TekWar by William Shatner

The Rockford Files meets The Jetsons
William Shatner’s science fiction novel TekWar, originally published in 1989, is the first in a series of nine Tek books. It also gave rise to a comic book series, a video game, and a television series. Much of this success, of course, is due to its author’s preexisting fame. It’s easy to take pot shots at actors moonlighting as novelists, but as a fan of the genre I approached this book with every intention of giving Shatner a fair shake. Ultimately, however, even my middling expectations were disappointed.

Jake Cardigan is a former cop who was sentenced to 15 years in suspended animation for dealing in a drug known as Tek. Tek is distributed in the form of computer chips which, when coupled with an apparatus that’s wired to the brain, conjure up tailor-made hallucinations in the mind of the user, somewhat like the virtual-reality drug that Ralph Fiennes peddles in the 1985 movie Strange Days. In the year 2120, after four years of incarceration, Cardigan is awoken from his deep sleep and released from prison, though he’s not quite sure why or to whom he owes his good fortune. This is just one of the mysteries that faces Cardigan as, stripped of his badge, he goes to work for a private detective agency. He soon finds that, no matter how hard he tries to avoid it, he just can’t keep himself from getting drawn into the criminal world of Tek.

The idea of a hard-boiled detective story set in the future is nothing new, of course. Pulp fiction writers have been making Sam-Spade-in-space stories since the days of Dashiell Hammett. Shatner’s vision of the future is remarkably antiquated, like something out of a ‘40s or ‘50s pulp magazine. His efforts at sci-fi speculation don’t stretch much beyond adding prefixes like plas-, space-, and vid- to the front of preexisting nouns. Many common objects are made of lucite, and there are robots everywhere. Back in 1989, mobile phones and the internet were still in their infancy, but given that Star Trek foreshadowed such things, Shatner could have stretched his imagination a bit. Instead, the primary mode of communication is faxing, and everyone has an alcove in their home devoted to a videophone. All this matters little, however, because the novel is not really concerned with the future anyway. It’s just a mediocre detective story dressed up in futuristic trappings.

Not surprisingly, TekWar can’t compare with the science fiction masterpieces of authors like Frank Herbert or Phillip K. Dick, but it could probably hold its own against 90% of what passes for fiction at your typical airport newsstand if it didn’t drag out so long. I thought I was getting a fun piece of pulpy escapism, but what I got was a chore to read. In each chapter, a new character is introduced who provides Cardigan with a little piece of the puzzle. With the exception of name, race, and gender, however, there’s little to distinguish any of these people or androids from one another, so there’s little reason to care about any of them. What’s worse, Cardigan doesn’t really use any detective reasoning to solve the mystery, he simply follows the trail of bread crumbs left for him by this series of nondescript characters until the solution falls into his lap and the plot finally fizzles to a halt.

TekWar isn’t terrible, but at best it’s a marginally competent attempt at science fiction. Were it not for Shatner’s name on the cover, it would have quietly faded into the obscurity it deserves.
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Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Not enough Treasure Island, too much Waverley
These days Robert Louis Stevenson is best remembered for Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but another of his novels that consistently appears on lists of the greatest adventure books of all time is Kidnapped. Although no doubt a hit with the adolescent boys of 1886, today’s fans of classic literature might find themselves wondering why this rather dull adventure is still worthy of note.

The story takes place in 1751. David Balfour, a Scottish youth, is orphaned at the age of 17. The local minister, a friend of the family, gives David a letter of introduction to an uncle he’s never met, Ebenezer Balfour of the House of Shaws. David, who grew up poor, is surprised to find his father’s surname connected with a wealthy estate like that of Shaws. He travels to the seaside city of Cramond in hopes that his uncle will aid him in securing a position by which he might make a living. Far from welcoming his nephew with open arms, however, the curmudgeonly Uncle Ebenezer greets his long lost relative with disdain, grants him the minimum of hospitality, and even threatens to do him harm. Under the pretense of conducting some business related to his father’s estate, Ebenezer leads David to the harbor, where the boy is introduced to a ship’s captain named Hoseason. After being lured aboard the captain’s brig, David is taken captive. Through his uncle’s evil scheming, he is to be transported to America and sold as a plantation slave.

