Sherman continues marching through the Georgia of my bookshelves, throwing the rear area of my mind into considerable disarray. In the process, I’ve chosen to get rid of some more books:

Stephen R. Donaldson: Donaldson is the author of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, an epic fantasy that people I knew either loved or hated. The main character is, literally, a leper; and near the first book he commits a brutal rape. There are reasons—not excuses or justifications, mind you—and that’s where most of the ladies dropped the book. There were good things in it, though, past that. The second book was spotty, but the third was really amazingly good. I liked them all well enough that I got the complete set in hardcover.

The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant followed some time later, and they were….a disappointment. Donaldson cashed in all of the checks he’d written in the first trilogy, describing all of the strange and far off places and peoples he’d hinted at, and frankly the detail was a lot less interesting than the hints. I bought the books in hardcover, expecting to love them, but I don’t think I’ve read the last book of the three more than twice. In fact, I don’t think I finished it the second time. I can’t imagine attempting them again.

After that, or possibly between the First and Second Chronicles, Donaldson wrote Mordant’s Need, a pair of massive novels that I also bought in hardcover. The first of the two is very slow; the second picks up quite a bit, as all of the things set up in the first begin to pay off. Alas, I can’t imagine re-reading the second without re-reading the first to remind myself what all was going on; and I can’t imagine re-reading the first at this late date.

Donaldson’s next series began with a short novel (short! wow!) called The Real Story: The Gap into Conflict, which I bought eagerly in hardcover, and was so repelled by that I got rid of it almost immediately. All I remember is two people on a spaceship, with one of them doing unspeakable things to the other. (Gladly, I no longer remember what those things were.)

After that, I was pretty much through with Donaldson; but the books have been sitting on my shelves unread for probably twenty years. Enough’s enough. I might keep the original Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but I can’t imagine reading any of the others.

Robert B. Parker: The Spenser novels, of course. I’ve read most of these two or three times, but I’ve not touched them in ages. Parker’s got a real talent, but the books are spotty, and I’m simply done with them.

Michael Moorcock: Moorcock was another favorite of my high school and college years. I’ve always enjoyed the sense that a book I’m reading is part of something bigger, that there’s secret knowledge out there just waiting for me to find the book that contains it, that there’s a fabulous world out there to discover. Moorcock has an amazing knack for fostering this: every one of his books is filled with obscure little references to the other books. Certain odd characters recur, sometimes with slight name changes, from book to book—or seem to recur, as their personalities often differ greatly. Names or plot elements from other books are briefly mentioned here and there. Certain themes are constant.

And yet, eventually I discovered that the apparent unity of Moorcock’s books, the greater world into which they all fit, was really so much smoke and mirrors. The unity was all surface; and more than that, the whole thing was drenched with a cynicism about people and about the whole genre of heroic fantasy that poisoned my enjoyment.

So, around twenty years ago I got rid of my entire collection of Moorcock’s books. And then, around ten years ago his books started coming out in omnibus editions. There were a fair number I hadn’t read, and some that I’d like better than most, and I was curious to see whether my opinion had changed. My thoughts were mixed. Some were better than I’d remembered; some were worse; but in general, no. They’ve been sitting on the shelf waiting to go for a long time.

I’ve since learned that he dislikes Tolkien. Figures.

For what it’s worth, though, I still love Frazetta’s cover for The Silver Warriors.

That’s three more grocery bags full….

For some reason, when getting rid of books I like to mark the occasion. Perhaps because it is like a funeral: even if the departed was a stinker, one still feels the need to say a few words. (Beyond “Good Riddance!”, that is.)

Not all of the books are stinkers, of course. Some are books I simply don’t have room for, or current interest in; some are books are that are good in their own way, but are competing with books that are better; and some simply don’t measure up. One or two were a little two ambitious; and many of this particular set date from a year or so ago when I was buying books about Catholicism in mass quantities. In the course of things, not all of them were keepers.

So here we go.

