Birthday Review: Galveston, by Sean Stewart

Birthday Review: Galveston, by Sean Stewart

a review by Rich Horton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A review by Rich Horton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brief Birthday Review: Inda, by Sherwood Smith

This very brief review was first written for a column I did for Fantasy Magazine long ago. I'm reposting it in honor of Sherwood Smith's birthday.

Inda, by Sherwood Smith (DAW, 0-7564-0264-6, $25.95, 568pp, hc) August 2006.

A review by Rich Horton

Sherwood Smith has written a wide variety of books but for my taste her best is Crown Duel, a YA book originally published as two novels. That was set in a fantasy world she has been working on since childhood, and in which she has set many other stories. Her new novel, the beginning of a series, is Inda, which it turns out is something of a distant prequel to Crown Duel (though no knowledge of the other book is required).

Inda is not marketed as YA, and it does feature some not very explicit sex, but its main characters are all teens or younger, and if you ask me it’s appropriate for teen readers -- and also very enjoyable for adults. The title boy is one of several viewpoint characters. He is an aristocrat, the sister of the King’s heir’s intended wife (marriages in this world seem generally arranged from young childhood, and the girl grows up in her intended’s household).  He is brought to the capitol for war training at 10, where he befriends the King’s second son, called Sponge. Sponge, an intellectual boy, is despised by his mentally handicapped elder brother, the heir, and by his scheming Uncle, the Sirandael or "Shield Arm" of the King. But Inda, preternaturally talented at command, befriends Sponge and begins to build a cadre of boys loyal to him, which threatens the plans of the Sirandael. So Inda is framed for a crime and exiled to the sea, while Sponge must make his way alone. Meanwhile the Sirandael embroils his country in an ill-advised occupation of a neighbor, and continues to scheme against Sponge and against other people such as Inda’s also-talented older brother, whose position is further complicated because of the lust the King’s heir feels for his beautiful intended wife.

The novel perhaps starts a bit slowly, but it is in the end supremely readable, full of strong action: wargames, land war, and pirate actions at sea; as well as courtly intrigue, a mild amount of interesting magic, and some well-presented sexual tension. I enjoyed it immensely, and I eagerly await the sequel, due in 2007.

Birthday Review: Fred Chappell's More Shapes Than One

More Shapes Than One, by Fred Chappell (St. Martin's Press, 1991)

A review by Rich Horton

Fred Chappell was born May 28, 1936, in Canton, North Carolina. He attended Duke University, and spent 40 years as a Professor at UNC Greensboro. So we get it -- he was a North Carolinian! He has received considerable and well-deserved notice for his mainstream fiction set in the South -- he can be called a Southern Gothic writer. But he has also written a good deal of Fantasy and fantastical poetry, often published in genre sources such as Weird Tales and F&SF. In honor of his 82nd birthday I'm reposting this brief review, first posted at SFF.net in 2004.

More Shapes Than One is a 1991 collection of short fiction. Chappell, as noted, had considerable apparent interest in the SF genre, particular the horror side of things (with Lovecraft, I would surmise, a special interest). This interest is amply displayed in this collection. For one thing, three of the stories appeared in genre outlets, two in Best of the Year collections (the DAW Best Horror in one case, and Datlow and Windling's Best Fantasy and Horror in the other) and one more in Weird Tales. All but a couple of the stories are at least to some extent fantastical, and a couple stories directly concern horror/fantasy writers. I liked the book a great deal.

The first couple of stories reminded me of Byatt's The Biographer's Tale, which I recently read [as of the first publication of this review in 2004], in their subject matter: "Linnaeus Forgets" is of course about Linnaeus, and "Ladies of Lapland" about an exhibition to Lapland. Both are fun stories with a certain density of obscure historical facts (as I assume): the first about Linnaeus receiving a very strange plant from a sailor; the second about a French geographer travelling to Lapland and seducing a number of Lapp women.

"The Snow That is Nothing in the Triangle" is a curious story about the mathematician Feuerbach -- it didn't no much for me. "Barcarole" is about the composer Offenbach encountering a dying musician with a resemblance to himself, and about a long-loved tune of Offenbach's youth. A nice story. "Weird Tales" is about H. P. Lovecraft, Hart Crane, and a strange associate of both, Samuel Loveman, who discovers a means of visiting Antarctica in other times -- as when the Elder Gods ruled ...

