Reading 2008

I’m not going to track every bit of fiction and non-fiction I read this year, as I did in 2007 (see below). I found that a bit tedious. But I will note highlights of what I’m reading, and make some recommendations.

JANUARY: “Broken Government,” a condemnation of Republican rule by John Dean; “The Body-Snatchers,” a good short ghost story by Robert Louis Stevenson; “Gifts,” an excellent new fantasy novel from Ursula K. Le Guin; lots of submissions to our Carnivah House anthology, “The Infinity Swords.”



Here’s what I read in 2007, along with brief comments and links:

  • No Country For Old Men, a novel by Cormac McCarthy. Like “The Road,” this is another bleak story of trying to hold onto humanity in the face of despair. While “The Road” took that theme to a frightening near-future dystopian extreme, “No Country For Old Men” is set in the here-and-now. It pits Sheriff Bell, a good man and war veteran who provides the novel’s moral center, against the increasingly violent world of drug dealing and unrestrained greed. The story is not a happy one. It also is not quite as compelling as “The Road,” which for me made McCarthy’s ideosyncratic abuse of punctuation even more annoying than usual. McCarthy is a very strong writer, but his disdain for apostrophes grates, as it smacks of artsy-fartsy elitism. In this particular book, he also indulged a penchant for run-on sentences. I suspect that was done as a counterpoint to the novel’s extremely terse prose; had he not used run-on sentences the whole thing would have had a staccato feel. Still … it was noticeable and annoying.

  • Evolution For Everyone, by David Sloan Wilson. The title suggests a nuts-and-bolts primer, but Wilson’s books really is more a wake-up call to explain why study of evolution matters and what it might tell us about the behaviors of people, cultures and nations. At times dry, and at other times a bit too obsessed with being folksy, the book is nonetheless a rather fascinating acccount — and distinctly lacking in the militancy of Richard Dawkins. Wilson comes off as a nice guy trying to make some valid points.

  • Tigers of the Sea, an unfinished Cormac Mac Art story by Robert E. Howard, completed by Richard Tierney and included in a volume of four stories about Howard’s Gaelic sea-reaver.

  • Lord Jim, a novel by Joseph Conrad. It sagged like Homer Simpson’s belly in the middle, but experience with Conrad got me past that point. Otherwise, this is a great novel and an amazing moral drama. Conrad pits is protagonist against external conflict in such a way that character is revealed and internal conflict becomes the driving force. Brilliant. Not an easy read, but well worth the effort, in my view.

  • The Blue Flame of Vengeance, a Solomon Kane story by Robert E. Howard Kane the Puritan slays evil pirates in the name of the Lord. Nothing supernatural about this one, but a fun read nonetheless.

  • Beowulf, the translation by poet Seamus Heaney. The best translation of this epic poem I’ve read — and I’ve read a bunch.

  • Red Nails, a Conan story by Robert E. Howard. This was the final Conan story published, and it’s a good one. A strange setting, bloodshed aplenty, hidden motives. Exactly the kind of thing when you’re just looking for a thrill-ride read.

  • Black Colossus, a Conan story by Robert E. Howard. Conan at war against the dark forces of evil, and against the stupidity of the nobles who do not wish to take orders from a barbaric general. As always, loads of fun written in muscular, testosterone-drenched prose.

  • Pride and Prejudice, the classic by Jane Austen. I did not expect to enjoy it, but I did. It’s a breezy read, with more depth to it than comes out in the recent film version with Keira Knightley. I’m most impressed with how Austen handles her large cast of characters. Things could easily get confusing, but they do not — because Austen etches each and every character in stone. No matter how many pages pass between appearances by even minor characters, the reader has no problem recalling instantly that character’s agenda, role in the story, mannerisms, relationship to others, etc. Not an easy trick to pull off, but Austen does it brilliantly.
  • The Witch Queen of Lochlann, a fantasy novel by George Henry Smith. I bought it for the lurid cover: a mostly naked redheaded woman and a muscular man wielding staff and sword against great big sharks. It is the tale of a modern (1960s, anyway) man who journeys to a sword-and-sorcery land. I’m usually skeptical of this particular variety of fantasy, but this one mixes occultism, sex and quirky humor along with mostly decent action and a plot that never lets up. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had never heard of George Henry Smith before; I find some of his other titles include things like “Erotic Orgy.” But, hey, this one was good.
  • The Hanged Man in Oz, a short story by Steve Nagy in “The Best New Horror 15″ (2003). I thought this was a super idea, basing a story of obsession on the mythology of movies. To me, though, the story headed off in a great direction but ultimately couldn’t quite decide where to go — or maybe it got where it was going but I was too confused to follow. I dunno.

  • Fear the Dead, a short story by Ramsey Campbell in “The Best New Horror 15″ (2003). I thought this was rather effective and spooky up until the ending, where it fell apart a bit.

