Ace Double Reviews, 13: The Green Millennium, by Fritz Leiber/Night Monsters, by Fritz Leiber

Ace Double Reviews, 13: The Green Millennium, by Fritz Leiber/Night Monsters, by Fritz Leiber (#30300, 1969, $0.60)

by Rich Horton

Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr., was born on Christmas Eve, 1910. His father was a noted Shakespearean actor who also had a significant film career, with some major roles in the silents (such as Caesar opposite Theda Bara in Cleopatra), and a long series of character roles in talkies such as The Sea Hawk. Fritz Jr. toured with his father's stage company, and appeared in small roles in a few films with his father in the 1930s, but his true métier was writing science fiction and fantasy. He had a degree in Physiology from the University of Chicago, and studied for the Episcopal ministry. He began publishing fiction in the mid-30s (he was one of H. P. Lovecraft's many correspondents), and began to make a real mark with work for John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Astounding in the early '40s. He worked briefly at Douglas Aircraft during the War (joining the likes of Philip José Farmer and Jack Skillingstead (and probably many others) as SF writers who worked (in a sense) for my company, Boeing), then spent a decade or so as an Associate Editor at Science Digest. He and his first wife Jonquil had one son, Justin, a philosopher and sometime SF writer. Leiber won two Hugos for Best novel: The Big Time (1958) and The Wanderer (1964), though my favorites among his novels are The Sinful Ones (1953/1980) and A Specter is Haunting Texas (1968). He also won four Hugos for short fiction (plus a special Hugo), two Nebulas, several World Fantasy Awards, and was named an SFWA Grand Master in 1980. He died in 1982.

(Covers by Jack Gaugan and John Schoenherr)

The Green Millennium is a novel first published in 1953, and rather long for an Ace Double half at 64,000 words. Night Monsters is a brief collection, four stories totaling about 27.5 Kwords, all the stories basically horror. (Curiously, Leiber had 5 Ace Double halves, in three books, and three of the Ace Double halves were story collections.)

As I recall James Nicoll's description of The Green Millennium in his "Novels of Fritz Leiber" post on rec.arts.sf.written went something like "Man finds green cat, hijinks ensue". I also recall someone mentioning that they had had trouble from their parents for reading an edition of the book, because of a racy cover. In fact, in the book Leiber makes rather a lot of the notion that female fashions at the turn of the millennium emphasize bare breasts. (Leiber often displayed a just vaguely (or sometimes not vaguely at all) kinky view of sex.) Indeed, this edition features a bare torsoed woman painted from 3/4 to the rear. That said, the book is not really very racy in content. (Less so than The Sinful Ones, also from 1953).

It's set in a large US city at the turn of the 21st Century. The US and Russia remain engaged in a warmish conflict -- the Korean War is in its 50th year, and there is a brief reference to a World War III, and the Capitol being in a second Washington. Phil Gish is a young man, shy of women, who has just lost another job to a robot. He wakes up and finds a green cat in his room, and is overcome with feelings of good will and optimism. He goes gadding about town, and the green cat slips away at a male/female wrestling establishment, run by the moblike organization Fun Incorporated.

Depressed again, Phil goes back to his room and spies on the pretty girl across the way, but as she undresses he notices that her legs are furred and hoofed. He decides that between green cats and satyrs he really is nuts, and visits a psychiatrist. But the psychiatrist seems unduly interested in the green cat, and locks Phil in. Luckily, his wild (and bare-breasted) daughter takes pity on Phil and lets him out, and we are off on a pretty much non-stop chase/romp featuring wrestlers, mobsters, a benevolent scientist apparently modelled on Robert Oppenheimer, Russian spies, a witch, a weirdo who is into all sorts of New Ageish religions including, inevitably, worship of Bast in the form of the green cat, the Federal Bureau of Loyalty, aliens with names based on Aphrodite and Dionysus, and so on.

It's not one of my favorite Leiber novels. It seems more frenetic than logical, and one way or another I couldn't quite believe in most of the characters -- they seem generally types, not real. The resolution is a bit trite. Leiber is never quite bad, but this is pretty minor stuff for him.