One of my favorite stories is new to the book, "The Somewhere Doors". This concerns a barely successful pulp writer in the late 30s and 40s, who encounters a strange woman with a very unusual message for him. This eventually gets him in trouble when the government decides the woman is a Communist -- but she may have given him an out in the form of the title doors. My other favorite story is "Duet", pretty much pure mainstream (possibly the only non-fantastical story in the book), about an old-time musician reacting to the death of his friend and fellow musician.

"The Adder" is a clever story about a copy of the Necromonicon in the original Arabic, and its baleful effects on neighboring books. "Ember" is straightforward horror about a man who murders his girlfriend and tries to escape, with predictable (to the reader) results. "Miss Prue" is a very short story about an elderly woman and her relationship with her long time suitor. "Mankind Journeys Through Forests of Symbols" is a very fun story in which unwritten Symbolist poems can take tangible form, and one blocks traffic in rural North Carolina. "Alma" is pretty solid SF about gender roles -- set in a world where men and women are treated as basically separate species, with women quite literally enslaved and sold by some of the men. And "After Revelation" is apparently set in the future, after a couple of holocausts, in a world where science is proscribed -- then the "Owners" come, offering complete knowledge and happiness.

This is a very fine collection of stories, I think.

Old Bestseller Review: The Chauffeur and the Chaperon, by C. N. and A. M. Williamson

Old Bestseller Review: The Chauffeur and the Chaperon, by C. N. and A. M. Williamson

a review by Rich Horton

Back at last to the original purpose of this blog -- Bestsellers from the first half of the 20th Century. C. N. and A. M. Williamson were a husband and wife team (Charles Norris and Alice Muriel) who had two books appear on the Publishers' Weekly list of bestselling novels of the year, The Princess Passes in 1905 and Lord Loveland Discovers America in 1910. They published most of the their novels first as serials, and, as Richard Rex, in his biography of Alice M. Williamson, suggests, book sales aren't the only measure of popularity. Rex's book quotes the Leeds Times: "who is the most popular serial writer? ... a few voted for Hall Caine, Ian Maclaren had also a fair share of support, but the verdict of the majority was given to Mrs. Williamson." And, indeed, the Williamsons wrote not just for magazines like Smith's, or the Grand, or the Delineator, or the Strand, but also for weeklies like Lloyd's, and daily newspapers like the Daily Mail.

The Williamsons were an interesting couple for other reasons. Both were journalists. C. N. was an editor, of a magazine called Black and White. A. M. sold a piece to C. N. soon after she came to England. Which hints at another interesting feature of their association -- Alice was an American. She came to England in 1892. After they became professional comrades, they married, around the turn of the century. And much of their married life was spent travelling, and as journalists, they wrote about their travels. According to Alice's memoirs, their first collaborative novel came about after the magazine they had contracted with for a travelogue of one of their trips folded, and they decided to wrap a story about their travel account and sell it as a novel.

Their dates were 1869-1933 for Alice, and 1859-1920 for Charles. Alice published some short stories in the United States before moving to England, and continued to publish fiction after Charles' death. She was once quoted as saying "Charlie Williamson could go anything except write stories, and I could do nothing but write stories." This suggested a question as to who was the real writer of their collaborative works? It's notable that several of their stories (the novel at hand included) featured both American and British main characters, and indeed sections written from those different points of view are features of several of these novels. It was assumed aty the time that Charlie wrote the sections from the POV of men and/or English people, and Alice the sections from the POV of women and/or Americans.

Richard Rex, however, comes to a different conclusion, that I find convincing. He believes that Alice was the actual writer of all their collaborative fiction. Charles probably contributed stuch stuff as notes about their travel itinerary (critical to their rather travelogish books), and he may also have taken a key role in the business side of writing. One thing Rex discovered was a couple of stories first published as by Alice Livingstone in the US, and later republished under different titles as by C. N. and A. M. Williamson in the UK. Clearly those were Alice's work alone.

The story gets more interesting however, in Rex's accounting, when he digs into Alice's history in the US. Apparently her actual maiden name was Kent, and she married, very young (about 16) a man named Hamilton. Her marriage was not a success, and she became an actress, first as Alice King Hamilton. After a divorce, she changed her name to Alice Livingstone (presumably adopting her maternal grandfather's surname), and over time all mention of her earlier career was elided from her accounts of her life. She represented herself in her autobiography as 17 years old when she came to England in 1892 (in fact she was 23), and apparently Charles never knew of her previous marriage.

