Birthday Review: Endless Honeymoon, by Don Webb

Birthday Review: Endless Honeymoon, by Don Webb

a review by Rich Horton

Don Webb has a birthday today. He's written a lot of neat short fantasy and horror over the years. His only novels (that I know of) are a set of Texas-based mysteries, with slight and ambiguous fantastical elements, that were published around the turn of the millennium by St. Martin's Press. I really liked those books, but alas, there have been no more. Here's what I wrote about the third of those books when it first came out:

Endless Honeymoon is the third in a recent series of Texas-based mysteries by the engagingly odd writer Don Webb.  I say series, but the books are very loosely linked, sharing mostly some Texas settings, and occasionally featuring major characters from another book as minor characters. I like all three books a lot.  This latest book, after The Double and Essential Saltes, is even more loosely linked, as the protagonists of the other two books were brothers. The lead male characters are all likeable, somewhat nerdy, and very uxorious.  The subject matter is always a bit off-center, and quite different from book to book, but computers are always central to the books.  And you can count on a mention of fireworks.  (It's not certain that this book is in exactly the same timeline as the other two: a murdered character from a previous book appears here alive, and it seems to be set later, though who knows for sure.)

This book is about a couple named Willis and Virginia Spencer. They are independently wealthy (Virginia inherited money, and Willis made a bundle as a Y2K expert), and they spend much of their time performing rather cruel pranks.  Their victims are people whom they have discovered who are "psychic vampires", or simply "shits", who delight in causing misery to those around them, and Willis and Virginia hope to teach these folks a lesson.  They choose their victims by means of a computer program Willis found during his Y2K work.  It turns out, however, that the program was written by a man who takes the whole thing a bit more seriously: he murders the "psychic vampires" instead of simply scaring them.  And one day, unluckily, Willis and Virginia choose the same victim that the "Shit Killer", as he is called, has chosen.

Before long, several people are on the track of the couple. One is the agent the FBI has assigned to the "Shit Killer" case, a young Hispanic man named William Mondragon. This case has the reputation of driving FBI agents crazy, and indeed the previous agent on the case, Abel Salazar, has quit the FBI and is working for someone else, also looking for the killer, and he tracks down both Mondragon and the Spencers.  Add the "Shit Killer" himself, who may be looking for a successor to carry on his work, and the mysterious person behind Salazar, and the Spencers are in big trouble.  Before long Virginia has been kidnapped and Willis and Mondragon are on a wild chase after both her and the real killer.  The resolution is quite scary, involving several people who are both insane and evil, and dealing with Virginia's past abuse by both her father and her first husband, with the "Shit Killer"'s wasted life, and with a strange psychiatrist.

The story is full of imaginative action, and it's fast moving and exciting. Webb does not shy away from the moral implications of all his character's actions, and from the unfortunate attractiveness of the "Shit Killer"'s agenda.  Willis and Virginia are flawed and likeable, and even the villains, mostly, are real (if very strange) people, and not wholly villainous.  (The only exception is clearly completely insane.) 

Birthday Review: Stories of Larry Niven

Today is SFWA Grand Master Larry Niven's 81st birthday. I figured I'd compile a selection of my reviews of his work -- problem is, he hasn't done all that much short fiction during my time at Locus. But I do have some reviews of some of his older work from articles I've done for Black Gate over time. So there's enough ...

Problem is, this doesn't really capture how fun his work was when I was reading it in the mid-70s. I really loved his stuff -- the short stories like "Neutron Star" and "Not Long Before the End" and "Rammer" and "The Fourth Profession" and "Inconstant Moon". The Gil the Arm stories. All the Known Space novels, like A Gift From Earth and Protector. Unfortunately, none of those are covered below -- but they're good stuff, yes they are. Here's what I do have something written about:

Galaxy, October 1968

The one truly famous piece in this issue is Larry Niven's "All the Myriad Ways", in which a policeman puzzled by the recent wave of suicides ties them to the recent realization that there are infinite parallel worlds in which we each make slightly different decisions. The implication is that any decision we ourselves make is meaningless -- because "we" will make every possible different decision anyway, in another world. So, why not commit suicide? I remember being really blown away the first time I read the story, but somehow it didn't have the same impact on rereading, and somehow the logic that seemed inevitable on the first reading doesn't convince me now.

Vertex, August 1974

Niven's "Night on Mispek Moor" is set during another company war, this one on a planet of the Leshy circuit. The protagonist is a mercenary from another planet, trapped on the title moor and attacked by zombies. Not a bad story, nothing great.

Cosmos, May 1977

The three Niven pieces were the first three Draco Tavern stories he published. This has become a rather long series of short-shorts, continued to this day in Analog, featuring a first-person narrator named Rick Schumann, who owns a bar in Siberia which caters to a broad range of alien patrons, particularly the insect-like Chirpsithra, who claim to rule the Galaxy. These stories are "Cruel and Unusual", "The Subject is Closed", and "Grammar Lesson". All are slight as may be expected -- perhaps the best is "The Subject is Closed", in which a priest asks the Chirpsithra about life after death.

