The Orchard of Tears by Sax Rohmer

Sax Rohmer is famous for creating one of the outstanding villains of early twentieth century fiction, Dr Fu Manchu.   However, although "The Orchard of Tears" sounds like a perfect title for one of the evil Doctor's vile plots it is instead - well what - I am still pondering this.
The book, set in the First World War, concerns a captain in the Irish Guards whose life is saved by a sergeant and who then in turn brings back the dying sergeant under fire losing a leg and winning a VC in the process.   A wealthy man he determines to provide for the sergeant's widow and daughter and travels to the rural village where they live.   There he discovers that the cottage where they live is on the estate of a friend of his, a famous writer, and that the daughter is not only very attractive but posessed of great artistic talent.   He arranges for her to attend art school in London whilst at the same time persuading his writer friend to start a new philosophical/religious movement.   He falls in love with the girl but, this being before the Beatles, he does nothing about it and gets killed on the Western Front.   The writer publishes the book outlining the new philosophy to great acclaim and ends up with the girl.
This all sounds frightfully vague, not to mention implausible, but, of course, this book is almost one hundred years old, it was first published in 1918, and reflects very different cultural standards.   The important thing is that it was well enough written to keep me reading up to the end and provides the modern reader with a fascinating insight into the attitudes of our forebears.
It is available to download free from Project Gutenberg.

The Forbidden by F.R. Tallis

A novel of demonic possession is unusual in these days of contemptuous dismissal of anything pertaining to the supernatural and it is brave of Frank Tallis to attempt it.   In less skilled hands it could have been a crude shocker but Tallis writes with subtlety and intelligence and uses extensive research to produce a vastly entertaining story.
In 1872 Paul Clement, a young doctor, travels to Saint Sebastien an island in the French Antilles to practice at a mission station.   He is befriended by Doctor Tavernier who has worked on the island for many years and become an expert on tropical diseases.   Tavernier has also immersed himself in the culture of the island and one day informs Clement that a relative of his manservant has been turned into a zombie.   On Clement rejecting such a suggestion he takes him to a ceremony where the unfortunate man is killed by the local Bokor or witch doctor.   Returning from this gruesome ceremony Clement is accosted by the Bokor who says that he will send his soul to Hell if he reveals what he has seen.
Clement returns to Paris where he is fortunate to be taken on as an assistant to Guillaume Duchene a leading experimental physiologist and a pioneer of using electric shocks to re-start the heart.   Duchene notes that several of the patients who have been brought back from a state of clinical death report that their soul left their body and journeyed to a place of light wherein they felt a great feeling of peace.
A former pupil of Duchene, Jean-Martin Charcot, is head of the Salpetriere hospital and working on "hysteria" as mental illness was then described and is also interested in "out of body" experiences.   Clement takes a post under him and one night persuades a colleague to take him to the point of death with anasthetic and then revive him using electric shocks.   Whilst clinicaly dead Clements soul does leave his body but not to a place of peace and light but to the very depths of Hell.   Returning to conciousness Clement reveals nothing of his experience but from then on he is haunted by what he has seen.   Shortly afterwards he is introduced to, and falls in love with, Therese the wife of a senior colleague and begins a torrid affair.
This affair which began as an expression of love degenerates into violence and depravity as Clement is taken further under the influence of the demon who has followed him from Hell.   Clement has introduced Therese to morphine and this added to the violence Clement inflicts on her undermines her health although her husband appears not to notice.   During this time Clement has made the acquaintance of Bazille, a pious man who is bellringer at the Church of Saint Sulpice.   Bazille makes it clear that he is concerned for the health, mental and physical, of Clement and eventualy persuades him to meet Father Ranier an exorcist.   Clement takes part in an exorcism during which Father Ranier is killed but the demon is captured and imprisoned in a sphere of crystal whose safekeeping is to be Clement's lifelong responsibility.   He decides to leave Paris and takes a position as household doctor to a wealthy familly in the south but the demon has not given up and it will take another exorcism before Clement is free.
This is a stunning novel full of pace and invention and despite it's fantastical theme this reader  never felt that his leg was being pulled beyond endurance.   Frank Tallis is an excellent writer as his "Vienna" novels have shown and maintains his standard in this change of genre.

