Bearers of the Black Staff, Terry Brooks

   When I was much much younger, I ate up Terry Brooks books like they were on fire. I devoured them. They were among my favorites. I read The Sword of Shannara years before I got around to reading The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit in my late teens. I probably read everything he wrote up to a certain date at around that time. Then, when everything had been read, I stopped paying attention to what he was publishing. Bearers of the Black Staff is the first book of his that I've read since that period in my life.
   What can I say? What expectations did I have when I picked it up. I know myself well enough that I did not have great expectations. My tastes have changed a lot. I did not want to have great expectations and then be let down.
  I will say that the book was good. Not very good. Maybe even closer to OK than good. The story is set 500 years after a series I haven't read, and is supposed to take place before The Sword of Shannara. I got this from reading reviews.
  The story is post apocalyptic. Mankind has had its big war. Everything was destroyed in the big war. There is nothing left except for a massive wasteland and a sheltered valley protected by a magical barrier. That magical barrier's best before date has expired. People can now leave the valley. More importantly, a large troll army can invade the valley. The people within the valley have their petty conflicts and cannot focus on protecting their own interests. Even worse, there are powerful-ish leaders of the Hawk religion who are actively inhibiting their ability to respond to the existential threat.
   It took me awhile to get into the book. I liked it well enough, but I don't feel motivated enough to pick up the next book in the series. Brooks is legendary, and I have tons of respect for him. But I think the days of fantasy novel reading obsession are behind me.

The Fall of Gondolin, J.R.R. Tolkien

The two novels, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, are among the most memorable and loved reads I've had in my lifetime. They are simply magical. I imagine this is the same experience for many millions of his fans over the decades since he published his amazing tale. There have been a few other of his stories that I have read and tried to read. "Smith of Wootton Major" and "Leaf by Niggle" are a few that come to mind that have that similar magic, but not the epic majesty. The Silmarillion I tried to read years ago, but ultimately grew too weary of.

This book is said to be the last of Christopher Tolkien's efforts to publish his father's unpublished work. Some might say that he simply took advantage of his father's fame. But I got a sense of his real devotion, love, and respect for his father. He seems lost not in establishing his own legacy, but preserving as much of his father's as he could have. So, I have a lot of respect for that. He also gives some insight into the character of his father and his passion for his own work; and even the frustration of getting his work published due to the high cost of paper shortly after the conclusion of WWII.

The Fall of Gondolin is not one of the works that I would call magical. In fact, it is missing much. It is not a complete tale, but rather some fragments. What gave The Lord of the Rings and The Hobit so much magic was the fact that the main characters were so common. They could have been the runts of the classroom or the little guys that no one could take notice of. Yet, they do what the most noble and awesome of warrior and wizard could not: defeat the mightiest villain and avoid corruption.

The Fall of Gondolin is well written. The first fragment reminds me of something that might have come out of Arthurian legend. The second has some magical descriptions in it. But in the end, the main character throughout, Tuor, is an extra ordinary super macho alpha male type character that was so popular with characters like Tarzan and Conan and their like. It's good. But it's just not really what I look for in what I read. There's also a lot of superfluous stuff in the last 1/3 of the book: character lists, for example.

I came very close to putting The Fall of Gondolin down to remain unread a number of times. I probably would not have read it if not for the high ratings I found online for it. There is some serious quality to it. But I will probably not recommend it to anyone.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for some of the plot elements: in some ways, it's the story of what happens to a culture that builds too great of a wall between itself and the world as the world is consumed by an all too powerful force. When Tuor discovers the city, hidden in part by magic, he tells the king to participate in the fight against evil. But the king does not want it, and ignores the problem. Eventually, once the other cities have fallen to the evil Morgoth, Morgoth spares no pain to discover the hidden city.

I'm no longer a huge fan of the type of story where there is this caricature of good vs evil with no real insight as to the motivation that burns in the evil adversary. I wonder if I would be as spell bound by The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit as I once was.

The Slayer of Souls, Robert W. Chambers

The Slayer of Souls(1920) is the second book of Robert W. Chambers' that I have read. It is available for free at Gutenberg.org and Feedbooks.com. The edition I am reading is from Feedbooks. The difference between the two is generally that the transcriptions on Gutenberg.org are better than that of Feedbooks.com. On the other hand, the Feedbooks edition has a preface. After having read it all, I highly recommend reading the Gutenberg edition, as the Feedbooks edition has so many errors in it. They don't often obscure much, but it's like listening to a great album with a lot of scratches on it. Sometimes I had to stop and look around to figure out what should have been written in Feedbooks' edition.

First, the preface: Included is a criticism of legendary writer H. P. Lovecraft's, in which is excerpted, "Chambers is like Rupert Hughes and a few other fallen Titans - equipped with the right brains and education but wholly out of the habit of using them." The preface also includes a criticism from Frederic Taber Cooper, which reads, "So much of Chambers's work exasperates, because we feel that he might so easily have made it better." Regarding Lovecraft: I have only read a few things of Lovecraft's stories, "At the Mountain of Madness" and "The Alchemist". So, perhaps I'm missing something. However, I see his work as significantly inferior to that of Chambers'.

Take The Slayer of Souls which I am reading as an example: the descriptions are vivid. There is good dialogue, which is something which feels so lacking in Lovecraft's writing. Further, in the types of literary exposition, there is what is called 'show' and 'tell.' Lovecraft's two stories I have to go by is mostly 'tell' with some 'show,' whereas Chambers' is skillfully described.

The story could occupy several genres: fantasy, speculative fiction (according to Wikipedia), weird fiction, and horror. In this world which is set in the real world is an older one with magic set in the period just after world war one.

The main character, Nan-Yang Maru, aka Tressa Norne, has a great deal of this magical power. She was forged in magical China where demons are worshiped. She is a very powerful female hero, which is considerably rare. In fact, I cannot recollect any books that I have read prior to 1920 or even around that period where women are the heroes and main characters in this kind of fiction. For this reason alone Chambers has invoked a great deal of respect from me.

From the beginning, Chambers gives a taste of her power as she faces her most powerful nemesis: Sanang. Sanang breaks into her room on a boat headed to San Francisco from China, using psychokinetic powers, "(She) saw the double locked door opposite the foot of her bed slowly opening of its own accord." She holds a pistol at him. She uses some of her magical power and throws at him a yellow snake which terrifies him.

The first attempt at her assassination comes from a tough character, Gutchly Kan. He plots her dath, deriding Sanag's love for her and his fear. But Gutchlug instead is killed by one of her snakes, sent psychically from below his own room.

Senang and his surviving assassins are refereed to as Yezidees, and the demon they worship is Erlik.

When Tressa Norne finds herself in the US, she is unable to provide for herself. She tries to become a magician to entertain. But rather than using the typical setups of a magical show, she uses real magic instead. However, this does not amuse the audience, and she cannot make a living. There is no family for her, and she is extremely vulnerable.

