Books Catch Up 2

Still more books I read this year but haven't posted notes about. Here's ten of them:

1. The Green Pearl

Ailas, king of Troicenet and now the South Ulflands after the events of the first volume, Suldrun’s Garden, now tries to consolidate his hold on South Ulfland. As well as the feuding and fractious independent barons, he’s opposed by King Casmir of Lyonesse. Casmir has plans to become High King of all the Elder Isles, and control of the Ulflands would allow him to outflank the kingdom of Dahaut to his north.

Also with plans for the Ulflands are the Ska, who Ailas was once a prisoner of. Their raids and attacks have taken advantage of the former weak leadership, making each baron shift for themselves. Ailas builds a new capital, raises troops, spends money like water, puts down bandits and stops feuds. The Ska are fearsome warriors but few in number so he strikes where they are weak. While chasing Lady Tatzel, who he knew from his period of captivity, he gets separated and they have adventures both uncanny and dangerous throughout the Ulflands. Eventually they find themselves in the capital of the North Ulflands. There, the dying king finds himself surrounded by enemies; the Ska themselves who wish him to abdicate in their favour; his cousin who will then sell the kingdom to the Ska.

A second plot thread concerns Shimrod the magician. The titular green pearl that fell into the sea in the last volume is swallowed by a fish. It is caught by fishermen and served up, causing danger and difficulty wherever it goes. Eventually it falls in the forest and strange flowers grow there. Melancthe, who like the pearl, was created by the witch Desmëi, possibly as her revenge on the wizard Tamurello and men in general, is attracted to the flowers when they are sold at the goblin fair. She and Shimrod have a strange relationship; Melancthe maintains an austere otherworldly demeanour. This eventually comes to a conclusion when the pearl is dug up and Tamurello tries to seize it with disastrous consequences.

In the meantime Casmir tries to resolve a puzzle; that the magic mirror Persilian told him that his daughter Suldrun’s son would sit on the throne of the elder isles and command before he died. Yet it seemed that Suldrun, who died, had a daughter Madouc. He applies to Tamurello, who suggests the magician Visbhume. Visbhume discovers that Madouc is a fairy changeling, and that the family of Suldrun’s nurse, who might have knowledge of the true child have moved to Troicenet. There he kidnaps Glyneth, the companion of Ailas and Suldrun’s son Dhrun in the first volume, taking her to the strange world of Tanjecterly.

All this is in Vance’s lush descriptive prose, and often mannered legalistic magical elements. It balances dark threats with whimsical elements.

Read This: A magnificent fantasy novel, by turns silly and serious, the meandering plots suddenly braiding together unexpectedly
Don’t Read This: You don’t like the digressions and descriptions, the combination of strategy and fairytale adventure

2. The Iron Hand Of Mars

Falco’s back, and he’s having problems. The Emperor’s son Titus is interested in his girlfriend Helena. She’s a senator’s daughter, smart, self-willed, perhaps the kind of woman that empresses are made of. Falco is an informer (private detective) in Rome in 70 AD under an Emperor who isn’t impressed by informers.

Depressed, failing to get any paying cases, and having missed Helena’s birthday he takes an offer from the Emperor. His cover story is to deliver a new standard to the 14^th Legion stationed on the Rhine. Thanks to the recent civil war the mood and attitude of the Legion needs assessing. He gets a bunch of other things to investigate too. There’s a rebel leader missing who needs dealing with. A missing legate, who was sent across the river to a prophetess. And if possible lay out a plan for peace on the frontier.

A big job, so he’s offered an assistant, a barber from the palace, a freed slave looking for adventure. Is he actually a spy and assassin or is he just an annoyingly naïve tourist? Worse still, on the way they come across a murder. One that might be involved with contracts for the legions.

Falco’s got a big job, but he does have a contact – Helena’s brother is a senior officer in another legion, who he met once before. And so maybe he can create peace in Germany and solve his romantic problems all at once!

