2018: Science Fiction Odyssey, Too

Oh good grief would you look at the time. I mean date. I mean... whatever: Christmas and New Year's are fast approaching, and I am seized by an inexplicable urge to blog about the books I bought and read in 2018 – this despite having barely posted anything all year and consequently squandered whatever remaining sliver of readership Existential Ennui yet retained. Still, when have I ever let widespread disinterest stop me from wittering on at extreme length?

2018, then. A year that, much like 2017 – which, you'll recall (or at least you would if there were anyone left to read this rubbish in order to recall anything) was characterised by an extended science fiction book-collecting-and-reading odyssey – has been characterised by an extended science fiction book-collecting-and-reading odyssey... albeit arguably a less frenzied one. Even so, there have been sizeable scores this year, not least a haul of paperbacks (plus one hardback – a first of Larry Niven and Steven Barnes' Dream Park) I secured over successive visits to Lewes' own Bow Windows Bookshop, who had bought in a huge collection of softcover SF – piles and piles of the bloody stuff – towards the end of the year. (There's still a fair bit left if you're passing.) My spoils mostly comprised space opera by Stephen Baxter, Frederik Pohl (including a couple of entries in the Heechee Saga), Larry Niven, Elizabeth Moon, Charles Stross, Orson Scott Card and others, plus some Philip K. Dick, Terry Pratchett, Bruce Sterling, Joe Haldeman and so on.

Other notable SF scores this year included a stack of Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds and Peter F. Hamilton first editions (notably Reynolds' entire Poseidon's Children trilogy, and a signed first of Hamilton's Misspent Youth plus his ensuing Commonwealth Saga) from two of Brighton's charity bookshops on the same day:

A smaller pile of SF from one of the same shops (including Joe Haldeman's sequel to The Forever War, Forever Free, which I'd been wanting to read):

A return visit to Camilla's Bookshop in Eastbourne (which saw me completing my collection of firsts of Hamilton's Void Trilogy, the sequel to the aforementioned Commonwealth Saga):

And returns visits too to Leigh Gallery Books in Leigh-on-Sea (who had a half-price sale on) and the Stables Bookshop at Hylands House, plus closer to home a mooch round the charity shops of Uckfield:

There were also some (relatively slim) pickings from the Paperback & Pulp Book Fair:

And of course the Lewes Book Fair:

Then there was the stack of Analog science fiction magazines, secured in Brighton's Snooper's Paradise (including the first appearance of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game):

And a smaller selection of SF magazines, bought in London's Quinto Bookshop, and containing P. M. Hubbard's three earliest short stories, a Joe Haldeman Forever War novella (not included in the first edition I own), and Jerry Pournelle's three-part A Spaceship for the King, alias King David's Spaceship (there was also an epic Westlake/Stark score on the same visit, but that's a story for another time):

Lastly, there were the signed paperbacks I picked up online for a song:

Besides all those, there were other books acquired here and there, but I think I've given the general gist of the year's collecting. What was that about 2018's odyssey being less frenzied than 2017's...?

As for actually reading any of the bloody things... allow me to present my traditional big long list of the books I read this year, in the order in which I read them. In previous years I've also tended to detail the comics I read, and sometimes even offered some commentary on my reading, but it's been a long year and I really can't be arsed. I have, however, deigned to include links to whatever I've previously written about some of the books (however brief). You're welcome. Merry Christmas.

Raft by Stephen Baxter
The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds
An Entity Observes All Things by Box Brown
Tales from the Hyperverse by William Cardini
Across the Sea of Suns by Gregory Benford
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
Forever Free by Joe Haldeman
The Forge of God by Greg Bear
Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear
A World Out of Time by Larry Niven
Tales of Known Space by Larry Niven
The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton by Larry Niven
Protector by Larry Niven
A Gift from Earth by Larry Niven
Neutron Star by Larry Niven
Spock Must Die! by James Blish (see Star Trek Magazine #69, out now, for my review)
Ringworld by Larry Niven
The Mercenary by Jerry Pournelle
He Fell into a Dark Hole (in Analog) by Jerry Pournelle
Planet of Judgment by Joe Haldeman (see Star Trek Magazine #70 for my review)
The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, plus prologue in A Step Farther Out, and and missing first chapter in Infinite Stars.
Timelike Infinity by Stephen Baxter
The five Shaper/Mechanist stories in Ascendancies by Bruce Sterling
Es*Ef by Phil Elliott, Darryl Cunningham, Glenn Dakin, Paul Duncan and David Thorpe
Kingdom by Jon McNaught
XTC69 by Jessica Campbell
DC Nuclear Winter Special by various
Gateway by Frederik Pohl (still reading)

Eastbourne Book Buys: Victor Canning's Birds of a Feather (Heinemann, 1985) and the Last of Tome

NB: Linked in Friday's Forgotten Books, 12 June 2015.