The flip side is a collection of four stories. Perhaps conveniently, they are pretty much ordered both by decreasing order of length, and decreasing order of quality. Here they are:

"The Black Gondolier" (12,000 words, from the 1964 August Derleth Arkham House anthology Over the Edge) -- set in Venice, CA, with much made of parallels with the real Venice. A man becomes convinced that the oil under the earth is an intelligence, and that it is after him.

"Midnight in the Mirror World" (6200 words, from Fantastic, October 1964) -- a 50-ish divorced recluse who notices a scary woman in one (but only one) of the multiple reflections of himself in two mirrors across from each other -- and each night the woman is in a nearer reflection.

"I'm Looking for 'Jeff'" (5100 words, from Fantastic, Fall 1952) -- a strange woman who only certain people can see shows up every night in a bar, looking for someone named Jeff.

"The Casket Demon" (4300 words, from Fantastic, April 1963) -- a rather silly story about a German-American actress, the last of the Von Sheers, who needs publicity to keep her safe from an ancient curse.

There was a British version of Night Monsters, a full length collection which sensibly deleted "The Casket Demon", and added "The Creature from Cleveland Depths", "The Oldest Soldier", "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes", and "A Bit of the Dark World" (this last a relatively little-known story that I think is worth more attention than it has gotten.)

Birthday Review: A Buyer's Market and At Lady Molly's, by Anthony Powell

Birthday Review: A Buyer's Market and At Lady Molly's, by Anthony Powell

a review by Rich Horton

Anthony Powell was born 21 December 1905, and he died in March of 2000. He was of the lower reaches of the English upper class, though he eventually married the daughter of an Earl (Violet Powell, sister of the notorious Lord Longford, and niece of the great Fantasy writer Lord Dunsany.) He attended Eton (one close friend was Henry Yorke, who wrote his novels as "Henry Green", one of the most interesting and original writers of the 20th Century), then Oxford. After graduation, he worked for the publisher Duckworth, briefly worked in movies, and wrote five rather interesting novels. He did not write during the War, instead serving in the Intelligence branch (though not as any sort of spy). He began publishing the work for which he is famous, a 12-volume novel collectively called A Dance to the Music of Time, in 1951, and put out a volume every 2 years or so until 1975. During this period he also wrote reviews for Punch, and later for the Daily Telegraph. A couple of later novels followed Dance, and in addition he wrote a couple of minor (but interesting) plays, and all of one (1) short story. Late in his life he published his memoirs in four volumes, and three volumes of journals.

This is what I wrote about A Dance to the Music of Time as a series, some while back:

A Dance to the Music of Time is an extremely absorbing and well-crafted novel (composed of 12 smaller novels). Its subject is the decline of the English upper classes from the First World War to about 1970, a decline seen is inevitable and probably necessary, but somehow also regrettable.
Such a description might make the novel seem stuffy, but it is not. A Dance to the Music of Time is at times very funny indeed, and always interesting. always involving. It features an enormous cast of characters, and Powell has the remarkable ability to make his characters memorable with the briefest of descriptions. In addition, Powell's prose is addictive: very characteristic, idiosyncratic, and elegant.

The long novel follows the life of the narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, from his time at Eton just after World War I to retirement in the English countryside in the late '60s. But Jenkins, though the narrator, is in many ways not the most important character. The comic villain Widmerpool, a creature of pure will, and awkward malevolence, is the other fulcrum around which the novel pivots.

Here are two blog posts I wrote, upon rereading the second and fourth volumes:

A Buyer's Market, by Anthony Powell

The first volume of A Dance to the Music of Time, A Question of Upbringing, was basically about "school", with a couple of chapters set at Eton, a chapter set in France the summer between finishing at Eton and going up to Oxford, and a chapter covering Oxford.  This second volume, then, covers the first few years following graduation from Oxford.  The basic subject is young love, I suppose, looked at, as ever with Powell, from a wide variety of viewpoints, different characters and different situations.  The narrator of the series, Nick Jenkins, is famous for telling little about himself, in general, over the scope of the 12 books.  But in this volume, perhaps more than most, he is a major character, and his first essays at relationships with women are pretty  central to this book.  But of course many other characters are described as well.