That brief synopsis certainly sounds like it has the making of a great adventure novel. The problem with Kidnapped is that so little of the book has to do with the kidnapping. The scenes aboard the ship are by far the best in the book, but Stevenson soon abandons the nautical narrative in favor of a plot line involving the Jacobite Uprising, in which Scottish Highlanders rose up against the reigning British monarch in an attempt to reestablish the Stuart dynasty on the throne. The story here is based on a real historical event called the Appin Murder, which would have been common knowledge to the readers of Stevenson’s day. David finds himself mixed up with a bunch of lawless Highlander rebels, and the novel suffers for it. Having recently read Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley, imagine my chagrin to find Stevenson boring me to tears with the same subject matter. After its auspicious beginning, the novel devolves into chapter after chapter of uneventful pursuit. There’s a whole lot of going places but not much getting there. The plot is quite predictable, and Stevenson concludes the whole thing with a half-baked ending.

Much like Walter Scott, Stevenson was worshipped as a god by many notable writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries, some of whom penned tales of shanghaied sailors far more satisfying than Kidnapped, among them The Sea-Wolf by Jack London and Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris. Kidnapped just doesn’t contain enough of that old Treasure Island magic. With the exception of one good action scene aboard the brig, the thrills aren’t thrilling enough and the bad guys aren’t scary enough. In 1893, Stevenson published a sequel to Kidnapped called Catriona. After reading this disappointing book, however, accompanying David Balfour on another adventure is the last thing I want to do.
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Old Books by Dead Nobel Laureates

Congratulations to Patrick Modiano

French novelist Patrick Modiano has just been announced as the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature. Old Books by Dead Guys offers a hearty congratulations to him even though, not surprisingly, I’ve never read any of his work. Year after year people argue over whether the winner is truly the world’s greatest writer, or whether the whole thing is one big political contest, yet despite such quibbles the authors chosen are generally of high calibre and certainly worthy of accolades. What I enjoy about the annual Nobel festivities is that it provides a much-needed reminder to my self-centric nation that great literature does indeed exist outside the borders of the United States. Of course, many of the world’s greatest authors never won a Nobel, and the prize has only been in existence since 1901, which rules out a lot of Old Books by Dead Guys. Nevertheless, if you’re looking to explore new authors in world literature, the list of Nobel Laureates is always a good place to start.

So far Old Books by Dead Guys has reviewed 34 works by 10 Nobel Laureates. Not surprisingly, they all come from the first half of the 20th century. Click on the links below to read the complete reviews.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1903 Nobel) Norway

• Arne: A Sketch of Norwegian Country Life (1859)
• A Happy Boy (1860)
• “The Father” (1860) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian (1898)
• “The Railroad and the Churchyard” (1882) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian (1898)

Henryk Sienkiewicz (1905 Nobel) Poland

• “The Light-House Keeper of Aspinwall” (1881) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian (1898)
• “Bartek the Conqueror” (1882) in Tales by Polish Authors (1915)
• With Fire and Sword (1884)
• The Deluge (1886)
• Pan Michael (1888)
• Quo Vadis (1895)
• Sielanka: An Idyll (1898)
• So Runs the World (1898)
• On the Field of Glory (1906)

Rudyard Kipling (1907 Nobel) United Kingdom

• Kim (1901)

Paul von Heyse (1910 Nobel) Germany

• “The Fury” (1853) in Stories by Foreign Authors: German I (1898)

Maurice Maeterlinck (1911 Nobel) Belgium

• “The Massacre of the Innocents” (1886) in Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian (1898)

Knut Hamsun (1920 Nobel) Norway

• Hunger (1890)
• Growth of the Soil (1917)

Wladyslaw Reymont (1924 Nobel) Poland

• The Comedienne (1896)
• The Peasants (1904-1909)
• “The Trial” in More Tales by Polish Authors (1916)
• “A Polish Scene” in Selected Polish Tales (1921)
• “Death” in Selected Polish Tales (1921)

Sinclair Lewis (1930 Nobel) United States of America

• Main Street (1920)

Pearl S. Buck (1938 Nobel) United States of America (raised in China)

• The Good Earth (1931)
• Sons (1933)
• A House Divided (1935)
• Dragon Seed (1942)

Hermann Hesse (1946 Nobel) Switzerland (born in Germany)

• Beneath the Wheel (1906)
• Demian (1919)
• Siddhartha (1922)
• Steppenwolf (1927)
• The Journey to the East (1932)
• The Glass Bead Game (1943)

Look for more reviews of Nobel Prize-winning authors at Old Books by Dead Guys. If I review enough of them, I’ll make this an annual event.

