The Time Stream by John Taine

Not really about time travel

Eric Temple Bell (1883–1960) was a Scottish-American mathematician who taught at the University of Washington and Caltech. He wrote science fiction novels under the pen name of John Taine. His novel The Time Stream was first serialized in 1931 issues of the pulp magazine Wonder Stories before being published in book form in 1946. I like vintage science fiction and had read a couple good comments recommending Taine. Of his work, I chose to read The Time Stream strictly for its title, because I like stories about time travel. I soon found out, however, that this novel isn’t so much about time travel.

The story opens in 1906. Eight men and one woman from varying backgrounds and walks of life become acquainted with each other in San Francisco. During one of their social gatherings, they discover that they have the ability to “enter the time stream” and ride it into the past, or maybe even into the future. At first, they’re not sure. How did they get this incredible power? Well, it turns out they’re not San Franciscans at all. They are actually the governing council of an ancient civilization named Eos, which exists on another planet with five man-made suns. These Eosians use the time stream to travel back and forth between two worlds. When they are on Earth, they often forget their existence on Eos, and vice versa (although they tend to remember when it’s convenient for the story). They seem to have bodies in both worlds. When they are occupying one, the other lies dormant in a deathlike suspended animation.

Eos is more technologically advanced than 20th-century Earth. The Eosians have unlocked the secrets of nature to learn amazing techniques for manipulating matter and energy. They have also developed a society based entirely on rational thought, allowing for no violence or love. Their rationalism extends to a prescribed breeding program for all inhabitants. The woman of the group, Cheryl, decides to defy this eugenics program by marrying a man for love. Some of the time travelers, however, have seen a future in which this love-mating causes an apocalyptic event leading to the destruction of Eos. The male council members try to persuade her from making this catastrophic choice.

It is often very difficult to tell what is going on in The Time Stream. Am I reading about the future or the past? Are we on Eos now, or Earth? Who remembers what from when? Even the eight time-traveling colleagues are difficult to tell apart. The problem is that Taine tells the story as if he’s written the novel for an audience of Eosians and just assumes that readers from Earth will know what’s going on in this strange world he’s created in his head. Although Taine/Bell himself may be a rational man of mathematics with likely some knowledge of how the universe works, he goes off into flights of fancy more fitting to the fantasy and horror fiction of William Hope Hodgson or Robert W. Chambers. If the laws of physics and logic as we know them operate in Eos, they’re barely recognizable. The most frustrating aspect of the book is that time travel is totally unnecessary to the story, as are all the Earth scenes. The plot is entirely about Eos and a coup and rebellion that takes place there. Why not just tell us that story and leave San Francisco out of it? Also, if the message of the book involves contrasting love with rationalism, for most of the novel Taine really seems to be writing in favor of eugenics.

Reading The Time Stream gives one the impression that the sci-fi pulps were so desperate for content that they would print just about anything. If John Taine has an esteemed reputation in science fiction history, it is certainly not due to this book, which is just a hot mess.

The Maracot Deep by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

25,000 feet under the sea

The Maracot Deep is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s final novel. It was first published in book form in 1929; he died the following year. The novel was previously published in serial form in the pages of The Saturday Evening Post (1927) and The Strand Magazine (1927-1928). The Maracot Deep is a science fiction novel of undersea exploration. The work will spark obvious comparisons to Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, but it really has more in common with Conan Doyle’s own 1912 novel The Lost World.

Esteemed British oceanographer and marine biologist Dr. Maracot organizes an expedition to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. He takes along two companions: zoologist Cyrus Headley, who serves as the narrator for most of the book, and Bill Scanlan, an American mechanic who serves much the same purpose as Verne’s Ned Land of Twenty Thousand Leagues. The team are lowered to the ocean floor in a vehicle similar to a bathysphere, except that this submersible is box-shaped, like an elevator. They descend five miles down into the deepest trench in the Atlantic, named the Maracot Deep in honor of the professor. The lifeline to their surface vessel is cut, leaving them stranded at the bottom of the trench with impending death a foregone conclusion. They are miraculously saved, however, by a race of undersea dwellers who prove to be the descendants of the centuries-old sunken civilization of Atlantis. 

While Verne was more interested in actual oceanographic science, here Conan Doyle is more interested in fantasy. In order for his crew to have even the slightest chance of surviving, Conan Doyle conveniently dispenses with the intense pressure exerted by great depths of water. He just invents a theory to eliminate that obstacle. One commendable choice, however, is that these Atlanteans are not able to breathe in water like fish. Instead, they have created technology to master their environment, including a breathing apparatus that would put modern scuba gear to shame. At the bottom of the ocean, Maracot and company encounter all manner of sea serpents and lethal beasts that are more mythical than scientifically authentic. Regrettably, the reader only learns the bare basics about Atlantis and its inhabitants because as soon as the three heroes make it to the ancient sunken city, they’ve already started looking for an escape from their hosts.

