Another Obscure Ace Double: The Green Queen, by Margaret St. Clair/Three Thousand Years, by Thomas Calvert McClary

Ace Double Reviews, 109: The Green Queen, by Margaret St. Clair/Three Thousand Years, by Thomas Calvert McClary (#D-176, 1956, 35 cents)

a review by Rich Horton

Here's another Ace Double featuring a Margaret St. Clair novel, the third such I have read. The flip side is the only Ace Double by Thomas Calvert McClary. There is one more St. Clair Ace Double to come, which might be more expensive, as it's backed with a Philip Dick title. (Indeed, the cheapest copy of Agent of the Unknown/The World Jones Made is about $16 at AbeBooks.)

I wrote before about Margaret St. Clair (1911-1995) as follows: "she was one of the more noticeable early women writers of SF, but somehow her profile was a bit lower than those of C. L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, and Andre Norton. Perhaps it was simply that those writers did just a bit more, and were just a bit better (taken as a whole) than her, but it does seem that she's not quite as well remembered as perhaps she deserves. One contributing factor is that she wrote some of her very best stories pseudonymously, as "Idris Seabright". 20 or so of her 50+ short stories were as by Seabright, including some of the very best (such as "Short in the Chest" and "An Egg a Month from All Over"). She also wrote 8 novels (four of them published as Ace Double halves). Her career in SF stretched from 1946 to 1981. Her husband, Eric St. Clair, was also a writer (of children's books), and the two became Wiccans more or less when the Wiccan movement started."

I noted at that time that it seemed to me based on the two I had read by then that her novels were significantly weaker than her short fiction, and The Green Queen does nothing to change that impression. John Clute is kinder than I am in his Science Fiction Encyclopedia entry on St. Clair, and he does make her first novel (Agent of the Unknown) sound quite interesting. He also notes that St. Clair's work tends to exhibit "a singularly claustrophobic pessimism", and that is true, I think. The problem is that the interesting ideas and the refusal to bow to conventional pulp-era ideas about problem solving and heroic resolution are obscured by the occasional silliness of the plotting and of the scientific notions.

(Cover by Ed Valigursky)

The Green Queen was originally published as "Mistress of Viridis" in the March 1955 issue of Universe. I haven't seen that version: it may be the same as the Ace Double, but I suspect the book version is somewhat expanded. The story is narrated to a Terran scientist by a man named Bonnar, as the planet Viridis is in a state of chaos.

Bonnar is a maskmaker, but the masks are obsolete. And the barrier between the city where the human colonists live and the radioactive surface of the planet is down. What are the masks? They seem to be a way to make their wearers see something different than the true world they live in. These are widely used to pacify the "Lowers", who live miserable short lives in the under parts of the City. Bonnar's latest mask had been in support of a myth of the Green Queen, who would find a special tree and, well, save the world. This seems to have had unusual power among the lowers.

(Cover by Virgil Finlay)

The ruling cabal hatches a plan to create a "Green Queen" to help better control the restless Lowers. And the woman they choose is Leaf, who happens to be, for a time, Bonnar's lover. He is ordered to break up with her, and he does ... and she does, under secret urging, begin to believe she is the Green Queen. But, strangely, her powers seem to be real. And she becomes increasingly popular. This is too much for the rulers -- and for Bonnar, who is insanely jealous of Leaf. They create a rival Queen, using a much less intelligent woman and some tech to imitate her powers.

There is a fair amount of political maneuvering, and a trip to the strangely abandoned human cities on the unprotected surface of the planet, and plots and counterplots, leading to a curious climax in which Leaf orders the city's barrier struck down, and flies to the "tree" that the prophecies said the Queen must visit -- and the true secret of the original Queen of Viridis is revealed. There is a ton of potential here, really, but I don't think St. Clair's execution quite matched the ideas. A strong rewrite, and I think this could have been pretty good, but as it is, it's kind of a mess.

(Cover by Ed Valigursky)

But, not as much of a mess as Thomas Calvert McClary's Three Thousand Years. This was originally serialized (with an exclamation point in the title) in Astounding very early in John Campbell's editorial tenure, in the April through June 1938 issues. Indeed, this was the first serial published solely in Campbell's issues.  I do wonder if the novel was not actually purchased by Campbell's predecessor, F. Orlin Tremaine, who had purchased McClary's previous novel, Rebirth: When Everyone Forgot, which was in Astounding in 1934. (That said, Campbell certainly bought McClary's third and last novel in the field, The Tommyknocker, which was serialized in Unknown in 1940.)

Thomas Calvert McClary (1909-1972) wrote primarily Westerns, but he did publish those three novels and several short stories (many as by Calvin Peregoy) in the SF magazines, the latest story appearing in 1958. Rebirth: When Everyone Forgot had book publication in 1944 from Bart House, and the book version of Three Thousand Years was published by Fantasy Press in 1954, with this Ace Double version following two years later. The book is definitely revised from the serial, as a few mentions of the events of the Second World War are made.

(Cover by Howard V. Brown)

The story is ostensibly recorded by a huge computer invented by a scientist named Simon Gamble. It tells of the rivalry between Gamble and his boss, a ruthless businessman name Vincent Drega. Gamble believes all problems can be solved with science, and he has invented magic foods and clothes and metals and atomic power. Drega has suppressed these inventions because he believes they will ruin the economy, and that man can't live properly without the motivation of money. Both are aware that the world is in danger of imminent war, which will be terrible because of the horrible weapons that have been created.

The viewpoint character for the bulk of the story is a newspaperman named Lucky Flagherty. His girlfriend, the Lovelorn columnist, is named of all things Lulu Belle. Lucky has sold a story warning of the upcoming war -- and riots have ensued, when, all of a sudden, he comes to new consciousness, naked, filthy, with long hair and fingernails. What can have happened? Soon it is clear that some 3000 years have passed -- Simon Gamble, trying to avert world catastrophe, had put everyone in suspended animation.

Most people die (the suspension was only supposed to last a few decades, but Gamble miscalculated), but there are plenty of survivors. Lucky, along with Lulu Belle and his editor and others, ends up joining a group led vigorously by Drega. They begin to reestablish a society, under Drega's rule. Apparently all iron (but not other metal) has been destroyed by Gamble's efforts, but with the help of some elephants, and some fishing, things begin to improve, and they fight off the cannibals ... and then Gamble returns, with his carefully preserved magic tech. He offers these wonders to all who will accept living under his technocratic lead.

Drega refuses, and he sets up his colony in New Jersey, while Gamble stays in Manhattan. There are other groups of survivors throughout the world. Gamble is able to feed and cloth his people, but he runs into trouble. For one thing, he is unable to trade with the other groups because he has no concept of money. For another thing, his tech is based on an entire industrial base, and he finds it very hard to build that from scratch. And, finally, it turns out people really don't adapt well to a life of pure ease. So Drega emerges triumphant in the end.

