Category: books (Page 13 of 25)

Setting aside the books written under the house name of Ellery Queen, noted SF Grandmaster, Jack Vance, wrote nearly a dozen straight mystery novels. The same tropes from mystery/detective stories appeared in his SF works, from the short stories featuring Magnus Ridolph, to his Gallactic Effectuator novellas, and even his five-novel Demon Prince books, but it was under names other than “Jack Vance” that he wrote what I’d consider the pure mysteries.

The books I consider pure mysteries are: The Deadly Isles, The Man in the Cage, The Dark Ocean, The View from Chickweed’s Window, The House on Lily Street, Strange Notions, The Dark Ocean, The Fox Valley Murders, The Pleasant Grove Murders, Bird Isle, and Take My Face. Arguments can be made for other books (Bad Ronald, for example), and possible some of these might be considered not pure enough (The House on Lily Street). Both these last novels are interesting because they are told from the viewpoint of evil people, although I’m possibly spoiling something here with The House on Lily Street.

In many of these books, the main character (and often the reader) doesn’t know the identity of the antagonist. Even in The Deadly Isles, when the protagonist is well-aware of the identify of the man who tried to kill him, neither he nor the reader is aware of that person’s accomplice. Like with Agatha Christie’s books, we learn the true identity of the murderer at the end. It’s a delicious tease, and almost never fails to surprise.

Both The Fox Valley Murders and The Pleasant Grove Murders feature a police detective, or rather sherrif, and thus represent The Law. The other books feature private individuals forced to become detectives to uncover nefarious deeds and evil motives. Murder is so easy that even a housewife can kill, when pushed in a certain direction. Hardened criminals exist as well; they occur elsewhere in his fiction as well, shrugging off ethics and scruples as if these elements do not matter in the grand scheme of things. We find all sorts of people in Vance’s stories, across the spectrum of good and evil. There’s a healthy mix of the in-between, but he doesn’t shy away from portraying people on the far end of the evil spectrum.

Although Jack Vance achieved some success in the fields of science fiction and fantasy, his mystery books were generally published under assumed names, or his real name—John Holbrook Vance. They therefore found little success. The original books are rare; reprints were published by small press publishers such as Underwood-Miller or Subterranean Press in limited editions. Even these latter editions now are hard to find, and often fetch premium prices on the collector’s market. As Vance didn’t make a career out of writing mysteries, no doubt few modern publishers would be interested in releasing mass market editions of his books, so aficionados are left with limited opportunities to read his books.

How well do they age? The Deadly Isles, which is set among islands in the Pacific and on that ocean itself, is artifact of a bygone age. Progress has long since caught up with these distant places. The tale itself is one deeply-rooted in human motivations. It comes down to love or lucre, at the end, as P.D. James once wrote. The other books are in the same category, but then so are most books, they are products of their times. The Fox Valley Murders and The Pleasant Grove Murders take place in an invented county in Northern California, and today seems almost as alien as any science fiction work. The View from Chickweed’s Window is a tale of revenge, and so perhaps one might call Take My Face. The Dark Ocean, set on a steamer heading down the California coast and through the Panama Canal, might be one of the tensest books, taking place mostly aboard the steamer, with characters trapped together. Bird Isle reads almost like a Wodehousian farce, as does some of the characters in other books. Humor in Vance’s books tends to be incidental, though, aside from those Magnus Rudolph stories. Aside from occasional lines here and there, none of what he writes even approaches the chuckles of a Jeeves and Wooster tale.

All in all, anyone who enjoys classical mystery novels will enjoy these books. The style in these books is uniquely Vance. Sometimes the plots are repetitive, and the question as to the identity of the murderer too akin a Hercule Poirot book. I’ve read all of them multiple times (aside from Bad Ronald, which for some reason I feel I will never read a second time; it was just too evil), and even though I know the plots, part of the appeal is the color and texture of the characters and the language.

I have a decent collection of unique SF/Fantasy/Horror hardcovers. Many of these are from small press publishers—vs. mass-market publishers like Tor and Baen. Some are from defunct mass-market publishers, lost in the mists of near-time (1970s and 1980s, with publishers like Doubleday or Blue Jay). When I buy older books from dealers or other collectors, the books usually come with mylar protection over their dust jackets. When I buy direct from publishers, or newer books from (cough) online major outlets, the books usually arrive with no extra protection. It’s up to the buyer at this point.

