5. The Caves of Night by John Christopher

Though 2008 was the year dedicated to John Christopher, I will still read a book by him from time to time. He was prolific and I have a long way to go before I can say I've read most of his work. He's also just a really good and entertaining writer.

The Caves of Night was written immediately after his post-apocalyptic masterpiece No Blade of Grass. It's the story of a middle-aged couple who take their annual vacation in the Austrian countryside. The husband is an avid spelunker and many years before had discovered a cave system that was known to the locals but not to the caving community or tourists. They are regulars at a small inn and at the beginning of the book, meet a young newlywed couple on their honeymoon. This year, also, the Graf is returned from a Russian prison, where he had been held since the end of the war (the book takes place in the mid 50's). The Graf, Albrecht, is a local prince and landed gentry and owns a large estate and the rights to much of the countryside. He is a pleasant and charming man and invites the couple over for dinner, allowing the husband to freely explore the caves.

Relations develop between the two couples and Albrecht over the following days as they spend time hanging out together. The caving husband, though, spends most of his days in the cave, while his wife and the newlyweds go swimming and riding with Albrecht. He is a civilized, drained man, prematurely aged from his stay in the Russian prison who reveals early on that he has lost any real motivation for living. He spends his life, he claims, in lacklustre pursuit of minor pleasures. He also hints that he has given his life a time limit. In his pursuit of pleasure, he makes a move on the caver's wife. She takes it at first as just a pass he would give to any woman, but over time, she succumbs and something real does develop between them and she starts to have an affair. She is happily married to her husband for 16 years but the Graf somehow wakens up something in her that she didn't know she wanted.

As I've said before, almost all of Christopher's books deal with themes of adultery and male sexual anxiety. The protagonists are often males put into the passive position of having to accept some sexual transgression on the part of the wife (though transgression is not the best word as the woman are often passive victims themselves, either of sexual assault or their own passions; though their reactions are often portrayed as quite controlled and rational). In The Caves of Night, this theme is made central. At least the first half of the book follows the development of the affair between the wife and Albrecht.

Of course, they are always talking about everybody going into the caves together one day and they do so, squeezing through a smaller passage to see some other cave paintings. It is risky and the caver husband is warning everybody to not raise their voice and watch their step. You know the young newlywed couple is going to do something stupid and they do, bringing down the small passage that was their exit.

Now the two couples and the Graf are stuck in this cave system. Led by the competent caver husband (whose wife is cheating on him with one of the dudes he is leading), they try to go deeper into the system in the hopes that they can maybe find another exit, or hook up with a known cave system on the far side of the mountain. And thus the second half of the book is more of a caving adventure, with the tension of the affair constantly lurking.

Even though the majority of the book is more of a psychological exploration of an affair, it turned out to be a really enjoyable read for me. Christopher is really good at describing things. He brings out the beauty of nature in a few quick, evocative sentences. He also does a good job of making it clear in the reader's head where the character are when those things matter (such as trying to escape from a cave). The cave scenes are really gripping. I think I may have some significant fear of getting caught in a cave, because reading the parts where the passage really narrows made my stomach tense up in an unpleasant way. I had to read them really fast, which is a testimony to his writing as well.

Caves of Night is a "mature" novel. The conclusion in the cave takes up at least a third of the book and is truly gripping. But this story is more about marriage and love and hope. It's not the adventure book the cover claims. It does explore those themes in an interesting way and never sacrifices the narrative. All in all, another excellent novel by John Christopher.

4. Zot! The Complete Black & White Collection

I'm an adult. As a kid and young man, in my involvements in various scenes and sub-cultures, I would always hear about past things or events of importance. I would maybe read about some famous, seminal show in a punk zine or a reference to some groundbreaking artist in the letters page a comic. Over time, I built up a pretty good knowledge of the history of these scenes before I was involved. But, I never experienced those things first hand. I was never actually there when it was going on. It was always the older dudes, like friends' older brothers or people you would meet at cons or shows, who had actually been there. They seemed so cool and I always felt somehow incomplete, possibly a bit of a faker, that I wasn't really there for these fundamental periods of growth in a sub-culture.

Reading this collection of Zot! made me realize that I am now one of those guys that was there. I was reading and collecting Zot! when it was actually coming out. I think I started a bit into the series, because I remember hunting around for back issues. But I also remember waiting for the next issue. I've still got them as well, boxed up somewhere in my parents' basement. I may even have Destroy! as I know I owned that at once, though I may have foolishly sold it or offloaded it at some point because it was too big. Scott McCloud is now very well known and respected (and rightly so) for his masterpiece Understanding Comics. But I was there with him, supporting him financially, back in the day when he was getting started with Zot! Kind of cool, but it also makes me feel a bit old. Will I ever be able to explain how this is cool to the next generations?




















It was the covers that most attracted me to Zot!. They are so lively and colourful. I also loved Scott McCloud's clean lines. I found the stories to be engaging, but a bit light. At that age, I was always looking for something real and hard and the action in Zot! was always more cartoony. It was fun and creative (often wildly so), but I was just too young to appreciate PG things. Now that extreme ultra-violence and true toughness is no longer denied to me, I've learned to appreciate softer stuff for its own intrinsic qualities.

The storyline in Zot! really evolves. The basic premise is a teenage girl, Jenny, who meets a guy from another dimension. He is a super-positive, invincible super lad from a world of clean high technology and general mellowness. The badguys there are over-the-top villains whose occassional exuberant presence is more of an excuse for Zot! to have some fun and for the citizens to watch him doing so and have fun themselves rather than ever being a real threat. The early episodes concentrated on Zot battling the badguys, but the real theme was the difference between our earth and Zot's, especially as seen through the earth girl's eyes. This theme became more and more central until the final 8 issues, where Zot becomes stranded on earth and the whole series focuses on the lives of Jenny and her friends.