Odyssey, Summer 1976

(Cover by Boris Vallejo)

The lead story is Larry Niven's long novella, "The Magic Goes Away", about 26,000 words in this version. (It was published as an illustrated trade paperback from Ace in 1978 -- I believe that version is revised, and seems to be about 33,000 words.) The Niven novella is set in the world of his well-known story "Not Long Before the End", in which magic is real but the source of magic, mana, is running out. A swordsman named Orolandes is involved in the last burst of magical power. I remember enjoying it a fair bit as a teenager.

Tangent review of Analog, July-August 2000

The short stories are also a mixed, but decently solid, assortment.  Larry Niven's "The Wisdom of Demons" is a Draco Tavern story, the first I've seen in some years.  The tavern's owner, Dr. Rick Schumann, tells of a man who met an alien that really wanted to understand humans, and was willing to give the man whatever he wanted, in the form of one wish.  It's a fairly insubstantial story, but the result of the wish is clever enough.

Locus, August 2002

Also in the August Asimov's, a first rate issue, Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper offer a sequel to last year's "Ice and Mirrors". "Free Floaters" is set about a decade later.  Kimber and Eric are still partners and sometime lovers.  This story is told from Eric's POV, as they are given a new job, trying to make contact with a strange alien race which lives in the clouds of an isolated "free floating" Jovian world.  The story fairly entertainingly presents an unusual alien race, and perhaps less convincingly examines Kimber and Eric's relationship at a critical stage.

Locus, August 2005

Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper offer, in "Kath and Quicksilver", a fairly enjoyable far-future piece about a girl marooned on doomed Mercury as the Sun expands, and her interesting means of escape. But it fails to convince in its depiction of the far-future posthuman society. (I will say that I was amused by an apparent reference to a famous "mistake" in Niven's first published story, "The Coldest Place", in which Mercury was depicted as keeping one side always toward the Sun. This was "correct" as of time of writing, but obsolete by the time the story was published. In this story, the authors contrive to have Mercury once again orbiting the Sun with one side always facing it.)

Locus, November 2003

In the November Analog the two novelettes are probably the most interesting pieces. Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper offer "The Trellis", about a scientific station on Pluto, and the curious bio-engineered "trellis" of plants linking Pluto and Charon. An adventurous teenaged girl gets trapped on the trellis, and her father and an old man mount a rescue, hampered by the decaying equipment of the station. The twist is that the rescue is broadcast as a sort of virtual adventure entertainment, but this seemed to point an almost trivial moral.

Birthday Review: Stories of Alexander Jablokov

I was really impressed with Alexander Jablokov's early work, in the '90s, particularly "Fragments of a Painted Eggshell", from 1995, which I thought an obvious Hugo contender, except that it appeared in one of the great years for SF novelettes -- that was the year that Greg Egan published "Wang's Carpets", and Ian MacLeod published "Starship Day", and James Patrick Kelly published "Think Like a Dinosaur". Then, around 1998, Jablokov stopped publishing, for about 8 years. Thankfully, his return has been similarly impressive. Today is his birthday, so here's a selection of my Locus reviews of his stories since that return to the field.

Locus, July 2006

There are good stories in the August Asimov's ... Finally, a very welcome return: Alexander Jablokov’s “Dead Man”. An investigator is hunting down a dead man – more properly, a man who has been uploaded into a computer but still survived by accident. Apparently this isn’t allowed. We slowly learn a little bit about the “dead man” and what drives him, and rather more about the investigator and what drives him – particularly his relationship with his mother. Strong work, very nicely using the SF idea purely in the service of looking at human character.

Locus, March 2007

Elsewhere in these two issues there is plenty further fine work. Alexander Jablokov’s return to the field continues in fine form with “Brain Raid” (F&SF, February). A small team from a struggling cognitive repossession firm is sent to recover a rogue AI that has formed in a minimall. But problems arise – it seems the AI is a bit more powerful than they are equipped to handle. The story twists a bit from there, turning on the motivations of the narrator’s supposed friend who tipped them to this job. It’s a nicely plotted piece, and nicely furnished with SFnal detail – and its central idea reminds me that the same idea, AIs becoming too intelligent for the good of humans, certainly of ancient vintage in the field, seems suddenly very fashionable again.

Locus, September 2007

There’s plenty more fine stuff this issue (F&SF, September). Alexander Jablokov’s “Wrong Number” tells engagingly enough of repairing regret over missed opportunities while repairing cars – it sounds odd, and is, but matter of factly so.

Locus, March 2008

The March F&SF has another in a recent mini-genre of stories that aren’t quite SF but that in their retelling of aspects of the Space Race readily satisfy our SF Jones. (Other examples being the film Apollo 13 and Andy Duncan’s “The Chief Designer”.) In “The Boarder”, Alexander Jablokov tells of a Russian immigrant family who take in another immigrant as a boarder: a man who was a minor cog in the Russian space program. Through the eyes of the family’s American-born son we see this curious and obsessed man, and we learn not only something of Russia’s sometimes tragic space adventures, but something of the conflicted experience of the immigrant.

