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Post by andydecker on May 8, 2020 8:12:58 GMT
The Hastur Cycle -Edited by Robert M. Price (Chaosium, 1993, 304 p.) The stories in this book evoke a tracery of evil rarely rivalled in horror writing. They represent the whole trajectory of such notions as Hastur, the Kind in Yellow, Carcosa, the Yellow Sign, the Black Stone, Yuggoth and the lake of Hali. A succession of writers from Ambrose Bierce to Ramsey Campbell and karl Edward Wagern have explored and embellished these concepts so that the sum of the tales has become an evocative tapestry of hypnotic dread and terror, a mythology distinct from yet overlapping the Cthulhu Mythos. Here for the first time is a comprehensive collection of all the relevant tales.Content: Carcosa (1969) - poem by Richard L. Tierney The Mythology of Hastur - essay by Robert M. Price Haïta the Shepherd (1891) - Ambrose Bierce An Inhabitant of Carcosa (1886) - Ambrose Bierce The Repairer of Reputations - [King in Yellow] (1895) -Robert W. Chambers The Yellow Sign - [King in Yellow] (1895) -Robert W. Chambers The River of Night's Dreaming (1981) - Karl Edward Wagner More Light (1970) - James Blish The Novel of the Black Seal (1895) - Arthur Machen (variant of Novel of the Black Seal) The Whisperer in Darkness (1931) - H. P. Lovecraft Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley (1982) -Richard A. Lupoff The Mine on Yuggoth (1964) - Ramsey Campbell Planetfall on Yuggoth (1972) -James Wade The Return of Hastur (1939) -August Derleth Black Lotus (1965) - poem by Lin Carter The Unspeakable (1965) - Lin Carter The Candidate (1965) - poem by Lin Carter Carcosa (1989) - by Lin Carter Carcosa (1961) – poem by Lin Carter King in Yellow: A Tragedy in Verse - by Lin Carter and Robert M. Price [as by Lin Carter] This was the first of the numbered Chaosium Mythos anthologies, by the people who did the role-playing game. While the edition is a bit drab, even cheap looking, tradepaperbacks with often tiny print, it is a very good introduction to all things Lovecraft. Robert M. Price, who edited most of the volumes, is as different in his critiques and approach from S.T. Joshi as is imaginable, and even if I think some of his conclusions not very convincing, there is a lot of information in his introductions to the stories. Also it sometimes is a look outside the box. This edition – a later revised edition appeared with some additions – serves also as an introduction to writers like Bierce and Machen, who for a lot of readers (or the gamers) way have been something new at the time. But it is also a showcase (inadvertedly, for sure) to the less successful contributions of Mythos writing. Lin Carter's "A Tragedy in Verse" after James Blish with some re-writings by Price is absolutely ridiculous.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on May 8, 2020 19:07:54 GMT
This was the first of the numbered Chaosium Mythos anthologies, by the people who did the role-playing game. While the edition is a bit drab, even cheap looking, tradepaperbacks with often tiny print, it is a very good introduction to all things Lovecraft. I don't own this one, but I do have #2 ( Mysteries of the Worm, by Robert Bloch) and #7 ( The Book of Iod by Henry Kuttner). I enjoyed both of them. Robert M. Price, who edited most of the volumes, is as different in his critiques and approach from S.T. Joshi as is imaginable, and even if I think some of his conclusions not very convincing, there is a lot of information in his introductions to the stories. Also it sometimes is a look outside the box. That is a nice way of putting it.
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Post by helrunar on May 9, 2020 0:54:35 GMT
Thanks for that interesting review, Andreas. My memory is that all these Chaosium books quickly went out of print and that the ones that are focused on specific deities of the Cthulhu pantheon go for big bucks from sellers now, online at least.
