Capsule Birthday Reviews: A Plague of Demons and Worlds of the Imperium, by Keith Laumer

Capsule Birthday Reviews: A Plague of Demons and Worlds of the Imperium, by Keith Laumer

a review by Rich Horton

Today would have been Keith Laumer's 93rd birthday. I decided, then, to exhume these two capsule reviews I did on SFF.Net long ago, of the first two non-Retief Laumer books I ever read. Keith Laumer (1925-1993) was in the Army, and later the Air Force, and also in the US Foreign Service. His military and diplomatic experience was definitely reflected in his fiction. He also graduated from my alma mater, the University of Illinois. Still, while I've enjoyed some of his fiction, I've never been a huge fan. I thought the Retief stories got tedious after a few examples, and when I was first reading SF magazines I read some of Laumer's later, much lesser, work (composed after a devastating stroke, which by all accounts didn't just affect his cognition but his personality, in a quite terrifying way). Later acquaintance (as with the two novels here) proved him a solid writer of fast-moving adventure, and sometimes an interesting writer, but not a great writer.

I don't think I had ever read a Keith Laumer novel, except maybe a Retief book or two long ago, before I decided to rectify that omission a couple of decades ago. I noticed that A Plague of Demons seemed highly regarded.  I found a used copy and read it.  It's from about 1965.

It's an interesting book, not bad at all. A secret agent type is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a number of military types -- it's assumed that somebody is assembling some sort of army (shades of the Peter O'Donnell Modesty Blaise book I had read at the same time, Sabre Tooth).  It turns out things are much stranger -- with the help of a number of surgical enhancements to his brain and body, our hero is able to detect that the military types are being kidnapped by strange doglike aliens -- and that only the brains are being taken.  Soon he finds that aliens have infiltrated Earth much more widely than he thought.  Fortunately, there is a long-term secret network of humans working against all threats to humanity -- and he escapes temporarily to them.  But eventually the doggies catch up -- and things keep getting stranger.  Laumer doesn't stop short of the implications of his ideas, but keeps following them.  It's not great stuff, and it's a bit wacko at times, but it is fun.  It also fits interesting into a recent rasfw thread: "Purely Evil Races".  Laumer's conceit is that the aliens in this book indeed fit the "purely evil" mold -- and that they are fighting a war with a "purely good race".  But, says Laumer, those "good guys" are really just as inimical: humans are much better because they are a mixture of good and evil.  Bit of Manicheanism there, I suppose.

Another well-regarded early Laumer novel seems to be Worlds of the Imperium. I decided to get the issues of Fantastic, from 1961, that this novel was serialized in because Dan Goodman, on Usenet, has claimed several times that they include a brilliant section which was excised from all the book versions (though Damon Knight included the section as a standalone in the anthology A Century of Science Fiction.) Worlds of the Imperium, by the way, was first published in book form as an Ace Double, backed with one of Marion Zimmer Bradley's lesser known novels, Seven From the Stars. As it happens, I've also read the Bradley novel in its magazine appearance (another Cele Goldsmith issue, the March 1960 Amazing). I suppose I'll find a copy of the Ace Double and assemble an Ace Double review!

The novel is about Brion Bayard, an American diplomat (does Laumer write about anybody but diplomats?  there's Retief, of course, but also the hero of A Plague of Demons, and now this) who is kidnapped in Stockholm.  His kidnappers inform him that he has been taken to another timeline, and that he can never go home.  (To convince him, one of the things they show him is a strange tableau formed of a man and a plant as they change across the timelines -- it's odd and effective but quite uncharacteristic of the rest of the novel, and I guessed, correctly, I'm quite sure (based on checking a paperback copy of the novel), that that was the part Dan Goodman was talking about.)  It turns out that the timeline of the kidnappers is the only one which has mastered the ability to cross timelines -- except for one other timeline, in which a cruel dictatorship rules, and which has been sending missions with atomic bombs to try to destroy the first timeline.  And the dictator is -- that timelines version of Brion Bayard!  The kidnappers try to convince him that decency requires that he impersonate Bayard, take over the dictatorship, and stop the atomic bomb invasion.  Eventually he agrees (helped by witnessing one such invasion), and he is sent to the dictator's timeline -- only to run into an unexpected snag.  It's a fun adventure book, with a bit of twistiness, but not always at the right times.  Nothing great, but a decent read.