We had a family outing to Eastbourne a couple of weeks ago, the highlight of which was undoubtedly Edie's first proper experience of paddling in the sea:

Which, after a cautious start – she was initially reluctant to put her feet down on the wet squelchy sand at the water's edge – entailed much squealing and dashing back and forth into the lapping waves. But as much fun as that was, almost as thrilling in its own way, at least for me (although rather less so, I imagine, for Edie and Rachel), was the acquisition of this:

A 1985 Heinemann first edition of Victor Canning's Birds a Feather, which I bought in Eastbourne secondhand bookshop institution Camilla's, priced £4.50. The final novel in Canning's Birdcage espionage series, it was the only one I was missing in first (non-ex-library copies are quite hard to come by), so when I spied it on the shelves in the basement of Camilla's – luckily it was on one of the higher shelves, otherwise it would've been obscured by the piles of books that sit on the floor in front of the lower third of the bookcases in the basement – I was delighted. Naturally I've added it to the Existential Ennui Victor Canning Birdcage First Edition Book Cover Gallery and to British Thriller Book Cover Design of the 1970s and 1980s.

But while Camilla's marches on in much the same fashion as it ever has – well, in my experience, in the half-dozen years I've been going there – another, more recent Eastbourne secondhand bookshop is breathing its last. Tome, which opened its doors on Terminus Road (an apt location in retrospect) near the seafront a few years ago, is closing – indeed may already have closed by the time I publish this post. I was alerted to this sorry state of affairs by Existential Ennui reader Gerald, so the trip to Eastbourne was motivated at least in part by a desire to have a last look at Tome's wares. Books were being packed in boxes on the day we were there, but there were still lots on display, all priced at 50p rather than the usual £2 (I do wonder whether that pricing policy was a factor in the closure), and though there wasn't anything I desperately wanted – I've raided Tome's shelves too thoroughly on a number of prior occasions – I still managed to find a few things of interest:

On the bottom row, a 1965 Hodder & Stoughon first edition of The Third Side of the Coin, Francis Clifford's tenth novel – quite uncommon in first that one – and a 1968 Jonathan Cape first edition of The Killing Season, the debut novel by John Redgate, alias actor Adam Kennedy; and on the top row, a 1981 Cape first edition of Once a Spy, Rennie Airth's second novel – also uncommon, not to mention pricey, in first (at least sixty quid on AbeBooks) – and a 1991 Picador first edition of The Mexican Tree Duck, James Crumley's fifth novel. A good illustration of the kinds of unexpected delights Tome invariably offered up, and why the place will be sorely missed. And as further illustration, here's a pile of books I bought in Tome last year – including a signed 2006 No Exit Press first of James Sallis's Drive – as photographed on Eastbourne beach shortly after (and posted on Twitter, but not, heretofore, on Existential Ennui):

And here's Edie – who at two years old has lived her entire life with Tome in it, to the extent that on one occasion she even ate her lunch in the place (and on another occasion, did a poo there) – photobombing:

Cheerio then, Tome. And thanks for all the books.

A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin (Michael Joseph, 1954): British First Edition, Review

NB: Proffered as part of Friday's Forgotten Books, 16 May, 2014.

For this Friday's Forgotten Books roundup, host Patti Nase Abbott has requested books which fall under the subject header "crime fiction of the 1950s" – i.e. crime fiction originally published in the '50s (not crime fiction simply set in the '50s). I could have plucked any number of books from my shelves that fit that bill, but I've plumped for this one:

Ira Levin's debut novel, A Kiss Before Dying, seen here in British first edition/first impression, published by Michael Joseph in 1954. The simple but striking dust jacket design is credited to Beytagh, who I believe to be Dennis Beytagh; another example of his jacket work can be found wrapping the 1957 Pegasus Press first edition of New Zealand author Janet Frame's celebrated debut novel Owls Do Cry, but he's perhaps more widely admired for a New Zealand tourism poster he created in 1960 and for his illustrations in the Reed first edition of The Silver Fern: A Journey in Search of New Zealand by Temple Sutherland from the same year – all of which leads me to suspect he was either a New Zealander himself or emigrated there. Nevertheless, his jacket for A Kiss Before Dying wraps a British edition of the novel, so I've added it to the Existential Ennui Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s page.

