SarbanReseñas

John William Wall ('Sarban') was primarily a British diplomat in the Near East who wrote few books in his lifetime. He writes beautifully and crafts his stories in an unrushed manner with such breadth of detail about all subjects and intelligence and love of language. You cannot rush through these stories. They build slowly, beginning with a geographic setting, a very long introductory windup, and only when everyone is tucked into their chosen places, he begins to tell The Story. There are usually comfy chairs, a fire and drinks involved and you absolutely feel as though you are in the room, too. My favorite in this book is A Christmas Story, but the journey of the story is the point as much or more than the ending. I only wish he had written more, but he was a perfectionist, as you will see. I can't imagine a contemporary fiction writer that could match his talent. They have just the right amount of supernatural slant to make them odd and compelling.

The book begins with Alan Querdilion relating the tale of his escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in Eastern Germany during WWII.

He ends up in a slave world, 100 years later, where some slaves have been genetically altered. And hunted for sport. And then he time travels back. Or does he? Actually, I'm being serious. I don't quite understand the timeline in this story, or why it happens. I was definitely frustrated at the end.

The book cover has this written at the top - “If The Nazis Had Won Their War". Honestly, I didn't really get what that title was referring to, as the action in the 'future' is only confined to the one area that is described, and there is no mention of the Nazi's ruling the world, or running it, or any such thing. Which was a disappointment to me, as the idea of an alt-history "what if" story was part of the reason I bought this.

This volume was definitely better than the Ringstones volume. I took it from the Afterword that these were the last things Sarban ever wrote, much to our loss. As such it has the touches of a more mature writer. Note however, all of Sarban's writing is crafted by a very talented writer and all of it should be read.

The story itself is way creepier than Ringstones and we really become anxious about Clare's plight as things about the Sterne family, mother and son, don't appear to be quite right and Niall becomes a bigger part of Clare's story. The element of the overtly supernatural, as it is in all Sarban's stories, is introduced rather abruptly with the puppet show. We've been waiting for this for awhile, wondering what it will consist of, and its weirdness doesn't disappoint. From that point forward in the story we are certain that things are not going to be alright for Clare and she is pretty much out there by herself. Clare finally realizes her situation and the suspense continues to build as we wonder, along with Clare, how she is going to deal with the situation and get herself out of life threatening peril.

The suspense really builds in three phases. First we are anticipating the puppet show. There have been enough hints that things are not quite right and we rightly assume this is going to be a turning point. It is, but only really for the reader. Next we begin to fret about when Clare is going to wise-up (or if she will) and realize that there is real menace here. Niall already has a lot of control over things by this point. Once she becomes ill and realizes what is going on, we agonize over how or even if she is going to get out of this alive and intact, all on her own (nobody is going to believe her story).

I would say the ending is a little bit of a letdown. Escaping ends up being just too easy and goes flawlessly for Clare.

The characters are great. We really relate to Clare and Niall is truly creepy, but not at first.

Women may balk a bit at the story since it turns out to be a typical women menaced by a man story, but I thought Clare was drawn as a fairly independent character although naive, very intelligent, she just hates where she is that and lacks the confidence to get out of it. The things that happen are going to force her to mature and take control of her life in a hurry, if she has the strength, to overcome the evil and enslavement that has occurred. She is ultimately more than a survivor and although her innocence is gone, we feel like this experience has made her a stronger, more self confident, and even happier person.

The other two short stories are great as well. The Trespassers being the stronger of the two and visiting some of the same themes explored in Ringstones. A House of Call was a good old-fashioned ghost story.

A good quick read but definitely the weakest of Sarban's outings. Its a sort of jacked up Most Dangerous Game set in a sketchily defined alternate future. All you really need to know is that the Nazi's won and its about 2047.

It doesn't partake of much of Sarban's real skill for depicting subtle weirdness although the setting is certainly unique. It gets a trifle sentimental towards the end by introducing a hardly believable romance angle. It in no way tries to explain how the protagonist gets to the future and gets back so it seems almost like an idea that Sarban didn't know what to do with, a problematic beginning and ending, so he tagged a framing story to it so we wouldn't notice.

However it was a good suspenseful quick read. I still liked it a lot.