  • The Drahatzi Are Coming, a short story by David Seigler in “All Possible Worlds” issue 2. A space station employee with a great imagination copes with downsizing on an interplanetary scale. Quite fun. Here’s a review of APW issue 2 at Blogtide Rising.

  • The One-Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherezade, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. I like Poe when he’s all dark and despondent; this is Poe when he’s trying to be funny. Essentially, he adds one more “Arabian Nights” tale in which the lovely Scheherezade recounts many wondrous things — that all happen to be more-or-less true, at least according to the science known at the time Poe wrote the story. The idea of the real world containing wonders beyond what mere storytellers can relate has merit, and this was a clever way to present it — but it reads a bit like a travelogue and takes way too long to get where it is going. It also has a lot of Poe-isms — sentences which, because he could not resist, being of a temperament to express himself with a surplus of clauses, that is to say, sentence portions offset by the excellent and serviceable comma, contain a bombastic display of said worthy punctuation mark.
  • Seafire, a James Bond novel by John Gardner. Much better than the last Gardner Bond I read — “Scorpius” — but still serves mostly to remind me that latter-day authors taking over a previous author’s creations and building on them is seldom a good idea. This was a decent enough spy thriller, a summer beach kind of book, really — but it never felt like Ian Fleming’s Bond. And it never does and it never will.
  • The River of Night’s Dreaming, a short horror story by Karl Edward Wagner in “The Giant Book of Horror” anthology. It’s a very effective blend of modern urban horror, with all its psychological underpinnings, and good old-fashioned Gothic ghost tale. A very well-done piece.

  • Nithaad: The Lonely Valley, a short story by John N. Baker in the debut issue of All Possible Worlds magazine. An engaging fantasy story with a dreamlike quality to it.

  • The Apocryphist, a short story by Bruce Golden in the debut issue of All Possible Worlds magazine. A nice coming-of-age fantasy story, about the power of words and perceptions.

  • Whitening, a short story by Michael A. Pignatella in the debut issue of All Possible Worlds magazine. The fantastical element doesn’t kick in until late in the story, but it’s a good read.

  • To Heroboy, from Tiffani, a short story by Camille Alexa in “A Thousand Faces: The Quarterly Journal of Superhuman Fiction.” I liked this one for its portrayal of the flip side of the superheroic scene. It’s funny and real in an oddball superheroic way. You can read it here.

  • Casting The Runes, a short story by M.R. James. I liked this one for its portrayal of academic infighting, its use of rather arcane magic and its sense of adventure.

  • Count Magnus, a short story by M.R. James. It had a bit too much of a “Dracula” vibe to totally win me over.

  • Rats, a short story by M.R. James. Old-school spooky, and a lot of fun. One truly nice thing about old-fashioned ghost stories is that they never date; in fact, they improve with age.

  • The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton, a short story by Robert Bloch in “Horror 7.” A horror story with science fiction trappings, and very, very dated. It didn’t help that I figured out the ending long before Bloch got there.

  • Enoch, a short story by Robert Bloch in “Horror 7,” a collection of his spooky tales. Here, the author of “Psycho” gives us a murky swamp, a witch’s legacy, a brain-eating familiar and a serial killer. How can you go wrong with all that?

  • Moonraker, a James Bond novel by Ian Fleming. The movie sucked big time, but thank the spy gods most Bond movies bear little similarity to the novels they purport to depict. This one is pretty good — a nefarious plot, a lot of cat-and-mouse, a mystery to unravel and a bittersweet ending for 007.

  • The Mouths of Light, a short story by Ramsey Campbell in the “Swords Against Darkness V” anthology, edited by Andrew J. Offutt. This is the fourth tale of Ryre, a mercenary sword-and-sorcery hero I enjoy right up there with Conan and company. Campbell is known primarily as a horror writer, but he turned out four stories of Ryre: “The Sustenance of Hoak,” “Changer of Names,” “The Pit of Wings” and this one. All appeared in Offutt’s “Swords Against Darkness” series, and all provide sword-and-sorcery with a strong tinge of horror and economical, yet effective, prose.

  • Perfidious Amber, a short story by Tanith Lee in the “Swords Against Darkness V” anthology, edited by Andrew J. Offutt. This one is a mystery story, and very nicely written.

  • The Three Pillars of Zen, by Philip Kapleau. Most valuable for its first-person enlightenment accounts, and for depictions of what goes on in zen monasteries. Definitely reinforces my opinion that I’ll never be a monk.

  • Typhoon, a short novel by Joseph Conrad. Conrad makes serving aboard a merchant vessel seem every bit as hazardous and adventurous as any story involving pirates, long nines or razees. This account of a steamer caught up in a massive storm in the China seas is spellbinding.

