Catcher in the Rye

This is the shortest book review I've ever written. Here it is in full as posted on Goodreads back in April of this year:

"Probably the worst book I've ever read. I gave it one star because you can't give zero."

I guess that just about says it all. Man, how I hated, hated, hated this book. I bought it because for years I'd heard people raving about how it was a landmark of American literature and a cultural icon. No, it isn't. It's just a really, really bad story in every possible way.

Hyperquake

Every year, an elite few manage to change their lives forever. They break away from the rat race and join that exclusive club to which only those endowed with a special skill or gift are admitted. Songwriters, actors, playwrights and journalists enjoy the respect and the accolades that come with fame, and get to hobnob with other celebrities as they travel the world in style. As an added bonus, they are able to live a life of luxury from the royalties they are about to start perennially receiving on their newly completed album, book, play or movie. Many people aspire to this dream, and I have joined their ranks, a fact that only now I am ready to reveal. My life blood has gone into the writing of my novel. Many a weekend and bank holiday have been sacrificed (along with much of the rest of my free time) to get that special chapter done. But now it has all been worth it, because my magnum opus is complete at last and ready to hit the printing presses. Well, it is almost inevitable that an editor will want to tweak the text here and there as I’m a newcomer. That’s just part of the business. They'll get away with tinkering with my text the first time, but when my second book is up for publication, I won't let them change a comma. Not one niggly grammar point will be altered without my prior consent. But I digress. That is not what’s foremost on my mind at the moment. I am relishing something a little closer to home. The day is not far off when I will be able to call my boss and tell him that I won’t be in for work on Monday morning. Because my book is going to sell a million copies. I, Mark Gainsby Hammond III (my full name with that little III after it will really give the book a very sophisticated air, a clever last-minute notion of mine) am going to be a best seller. All I have to do is find a publisher and set the ball rolling.

So I send my book to five publishers. I could send it to more, but what's the point? Of these five who have it, three will kill to get their hands on it and make a bid, so why give myself the extra work of sending it off to others? Let these ones fight it out.

But then the replies come and, lo and behold, they are rejections. Well not quite, depending on how you interpret them:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for sending us your manuscript(s). We regret to inform you that we are not accepting unsolicited works at the moment, but wish you luck with your project(s). We would, however, recommend that you find a literary agent before re-submitting at a later date, as priority is given to manuscripts forwarded to us through literary agencies.

Well, that’s not an outright rejection really, is it? They might take it later, as they have said they are not accepting “at the moment”; but there is also hope if I can find that literary agent. That shouldn’t prove too hard. Publicity agents, real estate agents and travel agents are always advertising, so finding this literary agent person shouldn’t take too long. They also warned me that it is best to work with an agent who specializes in my field. That should be easy enough. Like many writers, I pen science fiction stories, so I just have to steer clear of those who specialize in romance.

Now there's a turn up for the books. After consulting the Yellow Pages and the telephone directory, I am surprised to find that there are no literary agents listed. Strange, even though I live in a big city. Wait, I’ve got it! They’re probably all located down in London. But a search in the Yellow Pages of the capital also turns up nothing. These literary agents do seem to be a secretive bunch. Finally, a letter of rejection arrives which is a slight variation of the other four and informs me that a list of literary agents is available in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. This publication turns out to be pretty expensive, but by now I’m beginning to think that getting published won’t be so easy after all. A little further investment in this book will hardly kill me. Having sacrificed so many holidays and weekends and forked out for the photocopying and postage incurred so far, a couple of quid more won’t make much difference. Even so, I am starting to see a little drain on my resources here, despite the idea that I would make money from my writing rather than spend it to get published.

But it will all pay off in the end. For now I have the list of agents, and one of them will be my saviour. One of them will sit down with me between lunches and dinners at nice restaurants and give me pointers, really help me polish my manuscript (after all those rejections, I’d better tidy it up a bit more) and work his or her backside off to get me published. After all, they’re on commission here. The more I sell, the more they pocket.

