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“The Story of Prince Alasi and the Princess Firouzkah”

Most of this story consists of injustices overlooked by Alasi due to his intense love for the young, wicked prince who is placed in his charge. Beckford dissolves the homoerotic tension to reveal (the spoiler is in the title!) that Firouz is actually the princess Firouzkah. She has been raised with a philosophy of hedonism and Alasi is her heart’s desire.

The next (4th) volume of Clark Ashton Smith stories has Vathek fanfiction that finishes the third and final of these collected debaucheries, so it’s time to confront the Episodes of Vathek. These stories were meant to be published as nested narratives told by the damned in Muslim Hell, with there being a place in Vathek set aside for this very purpose.

“The ABC Murders”

Poirot appears to be in a battle of wits against a serial killer who is sending him anonymous letters, advertising the date and city where the murders will occur. This is a fairly good thriller, seasoned by the simultaneous story from what is ostensibly the killer’s perspective. Of course, nothing is ever as it seems in Christie’s stories, and the Why of ABC is quite ingenious.

WHAT?? HIS LANDLADY’S DAUGHTER IS EXPLOITING HIM, A MENTALLY ILL VETERAN, TO WAGE A BATTLE OF WITS AGAINST POIROT?? I DID NOT SEE THIS ONE COMING! I’m almost going to be disappointed if it DOESN’T turn out this way

I really don’t know, lol. Cust is at the scenes of the murders but Christie has enough plausible deniability as to what actually happened. I think that Cust will be the key to figuring out who the murderer ACTUALLY is. Both Thora Grey and Franklin Clarke are looking pretty good for it, so naturally it’ll end up being someone else entirely.

Suspecting that the murderer was Franklin Clarke, killing his brother for some reason, with the previous two murders serving as a blind.

Okay. I’m not so sure what is going on with Cust now. It would be quite a different story if he truly was the killer. Given Christie’s penchant for reveals, I’m like 50/50 on whether he is a red herring, maybe an individual who “ABC” sent his list of names and addresses to, maybe set up as a patsy due to the alphabet scheme. I suspect that all but one of the murders are a cover for the motive of the other.

lol is it inspector crome

Okay, the mystery is that we know the real name of the murderer but he will presumably be operating within Poirot’s range under an assumed name…

Breaking with the typical Christie format, we have Poirot set up against a serial killer who is writing him anonymous letters. We already know the killer’s name and what he looks like. This bears more of a resemblance to the Japanese style of detective fiction a la Edogawa Ranpo, where there is more suspense in how the killer will be outed and caught rather than the juggling of potential suspects.

What??? If I am correct then Christie is giving away the identity of the murderer in the second chapter!

So I got this book maybe three years ago? But decided that I was gonna read the Poirot books in the order that they were published. The big-name book in this collection is Death on the Nile, and it’s the first in the volume, but the A.B.C. Murders - which is the one I’m currently reading - is second in the running. What gives???? Also I despair of how many books are between Nile and Five Little Pigs ☠️

Surprise!! This story has a bittersweet ending. Perseus realizes that he has been sent to give peace to Athena’s priestess. Naturally, the goddess is incapable of admitting any wrongdoing. Anyway, this tries to rehabilitate the story of Perseus as he had a heart to heart with Medusa, even expressing his sympathy, and for a time he tries to tell her story - Lynn’s true story.

lol @ the Granae encounter

also Hermes, don’t you be covering for your sister Athena! At this point Medusa’s death appears to be a hit orchestrated by the Gods to cover their own inadequacies. Or maybe Medusa is being killed while her wicked sisters live as a horrible mea culpa for millennia of suffering???

Whoa! It isn’t immediately apparent but the jump to Perseus’s part of the story has a time-skip of 2,000 years, with the Gorgons having now achieved a mythic status, though some people still tell that Medusa’s existence is a punishment, something that AtHeNa DeNiEs BeCaUsE mAyBe In ThE tWo-ThOuSaNd YeArS sInCe ThEn ShE fOuNd OuT sHe MaY hAvE mAdE a WhOoPsIe

Like, I guessed that the body changes were gonna result in them growing wings, but I wasn’t sure.

Narrative shift here to the conception of Perseus and more horrific crimes committed against women. The detail of Danae spreading both her arms AND her legs while Zeus impregnates her as a golden shower is a bit raw. I see how she is being juxtaposed with Medusa, here.

Things went from bad to worse over the past 25 pages. In crowbarring Stheno and Euryale into some sort of family narrative, Medusa has petrified both of her parents on accident - including her Uber-supportive father who still regarded her as his daughter instead of cursed - and her younger sisters, after condemning Athena, ended up with an even worse version of the curse than Medusa.

Lynn fills out some important details that humanize Medusa. She had a family, she had to do things as a priestess of Athena. She had to get to her lair for her encounter with Perseus somehow, though right now she is only returning home to her family so that she can denounce Poseidon - since Athena in Her Impotent Wisdom would not countenance to understand a rape victim - and then do the Greek disgraced woman thing.

I just realized this is the second Greek retelling I’ve read in a row where a woman is raped in the temple of Athena 🤢

This telling of Medusa’s story begins at square one, more or less. I have only the faintest idea as to what her original legend truly details so I have no reference to how much invention is taking place here.

Medusa is being set up as an intelligent, canny young woman who must decide the affairs of men looking for wisdom and trying to shelter abused women… when they will let her. This is dramatic irony.

This may not be quite as satisfying as Howl’s Moving Castle - there is something about Sofie’s coming of age story that works where it is not quite so much character development for Abdullah - but it’s delightful and funny.

THE GENIE PUT JAMAL IN THE DJINN’S CASTLE

I’m kind of bummed that this didn’t stay a straight Arabian Nights style story, except it basically did considering how many bizarre kingdoms the heroes in those stories visited, and having the MC travelling through a series of strange lands was apparently Jones’s forte

WOW THIS WAS A PRETTY ENORMOUS SET OF FIFTY PAGES!!! And now the book is firmly tied in as a sequel to Howl’s Moving Castle!

Umm, mysterious magic cats!! And now I believe that Abdullah has been turned into a toad… temporarily

Abdullah’s banter with the genie is great. It’s also fun to see that the genie is one of those twisted ones who tries to turn wishes to punish the wishers, something that Abdullah has to deal with.

lol this is worth it if only for the duels of insults and compliments rendered in extravagant Arabic fashion

After reading the classically brutal Arabian Knights and the more horrific treatments in Vathek and Clark Ashton Smith’s work, it’s nice to get a middle-eastern story that is written like a humorous fairy tale a la Dealing With Dragons. Abdullah’s predicament makes this a very different story than Howl’s Moving Castle, at least, thus far.

AGHHH I GOTTA FINISH THIS RIGHT NOW

I’m kind of disappointed that there is no literal Devil at play as a power behind Mamoulian but at the same time I’m not. If I want a straight telling of Faust, well, there are two pretty commendable classics waiting for me, and I’ve already had the comedy option with Terry Pratchett’s Eric (okay now I have to read both of these before I get to Eric in my Discworld rereads!!).