EARTHWIND - Book review

Robert Holdstock’s followed his science fiction novel Eye Among the Blind (which I read in 1982) with Earthwind which was published a year later in 1977.

The main character is Elspeth Mueller, a lone black Earthwoman who is presently living and studying with the Stone Age natives of Aeran, an alien planet. She is sharing a low-roofed cawl with the young native Darren; all the natives are fur-clad save for their faces above the jawline.

Holdstock is inventive. The natives are naked, as is Elspeth – except for her leather mocks (moccasins); their village is a crog; ‘... her calves were covered with white blisters where yellowspins had fed on her during her light sleep. The blisters were not the result of the bites but her body’s immune reaction to the whip-like parasites that the yellowspins had injected into her’ (p7); she regarded like a nue – hairless humans of either sex (p8) who dwell in the snowlands; blackwings which are huge leathery avians who provide food, bone weapons and decorative garments. Elspeth joins Darren in an exhilarating hunt of blackwings – employing tangleweed as whip-cum-lasso and finally celebrate their success by ‘hanging’ – ‘she didn’t know whether or not she liked the idea of having sex whilst dangling from two whips’ [suspended in trees] (p21). Indeed, she considered that the Aerani ‘communicated, cooperated with and utilised nature without precipitating some drastic ecological change’ (p66).

Elspeth spent her childhood in ‘the sprawling metropolis of New Anzar on Pliedase IV...’ and suffered ‘the ritual mastectomy...’ (p25) which involved sewing two red jewels on her in place of breasts! (This brutalisation is not adequately explained; yes, it’s a ritual, but why?) Later, at some point she volunteered to join a team going to Earth for an archaeological restoration programme in Western Europe. ‘After a three hour war of some centuries before, much that was of historical interest was still buried beneath dust, sand and rubble...’ (p72).

There’s a lot of theorising about the Aerani culture. ‘But imagination is reason’s worst enemy’ (p23).

Another protagonist is shipMeister Karl Gorstein who is on a mission for the Electra, the invaders who have taken over Earth. His ship is the Gilbert Ryle (named after the British philosopher (1900-1976) who coined the phrase ‘the ghost in the machine’. Gorstein is tasked with studying the colony on Aeran and reporting back. He is aided by the ship-board rationalist, Peter Ashka, who uses the oracle to guide the entire crew. The oracle was in effect the tao: ‘Everything is related to everything else, overlapping, intertwining, matter and time as products of the structure of the great tao, each man a fragmentary side effect of that same structure...’ (p37).

It’s probable that Holdstock was influenced by Fritjof Capra’s book The Tao of Physics (1975) which I read in 1980 when studying Psychology: Capra contended that “Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science. But man needs both.”

In her studies of rock-markings made by the Aerani culture, Elspeth encountered a rare triple spiral which Darren said it identified the Earthwind (p51). Now she had an absolute goal, to locate the source, the Earthwind... Elspeth’s several discussions with Ashka are almost mind-blowing: to paraphrase one chat, the special triple spiral appears on many ancient taoist works of art – one spiral = ching or change, the second is the shen, the luminous inner spirit, and the third is the ch’i, the moving vitality – which is in us all (p78).

The leader of the Aerani consults their oracle – the Earthwind – and while there are surprising similarities, they ultimately are destined to conflict, especially when Elspeth discovers the distinct nature of Aeran and its effect on the humans on its surface.

Holdstock tinkers with memory, time-displacement, and psychic energies. When a character states ‘it began to make sense’ (p73) that depends on several factors, not least the reader’s attention!

He clearly hadn’t finished with the conundrum of time; he tackled it with his 1977 novel Where Time Winds Blow.

Robert Holdstock died in 2009, aged 61, leaving behind an incredible output of fiction and non-fiction.

Editorial comment:

Always a problem, this: ‘What was happening to him, she wondered?’ (p155) Of course, it should read What was happening to him? she wondered. The word-processor automatically capitalises ‘she’ so it needs changing. Or alternatively, leave it as: What was happening to him? (The context should show who is doing the wondering.

 

NO LESS THAN THE JOURNEY - Book review

E.V. Thompson’s novel No Less Than the Journey was published in 2008. To all intents and purposes it’s a western

The epigraph is ‘I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars’ from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself: ‘the poet implied in the scheme of things a blade of grass is no less important in its way than the stars in the heavens’ (p331).

The tale primarily concerns young Cornish miner Wesley Curnow who has arrived in the United States in order to seek out his uncle who is working in the mines in Missouri and find work. On his way he befriends US Marshal Aaron Berryman. While sailing on the riverboat Missouri Belle the pair get to know two Mexican women working at the casino tables – Anabelita and Lola – and become close...

Wes’s journey takes him to the mountains where he learns to handle a sixgun with the help of mountainman Old Charlie, and then travels to a number of towns where he puts the guns to use helping the innocent.

The geographical and political background sound solid – some ten years after the end of the Civil War, and the characters are interesting but I wasn’t invested enough in Wes or Aaron. The writing is not as involving or as descriptive as his earlier works, the people are not as fleshed-out as others he has created. Still a worthwhile read, but having enjoyed several of his books, this one didn’t grab me nearly so much.

Sadly, the novel pales in comparison to Thompson’s other book set in the West, Cry Once Alone (which I read in 2012). I felt that there was too much repetitive explication. The ending seemed rushed – and while it may have given a nod to the stark realism of those days, I found it was unsatisfactory. Four more of his books were published after this; two of them in the year he died (2012) aged 81.  

(The cover, while well-painted, seems slightly off; the saddle doesn’t appear to have a cantle; Wes wore a gunbelt with two holsters, none of which is in evidence; the cowboy is wearing chaps but at no time was this apparel worn by Wes...)