A Kiss Before Dying has been on my radar for a while, for a number of reasons. I'd read and enjoyed one of Levin's later novels, The Boys from Brazil (1976), in 2012, and around the same time had seen a copy of the Joseph edition of A Kiss Before Dying in a later impression – it went through four impressions (printings) that I know of before being reset in 1956 – in Camilla's secondhand bookshop in Eastbourne and been mildly tempted (I elected in the end to hold out for a first impression). And then to cap it all a friend of mine, novelist Nina de la Mer, started raving about Levin's work in general and A Kiss Before Dying in particular on Twitter and the like, and as a consequence my curiosity about the book reached critical mass and I actively sought out a British first edition/first impression, by chance finding one right on my doorstep courtesy of Brighton-based book dealer Alan White at the tail end of last year.

And I bought it, and read it, and liked it just fine; the writing is more melodramatic than the calmer stylings of The Boys from Brazil, but many of the things that I found compelling about that later book are present and correct here too, notably the pace and the high concept – the latter being something Levin excelled at; he only wrote seven novels, and yet they begat a clutch of classic Hollywood movies (Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives, etc.). What's really interesting is how in this instance the high concept informs the structure of the novel. The story centres on a male student – initially unnamed so as to allow Levin to indulge in some deftly handled misdirection regarding the killer's identity – who works his way through three sisters, one by one, in murderous fashion, with the ultimate aim of getting his hands on their inheritance; accordingly the book is broken up into three parts, each named after one of the sisters: Dorothy, Ellen, and Marion.

In the way in which the protagonist attempts to elevate himself from humble origins utilising murderous methods, A Kiss Before Dying reminded me of another 1950s crime novel: Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955). For me, though, Levin's tale lacks the psychological heft of Highsmith's. As motivation for the killer's money-grubbing actions Levin sketches in a deprived but golden childhood where success in adulthood seems assured; but that bright future is derailed by the draft, and an episode in the Pacific at the fag end of World War II kindles his homicidal urges. Building character isn't necessarily all about providing backstory, however; we know very little of Tom Ripley's background, and yet Highsmith makes him a vivid creation – a more fascinating one, I'd argue, than Levin's lead – via the things he thinks and says and does.

In fact the net result of my reading A Kiss Before Dying was to leave me hankering after some more Highsmith – her dispassionate eye, her abiding amorality. So it's just as well I've made a few new Highsmith acquisitions – some unique and remarkable items which I'll be unveiling as part of my sporadic series of posts on signed books.

Eric Ambler on The Mask of Dimitrios, Journey into Fear and Judgment on Deltchev: Introduction to Intrigue (Hodder, 1965)

NB: Linked in this week's Friday's Forgotten Books.

The Eric Ambler introduction in this anthology of three of the author's novels isn't quite as expansive as that in the 1964 short story (both Ambler's and others') anthology To Catch a Spy, but it's still worth a look, I feel, if only for the amusing way in which Ambler persistently undermines the reasoning for the inclusion of the introduction. And in any case, this little-seen edition of the book is itself quite intriguing – literally, in fact.

Published in hardback in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton in 1965, Intrigue collects three of Ambler's novels: The Mask of Dimitrios (1939), Journey into Fear (1940) and Judgment on Deltchev (1951). As such, it should not be confused with Intrigue, published in hardback in the US by Alfred A. Knopf in 1943 – and reissued in 1960 – which collects four of Ambler's novels: Journey into Fear, A Coffin for Dimitrios – the American title for The Mask of Dimitrios – Cause for Alarm (1938) and Background to Danger – the American title for Uncommon Danger (1937).

Now, on balance, one might suppose that an anthology containing four early Eric Ambler spy thrillers would be a more attractive proposition than one containing three early(ish) Eric Ambler spy thrillers. But in this case, to my mind, matters are not so clear cut. For one thing, the Hodder version of Intrigue is much scarcer than the Knopf one, of which there are, presently, getting on for forty copies of the 1943 or (more commonly) 1960 edition on AbeBooks, as opposed to just two copies of the Hodder Intrigue. (My copy, incidentally, came from the basement of Camilla's secondhand bookshop in Eastbourne, bought for a fiver.) More importantly, however, there's the introduction. In the Knopf edition(s) it's by Alfred Hitchcock, whereas in the Hodder edition it's by Ambler himself. I haven't read Hitchcock's introduction in the Knopf Intrigue, but having read his typically glib one for his own Sinister Spies anthology, I can't imagine it's terribly insightful. Ambler's, on the other hand, though only four pages long, is revealing about the origins of each novel, agreeably anecdotal, and winningly self-deprecating about the business of writing introductions.

