Faraday: The Iron Horse by James Reasoner

The ways to start a western are numerous, but is there any better way than an all-out chase on horse?
Carl Duncan is in trouble. He is driving his horse as hard as possible over the flat plains in Kansas. Behind him are a band of Indians, themselves on horseback.

And they’re gaining.

Knowing he can not make it to the railhead of the Kansas Pacific, the new line being constructed across Indian territory, Duncan goes to plan B: he climbs a telegraph pole and taps into the line. If only he can send a message, he can tell of what he knows. There’s a white man behind the recent Indian attacks against the railhead. And Duncan knows who it is. Alas for him, arrows puncture his leg and he’s captured before he can reveal the name. A pity for him, but not for us readers. Because we don’t know what Duncan saw, we are treated to a delightful tale of the old west.

First in a Series

Thirty years ago, James Reasoner wrote FARADAY: THE IRON HORSE. It is the first of a new series featuring a detective agency based in Kansas, headed by Matthew Faraday. Conceived by author Paul Block, who was an editor at Book Creations, Inc., the Faraday series was intended to be standalone tales with bossman Faraday as the through line. Each entry would focus on a different detective in the agency. It is a great concept and one that enabled multiple writers to put their stamp on this short-lived collection of books.

Matthew Faraday is an older man, but with the fire of justice still burning brightly through him. He takes a meeting with an old friend, Amos Rowland, owner of the Kansas Pacific railroad. The baron suspects the troubles out near the railhead are part of a larger means of sabotaging his line. He wants Faraday’s agency to investigate.

Faraday has just the man. Daniel Britten, aged around twenty-five, is not what you’d think of as a typical western hero. He’s shorter than most, and much more educated. Those qualities, and his upstanding honor, is what carries this tale forward. After meeting with Faraday and Rowland--and Rowland’s beautiful daughter, Deborah--Britten is dispatched out to the railhead to conduct his investigation under the ruse of him being a draftsman.

Once at the railhead, Britten starts looking around, asking questions, and a slew of interesting characters emerge. Deborah is there, having gone out on the same train as Britten. Her fiance, Terrence Jennings, is the construction boss, a man as big as the west with the fists and brawn to back it up. Sam Callighan is an old buffalo man, a surveyor, and one who has had good relations with the Indians. Mordecai Vint is an old geezer, a trader, and one who has been around the area often. His granddaughter, Laura, is his only friend. Throw in a few cowboys and other assorted people, and you’ve got the old west version of a whodunit.

And that’s what makes this book so much fun to read. Through Britten’s investigative process, he discovers clues, sifts the evidence, and formulates theories. Things happen and he is left constantly guessing. As are the readers.

A Gifted Storyteller

Reasoner weaves all of these people in and out of the main narrative with an ease that can only come from years behind a keyboard. His deft characterizations make all these people walk off the page, full-blooded and alive. The dexterity by which he shows you only what you need to see will keep you guessing the identity of the true villain until the last bit of the book. At least he did for me.
I’ve made no secret that I admire Reasoner’s manner of writing. It was his Longarm books that paved the way for my own Calvin Carter: Railroad Detective series. But as I was sucked into this story, two things happened. One, time slipped by imperceptibly. I woke on Sunday thinking I’d read a chapter or two before church. Over two hours later, I had to reluctantly put the Kindle down and hurriedly get ready.

The second is the sheer storytelling prowess. It feels effortless. Now, as a writer myself, I know it takes work, and lots of it, to get a story ready for the public. And with more than 365 books under his belt, Reasoner is a modern pulp master. I constantly highlighted passages, making notes not only about the story, but also about turns of phrase, ways the author highlighted this or that thing.
It is so rewarding to become engrossed in a James Reasoner novel. That THE IRON HORSE is so darn entertaining on the action, western, and mystery fronts is, well, par for the course with a Reasoner book.

We’ve come to expect nothing less.