  • The Polish Duel, historical adventure fiction by Rafael Sabatini. This is in a collection of short stories from early in Sabatini’s career, called “The Fortunes of Casanova and Other Stories.” This is Sabatini’s fictional rendition of Casanova’s own account, and follows the Venetian’s version rather closely. Very enjoyable.

  • The Augmentation of Mercury, historical adventure fiction by Rafael Sabatini. This is in a collection of short stories from early in Sabatini’s career, called “The Fortunes of Casanova and Other Stories.” This time, the focus is on one of Casanova’s swindles. Amusing, but not as much fun as “The Alibi” from the same collection.

  • The Alibi, historical adventure fiction by Rafael Sabatini. This is in a collection of short stories from early in Sabatini’s career, called “The Fortunes of Casanova and Other Stories.” I wanted to read this after reading Casanova’s memoir of his duel. Sabatini took his tales of the Venetian adventurer from Casanova’s own writings, and I am impressed with how Sabatini manages to write in much the same vein as Casanova himself without indulging in prose quite as florid. “The Alibi” is a fine little tale, with some great dialogue.

  • The Duel, a memoir by Giacomo Casanova.Here, the renowned adventurer recounts a duel he fought with a military man in Warsaw. Two versions are presented, one written shortly after the event and another culled from Casanova’s memoirs years later. Both are wonderful reads, particularly in the depictions of the social mores and comedy of manners that led to the duel, and that followed in its wake. I am now inspired to go read more of Sabatini’s short stories featuring the Venetian. And so I shall.

  • Every Day Fiction, a new online fiction venture. As of Sept. 1, every Day Fiction has been providing a daily dose of falsh fiction — short stories of less than 1,000 words. I have been reading faithfully every day and enjoying it, but have decided it is cumbersome to try to add a new story to this list every signle day. Hence, this note. You can read Every Day Fiction, or sign up to have stories emailed to you, here.

  • The Secret Sharer, a short story by Joseph Conrad in “Great Sea Stories of Modern Times,” edited by William McFee and published in 1954. Another great story from a writer I am coming to appreciate more and more. I wish I had read more Conrad in my younger days, but I’m certainly glad to be reading him now. Last year I re-read “Heart of Darkness” shortly after being blown away by Conrad’s fabulous short story, “Youth.” Now, having read, “The Secret Sharer” for the first time, I’m still rather amazed. Yep. Gotta read more Conrad.

  • Log The Man Dead, a short story by Eugene Burdick in “Great Sea Stories of Modern Times,” edited by William McFee and published in 1954. Burdick’s tale is that of a press-ganged sailor whose moral reaction to seeing the harshness of punishment in the Royal Navy leads him to taste that harsh punishment himself. The protagonist is “confined to the bowsprit,” basically sent off onto that long spike that hangs pokes from the front of a sailing ship and told to remain there forever. He can drop off into the ocean, wait there until he starves (he gets a bottle of beer and a loaf of bread, plus some rope to lash himself to the sprit) or slash his throat or wrists with a knife — but he can’t ever return to the ship. It’s a horrific little tale, and enjoyable, but being confined to the bowsprit isn’t a punishment I’ve ever read of elsewhere. The Royal Navy had so many other, more convenient, ways to administer its terrible justice. It seems to me having a corpse lashed to the bowsprit (the story specifies that no one can ever remove it — it gets to stay there until it rots away) would be a hindrance to sailors who need to use the bowsprit for setting foresails and other functions. But I’m no sailor and I could be wrong. If anyone else knows some of the history behind this — if there is any — please feel free to share.

  • Captain Pamphile a novel by Alexandre Dumas It’s possibly the most bizarre book Dumas ever wrote, but then again he wrote (or co-wrote) a lot of books and I’ll never get through them all. This is easily the most bizarre of his books that I have read. It’s a comedy, off-setting accounts of the artsy-fartsy lifestyle of Dumas’ Paris with the story-within-a-story narrative of Captain Pamphile’s exploits, presented as a manuscript being read aloud in the parlor of one of Dumas’ artist friends. Dumas explores the human qualities of animals, both those in the artist’s pet managerie and those Pamphile encounters on his Arabian Nights-style journeys. He aslo explores the amoral, animal qualities in humans. Pamphile is much more the rogue than most Dumas protagonists — he’s a pirate and a cheat and a con-artist. This book is probably a must for Dumas-a-holics, but might scare others off.

  • Bra Melting, a short story by Janni Lee Simner. A hilarious reaction to all those fantasy book and magazine covers showing women in chainmail bikinis. You can read it here.

  • Mere Anarchy, a new collection of absurd short stories by Woody Allen. Most of these are pretty damned funny, with Allen popping in scientific and cultural references faster than hands go up when someone asks “Who needs a free drink?” My favorite is “This Nib For Hire,” about an aspiring literary icon who ends up writing novelizations of the “The Three Stooges” movies. I laughed out loud. If you like Allen’s movies, you’ll probably enjoy his short stories.