That makes it seem like a philosophical novel -- which it is, to a great extent, if a very simplistic one, and one in which the author's finger is rather heavily on the scales. But that aspect is harmed, not just by the deck-stacking, but by the silliness of the scientific concepts, and by the crudeness of the prose, and of the characters. (And by the absurd sexism.) I was really very bored, and often very annoyed. This is a pretty awful novel.

A Mystery Ace Double: Maigret Has Scruples/Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses, by George Simenon

Ace Double Reviews, 33: Maigret Has Scruples, by Georges Simenon/Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses, by Georges Simenon (#F-166, 1962, $0.40)

by Rich Horton

My previous Ace Double reviews have mostly been of SF books, but the Ace Double series included books in many genres. So, I'm including this review in this series of otherwise SF reviews because it's a nice way to illustrate the fact that the Ace Doubles, for the first decade or so of their existence, featured not just SF novels but other genres -- mostly mysteries and westerns but other types as well (for instance, a couple of P. G. Wodehouse novels appeared in an early Ace Double).

About a decade ago I read every Georges Simenon Maigret novel I could find. I don't think I found quite all of those available in English, but I think I got pretty close. These two novels were among those I read, but I was happy to reread them. This Ace Double dates to 1962, but the novels were first published in French and in English translation somewhat earlier: Maigret Has Scruples in 1958, Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses in 1959. The novels are of almost identical length, at about 46,000 words (most of Simenon's Maigret novels were written to a consistent length). (The cover and spine list the title of the second book as Maigret and the Reluctant Witness, but the title page has the correct plural.) Both novels were translated by Daphne Woodward. The French titles are Les Scrupules de Maigret and Maigret et les témoins récalcitrant.

Maigret Has Scruples is constructed curiously. Instead of solving an already committed crime, Maigret is charged with preventing a potential crime. A man comes to see him, and tells him that he believes his wife is planning to murder him. He offers evidence in the form of some rat poison that he has discovered, but leaves before Maigret can question him further. Somewhat later the wife shows up, and tells her side of the story, basically admitting that she knows of her husband's suspicions, but thinks he is mad.

Maigret somewhat reluctantly begins to investigate, rather hamstrung by a bureaucracy that makes it hard for him to commit resources to investigation of a crime that has not occurred. He also makes a quick study of psychiatry, hoping to be able to understand if either the man or his wife is insane. His investigations quickly establish that the situation is more complicated: the wife seems to be carrying on an affair with her boss, while the husband is seeing his sister-in-law. And then there is the matter of the insurance policy the couple has taken out, to be paid to whichever spouse survives the other.
The situation seems easily enough solved: a divorce, followed by each taking up more formally with their preferred companion, but human nature being what it is, that solution isn't taken. Instead, despite Maigret's investigation, he is unable to prevent a murder, though he is readily able to solve the murder once it occurs. The actual mystery is all but negligible (and it depends on a geometrical solution that I don't think would have worked!), but the central interest of the story is in the people, and that works well, particularly the comparison of the damaged marriage of the two principles with Maigret's very successful marriage.

Maigret and the Reluctant Witnesses is slightly more conventional. A man is murdered in a Paris suburb. He was the director of an old, failing, biscuit manufacturing company. (Biscuit = cookie -- I am pretty sure the translator, Daphne Woodward, was English. Sometimes separate American translations of Maigret's novels were made, but often enough (and sensibly enough) the American publishers procured the UK translation.) When Maigret arrives at the decrepit old house of the family that owns the biscuit company, he finds a surly and silent bunch, all seemingly unwilling to answer questions, and eager to promote the theory of a panicked burglar as the murderer.

Maigret must sort through the tangled, sad, story of a family declining from prominence and riches to grubby poverty. There is a senile old patriarch and his wife, a long-time maid, the murdered man's brother and his young, rich, wife, a bookkeeper, a possible boyfriend, and a long-estranged sister. As with many of the Maigret stories, the mechanics of the murder -- the timing and means and so on, are of little interest and not terribly "mysterious". The interest is in unraveling the psychology of the murdered man and those around him -- usually revealing a somewhat sordid story, with money and sex often entangled. I'd not rate this as one of the best Maigrets, but it is quite typical of the Maigret of the 50s, probably the archetypical period of Simenon's writing: certainly well-worth reading. (Much the same thing could be said in summary of Maigret Has Scruples.)

Davidson Reunion Trip to California, 2017

I've been chronicling our trip to the World Fantasy Convention in San Antonio, but I should also mention the vacation trip we took just a couple of weeks before that, a family reunion for the two branches of my wife's family.

This trip took us to Northern California, most especially to my wife's half-sister's house. The sister in question is Myrna Courtney, who is a number of years older than my wife. Perhaps this needs some explanation, a bit soft-pedalled. My wife's father, who bore the unexpectedly significant name Harley Davidson, was born in Missouri in about 1914, to a family of 10. A couple of his brothers moved to California in the '30s, looking for work (lots of people were looking for work in those days), and Harley followed. He married Myrna's mother, and had four children: Carl, Myrna, Linda, and a girl who died very young. Harley was by all accounts brilliant with his hands, but he had a drinking problem, and that was severely exacerbated when his youngest child died. That tore apart his marriage, and he left Myrna's mother and returned to Missouri, in the early '50s I think. He married Mary Ann's mother (whom, apparently, he had known slightly before moving to California) in 1954 or so, and they had five children. The youngest of these, a twin to my brother-in-law Mark, also died as an infant. The endgame is clear, I suppose -- Harley's drinking problems, and concomitant employment issues, led to some pretty awful living conditions for Mary Ann and her brothers, and her mother, who died quite young in about 1970. The four kids went to live with their maternal aunts, as Harley wasn't really able to care for children. He died in 1980 (having married one more time). (I met Mary Ann in 1984.)

Myrna (who spent years with her husband Gerry traveling the country in an RV, doing articles for magazines) made it to St. Louis a couple of times to visit her half-siblings. But only recently have we become closer, on social media and with a couple more visits. This was Mary Ann and my first visit to Myrna's home, in Grass Valley (an hour or so from Sacramento. in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas). We flew into Oakland on Thursday the 12th, along with Mary Ann's brothers Mark, Dwight, and Scott, Mark's wife Becky, and Dwight's wife Terri. (Scott's wife Brenda wasn't able to make the trip.) We rented a minivan, and the first night we drove to Lake Tahoe. I ought to mention the obvious -- the fires north of San Francisco were still active when we arrived, and the air was noticeably smoky that first night -- we could smell it and see it. We ate at an In'n'Out, California's iconic fast food joint. This was my second time eating there, and I was as unimpressed as the first time -- it's just another burger joint, darnit.

We got to Lake Tahoe late, of course. Our hotel was right on the water. We went out to the lakeshore first thing in the morning -- it was 21 degrees Fahrenheit. Between the altitude and (I suppose) the humidity the temperature gradients are remarkable. That said, the lake is quite beautiful. We ate at a local breakfast place called Bert's, which I can recommend. In particular, the omelettes, and the biscuit/egg dish called the Cowboy, are immense. We drove around the west side of the lake, stopping at a few places, notably Emerald Bay and Tahoe City. The former is as pretty, I think, as anywhere on the lake. The latter has a dam, where the Truckee river issues from the lake.

