Book Review: The Riddle-Master of Hed

Book Review: 'The Riddle-Master of Hed'

 5 / 5 Stars

 

Every Fall, here at the PorPor Books Blog I focus for a good six weeks or so on horror literature, to coincide with Halloween. After reading a steady diet of the grim and gruesome, I'm in the mood for lighter fare, thus, I'll settle down with some fantasy fiction. And so it was that I read 'The Riddle-Master of Hed,' one of a number of fantasy works for adults and children authored by Patricia McKillip (1948 - 2022).

 

'The Riddle-Master of Hed' first was published in 1976 by Atheneum; this mass market paperback edition was issued by Del Rey / Ballantine in March, 1979, and features cover art by Darrell Sweet.

 

This was one of the more prominent fantasy trilogies issued in the 1970s, standing alongside Katherine Kurtz's 'Deryni' novels and Stephen R. Donaldson's 'Thomas Covenant' trilogy as foundations of the fantasy genre as it is today. 'Riddle-Master' was followed by 'Heir of Sea and Fire' (1977), and 'Harpist in the Wind' (1979).  'Riddle of Stars,' an omnibus edition of all the novels, was published by the Science Fiction Book Club / Nelson Doubleday in October, 1979.

'Riddle-Master' is set in a medieval fantasy world where a major manifestation of magic lies in posing and answering riddles with entities alive or dead. Depending on the magnitude of the reward sought, such riddle games can be life-or-death affairs. Morgon, the eponymous Riddle-Master, is adapt at riddling, but rather than publicizing his expertise, he prefers to live as a simple farmer in his small island kingdom of Hed. 

 

Early in the novel we learn that Morgon has won an ancient and mystical artifact, the crown of the Kings of Aum, by successfully contesting a riddle contest with the ghost of Peven, a former king of Aum. Given that many have tried and failed (at the cost of their lives) to win the crown, when news of the feat spreads through the mainland, Morgon is obliged to travel there and make himself known to astonished wizards, scribes, and kings.

 

What seems to the unassuming Morgon to be a pleasant, if tedious, undertaking quickly takes on darker tones: an ancient evil has resurfaced in the world, and for reasons no one quite understands, it has focused its malevolence on the simple farmer from Hed. When shapeshifters, disguised as allies, try to murder him, Morgon realizes that retreating to Hed offers no safety. Instead, hoping to discover why he's being targeted, Morgon must travel north to Erlenstar Mountain and the redoubt of the High One, the most powerful mage in the world. Accompanying him will be the harpist Deth, the High One's herald and a man accustomed to journeying through the wilder places of the earth.

 

All manner of perils await Morgon and Deth in their travels, for their opponents have no intention of letting them arrive at Erlenstar Mountain. And with the shapeshifters loose, failure to distinguish friend from foe can be lethal.........

For those with patience, 'Riddle-Master' is a contemplative, and gradually rewarding, novel. It assuredly is not 'epic' fantasy: there are no clashes of massed armies of orcs and elves, no Dark Lord and his machinations, no dragons, no dungeons, and no treasure hoards. Plot is subordinate to characterization and setting, with the latter aspect taking on lyrical tones in the hands of author McKillip:

They spent one more night in Ymris, then crossed the worn hills and turned eastward, skirting the low mountains, beyond which lay the plains and tors of Herun. The autumn rains began again, monotonous, persistent, and they rode silently through the wilderness between the lands, hunched into voluminous hooded cloaks, their harps trussed in leather, tucked beneath them. They slept in what dry places they could find in shallow caves of rock, beneath thick groves of trees, their fires wavering reluctantly in wind and rain.

 

The narrative relies heavily (too heavily, in fact) on lengthy dialogue passages, often as a vehicle to impart plot developments. Action sequences are rare and almost perfunctory, and their aftermath is given more attention (in terms of the emotional and psychological impact on the participants) than the incident itself. 

