“The Dancers at the End of Time”, by Michael Moorcock

 

 

534 pages, White Wolf Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1565041868

 

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. The Dancers at the End of Time was the tenth in this and includes the tales An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands and The End of All Songs. This series of novels and short stories is set at…the End of Time, an era “where entropy is king and the universe has begun collapsing upon itself”. The inhabitants of this era are immortal decadents who create flights of fancy via the use of power rings that draw on energy devised and stored by their ancestors millions of years prior. Time travel is possible, and throughout the books various points in time are visited and revisited; space travelers are also common, but most residents of the End of Time find leaving the planet distasteful and clichéd. Amongst the main characters besides Jherek Carnelian (one of the few humans at the End of Time to have been born naturally, rather than created) are Mrs. Amelia Underwood, a time traveler from the late 19^th Century, the enigmatic Lord Jagged, Miss Mavis Ming – and, the Fireclown. Incidentally, the title of the series is itself taken from a poem by a fictitious 19^th Century poet, Ernest Wheldrake (a pseudonym used by Algernon Charles Swinburne, ahem), which Mrs. Amelia Underwood quotes in The End of All Songs.

 

An Alien Heat (the title comes from the poem Hothouse Flowers by Theodore Wratislaw) was first published in 1972 and concerns the alien Yusharisp who comes to Earth to warn its remaining inhabitants that the universe is coming to an end, his own planet having already having disappeared. But the Earthlings are unfazed by this revelation from the stars, as they believe him to be yet another doomsayer, the End of the Earth having been predicted for centuries. But the crux of the story revolves around Jherek Carnelian and one Mrs. Amelia Underwood, a time traveler from Victorian England, with whom he falls in love and pursues across time. And so on and so forth…Moorcock’s work is more comedy than Sci-Fi – although there’s a lot of that going on, make no mistake – and as usual it features his flair for extravagant prose and exotic settings. But there’s more going on here, for An Alien Heat is also a warning against excessive indulgences and the damage they cause to people on a profound level. Civilizational collapse at the End Times…who doesn’t want to read about that? But this work displays a wit that is unique in Sci-Fi in a future in which “inherited millennia of scientific and technological knowledge” allows the remaining inhabitants to “play immense imaginative games, to relax and create beautiful monstrosities” as they revel in their decadence.

The Hollow Lands (whose title comes from the poem The Last Word by Ernest Dowson) came out in 1974, and continues the tale of Jherek Carnelian who, along with the other inhabitants of the End of Time, have resumed their ways as if Nothing Had Happened – only to be interrupted by the Lat, an alien species of piratical musicians (you read that correctly). As with An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands features innumerable descriptions of the End of Time, the fascination Carnelian has with the Victorian Era and the satiric parallels with 20^th Century Western civilization – circa 1974, that is. It is a little lighter and more humorous than its predecessor but it is obviously the bridge book in the trilogy as so much of this work is more of the same, with no real advancement in the characters or the story overall. And, perhaps this is just me, but The Hollow Lands seemed rather more absurd than An Alien Heat, as if Moorcock was trying to outdo himself from one book to the next. Nevertheless this book is still a worthy continuation of the tale begun in its predecessor and is a fun, exciting, well-written adventure romp, filled with aliens, lascivious immortals, wonky time travel and a comedy of errors in Victorian England. Perhaps writing these works was what Moorcock needed after having written about albino sociopaths and what not, and while not all of the humor has withstood the passing of time, it is still a rather fun romp all the same.

Finally, The End of All Songs (whose title comes from the poem Dregs by Ernest Dowson) appeared in 1976, in which Jherek Carnelian and Amelia Underwood meet Una Persson and Captain Oswald Bastable, who introduce themselves as members of the Guild of Temporal Adventurers (any Moorcock fan worth their salt remembers this pair). They explain the notion of the multiverse as the combination of all simultaneously existing realities before sending Jherek and Amelia back to the End of Time. There, Jherek finds all his friends who had vanished from 1896 alive and well, except for Lord Jagged who has yet to return. Amelia is now more tolerant towards the people of the End of Time, though still occasionally revolted by their lack of morals. She and Jherek resume the life they led in An Alien Heat – which is interrupted by the sudden arrival of a shell shocked, crazed Mr. Underwood (that would be Amelia’s husband), Inspector Springer and a dozen policemen – oh, and the crazy Lat. This last book in the trilogy is much darker than the first two, and the description of the earth as the end approaches and things begin to fail is chilling. But while pessimistic, The End of All Songs does have its positive moments, and the way in which it displays late 20^th Century society is, if anything, more obvious than it was when originally published. As with most science fiction, The Dancers at the End of Time is a commentary on the era in which it was written, and a particularly successful example, too.

