Metropolis, by Thea von Harbou

Thea von Harbou is best known today as the wife of the great film director Fritz Lang and his close collaborator on most of his early German masterpieces. She not only co-wrote the scripts, she also turned several of them into novels, including perhaps the most famous of all, Metropolis.

She had in fact written several novels prior to her marriage to Lang and had been an actress as well. While Lang left Germany in the early 30s von Harbou remained and her career in the wartime German film industry is rather controversial.

The city of Metropolis is dominated by the will of Joh Fredersen. This is a vision of a city of the future, a city of machines. The machines require people to operate them, and the machines consume their operators. Their appetite is limitless. There is an underground city beneath Metropolis which provides the machines with the human they require. The upper city is a kind of playground for the rich, with sex and drugs being the main item on the menu.

Joh Fredersen is not a particularly happy man. His wife died giving birth to his son Freder. He had stolen his wife from his friend Rotwang, the inventor of genius largely responsible for the construction of the city. Joh Fredersen becomes alienated from his son when Freder discovers what the machines are doing to people. Freder meets a woman named Maria, a charismatic leader who offers the oppressed of Metropolis hope for change. Those who run Metropolis are its head. Those who work the machines are Metropolis’s hands. To mediate between the brain and the hands a heart is needed, and she tells them a mediator will arise who will fulfill that function.

Maria wants peaceful change but once revolutions are set in motion violence and destruction inevitably follow.

There is also a false Maria, a robot created by Rotwang. Rotwang has his own agenda in regard to the future of Metropolis.

It’s many many years since I’ve seen the movie so it’s difficult for me to compare the book and the movie. What does strike me about the book is the extent of the religious imagery. While the story can be (and has been) seen as a critique of capitalism I’m inclined to see that as a very simplistic explanation. The novel at least seems to me to reflect a horror of revolution, doubtless a reaction to the brutality and viciousness of the Russian Revolution. While the machines are monsters devouring human beings, von Harbou depicts the mob violence inseparable from revolution as being even more monstrous.

Freder certainly seems to be a Christ figure, with Maria being perhaps both the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. Whatever von Harbou’s religious beliefs may have been Lang was certainly a Catholic, and identified himself as such throughout his life. The quite overt Catholic themes may therefore have originated with him. Lang and von Harbou had co-written the screenplay so that while the novel was von Harbou’s work alone it’s likely that these Catholic themes were carried over from the movie.

Much of the impact of the movies comes from the extraordinary visuals but von Harbou does an effective job in conveying the character of Metropolis by purely verbal means.

There’s perhaps just a touch more sentimenality in the novel than I recall from the film.

The movie’s status as one of the great dystopian science fiction tales is secure. Thea von Harbou’s novel deserves to be recognised as an important work of science fiction in its on right. It’s also a relatively rare and therefore interesting example of German science fiction. Recommended.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Poison Belt

The brilliant but cantakerous Professor Challenger, the hero of Conan Doyle’s classic science fiction tale The Lost World, is one again the central figure in an even stranger 1913 story, The Poison Belt.

It’s typical of Conan Doyle’s science fiction which at times could be very strange indeed.

In 1913 physicists still believed in the ether, a mysterious substance which was supposed to fill the universe. At the time the existence of such a medium seemed to be the only satisfactory way to explain such concepts as gravity and the propagation of light. Physicists could not adequately explain how such forces could operate in a vacuum so therefore they reasoned that the ether had to exist even if it appeared to be undetectable.

In The Poison Belt this mysterious substance suddenly becomes a deadly threat as the Earth passes through a belt in the ether, a belt of poisonous ether. To Professor Challenger it is clear that no animal or human life can possibly survive this encounter. The end can however be postponed by the use of oxygen - if the oxygen content of the air in a confined space (such as a room in the professor’s house) can be increased sufficiently it may be possible to survive for quite a while, and since the end of the world is a matter of considerable scientific interest the Professor intends to witness it. Such an event demands to be recorded by a particularly brilliant scientist and Professor Challenger is not aware of anyone more brilliant than himself.

And given the magnitude of this event it also seems only right that he should invite his companions from the earlier expedition to the Lost World to witness it with him. So Professor Summerlee, the soldier and adventurer Lord John Roxton and reporter Edward Malone are summoned to the professor’s country house.

The earth has already started to enter the poison belt, and reports are coming in from all parts of the globe of the consequences - dramatic behaviour changes followed inevitably by death. It appears that the end truly has come.

Of course there has to be some kind of twist ending and what you fear in a case like this is one of those incredibly annoying “and then I woke up and it had all been a dream” endings. Fortunately Conan Doyle does not inflict that upon us. Whether the ending he does come up with is entirely satisfactory is another matter but it’s still a bizarre and original little story.

