An Anglo-American Alliance Reviewed

It has been five years since I last worked on my Reading the 20th Century project, reading 1 work from 1901, 2 works from 1902, and so on.  I last left off with a defecit of 1906 books to read.  I’ve begun to repair that situation with having finished “An Anglo-American Alliance: a Serio-comic Romance and Forecast of the Future” by Gregory Casparian. 

Though best remembered today as the first lesbian science fiction story, it is also a utopian fantasy story that, set in 1960, accomplished some remarkable predictions, such as predicting the Federal Trade Commission by eight years (though Casparian’s Bureau of Frauds and Swindles seems to have more regulatory power), the corruption of the oil conglomerates (satirically, they lobby to legally pollute in order to exterminate the mosquito), the end of child labor by 32 years, the reaching of the North Pole (but predicted 23 years after it really happened), the 1928 “conflagration of the Atlantic Ocean” anticipates the many oil disasters in the Gulf of Mexico, the 1935 prediction that science would invent a way to blow the Earth “into fragments” was only off by 10 years, and such medical advances as synthetic cells (predicted by 106 years), brain surgery (by 29 years), skin grafts (by 11 years), and sex reassignment surgery (by 24 years).  Other predictions one could only wish would come true, like the states being given the authority to fix maximum prices for commodities or uniform divorce laws between the states.

He failed spectacularly in other regards, such as believing that coeducation would never last, the airplane would not be invented until 1921 (it had already been invented before the book was published) or that pantheism would replace monotheism, but primarily missed in international politics, such as the emergence of an Africa Commonwealth as a world power, the expansion of Tibet to border Russia, and the half the world’s population being from North America and Europe by 1960.  Other failings are his sexism (women decide to never enter politics), racism, and anti-Semitism (with no favorable depictions of non-whites or non-Gentiles). Still other predictions seem to be intentionally satirical only, such as the 1939 discovery that Earth was actually a giant electric motor – anticipating The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by 72 years.

Other highlights include the darkly satirical treatment of football (with players in the future equipped with spiked armor) and a brief tour of an alien planet (unnamed, though the implication seems to be it is Mars) inhabited by plant men (sadly not exciting enough to be a RPG setting). 

The book can be read on Google Books or Open Library.

The New Death and others reviewed

It is seldom that anyone acknowledges I have a blog, let alone ask me to review their book on my blog. So, when a correspondent named James Hutchings offered me a review copy of The New Death and others, I could not turn it down.

James cites Lovecraft, Howard, Ashton Smith, and Dunsany as influences on his contents pages (there are two pages of contents, a whopping 63 short short stories and poems for me to review!). It is an impressive collection of names. The biggest influence on the early stories is, appropriately, the earliest of those authors, particularly Dunsany’s own collected works like Gods of Pegana. Indeed, quite a few stories deal with fictional gods and fictional worlds (such as all four authors used) and with an archaic voice of storytelling that sounds very much like Dunsany (more than the others, to my ear), yet with a modern, wry, yet ultimately depreciative twist. Before his first Dunsany-like tale, “The Gods of the Poor”, ends with the fate of the impoverished decided by process of elimination between uncaring gods, James has inserted the jarring anachronism of Fame and Fortune saying, “Darling, I don’t think so.” It is a wink and a nod to the reader, saying, “See? I can do Dunsany and be funny.”

Yet even in this example it is too soon to label the story as trite, for there is interesting depth hidden behind the brevity. When Sky-Father says someone must be the God of the Poor because, “Those with no gods will grow restless and cunning, and in time will cast us down, and we shall be gods no more,” it hints tantalizingly at an entire cosmology in one sentence.

“How the Isle of Cats Got Its Name” is about eight times as long as the first story and at least twice as complex. It deals with a powerful witch, talking cats, gods and their cults, and introduces them all in a curious order that obscures, until the very end, which one of them is the real main point of the story. Along the way, it engages in the same clever, yet tongue-in-cheek word-building that was hidden behind the scenes in the shorter work preceding it, but plays it out to less satisfying effect. The details that work best are the more thought-provoking ones, like the nature of spirits and how their powers function differently by geography, while too much attention is spent on one long, cruel joke about a cat-torturing harp.

“The Enemy Within” is the first story to cast off fantasy elements. It is the first story intentionally hard to place, lacking a defined setting. No doubt it is intended to show the timelessness of bigotry, yet it is to the story’s loss that James engages here in none of his clever world-building, giving us a not-particularly nuanced character sketch instead.

“The End” is a particularly clever one-page satire of slipstream fiction and the preponderance of the supernatural in mainstream media today. Here, the world-building is behind the scenes again, but kept there until the end so as not to spoil the surprise.

“A Date with Destiny” returns us to the style of winking nods to Dunsany’s Pegana, this time making the winking nod the whole joke of the story by updating a Pegana-like goddess to the age of meeting people in online chatrooms.