Having stated that "no writer of popular fiction should ever attempt to discuss or explain his own books; he should let them speak for themselves", Ambler then presents his excuse for ignoring his own advice: "It is – and already it begins to sound feeble – the fact that these books were written under three entirely different sets of circumstances, and that they seem now – as if it mattered – to reflect their times of origin." Of The Mask of Dimitrios he notes that it "was written during the nominal peace that followed the Munich agreement of 1938" and "was, inauspiciously, the Daily Mail Book-Of-The-Month for August 1939". He recalls how he "thought of the whole shape and plan... in a third-class compartment of the night train from Paris to Marseille" – the seat being "too hard for sleep" – and "made notes on a scrap of paper. They consisted of a rough sketch of Europe with a squiggly line drawn across it, and the words, 'begin Turkey – end Paris – Demetrius? Dimitrios'."

After musing that "[m]ost writers are familiar with the letter from the complete stranger who claims to recognise in a fictional character a thinly disguised (and, usually, libellous) portrait of himself", Ambler reveals that "The Mask of Dimitrios produced a considerable correspondence". There was the "Greek living in Wichita, Kansas who declared furiously, and with notable lack of filial consideration, that the odious Dimitrios was an obvious portrait of his father"; the French journalist who was convinced Dimitrios was based on a living Greek criminal (of whom Ambler had never heard); and the man in Argentina who sent "ten closely-written pages... in an awkward mixture of bad English and German" claiming that he had found in the novel "clear evidence of the manner of his father's death in the early thirties".

"Unfortunately," Ambler adds, "he neglected to mention which of the book's characters he had identified as his father."

Like The Mask of Dimitrios, Journey into Fear "was also evolved in a train" – this time "[s]tanding in the packed corridor of an express which stopped at every station between Lyon and Paris", although Ambler "made no notes on that occasion. As everyone seemed certain at that point that we were all going to be bombed or gassed at any moment, note-making scarcely seemed worthwhile." The book "was written while I was waiting to go into the army during the 'phony' War. It was the Evening Standard book choice for the month of Dunkirk." In a footnote Ambler muses: "An earlier book of mine, Cause for Alarm, had been published in the week of Hitler's invasion of Austria. The recurrent international crises of the pre-War period seemed to follow the Spring-Autumn publishing pattern relentlessly, and the book casualties were always heavy. Few persons are in the mood for thrillers when the sky is falling." He further expresses surprise that "I, who had an original (1917) drawing of Will Dyson's [Merchant of Death] monster hanging on the wall by my desk, should so readily have decided that the object of the reader's sympathy and concern in Journey into Fear could be an arms salesman."

Judgment on Deltchev was written ten years after Journey into Fear, "after six years in the army and an embroilment with the film industry". For Ambler, "novel-writing had been a laboriously-acquired habit. In the army I lost the habit, and the process of recovery was slow." That process took place at a house in St. Margaret's Bay in Kent, leased from Noel Coward on the condition "that I should use the house in which to write another book". "Forget all this film nonsense," Coward told Ambler: "You think you will always be able to go back to the well. That may be so, but remember this; if you stay away too long, one day you will go back and find the well dry!" The house's previous tenant had been Ian Fleming, "then about to embark upon his series of James Bond adventures. Obviously the house and its landlord were together conducive to work in the genre."

Ambler rewrote Judgment on Deltchev "at least five times" and "started and discarded three other books during those years": not only did he have to reacquire "the writing habit" but "the internal world which had confidently produced the earlier books had been so extensively modified that it had to be re-explored".

He continues:

If this sounds unduly solemn from a thriller-writer with the sole and avowed object of providing entertainment, then perhaps I may quote Ian Fleming on the subject: 'While thrillers may not be Literature, it is possible to write what I can best describe as "thrillers designed to be read as literature".' Such an aim would surely excuse a measure of solemnity and some critical self-examination.

"On reflection, however," Ambler offers in closing, "I think that perhaps I was right in the first place. It really is better to let the books speak for themselves."

Before I move on from Eric Ambler – whose work, by the way, Ethan Iverson will also shortly be exploring over at Do the Math – I thought I might showcase a couple of Ambler first editions, both of which I acquired on London's Cecil Court.

Out of Sight by Elmore Leonard (Viking, 1996)

NB: Featured in this week's Friday's Forgotten Books.

