Leslie Charteris: The Saint on Guard (1945)

Edition: Hodder & Stoughton, 1945
Review number: 809

The last Saint book to be written during the war - it was published a few months after it ended - contains two stories, of an unusual length (most of the books contain one, three or twelve stories). They are typical in content, though, both about Simon Templar's battles on the American "home front", fighting the black market and sabotage.

Both stories use the same investigative technique; Simon Templar announces that he is going to do something about a problem (the black market in iridium, essential for munitions, or a gang of saboteurs) and uses his reputation to make things happen and get the opposition panicked into making mistakes. This is a device that Charteris uses frequently, and while it makes for exciting thrillers, it becomes a bit predictable when several Saint stories are read more or less one after another, as I have been doing recently.

The two stories are not among the very best Saint stories, though competent, and there are signs that Charteris is becoming bored with this phase of the character. He makes fun of his own creation in a couple of places, which is a new departure. From this book, Charteris' speed of production drops quite dramatically, before reaching the point (with the advent of the TV series) where collections of Saint stories include ones written by other people. I have a suspicion that the mid 1940s was also a time when Charteris became disillusioned with the series of films; he didn't like any of the actors who portrayed Simon Templar, from George Saunders to Ian Ogilvy. The only way this shows in the writing is a certain lack of inspiration.

K.W. Jeter: Infernal Devices (1987)

Edition: Grafton, 1988
Review number: 808

There are quite a few science fiction novels which use the same basic premise as Infernal Devices - that the Victorian period could have produced technology rivalling today's computers in complexity - enough to have earned the subgenre label "steampunk" in imitation of cyberpunk. The attractions of such novels for writers are clear; as well as allowing them to comment on contemporary life in a veiled way, as all alternative history does, it is possible to write in homage to the Victorian thrillers and early science fiction adventures which are still loved by many today. The tone of Infernal Devices is more reminiscent of Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger novels than H.G. Wells or Jules Verne (who are possibly more obvious models to follow - especially as one of Jeter's other novels is a sequel to The Time Machine). It is, however, rather knowing and pokes some fun at the way that many historical novels import modern language and morality unintentionally.

George Dower's father was a master inventor of clockwork devices, a talent unfortunately not inherited by his son, who makes a meagre living repairing watches and those creations of his father where the fault is obvious. One device, left with him by its owner, a man who seems to have a skin of brown leather, leads him into a strange adventure. This involves an unusual couple who talk in twentieth century slang, a church where the pew Bibles are replaced by Isaak Walton's Compleat Angler, a device which is meant to destroy the world, and a violin-playing automaton, the Paganinicon, which is also Dower's double.

Infernal Devices is much less repellent than Jeter's earlier work, but perhaps is less gripping as a result. Its message is less clear than that of Dr Adder. However, since it can be appreciated as an entertaining take on the Victorian adventure story, it probably remains Jeter's most accessible novel, even including the Bladerunner sequels.

Michael Wood: In Search of England (1999)

Edition: Viking, 1999
Review number: 807

Like every nation, England has its collection of historical mythology, which is of varying truthfulness. This collection of essays is mostly about this subject, the famous and the less famous - Arthur and Robin Hood, on the one hand, to the survival of ancient crafts ("the last bowl-turner of England"), to turning points in English history. Though England is the unifying theme, the collection of essays is not sufficiently focused to make them read as though they were specially written for this book, and there plenty of things which could have provided interesting material but which are not covered - Magna Carta, Simon de Montfort and the English Parliament, and so on.

The eclectic approach is the major problem that In Search of England faces; in other respects (and certainly as far as individual chapters are concerned), it is as interesting and well written as Wood's earlier In Search of ... volumes. Wood's popular history offers a very personal approach particularly appropriate in the TV versions which have been made of some of the books; his obvious engagement with the past makes it exciting and alive for the view and reader.

Gene Wolfe: Peace (1975)

Edition: New English Library, 1989 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 805

This novel must rank as one of the most atmospheric fantasies ever written. It is the story of a life in the American Midwest in the early years of the twentieth century, which is a strange setting for such a novel; the narrator's life is not in itself fantastic - it is purely the way in which the story is told which places it in the genre.

For the narrator is a ghost. He is revisiting his life as part of a visit to a doctor, when given an odd treatment which is a sort of combination of the Rorschach test with fortune telling by the use of the Tarot; each episode in the novel is set off with the turn of a card. The episodes are not chronological and the storytelling is very digressive, and they are not entirely complete in themselves. It is quite difficult at the beginning to follow what is going on.