  • Buddha, a novel by Deepak Chopra. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this, as I’ve never read anything by Chopra before. Would it be a realistic historical novel that tries to strip away the mythology and concentrate on the real man behind the legends? Or would it embrace the miracles and mysticism attached to the Buddha? Wouldn’t you know it — it does both. The result is a very enjoyable novel, indeed, and I think it would be of interest to fans of fantasy and mythology whether they have any interest in Buddhism or not.

  • What Makes You Not a Buddhist, by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, founder of Siddhartha’s Intent International. An examination of the core Buddhistic principals, in plain language. I’d recommend this one to someone exploring Buddhism or just seeking to understand it, but it probably shouldn’t be someone’s first Buddhism book. Also, while most books on Buddhism spend a lot of time focusing on meditative techniques, this one has none of that.

  • The Taking of Calais, a novel by Alexandre Dumas, or more precisely, a novel by Paul Meurice writing under the guidance of Dumas. The Dumas influence is strong; even though Meurice did the writing and plotting it is difficult to know how much each contributed. The result is a very enjoyable, colorful book.

  • God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. This is an important book, and well worth your time. For more thoughts from me, see my blog post, Hitchens is wrong about one thing.

  • 127 Fears, a short fantasy story by S.C. Bryce in Staffs & Starships from Sheer Speculation Press. A wonderful, dream-like story — glad I picked it to read first in the premiere issue. I made that call based on A) the intriguing title, and B) experience reading Bryce’s stuff. It was a good decision.

  • Everything’s Better With Zombies, a short story by Hannah Wolf Bowen. I really liked this one, which I found by following a link from Littlebird Blue’s blog. Thanks, Camille. I recommend this one; you can read Everything’s Better With Zombies here.

  • The Sadness of the Executioner, a short story by Fritz Leiber, in “Flashing Swords” Volume One. This one is a Fafhrd and Gray Mouser tale, but the true protagonist is Death. He has a deadline to meet and a quota to fill, but the Twain refuse to cooperate. This story has some very poetic passages and evocative imagery, and it is one of my favorites from Fritz.

  • Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones (And It’s Not the Way You Think), by Dayn Perry. It’s a rather stat- and math-heavy look at all of the playoff teams from 1980-2003, in an attempt to quantify what made those teams great. I almost cheered when I read the chapter on closers — why in the hell do so many managers use their best reliever only in save situations in the ninth inning? Why not bring that big guy on in the seventh or eighth to put out a fire and maybe win a few games that way? Ever since Dennis Eckersley, though, we’ve been stuck with the “closer.” Now, most of them have contracts that specify they’ll be used only in ninth-inning save situations. Bunch of prima donnas, if you ask me.

  • Gilgamesh, a verse translation by Herbert Mason. This is part of a pile of paperbacks I picked up during our vacation. I got this plus a few deliciously pulpy-looking books, and my mouth watered to dig into them so much I had to pick one up now, even though I was hip deep in Mundy’s “Tros.” In Gilgemesh — a Sumerian epic of friendship, gods and heroic deeds — a great many of my interests come together: big monsters, heroic fantasy, real mythology, human endeavor, societal expectations, etc. It’s a tale I’ve read before, but this particular translation is quite nice. It strips things down to their essence, resulting in a more direct and focused — and to me more compelling — rendition than other versions I’ve seen. But I’ll keep an eye out for other versions, too. Can’t have too much Gilgamesh.

  • Tros, a novel by Talbot Mundy. It features a Samothracian hero amongst the Druids and the forces of Caesar invading the British Isles. Lots of intrigue, a very interesting protagonist and a solid cast of characters all with their own motives and agendas. It has a bit of sword-and-sorcery vibe, thanks to the Druids and the action, although no magic is employed. Very enjoyable book.

  • The Quotable Atheist, a collection of quotes from noted atheists, noted theists, world leaders, scientists, etc., edited by Jack Huberman. It’s the kind of book you browse, hilarious one moment and thought provoking the next.

  • Not In Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong For Our Schools, a collection of essays edited by Eugenie C. Scott and Glen Branch of the National Center for Science Education. It probably won’t change the mind of anyone who firmly believes Intelligent Design theory deserves “equal, fair time” in U.S. science classrooms, but it clearly delineates the purely religious roots and weak made-up science of Intelligent Design’s most ardent promoters. A good primer for anyone who has not been following the issue and wonders what all the fuss is about.

  • Moxon’s Master, a science fiction short story by Ambrose Bierce. Could machines take over? Or did the narrator only imagine the truly original chess strategy employed by Moxon’s machine?

  • The Psychological Shipwreck, a supernatural short story by Ambrose Bierce. Not one of Bierce’s best, although I rather like the idea of souls bound in odd ways.

  • The Eyes of the Panther, a supernatural short story by Ambrose Bierce. A contemporary of Mark Twain and Bret Harte, Bierce often turned his fictional attention to the weird tale. I enjoyed this frontier spookiness quite a bit.

