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| 0879977094
| 9780879977092
| 0879977094
| 3.65
| 620
| 1978
| Feb 02, 1982
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really liked it
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In Tanith Lee's first novel written for adults, "The Birthgrave" (1975), Book #1 in her BIRTHGRAVE TRILOGY, the reader had been introduced to a very u
In Tanith Lee's first novel written for adults, "The Birthgrave" (1975), Book #1 in her BIRTHGRAVE TRILOGY, the reader had been introduced to a very unusual young woman. Petite, albino, in command of a range of superhuman abilities, and with no memory of her past or even her own name, she had awoken in the heart of a dormant volcano and ventured forth on an epic journey of self-discovery. In the medieval-seeming world in which she'd traveled, she was hailed as a healer by some, a goddess by others, and had entered into a forced marriage with a magician/warlord named Vazkor. In one of the truly shocking moments of Book #1 (unavoidable spoiler ahead), our heroine had given birth to her son and left him as a changeling of sorts at the hill tribe where she'd been staying; her baby, thus, taking the place of the stillborn boy begat by Tathra, the chieftain's wife. Our itinerant albino had thus gone on with her journeying, leaving the reader to later wonder (to quote the title of an old Grateful Dead song) "What's become of the baby?" Fortunately for Tanith Lee's many fans, the answer to that question was not too long in coming, in Book #2 of the series, "Vazkor, Son of Vazkor." This middle volume, as had "The Birthgrave," was initially released as a DAW paperback, in 1978, this time with cover art from one Gino D'Achille, in full Frank Frazetta/Boris Vallejo mode; DAW would reissue the book in 1982 and '84, with faithful cover art by Ken W. Kelly, and most recently in 2015, with the book's title changed, for some unknown reason, to "Shadowfire." Internationally, the novel would see editions in the U.K. ('78 and '85, as "Shadowfire"), Italy (also '78, as "Vazkor, Figlio di Vazkor," or "Vazkor, Son of 鈥�" well, you know), Holland ('79 and '86, as "Schaduwvuur," or "Shadowfire"), Germany ('79, as "Vazkor") and France ('84 and '89, as "Vazkor"). This sequel was a much shorter affair as compared to its predecessor (90,000 words, rather than the original's 185,000) but still managed to cram a remarkable abundance of detail and plot into its compact package. The story commences a full 14 years following the events of Book #1, and is narrated this time by the mystery woman's son himself, Tuvek. His tale is divided into two lengthy and discrete sections, the first of which largely transpires among the barbarous hill tribe where we'd last seen him as a newborn. Thus, we once again meet Ettook, the piggish chief of the tribe whom Tuvek despises but acts civilly to; Tathra, the out-of-tribe headwife of Ettook and Tuvek's supposed mother; Kotta, a blind nurse who yet sees more than most; Seel, the malicious head priest; and Seel-Na, the priest's lustful yet spiteful daughter. On the arrival of his 14th year, Tuvek is declared a warrior when he bests four adult males in combat, but to the tribe's dismay, it turns out that the young man cannot receive his ceremonial tattooing, his skin seemingly rejecting the ink somehow. As our narrator's story progresses, he discovers that he possesses several other physical anomalies as well: His wounds heal remarkably quickly, he can somehow understand foreign tongues, and, most distressing of all, he can kill with just a glance (all powers that his unsuspected mother commanded, as well). By the time he is 19, Tuvek, we learn, possesses three wives, has fathered 13 sons, and has killed over 40 men. When a band of soldiers from the White Desert city of Eshkorek-Arnor arrives from across the mountains with cannon, attacks Ettook's tribe as well as some of the neighboring tribes, and captures many men to be used as slaves, Tuvek follows them, single-handed. He frees the captured men and with them slays their Eshkor attackers, a task made easier by the city men's stunned reaction to finding the spitting image of the long-dead Vazkor in their midst. Tuvek returns to his tribe a hero, bringing with him Demizdor, a beautiful city woman whom he soon makes his fourth wife. All seems well, until the dark day when Tathra dies giving birth to another stillborn; Kotta tells Tuvek of his actual origin; Tuvek kills Ettook using the unsuspected mental powers that are his; and Demizdor's cousins, Zrenn and Orek, arrive in force to rescue the young lady and take vengeance on Tuvek himself. So ends the first section. In the second, Tuvek is brought to Eshkorek-Arnor, a city-state much degraded after the martial events of Book #1. There, he is held by one of the city's competing princes, Kortis, before being abducted by Prince Erran, who plans to use Tuvek as a horse breaker as well as the sire of a new race of indestructible supermen. But when our narrator kills an Eshkorek nobleman in anger, Erran decides to change his plans, and instead perform some radical body amputations on Tuvek, as a scientific study in regeneration. With Demizdor's assistance, Tuvek escapes the city via a miles-long underground tunnel built by the dead race known as the Lost Ones, from which race, he has learned, his actual mother sprang. After a weeks-long chase, our hero manages to slay most of his pursuers, and makes his way to the edge of the sea, where he meets a young witch/healer named Hwenit. At Hwenit's village, he meets her father, Peyuan, who had been one of his mother's nine protectors in Book #1. From this kindly black man, now the head of his own village, Tuvek (who has come to identify more and more with his father, even thinking of himself as Vazkor by name) learns even more of his mysterious mother, who had vanished so completely two decades earlier. Along with Hwenit and one other, Vazkor, uh, Jr. retreats to an empty island some miles offshore to hide from his remaining pursuers. And it is on that lonely island that the final showdown will eventually come.... Now, if I seem to have given away too much of Tanith Lee's astonishing story line here, please rest assured that what you have just read is merely the sketchiest of outlines of what is actually a fairly complex and beautifully detailed affair. Unlike Book #1, which can rightly be labeled an epic fantasy with a distinct leavening of sci-fi, this sequel contains not a trace of science fiction to speak of, and I suppose might be termed a heroic fantasy, perhaps of the sword & sorcery ilk, with a decided debt to Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian. As in the first book, Lee's extraordinary use of language is a major selling point here; thus, the reader might expect to encounter such sentences as these: "The seasons slunk past like people in a mist." "The gate between her thighs was golden as her hair, and the road beyond the gate was made for kings." "The night had turned chill, blue-black as raven's wings with stars caught in the feathers of it." It would seem that the unschooled Tuvek, like his mother, wrote surpassingly well, a fact that might cause the reader to wonder how this barbarous warrior is capable of penning his story so impressively. But then again, we must recall that Tuvek was somehow capable of understanding all tongues, and that we have no idea how old he is when he sat down to write his story. All I know is, he employs some words here that even I had to break out the ol' Merriam-Webster鈥檚 to look up: "dawson," "jink," "byre," "smalt," "carious," "equerry" and "clepsydra." And I just love his term for a dead person: "crowpie"! I'll try to remember that one going forward! Again to her great credit, Tanith Lee does a marvelous job at switching from a female narrator's voice to a male POV, and writes convincingly as a young man with a fairly brutal attitude toward life and women. Thus, we get sentences such as these: "May you eat dung and pass blood, and may the ravens squabble for your liver." "Presently, I had a city sword, red to its hilt, and I was bathed with blood." "These men who had jeered as they watched me writhe in Eshkorek now ended their quest on my blades." You'd never guess these words were written by a 30-year-old woman, would you? To give Tuvek his due, the character does change over the course of his story, and the tragedies he suffers, as well as his love affair with Demizdor, do ultimately reveal a more compassionate side to his nature...not that he ever loses his ability to mete out death and destruction in a wholesale manner! Speaking of which, Tuvek's grim story does contain much in the way of strong violence (Erann's description of his proposed plan for scientific study is especially grisly), and the book contains a fairly high body count. Indeed, more than half of the novel's main players lie dead by its conclusion, so perhaps it would be best to not grow overly attached to any one character! "Vazkor, Son of Vazkor" does not feature quite as many scenes of thrilling action, intense drama or astonishing revelation as had "The Birthgrave," but again, the sequel is only half as long! (Plus, nothing could possibly top that amazing chariot race in Book #1!) Still, any number of sequences do manage to make an impact. Among them: Tuvek's fight with four adult men during the Boys' Rite; the Eshkorians' stunning cannon attack; Tuvek's daring rescue of the kidnapped men, and his victorious return to the tribe that was already conducting his funeral rites; Tuvek's falling out with his beloved "mother," Tathra; a poisoning attempt on Tuvek's wedding night; the back-to-back-to-back death of Tathra/revelation of Kotta/slaying of Ettook (a very tough day for our young narrator!); the breaking of a drugged and murderous horse in Prince Erran's stable; the 10-day chase through the underground Worm's Way; Tuvek's slaying of 18 of his pursuers via sword, knife and mind; Peyuan's wonderful recounting of the events he witnessed in Book #1; and finally, Tuvek's showdown with Zrenn and Orek on that desert island. Prospective readers should also prepare themselves for a surprising bit of brother-sister incest, some casually brutal treatment of female tribe members, and three scenes of unexpected suicide. Truly, nothing seemed to be off-limits for the young Tanith Lee! For the rest of it, this sequel also features some wonderful details regarding Tuvek's tribal life: the Boys' Rite, weddings, migrations, burials, even divorce. (As for the latter, it seems to be largely a matter of bringing the Mrs. back to her father's tent, saying "Here is your daughter...You may have her back," renouncing the kids you had with her, throwing down some gold, and that's it! Easy-peasy! I love it!) And, I might add, it really is nice seeing those half dozen characters from Book #1 again! All told, the novel is another fairly remarkable piece of work from Tanith Lee, concerning which I only have two minor quibbles. First, her repeated confusing of the words "turgid" and "turbid." (Sometimes, I feel like I'm one of the few who can discern the difference!) And second, this Book #2 of THE BIRTHGRAVE TRILOGY fails to reveal which world we are on (Earth? Who knows?) and what happened to Tuvek's mother after the events of "The Birthgrave." Hopefully, these matters will be addressed in Book #3. But really, these are my only quibbles here! At the tail end of his narrative, Tuvek--in full hatred of his mother for having abandoned him 19 years earlier, and for having killed the father he now fully identifies with--swears an oath to avenge Vazkor by seeking out his mother and killing her! Along with the Eshkorian slave Long-Eye, he pushes off from that barren island, heading for an unknown land to the southeast, as his new quest begins. What in the world (whichever world this might be) could possibly happen next? I suppose I'll just have to proceed on to Book #3, the culmination of the trilogy, "Quest for the White Witch" (also released in 1978), to find out more. Stay tuned.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Tanith Lee....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 2025
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Apr 2025
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Apr 21, 2025
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0860079422
| 9780860079422
| 0860079422
| 3.78
| 1,708
| Jun 1975
| Jun 1975
|
it was amazing
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I have long maintained that when checking out an author with whom you are not familiar, sometimes, the safest bet is to go back to the beginning. Gran
I have long maintained that when checking out an author with whom you are not familiar, sometimes, the safest bet is to go back to the beginning. Granted, this is hardly a foolproof method, and very often a writer's first novel is far from his or her best effort. Still, there is a certain neatness in this technique, and sometimes, when unsure how to approach a given author's vast and imposing oeuvre, it can yield satisfying results. Case in point: my recent experience with British author Tanith Lee, and her first novel written for an adult audience, "The Birthgrave." Now, I know that for most readers of fantasy, sci-fi and horror, Tanith Lee is hardly a new proposition (as usual, I'm a little late hopping aboard the bandwagon), and indeed, before her passing in 2015, at the age of 67, this remarkably prolific, London-born author managed to somehow come out with no fewer than 90 novels and 300 short stories! She was the first woman to be accorded the British Fantasy Award and was a two-time recipient of the World Fantasy Award, among other honors. Still, as I say, for this reader, she was an untried gamble, until recently, although "The Birthgrave" had been sitting on my shelf for decades. But on the occasion of the book's 50th anniversary, I decided to finally give it a try, and oh my goodness, am I ever glad I did! As I just inferred, "The Birthgrave" was originally released in 1975 as a $1.50 DAW paperback (the edition that's been browning on my shelf here at home for half a century), with cover art by George Barr. Previously, Lee had come out with three books geared for children: "The Dragon Hoard" (1971), "Princess Hynchatti and Some Other Surprises" ('72), and "Animal Castle" (also '72). As revealed by DAW editor Betsy Wollheim, Lee's habit was to write all her early books in shorthand, after which her mother would type them up on thin, onionskin paper. Such was the case with "The Birthgrave"...all 185,000 words, or 400+ pages, of it. DAW would later reprint the book in 1981, with a beautifully faithful cover by one Ken W. Kelly. Internationally, the book was published in the U.K. ('77), Holland ('78, '84 and '87, as "Het Geboortegraf," or "The Birthgrave"), Italy (also '78, as "Nata dal Vulcano," or "Born From the Volcano"), Germany ('79 and '96, as "Im Herzen des Vulkans," or "In the Heart of the Volcano"), Belgium (also '79, as "Le Reveil du Volkan," or "The Awakening of the Volcano"), France ('84, '87, '91 and '93, as "La Deesse Voilee," or "The Veiled Goddess," AND "La Saga d鈥橴asti," or "The Saga of Uasti") and, finally, Finland (2006, as "Synnyinhauta," or "Birthgrave"). "The Birthgrave" would be nominated for the 1975 Nebula Award--a pretty impressive feat for a first-time adult novelist--ultimately losing to Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War." A stunning amalgam of epic fantasy latterly joined to a surprising bit of science fiction, Lee's novel, lengthy as it was, soon proved to be just the opening salvo in a series of books today known as THE BIRTHGRAVE TRILOGY, its two sequels, "Vazkor, Son of Vazkor" and "Quest for the White Witch," both coming out in 1978, three years later. Now, as for "The Birthgrave" itself: The book is narrated to us by a young woman who awakens in the heart of a dormant volcano. She has no memory of her former existence, although as the book proceeds she has dreams/visions of her old life, in the palaces of a mighty race, now extinct, and today called by many the Lost Ones. A woman without a past or even a name, she learns from an evil spirit, Karrakaz, that she is cursed, and that if she ventures outside of the volcano, she will bring death and destruction wherever she goes...prophetic words, indeed. As is gradually revealed during her narrative, our young heroine here is no ordinary woman, and possesses an array of almost superhuman abilities: She can heal others, and her own wounds heal remarkably quickly. She can kill with a glance. She can understand other people's languages and mentally dominate them. She can go indefinitely without food, water and even air. She can raise storms, and even earth tremors. And, it seems, she is virtually immortal, surviving a lightning strike, knife and sword slayings, even a cave-in. Just who is this woman? As she exits the volcano, seemingly causing it to catastrophically erupt, in search of her past and the Jade that Karrakaz mentions is her "soul-kin," her journey of self-discovery gets under way. During the course of her tale, she will be called Imma (or "small one"), Uasta ("healer") or Uastis ("goddess") by others. Going veiled most of the time to cover her hideous visage, "unbearable to look on" (as one of the characters later says of her, "I call her a woman for want of a description vile enough to suit her looks"!), the white-haired, diminutive yet oh-so spunky woman will, ultimately, reclaim her past, and come to remember her true name. Her story is divided into three lengthy sections. In the first, our narrator exits from that erupting volcano and enters a medieval-seeming world comprised of small villages and large city-states. In the first village she comes to, she is greeted as a goddess and a healer. She there encounters Darak, the leader of a bandit gang, and enters into a sort of love-hate relationship with him. When Darak's band goes off to attack a merchant caravan, she accompanies them in the fighting, having already charmed three of his men--Maggur, Giltt and Kel--into being her protectors. When the bandit gang arrives at the city of Ankurum to sell their stolen goods, our heroine goes along with the ruse, and later enters a chariot race called the Sagare: a high-speed contest on an obstacle course with two-man chariot teams, the charioteer himself and the arrowman who shoots at the opposing vehicles. (Here, Darak is the charioteer, and our narrator the arrow slinger.) When Darak is later captured and killed, along with his men, our heroine takes vengeance on the person responsible, and then heads into the nearby mountains. In the book's second section, our narrator falls in with a group of wagoners heading for a snowy mountain pass. Uasti, the elderly healer woman of the group, teaches her more of the healing arts, and relates some of the lore she's heard of the Lost Ones. When Uasti is murdered, our narrator becomes the group's new healer. The band crosses an enormous inland sea and comes to a land of Dark People. When soldiers from the city-state of Ezlann arrive, conscript the wagoners to be forced soldiers, and murder our heroine with multiple stabbings, she rises from the dead and goes after them to effect a rescue. At Ezlann, she meets the city's ruler, the teenaged Asren, whom she is forced to marry after being hailed as a goddess. After Asren is killed, most likely by the head of the Ezlann military, Vazkor, she is forced to marry him and becomes pregnant with his child. Vazkor claims to also be a descendant of the Lost Ones and does wield superhuman abilities of his own. His goal, with his new wife's help, is to unite the six cities of the White Desert--Ezlann, SoEss, Ammath, Kmiss, Za and Eshkorek-Arnor--with himself as supreme warlord, and then march forth to defeat the six cities of the Purple Valley and the 10 cities of Sea's Edge. Our expectant narrator accompanies her husband on these campaigns in the Purple Valley, and then spends some months in the conquered city of Belhannor. With the assistance of her three newest protectors--Mazlek, Slor and Dnarl--she manages to escape from an uprising after the tide of Vazkor's campaign turns. At the lonely Tower Eshkorek, she learns the truth regarding Asren's death, has a showdown with her detested husband, and is buried alive when the tower is destroyed by opposing forces. Finally, in the third section, our narrator is discovered in the rubble of Tower Eshkorek by a hill tribe of the east and is later forced to act as a sort of slave woman in the barbarous clan. There, she meets Ettook, the leader of the group; his pregnant wife Tathra; a blind nurse woman, Kotta; and Seel, a spiteful "holy man." When Tathra's baby turns out to be stillborn, our narrator leaves the tribe. She wanders alone in the mountains and lower marshes for weeks, half mad, before falling in with a group of marsh folk and traveling with them to the sea. With a trio of new protectors--Fethlin, Wexl and Peyuan--she discovers the remnants of a city of the Lost Ones, fights off an enormous lizard with them, and enters a mysterious "hollow star" recently fallen from the heavens. And it is there that our heroine finally discovers the secret of her history, and learns her true name at last.... Now, I realize that I seem to have given away a lot of the story line of "The Birthgrave" here, but trust me, what you've just read is merely the bare-bones outline of a truly epic journey; you wouldn't believe how many plot details I haven't mentioned! The book poses many questions along the way that help keep the reader fascinated and completely invested: Who is this unique woman? What is her background? Who were the Lost Ones, and what became of them? Why has our narrator been cursed by Karrakaz? Where did her powers spring from? Does her story transpire on Earth or on another world? (There are Earth animals such as goats, sheep, cats and horses in evidence, but who knows?) Why does our heroine seem to keep attracting trios of men to act as her protectors? (Not that she really needs them!) Our narrator makes for a truly fascinating lead character, at once strong, self-willed, sympathetic, pitiable, mysterious and tough; a warrior, archer and swordswoman, all in one petite package! While getting deeper into "The Birthgrave," the thought that will most likely occur to most readers is that this really is an astonishingly fine first effort...especially since it was penned by someone in her mid-20s! It is a remarkably self-assured debut, and a complete success. Equally astonishing is the fact that numerous publishers actually turned Tanith Lee's manuscript down before Donald A. Wollheim at DAW gave it the green light. And then, the book went on to earn that Nebula nomination. Go figure! This lengthy work is the type of fully realized novel that you can immerse yourself in for days; it is a terrific feat of world building, unnamed as that world might be. Marion Zimmer Bradley, in her intro to the DAW edition, claims to have read Lee's manuscript in five hours (a rate of 80+ pages/hour), which strikes me as being way too fast a rate for savoring the book's manifold fine qualities and delicious use of language. Still, I can well agree with MZB's initial thought upon turning over the final page: "Wow! Oh, wow!" I mentioned Lee's wonderful use of language just now, and her lucid yet detailed prose, often poetic, is surely one of her novel's major selling points. Thus, the reader might expect to encounter sentences such as these: "The sky was indigo, choked and bruised with hate; the air seemed filled with the wings of beating blue eagles." "Like the numbed white snow that would not break for spring, so my life seemed hardened and numbed by a covering I could not break." "...the trunks stood up like dim dark pillars irregularly carved, and supporting moonlight on their latticed arms." "The night was sliding down behind the land on ruffled wings, and the bitter cold of the sea-dawn fastened on me." And on and on, irresistibly pulling the reader in. My thanks to Ms. Lee also for turning me on to such words as "judder," "veridian" and "fulvous." And I love the Lost Ones' term for any inferior people: shlevakin! Almost sounds like Yiddish, doesn't it? I look forward to calling somebody that one day! As might be expected, Tanith's book contains any number of wonderfully well-executed action sequences, as well as moments of startling dramatic intensity and gasp-inducing revelation. Among them: the violent and bloody attack on the merchant caravan; the Sagare chariot race; the attacks on the Purple Valley cities of Orash and Belhannor; the frenzied escape from Belhannor; the discovery of Asren's ultimate fate; our heroine's battle to the death with her husband Vazkor; the births of Tathra's and our heroine's children, and what becomes of them; the exploration of the Lost Ones' deserted city; the fight with the monstrous lizard; our narrator's experiences inside the "hollow star"; and finally, the revelation of her past, and her remembrance of her actual name. What a spectacular TV miniseries or series of cinematic blockbusters this one book could be turned into! But it is the chariot race that I would like to pay special homage to here. It is a remarkable sequence that could have easily served as the action climax in most books, and yet that occurs at this novel's one-third mark. In it, eight two-man chariots compete on a long, hazardous oval, replete with gateway obstacles, gushing water, pillars of fire, and deep, treacherous pits...run while the teams' archers shoot arrows at one another! Amazingly, it is a chariot race that makes the classic one in the 1959 film "Ben-Hur" seem tame by comparison; an absolute tour de force for Tanith Lee, as she describes this eight-way contest both lucidly and thrillingly. Talk about your "Wow! Oh, wow!" Some truly bravura work here! For the rest of it, "The Birthgrave" also offers up some pleasing moments of shocking grotesquerie, such as the sight of those merchant-caravan soldiers in their skull masks, and the scene in which three young women in the village of the Dark Ones are shown fornicating with a giant reptile (thankfully, not quite as large as the dragon-sized one that our heroine later encounters!). The book has a very high body count, and readers should be advised not to get overly attached to any single character in it! Lee's novel also offers up some nicely done political machinations, and well-handled war plotting. Its introduction of the sci-fi element toward the conclusion may strike some as being shoehorned in, but is actually telegraphed and set up on at least three occasions during our narrator's tale. Personally, I found that sci-fi segment pretty wonderful. And oh...in a bit of prescience 50 years before the fact, our narrator tells us, regarding Vazkor and his corrupt government in Ezlann: "...What other men he had set in high places, I did not yet know, but I guessed there would be many, all with a taste for command and for the good things it brought, very loyal to the man who had given them so much, and too stupid to see even further profit in overthrowing their benefactor...." Don't those words seem more relevant than ever in the political climate of today? If there is one single quibble that I might levy against Tanith Lee's extraordinary work here, it is the nature of the psychological explanation employed to clarify our narrator's mental state. Viewers of such wonderful films as Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound" (1945) and Compton Bennett's "The Seventh Veil" (also 1945) will perhaps be familiar with the kind of improbable psychological explanations I'm referring to here. Still, again, all those details were telegraphed all along the way, and do manage to hang together logically. For an author who supposedly just made stuff up as she progressed in her novels, with no definite idea of where she was headed, Tanith Lee's work here shows a very clear through path from beginning to end. By the conclusion of her first novel for adults, all of our questions regarding our narrator have been answered, but many questions as to the world she inhabits remain. I suppose that I will just have to proceed on to Book #2 in the trilogy, "Vazkor, Son of Vazkor," to find out more. Stay tuned.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Tanith Lee....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 2025
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Mar 2025
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Apr 19, 2025
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0020077661
| 9780020077664
| 0020077661
| 4.00
| 104
| 1968
| Jan 01, 1968
|
really liked it
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Although Ohio-born author Edmond Hamilton had given his readers much in the way of action, spectacle, alien races, futuristic science, and cosmic wond