Even as late as 1927, Conan Doyle is unwilling to allow for a disembodied third-person narration or an interior first-person perspective. Instead, he sticks with the Victorian convention that all stories must be told in the concrete form of a written document, such as a diary, a letter, or a message in a bottle. This makes for some clunky logistics in the telling of this story, such as unnecessary multiple perspectives and a jumbled chronology. The novel proper basically ends with chapter five, but Conan Doyle must have had a seven-issue contract with the Strand, because he tacks on two chapters at the end that really should have been integrated into the main narrative rather than presented as afterthoughts. Conan Doyle’s most egregious sin with this novel, however, is that he can’t find enough sci-fi potential in undersea exploration, so he resorts to throwing in some of his usual supernatural spiritualist mumbo jumbo.

I don’t believe Conan Doyle wrote The Maracot Deep to compete with or capitalize on Verne’s masterpiece. Rather, I think he simply wanted to try his hand at one of the few subgenres of adventure literature—undersea exploration—that he hadn’t yet covered. The Maracot Deep really doesn’t hold a candle to Twenty Thousand Leagues, and it reveals Conan Doyle to be past his prime at this point. There just isn’t enough science in this watered-down science fiction.

Nordenholt’s Million by J. J. Connington

The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many

J. J. Connington was the pseudonym of a British chemist named Alfred Walter Stewart. Stewart wrote about two dozen detective novels under the name of Connington, as well as one science fiction novel. That sci-fi book, titled Nordenholt’s Million, was published in 1923.

In London, a laboratory-bred strain of bacteria is let loose from its petri dishes into the outside world, and it immediately begins to wreak havoc on the environment. This particular species of microbe is a denitrifying bacteria that breaks down the nitrogenous compounds in soil, thus depriving plant life of this essential nutrient. As the bacteria spreads by means of global human transportation, the soil around the world is devastated and plants die off at an alarming rate. The British government calls a meeting to discuss how to face the impending famine. The only attendee who has any idea how to tackle the problem is a billionaire industrialist named Nordenholt. He proposes that the only way to ensure the survival of the human race is to sequester a small portion of the population in an isolated location, provided with adequate food, while the rest of mankind dies of starvation. These select few million survivors, nicknamed Nordenholt’s Million, will devote their energies to manufacturing nitrogenous compounds to revitalize the dead soil so that humans may thrive once again and rebuild civilization. In order to execute this plan, Nordenholt declares himself dictator with absolute powers. He establishes his enclave in Scotland and selects his population of survivors. The novel is narrated by Jack Flint, an engineer, whom Nordenholt appoints as his right-hand man.

The apocalyptic idea that forms the basis of Nordenholt’s Million seems like a promising foundation for a science fiction novel. The way that idea is executed here, however, leaves a lot to be desired. The best scenes of the novel occur outside the Nordenholt compound, when Flint is describing the post-apocalyptic landscape of London—a violent, hopeless world reminiscent of the film Escape from New York, where people hunt each other down in packs like wild dogs and even resort to cannibalism. Only a few chapters, however, provide such dark glimpses of the end of the world.

Instead, far too much of the book is devoted to Nordenholt himself, whom Flint describes, discusses, and analyzes to excess. In doing so, he’s clearly holding Nordenholt up as Connington’s ideal of masculinity. Nordenholt is strong, decisive, pragmatic, rational, and ruthless, possessing supreme intelligence, fortitude, and stamina, etc. Although this novel came out a little late to be called Victorian, it feels like a throwback to that era. Readers of Connington’s time needed ideal heroes and moral lessons in order to justify and endure a work of science fiction, or so Connington seems to think. Today’s readers of science fiction, however, would rather read more about the ramifications of the disaster and the science behind a solution.

Although human-induced global warming was foreseen as early as 1800 by Alexander von Humboldt, Connington never even considers it here. In this novel, the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, and the rest of the world’s plants, has no effect on the atmosphere; Connington only mentions the ugliness of the barren landscape. If you habitually read fiction of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, however, you’re probably used to forgiving scientific inaccuracies and moralistic preachiness. Despite its antiquated faults, Nordenholt’s Million is not a terribly written novel for its time. It’s likely to adequately entertain those who appreciate “Radium Age” science fiction.

