Conservative Book Talk

Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a variety of material. Most notably, he had the first truly great detective (and consequently the first great arch-villain). (He even wrote the adventure story: The Lost World, being the inspiration for Jurassic Park and a myriad of adaptations.) To my mild surprise, Doyle also dabbled in the genre of horror with stories similar in nature to the master of horror: Edgar Allan Poe. I suspect that this work had a small tribute to the work of Poe, because these stories have stylistic similarities to Poe’s writings.

So what kind of tales will you find in this book? I’ll list the stories and make a comment or two about each one.

Tales of Horror:

• The Horror of the Heights – This story, placed in the early days of aviation now lacks the punch I assume that it once had. If one believes that villains often reveal the fears of the public (at the time of their publication), then this story presents an intriguing glimpse at the early age of flight. This story takes place at a time before enclosed cockpits….
• The Leather Funnel – A rather nasty story, this one. This story represented the requisite pass (albeit minor) at the occult and violence. As I enjoy Poe, I am probably not a good judge of just how dark a tale can be, but I squirmed a tad at the pictures.
• The New Catacomb – Two young men, both professional archaeologists, explore a heretofore-unknown catacomb in Rome. Doyle essentially rewrote one of Poe’s more famous stories in this short thriller. Sorry, I won’t tell you which one as it would spoil the ending.
• The Case of Lady Sannox – A story of morbid vengeance. Can one understand the desire for this particular revenge? Possibly, but it still makes one shudder at the heart who would dare commit such a crime. Definitely a shiver inducer.
• The Terror of Blue John Gap – Meh…. Not that exciting. Has about the same fear factor as Bram Stoker’s Lair of the White Worm, but that’s about it. Short and not really frightening. Skipping a story in this book? Make it this one.
• The Brazilian Cat – Somewhere, I either read this story or one like it. Probably one like it as the story line isn’t all that uncommon. A desperate financially troubled youth makes friends with an uncle who had traveled the world (Brazil in particular). This uncle, from whom the lad wanted money until he inherited his own fortune, had a pet cat. A black Brazilian cat similar to a panther or leopard. A killer cat. It was a dark and stormy night….

Tales of Mystery

• The Lost Special – One of the better stories in this collection. This mystery reveals the clever mind of Doyle. But, as Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories, I guess the revelation is a moot point. Oh well. Apparently, a special train (high speed) disappeared without a trace between two small towns one afternoon. How could an entire train disappear? It couldn’t leave the tracks and it never arrived. This clever tale will keep you wondering right until the end.
• The Beetle-Hunter – A young scientist specializing in beetles, answers an advertisement for an adventure of unlimited duration. This story had plenty of potential, but wasn’t really well developed.
• The Man with the Watches – Another train mystery. An old man and his apparent daughter enter one train car; they are the sole occupants. The next car, the smoking car, has a lone middle-aged man in it. At the next stop, the smoking car is empty and the other car contains the corpse of a young man whose pockets filled with watches. The three occupants have vanished.
• The Japanned Box – Japanned is a term used to describe a lacquer applied in a Oriental style. A gentleman takes a position as a tutor to two young boys. During his stay, he over hears a woman’s voice coming from the study of the widower’s study. That study contains a Japanned box, which can never be touched on pain of dismissal. Somehow, women enter and leave the study without using the door.
• The Black Doctor – A foreign doctor, becoming the star of the community, breaks off his engagement and prepares to leave town. Before he can go, the black doctor is found murdered in his office. During the trial of the ex-fiancé’s brother, surprising evidence comes from a rather surprising source.
• The Jew’s Breastplate – Interesting tale that takes place in a museum. The story revolves around the breastplate of the Jewish high priest and the wonderful jewels in it. The new caretaker discovers that someone had loosened the jewels, but not stolen them. Each night the culprit loosens several more jewels but never takes a single one.

Generally of high quality, you will probably enjoy some of the stories here. Being short stories, they make great reading right before bedtime. Well, OK, except for The Leather Funnel. I think that I might not read that one right before bed.

What short stories do you recommend?

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Tags: Arthur Conan Doyle, Matt Gardenghi, Mystery, Tales, Tales of Terror and Mystery, Terror, The Lost World

About a month ago I joined Team Cringely, a group of volunteers looking to put a rover on the moon as a part of the Google Lunar X Prize. This group is a loose organization of volunteers who want to participate in space but haven’t the opportunity to do so. Growing up, only two careers interested me. One was to be an astronaut. I loved to see pictures of space and wistfully dreamed of space travel to see those sights in person.

I remember disappointment upon discovering that I would need to have multiple doctorates and being lucky to get a place on a NASA shuttle.

Talk about a depressing day.

Now I can live my dream vicariously through this mission. But those of us consisting of Team Cringely (and our opponents) weren’t the first to desire the opportunity to go to the moon. NASA wasn’t the first organization either. For more than a century, men like Jules Verne looked at the mistress of the night and wondered what men would find on the moon.

