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March to Other Worlds Day 3 Legionnaire by Gilbert M. Stack

March to Other Worlds Day 3 Legionnaire by Gilbert M. Stack

For Day 3 of the March to Other Worlds we’re going to turn to the fantasy series that inspired the original March back in 2020, my very own, Legionnaire.

 

I’ve been reading fantasy novels since at least the sixth grade when my mother bought me The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. That interest led me to pursue degrees in history where I was introduced to many wonderous periods in the human past. Eventually, I began to wonder why most fantasy literature was grounded in something akin to the European Middle Ages and one morning while listening to Mike Duncan’s podcast, The History of Rome, I found myself wondering what a fantasy series based loosely on the Roman Empire might be like.

 

And that’s the birth of my Legionnaire series. My Aquila is not Rome, but it shares a lot with that historical entity—especially its culture, its internal political problems, its border troubles, and of course, its amazing legions. Aquila and its world also differs mightily from Rome in a few regards—most particularly the existence and widespread practice of magic and an empire which includes and abuts places very different than those the Romans actually encountered.

 

My initial ideas for the story revolved around the second and third books in what would become the Legionnaire series. I wrote the first short novel to introduce the characters and the border provinces of Aquila before the story would take me elsewhere. In doing so, I got to play with something you don’t see so much in medieval-based fantasies—the critical importance of well-disciplined soldiers (legionnaires in my case) acting under competent officers and operating in a military tradition with centuries of success behind it. I also got to show what happens when that discipline breaks down due to poor leadership. And I get to do all of this while exploring the culture of my legionnaires and their subjects in The Fire Islands. Throw in some truly monumental magic and a threat worthy of an epic hero and his companions, and you get the kickoff novel of a series I’ve come to love as much as I do any of the great works of this genre.

 

I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.

 

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March to Other Worlds Day 2: The Andrea Vernon Series by Alexander C. Kane

March to Other Worlds Day 2: The Andrea Vernon Series by Alexander C. Kane

On Day 1 of this year’s March to Other Worlds, we looked at one of the great science fiction classics of all time. For Day 2 we’re going to take a look at an author who doesn’t take himself quite so seriously.

 

The Andrea Vernon books are a lighthearted parody of the superhero genre. They follow Andrea Vernon who has just become the administrative assistant to the head of the largest contractor of superheroes in the United States. As such, a significant portion of the book is dedicated to what you might consider the bureaucratic side of the superhero story. How do superheroes get recruited? How do you get groups of rugged individualists to do the jobs you need them to? (The phrase, “herding cats” comes to mind?) And what is a day in the life like for the administrative assistant to one of the most influential supers on the planet—a woman who (as a condition of her employment) Andrea is not allowed to ask questions.

 

If you say you don’t care about any of the above, then you haven’t read an Andrea Vernon novel yet. If you don’t think mind-numbing paperwork is funny, then once again I remind you that you haven’t read any books in this series. But it’s not all fun and games. Despite a very light tone that manages to highlight the absurd in every situation, there is some serious superheroing in these novels, If you like superheroes but are tired of authors who take the genre too seriously, you should definitely give Alexander C. Kane a try.

 

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March to Other Worlds Day 1: This Immortal by Roger Zelazny

March to Other Worlds Day 1 This Immortal by Roger Zelazny

Welcome to the March to Other Worlds 2022, my annual look at some of the great science fiction and fantasy series, plus a few gems that really bring their audience out of today and ground them firmly in a new reality. For Day 1, I’ve chosen one of the all-time great classics of science fiction to set the tone for the March, Roger Zelazny’s This Immortal.

 

This book won the Hugo and it’s easy to see why. Conrad (of the many names) is a fascinating man and the immortal of the title moving through a vividly and poetically depicted post-apocalyptic earth which is supported economically almost totally be alien tourists fascinated by earth’s history and the near destruction of the planet in the Three Day War. There is depth of thought regarding this future society evident in almost every page and yet never once did I have that experience of wondering, “Why is Zelazny telling me this now? Why can’t we get on with the story?”

 

The plot revolves around a rich Vegan who wants to write a travel guide to earth’s most important sightseeing spots starting with Egypt and the Great Pyramids. Conrad is an official in the government agency in charge of protecting the historical monuments. He doesn’t want to play tour guide especially after it becomes clear that some of the humans who attach themselves to the tour want to see the Vegan die before he leaves earth. They worry that the alien’s real purpose is to lay the groundwork for the Vegans to buy up the rest of the planet.