Although Ohio-born author Edmond Hamilton had given his readers much in the way of action, spectacle, alien races, futuristic science, and cosmic wonder in the first two novels of his so-called STARWOLF TRILOGY--"The Weapon From Beyond" (1967) and "The Closed Worlds" (1968)--there was yet one element that he seemed to be holding in abeyance. In Book #1, the reader had met Morgan Chane, an orphan born of Earthling missionary parents, who had been brought up by the piratical Starwolves on the planet Varna. Chane, we learned, had been forced to flee from his Starwolf brothers after killing one of them in self-defense and arousing one of the Varnan clans to seek vengeance. Chane had gone on to work with a band of Terran-based mercenaries, the Mercs, headed by the aging but still highly capable John Dilullo, and in those first two installments of the trilogy had narrowly escaped with his life on two very tough missions with them. But in all those hundreds of pages of derring-do, what Hamilton had neglected to give his readers were the Starwolves themselves, and a visit to the planet Varna. Oh, we'd run into their ships in deep space, and were even vouchsafed glimpses of their world, via Chane's recollections and his consciousness roaming while in the grip of the alien artifact known as the Free-Faring. But a trip to Varna itself, and the Starwolves as actual characters in his saga, these would have to wait until Book #3, the appropriately titled "World of the Starwolves," also released in 1968. Like its two predecessors, "World of the Starwolves" first saw the light of Earthday as a 50-cent Ace paperback with cover artwork by the great Jack Gaughan; again like its predecessors, this would be the novel's only stand-alone, English-language edition. Internationally, however, the book would appear in Italy (1969, as "Le Stelle del Silenzio," or "The Stars of Silence"), Germany (also 1969, as "Die Singenden Sarnen," or "The Singing Suns") and France (1978, as "La Planete des Loups," or "Planet of Wolves"). And as I've said elsewhere, for those smart shoppers who would like to acquire this entire trilogy in one big, English-language volume, please know that two such do exist under the title "Starwolf": the 1982 paperback from Ace and the 1985 paperback from the English publisher Hamlyn/Arrow. I was happy to nab a beautiful, unread copy of that 1982 Ace volume for a good price online, and don't expect that you'll have much trouble finding one either. Now, as for "World of the Starwolves" itself: John Dilullo had only agreed to go on the hazardous assignment that comprised Book #2 in order to raise enough money to build himself a lavish retirement home in the quaint area of Italy known as Brindisi, and as Book #3 opens, we find Dilullo sitting in that old town, a month or two later. His dream home has not even gotten off the planning stages, and before long, Chane arrives and tells his Merc leader that he doesn't believe retirement is in the cards for him; as Dilullo is forced to agree much later in the story, "A starman's home is space." And when Chane goes on to tell of a plan that he has concocted, Dilullo is instantly drawn in. The Starwolves, it seems, had recently struck the planet Achernar and made off with one of the most precious artifacts in the galaxy, the Singing Suns: a mobile consisting of 40 synthetic gems, each one representing one of the galaxy's largest stars, that spun about one another and made music in a ceaseless dance of mazelike movement and fluctuating sound. Achernar is now offering a reward of 2 million space credits for the mobile's return, the accomplishment of which will not be easy, seeing that the Varnans have undoubtedly sold the gems individually to multiple buyers. Little deterred, Dilullo puts together the same band of Mercs that we'd encountered in Book #2, and, with Chane aboard (the Starwolf's background still unknown to all the Mercs save Dilullo), off they go on their seemingly impossible quest. The first stop for Dilullo & Co. is the planet Mruun, where they forcibly extract information from the mind of a well-known fence named Klloya-Klloy. While on Mruun, the Mercs save the life of a drunken Paragaran--an enormous dog/bear humanoid--in a street brawl, and bring the creature, named Gwaath, along with them to the storm-lashed world of Rith, whose king--the diminutive, red-skinned Eron--supposedly purchased six of the jewels. But Eron gives them a piece of news that comes as a stunning blow. All 40 of the stolen gems had been purchased by middlemen agents, only to be resold to a race known as the Qajars, whose planet, Chlamm, orbits a dying sun in a neglected section of the galaxy. The Qajars are lovers of beauty and unique artifacts, and their world is a treasure trove that no other races, not even the Varnans, have even heard about. The Qajars are thought to be sadistic, despite their aestheticism, and have jealously guarded their isolation by turning the dead worlds of their cluster into actual superbombs! When Chane, Dilullo and Gwaath approach the planet Chlamm they are subjected to a killing bombardment of energy that agonizes their nerves and brains, forcing them to flee, more dead than alive, back to Rith, where the disgusted King Eron holds all the Mercs as temporary prisoners. And so, Chane decides that there is only one course of action open to him: He will somehow escape from his prison tower on Rith, make it through the eternally storm-lashed landscape to the nearby starport, steal a one-man cruiser, fly to Varna--the homeworld where he is a wanted man--and there try to enlist the Starwolves' aid in sacking the previously unknown treasure planet. It would seem that, despite all the odds, this erstwhile Starwolf will finally be coming home.... As you may have discerned, this final book in the STARWOLF TRILOGY--which was, incidentally, the final novel of Hamilton's more than 40-year career--is something of a heist caper, but here, the heist involves making away with the treasures of the galaxy's most heavily defended planet! If I were forced to name the book's single greatest selling point, it would be getting to actually visit Varna, getting to know some of the other Starwolves, and witnessing those Vikings of the spaceways as they pull off this daring heist. And so, we get to see one of the Varnan Council meetings, their fast-moving battle tactics in space, and how their raids proceed once they land on their target planets. One might not applaud the Starwolves' pillaging ways, but we do have to admire the skill and planning that go into every one of their incursions. Like Books 1 and 2 in this series, "World of the Starwolves" is penned in a wonderfully readable style, its cliff-hanger chapters impelling the reader irresistibly on. Once again, Hamilton delivers a book with much in the way of color, drive and panache, not to mention (or did I just imagine it?) a bit more humor than was evident before. And much of that humor comes from the bantering relationship between Eron and Chane, and from the booze-guzzling giant Gwaath (who reminded me of a friendlier Chewbacca of "Star Wars" fame, nine years before that latter character first appeared). Once again, Hamilton gives his readers a raft of interesting alien races: the gray-skinned, Humpty Dumpty folk of Mruun; the hard-drinking, brawling Paragarans; the red-skinned Rithians on their planet of eternal storm; and the sadistic Qajar aesthetes of Chlamm. And as usual, here, we are given a well-drawn slate of secondary characters. Among them: Eron and Gwaath, Berkt (an older Starwolf who was friends with Morgan's parents and who is now one of his few friends on Varna) and Harkann (one of the two Varnan brothers who have sworn a blood feud with Chane). And typical for Hamilton, he provides his readers with numerous bits of futuristic superscience to dazzle their senses. Some of these gizmos not found in the first two novels include a telepathic recording that Chane finds inside an ancient statue floating in space; an "alarm-damper," a handy tool for a Starwolf to have when breaking into a building; "deherer disks," "a device that shortcuts the will completely and makes truthful responses mandatory"; a tridim camera with sensor rays, handy for taking holographic images of a building's interior from the outside; the long-distance neural torture that the Qajars employ; the Varnans' anti-radiation helmets for dampening that neural torture, partially if not wholly; the stunner cannons that the Starwolves use to incapacitate whole populations; and the hovercraft sleds on which the Varnans pile their loot and lead it back to their ships. Perhaps it goes without saying that Hamilton regales the reader with any number of wonders and exciting set pieces in this, the culmination of the STARWOLF saga. Some of my favorites in this regard are the sight of one particular sun that has birthed comets instead of planets, which orbit their primary like moths; Chane and Dilullo's hoodwinking of Klloya-Klloy in his heavily guarded estate; the punishing nerve torture that our heroes undergo; Chane's escape from his Rithian imprisonment; the segment in which Chane goes back to Varna, spends time with old friends, gets drunk with fellow Starwolves, visits his parents' graves, makes his presentation before the Council, and encounters Harkann on a nighttime street; and, of course, the Varnans' raid on Chlamm, making their way through a series of booby-trapped, exploding planets and engaging the Qajars in space battle before looting their treasure world. I must say that it really is wonderful to see Hamilton--whose nickname during sci-fi's Golden Age was "The World Wrecker" due to his propensity for destroying entire planets and suns in his stories--casually exploding dead world after dead world one more time in this, his final book. Talk about living up to your nickname! For the rest of it, "World of the Starwolves" once again posits the notion that Earth's human beings and the humanoid residents of countless other worlds in this galaxy had been seeded by an ancient race, an idea also proposed in Hamilton's wonderful novel "The Haunted Stars" (1960). And strangely enough, there also seems to be a nod of sorts to (Hamilton's good friend) Jack Williamson's conceit of "sentient stars," a topic explored in some depth in Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson's "Rogue Star," a book that I recently experienced and that also first appeared in 1968. Thus, while becoming entranced by the Singing Suns, Chane wonders: "...What did stars talk about, in that silver-singing speech? Of the birth of the universe, when they first exploded into being? Of the mighty rivers of force that ran between them, of the darkening and dying of old comrades, of the dreadful and glorious fate of novae, of the thin, far-off messages that came from brother giants remote across the intergalactic void?...." Some lovely images there, right? And oh...a great big thank-you to Edmond Hamilton for turning me on to the words "fubsy," "prat," "chatoyant," "screek" and "pawky" during the course of this book...but how odd to see the Golden Age sci-fi master employing the term "hipped"! Well, this was the late 1960s, after all! This reader had not one nitpicking quibble to raise regarding Hamilton's work in Book #2, but I do have a few to offer with this Book #3. For one thing, we don't get to see any of the Mercs other than Dilullo as this novel draws to its hasty conclusion; no good-byes to the men we'd come to know and respect. This reader was also hoping for a scene in which Chane's Starwolf background is finally discovered by his Merc mates, but no such luck. Another scene that I was hoping for was one showing a resolution of that blood feud, either by having Chane do battle with Harkann and his clan, OR by having the clan drop their feud entirely in recognition of Morgan guiding them to their greatest raid ever. Again, no such luck. It's almost as if Hamilton had been toying with the idea of reserving those incidents for a possible Book #4 in the series, which I would have welcomed; sadly, that fourth installment was just not to be. And then there's the matter of Hamilton giving one of the Varnan Council members the name "Yarr." But wasn't "Yarr" also the name of the Arkuu capital city in Book #2? With a galaxy of names to choose from, why repeat? Still, as I say, these are merely quibbles. I've mentioned elsewhere what marvelous cinematic entertainments these STARWOLF books might have been turned into, and apparently, the Japanese thought so, too. I've just noticed that in 1978, the year after Hamilton's passing, the trilogy was indeed adapted for Japanese television in two dozen 30-minute episodes! These episodes were later edited into two films--"Fugitive Alien" and "Star Force: Fugitive Alien II"--that were shown on American TV. I would love to see those episodes or films someday, although I can't help feeling that it is in the books where the real fun resides. Edmond Hamilton passed away on February 1, 1977, at the age of 72, and I have long thought it a shame that he didn't live long enough to see the opening of that previously mentioned "Star Wars" film, three months later. That motion picture ushered in a new wave of popularity for the science-fictional space opera, a genre that Hamilton, along with Williamson and E. E. "Doc" Smith, helped to create over half a century earlier. How gratified he would have been! Only a couple of short stories would flow from Hamilton's typewriter following the STARWOLF TRILOGY, a series of books that shows the old master in very fine form, indeed, as he approached the end of a truly glorious career. It is a trilogy that comes with my heartiest seal of approval! (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Edmond Hamilton....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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Mar 2025
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Apr 14, 2025
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Mass Market Paperback
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really liked it
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In Edmond Hamilton's 1967 novel "The Weapon From Beyond," Book #1 of his so-called STARWOLF TRILOGY, the reader had been introduced to Morgan Chane, a
In Edmond Hamilton's 1967 novel "The Weapon From Beyond," Book #1 of his so-called STARWOLF TRILOGY, the reader had been introduced to Morgan Chane, an orphaned Earthling who had been brought up and raised by the piratical Starwolves of the planet Varna. In that first installment, Chane had been forced to flee from the vengeful Varnans after having killed one of them in self-defense, and had gone on to work with a group of mercenaries, the Mercs, on one of their exciting missions. That first installment had been as colorful and as action-packed an adventure as any sci-fi fan could have hoped for, so perhaps it came as something of a surprise when Hamilton delivered a sequel the following year that was even more thrilling than its predecessor; the second STARWOLF novel, entitled "The Closed Worlds." "The Closed Worlds," like "The Weapon From Beyond," was originally released as a 50-cent Ace paperback, and again with cover art by the great Jack Gaughan. This would be the book's sole appearance in a stand-alone, English-language edition. Internationally, however, the novel would appear in Italy (also in 1968, but under the title "Pianeta Perduto," or "Lost Planet"), Germany (1969, as "Todesschranke um Allubane," or "Death Barrier Around Allubane") and France (1978, as "Les Mondes Interdits," or "Forbidden Worlds"). And for those smart shoppers curious to know whether all three STARWOLF novels might be purchased in one giant volume, please know that two such English-language collections do exist: the 1982 paperback from Ace, entitled "Starwolf," and the 1985 paperback from English publisher Hamlyn/Arrow, also entitled "Starwolf." In this Book #2 of the trilogy, we find Chane and John Dilullo, the aging but still highly capable leader of selectively recruited Merc bands, recuperating after the rigors they had experienced in Book #1. But before long, Dilullo is offered another contract, this time from the wealthy industrialist James Ashton. It seems that five months earlier, Ashton's younger brother, Randall, an extraterrestrial anthropologist, had gotten wind of some fantastic discovery on one of the so-called Closed Worlds. He had gone there to investigate along with four other specialists and had never returned, and now his older brother has grown worried. Thus, the Mercs' mission (if they choose to accept it): gain access to the Closed Worlds--three planets orbiting the star Allubane in the Perseus Arm of the galaxy, whose residents have long forbidden outsiders from landing in their solar system--find Randall Ashton and bring him back...if he's still alive. Dilullo, hoping to retire soon and build himself a beautiful seaside home in Brindisi, finds that he cannot resist Ashton's offer of $500,000 for himself and his crew to get the job done, and so accepts the contract, knowing full well what a dangerous assignment this might turn out to be. But even he could have no idea of what perils were to come! Thus, in a few days, a crew is put together (this reader could not help thinking of Dan Briggs or Jim Phelps putting together an IMF team!)...a different crew than the one we'd encountered in Book #1, except for Bollard, the corpulent engineer with whom Chane enjoys a bantering relationship despite their mutual respect, and, of course, Chane himself. Upon landing on the main planet of the Closed Worlds, Arkuu, the Mercs are summarily ordered to leave by a delegation headed by the muscular leader Helmer. The Mercs do indeed depart, only to make a survey of the two other planets and then sneak back into Yarr, Arkuu's capital city, at night. During a hazardous nocturnal raid, they manage to rescue one of Randall Ashton's team, a Mexican anthropologist named Garcia, as well as an Amazonian Arkuun woman named Vreya, who was also being held captive by the government because she is an Open-Worlder, advocating for a renewal of galactic contact. The Mercs quickly depart with the two hostages and hide out in an abandoned Arkuun city surrounded by scarlet jungle, where Chane has an unfortunate run-in with the Nanes: humanoid, artificially created creatures that were concocted by the Arkuun scientists long ago. Eventually, after eluding Helmer's men and following several air battles with them, the Mercs succeed in tracking Ashton to the heart of a rugged mountain in the far north, and discover the mind-blowing artifact called the Free-Faring that has caused the Arkuuns to proscribe their worlds; an artifact so chilling that even the Starwolves of Varna have a tradition of avoiding the area. And even after the revelation of the Free-Faring, and the finding of Randall Ashton, it would seem that the Mercs' ultrahazardous mission is far from over... I am happy to report that readers looking for an exciting, wonder-filled, action-packed space adventure will have to look long and hard before finding one much better than "The Closed Worlds." Remarkably, this STARWOLF installment is even more rip-roaring than the first had been; a book that, almost from its first page, plies the reader with a barrage of nonstop thrills. The book manages to hit all the sweet spots, with its pleasing story line, interesting cast of characters, fascinating aliens (both benign and monstrous), witty dialogue, and even a touch of (dare I say it?) romance. And oh my gosh, those cinematic, action-filled set pieces! (What a film this book could be turned into!) Let's take things one by one. As for the alien life-forms we encounter here, there are the iggin, the white night-bats of planet Arcturus Two; the flying snake thingies and six-limbed bearlike creatures encountered on Allubane Three; and those monstrous, Morlock-like Nanes. Regarding those latter, Vreya tells Chane "They were designed to take liquid artificial food...But they learned to beat animal flesh into a pulp and ingest it that way." To which our Starwolf hero succinctly replies "Nice." This Book #2 does not introduce as many gizmos of futuristic superscience as had the first, other than the light-bombs used to dazzle the enemy (don't we already have something like that today?), but still, there is the Free-Faring, which {SLIGHT SPOILER AHEAD} is capable of separating a person's mind and body and sending that disembodied consciousness traveling across the galaxy! Perhaps The Moody Blues was right: Thinking really is the best way to travel! As mentioned, this Book #2 gives us an essentially new crew of Mercs, each of which is nicely differentiated, as well as a raft of interesting secondary characters. Among them: the beautiful Vreya, who dreams of visiting other worlds, turns out to be as tough as any of the Mercs, and to whom Chane finds himself surprisingly attracted; Randall Ashton, a man who has become addicted to Free-Faring, while his physical body wastes away inside that Arkuun mountain; and Milner, one of the more violent and bloodthirsty of the Mercs who is yet an expert shot with laser weapons. Hamilton adds a touch of literary cachet to his novel by having one of the Mercs quote a snippet of a poem by American writer George Sterling, and by giving us a section in which Dilullo and Chane discuss the classic Mark Twain novel "Huckleberry Finn" (1885), of which the Starwolf is wholly unaware. And, as had Book #1, "The Closed Worlds" also provides the reader with some occasional food for thought, such as when Dilullo disgustedly opines "Damn all fanatics...They get themselves and a lot of other people killed because they won't argue for their ideas--they have to enforce them." As to all the book's wonderfully well-done set pieces, they come at us fairly rapidly, and indeed, during the last 40 pages or so of the story, we get four outstanding ones, back to back to back to back. Among my favorites: Chane (during his first visit to Earth) and Dilullo getting mugged in a NYC alley...to the muggers' eternal regret; Chane touring around Carnarvon, Wales, his parents' hometown, and carousing with some of the locals there; the short stay that the Mercs have on Allubane Three; that daring nighttime rescue in Yarr; Chane vs. three Nanes in a very unequal fight, outside of a deserted Arkuun city; the air battles that the Mercs engage in with Helmer's fliers en route to the northern mountains; the jaw-dropping spectacle of Chane Free-Faring through space, his consciousness viewing numerous cosmic wonders and even paying a visit to the Varnan capital city of Krak; the multiple bombing runs that our heroes must endure from Arkuun fliers; the protracted trek through the Arkuun jungles that the Mercs undergo...weeks of slogging while fighting off Nanes all the way; and finally, the remarkable segment in which our brave band, rafting down an Arkuun river, fend off dozens of Nanes leaping upon them from dilapidated bridges near another abandoned city. Some seriously nail-biting sequences here, trust me, from an author who'd been perfecting his hand at this kind of thing since the 1920s! Like all good central books in a trilogy, "The Closed Worlds" expands on what we had learned earlier. Thus, for the first time, we are given a look at the Starwolves' planet, thanks to Chane's galaxy-spanning consciousness. For the first time, we learn something about the workings of the organization that Dilullo and his fellows belong to, and even get to visit the headquarters of the Guild of Mercenaries, aka Merc Hall, in NYC. And for the first time, we discover a bit about the background of Chane's missionary parents. Dilullo's personal history is also given to us here, and this Book #2 places more emphasis than had Book #1 on the Merc leader's concerns about growing older and his ability to lead men. "I get my hair cut real short...But I can't get it cut short enough to keep the gray from showing around the edges," he tells Chane at one point. At another moment, he looks at Chane talking to Vreya and thinks "I wish I were young and carefree like that again...." Eventually, our Starwolf is compelled to tell him "You ought to do something about that age-obsession of yours"! "Aren't Starwolves worried about getting old?," Dilullo responds. To which Chane replies "The kind of a life a Starwolf leads, he doesn't have too many worries on that score." I love it! I also can't help but wonder if the 64-year-old Hamilton was beginning to feel his own years, at this stage of his lengthy career. Sharp-eyed readers may note that, just as Book #1 had arrived carrying a hint of the classic "Star Trek" episode "Errand of Mercy," Book #2 contains more than a whiff of the classic "Star Trek" two-parter "The Menagerie," with its own "closed world," Talos IV...and proscribed for similar reasons, too. Was Hamilton by any chance a "Star Trek" fan back in the mid-'60s? It would almost seem inevitable! At bottom, "The Closed Worlds" is a hugely entertaining sci-fi romp; pure entertainment from start to finish line. Hamilton makes no missteps here, and for once I have no nitpicking quibbles to make. And really, any novel that could introduce me to the word "diastrophism" can't be all bad, right? At the tail end of this Book #2, Chane, feeling homesick after his disembodied visit to Varna, declares to Dilullo that he'd like to make an actual visit in the flesh someday soon...despite the fact that he is a hunted man there. And since the title of Book #3 IS "World of the Starwolves," it would seem that such a homecoming might actually be in Morgan Chane's future. Guess I'll just have to crack open that final novel in the trilogy to find out. Stay tuned.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of Edmond Hamilton....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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Apr 04, 2025
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ebook
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really liked it
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While reading Edmond Hamilton's 1966 novel "Doomstar," I labored under the mistaken idea that this was the final work given to us by the Golden Age sc
While reading Edmond Hamilton's 1966 novel "Doomstar," I labored under the mistaken idea that this was the final work given to us by the Golden Age sci-fi master, and as it turns out, that thought was far from being correct. I have since found out that Hamilton did indeed come out with more work shortly after "Doomstar" appeared...in fact, an entire trilogy of books! I have no idea how that trilogy had escaped my earlier awareness, but for a long while now, I've been wanting to one day experience those three books. One of my favorite reads of 2024 had been Hamilton's "The Haunted Stars" (1960), a wonderful novel that combined Golden Age plotting with the author's more-sophisticated writing style of his later years. I'd been hankering for another dose of latter-day Hamilton ever since, and this trinity thus seemed made to order. The three books in question are the so-called STARWOLF TRILOGY, and are comprised of the novels "The Weapon From Beyond" (1967), "The Closed Worlds" (1968) and "World of the Starwolves" (also 1968). For the sake of convenience, I will be examining the books individually here, starting, of course, with "The Weapon From Beyond." "The Weapon From Beyond" was originally released as a 50-cent Ace paperback here in the U.S. Internationally, the novel would see editions in Portugal (1967, under the title "Arma do Alem," or "The Weapon From Beyond"), Italy ('68, as "Il Lupo dei Cieli," or "The Wolf of the Skies"), Germany ('69, as "Der Sternenwolf," or "The Star Wolf," and featuring a beautifully faithful piece of cover art), Sweden ('70, as "Vapnet Fran det Okanda," or "The Weapon of the Unknown") and Japan ('70). For those readers today who might be desirous of purchasing the trilogy in one big volume, please know that such do exist: for example, the English-language ones from Ace, simply entitled "Starwolf" ('82, and the edition that I was happy to lay hands on), and the one from the British publisher Hamlyn/Arrow ('85, also simply titled "Starwolf"). Now, as for "The Weapon From Beyond" itself, the book was released when Hamilton was already 63 years old, and 10 years prior to his passing. The book is set in an indeterminate future age in which space flight and space commerce have been long established. Against this backdrop the reader is introduced to Morgan Chane, one of the piratical Starwolves of the planet Varna. Decades earlier, Chane's parents had arrived on Varna from Earth as missionaries and had succumbed to the world's heavy gravity. Chane had somehow survived and had been taken in by the Starwolves there. But shortly before the events of this book commence, Morgan had had a falling out with one of his fellow raiders, Ssander, involving spoils following a foray. Chane had killed Ssander in self-defense, and as this Book #1 opens, he is fleeing from the vengeful Starwolves and attempting to hide his one-man cruiser in the gaseous murk of the parsecs-wide Corvus Nebula. His lot is made even worse when he espies another ship. If it is a cruiser belonging to the Starwolves, he is a dead man; if it is not, he will most assuredly be killed anyway, if his identity as a former Starwolf is discovered. And when his craft is damaged by a marble-sized bit of space junk, knocking out the ship's drive, Morgan has no other choice than to suit up and, using hand-held impellers, try to make it to the mystery cruiser. Fortunately for him, the ship belongs to a band of mercenaries, the Mercs, whose leader, John Dilullo, although recognizing Chane for what he is, nevertheless gives him a chance to work along with them on their current mission...or else. And Morgan, a man without a friend in the world(s) and nothing else to do, has no choice but to concur. Thus, before long, the Mercs land on the planet Kharal, in the Corvus Nebula, and take on their new assignment. It seems that the Kharalis' enemies, the people of Vhol on the outer planet of their star system, have reportedly come into possession of a new kind of superweapon; one that is being developed somewhere in the immense nebula. The Mercs' mission (if they choose to accept it) is to locate this new superweapon and then destroy it. After some tense days on Kharal, during which Chane is imprisoned and compelled to escape from a guarded jail cell, the Mercs make their way to the beautiful planet of Vhol to do some spying, under the guise of being purveyors of conventional armaments. More escapades ensue, after which the crew is compelled to fight their way off the planet and back into space. Casting about the nebula once again, the Mercs have the bad luck of running into a squadron of Starwolf cruisers, and since the space pirates are capable of zipping along at far greater velocities than any other ships in the galaxy (due to their ability to resist killing acceleration pressures), things begin to look very grim, indeed...and even worse, when a Vhollan cruiser joins the battle! But ultimately, Dilullo & Co., with Chane beside them--his identity still a secret from all but the Merc leader--do indeed find what they are looking for, on an unnamed planet in the Corvus Nebula. And, it would appear, this discovery will just be the prelude to some more jaw-dropping wonders.... "The Weapon From Beyond," to its very great credit, is a book that features virtually nonstop action, movement and color all the way through. That elusive sense of wonder, so highly esteemed by readers during science fiction's Golden Age, is very pronounced here, too. Hamilton, after over four decades of nonstop productivity, had perfected a wonderfully readable style by this point, and the cliff-hanger chapters here seem to make those pages fly by. Besides the space travel, alien races and galactic commerce, Hamilton peppers his book with all manner of interesting futuristic touches. And so, we witness Chane being treated with a "healamp" to do away with a grievous wound sustained in battle; Chane employing a "miniaturized ato-flash" gizmo to cut through the bars in his jail cell; a portable analyzer whose "fingering rays" help examine the innards of the most arcane devices; and, of course, those nasty laser pistols that every race in the galaxy seems to favor. Adding to the exotic flavor of the book are the alien races that Hamilton gives us in this outing: the slender, seven-foot-tall, blue-skinned Kharalis; the albino Vhols; and the amber-skinned, seemingly jointless Krii, whose wrecked starship the Mercs discover on that nameless planet. Oh...and let's not forget some of those interesting critters to be found on Vhol: the Pyam, a telepathic, turnip-shaped thing; the snokk, a wallabylike animal with a friendly, canine disposition; and the Golden Ones, enormous sea creatures far far larger than a Terran whale. No, we don't get to see the Varnan Starwolves here--only their space cruisers--although one senses that they will surely make an appearance later in the trilogy. Very few authors were capable of depicting space battles better than Edmond Hamilton (see such novels as 1929's "Outside the Universe" and 1930's "The Universe Wreckers" if you don't believe me!), so it might seem strange that in this Book #1, the ship-to-ship engagements are present but considerably downplayed. Still, any number of exciting set pieces are to be had. Among them: the spacesuit-clad Chane adrift in that nebula, his cruiser having gone blooey, hoping against hope to be spotted and rescued; his escape from that jail cell in a mountain-city on Kharal; Chane breaking into a heavily guarded spaceport warehouse on Vhol, to see what has just been delivered from the heart of the nebula; the Mercs escaping from house detention on Vhol and fighting their way back to the ship; the attack of the Starwolves in the Corvus Nebula; the discovery of the Vhollan superweapon on the lost planet; the exploration of the derelict Krii ship; Chane and two other Mercs' scaling of a precipice to fire a laser weapon at two Vhollan heavy cruisers; and finally, the arrival of the Krii themselves, in a scene that might bring to mind the return of the Llorn in "The Haunted Stars." For the rest of it, "The Weapon From Beyond" also gives us an interesting roster of secondary characters. Dilullo shows himself to be both highly capable and not a little tough, despite the fact that he is getting up in years; his second in command, the corpulent engineer Bollard, remains absolutely unflappable during times of crisis; Thrandirin, a Vhollan government functionary, impresses by dint of his sneakiness and arrogance; and Labdibdin, a Vhollan scientist working on the lost planet, ingratiates because he seems to be the only Vhollan more interested in research than in weapons. The book gives readers some occasional food for thought, too, in addition to the relentless action. Thus, when Chane tells Labdibdin that the Krii "must have been the greatest looters in the universe," based on all the galactic artifacts and flora and fauna samples in their wrecked ship, the Vhollan replies "Not looters. Scientists. Collectors of knowledge." To which the Starwolf replies "I see. It all depends on who does it." A good part of the fun in Hamilton's book comes from watching Chane as he endeavors to conceal his superior abilities--running speed, strength, withstanding crushing velocity pressures--from the other Mercs. And it is surely nice to observe the Starwolf gain a grudging respect for the weaker Mercs from Earth, and vice versa. Oh...and I love the concept of the lingua-franca "galacto" language that enables all the alien races to communicate with one another here; no need for the Universal Translator found in the original "Star Trek"! And speaking of "Star Trek," fans of that show might pick up on a hint of the Season 1 episode "Errand of Mercy," to be found near the end of Hamilton's story. As the kids like to say today, if you know, you know. At one point in Hamilton's novel, Dilullo is accosted by a green-skinned madam on Vhol, who tells him "The ninety-nine joys dwell here, oh Earthman!" To which Dilullo replies "Not I, mother. I crave the hundredth joy...the joy of sitting down quietly and reading a good book." And it seems to me that Edmond Hamilton, with "The Weapon From Beyond," has given his many fans a very good book to sit down with, indeed! By the end of this first installment, Chane has accepted an offer to work indefinitely with the Mercs, while the two brothers of the deceased Ssander continue to comb the galaxy to take their bloody vengeance on him. What could possibly happen next? I guess I'll just have to crack open Book #2, "The Closed Worlds," to find out. Stay tuned.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of sci-fi adventure tales....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 2025