We then headed in the direction of Sacramento. Our one planned stop was at Donner Memorial State Park, near the town of Truckee. The park includes the area where the Donner Party camped when snowed in. There is a museum with presentations about the Donner expedition, as well as about the Transcontinental Railroad, which passed through the area, and the Lincoln Highway (U.S. 40 in this area, though it's U.S. 30 near my hometown of Naperville, IL). Donner Lake is a really pretty lake. The main remnant of the Railroad is some tunnels, and a stone wall called the China Wall (as it was built by Chinese immigrants). The men climbed up to the railroad tunnels, close enough for a good look at the wall, and we walked through a couple of tunnels to meet the women, who picked us up by a restaurant called after the Donner Party. They had pie, so we decided to buy one. (We didn't get the Fried Green Tomatoes though.)

We finally made it to Grass Valley, after a detour caused by our GPS not knowing the way very well. Myrna has a really lovely place, a large property with the main house and two smaller houses. Myrna's sister Linda and her husband Steve live in one house, and Myrna's daughter Robyn and her husband Keith live in the other.

Dwight, Terri, and Scott were staying with Myrna. Mark and Becky and Mary Ann and I rented an Airbnb perhaps a couple of miles away. This house was really nice as well, in a small neighborhood in the woods. There is a lot of wildlife around, and apparently fencing is important to keep the bears out. There was a wraparound porch/balcony, which proved to be a good place to look at the stars from as well -- there weren't too many city lights.

That night Myrna treated us to dinner at a pretty good local restaurant called, unpromisingly, the Dine n Dash Cafe. It turned out to have a pretty impressive menu. We ate in the bar, because that's where they had room. (This much to the amusement of Myrna's brother-in-law Steve (Linda's husband), who likes the bar -- Myrna thinks it's too loud.) I had the prime rib, a popular selection, and it was good.

Saturday we planned to explore Grass Valley. We headed into the town, which has a nice downtown area, full, as expected these days, of boutiques and restaurants and antique shops. We ate lunch at Tofanelli's, again good. They are an Italian place, also known for offering 101 different omelettes. Before we went downtown we found the house in which Myrna grew up, and we also saw the building that housed the bar Harley used to frequent.

For me, however, the highlight was the used bookstore, Booktown. I don't suppose that surprises anyone. But it really is a very good used bookstore, built on the model of antique malls, with a number of different sections owned by different booksellers. A couple of these featured good selections of SF books, and one of those also included a number of old SF magazines. I bought an Ace Double or two and several issues of Amazing from Cele Goldsmith's time as editor. I'd say that this is definitely worth a side trip if you are anywhere in the area.

In the afternoon we visited the Empire Mine, a played out gold mine near Grass Valley that is now a state park. We toured the park, which featured an impressive house where the owners once lived,

a selection of the machinery used in the mining, a brief descent in one of the tram carts the miners used, and a demonstration by a blacksmith. There was also a small museum, with some details about the history of the mine, including a three dimensional model showing the various mineshafts, which extended down as deep as 11,000 feet. The shafts, now flooded, riddle the depths beneath Grass Valley itself. The mine itself was discovered in 1850, opened as a mine in 1854, and closed in 1956. The museum claimed that the area was all but unaffected by the depression because of the jobs provided by the mine. Many of the miners were Cornish immigrants, which reminded me of the copper mines on the Keweenaw Peninsula in Northern Michigan, where my maternal grandparents came from. Many of those miners were Cornish as well, and my mother used to make Cornish Pasties, a recipe she got from her mother, who doubtless got it from her mother and her Cornish neighbors. It turns out there is a Pastie restaurant in Grass Valley, though we didn't go there.

Afternoon and evening were family reunion time. We mingled with the two branches of the Davidson family -- the St. Louis branch, represented by Mary Ann, Dwight, Scott and Mark and we spouses; and the California branch, represented by Myrna, her sister Linda and her husband Steve, and Myrna's daughter Robyn and her husband Keith, as well as Robyn's middle daughter Christy and her nephews (whose mother was away on an anniversary cruise). Carl, who lives in Montana, had also intended to be there, but his wife Sandy fell just a week or so before and wasn't able to travel. This was a shame, because Mary Ann has never met Carl.

(Back: Becky, Mary Ann, Linda, Myrna, Terri
Front: Mark, Rich, Scott, Dwight)

Keith cooked dinner (and Christy brought dessert), which was really good -- tri tip, a cut of beef I had only seen in California until recently, done slowly wrapped in foil on the grill.  Very very good.

I spent much of my time on two pursuits. The first won't surprise anyone. Myrna likes books about as much as I do, and she had inherited several boxes of old books, just the sort of books I read and review here often. I looked through all the boxes, looking for particularly interesting books. One of the coolest things I found was a little tourist pamphlet of St. Louis, of all places, from early in the century, featuring pictures of many of the still famous buildings made for the 1904 World's Fair. Of the old books I only took a couple (on Myrna's urging) -- a Bulwer Lytton novel, Zanoni; a G. A. Henty novel, The Lion of St. Mark; and a very obscure magazine, The Quiver, May 1891, a Christian-themed publication which featured some fiction.

The second pursuit involved Myrna's interest in genealogical research. She has spent considerable time ferreting out her ancestry, all the way back to a Davidson from Holland in the 17th  Century. She had done all this with a program from Ancestry.com, but Ancestry.com was recently bought by someone else, and their program had been superseded, and all Myrna's files were unreadable. I was able to find a way, involving two or three different versions of the original program Myrna used and the different, newer software that has replaced it, to convert Myrna's old data to the new format. One result was a printout of the Davidson family tree from around 1650 to about now.

Dinner featured, of course, a lot of conversation, and a lot of stories about the history of both sides of Harley's family. Particularly fun was Steve's long description of his courtship of Linda, which involved him taking advantage of the absence of a fellow Navy man who was also sweet on Linda. Steve's reminiscences at one point prompted Myrna to tell Linda to "Muzzle your man!". Steve is an interesting guy -- a football player in High School who had a chance to play at Oregon State, until he realized that lots of schoolwork might be involved. Currently he's fascinated with You Tube videos about military technology, which led to him asking me some questions about some of my projects for Boeing -- questions that I couldn't answer if I didn't want to go to jail.

We learned a lot, most of it fairly personal, and all quite interesting. Family histories may only be of interest to the family, but in that scope they really are cool. One detail that surprised Mary Ann and her brothers was that Myrna had offered to adopt them after their mother had died. Harley had demurred, saying (falsely) that things were fine, and so they ended up with their aunts, which in the end worked out very well. But it's interesting to think how different things might have been had they all moved to California in 1970 or so -- of course, all of us spouses would have been wholly out of the picture! (An example of the contingencies of Alternate History that were discussed at the World Fantasy Convention!)

