INCOMING

A good mix this week, making Mount TBR almost unscalable.

• Catherine Aird, Stiff News.  An Inspector Sloan mystery.
• James Lee Burke, The Convict and Other Stories and To the Bright and Shining Sun.  Two early books from Burke:  the first, a collection of nine stories; the second, a regional novel (Appalachia in the 1960s).
• Jonathan Carroll, The Wooden Sea.  Fantasy.
• John Farris, Dragonfly.  Suspense.
• Louis L'Amour, Crossfire Trail, Ride the Dark Trail, Silver Canyon, and Son of a Wanted Man.  Westerns all.  The second and fourth books are part of the Sackett saga.
• Dennis Lehane, Darkness, Take My Hand.  A Patrick Kenzie/Angela Gennaro mystery.
• Brian Lumley, Necroscope V:  Deadspawn.  Horror
• [Charlie McDade], Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan:  Split Image.  #102 in the long-running men's action series.
• Larry Niven and Steven Barnes, The California Voodoo Game.  SF, a Dream Park novel.
• [David North], Don Pendleton's The Executioner:  Tiger Stalk.  This one's #220.
• [Rich Rainey], Don Pendleton's The Executioner:  Uforce.  And #273.
• "J. R. Roberts" [James Randisi], The Gunsmith #293:  The Road to Hell.  Adult western.
• Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Cobert, Wigfield:  The Can-Do Town That Just May Not.  Humor.
• Dan Simmons, The Terror.  History and horror mix.  *Brrrr*
• F. Paul Wilson, Implant.  Medical thriller.
• Gene Wolfe, Calde of the Long Sun and Exodus from the Long Sun.  SF, the third and fourth books in The Book of the Long Sun Quartet.

SADLY, I RECOGNIZE SOME OF MY NEIGHBORS IN HIS WORK...

Today marks the 100th birthday of Chas. Addams, the creator of many mordid cartoons in The New Yorker.  Charles -- well, Charles was not like the other children.  His macabre sense of humor may have been honed when he did a stint in the layout department of True Detective; his job included retouching photographs of murder victims to eliminate the blood.  He became a regular contributor to The New Yorker in 1935.  Two years later, he began series of cartoons featuring a very strange family, which later became thought of as The Addams Family.  They were transferred to television as Gomez and Morticia, their children Wednesday and Pugsley, Uncle Fester, Granny, and man(?)servant Lurch, among others.  Television success brought about a rival series, The Munsters, as well as feature films, animated series, and a Broadway play.  Addams received a number of awards in his lifetime, including a special award from the Mystery Writers of America.  Both he and his characters have become engrained in the American culture.  Not bad for a kid from Westfield, New Jersey.  He died in 1988 from a heart attack, was cremated, and his ashes were buried in a pet cemetery on his estate.
  

FORGOTTEN BOOK: HAUNTS & BY-PATHS AND OTHER POEMS

Haunts & By-Paths and Other Poems by J. Thorne Smith, Jr. (1919)

At one time, Thorne Smith was one of the most popular writers in the country due to his combining sex and fantasy in such humorous novels as Topper -- a book that is still being read today.  Smith, born in
Annapolis in 1892 and the son of a Navy commodore, enlisted in the Navy in 1917.  While there, he began writing stories about a hapless Navy recruit named Biltmore Oswald; these stories formed his first two novels and brought him some success.  He had ambitions as a poet and, in 1919, he published his third book and only book of poetry, Haunts & By-Paths.  A number of those poems were about the sea and were first published in a magazine for Naval reservists; several were written in a Navy hospital in 1918.

     His poetry could be at times pedestrian and at times moving.  I doubt if much, if any, of it could stand the test of time.  In fact, Smith later dismissed the book, saying he wish he could destropy every copy of it.  Strangely, it has been rumored that he was working on another volume of poetry at the time of his death, although no manuscript has been found.