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Feb 2025
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Mar 24, 2025
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Mass Market Paperback
| |||||||||||||||||
| 0234776315
| 9780234776315
| B000NX8WPY
| 3.22
| 138
| 1969
| 1972
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really liked it
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Have you ever read a science-fiction book that was so bizarre, so way-out, that you said to yourself "How did the author ever think of this? What was
Have you ever read a science-fiction book that was so bizarre, so way-out, that you said to yourself "How did the author ever think of this? What was he smoking? Did she possibly eat a Fluffernutter and headcheese sandwich, go to bed, and dream the whole thing up?" It's happened to me any number of times, with such novels as Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore's "The Well of the Worlds" (1952), Robert Silverberg's "Son of Man" (1971) and Philip K. Dick's "Lies, Inc." (1983). And it has just occurred most recently again, as I got deeper and deeper into Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson's third installment of their so-called STARCHILD TRILOGY, namely "Rogue Star." Not that the first two books in this series had arrived with a dearth of imagination on display...far from it! In Book #1, "The Reefs of Space" (1963), we'd been shown an Earth some 200 years in the future, in which a vast computer ruled all of humanity in conformity with its Plan of Man; an age in which the titular Reefs, composed of the fusorian life-forms that fused hydrogen and spontaneously created life, were discovered beyond the orbit of Pluto. In Book #2, "Starchild" (1965), we'd learned that those microscopic fusorians, when absorbed into the heart of a sun, could actually transform that star into a sentient being! Surely, some way-out concepts here for any reader, and yet even those two novels could not have prepared Pohl & Williamson's fans for what was to come next. Like its two predecessors, "Rogue Star" initially shone forth as a three-part serial in the pages of the digest-sized magazine "If," for which Pohl himself worked as editor from 1962 to '69; in this case, the June, July and August 1968 issues. It would then be released as a 75-cent Ballantine paperback in 1969 and as a $1.25 Ballantine paperback in 1973 (inflation in a nutshell!). Internationally, the book would see reprints in Portugal ('71), the U.K. ('72), Germany ('76), Italy ('77 and 2002) and France ('80). For those smart shoppers who wish to purchase the entire trilogy between two covers today, please know that such volumes do exist, from Doubleday ('77), Pocket Books (also '77), Penguin ('80) and Baen ('86). So many options for those who would like to experience this truly mind-blowing set of books! Sharp-eyed readers of "Rogue Star" will note that this book is set a good 1,000 years following the events of Book #2; a time so far removed from the age of the Plan of Man and the all-powerful Planning Machine that those facets of human history are barely remembered. Mankind has spread itself not only across the Milky Way but across the nearby galaxies, as well. The bulk of humanity has chosen to accept the fusorian symbiotes into their own bodies, not only ensuring an exemption from disease and even death, but becoming able to be as one with all the other galactic citizens, robots and sentient stars similarly blessed. Yes, the result is a certain loss of individuality and assertiveness, but surely that is a small price to pay, right? A religion has sprung up that venerates the sentient star Almalik, spokesperson/spokestar of a 13-sun grouping in the Cygnus constellation, while an organization called the Companions of the Star (whose members remain clearheaded individuals by dint of never having received the boon of the symbiotes) exists "to do things for the members of the multiple citizen Cygnus that they are not free to do for themselves." Against this backdrop the reader is introduced to a short, balding Monitor of the organization named Andreas Quamodian, who is stationed on planet Exion Four, a few galaxies over. Andy and his colleagues had been studying so-called "rogue stars"...sentient stars that for whatever antisocial inclination of their own have decided to not become mentally linked to their fellows. Five years earlier, two of Andy's team, his beloved Molly Zaldivar and his nemesis for her affections, Cliff Hawk (I wish my name were Cliff Hawk!), had returned to Earth, and as this Book #3 begins, Andy receives a desperate appeal for help from Molly. It seems that Hawk had decided to create a miniature rogue star in a laboratory setting, and that his incredibly dangerous work was now very close to completion! Wasting absolutely no time at all, Andy goes into full hero mode. He takes his flyer to the nearest "transflex station," to be warped across the light-millennia to Earth. After an inadvertent marooning on another planet, on which he finds a similarly marooned Monitor named Clothilde Kwai Kwich, Andy arrives on Earth (we gather that he is somewhere in the Southwest of what used to be the U.S.A.) and, with the help of a local kid, Rufe, ascertains Molly's whereabouts. But he is unfortunately just a wee bit late. Hawk, along with his Viking-like, blond-bearded associate Reefer (gee, I wish my name were Reefer!)--so called because he hails from those Reefs of Space--has just about completed his work. But disastrously, a sudden lab accident destroys the cave they had been working in, and the miniature rogue star is set free. When Hawk succumbs to his injuries following the explosion, the rogue absorbs him and gains a bit of his thought patterns. It thus becomes somehow attracted to the organized bit of organic matter known as Molly! When Molly is injured after our own sun (previously thought to have been nonsentient) hurls a series of solar flares at the cave mouth, the rogue cares for her. And like a lovesick schoolboy, the rogue--growing ever larger, more powerful and more knowledgeable as it assimilates the organic and inorganic matter around it--decides that it just cannot bear to be without its Molly. Eventually, it determines that it must now destroy the star known as Almalik, of which it has become aware, and that it will have Molly beside it as it lays waste to Almalik's multiple planets! It would seem that little Andy Quam, the redheaded kid called Rufe, and the burly Reefer man surely have their work cut out for them.... As you might be able to tell, "Rogue Star" really is a work of unfettered imagination by these two future sci-fi Grand Masters. In the final section of the novel, when our young rogue is grabbing on to a planet and tossing moons about in abandon, all in furtherance of its plan to smash an entire solar system, Williamson almost seems to be paying homage to his old friend , Edmond "The World Wrecker" Hamilton, in a segment that should appeal hugely to all fans of Golden Age sci-fi. The authors' description of a rogue star is quite fascinating, too: The rogue can鈥檛 be placed "...in any normal pattern, even for sentient stars. Its power is unlimited. But its motives are incomprehensible. Its sheer intelligence is just about absolute. But its ignorance of other beings--especially of human beings--is nearly total. Its resulting behavior can be appallingly na茂ve, or stunningly clever, or simply insane...." Of course, that description that Clothilde gives to Andy is valid for an eons-old mature star; our infant rogue here is a far different proposition, and one of the most fascinating aspects of the novel is getting to see the universe from the monster's (that's Molly's preferred term for it) nascent POV. Imagine a child's budding awareness, but here, we have an all-powerful child capable of seeing things as waveforms and energy fluctuations, and able to control them! Thus, our monster casually picks up and moves enormous pieces of equipment, teleports a refrigerator from a house 20 miles away so Molly can have something to eat, and takes mental command of the Reefer's pet sleeth (a flying, squidlike creature bred to attack and kill the pyropods of Books 1 and 2)! This reader has always been a sucker for the parallel story-line device, and the authors here do give us a doozy. Thus, we continually shift between Molly's plight with the rogue star, and Andy's efforts to do something, anything to help her. In truth, the book does not provide the reader with as many action-filled set pieces as had the head-scratcher that was Book #2, but there are yet some memorable ones. To wit: Andy and Clothilde marooned on that planet with a giant red star hanging in the sky; the rogue taking Molly deeper into the cavern system, where the ancient Plan of Man once harbored an installation, now dangerously radioactive; the rogue taking control of an entire world to hurl into Almalik; and a look at the primary city on Almalik's third planet, and its citizens from all over the galaxy endeavoring to escape their imminent demises by getting into the transflex station. The book is also brimming with numerous instances of futuristic superscience, including Andy's air flyer, complete with very chatty computer; those wonderful transflex stations (go anywhere in five galaxies by just having someone punch in your coordinates...who needs a starship?!); and the musical instrument that Molly's aunt is seen playing, which transforms the player's emotions into sound, colors and scents. And the book also gives us a host of remarkable aliens to wonder at. Thus, three of Andy's fellow Monitors include a cloudlike, pink bubble gentleman; a "multiple citizen" consisting of a dozen, green springlike coils turning in orbit around one another; and a creature combining the physical attributes of an elephant, a shark, a kangaroo and a star-nosed mole! As I said, what were these guys smoking? "Rogue Star" is also interesting in that the Reefs of Space, so fundamental an aspect of the first two books in the series, are barely touched upon here, and neither is Book #2's Starchild. Perhaps these three books might be more appropriately referred to as the FUSORIAN TRILOGY; at least, those microscopic entities do feature in all three of the novels. Another interesting aspect here comes when Andy wonders if retaining his individuality is a reasonable trade-off for sacrificing the perfect peace, health and communion that becoming one with the fusorian symbiotes brings. I'm really not sure which way I'd go, given the offer. Remaining me or becoming one with billions of other entities...that is a poser! And the authors' work here is also interesting in that, going against the reader's expectations, Andy, though he does his darnedest to be Molly's heroic savior, ultimately does not affect the outcome of events one way or the other. His intentions are good, but surprisingly, of little or no avail. Still, likeable and sympathetic as he is, we cannot help but root for him. This final book in the trilogy does happily resolve some of the many questions left unanswered in Book #2, but not all. And it raises some conundrums of its own, as well; I'm still wondering why Clothilde and Molly are described as being almost identical. A consolation prize for Andy, perhaps? Pleasingly, this final installment does end with a couple of nice surprises regarding our own sun and Molly's ultimate fate. I'll wager no reader will ever see those coming! I have very few quibbles to raise concerning Pohl & Williamson's hugely imaginative work here. Oh, there is the occasional bit of faulty writing (as when Cliff Hawk's face is described as "showing animation again for the first time"), and some of the hard-science patter verges on technogibberish...to these ears, at least. Take this passage, for example, in which Hawk describes the steady-state universe to Molly: "...Truly infinite. Endless. Not only in space and time, but also in multiplicity...The exploding galaxies called quasars were the first proof of that--galactic explosions, resulting from extreme concentrations of mass. Space is distorted into a curved pocket around a dense contracting galactic core. When the dense mass becomes great enough, the pocket closes itself, separating from our space-time continuum...The visible quasar explosion...results from the sudden expansion of the remaining shell of the galaxy, when it is released from the gravitation of the lost core. Each lost core, cut off from any ordinary space-time contact with the mother galaxy, becomes a new four-dimensional universe, expanding by the continuous creation of mass and space until its own maturing galaxies begin shrinking past the gravitational limit, budding more new universes...." Got all that? Dunce as I am regarding all things cosmology, I can't tell if this is made-up gobbledygook or actual theory based on, say, astronomer Fred Hoyle's research. Perhaps one of you will be able to tell me. All told, "Rogue Star" surely does make for an interesting capper to the so-called STARCHILD TRILOGY. It was the last trilogy that Pohl & Williamson would collaborate on, although hardly the last time that they would work together. For example, the two would soon come out with their SAGA OF CUCKOO series--consisting of the novels "Farthest Star" (1975) and "Wall Around a Star" (1983)--as well as the novels "Land's End" (1988) and "The Singers of Time" (1991). And based on my experiences with their UNDERSEA TRILOGY and STARCHILD TRILOGY, I would love to read any one of them someday. But if those other books are anything like "Rogue Star," I might need to start smoking pot again.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of speculative sci-fi....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 2025
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Feb 2025
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Mar 09, 2025
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Hardcover
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| 0140031030
| 9780140031034
| 0140031030
| 3.45
| 228
| Sep 26, 1965
| 1970
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liked it
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By the end of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson's 1963 novel "The Reefs of Space," all of the reader's many questions had been answered, and all of the
By the end of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson's 1963 novel "The Reefs of Space," all of the reader's many questions had been answered, and all of the loose ends tied up in a neat bow...at least, so we would have thought. The book could very easily have stood on its own, so perhaps it came as something of a surprise when the authors came out with a sequel two years later. In the first book, set some 200 years in the future, we'd been shown how a vast underground computer system, aka the Machine, was in charge of the so-called Plan of Man, and regulated every facet of the lives of Earth's 13 billion people. And we'd also been given a glimpse of those titular Reefs of Space...planetoids composed of the minute fusorian life-forms that were able to condense hydrogen and convert it into living matter; an area now sparsely populated by those Terran folks who were in defiance of the Machine and its human representative, the Planner. The novel had been as colorful and event filled as any reasonable reader could expect, and had ended on a note of hopefulness as the Machine had suddenly allowed mankind access to the previously proscribed Reefs. Who could have guessed that Pohl & Williamson's sequel, entitled "Starchild," would not only be more colorful and action packed than Book #1 had been, but more mind-blowing, as well? Unfortunately, that did not necessarily result in something better than the original, as will be seen. Like "The Reefs of Space," "Starchild" first saw the light of day as a three-part serial in the digest-sized magazine "If" (for which Frederik Pohl served as managing editor from 1962 to '69); in this case, the January, February and March 1965 issues. (I'm not sure why my 1977 Doubleday hardcover--which includes both novels as well as the third novel, "Rogue Star," in this so-called STARCHILD TRILOGY--says that Starchild originally appeared in "Galaxy" magazine, for which Pohl was also editor at the time.) The book would be reprinted as a 50-cent Ballantine paperback later in '65, and then as a $1.25 Ballantine paperback in '73 (that's inflation for you in a nutshell!). Internationally, "Starchild" would see editions in Italy ('65, '77 and 2001), the U.K. ('66 and '70), France ('66 and '76), Germany ('67 and '82) and Portugal ('70). For the savvy shopper today, all three books in the STARCHILD TRILOGY can be had in one giant volume from such publishers as the aforementioned Doubleday, Pocket Books ('77), Penguin ('80) and Baen ('86). The bottom line is that all three novels should pose no great difficulty for prospective readers to track down today. "Starchild" is set some 20 years following the events of Book #1. The Machine has mysteriously rescinded its permission for mankind to explore and colonize the Reefs, and as this Book #2 gets under way, the worlds of our solar system are in something of a tizzy. Someone or something called Starchild has threatened to make our sun and some dozen neighboring stars wink out for a short time unless its demands to the Planner and the Machine are met. Those demands include the release of all the Starchild's devotees, as well as the dismantling of the so-called Spacewall, a string of armed ships and stations beyond Pluto's orbit that make passage to the Reefs an impossibility. And then, to the system's consternation, the stars and our Sol do indeed wink out for a period of time! The reader is then introduced to 26-year-old Machine Major Boysie Gann, who, besides being a commissioned tech expert, is also a graduate of the spy school on Pluto. The Machine sends Boysie to the Polaris Station, one of the many links in the Spacewall, to investigate supposed anti-Plan activities therein. But Boysie's mission is soon uncovered by one of the station's personnel and he is summarily knocked out cold, only to awaken on one of the minor Reefs...20 billion miles away from the sun! While there, Boysie meets an old, grizzled farmer named Harry Hickson, who takes care of the bewildered spy until he, Hickson, mysteriously vanishes one day. But Boysie is rescued from his marooned condition by the lovely Quarla Snow, who flies Boysie to another Reef, via her pet spaceling, after telling Boysie that Harry Hickson had died of a fusorian infection three years earlier! Wha? Boysie is taken to the largest settlement of the Reefs, Freehaven, where he stays for a time with Quarla and her father, a physician. But then, a short while later, Boysie suffers some extreme vertigo, and returns to consciousness in what is probably the most heavily guarded area in the entire solar system: the control complex of the Machine itself, thousands of feet underground, on Earth! Now thoroughly discombobulated (and who wouldn't be?), Boysie is of course immediately arrested, beaten and interrogated. He is even brought in front of the Planner himself (a different, harsher Planner than the one we'd encountered in Book #1), but of course is completely unable to explain his presence there. Later, Boysie is shocked to find that his old girlfriend, Julie Martinet, has now become an acolyte of the Machine; one of the cowled women who have arduously learned how to speak Mechanese and who have had a plate surgically implanted into their forehead so as to physically connect themselves to the Machine via a linkbox! Julie, who is now called Sister Delta Four, interrogates Boysie even more closely, as does the fanatic General Abel Wheeler. Soon, this most-secure underground installation is overwhelmed by the sudden appearance of dozens of monstrous pyropods--enormous scorpion/dragon/living rocket creatures of the Reefs--that spontaneously materialize just like Boysie had done earlier. And soon, Boysie's lot grows even stranger, when he learns that he is now being accused of being the Starchild itself...and stranger still, when the Machine orders that Boysie must begin training to become its new, surgically enhanced acolyte! And incredibly, even stranger things will befall poor Boysie, before all is said and done.... As I inferred up top, "Starchild" arrives with more exciting sequences than Book #1, but somehow it is a much less satisfying experience. The major reason for this, I feel, is that most of the reader's many questions this go-round remain unanswered. Do you remember the hit TV show "Lost" of some two decades back, and how it piled on one conundrum after another, week after week? I always maintained that if the writers on that series had only answered all the many questions that the show raised over the course of its six seasons, it would have been one of the greatest programs of all time. Sadly, and disappointingly, they didn't, and neither do Pohl & Williamson here. How exactly does Hickson return to life, and come and go in a flash? How is Boysie teleported 20 billion miles across space? What precisely happened to the explorers on the missing Togethership? Who wrote those threatening notes to the Planner? Why was it necessary for Boysie, Wheeler and Sister Delta Four to go to the observatory on Mercury? If the answer is indeed a godlike sentient star, made conscious by dint of having merged itself with fusorians, then are all the stars sentient, like our Sol? And why is Deneb especially worshipped by the peoples of the Reef? So many things to ponder over, in the face of all the nondisclosures by the authors! I suppose it is possible that the answers to these posers will be vouchsafed in Book #3 (just as "Starchild" does clarify some gray areas in Book #1), but as I say, this reader was ultimately not left satisfied. Upon turning the final page of "Starchild," I felt as if I had just finished half of a jigsaw puzzle, with the outline clearly visible but many pieces missing. That said, I must admit that reading the book (like watching "Lost") was as fun as can be...at times, even thrilling. The book gives us one remarkable sequence after another at a rapid clip; no wonder we're told at one point that Boysie was trying "to recover from the shocks and stresses of the last few weeks. And how fast they had accumulated...." Among those bravura set pieces: Boysie's awakening on the tiny Reeflet where he'd been marooned; Boysie regaining consciousness in the heart of the Machine (something akin to you being mysteriously teleported to a nuclear research facility in North Korea!); Gann's interview by the Planner in his sumptuous audience chamber; the attack by dozens of murderous pyropods underground; Boysie being involved in a calamitous subtrain accident; the intensive training in Mechanese that Boysie undergoes, preparatory to becoming an acolyte of the Machine; that side trip to the Mercury observatory; and the finale aboard the so-called Togethership, lost and abandoned in the Reef Whirlpool. Once again, the authors load their book with a generous amount of offhand, futuristic/imaginative touches. Putting aside the Spacewall and the cranial communion plates for a moment, we're also given a nerve-pellet gun that renders its victim unconscious till given an antidote; the scars that one of the Plan majors sports, a souvenir from a "Venusian anaerobic parasite"; and the Mechanese trainer into which Gann is inserted...a kind of virtual-reality device that offers both positive and negative reinforcements. As to those acolytes of the Machine, they are presented in language that strongly suggests some kind of religious order. Thus, Sister Delta Four is not only dressed in a habit similar to a nun's, but has a set of sonic beads, analogous to a rosary, that she constantly toys with to help perfect her Mechanese tonal qualities. Boysie goes through a novitiate period before becoming an acolyte, and the act of physical communion with the Machine is seen as a kind of nirvana. Too, Julie Martinet renounces all worldly interests after becoming an acolyte, to Boysie's very great dismay. Starchild again gives the reader some well-drawn descriptions of the Reefs themselves. And so, we are told: "...There are spiked forests of silicon plants, shining with their own light. Like jewels, and sharp enough to shred your spacesuit. There's a growth that makes great brain-shaped masses of pure silver. There are thick stalks of platinum and gold, and there are things like flowers that are diamonds...The life in the Reefs was sometimes warm-blooded, carbon-based, oxygen-breathing animal. But more often it was metal or crystal--at best, worthless for food; at worst, a deadly danger...." We get to know more about the exact nature of those blasted pyropods, and are again given an interesting raft of secondary characters: the mad-for-power General Wheeler; the once-sweet, now dronelike Julie/Delta Four; and the enigmatic figure that is Harry Hickson. Steve Ryeland, our mathematician hero from Book #1, is absent from this sequel, although he is mentioned, and we do get to learn a little of his fate, as well as the fates of the Planner and Donna Creery from that first installment, as well. (This reader was not at all happy to learn what became of them!) And of course, one of the major selling points of "Starchild" is getting to observe how Boysie Gann changes over the course of the book, going from a loyal soldier/spy for the Plan of Man, to a person who dreads becoming one with the Machine, and finally, to an individual who actually begins to wish for the freedom of the Reefs. Boysie is a marvelous character who goes through way too much for any human mind to handle. I have very few bones to pick with the authors here, other than their letting me down in the area of full explication. But I did notice one boo-boo that Pohl & Williamson make, and it is something of a major one. Early on, we are told that of the three residents in the Mercury observatory, one of them, the Techtenant, is Julie Martinet's brother. But around 100 pages later, when Boysie & Co. find the bodies of the three in that observatory, we are told that Julie's brother is the Technicadet! As I say, this is something of an embarrassing slipup, but I suppose that even future sci-fi Grand Masters are only human, after all. (And I suppose this is one of the dangers of a managing editor editing his own work!) So yes, "Starchild" remains something of a mixed bag, but surely an entertaining one. By the book's end, the Machine has been outdone by the mysterious Starchild, and the seemingly sentient stars have given us their warning. What could possibly happen next? I suppose we'll have to dive into Book #3, "Rogue Star," to find out...and, hopefully, get some further enlightenment. Stay tuned.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of sci-fi adventure tales....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 2025
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Feb 2025
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Feb 27, 2025
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 3.52
| 358
| 1963
| Sep 1964
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really liked it
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The experience of collaborating on a trilogy must have been a pleasant one for future sci-fi Grand Masters Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson, as just
