BIT & PIECE -- INCOMING ONLY

Despite all good intentions, I sometimes get behind in items I want to post on the blog.  Rather than pt it off for another week here's some of the latest Incoming. 

Incoming:

• [anonymous editor], Gothic Fantasy:  Weird Horror Short Stories.  Collection of 44 stories, both old and new.  Louisa May Alcott, Gertrude Atherton, E. F. Benson, Algernon blackwood, Robert Bloch, Ramsay Campbell, Robert W. Chambers, Arthur Conan Doyle, Francis Flagg, R. Murray Gilchrist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Hope Hodgson, Carl Jacobi, M. R. James, Fritz Leiber, H. P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Reggie Oliver, Barry Pain, Edgar Allan Poe, M. P. Shiel, Clark Ashton Smith, H. G. Wells, and many others,  :Part of a box from George.
• "Loren Beauchamp" (Robert Silverberg), Sin on Wheels.  Midcentury erotica.  "The gay trailer camp life of casual sin and adultery shocked Lenore.  After all, she had only been married to Jack two weeks when the woman next door told her.  'You married a crackerjack.  Jack's an ace in bed.  I never had it better from anybody.  In fact, I kind of miss it, so you just let me know any time you feel like letting me crawl into the sack with Jack.  And you can get it from my old man, I won't squawk at all, because turnabout's fair play and...'  The trailer camp dwellers were always having fun -- especially when they played strip poker, switch parties, and other interesting games!"  These paperbacks talked big but actually showed little.  Early in his career, Silverberg wrote nearly 170 of them, sometimes averaging more than two a month, in additional to his other writing.  The problem with writing so much is that titles get confused; this one has also been issued as Orgy on Wheels by "Don Elliott," while the title Sin on Wheels that Silverberg wrote as "Elliott" is a completely different book.  
• Earl Derr Biggers, Love Insurance.  An early (1914) comic novel from the creator of Charlie Chan.  "...a delightful comic romp set among the palm trees of early 1900's San Marco, Florida, and features stolen diamonds, kidnapping, false identities, blackmail, and l'amour...ah, l'amour."  According to reviews, this is actually a very funny novel.
• Fred Blosser, The Solomon Kane Companion:  An Informal Guide to Robert E. Howard's Dark Avenger.  This is clickbait for a fanboy like me.  "Solomon Kane, Robert E. Howard's grim Puritan avenger, rivals Howard's most famous creation, Conan the Barbarian, in the annals of sword-and-sorcery.   In  this first-ever comprehensive guide, Howard scholar Fred Blosser unravels the mysteries of Kane and his savage world -- from treacherous Tudor England and Germany's demon-haunted Black Forest to a lost outpost of Atlantis and the vampire-ridden hills of darkest Africa."
• Marion Zimmer Bradley, Gravelight.  Occult fantasy romance, the third book in the Shadow's Gate sequence.  "Trying to outrun the memory opf a drunk-driving accident where he may have killed someone, Wycherly Musgrove send his expensive sports car sailing off the road... Amazingly he survives the crash with no more than a few bumps and bruises, but the car is totaled and Wych is stranded in tiny Morton's Fork. Sinah Dellon left Morton's Fork an infant foundling.  Now a world-famous movie star, her most closely-held secret is her ability to read minds.  She's come home in search of the truth about her origins.  Also poking around in Morton's Fork this fateful summer are researchers investigating centuries of reported hauntings and other phenomena.  Truth Jourdemayne discovers a renegade Gate, a portal to another plane.  But she cannot close the Gate without the help of its keeper, who is nowhere to be found.  Wycherly, Sinah, and Truth are fighters in the eternal struggle between Light and Darkness, and the small mountain town of Morton's fork has become a battleground."   We met Marion at a convention more than fifty years ago when Kitty was pregnant with out first child; she was excited for us and gushed over Kitty (who was also a great fan of The Mists of Avalon).  The following year we met her again when  we took Jessamyn in tow and Marion spotted us from a distance and came running over to ooh and aah at the baby.  This was more than forty years before the dark charges about her came out, but at the time we were impressed with her open friendliness.  Looking back, I wonder...  
• Darcy Coats, Quarter to Midnight.  Horror short story collection with fifteen stories.  Coates is a USA Today bestselling Australian horror and suspense writer who began self-publishing in 2013 with ever-increasing sales.  She has published more than three dozen novels and more than half a dozen collections.  I actually read one of her novels and was less than impressed.  Maybe I picked the wrong one, and maybe she reads better in shorter bites.  We'll see,
• "Isak Dinesen"  (Karen Blixen), Last Tales.  Collection of twelve stories, many of them a bit more "literary" than my normal reading, but she's also good at creepy Gothic stories.