On Sunday we came over to Myrna's again for breakfast, and some more conversation, but soon it was time to head back to San Francisco. We planned this time to take a slightly different route, that would bring us into the city from the north, so we could go over the Golden Gate Bridge. On the way we passed Davis, and I pointed out that that was where Karen Joy Fowler lived -- only to learn, on meeting Karen slightly later at World Fantasy that she has moved to Santa Cruz. Not to worry -- we made our way to Santa Cruz soon enough!

On Highway 37 north of SF we drove through some striking evidence of the recent fires -- hillsides burned completely black, road signs mangled and melted, etc. But overall the fires and smoke had diminished quite a lot. Then we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, then turned aside to park, and we took the time to walk onto the bridge and take some pictures.

Dwight and Terri and Scott had a plane to catch, so we took them to the airport, and then Mark and Becky rented a new car, because they planned to stay the night in Monterey. We were headed to Santa Cruz. We did meet for a very nice dinner at The Crow's Nest, on the oceanfront in Santa Cruz.

Our hotel was a couple of blocks from the Santa Cruz boardwalk, so we went down there. Frankly, it's a bit on the cheesy side. There are some nice views of the ocean, though. Across the street from our hotel there was construction going on -- I asked the desk clerk what they were building His rather rueful answer: "Another hotel." Santa Cruz, by the way, was the setting (under a different name) for the good vampire movie, very early in Kiefer Sutherland's career, Lost Boys.

Monday we were heading back to Oakland. We began by visiting a couple of Santa Cruz antique stores (one of them, alas, closed despite hours that claimed they should be open), and also by visiting the oceanside again, including a walk on the pier, with sea lions.

Then we decided on the scenic route, and we head up the Coast Highway. This has long been one of my favorite roads, from Huntington Beach through Santa Monica, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, Carpenteria, up the coast to Bug Sur and Monterey -- and now for the first time farther North. We stopped in Davenport to eat, at the Whale City Bakery Bar and Deli. We were able to eat outside. A Norwegian couple happened to sit at the table right across from us, and we talked for a bit -- they were headed the other direction, to Carmel. After lunch we made kept going North and stopped for a bit at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, which is now a state park. Some very pretty views here. Finally we headed up to Hwy 92, where we turned inland, then crossed the San Mateo bridge into Oakland.

Our next goal -- the last, really -- was to visit the Locus offices. I had never been there, although I've been writing for the magazine since 2002 (and for the website even longer). Alas, editor Liza Groen Trombi had a school function to attend and left early, but I was able to meet Arley Sorg for the first time, as well as Carolyn Cushman and Josh Pearce and Fransesca Myman, and I think one or two more folks whose names I am forgetting. (I have met Fransesca before, to be sure, and of course Liza, and I saw Liza and Arley again just a couple of weeks later at World Fantasy.) I also got to see the book collection -- and the Hugo collection -- and believe me I could have stayed there for quite a while. (I'd probably still be there!)

Not much more to tell. We went to the hotel, and we were too tired to go out again so we ordered pizza in. It was OK, nothing special. We decided to turn the car in a day early, and take the shuttle to the airport the next day. And that was fun! NOT! Avis was a mess. The Avis Preferred desk was unattended, so we waited in line at the regular desk. I let a guy go ahead of us who had a plane to catch -- I hope he made it, it was getting pretty late. The first thing the guy at the counter asked was "Why didn't you go to the Preferred desk?" "Because there was no one there, you dolt!" is what I wanted to say, but I left off the last two words. (At about this time I saw a couple of folks from Avis returning to the Preferred desk with cups of coffee.) Then he charged me for filling up the car, even though I had filled it up on the way to the rental car return. (I didn't realize that until later.) They also put the charges on the wrong credit card -- my company card instead of my personal card. He did change that successfully. Oh well.

The next day was just the trip home, which was uneventful.

All in all, a delightful trip. I think everyone had a great time. I really enjoy this area of California, though I think on balance I still prefer the Central Coast (Santa Barbara, Carpenteria, etc.). If we could afford it (not likely!) that would be a good place to retire to.

World Fantasy Convention, 2017, Part III: Day 2

World Fantasy Convention, 2017, Part III: Day 2

For breakfast on Friday we had the brunch buffet at the hotel restaurant. Waffles, bacon, omelettes, all the usual stuff. It was OK, nothing all that special. But convenient.

I was particularly interested in Friday's "Engaging Our Theme" panel, entitled "What is Alternate History?". This mainly because one of the panelists was Damien Broderick (who lives in San Antonio). I've known Damien online for quite some time, and I've really enjoyed his fiction (and I've reprinted a few of his stories, and even wrote the introduction to one of his collections), but I'd never met him in in person. The other panelists were Fred Lerner, Daryl Gregory, and S. M. Stirling. The discussion was stimulating. The panelists considered things like overfamiliar jonbar points; the notion that in reality even small changes would likely mean that there would be no common people -- that is, that most people would even be born in alternate histories, due to their parents' not meeting (Stirling described in this context the very unlikely events leading to his parents and grandparents all meeting each other), or even if their parents met, changes in, oh, when they happened to conceive their children; favorite Alternate Histories, etc. Damien mentioned Vladimir Nabokov's Ada, one of the most interesting and different (and problematic!) literary alternate histories. Afterward, I did get a chance to meet Damien, and he gave me a copy of his latest novel, his revision of one of John Brunner's more ambitious 1950s novels, Threshold of Eternity (a novel which I read and reviewed in its Ace Double edition a few months ago). He also introduced me to another Australian writer, Russell Blackford (and later I met Russell's wife Jenny, whose work I had read and reviewed previously, which she remembered).

Our Noon panel was "My 12 Favorite Works by Karen Joy Fowler". Brian Attebery moderated the panel, and the other participants were Eileen Gunn, Elizabeth Engstrom, Rachel Neumeier, and Gordon van Gelder. As you might have guessed, the discussion centered around a whole bunch of Fowler's works. There wasn't any real consensus on the "best" (nor did I expect one!) -- though a fair amount of people seemed to pick We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves as a favorite. Rachel Neumeier's approach was interesting, and, it seems to me, a good reaction to being placed on a panel for non-obvious reasons. For, she confessed, she had not previously read Fowler. (I don't actually know if Rachel requested this panel or just got stuck there.) So she read a whole bunch of Fowler's work in the past couple of months, which gave her a pretty fresh perspective.

I did introduce myself to Brian Attebery after the panel, and we discussed -- at this time and on a couple further occasions where we could talk at greater length -- a variety of things, including Brian's major current project, curating the Library of America editions of Ursula Le Guin's work.

Next was a reading by John Crowley, from his new novel Ka. The reading was certainly interesting, though really I'm just waiting to get the novel (which I already have). John went over time a bit, because he had assumed that he had an hour, but readings at this con were only 30 minutes. I introduced myself to John afterwards -- I've known him for a while on Facebook, but this was the first time we'd met in person. Crowley is absolutely one of my favorite writers, but I restrained myself from gushing (I assume writers get tired of that, as it doesn't seem to me to lead to actual conversation). Instead I mentioned my friend Will Waller, who was one of John's students, and Will's admission that John found his work frustrating. John laughed a bit ruefully, and agreed that he had found Will a bit frustrating as a student, but said that his more recent work has gotten a great deal better.

