Reading Report for January 2024 (!!!!)
Starting off with the last week in December, 2023, I finished reading James Moran’s story “A Canadian Ghost In London,” from his collection “Fear itself.” I THINK I’ve read all the stories in the book. “Canadian Ghost” was fun and spooky and felt like a pilot or the start of a series.
For my Poe Project, I read Edgar Allan Poe’s “Von Kempelen and His Discovery.” Sort of a humorous science-fantasy story with the surprise treasure being a topical reference to the recent discovery of gold in California! Also read “The Imp of the Perverse, after seeing it mentioned on a Rod Serling blog (maybe in a post about Charles Beaumont.) The story takes a while to get going as the narrator spends pages philosophizing and only kicks in on the final page and a half, but then it really KICKS!!
For Fritz Leiber’s December 24th birthday I listened to audio of Leiber reading two of his stories; “Gonna Roll the Bones,” and “In the Witch’s Tent.” The latter being one of his Fafard & Grey Mouser stories, which I have neglected. I plan to read some of them in ‘24, as well as his “Change War” series.
I finished reading James Thurber’s “My Life and Hard Times,” (“The Night the Bed Fell,” “The Day the Dam Broke” and “The Dog That Bit People,”) as well as his introduction which has some insights for writers. I’d read some of the book when I was about nine years old but it and the introduction hit me differently now; I laughed at the right places in the stories and I appreciated the introduction more. (One jarring note; it was written in Sandy Hook, NJ!)
Well worth reading and re-reading.
I read Joe Haldeman’s “An Angel of Light” in a sci-fi Christmas anthology I bought and found that I’d read it before. Still worth the time!
And I read Arthur Conan Doyle’s story “The Lift.” Suspense with a premonition. Also read Doyle’s “The American’s Tale.” Set in Arizona, including Arizona’s swamps and giant man-eating plants. Put the inaccuracies down either to Doyle’s not having been to AZ or to the admission at the end of the story that the narrator may be a big liar! Great fun!
I should have mentioned that back in November I read Heinlein’s Weird Tales story “Our Fair City.” Funny and Weird. It’s in his collection “6 x X.”
Just breezed through Scott Coatsworth’s novelette “Slow Thaw” (in “Love and Limitations.”) Of course it’s a romance but it’s also an adventure set in the Antarctic (and around Christmas too!) Scott has been compared to Robert A. Heinlein and it’s an apt comparison. But Scott is his own individual self as a writer. The setting is meticulously researched and vividly described and the, uh, slow thaw between the two characters is presented realistically. And may I say he handles the feelings of widowhood well.
I read a few of the turn-of-the-last-century Philo Grubb stories by Ellis Parker Butler from “Philo Grubb; Correspondence-School Detective.” This may have been the first of several series (by different authors) about Sherlock Holmes wannabes who take a class by mail. I thought the first story (“The Hardboiled Egg”) was funny. Not laugh-out-loud funny but worth several smiles. I imagined Grubb being played by Larry Storch and Oritz being Forrest Tucker. I kind of guessed the ending but still fun!
I continued on with Grubb and read “The Pet,” and I did laugh out loud! Especially at one character’s description of Grubb in disguise; “He looks like an intoxicated pterodactyl…only hairier.” LOL!
Also read “The Eagle’s Claws,” which tied into an earlier Grubb story. Humor ages very badly but this book is fun!
For January 2024 (!!!!) I read Scott Coatsworth’s story “What the Rain Brings” from “Androids And Aliens,” and his story “Tight” from “Spells and Stardust.”
Commemorated Charles Beaumont’s January 2nd birthday by reading his “Infernal Bouillabaisse” and “Insomnia Vobiscum.” Both of which I think I’d read before. Wonderful stuff!
Read a few of Stephen Vincent Benet’s poems from “Young Adventure.”
Started my Fafhrd and Grey Mouser read by starting Fritz Leiber’s novel “The Swords Of Lankhmar.”
Had to look up an O. Henry line for a story I was writing and wound up reading his “The Love Philtre Of Ikey Schoenstein” and “After Twenty Years.”
Sat down to read a different story and instead read Rex Stout’s “Christmas Party” from “The Oxford Book Of American Detective Stories.”
Read Mark Twain’s “A Medieval Romance.” Warning to readers: Twain prankishly states he had no way of getting his characters out of the fix they were in so he just stopped the story there!
Been reading through the Doctor Who novelization “The Romans.” Great fun!
Read some of the poems in Shamir Griffin’s excellent poetry collection “Identity In Shades.”
And I’ve been reading some of Robert E. Howard’s boxing storied. A couple of letters he wrote to boxing magazines, a story that appeared as a “true” ghost story in “Ghost Story” magazine “The Apparition In the Prize Ring,” which was okay, I guess.
And then I read “The Pit Of the Serpent.” Sounds like one of Howard’s Connan the Barbarian stories doesn’t it? Nope! It’s the first of his stories featuring two-fisted sailor Steve Costigan. The laughs are plenty in this story narrated first-person by the Runyonesque Costigan himself. The brawl (in a former snake pit!) turns into something out of All Star Wrestling as Costigan and his rival from another ship toss the referee out of the ring!
All in all a breezy fun read and not what I expected from Howard!
Oh, and it calls the place a “Fight Club.” This was in 1929…
And I finally started reading Fritz Leiber’s “Changewar” stories, from the “Changewar” collection that came out about 1981 or so (paperback.) I started with the first in the book “Try And Change the Past,” which I think I read about thirty years ago on one of those wonderful weekend afternoons at my Brother’s house when he lived nearby. A wonderful blend of science-fantasy and a dash of horror. The book doesn’t have all the Changewar stories he eventually wrote and there’s a novel, “The Big Time,” which I will read eventually. I may have read “A Deskful Of Girls.” I have the 1968 MFSF where it first came out, so I’ll find out when I get to that story later in the book.
Okay, I DID read “Deskful of Girls,” from the original magazine—couldn’t resist! Fun and of course a lot of talk about “sex,” well actually “sexiness” probably. Pretty shocking for 1958! The story is also in the “Changewar” book but I can’t see how it fits into the series, unless it’s because a character keeps referencing “The Big Time.” (I’ll have to read the rest of them!)
And the story got the cover of the magazine, with an illustration by Frank Kelly Freas no less! Brian Aldiss’ famous “Poor Little Warrior” debuted in the issue and he doesn’t even get mentioned on the cover!
Of course, I did my weekly read of Kaje Harper’s fine stories (usually romantic, always worth it!)
I’ll close out here for the monthly report, on Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday, January 19, 2024.
—–jeff baker
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