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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 22, 2012 23:16:14 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 Mysteries of Udolpho. Anne Radcliffe Varney the Vampire. Rymer All of Stapleton
Sorry missed yours first time James.
I love the early Moorcock, John and even managed to stumble through Gloriana way back, though at the time I don't think I'd read Peake and had no idea what Moorcock was on about. I was waiting for the swords to come out. The Amber series I had a stab at a few months ago and quit after about ten pages. possibly not very fair of me. Stapleton I read First and Last Men? At the time if a Bessie Bunter Comic had a rocket on it I assumed it was SF and read it. In the case of Stapleton I plodded through a dreary Penguin Classic waiting for a zap gun that never materialized.
My theory about 'other world' Fantasy of the Lilith ilk is that it usually fails when the hero enters the fantasy world. The longer the author delays this step and the less he elaborates on the fantasy world itself the more convincing it is. This seems generally applicable to fantasy which starts in the 'real world'. The author can avoid losing the audience if the fantasy world is utterly consistent and realistically described but its mostly best left to allusions and to brief passages. In Lilith for example the dance of death, if it was the only element of the fantastical, or one of very few, would have been immensely powerful. But by the time you get there you feel choked out with all sorts of unbelievable things.
This is a kind of 2am ramblings of a madman theory which by tomorrow will fall apart - The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe would be an immediate exception but perhaps I'm thinking mostly of adult fantasy.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 23, 2012 12:09:47 GMT
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 Lord of Light currently sits on my shelf unread. I'm sure I'll try it someday, but this is not encouraging me to do so. This Immortal and Damnation Alley were easy reads, but neither has stuck in my memory. I've also read two of Zelazny's short story collections, Unicorn Variations and Frost & Fire; I liked them both. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe would be an immediate exception but perhaps I'm thinking mostly of adult fantasy. I enjoyed the first four Narnia books as a kid (even at the time I thought the remaining three books were crap), but I doubt I could stand their heavy-handed sermonizing today. If I'm going to read that sort of thing, I'd much rather be subjected to MacDonald's theology than that of Lewis. The business about Susan in The Last Battle is pretty awful. I recall reading somewhere that Tolkein didn't think too highly of the (lack of) care that his friend Lewis put into developing the fictional world of Narnia. In fact, I think I might have mentioned that somewhere in my undergraduate thesis. Craig, I think that you've inadvertently started a fantasy/sf thread. ;D
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 23, 2012 14:37:25 GMT
Craig, I think that you've inadvertently started a fantasy/sf thread. ;D Dem will expel me shortly if we don't get more unreadable horror classics... I agree about Narnia. I loved them as a kid and I still rate the first book as a classic. The Last Battle, where Susan is basically sent to Hell for becoming realistic, demonstrates that awful kind of Christianity which pleasantly consigns otherwise decent people to eternal burning torment for holding a different opinion about the meaning of life. Lewis's smug certitude really bugs me now but the books are still readable.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 23, 2012 18:50:56 GMT
Dem will expel me shortly if we don't get more unreadable horror classics... Perhaps MELMOTH THE WANDERER? I have not attempted reading it, though, so I cannot really say.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 23, 2012 19:18:29 GMT
Dem will expel me shortly if we don't get more unreadable horror classics... Perhaps MELMOTH THE WANDERER? I have not attempted reading it, though, so I cannot really say. Maybe you could start and then give up... Bizarrely, I thought I'd have a look at the online text of this and having read about three paragraphs was struck with deja vu. The first chapter seems to be the last story in 'Irish Tales of Terror' which I just reviewed on the Vault. probably explains why I couldn't work out what the ending was. It looks quite readable really.
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Post by Douglas A. Anderson on Sept 23, 2012 20:38:50 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. I think you're absolutely right about this, Knygathin. And a lot of the titles on the "you can't finish" list require some extra effort on the part of the reader, and some readers, for whatever reasons, won't climb those mountains of words. I can see possible reasons for most of the books on the list, but I do wonder why anyone would put Sarban's The Sound of His Horn on it! It's such a short book, and though it has a clumsy narrative frame, I found it engrossing every time I've read it. As to the comments about translating The Night Land into English, well, there is such a beast: James Stoddard rewrote The Night Land in modern prose. It came out as an ebook in 2010, titled The Night Land: A Story Retold, and a trade paperback followed in 2011. Has any one read his version?
