Time for some reading tips... it's a jumble, actually, no predominant theme... pretty much like the last entry of this kind.
First a little tale about drugs and inspiration.
Rob Halford is a rock singer, born in 1951. A great rock lyricist too; this we pledge. -- Now, regarding his personal life you could say that he indulged in all kinds of drugs, including alcohol, throughout his career. Before a show, after a show.
But then, in 1985, he had enough. And checked into rehab. Which he quickly managed and went through as prescribed; he followed the program. He just quit the booze cold turkey. And this was during the work on the album Turbo.
According to the memoirs Confess (2020), the shift from "uninspired drunk writing rambling lyrics" to "newborn sober creator" can be seen in, on the one hand, the songs Rock You Around the World and Wild Nights, and on the other, Out in the Cold and Reckless.
Wonderful... "No one can stop me now, I'm like a human dynamo"... no one who has heard Reckless can be indifferent to its Actionist vitalism, and with the additional background of the author's sobriety, the song appears even more fairytale-like.
About the memoir as a reading experience, I say: worth the effort, mostly... the gay sex gets a little too gay as the story progresses, but that was Halford's distinction as a rock star... first gay man in rock, so to speak... other than that, Halford has some narrative talent. Thus: Confess can be recommended, but in some places it's an unsavory read. But hey, it's rock'n roll, it ain't Perennial Trad...
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Some shorter reviews and tips... first two non-fiction.
Nancy Mitford, Frederick the Great (1970). A fine fat bio with a conservative outlook... not original per se, I learned very little new stuff, but it was quaint... it had some interesting interiors from the court of the king in question... a minus for the many illos, though, I personally don't want pics on every spread.
Essays by Lytton Strachey... his most known work is Eminent Victorians, which is a "polygraphic" three-bios-in-one, readable and a tad ironic towards their objects (like Florence Nightingale)... beyond that his compilations of diverse essays are even better, entertaining and serious at the same time. For instance, Books and Characters (1922) has a fine, succinct study of the above-mentioned Frederick the Great and his exchange with Voltaire. And Literary Essays (1948) has a readable text about William Blake. -- In short: Strachey had erudition and style, style and erudition. He almost always delivers. An essay by Strachey can give you the gist of a subject in 10-20 pages; you don't have to ply through 500+ page volumes to get to the center of things. And that's the mark of distinction of any good essayist. Like Frans G. Bengtsson, Ezra Pound, Brian Aldiss...
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Now for some fiction.
And first in this vein, a note on Raymond Chandler... -- Chandler wrote some Marlowe stories not taking place in LA (Playback, Lady of the Lake)... I think this is pointless... like having Mike Hammer doing his thing in Albany... the private eye gets energy from the buzz of the big city... Marlowe from LA, Hammer from New York, and Sam Spade from San Francisco. -- Thus, the Marlowe novels I prefer play in LA. And those I've read are The Big Sleep, The Little Sister, The Long Good-Bye. I kind of recommend them, though rather empty and defaitist in essential content. But they have style, they have a certain "je ne sais quoi"...
Jack Vance, The Killing Machine (1964)... a modern space opera, a "Ruritanian space adventure"... elegant James Bondish doings in a galaxy of many cultures, aspects, and interiors... shallow but charming. -- Vance excelled in this stylish sf adventure style, while Poul Anderson, able to spin similar yarns, always had to be pretentious and ponderous too... a major drawback. Vance knew the limits of space opera and he never went beyond them. "No tragedy" is the prime watchword.
Cordwainer Smith, The Rediscovery of Man (1975; 2009)... an anthology of his best fiction... of which new editions are constantly published... now, some shorts in this exposé are unequalled (Alpha Ralpha Boulevard, Golden the Ship Was), but sometimes it gets kinda contrived and overly enigmatic... and there is, for example, some "grafted-on tragedy" at times... and that shall be avoided in genre fiction, see note above about Vance... -- Generally Smith was a little too clever-clever for his own good... he is worth checking up, though, for the advanced sf reader; some gems are to be had all over the place. My volume (SF Masterworks, available on net bookstores) also had a fine foreword and a newly written afterword; fine extra material, I'd say. -- And (as Paul Linebarger, his real name) Smith wrote Psychological Warfare (1950)... while noting some flaws (like the author style being that of "a facetious American in post-WWII mode") he had some knowledge about propaganda operations, being a CIA employee.
Sf: more basic, more accessible than Cordwainer Smith, though still with a personality of his own, is Larry Niven... early compilations like Tales of Known Space (1975) and Neutron Star (1968) are convincing in the "hard sf" vein... I always tend to return to some of these stories... actually most of them are worth reading. -- A later re-compilation of some of these shorts, plus excerpts from novels and the author's rather apt and quaint comments, is N-Space (1990)... an excellent read, I say, mostly for the comments, which I hadn't read before.
And more...? The above will suffice. Thank you and goodnight.
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Good reads, July 2025
Halford as a lyricist
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