INCOMING

 A jaunt to South Carolina provided most of the books listed below.

• Mike Ashley & Eric Brown, editors, The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures.  23 short stories, all but two of them original.  "Ian Watson tells of a journey deep into the Earth's core, where Verne adventurers do battle with occultist Nazis.  Adam Roberts takes us to latter-day California, where a descendant of Verne's Hector Servadac is preparing for the end of the world.  Molly Brown reveals how the Baltimore Gun /club plan to make the Moon habitable by seeding it with garbage.  Johan Heliot strips away the masks to reveal the real reason of Phileas Fogg's intrepid journey around the world.  Michael Mallory describes how Captain Nemo attempts to stop the unleashing of atomic power." Among the other authors are Stephen Baxter, Ian Watson, Richard A. Lupoff, Sharan Newman, Brian Stableford, Tim Lebbon, Kevin J. Anderson, and Paul Di Filippo.
• Brian Azzarello, John Constantine, Hellblazer:  Good Intentions and John Constantine, Hellblazer:  Highwater.  Volumes 14 and 15 in the graphic novel series.  I'm hedging with these because I actually bought them, along with the Paul Jenkins/Grath Ennis volume (q.v.)as gifts for Jack.  Jack has really been into the DC television series Legends of Tomorrow and his favorite character on the show is John Constantine.  At least it was a couple of weeks ago.  Jack is eleven and interests are apt to veer into strange directions at strange times at that age.  No matter.  I plan to grab them off Jack's shelf and read them sometime over the next month.  Volume 14 has Constantine collects fifteen issue of the comic book (plus a bonus story),  with everybody's favorite wizard back in America and stuck in a maximum security prison serving  a 35-year sentence for murder.  Volume 15 collects the next 13 issues, and has Constantine facing both white supremacists in Montana  and a very different find of evil in Los Angeles as he attempts to find who has framed him, and why.
• Ian M. Banks, Feersum Endjinn.  Classic science fiction novel.  "Count Alandre Sessine IV has already died seven times.  He has only one life left -- and one last chance to catch his killer.  His only clues point to a conspiracy beyond his own murder.  For a catastrophe is fast approaching Earth.  And a chosen few will do anything to keep it a secret."  And from the Gollanz SF Masterworks edition:  "It is the time of the Encroachment and, although the dimming sun still shines on the vast, towering walls of Serehfa Fastness, the end is close at hand.  The King knows it, his closest advisors know it, yet still they prosecute the war against the clan Engineers with increasing savagery.  the crypt knows it too; so an emissary has been sent who holds the key to all their futures."  This one won the British Science Fiction Award for Best Novel.
• Ken Bruen, editor, Dublin Noir.  Subtitled "The Celtic Tiger vs. The Ugly American".  Crime anthology with 19 stories by  Eoin Colfer, Jason Starr, Laura Lippmasn, Olin Steinhauer, Duane Swierczynski, Reed Farrel Coleman,Gary Phillips, and others.
• Stuart J. Byrne, Starman.  Science fiction novel.  "Astronaut Larry Buchanan travels 500 years into the future to become involved in an interstellar war -- learning the terrible truth that even as man expands throughout time and space, he continues to repeat the horrors of history -- blindly refusing to learn from the past -- on a terrifying galactic scale!"   Ho-hum.  This 1969 novel is an extensive rewrite of a 1952 three-part serial in Other Worlds Science Stories, under the title Power Metal, which was also published as a trade paperback in 2015 as by "S. J. Byrne."  Starman was published by small paperback house Powell Publications, which published a number of instantly forgettable science fiction titles, the best of which could be called "routine."
