Giant Squid Creations

I don’t remember when I did it, but at some point in my childhood I gave Dad a book by A.E. van Vogt with a fuzzy green shape on the cover. For years I thought it was called The Green Brain and I carried an inexplicable pride in having given it to him. Mum had probably chosen it and she definitely paid for it, but it was my gift to Dad. He had five van Vogt novels, including that one, and somehow that name became a magnet to me so that when I had disposable income and easy access to second-hand bookstores I began building up my collection of his works. I’ve probably read more books by him than any other SF author, possibly any author, even P.K. Dick who I consider my favourite. Until last week, however, I hadn’t read The Green Brain . Actually, I still haven’t since there is no A.E. van Vogt novel of that name. The real title is Supermind and it explores a galaxy where humans are a low-level species under the protection of the vastly superior Great Galactics, and under threat f

The Star of Fortune, Vol. 1 of 2: A Story of the Indian Mutiny by J.E. Preston Muddock My rating: 2 of 5 stars This volume is the setup. The Romeo and Juliet romance that leads the lovers to be in India, the third wheel to try to steal Juliet. And a growing undercurrent of the coming uprising which will start in the second volume. It's interesting from an historical point of view; in terms of late Victorian attitudes not the conflict in India in 1857. The story is weak however and overdrawn. It came out at the very death of the three-volume novel, and is only two volumes I know, but it bears the marks of a writer padding out a threadbare device to fill almost 300 pages. I'll see how the second volume goes, it should at least have more action, if be even more bigoted and racist. It's hard to figure sometimes how they bought their own bs at times. View all my reviews

Why did Facebook suggest that page to me? If it hadn't I would never have known, never have seen ... it is useless to conjecture. I can only assume it was an algorithm and the rest was happen-chance. I mean, to suggest that some eldritch force was in play luring me to that place ... well that'd be crazy. You'd almost think ... I was using too many ellipses. Fate-driven or otherwise it made the suggestion and, against my usual habit of not even noticing, I clicked the link. It was a bookstore, how could I ignore it? There on the page was the picture of a man. I could not see his face, it was hidden beneath a blue knitted mask covered with tentacles. Mad? ... I leave that to the ellipses to decide ... The man spoke of a gathering. An eminent scholar was coming to our city. I had heard of this gentlemen and read some of the Unutterable Horror he wrote. Why would someone so steeped in obscure lore come to our quiet city in the south? I had to know. The gathering took place

The Broken Road by A.E.W. Mason My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Broken Road was sold to me as adventure fiction, but I’m not sure that’s a comfortable label for it to carry. It certainly bears a romantic air that fits the name, and there are moments which are ‘adventurous’, for lack of a better word, but overall there is no single adventure running through it. The hero, if he is one, does very little, while the villain is closer to an antihero in many respects, and is arguably the most sympathetic character for at least a portion of the book. Neither of them ‘get the girl’, who is clearly better off without them, and vice versa – although the ‘villain’ is ruined in figuring that out. Besides a somewhat illusory kidnap attempt, there is very little danger encountered and almost no hardships endured besides the psychological ones suffered by the erstwhile villain. It starts well enough as an adventure, there’s a siege and a tough-as-nuts hero, but he dies of overexertion and the sieg

The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson My rating: 3 of 5 stars The stories in this collection are linked by being largely moral in nature. The Merry Men focuses on guilt, conscience and payment for sins; Markheim follows a similar line with a supernatural interference; Thrawn Janet is an episode of a priest and a possessed woman; Will O' the Mill is a contemplation on whether it is better to experience all the world or live a simple life; Olalla is a bizarre story of a fallen and ruined family and choosing to sacrifice personal happiness to prevent future evil; finally The Treasure of Franchard highlights the importance of family, simple things and the evils of money, at least too much of it in the wrong hands. Despite that, none of them beat the reader over the head with didactic ramblings, and each story has a charm and character of its own to keep the reader intrigued. Olalla ends disappointingly to mine, but the hook of the secret was only just st

India: A Concise History by Francis Watson My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book tackles its immense task admirably and gives a good overview of the historical movements, and some of the key figures within that. It, naturally enough, gets a bit clogged in names and places and events that it can't possibly spell out clearly, and could probably have profited by a few more maps to clarify. Nevertheless, given its scope it's an amazing achievement, that also highlights the importance of India in broader world history. View all my reviews