  • Bardelys The Magnificent, historical adventure fiction by Rafael Sabatini. I can’t call this one top-notch Sabatini. Oh, it has the usual tangled plot and swordplay. The romantic French setting is nice. But the protagonist did not win me over. Bardelys creates his own troubles, and has a tendency to blame others for them or punish people out of all proportion to what they’ve done. He behaves reprehensibly on several occasions, then mopes about how he’s trying to be all honorable. He congratulates himself on prevailing when only the sheerest luck allows it to happen. He misbehaves, yet takes great offense whenever anyone seems to question his honor as a French gentleman. He’s quite deluded, in my opinion. And so, when the book ends and Bardelys sees his enemies punished, his lands preserved, his dream woman in his arms and his standing with the king even higher than ever, it leaves something of a foul taste. Sabatini usually delivers much better.

  • Sit Down and Shut Up!, a non-fiction book by zen teacher Brad Warner. This is a follow-up to Warner’s “Hardcore Zen.” This time, Warner looks mostly at Shobogenzo, the primary text written by 13th-Century zen master Dogen. Some of it is hard going, but who said studying zen was supposed to be easy? Warner’s humor and straight-forward approach make this one fun to read, and it’s a pretty good discussion of a lot of confusing things.

  • GrendelSong No. 2, a speculative fiction magazine edited by Paul Jessup. Along with my own “The Gods-Forsaken World,” this issue includes a bit of old-school battle fantasy with a twist from Christopher Heath, a murderous short-short by Samantha Henderson, an other-earthly piece about a goddess and her minions from Eugie Foster, a mythical tale of love by Stephanie Burgis and a riff on Beowulf by Berrien C. Henderson.

  • Galapagos, a novel by Kurt Vonnegut. Brilliant. An incisively funny, darkly truthful, bizarre story told in simple, crystal-clear prose. Narrated by a million-year-old ghost who managed to tag along as an isolated pocket of mankind evolved after the rest of the human race … oh, hell. Just read it.

  • The Phoenix on the Sword, the first Conan story published by Robert E. Howard. Conan as king, beset upon by murderous usurpers. There is a bit of deus ex mechina in which an ancient dead wizard aids Conan, but the Cimmerian does enough red-handed slaying on his own to keep that from being a weakness in the story. I read from the recent Ballantine/DelRey edition.

  • The Tower of the Elephant, a Conan story by Robert E. Howard. Conan as a young thief in Zamora, assaulting the fabled Tower of the Elephant with burglary in mind. This probably is my favorite Conan tale. I particularly like the Lovecraftian elements and pathos surrounding the weird being who inhabits the tower’s loftiest reaches, and the weird magic involved. I read from the recent Ballantine/DelRey edition.

  • The Frost Giant’s Daughter, a Conan story by Robert E. Howard. Ah, yes. Action, pacing, muscular prose and big things getting slaughtered. What’s not to like? I read from the recent Ballantine/DelRey edition, devoid of any heavy-handed editorial tinkering as was done in the past. Conan is best straight up, with no preservatives.

  • Welcome to the Underworld, a short fantasy story by Iain Rowan in Black Gate #10. A story with a Far Eastern flavor. It features a serial character, Dao Shi, who specializes in lying. Rowan offers a solid character and setup, although the story introduces Dao Shi to an interesting underworld and then just stops there. Presumably we’ll get to see more of this underground organization in future stories.

  • A Book of Silences, a short Morlock the Maker story by James Enge in Black Gate #10. A fine fantasy story, with a truly bizarre bit of magic at work.

  • Sight of Vengeance, a short Dabir and Asim story by Howard Andrew Jones in Black Gate #10. These sword-and-sorcery gems combine great characters, weird mystery, fine action and colorful settings. “Vengeance” delivers on all those fronts.

  • My Lord Barbarian, a fantasy novel by Andrew J. Offutt. Ideosyncratic prose, and an implausible setting — a sword-wielding culture living on a system of artificial planets and wheeling through space in self-guided spacecraft the passengers barely comprehend. And you know what? It was a fun read.

  • The Devil Wives of Li Fong, a fantasy novel by E. Hoffman Price. The lurid title leapt off the shelf at the used-book store, and Price’s byline made me buy it. I’ve read some of his short stuff, but never a novel. This one, set in a fantastical ancient China, is a blast. I will be on the lookout for more Price.

  • Buddhism: Plain and Simple, by Steve Hagen, a zen teacher. A pretty decent primer on zen and buddhism, without most of the Indian and Asian cultural trappings that tend to obfuscate things for Americans like me. A straight-forward, useful book.

  • A Snowball’s Chance, a short story by Kurt Kirchmeier in the debut issue of All Possible Worlds magazine. A very cosmic, offbeat story about a boy with a universe in a box that I rather enjoyed for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. Perhaps it’s simply that the story has stirred my own imagination.

