NOT A FORGOTTEN BOOK: A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES

 A House with Good Bones by "T. Kingfisher" (Ursula Vernon)  (2023)

This one won the 2023 Dragon Award for best horror novel and the 2024 Locus Award for Best Horror Novel. as well as being a finalist of the 2024 British Fantasy Award for Best Horror Novel;  I'm including it for my Friday post because it's a damn good book and deserves to be read by all, even thiose wo shy away from horror novels.

Samantha Montgomery is fat, 32, funny, unmarried, and very comfortable with herself.  She has pursued her pasion for bugs and is now a very underpaid archaeoentomologist -- one sho studies the remains of bugs at archaeokogial sites.  Her recent job -- a six-month stint at a Paleo-Indian site in the Pacific Northwest -- has been put on hold because of the discovery of human remains at the site; it may take a few weeks, a few months, or never to get legal permission to return to the site.  Sam had just sub-let her Arizona apartment for six months, so she decides to spent her newly-freed time visting her mother in rural North Carolina

The house was originally owned by Sam's grandmother, Gran Mae, whose past had always been shrouded in mystery and reticence.  Sam's father had died when Sam was young, leaving Evie, her mother, penniless.  Edie, Sam, and her older brother Brad moved in with Gran Mae while Edie slaved away at two jobs, tryiong to raise enough money to rent an apartment.  It took a couple of years, but Sam's family was finally able to move out and continue their lives on ther own.  When Gran Mar died, Edie inhetied the house and the family moved back in and Edie began making changes.  Gran Mae had lived in a television family sitcom world where every thing was nice and proper -- and bland.  Edie painted over the beige walls of each room with vibrant colors, and banished Gran Mae's loved portrait of a Confederate wedding to the attic.  (Yes, Gran Mae was a racist; she was also a cruel and vicious person hiding behind a mask of Fifties decorum and repectability.)  Edie made the house her own and most memories of Gran Mae vanished.

It should be mentioned that the house sits on a very, small, one-street subdivion on a road named Lammergier Lane.  (A lammongier is a large type of bone-eating vulture from Asrica and Eurasia; why the strret was named after the species is a story of its own.)  When Sam arrived at her mother's house, she was greeted by a large vulture roosting on the mailbox.  That was the fisrt weird thing.  It turns out that one of Edie's neighbors is a retired animal rescuer and that a flock (or commmittee, as they can be called, but not a kettle, because that refers to vultures only when they are flying in formation, which these never do) of vultures for some reason are roosting in one of the tree on her property.  The neighbor, Gail, has made a pet of one of the vultures and has named him (or her, hard to tell) Hermes.  It was not Hermes who greeted Sam when she came home.  Over the course of the book, the vultures take an inordinate interest in Edie's house.

Edie's house has a small area of grass in the back, surrounded by a circle of various rose bushes, which were planted by Gran Mae.  Edie hires young Phil as a handyman; he tends the lawn but never the roses.  Edie also does not tend the roses; they just grow and remain in perfect condition on their own.  Even stranger (for an entomlogist), Sam realizes that there are absolutely no insects in the garden, something that seems impossible to her...

And there's Edie.  She's changed.  She repainted all the vibrant wall colors back to basic beige.  The horrid Confederate soldier painting is back on perminent display.  Edie, who used to swear like a trooper, is now offended at cursing.  She now insists on grace being said before eating.  Sam begins to wonder if her mother is sliding into dementia.

Sam also discovers that her great-grandfather -- Gran Mae's father -- Elgar Mills, was reputed to be great sorceror who was engaged in some very dark arts, while also emotionally abusing Gran Mae when she was a child.

And the vultures are flocking -- in great numbers, watching the house.

Of course, we realize that Gran Mae's spirit has returned and is haunting the house, but Sam is desperately trying  to convince herself otherwise.  Then Sam discovers a mason jar buried among the roses, a jar filled with hundreds of human teeth.  And then there was the photo taken in the back yard after Sam's graduation; a closer look reveals a small skeletal hand rising out of the ground to grasp the stalk of a rose bush.   Then Gran Mae comes back, her body consisting of rose petals and sharp, sharp thorns, and insisting on a proper, nice and normal, Sunday dinner...

Then things got more disturbing and far more dangerous.

Kingfisher walks a delicate line between humor and horror, a combination some may find off-putting.  But she makes it work, and work well.  Unique characters, a strong sense of loyalty, sharp observations, and hint of possible romance add to the mix.   A House with Good Bones is a throughly enjoyable read.  Samantha Montgomery is a heroine you can cheer for.  I was sorry when the book was over.

Ursula Vernon (b. 1977) is a multi-talented author and artist.  She has published 19 books for children, a dozen books for young adults, and fifteen books for adults, as well as the Eisner-nominated and Hugo-winning webcomic Digger.  She has won a full two dozen major awards and has been a finalist fir anther 24 awards; voting on three other awarda are pending.  She's the real deal.  And still she deserves to be better known to a much wider audience.

LIFE OF RILEY: RILEY'S WEDDING (APRIL 12, 1941)

My oldest granddaughter is getting married this morning.

So, in honor of the event...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GHP5qte1EY

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: WHITE ELEPHANT MANOR

 "White Elephant Manor" by Ross Russell (from Cash Gorman #5, June 1941)

First, a few words about Cash Gorman, a short-lived pulp magazine character created in 1940 for Street & Smith Publications by Phil R. Sheridan.  (Sheridan published 26 stories and one articel from 1939 to 1943, all -- excepting the six Cash Gorman stories -- in Street & Smith sports pulps; his fictionMags Indez listing also includes one short story in The Saturday Evening Post --which raises the posibillity that Sheridan was a house name.  A seventh Cash Gorman story had been announced but the magazine died before issue #7 could be published.)   Thomas Jefferson "Cash" Gorman was called "The Wizard" because of his ability to make money.  He first appeared in "Gild the Sword with Gold" in the first issue of The Wizard (October 1940).  The Wizard was subtitled "Adventures in Money-Making" -- for some reason that escapes me, the publishers must have felt that this phrase would strike a post-Depression chord and make readers embark on an adventure in money-spending.  With issue #5, the title was changed to Cash Gorman.  The magazine lasted one further issue before dying an undigniofied death with the August 1941 issue.  According to Mike Ashley and Marshal B. Tymm, "For adventures stressing chicanery, cunning, cozening, fraud, mendacity, misrepresentation, perfidy, and trickery (not to mention dissembling, disinformation, and deceit), the sextet of novels featuring The Wizard/Cash Gorman are unparalled."  Cash Gorman (much lke Cash McCall, the hero of Cameron Hawley's novel and the James Garner-Natalie Wood film) takes distrees companies and turns into profit-making entities.  And Gorman is a straight-shooter, as honest as a businessman can be.

[Cash Gorman's attempt to become a comic book character fizzled out after one outing -- in a story in the May 1941 issue of Army & Navy Comics (31).  In 1876, Lin Carter, who never met a pulp fiction character he didn't like, included Cash Gorman in his fourth Prince Zarkon novel, The Earth-Shaker, along with other crossover characters Captain Hazzard, Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Spider, The Avenger, Batman, The Thin Man, Philo Vance, The Phantom Detective, The Phantom Creeps, Doctor Death, Tom Swift, Black Bat, Captain Zero, Angel Detective, and Dick Tracy (with that crowd, it's hard to find enough room to swing a death-ray!).  

In addition to the main novel (actually, novella) about Cash Gorman, each issue of The Wizard/Cash Gorman featured from two to four supporting stories.  For each of the final two issues of the magazine, a story about a character named Hyman Goldfarb by Ross Russell was included.  (Goldfarb's adventures continued for two additional stories published in Street & Smith's Sports Story Magazine.)  Russell (1909-200) published nearly ninety stories in the pulps from 1936 to 1943, the vast majority of them in sports magazines.

With that background out of the way, let's look at "White Elephant Manor.'

