Great review of Cisco's The Great Lover
http://www.bookotron.com/agony/Curre..._Review_5.html
Great review of Cisco's The Great Lover
http://www.bookotron.com/agony/Curre..._Review_5.html
That's a review of the scifi novel Robopocalypse .. ?Quoting D_Davis (view post)
Weird.That's a review of the scifi novel Robopocalypse .. ?
http://www.bookotron.com/agony/revie...eat_lover.html
"Grab Bags are Dangerous," by Frank Belknap Long
OK, so it's beginning to become more evident that overt racism was one of the unifying traits of the weird tale. Are they merely products of their time? Perhaps. Although I wonder if there was something more to it, something that touches upon humanities instinctual fear of the other. This story is actually quite good; it's about a man dressing up as Friar Tuck for a child's birthday party. He is to deliver presents from a gunnysack. However, the sack he uses contains a twisted and deadly secret. He discovers that the bag once belonged to an Arab! An Arab who lived in a room that "only an Arab could live in." Could the thing in the bag be the physical manifestation of America's fear of the middle-east, of the brown? I think it makes a lot of sense.
*****
"Through the Dragon Glass," by A. Merritt
Coming off of the masterpiece that was "The People of the Pit," I knew that my chances of being disappointed with what was next were high. And while this story was not nearly as good as that previous one, it was still very awesome. I am thoroughly impressed by Merritt, and I can easily imagine him becoming one of my favorite classic weird/fantasy authors. I enjoy his style more than Lovecraft's and Clark's, so that's saying something. Like "The Fox Woman," this story deals with Orientalism, and like "The People of the Pit," it is about a white explorer discovering something that he shouldn't. This story has a particular nasty moment when the main character describes his stupid, yellow man servant. Why is he stupid? Because he can't speak English. However, the story is well-told and entertaining; it details an act of thievery during the Boxer's Rebellion and an ancient piece of art that holds an otherworldly secret. If you can get over the bits of cultural imperialism, a good time is sure to be had.
"The Drone," by A. Merritt
So far, this has been my least favorite story in the collection. It's not bad, it just doesn't elevate itself in any way past mediocre. It starts off with a bang, and I really thought that it was going to go somewhere interesting, but Merritt dials things way back as the narrative progresses. It feels more like a set-up for an entire collection based around the idea of a Fortean Society that investigates humankind's ability to change into animal forms. It's a quick and entertaining read, but it lacks any real tension.
*****
"Fisherman's Luck," by Frank Belknap Long
Well what do you know, another weird tale about those creepy Chinamen! This one takes the Orientalism a little too far; the slur "chink" is used multiple times by a character. Man, I can't imagine any Asian person reading these tales when they were published, or even now. It's starting to get to me a bit, but I'm interested in exploring why these authors chose to use Orientalism as their main source of horror; I imagine that the cultural study of this facet of the weird tale will be rewarding. It can't just be mean-spirited-ness; there has to be something more, something deeper rooted. Anyhow, this story is about a guy who has a magic fishing pole and he catches the head of a chinaman who has been dead for many years.
It took me a second to realize that the "*****" was a separation between your two reviews.
I was deeply confused when you wrote that "The Drone" was basically kind of disappointing, then gave it 5 stars.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
"The Last Poet and the Robots," by A. Merritt
In this story there is a man named Lau, who is, of course Chinese. But he's a good guy! Throughout most of the story, Merritt refers to him as the Chinese, and sometimes calls him Lau. However, at the end of the story, Merritt calls him Lau, the Chinese. That's the most in-depth that the character is ever described.
The story itself is quite good, and unique. Sometime in the future, mankind has been enslaved by the very robots we've created. However, a small group of artists and intellectuals have escaped to a man-made, underground habitat where they continue to create while monitoring the surface of the planet until one of them devises a way to destroy the robots.
The story is a mix of SF and fantasy and contains some wonderful descriptions of the strange sights and sounds of the setting. Merritt is very good at creating atmospheric, otherworldly locales, and with this one I really felt as though I was reading something fantastic.
*****
"The Elemental," by Frank Belknap Long
This would have made a fantastic episode of The Twilight Zone. For reals. In it, a man is possessed by a force elemental and is seemingly blessed with incredible powers. That is, until his blessing turns into a curse and he finds himself in a dire situation.
Long is very good at constructing his short stories, and "The Elemental" is expertly plotted. Things move briskly, and yet everything is clear and concise. While this story isn't really brilliant, it is nonetheless a solid SF-morality tale.
"The Hounds of Tindalos," by Frank Belknap Long
Truly a classic of the genre. "The Hounds of Tindalos" contains everything that made the weird tale such a unique kind of fiction. It is a story of a man who takes his quest for material and spiritual knowledge too far, much too far, and of the doom that befalls him once his quest for knowledge is terminated.
It's hard to imagine that someone actually wrote this story, or that there was a time before this story existed. It all just seems too perfect, and like the hounds themselves, it should seem that this story would have existed throughout all of eternity; perhaps it was not created at all, perhaps Long stumbled upon it during some drug-induced occult experience during which he traveled to other dimensions coming face to face with the chaos that existed before this flimsy realm we call reality was put into order.
