Rambling Review: The Witches of Karres – James H. Schmitz

I’m frankly impressed at how dreadful this cover is.

So I did do a half-baked kind of review of this book a couple years ago. Thing is, this new review isn’t going to be much better.

It’s difficult to review a book that is…pretty much perfect. I don’t think that I can make any substantive criticisms of this book. It’s tightly plotted, paced, characterized; the action scenes are swift, adept, exciting; and there’s a pervasive sense of wonder, adventure, and fun that You Just Don’t See Every Day. It’s got witches, space pirates, space battles, the dread overlord of a crime planet wearing a skullcap to protect him from psychic emanations, robot assassins, time travel (technically), creepy survival horror on an alien planet, rescuing little girls from slavery (and God help their former owners), fighting against the evil Empire, not being double-crossed by alien warlords, and quite a bit more.

I don’t think I have a single ill word to say about this book.

So what about the things that make it work?

Verisimilitude is one of them. I went into this review vaguely thinking that Schmitz was a Merchant Marine (he wasn’t, that may have been Jack Vance.) Nevertheless, his space ship battles, repair woes, difficulties with customs inspectors and uncleared merchandise—and the looming, inescapable fact that No One Reads The Regulations—rings very, very true. (Would the information on the witch-folk of Karres be under K? Or W?) The worlds feel worn and lived-in, in a way that can be most easily visualized as “Old-school Star Wars,” the floors scuffed and the corners dusty, the plas-leather of gunbelts worn and supple, the light of the suns overhead whiter and brighter than we see ourselves.

The other is an ethos that is pervasive to Schmitz’s oeuvre that took a few readings for me to define, and which may on that definition be one of the most endearing things about his work. It’s the spirit of the Golden Age of science fiction and space opera—the idea that to a competent and courageous man or woman, with a goal in their sights, a gun in their pocket, and their wits about them, nothing in the universe is impossible. It’s the idea that authority figures, up to and beyond the level of planetary governments, are competent, foresighted, and concerned with the safety as well as the benefit of their people.

Consider current media. Authority figures exist to oppose the heroes; to offer objections to /necessary but dangerous plot happenstances/–objections that may or may not have a basis in reality, but objections that do not come with solutions. They are then to be overridden and embarassed, or simply ignored (especially if the hero, as per the author, doesn’t have a better solution). Consider Top Gun: Maverick. It’s subtle, but it’s still there. At every step of the way, when plot, heroism, and human decency requires a daring (and dangerous, but also necessary) action, the Authority Figure objects.

In the opening of the movie, the Admiral shows up to obstruct Maverick from flying his super-duper fast plane. Why? So he could be shown up and proven wrong as Maverick buzzes him with a sonic boom. The Other Admiral objects to Maverick’s mission plan of flying the Death Star Trench (come on, lol), in under two minutes. Why? So he can be shown up and proven wrong. The Admiral refuses to lauch rescue to retrieve his downed fighters. Why? So he can be shown up and proven wrong. Why? So our heroes can look better. It’s a short-sighted view. An intelligent author would be able to draw a scenario where our heroes look good because they (and we the audience) know how difficult the task at hand is, know that all eyes and hopes are resting on them, know that everything powerful and capable allies can do to help has been done…and through timestorm and laser sword, have swon through.

Intelligent, thoughtful, competent authority figures do not exist in modern media. But once upon a time, back in the days when Man set foot on the moon, they kind of did. And they do here. Authority figures don’t reflexively oppose the heroes doing (random dangerous but necessary acts); they’re at the command post, weighing the pros and cons and providing the heroes with the information and armaments necessary to carry out those acts. After the fact, they may critique or praise, but they don’t actually ever forget that they are not the men in the arena.

Uh, what was I talking about? Oh yes, The Witches of Karres.

Look, it’s a really great book. If anybody in Hollywood had reading comprehension, we’d have had a Federation of the Hub Cinematic Universe decades ago.

Rated: The key word, it turned out, was “PROHIBITED.”