• Erskine Caldwell, Greta, Tragic Ground, and Trouble in July.  Caldwell was the popular author of novels set in the South dealing with poverty. racism, and other social issues.  Best known for Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre, he was at one time touted as the most widely read author in the world, with individual novels selling in the millions.  Somewhat forgotten now, his books are still worthwhile.  I cam across three of then in old Signet paperback editions and could not resist.  Greta (1955, in the 13th Signet printing) is "the story of a beautiful woman who wanted only the love of her husband but was compelled, through her own weakness, to love many men."  Tragic Ground (1944, in the 31st Signet printing, which claims over 4,500,000 copies sold worldwide) is "the story of Spence Douthit and his rowdy mixups with his jealous wife, his wild young daughters, and a pretty social worker.  It is a book in the Caldwell tradition -- earthy, ribald, powerful...the grippijng drama of a man's attempts to break away from the corrupting influence of a slum to which he finds himself bound by his own weaknesses and excesses..."  Trouble in July (1940, 38th Signet printing, which claims nearly 3,000,000 copies sold) tells of "the emotions that grip a small Southern town when a young girl falsely accuses an innocent Negro boy of assault.  It is a novel of violence, of courage...and sometimes humor as Erskine Caldwell reveals the unexpected reactions of ordinary people in crisis."  Quick, though not necessarily easy reads, the longest of the three has only 144 pages.
• Lin Carter, Beyond the Gates of Dream.  Science fiction-fantasy collection of six stories, plus an excerpt from a work in progress (which did not progress very far).  Included is a Gernsback satire, a Conan pastiche, and a few odds and ends.  In his introduction Carter lied by writing, "This book contains a lot of science fiction short stories..."  At least half of the items are fantasy.  Carter did not lie, however, when he wrote, "I'm not much of a short story writer."  Carter was basically a fanboy writer, producing a great number of slavishly imitative books of the gosh-ow type of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and pulp hero stuff that he grew up on.  And, while none of these are great classics, they are enjoyable time wasters for thems that likes that sorta stuff; you can do far worse than his novels.  His main claim to fame, though, was as an editor, and there, his influence -- especially in curating the Ballantine Adult Fantasy line -- cannot be overstated .  Oh.  And the except printed in this book, it's from an intended massive Tolkien-Dunsany-Eddison mashup that Carter thought would be his magnum opus, the Khymyrium.  Alas, all the reached print was three excerpts (the other two were published in anthologies edited by Carter) and a brief fan article about his plans for the book.
• Lin Carter, The Thief of Thoth, bound with Frank Belknap Long, ...And Others Shall Be Born.  "Two complete science fiction novels" (for which read two novellas published in paperback as a Belmont Double.  "What mysterious power emanated from the bejeweled crown of stars that rulers of three planets frantically sought its possession?"  And, "The portals of the unknown had opened wide, then had closed, leaving a horror of monstrous proportions.  The figure's eyes seemed lidless and sheathed with a thin film like a snake.  But they were so penetratingly malignant that they pierced deep into the man's brain, mercilessly exploring all that was there -- laying his thoughts bare like a visual scalpel that mad him scream every time it was moved."  I have no idea which of these publisher descriptions was meant for which story;  frankly, I not about to spend the time now to find out.  If it's any help, Carter described his story as a "wild and wooly sf [parody] of the crime-fighting exploits of James Bond and the sort of space opera Doc Smith used to write."  (Somehow I never considered spy-guy Bond as a crime-fighter, but that could just be me.)
• Simon Clark, editor, The Mommoth Book of Sherlock Holmes Abroad.  Fifteen original tales of Sherlock a-travelin'.
• John Creasy, Gideon's River.  Published under his "J. J. Marric" pseudonym, the fourteenth novel in the series.  "a band of dangerous jewel thieves plans to raid a posh riverboat.  A teenage girl is snatched by a murderous kidnapper -- right out from under her mother's nose.   A young man is beaten, tortured and drowned in the dark river.  Commander George Gideon, Scotland Yard's genius of detection, wades through a swamp of baffling clues only to discover -- with alarm -- that he may, already, be over his head..." And, If Anything Happens to Hester.  A John Mannering (The Baron) novel, originally titled Black for the Baron and published under his Anthony Morton pseudonym.  "Hester Vane was a vibrant, headstrong, beautiful young girl who should have been enjoying the best of everything.  Instead she was fleeing from vicious accusations of murder and hiding for her life.  Mannering knew that in order to solve the crime Hester had to be protected.  But with the police on one side and an unknown killer on the other, he also knew that he was stuck in the middle of a web of danger where there was no easy way out -- alive."