Of the fiction I've read to date in 2019, this is my favorite. How much did I enjoy this story? I already ordered THE COLORADO SPECIAL as written by Bill Crider.

Background

I was curious about the process Reasoner went through to revise this story from the original 1988 published book, and he graciously answered some of my questions, including the genesis of the entire series.

"Paul Block, who was an editor at Book Creations Inc. as well as writing books for them from time to time, came up with the concept and Matthew Faraday's name, but as I recall, there wasn't really a series bible, just discussions on the phone about what the series would be like. It was set up so that each book would be a stand-alone with different agents working for Faraday and his agency. I remember Paul sent me a list of possible heroes, just their names and maybe a one-line description, and Daniel Britten was one of them. The plot of THE IRON HORSE was mine, though, and I assume the other authors came up with the plots for their books. I know Bill [Crider] did because he and I were always in pretty close contact and knew what the other one was writing."

"In order to produce the new edition of THE IRON HORSE, Livia scanned and OCRed a copy of the original paperback, went through the file to clean up the OCR errors, then turned it over to me. I went through the file adding, deleting, and rewriting to bring it more in line with the way I write now. It's not like there are huge differences in the two versions, but there are lots and lots of small changes that I think make the writing flow better and give more depth to the characters."

The Gray Ghost by Clive Cussler and Robin Burcell

Clive Cussler is one of those authors I admire. He cut his teeth on his Dirk Pitt novels before expanding his universe to include the NUMA series (Kurt Austin) and Oregon Files (Juan Cabrillo). These three series have numerous crossovers (if my paltry reading of the entire run is any indication). But it’s his Isaac Bell series, set in the early days of the 20th Century, that I really enjoy. The fourth series is the Fargo adventures, featuring Sam and Remi Fargo. They’re a charming pair of millionaires (thanks to Sam’s invention) and they travel the world, searching for treasure and doing good. I had only read one novel of theirs to date (THE TOMBS) but the latest novel, THE GRAY GHOST, features not only them, but Isaac Bell.

How, might you ask, can a story set in the present also include Bell? Well, it’s a very clever conceit. In 2018, someone steals the Gray Ghost, a Rolls-Royce car from 1906. In the course of the story, Sam and Remi get involved in the search for the priceless car. You see, there has always been a legend that treasure exists in the car, but no one has found it for over a century. As soon as the Fargos get involved, they have bad guys trying to stop them, even while they try to help the actual present-day owners locate the vehicle.

Where Isaac Bell comes in is through a journal. Back in 1906, Bell helped an ancestor of the present owner thwart another attempt to steal the Gray Ghost. That ancestor kept a journal of the exploits, but that volume of the journal is missing in the present day. Stolen. Cussler and co-author Robin Burcell keep the action going not only with the Fargo adventures but the Bell investigation as well, interspersing passages of the journal with the current action.

As with all Cussler novels, I listened to the brilliant Scott Brick narrate the story. It was interesting to hear slight variations between how Cussler and Burcell treat Bell versus Cussler and Justin Scott, the team who writes the Bell novels. Brick brings so much to his narration that it enlivens the story above the mere prose.

If I have one criticism of this series, it’s in the back-and-forth dialogue of the two main characters. Often times, you don’t get the spark of passion between husband and wife. I’m not calling for a bunch of intimate scenes, and I’m completely fine with them walking to a hotel room with the knowledge of what they’re about to do, but I would like to see a little more fire to their relationship. In one of the dire moments in this book, I got the sense of it, but I’d like to see if when they’re not fighting for their lives. It’s a little thing, but noticeable.

For a good summer beach read, THE GRAY GHOST is a humdinger, and it’s propelled me to my next Fargo adventure, THE MAYAN SECRETS.

Congo by Michael Crichton

I'm a book dork. Are you?