Physically, she is described as boyish, her breasts being 'undecided.'

To survive, she is prepared to sell herself as a prostitute. But this is implied and never explicitly said. She is given an alternative: work for the US government for 3x what she was receiving before as a magician. Of course she agrees, despite knowing that by doing so she violates her promise to never reveal the inner workings of the Chinese assassins' guild, the Yezidees.

She was brought to China by her father. But, it would prove fatal to her father when the Yazidees "took Yian in 1910, threw him into a well in his own compound and filled it up with imperial troops" when she was 13. Some years later, her mother is killed, and she is forced to become a temple sorceress.

Her biggest problem is that she believes her soul is already dead. As soon as her body dies, she dies with it. For this reason, she will do anything to survive, as long as she can. The man she meets that recruits her is Victor Cleves, who ends up marrying her to save her reputation. A couple living together unmarried, apparently, would harm her reputation. She consents. As time goes on, however, it becomes clear that they are quickly falling in love with one another. Perhaps it is this love which helps her overcome the sorcerer-assassins.

Tressa is a remarkable character: horribly weak in some ways, and in others, perhaps, the most powerful person in the world. She defeats one after another of those who would kill her and subvert America into communism, but sees herself as completely unworthy of Cleves.

The prose is often poetic. It is well written, even romantic at times. I am very impressed with this novel and highly recommend it. I can't help but wonder if Chambers' harsh critics were jealous of his obvious talent.

The Daughter of Erlik Khan, Robert E. Howard

Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) is a legendary writer and pioneer of the sword and sorcery sub-genre of fantasy. "The Daughter of Erlik Khan" (1934) is available freely at feedbooks.com.

The main character is an American named El Borak. He has lived in and around the Afghan mountains for a number of years, establishing a reputation for being a dangerous fighter.

He is hired to escort and guide two Englishmen to rescue a friend. However, the mission was a fraud, as they were really after a young woman, Yasmeena, who serves a demonic cult as a goddess. Their intent is to capture her and return her to the man who 'loved' or felt insulted by her desertion.

He has similar characteristics to Conan. He is very strong and capable of withstanding physical trauma that would break anyone else. He manages to take over a group of men by killing their leader and promising great monetary rewards.

He manages to foil the kidnapping, and discovers the mining operation that had veins of gold so large that he could work chunks of gold out with a knife.

I didn't find this story quite as entertaining as "The Feud Buster," which I read last night. However, it's entertaining enough.

One comment, though, is that Howard has a way of touting the superiority of the white man. A white man living in the harsh reality of the Afghan is stronger and smarter than the others. The survival instinct, once mastered, gives him an edge over the natives around him who are in turn stronger than civilized men. This is a pattern that can be identified in other stories such as Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan stories where Lord Greystoke is raised as an ape, but has natural superiority of intelligence that gives him an edge over both his adopted ape brothers and the Africans whom he fights with.

There are moments of brilliant description that I admire that add a kind of poetic edge to his style.

The World That Couldn't Be, Clifford Donald Simak

This is the second piece, though this time a solo, of Clifford Donald Simak's (1904-1988) that I have read. I am growing impressed with his stories. "The World That Couldn't Be" (© 1958) is available freely on Gutenberg.org.

This is an action-science fiction tale, well told and an easy read. It is worth reading.

Here is the motif of the colonizer on another planet. Like many other science-fiction tales I have read, the protagonist, Gavin Duncan, is trying to grow a valuable plant called vua, which is also a medicine. A kind of animal called the Cytha has eaten it, and it's his intention to hunt it down so it doesn't eat the crop again.

The native population begs him not to hunt the animal, but he ignores their advice. They are an inferior people whom he has basically enslaved to make him rich. The natives also have a unique attribute: they are sexless. There are neither males nor females. They do not have sex to procreate.

While with Andre Norton, I got a sense of how the non-white characters are inherently inferior, with Simak that sense is that the protagonist may think this, but Simak does not. Thus, "the good and faithful hound" (ch. 3) seems the character's thoughts, and not the author's. Eventually the native tracker that he enlists to hunt the Cytha kills himself by slashing his own throat, probably in an effort to strand him at the mercy of the Cytha he tracks.

The Cytha that Gavin sets out to hunt is not like most creatures, or even monsters in fiction. It's not until the finale that Gavin understands that the creature known as Cytha is not really a single organism, but rather an assembly of lesser organisms: young Native children, predators, etc. Thus, when he shoots it in the neck, it is not dead as a whole, but rather just some parts. The composition of the creature comes out when he has gotten his ankle stuck in a tree after a storm has blown through, while Cytha has fallen into a pit. Gavin helps the Cytha out of the pit, and the Cytha helps save him from predators and rescues him from the tree which trapped him. The Cytha is described as it tries to escape its own trap--a pit dug into the ground,

It was coming all apart... the Cytha broke down into a thousand lumps of motion that scurried in the pit and tried to scramble up its side, only to fall back in tiny showers of sand... There were tiny screamers (a predator reminding me of hyena) and some donovans (an elephant sized bear/tiger) and sawmill birds and a bevy of wild-devils and something else as well. (chapter 5)

Later it is indicated that the native population that he had enlisted to help with the work on the farm are also born of this creature. Thus, the tracker killing himself rather than helping to kill the Cytha would be like a human refusing to kill a baby (albeit a baby of superhuman abilities).

After helping the Cytha out of the pit, Cytha brings Gavin back to his home. They agree to not infringe on each other: Cytha not to eat of the vua, and Gavin not to hunt Cytha. Does this Cytha speak for all the other Cytha I wonder. If this is a small one, what would the hunter do when going after a big one? This question is neither asked nor answered.

The great thing about stories like this is that they are still relevant today.

The Gifts of Asti, Andre Norton

This is the third story of Andre Norton's that I have read. Andre Norton (1912-2005) is a legendary writer from the Golden Age of sci-fi. "The Gifts of Asti" is available at manybooks.com, feedbooks.com, gutenberg.org, and many more locations.

The story is a fairly simple one. It's either set in the very distant future or the very distant past. One culture is being destroyed by a barbarian one. As the last of the 'virgin Maidens of Asti' of that culture flees with the aid of a reptilian servant, she discovers a well preserved man. The lake in which she finds him preserves everything for as long as they are in the lake. They do not age or die.

They discover a mostly destroyed ship in the lake, with the parts sticking out of the lake rusted to dust, while that sticking in the lake is still in good shape and without signs of damage aside from what happened with the crash. The lake is described as alive, so they do not drink of it (and why not if it preserves life?)

