“The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume 2: Grim Lands”, by Robert E. Howard, illustrated by Jim & Ruth Keegan

510 pages, Del Rey, ISBN-13: 978-0345490193

In the early oughts, Del Rey began producing the complete works of Robert E. Howard; The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume 2: Grim Lands, illustrated by Jim & Ruth Keegan, was the eighth volume to be published. Once you crack the spine on this particular edition, you will stories such as: Black Vulmea’s Vengeance, The Bull Dog Breed, By This Axe I Rule!, Gents on the Lynch, Lord of Samarcand, The Man on the Ground, The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune, Old Garfield’s Heart, Pigeons From Hell, Red Nails, The Shadow of the Vulture, Son of the White Wolf, The Tower of the Elephant, Vultures of Wahpeton, Wild Water and Wings in the Night, along with the poems A Song of the Naked Lands, Black Harps in the Hills, Cimmeria, Echoes From an Anvil, Flint’s Passing, The Grim Land, The King and the Oak, Musings, Never Beyond the Beast, Solomon Kane’s Homecoming, Timur-lang and Which Will Scarcely Be Understood.

This book, along with the first volume (The Best of Robert E. Howard, Volume 1: Crimson Shadows, reviewed on April 22^nd, 2023) provides an excellent look into the lesser-known works of a truly American author. This edition to the Del Rey collection of Howard’s work covers his stories from Conan, to his westerns, to horror and many other genres, to boot (while I understand the publisher’s decision to start with Howard’s better-known works, one would almost be better off starting with this volume and Crimson Shadows, seeing as they cover his many literary oeuvres). I only started reading REH when these Del Rey collections began coming out in 2003; before then, I had only been familiar with the Conan the Barbarian movie starring the Austrian behemoth – oh, and as it turns out, with Kull the Conqueror, from the comics that were published by Marvel in the 70s, although I don’t think I knew then that the creator of Conan and Kull were one and the same.

However – there’s often an however, isn’t there? – all is not well. I have to say that it is Howard’s Sword’n’Sorcery works that really do it for me, while his other tales – the Westerns, the Crime Stories, the Violence for the sake of Violence Stories – are okay; oh, I don’t hate them or think they are subpar, they just don’t grab me the way in which Conan or Kull or even Solomon Kane does…er, you know what I mean. Perv. Maybe that’s why I feel like the tales offered here feel rather like warmed-over leftovers, never mind all of the praise that artists Jim & Ruth Keegan lavish on these tales (or their humble-bragging over how difficult it sometimes was to bring these tales to life). Perhaps the fact that some Conan et al. tales were added to this volume, rather than to the books dedicated to their characters, says something – like, that Del Rey and the Keegans knew they had to bulk up this volume of B-Listers with a star attraction or two.

Ah, bugger all. If you’ve made it this far in the Del Rey Howardpalooza then maybe you’ll just gloss over these needling details. I mean, they can’t all be pearls, right? Right? I for one am constitutionally incapable of leaving a collection unfulfilled, so even if this edition of Howard’s work was full of his juvenilia, or pencil doodles, or speeches endorsing FDR or something (perish the thought) I would have still bought it, and maybe even have enjoyed it. Who knows, maybe you’ll think these tales are as good as REH’s other works, that maybe he missed his calling as a western writer, or that maybe he should have stuck to the boxing tales. Whatever. While I can’t say that all of the stories in Grim Lands are good, I’d still prefer them to so much of the crap being churned out by publishers today with their woke nonsense and whatnot. Just think: Howard’s worse is better than most modern writer’s best. Scary stuff.

“I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick”, by Emmanuel Carrère, translated by Timothy Bent

 

336 pages, Metropolitan Books, ISBN-13: 978-0805054644

You may think you have never heard of Philip Kindred Dick, but check out this list of modern-day adaptations of his (many, many) works:

• The 1982 film (and its 2017 sequel) “Blade Runner” based on the 1968 short novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
• The 1990 film (and the 2012 remake, if you must) “Total Recall” based on the 1966 short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale
• The 1995 film “Screamers” based on the 1953 short story Second Variety
• The 2002 film “Imposter” based on the 1953 short story of the same name
• The 2002 film “Minority Report” based on the 1953 short story The Minority Report
• The 2003 film “Paycheck” based on the 1953 short story of the same name
• The 2006 film “A Scanner Darkly” based on the 1977 novel of the same name
• The 2007 film “Next” based on the 1954 short story The Golden Man
• The 2011 film “The Adjustment Bureau” based on the 1954 short story Adjustment Team
• The 2013 film “The Crystal Crypt” based on the 1954 short story of the same name
• The 2015-2019 mini-series “The Man in the High Castle” based on the 1962 novel of the same name
• To say nothing of the many tales adapted for the 2017 anthology series “Electric Dreams”

That’s a lot of writing to fit into a mere 53 years, but Philip K. Dick was nothing if not prolific – and weird, as is made clear in I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick by Emmanuel Carrère and translated by Timothy Bent (a French dude writing a biography of an American SciFi writer? Will wonders never cease?). Carrère’s biography is standard in that it follows its subject chronologically – Dick is born, Dick lives, Dicks writes, Dick loses his ever-lovin’ mind, Dick dies – and so the facts of Dick’s life are easy to grasp…NOT so easy to grasp are the many machinations that sprung forth from Dick’s brilliant but disturbed brain.

Carrère’s writing (and Bent’s translating) are excellent and his – their? – biography works on several levels: he brings the eras Dick lived and worked in – the 1950s, 60s and 70s – to light and invokes their differing atmospheres and how his writing and ideas differed one from the other; he also brings forth his subject’s personality as he aged (I won’t say matured), from his adolescent nerdom to his more-or-less-straight 20s onward into his drug-induced 30s and 40s. Throughout it all Carrère never loses focus on his subject’s writings, especially how changes in his life became reflected in his work which become some of the author’s most insightful undertakings.

Carrère’s biography proves its worth in that after one has closed the covers at last they have a better feel of just who this man was and what made him tick; better, it makes one want to read the source material for so many modern Hollywood adaptations. If you are unfamiliar with just who the hell Philip K. Dick was – or if you think you are familiar – then I Am Alive and You Are Dead will open your eyes to this one-man creative force. And even if you don’t think that he is an American Dostoyevsky like Carrère does, you cannot help but marvel at the prophetic visions this mere Science Fiction writer wrought all those decades ago.

“Who Dares Wins: Britain 1979-1982”, by Dominic Sandbrook

 

976 pages, Allen Lane, ISBN-13: 978-1846147371

With Who Dares Wins: Britain 1979-1982, Dominic Sandbrook continues his vast history of Great Britain from the late 1950s up to the present day – eventually. This is the fifth immense volume (weighing in at almost a thousand pages) and extends from Margaret Thatcher’s general election victory in May 1979 until the victorious conclusion of the Falklands War in 1982. Sandbrook snagged “Who Dares Wins” from the Special Air Service (SAS), a special forces unit of the British Army, using it to highlight what he sees as what differentiated the 1980s from the 1970s: “the rebirth of a patriotic populism” (something very similar occurred in the United States under President Reagan; no wonder Reagan and Thatcher got along like a house on fire).

While the beginning of Thatcher’s premiership may have looked like a continuation of the Bad Old Days of the 1970s – what with all of those industrial powerhouses folding and union thugs striking and football hooligans rioting and Irish terrorists exploding – it was the Iron Lady who took the reins and turned things around. Don’t believe me? Just ask Jim Callaghan, her immediate Labour predecessor at 10 Downing Street: “There are times, perhaps once every thirty years, when there is a sea-change in politics…I suspect there is now such a sea-change – and it is for Mrs. Thatcher”. This was said way back when political opponents could still say nice things about Those People on the other side, even if the praise was faint indeed.

As with his other works in this series, Sandbrook is not afraid to delve outside of the typical, respectable sources for his snatches of this near-past. For instance, one source he mines for 1980s comedic gold are “The Henry Root Letters” which were the creation of writer William Donaldson who wrote to numerous public figures with unusual or outlandish questions and requests. Or “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾”, written by Sue Townsend in the form of a diary, focusing on the worries and regrets of a teenager who believes himself to be an intellectual. Reading these two supposedly comedic but surprisingly insightful “fictional” works sometimes puts the mainstream media to shame, what with their joyous insights and pithy language.

