Goodbye, Flash Gordon; I Hardly Knew Ye

The Space Circus by Con Steffanson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm just glad to be done, really.

I bought the first three novels online about 4 years ago. I was curious about the old-timey pulp fiction of Flash Gordon. I wasn't expecting much, and yet I still overestimated the quality of these books.

I finished the first, gave it a compassionate 3 stars when it really was about a 1-1.5, then for some reason read the second a few months later. Not any better. I get it; the novels are based on actual comics, the type found in the newspaper, which meander in weird ways and have very different expectations from most novels. You hope there'll be some other charm to make up for the really terrible plot, but nope. Nope.

After 4 years, I finally decided to finish the third book (so that I can sell them or give them away as a starter set for someone else) and I have to admit it deserves, or nearly deserves, the 3 stars I gave all of them. It's still a terrible plot, but it's at least moderately entertaining. Reads quick. The good guys win. The plot holes are so thick on the ground they aren't worth thinking about, in any of these books, and the character development is so rudimentary that it doesn't deserve the term, but at least this felt more like an action story. Or maybe my expectations had just been lowered enough. I dunno.

All of these books have one of my top 3 (or bottom 3, I guess) least favorite tropes--where the very capable, brilliant, amazing main characters get caught over and over and then escape (or are rescued) over and over. They are in the hands of their enemies most of the book, completely at their mercy, and probably should be dead many times over. (Doc Savage uses this same trope, and it always makes me sigh.)

I guess Star Trek does it, too. Getting caught flat-footed so often takes a lot of the shine off of the super-capable characters, making them seem like just regular joes getting fumbled around by fate. I don't like it.

I won't read any more of these, but I still like pulp, for some reason, and I want to find more good stuff. I'll read a few more Doc Savage books, probably. I'll read a few more Tarzans and Princess of Mars type books by Burroughs. I'll track down some more of Howard's Solomon Kane and El Borak. And I'll read a few more Rogue Angel books, which are actually pretty well done. Probably find some other interesting pulp novels.

But Flash Gordon, for me, is all done.

Unless I find a collection of the actual comics, because that sounds pretty cool...... :-)

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Where He Never Ever Forgets Anything Ever

Memoria total by David Baldacci
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

(I read the Spanish version, but I'm going keep my review in English.)

This was pretty good, IMO. I'm intrigued enough to see if I can find the second in the series in Spanish and keep it going. Probably. But it was slow going through the middle, I'm not gonna lie.

I like the idea of the ex-football player who, through a quirk of fate, acquired a perfect memory after being injured in a game. Prior to the start of the book, forced to quit football, he became a cop and then a detective, and then quit that when his wife and daughter were killed. The story starts with him depressed and a big mess, but then local cops ask for his help with a terrible school shooting.

Then most of the novel, the middle part...

It ends with him facing off against the killers, and that part is good, too.

The problem is that the middle part isn't all that fun. It doesn't show him being very impressive, despite the super-memory, and I expected a lot more of him performing amazing feats. He plods from scene to scene, surly and kinda obnoxious, and I'd be happier with that if he were being brilliant. He isn't. He's just like any other dude who's doing an investigation. And though it reads okay, the pacing is pretty slow.

My hope is that the author figures out what to do with his ability in the next novel or two. The setup is great. We've got a couple interesting characters. Let's see what you can do with them.

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Where Basho Sees the Sights

Bashō's Narrow Road: Spring and Autumn Passages by Matsuo Bashō
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this to be an occasionally entertaining book, but it is probably more useful as a resource for instruction than for pleasure reading.

TBH, I was disappointed when I got it out of the mail; I thought when I ordered it that it was a book just of haiku and linked verse, and that's in here, but that's just a small part of it. Most of it is a sort of travelogue across the north of Japan in 1689, with haiku (and related forms) sprinkled throughout. However, this work is famous and well worth reading just to become familiar with it--which got it to three stars in my estimation--but it wasn't until the last 20 pages that I liked it more than that. But lemme explain.

There are a lot of helps in this book, including a foreword, an introduction, a map, and an index, all of which are useful, and very complete notes on the lefthand side of every two-page spread, facing the full text on the right. All good stuff. But I'd be lying if I said it got me anywhere near full comprehension. Even with the notes, it feels like significant prior knowledge is expected, because I was often just as confused after as before. Your mileage may vary.

The travel diary isn't much to my taste. Mostly just stuff like "we visited a guy for three days and drank wine before we found a guide and went to the next town." The places he went to all had views or temple ruins or a grave or something that were famously, even before this, made the topic of poetry, but so much of the verse that he writes is alluding to earlier poetry that much of the meaning of it just has to be explained. That's always a problem in poetry in translation, but I really felt it here.

HOWEVER--the final twenty pages are a commentary on 36-part linked sequence of poetry (a separate work from the Narrow Road to the Interior text), and it makes the way haikai no renga works much clearer to me. And interesting. Here's my version of it, filled with errors.