Round the Fire Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A lighter shade of Poe

Round the Fire Stories, a collection of 17 short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was published in 1908. The stories included within had previously been published in various magazines, and this is their first time appearing in book form. In a brief preface, Conan Doyle explains that the volume brings together tales “which are concerned with the grotesque and with the terrible.” I had previously read about half of these stories in a volume called Tales of Terror and Mystery, published in 1922. Stories included here also show up in the collections The Great Kleinplatz Experiment and Other Tales of the Twilight and Unseen (1925) and The Dealings of Captain Sharkey and Other Tales of Pirates (1925).

To be honest, none of these stories are particularly “grotesque” or “terrible,” but they do all fall into the horror and mystery genres, with more emphasis on the latter than the former. There are a couple ghost stories here, such as the clever “The Brown Hand,” and the less successful “Playing with Fire,” but few other instances of supernatural phenomena. A few suspenseful thrillers involve threats of death or violence from wild animals or insane persons. “The Pot of Caviare” is a war story with a gruesome twist. The remaining selections are mystery and crime stories, with thefts far outnumbering murders. “The Jew’s Breastplate,” for example, is an unconventional story about a jewel thief stealing priceless gems from a museum. Each story concludes with a “surprise twist” ending. In most cases, however, an intelligent reader can see the ending coming well ahead of time. Conan Doyle is so good at fleshing out his stories with interesting characters and clever details, however, one doesn’t really mind. Even when the plot is predictable, his storytelling is not.

Conan Doyle’s fiction was influenced by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. That influence is apparent here in some of the horror stories, particularly “The Leather Funnel,” which contains flashbacks to medieval torture. The stories of horror and murder that Conan Doyle presents here, however, have been softened to make them palatable for the general reading audience of his day. One need not be as dark and dreary as Poe to appreciate these stories; their thrills are suitable for Victorian English housewives. Poe also originated the mystery genre with his story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Although influenced no doubt by Poe’s mystery writings, Conan Doyle certainly made the genre his own. A few of the stories here venture into Sherlock Holmes-esque territory. “The Man with the Watches” and “The Lost Special,” for example, are intricate puzzles designed to baffle rather than terrify.

The best stories here are “The Brazilian Cat,” a suspenseful wild-animal horror story, and “The Japanned Box,” which won’t seem very scary or mysterious to today’s readers, but it is quite touching. Another strong entry is “B.24” (I don’t understand the title), a caper told from the point of view of a thief. It has a plot premise that has since shown up in many a film noir or cinematic thriller. The worst selection in this volume is “Playing with Fire,” a comedic story of a séance that applies unfunny slapstick humor to Conan Doyle’s obsession with spiritualism. Overall, this collection has a couple great stories and a couple stinkers, but for the most part the contents are consistently above average. The stories in this volume aren’t quite up to the standard of Sherlock Holmes’s more fascinating cases, but this book still makes for an enjoyable read.

Stories in this collection

The Leather Funnel

The Beetle Hunter

The Man with the Watches

The Pot of Caviare

The Japanned Box

The Black Doctor

Playing with Fire

The Jew’s Breastplate

The Lost Special

The Club-Footed Grocer

The Sealed Room

The Brazilian Cat

The Usher of Lea House

The Brown Hand

The Fiend of the Cooperage

Jelland’s Voyage

B.24

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The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson

My brother the scoundrel

The Master of Ballantrae, published in 1889, is a historical novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. The story begins in Scotland with the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, when Bonnie Prince Charlie rebelled against King George II. At the estate of Durrisdeer in Scotland lives Lord Durie and his two sons. Not knowing which side will triumph in the rebellion, the family decides to cover both bases. It is determined by the toss of a coin that the elder son James, called the Master of Ballantrae and the rightful heir of Durrisdeer, will go off to fight on the side of the rebels, while the younger son Henry will remain at home to support the incumbent king. Little does the family realize that this coin toss will spark a vicious quarrel over the possession of the family estate.

Film adaptations of The Master of Ballantrae seem to emphasize swashbuckling adventure, but there really aren’t a lot of swords clashing or guns blazing in this book. The Master of Ballantrae has more in common with Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights than it does with The Three Musketeers or Rob Roy. Wuthering Heights is a book about a dysfunctional family who live in an isolated estate on the moors of Northern England. Bearing lifelong grudges, the family members devote themselves to making each other’s lives miserable, sometimes in darkly comic ways. Life at Durrisdeer is not far off from that. The plot of The Master of Ballantrae revolves around the bitter rivalry between the two brothers, each obsessed with getting the upper hand over the other. James and Henry each takes pleasure in the misfortune, destitution, or humiliation of his sibling.