However, I won’t write this time. I’ll phone. Writing can mean a wait of days for a reply and I’ve had this finished manuscript on my hands for months, almost a year now that I come to think of it. And it’s been over five years since I first sat down to write it. That’s about 16% of my life, so it’s time to get a move on and stop pussyfooting around. But getting in touch with the agent is easier said than done. Is there no one to man the phones at these places? After numerous tries, I finally get through to a secretary at one of the agencies, a nice girl called Sandra. She says that Mr Smith will call me back. No, I’m sorry, he has gone to a writers’ convention and won’t be in for several days. No, I can’t say exactly when he’ll be back, but he will call at his earliest convenience… if possible. Well, he’s at a conference, moving with the bigwigs of the literary world, helping one of his beloved writers pick up a Pulitzer Prize or two. Is it just a coincidence that every agency I manage to contact has the same story to tell?

So, I’ll write after all. But my e-mails are either unanswered or result in brief replies that have that uncanny ring of the automatically generated message about them.

Dear Writer,

Thank you for your contact message and/or manuscript. Unfortunately, our agency does not handle this genre of work.

Dear Writer,

Thank you for your message. It is with regret that we inform you that we do not deal with science fiction manuscripts. Our agency specializes in other genres of literature.

Dear Writer,

Thank you for your message. I regret to inform you that at the moment we are not accepting children’s manuscripts. We suggest that you seek out an agency that specializes in this genre.

Genre! It’s all about genre. But nobody seems interested in my genres. I wrote that children’s story for my nephew not long after he was born, and he liked it. Snuggles the Kitten Goes to School. How could they turn that down? It's such a cute little story. But that was only a side line. How could no one be interested in my galactic empire story, with space ships crossing the cosmos at faster-than-light speeds, not to mention my pretty original definition of hyperspace? They don’t even want to look at it. I sent them the thirty pages with double spacing and 12-point Arial font that they requested, sure that it would whet their appetite and have them begging for more.

Phoning and writing, sending manuscripts. Another three months have gone by and no joy. I’ve spoken to Sandra and her equivalents at other agencies a hundred times. Although they are superficially friendly and speak in sympathetic tones, I get the feeling that they’ve been brushing people off with the same excuses for years. It is clear that none of the agencies I have contacted will deal with my genres. And in all this time, I've never managed to speak to the elusive agent in person. I think it would be easier to place a personal phone call to the Queen or the President of the United States than to get through to one of these people. I realize now that instead of writing books I should have been out there investing in telephone companies. Their shareholders must propose a special toast to literary agents at their meetings. That last bill was a whopper.

I wonder. Dozens of books for kids are published every year, but nobody wants to act as the agent for children’s writers. I remember reading in Tolkien’s biography that his manuscript for The Hobbit was sitting in a drawer unfinished, and some woman from the publisher drove all the way to Oxford to beg him to get it into a presentable state. He hadn’t published anything before and had no track record. Yet they implored him to get it done. Famous singers and politicians doodle stories for kiddies during long plane flights and get them published. My books are more than scribbles. They are all carefully revised, checked and ready for publication, but nobody wants them.

But forget about Snuggles the kitten. What I really don’t get is how anyone could resist my sci-fi story. OK, I admit that it might have started out sounding like an Asimov imitation, but I worked all that out of the text in the first rewrite and made it really original - all my own work, so to speak. I don’t think you can see Asimov in it at all now. But even if you could, that wouldn’t be all bad, would it? C. S. Lewis said that he was “influenced” by H. G. Wells, admitted it pretty openly in the foreword to Out of the Silent Planet. Why is it that Lewis is “influenced” and I’m “copying”? And isn't Perelandra just a reworking of the Book of Genesis? No one ever accused him of ripping off the Bible, although even my untrained eye could see it for what it was.