Three writers take turns writing lines. The first basically writes a haiku, with syllables of 5/7/5, though it's usually written on a single line. The second person responds with a related pair of lines, with syllables of 7/7. The next writes a related group of 5/7/5 again, followed by 7/7. Each chunk needs to relate to the previous lines, but is supposed to change it or twist it. Each piece has to have something that fixes the season being mentioned (like cherry blossoms for spring and certain farm work for autumn, and so on) though this can be pretty abstract. Or it can be about love instead of a season. And there's a lot more, things like a prohibition of sticking too close to one topic for more than three or four links.

This one starts with "Renting a horse you follow the swallows as we part." The swallows spoken of in this way indicate autumn, and the lines are just suggestive of sadness in parting. The next line--"A field of flowers disturbed where the mountain turns"--just adds to the imagery of their departure. The flowers also show autumn, somehow. The third link mentions wrestling, the fourth a sword, and the fifth an otter, and there are subtle connections between every one. By the end, I was picturing the poetry like a dream, like animated images done in watercolors, each line erasing and reforming the previous image. Link 31 is "The slender figure of a goddess full of grace." Link 32 turns the goddess into a common woman washing clothes in a river. Link 33 switches to a famous battle that ended in a river, and line 34 is about a messenger sent to a temple that is related to the battle from the previous bit.

And so on.

The notes on this part are very helpful. It would mean nothing to me without. I see the hopelessness of ever trying to read such poetry without support; I wouldn't understand a tenth of it. And though it isn't the most satisfying way to read poetry, at least a reader can make sense of it this way and get a taste.

So that's how I got to 4 stars. More of the last part, please. That's what I'm looking for.

Recommended most for those studying this type of poetry. Less so for casual readers.

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Where Prince Phillip Moves In

Cardinal Pole: Or, The Days Of Philip And Mary. An Historical Romance; Volume 1 by William Harrison Ainsworth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ainsworth writes historical romances rather like Sir Walter Scott or Alexandre Dumas. Most often, like this novel, it concerns important figures in English history, and it always includes carefully described settings, primarily castles, churches, and landscapes, almost like he's taking the reader on a tour.

I like it. I almost would give it a 5, which it deserves in many ways, except that I generally score based on how fun it is to pick up and read, and it's not quite as fun to me as an exciting fantasy or clever mystery. Still fun, though, and it has other charms.

This one is set in Tudor times, starting just as Prince Phillip of Spain is arriving in England to marry Queen Mary. The most important characters are a young couple who fall in love just about that time, but whose lives are permanently disrupted by the Spanish prince seeing the young woman and deciding he wanted her. Ainsworth does a good job showing just how arbitrary and unjust rulers could be in those times, how common people are powerless before them. This is shown in an even starker way by the protestants that Phillip and Mary burn at the stake with very little notion of mercy.

The most positive Catholic character in the novel is certainly the one named in the title, Cardinal Pole. I don't know if he really was such a good guy, but here he is the voice of reason and moderation, trying to heal the religious rift in England through tolerance and compassion. He's mostly ignored. Still, that character shows how things might have gone, how our ancestors might have learned to live together, if they hadn't been such extremists. Ainsworth definitely celebrates the moderates, though I get that by inference; he's not super heavy-handed that way. (He's pretty fair. There are angry voices on both sides, and positive examples on both sides too.)

The author includes a few characters from other novels here, returning for the third or fourth time that I know of. There is a little person named Xit and three "giants"--Og, Gog, and Magog--who all live and work in the tower. They cross paths with other main characters in each of these books, but also have their own subplots that usually involve pranks and eating way too much. They also distinguish themselves in each book, though it always looks like they're about to do the wrong thing. They give the stories a bit of variation in tone that is interesting and maybe a little odd, but I kinda like it.

The writing is a little dated, but not difficult, and it reads pretty breezily, IMO, bouncing back and forth between dialogue and action on the one hand and fairly long descriptive passages on the other. Here's an example of the prose coming from one of those central scenes, when Prince Phillip is being led to meet Queen Mary for the first time:

Before the principal entrance of the keep stood a vast number of gentlemen, esquires, and pages, all splendidly apparelled, and as Philip's chariot drew up, Sir John Gage, grand chamberlain, with Sir Henry Jerningham, vice-chamberlain, bearing their wands of office, came forth to assist his highness to alight. The entrance hall was filled with noble personages, amongst whom were the lord chancellor, the Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Arundel and Derby, Sir Edward Hastings, master of the horse, the Earl of Bedford, lord privy seal, the lord Paget, and Sir William Petre, both secretaries of state, with many others. Bowing graciously as he passed through this splendid throng, the prince was conducted by Gardiner to the great hall, where he found...

I think Ainsworth wanted to teach his readers some history, and I feel like he did pretty well.

As always, recommended for those who like Scott or Dumas. Worth a try, anyway.

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Where War Threatens

Jane and the Genius of the Place by Stephanie Barron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's been years since I first read this, but I was right the first time--5 stars.

It's my favorite of the first four books, though I enjoy all of them. I guess it feels like she's hitting her stride.

Jane is staying with her rich brother and his family in Kent, near enough the coast that the very likely invasion from France is affecting their plans, making them prepare to evacuate. At the same time, they are enjoying summer fun, attending the races in Canterbury.