I skipped the David Mitchell reading at 1:00. Which leads to one of my real regrets -- this convention featured three of my absolute favorite writers: Crowley (as noted), Fowler, and David Mitchell. I had no problem introducing myself to Crowley and Fowler. But I never did speak to Mitchell. Partly, no doubt, that's because I have corresponded with both Crowley and Fowler, and bought stories from them for reprint. But partly I think that's because I know they are both embedded in our field -- in a sense, they are "one of us". That said, they straddle the genre lines quite the same as Mitchell does. (On reflection, that may be a reason I like all three!) Really, that's on me. I did hang around the dealer room by the Small Beer table on Sunday, as we were about to leave, because Mitchell was there. But he was in what looked like an absorbing conversation with Ted Chiang, and I felt like it would have been terribly rude to butt in.

There was one more panel, "History: Secret, Hidden, or Otherwise", featuring Fran Wilde, Ian Drury, J. L. Doty, John Crowley, and Mary Anne Mohanraj. I will confess I don't remember the panel well, but I did take the time to introduce myself to Fran Wilde, whom I had missed at Boskone earlier this year.

Mary Ann and I went to a nearby Mexican restaurant, the original Blanco, for lunch. It was OK, but didn't really strike me as special. I have two favorite Mexican restaurants in St. Louis -- when I want Americanized Mexican food, I like Chevy's, which advertises itself as Tex Mex. This was for a while the most popular Mexican chain in St. Louis, but they are down to perhaps two stores now. When I want more authentic Mexican food, I go to Pueblo Nuevo, which was opened by a couple from Guadalajara in 1982, shortly after I came to St. Louis. I first went there that year, I think, for lunch (it's fairly close to where I work). For many many years, a group of us went every Thursday for lunch, and we got to know the owners -- the husband has died, alas, but his son took over -- I remember him as a child, sitting at one of the tables and doing his schoolwork. That stopped a few years ago when the day job got too intense to take long lunch breaks, plus a couple of our regulars retired. And on another visit just recently, one of the regular waiters greeted me by wondering where I'd been -- it had been three or four years, and I had a beard I hadn't had back them. Which is just to say, sometimes places become like home.

Diversion over. Back at the hotel, after some time in the Dealers' room (I'll discuss the Dealers' room in a later post), we ran into John Joseph Adams, the chief editor at Lightspeed (where I am the reprint editor). John was meeting his sister Becky, a teacher now living in North Carolina, who was coming to her first World Fantasy. Becky's daughter lives in San Antonio, and she was providing a convenient base of operations for both of them. They were heading to dinner soon, and we went along with them. To another Mexican place, as it happens -- Acenar. Actually, it was just fine to go to another Mexican place -- Acenar had more of an upscale vibe, with some interesting takes on "Street Tacos", for example. (Reminds me a bit of a visit to Chicago several years ago, when Mary Ann and I met up with my brother Pat, who lives in the city. He took us to a fancy Mexican place, and when we blanched at the notion of paying $25 for an enchilada, he said that's fine, I made a couple of different reservations, and we left and went to the other place ... Acenar wasn't as expensive as that! (And John actually picked up the tab -- thanks again!)) And, I should say, the food was really nice. Probably stands as the best food we had in San Antonio. The conversation was good as well, with some family stuff -- comparing Becky's teaching experience with our daughter Melissa's, for example; and some discussion of things like John's publishing ventures include the Best American SF anthologies he does.

Back at the con, it was time for the signing session, which at World Fantasy is a mass event, with everyone lined up at tables in a big event space (that turned out to be beneath the hotel's parking garage, so a bit of a walk). I thought that really worked out nicely. I didn't realize that I could have grabbed a name "tent" and sat down myself -- I thought it was by invitation only. No matter -- I don't think I'm a particularly hot name for signatures, and I was glad to wander around meeting people. I got just one thing signed, a chapbook of "An Earthly Mother Sits and Sings" by John Crowley. I talked to quite a few folks, though, including James Alan Gardner (who finally has a new novel out); Darrell Schweitzer, whom I had not previously met; Alex Irvine; Bill Crider; Christopher Brown, whom I bumped into a few more times -- I have been familiar with his interesting fiction for a while, but I was intrigued to realize he's a lawyer who spent some time working with Congress (for example, as one of the "behind the scenes" guys at the hearings you see on CSPAN); Joe McDermott, whom I had met at Boskone, and who, as he's local, gave us a good recommendation for an ice cream place on the Riverwalk; Kij Johnson, whom I've known for a little while now (I had bought her novel The River Bank at the Small Beer Press table but was too clueless to remember to bring it to the signing session); and Steve Rasnic Tem.

After that was over, it was back to the bar, which meant quite a few more stimulating conversations. Keeping in mind that my memory will confuse which night a particular conversation took place -- I remember meeting Sarah Pinsker, and we had a really good talk about music, particularly as I recall Tom Petty, and how fortunate Mary Ann and I feel that we got to see him on his last tour. I had just read Sarah's very strong novelette "Wind Will Rove" in Asimov's, which is about music (and a generation ship!), and a sort of music I like a great deal (old-timey folk, basically). That conversation was with other people, and I'm being an idiot by not remembering who -- was it Scott Andrews? Or Derek Künsken? And somebody else too? I know I did spend some time talking to both Scott and Derek. (I finally remembered who else was in the conversation: Michael Damian Thomas.)

I also ran into Arin Komins, whom I had met (along with Richard Warren) at a previous Windycon. Arin and Rich were at that time winding up their bookselling business, so I was surprised to see them in the Dealers' room -- but they were helping out another Chicago bookseller, Dave Willoughby, from whom I have bought a number of books over the years. I did discuss with Richard the fact that his name is the same as that of my ancestor who came over on the Mayflower. With Arin we recalled our dinner at Windycon at an Indian restaurant, which everyone enjoyed except Mary Ann (she hates Indian food!)

I spent considerable time talking to F. Brett Cox too, whom I had known online back in the SFF.net days. We talked about Maine, and about Joy Division -- Brett had a Joy Division t-shirt on, and they are a band I have liked since my college years -- among numerous other subjects.

And I recall talking a bit to Peter Halasz as well, and reminding him to keep an eye out for a new novel next year from a new Canadian writer -- Todd McAulty. I really liked Todd's stories for Black Gate back in the day, and I got a chance to read an advance copy of his first novel, The Robots of Gotham, which is due from John Joseph Adams' imprint next June. (Check out advance notice about it here.)

More on next rock ...


Here are links to all five installments of this con report:

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Old Bestseller Review: That Girl From New York, by Allene Corliss

Old Bestseller Review: That Girl From New York, by Allene Corliss

a review by Rich Horton

This was not a major bestseller, but one of a number of novels -- at least 15 -- by a writer who seemed a fairly successful producer of reasonably sophisticated romance novels between about 1930 and the early '60s. Allene Corliss was born Senath Allene Soule in Vermont in 1899 (though some sources say 1898), and seems to have lived there her whole life. She married Bruce Corliss, a businessman originally from Kansas, and they had three children (her daughter Jane died as recently as 2016, still in Vermont). She published regularly in magazines such as the American Magazine and Women's Home Companion. Her 1936 novel Summer Lightning became a movie in 1938: I Met My Love Again, starring Joan Bennet and Henry Fonda. (Despite that star power, it does not seem to have been a success.) She died in 1979.

