Okay, I know I swore in my review of the previous book in Laumer's "Imperium," Assignment in Nowhere, that there was "NO WAY I'm going anywhere near tOkay, I know I swore in my review of the previous book in Laumer's "Imperium," Assignment in Nowhere, that there was "NO WAY I'm going anywhere near the 4th and final book in the series" (largely based on my growing disappointment with the series overall as well as the hellacious cover). But after my previous book - The Black Bats: CIA Spy Flights over China from Taiwan 1951-1969 - proved to be a bit challenging and textbooky (albeit fascinating), I decided I needed to follow that with something fluffy and dumb; and so when I saw this staring out at me recently at McKay's Used Books…well, 99 cents later there I was, and here we are.
Sadly, "fluffy and dumb" doesn't begin to describe this stinker. I wish I could say it was so bad that it was good in some sort of goofy or kitschy way, but in truth it was really so bad that it was just really bad. Plot makes no sense, characters make no sense, English- and Swedish-speaking rat/aliens make no sense…
The first three books of the "Imperium" were written in 1961, '65 and '68, before Laumer suffered a massive stroke in 1971. He eventually returned to writing, but as Wikipedia diplomatically puts it, "the quality of his work suffered, and his career declined." For whatever reason, Laumer returned to the Imperium in 1990 - a 22 year gap - for one of his final books; but, well…the world could have easily survived without this one.
That said, Laumer's concept of the multiverse "blight" is still pretty solid (see my review of Assigment for a quick summary of how that works), and so it would be nice to see a different author pick this up and run with it. But please - no more rat-people!...more
Just reread Max Barry's excellent Providence, and wanted to find some other books with sentient spaceships, so Google pulled up this one. But, yeah...Just reread Max Barry's excellent Providence, and wanted to find some other books with sentient spaceships, so Google pulled up this one. But, yeah...this is one big wedge of poorly aged 1960's cheese, from its cover with the bombshell blonde and lawn-dart rocket ship to…whatever the hell was going on around page 80, when I finally bailed.
Basically a collection of short stories published from 1961-69, the overall plot (such as it is) follows the "brainship" HX-834 and its "brain" component Helva as she cycles through various human "brawn" partners to cruise the galaxy and share such dramatic space adventures as providing physical therapy to children, delivering embryos to sterile planets, or…well, that's as far as I got. Too much '60s dialogue ("let's cut the chitchat!"), and frankly - and I know this will sound bad - too many female characters getting over-emotional, particularly Helva herself.
Also - "Helva"? Not a particularly great name, but certainly better than "Acorna," the heroine of another of McCaffrey's ten book series. Yikes.
(I actually read the library's paperback "pocket book" copy, not Kindle - but this is the only GR listing that had the proper cover)...more
Before he became that "Louis L'Amour," Louis Dearborn LaMoore was just a young cowboy who took off "yondering" as a professional boxer and merchant seBefore he became that "Louis L'Amour," Louis Dearborn LaMoore was just a young cowboy who took off "yondering" as a professional boxer and merchant seaman for a number of years, touring the world, getting into trouble, and observing. The result were these and other stories (some of which are similarly collected in Night Over the Solomons), which present a charming - if not particularly thrilling - look at the "Indiana Jones," "Terry and the Pirates," Saturday matinee movie serial world of the late 1930s.
Most of the stories in this delightful paperback actually take place east of Singapore, ranging along the north and east of the Indonesian archipelago from Kalimantan (East Borneo) across the top of the Celebes (today's Sulawesi, and the world's most strangely-shaped island - see below), and down to northern New Guinea. The place names alone - Gorontalo, Amurang, Qasavara, Banggai, Halmahera - conjure up a world of tramp steamers, Malay pirates and tropical adventure; although to my surprise, the villains here are mainly German, as it turns out their pre-war presence in the area was greater than that of the Japanese. (This ultimately made sense when I realized that Germany wanted to divert British attention away from Europe - the British Navy apparently helped safeguard the security of the then-Dutch East Indies - while Japan was solely focused on their pre-Pearl Harbor "colonization" of Manchuria. There are also multiple bittersweet references to "the world war," because as these stories were written, "the world" hadn't actually started enough of them that they needed numbering.) L'Amour shows a genuine affection for both the region and its peoples (including his multi-cultural crew) - a welcome palate-cleanser after having also just read L. Ron Hubbard's poorly written and overtly racist Spy Killer, produced during the same period (and bought together for $2 at Manassas's excellent McKay's Used Books).
