Grove Press, 1966, 407 p. Translated from the Spanish, La ciudad y los perros, (Editorial Seix Barral, S A, Barcelona, 1962) by Lysander Kemp

(I don’t usually remember exactly where I bought a book but with this one I do. It was in the Netherlands; in a charity shop/warehouse which had a large selection of books, one case of which were publications in English. I think it cost me one Euro, though it might have been €1.50.)

This was Llosa’s first novel and it is set in the Leoncio Prada Military Academy, among the cadets/pupils there, not all of whom are destined to join the army.

It depicts the everyday lives of the inmates, their raggings, joshings and bullying, their constant efforts to evade the rules – such as smoking, gambling, going over the wall at night, or even during the day – and to keep things secret from the officers. Some scenes are set in the surrounding city; illustrating memories of the inmates’ pasts or the intricacies of their love lives.

The plot revolves around the stealing of the text of a Chemistry exam the night before it is due to be taken. The designated cadet, Cava, makes a mistake and a window pane is broken. All passes are cancelled. In order to receive a pass to see his girlfriend a cadet nicknamed the Slave reports Cava to the officers. Later, the Slave is shot during a military exercise. The officers are at pains to insist it was an accident and ignore evidence and testimony to the contrary.

This is almost entirely a male environment; the dialogue often displays the prejudices of its time and place – especially with regard to the casual use of racist terms and to misogyny.

In their encounter the Slave’s father says to Alberto, “‘When you have a son, keep him away from his mother, There’s nothing like a woman to ruin a boy for life.’”

In the main we have here is an examination of the perennial battle of youth against authority, of the pressure to conform and of the constant tendency of institutions to cover up unfortunate happenings so as not to be shown in a bad light.

Pedant’s corner:- Translated into USian. I note La ciudad y los perros actually translates as The City and the Dogs. Otherwise; “tooth paste” (toothpaste,) “brief case” (briefcase,) “girl friend” (girlfriend,) “boy friend (boyfriend,) “on the double” (this military term is usually rendered as ‘at the double’,) “Montes’ bunk” (Montes’s.)

Gollancz, 2024, proof copy unpaginated. £22.99. Reviewed for ParSec 13.

AT THE REQUEST OF THE BOOK’S PUBLISHER MY REVIEW OF THIS NOVEL WAS WITHDRAWN FROM ParSec 13. I felt under no obligation to refrain from publishing my review here.  As a result of that request, though, I have made an amendment to the original withdrawn review; the two words highlighted in bold below.

We meet Edie (Edith, but she doesn’t like it) Morikawa as she is about to be released on unexpectedly early parole after eight years in prison. The last person she imagined would meet her is Angel Huang, her former associate whom she assumes grassed on her to ensure her own freedom. On the way up to Kepler Space Station, which orbits the Rock, the planet where the prison is located and seems to be otherwise uninhabited, Angel offers her a place on a team to carry out a robbery with a potentially stupendous pay-off. Edie refuses since she desires to go straight in order to help her sister Andrea, who has two children, Casey and Paige, and another on the way, courtesy of useless partner Tyler. Paige has cancer and needs gene therapy, but there is no money to pay for that.

(I note here a failure in imagination. Perhaps that’s the way the world will go, but even in a supposedly distant future, light years from Earth, a more equitable health care system, or indeed social system, than that which exists in the USA of the present day seems to be inconceivable to the author. But I suppose it gives the author a lever to manipulate their heroine.)

Staying on the straight and narrow will require Edie to find a job, helping Andie out at the shop where she works won’t do. But Edie has been blacklisted by Atlas Industries, which seems to control everything on Kepler. Its head and founder, Joyce Atlas, (a man despite the forename) was the intended target of Angel’s planned sting. Angel’s offer is the one thing that promises anything hopeful. When the reader finds out Angel is Atlas’s chief of security s/he is well ahead of the narrative in knowing exactly who did the blacklisting.

A curiosity of this novel is that most of the main characters are of Hawaiian heritage and occasionally speak in Hawaiian patois. (The blurb describes the book as a love letter to Hawai’i.) No matter. SF readers are used to the odd unfamiliar word or phrase, such as the one used in the title. Hammajang is a Hawaiian pidgin word meaning in a disorderly or chaotic state; messed up. Mention is also made of a Korean heritage area of Kepler. Oddly, there seems to be little attempt to assimilate there.

