The Fell Gard Codices

Hanging In

February 15th, 2014

So, at last report I was writing here about my plans for upcoming reading. What happened was that I found I could read a book a day — but not when I was sick at the same time. Much less read and keep producing any kind of writing. So radio silence ensued. I’ve got a bit more energy these days, so hopefully I’ll be able to be a bit more active around here.

Meanwhile, I’ve been putting stuff up at Black Gate. Link round-up after the jump.

When Marvel announced they’d start reprinting Miracleman, with new stories concluding the series eventually to come, I looked at the announcement and their stated plans (I’ve since seen the first couple of issues; good restoration work, but the extras are somewhat variable in quality). Then, with Halloween coming up, I wrote about Robert W. Chambers’ weird classic The King In Yellow. I further commemorated the season with an overview of the novels of Charles Williams. In November I had a slow month, as noted above, and looked only at two books translated from Chinese, the 1989 anthology Science Fiction From China and Chang Hsi-Kuo’s City Trilogy. Then at the very end of the month I looked at Helen Simpson’s 1933 tripartite novel The Woman on the Beast.

I made up for a slow November with a busy December, starting with a look at Ali Smith’s Hotel World. Then I used the first issue of the new Sandman: Overture limited series as a launching-point for a brief discussion of Sandman as a whole. I followed that with some words on Chris Moriarty’s incredibly impressive sf novel Spin State. Then came something of a think-piece looking at novel structure, fantasy, and the ideas of Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good For You. Then an overview of the work of G.K. Chesterton. And for Christmas I considered Charles Dickens’ fantasy masterwork,  A Christmas Carol. I followed that with some thoughts on Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and how it fit in with the fantasy fiction of its era, and rounded off the year with a look back at the original Fighting Fantasy Gamebook, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

January was fairly slow — for a variety of reasons, I seemed to be running around all month. So it was only a couple weeks ago I got up a post on the 1970s DC comic Stalker, which featured brilliant artwork by Steve Ditko. Last week I put up a post on Leonora Carrington’s wonderful, funny, surreal, and apocalyptic novel The Hearing Trumpet, and then after that a look at the Hugo-winning first trade paperback of Saga. More to come soon!

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