Although someone spotting the Asimov connection was once my main fear, that’s no longer the case. My chief concern now is trying to get someone to read my manuscript at all. If they would just take a look at it, they would see how good it is. However, now that I come to think of it, who are the people who work in publishing? I’ve never met or known a literary agent, or anyone who works for a literary agent. Not even a cleaner or tea lady. How come you never strike up a casual conversation with a literary agent at a bus stop or in a pub? Why do these people never seem to have families? Have you ever met someone who was related to a literary agent, a distant cousin even? It makes you wonder. I do, however, remember that article I read in a magazine at the doctor's the other day. As many as one hundred thousand people are estimated to be in the process of writing a book at any one time in the United Kingdom, and the vast majority will never see the light of day. One budding novelist said that the attraction to writing may lie in the fact that whereas a movie or play may involve prohibitive costs, a book requires nothing more than dedication and a good imagination. The growth in the use of desktop computers, which dispenses with the costly typing of the ten-fingered, has only helped increase that number. Desktop computers? Well, it was a pretty old magazine, the type that lies around the doctor's waiting room for years, but well, yes, that was basically what had crossed my mind when I had my first inspiration to write. I could literally turn nothing into something hugely profitable. Anyway, I'm letting my mind wander again, just like any true artist, I suppose. We love our own thoughts more than anything. But, to get back on track, it seems that, unlike real estate agents and travel agents, literary agents have no need to advertise at all. With all these hopeful writers out there, they have more on their plate than they can handle. In fact, they need to put that protective wall around themselves to ward off the likes of me. That's where the Sandras come in, patiently reeling off the same old excuses day in, day out. I wonder how Sandra got that job. I've never seen a literary agent advertise for a secretary. How do they keep desperate writers from posing as secretaries or other functionaries just to try and slip them a manuscript? Do these secretaries accept bribes? Here's a hundred notes, show this to your boss and tell him you’re convinced it's the next big thing. How do you break into that impenetrable world of publishing? Is the only way to get landed on the jury at a high-profile trial and get your big break that way? The jurors at those sensational murder trials always have book deals waiting for them at the end of it all. But surely that can't be the only road to fame. There are actually new writers who do get published, aren't there? I often see reviews with the words "first-time, promising young author" in them. Who are these people?

Now I’m thinking of that writer I saw on TV the other day. What was it he said? Right: “I finished my first novel and took it to my agent, who got in touch with HarperCollins….” They make it sound so easy. (And did he say that he had an agent even before he had finished his book?) Then there was the other guy who sent in his novel to a publisher and got a cheque for a quarter of a million the next week and then sold the movie rights to boot. And the woman who said that she was so sick of the indifference that she changed her publisher twice. Wow! If I could only get published once! How do they do it? How do they get into print? We hear stories about people who spend years in the publishing wilderness but finally get picked up. But then there are the others who just seem to glide into the business with minimum effort. What about Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote The Remains of the Day? The blurb for one of his stories claimed that he was "an expert on Britain between the wars". Astonishing. He isn't even English and he was only born in 1954, so how can his company be so crass as to make such a claim? But he was published by the time he was thirty, and with a name that hardly rolls of the tongue. People go into the shop and say they want the book by that guy called, ah, er, Kizzy Something-or-other. Yet it's a best seller every time!

Well, that Yearbook was a waste of time, wasn’t it? I contacted every agent in the land and not even a whiff of interest. And my book is so damn good! They all seem to want to hook already established writers. That’s what Sandra hinted at in one of our last conversations when she was desperately trying to get me to stop calling. But that’s like the old first job syndrome. How can you get experience without a job, and how can you get a job without experience? Anyway, so much for Sandra & Co. You know, if she had just said in the first place that they weren’t interested, then that would have been fine. I would have taken a gentle hint, right? Well, probably not. I would have said, no, you’ve got to see this book, it’s great. Just read it. I would have sent it in and pestered them no matter what they had said. At least now I’ve made sure. I sent it to them in the way they asked with their three-centimetre margins and double-spacing and twelve-point type. Cost me a bloody fortune too. I also spent days working on what they call a query. They say that the query is everything when it comes to approaching an agent. It has to be well written and convincing, something that will make the agent want to sign you. Isn't that a proposal? It must be the jargon of the business, because to me a query is a little question or doubt to be cleared up. They want to know all about you and how you started writing and God knows what else. Hey, it's my book I want you to look at, not me. Read my book, please, and forget about me! Anyway, just to make them happy, I prepared what I imagined to be a great "query", even though they never actually said what should be in it beyond a few personal details and an outline of my story. Be creative? Does that mean witty or serious or something else entirely? I have no idea really. Be dynamic? Well, I tried... And as usual all I got in reply were the same old standard rejections. Another dead end, but now at least I know for sure that I’ve been barking up the wrong tree. There must be another way.