One thing the novel is remarkable for is the use of stories within the story. These are basically ghost stories, and are both skilfully told and carefully used to enhance the otherworldly atmosphere.

Peace is a wonderfully subtle and enjoyable novel, and is completely different - though equally excellent - from most of the Wolfe I have previously read - The Book of the New Sun and The Book of the Long Sun.

Paul Doherty: The Treason of the Ghosts (2000)

Edition: Headline, 2000
Review number: 806

The medieval town of Melford is a dangerous place for young women. A serial killer is stalking the lanes around the town, which has grown quickly from a village after local farming has changed to the profitable business of sheep rearing. When local magnate Sir Robert Champelys is hanged, found guilty of the killings, they stop. However, questions are raised after his conviction - the jury included several men he had cuckolded, and there seemed to be irregularities in some of the evidence. Sir Robert's son petitioned the king for an investigation and maybe a pardon, and when the killings start up again the king's clerk Sir Hugh Corbett is sent to Melford to find out the truth.

In many ways The Treason of the Ghosts is not quite typical of the series of novels in which Corbett is the detective. It is as meticulously researched as ever, but the fact that there is more plot than usual (with a large number of murders requiring simultaneous investigation) leaves less room for the evocation of background which is one of the principal merits of the series. Like many of Doherty's novels, particularly those written as Paul Harding, this one contains a locked room mystery, but it is only perfunctory and easily solved in a few pages. It is in fact quite easy to work out who the murderer is, with Corbett ignoring some very obvious leads. The poorer plot and lack of background make The Treason of the Ghosts one of the least successful novels in the series.

Max Beerbohm: Zuleika Dobson (1911)

Edition: Yale University Press, 1985 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 804

While this famous comic novel has much in common with the writing of Oscar Wilde and Saki, it has at its centre an extravagent gesture all of its own, far beyond anything attempted by these other writers.

Zuleika is an incredibly beautiful young woman, famous as a conjurer, who visits Oxford as the guest of her grandfather, Warden of Judas College. There she meets the extremely eligible Duke of Dorset, an undergraduate, who leads the other students first into falling in love with her and then into suicide because of her. The death of thousands of students is the extravagant gesture, and much of the novel is about the day leading up to this, at the climax of Eights Week (the main rowing competition between Oxford colleges).

The deaths may seem a strange central episode for a comic novel, and it does occasionally threaten to overwhelm the humour, particularly in the description of the last hours of the Duke's life, when he realises that Zuleika is not worthy of the sacrifice he is making but that he is compelled by his honour and the appearance at his ancestral home of the owls that mark the death of the head of the family to go through with it. The Duke is a far more sympathetic character than the vain, selfish, shallow and not terribly bright Zuleika, and it is a task which has taken much skill from Beerbohm to balance the reader's sorrow over his fate with the humour of the novel.

One question which I cannot answer is whether Zuleika Dobson has any meaning beyond what it appears to have on the surface. If it had been written after 1914, it would fairly clearly have seemed to be a reference to the destruction of youth by the war; but this is impossible. What destroys the youth of Oxford is something which appeals to their desires in a fairly superficial way - Zuleika's appearance; she isn't even a particularly good conjurer. Maybe she represents the lure of the world outside the college cloisters, corrupting the elite of the country; she is after all an outsider in Oxford.

This particular edition contains delightful eccentric illustrations by Beerbohm, unpublished in his lifetime but reproduced from one of his copies of the novel.

Orson Scott Card: The Shadow of the Hegemon (2000)

Edition: Orbit, 2001
Review number: 803

Following on from Ender's Shadow, this novel is the story of what happened to the Battle School graduates of Ender's Game after their return to Earth. Since it covers new ground rather than paralleling Speaker for the Dead, it is a much more involving novel than Ender's Shadow.

It puts the antagonism between Ender's lieutenant Bean and serial killer Achilles against the background of political and eventually military manoeuvring as the unity of facing the alien Buggers falls apart with the removal of the threat. Still only children, the military geniuses and immensely famous Battle School graduates are incredibly valuable as pawns and in their own right (though adult commanders find the second difficult to believe).

The children are well drawn characters, and the political background is fascinating if a bit like the scenario of a game of Risk (as Card admits in the afterword). Much better than Ender's Shadow, a most enjoyable piece of science fiction.