Michael KurlandReseñas

While sitting in a cafe, Mike meets the girl of his dreams who is searching for her unicorn. This leads to an inter dimensional search that involves UFOs, Victorians, a circus, fortune tellers and assorted other side characters before Mike and his companions can resolve the merging timelines.
The is a sequel to the book The Butterfly Kid by Chester Anderson but is a stand-alone story.

re-read 9/2/2023½

Interesting, but not particularly outstanding short stories concerning a Roman lawyer who actually lived. These fictional cases are told by his faithful [also fictional] scribe: proving the innocence of a young blind man of murder, what Caesar's ghost turns out to be, and proving the innocence of a slave of a murder. There are really no personalities to the characters but there are small touches of humor in the scribe's asides.

Trying hard to be fair here. I don't want to ding this book just because I don't happen to care for the idea of Moriarty as a misunderstood Robin Hood ... though I will willingly take on anyone who says this version of Moriarty is somehow more interesting, because (I would argue) the world is already full of Robin Hoods but has only ever had – will only ever have - one Master Consulting Criminal. Moreover, there are many things about this book to like, including the authentic period detail and competent writing.

But I think there needs to be a rule among authors who take up the character of Sherlock Holmes that, do with him what you may, you may not actually make him stupid. And this Sherlock Holmes is resoundingly stupid, failing over and over again to make the obvious series of deductions that would reveal the link connecting the locked-room murders of a series of English gentlemen. Into the gap steps Moriarty, but not really, because when Moriarty investigates the crime we get no cool forensic investigation or dazzling conclusions - merely a pedestrian sort of inquiry heavy on pre-existing knowledge and lucky guesses, and what fun is that?

Some other beefs I had with this tale:

* I get that this is a genre novel with certain accepted tropes (ex: plot trumps personalities), but if your "hook" is that you're offering more interesting and complex main characters, then shouldn't your main characters be more interesting and complex?. Kurland *tells* us all the reasons why his Moriarty & Barnett should fascinate, but then depicts them acting in ways so inauthentic, glib, and passionless that it becomes increasingly difficult to believe in (or care about) either of them. If you want your characters to seem three-dimensional, then you need to deliver more than one dimension.

* This thing is so much longer than it needs to be! I love period detail as much as anyone, and time spent on character development is never wasted, but that's not what slogs this down - it's too much unnecessary dialog, too many long scenes that could have just as effectively been communicated in a sentence or two, and way too many narrative diversions depicting Moriarty indulging in scientific pursuits or tricking Sherlock Holmes into looking like a fool. Someone should have edited this a lot more critically.

* Finally, I'm grateful that Kurland seems to possess an intimate familiarity with the Doyle canon, but it's one thing to use the info to add depth to the story, another to shower readers with so many references taken out of context that the novelty wears off long before the novel ends.

Don't get me wrong: in a world full of Holmes pastiches, this probably falls in the upper quartile of offerings. Kurland's descriptions of 1800s London are evocative, his bit characters have an O. Henry-esque charm, and there's enough plot to keep you reading on. But am not sure I’m willing to forgive the absence of so many qualities – an intriguing crime, puzzling clues, clever deductions, a satisfyingly dramatic reveal – that make me seek out Holmes pastiches in the first place. Moreover, I simply don't see the sense in adding layers of moral ambiguity to Moriarty, for all intents and purposes creating a character that merely duplicates Sherlock Holmes rather than adding new layers of complexity or depth to either character.

Three short stories narrated by the somewhat annoying C. Plautus Maximilianus Aureus about murders solved by the historical Marcus Fabius Quintilianus. Sort of Sherlock Holmes light in a toga. Somewhat amusing and engaging.½