Girl meets God, by Lauren F. Winner. An interesting book, about a young woman’s journey through Orthodox Judaism to Christianity. I’m not sorry I read it, but I don’t feel the need to hang onto it.

The Players of Null-A, by A.E. Van Vogt. I picked this up at a used bookstore, in order to rectify a hole in my knowledge of the science fiction classics…and then discovered that it was the second Null-A book. I got the first for my Kindle for something like 99 cents; and decided that I rather get the second as an e-book as well. I can re-read it any time I want to, should I ever want to, without it taking up shelf space.

Writing Jane Austen, by Elizabeth Aston. This was a review copy, and I’ve reviewed it, and it was fun.

God’s Battalions, by Rodney Stark. This is a rather contrarian view of the Crusades, in that it doesn’t view the Crusaders as horrible, evil people bringing the scourge of imperialism down on the peaceful Muslims. I rather agree, and I think it’s a view that should be broadcast more widely. But medieval history is not Stark’s field, and I gather from what I’ve read elsewhere that many of his details are, hmmm, controversial, and not in a good way. I think his basic thesis is right, and he makes many good observations, but I’d rather have a book that’s more solid.

The Victory of Reason, by Rodney Stark. I got this one a couple of years ago, but was never able to get more than a chapter or so into it. I don’t think I’ll get back to it.

The Founding of Christendom, Vol. 1 by Warren H. Carroll. This is a fascinating, quite readable history of Christendom from the beginning of the world up through Emperor Constantine. Whereas most historians strive to be “objective”, Carroll writes from an explicitly partisan and Catholic point of view. The resulting is interesting, but I worry that he might have gone too far. I don’t need him to be “objective”, but I’d like him to be objective, and I fear he isn’t. ’nuff said.

Anglicanism, by More and Cross. This is a classic text on classic Anglicanism that I picked up while I was viewing the Tiber with alarm. No need for it, any more.

C.S. Lewis and the Catholic Church, by Joseph Pearce. This text asks the burning question: given that Lewis was a fairly extreme Anglo-Catholic, why didn’t he go all the way? It was interesting read, but I think there’s a certain amount of wishful thinking going on. Whether or no, Lewis didn’t; and speculations on it, though interesting, aren’t timeless.

Saint of the Day, Vol. 1, edited by Leonard Foley, OFM.
Franciscan Saint of the Day, by Patrick McCloskey, OFM. I’ve nothing against these books, which I picked up for a buck each at a used book store, except that I think I’m not likely to read them. The entries are much briefer than I can easily find on-line, and I’m unlikely to read it as a daily devotional.

The Catholic Source Book, by Rev. Peter Klein. Catholicism for Dummies, by Trigilio and Brighenti. Two fine books, both of which were recommended for folks going through RCIA; but I’ve moved beyond that point.

The Rosary Handbook, by Mitch Finley. I’m all for the Rosary, but I found Finley’s book uninspiring. It was long enough ago that I can’t even remember the details.

Simply Christian, by N.T. Wright. Tom Wright is a brilliant scholar, and orthodox by classic Anglican standards; but he’s not Roman Catholic, and unlike Lewis’ Mere Christianity, Simply Christian takes a little too strong a line to be “simply” Christian.

Benedict XVI: An Intimate Portrait, by Peter Seewald. I’m a big fan of Seewald’s two book-length interviews with Pope Benedict, and I’m hanging on to both of them. This book, on the other hand, is fairly dispensable. It has a fair amount of information about the Pope’s life, but most of that appears to have been drawn from the Pope’s own minimal autobiography, which I have (and which is much smaller). It’s of interest primarily for Seewald’s discussion of his own conversion to Catholicism (which occurred as a result of his interviews with then Cardinal Ratzinger) and for his narration of the papal elections. Alas, I need the shelf space.

Theology of the Body for Beginners, by Christopher West. All the cool kids were talking about John Paul II’s Theology of the Body a couple of years ago, and so I picked this up to see what I could learn. I still don’t know; the book defeated me, and after two tries I gave up. It isn’t that it’s a difficult book; it simply didn’t hold my interest.