Read This: Murder and intrigue on the edge of the Roman Empire
Don’t Read This: It’s just people killing each other for bad reasons, in a time and place so distant as to be unintelligible

3. Assignment – Nuclear Nude

It’s been 8 years and 16 assignments since we checked in with Sam Durrell in Assignment – Zoraya, when the CIA agent (re-)stabilised an oil-rich middle eastern Sheikdom. What’s he up to in this one?

An American billionaire has had nuclear research done that might transform… everything. This is too big even for him and so he teams up with three other billionaires; a German industrialist, a Turkish drug baron and a Chinese… businessman. Each more dubious than the next. Each also has a beautiful daughter, and they’ve also teamed up to… stop their fathers because they’re hippies.

The nuclear secrets have been painted onto a canvas, then painted over with a picture of one of the daughters posing nude. The picture has the same title as the assignment – Nuclear Nude. It’s missing and the American businessman uses political pressure to get Durrell on the case. Durrell doesn’t want to be on the case. Then after he’s on the case the businessman wants him off the case, but Durrell doesn’t quit.

There’s some nonsense about the Triads (Chinese secret societies/organised crime syndicates*) that Durrell apparently joined, possibly in a former assignment, and also a malevolent woman, Madame Hung who apparently appeared in Assignment – Moon Girl.

Frankly this has all got a lot wackier. As these are the only two Assignment books I’ve read it’s difficult to say if this is a trend. But certainly the idea of billionaires, nuclear secrets and beautiful daughters fits with the glamorous spy films of the 60s. Had Aarons been watching James Bond? Or so many beautiful daughters – had he in fact been watching The Man From U.N.C.L.E.?

Read This: A fast paced action story that tries very hard to be both gritty and exotic
Don’t Read This: Despite the high concept glamour it’s a grim tale of murder, betrayal and vice

* One character goes by the name Red Rod, which is a position within a triad, usually translated as “Red Pole” and given the number 426. They are the enforcer, in charge of actually doing things, commanding ordinary members in the triad's activities. Aarons clearly knew something about actual triads (perhaps something had been published in the US about it?) and filled in the gaps with exotic weirdness. Which, to be fair, is something actual triads do as well.

4. Devil’s Cup

Mel and Jo are surfers. They’re in Orchid Beach Florida, working as maids in the day, surfing, partying at night. They’ve left school, where they were best friends. Jo was the popular one, and still is, the one who picks up boys, the one who has plans. Mel’s a better surfer.

Mel once saw her mother go into the sea and come out transformed. Jo thinks she can make this happen to Mel. She has magical plans. Mel is ambivalent, she always follows Jo’s leads. But now maybe it’s time to… not do that? Jo has antagonised Minnow, who has the surf shop and the drugs. And maybe the magic.

Maybe Mel loves Jo, and maybe Jo loves Mel and maybe that means something, something romantic, or something sisterly or both.

The Devil’s Cup is a local name, not on the map. A piece of coastline where the causeway and the sandbar and the sea come together to make waves. Dangerous and exhilarating.

A novel of small town life, small town ambitions and a relationship that is having to grow up. And under it a mystery that might tear up everything.

Read This: A story of surfing, and having to face that there’s more than surfing
Don’t Read This: Discovering, as you grow up, that your best friend wants different things from you, is not something you want to read
Full Disclosure: I had a piece in The Book Of Korinethians; Dee Holloway, the author of Devil’s Cup was an editor

5. Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds

Charles Mackay’s 1841 study of crowd psychology and generally odd mass movements. He focusses on what happened, and when, rather than looking for explanations. This makes some sense as it’s a very early study, laying the groundwork for later analysis.

Perhaps the best ones are the first three, involving financial speculation. Three bubbles, where stocks grew in value far beyond any reasonable hope of payment are covered; the British South Sea Bubble, Dutch Tulip Mania, and the French Mississippi Company. The details and anecdotes are good, while the timeline of events is clear for each of them.