They rescue the man who is a hardened warrior, not like her dying people who had had everything done for them and gone soft. That seems to be a frequent motif with both "The People of the Crater" and "The Gifts of Asti." I suspect that this is a motif born from the competing ideologies of communism and capitalism, or, perhaps a consequence of a long lasting peace. Just like "The People of the Crater," the woman is a religious figure while the man is a human warrior come to give an almost extinct species hope. However, of course, biologically speaking it would be nearly impossible to accomplish this with just two people. But, that is the story from Genesis, isn't it?

The People of the Crater, Andre Norton

Andre Norton (1912-2005) is one of the most celebrated science fiction writers of the 20th century. She is one of the great science fiction and fantasy writers. "The People of the Crater" is available for free at a number of locations: gutenberg.org, manybooks.com, and www.loyalbooks.com.

She wrote most of her stories under the pseudonym, Andre Norton, but also under Andrew North and Allen Weston. She was the first woman to be Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy, first to be SFWA Grand Master, and first inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. I don't think it was on the basis of this book. This is the first book of hers that I have read.

"The People of the Crater" is a novella set in a fantasy world. This is more of a fantasy novella than it is science fiction. Captain Garin Featherstone is an out of work pilot who loses his job as a war ends. He is approached to pilot a plane. However, this is essentially a trap.

Some aspects have science fiction aspects: the plane crashes. He is almost dead. He is restored to life due to some very advanced healing device. There is a stick that is a powerful killing and wrecking device. 

The culture is that of a kind of goblin. However, they are not cruel or anything. They are involved in a war. The black goblins, referred to as the Black Ones, are very sick and serve an evil master, Kepta. I do find this to be a bit of a racist setup. I'm not a fan of making black characters evil or associating the color black with evil or bad, considering all the problems with racism.  

He goes to an alien world where he is used to rescue a young woman referred to as 'the Daughter.' They determine him to be a good mate for her, he just has to rescue her first. He succeeds, but is nearly executed over a misunderstanding. Had he failed to love 'the Daughter,' they would have killed him. He had thought Dandtand had loved her, but he was in fact her brother. 

Another interesting element of this story is the idea of reincarnation. As Garin kills Kepta, Kepta says,

"No, I am not dead, Outlander—nor shall you kill me, as you think to do. I go now, but I shall return. We have met and hated, fought and died before—you and I. You were a certain Garan, Marshall of the air fleet of Yu-Lac on a vanished world, and I was Lord of Koom. That was in the days before the Ancient Ones pioneered space. You and I and Thrala, we are bound together and even fate can not break those bonds. Farewell, Garin. And do you, Thrala, remember the ending of that other Garan. It was not an easy one."

This story is OK. I have a number of her other books and novellas. I hope that they are better.

A Voyage to the Moon, Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) wrote this story at the end of his short but vigorous life. A Voyage to the Moon is a very early work of fiction. It predates Jules Verne and most other science fiction stories about extra terrestrial voyages. It's unfortunate that there is so little information about the story online. Wikipedia does not have any essay about it. It is available freely at Gutenberg.org.

Bergerac belongs on the short list of people as an early innovator of science fiction. Apparently, much of the story was lost due to the influence of his friend who released it. It is surmised that perhaps this was an effort to lessen the wrath of religious leaders of his era. There are many machines, including the ones that get him to the moon, and a kind of phonograph, which are described to some length in the story.

The story is about a man who travels to the moon. On the moon he discovers that those who live there look at the earth as a moon. In many ways it is an opposite of earth.

Initially, the traveler finds himself in the Garden of Eden. He is told to be careful of the Tree of Knowledge, as the fruit's skin causes ignorance, while the inner flesh gives knowledge. He momentarily forgets this information when he is hungry, and eats of the skin with some drips of juice from the inside. Thus, he is dumbed down (because of the rind), but not completely ignorant (because of the juice of the apple).

The people who live on the moon are like centaurs. They have no money. If they wish to purchase something, they must compose poems. He is taken out for a meal. How the meal is paid for is explained:

...the money of the country, and the charge we have been at here, hath been computed to amount to three couplets or six verses... (chapter 8)

The narrator goes through many of the common beliefs in science on earth, as it is based on Aristotle. The audience to these theories find it funny, yet are threatened by it.

The quaintness of my Sayings was already the entertainment of all Societies, and my Wit was so much esteemed that the Coucil was obliged to Publish an Edict, forbidding all people to believe I was endowed with reason. (chapter 10)

But, because of the foreignness of his beliefs, he is shut up in a cage like a bird (in fact, they believe him to be a bird). The society of ladies to which the cage belong find him quite amusing until they discover that he is a male.

There is an interesting kind of invention in Bergerac's imagination: a kind of speaker of books.

...he winds up that Machine with a great many Strings; then he turns the hand to the chapter which he desires to hear, and straight as from the mouth of a Man or a Musical Instrument, proceed all the distinct and different Sounds... (chapter 15)

It is a shame that most of this book is lost to censorship. Also, it's too bad that Bergerac had so short of a life. At the age of 36, he passed on a trip meant to improve his failing health.

I don't know of very many who point to Bergerac as a kind of founder or father of science fiction. But I suspect this novel did much for the genre to kindle other fantastic ideas. The annotator and translator of the book, Archibald Lovell, draws more than a few comparisons to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. For instance, the evolved horse-like creatures referred to as Houyhnhnms, are very much like the beings ruling on the moon. However, there are no humans aside from our narrator.

The Dark Tower, Stephen King

The Dark Tower was supposed to be the final book in the Dark Tower series. However, their is an eight volume. This seventh volume is a bit of a monster at 745 pages.

The birth of Mordred, son of Roland and Susannah, but more a minion of horror, is born. Whatever question I had about how he might turn out is quickly determined. His evil is not brought about by conditioning from the minions of Hell, but rather he is already a demon already. I recall how Sin gave birth to her child: it clawed its way through her belly. I had thought maybe something like that was in store for the Mia/Detta/Susannah collective that are the personality complex of this character. 

When Mia gives her breast to Modred (perhaps to be renamed later, or not), he shows what he truly is. His belly has a crimson brand like the belly of a black widow spider. Its darkest nature is eloquently portrayed by King in one of his divine (perhaps Satanic) displays of narrative poetry as Mia nurses her baby:

Blood had begun to pour fro her breast (where the baby had fed). The baby drank it like milk, losing not a drop... She (Mia) reached out and stroked the still-changing freak at her breast, the black spider with the tiny human head... Her cheeks and brow and throat, flushed dark with the exertions of childbirth only a moment before, faded to the waxy whiteness of orchid petals.

At this point, now, I am just over half way done this seventh volume. Main characters are dying. One, Eddie the junkie, dies from carelessness. Another, Jake the kid Chambers, dies saving Stephen King's life. While the books are fairly well written, I didn't find any hardness in my throat or tears for the characters. Despite 'knowing' them for such a long time, I guess I never really got into them emotionally. Their deaths, in particular, Jake's, are well played and the death scenes are well done. But, for whatever reason, the emotional connection just isn't there: a touch closer to the boy, but still the distance between characters and reader (at least for me) is too distant to feel the strength of empathy of character required. When's the last time a book made me cry? I can't really recall. So, maybe it's just me being hard hearted ('may it do ya fine,' King might add).