“Frederick the Great” by Nancy Mitford

 

304 pages, Hamilton, ISBN-13: 978-0241019221

I don’t own Frederick the Great; I checked it out of my high school library way the hell back in the Righteous 80s when I went on my Great Fred tangent and read everything I could about this newly-discovered (for me) monarch. As I’m sure you recall, the author, Nancy Mitford, was the eldest of the famous (infamous) Mitford brood; in addition to this book and biographies of Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire and Louis XIV, she wrote classic modern-day novels such as Highland Fling and Love in a Cold Climate. I didn’t know any of that when I read this book, only that I wanted to cure my ignorance of one of the most important-ever German monarchs and fill a hole in my knowledge of German and European history.

It seems to me that Mitford writes history is if she were writing fiction: her eye is always on the telling anecdote or characteristic, and in her biography her Frederick would appear to have more character than even she is used to dealing with; he was the King of Prussia who was more comfortable with the ideals of the French enlightenment but with the morals of the Medici (as he would have described it himself). This eccentricity must have delighted Mitford, seeing as she came from a family of eccentrics, and the portrait she paints of Frederick and, indeed, of all international diplomacy is that of a collection of idiosyncratics who compete with each other by blasting the brains out of each other’s subjects.

However, the more I got into Mitford’s Frederick the more convinced I became that some rather important historical facts had been left out, that Nancy wrote what she wanted to write about and left the rest on the shelf. Overall, her biography has the feel of an overview, like one of those large-scale books that I get off of the Barnes & Noble remnant pile that are full of pictures and reproductions, strung together with a bit of prose. Her Frederick lacks the conversational touch that she brought to historical writing, which means long dry patches as Frederick fights his battles without much character analysis as to why this “Enlightened Monarch” made war against other rulers so that he could expand his power.

Frederick the Great is a good beginning for anyone wanting to know more about this most curious of rulers, full of fluid prose and colorful anecdotes. And pictures; lots of pictures. The focus of the whole is on Frederick’s cultural pretensions as he tried to out-French the French and be accepted as a great power and an equal of the same (this did not stop Frederick from making war on the French, however). Thus, if you are looking for a primer on his battles and diplomacy, it is light on these topics, although they are, of course, covered. It is also, for all of Mitford’s obvious admiration for the man, fairly even-keeled in its treatment of its subject. A useful and colorful addition to the man who ruled “Sparta by day and Athens by night”.

“Historic Photos of Detroit”, by Mary J. Wallace

 

220 pages, Turner, ISBN-13: 978-1683369295

Historic Photos of Detroit by Mary J. Wallace is just one in a whole series of books of historic photos, each of which focuses on a specific city and, sometimes, specific era of the place in question; this particular volume covers the era starting in 1900 through 1969 through nearly two hundred photographs, the quality of which are…alright, perhaps because they were printed on mass-produced matte paper rather than glossy, which I thought would have been standard for a photo book like this one. Wallace made her selections from the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University (where she worked as an audiovisual archivist) and from the Burton Collection of the Detroit Public Library, and so her familiarity with the material shows in the photographs chosen; many are of the lesser-known and even intimate variety, rather than a select few that become the standard due to their wider familiarity.

Wallace has divided her book into four chronological sections: the first from 1860 to 1899 (from the Civil War until the arrival of the automobile); the second from 1900 to 1919 (the birth of the auto industry through the end of World War I); the third from 1920 to 1941 (the early boom of the auto industry through the Depression); and the fourth from 1942 to 1969 (from World War II through the 1967 riots and the aftermath). What I most appreciate is the balance she shows in showing us images of the development in architecture with the photos of real people at work, in their fashions, and some historical events. Even when she picks the historical events, she selects an image that gives us a different perspective on the event. We all know the images of the fight of the Battle of the Overpass at the Rouge Plant. Not many of us have seen the image she shows us here of the peaceful demonstration before the struggle began.