 

This is where Zelazny truly shows his depth because much of the plot revolves around a political terrorist group who have embraced the ideology of Returnism—wanting all humans to return to earth and make it an independent planet again. Conrad actually started this movement and led the terrorist cell in an earlier life, but came to a point where he believed that it was not capable of achieving the Returnist aim and set about instead exploring other paths. As with many diasporas, most humans don’t live on the planet anymore and the sad truth the Returnists don’t want to face is that second and third generation humans who have never seen earth don’t want to return there at all. Their lives are elsewhere now, but the fanatics can’t give up the dream and have become certain that killing this Vegan is the key to earth’s eventual independence.

 

To achieve their end, they have hired a fascinating assassin named Hasan who, thanks to a quirky response to a longevity procedure, is also effectively immortal (at least he’s lived for a very long time as a young man). Conrad and he know each other well but now they are reluctantly on opposite sides of the Vegan problem.

 

As if this tension wasn’t enough, the post-apocalyptic earth is a very dangerous place with mutations giving rise to legends out of myth and other monsters. Overall, it’s just a delightful tale filled with Zelazny’s brush-stroke characterizations that hang in the mind years after you read the piece.

 

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Necromancy in Naat by Clark Ashton Smith

Necromancy in Naat by Clark Ashton Smith

I have had the pleasure of reading a half dozen or so Clark Ashton Smith stories over the past year and this is easily the best of all of them. It starts with a classic problem in fantasy literature. The hero, Yadar, is trying to rescue the love of his life, Dalili, after she has been captured and enslaved. By the end, this will cease to be a simple recovery story and turn into a genuinely touching romance—something I never expected from Clark Ashton Smith whose previous stories led me to think he saw women as either prizes or evil seductresses.

 

In the opening pages, Smith mentions many adventures that Yadar endures in what are essentially throwaway paragraphs. Some authors would have used these adventures to build a novel. Smith uses them to exquisitely construct Yadar’s reputation with the reader. He’s a Sinbad or a Conan, capable of both martial feats and great cleverness, and these clearly incredible challenges he overcame are barely worth mentioning as footnotes compared to the true story to come. And what a challenge the real story presents. Dalili has fallen into the possession of the Necromancers of Naat and turned into a zombie. You read that right—before the story truly beings—Yadar has lost. And yet, Smith still manages to create a fantastic story that ends with a haunting and yet surprisingly beautiful expression of true and enduring love.

 

I’ve always enjoyed Clark Aston Smith’s work, but this story makes me realize just how capable he truly was.

 

I’d like to add a note about the narrator of this story, because it’s through him that I discovered these Clark Ashton Smith tales. Will Hahn is an amazingly talented reader who brings drama and excitement with every word he utters. So when I found out he had chosen to narrate a handful of stories from CASiana Enterprises Ltd., I wondered what it was about them that drew his interest. After listening to the tales, I not only understood, it made me want to see what other gems he’s uncovered and could share with the rest of us.

 

Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age by Jason McInerney

Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age by Jason McInerney

There are a lot more books on Alexander the Great than on the age he began, so this Great Courses book was a welcome opportunity to take a look at how Alexander’s conquests influenced so much of the world. It includes a couple of chapters on Alexander, a few on the major successor states, and then starts to go much deeper, looking at topics like literature, philosophy, the idea of kingship, and the impact that the Hellenized world had on the development of Rome and the west. My favorite two chapters dealt with the Maccabean Revolt in Judea. Overall, this is a fascinating look at the world between the conquests of Alexander and Rome.

 

League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout

The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout

The second Nero Wolfe novel is one of Rex Stout’s best. Two men, part of a large group of college friends with a tragedy binding them together, have died. One was ruled to have passed on by accident and the other by suicide, but someone is mailing the rest of the friends poems that lead them to believe that these two men were murdered and they are next on the list of intended victims. They are in terror, but guilt over the earlier mentioned tragedy in which a foolish college prank led to the crippling of a man, prevents them from taking direct action to save themselves from becoming victim number three. When Wolfe finds out about the problem, he devises a clever scheme for supporting his orchid practice. He basically agrees to put their minds at rest in regard to Paul Chapin (the crippled alleged murderer) for one of his usual lofty fees. He then goes about investigating the deaths of the two men (and the disappearance of a third).

 

I thought I had figured this one out from very early on, but as the story wound its way back and forth I came to doubt my first suspicion. It’s always fun to watch Wolfe and Archie struggle with the problem. But what really makes this book stand above so many of its peers was Wolfe’s need to clear Chapin of a criminal charge in order to be certain he could collect his fee. This one is gripping from beginning to end.