“Everlasting Fire” is a delightfully clever and often humorous three-pager (complete with puns in endnotes) about how both sinners and devils alike in the afterlife are trapped in an all-too Earth-like bureaucracy. Some of the finer touches are interoffice memos that end in maniacal laughter and adding the act of saying “lol” out loud to the list of deadly sins. Some of the humor, though, is unnecessarily cruel (Oprah as a devil?) and the joke about fanfiction should strike uncomfortably close to home for someone selling self-published short fiction anthologies online, as it does for certain reviewers who also write fanfiction…

“Under the Pyramids” is the first poem in the collection, a 5-page ballad inspired by a Lovecraft story of the same name. It might help to know the original story and I have never read it, so I won’t comment on the content. Indeed, the only reason I mention it is to point out how the ballad is technically proficient, and thank goodness. I personally find free verse to seldom be more than lazy writing and cringe at the sight of it, so you can understand my relief that James knows how to write a proper ballad.

By the time we get to “The Face in the Hill” we have moved on again in style, returning thematically to the terrain of “The Enemy Within”, but with a lighter tone that reminds me of 1950s Marvel Comics (particularly with its O. Henry-esque twist ending). The theme, about people who only hear what they want to hear, is much subtler and hence, for me, more enjoyable than “The Enemy Within”.

“The Prince of the Howling Forest” is a trickier poem to label. That meter is not for a ballad. Twelve syllable lines? Is this a canzone? The form is too obscure for me – perhaps appropriate for the murkiness of the subject matter.

It seems to me that James accomplishes much more in brevity than he ever does in longer pieces, and perhaps there is no better example than “The Uncharted Isle”. In seven sentences we have a wonderful fantasy setting (more behind-the-scenes world-building), charmingly evocative language (I love the “wine-faced sea”), and a clever ending. That the whole story is just one joke hardly matters when done this well.

The antithesis occurs a few stories later, “The Scholar and the Moon”, again proving my point. In over five pages, James stuffs what could have been another fine, seven sentence story with metaphor, explained world-building, asides to the reader, and verbose characters -- though Conwy’s exchange with the gargoyle is well worth the read (I hope to steal the encounter for a D&D game someday).

There are so many more examples left untouched (indeed, I’ve barely covered more than one-sixth of the stories), but I think I have given enough examples to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of the collection. James is a master world-builder and an economist of words who is most brilliant in brevity. He is witty and literate. But he tries hard, perhaps too hard, to impress the reader. By demonstrating his range, he ranges all over, like a writer suffering from attention deficit disorder.

That said, there is much worth reading here and should please any intelligent fantasy fiction reader with tastes running from Lord Dunsany to 1950s Marvel Comics.

Top 15 Favorite Books

After reading Kage Baker's The Bird of the River, I decided it was time to revisit a project I'd last posted here back in 2007. This time around, I expanded the list to 15 and allowed myself up to two titles by the same author. This is still leaving off all graphic novels. I also realized, to my shock, that I had left off Jules Verne completely from my past list. What was I thinking?

1. The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
2. With a Single Spell (Lawrence Watt-Evans)
3. Gods of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
4. Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C.S. Lewis)
5. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Graeme)
6. The Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien)
7. Around the World in 80 Days (Jules Verne)
8. True Names (Vernor Vinge)
9. Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
10. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
11. Magician's Nephew (C.S. Lewis)
12. The Sign of Four (Arthur Conan Doyle)
13. Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency (Douglas Adams)
14. Journey to the Center of the Earth (Jules Verne)
15. The Bird of the River (Kage Baker)

Things I Want to See in Hobbit II

I had read much earlier that The Hobbit was going to be filmed in two movies, but it was only recently I read a rumor that was printed back in 2008 that the first movie would follow the book while the second would be an invented sequel bridging the Hobbit to the Lord of the Rings. This was pretty exciting for me, whether it's true or not, because I've long thought that if I ever get around to running a Middle Earth campaign (I know, what's wrong with me that I haven't done it yet?) that's exactly what I would want my campaign to be like.

So, with that in mind, I started looking at The Hobbit again and took some notes.