I don't remember my impressions too well when I was reading them at the time. I think they just flowed one after the other. I was reading so many comics back then that I didn't really take the time to scrutinize them critically. I just kept reading them if I liked them. Re-reading them now, along with Scott McCloud's commentaries after each story arc, I see how he was really struggling against the genre Zot! was constructed around. He wanted to tell stories about real people and their real life problems but he had this super boy from a perfect world constantly hanging around. I found that he actually works really well as a foil to help emphasize the themes of imperfection and frustration in our own world. Sometimes, the real world stories get a bit maudlin and self-involved (they are all teenagers after all), so it's also nice to have a bit of superhero and otherworldly action every now and then.

The later stories that take place on earth center around Jenny and her friends, who are the geeks and misfits of their high school. There is a lot of subtle and not so subtle pride in their depiction. There is a two-part issue that tackles homosexuality and homophobia that was quite advanced for its time. I just like the depiction of the various geeks and the scenes of them playing their homemade roleplaying game are really great. I wish he had spent a bit more time on some of the side characters from the geek group, as they were quite intriguing. There was one fat, asian kid who was super smart but always got D's. It's revealed in passing that he is secretly gay and that it is his goal to always get exactly D's because getting straight A's would be too easy for him. I would have liked to have seen his character explored more.

Zot! is a true classic from the Black & White explosion era of comics, when they took their first steps to moving out of the superhero realm. I was really grateful to be able to reread them all together and in order. There are many other great comics from that period that deserved to be rescued and repackaged in a beautiful format, with the author's comments, but not all of the artists and writers of that period achieved the success of McCloud.

If you want to get a taste of the Zot! comic, you can read an online one that McCloud did. He is experimenting here with online comics (it's entirely vertical), which is cool in and of itself, but the story captures the feeling and energy of the original Zot! stories that were more focused on Zot! saving his planet. Check out "Hearts and Minds" here.

3. Fire Will Freeze by Margaret Millar

I added Margaret Millar's name to the little piece of paper I keep in my wallet with books and authors I'm searching for thanks to this favourable review of The Iron Gates in Vintage Hardboiled Reads. It was the Iron Gates that I was specifically looking for because it takes place in Vancouver. But I was equally happy to find Fire Will Freeze, with the front cover blurb "Stranded in an eerie, isolated château in Québec, a most unusual heroine encounters unexpected romance... and a murderer."

This is one of the first books in a while that grabbed me from the first few pages. I'm a lazy-minded person and often have to force myself to concentrate on a novel for a while before I get into it. Fire Will Freeze takes place in the early '40s on a bus heading north to a ski lodge. The "action" is all in the passengers' heads, particularly one very nosy old maid (of 35!) as she eavesdrops on the people around her. Her inner dialogue is so sharp, critical and lively. Right away, there are all these little conflicts and attitudes going on around her (and you the reader) that suck you right in. It's surprisingly frank about sex as well. If not for the clothes and certain turns of phrase, the desires and suppositions that go on in people's heads could easily take place today. I guess because most of our depictions of this period is from the movies, restricted as they were by the Hayes code, we have an exaggeratedly chaste vision of that time.

Nobody on the bus really seems all that happy to be going to the ski lodge. On top of it, there is a blizzard and they are an hour late. There is a lot of grumbling that gets worse when the driver stops the bus to re-attach a chain and then doesn't come back. After a lot of in-fighting and mishaps, the group finally makes it to a must old lodge, housing only a crazy lady and her stern nurse. They are not very welcoming and things get weird fast. Cats are murdered, people disappear, are not what they seem. It's all so crazy that I had trouble believing any of it could make sense, but it all actually does (though I defy any reader to even get a rough grasp on the mystery before the first two-thirds are done). There are a lot of characters to keep track of. I would have liked one of those diagrams like they had on the old Key mystery pulp paperbacks. But it's still fun as their true natures are slowly revealed and you definitely want to find out what's behind the mystery.

The aforementioned old maid is ostensibly the heroine of the story, as the majority of the book is seen from her perspective and she is the most competent and honest of the bunch. But even she isn't all that impressive so you can imagine how the rest appear. There is the rich, fat, lazy old lady and her drunken, weak-minded poet protégé. The spoiled brat. The slutty dancer who refuses to take responsibility. The feckless tycoon father and his headstrong daughter (who is portrayed as quite competent, but completely unsympathetic, almost sociopathic). Her portrayal of the characters is as critical and removed and possibly more scathing than those of John Christopher. The set-up itself, though in a North American context, reminded a lot of Christopher: put a bunch of people in a mysterious, stressful situation so you can expose their weakness of character. Millar does this well and though her observations are perhaps more abrupt and cutting, she seems to love their foibles rather than weary in quiet despair as Christopher does.

It's an imperfect book because the mystery and the personalities compete for your attention in the middle of the book. It loses some of its momentum and focus because of this. It is lively and entertaining nonetheless. The characters are rich and intriguing and some pretty good shocks go down. You can tell that Millar is a tough, critical-thinking person who didn't pull any punches. I want that from my mystery atuhors. Her books today appear hard to find and she will definitely be on my list.

She is actually quite well known to mystery fans as one half of one of the more successful mystery writer couples, the other half being Ross Macdonald. There is a great article here about their lives and careers together. In some ways, she was more succesful as a writer, but the endurance of Travis McGee has kept his name around longer than hers.

2. Box 100 by Frank Leonard

This was an obscure but intriguing little title I found in a pile of books in one of the used book stores I visited last year in Winnipeg. I can't remember the name right now, but according to the groom, the owner ran the bookstore for decades and at some point he won the lottery. He just kept the store going without any real concern for profit. It's a bit of a mess, but a glorious mess with all kinds of fun media to search through, like comics, videotapes, videogames and other random, dusty things in a big sprawling warehouse structure.