Until recently, when acquiring new books, I tended to cannibalize some covers I already had from older books, applying any covers the right size to special books that came with no such protection. At some point, one runs out of books from which to cannibalize these covers. I finally bit the bullet this year and ordered 100 mylar covers from one of several such manufacturers/resellers. Although I have over 100 books that need these extra covers, I decided to start with 100, and at the size that covered book up to 10″ tall.

It’s a tedious and not too easy affair to wrestle dust jackets into these covers. The covers I bought are usually slightly taller than the books. The first step is then to adjust the covers to the right size. The next, straightening a reluctant cover inside its new protection, and the last step, bringing the book into its new jacket.

With 100 covers, I started with what I considered “high priority” books. Maybe that was a bad decision, as I was still figuring out how to fit the jackets into these covers. So far I’ve maybe done 20 books, and gotten slightly better at the process. I do feel a bit better about having the books protected this way. There’s one book I know that is beyond help, with a small quarter inch tear on the jacket. Other books have slight stains, likely from exposure to the sun before I bought them, or just part of the paper aging process.

So far I have prioritized small press books—those from Subterranean Press, Dark Harvest, Underwood-Miller, Zeising; a few others still yet identified. Lined up and waiting are books from favorite authors big enough to warrant mass-market publishers: Vernor Vinge, Charles de Lint. James P. Blaylock, Tim Powers. Other books, especially from Arkham House and Golden Gryphon, which are shorter, probably require jackets of a smaller size. It’s likely that I’ll run out of the first batch of 100, but at that point I’ll have a process in place, and will continue with the rest of them.

It’s interesting when stripping the jacket from a book to see what’s underneath. In some cases, the books are just books—nothing extra. In other cases, the publisher has made something special of the book itself, with text or art, that almost warrant its own attention. It’s here that I’m reminded of Steve Jobs, who made even the parts not usually visible to user as artistic and beautiful as the parts that were visible. This is counter-balanced by the moments when you remove a cover and see flaws that can never be undone; yellowing, spotting, foxing, and worse. Here you wonder whether any attempt to protect the book is worth it, for entropy comes to all things. In the meantime, I feel that I’m almost discovering some of these books anew. An exciting time.

I’m slowly amassing a collection of books published by the Soho Crime imprint. I’m only collecting trade paperbacks, as I’m intrigued by the near uniform design, especially on the spine, as well as the quality of the writers. All the books by the same author receive the same color, and colors vary from author to author. So far I have 136 books under this imprint, and that’s probably just a fraction of the books they’ve published.

Soho Crime publishes a lot of non-America authors. This includes writers from the UK, the Netherlands, Japan, Scandinavia, Africa, Asia. They also publish American writers, usually with a focus on specific country settings, from Nantucket to Laos, Alaska to Paris. Around seven years ago I started my collection with one book by Janwillem van de Wetering, based on a recommendation from a co-worker. The first book might have been Outsider in Amsterdam, or maybe The Corpse on the Dike. Since then I’ve added several van de Wetering books, as well as multiple other series. Other well-represented writers include Mick Herron and Peter Lovesey, and almost all the James R. Benn books.

Since I sometime organize my shelves by publishers and then writers, at one point someone wondered if I organized them by color, since he saw all the Soho Crime books, and all the authors had their own colors on the covers. I think I mentioned my shelving philosophy elsewhere; I don’t always organize books by publisher, only if they stand out, like my Golden Gryphon hardcovers, or a single shelf of Arkham House books (Although there are, I think, two or three exceptions for the latter publisher, where the Arkham House books are grouped with their authors.) I now have an entire bookshelf devoted to my Soho Crime collection. It’s not a tall bookshelf, though I’m sure the books will migrate to a taller one once they outgrow this bookshelf.

The great thing about Soho Crime books is that most of them are reasonably priced, also also the stories take place in unique settings. There are exceptions, of course, but in many cases their authors limit themselves to specific places. So, reading their books are a way to visit strange places without having to travel there. This isn’t an issue of quantity over quality, as most of the books I’ve read so far have been superb. For some reason I’ve always struggled with buying books that cost more that $10; likely from years of poverty and a minimum wage job to support myself during college. That was a long time ago, but it stick with me, and while some of their books are around $10, most are in the $16 range. For a trade paperback, that to me seems excessive. Still, that’s inflation, I guess.

