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This book was really fun Edwardian Occult mystery fiction. A collection of short stories that are narrated by a friend of the Ghost Finder who goes over to his house for dinner to hear the stories related. A rather odd and un-necessary convention but really the only complaint I have. The stories were genuinely spooky; it was great to read a book where the hero spent half his time cowering in magic circles waiting for dawn. It was nice to see that despite his interest Carnacki wasn’t full of bravado but legitimately terrified of the terrors that he sought out. I also really liked how these stories were a complete mix of the actual supernatural and the mundane. I think this really added to the story, as I never knew whether the terrifying event would turn out to be real or not. There was also one story that was not at all supernatural but was about a man who had a second copy of a book that was supposed to only have one copy in existence and Carnacki was able to detect how the forgery was made, which of course I found fascinating. There were also some great Edwardian devices, such as the electric pentacle, which Carnacki had invented to protect himself. I had not heard of W. H. Hodgson before, Bill had read a different short story of his before and loved it and I would highly recommend him to anyone interested in Victorian or Edwardian ghost stories.
I haven’t actually finished the rest of the stories from In a Glass Darkly but didn’t think I’d get to them before the end of the year so thought I would just write up Carmilla. I did enjoy this story a great deal. I had heard it being referred to as the lesbian vampire story but was genuinely surprised to see how much was in there and how much Le Fanu was actually able to have gotten away with. The contrasts with Dracula were quite astounding. Carmilla seemed to be much closer to Vampiric Folklore, though perhaps even more romanticised. I really did enjoy the creepiness of the first half; I felt that as close as everything was then it was rather disappointing that the narrator was so far separated from the end of the story. Once Carmilla’s nature was revealed it would have been nice to have a direct confrontation between the two. Still I very much enjoyed the style and the plot and despite its shortness thing I prefer it to Dracula.
This book was the Bibliogoth book for December. It’s a late 40s post-apocalyptic story set in the US. In this case the event that wipes out most of humanity is a strange, and unidentified plague that kills 99 percent of the population. It’s very clean and for the most part doesn’t leave huge piles of corpses around. The main character travels around the US looking for survivors before moving back to his parents’ house. The destruction and the effects on the survivors and nature when left alone by humans were quite interesting. Unfortunately, when they started their own community things got a little less interesting.
The biggest problem with the book was that civilisation fell apart far too quickly. The second generation showed none of the characteristics of people, let alone civilised people. They reverted instantly to the classic images of “the savage”; none of them were interested in books, or the past or indeed anything. They were by far the most apathetic bunch. There was also very little violence, people looted but seemed to have no moral qualms about anything. When a man showed up who disrupted their community, by showing interest in the “slow-witted” girl, the elders’ response was to kill him before he was able to do anything to her!
With a title like The Earth Abides I was exacting the complete destruction of humanity and the fact that the Earth itself would survive, but this was not the case primitive tribes grew up around the few different communities that survived.
Despite these complaints it was interesting, in that way that good science fiction will tell you more about the society it was written during than the future of humanity. Because of this it was a very interesting vision of 50s America.
The biggest problem with the book was that civilisation fell apart far too quickly. The second generation showed none of the characteristics of people, let alone civilised people. They reverted instantly to the classic images of “the savage”; none of them were interested in books, or the past or indeed anything. They were by far the most apathetic bunch. There was also very little violence, people looted but seemed to have no moral qualms about anything. When a man showed up who disrupted their community, by showing interest in the “slow-witted” girl, the elders’ response was to kill him before he was able to do anything to her!
With a title like The Earth Abides I was exacting the complete destruction of humanity and the fact that the Earth itself would survive, but this was not the case primitive tribes grew up around the few different communities that survived.
Despite these complaints it was interesting, in that way that good science fiction will tell you more about the society it was written during than the future of humanity. Because of this it was a very interesting vision of 50s America.
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