An sich ein ganz lesbarer Krimi, leidet aber an einem schweren Plotfehler

If Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man series could be a refreshingly witty corrective for 21st century gloom-and-doom, then Michael Kurland’s The Bells of Hell may be just the book to prove it. There are dark deeds afoot by Nazis and Communists in the late 1930s, but the main characters in this historical thriller are plunging into these events with their equilibrium and senses of humor intact.
Lord Geoffrey Saboy is a British ‘cultural attaché’—that is, a spy in the British Secret Service—working in Washington, DC, along with his wife, Lady Patricia. Lord Geoffrey is gay, so though the couple is close, he doesn’t begrudge his wife her amorous dalliances, some of which are for pleasure and some in service to her own approach to sleuthing. An old friend of Lord Geoffrey’s, US counter-intelligence agent Jacob Welker, has the ear of President Roosevelt, which occasionally comes in very handy.
In March 1938, a Communist agent from Germany, arrives in New York, and in a matter of days, is found naked, tied to a chair in an empty warehouse, tortured to death. Unbeknownst to his Gestapo killers, there was a reluctant witness to this execution, unemployed printer Andrew Blake. Many arms of officialdom take notice when the salesman’s identity is revealed, as worries about the German-American volksbund (the “Bund”) are on the rise.
Welker talks a reluctant Blake into taking a job printing literature for the Bund. Blake is terrified by the murder he saw and almost paralyzed with fear his spying will be discovered. He laments every assignment and drags his feet in accepting each new task, proving once again that true courage is not going boldly into the unknown, but knowing the danger and going anyway. And when his German masters, in turn, ask him to spy on the Communists, he’s a pretzel of hesitation.
Kurland develops the plot in a number of interesting ways by giving Lord Geoffrey his own brush with the Nazis when he accompanies HRH Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, on an official visit to Germany. HRH find Hitler impressive and forceful, and Saboy responds that one likely acquires the habit of being forceful when no one dares disagree. If you are familiar with the real-life affinity HRH had for Hitler, this plotline is especially intriguing.
Meanwhile, intelligence from multiple sources suggests the Gestapo is planning a major terror event in New York, which they plan to set up so that blame lands on the Communists. But what, where, and when is this to take place? These questions preoccupy the British couple and Welker, their American friend (and possible future amour of Lady Patricia).
The nicely plotted story moves along at a sprightly pace. Though the characters are dealing with deadly serious matters, they maintain their lighthearted, let’s-not-take-ourselves-too-seriously banter. Kurland captures the spirit of the times: the oppressive gloom in Germany, the uncertainties regarding impending war in Britain, and the fear of the extremists of right and left who threaten America.

Historical suspense, set in 1938, against the background of a Nazi plot in New York. The action ranges from New York to Washington to Berlin, following diplomats, government investigators, and a reluctant imbedded agent.

A bit old-fashioned, but quite satisfying.½

Highly derivative SF from the mid sixties. It owes a significant debt to the Foundation trilogy. The writing is awful and the characters are flimsy. There is one named female character, who does nothing significant. Both authors would go on to write somewhat better stuff individually.

There are novels that sound better as ideas than when they get written. This is one of them. I am not sure if this is because it did not suit Kurland's style or if it was just never be possible but as a result, the book is uneven and derivative. And thankfully short.

The story is told by Morgan DeWitt - the assistant and sidekick of Alexander Brass - a journalist in 1935 who writes a column about everything and nothing. Brass is a known name with connections everywhere so when some dirty pictures are offered to him, he is interested to understand how they happened to be and why. He sends someone after the gentleman that brought the pictures.... and that someone gets killed. Not good for business - so time to investigate. Add 2 women that could have climbed down from a pulp novel (and not in a good way) and things start getting complicated. The German group does not help either - especially when everyone in it sound like a cardboard type of a person and not as a person.

New York in 1935 is an interesting place. Kurland makes it irrelevant. The few parts where you could say it is the 30s are overwritten - for the rest of the novel it could be anywhere and anytime. Too bad I guess.

Starts off a little iffy, but the author has a quick and easy style that lends itself to this kind of story. This is one of those 'Sci Fi' stories where the characters quickly end up on a back-water, lo-tech world, and so you've essentially got a Fantasy setting.

The story is interesting, and moderately well thought out. There is a fair bit of meandering, but it is mostly interesting. The real problem is that at 159 pages, it either needed to stay more focused, or be expanded to adequately meander. Knowing the age of the book, it was probably a limitation of the publisher.

Not a great book, but a quick, enjoyable read, that I would recommend to a 50/60s pulp sci-fi/fantasy reader.½

Kurland wrote one vey good book --THe Unicorn Girl. This is nit it, but is a fairly silly sendup of James Bond etc. When the story begins with a car leaving Graustark, you know its not serious.

