April 2024 Books Read

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

I own the Kindle edition. 

 

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

 

Cover by Josh Kirby. 

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

Mapman Mike

 

 

 

January Books Read

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

Mapman Mike