Hymie Goldfarb has a big money-making idea.  White Elephant Mamor (the name should have raised flags) was a derelict resort hotel and convention center on the East Coast of Florida, complete with 200 rooms (with baths even, anyway showers), dining room, kitchen, bar, and swimming pool.  For a $20,000 investment, the White Elephant could possibly bring in millions.  Where to get the $20,000?  From his brother-in-law, Chicago lawyer Cody McLarnin.  McLarnin was hesitent at first but the numbers appeared to work and the title was clear.  Then McLarnin got a call from his brother, Thomasheen, "an officer of an undertaker's union of some sort."  Thomasheen offered to book the White Elephant for the 1941 comvention of the National Embalmers' Association -- two hundred delegates!  that could well cover the cost of purchase and refurbishment.  A deal was struck. The Irish, Goldfard decided, had unpublicized talents for business.

Goldfarb would manage the hotel.  The success of the business and of the convention fell strictly on him.

The hotel was quickly and properly refurbished.  Items such as linens, foodstuffs, and liquor were easily arranged.  But then came the problem of staffing.  The local union was determined not to let the working man be taken for a ride, as was common with a "scab market" the year before.  They insisted on wages of fifty cents an hour for unskilled labor, where the year before the wages were fifteen to twenty cents.  Goldfarb negotiated a deal -- 67% of the gross from the ten days that the convention ran would be divvied among the union workers; that way the hotel could accomodate the convention and Goldfarb would not have pay wages up front.  A terrible deal but something had to be done.

Then, an even worse calamity...the local utility showed up just hours before the convention delegates and demanded four thousand dollars that the previous owners had owed them or all electric power would be shut off.  Goldfarb and McLarnin did not have the money and refused to be blackmailed or bullied.  the power was shut off and the hotel and convention appeared to be doomed.

That would have defeated a lesser man, but Goldfarb was made of sterner stuff.  How he overcame the problem the reader can discover for himself.  Let me give you a hint.  Two words:  Haunted Hotel.

A cute and minor story emphasizing some of the stereotypes of the day, but not in an extremely offensive manner.  Goldfarb, always on the lookout for a fast buck, proves to be far more fair-minded and honest than the typical con-man.

I may have to check out the other three stories about Hyman Goldfarb.

The June 1941 issue of Cash Gorman can be read at Internet Archive.

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: COOL AND LAM (JANUARY 16, 1958)

Bertha Cool and Donald Lam were popular detecives in a long-running series of novels by Erle Stanly Gardner, writing under the name "A. A. Fair."   Donald Lam was a shwewd, savvy, and nervy ex-lawyer; his senior partner in the detective agency, Bertha Cool, was a large and fearless, penny-pinching bull-dozer of a woman who plowed through their cases.  The series was cramfull of fast action, clever plots, and near-impossible situations from which only Lam could extricate the couple.  Many readers felt the cook-Lam books preferable to Gardner's more popular Perry Mason.

Although Mason made it to films and television numerous time, Cool and Lam only made it to television twice:  once as a 1955 episode of the program Climax!, based on The Bigger They Come (the first book in the series0with Art Carney and Jane Darwell in the title roles; and in this pilot episode featuring Billy Pearson as Lam and Benay Venuta as Cool.  (Gardner himself praised the casting highly and hoped that the pilot would spark additional episodes -- it didn't.)  Also in the cast were Maurice Manson, Margaret Field, Judith Bess Jones, Allison Hayes, Sheila Bromnley, Dom Megowan, Movita (the stage name of Movita Castania, Marlon Brando's second wife), John Mitchum, Tristram Coffim, and Alex Sharp; Gardner also appeared as himself.  The show was directed by Jacques Tourner, from a script by Edmund L. Hartmann, based on the second published novel in the series, Turn On the Heat.  (Turn on the Heat was also the basis of the only Cool-Lam episode to make it to radio, on ABC Radio's United States Steel Hour for June 23, 1946, with the role of Donald Lam being played by Frank Sinatra!)

(Garner's other popular detecive, D. A. Doug Selby, was filmed only once, with Jim Hutton for a 1971 television movie, They Call It Murder, based on the novel The D.A. Draws a Circle.)

Watch while a simple case of infidelity leads to murder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMLKgaM5Cq0

SUSPENSE: ANGEL FACE (MAY 18, 1950)

From 75 years ago, Claire Trevor stars in Cornell Woolrich's "Angel Face" as the good-hearted stripper who tries to save her briother from a murder conviction.

Woolrich's original story, first published in Black Mask, October 1937, under the title "Face Work," was one of weo stories used as the basis of his 1943 novel The Black Angel (the other story was "Murder in Wax," published two years earlier in Dime Detective).  "Angel Faace " was also the basis of the 1938 movie Convisted, starring a young Rita Hayworth.

Enjoy this tale, calculated to keep you in Suspense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKkl9ue-LgE

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: TRIASSIC MOON

'Triassic Moon" by (**cough** cough**wink**wink**) Michael Crichton and shahnewaz [no caps on the first name, this time] Bhulyan and (perhaps) Michael Chrichton  (no date)

I read so you don't hve to.  And for that you owe me, big time.  And maybe a parade -- not that namby-pamby, boring Trump Birthday Parade, either; more like something on the scale of a Macy's Thanksgiving parade on steroids, with more and bigger balloons and more and better bands, and hosted by an adoring Tsylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Malala Youfsazi...yeah, something like that.  Or maybe with a medal, a big impressive medal.  Not the Congressional Medal of Honor because I have never been in the service. And not the Presidential Medal of Freedom (supposedly the highest honor given to a civilian) because the meaning of that medal has been tarnished and debased by recipents chosen by George W. Bush and Donald Trump.  But some sort of nifty, impressive medal I can show off when I'm at the neighborhood bar.  Or, maybe, just send money.  Whatever.  But, by God, you owe me for having read this abortion instead of you.

About the background:  I found this thing on Amazon.  It's a book (ha!) with 85 pages, claiming to be for readers age 3-17 --  a range I find rather suspicious.  The cover proclaims the author as Michael Crichton.  The  Amazon description lists the authors as Michael Crichton, Michael Chrichton, and shahnewan Bhulyan.  Amazon also lists Bhulyan as the author of such items as Sprc ops. little Mr.spider [sic], Triassic Planet, bio-morphers:  bio-morphers, Lizards, Jared, and The Lost World -- all for $2.99 on Kindle, and all of which appear to be self-published.  (Forgive me if I suspect several of this is the same damned story as "Triassic Moon.")  But, there's more.  Amazon lists another Triassic Moon -- but this time by "Michael Cole" (although it's "Look at the Author " feature references Bhulyan); this one is aimed at readers 8-17 and has only 15 pages; the Kindle sells for three bucks and change, although there is paperback aavailable for $35.  As far as I can tell, Triassic Moon was a Roblox video (?) [computer?} game originally called Jurassic Ruins, which was retired (thankfully, according to coments) in 2021.  Are we clear now?

But what about the gawdawful, meretricious, incompetent story? you ask.  Let me quote the entire Prologue, complete with actual punctuation, typos. misspellings, spacing, and what have you:

"The year 2007 ,a team of a group of scientists and the aliens experimented with a new weapon or Mass of destruction.For centuries it has been hidden.  This planet is shrouded with myth and mystery.it's inhabitants with strangest creatures.others says it a jungle prison for the most dangerous outcast.we didn't know we've could have or should have known.It was too late the last or final transmission was their last warning we'd ever get some people says it a hostile place.others say it a prison.Only the strongest will survive.This is theirs story."

Had enough?  Let me give you the first few sentences from "Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION": 

"In the year 2029 not too distant future planet Eurora site: LV 223 and LV 228 a lost forbidden planet/moon called Pandora 30 kilometers from earth near distant ssolar system from planet mercury inhabited with dinosaurs and draagons was settled buy a group of androids,aliens, and mad evil-scientist.It was a dangerous near suicide mission that they never think of.They use MRI tissue body reconstruction nanites/alien dragonflies to reconstruct perfect hybrid breed of alien-species of dinosaurs and dragons in nano seconds.These include genus of megaladon,titanosaud, diphlosausrus, deinonychus, brontosaurus,reaper raptor. viper-raptor,archeopteryx,raptor-rex, dire-deinoychus, therizinosaurus,gallimimus,allosaurus,suchomimus,oviraptor,pterodactyl,pteranodon,Hadrosaurus,ornithomimus,triceratops,brontosaurus [again - JH],compsonagthus,argintinosaurus,brachiosaurus,stegosaur,suchomimus [also again -- JH],Gigantasaurus,tylosaur,mosasaur,velociraptor..."  I could go on; there's eighteen more species listed, followed by "etc."

