February's Fabulous Feast Of Fully Formidable Fiction

[woodsman]

Finished Perdido Street Station - China Mieville and what a cracker it was. I love his style, such beautiful evocative description that seems to have gone out of fashion more generally. Certainly looking forward to diving into Bas-Laq in the near future.

Up next; Either Danse of Dragons (which scares me a little - worried if its not upto the rest as rumoured) or something from Sanderson, Dick or possibly Rothfuss.

 

[j d worthington]

I might be the only person alive who liked the way he tried to meld his Robot/Foundation material into a single --- can't think of the word, so "thingy" will have to do.

No, you're not the only one; I do, as well, though I will agree that there are some problems with it (even some rather serious ones). J-Sun has pointed some of them out in his post; I would also say that, in order to make it work at its optimal level, Asimov would have had to go through and recast the work to a more consistent level and tone... which would have been an enormous lot of work for rather slender returns.

As for what to call such a thing... while "superseries" is probably the closest popular thing to a name, I must admit I don't care for it much; especially as such series are not unique to Asimov here. Cabell did it with his "Biography of the Life of Manuel", which subsumed the bulkl of his writing to that time (eighteen volumes in the Storisende edition; twenty-five if one goes with the original releases, and that doesn't include a few scattered bits and pieces from other volumes as well*); Balzac did it with his Comedie humaine (which he, too, never lived to finish, yet as it stands it would fill at least a couple of shelves on a bookcase, and covers a wide variety of types of story, not to mention various historical periods); and Moorcock is probably the most notable for such a thing, with tales of the multiverse (this ultimately includes nearly every piece of fiction he has written, which is somewhere around 100 books or better; even his lengthy Eternal Champion cycle could be said -- depending one one's frame of reference -- to be a subset of it, or another title for the entire corpus). Even Robert A. Heinlein was working toward that with his final books (see, for instance, the "People in this Memoir" section of To Sail Beyond the Sunset, which picks up on various threads linking not only the main bulk of his science fiction, but his juveniles as well).

I'm not sure what the best term would be, really, as there are subseries within the overall arc; and each of these can even include a variety of genres as well. What it amounts to is the gradual coalescing of a unified aesthetic vision of a unique and original writer, which gives it both its fascinations and strengths, and its multitude of weaknesses and inconsistencies; but seeing such a grand vision take form and send out different branches and implications is, to me, one of the joys of literature....

*Actually, Cabell's "Biography" may cover even more genres than Balzac's "Comedie", given that it includes not only fiction but essays, plays, and a volume or two of verse as part of its structure....

 

[Extollager]

As for what to call such a thing... while "superseries" is probably the closest popular thing to a name, I must admit I don't care for it much; especially as such series are not unique to Asimov here. ...he gradual coalescing of a unified aesthetic vision of a unique and original writer, which gives it both its fascinations and strengths, and its multitude of weaknesses and inconsistencies; but seeing such a grand vision take form and send out different branches and implications is, to me, one of the joys of literature....

So what's your well-informed take on Lovecraft's eventual perception of his writings? My impression is that he saw most of them, originally at least, as stand-alone works that used some common references, sometimes as little more than window-dressing. This is not a fault.

Do you think that, if he'd gotten a neat idea for a story using so-called Cthulhu Mythos references, he would have regarded it as an obstacle if he'd "needed" to "contradict" something "established" earlier? I'm trying to think of an example. It seems to me there are really so few hostages to fortune in his stories that the situation wasn't likely to arise. That is, I don't think he tied himself down to very many specifics that might have complicated things later on.

All right -- let's suppose that he got an idea for a weird tale of the length and detail of, say, "The Shadow Out of Time," that would have had an undersea element that would have "contradicted" something suggested by "The Call of Cthlhu" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."

Do you think this would have been much of an issue for him?

I'm really wondering if he would have -- if he did see his stories as a cycle (let alone a super-cycle including the so-called Dreamlands stories).

But you'd have a better take on the matter than I.

 

[Vertigo]

Chilled out with a light Vorkosigan romp Cetaganda by Bujold. A little disappointing compared with the previous ones I have read. I know these adventure SF stories need some suspension of disbelief and that's alright and I do enjoy them. However Bujold pushed my credulity a little far a few times in this one. Also I found her writing to be poorer with some really clunky passages in places.

 

[j d worthington]

So what's your well-informed take on Lovecraft's eventual perception of his writings? My impression is that he saw most of them, originally at least, as stand-alone works that used some common references, sometimes as little more than window-dressing. This is not a fault.

