ssembled by editors Grania Davis and Henry Wessells, this themed collection follows four other volumes, excluding chapbooks, released since the sad death of Avram Davidson in 1993: The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998); The Boss in the Wall (1998); The Investigations of Avram Davidson (1999); and Everybody Has Somebody in Heaven (2000). As such, the present volume caps a major laudable effort to bring back into print much of the unique work of this neglected fantasist.
The hook for this volume is that all the stories will evoke Davidson's eccentric vision of a Victorian/Edwardian milieu where the oddest events occur to the oddest people, and which are narrated in a suitably rococo style. The editors violate their own precepts several times, but quite justifiably and with good results, and the majority of the 23 stories do indeed follow this prescription.
"O Brave Old World!" charts an alternate history where relations between imperial England and one of her colonies are humorously reversed. Another might-have-been tale is "Pebble in Time," involving the Mormons and their migration westward. In "The Engine of Samoset Erastus Hale, and One Other, Unknown," a premature discovery of radio culminates badly. "Buchanan's Head" is the first of several offerings that might be construed as pure horror, dealing with the eerie death of a sensitive soul influenced by the bad end of a prior tenant in his dwelling.
The quest for the last living Archaeopteryx comes to an awkward climax in "The Odd Old Bird." "The Montavarde Camera" tells of a supernatural kind of photography and its soul-stealing consequences. The weird fate of do-gooder Dame Phillapa Garreck in the slums of London is recounted in "What Strange Stars and Skies." Three brothers, doomed to suffer for the sins of their ancestors, people the pages of the enigmatically titled "Twenty-three." A smell so deadly it can drive men mad? Out of such an improbable basis is spun the tale of "Dr. Bhumbo Singh." "The Peninsula" seemed a safe bit of old-growth forest--until its secret inhabitant was revealed. And the penultimate story, "El Vilvoy de las Islas," charts a Latin American legend about a Noble Savage from inception to ultimate impact.
Sobering illusions, wise fantasies
The lush genius of Avram Davidson (1923-1993) never flagged. This simple statement is attested to by the fact that nearly 40 years of stories in this volume (copyrights range from 1958 to 1995, omitting a posthumous collaboration from 2000) exhibit a sterling uniformity of craftsmanship and passion. Despite a hand-to-mouth existence, Davidson devoted all his skills and imagination to each and every story he wrote, neither compromising nor diluting his vision and approach.
This is not to say that Davidson could not alter his work appropriately for different markets. The stories here that first appeared outside the SF genre often display a simpler, less ornate style and more straightforward plots. For instance, "The Deed of the Deft-Footed Dragon" is a vignette about a Chinese laundryman that culminates in his violent repayment of a moral debt. "Business Must Be Picking Up" offers a simple chuckle hinging on some mild-mannered counterfeiting. "Summon the Watch!", with its elderly spinsters confounding crooks, might almost have been a cozy Agatha Christie tale. And "Dragon Skin Drum" would not have seemed out of place in the files of such globetrotter realists as Graham Greene or Somerset Maugham. Obviously, Davidson felt that an audience of mystery or mainstream readers were less receptive to his most demanding exercises.
But in the confines of our welcoming genre, Davidson felt liberated to cut loose. He could indulge his penchant for assembling arcane facts into a mosaic of glittering suggestiveness. He could whimsically portray deviants and oddballs, wimps and monsters, knowing he'd get a sympathetic reception. And he could employ historical turning points and bricolaged tidbits artfully in the full confidence that his readers would appreciate such abstruse material. Perhaps only in the genre magazines could Davidson have truly developed his one-of-a-kind literary worldview. Thus all the melancholy "what-if" arguments about his never-to-be mainstream success seem spurious in the end.
And what accomplishments Davidson did accrue! Just a single story here—"What Strange Stars and Skies," from 1963—contains within it the entire master plan of the steampunk movement. Without Davidson, no Blaylock or Powers, that's for sure. When you factor in such masterpieces as "Dr. Bhumbo Singh," in which Davidson exhibits both a flair for prose approaching poetry ("The spells are expensive, the smells are exorbitant, and the prices of its shrunken heads ... are simply inordinate.") and a Groucho-Marxian humor ("Underhand sweeps the filthy lair with a glance. [A broom would be better.]"), you appreciate that many of these compressed miracles are novels in miniature, which might explain why Davidson's novels themselves suffered by comparison.