The cover of Box 100 suggests that it is a detective thriller ("One rookie gumshoe against a million dollar ghetto racket!"), which it sort of is, but it's also more of an exploration into the reality of the welfare system in early '70s New York. I could find absolutely no information on this book or the author on the web, other than that it was an Edgar nominee for Best First Novel. I suspect that the author may have actually worked for the welfare department. He knows the details of the structure (which are pretty complex) and also seems to have a burning desire to expose how horrible it was.

The gist of the story is a slacker guy who gets a job working for a special department of investigations for the city, a department that is ultimately pretty weak but kept alive because it makes for good press. Citizens can send their complaints or accusations to Box 100. The narrator's first letter is an accusation of a neighbour who is pretending she lost her welfare cheque and then cashing it twice. This starts the hero on a revealing investigation of all the petty scams and the poor, wretched people who try to survive by pulling them off. Though their "crimes" are pretty apparent and some are even persecuted, it's clear that the author is more concerned with demonstrating the crimes of the system and he does a pretty good job of this.

At some point, though, as the reader, you start to ask yourself, "where's the big scam?" It does come at the last minute and it's preposterous, though it is connected to the earlier crimes he investigated. The lack of strong purpose in the book makes it ultimately a bit disjointed. However, I probably wouldn't have read an exploration of the victims of the welfare system in the '70s and I suspect this book, wrapped in the trappings of a thriller, gave me a pretty good look at it. So I don't regret reading it and am kind of psyched to have found something so obscure even the internet doesn't yet know about it.

1. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope

My eye was drawn to this attractive new paperback edition from Penguin (part of a Penguin Set of Classic Boys' Adventures, all of which look really appealling). The Prisoner of Zenda is a classic swashbuckler, written in 1894 and responsible for inspiring a genre all its own and many adaptatiions. It's the story of young English aristocrat Rudolf Rassendyl, who has inherited enough money and class training (riding, shooting, fencing) to spend the rest of his life gallavanting about Europe and living a life of wealthy leisure. He's not lazy, though, just unfocused.

It turns out he is also indirectly descended from the royalty of small European country Ruritania and bears the flaming red hair that defines that line. He decides, after the moralistic urging of his sister-in-law to do something more virtuous with his life, to visit Ruritania. He happens to arrive the week before the coronation of the new king and actually runs into him in the forest near the inn where he is staying. And lo and behold he is the spitting image of the king. They decide to hang out and the king reveals himself to be quite a partyer. They get so drunk, that the king is incapable of waking up the next day to make it to the coronation. Rudolf is convinced to impersonate him for this important but rote ceremony, which he does so succesfully. When he comes back, however, he and the king's closest advisors find the king kidnapped by Black Michael, the half-brother who would be king. Now Rudolf is flung headlong into a dilemma where his wit and skills will be tested to the utmost.

here is, of course, romance in the mix as well, as Princess Flavia, who was betrothed to the king but doesn't really like him, finds the new king somehow different, more appealling. And of course Black Michael wants Flavia for himself.

I know it sounds like I'm giving a lot way, but all this takes place in the first two chapters. It's pretty heady and rousing stuff. All the elements of a swashbuckling adventure, led by a droll but responsible english gentleman. There is one weird note and that is the character of Rupert Hentzau, a sort of mercenary-for-hire in Black Michael's retinue. He shares a similar spirit as the protagonist, but in the service of evil rather than good. They have several confrontations and at times Rudolf the hero seems more enamoured with Rupert than Princes Flavia. "Thus he vanished - reckless and wary, graceful and graceless, handsome and debonair, vile and unconquered." Those British arisocrats, you never now.

A great way to start the year. I'm happy to learn there is a sequel. If it falls into my hands in the future, I'll be psyched.

Donald Westlake, dead at 75

Ouch.




Here's the sad news.

One of my favorite all-time writers and the creator of Parker, under the pseudonym Richard Stark. If you haven't read the early Parker books, you'd better start immediately.

Rest in peace and thank you.

2008 year-end wrap-up

A little late with this baby. Next year, I resolve to get my last few books written-up and posted before the holidays are over!

Overall, I'm quite happy with my performance this year. I really wanted to ensure that I would reach 50, as I had slipped the two previous years. I pushed hard early in the year and was well on track, actually cruising to easily break my record. But I got derailed. Mostly by gaming (Draconis is in the beginning of October and caused a big flurry of one-shots afterwards), though perhaps other bad habits got in the way as well (hello, internet!). But I pulled through in the end and have achieved my goal. Not that the quantity of books is so important, but having that goal really helps to remind me when I'm not reading and need to get started again.

It was an excellent year for Post-Apocalyptic literature. I (or others, especially Lantzvillager) found and read a lot of lesser-known works to the extent that I feel that I have a decent grasp of the genre now. In particular, I devoured a lot of John Christopher. For some reason, his weird mix of British sexual anxiety and social criticism really appealed to me. I have a couple more of his books on deck and I will continue to seek him out, but my burning fire has reduced itself somewhat to more of a glowing coal. He will be someone I'll continue to read from time to time, but I won't actively seek out.

I also gained a greater appreciation of the hard-boiled genre, particular through August West's excellent blog. I had the perception that most of those pulp crime books were of a less quality than the really well-known names, enjoyable but more for the genre elements than any innate excellence. I am glad to have been disabused of that notion, discovering that there is a world of top-notch writing and storytelling buried in those (sadly) crumbling and hard to find old paperbacks. The only real problem is that they really are hard to find and becoming more and more recognized as having collection value, thus also more expensive.

My other highlight was my trip to Winnipeg which really revived my used books hunting instinct. I've been to the used bookstores in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal so many times now that it was all becoming a bit boring and dissatisfying. My trip to Winnipeg and the awesome used bookstore scene there created a feeling not unlike the jaded hunter the first time he decides to make man his prey. How it raises the blood! I don't know if I'll have the opportunity to visit any other middle-level city this next year. Halifax suggests itself as having potential...

Donald Westlake's death at the end of the year was quite shitty. It coincides with the re-publication of his stellar Parker series, 3 at a time, in order by the University of Chicago Press. I may buy those and re-read them (it will be the third time) in order to honour his life and work and help spread the word about their awesomeness.