This book is unified by the character of Edgar Deacon, an aging painter of noted incompetence, and an acquaintance of Nick's parents, and thus of Nick himself.  Mr. Deacon, as Nick calls him, is by the time of the book's action no longer painting: he is running an antique shop.  The book opens with one of Powell's gorgeous set-pieces, wherein we see first Jenkins at some future date at a gallery auction, as some of Mr. Deacon's paintings are sold "the whole set knocked down for a pound".  (Obviously, Deacon's paintings are subject to a "buyer's market".)  This is possibly the same time as the opening of the entire sequence, which I would put in 1949 or so, but others might place in 1970, right at the end of the series.  Anyway Nick is prompted to remember his encounters with Mr. Deacon when a child, then a certain painting of Mr. Deacon's that hung obscurely in the stairwell of the Walpole-Wilsons' house.  The Walpole-Wilsons, we soon gather, are where Nick's first adult "love" lives: she is their niece, Barbara Goring.  Nick's reminiscing seems to spiral in, covering nicely his whole period of "dating" Barbara, then zooming in on a critical dinner party, prior to a dance at the Huntercombes.  This dinner and dance, at which time Nick realizes he know longer cares about Barbara, are the centerpiece of the first very long chapter.  The second chapter then covers a late-night party attended by Nick after the dance.  Nick is surprised to find Kenneth Widmerpool at the Walpole-Wilson's dinner, and later surprised even more to realize that Widmerpool also had designs on Barbara Goring.  All this ends, though, with one of the most famous scenes in the whole sequence, in which Widmerpool so annoys Barbara that she is provoked into trying to "sweeten him up" with some sugar, in the process accidentally dumping an entire sugar caster over his head.

The later party, at Mrs. Milly Andriadis' house, leads to re-encounters with such critical characters as Stringham (Nick's Eton friend), Mr. Deacon, and the Oxford dean and influence-peddler Sillery.  Perhaps more critically, we are introduced to the powerful industrialist Magnus Donners, employer of Stringham and soon also of Widmerpool.  Here many more permutations of love affairs are covered: Baby Wentworth, who was "involved" in the divorce of Stringham's older sister, is pursued by Donners, by the Balkan Prince Theodoric, and (it turns out) also by Mr. Deacon's tenant, the painter and womanizer Ralph Barnby, who becomes one of Nick's best friends.  Bijou Ardglass is also pursued by Theodoric.  Mr. Deacon brings his radical associate Gypsy Jones, who soon ensnares Widmerpool (and later is Nick's own first sexual "conquest").  Mr. Deacon himself, I believe (it's not perhaps clear), is shown in what I interpret as the aftermath of a lover's quarrel with a male singer, Max Pilgrim.  Stringham is currently Mrs. Andriadis' lover, though Nick had thought him engaged to Lady Peggy Stepney, one of the "beauties" of Nick's dinner party set. In a key line, Mr. Deacon reveals to Nick that Gypsy Jones is "in trouble".  Later in the book we learn that Widmerpool was tricked into solving her trouble (procuring an abortion for her, apparently in the mistaken belief that he was responsible). 

At Lady Molly's, by Anthony Powell

Book 4 is At Lady Molly's.  This is set around 1934.  The title character is an eccentric woman, perhaps 10 years or more older than Nicholas Jenkins, formerly married to the Earl of Sleaford, now married to a curious WWI veteran, obscurely injured, named Ted Jeavons.  "Lady" Molly Jeavons and her husband host parties with a rather wide-ranging guest list.  Nick finds himself at one in the company of one of his fellow screenwriters, Chips Lovell.  Nick and Chips are writers for the "quota quickies" -- at this time British film companies were required to release one British film for every Hollywood film they imported.  (As with much of Jenkins' life and career, this is autobiographical for Powell.)  The book continues, very loosely organized around a series of parties at Lady Molly's, along with other encounters, such as Nick running into Ted Jeavons in a bar.  It was only apparent to me on second reading, but to a large, though somewhat subtle, extent this book is about Nick's courtship of Isobel Tolland.  The book opens with Nick hinting that he is just about over Jean Templer Duport, who was his love interest in the previous book, and there is a mention (rather a famous line among Powellites, actually) of much of Nick's time being spent on line at cinemas with different girls.  But right from the first party at Lady Molly's Isobel's presence begins to be felt, even when she is not there.  The Tolland family are vaguely connected to Lady Molly (and indeed the Jeavonses are borrowing the Earl of Warminster's butler, Smith, as the story begins -- Warminster, who I believe to have been partly based on Lady Violet Powell's brother Lord Longford, a notorious Leftist peer, is the eldest Tolland brother, and officially head of the family after their father's death, though they still call him Erridge, after his cadet title (Viscount Erridge).)  A couple of Tolland sisters show up at this party, but Isobel is not one of them -- nonetheless, at the mention of her name, Nick feels a frisson of sorts (though he has not met her).

