Nevertheless, many publishers do this lumping and the overlap in subject is plain from things like Ridley Scott's Alien on the one hand and the Cthulu mythos on the other. Perhaps urban fantasy and supernatural horror are particularly muddy waters as far as trying to separate one from another is concerned?
In any case, for me this is pretty clearly horror and not fantasy. I could well be unusual in enjoying Fantasy literature but not really caring for either of its siblings but that is the case and it's the only condition under which I can judge my enjoyment of the book.
I can't find the reference now but for some reason I was convinced that Rennison had also described this book as Leiber's 'best fantasy novel'. Well, I've already ruled that out and I'm afriad I'm not in a position to compare it to his other horror works. I say 'perhaps' only because it's difficult to compare the style of those light, drily humorous tales with this tautly suspenseful one.
The novel uses explicitly Jungian concepts of female- and hidden- selfs to build a plot powered by the fictitious pseudo-science of megapolisomancy - and what a chillingly believable pseudo-science it is. It is also a love-letter view spoiler [ almost literally, and horrifically, so hide spoiler ] to books and a tribute to San Francisco's early twentieth century literary scene.
This is, then, a very personal novel. It's also a novel in which there is much to admire. One which I enjoyed despite a general distaste mistrust? Having now read several of them, I have noticed a tendency for occasional typos. This is by far the worst offender that I have come across so far though.
I can only assume that the original books were scanned with text recognition software and that nothing has been done to tidy them up since. A 'breath' is not the same thing as a 'bream'. This probably happens at least once a paragraph. Such transliteration mistakes are annoying in Project Gutenberg ebooks but forgiveable - because they're free. Effectively a charitable literary service. In a paid product though they're not. I don't know what the margins are but surely it's not going too far to suggest that the publishers should be employing a copy-editor to check their proofs after scanning them?
Feb 10, Warren Fournier rated it it was amazing Shelves: horror-paperbacks-froms-tos. My only complaint about this excellent novel is that the reason given to us for all the strange happenings in the plot is that an old wizard wanted to get some sort of revenge on fantasy writer Clark Ashton Smith.
It's silly, and creates not a hole in the plot, but rather a vast empty void. But it is no spoiler for me to say this, nor did it take away from my enjoyment, because the novel is not about some old fictional curse on a real historic figure in art and literature. It is about the very r My only complaint about this excellent novel is that the reason given to us for all the strange happenings in the plot is that an old wizard wanted to get some sort of revenge on fantasy writer Clark Ashton Smith.
It is about the very real struggles with grief, isolation, and alcohol in the author himself, making this more personal and identifiable than any other of Fritz Leiber's works. It seems not much momentous action happens in the actual plot.
There's a lot of exposition and socializing among the main characters, as well as a great deal of internal musings by the protagonist done with wonderful lyricism. But beneath it all, there is a lot going on. In a small hotel apartment in old San Fran, a writer struggles with the loss of his wife and tries to find a new identity among an entire building full of lost but loveable souls, such as a sexually ambiguous pothead and dedicated nurse, a Peruvian immigrant who struggles with English but has a penchant for chess, and a struggling concert harpsichordist with latent supernatural abilities.
Every character is flawed, but possesses a great talent and intelligence. And they all seem keenly sensitive to the metaphysical and "paranatural" mysteries of their urban surroundings. They look out for each other, care for each other, and are quick to believe each other's most outlandish tales of otherworldly encounters sight unseen.
Beneath the watchful eye of Sutro Tower, the grimy streets are teeming with generations of the lost, experimenting with drugs, music, art, sexuality, and the occult for a modicum of control over their world that got away from them somehow, creating a city that is a living neural network--conscious, and watching you.
And so the things that happen to our main character seem too coincidental, as though orchestrated by the city just for his particular emotional and spiritual dilemma, to give him a chance to make sense of his life or be crushed, absorbed, and digested by the city. This was the San Fran once experienced by another of my favorite authors, Jack London, who does actually drunkenly wander into the plot at one point.