Quik(re)Review – Dorsai – Gordon R. Dickson

Dorsai! – Gordon R. Dickson

[A/n 2023: I am still dealing with allergies/chronic sinus issues, and normal levels of creativity just aren’t happening. That being said, I am going to make the effort to properly review this book again, and also The Witches of Karres. Stand by.]

[A/n 2020: once again, apologies for the abrupt nature of this review. I had the midnight-3 a.m. shift last night and am operating on four hours of sleep.]

So this book is about the life and times of Donal Graeme. It covers his desire to become the greatest general who ever lived, his abrupt discovery at age eighteen that other people might think he’s weird (he’s weirder than a lemur in a gift shop*)–his feud with William of Ceta–his somewhat-inexplicable love for the Select of Kultis and her even more bewildering infatuation with him–and his eventual realization of his true powers and relationship to humanity. What is absolute power over other humans–not to a corrupt or evil man, but to a man who loves humanity, even as he stands apart from it? It’s a lonely and wearisome burden, and in Donal’s case, he has no one to blame but himself. 

And so it goes.

Anyhow, so does Donal Graeme have the same powers as Paul Atreides? Between them: I do think Paul’s Bene Gesserit training would give him an edge, as would his control and usage of the Spice. He definitely has more conscious control of his powers and abilities. The Exotics do seem to have some similar training methods, but theirs are frankly rather crude in comparison and in any case, Donal doesn’t get them; he finds enlightenment on his own. Paul would definitely win in a physical fight, but Donal’s position as a free actor might just possibly give him the edge in manipulating the situation. On the other hand, Paul is the man who escaped the Bene Gesserit’s manipulations, so, perhaps they are pretty evenly balanced after all.

Rated: The Exotics versus the Bene Gesserit would be interesting to watch. From a suitable distance, that is. Like another galaxy…

* Squaaaawwk

PSA: Dresden Files short story out

Mouse narrates a short story in Instinct: an Animal Rescuer’s Anthology, which has a cover I cannot link to because Amazon dot com sucks and so do all search engines currently. Bring on the AI chatbot disinformation hordes, at least life will be more interesting then. [WORDPRESS WHAT THE HELL SERIOUSLY WHY CAN I NOT EVEN INSERT IMAGES VIA URL ANYMORE? I hope Elon buys this site and sends you all to the coal mines.]

Proceeds from the book sales go to a Colorado-based animal shelter charity. Which I guess is a good thing. If you want to support a local rescue, direct donations of (non-expired) foodstuffs, toys, blankets, towels, or tools, are always useful. Volunteering is also always useful but the downside is you get exposed to animal shelter people.

And I’m out.

Books Review: Majyk Trilogy – Esther Friesner

So, back when the fantasy market wasn’t nearly as flooded or as particular about quality, Esther Friesner published Majyk by Accident, Majyk by Hook or Crook, and Majyk by Design. 

I thought these books were hilarious when I was ten.

And since that really can’t be the only thing this review says, I guess I’ll start with the good points.

First, there are still bits that made me snort, such as….Second, the second book was a marked improvement over the first and third books (we’ll revisit this point under “cons.” I still sometimes wish life provided me with more opportunities to utter the phrase “It’s a deadly ninja throwing pun” (although I was very excited to get to use “it’s a pune, or a play on words,” not too long ago.) The running gag about the romance novels, and the bit with the rival authors being positively (clenches teeth) happy that there are more books on shelves, was pretty darned funny. And the initial appearances of the mysterious masked swashbuckler A Blade For Justice, which are played semi-straight in adventure-swashbuckler-fantasy style, are worth a snicker especially if you guess or already know the twist.

I will also give credit where credit is due to: “Your guardsmen have no mercy!” “They shouldn’t, I paid for them to have it surgically removed” and the whole gag about how the Guardsman Academy had courses on how to take bribes properly. Book 2 (Majyk by Hook or Crook) has a lot less of the flaws I am going to subsequently complain about, mostly due to the fact that it a) does have plot, b) has personal stakes, c) proceeds to resolve the plot and resolve those personal stakes, not always happily.

Other than that, though, these books just aren’t very good.

