One book I own that I wish was in perfect condition is a Rankin & Bass edition of The Hobbit (1977). It’s a coffee table book, perhaps designed to read with two or more children in and around your lap. The full text is included, so you won’t miss any details, except maybe those skewed by the illustrations.
I assume my parents bought this, and I don’t remember it being a gift to me. I just acquired it at the appropriate hour. My own children rough it up a good bit, as they have done with many books.
The video above is a recording of “The Wellerman,” done by a Norwegian group whose name means “The Greedy Seagulls.” I’ve posted a version of this sea shanty before, and I’m not adding this one because I’ve sensed any clamor on your part for a reprise. My main interest is in the boat the singers are on (which, though it’s a sailing schooner, appears to be under engine power here).
That boat is the replica of the sloop “Restauration.” The original Restauration carried about 50 people on the first organized Norwegian immigrant voyage to the United States, back in 1825. There’s a plan to sail this boat to America next year, in honor of the 200th anniversary of the voyage.
I saw this replica, purely by accident, on my last Norway visit in 2023.
My own people did not come to America till the 1880s, so I can’t claim the honor of being what’s called a Slooper. However, the ship sailed from Stavanger, and a number of them were members of the Haugean sect, of which some of my ancestors were leaders. So they would certainly have known the Sloopers.
I understand when a cast of characters is in high school, the plot usually entails going to class, but I remember the third novel, Rise of the Circle, ending on big decisions and cosmic revelations. This novel, Omni’s Fall, begins with our hero struggling through math class.
I guess that means it’s just another Monday.
Teenaged metahuman Connor Connolly feels compelled to act, even when he doesn’t know what to do. That gets him into big trouble and threatens to end his heroic career. The authorities over him keep telling him to stand down and not draw attention to himself, while at the same his Batman-like mentor is calling him out to missions. After each feat of heroism, his metabands, the technology that makes him a superhero, look more damaged than before. Should he keep using them? As soon as he decides to rest a while, another threat or opportunity arises.
The plot and structure of the book are fun and maybe hold together, but they aren’t strong. I liked the villain and the new developments to the world. I still like the characters. But everything together didn’t work as well as I wanted it to.
It’s one thing for the hero to press on when everything is telling him to play it safe. Maybe he can’t stop, because the threat will run him down or the bad guys will get away. Maybe he’s the only one with all the facts to bring justice. It’s another thing for the hero to keep risking his life because “somebody’s got to do something.” No one throws himself in front of a runaway train because somebody has to do something to stop it. Of course, when you open the possibility of being able to stop the train with your super strength, how big does that possibility have to be for you to make the jump?
With the threat of his metabands failing, Connor must confront the possibility that he may no longer be able to fight bad guys as Omni, but when that argument comes up, he gets defensive and denies all of his worries like a man denying he has colon cancer. He isn’t mature enough to have the power he has, and he isn’t mature enough to recognize his immaturity. The fear of having your power taken from you is a good theme, but this story doesn’t go deep enough to make it compelling.
I read several of Randy Wayne White’s Doc Ford mysteries about a decade ago, and liked them, but I stopped because I found myself less and less comfortable with the worldview. But a deal showed up recently for one of White’s earlier books, Florida Firefight. This was written under the pseudonym Carl Ramm, and was the first volume in a series about a freelance commando named Hawker.
Shortly after Chicago policeman James Hawker has been fired for violating department policy by doing the right thing, he gets an invitation to spend Thanksgiving with a reclusive tycoon whose son Hawker had tried to save. The tycoon tells him he knows of a town in Florida called Mahogany Key, where Latin American drug smugglers are moving in. He’s concerned about his friends there and would like Hawker to go down and help. His cover story will be that he’s bought the local marina and wants to get it going profitably again. Intrigued – and having nothing better to do – Hawker decides to take the job.
What he finds is a depressed community, falling into ruin. The local residents had attempted to resist the incoming gangsters, but found themselves outmanned and outgunned, and now they’re beaten. With the assistance of a beautiful environmental biologist, Hawker forms a plan to defeat the narco smugglers and help the locals regain their pride.
There was nothing out of the ordinary about Florida Firefight. It follows the essential thriller formula that has worked so well for so many writers, like Lee Child and Gregg Hurwitz more recently. Lots of action, with a layer of inspiration in there somewhere. But I thought the book well written, except for some awkward information dumping in the first scene. Otherwise, the book was a fast and exciting read.
I found it melancholy, though. It reminded me of a time – not very long ago – when we lived in a very different country. We had a simple, comprehensible chief enemy in the world – Soviet Russia. Americans still had a sense of being one people, of sharing an identity. Remembering those times, under present circumstances, was kind of depressing.