I've probably mentioned this in the past--those of us who were horror and fantasy fans living in the US in the late Sixties and Seventies were very grateful to Lin Carter for all the work he did to get various books reprinted that were otherwise very difficult to find. Particularly with the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which was a marvelous highlight of my teenage years. I only bought a few of the books, but I'd always look through them when they showed up at the local shops. They were well distributed and I remember them appearing routinely all over the place. The four Clark Ashton Smith compilations were especially memorable to me, and was grateful that he included some of Smith's gem-like poetry in addition to the tales.
I was puzzled when I tried to read Lin Carter's own work and was unable to get very far at all with it. He was so knowledgeable and I was still figuring out that being learned in a thing does not always equate to talent.
Odd note about Hastur: the name was used by Marion Zimmer Bradley in her Darkover books, of which I have only ever read a few, but one of them was The Heritage of Hastur. No discernible connection to the imagery of the Chambers or Lovecraft tales. I've always assumed she used the name as a tribute to Chambers and to HPL--in the 1950s and early 1960s, Bradley was part of fannish sci-fi fantasy circles that were much smaller and more intimate than anyone could imagine today. Now it's all big business, but my impression back then was that if you were into all of it, it really was like being a member of a secret, rather exciting and exclusive club--or a cult. Of course people had a lot of fun playing with the imagery of cults which were such a big part of all the tales and stories we all read, back then. I didn't start reading all this till sometime in the late Sixties but it was still very much an "oddball" interest, even though that point the stories were all being distributed in mass-market paperbacks.
cheers, Steve
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Post by andydecker on May 9, 2020 12:17:29 GMT
I've probably mentioned this in the past--those of us who were horror and fantasy fans living in the US in the late Sixties and Seventies were very grateful to Lin Carter for all the work he did to get various books reprinted that were otherwise very difficult to find. Particularly with the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which was a marvelous highlight of my teenage years. I only bought a few of the books, but I'd always look through them when they showed up at the local shops. They were well distributed and I remember them appearing routinely all over the place. The four Clark Ashton Smith compilations were especially memorable to me, and was grateful that he included some of Smith's gem-like poetry in addition to the tales. I was puzzled when I tried to read Lin Carter's own work and was unable to get very far at all with it. He was so knowledgeable and I was still figuring out that being learned in a thing does not always equate to talent. I guess this is the common opinion on Carter today. A great editor - I still kick myself sometimes that I own not one of his Ballantine Adult Fantasy books whith the beauftiful covers - but a not so good writer. Still a great pasticheur, as Stefan Dziemianowicz called him. I still have a soft spot for his Thongor and the Green Star novels, though.
I always kind of wondered why Price included so much Carter material in his Chaosium books, even published a whole book with his Mythos stuff. Now I know after finally reading the small print after all these years. Price is the literary executor for Lin Carter. I have most of the Chaosium line, at the time of publishing there wasn't much Mythos material in the market so I bought it faithful. (Even after I stopped reading them because they went to do their books in a font which just was even smaller than this and became a chore to read.) I will scan them in the foreseeable future. Odd note about Hastur: the name was used by Marion Zimmer Bradley in her Darkover books, of which I have only ever read a few, but one of them was The Heritage of Hastur. No discernible connection to the imagery of the Chambers or Lovecraft tales. I've always assumed she used the name as a tribute to Chambers and to HPL--in the 1950s and early 1960s I read somewhere why Zimmer Bradley did this name-dropping, but frankly I forgot. For a while Zimmer Bradley was a kind of mandatory reading in the 80s and 90s after her The Mists of Avalon became a huge seller all over the world, one of the few Genre novels which crossed into mainstream. The book is still in print in Germany after all these years. One just had to read her because feminist SF and Fantasy was the thing. While I liked the few Darkover novels I read, I never bothered with Mists as I had overdosed on the whole Arthurian and Celtic Fantasy thing. And the two of the countless Sword and Sorceress anthologies her cycle of followers produced for DAW Books I got I thought deathly dull, just like the Darkover anthologies they did. Of course this was long before she fell from grace and became an embarressment to the current blogger generation.
