stoutfellow

I have learned a thing or two, reading the Dashiell Hammett collection. They're minor things, but I've found them to be interesting.

1) The stories were written beginning in the early 1920s, continuing to the end of the decade. In the earlier stories, Hammett (or his narrator) refers to automobiles exclusively as "machines"; "automobile" makes an appearance around mid-decade, but "machine" continues to be used intermittently. Most of the stories have the same, nameless, narrator, so we don't have a problem with change of voice here. The only other situations where I've seen that usage have been in songs: Johnny Cash's "One Piece at a Time" at one point refers to his creation as a "mo-chine" (sic), and Jan and Dean refer to "the whine of that screamin' machine" in "Dead Man's Curve".

2) In one of the stories, the narrator, speaking to another character, uses the word "Schrecklichkeit" ("frightfulness"), in reference to one of a series of nasty pranks (here, the killing and roasting of a dog). To the best of my memory, I had previously encountered that word only once, in a popular history of World War II, in reference to the bombing of Rotterdam. (The savagery of the bombing was much exaggerated by Western propaganda; the book went along with this.) I assumed that the word had been used at the time of that bombing, and that any use of the word by an Anglophone would be an allusion to that or similar incidents (e.g., Coventry). So what was it doing, being used in the '20s? A check of Wikipedia reveals that the word was used in connection with (supposed) German atrocities in Belgium in WWI; the Wikipedia article makes no mention of Rotterdam. Perhaps my memory is at fault....

1. On a recommendation from an LJ friend, I picked up John Ringo's Princess of Wands while I was in San Diego. In terms of plot and context, it belongs in the "Buffy" category, along with Sunshine and Carpe Demon; unfortunately, I didn't find the main character particularly likeable. I also found it rather gorier than I like; like Joel Rosenberg, Ringo dwells a bit too lovingly on shattered hyoid bones and the like. I doubt that I'll be reading any of the further books in that series.

2. I also bought a copy of Peter Hamilton's Pandora's Star, on a vague recollection of hearing his name recommended. This one, I liked quite a bit; the story involves numerous interweaving plotlines, against the backdrop of an interestingly designed society. The alien menace is well-conceived; the various POV characters, all of them, act on incomplete and possibly incorrect information, and at the (literal) cliffhanger ending the reader cannot be sure which of them are nearer to the truth. ("Paranoia strikes deep...") There's a slight flavoring of Dan Simmons here, although without the... intensity and floridity Simmons brings. I'll certainly go after the sequel.

3. People of my acquaintance who are mystery buffs have been pushing the name of Dick Francis for quite a while, and I finally gave him a try, with Bonecrack. It's a solid and satisfying story; if in some respects it's a bit predictable, still, the working out of the details is entertaining, and the characterizations are a little more solid than one expects in a mystery novel. I'll be looking for more Francis.