Anyway, the main action of the book follows a couple of strands.  One is Widmerpool's engagement to Mrs. Mildred Haycock, a rackety widow is also somehow connected with Lady Molly.  Mrs. Haycock is also the much younger sister of Mrs. Conyers, the wife of General Conyers, one of the most generally admirable men portrayed by Powell -- a hero of the Boer War, a very competent and interesting man.  (Indeed, this book introduces two of my favorite minor characters in the series: Conyers and Ted Jeavons.)  The other is the relationship of Erridge and Nick's old friend J. V. Quiggin, now married to Mona (who was formerly married to Nick's longtime friend, and Jean Templer's brother, Peter Templer.)  Nick spends a weekend with J. V. and Mona at a cottage owned by Erridge.  Erridge shows up, and at first Quiggin wishes to discuss the political magazine he wants him to fund, but before long it's clear that something is about to happen between Erridge and Mona.  And at a visit to the Warminster estate, Thrubworth, Isobel Tolland and another sister show up, and Nick decides on sight that he will marry Isobel.  Elsewhere Widmerpool is agonizing over the prospect of a weekend with Mrs. Haycock, at which he fears he will have to prove his sexual mettle.

And so on.  It's wonderful stuff.  Not much more I can say.

Birthday Review: Short Fiction of Sean McMullen

Today is Australian writer Sean McMullen's 70th birthday. In honor of this, I'm posting a compilation of my reviews of his short fiction in Locus. (My review of his story "Electrica", from the March-April 2012 F&SF, somehow has disappeared from my hard drive, but fortunately Steven Silver reviews it in Black Gate here.)

Locus, September 2002

From Sci Fiction,  "Voice of Steel" by Sean McMullen is a delightfully loopy (no pun intended) story in which a contemporary woman stumbles on a way to communicate through time with the early 15th Century English scientist William Tynedale. The working out is goofy in almost a pulpish fashion, but the consequences of the plot machinations are thought-provoking.

Locus, December 2002

Sean McMullen's "Walk to the Full Moon" (F&SF, December) is nice, mainly for its quite original explanation for the appearance of a pre-Neanderthal woman in modern day Spain.

Locus, October 2006

Interzone for August has a fine mathematical fantasia from Rudy Rucker and Terry Bisson, “2 + 2 = 5”, in which a mathematician proves that there are holes in the number system; and another story about numbers, “The Measure of Eternity” by Sean McMullen, a lush piece set in the legendary Arabian city Ubar, in which a cruel king, a beautiful courtesan, her servant, and a beggar who has, quite literally, nothing, learn how important nothing can be.

Locus, September 2009

As for the new stories in the August-September F&SF: the cover piece is something of a departure for Sean McMullen. “The Art of the Dragon” is told by an art historian who happens to be one of the first witnesses to a dragon who eats human works of art, beginning with the Eiffel Tower. He is anointed an “expert”, and as such gets a front row seat for the dragon’s continuing career, which basically involves a lot more destruction, and he also witnesses the sometimes daffy human reaction, such as the Dragonist cult which ends up trying to appease the dragon with a virgin sacrifice. McMullen’s point is interesting, though I think he took too long getting to it – still, a thought-provoking piece.

Locus, August 2010

Sean McMullen has the best story at Analog for September. “Eight Miles” tells of an expert balloonist in 1840 London hired by a rich man to take him and a passenger to unusually high altitudes. The passenger is a strange foxlike woman, apparently only barely intelligent, but she gains mental acuity as altitude increases. The rich man thinks she is of a race inhabiting the Himalayas, hence her preference for altitude. The reader will quickly know where she really hales from, and the story doesn’t surprise in getting to that reveal, but the ending slingshots nicely from there.