Other topics are covered in similar detail, though less successfully. His chapter on duelling and ordeals is good, though his attitude – if they really wanted to ban duelling they would – sometimes takes the front seat rather than explaining what happened. Another one that’s generally good is what he called “Popular Follies Of Great Cities,” which lists several fun phrases that everyone inexplicably starts saying (sometimes leading to tomfoolery and even violence). At one time in London saying “Quoz,” to stop a discussion was in vogue. Then “What a shocking bad hat,” became used, after it was the catchphrase of a parliamentary candidate who was a hatter. Some others include “There he/she goes with his/her eye out,” “Has you mother sold her mangle?” “Flare up,” “Does your mother know you’re out?” and the hardest one of all “Who are you?” still used at football matches.

He's early enough that mesmerism, or hypnosis, is still called animal magnetism, and has an account of the career of Anthony Mesmer who travels through Europe with his theories of magnetism (no longer associated with actual magnets). He uses passes of his hands, or sometimes other objects, to cure people, gaining fame and fortune from patrons before falling from favour (a recurring feature of the book).

Read This: A well-known 19^th century compilation of strange and occasionally terrible events
Don’t Read This: The exhaustive 19^th century prose can be very long winded, and much of his research and conclusions have been improved upon
Out Of Copyright: And available online

6. Lion Of Macedon

Parmenion is in training in Sparta in the 4^th century BC, and the tough boyhood is even tougher for him; he’s very unpopular. Even more so when he wins the “General’s Games,” a war game, by having the Spartans join ranks with lesser soldiers.

He’s unpopular because he’s being manipulated by Tanis, a priestess with the power of prophecy. A chaos demon is trying to be born into the world. Fifty years ago she made the Persian King’s pregnant concubine walk off a tower to destroy the last attempt. This, of course, goes entirely against the principles of The Source, who she’s trying to follow.

(This is neither the first time nor the last Gemmell noted this paradox, never coming down on a singular answer).

Tanis throws Parmenion into the path of Xenophon, legendary (also historical) Athenian general, now in exile in Sparta. And also Derae, the love of his life. Which leads to an affair, Darae being thrown into the sea off Troy as a sacrifice and Parmenion fighting a duel and going into exile.

He goes into exile in Thebes, then under occupation by the Spartans. Falling in with some Historical Thebans he helps them expel the Spartans without immediately starting a war. But they know a war will come and he helps beat them then too, breaking Sparta’s myth of invincibility.

This all reveals a lesson familiar (if not always accepted) to students of the period; the Greeks couldn’t get anything done because they were trapped in cycles of warfare between each other. Sparta had been leading since the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War and had done a bad job, just annoying everyone. Now Thebes, emerging as the leader of Boeotia, had short-sighted goals. And all this squabbling was bought in part by the Persian Empire, to keep them all entangled while the Persians subjugated the Ionian Greek cities on the eastern shore of the Aegean.

Entirely unrelated, Parmenion meets Philip, a prince of Macedon. Ironically he’s probably safer as a hostage in Thebes as his uncle took the throne. Sick of all this infighting Parmenion become a mercenary, and over the next years becomes a famous general in Persia.

In the meantime, using Parmenion as a weapon, Tanis has killed almost all the candidates for fathering the demon prince. One remains, Philip of Macedon. But despite her best efforts he survives, and becomes king at the moment when his kingdom is in peril. And he calls on his old friend Parmenion to help.

Gemmell brought his brand of heroic fantasy into historic Greece, which highlights how much inspiration he took from it in other works. Slipping Parmenion into Sparta and then the Boeotian war (rather than having him, as he historically was, a Macedonian nobleman) and making him an outsider drives both the plot, and the other plot, the mystical, spiritual conflict that will inevitably bring a conqueror into the world. You don’t have to be much of an ancient Greece head to figure out who it is, though it’s made clear on the last page in case you aren’t. This is the first volume of a duology so lots of threads are left dangling after Parmenion manages to salvage something from the ruins of Tanis’s plot.

Read This: One of Gemmel’s best and if he doesn’t get ancient Greece right, we do at least get some idea of differences and similarities
Don’t Read This: If I want to know about Alexander I’ll read a history book 

7. I Shall Wear Midnight

Tiffany Aching is a witch in a land that has been hostile to witches. But now she’s getting on and helping people. In the Discworld the power of story is strong. There was once a cunning man who hunted witches. The story of the witch as the evil women who curses people is a powerful one.

