New year, new books... What we're reading in January.

[j d worthington]

Ravenus: As far as I'm concerned, and I think most Howard readers would agree, "Beyond the Black River" is one of his best; he put many of his passions and some of his tightest writing and plotting into that one, and the touches of the supernatural are both poetic and eerie. As for "Jewels of Gwahlur"... that's an oddity, in that Howard decided to poke a little fun at himself and at Conan (and several of the stereotypes of this sort of story) while nonetheless doing a fairly straight story... so it wobbles. Some lovely stuff, and some genuinely eerie atmosphere here and there, but his rapid changes between these and burlesqueing them make it an uneven tale. I have to admit, though, that I always grin when he comments that, after she's been rescued yet again, Muriela attempts to go "into the usual clinch", in Howard's phrase. I think that phrasing itself is clue enough that Howard was very well aware of how stereotyped women tended to be in such stories, and this was one of the reasons he had such characters as Salome, Belit, Agnes d'Chastillon, etc. (Just as in "Red Nails", as he notes in his letters, he decided to pull out all the stops as far as he could with the magazine market, and play on the bloodiness and make the lesbian element overt rather than in the background, in part because he wanted to simply spice it up, and in part because he felt he'd had to pull his punch too often in depicting such a "lost city" as Xuchotl.)

 

[ravenus]

Ho, where are these letters available...any online freebies or should I be looking at Amazon? Howard's writing fills me with the same kind of joyful involvement as the stories of Clark Ashton Smith and HP Lovecraft (and I believe they were pretty pally with each other). There is even a similar sort of thread in how they choose to describe things:

(From Black River)...his ears were outraged by the most frightful cry he had ever heard. It was not human, this one; it was a demoniacal caterwauling of hideous triumph that seemed to exult over fallen humanity and find echo in black gulfs beyond human ken

Change the context appropriately and this description could have just as well come from a tale by Smith or Lovecraft.

 

[j d worthington]

Necronomicon Press put out two volumes of his letters, Selected letters 1923-1930 and Selected Letters 1931-1936, which include several of his letters to Smith, HPL, Derleth, and others (however, having just had a peek, looks like these things are really up there in price now, but you might get lucky); and there are some of his letters in the Ace paperback The Howard Collector from the 1980s, as I recall. There may be some online on some of the Howard sites, such as The Dark Man, which is a journal devoted to REH studies (originally a paper-and-ink magazine, now online); and I hear that there may be a volume of the complete existing correspondence between HPL and Howard out sometime in the next couple of years. You'll also find a few such items in Glenn Lord's The Last Celt if I remember correctly (I know that it reproduces a portion of an issue of The Junto, for instance, and a few other oddities), which was a Grant hardbound, but released in tpb by Berkley as well...

The Robert E. Howard Bookshelf

The Letters of Robert E. Howard - two reviews by Don Herron

You might also try out some of the links given in the Wiki article on REH

Robert E. Howard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[j d worthington]

On a different note: finished Irving's Astoria; very interesting stuff (though those last 13-14 pages darned near drove me blind, being appended material that was printed in 6-pt. type!). Think I'll take a brief break from it before I go back to finish the rest of the volume, and read another Doc Savage: The Lost Oasis.

 

[Rosemary]

Finished Medalon last night. Very good book indeed. All you Fallon fans have been keeping these to yourselves. Shame on you!

And tonight I'll start Lion of Senet.

I really enjoyed Medalon but didn't think Jennifer Fallon's Lion of Senet was very good. I hope you enjoy it though!

I'm on the 2nd volume of the trilogy 'Through The Shadowland and Beyond' by Anne Kelleher. Am finding it much more enjoyable than the first volume.

 

[Lenny]

I am liking it, but you're right in saying that it's not as good.

 

[Carolyn Hill]

Finished Alpha by Catherine Asaro. I liked it somewhat better than the first in the series, Sunrise Alley.

Starting The Long Run by Daniel Keys Moran, for the CN book club.

 

[Lenny]

I'm starting to like The Lion of Senet more and more.

For those who have read it, I'm up to the point where Dirk is on the Lions boat travelling to the mainland from his home. For those who haven't, it's about halfway through.