Anyway, scientists return to this planet/moon that is less far from Earth than a foorball field and must somehow survive.  Ho-hum.  If it's really dark out on a moonless night and you squint real hard, it may read a bit like a story, or it may read like a seven-year-old is desribing a computer game.  Hard to tell which.  Oh, and it plagerizes from the Crichton book as well as the movie, and also from The Terminator, Avatar, and Lord know what else.

I wonder what the lawyers for Crcichton's estate will say when they find out about this one.

(I'm posting this on Jack's birthday.  i pray he doesn't think this is my birthday present to him.)

Anyway, I read this one, so you, dear friends, OWE ME BIG TIME! 

OVERLOOKED FILM: THE CRIMSON CIRCLE (1936)

. Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was a best-selling British author of mystery and advneture novels, publishing over 170 novels, 957 short stories, 18 stage olays, as well as films, poetry, and historical non-fiction.  He was so popular that his publishers claimed that fully one quarter of the books published in /england were written by him.  There have been over 160 films made of his work, many of which were German krimi, where books still remain extremely popular.  Among Wallace's best-known characters were The Four Just Men (later The Three Just /men), detective J. G. Reeder, and Sanders of the River.  He also wrote the original draft for the film King Kong.

The Crimson Circle is based on Wallace's 1922 novel, which features his character Inspector Parr; The Sunday Mirror called the book "one of the best stories Edgar Wallace ever wrote."  In addition to the 1936 film, the bokk was filmed three additional times -- in 1922. in 1929, a UK-German co-production released both as a silent and with sound, and in a 1960 West German film.

The 1936 film was directed by Reginald Denham and starred Hugh Wakefield, Alfred Drayton, Noah Beary, and June Duprez.  One contemporary review called the movie "Well constructed, the action is developed at [a] good rate.  plenty of comedy, thrills, and suspense rounded off by [a] surprise climax."

The plot concerns Scotland Yard's efforts to track down a secret society of blsackmailers known as The Crimson Circle.  Pretty much a standard plot for Wallace, but approached with care and decend photography.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r6C0vqH53Q 

A HASTILY THROWN-TOGETHER, ABBREVIATED BITS & PIECES

Openers:  Virgil Augustine's cell phone rang just as he was reaching for his coat to go home.  It was Bud Roldan, the facilities director for the museum.  "You atill in the building, Virgil?" Bud asked.

"Just barely," Virgil said.  Tonight was the weekly date night for Virgil and Emily Augustine; they would pay their teenage daughter, Libby, to watch her twin brothers, which Virgil knew meant she would be in the living room texting her friends while Andy and Hunter played video games in the basement, and Emily and he would have either Mexican or Chinese food and then watch whatever was showing at the Wapa Cinema.  This week it was some animated movie involving waterfowl.  This is what passed for romance when you were middle-aged and being in small-town Ohio, and Virgil was not one to miss it.  "What is it, Bud?"

"Well, it's..."  Bud trailed off, and Virgil waited, eyeing the door of his office, yearning for escape.  "You should probably just come and see this for yourself," Bud finally said.  "It's easier than trying to explain it.  We're in the Moon Room.  Come on up."  Bud hung up.

-- When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi  (2025)

This is a stupid book.  A really stupid book.  And therein lies its glory.

It's conceit is simple: the moon has suddenly, inexplicably and spontaneously, turned into cheese.  That's it.  It is not a fantasy; but, within its limits, it is a hard science fiction book.  No explanation is given for this phenominon because logically there isn't one.  So live with it.

Or not.  Because, despite having the same mass -- and therefore the same orbit -- as the old, rocky Luna, physics dictates a disaster bordering on the great extinction even that destroyed the dinosaurs.

Scalzi limits his observations to various parts of the United States in chapters covering the days of the lunar month.  Rather than a farce, he gives us a hard-edged satire that takes in the political system, big business, religion, the scientific establishment, the arts, and ordinary people with all their flaws and jealousies, fears and hopes, love and passions, blazing intelligence and blind stupidity.  It's a great canvas for our current world.

And the damned thing about it is that it works.  It is a good, solid, enjoyable novel.  Recommended for those who can set aside their disbelief to read about a world doomed by cheese.

Incoming: 

