It's Christmas time here in stately Vredenburgh Manor and my reading time has been limited. I was hoping to finish off The Xothic Legend collection tonight and that just didn't happen. Also, if you didn't catch me saying it on the facebook, it's very, very dull. Try as I might to let Robert Price's introductions whip up some modicum of enthusiasm in me for Carter's stories, it just ain't happening. To get the taste out of my mouth, I'm going to try to read one of the books Carter republished in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, The Last Unicorn.
On the other hand, I am gearing up to see Gov't Mule Tuesday night, so I got that going for me. Actually, I'm very excited. The thing about the Mule is anybody can just show up and play with them. They also do all sorts of cool covers in addition to their own bluesy power trio originals. I don't see much live music these days other than the luminous Mrs. V's various bands so this is a big deal.
So that's all I got to say for now. I hope everybody has had a great Christmas ans has a Happy New Year's Eve.
You're walking a long, hard road with Carter's mythos fiction. I've always avoided his other work because of the astoundingly bad work he did aping HPL's work. Even Derleth is a master in comparison.
Mythos fiction collections are, at best, a mixed bag; that said, some are worth the slog (in my opinion). I wouldn't give up, but I also would skip anything therein with the byline 'by Lin Carter'.
Good Lord, I wish he had done more HPL aping instead of interminable diary entries consisting of little more than names and book titles. Serves me right for going on a LC binge. Derleth at least understood that creating some sort of atmosphere was a plus. The only really good Lin Carter I've read are his Thongor short stories (absolutely not the novels!) , a Dunsany pastiche, Zingazara (so?) , and the Pellucidar pastiches, Zanthodon.
I've got a number of his fantasies on the shelf but they keep getting pushed further down the stack because of how intolerable those Lovecraft pastiches are. His entries in the Necronomicon collection (which is awful, by and large) are probably the worst of the lot.
You're walking a long, hard road with Carter's mythos fiction. I've always avoided his other work because of the astoundingly bad work he did aping HPL's work. Even Derleth is a master in comparison.
ReplyDeleteMythos fiction collections are, at best, a mixed bag; that said, some are worth the slog (in my opinion). I wouldn't give up, but I also would skip anything therein with the byline 'by Lin Carter'.
Good Lord, I wish he had done more HPL aping instead of interminable diary entries consisting of little more than names and book titles. Serves me right for going on a LC binge. Derleth at least understood that creating some sort of atmosphere was a plus. The only really good Lin Carter I've read are his Thongor short stories (absolutely not the novels!) , a Dunsany pastiche, Zingazara (so?) , and the Pellucidar pastiches, Zanthodon.
ReplyDeleteI've got a number of his fantasies on the shelf but they keep getting pushed further down the stack because of how intolerable those Lovecraft pastiches are. His entries in the Necronomicon collection (which is awful, by and large) are probably the worst of the lot.
ReplyDelete