Reviews for Mosses from an Old Manse

The average rating for Mosses from an Old Manse based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-05-26 00:00:00 Martha C Goss Jones was known in his day as the "king of the pulps" and they even remind you of that on the cover of "The House of Skulls". It's a collection of five stories, and although the title seems to suggest horror and macabre, you only really get a little of that in the final story, "Skulls", which is also the shortest one here. Most of the stories, namely the middle three, are rollicking manly adventure, invariably involving white men doing big things on "savage" continents. "Written in Red" and "Yellow Intrigue" are both set in China and star a guy named Breck is friendly with the Chinese and is always foiling plots by the Japanese. While "Written in Red" has some nice touches in its industrial espionage plot, "Yellow Intrigue" is kind of a weird fit of enthusiasm for "Young China" (this was 1921) and it fizzles in the last act. The title story builds with promising elements of a man obtaining a desirable house and car from a man who kills himself shortly after the transaction (or does he?). The hero in that one is soon shot at, has a mysterious woman in tow, and may or may not have a dinosaur or other monster stalking him in a house that has skulls from native graves cemented in its foundation. Sadly, the title story never really follows up on the epic potential, and it made me pine for Robert E. Howard's action packed supernatural tales. "Down the Coast of Barbary" is set in 18th century Algiers and has American, British, and Spanish adventurers entangling with Moors and various ambitious types bent on conquest. Principally it involves an American named Spence and an enslaved British woman who is sought after as an astrologer. This has got the straight adventure thing going, with plenty of plotting and betrayal, capture, etc. "Skulls" comprises only the last five pages and it manages to pack in more of the good stuff than the others. That one involves men in a smoking room on a ship discussing the fates of a party of Americans in Asia and there's a twist or two. The first three stories have an odd sort of "kinder gentler" quality to them, where narrators forgive villains their motives and aren't all that fired up to kill anybody. A little humanity is always welcome, but this seemed a bit awkward and out of place in genre storytelling concerning high adventure and murder. On my shelf I've got a couple of other Bedford-Jones books waiting for my attention and if they follow up on stuff like "Skulls" or "Down the Coast of Barbary" everything should go swimmingly.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-12-11 00:00:00 Tony Jimmerson Bit of a mixed bag. Some are really good, the detective stories and one about a time-travelling lothario are great, but there are sadly quite a few so-so ones too. Hardly surprising since this is basically a completist's collection of everything ever. Worth a punt for fans.