A Forgotten SF Novel: The Duplicated Man, by James Blish and Robert Lowndes

A Forgotten SF Novel: The Duplicated Man, by James Blish and Robert Lowndes

a review by Rich Horton

I've written about both Blish and Lowndes before, but I am trying to finish the few Blish novels I hadn't previously read, so I picked up this slim book in its Airmont paperback edition. Airmont was the paperback arm of the low end publisher Thomas Bouregy, and this novel first appeared in hardcovers from Bouregy. It should be noted that Robert Lowndes was an editor for Thomas Bouregy/Airmont. It should also be noted that Robert Lowndes was the editor of Dynamic Science Fiction, where The Duplicated Man first appeared, in the August 1953 issue (as by Blish and "Michael Sherman".) That version was very likely the full text of the eventual book version.

I'll skip the details about the two authors -- in short, Blish is one of the field's true greats, as an author and a critic, primarily. Lowndes is a significant figure as well, primarily as an editor for Columbia Publications, and other outlets, where he always has a minimal budget and produced magazines that were better than one had any right to expect.

Blish, it should be added, was one of those writers (Michael Moorcock is another) who was truly brilliant when in top form, and who could be just awful when the material didn't engage him. And, it's sad to say, The Duplicated Man is an instance of the latter situation.

The Duplicated Man is set a few centuries in the future. Earth is under a world government of sorts, ruled by the Security Council, which was formed to prevent war. Alas, while Earth is at peace, the threat of attack from the colonists of Venus remains -- a group apparently expelled from Earth a long time before, now confined in difficult conditions on hostile Venus. They are protected from attack by an electronic screen, but they occasionally send missiles to bombard Earth.

There are parties on both planets, minority parties, favoring rapprochement with the other. Paul Danton is a functionary in the Pro-Earth Party, the group on Earth urging treaty with the Venusians. He finds himself entangled in the Byzantine politics of his party, where everyone seems poised to betray everyone else. But soon Danton is approached by the rulers of Earth, who have a use for him -- it seems he bears an uncanny resemblance to one of the key men on Venus.

We get an extended look at the Venusian ruling structure: at the top is Geoffrey Thomas, one of the original exiles to Venus, who has become immortal, at a terrible price. His deputies, particularly the devious woman Luisa, are scheming to become his successor, and to learn his secret of immortality. But he has his own plans.

Back on Earth, Danton meets Earth's rulers, and falls desperately in love with one of the women in that group, Marcia Nels. And he agrees to their plan -- to use a secret and almost lost technology of duplication, which will created multiple copies of him, to send to Venus to sow confusion. But it turns out this duplication technology is decidedly imperfect (for somewhat interesting reasons, if they had been better developed).

The novel meanders along -- hard to meander, you would think, in 128 pages -- with lots of hard to follow scheming among the governments of both planets; and an abortive war, with a fair amount of death; and, more interestingly, a kind of total mess surrounding the "duplicated man" plot, ending, a bit unconvincingly, with the revelation that the whole thing was planned by the leader of both planets with the best interests of everyone in mind. Hmmph.

There are a couple of grace notes that scream "Blish", such as the mention of Finnegans Wake (as a set text in schools, of all things!), and the mention of Spengler as well. And there are a fair number of kind of neat ideas buried in the overall tedium. Still and all, a pretty weak novel in the Blish oeuvre.

Birthday Review: Recovery Man, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Birthday Review: Recovery Man, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Kristine Kathryn Rusch was born on June 4, 1960, making her (like one other recent Birthday Review subject here) just a few months younger than me. So I am reposting a review I wrote for my SFF.net newsgroup long ago one on of her Retrieval Artist books.

Recovery Man is the latest -- sixth novel (plus at least one shorter work) -- of Kristine Kathryn Rusch's long series of Retrieval Artist novels. These feature a Retrieval Artist named Miles Flint who works on the Moon. Humans are part of a loose alliance with various alien races. One agreement humans have signed on to as part of that alliance is that when in alien territory humans are subject to alien laws. The problem is, these laws can be absurdly draconian. Or, perhaps, appropriate to alien species, psychologies, and physiologies, but stupid when applied to humans. Much of the tension of the stories in the series comes from seeing humans subject to harsh and, by any reasonable (and human, but so what) evaluation, unfair punishment due to these alien laws. In response, many humans "Disappear" -- take on new identities. Retrieval Artists are the most overtly ethical of a variety of people who find those who have "Disappeared". In their case, these people are found for their own good -- perhaps they are no longer wanted by the aliens concerned, or perhaps they have come into a big inheritance or something.

