A Beautiful Blue Death - Charles Finch A beautiful yellow and green cover for a Victorian mystery about a poisoned maid in a house full of important men and a big secret. Charles Lenox is our amateur gentleman detective, and he comes fully stocked with butler, love interest, useful acquaintances, and brother who's Important in government. This is a first novel that reads passably like a middle-of-the-series novel. The front cover even has a "By the author of [presumed previous book]" blurb. This backfired because I got fed up with all the excited first-novel infodumping that read like a perpetual regurgitation of previous plot and character developments. By the time I noticed the First Novel status on the back cover, I'd already read the uninvolving two-page backstory for the uninteresting butler that the author waited until chapter 18 to drop. (Writers: do not do this.) However, other than the undissolved infodumps (infoclumps?), this was a good mystery and a fine read. The excerpt at the back assures us that the excitedauthoritis will continue in the next book, hopefully without such massive tell-don't-show infospills. New words: Nine men's morris
Aaaaand done with "The Night Land". First two thirds are everything you want them to be. It's way ahead of its time; feels like an 80's SF-fantasy movie. I was playing hair metal in my head, and having a grand old time. Then the last third kicked my ass. Partner abuse, bizarre unnatural human behavior out of a 1920's cartoon, and just absurd contrived shit happening. And all of that at a frustrating sloggy pace in-between the insane bits. Like, you know in the early parts of an RPG game where you're grinding for gold? Hodgson gives you all the grinding. He predicted game grinding, and put it in a book. It's a work of insane genius in spite of the flaws. Maybe even because of them. It's the hot chip challenge of literature. I say give it a whirl.
Oh! Right! Leading up to "The Night Land" I also did.... Carnacki The Ghost-Finder. Also by William Hope Hodgson. The ancestor of both Ghostbusters and Scooby-Doo. It's everything you want it to be. Fun stuff. I'd love it if they made it into a show. Either live-action, or Aardman animation. "The Night Land" uses Carnacki's tech on a grander scale, so I head-canon that it's The Hobbit to TNL's LOTR. The Boats of the Glen Carig. Hodgson again. Guys in two lifeboats land on a couple islands with different monsters. Think the end bits of the "Dawn of the Dead" remake when they're on the boat. Hodgson brought tentacle monsters to horror before Lovecraft. Gotta say, I like Hodgson better than Lovecraft. The House on the Borderland. Hodgson. Siege horror with pig-man aliens instead of zombies. Then it turns into the acid trip-out scene from "2001: A Space Odyssey". Which would make it derivative, except it was written in 1908. My favorite Hodgson book. TNL is a close second. TNL is masterpiece quality, but I just plain like HOTB better. Smoother read. The Ghost Pirates. Hodgson. Straight ahead what it is. But with attempted SF explanations for the ghosts. The monsters in "Glen Carig" are cooler, but the characters in "Pirates" are better, so "Pirates" edges out "Glen Carig" by a smidge.
Read the first two books of Gemmell's Drenai series, Legend and King Beyond the Gate. They're okay, I tend to find the short-cut romance parts awful - but fantasy romances are usually either destiny-farts or a bit rapey I guess. The characters are interesting with plenty of cod philosophy, I could stand to read a lot more Druss, whereas Tenaka Khan is Nadir for Mary Sue. Plot pace is very male orgasm, 95% build up, then a final rush. They're a reasonable read, but more in the way the books with the author silver embossed on the front at a transport interchange bookshop are a reasonable read. I'm going to get some more, as they're good material when bathing with a beer, and hopefully as the books move along the writing improves.