1. Rule #1: no established characters from The Hobbit. Use cousins of Bilbo and the dwarves, or even a not-totally-evil-yet Saruman, but everyone from The Hobbit remains off-stage.
2. Do any Tooks still consort with fairies, like a Took ancestor was rumored to have done?
3. What was the Old Took's business that kept him away from home so long?
4. Where does their tobacco come from? Is it a deadly carcinogen, or the more harmless "pipe-weed" I see in many D&D campaigns?
5. What happened to Old Took's magic diamond studs that never come undone until commanded?
6. Were the dwarves coming from west to east when they reached the Shire, or did they go really far out of their way to find Bilbo? And what were they doing out west?
7. Do dwarves drink tea? None of the dwarves touch Bilbo's tea.
8. Is there significance to the color of the dwarves' cloaks?
9. Is there significance to Dwalin's golden belt?
10. How long have they had tobacco, tea, and cofee in the Shire?
11. Pop-guns exist, so guns exist, though perhaps only as dwarf-made toys?
12. A typical dinner? -- tea, coffee, beer/ale, wine, raspberry jam, seed-cakes, apple tarts, mince pies, cheese, pork-pie, salad, eggs, cold chicken, pickles.
13. With magic pipes you can direct the smoke rings?
14. Common instruments: bag(pipes?), fiddles, flutes, drums, clarinets, viols, and harps.
15. Magic item: light hidden in gems of hilt of sword; illuminates a room until the sword is drawn and held?
16. What else might Hobbits hide behind the beer barrels in their cellars (besides themselves)?
17. If Kili and Fili are so much younger, why were they included in the company? Just because of their kinship, or perhaps the closeness of their kinship to Thorin? And are any other dwarves upset about their exclusion?
18. Where was the Battle of the Green Fields fought and where is Mount Gram? When was Bullroarer Took around to fight it? 60 years ago? 75? 125?
19. Does anyone still play golf?
20. Burglars and expert treasure hunters advertise with secret marks on their doors; this is common practice.
21. What do dwarves dig coal for? Do only dwarf-run furnaces run on coal? And if the dwarves have to dig their own coal now, who were they making to do it before? Maybe the goblins of Moria have a reason to hate dwarves...
22. Who do they know of the Last Desert to the East-of-East in the Shire?
23. Do dragons still live in the Withered Heath?
24. Where are the goblins of Moria regrouping?
25. What is the Necromancer doing now?
26. Dwarves are a common, or at least not rare, sight on the roads of the Shire. What marketable goods do they still trade? The dwarves once controlled a great toy market in Dale. Do dwarves still make toys?
27. Clockworks exist and mantel clocks are not uncommon.

Reading the 20th Century Project

[Back in 2005 I started an ambitious, perhaps impossible project to read an incrementally larger representation of 20th century literature by year, i.e., 1 book from 1901, 2 books from 1902, etc. Within a year I was sidetracked to other reading projects, like re-reading Lewis and catching up on the Tolkein I hadn’t read yet, but it is a project worth going back to.]

1901
1. First Men in the Moon, H. Wells.
1902
2. Hound of the Baskervilles, A. Doyle
3. Five Children and It, E. Nesbit
1903
4. Call of the Wild, J. London
5. The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1st half published), A. Doyle
6. Stella Fregellius, H. Haggard
1904
7. Masters of the World, J. Verne
8. The Return of Sherlock Holmes (2nd half published, A. Doyle
9. Peter Pan, J. Barrie
10. The Marvelous Land of Oz, F. Baum
1905
11. White Fang, J. London
12. Gulliver of Mars, E. Arnold
13. Ayesha: the Return of She, H. Haggard
14. The Scarlet Pimpernel, B. Orczy
15. The Gods of Pegana, L. Dunsany
1906
16. Not George Washington, P. Wodehouse
17. The Four Million, O. Henry
18.  An Anglo-American Alliance, by Gregory Casparian

The Magician's Nephew Reviewed

One of the nicest gifts I received for Christmas this last year was the "omnibus" collection of the Narnia books in one volume. This gave me a nice excuse to revisit the books I had not read since I was 12-13 years old, over two decades ago. I was a large fan of Narnia at the time. Would it hold up to a re-reading? Complicating matters was that this volume is arranged in Lewis' preferred order of reading, with The Magician's Nephew first. I did not remember much from The Magician's Nephew, but I did recall feeling the Narnia books peeked with Voyage of the Dawn Treader and that Nephew was a lesser work.

This re-reading did not change my estimation of The Magician's Nephew as a second-tier entry in the Narnia series, but it was still enjoyable to re-read from an adult perspective.

And how "adult" the book at first seems! Before Uncle Andrew's sinister mutterings turn out to be the sinister mutterings of an evil wizard, it sounds like the children Digory and Polly are trapped in an attic with a would-be child molester!

"I am delighted to see you," he said. "Two children are just what I wanted."

Thank goodness it's just a magical experiment for which he wants them. It is too easy to view the past as a "simpler" time and think that no one worried about child molestation back in the '50s. It is certainly possible, though, to see Digory and Polly's plight at his uncle's hands allegorically, with two children suffering a fate worse than death, seeing the world differently afterward, and only regaining their feeling of innocence after they find God (or Aslan).

More than any other Narnia book, The Magician's Nephew shares the most information about the "real" world that the children come from before reaching Narnia. This is the only book in the series that takes place in the past, at least 40 years before the "present" of its 1955 publication date. Without giving a specific year, the time period is described as the days of Sherlock Holmes and the Bastables. The cases of Sherlock Holmes range over quite a few years themselves, so it is still impossible to pin down a specific year. It is difficult to discern the purpose of using literary characters to establish the sense of time, especially since Holmes and the Bastables are described, albeit briefly, as if living characters while Treasure Island, in comparison, is specifically referred to as a fictional book. Interpreted literally, it can be inferred that Holmes actually lived in the "real" world of the Narnia books. It is an odd choice, since Holmes is a particularly unsuited fit for the magical milieu of Narnia. An encounter between Holmes and Aslan would certainly be a memorable one!