I’ve decided to try searching beyond our borders through the internet. I type in "publishing" and "literary agents". There are some help sites for writers.

Nobody needs another Tom Clancy or Danielle Steel. Try to develop your own unique style and present it in a positive light.

OK, nothing wrong with that. I'm well past emulating Asimov. But present it to whom? Nobody wants to read my stuff.

But wait, what is this?

MANUSCRIPTS WANTED

All subjects considered.

Vantage Press, New York

Now, I may be desperate, but I’m not stupid. This is a vanity publisher. A serious publisher is selective, and certainly doesn’t consider just anything. Although I’m a bit new to this game, I’m not that daft. Let’s try to find literary agents online. Remember that woman on the BBC a few weeks ago? She said that her business ideas had failed to find a backer in Britain, so she took the project to America. “The States are wonderful. You have an idea there and people just throw money at you.” Now that sounds more like it. You see, Britain is a pretty conservative country after all and the only people who get published probably have connections in the business. Otherwise, publishers and agents just throw your manuscript in with the other rejects on the slush pile. Yes, I’ve learned that term by now. Slush pile. That’s what they call unsolicited manuscripts. Never mind that people slave over those things for years, we’ll call them the slush pile. It’s all right for them, sitting so high and mighty, picking and choosing what to publish, like Steve Rubell outside Studio 54. So, I’ll abandon the idea of a traditional British publisher and find someone abroad who is willing to take a gamble on a newcomer with a fresh idea.

This is more like it, the real deal. What we have here as the result of an online search are literary agents who are on the lookout for new writers. There are even those little ads at the top of the page that people pay to have come up as the first results of a search. I know that every time someone clicks on those, the literary agents will have to pay a fee to the search engine. I can only conclude that these people must be really serious about getting new writers. I note that all of these sponsored links are American companies. That’s what I said before. The American Dream. And, like an oasis in the desert, I find what I am looking for:

A small family-based company that can help you bridge the gap between a manuscript and a book,

or

a tightly knit sympathetic group of people who have been there, know what you are feeling and can steer you through the bewildering maze of the publishing community.

This is right up my street! And it only gets better. Look! They say you can submit your manuscript by e-mail. Partial or whole manuscripts may be submitted by e-mail in Word for Windows format, PDF file or just about any electronic format known to man. They’re obviously out to save time and costs. Remember those British agents, all so fussy with their double-spacing and font sizes on A4 paper. It cost me a bomb to keep sending out all that stuff, but now here’s someone who’s going to cut through all that red tape and enter the twenty-first century.

Please allow up to a week for consideration. We promise that we WILL get back to you.

Sounds fair enough. After all I’ve been through an extra couple of days won’t make much difference. And I’ve got my day job to keep me busy anyway.

Three days later and there’s a reply in my e-mail. Hmmm, that was quick. Too quick, really. They probably just took one look at the first page and threw it out. Well, here goes nothing!

Dear Mark,

Wait a minute! What is this? They’ve used my name. I’m no longer a Sir/Madam or even a Writer, I’m me!

Thank you for submitting your manuscript entitled 'Hyperquake'.

Once again, kudos! They’ve actually named my manuscript… and correctly too. So, someone has at least read the title!