• Kevin J. Anderson & Doug Beason, Ignition.  Thriller.  "As millions of TV viewers tune in to watch, there's nothing to indicate that it's all aprerecorded show.  Terrorists have taken over Launch Control and are threstening to blow up the shuttle in less than three hours -- un;ess their demands are met.  Only colonel 'Iceberg' Freise, the mission's former commander, knows about the danger to his crew.  Unknown to all, he's in the restricted zone.  And now it's up to him to stop the clock before the countdown reaches...IGNITION."
• Leigh Bardugo, Hell Bent.   Fantasy.  "Alex Stern is back in the explosive sequel to Ninth House.  Find a gateway to the underworld.  Steal a soul out of hell.  A simple plan, except peole who make this particular journey rarely come back.  But Galaxy 'Alex' Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory -- even if it endangers her future at Lethe and at Yale.  Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can't call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe.  Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane text and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies' most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it."  Winner of the 2023 Goordreads Fantasy Award.
• Fred Blosser, Swords of the Crags:  Expanded Edition.  Sword and sorcery/fantasy/adventure collection channeling Robert B. Howard with six stories and five articles.  As usual, when James Reasoner recommends a book, I say, "How high?"
• Richard Lee Byers, The Reaver.  Gaming tie-in novel in the Wizards of the Coast Forgotten Realms: The Sundering series, the fourth (of six) book in the main series and the only one penned by Byers.  "In the third book (oops, somebody miscounted) of the multi-author Sundering series launched by New York Times best-selling author R. A. Salvatore, Richard Lee Byers introduces Anton Marivaldi -- a renowned reaver with an incredible thirst for bounty who, when it cimes to a choice between two evils, always chooses the one he's never tried.  Endless storms rack the Sea of Fallen Stars and the coastal regions surrounding it.  In panic and despair, many have turned to the goddess Umberlee, Queen of the Deeps, offering her sacrifices with hope that they will be spared the inevitable reckoning of her perpetual tempest.  Evandur Highcastle, undead pirate captain, raised from the depths to assume the mantle of Umberlee's chosen, takes advantage of the people's desperation to strike for both spritual and temporal power in her name.  Vying with highcastle for the hearts and minds of the people is Stedd Whitehorn, a little boy and the chosen of a god thought lost in time, Lathander, the Morninglord.  In a time of such upheaval, Stedd's message of renewal and hope runs in stark contrast to the savage ethos of Highcastle and his waveservants.  Whan Anton captures the boy in order to collect Highcastle's considerable bounty, the reaver is quickly caught up in the riptide caused by the sundering of worlds."  
• Michael Crichton,  Congo, Sphere, and Timeline.  Since reading Crichton's early "John Lange" novels from Hard Case Crime, I thought it would be interesting to read some of his other novels that I have somehow missed along the way.   Congo:  An adventure through the dark heart of Africa, "through cannibal country, past flaming volcanoes -- in search of the diamonds of the Lost City of Zinj."  Crichton's "intrepid band  (two of them Ph.D.'s)..."  [does the asterisk belong there?  I dunno.] "...consists of:  - A young California scientist (specialty: primate research) who is accompanied by his sensitive 'talking' gorilla, Amy (a vocabulary of 620 worda, a will of her own, and she cries if he leaves her)...  - A genius-y and gorgeous young woman from ERTS (Earth Resources Technology Services. Inc., a Houston-based corporation with hush-hush global interests) who is ruthlessly determined to secure the (indusrrial) diamonds) before her equallly ruthless rivals beat her to it... - A 'white hunter'  whose awesome savvy about the jungle (and the competition) stems from his deadly experience as a Congo mercenariy..."  [The blurb writer for the jackert copy really needs to find a new job.]  And there's a  murderous species of jungle gorilla.  This is my daughter Christina's favorite Crichton novel. and I won't tell you how many times I watched the movie with her.  Sphere:  "In the middle of the South Pacific, a thousand feet below the surface of the water, a huge spaceship is discovered resting on the ocean floor.  Rushed to the scene is a group of American scientists who descend together into the depths of the sea to investigate this astonishing discovery.  What they find defies their imaginations and mocks their attempts at logical rxplanation.  It is a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apprantly undamaged by its fall from the sky.  And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old...Has the ship come from an alien culture?  From a different universe?  From the future?  Why, initially, there are no creatures on the sea floor, and then, suddenly, swarms of 'impossible animals' of whole new specioes?  Who -- or what -- is transmitting messages onto the scientists' computer screen...messages that grow increasingly hostile?  What is the giant, perfect, metallic sphere -- clearly not made by Man, and seemingly inpenetrable by him -- that they find inside the speceship?  And -- most crucially -- what is the rxtraordinary and terrifying power that threatens their undersea habitat, and then their very lives?"  Timeline:  "In an Arizona desert a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense.  Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known human assocociates.  Halfwaty around the world archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site.  Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology.  Now this group is about to get a chance not only to study the past but to enter it.  And with history opened to the present, the dead awakened to the living, these men and women will soon find themselves fighting for their very survuval -- six hundred years ago."  This was Kitty's favorite Ctichton novel, and we saw the movie many more times than the Congo movie.
• Michael Crichton (ahem) & Shahnewaz Bhuiyan. Triassic Moon.  Juvenile, "ages 5-17."  I have no idea what's going on here, guys.  From the Amazon description:  "Triassic Moon is a science fiction/adventure novel about alien hybrid dinosaurs and dragons that are created by [sic] group of mad scientists, androids, and aliens on a lost on a lost distant planet that is 30 kilometers [What! - JH] from earth [sic] call Eurora.  although [sic] soon [sic] accident occurs and the dinosaurs and the dragons go on a rampage so [sic], the scientists had no chose [sic] but,to [sic] evacuate and abort their space expedition mission and return home."   So here's the thing:  Amazon has this book listed twice, the one above, with 85 pages and listing at $2.99, and another with the same cover art and description, authored by "Michael Cole," for "8-15 years" with 15 pages, and priced at $3.58.  (The latter book also has a "follow the author" option for Shahnewas Bhuiyan.)  As far as I can tell, Triassic Moon was video game formerly called Jurassic Ruins, which was discontinued on June 8, 2021 -- one YouTube commentator wrote, "The game has been abandoned.  Good."  I'm wondering how in hell did Crichton's name get on this book, and how soon will it be before the attorneys for his estate pull the plug.  Because I'm evil, I think this story will become a Short Story Wednesday post.
• Stephanie Erickson Doyle, Florida Unsolved Mysteries.  Nonfiction.  Some two dozen exampkes of the "unsolved and unexplained" that took place in Florida, including "some famous events, and some that have stayed hidden from the public eye."  Sorry, I. not too impressed.  Still anything weirdly Florida is in my wheelhouse, so...  Included are "The strange abduction of a oy and his grandmother; The mysteries behind the infamous and evil Ted Bundy; The many disappearances in the bermuda Triangle; The anthrax scare and the anthrax reality; [and] Gravity Hill, where cars can roll uphill."  Ho-hum.
• Wayne D. Dundee, Rainrock Reckoning.  A Lone McGantry western.  "Former Indian Scout Lone mcGantry is hired by Harriet Munro, a fiery woman lawyer seeking to make a name for herself on the western Nebraska frontier.  munro has taken the case of beautiful young roxanne Bigbee -- a desperate fugitive fleeing a trumped-up murder conviction and a hangman's noose.  but before she can appear for the re-trial that Harriet has arranged, Roxanne must be rescued from the current threatening situation  her flight has placed her in.  It' up to McGantry to get her out."  Dundee was an award-winning mystery writer and founder of Hardboiled magazine, who transitioned to an award-winning western western writer.  He died last month at age 77.
• Frank Eisgruber, Jr., Gangland's Doom:  The Shadow fo the Pulps (50th Anniversary Edition).  Nonfiction.  An early study and history of the pulp character The Shadow:  'his identities, his agents and allies, The Shadow's sanctum, the villains he has faced, his international travels, and more."  An early and important example of pulp scholarship, with additional materials for this edition.  Recommended by James Reasoner, who knows his pulp, and by Evan Lewis [see below], who ditto.
• [Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November-December 2024]  A freebie.  Stories by Doug Allyn, Cath Staincliffe, Twist Phelan, Bill Pronzini, Robert Lopresti, Melissa Yi, and more.
• James P. Hogan, Voyage from Yesteryear.  Science fiction.  "Well into the 21st century, nuclear was once again loomed on the horizon and this time there would be no excape.  But an American probe has discovered a second life-bearing planet, waiting with open biosphere for refugees from Earth.  So that freedom, and the human race itself, shall not perish from the uhiverse, the Americans launch a crash project to colonize Chiron.  There's only one problem:  the science and engineering of the time are not up to the task of transporting living human beings between star systems.  The answer:  send a 'colony' in the form of DNA information, and use robots to give them living form at the other end.  Then use humanlike robots to raise the resulting children.  Amazingly, it works.  The children and their children's children are happy, healthy, and steeped int he ideals of America's founders.  They are everything their home-planet sponsors could ever have hoped for -- except that they really mean it about all that liberty stuff.  But now the Earthmen have had their war, survived, rebuilt -- and come to Chiron in new fast ships.  They're the government.  They've come to help.  But the damned Colonists have such an attitude..."
• "J. Hunter Holly" (Joan Carol Holly), The Mind Traders.  Science fiction novel.  "A place of crawling spiders and poisonous snakes...where nighmares came true...that was 'The Blsck', where men were punished for challenging minds more powerful than their own.  The detective from Earth feared The Black more than any other torture his own planet could conceive.  But he had to uncover the sinister plot that threaened Earth and all its people."  Hollly was the author of (I fear) a dozen pedestrian SF novels, plus ion book in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. series she suffered a benign brain tumor in 1970, publishing three books afterward as Joan Hunter Holly.
• Evan Lewis, Bowie's Gold and Crockett's Devil.  Adventure novels, each featuring an American icon, from the award-winning writer and nifty blogger.  About Bowie:  "Jim Bowie is on a Quest for Vengeance == and the Lost Treasure of Jean Lafitte.  Famous knife fighter James Bowie wants a seat in congress.  But to win it he needs money -- and lots of it.  When an old pirate friend -- and his beautiful daughter -- seek his help with a treasure map, he's drawn into a wild race across the Gulf of Mexico," [not, I hasten to point out, the Gulf of America] "to Texas and beyond.  Opposing them is Bowie's most bitter enemy, a former captain of Lafitte's calling hinmelf The Last Great Terror of the Gulf.  The two men's fates have been long entwined, and their thirst for vengeance exceeds even their desire for the treasure.  Who will feed the sharks?"  The author, BTW, is a self-proclaimed Jim Bowie lookalike, but he also a great admirer of Davy Crockett (thus the title of his blog, Davy Crockett's Almanack, which brings us to the second book:  "The time:  1813. The Place:  The Mississippi Territory.  The Problem:  Rebelling Creek warriors, under war chief Red Eagle, spread terror across the frontier, slaughtering settlers and peaceful Creeks alike.  The Solution:  Kill Red Eagle!  But Davy Crockett disagrees.  He sees Red Eagle as the young nation's best hope for peace, and risks his hair -- and his life -- to stop the fighting."  I'm looking forward to readinf each of these books.
• Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden, BALTIMORE, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire.  Gothicky paranormal fantasy.  'When Lord Henry Baltimore awakens the wrath of a vampire on the hellish battlefields of World War I, the world is forever changed.  For a virulent plague has been unleashed -- a plague that even death cannot end.  Now the lone soldier in an eternal struggle against darkness, Baltimore summons three old friends to a lonely inn -- men whose travels and fantastical experiences incline them to fully believe in the evil that is devouring the soul of mankind.  As the men await their old friend, they share their tales of terror and misadventure, and contemplete what part they will play in Baltimore's timeless battle.  Before the night is through, they will learn what is required to banish the plague -- and the creatue  who named Baltimore his nemesis -- once and for all."  Copiously illustrated by Mignola.
• Jim Nemeth (with additional material by Randall Larson), Robert Bloch:  An Unconventional Bibliography.  This book apparently supecedes Randall Larson's 1988 The Complete Robert Bloch:  An Illustrated Comprehensive Bibliography.  We'll see.
• Alexei Panshin, Rite of Passage.  Science fiction novel, winner of the Nebula Award and runner-up for the Hugo Award.  "In 2198. one hundred and fifty years after the desperate wars that destroyed an overpopulated Earth, Man lives precariously on a hundred hasitly-established colony worlds and in seven giant Ships that once ferried man to the stars.  Mia Havera's ship is a small, closed society.  It tests its children by casting them out to live of die in a month of Trial in the hostile wilds of a colony world.  Mia Havera's Trial is fast approaching and in the meantime she must learn not only the skills that will keep her alive but the deeper courage to face herself and her world."
• James Patterson & Chris Grabenstein, Pottymouth and Stoopid.  Children's book, one of thrty-five kid's books written by the pair.  The story of best friends David and Michael, and involves 'a TV show, a funeral, an evil cheerleader, and a couple of delicious McFlurrys."  Grabenstein also writes best-selling kids books in at least seven serie, as well as standalones, graphic novels, and plays.  He started his career in 2005 writing the John Ceepak mysteries (nine books through 2013), but abandoned the character in order to concentrate on his far more lucrative kid's books.  I truly wish he wopuld bring back John Ceepak.
• Jason Reynolds, Miles Morales, Spider-Man.  Young adult tie-in novel featuring the Marvel Comics character.  "When a misunderstanding leads to his suspension from school, Miles begins to question his abilities...As Miles tries to get his school life back on track, he can't shake the vivid nightmares that continue to haunt him.  Nor can he avoid the relentless buzz of his spidey-sense every day in history class, amid his teacher's suspect lectures on slavery and the modern-day prison system.  But after his scholarship is threatened, Miles uncovers a chilling plot, one that puts his friends, his neighborhood and himself at risk.  It's time for Miles to suit up."
• Fred Saberhagan, Berserker Blue Death.  Science fiction, the ninth book (and fifth novel) in the Berserker series; the first edition included a colon in the title -- Berserkeer:  Blue Death.  "The great blue berserker's destruction of the human colony Shubra was swift and merciless.  Niles Domingos's daughter lies among the dead.  Niles Domoingo is a man with a mission.  Vengeance at any cost.  With one small ship, he sets out against the great beserker called leviathan, tracking it through the interstellar mists of the Milkpail Nebula.  He is sure he is ready for anything.  but nothing can prepare him for the astonishing discoveries that lie between him and Leviathan."  Also, Berserker's Star.  The sixteenth, and penultimate, book in the series.  "Pilot Hsrry Silver's name is known throughout the galaxy.  While he has defeated his share of berserkers, he has also stolen a powerful weapon from the Space Force, making him a fugitive from the life he once knew.  Looking for an adventure Harry agrees to bring a passenger aboard his ship:  Lily, a woman who is on a quest to retrieve her husband.  It won't be easy, as Lily's husband has joined a secretive religious cult on Maracanda, the almost-planet lodged between a shifting black hole and a neutron star.  While the landscape of Maracana  is treacherous, so too, may be the people around Harry Silver.  For s the search for Lily's husband deepens, Harry finds himself investigating a larger mystery and looking for the missing person, almost ending up one himself.  And, as always, there is the threat of death from above, in the path of a machine whose only intent is to kill."
• John Scalzi, The Last Colony.  Science fiction, the third book in the Old Man's War series.  "John Perry has retired with his wife and aughter to one of humanity's many colonies.  It's a good life, but something's...missing.  When John and Jane are asked to led a new colony world, they jump at the chance to explore the universe once more.  But nothing is as it seems.  Perry and thee new colony are pawns in an interstellar game of diplomacy and war between humanity's Colonial Union and a new, seemingly unstoppable alien alliance that jhas demanded an end to all human colonization.  As these gambits rage above, onj the ground Perry struggles to keep his colonists alive in the face of threats both alien and familiar.  For his family's survival, and everyone else's, Perry must unravel the web of lies, half-truths, and deceptions spun around them and uncover the colony's shocking true purpose -- lest it become, truly, the last colony of the human race."
• George H. Smith, Doomsday Wing.  Science fiction.  "In the War Room of Command Post D the military and civilian anlysts stared in horror as the message appeared on the big screen:  ATTENTION ALL COMMANDS!  SAMOS SATELLITE 105 REPORTS ROCKETS FIRED FROM EASTERN SIBERIAN FRONT.  NORAD  A projection of the polar region appeared on the screen and all eyes followed a red dotted line that started in Siberia and had now reached the edge of the icecap.  It was ;icking up speed as it arched jup over the top of the world.  SAC TO ALL WINGS, SCRAMBLE ALL AIRCRAFT.  BMEWS NOW REPORTS 25 ICBM's..ESTIMATED IMPACT AREAS:  WASHINTON, OMAHA, VANDENBURGH, McCOY, MacDILL, COLORADO SPRINGS, MRCH FIELD, TITAN BASES AT TUCSON, DENVER.  PRESIDENT AUTHORIZES ALL FORCES TO ATTACK!  ATTACK!  ATTACK!  PLAN C FOR CHARLIE STARTS COUNTDOWNS."   A 1963 paranoia Red Scare novel from prolific paperback hack George Henry Smith, not to be confused with George O. Smith.  Ho-hum.
• Jason Starr, Gotham:  City of Monsters.  Television tie-in novel set between Seasons Two and Three of Gotham.  No longer a cop, James Gordon must face /hugo strange's monsters on the strrets of Gotham.  At the same time, Fish Mooney is vying for the top of the underworld, and Selina Kyle is wanting her own piece of the pie.
• Chuck Wendig, Wanderers.  Science fiction.  "Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister in the grip of a strange illness.  She appears to be sleepwalking.  And she is headed with inexorable determinationn to a destination that only she knows.  Soon shana and her sister are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across america, on the same mysterious journey.  And, like Shana, there are other 'shepherds' who follow the flock to protect their friends and family.  As the sleepwalking epidemic awakens terror and violence, and as civilization collapses, the secret behind this phenomenon will either tear society apart -- or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world."

