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Post by dem bones on Sept 5, 2010 16:17:39 GMT
William Hope Hodgson - The Casebook Of Carnacki The Ghost-Finder (Wordsworth, July 2006) Introduction
The Thing Invisible The Gateway Of The Monster The House Among The Laurels The Whistling Room The Searcher Of The End House The Horse Of The Invisible The Haunted Jarvee The Find The HogBlurb 'I saw something terrible rising up through the middle of the 'defence'. It rose with a steady movement. I saw it pale and huge through the whirling funnel of cloud - a monstrous pallid snout rising out of that unknowable abyss. It rose higher and higher. Through a thinning of the cloud I saw one small eye... a pig's eye with a sort of vile understanding shining at the back of it..." Thomas Carnacki is a ghost finder, an Edwardian psychic detective, investigating a wide range of terrifying hauntings presented in the nine stories in this complete collection of his adventures.
Encountering such spine-chilling phenomena as 'The Whistling Room', the life-threatening dangers of the phantom steed in 'The Horse of the Invisible' and the demons from the outside world in 'The Hog', Carnacki is constantly challenged by spiritual forces beyond our knowledge. To complicate matters, he encounters human skullduggery also. Armed with a camera, his Electric Pentacle and various ancient tomes on magic, Carnacki faces the various dangers his supernatural investigations present with great courage. These exciting and frightening stories have long been out of print. Now readers can thrill to them again in this new Wordsworth series. One of the Wordsworths i've been in no great rush to snap up mainly because i've a number of different paperback editions of the Carnacki adventures - each bought on the strength of their attractive cover artwork - but never feel enthused to brush up on his encounters with The Hog, The Horse Of The Invisible and friends. I've a lot of time for much of Hodgson's other work in the field, but Carnacki never really did it for me and i find myself routinely skipping his adventures whenever they reappear (as they frequently do) in anthologies devoted to phantom fighters, ghost-busters, psychic detectives and the like. Am i just misremembering them as deathly dull? Panther 1973 edition: proper cover artwork Bob Habberfield
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Post by pulphack on Sept 6, 2010 6:52:46 GMT
Deathly dull? Almost... I recall approaching Carnacki with great anticipation, and enjoying the first parts of most of the stories - but then it all turns out to be rational, and ends usually with Carnacki dismissing the narrator with some kind of insult or approbrium and it all peters out horribly. Hodgson is far better with things like 'The House On The Borderland', and the fact that Carnacki is the most reprinted of all his work (?) devalues him immensely.
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Post by lemming13 on Sept 6, 2010 14:21:27 GMT
I don't recall the endings being rationalised, except in one, The House Among the Laurels. I rather liked the way Carnacki entertained his friends with his adventures, then just turfed them out so he could get some sleep. But his novels are generally better. I'm almost through Boats of the Glen Carrig now, and it's been extremely enjoyable; Robinson Crusoe written by H P Lovecraft. House on the Borderlands comes next, then The Ghost Pirates. Can't wait; never had the chance to read either Glen Carrig or Ghost Pirates before.
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Post by marksamuels on Sept 6, 2010 16:44:56 GMT
Did someone mention Hope Hodgson? Phwwwwoar! Those French, eh? Funnily enough this 'un flashed up on a backdrop screen during a Hodgson panel I organised at the BFS social function a few years ago. Lord P probably remembers it... I had to cram-read The Nightland for that one. My brain still hurts from ye oldy worldy cod-archaism mixed with immeasurable gulfs of stupifying aeons. Mark S.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 6, 2010 17:23:18 GMT
proper cover artwork Bob HabberfieldDid he also paint this, one of my all-time favorite covers? If not, who did?