Other than that, I don't have any particular goals for this year. I may not even push strongly to achieve the 50. I would just like to read a little more consistently and perhaps absorb a bit more. For the 50 books community, I hope for continued activity and participation among all the blogs. I think we are all more motivated when we received comments and I thought we had a strong year this year. Great work everyone!

Onward to 2009!

54. Dead Run by Bill Pronzini

Over the holidays, we went out to the teeny 4-Star Theatre in the Richmond district of San Francisco to see the excellent Sparrow. After, in looking for a place to eat, we found the Green Apple bookstore and I picked up Dead Run. The bookstore was really cool. Two separate stores, books everywhere, all kinds of nooks and crannies and a great range of new and used books. My only complaint is that it leans a bit towards the intellectual side and the science fiction and mystery sections were not treated very respectfully. Books were out of order, genres mixed up. Still, definitely worth a trip to the next time you are in SF. Actually that whole little Richmond district, though a bit farther out and not particularly glamourous was really quite enticing and I'd recommend it to those of you who have been to San Francisco a few times and want to get off the beaten path a bit. We had a fantastic meal of Burmese food there and there were a lot of other very enticing restaurants we passed.

Bill Pronzini is one of those prolific writers who has never hit it really big, but keeps producing quality work and maintains a lot of respect in the mystery and pulp community. I don't think I've ever read anything by him until Dead Run, but his name sure felt familiar to me.

I was enticed by the premise, a guy on a ferry that runs along the Malaysian coast gets caught up in trouble on the way to a new job just outside of Kuala Lumpur. It's a quick, entertaining read, as promised. The action and pacing are excellent. The atmosphere and locations are particularly well done. The beat-up old ferry, slums outside of KL, a rubber plantation and the deep jungle are all evocatively rendered. It leans a bit too much on a romantic plot (which is satisfying nonetheless) but overall delivers an entertaining action read. Good stuff. My guess is that Pronzini most of the time delivers the goods and you can probably find his books used for cheap, so if you ever do run across one and are looking for something to read, you probably have a good chance of being entertained if you buy it.

53. The Lizard in the Cup by Peter Dickinson

My parents have always been big fans of Peter Dickinson. He wrote a mysteries and children's books, the latter of which were often in fantastic or sci-fi settings. He was quite popular in the 60s and 70s, but you don't hear about him as much these days. Perhaps in Britain he still holds a place on the bookstore shelves.

One of the great scandals of my childhood was when my dad was reading Dickinson's The Weathermonger nightly to my sister and I. I was around the age where I was reading everything and at some point, long before my dad had finished the reading, I snuck the book and finished it on my own. I can't remember how it got found out, I might have admitted it. I might have even blurted out the ending just as we were getting there! In any case, it caused a bit of an uproar, probably mostly spurred on by my sister, who never wasted an opportunity to get me in trouble.

I've always meant to start reading him and my dad recommended The Lizard in the Cup as the best place to start of the three titles by him we had. Dickinson's detective character was James Pibble and this is, I believe, the penultimate book in that series. Here he is on a Greek Island at the request of a tycoon. The latter wants to build a hotel there, but has received information that suggests he might be stepping on some mafia toes. Pibble is brought in along with a bunch of other toadies of the tycoon to figure out if this is so and how to deal with it.

This probably wasn't actually the best place to start. Ultimately, it's quite a good book, but the reader is assumed to know a lot about the protagonist. That knowledge doesn't impact on the plot, but it would have helped to have a better idea of his past and his personality, as they both come into play. It took me a while to catch on to the style of the prose and Pibble's behaviour and inner thoughts. Once I did, though, and the nature of the narrative became clear, I quite enjoyed this book. It's richly and subtly written, with lots going on and implied. I think you could label this as an "intelligent" or "thinking man's" mystery.

Pibble himself has a very conservative, pro-law and order core (not unlike Gilbert, but a bit more explicit in the main character), which surprised me a bit, considering my parents political leanings.

It gave me a good taste of Peter Dickinson and I'll keep an eye out for his stuff in the future.

52. An English Murder by Cyril Hare

I was at home over the holidays and really in the mood for a good, British mystery. My dad recommended this one from my parents' excellent collection of paperback mysteries and it definitely satisfied my needs! I had seen this book lying around for years and I always thought, mainly because of the early '70s and genericy mystery cover that it was perhaps a decent read, a nice little find by my parents that they thought good enough to not let go of. Turns out it is actually a classic of the genre, well-received upon publication and considered today among aficionados to be one of the best of these kinds of mysteries.

Faber Finds does a better (and quicker) job than I can in describing the plot:

A classic detective story from one of the best-loved Golden Age crime writers, Cyril Hare, originally published in 1951.

The setting of An English Murder seems, at first, to be a very conventional one. A group of family and friends come together for Christmas at a country house, Warbeck Hall. The house is owned by Lord Warbeck, a dying and impoverished peer who wants to be among loved ones for what he thinks will be his last Christmas. The holiday decorations are up and snow is falling fast outside. The guests range from the Lord’s difficult son to a visiting Czech historian. There is, of course, a faithful butler and his ambitious daughter.

But when the murders begin, there is nothing at all conventional about them - or the manner of their detection. This ingenious detective story gleefully plays with all of our expectations about what an ‘English murder’ might be and offers enough twists and turns to keep us reading into the night.

An excellent, tight little mystery. I enjoyed it on many levels. The pacing and writing are excellent. The dialogue of the butler is particularly enjoyable. The mystery itself is actually solvable by the reader, not easily but in the sense that the author doesn't try to trick or misdirect you. I like to be part of the process when I read a classic murder mystery and I certainly felt that way. I didn't entirely figure it out, though, so the mystery was interesting right up until the end. Finally, it is all wrapped around history and the fading of the British aristocracy in a way that gives it depth. Highly recommended.