The experience of collaborating on a trilogy must have been a pleasant one for future sci-fi Grand Masters Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson, as just five years later, the pair would embark together on another series of books. The UNDERSEA TRILOGY--"Undersea Quest" (1954), "Undersea Fleet" (1956) and "Undersea City" (1958)--had been targeted at a younger audience, but the new series, which would later be dubbed the STARCHILD TRILOGY, was undoubtedly intended for their more-sophisticated, adult readers. During the five-year interim, Pohl had kept very busy, indeed, coming out with the novels "Drunkard's Walk" (1960) and "A Plague of Pythons" (1962), as well as five short-story collections. Williamson, on the other hand, only released two short stories in all that time, but this fallow period can perhaps be understood when one remembers that in 1960, he became a faculty member at the Eastern New Mexico University, at which institution he remained active for the remainder of his long life. The STARCHILD TRILOGY is made up of the novels "The Reefs of Space" (1963), "Starchild" (1965) and "Rogue Star" (1969); for the sake of convenience, I will be discussing the books individually here, starting, of course, with "The Reefs of Space." "The Reefs of Space" was originally released as a three-part serial in the July, September and November '63 issues of the 40-cent, digest-sized magazine "If." The authors probably had little trouble placing their novel at If, seeing that Frederik Pohl had been the managing editor there since January '62 (he'd remain there till mid-'69), at the same time editing the more-prestigious "Galaxy" magazine, as well. The novel would become a Ballantine paperback in '64 and '73 (both with stunning covers by one Jacques Wyrs); internationally, it would see editions in the U.K. ('65), Portugal ('70), Holland ('72), France ('78), Germany ('81) and Italy (2001). For the savvy shopper who might desire to purchase the entire trilogy in one deluxe hardcover or paperback today, please know that such editions are indeed out there, from Doubleday ('77, and the hardcover that I was fortunate enough to nab, with dust jacket), Pocket Books (also '77), Penguin ('80) and Baen ('86). The bottom line is that this particular novel should pose no especial difficulty for prospective buyers to track down in one form or another. Astute readers will discern that "The Reefs of Space" is set several hundred years from the present day. The soil of Earth has been farmed to the point of nonproductivity, and to care for the planet's teeming 13 billion people, a vast underground computer system, the Planning Machine, runs what is known as the Plan of Man. Every individual's lot is dictated by the all-knowing Machine, and those who don't measure up are consigned to the Body Banks: idyllic resorts whose inmates have their various limbs and organs removed, piece by piece, over the course of weeks or years, to be used as spare parts for the greater good. Against this semidystopian backdrop the reader meets the brilliant mathematician Steve Ryeland, who, when we first encounter him, has just traveled by subtrain, hundreds of miles beneath the surface, from his maximum-security prison in the Arctic Circle to Iceland. Once arrived in Reykjavik, Steve and his companion--the idiot-savant/numbers-genius Oporto--are directed by the Machine to board another train...the private travel train of the Planner himself, the highest-ranking human on the planet, in charge of carrying out the Machine's dictates. The Planner tells Steve that he has been chosen by the Machine to work with a team of scientists, at an undisclosed location. Their mission: to come up with a new kind of space drive; a reactionless drive that will be in defiance of Newton's Third Law of Motion. Ryeland, of course, has no choice but to accept. Arrested three years earlier for the crime of having "unplanned interests," Ryeland had been subsequently pumped for information at that Arctic prison, especially regarding what he might know about the space explorers Ron Donderevo and Daniel Horrock, as well as the mystifying words "fusorian," "pyropod," "spaceling" and "Reefs of Space." But Ryeland had been able to tell them all nothing, pieces of his past life having been somehow erased. Now, he wears an explosive metal collar around his neck; a collar that could be made to go off by any security officer's radar helmet or radar gun; one that will go blooey at any sign of tampering, and that must be reset by the authorities once a year. Thus, having no choice in the matter, Ryeland and the similarly encumbered Oporto are compelled to agree. At the mission complex, Steve is vouchsafed some information by one of his team. The Reefs of Space, it seems, are small planetoids, beyond the orbit of Pluto, that are composed of the minute fusorians that are actually able to fuse hydrogen and create matter and life. On these Reefs live the pyropods, monstrous creations indeed. And Steve is shown a captive spaceling, as well; a golden-furred, seallike animal (with a Rudolph-like, glowing, red nose!) whose ability to levitate, cruise through space, and create an air bubble around itself might hold the key to the reactionless drive that the team is searching for. The spaceling has been named Chiquita by the Planner's beautiful teenage daughter Donna Creery, who Steve had briefly met while aboard that subtrain earlier. Despite the brutal treatment meted out to Chiquita by one of the team's sadistic members, Steve begins to make real progress in his task...until, that is, disaster strikes. Following the calamitous collapse of a helical field in one of the subtrain tunnels--a field that Ryeland had invented before his incarceration--the Machine decides that the mathematician's usefulness has come to an end. Thus, Steve is sent to the Body Bank known as Heaven, on the island of Cuba, where it is felt he might be more...useful. But despite tremendous odds, he will somehow make an escape, and even live to set foot on one of the smaller Reefs, before all is said and done.... "The Reefs of Space" is a curious amalgam of hard sci-fi (with discussions of the steady-state theory, Newton's Third Law of Motion, and how a reactionless space drive might possibly be achieved) with scenes that almost border on fantasy (in particular, the one in which Ryeland and his allies sail through space inside an air bubble formed by Chiquita and her mate, Adam). Strangely enough, the authors here seem to be in defense of English astronomer Fred Hoyle's steady-state theory (which posits that the universe has always existed and that hydrogen is constantly being created) as opposed to the more widely accepted theory, which Hoyle termed "the Big Bang." Still, the authors' novel is one of unrestrained imagination and speculative thought, replete with some stunning images. Just check out this description of the Reefs, by one man who'd been there: "...An unearthly place. We came down in a brittle forest of things like coral branches. Thickets of shining crystal thorns snagged at our spacesuits when we went out exploring. We blundered through metal jungles that tripped and snared us with living wires and stabbed at us with sharp blades. And there were stranger things still! There were enormous lovely flowers that shone with uncanny colors--and gave off deadly gamma rays. There was a kind of golden vine that struck back with a high-voltage kick when you touched it. There were innocent little pods that squirted jets of radioactive isotopes. It was a nightmare!...." And yet, this is a book that author J.G. Ballard once accused of being "devoid of a single original image." Go figure! Pohl & Williamson's novel is filled with interesting, futuristic touches (such as that subtrain that zips along frictionlessly in tunnels protected by those helical fields, and the "asepsis lamps" that are seen in the Body Bank's operating theater, and the metallic "Peace Doves" that continually flutter about the Planner's daughter and act as her bodyguards). Their tale subverts the reader's expectations of the Machine and its Plan of Man being wholly undesirable, and even Ryeland has mixed opinions regarding them (although he keeps insisting on his loyalty to the Plan, he later avers that it is guilty of enslaving mankind). Ultimately, both the Planner and the Machine are revealed to be...well, not as completely bad as we had initially thought, let's just say. And the authors ply their readers with any number of well-done sequences. Among them: Steve's first encounter with the maimed Chiquita; the entire stay at the Body Bank in Cuba...a harrowing section that comprises almost 录 of the book; Steve flying through a hurricane and into space on Chiquita's back; an exploration of one of the many Reefs; and Steve's unequal fight with a scaled, metal-clawed pyropod. The novel is fairly devoid of humor, but what little there is comes in that Body Bank sequence, strangely enough, dark as that humor might be. Thus, when one of the inmates sees another being wheeled out of surgery and asks "What did you lose this time?," the patient replies "Just the other kidney, I think." "You've got plenty left," returns the first. But oh, that Body Bank sequence...probably the most suspenseful and nerve racking in the entire novel! Thus, we see Steve get called into the operating room, only to learn that he's just there to give blood; go on a hunger strike and water fast, to avoid the tranquilizers that the inmates are constantly being fed; and attempt an escape by hiding in a heap of body parts. It is a segment assuredly not for the squeamish! "The Reefs of Space" also offers up a raft of interesting secondary characters, such as the idiot-savant Oporto (I love when he tries to recall a woman's name and says "You know, 837552--I forget her name"), Donna Creery and Angela Zwick, a woman who'd once worked for Steve and is now a literal basket case (no arms, no legs) at the Body Bank. As was the case with the UNDERSEA books, this one features cliff-hanger chapters that carry the reader irresistibly along. The novel surprisingly manages to answer all of our questions by the time things conclude (I was growing concerned around seven pages from the denouement), and it ends in a way that could have made the book a perfectly self-contained entity, had the authors chosen to not write two more books on the subject. This Book #1 can be a bit challenging to follow at times, and is decidedly adult fare, as opposed to the earlier trilogy. But Ryeland is a wonderful lead character, who I do hope reappears in the following books. (I have a feeling that he will not, however.) I have but a single complaint to levy against Pohl & Williamson's pretty impressive work here, and it's that the background of the Quintano Quiveras character (Who's that? I'll let you discover the answer for yourself!) could have been made a little more explicit. But that is a mere quibble. By the end of "The Reefs of Space," the Machine is still very much in charge and has suddenly given the green light for the Reefs to be explored via the newfound reactionless drive. What could possibly happen next? Guess I'll have to dive into Book #2, "Starchild," to find out. Stay tuned.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of speculative sci-fi....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 19, 2025
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0345256190
| 9780345256195
| 0345256190
| 3.29
| 122
| 1958
| Aug 12, 1977
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really liked it
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What red-blooded youth--or adult, for that matter--could possibly read Books 1 & 2 of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson's UNDERSEA TRILOGY and not want
What red-blooded youth--or adult, for that matter--could possibly read Books 1 & 2 of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson's UNDERSEA TRILOGY and not want to immediately proceed on to Book #3? Not I, that's for sure! In Book #1, "Undersea Quest" (1954), our narrator, 18-year-old Jim Eden, a cadet at the U.S. Sub-Sea Academy, had gotten into major-league trouble with a gaggle of crooks and goons in the suboceanic domed city of Thetis, before rescuing his Uncle Stewart from the bottom of the 35,000-foot Eden Trench. In Book #2, "Undersea Fleet" (1956), Eden, four of his fellow cadets, and Gideon Park (Stewart's African-American right-hand man) had gone far beneath the waves to rescue a half-crazed scientist from a besieging horde of living Plesiosaurs and amphibian men, in a sci-fi tale that had bordered close to fantasy. Those two opening books had been as charming, readable and exciting as can be, both for the younger readers who were their target audience and for any adults fortunate enough to try them. Who, then, could have believed that the authors would not only deliver one more Jim Eden adventure two years later, but one that would turn out to be the most suspenseful and nerve racking of the entire series? But that is precisely what Pohl & Williamson managed to do in Book #3, "Undersea City." "Undersea City" was originally released in 1958. As was the case with its predecessors, that first edition was a Gnome Press hardcover, this time with some charming artwork on the dust jacket by the great Wally Wood. The novel would later be reprinted in paperback form by Ballantine/Del Rey in 1971, '77 and '83; internationally, it would be published in Germany under the title "Alarm in der Tiefsee," or "Alarm in the Deep Sea" (1961 and '79), in Mexico under the title "Ciudad Submarina," or "Underwater City" ('68), and in the U.K. (also in '68). But the book's most recent incarnation, I believe, was courtesy of the American publisher Baen in '92; an edition that gathers the entire trilogy together in one compact, 501-page paperback. That's the one that this reader was happy to find somewhere in my travels, and it makes for handy, one-stop shopping for prospective readers today! In this Book #3, we find the trilogy's quartet of main characters united once again: Jim Eden, our narrator, and currently an upperclassman at the Academy in Bermuda; his closest friend and roommate, Bob Eskow; Uncle Stewart, the genius inventor whose creation of the electromagnetic Edenite shield allowed hemisphere-domed cities to be built on the ocean floor, ships and cars to travel at previously undreamed-of depths, and an entire manufacturing, farming and mining economy to flourish far beneath the waves; and Gideon Park, a first-rate technician and an unflappably cool companion to have beside one in a pinch. Several months following the events of Book #2, Jim tells us, he, Bob and another cadet, Harley Danthorpe, were given a special assignment by their commandant. They were to report to the newly constructed Krakatoa Dome, in the Sunda Strait, to undergo training in the field of maritime seismology; specifically, the science of predicting when large quakes might be occurring in one of the most seismically active areas of the world. Before leaving, Jim received a visit from one Jonah Tidesley, aka Dr. Tide (almost as cool a name as Book #2's Dr. Craken!), a Jesuit priest who also happened to be one of the world's foremost vulcanologists and seismologists. Dr. Tide relayed his suspicions that someone had lately begun to set off artificially created quakes in the area, and even worse news, that Stewart Eden鈥檚 wrecked and abandoned sea-car had recently been found on the ocean bottom, near one of those quake zones. Could Stewart be now deceased, or even responsible for the man-made tremors? Filled with worry and confusion, Jim and the two other cadets reported to Fleet Lt. Tsuya at Krakatoa Dome鈥檚 Station K...10,000 feet beneath the ocean floor. Jim and Bob immediately got to work, while the obnoxious Harley had gone on and on about how his father, "Barnacle Ben" Danthorpe, was the richest businessman in Krakatoa Dome. And that was actually really saying something, in a city with a population of 750,000, resting three miles beneath the surface. In very short order, however, things began to get very strange. A deep-sea geosonde--capable of sending information from many miles below the Earth's crust--was stolen by an unknown party. Bob Eskow started to act mysteriously, going AWOL and meeting clandestinely with an aged Chinese gentleman. A completely unpredicted minor quake--that Eskow somehow knew was coming--shook the city, contrary to all the laws of seismology; a quake that netted the missing Uncle Stewart a tremendous windfall in the stock market. Ordered by Lt. Tsuya to begin keeping tabs on his best friend, Jim tailed Eskow into the bowels of the city, and in a deserted drainage tunnel, espied his good chum, along with Gideon, in possession of a MOLE (that is, a Manned Ortholytic Excavator...kind of like a submarine that can burrow through solid rock) that they were loading with hydrogen-bomb triggers! But even the appalling knowledge that his closest friends were engaged in illegal and highly dangerous operations soon palled when it was realized that a Force 12 earthquake was now predicted to hit right beneath the Krakatoa Dome...one that would surely shatter the dome's Edenite shield and allow 15,000 feet of water to crush it like the proverbial eggshell! And when Danthorpe, Sr. and the rest of the city council scoffed at Station K's predictions, it surely seemed that 3/4 of a million Krakatoa dwellers were soon to be meeting their subsea demises.... Again, it cannot be stressed enough that although these three books were ostensibly written for younger readers, they yet exert a very strong appeal for adults, as well. Typical for the series, "Undersea City" does not talk down to its readers and remains consistently levelheaded and intelligent throughout. The authors' choice of vocabulary is certainly adult; would you expect to find words such as "radiosonde," "octant," "isogeotherm," "isogal," "isentropic," "milligal" and "sallyman" in a book solely intended for teens? Heck, I had to break out the ol' Merriam-Webster's myself for those...not to mention get on my Google machine to find out who Simon Lake and Hamilcar Barca were! Once again, we have an UNDERSEA entry that is compulsively readable, and with cliff-hanging chapters that carry us irresistibly on. But for the first time, we are given some inkling as to the time period in which these three books take place. That hint comes when Danthorpe, Jr. mentions that the great Krakatoa eruption had occurred "hundreds of years and more ago"; since that historic blowup transpired in 1883, that would give us a date of 2083 as a minimum estimate, right? As for the futuristic touches to be found in this book (other than the MOLE, geosondes, and the underwater city themselves), the authors give us, for the first time, "electrostatic pacifiers" that smooth out the ocean waves so planes can make an easy landing, as well as "hush mouthpieces" on phones that prevent others from overhearing a conversation. But oh, those MOLEs, both small (around two feet long) and large (big enough to accommodate a crew of five), for burrowing miles into the Earth! What a terrific conceit! Thinking back on the events of this Book #3, it strikes me that there are not quite as many action set pieces to be had as compared to Books 1 and 2. Rather, the focus here is on long-drawn-out suspense; a tension that builds to the snapping point. This is easily the most suspenseful outing of the trilogy; indeed, the last third of the book, as our heroes race against the clock to avert disaster, is absolutely thrilling. Still, there are a fair number of memorable sequences to be had, nevertheless. Among them: that initial Force 4 quake, a gentle reminder of what might be coming; Jim's discovery of Bob and Gideon's activities after tracking them through a labyrinth of drainage tunnels; Lt. Tsuya's desperate presentation before the unheeding city council (Jor-El of the planet Krypton dealt with no greater disbelievers in the face of imminent catastrophe!); the series of tremors that rock the Krakatoa Dome before the Force 12 monster quake hits; and the plight of Jim and some of his compadres as they burrow through the Earth in a dying MOLE, in a desperate bid to stave off disaster. Again, some truly wonderful material for a Hollywood summer blockbuster here, if done well and by a respectful team! For the rest of it, "Undersea City" also gives the reader the most detailed examination yet of one of these domed metropolises residing on the ocean floor. We are thus given a look at the business section here, the upper-class and middle-class residential sections, the restaurant and amusement areas, the warehouse district and so on. Krakatoa Dome is a unique city in that it is connected to a 1,000-foot-long, X-shaped landing stage on the ocean's surface by a three-mile-long magnetic elevator; the domed metropolises we'd seen so far had no such "umbilical-cord" connection to the outside. This Book #3 might also be the most claustrophobic of the bunch, and Station K, sitting two miles beneath Krakatoa Dome (which, again, already rests three miles beneath the ocean's surface), will surely make you appreciate your own workplace all the more. Cold, damp, constantly oozing seawater from its walls of stone, and with no Edenite shield protecting it, it becomes even more uncomfortable an area when things start going downhill, as you might well imagine! Astute readers might see parallels between the father-and-son team of Hallan and Brand Sperry from Book #1 and the Danthorpes here, the difference being that while Hallam Sperry was very much a villain in that first outing, Barnacle Ben is more of a shortsighted, greedy businessman. Both men do wind up getting their just deserts, however, just as their two obnoxious kids eventually see the error of their ways. I have very few nitpicking complaints to make regarding the authors' very fine work here. Oh, I suppose it's kind of easy to suss out what's going on as the story proceeds, and some of the big reveals are telegraphed a bit too blatantly. Still, it sure is fun watching the authors as they put Jim & Co. through their paces! Happily, there are no "oopsie moments"/authorial mistakes to be had, other than the fact that we're at first told that the acronym "MOLE" stands for "Mechanical Ortholytic Excavator" (sounds like something Tom Swift, Jr. might have invented, doesn't it?), and later on, for "Manned Ortholytic Excavator." But since that first acronym referred to the two-foot-long model, and the second to the full-size model, I am certainly willing to let that matter slide. In essence, "Undersea City" brings the curtain down on a wonderful trilogy of books, and I am sure that most readers will wind up wishing that Pohl & Williamson could have given us more...say, Jim's adventures after graduating from the Academy and entering Star Fleet--I mean, the Sub-Sea Fleet--itself. Oh, what might have been! Still, the experience of collaborating must have been a pleasant one for the two future sci-fi Grand Masters, as just five years later they embarked on a completely new trinity of books, the STARCHILD TRILOGY. And that is where this reader will be heading next. Stay tuned.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of sci-fi adventure stories....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 15, 2025
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0345256182
| 9780345256188
| 0345256182
| 3.34
| 121
| Jan 01, 1956
| Apr 1971
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really liked it
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At the tail end of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson's "Undersea Quest" (1954), our narrator, 18-year-old Jim Eden, has been reinstated into the U.S.S.A
At the tail end of Frederik Pohl & Jack Williamson's "Undersea Quest" (1954), our narrator, 18-year-old Jim Eden, has been reinstated into the U.S.S.A. (U.S. Sub-Sea Academy), after having been forced to resign under mysteriously trumped-up charges. The authors' fans would have to wait a few years to find out what, if anything, might happen next, but ultimately they were rewarded with a follow-up volume that was, if anything, even more action packed and exciting than the first had been! And that second novel, "Undersea Fleet," would soon turn out to be merely the centerpiece of the triptych known today as THE UNDERSEA TRILOGY. "Undersea Fleet," released in 1956, first saw the light of day, as had its predecessor, as a hardcover book from the U.S. publisher Gnome Press, and with another charming cover by the great Ed "Emsh" Emshwiller. Ballantine/Del Rey would reissue the novel in paperback form in 1971, '77 and '83, while internationally, the authors' book would see editions in Germany ('59 and '79), Italy ('60), the U.K. ('67) and Mexico ('70). In 1992, the U.S. imprint Baen would release the trilogy in one compact 501-page paperback...a most economical deal for readers today. And for those readers who like that kind of thing, I believe an ebook of "Undersea Fleet" was released by Gateway/Orion in 2013. (Personally speaking, those ebooks usually wind up giving me both eyestrain and a headache!) The bottom line is that this book and its trilogy companions should pose no great difficulty for prospective readers to acquire today...a happy state of affairs, indeed! Although released several years after its predecessor, Book #2 kicks off just a few weeks following the events of the first. Returning are Book #1's four lead characters: our narrator, Jim Eden; his best friend and roommate, Bob Eskow; Stewart Eden, Jim's uncle and the genius inventor of the Edenite shield, which has allowed domed cities to be built upon the ocean floor, and subs and diving gear to plumb depths previously unreachable by man; and Gideon Park, Stewart's African-American, right-hand man. Jim's story in this Book #2 captivates the reader's attention from the very first page. Right before skin-diving trials, he and Bob meet a new exchange student, David Craken, who tells them of his belief in sea-serpents, after a lifetime of having lived in one of the domed cities of Marinia. And wonder of wonders, while diving at a depth of 900 feet during his exam, Jim does indeed seem to see the form of a huge saurian creature in the inky waters! David, unfortunately, is lost during the trials, never returning to the Academy's submarine gym ship, although perhaps being the fittest diver of them all. Many months later, however, following another Academy sea trial (a very long-distance, underwater swim), several bizarre things transpire almost at once. Jim, Bob and their cadet captain Roger Fairfane find a bag of superrare--and ultraprecious--Tonga pearls washed up on the Bermuda shore, not far from the Academy. And then, a man with pallid skin and glowing eyes emerges from the surf, claiming that the pearls belong to him. This man, who calls himself Joe Trencher, shows marked difficulty at breathing out of the water, but is still quick enough to grab the pearls, dive back into the surf, and disappear. And then, to startle the boys even more, who should wash up onto the beach but David Craken himself...still alive, after having been presumed dead for many months. And what a story Craken has to tell! His father, eccentric benthologist Jason Craken, was the original discoverer of the Tonga pearls, which are to be found in only one location in the world: at the bottom of the Tonga Trench, the second-deepest on Earth after the Mariana. Dr. Craken has built a private, domed residence for himself (protected, of course, by the Edenite shield) on the lip of the Tonga Trench, and has trained both the prehistoric saurians, as well as the amphibian race to which Trencher belongs, to do his pearl mining for him. But now, both the amphibians and the sea-serpents are in revolt, and Craken the elder is helplessly besieged in his dome beneath 20,000 feet of water. Thus, Jim, Bob and Roger, in addition to David's friend Eladio Angel, a Peruvian exchange student, pledge their assistance. But what to do? When Jim contacts his Uncle Stewart, he learns that his uncle and his father owe their lives to Jason Craken, who had once rescued them in the Tonga deeps. Stewart thus gives Jim enough money to purchase a very fit sub-sea cruiser, a surplus vessel by name of the Killer Whale. But due to a mix-up caused by Joe Trencher, the boys instead take possession of the aged rust bucket called the Dolphin...an unarmed vessel whose Edenite shield is so old and undependable that deep-sea cruising will be very problematic. Still, off the five youths go, accompanied by the adult Gideon, trailed all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific by Trencher in the Killer Whale, as well as some of the sea-serpents. And when/if they finally do reach Dr. Craken's domed laboratory retreat four miles beneath the surface, it seems that their problems would only be getting started.... As you might have gathered, Pohl & Williamson add considerably more fantastic content in this Book #2 of their trilogy. Whereas "Undersea Quest" had been mostly centered on a criminal organization intent on stealing Jim Eden's shares in a subsea mining company, and Jim's efforts to rescue his Uncle Stewart from the abyss of the Eden Deep, here, the authors give their readers not only living dinosaurs (the sea-serpents are said to be the descendants of the Plesiosaurs from 100 million years ago!) but also a race of humans who have somehow adapted to life under the waves! No wonder Jim, thinking of it all, tells us "that would make it pure fantasy"! But similar to Book #1, "Undersea Fleet," though purportedly written for teens, has a very strong appeal for adults, as well. (Then again, what teen could possibly resist a book in which five other teens, only guided by one very cool adult, take possession of an undersea cruiser and go off on a secret mission?) Again, the book is unfailingly intelligent, and the authors do not talk down to their younger audience. And really, can any book that sports such words as "hydrostatic," "narcosis," "mahout," "keelson," "azimuth," "diatom," "radiolarian," "autoclave," "athodyd" and "vernier" be considered one solely intended for kids? Again similar to Book #1, this sequel is compellingly readable, its cliff-hanger chapters propelling us irresistibly on. And it gives us new information regarding the U.S.S.A., while also revealing a slightly more capable cadet in Jim and Bob. Futuristic touches not spotlighted in that first installment are to be had in abundance here, among them tubeways "running like subways under the ocean floor," a deep-sea diving electrolung that "generates oxygen by the electrolysis of sea water," an "automatic watchman" for protecting one's house and property, and the (perhaps to be expected) vision-phone and stereovision TV (both of which we already have today, but this was written almost 70 years ago, right?). At bottom, the book is just flat-out fun; another novel that could be converted into a big-screen Hollywood blockbuster! To wit, once again, Pohl & Williamson pepper their novel with wonderfully well-done sequences and action set pieces. Among them: that early sea-diving exam, during which the cadets are made to swim at increasing depths with no Edenite protective gear...only a wet suit and oxygen tank (Jim, as mentioned, succeeds at the 900-foot level; Roger almost doesn't survive at 1,100 feet); the follow-up swimming test, during which the cadets, similarly equipped, are compelled to swim 10 miles at a depth of 60 feet (and you thought SEAL training was tough!); the walk on the ocean floor that our heroes are forced to endure, in failing Edenite suits and with insufficient oxygen, after the Dolphin's nuclear reactor goes blooey; the initial meeting with the half-demented Jason Craken; the concerted attack that the amphibians and saurians make on Craken's dome; Jim and his pals trying to scare the sea-serpents off outside the dome, armed only with flashlights, gongs and old-fashioned hand grenades; and finally, Jim and Bob's plight when they are captured and brought aboard the Killer Whale. Again, to quote young Jim Eden, "It was like a wonderful adventure story, and it was happening to us...." For the rest of it, "Undersea Fleet" compels us to realize, once again, that the world far beneath the ocean's surface is as unknown--and every bit as dangerous--as deep space itself. Readers today will perhaps see parallels between the trilogy's United States Sub-Sea Academy and the international Sub-Sea Fleet (for which the Academy is the preparation) and "Star Trek"'s Star Fleet Academy and Star Fleet of a decade later. And again, to the authors' great credit, we are again given a black character (not exactly a common feature of 1950s sci-fi) who just happens to be the ablest technician here, as well as the coolest dude under (often literal) pressure. Gideon Park is a wonderful character, simply put. And this Book #2 even reserves some surprises for the reader, as regards Bob Eskow's hidden agenda this go-round, and Joe Trencher's relation with Maeva, an amphibian girl loyal to the Crakens and their work. Still, again as in Book #1, despite the undoubted fun, some problems do manage to crop up. There are a good five "oopsie moments" to be had here; oversights on the part of the authors. Thus, Jim is embarrassed early on about all the dismissive comments he'd made to David Craken regarding sea-serpents, although it had been Bob who'd made those statements. Later, Jim tells his commandant that he'd seen a sea-serpent when he was at a depth of 1,100 feet; again, that was actually at 900 feet. The commandant mentions that Jim had earlier reported the sea-serpent to his Sea Coach Blighman, whereas in fact, Jim had decided not to. At one point, that sea-serpent is said to have "a very long neck [and] wicked fanged flippers," although it is fairly obvious that the authors meant to say "taloned," not "fanged." And finally, we are told that Maeva's pet saurian (whom she rides on top of like a horse!) is named Old Ironsides, whereas later that name changes to...Old Faithful? And while I'm carping, is it really credible that a race of Polynesians--even a race of Polynesian pearl divers--could become amphibians, and able to withstand the titanic pressures of the deep sea, after their island home slowly subsided beneath the waves? Somehow, I was more willing to buy into the notion of domesticated Plesiosaurs than that! But quibbles aside, "Undersea Fleet" remains a tremendously entertaining piece of work from a team of future sci-fi Grand Masters. Upon finishing it, I immediately cracked open Book #3, "Undersea City" (1958), as I believe any rational person would have done. Where in the world--or, more to the point, where under the sea--will Jim Eden, an upperclassman by Book #2's conclusion, wind up next? Let's, uh, dive in and see.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of sci-fi adventures stories....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 07, 2025
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0345307011
| 9780345307019
| 0345307011
| 3.43
| 161
| 1954
| Nov 12, 1982
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really liked it
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In 1947, Robert A. Heinlein, after almost a decade of producing high-quality science fictional short stories and novellas for adults, came out with hi
