Kalian Pendek Solves His Own Murder

Identity Seven
by Robert Lory
p. 1974


First off, I would like to point out that at no time in this novel does a many-tentacled nightmare creature wrestle with a bare-breasted buxom blonde, but such is the way with seventies science fiction covers! On with the review...

Robert Lory’s solo novel, Identity Seven, is a short science fiction/adventure novel that leaves more questions than explanations. It’s called Identity Seven, the codename for the protagonist in the agency he works for, Hunters Associated, but he is addressed throughout the novel by one of his fake identities, Kalian Pendek. Pendek has a real name and identity, but his memory has been wiped and all he knows is his life as a ‘hunter’ for Hunters Associated, where he plays the role of spy, bounty hunter, mercenary, soldier of fortune, etc. 

When the story picks up, Pendek is contracted to investigate the ambush and murder of Identity Six, a carbon copy of himself. He steps into the role vacated by Six, which includes being the subject of several more assassination attempts. Pendek must figure out who among many associates—some friendly, some hostile, any of them deadly—has been trying to kill him, and his search takes him to a bunch of fantastical places and through a number of skirmishes.

Pendek is alright as a hero, and the characters surrounding him—woefully underdeveloped in the style of classic science fiction, wherein the hero and his gal are pretty much the only ones who get any facetime—are more than acceptable for their parts. That is to say, if there had ever been a sequel to Identity Seven, I’d easily believe there was more to them than what little I saw here. One thing that stuck out to me was one of the minor villains (and briefly a suspect in the Pendek assassination plot) was a pirate who was unapologetically female. Lory didn’t give much detail about her, and she was defeated by our hero pretty easily, but in 1974, just to have a formidable foe be a woman was pretty impressive.

I couldn’t find much about Robert Lory. He didn’t specialize in science fiction; it seems he was more notorious for a Dracula series he wrote around the same time as Identity Seven. He seems to still be living and released a book just this year after a long absence. Sadly, he never did anything more with his Identity Seven characters, which is actually a shame because there’s actually a lot of potential in it. Identity Seven picks up seemingly in the middle of Pendek’s journey, and I could easily see more adventures in store, but I suppose they will have to be relegated to one’s imagination.

Murder! Conspiracy! Spies! Costumes! And Other Exploits of Richard Hannay

The 39 Steps
by John Buchan
p. 1915

I decided to branch out a little bit and try out an older book that was neither science fiction or a classic and came up with John Buchan’s The 39 Steps. Ostensibly it is a mystery novel (at least, that is the section I found it in at the used book store), but I think ‘thriller’ is a more appropriate description, as it is the adventurous tale of Richard Hannay, an ordinary expatriate Scot living in London, who is caught up in a web of intrigue when he meets and is later framed for the murder of an international spy.

Hitchcock fans might be familiar with the story, as per his 1935 movie adaptation, but The 39 Steps, Richard Hannay, and John Buchan were all new to me, so I got to experience the unfolding of the mystery alongside Hannay himself. One aspect of this story that was not new to me is the method used to tell Hannay’s story. I knew without even looking it up that The 39 Steps was originally published as a serial novel. Serialized novels are stories that were published in segments over the course of some weeks or months. The format became popular in the Victorian era and stayed popular for quite some time before dying out, which is a damn shame, if you ask me. I’ve been saying for years that serials need to make a comeback because the short, intrigue-filled segments are perfect for hooking today’s readers. We do everything on the go and live in a world filled with distractions. Having short stories published weekly would string readers along and build a fanbase over a long stretch of time without asking for too much commitment from the reader, like a weekly TV drama. The melodramatic nature of serials is perfect for grabbing people’s attention and generating talk; it could be only a matter of time before people are discussing serial novels by the water cooler instead of the latest episode of Revenge or Scandal.

All that aside, The 39 Steps was a fun story to read. Richard Hannay is the perfect representation of the everyman caught up in an unlikely situation, one that calls on his intelligence, cleverness and bravery. The man-on-the-run aspect of Buchan’s novel was an early example of a trope that would be replicated over and over again, even today, almost 100 years after its publication. Apparently Hannay continued to have adventures in several more novels after his debut here, and his adventures (as well as his inherent patriotism) were enjoyed by those in WWI trenches. It’s easy to see why; Hannay embodies the ingenuity and fortitude that any man imagines he could possess in defense of his homeland, qualities that were replicated in traditional heroes for the decades to come.

Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Rum

Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson
p. 1883

It feels strange to admit that I’ve never actually read Treasure Island when the story is itself such a mainstay in pop culture. For sure, it is a tenacious tale that has been reinterpreted over and over again every couple of years for almost a century and a half, and no doubt it will continue to endure the ages because it is such a classic adventure tale with vibrant characters.

It’s always the infamous rogue pirate Long John Silver who gets the most press when people think of Treasure Island, and that’s not a bad impulse, per se, but though Silver is a dynamic and complex character, finally reading him as he’s written made me realize he’s actually rather pathetic. Silver may have been able to round up a herd of mutineers to steal the treasure, but his grasp on their loyalty is tenuous at the best of times and in the end, he is defeated by a smaller party of men, half of whom weren’t even accustomed to sea life, and one of whom is a 14-year-old boy. The film portrayals have gotten one thing right though: Long John Silver is a man of ever-shifting motives and he goes through the whole range of them, but he does have a special fondness for Jim Hawkins and I felt it strongly throughout the book, though I wish we would have had more context as to why.

As for Jim Hawkins, I was a little disappointed that he was so... competent. You have to keep reminding yourself that your narrator is a teenage boy (even upon the retelling of the story, some years later), because he doesn’t present as one. He makes a lot of mistakes, but he’s astoundingly efficient for a boy who has never set foot on a boat before. Hawkins is the catalyst for the treasure hunt, he discovers the mutiny plot, he single-handedly regains control of the ship, endures a bit of suffering and isolation and eventually kills a man who attempts to attack him, and none of this seems to have a lasting effect on his psyche. I would imagine in real life, a boy would show a little more reticence in Jim’s place but young Hawkins is quite bold when confronting the pirates, and he never really sees any consequences for his rash behavior. Everything pretty much works out for the kid. Still, Treasure Island was intended as a boys' adventure novel; that Jim shows incredible mettle and comes out on top is not all that surprising considering the genre.

I’m actually surprised that Smollett, the captain of the Hispaniola, which takes the party to and from their voyage, isn’t a more renown pop culture icon because he was totally awesome. The captain had some of the best lines in the book and it was during the parts where he exerted his leadership that I most felt myself attuned to the action. I wish Robert Louis Stevenson had written a book entirely about Captain Smollett and his prior adventures because I would totally read that.

I am a kid who grew up on "Muppet Treasure Island" and Disney's futuristic reinvention, "Treasure Planet," and I like both of those adaptations, even if they soft-pedal things a bit. Last year I caught a new mini-series adaptation with a pretty great cast, including Eddie Izzard as Long John Silver and Elijah Wood (of all people) as Ben Gunn. For whatever reason, it was on SyFy, so I watched it expecting some fantastical twist on the tale but it ended up having no science fiction elements and I'm still perplexed as to how SyFy ended up with it. That version was a fairly faithful update but what I'm really interested in is the new Starz series starting next month, "Black Sails," which is a prequel to Treasure Island featuring a young John Silver. In an age where the antihero is king, it should be quite compelling to see a story entirely from the pirates' point of view.

Like Labyrinth Meets Pan's Labyrinth... Minus the Labyrinth

The Book of Lost Things
by John Connolly
p. 2006

In World War II era rural Britain, young David, struggling to make sense of the premature loss of his mother to a wasting illness and the rapidly-altered structure of his family, stumbles upon another world, one parallel to but inconceivably darker than his own. This fantastical landscape of corrupted fairy tales provides the boy with the means to step into adulthood, but not without cost.

John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things visits all the familiar fairy tales—and some unfamiliar ones—but they are not the Disney-saturated family friendly tales popularized by American audiences; this is because John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things is not a fairy tale for children. Though the hero is but twelve years old and its coming of age themes follow the classic paths of any otherworldly adventure novel, this fairy tale for adults dances around themes much closer to the original Grimm style than anything animated and slapped on a screen with celebrity voices.