There was one substantial sex scene, more explicit (in my opinion) than strictly necessary.
Florida Firefight was a well-written novel, and very entertaining on its own terms. I should mention that pretty conservative opinions got expressed, somewhat to my surprise.
As you know if you’re a regular here, I have no qualms about trashcanning a book after reading a couple of pages, if it fails to please me. This practice is made easier by the fact that I get a lot of books free or extremely cheap, through Kindle offers. The world is full of shabby, overoptimistic self-published books, and I’d rather not stomp on the author’s dreams by panning their book when I could just keep mum.
But occasionally a slightly more promising book shows up and keeps me reading long enough, before disillusioning me, that I don’t want to lose my sunk time cost without even being able to do a review. So I read that book through, and then I trash it here.
That is the story with Revenge at Sea, by Brian O’Sullivan.
What made me increasingly hate this book, as I slogged through it, was not only that the prose was bloated and bad (it started fair and deteriorated as it went along. This is not unusual. It’s common – and not actually a bad idea – to do a lot of polishing at the start, when you’re trying to hook the reader). It wasn’t just that the dialogue was stilted and not half as clever as it thought itself.
My main complaint was that our hero/narrator was an idiot.
The aforementioned hero/narrator is Quint Adler, a reporter for a minor newspaper in California’s Bay area. Supposedly, he is highly talented (this is dubious based on his prose) but has never gotten his big break. One night, while in a hospital after an injury, he overhears a suspicious conversation between his roommate and a companion. It sounds like they committed a major crime. He snaps a picture of the guy’s information sheet and, after being released from the hospital, goes to check the guy’s home out. He finds the man dead, but does not inform the police. Instead, he sees it as his opportunity. If he can figure out what the guy was involved in, he can write the Big Story that might supercharge his career.
Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
Over the course of the next few weeks, Quint will lie to the cops, get some people killed (gruesomely), be framed for murder, and at last have a showdown with his nemesis on a yacht on the open sea. (The final climax is one of the least plausible I’ve ever encountered in a novel.)
Quint spends time in jail during this story. It doesn’t occur to the author to describe Quint’s feelings about being locked up. There is zero description of the jail experience. He knows people he’s talked to have killed by mobsters, but fails to make the connection that he might be in danger too.
Like I said, an idiot.
The author also misuses words, like “taciturn” when he seems to want “covert.”
This is, in short, a badly written book that I labored to finish.
The author shows signs of talent, but he needs a good editor. At least 1/3 of his verbiage could have been cut, and it would have only improved the experience.
From last June, my appearance on the “All Over the Place” podcast has just been posted on YouTube.
Eric and Jim used to be regulars on the old “Freedonia” blog, which was one of my favorite hangouts on the internet. It’s been gone for a while now, alas. It was nice to get together with them and have some facetime.
The world of mystery fiction, as you’re probably aware, is divided (broadly speaking) into the subgenres of “Cozy” (think Miss Marple) and “Hard-Boiled” (think Mike Hammer). But nothing in life is ever that simple. Hard-boiled has devolved over recent decades (mostly) into the Thriller genre, and that’s all we’ll say about that today. But sub-genres exist within Cozy . I had never heard of the “Humdrum” subgenre before I looked up John Rhode (a pseudonym for Cecil Street), author of The Paddington Mystery. At first I thought the descriptor “humdrum” a little dismissive, but gradually I came to understand the point.
The central character in The Paddington Mystery, set in 1925, is Harold Merefield, a young London gentleman. Harold grew up as a close friend to Dr Lancelot Priestley, a retired mathematician and amateur detective. He was even close to being engaged to Priestley’s daughter April. But then he came into money and decided to sample the high life. He joined a shady gentleman’s club and even wrote a scandalous novel – which sold well.
One night Harold he comes home drunk to his apartment in the early hours to find a dead man, soaking wet, in his bed. The police suspect him at first, but let him go when the medical examiner declares the death due to natural causes. Nevertheless, the mystery remains. Who was the old man? How did he get into Harold’s apartment in the first place?
Harold is suddenly concerned about his reputation, and the only person he can think of to approach for help is Dr Priestley. Dr Priestly, it turns out, is still kindly disposed, and he welcomes the mystery as a chance to exercise his powers of logical deduction.
It was at that point that the story, I must admit, began to drag. At the beginning I was quite taken with The Paddington Mystery. I liked the characters, and the morality was purely bourgeois. I felt right at home.
But what made the book “humdrum” was that pages and pages were spent on exposition of the puzzle, as various characters explained the mystery, and Dr Priestly went on and on, explaining every step in his logical deductions. It did get tedious.
