“Corum: The Coming of Chaos”, by Michael Moorcock

 

 

397 pages, White Wolf Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1565041820

 

Over the course of the mid-to-late 90s, White Wolf Publishing produced this massive omnibus collection of Michael Moorcock’s “Eternal Champion” stories, a recurrent aspect in many of his tales. Corum: The Coming of Chaos was the seventh in this series featuring the character Corum Jhaelen Irsei, “The Prince in the Scarlet Robe”, and includes the tales The Knight of the Swords, The Queen of the Swords and The King of the Swords. Corum Jhaelen Irsei is an incarnation of the Eternal Champion and the last survivor of the Vadhagh race (perhaps a stand-in for elves?).

 

The first novel, The Knight of the Swords, finds Corum as his life of leisure is shattered when Glandyth a Krae, chieftain of the Mabden (Men; Humans; y’know, US), slaughters his entire family. Corum is captured, tortured and mutilated when his hand is cut off and his eye is put out; after his escape, utilizing his racial powers, his quest for vengeance against the Mabden and their creator gods, the Sword Rulers, begins. That’s the book in a nutshell, and I won’t spoil it more with any other details. At a mere 200 pages (in this omnibus volume, at least), Moorcock manages to tell a tale tight with action and detail. There’s precious-little character development or in-depth examinations of anyone’s motivations – beyond Corum’s quest for revenge and the Mabden’s desire for the destruction of all things Vadhagh – for Moorcock has a world to describe and things to destroy. It’s all GO GO GO, man, and get out of my way ‘cause I have yet another poetic imagery piece to get down on paper. There’s a lot of build-up to The Prince in the Scarlet Robe’s revenge-quest: Corum is lost; Corum is rescued; Corum falls in love; Corum loses a fight; Corum wins a fight…and so on and so forth. It does make one wonder why Corum was never revisited by Moorcock in a more significant manner; I guess that some characters just make more of a splash than others, with their creator along with the audience. All of the Corum books were published in 1971, so this collection feels rather more natural than some of the other omnibus editions in this collection; furthermore, as Moorcock had by now several works under his belt at this juncture, his writing seems rather more self-assured in these books.

In the second novel, The Queen of the Swords, we find Xiombarg (a Greater God and one of the Lords of Chaos, known as the “Queen of the Swords”…but then you knew that) winning a battle against the humanoid inhabitants in the planes over which she rules. The fight soon enough spills out into Corum’s plane, sending Prince Gaynor the Damned to direct the barbarian armies. Corum, with gal-pal Rhalina and the just-discovered Jhary-a-Conel (an incarnation of Jerry Cornelius who is also another incarnation of the Eternal Champion. Naturally), crosses the planes and find a world claimed by Chaos and looks it, with adventures and fights and blood galore. As with Knight, Queen is fast-paced in which lots of stuff happens with barely a moment to catch one’s breath; also as with Knight, Queen has precious-little character development or complex ideas. Its strength lies in the descriptions of the strange plain on which Xiombarg fights in which the main action occurs, poetical descriptors being Moorcock’s forte – speaking of which, Xiombarg, as a villain, is pretty lame: for a Greater God of Chaos she doesn’t do much but threaten and shout and appear cool but menacing (if the art is anything to go by), but she is dealt with rather easily…all-in-all a rather weak villain. The other fights in the book were much more interesting, especially the weird stuff with the warrior cursed by Balance. And the take on Chaos in this book seemed to differ from other books in Moorcock’s universe, as Chaos is not necessarily Evil and Law is not necessarily Good; they are merely two opposing forces seeking to dominate in their own fashion; here, Chaos is unabashedly equated with Evil and, thus, threw me for a philosophical loop.

Finally, in the third novel, The King of the Swords, we find that Corum’s peace is destroyed by a great spell – The Cloud of Contention – that sets everyone against each other: the inhabitants of the Sky City turn on each other, the forces of Law are broken again and Corum and his companions must travel in a sky boat across the planes to find out what the hell is happening. This is the end of the first trilogy starring The Prince in the Scarlet Robe, everybody’s favorite Vadhagh Prince (the second trilogy is reprinted in the twelfth book in this series, Corum The Prince with the Silver Hand, which will of course be reviewed in due time). This novel is rather weird as Moorcock really delves the complex cosmology of his Multiverse and exploring just what makes Chaos and Law tick, who and what the Eternal Champion is and how it all is interconnected. Deep Stuff, man. All sorts of different-but-connected dimensions are bounced-into and just as quickly bounced-out of (even more than the 15 actually named in this book) and we also are treated to a variety of Guest Appearances of other incarnations of the Eternal Champion (Corum meeting Elric here acts as a kind of counterweight to when Elric met Corum in The Sailors on the Seas of Fate). Yeah, there’s a lot going on in this short book, as should be expected by now.