Holy Sex! A Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving, by Gregory K. Popcak, PH.D. Honestly, I don’t know whether this is a good book or not. I picked it up about the same time as Theology of the Body for Beginners, intending to read it after, and there was never an after. Now I’m kind of embarrassed just looking at the subtitle.

De-coding Mary Magdalene, by Amy Welborn. This is one of the many Da Vinci Code debunking books that came out a couple of years ago. Welborn’s a good writer, and quite a sensible person, and I enjoyed the book well enough, but I don’t need to hang onto it.

Praying with Benedict, by Katherine Howard. I was investigating Benedictine spirituality a couple of years ago, and so I picked this up, mostly because it was there. I found it (and a couple of other books in the same series) to be shallow and uninspiring. Your mileage may vary.

The Compact History of the Catholic Church, by Alan Schreck. A little too compact.

Theo-Logic, Vol. I, by Hans Urs von Balthasar. Ignatius Press had a sale, and I got carried away. I simply do not have the background to make sense of this book; and if I ever do, and want to read it, I’m sure I’ll be able to find a copy.

Elementary Training for Musicians, by Paul Hindemith. Moving right along…

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning Latin, by Natalie Harwood. I spent a few hours with this book some years ago. Being a Compleat Idiot, I moved up to Rosetta Stone and Wheelock’s Latin last Christmas, neither of which I’ve stuck with. But if I should choose to get back to Latin, then practically speaking I’d get back to them, rather than this.

The Honourable Company: A History of the British East India Company, by John Keay. An interesting topic, but I never finished the book, and it’s enormous.

The Arms of Krupp, by William Manchester. A fascinating tale, which I made the mistake of trying to read on a flight from Los Angeles to Sydney. I’ve read it; and should I ever want to re-read it the library will have a copy.

Mac OS X for Unix Geeks, by Jepson and Rothman. A fine book, written in October 2002 for OS X 10.2. We’ve all passed a lot of water under the bridge since then, and the book is subject to signicant information decay.

What is History?, by Edward Hallett Carr. I bought this probably ten years ago, and in all that time I’ve never been moved to read more than the first couple of pages. It might be a fine book, but I think I won’t miss it.

The Conquest of the Incas, by John Hemming. I bought this many, many years ago, when I wanted to know a little something about the Conquest of the Incas. Unfortunately, this book contains over 600 pages about the Conquest of the Incas (in small print), which turned out to be more than I wanted to know.

Squeak: Object-Oriented Design with Multimedia Applications Squeak is a Smalltalk-80 programming environment. I bought this book about 10 years ago, as part of my continuing education as a programmer. It is now out-of-date, as Squeak has been continuously in development since then.

iMovie HD & iDVD 5: The Missing Manual, by David Pogue. This one’s only five years old; but it is still many versions out of date. Bye bye!

That’s all for tonight; there will be more as time goes on.

We are drowning in clutter at our house, and things being what they are much of that clutter takes the form of books. (Sigh!) Much though I’d like to have a huge library and keep (almost) all of the books I buy and have them properly catalogued, and all that, there simply isn’t room. The little table by my comfy chair is stack with books, most of which I’ve already read, that I have no room for. It’s time for a purge, and I’m afraid I’m going to need to be more ruthless than in the past. (Consternation! Uproar!)

While looking around my chair, I found three recent novels that I hadn’t reviewed, and I thought I should say a few words about them before disposing of them

Haze, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. I’m a long time fan of Modesitt; I like his fantasy novels especially, and have re-read many of them multiple times. One could call his work “ethical fantasy” or, in some cases, “ethical science fiction”, because he’s usually exploring different notions of morality, and how our notions of morality can lead us astray. For example, he often has his main characters doing truly awful things for what seem to them (and to the reader) good reasons…and yet, the awful things remain awful things.