HYMN TIME

 Johnny Mathis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnJjqAnnF4Q

FRIDAY'S FORGOTTEN BOOK (A DAY LATE) - HONKY IN THE WOODPILE

 Honky in the Woodpile by John Brunner (1971)

John Brunner was best-known for his science fiction, although he was also adept at mystery, fantasy, horror, thriller, poetry, and mainstream genres.  In the late Sixties/early Seventies, he seemed to have a good thing going with his Max Curfew series of spy-guy thrillers, but, as often happened during his career, the oppotunity fizzled.  Brunner could be notoriously difficult to work with, but much of the blame could be set squarely on his publishers.  A topical book that was ensured to be a best-seller was delayed and delayed until its time had past.  A major science fiction novel was butchered (and basically rewritten without permission) by an editor, to the point that it was unreadable.  His mainstream historical novel, The Great Steamboat Race, lost the support of its publisher and flopped.  And Max Curfew?  After three successful outings, Brunner's editor insisted on a certain plot for the fourth book -- a plot that happened to be basically that of the second book in the series,  Brunner refused to write the fourth book and the series was dropped.

So who was Max Curfew?  He was a Black man born in Jamaica who was bitterly affected by racial inequalities.  Full of rage and anger, he found himself in Russia, employed by the Soviets to do undercover work in African and other countries of "color" -- work that often involved fomenting rebellion.  But Curfew soon found that the Russians were just as prejudiced against his kind as others were.  Her then went to work for British intelligence, where he found many of the same attitudes in an England where being a Black, Paki, or Westie was a detriment.  Now older, wiser, and just as bitter and filled with rage, Max is keeping a low profile.  Until...

"It started with stopping a small gang of skinheads from beating a black man, who happened to be the head of a West Indies country in exile.  This leads to Max Curfew beings asked to go there in pursuit to a traitor to their liberation movement."