Unlike the denizens of Wuthering Heights, however, the characters in The Master of Ballantrae do not stay confined to their manor. This story runs farther afield, with chapters taking place in Paris, India, and the United States—mostly in the woods of upstate New York, home to savage Natives. This globetrotting aspect of the book, coupled with flashbacks of the Master’s wartime escapades, qualify this book as an adventure novel, but by no mean a conventional one.

Stevenson’s books remind me of Joseph Conrad. Both authors write adventure novels that transcend genre fiction to achieve the heights of fine literature, never settling for a formulaic adventure narrative but instead pushing the envelope to defy readers’ expectations. Both tell stories set in exotic locales, or tales of sea travel, painted with loads of vivid local color. The difference between the two is that Conrad’s prose is often confusing, obscure, tedious, and pretentious, whereas Stevenson’s prose is smoothly flowing, clear, lively, and mellifluous. Stevenson is one of the English language’s consummate storytellers. It’s no wonder that he was revered by so many writers of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

About the only thing I don’t like about Stevenson’s writing is that he assumes a good deal of knowledge of Scottish history and politics on the part of the reader. Not having that knowledge myself, I usually feel like I’m not quite getting everything that he’s saying. There are a couple points in The Master of Ballantrae where I wasn’t quite sure of the political or legal ramifications of James or Henry’s strategy. But for those few instances, however, this novel remains remarkably fresh, accessible, and entertaining over a century after it was published. Sir Walter Scott, another author of Scottish historical adventures, wrote prose that reads as if it were written 200 years ago. Stevenson’s writing, on the other hand, reads as if it might have been penned last week. The Master of Ballantrae is a work of classic, timeless storytelling that can still move, amuse, and excite readers of the 21st century.  

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Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

Backpacking through Protestant France

Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson is best remembered as a novelist of classic books like Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In his own lifetime, however, Stevenson was known and respected as an all-around man of letters who also penned nonfiction, poetry, and travel writing. Among the latter category, one of Stevenson’s earliest works is Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, published in 1879.

In 1878, Stevenson made a 12-day trip through the Cévennes, a mountainous region of South Central France. He purchased a donkey named Modestine to carry his belongings, which included a prototypical sleeping bag in lieu of a tent. “Backpacking” (for lack of a better word, since it’s really the donkey’s back that’s doing the work), for pleasure rather than out of necessity, was practically unheard of at this time, so Stevenson was an eccentric rarity. These days we see all kinds of outdoor travel memoirs, but the genre barely existed in the 1870s, so Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes was a pioneering work of travel literature.

Stevenson and his donkey trek from town to town through rugged rural terrain, stopping to spend the night at inns, monasteries, or campsites in the open air. Stevenson interacts with the locals and provides insight into the regional culture. The Cévennes is (or was, in 1878) a predominantly Protestant stronghold in an overwhelmingly Catholic France. The area has a history of religious warfare. In the early 18th century, Protestant insurgents of the Cévennes, known as Camisards, rebelled against France’s King Louis XIV, who had declared Protestantism illegal. Louis made his point by destroying many of the towns in the region. At the time Stevenson visited the Cévennes, the Catholics and Protestants were living side by side in relative peace and harmony, but he is very familiar with this history and occasionally goes off on extended asides to discuss the past events of the religious conflict. Judging by the number of novels written on the subject, British novelists of the 19th century seem to have been fascinated by Catholic vs. Protestant warfare, but to today’s reader such conflicts often seem less romantic and heroic and more of a foolish waste of human life over theological hair-splitting.

Every work of travel writing is a mix of first-person memoir and third-person geography lesson. In this case, I would have preferred less personal reminiscences of Stevenson and his donkey and more revealing insight into the Cévennes and its people. Stevenson does include a fair amount of local color in his encounters with the people, but since this is an outdoor adventure narrative one would expect more attention paid to the natural landscape, which comes across a bit generic here. In his discussions of the local inhabitants, Stevenson gets so wrapped up in the Catholic/Protestant distinction that other aspects of Cévennes life get neglected. It’s almost as if nobody has jobs because they’re too busy practicing their religions. Even so, the most interesting portion of the book is Stevenson’s stay at the Trappist monastery of Our Lady of the Snows, because one really does get some insight into the lifestyle of the monks who live there.

For those who have ever dreamt of wandering the French countryside, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes is a pleasant journey but not one overwhelmingly memorable. This book may have been cutting-edge for its time, but travel writing has come along way since the 1870s, and this could have used a touch more National Geographic-style secular investigation into the environment and culture of its setting.
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The Story of My Boyhood and Youth by John Muir

A budding naturalist in frontier Wisconsin

John Muir is best known as the naturalist who explored the Sierras of California and the glaciers of Alaska, but he was born in Scotland and spent his adolescence and early adulthood in Wisconsin. Muir discusses these years of his life, from his birth in 1838 to his departure from college in 1864, in his partial autobiography The Story of My Boyhood and Youth. This memoir was published in 1913, a year before Muir’s death.