Stories by Foreign Authors: German II by Berthold Auerbach, et al.

A masterpiece from Auerbach, a dud from von Chamisso

Berthold Auerbach

This book is the second of two volumes of German short fiction included in the ten-volume series Stories by Foreign Authors, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1898. It contains English translations of four stories by four German authors. While the first book of German stories in this series, subtitled German I, leaned toward the lighter side of 19th-century literature, this second volume delivers more of the deep thoughts and dark drama one might expect from this romantic, philosophical period in literary history.

So far I’ve read five of the volumes in the Stories by Foreign Authors series, and the best story I’ve encountered yet is “Christian Gellert’s Last Christmas” by Berthold Auerbach. It takes place in 1768, when Gellert, a real historical figure, was professor of philosophy at the University of Leipzig. He is a well-respected man but poor, sickly, and dejected. When a peasant reads a passage of Gellert’s verse, he is so touched by it that he sets out to meet the great man and give him a gift. Gellert’s faith in God and life is renewed by this simple act. This story is quite moving and profound. Although the philosophical message is expressed in Christian terms, in accordance with Gellert’s philosophy, there is a core of ancient stoicism to it that can be valuable to nonbelievers as well. As I read it, I couldn’t resist highlighting several passages. It’s one of those deeply affecting stories that really makes you consider your own life and look at it from a different perspective.

Also quite moving, though not as philosophical, is Leopold Kompert’s “A Ghetto Violet.” A teenage brother and sister living in a Jewish ghetto learn that their father will be returning home after five years of incarceration. In the past, he was an inveterate gambler whose transgressions drove their mother to die of despair. Has he learned from his mistakes, and how will the children react to his return? Overall the story is very good, though some of the dialog is a bit clunky, possibly from the translation, and it could have used a less expected ending.

“The Severed Hand” by Wilhelm Hauff belongs to the horror/mystery drama and has an air of Edgar Allen Poe about it. Zaleukos is a doctor and merchant from Constantinople whose wanderings eventually lead him to settle in Florence. One night a mysterious stranger asks him to make an unusual house call, and for the sake of surprise, the less said about it the better. This story reminds me of a tale by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle entitled “The Case of Lady Sannox.” Both stories revolve around a fictional doctor making a stupid mistake that a real doctor would never make. Hauff’s tale is stylishly done but ultimately based on a silly premise.

The collection ends with “Peter Schlemihl,” a novella by Adelbert von Chamisso that takes up fully half the book. It tells the tale of the title character, who sells his shadow for a bottomless bag of gold. Stylistically, it feels like a Twilight Zone episode written by Balzac. Though fascinating at first, it goes on way too long and devolves into comic absurdity. There’s some indelible imagery and a few fun moments of dark humor, but ultimately it all feels rather pointless.

Overall this is a fairly good, diverse sampling of German stories. Your enjoyment of it will largely depend on your tolerance for “Peter Schlemihl.” Auerbach’s selection alone makes this collection well worth downloading.

Stories in this collection

Christian Gellert’s Last Christmas by Berthold Auerbach 

A Ghetto Violet by Leopold Klompert 

The Severed Hand by Wilhelm Hauff 

Peter Schlemihl by Adelbert von Chamisso 

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Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West by Tom Holland