In 1947, Robert A. Heinlein, after almost a decade of producing high-quality science fictional short stories and novellas for adults, came out with his first novel, "Rocket Ship Galileo." The book was geared to younger readers, and would prove to be just the beginning of a landmark series of 12 "Heinlein juveniles," all published by the U.S. firm Scribner's. Heinlein--who, in 1974, would be proclaimed the first Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America--would come out with at least one such book for younger readers every year until 1958. Other authors, it seemed, soon took note of the series' success. Isaac Asimov (the 8th Grand Master, named in 1986) came out with "David Starr, Space Ranger" in 1952, the first of six Lucky Starr novels for younger readers, and a series that also wrapped up in 1958. For his first novel, Robert Silverberg (the 21st Grand Master, so named in 2004) chose to create the juvenile offering "Revolt on Alpha C" (1955). And not to be left out, it appears, good friends Jack Williamson (the 2nd Grand Master, named in 1976) and Frederik Pohl (the 12th Grand Master, so named in 1993), starting in 1954 and also wrapping up in '58, came out with a sci-fi series of their own that was geared to younger readers; a series today known as THE UNDERSEA TRILOGY. The three books in this tremendously fun trinity consist of "Undersea Quest" (1954), "Undersea Fleet" (1956) and "Undersea City" (1958). For the sake of convenience, I will be discussing each book separately here, starting, of course, with "Undersea Quest." This book was originally released as a $2.50 Gnome Press hardback with cover art by the great Ed "Emsh" Emshwiller. Here in the U.S., Ballantine/Del Rey would come out with paperback reissues in 1971, '77 and '82; internationally, the novel would see editions in Italy ('55), Mexico ('66), the U.K. ('66 and '70), Germany ('79) and even Slovenia ('86). The most current incarnation of the novel, I believe, was courtesy of the U.S. publisher Baen in '92, which volume gathers all three novels in the series in one handy--and economical--501-page paperback. This was the volume that I was fortunate enough to acquire somewhere along the way, and I am so glad that I did! "Undersea Quest" is set in an undated future era, in which mankind has managed to colonize Earth's oceans. Over a hundred domed cities comprise the realm of Marinia; cities that, thanks to the advent of the Edenite shield, can safely repose on the ocean floor, four miles beneath the surface. Created by Stewart Eden, the Edenite force shield is able to resist the titanic pressures of 20,000 feet of water by electromagnetically turning that pressure back upon itself! Sea-cars equipped with the shield can thus comfortably cruise along at previously unreachable depths, and workers with Edenite-protected suits can safely farm and mine the abundant oceanic resources formerly unattainable by man. Against this backdrop the reader is introduced to 10-year-old Jim Eden, an orphan, as well as the nephew of the great inventor. Jim serves as our narrator, and tells us his remarkable story over the course of all three books. At 16, Jim, thanks in large part to his uncle's influence, follows his dream and is admitted into the U.S.S.A.: the United States Sub-Sea Academy, located in Bermuda. In this future era, apparently, this school is something akin to West Point, Annapolis, and Colorado Springs, and the Sub-Sea Fleet, for which the Academy is the preparation, is a multinational, noncommercial patrol force. Jim is given a hard time at the Academy by upperclassman Brand Sperry, the son of Hallam Sperry, who had cheated both Jim's father and Uncle Stewart out of their patent rights somehow, and who currently serves as the mayor of the undersea city of Thetis. But Jim also becomes close friends with his roommate, Bob Eskow. The reader follows Jim's first two grueling years at the Academy, until two tragedies befall him back to back. First, both he and Eskow are forced to resign from the Academy in disgrace, as a result of some mysteriously concocted, trumped-up charges. And then, and even worse, Jim learns that his Uncle Stewart has apparently been killed; lost while testing his new improvement of the Edenite shield in a sea-car thus equipped to explore the Eden Deep, 7陆 miles down! Devastated by his double loss, Jim decides to go to Thetis, on the floor of the South Pacific, in which city Stewart had also lived, and see to his late uncle's affairs. Stewart had left his nephew, by will, ownership of 80% of the shares in a company called Marine Mines Ltd., which holds the lease on the Eden Deep and the uranium deposits that are imagined to reside there. And before Jim can even get to Thetis, unknown parties begin pressuring him to sell, he is tailed through the streets of San Francisco, and an attempt is made on his life. In Thetis, the threats and assassination attempts continue, and he is fortunately saved from one of those attempts by Gideon Park, "a tall, husky Negro" who had once been his Uncle Stewart's right-hand man. Ultimately, the 18-year-old Jim and the much older Gideon will somehow combat the thugs and plotters arrayed against them, abscond with Stewart's prototype of the improved Edenite sea-car, and make their way into the ultrahazardous abyss of the Eden Deep, 40,000 feet down, to rescue Jim's uncle...if, that is, the genius inventor is still alive.... In every reference source that I have consulted, the three books that comprise this trilogy are referred to as "juvenile lit," or what we today would call YA (young adult), but in truth, this trilogy, just like the Heinlein juveniles, has a very strong appeal for adults, as well; had Jim Eden been 10 years older here, perhaps these books wouldn't be deemed targeted at the younger readers at all! The authors' Book #1 doesn't condescend to the teenage set one bit, and is unfailingly intelligent. And really, can any book that includes such words as "clinometer," "magnetostriction" and "guyot" be deemed solely for kids? "Undersea Quest" boasts a wonderfully readable style, an increasingly suspenseful story line, cliff-hanger chapters that really keep one flipping those pages, and an impressive roster of hissable bad guys. And the book's three leading characters are all hugely likeable: the brave and scrupulously loyal Jim, who remains well mannered even toward his enemies; the wise and ever-astute Gideon (a right-on portrayal of a black man in an era--the mid-1950s--not exactly known for its civil equality); and the gruff but kindly genius, Uncle Stewart. Besides the Edenite shield, oceanic cities, and deep-sea operations, Pohl & Williamson also pepper their book with all kinds of futuristic touches. Thus, we see Jim traveling on a "pedestrian express belt" (a moving sidewalk) and hailing a helicab taxi. Lethine gas, which kills fairly quickly and leaves its victims stiff and bleached white, is spotlighted, as is the "brainpump," which can record any person's thoughts and memories on tape...unfortunately, with lethal effect. And the authors' book also gives the reader convincing descriptions of the ocean depths of four miles, and at the awesome abyss of 7陆 miles, as well. Any number of exciting sequences are to be had here. Among them: Jim's first underwater training, and the subsequent search for the missing Bob Eskow; that first assassination attempt, by lethine gas; the second attempt, as Jim is trussed up and tossed into the drainage tunnels of Thetis; the viewing of the brainpump tapes recorded from the saboteur who had wrecked Stewart's ship in the Eden Deep, and subsequently escaped; Jim and Gideon's fight with Brooks, an enormous, toadlike goon; the purloining of a sea-car by Jim and Gideon; the daring rescue attempt that Jim and Gideon conduct at the bottom of the Eden Deep; and finally, a subsurface sea-car battle that our heroes engage in with their enemies, as the two cars ram each other repeatedly. This first installment of THE UNDERSEA TRILOGY leaves us wanting to know more about the operations of the Sub-Sea Fleet, as well as the underwater world and its mining and farming economy. It is an excellent introduction to the series, and I cannot imagine any reader of the book not wanting to continue on to Book #2. Need I even mention that this first installment could be adapted into a splendid Hollywood blockbuster today, given the proper, respectful treatment...and the requisite $200 million, of course. I would be remiss, however, if I didn't mention that this Book #1 does come with its fair share of problems. There are a few instances of faulty grammar, for one thing ("...the triple green lights that marked Crew Five's whaleboat was only a few yards away"), and the usual mix-up regarding the words "turbidity" and "turgidity." An instance of datedness occurs when Brooks tells Jim and Gideon "...if I can't take care of two miserable specimens like you with my bare hands I'll go back to Alcatraz and pound rocks to toughen up." The problem here, of course, is that the Alcatraz Penitentiary closed in 1963. There are three "oopsie" moments to be had, as well. In the first, Jim remembers having heard Brooks' name mentioned before, whereas he'd actually only heard the goon being called by his first name, Jack. In the second, that saboteur, Catroni, is shown on the brainpump tape destroying the forward section of Uncle Stewart's ship; later, it is the aft section that is shown to have been wrecked! And third, Hallam Sperry is given as being the mayor of Thetis, but at one point it is mentioned that he's the "mayor of Marinia." And then there's the matter of the book's several unanswered questions. Why precisely did Bob Eskow pass out during his undersea training? Why were those uranium fuel cells being removed from the Academy training ship? If these were nefarious doings on the part of the book's villains, as I suspect they were, the authors might have made this a bit clearer. Still, these minor quibbles aside, I more than eagerly turned to the trilogy's Book #2, "Undersea Fleet," for more of Jim Eden's exploits, as I believe any reader would have. To quote the U.S.S.A.'s oft-quoted motto, "The tides don't wait"! (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of sci-fi adventure tales....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jan 2025
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Jan 2025
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Jan 31, 2025
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0948164476
| 9780948164477
| 0948164476
| 4.09
| 74
| Sep 03, 1987
| Jan 01, 1987
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liked it
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The last two books that I finished in 2024 had this in common: They were both collections that were chosen for inclusion in Jones & Newman's excellent
The last two books that I finished in 2024 had this in common: They were both collections that were chosen for inclusion in Jones & Newman's excellent overview volume "Horror: 100 Best Books" (1988). I just loved Karl Edward Wagner's "In a Lonely Place" (1983), as it turned out, and much enjoyed Lisa Tuttle's "A Nest of Nightmares" (1986), although some of the stories in that latter volume had proven disappointing for me by dint of their ambiguity. Hoping to pull off a hat trick of sorts, I chose, as my next read, another collection of shuddery tales suggested by the Jones & Newman guide--Ramsey Campbell's "Dark Feasts," the final book in that volume chronologically--and it seems that I have gone to the well once too often, as I did not enjoy this collection nearly as much as I'd hoped. This was surprising, given that horror authority Jack Sullivan, writing in the Jones & Newman book, tells us, regarding Campbell's oeuvre, "'Dark Feasts' is the book to get, for the simple reason that it has more first-rate Campbell tales than any other single volume." More on this in a moment. "Dark Feasts," it must be admitted, may not be the easiest book for you to lay your hands on today. It was originally released in 1987 as a hardcover by the British firm Robinson Publishing Co., its dust jacket depicting a woman eating pickled onions straight out of the jar, in which also reside...two eyeballs! All 300 copies of the book were soon recalled after a printer's error was noticed on page 233; an instruction that read "End of File: 170AUP...on Dir:70." I can tell you this because I somehow wound up with one of those rare, recalled copies somewhere along the line. Later in 1987, Robinson also released the book as a trade-size paperback, after which the collection went OOPs (out of prints) for 38 years, as of this writing. One might imagine this book, a recalled rarity complete with dust jacket, would be a prize in my personal collection here at home, but no. The book has so many typographical error--hundreds, I'd say, spread over its 339-page length--that it is assuredly nobody's treasure. Why the print run was recalled for that one error on page 233, when there are literally hundreds of other glitches to be found, is beyond me. Add to this the fact that I didn't care overly much for the book itself and you have a volume that is certainly no prize package! Before proceeding with some complaints, faint praise, and general descriptions of this Ramsey Campbell collection, a quick word on the author himself, for those few who, like me, might be unfamiliar with him. Campbell was born in Liverpool in 1946, and over the decades has gained a reputation as England's preeminent living writer of horror; the British Stephen King, as he has been called. As of this date, he has come out with no fewer than 37 novels and almost 30 short-story collections; a remarkably prolific career that shows little sign of abatement. Campbell turns 79 years old as I type these words today (January 4th), and continues to make his home in the Liverpool/Merseyside area. "Dark Feasts," say what one will about it, is certainly a generous volume, incorporating 30 stories written during the period 1964 - '86. Presented in roughly chronological order, they allow the reader to experience the author's stylistic changes across the decades. Several of the earlier stories are set in Campbell's fictitious town of Brichester, in the Severn Valley (a stand-in for H. P. Lovecraft's Arkham and Miskatonic River Valley, perhaps), but the vast majority take place in the Liverpool/Merseyside/Wirral Peninsula area that the author knows intimately well. Most of the protagonists in the stories are male, many of them writers, editors, or workers in publishing, similar to their creator. And unfortunately for them, around half do not survive till their story's conclusion. This can be a fairly brutal book, in that even the most undeserving and sympathetic of characters may still be in for a horrific fate. No character, it seems, may be presumed safe in a Ramsey Campbell story! Also unfortunate, at least for this reader, is the fact that no fewer than 22 of the book's 30 stories end on a note of decided ambiguity...more ambiguous even than in the Tuttle volume. Don't get me wrong: Campbell can be a terrific writer, and is particularly adept at depicting nightmarish scenarios in an off-kilter manner that defies my poor powers of description. But just like a nightmare, these tales often make little coherent sense when one tries to analyze them afterwards. Even Campbell, in his intro to the book, admits that some of these stories "seemed less important to understand than to write"! And if the author himself doesn't understand what he's created, how the heck are his readers supposed to?!?! Despite the finely crafted prose and nightmarish/surreal sequences--and really, anyone who can craft such lines as "His voice was muffled, blurred as a dying radio" and "Grey clouds crawled grub-like across the sky" must know what he's doing--story after story proved letdowns for me, ultimately. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to feel that I've gotten a story, even if the cause of the horrors--ghosts, spacemen, zombies, whatever--is farfetched and unlikely. When all those nightmare sequences add up to mere head scratching and bewilderment, where's the fun? Where's The Fun...that's a good reason itself to call those 22 tales WTF Stories! So despite what Sullivan rightly refers to as Campbell's "jagged, hallucinatory prose," the lack of logic, explanations and sense proved more than a stumbling block for me. And in this, I recognize that I am in the distinct minority. Ramsey Campbell has been called "Britain's most respected living horror writer" by the "Oxford Companion to English Literature," is seemingly esteemed by all the horror writers out there today, and is the multiple winner of the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award. So who am I to judge him, based on the merits of this one book? All I can tell you is that this particular collection was not to my tastes, and that your take on it will most likely be different than mine. As always, I calls 'em like I sees 'em! The 30 stories in this collection can be roughly grouped into half a dozen categories. First up are Campbell's Pastiches of Lovecraft. In this group we find "The Room in the Castle," in which a man, after reading the fabled "Necronomicon," unleashes an ancient evil from the entity's underground prison, and "Cold Print," in which a bibliophile chooses the wrong bookshop to patronize on a blizzardy night. These two tales were both pleasing for this old Lovecraft fan. Pastiches of Algernon Blackwood is our next category here. In this group we find "The Voice of the Beach," perhaps my favorite story in the collection. Here, as in Blackwood's famous novella "The Willows" (1907), two men, staying not on a willow island in the Danube but rather on a nameless beach, become aware of a higher reality...in this case, one that is supplanting our own. Campbell has listed "The Willows" as one of his Top 10 Horror Stories of All Time, and his own stunning tale is a very fine tribute, indeed. Also in this Blackwood category we find "Above the World," in which a man becomes lost while doing some climbing in the Lake District and possibly comes across the figure of his late wife. I can't say for sure; the ending is waaay ambiguous. In the grouping dealing with Killers we have "The Scar," in which a family man encounters his murderous doppelganger, as well as "Again." I can't say enough about this absolutely bonkers tale, in which a hiker is trapped in the hellhouse of a very strange and very kinky old woman. This story's final, three-word sentence will surely linger in the memory, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not! In the category of Monsters we find "The Interloper," in which two students encounter horror inside the catacombs beneath a Brichester pub (!). In "Call First," a librarian explores a strange old man's deserted house and runs afoul of a hideous woman. And in "The Brood," another man performs some illegal snooping in a seemingly deserted home and discovers a human vampire moth (!) and her basement nest. And then we have a category made up of Ghost Stories, some of which are so (here comes that word again!) ambiguous that the reader might never have suspected them as such, had Campbell not told us so in his introduction. In "The Guy," thus, we learn of a particularly horrible Guy Fawkes Night bonfire incident. "The Whining" tells the unusual tale of a vengeful, ghostly dog, of all things, while "In the Bag" gives us the story of a boy who'd died after being accidentally suffocated inside a plastic bag...and of how he returned many years later! A book dealer purchases one of the rarities of 19th century horror author Damien Damon in "Out of Copyright," resulting in the resurrection of the long-dead author, while in "Mackintosh Willy" (which copped the World Fantasy Award in 1980) two teens in one of the poorer Liverpool neighborhoods contend with the ghost of a local homeless man. In "The Ferries," a London editor's life is upended after he discovers a miniature ship in a bottle, and sees the ghostly image of a schooner-type vessel on the silted-up River Dee. "The Fit," meanwhile, narrated by a pubescent youth visiting his Aunt Naomi, tells of a witchlike woman and the cursed garment that almost leads to Naomi's demise. And then there's the Halloween story "Apples," in which the shade of a neighborhood oddball comes back to take revenge on the kids who'd pestered him, on still another Guy Fawkes Night. Finally, "Dark Feasts" offers up no fewer than a baker's dozen of tales that must be deemed Unclassifiable. And what an assortment they are, with a high number of them being (perhaps unsurprisingly) of that mystifying, head-scratching ilk. In this grouping, to start off, we have "The End of a Summer's Day," in which newlywed Maria loses her husband Tony (Maria and Tony? Had Campbell just watched "West Side Story" before penning this thing?) while on a guided tour of a subterranean cavern...with bewildering results. In "The Words That Count," a young woman receives a strangely suggestive pamphlet in the mail, thus incurring the wrath of her religious, disciplinarian father. "The Man in the Underpass," narrated by 10-year-old Lynn, tells of how one of her schoolmates, Tonia, had been drawn into the world of Aztec sacrifice (!) after being fascinated by the graffiti covering the wall of that local underpass. In the flamboyantly titled "Horror House of Blood," a couple agrees to let their home be used by the producers of a new slasher film, with unforeseen results. "The Companion" (which Stephen King has called "maybe the best horror tale to be written in English in the last thirty years") tells the story of a man who visits an abandoned fairground and, to escape a nearby gang of juvenile delinquents, hops a ride aboard the Ghost Train. It really is quite a haunting tale, only let down, for this reader, by still another bewildering ending. "The Chimney" (winner of the World Fantasy Award in 1977) tells of a young lad who lives in mortal fear of something coming down the fireplace chimney in his bedroom, a fear only exacerbated as Christmas approaches. An unexpected tragedy at this tale's conclusion is the capper of a very fine piece of work. In "Midnight Hobo," another overpass is the source of major-league trouble...here, something that lives high beneath the arch, and haunts the radio host who lives nearby. Meanwhile, "The Depths" gives us the story of a writer named Miles, who realizes that his nightmares of violent crime are soon converted into horrible reality...a reality that can only be averted by his writing those horrors down before they can be perpetrated. One senses that author Campbell identified with poor Miles' dire predicament here! In "Hearing Is Believing," a social worker, who dreams of taking his holiday in Greece, comes into possession of a very bizarre stereo system, with the expected baffling results. In "The Hands," another book dealer escapes a rainstorm by entering a seemingly empty church, only to become hopelessly lost in a maze of corridors...and tried by some not-very-sympathetic nuns. "Just Waiting" tells of a novelist/screenwriter who returns to the forest glade where he'd had a strange picnic with his parents 50 years earlier, close to a mystical wishing well. "Seeing the World" might strike a chord with any reader who has ever been forced to look at the neighbors' vacation videos and photographs, although I can guarantee that those readers will not have experienced what poor Angela and Richard have to go through here! Finally, in "Boiled Alive," a paymaster/office drone discovers that his phone number has been shown in some kind of horror video, leading to his receiving all kinds of prank calls, as well as the realization that he can now alter and reshape reality! Don't ask. Anyway, there you have it...30 stories to stun, frighten and assuredly perplex, all impressively penned by England's foremost purveyor of frights. The fact that the majority of these tales did not work for me should in no wise deter you from this volume; as I said, most readers seem to regard it very highly. I suppose the nonstop barrage of nightmare sequences, undeserved deaths, baffling conclusions and relentless typos just palled on me after a while. So only my slightest of recommendations for this particular Ramsey Campbell collection, which admittedly only represents but a fraction of the author's work. Would I be willing to give him another chance? Absolutely! As a matter of fact, Campbell's 1983 novel "The Face That Must Die," which was chosen for inclusion by Poppy Z. Brite in Jones & Newman's "Horror: Another 100 Best Books," has long been on my personal TBR list. So stay tuned for that! Oh...as for that woman eating the pickled onions from the jar with the two eyeballs in it, no such story appears in "Dark Feasts." Another disappointment for me. Harrumph! (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of literary fantasy and horror....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 2024
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Jan 24, 2025
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Hardcover
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| 0722186495
| 9780722186497
| 0722186495
| 3.94
| 1,260
| Dec 31, 1986
| Dec 31, 1986
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really liked it
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And so, I have just come to the end of another lot of nine volumes from the remarkable publisher known as Valancourt Books. And what an ennead they we
And so, I have just come to the end of another lot of nine volumes from the remarkable publisher known as Valancourt Books. And what an ennead they were! In chronological order: Ernest G. Henham's "The Feast of Bacchus" (1907), in which a pair of comedy and tragedy masks influences whoever comes into their orbit; L. P. Hartley's "Facial Justice" (1960), a brilliantly done feminist/dystopian/postapocalyptic affair; Simon Raven's "Doctors Wear Scarlet" (also from 1960), a modern-day vampire novel set in Cambridge and Greece; Arthur Calder-Marshall's "The Scarlet Boy" (1961), a slow-burn haunted-house story; Rohan O'Grady's marvelous "Pippin's Journal" (1962), which combines Gothic elements and 18th century adventure into one ingenious stew; John Blackburn's "Bury Him Darkly" (1969), which melds 18th century doings and science fiction into its horrific story line; Basil Copper's "The Great White Space" (1974), which incorporates lost-race fare, sci-fi, and Lovecraftian cosmic horror into its awesome framework; Karl Edward Wagner's "In a Lonely Place" (1983), an outstanding collection of short stories that was chosen for inclusion in Newman & Jones' "Horror: 100 Best Books"; and now, finally, Lisa Tuttle's "A Nest of Nightmares," a collection that was also chosen for inclusion in the Newman & Jones overview volume but that has been exceedingly difficult to purchase at a reasonable price...until very recently. "A Nest of Nightmares" was originally released as a paperback book by the British publisher Sphere in 1986, and featuring a memorably disquieting cover by Nick Bantock. This would be the collection's last English-language edition for the next 34 years, unfortunately. In 1986, the Dutch publisher Phoenix released Tuttle's book in paperback under the title "Duivelsgebroed" ("Devil's Brood"); in 1990, the French publisher Denoel released its paperback edition with the title "Le Nid" ("The Nest"); and in 1992, the German publisher Goldmann issued its own paperback version bearing the title "Ein Netz aus Angst" ("A Web of Fear"). But it wasn't until Valancourt resurrected the volume in 2020, with that wonderful Nick Bantock illustration on its own front cover, that another edition in English, the first to be published in the U.S., would be made available to customers who, like me, could previously only read others' highly laudable reports on this hard-to-find collection. Before proceeding, a very brief word on Lisa Tuttle herself, for those of you who might be unfamiliar with her. The author was born in Houston, Texas in 1952 and, as of this date, has come out with no fewer than 17 novels, seven collections, and over 130 short stories in the fields of science fiction and horror. (I use the word "horror" as a matter of convenience; Ms. Tuttle apparently prefers the term "ambiguity.") Her first novel, the sci-fi affair "Windhaven" (1981), was written in collaboration with George R.R. Martin. Tuttle relocated to England in 1981 and, as of this writing, resides in Scotland. "A Nest of Nightmares," her first collection, is comprised of 13 stories, three of novelette length, that were, for the most part, written from 1980 to '85. Tuttle employs simple, highly readable prose here to tell her tales, some of exceptional grisliness. Despite the author's disavowal of the term, these are true tales of horror in that something horrible happens to pretty much all 13 of the female protagonists whom we encounter. Nobody in these stories is safe, and even innocent and undeserving young women might suffer a horrible demise or shocking loss before their stories end. Remarkably, children, even babies, are made grist for the author's fictive mill! Don't let the simple style of presentation fool you...these stories carry a sting! Perhaps this is why author Neil Gaiman once wrote of Tuttle "...she can chill your flesh and walk you into the darkness with gentle, perfectly constructed prose...