We were all very impressed by your work and would be happy to have you on board as a member of our ever growing list of successful authors. We see a very bright future in our working relationship.

I can’t believe it. Pinch me! I must be dreaming. They want my work, mine. It’s been a long time coming, although I’m not alone in that respect. Didn’t J. K. Rowling say that she got turned down 23 times before she got Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone published? Didn’t Tolkien take years to get The Lord of the Rings into print? Wasn’t Mozart considered a failure when he died penniless? Let's not even mention Van Gogh! All you need is someone to recognize your potential, your innate talent which is unrecognized by conventional minds that just want more of the same. And did you see that they said "author" rather than "writer"? That is of paramount importance. An author is someone who has published a book. A writer is just another word for someone who is chronically unemployed or who will never see a story in print. And they called me an author. Author! A sop to my vanity, or a statement of fact? I much prefer the latter. Remember that Agatha Christie tale Death on the Nile? Well, there was a jewel thief in that book called Tim Allerton. On the surface, he passed himself off as a writer, even had a fake manuscript in his room to make people think he was writing something. A fraud in other words, a pretender; as I was until a moment ago. But now I'm an author! I love to say that: I am an author!

Please click here to download and print the enclosed contract.

A contract! The time has come to put pen to paper. You always hear of celebrities signing record-breaking contracts. Now it’s my turn!

Our fee is a modest 15% of all contracts and/or royalties, including commissioning for motion pictures.

We’ve hit the big league, baby! Movies! OK, Hitchcock is no longer around to direct it, but maybe Spielberg, Scorcese or just some new director looking for his big break. And if I make a million, that’s a hundred and fifty grand to the agent. Well worth it, I say. So, where will I build that summer home? I saw that beautiful place up in the Orkney Islands last year; at a bargain price too (not that I’ll have to worry much about cost anymore). The perfect place to retire to and write my second novel: peace and quiet, a little lighthouse on the neighbouring island; the right sort of place for spiritual inspiration. I can see it all now...

We trust that you will find the terms of the contract fair and acceptable and we look forward to a long and profitable working relationship with you.

Professional, but on a first name basis. Just what I wanted. I needed someone who wasn’t too stuck up or insistent on formalities. On the other hand, I also want someone who’ll show that they're taking this seriously. Anyway, let’s get that contract printed, signed and posted ASAP! Then I’ll call my boss. Better still, I’ll go and do the walk in. That’s what George from Seinfeld called it, wasn't it? The walk in, the great feeling of telling your boss what a pig he is and how you’re not going to miss him! Of course, he also mentioned the walk out, which was not so good because that’s when you realize how much dough you’re losing. Well, that’s not going to be the case with me, cos I’m in the money, baby!

Click and wait. I wonder who’ll play my leading character in the movie. That cute blonde woman I saw on ITV last night. She was pretty much what I had in mind while I was writing. Quite a striking resemblance, actually. Ah, the contract. Hold on! That can’t be right. They’ll only pay me $3,200 up front? Wait! They want me to pay $3,200 to them? That can’t be right. I’ll send them an e-mail at once. There must be some misunderstanding here.

Dear Mark,

Thank you for your e-mail. Yes, it is quite customary nowadays for an agent to request some financing from new writers. Our agency incurs a great deal of expenses in our tireless efforts to find the best possible deal for our writers in the run up to signing with a publisher…

Well, that’s a bit of a blow, isn’t it? And I can’t help getting the sneaking suspicion that the first-name terms and friendly overall tone of our correspondence were all building up to this. Plus the contract mentions only my obligation to pay, with no guarantee of success on their part. On the other hand, let’s not get too cynical. It would be unrealistic to expect them to make an airtight promise of success, even considering their hyperbolic advertising. Nevertheless, they did mention, did they not, that I would become part of their ever growing list of successful authors. I wonder who these successful authors are. Of course, I write more than I read, and America’s a big place, so I don’t know much about what goes on over there. Someone who sells, say, twenty thousand books in the US is probably considered only moderately successful. But if I could sell that, with royalties of three dollars a book, that would be 60K a year. Not much to a big shot writer with his beach-front home in Malibu or Honolulu, but to a guy like me it would be great compared to what I make in my humdrum job over here. I’ll send an e-mail asking for a few names. After all, I can't afford to look down the nose at this thing. Compared with the millions they are sure I can make, this up-front fee of $3,200 doesn't seem too much to ask, does it? Well, it won't seem too much, it won't seem like anything at all once I've got those millions in my hands, but for the time being it is a pretty hefty sum to come up with.