One major problem that I face is that bookstores were I live don’t stock a lot of Soho Crime books. There’s one big-box store, and one or two small independent bookstores in my city. Otherwise it’s hit or miss with used bookstores. So far I’ve had best success visiting specialty bookstores, such as Mysterious Books in New York City or Murder by the Book in Houston. The latter is closer, a mere three and half hour drive away, and the two times I’ve been there this year I’ve walked away with a stack of books. When I was in NYC, a few years ago now, and seemingly a different lifetime, I found an equal number of books. (Prior to that visit it had been two decades since my last trip to NYC, and that was during a a time I didn’t read mystery books.) Otherwise, I find some in used book stores, a fact that gives me a twinge of guilt as the authors get none of my money.

So, if you want an introduction to great crime novels, check out any book published by Soho Crime. Pick one at random, or look at the cover to see if the location interests you. It might be the start of a mad collecting habit, like mine.

The paperback edition of Robert McCammon’s novel, The Queen of Bedlam, checks in at a hefty 645 pages. As the sequel to Speaks the Nightbird, it picks up the thread of Matthew Corbett’s life in the summer of 1702, three years after the event of the earlier novel, and in a different locale. Having returned to the metropolis of New York (population ca. five thousand), Matthew Corbett is employed as a clerk for a magistrate, not much different from his profession in his Carolina adventures.

Having read some of the later books before I acquired this novel, I knew outlines of some of his adventures therein. The nature of the title wasn’t clear from summaries in those other books, however, and not what I expected when it became clear. This is also the novel that introduces the fiendish Professor Fell, Corbett’s arch-enemy in later books, although only indirectly. Fell doesn’t make a direct appearance until The Providence Rider, the fourth book in the series. In the meantime, we encounter various associates, a slow build up to the puppeteer behind the lesser evils.

In 1702, New York City only was a city as far north as Wall Street. An actual wall existed along that street from 1685 to 1699, and slowly was dismantled in the early years of the 18th century. Beyond Wall Street lay the outer ward, primarily an area of farms, Indians (though by then much depleted due to illnesses brought over by the Europeans), and the long road to Boston. From McCammon’s book, the center of New York are the taverns and the docks. The populace is rude, in a hurry, and ready to form mobs at the drop of a pin. There are bordellos, churches, depraved people, sanctimonious people, and some good people. It’s not much different from today, the main difference being that New York today has a population of over 10 million, not 5,000.

It’s in New York that Corbett begins his new life. Two events thrust him into adventure. First is a killer, nicknamed “the Masker” who slays several prominent people. Corbett is hired by the widow of the second victim to find this killer. The other event is his recruitment into a detective agency, or problem solvers as they call themselves; Corbett calls himself a detective at some point, a name lost on those he’s addressing. Here he meets Hudson Greathouse and Katherine Herrald, two names that figure in the later novels, especially Greathouse. He also draws the attention of Professor Fell’s associates, and in a final climactic battle works to save his life that of a young woman, from a death that might have been concocted by any Bond villain.

The book’s length and scope means that multiple threads weave through its pages. They’re all connected, somehow, and the Queen of Bedlam is at the center. She’s not the villain of the novel, as I expected from the title. Corbett’s role here is to find her identity, and it leads him directly to the other connections, from the Masker to Fell’s associates.

I recently bought a paperback copy of the book and read it over the span of three days. My edition is the 6th printing, of a book originally published in 2007. The hardcover edition, from Subterranean Press, appeared in two formats. One, with 374 signed numbered copies, housed in a custom slipcase. The other, 26 signed lettered copies, housed in a custom traycase. Per the publisher, “[t]here is no trade edition of The Queen of Bedlam.” No wonder, then, that the hardcover edition rarely appears on the market, and no doubt fetches far more than its original price of $125 or $500, respectively. For the life of me, I cannot fathom paying $500 for a book, but then, I’m not that rabid collector. And so, the paperback edition will sit amid the other hardcovers I have in that series.

As to whether the book is worth reading, I’d say it’s one of the better ones I’ve read so far, maybe the best one. In a fair world, McCammon’s series would be a raging success in the publishing world, a Netflix series in the works, and mass market editions of his other books readily available. As it stands, I hope he keeps writing books in the series, and if I’m ever lucky enough to find copies of his other novels (at reasonable prices), I hope I get the opportunity to acquire and read them.