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Post by Douglas A. Anderson on Sept 23, 2012 21:04:33 GMT
It would help if THE NIGHT LAND were in English, rather than in some bizarre language that Hodgson himself made up. (The same goes for Burton's "translation" of the ARABIAN NIGHTS, of course.) I find the high esteem in which Hodgson is held a bit baffling. He may have been a visionary---although his visions involve giant octopi attacking ships a bit too often---but he was certainly no skilled craftsman. With the exception of a few short stories, his tales are generally horribly clunky and badly constructed. I admit he was very erratic in his accomplishments, but I think parts of his oeuvre deserve very high esteem. The novel The House on the Borderland is Hodgson's visionary best, and it's accessible. He could write superb sea horror stories (admittedly, a very small niche of the horror genre), and out of his hundred or so published short stories, I put about fifteen of the very best in Adrift on the Haunted Seas (2005). I left out one of my favorite other Hodgson stories (The Baumoff Explosive) because I'd just reprinted that in my Tales Before Tolkien anthology, but it belongs with Hodgson's best. What he did better than virtually anyone else was to animate and describe darkness---be it at sea, or in some of the Carnacki tales, or in The Night Land. I think Tolkien learned a bit from Hodgson by reading The Night Land just before he wrote the Moria chapters of The Lord of the Rings. Anyway, here's a list of the contents of my Adrift on the Haunted Seas: Introduction On the Bridge [vignette, regarding the Titanic] The Voice in the Night Verse: Grey Seas Are Dreaming of My Death Out of the Storm The Voice in the Dawn The Haunted Jarvee From the Tideless Sea (First Part) From the Tideless Sea (Second Part) The Derelict The Wild Man of the Sea Verse: The Place of Storms The Haunted Pampero An Adventure of the Deep Waters Demons of the Sea Through the Vortex of a Cyclone [nonfiction] The Finding of the Graiken A Tropical Horror Verse: Thou Living Sea The Mystery of the Derelict The Stone Ship The Shamraken Homeward-Bounder Verse: Farewell Source Notes
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Post by ramseycampbell on Sept 24, 2012 9:46:09 GMT
Dem will expel me shortly if we don't get more unreadable horror classics... Perhaps MELMOTH THE WANDERER? I have not attempted reading it, though, so I cannot really say. I found it perfectly readable myself.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 24, 2012 11:19:38 GMT
Anyway, here's a list of the contents of my Adrift on the Haunted Seas That's an excellent selection. The only story I would have added to it is the posthumously published "The Habitants of Middle Islet," which could be described as a darker version of "The Finding of the Graiken": both focus on a man searching for a sweetheart who's gone missing at sea, but the two quests end very differently. By the way, I have another of your Cold Spring Press books, H. P. Lovecraft's Favorite Weird Tales, to thank for introducing me to a number of classics, including "The Moon Pool," "The Night Wire," "The Canal," "The Bells of Oceana," and "In Amundsun's Tent." As for the Gothics, I'm embarrassed to admit that I've never even attempted to read anything by Walpole, Beckford, Radcliffe, Maturin, or Lewis.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Sept 24, 2012 11:27:54 GMT
What he did better than virtually anyone else was to animate and describe darkness---be it at sea, or in some of the Carnacki tales, or in The Night Land. I think Tolkien learned a bit from Hodgson by reading The Night Land just before he wrote the Moria chapters of The Lord of the Rings. I was very conscious of trying to follow his example in The Hungry Moon!
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 24, 2012 13:25:15 GMT
No embarrassment necessary there but Vathek is very good.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Sept 24, 2012 15:49:12 GMT
No embarrassment necessary there but Vathek is very good. I am not sure I think it is very good, but I did finish it.
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Post by Douglas A. Anderson on Sept 25, 2012 3:40:06 GMT
That's an excellent selection. The only story I would have added to it is the posthumously published "The Habitants of Middle Islet," which could be described as a darker version of "The Finding of the Graiken": both focus on a man searching for a sweetheart who's gone missing at sea, but the two quests end very differently. "The Habitants of Middle Islet" [Derleth's retitling of Hodgson's TSS "The Fear of Middle Islet"] was on my short-list, as were a couple of others, but when a couple of stories had similar set-ups, I ended up choosing one over the other, and I think that was the case with Habitants (it's set-up recalls not only "The Finding of the 'Graiken'" but also "The Bells of the Laughing Sally"). Repetition of situations is common amongst Hodgson's sea stories. By the way, I have another of your Cold Spring Press books, H. P. Lovecraft's Favorite Weird Tales, to thank for introducing me to a number of classics, including "The Moon Pool," "The Night Wire," "The Canal," "The Bells of Oceana," and "In Amundsun's Tent.". Delighted that you enjoyed these. That anthology was fun to put together (in fact, HPL did the selection!). I was surprised no one had used those lists of his beforehand.
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Post by pulphack on Sept 25, 2012 5:51:40 GMT
Tristram Shandy, which I always wanted to read because of the stylistic games, but despite several attempts the olde-worlde prose defeats me. James Joyce - anything by him, again because of the stylistic experimenting...but again I just get bored. (I have a theory that Beckett was so concise and eliptic because he was Joyce's secretary at one time, and in my fantasy world he gets so pissed off with typing up Ulysses that he vows never to waste a word)
Alan Moore's Voices From The Fire (Of The Fire? Don't have a copy to check anymore). I never finsihed this in the sense that I couldn't get on with the caveman bit at the beginning, skipped it and read the rest, came back to it but still couldn't get on with it. I must be one of those cretins Douglas Anderson mentioned who can't make an effort.
Dune I just didn't get - I don't doubt its classic status but it didn't grab me past page 100 and I gave up.
Moorcock - I've tried reading three of the Colonel Pyat books, on separate occassions, and have never got that far. They're too well written in the sense that the character narrating is so believably objectionable that I couldn't be bothered to listen to his fascist, racist idiocy. On a similar note, I once picked up the only novel (I think) by Richard Littlejohn, the Daily Mail ranter, on the theory of 'know your enemy', and was so enraged that I actually ripped it up after about 150pp - the only time I've ever done this to a book (though that was actually a very badly written novel, so doesn't really count).
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 25, 2012 7:53:22 GMT
Dune. Frank Herbert A Cure for Cancer. Michael Moorcock Brothel in the Rosenstraße. Michael Moorcock Byzantium Endures, Michael Moorcock The Ship of Ishtar. Merrit 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 Mysteries of Udolpho. Anne Radcliffe Varney the Vampire. Rymer Voices From The Fire. Alan Moore Tristram Shandy. Laurence Sterne All of Stapleton
Can't include Joyce (even though we'd like to) on the grounds that is literature although I suppose there is that old argument that some of it is fantasy.
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