• Stefan Dziemianowicz, editor, Great Horror Stories.  Instant remainder of 101 short tales.  A good mix of the familiar with the unfamiliar, both in terms of authors and stories.
• Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert W. Weinberg, & Martin H. Greenberg, editors, 100 ghastly Little Ghost Stories.  Another instant remainder.  Another gift from George.  All reprints, a mixture of the familiar and the not-so familiar, mostly from the pulps, with over 40% from Weird Tales.
• Mike Evans, The Rock 'N' Roll Age.  Coffee table book from Reader's Digest, but don't hold that against it.  A look at American culture through the lens of Rock and Roll, from the origins of the genre to the coming of the Beatles.  some of the events may not have been pretty, but the music...ah!  the music!  another goodie from George.
• John Farris, Sacrifice.  suspense novel.  "Seventeen-year-old Sharissa Walker is beauty personified, decency incarnate and a joy to behold -- the apple of her father's eye.  By anyone's standards, Greg Walker is the perfect father.  He'll do anything to protect her and keep her safe.  But in this novel of terror and suspense, nothing is as it seems.  Nothing.  Not youthful innocence.  Not daughterly devotion.  Not a father's love...:"  Of this book, Ed Gorman wrote:  "Sacrifice is an astonishing achievement -- a novel of love and hate, light and darkness, the everyday and the macabre.  The book holds so much excitement, and so much suspense, and so much plain human wisdom, that one hates to let go of it."
• Tanya Huff & Alexander Potter (with an uncredited assist from Martin H. Greenberg's Tekno Books), editors, Women of War.  Science fiction and fantasy collection with fourteen stories of women who have come into their own during wartime, whether in outer space, on distant worlds, in our own future, or in fantasy realms.  Authors include Huff, Rosemary Edghill, Julie E. Czernada, Bruce Holland Rogers, Jane Lindskold, Stephen Leigh, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Sharon Lee & Steve Miller.
• His Hawaiian Majesty Kalakaua, The Legends and Myths of Hawaii.  The Legends and Myths of Hawaii.  "First published in 1888 under the authorship of His Hawaiian Majesty Kalakaua, has been widely acknowledges as one of the first and most significant collections of native Hawaiian folklore to have reached an international audience during the last century.  Drawing on his intimate knowledge of the oral traditions of his ancestors, King Kalakaua has woven a bright Hawaiian tapestry of romantic legends, mythical heroes and historical events that remains as dramatic, readable and informative today as it was when first published over a hundred years ago."  I am a sucker for old legends, myths, and folklore.
• Ronald Kelly, Fear.  Horror novel.  "It was a legend in Fear County...a hideous, flesh-eating creature that feasted on the blood of innocent children in the cold black heart of the Tennessee Backwoods....But ten-year-old Jeb Sweeney knows the horrible stories are true.  His best friend Mandy just up and disappeared.  He also knows that no one has ever had the courage to go after the monster and put an end to his raging, bestial hunger.  Until now.  But evil is well guarded.   And for young Jeb Sweeney, about to enter the lair of the unknown, passage through the gates of Hell comes with a terrible price.  Everlasting...FEAR."
• Edward Truett Long, Dr. Thaddeus C. Harker:  The Complete Stories.  "Dressed in a Prince Albert coat and looking like a Kentucky gentleman, Harker and his crew travel the country selling their cure-all Chickasha Remedies... and encounter crime at every stop.  This edition collects the entire series:  'Crime Nest,' 'Woe to the Vanquished' and 'South of the Border,' all from 1940 and complete, remastered, and with the original illustrations.  And it's rounded out by an introduction by pulp historian Tom Johnson which reveals many facts about this previously unidentified pulp author, along with an exhaustive Edward Truett Long bibliography."  Recently mentioned on James Reasoner's blog and I could not resist.  
• John Lutz, Twist.  A Frank Quinn thriller.  "Frank Quinn is a decorated ex-cop.  A former homicide detective specializing in tracking serial killers.  Now his niece, Carlie Clark, needs help.  Someone is stalking her, and the NYPD can't stop him.  A blonde, blue-eyed beauty, Carlie is the victim type of the killer who's been terrorizing women -- leaving them bound, gagged, and tortured with surgical precision.  To win against the most personal adversary of his career, Quinn will have to set the perfect trap.  All he n 'Greetings from the dead,'eeds is the perfect bait...'
• Jeff Mariotte, Angel: Sanctuary.  Television tie-in novel based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff.  "Angel and Co. are enjoying a rare moment of relaxation at the karaoke bar Caritas when a loud explosion draws the gang -- and the rest of the bar's patrons -- outside.  A building across the street is on fire, but the conflagration is nothing more than a diversionary tactic to distract people from a drive-by shooting!  And when the smoke clears, Fred is missing.  It's obvious she's been kidnapped, so Angel, Lorne, Cordy, Wes, and Gunn set about questioning everyone within the immediate radius.  At least ten demons were direct eyewitnesses,  One problem, though:  Each tells a diffe  rent story of what he, she, or it saw...Demons don't make for the most reliable sources."