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Post by dem bones on Sept 6, 2010 21:49:23 GMT
Here you go, jojo Bob Habberfield delivered the Out of Space and Time covers. He was responsible for many of the wild and symbol-laden covers for Moorcock at Mayflower. I asked him for an interview but he politely declined. For the longest time I though the swirl on the green cover was an addition made by the previous owner on the rather tatty copy I owned. It was only when I stumbled across another copy I realised it was in the actual art. The only example of the type of motion lines more common to comics ever used on a paperback cover? Good enough for me. Funnily enough this 'un flashed up on a backdrop screen during a Hodgson panel I organised at the BFS social function a few years ago. Lord P probably remembers it... Mark S. Lord P. was probably in charge of projection duties. What a marvellous cover! You just can't top the old big tits & whopping great pincer combo, can you? Not quite as eyecatching, perhaps; William Hope Hodgson - Carnacki The Ghost-Finder [# 6] (Sphere, 1974) Blurb Carnacki .... 'ghost finder' and 'ghost breaker', a psychic sleuth fighting against sinister forces from Outside. These nine spinetingling tales of conflict with dark powers lurking on the rim of human consciousness include such classics as The Gateway of the Monster, The Thing Invisible and The Searcher of the End House.Carnacki The Ghost-Finder is Volume 6 in the Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 7, 2010 6:56:46 GMT
proper cover artwork Bob HabberfieldDid he also paint this, one of my all-time favorite covers? If not, who did? I'm not mad keen on the skull faced pointy thing as its a bit one dimensional but I admit that the over all look of the cover definitely gives the necessary shudder. These hanging bodies are extra creepy.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 7, 2010 7:05:51 GMT
It is an image that makes you stop and ask, "Just what the hell is going on here?"
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 7, 2010 7:44:06 GMT
It is an image that makes you stop and ask, "Just what the hell is going on here?" Yes. that uncertainty produces the fear and horror. I think I might be associating this cover art with with Moorcock's books in the seventies and they got a bit samey with that posture and 'clean' one dimensional look. But the hanging figures give it the necessary 'oh my god!' factor.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 7, 2010 7:53:46 GMT
The only problematic aspect, which I had noticed before, forgotten about, and just now noticed again, is the shadow of the, er, guy's hand. It is, perhaps, overdoing things a bit.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 7, 2010 7:55:02 GMT
Did someone mention Hope Hodgson? Phwwwwoar! Those French, eh? Funnily enough this 'un flashed up on a backdrop screen during a Hodgson panel I organised at the BFS social function a few years ago. Lord P probably remembers it... I don't remember it at all - which is very very odd indeed. I do remember the panel (I was chairing it!) but I must have been very taken up with the intelligent answers to my questions to not have been distracted by that crustacean-nudity combo! And is the young lady leaning against a barnacle-encrusted garden shed?
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Post by dem bones on Sept 7, 2010 9:52:52 GMT
William Hope Hodgson - The Ghost Pirates (Sphere, 1975, 1981) Blurb: There were rumours that the Mortzestus was haunted.
But when she had sailed two weeks out of 'Frisco before a fair wind, the crew dismissed them. Until, unaccountably, the rigging went slack. A ghostly form was seen to climb up from the sea. A great weight crashed down from the mast. The shadows thickened and an unnatural mist descended around the ship, leaving her helpless. Then a legendary ship bore down on the Mortzestus and it looked like the fate of the crew was sealed — to disappear on a calm sea ... without a trace.
"We know of nothing like the author's work in the whole of present day literature" - Bookman
Introduction by Gerald Suster, author of The Literature of Fear.to bring us back from the brink of frightful sordidness, here's a gorgeous Sphere edition of The Ghost Pirates. I think this has been mentioned before, but how intriguing is that "Introduction by Gerald Suster, author of The Literature of Fear"? Anyone have any info on that? A Suster overview of horror & the supernatural is just about as unmissable as it gets.
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Post by Dr Terror on Sept 7, 2010 10:36:59 GMT
I don't recall the endings being rationalised, except in one Don't remember which, but I think there's more than one that has a Scooby Doo type ending.
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Post by marksamuels on Sept 7, 2010 11:11:40 GMT
how intriguing is that "Introduction by Gerald Suster, author of The Literature of Fear"? Anyone have any info on that? A Suster overview of horror & the supernatural is just about as unmissable as it gets. It was supposed to have been an Arkham House book (apparently they even advertised it as forthcoming) but for some reason it never appeared. Maybe the Suster estate has the manuscript ... Mark S.
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Post by andydecker on Sept 7, 2010 13:53:12 GMT
but how intriguing is that "Introduction by Gerald Suster, author of The Literature of Fear"? Anyone have any info on that? A Suster overview of horror & the supernatural is just about as unmissable as it gets. Seconded! Here is a German edition of his maritime horror. But it is an original collection with 4 stories, 3 of which have the Derleth copyright. Suhrkamp 1997; reprint of a hardcover edition 1970 A very muted cover. And here comes the edition of Nightland from 1982, when it still was possible to do such books. Bastei-Lübbe 1982, 416 pages
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