Tag Archives: Peter Wimsey

DOUBLE PHOENIX (cover by Gervasio Gallardo, all rights with current holder) contains two allegorical novellas linked together by the common use as a symbol. In Edmund Cooper’s “The Firebird,” a young boy spends his life chasing after the phoenix, despite everyone he meets insisting he’s either a heretic or a madman and the Firebird doesn’t exist anyway—in short, the wimpy Lovecraftian theme that The World Hates Dreamers. It’s trite but well-written, which cannot be said of Roger Lancelyn Green’s “From the World’s End,” in which a couple must resist seduction by avatars of Shallow Philosophy, Passionless Academia and Gross Physical Desire before the phoenix rewards them at the end. Editor Lin Carter admits in the intro that allegory is tricky to do right, but optimistically thinks these two qualify; I strongly disagree.

NEW WORLDS FOR OLD was a collection Carter edited for Ballantine’s Adult Fantasy line, mostly focusing on pulp fantasy but with some more contemporary stuff. There’s a section of William Beckford’s Vathek, stories by Robert E. Howard, Lovecraft and C.L. Moore, Gary Myers (a very good take on Lovecraft’s Dreamlands stories), “Duar the Accursed” by Clifford Ball (some mystical stuff which works, bogged down by a stiff, Conan-knockoff hero) and a blatant knockoff of Lord Dunsany’s “The Sword of Welleran” by Carter himself (apparently he considered that a perk of editing anthologies). Overall this is good, though I’ve never been able to finish the two fantasy poems included here.

WHEN VOIHA WAKES by Joy Chant is set in the same world as her Red Moon and Black Mountain
but in a different, matriarchal culture. The story has the heir to the local clan leadership bedding a young craftsman (crafts like pottery, sculpture and carpentry are Men’s Work) only to discover his dream is to be a musician, a much lower-class career. Chant does a good job on love not conquering all, and I really liked the culture: unlike Island of the Mighty or Weighing Shadows it doesn’t present the matriarchy as an idealized society, just a different one, and equally mess in its own way.

BUSMAN’S HONEYMOON is the Peter Wimsey novel author Dorothy Sayers describes as a love story with detective intrusions (which as she notes is probably how most couples in mystery stories see events). Following Harriet Vane saying yes to Peter in Gaudy Night, we open with their wedding (including lots of cameos from various characters from the series), after which they face the challenge of figuring out just what marriage means to them; while this gets a little heavy on theoretical relationship talk, it’s anchored enough in the characters it worked for me. However we also have the plot of them moving into a rural village (Harriet’s roots are there) and buying a broken-down old home, which feels interchangeable with The Egg and I or A Year in Provence (only not as entertaining). And finally there’s the mystery, when it turns out the shady dealer who sold them the house has been nobbled with a fatal blow to the head. Efforts to crack it are, like Five Red Herrings, more mechanical than brilliant: Lord Peter asserts at one point that he doesn’t have to know anyone’s character or motive, just figuring out how the crime was committed will prove the culprit (which is doubly odd as he solves several earlier books by knowing the motive). And as Raymond Chandler pointed out, a plot that hinges on the victim triggering a trap by standing in exactly the right position is a bad scheme (six inches to the left and he’d have been fine). This was the last Wimsey novel but I have a second book of short stories to read yet.

HAVE HIS CARCASE by Dorothy Sayers (I presume the spelling was good English back then, but I’ve never seen it that way) opens with mystery writer Harriet Vane (of Strong Poison) stumbling across a freshly bleeding corpse on an empty beach. It’s obviously suicide … but before long she and Peter Wimsey discover they have a perfect murder victim and a perfect plan for murder but there’s no way to tie them together. The character bits are a lot of fun (Harriet shamelessly uses the murder to promote her own writing) as is Peter and Harriet’s constant banter and awkward relationship (the fact she’s so grateful to him for saving her life in the previous book makes her perversely resent saying yes to his proposal). However the murder scheme is so absurdly elaborate, it’s close to idiot plot. Seriously, clonking the victim on the head would have made so much more sense. Overall a win, though, and the fact the relationship is spread out over several books (it’ll be three volumes before Harriet returns) makes it feel a lot more real to me.
DERYNI RISING was the first book in Katherine Kurtz’s long-running Deryni series, set in an alt.Wales where the Deryni are a human race endowed with innate magical power (and, of course, persecuted). When Prince Kelson’s father is murdered by a Deryni monarch, Kelson and his trusted aide Morgan have to negotiate anti-Deryni political factions and find some way to develop Kelson’s latent magical abilities. Rereading for the first time in years, the level of info-dumping is really appalling and the villain bland in her evil. However the political struggles are still interesting and I do like that some Deryni have positions of power rather than just hiding in fear. That may be why this doesn’t trigger my usual gag reflex at stories of Persecuted Mutants (or whatever)—though later books in the series which played up the persecution certainly did.
DREADNOUGHT by Cherie Priest is an entertaining steampunk set in an alt.19th century where the Civil War has lasted into the 1880s with both sides fighting with mecha and other advanced tech. A Confederate nurse trying to reach her father on the West Coast has to cross the country despite battles between North and South and a plague of zombies. The result is closer to a straight alternative history (it wouldn’t be that hard to remove most of the tech and turn the zombies into outlaws); a fun one, though not so much fun I feel the need to read more any time soon.
HEDY’S FOLLY: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Richard Rhodes chronicles the life of screen star Lamarr and compser George Antheil who met in Hollywood and found a common interest in inventing. While Lamarr had a number of flop inventions (a bouillon cube for creating instant soft drinks for instance), the Nazi sinking of a boatload of refugee children pushed her and Antheil to develop and patent a radio-controlled torpedo with randomized frequencies that couldn’t be jammed by the enemy. This unfortunately sank into bureaucratic obscurity, apparently because the Navy’s torpedo program was floundering so badly that testing a new and improved torpedo seemed like too much to take on. However Rhodes’ research shows that while many later inventors used similar principles, Lamarr got there first. A neat little book.

