rival Amazons, but soon become friends.  So there are actually four girls in the story, and two boys.  The best characters are Titty (Titania?) (such an unfortunate shortened name for present day readers--I never could have read this aloud to my fourth and fifth grade class back in the day), who is perhaps the second youngest, and Roger, the youngest.  Though there is considerable humour throughout the novel, there are also some wonderful insights into a child's thought process.  When Titty is left alone on the island overnight and has her big adventure, followed up later with a treasure hunt, we feel we have met a character with some depth.  The others, especially John, Susan and Peggy, are cardboard characters with little depth and not much to say.  I have never read the book before, but have seen several very good TV adaptations from England, so the story was familiar to me.  I think I enjoyed it a bit more than the E. Nesbit novel, above, though both show incredible imagination and insights into the golden days of childhood.  Highly recommended, and I look forward to the sequels.

 

Lastly came some short work by Edgar Allan Poe.  An unfinished play from 1835 is called "Politian."  Essentially one act was written, from a story based on a real murder case in Kentucky.  Poe transposed the setting and time to 16th C Rome, and is written in pseudo Shakespearean prose.  Just as the story begins to get interesting, it ends suddenly.  He gave up on novels and plays based on advice from friends, and continued to write short fiction for the remainder of his life.

"Metzengerstein" is a fantasy horror tale that involves two feuding families.  It was Poe's first published fiction and is from 1832.  It involves a tapestry with a horse in it, and the decadent lifestyle of a very young man.  The story makes little sense, but it does show that early on Poe was obsessed with certain themes, such as violent death and ironic justice being meted out to those in need of it.

"The Duc de L'Omelette" is the first of Poe's somewhat silly series of tales, and not a very good one.

"A Tale of Jersusalem" tells of an incident at the walls of that city in the times of Roman invasion.

"Loss of Breath" tells of a man who, while raging at his wife, has his breath stolen.  Though he continues to live, he becomes more or less a silent zombie, unable to communicate with other living people.  By chance he meets the man who stole his breath in an undertaker's place, and manages to get it returned.  Another so called humourous tale that does have its moments.

"Bon-Bon" is from 1832, and is just what it claims.  Bon-Bon is the finest chef in Rouen, and also a self-taught philosopher.  His encounter with the devil goes quite well, he thinks.  Or did it?  More dark humour from Poe.

"MS. Found In A Bottle" is from 1833, and is one of Poe's more famous tales.  A sailor and his ship are carried to the far south after being caught in a fierce gale.  Only he and one other man survive the ordeal.  However, there is worse to come.  A ghost ship crewed by elderly sailors smashes the original ship to pieces, and the lone survivor, the writer of the manuscript, ends up on board.  A decent story with a most unhappy ending.

"The Assignation" is an extremely well-written tale that reminded me sometimes of the writing of E.R. Eddison, and even Michael Moorcock, in his European fiction.  The story is set in Venice and concerns two lovers who will never be together in this world, so they plan to meet in the next one.  A very memorable tale.

"Berenice" tells of a man driven mad who extracts the teeth from his dying wife.  Don't ask.  The story, even in its revised edition, takes too long to get going and the reader must wade through a lot of prose before getting to its core.

"Morella" is classic Poe.  A woman dies, leaving a daughter behind with the man who is her father.  An eerie tale, though somewhat confusing.  The daughter ends up actually being the mother, reincarnated, though by the time it happens it is hardly a surprise to the reader.

 

See you next month.  And keep reading!

 

Mapman Mike

February Blahs.

We were promised spring-like weather this week.  Ha, I say.  Not so fast.  Suddenly one awakens one morning and the ten day forecast has mysteriously been changed.  Cold.  Ice and freezing rain.  A snowstorm.  More cold.  Meteorologist paychecks are still drawn, despite the forecast being conveniently rearranged at the last minute.

Regardless of Spring or Winter, indoor activities continue here at the Homestead.  Deb continues to befuddle medical science, but she is still breathing, eating, and walking around.  I had my teeth cleaned last week, and I have now been ice skating 5 times without falling down.  There is also an indoor walking track where I skate, so Deb was able to do some laps there while I prepared for my winter olympic debut.

 

I have been thinking a lot about last October's hiking trip, especially the big hike to the Texas highpoint atop Guadalupe Peak.  Here are a few photos, previously unpublished, of that hike.  Looking at mountain hiking photos later on, I am always astounded that I was actually there.  Sometimes the hikes are so strenuous that memory of many views is completely obliterated, so that without photos much of the grandeur is not only forgotten, but personally disbelieved.  But the photos do testify that yes, I was certainly "there."

 

Even if I had only hiked to this point, the rewards were more than generous.  But this was still early on in my trek to the summit. 

Two panorama shots (six photos in all) giving nearly 360 degree views from the top of Guadalupe Peak.  Clicking on the photos should give a larger image. 

 

At least until astronomy weather returns I have taken up my pencil drawing hobby again.  I am just working with the basic shapes for now; squares, rectangles, cones and so forth.  But soon I shall be drawing elephants!  Watch for it here.  I am still making my way through the Spirograph set, still learning what each wheel combination can do.  The basic set gives hundreds of geometric designs, many of them worth colouring, but some time later, combinations of combinations will give a nearly infinite amount of possibilities.  Here are a few I created and like.

 

This one is pretty trippy.  I was getting nervous near the end, as the pencil had slipped on earlier attempts to complete this.

 

Some Spirograph work from previous sessions. The numbers refer to which wheels 

were used, and in which position.