King's involvement in the story is probably one of the more interesting facets of this tale. His involvement has grown considerably, and the involvement in King's life of the characters has grown as well. As mentioned, Jake's sacrifice is what keeps the van from ending Stephen King and The Dark Tower series. Whether he is the creator of this world or not--the book says not, he's just a medium of 'Dan-tet,' a kind of fate or an oracle--however, if his telling of the story was of no importance to the development of this imaginary world, why would his life really matter (to this imaginary world)? The oracle doesn't make fate, does it? It merely provides a riddle which becomes unraveled throughout the telling.

An aspect of King's involvement in the story that is interesting is how candid he is in self description. He avoids writing The Dark Tower series because of fear. But it's also revealed that all of his books are in some way related to it, some more, some less.

At this point, I have finished the end of The Dark Tower. Originally, I think King meant for the tale to end here. Of course there is an eighth book (there should be 19 books in all...) The last book was pretty good. Everyone except Roland and his new buddy die in the end. But, Susannah manages to escape her own fate: she abandons the quest for the dark tower just before they come to it, and, unless book 8 yanks her happy ending away, she's reunited with another world's version of Eddie and Jake (who are now brothers and have been waiting for her).

For Roland, the ending isn't nearly so kind. He refers to ka so much in the book (King's word for fate). There is often talk about worlds that only go forwards whose timelines cannot be repeated. However, Roland is forced back in time to redo his adventure from the point where volume one begins: Roland hunting down Walter to avenge his part in destroying Roland's family and friends.

Maybe this was what drove his antagonist mad: the constant repetition of a hard struggle. Maybe this was why he was working so hard to destroy the dark tower and these beams of existence or creation.

King has been given a fun series to read. Earlier books had a certain poetry (sometimes feeling forced, at others natural and brilliant), middle books trudged through a morass of words, but the last two books were well written with book seven being the highlight at the end of the tunnel. I will get to book eight soon enough, but, since I read somewhere that it really belonged past the middle but before the end, I don't feel that same sense of needing to read it. There are so many books to read, so little time.

I'm thinking The Stand is next, or perhaps it'll be book eight after all.

The Green Odyssey, Philip José Farmer

This is another book I vaguely remember reading in my teens. Yet, I cannot for the life of me remember any details. I just remember that for awhile I was afire over reading Farmer's books after reading this one. But, people change and perceptions change. What I might have valued more than 20 years ago has changed considerably. Thus far, I am finding that this novel might be one of those books that I no longer appreciate.

This book is more fantasy than science fiction. I find that to be the case for a lot of science fiction. There are some fantastic machines, but science is used to describe their fantastic machinations.

I am probably more of a feminist today than I was then. Although I believed in equal rights, I did not always understand when some things were sexist. I have noticed that about racism as well. Here's to personal evolution! Well, I guess a part of this reading journal entry will be a part of that analysis.

The main character, called Alan Green, is a handsome man from earth who has had the misfortune of being marooned in another world. But thanks to his good looks the best looking and demanding women are weak in their knees over him.

There was only one way to handle her; that was to outtalk outshout, outact her. It was hard going, especially when he felt so tired, and when she would not cooperate with him but would fight for precedence. The trouble was, she didn't feel any respect for the man she could shut up, so it was absolutely necessary to dominate her.

Obviously this is quite chauvinistic and misogynistic. It's definitely a blow to how I see Farmer.

Now that I have finished reading through the book, I can say that the misogyny was limited to a few pages.

The adventure basically begins with a daring escape. He manages to do this with the help of a merchant (who later tries to betray him) and the wife he acquired while on the planet.

He encounters pirates, cannibals, barbarians, and a witch. They have sailboats which use rollers and steady wind to cross a vast plain. While trying to get to a city where there are some captured Terrans, the ship is destroyed by a wandering island which is, in essence, a giant lawnmower a mile wide that can take down everything in its path, but is programmed to avoid spaceships.

Farmer's universe has mankind on planets everywhere. They were spread there by an unknown cause, stranded, and then slipped into barbarism with some, like earth, managing to regain interstellar technology that allows them to respread.

It's an adventure book, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I did when I was younger. Not just because of the sexist paragraph I cut-and-pasted above, but because the style is rather shallow. Its narrative is 3rd person limited, but even the main character seems a two dimensional character. Wikipedia writes, "While that story was almost universally regarded as unique and excellently written, Odyssey was frequently criticised for being clichéd and generic." I have to agree with that criticism.

Wolves of the Calla, Stephen King

Image from Corey Morgan

This is the fifth book of The Dark Tower series, by Stephen King. It's of equal length to book four, and thus the exponential growth of page numbers seems to have comAmazon, the book ranges in price from $.69 for a second hand copy to $20.85 for the library binding. The ebook is a reasonable $7.29.

The introduction is new for this novel, which is good. The rampant growth in the books' girth from book one to book four was quite impressive. However, the growth at this point seems to have subsided. It is roughly the same length as book four.

The story begins away from the main characters. A village gets raided for 1/2 of each twin set of sons and daughters every 24 or so years. This time, they want to fight back, and look to hire the young gunslingers, Roland and his two partners, to protect the village. It has a more than passing semblance to the western movie, The Magnificent Seven (itself an appropriated from the movie, Seven Samurai). King acknowledges that this, among many other novels, contributed to the creation of this book.

For the most part, this book has been the most difficult to get through. The side story about Callahan is entertaining. But for the most part, the book feels tired and uninspired. I'm more than half way through it. Books like this are like a tar pit: you struggle to get through it and you can't really do anything about it. You've already stepped in it (this is book five, right?). Gotta slog through it...

OK, finished slogging now... the book is done. This one was not fun. It had some enjoyable moments, but for the most part I didn't like it. Had it been book one and not book five, I likely would have walked away from it. However, one must sometimes read through or miss important parts that need be known in book six. And, even if books six to eight are as sluggish as book five, I will probably still read every word just to see how the Dark Tower series ends.

There were no really brilliant parts to this book. It was uninspired and dull. I will have to write later if it was worth it after I have finished the series.

Suspension of disbelief is an important component of a book. You have to accept things like robots with antennae which, when shot or cleavered off with a titanium plate, disconnects them from the controller and they 'die.' I can accept that. What is harder to accept is the role of the android (not really a robot, Stephen), Andy (short for android perhaps?) warns the town that these wolves are coming. They decide to seek out the help of Roland and his posse. Then, later on, it's revealed that Andy is in fact a spy and agent for those who seek to harvest some kind of telepathic essence that twins are born with. Why would Andy betray both those who control him and those whom he has fooled into believing he was a kind of simpletonish friend?