Here are the early 1980s in all their gaudy glory: This is the story of Tony Benn, Ian Botham and Princess Diana; Joy Division, Chariots of Fire, the Austin Metro and Juliet Bravo; wine bars, Cruise missiles, the ZX Spectrum and the battle for the Falklands. And towering above them all, the most divisive Prime Minister of modern times (not an insult) – the Iron Lady. Vivid, surprising and gloriously entertaining, Dominic Sandbrook recreates the decisive turning point in Britain’s recent history. For some people this was an age of unparalleled opportunity, the heyday of computers and credit cards, snooker and Spandau Ballet. Yet for others it was an era of shocking bitterness, as industries collapsed, working-class communities buckled and the Labour Party tore itself apart. Poor Bastards.

Who Dares Wins is the fifth volume in Sandbrook’s history and there seems to be no end in sight. Sandbrook is clearly enjoying himself so much he can’t bear the series to end – and, as a reader, so am I. This is vividly panoramic history, ranging from high affairs of state to the tiniest textural details of everyday life: the Falklands factor and the F-plan diet, monetary targets and the mania for home improvement, steel strikes and “Sloane Rangers” (look it up). Sandbrook offers a provocative justification for narrowing the timeframe in his latest volume: 1979 to 1982 may be only three years, but they were “the most exciting and controversial years in our post-war history”.

“The Illustrated Out of Africa”, by Karen Blixen

 

288 pages, Cresset Press, ISBN-13: 978-0712624053

My-oh-my but what a problematic book we have here. Consider: a privileged white woman from Denmark – that’s in Europe, the birthplace of White People and, lemme tell ya somethin’ brother, they don’t get much whiter than Danes – leaves the good ole Danevang for Africa, where she steals up to 6000 acres from the helpless natives…well, I guess technically she bought it, but can whitey really be said to buy anything not in Europe? Hmmmmm? She then rapes the native soil by planting coffee – COFFEE! – and exploits the natives by employing them to harvest this Yemeni bean and compounds her sins by selling the stuff like the exploitative capitalist witch that she is. For shame, madam; for ever-lovin’ shame. Only…well, since Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke was a woman in the 20^th Century she just HAD to be oppressed herself, despite her high falutin’ status, and she provided all sorts of things for the native Kikuyu people who worked her farm, and her husband gave her syphilis, and, hell, Meryl Streep played her in Out of Africa…so she just CAN’T be bad, right? (man, it’s exhausting being woke; I don’t know how the aggrieved do it).

So, anyway, what all this is about is The Illustrated Out of Africa by the aforementioned Baroness Blixen – or Isak Dinesen, if you prefer her pen-name. But this book is not like the other aforementioned Out of Africa movie, as this work is basically a chronological diary of this Baroness-cum-Coffee Farmer and her life in Africa. It is this long-forgotten and long-lost world – good or bad, you decide – that is, perhaps, the central focus of the book, perhaps unwittingly so. For Blixen loved the Africa she lived in and gives a sense that the surrounding natural elements embodied and reflected back her own depths of feelings and her joyous love for them. Throughout her autobiography, Blixen seems to have the uncanny ability to enter other people’s consciousness’ and virtually become the that other person, tracing their otherwise inscrutable thoughts and feelings back through their lives as though she had lived those lives herself. Reading Out of Africa is a magical experience as I felt as though I knew the minds of the other white folk she met on her farm in Africa and, surprisingly, of the native people working and living on the farm. Leaving must have been heart-wrenching for her.

The Illustrated Out of Africa reads like a diary – with notations on what happened on this day or what she said to someone on that day – but it is so much more; a reflection of one woman’s love for a home she built far away from her native land and the people she met. So I guess we can forgive Blixen for her whiteness…just this once.

“Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II”, by Jennet Conant

 

443 pages, Simon & Schuster, ISBN-13: 978-0684872889

Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II is Jennet Conant’s tale of Alfred Lee Loomis and the development of radar at the private scientific research facility he founded at Tuxedo Park, Orange County, New York. Much of the first half of the book is a biographical sketch of Loomis, chronicling his privileged life and the fortune he made on Wall Street (especially his skill in predicting the Crash of ‘29 and coasting through much of the Great Depression) and his surprising (to his contemporaries) switch to scientific studies.