I’ve read many, but not all, of Michael Crichton’s novels, but CONGO was one I had missed. I have the paperback, but it had remained on my shelf for years. Earlier this spring, a comment on the Doc Savage Facebook group said CONGO was a pretty good lost city novel. It landed back on my radar. I flipped it open and noticed one of the locations was Houston. How cool was that? Additionally, the action began on 13 June 1979. And I got to thinking: since I was already reading a book at the time, why not wait until 13 June to start the book?

So I did. Book dork? Guilty as charged. But at least I didn’t wait until 13 June 2019 to start it.

The story opens with a transmission from a team in the Congo back to their home base in Houston. The team is part of the Earth Resources Technology Services (ERTS), one of two companies searching for diamonds in the Congo rainforest. Just before the video feed is abruptly cut off, there appears to be what looks like a gorilla. Not just any ordinary ape, but something different.

Soon, a second team, led by Dr. Karen Ross, sets out to keep looking for the lost city and discover what happened to the original team. Coming along is zoologist Dr. Peter Elliot and Amy, a gorilla from the San Francisco Zoo that has learned American sign language. Along the way, Ross recruits the famed white hunter Captain Charles Munro to guide them.

I’ll admit it’s been awhile since I’ve read a Crichton novel solely written by him. (I read the posthumously published DRAGON TEETH last year.) I had forgotten just how much science the author crams into his books. What particularly interested me was some of the computer stuff the team had to do. In this age of cell phones and satellite phones and instant access, it was charming for Ross to have to wait six minutes for the satellites and her communication equipment to sync up. Then there is always the “As you Bob” moments that are liberally scattered throughout the book. With the zoologist being the outside member of the team, he gets to ask for clarification on things Ross and Munro know by heart. The science, however, was fascinating, especially regarding the attempts by scientist to teach apes communication skills. I found it ironic timing that I completed the novel a day before Koko the gorilla who learned American sign language died.

Unlike the JURASSIC PARK novel where, once the dinosaurs escape, you are in a series of chases and near misses, the action here is not as relentless. There are some political struggles that erupt in gunfire, and a few brushes with death, but CONGO is more a novel of discovery. In this, it’s a perfect book for Crichton’s talents. What makes the book even better is its seeming realness, almost as if Crichton is merely the author of a non-fiction book depicting events that really happened.

CONGO is a perfectly fine book, not in Crichton’s top tier novels, but well worth the time to read, especially if you enjoy lost city stories like I do. Now, I’m going to conduct a little search of my own and track down a copy of the 1994 movie.

Movie Review: The Legend of Tarzan

I’m to the point now where I rarely, if ever, read any reviews prior to seeing a movie. I watch the trailer and if it grabs me, I’ll go see the movie. And, boy, did the Legend of Tarzan trailer grab me! I had no idea there was a new Tarzan movie being made so the trailer was a happy surprise. But a lot of times, trailers stuff all the best parts into the previews and leave nothing for the movie. Would LoT suffer the same fate?

No! Absolutely not! If you love Tarzan, if you love adventure movies, this is a great film. Highly entertaining with many sequences that had me smiling and all but cheering out loud.

Legends of Tarzan starts with a decision that was probably the best decision possible: make this movie NOT be the origin. When the film opens, John Clayton III is already back in London, in the House of Lords. He’s married to Jane Porter and they are living their lives happily. His days as Tarzan are legend. Those stories are already printed in dime novels of the day. Now, scattered throughout the movie are flashbacks to Tarzan’s origin. And they worked well to educate those who may not know Tarzan’s story—who, exactly, is this?—and to flesh out this story’s through line. I suppose some folks in this century might not know Tarzan, but they will be fully up-to-date after LoT.

