Anders Monsen

Lost worlds and ports of call

Tag: Robert McCammon

Book Added: Robert McCammon’s Baal

April 14, 2024 /

I first read a Robert McCammon novel sometime in the early 1980s, when I read a handful of vampire novels, including ones by Bram Stoker, Stephen King, Anne Rice, and, of course, McCammon’s They Thirst.

Then, in the 1990s, on a different continent, I read a handful of McCammon paperback originals—The Wolf’s Hour, The Night Boat, Stinger, and Blue World. I tried to keep up with his books in hardback once his novels moved to that format, although I had to pause and backtrack when they only became available in expensive small press editions. Along the way, prior to those small press editions and as I switched to current hardcover books, I missed out on a trio of paperbacks—Swan Song, Bethany’s Sin, and Baal.

In terms of Swan Song, I don’t mind not having the paperback, as I was able to get the hardcover Dark Harvest edition via my brother-in-law, who at the time was a part-time book dealer with similar tastes in fiction. He even brought me back the book from a convention he attended, where McCammon had inscribed the book to me, even though I wasn’t there in person.

Lately, I’ve acquired a handful of these small press editions, usually the less expensive trade editions (many small press publishers create two to three different editions of the same book. The more expensive ones tend to have some extras, such as slip cases, or additional material). Now and then I’ve been lucky enough to find a few of the limited books by chance, notably Blue World (signed, limited edition) and The Border (just the “deluxe hardcover edition”), and all the Matthew Corbett books save The Queen of Bedlam. A few of the rarer ones remain beyond my price threshold.

However, I’ve finally reached the point again where I can buy newly released McCammon books as they are published, rather than deliberately hunt down available copies on the second-hand market, like I did with a hardcover copy of Bethany’s Sin and the pair of vampire westerns, I Travel by Night and Last Train from Perdition (there really needs to be a third, novel to wrap up the trilogy, but that likely won’t happen). Now and then I check a few online places for what’s currently listed.

Then, recently I found an approachable (in terms of price) copy of the Subterranean Press edition of Baal, the only McCammon novel that I’ve never read. It’s also the first novel he wrote, back when he was only 25. Usually this novel fetches prices well in excess of $150, but in this case I found a copy for a third of that price. The cover looks grim, and a brief synopsis I read also portends a grim novel. Aside from this book, I think there only are two (maybe three) other McCammon books that I don’t own. I know of the Borderlands Press Little Book entry, and a small collection of Greystone Bay tales (small in size and number of stories).

Recent book acquisitions

December 4, 2023 /

I’ve been buying a handful of books recently, mostly older ones that I missed the first time around, but occasionally new ones. A few arrived recently, all valued additions to my small library.

The first of these is a hardback edition of Lewis Shiner’s novel, Glimpses. I already own the paperback, which I read years ago, but the hardback is one that I missed when it first came out. I think that I’ve read most of Shiner’s novels (aside from one), as well as most of his short stories (at least those that have been collected). I look forward to re-reading this novel, since it’s been many years since I last read it.

Along with Glimpses, I picked up Say Goodbye, which is the only Shiner novel that I haven’t read. I missed the book when it came out in 1999, and then it either vanished or I had stopped reading SF for a while. I kept looking for it in book stores (used and non), but finally bit the bullet and looked online for a copy.

Michael Shea’s one of my favorite writers. Centipede Press recently released the second book by Shea (well, third, as they put out the massive collection, The Autopsy and Others, years ago—now listed at $1,400 on the collector’s market). The Mines of Behemoth came out in paperback a few years ago, and also fetches a decent sum on the second-hand market. I didn’t spring for the signed edition, but I bought the regular edition, which still is priced fairly high at $85. Then again, almost all the Centipede Press books skyrocket in cost/value once out of print. If you want any of their books, you’d better buy while they’re hot. Otherwise you’ll pay a premium.

Robert McCammon’s ten-book project featuring Matthew Corbett as he navigates the New World and beyond has seen multiple publishers—River City, Subterranean Press, Cemetery Dance, and now Lividian Publications. I read McCammon’s novels several decades ago (heck, his vampire novel, They Thirst, was one of the big three late 20th century vampire novels at some point, the other two being Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot and Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire). A few years ago I found a copy of Speaks the Nightbird, the first Matthew Corbett novel, almost by chance. Set in 1699 in America (long before it became the republic we know today), it’s a massive novel, and maybe the best in the series. McCammon since has followed up with one novel after another, and now only one final chapter remains. Seven Shades of Evil, the most recently published Corbett book (and the second from Lividian Publications), is a collection of stories. My copy arrived today, and I’m greatly looking forward to reading these stories.