And yet, perhaps Conan Doyle is a good fit, at least for his more fanciful stories than for his Holmes canon. When magic is revealed to exist in the "real" world by Uncle Andrew, we also learn about his fairy godmother, said to be one of the last three mortals in the world with fairy blood. Magic is clearly waning in the pre-Industrial 19th century, a theme repeated in other works such as Tolkein's Return of the King that deals with an age ending and an industrial future to be avoided. Unlike Tolkein's dark future, Lewis' modern age is presented as the natural way. Digory Kirke, our young hero, represents this new age. Though he yearns for country life, it is only because he knows the rural and industrial worlds can peaceably co-exist that he can go back to the country life (as is his reward by book's end). The old ways are represented by evil Uncle Andrew, who’s magic and fairy heritage are aberrations.

Another curiosity is Uncle Andrew's Atlantean box, the source of his magical powers. Andrew is convinced that it is from Atlantis and talks a bit about Atlantis' history. Andrew’s theory about how the magic rings work is completely debunked through the course of the story, but the part about Atlantis is never corrected (and this is an omniscient narrator who frequently adds more information). It's really a throw-away reference that has nothing directly to do with the story, but seems to exist to ground Narnia's magic in "real" world mysticism. It is no secret that the Narnia books are rife with Christian allegory, but here Lewis seems to be spreading a broader net and trying to tie more magical traditions or theories into his alternate Christian mysticism -- a sort of grand unifying theory of magic.

No sooner have we got to know this version of the "real" world than we are hurled into another. The Wood Between the Worlds is a fascinating place, particularly since its symbolism is not as obvious. The symbolic tie to the first chapter is clear enough, with the Wood being like a crawlspace one can travel through to reach other worlds instead of other houses. The idea of portals to other worlds is certainly nothing new, but what makes the Wood unique -- and allegorical -- is its effect on visitors. Digory and Polly feel like they belong in the Wood, or have always belonged there, while Uncle Andrew and (later) the Witch Janis feel terrible or weak there. It is judgmental, but also a temporary destination, resembling Heaven in the first respect, but Purgatory in the second. If these resemblances are intentional, then the second visited world, Charn, is an even more obvious allegory. And yet, near the end, Aslan describes Charn as what could happen to Earth, making subtle references to the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. Telling criticism indeed. Yet, despite being a more obvious allegory than the Wood Between the Worlds, Charn is the world that receives the most interesting world-building. The dying world, the city-sized castle, the hall of statues, and the sleeping queen are all fascinating and, as Digory and Polly explore it all, genuinely suspenseful. There is a more real and sustained sense of danger here than any other time in the book.

It is, perhaps, ironic that the best world-building in the book take place before we actually witness a world being literally built. In an unintentionally convincing argument against creationism, Aslan's creation of Narnia is just boring. And things do not get much better from there. The story simplifies dramatically from world exploration to a rather mundane quest (and a painfully obvious allegory) to fetch an apple from an Eden-like garden. By the time Janis moves from Charn to Narnia, she devolves from a mysterious, extremely deadly (the Deplorable Word is akin to the Atom Bomb) character of uncertain motives (which made her more frightening initially) to a comically ineffective stand-in for the Devil.

My biggest problem with the Narnia books (as well as why I'm not a more devout deist) is that Aslan is incredibly annoying. Mr. Knows-Everything-Does-Everything walks into a scene and everyone fawns all over him and even the narrator gets all "gosh he's awesome" gushing. Any chapter that has Aslan in it is completely devoid of action, danger, or suspense.

The best part of the second half of the book is the character of Nellie the Cabby, who becomes King Frank of Narnia. The Cabby is an interesting character who, despite being peripheral to the story, continues to engage more than the characters around him. Aslan is perfect, and Polly is practically perfect, so both learn nothing. Andrew and Jadis learn nothing and retain all their flaws by story's end (this is part of what reduces Jadis to as comic a character as Andrew). Digory is conflicted and has touch choices to make, but is still practically perfect and makes the right decisions with little suspense. Only in Nellie do we, indirectly, see great things -- his courage in standing up to Jadis (though, granted, he doesn't yet know she's a witch), his compassion in convincing his now-talking horse that he always took the best care he could of the animal, his growing wisdom as he accepts Aslan's description of a good leader matches himself (and this description is surely telling of how humble Lewis feels leaders should be). Seeing greatness in a humble cabby is much more rewarding than seeing it in a divine lion, and that Lewis never sees this is The Magician's Nephew’s greatest flaw.

Top 11 Favorite Books

[I put together this list back in 2005 and it has not changed since.]

We were recently asked here at the library to put together a list of our favorite books for a "staff recommended" bibliography. I did slip some graphic novel/trade paperbacks into my list, but thought I'd share my top 10 (I finally decided on 10!) non-comic book novels and novellas, and encourage you all to do the same. Also, so my list wouldn't get glutted by single authors I like a lot, I limited myself to one book I like best from each author.