51. Pastel City by M. John Harrison

Doc gave me a beautiful old paperback copy of this under-heralded sci-fi classic. It's one of his favourites from his youth and he wanted to pass it along. You could technically put it in the post-apocalyptic genre, but it's truly a fantasy book. It's so far beyond the collapse of our modern empire that other civilizations have already come and gone. The advanced technological remains still exist in the ruins of the past and the unearthing and using of this old tech by a handful of what become, in effect, magic users, is the only PA trope that separates Pastel City from true fantasy.

The story is about the fading Viriconium Empire, that is slowly being weakened by the northern tribes. The main characters are a bunch of retired Methven, once the elite knights of Viriconium. They are drawn back to their roles by the resurgence of northern attacks who are now aided by a newly-discovered and especially fearsome technology.

Pastel City has some really cool stuff in it. The overall narrative is pretty standard stuff, getting the gang back together again, journeying to some mysterious place, finally kicking some ass like you knew the main protagonist could, but the trappings are so rich and inventive, and described so well, that it doesn't come off as cliched. There is some seriously cool shit in this book: a semi-intelligent robot bird, a noxious dwarf who rides around in a reconstructed power suit with a vibro-axe, brain-eating robot soldiers. Reading that list back, I can see how they don't sound all that original. But their description and involvement in the plot render them truly cool. Description is done gradually, so you get an increasingly detailed and richer visualization as the book goes on. Here is an example of one of the snippets of description for the bird:

When the sun broke through, he saw that it was a bird of metal: every feather, from the long, tapering pinions of the great wide wings to the down on its hunched shoulders, had been stamped or beaten from wafer-thin iridium. It gleamed and a very faint humming came from it. He grew used to it, and found that it could talk on many diverse subjects.

As in the quote above, it's not just physical descriptions that make up the creatures, but enticing, open-ended tidbits about their capabilities. Very nice. I can see why Doc got into this book so much as a young man.

Ultimately, though, I felt a bit distant from the proceedings. I don't think this is necessarily a fault of the author (though after doing a bit of research on the Viriconium books and Harrison, I have a slightly different perspective about which I'll talk about below), but rather an indication of my own dissatisfied relationship with fantasy as a genre. I was never a huge fantasy fan as a geeky teen, but Middle Earth, Shannara and Hyboria were huge to me. Since I've "grown up", I've almost entirely abandoned fantasy as a genre, particularly in my gaming. I had previously thought it was because the rules for D&D 3rd edition sucked so bad that I gave up on fantasy in my gaming (since I so closely associated the genre with the system mechanics), but after reading The Pastel City, I'm starting to think it's the genre.

One of the reasons we read a narrative is because we connect with the characters. They have problems and conflicts and all that and we want to see what they do and how it all turns out. I feel like I am not able to connect with those problems in a fantasy world. Why this is so, I'm not really sure. When I try to break it down, I'm not sure it makes any sense. Most fantasy books, though in another setting, still address human concerns. I just know that most of the time when I start a fantasy book, I feel this kind of intellectual tiredness. I'm not drawn in. In Pastel City, for instance, when a major character dies, I kind of cared, but I didn't feel any real connection to the depth of the relations he had with his fellows. Were they a bunch of heisters brought back out of retirement from their heyday in the '50s, rather than techno-knights of a dying future kingdom, I think I would have somehow felt a much stronger connection.

I wonder if it's because as you get older, your capacity for emotional connection hardens (like everything else about you, except your muscles) and sort of sticks with the worlds you have already invested in. For instance, I don't feel this way about the Hyboria of Conan the Barbarian, a setting I spent a lot of time in as an adolescent. It's true that Hyboria is more pulpy than fantastical. Though I still feel an immense ennui at the idea of reading any of George R.R. Martin's books, which are relatively non-fantastic.

The other obvious counterpoint to my theory is why I enjoy science fiction so much. I really don't know, but I won't bore you any longer with my own internal ruminations. I'll let this idea fester and test it some more as I continue my reading. I am grateful for the Pastel City for helping me reach this insight and for being pretty cool and entertaining nonetheless.

I did a bit of internetting around on M. John Harrison and it seems he was one of those self-loathing genre authors who wished he could have written some fancy literature. He wrote a few things that enraged the geek-o-sphere, denouncing both escapism and world-building. The world of Viriconium suffered from his pretention, getting ripped apart by a simplistic post-modernism (no stable reality, narrator revealed, blah, blah, blah zzzzz) in the later novels and short stories.

Here is a brief essay where he attacks the attempt by others' to recreate an author's world. It contains misguided and jargony pap like this:

Given this, another trajectory (reflecting, of course, another invitation to consume) immediately presents itself: the relationship between fantasy and games—medieval re-enactment societies, role-play, and computer games. Games are centred on control. “Re-enactment” is essentially revision, which is essentially reassertion of control, or domestication.

Unfortunately, that's a mature and published writer saying things like "reassertion of control" and not a freshman in a sophomore lit class at a liberal arts college.

Pastel City is the first and most straightforward of the books taking place in Viriconium, so it could be that my disassociation was also a bit of my own post-modern b.s. detector going off.

As genre fiction becomes more and more respectable, we will have fewer and fewer authors denouncing their own milieu and trying to re-fashion themselves as "real" writers. I do think we should question ourselves and critique notions of escapism and world-building, but let's do it from an objective, questing perspective, not from an inferiority complex.

50. Journey Into Terror by Peter Rabe

The cover and back blurb of this book promised some serious hard-boiled brutality. It started out in a very dark place but never quite reached the depths I feared and desired. It did a good job of capturing a couple of lost women and the world they inhabit, but Rabe ultimately goes too easy on his protagonist (not something he usually did). Maybe he was having a good week or so when he wrote this one.

49. Paint, Gold & Blood by Michael Gilbert

[The dates on the rest of 2008's post reflect when I actually finished reading the books, but I am writing all of these on New Year's Day. Got a bit lazy about my blog over the xmas break!]