Modesitt has a number of series going, but he also has a long-running “series” of unrelated standalone novels, all of which have a similar kind of feel. They are usually science fiction rather than fantasy, and the ethical component is usually stronger than usual. Haze is one of these, and frankly it’s lackluster.

A powerful, militaristic space empire sends out an agent to the planet Haze, where several agents have been lost. Haze is somehow immune to remote sensing, and the militarists just can’t stand not knowing what’s going on there. It’s like an itch they just have to scratch. The agent is immediately picked up by the locals, who insist on educating him in their own peculiar style—and on their ability to destroy any fleet sent against them. Naturally, they have such a capability; naturally, the militarists send a fleet for no particularly good reason; naturally our hero goes native, for no particular reason. There’s a whole lot of going through the motions, here, but not much in the way of substance, and we’ve seen all of the motions in past books. Oh, well.

Slow Train to Arcturus, by Eric Flint and Dave Freer. Flint and Freer specialize in science fiction mixed with low comedy, and this book is no exception. The science fiction aspect is nifty, and involves a new take on a hoary old trope, the generation ship. The problem with generation ships, if you’re wanting to bring human life to multiple star systems, is the time spent accelerating and decelerating. So what you do is make your ship like a string of beads, where each bead is a complete biosphere containing a population of future settlers. When the “train” gets to a star system, one bead is cut off and decelerates, while the rest of the train proceeds.

So much for the science fiction. The low comedy comes in because this particular “train” was used to get rid of wide variety of small but feisty fringe groups, all of whom are seen through the eyes of an alien whose ship discovers the “train”. He has to travel through five or six of the biospheres, gathering hangers-on as he goes to great comic effect.

That’s the idea, anyway; I was unmoved. I found the comedy not particularly funny; I thought the humor and the science were an uneasy mix; and in generally, I can’t see reading it again. Out it goes.

Thunderer, by Felix Gilman. This is the most interesting book of the three. It concerns a young man who travels to the City, a place unlike any I’ve previously read of. The City is enormous: it has so many districts that no one has been to all of them. It has no one ruler; different strong men control different areas. It is seemingly eternal; no one knows of a time when it wasn’t. It is strangely protean. Things change when no one is looking. It is infested by a wide variety of strange gods and demons. There are revolutionaries, whose goal to is map the entire city, and document everything about it in an encyclopedia. There are certain individuals who can some how move through the city, to different places and times, entirely at will, as though the City were some odd mix of Amber and Shadow.

So, an interesting book; an interesting setting; and probably some fodder for my False Religions series, if I cared enough to go back and reread it. But the plot was lacking; I’ve completely forgotten what the climax was about; and I think I will not mourn it when it is gone.

Stephen Hunt’s The Court of the Air is an odd and wildly baroque tale set in a vaguely victorian steampunk world, set so far in the future that there have been “phase changes” in the very laws of physics. Most of it takes place in the Kingdom of Jackals, Hunt’s pseudo-Britain, with excursions to the Steamman Free State and the underground ruins of the Chimecan empire. Jackals is defended by the airships of the Royal Aerial Navy, and rules the skies uncontested, as Jackals has the only known supply of “celgas”. The country of Quatershift, next door, has just had a “communityist revolution”, followed by a reign of terror in which the Enemies of the people are fed to the gruesome Gideon’s Collar.

The tale follows two orphans. Molly is a workhouse orphan with a knack for working with machinery and also for annoying her employers. The second, Oliver, passed through the Feymist Curtain in an aerostat crash as a baby and was found wondering nearby as a young boy, apparently unharmed—but even momentary exposure to the feymist can change a person forever, giving them strange and unheard of powers, as well as mental and physical deformities. Oliver is apparently normal, but is shunned by everyone but his uncle; and he is “registered with the county” and must report to a senior worldsinger each week to be tested for fey powers.