  • High Concept, a short story by John B. Rosenman in the debut issue of All Possible Worlds magazine. A good, weirdly spooky story. I liked this one a lot, too.

  • Prizes, a short story by Edward Muller in the debut issue of All Possible Worlds magazine. I liked this piece; a likeable protagonist in a tough situation in a Venusian setting, with a bit of humor tossed in. And the fate of the universe does not hang on the outcome. So far, my favorite of APW’s debut issue, but I still have several stories to read. I’m enjoying the magazine; it’s a rather eclectic mix, but so far all the prose has been pretty solid — no weird, half-baked incomprehensible approaches to the English language or narrative technique.

  • Sleep Magic, a short story by Daniel Ausema in the debut issue of All Possible Worlds magazine. This one didn’t work for me.

  • Iron Man, a short story by Greg Jenkins in the debut issue of All Possible Worlds magazine. A short, nifty satire about our apparent obliviousness to dangers all around us. It doesn’t really matter if the danger is terrorism, global warming, a planet-killing asteroid, bird flu or, as in this piece, a giant metallic monster. Most of us have our heads in the sand, and by wrapping all the Big Bad Nebulous Uglies into one very large and solid tangible monster, Jenkins skewers the head-in-the-sand approach quite nicely.

  • Save a Dance for the Plowman, a short story by Justin Staunchfield in the debut issue of All Possible Worlds magazine. Science fiction piece with a very human guy doing a tough job on a tough planet. I thought it was a pretty decent read.

  • Penny Royalty for the Pound Mob, a short story by Gene Stewart in the debut issue of All Possible Worlds magazine. The first-person narrative was very well done, but ultimately the story itself kind of went nowhere. A smidgen of real plot would have saved it for me, because the narrative voice, a musician, was authentic.

  • Booby Trap, a Nero Wolfe novella by Rex Stout. A military/industrial complex conspiracy, grenades and Wolfe playing hardball. How can you go wrong?

  • Not Quite Dead Enough, a Nero Wolfe novella by Rex Stout. Archie Goodwin has joined military intelligence to fight the Nazis, and has to hook Nero into taking a case for the government. The only problem? Nero the genius has gone waaaaaaay off the deep end in Archie’s absence. Loads of fun.

  • Lean Times in Lankhmar, a short Fafhrd and Gray Mouser story by Fritz Leiber. Fafhrd finds religion, the Mouser gets a job and mayhem ensues as their pursuits propel them toward a clash with one another. A humorous and witty entry in my favorite sword-and-sorcery series.

  • Dream Thief, the first published short story by my wife, Gere McClellan. It’s an eerie fantasy, and very well done (which I would say even without my obvious bias.) It’s in a new horror web-zine called “Down in the Cellar.” You can read it here.

  • The Companions of Jehu, a novel by Alexandre Dumas. This one has everything I love about Dumas, including his ideosyncrasies: Action, romance, adventure, chivalrous heroes, haunted ruins, conspiracies, military maneuvers, that goofy Dumas-style dialogue, occasional meanderings to focus on Bonaparte’s political and military games at the expense of the main plot, authorial asides to the reader that few modern writers could pull off. Reading Dumas is a trip back in time; not a real past, but a colorful and chivalrous past that should have existed. Thanks to Dumas, it does exist. Can you tell I really enjoyed this book? Here’s a link to the complete text, online, of The Companions of Jehu.

  • Hornblower During The Crisis, an incomplete novel by C.S. Forester. Very enjoyable story, ending on a cliffhanger followed by notes on how the story would have progressed had Forester lived to finish it. I wish he had; Horatio Hornblower rocks.

  • Bunny Didn’t Tell Us, a short horror story by David J. Schow in “The Giant Book of Horror” anthology. An amusing piece I enjoyed.

  • Rebel Force, number 341 in the “Executioner” action novel series. This one, the first “Executioner” book I’ve ever read, was written by my online friend Nathan Meyer, who sent me a copy. Hero Mack Bolan tracks down a missing U.S. intelligence officer and a beautiful Russian rougue agent in Chechnya, with bullets flying at every turn. Relentless action, lots of military detail, bloodshed aplenty. One note: One of Bolan’s adversaries uses a Heckler & Koch VP70z, my handgun of choice when playing the James Bond Role-Playing Game from Victory Games. “Rebel Force” is a down-and-dirty action tale, and I thank Nathan again for sending it my way.

  • The Number of the Beast, a short story by Fritz Leiber, in “The Mind Spider and Other Stories.” A futuristic crime story, which depends on math for its solution. To me, this is one of those cool ideas waiting for a good story to use it in — and I don’t think Fritz nailed it this time.