Locus, January 2011

Sean McMullen’s “Enigma” (Analog, January-February) is a classical SF puzzle planet story, and also something of a Fermi Paradox story. A group of explorers, each a mix of human/animal traits, tries to figure out the meaning and history of a strange, nearly indestructible, and quite abandoned, alien city. The answer is perhaps a bit of a stretch to believe, but it’s wrapped around a decent theme, and the result of the team’s discovery is interesting and bittersweet.

Locus, June 2017

The March-April Interzone includes a new Sean McMullen story, “The Influence Machine”. This has a bit of a steampunk flavor. It’s set at the turn of the 20th Century, told by an Inspector for the Metropolitan Police in London, a man with a scientific education. He investigates a disturbance caused by a young woman with an intimidating looking machine, and decides she is harmless, but not before seeing what her machine can do: it takes pictures of what seems to be an alternate London. In somewhat reluctant sympathy with her position as a woman with scientific ability who is not respected, he continues his association with her, as she is able to use her machine to learn scientific secrets from that alternate (and more advanced) world, until her discoveries attract the attention of the authorities, who become very interested. This puts the narrator in a tricky moral situation. All is resolved in a satisfactory fashion.

Old Bestseller (Not!): The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, by Herman Melville

Old Bestseller (Not!): The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, by Herman Melville

a review by Rich Horton

Herman Melville (1819-1891) is now one of the canonical Great American Writers, known mostly for his novel Moby-Dick (1851), and a bit less for his first novel Typee (1846), and for his last short novel, Billy Budd, which was left unfinished at his death and was not published until 1924. In fact, Melville's career as a prose writer lasted essentially 11 years, from 1846 until 1857. Except for Billy Budd, his literary work the rest of his life was poetry, and while his books of poetry sold risibly in his lifetime, his reputation in that field has waxed enormously, and he ranks now, in critical estimation, perhaps third among American poets of his time, behind only Whitman and Dickinson.

While I have often heard it said that the failure of Moby-Dick ruined Melville's career, I don't think that's quite correct. No doubt the sales for that novel were disappointing compared to his very popular earlier books, but it still seems to have sold moderately well. The following three novels, however: Pierre; or, The Ambiguities; Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile;  and The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade; were far less successful, both financially and critically. In particular, the publisher of The Confidence-Man went bankrupt, and it is doubtful that Melville was paid at all for the book. All those books were largely panned by contemporary critics. By the end of his life, Melville was regarded as a minor writer of sea stories. It was only beginning in the 1910s, and accelerating in the 1920s after the publication (and success) of Billy Budd, that his reptutation burgeoned. And while Moby-Dick is still regarded as his masterpiece, and a truly towering work of American literature, many of the other novels, The Confidence-Man perhaps most of all, have gained a significant place in the canon.

I have a copy of Moby-Dick, but while I will read it eventually, I just wasn't in the mood. And The Confidence-Man, a novel I had only barely heard of until recently, seemed fascinating. So I decided to make it the second piece by Herman Melville I ever read. (I read "Bartleby the Scrivener" as an assigned work in High School.) I read The Confidence-Man in the Library of America collection of his later prose work.

The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade was published on April 1, 1857; and the action of the novel is set on that same date. There is no question that the date was chosen with malice aforethought.
It opens as a man boards the steamer Fidèle in St. Louis. He seems mute, and displays a slate, rewriting quotations from 1 Corinthians 13: "Charity thinketh no evil", "Charity never faileth", etc. In contrast, a barber, who plies his trade on the boat, sets up his shop with the sign "NO TRUST". And we see that a reward is offered for a mysterious impostor.

All this actually sets up expectations, potentially, for a bit of plottiness. But the novel does not proceed this may. As the journey downriver continues, we are introduced to a variety of men, beginning with a severely crippled black man, begging for alms. He meets with resistance -- distrust -- and is defended by a man in mourning, with a weed in his hat. This man strikes up a conversation with a businessman, promoting the idea of confidence and trust in other people. And by the by he mentions an opportunity to buy shares in a certain company, rumored to be in distress.