• [Ellery Queen], Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, May/June 2021, November/December 2021, March/April 2022, and November/December 2023, Janet Hutchings, editor.  I used to collect EQMM and had most of the issues through the mid-Fifties and all the issues until Dell took over publishing, subscribing to it for several years.  But the Dell's fulfillment department was sadly lacking, and I was receiving only about 8 issues  a year out of 8 published annually.  (The same delivery rate held for other Dell magazines, Asimov's and Analog.)  In addition I would receive whatever copies came through at random times of the month, and once or twice not until the beginning of the following month -- the fault may have partially rested with my local post office, but if so, only partially.  Basically,  by the time I realized I was missing a specific copy and notified the publisher, I was told that copies of the missing issues were not available (all remaining copies of those issues had been automatically pulped, they said.), but they would extend my subscription to account for the missing issues.  This really ticked off my obsessive-compulsive inner being and let the subscriptions lapse.  also since, newsstand copies were rarely available in my area, I soon gave up on EQMM altogether.  My loss, because I have been missing on some great stories.  Anyway, I found these four recent copies for 20 cents apiece and grabbed them.  I look forward to reading them, but I'll be damned if I'll subscribe again.  I carry a grudge, you see.
• Robin Furth (plot) & Peter David (script), Stephen King's The Dark Tower:  The Drawing of the Three -- Bitter Medicine.  Graphic novel.  "The Gunslinger has taken Odetta Holmes to Mid-World to join his quest to reach the Dark Tower, but little do Roland and Eddie know that Odetta has a dark side that poses a threat to everything!  And when love begins to blossom, one of their lives would be put at risk.  Meanwhile, Roland's illness is becoming critical, and that means drastic action is required.  As Odetta's personal struggle comes to a head, the Gunslinger seeks out the assassin Jack Mort -- and ends up in a shoot-out on the streets of New York!  The stakes are higher than ever -- yet deeply personal -- as King's saga twists and turns!"  The blurb writer sure likes his exclamation points.
• [Joe Hill]  Joe Hill Presents Hill House Comics.  Boxed set of the six graphic novels Hill has curated for his comic book line from DC:  M. R. Carey, The Dollhouse Family; Joe Hill, A Basketful of Heads; Joe Hill, Plunge; Joe Hill, Sea Dogs; Carmen Maria Machado, The Low Low Woods; Daphne Byrne, Laura Marks.
• "Michael Innes" (J. I. M. Stewart), Appleby on Ararat.  The seventh (out of 34) Sir John Appleby mystery novel, first published in 1941.  "During the bleak days of the second World Was, Appleby visits a pleasant tropical island in the South Sea, where he encounters an assortment of colonial expatriots, Eurasians, and natives.  The scenery is spectacular, the conversation droll and civilized, but ominous events portend imminent disaster on this quiet refuge."  Of this novel, The New Yorker said, "Superbly plotted and humorously written."
• Laurence M. Janifer, Slave Planet.  Science fiction novel.  "The Masters -- Johnny Dodd:  He had everything a man could want on Fruyling's world -- except freedom from the horror of being there; Dr. Haenlingen:  Icy, reserved, the architect of the system that kept men on top an aliens enslaved; Norma:  Warm and human, she was Dodd's one salvation.  The Slaves -- Cadnan:  He did what he was told...until the Masters told him to die; Marvor:  The first of his race to have an independent idea -- an idea that was dangerous and deadly; Dara:  Green and reptilian, but beautiful enough to inspire Cadnan to the slave's worst crime.  As the space fleets of an enraged Terran Confederation close in on the outlaw planet of Fruyling's World, the destinies of slave and master meet explosively, and from the shock of battle and its aftermath come an unexpected and awesome conclusion.
• Paul Jenkins & Garth Ennis, John Constantine, Hellblazer:  How to Play with Fire.  the third of the Constantine graphic novels I picked up this weekend; this one is Volume 12 in the series..  Things are going pretty well for Constantine after he had cut off a piece of his soul and sent it to Hell to suffer for his sins.  He has a new girlfriend that he hasn't yet killed or damned or driven insane.  His friends are (mostly) alive and healthy.  His enemies are (mostly) either dead or trapped in some forn of eternal torment.   So, it's about time for something to hit the fan.