This is one of Michael Gilbert's more recent books, one I hadn't heard of before. It's not bad, but features many elements that Gilbert has done better before (boys school shenanigans, UK-Europe border crossings, art forgery). The relationship between the young protagonist and his wife rings a bit anachronistic as well. Gilbert's later books can be quite good (Rollercoaster has a real moral punch, for instance) so it's not that he's getting old. I just think this one lacked a bit of inspiration. I enjoyed it, though.

48. Squib by Nina Bawden

I found this one as well in Winnipeg. When I was a kid, we used to read a lot of British children's books, like The Box of Delights, Swallows and Amazons and even a ton of Enid Blighton (which I guess was looked down upon by certain people). These books always seemed to have a dark side to them and this became more explicit when I started reading the books aimed at adolescents from England. I remember in particular one that was called The Cage or The Cave or something like that which starts out with a guy waking up in a dungeon having no memory of who he is. He slowly meets some other people who are there also missing their memory. The book is about them exploring the place, finding out what is going on and who they are. It turns out they were all juvenile criminals and the place was an experiment in psychological manipulation and rehabilitation. I remember it being quite dark.

So when I saw the back blurb for Squib, it definitely sounded like it fit into that genre:

'Who said Squib was unhappy?' said Robin. 'I mean, it's not as if he was black and blue all over or covered in blood. You can't go tearing off to the police or something and say "Look, there's this kid in the park, we don't know who he is or where he lives or anything about him at all, but he's shy and he's got odd eyes and a bit of a bruise on one leg."'

But Kate couldn't leave it at that. She simply had to go on finding out about the odd, frightened little boy, until she found herself in the most terrifying situation of her life.

I'm pretty sure I've read some of Nina Bawden's books when I was a kid. My sister remembers them and she was a pretty popular writer. So it's quite likely they were in our school library.

Squib struck me on two levels. The reality it presents is class-conscious and tough. People are pathetic and lost and desparate. But it's all viewed through the eyes of the children protagonists, to whom a lot of it is quite mysterious and exciting. The older boy who smokes and is a member of a bike gang comes off as really cool and kind of frightening to the kids, but we see that he is actually a bit of a loser among his peers and his home life is quite depressing. And it works on both those levels. You get caught up in the exploration and mystery of the forest around the old folks home while also feeling sympathetic to the lost souls that live there. This realism, is I think, the result of Bawden taking the children's perspective seriously and treating it with respect. This is something we don't get as much in North America (and perhaps less and less in these modern times) where everything is sugar-coated and the bad stuff hidden away.

A short, engaging and honest little story. I'd recommend this for young readers who want to move onto things with a bit more depth and bite.

47. Quag Keep by Andre Norton

Whoah! I've got whiplash from slamming the brakes so hard on my book reading! I was whaling away with all the summer travel and being away from the distractions at home (i.e. the internet) but I hit a wall this winter. To be fair with myself, there has been a lot of productivity in other recreational realms (gaming, cooking, building and fixing stuff), but I really should have put away the 50 by now.

Just to give you an example of how poor my concentration is with books these days, I found a really cool pocket paperback version of Quag Keep (on your left) when I was in Winnipeg. I had already bought the trade paperback (on your right) brand new but this one was much cooler looking and only cost $2. I started reading the older version, but the type was so small and the wordcount per page so dense, that I had to switch over to the big margin, fancy-paper trade paperback like a sucker! Man, what's next for me, The Kite Runner!

Quag Keep is considered one of the earliest Dungeons & Dragons novels. It isn't an official D&D novel from one of the popular world settings like Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, but rather a fantasy novel inspired by D&D. It was written in 1978. I don't know what the connection was, whether it was a marketing arrangement or whether Andre herself actually played D&D. There is a little frontispiece that says "The author wishes to express appreciation for the invaluable aid of E. Gary Gygax of TSR, expert player and creator of the war game, Dungeons and Dragons, on which the background of Quag Keep is based. I also wish to acknowledge the kind assistance of Donald Wollheim, an authority and collector of fantasy miniatures, whose special interest was so valuable for my research."

Quag Keep is about a group of heroes in a fantasy land forced to perform a quest. What separates it from classic fantasy fare is that they all have very vague memories about who they are and how they got there. They know what they can do and have snippets of memory based on their capabilities, but other than that, they don't know why they are doing what they are doing and how they got there. They have a couple of weird moments with a wizard where they start to think they are actually from somewhere else. They also all have a bracelet of dice that they can't remove or turn, but who spin on their own from time to time, usually when they are about to encounter danger. The conceit, I think, is that these heroes are D&D players who have inhabited the bodies of the heroes they are playing.

But it's much vaguer than that and that is what makes the book interesting. As a fantasy novel, it's rather generic. There are some cool battles and scenery and the characters are pretty neat, but there is no real depth beyond them trying to follow this quest. As I read it, I really got the feeling that Andre Norton was fascinated with the idea of characters in a roleplaying game and their limitations relative to their fictional counterpart. And not just any roleplaying game, but a really bad one. This is a serious railroad. The heroes are all geased (forced on a magical quest) for which they have no actual inherent motivation. The characters are basically a collection of powers and skills, with some racial features to make them distinct. I wonder if Norton didn't actually play in a game and was frustrated at all the things the characters couldn't do. Ultimately, Quag Keep seems like a critique of D&D more than anything. Or at least a badly-run D&D game. I mean if you haven't guessed it already, guess where there quest leads them? That's right, The Dungeon Master, who is briefly portrayed as a whiny, manipulative little nerd.

Not the most exciting read in the world, but a fascinating document for gamers today. I'd love to know a little more about what brought this book into being.