A titanic tale, only adequately told
Tom Holland’s 2005 book Persian Fire is a historical overview of the Greco-Persian Wars of the 5th century BC, in which an alliance of Greek city-states fought to repel the invading forces of the Persian Empire. Holland begins his narrative roughly 150 years before the war, setting the stage by examining the events that led up to the conflict. Athens is ruled by a rapid succession of quarreling tyrants—mobsters, essentially—until one of them, out of pure self-interest, comes up with the bright idea of democracy. Elsewhere in Greece, Sparta has developed a bizarre, proto-fascist military culture of super soldiers based on a sort of egalitarianism of violence. Meanwhile, a group of mountain tribesmen in present-day Iran coalesce to form the Persian Empire. After conquering the kingdoms of Media, Lydia, and Babylon, this first superpower expands its territory to encompass all of the Middle East and Central Asia before deciding to set its sights on Europe. The Empire’s great kings Cyrus and Darius are dispatched by Holland rather quickly in favor of their descendant Xerxes, under whose leadership the Persians would face the Greeks at the storied battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea.

The war between Greece and Persia is no doubt a fascinating historical event, worthy of in-depth examination, but is Holland the right man for the job? Although this is meant to be a synthesis of existing information, palatable to a trade audience, Holland doesn’t make it easy for the general reader. His prose is often confusing, and never comfortable. American readers may find themselves wishing for a glossary to translate his British vocabulary choices. It’s obvious that he’s done a great deal of research on the topic and probably ate, breathed, and slept the Greco-Persian War for months if not years. The problem is that he writes as if he expects his audience has done the same. The general reader my find himself floundering in a quagmire of proper nouns, begging for Holland to toss them a vine, while scholars on the subject would be better served by the original source material.

The most disappointing thing about Persian Fire is that the title and subtitle lead one to believe this will be a more Persian-centric view of the conflict. Instead, as usual, the Athenians and Spartans get much more ink than their Eastern counterparts. For the most part, the Persians are defined as they’ve always been. (Who were the Persians? The ones who fought the Greeks.) Persia may have been the “First World Empire,” but what cultural legacy, if any, did they bestow upon Western civilization? I’ve read elsewhere that their legal code was quite ground breaking and influential. Did they have literature? science? mathematics? You wouldn’t know it from reading Holland’s book. He does a pretty good job of depicting what life was like for the citzens of Sparta and Athens, but when it comes to the Persians he’s all about political maneuvering and troop deployment. Persia is a goliath destined to be slain by the panhellenic David, and little more.

Any book on this subject should appeal to two types of readers: military history enthusiasts and those fascinated by the ancient world. Persian Fire aims straight for the former faction, to the neglect of the latter camp. In some of the battle scenes Holland vividly captures the clash of sword on steel and the stench of blood-soaked sand, but in between the violent altercations the text is frequently as dry and lifeless as a collection of names on a map. For all its detail, it might make a good reference, but as a reading experience it all too often feels like work.
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A Happy Boy by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

The waiting is the hardest part
A Happy Boy was originally published in 1860 under the Norwegian title of En glad Gut. It was written by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, who won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature. The novel tells the story of Oyvind Thoresen Pladsen, beginning when he’s about four years old. In the first chapter, he meets a young girl named Marit from a neighboring farm, and immediately develops a fascination with her that will prove enduring as he grows older. At first it seems as if the novel will focus chiefly on the concerns of childhood—growing up on a farm, attending school, the social life of children, etc.—but despite the title the story does follow young Oyvind into early manhood. The main thrust of the narrative revolves around an issue so central to any lad’s adolescence: what sort of a man will this boy grow to be? What kind of a life will Oyvind make for himself, and will Marit be a part of it?

Matters are complicated by issues of class. In the English translation by Rasmus B. Anderson, one word that’s ubiquitous throughout the text is “gard,” which is essentially synonymous with “farm.” (I don’t know why he chose not to translate it as such.) To own a gard is to be a member of the landed class. Oyvind is merely the son of a houseman, which is roughly equivalent to a tenant farmer or sharecropper. As Oyvind grows up, he slowly and painfully develops a consciousness of class. Though he may be the brightest student in his school, his lower-class status looms as a seemingly insurmountable obstacle in his quest for a happy and successful life.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from reading the literature of Bjørnson and other Norwegian writers, it’s that Norwegians must be the world’s greatest waiters. By “waiter” I don’t mean a food service employee, but rather “one who waits.” Frequently, the protagonists of Norwegian novels don’t win battles by conquering their enemies but by outlasting them. Heroism does not rely on strength or power but on endurance and stoicism—a resignation to one’s present situation with the determination that one shall triumph in the end. There is a quiet gravity that underlies every action of Oyvind’s, and the steps he takes to achieve his goals are measured, deliberate, and pragmatic. Far from being boring, this romance of anticipation actually makes for a really engaging read.