Especially because I figured out whodunnit fairly early in the process.
So, I must say, with regret, that I can’t entirely endorse The Paddington Mystery. On the plus side it was old-fashioned and non-objectionable, but it was also kind of… how shall I put it? Elementary.
For January, we’re going to follow a theme of looking ahead to the Lord’s return. Today’s hymn was written by Edward Henry Bickersteth (1825-1906), at one time Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead, London.
“Only hold fast what you have until I come” (Rev. 2:25 ESV)
1 “Till he come!” O let the words linger on the trembling chords; let the little while between in their golden light be seen; let us think how heav’n and home lie beyond that “Till he come.”
2 When the weary ones we love enter on their rest above, seems the earth so poor and vast, all our life-joy overcast? Hush, be ev’ry murmur dumb: it is only till he come.
3 Clouds and conflicts round us press: would we have one sorrow less? All the sharpness of the cross, all that tells the world is loss, death and darkness, and the tomb, Only whisper “Till he come.”
4 See, the feast of love is spread, drink the wine, and break the bread: sweet memorials, till the Lord call us round his heav’nly board; some from earth, from glory some, severed only till he come.
Some people can tell you their favorites easily. They seek them out often. Their favorite shirts are the ones they wear all the time. Their favorite meals they eat several times a year, or if that’s too expensive, at least annually for a birthday. I’m the type who doesn’t wear his favorite shirt so that it will last longer. I wear lesser shirts that can wear out. A favorite I’ll don for special occasions. It’s not the same for meals. I would eat favorite foods often, but I like many different things. Sure, that cake you made for my birthday was delicious. You made it last year too, and it was great. Maybe this year we make a different delicious cake.
So, like the speaker in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 52, I don’t frequent my treasures often “for blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.”
“Blessèd are you whose worthiness gives scope, Being had, to triumph, being lacked, to hope.”
What links do we have today?
Shelby Steele: Author Shelby Steele and filmmaker Eli Steele discuss their ideas on power, race, and America with City Journal. “We have wealth; now we want innocence—that’s where power lies at the moment. So much of our politics and culture really come out of this struggle with innocence,” the author states. By innocence, he means the moral justification for authority and the exercise of power.
Book towns: Richard George William Pitt Booth MBE (1938-2019) said libraries couldn’t keep up with today’s publishing industry, and thus “the future of the book is in book towns,” such as the one he inspired in Hay-on-Wye, Wales. Bloggers Sophie Pearce and Sophie Nadeau both visited and took photos for their travel sites.
Poets: Irish poet Maurice Scully died last year, “a true original in the world of Irish poetry, quietly and patiently doing things his own way for several decades.”
Photo: Newman’s Drug Store in New York, 1976. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
She was about five feet eight, slim, with ink-black hair cut short and eyes as green as the plastic on certain Memorex high-density diskettes, which were still in use in those days.
One of the delights of being a Dean Koontz fan is the constant surprises. Far from writing the same book over and over (as some authors tend to do), Koontz keeps obsessively changing it up. Some of his books are terrifying. Some are suspenseful, some plaintive and melancholy. And sometimes he just likes to have fun. The Bad Weather Friend is Koontz in sheer fun mode.
When Benny Catspaw loses his job, gets dumped by his girlfriend, and has a bank loan turned down all in one day, it’s not even the worst day of his life so far. Benny has been through a lot, but he faces it all with his customary optimism and good humor. Benny is a nice guy.
Then he gets a message from a great-uncle he never knew he had. The old man says he is sending Benny a shipment, his inheritance. It will be alarming, he says, but Benny should not be afraid.
Benny will be afraid, though, when the shipment turns out to be a muscular giant with superhuman powers and a deep hatred for postmodern interior decoration. His name is Spike, he says, and he’s a “craggle.” Craggles are supernatural beings entrusted with the protection of the world’s nicest people, of whom Benny is one. Along with Harper Harper, a charming young woman training to be a private investigator, Spike listens to the story of Benny’s day, and concludes that there’s a conspiracy to destroy him. These conspirators must be hunted down and stopped (Spike never kills anyone). The three of them set out on the quest. Along the way, Benny will recall the strange course of his unusual life up to now, and will fall in love with Harper.
Dean Koontz is a practicing Roman Catholic, and many of his books shows traces of his faith. I can’t say that element is very apparent in The Bad Weather Friend. This story is all about “niceness,” which has (correctly) been denounced in countless pulpits as inferior to the righteousness God demands. I don’t think any conclusions should be drawn on that score. This is a fun book, not intended to be taken very seriously.
The Bad Weather Friend was a pleasure to read, and I wished it were longer. Highly recommended.