In this classic pair of stories, Barbicane, Ardan, and Nicholl overcome cultural and personal grievances to join forces as emissaries to the moon. It all began with the bored members of the Baltimore Gun Club. The Baltimore Gun Club consisted of men who had studied (invented and experimented) gunnery during the Civil War; now, bored, they sought a new challenge. This new challenge was to launch a cannonball at the moon. Eventually, the Frenchman, Michelle Ardan, decided that he wanted to fly to the moon and sailed to Florida to enter the projectile.

This action of Ardan, led to a prolonged discussion about the habitability of the moon and the precautions necessary for a man to travel in space. Much of the story lies in discussions about the nature of the moon, it’s past and present state of habitability, and the nature of space travel. Much of this will probably be a tad bit tedious for some, but I found it somewhat interesting. Given that hindsight is 20-20, it is easy to see the errors being made. But, when one tries to look at it from the perspective of an author writing in 1865, the science and reasoning is much less comical and far more impressive. Verne had many facts correct or at least close to correct.

As an aside, one flaw that I have noticed with the reasonings of this generation of authors is this: They made many assumptions that appeared reasonable at first blush, and never challenged them. In this work, the assumption of the three was that Selenites must exists. Ardan was very typical of the thinking. He wanted it to be so and so it was.

But, that was typical Verne. He lived in a world decades or centuries ahead of his time. Verne obviously had great respect for the Americans. Though often in a backhanded manner, Verne continuously praised the American people for their ingenuity, skillfulness and bravery. It was his opinion (as seen in this work) that only Americans would be brave and foolhardy enough to pull off an endeavor of this magnitude.

And that brings me back to the present: Can a disparate team of men and women put a rover on the moon for less than $4 million? Normal people say no. Team Cringely begs to differ.
This is not one of Verne’s better stories, but worth reading if for no other reason than that it is Verne.

Here are the links:
Amazon: From Earth to the Moon; Round the Moon
Gutenberg: From Earth to the Moon (text)
Librivox: From Earth to the Moon (audio)
Gutenberg: Round the Moon (text)
Librivox: Round the Moon (audio)

Tags: books, fiction, Google, Google Lunar X Prize, Jules Verne, Matt Gardenghi, moon, review, Science, Team Cringely

Hercule P. is a Private Detective of some repute in London, so he gets threatening letters every week. His intuition sends warning signals, however, at one particular letter from a person claiming to want 26 people dead– in alphabetical order. Several bragging letters and corresponding murders later, our hero has no clues and fewer ideas. The family and friends of the first three victims get together to help Hercule solve the mystery, but how will they solve it without a single shred of evidence?

Good: I can see why Agatha Christie is so beloved: her writing style here really draws the reader in and makes them anxious to know more (even if they get irritated with Hercule alot, but more on that later). The whole question of who the ABC murderer is, and what his motivations are, is framed very convincingly. All the characters are well rounded, and make for convincing figures in the story. Every person who speaks is given a little bit of dimension, making for lots of believable rabbit trails. The story’s details dip into horror territory just enough to satisfy fans of that genre, but overall the structure is a very solid mystery. Some of the banter between Hercule and other people is really funny, but the plot never really deviates from its you’ll-never-guess-who-done-it focus.

Bad: Hercule’s desire to get into the mind of the bad guy, while the ultimate way he solves the mystery, results in some vivid recounting of a murder, more than anyone under 13 really needs to know. Also, there are anti-prison comments made by our sidekick that imply its better to kill someone than to bring them to justice if the result is a prison sentence. While it would be interesting to discuss the merits of execution vs. life in jail, the sidekick doesn’t frame it as an argument over what kind of punishment. Merely condemning the punishment itself implys that no punishment would be better, and the Bible is clear on the role of government in administering justice. Its a fairly minor series of comments, but worth noting as a heads-up.

Overall: I like three things about murder mysteries in general; a) I can figure out what is going to happen in the future because of the clues the main hero gets, b) whenever I can’t figure out what’s going on, the main hero can and thus earns my respect, and c) the significance of murdering another person is a major reason why the murderer being brought to justice is a good thing, regardless of why they decided to kill in the first place, and brings a strong sense of victory when they are brought to justice. While death has plenty of gravity associated with it herein, when we finally find out whodunit, its very casual. The reason it has to be so casual is that there is no evidence and thus no clues pointing to the murderer. Our hero’s intuition finally solves the case, (which seems kinda pointless since all the clues he cites are actually faked in order to obtain a confession). But for most of the book, no one has any idea what’s going on, and can’t find any evidence that would help them, so I never really developed any repoire with Hercule, as he never showed his famous intelligence until the last few pages. However, now I know what the classic cozy English murder mystery is like, and its not half bad. If I preferred to be surprised in the end, or to appreciate the hero because of his perseverance in the face of nothing to go on, then I would probably have loved this book. As it is, I enjoyed the chase part (and now, Stephen, you have permission to regale me on Agatha Christie in the comments section, since reading this was your idea), and the conclusion was a twist I never saw coming. If you like to be surprised, you’ll enjoy this book.