A pregnant teenager is beaten by her father and loses the child. Tiffany takes her away leaves her with the Nac Mac Feegle, buries the baby. When she finds the father trying to hang himself she cuts him down. And is then accused of giving the girl to the fairies, stealing the child and strangling the father through evil magic.

The Baron is dying and one thing that Tiffany does is take away the pain for him. But the nurse thinks she is up to no good. And when the Baron dies, she’s blamed. She flies to Ankh-Morpork to tell Roland, but there things go wrong. Everywhere she goes people blame the weird things on malice. Once Tiffany and Roland thought they might end up together, as the outsiders, but then they realised they wouldn’t and Roland is getting married.

Tiffany has layers upon layers of problems to solve, and just showing people who she is, that she isn’t harming anyone isn’t good enough. In Ankh-Morpork she meets more witches, and even a wizard who may be able to help her learn what is needed.

Read This: Some good jokes in amongst the grit and dirt of life
Don’t Read This: Taking up threads from other Discworldbooks makes this a poor place to start

8. Feast Of The King’s Shadow

At the end of Tower Of The King’s Daughter five people escaped from Roq du Ransome, the fantasy equivalent of Krak Des Chevaliers. Julianne, newly married, daughter of the King’s Shadow, has been instructed by a djinni to go where she is sent and marry where she must. That sends her out of Outremer to Rhabat, the city in the Sands, the only city of the nomadic Sharai.

With her is Elisande, who the Sharai call Lisan and the djinni calls Lisan Of The Dead Waters and the djinni tells her to go to Rhabat, where the Sharai will have a gift of questions for her. She’s from Surayon, a part of Outremer, the folded land, declared heretics and sorcerers, a place hidden so no one can enter. She’d met Julianne on the road and joined her, become her companion. But she was also looking for the Daughter, hidden in the Roq, which may be the only thing that threatens Surayon.

They got the daughter though not how they intended. Marron, once a brother of the order of Ransom, and then squire to a knight of the order, was exposed to it with an open wound and it took him. When in his blood it makes him fast and strong, able to see (and hear) supernaturally with blood red eyes. When cut it escapes and can cause enormous damage, destroying flesh and blood. And there are other secrets to it’s use. He is the Ghost Walker, a figure from Sharai legend, able to walk two worlds and traditionally very hard to kill.

Rudel, also from Surayon, acting as a jongleur, and as was revealed at the end of Tower, Elisande’s estranged father. She thought he was there for the Daughter and that’s not false, but what he was really there for was to rescue the fifth member, Redmond, another Surayonaisse, who was being tortured. They try to escape using magic but it went wrong and Marron’s blood killed some of the brotherhood.

Guiding them is Jerel, left behind after Hasan’s failed attack on the Roq, dedicated to revenge against his lover’s killer, the knight Marron served. And also rescuer of Julianne from an ‘ifrit, an evil spirit that tried to attack her. (It seems that someone should have taught Julianne more about the legends and folk knowledge of Outremer).

The road to Rhabat is across the Sands, which are a wilderness. But not an empty one. Quite apart from the rocks and sand, the mountains and gullies, there are wells, tribes and even great oases. Along the way they meet the Sand Dancers, a Sharai cult dedicated to the Ghost Walker, with uncanny powers of their own and outcast from the tribes. They are put into confusion by the Ghost Walker being a foreigner, a Patric. Still, they have things to teach Marron, how to use the Daughter, not just as a weapon, not just to enhance his own abilities. But also to enter another world, one that mirrors their own but is stranger.

There are ‘ifrit attacks and more gnomic discussions with djinni, betrayal and strange goings on. Hasan has called a meeting of the tribes at Rhabat, which is a fantasy version of the rock city of Petra, on the Dead Water, a fantasy version of the Dead Sea. Hasan wants to unite the tribes to attack Outremer. And drawn there is Julianne’s father, the King’s Shadow, to try one more time to keep the fragile peace.