“The Secret Keeper”, by Kate Morton

 

484 pages, Washington Square Press, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1439152812

The Secret Keeper is the fourth book by Australian author Kate Morton. In a nutshell, in 1960, 16-year-old Laurel Nicolson witnesses her mother, Dorothy, commit a shocking crime, a crime that stays with her all her life. Fifty years after the fact, in 2011, on the occasion of Dorothy’s 90^th birthday, Laurel realizes that this is her last opportunity to learn just why her mother committed her crime and the mystery behind the act. Digging into her mother’s past, she pursues each strand from the modern day, back to 1960 and 1941 – and even as far back as 1929 and Australia – encountering friends from her mother’s life, friends whom Dorothy’s family has never heard of. What is Dorothy’s secret, why did she do what she did and what does it mean for her family?

The Secret Keeper was not made for sprinter reading sessions; rather, one must take it easy and digest each fact and scene as it is presented by the author (a difficult process for me, seeing how impatiently I read everything). While it trapses back and forth through time, I, for one, was never confused or addled by this literary time-travelling; each date and location is clearly spelled out and the progress of the tale is made evident in the chapter (nothing felt like filler to me; every chapter was necessary). And once I realized that this hopping, skipping and jumping was intended to keep The Big Reveal cloaked until the end I was fine with it; I like a mystery as much as the next fella, and telling this tale chronologically would have ruined the story.

The Secret Keeper tells a complex family history with rich characters and interwoven lives. The main character, Laurel, is well-developed and compelling, while her mother – circa 1941 – is the same. But the supporting characters are good, too, despite the fact that they are there mostly for background: her sisters and brother, but also the mysterious Vivien and long-lost Jimmy (ah, Jimmy…) are well-rounded and believable. A rare feat, indeed, making these minor characters seem flesh-and-blood rather than mobile scenery. A good read all around and atypical for my usual fare, The Secret Keeper kept me interested throughout and made me want to leisurely read through to the end rather than rush like I normally do – and I even solved the mystery, too.

“We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy”, by Caseen Gaines

 

288 pages, Plume, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0142181539

When you read as much as I do (he said without the slightest hint of humblebragging) you sometimes just have to step out and have a little brain-candy – like We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy by Caseen Gaines, for instance. As the title explicitly states, Gaines chronicles the making of three of the 80s (and 90s, I suppose) iconic movies and bastions of my youthful memories. And it was, good, too: informative, chatty and, more often than not, engaging – although I could never shake the notion that it was also rather lightweight. I mean, many of the stories told within I was familiar with already: the Eric Stoltz firing; the issues with Crispin Glover; the stuntwoman injury; the DeLorean. That they were all brought together in one place in less than 300 pages was convenient, I suppose, but I guess I just wanted more detail, more untold tales, more behind-the-scenes secrets exposed by Gaines rather than other authors to be collated by Gaines.

It was also obvious that, while Gaines was able to talk to a great many people about the movies, he wasn’t able to talk to everyone involved. We have substantial discussions with the likes of Harry Waters, Jr. (known to you and me as Marvin Berry) and Mark Campbell (that would be Michael J. Fox’s singing voice) and others, besides – Huey Lewis, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson and even Bob Gale (one of the “Two Bobs” and half the creative force behind Back to the Future). But there is no Michael J. Fox, no Steven Spielberg and, according to the Introduction, a mere half-hour with Bob Zemeckis (the other of the “Two Bobs”). Naturally, there was NO WAY Crispin Glover would be involved. While I can’t fault a relatively new author from being unable to get past the bigger star’s gatekeepers, direct input from the major movers and shakers of the series makes the whole book feel incomplete and lacking somehow; Bob Gale was important, but so was Bob Z, and having extensive talks with the former but not the latter just makes We Don’t Need Roads seem rather incomplete.

All told, I liked We Don’t Need Roads as the nostalgic reawakening of a film trilogy near and dear to my heart, as with most 80s kids. But I just wish there was more there there.