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Post by jamesdoig on May 10, 2020 1:37:34 GMT
I guess this is the common opinion on Carter today. A great editor - I still kick myself sometimes that I own not one of his Ballantine Adult Fantasy books whith the beauftiful covers - but a not so good writer. I've got about 20 or so - you can still pick them up for a dollar or two here - but I can't remember having read more than a few. I put them together a couple of weeks ago as they were all over the place, with a view of checking them against that great Paperback Fanatic article about the series. Needless to say, none of the ones I have are particularly scarce.
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Post by cromagnonman on May 10, 2020 10:01:23 GMT
I guess this is the common opinion on Carter today. A great editor - I still kick myself sometimes that I own not one of his Ballantine Adult Fantasy books whith the beauftiful covers - but a not so good writer. I've got about 20 or so - you can still pick them up for a dollar or two here - but I can't remember having read more than a few. I put them together a couple of weeks ago as they were all over the place, with a view of checking them against that great Paperback Fanatic article about the series. Needless to say, none of the ones I have are particularly scarce. I would imagine that I've got about the same number James, but almost entirely different titles funnily enough. I used to have more but I gave the Morris books to my sister knowing that there was no way I was ever going to read them (life being too short which is more than you can say about his books). I believe there were 65 titles issued in total. And your CASs are pretty scarce these days. I still think its a great series and was particularly pleased to pick up a copy of the Dunsany OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY from Black Gull Books in Finchley last year. The anthologies are especially good, I think, and remain excellent resources/primers for anyone with an interest in fantasy fiction. They remain amusing testaments also to Carter's quite shameless self-promotion, crowbarring in his own hackwork to sit beside the work of acknowledged masters. His stories stick out like sore thumbs. Particularly the "excerpts" from the infamously interminable "work in progress" Khymyrium. I wonder if anyone has ever attempted to stitch all those excerpts together to see whether they form anything remotely coherent. I wouldn't bet much that they do. But hey, maybe some gung-ho fanboy could take on the task and insert his own stories inbetween to fill in the gaps. Now that would be poetic justice.
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Post by andydecker on May 10, 2020 12:22:22 GMT
As I rely solely on online-sellers and no longer order directly in foreigen countries due to the ridiculous postage the supply is limited. The prices are often okay, no.9 The Sorcerer's Ship by Hannes Bok to choose one randomly, would cost me currently about 12 Euro. But most of the classic novels are avaiable as cheap Kindle. Also I have a few in old translations, even William Morris, who indeed requires a lot of patience. A while ago I wanted to re-read and read the whole E.R.Eddison cycle. I gave up fast.
A lot of these books have become difficult to read, I fear. Things like Hodgson's Night Land or Mervyn Peake, which I think I started four times before giving up.
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Post by helrunar on May 10, 2020 13:49:29 GMT
Thanks for the wonderful photo, James. I tried clicking to see the full size version but all I could access was an advert to sign up for the host site. I guess the days of free image hosting are pretty much dead and buried... perhaps a few survivors still wander the further reaches of the interwebs. Lovely to see appreciation for the Adult Fantasy series! Richard, I'd forgotten all about Khymyrium (or however it's spelt). There's a paragraph about it here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_CarterI'd never heard about his forays into porn, late in life. cheers, Steve
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Post by cromagnonman on May 10, 2020 15:49:04 GMT
Thanks for the wonderful photo, James. I tried clicking to see the full size version but all I could access was an advert to sign up for the host site. I guess the days of free image hosting are pretty much dead and buried... perhaps a few survivors still wander the further reaches of the interwebs. Lovely to see appreciation for the Adult Fantasy series! Richard, I'd forgotten all about Khymyrium (or however it's spelt). There's a paragraph about it here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_CarterI'd never heard about his forays into porn, late in life. cheers, Steve That would be the infamous TARA OF THE TWILIGHT I presume Steve. A book which I suspect could never be published now on grounds of taste and decency and should never have been published then on the basis of being a crock of sh*t. Apart from a few short stories I think that was the sum total of Linwood's foray into porn. But it does seem strange in retrospect - considering his magpie tendencies - that he didn't seize the zeitgeist of the times and set out on the road to Gor. But I guess he was only able to channel authors when they were safely dead.