And it was the San Fran that Chicago-born Leiber knew after the death of his own wife, living alone with his bottle of warm kirschwasser and his cold scholar's mistress of rumpled books and manuscripts in a changing world full of hippies, cultists, and addicts--but also full of people who loved him if he just opened his eyes Despite the gloomy premise, the novel is actually quite upbeat, funny, and tender. But when the scares do come, this is some of the creepiest stuff ever written.
James, and H. Lovecraft for these passages, so much so that I forgot I was reading a Leiber book. It does not seek to frighten with gore, but there is a visceral quality to it all the same, a goosebump-summoning incantation that only masters of weird fiction can create.
Though not a perfect novel, I rated this five stars because the whole package tickled all the right literary cravings for me, so that this will be one of those rare books I will want to read multiple times--so it's worth anyone reading at least once. I want to make it perfectly clear that this is all. Awhile ago, I came across a list of Gaiman's favorite books and this was on it.
What the hey, I said. I'll take a stab at that! Well, stab taken, and it's a good thing that I wasn't planing on sleeping any time soon. Wow, wow, wow - it's been awhile since a book creeped me out this badly! Recovering alcoholic, horror writer Franz Westen has a particularly soft spot in his heart for San Fransisco's quirky history - especiall I want to make it perfectly clear that this is all. Recovering alcoholic, horror writer Franz Westen has a particularly soft spot in his heart for San Fransisco's quirky history - especially it's long and strange occult past.
During the day Franz divides his time between writing a few pot boilers to pay rent and doing some research into the history of some of SF's more peculiar historical occult characters, which leads him to find the journal of a young poet who was particularly entranced with one of the more obscure and undoubtedly sinister figures of occult history - SF's own Alistair Crowley - "Tiberius" and his infamous mistress that was referred to by his contemporaries as the "Lady of Darkness".
Franz becomes obsessed with the journal and the story being unfolded in it's pages, in particular, the mysterious house the young poet once occupied, "Six or Seven Roads". As Franz desperately tries to unlock the mystery of the young poet's fate, the journal and an eerie sighting he makes early one morning from his bedroom window, the story carefully maneuvers the reader along into the very depths of madness, cult psychology, and paranormal activity that secure Leiber's reputation as one of the last century's greater ghost story writers.
This is my second Leiber novel now being previously impressed with The The Conjure Wife , and one thing that struck me was how deftly Leiber was able to work things like scientific logic into the story line in a way that seemed believable.
Where as CW was more of a parable of scientific thinking taken to a dangerous extreme as a result of merging progressive thinking sans human feeling and emotion, OLoD was more a study on the ability to sooth and quiet the mind through logic, and how the more nobler pursuits of higher study in art, philosophy and mathematics can bring peace to a person.
Here scholarship is both the undoing and the salvation of the characters depending on how they choose to use it, and while Leiber once again brings in a young lady who may or may not be a witch, this time her divining rods and crystal balls are instead the Pythagorean theorem and Bach's concertos.
Over all this was another one of Leiber's exploratory horror novels and I enjoyed it very much for what it was. I know a lot of people like to compaire him to Lovecraft, but really I think he writes in the much older tradition of writers such as Algernon Blackwood. Oh, to be sure, that old Eldritchian Horror vibe is still there, but there's a smooth, swuave and charming flow to the words here that Lovecraft never really possessed.
Apr 17, Jean-marcel rated it really liked it. I'm so glad that I finally read this. I feel a strong connection with Leiber and his writing and I would like to collect all of this man's work.
This book is a sort of modern, urban ghost story, like a really cool crossbreed of m. Lovecraft and existential pain. It's about the energy that builds up inside the conduits, tunnels, skyscrapers and buzzing antennae of huge cities and how that energy can be harnessed. Clark Ashton Smith is almost a character in this book, by way of a d I'm so glad that I finally read this.
