Category Archives: Fiction

Fiction, Reviews

‘Einar Skulason’s Tale’

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Sigurd the Crusader in procession through Constantinople.

It’s been a while since I reviewed one of the sagas from The Complete Sagas of Icelanders. I’ve come near the end of Volume I, where we find a collection of short stories about Icelandic skalds (poets). Just a couple pages long each. These stories aren’t complex – they’re more in the character of celebrity anecdotes. The old poets, home on their farms after years of adventurous living, tell stories to their grandchildren – “I met this or that king, and this is what he was like.”

Tonight’s story is Einar Skulason’s Tale. Einar was a skald in the court of the kings Sigurd the Crusader (1089-1130) and his brother Eystein (circa 1088-1123). These two brothers ruled jointly under the old Norse laws of succession, and did it without going to war with each other – which later kings generally failed to do. Sigurd is best remembered for going on a crusade, the first European monarch to do so. The saga accounts of their reigns offer fascinating personality contrasts.

Those personalities are apparent in this series of three anecdotes. First of all, Einar (who seems to be renowned for quick composition) shows up late for dinner with King Eystein, and is required to compose a poem before the king has finished draining his goblet of wine. He succeeds (the poem is preserved here) and Eystein is pleased. The end. It’s a good-natured story.

The next two stories involve King Sigurd, a rather different character. In the first, King Sigurd catches a thief who happens to be a companion of Einar’s, and tells him the man will be beaten until Einar completes a new poem. Einar finishes in time to stop the strokes at five. Again, the poem is included in the text.

The final story is a little more complicated, and Einar gets a bit of his own back. Sigurd orders him to compose a poem before a departing ship has passed a certain holm, and Einar demands a reward if he succeeds, which he does. And yes, the poem is here as evidence.

I was reminded, as I read, of a couple friends I have in my Viking reenactment group. They like to tell stories of meeting celebrities. One managed to spend time with celebrities at Høstfest in Minot (something that doesn’t happen much anymore, security being tighter). He’s met Victor Borge, the Mandrell Sisters, and Willie Nelson, among others. Another ran into Lee Marvin and Richard Boone (not at the festival). Which goes to show you, Vikings don’t change much, even after a millennium.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Rogue,’ by Alex Parman

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This is not a proper review. I quit half-way through Alex Parman’s (the name is a nom de plume for a male/female writing team) Rogue. This is the first novel in a series about a loose cannon FBI agent. Ordinarily I’d just pass by a book I didn’t finish, but I felt I ought to leave a warning about this one… which I readily admit is well written.

Cyrus Jennings had a brilliant career at the Washington DC office of the FBI, until his sense of justice led him to stray out of bounds. That led to his transfer to Denver, a much less desirable posting. His true specialty is cybercrime, but his investigator’s instincts incline him to get involved in hands-on investigations.

When a highly popular politician (party not stated, but clearly a Democrat) running for Senate drops dead while jogging, Cyrus is suspicious. He particularly suspects her bodyguard, whose responses just seem a little off. This leads him to ask questions that aren’t supposed to be asked, getting him suspended by his boss. But he has resources of his own, and won’t be deterred…

It was around this point that it became pretty clear to me that this book was about a right-wing conspiracy to undermine our democracy, financed by super-rich oligarchs. I found it particularly ironic that the things the right wing is accused of doing here are pretty much things the left wing is actually doing in the real world. So this story seemed to be projection, pure and simple.

I dropped it. It was well written. The characters were good. The dialogue was good. The dramatic tension was well orchestrated.

But if, like me, you’re tired of being called a fascist, you might not want to buy Rogue.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Last One Left,’ by John D. MacDonald

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For half the journey she thought of Staniker. There had been just enough toughness, just enough greed, just enough brutality for him to manage it. But now his eyes were wrong and his mouth was changed. He had expended something he’d never regain. It was, she thought, like what happened to a man who experienced a truly professional, cold, savage beating. It left him with all those little apologetic mannerisms, bob of head, ingratiating smile, a wariness very like shyness.