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Post by helrunar on May 10, 2020 16:18:52 GMT
Thanks for that chuckle, Richard! In the Wikipedia article it pretty much says that Lin's life went quickly downhill after he hit age 50. Cancer and alcoholism hit him hard. It was a sad ending for him. When you think of how huge sword and sorcery stuff became in the 80s/90s, it could have been a major career rebirth for him.
He was so involved with organized fandom from a very early period... would be interesting to read something longer about his life sometime... with quotes from letters, etc.
All the best, Steve
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Post by andydecker on May 10, 2020 17:51:20 GMT
Thanks for that chuckle, Richard! In the Wikipedia article it pretty much says that Lin's life went quickly downhill after he hit age 50. Cancer and alcoholism hit him hard. It was a sad ending for him. When you think of how huge sword and sorcery stuff became in the 80s/90s, it could have been a major career rebirth for him. He was so involved with organized fandom from a very early period... would be interesting to read something longer about his life sometime... with quotes from letters, etc. All the best, Steve Indeed a sad endling. But I have my doubts that he would have managed to re-start his career. E.C.Tubb or Ken Bulmer couldn't adept to the changing times either.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on May 13, 2020 1:32:29 GMT
A lot of these books have become difficult to read, I fear. Things like Hodgson's Night Land or Mervyn Peake, which I think I started four times before giving up.
The Night Land and the Gormenghast books are odd cases in that they blend visionary imagination with long stretches of virtually unreadable prose. I could only make it through them by reading the good parts and skimming the slow parts. Though it seems to receive relatively less attention, I would recommend Hodgson's The Ghost Pirates over any of his other novels--it's the most tightly written and plotted of his longer works.
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Post by helrunar on May 13, 2020 2:48:33 GMT
The film version of Gormenghast--which I seem to recall having been aired as a BBC miniseries in 2000--is really worth seeing if you can find it. I am afraid I have never read any of the books.
I remember attempting to read The Worm Ouroboros at around age 16 and failing miserably... I thought the drawings were quite cool, though.
H.
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Post by Knygathin on May 13, 2020 13:27:41 GMT
Hodgson's Night Land I started four times before giving up. I began reading The Night Land aloud by candlelight, and all the way through. After a few pages I got used to the repetitive sentences, and it all turned into one long mesmerizing incantation. Monsters and recurring weirdness were opulently rewarding. One must not forget, that it is also one of the greatest love stories ever written. I liked the second half return journey perhaps even better than the first half, all coming together to a dramatic, spectacular, and satisfying finale. I think the Last Redoubt pyramid is very similar emotionally to the shopping mall brief sanctuary in Dawn of the Dead. It has everything you could want to feel snug under such harsh conditions. But improved and fully worked through in every regard.
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Post by andydecker on May 13, 2020 16:01:49 GMT
The film version of Gormenghast--which I seem to recall having been aired as a BBC miniseries in 2000--is really worth seeing if you can find it. I am afraid I have never read any of the books. I remember attempting to read The Worm Ouroboros at around age 16 and failing miserably... I thought the drawings were quite cool, though. H. The film version was nice. I have seen it a few years ago on TV. It had a good cast. I had bought the three novels in a nice Mandarin edition years earlier, I think through a British Bookclub. Don#t know if this still exists, you had to buy a book quarterly, but they did a lot of special editions. I got a few James Herbert from them. I had read about the writer in some Moorcock forewords, how much he was a influence and so on. I find it often interesting to discover the roots of something. Of course you never know if the importance of the work in question is not exaggerated. And sometimes it is more intersting to read about a work insted of struggling through it.
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