All of Conan Doyle’s science fiction stories are worth reading. While the fame of Sherlock Holmes has overshadowed his writings in other genres his contribution to the development of science fiction was immense.

The Benson Murder Case

Of all the books that have some claim to being considered classics of the crime genre none have divided readers quite so dramatically as S. S. Van Dine’s Philo Vance novels. The features that exasperate and enrage critics of these books are the very things that delight their admirers. I’m very much in the camp of the admirers.

The Benson Murder Case kicked off the series in 1926. Philo Vance has often confided to his friend Markham, New York’s District Attorney, that he would love to have the chance to try his hand at crime-solving. He has developed some interesting theories on the subject and it would amuse him greatly to put them to the test. When wealthy broker and somewhat notorious playboy Alvin Benson is found shot to death in puzzling circumstances Markham is finally persuaded to give Vance his opportunity.

Vance wastes no time in making obvious his considerable disdain for the professional crime-solvers of the police and the DA’s office. To Vance they seem to be hopelessly addicted to the pernicious practice of looking for physical clues and circumstantial evidence. All of which is complete nonsense, as he informs them with more candour than tact. His own theory is that psychology is the key. Some people are psychologically capable of murder; some are not. And some crimes could only be committed by people with a very particular personality profile. If you have the instinct and the intelligence to analyse the personalities of the various suspects then finding the guilty party becomes child’s play.

All of which is of course complete moonshine, but that just adds to the fun of the Philo Vance mysteries (or if you are not a fan it just makes them all the more annoying). If you like plots that make sense and if you like your fictional detectives to employ realistic and plausible methods of criminal investigation then these books are not for you. It’s not that Van Dine’s plots aren’t clever and intricate - it’s just that their connection with reality is more than a little tenuous.

And then there’s Philo Vance himself. His aristocratic arrogance, his very affected English accent (acquired during a prolonged stay in England), his contempt for modern life, his political views (circumstantial evidence is, he explains, almost as great a folly as democracy), the fact that no matter what subject comes up during an investigation Vance will prove to an expert in that field - all these things will either delight or incense the reader.

While Van Dine is very much of the Golden Age school of crime writing with the emphasis on puzzle-solving at the same time Vance’s belief in the psychological approach to murder is an interesting anticipation of more modern trends in crime fiction.

Personally I just can’t get enough of Philo Vance.

House Dick, by E. Howard Hunt

House Dick is a 1961 crime thriller by E. Howard Hunt. You may now be saying to yourself, “Hang on, wasn’t E. Howard Hunt one of the infamous Watergate plumbers?” And if that’s what you’re saying then you’re spot on. Hunt served 33 months in prison for his part in the Watergate affair.

Hunt had joined the CIA in 1949 but he’d already worked for its predecessor, the OSS, during the Second World War. While working as an intelligence operative he moonlighted as an author of both spy novels and hardboiled crime novels, usually under pseudonyms (House Dick was published under the name Gordon Davis).

Given his background it will come as no surprise that House Dick is set in Washington DC. Pete Novak is a house detective at one of Washington’s largest hotels (no, not the Watergate Hotel, it’s the Tilden Hotel). Hotel house detectives figure in many hardboiled crime stories but this is the only one I can think of where a house dick is the actual hero.

The hotel setting is used quite effectively giving the book a kind of seedy glamour. Novak has seen the rich and famous at their worst and he has no illusions left. He’s cynical, but basically honest. Well, fairly honest.

His honesty will be tested when he meets Paula Norton. When he first encounters her she is being beaten up by her ex-husband, Ben Barada, a vicious but none-too-successful gambler. While Barada was doing time in Joliet Prison Paula had found herself a sugar daddy, wealthy (but more than slightly sleazy) businessman Chalmers Boyd. Boyd had given her gifts of expensive jewels. Unfortunately the jewels belonged to Boyd’s wife, and even more unfortunately Boyd was in fact financially dependent on his wife. His wife is in turn emotionally dependent on her doctor, Dr Bikel. Only he’s not a real doctor. He’s a naturopath, and even less scrupulous than most of that breed.

Julia Boyd wants her jewels back. Ben Barada wants Paula to blackmail Boyd to obtain either the jewels or the $90,000 that they’re worth. Paula wants the money. And what does Pete Novak want? Sadly, he wants Paula. He knows this is a dumb idea, and he’s doing his best not to get too deeply involved. This becomes awkward when Chalmers Boyd turns up dead in Paula’s hotel room, and Novak finds himself agreeing to help Paula out of the jam she’s now in.

She’s not the only one in a tight spot. Barada owes a great deal of money to a St Louis mobster who is not renowned for his forgiving nature. As a result he’s getting increasingly desperate, and when he gets desperate he’s even more vicious than usual. Somehow Pete Novak has to try to keep alive, to keep Paula alive, to avoid getting mixed up in anything too illegal and to make sure the hotel doesn’t find itself at the centre of a scandal.