The story kicks off with an invitation from the King of Belgium for Lord Greystoke to travel to the Congo and tour the new schools and such. Unbeknownst to John Clayton is that this plan is really an elaborate ruse by Leon Rom, played by Christopher Waltz, to lure Tarzan down to the Congo to capture him and deliver him to Chief Mbonga (Djimon Hounsou). Mbonga, you see, has his eye on vengeance because Tarzan killed Mbenga’s son. Reluctantly, Tarzan agrees to the trip and is accompanied not only by Jane (Margot Robbie) but Samuel Jackson, playing Dr. George Washington Williams. Now, Jackson was nowhere in the trailers so he was a complete surprise to me. He brought the comedic relief. He also served as a surrogate audience member not familiar with all that Tarzan can do. He performed his task just like you’d expect Samuel Jackson to do. After all, in 2016, Jackson only play one character: “Samuel Jackson.” If you like that, you’ll be fine with him. If you don’t, he’ll be annoying. I’ll admit I was initially jarred when I realized Jackson wasn’t just in a cameo, but I like him so I went with it.

If you have read any of the books—I’ve only read the first three—or seen any of the movies, you know what’s going to happen so there’s little use in relating it here. Jane gets herself captured and Tarzan must rescue her. Heck, even the trailer has Christopher Waltz deliver a standout line: “He’s Tarzan. You’re Jane. He will come.” In order to do that, Tarzan and his growing team of allies, both animal and human, traverse through the jungle where Tarzan meets up with old friends and enemies. It is in these scenes where modern technology has finally allowed you to see the images in your head when you read the books. The gorillas are HUGE and vicious. The elephants even huger but graceful. And the jungle environs are exactly what I wanted to see.

An interesting note to the characters of Jackson and Waltz. Both don’t know what Tarzan can do so each comment—almost meta-comment—on what’s happening. It’s humorous and it didn’t take me out of the film. But I can see where some might find that irritating. No one in the theater yesterday minded a bit. We laughed at the funny spots and a few folks clapped when the movie was over.

Alexander Skarsgård is new to me. I never watched True Blood so, for me, he was Tarzan. He did such a great job showing you how difficult it was for John Clayton to hold back his savage upbringing in London. Even in Africa, when the chase is on, initially, he is still reticent. But when Jane is taken, boy, hold onto your hats. Even Jane tells Waltz basically “You have no idea what’s in store for you.” She says it with such honesty that it comes across not as bragging but as a certainty.

There are so many great sequences in this film that to tell but a few would spoil it for y’all. The stampede in the trailer is exactly what you think it is and it hearkens back to The Beasts of Tarzan where he can talk to the animals. Waltz’s little accouterment is interesting and I’d like someone more versed in the lore to let me know if it’s from the books or made up for the movie. Either way, I thought it pretty nifty. The soundtrack by Rupert Gregson-Williams is pretty good at mixing African beats and sounds with traditional orchestral music. In many scenes, with the vista of Africa on the screen, the music swirled to match.

Edgar Rice Burroughs, whether he was writing Tarzan, John Carter, Caron of Venus, or who knows what else, often had a standard plot formula: girl gets kidnapped and guy must rescue her. It’s old fashioned, but it’s also pure. You don’t need anything else. You don’t need angst. You only need love. Love drives the character to great feats of daring-do to save the one he loves. It has it slow moments, but that’s only to let you catch your breath before the next action sequence. It is a modern pulp adventure movie with all the trappings of modern movie making behind it.

If you love that kind of movie, you will love this movie.

I do, and I did.

It hit every beat I want to see, that I expected to see, but did so in such a way as to be greater than the sum of its parts. This is a fantastic summer movie that I will be adding to my DVD collection later this year.

Book Review Club: Icerigger by Alan Dean Foster

(This is the February 2015 edition of Barrie Summy’s Book Review Club. For the complete list of fellow reviewers, click the link at the end of this review.)

If you’re looking forward to Star Wars: Episode VII later this year, then you can thank Alan Dean Foster for writing Icerigger.