These books have been slowly edging in the direction actively confronting this rather horrid situation. One of the problems I've had with past books is that there has not been enough acknowledgement that these rules are a problem. Another is that the books mostly display (not unreasonably) the most ridiculous alien laws -- presumably in many cases humans who violate alien laws are guilty and deserve punishment -- and the punishment they get is appropriate. But as displayed in the books, the aliens collectively are batshit crazy, and the proper response of humanity would be to have nothing to do with them. To be fair, this can be seen as a response to seeing a Retrieval Artist's cases -- which might naturally gravitate towards the (presumably few) extreme situations.

(My other problems with the series' underpinnings are twofold. Economics, for one: I can't make myself believe that the Retrieval Artist business would be quite as thriving and lucrative as portrayed. Science, for two: the details of such things as solar system travel are not well-handled -- jaunts to the outer planets are about as hard as getting in your car and travelling to Florida from St. Louis.)

As hinted above, I have had issues with most of the previous books in the series. But I keep reading. Why? Well, Rusch is an engaging writer -- the books are fast and involving reads. Miles Flint and the various other characters we meet (notably Lunar security chief Noelle De Ricci and ambitious and ethically challenged newswoman Ki Bowles) are fairly interesting to follow.

Recovery Man is a bit different from the earlier volumes. For one things, it is not primarily set on the Moon. For another thing, Noelle De Ricci and Ki Bowles are for the most part absent -- this book focuses on Miles, and on a couple of new characters. These are Rhonda Shindo and her 13 year old daughter Talia. They live on Jupiter's moon Callisto. Rhonda is kidnapped by a "recovery man", while Talia is left locked in their house. It appears that Rhonda is wanted by an alien species, the Gyonnese, for a heinous crime. The thing is, they don't really want Rhonda -- they want her child. But, the Gyonnese being aliens, not just any old child will do. It has to be a "real" child -- and Talia, we learn, is a clone. The Gyonnese believe that Rhonda has hidden her real child, and that clones like Talia are a diversion tactic. So "recovery man" (a sort of unethical inverse retrieval artist) is bringing her to the Gyonnese, who hope to learn from her the location of her real child.

Meanwhile, back on the Moon, Miles Flint is learning some disturbing secrets about his own past: secrets hidden in the files of his mentor Paloma. We already knew that Miles' career as a Retrieval Artist, and before that a policeman, is in part a reaction to the death of his young daughter due to the negligence of a day care worker. We also know that the stress of this loss broke up his marriage. Well, his wife's name was -- Rhonda. Indeed, she is Rhonda Shindo, and begins to seem that there is a mystery about their daughter's death ... perhaps tied to Rhonda's past, especially to her dealings with the Gyonnese.

So the three strands followed involve Rhonda's struggles with her kidnappers; Talia's difficulties after being abandoned in a company town, and her taking control of her own life and legal case; and Miles's search for better understanding of Rhonda and their child. The central mystery, really, is "What did Rhonda Shindo do?" But this book turns out to be more of an adventure, less of a straight mystery. And it certainly leads us in the direction of greater understanding of Miles's past, and also greater understanding of the tangled mess humans and aliens have mutually made of their relations. As such, it's a pretty positive development in this series of books. I rather enjoyed it, on the whole.

Ace Double Reviews, 58: The Door Through Space, by Marion Zimmer Bradley/Rendezvous on a Lost World, by A. Bertram Chandler

Ace Double Reviews, 58: The Door Through Space, by Marion Zimmer Bradley/Rendezvous on a Lost World, by A. Bertram Chandler (#F-117, 1961, $0.40, reissued as #15890, 1972, $0.95)

(Covers by Ed Emshwiller) 

Here are two novels by popular writers known for colorful other-world SF with strong elements of fantasy. Each writer is best known for a particular series: Darkover in Bradley's case, Commander Grimes in Chandler's case, and these novels are not directly part of those series but probably set in the same universes. (There is a casual mention of Darkover in The Door Through Space, while Rendezvous on a Lost World is set in what certainly seems like the same Rim Worlds milieu as the Grimes books.) The Door Through Space is about 44,000 words long; and Rendezvous on a Lost World is about 40,000 words. I don't know for sure of previous publication of either story, though I suspect that Chandler's novella "When the Dream Dies", from the February 1961 Amazing, is a shorter version of Rendezvous on a Lost World. 