She is all but forgotten now, but I found a few contemporary reviews from Kirkus, and they were generally positive, if in a slightly condescending way: "Ardent, amatory amusement in the best manner", "A complex plot fairly well manoeuvred, with facile dialogue of the smart type. Allene Corliss is building a good rental library following, of the Faith Baldwin type of reader. This won't disappoint them.", "Allene Corliss has a facile style and a pleasant gift of story telling. She's not important, but she is a safe circulating library bet for women readers." Condescending those may be, but they are probably pretty much correct.

That Girl From New York was her second novel, after Marry for Love. It was published in 1932 by Farrar and Rinehart. My edition is the A. L. Burt reprint. I believe it was published in the UK under the title Eden. The novel opens in New York, as Jerry Evans meets Eden Lane at a slow party. Jerry is from Vermont, the son of a banker, and he is working at a bank in New York. Eden is in advertising. The two are quickly in love, Eden more desperately so, despite that she is the stronger character: extremely beautiful, more intelligent than Jerry, more honest and straightforward. This section comes off a bit flat -- there is little tension. Eden does have a friend, Jake, with whom she had been involved a few years previously. He's still in love with her, but he has married unhappily, and now his wife is dying. Eden had one previous indiscretion, with, coincidentally, a college roommate of Jerry's. All this, though is setup.

For, it turns out, Jerry's mother is a rather evil woman, and she has plans for Jerry. She is quite upset at his quick marriage to Eden -- she senses that Eden could remove Jerry from her influence. She wanted him to marry a local girl, Elizabeth, who is plain and a bit dull, and who is desperately in love with him. So she arranges for Jerry to be fired (her husband is dead and she controls the local bank, and so she has a relationship with Jerry's boss). Jerry and Eden have been spending a bit beyond their means (mostly Jerry's fault), and Jerry does not want to live on his wife's earnings. So they are forced to move to Vermont, and to Jerry's rather ugly childhood home.

Jerry takes a position at his mother's bank, but she doesn't pay him a salary, to prevent him moving out. She is coldly vile to Eden, objecting to her smoking, her makeup, and any attempts by her to decorate, even such things as putting flowers in the living room. Her plan, quite obviously, is to drive Eden to leave him -- he can't initiate a divorce, because his mother wants him to become Senator eventually. Eden begins to decline, and then becomes pregnant, but loses the baby after a particularly bad fight. Jerry, a very weak man, cannot see how badly his mother is behaving. And he begins to see Elizabeth innocently, while Eden associates with some of the more intelligent and independent local wives. All comes to a head, though, when Jerry's old roommate visits, and they go out drinking (to Canada, as this is during Prohibition), and it comes out that Eden and he had, er, misbehaved some years previously. Jerry is hypocritically furious, and before long the marriage seems over, and Eden returns to New York.

Meanwhile, Jake's wife has died, and so in New York he and Eden begin to see each other, but he is noble enough to realize that she will never love him, so he takes no steps to get truly closer to her. Meanwhile, Elizabeth and Jerry are seeing each other -- but, again, good girl Elizabeth, after a close call, realizes as well that much as she would love to be with Jerry, that would be wrong. But Eden and Jerry are both convinced the other wants a divorce, so ...

Well, of course you know how this will end. The novel is indeed, as Kirkus says, "not important". And its flaws are many. For one thing, the Depression is barely acknowledged. You would think that might have impacted the banking business. For another, Jerry is so weak compared to Eden that their romance doesn't always really convince -- though Corliss is well aware of this, and papers it over fairly well. (Though, really, the two differently strong women leads -- Eden, and Jerry's mother -- are less convincing characters -- Mrs. Evans is a bit cartoonishly evil, and Eden in some ways too perfect -- than Jerry and some of the other lesser characters.) The opening chapters, as I suggested, drag somewhat, but the novel does find some momentum. Some of the descriptions of Vermont society are pretty convincing, and the characters of Eden's friends among the wives are pretty well depicted. The ending is just a tad contrived. This novel indeed is what it is, and while I have no particular reason to seek out more novels by Allene Corliss, nor to think she needs revival, I enjoyed it enough on its own terms, and she surely deserved the apparent modest success she enjoyed.

World Fantasy Convention, 2017, Part II: Day 1

World Fantasy Convention, 2017, Part II: Day 1

The convention didn't really start until the afternoon on Thursday. Thus we had the morning free. One thing we like to do when traveling is find local breakfast places. You can usually find a good breakfast at hole in the wall joints most anywhere. We settle on Pancake Joe's, a ways northwest of downtown, in a typical looking residential neighborhood, near Thomas Jefferson High School. It was quite satisfactory.

Next on the agenda was antique malls. We found one not too far from Pancake Joe's, Ironside Antique Mall. It was an odd sort of place -- it seemed that many of the booths were operated independently from the mall itself, and several of them were closed. In the end, not terribly satisfying. The other one was downtown, Alamo Antique Mall, only a couple of blocks from the Alamo. This was convenient, because a visit to the Alamo was another objective. We were able to park in front of the Mall, and we went through it -- a fine three story antique mall, fairly typical, worth visiting. We decided to walk to the Alamo  from there, reasoning (correctly) that parking would be dicier close to it. We walked through the Alamo -- which was a bit smaller than in my mind. We watched the short film they have on the history of the place, done in collaboration with the History Channel, and done fairly well (though they did kind of skate over the fact that a major motivation for the then-Texans to want independence from Mexico was that they owned slaves and Mexico might have outlawed that practice). The site itself is interesting too. We also of course visited the gift store and bought a couple of souvenirs.

Back to the hotel. We had picked up our registration materials that morning when I just wandered up to the area and found that they were happy to give me our folders. The first panel we attended was the Introducing Our Guests forum, at 2:00 PM. The guests were, I should mention, Toastmaster Martha Wells, writers Tananarive Due, Karen Joy Fowler, and David Mitchell, artist Gregory Manchess, and editor Gordon van Gelder. A pretty distinguished guest list, I thought. The intros included some discussion of what the Convention's theme meant: Secret Histories and Alternate Histories. The most noticeable theme, that kept popping up in panel after panel, was the sort of meta version of Secret History -- the history of people who have been either ignored or forgotten in the official historical accounts. Another subtheme is histories -- especially personal or family histories -- that our sort of suppressed, even by the people most involved (like the gay uncle, or the embarrassing family problems such as perhaps abusive behavior). These are important threads, and very much worth discussing, but I kind of felt that the more traditional "Secret History" got short shrift -- that is, stories that try to offer complete alternate (often bonkers, often conspiracy-oriented) explanations for acknowledged historical events.

