Well, Summer's over and Autumn is upon us. Frankly, I like this time of year the best. The days may be shorter, but they're also cooler and the air is crisper, and the colors are brighter. Here are this months selections, which are a real mixed bag.
Series
Honor's Kingdom - Owen Parry ($7.99/$.50, copyright 2002, 407 pages, Paperback)
I've written about Parry's Abel Jones novels before. He's a Welshman who served in the English army in India, emigrated to America, and - even though embracing the Methodist way of life - joined the Union army during the Civil War. Here he's been sent to England to find out if they are really building ships for the Confederacy. Unfortunately - as is the case in these kinds of books - there is a murder that draws Jones in. Parry's strength is in the research he's done and how he conveys the time, the location, and the language (Jones' Welsh, the English upper and lower classes, and the Scotch). There are some great twists and a satisfying ending. I enjoyed it.
Pirates of Venus - Edgar Rice Burroughs ($3.95/$3.37, copyright 1932, 183 pages, Paperback)
This is the first volume in yet another series by Burroughs. The hero here is Carson Napier who,while attempting a trip to Mars, miscalculates and ends up on Venus. As is typical with Burroughs, he spends the first half of the book on the preparations, the flight, and Napier's acclimation to the people and their language and customs. Then he throws in giant spiders, slavers, pirates, mutinies, sea fights, rescues and captures - all in the second half. I'm pretty sure that Burroughs expected this
to be a series as he leaves this one with a cliff-hanger. I enjoyed it.
Miscellaneous
Pay The Devil - Jack Higgins ($7.50/$.25, copyright 1999, 294 pages, Paperback)
I wrote about another Higgins book several months ago and mentioned that I could very easily see it as a movie from the '40's. This one is even more cinematic. Colonel Clay Fitzgerald, along with his
friend and servant Joshua, leave America for Ireland after their side loses the Civil War. Clay has come into some property there and is eager to make a new start. However, nothing was simple in Ireland at that time. He finds himself caught up in the troubles between the English landowners and the Irish tenants. There's action and adventure aplenty. I could imagine Errol Flynn as Clay, Olivia
DeHaviland as the love interest, Basil Rathbone as the landowners henchman, with roles for Claude Raines and Alan Hale. I enjoyed it.
Miscellaneous - books That Were Made Into Movies
The Wanderers - Richard Price ($.25/$10.91*, copyright 1974, 239 pages, Trade Paperback)
This s a story about teenage gangs in the Bronx, supposedly in the early '60's. I grew up there and then and none of this rings true, but it does take place on the far side of the borough. It seems more like the late 50's and I thought it was stylized. It's really a series of vignettes that revolve around a small circle of friends and their girlfriends, and their families, and their interactions. It's well written, and Price gives the characters lives of their own. Still, there are parts of it that I couldn't associate with. It was OK.
(* This book, like one from last month, was published in England for 6 Pounds 99 pence. I've converted the price.)
That's it for September. Next up, October and the start of the year-end Holiday season.
Stay warm, stay happy, and...
Keep reading.