To repeat what I wrote in an earlier post about Bradley: Marion Zimmer was born in 1930 in Albany, NY. She was a very active SF fan from the late '40s, and she published several fanzines as well as numerous exuberant letters in the letter columns of the pulps of the day (I have several issues of old magazines with her letters). She married Robert Bradley in 1949, and they had one son, David, who became a writer, and died in 2008. (MZB's brother, Paul Zimmer, was also an active fan whose letters are easy to find in old SF magazine lettercols, and who later became a reasonably accomplished writer.)


The Bradleys divorced in 1964, and Marion married Walter Breen, a fellow SF fan and a noted numismatist, within a month. Breen was already well known as an advocate of pederasty, and MZB certainly knew of his proclivities, and indeed Breen had been banned from at least one SF convention in that time period. Breen had been convicted of pederasty-related crimes as early as 1954, and continued to have trouble with the law, finally going to jail after another conviction in 1990. MZB managed to dodge serious consequences of her husband's activities throughout her life, and she died in 1999. In 2014 her daughter, by Breen, Moira Greyland, accused her of sexual abuse, and in retrospect it seems to me that it should have been clear all along that Bradley was at least negligently complicit in her husband's crimes, certainly aware of them, and now it appears more likely than not that she was a participant herself.

My view of the treatment of art produced by people later shown to be morally compromised or worse is straightforward -- the art is not affected (though it's fair game to view it with an eye to how the creator's apparent attitudes inform it), and while I support the notion of trying to avoid direct benefit to criminal creators, I absolutely reject the notion of censoring art by "bad" people. Bradley, it seems to me, represents a curious test case here -- because her work, in my view, though at times quite enjoyable, was never truly outstanding. Indeed, a novel like The Mists of Avalon, to my mind, received excessive praise when it appeared for essentially political reasons, making it ironic that it may now be suppressed by some for still political reasons. All that said, even it it is true that the world wouldn't miss Bradley's work all that much were it forgotten, I think it should be remembered for exactly what it is.

The Door Through Space opens with Race Cargill, a Terran who has spent most of his life on the planet Wolf, preparing to leave for a post on another world. He is a member of the Terran Secret Service, chained to a desk for the past six years after a confrontation with his friend and brother-in-law Rakhal which led to a blood feud between them. It seems that Rakhal, a human native of Wolf, had been working for the Secret Service but had turned renegade, and now supported independence for the planet. Race knows if he leaves the Terran areas he will have to fight Rakhal -- and either he will die himself or he will kill his sister's husband. So after years behind a desk he has decided to leave.

But at the last moment he is called back to investigate one more problem. Rakhal has disappeared and taken his daughter, and Race's sister Juli is begging for help. At the same time there is native unrest, and there are rumors of a matter transmitter being used somewhere on the planet. Terra really wants the matter transmitter!

So Race goes native again, and begins a journey to the Dry Towns to seek out Rakhal. At the same time he is beguiled be visions of a beautiful woman who has appeared to him a couple of times only to suddenly disappear, at the temples of Nebran, the evil Toad God. Race's travels lead him to a Dry Town royal, the twin sister of his mysterious woman, and to an alien city, and to stories of strange toys with sinister effects. It all works out more or less as you might expect. Tolerable enough stuff in what I would call a sub-Leigh Brackett mode.

(Cover by Enrich)

The "interesting" aspect, I think, is the view of sex. The novel has quite a lot of sex for a 1961 Ace Double, though mostly pretty sublimated. More to the point, the sex is very noticeably BDSM in style. This is signalled by the cover of the 1972 edition, which shows a woman with a chain binding her hands. This is the Wolfan equivalent of a wedding ring, it appears. There is another striking scene in which Race Cargill is tortured by a beautiful woman, in a very sexual way, followed of course by the two sleeping together. Frankly, this is a book John Norman probably liked. Bradley later claimed the the BDSM aspects were added at Don Wollheim's urging, but, quite frankly, I'm not inclined to believe her.