Editorial comment:

Thompson relates how the Missouri Belle sailed the river at night. Yet as a rule riverboats didn’t attempt passage at night, it was too dangerous – hidden snags and rocks had claimed too many boats over the years.  (Explained in my book Death for a Dove...)

PHANTOM - Book review

Susan Kay’s second book, Phantom, was published in 1990 and reprinted twice in 1991. It’s the tragic retelling of Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, from birth until death. It was inspired by Lloyd Webber’s musical of 1986, the source novel by Gaston Leroux (1910) which I read in 1987, and an animated cartoon of 1967.

The book is a first-person narrative by several people: Madeleine (1831-1840), Erik’s mother; Erik (1840-1843);  Giovanni (1844-1846), an Italian stonemason; Nadir (1850-1853), the mysterious Persian; Erik (1856-1881); Erik and Christine (1881); and Raoul (1897).

Erik was born in France and was severely disfigured – possibly Lon Chaney’s makeup has come closest to the true depiction. His mother made him wear a mask at all times and yet she still struggles to love him. Strangely, he exhibits uncanny intelligence with a facility for music, languages, architecture and creative art. The boy’s singing voice is almost otherworldly, yet his mother is affected adversely: ‘His voice is a sin... No woman who hears it will ever die in a state of grace’ (p36).

At about eight years of age he runs away and eventually joins a circus where he is treated abysmally for three years until finally he escapes to wander the rest of Europe. He falls in with the aging stonemason Giovanni who takes him on as an apprentice. Disaster follows and we next find him in Persia, being employed by the Shah as an architect and magician. (Yes, he has mastered prestidigitation too). Here, he is embroiled in court intrigue – ‘the Persian court was not a place where a wise man took his eyes off an enemy for a single careless moment’ (p198). Finally, he was drawn to Paris: a public competition had been held for the plans of a new Opera House. He befriends the competition winner and is involved in the construction so that he not only knows intimately the place they build but also the special secret access doors he has engineered as well. The stage is set for Erik to meet Christine and vie for her affections with her rich fiancé Raoul.

Kay has managed to give us the voice of each narrator with conviction. Even though knowing it will all end in tears, I could not put the book down. Kay captures Erik’s prodigious learning capacity for architecture, magic, and music: ‘Music was the secret sanctuary of my soul; music was my god, the only master I would ever serve again. I wished I could build a monument to its glory... an opera house perhaps...’ (pp320-321). The Paris Opera House opening night was on 5 January 1875, with the spectacular chandelier installed.

Erik’s relationship with Nadir, the daroga of Mazenderan is both moving and intriguing, as the Persian was fearful of Erik and yet in awe too: ‘I found that I no longer thought of him as a cold and heartless monster’ (p230).

Christine, as we know, becomes mesmerised by Erik’s voice – the Angel of Music – and falls under his spell. Thus the tragedy’s final act begins.

I too fell under the spell of Kay’s writing, living – even if briefly – the lives of the several narrators.

THE CHASE - Book review

Clive Cussler’s novel The Chase is the first in his Isaac Bell historical series. Published in 2007, it is mainly set in 1906. The prologue ‘The Ghost from the Past’ features an elderly Bell in 1950 as he witnesses the recovery of a railroad engine from a lake in Montana. The epilogue ‘Up from the Depths’ returns to this scene too. Certainly, the prologue does tend to provide us with a spoiler for the final stages of the adventure, which runs under the title of ‘The Chase Quickens’; the intermediate section is labelled ‘The Butcher Bandit’.

In January 1906, a solitary bank robber gets away not only with his loot but also with the cold-blooded murder of the bank staff. This wasn’t his first robbery, however; it happened to be the fifteenth successful robbery he had committed, actually killing thirty-eight men and women and two children (p18), and thus gaining the infamous sobriquet the Butcher Bandit.

The head of the Van Dorn Detective Agency commits his agent Isaac Bell to track down and apprehend the notorious bandit. Bell already has a solid reputation as a thief-taker: ‘... tracked down Big Foot Cussler...’ (p52). Bell is an engaging and attractive character.

Cussler not only name-drops himself. One of Bell’s new contacts in San Francisco is a young boy called Stuart Lauthner (p332); this is the name of Cussler’s biographer (though he misnames him on the next page as Warren,,,!)

Inevitably, being an enthusiast, Cussler knowledgeably writes about fast cars and trains of the period. He comes across the chief train dispatcher called Morton Gould; I don’t know why he’d want to use the composer’s name (1913-1996).

During his investigations Bell makes friends with a secretary called Marion and it seems romance might be in the air... There is also a fantastic cross-nation drive against the clock, an unfortunate death, and dollops of suspense and action too.

Cussler’s familiarity with the period shines through this fast-paced cat-and-mouse adventure, with two formidable villains and the startling backdrop of the tragic San Francisco earthquake, which is well described.

When the final page is turned, it’s nice to know that there are other adventures of Isaac Bell to enjoy! Next in the series: The Wrecker (2009). Like a number of other authors, such as Bernard Cornwell and C S Forrester, Cussler wrote his Bell books out of chronological order – in effect, filling in gaps in the hero’s earlier history. Chronologically, two later Bell books come before The Chase: The Striker (2013) and The Assassin (2015), covering the periods 1902-1912 and 1899-1908 respectively).

Editorial comment

Chapter 2 is dated September 15, 1906 and relates how Bell is tasked with tracking down the bandit. Unfortunately, it should be 1905. Since the denouement takes place in April, 1906!

‘The posse claimed there were no tracks leading out of town to follow’ (p112) – which seems odd. There must be plenty of tracks leading out of town – unless the road surface is metalled, of course. In which case, it would not be worthy of comment.

A number of full-page black-and-white illustrations have been inserted; but the artist doesn’t appear to be credited.