A wonderful book from cover-to-cover, recapturing a lost era in which the Motor City was king of the world and an economic powerhouse envied by all. Would that we could become so again.

“Detroit: Engine of America”, by R. J. King

 

155 pages, Momentum Books, ISBN-13: 978-1938018114

How did a crude French settlement founded in 1701 along the Detroit River become the birthplace of the automotive industry in 1900? Well, I’ll tell ya…or rather, R. J. King will tell ya in Detroit: Engine of America and, as the editor of DBusiness magazine, DBusiness Daily News, Tech and Mobility News, Detroit 500 and Michigan Makers, there is no better person to relate the rise of Detroit (the book ends in 1900, so the fall is unrecorded). For so brief a book, King packs a lot into these mere 155 pages, as just about every important figure and event is brought up put in its proper place as to how it advanced the interests and development of Michigan’s First City. Divided into 11 Chapters, with each chapter dealing with a different decade, Engine of America’s broad argument is that, even before Detroit put the world on wheels through the automobile industry it was a key driver of American economic progress.

Seeing as, for much of this time, Detroit was a frontier town in the middle of nowhere, it was forced to become self-sufficient and develop all of its own industries to survive: first fishing, farming and hunting and then shipping, stoves, locomotives and related products, all propelled by western migration and immigration. By the time the automotive industry was founded, all the pieces were in place for Detroit to become the engine of the world. As Engine of America shows in so many ways, Detroit is a rather special place, being not only the oldest city in the Midwest – take that Chicago! – it is older even than the United States; it was always a magnet for immigrants, not only from overseas but, especially, from the East Coast (by 1830 up to 1000 people were arriving daily). So Detroit has always been a happening place, even if the rest of the country or even the world didn’t know it, and it still is. Just ask us.

“The Emperor’s Last Island: A Journey to St. Helena”, by Julia Blackburn

 

277 pages, Pantheon, ISBN-13: 978-0679411505

Why the hell has it taken me this long to review The Emperor’s Last Island: A Journey to St. Helena by Julia Blackburn? I bought this book when I was a kid and was well into my Napoleon kick, so I’ve owned it…oh, going on four decades now. But I’m just now getting ‘round to it after having checked that it’s nowhere to be found on this blog. Hmmmmm…so, anyway…In short, Blackburn’s book is a history-cum-travelogue about Napoleon’s life on this remote rock in the Atlantic and her own journey to the same to check it out. Overall it is just as The Times of London described it: “a magically idiosyncratic collage of history, biography and travel writing” – and, thus, not all that easy to quantify (although I kinda did).

Blackburn begins with a fascinating natural history overview of St. Helena and the impact of human settlement on the same, but the bulk of the book is given over to her reflections about Napoleon’s sad years in exile. Overall, a foreboding sadness fills the accounts of these empty years, like a heavy fog landing atop a shuffling transient. One can only feel for this once Great Man, ruler of most of Europe, left to rot – emotionally, psychologically and physically – on a tiny corner of an inhospitable island while being watched constantly by British soldiers and their bitter commander. He is left in the end with nothing but his memories and a few imperial trinkets to play with, and Imperial Court Etiquette to insist upon.

Blackburn makes clear that this isn’t a proper history or biography, and there are several factual errors sprinkled throughout (Cardinal Fesch was Napoleon’s uncle, NOT his brother-in-law, is but one example). But it is her portrayal of Napoleon – Boney, The Corsican Fiend, The Ogre – as a fat, pale, short, middle-aged man condemned to live out his life in loneliness, boredom, absurdity and despair – and, in the end, in great physical pain – that makes for compelling reading and humanizes one of history’s most famous (notorious) marble men. Blackburn also weaves personal childhood and travel anecdotes into her story, lending it all a further poignancy and immediacy that stays with you and proves the Romans had it right: Sic transit gloria mundi.

“Dracula”, by Bram Stoker

 

200 pages, Penguin Classics, ISBN-13: 978-0140434064

Whenever I write one of these here reviews I try to get the exact edition of the book I read but, for the life of me, I don’t know which version of Dracula by Bram Stoker that was, so this edition by Penguin Classics will do. Well, then…what can one say about one of the most famous works of Western Literature ever written? First things first: Dracula was first published in 1897 as an epistolary novel, meaning that the tale is told through letters, diary entries and newspaper articles. The main protagonist is English solicitor Jonathan Harker, who takes a business trip to stay at the castle of a Transylvanian noble, Count Dracula, and make certain property transactions all across London at the nobleman’s behest. Hilarity ensues.