The story takes us through the Sands, experiencing desert and oasis (and stranger places of fertility) heat, cold and emptiness and threat. And this weaves in with the culture of the fantasy-Bedouin and those around them, how nomad and settled interact. And legend and myth weave through, coming into contact with tradition and the contingent moments of the present. The ‘ifrit come on stage (on page) as an enigmatic threat. And at the moment of the greatest danger one of the characters turns the warnings and tales of the djinni on their head in an especially satisfying fairytale resolution.

Read This: The fantasy crusader kingdoms story goes to look outside the conquered realm to find even stranger and weirder events and mysteries
Don’t Read This: As the second of three volumes it neither begins nor concludes, and perhaps you’d rather read an actual history

9. The ABC Murders

Hercules Poirot receives a challenging letter, saying something will happen in Andover on the 21^st, signed ABC. Indeed Mrs Alice Ascher is murdered in Andover on the 21^st. Later he gets one saying there will be one in Bexhill and Betty Barnard is found dead. Then another at Churston, where Sir Carmichael Clarke is killed.

Captain Hastings, Poirot’s sidekick, narrates this story, having returned to England from his South American ranch for six months (leaving, he tells us, his wife to manage it). Hastings includes some scenes that he did not see, and in fact willfully obfuscates the mystery; in this case mirroring the work of ABC.

After looking through the first three cases, and meeting a variety of characters involved with the victims, the story picks up in the second half when Sir Carmichael’s brother recruits them into what he calls a “Special Legion” to try and capture ABC. The fourth letter duly comes, for Doncaster, suggesting the day of the St Leger horserace when the town will be full of strangers.

It's a fun, high concept crime novel, with a very stupid twist and a much better one that [serious face] highlights the depravity of the villain even more than the initial high-spirited letter writer who appoints himself Poirot’s Nemesis*.

Read This: Classic whodunnit with enough novelty to make it still of interest
Don’t Read This: Within the fiction, Hastings is not only withholding information they had at the time (fair play) but deliberately introducing misleading scenes

* Hercules Poirot would not be a potential victim until the 8^th or 16^th in the sequence; he lives in EC1, presumably in the City Of London though conceivably he might be in Hackney or Poplar. Of course telling Poirot in advance would inevitably draw the detective to a suitably initialled location. In any case the story finishes before ABC has to track down Xenophon Xerxes in a place beginning with “X”, (which so far as I could tell did not exist in the UK at that time).

10. The Essex Serpent

Cora Seaborne is a widow, experiencing freedom from her abusive husband. She indulges in her passion, palaeontology. It’s 1893 and while on holiday in Essex, she learns that there are rumours of a sea serpent after an earthquake.

She’s with her son, who collects odd items, and her companion Martha, a committed socialist, with a special interest in housing. They are introduced to the Ransomes by mutual friends. Will Ransome is the vicar of a parish where the 17^th century serpent was seen, including a carving on one pew. And now the locals insist that the serpent has returned and is a judgement on them. A serious 19^th century man of both reason and faith, Ransome refuses to preach on this. It turns out that they had met while Cora was out walking; as the two had been dressed disreputably they’d each thought the other a tramp.

Luke, the Seaborne’s doctor, has fallen in love with Cora. So when she invites him to investigate the strange fits and other oddnesses of the local children in the wake of the serpent, he comes, and realises that Will’s wife has tuberculosis. Later Luke performs heart surgery on a man who was stabbed; he lives in one of the slums that Martha is concerned with. This gets the attention of Cora’s rich and influential friends.

Both Will and Luke confess their feelings for Cora, who rejects them both, too cautious, too damaged after her marriage. Eventually the mystery of the serpent, at least one missing child and maybe more are, if not resolved, at least laid bare.

This is a historical novel, and as such mostly about interesting Victorian ideas and events. But it also pushes them into opposition; the superstition of the parishioners against Will Ransome’s beliefs; Cora’s attempts to discover herself after years of being held down; of modern housing without imposing moral requirements. It has something to say about constraints and restraints, about hurt and healing.

Read This: An excellent historical novel of growing and learning and discovering and finding mystery
Don’t Read This: They’re all caught up in their own weird self-centred Victorian concerns