But, this wasn't a huge drag on the book. Again, one must suspend disbelief or else miss out on a reading science fiction, horror, and fantasy.

I kind of like the cameo Stephen King does at the end. He becomes a part of the narrative as do some of his books. I find that interesting and wonder where he will go with that.

Wizard and Glass, Stephen King

The fourth book, like the others, continues the pattern of growth that the second and third set. The Gunslinger, according to Google, has 224 pages. The Drawing of the Three has 400 pages. The Wastelands 512, and I'm now into Wizard and Glass at 787. Regardless, a second hand paperback copy is available for as little as one penny on Amazon, while the Kindle version is $10.75. So, it is only a modest increase in price despite there being a full novel's worth of extra material.

The book has an introduction and an afterword that are original. So, unlike the first three novels, there is some little interest here. In the afterword, it's quite interesting to note how many years passed between King's writing of the third and fourth installation of The Dark Tower series.

Due to the sluggishness of The Wastelands, I had a good deal of fear that Wizard and Glass would feel equally dull through an even greater number of pages. However, I couldn't have been further from the truth. The Drawing of the Three was OK, with some sections that were good. But it just didn't have the literary flare or beauty that The Gunslinger had. And, for quite a number of pages, Wastelands was sheer drudgery that almost caused me to drop the book and move onto something else. Wizard and Glass, however, is another animal. Stephen King really mastered his craft when he forged this volume. I might even be so bold as to say that this volume is superior to the first. Where in the first volume was a mixed bag of genius and tired-and-forced expressions, there is none of that forced or tired feel to this volume. It reads brilliantly. I don't know what King was doing as he was writing this, but he was a bloody poet through parts of this. Since I have only read about 20% of the novel at this time, I can only hope he maintains his style and craft at this level.

The group of unlikely knights or gunslingers do very little in this novel. It is mainly a novel about Roland's background story. It's quite a good read. I'm glad I went through the boggy spots.

In the opening scene of Roland's story as a youth, we meet a witch that is to become involved with Roland as a young boy. Almost certainly not to Roland's benefit. In any case, it's just a marvelous scene:

... curled atop the box was a slim green snake. When she touched its back, its head came up. Its mouth yawned ina  silent hiss, displaying four pairs of fangs--two on top, two on the bottom.

 She took the snake up, crooning to it. As she brought its flat face close to her own, its mouth yawned wider and its hissing became audible. She opened her own mouth; from between her wrinkled gray lips she poked the yellowish, bad-smelling mat of her tongue. Two drops of poison--enough to kill an entire dinner-party, if mixed in the punch--fell on it. She swallowed, feeling her mouth and throat and chest burn, as if with strong liquor. For a moment the room swam out of focus, and she could hear voices murmuring in the stenchy air of the hut--the voices of those she called  "the unseen friends."

I would have preferred King to use a young woman, or younger, or of some average age. I've never been a big fan of coupling ugliness and wickedness together. Charlize Theron, for example, made a great wicked witch in Snow White and the Huntsman. For her alone was that movie worth watching. The wicked witches as haughty, powerful women, are a favorite of mine.

Another example of how King makes these brilliant flourishes that add a wonderful spice or flavor to his narrative:

(she) looked into the glass once more. The horse and its interesting young rider were gone. The rose light was gone as well. It was now just a dead glass ball she held, its only light a reflection borrowed from the moon.

Now that I'm further along, almost half way through the novel, it has become ponderous again. Some tired cliches about purity and virginity and golden yellow hair. The sick (perverted) old man is hot for the 16 year old girl, Susan, and has a hall pass from his wife on her since he's wanting a child and his wife can't (or he can't, but the narration suggests the problem is with her). Since the sick perverted man is also a powerful mayor, this is going to cause a major problem between Roland and the people.

I guess it's still in vogue today: writers who paint in moral black-and-white and rarely shades of gray.

Also, despite King being the sort of writer who doesn't mind saying fuck, when it comes to romance scenes, he's about as graphic as a cheap Harlequin novel. I guess the difference might be that in the Harlequin novel the scenes are not rape. Or are they? I have actually never read more than a few pages of a romance novel.

 His eyes were bulging, there were big drops of sweat on his forehead in spite of the room's coolness, and his tongue was actually hanging out, like a dog's on a  hot day. Revulsion rose in her throat like the taste of rotten food. She tried to pull away and his hands tightened their hold, pulling her against him. His knuckles cracked obscenely, and now she could feel the hard lump at the center of him.

He paints a singularly lecherous man who can barely contain himself for his desire of this young flesh. King can't even say cock this time. It's the hard lump at the center of him. What happened to you when you wrote this part, King?

Fortunately, the drudgery of this bland, two dimensional romance, is short enough to endure, and the narrative gets much better and easier to stomach.

Another few negative criticisms I have of King's narrative: First, his treatment of the veritable descendants of Mexicans. He refers to their language as 'crunk.' I guess it's the old cliché, right? Lots of movies were nasty towards Mexicans and (sic) Indians. Fortunately, I suppose, King left the Native Americans alone.

The next criticism I have comes from my feminist side: he refers to the virginity of Susan, Roland's love interest as something that makes her honest:

... calling her as she had all those months ago, on the night Susan had come to her hut to be proved honest.

I wonder if King would say that this is the language of the setting, or the perspective. Or if he just thinks a woman who is not a virgin is not honest? Or is King just trying to reflect the general sexist racist stereotypes for this one book? Or is King himself not racist and sexist, only his writing? Fortunately I'm white, so it's easier for me to swallow. If I was a minority maybe I'd walk away from King and his novel. Or maybe I'm too PC. Most of the time it's OK, and only mildly detracts from the story.

The People of the Black Circle, Robert E. Howard

Image from Howardworks.com

As mentioned in my previous blog post, Robert E. Howard is one of my favorite fantasy writers. Perhaps had he lived another 30 years, he might have written something as grand as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. This is a novella which can be read in a single sitting. It is one of the better ones available at Gutenberg.org. If you are wanting to start somewhere, this is pretty much as good as it gets. One of the great things about Howard's fiction is that, despite the stories having the same heroic character, Conan, they are all perfectly independent and can be read in any order. In fact, he wrote them in no specific order. Also, this one can be read in a single sitting as it is a novella.

This is not the first time I've read this story. I have read it many times over a period of 30 years. I have read it in the well illustrated Conan Saga series, in paper with the very cover I reposted here, once on my cell phone and once on my Kindle. I don't know if there's any other writer I've reread so many times (aside from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" and a few other poems).

A group of wizards, the most powerful of their kind, referred to as the people of the black circle, get involved in the political workings of their neighbor. They destroy and slowly kill a king, and his sister wants revenge. Meanwhile, Conan's got some of his tribesmen in the prisons and are being used as hostages. As Conan goes to negotiate for their freedom, he runs into the Devi, who is this kingdom's heir to the throne.