Next up was a panel designed to directly "Engage our Theme": "Is Our History True?", with Jack Dann, Greg Bear, Joe Haldeman, and Karen Joy Fowler, which continued to some of the same central ideas, not surprisingly I suppose: What lies do well tell about our own family histories? And what do we suppress about our true national or world history? Not at all uninteresting, I suppose, and perhaps the best way to deal with the specific question raised.

Our final panel for the day was "Exceptional Characters in Horrible Times", in essence about how to create characters that are believable but still sympathetic, when they hold views that were essentially universal to their time but which we disapprove of now. The panelists were David Mitchell, David B. Coe, Christopher Brown, and Howard Waldrop. I will say that I personally think some (a lot) of the burden here is on the reader: if you can't sympathize with a character with some unpleasant views, you have a personal problem, I'd say -- and you should shudder to think what future people will think of some of your views. That said, there are some views that are really hard to stomach. Still, I recall for example stories about characters in the Aztec Empire who unhesitatingly supported human sacrifice, and writers of sufficient skill still made them sympathetic and indeed heroic. The panelists suggested things like giving the characters particular personal burdens so we'd sympathize anyway, which seems like a) a copout; and b) the sort of thing you do to your main characters anyway. But there was universal disdain for the all too common practice of giving one's historical character convenient 21st Century attitudes.

Three panels in a row is a lot, and we actually ducked out early on this one. And here's where I confess that I was wrong in my part I report -- we didn't eat at Waxy O'Connor's on Wednesday night. Instead we ate there Thursday night, with the unfortunate wrong turn on the Riverwalk I had mentioned.

On Wednesday we actually weren't that hungry -- the barbeque in Waco had been in the middle of the afternoon, so we just snacked -- and, of course, watched Game 7 of the World Series. San Antonio, of course, is not terribly far from Houston, so we can assume a lot of locals were quite thrilled with the Astros' victory, but in reality no such partisanship was obvious at the Con, of course because the guests came from everywhere. Mary Ann and I were both mostly agnostic, but slightly in favor of the Astros, perhaps mostly because they had never previously won a World Series. For my part, I'm a big fan of Jose Altuve, and also of Justin Verlander, so on those grounds alone I'd cheer for the Astros. (That said, I think Clayton Kershaw easily the greatest pitcher of our time, and I'd like to see him win a championship some time, though of course not at the expense of the Cardinals.)

I'm going to mention various people I met and talked to over the weekend, but I will admit up front that I'll probably totally mess up the chronology. I spent significant time in the bar (mostly that!), and  a couple of room parties, and the con suite, and the autograph session, each of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. And I met a whole lot of people, not to mention saw a lot of people I already know. I'm certain I'll forget to mention some folks.

So. I did spend some time at the bar Thursday night, as well as at the Con suite, and maybe in a room party or two -- things have gotten blurred. I spent some time talking to the very impressive Canadian writer Derek Künsken, whose work I have reprinted. He's just finished his first novel, and he told me it was soon to be serialized in Analog (and on coming home, the new issue of Analog announced the serialization in its forthcoming issue preview). Derek also mentioned a forthcoming trip to China, and, if I recall, his novel is also being published quite soon in China.

I also talked to another Canadian writer, Alexandra Renwick, who thanked me for reviewing one of her early stories in Locus. I was briefly puzzled, until she revealed that her early stories were published as by "Camille Alexa". I do remember those stories well, mostly in some of Eric Reynolds' fine anthologies for his Hadley Rille imprint. Alexandra is also married to an old online friend of mine, Claude Lalumiere. Alexandra has roots in Austin, in California, and in Canada, if I recall, and she and Claude live in Ottawa, very close to another brilliant young Canadian writer, Rich Larson. I got an invite to CanCon, and to their apparent mansion (grin) ... which I would be delighted to accept, but now it looks like my most likely convention in Canada next year will be Jo Walton's Scintillation, in Montreal next October.

I also talked to Gavin Grant, of Small Beer Press, on a variety of topics, most notably, to my memory, the closeness of my Dad's hometown of Hadley, MA, to Northampton, where Gavin (and Kelly Link) live. Gavin noted that Hadley happily hosts the big box stores such as Walmart that Northampton (and also Amherst) are too snooty to allow.

I ran into Ellen Datlow, whom I've known, it seems, forever, and we discussed among other things the Omni relaunch, which features a really impressive set of authors. I also met Jenn Reese for the first time, though we really had no chance to talk. Likewise Caroline Yoachim. I did get to talk to Daryl Gregory for a while -- we discussed his wonderful new novel Spoonbenders, and also my unfortunate failure to get to his signing of that book in St. Louis a few months ago. Liza Groen Trombi (Locus editor) was there as well. Jim Minz. Mary Anne Mohanraj. David Levine.

That's enough for now, I hope. Much more to come in future installments!

Here are links to all five installments of this con report:

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

World Fantasy Convention, 2017, Part I: Before the convention

World Fantasy Convention, 2017, Part I: Before the convention

This year I could not afford the trip to Helsinki for the World Science Fiction Convention, so I decided to go to World Fantasy instead. I've been told for years that World Fantasy is a lovely convention -- smaller, more literary in focus, more professional in tone. Many people say it's their favorite. And, indeed, I thought about going last year to Columbus, but two things intervened -- 1) I thought about it rather late and I think it was already full; but, anyway -- 2) my day job was incredibly busy at that time and I ended up spending much of the last quarter of 2016 traveling for business. (Why that is no longer an issue is a rather bitter story that I can't really address in a public forum.) All that said, I signed up me and Mary Ann for World Fantasy in San Antonio in plenty of time.

Things were simplified to an extent because my brother Paul lives just north of Dallas. It's a longish ride, but not undoable, from our house in St. Louis to Paul's house. We left on Halloween, with our daughter Melissa staying over with her dog to keep our dog company. We chose a slightly slower route, for a change from our usual Dallas trip -- this time we went through Arkansas, mostly US 67, then I-30 over to Dallas. This was pretty worthwhile, though it did, in the end, take about an hour extra. For one thing, Arkansas is basically prettier than Oklahoma -- at least, the parts we went through. For another thing, we spent some time on the "Rock and Roll Highway", which was supposed to be called the "Rockabilly Highway", except that the politicians didn't want the implied "hillbilly" association. That was in commemoration of some of the early rockabilly stars -- Arkansas native Johnny Cash being the most obvious -- who played in that area. Most interesting, actually, was Walnut Ridge, AR, where we found a sculpture inspired by the brief visit of the Beatles to the local airport -- on the way to a vacation in Missouri. A local sculptor created a version of the Abbey Road cover in steel, with lots of Easter eggs referring to Beatles songs.

Anyway, we did finally make our way to Dallas, and to Paul and Diane's house. They treated us to a nice dinner at a local upscale burger joint (name alas forgotten). We saw their son David as well, and his twin Christopher a couple of days later. Benjamin and Thomas are away at college (SMU and Georgia Tech respectively), so we missed them. Diane served us (as she does!) a spectacular breakfast the next day, and then we headed for San Antonio. On the way we stopped at Waco, to visit Magnolia at the Silos, the little shopping/food area that Chip and Joanna Gaines have. Mary Ann bought stuff. Then we drove through the campus of Baylor, just to say we saw it, and we found a place to eat, a barbeque place called Coach's XXX Smoke. We thought it no better than ordinary.