Robert McCammon’s King of Shadows

February 14, 2022 /

Well, hell. Robert McCammon’s latest novel, the eighth in the Matthew Corbett series, is due to be published in 2022. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the hardcover is a deluxe limited by a new press, Lividian Publications. I’m not sure why there are multiple publishers in the series, from Subterranean Press (who publishes most of them) to Cemetery Dance (only one). I like the books in hardcover, but I don’t mind a trade edition. A deluxe limited with a slipcase will probably just cost too much for me to care, and as the book is over 700 pages long, the next edition (paperback) will take a while and just look wrong on my bookshelf. After catching up with all the novels, this may just mean that I skip the next two.

Freedom of the Mask

June 29, 2021 /

Robert McCammon’s Freedom of the Mask, the sixth in his Matthew Corbett series, is a brutal novel.

I’ve read the books from the series in the following order: one, seven, four, three, two, six. There’s a gap, as I don’t have book four, the enigmatic and supposedly slim book with perhaps the best title, The River of Souls. I read the second book, The Queen of Bedlam, just last week, and read all but the first book during 2021, which compressed the events and kept them fresh in my mind. Still, reading them out of sequence makes for a strange perspective, where I have seen both the future and the past at the same time.

In terms of the plot, I knew some of what to expect after having read the seventh book, Cardinal Black. Still, I had no idea of the vast pain which Corbett experienced in this book, which is monumental and covers the spectrum from the physical and psychological. How the man lives and continues in the face of what he experiences in this book is astounding. I almost had to skip the torture scene near the end, for I could not believe McCammon put his main character through that event.

Freedom of the Mask is again a hefty book, clocking in at almost 600 pages. The copy that I acquired came relatively cheap, but at the same time at a price (for someone who appreciates books). Although not listed as such, my copy is an ex-library book, bearing the red stamp of “discard” within the back cover, and the spine slightly askew from lack of care. Still, for less than $35 it was mine. No doubt the person who sold it managed a significant profit, likely buying it for nothing or next to nothing, something I know savvy entrepreneurs are wont to do with their merchandise. Regardless, I looked upon it a reading copy, since I’m enthralled and captured by this tale. And, read it I did, over the span of less than four days.

The book opens with Matthew Corbett dead, or so it seems. He has vanished in the Carolina colonies, near Charles Town, a fetid alligator infested swamp; to get the details I’ll need to read The River of Souls. Corbett’s friend Hudson Greathouse cannot believe Corbett is dead, and so begins an investigation. We learn after a few pages that Corbett is not dead, but on a ship bound for England, his memory gone, and under the careful watch of the nasty Count Dahlgren, a brigand and minion of Professor Fell featured a long time ago in The Queen of Bedlam. In the midst of a storm Corbett regains his memory, kills Dahlgren, and is thrown in the brig by the crew for his deed. In England, he lands in one prison after another, even the infamous Newgate, before he’s sprung by a mysterious serial killer dubbed “Albion.”

Greathouse, along with Corbett’s love Berry Grigsby, sails for England, but is captured by Professor Fell and taken to his Welsh village (first mentioned in The Queen of Bedlam). After many adventures and terrible events, Corbett ends up in the same place. Will he be able to save himself and his friends? The book ends on a cliffhanger, continued in Cardinal Black, but throughout the novel the ills that befalls Corbett and his friends is a terrible read. McCammon continues to blend adventures, history, and horror, taking here almost to an extreme the adage about placing your character on a bough and then sawing it through as a means to engender tension.

As it’s a series, many of the events in prior novels come to bear in later books. Dahlgren and Mother Deare, who appeared in earlier books, are important characters here. The One-Eyed Broodies and Julian Devane, who appear here for the first time, play important roles in the sequel, Cardinal Black. As the sequel to that novel is not yet in print, it will be interesting to see which characters from it inform the later book. There are at least two people, both of whom appear in the last pages, who no doubt will play some roles. Will other events resurface, and from how far back? The next novel supposedly isn’t the last in the series, so what else will befall Corbett? How far down will Corbett be pulled? Will he rise again, and what will happen to Berry and Hudson Greathouse?

Although Corbett is only twenty-four years of age, he seems to have lived twice that span in his adventures. Will there be any sense of peace in his life? Tension informs and drives fiction, but at some point it seems that the needle is pushed too far in that direction. I’ve said this before, but Corbett doesn’t seem to solve all his problems himself, and it would be nice if he tried, instead of relying on chance and others. At some point, does he gain the skills we see in other characters, such as Greathouse or Minx Cutter, or does he rely on chance and luck? Still, the pace, setting, characters, and locales are superbly written, and I think McCammon has outdone himself this time. Freedom of the Mask is not a book for the faint of heart, and it pushes the tale of Matthew Corbett from the quiet colonies to the heart of London, and beyond.