46. The Vendetta by Nick Quarry

I found this book in Winnipeg, looking for The Don is Dead by Nick Quarry on behalf of Lantzvillager. He will have to explain how he found out about this author, but I'm glad he did. This is good, solid, workaday crime writing that was enjoyable from start to finish. à

It's the story of a Sicilian immigrant, Paolo Regalbaota in 30s who gives up the life of a budding gangster to take care of his wife and twins. Unfortunately, they get blown up in an extortion hit (they live underneath the restaurant where the protagonist is a waiter). It's already suggested that Paolo was a strong person, physically and mentally so when he comes out of the hospital he is ready and capable to get revenge. The fire that burned his home and family also scoured his emotional insides, leaving him brutally cold with one motivation: vendetta!

However, the scope of the novel broadens considerably, when he takes up with the second-in-command of a weakening Capo and works with him to fight back the capo's enemies as well as to take command himself. This ignites an all-out gang war with all kinds of hijackings, tommy gun battles, ambushes, raids and a lot of other good stuff.

The Vendetta does not contain the most elegant of prose, but it keeps moving along. I kept forgetting that it took place during prohibition because the writing style had a very '70s feel, which is when it was written. The neat details of the mafia's methods and the political affiliations between the various gangs (Jewish, Irish and Italian, and the subsets of the Italians: Sicilian, Neopolatin and others), the cops and the politicians make up for the anachronistic tone however and there is a ton of great action. A lot of dudes get their heads blown off. Good sex too.

I did a little research using The Internet and discovered that Nick Quarry is the nom de plume of Marvin Albert, one of these writers who cranked out a ton of paperbacks. I'll have to keep my eyes open for him as well.

45. Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

These well-known Napoleonic-era naval adventure books have been tempting me for years. I kept going back and forth with the slight hesitation that they were dumbed down and written for a mass audience. You have to be so suspicious of books that are really popular as they usually suck. On my trip to Saskatchewan Manitoba we shared a flight with another couple from the wedding and the guy really talked me into checking them out. He spoke particularly of the relationship between the captain and the surgeon (I've seen the movie, so I knew the basic premise) and the beautiful descriptions of the ship at sea. So despite having already purchased an armload of books, I snagged this one (easy to find and cheaply priced). It's the first of the 20-book series (though the movie has the same name, it's actually based on a later book). So if you want to get into this series, this is where you start.

Well holy shit, I was sucked in right from the beginning. This book has the kind of rich, British language that I love to read and immediately the relationship between the doctor and the captain is so compelling. You know, I started writing about their initial encounter, but then I realized it would be a major spoiler of what was for me one of the many pleasurable moments in this book. So even though it's only the first 30 pages or so, I'll leave it up to those of you who find this kind of thing appealling to read it for yourselves.

Here is an example of the language. The captain is having some tension with his First Mate, the latter being an Irish Catholic who was, unbeknownst to the captain, involved in the uprising against the crown.

'...And,' said he [Captain Jack Aubrey], hitching himself a little closer to Stephen's ear, 'I blundered into one of those unhappy gaffes... I picked up the list and read off Flaherty, Lynch, Sullivan, Michael Kelly, Joseph Kelly, Sheridan and Aloysius Burke -those chaps that took the bounty at Liverpool - and I said "More of these damned Irish Papists; at this rate half the starboard watch will be made up of them, and we shall not be able to get by for beads" - meaning it pleasantly, you know. But then I noticed a damned frigid kind of a chill and I said to myself, "Why, Jack, you damned fool, Dillon is from Ireland, and he takes it as a national reflexlion." Whereas I had not meant anything so illiberal as a national reflexion, of course; only that I hated Papists. So I tried to put it right by a few well-turned flings against the Pope,; but perhaps they were not as clever as I thought for they did not seem to answer.'

That joke about the beads just really cracked me up. The book is filled with this kind of dialogue, showing a range of idiom from the most educated (the doctor), to the badly educated (the captain) to the uneducated (the seamen).

My only problem is that in the descriptions of work on the ship and in the sea battles, I can barely understand any of the vocabulary. No real effort is made to explain it to the reader, except that sometimes brief explanations are made to the doctor, who has no experience at sea. I appreciate this and wouldn't want to lose the flow, but I would love to have some kind of electronic book version where you could click on words and see a picture of a ship and what the hell the part they were talking about was. Same with maneuvers. (Update, I think I need to find this book.)

The other thing that sort of throws me is that it seems to have an almost flippant attitude towards the violence. I understand that this probably reflects the brutally stoic zeitgeist of the British Empire, but it almost seems unrealistic. The deaths and violent wounds of the sailors are treated offhandedly, merely as references to the doctor's work for the most part. It makes it seem like naval battles on the high seas in this period were as fun as a rougher-than-average game of rugger. There is a very similar attitude towards discipline, with men happily accepting their flogging for being drunk. I'm sure this is how the ruling class wanted it, but I'm not so sure it was all so rosy for most of the people. On the other hand, that could be my own modern PC interpretation trying to be imposed on what is a not inaccurate capturing of a period. The rest of the reading is so deliciously enjoyable, and it is an adventure story after all, that I think I can move beyond these minor concerns. I mean, I wish it was that way!

So quite seriously, after reading The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I thought I had reached the peak of reading pleasure this year, but I have to say that Master & Commander has edged it out and it if wasn't for me not understanding the maritime vocabulary (oh dear god is this more empirical, geeky information I am going to have to absorb!?), this may have been the book of the year. Definitely lives up to its reputation. I'm tempted to just go get the second one right now, but the books on deck shelf are falling off the edges, so I need to cut into that first. Highly, highly recommended.

44. Resurrection Days by Wilson Tucker

I found out about Wilson Tucker because I read somewhere that his book "Wild Talent" is considered the classic of the mutant human with super brain power being hunted by the authorities sub-sub-genre of books. I have yet to be able to find it, but I did find a couple of other books by him, including this one. It's about a guy who wakes up in some weird world run entirely by women. His memory of his past life is fuzzy, but he knows he came from the Midwest during WWII and that he was some kind of handyman.