[image] (Many of the stories take place along the 400-mile Gorontalo Peninsula that extends east along the top of the island)
In the last two stories, L'Amour finally does head "west from Singapore," producing a longer tale of early WWII adventure in Egypt and the Red Sea. Aside from offering such colorful descriptions as this:
His memory searched around Hanish Island, around many a Ghubbet and khor, down the Masira Channel and past Ras Markaz, across the dreaded Rakka shoals and up to Jiddah town, where the Tomb of Eve with its wide, white dome stands among the old windmills.
…he gives us hard-boiled '30s dialogue like "I got four of the best rodmen that ever slung a heater," which I assume means…he has four of the best assassins who ever carried a gun? I don't know and I don't care - it's just such fun to read. There then follows a scene that just has to have been stolen by Lucas and Spielberg, where our hero "Ponga Jim" Mayo finds himself in the bottom of a lost Egyptian tomb surrounded by hundreds of deadly snakes - unless maybe that was just a common occurrence back then in that part of the world?
As L'Amour's earliest writing, this isn't great literature, (I'm assuming he improved with age, although I've frankly never read any of his more famous Western works), but it sure was fun, especially for anyone who's spent any time in Southeast Asia. The stories get repetitious and predictable after a while, as they were not originally written to be read back-to-back, but were published irregularly in "Thrilling Adventures" magazine (I think); and only assembled into book form when L'Amour dug them up and finally re-published then in 1987, (and we're lucky he did, as he passed away the following year).
Good harmless fun from my parents' - and probably your grandparents' - generation. A solid 3.5 stars rounded up; the only thing keeping it from a straight 4 is that stupid cowboy photo some idiot slapped on the cover :(
[image] (Sadly, "Wings Over Brazil" is not included in this collection - would have been nice to see "Ponga Jim" take to the air!)...more
Solid war reporting from a simpler - if certainly more horrific - time, when Americans were unified in fighting a pair of megalomaniacal European FascSolid war reporting from a simpler - if certainly more horrific - time, when Americans were unified in fighting a pair of megalomaniacal European Fascists, rather than fratricidally divided over a domestic one of our own creation.
These aren't "war stories" per se; there are very few descriptions of fighting here. But there are many insightful dispatches here on American troops outside of combat: preparing in England to move forward into the war; deploying to North Africa in preparation for the Allied invasion of Italy; and then finally, in the brief final section, some pieces on the initial seaborne assault itself.
As always, Steinbeck is a helluva writer, but he proves himself here to be a hell of an observer and reporter as well. Recommended for anyone who wants to remember what a united America looked and felt like, because God knows when we'll see that again… (Unrelated, but I also like how back in the '60s they'd put ads in the back of paperbacks for other books - don't remember when they stopped, but haven't seen these things in at least 30-40 years...)
A 2-star pulp quickie from the 1930's at best, but 5 stars for nostalgia value, so I'm giving it a generous 3 overall.
White Death is the last (thankfuA 2-star pulp quickie from the 1930's at best, but 5 stars for nostalgia value, so I'm giving it a generous 3 overall.
White Death is the last (thankfully) of the three "G-8" books reprinted in 1970 with the cool Jim Steranko cover art, although Berkley (and others) continued reprinting the whole endless series with their original covers well into 2010, though God knows why - these first three were pretty bad, and I have to imagine that the quality didn't improve over the next 100+ stories.
However, my Dad had grown up with G-8 as a kid, and so I well remember how excited he was when these 60¢ reprints first showed up on the spinning paperback rack down at Malloy's Drugstore. So reading this one now (painful as it was from a literary standpoint) helped me imagine just a little bit what my Dad might have been like as a kid.
This was originally published in 1933 - the same year Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany - and so still written from the perspective of looking back at a stand-alone "Great War," rather than as "Part 1 of 2" world wars. Yet by the time my Dad must have read these (he was born in 1928), the concept of a second war was already a firm possibility, if not yet a certainty. Neville Chamberlain made his infamous "peace for our time" statement in 1938, only to see Hitler invade Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1939 - so it's interesting (albeit fruitless) to try to imagine my Dad's frame of mind as he read this and later books.