1. The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
2. With a Single Spell (Lawrence Watt-Evans)
3. Gods of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
4. Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C.S. Lewis)
5. The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Graeme)
6. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
7. True Names (Vernor Vinge)
8. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
9. The Sign of Four (Arthur Conan Doyle)
10. Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency (Douglas Adams)
11. Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)

Ayesha: the Return of She Reviewed

[from 2004]
Ayesa: the Return of She is the sequel novella after She, written years after the first for closure. It begins with a framing device of the fictional version of the real publisher explaining how he came by this manuscript, the deathbed "confession" of his old friend, L. Horace Holly. It may serve to ground the accompanying narrative in reality or explain the real gap between publications, or some combination of both.

The story begins 20 years earlier in 1885 wth Holly, already an old man, and his adult, adopted son Leo Vincey, having retired from their African adventures and returned to England. Leo is despondent -- for 2,000 years of reincarnations he was the love of the immortal Ayesha, but she died in the Caves of Kor (in the last story). Despondent to the point of suicide, Leo ha a vision showing him a journey he can take to see Ayesha again. The vision is clear enough that they know the location is in Central Asia. Both men -- for both love Ayesha, in their own way, as they love each other -- vow to take the journey. Unless you are a big Latin buff, you will come to despise the term "crux ansata" by novella’s end, considering how often it is used to describe an element of both the vision and their destination.

Sixteen years of travel are quickly summarized at the beginning of chapter two, only hinting at their adventures in T(h)ibet and China. The important points are that they learn many dialects and much of Buddhism on the journey. The rapid travel log slows down (relatively -- they do spend six months there) when Leo and Holly reach a Buddhist lamasery near the end of their journey. It is important for Hagard to draw parallels between the Ayesha back-story and the beliefs of Buddhism, as more than one character does for him, as if to say, "This is a story about religion, not magic." I hazard a guess here, as I have not researched it, but I suspect Hagard was intentionally distancing himself from the spiritualism movement of his times. Of importance to the plot is that Leo and Holly find corroboration for Leo’s vision in the lamasery library. Also, their new friend Kou-en (the falsest sounding note amongst the Asian details – perhaps an inside joke for a friend named Cohen?) relates an experience from one of his past lives about how he encountered "She" and how she made him worship her, foreshadowing (or, if you read the earlier book, reminding) both the power of Ayesha and the evil purposes she will put it to.

Chapter three resumes the travel log, with Leo and Holly crossing the desert beyond the lamasery and reaching the mountain range where Ayesha is supposedly hidden. The detail is complete, but fails to build atmosphere. The chapter literally ends with a cliffhanger, but the suspense is marred by heavy-handed symbolism – Holly is kinda, sorta crucified before they both fall into the abyss.

The first three chapters are fairly lackluster, but chapter four is when the going gets good. It initially begins with more symbolism – Leo and Holly’s fall into the abyss ends with them being "reborn" in water (not unlike a Christening) and then being rescued. Their rescuers are the beautiful Atene, Khania (a female Khan; Hagard just makes up titles as he needs them) of Kaloon, and her ancient great-uncle, the shaman Simbri. Kaloon is one of Hagard’s hidden lands. If the size of the armies fielded later are any indication, Kaloon and its environs must boast a population of at least 600,000. The people of Kaloon are mostly of Mongolian descent with a trace of Macedonian. Two thousand years earlier, an army fielded by Alexander the Great traveled this far and, instead of conquering, settled down and mixed with the indigenous people. Kaloon’s people are primitive agrarians, having forgotten all other deities save the spirit of the volcano, Hes. The Khan seems a savage madman, but he is in fact a victim of his wicked bride. Their wedding was a political union and, although the Khan loves Atene, she does not love him. So she has solved that problem by administering a poison to her husband that makes him not love her, and their estrangement is what has driven him mad – particularly sense he is fully aware of her conspiracies, which also include wanting to see her husband killed. The Khan is introduced to us as a villain, hunting down one of his own relatives and letting his hounds kill the man, but before his death becomes the most sympathetic character of all.

The politics of Kaloon lead to much of the book’s most successful suspense, but also suspenseful is the "fatal attraction"-like relationship between Atene and Leo. By an amazing coincidence (said to be destiny at work, but still…), Atene and Leo were husband and wife in an early incarnation and Ayesha had come between them.
Atene is irresistably drawn to Leo and yet at the same time jealously angry at Leo's insistence that he loves the spirit in the volcano instead. Whether or not Atene is willing to kill him to keep him from Ayesha is suspenseful right up until the climax of the book.

This section runs through chapters four, five, and six, culminating in Leo and Holly's harrowing escape from the vengeful Khan Rassen. This is the climax to "act one," and the book gets no better until the climax to "act two."

The novella does not actually use the term "acts," but the book has clearly begun a new section when Leo and Holly reach the volcano. The pace slows back down, Leo and Holly are exploring again, and a new "mystery" appears. It actually isn't much of a mystery to guess who the shroud-wrapped guide is who leads Leo and Holly up the side of the volcano, but it is atmospheric -- not unlike the Ghost of Christmas Future with color and gender inverted.