It’s a more than competent hardboiled crime story with enough gritty dialogue and sleazy atmosphere to keep most fans of this genre happy.

Pete Novak has the combination of cynicism, stubbornness and a certain disillusioned humanity to make an effective noir detective hero.

The book is available from Hard Case Crime. Recommended.

The Sleeper Awakes, by H. G. Wells

The Sleeper Awakes is one of H. G. Wells’ lesser known science fiction novels, and a rather odd dystopian tale.

In 1897 a man named Graham is having trouble sleeping. When he finally does fall asleep it’s for a very long time indeed. 203 years, in fact. When he awakes he discovers that his long sleep has made him a figure of vast importance.

It’s not just that his own not inconsiderable personal fortune has grown like Topsy. He has been left as heir to the fortune, the very very large fortune, of an engineer named Warming. He has accumulated such vast wealth that he is now in practice the owner of the world. The fact that he was sleeping and was not expected to awake was of course rather convenient for his trustees. The Council that administered his wealth was able to exercise supreme power in his name.

But now, in the year 2100, the Sleeper is awake. And that will have dramatic consequences. It will trigger a revolution.

Wells saw the novel as a nightmare vision of the triumph of both capitalism and the city. Wells’ own slightly eccentric socialist views would seem to form the political program of the Sleeper. The Sleeper, who becomes the Master, is not entirely impressed with this future world. And he becomes less and less impressed the more he sees of it. He is also less than happy with those who exercise power in his name, and finally takes the fateful decision to assume direct control, and to complete the revolution.

It’s a decidedly odd book. Graham talks about his democratic ideals but it appears that salvation can only come the actions of one strong individual. Wells seems to have little real faith in the masses. Graham becomes a kind of democratic socialist dictator (something the world would see rather a lot of in the hundred years following the publication of this book).

At the time the book was written no-one had yet been able to build an aircraft that could actually fly but Wells describes aerial battles with considerable vigour and enthusiasm.

It’s a book that’s interesting mostly for the rather confused mishmash of political ideas that it embodies. An oddity, and really of historical interest only. Not to be compared with Wells’ great science fiction novels like The Island of Dr Moreau.

Green for Danger, by Christianna Brand

A military hospital in Kent during the Blitz is the unusual setting for Christianna Brand’s 1945 murder mystery Green for Danger. A patient dies under anaesthetic, and at first it seems unlikely to Inspector Cockrill to have been in any way a suspicious death. Then a second death occurs, and this time it’s clearly a case of murder. It soon become obvious that there are only six possible suspects, all of them doctors and nurses at the hospital.

To solve the murders Inspector Cockrill relies to a large extent on putting his six suspects under extreme pressure and waiting for one of them to crack, and also allowing the interactions between the suspects to gradually unravel the threads of the crime. The tension between the characters, each of then knowing that one of them is a killer, builds inexorably and almost unbearably. This also allows the author to really flesh out the characters – we get to know them extremely well, and we come to care about them. They’re not just suspects, they’re people, with all the everyday hopes and fear and jealousies and human weaknesses of normal people.

Green for Danger has the intricate plotting, and the plentiful red herrings, of a typical English Golden Age mystery novel, but with a psychological complexity not usually associated with that type of detective story. An engrossing, sometimes quite moving, and always highly entertaining book.

To the Devil - a Daughter, by Dennis Wheatley

To the Devil - a Daughter, written in 1953, is everything you could ask for in a Dennis Wheatley novel. It has wicked devil-worshippers, outrageous conspiracies, and some amusingly lurid descriptions of satanic rituals.

A businessman makes a deal with a satanic clergymen, and has his daughter Christina baptised into Satan’s church. Twenty-one years later, provided she is still a virgin, she is destined to be the centrepiece of a hideous satanic ritual. As she has been dedicated to Lucifer she undergoes a personality change every evening when the sun goes down. In the hours of darkness she becomes a Bad Girl, giving herself up to all kinds of naughtiness.

Luckily she makes the acquaintance of Molly, a middle-aged English writer who used to work for British Intelligence during the war, and Molly and her son John are determined to save Christina from the clutches of the Satanists, and quite probably from a Fate Worse Than Death.

Wheatley also finds time for his favourite hobbyhorse, the links between Satanists and Communism. It’s all breathless excitement, and a silly but highly entertaining romp. The fact that Wheatley took this stuff seriously just makes it even more enjoyable.

This novel was of course the basis for the last horror movie made by Hammer Studios. The movie doesn’t follow the plot of the book very closely at all, but it’s also great fun in its own way.