(Oh yeah, it also contains some of the racism. The drug responsible for the horrific revelation that the American explorer takes is, of course, of Chinese make)
It's so crazy to think that without George MacDonald, we may not have had Narnia, The Hobbit, and Alice in Wonderland. He was a huge inspiration on Tolkien, one of his books planted the seeds for Lewis' conversion from atheist to theist, and he played an instrumental part in getting Carroll to publish Alice. And yet he is largely overlooked today.
The Merkabah Rider series does sound intriguing. I'll keep an eye out for it.
Started reading "At the Mountains of Madness" this morning. Haven't really read HPL since high school....it's been about 15 years.
I've been listening to the HPPodcraft, a podcast that examines all of HPL's work. It's really good.
I also just ordered this:
A modern day radio-play of the tale.
[youtube]HCXiCS0f1gg[/youtube]
Oh cool, I love me some HP Lovecraft. Very cool link. *bookmarked*
For those who have read Game of Thrones, when does it actually get good? I'm currently around page 400 and I understand that this is a detailed and bloated high-fantasy series that requires a little bit of patience to get going but still, something interesting happen already! So far, the book reminds me of a day-time soap-opera with boring and flat characters. Considering that I have nearly reached the half-way mark, forcing myself to finish it shouldn't be too difficult but I really hope Martin has a few tricks up his sleeve and the narrative improves.
That's pretty much why I gave up on that book - twice. It's a ren-soap-opera, more of an alt-history political narrative. Not my kind of fantasy. I need something more Dunsanian, otherworldly, and mythological. Often times, when I hear people praise the book (or the series) they talk about the violence, death, and sex, or the politics, and none of these are qualities that I desire in my fantasy fiction.
I prefer the sword and sorcery of Howard and Smith, or the myth-making of Dunsany and Lovecraft, or the meta-narrative of The Dark Tower, or the weird adventures of Moorcock, Cisco and Elderac.
I've heard that something fantastic and supernatural starts to happen in the fourth book....so keep at it!
I read the first book while watching the TV show. The book really only gets going in its last 200 pages or so. The prose never improves.
I bought the second book but haven't read it yet. It's 1,000+ pages long and I keep thinking that my time would be better spent reading something else.
At the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft
On the surface, At the Mountains of Madness should be something that I detest.
I am a fan of brevity, and Lovecraft is the master of purple-prose, saying in impossibly-dense paragraphs what other authors would say in sentences.
I am a fan of showing, and Lovecraft's tales tend to be the ultimate in telling, using the passive voice to tell, tell, tell.
I am a fan of contextual plot, and Lovecraft unleashes one of the hugest loads of INFODUMP ever unloaded, even giving Moby Dick a run for its money as King of the INFODUMP.
These things are things that I always look for in my fiction, and they are things that Lovecraft rarely does.
However, I love this novella, and after this most recent re-read, I love it even more. In many ways, this tale can be read as the closing chapter of the first mythos cycle. It is a collection of nods and reveals as we, the readers, learn of the Old Ones and their cosmic journey and battles with the spawn of Cthulhu and the Mi-Go; we learn of the Shoggoths and of the creation of the human race; we learn of the Plataea of Leng,and of ancient lost cities; we learn of these things in great detail, as the two main characters - Danforth and Dyer - explore the hideously captivating and mysterious city of the Elder Things.
It's almost as if Lovecraft was apologizing for keeping readers in the dark for so long, of telling us that the things he was thinking were too terrible, too horrible to be put into words. Most of this novella is nothing but an incredibly long INFODUMP, an insanely-detailed decent into the cosmic history of things that we should not contemplate for the sake of our own sanity.
And it is a beautiful thing indeed.
And here is hoping that it is never, ever made into a film.
While packing up books last night I came across three volumes of Howard fiction I had completely forgotten I had...
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Reading China Mieville's The Scar. I like how he spent a lot of time setting up this vivid city in Perdido Street Station, and then for the follow up ditches it and sets the whole thing on the ocean.
HBO should make a show of this series: Women with insects for heads and cactus people.
Mieville is...unique.
He's like Neil Gaiman for people who hate Neil Gaiman...if you catch my drift.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
I don't. What do you mean?
I finished this novel the other day and to be honest, I really don't think this series would appeal to you at all, D.
The soap-opera elements became more tolerable as the novel switches gears around page 500 to more of the interesting drama concerning the political tensions between the different factions of the realm that lead to war. So yeah, a slow-burn and I'm glad that I stuck with it since this first book sets up the foundation for the rest of the series. The prose isn't profound and is sometimes uneven but its far from terrible. Martin does a really good job of creating a vivid world and succeeds to write some fine escapist high-fantasy literature. Sure, some of the characters fall flat but there are several stand-out ones that overshadow the others. I've also been catching up on the HBO series and not surprisingly, they are doing an excellent job with the adaptation. In many respects, I think it might even be better than the books.
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