[and yet] she's one of the dangerous ones." Or, as writer Will Errickson says in his introduction to this Valancourt edition, "Her horror tiptoes, glides, smothers, appears in tiny details, climbing in at the corner of the page, lying in wait till the final sentences, then springing forth fully formed yet all too recognizable." Though simply written, some of these stories can be read on more than one level, and some left me wondering if I had indeed correctly understood them. Small details that seem trivial at first blush become significant later on, and some of the tales left me with the nagging suspicion that I had probably missed some ideas that Tuttle wished to convey. Several of them are, as Tuttle suggested, ambiguous, and might leave many readers wanting more in the areas of explication and closure. So yes, the stories are rather deep although deceptively simple, many of them with a feminist slant, but all manage to entertain, stun and even shock. Often, the tales leave one feeling angry at the unfair fates doled out to the characters therein; still, there is not a single story here that fails to score on some level. As "Mythago Wood" author Robert Holdstock says in the Newman & Jones volume, "...the stories in 'A Nest of Nightmares' are, on the whole, strong, scary and impressive...." Now, as for the baker's dozen of stories themselves, the collection kicks off nicely with "Bug House," a perfect introduction to the precariousness of the lead characters' ultimate fates. Here, Ellen Morrow, running away from a failing marriage, arrives at her Aunt May's dilapidated beachfront house, only to find that house infested with destructive insects and her aunt slowly wasting away from...something. A strange young fellow, a deliveryman with a vaguely threatening demeanor, eventually arrives to make matters even more problematic, and a violent and borderline science fictional conclusion will surely manage to stun all readers. It is quite an opening story, trust me! In the curiously titled "Dollburger," the next story up, a little girl named Karen is told by her father that dolls that aren't neatly put away could be victims of the bad men who break into people's houses, steal those dolls, and turn them into the titular dollburgers to eat! And as we soon find out, something really is consuming the dolls in Karen's house...but they are not men, and indeed, nothing human. This shortish tale, seen from a child's POV, certainly does boast a certain amount of charm but ultimately struck this reader as being kind of lightweight, and even silly. For me, it's the weakest story in this collection. "Community Property," however, is as nasty and cruelly suggestive as this book gets! Here, a couple headed for divorce, Ellis and Susie, finds it impossible to decide who should keep the family dog, Gonzo, after they split, and so arrive at the only possible decision: Put the animal to sleep! After a vet reluctantly carries out the deed, Ellis and Susie have a change of heart, reconcile with one another, have a baby...and decide to divorce again. But...how to decide who keeps the baby? I think you begin to see the picture here. As I say, Tuttle stories can get pretty brutal at times! "Flying to Byzantium" is not only the longest story in this collection, but also one of its finest. And having been written chronologically last, in 1985, I suppose it showcases the author's talents at their most mature stage. In this one, Sheila Stoller, who has written one fantasy novel, is invited to go to a science fiction convention in the (fictitious) small town of Byzantium, Texas. But her visit turns out to grow nightmarish, her two female hosts become increasingly unsympathetic, and Byzantium itself, poor Sheila soon realizes, might never allow her to go. The reader gets the feeling that some of the experiences that Sheila undergoes at the convention were ones also experienced by Tuttle herself, such as when one attendee expresses surprise that the author doesn't look "more glamorous," and asks for her autograph despite never having read her book. With an increasingly tense atmosphere, comedic elements, and meaty food for thought, this story is a genuine winner, indeed! And it is followed by one of the volume's eeriest pieces, "Treading the Maze," the first story in this collection dealing with ancient legends. Here, a happily married couple, Amy and Phil, touring the sights in southwestern England, stop at an inn near Glastonbury and see a group of nighttime revelers in the field below their window. The following day, Phil discovers that the group had been dancing in what's known as a "turf maze," and treads the mystical maze himself...to his eternal regret. In one of this collection's freakier moments, the widowed Amy returns to the maze several years later, stands inside it, and sees, in the nearby inn...herself and Phil, looking out of the upstairs window! Brrrr! Another story dealing with an ancient legend is to be found in "The Horse Lord." Here, Marilyn Hoskins, her husband Derek and their five kids move into an old house in upstate New York; a house that was reputedly built on land sacred to the native Indians because of the jealous and vengeful spirit that supposedly claimed it as its own. Soon, the sound of a ghostly horse is heard at night, a centuries-old depiction of a monstrous creature is discovered in the nearby barn, and it becomes very apparent that whatever horrible thing had killed Derek's great-uncle in that barn a century earlier is now stirring about again. Another grim and horrifyingly downbeat ending is the capper to this well-crafted bit of nastiness. Still another ancient legend crops up in the next story, "The Other Mother." In this longish tale, we meet a divorced, aspiring painter named Sara, who lives with her two young kids in a lakefront house. Sara feels guilt about wanting to be a painter instead of a full-time mother, but her life is suddenly upended when she sees the ghostly figure of a white-clad woman on the lake's farther shore, as well as an oddly behaving white pig and white bird. Her neighbor feels the ghostly woman is nothing less than Cerridwen, the Welsh goddess of death and creation, and indeed, Sara's painting does soon enter a new and highly productive phase. But there is a horrible price to be paid, in this chilling story's devastating finale! In the creepy little tale entitled "Need," Corey, a ballet student, meets a strange young man named Harold Walker while sitting in her favorite peaceful spot in the local cemetery. The two start to meet each other there often, Harold promising the engaged Corey that he will always be available for her, whenever she needs him. When Corey is forced to break one of their cemetery appointments, Harold commits suicide, but as he'd promised, he will still always show up whenever Corey has need of him! An ending that takes place on Halloween night, seemingly ripped from the pages of an old EC comic, brings the curtain down here nicely. Another of my favorite stories in this collection, "The Memory of Wood," is up next. Here, a married couple, Helen and Rob, buy an antique chest, despite the foul odor that occasionally wafts out of it. But once the relic is ensconced in their living room, the sound of a crying baby begins to fill their house at night, their young son Julian claims to be able to see a baby inside the empty chest, and Helen herself discerns the seeming mirage of old newspapers laying on the chest's bottom. Soon the realization comes: The chest itself is haunted! The ending of this story is written so ambiguously that I'm not sure if that ending is a tragic one or a case of tragedy narrowly averted. I'd be curious to know what others think.... In what I deem to be the loveliest story in this collection (well, possibly the only story here that could be so termed!), "A Friend in Need," two women, strangers to one another, start talking while waiting for a plane at the Houston airport. And before long, Cecily Cloud and Jane Renzo come to realize that they have indeed met before, and even stranger, that each was the other's imaginary playmate from when they were children! This story does not aim to scare or shock the reader, unlike its companions in this volume, but, following a mystical final scene, leaves us wondering about the nature of so-called reality itself. Trust me, reader, you have not encountered a fantasy quite like it. Two points off, however, for Jane mentioning that she'd never been west of the Hudson till recently, after telling Cecily that she'd gone to the Gertrude Folwell Elementary School and Montclair State, both of them in...New Jersey! Written in 1972, "Stranger in the House" was Lisa Tuttle's very first published work, yet still displays her nascent ability to stun and puzzle. The tale gives us two parallel story lines. In one, a woman named Sharon approaches her childhood home in Houston, with no knowledge of how she got there, and later observes herself and her sister as children therein. In the other story line, a bickering couple drives around that same neighborhood, before suffering (what we must assume is) a fatal crash. And it is only then that we realize how Sharon has come home again, wraithlike, and no longer a prisoner of time. Some pretty impressive work here, for a first-timer! In one of this collection's most horrifying stories, "Sun City," we make the acquaintance of Nora, who works the night shift in an El Paso motel and is currently separated from her husband after just one year of marriage. And then Nora begins to suffer daily visitations from a cloaked figure wearing a mask of human skin; a figure who stands by her bed emitting a loathsome stench! Locked doors are ineffective at keeping the intruder out, and one day, Nora summons up her courage and somehow faces her intruder down.... Mexican mythology and still another ghastly conclusion are also highlighted in this disquieting tale of terror. One-half point off for Ms. Tuttle using the word "cadaverine" here (no such word) instead of "cadaveric," however. "A Nest of Nightmares" is brought to a close with a rather nightmarish story, indeed..."The Nest," another of the longer ones. Here, sisters Pam and Sylvia move into an old abandoned house in the English countryside. The roof above the attic sports a gaping hole, and one day Pam, the older sister, sees, from a hilltop, a manlike, black thing flap from a nearby tree and land atop that roof! In the days to come, she hears curious thumping noises coming from the attic, and notices Sylvia spending more and more time therein.... This final story offers up subtly suggestive yet truly nightmarish mind-pictures for the reader, as it concludes this volume on a note of ambiguity (there's that word again!) and strangeness. On a personal note, my thanks to Valancourt Books for enabling me to finally experience this collection after years of wanting to do so. Not all of the stories worked for me, and several left me wondering and scratching my head (as they were no doubt meant to do), but I surely enjoyed them enough to now want to investigate some more of Tuttle's work. Fortunately, Valancourt does have three more Tuttle titles currently available--the collections "The Dead Hours of Night" (2021) and "Riding the Nightmare" (2023), as well as the novel "Familiar Spirit" (1983)--and I do hope to be able to read those one day, too.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of well-written horror....)s ...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 2024
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Dec 2024
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Dec 30, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0446305340
| 9780446305341
| 0446305340
| 4.26
| 808
| 1974
| Feb 1983
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it was amazing
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In any number of my book reviews here on 欧宝娱乐, I have had cause to refer to editor Karl Edward Wagner's famous Wagner 39 List. This three-part li
In any number of my book reviews here on 欧宝娱乐, I have had cause to refer to editor Karl Edward Wagner's famous Wagner 39 List. This three-part list, which originally appeared in the June and August 1983 issues of "Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine," enumerated the editor's choices for the 13 Best Supernatural Horror Novels of all time, the 13 Best Nonsupernatural Horror Novels of all time, and the 13 Best Sci-Fi Horror Novels of all time; a guide that many horror buffs have valued for decades now. But as any fan of Karl Edward Wagner would readily tell you, the Tennessee-born horror maven was much more than an editor; he was a highly respected author, as well. Thus, it might seem strange that although I'd loved all 14 of the 39 books that KEW had steered me to on those lists thus far, I had never actually read anything by the man himself, an oversight that I was keen to rectify. And for the longest time, I'd known where I wanted to start; namely, Wagner's first collection of shuddery tales, "In a Lonely Place," which book was chosen for inclusion in Newman & Jones' excellent overview volume "Horror: 100 Best Books." In his article therein, horror author Ramsey Campbell, aka the British Stephen King, calls Wagner's book "one of the most impressive horror collections to have appeared for quite some time," and, as it turns out, for good reason. The only problem for me was, "In a Lonely Place" had been, for many years, very hard to acquire for a reasonable price...until very recently. The collection originally appeared in 1983 as a $2.95 Warner Books paperback, with an introduction by Peter Straub and a cover by one Barclay Shaw, and contained seven stories. The following year, the publisher Scream/Press released the book, in a limited run, as a deluxe hardback, with a cover and illustrations by Val Lakey Lindahn, a new and highly informative afterword by Wagner himself, and one extra story. And after this, the book, despite that write-up in Newman & Jones' 1988 volume, would go OOPs (out of prints) for almost 40 years, till the fine folks at Valancourt Books resurrected it in 2023, complete with that eighth story, the Wagner afterword, and an introduction by Campbell (which is largely lifted from his 1988 article). It is a volume that I happily pounced upon shortly after its Valancourt release, and my first experience of the book has confirmed Campbell's assessment: This really is a remarkable collection of first-rate modern horror! Every single one of the eight stories, most of novelette length, manages to stun, surprise and frighten; there is nary a clinker in the bunch. Before telling you of the manifold wonders to be encountered here, a quick word on the author himself, for those of you who might be unfamiliar with him. Karl Edward Wagner was born in Knoxville in 1945. As an editor, he is perhaps best remembered today as the force behind DAW's annual "The Year's Best Horror Stories," having been the curator of books VIII - XXII, from 1980 to 1994. As a publisher, Wagner is remembered as the founder of Carcosa books. And as an author, he is perhaps best remembered as the creator of Kane, the Mystic Swordsman, a character who appeared in three novels and three short-story collections. And those are just some of the many highlights of Wagner's prolific career. Unfortunately, alcoholism cut that career--and his life--short, and he would ultimately pass away in 1994 at the age of only 48. Now, as for the octet of tales in this collection, they are a surprisingly grisly and downbeat bunch, and truly horrifying in that something horrible happens to all the lead characters in them; indeed, most of the main players in these tales may be considered fortunate if they are still alive by the end. The collection kicks off in a very big way with the traditional "haunted-house story" "In the Pines," in which a married couple from Ohio, Garry and Janet Randall, having recently suffered the loss of their young son, rent a deserted mountain cabin for a vacation in eastern Tennessee. Gerry soon turns to his favorite hobby, boozing, at the same time becoming fascinated by an old painting of a flapper woman that he finds in the cellar. He learns about the flapper's history from both a local shopkeeper and from the journal of a previous tenant in the cabin; an artist in the early 1950s. The artist recorded that he'd actually seen this woman, named Renee, on the property, and been driven to madness by her, and before long, the same thing, perhaps inevitably, begins to happen to Gerry, too. Wagner's story is deliciously atmospheric and makes wonderful use of the old Tennessee Ernie Ford song "In the Pines." The journal entries are wonderfully creepy, and there is even a suggestion of Stephen King's "The Shining" (1977) in Gerry Randall's increasing mania. A genuine winner, to kick-start this collection, capped by an ending straight out of an old EC comic! "Where the Summer Ends" is set in Knoxville itself, a city that Wagner obviously knew very well. In a particularly decrepit, crumbling, and kudzu-overgrown section of the city, we find college students Jon Mercer and Linda Wentworth hanging out with an aged junkman/antiques dealer named Gradie. A series of grotesque killings has been taking place recently in the area, and before long, our trio of friends discovers the cause...the hard way. Wagner's tale conflates an antique Victorian mantel, Fleetwood Mac, oversized rats, WW2 skulls, and a lost race into one very sinister stew. The author's descriptions of his run-down hometown are entirely convincing, the sultry summer atmosphere is expertly rendered, and the story's final revelations and shocking last moment should linger long in the reader's memory. You'll probably not be forgetting this tale's last, three-word sentence, either. Brrr! One of Wagner's most renowned stories, "Sticks," is up next, a tale that the author, in his afterword, tells us was based on a real-life experience of famed illustrator Lee Brown Coye. The story is also believed to have served as an inspiration for the 1999 hit film "The Blair Witch Project." Here, book illustrator Colin Leverett, while fishing in the woods in upstate NY, comes upon a section filled with creepy lattice structures built of sticks. He explores a deserted farmhouse and is attacked by what seems to be a living corpse! Decades later, Leverett employs the lattice figures in his illustrations for a proposed three-volume anthology of horror writer H. Kenneth Allard (a decisive nod to H.P. Lovecraft), leading to his being discovered by an ancient and secret cult.... Wagner's story pleasingly makes reference to the pulp magazines "Short Stories" and "Weird Tales," evinces his knowledge of the publishing world that he knew intimately, and concludes with as nightmarish a finale as an jaded horror fan could wish to find. Just wow! Before becoming a writer, Wagner had studied medicine, particularly psychology, only to drop out of the field after growing disillusioned by it. His story "The Fourth Seal" is the direct result. Here, we find medical researcher Geoff Metzger, who has just been accepted to work at the prestigious "Center." Metzger had lately been making great progress in his search for a cure for cancer, but as he soon learns, his associates and the higher-ups at the Center have other plans for his future.... For all those readers who have ever entertained doubts as to the medical and pharmaceutical industries' good intentions, this story will come as a validating godsend. It is an exquisitely well-done tale of cynicism and paranoia, featuring yet another deliciously morbid denouement. You might never look at your family doctor or local pharmacist in the same light, after reading Wagner's horrific yet heartfelt story. Particularly recommended for fans of such medical-horror films as "Seconds" (1966) and "Coma" (1978). A different kind of horror is to be found in this collection's next offering; the horror of real-life thwarted ambition, despair, and unworthy love. In "More Sinned Against," we meet two Hollywood hopefuls, Candi Thorne and Marlboro-man type Richards Justin. After moving in together, the two find that becoming a success in Tinseltown is no easy proposition. To support her man, in a kind of hellish reworking of "A Star Is Born," Candi goes from being a B actress, to a porn actress, to a drug-addicted street hooker, to a torture-porn "actress," all while the ungrateful Richards' fame increases. Remarkably, however, Candi is just about the only lead character to be found in this volume who is vouchsafed a happy ending...of sorts. Wagner's very grim story is, happily, leavened with a goodly dose of humor, mainly via its droll manner of presentation, and its incorporation of voodoo elements, coming out of left field as it does, takes the reader by surprise. "More Sinned Against" was the one story here that was not present in the original Warner paperback, and its later addition was a very welcome one. The curiously titled ".220 Swift" (a type of high-velocity rifle cartridge) introduces the reader to two very different men, who have come to the hilly region of western North Carolina (recently ravaged by Hurricane Helene) to conduct their separate researches. Dr. Morris Kenlaw is looking for physical evidence of the 16th century conquistadors' underground mines, while young albino student Eric Brandon is searching for proof of the existence of a pre-Indian culture...perhaps of the Little People of legend, whom the Native Americans called the Yunwi Tsunsdi. And when the two combine forces to explore an underground cave system...well, let's just say that both they and the reader are in store for quite a few shocking surprises! Wagner's story presents us with both a fascinating history of this region as well as some equally fascinating lore, and even makes a pleasing reference to the Shonokins, a forgotten race that figures largely in Manly Wade Wellman's John Thunstone stories. A most impressive piece of work! In the absolutely remarkable story "The River of Night's Dreaming," a female prisoner named Cassilda manages an escape after the bus she is riding in tumbles over a cliff during a stormy night, in a scene reminiscent of the hit TV show "The Fugitive." Cassilda manages to swim across the choppy waters of a bay and flees into the deserted streets of a rat-infested city. Fortunately for her, she is accepted into the home of a Mrs. Castaigne, a Victorian dowager type who lives alone with her maid Camilla. But as it happens, the elderly woman and her attendant have rather sinister plans for the bedraggled newcomer.... Wagner's story mixes in references to Robert W. Chambers' 1895 classic "The King in Yellow" along with bits of kinky S&M, madness, hallucinations, and 19th century raiment. Ramsey Campbell, in his intro, calls it a masterpiece, and I would heartily concur. At least, it might be my favorite story in this collection. And by the way, Wagner, in his afterword, reveals something about Cassilda that I had not picked up on...and am still uncertain how I was supposed to do so! "In a Lonely Place" concludes with a story that might be a perfect fit for the newly revived Hammer Studios. In "Beyond Any Measure," an American art student studying in London, Lisette Seyrig (a nod, perhaps, to French actress Delphine Seyrig, star of the 1971 cult-classic lesbian-vampire film "Daughters of Darkness"?), suffers from terrible nightmares involving crypts and blood. She seeks the help of Dr. Ingmar Magnus, who proposes a course of hypnosis to find out if Lisette might possibly be flashing back to a previous incarnation. But as we soon learn, the truth is actually far more bizarre than that. This wonderful closing story incorporates a novel twist on both hauntings and vampirism and throws in a psychedelic and coke-fueled party, soft-core lesbianism, references to Hammer stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, punk rockers, premature burial, a reference to Ramsey Campbell's fictitious book "We Pass From View" (!), and a shower sequence perhaps more shocking than the one to be found in Hitchcock's "Psycho"! It is an absolutely first-rate horror extravaganza to bring the curtain down on this octet of stunners. On a personal note, I am so glad that I was finally able to experience this superlative collection, after years of wanting to do so. Now, I find myself eager to read Wagner's 1987 collection entitled "Why Not You and I?," which supposedly gathers together some more of his very finest stories. Hopefully, the folks at Valancourt will be making that long-out-of-print work available soon, too.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit site at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of exquisitely written horror....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 2024
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Nov 2024
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Dec 29, 2024
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 9997539672
| 9789997539670
| 9997539672
| 3.77
| 233
| Jan 01, 1975
| Jun 1975
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really liked it
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For those of you who have read everything written by the great H. P. Lovecraft but are still hankering for another solid dose of cosmic horror and ten
For those of you who have read everything written by the great H. P. Lovecraft but are still hankering for another solid dose of cosmic horror and tentacled monstrosities, hoo boy, have I got a doozy for you! Although written four decades after the so-called "Sage of Providence" dominated the field of weird fiction in the 1930s, this book --Basil Copper's "The Great White Space"--is such a convincing pastiche that all fans of the genre should be left happily grinning nevertheless. More on the novel's similarities to Lovecraft's work, in particular his classic 1936 novella "At the Mountains of Madness," in a moment. "The Great White Space" was originally released in 1974 as a hardcover book by the British publisher Robert Hale, with cover art by Colin Andrews. A year later, St. Martin's Press, here in the U.S., came out with its own hardcover edition, but featuring the same Andrews cover art. In 1976, also in the U.S., Manor Books issued the novel in paperback (with a very freaky cover by Bob Larkin), and in 1980, Sphere Books in England came out with its own paperback, cover by Terry Oakes. The book would then go OOPs (out of prints) for 22 years, till the German publisher Festa revived it in 2002 under the misleading title "Die Eisholle" ("The Ice Hell"), and with cover art by the illustrator professionally known as Babbarammdass (aka Hanno von Bran). And finally, for readers today, there is the trade-sized paperback released by Valancourt Books in 2013, with its faithful cover art by Eric Robertson and an introduction by horror authority Stephen Jones. Now, before diving into the myriad wonders to be encountered in this volume, a quick word on the author himself. Basil Frederick Albert Copper was born in London in 1924. Today, Copper is assuredly best known for three very different literary endeavors. First, he was the author of no fewer than 52 novels centering on Los Angeles private detective Mike Faraday, written from 1966 to 1988. He also continued the character of Solar Pons, created by Lovecraft champion and Arkham House founder August Derleth, in seven collections of short stories and one novel. And last but certainly not least, he authored six novels and 10 collections that dealt with weird, cosmic and supernatural horror. Copper ultimately passed away in 2013 at age 89. His very first novel of weird and cosmic horror, "The Great White Space" is narrated to us by Frederick (same spelling as Copper's middle name, right?) Plowright, a professional photographer and filmmaker who had achieved some renown by having accompanied several explorers on rather hazardous journeys. Still in his mid-30s at the time of his narrative, Plowright, we are told, is currently a broken man; the sole survivor of the so-called "Great Northern Expedition" of (circa) 1934, the tragic events of which are given to us in some detail. The photographer, we learn, had been contacted by no less a figure than Professor Clark Ashton Scarsdale, who had convinced the younger man to join him in his next venture. Several years earlier, Scarsdale had penetrated a cave system somewhere in the neighborhood of Tibet but had been forced to turn back after encountering a vast subterranean lake. A student of esoteric and arcane lore, Scarsdale now hoped to discover wondrous things on the other side of that lake, and this time would come prepared with four tractors (more like enormous tanks, we soon discover) and collapsible rubber rafts...not to mention a small army's worth of armaments. Another professor of hidden knowledge, as well as an engineer and geologist, Cornelius Van Damm, in addition to Norman Holden (historian) and Geoffrey Prescott (linguist and Egyptologist), would be accompanying them; a team of five to penetrate a subterranean area where no man had trod before. And so, Plowright tells us, after an intensive few weeks of training at handling the tanks and other gear at the professor's temporary home in Surrey, the quintet had indeed set off by ship. It had taken them many weeks to reach the isolated village of Zak, acquire a dwarfish and treacherous guide named Zalor, arrive at an even more primitive village called Nylstrom, cross a burning desert and the Plain of Darkness to reach their ultimate destination, the Black Mountains. There, Scarsdale had led the men to the ancient, 500-foot-high doorway that had been carved into the mountainside, guarded by a hieroglyph-covered stone that forbade entry. But feeling secure in their rolling fortresses, the men had of course proceeded. They had arrived at the underground lake (85 miles into the mountain system and five miles beneath it!), made a safe transit across it in their rubber rafts, and then discovered numerous wonders: a gallery of the embalmed dead; an ancient and seemingly abandoned city; and, most horrible of all, the Great White Space, an area of palpitating, resounding light that acted as nothing less than a portal to the stars! And through that blinding and deafening zone of incandescent light had emerged nightmarish shapes that had proven to be the undoing of the Great Northern Expedition...to put it very mildly! As you may have already discerned, "The Great White Space" really is something of a must-read for all fans of cosmic horror, sci-fi, lost-world adventure novels, and especially H. P. Lovecraft. As mentioned, it is truly an excellent pastiche of the 1930s style of weird-fiction writing; the book just doesn't feel like a modern novel, especially one written in the 1970s. Copper turns out to be a fairly wonderful wordsmith, and yet he is certainly not above occasionally employing the language that made pulp fiction so much fun. Thus, we can get a sentence such as "I glimpsed the forms of the slug-things all about me now, their monadelphous outlines fibrillating and undulating in the pitiless glare from outer space," as well as "I tasted the bitter taste of blood and bile in my mouth and my brain was a seething cauldron of white-hot terror"! And speaking of those slug-things, the alien menaces encountered here would surely make ol' H. P. beam in approbation! We are thus treated to those sluglike jelly creatures that are impervious to gunfire; 50-foot-high, tentacled bat monsters that can suck a living man to a collapsible husk (!); and five-foot-high grasshopper thingies. Another nod to Lovecraft comes via the forbidden tomes that Scarsdale has studied; not "The Necronomicon," but here, "The Ethics of Ygor" and "The Trone Tables," which have given the professor a good idea of what he might find beyond that underground lake. Too, as in Lovecraft, a sense of cosmic awe is engendered in the reader, while many mysteries perforce go unexplained. And Lovecraft isn't the only writer who is paid homage to here. There is a tip of the chapeau, surely, to H. Rider Haggard, the so-called "Father of the Lost-Race Novel," especially when those two isolated villages are arrived at, when three of Scarsdale's tanks draw themselves up "into a rough laager," and when the underground cavern is first explored. Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1864) is of course brought to mind, and the macabre atmosphere is at times reminiscent of some of the writings of William Hope Hodgson, such as in "The Night Land" (1912). And need I even mention that the character Clark Ashton Scarsdale (an homage to Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger, Stephen Jones mentions, although I did not quite see it) takes his name from the great fantasist of the 1930s and '40s, Clark Ashton Smith? Copper's book is a taut and lean affair, not exceeding 170 pages in this Valancourt edition; there is no excess flab, and our narrator even tells us at one point that "it would sorely overburden this narrative if I went into great detail" regarding certain items. Still, there is an abundance of detail as to other important matters. The first half of the novel comes off like a simple (although fascinating) story of Asian exploration, and our intrepid quintet does not even arrive at the Black Mountains until the tale is around one-third done. But the book's final 40 pages or so, it must be added, are absolutely thrilling. Any number of splendid sequences are given to the reader, including our narrator's brutal fight with the dwarf guide Zalor; the discovery of Zalor's desiccated corpse in the cavern system; the exploration and crossing of the underground lake; the discovery of an alien embalming gallery, and the opening of some of the canopic-style jars therein; walking through the deserted (?) alien city of Croth; the initial finding of the Great White Space and its cosmic users; the hideous and horrible deaths of four of our heroes; and Plowright and Scarsdale's protracted battle against the alien beings, armed with useless guns and more-than-useful hand grenades. All five of the men, it should be said, are hugely likeable sorts, which only makes their very gruesome ends all the more upsetting. They are all brave men who realistically become panicky and even unhinged--even, at some moments, Scarsdale--when confronted with those inhuman horrors from beyond. All told, "The Great White Space" is a wonderfully entertaining read that could easily have been sequelized. Jones tells us that Copper also came out with a "companion piece" (not quite sure what that means in this instance) entitled "Into the Silence" (1983), and I sure would love to read that one now! In truth, I have very few complaints to lodge against Copper's very impressive work here. Oh, there are a few instances of faulty grammar ("The contrast of the splendours of Zak were so marked..."; "...neither of us were exactly impatient..."), and many mysteries remain unsolved by the book's end. (Just what were Zalor's motivations, and how did he beat the men back to the underground cavern?) But perhaps my biggest beef with Copper here is his unusual use of commas throughout the book; sometimes too few, sometimes too many. I'm not sure if this was a stylistic affectation used in this novel only to bring about a sense of strangeness (as Hodgson did in many of his works) or not, but it did make for some genuine stumbling blocks for this old copy editor. Tell me if I'm wrong about there being too few commas in these sentences: "Number 1, I saw was labelled Command Vehicle..."; "We reached Zak on September 1st and there, with much haggling and grumbling the porters were paid off..."; "The Mir, in laboured conversations conducted through Scarsdale told us something of his people's customs..."; "Stretching behind us, like the slime-track left by a gigantic slug was our own trail..."; "'I know the route, as you realise and I shall need you to control the radio...'"; "He took the tea sullenly, quite unlike his usual self and sipped it with great shuddering gasps..." Do you see what I mean? Conversely, at times there are too many commas; to wit: "Altogether, it was a strange, and fascinating place in which we found ourselves..."; "...I noticed, that, even when off watch, he cast occasional glances through the windscreen..."; "...he was of course, right"; "There was little, or nothing we could now do..." As I say, this kind of awkward and jerky punctuation can be a little offputting, but does fortunately pale into insignificance when compared to the book's many other fine qualities. I would now be very interested in checking out some more of Basil Copper's works that are currently in print, and fortunately for me, Valancourt does at the moment have available two more of the author's novels, namely "Necropolis" (1980) and "The House of the Wolf" (1983). I look forward to experiencing those two books one day in the near future...weird comma usage or no.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of sci-fi and horror....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 2024