Locus, March 2010

At Asimov’s for March two stories stood out. Alexander Jablokov, one of my favorite new writers of the ‘90s who had mostly gone silent until recently, offers “Blind Cat Dance”, about two things: a strange project to restore habitats to wildlife by engineering them to be blind to humans, so that they live among us; and also about a woman who want to learn to do that sort of work, and her husband’s project to help her, and another man with a different view entirely of the woman and that project. 

Locus, April 2011

The April-May Asimov’s is their first big Double Issue of the new year, and there is a lot of good stuff to be found in it. The cover story is “The Day the Wires Came Down”, a steampunk-flavored story by Alexander Jablokov. Arabella and Andrew are twins, and they take a ride on the “telpher” system on its last day before it will close. The telphers are suspended trains running on wires. The two are looking for a light for their father’s birthday, but they end up with a curious electrode wrapped in a piece of newspaper that tells of a long ago disaster, the sabotage of an old telpher station. They end up following the telpher system to the end of its line, out of the city, still looking for a light while learning in bits and pieces the story of that past disaster, as the telpherman running their car seems to be engaged in his own romantic adventure. The angle of the telling of the story is a bit odd – a necessary choice, perhaps, to maintain mystery and to allow the whole story to unspool, but it does distract the reader, as well, as Arabella and Andrew turn out to be more observers than central to the story. So while I enjoyed it I felt kept a bit at a distance.

Locus, July 2014

The cover story in the July Asimov's is Alexander Jablokov's “The Instructive Tale of the Archaeologist and His Wife”, and it's a very good one. It's set in what seems to be perhaps the far future, after the “technological era” has collapsed. The story turns subtly on the title archaeologist's slow accumulation of unexplainable artifacts, on his difficult relationship with his wife, who joins a crackpottish sect called the Obliviators, on certain mysteries about the past “technological age”, and on his own descent – or ascent – into a brand of what his colleagues would also call crackpottery. And in the end a striking revelation comes to us, about how we can know the past (and, perhaps, at some level about SF and Fantasy writers).

Locus, December 2016

And perhaps the best piece this issue (Asimov's, October-November) is “The Forgotten Taste of Honey”, by Alexander Jablokov, set on a Norsish island controlled by Gods who insist that the corpses of people from their territories be returned if they die in another place. This seems to reduce social mobility a lot, and so traders are viewed with suspicion, and pay for their passage, in a sense, by transporting misplaced corpses to their homes. Tromvi is a middle-aged trader who took up her profession after her husband died in one of the wars/feuds that plague this land. On her current trip she has the corpse of a mountain woman who died by the sea, and this corpse, or its God, seems quite insistent about its journey, particularly when the vagaries of her trip, influenced by more fighting, lead her to a rather suspicious-acting Passkeeper, who seems to want to steal the corpse; and then to a feral young woman. The landscape, again, is well-captured, and the fantastical background struck me as quite original, while the main character gives it all a believable sensible grounding.

Locus, February 2019

In the January-February Asimov's, Alexander Jablokov has another story about Sere, investigating things in the baroque multi-species city of Tempest. In “How Sere Looked for a Pair of Boots” she begins by trying to free her cousin’s boyfriend from prison, and ends up stumbling on something much more significant. The best part of the story, as with its predecessor, is the gleeful description of the odd configurations and habits of the various alien species. Fun stuff.

Birthday Review: The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett

Today would have been Terry Pratchett's 71st birthday, but he died, not yet 67, in 2015. In his memory, then, here's a repost of something short I wrote a while ago on my SFF Net newsgroup.

The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett

a review by Rich Horton

I've read a few of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels with general enjoyment -- but they have left me wondering for the most part exactly why they are so very popular. (Doubtless in part, as I have been assured, because I haven't read the right ones.) Put simply, to me they have seemed nice comic novels with some worthwhile gentle satire -- but by no means masterpieces. Now I have read what I think is my favorite Discworld book so far -- and perhaps not surprisingly it is not part of the main sequence. This is The Wee Free Men, the first of Pratchett's Tiffany Aching sequence of nominally Young Adult Discworld books.

Tiffany is a nine year old girl living in on the Chalk. She is part of a sheepherding family. She has older siblings and a very annoying younger brother, Wentworth. One day she is playing by the river when she encounters a bunch of tiny (six inches tall or so) blue men -- and a monster. She uses Wentworth as bait for the monster -- rather shocking, that, using her little brother that way -- but quite successful as well, for she is able to send the beast packing.