It was good to revisit a proper vampire – y’know, undead, fangs, blood-sucking, general disregard for human life – rather than these faggy emo pretty boys who spend their unlives bitching. Dracula is THE vampire Mac-Daddy who does as he likes and your life be damned. A proper goddam vampire with a Master Plan and the will to implement it. A life taker feeding on the blood of the living to perpetuate his own existence. Evil. E-V-I-L. Dead and loving it. “Living” for himself and not giving a damn about the world or others in it, except as food. A real nogoodnik. Bad with a capital “B”. A devil incarnate who makes no bones about his need and desire to dominate and oppress. And feed; this vampire drinks the blood of the living – and likes it.

So, yeah, there’s all that. Vampire and other tales of the supernatural are a dime a dozen anymore, amiright? But Dracula helped to start it all and probably sparked the imaginations of many wannabe writers, too. While gothic tales had been all the rage in the first half of the 19^th Century – forbidden castles, mysterious strangers, stormy nights, shrouded pasts, family secrets, etc. – they all dealt with villains and monsters that were all too human. But Dracula – and, it must be said, its precursors like Varney the Vampire from the 1840s or Carmilla from 1872 – was something new in which the antagonist was an inhuman thing that could not be vanquished merely by strong Englishmen and true armed with a writ from the Bench of High Court.

As to why it gripped the Victorian imagination, perhaps it was because Dracula – and vampires – represented the superstitions of the Old World as opposed to the scientific rationalism of the Modern, represented by the vampire hunters and their wares. Furthermore, seeing as how Dracula – this bloody foreigner – is also buying up properties all around London, perhaps he also was seen by Victorians as one of the unwashed masses descending on their capitol as a dark symbol of untrammeled immigration, feared especially as leading to ever-increasing levels of crime in the city and the rise of blighted, ethnic ghetto communities (remember, Jack the Ripper’s exploits ended a mere decade before Dracula was published).

There is, of course, the blood, with vampirism and tainted blood suggesting the fear of sexually transmitted diseases, or the physical and moral decay that was believed by many commentators to be afflicting society of the time. Such fears are not to be lightly dismissed, as the spread of maladies was still misunderstood by many. It was only in 1854 when John Snow at last proved that cholera was spread through contaminated water, while Mary Mallon – known to you and me as Typhoid Mary – spread that disease by her mere presence in the early 20^th Century. That a creature could do its worse by feeding on the blood of the living and spreading its curse in the same manner is hardly shocking in this context.

And then there’s sex, with the vampire used as a sexual allegory in which English female virtue is menaced by foreign predators. Dracula’s attentions are, at first, focused on the beautiful Lucy Westenra, the dangerously modern young woman who succumbs to the Count and his foreign, mysterious ways, while Mina, Jonathan Harker’s fiancé, is a quite different woman, symbolized especially by her selfless – and symbolic – nursing of her intended in a convent…on what was supposed to be their honeymoon, no less. It is because she is traditional and virtuous that Mina is able to resist the contemptable continental’s advances, while the much more free-spirited Lucy is quite powerless without a traditional moral grounding.

The writing style, meanwhile, is…okay, not to say curious. When the characters make diary entries almost unto their moment of death, or record supernatural predations before they nod off, or write in accented English (as Van Helsing does), it all adds a whiff of disbelief to a work already asking said disbelief to be suspended (it puts me in mind of found-footage films in which people continue to record everything even as the world is crashing down around them). Would one really take the time to record everything they see, even if they are on the trail of an inhuman monster and time is of the essence? Somehow, I don’t think so. But it is what it is, so just power through like I did and crack on (oh, and Dracula’s death at the end was pathetic, especially for such a powerful creature).

There’s a reason certain books, music, plays, movies and what have you endure: because they speak to something immortal in us; they touch a deep truth that we all recognize; they stir something within that drives us forward; or, they’re just ripping good yarns that entertain as they distract. And so that’s what Dracula does. Like all good fiction, it is escapism, even if dark and brooding escapism.