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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 21, 2012 19:01:15 GMT
And of course Gormenghast. I have a nice edition, and still couldn´t make it past chapter 2. After I saw the tv-adaption, I wondered if I really have to Probably not. I couldn't make it beyond a few chapters either. It was like reading cement. Well it's rare I can make it through books that others can't but I loved Gormenghast! Dune, on the other hand...
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Post by ramseycampbell on Sept 21, 2012 20:30:41 GMT
Probably not. I couldn't make it beyond a few chapters either. It was like reading cement. Well it's rare I can make it through books that others can't but I loved Gormenghast! Dune, on the other hand... I still remember Jenny reading the whole of Titus Groan in an afternoon at the library where I worked in 1970. I also find it absolutely compulsively readable. I had to take several stabs at Nabokov's Ada but once you're past the first couple of chapters the old magic works.
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Post by David A. Riley on Sept 21, 2012 20:51:40 GMT
I loved the first two Gormenghast books, but I couldn't make headway with Titus Alone.
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Post by jamesdoig on Sept 21, 2012 23:26:30 GMT
For me it must be Anne Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho and Rymer's Varney the Vampire, though it's probably unlikely either called be called any good.
Peake and Hodgson I really like because of the vision and language - surely The Nightland is Hodgson's classic.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 22, 2012 8:05:02 GMT
. . . Peake and Hodgson I really like because of the vision and language - surely The Nightland is Hodgson's classic. I got used to the language in The Night Land after a while. One knows what to expect, and is able to swim smoothly through the repetitive sentences. This book wouldn't be what it is without the language. Its odd chanting way adds to the power and otherworldliness. It is demanding art, but in return rewarding. And you will never forget. The lazy cannot reach those sensations. I think Hodgson was wise enough to know what he was doing.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 22, 2012 8:42:21 GMT
Dune. Frank Herbert A Cure for Cancer. Michael Moorcock Brothel in the Rosenstraße. Michael Moorcock The Ship of Ishtar Merrit (1926) Gormenghast. Mervyn Peake Titus Groan. Mervyn Peake The Great Circle. Whitehead Lilith. George Macdonald Cell. Stephen King Night Land. Hodgson The Sound of his Horn. Sarban
Noticeable that fantasy is high on the list of unfinishables so far. I have a theory about that and I don't think its because this is essentially a horror hangout.
I used to be a completist and if I liked a book I would uncritically read everything by the author otherwise I am fairly certain some of these would be on my list.
I loved Dune. I thought the start was particularly brilliant - the sequels which were I suppose more conceptual, are frankly boring. Similarly with Peake. The bright carver sections were tedious but until Titus Groan, the trilogy was shaping up for brilliance - although a flawed masterpiece, I managed to finish it. Titus Groan was a very bad book but then Peake was very ill.
Tastes are strange Andy. We're usual batting from a similar wicket but here I really disliked the short story 'Boy in Darkness'.
Moorcock seems to go astray when he takes more than ten minutes to write a novel. I'm tempted to say I've never finished anything by Roger Zelazny and add him to the list but I just hate his stuff so it wouldn't be fair.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 22, 2012 11:56:27 GMT
Noticeable that fantasy is high on the list of unfinishables so far. I have a theory about that and I don't think its because this is essentially a horror hangout. I'd be curious to hear your theory. Mine goes like this: Horror is all about creating an emotion or mood, which tends to push horror writers toward brevity (OK, this is really Poe's theory, not mine). King, as the horror writer people are mentioning in this thread, would be the exception proving the rule. In contrast, fantasy is all about world building, which tends to push fantasy writers toward longer works. If a particular fantasy writer's approach to world building doesn't resonate with you, then it can become unbearably tedious.
