Here’s an interview with fantasist Tim Powers. You should try reading his stuff; start with The Anubis Gates.

(Via Amy Welborn)

This appears to be a remarkably good look at warfare and how it has changed through
the ages. I say “appears to be” because I’m no authority on the subject;
Keegan’s version of history could have massive holes in it, for all I
know. But it tallied with what I’ve read in the past, though there were
some surprises. It’s a complex subject and difficult to summarize, but
I’ll give it a go: chariots, horses, bows and arrows, walls, cannon,
small arms, bayonets, trenches, tanks, airplanes, atom bombs.

The book is not without its faults. The first section is an extended
reflection on Clausewitz’ blind spots, the moral being that Clausewitzian
total war is necessarily self-destructive. The author hopes
that perhaps we’ve progressed beyond all that (the book was written in the
peaceful years after the first Gulf War), and expresses a touching faith
in the saving power of the United Nations, a power that in recent years
has become rather tarnished by the oil-for-food scams, the presence of
nations like Syria on the UN Human Rights committee, and such like.
And his discussion of warfare in primitive societies seems more
authoritative than is warranted by the scarce data.

On the whole, though, I found this to be a fascinating book, and
well-worth the time I spent with it.

This book is set in the same world as Modesitt’s earlier book
Archform: Beauty (not that you’d know it from anything on
the cover), and pleasantly enough it has a more intelligible plot than its
its predecessor. It’s set in a near future Earth in which genetic
experimentation and high-tech are starting to divide the human race into
distinct classes (indeed, there are intriguing hints that Modesitt’s
Adiamante might be set in the far future of this same world,
in which case we’re seeing the birth of the “cybs”). Beyond that, it’s
basically a competent thriller.

Although they didn’t hinder my enjoyment, there are two things about the
book that annoyed me. The first is the maguffin–the Evil Multinational
Corporations Are Trying To Take Over The World. It reminded me too much
of some of the overheated rhetoric I’ve seen on the ‘Net over the last
few years.

The second–and considerably more annoying–is Modesitt’s handling of
place names. Our hero, for example, lives in the major metropolitan
center of “Denv”–the city we know as “Denver”. Similarly we have
“Minpolis” for “Minneapolis”, and “Epaso” for “El Paso”.

Now, it’s a long-time game of SF authors to have fun with mutating place
names over long periods of time. The thing is, there’s usually some kind
of return to barbarism involved. The names were transmitted orally, and
the language and pronunciation shifted over time, and when civilization
and writing returned the names were written down as they had come to be
spoken. There’s no such reversion and regrowth in this case, so far as I
can tell–which means that the name changes were a conscious choice on
somebody’s part, and I just can’t see it. In fact, I can’t see it either
way–I can’t see “Denver” mutating into “Denv” through oral tradition,
and I can’t imagine anyone thinking that “Denv” is a nicer name than
“Denver”. And why on earth would you choose to go from “El Paso” to
“Epaso”? It’s not even easier to say, and it looks funny too. Ugh.

…you’ll like the Cthulhu Babies.

(Via Byzantium’s Shores.)

I went off to see the doctor again today, and consequently had my monthly weigh-in. I’ve been feeling rather fat the last couple of weeks, as though I were putting on weight again, and I was all prepared to discover that hadn’t lost anything this month.

Turns out, greatly to my amazement, that I lost seven more pounds. Apparently all those walks around the Rose Bowl and Brookside Golf Course (not on the course, mind you, but around it, outside the fence) have been paying off.

For the record, that’s fifty-four pounds since the beginning of February.

Trust me, I’m as surprised as you are.

Recently someone asked me whether I’d read any Alan Garner. I had, of
course, but not in over twenty years.

I first encountered Garner’s fantasy novels when I was in college, and
had an odd reaction to them–or, rather, to three of them; one,
Red Shift, I simply didn’t like. But the other three I read
and enjoyed; and yet, although I’ve kept them all these years I’d never
been moved to re-read them. That’s extremely odd; I can’t imagine that
there are many books I’ve had for so long without re-reading them at
least once.