    Smith's fourth book was Topper, the classic about a hapless banker and the two alcoholic and oversexed ghosts that haunted him.  This was an instant success, due in part to the sexy-for-its-time illustrations and to Smith's mixing of humor and double entendre.  His fifth book, Dream's End, a serious novel with undertones of fantasy, failed spectacularly, so he went back to the well and poured out such humorous fantasies as The Night Life of the Gods, Skin and Bones, The Stray Lamb, The Glorious Pool, and Topper Takes a Trip.  He also wrote several non-fantastic humor novels, a mystery (Did She Fall?), and a juvenile.

     He had a severe case of pneumonia when he was a child and was struck with Spanish influenza as a young man.  This, combined with his serious drinking, may have contributed to his death of a heart attack at age 42.  His final novel, The Passionate Witch, was completed by Norman Matson, made into the Veronica Lake/Frederick March movie I Married a Witch, and was (at least in part) the inspiration for the Broadway play Bell, Book and Candle and the television series Bewitched.

     Typical of most poetry books, Haunts & By-Paths is a slim offering -- 139 pages, with 62 poems.  I found it an interesting read, in part because it had a few hints of his prose style and in part because the passion I found in some of the poems.

     You can decide for yourself.  The link below should get you to the book from Internet Archive.

http://www.archive.org/stream/hauntsbypathsoth00smit#page/n9/mode/2up

MURDER AT SANDRINGHAM

I'm sure there's a novel here somewhere.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45850427/ns/world_news-europe/

INCOMING

Found some interesting stuff in Nashua, New Hampshire this week.

• [Marion Zimmer Bradley, editor], Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine.  Two issues:  #42 (Winter 1999) and #46 (Winter 2000).  Issue 46 was edited by Rachel E. Holman following Bradley's death.
• David Daniel, Coffin Dust:  Strange Stories.  Horror collection; 23 stories.
• Ron Fortier and "Chester Hawks", Captain Hazzard:  Curse of the Red Maggot!  Pulp Adventure novel.  Originally written by Paul Chadwick in 1938 under the "Hawks" pseudonym for the short-lived Captain Hazzard pulp magazine, it was rewritten as a Secret Agent X adventure called The Curse of the Crimson Horde.  Fortier took the Secret Agent X story and re-rewrote it as a Captain Hazzard story.
• "Maxwell Grant", The Shadow #4:  "The Murder Master" & "The Hydra", The Shadow #5:  "The Black Falcon" & "The Salamanders", The Shadow #7:  "The Cobra" & "The Third Shadow", The Shadow #9:  "Lingo" & "Partners of Peril", The Shadow #10:  "The City of Doom" & "The Fifth Face", The Shadow #11:  "Road of Crime" & "Crooks Go Straight", and The Shadow #12"Serpents of Siva" & "The Madrigals Mystery".  Pulp adventure reprints courtesy of Anthony Tollin.  Most of the novels are by Walter B. Gibson.  Tollin does not reprint these chronologically, relying more on themes.  Each volume has also features essays and other goodies.
• Steve Holland, Sci-Fi Art:  A Graphic History.  There's more of a British slant to this one.  Holland not only covers books and magazines, but alos comic books, anime and manga, movie posters, video games, and toys.  Listed as contributors are Alex Summersby, Steve White, Toby Weidmann, Adrian Faulkner, and Tim Murray.
• Murray Leinster, The Time Tunnel.  TV tie-in, not be confused with a similarly titled book by Leinster, Time Tunnel.
• [Shawna McCarthy, editor], Realms of Fantasy.  Nine issues:  February and June, 1995, December 1996, February, April, and June 1997, and February, April, and October, 1998.
• "Kenneth Robeson", The Land of Terror.  A Doc Savage pulp novel, number 8 in the Bantam reprints.  As with most of these, this one is by Lester Dent.
• Wayne Skiver, Prof. Stone:  Volume One:  The Eye of Ra & Other Tales.  Pulpish adventure witha "new" character.  There are six stories in this one.
• [Unicorn Mystery Book Club], two volumes.  The first contains The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing, The Saint Sees It Through by Leslie Charteris, ...And High Water by Aaron Marc Stein, and A Knife Is Silent by David Kent.  The second contains The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, Obit Delayed by Helen Neilson, Dr. Gatskill's Blue Shoes by Paul Conant, and Heavy, Heavy Hangs by Doris Miles Disney.  Unicorn always seemed to have more unusual titles than Walter Black's Detective Book Club.

RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON OF A ...

Home again, home again, jig-a-de-jig.

     The Friday before Christmas my wife said, "Let's go to Massachusetts."  Not having done any Christmas shopping yet, I said, "Okay."  And we had a very nice time, thank you very much.

     We decided to leave on Christmas morning because Christmas Eve meant my making up a batch of chili and Kitty mixing up her peppermint brownies and the two us heading over to my daughter's house.  Walt fried up a turkey and grilled some veggies and a good time was had by all.  However, Kitty had left her camera there so we had to stop at Christina's Christmas morning before we headed off.  Christina was working over the holiday and Walt had taken the kids to his parents' house in Fredericksburg for the day.  Things started to go downhill then.  Literally downhill.

     Christina lives in a glass, octagonal house situated high on a hill.  Her driveway is long and narrow and winding and steep, with a ravine kissing the side of the driveway.  Somebody -- I won't mention Kitty's name -- drove up the driveway so I could get her camera.  Then that same somebody decided to back down the driveway without adjusting her rear-view mirrors.  Did I mention the driveway was steep?  Did I mention the ravine?  So we slid off the driveway and would have rolled end over end into the ravine except that certain someone who was driving managed to wedge us against a couple of trees at about a thirty degree angle.

     At that angle, our car was a strong believer in gravity.  The driver side door would slam shut every time Kitty tried to open it; my passenger door was wedged against the trees.  Any attempt to drive out of the position only dug us deeper in the dirt.  Grrr.

     There are not many garages open on Christmas.  Double grrr.

      Christina, by phone, told us not to worry.  She called a friend who had a truck and a rope and they were kind enough to come out at twelve noon on Christmas to rescue us.

     Didn't work.

     It was time to call out the big guns.  In Southern Maryland, that means Tim.  Tim has a big truck and tools and chains and loves to put them to use.  After any big storm, Tim and his trusty gang of neighbors roam the countryside looking for fallen trees to cut; two years ago, they removed nine trees that had fallen on Christina's house during a particularly vicious snowstorm.  They had us out of the ravine in no time, but I think they were disappointed that it didn't take longer.  At least they also used the opportunity to cut down a few trees.

     So, three hours after we started for Massachusetts, we started for Massachusetts.  Thank you Tim and Dale and the other half dozen people who helped us.  I hope you had a very good Christmas; you deserve it.

     Jessamyn and her daughters live near the New Hampshire state line, and it was great to see them.  She works as the controller of a large hotel in Nashua, New Hampshire, which is where we settled for the week.
Evidently the previous owners of the hotel had bled it dry of money and skipped town.  The new owners, who bought the hotel at auction, are beginning a complete remodelling of the facility, and Jessie has found herself as the number-two person for the hotel and (at times) its de facto manager.  This kept her pretty busy during the holiday week but allowed us some great alone time with the girls.  Because they are girls, we went shopping.  And had their hair done.  And bought make-up.  And stuff.

      We were going to head back Thursday morning, but had a chance to have dinner with my brother and his family.   It's rare that all of us can get together, so we jumped at the opportunity.  (His eldest daughter had come up from Arizona for the week and it was great to see her also.)  New England has many great things going for it, but among the best are fried clams -- whole body clams, not those puny little clam strips.  Clams and clan were the perfect combination.

     Friday we started the trip back, stopping at a number of interesting place to stretch our legs.  Our GPS system (whom we call Bob) kept trying to do us dirt, giving us wrong directions, telling us to turn too late, and sending us five or ten miles out of our way on a whim.  We managed to get a motel room for the night.  It was, as we requested, a non-smoking room.  We could tell because the ashtrays (!) in the room were labeled "No Smoking."

     We made it back about five o'clock New Years Eve, making just one stop to pick up cat food, the better to put us in Ninja's good graces.  I went to bed about nine o'clock.  Happy New Year!

HYMN TIME

Wishing everyone a joyous and properous New Year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW1ILAVHtis&feature=related