OK, nothing that stands out or is a must read. Sherlock in weird circumstances and random places. In an era where travel was slow and difficult, he certainly got around,½

A 'How to' manual of spies, espionage, and other intelligence activities. As the Spymaster-General of Fredonia, you are given advice, practical examples, and historical incidents in order for you to build an effective intelligence agency. Tradecraft (how to do things), recruiting agents (what do you look for in a good spy?), building networks of couriers and assets, and definitions of terms used by most other intelligence agencies. (SIGINT, HUMINT, and more...) Along with accounts by real spies and several cartoons. Something for everyone except an actual intelligence agent, who ought to know all of this already.½

A few average & a couple above average - Bowen Lovisi & Bugge

this is one of my favorite Holmes pastiches. Kurland's Moriarty is the evil twin version of Holmes--all-inclusive filing system, deductive power, superior intellect. The story also posits that Holmes might be just a little too obsessive about Moriarty, even blowing the discovery of some kidnappers because he thinks the Professor is behind it. In the meantime, Moriarty is hired by the czar to stop Russian anarchists from committing terrorist acts in England. Nice twists and turns in this one.

Mostly quite good stories of a young Sherlock in the Americas.

This was a good mix of science fiction and adventure. I liked how Burrows and Friendly bluffed their way into the enemy's headquarters.

I guess I don't know what I thought this book would be about, and that's my fault.

What I got was a history of forensic crime-solving tools, wrapped around a basic fictional murder. It was fairly interesting, except when the author went into a long, veeeery boring exposition on blood-typing - way too much detail, thank you very much.

I read where Elmore Leonard said he tried to edit to avoid the "skip pages", the ones people would skip over. This book has vast areas of skip pages.

Interesting in parts, but basically not worth the money.½

In this series Professor Moriarty takes on a new and somewhat less sinister role -- he's still a master mind and a criminal, but not the primary villain. In this story a wide array of characters find themselves together on a ship with a great deal of gold being shipped from India to England.

I found this to be a very enjoyable new take on the ultimate evil doer.

great! different view points about the great sleuth! didn't know watson had a wife! quick read, loved every story

This is one of those amusing fantasy novels set in the late-60s age of grooviness and recreational substances. Parallel time tracks become twisted together and our two hippie heroes, accompanied by two coincidentally gorgeous young ladies employed by a circus from a nearby time track, must solve the problem, save the world, etc. This volume is sort of a sequel to, or perhaps revenge for, Chester Anderson's The Butterfly Kid. IMO The Unicorn Girl is much better.

There is a lot of humor, most of it intentional (some things are funnier now in retrospect), and most of it works. This is not literature by any means, but it's pretty good entertainment, especially for those of us who lived through that time. The sexual innuendo is quite mild by current standards. There's some great pseudo-calculus explained near the end that reads like a send-up of some of the more self-serious "hard sf" books of the time.½

This was the novel that turned me onto science fiction, and it illustrates the fact that SF works at all sorts of levels. I read it at the age of ten, when we were holidaying in a caravan in North Wales and I came across this book, but the cover was missing. I never knew what it was for years...

The plot: an Earth ship encounters the vanguard of an expanding alien force in deep space. They are able to defeat the aliens, but find that their invading forces are ten years behind. In their way is a world in a roughly medieval stage of development. The 'Prime Directive' prevents direct intervention by the humans, so instead they infiltrate the planet's society and begin shoving like mad to take them from knights in armour to technologically-advanced starflight in ten years so they can fight off the aliens themselves.

This novel stayed with me for years due to one image - a group of nobles, dressed in roughly 17th-century Cavalier-style clothing, attending comparative trials of different spaceship propulsion systems. What of course I totally missed at age ten were the satirical and earthier sides to the novel - the Sisterhood of Mother's Little Helpers in the Street of Many Flowers, for example, went completely over my head and a good thing too! And of course, there was a twist in the story right at the end which I didn't really grasp until much, much later.

This is otherwise an unremarkable 1960s SF novel, with no great pretentions to literary greatness. But as an example of the ideas that the genre can just throw off without even trying, it's perfect.

The aliens are coming - in 10 years. And the only thing standing between them and Earth is the small world of Lyff, not even in the industrial age yet. But a small team of specialists is going to change that... whatever the costs.

Cramming centuries of progress into 10 years - that seems impossible, at best. But in TYTD, you will believe it can happen. The world Anderson and Kurland created is incredibly detailed and thought-through, which is especially surprising given the length of the novel. Put in an interesting story, humor and a superb sense for language, and you will wonder why this gem is out of print. If you don't know it, get it. If you have it, share it with friends.

Good overview of how a murder trial goes-nothing to get you through law school, but certain gets you through an episode of Law and Order. And it's funny.½

An amusing overview of the field of forensic science. It includes many of the techniques used in different fields and some of the textbook, landmark cases that introduced certain techniques.