1926 - Year in SF&F: Reviews

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE - 1926 Read other issues here ---------------------------------------------- Infancy of Science Fiction, but - some may argue - the truly Golden Age of Weird Fantasy: H. P. Lovecraft "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" (nv) © 1926, original Arkham Sampler, 1948 Beyond The Wall Of Sleep, 1943 At The Mountains Of Madness, 1968 --/ FIRST place f novella --/ wonder award --/ adventure award --/ style award --/ emotion award --/ awesome scale Reading this novella was a peculiar experience - a dream, or rather a trance, with sights floating by, wonder upon wonder, written in ornate, intensely descriptive prose; a narrative that - if you let it - will draw you in and leave you stranded inside this very dream. Which is exactly what happened to me. Can you believe it, I've never been able to finish reading it... Somewhere half-way along the quest the sheer weird beauty and the awe of thousands of wonders reached a critical mass in my head and prevented me from going further, prompting me rather to stop, to savour at length and to reflect on what I've read up to this point. Maybe one day I will try to read this book again, approaching it in a more jaded and indifferent way, and thus escaping a bizarre dream-like effect... But for now, all I can say is that nothing I have ever read before (not even Tolkien) produced such vivid images of strange worlds and stupendous exploration in my head. H. P. Lovecraft modelled this novel upon Lord Dunsany's magical tales, and it ended up to be perhaps the ultimate in "high imaginative calorie" food. It has a minimal plot, and fulfills exactly the promise of the title: it's "a Dream Quest in a Mysterious and Haunted Land" with elements of dark and high fantasy intermingled. A painting, perhaps? A symphony? Any of these things, but not a novel per se, rather - a haunting poetry. review by Avi Abrams: 13-Jul-06 (read in 1986) ---------------------------------------------- H. P. Lovecraft "The Strange High House In The Mist" © written in 1926 Weird Tales, Oct 1931 Dagon & Others, 1965 --/ fourth place f story --/ wonder award --/ emotion award This is the mother of all "haunted house on a seashore" tales. Just try this short quote for size: "And when tales fly thick in the grottoes of tritons, and conches in seaweed cities blow wild tunes learned from the Elder Ones, then great eager vapours flock to heaven laden with lore; and Kingsport, nestling uneasy on its lesser cliffs below that awesome hanging sentinel of rock, sees oceanward only a mystic whiteness, as if the cliff's rim were the rim of all earth, and the solemn bells of the buoys tolled free in the aether of faery". As you can see, the wonder and mystery in this story are not confined to a singular "strange house" alone. In a most insidious way Lovecraftian tales will stay with you for hours, infusing your reality with a faery glow, and (in an even bigger measure) enhancing the shadows, till they grow to be sentient and grimly intent, bound to coalesce around you, if you do not swiftly flee into reality. ---------------------------------------------- H. P. Lovecraft "The Terrible Old Man" © Weird Tales, Aug 1926 also in - 1921, The Tryout The Lurking Fear, 1947 --/ cool f story The fear of old age and eccentricities that go along with it, combined with a simple "robbery" plot and supernatural surprise at the end make for passable dark fantasy. There was a movie based on this tale; also it's the first story to make use of Lovecraft's imaginary New England setting, introducing the fictional town of Kingsport. review: 31-Jul-06 (read in 1999) ---------------------------------------------- Edmond Hamilton "The Monster-God of Mamurth" © Weird Tales, Aug 1926 Weird Tales, Sep 1935 Horror on the Asteroid, 1936 Magazine of Horror, Win 1967 --/ fourth place sf story --/ wonder award --/ adventure award --/ rare find Not "science fiction" per se, this was Edmond Hamilton's first published story, and it has color and excitement aplenty. It is somber, exotic, "Clark-Ashton-Smith"-esque, baroque and morbid in a most delicious ways. Desert landscapes with unspeakable monsters hiding in grandiose mysterious structures, a dread and a trembling for an amateur adventurer and a professional curiosity for Sean Connery-like types. I thoroughly enjoyed this piece, and - just think - it's only the beginning of a Universe-spanning career! review: 31-Jul-06 (read in 1995) ---------------------------------------------- Francis Flagg "The Machine Man Of Ardathia" © Amazing Stories, Nov 1926 Tales Of Wonder, 1940 Avon Fantasy Reader # 8, 1947 --/ cool sf story --/ wonder award --/ rare find A story about the 4th dimension in 30000 years time. Good stuff. review: 01-Jul-06 (read in 2001) ---------------------------------------------- <--- PREV YEAR..............................NEXT YEAR ---> See the Cover Art Gallery for this Year! Return to the Wonder Timeline: All Years

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