On the long shelf of John D. MacDonald’s non-Travis McGee novels, pride of place must probably go to The Executioners, which would be filmed twice as Cape Fear. But The Last One Left must certainly rank high. It is complex, with many outstanding qualities, and only one small flaw that I can detect.

Sam Boyleston is a Texas lawyer. He’s principled and ethical. He’s also a hard man, rigid and impatient with human frailty. He can’t understand why his beloved wife has separated from him, taking their son, afraid that the gravity mass of Sam’s personality will warp the boy’s own nature. And he’s baffled by his sister’s decision to marry a do-gooder relief worker with no prospects of wealth. So he pressured them into a deal – they would spend a year apart, and he’d pay for the wedding. Jonathan, the young man, will work on one of Sam’s friends’ ranches, while Leila spends the year on a luxury cruise in the Bahamas with his friend Bix and his family, on their yacht.

How was he to know that Bix was using the cruise to smuggle payoff money to the islands? Or that Staniker, his captain, would get wind of the scheme and murder them all for the loot?

All Sam knows is that Staniker showed up marooned on an island, burned and dehydrated, apparently the last survivor. With uncharacteristic sentimentality, Sam bankrolls Jonathan in a quixotic effort to search for Leila in the islands and atolls, a project in which he has no faith. For his own part, he’s learned about the money. He’s going to find out who planned the murders, and when he knows, he’ll do whatever he has to do.

MacDonald was on top of his game when he wrote The Last One Left. This book is especially strong in terms of characterization. Sam Boyles is a familiar sort of MacDonald hero, a lot like Travis McGee except for a lack of self-awareness, but his journey to wisdom is fascinating.

Perhaps the most memorable character is Crissy Harkinson, the femme fatale of the story. I think she may be the most fully realized dangerous dame I’ve ever encountered in a hardboiled novel. She is at once fascinating, repellant, and oddly pathetic.

But for me the most interesting member of the cast was Sergeant Corpo, a brain-damaged war veteran hermit struggling to survive in a world he no longer understands. He wants nothing more than to do what’s right, and mostly he succeeds.

MacDonald himself must have had a fondness for this book, because he took the boat Munequita, which plays an important part in the plot, and gave it to Travis McGee himself in the books that followed.

I wasn’t entirely happy with the final payoff here. I considered that scene slightly rushed and dubious. But that’s my only complaint (except that there are intense episodes of bad things happening to good people, which is hard to avoid). The Last One Left is one of MacDonald’s best novels, and I recommend it highly. Cautions for mild sex and intense situations.

Oh yes, this Kindle version seems to be converted from a British edition, as Britishisms like “tyres,” “petrol,” and “aeroplane” are used. I’m pretty sure the original American edition did not have those.

Blogs, Socials, Fiction, Music, Reading

Witnessing to Social Media Scammers, Good Novels, and the Legal Power of Music

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Social media is something of a minefield. It’s easily misused, partly because it’s easy for people to write poorly and misunderstand what they’ve read. People do that with books, and they misspeak and misheard live conversations. Some of us are astonishingly accomplished at misunderstanding what people say. There ought to be annual awards for that level of skill.

And the socials have another aspect that complicates communication— anonymity.

I had an interaction with a new follow on Twitter/X, which I noticed and returned the follow even though the profile and activity were sparse and a little sus. I played the Benefit of the Doubt card this time—not my usual strategy. She slid into my DMs saying she wanted to be my friend (also sus). I say “she” because that’s how the profile was set up, but I can’t confirm that. I found two other profiles with the same or similar names, images, and profile descriptions, so I figured I wasn’t dealing with an honest individual. But I didn’t ignore her this time.

She DMed me in an overly friendly way, so I asked about the username, which didn’t fit her name or profile. It was like Cindy @kergu_addict. I asked what @kergu_addict referred to. She said it was just something she filled in earlier. I responded by praising the Lord’s mercy and goodness and asking if she knew Him. That question was ignored.

The next day after another DM checking up on me, I told her she needed in-person friends. Online connections can’t keep up with daily living. She responded with one of those statements you see in spam, like it was cut from two separate sentences.

“I’m not sure what you’re saying,” I said. “In person, we have proximity–people in the same room. We can talk with our voices and body language, and that’s a big difference. Online, we can only type and wait for the other person to read our message.”