The Nesferatu Scroll by James Becker

James Becker takes us back to the good old glory days of Hammer Films with this story of modern day vampires.   This is not a complaint, I loved those films - still do!   Becker has skilfully blended the vampire legend into a hunt for a serial killer set against the background of the romantic city of Venice.
Angela Lewis, a curator of pottery at the British Museum is on holiday in Venice with her husband Chris Bronson a detective with the Metropolitan Police.   During a trip to Isola di San Michele, the cemetary of Venice, they discover a vandalised tomb from which Angela is convinced that the occupant was thought to be a vampire.   Whilst taking photographs of the tomb she discovers a small book which she takes back to their hotel.   At the same time the police arrive as the body of a young woman has been found on the island.   Returning to the island later Chris and Angela discover three more bodies of young women in another broken tomb and only Chris Bronson's fluent Italian and his Met warrant card keep them out of custody.   At the same time more young women are being abducted from the streets of Venice and taken to an island in the Lagoon by a secret society who believe that they can gain supernatural powers by becoming vampires but when they kidnap Angela Bronson is soon on their case and shows his own supernatural powers.
This is just the thing for a lazy afternoon or yet another hold up at the airport.

Witch Hammer by M.J.Trow

I first started reading Trow when he was writing the excelent series featuring the Sherlockian character Inspector Lestrade.   These books were remarkable not only for the sense of place and good plots that are essential for a Holmes pastiche but for the dry wit that gave them a style of their own.

The Holmes revival ceased when the EU suddenly extended post mortem copyright to seventy years from fifty and Trow began a series of novels featuring a schoolmaster named Maxwell.   I must admit that I never took to Maxwell.

Trow has now begun a new series featuring the playwright Christopher Marlow who, had he lived to write more, would in my opinion have equalled or even exceeded the reputation of William Shakespeare.

Witch Hammer is the third in this series and finds Marlow, having left Cambridge, determined to make his name as a playwright and to avoid further entanglements with Walsingham and his spy ring.   On the road to London he meets the company of players known as Lord Strange's Men.   Lord Strange, the wealthy son of the Earl of Derby is accompnaying them to a performance at the home of Sir William Clopton near Stratford on Avon.   The Manor of Stratford is owned by Sir Edward Greville who has his eye on the Clopton estate and intends to take them by force on the grounds that Clopton is a Catholic.

Any firther description of the book would become a "spoiler" and so I will simply recommend it to anyone who likes a good historical thriller.

Sanctus by Simon Toyne

In Sanctus Simon Toyne takes us into Dan Brown country with a secretive religious order protec ting a secret in a hollowed out mountain in southern Turkey.   Supposedly the founding group from which the Roman Catholic Church has sprung their purpose is to guard "The Sacrement".   Exactly how a group that was founded several thousand years BC is related to the RC Church is never satisfactorily explained but as the Vatican has become the conspiracy novelists villain-of-choice since the KGB was re-branded I suppose we have to put up with it.
The story opens when a member of the inner circle of the order goes rogue and throws himself from the top of the mountain stronghold into the laps of a group of tourists in full view of the TV cameras.   The order are unable to prevent the Turkish Police from taking away the body but use their considerable influence to frustrate any enquiry.   Naturaly the Abbot, CEO of the order, has a squad of ex-soldiers on hand when he deems some of the rough stuff is necessary.   Unknown to the Order the dead monk has a sister in the USA who is a journalist and she is soon on her way to Turkey to claim her brothers body and find out why he died.   At the same time there is another group, headed by an ex monk who managed to leave the Order and stay hidden, who are also after the corpse in order to fulfill an ancient prophecy.   Yes, another one of those!
I hope that I am not sounding too dismissive of this book as, of it's kind, it is very well written and I enjoyed it bearing in mind the necessity of disbelief suspension.   I think that my problem is that over decades of reading my disbelief has been suspended so often that it is now in the region of the International Space Station.   Never mind,  one does get a wonderful view from up here.