Hogan himself continued writing G-8 stories up through 1944, by which point his readership had their own war and heroes to read about, and so Hogan drifted into obscurity. However, his early life deserves a quick mention - he started out as an amateur boxer, silent movie pianist, and cowpuncher (working at a ranch in Colorado called "The G-8"), before enlisting towards the end of the war and training as a pilot himself. With the "tak-tak-tak!" of his Vickers machine gun being the "pew-pew-pew!" of its day, the best parts of these books are the realistic aerial combat scenes - which, sadly, just make the rest of his ground-based stories that much weaker by comparison.
FINAL PERSONAL NOTE: I grew up just south of the famous "Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome" in upstate New York, which to this day runs air shows all summer long and continues to fly the SPAD VII* shown below (same as G-8's) as well as a number of others. As a result, much like my Dad I have been fascinated by this "golden age of airplanes" since I was a kid, and I probably STILL have a couple of unfinished Revell models down in the basement somewhere, (from back in the day when plastic models still involved glue and paint, not just snap-together kits in pre-molded colors that any idiot can put together in half an hour). Well worth a weekend trip for anyone within range and looking for a unique outing as the world once again begins to travel - check their website at https://oldrhinebeck.org/!
[image]
*"SPAD" is often written as "Spad," but in fact should always be in all caps since it is an abbreviation of the plane's original French manufacturer, "Société Pour L'Aviation et ses Dérivés." Just sayin'......more
Ugh...once again, Laumer is all over the place, plot-wise - I won't even try to summarize. So really just 2 stars for the story itself.
But Laumer's whUgh...once again, Laumer is all over the place, plot-wise - I won't even try to summarize. So really just 2 stars for the story itself.
But Laumer's whole concept of "the Blight" (which would have been a far better title that "the Imperium" for this series) is actually pretty cool, and ahead of it's time in taking on the multiverse. Basically, think of each universe as a straight line running through time parallel to all other universes. Well, in one of those universes, a pair of scientists came up with a way to travel perpendicular to those timelines, allowing them to travel between universes. Problem is, in their early experiments they basically screwed up royally, wiping out thousands of universes running "close to" our own, and so leaving us as basically an island surrounded by an unstable wasteland of destroyed universes - the Blight.
So 4 stars for the Blight itself, lifting this book to an average (if wholly-undeserved) 3. And with that I have now finished the original "Imperium" trilogy...but there's NO WAY I'm going anywhere near the 4th and final book in the series, written 22 years after Assignment (and nearly 20 years after Laumer's debilitating stroke), and dealing with, well, this:
Need to add a special "pulp" or "nostalgia" shelf for this and probably others. My Dad grew up reading these as(SAME AS MY REVIEW FOR The Bat Staffel)
Need to add a special "pulp" or "nostalgia" shelf for this and probably others. My Dad grew up reading these as a kid, and when they reprinted some of them in the early 70's, be bought the first couple and I know I read at least the first two - and who could forget those classic covers by MARVEL legend Jim Steranko?
Otherwise, don't remember a thing about it - but I do remember Dad getting kind of goofy excited about seeing them again, and telling me who G-8 and sidekick Nippy Weston and manservant Battle were...miss you, Dad....more
Dumb, dreky fun from Laumer - as with much of his fiction, this is pretty bad, but in the best possible way. A good example of his "everything but theDumb, dreky fun from Laumer - as with much of his fiction, this is pretty bad, but in the best possible way. A good example of his "everything but the kitchen sink" style of sci-fi world building, Laumer throws in random scenes set in weird worlds the way Star Wars tosses off a place like Kamino or Utapau - for the sheer joy of creating it, (except that Laumer was doing it a full decade before Lucas filmed his first text crawl).
One note of actual interest here: a mere 20 pages before the end, Laumer drops this sentence:
But nobody, even someone who had only talked to me for five minutes three years before, could pretend to have forgotten my face: black-skinned, scarred, one-eyed.
I remember the scars and the lost eye - but "black-skinned"? Could Laumer way back in '67 have perceived his interplanetary Odysseus as black, and then never dropped any mention of it until this throwaway line at the end? How cool (and ahead of his time) if that was actually the case - that yes, the hero* was in fact black, but that it just didn't matter to the story one way or the other. Now that's a future I could get on board with.
