Currently rereading… Blood And Circuses and Ruddy Gore by Kerry Greenwood

 I’m still rereading the Phryne Fisher books until I get to read the final book in the series.

This post will be about Volumes 6 and 7, Blood And Circuses and Ruddy Gore. Both were filmed for the first season of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. If you live in Australia you can watch them on the ABC app iview. They aren’t very close to the novels, but still, worth a watch. And iview is free.

In Blood And Circuses Phryne joins the circus as a trick rider, in order to solve a mystery about the circus’s recent run of bad luck.

There is also a murder, of the half man/half woman, who is killed in bed, asleep. The accused woman, a former acrobat with the circus, had, in fact, killed her abusive husband and gone to jail though she was released recently, so seems the obvious killer. Of course, she didn’t do it, and it’s up to Phryne to find the real killer.

Did I enjoy it? Yes, as usual, though not as much as the other books in the series. It may just be me. I like Phryne, but this is the one in which I think she is the Mary Sue that a friend’s wife accuses her of being. It’s interesting, though, that this is the one in which she has to be poor, and keep her mouth shut when she is groped by a baddie, in order to keep her secret.

In Ruddy Gore, Phryne is on her way to the theatre in the Melbourne CBD and takes a short cut through Little Bourke St. This is still Melbourne’s Chinatown, full of Chinese shops, but in those days people still lived there. They encounter an attack on an old woman and her grandson. Phryne manages to shoo off the attackers by yelling, “The cops!”

The young man, Lin Chung, eventually becomes her boyfriend and a regular character. His family are wealthy silk merchants. They invite her to clean up. Phryne invites him to dinner and continues on to the theatre, where there is a gala production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera Ruddigore. The lead actor falls down in a faint on the stage in the middle of the performance and then his understudy also falls down. Both are taken to the hospital. One dies. The producer,Bernard Tarrant, asks Phryne to solve the mystery, although her friend policeman Jack Robinson is also working on the case. There is another mystery involving a G and S star of the Victorian era who was pretty certainly murdered during a performance of Ruddigore - and the killer is still around. 

It is written quite deliberately as a G and S operetta, complete with a long lost child. Kerry Greenwood did that quite often and enjoyed it. 

I enjoyed the book very much and I admit that the first time I read it, I didn’t pick up whodunnit. The telemovie was not very close to the novel - and Lin Chung’s grandmother runs a Chinese restaurant instead of being a silk merchant. He doesn’t become Phryne’s boyfriend, though he does appear in another episode.

I bought a copy of the novel in ebook. My local library has it in audiobook, though it’s always out dammit! 

The next book I’m rereading, Urn Burial, is an Agatha Christie tribute. More next time!

Fan fiction memories!

I first heard of fan fiction in the book, Star Trek Lives! by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Sondra Marshak (1975). I bought the book from the airport bookshop while waiting for a relative to arrive. Fan fiction seemed like a good idea, so I wrote several stories about the Star Trek characters and submitted them to SPOCK. SPOCK was the fanzine published by Austrek, the Melbourne Trek fan club. It went for about 65 issues and I had stories in nearly every issue.

Trek fan fiction started with an American fanzine called Spockanalia in 1967. The show was cancelled after only three seasons, and fans wanted to have more stories, so wrote their own. Fan fiction is still going strong, mostly online now. There is fanfiction.net and Archive Of Our Own (AO3). You can download the stories, some of which are over 100,000 words long. And you can write your own fan fiction and upload it to the website. There is a lot more variety than when we were publishing SPOCK, which was a general fanzine, no naughty stories.

Speaking of naughty stories, would you believe the very first “slash” story in fan fiction, ever, was written by a member of Austrek, of which I was also a member? I’m not kidding. 

Slash fiction is called that because of the slash between the names “Kirk” and “Spock” when describing this kind of story – or K/S. In these stories, there are relationships between same-sex characters. This is so common these days that nobody thinks twice about it, but nobody had written K/S fiction until...

The late Diane Marchant, a Melbourne fan, was a friend of the entire cast and Gene Roddenberry. She wrote to them often, also visiting them in the USA. She had many American fan friends, and at the end of a letter to one fan friend – just for fun – she wrote a short piece about our heroes in which they – er... do it. She hadn't expected the story to be published, and was horrified when it was; Diane preferred  the relationship between Spock and Christine Chapel. And then people thought slash was such a good idea that they wrote their own, and the rest is history.