As for protagonist Morgon, he is not a very imposing, or even a likable, character. He is, rather, a passive individual, prone to bemoaning his misfortune as a plaything of powerful forces arising from the past. Morgon's passivity becomes tedious, for he spends one chapter with severe amnesia, relying for survival on the kindness of a hermit. He spends much of another chapter lying in bed, trying to recover from an illness and vulnerable to shapeshifters. In yet another chapter, he again is abed, when he's the target of a murder attempt. Playing melancholy tunes on his harp, and considering the unfairness of it all, is the one thing he's good at. 

 

Morgan is, in colloquial expression, a Soy Boy..........

 

As the opening volume of the trilogy, 'Riddle-Master' necessarily has an open-ended denouement, but I found it effective nonetheless, and encouraging enough for me to proceed with the second volume, 'Heir of Sea and Fire.' 

Taschen February 2026 Sale

It's time once again for Europublisher Tacshen to have its big sale. Running till February 8, 2026, it's a good way to get quality art and pop culture books at a discount.

 

For my part, well, I'm running the gamut of fantasy art, to soul and R & B record covers, to vintage 70s sleaze. I'm sure if you poke around the Sale site you'll find something to appeal to your own interests...........?! 

 

Penthouse February 1976

Penthouse

February 1976

February, 1976. Atop the Weekly Top 40 listing is Paul Simon, with '50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,' while Donna Summer's disco-moan single 'Love to Love You Baby' sits in second place. Lots of classic rock, and memorable R & B tunes, in the top 40 this week !

The latest issue of Penthouse is on the stands. A lead article, 'Grandma Was A Junkie,' by Richard T. Griffin, reminds us that from the mid-19th century till the 1910s, many Americans were functioning drug addicts, due to their taking narcotics, such as opium, morphine, and cocaine, for medicinal purposes. 

 

According to Griffin, women in particular were heavy users of opiates, and sometime entire families would be 'hooked' on these drugs, which could be obtained without prescription: 'over the counter,' in modern parlance. The opiate epidemic only began to abate with the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914. Griffin's article certainly has some resonance to our 21st century, and the controversy over the 'opioid epidemic.' 

We've got some interesting cartoons..........

  

Rod Philip asks the question, 'Do teenage boys really get off on older women ?' and answers in the affirmative.......

The interview in this February issue is with Stevland Hardaway Judkins (b. 1950), who took the stage name 'Stevie Wonder.' Wonder had his first hit in 1963 with the single 'Fingertips,' and 1976 was to be one of his most commercially and critically successful years ever. His double LP Songs in the Key of Life would go to the top of the Billboard 200 list, and be certified as a 'diamond' by the Recording Industry Association of America. Boomers will remember the hit singles 'Sir Duke' and 'Isn't She Lovely.'

 

In the interview Wonder comes across as a thoughtful individual, with a message of optimism for the human family. He also imparts how he, as a blind man, can perceive colors: "Red, to me, is fire - something that is burning. Shimmering flames, sparkling, the hottest hot. Blue is very, very cool, distant...."

One of the portfolios in this February issue features the sylph-like 'Traffic Jammer' Amber Marie, who has some provocative things to say (or, at least, the Penthouse staff composing her 'remarks' have something provocative to say). Readers undoubtedly were excited by Amber's admission that "I like everything- especially oral sex !"

 

 

 

 

 

And that's what you got when you opened the pages of that issue of Penthouse, fifty years ago..... 

Book Review: Black Camelot

Book Review: 'Black Camelot' by Duncan Kyle

1 / 5 Stars

‘Black Camelot’ first was published in 1978; this Berkley Books edition (282 pp.) was issued in January, 1980. The cover artist is uncredited.

Author Kyle published a number of paperback thrillers and adventure novels in the 1970s and 1980s.

The cover for ‘Black Camelot’ presents the novel as a sort of ‘Castle Wolfenstein’ adventure, wherein a commando team must penetrate a Nazi redoubt where some sort of secret science fictional or supernatural program is under way, with the goal of ensuring victory for the Third Reich.

In fact, the novel is a bland and unrewarding World War Two espionage tale.

‘Black Camelot’ is set in early 1945, with the protagonist, Franz Rasch, recuperating from wounds received in the Ardennes campaign. A decorated member of the Waffen SS, Rasch is a past member of the commando team led by Otto Skorzeny, and participated in the rescue of Benito Mussolini in September 1943.