As he explores this new world, which is basically a circle of houses, all facing outwards to a constantly revolving road, he also starts to remember his past. Beyond the road is a forest, a graveyard, a factory and endless flat plains of grass. He soon learns that he is the only man with any kind of consciousness. All the rest are zombies, ordered around by women. The women themselves, though fully sentient, have a very limited perspective. They have no history and lead very dull lives, eating food that pops up in their little home ovens, never having romantic relations, let alone reproducing.

It turns out that they are going to the graveyards and digging up the bodies of men and resurrecting them, where they are used as labour. You never really find out who is behind all this. There is some authority called Mother and a hierarchy, but everybody is just following the established way things are.

What makes this book entertaining and not just some exploration of a bizarre future is that the protagonist is a kind of happy-go-lucky guy who spends most of the time trying to figure out how to make whiskey and cigars with the food machine and how to get with the women, at which he succeeds. He finally starts to upset the order to much and the last half of the book is a long, slow and weird chase.

It's actually kind of an enjoyable read, probably better than what it sounds like above. I look forward to other stuff from Wilson Tucker.

43. Hombre by Elmore Leonard

I've heard a lot of good stuff about Elmore Leonard's westerns. He wrote them at the beginning of his career and they did fairly well but he moved onto crime at some point and never looked back. I was told that his westerns are quite easy to find, but it took me a trip to Winnipeg!

Hombre is about a final stage coach run from an outpost where the coaches are shutting down because the train has made them obsolete (doing the same to the little towns that used to service the coach stops). It's not actually a stage coach, but a "mud wagon", a smaller vehicle that was usually used by the coach company to bring supplies out. It's less comfortable but more versatile. The final run is forced upon the company by various people who need to make the trip and it is this varied cast of characters, and one in particular, Hombre, that drive the story.

There is the boss of the outfit, his assistant who is the narrator, a younger woman who had been captured by Apaches and a couple, the husband of whom was a Station Agent, responsible for administering trade with the natives. A tough cattle hand shows up at the last minute and forces an ex-soldier out of the coach. And then there is Hombre, who is seen only through the eyes of the narrator. Over the course of the beginning of the book, we learn that he is a white man who had lived in Mexico and then with the indians and ended up as a deputy on the reservation. He had "gone native" and is often mistaken for an indian. He says little, just enough to let it be know that he has an issue with the way the natives are treated. He ends up sitting outside on the mud wagon with the boss and driver because of objections by the Station Agent.

The setup is this little cramped wagon in the middle of the desert seething with racial and sexual tension. The four people inside are crammed knee to knee and it is suggested that the wife of the Station Agent is too young and not faithful. It's actually quite rich and subtle stuff. And then shit happens and we learn a lot more about everybody. It's all done very subtly, though, with a light touch. The narrator himself is young but its written from the perspective of someone looking back and trying to figure it all out.

When I read this, what come to mind was Cormac Macarthy. Unfortunately, what should happen is that we read Macarthy and then Elmore Leonard comes to mind. And probably a few other western authors. Because Leonard did this stuff first and did it well, if not better. This is a dark and realistic look at a very mean wild west, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between the whites and the aboriginals. It is very sympathetic to the latter group, but ultimately moves beyond to damn us all. Nobody wins in this book and there is no real justice. Just a tiny slice of bravery and sacrifice that makes everyone else look even worse than they already did.

Also only took 188 pages to do this and do it effectively. Great stuff.

42. The Canadian Bomber Contract by Philip Atlee

I found this little gem at Nerman's in Winnipeg. It was in the Action section (the existence of which gives me hope for the world) among a bunch of other Philip Atlee books featuring Joe Gall. I was only aware of them because Lantzvillager had asked me to find a specific one (The Green Wound Contract, which I later did find, but in the Vintage section and under the title The Green Wound). All the covers looked interesting, but I picked this one because of the Canadian content. Hell, the inner blurb reads "Joe had seen plenty of violent cities, but in Montreal, sudden death, maimings, stabbings and bombings seemed to be part of the scenery." so you know I had to get it.

Most of the book takes place in Montreal, Quebec City and the Niagara Falls, with a brief trip to Toronto. Atlee seems to be one of those adventure writers who writes because he went somewhere. He spends a lot of time describing specific details, either geographical or cultural, that you get the strong sense he actually witnessed. Though I was only 2 in 1971, and his perspective was very much the anglo outsider, he seems to have captured Montreal very well. The following passage confirmed this to me:

"While I was walking through the dawn streets of Toronto toward police headquarters, I reflected that the town might be the financial headquarters of Canada, but that in comparison to Montreal it was an ugly and dowdy place, lacking both charm and beautiful girls..."

Some things never change.

It's a fun, quick read because of the location and the crazy sexism (he basically tells women what to do and they do it, for the most part). But the plot seems like an afterthought, plopped on like a shovelful of wet cement. And the final reveal was so stupidly obvious and preposterous that I had guessed it about halfway through but couldn't actually believe he would try and go through with it. Despite that, it's not a terrible read. The protagonist is a tough guy and deals out summary justice for the CIA, but he's actually kind of liberal, sympathizing with the draft dodgers (the ones who apply themselves to society but are just against war) and deserters and arguing with his boss about these issues. The badguys and the druggie hippie barefoot rebel crowd among whom they insinuate themselves are quite entertainingly portrayed. The writing can be flip, which sometimes is distracting and other times puts forth darkly humourous little gems like this:

"I had been married shortly once, but it went bad when I discovered my wife in the sack with a neighbor, whom I beat to death immediately with a small portable radio. That's not as hard as it sounds; those little plastic jobs have some good handholds on them."

Excellent use of the semi-colon there.

This is something like #19 in the series, so I suspect that Atlee was mailing them in a bit, delivering just enough location, sex and patriotic violence for his audience. I read that early in his career while convalescing in an Oregon hospital bed, after a Korean war wound, he was approached by the CIA. They offered him money if he would put certain biases in his books, which he refused to do. I'd never heard of that practice. It bears looking into.

I'll read another Joe Gall, but probably look towards the earlier books.