I’ve been really busy at work the past two, no wait, three weeks and it’s only now that I realize that they’re dragging their feet in answering my question. I’m not asking for an exhaustive list of writers, just a few names. Then I can go to online stores around the world and see their books. Wait, what a coincidence! Just as I log on, there’s an e-mail from them.

Dear Mark,

We are still waiting for your signed contract so that we can begin our efforts to get your excellent manuscript into print. Please forward the signed contract as soon as possible. Our banking details are given below.

But what about the ever growing list of successful authors? Nothing on that. Although they’ve sent me their banking details several times now, there seems to be considerable difficulty in writing out a few of those names. Nor is there any mention of my proposal to deduct the $3,200 fee from the future royalties that they are so sure will come instead of paying now.

Dear Mark,

Our staff works full time to get the best deal for you and all of our authors. Contracts have been signed with several New York publishers such as Vantage Press and others as far afield as Canada and Europe. Other agreements have been made with Xlibris and iUniverse.

Passive voice. Contracts have been signed. I’m not a big fan of this use of the passive voice. It seems to make everything look so vague. Still no names of authors, only publishers. And I don’t remember ever reading a book published by any of the companies mentioned, although I’ve seen that name Vantage several times in online ads. This is all beginning to stink. Xlibris and iUniverse are print-on-demand companies. They’ll print anything you like, for a fee, with no need for an agent.

Well, it’s a long weekend and I’m going to see what I can find out about this. The world is at my fingertips.

And now what I secretly knew all along has been confirmed. There are vanity agents, forwarding manuscripts to vanity publishers, most of them in cahoots. And it turns out that my agent has already been indicted under other pseudonyms for fraud. Hey, I have to stop saying “my agent”, though it did sound good, didn't it? My agent. My publisher. Too good to be true. This guy has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from desperate writers. At least I found out in time. Look at all these people on Writer Beware. One woman sold her car to pay the signing on fee with this crummy so-called agent. And even when the money was sent to the vanity publishers, more often than not the writers didn't even get the thousand copies of their books that they had been forced to pay for. All scams. Searching the internet, the same names come up all the time, all conning people out of their hard earned cash, people willing to do anything in the hope that they can see their books in print: The Deering Literary Agency, Publish America, The Children's Literary Agency, The Woodside Agency, Lisa Hackney (a.k.a. Melanie Mills, a.k.a. Elisabeth Von Hullessem, a.k.a. Roswitha Von Meerscheidt-Hullessem), Desert Rose, Janet Kay, all scam artists charging reading fees, set-up fees, representation fees, consultancy fees, up-front management fees, editing fees, this fee, that fee. You can even hire a writer to prepare your all-important query so that you can attract an agent, who might attract a publisher, who might market your book so that someone out there might read it someday. Some of these scammers have been sent to prison, but return under another name. The "small family-based companies" are often husband and wife teams that met through their parole officer. One woman was so deep in it that she tried to fake an accident and have herself declared legally dead before relocating and starting up her schemes again elsewhere. You could spend a year reading about it and only just scratch the surface.

To cut a long story short, it looks as if I won’t be doing the walk in after all. The publishing world is not for me. My dreams of being part of it have crumbled to dust overnight. Some people seem to waltz in there so easily, but I’m not one of them. So far, I’ve spent several hundred pounds on sending manuscripts no one will read all over the place to publishers and agents who simply are not interested. I wasted days and weeks and months writing that silly book to begin with. I should have known better and spent that time with my friends and family instead of sitting slaving away over that manuscript.