* Named for some ungodly reason "Billy Danger"...yeah, I have no idea what he was thinking here....more
Impossible to give this less that 5 stars for being such a classic and so far ahead of its time. But also hard to give it more than 3 for writing stylImpossible to give this less that 5 stars for being such a classic and so far ahead of its time. But also hard to give it more than 3 for writing style - "I was still traveling with prodigious velocity" - and how well it has (or more correctly, hasn't) held up. So a strong 4 overall.
I know I've read this before, although no idea when - maybe high school? Anyway, centuries ago. Surprised at how short it is - almost a novella - and didn't remember how much post-Darwinian social science monologuing there was. But still, a fairly crisp story, and one worthy of a better film adaptation than either the good-but-now-outdated 1960 version with Rod Taylor, or the disappointing 2002 redo with Guy Pierce....more
Yeah...not that good. This book is half Planet of the Apes (suspiciously published just two years earlier), half The Time Machine, and half pure WTF??Yeah...not that good. This book is half Planet of the Apes (suspiciously published just two years earlier), half The Time Machine, and half pure WTF???
As usual, Laumer is all over the place in terms of location, genres, tone and style - but while that often works for him, it really doesn't here. Plus, his hero is a total douchebag towards the young woman who sacrifices everything to help him get back to his own world and shallow-but-hot bimbo of a wife. Oh, and his alternate universe pals include the septuagenarian Manfred von Richthofen (the Red Baron) and Hermann Goering (the Nazi everything), which even a half century after its publication still feels like "too soon."...more
(Am traveling back in Taiwan, so brought along a stack of old "read and throw away" paperbacks, this being #1.)
Very corny cliché-ridden story, but som(Am traveling back in Taiwan, so brought along a stack of old "read and throw away" paperbacks, this being #1.)
Very corny cliché-ridden story, but somehow 3-star fun nonetheless. Every character is a total caricature - the sensitive-yet-dead-inside hitman (who's also a classically-trained organist); the albino psycho-pervert henchman and his sadistic gay mob-boss brother; the former-soldier-who's-seen-too-much priest; the beautiful blind girl who's the only one who can truly "see" the sensitive-yet-dead...you get the picture.
Written in 1973, this was eventually filmed in 1987 when Mickey Rourke was pretty near his peak (right after "Angel Heart"), with some additional characters added (including an early Liam Neeson role - right after "The Mission").
FUN FACT: The main character here is named Martin Fallon, which for some weird reason is also the pen name Higgins used to write his seven Paul Chavasse novels, (only one of which I've read, Year of the Tiger, and it SUCKED). So was this some meta concept where our SYDI hitman/musician also supposed to be a lousy suspense novelist as well, or did Higgins just really like the name?...more
Okay, first off this book is really two separate stories, and you can start by just totally throwing the second one away. It reads like one of Ray BraOkay, first off this book is really two separate stories, and you can start by just totally throwing the second one away. It reads like one of Ray Bradbury's weird "good old boys on Mars" stories from The Martian Chronicles, full of yokelisms like "gubment" and "a quiet, respecful feller" and "the sheriff's deppity" and "fifty or a hunnert;" and non-PC descriptions like "he dropped to all fours and advanced in traditional Wild Injun style" - you get the picture. The difference is that Bradbury has the excuse of having written in the late 40's, whereas Laumer wrote this nonsense in 1985.
BUT...the first story does have some interesting things going on. Laumer plays with style here, telling the whole story in single paragraph snippets of dialogue, ranging from generals to senators to factory workers to terrorists to aliens to the inner monologue of the sentient Bolo battle tank itself. Plus, Laumer makes some ahead-of-his-time observations on topics as diverse (and currently relevant) as how isolated terrorist attacks are the best way to fight a vastly superior military power, the inherent unpredictability of artificial intelligence, and even "the possibility of synthesis of artificial metals, which is to say plastics with metallic properties" - which was actually pretty prescient, since back then that whole field was still called "metallurgy" and not yet "materials science."