She thereby attracts the attention of Miss Tick, a witch. Miss Tick cannot practice magic on the Chalk, but she decides that Tiffany must be a witch -- and perhaps one who can practice magic. This is important because another world is impinging dangerously on this one (evidently Discworld, though one of the different features of this particular Discworld book is that really it could have been set just as well in our world, looked at a bit slant). It will be up to Tiffany to deal with this impingement. Luckily, she has the help of the little men she saw -- the Nac Mac Feegle, or Wee Free Men. Luckily too she has the memories of her Granny Aching, who must also have been a witch -- mustn't she? Even if all the magic she did seems to have had a sensible explanation. ("It's still magic if you know how it's done.")

And so Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle will find their way to the realm of the Faerie Queen -- or "Quin" as the Wee Free Men would have it. And a combination of Tiffany's resourcefulness and growing understanding with the Wee Free Men's vigor and absurd bravery will (of course) save the day. I liked the book a great deal. Tiffany is a wonderful character -- so too is her Granny. The Wee Free Men are hilariously portrayed. Little bits like the most horrible menace the Queen can find to face the Wee Free Men are just plain funny. And the story is sensible and humane as well. Not moralistic but essentially moral without being a lesson. There are at least a couple more Tiffany Aching books, which I will have to scare up.

Ace Double Reviews, 7: Reality Forbidden, by Philip E. High/Contraband From Otherspace, by A. Bertram Chandler

Ace Double Reviews, 7: Reality Forbidden, by Philip E. High/Contraband From Otherspace, by A. Bertram Chandler (#G-609, 1967, $0.50)

by Rich Horton

Last year I posted an Ace Double featuring Philip E. High on the occasion of his birthday -- April 28. I have another one, so why not post it this year?

(Covers by Jack Gaughan and Kelly Freas)

Reality Forbidden is about 53,000 words long, and Contraband from Otherspace about 35,000. As far as I can tell, this Ace Double represents the first publication of either novel in any form. (Which is not to say that there might not have been a short story antecedent to the Chandler in particular. High didn't publish all that much short fiction, and oddly enough his short fiction career was quite disjoint from his novel writing career. At least according to the ISFDB, his short stories were all published between 1955 and 1963, and his first novel was in 1964, his last in 1979.)

Philip E. High was an English author who wrote a number of shortish novels, mostly in the 60s. He bears comparison, perhaps, with J. T. M'Intosh, though he was not so prolific a short story writer as M'Intosh. But he fit the same sort of niche: a not very good writer who still produced oddly interesting stuff -- just weird enough to attract attention, but generally disappointing in the execution. David Langford is something of a proponent of High's work.

Reality Forbidden opens with a couple of men escaping from England to Canada. It turns out that a device which allows people to create their own reality (sort of a virtual reality, though more by telepathy than any computer hookup) was invented some decades previously. It was outlawed in most of the world, including England, but it was so easy to make that black market versions keep turning up. In Canada it was never outlawed, and supposedly Canadians have adapted to living with everyone using such a device.

The two men were arrested on suspicion of being involved with creating such a device, and sent to Canada as spies in lieu of imprisonment. (Which doesn't seem very sensible, but let that pass.) One of the men turns out to be an "Immune", and before long he is in cahoots with the heroic Canadian resistance to the evil forces that control the rest of the world. Which, it turns out, all emanate from an alien invader ... Weird stuff, and it doesn't really hold together very well at all. Still, it is definitely an interesting story, and quite original. (It is apparently often cited as one of the earlier uses of Virtual Reality in an SF story.)

A. Bertram Chandler 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.

Contraband From Otherspace is a rather disappointing Grimes novel. Grimes has just got married to Sonya Verrill, an Intelligence Officer from the Federation. (The Federation is the association of more inward worlds including Earth.) They are preparing to retire from their respective services and perhaps buy a ship of their own. But at the last moment, more or less, a mysterious ship shows up, seemingly out of nowhere. It's a derelict, full of corpses. It is soon enough determined that the ship comes from another universe (transition between universes is easy out on the Rim.) In that universe, rats mutated to become human-sized and intelligent, and they subsequently enslaved humans, and also used them for meat.

Grimes and Sonya take a crew, rehab the derelict ship, and, by unconvincing means, make their way to the other universe, there to confront the rats. They make their way to a world of lizards, whom Grimes has earlier befriended, and they enlist the lizards to help set things right, and make it so that the rats no longer enslave the humans.

Chandler's stories never worried over much about making even the remotest scientific sense, but in some cases, as this one, things just get too absurd. The oh so convenient transition between universes, the rapid mutation of the rats, the coincidental landing in just the right place on the lizard planet ... there are just too many bits of sheer silliness in this story. It just didn't work for me. Some of the silliness (such as the rats using English, except that every vowel is replaced with an "ee" sound, like a squeak, see) is clearly for fun, and sort of tolerable, but more of it is just ad hoc lets advance the plot any old way stuff. I confess I've never been a big fan of Chandler, but others of his stories are at least decent fun. This one doesn't rise to that level. (One more cavil -- the title is just plain meaningless! I thought the story would be about parallel world smuggling -- potentially a fine idea. But there's no contraband in the book at all.)