 

In reading news, I am on my fourth and final Avon/Equinox authors' book for the month, after which I can resume free style reading.  Next up is a long novel by William Morris, a fantasy sequel to his House Of The Wolfings, which I read about a year ago.  It will be a long novel, and will likely take up much of my remaining February reading time.

 

In film news, we watched a strange little number from West Africa (Ivory Coast) called In The Name of Christ.  From 1993, it is about a man who craves power over other people, setting himself up as the cousin of Christ.  Using religion for one's own personal gain is hardly a new concept, but for western viewers this will be a refreshingly different take on a man who demands reverence and worship from his beguiled followers.  I could do without the pig slaughtering scene, and the one with a drowning chicken.  Christianity meets local pagan cults in one of its nearly limitless possibilities.  Parts are hard to watch, and despite being billed as a comedy by Mubi, it is hardly such.

 

Now showing on Mubi. 

 

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

December 2023 Book Reviews

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Cover art by Glen White.   

 

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

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

Cover painting by Antonio Basoli. 

 

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

 

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

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

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

The New Sofa

 The week ended with 5" of rain having fallen onto our yard.  3.5" fell overnight Thursday thru overnight Friday, with much of it falling during the day Friday.  Please, no more rain for a long time.  Our little creek was full to the brim.  A few days ago I could have walked across it in my rubber boots.  Now it's a fast flowing, neck-high dangerous torrent.  Many people in Detroit had just recovered from three weeks ago, when 5"-7" fell over there.  Many had just purchased new appliances and had their basement and homes disinfected.  And guess what?  They got flooded again.

Deb met with her allergy doctor on Thursday.  My piano teacher, Philip A., lives nearby.  So I was able to arrange an in person piano lesson, finally getting to play some of my pieces for criticism.  I will return for more punishment next Thursday morning.  It's great having things to really work on again, mostly ornaments and phrasing.  Luckily the rain did not begin until late Thursday night.  We woke Friday morning to 0.5" in the rain gauge.  Not bad.  We can handle that.  Then came several torrential, tropical downpours, which added another 1.3" of rain.  It rained all day, and by twilight there was another 1.2" in there.  Finally we awoke Saturday morning to a final 0.5".  Add the 1.5" from earlier in the week, and we now have a record number of mosquitoes in our yard.  What a day!  We had windows open most of Friday, and the pounding rain was almost terrifying at times.  Nothing like Germany and Belgium, but if it had carried on, who can tell?  Sunshine is predicted at least until Tuesday.

                                Looking south from a neighbour's bridge towards our property.

Looking south from our property onto another neighbour's bridge.

Meanwhile, our friend Jennifer is in B.C., in the ski town where she used to run a motel.  She still has some property there, and a sister, so she is visiting for the summer.  The B.C. wildfires are back as bad as ever.  Their temps are in the 90s every day, with sunshine.  Things are very, very dry.  Smoke is in the air day and night from nearby fires.  Already a disaster for many, it is likely to get much worse.  Her town, Rossland, is mostly forest.  So far.

The cat actually left the new couch long enough to grab a quick photo yesterday.  Here it is, with our wall of Native art, including the pot, the corn maiden, the main painting (Sacred Place by Jerry Thomas), our framed pipe (beyond the 4-sided CD rack), and kachinas (not seen, below pipe).  Anyway, I've already napped on the couch (with a cat lying on top of me), so it has been fully tested and approved.

The new sofa.  It actually looks better with a cat on it. 

Turning to the world of art (in the DIA), I still am occasionally surprised by what one comes across in the collection.  For instance, on a whim I searched for art by William Morris, the English arts and crafts person.  He is also a writer of wonderful fantasy books (I recently purchased his complete writings on Kindle--I shall write soon about the Delphi collection).  We have visited the museum devoted to him in Walthamstow, London, as well as Red House.  Anyway, I got a few hits on works by him in the collection, including this beautiful cloth, acquired in 1986.

Bird, 1878.  William Morris, English 1834-1896.  Woolen Double Cloth, 60" x 52.5".  Collection Detroit Institute of Arts.

Detail of above. 

    My two film picks were the week were Fox and His Friends, the next film by Fassbinder in the Criterion Collection, and Murder At The Vanities, a somewhat bizarre and ditzy second rate early musical from Hollywood.  Fox (played amazingly well by Fassbinder himself) is a gay carnival worker, who appears there as an advice-giving talking head, amidst dancing girls.  When he wins 500,000 marks in a lottery, his life changes.  At least temporarily.  It's an age-old tale but with a daring twist by the director, as Fox (real name Franz Biberkopf!) burns through money and friends at a fairly rapid rate.  Some very funny scenes and lines, as we explore the upper crust of gay life in Munich at the time (1975).  Poor Biberkopf.

Fox and His Friends, now showing on Criterion. 

Murder At The Vanities is from 1934, about a series of murders that are committed and eventually solved during the opening night of a big musical show.  The most bizarre number is not the song about marijuana (that one is pretty tame), but the three part number that uses Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2.  The first section is called the Rhapsody, and has a pianist and orchestra doing a supposed classical version of the piece.  The next section is called The Rape of the Rhapsody, featuring Duke Ellington and his orchestra jazzing up the music, and a large number of black female dancers dressed as maids!  Yikes.  Next comes The Revenge, where the original orchestra leader (Charles Middleton, no less) takes a machine gun and guns down everyone on stage.  It's quite a number, folks.  Victor McLaglen plays the woman-crazy bumbling detective.

Leaving Criterion July 31st. 

Mapman Mike