I only skimmed ENGLISH COSTUME From the Second Century BC to 1967 by Doreen Yarwood to confirm that it’s as good a reference as I thought. It is indeed, though like many reference books, pretty dry. I’ve used it for stuff set in the late 18th century but it’s just as good running from England’s early Beaker People through the “mod” era, as fashions rise and fall (it’s always a little startling to realize the concept of being fashionable preceded by generation by centuries) and wimples, mantles, surcoats, doublets, hose and bowler hats all have their day. I anticipate this being very useful.
HERO WANTED by Dan McGirt has a young turnip farmer discover he’s somehow become infamous as the greatest villain in all known kingdoms, leaving him on the run from bounty hunters as he tries to figure out who’s playing games with his destiny. While I like the concept, I’d have preferred it relatively straight (with a little tweaking, it could easily be noir … hmmm …); McGirt, however, is writing a comedy and the humor fell flat for me (in fairness most fantasy parodies fall flat for me).
Dorothy Sayers’ THE FIVE RED HERRINGS is the worst so far of her Peter Wimsey novels, being concerned less with character or a baffling puzzle as logistics. The mystery comes down to which of the six suspects was in the right position to brain the victim while he was out at night, given their various travels by car and train—two chapters actually go over timetables in detail. A complete flop, much as I remember it.

As I’m working my way through Dorothy Sayers’ Peter Wimsey books (to date from the first book, Whose Body?, through Lord Peter Views the Body), I thought I’d take a moment to give some background on him. Because they don’t make detectives like Wimsey any more.
The Golden Age of detective stories (generally considered the time between the two World Wars) was an age when British writers dominated and so did amateur detectives (Sherlock Holmes is often identified as the founder of the school, even though he was a professional PI). Cops were considered rather tacky and blue-collar and “amateur” in those days referred to doing something for love, not money—and was therefore assumed to be on a higher plane (EW Hornung’s 19th-century master thief, Raffles, is always referred to as an amateur even though he’s stealing to support himself). Murders frequently took place among the upper classes, often at country-house weekend parties (which I satirized in The Wodehouse Murder Case).
Many of these works vanished into obscurity; when Agatha Christie wrote about her Partners in Crime parody stories, she could barely remember some of the originals she’d been mocking. Wimsey survived.
As we learn over the course of the series, Lord Peter’s family are the Dukes of Denver, one of England’s wealthiest aristocratic families (at the time, a lot of aristocrats were going into commerce to make ends meet but the stereotype remained) though it’s his brother who has the title. A World War I veteran with some degree of shell-shock, he’d adopted his rather inane manner as a coping mechanism in the wake of the war. According to a biographical sketch by Sayers, his saving grace was when he wound up solving his first criminal case: Suddenly he had a focus for his first-rate mind and a way to make a difference in the world. He’s assisted in his work by Bunter, his aide (or “batman”) during the war and now his valet. Bunter has a keen mind of his own, a good deal of charm and a skill with photography which comes in handy (this is back when cameras and chemical film developing were a lot more demanding than they are now).
Surprisingly, Sayers isn’t terribly snobby about Peter’s aristocratic lineage (although as an Englishman of 55, I may just not register the snobbery), but she does present him in a very elitist way. Peter’s taste is superb: He collects rare books, wears the best tailored suits, and enjoys the best food—all of which he has the taste and discernment to appreciate. In one of the short stories, Peter’s triumph hinges on the fact his palate can identify any wine. A later novel compares his refined appreciation for music with the boors who only fake it. In The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, Peter speaks disparagingly of someone who was turned down for the club because he smoked a strong cigar before sampling a superb port (thereby making it impossible to taste the wine properly).
The Golden Age had many flaws. As Raymond Chandler grumbled in his essay “The Simple Art of Murder,” the elaborately constructed plots often required people to act in batshit ways. And the aristocratic settings were light-years removed from reality or from the brutality and pain that murder brings. Nevertheless, Chandler’s hardboiled school of writing didn’t consign the Golden Age style to the trash heap. The best stories survived, and they have amateur detectives following in their wake today in countless stories.
Peter Wimsey isn’t for everyone. But then, he doesn’t try to be.