Tip the Wink

G Stands For Glory by Norvell Page © 1936-1939, originally published in Ace G-Man Stories, this edition: Altus Press 2010 limited edition hardcover (also available in trade paperback)  – pulp crime short stories featuring the F.B.I.

It’s the stories, not the book, that are forgotten here. From the publisher’s website:

“Known best for his work on Popular Publications’ The Spider, pulp scribe Norvell Page proved he was no slouch when it came to penning gangster and G-man epics! This book collects all eleven stories Page wrote for “Ace G-Man Stories” between 1936 and 1939, which are reprinted here for the first time!”

I’ve read some of the Spider adventures, and while I like them, I find these even more to my taste, since the plots elements are less outlandish. These stories are fast and furious, great fun reading though a bit predictable. There are at least three stories with similar set-ups: two agents, either in “G-school” or in their first year and still on probation, competing against each other both to make a good showing to their chief but also to get the girl. In both there is also a gang of crooks that needs to be caught. The crooks and the girl are a standard part of these stories, a required element by the story editor of Ace G-Man Stories.

These stories won’t be mistaken for anything serious or thought-provoking, but if it’s simply an enjoyable few hours that’s wanted, these may be a good choice. I’ll read more of Page’s non-Spider stories.

Space Pioneers edited by Hank Davis and Christopher Ruocchio, Baen 2018 mass market paperback, science fiction

This nineteen story anthology is edited by one of Baen’s best, Hank Davis. Though the book is pretty new, the stories range from as early as the Thirties all the way to now. So I think it qualifies as a Friday Forgotten Book for it’s contents.

For the most part, this is the kind of science fiction I grew up on and still love. These are what is now – with the exception of two of the newest stories – thought of as “old fashioned” hard SF.

Davis provides brief editorial comments before each story. I particularly enjoyed the Pournelle and Simak. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Contents:
Introduction: Will The Space Ocean Have Gems? By Hank Davis
“Third Stage” By Poul Anderson
“Becalmed In Hell” By Larry Niven
“Delilah And The Space-Rigger” By Robert A. Heinlein
“Expedition” By Fredric Brown
“Not Yet The End” By Fredric Brown
“Superweapon” By David Drake
“In From The Commons” By Tony Daniel
“Home Front” By Sarah A. Hoyt & Jeff Greason
“Incident On Calypso” By Murray Leinster
“All The Traps Of Earth” By Clifford D. Simak
“The Cave Of Night” By James E. Gunn
“He Fell Into A Dark Hole” By Jerry E. Pournelle
“What’s It Like Out There?” By Edmond Hamilton
“The Man Who Lost The Sea” By Theodore Sturgeon
“The Parliament Of Owls” By Christopher Ruocchio
“Quietus” By Ross Rocklynne
“Men Against The Stars” By Manly Wade Wellman
“Over The Top” By Lester Del Rey
“Kyrie” By Poul Anderson

A Chain of Thunder by Jeff Shaara, Ballantine Books 2013, volume 2 of The Civil War Western Theater, historical novel (fictionalized)

Continuing with Shaara’s Civil War books, which I read in ebook format. Last week I reviewed A Blaze of Glory, about the battle of Shiloh. This time, it’s Grant’s campaign against Confederate General John Pemberton, leading to the South’s loss of the citadel of Vicksburg.

As the war in the West turns badly for the South, the Union knows the one great barrier to their control of the Mississippi River, considered critically important, lies at the Confederate bastion of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Protected by high embankments, and a formidable presence of Confederate artillery, the Confederate forces there under the command of John Pemberton, are confident that Vicksburg is a citadel that cannot fall. But Federal commander Ulysses Grant believes otherwise.

So Grant launches an overland campaign that avoids a direct frontal assault on the town from the river, and instead, maneuvers his army downstream, crossing from Louisiana into Mississippi where the Confederates are too weak to make an effective stand. Instead of pushing directly at Vicksburg, Grant employs an audacious strategy, slicing quickly through the Mississippi countryside toward the capital city of Jackson.

Pemberton’s superior, General Joseph Johnston arrives in Jackson and sees Pemberton’s situation in Vicksburg as hopeless. Thus he holds his own forces back from the fight, allowing Grant the freedom to focus all his energies on Vicksburg itself. Johnston’s reluctance to engage Grant, and thus offer relief to Vicksburg, is one of the most controversial decisions of the war.

The story is told primarily through the voices of Union General William T. Sherman, and, returning from the first volume (A Blaze of Glory), the young private from Wisconsin, Fritz Bauer. On the Southern side, the story is told through the eyes of Pemberton himself, as well as a young civilian woman in the town, Lucy Spence, who serves her cause the only way she can, by volunteering for nursing duties in the makeshift hospitals,

Like the first novel, this book is excellent. Next week I’ll be going on to the third book.