While dedicated to the Waffen SS, Rasch can see that the defeat of the Reich is imminent, and, hoping to escape Germany before its capitulation, accepts an assignment from Walter Schellenberg, the head of German foreign intelligence, to travel to Stockholm. Rasch is tasked with delivering documents to a Russian contact; these documents include a list of prominent Britons who, before the war, were engaged in commerce with the Third Reich, and in some cases, have continued to trade covertly with Nazi front companies. 

 

Schellenberg is hoping that the documents will enrage Stalin to such an extent that the Soviet leader withdraws from the war and gives Hitler a chance to focus on the British and American forces, and perhaps, battle with sufficient vigor to force a negotiated peace.

Upon his arrival in Stockholm things go badly for Rasch and he’s forced into an uneasy alliance with an Irish journalist named Joe Conway. The two men travel to Ireland and embark on a campaign to blackmail those British industrialists who are on Schellenberg’s list. Provided the accused pay up, thousands of pounds will be deposited in Rasch's and Conway’s bank accounts, leaving the former SS man with sufficient funds to start his life over again.

 

After considerable meandering in the plot, Rasch and Conway wind up coerced into participating in a commando raid of Heinrich Himmler’s redoubt, the ‘Black Camelot’ of the novel’s title, Wewelsburg Castle in Westphalia (a real-life structure). The raid’s goal: recover a master list of both American and British collaborators, before Himmler can exploit the list in a last-ditch effort to halt the Allied war effort. 

 

But what the commando team doesn’t know is that Himmler has his own plans for the fate of Wewelsburg, and a team of SS engineers is heading for the castle……….and a violent confrontation with Franz Rasch.

 

‘Black Camelot’ was a chore to finish. The first 217 pages of the novel are intended to emulate a Jack Higgins World War Two spy novel, and fail to do a convincing job of this. Much of the narrative is slowly paced, relies on dialogue and small intrigues, and offers little in the way of action. The closing chapters of the novel finally come round to detailing the commando raid, but this has a drawn-out, plodding quality. I was left with the feeling that I has spent far too much time invested in the book for what turns out to be an underwhelming denouement.

 

Hardcover and paperback copies of ‘Black Camelot’ still can be had for affordable prices, so if you decide to try this novel, it’s a low-risk acquisition. That said, you’re better off going with a Jack Higgins novel per se, than ‘Black Camelot.’

Re-read: The Vang: The Battlemaster

Re-read: 'The Vang: The Battlemaster' by Christopher Rowley

5 / 5 Stars

 

Back in April of 2014 I posted my review of the third and final volume in the 'Vang' trilogy by Christopher Rowley: 'The Vang: The Battlemaster.' It was a title I bestowed with a 5 Star Rating.

This installment of the trilogy is set 2,000 years after the events of the second volume, 'The Vang: The Military Form.' 'Battlemaster' is set on the planet Wexel, an 'infamous eco-disaster' world beset with entropy.

 

Much as with third-world nations on Earth, on Wexel, there is widespread political violence between the ruling government and an assortment of 'liberation' fronts. This has triggered severe economic disruptions, with large sectors of the planet in disarray:

 

    The ATV moved out. Chang stared out at the terminal buildings as they went past. The paint was dull; there was a broken window on the ground floor.

 

    A rusting truck was set up on blocks in a cargo bay. They passed through an unmanned gatepost and turned onto a four-lane approach highway. Various ramps joined the road as it curved down to meet a six-lane highway. 

 

    The roads were in terrible shape, truly terrible, with potholes like craters, and broken railings, rusted and torn, projecting up like daggers in places.

 

    The highway was flanked by endless billboards.....there were many that amounted to enormous written demands for the execution of this or that specific person. These demands were written in stark headline black, charging so-and-so with subversion of the State of Potash-Do and demanding the death penalty on behalf of the Committee for the Preservation of Society. 

 

    Some of the other billboards featured enormous skulls, with a conspicuous bullet hole through the forehead. Beneath this was a slogan: "Get them first and they can't get you !"

 

    Soap, video, beer, and skulls with bullet holes. Chang winced.