We are shown as much of Kepler as is needed for the plot, which runs along the lines expected from its set up. The space station must be quite large what with Atlas Industries and the different environmental and maintenance levels described. SF elements to the book are fairly incidental though; not much has gone into fleshing out this future scenario. While Kepler has an artificial sun and a simulated night sky, there is the usual layering of habitats, the lower levels grimy and dim, the upper airy and bright. In Angel’s gang Cy has a cybernetic arm and Tatiana has mods. Atlas Industries is developing a method of accessing people’s memories, provided they have a mod. However, Joyce Atlas does not come over as the sort of person to accrue a fortune as a business head – and, if he was, he would surely not succumb to the sting as presented.

Parts of this scenario strike as being very old-fashioned. There is a railway station (and presumably others) on Kepler, plus buses and a monorail. It has the feel of a city on Earth in the late twentieth century rather than a future space habitat light-years away. People – well, Edie – smoke cigarettes.

It’s easy enough reading, and totally undemanding, but there is no particular reason why this novel has to be SF. It’s a crime novel with a few SF trappings.

Pedant’s corner:- I read an ARC (proof,) so some or all of these may have been altered for final publication. The spelling ‘jewellery’, though the text was in USian, “florescent lights” (fluorescent; used later,) “under Joyce Atlas’ watch” (lots of instances of Atlas’ for Atlas’s, of which latter there was one example,) “as a I left” (that ‘a’ is superfluous,) “savouring our respective vises” (I know vise is USian for the clamping device. Do they also use it for character flaws?) “no one would risk cross risking Atlas” (no one would risk crossing Atlas,) “grew into hotspot” (into a hotspot,) “Morris’ deal” (Morris’s,) “part of tWard 2” (of Ward 2.) “I creeped back” (I crept back.) “I was surprised by Tatiana’s alas to go after Solstice” (desire makes more sense,) “an empty k3rb” (kerb, though curb for kerb was on the previous page, so why the shift?) “of thieve’s self-esteem” (either thief’s or thieves’,) “from the keb” (from the kerb.) “‘Every one of his devices have backdoor accessibility’” (every one … has … accessibility,) “the hotel staff was clearing the breakfast table” (was there only one of them?) “Even professionals had their soft spots” (as a generalisation this surely requires present tense; have their soft spots,) “lined with dim white lights that lead to” (that led to.) “It’s jaws were closing” (Its jaws,) jerry-rigged (it’s jury-rigged,) “a conversation pitwhile Cy went to” (pit while.) “She took to naturally” (She took to it naturally,) “‘but that time will eventually.’” (will eventually what? [run out, presumably but the sentence just stopped],) “and made groaned” (and groaned,) “each of us were in…” (each of us was in,) “‘you weren’t going to come with, I didn’t want you to feel left out’” (to come with us, I didn’t,) “cold yet still – crunchy katsu” (cold – yet still crunchy – katsu.) “I       watched         her      go.       ‘Shoots.’” (why the spacing? And the ‘Shoots’ seems extraneous.) “I wish it didn’t. I wish I could have let her go” (the narrative is in past tense; therefore: wished, x 2,) “while Andie and Tyler talking” (while Andie and Tyler were talking,) “I grit my teeth” (I know USians use fit for fitted but grit for gritted?) “‘To no end’ Duke growled” (to no end does not mean – as was implied here –  without end [that is just ‘no end,’] but instead it means ‘without purpose’,) “now he was surroundedone of the guards” (surrounded. One of the guards,) ‘incentive payments‘ (‘incentive payments’.) “I felt my heart’s quicken” (heartbeat quicken?)

B&W, 1996, 246 p, plus 2 p Introductory Note. First published in 1952.

Being the last in the saga of the Moorhouse family as outlined in the Wax Fruit trilogy and Aunt Bel.