On the surface, A Happy Boy appears to be simply a series of scenes from ordinary life. You won’t find the life-or-death struggle of a peasant epic, but nonetheless there’s a powerful drama softly boiling underneath the fallen snow. There is a universal familiarity to this coming-of-age story that reminds us of the importance and dignity of the cycle of life that we all take for granted. After all, there’s nothing less at stake here than the fate of a boy’s life. What could be more important than that?

The subject matter here is similar to an earlier novel of Bjørnson’s entitled Arne. Both chronicle the growth of a young lad in a rural Norwegian village and both are peppered with snippets of poetry and song. Of the two, A Happy Boy is clearly the superior work. The story of Arne is rather meandering and comes across as a bit pointless. In telling Oyvind’s tale, on the other hand, Bjørnson makes more of an attempt to craft a satisfyingly structured narrative, and he succeeds. If you’ve never read Bjørnson and are looking for an introduction to his work, A Happy Boy is a great place to start.
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Stories from the Twilight Zone by Rod Serling

Suspense never goes out of style
This collection contains six short stories from the classic early-1960s television series The Twilight Zone. Each tale is a prose adaptation written by Rod Serling—the show’s creator, head writer, and host—based upon a script he originally wrote for the show. The book also includes very brief introductions to the stories by his daughter Anne Serling which give a few details about the production of each episode. I was never a religious watcher of the show, but as a teenager in the ‘80s I subscribed to Twilight Zone Magazine, an excellent pulp anthology that featured horror, fantasy, and all-around weird stories by authors both classic and contemporary, including Twilight Zone scripts by Serling. When I stumbled upon this inexpensive ebook, I hoped it would bring back some of the excitement I felt when a new issue arrived on my doorstep.

Unfortunately, the first two stories did little to reinforce my hopes. “The Mighty Casey” and “Escape Clause” are both humorous tales. The former is about a miraculous pitcher who saves the Brooklyn Dodgers from a dismal season. The latter is the nth variation on the sold-his-soul-to-the-devil chestnut. In both cases, the humor has not held up well over the last half century. The dialog definitely reads like it was written for a soundstage, and is riddled with antiquated slang that doesn’t even score points as nostalgia or kitsch. These were surely clever stories for their day, but today’s reader will find them mildly amusing at best.

Where the funny stories fail, however, the serious and scary stories succeed. “Walking Distance” is an absolute masterpiece. A depressed New York City ad exec longs for the comfort and simplicity of his boyhood summers. Through the magic of the Twilight Zone, he finds you literally can go home again. It’s a very touching and poignant piece that keenly captures the regret of lost youth. Any reader over 30 will find it quite moving. Another excellent classic is “Where Is Everybody?”, which was the very first episode of the show. It’s about a young man who wakes up in the middle of a road with no memory of who he is or where he’s from. He wanders into a small town only to find it bereft of inhabitants, as if everyone had just abandoned the place moments earlier. In this disturbing tale, Serling brilliantly evokes the insanity that can be generated by isolation.

Two other solid selections round out the collection: “The Fever” and “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” Both start out a little hokey and contrived, but Serling skillfully ramps up the intensity until the narratives snowball into higher and higher levels of shock and awe. What might have been mediocre stories are saved by stunning, over-the-top endings. I’m not familiar with these particular episodes, but these dark tales contain violent scenes that surely must have been tuned down for television.

Serling is undoubtedly one of the greatest writers in the history of television. Each week on The Twilight Zone, he put a whole new fictional universe on the small screen and continually pushed the envelope of what the medium was capable of. The fact that the show is firmly ensconced in a cycle of perpetual reruns is a testament to his great talent and creativity. This book is a testament to how well his work has held up over the past 50 years. The best of these stories transcend pulp fiction to qualify as genuine literature.

Stories in this collection

The Mighty Casey 

Escape Clause 

Walking Distance 

The Fever

Where Is Everybody? 

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street 

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