Of course, that's where a murder takes place, as this is a murder mystery, and Jane's brother, being the local magistrate, has to take charge of the investigation. No way Jane's not getting involved. The murdered woman is the source of a lot of local scandal, being French and beautiful and capable of making lots of married men devoted to her, and as she's connected to a wealthy family in Paris there is the additional complication of international affairs in the plot.

It's a good story. Good mystery and all. But that's not the thing I like most.

It's impossible not to love the main character. I never read mysteries before this series, and I'm a bit ambivalent still about the genre in general, but I just want to keep reading about this version of Jane Austen, watching her being smarter than everyone else. (I would really like to fix her up with a deserving guy, because she absolutely deserves her happily ever after, and there is a nice bit of romance simmering in the books that really works, IMO. But marriage and family is ultimately not to be, as we all know, because history tells us what actually happens. Reality is an asshole.) Jane remains believable; she's not a superhero or even Sherlock. But she is clever, and sarcastic, and funny, and a capable detective, and really fun to watch. For me, she's the draw, more than the intellectual puzzle of the mystery. That adds to it, sure. And it's well written. But I'd read it if she was solving crossword puzzles, as long as she was clever and surprising and got to tell off some obnoxious character in that Regency way.

Anyway, I love these books. I'm glad to be back in the middle of the series, with lots of books still to read back through, tricking myself into thinking there is no end to them, just like a little kid on summer vacation in July pretending the first day of school will never come.....

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Where Dawkins Got Weird

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True by Richard Dawkins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This one was pretty disappointing. Decent information. Weird tone.

For the record, I really like Richard Dawkins as a science writer. Okay, sure, his autobiography was unreadable, and he's lately been talking publicly like any other aging British transphobe, and I wish he'd just not touch that subject anymore so that I can try to overlook and maybe even forget his blockheaded support for intolerance--but I love virtually everything he's written explaining evolution and science in general. He usually does a brilliant job of leading the reader through complex science and history, making the complicated quite simple, and usually does this in an entertaining way. This does not feel like those books.

First of all, there's no indication that this is a book for younger people, whether you read the blurb or any other summary of the book, but you're about a page in when you realize it is. This is a book for kids. That's okay with me; I read books for kids. Non-fiction books for kids can be awesome. I'm interested in how he'll present the scientific process and various bits of evidence for young people, and maybe I'll find some value in it. Well, not this one.

Here's a random bit to demonstrate a little about the language he uses:

DNA is the genetic information that all living creatures carry in each of their cells. The DNA is spelled out along massively coiled "tapes" of data, called "chromosomes." These chromosomes really are very like the kind of data tapes you'd feed into an old-fashioned computer, because the information they carry is digital and is strung along them in order...

It's not bad. But you get it, right? This is for kids, and the example is just wrong, even for 2011 when it was written. Sometimes it sounds like he's talking to a circa 1950 kid, and other times you'd think he's actually picturing a Victorian child reading this book. His condescension is so awkward, so off-putting, I wonder if he even knows any young people anymore. The information is solid, I'll give him that, but he bounces back and forth between too dumbed down and too advanced to connect properly with a reader of any age at all.

The concept is nice--introduce each chapter with myths and magical stories about the topic (first humans, speciation, atomic structure, life in the universe, things like that) and then follow with the scientific take on it, explaining how we know what we know. How do we use carbon 14 to date things, and why does it work? What is a rainbow, and how can we use the spectrum to analyze the makeup of distant stars? Good topics. Solid explanation.

Just kinda weird tone. Put me off all the way through. Maybe that's why the publisher doesn't clue the potential reader/buyer into the intended audience.

I may overstate the case. Other readers might read it and think nah, it's not that bad. But I'm not going to try to get any tween or teen to read this book. I'll hand them The Ancestor's Tale or Climbing Mount Improbable, maybe one of the other ones, because those might be harder to read but they don't make you cringe while you do it.

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Where Doc Savage Just Called Them Monsters

The Monsters by Kenneth Robeson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This Doc Savage novel was, for me, somewhat more fun to read than many. I usually give a 3 for these books, but this had a more complete plot and somewhat better pacing.

Part of the charm of these novels, and one of the reasons I keep reading them, is that they're short--probably half the size of most novels--and so you get a complete story without a huge investment of time. I also like the settings, taking place all over the world in the 1930s, mixed in with some gee-whiz electronics-punk inventions. Another attraction in this one is that the danger is actually a monster, not just a Scooby-Doo fakeout. A number of monsters. That gives it more of a fantasy vibe, which I prefer.

You might wince a little, however. The whole series suffers at times--especially a few places in this title--from thoughtless racism. It's kinda shocking when you hit it, though it's mostly just a line or two, found in a few spots. You wanna ask if grandpa meant to be hurtful, because it doesn't seem like it. It seems more like his unenlightened mindset just leaks out. Intended or not, though, it definitely mars the book, making it hard to recommend to others.

Aside from such flaws, this offers lots of old-fashioned pulp entertainment. Pretty consistent action. And, as always, a cool cover.

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