by on

I heard about this book from Lydia Schoch’s review and I knew right away that I had to read it. Originally, I thought I would wait until Halloween season to review it, but then I thought, “Zis is Ruined Chapel! It is alvays Halloween here!” And besides, it’s such a delightful book, I couldn’t wait to share it with you all.

It tells the story of a ghost named Lazarus Bently, who is helping an amateur ghost out with a difficult assignment: haunting a woman named Maisie. Maisie’s artistic temperament makes her immune or oblivious to most of the standard tropes associated with hauntings: objects being hurled through the air, threatening messages on the walls etc. have no effect on her. What is a ghost to do?

Since this is a short story, I can’t say too much about how it all develops, or I’d risk giving it away. But, I can say that the author packs a lot of humor and clever ideas into a very short space. It’s like a supernatural version of “The Odd Couple,” with plenty of witty lines. I especially liked the idea that the ghosts feed off of fear, and when they need a quick hit, they drop in on people who are watching the news.

You might be saying, “But it’s only 18 pages long! Can it really be worth it?” Comes the reply: yes, it can. I read it in one evening and found myself chuckling the whole time. Sure, it’s a short read, but every minute spent reading it is fun, and that’s what matters.

Ghosted is a perfect fun supernatural story to read when you want a good laugh. As usual, Lydia is right on the money!

by on

“On the eighth day came a letter from Uncle Chris—a cheerful, even rollicking letter. Things were going well with Uncle Chris, it seemed. As was his habit, he did not enter into details, but he wrote in a spacious way of large things to be, of affairs that were coming out right, of prosperity in sight.”–P.G. Wodehouse, Jill the Reckless. (1920)

I apologize; no book review this week. Not that books are not being read here at Ruined Chapel! Indeed, books are very much being read by your humble host. But, many of them are advance reader copies, and so I cannot review them… yet. All in good time. Amazing things will happen here soon, you just wait!

However, since you were good enough to show up here, I must give you something. Why, you could read the book quoted above. I reread it recently, and it just might be Wodehouse’s best. Very funny, of course, but it also has a lot of heart.

Or, perhaps you’re in the mood for some heavier reading. Well, I’ve been flipping through The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. A bit complex at times, but interesting.

I’ve also been reading The Invisible Emperor, because, well, of course I have. In the past year, I have read The Right Stuff, Answer to History, and a good bit of Overlord; although I have not finished it yet. It takes a lot to get me to read yet another WWII book, but it’s a good one. I almost never review books like this, because what can I possibly say in critique of actual history? Nevertheless, they are worthwhile all the same.

So, there you go! Maybe one of these titles catches your fancy. Let it ne’er be said that I didn’t try and bring interesting books to your attention this week. With any luck, next week I’ll have a proper review for you.

by on

This book is the sequel to Litka’s seafaring adventure tale Sailing to Redoubt. It picks up with Lt. Taef Lang working at his family shop, trying his best to keep the business going while his parents are traveling, when his old friend Sella Raah appears

In short order, Taef finds himself once again involved with Sella and her sister, Lessie. The polite, humble young officer begins breaking rules and taking chances in order to help out the impulsive sisters. His task is to spring Lessie from enforced confinement on the island of Cimlye.

Now, if you read the first book, you might remember that Lessie was not very friendly to Lt. Lang, despite all the help he gave her. Cold and aloof she was, unlike her more outgoing sister.

I have to admit, I didn’t like Lessie much in Sailing to Redoubt. Frankly, I thought the way she treated the likable Lang was quite reprehensible. Admittedly, as often as not, he would let himself in for it.  And at first, Prisoner of Cimlye seemed to be shaping up to be more of the same. Why, I asked myself, is Lang insisting on getting himself into these situations?

Well, as happens in any good story, the characters grow and develop. I won’t spoil it, but I was quite pleased with the way Taef and Lessie’s relationship evolved. It made me wish I had read it right after finishing Sailing to Redoubt. Who doesn’t love a good adventure yarn; and a splendid yarn this is, that left me eager for more. And–huzzah! For another book in this series will be released in less than a week’s time. I will soon be returning to the Tropic Sea saga.

by on

As I write these words, my Twitter feed is abuzz with talk of Dune Part 2. I have not seen this film, and it may be a good while before I do, as Dune Part 1 left me underwhelmed. Besides, I’ve never liked it when they split one book into multiple movies. And we all know what started that practice…

What does it say that the best idea the film industry can think to use for a blockbuster science fiction film is a nearly 60-year-old book that has already been adapted for the screen multiple times?

Are no new stories being told? Has the creative fire simply gone out of civilization, leaving us only with the ability to make increasingly shoddy copies of old masterpieces? Has the modern entertainment industry gradually supplanted our ability to innovate with a constant remixing of familiar stories that generate predictable cash flows for the massive corporations that churn out this material, while simultaneously siphoning the dynamism and vitality from them, in much the same way that over time, sports and games evolve into predictably boring affairs, as continual refinement of technique bleeds the spontaneity out of them? Was that last sentence entirely too long?

The answer to all these questions may well be “yes.” And yet, on the other hand, it may also be “no,” which brings me at last to the actual subject of today’s post, which is an original tale of adventure on a distant world.