I found it difficult to like David at first, as he is a rather selfish and stubborn child, but such is the case in the traditional coming of age tale. I can’t say that the David who emerges by novel’s end will become a cherished favorite in my arsenal of beloved characters, but there’s no denying that he is more mature, for all that he’s been through, and it softens his earlier nastiness considerably. The reason David gets a pass early on is because the adventures he goes through are so immeasurably dark and he doesn’t fall apart when faced with them. Coincidentally this is also the reason why David will never be a favorite—because I kept wondering time and again when this kid would crumble under the enormous burden of his ‘adventure’ and it was almost inconceivable that a child so young could manage it without losing his mind (then again, maybe he did...).

The moody, bleak presence of The Book of Lost Things is what drew me in to the story. I didn’t really know what to expect from this book, but it was definitely not the tainted fairy tales I found. David meets the woodsman while running from wolves, but in the fantasy world they are called Loups, and are the product of human girls and wolves, the former playing part of seductress to the latter in a bizarrely sexual twist to Little Red Riding Hood. The boy later happens upon Snow White and her bevy of dwarves, but is surprised to find that it was the dwarves who attempted to rid the world of the no-longer-fair maiden, and who are now enslaved to her detestable whims. A white knight on a quest takes David under his wing, but his motives and the object of his quest are not what you would expect.

Creeping up on David at every turn is ‘the Crooked Man,’ Connolly’s take on Rumpelstiltskin, a devilish figure that stalked David before his descent into this unknowable land and now wants something from him to fulfill his own unseen motives. The woodsman, the white knight, the Crooked Man—all play the part of David’s father figure at various stages in his development, just as the terrible and imposing female villains in David’s fantasy world represent aspects of his dual motherly relationships—his longing for his deceased beloved mother and his complicated tension with his beleaguered stepmother Rose. Central to the novel’s themes are David’s acceptance of change and the imperfect human nature of his parents.

As I understand it, The Book of Lost Things is a departure from Connolly’s regular style of writing, but you can tell it was a very special project for him. Despite his tendency to dip into cliches, Connolly was obviously interested in the topic of traditional fairy tales and presenting his own brooding spin on them. The final 150 pages of my edition were actually his in-depth research into the topic, and a collection of the versions of fairy tales Connolly lifted his ideas from.

If my hints as to the dark direction of this novel weren’t enough, I feel it’s worth offering this final warning, though I will try to be vague: there are not very many happy endings in this book. It is not all depressing either, but it is far from ideal. Like life, there are ups and downs and if summed up in a few lines, the downs can seem overwhelming, but—like life—you take from this book what you can and hope it gives you some insight on yourself for the journey through the woods.

Rabbits, Rabbits Everywhere, Frith Help Us!

Watership Down
by Richard Adams
 p. 1972 

I didn’t start this blog intending for it to be a feminist literature blog; I truly had no intentions of discussing gender roles every single time I read a book and I don’t, on the whole, it just happens that I’ve read a lot of books written between the fifties and seventies lately, and by chance Watership Down is just the latest in a string of books where discussing gender roles cannot be ignored, especially since it figures directly into the plot here.

I had no idea what to expect plot-wise, as I'd never read Watership Down as a kid, though it would have been right up my alley, given my love of animal adventures (my first ever ‘book’, written by my first-grade self, was a story about ten animal friends; is now notoriously lost to the ages). Watership Down is not a kid-friendly adventure in the vein of Brian Jacques’ Redwall series, though it would not be inappropriate for all kids, just those with more... delicate sensibilities. It is never graphic, but there are descriptions of rabbits being killed that could scare younger readers.

The plot is simple; Hazel, the protagonist, is a young, sturdy rabbit whose brother Fiver, the runt of the litter and a prophet of sorts, predicts a dire future for the warren in which they’ve lived their whole lives. Fiver is a peculiar creature among rabbits but Hazel trusts him and manages to convince a few other youngsters to follow them on their journey into the unknown. Since rabbits are prey to pretty much everything, they encounter many dangers on the way but eventually settle a new warren on Watership Down and are content to live out their days... until they discover they totally forgot to bring girls along.

The second half of the book is concerned primarily with finding some girls to populate their new digs and have their many rabbit babies. Call me crazy but I caught on to this oversight right away when they kept introducing more and more androgynously-named rabbits (like Hazel, Holly and Strawberry, to name a few) and none of them turned out to be female, but none of our heroes joined me in this revelation. This is explained by the excuse that rabbits do not have the capacity to think beyond the immediate danger (and this excuse is widely supported by their simplicity), but I still found it a little silly that none of them thought to convince a few girls to come along, especially since everyone that remained was brutally slaughtered and judging by the complacency of the does they eventually do bring home, it doesn’t seem crazy to think that it would have been easy to convince a few to join them.