This instalment starts in 1900 and focuses on Robin Hayburn, adopted son of shipyard owner Henry Hayburn. Though Robin is Henry’s natural son from a liaison he had in Vienna and has been officially adopted by Henry and his wife Phœbe (the youngest of the Moorhouses) after his mother died in a fire at the Opera House, his true origins have been kept from him. Henry wishes his son to follow him into the shipyard business but Robin is more inclined to poetry and writing, a prime source of conflict between them. To give some temporal colour, Aunt Bel is worried by the fact her son Tom Moorhouse is a soldier serving in the war against the Boers in South Africa.

When Robin develops signs of consumption it is decided to send him to Mentone in the south of France for its beneficial air. While there he meets Denise St Roch, friend of Lucy Hamont, the former Lucy Rennie, with whom Robin’s uncle David Moorhouse nearly made a fool of himself in The Philistines. At thirty, the experienced Denise is much older than Robin but she is a writer herself and has contacts in publishing. She offers him encouragement and a place to write in. Of course he falls for her.

There is nothing demanding about these books. They are designed to be easy reading and to bolster the sense of Glasgow its middle classes held of the city and themselves. None of the characters are drawn with sufficient depth to be more than pawns in the author’s hands. Sometimes that is all that is needed, though.

Pedant’s corner:- plus marks for the ligatures in Phœbe and mediæval. Otherwise; a missing comma before a piece of direct speech, a missing end quotation mark after a piece of direct speech, “Robert Burns’ poems” (Burns’s,) Dumbartonshire (the county is usually spelled ‘Dunbartonshire’, and was so officially in 1900 – and 1952,) “‘or anything, dear.’-Bel had not offered it-‘But it’s just’” (‘or anything, dear,’ – Bel had not offered it – ‘but it’s just’,) wistaria (wisteria,) a strait jacket” (a straitjacket.)

Gordon & Cremonesi, 1978, 155 p

There is, of course, an ongoing fascination with the works of the Brontë sisters and their genesis, a fascination not restricted to the sisters themselves. Their brother, Branwell, apparently described to his friends a novel he had written but of which no trace was found in his papers after he died. This book is Barbara Rees’s construction of that novel. How much she had to go on, the form Branwell’s effort actually took, is not elaborated on in the surrounding blurb so the reader must just take what is presented to her/him as an example of a Victorian novel.

It consists of the reminiscences of a young girl taken home from Steepleton Horse Fair by Mr Robert Ogilvy to be brought up as a servant in his house, Thirleby Hall. He named her Harriet Dark. In this first-person account “Harriet” refers to herself as a foundling, but since she was four – or five, or six – years old at the time (and could speak well enough) that description is not entirely accurate. Orphan is more so. That such a child would not really remember her mother, nor realise till much later in the book that her mother had died is one of the factors which stretch credulity a little.

Under the unbending gaze and strictures of the cook, Mrs Duckham, Harriet develops a hatred for the household and of Mr Ogilvy but she eventually forms a friendship of sorts with the housekeeper, Mrs Minim, and in the fullness of time as she grows into adolescence, a yen for Mr Ogilvy himself. She finds more acceptance in the family of the local clergyman, Mr Ponsonby, whose wife helps her to read.

The later incursion of Nina Sanctuary, Mr Ogilvy’s intended, into Harriet’s life darkens her outlook. Sanctuary treats her harshly and, in a touch of Gothic, she conceives the thought of herself as in league with the devil against the world; going so far as to believe her wishes directly contribute to Sanctuary’s death in a riding accident, after which Ogilvy falls into what the Victorians called melancholy.

The book displays some of the infelicities of an inexperienced novelist. Whether this is intentional on the part of Rees in trying to replicate what Branwell Brontë might actually have written, or are her own, is impossible to determine. They do, though, lend an air of verisimilitude to proceedings.

Despite Ogilvy’s continuing indifference to Harriet Rees contrives, on Branwell Brontë’s behalf, a happy ending of sorts.

Pedant’s corner:- “‘So you’re back then are you,’ said Mrs Duckingham.” (ought to have a question mark after ‘you’,) “elbows akimbo” (elbows resting on hips and pointing outward?) “will-of-the-wisps” (wills-of-the-wisp, or, better, wills-o’-the-wisp,)

Earthlight, 2002, 678 p, plus v p Dramatis Personae and ii p Map.