 

Beyond the reach of the central government, in the outlands, aristocrats rule as independent lordlings. One such lordling is the malevolent Count Karvur, the despot of a bedraggled rural estate. Prospecting on the Count's lands has uncovered something very interesting: in a strata estimated to be nearly 80 million years old is the cocoon of an alien organism. 

 

The County orders the cocoon excavated, and assigns it to the care of university researcher Caroline Reese. Reese is alarmed by her molecular analysis of the life form, and urges caution. But Count Karvur badly needs money to fund his libertine lifestyle, and he sees the cocoon and its contents as a path to riches. But as the Count is about to find out, the alien inside the cocoon is none other than the most lethal form of the Vang.........

 

'Battlemaster' has as its heroine the dogged Colonel Luisa Chang. Author Rowley makes the military officials, bureaucrats, and politicians of the Wexel elite as much the villains of the novel as the Vang, for machinations of the ruling class constantly raise obstacles to Chang's increasingly desperate efforts to contain the spread of the Vang. 

'Battlemaster' doesn't shy from grue and gore, as the Vang converts one hapless Wexelian after another into its increasingly deadly militias.

 

Author Rowley never tips his hand as to whether Luisa Chang or the Battlemaster will in the end prevail, thus maintaining suspense until the last two pages of the novel. 

 

After the re-read I see no reason to change my initial review's Five Star Rating, a conclusion I also reached this past Spring with my re-read of the initial volume in the Vang trilogy, 'Starhammer.' These are among the best sci-fi novels of the 1980s and well are worth acquiring. 

The Carpenters: Space Encounters

The Carpenters: Space Encounters

ABC TV, May 17, 1978 

After the release of their very successful song 'Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft' in the Fall of 1977, the Carpenters continued to mine the sci-fi craze of the late 1970s by participating in a May, 1978 special on ABC TV. Titled The Carpenters: Space Encounters, it was a melange of Carpenter's hits, lip-synced, and accompanied by footage of dancers in 'sci-fi' costumes. Several 70s celebrities: comedian Charlie Callas, actor and emcee John Davidson, and Suzanne Somers (from Three's Company), come aboard for additional corny antics.

 

The entire 50-minute show can be seen here. 

Anyone under the age of 30 who tries to watch the show likely will come away distressed from the cheesiness (can anyone watch Davidson and Callas converse in 'alien' language and not be unscathed ?), but if you're a Baby Boomer, well.........hopefully all the drugs you've done in the past will make Space Encounters digestible. And I will say that Somers looks pretty fetching in her 'Space Girl' outfits........ 

 

It doesn't get more 70s, than Space Encounters...........!

Book Review: Midnight City

Book Review: 'Midnight City' by Robert Tine

 3 / 5 Stars

 

'Midnight City' (284 pp.) was published by Signet in December, 1987. The cover artist is uncredited. During the 1980s and 1990s author Tine (1954 - 2022) wrote novels for various franchises ('The Outrider'), and novelizations of feature films ('Universal Soldier,' 'Forever Young,' 'Demolition Man').

 

'Midnight' is set in New York City, circa 2030. The Big Apple is more hectic and more crowded than ever, operating on a 24-hour cycle to accommodate all the activities and commerce unfolding in its five boroughs. Skyways 90 feet high struggle to handle all the traffic. Pimps, muggers, rapists, thieves, and murderers are as plentiful as in our own day, and the city police department has created a new unit, the 'Rovers,' to handle the most pressing and politically charged crime cases. The Rovers aren't particularly well liked by the regular police force, being seen as elitist meddlers.

 

As the novel opens a beat cop is murdered in gruesome fashion. Such a crime must forcibly be addressed, and NYPD headquarters orders Herman Symankowicz, the senior Rover commander, to apprehend the killer. Symankowicz assembles a team of three Rovers: Jake Sullivan, Jerry Walker, and Vic Borelli, to investigate the murder.

 

Lead character Sullivan is your traditional world-weary cop, but he's also very bright, very savvy about the way things work on the alleys and streets of the city, and very dedicated to his job. He's not not overly surprised when the investigation reveals the deceased police had a number of 'excessive use of force' complaints. Thus, there is no shortage of perps who might be seeking payback.