Mister Slaughter

June 3, 2021 /

By chance I recently bought a copy of Robert R. McCammon’s novel, Mister Slaughter. This is the third book in his Matthew Corbett series, each set between 1699 and 1705 in Colonial America and England (plus one island somewhere in the Caribbean), with additional settings promised at the end of the seventh book in the series.

Although I lack the 2nd, 5th, and 6th books in this series, much of each novel can be read as standalone books. Sure, there’s a common thread through all of them, save the first one, as Corbett gains a nemesis in the evil Professor Fell starting with The Queen of Bedlam. But, each one more or less has their own set of adventures, although they all lead onward to the next book, and bear traces from previous ones.

As Mister Slaughter commences, there’s a brief mention of events in the previous book, The Queen of Bedlam. Not having read that one, I took on faith that something happened, and that Corbett, young and naive at age 24, is still affected by those events, and is still learning about the world. He has a young woman who cares for him, but he’s too shy or cautious to reciprocate (this is what I call the the “Spider-Man thwarted love” trope, where the hero cannot have a real relationship, as his adversaries will use this against him). He has a friend and mentor, Hudson Greathouse, but he’s too stubborn to accept help and advice from the older, more seasoned man. Still, as the novel must have a plot, they both are hired to escort a dangerous criminal from an asylum to a ship, for transport to England to stand trial.

Tyranthus Slaughter, with a name straight out of George Lucas’s Star Wars, is a killer, and whether he’s sane or mad is questionable. Which one is worse, given his nature, is debatable. Almost immediately as he meets Corbett and Greathouse, he begins to whisper his siren call. He’s hidden treasure, he tells them, not far from the road where they’re traveling, and will share it with these two. Reluctant and first, they gradually fall into his trap, and take a detour to find this supposed treasure. Their goal, at least in part, is noble, as they need the money to free a slave. Corbett, unbeknownst to his friend, actually has enough money from a recent discovery, but seduced by it remains silent. His silence is their undoing, as Slaughter escapes, and within a few pages starts to live up to his name.

There’s one truly horrible scene in the book. It’s not Slaughter’s first murder, but his second one, that drives home the evil nature of this character. Or, rather, the third and fourth murders, for those are of young children, and the subsequent rape of an older sibling that follows. It enough to drive someone insane, which is what happens to the mother in that family. The killing of those people just seems unnecessary, but maybe it’s what Slaughter has become: a simple killing machine who cannot stop, who cannot see another way. At the end, like a desperate addict, he begs for a name of someone he can kill, for it seems that killing is what keeps him alive.

Corbett, on his own after his companion is incapacitated by Slaughter, elicits the help of an Indian, one who has been to England, and in his own way been driven mad by the future that is London. Together they track Slaughter, in a truly sad sequence of events. If Corbett doesn’t learn from these events, doesn’t gain skills along with knowledge of evil, then he’s a poor, lost soul. Eventually he does redeem himself, even if it’s not truly heroic. Maybe that’s the point, to continue my metaphor from above. Maybe Corbett as a character isn’t Superman. Like Peter Parker, he’s young, still finding his footing, and makes his share of mistakes. But he can’t quit, can’t give up on his role as someone fighting evil.

Given Slaughter’s nature, this was a tough book to read. As I’d read the novel that follows this one before this one, it gave me a strange perspective into Corbett’s motives and actions. After reading it, I re-read the first couple of chapters of The Providence Rider, and some of those moments made more sense after seeing what came before. I do begin to wonder when Corbett starts to take control of his own life, and doesn’t just rely on chance and the skills of others. At some point he should, hopefully, gain his own skills and handle himself better.

I am on the lookout for the three other novels in this series that I haven’t read, but as they’re published by a small press publisher and in limited editions, finding them seems to be a bit of a struggle. This situation (again) really makes me wish that major publishers would have picked up McCammon’s books, like they did in the past. They are a damn sight better than much of the repetitive, boring books being published these days.

Speaks the Nightbird

December 31, 2019 /

I used to read Robert McCammon’s books in the 1990s. Maybe not all of them, but the vast majority. I have the Dark Harvest editions of Swan Song and They Thirst, several paperbacks, and the hardback editions of Boy’s Life and Mine, his two “last” novels. At least, until he resurfaced with Speaks the Nightbird, a hefty book set in 1699 South Carolina, published in 2002, a decade after Gone South.

I picked up Speaks the Nightbird by chance in a used bookstore a couple of years ago. I didn’t even know he was back in the business. It sat, unread, until I glanced through it this month and then read it cover to cover over one weekend, all 726 pages.

There are sequels, but all apparently published by small presses, either Subterranean Press or Cemetery Dance. These fetch a hefty price on the secondary market, especially the second volume in his series with protagonist Matthew Corbett. It’s great to see McCammon back as a writer. I just wish the regular publishers would pick up his books and print them again. This is superb historical fiction, and it baffles the mind that not a single major publisher is aware of the potential there.

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