The Quill & The Keyboard

At the crossroads

2012-07-05T19:04:00.001-07:00

Paper Passion

2012-06-27T00:00:00.001-07:00

Have an ebook reader, but miss the smell of paper pages? The Paper Passion perfume will give your reader than bookshop odour–at £68 a bottle.

Red Nails

2012-06-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

A gentle reminder

2012-06-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

To all writers sending manuscripts to Random House; if you are using Fedex, prepare to exercise patience punctuated by episodes of extreme violence.

Review: The Warlord of Mars

2012-06-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Warlord of Mars (1919)

In the third of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom series, John Carter, an Earth man transplanted to Mars, is impatiently waiting for a time-locked prison cell to free his wife Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, when he discovers that two baddies have a key to the back door to the impregnable cell that they use to kidnap the a fore mentioned Dejah. There follows a protracted chase across Mars from the South Pole to the North by way of the forest city of Kator. Along the way, Carter encounters friends and foes as well as the legendary yellow men of Mars, apts, giant wasps and other wildlife.

This is an old-fashioned all-go novel with John Carter swashbuckling for all he's worth from one end of the planet to the other for all he's worth. It's pure adventure with battles followed by chases followed by battles with leering villains, stalwart fighting men and all manner of literary spectacle. Many times it threatens to bog down into pure pulp, but Burroughs's hand at soaring description and ability to elaborate on his world of barbarism and super science keeps things moving.

The only real flaw is that as the books go on, Carter becomes more and more fatheaded, making the same mistakes over and over. Also, we don't get to see nearly enough of the incomparable Dejah Thoris, who is usually merely glimpsed as she is carried from one confinement to the next.

Unlike the previous two volumes, this one ends with a rousing ending and reunion of all the principal characters, so this one reason why the first three books are generally marked as the Mars Trilogy.

Summer reading

2012-06-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

Via Teach.com and USC Rossier Online

Not impressed

2012-06-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

Letters of Note has a letter from Raymond Chandler to his agent in which he poses the eternal question, do they really pay sci fi writers to come up with that crap?

6005 Camino de la Costa
La Jolla, California
Mar 14 1953

Dear Swanie:

Playback is getting a bit tired. I have 36,000 words of doodling and not yet a stiff. That is terrible. I am suffering from a very uncommon disease called (by me) atrophy of the inventive powers. I can write like a streak but I bore myself. That being so, I could hardly fail to bore others worse. I can't help thinking of that beautiful piece of Sid Perelman's entitled "I'm Sorry I Made Me Cry."

Did you ever read what they call Science Fiction? It's a scream. It is written like this: "I checked out with K19 on Aldabaran III, and stepped out through the crummalite hatch on my 22 Model Sirus Hardtop. I cocked the timejector in secondary and waded through the bright blue manda grass. My breath froze into pink pretzels. I flicked on the heat bars and the Brylls ran swiftly on five legs using their other two to send out crylon vibrations. The pressure was almost unbearable, but I caught the range on my wrist computer through the transparent cysicites. I pressed the trigger. The thin violet glow was icecold against the rust-colored mountains. The Brylls shrank to half an inch long and I worked fast stepping on them with the poltex. But it wasn't enough. The sudden brightness swung me around and the Fourth Moon had already risen. I had exactly four seconds to hot up the disintegrator and Google had told me it wasn't enough. He was right.

They pay brisk money for this crap?

Ray

Pulp covers

2012-06-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Golden Age Comic Book Stories looks at pulp paperback covers

Cover: The Andromeda Strain

2012-06-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

Review: Swords Against Death

2012-06-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber (1970)

The second volume in the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Saga sees Leiber's heroes wandering the world as they try to forget their first and greatest loves who died and were avenged in the city of Lankhmar. After travelling the world of Nehwon and many adventures, including meeting their spiritual mentors Sheebla the Eyeless One and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes, they return to Lankhmar where greater adventures await.