Icerigger, published 1974, was the third book a young Alan Dean Foster published after The Tar-Aiym Krang (1972) and Bloodhype (1973). The story features two human heroes: Ethan Fortune, a salesman in his twenties, who is on the way to the remote ice world of Tran-Ky-Ky. Skua September is a hulk of a man with a shock of white hair and has seen his share of the wonders the Humanx Commonwealth has to offer. These two men, who don’t know each other, are, like all great heroes throughout literature, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

While on the space liner orbiting Tran-Ky-Ky, Ethan stumbles into a kidnapping-gone-wrong of financier Hellespont du Kane and his daughter, Colette. The trio, along with another pair of humans, are shuttled into a lifepod...where a very drunk Skua is sleeping off a drunk. He fouls things up for the kidnappers and then things go really bad. They crash on Tran-Ky-Ky thousands of miles away from Brass Monkey, the one town the Thranx Commonwealth had established, the one town where the kidnappers were going to ransom du Kane.

Very soon thereafter, Skua appoints a reluctant Ethan as leader. Together, including one of the kidnappers--Skua took out the other one--they have to figure out a way to get to Brass Monkey, the only Humanx settlement on Tran Ky-Ky. They befriend a group of the native species, Tran, a humanoid-cat hybrid with fur all over their bodies and claws on their feet that have adapted to their environment (think the middle two claws having curled under the feet to basically make skates).

What follows is a traditional adventure tale that might have taken place here on earth except that the planet’s oceans are all frozen. It’s a clever twist on the old swashbuckling adventure yarns where the characters may face traditional hazards--a warring tribe attacks the Tran group helping Ethan and Skua--but with the ice, Foster gets to turn a siege battle on its ear. You don’t get a whole lot about the larger Humanx Commonwealth that you do from his most famous series about Pip and Flinx, but it is referenced. It's more like a peek into a larger world that you can explore elsewhere.

While I enjoyed Icerigger, but it's not without issues. For a science fiction story, there's not a whole lot of science fiction there. Sure, there's an alien world with a new alien species but the book is more like a pirate story than a true SF yarn. Actually the one story that kept coming to mind was Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars. You see, both stories derive their structure from a main human character (John Carter, Ethan in Icerigger) who find themselves on an alien world and must Do Something and encounter strange things along the way. Again, what I expected was some more science fictional because, you know, of Star Wars.

The reason I bring up Star Wars is that Icerigger was the novel that landed Alan Dean Foster on George Lucas’s radar. Back when Lucas was making the first film, he and his team read Icerigger and liked it so much that they approached Foster to gauge his interest in ghost writing the novelization of the movie and an original sequel. Foster agreed. Back in the day, when my entire young life was consumed with Star Wars, I read that novelization more than once never knowing it was Foster. I also read Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, the first original novel back in 1978. That’s when I locked in on Foster and he became my first favorite SF author. He helped secure the Star Wars legacy for me a millions of others and it all started with Icerigger.

The adventure of Ethan Fortune and Skua September continue with Mission to Moulokin (1979) and The Deluge Drivers (1987). I’m definitely jumping right into the second book now because I want to see how this adventure ends.

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Book Review Club: Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon

(This is the April 2012 edition of Barrie Summy's Book Review Club. For the complete list, click on the icon following this review.)

For the past two months or so, I’ve been in an adventurous mood, reading-wise. Starting with the lead-up to the John Carter movie, I read (or, in some cases re-read) the first five books of the eleven-book series. As much fun as the Edgar Rice Burroughs books are, I decided to give myself a little break.

Taking a cue from one of the film’s co-writers, I segued over to Michael Chabon’s Gentlemen of the Road. Known for his literary, whimsical writing style, this short novel is his homage to adventure tales and swashbuckling stories of the past. He name drops Michael Moorcock, Fritz Lieber, Alexander Dumas, and George MacDonald Fraser as inspirations. Chabon’s story follows two partners in the 10th Century Caucasus Mountain region and their exploits along their circuitous journey.