Believe it. Everything has to start somewhere, after all. For example, I personally know Paula Smith, the fan writer who created the term “Mary Sue”, which is used everywhere these days – not only in fan fiction – for a female character who is loved by everyone; if not becoming pregnant by the male character of the author's choice and dying, she saves the universe and, possibly, dies. Or marries the hero. Or was a foster sister of Spock. In my opinion, the first Mary Sue was Miramanee in The Paradise Syndrome, who married Kirk, got pregnant and died, but there wasn't a name for that in those days. If you are curious, google “A Trekkie's Tale” by Paula Smith. It's online and very funny. 

I remember how we shared our fanzines at Austrek meetings and borrowed them from each other. In fact, it's how I became a pen pal of Paula Smith. Someone lent me a copy of Paula’s fanzine Menagerie. I got a stain on it, so I ordered another copy from Paula and we started corresponding. The Austrek member who had lent me the fanzine got the replacement copy and said, “Oh, that's not necessary, I don't mind!” They lent it to someone else and never got it back.

As I said, SPOCK was a general fanzine. There were some wonderful stories in it, about our favourite characters. In the early issues, we were just writing about the TV series, because we missed the show. Then the films came out and Star Trek: The Next Generation, and writers got story ideas from those.

There were some fan writers and artists who went on to be professionals. As a professional, of course, you have to create your own universe, but writing fan fiction and articles is a good way to practise your writing. You have to think about the the psychology of the characters and you have to get them right, or someone will write something rude about your story. After reviewing fanzines, I got a lot of free books for reviewing, and sold stories and books as an outcome of my fan fiction.

But a lot of others – writers and readers alike – just like to stick to fan fiction. And that's fine. I still read it, though I don't write it any more. I know of some big name authors who still write fan fiction, under pen names. Once, on social media, I told a well-known writer, Diane Duane, that I had enjoyed her fan fiction in the past. Her reply was: “What makes you think I've stopped?”

Just Finished Reading… Sunrise On The Reaping(Hunger Games). New York: Scholastic, 2025

 

This is the fifth Hunger Games book, a prequel to the original trilogy. I haven’t got around to reading the fourth book, The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, which is also a prequel, a back story to the trilogy’s villain.

In case you haven’t read the trilogy, the premise is a future America(Panem) in which there had been a rebellion against the Capitol and, as a punishment,  all the Districts have to send teenagers as tributes to fight and die in the Games, a process known as the Reaping. Only one will survive, though in the first book, the heroine, Katniss Everdeen, gets her fellow tribute, Peeta Mellark, spared by saying, in front of the entire nation, that they are in love. That embarrasses the Capitol enough to work. There are hints that this premise is based on Greek mythology, in which tributes go to Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur. 

Sunrise On The Reaping  is the back story of Haymitch Abernathy, the town drunk who won his Hunger Games and has been drinking to handle his PTSD. The middle-aged Haymitch was mentor to Katniss and Peeta during their Hunger Games. In this book, he is sixteen and rebellious. The title is based on his promise to his girlfriend, Lenore Dove, to try to end the Hunger Games for good, so that there will never again be a “sunrise on the Reaping.”  The older Haymitch has no friends or family; the teenage Haymitch has both. In fact, one of his friends is Burdock Everdeen, future father to Katniss. 

We know Haymitch will win the Games and survive, but there is a lot more to it than that. He has made a major enemy, President Coriolanus Snow. 

We meet some characters, apart from Snow, who will appear in future stories. Effie Trinket, who will later travel to the districts to collect the young tributes, is one. At this stage, she is just the older sister of another character, who helps the District 12 tributes, who have been neglected. Plutarch Heavensbee, a major character in The Hunger Games, is the photographer and propaganda film maker. 

Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” is quoted a lot, as Lenore Dove’s favourite poem. It connects with her name in Haymitch’s mind. 

I won’t do spoilers here, but I had a hard time keeping dry eyes and by the end of the book, I absolutely understood why, apart from the Games themselves, Haymitch suffered PTSD. 

You really need to have read the original trilogy to get the most out of this book, but up to you. All I can say is that it is every bit as good. 

Available in all good bookshops and websites. I hear that there will be a film. 