The first chapter tells of Muir’s life in Scotland, where he and his brothers developed a love of the outdoors at an early age. His boyhood adventures aren’t remarkably different from those of a child growing up in rural America, but Muir’s exceptional storytelling renders even familiar childhood experiences into captivating anecdotes. At the age of 11, Muir emigrated to America with his father and two of his siblings to establish a farm in Portage, Wisconsin, before sending for his mother and the rest of the family to cross the Atlantic. Unlike many frontier memoirs, this book is not a lovingly nostalgic and picturesque portrait of nineteenth-century farm life. Rather, Muir paints a realistic picture of the hard work and ceaseless toil involved in clearing land and working a farm on the American frontier, especially under the stern supervision of a strict and rigidly pious father who valued hard labor over education.

Nevertheless, Muir and his brother David found time to enjoy the outdoors, whether hunting game or merely exploring and observing nature. Muir spends a large portion of the narrative discussing Wisconsin’s birds. As a birder myself, I enjoyed these portions of the book very much. Muir describes the behavior of birds with the precision of a scientist yet also manages to convey the thrill experienced by a young boy who simply enjoys the beauty of birds. Particularly valuable is Muir’s description of the huge flocks of passenger pigeons that would darken the sky for scores of miles and break trees with their collected weight. He also details some of the barbaric hunting practices that had rendered the bird extinct by the time Muir wrote this memoir. In many instances The Story of My Boyhood and Youth provides a vivid first-person record of Wisconsin’s natural history in the 1850s and ‘60s. Muir also recounts a few encounters with Native Americans and briefly laments the robbing of their lands and rights.

Muir’s narrative takes a surprising turn when he reveals himself to be an inventor. As a teenager he created clocks, thermometers, and other instruments from materials that happened to be lying around the family farm. He fondly relates how his creations caused a big stir when he displayed them at the Wisconsin State Fair. The way Muir describes some of the other mechanical devices he created calls to mind the ingenuity of Thomas Jefferson and the absurdity of Rube Goldberg. Muir originally left home with the intention of working as a machinist, engineer, or physical scientist before attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he enjoyed studying chemistry and botany. The book ends with Muir’s departure from the university and his turning towards what he calls “the University of the Wilderness.”

Those interested in Muir as a naturalist may not be enthralled by the schoolboy anecdotes of his early youth, but this book does contain plenty of passages of scientific discovery and descriptive beauty indicative of his better-known nature writings. Those who enjoy reading the autobiographies of scientists and naturalists will find this a very well-written one. The Story of My Boyhood and Youth is a pleasure to read and provides a candid inside look at how Muir became one of America’s great environmental philosophers.
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The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson

Standard medieval coming-of-age adventure

Robert Louis Stevenson is mostly thought of today as a writer of adventure novels for boys, such as Treasure Island and Kidnapped. In his lifetime and shortly after his death, however, he was practically worshipped as a literary god by writers of the Victorian and Edwardian eras like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London, Joseph Conrad, and Ernest Hemingway. As a fan of classic literature, including some of the aforementioned writers, I keep hoping to discover some hidden Stevenson gem that merits such praise, but with the exception of Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde his appeal has thus far eluded me. The Black Arrow, published in 1888, is another coming-of-age adventure for young male readers. Much like Kidnapped, I found The Black Arrow to be rather mediocre fare with nary a hint of genius in sight. Even Stevenson himself didn’t have a very favorable opinion of this book.

The Black Arrow takes place during the War of the Roses, the 15th century conflict between the houses of Lancaster and York, two branches of the English royal family fighting for the throne. As the novel opens, the forces of both parties are gathering for the Battle of Risingham (a fictional battle, I believe?). Young squire Richard “Dick” Shelton doesn’t have an opinion either way, but his guardian, Sir Daniel Brackley, is for Lancaster, so Dick takes up arms for that side. Before the battle begins, one of Dick’s colleagues is killed by an arrow from an unseen archer. The arrow, colored black, bears a note pronouncing a sentence of death on Sir Daniel and three of his closest cohorts. The note also hints that Sir Daniel may be responsible for the death of Dick’s father, which causes the young man to suspect his benefactor and wonder if he is fighting on the right side of this war.