This is the fourth in the series of books where Turtledove unrolls his transposition of the Second World War in Europe into a fantasy setting – complete with mages, sorcerous energy, dragons, behemoths, leviathans and unicorns – though those last appear to have little military use and do not feature much.

His style is to relate episodes in the lives of various viewpoint characters to outline the progress of events in the wider world and/or the effects of those events on his subjects. The coming back to familiar characters is, as ever, marred by repetition of information the reader already knows about them or of thoughts they already had.

Rulers of the Darkness covers that juncture of the war where its outcome is not clear and has as its main military encounter an analogue of the Battle of Kursk. Meanwhile the sorcery equivalent of the Manhattan Project continues apace but clues are dropped that its effects will be to do with the manipulation of time rather than explosive destruction. The equivalent of the Holocaust here is not exact. There is racial hatred, yes, but it is deployed against a group, Kaunians, who had previously been imperial masters. The lethal form that hatred takes is to use its victims’ life energy to sorcerous ends.

Just occasionally (ie, once) Turtledove allowed a character to behave in a way that goes against previous conduct and attitudes. This is so rare with a Turtledove story that its occurrence was notable. And it was still tinged with a degree of self-serving.

Once again, misogyny, particularly among the soldiery, where here it spills over into rape, is rife. But then, soldiers behave as soldiers behave. It seems that is ever with us.

Despite a few people trying to do their best in difficult circumstances this is a savage world, with some bestial actors. It is not enviable in any way.

Pedant’s corner:- I note the map of Derlavai has been updated to say Bothnian Ocean to both west and east rather than Bothian to the west. Otherwise; “re-minding” (it wasn’t a line break, though may have been in the original manuscript, so; ‘reminding’,) ditto with Skrun-da (Skrunda,) “suggested than anyone” (that anyone,) “it chased town and caught” (chased down,) Gippias’ (Gippias’s. Again, most often names here ending in ‘s’ are given s’ rather than s’s when rendered as possessives, though not in every case,) “was was half cheerful” (only one ‘was’ required,) “on his far cap” (fur cap,) “a fool for joining” (‘a fool for joining’ makes the better sense,) “‘the way you let the Unkerlanters overextended themselves’” (‘overextend themselves’,) “‘for which I think him’” (thank him,) “as matter approached a climax” (as matters approached.) “‘They have way to make sure’” (They have ways to.) “Captain Turpino had” (Captain Turpino said,) “from one soldiers to the other” (from one soldier to,) “almost ever day” (every day,) “alarm in his an voice” (alarm in his voice,) “as ready as he had served” (as readily as he had served,) “‘We’re all fighting it, irregardless of whether’” (Okay, it was in dialogue but it should still be ‘fighting it, regardless of…)  “He knees and ankles creaked” (His knees and ankles,) Sirdoc (elsewhere, Sidroc.) “Without them, every footsoldiers would have” (every footsoldier,) “screened him away from” (screened him off from,) “where Vatran still stat” (still sat.) “One after another the wing commander promised to obey” (the wing commanders,)  “for politeness’ sake” (politeness’s sake,) “for not better reason than” (for no better reason than,) no opening quote mark at the beginning of a section which started with a piece of direct speech (I believe that is some sort of convention but it irritates me.) “The didn’t glitter so brilliantly” (They didn’t glitter.) “Szonyi’s waved encompassed” (Szonyi’s wave.) “It is probably that no one but ourselves” (It is probable that…) “those who would soon have lived under puppet king” (who would sooner have lived,) Talsu remembers eating mutton with Kugu (it was with a constabulary captain, not Kugu,) “for more women were less dangerous than most men” (‘for most women were …’ is a more natural construction,) a line consisting of only two words – ‘forestall’ and ‘such’ – separated by the width of the page.) “Her eye’s sparkled” (Her eyes sparkled,) “my mistress’ support” (my mistress’s support,) “in no certain terms” (in no uncertain terms makes more sense,) lese majesty (lèse-majesté,) “his boss’ legitimate books” (his boss’s.)

Polygon, 2021, 123 p.

This is another of Birlinn’s Darkland Tales which re-examine Scotland’s history from a modern perspective.

