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.)

Corgi, 1955, 188 p.

The humans on Mundis were sent on the last spaceship from a dying, fractious Earth and inculcated with an overwhelming compulsion against atomic power. They have formed a settlement with a large age gap between the space travellers and those born after arrival.

Unknown to them a later expedition was sent out, this time under military control, and it has been waiting on the system’s other habitable planet, Secundis. When confirmation comes that Earth has been destroyed the military ship sets off for Mundis to unite what remains of humanity.

That hierarchy is of the novel’s time in its attitudes to sexual politics, “Only a dozen women on the ship were so useful in one way or another, so indispensable, that their sex was forgiven them,” but in contrast to that McIntosh does try to portray a different approach in the society on Mundis where attitudes to marriage are less rigid than in our 1950s.

Thanks to two Mundans who have struck off on their own for a while the rest manage to avoid the Secundan party long enough to resist assimilation, an endeavour which does require their conditioning to be overcome.

The Born Leader of the title is one Rog Foley of the Mundans who is not as hidebound as his elders or the others of his generation but who is really almost incidental to the plot’s resolution.

This is a typical piece of SF of the middle 1950s. It almost seems quaint now.

Pedant’s corner:- “Mathers’ eyes” Mathers’s eyes,) “impressed by their significance of the occasion” (impressed by the significance,) “the list of elements stopped at eighty-eight” (in 1955 we were actually up to Atomic Number 100 – or 101 – but the Mundans in the book did not acknowledge those above no. 88,) a missing restarting quotation mark at the resumption of a piece of dialogue.

Century,1983, 494 p. First published 1969.

This is the fourth in Dunnett’s series of novels featuring Francis Crawford of Lymond, Comte de Sevigny. See here, here and here. After the revelation in book three that Lymond had fathered a son on Oonagh O’Dwyer and Graham Reid Malett’s escape from the cathedral of St Giles, Crawford is faced with a dilemma. If he kills Malett then the child will be killed.

Taking advantage of the commission of Henri II of France to transport an elaborate spinet to the Grand Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and be French Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Crawford travels the Mediterranean accompanied by former Grand Knight of Malta and one of Lymond’s mercenary company, Jerott Blyth, and sixteen year-old Philippa Somerville, daughter of friends of the Lymond family whose intention is to protect Lymond’s child Khaireddin from further harm. Also in the party are the spinet’s constructor Georges Gaultier, his niece Marthe, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Crawford, and a Swiss cook, Onophrion Zitwitz.

Things are complicated by the fact that there are two fair-haired children of the correct age knocking about, Khaireddin and Kuzucuyum, one of them the child of Malett and his deceased sister Joleta. Both may have to be rescued.

False trails, betrayals and incident abound, including a set piece among the ancient cisterns below what was once Constantinople but is now – and has been for a hundred years – Stamboul, the atmosphere of Suleiman’s court is evoked admirably, Crawford’s trials grow. The climax comes with a chess game using live pieces instigated by Suleiman’s second wife Hürrem Sultan, known as Roxelana, to resolve the competing claims of Malett and Lymond as to the truth, a game which involves a pawn sacrifice.

There is something about the writing which lends the tale opacity, however. Perhaps Dunnett, like Lymond, is being too clever for her own good. Not that it affected her sales.

Possibly reflecting attitudes when the book was written a minor character, Pierre Gilles D’Albi, says of Marthe, “‘She has too many ideas. Women with ideas are a threat to the civilized world.’”

The series as a whole may be the Lymond Chronicles but as written this one is more the tales of Philippa Somerville and Jerott Blyth than of Lymond.

Sensitivity note: uses the word ‘nigger’.

Pedant’s corner:- bouillotte (is an 18^th century card game, not a 16^th century one,) a missing quotation mark at the end of a piece of dialogue. At one point Blyth is trapped in a small building which is on fire and giving off hydrocyanic gas, and survives. (Exposure to small amounts of HCN is usually fatal,) “since Odysseus’ time” (Odysseus’s time – I note Zakynthos’s appeared later so usage of the apostrophe wasn’t consistent,) Scandaroon (x 1, elsewhere Scanderoon,) “a English girl” (an English girl,) rauccous (raucous,) hoopoo (hoopoe.)