There is an odd scene on the mountainside where Leo rushes to the rescue of a local girl who's about to be burned alive by a witchdoctor with a cat on his head. Perhaps Hagard felt his heroes had been escaping dangers too often and did not seem heroic enough, though by now it's very clear in the story that no harm can befall Leo and Holly because Ayesha is protecting them. Perhaps the scene is only meant to introduce the priesthood of the College of Fire, the servants of the Hesea, high priestess of the goddess Hes.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Reviewed

I had trouble articulating the trouble I had with the movie version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but after reading reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes web site, I feel more confident that the problem was mainly one of pacing. It had the rapid-fire pace of a slapstick comedy, but cerebral comedy like this needs more time to internalize. I think the movie would have done better if it had been 20 minutes longer. At least half of that extra time should have been devoted to Marvin – the best character from the book, and perfectly cast by the combination of Alan Rickman’s voice and Warwick Davis’ emoting through a costume (seriously, no one does that better; many actors don’t emote as well even with their faces showing). There was lots of good Marvin dialogue cut from the book and I can’t figure out why.

Of course, the main reason I can not give the movie a better grade than a B+ is that I never though the book was that good. And I’m only referring here to the first book in the series. I liked Restaurant at the End of the Universe better, and thought Life, the Universe, and Everything was the best of them all. And then there are Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently books that I thought were even better than the Hitchhiker series. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is, beginning with the Earth being destroyed, way too depressing. As the Tick would say, “That’s where I keep all my stuff!” Blowing up the Earth as a joke just does not work for me, never has, and the book never gets far enough past that joke to keep it from my mind. At least the movie stresses real strong at the ending that everything is good as new on our back-up Earth, but it is hard to accept that.

Yet, despite my misgivings, I was used to be enormously excited about Hitchhiker’s. And it was not so much the book itself, but how well the book translated into other media – radio, text-based interactive computer games, television, and the list just kept building over time. Hitchhiker’s was an okay book, but a multimedia sensation because nothing had ever been so multimedia before. Had the movie version rode that momentum and come out 10 years earlier, it would have been a huge sensation. As it was, the movie was more like a nostalgic nod.

The Four Million Reviewed

[from July 2006]
O. Henry’s The Four Million will always be remembered, if for nothing else than the oft-borrowed “The Gift of the Magi.” Henry’s narrative voice, even 100 years later, sounds so honest and fresh that when the story does feel dated (like when a cab turns out to be drawn by a horse instead of horsepower) the effect is jarring.

The stories here are meant to be representative of the people of New York, with the premise being that any inhabitant of that city would be worth meeting or have an interesting story to tell. Most of the stories prove this claim, though some suffer from repetition. Most end in O. Henry’s trademark “surprise twist” endings – sometimes they seem “slap-your-forehead”-brilliant, sometimes they elicit a smile, and still other times a groan.

Also worth bearing in mind before tackling these stories is the racism of the times. Irishmen’s brogue is always spelled phonetically to call attention to their accent. Negroes are negatively represented. Asians are non-existent in this New York. I had to look up what a “dago” was, as that term for Italians seems to have been largely forgotten, but it gets used repeatedly here. One could also make a case for sexism, as the women here tend to be weak and in need of rescuing, yet most are strong or at least maintain their dignity. Their frequently repeated plights are merely meant to tug at the heartstrings, perhaps the strings of what might have been a largely female readership.

“Tobin’s Palm” is a story about two superstitious Irishmen trying to turn their luck around. It’s one of the more racist stories, but has one of the most enjoyable surprise endings.

Everyone knows “The Gift of the Magi” – if you haven’t read it, you’ve surely seen it on TV disguised in one form or another. It is, despite its ubiquitous nature, a truly moving tale with a great ending.

“A Comspolite in a Café” is a slight joke-story about hypocrites.

“Between Rounds” starts out as an interesting “apartment-building-as-microcosm-of-society” story, but -- probably because of its lesson of “people don’t change” -- the story “goes nowhere”.

“The Skylight Room” is a real tearjerker of a story, a surprisingly engaging read about a woman too good for New York and how her dreams of being saved our answered. Also of interest is how the story begins, and works, from the rare second-person perspective. I actually took the time to re-read this one. Right up there with “Magi,” this is my other favorite story from this collection.

“A Service of Love” is sort of a variation on Magi, with a young couple giving up art in order to pay the bills. Not one of the best.

“The Coming-Out of Maggie” is a slight story, notable for its twist ending, where the “prince charming” and the “villain” turn out to be the opposite of who you thought they were.

“Man About Town” is the inverse of “Comspolite” – a man goes around looking for a “man about town” to see what he’s like without realizing he is one.

“The Cop and the Anthem” is one of those familiar stories, like “Magi”, that’s been borrowed so often it feels very familiar without having read it before. Soapy is a bum who wants to get thrown in jail for a little winter comfort, but as soon as he wants to get arrested he can’t.

“An Adjustment of Nature” is a “buddy” comedy of four guys trying to “save” the girl they admire from falling in love. One can imagine Ben Stiller elongating this into a whole movie.