The Last Ancestor is a science-fiction novel, telling the story of 17-year-old Garrett Nestor, a human settler of the planet Yxakh, to which his people have fled from persecution on Earth. Garrett along with his mother and little sister, live in the human colony of Canaan, which is currently at peace.

I say “currently” because previously they had fought a war against the inhabitants of Yxakh, a species of bipedal dog-like creatures which humans refer to as “Growlers.” You’ll notice I didn’t mention Garrett’s father in the description above; that’s because he died heroically fighting the Growlers.

However, now an uneasy truce exists between the human settlers and the warlike native inhabitants. Indeed, Garrett has even made friends with a young Growler named Ghryxa. Garrett and Ghryxa enjoy hanging out and exploring the nearby caves, while teaching one another about each others’ cultures and traditions.

So far, so good. What could go wrong, eh? Well, since the essence of drama is conflict, naturally, Garrett and Ghryxa soon find themselves caught in the crossfire between the humans and the Growlers, as well as an inter-Growler religious conflict! Not a pretty place to be in, especially given the Growlers’ tendency to settle things violently.

Speaking of violence, there are plenty of good action scenes in this book. Just look at the cover, and you’ll get a sense of the thing. It reminded me quite a bit of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and his modern day stylistic heir, Henry Vogel. It has that same pulpish sense of fast-paced adventure.

But there are deeper themes here as well. The book has strong religious overtones, but not in the heavy-handed way that is commonly associated with religious fiction. No, here it is woven deftly into the story, and seems like a natural part of the characters’ personalities. (The book’s subtitle is a sort of clue here, but I’ll say no more than that.)

It’s quite well done and clever. The author goes to some lengths to build the world, including inventing a rather large vocabulary for the Growlers. There is a helpful appendix that explains many of these terms; always useful in books like this. Garrett and Ghryxa are both quite likable characters, and the device of using messages from Garrett’s late father as epigrams for many of the chapters was an inspired idea.

My only complaint about the book was that the ending felt abrupt. Of course it’s part one of a series, so clearly the idea is to get you to read the sequel, which I will probably do. So, in that sense, maybe this is a feature, not a bug.

All told, this is a fun adventure yarn; the sort of story that hasn’t been fashionable for a while, and yet people inevitably enjoy whenever they stumble across. Anyone who likes Sword and Planet adventure stories ought to check it out. And, let me add, it would make for a fine movie.

by on

“Like deep-burrowing, mythological worms, power lines, pipelines and pneumatic tubes stretch themselves across the continent. Pulsing, peristalsis-like they drink of the Earth and the thunderbolt. They take oil and electricity and water and coal-wash and small parcels and large packages and letters into themselves. Passing through them, underneath the Earth, these things are excreted at the proper destinations, and the machines who work in these places take over from there.

Blind, they sprawl far away from the sun, without taste, the Earth and the thunderbolts go undigested; without smell or hearing, the Earth is their rock-filled prison. They only know what they touch, and touching is their constant function.

Such is the deep-buried joy of the worm.” –-Roger Zelazny, The Dream Master

Every now and again, in the bookish circles of Twitter, I’ll see this tweet referenced:

This is an exaggeration for comic effect, but sometimes it is true. It is especially true with a book like The Dream Master, which I picked up after enjoying Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October.

This book is absolutely nuts. There is a plot, to a degree, involving a man who helps shape and understand people’s dreams by means of a simulation machine. But that part of the story is only loosely threaded through bizarre and surreal images like that in the passage quoted above. I already forget, if indeed I ever knew, what that has to do with the story proper. But when you write something that good, it hardly matters.

It took me a while to figure out, but the book is actually structured like a dream. You know how dreams are: you’ll be at the office Christmas party, only your boss doesn’t look like your boss, and then suddenly you’re trying to break into a haunted house with the aid of Mitt Romney. It all makes sense when you’re dreaming it, and sounds insane when you remember it later. (And yes, I have had this exact dream.)

This book is like that; full of symbolism and weird changes of voice and perspective that call to mind simultaneously The Waste Land, the works of C.S. Lewis, and the more esoteric elements of the Dune universe. It is, in other words, a complete fever-dream acid-trip of a book.

Which is not to suggest that it is bad! Not at all. Indeed, I often think the best books, or at least the most memorable ones, are those that make you feel like you are teetering on the edge of madness. What fun is a book that merely describes the humdrum and everyday? If we accept the description of reading quoted above, then by golly, when I stare at my tree-slices and hallucinate, I want it to be something extraordinary.

And throughout The Dream Master, there are fragments like that; haunting, prescient, visionary glimpses into concepts that seem less dream-like now than they must have in 1966. Why, why is it, I ask you, that so many of these sci-fi dystopias of past literature seem to feel so uncomfortably close to our present-day reality? I am again reminded of Clarke’s Childhood’s End, and the idea that the appearance of the aliens in ancient human folklore meant that they “became identified with [humanity’s] death. Yes, even while it was ten thousand years in the future! It was as if a distorted echo had reverberated round the closed circle of time, from the future to the past.”

The idea of the future coming back to haunt us in the past–now there’s an idea that would be not at all out of place in Zelazny’s nightmare-world! No, no; this book, despite being in many ways exceptionally strange, is also endlessly fascinating, deeply unsettling and even, in some places, rather funny. I recommend it; just don’t go in expecting a linear narrative.