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Post by andydecker on Sept 22, 2012 14:28:39 GMT
Moorcock seems to go astray when he takes more than ten minutes to write a novel. I'm tempted to say I've never finished anything by Roger Zelazny and add him to the list but I just hate his stuff so it wouldn't be fair. I don´t know. I think that Moorcock revised a lot of his fantasy to death. And I have a hard time reading, say, Elric, but I still enjoy Hawkmoon. It is more that there is the overwhelming opinion that the New Age stuff is so absolutly brilliant and important. But in our iPhone youtube world it is sometimes hard to feel this without thinking - or researching - constantly the historical context. But Moorcock is per se a difficult writer. It is hard to really understand that the writer of "Stormbringer" is the same guy who wrote things like "Byzantium Endures". And don´t worry, I also never thought Zelazny interesting in any way, I remember reading his first Amber and thinking: so what? Why is this supposed to be better than a lot of other fantasies? Maybe it is also a case of "you had to be there" . . . Peake and Hodgson I really like because of the vision and language - surely The Nightland is Hodgson's classic. I got used to the language in The Night Land after a while. One knows what to expect, and is able to swim smoothly through the repetitive sentences. This book wouldn't be what it is without the language. Its odd chanting way adds to the power and otherworldliness. It is demanding art, but in return rewarding. And you will never forget. The lazy cannot reach those sensations. I think Hodgson was wise enough to know what he was doing. Okay, now this is interesting. I never saw the original, know only the translation which I guess is okay. What is so different with this novel?
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 22, 2012 17:08:08 GMT
I'm tempted to say I've never finished anything by Roger Zelazny and add him to the list but I just hate his stuff so it wouldn't be fair. And don´t worry, I also never thought Zelazny interesting in any way, I remember reading his first Amber and thinking: so what? Why is this supposed to be better than a lot of other fantasies? Maybe it is also a case of "you had to be there" I like Zelazny. The first time I read Nine Princes in Amber I gave up halfway through, but reading his "The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth" inspired me to give it another try. The second time around, I kept going all of the way through the end of the first five-book series. Some of the ideas that he sets up in the first book pay off in interesting ways in later books (especially the meaning of the Pattern, the whereabouts of Oberon, and the true nature of Amber). Even so, I've never been tempted to read the second five-book series. Zelazny also dabbled in horror, and non-Zelazny-hating horror fans might like the Dilvish stories. The early ones are too flowery for my tastes, but he toned down the prose as he went along.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 22, 2012 17:36:32 GMT
The Night Land . . . Okay, now this is interesting. I never saw the original, know only the translation which I guess is okay. What is so different with this novel? If you have "zero recollection" of it, I guess something must be not so okay. The only translation I have heard of came out in 2011. Rewritten in contemporary prose. Maybe you read The Dream of X, Hodgson's own shortened version.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 22, 2012 18:07:26 GMT
The only translation I have heard of came out in 2011. Rewritten in contemporary prose. I think he means he read a German translation.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 22, 2012 18:08:49 GMT
I remember finding DOORWAYS IN THE SAND very entertaining. But LORD OF LIGHT goes on the list.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 22, 2012 21:05:25 GMT
I remember finding DOORWAYS IN THE SAND very entertaining. But LORD OF LIGHT goes on the list. Ah this is interesting. I had terrible trouble with some Zelazny including Lord of Light as I couldn't understand what on earth it was meant to be about until about halfway through but I thought it was me. The Dream Master was another impenetrable one. I do like the first five amber books and his Last Defender of Camelot short story collections, though
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 22, 2012 21:07:09 GMT
And Craig - I usually love Moorcock and I managed The Final Programme, but a lot of the other Jerry Cornelius stuff (including THE NEW NATURE OF THE CATASTROPHE & A CURE FOR CANCER) had me scratching my head.
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Post by andydecker on Sept 22, 2012 22:19:45 GMT
Jojo is of course right. (Thanks) I meant the German edition which I took from my shelves. There was a time when novels like these actually got the massmarket treatment. Unfortunatly it has no afterword. Any particularities tend to get lost in a translation, hence my interest.
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