On Rereading Phryne Fisher - Books One to Five

 I’ve just bought the very last Phryne Fisher novel, the last because Kerry Greenwood died earlier this year. I still haven’t read the last Terry Pratchett book because… well, it is the last one. But I decided to reread all the Phryne Fisher books before I read Murder In The Cathedral. So far, I’ve reread the first five and have started the sixth.

Some of you will have read them. But I’m going to comment anyway, for anyone who hasn’t, or who has only seen the TV series.

If you’ve only seen the TV series, it’s very different from the books. To be honest, I prefer the later episodes, which are not based on a book, because they aren’t trying to squash a novel into fifty minutes. But they look beautiful and are made by people who loved the books. 

If you haven’t read or seen it, I promise no spoilers here! I did enjoy even the reread, and I have read nearly all of them several times. The earlier novels are, in my opinion, better than the later ones, but they are all worth a read.

Phryne Fisher is a beautiful, wealthy private detective in the late 1920s. She lives in St Kilda, a seaside suburb of Melbourne, with her maid Dot and Mr and Mrs Butler, her staff, and has adventures. No way does anyone need to rescue her - more often, she rescues others. She has a gorgeous red Hispano-Suiza car, which she drives like a demon. Dot really doesn’t enjoy travelling with her.

Cocaine Blues 

Phryne Fisher, who was born in Australia but has been living in Europe(mostly England, but also France) returns to Australia on the request of a couple who are worried about their daughter, Lydia. They think her husband is trying to poison her. In this novel, we meet characters who will later become regulars or semi regulars. Dot, her maid, is one. She introduces herself as Dorothy Bryant, but becomes Williams later in the book and stays Williams for the rest of the series. An editorial glitch! Detective Inspector Jack Robinson is plain and easy to miss in the novels, but gorgeous in the TV series. He is happily married with children in the books, divorced in the TV series so that he can have a URST with Phryne. Bert and Cec are taxi drivers who become Phryne’s friends and assist with her cases. Dr Macmillan is a Scottish woman doctor, a semi regular. 

As in her other books, there are two storylines. One is about cocaine peddling, the other is about illegal abortions. It’s a great start to the series.

Flying Too High

Again, two storylines. One is about a child being kidnapped, the other is about a pilot whose obnoxious father is hit on the head by a rock, leading to the son’s arrest for murder. Of course, Phryne is hired to investigate both. 

She and Dot have moved into a house on the Esplanade in St Kilda, across the road from the beach. There, we first meet her house man, Mr Butler and his wife, Mrs Butler, a fabulous cook. The author loved writing about food, even gave recipes in the Corinna Chapman series, so Mrs Butler’s meals are described in loving detail.

Some semi regular characters first appear in this book. Bunji Ross is a brilliant pilot, but a humorous character. She appears again in later books.

The child’s rescue ends up at the Queenscliff Hotel. I used to go there by ferry, for lunch, when staying in Sorrento some years ago - just because I read about it in the novel. This story wasn’t filmed, unfortunately. It would have made a good episode

Murder On The Ballarat Train

Phryne and Dot are on their way to Ballarat by overnight train. You can get there now in about an hour and a half from Melbourne, but this is 1928. Phryne, who is a light sleeper, wakes to the smell of chloroform, and, of course, saves everyone in the first class carriage, by opening windows and calling for the conductors. 

Everyone but an elderly woman, who has been dragged out of the window and hanged. The woman’s daughter hires Phryne to investigate. 

This book features the first appearance of Phryne’s adopted daughters, Jane and Ruth, and her black cat Ember. In the TV series, they showed only Jane as a regular - Ruth appeared briefly but went back to her family. I guess they didn’t want to pay two child actors. It’s a pity, but there you are.

Death At  Victoria Dock

Phryne is on her way home late one night when a young man is shot dead in front of her and the killers try to shoot her too. She doesn’t take this well and soon finds herself involved in Latvian affairs and anarchists. And a yummy Latvian lover…

A case she is asked to investigate is the disappearance of a teenage girl who wanted to be a nun. The girl’s family are horrible.

In this novel we first meet Hugh Collins, Dot’s boyfriend, who becomes a regular. In fact, he got more time in the TV series, where he was shown as Jack Robinson’s sidekick. But it’s nice to meet him. This was filmed, but not very close to the book. It was more about the dock workers on strike.

The Green Mill Murder

Phryne is dancing at the Green Mill, a real place that was on the site of Melbourne’s current Arts Centre, at the end of a dance marathon. Her dress is described in great detail, and that was real too. Kerry Greenwood said that in her day job as a lawyer a client had to bring his grandmother with him, and the old lady described a dress she once wore at a dance.