Unfortunately, the above positives aside, Rogue Bolo suffers from many of the same flaws as much of Laumer's other work. His characters are either consistently bland, or else one of only three distinct (and frequently-repeated) voices: (1) hard-boiled futuristic private dick, which he writes pretty well; (2) redneck rube, which he writes terribly; and ALL CAPS ALIEN, which in books like this and End As a Hero is just painful: "YOU ARE DIRECTED TO DISPATCH NECESSARY FORCE TO MAKE CONTACT WITH THE AUDACIOUS ENTITY WHICH DARES INTERFERE WITH MY EXALTED WILL." Also, for every decent idea he might have about the things to come, he totally flubs all the easy calls. His characters still "dial the phone" and say things like "pass the biscuits Marge," messages are still spit out on little strips of paper, etc.
But most problematic (if not laughable) is the idea that the various generations of Bolo technology will continue to be used so very far into that future, (i.e., well into the 30th century). He describes some of the Bolo models as serving on the inter-planetary front line for centuries at a time with only minor updates. Yet even writing in the mid-80's he should have known that NO military technology can survive anymore for even a few decades. I mean, just look at the changes since this book came out, with the introduction of stealth technology, drones, cyber and space weapons, etc. - and then try to anticipate where we'll be in another 10 years, much less 1,000...
I've heard about Laumer's "Bolo" books for as long as I've heard of Laumer himself, so am glad to have finally read one. But based on this sample, one is probably enough....more
There is some 5-star Laumer (notably Dinosaur Beach), there is a lot of 3-star Laumer...and then there is the occasional, lamentable 1-star Laumer - aThere is some 5-star Laumer (notably Dinosaur Beach), there is a lot of 3-star Laumer...and then there is the occasional, lamentable 1-star Laumer - and this one is really bad, 1-star Laumer. Instead of a plot, we have 4-5 competing storylines thrown together in an ungainly mash-up of Norse mythology, "The Highlander," "First Blood," the first "Wolverine" movie, HAL from "2001," a freak storm (that's never explained), some revolutionary new power-generating technology (that's kind of explained)...it's just a mess.
Plus, it's a poorly written mess. There's a cast of 100s, but zero character development. Published in 1969, the story apparently takes place in the early 80's (based on one vague mention of World War II plus 36 years), and so there are some "futuristic" touches like the above power plant and...maybe some advanced weapons? While Laumer's writing style usually works when it's first-person-tough-guy, it's awkward and clunky here, and sounds more like some corny 1940's than the 1980's:
The counterman at the all-night beanery waited until the quiet man in the gray slicker looked over the menu chalked on the dusty blackboard. He shifted the broomstraw to the other corner of his wide mouth.
And the dialogue's no better, all "nyahh, a wise guy, eh?" lines like "go knit a sweater, copper!" or "cripes, the poor boob'll drown!"
So...yeah. That said, will I still read more Laumer? Probably - because I'm still hoping there's another Dinosaur Beach out there!...more
Recently reminded of this book; took me back to my preteen years when I was really into the whole cowboy thing. Interestingly, this was written in theRecently reminded of this book; took me back to my preteen years when I was really into the whole cowboy thing. Interestingly, this was written in the mid-30's when the author was still able to interview folks who actually remembered some of the gunfights discussed....more
Ok the title story is maybe a 3-star read, but then No Ship Boots in Fairyland is as cringy as it sounds, with a race of foot-tall fantasy creatures wOk the title story is maybe a 3-star read, but then No Ship Boots in Fairyland is as cringy as it sounds, with a race of foot-tall fantasy creatures who in my mind look like Robin Hood in the Disney cartoon version, and whose only named characters are Jimper, King Tweeple the Eater of One Hundred Tarts, and Princess Touch-me-not, so one of those "1 stars only because there aren't 0 stars" items.
The only piece of any real interest is Sandra Miesel's 20-page essay, The Long and the Short Of It, which as far as I know is the only "academic" study of Laumer as an author, discussing recurrent themes in his work, his background, influence of Raymond Chandler - a nice little think piece that actually makes me take him a tad more seriously.