Arthur Bertram Chandler (1912-1984) was an English-born Australian seaman who began writing SF for Astounding in the 40s. His most famous stories are about Commodore John Grimes, a spaceship Captain in the Rim Worlds of our Galaxy. Chandler's spaceships, not surprisingly, recall sea ships a lot, particularly in the command organization.

(Cover by John Schoenherr)

Rendezvous on a Lost World concerns a foursome of crewmen of a Rim Worlds ship. The first mate dreams of owning his own ship, and when he gets a lucky chance, he involves his three friends in crewing the ship, an ancient ship of an obsolete design. Unfortunately this design has a problem which ends up in them getting lost in a "magnetic storm". They end up on a "lost world", with a mysterious nature. It seems very well-suited for human life, but nobody seems to live there, though there are technological constructions.

There the foursome are kidnapped, and they soon realize that they are held by an exiled AI. This seems to be a sort of Williamsonian robot, obsessed with making humans happy and safe, to a fault. The AI wants to keep the foursome forever, and goes so far as to create beautiful android women for them.

The do escape, of course, but not without cost. Indeed, the novel's ending is quite dark. The thing as a whole is a bit of an implausible mess, but to a small extent it is redeemed by the unexpectedly bitter conclusion.

Birthday Review: Galveston, by Sean Stewart

Birthday Review: Galveston, by Sean Stewart

a review by Rich Horton

Today is Sean Stewart's 53rd birthday. Stewart was born in Texas in 1965, moved to Edmonton as a young child, and now lives in California. Making him officially a Canadian writer. :) He wrote eight very strong SF and Fantasy novels beginning with Passion Play in 1992, continuing through Perfect Circle in 2004: what looked like the start of a truly major career. But since then he has published one Star Wars tie-in, and a trilogy of YA novels (in collaboration with Jordan Weisman), the Cathy books. And nothing since 2009. To someone like me, that seems an unfortunate silence, and I wonder about things like "Death of the Midlist". But Stewart still has a significant career in the gaming industry (and the Cathy books reflect that), and he is still writing stories, interactive stories. Quite possibly he has decided that this is the way he wants to tell stories, the career he wants, and it's unfair of me to regret the lack of good old-fashioned print novels. He did win the World Fantasy Award for Galveston in 2001.

I wrote this review in 2000, on the publication of Galveston.

Sean Stewart has developed quite a reputation, mainly as a writer of a sort of urban fantasy.  (Though he has written straight SF, fairy-tale derived fantasy, whatever Cloud's End is.)  Galveston is set, in the same world as two of his earlier novels, Resurrection Man and The Night Watch, though all three books are set at different times, and feature different characters, and are basically completely independent books.  It's an alternate history of sorts: sometime around World War II, fantasy started to leak into our world, at first slowly, such that at moments of great emotional stress, "minotaurs", dangerous magical creatures would be created.  Then, in 2004, some years before the action of Galveston, came the Flood, where the world was apparently inundated with magic.  In the island city of Galveston, a semblance of order has been maintained, mainly by the agency of two women: Jane Gardner, the secular leader of the city, and Odessa Gibbons, the Recluse, who polices the border between the magical part of Galveston, and the ordinary city.  Anyone who shows traces of succumbing to magical influence is sent by Odessa to the magical part, where it is always Carnival, always 2004, always a party; and where over time people undergo strange alterations: some become part shrimp (the Prawn Men), or part cat, or heron, etc.

Galveston is mainly the story of two people, Jane's daughter Sloane Gardner; and Josh Cane, who was sweet on Sloane when he was a boy. But Josh's father lost their house in a poker game, and Josh's mother kicked him out and ended up becoming an apothecary in the poorest part of Galveston.  Josh learned from his mother the bitter art of trying to make medicines in a mostly post-technological world, taking over the business when she died of diabetes after her insulin stock ran out.  Josh is forever bitter at his exile from the high society of Galveston, at his mother's death and father's abandonment, and at the way most of his new neighbourhood is slow to accept him.  He has just one friend, the huge and amiable Ham Mather.