And there was that web site with tips for writers (not authors):

Few writers realize that the demand for fiction is not as great as it once was. Non-fiction easily outsells fiction nowadays.

I wish I'd read that five years ago. But maybe it wouldn't have made much difference. After all, Hyperquake was such an appealing title to work with. I remember that day so clearly and how it just zipped into my head out of the blue and after a couple of restless nights I had the story all built around that word. And I still believe it could be a best seller, if only they would take the time to read it. Then they would see. Then they would have to agree with me.

The Mystery of the Sinister Scarecrow

Conventional wisdom among 3I readers is that the good books in the series ceased after the publication of #28, Deadly Double. However, in February of 2013, I read the 29th in the series, Sinister Scarecrow, for the first time in 28 years. I have to say that it has its good points and is actually a pretty good story. It centres around Letitia Radford, a rich girl who has returned to her family's mansion in California. Nobody seems to want her around and she is being plagued by two old childhood fears: scarecrows and bugs, of which she is mortally afraid. Across the street is a museum filled with priceless paintings. The boys blunder onto the scene and Jupiter is attacked by a near-sighted man who threatens to kill him with a rock and calls him a scarecrow. This man turns out to be an entomologist who is researching a new strain of ants. The mystery is: who is the sinister scarecrow that is haunting Miss Radford and what is he up to? There are a lot of suspicious characters about: Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs, the new houseman and maid; a mysterious watcher in an abandoned old house who is watching the mansion; the curator of the museum; and and even Mrs. Chumley, Letitia's ageing servant, who is in a wheelchair. The story is fast-paced and the boys do their detective work. But it is impossible for them to pinpoint who the scarecrow really is, as every suspect has an alibi. The solution is quite surprising and keeps us guessing right to the end. 

This story has a number of good points. First of all, the three boys are given a lot to do. Some of M.V. Carey's stories concentrate too much on Jupiter, but in this case they are all kept busy. Another point, and one that is unusual in the 3I books in general, is that there are a number of red herrings and many suspects. Although the reader is given a lot of information, the solution to the case is not obvious and the story is a real page turner.

But there are negative points too. The mysterious watcher in the abandoned house turns out to be the pool maintenance man who was fired but came back to keep an eye on the women of the house because he was worried about them. That's taking the loyal servant thing a bit too far. Chief Reynolds is on the scene in one of his grumpy moods and gets angry with the boys for taking the case even though he suggested them to their client in the first place. And there is a scene where Jupiter is "attacked" by the so-called killer ants. This scene is not very well written and lacks credibility. It was obviously included as a page filler and was unnecessary in an already crowded scenario. Furthermore, Jupiter doesn't make the connection that the criminal activity that is going on could be connected to the priceless treasures in the nearby museum.

One positive point worth adding is the scarecrow himself. In other reviews I've read, the use of the scarecrow is criticized. This is indeed a persistent trait in M.V. Carey's 3I books (Monster Mountain, Haunted Mirror and especially Wandering Caveman), this insistence on forcing a mysterious phenomenon into the plot just to give it an exciting title. But here the scarecrow is not as unbelievable as you might imagine. He plays on Miss Radford's childhood fears to keep her from going to the police and also provides Jupiter with the important clue as to who is really behind the whole crime that is being committed in the story. So in this case I would say the use of the phenomenon is justified.

So there we have it. It might be fairer to say that #29 should mark the turning point in the Three Investigators series. It has a few flaws, but is quite a good read.