The dance marathon is near its end, with only a few couples left, so it’s not hard to notice when the man in the next couple drops dead during Bar 35 of “Bye Bye Blackbird”. Naturally Phryne has to investigate, though Detective Inspector Jack Robinson is also on the case. He has enough respect for her to accept that she probably has figured out the murderer and will share the information when she gets back from flying to Gippsland to find a young man who came back from the Great War with shell shock(what they called PTSD in those days). 

There is a lot of jazz and blues in this novel, which includes an American blues singer with the band. When it was filmed, that role was played by Deni Hines, the daughter of Marcia Hines, who came to Australia to be in Jesus Christ Superstar, and stayed. 

The second storyline involves the gay community, who had pretty difficult lives, as it was illegal in those days.

Phryne has two lovers in this story. In the seventh book, she finally gets a regular boyfriend. Stand by for my posts on the rest of the series. 

What I’m Currently Reading And Rereading!

 I’m doing a lot of reading and rereading right now. I never read only one book at a time. 

So here are some, to share with you.

I’m having a Poul Anderson binge right now. Time Patrol is a series of short stories, about a bunch of people employed to fix things in history. Mostly, they live and work in a particular era, maybe even their own, helping other agents, but the main character of most of these stories, Manse Everard, is an Unattached agent, which gives the author the excuse to have him travel in time and fix things in different eras. He learns languages and backgrounds under sleep tuition before he travels. I remember reading some of these stories when I was at university, but that was a very long time ago and I only remember two or three. 

I’m rereading his novel A Midsummer Tempest, in which the hero is Prince Rupert of the Rhine, nephew of Charles I, a real person, but living in a universe in which everything Shakespeare wrote was true, and he is known as the Great Historian. There were clocks in Ancient Rome, so technology is ahead of ours. There are trains in the time of Charles I, and an Industrial Revolution already. It’s all connected with the Puritans, who are winning the war. Rupert is given the job, by Oberon and Titania, of finding and bringing back Prospero’s book and staff, which he threw away at the end of The Tempest. There is an inn between universes, the Old Unicorn, where he meets characters from Poul Anderson’s other books. I’m tempted, when I have finished this reread, to pick up those books again. One is Operation Chaos, also set in a different universe, in which World War II is fought against the Saracen Caliphate - who fly on flying carpets. The other one is Three Hearts And Three Lions, in which the hero discovers he is one of Charlemagne’s paladins, left as a baby in our world, and the war he is fighting there becomes the war against the Nazis here. 

I am also reading, yet again, the books by L.Sprague De Camp and Fletcher Pratt, The Incomplete Enchanter, The Castle Of Iron and The Wall Of Serpents. They are classics, no doubt about it. The hero of the series is Harold Shea, a psychologist at an institute. He and his friend Reed Chalmers, an older staff member at the same university, work out a way to use mathematical formulae to travel between universes. They are all based on mythology or classic fiction, such as The Faerie Queen and The Kalevala. Harold tries to visit the world of Irish mythology on his first trip, but a mistake in the formula lands him instead in the world of Norse mythology, and, worse still, it’s just before Ragnarok. He can’t use any of the technology he brings with him, even matches, but finds he can do magic while there. After this, he is more careful and knows what is possible, when he and Reed visit the world of Spenser’s Faerie Queen, where he meets and falls in love with Belphebe, an archer girl who lives in the forest. I’m currently reading the third book in the series, The Wall Of Serpents, in which they go to the world of the poem Kalevala, the national epic of Finland. I think Tolkien was inspired by it and used some ideas from it. 

Just started a reread of People Of The Book, by Geraldine Brooks. In it, an Australian woman who is a restorer, is given the task of working on the Sarajevo Haggadah. This book is real, by the way, a mediaeval book created to be read on Passover. But it’s a novel. Each bit she works on is a story in itself, such as a picture in which the artist paints herself along with the family who owned the Haggadah. There is a wine stain - who put it there? And so on. There is a fictionalised version of a true story when a Muslim librarian saved it from the Nazis. 

It reminded me a bit of James A. Michener’s The Source, set at an archaeological dig at a fictional town in Israel, which had a story about each of the objects the archaeologists find. So I have started a reread of that too. 

Any book you are currently reading or rereading? And are you, like me, unable to read one book at a time?