I guess I could've presented this next Elmore Leonard novel as part of last year's series of posts on books which begat perhaps more famous movies; I certainly had the book in question to hand back then, having bought a British first edition in Camilla's secondhand bookshop in Eastbourne not long before, and I'd seen the 1998 Steven Soderbergh flick it begat. Unfortunately, at that point, I hadn't read the novel. (Another Elmore Leonard book-to-film adaptation made it into that series instead – 1974's Mr. Majestyk.) However, I have now – as part of my ongoing Elmore Leonard readathon – so let's take a look at it:

Out of Sight, published by Viking in 1996 under what can only be described as a bloody awful dust jacket – design uncredited, possibly to spare the embarrassment of the designer. The almost-as-crappy front cover photo is credited, however, to one Colin Thomas, who should perhaps have been made aware prior to the shoot that the novel's female lead, federal marshal Karen Sisco – I assume that's her holding the shotgun – is in fact blonde. Sigh... (Mind you, Jennifer Lopez wasn't especially blonde in Soderbergh's Out of Sight movie, and Carla Gugino was decidedly brunette in the short-lived 2003 Karen Sisco TV series, so in that respect the cover photo might charitably be termed prescient.)

Shonky '90s cover design aside, in the Elmore Leonard oeuvre Out of Sight follows two of my favourites of the author's works – Pronto (1993) and Riding the Rap (1995), both of which, possibly not entirely coincidentally, also feature a US marshal (one Raylan Givens, of Justified fame); evidently the United States Marshals Service was much on Leonard's mind in the mid-1990s. But Out of Sight is only partly Karen Sisco's story; her co-star is Jack Foley, a serial bank robber who busts out of the Glades Correctional Institution in Florida at the start of the book and elects to kidnap Karen – who's outside the prison, waiting to serve a summons to an inmate – depositing both her and himself in the trunk of the car his cohort Buddy has brought along to aid his escape.

All this is set against a background of a bigger breakout by a bunch of Cubans which, I learned thanks to a fascinating 1996 New Yorker article on Elmore Leonard's researcher, Gregg Sutter (kindly sent to me by Book Glutton), Leonard based on a real life Glades prison break from 1995, when six inmates escaped via a tunnel they'd dug from the prison chapel to the other side of the perimeter fence. And it turns out Jack too is based in part on an actual person: a man Sutter interviewed who according to the article "had escaped from more prisons in Florida than anyone else", and whose ability to control his emotions during a prison break (essentially by acting: "You act cool," he told Sutter, sounding not unlike an Elmore Leonard bit-part player, "you going to be cool") Leonard responded to and applied to Jack.

That said, to my mind Jack lacks the depth of some of Leonard's other ne'er-do-wells – the introspective Ernest Stickley, Jr. from Stick, say, or the confused, conflicted Jack Ryan from The Big Bounce and especially Unknown Man No. 89. Foley is by comparison a fairly unreconstructed sort, both as a criminal and as a person, and therefore perhaps less interesting as a character. But his studied cool works a treat on Karen: their mutual attraction – infatuation, even – drives the, admittedly meandering (in typical Leonardian fashion), narrative, all the way to a climactic ill-advised Detroit home invasion where the bodies stack up and Karen draws a definite line under their curious relationship.

As would become evident over a decade later, however, Leonard wasn't quite done with his charming recidivist; inspired by George Clooney's turn as Foley in the Out of Sight film (recently picked by The Playlist as the best Elmore Leonard movie adaptation), he brought Jack back in the 2009 novel Road Dogs... although before we get to that book, a necessary detour is in order: namely Leonard's 1983 Edgar Award-winning novel LaBrava, and a very special edition thereof...

Xenophon's Adventure by Geoffrey Household (The Bodley Head, 1961, Bernard Blatch Cover and Illustrations) and Two P. M. Hubbard Children's Novels Join Beautiful British Book Jacket Design

Just for a change, today's additions to Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s are all children's books. They aren't, however, by authors who are generally recognised as writers of children's fiction; the bulk of both writers' backlists are comprised of, respectively, spy thrillers and suspense novels. Their names will, however, be familiar to regular readers of Existential Ennui, as I've written about them extensively; and the designer of the jacket of this first book – and illustrator of the interiors, too – is an artist who's already appeared in Beautiful British Book Jacket Design...

Published by The Bodley Head in the UK in 1961 as part of the publisher's series of retellings of heroic tales, Xenophon's Adventure is one of only a handful of children's titles Rogue Male author Geoffrey Household wrote during his fifty-year career. It was originally published by Random House in the US in 1955 under the title The Exploits of Xenophon (Household based the book on a story from the seven-volume Anabasis), with illustrations by Leonard Everett Fisher, but for their edition, Bodley secured the services of Bernard Blatch, who designed the dustjacket and provided interior illos; Blatch also designed the jacket of the 1961 Heinemann edition of Frederick Karl's The Quest, a copy of which I found in a Lewes charity shop a few weeks ago and promptly added to the Beautiful British Book Jackets gallery.