Ace Double Reviews, 78: One of Our Asteroids is Missing, by Calvin Knox/The Twisted Men, by A. E. Van Vogt

Ace Double Reviews, 78: One of Our Asteroids is Missing, by Calvin Knox/The Twisted Men, by A. E. Van Vogt (#F-253, 1964, $0.40)

A review by Rich Horton

(A. E. Van Vogt was born April 26, 1912. In his memory then, here's another of his Ace Doubles. I've covered biographical/career details of both writers in earlier posts on this blog, so I'll skip that here.)

(Covers by Ed Emshwiller and Jack Gaughan)

This Ace Double, from 1964, features SFWA Grand Masters back to back. And, indeed, it features the very last Ace Double contribution from each prolific writer. "Calvin Knox", of course, is a pseudonym, a very Protestant pseudonym, for Robert Silverberg. One of our Asteroids is Missing is a shortish novel, about 36,000 words. The Twisted Men is a story collection, the three pieces totaling some 39,000 words. (Incidentally, this is an Ace Double, and not the only one, for which the covers were switched -- Emshwiller's cover was intended for The Twisted Men, and Gaughan's for One of Our Asteroids is Missing.)

One of Our Asteroids is Missing certainly reads like late-50s Silverberg, and the cover says "First Book Publication", which strongly suggests that it was first published in an earlier, perhaps shorter, magazine version, perhaps in Science Fiction Adventures, for which Silverberg contributed a great deal of novella-length fiction. But I can't find anything -- none of the stories Silverberg published as by Knox in the magazines have likely titles, at any rate. There was a Mack Reynolds story called "One of Our Planets is Missing!" in the November 1950 Amazing, but I'm sure that's unrelated.

The story opens with John Storm finding a valuable asteroid, full of useful metals. He had promised himself two years looking for asteroids, after which he'd either have struck it rich or he'd go and take a job with Universal Mining Cartel -- either way, he'd marry his girlfriend Liz. he heads to Mars and files a claim, then heads to Earth, and to his shock, his claim doesn't exist any more. And indeed, HE doesn't exist any more, at least not in the government's records. He heads back to Mars to find out what happened, and he learns that UMC is behind all this -- they've bribed a guy to make his claim disappear, then filed their own claim.

Up to about this point, I was rather enjoying the story. A fairly interesting mystery, some good action, a decent pulp-style hero, crisp if not brilliant writing. But it starts to go off the rails when Storm heads back to "his" asteroid to see what UMC is up to. On the asteroid he finds that UMC are trying to move it (!!), and that they are hiding a mysterious secret -- big surprise -- and then gets captured by UMC, who, instead of doing the obvious thing and just kill him, try to buy him off for a few million dollars, which is more than he had originally expected to get anyway. But he refuses to be bought, and instead -- well, I don't want to give away the surprise, though it isn't really that interesting, but the story comes to an ending in kind of a different direction than I felt the beginning really merited. On the whole I didn't think the novel worked very well, not even counting silliness like the not well worked out travel times to the asteroids, etc.

The Twisted Men collects three rather minor Van Vogt stories from lesser SF magazines around 1950. They are "The Twisted Men" (17600 words), first published as "Rogue Ship" in the March 1950 Super Science Stories; "The Star-Saint" (9300 words), first published in the March 1951 Planet Stories, and "The Earth Killers" (12000 words), first published in the April 1949 Super Science Stories.

"The Twisted Men" tells of a scientist who believes the Sun is a variable star, and a sort of mini-nova will destroy life on Earth in a few years. The only hope is to send an colony expedition to Alpha Centauri. He is dismissed as a crackpot, but still manages to build a ship and send it off, with an odd mix of volunteers. He stays home on Earth and is shocked when the ship returns early. But it doesn't stop -- all attempts to get into it fail -- it crashes through Earth leaving a big furrow and returns to space. The hero finally gets aboard, and everyone is "frozen". He eventually realizes that they are actually going nearly the speed of light, in, somehow, their reference frame, so they are feeling the effects of time dilation (and the Lorentz contraction as well, which is where the "twisted" part comes in). All this is really silly and just plain wrong distortion of relativity, resolved by the hero somehow entering the ship's field of reference, and learning that they are, somehow, both near Earth and near Alpha Centauri, so the colony mission can go on, with he, rather creepily, replacing the 50 year old captain as the putative wife of a now 17 year old girl. It has to be said, as with much Van Vogt, that the silliness of the ideas is partly redeemed by the cockeyed originality of them.

"The Star-Saint" concerns a new colony that has been mysterious wiped out, on what seems to be an empty planet. The title character shows up, more or less out of nowhere, and learns to communicate with the planet, which is somehow sentient and has been sending rocks to attack the colonists. He negotiates an agreement for mutual benefit. Again, often silly, but some interesting ideas too. Could have been pretty good with a rewrite, I think.