I should probably add that I've only read "peripheral" Laumer - 4-5 of his standalone novels and his execrable "The Avengers" TV-show tie-ins - and none of his more famous Bolo or Retief books. I may yet give Bolo a try - his series about sentient battle tanks - but I plan to stay far away from the "satirical" Retief stories which, by their description alone and my existing experience with Laumer's "humorous" writing, sound like they'd be pretty awful by today's standards....more
Haha - just reread my earlier reviews of Laumer's Plague of Demons, Catastrophe Planet and A Trace of Memory, and virtually every thing I thought to Haha - just reread my earlier reviews of Laumer's Plague of Demons, Catastrophe Planet and A Trace of Memory, and virtually every thing I thought to say about this book I had already said in my reviews there. Anyway - here are my thoughts on The Star Treasure, repeats and all since I'm gonna assume no one has read - much less remembered - my previous comments.
So yes, Keith Laumer is kind of a guilt pleasure for me, largely because like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, you never quite know what you're going to get. But odds are, it's going to be a roller coaster of a ride, even if it doesn't really take you anywhere particularly memorable.
Laumer's "gold standard" remains Dinosaur Beach, and I continue to look for anything else of his that even approaches that excellent story. And while Star Treasure is definitely not the droid I've been looking for, it was still kinda fun in its own trippy way. Laumer does a mean sci-fi noir, projecting classic retro tough-guy style into the far future, so he can be worth reading just for his writing itself. A few examples:
I was still alive, but that was a mere detail, subject to change.
The last burst picked me up and threw me a thousand miles into an open grave and the mud showered down on me and a giant tombstone fell out of the sky to mark the place, but I didn't care anymore, because I was far away in the place where the heroes and the cowards lie together with a fine impartiality, waiting for eternity to pass slowly, like a procession of snails creeping across an endless desert toward a distant line of mountains.
It occurred to me that somewhere along the way I'd lost something valuable. I began feeling over the sand, looking for it, but there was nothing there but powdery chalk and broken pebbles. And I realized then that what I'd lost was no trinket that could be tucked in a pocket, something that I could replace for a few credits. What I'd left behind in my adventures was youth and health and hope for the future. Those are the treasures that you hold for just a little while at the beginning of life before you lose them once and forever. And mine had gone a bit more quickly than most.
As I've noted in previous books, his plots tend to get away from him, and Treasure is no exception. I was honestly 3/4's through the book before I figured out what the story was actually about, and as in all three of the above-mentioned books he takes a wild left turn in the final pages, introducing undiscovered alien races and universe-shaking developments in the last 20 pages that weren't even hinted at in the first 150. And his spatial leaps can be equally dizzying, shuttling within pages between Saturn's rings, tropical Borneo, Northern Virginia and the prison planet of Pink Hell. Indeed, throughout the whole book I found myself saying "this scene could come straight out of The Expanse," and then "this scene could be right out of Papillon," and then in quick succession "from Enemy of the State, Chronicles of Riddick, Shawshank Redemption, Dune, Prometheus," until - at the very end - "this kinda sounds like Dinosaur Beach!," (published the same year, but apparently serialized before that).
But I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way. Certainly none of this is great literature or even great sci-fi, but it still makes for a fun and unpredictable diversion - which is why I continue to return to Laumer every few months, if only to see what strange rabbit holes his mind takes him down this time......more
I've been a big fan of Alistair MacLean's ever since I read all of his earlier, i.e., "good" books (that is, everything from 1955's HMS Ulysses througI've been a big fan of Alistair MacLean's ever since I read all of his earlier, i.e., "good" books (that is, everything from 1955's HMS Ulysses through 1968's Force 10 From Navarone), but for some reason this one has sat unread on my bookshelf for years - probably in a stash of paperbacks I salvaged when my mom passed away - until I suddenly had the urge to see just how bad MacLean's sole Western could really be.
Well, the short answer is really frickin' horrible; although if that's not enough, the somewhat longer answer follows:
PLOT: The whole book reads like a cross between bad Agatha Christie (Murder on the Oregon Express?) and a mediocre episode of "Wild Wild West," (which had gone off the air four years before this was published). For the first half of the book I honestly couldn't recall if I'd read it before - despite the Western setting, the characters and predictable plot twists were so familiar from MacLean's earlier stories that it almost read as a parody of his own work.