“So that you wish you could find someone like that?” she asked.

“I have people like that,” I said. “I also have a close relationship with Jesus Christ. Do you have a Bible? Do you know something about Jesus?”

“I’m an atheist. I believe in what I do.”

“You don’t have to stay that way. This life, this world, are not there is. We were made for eternity.”

“Why? Don’t you believe in what you’re doing?”

“Because God, the creator of everything, and Jesus, the incarnation of God, are real. I believe in them because they exist. It’s reality.”

“Of course, I respect you. Faith is a good thing.”

She unfollowed me after that, which is what I expected. I wonder if anything I said will stay with whoever is on the other side.

What else can we look into?

Fantasy: The Queen of Ebenezer is “a dreamlike but intense story of two lost teenagers trying to find their way through a mysterious swamp—and that’s just the beginning of what they’re trying to find.” Gina Dalfonzo talks to author K. B. Hoyle about her latest novel.

Novels: John Wilson reminisces about his early novel reading in light of “Joseph Epstein’s just-published book The Novel, Who Needs It? If, like me, you are an incorrigible reader of novels, you should make haste to acquire it. . . . Most readers besotted with ‘the novel,’ as I am, will get their money’s worth.”

Music: Ted Gioia on how musicians gave the ancient world law, taken from his new book Music to Raise the Dead. The whole story isn’t spelled out and remains unclear, but “it’s indisputable that ancient communities frequently turned to people outside of the ruling class for their laws.”

Photo: Bomber gas station, Milwaukie, Oregon. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Shred of Doubt,’ by Darren Sugrue

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Storytelling is an art distinct from, but not incompatible with, literary quality. Sometimes you’ll find a book that contains a fair number of flaws, but it still pulls you in.

That was the case for me with Darren Sugrue’s Shred of Doubt. Lately I’d been afraid that increased viewing of YouTube videos (Jordan Peterson and others) was damaging my ability to enjoy fiction. But Shred of Doubt grabbed me and held on all the way.

Jimmy Quinn is an Irish marine biologist. He hasn’t been in Hyannis, Massachusetts in 25 years. Back then he was a student working in a diner, earning money for University back home. That year he fell in love with Chelsea Thomas, a local girl who also worked at the diner. Just before he was due to go home, Chelsea disappeared, never to be seen again. Evidence pointed to another worker at the diner, a fellow with an unrequited crush on Chelsea, and he went to prison for life.

But now Jimmy is back in Hyannis, attending a conference. He goes to the diner to see an old friend who still works there. The friend, hesitantly, gives him something he’s been holding on to. It’s Chelsea’s diary, which he found hidden in the locker room long after the case had been closed. Jimmy reads it through and discovers things he never knew about her. Suddenly he’s obsessed. He forgets the conference and his duties. He has to discover the truth about what really happened to Chelsea. Could she still be alive? Did an innocent man go to prison?

There were many points in this book where I thought the author was reaching a bit. Some of the plot points seemed forced. The psychology, I think, was more TV movie than real life. There were homophone errors.

Also, he talked about a safety on a Glock (they don’t have them. [Full disclosure, I made the same mistake in a manuscript myself once, but a friend corrected it for me.])

Nevertheless, the pure storytelling was masterful. I had a hard time putting Shred of Doubt down.

Cautions for language, adult situations, and fairly explicit sex.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Can’t Depend On Murder,’ by Jay Heavner

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I feel a little guilty reviewing Jay Heavner’s Can’t Depend On Murder. My impression is that the author is a good guy with the best intentions for telling an inspiring story. A Christian story. But like so many other Christian writers, he hasn’t figured out how to do that.

However, the thing is, the book is set in Brevard County, Florida in 1988. As it happens, I was living in Brevard County in 1988, and the little town where I was living even gets a mention here. So I read the thing. And now, because I need to post something tonight, I pretty much have to review the poor book.

Roger Pyles is a semi-hermit living in an old house trailer. He is apparently part of the police department in his little town in North Brevard County, but they pay him next to nothing and he doesn’t generally have any duties. He was once a college professor, but suffered a tragedy and fled to Florida. He lives with his dog and a stray donkey he rescued, but an ex-girlfriend and the son she bore him live nearby.