All fascinating stuff -- and I recommend Richard Rex's book, Alice Muriel Williamson: The Secret History of an American-English Author, to anyone interested in more details. In the end, it seems that Alice made a very satisfying life for herself, and that Charlie Williamson was happy as well. I can't blame her if she told a few fibs along the way.

So what of this novel? My edition was published by the McClure Company in 1908. A short story called "The Chauffeur and the Chaperon" was published in the Delineator for October 1906, while a serial called "The Botor Chaperon" appeared in The Grand Magazine (the first true British pulp) between August 1906 and January 1907. (It's not at all certain that "The Botor Chaperon" and The Chauffer and the Chaperon are the same story, but it seems plausible.) The Chauffeur and the Chaperon is copyright 1906/1907.

(Cover by Arthur H. Buckland)

My edition is illustrated by Karl Anderson, and the cover illustration is by Arthur H. Buckland.

As for the story -- two girls, stepsisters living in England, come into a small legacy. The girls' parents were an American woman and a British man, who remarried after their first spouses died. Then they died themselves. The two young women live together, making do with income from the American's serial writing, and the Englishwoman's typing. The American girl is Helen (Nell) van Buren, and the Englishwoman if Phyllis Rivers. Their inheritance is a couple hundred pounds and a boat in Holland. Nell insists that the claim the boat and make a tour of Holland.

(Interior illustrations by Karl Anderson)

When they get there they find the boat has already been let to an American painter, Ronald Lester Starr. A compromise is reached -- Ronald will hire a chauffeur, and ask his Scottish aunt, Lady MacNairne, to act as chaperon, and they will tour Holland together. Unfortunately, Lady MacNairne is hard to find, and Ronald engages an impostor. Nell van Buren's Dutch cousins learn of her existence, and sparks fly immediately between Robert van Buren and Phyllis.-- but Robert is all but engaged, to a rather unattractive and unpleasant woman, Freule Menela. The chauffeur Ronald engages is one Rudolph Brederode, a wealthy and very privileged Dutch Jonkheer, who has fallen head over heels for Nell. Meanwhile, Ronald is sure he is in love with one of the girls, though whether he prefers Phyllis or Nell seems uncertain. And Nell has unaccountably taken a dislike to Jonkheer Rudolph.

The novel continues, following their journey through the canals of Holland. We see any number of cute Netherlands cities -- this really is, to a great extent, a travelogue, and reasonably enjoyable on those terms. There is in addition the romance plot -- Robert van Buren is in love with Phyllis, and Jonkheer Rudolph Brederode is in love with Nell. And Ronald Lester Starr loves both girls. But who do the girls prefer? And what of Robert's intended, Freule Menela? And for that matter, what of the mysterious faux Lady MacNairne?

It's actually quite a fun book. The writing is downright sprightly -- Alice Williamson (assuming it was she) was a very accomplished popular writer. The resolution of the romance is obvious from the word go, but it's nice enough anyway. The travelogue aspects are interesting enough as well. This is really pretty good popular fiction of its time.

A Forgotten Ace Double: Endless Shadow, by John Brunner/The Arsenal of Miracles, by Gardner F. Fox

Ace Double Reviews, 86: Endless Shadow, by John Brunner/The Arsenal of Miracles, by Gardner F. Fox (#F-299, 1964, 40 cents)

May 20, 1911, was the birthday of Gardner F. Fox, hence this reposted Ace Double review.

Here I continue my exploration of the minor works of John Brunner via Ace Double. Which is a good way to do it, I think -- Brunner wrote a lot of short novels, many of them published as Ace Doubles, and they tend to be entertaining but fairly obviously dashed off quickly.

(Arsenal of Miracles cover by Ed Valigursky)

So, this Ace Double includes Endless Shadow, a very short (about 31,500 words) novel from Brunner. The other side is a novel by Gardner F. Fox. Fox (1911-1986) is a fairly legendary figure in the history of comics. He was a lawyer who turned to writing fairly early, and by 1939 was already writing comics, inventing the character the Sandman. He worked mainly for DC, it seems. He was one of the earliest writers of Batman stories, and he created the Flash. All that is very well, but what about Fox the prose writer? Fox wrote a fair amount for pulps in many genres, but he was an avowed fan of SF (beginning with Burroughs). My previous experience with him was a story or two for Planet Stories. I thought them truly awful, among the worst stuff I read in Planet. The Arsenal of Miracles is the only Ace Double I know of by him, though he did do some pseudonymous work, so perhaps he wrote others under different names. It's about 52,000 words long.