Josh and Sloane are about 23 when the main action occurs.  Sloane is watching her mother die of MS, fearing the time when she will be expected to take over running the town, a job for which she feels inadequate.  A desperate trip to the magical part of Galveston leads to a disastrous bargain with Momus, the god who rules that part of town, a bargain intended to save her mother, but which of course goes wrong.  She ends up nearly raped, saved by Ham, who brings her to Josh for treatment.  Josh's embitterment is increased because Sloane has forgotten him completely. 

From there the action intensifies.  Odessa helps Sloane make additional trips to the magical side, this time appropriately masked, while Josh and Ham end up framed for a crime that didn't even occur, and exiled to the barbaric Texas coast.  Just at this time, the disaster which has been foreshadowed throughout the book happens: a hurricane, and some deaths, which finally loose the tide of magic onto the long protected city of Galveston.  Sloane is forced to learn more about herself, and to try to find a way to lead the newly changed city, while Josh is forced to even more bitter self-confrontation.

This is really an absorbing book, a wonderful read.  The magical elements are very well described, as is the decaying "real world" landscape of post-Flood Galveston.  The characters are bitterly and honestly portrayed, and despite manifold weaknesses, they are very sympathetic.  My only disappointment was that the book doesn't really end so much as stop.  I think this is a result of Stewart's refusal to "lie": he doesn't want any easy solutions, either easy happy endings, or easy tragedies.  The book's theme could be described as "life isn't fair", or perhaps "it doesn't get any better than this".  To some extent, this means reader expectations are frustrated: I sense because of a feeling that to satisfy conventional expectations would be cheating.  At any rate, I felt the ending of the book read a bit flat, though the theme is driven home excellently, and the characters are treated honestly and their changes are real.  In sum, a ve

A Hopefully Not Forgotten Fantasy Mystery: Cold Iron, by Melisa Michaels

Cold Iron, by Melisa Michaels
Roc, 1997, $5.99
ISBN: 0451456548

Today is Melisa Michaels' birthday. Melisa wrote a number of enjoyable SF novels, the Skyrider series, of the Space Opera sort, in the mid-80s, followed by a few more, some of them fantasy, the last of which (to date) appeared in 2004. She was the first webmaster of SFWA's site, and was given the Service to SFWA award in 2008. I wrote this review back in 1997, when Cold Iron, the first of two books about Rosie Levine, appeared.

Christmas season is upon us, and Rosie Levine, San Francisco-based PI, is irritated. She hates Christmas. So when her partner barges into their office with a huge Christmas tree, Rosie, against her better judgment, decides to escape by taking on a rather vague and unpromising case.

Candy Cayne (why didn't that name bother her?), a groupie of sorts for the elfrock band Cold Iron, thinks someone is trying to kill the band's leader, and she wants Rosie to find out who and why.
Rosie joins the band and follows them on a few tour stops, to LA and Hawaii. Despite her initial revulsion, she finds herself drawn into the self-destructive lifestyle of the elfrock stars: heavy drug use, absurdly casual sex, and childish violence. And she finds herself both attracted and repelled by the charismatic elf who leads Cold Iron, Jorandel. Rosie does precious little detecting, but in their different ways both Candy and Jorandel lead Rosie to some painful personal revelations and self-discovery. Then, events overtake Rosie, a couple of deaths occur, and she finally starts investigating the violence surrounding the band. There some nice twists, and a complicated scheme comes clear in a moving ending.

Cold Iron works as three different (well-integrated) books. It is a moving and careful examination of an outwardly tough woman's character, and the scars which are holding her back from, I suppose one would say, complete maturity. It is also a mystery story, of the "female hard-boiled detective" variety, a la Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky. And it is a look at the scary but glamorous personalities of the members of the elfrock band, especially the very attractive, very unhealthy, leader, Jorandel.
The first level, Rosie's story, is very successful, I think. Rosie is an appealing character. We care what happens to her, even as one is tempted to scream "Wake up!" at her every so often. And, as I say, her personal story is resolved (or, rather, moved towards resolution: I suppose no one's life is ever really "resolved") in a strong, believable fashion.