Do you think that, if he'd gotten a neat idea for a story using so-called Cthulhu Mythos references, he would have regarded it as an obstacle if he'd "needed" to "contradict" something "established" earlier? I'm trying to think of an example. It seems to me there are really so few hostages to fortune in his stories that the situation wasn't likely to arise. That is, I don't think he tied himself down to very many specifics that might have complicated things later on.

All right -- let's suppose that he got an idea for a weird tale of the length and detail of, say, "The Shadow Out of Time," that would have had an undersea element that would have "contradicted" something suggested by "The Call of Cthlhu" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."

Do you think this would have been much of an issue for him?

I'm really wondering if he would have -- if he did see his stories as a cycle (let alone a super-cycle including the so-called Dreamlands stories).

But you'd have a better take on the matter than I.

Without meaning to take the thread off-topic for too long... yes, I think that, as far as such incidentals are concerned, HPL would have ignored them with at most a momentary qualm if he thought a different story could have benefited from such. After all, he made it clear that he liked the fact there were certain disagreements between his various stories, not to mention his own work and that of others who utilized his mythos or whose own growing myth-patterns he used (such as CAS, REH, etc.) He saw this as, in a very genuine way, analogous to the variant versions in genuine mythologies and folktales, evolving over a period of time and in different milieus. In that way, it gives to such work a greater air of verisimilitude than any artificial myth-pattern which is too rigidly maintained. (Which is one of the fundamental reasons why, despite some really quite good prose at times, and some marvelous ideas now and again, Derleth's "Mythos" tales have a dreadful tendency to fall flat on their silly faces, with rare exceptions -- "The Lamp of Alhazred", for instance, which is more a poignant, poetic tribute to HPL than anything else, and as a result manages to actually capture some of that air of mystery and the numinous which Lovecraft's own work could achieve.)

The unity in Lovecraft's work was more thematic, and dealing with certain ideas, motifs, images, and poetic sensations and impressions, rather than the sometimes pedantic minutiae that so many "series" writers become so involved in... and this, I think, remains one of its strengths. I think the best way to put it in short compass is that, originally, he had no such overarching pattern in mind, but he did have a number of such recurring images, ideas, etc., which carried a certain set (albeit a rather complicated one) of associations for him, hence signifying much more than one might at first realize; and over time these began to coalesce with his more rigorous development of his philosophical and aesthetic views, until what had before been largely (I think) unconscious gropings toward a nebulous vision became much more clear and began to crystallize into a genuinely unique aesthetic achievement. His own realization of this was further spurred, I would argue, by his work on Supernatural Horror in Literature, where he began to bring all the disparate elements of his aesthetic of the weird into a unified whole as well; and realized that, in order to make his work true art (in the sense of genuine self-expression), he needed to combine his love of New England (especally Providence) and history with his cosmic vision and philosophy of materialism and cosmic indifferentism; and it came to its full fruition about the time he resubmitted "The Call of Cthulhu" to Weird Tales, as seen by his letter to Farnsworth Wright, in which he says:

Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos at large. To me there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form -- and the local human passions and conditions and standards -- are depicted as native to other worlds or other universes. To achieve the essence of real externality, whether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all. Only the human scenes and characters must have human qualities. These must be handled with unsparing realism, (not catch-penny romanticism) but when we cross the line to the boundless and hideous unknown -- the shadow-haunted Outside -- we must remember to leave our humanity -- and terrestrialism -- at the threshold.

-- SLII.150​

 

[FireDragon-16]

Graceling by Kristen Cashore - which I'm reading primarily because I liked the cover

Read that last year and I loved it!!

I picked up Born of Shadows by Sherrilyn Kenyon as well as house of Dark Shadows by Robert Liparulo at the libraryn today. Hopefully i'll be able to finish them sometime soon...

 

[Mark_Lawrence]

Just finished Myke Cole's Control Point, re-read Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and am now on TC McCarthy's Germline.

 

[HareBrain]

Slowly working my way through The Drug, and Other Stories, by Aleister Crowley, and have been generally very impressed. The first few are impenetrable occult waffle, but once he gets past this stage and into his stride, his stories are, for the most part, witty, intelligent, full of interesting ideas and superbly written. His prose still seems lively, fresh and quite modern, much more so than most of his contemporaries I've read. His characterisation sucks, though.

 

[Vertigo]

Study in Scarlet by Conan Doyle. Brilliant! Though I did find the start of the second part a bit of a non-sequitur that put me off my stride for a little while. However as expected it all made sense in the end!