Flashman on the March by George Macdonald Fraser

Volume twelve of the fictitious memoirs of Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC is as funny, bawdy and gloriously politicaly incorrect as the preceeding eleven.   Fraser's magnificent creation continues to reveal the truth behind his gilded reputation as a hero of Victorian England in that cynicaly droll style that makes this series of books a joy.
Flashman is desparate to get out of Trieste to avoid a squad of Prussian hardmen looking to administer retribution for his seducing a young noblewoman.   His old schoolfriend Speedicut, now a diplomat, asks him to convey half a million Maria Teresa dollars to Abyssinia to pay the army of Sir Robert Napier who is there to rescue British citizens held captive by the Emperor Theodore.   On arrival at Napier's camp instead of the fare back to England that Speedicut promised he finds himself recruited for a foray behind enemy lines.   Napier needs someone to travel to the south of the country to meet the Queen of the ferocious Gala tribe and persuade her to block Theodore's line of retreat.   His guide is to be the illegitimate half sister of the Queen, a beautiful young woman who is very soon sharing Flashman's blankets.   This, of course, does not prevent our hero leaving her to drown when it comes to saving his own neck.    The Queen of the Gala also proves suceptible to Flashman's charms but on the point of getting her agreement he is kidnapped by her sister who has survived the river.   She is on the point of revenging herself in a most painful manner when Theodore himself turns up with a squad of Amazons and Flashy is saved again.
Fraser's description of the battle of Magdala and Napier's victory against what should have been overwhelming odds reveals that not only is he an excellent writer but that the depth of his research would do credit to a professional historian.
Anyone who is of a mind to indulge in Flashman's adventures, that is anyone who enjoys a good chuckle, would be advised to start with volume one entitled simply "Flashman".   All of the series are still in print and if there is any justice writing of this quality will be in print for some time to come.

Tyran: Destroyer of Cities by Christian Cameron

There are currently many writers of historical novels who can put together a story which holds the attention with exciting battle scenes and heroes contrived into, and out of, perilous situations but there are a few who can take the genre to a higher plane and Christian Cameron is one of the select.  

Destroyer of Cities is the fourth volume of the Tyrant series which is set in the devastating period following the death of Alexander when his generals fought like rats in a sack to take over his empire.   There are two main contenders when this novel opens, Ptolemy who controls Egypt and Antigonus One-Eye who is master of Asia.   Athens is allied to Antigonus though most of Greece is controlled by Casander and the Greek islands- Cyprus, Crete and Rhodes- are, as they say, up for grabs.   Ptolemy has troops on Cyprus but both sides are determined to take Rhodes a center of the all important grain trade.   This is where Cameron's hero, Satyrus King of the Bosporus, comes in for his kingdom depends on the sale of grain and as Antigonus already controls Athens, one of the main grain markets, for him to have Rhodes as well would leave Satyrus having to take any price Antigonus cared to offer.  

Demetrios, son of Antigonus, at the head of a huge army is already threatening Rhodes and so Satyrus leads his grain fleet into Rhodes harbour and sells to the "boule" as the ruling council is known.   The boule is divided by factions, the oligarchs who want to do a deal with Antigonus and the others who want to preserve their independance.   Panther, admiral of the Rhodian fleet, is of the latter faction and asks Satyrus to stay and help organise the defence.   The oligarchs manage to get a delegation to Demetrios to negotiate surrender but he is not interested as he sees himself as the new Alexander and wants to conquer Rhodes to prove the point.   Against all the odds the Rhodians commanded by Satyrus hold out until Demetrios has to pull back and although a face saving formula is worked out he has suffered a setback that will mean that his dream of conquering Egypt is over.

Christian Cameron brings to his novels a wealth of research and blends it unobtrusively into a narrative peopled with characters who draw the reader into their story.

The Lion's World by Rowan Williams

For a middle aged lecturer in English Literature to write a series of childrens novels set in a fantasy land would seem to be a pretty harmless thing to do but the reaction to the Narnia Chronicles of C.S.Lewis is both startling and revealing.   Startling in the ferocity of the attacks on both the work and the writer and revealing in that this ferocity is directly related to the perceived success that the books are supposed to have in putting across a Christian message to young people.   Despite the current opinion that religion in general and Christianity in particular are not to be taken seriously the books continue to sell and the attacks continue with unremiting venom long after Lewis' death.

A defence of Lewis and his Narnia Chronicles was long overdue and no one is better qualified to put it forward than the former Archbishop of Canterbury now Master of Magdalene College Cambridge.   I do not intend to summarise Williams' arguments as often summarys are misconstrued or miss the point altogether but rather to urge the reading of this short but excellent book.