It's a dangerous assignment, made more dangerous a deadly government force and by an undercover CIA agent who knows Max's identity and will do anything to stop him.  But Max is tough and capable.  He knows how to survive, how to fight, and how to kill.   And Max's rage at the inequlities and the oppression he sees on the small island fuels his determination.  Max Curfew is a character of his time, but unlike the rage-filled characters of the American Black exploitation and street novels of, say, Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines. 

International politics mixes with Banana Republic politics and native superstitions and religion to make an interesting book, although some readers have been put off by the intensity of Max Curfew's rage.  But this is a book -- like its character -- of its time, and it's a good one.

Brunner was a pssionate author and many of his works are moored in his liberal beliefs.  He started with typical space opera, publishing his first novel at 17.  A prolific author, much of his early work disguises deeper themes.  He experimented frequently -- one novel  follows a move-by-move recreation of a famous chess game; his most famous novel, The Sheep Look Up, channels John Dos Passos; in another, an advanced society meets its final doom because of bad economic choices.  Brunner had a tricky relationship with proponents of Britain's "New Age" science fiction, but I would argue that he was much closer to their ideals than he was given credit for.

John Brunner was a sometimes great, and often very, very good author who has unfairly sunk from the public recognition he deserves.

GHOST RIDER #46 (MAY 1956 - ESTIMATED)

This is not your American, Marvel Comics Ghost Rider in any of his various forms.  The American Ghost Rider began as Rex Fury in Tim Holt #11 in 1949 from Magazine Enterprises, and was created by Ray Krank and Dick Ayers; this one is not that guy, either.   After the trademark to the character's name expired, Marvel debuted its own near-identical character in Ghost Rider #1 (February 1967), drawn by original artist Ayers, with a script by Gary Friedwich and Roy Thomas.  In the 70s, Marvel introduced the supernatural Ghost Rider and renamed their western Ghost Rider Phantom Rider.  (At first Marvel renamed their original character Night Rider, but that name turned out to have bad connotations of the Ku Klux Klan,)  The original supernatural Ghost Rider was Johnny Blaze, complete with motorcycle and blazing skull, to be folowed by Danny Ketch, robbie Reyes, and others.

The Ghosr Rider of the Australian comic books was Steve Jarret (or Jarrett, depending on the mood of the letterer, I guess), who wore a white mask, believed in justice and was quick on the draw.  His horse is moonshine, who is either an Appaloosa, covered with bad tattoos, or has a terrible case of warts.  His sidekick is Mariposa, who, when he wears a teeny, tiny black mask and a large fancy Mexican sombraro is the Mariposa Kid.  Ghost Rider was created by J Morath; from issue #6 to the final issue #57, Terry Trowall wrote and drew the feature.

In this issue, The Ghost Rider must save unjustly accused young Charlie Westover from being lynched for robbery and murder.  The local sheriff has fitted young Charlie up because he was unable to catch the real bad guys -- it's an election, after all, and somebody has to pay.

Also in this issue are two stories about American Eagle (by Gevanter and Al Williamson, taken from the Prize comics stable).  In the first, evil Indian trader Hatlan Brody murders peaceful Indians to steal their pelts.  American Eagle chases the bad guys down the river, but their boat does not tire oput like American Eagle's horse does, so it's up to Laughiong Dog to save the day.  In the second American Eagle and his Army scout friend Buck Dolan come across a pair of crooked gamblers.   But how to prove they are crooks?  The decks they use are neither marked or shaved...

The stories aren't bad.  The artwork, for the most part, is good.  And it's interesting to see a different take on the Ghost Rider motif.

Check it out.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96902&comicpage=&b=i

NO FFB TODAY

 Maybe tomorrow.

HOMICIDE O'KANE: THE KILLER WHO RETURNED FROM THE DEAD AS THE CLOCK STRUCK THE HOUR (MARCH 2, 1943)

A nearly forgotten radio show from the Blue Network.  As far as I can tell, this is the only episode of  Homicide O'Kane extant.  O'Kane is played by Bud Heistand, better known as a radio announcer (The Rudy Valee Show, Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge, The Grerat Gildesleeve, The Mel Blanc Show).  Also festured is Dick LeGrand, perhaps best known for playing Peavey in The Great Gildersleeve.  Also featured in this episode were Howard McNear (Floyd the Barber on The Andy Griffith Show), Sarah Selby (Prissy the Elephant in Dumbo, and Aunt Gertrude in Disney's The Hardy Boys), Harry Lang (Pancho in The Cisco Kid radio show, and, from 1940 to 1953, he provided the vocal effects for Tom in the Tom and Jerry cartoons), and Grey Colby (I know nothing about him).  Walter Arnold was the announcer.  

Tough homicide detective O'Kane gets a phone call from a man who is about to be murdered.

It should be noted that the solution to the case does not hold water, but what can you expect from a short-lived, little-known radio show?

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OT0ql1I91U

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: MURDER, 1990

"Murder, 1990" by C. B. Gilford  (from Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, October 1960; reprinted in The Best Detective Stories of the Year:  16th Annual Collection, edited by Bret Halliday, 1961; in Alfred Hitchcock's Anthology #1, 1977 edition [also published as Alfred Hitchcock's Tales to Keep You Spellbound]. edited by Eleanor Sullivan, 1976; in Dark Sins, Dark Dreams, edited by Barry N. Malzberg & Bill Pronzini, 1978; the story was taken from the Malzberg/Pronzini amthology and published in Romanain in 1987 as "Omor in 2020" ["Murder, 2090"], translated by Andriana Fianu; in Alfred Hitchcock:  The Best of Mystery, Harold Q. Masur, uncredited editor, 1980; and in the British paperback Alfred Hitchcock's Book of Horror Stories:  Book 9,  edited by Eleanor Sullivan, 1989)

"The case of Paul 2473 really began when he discovered the old book.  He recognized it instantly for what it was, because he had once been through the Micro-filming Section where they were recording some old-fashioned but worthy volumes on genetics before destroying them.  But the sight of this book, obviously an unsuspected relic of the dim past, provoked a simultaneous curiosity and dread in him."

He discovered the book while marching withn his Thursday Exercise Platoon; it was hidden in a crumbling wall where he had sat down to rest.  His duty, of cojurse, was to turn the book over to his Platoon Leader without looking at -- old books could be either valuable or dangerous, and it was not Paul 2473's place to decide which.  Instead, he looked at the title -- The Logic of Murder -- which confused him: he had a vague idea of what "logic" meant, but "murder" was a word totally unfamiliar to him.  Paul 2473 stuck the book inside his shirt and continued the march.

In reading the book, he was amazed to find that once there was a society where peoplpe shoise their mates at random, which sometimes lead to the unthinkasble act of taking human life, or that the government did not provide for all needs of its people, leading to murder being ciommitted to acquire wealth.  Barbaric!  "As he read on, Paul was treated to the full panarama of homicidal motivations, both sane and inseane.  There was a chapter on methods of murder.   There sections on the detection, apprehension, and punishment of murders."   Paul also learned tha many murderers -- especially those who planned their crimes well beforehand -- were never caufght.  Good to know.

:Paul had been seeing Carol 7427 reguklarly at Recreation, and had enven gone ito the Caressiong Booths with her.  They had taken the Campatibilty tests together and Paul was hoping for a Three-Year assigment with her, or, possibly, a Five-Year Assignment.  But when the Mating Assignments came out, Paul was paired with Laura 6356, and Carol with Richard 3833.  It just wasn't fair!  but Paul had the book...

A dystopian murder tale pushing all the predicted buttons, with a fittingly ironic ending.

Charles Bernard Gilford (1920- 2010) was a prolific writer of mystery stories from 1953 through 1975, 94 of which appeared in AHMM, and 41 of which appeared in Hitchcock anthologies.  Twelve years before publishing mysteries, however, he published a science fiction novel, The Liquid Man,  in Fantastic Adventures, which was eventually released in book form in 1969.   Gilford also used the pen name "Douglas Farr."  The Fictionmags Index also lists "Jack Webb" as a pseudonym, but this is most likely an error.  John Alfred  Webb (1916-2008 -- not the Dragnet Jack Webb guy) authored nine popular mysteriess about Sammy Golden and Father Joseph Shanley, plus two other novels under his own name and four novels as by "John Farr."  I suspect it was the work under the "Farr" pseudonym which caused the confusion.