Having read most of Sarban's published output I think it is a shame he didn't decide to write more in his life. All of his stuff is top shelf, everything. It seems that from his biography he treated writing as a hobby when he had free time during his civil service stint overseas. Its kind of sad to think of the fact that with so much natural writing ability that Sarban just considered it a hobby to dabble in and as soon as he found he was too busy or just lost interest in it he stopped, forever. Almost worse than a life cut too short in a way.

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3107725.html

The only thing I knew of this novel before reading it was that it has a “Hitler Wins” scenario. I hadn't realised that the framing narrative is set shortly after WW2 in our timeline, but the protagonist recounts a story of breaking out of a PoW camp in Germany and getting somehow zapped forward to a different mid-21st century where the Allies were defeated. It's a very short book, and the key point is that the future Nazis have bred genetically modified young men to hunt women through the woods for sport. This is, needless to say, a really icky set-up, and I think the best point of the novel is that it doesn't especially dwell voyeuristically on the ickiness, but on the practicalities of getting the hero and his young female ally out of immediate danger. (Defeating the system isn't an option.) Even so, there are a number of loose ends, and I can't agree with those who rate it among the greats. However, I'm glad to have read it.

A British prisoner escapes from a German POW camp in 1943--only to stumble into a weird netherworld. This short novel presents a compelling picture of a place of madness and slavery. The framework that encloses the story doesn't help a lot, nor does it offer any explanation for the mysterious happenings. This is an excellent, dark fantasy that won't leave your memory very soon.½

This is one of those classics that I somehow missed until I won a copy. I’m very glad it came to my attention. It’s a very interesting mix of alternate history (what if the Nazis had won their war?), time travel, and a retelling of the Wild Hunt. The story starts off slow, with hints of ‘something not quite right’ as Alan Querdilion reacquaints himself with an old friend years after WWII has come to a close. The two find themselves drinking and smoking by a late night fire when Alan relates his odd tale of a walk on the weird side.

Alan finds himself in a future world 102 years after the Nazis obtained dominance. He stumbled upon it after having escaped a WWII POW camp, lost, dehydrated, and zapped by something he bumbled into. He wakes up in a German hospital-type place. The two nurses and the doctor try to help him, thinking he is suffering from a bad hit to the head. Eventually, he learns something of the baron whose land the hospital resides on. Slavery is common place for both young men and women. Alan won’t let go of his believe that this place and time is not quite real, but he quiets down enough about it for the doctor to start taking him out and about.

What Alan learns is disturbing. The slaves have been bred or perhaps genetically altered at the zygote level to provide a service or entertainment for this baron. Some are physically altered as kids or teens, such as having vocal chords cut. The baron treats many of these specialized slaves as animals, using them to hunt as well as providing them to be hunted. It’s all rather disturbing and very well written. The book doesn’t get caught up in bigger picture morality issues. Instead, it stays focused on Alan’s tale as he tries to survive this encounter and his thoughts on what is wrong or right.

Alan eventually offends the baron by sneaking about and he is tossed into the fenced forest to be hunted at leisure. This starts the heart pounding suspense as Alan must avoid the Hunt again and again. The moonlit Wild Hunt scenes were absolutely riveting. The plot thickens as he meets others who are part of this hunt and he learns a little of the politics off of the baron’s property.

As you might guess, since Alan is telling this story from the beginning years after the even happens, he survives the event, though not unmarked. The reader is left to decide whether or not Alan truly experienced this event, if it was his hallucination, or if Alan made it up to mess with his friend. It’s an excellent suspense-filled tale.

I won a copy of this book from the publisher (via The Audio Book Reviewer) with no strings attached.

Narration: Stefan Rudnicki was excellent. His performance really added to the tension and excitement and the disgust Alan felt from time to time. His female voices were good and his accents were well done. During one of the hunting scenes, these wild cats (sort of) are being used to hunt and Rudnicki was in the middle of the narrative that explains the wild yowling sounds as they go on the chase when my old deaf cat let out a yowl of her own. I almost jumped out of my skin!

A bit strange but not a bad read.½

Not nearly as clever as it thinks it is, Sarban's "Sound of His Horn" wobbles perilously between startling modern cosmic horror (the descriptions of the forest, the whole time travel bit which comes across as a sort of modern spin on "The Victorian Chaise Longue") and... er... silly running around the woods with cat girls, big Nazis and assorted other nonsense. A bit of decent writing cannot do much to disguise basically ANOTHER version of "The Most Dangerous Game". Shame really - I really had expected a good deal more of this.½

http://www.amazon.com/review/R17...½