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Page 28

FORTRESS IN THE SKIES by Peter Mendelssohn, Published by Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc. Price $2.50.
Gentle People. I'm going to attempt a review of "Fortress in the Skies". I say attempt because I'm not sure whether I can do the book justice. It is fantasy, definitely fantasy, but what fantasy? Take a story, pour in the beauty of C.L Moore, the macabre of H.P. Lovecraft, the grandeur of A. Merritt, the peculiar time sense of Robert Nathan, the satire of Cabell, the characterization of Dickens, and a dash of Hans Christian Anderso; throughly mixed, and with a correct portion of each of these authors, the story would turn out o be "Fortress n the Skies".
This book will take it's place on my special shelf, along with "After the Afternoon", "World D", "To Walk the Night", and "Dr. Arnoldi", to mention a few. In other words "Fortress is a different, unusual and satisfying story.
The story? An assorted group of people (and ghosts) wander into a deserted village, built high on a cliff in southern France. The cliff is somewhat isolated by a river which flows around it. One by one these people arrive, not knowing why. Life is peaceful and content; festivals, weddings, young lovers picking blackberries in the woods and going for a swim in the nude, friendships are fasted, until-- the ghosts of the past begin to disrupt this idyllic community. 
From then on fantasy regins supreme. A ghost of the past leads his hundred horsemen into the sky to do battle with his ancient enemies, the river suddenly revolts and changes it's course leaving the city open to attack. There is an encounter between a mortal and a ghost, wherein the mortal is killed and the ghost cheerfully welcomes him into the realms of the dead. Old situations and ideas run rampant. There is the never empty bottle of wine, one draught of which send you into the past and two draughts into the future. There is the Centurion, four hundred years old, who wanders in and out of the story. His "wrinkles" crossed his bearded face in all directions like a maze of dry furrows of earth overgrown with a creeping weed and its white fluffy flowers. His hands, too, were like the dry crust of earth. The white flowering weed grew on the wrists, over the back of the hands, and along the fingers down to the tips. It grew from the nostrils of his small, beaklike nose."
The author is a master of description. For instance, "The wine flowed thick and oily from it ((the never-empty bottle)) and it had a black and burning taste. It smelled of smoke, of leaves smouldering on the dry earth in the thin air of the high mountains. It tasted of ripe, juicy graphes smarting alive in the fire, the stalks of vines burnng slowly, their brown skins dry and charred, their sap pressed out by the burning heat, sizzling, simmering, dripping boiling hot onto the dry earth, with the thin air and the smoke of the burning leaves drifiting across the field and the cold, golden sweetness of the pale autumn sun mingly with it. Another, "In the alleyways, under the vaults and proches, behind the corners of houses and blind windows of deserted rooms, darkness had been waiting its hour. Now it began to slip out. It crept round the street corners; it stalked forward with caution from the arches. It made long sliding stries as it moved across the square behind the backs of the two men who were talking quietly; it came up the cobbled passage on a hundred small and swiftly running feet. It clambered over the window sills, reached out fro the ground with long arms and legs, and stepped into the open. Quietly, at its approach, the dead houses closed their eyes and tucked themselves away into the folds of the falling night".
The book is not perfect. It sort of leaves you with a "what-the-hell's-it-all-about" feeling. Those when lean towards the science-fictio type of fantasy will not like it, but if you like pure fantasy, sprinkled with every day matter-of-factness, you will treasure the book as I do.

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FORTRESS IN THE SKIES by Peter Mendelssohn, Published by Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc. Price $2.50. Gentle People. I'm going to attempt a review of "Fortress in the Skies". I say attempt because I'm not sure whether I can do the book justice. It is fantasy, definitely fantasy, but what fantasy? Take a story, pour in the beauty of C.L Moore, the macabre of H.P. Lovecraft, the grandeur of A. Merritt, the peculiar time sense of Robert Nathan, the satire of Cabell, the characterization of Dickens, and a dash of Hans Christian Anderso; throughly mixed, and with a correct portion of each of these authors, the story would turn out o be "Fortress n the Skies". This book will take it's place on my special shelf, along with "After the Afternoon", "World D", "To Walk the Night", and "Dr. Arnoldi", to mention a few. In other words "Fortress is a different, unusual and satisfying story. The story? An assorted group of people (and ghosts) wander into a deserted village, built high on a cliff in southern France. The cliff is somewhat isolated by a river which flows around it. One by one these people arrive, not knowing why. Life is peaceful and content; festivals, weddings, young lovers picking blackberries in the woods and going for a swim in the nude, friendships are fasted, until-- the ghosts of the past begin to disrupt this idyllic community. From then on fantasy regins supreme. A ghost of the past leads his hundred horsemen into the sky to do battle with his ancient enemies, the river suddenly revolts and changes it's course leaving the city open to attack. There is an encounter between a mortal and a ghost, wherein the mortal is killed and the ghost cheerfully welcomes him into the realms of the dead. Old situations and ideas run rampant. There is the never empty bottle of wine, one draught of which send you into the past and two draughts into the future. There is the Centurion, four hundred years old, who wanders in and out of the story. His "wrinkles" crossed his bearded face in all directions like a maze of dry furrows of earth overgrown with a creeping weed and its white fluffy flowers. His hands, too, were like the dry crust of earth. The white flowering weed grew on the wrists, over the back of the hands, and along the fingers down to the tips. It grew from the nostrils of his small, beaklike nose." The author is a master of description. For instance, "The wine flowed thick and oily from it ((the never-empty bottle)) and it had a black and burning taste. It smelled of smoke, of leaves smouldering on the dry earth in the thin air of the high mountains. It tasted of ripe, juicy graphes smarting alive in the fire, the stalks of vines burnng slowly, their brown skins dry and charred, their sap pressed out by the burning heat, sizzling, simmering, dripping boiling hot onto the dry earth, with the thin air and the smoke of the burning leaves drifiting across the field and the cold, golden sweetness of the pale autumn sun mingly with it. Another, "In the alleyways, under the vaults and proches, behind the corners of houses and blind windows of deserted rooms, darkness had been waiting its hour. Now it began to slip out. It crept round the street corners; it stalked forward with caution from the arches. It made long sliding stries as it moved across the square behind the backs of the two men who were talking quietly; it came up the cobbled passage on a hundred small and swiftly running feet. It clambered over the window sills, reached out fro the ground with long arms and legs, and stepped into the open. Quietly, at its approach, the dead houses closed their eyes and tucked themselves away into the folds of the falling night". The book is not perfect. It sort of leaves you with a "what-the-hell's-it-all-about" feeling. Those when lean towards the science-fictio type of fantasy will not like it, but if you like pure fantasy, sprinkled with every day matter-of-factness, you will treasure the book as I do.