Like the first volume, Swords and Devilry, Death is a collection of stand-alone stories that still hold together by sharing common themes and chronology, but where the first volume suffers by needing to be a retroactive introduction to our heroes, Death has them up and running with some of Leiber's best writing–especially the remarkable "Bazaar of the Bizarre". Yet what is most remarkable is that these short stories manage is what short stories aren't supposed to do. Short stories are about the "gag". Since they are short, such pieces must use an unexpected twist at the end or suspense or the characters experiencing some revelation. yet in Death, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser undergo actual character development; something that shouldn't be possible, yet in Leiber's skilled hands is.

The other thing that sets apart the stories in this volume is their mixture of broad humour with a truly unsettling sense of the weird and horrible, such as when the pair are bewitched into travelling across half of Nehwon to face a death trap or battling deadly, thieving birds controlled by a girl who may either be insane or a reborn priestess of an ancient goddess. Though the stories are humourous, they are never comedies and always have a core of iron to them that points like a compass to the macabre.

And mixed with this, and what really makes the series work are the barbarian Fafhrd and the nimble adventurer the Gray Mouser. In them, Leiber has created a story of friendship and camaraderie that is only equaled by the pens of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Patrick O'Brien. Seeing this double act at work is a delight as they save one another from peril, scold the other for his idiocy and face life's adventures back to back–unless there's a comely wench to be chased, of course.

The Concrete Mixer

2012-06-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer

2012-06-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)

2012-06-06T08:38:00.000-07:00

Ray Bradbury has passed on, age 91.

Sleep well, sir.

Philip K Dick

2012-06-06T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Electro-Plasmic Hydrocephalic Genre-Fiction Generator 2000

2012-06-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

Review: Technos

2012-06-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

Technos by E C Tubb (1972)

Carrying a message for a dead man, Dumarest follows a new lead on the location of Earth that plunges him into a political coup attempt that ends up at a literal maze of death.

The Dumarest books generally deal with Earl Dumarest on harsh, relatively primitive worlds that, for all their technology and space travel, are mining camps or feudal societies. This time, Dumarest finds himself on Technos, an advanced, technological world where one's place in society is based solely on education and academic achievement. It's an urban planet where Dumarest's knife-fighting skills and woodcraft must be put aside for an ability to evade a sophisticated police force, handle a stolen ID and bluff one's way on a world where taking the train is a deadly hazard for a man on the run.

This is also a world holding a horrible secret. Dumarest smuggles himself to the close Technos by passing himself off as part of a human tribute from a vassal planet. At first, this is just a convenient way to gain entry, but Dumarest soon learns that there's a connection between the people sent to serve the rulers of Technos and the youthful appearance of at least one high-ranking lady–a connection that could doom a people to slavery and extinction. Meanwhile, Technos faces the choice between a coup of dictatorship by the increasingly insane head of the government.

And naturally, the Cyclan are there pulling the strings.

The seventh in the Dumarest Saga, Technos has the formula finally up and running. Dumarest is solidly established as a character, his world is well-defined, his quest understood and the Cyclan made a credible set of villains who can be defeated in each story, yet remain terrifyingly powerful. The urban setting in particular is a nice touch, as it shows how the formula is kept fresh by ringing subtle changes along the way.

How to win genre arguments

2012-06-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

Trends in E-Reading

2012-05-30T11:53:00.001-07:00

Review: Carnacki the Ghost Finder

2012-05-29T00:00:00.000-07:00

Carnacki the Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgson (1913)

If you wanted to solve a crime in late Victorian London, you called Sherlock Holmes. If you wanted to solve a spooky crime in Edwardian London, you called Thomas Carnacki, the ghost finder.