The second level, the mystery story, is decent but not wholly involving. The scheme at the heart of it struck me as a bit far-fetched, and possibly a bit under-motivated as well. In addition, Rosie's relative slowness in catching on to things, while thoroughly believable and in character (and important to the story), does tend to distract from the mystery: the reader is for most of the book a bit too far ahead of her.

Finally, the third level, the metaphorical level at which elves are compared to rock stars and vice versa: this is what makes this novel a fantasy, rather than a crime novel. And one easy question is: why make it a fantasy at all? The story would work quite well as an ordinary mystery. (A couple of minor plot points do turn on the nature of elves, but I think substitutions could easily have been arranged.) Indeed, from an SF/F reader's point of view, the book raises questions that don't get answered: Why is this world, outwardly quite similar to ours, also openly inhabited by elves (who interbreed with humans)? What is the structure of elven society? Is there an historical explanation for the nature of this world? Just exactly where is Faery? And so on. But answering these questions isn't part of the goal of this book (maybe in a sequel?) Rather, it seems to me, the elfrock band presents a spectrum of elves and halflings ranging from relatively sane, to purely childish, to the dangerous, fascinating Jorandel. Of elves it is said they are "fallen angels, not good enough to save, not bad enough to be lost...who have every charm but conscience", and Jorandel is an excellent illustration of this description. (And the other band members are well portrayed also, ranging in character from an affectless sociopath to a unexpectedly delightful shy sweetheart.) In this way, oddly, it seems to me the core metaphor of this book is "elves are like rock stars" rather than the more conventional "rock stars are like elves". And the directionality of that metaphor makes the book a fantasy. (Or, quite possibly, this reader, an SF reader, is intepreting the metaphor quite differently than a non-SF reader would: and I suspect a mystery reader would enjoy the novel as a mystery, and regard the elf business as local color, or a gimmick. I don't know if mystery readers who don't read SF are likely to find this book, though.)

In summary, this is a fine novel, with a contrasted pair of deeply hurt central characters, who solve their problems in ways which are true to their characters, and which nicely illustrate the nature of humans, and of elves.

Belated Birthday Review: Blood of Ambrose and This Crooked Way, by James Enge

This is a repost of a review I did for Black Gate of James Enge's first two novels, and the repost is a somewhat belated honoring of James' Birthday, May 25. The original post can be seen here.

Blood of Ambrose by James Enge (Pyr, 978-1-59102-736-2, $15.98, tpb, 416 pages) April 2009.
This Crooked Way by James Enge (Pyr, 978-1-59102-784-3, $16, tpb, 414 pages) October 2009.

A review by Rich Horton

A few years ago Black Gate featured the first published story from James Enge, "Turn Up This Crooked Way". I admit I regard first stories with skepticism -- but despite limited expectations I was entirely delighted, and at the end of the year it made my "Virtual Best of the Year" list. He continued to place stories at Black Gate, all featuring the main character from "Turn Up This Crooked Way", a rather dour magician named Morlock. Morlock’s reputation is bad, but (perhaps predictably) he is actually on the side of good. There were some hints of a tortured back story for him, but little detail.

Now we have two novels from Enge, each also about Morlock. The first, Blood of Ambrose, is more conventionally a novel -- though quite episodic in structure -- and while Morlock is a major character, he shares the stage with another protagonist. But we are vouchsafed some revelations about Morlock’s back story. As for the second book, it is straightforwardly a fixup of several of the Black Gate stories, as well as some new episodes, and some linking material. For all that it does feature an overarching narrative arc, so it ends up working effectively enough as a novel.

To summarize my reactions to Blood of Ambrose -- I enjoyed the novel. I found it compelling reading throughout, and I was fascinated by the characters. But -- you knew there had to be a but, right? But -- it doesn’t wholly work as a novel. The main issue is one you might expect from a first time novelist with experience in short fiction -- it’s too episodic, not sufficiently unified. It reads more like a series of novellas set end to end. And also -- in common with other fantasy novels I’ve been reading lately -- the body count is enormous, to the point you rather wonder "what’s the point?" If the good guys let the bad guys get away with this much awfulness (and most of the victims just ordinary folks caught up in things), then they don’t seem to be doing a very good job.