“The Three Investigators”, by Multiple Authors

 

Random House

Along with the Endless Quest series of books (reviewed on November 11^th, 2021), I was enamored with The Three Investigators…er, not how you think. Every month my grade school – first Einstein Elementary and then later, when Fraser Public Schools closed it to turn it into a nursing home, Walt Disney Elementary – my class would get a catalog from Scholastic Book Club and we were all given the opportunity to shop for the books we wanted. And I always wanted the latest Three Investigators mystery. I’m sure I ordered other books, too…but I can’t remember what they were. But you better believe I remember my Three Investigators. And just who were The Three Investigators I hear you ask? Cretin:

Jupiter Jones – the leader of the crew and a former child-actor previously known as “Baby Fatso”, a nickname he understandably disdained, who never hesitated to strut his endless intellectual prowess and curiosity

Pete Crenshaw – the closest of the three to resembling a Hardy Boy, with good looks and natural athleticism, he always had the others’ backs, even when the three found themselves over their collective head

Bob Andrews – the smaller-framed academic with a father who was a newspaperman, he often proved to be the source for much-needed background information, earning him the title of “Records and Research”

Each of the books was ostensibly presented by Alfred Hitchcock (although in reality he had nothing to do with the series), introducing and concluding each volume. When he died in 1980, Random House had a dilemma: should they continue The Three Investigators series with Hitchcock, or find a replacement for him? They ultimately decided on the latter, and Hector Sebastian was born while Hitchcock’s profile on the books was replaced with a keyhole logo, beginning with The Three Investigators #31. In 1984, Random House revised the first 30 titles (the ones I collected), replacing Hitchcock with Sebastian in all – except for the very first book, Terror Castle, which features the fictional movie producer, Reginald Clarke.

The Three Investigators were originally published between 1964 and 1987 and through into the mid-90s, ultimately running to nearly sixty titles, although only the first 43 books are considered to be the original series. While each book is a unique mystery, they do share similarities with one another in that Jupiter, Pete and Bob are shown invariably battling nobly against the world while being dismissed by the stupid adults that consistently underestimated them, meaningfully relatable to their target audience of pre-to-pubescent boys. I, for one, was always enraptured by their perils and enthralled by their adventures and couldn’t wait for the Scholastic Book catalogs to come out each month so I could see what lay in store for Jupiter, Pete and Bob.

But make no mistake: The Three Investigators were uncool and not a little geeky. Obviously there was Jupiter, what with his husky physique and standard issue Hawaiian shirt, and Bob as the very definition of a prototypical nerd of the era, being a library rat who never stopped researching this or that; as for Pete, rather than hanging with the jocks he played sports with at school, he would inevitably be found at Three Investigators HQ, an abandoned RV buried under a mountain of junk in Jupiter’s uncle’s junkyard. Three friends with a shared love of adventure and problem-solving who just happen to find themselves at the center of one mystery after another. And they managed to do it over 20+ years and almost 60 books.

“The Secret of Terror Castle (#1)”, by Robert Arthur Jr.
192 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864013
“The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot (#2)”, by Robert Arthur Jr.
174 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864020
“The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy (#3)”, by Robert Arthur Jr.
180 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864037
“The Mystery of the Green Ghost (#4)”, by Robert Arthur Jr.
179 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0001601475
“The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure (#5)”, by Robert Arthur Jr.
160 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864051
“The Secret of Skeleton Island (#6)”, by Robert Arthur Jr.
160 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864068
“The Mystery of the Fiery Eye (#7)”, by Robert Arthur Jr.
164 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864075
“The Mystery of the Silver Spider (#8)”, by Robert Arthur Jr.
176 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864082
“The Mystery of the Screaming Clock (#9)”, by Robert Arthur Jr.
168 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0590303309
“The Mystery of the Moaning Cave (#10)”, by William Arden
176 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394837734
“The Mystery of the Talking Skull (#11)”, by Robert Arthur Jr.
179 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394837741
“The Mystery of the Laughing Shadow (#12)”, by William Arden
157 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864129
“The Secret of the Crooked Cat (#13)”, by William Arden
168 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864136
“The Mystery of the Coughing Dragon (#14)”, by Nick West
166 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864143
“The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints (#15)”, by M.V. Carey
175 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864150
“The Mystery of the Nervous Lion (#16)”, by Nick West
143 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394923086
“The Mystery of the Singing Serpent (#17)”, by M.V. Carey
146 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864174
“The Mystery of the Shrinking House (#18)”, by William Arden
145 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864181
“The Secret of Phantom Lake (#19)”, by William Arden
141 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394842578
“The Mystery of Monster Mountain (#20)”, by M.V. Carey
142 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864204
“The Secret of the Haunted Mirror (#21)”, by M.V. Carey
160 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0001600225
“The Mystery of the Dead Man’s Riddle (#22)”, by William Arden
145 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864228
“The Mystery of the Invisible Dog (#23)”, by M.V. Carey
145 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394844923
“The Mystery of Death Trap Mine (#24)”, by M.V. Carey
145 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864242
“The Mystery of the Dancing Devil (#25)”, by William Arden
134 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864259
“The Mystery of the Headless Horse (#26)”, by William Arden
144 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864266
“The Mystery of Magic Circle (#27)”, by M.V. Carey
143 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864273
“The Mystery of the Deadly Double (#28)”, by William Arden
140 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864280
“The Mystery of Sinister Scarecrow (#29)”, by M.V. Carey
151 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394864297
“The Secret of Shark Reef (#30)”, by William Arden
181 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0394842493

