Two Envelopes And A Phone > Recent Status Updates

It kind of reminds me of The Question Mark by Muriel Jaeger, even though that book is over 30 years older. The humans in this novel seem to live like the people in the movie Sleeper, but this is not a comedy, and the people haven’t handed themselves over to a government, but android overlords instead.

Enjoying. It’s Edmund Cooper, so I’m not sure I expect to be wowed. But I like this one.

One more story set in the extreme North, before the book relocates to way way, WAY, down South. And what a treat - the final North story is by an Inuk writer from Nunavut, and takes place in the Canadian Arctic!

Cooper’s first novel, so hopefully it manifests a certain brash exuberance. Cooper sort of ended up in his own distinct niche - and is a bit ignored these days - from what I can tell. An SF reading guide seems to think this one is worth a look…

The first tale - ‘The Sea Dreams It Is The Sky’ - struck me as a very intriguing mash-up of (a) Blood-Drenched Beard, (b) Ride The Pink Horse, and (c) Arthur Machen stuff. All of which was a good thing. Now I’m into ‘My Heart Struck Sorrow’, and I’m getting more emotionally hooked, faster. I’m in that weird zone where the book is hypnotic, but I can’t yet tell how I really feel about it. Need to finish.

Oh wow, I didn’t realize I had read something by this author already - Southern Gods. Meanwhile, the promotional line on the cover - ‘two tales of cosmic horror’ - reminds of when a publisher put two short novels by William Sloane together - To Walk the Night, and The Edge of Running Water - and called that duo ‘two tales of cosmic horror’. Sloane was entertaining, Southern Gods was pretty good, but let’s top those!

Read the first story, called ‘Murder While You Wait’. It’s so bonkers, and I absolutely loved it, and I’m just trying to grasp how a mind works, to come up with an idea like that. Even in the face of how many brilliant but gonzo ideas Brown dealt in, this one especially makes me think of another big favourite, ‘Whistler’s Mother’, an “impossible crime” mystery that just blows more complex efforts off the map. Bliss!

Knight of Shadows (Book 9) has a unique feel, and turning out to be my fave so far, of the back 5. It reminds me of the Zelazny singleton I love, Jack of Shadows.

I may do Books 9 and 10 of Amber without a book sneaked in between. On the other hand, Red is the Hue of Hell is screamin’ - SCREAMIN’ - for attention.

Her entry in this book - plus the biographical notes enunciating just how important her early efforts are to the history of Crime fiction - of course make me want to read more by Mary Helena Fortune. The story reminded me of the stuff of Freeman Wills Crofts.

Had some thoughts of finishing this tonight - but I’ll leave it, leave the rest for tomorrow. It’s a terrific piece of spy nonfiction, probably coming in at 4 stars, not 5, because a large part of the book takes place after a very exciting “finale” to a major investigation. Still, extended denouements can also be enlightening.

It's a ripping True Spy tale. Who knew that on the same day as my birthday, but an earlier year - 1961 - a Soviet spies in London was swooped on for arrest, but hey, also, the TV show The Avengers debuted! This I did not know. Fate telling me to finally check out The Avengers. Gotta finish with Jason King first, though.

That’s it for tonight. I pushed through some tiredness to try and make my 100 pages minimum daily objective, and have managed it (the short story this morning clinches it). The tease at the end of Chapter 3 makes me want to go on…but I don’t want to read as a zombie. I want to be fresh for the impending fireworks…

Loving it.

There was a time when books like this - Espionage Nonfiction- were more of a steady habit of mine. Now when I buy a few on a whim, they do tend to sit around neglected a little longer than before. But I do get to them. One of my faves was A Game of Spies, by Ashdown - Roger Landes is one of my heroes. Overviews of various Agencies have been interesting, but more specific cases, like here, are my preference.