I think people overlook this one when it comes to the Dying Earth sub genre. While the writing can be at times redundant to the point of tedium, the imagery is absolutely superb. I love Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, but I admit it took me a lil while to really get into it, because I've never been a big Clarke Ashton Smith fan. CAS grew on me over time, and his inspiration on Vance is very strong. He's certainly a better writer than some of his contemporary's (obviously Howard, and perhaps even H.P.), but his over the top sorcery and magic imbedded in most of his stories never spoke to me as much as his world building and atmospheric prose.
Wolfe takes from these older pulp writers in terms of ideas, imagery, and perhaps themes, but his writing also has this classical flare to it; Dickens, Proust, Steinbeck and so on. His Dying Earth Masterpiece is a Mountain of style and flavors. I know how much of an impact Vance had on his work, but the 2 dying earth Sagas are at the same time vastly different. Vance's Dying Earth books are so much indebted to Smith, but he add's such a fun playfulness to it. Wolfes Botns, while inspired more by Vance's Dying Earth is much closer in tone to Chambers' dream-like Dystopian Nightland. I just think Wolfe nailed the archaic dialogue a lot better than Chambers attempt.
Another Dying Earth story that hits the same kind of highs would be George R. Martin's House of the Worm. What do you all think?
I believe you mean The Night Land (1912) by William Hope Hodgson.
I was very confused for most of that post thinking that I had completely mixed up who wrote that book. It’s great, Hodgson had a great flair for the almost psychedelic, dreamy side of weird fiction.
You're correct! I don't know why I mix those 2 authors up. Robert W. Chambers wrote the king in Yellow (masterpiece btw) and William Hope Hodgson wrote The Nightland, House on the borderland and all those cool sea-faring short stories. Thank you!
I wrote a little book on The King in Yellow about a year ago: A Chapter Guide About the King in Yellow. You might get a kick out of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Land
In the 1800s it was believed that all stars get dimmer over time, that mars was warmer in the past, and that earth would eventually freeze. There was an entire genre of Dying Earth stories, many of which involved the death of the last human.
It’s my favorite book by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Hahaha oh stop! I made a goof 😂
😉
It's great. It's worth reading all 600+ pages of bizarre at-times-barely-readable prose. I imagine almost everyone bounces off it early but it's legitimately a masterpiece.
I wonder how many times some variation of the hero eating his little food pill thing happens.
I struggled a lil bit with the redundancies, such as the daily pill thing haha, but it is awesome.
I've read Greg Bear's homage City at the End of Time.
The original is quite hard to muddle through. I would say that if you want to try it but bounce off of it James Stoddard wrote The Night Land, Retold which is an update for modern readers.
There's also _ Awake in the Night Land_ by James C. Wright (2014). I highly recommend it.
Shelved by Genre did a (fantastic) read along series on BotNS and one of the hosts referenced this book a few times. It's on my to-read list.
Yes, I have. It is one of my favorites. It is by Hodgeson though.
I know, got those old weird fiction writers mixed up. Love em both
The Night Land is cosmic horror that happens to have a happy ending.
It's a classic - although I think more of a horror touchstone work than dying earth. His other one the House on the borderland is worth reading if you enjoyed the atmosphere of Night Land.
Vance being such a reference point for BotNS is interesting as they couldn't write more differently, stylistic antipodes. Wolfe's style is obviously grander and more literary, but I love how Vance hits the sadness and loss of a dying earth through comedy. I think this must be very hard to achieve.
Very true. Vance is the man.
Yeah it’s a titanic novel that feels 50 years ahead of its time. It isn’t perfect, as the romance in it is extremely sentimental and could be 200 pages shorter in the last third. Thematically Wolfe has more in common with Hodgson than with Vance, and wouldn’t be surprised if he read it several times in his life. I think fans of Book of the New Sun would get a lot of enjoyment from it, they are two works that are in dialogue with each other.
I also highly recommend John C Wrights collection Awake in the Night Land. It contains four novellas in the Night Land universe that is very faithful to the spirit of William Hope Hodgson. The first novella in particular is incredible, and the last adds a framing device to the whole story that concludes everything beautifully. Great science fiction.
I've heard about that collection Awake in the Nightland. It sounds really cool.
I read this to my son when he was like 8 or 9 before bedtime. Now that he's 15, he actually writes fiction with a very similar feel. I didn't think he was paying attention, but it made an impression.
Hell yeah!
Ashton Smith a better writer than Howard?
first of all how dare you
Which Howard are you fired up about? It's debatable that Smith "May" have been a better writer than HOWARD Phillips Lovecraft, as for Robert HOWARD... I'd say Smith definitely takes the cake.
I'm talking Howard, not Lovecraft.
In my book no pulp writer touches Howard.
I can't say that I have a lot of Smith experience, but I couldn't make it through the Xocanth book. But Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane...they're nearly all bangers.
Well I'm not saying Howard's stories don't kick ass.im strictly speaking about his writing vs. Smiths writing. Smith was like a young wordsmith brainiac protegé of Lovecraft, and he could really write some impressive prose.
Oh man, we just stumbled into the same discussion I'm habing somewhere else.
I think it is meaningless (as in: in fact nonsense) to talk about story or character and prose as separate things. It's all prose! That's all it is!
I think its biggest achievement is in atmosphere and some very imaginative ideas like a unique weapon that the main character uses. Hodgson was killed at Ypres in WW1 ( he was hit directly by an artillery shell) and I think it's kind of crazy how much The Night Land evokes a WW1 battlefield.
It's also way too long and extremely boring. In addition to the archaic language, the main character describes his girlfriend as "naughty" way too often.
TNL is worth reading for its ideas. But I wouldn't consider it to be an enjoyable read. And just skip ahead if you start to get bored.You probably won't be missing much.
Oh I know! 😂 The main idea, and World building is utterly amazing, but I agree there's just way too much chaff in the writing, and is at times borderline unbearable! Haha. But I think it's a testament to how awesome his story idea and Worldbuilding is that one can still have much appreciation for its highs that they can forgive the botched execution and overwrought writing style.
The fact that TNL opens with like 25 pages of a prologue story that is basically totally unrelated to the main story doesn't help either. It's some setup to introduce us to the main characters and frame the story as a sort of dream, but oof Mirdath the Beautiful is tough.
It's such a tragedy Hodgson was killed so young, he was a true modern Renaissance man and likely had decades of fantastic literary output ahead of him.