Soon Dick befriends a young man who is really a girl in disguise, in fact the young woman to whom Dick is arranged to be married. Dick is unaware of his companion’s feminine gender, but it is revealed to the reader in the first chapter or two when it would have been better kept as a surprise. The same can be said for the details of Dick’s father’s death, which would have made a good murder mystery had the villains not been revealed early on. Although punctuated occasionally by brief bloody combat, the plot meanders, and many of its turns are predictable. Unlike Jim Hawkins of Treasure Island, Dick never really emerges as an interesting character, so the reader doesn’t care much about what happens to him. Dick also performs some bad acts over the course of the book, and afterwards expresses remorse, but he never satisfactorily atones for his transgressions enough to impart a sincere moral lesson.

The most interesting aspect of the novel is the appearance of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who would later become King Richard III. This book will mostly appeal to history buffs interested in the War of the Roses, but everyone else will find it quite confusing to keep track of who’s fighting on which side and why it makes a difference. The characters themselves seem to choose their sides arbitrarily, with little knowledge of what they’re fighting for. After indulging in the romantic glorification of chivalrous carnage for most of the book, even Stevenson briefly points out the pointlessness of a war in which men sought reputation and material gain by fighting for a cause they didn’t even believe in. As a depiction of the Middle Ages, The Black Arrow falls far short of the gold standard set by Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, and even Conan Doyle’s potboiler novels of medieval times (The White Company, Sir Nigel) make for far more compelling reads.
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Through the Magic Door by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A contagious enthusiasum for classic books

Although Arthur Conan Doyle is primarily known as an author of fiction, he also wrote a couple dozen nonfiction books, most of them about military history or his beliefs in spiritualism and the supernatural. He wrote one book of essays, however, that will appeal particularly to fans of his novels and short stories. That book is Through the Magic Door, published in 1907. Though the title may sound like a children’s fantasy novel, the “door” in question is actually the entrance to Conan Doyle’s personal library. The esteemed author invites the reader into his inner sanctum and introduces him to the most treasured volumes on his library’s shelves.

Unlike a typical work of literary criticism, Through the Magic Door is not only educational but also surprisingly lively and entertaining. Conan Doyle injects witty personal anecdotes into the discussion and occasionally goes off on tangents that are relevant enough to be quite interesting. In addition to a list of Conan Doyle’s favorite books, the reader comes away with an inside glimpse of how those works have influenced the author’s writing career.

Many of the writers covered here are to be expected. Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, both clearly influences on Conan Doyle’s work, are each given their due consideration. Other chapters are devoted to the usual suspects of the English canon. Thomas Macaulay’s essays, James Boswell’s biography of Samuel Johnson, the diary of Samuel Pepys, and Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire are classics that couldn’t go unmentioned in the literary memoir of a 19th-century English gentleman. In addition, however, Conan Doyle brings up some personal choices that are more unfamiliar, at least to the American reader. For instance, he pronounces The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade the greatest historical novel in the English language. (Scott’s Ivanhoe has to settle for second place.) He also extols the merits of George Borrow and George Meredith, the latter of whose novel Richard Feverel is deemed by Conan Doyle “one of the three novels which I admire most in the Victorian era.” Though foreign authors like Balzac, Hugo, Tolstoy, and Melville are mentioned briefly in the text, Conan Doyle mostly reserves his extended discourse for British authors. The exceptions are Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant, whom he dubs the greatest and second-greatest artists of the short story.

Conan Doyle doesn’t confine himself to fiction but discusses works of history and science as well. In the former category, he delves as far back as the medieval chronicles of Froissart and de Comines. Having written historical novels on the Napoleonic Wars (The Great Shadow, Uncle Bernac) and medieval times (The White Company, Sir Nigel), it is not surprising that Conan Doyle has a large collection of histories and memoirs pertaining to those eras. Another chapter is devoted to exploration narratives, with an emphasis on Arctic and Antarctic expeditions. The science books he admires also tend to have an element of exploratory adventure to them, such as Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle and Alfred Russell Wallace’s Malay Archipelago.

I expected to walk away from this book with a short list of recommended readings, but Conan Doyle delivers much more than that. Through the Magic Door was truly an enjoyable reading experience. For the brief length of the book, one feels as if he were Conan Doyle’s personal friend, spending a pleasant afternoon of conversation in the gentleman’s study.
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The Professor Challenger Short Stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

His two remaining adventures

It goes without saying that Sherlock Holmes was the character that made Sir Arthur Conan Doyle famous. The Holmes adventures, however, only constitute a fraction of Conan Doyle’s literary output. Outside of the Holmes universe, the most famous recurring character that Conan Doyle created is Professor Challenger, the hero of The Lost World. Challenger is the world’s preeminent authority on all manners scientific, or at least considers himself to be so, and he has little patience for those who disagree with his theories. He is described as a large man with a “spade-shaped” beard and a quick temper and blustering manner of speech that make him intimidating to all but his closest friends and family. Outside of his study and his laboratory, he is a man of action who, true to his name, never shies away from a challenge.