David Rizzio, secretary to the heavily pregnant Mary, Queen of Scots, was famously murdered in her presence by courtiers – and especially her husband Lord Darnley – jealous of Rizzio’s supposed influence on her.

This recounting of that incident is necessarily told in the present tense in order to underscore the inevitability of the ongoing rush of events once the assassins’ plot had been set in motion – and the inability of Mary or Darnley to affect those events.

Mina manages to invoke the feelings of the various characters she focuses on but usually by telling not showing. Hers is an omniscient narration laden with the benefit of hindsight.

The novella is perhaps mistitled, though. It is not primarily about Rizzio (he is dead by a third of the way through) but instead charts the relationship of Mary with Darnley and with her Lords. It is also of course an indictment of the misogyny of the times. In that respect Mary never stood a chance. She had flaws enough of her own even without that to contend with.

I note that at the back the description of the Darkland Tales project has Alan Warner’s then forthcoming contribution titled as The Man Who Would Not Be King. It was eventually published as Nothing Left to Fear From Hell.

Pedant’s corner:- “Here the change of seasons are dramatic” (the changes of seasons are,) “and snakes his arm right around her waist until his hand on her swollen belly” (is missing a verb after ‘hand’; rests? lies? settles? is?) “Lady Huntley” (Huntly, as it is always spelled elsewhere in the text.)

Paul Harris Publishing, 1982, 253 p, plus vi p Introduction by P H Butter. First published in 1932.

Edwin Muir is better known as a poet but he wrote three novels of which this is the third.

The plot centres round the conflict arising when Tom Manson finds out his brother Mansie has begun seeing Helen Wiliamson, a girl whom Tom had previously walked out with.

This causes tension within the family, the brothers stop speaking to each other and Tom starts drinking to excess.

For a book published in 1932 and set in 1911 there is a considerable emphasis on sexual matters. Of the imaginings of becoming intimate with a woman we are told, “Such secret pleasures are exciting, but they leave a sense of guilt towards the object that was employed to produce them. Tom was filled with shame that such thoughts should come into his mind when he was with Helen, and told himself he was a waster.”

There is stress too on the attractions of Socialism to those of Mansie’s persuasion and social standing, and of the similarity of its tenets to Christianity.

Tom has a bad fall under the influence of drink and thereafter suffers a series of headaches which increasingly incapacitate him. Both he and Mansie (but not the reader) are confused by the doctors they consult about Tom’s condition asking whether he has ever associated with loose women.

As the illness progresses reconciliation occurs and we are treated more to Mansie’s reflections on having an invalid in the house.

As a novel this is not entirely successful. As an insight into aspects of life in pre-Great War Glasgow (the Mansons had moved there from a farm some time before the novel begins) it is certainly better than Guy McCrone’s books about the extended Moorhouse family.

Pedant’s corner:- in the Introduction; superceded (superseded.) Otherwise; threatingly (threateningly,) Maisie (elsewhere always Mansie,) inimaginable (usually ‘unimaginable’,) excretary (excretory,) “he turned and literally flew downstairs” (not literally.)

Picador, 1979, 174 p. Translated from the Spanish El Colonel No Tieme Quien Le Escriba (Aguirre Editor, Colombia, 1961) by J S Bernstein.

This contains the novella, No One Writes to the Colonel (El Colonel No Tieme Quien Le Escriba) and several shorter pieces, Tuesday Siesta, One of These Days, There Are No Thieves in This Town, Balthazar’s Marvellous Afternoon, Montiel’s Widow, One Day after Saturday, Artificial Roses and Big Mama’s Funeral all collected under the umbrella title Big Mama’s Funeral (Los Funerales de la Mama Grande, Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico, 1962.)

They illustrate life in the town of Macondo familiar to those who have read the author’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. Indeed the memory of the character of Colonel Aureliano Buendía hangs over each of these stories.

The titular Colonel is living a life of less than genteel poverty while travelling to the wharf every Friday to see the post come in. He is waiting for the pension promised to him for his part in the revolution many, many years ago. But no one writes to the Colonel. His is something of a bleak tale. The rest of the stories are beautifully written vignettes or longer pieces all with a touch of oddness about them. The big mama of the last tale was so notable that even the Pope came to her funeral.