There are many puppets and puppet masters in this story who work above and below board in this tale. It is complex and dynamic, which is quite amazing for a novella. But Howard is not one to waste words. We don't get to find out what he ate for breakfast or spend a lot of time checking on his feelings. He's a brute of a man who is loyal to his code of honor. As such, he becomes a good companion to Devi and takes her all the way to the black circle where he is able to dispense of all of the worst Stygia has to offer.

This is one of the stories that will make you really appreciate fantasy fiction and give you a good taste of Howard's magical style. Fritz Leiber wrote, "It has stirring language, strong motives, awesome sorcerers, brilliant magical devices, sympathetic hero-villains, and a Conan subdued enough to make the outcome interesting."

The Waste Lands, Stephen King

Image from BetterworldBooks.com

The Waste Lands is book #3 of 8 of The Dark Tower series. Thus far, this is the longest of the three and stands at about 500 pages. I have to say, the first half of the book drags. There are entire sections which go on about breakfast without having any particular purpose. There are also a lot of typos, wrong words, and misspellings. I think the proofreader of this book was definitely out to lunch for the ebook version. I don't know how the paperback fared. You can buy it for your Kindle or a paper version of it on Amazon.com or the audiobook from Betterworldbooks.com. You can buy the paperback version, plus shipping, for 6 cents on Amazon. The Kindle version is a bit over $10. For a library binding it's almost $20.

There are other things that bother me about this book. The female character, Detta/Odetta/Susannah, is so far very unimportant for this book. I can't help but wonder if she was added as an afterthought. (sic) Let's just add an amputee woman and a black one at that and we've got the minorities covered. Through the first half of the book (where I'm at now as I'm writing my thoughts) she is little more than a severe hobble on the questing group's journey. The way she talks seems so cliche stereotyping. The biggest thing that she did for the group thus far was allow herself to get semi-raped by some kind of ghost so that her 'white bread' boyfriend can make the spell that brings Jake out of his world and into Roland's world. Once Jake has become a part of the group, she says almost nothing and has become even less satisfying as a character. He might as well have written in that there was a big rock that has to be carried to the Dark Tower.

As I am better than half way through the book, now, the pace is picking up and it's getting more interesting. The typos and wrong words are a bit more common, but the narrative is more interesting from about the time that Jake started getting written in and has continued to improve since then. I hope it continues to be at least this good, or better, or I may never finished The Dark Tower series.

Now I have completed book #3. The pace, indeed, did sustain itself from the half to the end and left us at a cliffhanger. While I remained unimpressed with Susannah's character, the horror of this post apocalyptic city is an excellent backdrop to the horror of a powerful computer which, over the course of 800 years of decline, has gone mad. The people of Lud are half rotted, much like the great bear from the previous volume, infected by some kind of poison (radiation is hinted at but never explicitly stated).

Will I jump into book four right away or do I need a break? Stay tuned...

Gods of the North, Robert E. Howard

Image from The Crom Cast.

For a very long time I have been a fan of Robert E. Howard. How unfortunate it is for me and many
of his readers that he cut his life so short. At the age of 30, due to depression on account of his mother's death, he killed himself. Literary success, had he hung on a few more years, surely would have come his way. But in the end, happiness and success are not bound to each other, right Robin Williams? I did some serious reading of most of his books when I was in my teens, and have recently reread them.

"Gods of the North," a short novella, is available freely on Gutenberg.org.
 
In a great battle, there are but two survivors. They clash together and thanks to Conan's trusty helmet, and a killing blow, Conan survives the ordeal. Even as he barely clings onto consciousness, a nearly naked girl comes into the scene:

Image from fictionbook-lib.org

Her body was like ivory, and save for a veil of gossamer, she was naked as the day. Her slender bare feet were whiter than the snow they spurned. She laughed, and her laughter was sweeter than the rippling of silvery fountains, and poisonous with cruel mockery.

Beautiful, Conan is taken over by lust. She leads him on, always just out of his reach. But this vixen has no love for our hero. She is bringing him as the main course for her brothers' dinner. They, being giants, do not expect a mortal half dead from battle to offer much combat. Not only can he still fight, but he kills them as well.

He is ready to rape her. But just as he gets to her, feet bleeding from running, she disappears even as he grasps her gossamer gown. He then learns the story from an old man:

"It was Atali, the daughter of Ymir, the frost-giant! To fields of the dead she comes, and shows herself to the dying!"

Found at The Crom Cast,  "...Atali is Siren-like. Not because it absolves Conan from being a rapist, but because it fits the evidence we're given in the story better." It seems to me that perhaps the criticism is trying to avoid labeling Conan as a rapist. Quite frankly, throughout all the books of Howard's that I have read, I have never seen a character of his rape a girl. This is as close as it gets. But this brings up an interesting topic which is common in rape culture theory: a girl can say no at any time. Well, this is the ultimate test of such a theory. What if in this fantastical world a girl is siren-like. She can compel a man to follow her by using her charms, but does so at her own peril. Eventually she is defenseless and has to be rescued by her father (or destroyed?) If her father hadn't saved/destroyed her at the last moment, Conan would certainly have raped her. Would his reputation therefore suffer? Would he no longer be the heroic figure who would champion beautiful women against impossible odds, but rather a man who gives into his passion despite the vixens protestations? I think I would have forgiven Conan for it. But Howard loved his mother far too much to let Conan so soil even the tantalizing 'siren.'


I really love Robert E. Howard's stories. He writes very well. If you've thought about trying some classical fantasy hack-and-slash literature, it gets no better than Howard. While many compare him to Lovecraft, Lovecraft simply isn't on the same battlefield.

R. H. Barlow once wrote a poem in memoriam for Robert E. Howard shortly after his death. He laments Howard and Conan, as being one and the same. Little did he know that Conan would rise from such an ignoble end, and continue hacking and slashing. However, while the likes of Robert Jordan lent a pen to such a resurrection, the truth of the matter is that they were in no way able to match Howard's brilliant narrative style. However, I think Barlow very nearly captured Howard's poetic narrative in "R. E. H."

R. E. H. 

Conan, the warrior king, lies stricken dead 

Beneath a sky of cryptic stars; the lute 

That was his laughter stilled, and sadly mute  

Upon the chilling earth his youthful head. 

 There sounds for him no more the clamorous fray,

 But dirges now, where once the trumpet loud:  

About him press old memories for shroud, 

And ended is the conflict of the day.  

Death spilled the blood of him who loved the fight  

As men love mistresses, and fought it well—  

His fair young flesh is marble where he fell 

With broken sword that vanquished all but Night;  

And as of mythic kings our words must speak 

Of Conan now, who roves where dreamers seek.

 R. H. Barlow 1936

The Drawing of the Three, Stephen King

It's not possible to get a second hand Kindle edition version of this book as it is the paperback version. Therefore, either read the paperback version, or pay the $8.99/$10.60 (I think one price is US and the other Canadian), available on Amazon.com.