 

[biodroid]

Finishing up on Night Angel book 3 by Brent Weeks and even though I loved the first 2, this one is dragging. 100 pages left so should finish in the week. I have a few books I need to choose from, maybe some of the Chrons can help me out:

11/22/63 - Stephen King
A Clash of Kings - GRRM (I hope it's as good as AGOT)
The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson

 

[Extollager]

Study in Scarlet by Conan Doyle. Brilliant! Though I did find the start of the second part a bit of a non-sequitur that put me off my stride for a little while. However as expected it all made sense in the end!

Conan Doyle is one of the great RE-readable authors.

 

[Extollager]

Without meaning to take the thread off-topic for too long... yes, I think that, as far as such incidentals are concerned, HPL would have ignored them with at most a momentary qualm if he thought a different story could have benefited from such.

Thank you -- I'm pleased to read your take on the matter of whether Lovecraft would have felt himself to be constrained by earlier stories -- or, put it another way, that he apparently tried to make each story as good as possible on its own merits.

Two of the "Lovecraftian" stories I like best would not quality, in most readers' opinion (I suppose), as "Mythos" stories, namely Fritz Leiber's "A Bit of the Dark World" and "Rump-Titty-Titty-TAH-Tee." "Dark World" seems to me to close in on the "cosmic strangeness" that Lovecraft advocated, quite effectively; while, as I noted elsewhere here at Chrons recently, "Rump" is presented as a clever, satirical fantasy, but may easily be seen as almost a rewrite of "The Call of Cthulhu," with its old, malevolent entity responsible for a spreading worldwide madness that manifests itself at first in artistic types and (it has to be admitted) members of racial groups seen as more susceptible than others to an irrational, primordial power.

 

[j d worthington]

Yes, I had seen your comment and meant to reply to it, but got swept away by other things first.... I must admit I've never seen that take on it before, but it makes sense, in a way. I'll have to keep that in mind next time I read Knight's A Science Fiction Odyssey... if I ever find the time to do so....

As for "A Bit of the Dark World"... well, it has been included as an example of Leiber's "Lovecraftian" writing in Writers of the Dark, which is the collection of all Lovecraft's letters to him and Leiber's essays on and stories influenced by HPL; as well as being part of Jim Turner's Eternal Lovecraft anthology....

 

[Vertigo]

Conan Doyle is one of the great RE-readable authors.

He is that, Extollager, though I confess I am pretty new to him. I read some Sherlock Holmes shorts as a kid (a long long time ago) but only started reading his stuff again recently with the first two Professor Challenger stories and now this one.I shall be reading more...

 

[No One]

Finished Yann Martel's Life of Pi. A terrific read, touching and funny and very unique. The name Richard Parker will stay with me for a long while methinks

Think I'll give Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light a go next.

 

[HoopyFrood]

The name Richard Parker will stay with me for a long while methinks

Glad to hear it

Think I'll give Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light a go next.

Finally!

 

[No One]

Glad to hear it


Finally!

Hey, don't you 'finally' me Ms. Still-Hasn't-Read-the-Histories

And yeah, everyone should have a Richard Parker in their lives.

 

[Connavar]

He is that, Extollager, though I confess I am pretty new to him. I read some Sherlock Holmes shorts as a kid (a long long time ago) but only started reading his stuff again recently with the first two Professor Challenger stories and now this one.I shall be reading more...

I was new to Doyle 2-3 years ago and Study in Scarlet was very good but i was convinced of his greatness as a writer,storyteller when i read the first two short story collections of Sherlock Holmes. If you read publishing as i read Study, Sign of Four and then Adventures collection and Memoirs collection.

It has been hard to focus on reading his other works other than i read Brigadier Gerard historical fiction. Sherlock Holmes story,world is truly timeless classic.

 

[Connavar]

Interesting...

It will be good to read your overall thoughts on this classic of African literature.

You may also want to try and get a copy of Naghuib Mahfouz's quite brilliant EPIC saga The Cairo Trilogy. I have a Library of America copy in HB...currently I'm committed to my reading project on Charles Dickens but may take time out from this to revisit and review this work in the latter part of February.

Another that springs to mind J.M. Coetze's Disgrace..a very powerful work....and as mentioned previously Nardine Gordimer's The Conservative.

The Cairo trilogy sounds interesting, i want to read about North Africa cultures. Genetically, culture wise closer to those guys than west,south Africans my people are. Egyptians authors i know by name i cant even count on one hand but im trying to change that.

Right now though literary Africa wise im on west Africa at the moment. Why im reading Achebe. I will read South Africans, North African authors i know a bit later. Im taking a literary journey through the African continent.

 

[Vertigo]

Conn, I am going for chronological (approximate) so I was going for the collections next. I would recommend you give the Lost World a try; I believe you like good adventure books and this is one from a master writer and storyteller!

[My apologies if something like this appears twice. I could have sworn I posted a minute ago but it seems to have vanished.]