  • The Mind Spider, a short story by Fritz Leiber, in “The Mind Spider and Other Stories.” A science fiction adventure/horror piece featuring a mutant family of telepathics and an extradimensional menace. Awesome story.

  • Damnation Morning, a short story by Fritz Leiber, in “The Mind Spider and Other Stories.” This one is a Change War story, an offshoot from his novel “The Big Time.” Very enjoyable.

  • The Footfalls Within, a Solomon Kane story by Robert E. Howard. These are always fun. Kane’s courage is pitted against a dark thing from beyond.

  • The Right Hand of Doom, a Solomon Kane story by Robert E. Howard. Weird vengeance takes its toll, and our favorite Puritanical swashbuckler is there to witness strange events.

  • Skulls in the Stars, a Solomon Kane story by Robert E. Howard A horrific little tail of ghosts and murder, lurid and perfect for a night when you are snowed in.

  • The Rescue of Omar Ganski, a short mystery by Stephen Wasylyk in the February 1977 edition of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. A nifty story, marred a bit by stilted dialogue and a rushed ending. But a fun read, and good characters. This was Wasylyk’s first story in EQMM, but he went on to write many more. He had even more success over at Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

  • The Big Time, science fiction novel by Fritz Leiber. Time travelers, fighting a cosmic war against other time travelers to change the course of time, find danger in what is supposed to be a nice safe haven outside the known universe. The book is a total mind warp. I read it long ago, and enjoyed the re-read.

  • Arrogance: Rescuing America From The Media Elite, non-fiction by Bernard Goldberg. An online buddy sent me this book and asked me to read it, which is the only reason I powered through to the end of it. By and large, Goldberg doesn’t make a convincing case, engages in some unsound reporting practices himself and seems not to have noticed many significant developments in the world of journalism over the last decade or so. Not recommended, although some of the anecdotes are entertaining and the discussions with Tim Russert and Bob Costas aren’t bad.

  • Chewing Up The Innocents, short story by Jay Lake at Clarkesworld magazine. A dark tale, well told, about the struggle between art and life. The protagonist seemed like a real person, the story moved forward, the settings really set the tone. This is the first story at Clarkesworld that really appealed to me, although I haven’t read them all. It’s also the story I’ve most enjoyed from Jay Lake.

  • Godtouched, short story by Sara Genge. I read this one online in Strange Horizons. I keep going to Strange Horizons because it’s free and because it publishes a mix of fantasy and science fiction. I keep hoping to find something there that I really like. I didn’t find it this time. The prose was OK, but there was little about any of the characters that made me care one way or another what happened to them. It’s kind of a depressing tale, in a depressing setting. There you go — it depressed me.

  • Orm The Beautiful, short story by Elizabeth Bear. I read this one online in Clarkesworld magazine. A dragon story, but not really my cup of high-octane tea. I enjoyed it more than other things I’ve read at Clarkesworld, and so I’ll keep giving the magazine a try.

  • Mr. Bligh’s Bad Language, non-fiction by Greg Dening. A comprehensive look at the mutiny aboard H.M.S. Bounty. Explores the root causes of the mutiny, and the personality conflicts that brought it about. Also looks at the mythology that has built up around the incident (For instance, Bligh was not quite the flogging tyrant movies make him out to be). The book is a bit meandering, but it’s a very thorough history.

  • Our Friends From Frolix 8, a science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. As usual with Dick, this one’s a mind-bender. An action-oriented far future story with plenty of politics, weird physics and odd aliens thrown into the mix. Very enjoyable, also as usual with Dick.

  • The Second Reason, a short mystery by William Brittain. It’s another story from the old Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. This one involves a man unwittingly caught up in a murder scheme. It’s fairly well told, but the utter implausibility of the murder plot kept me awake for a while, thinking of all the reasons the plot could not possibly succeed. I came up with at least a dozen.

  • The Theft of the Sherlockian Slipper, a short mystery by Edward D. Hoch. I read this one in the February 1977 edition of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. It’s a caper about thief Nick Velvet and a Holmes collectible. I found it ho-hum — a story like this needs more charm, in my view, especially in the protagonist.

  • The Dispossessed, science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. This novel of a man trying to bridge the gap between two common but long-separated cultures is superb. It’s mostly a spiritual journey, with some bits of intrigue around the edges. The protagonist, Shevak, comes from a communal culture on a harsh moon, and travels to the urban, capitalist home planet. Chapters alternate between his journey to the home world and his growing up on the moon, providing contrast and a chance to see how Shevak grew up and how it affects his decisions as an adult. A lot of Buddhism sneaks in as Shevak learns annd grows.