 

As the novel progresses things get worse, rather than better, and the political pressure to solve the crime only increases. But Jake Sullivan has an idea about how to use the technology at the disposal of the NYPD, to learn some things that the Department wants kept secret..... 

 

'Midnight City' is first and foremost a police procedural. Author Tine deploys the standard-issue hardboiled prose, and although he thankfully avoids stuffing similes and metaphors into the narrative, he does have a skill with acidic, laugh-out-loud wordplay: 

 

They found Gerry Geronimo backstage at the Erotiko. He was a grimy little man and, given his lack of personal hygiene, was quite at home in the nasty-smelling lighting booth of the club. He was sitting back in his rickety chair, his feet on the control board, drinking a half-liter can of Budweiser and reading a copy of Twat magazine. 

He looked out directly onto the little stage of the theater where a woman dressed in a dog collar - only a dog collar - as being led around by a black guy who had her leash in his bony hand. He dragged her over to one of the elderly patrons and she took a fifty-dollar bill and commenced giving the guy a blow job.

 

The denouement relies on a rather contrived plot development involving an elderly mafioso, but the reveal of the murderer was a genuine surprise; author Tine keeps the reader guessing til the ending page, which is in the novel's favor.

 

'Midnight' is not a melding of cyberpunk and noir in the manner of other titles from the late 80s and early 90s, like Richard Paul Russo's 'Carlucci' novels, or George Alec Effinger's 'Marid Audran' novels. The novel's sci-fi content is mild; a GPS system, as envisaged in 1987, plays a key role in the investigative process, and an NYPD hovercraft comes in handy when seeking perps among the shadier venues of the city. 

 

Readers who like police procedurals may want to give 'Midnight City' a look, but it's probably not going to appeal very much to those interested in early cyberpunk.

National Lampoon January 1979

National Lampoon

January, 1979

January, 1979, and atop the Top 40 singles chart is 'Le Freak,' by Chic. Disco (represented here not just by Chic, but by the Village People and Rod Stewart) was doing well as the year began, but by the summer's end, it would begin to go into decline.

The latest issue of the National Lampoon is out, and while the company is riding high on the blockbuster success of National Lampoon's Animal House........

......the page count is quite a bit reduced from the glory days of the advertising of the early- and mid-70s. 

 

Although, we do get notice of Elton John's latest album, A Single Man. The single from the LP, 'Part Time Love,' is a nice little pop song.

And let's not forget the 1978 remake of the 1956 sci-fi film Invasion of the Body Snatchers.....

This is a good issue of the Lampoon, with some solid content; all revolving around the theme of 'depression.' The short story in this issue, 'Life in the Big City Goes On,' by Gerald Sussman, is about a hapless New Yorker named Gregory K, whose life is even worse than that of the protagonist of the M. John Harrison story 'Running Down,' in terms of Affliction by Entropy. 'Life in the Big city' mixes dark humor with the late 70s cityscape in a very effective way.
 

The comic book parody in this issue takes aim at the venerable Classics Illustrated imprint with a tale of alcoholism and despair.

Knowing their readership likes a little female nudity, the editorial staff have a 'centerfold' of sorts:

Comics veteran Russ Heath gets in on the action with a half-page comic, written by Lampoon editor P. J. O'Rourke, titled 'Naked Girls Telling Old Jokes.'

The 'Foto Funnies' eschew their usual female nudity for some comic observations about funerals, and the use of the commode.

 

Lampoon stalwart Shary Flenniken contributes both an installment of 'Trots and Bonnie,' and 'A Friend in Need,' a color comic about malaise and anomie in the Big City.

 

One of the more unsettling pieces in this January issue is a contribution from Arthur Suydam, who at the time was emerging as one of the more innovative and gifted contributors to the Lampoon's sister publication Heavy Metal. Also written by O'Rourke, thanks to Suydam's unique art style 'Women' provides a creepy, even disturbing, look at gender relations. Is it relevant to our time and age, nearly fifty years later ? Perhaps..........!!

And that's what you got for your $1.50, folks, long ago and far away in that opening month of 1979.......