The story opens with Lathmar, child King of Ambrose and Emperor of Ontilia, fleeing his uncle and regent, Lord Urdhven, who we soon learn was responsible for the King’s parents’ death, and who is soon ready to kill the King’s Grandmother, the lady Ambrosia. But Ambrosia is a nearly immortal woman, in fact the ancestress of the entire royal line. And her brother, also nearly immortal, is Morlock Ambrosius. Morlock arrives in the nick of time to save his sister -- in a nicely executed set piece -- and soon after the battle lines are drawn: Lathmar, Morlock, Ambrosia, and various loyalists against Lord Urdhven and his cohorts.

Which works nicely -- Lord Urdhven is an interesting enough villain, along with his poisoner Steng, but soon we learn that he’s not the real villain -- he’s under control of something much more sinister. And so the King and Morlock’s first victory proves somewhat hollow, and they are quickly battling something worse. There are thus ups and downs in their campaign, leading eventually to Morlock encountering people from his distant past -- indeed even his father, whose identity is fairly significant. There are several further climaxes, all pretty nicely done.

Besides the fantasy elements (worthwhile stuff) and the escalating plot with its multiple climaxes, the real interest here is the characters. Morlock is truly the most compelling, with his dourness, cynicism, and tortured compulsion to do right. His sister is interesting as well, and his sidekick, the dwarf Wyrtheorn. (Though neither of them are entirely original creations, it seems to me -- no slavish copying here, just fairly standard-issue tropes.) Lathmar, the King, is the central point. We are meant to see him grow - and he does, and he’s a good young man, worth reading about -- but at some level he doesn’t fully convince.

Still, this is really enjoyable. Yes, I had quibbles, but I enjoyed myself throughout. The various setpieces -- the flying horse, the birds, the duel with the golem, etc. -- are great fun. The characters are fun to follow, and the writing is effective -- I always wanted to know what happened next.

And a lot of what happens next again -- that is, after the end of Blood of Ambrose -- is given in This Crooked Way. As I said it is a fixup novel made up of the earlier stories, and a couple more, plus some connecting material and some revisions to make the stories work more as a continuous narrative. Indeed, I urge readers not to skip Appendix B, which purports to reveal the sources Enge used in creating his quasi-Arthurian characters, and which also archly confesses to the fixup form of this book.

The main character is of course Morlock Ambrosius. Morlock, as we know from Blood of Ambrose, is a long-lived magician -- or, more properly, a "maker" -- tortured by his past, and by his family, and by drink, and by his inconvenient insistence on doing good. Morlock is at it happens the son of one Merlin -- yes, it would appear, that Merlin. At least sort of. And it is Morlock’s conflict with his father over the fate of his mother Nimue that drives this novel. For Merlin has gone to great lengths to make Nimue immortal -- but this condition is no favor to her, in great part because Merlin’s means of doing so requires her to be split in three parts. Morlock’s quest here, then, is to reunite his Mother, to live or die as fate wills. But Merlin is a very powerful magician himself, and thus a dangerous foe.

Enge structures the book so that as Morlock journeys he encounters numerous dangers and adventures. Some of these are traps set by Merlin, others are merely hazards of a difficult trek across a dangerous land. Furthermore Morlock in his travels meets other people -- in particular in this case a family consisting of a knight, and his sister, and the sister’s children, two boys and a girl. A few episodes, then, are told from the points of view of some of this family, with Morlock a major character but not necessarily the focus.

What happens, then? Lots happens: encounters with various horrifying beasts such as the Boneless One, the insectoid Khroi, werewolves, spiderfolk, and dragons. Plenty of clever magic: Morlock’s mastery of fire, including sentient flames; an extra-dimensional house; golems; different sorts of magical swords; Merlin’s various clever but often flawed spells. Add plenty of swordplay, a magical horse, and a rather self-absorbed troll.

I’m purposely not detailing the individual plots of the episodes. Each is enjoyable, and quite well-constructed. Each works as a single story, but Enge has done a good job of propelling the overall story so that the book itself really does read as nicely unified. (Though I will say that I thought the additional connecting material from the point of view of a Khroi was superfluous, rather boring, and would have been better omitted.) Morlock’s character is nicely done and always fascinating. The secondary characters -- Merlin in particular but also Morlock’s various fellow travelers -- are well done too. The telling is consistently mordantly humorous. Enjoyable work.