• Lynda La Plante, Prime Suspect 3:  Silent Victims.  Novelization of the third series of the award-winning television show.  "Chief Inspector Jane Tennison has moved up the ranks, fighting every step of the way to break through the station house's glass ceiling.  Now, on her first day as the head of the Vice Squad, a crime come in that threatens to to destroy everything she has worked for.  As Vera Reynolds, drag queen and night club star, swayed onstage singing 'Falling in Love Again,' a sixteen-year-old boy lay in the older man's apartment, engulfed in flames.  When Tennison's investigation reveals an influential publis figure as her prime suspect, a man with connections to politicians, judges, and Scotland Yard, she's given a very clear message about the direction some very important people would like her investigation to take.  Suddenly, in a case defined by murky details, one fact becomes indisputably clear -- that for Tennison, going after the truth will mean risking he happiness, her career, and even her life."
• Toby Litt & Mark Buckingham, Dead Boy Detectives.  Graphic novel collecting the first dozen comic books, as well as three other stories.  Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland were murdered before they reached their teens -- Edwin in 1919 and Charles in 1990.  Now they operate their own detective agency, "taking on cases that are too bizarre for the living, including one that introduced them to young socialite Crystal Palace, who happens top be a student at St. Hilarion's -- the very school where Edwin and Charles lost their lives decades ago.  And in another mystery striking very close to home, Charles discovers that h e has a long-lost half-sister from his father's secret family.  Have Charles, Edwin, and their new ally Crystal stumbled into a conundrum that would have been better left unsolved?"  An absolute delight of a series based on characters created by Neil Gaiman.  The Dead Boy Detectives recently made it to television as a Netflix series, with eight episodes premiering last Thursday.
• Kim Newman, Bad Dreams.  Horror novel.  'When American journalist Anne Nielson travels to London to investigate the death of her sister, she finds herself sucked into a nightmarish world of corruption and perversion, populated by dealers, pimps, sadomasochists and a vampiric race that feast on their victims' dreams.  At the centre [sic] of this sickly web lurks the Games Master, and the closer Anne draws to his domain, the more she endangers herself and everyone she knows.  But the Games Master is not just a name, and soon Anne will learn that when he plays, he plays for keeps."  This omnibus edition (Titan, 2014) also contains the novel Bloody Students, originally published as Orgy of the Blood Parasites, as by "Jack Yeovil."  The author notes that both novels were technically "first published in the 1990s...but they were (mostly) written in the '80s, before we got even slightly respectable."
• "K. J. Parker" (Tom Holt), Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead and Saevus Corax Captures the Castle.  Fantasy, the first two novels in the Corax trilogy.  Corax is in the battlefield salvage business.  "There's no formal training for battlefield salvage.   You just have to pick things up as you go along.  Swords, armor,, arrows -- and the bodies, of course."  Who knew salvage could be so risky?  "It's stressful work at the best of times, and although your employees are unlikely to be happy, it makes sense to keep them alive."
• Otto Penzler, editor, The Big Book of Female Detectives.  Doorstop anthology (1111 pages of smallish type, double columns) with 74 stories, including Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence novel The Secret Adversary.  Penzler starts with the anonymously-written British sleuth Mrs. Paschal (1864) and moves on to cover tales by Mary Roberts Rinehart, Mignon G, Eberhart, Gladys Mitchell, Frances and Richard Lockridge, Anthony Boucher, Q. Patrick, Stuart Palmer, Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, Sara P)aretsky, Max Allan Collins, Lawrence Block, S. J. Rozan, and Laura Lippman, among others.
• Nancy Pickard, The Virgin of Small Plains.  Mystery.  "For seventeen years, a rural community on Kansas has faithfully tended the grave of an anonymous teenage girl christened the Virgin of Small Plains.  And some claim that, perhaps owing to the girl's intervention, strange miracles and unexplainable healings have occurred. Slowly, word of the legend spreads.  But what really happened in that snow-covered field almost two decades ago, when the girl's naked, frozen body was found?  Why did young Mitch Newquist disappear the day after the shocking discovery, leaving behind his distraught girlfriend, Abby Reynolds, and their best friend, Rex Shellenberger?  Now Mitch has returned to Small Plains, reigniting tensions and awakening secrets.  Never having resolved her feelings for Mitch, Abby is determined to uncover the startling truth about his departure.  The three former friends must confront the ever-unfolding consequences of the night that forever changed their lives -- and the life of their small town."