Clark Ashton Smith is almost a character in this book, by way of a diary that is ostensibly written by him detailing his encounters with an eccentric and nasty fellow who claims to have discovered this energy and know the formulae for its control.
The protagonist, a writer living in San Francisco in the s who's just coming down from a year-long alcoholic binge after the death of his wife, gets sucked into the snare this vengeful magician seems to manipulate from beyond the grave when Smith's diary accidentally falls into his possession. Smith escaped by fleeing the city, but our protagonist is almost not so lucky.
Coincidences and strange happenstance play a considerable part here, but they seem very natural given the subject matter and the ending is strangely bitter-sweet.
There are a few comic moments but the tone gets very dark and anxious at times. I think that megapolisomancy what a painful word is probably something Leiber thought up while wandering the San Francisco streets himself, and sometimes I think he might have been onto something. I'm sure all the fury, the pent-up tension of millions of individuals, the crackling power lines and rushing water and pipes carrying fuel to countless buildings, the endless radio signals bouncing all through the atmosphere affects the universe around us in ways that we cannot understand.
I feel a simultaneous love and loathing for the city that is a delicate balance to maintain, and this is a feeling that I think Leiber shared, and which he articulates well in this book. Horror fans might want to read this book somewhere in proximity to watching Dario Argento's film Inferno.
As it happens, I discovered them both at around the same time I'm unaware of whether Argento was at all influenced by Leiber, but if you like discovering these sorts of implicit connections like I do, you might find some food for thought here.
This is good fun. But I'm left with two feelings that have little to do with the book's main themes. The first is my envy of the main character's daily routine until it's interrupted by occult forces, that is : wake up in the morning and make coffee; work on short stories for publications with names like Weird Underground in accordance with your occupation as freelance writer of all manner of unconventional fiction; take a long hike through the hills of San Francisco; maintain an affair with a beautiful and intelligent harpsichordist who lives on the fourth floor of your apartment building; eat at a German restaurant with friends; play a couple of nearly silent games of chess in the evening with an acquaintance in the building with whom you don't share a language; then go to sleep and do it all again.
The second is my envy of Ambrose Bierce's death. It seems the man was in his 70s when he went to cover the Mexican Revolution as a journalist. He embedded himself with Pancho Villa's army Now that's how you do it.
Shelves: horror. Disclaimer: this is very much a YMMV review. Unless you are a fan of H. Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith, or interested in that circle of writers, this elegant dark fantasy might only come in at 4 stars for you. Franz Westen, the haunted in several senses writer of weird fiction at the heart of this narrative, is a fully fleshed-out character -- as are his fellow apartment-dwellers caught in the increasingly grim mystery of what might or might not be sharing Westen's apartment.
What happens to these people matters to the reader. Lovers of quiet horror, modern ghost stories, or traditional creepfests should not miss this one. Not As Expected!
One morning, while looking out his window, Franz sees a strange figure waving at him. Our Lady of Darkness by Peter Tremayne. A Pail of Air by Fritz Leiber. Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet. Horrible Imaginings by Fritz Leiber. Lady of Light and Shadows by C. Night Train by Thomas F. Journeys into Darkness by James Goho.
Our Lady of Babylon by John Rechy. Thomas de Quincey by F. Perfect for fans of historical adventure. Young Rhianna is relieved when Queen Boudica takes in her and her sister when their parents die. But there's a darkness in Boudica that's waiting to be unleashed and the Romans will suffer for their crimes against her. Soon Rhianna witnesses much more than the kindness that Boudica has shown her and her sister.
There's a. All first editions will include exclusive reverse-printed jacket art, ten black and white interior illustrations, and a new short story! Queen of Air and Darkness is a Shadowhunters novel. What if damnation is the price of true love? Now, it is dark and we must return to Fearna Queen Cophetua. One by One. The Seamy Side. Prefaced by Sir H.
0コメント