Gilford was a talented short story writer and a retrospective of his work would not be amiss.

The October 1960 issue of AHMM  is available online at Luminist Archives. 

OVERLOOKED SILENT TEAR-JERKER: THE HUMAN DESIRE (1919)

 From IMDb:  ""Inspired by a statue of the infant Christ in the hands of the Madonna, Berenice, who lives in a convent in Naples, Italy, conceives of a deep passion for babies.  Learning that there are infants dying of hunger and neglect in America, Berenice determines to come to their aid.  Dressed as a boy, she arrives in New York, where destitute Berenice meets artist Robert who hires her to pose for a painting of the Madonna.  The two fall in love until one day, during Robert's absence, his wife appears and drives Berenice into the streets.  Berenice's trials finally end when Rlobert's wife dies in an automobile accident, freeing robert to marry his model."

This is supposed to be uplifting, but it appears tres mereticious and morally bankrupt to me.

No matter.  Berenice is played by Anita Stewart, whose 113 IDMb credits start in 1913 and go through to 1928, with a few minor appearsance in the early 30s.  She 'remained a major draw card with movie audiences throughout the 1920s.  She retired in 1928 with the advent of sound as one of the wealthiest women in Hollywood."  She was also a producer with 17 silents to her credit, including The human Desire.

Taking the role of Robert was Conway Tearle (Bucking the Tiger, The Mystic, of Forgotten Women), a popular leading man who (on-screen anyway) wooed many of the screen's leading femmes during the silent era and beyond, including Marguerite Clark, Mary Pickford, Norma Talmadgge, and Clara Bow; in his last major role, he was rejected by Mae West in Klondike Annie.

Eulalie Jenson, who began her career with Thomas Edison in 1914 and was a leading actress in the silent era (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Bachelor Brides, Passion Flower), played Robert's wife.   She did transition to talkies, but little success and gained mainly iuncredited roles.

Also in the cast were Vernon Steele (who would become better known as the future oater star Bob Steele), Naomi Childers, Templar Saxe, and Hattie Delaro.

Director Wilfred North was a successful stage actor, director, and producer before joining Vitagraph Pictures in 1913, helming 31 shorts in that year alone, including at least seven starring Vitagraph's leading comedy ster John Bunny.  Among his other films were The Kid (1916), Son of Wallingford (1921), and Captain Blood (1924).  He retired from directing in 19the mid-Twenties, but stayed in the business as an actor until his death in 1935 at age 72.

The film was scripted by Edward J. Montagne, who has been credited (23 years after his death!) as the creator of I Spy.  Montagne's credits include Rupert of Henzau, The Cop and the Anthem, and The Cat and the Canary.  The script was based on Violet Irwin's 1913 novel.  I know nothing about Irwin except that she probably co-authored, with Vilhjalmur Steffansson, the juvenile novel Kak, the Copper Eskimo.

As you can tell. I'm not really a fan of The Human Desire (I glommed onto it solely because of Bob Steele), but your mileage may vary.  Let's see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWhTbVSSDRA

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PINETOP PERKINS!

 Legendary blues pianist Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins was born this day in 1913.  He began his career as a guitarist, but injured the tendons in his left arm in the 1940s in a knife fight with a chorus girl, and switched to the piano.  In the 1950s he recorded "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie," a song written by Clarence "Pinetop" Smith in 1928; because of the popularity of Perkins' version, people began calling him Pinetop.  Perkins played with some of the most influential blues and rock-and-roll artists of his time.  He had a cameo in the film The Blues Brothers, in which he had an argument with John Lee Hooker about who wroite the song "Boom Boom."  When he was 91. the car he was driving was hit by a train, wrecking the car but leaving the driver uninjured.  He died in his sleep of cardiac arrest at age 97 on March 21, 2011.  At the time of his death he had more than 20 performance booked for 2011.  Perkins and David "Honeyboy" Edwards were the last surviving Delta Blues musicians, and Perkins was one of the last surviving bluesmen to have known blues great Robert Johnson.  His favorite meal waas a McDonald's Big Mac and apple pie.

"Pinetop's Boogie Woogie"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSv09tegacU

"Chicken Shack"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WozBrZia4A

"4 O'Clock in the Morning"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzbNUe5qGbQ

"Pinetop's Blues"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgRS5fvG4w0

"High Heel Sneakers"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-CrACAWh2I

"Baby, What Do You Want Me To Do?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZFcJltLjqY

"How Long Blues"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZFcJltLjqY

"Blues After Hours"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsQJhcA84zo

"Chains of Love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SWOLScC7nI

"Everyday I Have the Blues"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ybCYORoYvo

"Caldonia"  (with Muddy Waters)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ixr4s4bdQQ

"So Many Days"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiZFu9cfGgY

"I Keep On Drinkin'"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd7UMtvUees

HYMN TIME

 From 1929, Peck's Male Quartet,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK-2a_ga6zY

ELLERY QUEEN #2 (JULY 1949)

"Ellery Queen," as both an author and a fictional character made his literary debut in 1929 with The Roman Hat Mystery, which began a remarkable career that spanned novels, short stories, anthologies, critical works, radio, film, television, board games, jigsaw uzzles, a play, and a mystery magazine which is now in its 84th year of publication.

In comic books, Queen began as a character in 1940 in stories published in Crackerjack Funnies.  In 1949, four issues of a self-titled comic book were issued by Superior Comics, and, in 1952, Ziff-Davis released two issues of an Ellery Queen comic book.  Ten years later, Dell comics released three issues of their own title.  In 1990, Queen was utilized as a guest star in Mike Barr's Maze Agency comic, and in 1996, he was referenced in Gosho Aoyoma's Detective Conan series of managa books.

In Superior Comics' Ellery Queen #2, Ellery is on hand to solve four intriguing puzzles (actually, three, but who's counting?):

• "Terror Tide" - where death omes to Surfside Manor in a weird and uncanny manner
• "Calamity Clock" - a deadly triangle and a murder in a quaint shop filled with clocks...and in which Ellery wear a perfectly ugly yellow-plaid suit
• "The Case of the Vanishing Phantoms" - a tale taken from "police files" and narrated by Ellery; the ghost wasn't a ghost and the redheaad wasn't a redheaad, but the diamonds were still missing...
• "The Devil in the Vault" - it was routine to open the bank vault for the day, but then up popped the devil...note that the bank vice president in this tale is wearing a perfectly ugly blue-plaid suit which could be kin the the ugly one Ellery wore two tales earlier; I suspect he got it from Ellery's evil twin brother

Stories and art by I. B. Cole and Maxfield R. Pater.

There's also a two-page text story, "The Bell That Screamed," about a woman murdered in a pot of molten metal use to mold a bell in Africa's Obangi country, and what happened to her husband who likely pushed her.  The story is credited to Maxfield R. Pater.

Enjoy.

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=96885&comicpage=&b=i

FORGOTTEN BOOK; TO THE BRIGHT AND SHINING SUN

To the Bright and Shining Sun by James Lee Burke  (1989)

An early book from the author -- his second , this standalone focuses on seventeen-year-old Perry Woodson Hatfield James, descended from both Frank James and Anse Hatfield (of Hatfield-McCoy Fued fame).  Perry comes from an impovrished coal mining family; his faather, woodson, has been unable to work for ten years due to an accident in the mines, and Perry himself has been working in the mines since he was fifteen.  Appalachian coal miners in the Sixties did not have it easy.  The mine owners held all the power, paid low wages, did not care about mine safety, bled their workers through rents on their homes and through the company store, and basically tossed the workers aside when they begame too ill or injured to work.  To be a coal miner ws to walk hand in hand with devastating poverty.

Now the miners have organized and are on strike.  The mine owners have hired scabs to do the work, and have employed thugs to terrorize the union men.  Tensions run high and violence often occurs on booth sides.  Perry's uncle, who has a criminal record, takes him along as he and two sadistic union psychopaths as they attempt to blow up a mine.  A company man is unintentially killed in the explosion.  although Perry had nothing to do with the death, just his being there puts him in legal jeopardy.  Perry, the main bread-winner of the family -- his father pulls in a pittance clearing the forest for the government, can find no work anywhere.  Perry's older borther is dead, and his many siblings are too young to work, and the youngest child has tuberculosis and needs medical care the family cannot afford.  Perry signs up for the Job Corps, and is sent out of state for traiining and education (like many from his area, Perry is illiterate).