Endless Shadow isn't one of the better John Brunner Ace Doubles I've read, but it is better than the last one, "Keith Woodcott"'s The Psionic Menace. This novel uses an idea most familiar to me from John Barnes's Thousand Cultures series: a number of planets have been colonized using STL methods (or perhaps slowish FTL methods) and have progressed in isolation over the centuries, but teleportation technology has been developed (called here the Bridge System) and slowly authorities on Earth are establishing instantaneous links to the various colonies. I'm sure I've seen this idea explored elsewhere than in Brunner or Barnes, but I can't offhand call up examples. Anyone have any ideas? I suppose in a weird way C. J. Cherryh's early novels beginning with Gate of Ivrel resemble this idea. (On the other hand, the notion of STL colonies being united by later-developed FTL spaceships is fairly common.)

The problem of course is that some of the colonies have developed some pretty weird, potentially rather vile, cultures. The immediate problem faced by Bridge System Director Jorgen Thorkild is Riger's World, which has engendered a cult of snakehandlers which threatens to spread to Earth. But that problem can be solved ... Thorkild's more serious issues are personal. He is obsessed with gaining the favors of his previous boss's mistress, Alida Marquis. But Alida has no interest in him, even though her lover, and Jorgen's boss, is out of the picture, having committed suicide.

It turns out Jorgen's real problems are internal -- he, like his predecessor, is losing his sanity. This particular issue is brought to a head when a new planet named Azrael is contacted. The chief religion on Azrael is rather nihilistic -- death is prized as the ultimate experience, and it is best achieved by murdering another person, which act is punishable by death. The "programer" (Brunner's spelling of "programmer" -- I confess I had to pronounce it pro-Gray-mer) in charge of figuring out Azrael culture is himself murdered. A brilliant young programer, Hans Demetrios, is assigned to Azrael.

Azrael's representative comes to Earth and quickly rejects Earth's offer of a link to the Bridge System. This act somehow drives Thorkild over the edge to insanity. Meanwhile Alida Marquis has fallen in love with Hans Demetrios, who has gone to Azrael to take a desperate risk which should bring Azrael into line -- perhaps at the cost of his own sanity. And Thorkild, in the asylum, meets a naked young woman with her own problems. Somehow her nakedness signals that Thorkild must fall for her ... but her dilemma -- how to find meaning in the overly abundant culture of Earth -- gives him the keys to his own similar problems.

It all never really makes sense. Brunner is clearly trying to write a philosophically engaging novel -- at times it reads a little bit like Ayn Rand -- but the ideas at the center don't ever convince. Perhaps the book is simply too short -- it is certainly at the beginning very confusing, and perhaps a chapter or two of backstory would have helped. It is for an Ace Double oddly free of real action -- it truly does turn on the philosophical issues, not on action or derring do or even, really, politics. I didn't dislike it, but neither did I really like it.

It sometimes seems like Don Wollheim chose the novels paired in Ace Doubles because he could find links between them. The Arsenal of Miracles isn't very much like Endless Shadow, but it does have one slight link: it turns to an extent on the discovery of "gates" between worlds otherwise only linked by much slower (though in this case still FTL) spaceships. In this case the gates are a legacy of a long vanished race. The novel opens with Bran Magannon, the "Wanderer", losing a dice throw to a mysterious woman on the planet Makkador. His penalty: she owns his service. She is, naturally, his long lost lover, Peganna of the Silver Hair. Peganna is the Queen of a humanoid race, the Lyanirn, that had opposed humanity years before. Bran was the commander of the human forces, and he figured out how to beat them, and then worked on a deal to let the two races co-exist -- while he fell in love with Peganna. But a jealous subordinate purposely undermined the deal, and the Lyanirn fled to an isolated planet, while Bran, relegated to a humiliating desk job, resigned and began "wandering". His secret was the gate system he found, left by the long-vanished Crenn Lir.

I enjoyed the opening -- it seemed to set up a potentially quite enjoyable, if very pulpy, story. But things aren't resolve very well at all. Bran and Peganna, reunited, travel through the gates and soon stumble on the key to a treasure trove of Crenn Lir technology. But the bad guys -- Peganna's brother, who wants to be King, and the evil man who succeeded Bran as head of Earth's space forces -- conspire to capture the two, and to control the Crenn Lir tech themselves, relegating the Lyanirn (who it appears are just like humans -- both descendants of the Crenn Lir). Everything comes to a head with a trial, at which the two are condemned to death. Until a miracle happens. In other words, a totally implausible ending saves the day. It just doesn't work.