They’re parody fantasy novels, without anything of substance to parody. Worse, there’s no meaningful core to the characters, their journeys, or the story itself that could elevate it above the juvenile gags that comprise 95% of its content….and roughly 87% of those jokes are “the talking cat has a New York accent.” That’s it, that’s the joke. The cat is from New York. (It wasn’t particularly funny for the first three pages. Now drag that out over three books.) The characters aren’t allowed to grow or breathe; the stakes never become personal; no emotion is allowed other than “the cat is funny because it’s from New York.” And I like cats.

The final damning point is that at no point in time is the plot (such as it is) allowed to gather any momentum whatsoever. Any, and I do mean every development that might lead to action either on the hero’s part, the villain’s part, the hero’s party’s part, has to be stopped dead in its tracks whilst The Talking Cat From New York discusses what’s going on, what it means, what needs to be done, and what should be done, and why, for at least a page and a half, preferably two or three. And this absolutely kills the comedic aspect of the story, because if it at least moved faster, we could move on from the failed jokes to ones that aren’t so bad, until the sum of the funny bits overweighs the unfunny bits.

Is there room for parody fantasy novels that also take the time to skewer the romance genre as well? Sure, and I’d’ve loved to enjoy these books again.

Alas.

Rated: Read Dark Lord of Derkholm or Equal Rites, they’re so much better.

The Shadow #229 – Gems of Jeopardy

So, as the well-informed know, there are around three hundred and eighty-odd Shadow stories, written over a period of eighteen years. The vast majority were written by The Shadow’s original creator, Walter B. Gibson, under the penname Maxwell Grant, but there were several other authors who were pinch-hitters as well. Lester Dent (the Doc Savage guy) wrote a handful, and some hack named Bruce Elliott wrote the last twentyish novels after Gibson was fired. I haven’t reached those yet, but I’m assured they’re dreadful. Anyhow, after Gibson, the best of The Shadow’s authors was Theodore Tinsley, a pulp novelist.

I use the term deliberately. Gibson wrote his stories with ceaseless crossings between genres–sometimes straight-up mystery, sometimes proto-superheroic, sometimes gothic melodrama, sometimes hardboiled gangster noir–to the point where The Shadow is almost its own genre in itself. Tinsley, on the other hand, wrote pulp fiction and was proud of it. Although he approximates Gibson’s handling of the characters remarkably well, Tinsley is cruder than Gibson–in plot, in execution…and in taste. Stay tuned, we’ll get there when we get there.

A little more discussion before we get into the plot. The Shadow had been around over ten years (and two hundred twenty-eight previous volumes) at this point, and had run a huge gamut of foes, from corrupt board members to evil aviators, corrupt politicians in distant cities, backwoods intrigues, underwater mad scientists, desert mad scientists, swamp mad scientists, isolated ancestral castle mad scientists, evil psychologists, more evil-overlord-wannabes complete with secret societies than you can shake a stick at, several would-be world emperors, and…thugs trying to hijack armored cars. The audience has seen quite a lot, to the point where it would be difficult to top–and futile to try. It’s hard to take the narrator’s breathless assertion that this car chase through Manhattan, or this jewel robbery, or this attempt to hostilely take over a company is the most daring, dangerous, and brilliant of The Shadow’s career when…it’s really not, come on. We’ve seen him take on Doctor Moquino, Zemba, and Zanigew…some dude wearing a mask of his own face really kind of doesn’t compare.

But, if that sounds like “The Shadow is now boring,” please continue reading, because that is definitely not the case. Gibson and his editorial cohort seemed to recognize this, and, I think deliberately, made them simple again. Throughout the later part of 1941 (or at least, the last handful of books I’ve read, which I’m plugging through in numerical order), the high-concept dramatics have been backed down a notch in favor of simpler, lower-key–but no less interesting, and no less intense–stakes. 

Okay, so that being said, what’s the plot?