• Helen McCloy, Through a Glass, Darkly.  A Basil Willing mystery.  "Gisela von Hohenems joins the teaching staff of an exclusive girls' school in upstate New York, where she befriends fellow newcomer Faustina Coyle.  But a climate of fear surrounds Faustina, and after several strange incidents which defy rational explanation, she's forced to resign.  Gisela asks her fiance, detective-psychologist Dr. Basil Willing, to investigate."  McCloy always provides a good read and Basil Willing can unlock the thorniest problems.
• Cerise Rennie Murphy & Alana Joli Abbott, editors, Where the Veil Is Thin.  Original collection of fourteen horror stories.  Another book that was lurking in a box sent by the Sage of Tonawanda.  "Around the world, there are tales of creatures  that live in mist or shadow, hidden from humanity by only the slightest veil.  [...] {T]hese creatures step into the night.  Some are small and harmless.  Some are bizarre mirrors of the world.  Some have hidden motives, while others seek justice against humans who have wronged them.  In these pages you will find blood-sucking tooth fairies and gentle boo hags, souls who find new shapes after death and changelings seeking a way to fit into either world.  You will cross the veil -- but be careful  that you remember the way back."
• Mel Odom, Buffy the Vampire Slayer:  Unnatural Selection. Original television tie-in novel.  "Willow's trying to earn a little pocket change by taking the usual teenage part-time job -- baby-sitting the neighbor's kid.  But the child-care chores turn into a scene from a horror movie when the baby gives her the evil eye and attacks.  Barely escaping the tiny terror, Willow can't forget the missing human child -- or the monstrous thing left in its place.  The childish changeling keeps coming back to haunt and taunt her.  Buffy and her posse soon discover a possible connection between Willow's infant interloper and some strange artifacts Giles found at a local archaeological dig.  The evil plaguing Will was once trapped underground.  Now that it has been unearthed by new construction on the property, it's ready to cause some major mischief...and worse."
• James Patterson & Chris Grabenstein, Jacky Ha-Ha.  Kid's book.  "This is the story of Jacky Ha-Ha.  She's a mother -- and a very funny writer and actress -- who tells her daughter what life was like when she was a twelve-year-old kid growing up with her six sisters and lifeguard dad at the Jersey Shore.  And most important, where she got the nickname Jacky Ha-Ha and how it changed her life -- for the funnier!"  Bought because I like Chris Grabenstein. 
• Douglas Preston, The Codex.  Thriller.  " 'Greetings from the Dead,' declares Maxwell Broadbent on the videotape he left behind after his mysterious disappearance.  A notorious treasure hunter and tomb raider, Broadbent accumulated over half a billion dollars' worth of priceless art, gems, and artifacts before vanishing -- along with his entire collection -- from his mansion in New Mexico.  As a final challenge to his three sons,  Broadbent has buried himself and his treasure somewhere in the world, hidden away like an ancient Egyptian pharaoh.  If the sons wish to claim their inheritance, they must find their father's carefully concealed tomb.  The race is on, but among Broadbent's treasures is an ancient Mayan codex that may hold a secret far more important than the wealth of riches among it.  And Broadbent's sons aren't the only ones after it."
• "Clay Randall" (Clifton Adams), Amos Flagg -- High Gun.  The second (of seven) in the Amos Flagg series of westerns.  "The four most notorious killers in Texas Territory had drifted into Sangaree County from different directions -- quietly, singly, carefully.  And now they were gathered together in a stretch of badland, a mean little cutback running between No Man's Land and Indian Territory.  Rumors said they were there to make a deal with Amos Flagg, in exchange for protection against the law.  But the four gunmen knew you couldn't make any deals with a damn fool like Flagg.  The only place you could handle Flagg was on his own ground, and the only way you could do it was to lure him into an ambush, strip him of his badge, and kill him."