And so the book continues, with a variety of individuals appearing and disappearing, with one person usually speaking -- at length -- with another, urging confidence in and charity towards one's fellow man. And often somewhat obliquely suggesting an investment, or a loan, or the purchase of an improving medicine, or some other scheme. Both sides of the conversations are presented with force -- the men (or is it one man?) urging confidence, and various people professing skepticism. Certain longer stories are offered, one about Colonel John Moredock, the Indian hater; another about the ill effects of accepting a loan, etc. The barber professing "No Trust" is debated.

This continues through the course of the day, as the boat passes Cairo and heads further down the river. We soon realize that the conversations are the point of the book -- the constant debate between seemingly virtuous "confidence" in others -- clearly, however, from the mouth of a "confidence man", who appears to (with indifferent success) be attempting to swindle the passengers -- and a more skeptical attitude, a more individualistic approach to life.

If nothing happens, if no plot emerges, it doesn't matter. The book is almost mesmerising at times. It's a remarkably modern-seeming novel in design, and in aim. Melville's prose is not, I suppose, modern -- it's of the 19th century, but vigorously his, not like any other writer. The sentence are very long (often occupying whole paragraphs), and they demand careful reading, but also reward it. The book seems engaged in portraying the American character, as Melville saw it, and from none too happy a vantage point. It is quite a remarkable performance, a striking and completely original novel. And often quite a funny one.

Birthday Review: Midnight Robber, by Nalo Hopkinson

Midnight Robber, by Nalo Hopkinson

a review by Rich Horton

Today is Nalo Hopkinson's birthday. In honor of that, I've resurrected a review I did on my SFF.net newsgroup back when it came out. (I've buffed it slightly.)

Midnight Robber appeared in 2000, and was a Hugo and Nebula nominee for Best Novel in 2001. is a pretty darn good book, with a couple of weaknesses.  The novel is excellent, with a convincing and involving main character, and a neat setting on an alien planet with cool aliens, and a solid plot involving the main character dealing with severe family issues and coming of age.

The story is about a girl from the planet Toussaint, called Tan-Tan. Toussaint is a highly technological planet: most of the work is done by machines, and everybody (except a few resisters) has an implant which connects them to a planet-wide AI. The AI monitors everybody as well as linking them to news and such -- thus crime would seem to be difficult, and when crime does happen, the criminals are treated harshly, exiled to a primitive planet called New Half Way Tree. Tan-Tan is the daughter of the Mayor of her town, Antonio. Antonio is a serial adulterer himself, but when he catches his wife in flagrante, he flies into a rage, and abandons she and Tan-Tan for several months, and eventually plots revenge against his wife's lover.  This crime leads to his exile to New Half Way Tree -- and more or less by accident, he takes Tan-Tan with him.  This whole first section is a bit slow, and to my mind not well enough integrated with the rest of the novel. Antonio doesn't seem well-portrayed -- and Tan-Tan's mother Ione is both an unpleasant and unnecessary character. Moreover it introduces a subthread about the anti-tech people on Toussaint (those who choose not to be linked to the AI, and who do their own hand work) which doesn't really go anywhere. Also, there is some mumbo-jumbo about the connection and means of transport between Toussaint and New Half Way Tree that was superfluous.  (There are bits about Tan-Tan's childhood and about the tech background to Toussaint that are important -- those could have been introduced in flashbacks, I thought.) But I am making a mountain out of a molehill.

Once Tan-Tan and Antonio get to New Half Way Tree, the book comes alive. They are met by an intriguing ostrich- or lizard-like alien called Chichibud, who guides them through some peril to a human village. The village is ruled harshly but apparently fairly by a couple of hard men. It seems that the aliens are regarded as rather simple by the humans, but they engage in mutually beneficial trade, and though there are mysteries, no human has time to investigate on this harsh planet. Tan-Tan grows up, making friends with the simple-minded daughter of another exile, and with a local boy. But her relationship with her father grows horrible, and she is driven to a terrible act as she turns 16. The rest of the book follows her into the wilderness, where she is saved by Chichibud and brought to his home, where she learns something of the secrets of the aliens (called douens) way of life. When her past comes to threaten the aliens as well, she leaves and wanders the bush with an alien friend. Soon she is the "Midnight Robber", trying to atone for her crimes and her guilt, some of which is misplaced, by acting as a sort of Robin Hood character in the various human villages.

