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Post by dem bones on Oct 24, 2007 22:15:49 GMT
Dennis Wheatley - Strange Conflict (Book Club edition, 1942: originally Hutchinson, 1941)  'Mog' (?)
page 126 in its entirety
World War II and, somehow, those pesky, lowdown Nazi's are intercepting our ships and sinking them! Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust is perplexed: it's unthinkable that there is a traitor in the ranks, so thank the Lord for the Duc de Richleau who immediately realises the truth - the Nazi's are utilising Black Magic! De Richleau rounds up his posse from The Devil Rides Out - Rex Van Ryn, Simon Aron, Richard Eaton and Princess Mary Lou - and they head off for Cardinal's Folly for more pentagram fun and games. After 100 or so pages of adventures, most of them on the astral plane, de Richleau has tracked the adept to Haiti. Sir Pellinore pulls strings and they're all off to the sun. En route, they take a beautiful mute girl under their wing and she volunteers to be their guide when they reach the dark island. The adept, meanwhile, has been awaiting the de Richleau party and, no sooner do they approach the island than their light aircraft is sucked out of the sky and they nearly drown. The sharks move in. Just when all seems up for them, they are rescued by Doctor Saturday, an urbane mulatto who just happened to be out fishing. "What a nice man!" think the friends, and, having accepted the invitation to stay at his mansion for a few days, immediately set to grilling him about voodoo and cannibalism; when Richard and Rex sneak off to Kingston to replenish their lost magical implements, the Duc even feeds their host a line that they're on urgent Government business. "What a bunch of mugs!" thinks Dr. Saturday, who is, of course, the very Satanist they've travelled all this way to kill. From here on in the novel moves at a breathless pace, taking in voodoo, zombies, body-snatching, mob rampage, and a scene-stealing walk-on by Pan. I can't agree with Bleiler that the ending is "unsatisfactory" though it is pretty abrupt (but certainly less so than that of "The Ka Of Gifford Hillary" which is downright outrageous). A definite plus point: the horror scenes are among his best, notably the penultimate chapter, "Coffins For Five", and an earlier, shorter sequence in which de Richleau frees the soul of a zombie. Given the setting for much of the action, this isn't the xenophobia fest I was dreading: it's there, but certainly not as pronounced as in later novels and even the preaching has been toned down to the point where it doesn't drag on for page after page. The Negroes do a lot of annoying eye-rolling when terrified as per usual, which de Richleau finds endlessly amusing, and there's a reference to their alleged lack of bathing habits which seems entirely gratuitous, but the real hatred is focused on the Nazi's and their collaborators - notably in the character of the French assassin who moonlights as a pimp and his "filthy Jap" cohort - perfectly understandable given the circumstances. Even Dr. Saturday is allowed to explain his hatred for the British which stems from the abominable behaviour of his English father toward his mother. A worthy successor to The Devil Rides Out? Yeah, I reckon it is. But let's not get too carried away because next on the hit-list is Gateway To Hell ...
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Post by Calenture on Oct 25, 2007 0:01:22 GMT
Excellent review, Dem'. I've only read a few Wheatleys, but if I see this one around, I'd definitely pick it up after reading this.
After looking at that cover painting for a while, I think it's probably the most stylish of any Wheatley covers that I've seen, too.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 25, 2007 9:37:31 GMT
The Arrow 1979 edition is not without charm. |
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Post by franklinmarsh on Sept 17, 2012 8:05:34 GMT
Finally made my way through this (cheers Ade, it's been a long time!). Initially disappointing - repetitive, and the best bits seemed cribbed from the previous The Devil Rides Out, but ultimately entertaining, with some thrilling adventure -particularly the 'plane crash, and subsequent marooning, and the sinking of the Jamaica boat. A fascinating glimpse into to the lives of the idle rich and their having to cope with a war. Not for the politically correct but then I assume they wouldnt go near it anyway. *SPOILER* Dr Saturday is unfortunately an unprepossessing villain but I wonder if that's deliberate. He certainly ends up giving the four modern musketeers a run for their money, mainly via the astral. The main efforts of the characters spending hours awake had me feeling exhausted. Nice to see Lucifer (ho, ho) portrayed as a nice young man (Peter O'Donnell and Michael Moorcock were to go this route later) - influenced by Machen?
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Post by dem bones on Apr 17, 2017 11:54:21 GMT
Finally made my way through this (cheers Ade, it's been a long time!). Initially disappointing - repetitive, and the best bits seemed cribbed from the previous The Devil Rides Out, but ultimately entertaining, with some thrilling adventure -particularly the 'plane crash, and subsequent marooning, and the sinking of the Jamaica boat. A fascinating glimpse into to the lives of the idle rich and their having to cope with a war. Not for the politically correct but then I assume they wouldnt go near it anyway. *SPOILER* Dr Saturday is unfortunately an unprepossessing villain but I wonder if that's deliberate. He certainly ends up giving the four modern musketeers a run for their money, mainly via the astral. The main efforts of the characters spending hours awake had me feeling exhausted. Nice to see Lucifer (ho, ho) portrayed as a nice young man (Peter O'Donnell and Michael Moorcock were to go this route later) - influenced by Machen? Machen influence more likely than my suspicion that plane crash sequence was influenced by Seabury Quinn's The Isle Of Missing Ships ( Weird Tales, Feb. 1926). |
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Post by Dr Strange on Mar 14, 2021 2:30:33 GMT
This seems to be the original Hutchinson cover -  |
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