• Clayton Rawson, The Great Merlini:  The Complete Stories of the Magician Detective.  The Great Merlini was Rawson's stage name as a magician, so he naturally used it for his most famous detective character.  Collection of twelve short stories.  when homicide cases venture outside the realm of the possible, Merlini is there to set things right.  He "confronts puzzles that would leave a lesser magician's head spinning.  From vanishing blackmailers to murderous mediums, no cosmic crime can baffle The Great Merlini."  Also, Death Out of Thin Air, originally published as by "Stuart Towne."  Two stories about Don Diavolo, magician and escape artist.  "The women of London have taken to wear thin black bands around their necks.  Is it a fashion accessory -- or a stylish way of hiding bite marks?  A string of strange deaths has struck the town, and witnesses claim to have seen a vampire bat fleeing the scene.  The London police can rest easy, for the vampire bat has left for New York.  He makes his first appearance in a Broadway dressing room, piercing the neck of a woman who had come to speak to Don Diavolo, magician and escape artist.  The police suspect Diavolo of killing her, forcing him to catch the vampire or face the chair.  For his next trick, Diavolo confronts the murder of a police detective who is found shot to death in a locked office, where the sole trace of the killer is a mocking voice on the telephone.  Only Don Diavolo, the Scarlet Wizard, can prove ho the gunman made his escape."   Rawson was one of the four founding members of the Mystery Writers of America and was the one who coined their slogan "Crime Does Not Pay -- Enough."  Rawson received two special Edgar Awards, in 1949 and in 1967.  He was the managing editor of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine from 1963 until his death in 1971
• "James Rollins" & Grant Blackwood, War Hawk.  A Tucker Wayne novel, a spinoff of the Sigma Force novels by Rollins.  "Tucker Wayne's past and present collide when a former army colleague comes to him for help.  She's on the run from brutal assassins hunting her and her son.  To keep them safe, Tucker must discover who killed a brilliant young idealist -- a crime that leads back to the most powerful figures in the U.S. government.  From the haunted swamplands of the deep South to the beachheads of a savage civil was in Trinidad, Tucker and his beloved war dog, Kane, must work together to discover the truth behind a mystery that dates back to World War II, involving the genius of a young code-breaker, Alan Turning... They will be forced to break the law, expose national secrets, and risk everything to stop a madman determined to control the future of modern warfare for his own diabolical ends.  But can Tucker and Kane withstand a force so indominable that it threatens our future?"  Rollins is a pen name for James Czajkowski, who also writes as "James Clemens."  Blackwood is a thriller writer and ghost writer who has penned series with Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, and Steve Berry.
• Steven Saville, creator, Latchkeys:  Splinters.  Young adult fantasy/horror collection with six stories.  "On a quiet dead-end residential street on the outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska sits an old house called Tanglewood.  In its front yard a large old ash tree casts its shadow across shrubs and flowerbeds and a lawn that have all long ago surrendered any pretense of life.  But inside the House are the Doors.  Doors too numerous too count.  Doors made of wood from Yggdrasil, the great Norse /world Tree that stands in the center of the universe.  Doors that lead to every time and every place that ever was -- or ever could be.  Provided you are one of the rare few with the gift, a child with the ability to step through such Doors to the other side.  Provided you are a Latchkey, capable of becoming one of the Wardens, the protectors of Tanglewood and the Doors.  Then -- disaster!  Tanglewood's connection to the World Tree is somehow broken.  And many of the Doors disappear, sent spinning out across time and space with no rhyme or reason, leaving behind only the dimmest of shadows.  Now the young Wardens must find and return the missing Doors.  But many of them have splintered from the impact.  Those missing pieces must be restored before the Doors can be returned.  And the splinters can be anywhere and assume any form.  Almost like they didn't want to be found."
• Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver:  The Baroque Cycle #1.  Science fantasy.  This is the 2006 edition, which covers one-third of the original 2003 edition.  The original Baroque Cycle cover three volumes, which were later split into eight volumes.  "In which Daniel Waterhouse, fearless thinker and courageous Puritan, pursues knowledge in the company of the greatest minds of Baroque-era Europe -- in a chaotic world where reason wars with the bloody ambitions of the mighty, and where catastrophe, natural or otherwise, can alter the political landscape overnight."    A good feel for the book comes from a San Antonio Express-News review:  "Part romance, part picaresque adventure, part potboiler, part scientific treatise, part religious tome, part political sage -- just about every literary genre around..."
• Elizabeth Zelvin,  The Old Lady Shows Her Mettle.  Poetry collection.  "A Jewish woman poet in her eighties reflects on her broad life experience on this fragile planet in a time of global conflict and uncertain future.  A storyteller, a traveler, and a collector of people to love, she declares her hard-won identity without fear, expresses her outrage without letting it consume her, achieves balance, and dares to hope as her granddaughters give meaning to her legacy.  Zelvin is a multi-talented clinical social worker, writer (mysteries [the Bruce Kohler series], historical fiction [the Mendoza Family saga], fantasy [the Emerald Love urban fantasy mysteries], and poetry), and singer-songwriter.  She has a sharp wit and is very incisive in her comments.  Recommended.

They Have a Word for Me:   "Sgiomlaireachd" (pronounced "scrum-leerie") is the Scots Gaelic word for "the kind of friends who only drops in at mealtime.'

Ain't No Man Alive Can Handle Me:  A blues tune from 1952 about one tough lady...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weJyH1zCNDc