Conan Doyle featured Professor Challenger in three novels and two short stories. The Lost World, published in 1912, is one of Conan Doyle’s most popular books and has undergone several film adaptations. The rest of Professor Challenger’s adventures, however, have not fared so well. The novel The Poison Belt, published in 1913, features the scientist and adventure hero in a tepid affair with very little science and no adventure. In this apocalyptic story, the Earth passes through a noxious nebula, and the characters are left with nothing much to do but sit around and watch the effects. The third Challenger novel, The Land of Mist (1926) is even worse. In this awful story, Conan Doyle unforgivably sells out his own character by subverting Challenger’s scientific skepticism in order to promote his own beliefs in paranormal activity.

Thankfully, the two short stories are an improvement over the second and third Challenger novels, though their brevity leaves one wanting more. It’s too bad Conan Doyle didn’t produce an entire volume of Challenger stories, because these two turned out pretty well.

“When the World Screamed” (1928) — 4.5 stars

Unlike the other Challenger adventures, this story is narrated in the first-person by Peerless Jones, an expert in artesian wells and an old rugby buddy of Challenger’s journalist sidekick Ned Malone. Challenger hires Jones to join the team of his latest project. Challenger has bored a deep tunnel into the Earth, roughly 8 miles deep, in an attempt to pierce all the way through the planet’s crust and ascertain what lies beneath. He theorizes that the planet is actually a living organism that shows signs of respiration and circulation in its natural processes, like a gargantuan sea urchin. Though the science seems farfetched, the important thing is that Conan Doyle treats it with a ring of authenticity, which results in a well-written and entertaining sci-fi yarn, even better in some respects than The Lost World, though less substantial. At one point in the story, Mrs. Challenger is mentioned as still living, thus chronologically placing this story before The Land of Mist. Challenger’s great borehole might owe a debt of influence to Frank R. Stockton’s subterranean sci-fi novel The Great Stone of Sardis, published in 1891.
Read the story online at Project Gutenberg Australia.

“The Disintegration Machine” (1929) — 3 stars

A scientist named Dr. Nemor claims to have invented a machine that can break matter down into its individual atoms and then reverse the procedure to reassemble the disintegrated object—a process similar to teleportation but without the distance traveled. Assigned by his newspaper to investigate the matter, Malone takes Challenger along to meet the inventor. Nemor makes it clear that he intends to sell his device as a weapon to the highest bidder. This story is much briefer than “When the World Screams,” and it doesn’t delve very deeply into the science of disintegration. It is more of a Holmes-like caper in which Challenger and Malone must thwart a villain. The plot is pretty simplistic and the ending predictable, but Conan Doyle’s telling of it is still enjoyable and Challenger behaves in a matter true to his character.
Read the story online at Project Gutenberg Australia.

The Land of Mist by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Prof. Challenger betrayed for spiritualist propaganda

Outside of his Sherlock Holmes stories, the most famous recurring character in the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is Professor Challenger, the bearded, blustering scientist who led the expedition to The Lost World. Conan Doyle featured Challenger in three novels and two short stories. Unfortunately, with the exception of The Lost World, none of them are regarded very highly. The Land of Mist, published in 1926, is the third novel in the Challenger series, which follows Challenger’s second adventure, 1913’s The Poison Belt. The two short stories were published later, but I believe they are prequels to The Land of Mist.

One of the things (among many) that makes this novel so disappointing is that Challenger is merely a guest star in this book and only present for small portions of the narrative. The story centers around Ned Malone, journalist and sidekick from The Lost World. Professor Challenger’s daughter Enid Challenger is also a reporter and plays a major role in the story. Malone and Enid are assigned by a newspaper to co-write a series of articles on the spiritualist movement. Though both begin as skeptics, they resolve to keep an open mind while investigating possible paranormal phenomena at a series of seances where mediums claim to receive communications from the dead. (Gee, I wonder if the two reporters will fall in love.) Lord John Roxton, another supporting character from The Lost World, also appears in a couple chapters.