In "The Earth Killers" the US is nearly destroyed by a nuclear attack. But no other country seems to have sent the bombs. And the hero, an Air Force pilot, had been testing a new plane at the time of the attack and he witness a bomb, which he thought was coming in nearly vertically, as if the attack was from space. But he is not believed, and it is assumed he is concealing the actual villain country. So he goes to prison, but escapes to try to find the real villains, whom he assumes are on a base on the moon. The eventual answer wasn't quite what I expected, and indeed was a pretty good solution. It's not really a very plausible story, and it's somewhat too long, but it's not bad.

The Novels of Avram Davidson

The Novels of Avram Davidson

by Rich Horton

Today would have been Avram Davidson's 96th birthday. He died in 1993. In his memory, here's a repost of something I did back in 2003 on rec.arts.sf.written, a quick summary of his novels. For the most part I don't say much about them. I've revised it to account for the 2005 publication of The Scarlet Fig.

[Revised again in 2023 to add links to reviews of the two novels I hadn't previously read plus Beer! Beer! Beer! I also briefly mention his "Ellery Queen" novels, which I also haven't read. And I deleted a mention of the then recent Wildside Press reprints, though I think some of those are still available. And I added mention of Davidson's "Ellery Queen" novels --- thanks to Rob Gerrand for reminding me of them.]

Avram Davidson is one of my favorite authors, but his reputation, with me as with most anyone, is founded on his short fiction (and, I suppose, to some extent on his exotic nonfiction, as with Adventures in Unhistory). Davidson's strengths were a sharp moral sense, a fascination with curious minutiae, a quirky imagination, obfuscation to good effect, and a glorious sprung prose rhythm. All of these strengths, it seems to me, are better displayed at shorter lengths. His novels tended to be sloppily plotted, or to display signs of lost interest, or to simply not finish (as in the case of his several series begun but never completed). Thus I urge those who have not yet discovered Davidson to seek out the short fiction, recently collected in such places as The Avram Davidson Treasury, The Investigations of Avram Davidson, and The Other Nineteenth Century. Highlights include the Engelbert Eszterhazy stories, the Jack Limekiller stories, "The Sources of the Nile", "The Slovo Stove", "What Strange Stars and Skies", "El Vilvoy de Las Islas", "Dragon Skin Drum", "Dagon", "The Lord of Central Park", and many more.

But here we consider the novels. Several were written in the middle sixties, and published as paperback originals, probably for minimal advances, probably written fairly quickly. These show signs of being forced into rather pulpish and conventional plot frames, and the exuberance of the writing is sometimes muted. Still, the prose does break free at times, and Davidson's imagination remains compelling. 

Many of the novels were parts of projected series, though these series were not usually finished. Here's a summary of Davidson's "novel series", with the books listed in (to the best of my knowledge) internal chronological order. (After the series summary, I'll list and describe all the novels individually).

1. Dragon
The Kar-Chee Reign (1966), Rogue Dragon (1965) -- no more ever planned or needed

2. Vergil
Vergil in Averno (1987), The Phoenix and the Mirror (1969), The Scarlet Fig; or Slowly, Through a Land of Stone (2005)

Up to six more "Vergil" books were reputedly planned. A number of short stories about Vergil have also been published, some of which may be extracts from The Scarlet Fig. Here's David Tate's list of the Vergil short stories:

"Vergil and the Caged Bird", Amazing, January 1987
"Vergil and the Dukos: Hic Inclusus Vitam Perdit, or The Imitations of the King", Asimov's, September 1997
"Yellow Rome, or Vergil and the Vestal Virgin", Weird Tales, Winter 1992/1993, also in The Avram Davidson Treasury
"Vergil Magus: King Without Country", with Michael Swanwick, Asimov's, July 1998
"The Other Magus", in Edges, Eds. Ursula K. Le Guin & Virginia Kidd (Pocket Books; Berkley paperback, 1980)
"Sea-Scene, or Vergil and the Ox-Thrall", Asimov's, February 1993
"Young Vergil and the Wizard", Infinite Matrix, December 2001

I have heard that there are possibly another half-dozen unpublished shorts.

3. "Starflux/Earthflux"
The Island Under the Earth (1969), The Six-Limbed Folk (apparently never written), The Cap of Grace (apparently never written)

4. Peregrine
Peregrine: Primus (1971), Peregrine: Secundus (1981)

A third Peregine book was planned but never written. Davidson's son Ethan wrote a novelette, "Peregrine: Parentus", based on Avram's notes for the final novel. It was published in 2016, but I haven't seen it.

Now, to briefly describe the various novels individually. I'll list them in publication order, to the best of my knowledge. There are a couple I haven't yet read. Also, many of them I read in short order as I found them used in about 1994, which was before I kept notes on the books I read. Which means I don't remember them all very well.

Joyleg (with Ward Moore) (1962)

A version was serialized in Fantastic. This is one of three novel-length (or nearly so) collaborations by Davidson: the other two are with his ex-wife Grania Davis. This novel is about a man living in the back hills of Tennessee who turns out to be a veteran of the American Revolution. The secret of longevity attracts the attention of the American Government, and the Soviets as well, and much political foofaraw occurs, much revolving around the book's real main characters, a Congressman and Congresswoman (the "woman" underlined on the back of my 1962 Pyramid paperback -- I suppose that was considered almost more SFnal than a 200 year old guy back in 1962). I thought it went on a bit long, and that it read too much like Ward Moore and not enough like Davidson. Minor.