Well, first there are a couple of murders, a burned-down house, and a map which has had the Atlantic coastline ripped away. That’s for starters. Then there’s Jerome Linton, a business acquaintance of Lamont Cranston’s, whom he and Margo Lane witness dumping an already-dead body to fake a hit-and-run accident…

Twelve boxes of jewels have been smuggled into America by the brutal, treacherous ex-Balkan Colonel and his beautiful, but absolutely no less brutal and treacherous wife, Princess Zena. They have no sooner disposed of anyone else who could identify them, when they are confronted by the sinister Mr. X, who, somehow forewarned of their (money’s) arrival, has laid an ambush. Zena sacrifices her husband and escapes, but with a burning hatred of Mr. X and a no less burning desire to get her jewels back. So she murders a woman and steals her clothes and car and drives off…

Meanwhile, The Shadow is looking into Jerome Linton and the links between him and the previous murders. He’s aided (surprisingly competently) by a roster of his agents: Harry Vincent, Hawkeye, Moe Shrevnitz, Clyde Burke, and Margo Lane. And when I say “surprisingly competently,” I mean Harry Vincent doesn’t even get captured and tortured through any fault of his own! I mean, yes, that is him on the cover, sure, but it wasn’t actually his fault! Margo Lane and Moe Shrevnitz make an actual competent team in following their suspects! They do need rescuing, uh, twice…but they’re under cover and shooting back gamely when The Shadow arrives! Clyde Burke…actually doesn’t do anything himself, but he supposedly lends his face for The Shadow to press an interrogation. (I have a dubious here, because Clyde has been described as small and wiry; The Shadow, master of disguise that he is, is very tall. And it isn’t a phone interview. Anyhow.) Soon enough, a $50,000.00 satchel of jewels and a notorious fence make their appearance.

And so it goes.

So, yes, Margo Lane has finally turned up in-novels, and her presence is not a negative. Mostly because having an actual damsel on the team makes Harry Vincent automatically 83% less likely to end up in the “distressed damsel” role of the novel. But, barring a few false starts, she’s shaping up to be a competent agent in her own right, cool under pressure, good with a gun, and surprisingly resourceful.

The other standout character from this novel is its principal antagonist, Princess Zena. She’s a brunette with shapely (we are often reminded) legs….on one of which, tucked into her garter in a flat leather sheath, is a razor-sharp knife that she has great expertise and zero hesitation in using. She’s managed to survive the war-torn disruption of her native (carefully unnamed) country; she’s survived the exile from it (by shoving her husband into an assassin’s bullet and then faking her own death in quicksand); and she’s utterly determined to find revenge and her twelve boxes of stolen crown jewels. She’s utterly ruthless, but she’s also intelligent, charismatic, and enormously proactive throughout the story….by which I mean she has a body count almost as high as Mr. X’s by the time they finally meet, and there’s an actual villain-versus-villain duel which is kind of just awesome.

And that’s about all I have to say, because that really should be enough. This book is kind of just awesome: it’s correctly paced, and the stakes are just high enough; it’s well-characterized, with almost all The Shadow’s agents getting a chance to shine (or bleed) (….sigh); the action scenes, while definitely gorier than the norm, could still pass muster by the Hayes’ Code and are fast and satisfying. There’s a number of good villains, an underground lair (this one includes bonus waterfall), and The Shadow scaring the crap out of some henchmen when, in that hidden and secure base, eerie laughter begins to echo…

Rated: I forgot to to mention, while in that lair he uses their phone to call Burbank, too. Awesome.

Iron and Magic – Ilona Andrews – repost review

TLDR: ….here’s the thing: books rate differently depending on what genre they are—and I can’t decide what genre this book is.

If it’s a romance, it’s a solid 5/5: it has a romance in the A-plot, but it also has an actual A-plot that doesn’t completely fall apart once the main pair start sleeping together.

If it’s a standard pseudo-medieval fantasy, it’s a 3/5: it has warlords who seem genuinely dangerous and leaders who lay plans and think ahead, act like leaders rather than 20th-century office workers.

If it’s a post-apocalyptic fantasy thriller, it’s a 2/5…because, damnit, that’s the setting, and therefore that’s the genre by default, right? But it kept slipping into stupid romance-novel cliches, or dumb fantasy cliches, or dumb Hollywood cliches, and insulting its own intelligence in the process.

Pros/Cons: My likes and problems with this book are the same as with the Kate Daniels series: it’s at its best when it focuses on the worldbuilding and characterization….and yet it resolutely doesn’t play to its strengths and eventually just gives up and coasts on a smooth lane of cliche.

