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Underground Reading: Exiles of ColSec by Douglas Hill

A month ago, I reviewed The Last Legionary Quartet. This had been my only Douglas Hill series to date and, upon rereading it for the first time since childhood, I was pretty pleasantly surprised. When Darren Goldsmith mentioned a second series by Mr. Hill in the comments, I decided to take the plunge. Plus, given his description - "young offenders exiled to a planet with psychic trees" - how could it possibly go wrong?

It doesn't. Exiles of ColSec (1984) is indeed a young adult book about juvenile delinquents on a planet of psychic trees and it is kind of awesome.

In a future dominated by a big nasty authoritarian government, the last real rebels are the disaffected youfs on the fringes of society. When they're caught by the CeeDee's (Civil Defenders), the children are sent to an Antarctic prison colony to labor away their sentences. At least, so they say. The real truth of the matter is that the kids are packaged up and shipped off to far-flung planets. They're a combination of Robinson Crusoe and mine canaries, used to test whether or not the new worlds are worth colonising properly. The prisoners are stranded on the planet for six months, then ColSec (Colonization Section) follows up with proper explorers.

(There are so many flaws in this logic that it boggles the mind. What's the advantage of deliberately not preparing the kids? As they know the planet isn't a poisonous hellball in advantage, what more are they going to learn by dumping kids there? What if the kids ruin the planet by antagonising the natives or setting fire to the air or something? Why is there a labor camp in Antarctica anyway? Isn't that expensive?!) 

Underground Reading: Conflicts, edited by Ian Whates

Last week, I mentioned that genre literature has a tendency to downplay the horrors of war. If I had to guess, this is probably the twin legacy of a) its roots in medieval epics and b) the modern "kill to level up" gaming mechanic (tabletop and video). Either way, it was a rather flippant statement and has provoked a bit of discussion.

I still stand by this for fantasy. Even in the present wave of low fantasy grittiness there are only a few books that deign to point out that war is actually, you know, kinda bad. (First among those is probably Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes. Per usual, I'm also going to recommend KJ Parker as well, with the Scavenger series.) Kids, killing isn't cool - even when it is the nefarious subhuman Other.

However, when it comes to science fiction, I think I did the genre a disservice. Since the sixties, SF has actually done a fairly remarkable job of depicting the horrors of war and its many fellow horsemen. Two of the best examples are recent ones - Ian Whates' spectacular anthologies: Conflicts and Further Conflicts. 

First up, Conflicts.

Underground Reading: The Corpse Wore Pasties by Jonny Porkpie

The Corpse Wore Pasties (2009) is the debut mystery from Jonny Porkpie, New York's self-appointed Mayor of Burlesque. In the great tradition of Kinky Friedman and Gypsy Rose Lee, the detective and protagonist The Corpse Wore Pasties is Mr. Porkpie himself. 

In the novel, Jonny Porkpie is producing a friend's burlesque show for an evening. His job should be easy. He's working with professionals, after all, he just need to make sure everything runs smoothly. The evening's show also features some of Jonny's best friends, consummate professionals like Cherries Jubilee and Jillian Knockers, as well as other respected performers like like Angelina Blood. Jonny is unpleasantly surprised, however, by the arrival of Victoria Vice - a known plagiarist and all-around nasty character. The latter would be forgivable, but Victoria's history of stealing other performers' acts makes her persona non grata in the burlesque community. Jonny is shocked when she shows up and is quickly thrown into the role of peacemaker, which mostly entails keeping her away from the others.

Not far enough away, as, in one of the most memorable opening pages in the annals of Hard Case Crime, Victoria dies a very messy death. On-stage, too. How awkward.

Underground Reading: A Fine Dark Line by Joe R. Lansdale

Joe R. Lansdale's extensive body of work ranges from steampunk mayhem to East Texas noir, with a few stops along the way for the unclassifiable and truly bizarre. His Hap Collins and Leonard Pine stories are some of my favourite mystery novels - the perfect balance of character, setting and detection. His more pulpy work - for example the Drive-In series or his infamous "The God of the Razor" - is noteworthy in a completely different way, a combination of splatterpunk horror and lingering weird (little w) imagery, William S. Burroughs landscapes populated by Richard Laymon characters.