Conant goes far in placing the research done at Tuxedo Park in context, showing that the breakthroughs achieved at this private laboratory were as important to ending the war as any number of other, more famous discoveries, such as cracking the German Enigma Code, or the development of the atom bomb. Be prepared for a lot of technical lingo, though, an unavoidable issue when one writes about scientific experimentation; but also be prepared for a fleshing out of the characters behind all of these discoveries: Tuxedo Park is replete with stories and anecdotes regarding Loomis and those around him, something that goes a long way towards humanizing these otherwise hazy individuals.

While there are other books on other inventions carried out during World War II, this is the first work that I know of that focuses on Tuxedo Park and the man who privately financed these scientific breakthroughs. And I really wonder why it is I never heard of Alfred Lee Loomis; you can’t know every tale of discovery and risk, but, I mean c’mon, the story of this private businessman/inventor/philanthropist/patriot forking over his own cash to create inventions that would bring the Nazis (and Japanese) to their knees deserves to be more wildly told. With an eye for talent and the means to do so, Loomis transformed himself and his backyard playground into one of the preeminent research facilities in the world; indeed, I would have to say that Tuxedo Park ranks only behind Los Alamos in importance for America and the world in terms of impact.

Tuxedo Park goes a long way towards correcting this criminal oversight, detailing as it does the creation and functioning of what was, I have to keep stressing, a privately funded escapade. While some of these inventors, scientists and physicists may very well be known to others with a more in-depth background in scientific inquiry than I possess, for noobs like me Tuxedo Park was a revelation, and I can only marvel that only the US of A could make national defense a private as well as a public domain.

“The Secret Ring: Freud’s Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis”, by Phyllis Grosskurth

 

245 pages, Da Capo Press, ISBN-13: 978-0201090376

The Secret Ring: Freud’s Inner Circle and the Politics of Psychoanalysis by the late Phyllis Grosskurth is a revelation about the “court” of fellow shrinks that Sigmund Freud created in order to enforce the heterodoxy of psychoanalysis as preached by him and to defend against blasphemous ideas from the heathen deniers of his central role in the movement – I use religious terminology only half-seriously, for this seemingly rational man, one of the founders of the movement that today harms as many people as it “helps”, was as dictatorial as any Pope in enforcing his decrees and in punishing any transgressors.

Mittwoch Psychologische Gesellschaft, The Wednesday Psychological Society (to give the organization its official name; it later became the Wiener Psychoanalytische Vereinigung, Vienna Psychoanalytic Society) was the forerunner of the organizations that now exist, and consisted of a Who’s Who of the early psychoanalytical movement: Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Wilhelm Reich, Otto Rank, Karl Abraham, Carl Jung, Sándor Ferenczi, Guido Holzknecht, Isidor Isaak Sadger, Victor Tausk, Hanns Sachs, Ludwig Binswanger, Carl Alfred Meier, Sabina Spielrein, Ernest Jones and others that were invited to join as the years went by (it would ultimately be succeeded by the modern-day International Psychoanalytical Association).

It was, in fact, Jones’ suggestion that “a secret committee be formed as a Praetorian guard around Freud” as necessary to defend the Godfather from the many slings and arrows that were flung his way by his many detractors – but it was also, unofficially, put in place to keep a watchful eye on Jung in order to better “preserve the purity of psychoanalytic theory”; thus, the whole Freudian/Jungian schism was there from the start. Freud was enthusiastic about the idea, especially by the “secret” aspect of the committee, going so far as to decree that any “rejection of any part of the theory meant personal rejection of him” and that “anyone whose ideas differed from his own…was an ‘enemy’”.

But this “secret ring” (complete with an actual ring that each member was to wear at all times) didn’t last for very long, as the members of this specialized confraternity more often than not couldn’t see eye-to-eye on any number of subjects (in Grosskurth’s words, the “fantasy had been dissolved by the harsh reality of human beings unable to get along together”). The last official meeting of this group that Freud personally participated in was in mid-1926, after which it became the IPA, as noted above. It’s been said that psychiatrists are as crazy as their patients and, after completing The Secret Ring, I was convinced of the veracity of this statement.