• Martin Rosenstock, editor, Sherlock Holmes:  The Sign of Seven.  Seven Holmnesian novellas by Lyndsay Faye, James Lovegrove, Amy Thomas, Andrew Lane, Derrick Belanger, Davis Stuart Davies, and Stuart Douglas.
• Richard Dean Star, editor, More Tales of Zorro.  Anthology with 16 new stories about the "bold renegade who carves a Z with his blade."  Authors include Kage Baker, Johnny D. Boggs, Keith R. A. DeCandido, Carole Nelson Douglas, Alan Dean Foster, Craig Shaw Gardner, Joe R. Lansdale, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Timothy Zahn.   I guess there' life in Johnston McCulley's old boy yet.
• Matt Wagner & Steven T. Seagle, Sandman Mystery Theatre, Compendium One.  Collects issues #1-36 of the comic book , as well as Sandman Mystery Theatre Annual #1.  These take us back to the original DC Sandman, Wesley Dobbs, as he navigates a crime-ridden post-Depression New York City.  (The remaining 35 issues plus a few short stories appear in Compendium Two, which I do not have.)
• Dennis Wheatley, The Rape of Venice.  Historical adventure featuring Roger Brook.  "In the summer of 1796, Roger Brook, a trifle unwillingly, undertook a new secret mission for the Prime Minister, Mr. Pitt.  It gave him a chance to meet Rinaldo Malderini -- the Venetian Senator and a disciple of the Devil -- and his charming wife Sirisha, an Indian Princess .  It brought him into contact with a lot of other interesting things as well:  a seance, a duel, a shipwreck, cannibals, slavery, kidnapping, the violating of a harem and a desperate night assault against a walled city."  Wheatley's books are of an age, and the various prejudices must be taken into account, but I've always found them entertaining in small doses. 
• F. Paul Wilson, The Dead World.  An authorized tale of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Pellucidar.  "A plague is spewing forth from the Dead World, the stationary moon that hovers over the Land of Awful Shadow in the land within the earth.  David Innes, Emperor of Pellucidar, and the eccentric inventor, Abner Perry, rig a balloon to carry them to the Dead World.  But Pellucidar's mysterious moon is not what it seems, and far more bizarre than they ever dreamed.  It holds the answer as to how Pellucidar was formed -- and how it will be destroyed.  Can they stop the plague before it wipes out all life in the inner world?"  Also, The Upwelling  (The Hidden, Book 1).  " 'Oh, Mrs. Sirman, there's a problem with your husband's cremation.'  'What sort of problem?'  'It's his body.'  'What about it?'  'It won't burn.'  And so it begins for Pam Sirman,,,the first step toward learning that everything she thought about her husband is wrong, perhaps even his humanity.   But if he's not human, what is he?  Pam is one three lives that will be drawn together by the apocalypse of the Upwelling.  The other two are Chan and Danni, but their worlds are already in chaos.  A few weeks ago a fierce storm accompanied by an upwelling from the Atlantic abyssal plain tore into Atlantic City.  When it receded, the city and its 25,000 inhabitants were gone without a trace.  Chan and Danni remember being in the city that day, but the ten hours during which the Upwelling occurred have been wiped from their memories."  Preorder; publication date July 9, 2024.
• Bernard Wolfe, Limbo.  The classic and cult favorite SF novel from 1952.  "In the aftermath of an atomic war, a new international movement of pacifism has arisen.  Multitudes of young men have chosen to curb their aggressive instincts through voluntary amputation -- disarmament in the most literal sense.  Those who have undergone this procedure are highly esteemed in the new society.  But they have a problem -- their prosthetics require a rare metal to function, and international tensions are rising over which countries get the right to mine it..."  A brilliant satire for its time (and, perhaps, ours).