The rest of the drive was uneventful enough, though we did take the lesson that traffic through Austin is insufferable. (On the way back, with the help of the GPS, we took a loop around Austin and saved 10 or 15 minutes.) The convention was at the Wyndham Riverwalk Hotel, which is on the one had right on the San Antonio river, on the Riverwalk, but on the other hand on the unoccupied end of the Riverwalk -- all the restaurant action is a good hike away. We got parked and situated, up in our room. We couldn't find the closet. There was a door with a handle that wouldn't move. We figured it was a connecting door to the next room. Only later did somebody tell me that they had the same problem, until they yanked on the handle, and found that it opened to a typical hotel closet. Ah well.

A number of people were already at the Con, but it didn't officially start until Thursday. We decided to walk to the part of the Riverwalk where all the restaurants are. It looked like the quickest way was overland, and it probably is, but I mishandled the map of downtown we found and managed to get us rather lost. Eventually we corrected the wrong turn I'd made, but that turned a merely "good hike" into something of a trek, and we kind of settled for the first restaurant we encountered. This was Waxy O'Connor's, which, not surprisingly, turned out to be a standard issue touristy fake-"Irish Pub". I had the lamb stew, which was, at any rate, decent.

On getting back to the hotel, Mary Ann, feeling rather tired, opted for the room and some TV, and I went to the bar, and sat down at a table in the restaurant area, with Ellen Klages, Karen Joy Fowler, Walter Jon Williams, Peter Halasz, Jack Dann, Janeen Webb, and several other people that I feel foolish for not remembering offhand. They strongly recommended against having the ribs at the restaurant. This was only a continuation of a theme about Texas barbeque that I feel horribly misrepresents the state in that area.

To wit: the first time I ever had barbeque in Texas was when we were driving Melissa to her first post-college job in Phoenix. We drove a long way that day, eventually staying the night in Tucumcari, NM (which I thought was cool because it's mentioned in Lowell George's great song "Willin'"). We had had a late dinner in a small town in the Texas panhandle. (I honestly can't figure out which town -- Adrian? Boise? I just don't know.) It was a barbeque joint, looked liked it was in an old gas station. I remember the food being just fine, and that we had to wait for our waitress to finish singing karaoke before she served us. But, the next day, as we continued across New Mexico, Melissa got violently sick. We had to take her to the emergency room in a hospital in Grants, NM. Turns out it was appendicitis, and I'm sure it had nothing to do with the previous night's barbeque, but it's stuck with us. And since then, despite Texas' reputation, we have yet to have really good BBQ in that state!

Speaking of Tucumcari and "Willin'", I spent some time on our trip thinking about geographical songs to play that had to do with our itinerary. For example, "Choctaw Bingo", by James McMurtry (as he puts it, "about the crystal meth business of southern Oklahoma and northern Texas" (granting that we came through Arkansas on the way there, and that the song is originally by Ray Wylie Hubbard)); "Dallas", by the Flatlanders; "Cross the Brazos at Waco", by Billy Walker; and, of course, "Is Anybody Going to San Antone?", by Charlie Pride. (Fortuitously, the Texas Tornados' version of "Is Anybody Going to San Antone?" popped up on my Pandora station on the way down there.)

And, finally, a place not on our itinerary: Lake Charles, LA. "Lake Charles" is the title of a Lucinda Williams song, one of her most heartbreaking pieces. (She has a habit of writing songs about people close to her who died.) (The song does mention a town in Texas, Nagacdoches.) Anyway, the key lyric in that song goes: "Did an angel whisper in your ear/And hold you close and take away your fear/In those long last moments." I wanted to figure out who the song was about, so I used Google, and found an article by Margaret Moser, an Austin-based music writer. The person in the song is Clyde Woodward, once Lucinda's boyfriend and manager. The kicker is that Margaret Moser herself seems to have perhaps been the angel in the song (though she doesn't actually make that claim). I don't know why, but I just found that really moving. Listening to the song can do that, though.


Here are links to all five installments of this con report:

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

A Lesser-known Novel by a Great Writer: The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, by Evelyn Waugh

A Lesser-known Novel by a Great Writer: The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, by Evelyn Waugh

a review by Rich Horton

As I have mentioned before, I sometimes dip a toe into the work of a major writer, trying something shorter than their most significant works. And here I am again, with Evelyn Waugh. The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold is quite short, something shy of 50,000 words. I have read one other Waugh "novel", and it is even shorter: The Loved One.

Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) came from a literary family -- his father Arthur was a critic and biographer, his brother Alec was a writer, and his son Auberon wrote five novels himself, though he was best known for his journalism. Evelyn was one of a cluster of major English novelists born around the same time -- Anthony Powell and Henry Green are two others. Evelyn Waugh was educated at Lancing College and at Oxford, though he failed to take a degree. After a couple of false starts at other careers, Waugh published a book on Dante Gabriel Rossetti and then his first novel, Decline and Fall. This novel and the rest of his early work (Vile Bodies, Black Mischief, A Handful of Dust, Scoop) was fiercely satirical; but beginning with his 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited, and especially in his later Sword of Honour trilogy his novels turned more traditional, less comic.

Anong his work, then, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold is a bit of an outlier, a lightish short novel, somewhat comic but not satirical, published in 1957 in the midst of his writing of the Sword of Honour books. My edition seems perhaps the first, from Chapman and Hall.

The book, subtitle "A Conversation Piece", is explicitly based on a scary event in Waugh's life, in which he experienced a series of hallucinations. Gilbert Pinfold is a reasonably successful novelist, about 50, happily married and living in a secluded provincial village. The Pinfolds are Catholic, Gilbert having converted, much as Waugh did. Pinfold has trouble sleeping and takes a disconcerting variety of drugs to combat this condition. At loose ends on his latest novel, he decides to take a trip to Ceylon. (Many of these details are entirely consistent with Waugh's own life.)

The rest of the novel concerns the trip. First there are some mild misadventures on his way to boarding. Once on board things get very strange. Pinfold is convinced there is a church group holding services on board; or a band; or that he can hear some sort of radio communications from the officers of the ship. Some of this convinces him that a sailor has been murdered and thrown into the sea, Then he decides that the Captain and some of the others have determined that Pinfold himself is a spy. The radio or intercom is full of diatribes or jokes about him. A woman seems to come on to him ... and so on.

This is very odd, and sometimes quite funny. The prose is clear and elegant. Some of what happens is really quite scary, mainly because Pinfold's mental state is obviously thoroughly messed up. But, really, though I'm glad enough to have read the book, it seems in the end rather a trivial thing. Not to say there's anything wrong with that. But I do come away feeling that sooner or later I've got to read Decline and Fall or Vile Bodies or something to really engage with Evelyn Waugh.