I bought this first edition of Xenophon's Adventure in Camilla's in Eastbourne – where, on a previous visit, Rachel picked up her 1965 Collins first of Agatha Christie's At Bertram's Hotel – for £6.50, which, considering non-ex-library copies are listed on AbeBooks for anything from £20 to £100, was a very reasonable price indeed.

The other two children's books I've added to Beautiful British Book Jacket Design – Anna Highbury (Cassell, 1963) and Rat Trap Island (Cassell, 1964) – are both by suspense novelist P. M. Hubbard, and are the only children's novels he wrote. If you follow the links you'll find my original posts on the books and the cover designers, but I've rephotographed the two wrappers from their original appearances; the Anna Highbury jacket was illustrated by Graham Byfield, while the Rat Trap Island one was illustrated by John Strickland Goodall.

And I'm still not quite done with the Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s, because next I'll be reviewing three novels by one of my favourite authors, Patricia Highsmith, all of which, in their Heinemann first editions, boast terrific dust jackets, two of which are little-seen online, and third of which, I believe, has never been seen on the web...

The Berlin Memorandum (Quiller #1) by Adam Hall: a Review of the First Edition (Collins, 1965)

Time, I think, for another series of author-centric posts, in the grand tradition of such former, lauded (er, by somebody, somewhere... probably) series of author-centric posts as this one on Patricia Highsmith and this one on Anthony Price. And this time it's the turn of a spy fiction author who excites great interest and fervent devotion in certain sections of the espionage-fic fratenity; a man who wrote well over a hundred novels in his lifetime, under a variety of pen names – one of which would eventually become his legal name – and in a variety of genres: Elleston Trevor.

The Trevor nom de plume I'm concerned with is Adam Hall, under which moniker Trevor wrote nineteen first-person novels starring British secret agent Quiller, published from 1965 to 1996. I've only read the first one thus far, but it was so strange and fascinating and gripping that I'm planning on making my way through the entire series. There's plenty of info and commentary on Trevor/Hall's oeuvre online, so rather than proffer my ill-informed thoughts on his life and career, I'll instead direct you to this comprehensive website, which contains everything from articles on and interviews with Trevor to details about each of the books; this interview with Trevor's son, JP, by friend of Existential Ennui and author of the Paul Dark spy novels Jeremy Duns (Hall is Jeremy's favourite author; it was Jeremy that turned me on to him); and this dedicated page and this series of posts on Matthew Bradley's website.

Quiller's first appearance came in this novel:

The Berlin Memorandum, published in hardback in the UK by Collins in 1965 (prices – with dustjacket – on this first edition range from six or seven quid to over £50, depending on condition; I bought this one from secondhand bookshop Camilla's in Eastbourne on my birthday day out all the way back in March) – although it was actually the second novel Trevor wrote under the Hall alias, following 1963's non-Quiller debut The Volcanoes of San Domingo. Operating in Cold War Berlin on the orders of shadowy British outfit the Bureau, in turn liaising with the Z Commission, Quiller's ongoing mission is to bring to justice those Nazi war criminals who have thus far escaped prosecution, and who continue to operate at all levels in German society. But when a fellow agent is killed, Quiller is tasked by the Bureau to hunt down former SS Obergruppenführer Heinrich Zossen, a man who Quiller saw at his ruthless worst during the war. Before long Quiller finds himself up against underground Nazi organisation Phönix, in the process uncovering a plan that could have devastating consequences for Europe and the wider world.

In his own way, Quiller is as weird a creation as another of my abiding preoccupations-cum-obsessions, Donald E. Westlake/Richard Stark's Parker. Obviously there are major differences between the two – Parker is a career criminal; Quiller is a secret agent – but there are also parallels: the single name (we never learn in either case whether "Parker" or "Quiller" is a surname or a pseudonym); the single-minded dedication to a cause to the exclusion of pretty much everything else (romance, home comforts... er, hobbies...); the machine-like nature of each protagonist. Indeed, based on the evidence of The Berlin Memorandum, Quiller is as much an espionage automaton as Parker is a heisting one.

Quiller's narrative style – and therefore Hall's prose – is curiously elliptical and staccato in nature. Quiller frequently deploys shorthand phrases – trademarks, really – for a number of situations: for danger ("red sector"); for an intractable problem or blocked avenue ("no go"). Often he'll close out a statement abruptly with a curt "So forth". His narration is thick with espionage nomenclature and terminology: "flushing tags" (getting rid of a tail); "cover" (agents deployed to watch one's back). He also has a tendency to lapse into bizarre almost bullet-point summaries of his position as he reasons out situations and explores options.