“Memoirs of a Yellow Dog” is notable for having the only non-human narrator. It’s also a pretty funny story about a hen-pecked husband and the dog his wife dotes on.

"The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein" is notable for being one of the few stories where the twist ending is a character getting his comeuppance. Despite the title, this isn't sci fi or fantasy. Sadly.

"Mammon and the Archer" is a "father knows best" story that whimsically turns the axiom "you can't buy love" on its head. Amusing, without offering any real surprise.

"Springtime ala Carte" is a sweet story, but its twist ending is the most far-fetched coincidence in the collection.

"The Green Door" is another sweet story, another with a helpless woman needing to be saved. It starts off wonderfully atmospheric, almost magical, and it's a shame that everything is explained away by the twist ending.

"From the Cabby's Seat" may be the weakest story here, relying on a twist ending that is not believable. "The Romance of a Busy Broker," listed below, uses the same ending, but has a better and slightly more believable build-up to it.

"An Unfinished Story" is a mild tearjerker about a poor shop girl who, inspired by the photos she keeps of men she admires, chooses her dignity over a date with "Piggy."

"The Caliph, Cupid, and the Clock" is a fine tale, propelled along by the delightful character of "Prince" Michael, a silver-tongued hobo who believes he is royalty in disguise and has the speech and manners, if nothing else, to back his claim. In fact, it would be nice if Michael's true status was more ambiguous by story's end. A longer story would have served him well, too, for he is a character who could have held a novella together. This story, however, is actually fairly slight and beneath him.

"Sisters of the Golden Circle" differs in that the twist -- the wife letting her husband be arrested falsely -- occurs mid-story, and the explanation only comes at the end. The explanation, though, is entirely unconvincing and it seems to me divorce should be impending for these newlyweds.

"The Romance of the Busy Broker" -- see "From the Cabby's Seat." This broker may be the first character with Alzheimer's Disease (albeit unnamed) in fiction.

"After Twenty Years" is a fairly familiar story of two young crooks who grow up, one goes straight, and they find themselves on opposite sides of the law. The "twist" ending here is entirely predictable, but getting there is not unpleasant.

"Lost on Dress Parade," with its morale that it is better to be yourself, seems like it was a worn-out cliche before O.Henry even got his hands on it. But Towers Chandler (what a name!), the architect who pretends to be rich once each week, and the girl he meets are too charming to be quickly dismissed.

"By Courier" is a fun little story. The twist ending explaining the gentleman's seeming infidelity is not nearly as much fun as getting there, as the gentleman and his lady communicate -- or fail to communicate -- through a street kid who's language skills are not up to their's.

"The Furnished Room" has a twist on the twist ending -- it actually does not end happily! Perhaps another one or two such endings before reaching this close to the end would have made this story, about a man trying to find his lost girlfriend by seeking out boardinghouses she might have stayed at, seem less out of place. The details of how the man searches the rooms are engaging -- possibly a good lesson for gamers looking to rely on fewer die rolls for searching.

"The Brief Debut of Tildy" is almost another unhappy ending, nor does it have a twist ending so much as a joke ending that reverses the previous tone of the story. Tildy is the ugly waitress, always living in the shadow of beautiful Aileen, who feels beautiful when a customer kisses her. His apology near story's end explains all, but is too obvious an explanation to count as a twist ending.

The Gods of Pegana Reviewed

[from April 2006]
The Gods of Pegana is such a short work -- little more than 30 pages long -- yet it holds astonishing significance. In the space of an ordinary author's short story, Lord Dunsany wrote an entire fictional mythology. More significant, the planet named in the mythology is Earth, but it is not our Earth. The gods, their people, and some of the strangest nomenclature in literature are utterly alien. The Gods of Pegana is not only one of the earliest works of fantasy fiction, but one of the earliest examples of the alien horror genre. Indeed, Lord Dunsany predates and inspired H.P. Lovecraft and all who followed him.

It may be inaccurate to call this a short story. It is a sort of free verse poem, but deeper than that, it is written with the alliteration and repetition of oral tradition, with a narrative voice reminiscent of the Bible. The bizarreness of Lord Dunsany's inventions ring true because they sound authoritative and familiar. And -- deeper still -- there is much that IS true behind these alien parables, timeless themes that will always resonate. Paramount among them is the fear of endings, whether it be personal death or the end of all that is. When Mana-Yood-Sushai (the creator deity of this alien pantheon) awakes, he will mock the smaller gods for their games with worlds and people and will end everything to start over, we are told. On a more personal level, human characters are introduced who come face-to-face with Mung, the personification of death. Which group has it worse, those who fear death or those who fear the mocking before death? This ties in with a statement made at the very beginning, that no one knows whether fate or chance controls the universe. Mung tells those whose lives he ends that it is fated it should happen, that they could take no other path in life other than the one that leads to Mung. Yet, if chance is the answer, then Mung is wrong or lying. Does Mung lie to console those whose lives are about to end? Mana-Yood-Sushai is fated, it seems, to eventually awake and end all that is, but if all is fated, then why does he mock the smaller gods? The fear of endings, then, is the fear that it IS chance
that governs us.

