The Magic of Malaya by Cuthbert Woodville Harrison (1910)

Of the personage of Cuthbert Woodville Harrison I could find no concrete information, beyond his having authored books relating to Malaya (before a series of political and colonial reorganisations eventually lead to it becoming modern Malaysia), being the author of an oft-cited refference work, An illustrated guide to the Federated Malay States, and this, together with his name appearing on such works as Some notes on the government services in British Malaya and Council minutes, Perak, 1877-1879 leads one to believe Harrison was a colonial official within the Federation/Protectorate.

His The Magic of Malaya seems to be his only time turning to writing fiction, or at least partly fiction, and on the whole it is a more successfull attempt than those of many writers acquainted with the dull world of nonfiction stepping out uncertainly into the wilds of the romantic market.

The collection contains stories of life in Malaya, usually with a Colonial official holding at least three different posts fumbling about the grass somewhere. There are vignetes that, as they are written in the first person, seem likely to have been at least partly been inspired by real events, or at least had been made from the fabric of real events re-arranged differently. There is nothing that suggests anything out of the ordinary or unreal in tales such as Ah Heng, where a chinese settler takes a woman from a pleasure house to be his wife and very incrimentally increases the size of his land without having to pay extra for it. There is a tale of the inspection of the innards of a dead crocodile after it is suspected of having killed someone, a description (rather than a story, as it lacks any actual plot) of the transport of patients suffering from beri-beri to a remote hospital, and even a lengthy description of the journey undertaken by a Colonial official holding the customary three different offices of Chairman of the Sanitary Board, Collector of Land Revenue and District Officer on his route and the complaints, petitions and explanations given him along the way. None of these, excluding the last one, is very long, and there isn't much incident to relate. The Sinking of the Schooner has a former pirate recount his ambush on a well laden schooner, but that too is brief and cuts away just as the ship is shot for the first time.

Beyond these there are also several diversions which disperse with any trappings of fiction, such as a monologue on the ideal Malay servant, on the psychology of bullock cart drivers, or a summary of the various sieges and conquests within Malacca.

But then you have a short list of tales that actually not only count as fiction, but which are to be classed as supernatural. Pawang Helai, the first of these and the first tale of the collection is the best, dealing with the murder of a chinese peddlar at the hand of a native Sakai wizard who seemingly can change shape and call upon the help of other animals.

The Hallucinations of Mat Palembang follows the title character as he himself follows his dead father up a tree to eat with all his dead relatives, and is also rather impressive in it's description.

Finally, the oddest of the bunch is The Room of the Captain. It doesn't concern Malayans or Malaya, is the only story taking place onboard a ship, and has a MacKenzie, an old, presumabely British sailor as the protagonist. Now he gets promoted to the position of captain after many years of anticipation in a most unusual way: the old Captain simply vanishes without a trace. This sets the crew a-talking and there is some uneasiness about the ship. But MacKenzie keeps getting startled by an inexplicable puddle forming next to the former captain's bed and every night he feels more and more of a tight hold on his shoulder and can more and more clearly hear someone talking to him at night. But no one is ever there and his nerves are always unsettled, until he is forced to clean up the wet stains himself so the crew won't notice, anticipating that each night the situation will get worse after he hears the old Captain ordering him to do something, until.....

And that's where the whole build-up of the story is jettisoned, as Harrison has MacKenzie retire to his old quarters, refuse the Captainship and has the new Captain never run into any perril. The reason for the dead Captain's disdain for MacKenzie's leadership is never explained, nor what actually happened to the former Captain.

If anything, that is probably the biggest disappointment of the book, one can feel that in more capable hands the story would continue onwards and perhaps leave off with a more unpleasant end for the stand-in Captain and his shipmates, but alas.

Now Harrison's writing does include some arrogant gibes at Chinese and Malays alike, written from a colonial perspective and that may irritate the modern reader, though there are a few interesting bits and pieces scattered about the book that may be worth the time.

Na prost!: phantastischer Königsroman by Paul Scheerbart (1898)

Paul Scheerbart is a forgotten German writter who promoted glass architecture, apparently drank excessively and, according to some, may have starved himself to death in protest against World War I.

This isn't his first novel, however it seems to not be one of his more "famous" ones, at least as far as his works go when translated into English for a devoted cult audience.

The novel, sadly, is unpopular for a good reason. It starts out quite good.....but then becomes very bad. One seldom sees such a plunge from the heights of quality to the depths of irrelevance. The story starts out with three learned professors being hurled into space in a giant bottle after the Earth is vaporised when colliding with a meteor. This part is the strongest, and one is reminded of Leonid Andreyev, or Walter Owen. But then the book turns into a long and tiresome tirade of the professors reading out and then commenting on short essays and philosophical allegories and trying to discover the meaning of the universe in a grain of sand, and identify every character and event in the story with some deep and obscure allegorical meaning. Sometimes the stories begin somewhat promisingly, like the story of the gigantic seven headed dragon that flies through space devouring everything.....but like all the rest, the story ends almost immediately, with the dragon turning into a woman.

All the stories are like that, but some are a lot less interesting even in concept, like the fantastic adventure of a fly that sits on a lump of sugar in grandma's tea.