First off, I was disappointed in the introduction. It's the same introduction as the first novel in this eight volume octology. Having started the third volume, I can say that the third is the same as the first as well. Why couldn't you write a different introduction for the other books, Stephen?

Having completed volume two, I can honestly say that King has failed to match Tolkien as he had hoped. However, this is nothing to be ashamed of. King pumped these out at breakneck speed while Tolkien made it his life's work. That said, I burned through this book's four hundred some odd pages (according to Google) in less than two days. I don't know if that's a record for me, but it might be. In other words, it was a gripping novel that is hard to put down.

Our protagonist, Roland, is hunting down three people who are to help him in his quest for the Dark Tower. There is some kind of door that appears magically out of nowhere. When he opens it, he is able to control the consciousness of whomever the door is set to.

 Roland goes to the beach and suffers an encounter with massively large lobsters King calls lobstrosities. The fight results in the loss of two fingers from his right hand and results in a deadly bacterial infection.

The first he picks up is a drug addict, Eddie. He saves him from prison, is instrumental in delivering him from the drug lord who had conscripted him for trafficking cocaine, via airplane, into the US. He is a heroin addict and a bad junkie. His brother is worse. However, in the end the drug kills him. He crosses into Roland's world and helps him in his quest. He brings with him some drugs, but it's not enough to completely destroy the bacteria in his system.

The second person is a black lady named Odetta. She is very tough but has a split personality that is a kind of Jekyll and Hyde. One is a deadly killer and the other a highly educated lovely lady. Eddie falls in love with her, but she is difficult to manage because of her second personality and the fact that her legs were cut off and consequently she needs to be pushed around in a wheelchair. However, that does not mean she is helpless. She is very dangerous.

The last is Jack Mort. But rather than bring Jack back, he uses Jack to rob a store of antibiotics and get some ammunition. He never thinks to get other firearms for his new colleagues. At this time, however, Odetta (good)/Detta (bad) is in bad mode and takes hostage of Eddie. Jack Mort is the man who is responsible for her condition. He is a psychopath who pushes people into traffic, subway trains, and drops bricks on random people. Odette/Detta was one of the victims twice--once as a girl he dropped a brick on, and once as a woman whom he pushed in front of a train which took her legs from her; as was the boy, Jake, from volume one of the series. Therefore, the gunslinger has no pity for him and hates him and subjects him to considerable pain before forcing him to kill himself by jumping in front of a subway train.

While the gunslinger is in that other world, Odetta/Detta has mercilessly tied Eddie up for the lobstrosities to eat up.

Once he does that, Odetta/Detta become a single character, thereafter referred mostly to as Susannah, becomes their friend and ally. She saves Eddie and they become buddies. Roland brings back a lot of drugs to take care of his infection and ammunition. Roughly at this point The Drawing of the Three comes to an end.

It's a very enjoyable story and King has kept me glued to the pages. Some other notes: the style between volume one and two has shifted. Both metaphors and similes, forced and brilliant, ar eno longer present. So, I missed the moments of brilliant description and was grateful for the absence of the forced ones which pained me on occasion. I also didn't catch any run-on sentences. I think he hired a good proofreader for this volume!

The Gunslinger, Stephen King

I think I remember reading this book a long time ago. The title is familiar. But that's it. Maybe I read Amazon.com. This is just the first of eight in a series. So, that means to go from point a to point z courtesy of Amazon, you're looking at about $80. Mass market paperback, on the other hand, will set you back by about $0.51. It might cost the environment a few more kg in CO2, but that's not his or his publisher's nightmare, is it? I guess it was something else. Unfortunately, the only way to get this book for free or at a reasonable price is to either a) get lucky and borrow it, b) someone throws it away and you take it, c) steal it from friend, stranger, or foe, or d) buy it second hand from a second hand bookstore. Why there is a premium on an old book going through Amazon is beyond me. For $10.46 you can get your Kindle version.

I am reading not the original version, but the version that has been revised since the completion of the octology. The changes, he mentions in the introduction that he wanted to do an epic series. This is his opus magnum.

Stephen King is a master of narrative. No sane mind, and probably no insane mind, would dispute this opinion having read his books. He really owns his genre.

His similes and metaphors are frequent, and occasionally real gems. "A gunslinger knows pride, that invisible bone that keeps the neck stiff." There are several other gems that I really liked. Other times a few of the metaphors seem forced. I didn't record those instances and I'm not going to dig for them. So, my impression could be wrong and maybe I was just in 'a mood'.

The story is that the gunslinger, named Roland Deschain, is out for revenge against "The Man in Black," I think because of something the man did to his mother a decade or two earlier. His own father had been a gunslinger. He is said to be not as fast or as smart as the other gunslinger students, but his teacher, Cort, tells him that he's the best student he's had in a long time. He is described as slow and deliberate. 

From izquotes.com

Eventually he does track down the man in black. Or, perhaps it can be more accurate to say that the man in black leads him to this final destination. Along the way he runs into a small village where he is set upon by a witch and all those who are under her spell. In all there are some 70 men, women, and children, who all try to kill the gunslinger. But he kills them all. In the pages of killing, I like this line: 

She was large and fat and known to the patrons of Sheb's as Aunt Mill. The gunslinger blew her backwards and she landed in a whorish sprawl, her skirt rucked up between her thighs.

I am surprised, however, to see runon sentences in his book. The one above is not the only one I spotted. Great descriptions, but always surprised to see stuff like that considering he was an English university grad, school teacher, and has an editor to ferret out such things.

After he's done killing the congregation of the witch,

They trailed in a twisting, zigzagging path from the back door of the barber shop to where he stood.

There is even a lovely illustration of the bodies lying in zigzag formation.

Eventually he does get to the man in black. He wakes up ten years older in the mountains after his conversation with the man, or palaver as King likes to put it, and the man in black is a skeleton. How this comes to pass or why is unknown. It is here that King leaves off volume one of eight in The Dark Tower series.

The Complete H.P. Lovecraft Collection: Fiction, Poetry, Essays and Letters, H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft is one of those names I grew up with. It's a name synonymous with the authors I loved the most growing up: Edgar Allan Poe and Robert E. Howard. So, when I heard, courtesy of a friend, that Amazon was giving away a complete collection of Lovecraft's fiction, I of course dropped everything and made sure to pick up a copy. Sorry, but that price point is no longer so sweet. Amazon.com now sells it for $.99. That's not a bad price considering what you get: a vast amount of literature capable of keeping you busy for a few months. It has a table of contents.This is something that would be terribly missed in so voluminous a volume.

I know that Lovecraft is revered. But, having gone through a few stories so far, I simply cannot seem to place them on the same shelf as Edgar Allan Poe or Robert E. Howard.