Mutiny in Space (1964)

Expansion of the Worlds of Tomorrow novella "Valentine's Planet". Probably the least of Davidson's novels. It is reminiscent of Poul Anderson's slightly earlier Virgin Planet, in that it features a man or men spacewrecked on a planet dominated by women who, it turns out, are just looking for a REAL MAN [TM]. In this case a mutiny leads to a spaceship crew being marooned, on a planet where the males are all small and childlike (as I recall), so that the women rule. Naturally, things change. It's not horrible, and not completely un-Davidsonian, but it's not very good, either.

And on the Eighth Day (as by "Ellery Queen") (1964)

The Fourth Side of the Triangle (as by "Ellery Queen") (1965)

These two novels were ghost-written by Davidson for Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee, the originators of Ellery Queen. It's possible that they were written to an outline by Dannay and/or Lee. I have not read them. Some sources also claim that Davidson wrote The House of Brass (1968), but others (Francis M. Nevins) say that Davidson did write an expansion of Dannay's outline, but it was rejected, and Lee eventually finished the novel himself.

Masters of the Maze (1965)

The first novel to show real signs of Davidson's true obsessions, and his true, or mature, prose style. It's a weird thing, and I didn't really find it wholly successful, but I found aspects quite fascinating. I admit I don't remember it well at this remove, but it involved weird alien creatures in control of a "Maze" that allowed travel through space and time, and a failing young writer, and dangerous aliens who need to be stopped.

Rogue Dragon (1965)

Davidson earned a Nebula nomination for this, though it should be noted that in those days (this was the first year of the Nebula awards), the rules were different, and the list of nominated works is rather long. The aliens known as the Kar-Chee came to Earth and brought the Dragons with them, but the Kar-Chee have been defeated, but Earth is an exhausted backwater. Now the Dragons are hunted for sport by rich men from elsewhere in the Galaxy. Jon-Joras, the hero, comes to realize that this sport must cease. A decent, fun, sometimes dark, novel.

Rork! (1965)

In an exhausted human-colonized portion of the Galaxy, a young man goes to Pia 2, "the most remote, isolated, world in the Galaxy", and gets involved in a conflict between entrenched colonialist men who have enslaved the local species called "Tocks", and the Wild Tocks, all further complicated by the danger of the fierce rorks, yet another species. Parts of it were quite good, parts, particularly the ending, were simply rushed.

The Enemy of My Enemy (1966)

I don't remember this one well. A fugitive gets surgically transformed to become a Tarnisi, and ends up affecting the course of a hopeless war between Tarnis and some other nations. The solution is slightly unexpected. I don't think this was one of my favorite early Davidson novels, but as I say I don't remember it well.

Clash of Star-Kings (1966)

Very short novel (about 38,000 words, originally half of an Ace Double) that appeared on the Nebula nomination list for Best Novella of 1966. It depicts a conflict between alien entities as a conflict between the ancient Gods of the Aztecs and the Olmecs, witnessed by a couple of writers living in Mexico to save money. Pretty good stuff, best I think for the depiction of everyday life for American expatriates in Mexico. My full review is here: Review of Clash of Star-Kings/Danger From Vega.

The Kar-Chee Reign (1966)

Prequel to Rogue Dragon, telling of the end of the period of Kar-Chee oppression of Earth. My full review is here: Review of Rocannon's World/The Kar-Chee Reign.

The Island Under the Earth (1969)

Published as one of the celebrated first series of Ace Specials in 1969. Here the source of Davidson's imagination is closer to Greek myth. The novel is set in a strange land with such creatures as Harpies and especially Centaurs. Unfortunately I remember little else except that I liked it, and that I was saddened to hear that Davidson never wrote the sequels.

The Phoenix and the Mirror (1969)

First published by Doubleday in 1969 (as far as I know, the Vergil novels are the only Davidson novels originally published in hardcover), then as an Ace Special in 1970, expanded from a 1966 novella in Fantastic. Perhaps Davidson's most highly-regarded novel. It is an "Alternate History Fantasy", set in a Roman Empire full of magic, and alchemy, and strange creatures, in which the poet Vergil was a powerful sorcerer. This novel is about Vergil's search for the perfect Speculum, or mirror, and his involvement with several women. It is the first novel in which Davidson gave full reign to his fascination with the oddities of history and "unhistory", and in which he let his prose style loose to its full flowering of elegant eccentricity.