Then an old Indian called Shaman shows up to deliver a cryptic message about approaching danger. A tree accordingly falls on Roger’s trailer, just the start of a series of catastrophes. There’s some talk of Roger consulting on a serial killer investigation, but that gets solved before he has to move a muscle. Various dangers to himself and his loved ones are hinted at, but everything blows over in the end.

If that sounds like not much of a story, well, that’s what we’re dealing with here. Mysteries and perils are hinted at, but never come to anything. Instead there is dialogue – lots and lots of dialogue. Now I like good dialogue. It brings characters alive. But it’s got to be good dialogue. One element of good dialogue is efficiency. You don’t waste the reader’s time with every hello and goodbye. You know when to end a joke, and you don’t have to tell the reader that people laughed at it.

Most of all, you don’t preach. (I confess I’m hesitant to raise this point, since I fear I sin in this regard in my own books, but I’m the reviewer here, so it must be said.) The author incorporates repeated conversations, sometimes with an actual preacher character and often improbably motivated, about God and the meaning of life and the problem of evil. Our hero Roger is portrayed as a respectful agnostic, but the Christians score all the debating points.

I agree entirely with the points, but I don’t think they were very effectively dramatized.

Once you finish the book you realize there’s a larger context – greater powers than Roger and his friends are manipulating the world around them. That might have been an effective plot device in a better-written book. But it’s not effective here. It just left me scratching my head.

Also, Roger has a cell phone. How many people had cell phones in rural Florida in ’88?

Also, the character of the Shaman is just silly. He talks like Tonto.

I can’t recommend Can’t Depend On Murder.

Fiction, Reviews

‘In Cold Blood,’ by Jack Hunt

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Noah Sutherland is an investigator with New York’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation. He’s taking a much-needed vacation in Florida when he gets a visit from a colleague, who informs him that his twin brother, a sheriff’s deputy in their home community of High Peaks in the Adirondacks, has been killed in the line of duty. He was found shot to death next to his car on a deserted country road – and drugs from the evidence locker were found in his trunk.

So begins In Cold Blood, by Jack Hunt (not to be confused with Truman Capote’s book, and I’m fairly sure it won’t be). Noah doesn’t believe for a minute that his brother was into anything shady, but he knows it’s none of his business. He isn’t assigned to this part of the state, and they would never let him investigate his own brother’s death even if he were. Except that they do let him do it, due to a somewhat improbable concatenation of circumstances. Now he’ll have to navigate all kinds of old relationships and small town rivalries as he tries to discover what kind of shadowy local forces have conspired to destroy an honest cop. On top of all this there’s his difficult father, who’s never forgiven him for not joining the sheriff’s department himself, in the family tradition.

The story here wasn’t bad, though there were several improbabilities, notably Noah’s assignment to the case in the first place (as mentioned), and the fact that an officer shoots and kills someone without being placed on temporary desk duty. Also, the prose is rough – the author is prone to word confusions and sheer clunkiness of expression – “He crouched down and touched his finger against the smallest amount of glass.”

In the great bell curve of literature, there’s some that’s very good, some that’s very bad, and the vast majority is somewhere in the middle. One shouldn’t be too disappointed if a book possesses both strengths and weaknesses. I thought the characters and dialogue in In Cold Blood were good, but the writing was spotty (though I’ve seen worse). I did finish the book, and I got it for free, so I won’t trash it too much.

Fiction, Reviews

Tale of the Nine-Tailed: A Well-Written Fantasy TV Series

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Recently, a TV adaptation of a popular Marvel comics storyline ended its run by tripping over its feet and kissing the synthetic rubber track. Many superhero fans didn’t even watch, and many others hated their experience (not everyone, just many). The director said he was told not to read the source material and that he didn’t want to make a story that leaned into its own genre, so the show introduced story elements and tone only to set them on the shelf. I don’t know what the producers were expecting. It’s the latest installment of high value entertainment prospects that failed.