This being an espionage thriller, there are the expected double- and triple-crosses, and there's also a memorable interrogation sequence, with Quiller battling the effects of a truth serum, hallucinating badly but desperately trying to hold on to reality. Interestingly, Quiller doesn't carry a pistol, believing guns to be more of a hindrance than a help; he even informs us that a gun is merely "a penis-substitute and a symbol of power". Take that, 007, licensed to kill. He continues:

The age range of toy-shop clientele begins at about six or seven, rises sharply just before puberty and declines soon after the discovery of the phallus and its promise of power. From then on, guns are for kids and for the effete freaks and misfits who must seek psycho-orgasmic relief by shooting pheasants.

And take that, the landed gentry. Consequently, Quiller often has to think his way out of a jam rather than fight his way out. Perhaps the most ingenious example of this comes when, having failed to extract the information he needs from Quiller, Nazi interrogator Oktober turns instead to Inga, the damaged young woman with whom Quiller has become involved. With Inga being tortured and raped in the next room in order to force Quiller to talk, Quiller comes up with quite a creative solution: he faints, thus making the torture redundant.

That's just one remarkable passage from a novel that's stuffed with similarly noteworthy scenes and events. It's an impressive first outing for Quiller, although if the opinions of Messrs Duns, Bradley et al are anything to go by, there's even better to come. But in the next post in this series, instead of looking at a subsequent Quiller adventure, I'll once again be examining The Berlin Memorandum – except under a different title. Because as it turned out, the 1965 Collins edition was the only time the novel was destined to appear under the title of The Berlin Memorandum – at least in English (there have been a handful of foreign language editions, one of which – a 1967 Spanish paperback – you can see above on the left). Thereafter, it would assume a perhaps more familiar moniker...

Eastbourne Buy: The Most Dangerous Game by Gavin Lyall (US First Edition, Scribner's, 1963); William Berry Cover

It can't have escaped your attention that there's a right royal wedding taking place today, but let me reassure you that this post has nothing to do with the union between Kate and Wills... Except, if you're really desperate for a tenuous link, that with an estimated two billion watching the event on telly around the world, it could be said the (now-married, in fact) couple have become a highly successful British export... and the author I'm blogging about today was also, in his day, a highly successful British export. (No? Oh well, please yourself.)

That author is Gavin Lyall, a UK thriller writer who I've covered numerous times on this 'ere blog, most recently in a review of his 1964 sophomore novel The Most Dangerous Game. And it's to that same Scandinavia-set aviation actioner I'm returning today, in an edition that actually predates the British first I wrote about in that previous post. How can it possibly predate the British first, I hear you cry? Well let's find out.

This is the American first edition of The Most Dangerous Game, published in hardback by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1963 – a year before the UK first edition. Indeed, if we take a look at the copyright page:

We can be even more precise about the publication date. See the "A-9.63 [H]"? The "A" denotes a first printing, as was standard with Scribner's books around this period, while the "9.63" denotes the month and year – in other words, September 1963 (not sure what the "H" denotes, though). So this US first edition/first printing was published before the '64 Hodder & Stoughton UK first. As to how that came to be the case, during this initial phase of his career Lyall was, as I mentioned up top, very successful overseas, especially in America, where his debut novel, The Wrong Side of the Sky, did so well for Scribner's that they managed to secure first world publication rights to his second – i.e. The Most Dangerous Game. Thus this American Scribner's edition is in effect the true first of the novel.

I bought this copy in Camilla's secondhand bookshop in Eastbourne (hence the "Eastbourne Buy" in the post title), during my birthday day out last month – just one of a pile of books I bought that day (all of which I will eventually blog about, you lucky, lucky bastards). I'd seen it there before but decided against buying it on the previous trip because I wanted a UK first – not realising what I now know about the US being the true first. But on this occasion I couldn't resist it; quite apart from anything else I really like that moody blue dustjacket, which was designed (read: illustrated) by William Berry, a Texan artist who worked as an illustrator and painter in New York in the 1960s. And it is, after all, a cracking novel – pop along to my other post on it if you want to read what I made of it.

So then, what shall we have next in this series of random book blogging posts? Excellent question. Hmm. Y'know, I really have no idea what I'll be posting next. Ooh, tell you what we haven't had for a while, though: a Notes from the Small Press. Let's see if I can't rustle one of those up for the weekend...