Robots and Empire

In 1990 an American missionary who had lived in Curitiba for years was going back to the States and he gave a few boxes of books to a friend of mine. As the books were all in English, she passed them along to me. These boxes contained a real treasure trove. Among the many works were the three volumes of C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, which I had wanted to read for years. Once I had devoured these, I turned to the others. A whole row of books bore the name Asimov on the spine. I was just twenty-three years old and had only vaguely heard of the Good Doctor, but some of the titles piqued my curiosity and I began to read them. There were three of the five Foundation books. I enjoyed them, especially Foundation and Earth. At the end of this story, the heroes meet Daneel Olivaw, a 20,000-year-old robot. I had no idea that Daneel had featured in many of Asimov’s other stories. However, I was soon to find out that he was one of the author’s most popular characters. A couple of months later, I was at the Ghignone bookshop on Rua das Flores in the centre of Curitiba. They had a small bookcase of imported books (quite a luxury in those days) and I noticed that there was a title by Asimov: Robots and Empire. The blurb on the back informed potential readers that “Daneel has the finest mind in history. Giskard can adjust human emotions. Can two conscience-stricken robots save the Galaxy?” I was intrigued and immediately snapped up this Panther paperback. My reading of Asimov in late 1990 was somewhat patchy. By this time, besides those three Foundation novels and some of his non-fiction works such as Counting the Eons and Life and Energy, I had read a number of his short stories, including The Bicentennial Man, Feminine Intuition and Liar! So I was familiar with the Three Laws of Robotics. Now Robots and Empire would serve as my induction into the Robot novels. A year or so later I came across The Robots of Dawn at a bookshop in Mueller Shopping Centre in Curitiba. In 1992, on a trip to Scotland, I bought The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun at John Menzies on Argyle Street, thus completing the collection. The Robot novels are very special to me. There is some light-hearted debate among Asimov enthusiasts about which of his series was the best. Many readers prefer the Foundation series, and a subset of these readers prefers the first three that were penned in the 1950s over the two novels that continued the series in the 1980s (so to these people my preference for Foundation and Earth would seem like heresy). I love both series, but easily prefer the Robot books.

Robots and Empire is unusual for an Asimov novel because it is told mostly in flashback rather than in sequence. The story begins on the planet Aurora two hundred years after the events of the previous book, The Robots of Dawn. Gladia is sad to hear that her home planet of Solaria has been deserted. Levular Mandamus, an underling of the still bitter Kelden Amadiro, visits Gladia eager to find out if he is really the descendant of Elijah Baley. Giskard senses that Mandamus and Amadiro are up to something and he and Daneel are determined to find out what it is. Gladia also receives a visit from Baley’s many-times great grandson, who sweeps the middle-aged Gladia into space for a series of adventures. Mandamus and Amadiro hatch their plot. Dr. Fastolfe’s daughter Vasilia works out that Giskard is telepathic. We are also told details of the deaths of Elijah Baley and Dr. Fastolfe and other events that have taken place in the past two hundred years. The story climaxes with a visit to Earth, with Amadiro and Mandamus finally coming head to head against Daneel and Giskard. As an added bonus, Asimov manages to correct a scientific error he made in his first novel, Pebble in the Sky, and also tie the Robot series in with the Galactic Empire stories and the Foundation saga.

This is one of my favourite books of all time. Asimov was at the zenith of his writing skills in the mid 1980s (yes, I know, fans of classic fifties sci-fi will disagree, but that’s my opinion all the same). Everything about this book is praiseworthy. The characterization, the plot, the way the human race with its rivalry between the Spacers and Settlers has developed over two centuries and all the little details about the fate of the protagonists of the previous stories all lend a special touch to this book. The temporal and spatial scope of the plot also deserves to be mentioned. The main events of the other three Robot stories take place on one planet over the space of a few days. However, here we are taken on a journey to a number of both Spacer and Settler planets and also Earth itself at many points in time. The plot is richly detailed with observations on the political developments over the past twenty decades and the poignant demises of Baley and Fastolfe.

Along with The End of Eternity, this was Isaac Asimov’s greatest story. I like the way that it builds up but does not have every chapter end with a cliffhanger. You can take your time with the story, savouring it and absorbing the details, knowing that something special awaits at the end. It is a book that can be read over and over again, a real treat.