Between 1910 and 1912, William Hope Hodgson wrote a series of short stories in The Idler and The New Magazine featuring his supernatural detective Carnacki. Based on the aforementioned Mr Holmes, Carnacki's brief was to investigate supposed haunting–usually ones with a suitably grisly facet to them. These stories, which where collected in 1913 and in an expanded edition in 1948, follow a rigid formula. The narrator of the story and three friends gather at Carnacki's London home for dinner followed by the detective treating them to an exciting tale from his casebook. Everything is more or less wound up at the end and Carnacki sends them all home.

The variety comes in the cases themselves. Some are genuine affairs of outright demonic hauntings by malevolent supernatural beings. Others are fakes perpetrated for one reason or another and some are a weird combination where the fakers unwittingly collide with the eldritch. The stories do have something of a repetitious quality with Carnacki forever letting off the flash of his camera or hiding in the protection of his "electric pentacle", but what makes them work is the uncompromising atmosphere of terror that Hodgson brings to the stories. Carnacki is an honest enough character to admit when he's scared out of his wits, even when it turns out to be a trick, and Hodgson's descriptions of what is like to be sitting in the dark while something paces and pants around the room is truly frightening. This is enhanced by Hodgson's talent for finding spine-tingling throwaway descriptions of his horrors that cunningly seed the reader's imagination. This is not a book to finish just before bedtime unless you've left on all the lights and are absolutely certain that the noise you heard after turning in really is just your daughter's pet mouse running in its wheel.

Otherwise, it can be a very uncomfortable night.

Is It Dystopia?

2012-05-28T00:11:00.001-07:00

The Innocence of Father Brown

2012-05-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

Cover: Prelude to Space

2012-05-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

Review: Doctor No

2012-05-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

Dr No by Ian Fleming (1958)

The Secret Service officer in Jamaica and his female No. 2 go missing and James Bond is sent out on what seems like a routine investigation of a man and a woman who've probably just done a runner, but missing files, mysterious tails and an assassination attempt point Bond to the island of Crab Key–the private kingdom of the incredible Dr. No.

The sixth of the James Bond series, Dr No, is a direct irect continuation of From Russia With Love, taking up right after Bond returns to duty after a near-fatal poisoning by Smersh agent Rosa Klebb. Where Russia was a straightforward Cold War story, Dr No is far more fantastic as Bond and his West Indian friend Quarrel follow the leads that end in a clandestine visit to Dr No's island. There Bond encounters Honeychile Ryder, a strange girl who is a mixture of resourcefulness blended into a childlike nature. Their attraction for one another against the backdrop of eluding Dr No's men is already interesting, but when they are captured and escorted into the lair of the mysterious madman with steel claws for hands, the novel takes on an almost surreal quality. This is heightened by No's entertaining Bond and Honey to dinner and polite conversation in luxurious surroundings that Bond is all too aware are just an ironic prelude to an evening of torture and murder. Worse, he learns the reason behinds No's madness and that it involves more than just preserving his evil wonderland.

Though not well received on its first publication, Dr No has aged well over the years–not the least because the film adaptation formed the template for all later Bond villains right down to the sumptuous lair and the Nehru jackets. It's full of the usual blend of "sex, sadism and snobbery", but added into the mix is the friendship between Bond and Quarrel that ends in tragedy, the strange protective/sexual relationship with Honey and the delicious banter as Bond and Dr No cross swords over drinks.

Not the finest of the Bond series, it is nevertheless a straight plot with a satisfying conclusion that puts it firmly in the middle rankings of the books.

Review: The Dunwich Horror

2012-05-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Dunwich Horror by H P Lovecraft (1928)

The Whateley family who live outside of the forgotten, decadent village of Dunwich in Massachusetts's Miskatonic valley are shunned as freaks and wizards–especially Wilbur Whateley, who was born of an insane albino mother and an unknown father. A profoundly ugly child, Wilbur grows and develops at an alarming rate. Before he's even a teenager, he's the size and maturity of an adult. And along with his barely human appearance, his grandfather is versing him in all manner of unspeakable occult lore that has something to do with shunned Sentinel Hill and the reason why more and more of the Whateley house boarded up and hollowed out as if to hide and make room for... something.