Mr. Lansdale also exercises himself by walking along a completely different spectrum, with his coming of age and historical fiction set in his beloved Texas. Sunset and Sawdust (2004), The Bottoms (nominated for some award or another) (2000), The Boar (1998) and, perhaps best of all, A Fine Dark Line (2002).

A Fine Dark Line is ostensibly a mystery. Stanley Mitchell is a naive 13 year old in the mid-sized town of Dumont, Texas, 1958. While playing the woods behind his house, he finds a half-buried box of old letters - the only surviving artefact of a burned down mansion from a generation before. The letters tell the story of two young women, both, Stanley learns, dead under mysterious circumstances. 

Underground Reading: Scimitar by John Abbott

John Abbott's Scimitar (1992) is a graceless thriller set in New York. A Libyan sleeper agent, a dense college student and a self-absorbed British diplomat all fumble around the central plot - an assassin's scheme to assassinate President Bush.

The primary protagonist is "Sonny" aka Krishnan Hemkar aka Scott Hamilton aka a series of other pseudonyms. Sonny begins the book as a medical student in LA, but, by the second chapter, receives his long-awaited call to arms and makes his way to New York. Although his handlers keep dropping like flies, Sonny is able to make contact with the rest of his organisation and receive his orders. President Bush and ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher are both in New York. Take them out. If there's a problem with the mission? Just kill the President. (Poor Thatcher, not even a first-tier target.)

As well as being a doctor/assassin, Sonny's astoundingly good-looking. Jaw-droppingly so. In the opening pages, he's given the "come-hither" look from a beautiful woman in a singles bar, a young lady he leaves the next morning without even a note farewell. His libido gets some exercise on his cross-country journey as well. Sonny takes the train (for various "evil devices in luggage" reasons) and encounters Elita, a college sophomore who is immediately blown away by Sonny's sexual magnetism. Sonny's tried and tested pick-up line is "Would you like to sleep to me tonight?". And, hideously, it works every time. His rampaging ego is the book's real villain.

Underground Reading: His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

Two feelings that I'm sure we've all shared:

1) The unequaled joy of finding a new series. Not just picking up a debut and thinking, "this is going to be one to watch", but reading the first book in a long-established series and realising that, "holy cow, I've got four more waiting for me!". 

2) The horrible shame of realising that people have been recommending those books to you for years. Fortunately, my friends aren't the sort to rub it in with expletive-strewn text messages (Bex) or say "I told you so" in the comments on this very thread. 

So it is with mixed (but not really) feelings that I confess that His Majesty's Dragon (2006) knocked my socks off. I read the first book in one evening, the second the next and the third and fourth on a flight over to the US. I'm now consciously avoiding buying the fifth because, good lord, I'm going to run out of these before long.

Gushing aside, what is it about His Majesty's Dragon that really hit the spot? 

Underground Reading: The Last Legionary Quartet by Douglas Hill

Generally speaking, my field trips back to my childhood have not garnered especially favorable results. "That is not dead which can eternal lie" and, like Lovecraft's Cthulhu, many works of 1980s genre fiction should be left undisturbed. 

Thus, it was with great trepidation (and a sharpening of knives) that I picked up a copy of Douglas Hill's The Last Legionary Quartet.

The series was originally published between 1980 and 1982, beginning with Galactic Warlord. Before now, the only one I'd actually read was Planet of the Warlord, the concluding volume. I'm not wholly sure when that was - it was a weird period in 1980s Kansas City when our local library branch had (for reasons still unknown to me) moved itself into a strip mall. The shelf space was fairly limited so my reading during that time - already eclectic - turned downright bizarre. I weirdly recall this being shelved with all the Choose Your Own Adventure books.

Planet of the Warlord - the entire Last Legionary Quartet, in fact - has a lot to offer imaginative, SF-obsessed kids. It isn't exactly an epic of astounding moral complexity, but it does have aliens, martial arts, exotic settings and more martial arts. Moreover, it is structured with a charming simplicity. 