Another reoccurring theme is that wisdom means knowing that you do not know anything, ala Socrates. The wisest of the prophets, such as Yonath, knows this, but the hypocrisy of later prophets is borne out by their tales of knowing they tell their followers. Bad fates tend to befall these "false" prophets, or at the least an encounter with Mung. The Gods of Pegana does not speak well of religion, suggesting that it tells people not what is true, but what people want to hear (incidentally, there is in the introduction a comment about Allah that would seem
most politically incorrect in most areas of the world today, though it
was probably not intended as such).

The Gods of Pegana is a fast read, but a rewarding one, and something
everyone should try.

The Scarlet Pimpernel Reviewed

As forerunner of both the spy and superhero genres, The Scarlet Pimpernel is something I really wanted to enjoy. There is delightful wordplay throughout and buried gems for those bemused by obscure words (where else can one read “loth” or see “balustrade” used these days?). When not outright stereotyping, there is some fun sarcasm at the expense of the French. It is Orczy’s lethargic pacing that allows for so much wordplay and all of the book’s humor.

Sadly, the story needs anything but this lethargic pace. The novel’s roots on the stage are evident in how long it takes to transplant characters from one spot to another. Most of eight chapters take place in one room of an inn, and then two characters return there later!

The Scarlet Pimpernel is not the main character, but the plot focuses on Lady Marguerite Blakeney and her efforts, first to learn the Scarlet Pimpernel’s true identity, and then to save him. That the Scarlet Pimpernel is actually her husband, Lord Percy Blakeney, is hardly a spoiler, being horribly easy to guess for anyone familiar with the cliché this started – the dashing hero disguised as the ineffectual fop (e.g. Zorro, Batman, et al.). What is more interesting is watching circumstances force Marguerite to mature to the point where she is ready to handle knowing his secret and then the excitement when she decides to race the villainous Chauvelin to her husband’s side to warn him. This race could have made the second half of the book very exciting, so it is the novel’s biggest disappointment when the race comes to a screeching halt almost as soon as it starts. A convenient storm delays the channel crossing and Chauvelin delays her in France, all for the purpose of slowing down the story and keeping characters from physically moving. It is no surprise when the focus shifts from this race to the false suspense built around the Pimpernel’s last, obvious disguise. Almost worse is the curt ending that snaps to a close with just a hint of the Blakeney’s reconciliation, without any emotional payoff from getting to observe it.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a superhero in the sense that he is supposed to have exceptional skill at disguise (although they seem obvious to us, he’s fooled his own wife for years), but is also supposedly quite strong. We never actually see him using his strength, but Chauvelin still guesses that it will take five men to take him down. Rather than brute force, the Pimpernel always outwits his foes and, interestingly, in the most subtle manner possible. His escape from Chauvelin (at yet another inn) is elegantly simple and one of the highlights of the second half.

Not George Washington Review

Not George Washington is a novel P.G. Wodehouse co-wrote before his more famous Jeeves and Wooster stories, but I can still hear the voice of Hugh Laurie playing James Orlebar Cloyster (and can imagine Stephen Fry as Briggs, if he could suffer a part so small). The novel is billed as an autobiography, which makes it seem odd that a) the novel is co-written by Wodehouse’s friend, Herbert Westbrook, b) the novel is narrated by four different characters, and a) that the main character of Cloyster is a cad and a bounder. Since the whole book skewers the literary field of London circa 1904, I suppose the “autobiographical” part is not to be trusted, though the introduction assures us that much of Wodehouse’s early experience as a writer is on display here. The curt narrative of the long-suffering girlfriend Margaret leads the novel and only serves to endear her to the reader and make Cloyster look all the more caddish later when he’s prepared to dump her.

The real highlights of the novel — and all the fun — come during Cloyster’s narrative, with the satirizing of cash-strapped Bohemia, Cloyster using his early rejection slips for wallpaper, and the assemblage of quirky characters he meets during his bachelor days, including the ever-napping Julian Eversleigh and John Hatton, the rollerskating reverend. Eventually, Cloyster becomes almost ridiculously successful as a writer (it would be unbelievable if Wodehouse himself had not become so successful), but his world falls apart when he decides to hold onto it longer without telling Margaret he’s well-off enough to marry her now. His deceptions, both of friends and self, soon lead to conspiracies (orchestrated by the other narrators) against him that, while not as funny as the earlier part of the novel, are certainly well-deserved. And yet all ends well. Well, except maybe for Margaret. Her prize at the end hardly seems to justify the three painful years she spent loyally pining away for her bounder of a boyfriend. To the modern audience, her treatment probably seems rather sexist. Also uncomfortable is the then-more-acceptable romance between cousins (Julian and Eva) and the …I’m not sure what to make of the scene in the men’s club – the Barrel — Cloyster attends. It reads to my modern sensibilities to be the start of a gay orgy, but the English audience of 1907 may have read it more innocently than that. Still, quibbles aside, it was a fun, easy read that left me thinking about my own literary ambitions afterward.