Anyway, now, as then, I decided to start with Elidor. Going
in my memories of the book were exceedingly faint, consisting mostly of
two impressions: that I’d liked it very much, and (somewhat
paradoxically) that there wasn’t much to it. And now that I’ve read it
again, I can see why I retained those impressions.

What the book is, is a somewhat contrarian take on an old chestnut: the
story in which children from our world are magically transported to
another which desperately needs their help. The children usually adapt
quite marvelously to their new surroundings, and (except for Eustace
Clarence Scrubb) have little difficulty understanding the folks they
meet. Culture clash simply isn’t an issue, and the strangeness is
embraced with joy. Garner’s tale is grittier, and quite likely more
realistic.

The story takes begins in London, at a time some short while after World
War II when entire neighborhoods laid desolate by German bombing are
still standing. Four children, Nicholas, David, Helen, and Roland, are
exploring the ruins when they are drawn into another world. There they
meet a strange figure named Malebron; they speak his language, somehow,
but they don’t really understand him or his world–how could they, after
all? He persuades them to rescue three treasures from an ancient evil
vault, and return with them to England for safe-keeping. It’s an
interesting answer to the question, “Why should children from another
world be needed so desperately?” Precisely because they are from another
world, and can return there.

That’s about all I remembered of the plot from the first time I read it,
and there’s little enough to it. The remainder of book takes place in
England, and it’s a doozy, almost more of a horror novel than a fantasy.
There are strange goings-on and peculiar manifestations, and although
good triumphs in the end, due in no small way to the children’s actions,
there’s much that remains strange, fantastic, and unclear. The result is
both compelling and oddly unsatisfying. We haven’t seen the whole story,
and we know it; we’ve been on the edge of things, and will never see or
understand the center.

As I say, it’s a contrarian approach to a classic plot, and probably the
way things would actually be if a story like this could actually be true.
I’m not surprised that other authors haven’t followed Garner’s line, here,
though.

We have here six volumes of mastermind and sleuth Nero Wolfe,
containing twelve tales, and there isn’t a bad nut in the set.

I’m not going to wax rhapsodic about these books, although I justifiably
could. And I’m not going to spend paragraphs telling you how Nero Wolfe
is an interesting character, with his bed temper, his rudeness, his
gourmet appetite, and his orchids, but that Archie Goodwin, now, Goodwin the
wise-cracking sidekick, is the real hero of the books, and a completely
sufficient reason for reading them. Even though it’s true.

Suffice it to say that if you enjoy mystery novels, and you’ve not read
any of Stout’s books, you’ve got better things to be doing than reading
this review when Amazon’s just a click away.

And now, a few notes about these particular books.

Fer-de-Lance is the first of the Nero Wolfe novels; I like
it, but it isn’t the best of the series. The maguffin’s a little
over-complicated, and Wolfe isn’t quite himself–at maybe 99%, he’s more
himself than most long-running characters are at first appearance, but
not quite himself.

I fear I read In The Best Families out of order (I was just
picking the books off of the shelf in whatever order I found them, which
wasn’t chronological). There are three Nero Wolfe novels for which the
sequence matters; this is the third, in which Wolfe has his final
showdown with that mastermind of crime Arnold Zeck.

Over My Dead Body‘s an interesting little tale, involving
fencing, murder, Balkan politics, and, most remarkably, Wolfe’s long-lost
daughter from Montenegro. As Wolfe dislikes women intensely, much comedy
ensues. We learn quite a lot about Wolfe in this one, some of it good.

The remaining three books are all triples; apparently Stout wrote three
shorter Wolfe tales every year, which (IIRC) were always published in a
single volume just before Christmas. I won’t say too much about these
except that in each tale you get the distilled essence of Wolfe and
Goodwin, and that’s no bad thing.

Howdy! The September Issue of Ex Libris Reviews is now on-line. As usual, all of my reviews appeared here in the weblog first, but Craig Clarke’s contributed a couple of new ones.