This text is quite long. It's roughly equivalent to three hefty Dickens novels. I don't think I will do it all in a single setting. I will do a few at a time and update this post as I read them.

Fiction

The Alchemist

Not a bad little horror story--the sort of pulp magazine fiction that would do well as a B-rated film script. A man is born with a curse. It is at once a magical curse and not a magical curse. It is magical in the sense that the nasty things that happened to his ancestors and nearly happened to him were the result of a kind of wizard who had attained a kind of immortality. But it was no curse in the sense that magical things would happen, or coincidental things would happen, due to some spoken curse.

At the Mountains of Madness

Image found at Mutantville.

 The beginning of this story feels so mechanical and dry. Like it's really out of the journal of some kind of explorer. The setting is the frozen continent: Antarctica. Perhaps the Antarctica had just begun to open up to explorers in Lovecraft's day and, therefore, easily exploited as an unknown possible horror.

Most of the story is pretty descriptive of setting. He goes into wordy descriptions of creatures and of this hidden city in the middle of the Antarctic. It is not until the main character begins to follow in the footsteps of the explorer, Lake, who disappears. He has gone to find out what happens to him. As a result, he discovers an alien race and some living remnants.

However, after seeing the ancient history of these alien races on earth through sculptures and artwork, a terrifying mist comes after his group, motivating a hasty retreat and a lucky escape.

There are really no characters. Although there are characters in the story, they are really nothing at all: no personalities at all. Does anyone say anything at all? No dialogue?

Current Thoughts

I am not entirely sure where I stand on this material. On the one hand, I think it is a kind of incomplete story: like there are parts missing to make it a good read. On the other, he was a kind of important pioneer. Many of the 20th century writers I admire point to him as an important influence.

In the Wikipedia article on H. P. Lovecraft, there is mention of his influences: Poe, Lord Dunsany, and others. I am already very familiar with Poe, while I don't recall having read any of Lord Dunsany.

Some things are worth reading just to get a sense of where other writers come from. I think this is one of those stories: read it to get a sense of historical evolution in the genres of science fiction and horror.

 --- I don't know when my next post on this book will be. Until then... may your nightmares consume you in unholy terror.

The Marvelous Land of Oz, L. Frank Baum

English: Book cover of The Marvelous Land of Oz (1st edition), published in 1904. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I had such a wonderful time reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with its charming simplicity, yet rich and colourful, and above all, magical creation, that I had to pick up the second in the series, which happens to be what this post is about. You can get it for free from Gutenberg.org.

In my previous journal entry, I wrote about how the ebook lacked the ability to tab through chapters and was difficult to navigate. This book, however, was not neglected. There is a table of contents which is called a "List of Chapters" rather than a TOC, which can be used to navigate through the book, and the chapters can be tabbed through. However, when pressing the menu button, one may not find "List of Chapters" as one might usually find a "Table of Contents" to go to. So, one must go to the first page and tab through to get to this menu.

This story takes off where the two characters, the tin man and the scarecrow, were left off. We do not get to see Dorothy or Toto again. And, even the lion is no where to be seen. We are also introduced to some new characters. These are: Tip, who is a real boy. There is Jack Pumpkinhead, who has a pumpkin head stuck in a great big smile. Jack is brought to life by Tip. Then there is Woggle-Bug, which is a gigantic bug who was enlarged and became sentient. There is also a Saw-horse that is brought to life. Finally, there is the Gump, which is a flying creature with couches for people to ride in. All of these new inanimate characters were created by Tip, who had stolen it from a witch called Old Mombi. It was a bit of dust that, when given to an object, could turn that object into a living, thinking, caring being.

The strawman has been attacked in his Emerald City and forced to abdicate to an army of girls. Most of the adventures are about the new friends trying to get it back. But, towards the end, we discover that the Emerald City was in fact supposed to be ruled by a girl who had been lost when the original wizard had taken over. Glinda, the good witch, tries to put the rightful heir to the throne back on the throne. It turns out that Tip was that girl. He had had his gender transformed by Old Mombi to hide him. So, he is changed back into a she after the city is taken, and she is placed on the throne.

This story is also highly imaginative, with witty humour and word play banter. It's a short read, but still a lot of fun.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum

Title plate of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (not the cover, it's the interior title page), 1900 Wizard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Who can forget one of the greatest children's films of all time? The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was, and still is, magical. I got it in my head to read the book, and I'm quite glad I did. It's available for free at Gutenberg.org.

First off, the one criticism I have of this book is that there is no formatting, no navigable table of contents. This is a Gutenberg slip. I notified them, but I haven't heard back from them. Maybe it'll be fixed, and maybe not. But, I found the story so charming and imaginative that I almost didn't care.

I don't think I need to outline the plot, but I will quickly: cyclone brings Dorothy to the land of Oz. She kills a bad witch, meets a scarecrow, a tin man, and a lion. The scarecrow wants brains, the tin man a heart, and the lion, courage.

However, the treatment of these characters differs, I believe, between the book and the movie. The scarecrow is not stupid, the tin man is not heartless, and the lion is not a coward. Quite the contrary: it's the scarecrow's brains that helps them overcome many of their obstacles. The tin man often sheds tears. He's the most empathetic character, who is moved to tears on many occasions. Finally, the movie version of the lion is a kind of funny joke. In the book, however, he is a noble character who is often using his courage to overcome dangerous obstacles that the group could not otherwise overcome.

When they do meet the Wizard of Oz, they discover of course that he is a fraud. Nonetheless, he is able to give each of them (excepting Dorothy) their wish. But, it is their belief in his ability to bestow those powers which gives them those attributes. In essence: the placebo effect.

At the conclusion of the movie version, Dorothy clicks her red shoes and finds herself back in Kansas with her family. Conversely, Dorothy of the book uses her silver shoes to get back. However, when she gets back in the movie, it's as if she's awoken from the carnage of the house. In the book, the house has been replaced altogether and a significant amount of time has passed.

Another major difference I was able to note is that the witch in the movie, The Wizard of Oz, is very antagonistic towards Dorothy and her friends as she makes her way to the Emerald City. However, in the book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,  it is not until after Dorothy and her friends have been instructed to seek her out and kill her that the witch takes any actions against Dorothy. In the book version, the witch is a bad person: she enslaves people, she does cruel things, but she does not seek to do Dorothy any harm until Dorothy comes after her.

scanned from 1900 Wizard of Oz book (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are more differences between movie and book, but I don't think I will list any more.

I really believe this was a brilliant piece of fiction. It was written in the preface by Baum that he was looking to create a new fantastical world without relying on the imaginations of those who came before him. And, he did a great job of it. It's littered with jokes which are comical, whimsical, and magical. Already I've begun reading the second in this series of Oz books. I can't help but feel that Baum may have been one of the first and original authors to begin experimenting with fantasy outside of the fairytale universe which the likes of Andersen wrote.

In summary: excellent book. Read it! It's good for kids and adults alike.