Plot: Hugh d’Ambray, after failing once too many times at doing whatever he was supposed to do to Kate in the previous series (still not sure about that, and, it seems, so is Hugh), was placed on administrative leave by his ex-boss Roland (an evil demigod.) Hugh proceeds to get very drunk. Ex-boss has also decided to thin out those among his men who might be more personally loyal to Hugh than to him. These eventually get back with Hugh and demand he do something about it. So: Hugh has a small army, but no home base, no supplies, allies, or resources. Elara, leader of The Departed (no, they don’t explain it either), has a castle, farmlands, and four thousand people to protect….but somehow doesn’t have anyone to do the protecting. She and Hugh contract a marriage alliance. They also immediately fall in hate with each other (rather strangely, because there doesn’t seem to be any real reason for it….other than The Romance Plot Requires It), and spend the rest of the book bickering until they finally fall into bed.

Why does The Bailey of The Departed need protecting? Because Roland’s new warlord, Landon Nez, is expanding his territory throughout the Midwest, and small magical communities like Elara’s are his direct targets. So Hugh must fortify Bailey (his battle for use of the bulldozers is one of the most relatable…*wince*…parts) and prepare for the coming fight. Meanwhile, there’s also supernatural weirdos in strange armor systematically attacking and slaughtering the nearby settlements…who also happen to be anti-magic bigots who won’t accept the help of Them Thar Dad-gum Magical Folk, You Can’t Trust ‘Em None (Throw Some Rocks, That’ll Learn ‘Em To Stay Away.) I’m being entierly serious.

So, worldbuilding: I really liked these bits. Like, how do you dig a seventy-five by ten foot moat and make it waterfast? Well, bulldozers, and then line it with concrete. But where are you going to get the volcanic ash for the Roman concrete? And who’s paying for the fuel? And your precious moat is lower priority than our sewer system, and the concrete isn’t setting right so did you waste our money? And what, oh, you want generators now? You’re pulling people off the maintenance crew now? Where are we going to get the fuel for the generators and what if we need those men for the gardens? Yep. YYYYYUP. (I recounted this part to one of the maintenance leads at my first job. He wanted to know what the book was and why the author was mocking him.)

But then for the main conflict they use the laziest device ever: the keystone army that dissolves when you kill the queen. The authors needed a Danger to provide exciting action sequences, but needed it not to be too difficult, since the heroes have limited options and resources. Instead of spending some brainpower to come up with a suitable threat–say, roving band of warlocks from Canada; or a nearby settlement that decides Bailey is now a threat and wants to cripple them preemptively; or The Pack, or the IRS, or something–we get mind-controlled Neanderthals, from nowhere, without context, any kind of buildup or backstory, nothing. BORING. BOOOOOORING. Oh, and can you guess that once you take down the queen the rest of the threat stops in its tracks? SUUUUUPER BORING. Ugh.

Characters: I have better things to say about the characters. All two and a half of them.

Hugh has to play a double role of warlord and romantic hero; but here’s the thing. A warlord isn’t going to be a hard bastard all the time; he has to have charisma, he has to demonstrate intelligence, and he has to be able to sweet-talk or reassure the people he can’t intimidate. I’d actually say that they hit the mark with this: Hugh’s code-switching is done perfectly, and you get a man whom men will trust immediately. Also dogs and kids. (Although the little girl was a bit of an overkill). And, given his powerset–he’s an immensely strong healer, as well as a master swordsman–he’s fun to watch in a fight…theoretically. There aren’t really as many good fight scenes as there ought to be. (Post apocalypse? Fights. Thriller? Fights. Romance novel? No fights.) As far as his character arc, it’s nothing new; we know he’s going to snap out of his drunken funk just as surely as we know he’s going to shape up into the man our heroine can sleep with; and we know he’s going to protect the Bailey and not back down. This isn’t a problem. Tropes are tools, and as long as they are used right–as they are here–it’s satisfying to read.

