Books: The Literary Reflection, XXI

'The Literary Reflection' returns, and this time in a double bill! It has been a big time for reading, and more will be on the way soon. The Good Reads Reading Challenge of 2020 is a good excuse, and a target of forty books seems pretty easy to beat. Will the Big Virus Of 2020 mess everything up? The end of year result will reveal everything.


'Peril At End House' (Poirot) (1932) by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie books always feel so lightweight to me, with a few exceptions. This is not one of those exceptions, despite being a very good Poirot mystery. Enough said.


'Murder In The Caribbean' (Death In Paradise) (2018) by Robert Thorogood

It's the last (so far) 'Death In Paradise' (DIP) novel, and we finish with a pretty good story. It's also rather unconventional as far as DIP goes, being about a string of revenge killings, oddly referred to as serial murders. I might be wrong, but I thought serial murders were something slightly different. In any case, Richard Poole is on the case, when he's not trying to prove Dwayne is shirking during the time he's supposed to be preparing for his Sergeant's exam. It's a good use of the cast of characters, and never flags, although the depths of the seediness on the island are becoming deeper with every instalment. It does have some of the weaknesses of the television series, in that romantic interests must be connected to the crime or be otherwise extraneous and unlasting, and that nothing can be introduced which breaks continuity. Is there space in the timeline for any more novels featuring the original cast? That break between series two and series three might have been very long indeed, and I have no idea about the level of detail in Poole's final moments... Finally, the book probably needs another proofreading run, as there a few too many typoes. Overall, a good and solid mystery story.

Of course it was XXX, you fools!


'Journey To The West' (volume 3) (16th C) by Wu Cheng'En and WJF Jenner 

Finally, we're here at the end of the third volume (out of four) of 'Journey To The West', and all is much the same. It's still quite repetitive, and there is still some fairly and unavoidably bland translation of Chinese poetry, but there are also some incredible moments. Monkey is one of the great characters of literature. It's basically a superhero epic, but centuries early, and with some very ambiguous protagonists. In good news, there's only one volume left! Hurray! This is definitely a fun collection of tales, but two thousand pages spread over four volumes is a bit much...


'First Lensman' (Lensman) (1950) by E.E. 'Doc' Smith

This, more than 'Triplanetary', is the very definition of a fix-up novel. There are obviously several short stories here, fused into a sometimes awkwardly connected novel, with the Arisian/Eddorian conflict bolted on as a framework. Fortunately the remaining novels are more conventionally written, so there is hope in that respect. Apart from that, this is a militaristic space opera, featuring an alien invasion, a battle against corruption, a presidential election, the establishment of a galactic council, an interview with an alien intelligence, and the recruitment of a new corps of telepathy-equipped Lensmen (no women allowed). That is a massive amount of content for such a small number of pages, and some of it amounts to a benevolent military coup, which is confusing in 2020. There is also undercover work, some femme fatale maneuvering, reconciliation with a brainwashed enemy fleet, and even a secret naval yard world. More? Yes, more! It's overstuffed to the point of bursting, somewhat chauvinistic, and without a lot of space for character development. However, there is no way that it cannot be called epic, and we do get an ending that is prophecised earlier in the text, and which we forget would happen, exactly as we were told we would. That's the nicest touch of all.

O.