Meanwhile, Quatershift is preparing for an invasion; fifth columnists are at work; and deep below ground a man who calls himself Tzayloc is preparing a bloody sacrifice to recall the insectoid gods of the Chimecan empire, the evil and alien Wildcoatyl, banished these thousand years, to help build a world of perfect equality.

And that’s not the half of it. I haven’t mentioned the transaction engines, the steam-powered steammen, the craynarbians, Jackals’ peculiar method of ensuring that their kings will never raise arms against the people, or their quaint mode of parliamentary debate.

I’m not sure quite what to make of the book, honestly. Sometimes it appears that Hunt is reaching for satirical humor, but neither the writing nor the situations are particularly funny. Thrilling, often, exciting, occasionally violent, mysterious…but not funny. Most of the humor comes in the form of names of people and places that are almost but not quite the same as names from Victorian Britian. The “communityists” are also known as Carlists after Benjamin Carl, for example. There’s mention of a giant gun, used by the Quatershifts against Jackals, called “Long Tim”. I seem to recall a giant clock in the tower of the House of Guardians called “Large Tom”, or something like that. Oh, and there’s a gun shop owned by a Mrs. Loade and a Mr. Locke. Har har. Oh, and the evil Wildcoatyl are opposed by the ancient Hexmachina. (Say that out loud. Take the H off.) Satirical or not, it’s impossible to take it seriously.

On the other hand, the book kept me turning pages. There are two or three sequels, independent tales set in the same world; and given the scale of the events in this volume, I’m rather curious just how the others are connected. So I might have more to say about Mr. Hunt in the future.

A Matter of Magic, by Patricia C. Wrede, is an omnibus of two juvenile novels, Mairelon the Magician and The Magician’s Ward. Jane picked the two separate volumes up at the library recently, and Jane, James (my 11-year-old son), and I were all thoroughly charmed.

Both books are set in an alternate Regency England in which the Royal College of Wizards has its chambers in a fine building across the Thames from Westminster Abbey. (Yes, the same setting is used in Sorcery and Cecilia and The Misplaced Magician.)

In the first book, our hero, Kim, is a girl street-thief masquerading as a boy who is commissioned by a “toff” to break into the wagon of a street performer named Mairelon the Magician looking for a particular silver bowl. She’s caught, of course; Mairelon isn’t simply a performer, by a leading member of the Royal College undercover. He’s intrigued by Kim, and (much to the misgivings of his servant, Hunch) takes her on as his assistant. What develops from there is not so much a mystery as an utterly charming P.G. Wodehouse-style farce involving the silver bowl, four magic spheres, any number of silver platters, lordlings, criminals, good wizards, evil wizards, and surprises galore, at the end of which Mairelon adopts Kim as his ward and apprentice. (No surprises there.) I especially enjoy Kim’s speech; Wrede has Regency-era “thieve’s cant” down pat.

Turns out that Mairelon is rather a “toff” himself, and in the second book Kim has to begin to cope with that. After a year with Mairelon she’s now seventeen, and must begin thinking about “coming out” to society, with all of the balls, visiting, fine clothes, and so forth that that entails. She’s not at all keen on it, and Mairelon’s not inclined to press…until it is pointed out that as a wizard Kim is anyone’s equal, and must be seen as such. Coupled with this Eliza Doolittle story is really quite a fine mystery, a who-and-how dunnit that works not only as a mystery but also depends for its effect on the magical system of Wrede’s world. The farcical aspects are lacking, but the book is no less charming (or funny) for all that.

The books are juveniles, and not particularly “gritty”; however, Kim does live in London’s underbelly, and so there are references to prostitutes and the like as part of the background. Though I rather wish Wrede had left them out, the references are careful; kids who already know what she’s talking about it will know what’s she’s talking about, and kids who don’t won’t. These books were written in the 1990’s; how things have changed since I was young!

A note for those who find the standalone volumes rather than the omnibus: the editions we read, at any rate, have some of the most misleading cover illustrations and blurbs I’ve seen in a long time. The second is particularly bad; the illustration looks vaguely Wild West rather than Regency England. Don’t be put off; this is good stuff.