As for me, I never collected all of the books in the series, stopping with The Secret of Shark Reef, the last that the Scholastic Book Club offered, to my recollection; by then I had moved on to Endless Quest, Choose Your Own Adventure and histories and biographies. But I will never forget the thrill I had in following Jupiter, Bob and Pete as they solved crimes, researched mysteries and thwarted adults, book after book after book.

“Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics”, by Charles Krauthammer

 

400 pages, Crown Forum, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1770496538

God, I miss Charles Krauthammer; oft-times, he was the only reason to watch “Special Report” on Fox, and when he died in 2018 a great deal of my interest in that one-time Conservative NewsChannel passed, as well. Which is why I snatched-up his 2013 book Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics (from Clinton-Macomb Public Library for $1.00), a compendium of his articles and pieces from the many publications he wrote for – his voice may have been silenced, but the man’s words live on. And what words, too; few writers have the knack to cut through fancy rhetoric and partisan bullshit and get to the heart of a subject through incisive writing and cutting intellect. Krauthammer could and did, which makes his loss, after finishing this book, even harder to bear.

But his is a book about things that matter, and a great many things mattered to Krauthammer outside of politics, like art, math, music, chess, science and sports, and he used these differing, non-political fields to explain his politics in his usual forthright manner (some of his more pungent observations had me bursting out loud with laughter). While this book cannot be described as Deep Reading – they are, after all, articles designed to be consumed in a few minutes – the prose is addictive and the “chapters” are brief, typically two-and-a-half pages or so (so brief, in fact, that you’ll find yourself saying “okay, just one more and I’ll close the book” – only to read a half-dozen more before you realize it). Any of you bleeding-heart liberal commies wanting an insight into the Conservative Mind could do worse than start with Things That Matter.

“The Civil War: An Illustrated History”, by Geoffrey C. War, with Ric Burns and Ken Burns

 

426 pages, Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN-13: 978-0394562858

If you live long enough and buy enough books you end up with a collection that bounces all over the place but also with several books that reflect your core interests and desires – like the American Civil War, for example, my starting-off point for All Things Historical. Which is why this book, The Civil War: An Illustrated History by Geoffrey C. War, with Ric Burns and Ken Burns (yes, the guys responsible for the PBS Civil War documentary to end all documentaries) came into my possession. Because…why not? Can never have too many books, can you?

This work is essentially a companion to piece to that show, and if you’ve seen it multiple times, as I have, then many of the photographs will be familiar to you. Which should be the principle selling point of this book, for while there is a ton of information contained within, it is the pictures – and maps; wicked-awesome maps, likewise taken directly from the show – that is the selling point. Indeed, I found myself rewatching the show with this book on my lap, following along with what was happening on-screen with what was happening on-page.

This is thus not an exhaustive tome on the Civil War, but rather a primer that, hopefully, will whet one’s appetite to learn more, an illustrated history aimed at the general public that was inspired to seek out more by the PBS series. For all that it is an excellent resource on this most awful of conflicts that shows, through its images and maps, just how deadly and inhumane the Civil War actually was. With the political climate as it currently is, one can only hope that reading and watching all we can on the Civil War will convince everyone to step back from the abyss.