One of the defining stories of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, The Dunwich Horror is also one of the most accessible, having later been made into a 1945 radio play and a 1970 feature film. It's a frightening story of barely contained evil that is bent on breaking through and overwhelming our world, but its real power is the mounting revelation of the "other" as the oppressive decadence of Dunwich gives way to the evil of the Whateleys, who have sold out the human race, then the fate of Wilbur that uncovers his secret and then the even greater menace that this releases on the world. Though the climax is a bit underwhelming, owing to being related by witnesses who only see it from a distance, the outcome is saved by one of the most chilling final reveals in weird fiction made even more frightening by its matter of fact statement.

Review: A Storm of Swords

2012-05-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

A Storm of Swords: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Three by George R R Martin (2000)

In the third volume of Martin's multi-volume epic, the war continues as the surviving kings battle for control of Westeros, Danerys works to build an army, the scattered Stark family members try to find their way and an ancient evil gathers its forces in the far north.

A Storm of Swords is essentially a place keeper of a story, which is unfortunate because it's also a giant doorstop of a novel that takes many manhours to plough through. It took me three weeks, though to be fair I did take time off to read three other books along the way because this one was such a slog.

Nothing really happens here except in the final few chapters and the rest of the book boils down to long, long accounts of people going from here to there, people getting killed horribly, people getting mutilated horribly, being threatened, getting married, getting married against their will and getting threatened with getting married against their will. Rinse and repeat each step so often that it gets tedious. Martin's philosophy is that if it works once, use the same plot device 273,964 times. I think he's trying to avoid having his books turned into a drinking game by making it unwinnable. Worse, he keeps adding in more and more characters for no very good reason and he insists on doling out everyone's life story down to the last detail so that the reader ends up completely confused as to who is who, what is of importance and why we had to learn so much about a person who just gets slaughtered horribly five pages later.

As usual, Martin's book is a curate's egg. Some parts of it are excellent. The only problem is that he insists on mixing the good bits with too much filler. He continues to jump between the stories of various main characters who almost never meet each other except briefly and the Danerys plot is so completely disconnected that you could cut out every word from all the books up until now and never notice. I often feel that instead of writing these interminable bricks Martin would have been better served by breaking them into a series of smaller books so that instead of five volumes and counting we'd have 20 or 30 and counting. Besides, I think a thin volume titled "The Slavers of Astapor" or "Attack of the Wildings" has a lot more zing to it. Though I don't know that a novel exclusively about the Sansa character would be much of a read. 200 pages of someone repeatedly kicking a human puppy isn't very entertaining

My greatest complaint about Storm is the brutality of it. Some readers claim that this adds to the authenticity, but that only holds true if you know next to nothing about the real Middle Ages, which were no where near as violent and treacherous as depicted in this fantasy. People are being betrayed, ambushed, beheaded and generally mistreated so often and so casually by their lords that in the real world the "nobility" that acted this way would in short order be ostricised, excommunicated, deposed and seriously dead within a week. And further more, people in real feudal societies don't go around burning villages and slaughtering peasants left, right and centre. With 13th century technology that very soon becomes too much like hard work and, more importantly, you're burning the crops and slaughtering the workforce that are supposed to make your conquest worth the effort. It's like robbing a bank and setting fire to the money.

More to the point, it was established that before the first book Westeros enjoyed fifteen years of peace and prosperity, so where did all these noseless, earless, one-eyed bandits who'd sooner kill you as look at you come from? Where did they learn their murdering? Under whom did they apprentice their thugism? Correspondence courses, presumably.

And here's a tip for Martin: If you're going to have Machiavellian characters, read Machiavelli. The first lesson of The Prince isn't "make yourself completely unreliable".

So, it's on to volume four. Let's hope the plot starts to move and Martin starts shedding characters or I may need to solicit help for reading some of the chapters.