There are a couple female rabbits of note later on but none of them ever come close to providing the same qualities that the male rabbits do. Their sole purpose in this novel and the only reason for including them is to procreate.  Apparently film and TV adaptations of Watership Down adjusted for political correctness and gender flipped a few rabbits, or made up a few, but as there were only a couple years in between these and the book’s publication, I have to wonder what the deal is. It makes me even sadder since Adams apparently wrote this story for his daughters, yet failed to include any girls. And it’s not even like all the rabbits are timid, dull creatures. Each of the male rabbits has their area of usefulness and moments of heroism, but the girls are left out. One of them even gets snatched by a fox and they shrug it off and say "what's one more or less doe?" In a story that highlights the importance of cultural evolution and innovation, why couldn't gender roles be challenged as well? I'm sure the girls would have fought just as bravely for the lives.

The women-exist-solely-as-breeders theme aside, there is still a lot to enjoy about Watership Down. Stylistically, I was reminded of The Hobbit in that we follow a group of unlikely heroes on an important journey. On the way they battle and overcome differences and tell stories. In the rabbits’ case, all of their stories center on a rabbit folk hero named El-ahrairah (“Prince with a Thousand Enemies”, as the footnotes translate), and his interactions with the woodland creatures as well as the rabbit (or “Lapine”) equivalents of God and Death, Frith (the sun) and the Black Rabbit of Inlé, respectively. Occasionally these stories would intersect with or inspire the events of the story, since El-ahrairah embodies the trickster spirit of rabbits and our heroes often had to think beyond their simple lives to survive. Mostly though, I found these deviations from the story tiresome and distracting.

My favorite character shifted as the story progressed and each rabbit had their moment to shine. Right off the bat I favored the protagonist Hazel, admiring him for his bravery and his faith in his brother which thrust him into a leadership position, but admonished him later for letting his ambitions lead him astray. Fiver, the prophetic brother, was a bit too spastic for me to enjoy at first, but he grew up a lot on the journey and had more moments of clarity than anyone; he never minded being universally despised either, he just did what he thought he had to to save his people. Holly, an early antagonist who almost prevents the group from leaving the warren, shows up later, one of only two survivors; shaken by traumatic events, he is humbled and helpful and helps the new group. Bluebell—the other survivor—holds a special place in my heart for being the eternal joker who gets his friends through hard times. Dandelion is the quickest runner and the ablest storyteller and Blackberry is the cleverest rabbit of them all, able to imagine his way out of every scrape using skills incomprehensible to his friends. Even the villain, General Woundwort, is a remarkably sympathetic antagonist, one you can’t help but admire a little for his stalwartness. The only rabbit I strongly adored consistently was Bigwig, the fighter, a constant source of strength and loyalty, who challenges Hazel when he needs challenging but nobly steps aside when he realizes he is not the true leader. Bigwig suffers perhaps more than any other rabbit but he remains Watership Down’s staunchest ally.

My only other complaint is that [spoiler alert! Highlight text to read] no rabbits actually die on the entire journey OR in the climatic end battle, with the exception of a few does (but who cares about them, AM I RIGHT?!) and a few of Woundwort’s men. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not gunning for their blood or advocating a rabbit snuff tale or anything, but I think it took a lot away from the impact of the journey that there were no losses. To stand up for what you believe in takes courage and can be rewarding but even kids should learn that taking a stand sometimes has consequences. At the end of the story, when everyone lived happily ever after, I didn’t really feel like as much was at stake as I would have if we’d seen a few of the characters lost along the way.

This book was definitely not what I was expecting, and I wonder how differently I would be looking at it if I had read it as a child. As it stands, I was a little disappointed I didn’t like it more as an adult. I was a little interested in checking out the film and TV versions... until I found out that BOTH versions carelessly omitted Bluebell, which I found to be a severe error in judgment on their parts. I will now be boycotting any version until they make one that includes my favorite trickster rabbit. TAKE NOTE HOLLYWOOD. (And while you’re at it, give a few of the good parts to the ladies, will ya?)