Leothefox > Recent Status Updates

Okay, we're on better footing now with John Jakes and Brak, with a warrior king of a backwards country deciding Brak must be a sorcerer and giving him two days to work a miracle or die. Brak is always derivative, but never dull!

Holy fried apples!!! This book has got a little of everything! We got amnesia, witches and wizards, a knight who attacks automobiles, and an eyeball in a crystal ball!

We started off great, with Jack Vance, a scamp, and a portal to another dimension... but then: Poul Anderson! I know a lot of people like this guy, but I am getting tired of hearing about these sexed-up merfok and how totally naked they are. Getting the impression that 70s writing was juvenile about sex.

We have a love interest! Our villain is robbing graves! Everybody's first name begins with the letter J (Jack, Jonathan, James, Joseph...), not confusing a bit! Loving it.

Having a bad day? Got kicked outta the house cuz they thought yous tole? Your dad got hanged for stealing? Yell at the house! Yell all about it to the house!... then embark on a life of crime!

Oh man, Edward Bellamy is making this go way slower! His setups would suit a grand adventure story just fine... only he doesn't write adventures! He just wants to talk about how much better psychic people are than us. Excuse me for living, Bellamy!

What is coming up with the marriage of Danlars' daughter? Can the Count still do his thing even though he's his old human self again? I wanna spend my whole work-night reading this, but for some reason I must work as well...

Dantes is basically "The Shadow" at this point, wearing many faces, manipulating events. No one can see the grand design but him!

Dantes has got this vengeance well on the way! Villefort is alive and really obnoxious! Lookout for Sinbad the Sailor!

Good Lord, I forgot about all the footnotes! I think there may be more footnote than story in spots, in fact one of the notes runs over and fills a second page, even with the smaller type! Did you know everything used to be immortal? Shaver says so and the editor backs him up! Whah???

This "fragment" of life is actually of a pretty large size! Learning a lot about stove shopping in 1900,,,

Others may be reading this for Wilde of Stoker, but I'm reading it for Thomas Peckett Prest's "Vileroy, or The Horrors of Zindorf Castle", which is the bulk of the book anyhow. Lots of Gothic goodies, a creepy frame with secret passages and skulls running beside flashbacks of a family torn apart by lies, and some bandits who have stories too! Dreadfully great so far.

Tuprin winds up fleeing the palace, hiding in a haunted house, witnessing the murder, and taking the stand for the prosecution! Black Bess is safely stabled at a nice lady's house. The other highwaymen made their way back from France and Mr. Wriggles is after them. Hark! Is this the end for our heroes? "Pho!"

In text, Viles warns the reader not to be fooled by a rival publication billed as "A Companion to Black Bess; a Knight of the Road"! Bonny Prince Charlie has returned and our highwaymen have valiantly joined his cause to regain his birthright. Dick went a good long while without Black Bess and I don't know how he could stand it. Also, seems he can't do a robbery without having the law on him right away! More soon.

Lots of Newgate, a daring rescue from the gallows. We've got four highwayman heroes on the run from the dragoons. We've got a Don Quixote level of side drama. Sort of an odd detail: the chapter headers do indicate what is coming up, just not in the chapter they're on.

Looks like it's starting to hit its stride. Dick and Tom King keep finding adventure in creepy basements, abandoned mansions, walled up bodies, smugglers, washed up victims, swarms of dragoons, mistaken identity... did I mention deposed monarchs on the run? Oh! Newgate prison, it's almost like reading Reynolds right now. More later!

Now Dick has a highwayman buddy named Tom King, we get a trial held by criminals, a forced marriage at midnight, and Dick has lost Bess! more later.

There are already a lot of great penny dreadful goodies! Turpin abducted a magistrate, he found a thieves den with a secret cellar full of poison gas, rescued a girl, slipped a trap or two, witnessed a suicide, and there's promise of more mad fun to come! Oh! And there might be a ghost rider, more on that later...

Second adventure down. A familiar format is in place, which includes a frustrated cop always trying to unmask our hero. Jewel theft is the subject. So far they're all like the late serials that pile up suspects from a small pool, to unmask one as the villain in the last chapter. This was right on time.

Alright, I'm through the first story. Fairly standard stuff involving the origin story and armored car thefts and revenge. It's a little short on variety and novelty so far. Now somebody's counterfeiting jewels, more later...

Everybody has taken a turn in jail and we've got a broader picture of the iniquities of 1830 London. A whole slough of side characters are here too, including one that demonstrates a long slow descent into prostitution.

So far lots of nice condemnation of the hypocrisy of London in the 1830s, and plenty of heavy cynicism keyed up enough to be entertainment. My only big complaint is the old trope of a beautiful man appearing and later turning out to be a woman. I always feel so cheated by that one.

So, a big intelligent feline monster with tentacles is loose on a spaceship murdering people for their potassium... and everybody keeps referring to it as "pussy". It was 1939 and all, but c'mon!

I'm through the first of the two adventures in this book, "Mask of the Damned" while involves a plot with people doubled as government figures. The tone is weird, like it kinda wanted to do "The Shadow" but by way of "Dick Tracy". There's a lot of gangter types with names like "Soapy" and "Tough Tom Toomey", which drifts between silly and just plain weird. I'm beginning to see why this only lasted for 5 issues.

Oh dear God, Frank Merriwell is a terrible prude and he's one of those jerks who lectures people for gambling/drinking/swearing (yes, I do at least 2 of those 3 things). I may not be able to make it through this section. I can't remember the last time I hated a protagonist this much this fast...

"The Huge Hunter or The Steam Man of the Prairies" is an odd nugget of a brand of early science-fiction that dime novels introduced. It involves a small boy genius who makes a "steam man" and falls in with some guys and they all try to mine for gold. This one is also largely about Indians as a constant menace. There were some weird choices here including leaving one plot point entirely unresolved.

So, Buffalo Bill (or Buffalo Billy as he's called for most of it) was a hero since he was a little kid and seemed to spend most of his time sending "red skins" to the "happy hunting ground". The rest of the time he goes in drag to catch road-agents (I am not making that up). This was okay, but a bit dry as it is "historically accurate". More later!

Deadwood Dick! Okay, this was a pretty satisfying one. It has all the melodramatic adventure stuff, costumes, aliases, Sitting Bull, Calamity Jane, mining, shooting and somehow some lynching. The next two stories are also from the "Beadle's Half-Dime Library" and are printed very tiny, so it'll take me a while to get through them all.

I just got through the Nick Carter bit. I guess the idea of lady robbers was a real sensation, cuz a lot of attention is devoted to that specific point! This one was a little odd compared to the other Nick Carter tales I've read, since less time than usual is spent on action or solving the mystery. It's largely about Nick going in disguise to get into a secret lair. The next story is "Deadwood Dick".

I've just finished "Frank James on the Trail", which is made up of slightly connected episodes, adventures and crimes perpetrated by our hero on the way to revenge against the murderers of his brother. There's some memorable melodramatic stuff, but there's a ton of filler too. The prose on this one is a little strange, including many sound effects and some weird shifts in focus. Now, on to Nick Carter!