Eventually Tan-Tan must find a way back into human society. I thought possibly some of the resolution was just a bit convenient -- also I thought the time scale to the book a bit compressed towards the end. But it remains exciting and interesting, and the resolution if convenient is still satisfying. There are some open questions about the human/douen relationship, but though a sequel is possible, it's not necessary.

Birthday Review: The Blue Flower, by Penelope Fitzgerald

Penelope Fitzgerald, one of my favorite writers, was born 102 years ago today. I discovered her in the early '90s, I think, as a result of a mention in connection with Kingsley Amis or Anthony Powell or someone similar. I immediately sought out everything I could find -- a bit of a trick back then -- and then in 1996 she published The Blue Flower, which made her a worldwide figure, 4 years before her death. But as you can see below, I bought my copy from the UK, in the early days of online bookstores. (I'm sure I paid a premium!)

I'm reposting this review, from way back in 1996, on the occasion of her birthday. And I should note that it's the second book called The Blue Flower I have reviewed on this blog -- a while back I covered Henry van Dyke's story collection with the same title.

Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996

The Blue Flower, by Penelope Fitzgerald

Flamingo (UK), 1995

Trade paperback edition 1996, 5.99 pounds, $11.95 in Canada

ISBN 0-00-655019-3

Penelope Fitzgerald is a rather well-known author in the U.K., having been short-listed for the Booker Prize four times and winning once (for Offshore (1979)). However, her books are harder to find in the States, and this one, her latest, has yet to be published here. (So thank God for online bookstores, Bookpages in this case!)

[The Blue Flower was of course soon published in the US, and attracted considerable approving notice.]

The Blue Flower is the story of the romance of Friedrich von Hardenberg, later famous as the German Romantic poet-novelist-philosopher Novalis, with a 12-year old girl, Sophie Von Kuhn. The story is told in brief chapters, from the points of view of several characters: Hardenberg himself, a female friend who may fancy herself a rival of Sophie's, Hardenburg's sister, Sophie's sister, and so on. The large cast of characters is wonderfully described, each character briefly and accurately limned, and all treated with humor and affection. In addition, details of how life was lived in 18th century Saxony are casually strewn throughout the book, and a very accurate-feeling picture of everyday life, and more importantly, how everyday people thought, is the result.

The main characters are odd but interesting: Fritz von Hardenberg is a young artist with Romantic attitudes: and at the same time realistically a brother and a son, and also a fairly conscientious apprentice salt-mine inspector. Sophie is a 12-year old girl of very little intelligence, and is unsparingly presented as such (indeed, her character is probably treated with less sympathy than any other in the book.)

As far as I can tell, every character in the book (at least every even moderately prominent character) is historical, though it is hard for me to be sure how closely Fitzgerald's characterizations resemble the historical record. Knowledge of the historical events depicted here casts a sort of pall over the events of the novel: we know that Sophie will die very young, and von Hardenberg not much later. (Novalis first became famous for a series of prose poems written in Sophie's memory ("Hymns to the Night"), and his major work, the novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen, was left uncompleted at his death.) Despite this pall, the book is funny, engaging, and beautiful in a delicate-seeming fashion.

Fitzgerald is one of my favorite authors. As I said, she seems to be less well-known in the US than elsewhere: and I'm not quite sure why. She does not seem overtly "English", for instance. The fine novels Innocence, The Gate of Angels and The Beginning of Spring do seem to be available here. [More recently, all of her novels have been reprinted in the U.S.] I recommend all her work highly. If I had to mention an author she resembles, it might be Anita Brookner, but Fitzgerald seems warmer than Brookner. Others have suggested Barbara Comyns, Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Taylor, and Muriel Spark (all, to be sure, British women authors of roughly her generation.)

Birthday Review: Two Collections by Peter Dickinson (and Robin McKinley)

Peter Dickinson was born 91 years ago today, and died 3 years ago today. He was an exceptional writer of mysteries, of SF, of Fantasy, and of YA literature. I discovered him fairly young through his Inspector Pibble mysteries, beginning with The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest; and soon after was surprised to see his Changes YA SF trilogy in the bookstore. Soon I was reading SF novels such at The Green Gene and The Poison Oracle; and then his Alternate History Mystery series, starting with King and Joker.