Phillipa Talbot, head of a department in the British Ministry of Trade
and Information at a time when women simply did not hold such posts, is
poised for a promotion when, instead, she resigns her position and seeks
admittance as a postulant to Brede Abbey, a house of Benedictine nuns.
What follows is an amazing tale, to which I simply cannot do justice.

To begin with, it’s a novel.

When you go to the bookstore, you see the fiction divided by category,
which the publishers miscall “genre”. In fact, the genre is the form of
the work–the novel, the short story, and so forth. To publishers, the
word novel means simply any book-length work of fiction. In fact, there
two classical book-length forms: the novel and the romance. Tales of
adventure, of derring-do, of space opera or feats of arms, indeed any
book in which the primary action and conflict and movement is external is a
romance–and the fact is, that’s what I usually read. In the novel
proper, the primary action and conflict and movement is internal.
Accustomed as I am to speaking of premises and plots and all the wonderful
externalities of fantasy and science fiction, I am usually somewhat
nonplussed when faced with writing about a proper novel. Sure, I can
write about the externalities, but to do so is to misrepresent
the story. And yet, I don’t have the vocabulary to speak about the
internals with any assurance. Bear with me, please.

In addition to this basic problem, there is the difficulty of conveying
the feeling of Brede Abbey, the peace that lingers about it and fills
the book from one end to the other, the voices of the nuns raised in
plainsong as the canonical hours pass day by day. To do so I would need
to tell you about stern Dame Agnes, skillful Dame Maura, quiet Dame
Catherine, staunch Sister Cecily, ladies of great faith and holiness–but
I can’t. Godden reveals them herself, so well, so deftly, little by
little filling in each portrait until the whole is revealed that I should
feel like a vandal if I were to attempt to summarize Godden’s prose and
so reveal details out of order.

But I have to say something, or why bother reviewing
the book at all? So here are a few points.

There are a number of crises in the book, involving fiscal mismanagement,
bad vocations, controlling parents, sudden illness, and the like, with
which the abbey community must contend, and Sister Phillipa must, of
course, do her part. But the crises, and the times of peace in between
them, are not the story; the story is about Sister Phillipa’s giving of
herself to her Beloved Lord bit by bit and piece by piece. It is about
redemption; sacrifice, self-denial, submission, hard work, and a joy and
a peace which passes understanding.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Some thanks are in order. I first heard of the book on the 25 of August,
2000, five years almost to the day before I actually opened a copy and
began to read, from an e-mail correspondent named Rachel. She wrote me
again in 2001, and again in 2002, each time prompting me to give the book
a try. And I did look for it, but never found a copy; it had gone out of
print. (Yeah, I know, I could try the library; somehow, I never do that.)
And then Amy Welborn of the blog
Open Book
began working with the Loyola Press on reissues of a series of classic
Roman Catholic novels, one of them being
In This House of Brede. I ordered a copy on-line, and it
arrived, and after a couple of weeks I picked up and devoured it.

So thanks to Rachel, and thanks to Amy; I hope I can repay the favor some
day.

Here’s yet another Norton omnibus, of three novels in this case:
Storm Over Warlock, Ordeal in Otherwhere,
and Forerunner Foray. The first two are directly related
and take place on the planet Warlock; the third is only loosely related
to the first two. All three were pretty good, especially
Forerunner Foray. Ironically, I tried reading the latter
two when I was a kid, and didn’t get very far into either one.

The main difference between Norton’s work and the science fiction being
published today, it seems to me, is primarily one of length–science
fiction and fantasy novels have gotten much, much longer over the last
fifty years, to the point where it takes two or three of the older novels
to fill out a paperback to a respectable length. As a result, current
novels are richer in detail and description, and to some extent in
character development as well, without necessarily adding anything more in
the way of plot or imagination. For example, it’s become
clear to me that most of Norton’s science fiction takes place in a single
consistently realized future.
She doesn’t really call attention to this, and it’s a big enough future
that we rarely meet the same characters twice, but the connections are
there if you look for them.

Anyway, I enjoyed these; it was especially nice discovering that
Forerunner Foray is a good read after all.