  • Doctor Dogbody’s Leg, a collection of nautical tall tales by James Norman Hall. I started this in 2006, after a lucky find during our New England vacation, but finished it only now. I was trying to spread the joy, quite honestly. These stories are simply wonderful. Hall, who with Charles Nordhoff wrote “Mutiny on the Bounty” and other works, here gives us Dr. F. Dogbody, a peg-legged surgeon in the British Royal Navy. All the tales take place in a tavern called the Cheerful Tortoise, where the regulars — veteran seamen — urge the good doctor to once and for all reveal how he lost his leg. Dogbody obliges, and each time comes up with a completely unbelievable story about how he lost his leg. He is seemingly oblivious to the fact he’s already given different versions many times over, and his cohorts go along with it as though he’s never even mentioned the leg. The stories are funny, and include plenty of nuggets about the life and times of sailors in the age of sail. Hall has created a very simple setup for his stories, one that allows for the familiarity many readers crave in a serial character and yet provides a springboard for stories that occur all over the world. Highly, highly, highly recommended.

  • A Hitch in Time, a short story by Fritz Leiber, in “The Book of Fritz Leiber” collection. This one is science fiction/adventure, and rather funny. The premise involves two astronauts on a long-term deep space mission, with one of the two going a bit bonkers. One of the things I admire most about Leiber is his ability to suit the prose to the story. This one is written in first-person vernacular, with artfully dropped grammatical errors that make the voice seem more real. There are times when you should jettison things your English teacher taught you.

  • The Spider, a short story by Fritz Leiber, in “The Book of Fritz Leiber” collection. Fritz Leiber is one of my all-time favorites, but this one let me down. It’s a spooky story, with a neat idea, but it fell a bit flat with me.

  • Mistress Wilding, historical adventure fiction by Rafael Sabatini. As always with Sabatini, a fun ride. His historical novels usually employ the technique of setting fictional characters off against well known historical events. The protagonist’s goals always drive the story, but the plot often intertwines with the real-life maneuvers of troops and politicians. Here, Sabatini gives us a sort-of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” riff set against England’s Pitchfork Rebellion of 1685. A coerced marriage, a doomed bid for the throne, competing suitors, espionage, duels, battles, vile plots, betrayals, suspicions and an unlikely escape from a firing squad move things along nicely. A somewhat dishonorable action — that sets the whole story in motion — sets protagonist Anthony Wilding off from Sabatini’s usual heroes.

  • The God Delusion, non-fiction by British scientist and hardcore atheist Richard Dawkins. Pretty much what you’d expect topic-wise. Dawkins wields science to refute common reasons people give for believing in God. I agree with his scientific and logical assertions, but I can’t quite walk in lockstep with him in the end. In an infinite universe of infinite age, all things are possible — even God. Dawkins concedes that he can’t prove God does not exist, but contends that science can demonstrate that God is very, very, very, very improbable. Dawkins trusts the improbability math to the point of atheism; I trust the vastness of our ignorance to leave more room for God in the equations than Dawkins does (but I don’t think it likely that, if God exists, any of our religions have come close to understanding God. The truth is going to be a lot stranger than anything theologists have come up with, I suspect. But hey, I’m no expert.)
    I also don’t buy into some of Dawkins’ social assertions. He contends that raising a child to believe in religion constitutes abuse; I’ve known too many good Christian, Jewish and Muslim people to buy that line. I have no patience for extremists, but there are plenty of good people out there with a wide variety of religious beliefs who manage not to muck up the world by, say, beheading infidels, or flying planes into buildings, or denying rights to other Americans outside the fold, or strapping on bombs to blow up people they don’t know, or trying to reverse centuries of scientific learning in our public schools, or leading a nation into a holy war on provably false pretenses. Religion of one sort or another is behind all those ills. But such misbehaviors should not be seen as typical of all religions. Indeed, religions and the people who believe in them often do things to improve the world in big ways and small. Intelligent, religious parents are perfectly capable of raising intelligent, decent children. I think to tarnish all religious people because some misbehave is too strident. But at least Dawkins is entertainingly strident — although not as fun to read as Carl Sagan.

  • Conservatives Without Conscience, non-fiction by John W. Dean of Watergate fame. Here, an old-school conservative tries to figure out just how a bunch of authoritarian nutbars hijacked his party and started leading this country away from democracy. The book includes a lot of personality research that indicates that, basically, Team Bush is hellbent on doing things its own way and could give a rat’s ass about little things like, oh, the truth, fairness, democracy, equality, etc. I’m not sure I needed Dean to point that out, but it’s nice that he provides the research to confirm that these people shouldn’t be allowed to puppy-sit, let alone run a country.

  • Plot It Yourself, a Nero Wolfe murder mystery by Rex Stout. He wrote more than 70 of these books featuring man-of-action Archie Goodwin and sedentary genius Nero Wolfe. I can’t read them back to back, as there is a certain sameness, but the characters are wonderful, the dialogue snappy and the crimes quite clever. By the way, the “A Nero Wolfe Mystery” TV series on A&E, starring Timothy Hutton as Archie and Maury Chaykin as Nero, captures these books perfectly. It’s worth a look, and available on DVD.

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