Conan Doyle wrote many works on spiritualism and the paranormal, both fiction and nonfiction. He was a firm believer in the supernatural world and gave pubic lectures on the topic. Sometimes he even managed to craft an entertaining story around the subject, such as in The Parasite. The Land of Mist, however, reads more like one of his lectures than one of his entertaining stories. As Malone and Enid attend more seances and meet more mediums, they become more convinced of the veracity of spiritualist claims. Meanwhile, mediums are being persecuted in London for their beliefs. If they could only convert a confirmed materialist into seeing the truth and beauty of the spirit world, it would go a long way towards popularizing spiritualism for the good of the masses. Thus, Ned and Enid conspire with the spiritualists to convince Professor Challenger to attend a seance where he will see the light and become converted. By following this course, Conan Doyle betrays the integrity of his own character in order to push his spiritualist propaganda.

Conan Doyle was also a church-goin’ man, so he does not view spiritualism as a departure from the Bible. In fact, a few of the ghosts who appear in this story have actually met Christ, and the prophets mentioned in the Bible were nothing but mediums who received messages from the dead. The spiritualists’ belief system, as sketched by Conan Doyle in this novel, is an absurd house of cards built on convenient rationalizations. When a seance fails to achieve results, for example, it is because a skeptic in the room disturbs the energy. In addition to messages from beyond the grave, Conan Doyle asserts physical manifestations such as ectoplasmic apparitions, spirit photography, and poltergeists. Even those who believe in ghosts and TV mediums who speak to the deceased will find many of the Victorian Era spiritualist beliefs to be ridiculous.

Besides all the pseudo-science, this is just a poorly written story, boring for most of its length, that can’t make up its mind whether it wants to be an essay or a melodrama. Conan Doyle presents a dull catalog of dozens of paranormal occurrences he’s read about, which leaves room for only the thinnest of stories, every turn of which is predictable. Although Conan Doyle has every right to write about his supernatural beliefs, he should have left Professor Challenger out of it.
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The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Last and possibly least, but still entertaining
Published in 1927, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes is the fifth and final collection of Sherlock Holmes short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The twelve stories included in this volume were originally published from 1921 to 1927 in various issues of Collier’s, Liberty, and The Strand magazines. At the end of the preceding volume of stories, His Last Bow, Holmes retired from detective work. These stories are recollections by Holmes and Watson of past cases untold. The narrators cite dates for some of the stories, placing them in the years from 1896 to 1907.

The general consensus among Holmes aficionados is that the earliest stories by Conan Doyle are the best, and as time went on he began to run out of ideas. Thus, The Case-Book, coming at the tail end of Conan Doyle’s career, is typically regarded as the worst of the short story collections. I would agree that of those five books, this is the worst overall, but there is still much to enjoy in this fine collection. A mediocre book by Conan Doyle still surpasses the work of so many lesser storytellers. Even when the mystery is not difficult to figure out, the character development and repartee between Holmes and Watson still makes for an enjoyable read, and if you discover the killer before Watson does, it’s still fun to hear Holmes relate the details of the crime.

That said, “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone” is the worst Holmes story I have ever read. Rather than being narrated by Watson, it is inexplicably told in an anonymous third-person voice. The story is simplistic and rather too conveniently resolved, and Holmes’s behavior seems very out of character. One wonders if Conan Doyle even wrote this. “The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier” is narrated by Holmes himself, with Watson nowhere to be found. Holmes is hired by a Boer War veteran to investigate an old army buddy who may be held in captivity by his father. The resolution is predictable, and the epilogue is an unrealistic cop-out. Another solo adventure, “The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane,” is also narrated by Holmes. It takes place at his retirement property in Sussex, where one of his neighbors is found dead on the beach. This one is so easy to resolve it barely qualifies as a mystery.

The collection does have its share of good stories as well. My favorite is “The Adventure of the Three Garridebs” because it has a bizarre premise reminiscent of my all-time favorite Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Red-Headed League.” In fact, one could say the plot is a direct rip off of that earlier story, but I didn’t mind. The murder mystery “The Problem of Thor Bridge” is a perplexing puzzle with an admirably innovative solution. One of the more entertaining cases, “The Adventure of the Creeping Man,” is a very good story, but it cheats in the end by using science fiction to resolve its mystery. “The Adventure of the Three Gables,” starts out with an interesting premise but unfortunately includes an unflattering depiction of a black character. “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire” concludes with an ingenious resolution, but if the accused would have just spoken up in the first place there would have been no need to hire Holmes.

This may not be Conan Doyle’s best work, but it is still a good read and far better than his imitators. If you haven’t read the previous four short story collections (Adventures, Memoirs, Return, and His Last Bow), by all means do so first. Save this one for when you just can’t get enough.

Stories in this collection

The Adventure of the Illustrious Client

The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier

The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone

The Adventure of the Three Gables

The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire

The Adventure of the Three Garridebs

The Problem of Thor Bridge

The Adventure of the Creeping Man

The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane

The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger

The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place

The Adventure of the Retired Colourman

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