Zelikman, a physician, is a "scarecrow" whose blond locks frame his thin, sallow face. His partner, Amram, is a giant African who towers over all he surveys and wields a battle-ax with the colorful name of Mother-Defiler. They are partners, they are thieves, and they have been known to swindle folks with their charades and rouses, all as a part of their shiftless wanderings.

As the story opens, their latest charade proved profitable in coin, but not in baggage. An old, one-eyed Persian saw through the act and has made the gentlemen of the road an outrageously lucrative offer: escort Filak, a young prince of the Jewish kingdom of Khazaria, back to reclaim the throne taken by murder and expulsion. No sooner has the Persian made the offer than he is punctured by an arrow. The townspeople, now made aware of the scam perpetrated by the pair, chase Zelikman and Amram out of town. Unbeknownst to the pair, Filak has escaped with them.

Now, as charge of the young lad, the partners must make a decision: leave the stripling to his own affairs or return him to his kingdom. The choice proves challenging when they learn that the usurper, Buljan, is out to kill Filak. Knowing in their souls that they cannot abandon the young prince, Zelikman and Amram turn their faces to the treacherous task ahead: restore the young man to his throne.

Gentlemen of the Road is an interesting book, especially when placed in the bibliography of Chabon's work. A devotee of genre-based fiction growing up, Chabon grew to fame as a literary writer. With his 2001 novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which took home the Pulitzer Prize, Chabon opened reveled in his love of genre. Gentlemen of the Road, along with his alternate history/mystery, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, are part of a string of tales in which Chabon writes the stories he used to love--and still does--to read.

Chabon has gone on record as lamenting how genre stories—-what, with their focus on simple things like, you know, plot and fun—-often get ostracized when compared to the more staid, “important” field of literary fiction. One of the obvious differences is writing style. When you pick up a Chandler detective novel or an Asimov space opera, you know very quickly what you are reading. In the same manner, if you pick up a literary novel, the word choice alone will indicate the type of book. Nothing wrong with this, of course, but it is a distinct difference.

One of the joys of literary writing is being able to luxuriate in the language, the word choice, the mere structure of the paragraphs. Reading a good story is a blast. Reading a good story told well is intoxicating.

But what about those books where the lines are blurred? Gentlemen of the Road has some action, sword fights, and other fun set pieces. Were this novel written by another person, the style and manner of telling would be quite different. But Chabon is the writer and, as such, you have a man whose natural tendency towards “literary” writing is actually crafting an action tale. Does it work?

For me, yes, partially. When the characters talk, they talk in the high style typical of a Chabon work or, to be honest, like Burroughs. Not necessarily all “thees” and “thous” but speech with flourish. Chabon’s style works great for this. Some of the action scenes, however, tend not to have the immediacy of a more dedicated genre writer. Where someone like Hammett would revert to shorter sentences to punch you in the gut with the visceral action, Chabon maintains his whimsical style. The language is still pretty, but the action is a bit hazy.

The characters themselves, Zelikman and Amram, are realistic, magical, and fantastical, all at the same time. While I have not (yet) read any of the Fritz Lieber Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, I suspect that Lieber's mismatched pair of heroes was a direct inspiration for Chabon. Zelikman's melancholy and longing to return to his homeland is contrasted well with Amram's adventurous spirit that is also darkened by a tragic past. These two men are fast friends and they have a genuine care for one another.

Where my re-reading of Burroughs' Martian tales has swept up the nostalgic feelings I had when I was ten, Gentlemen of the Road satisfies another aspect of myself. It enables the adult reader to relish is a good story told well, but in a style that befits an adult reader. Kids and teenagers can enjoy this novel, but the adult, especially the adult that has seen many sunrises and moonfalls, will likely find a kindred spirit in one of these two men, what with their longing for their past as well as the keen desire to know what is over the next hill. It is my fervent hope that Chabon brings these two adventurers back for another adventure.

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