The sixth book in the Geralt saga (or fourth, if you count only the novels), this book continues where "Baptism of Fire" left. Some English editions have the plural "Swallows" in the title, but that's wrong, as the original Polish title is to be translated in singular in English.
Ciri is found by the hermit/professor/exile/philosopher Visygota and nursed back to health while she tells him her story of her band, the Rats, frolicking around doing banditry stuff, until getting murdered by the bounty hunter Leo Bonhart who was introduced by the end of the previous volume. He is so meticulous that he saws off the heads of all the Rats after murdering them, slowly and neatly. He captures Ciri and beats her viciously, leading her around on a rope around her neck and eventually forcing her to fight in an arena in Claremont for his and others amusement.
Geralt and his gang continues to search for Ciri. They find Ciri's double Angulleme, who also joins them, and have a skirmish at some mines, where they barely escape with their lives, but continue to look for the Druids. Geralt becomes much nicer to Cahir, who is scheduled to die in the next (last) book, together with most others, anyway.
Eventually they find the druids, but all is not peaches, as the druid(esse)s control walking, semi-sentient trees (Ents???) who capture all kinds of brigands but also Geralt and his gang, to be burned alive in a Wicker Man, a respected, age-old Druid tradition. Luckily Regis has some pull with the druidesses and persuades them to free their friends. The gang then continues to Touissant, where the next book will take place. Mostly. If you don't count a parallel universe where Elves exterminated humans.
Ciri gets better with Visygota's care and sets of on a quest to revenge herself and her friends, despite Visygota's strong protests. Eventually she finds Leo Bonehead, Stefan Skellen, Rience and the rest of the merry company who enjoy torturing people with white-hot iron and dismembering them while still alive. Ciri leads the hunting posse on a chase towards a frozen lake, beyond which the Tower of the Swallow lies with its thousand portals to time and space inside. On the lake Ciri kills much of the group, minus Bonhart and Skellen, including cutting off the fingers of Rience while he clings to the edge of the ice with her ice skates. Then she disappears in the Tower and teleports to the world of Elves (not intentionally).
Friday, October 26, 2018
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
"The Monkey's Paw" by William Wymark Jacobs
Jacobs died in 1943, just as his most famous story was included in yet another anthology which he didn't live to see published. It is a bit ironic that in the eight decades of his life, Jacobs produced many novels and short story collections, but only one story, from a relatively early collection (just about when he was getting married), outlived all his other works and became the token for his creative output and his life of creative endeavors.
Jacobs mostly wrote lighthearted prose about the Sea and Seamen, and the supernatural stories he wrote were never his priority or preoccupation. And yet "The Monkey's Paw" has come out to be one of the most imitated, replicated, anthologized, remade in various media and resurrected over and over work in literature in general. Even well into the 21st century the story is still being remade in film, video and online media.
It is a short story, but impactful. Future versions and remakes have added that the mummified monkey's paw would contract one finger each time a wish is made, and at the count of three wishes, it would extend all fingers again, ready for the next unfortunate person to be punished for wanting to change destiny in such a trivial way. In the original story the paw merely moves and vibrates each time a wish is granted.
And who can forget the terror of the last page when the knocking on the door becomes louder, while the tearful mother is fumbling with the lock, the father exasperatedly pronouncing the last wish for the "thing" outside to be no more. And only the night and the wind await the mother when she finally manages to unlock the door. For the best.
Jacobs mostly wrote lighthearted prose about the Sea and Seamen, and the supernatural stories he wrote were never his priority or preoccupation. And yet "The Monkey's Paw" has come out to be one of the most imitated, replicated, anthologized, remade in various media and resurrected over and over work in literature in general. Even well into the 21st century the story is still being remade in film, video and online media.
It is a short story, but impactful. Future versions and remakes have added that the mummified monkey's paw would contract one finger each time a wish is made, and at the count of three wishes, it would extend all fingers again, ready for the next unfortunate person to be punished for wanting to change destiny in such a trivial way. In the original story the paw merely moves and vibrates each time a wish is granted.
And who can forget the terror of the last page when the knocking on the door becomes louder, while the tearful mother is fumbling with the lock, the father exasperatedly pronouncing the last wish for the "thing" outside to be no more. And only the night and the wind await the mother when she finally manages to unlock the door. For the best.
Thursday, October 11, 2018
"The Screaming Skull" by Francis Marion Crawford
This story is intriguing because it is written as a monologue in a play, both the past-narrative part, and the happening-right-now part. It ends with a purported clip from a newspaper about the death of the Captain from human-teeth biting wounds on his neck. The style and voice of the story separate it from the ocean of mediocre ghost stories from the Victorian period, which all seem to follow the same pattern and style.
The old English legend of a Screaming Scull is the topic of the story, and there's a footnote at the end that it is based on real events. How real, we can only imagine, in that age of superstition and primitive beliefs, although less than century-and-a-half distant from present time. Pretty much even the most refined Victorian gentleman would be considered superstition-obsessed, women-oppressing, racist, chauvinist, patriarchal bigot by today's standards.
The story also uses as a literary device killing people by pouring molten led in their ears. This was a common torture used by states and churches around Europe, and even native american Indians, up to the end of the 1890s. The Captain tells a story of a woman who killed three husbands by pouring just a drop of lead in their ears while drugged and sleeping in a stupor. The led could not be traced as a murder weapon because of the small amount, but the bead would travel to the brain and kill the person instantaneously. The only way the woman was caught was by exhuming the bodies of her three late husbands and finding a bead of led rattling in each skull.
When the Doctor hears the Captain's story, his hated wife mysteriously dies a short while after. The Doctor however acquires a strange, polished white skull at the same time, which drives all the servants out of the house with it's incessant shrieking at night. The Doctor dies in the same way as the Captain, and the story hints throughout that the Captain might not have been just an innocent observer in the whole matter.