Perry is stubborn, proud, and quick-tempered.  At first, he fights the unfamilar regimentation he faces.  Slowly, he turns himself around, beginnings gaining job skills and an education, and is soon promoted.  Any extra money Perry earns, he sends to his family.  Then, with just a couple of onths of training to go before he can get a decent-paying job as a machine operator in Cincinnati, his father is mrtally injured in a bombing at the union hall. and Perry leaves the Job Corps to look after his family.  The bombing was done by three company thugs brought in from the outside -- no one knows who they are or where to find them.  That does not stop Perry from vowing to find them and kill them.

To the Bright and Shining Sun is a novel of contrasts, utilizing Burke's poetic vision to great effect.  the beauty and natural wonder of Appalachia is set aginst the squalor and desperation of  a people impoverished by a capitalist system that cares nothing for them.  The damge the coal companies do to the countryside is mirrored by the damage they do to the populace, as Perry struggles to find some sort of redemption as he enters manhood.

It is not a comfortable book, but it is a remarkable one.  Burke is one of the greatest prose stylists we have today, with an uncanny knack for both setting and characterization.  To the Bright and Shining Sun is highly recommmended.

I may be my personal prejudices, but I find many thematic similarities between the Appalachia of the Sixties as described by Jsme Lee Burke and the nascent authoritaianism we are experiencing today.  Your mileage may differ.

The book's title, by the way, is from a line in the old bluegrass song "Mollie and Tenbrooks."

THE MAGIC KEY: DEAR OLD DARLIN' (DECEMBER 29, 1935)

The Magic Key aired on the NBC Blue Network in the mid- to late 1930s and was sponsord by RCA.  "It was a prestigious program that showcased the cultural breadth and potential of radio.  The show was designed to highlight a wide varioety of musical and dramatic performances, featuring some of the most famous performaers of the time across a range of genres."

This episode features an interview with George M. Cohan at Pittsbuurgh's Nixon Theater as he rehearses his new play Dear Old Darlin'.  Today would have been Cohan's 147th birthday, who, despite his claims, was not actually born on the fourth of July.  Happy Birthday, George!

Also included in the program are Benny Goodman and His Orchestra, noted soprano Helen Jepson performing two arias, and classical guitarist Andres Segovia performing two selections.

Enjoy.

https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/variety/magic-key-the/magic-key-the-35-12-29-013-dear-old-darling

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: DARBY O'GILL AND THE GOOD PEOPLE

 "Darby O'Gill and the Good People" by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh  (first published in McClure's Magazine, December 1901, as by Herminie Templeton; reprinted in The Idler, July, 1902; reprinted  the collection Darby O'Gill and the Good People, 1903 [and in 1915 as by Heminie Templeton Kavanagh), later published as Darby O'Gill, 2006, as Herminie Templeton Kavanagh, and as Darby O'Gill and the Little People, 2006, as Herminie T. Kavanagh; reprinted in Fairies, edited by Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg, 1991; reprinted in Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown. edited by Marvin Kaye, 1883; included in The Adventures od Darby O'Gill and Other Tales of Supernatural IrelandHeminie Kavanagh, 2009)

"Although only one living man of his own free will ever went among them there, still, any well-learned person can tell you that the abode of the Good People is in the hollow heart of the grrat mountain, Sleive-na-mon.  that same one man was Darby O'Gill, a cousin of my own mother."

For some "mysterioue rayson". the fairies "soured on Darby, and took the eldest of his three foine pigs."  They next week, thry took a second pipg, and the following week, the thiord, leaving Darby forcced to sell his cow Rosie to pay the rent.  Before he could sell Rosie, the fsiries made away with her, too.  So Darby, bold and desperate ion his anger, sought out the fairies in Sleive-na-mon, challenging them to meet his wrath.  In his attempt to retreive Rosie, Darby found himself in the heart of Sleive-na-mon, trapped by the Little People.  The fairies marched Darby before Brian Connors, King of the Fairies, blowing on his bagpipes.  He was surrounded by thousands of fairies, but also by a number ofpeople from his own parish -- including his late sister-in-law, dead  these past three years.  "three things in the worruld banish sorrow -- love, whiskey, and music."  Darby, the finest reel-dancer in all of Ireland, began to dance.  The Fairie king was impressed with Darby but he could not let him go go; Darby was to spend the rest of his life among the fairies, who would nevertheless provide for Darby's wife and children by giving them a good sovereign every day of their lives.  

Darby's stay with the Good People lasted six month's.  His late sister-in-law bemoaned the fact that he was away from his wife, Bridget.  But can Darby, the silver-tongued con man, be able to escape the hordes of Fairie?

The Darby O'Gill stories have entertained readers for a centruy and a quarter, but the charaacter is best known for being the subject of the 1959 Walt Disney film, Darby O'Gill and the Little People, directed by Robert Stevenson, wriiten by Lawrence Edward Watkin, and starring Albert Sharpe as Darby and Jimmy O'Dea as King Brian, and featuring Janet Munro and a pre-James Bond Sean Connery (his first leading role).  The movie is considered one of Disney's best films, with Leonard Maltin calling it one of the best fantasies ever put on films.  Disney himself spent three months studying Gaelic folklore at the Dublin Library and received input from seanchaithe (traditional Irish storytellers) as he developed the film.

"Darby O'Gill and the Good People" is available to read on the internet at many of the usual places.

OVERLOOKED MOVIE: TEEN-AGE CRIME WAVE (1955)

 Kids today!  What's the matter with them?  And why don't those whippersnappers get off my lawn?

In Teen-age Crime Wave, Jane is falsely convicted of beineg an accesory to a robbery and is ent to an industrial school with cellmate Terry.  Terry's boyfriend Mike springs them, killing deputy in the process.  They hideoput in a farmhouse while waiting for Mike's friend Al to come with money and a getaway car.  Terry becomes interested in Ben, the farmer's son, while Mike becomes more and more unhinged.  They kill a neighbor and have to flee the farmhouse.  SPOILER ALERT:. In the socke finish, Ben sudbues Mike, and Terry is shot and killed, but not before attesting to Jane's innocence.

Tommy Cook (b. 1930) played Mike.  Cook was a child actor known for playing Little Beaver in 1940's Adventures of Red Ryder and Kimbu the young jungle boy in 1941's Jungle Girl.  He won a photoplay Award for "Outstanding Performance" for his role as a juvenile delinquent in The Vicious Years (1950).  Typecast in exotic roles, his career dwindles as he moved from child actor to adult actor, and his shiort staure did not help in the transition.  He was a stsndout junior tennis player and eventually became well-known as an organizer of celebrity gala charity events. In the 1950's he wrote a script for himself about cops who go undercover; the script eventully became the basis of the television show The Mod Squad.

Terry was played by Molly McCart (b. 1929), whose brief career lasted from 1955 to 1958.  Teen-age Crimw Wave was her first film.  She appeared in two others:  A Kiss Before Dying and Dino.  she also appeared in episodes of five television shows.

Jane was played by Sue England (1928-2018), whose career began in 1945 and lasted until 1974.  among her films were The Underworld Story, The Hidden City, The Women of Pitcairn Island, and Funny Face.  She worked extensively in episodic television from the 1950s on.  Her second husband, Larry Stewart, was the nameless Video Ranger in Captain Video, Master of the Stratospher (1951); he later became the head of the group that would become The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

The role of Ben was played by Frank Griffin (1929-2024), who switched careers in 1969 to become an in-demand make-up artist.

Teen-age Crime Wave was directed by Fred F. Sears (Don't Knock the Rock, Utah Blaine, The Giant Claw).  It was scripted by Ray Buffam (The Brain from Planet Arous, Teenage Monster, of Lost Women) and Harry Essex (It Came from Outer Space, I, the Jury, Creature from the Black Lagoon).

They just don't make movies like this any more.  Perhaps that's a good thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut8vQnjSPwc