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Nov 2024
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Dec 28, 2024
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Paperback
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| 9997539230
| 9789997539236
| 9997539230
| 3.63
| 114
| 1969
| Jun 1969
|
really liked it
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Although it's been almost 18 years since I last read English author John Blackburn's first novel, "A Scent of New-Mown Hay" (1958), I still vividly re
Although it's been almost 18 years since I last read English author John Blackburn's first novel, "A Scent of New-Mown Hay" (1958), I still vividly recall several segments of the book, mainly due to the forcefulness of the writing therein. And really, with its plot conflating a female ex-Nazi scientist, deserted Russian villages, and a fungoid mutation that is slowly spreading across Europe, the book is inherently hard to forget. I'd been meaning to experience something else by Blackburn ever since, but that was not an easy proposition for a long time, most of his works having been OOPs (out of prints) for many years...until, that is, the fine folks at Valancourt Books came along around a decade ago. As of this writing (late 2024), the publisher has released no fewer than 19 of Blackburn's 30 or so novels, all in beautiful and affordably priced editions, thus allowing a new generation to experience one of England's foremost purveyors of thrills and horror. Choosing at random (well, actually, I went for the book with the spookiest-sounding title and description!), I opted for the Blackburn novel entitled "Bury Him Darkly"...and a very fortuitous choice it was, too, as things have turned out! "Bury Him Darkly" was originally released as a hardcover edition in 1969 by the English publisher Jonathan Cape. Putnam, here in the U.S., came out with its own hardback edition the following year, right around the time Sphere, a British imprint, released the book in paperback. Another paperback would be issued in the U.S. by Berkley Medallion in 1971, and then the book would go OOPs for 12 years, till the Lisbon-based publisher Europress came out with still another paperback in 1983, under the title "O Terror de Railstone." And then, after another OOPs period of three decades, Valancourt added the book to its already hugely impressive catalog, in 2013. The novel was initially released when Blackburn was 46 years old and roughly halfway through his prolific career, which concluded with 1985's "The Bad Penny." Like his very first effort, "Bury Him Darkly" melds thriller elements with both horror and sci-fi to create one very impressive entertainment for the reader. As the British tabloid "The Evening Standard" wrote back when, it is a book "Not for the timid." At the crux of Blackburn's gripping tale is Sir Martin Railstone, a poet, painter and scientist who died in the year 1770. For most of his life, we learn, Railstone had produced only mediocre work, until, in his reclusive final 15 years, he began to evince signs of genius. The mysterious figure had been buried in a tomb beneath his home, Caswell Hall, in southern England, along with many of his final works of art and writing. His will forbade the opening of the tomb by anyone except a descendant who should both resemble him (a squat, homely, redheaded person) and share his edema malady, the Anglican church acting as his trustee. Flash forward 200 years, and we find the tomb still untouched, the lookalike heir never having been found. But when the local holy man in charge of the trust, Bishop Dudley Renton, is assassinated in a deliberate hit-and-run, the society that is devoted to all things Railstone, and that dreams of seeing his tomb opened one day, finally sees a glimmer of hope. That society, The Adherents of Sir Martin Railstone and the Openers of the Caswell Tomb, envisions the undiscovered works of art, poetry and science that might soon be brought to light, and its founder, millionaire industrialist Desmond Marne, is soon seen making his urgent request of the clergyman now in charge, Dean William Norseman. And that urgency is mainly due to the fact that a much-needed dam is about to be constructed, with the result that Caswell Hall will shortly lie beneath 100 feet of water! But Norseman had recently come into possession of a journal penned by Martin Railstone himself two centuries before, and had read of the man's horrible experiments, wicked lifestyle, and supposed "touch of death," and he adamantly refuses Marne's pleas. Adding their voices to Marne's are one of the society's most zealous adherents, George Banks; an elderly, ex-Nazi scientist named Erich Beck, who thinks valuable medical discoveries might be discovered inside the tomb; historian Mary Carlin, who believes Railstone had hidden in his final resting place an object that might very well be nothing less than the Holy Grail (!); Marjorie Wooderson, a Railstone biographer; and reporter John Wilde, on the hunt for a good story. But Norseman turns them down, one and all. Before long, however, things start to break. Banks decides to force his way into the tomb by entering through Caswell Hall's dry moat (bypassing the locks and guards), only to hear laughter emanating from within. He soon goes mad and then dies. Marne finds a mentally impaired woman named Nancy Leame who looks exactly like Railstone and shares his complaint of dropsy, and thus proclaims her to be the rightful heir. Norseman, his curiosity getting the better of him, beats Marne to the punch and forces open the lock of the ancient tomb, only to receive an almost-mortal wound from a diabolical booby trap as a result. But in the end, a Houdini-like figure, Blondin, manages to work his way through the tomb's defenses; Marne makes off with the chest stashed next to Railstone's corpse; Mary finds her chalice artifact lying on the tomb's floor; and Nancy Leame gets to touch the mummified remains of her forebear. All seems well...until it is realized that a horrible, mutating evil has been let loose into the world.... Blackburn's book, his many fans will not be surprised to learn, is wonderfully well written and is a lean and mean affair, with not a bit of flab. As Greg Gbur mentions in his informative intro to this Valancourt edition, Blackburn never wrote a book that exceeded 200 pages in length, and this one, clocking in at 157, is no exception. But oh my goodness, what a wealth of incident and detail he manages to cram in! Besides being lean and mean, his novel here is also tough and nasty; thus, any character can have harm befall him or her, including several of the major players. Even holy men and little girls are not safe, a knowledge that keeps us in suspense as regards the ultimate safety of one and all. Blackburn supplies his book with an abundance of that aforementioned detail as to history, characters, and general descriptions of the terrain, Caswell Hall, and the ultimate menace. Indeed, it is often difficult to tell where meticulously researched fact leaves off and fantasy begins, and Sir Martin Railstone is so well depicted and thoroughly fleshed out that he convinces as an actual historic figure. But perhaps what is most remarkable about "Bury Him Darkly," a feature that Gbur tells us is common in most of Blackburn's work, is how the story opens out, gradually becoming more and more serious in nature. And so, here, what at first comes off as a tale of murder and a clash between two opposing parties regarding an ancient crypt soon morphs into a tale of terror, as more sinister details regarding Railstone come to light. And then, the terror element becomes more pronounced, and an astonishing science fictional element enters the picture, until we are faced with nothing less than an extraterrestrial scourge that bids fair to sweep across the globe! Ultimately, we are confronted with an entity that...well, perhaps I shouldn't say, but readers who have encountered the crawling bloblike creatures in Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Synthetic Men of Mars" (1939) and Philip K. Dick's "The Cosmic Puppets" (1956), and are familiar with the spectacular and tentacular monstrosities of H. P. Lovecraft, may have some inkling as to what to expect! But this being a John Blackburn novel, the apocalyptic horrors are much more credibly brought to the fore. As did "A Scent of New-Mown Hay," "Bury Him Darkly" combines WW2 doings, Nazis, horror, sci-fi and a creeping, mutating menace to create one mind-boggling stew; just try to predict where this remarkable thrill ride will veer off to next! All fans of adventure, horror, science fiction and apocalyptic fare should just eat it up with a spoon. As might be expected, Blackburn here provides his readers with one marvelous set piece after another. Among the standouts: the zealous George Banks entering the tomb and becoming petrified by the sound of maniacal laughter; the excerpts of Railstone's journal that we are privy to; Norseman's horrible injury as a result of that (phallic-shaped!) booby trap; Blondin and his team cautiously penetrating the hazardous vault; the unboxing of Railstone's chest, as we discover precisely what has been hidden away for 200 years; the first appearance of the newly mutated Nancy, in Mary's bungalow; the multiple deaths of the area locals at the hands (so to speak) of the alien whatsit; a pitched battle between the English soldiers, and their guns and flamethrowers, and the marauding menace; and finally, the climactic scene in the Lanchester cathedral, with Mary, John and Beck trapped on the chancel as the monster slowly advances. For the rest of it, Greg Gbur also gives us, in his intro, his own theory that Blackburn based this book on the ongoing Oak Island "Money Pit" story, and its supposition that the lost works of Francis Bacon are buried therein. (For those readers who are not familiar with this story, as I wasn't, and of the multiple digs that have been prosecuted at this Nova Scotia site over the past 200+ years, I would recommend looking it up on your Google machine. It makes for a fascinating tale in its own right!) Whether or not Gbur is correct in his surmise it is hard to say, although he does make an awfully good case for it. All I know is that "Bury Him Darkly" might be a perfect fit for the recently resurrected Hammer Studios, which had already given us something of this ilk in its 1956 offering "The Creeping Unknown." I have been trying to play it coy here, so as to avoid giving away any of the book's many surprises--as usual, I've probably, in my enthusiasm, already said too much--but you'll just have to trust me: This book makes for a wonderfully literate wringer and could very easily be turned into a terrific Hammer horror! It is a novel regarding which I have very few if any complaints. Oh, it is a very British affair, of course, and we Yanks might have to put in a little effort to learn who Kate Greenaway was, or what a "Glamis horror" is, or what is meant by "dekko," "mickey-taking" and "don't come the acid." I might add that the ultimate solution of the disaster facing mankind--that is to say, the key to our salvation--is a tad confusing, and might not bear up under scrutiny. But these are relatively minor matters. "Bury Him Darkly," as I say, is a splendid entertainment that I do recommend unreservedly. I now greatly look forward to choosing another Blackburn book from Valancourt's large selection, but which spooky-sounding title to go with next? Should it be "Children of the Night" (1966), or "For Fear of Little Men" (1972), or "Our Lady of Pain" (1974), or "The Cyclops Goblet" (1977), or .... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of sci-fi and supernatural fare....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 2024
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Oct 2024
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Dec 20, 2024
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Hardcover
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| B00SFPHVH2
| 3.94
| 64
| Jan 01, 1962
| 1964
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it was amazing
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"A spellbinding Gothic page-turner," the folks at Valancourt Books tell us on the back cover of their new edition of Rohan O'Grady's novel entitled "P
"A spellbinding Gothic page-turner," the folks at Valancourt Books tell us on the back cover of their new edition of Rohan O'Grady's novel entitled "Pippin's Journal," and happily, this blurb tells it just the way it is. The book was one that I had never even heard of up until a few months ago, and yet it has suddenly and surprisingly become one of my favorite reads of this year. Simply stated, I just loved this one! "Pippin's Journal" was originally released as a Macmillan hardcover in 1962, with a cover and interior drawings by the famed illustrator Edward Gorey. That same year, British publisher Gollancz came out with its own hardback edition, also with the Gorey artwork. In 1964, Panther, another English publisher, released the novel in paperback form, while Ace, here in the U.S., came out with its own paperback incarnation, for some reason retitled as "The Master of Montrolfe Hall," and with an inappropriately misleading cover; one of the many Gothic covers that decade depicting a young woman fleeing from a sinister-looking abode...you've probably seen the type. The book would then go OOPS (out of prints) for 19 years, till Second Chance Press reissued its own hardcover edition in 1983, retitled again as "The Curse of the Montrolfes," and then OOPS again for 41 years, till Valancourt rescued it from oblivion in the spring of 2024. And what a truly inspired choice for a literary revival the book turns out to be! It is a novel that could easily be shoehorned into any one of several sections in your neighborhood bookstore, perhaps the reason for Gollancz putting these words on its 1962 edition: "A ghost-story? A fairy-tale? A novel of wild adventure? Call it what you will: You will anyhow 'gulp it down' at a sitting...." Before getting into this novel's manifold fine qualities, a quick word on the author herself: Rohan O'Grady was born June Margaret O'Grady in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1922. She is perhaps best remembered today as the creator of five novels. Under her pen name Rohan O'Grady, she wrote "O'Houlihan's Jest" (1961), a story of Irish revolt during the 18th century; the book in question; "Let's Kill Uncle" (1963), her most well-known book, perhaps because it was filmed by the great William Castle in 1966; and "Bleak November" (1970), another Gothic horror affair. Under the pen name A. Carleon, she wrote "The May Spoon," a YA novel, in 1981. O'Grady passed away in 2014 at the ripe old age of 91. The story of "Pippin" is given to the reader in four discrete sections here. In the first, as a framing device in the most Gothically inflected portion of the book, our narrator, John Montrolfe, arrives at his inheritance, Cliff House, in Dorset, fresh from Canada. Montrolfe is a 33-year-old nuclear physicist, of all things, with a twisted neck and two club feet. He is greeted (if that is the correct word) at the front door of the ancestral pile by Nanny Beckett, a 93-year-old, wizened crone who has done service in the house ever since she was 10! Montrolfe soon settles in nicely, but begins to have nightly dreams in which a beautiful young maiden beckons to him, and ultimately collapses into his arms with a broken neck. Montrolfe learns from Nanny Beckett that all the previous generations of Montrolfe men had suffered from a similar dream, beginning with the house's original builder, Sir Guy Montrolfe, in the middle of the 18th century. Reportedly, Sir Guy had gone somewhat mad, beseeching the heavens for his Pippin to return to him, before throwing himself off the nearby cliff. And the mystery of the beautiful young maiden is somewhat explained when John Montrolfe discovers Pippin's hidden diary in his bedside desk. And so, in the book's second section, we are made privy to Pippin's journal; a segment that comprises over one-half of the book's length. Pippin, we learn, was actually one Catherine Barton, a 15-year-old bastard child who worked in her aunt's inn on the current site of Cliff House. One evening, in the late spring of 1758, when she'd been tending the inn alone, four thieves had arrived there by prearrangement, after having committed a daring robbery. There was Max Fabian, the handsome, 33-year-old, ruthlessly cunning mastermind of the gang; Edward Yorek, a decent and kindly farmer who'd only been led into a life of crime to help support his family; Jenkin Davy, "a big fair man"; and the brutish animal Thomas Parr, aka "the Dozer." Each of the four men was in possession of one piece of the getaway plan, and when the Dozer killed Davy, the others soon realized that the precise location of the hidden loot had been lost. But before he died, Davy had whispered the location of the cache to Catherine in the form of a two-part riddle. The trio of thieves burnt down the inn, with Davy's body along with it, kidnapped Catherine, and took off for the abandoned mill in which the stolen loot had been hidden by Davy...somewhere. As the weeks went by, Fabian began to realize that Catherine--who he had nicknamed Pippin, due to her apple-red cheeks--knew more than she had been letting on. He and the girl even began to fall in love with one another, despite the precarious circumstances. Pippin's diary ends happily soon after the loot is found and she and Fabian seem set to embark on a new life together. But in the novel's third section, taken from the diary of the Reverend Mr. Peterson, who Pippin had once suggested might have been her illegitimate father, we learn of the girl's earliest days, and then of the trial to determine who had murdered the unfortunate lass! And in the book's fourth section, we get to read the entire transcript of that September 1758 trial, during which Edward Yorek was tried for the murder of the poor girl, despite his desperate pleas of innocence. Taken together, the four sections reveal the reason why the succeeding generations of Montrolfe men have been haunted and cursed for over 200 years and counting.... To be perfectly honest, the wonderfully Gothic atmosphere engendered in the first section of O'Grady's novel (i.e., Montrolfe's arrival at Cliff House) is soon dissipated, as Nanny Beckett becomes less harsh and more comedic, as the mansion is cleaned up and modernized, and when Nanny's great-granddaughter Beatrice and her fianc茅, a very normal couple, start to visit. Still, those early scenes will be a treat for all fans of Gothic fare, even in a modern setting. O'Grady also impresses us by incorporating four different writing styles in the book's four sections: a rational adult style in Montrolfe's narration, a simpler style in Catherine's journal, a guilt-ridden evangelical style in Reverend Peterson's diary, and finally, a completely convincing, court-clerk style for the judicial transcript. And she manages to ace all four of them. Of the four, Pippin's journal will probably be the favorite of most readers, but they are all exceptionally well done. The book presents us with any number of intriguing mysteries: What precisely is the origin of the Montrolfe curse? Why does the ghost of Pippin seemingly haunt all the men in that family? How exactly did Catherine meet her untimely end? What is the answer to that two-part riddle? Who was Pippin's father? How did the quartet of thieves first meet and then perpetrate their heist? Fortunately, the answers to all these questions are revealed by the book's final pages, and very ingeniously, too. Now, as to that riddle itself, I must say that it perplexed me at first. But then, to my amazement, I awoke at around 4 AM the morning after starting the book, and in the first moment of consciousness, without even thinking about it, the answer was in my head! How bizarre! I was so excited at my solution to this mystery that I felt like jumping up and starting to read Pippin's journal some more. (Wisely, I turned over and went back to sleep!) Even Catherine, who is obviously a very intelligent teenager (as shown by her great pains in the making of ink and quills for her journal, in her manipulation of the three thieves, in her clandestine acquisition of poison), fails to see the significance of the riddle, although Fabian, when he finally hears it, figures it out with ease. As he truthfully tells Catherine, "It is not difficult." Still, difficult or not, I was very impressed that my unconscious brain somehow supplied me with the answer! In a book that is so relentlessly gripping all the way through, several sequences manage to stand out: Nanny Beckett's recitation of the accursed Montrolfe family history; the Dozer's attempt to torture Pippin; Fabian's attempt to kill the Dozer using a heavy wooden beam; the killing of the Dozer by Fabian and Pippin; and the revelation of the two-part riddle and subsequent discovery of the cache. The killing of the Dozer is an especially harrowing sequence, and I don't think I'll be spoiling much of the fun by revealing that it ultimately requires a heavy dose of poison, seven stabbings, and a white-hot poker to the neck to bring the monstrous brute down! For the rest of it, O'Grady's book is a nonstop delight to read, with numerous instances of authentic-sounding 18th century dialogue ("Keep your hands off me, you whoreson, or I'll tickle your slats with my knife," Fabian at one point tells the Dozer) and finely expressed ideas (as Pippin says of herself and Max, "...we had both grown like the trees of my own wild coast, twisted by the wind into strange shapes never intended by nature."). And if the central romance of a 33-year-old man with a 15-year-old woman strikes the modern-day reader as a tad, well, icky, please know that yes, it is indeed, but that it remains a fascinating one, nevertheless. Ultimately, "Pippin's Journal" tells a very sad, even tragic story--even John Montrolfe is reduced to tears after reading Peterson's diary and the trial transcript--but one that still ends well for our narrator, the deformed and twisted scientist who brings the 200-year-old "cold case" to light. To be clear, the book is absolutely unputdownable, and the Pittsburgh Press was quite correct in its assertion that this is "A story that should be read at a sitting, preferably when the wind whistles like a demon around the house and curtains are drawn against rain-splashed windows." I cannot imagine any fan of supernatural, thriller, historical, mystery or Gothic fare not loving it. I have practically no complaints to levy against Rohan O'Grady's remarkable work here. Oh, the Gothic element might have been sustained a bit longer, but that would have resulted in a different book. And in that court transcript, it is mentioned that Yorek attempted to sell the thieves' stolen horses on June 13th; a little later, we are told that it was on the 12th. But other than this one inconsistency, this is a virtually flawless exercise, and a hugely entertaining one, as well. It is a book that will surely make any reader want to experience more of the author's work, and happily, Valancourt has just announced the imminent publication of Rohan O'Grady's other Gothic novel, "Bleak November." It is a book that I look forward to purchasing very soon.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of supernatural fare....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 2024
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Oct 2024
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Dec 16, 2024
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Paperback
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| B0DT1DW929
| unknown
| 3.42
| 26
| 1962
| 1962
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really liked it
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In the mood for an offbeat haunted-house novel to keep you company during this fall season...or during any season; a beautifully written tale of super
In the mood for an offbeat haunted-house novel to keep you company during this fall season...or during any season; a beautifully written tale of supernatural horror that you have most likely never heard of before? Well, then, I have a doozy of a suggestion for you...namely "The Scarlet Boy," by the British author Arthur Calder-Marshall! The book has been unfortunately neglected for over six decades now, and a quick look at its sporadic publishing history will help explain why it might be an unknown quantity for you and the general reading public today, despite its many fine qualities. "The Scarlet Boy" was originally released as a hardcover volume by the British publisher Rupert Hart-Davis in 1961, sporting some unimpressive cover art by one Blair Hughes-Stanton. The following year, the book was reissued as a paperback edition by the English publisher Corgi, and with another piece of uninspired cover art by Josh Kirby. Also in 1962, the novel was released in the U.S. as a Harper & Row hardback, its cover (artist unknown), for some strange reason, featuring a drawing of what appears to be an...owl? And after this, and perhaps the book's primary reason for being so little known today, the novel would go OOPs (out of prints) for over 60 years, till the fine folks at Valancourt Books opted to resurrect it in 2023, with still another meaningless piece of cover art by an unknown artist. (No illustrator, it seems, has so far managed to capture the essence of this novel graphically.) As it turns out, this was another inspired choice by the Valancourt group to showcase; "a disturbing, adult novel of an innocent's encounter with unearthly evil," as the Corgi volume had rightfully proclaimed! Now, before sharing some thoughts on this very fine work, a quick word on the author himself. Arthur Calder-Marshall was born in Surrey in 1908 and went on to write nine novels for adults, three collections of short stories, two novels for children, five film novelizations, plus over a dozen works of nonfiction. The author passed away in 1992 at the age of 83. "The Scarlet Boy," incidentally, was the last of those nine original novels. George Grantley is our narrator for this excursion into the supernatural; a middle-aged, balding bachelor, on the wrong side of 50, who lives in the (fictitious) town of Wilchester and earns a living by writing scholarly biographies of obscure historical figures. Grantley's serene existence is given a jolt when his old school friend, Christopher "Kit" Everness, a globe-trotting lawyer, asks for his help in locating a home that he and his family can move into. And George, right away, thinks of a pip: Anglesey House, built in 1603 and deserted for the past decade. It was in this house that George, apparently, spent so much of his youth, playing with his friend Charles Scarlet. And even after Charles' accident in the summer of 1916, when he'd been killed after falling from his treehouse, George had been a regular visitor to Anglesey House, and Charles' mother, Helen Scarlet, had become like a second mother to him. Now, the house lies derelict in its Wilchester plot; rat infested, overgrown with weeds, crumbling and worm-eaten; a real fixer-upper! But despite all this, Kit views the place as a challenge for his wife Nieves, a Spanish painter, to renovate, and so, after some finagling with hardware store proprietor John Scarlet, the pile's current owner, he ultimately does take possession. In very short order, Kit and Nieves, their 11-year-old social misfit daughter Rosa, and their Hungarian cook Magda move in, despite some misgivings voiced by our narrator. George, it seems, had just learned from his own housekeeper, Mrs. Ambrose, that Anglesey House is popularly deemed by the locals to be haunted. And after doing some research in the town's records, George unearths a truth that had been kept from him when he was 12: His old friend Charles hadn't been killed in a tulip-tree accident after all, but had rather hung himself in his bedroom...a suicide, for no apparent reason! As the days go on, George and Magda enter into a romantic liaison with one another. But on a more sinister note, the house's contractor now reports that nothing can be done to eliminate the aura of chill emanating from what used to be Charles' old room. When some artifacts--a stirrup, a piece of harness leather--are found in Charles' cupboard and sent to a psychometrist for analysis, it is revealed that still another boy, Peter Ingleside, had committed suicide in that room, on the same date in 1709...200+ years earlier, when he was 11. And when Rosa begins painting pictures of the young Charles in his treehouse and of George's ghostly mother in the garden, and evincing signs of being drawn to that same tree in which Charles and George had played 45 years before, the truth begins to manifest: Rosa herself is psychically gifted, and is being lured to her own suicide by the two young boys from the other side. Thus, what else can George suggest than to bring in the local rector, Martin Turner, to attempt an exorcism on Anglesey House itself.... "The Scarlet Boy," it strikes me, really is perfect fare for all fans of the meticulously written ghost story, especially those that involve children in peril, a subgenre perhaps best exemplified by Henry James' 1898 novella "The Turn of the Screw." Calder-Marshall here presents us with a novel type of ghost as well...not merely ghostly children, but ghostly children who themselves might be under the control of still another and more sinister being! Potential readers should be forewarned that the book takes its sweet time getting to where it's going, and indeed, it is not until page 134 (of this 210-page Valancourt edition) that there is any hint of spectral trouble within the Evernesses' new home! Up till that point, the author overwhelms us with a mass of detail concerning the house's history, its former occupants, the citizens of Wilchester (yes, this novel might well be considered the "Our Town" of haunted-house stories), the actual purchase of the abode, George & Magda's budding romance, and an extended visit from George's cousin Harry. In that cousin Harry section, we learn all about this failed businessman's world travels, his favorite pipes, his favorite matches, his schemes, and his complex system for keeping in touch with contacts. The reader can only wonder why we are being given this mountain of background data, much of it extraneous to the central story. Ultimately, one realizes that the purpose here is to engender a patina of realism and authenticity, and of course flesh out the players and heighten characterization, so that when the trouble begins, we are fully invested with the cast. Your patience will be required, but trust me, it will be rewarded when the book builds to its nerve-racking conclusion. Grantley, a professional biographer, is the perfect person to act as our narrator, although he is compelled to admit at one point that even a trained biographer such as himself can fail to discern the true stories of those closest to him; ironically, he was completely in the dark as regards both Charles and Helen. The romantic subplot that he gives us is a touching one, too, detailing how a lonely bachelor who'd given up all hope of marriage, and a woman who had lost both her husband and son in the War and is now just waiting for death, find one another and their mutual happiness. Balding bachelors and tragic widows of the world, take heart! Calder-Marshall presents his readers, after that lengthy setup, with at least five chilling sequences: the discovery of the cold zone in Charles Scarlet's old bedroom; Percy, the bricklayer/psychometrist, sensing evil in the objects discovered in Charles' cupboard; the rescue of an "overshadowed" (read: possessed) Rosa from the heights of that tulip tree; a rat attack that overwhelms the house's backyard and kills George's puppy; and that final exorcism. And there are several other wonderfully well-done sequences, as well. Thus, we get to read the love letters that Helen and her future husband had written to one another in the early 1900s...very revealing love letters, indeed; witness the first dates that George & Magda go on; and learn all about the history of the Anglesey and Scarlet families. As for the rest of it, the book is almost intimidatingly and densely well written, with any number of apt descriptions. Thus, in John Scarlet's darkened hardware store, George "detected a customer, like the solitary denizen of a pond which was being drained for brackishness." We are told that when Helen's husband "came into a room, you could no more ignore him than you could ignore a conger eel just landed in the bottom of a boat." The book, need I even mention, is a very British affair, and you might have to do a little digging to find out the significance of Osbert Lancaster, Pears' soap, Sandown Park, a Godfrey Davis car, and Harry Price. I'm not sure what the author's religious beliefs were, but his book operates as a very strong argument for the power of Christianity. Both our narrator and Magda are devout Catholics (indeed, their shared religious beliefs are responsible for their first date together), and, as in another book that I recently experienced, H. B. Gregory's "Dark Sanctuary" (1940), here, the power of prayer is revealed to be most efficacious, a belief in God is shown to result in salvation, and the mere entry into a church during Mass is enough to bring two apostates back into the fold. At bottom, this is a very Christian book, like Gregory's. I have only a few complaints to levy against Calder-Marshall's very fine work here, but one of those few occurs in the book's very first sentence. "The story undoubtedly began, as far as I was concerned, on Monday, April 3, 1959," our narrator tells us. The only problem here is, April 3, 1959 was actually a Friday! I will never understand why authors don't spend just a little extra time in getting all their details right, to satisfy us nitpickers out here! There are any number of cultural, religious, historical, biblical and literary references to look up, for those readers who insist on fully appreciating every little bit thrown at them (yeah, that's me). And, as I mentioned, the novel may try the patience of some, as we wait for the "good stuff" to get going. Still, the book is so well written, and so unfailingly interesting, that I didn't mind any of this overly much. I now find myself wishing that the author had applied himself to the production of more supernatural fare, a genre for which he clearly had a knack. Unfortunately, I don't believe he ever did, and indeed, Calder-Marshall was famously quoted as saying "I have never written two books on the same subject or with the same object." And so, we are left with "The Scarlet Boy," but fortunately, it is a very effective chiller, indeed! (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of spooky supernatural fare....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 2024