Gavin Lyall Book Bonanza

And what a bonanza it was. The girlf and I took a trip over to Camilla's bookshop in Eastbourne at the weekend, going further along the coast to Hastings first to check out a couple of bookshops there. One of those was heaving with tatty paperbacks but not really anything of interest, and the other was shut. Well, the lights were on, and the owner was drifting about inside with a glass of wine in his hand, but when I tried to go in he shook his head solemnly. Bernard Black is alive and well and living in Hastings it seems. What's the point of having a bookshop if you're not gonna let people in to have a look? No wonder second hand bookshops are dying on their arses. Silly old prick.

Anyway, after that we headed back to Eastbourne and spent a happy hour in Camilla's. If you've never been there it has to be seen to be believed. Three or so floors absolutely crammed with old books, on shelves, piled on the floor, everywhere. In fact on the ground floor there's a pile of books taller than me and almost as wide again, with notes stuck on it not to touch in case it collapses. It's almost like an art installation. Here's a photo of the place off the web:










Suffice it to say it's even more crammed with books now. But unlike a lot of ramshackle bookshops (and the book/art installation on the ground floor aside), you can actually see most of the books, even if it means moving the odd pile out of the way. Also the staff are usually quite friendly, which isn't always (often?) the case in this type of over-filled bookshop. Rachel was initially disappointed that the only Agatha Christie books on offer, down in the basement, were all sans jackets, but I moved aside some books on the shelves running up the staircase up to the first floor and found a load more there, so she came away with a bag full of firsts.

I spotted various interesting things on the shelves up the stairs, which house the fiction. And then down in the basement, where there's even more fiction, I came across a couple of Gavin Lyall first editions. Then a second look at the stairs shelves turned up some more Lyalls I'd missed first time round. So I grabbed the lot.

Gavin Lyall, for those who don't know, was a British thriller writer (and former RAF pilot), active from the 1960s to the end of the century. Like a lot of 20th Century thriller writers he's largely forgotten these days, which is a shame, as his books are cracking reads – among his fans could be counted the likes of Kingsley Amis and P. G. Wodehouse (and possibly my mum; when she saw one of his books on my shelf recently on a visit she was pleasantly surprised). Lyall's early novels were aviation thrillers for the most part, written in the first person and featuring hard-bitten pilot tough guys as their 'heroes'. Later, into the 1980s, Lyall started writing in the third person and created the character Harry Maxim for a series of espionage thrillers, the first book of which, The Secret Servant, was initially written as a pilot for a TV series starring Charles Dance (which I don't think I've seen).

So what did I get at Camilla's? I done got these:













A 1965 hardback first edition of Lyall's third novel, Midnight Plus One, published by Hodder and Stoughton;













A 1966 first edition hardback of his fourth novel, Shooting Script, again published by Hodder (looking forward to reading this one, as it shakes up the aviation action with the addition of a plot about making a movie; also, I'd like to find out who did the killer jacket designs for these two, as it doesn't say in the books);













A 1972 first hardback edition of Lyall's sixth novel, Blame the Dead, Hodder again, and with a photographic jacket by Clive Andrews;













A 1980 first edition hardback of the debut Harry Maxim novel, The Secret Servant, Hodder once more, with a jacket design by Raymond Hawkey/photography by Peter Williams (I've wanted to get this one for a while, but despite it being tied to a TV series, you don't see proper first editions around that much; usually they're Book Club editions, which, as we all know, just Ain't the Same Thing);













And a 1985 first edition hardback of the third Harry Maxim novel, The Crocus List. So, a nice bunch of additions to the Lyall books I already own, namely:













A 1961 first hardback edition of his debut novel, The Wrong Side of Sky (Hodder once again – and I'd love to know who painted that cover; it's a neat summation of Lyall's early oeuvre);













A 1965 Pan paperback edition of his second novel, The Most Dangerous Game (first published by Hodder in 1964);













And a 1971 Pan paperback of Lyall's fifth novel, Venus with Pistols (originally published by Hodder in 1969). I like the design of these Lyall Pan editions, but I'll doubtless keep my eye out for first editions. And having acquired five Lyalls in Eastbourne, that doesn't leave an awful lot left from his backlist for me to track down: only 1975's Judas Country, the two other Harry Maxim books, and his four later historical thrillers. Mind you, I'm still working my way through Richard Stark's Parker novels at the moment (currently on Parker #8, The Handle), and I've got a good number of Patricia Highsmith books to read yet too, so I've got quite enough to be getting on with.

Maybe just a quick look on AbeBooks though... Can't hurt, can it?