Lamentation is Ken Scholes’ first novel, and it’s a doozy. The setting is, at first glance somewhat familiar: it’s a post-post-apocalypse novel. Some centuries previous to the action, a technologically and magically advanced civilization collapses in a horrendous war, leading to the time of Laughing Madness. Since then, a new civilization has risen from the ashes of the old, a rise mediated and protected by the brothers of the Androfrancine Order. The new world has not yet risen to the level of the old, and the glories of the past remain refresh in men’s minds.

As such, the backstory is simply a fantasy retelling of the rise of Europe in the wake of the fall of Rome, with the Androfrancine Order playing the part of the Catholic Church: with one significant difference: the Androfrancine Order isn’t a religious order. In Scholes’ own words, the Androfrancines “worship the ‘light’ of human knowledge and accomplishment. Secular humanists and behaviorists start a religion among a small band of survivors to try and protect what’s left of humanity from itself and save what can be saved of its past.” I have doubts about how effective that would be, as I’ve written elsewhere, but it’s a nifty concept for a tale.

In most tales of this post-post-apocalyptic sort, the heroes must fight to prevent civilization from falling again. Ken Scholes has gone one further: the book begins with a fantastic catastrophe in which the entire city of Windwir is destroyed. Windwir is the home of the Order, and of its Great Library, the repository of all of the knowledge the Order has preserved through the centuries—including that which they judged too dangerous to make public. It is the home of most members of the Order, save those who are out on archaeological expeditions, seeking yet more lost knowledge of the ancients. It is the largest city in the land. It is as though, Rome, Athens, Alexandria, and all of the Benedictine monasteries with their libraries were snuffed out in one ghastly moment. Hence the book’s title: Lamentation.

Scholes’ book is not merely post-post-apocalyptic; it’s post-apocalyptic post-post-apocalyptic, which is a move I don’t believe I’ve seen before. It’s like the mystery novel With Malice Aforethought (if I remember the title correctly) that reveals whodunnit in the opening pages. Certainly, I’ve not seen it done with such gusto.

Unlike a typical apocalypse, the lands around Windwir are untouched. The catastrophe is not primarily physical; rather it is political and spiritual. The Order has been the center and organizing principle of the known world for centuries; and now that principle is gone.

On top of this, the civilization that the Order has fostered is fascinating in its own right. There are many different realms in the lands of the Order, each with its own ways, but all tied together by a system of laws and customs and honor called “kin-clave”. The ways of kin-clave are obscure but compelling; I’m curious to know if they are based on any actual culture.

And then there are the characters: Rudolfo the Gypsy-King, bred and shaped to rule, who leads a nomadic life on the Prairie Sea, travelling from one to another of his Nine-fold Houses; Petronus the fisher-man, once Pope of the Order and long thought dead; Jin Li Tam, fair daughter of Vlad Li Tam, steeped in intrigue and her father’s machinations; mad Sethbert, Overseer of of the Entrolusian City States; Neb, Orphan of P’Andro Whym and ward of the devastated Order; the Marsh King; and Vlad Li Tam himself, merchant and puppet-master. Oh, and a talking metal men who might preserve the Order’s most devastating secrets.

From that description, you might expect a novel of ruthless political intrigue, like George R.R. Martin’s The Game of Thrones; but with all due respect to Martin, Scholes’ book is far less tedious. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.

I’ve written about the Androfrancine Order itself as part of my False Religions series.

I’ve just finished Territory, by Emma Bull, and I am impressed.

Territory takes place in and around Tombstone, Arizona, in the days leading up to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Major characters include Doc Holliday, the Earp brothers, the Clantons, a Chinese sorceror, and a number of folks with serious magical chops. It’s like a collaboration between Larry McMurtry and Tim Powers—and entirely unlike anything else of Bull’s that I’ve read, except that it’s very good. And she makes it look so easy! Go buy it.

What, you want more? Go buy it, already!