A great example of a somewhat-different Victorian Ghost Story. Francis Marion Crawford was an interesting person himself. American by citizenship, but born in Italy and spent most of his life outside the US. Initially he was going to be an opera singer, but the Boston Opera principal told him he will never be able to follow a tune. Since his father was a sculptor and his aunt a well-known poet, he made contacts with publishers in New York who were more than glad to publish his novels set in India and Italy, which were considered exotic locales at the time. A self-called Romantic-Realist, Crawford rejected all suggestions that novels, and fiction in general, should teach something and be didactic, but saw them mostly as amusement, but intellectual and elevated amusement.
The old English legend of a Screaming Scull is the topic of the story, and there's a footnote at the end that it is based on real events. How real, we can only imagine, in that age of superstition and primitive beliefs, although less than century-and-a-half distant from present time. Pretty much even the most refined Victorian gentleman would be considered superstition-obsessed, women-oppressing, racist, chauvinist, patriarchal bigot by today's standards.
The story also uses as a literary device killing people by pouring molten led in their ears. This was a common torture used by states and churches around Europe, and even native american Indians, up to the end of the 1890s. The Captain tells a story of a woman who killed three husbands by pouring just a drop of lead in their ears while drugged and sleeping in a stupor. The led could not be traced as a murder weapon because of the small amount, but the bead would travel to the brain and kill the person instantaneously. The only way the woman was caught was by exhuming the bodies of her three late husbands and finding a bead of led rattling in each skull.
When the Doctor hears the Captain's story, his hated wife mysteriously dies a short while after. The Doctor however acquires a strange, polished white skull at the same time, which drives all the servants out of the house with it's incessant shrieking at night. The Doctor dies in the same way as the Captain, and the story hints throughout that the Captain might not have been just an innocent observer in the whole matter.
A great example of a somewhat-different Victorian Ghost Story. Francis Marion Crawford was an interesting person himself. American by citizenship, but born in Italy and spent most of his life outside the US. Initially he was going to be an opera singer, but the Boston Opera principal told him he will never be able to follow a tune. Since his father was a sculptor and his aunt a well-known poet, he made contacts with publishers in New York who were more than glad to publish his novels set in India and Italy, which were considered exotic locales at the time. A self-called Romantic-Realist, Crawford rejected all suggestions that novels, and fiction in general, should teach something and be didactic, but saw them mostly as amusement, but intellectual and elevated amusement.
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
"Green Tea" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
This is a well known story by a well known Irish writer. Or he was well known until a few decades ago. You've probably heard of Sheridan Le Fanu if you're over 40. Probably not, if you're a millennial.
Neveryoumind, Le Fanu was an Irish writer in the mid-1800s and his specialty was ghost stories. Not anything like the deeply disturbing, mind-shriveling, insomnia-inducing, psychological assassination material that nowadays passes for horror, but good, old, cozy ghost stories intertwined with 19th century metaphysics (which was still a science then), some theosophy, mesmerism and misunderstood Hinduism thrown in.
Le Fanu created a hero, the German doctor Martin Hesselius, who is more into metaphysics and the bad theories of Paracelzus (the good one are actually valid until today, like vaccination) and cures people with cooled cologne and positive affirmations. One of his theories is that drinking large quantities of Green Tea creates neural fluids that allow the drinker to see the spiritual world around us, that is usually invisible (and inaudible). The catch is that this invisible world is inherently malicious and evil and tries hard to drive every person who can perceive it into a gruesome suicide.
In this case the possessed is Reverend Jennings - priest who owns surprisingly large amounts of real estate in and around London, and the demon is a a pitch-black spectral monkey with glowing red eyes and a diabolical grin. Even though Hesselius claims to have cured 57 (exactly) other people with a similar affliction, Jennings, after long suffering, cuts his own throat with an old fashioned straight razor. This kind of result is why Gillette made a fortune when inventing the safety razor. You definitely can't cut your throat from side to side with that one.
Hesselius chugs his failure to cure Jennings to his hereditary suicidal mania, since such theories were still a thing in the 1850s. And recommends against drinking green tea. (But the antioxidants!!)
Neveryoumind, Le Fanu was an Irish writer in the mid-1800s and his specialty was ghost stories. Not anything like the deeply disturbing, mind-shriveling, insomnia-inducing, psychological assassination material that nowadays passes for horror, but good, old, cozy ghost stories intertwined with 19th century metaphysics (which was still a science then), some theosophy, mesmerism and misunderstood Hinduism thrown in.
Le Fanu created a hero, the German doctor Martin Hesselius, who is more into metaphysics and the bad theories of Paracelzus (the good one are actually valid until today, like vaccination) and cures people with cooled cologne and positive affirmations. One of his theories is that drinking large quantities of Green Tea creates neural fluids that allow the drinker to see the spiritual world around us, that is usually invisible (and inaudible). The catch is that this invisible world is inherently malicious and evil and tries hard to drive every person who can perceive it into a gruesome suicide.
In this case the possessed is Reverend Jennings - priest who owns surprisingly large amounts of real estate in and around London, and the demon is a a pitch-black spectral monkey with glowing red eyes and a diabolical grin. Even though Hesselius claims to have cured 57 (exactly) other people with a similar affliction, Jennings, after long suffering, cuts his own throat with an old fashioned straight razor. This kind of result is why Gillette made a fortune when inventing the safety razor. You definitely can't cut your throat from side to side with that one.
Hesselius chugs his failure to cure Jennings to his hereditary suicidal mania, since such theories were still a thing in the 1850s. And recommends against drinking green tea. (But the antioxidants!!)
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