NARRATIVE: MacLean was always at his best writing in the first person, but this third-person narrative is particularly grating. Much of that is probably due to his patented British suave-cum-flippant tone sounding wildly off key in this setting and historical period; but I suspect a lot was also due to what is generally seen as his overall mid-career slump into sloppiness. Consider the following random samples:
...he had about him the look of a divine on the qui vive for a pair of horns and forked tail.
Pearce wasn't demonstrably happy, but he certainly couldn't have been described as ebullient.
For every man aboard those coaches, death must have supervened instantaneously.
Claremont manfully quelled what was clearly an incipient attack of apoplexy.
Deakin staggered and sat down heavily then, after a few seconds during which the other men averted their faces in shame for lost manhood, dabbed some blood from a split lip.
Fairchild spoke weightily in his impressively gubernatorial manner.
...because of his rapidly increasing tiredness which was not but one step removed from exhaustion.
He ignited the tube of blasting powder, judged his moment to what he regarded as a nicety, then tossed it out the opening.
And MacLean's DIALOGUE isn't much better. Good guys, bad guys, Indians - all sound similar and generally British, ("We don't want any of those nasty ricochets flying about inside the cab,") or in the case of the really bad Indian, positively Confucian ("in weather such as this, the wise man does not linger"). We also get exchanges like this:
"By God, Deakin, you'll pay for that insinuation!" Deakin said wearily: "Hark at who's talking about insinuations."
And a final quote, which I liked for just a whole bunch of reasons (including three "that"s in the course of just ten words):
"Not that there's any reason to assume that they think that there is anything wrong in Fort Humboldt. But chances we cannot take."
Considering my long relationship with MacLean, I'd really hate to say good-bye to him with Breakheart Pass (which btw is a cool sounding title - although the pass only plays a minor role in the story for about 10 pages near the end). Luckily, I don't think I've reread The Guns of Navarone since the 60's - and so will add that to my to-read list, just so that I can end my half century relationship on an up note. Because quite frankly, other than that, further chances I cannot take....more
This was written just around the middle of Maclean's "good period," which generally ran from his first (and many would say best) book in 1955, HMS UlyThis was written just around the middle of Maclean's "good period," which generally ran from his first (and many would say best) book in 1955, HMS Ulysses, through Where Eagles Dare in 1967, (as opposed to the clunkers he wrote through the 70's and 80's). Like many if not most of his books from that early period, it's written in the first person, and while it's well-plotted and enjoyable enough, his voice and characters are so consistently recognizable there is absolutely nothing here that distinguishes Mr. Carter in this story from the similarly self-deprecating tough guy heroes in other books like The Secret Ways, The Satan Bug, When Eight Bells Toll, Fear is the Key and Night Without End.
I personally prefer either his World War II or Cold War books, but there's certainly nothing to criticize here (aside from a villain named Dr. Slingsby Caroline), so I good solid 3-star recommendation, if you've already read most of his other stuff....more
In the late 1950's, Graham Greene and William Lederer gave us two classic novels of the Cold War in Southeast Asia, The Quiet American and The Ugly AmIn the late 1950's, Graham Greene and William Lederer gave us two classic novels of the Cold War in Southeast Asia, The Quiet American and The Ugly American. In Passage of Arms, Ambler in effect completes the trilogy with what could be called "The Stupid American," about an in-over-his-head Delaware businessman who gets sucked into an illicit arms deal between Malaya and Indonesia.
This is frankly an odd little book, neither spy story nor thriller, although it's been classified as both. In reality, it's more a travelogue gone wrong or even a sort of horror story, with the only real action briefly taking place in the final third of the story where you find yourself yelling at the characters "don't go to Indonesia, DON'T GO TO INDONESIA!!" But like any good horror story, they of course DO go to Indonesia, where things go seriously wrong.
I'm actually surprised that PoA averages a 3.88 Goodreads score, since based on the story and writing alone I would have just given this a 3. But in my case I had to give it an extra star for purely sentimental reasons. I first spent time in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong - the three main locations of the story - as a touring back-up guitarist for a Taiwanese pop star in 1980, a full 20 years (and a full Vietnam War) later than the story told here. But yet the Southeast Asia I knew then is much more similar to the one Ambler describes than it is to today's modernized and overly-Westernized tourist traps. So while some other - and obviously younger - readers even classified this as "historical fiction," for me it was a pleasant trip down memory lane....more
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