What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

[macdoc]

Tigers Between Empires
A modern success story rescuing Siberian tigers from the brink of extinction.
Very engaging and long ranging…a few heart stoppers too.
The geo-political world then was better than now.

[Brian Peacock]

Just started Norman Spinrad's The Void Captain's Tale. I have high hopes as I'm a big fan of his short fiction and Bug Jack Barron, but must admit I'm struggling to get into the distinctly Georgian literary styling.

[Tero]

A Brief History of France, Dominic Haynes

I did like the book, just a word of warning, it does not cover a lot of modern times. Even Napoleon...from France!...is barely covered.

The complex interactions of rulers in France with Europe (Holy Roman Empire) and England is very well covered. For several hundred years the kings of England and France were tied together in complicated ways. Normans ruling in England also held duchies and what we think of as France.

I understand languages pretty well, and the Germanic neighbors of France are quite familiar. The book sort of fails at explaining how French language developed after the Roman occuaption that brought in Latin.

[Svartalf]

an antholgy titled Tales of the Al Azif.
A half dozen not so short stories claiming to belong to the Cthulhu mythose, though, despite their being excellent reads, I'd definitely not treat them as canon, as they have some original features that contradict the writings of H P Lovecraft.

[Brian Peacock]

But didn't the writings of H P Lovecraft contradict the writings of H P Lovecraft?

[Svartalf]

But didn't the writings of H P Lovecraft contradict the writings of H P Lovecraft?

not really, he was rather consistent with himself. and seriously, now that I've finished tales of the Al Azif, I think I'll get rid of it... some of the stories are quite pleasant to read, but the overall collection, in spite of claiming to be "a cthulhu mythos anthology" just rubbed me the wrong way... based on premises that are contrary to Lovecraftian lore, overall disrespectful of the Old Gentleman's legacy, and to boot, the book relies on insect horror rather than what Lovecraft or his more respectable followers use, some stories utterly fail to make real sense, and the book itself is regrettably full of typing and editing errors... I have been gifted several volumes from the same publisher and set of writers, I do hope they'll be better.

[Brian Peacock]

Yeah. It's a difficult line to tread between faithfully honouring the author vs trotting out second-rate pastiche fan-fiction. I was similarly disappointed by the Anthony Horowitz and Tim Major Sherlock Holmes stories.

[Svartalf]

well, second rate pastiche can be tolerated, when it's not actively trying to rewrite the original, or making use of elements from the original in ways that follow neither normal logic nor that of the original author, and that contradict the established lore to boot.

I know neither Horowitz nor major, but it takes seriously good writing to write Sherlock Holmes stuff that is not waste bin material from the start, let alone that properly honor Conan Doyle.

[Brian Peacock]

What do you think are the essential elements of a Lovecraft story?

[Svartalf]

something abnormal taking place somewhere, preferably in an isolated location where outsiders won't be looking too closely, and the involvement, usually by way of cultists or weird artifacts, of entities from far away in the stars and often beyond our sphere altogether, who treats us humans like insects, or at best like cattles and low grade help.

[Brian Peacock]

On the nose. I feel like there's often an air of quiet but mounting desperation to a Lovecraftian narration: a first-person narrator that's trying to rationally explain what's being encountered even while completely failing to understand what's actually going on.

[Svartalf]

that's true, especially in such stories where it starts quietly, and the narrator ends up having major involvement in mythos stuff, like those who dream of Cthulhu, the sailor who actually met him, the sub captain who's about to die in Dagon, or of course the Deep one narrator of Shadow over Innsmouth... but yeah, the rationalist narrators in other stories do tend to not feel too well at the end of their experience, with the possible exception of Dr Armitage in the Dunwich Horror who seems to have the force of will to recognize, accept and oppose things unnatural.

[Brian Peacock]

Just downloaded The Shadow Out Of Time from the HPL archive.

Probably read it last when I was about 12!

[Svartalf]

Well, I was much older, but it's still been decades that I've not read that one, it's long and I did not like it that much

[pErvinalia]

Some optimistic holiday reading. Crumple, you can borrow it after me.