I'm seeing the dramatic irony in it, now. The Lion keeps on making small, almost throwaway comments that Dirk doesn't seem to pick up on, mainly because he doesn't now.

One was the Lion asking when his birthday was, Dirk replies "next month", the Lion replies "I would have thought it would be a few months still."

Another is the Lion telling Dirk he is like his father. Dirk thinks he means Wallin, but the Lion, I'm sure of it, means Johan.

Only one way to find out - read on!!

 

[iansales]

Finished Warring States by Susan R Matthews, the latest in her Jurisdiction series. Could have been edited a bit better. And I think I'd have enjoyed it more if I'd reread the earlier books first. Also finished Parietal Games: Critical Writings by and on M John Harrison, edited by Mark Bould & Michelle Reid. Excellent book.

Fancied something a little less taxing, so started The Lost Fleet: Dauntless by Jack Campbell. I don't know why I read military sf -- 99% of it is complete rubbish. Perhaps I'm hoping I'll one day find a good military sf author. The best I've found so far is Richard Fawkes.

 

[Rosemary]

I'm now on the 3rd volume of the trilogy 'Through The Shadowland and Beyond' by Anne Kelleher.

Here the setting is similar to historical fiction, with Druids and the Ard Rhi of Ireland. This I should enjoy, as I am very interested in anything Druidic. Ms Kelleher's quality of writing also seems to have improved, keeping the interest going.

 

[j d worthington]

Have finished The Lost Oasis and begun another anthology of Lovecraft-related tales, The Shub-Niggurath Cycle. Some of these things stretch the connection, but the older stories, especially, are quite nice to have... This one opens with a few tales in the "antiquarian ghostly tale" vein. This book traces the development of the concept, from tales which use the prototypes, as it were, through later Lovecraftians (such as Ramsey Campbell) who pick up on hints in Lovecraft's own work....

 

[dsmith]

Finished Alpha by Catherine Asaro. I liked it somewhat better than the first in the series, Sunrise Alley.

Starting The Long Run by Daniel Keys Moran, for the CN book club.

I'm also reading The Long Run.

 

[Lenny]

I finished Lion of Senet at 5am on Sunday morning - I liked it. The fsecond half, with Dirk in the palace, is a lot better than the first half. So there's another trilogy to add to my to-read list.

Last night I started Gemmel's The Swords of Night and Day. I'm a fifth of the way in and I'm already loving it.

 

[No Inspiration]

Since Christmas I've read the whole GRRM series ASoIaF. I then read `Son of a Witch` which is kind of a follow up to Wicked. Then I read two parts of Jack Whyte's Arthurian series, the ones from Lancelot's point of view `Clothar the Frank' and `The Eagle`. I'm now re-reading A Song for Arbonne, which is a GGK book. After that I have the first set of the Amber Series coming.
Lena.

 

[Allegra]

I'm reading Inkheart and having fun. There are some passages I wanted to read out loud to, er, my doggies.

 

[Nesacat]

Am glad you're having fun with that one Allegra. I loved both Inkheart and Inkspell and am waiting for the last. I hear tell there is also a movie in the works.

 

[Rane Longfox]

Having finished exams, finally getting around to some reading. Having a go at Neal Asher's Voyage of Sable Keetch, and loving it. Asher is a quality writer - this one might even top Brass Man

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Hey.

I finished Girl With The Pearl Earring. It's basically a romance novel, but I can't complain too much - the prose was good, the characterisation too, and it is filled with enough detail about life in 17th century Netherlands and Vermeer's painting techniques to satisfy the art-history bug.

Now reading Gene Wolfe's The Devil In A Forest and Michael Moorcock's Fortress Of The Pearl.

 

[Dr. Atomic]

Wrapped up Triplanetary and am about 2/3 of the way through A.E. Van Vogt's The War Against the Rull. So far, save for one, brief, "off camera" moment, there's been nary a Rull in sight...

 

[Taltos]

Finishing Feist's Rage of a Demon King - somehow re-reading the first two volumes was a lot easier (I wonder why ) At the moment mourning the loss of some long time favourites (but they were getting too old anyway) - can't believe Feist actually killed off some of them, he doesn't do that very often.
Reading Glen Cook's The Tyrany of the Night next