Keill Randor is a legionary of the planet Moros, a world famed for its martial rigor and devotion to Good Causes. Returning from a scout mission, he finds that his homeworld has been completely wiped out through an evil radioactive bomb. As all the legionaries had been recalled to help with the crisis, they're all dead. Only Randor (thanks to some convenient engine trouble) was late enough to avoid the attack. However, since he's now been exposed to the world's poisonous aura, he only has a few months to live - and to get revenge.

How's that for a set-up?

Review Round-up: Quick-Fire Hombre and Blood and Hate

Another pair of paperback Westerns - Nelson Nye's Quick-Fire Hombre and Ward Langley's Blood and Hate.

Despite the appalling cover, Blood and Hate (1959) turned out to be an enjoyable little tale. Our hero, Paul Bascombe is new to the town of Prairie. Prairie is in the cattle business, the town's tiny main street surrounded by thousands of acres of unclaimed land, currently used for grazing. The biggest man in town is Bull Harris – owner of the Bar M Ranch. He's the richest, meanest and greediest - and, as according to the genre tradition, he's got the prettiest daughter.

Bascombe is a soft-spoken man, and not out to make enemies. As the book begins, he's saving the life of a Mexican stranger, just to reinforce to the reader that Paul here is a good egg through and through. But Bascombe rides into Prairie like the Four Horsemen combined - he wants to graze sheep. Bull Harris is livid. Sheep (allegedly) devour all the grass and ruin the land for cattle. Paul's woolly apocalypse also requires some of the (unclaimed) land to be fenced off, so his beloved cows can no longer roam free. Bascombe's got the law on his side as well - with the new Government land act, he can claim, fence and en-sheep some of the Prairie land. Sadly, Harris has no problem with illegal methods of persuasion.

Underground Reading: Casino Moon by Peter Blauner

A tale of crime and punishment - Peter Blauner's Casino Moon (1994).

Casino Moon was originally published in 1994 and then picked up by Hard Case Crime in 2009. It is feels surprisingly epic for a Hard Case Crime selection, and, indeed, Casino Moon starts out like some sort of Tolkienian (or Martinesque) adventure. Our hero, Anthony Russo, is the prodigal son. His adopted father, Vin, is a sort of mid-level Mafia hood. Russo wants to go his own way. He sees the corruption and the grinding servitude of the mob life and he desires something better. Russo's ambitions are also overshadowed by memories of his real dad. Like any good fantasy novel, his true lineage is royalty. Michael Dillon was the prince of mobsters - a man with sharp suits, big dreams and, ultimately, a bullet in the face. 

Swap bullet for sword and mob for throne and this really is the set-up of a fantasy doorstop. But that greatly oversimplifies the character of Anthony Russo. It rapidly becomes clear that Russo isn't disgusted with the mob life out of some moral principle. Russo crusades under one banner: Anthony Russo. He's crushed by debt to his kingpin uncle-in-law, his contracting business is rubbish, his wife and children are a stifling, unappreciative mess... Russo just wants out. He identifies with the "legitimate" casino tycoons of Atlantic City who saw their chances, took them, and now get to wear sharp suits and have great hair. 

Underground Reading: Another Western Round-Up

Three battered Western paperbacks. Three outsider gunmen. Three beautiful fair-haired ladies. How do they all compare? J.T. Edson's The Big Hunt and Paul Evan Lehman's Stagecoach to Hellfire Pass and The Man from the Badlands.

Even though my collection of Westerns is largely formed at random - scavenging bargain bins and basement shelves, Paul Evan Lehman is a name that's suspiciously over-represented amongst my books. Although it is unfair to generalize after only finishing two of his books, I can already see a pattern. Mr. Lehman writes creative set-ups to familiar situations. The conflict is clever, but the results are predictable. However, one of his strengths is an attention to detail. Even if the heroics are unbelievable, Mr. Lehman paints an unexpectedly meticulous picture of life in the West.

In The Man from the Badlands (1965), the set-up involves water rights. Nominally, that's a bit dull, but Mr. Hale uses a dry issue (sorry) to make for an interesting conundrum. Stan Hale's land adjoins that of the Ward family. The Wards have better land for grazing, but their water comes downhill from Stan's property. So far, so good.