Hi Al,
Re. Wakefield, the critical consensus seems to be
that his writing went downhill over time, though I
guess that's what happens when a writer comes up with
a first book as strong as THEY RETURN AT EVENING. But
I think his collection of his (mostly)later stories,
STRAYERS FROM SHEOL is in overall quality as good as
THEY RETURN, though the individual stories are not
quite as powerful.
I've been meaning to get the L.O.A. LOvecraft,
but as for recent Lovecraftian reading, I just
finished THE LOVECRAFT CHRONICLES by Peter
Cannon--very interesting "alternate history" of
Lovecraft. And speaking of things Lovecraftian, I
re-read Philip K. Dick's VALIS trilogy earlier this
year and saw some things in VALIS that, if I didn't
know were based on personal experience, I would have
thought were inspired by Lovecraft. Most notably the
"pink light" that is not part of the known color
spectrum(I suppose the characters call it "pink" for
the sake of convenience), and the concept of
"plasmates", which are aliens in the form of living
information that use humans as hosts, which sounds a
lot like Lovecraft's Great Race from "The Shadow out
of Time." Also related to "Shadow" is a sense of the
illusionary nature of time in the novel. On a side
note, when I first read THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY
ARCHER(part three of the trilogy) I thought the
ZADOKITE DOCUMENTS(an ancient text that Timothy Archer
is translating in the novel) were real.
bye bye
jty
--- "Alan K. Crandall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Indeed .. this group has been quiet. No discussions
> on the Lovecraft
> Library of America edition? Recent horror films?
> Nothin'???
>
> Oh well.
>
> (By the way of letting myself off the hook, I've
> been caught up mostly in
> the horror of job-hunting, which I have fortunately
> resolved, at least for
> now)
>
> Recent fantasy/horror reading:
>
> Well, I read "The Best Ghost Stories of H.R.
> Wakefield" in January. Only
> the early stories really did much for me.
>
> I've also begun a project of reading my way (at
> last) through all of "The
> Collected Strange Stories of Robert Aickman." I'm
> reading it in pieces -
> reading each of the 8 collections it contains at the
> rate of about one a
> month. So far I've finished "We Are for the Dark"
> and "Dark Entries." I've
> enjoyed everything I've read and I am glad I made
> the investment in this
> volume.
>
> Right now I'm reading "Tempest-Tost" by Robertson
> Davies. Not fantasy or
> horror - but very funny!
>
>
>
>
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