Elara Harper is also a pretty good heroine: a thoughtful, cunning leader who values life despite the rumor that her people engage in human sacrifice and that she’s the host of some kind of eldritch abomination from the elder days that not even Roland wants to cross…and even with this, she’s hampered by, again, the romance-genre tropes. Instant dislike to her new husband? Check. (I even re-read the scene again. There really is no reason for them both to start breaking out the insults while in the middle of negotiating for their people’s lives). “Fiery” personality that engages in charged bickering with her significant other? Check. Goes to extra lengths to keep him off because she’s really attracted? Check. Actually very soft-hearted and caring underneath? Check. Is any of this a problem? No; tropes are tools. These are just a little more obvious than they should be, and I noticed them a little easier.

Minor characters, such as boisterous, blunt berserker-bro Bale (I wonder if that is exactly what the author’s notes say about him) and the deaf-mute advisor girl who communicates in sign language (because she’s a banshee), remain minor but shouldn’t have. This is where the romance-genre tropes work against the book, by focusing things too much on the main duo rather than letting others get time in the limelight.

Action: is OK. My current gold standard for action writing is Larry Correia’s stuff. Hugh being someone who can heal himself or even his opponent as he fights is something that might come in handy for writing a really brutal fight scene….yeah, no. Well, again; if we call this a romance novel and not a post-apocalyptic thriller, then this isn’t a problem. (WHAT GENRE IS THIS BOOK?! It’s so good when it’s not a romance!)

The other problem is the use of that the really stupid Hollywood cliche “only the hero can do anything heroic on-camera.” It’s a cliche that shouldn’t be here, just by the book’s own logic.–there’s quite a bit of setup of how Hugh’s Iron Dogs work, are disciplined and competent…and should be able to do things like send out patrols and investigate suspicious happenings and report back to their boss, who is having dinner with some bigwigs and should have no reason whatsoever to be wandering around outside, getting in a fight with random monster scouts.

I will favorably mention one scene I thought particularly good: it’s simple, no frills, no magic, nothing fancy…just a child, a monster, a woman, and a shotgun, in a room.

Humor: is used deftly. “You’re handsome, a big, imposing figure of a man, and um…” Lamar scrounged for some words. “And they’re desperate.” Even the slap-slap-kiss romantic bickering is more amusing than annoying. Oh, and the post-apocalyptic wedding having an official DJ, photographer, and videographer? Pretty good. Preparing to host a self-proclaimed Viking with “one of those big barrels filled with beer, trust me, it works every time?” Hilarious. Like I said, the worldbuilding is one of the strengths of this book, and that includes throwing in funny, as well as verisimilitudinous, details whenever you can. If only the authors had done it more.

In conclusion: I liked this book enough to read it in one sitting, write 1500-odd words about it, and, four years later, have not read the next one and never will unless someone pays me.

Rated: What genre is it?! Really!

SFF Title Challenge (bingo)

BookForager has a couple of reading challenges up, one of which I stole simply for the purposes of seeing if I could make bingo with just books I’ve already read. Or at least have in my library and could plausibly claim that I can or will, or might, or might have at some time, read.