The Colours of Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley

On Kindle via Project Gutenberg

This is one of the good old fashioned science fiction stories from the days before SF writers thought that they had to be fantasists/philosophers.   It has spaceships and aliens and super warp drives all the things that we expected in a space adventure when I was a lad.   True it also has the "if only we all knew one another better we would all live together in peace" line that was standard practice back in the fifties and no we did not believe it then either.
Many centuries in the future man has travelled to other solar systems and colonised them but with great difficulty constrained as they are by Einsteins dictum that nothing can travel faster than light but then a new species from another galaxy turn up who have mastered the warp drive.   These people, the Lharis, keep the secret of warp drive to themselves and corner the market in interstellar travel but a group of humans are determined to penetrate their security and learn the secret.   One young man is subjected to radical surgery to enable him to pass as a Lhari and take a position on a star ship.   During the voyage he cracks the secret and learns to love the Lharis and they all live happily ever after.
Well, that is the kind of SF that was the regular diet of my youth and this story provided a pleasant few hours of nostalgia.

Marius Mules Book One The Invasion of Gaul by S.J.A. Turney

This is the first of a series of novels based on the subjugation of Gaul by the Roman Legions under the command of Julius Caesar.   The first volume covers the campaign against the Helvetii and Caesar's pursuit of them into the west and the territory of major Gaulish tribes that are nominally at peace with Rome.
Turney makes his opinion of the Divine Julius quite clear, he is not a great general but a politician on the make and if that requires provoking the Gauls into a war with all the suffering that entails he is ready to do it.   He also appears indifferent to the losses inflicted on his own men which conflicts with much of the later legend that was built around him.
Other writers of Roman adventures set their stories among the lower ranks but Turney's main characters are the senior officers on Caesar's staff, not that they are averse to getting in the thick of the action if needed.   Turney is very good at showing the pressure under which those responsible for the conduct of the battles labour and the way that politics can intrude even when men are fighting for their lives.
Turney's main character, Fronto, is Legate of the Ninth Legion.   A bluff professional soldier he has turned his back on the prospect of political office that his senatorial familly expected of him which is why he has no illusions about Caesar.   His fellow officers are all rounded characters well drawn and believable with the hard drinking cynical attitudes that soldiers affect to get through the dangerous bits.   The action scenes, of which there are plenty, are well written as are the descriptions of the difficulties of getting large numbers of men into action in place and on time.  
I enjoyed this book so much that I have bought the three following volumes.   All I need now is the time to read them.

The Sky's Dark Labyrith by Stuart Clark

In the sixteenth century the Church of Rome was riven by the theological schism known as the Reformation.   Taken aback at first the Church lost ground to the Lutherans especialy in northern Europe but towards the end of the century it began a fight back lead by a group of intellectual priests known as the Jesuits.   The Jesuits were determined to take on the Protestants not only in theology but also in art, music and natural philosophy or science as it is now known.   At this time astronomy was dominated by the ancient theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy who said that the universe was static and unchanging, a theory that theologians of all churches felt fitted in with the teachings of the Bible.   Anyone, such as Copernicus, who suggested that the stars and planets moved or that the earth was not the centre of the universe was likely to be accused of heresy which often lead to a painful death.

At the end of the sixteenth century a Danish nobleman, Tycho Brahe, was appointed Mathematician to the Holy Roman Emperor and used his position to make the most accurate observations of the stars to that date.   Despite being employed by a Catholic monarch he took as one of his assistants a Lutheran mathematician Johannes Kepler.   Kepler used his mathematics to prove from Brahe's observations that the planets were moving and that the sun was the static object not the earth.   At the same time the Vatican's astronomer Galileo came to the same conclusion.   As on so many other subjects science and theology were in conflict and Galileo was prevailed upon to recant.

The end of the sixteenth century saw the application of mathematics and geometry to astronomy with Brahe commisioning the manufacture of instruments that enabled the most accurate measurements of the motions of heavenly bodies that had ever been acheived.   Galileo supplemented these observations with his own using a telescope for the first time and despite opposition from theologians, Protestant as well as Catholic, the Aristotelian concept of the universe as static was doomed.   Clark also makes it clear that Galileo was neither imprisoned or tortured as many Protestant and Marxist writers have averred in their desire to blacken the reputation of the Catholic Church.

All in all a very entertaining and informative read.