Peregrine: Primus (1971)

Perhaps Davidson's single most engaging novel, and the most overtly comedic of them. It's set in another alternate Roman Empire. As I said in my review of the Wildside reprint, for Maelstrom SF: The story is set in an alternate history. Peregrine is the younger son of "the last pagan King in lower Europe". When he reaches his majority, his father reluctantly exiles him, in order to prevent trouble with the Crown Prince. So begin Peregrine's, er, peregrinations. Accompanied by a faithful page and an aging sorcerer, he roams about "lower Europe", encountering the remnants of an eccentric Roman Empire, a wide variety of mutually heretical Christians, and many other wonders.

Ursus of Ultima Thule (1973)

Set in the now vanished Arctic continent Ultima Thule, this novel follows Arnten, a boy who may be the son of a were-bear, as he flees persecution due to his differences from his fellows, finds his father, and ends up on a mission to solve the curse that is poisoning the iron in his kingdom. A minor effort. Here is my review.

Peregrine: Secundus (1981)

Much of a muchness with Peregrine: Primus, it continues Peregrine's story without seeming to bring it closer to any sort of conclusion. I'd say it's not quite as good as the first book but still quite enjoyable. Assembled from a 1973 novelette in F&SF ("Peregrine: Alflandia"), and a 1980 novella in Asimov's ("Peregrine Perplexed").

Vergil in Averno (1987)

The prequel to The Phoenix in the Mirror, telling of Vergil's journey to the underworld. I found it a lot harder going than its predecessor, to be honest.

Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty (with Grania Davis) (1988)

Enjoyable novel about Marco Polo, along with his father and uncle, setting about in search of the Sleeping Beauty, at the behest of Kublai Khan. Lots of adventures with mostly legendary creatures ... dragons, griffins, magical carp, a sphinx, dog-headed pirates, a serpent woman, etc. ... in somewhat legendary places ... old Cathay, the Pleasure Isle, a hidden valley in Tebet, etc. My full review.

The Boss in the Wall (with Grania Davis) (1998)

A long novella (perhaps 32,000 words) extracted (by Davis) from a much longer novel that Davidson had been working on for some time when he died. This was published in book form by Tachyon after Davidson's death. It's good stuff, with much of the classic Davidson flavor, about nasty critters that lurk in the walls of houses.

An extract from my review for Tangent: So what is it about? To quote: "A Paper-Man or Paper-Doll or Paper-Doll Man. A Hyett or Hetter or Header. A Greasy-Man or String-Fellow. A Rustler or Clicker or Clatterer. And/or other names." Or the "House-Devil". Or "The Boss in the Wall". Professor Vlad Smith moves into a new house. Which is a very old house, owned by his Uncle Mose. Almost immediately, something unexplainable and scary kills his Uncle and puts his wife and daughter into states of shock. A local doctor puts Vlad in touch with Professor Edward Bagnell, who has been investigating sightings of the "House-Devil". And we follow Vlad, and Bagnell, and others in a rambling search through the available scholarly and semi-scholarly and crackpot records of other potential "Paper Men", "Rustlers", and "Bosses in the Wall", to an encounter with a mysterious committee studying the phenomenon, and to a resolution to (at least) Vlad's story.

The Scarlet Fig (2005)

I wrote this for Fantasy Magazine when this novel finally came out (in a lovely and expensive hardcover edition): Some books have significance and value beyond their pure value as novels. Certainly The Scarlet Fig is one such – the long awaited third Vergil novel from the late Avram Davidson. Its value as fiction is high enough, mind you. It’s very characteristic of late Davidson, stuffed with evidence of his erudition, the prose complicated, eccentric, enjoyable for those of us who have a taste for Davidson’s prose. (That said, often a bit prolix, perhaps a bit too precious.) The story concerns Vergil’s travels after he leaves Rome (“Yellow Rome”), fearful of accusations of having tarnished a Vestal Virgin, and also menaced by piratical Carthaginians. He visits many strange shores: Corsica, Tingitayne, the Region called Huldah (and its beautiful eponymous ruler), the island of the Lotophageans, where he drinks of the Scarlet Fig, and finally the Land of Stone in North Africa. All along we witness much magic and many wonders – all reflecting the altered Rome of Davidson’s Vergil Magus, a Rome reflecting the legends that accumulated in the Middle Ages: so, gloriously grotesque satyrs, victims of the cockatrix, the dogs of the Guaramanty, etc. I enjoyed it greatly, particularly the character of Vergil and the mix of darkness and strangeness throughout. It is also beautifully presented: a large handsome hardcover, with beautiful illustrations, and much excellent additional material to the novel: afterwords by both Davis and Wessells, and several appendices including a few “deleted scenes” and reproductions of some notecards from Davidson’s collection (“Encyclopedia”) of Vergilian research.

Beer! Beer! Beer! (2021)

Seth Davis, Davidson's godson (and the son of his ex-wife Grania Davis) has been working to bring much of Davidson's work back to print, and Gregory Feeley alerted Seth to this unpublished book. Seth published it in 2021. It's an entertaining novel, non-SF, about a real incident in Davidson's hometown, Yonkers, during prohibition, in which a pipe was discovered out of which flowed beer. I reviewed the novel when it came out: here.