• Downbelow Station – C. J. Cherryh
• Isle of the Dead – Roger Zelazny
  • The Hills of the Dead – Robert E. Howard
  • Dead Beat – Jim Butcher
  • Dead Men Live – Maxwell Grant (The Shadow #18)
• Wolf and Iron – Gordon Dickson
  • Through Wolf’s Eyes – Jane Linskold
• The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester
  • The Stars are Ours – Andre Norton
  • The Stars are Also Fire – Poul Anderson
• Library – The only thing that springs to mind is Genevieve Cogman’s The Invisible Library series, which I…I have blogged about before.
• The World Turned Upside Down – anthology edited by David Drake
  • Destroyer of Worlds – Larry Correia
  • The Rebel Worlds – Poul Anderson
  • And for good measure, Edmond “World-Wrecker” Hamilton in general.
• The Witches of Karres – James H. Schmitz
  • The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
  • What about a Warlock Inspite of Himself? (Christopher Stasheff)
• Fierce – I’m not getting anything on this one without cheating.
  • ….or with cheating, either, it seems.
  • ?
• All the Way Back – Michael Shaara (a short story, but still.)
  • Backup – Jim Butcher
• Side Jobs – Jim Butcher 
• A Song in the Silence – Elizabeth Kerner. 
  • Kjwalll’kje’k’koothai’lll’kje’k – Roger Zelazny, this counts, because it’s about a song, and its singer.
  • The Song of the Lioness – Tamora Pierce (quartet)
• Woods – hm, have to cheat on this one….
  • North Woods Mystery – Maxwell Grant (The Shadow #96)
• Mission to the Stars – A. E. van Vogt (something of a cheat, I haven’t read much of van Vogt’s stuff with the exception of Clane of the Linn and The Selkie, neither of which were his best work.)
• Midnight at the Well of Souls – Hack Chalker (not a typo.) (Do not read.)
  • Durr, Soul Music – Terry Pratchett
• How – Dude, what? At least have the decency to say “when” or “Who Goes There?”
  • Best I can do is Howl’s Moving Castle – Diana Wynne Jones
• Gate – Hm. I can’t find a plausible answer / a book I am actually familiar with, even with cheating. 
• Life – Argh, ditto.
• In the Bone – Gordon Dickson
  • Can These Bones Live? – Manly Wade Wellman
• Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn – Tad Williamson, the Tolkien-aping, elf-maligning hack.
• Ghost Story – Jim Butcher
• Mission to Universe – Gordon Dickson
  • The Man who Used the Universe – Alan Dean Foster (on the readlist at the Father of Skaith’s recommendation.)
  • If you are noticing a pattern here, it’s because the Golden/Silver Age scifi Grand Masters knew how to craft a title with a sense of wonder attached, and Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson were at the top of that list.
• A Fire Upon the Deep – Vernor Vinge
  • Fire Logic – Laurie Marks (this book confused me deeply when I first read it. Later I realized it was just that poorly written.)
• The Caves of Steel – Isaac Asimov (Robots series)
  • The Proud Robot – Henry Kuttner
• All the Way Back – A duplicate! But if you’re a HFY person, it’s worth mentioning twice.
  • House of Many Ways – Diana Wynne Jones
• Lost Dorsai – Gordon Dickson
  • Citadel of Lost Souls – Leigh Brackett

Primarily, Avatar

– Dracula (1979) – Frank Langella as Count Dracula, Donald Pleasance as Dr. Seward, Lawrence Olivier as Prof. Van Helsing. I actually watched this a couple weeks ago and was favorably impressed. I might add that I had a fever at the time, but as adaptations that senselessly change things go, this was still fairly….dignified. Olivier and Langella both do very well. Jonathan Harker also has a prominent role that would have been even better if he had been framed as, y’know, the hero.

– My Cousin Rachel (1952) – Eh.

– Shadow of the Vampire  (?) – I watched a bit of this and then wandered back off, it missed the mark.  The vampire actor asking for more makeup was amusing, though.

– I’ll stick this one here because otherwise it might get missed: Tower of Silence – Larry Correia – the 4th book in his Saga of the Forgotten Warrior – has been released in eARC form. This is an un-copyedited, un-modified draft as directly turned by by Correia to his publisher, so there were some noticeable spelling glitches, etc; the official release is in April of this year. Without getting into spoilers: this book is excellent, mostly because it is the beginning of the end. Answers are beginning to show up; the plot is starting to coalesce; Crown, Mask, and Demons are assembling; Voice and Priest are in position, and the General is on his way. Now, if there wasn’t that small problem of Thera’s not quite-ex-enough-husband showing up….

– Avatar: the Way of Water (2022) – I watched about 1.5~2 hours of this and got bored and left. It’s extremely pretty, yes. If you ever wanted to watch a nature documentary set on a hostile world, this is the movie for you. Watch it in theatres. Oh, also, I liked Quarich (the rough, tough, super-macho military bad guy) way, way, wayyyyy better than any other character in the entire movie…first movie, and second. Neytiri actually also wasn’t bad? Surprisingly. Also-also, the military-Na’vi avatars wearing Oakleys cracked me up. Anyhow, I didn’t like the movie because:

• It’s extremely dumb. (Y no bulletproof glass in your helicopters? NO, SERIOUSLY, WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE BULLETPROOF GLASS IN ANY OF YOUR VEHICLES? I CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH THAT THEY DO NOT HAVE BULLETPROOF GLASS IN THEIR MECHAS, HELICOPTERS, MAGLEV TRAINS, OR SUPERGIANT BULLDOZERS. ON AN ALIEN PLANET WITH AN ACTIVE INSURRECTION…..WHY?!?! Why send small guerilla force unfamiliar with local hostile terrain to combat large guerilla force familiar with terrain and extremely hostile? Y not have anti-flying hostile bird guns mounted on important stuff, like trains? Why are your trains transporting weapons that the guerillas can take and use against you, excuse me, WHAT. The brain, it melts trying to comprehend the stupidity of the scriptwriters, who think that this is logical behavior for functional human beings.)
• The story, such as it is, is also extremely poorly thought out. The leader–the warleader , without whose tactical knowledge any resistance against the more high-tech opponent will fail–runs away with his tail literally between his legs when his family is threatened. Not: he sends his family away to safety and stays himself. Not: he whups the snot out of his dumbass teenagers who walked themselves and the younger kids directly into a trap. No, he abandons his post, his people who rely on him (and wasn’t he the one who started the all-out war in the first movie, anyway?), and he runs away to go swim with the fishes. Meanwhile, humans–who have functional FTL travel, and cryosleep–have decided that a marginally habitable planet WITH AN UNBREATHABLE ATMOSPHERE AND ALSO INTELLIGENT ALIENS PERFORMING AN ACTIVE, VIOLENT INSURRECTION  is going to be the new home of humanity. Guys. Guys. Find another planet and move the fuck on.
• It appears that unobtanium is no longer a thing.
• It’s anti-human propaganda. I could rant about this for a while, but: it’s anti-human propaganda. There is no greater condemnation. Do not consume.
• Unless you really, really, want to watch the pretty. Traitor.

Full Metal Alert: Tower of Silence e-ARC

The e-ARC for Tower of Silence, the 4th book in Correia’s Saga of the Forgotten Warrior is now on sale.

Previous reviews for books 1 and 2: Son of the Black Sword, House of Assassins. 

(This is a wonderful finding on a genuinely terrible day.)

Read/watchlist: non compos mentis

So over the course of the last week or so, I’ve watched:

– Mary Reilly – 1996 – film starring John Malkovitch as Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, and Julia Roberts as his housemaid. Also Glenn Close is in it. There are some movies which, it turns out, are perfect for watching in a feverish drowse, and this is one of them. It might even be pretty good whilst sober, IDK. I also read the book, which was improved on by the adaptation.

– Con Air – 1997 – a film not directed by Michael Bay, which suffers from it. (I wasn’t quite out of my mind enough to watch this all the way through, but Nicholas Cage’s fake southern accent was kind of hilarious.)

– Mission: Impossible (the one with the actress who got horribly miscast as Jessica in the new Dune movie), whichever that is, it’s pretty bad. There were motorcycles in it, I believe.

– Top Gun: Maverick (again)

– Some episode of Xena: Warrior Princess (did this show just get completely memoryholed? Does no one remember that there was a Strong Female Character TM who was extremely popular and OP? It seems like more people debating the First Strong Female Lead Character Ever TM should be a bit more respectful.) I mean, it’s….completely cheesy and without lasting value, but! this show is absolutely amazing. When you’re also too lightheaded to drive.

Ayiyiyiyiyiyi.

And read:

– Spinning Silver – Naomi Novik wrote a pretty great fantasy fiction, mostly by not allowing the romance tropes to overtake the intrigue and action. But leaning harder into the pure, high fantasy-epic tropes would have been nice regardless.

– Tales from the White Hart – Arthur C. Clarke chronicles the yarns of fictional raconteur Harry Purvis at the eponymous London pub, in an adorably ’50s cozy-scifi way.

– The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas. Hell, it turns out, is finding that your premier paperback copy is actually abridged and Project Gutenberg insists on not providing a better alternative. Like Dracula, it would be kind of awesome to see an actual adaptation of this book….because I don’t think it’s ever actually been done.