 

Martians, Go Home by Frederic Brown

Martians, Go Home by Frederic Brown

Where H.G. Wells had Martians try to conquer the Earth through superior technology, Frederic Brown has them succeed by the power of being ultra annoying. They literally bother people into madness, destroying first the entertainment industry and with it, the whole global economy. In doing so, they often annoy the reader as well. What starts out as somewhat humorous banter quickly becomes amazingly irritating, which lends credence to Brown’s premise.

 

If this wasn’t such a short book, I don’t think I would have ultimately gotten through the whole novel. But I’m glad it was short and I’m glad I finished this very unique take on first contact and alien invasion.

 

Review: Fer de Lance by Rex Stout

Fer de Lance by Rex Stout

This is the first Nero Wolfe adventure and it is packed with the things that make Wolfe stories so much fun to read while still showing that Stout was getting a feel for the supporting cast. I’ve been told that Nero Wolfe is reported to be the son of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. He certainly lives up to that parentage in this novel, although in truth he acts more like Mycroft Holmes than the more active Sherlock.

 

In this novel, Nero Wolfe is uncharacteristically driven to do a favor for the friend of one of his operatives. The favor is to find out what happened to her brother who has disappeared. And he makes a leap from this seemingly smalltime investigation to flamboyant push for a criminal investigation into the recent death of a university president on a White Plains golf course. The flamboyance—betting the district attorney in White Plains $10,000 that he will find a needle in the abdomen of the dead man (who reportedly died of natural causes) leads to the exhumation of the body but not to Wolfe’s involvement in the investigation. That comes when the dead man’s widow offers $50,000 to the person who provides the evidence to bring her husband’s murderer to justice.

 

And so we’re off on a crazy journey in which we learn all about Nero Wolfe and his main assistant, Archie Goodwin. Nero is an overweight man with a love of orchids and food, a grave fear of leaving his house, and a keen disinclination to do hard work. In fact, he’s only driven to conduct an investigation when his bank account gets dangerously low. (Fine dining and orchids cost a lot of money.) Archie is his capable hands and feet. He’s smart too, but not anywhere near Nero Wolfe smart. The stories are told by him and that gives we the readers our in as well. We know everything that Archie knows, but not necessarily everything that Nero Wolfe knows.

 

In an Ellery Queen style story, all of the information needed to solve the crime is made available to the reader. That is not always true in a Nero Wolfe mystery. But then, Nero Wolfe is always more interested in earning his fee than in justice. He’s also highly interested in his own comfort. So, watching Wolfe bring about the big reveal at the end of the story is always a pleasure and in this case it also offers special insight into the man called Wolfe.

 

Inside Sinanju by Richard Sapier and Warren Murphy

Inside Sinanju by Richard Sapier and Warren Murphy

This quick guide to the Destroyer series doesn’t really offer very much other than a great novella reviewing the events of Remo’s training in the first book from the perspective of his trainer, Chiun. When Sapier and Murphy wrote Created, the Destroyer, they did not yet have a full understanding of what Sinanju was. (Let’s be honest, they probably didn’t have even a basic understanding of it.) This retcon permitted them to tweak the origin story to fit in to the understanding developed later in the series and by itself it is worth the price of admission.

 

There are also a bunch of throw-ins such as a list of major villains, snippets about the main cast, and a tongue-in-cheek addressing of some of the issues that have come up in the series. The one thing I found most interesting was Warren Murphy’s list of his ten favorite Destroyer novels and why he felt that way. In a couple of cases I strongly disagreed with him, but his reasoning interested me.

 

Here's Murphy’s top ten with the number of stars I gave the same books:

1. Chinese Puzzle ****

2. Union Bust ****

3. Judgment Day *****

4. Assassin’s Playoff ***

5. Funny Money ****

6. In Enemy Hands ***

7. Mugger Blood *

8. Killer Chromosomes *****

9. Firing Line ****

10. Profit Motive **

 

Dilvish the Damned by Roger Zelazny

Dilvish the Damned by Roger Zelazny

Dilvish remains one of Zelazny’s best characters. A hero who has the misfortune of stumbling across an evil wizard preparing to sacrifice a woman to some dark god, Dilvish is banished to hell where he spends a couple of centuries before managing to escape again. He returns determined to gain vengeance and in the possession of a handful of devastating offensive spells (but no little magics like unlocking a door). He also has a companion, a steel demon horse named Black who is by far the best character in the series.

 

Each “chapter” is a short story published over the length of Zelazny’s career and they get better as Zelazny developed his talent. The first I read was Tower of Ice and it remains my favorite, but frankly all are quite enjoyable. Ultimately this is a story of a man consumed with the need for vengeance who never quite loses the hero within him.