Very, very occasionally the recital of these trivial philosophising inanities is interrupted by a resurgence of the gloomy, post apocalyptical atmosphere, but these moments are sadly rare. Also a few times the professors show a comic misunderstanding of the social and political establishment in 20th century Europe, being from some far distant future that is never propperly expanded upon, such as the belief subway tunnels were used primarily to allow armed Police units to perform military maneuvers when suppressing the masses.

Having read Scheerbart's various short pieces taking place in the ancient Near East, in Assyria, Babylon or Palmyra (the last one having the mischeviously amusing title of "Of People who Lost their Heads, or a Palmyrian Torch-dance novela" that can only be thought up by a rogueish German), I know he can write well, even when dealing with vignettes that only really showcase a moment in the lives of people and places, but this one was rather a dissapointment.

The Fatal Move and Other Stories by F.W.O'Connell (1924)

Frederick William O'Connell (1876–1929) was an Irish clergyman and scholar specialising in the popularisation and preservation of Irish, writing such works as A Grammar of Old Irish, Irish Self-taught or translating Jekyll and Hyde into Irish, as well as having been a voice of 2RN, the first Irish radio station.

Not to try and under sell his accomplishments, however writing fiction does not appear to be one of them.

The title story reeks of a gothic atmosphere. A crazed chess player encases his romantic rival in a metal chair and has him play on an electrified chess board, where two random pieces and a series of squares on the board were arranged so that these touching would result in the unlucky player's being roasted in his chair.

A very intriguing idea, but O'Connell barely devotes any time to the actual game, perhaps due to not being a great Chess player himself. It's all sadly over before it propperly begins. W. C. Morrow would have handled this better, though he'd probably have both fried to a crisp due to a freak accident.

The Vengeance of the Dead is a brainless affair where a Hindu man argues with his Muslim neighbour, hypnotises him and causes his death and then is killed shortly after a seance where the dead man raps out his name.

The Fiend that Walks Behind is another short affair that, in more competent hands, could have been handled well. A physician who stole the work of his deceased colleague and claimed it as his own contracts the same paranoia that his friend wrote about, namely the utter dread of someone or something always following behind his back. The whole thing is presented in a bit of a heavy handed way and the main character committs suicide before much really happens.

The Homing Bone has a physician purloin a femur from a pile of bones in a demolished cemetary.....only to dream that a pair of skeletons barge into his room at night with their femur-less comrade inside of a coffin, and then again with a coffin bearing the physician's name. Then when that silliness is past the doctor lies down but he hears rapping and then someone opens the door of his room and leaves. Oh what M. R. James could have done with the basic idea !

In Professor Danvers' Disappearance, Professor Danvers apparently disappears by pretending to be his own guest, leaving behind his clothes as if he disappeared from them supernaturally. Presented in the dry tone of an ex-detective.

The Rejuvenation of Ivan Smithovitch is the weirdest (and not in the way we like round these parts) part of the whole collection. In some unexplained possible future England was taken over by Russians who supressed the English language so that only 6 people, one of them the title character, can speak it. In order to stop it from dying out he has monkey glands grafted onto his frame and becomes mentally regressed to the state of an ape. Written from the perspective of a somewhat bitter Irishman dealing with the preservation of his own native language, but too brief, lacking in any details and culminating in a most undignified and silly finale.

I can see why O'Connell stuck to translating other people's fiction rather than writing his own very much.

Forty Years with the Damned, Or, Life Inside the Earth: A Novel (1895) by Charles Aikin

This is one of those instances where the chronicler of the obscure is left having to confess that no amount of digging has been able to produce anything at all about the author of the work in question. The publisher himself seems very obscure, and online sources can't even agree on his name, though the book quite clearly mentions Regan Printing House.

The novel in question, from a cursory glance, would seem to come from a somewhat amateur publication. There are instances of repeated words, missing characters. The writing itself would also suggest someone dabbling rather than an experienced hand.

In short, this is formally a story about a paradisical after-life existence inside the Earth, in a place called Surey. However, seeing as this is a Utopia of the most sickening sense, the author decides, after subjecting us to a full chapter of extremely tedious and long winded descriptions of theatres and opera houses, to not focus on this Utopia overmuch, instead letting people either speak of their past lives or to follow the main character on a spirit journey to Mars.

These are a mixed bag. For example, the only story taking place inside the Earth, dealing with the attack on Hell, is over-brief, lacking in detail, and is over before it's pretty much started and in contrast, the story of a Southerner pursuing his eloping daughter and then shooting her husband while drunk ends up having more substance and holds a stronger interest.

The Martian story is the most interesting, and one would almost hope that Aikin focused only that, as the spirit-intervention of the main character is extremely brief, circumstantial and could be easily supplanted.

On the other hand the story focusing on the Toltecs and Aztecs is the most confusing, as Aikin seems to just treat them as Medieval Europeans, being knights-errant, houlding tourneys on horseback with lances and the like, and it's one of the more odd goofs of the writing, which also includes such statements as "black people are by natural law motivated to serve white people even in the after life", "no one will ever reach the North Pole", or a completely meaningless incident where the main character runs into a conclave of Sirens talking about all the bones of the victims displayed in their palaces, which information the main character learns only to leave and for it to never come up again.

And then the hunter who had all this narrated to him wakes up from a dream.

I will not gratify this last development with a reply.