If you’d like to watch a fantasy series that is actually well-written and different to most Americans, look up Tale of the Nine-Tailed, a 16-episode Korean series starring Lee Dong Wook and Jo Bo Ah and directed by Kang Shin Hyo. The story focuses on mythological foxes (gumiho), who are traditionally wily and mischievous. The old stories say the nine-tailed fox is seeking to become human by some trial over a thousand years. The main fox of this story was once a mountain god who fell in love with a young woman. When that woman was murdered, he gave up his divine position in hopes of finding her reincarnation one day.

At the beginning of Tale of the Nine-Tailed, Lee Yeon, the fox, is hunting down lesser foxes who are posing as humans and killing them. I forget why he is hunting them, if it’s more than just defending humanity. TV producer Nam Ji Ah is building evidence for her version of X files when she notices Yeon’s distinctive umbrella. Somehow, she ropes him into accompanying her to a remote island village where she hopes to find a clue to her parents’ disappearance (her motive for researching paranormal accounts). In these 3-4 episodes, the show has a horror tone. Traditional Korean shamanism is displayed throughout the series, and you see some of the ugly practices in these episodes. It lightens up after this, leaning first into a romantic storyline and plunging into fantasy for the rest of it. Yeon is plagued by many things, primarily his murderous half-brother Rang, who resembles Loki in attitude and miscreant behavior. The tension between the brothers is compelling to watch.

I mention it here because the writing is strong throughout. Wikipedia credits Han Woo-ri for this. Bravo. Yeon is presented as crafty with great, but not unlimited, knowledge. Many mythological foes come after him, and they never lay a hand on him because he’s an idiot. He works the situation, turning the tables when he can. None of his victories feels forced or as if he has read the script. Once, the irritating trope of loving her so much he can’t tell the truth is used to bridge two episodes, but it’s short lived and nothing else stands out as clichéd.

A second season was released this summer on Amazon. I hope I can find a way to see it.

In other news —

Reviews: Bad reviews can be helpful. “Instead of specialties, we were known by our critical styles: We were the Shredder, the Beheader and the Fredder.”

Funny Stuff: “A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humour are without judgment and should be trusted with nothing.”

Fiction, Reviews

‘Murder on the Farm,’ by Bruce Beckham

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One does not look for great variety in Bruce Beckham’s Inspector Skelgill novels, set in England’s Cumbria. Skelgill himself is a thoroughly eccentric country detective, not a linear thinker but intuitive, his instincts honed by time spent in nature. Nor do his subordinates surprise us much. DS Leyton, a London transplant, is stolid but loyal and dependable, the Watson of the team. DS Jones, an attractive young woman, is smart and can be expected to rise in the service. There’s also deep but private attraction between her and Skelgill.

In Murder on the Farm, their publicity-hungry superior agrees to lend Jones to a team of television documentarians who are re-examining an old unsolved murder. Back in the 1970s, a young man was murdered with a shotgun while making a delivery to a posh country estate. Later, two local criminals were arrested and convicted in the case. But their conviction has been overturned, based on police misconduct. There is another possible suspect, an unpleasant fellow who served ten years for a later, similar shotgun killing. The star of the documentary team, a celebrity criminologist, is certain this man is the true killer. He has a plan to unmask him in front of the cameras, producing amazement and high ratings.

Skelgill is concerned, first of all, that the criminologist has sexual designs on DS Jones. But more than that, he thinks the criminologist’s scenario is simplistic. He himself perceives deeper and more sinister possibilities and a wider range of suspects.

Murder on the Farm offers all the usual pleasures of this series: Skelgill’s disingenuous simplicity, political and departmental pressures, Cumbrian food and dialects, wheels within wheels. I enjoyed reading it. No bad words that I recall or gratuitous sex or violence.

Fiction

Classic Reading: Kristin Lavransdatter

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Joel Miller has been reading classic novels this year and reviewed Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter this week.

“If you peel away the layer of ideas and conceptions that are particular to your own time period,” Undset once said, “then you can step right into the Middle Ages and see life from the medieval point of view—and it will coincide with your own view.”

In Sigrid Undset’s skillful hands, it’s impossible to imagine any other outcome.