The reviews below are of his late "Elemental" story collections, including stories both by him and by his wife, Robin McKinley. These were lovely stories, somewhat Young Adult in nature. I reviewed Fire for Fantasy Magazine, and I've appended my brief look at Earth and Air from Locus. (Alas, I never wrote about Water.)

Fire
by Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
$19.99 | hc | 297 pages
ISBN: 978-0-399-25289-1
October 2009

A review by Rich Horton

Husband and wife Peter Dickinson and Robin McKinley have separately each had remarkable writing careers. This is the second book they have done together, collaborating on the book but not the individual stories. The two longer stories here are by McKinley, the three shorter ones by Dickinson. All are Young Adult fantasies, about “fire spirits” of various types, such as a salamander, a phoenix, and a dragon.

The book is very enjoyable, its varied nature enhancing the pleasure. Dickinson opens the book with “Phoenix”, in which a young girl fascinated by nature encounters a boy of a similar age in a private preserve. She soon gathers that the preserve belongs to the boy’s family, and she gains his approval and explores it with him. Eventually she learns the real story, which is quite strange, and which involves, of course, a phoenix, and rebirth, as well as an unusual and quite sweet love story. Dickinson’s other two stories aren’t quite as effective. “Fireworm” is set in a prehistoric community menaced by the title creature, which burns its way into their cave. The hero is an outcast, because of his illegitimate birth, who is gifted in a dream the strange path he must follow to vanquish the fireworm. It is all quite interesting, but never really connects. “Salamander Man” is about another outcast, a boy who is the slave of a woman selling magical objects. She is a fairly benevolent owner, but cannot resist when a magician insists on buying the boy. Magicians have a bad reputation, but this one has a different fate in mind for the boy. Again, the working out is quite interesting – the problem here is that we are told too much, not shown. It might have worked better at twice the length.

McKinley’s stories are more character-oriented, perhaps more traditional YA. “Hellhound” tells of Miri, a girl just out of high school, who loves horses and never wants to leave her parents’ farm and riding stable. She loves dogs too, but only on graduation can she persuade her mother to let her adopt one, and she ends up with a very strange dog indeed. Well, the title gives it away, but this is, we learn, a good hellhound. Which is revealed engagingly when Miri’s brother and his girlfriend run into trouble at a haunted graveyard on their property … The fantastical element here, while real, is secondary to a set of delightful characters.

And my favorite story is the longest, “First Flight”, nearly a novel. Ern is the third son of a carpenter, who wants his sons to fit traditional roles. That means the eldest will be a dragonrider, the second a spiritspeaker, and the third a wizard. The story turns on Ern’s character – he is convinced that he’s a clumsy bumbler, and he is half-ashamed that his forte seems to be healing, for some reason a disparaged art. He also loves animals, and has made a pet of a sort of dog/dragon hybrid … And then he must accompany his oldest brother to his brother’s first flight on a dragon, which exposes him (and us) to the wonders of the majestic dragons, and their curious method of flying (something like spacewarps, I thought …). The shape of the whole thing is clear from the start, but it’s so perfectly executed, and Ern is such a well portrayed first-person protagonist, that I was enthralled.

This is a wonderful blending of talents of two writers who have already given us some of the best YA fantasy of the past few decades. Recommended.

Earth and Air, by Peter Dickinson (Big Mouth Press)

Last month I mentioned Peter Dickinson's “Troll Bridge”, which appeared in F&SF and also appears in his new collection Earth and Air, subtitled Tales of Elemental Creatures. The stories are all quite enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed “Ridiki”, a version of the Eurydice story substituting a boy's beloved dog Ridiki for Eurydice, and “Wizand”, which cleverly portrays the unusual lifecycle of the wizand, which confers power on witches, including in this story a 20th century girl named Sophie. Most intriguing, perhaps, is the final story, “The Fifth Element”, which doesn't as obviously deal with an “elemental creature” as the other stories. Instead, it's an odd science fiction horror story, that reminded me of Philip K. Dick's first published story, “Beyond Lies the Wub”, and well as Robert Sheckley's “Specialist”, in telling of the multispecies crew of a sort of tramp starship, and what happens when their “ship's Cat” dies.