Pedant’s corner:- Translated into USian. “The women examined him” (there was only one woman,) a missing opening quote mark before a piece of direct speech, the early part of page 152 is also printed towards the bottom of page 114 after the end of Balthazar’s Marvellous Afternoon, “rusted zinc” (x 2, zinc does not rust, only iron does that: ‘corroded zinc’ unless the zinc was rust-streaked,) “and leaches to her kidneys” (leeches,)

Mandarin, 1988, 394 p.

This is the fourth in Cherryh’s pride of Chanur sequence, featuring the leonine Pyanfar Chanur as a protagonist. I reviewed the previous books here, here and here.

Chanur’s Homecoming seemed to me to be more densely written than the others in Pyanfar’s story so far, with much more of her thoughts and worries on the ongoing situation in the worlds of the Compact. Her main preoccupation here, though, is the threat to her homeworld Anuurn, and to the survival of her han race, represented by the kif Akkhtimakt, who has taken his ships off presumably to attack the planet. Pyanfar has an ally of sorts in another kif, Sikkukkut, who has gifted her one of his slaves, Skkukuk and is a sworn enemy of Akkhtimakt. Other characters familiar from the previous books are Pyanfar’s niece, Hilfy, the rest of the crew of her spaceship The Pride of Chanur and the human Tully – but he takes much less part in the action and the plot than before.

That action takes some time to come to the fore and it is only in the book’s latter stages when the pace ramps up. It is what happens in this book though which sets out why Pyanfar will later become a revered elder in hani society.

Pedant’s corner:- focussed (x 2, focused,) “I can’t shake if off” (it off,) “in common” (common,) unladed (unladen,) “none of them were in the mood” (none of them was in the mood,) touble (trouble,) shortfocussed (shortfocused.) “Neither of us are” (Neither of us is,) Pasarimi (elsewhere Pasarimu.)

A Surreal Chronicle, Polygon, 2023, 149 p, including 7 p Afterword.

Nothing Left to Fear From Hell is one of publisher Birlinn’s Darkland Tales which re-examine Scotland’s history from a modern perspective.

In it, a tall man, accompanied by several companions, is making hazardous journeys by small boat between the islands of the Outer Hebrides, mostly under the cover of darkness. They are on the run and at one point the man has to disguise himself as a serving girl, when he is given the name Betty Bourke.

We are of course following the flight of Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart (to give him his full complement of names, never used in the text,) otherwise known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, down on his luck but ever hopeful fortune will favour him in the end.

Though the Young Pretender has featured as a character in many of them, most novelistic examinations of the Jacobite inheritance – a perennial subject of Scottish fiction – have focused on that cause’s adherents and their (mis)adventures. I certainly have not before read one in which the Prince is the protagonist. But my acquaintance with the subject is by no means exhaustive.

Warner inhabits the time and its susceptibilities very effectively, presenting a picture of Charles Stuart as a human being, with every necessity and function we all have, along with his convictions of divine right, plus the all but unthinking deference of his comrades. Not that the text confines itself to the viewpoint of the Prince. A particular highlight is a servant girl’s view of the kenspeckle and overly presumptuous Betty Burke

A quirk of this publication is that on even numbered pages between chapters – and before the Afterword – are depictions of that minute pest of the Scottish summer, the midge, with which the travelling party is plagued, starting with one and going up to ten.

In that Afterword Warner speculates on the conundrums of historical fiction, the difficulties of portrayal. As he says, “they were so like us, and they were so unlike us.”

But apart from the drier and necessarily more restricted approach of historical record and academe, fiction is the only way we can explore past times such as these.

This novella gives us Charles Edward Stuart as a believable, if misguided, human being. But he was trapped by his birth; as most of us are.

Pedant’s corner:- “was like a liquified putrescence” (liquefied,) “he crashed items akimbo” (he crashed items with his arms on his hips?) “the riding party were headed onwards making a cover of what might lay over the roads ahead” (the riding party was headed onwards making a cover of what might lie over the roads ahead,) “Robert Forbes’ remarkable” (Forbes’s,) “Winifred Dukes’ The Rash Adventurer” (Dukes’s.)