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Oct 2024
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Dec 02, 2024
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Paperback
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| 1842321803
| 9781842321805
| 1842321803
| 3.74
| 145
| 1960
| Jan 12, 2008
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really liked it
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The British film "Bloodsuckers," from 1970, was easily one of the worst cinematic experiences I've sat through in recent memory; a confused and confus
The British film "Bloodsuckers," from 1970, was easily one of the worst cinematic experiences I've sat through in recent memory; a confused and confusing mess of a movie, made even more disappointing for me by dint of the fact that the two lead actors whose participation induced me to watch the film in the first place--namely, Peter Cushing and Patrick Macnee--don't even appear on screen together once! And yet, I thought, the central premise of the film, based on Simon Raven's novel "Doctors Wear Scarlet," had been a good one, if thoroughly botched, and I decided to check out that source material one day...perhaps. But that resolve was only strengthened when I learned that editor/horror maven Karl Edward Wagner had chosen that novel for inclusion in his celebrated list of The 13 Best Supernatural Horror Books! That particular KEW list is one that I hugely respect, having previously enjoyed some of its other recommendations, such as Walter S. Masterman's "The Yellow Mistletoe" (1930), Abraham Merritt's "Burn Witch Burn" (1932), J. U. Nicolson's "Fingers of Fear" (1937), R. R. Ryan's "Echo of a Curse" (1939), H. B. Gregory's "Dark Sanctuary" (1940), and William Hjortsberg's "Falling Angel" (1978). And, I am happy to report, this KEW list has not let me down once again! "Doctors Wear Scarlet" was originally released in 1960 as a hardcover volume by the UK publisher Anthony Blond. (Mr. Blond himself, it seems, aware of Simon Raven's dissolute ways and heavy debts, offered to put the author on an annual salary if Raven would move away from London and its temptations...an arrangement that lasted for over three decades!) The following year, "Doctors Wear Scarlet"--the author's third novel, following "The Feathers of Death" (1959), which centered on a trial for homosexuality in the British Army, and "Brother Cain" (also 1959), a spy story--would be published in the U.S. as a Simon & Schuster hardcover. Four more editions would crop up during the course of the 1960s, and then the book would go OOPs (out of prints) for 30+ years, till the House of Stratus revived it in 2001. For readers today, happily, there is a beautiful edition that Valancourt Books released in 2019; a very handsome volume, indeed, and featuring a fun introduction from horror authority Kim Newman, co-editor of two of my Bibles: "Horror: 100 Best Books" and "Horror: Another 100 Best Books." Before sharing some thoughts about this, Raven鈥檚 first horror novel, a quick word on the author himself. Simon Arthur Noel Raven was born in London in 1927 and went on to become a journalist, playwright, screenwriter, and the author of almost three dozen books. He is perhaps best known for his 10-novel "Alms for Oblivion" series, released from 1964 - '76, and the seven-novel "First-Born of Egypt" series, released from 1984 - '92. Something of a notorious reprobate, Raven passed away in 2001, at the age of 73. His "Doctors Wear Scarlet" is divided into three quite discrete (emphasis on the "Crete"!) sections. In the first, which takes up almost half of the book, an inspector from Scotland Yard, John Tyrrel, arrives at the London home of our narrator, magazine editor Anthony Seymour, to ask some questions about one Richard Fountain, with whom Seymour had attended Cambridge's (fictitious) Lancaster College. Fountain, it seems, who is three years younger than our narrator, had gone to Greece some eight months earlier, and is currently on the verge of being kicked out of that country for committing violent and unspeakable acts in the company of a young woman. In this section of Raven's novel, we learn all about Fountain's life; how he'd evinced a violent streak while at the same time maintaining good grades. When Seymour had first encountered him at Charterhouse boarding school (from which, incidentally, Raven was evicted at age 18 for "homosexual conduct"), the younger man had been aloof and fairly unpopular. Years later, at Cambridge, his lot in life had looked bright, after the manipulating head tutor, Walter Goodrich, had arranged both his future career and an engagement to his daughter Penelope. When Seymour later receives a desperate letter from Fountain in Greece begging for his help, matters suddenly appear in a new light. Thus, with Tyrrel's approval, Seymour takes off for Crete (oddly enough, this was the second novel that I've read this year featuring that Grecian island, after Jack Williamson's 1940 fantasy classic "The Reign of Wizardry"), accompanied by Fountain's hard-drinking yet scholarly undergraduate friend Piers Clarence, as well as his old commanding officer in the Army, Major Roderick Longbow, to rescue him from whatever peril he might be in. In the second section, the three adventurers travel from Crete to the myth-shrouded island of Hydra and back to Crete again, where they finally catch up with Fountain in an abandoned fortress in the White Mountains. The man is a weakened wreck when they find him, and it soon becomes obvious why, when they discover his female companion, Chriseis, with her teeth in his neck, sucking out his lifeblood while Seymour and Clarence stand by in hypnotized paralysis! But Richard is indeed safely brought back to England, setting up the scene for the novel's third section. Here, Seymour and Tyrrel consult Dr. Erik Holmstrom, a man of arcane learning in the British Museum, and hear all about the lore of the vampire. They also discover that although Richard seems well recovered from his ordeals in Greece, he is hardly "out of the woods" yet. While the museum professor feels that vampirism is a psychological condition rather than a supernatural one, he yet maintains that Richard might still be a danger to others. And on the night of the big Michaelmas feast at Lancaster College, at which Richard is due to be feted as the guest of honor and act as the headline speaker, we do indeed learn whether or not Holmstrom is correct in his surmise.... Released a full decade after its source novel, "Bloodsuckers" (which also ran under such titles as "Incense for the Damned," "Freedom Seeker" and, yes, "Doctors Wear Scarlet") was very much a product of the hippie era, and thus saw fit to add scenes of drug usage, orgies, and psychedelic whatnot. Several characters in the Raven book were dropped, new ones were added, the fates of many of the main players were significantly altered, and the primary setting, for some inexplicable reason, was changed to Oxford, instead of Cambridge. And most egregiously, due to the film's problematic production history, the editing of the picture was a total farrago, resulting in an incomprehensible hash. Not so Raven's book, which sports a wonderfully lucid and literate style of writing that renders everything completely clear for the reader. But is it a supernatural horror novel, as Karl Edward Wagner insists? Well, if Dr. Holmstrom is to be believed, the answer is no. Still, few readers will doubt that Chriseis is the genuine article after seeing how easily she's able to paralyze others with a glance. And the book's final scenes, and especially closing sentence, leave little doubt that Wagner was justified in putting the novel into the supernatural category. What is undoubtedly supernatural, I might add, are the uncommon lengths to which Richard's three friends are willing to go to rescue their old comrade. We should all be so fortunate as to have friends such as these! Raven's book, besides being lucidly written, is also an elegantly written affair, and a delight to read. The author has a seeming knack for choosing an apt turn of phrase, such as when he describes Marc Honeydew, a Cambridge math tutor, as "a tall and angular man who was apparently sitting with some difficulty on the fence which divides youth from middle age." All of the book's main characters are well drawn, with Honeydew perhaps being my favorite: a "waspish" lover of gossip who keeps our narrator apprised of the latest events, and who Raven undoubtedly wants us to believe is gay, as deftly suggested by his manner of speech. I kept picturing him as an Ernest Thesiger type, for some reason. As Newman informs us in his intro, Raven put a lot of his own personal history into the book's lead characters, especially Richard Fountain. Thus, Raven also failed to get his fellowship at Cambridge, and also saw duty in Africa during his Army service (Kenya for the author, the Congo for Fountain). His novel takes its sweet time getting to where it's going, adding reams in the way of character development, but is so well written that the reader never feels restless. Not for nothing was it once said of Raven that he had "the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel." "Doctors Wear Scarlet," it must be admitted, features very little in the way of scares but any number of moments that shock. Among those shocking sequences: A peasant woman on Hydra presents her dead baby, presumably killed by the vampiress; Chriseis' initial appearance, cloaked, and exerting her full hypnotic powers; the tragic death of one of our three brave rescuers; the story of how Richard, held helpless, was forced to watch Chriseis have her way with two peasant children; Richard's stunning speech at that Michaelmas feast; and the book's doubly tragic, downbeat denouement. And there are many other wonderfully handled scenes, as well, such as the one in which the young Richard takes care of a bully at Charterhouse; the remarkable adventure that Richard and some of his men had while in the Congo; the chance encounter that our brave trio has with Arnold, an oddball historian, in a crumbling Cretan temple; and an interview with the monks on the island of Hydra. The novel becomes marvelously suspenseful towards its conclusion, as we wonder whether or not Richard will snap, and also gives us an excellent look at life in the world of Cambridge University, despite its use of a fictional college. In all, it is a remarkable tale, always unpredictable and unfailingly intelligent. "Your story is a little unusual, you know," Tyrrel tells our narrator at one point, and for very good reason! I have very few complaints to make regarding Raven's very fine work here. Oh, he withholds the use of the "v word" ("vampire," that is to say) a little too coyly, all the way till page 175 of this Valancourt edition, and the character of Chriseis is unfortunately seen in only two sequences. Also (and this is something that would probably only bother a genuine nitpicker such as myself), it is implied that the Michaelmas feast is held on a weekend, whereas in actuality the date of that event, October 31, 1957, was a Thursday. And while I'm picking nits, why would a Michaelmas celebration, which is traditionally held on September 29th, be held at Cambridge on...Halloween? But these are very minor matters, and in no wise detract from the manifold fine qualities of Raven's work. I would now love to read the three other horror/Gothic books that the author wrote later in his career, namely the novels "The Roses of Picardie" (1980) and "September Castle" (1984), as well as the collection "Remember Your Grammar and Other Haunted Stories" (1997). Hopefully, the folks at Valancourt will one day see fit to release those titles, as well.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of horror and vampire literature....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 2024
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Sep 2024
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Dec 01, 2024
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Paperback
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| 0241901685
| 9780241901687
| 0241901685
| 3.39
| 314
| 1960
| Jan 01, 1960
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really liked it
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It was Anthony Burgess, writing in his 1984 overview volume "99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939," who first made me aware of L.P. Hartley's tru
It was Anthony Burgess, writing in his 1984 overview volume "99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939," who first made me aware of L.P. Hartley's truly remarkable creation "Facial Justice." In his essay in that volume, Burgess tells us that Hartley's novel is "a brilliant projection of tendencies already apparent in the post-war British welfare state." It is one of the very few sci-fi novels that the "Clockwork Orange" author chose to spotlight in his book, and despite his rather stodgy pronouncements and pedantic manner, I made a mental note to seek out that Hartley novel one day. And, as it turns out, I am so glad I did. An impressive blending of dystopian, postapocalyptic and feminist genres, the book is surely one that will appeal to fans of any one of those three categories. "Facial Justice" was initially released by the British publisher Hamish Hamilton as a hardcover in 1960. A year later, in the U.S., Doubleday would come out with its own hardback version featuring some beautiful cover art by one Vera Bock. Over the decades, six more editions would be forthcoming, including one in 1965 from the Italian publisher Aldo Martello under the title "Giustizia Facciale." And happily for readers today, there is the copy that I was fortunate enough to acquire...the 2022 incarnation from the fine folks at Valancourt Books. Now, before I begin singing this novel's praises, a quick word on the author himself. Leslie Poles Hartley was born in Cambridgeshire in 1895, and today is best remembered as the author of some two dozen novels and short-story collections. Two of his earliest releases, "Night Fears" (1924) and "The Killing Bottle" (1932), were apparently comprised of chilling/spooky tales, but the author is supposedly best known for his Eustace and Hilda trilogy (1944's "The Shrimp and the Anemone," 1946's "The Sixth Heaven," and 1947's "Eustace and Hilda"), as well as his 1953 novel "The Go-Between." Hartley passed away in 1972 at the age of 76. As to "Facial Justice" itself, the book is indeed set in a postapocalyptic age, after WW3 has wiped out 9/10 of the human race and leveled almost everything during a nuclear holocaust. After decades of living underground in cavern systems, one group resists the authorities that be and sets up a colony aboveground, led by a never-seen Dictator. Hartley's tale commences 15 years following this Exodus to the surface. It is a bleak, flattened landscape in Cambridge, this area where the book is set; one in which practically every structure from the olden days has been obliterated. To maintain order, the well-meaning yet invisible Dictator has laid down a strict set of rules, in the hopes of establishing equality (Good E) amongst the people, and eliminating envy (Bad E); also referred to as Good Egg and Bad Egg. As part of the overall plan, the donning of sackcloth has been encouraged, all the citizens are compelled to adopt the names of famous historic murderers or murderesses, cars (responsible for so much death and mayhem in olden times) have been outlawed, the ingestion of daily sedatives is required, and the tuning in to the Dictator's frequent radio chats is practically mandatory. Angelic Inspectors police the streets to enforce discipline and impose small fines on any slackers. And, perhaps most drastic of all, there is the matter of facial equality, to prevent Bad E. Thus, any woman with an Alpha face (read: pretty, attractive, beautiful) is strongly encouraged to undergo surgery to bring her features down to a Beta level, a synthetic skin overlay being applied in a process known as Betafication. Homely Gamma women, on the other hand, can upgrade their physiognomy to the Beta level, resulting in a society in which no female might experience Bad E based on looks. (Men, significantly, are exempt from this ruling, the Dictator suspecting that males do not become jealous or envious over other men鈥檚 appearance.) Against this backdrop the reader encounters Jael 97, an Alpha female, age 19, whose time for Betafication (as opposed to "beatification"!) is at hand. Jael lives with her older brother Joab, a statistician for whom she works as a secretary. But as the obedient Jael begins to enter the Equalization (Faces) Center on page 1 of Hartley's book, she encounters her friend Judith, a former Gamma who had been Betafied. Judith convinces Jael not to go through with the procedure, resulting in a serious reproof from Joab as well as the inevitable disapproving stares from the town's citizens. To further declare her independence, Jael takes a very-much-frowned-upon bus excursion to look at one of the last edifices standing, the Ely Cathedral, where she further tempts fate by relishing the prospect of height (all buildings in the new, leveled Cambridge are a mere couple of stories tall). A bus accident during the return trip lands Jael in the hospital, after having been rescued from the scene by a handsome, kindly Inspector who had earlier taken a liking to her Alpha face. But while lying unconscious in hospital, a fast one is pulled, and Jael ultimately discovers that, very much against her will, she has been given a permanent Beta face! Thus, having lost her precious individuality, along with the handsome Inspector's love, Jael, her hated new face covered by a veil, sets herself on a course of vengeance, vowing to not only kill the Dictator, but to also bring down the society as it currently stands.... Now, if this setup of a government bureaucracy compelling young women to alter their appearance strikes you as seeming familiar, it might be because you've read Charles Beaumont's 1952 short story "The Beautiful People," which was later filmed as the 1/24/64 "Twilight Zone" episode entitled "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You." But in Beaumont's story, 18-year-old Mary Cuberle is forced by the powers that be to undergo the change; Jael only experiences some societal disapproval after refusing to be voluntarily Betafied...before her sneaky hospital doctor takes matters into his own hands, that is. And Mary's society forces these facial and bodily changes for purely aesthetic reasons, whereas the Dictator in Jael's reality is endeavoring to eliminate envy and hard feelings. And, of course, Hartley's novel permits a much more in-depth look at the society in question than Beaumont's short story. Jael, it must be said, is a splendid character who undergoes numerous changes during the course of Hartley's novel. At first content with her lot, she gradually becomes defiant, outraged, lovesick (after having lost her Inspector), cunning, desperate and ultimately noble. Her intelligence, not apparent at first, becomes increasingly pronounced as we witness her schemes for causing the Dictator's downfall, all of them brilliantly subtle. Her Beta face will perhaps cause some readers to be reminded of Edith Scob's masked mug in the great-great French horror film "Eyes Without a Face" (1959), although the features of the Scob character were completely immobile, unlike Jael's waterproof and slightly moveable ones. And Hartley also gives us an interesting bunch of well-drawn secondary characters, most especially Joab and Judith. Any number of well-handled sequences are to be had in Hartley's book. My favorites: Jael and her fellow tourists, overcome by the prospect of height at the Ely Cathedral, break into spontaneous song and dance around it; Jael, half swooning after that bus accident, seems to fly through the clouds (possibly because she is flying through the clouds) with her rescuer, the Inspector; Jael experiencing both shock and dismay when she first sees her new face; and finally, the ultimate confrontation between Jael and the Dictator (and I'll admit that the Dictator's actual identity did come as a stunning surprise to me!). As I just inferred, Hartley manages a most impressive bit of world building here, too. The half dozen rules that I mentioned earlier are just the iceberg tip of what the author ultimately gives us. It is a very credible society that Hartley depicts, and he fleshes out his conceit with a wealth of imaginative touches. Thus, we are told that the weather in this post-nuclear Cambridge is like an eternal March, and that the sun never manages to peek out from the perpetual cloud cover. Flowers are practically extinct, and the real live cineraria that the Inspector gives to Jael to place next to her hospital bed (as opposed to the other patients' plastic flowers) becomes the poor woman's most prized possession. The maximum speed for the six existent buses, we learn, is 7陆 miles per hour (kind of like NYC's Van Wyck Expressway on a good day!), and practically all buildings have rounded edges, due to the Dictator's (unexplained) "aversion to angles and straight lines." The Dictator's lengthy radio talks are unfailingly fascinating, and the slogans that are promulgated by the government are seemingly endless ("Beta is best," "Nature is nasty," "Alpha is antisocial," and on and on). Yes, it is a fully realized society, and Hartley's story is at once finely written, impressively intelligent, totally unpredictable, and really quite mysterious. I have very few complaints to levy against the author's very fine work here, other than him referring to Jael's brother as "Joab 98" on page 12 of this Valancourt edition, and then as "Joab 32" on page 32. Something of a major oopsie, that! Also, I would have liked to have found out more concerning certain tantalizing aspects that we learn about only fleetingly. To wit, what is going on with the society that remained underground? Who was the mysterious child who had led the Exodus to the surface 15 years earlier? And most crucially, what might happen following this book's very surprising denouement? It is an ending that practically cries out for a sequel, as Hartley apparently had no problem providing in that Eustace and Hilda trilogy and would go on to do in his novels "The Brickfield" (1964) and its sequel "The Betrayal" (1966). Still, "Facial Justice" does manage to stand on its own, and makes for a very worthy addition to the dystopian, postapocalyptic and feminist catalogs. I would love to read some more of Hartley's work now, especially those two early collections of horror, which were cobbled together by Arkham House in 1948 to create the volume entitled "The Travelling Grave and Other Stories." Fortunately, that book is also available today from Valancourt, and I hope to be experiencing it soon.... (By the way, this review originally appeared on the FanLit website at ... a most ideal destination for all fans of dystopian and postapocalyptic fare....) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 2024
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Sep 2024
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Oct 12, 2024
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Hardcover
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 3.65
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really liked it
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Apr 2025
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Apr 21, 2025
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| 3.78
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it was amazing
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Mar 2025
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Apr 19, 2025
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| 4.00
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really liked it
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Mar 2025
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Apr 14, 2025
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| 3.95
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really liked it
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Mar 2025
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Apr 04, 2025
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| 3.95
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really liked it
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Feb 2025
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Mar 24, 2025
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| 3.22
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really liked it
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Feb 2025
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Mar 09, 2025
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| 3.45
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liked it
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Feb 2025
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Feb 27, 2025
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| 3.52
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really liked it
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Jan 2025
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Feb 19, 2025
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| 3.29
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really liked it
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Jan 2025
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Feb 15, 2025
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| 3.34
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really liked it
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Jan 2025
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Feb 07, 2025
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| 3.43
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really liked it
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Jan 2025
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Jan 31, 2025
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| 4.09
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liked it
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Jan 2025
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Jan 24, 2025
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| 3.94
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really liked it
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Dec 2024
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Dec 30, 2024
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| 4.26
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it was amazing
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Nov 2024
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Dec 29, 2024
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| 3.77
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really liked it
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Nov 2024
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Dec 28, 2024
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| 3.63
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really liked it
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Oct 2024
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Dec 20, 2024
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| 3.94
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it was amazing
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Oct 2024
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Dec 16, 2024
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| 3.42
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really liked it
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Oct 2024
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Dec 02, 2024
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| 3.74
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really liked it
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Sep 2024
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Dec 01, 2024
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| 3.39
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really liked it
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Sep 2024
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Oct 12, 2024
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