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When I was a little kid, my dad had a stack of little comic books with the name Tintin on them. Every once in a while, I would find that stack and read one or two of them. They are fun, colorful adventure stories, each generally taking place in some unfamiliar country.
Later on, I bought a big collection of them, which included twenty-two completed comics and one that Herge wasn't able to finish before he passed away.
Back then, I had no notion of order, so I just read whatever book caught my fancy. Strongest in my memory are "The Shooting Star," "Tintin and the Picaros," and "The Castafiore Emerald."
A little while back I read Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Cask of Amontillado..." Well, Walter Scott Story wrote a little alternative ending to the story that also got into the first issue of Weird Tales (1923).
It's simply titled "The Sequel," and it tells the story of a possible, and maybe even plausible, escape. Having played around with bricks and mortar before, I find this story believable.
After reading "The Dead Man's Tale" in the first issue of Weird Tales, I checked out the next story, which was a bit longer, so I thought I'd do a short review, rather than a full reading.
The story in question is called OOZE, and it was written by Anthony M. Rud. I think it first appeared here in Weird Tales in 1923, but it's possible that it's a reprint that I'm not aware of.
Looking through the old pulps, I found this neat little novella in the first issue of Astounding Stories of Super-Science, from all the way back in January 1930. It's called "Phantoms of Reality" and it was written by Ray Cummings.
Astounding Stories is generally a bit campier than Amazing Stories, and this novelette is a good example. It's a straightforward action-adventure story, in which the main characters visit a world of another dimension around our own. The prose is engaging, and more descriptive of people than of places.
If you read Lovecraft you've probably heard of The King in Yellow. Lovecraft found the book interesting and wove references to some of its elements into many of his stories. Yet at the same time, Lovecraft said it had "uneven interest and a somewhat trivial and affected cultivation of the Gallic studio atmosphere" in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature."
Still, I was not fully aware of the uneven interest when I sat down to read the book.
Have you ever watched a sitcom that made you feel like it was twisting a knife in your heart and guts while you laughed? It's a weird feeling, and it's one I got from Yes, Minister, a very popular British show from the 1980s. It ran for three seasons, and then the follow-up series Yes, Prime Minister ran for two more.
Welcome to the final book in the Riftwar Saga! A Darkness at Sethanon brings to a close this sub-series by Raymond E. Feist, and it's a doozy of a book. I'm inclined to say this is my favorite book by Feist, for its tone, pacing, character arcs, and focus. Plus, it's some well-earned epicness, that has been thoroughly justified by the previous books.
This book has two main plot lines, and one of those splits late in the book to make a third minor plot line. There is a bit of desperation throughout the story, and it's well-justified. I'm not a big fan of the "ticking clock" trope, but the timing of events in this book is handled well, neither being too precise nor too vague.
We get to experience a massive siege on a city called Armengar, and Feist handles this type of warfare expertly. The action is realistic and full of surprises, and even an occasional laugh. Feist's descriptions of routed armies and the danger of being in their paths is fascinating and uncommon in fiction; most authors assume that retreating forces just run.
My least favorite part of Feist is typically "big magic," and there's quite a bit of it in this book, but it's handled pretty well, compared to other books, and feels earned after the three previous books. Feist manages to avoid the temptation to make big light shows, which always feel kind of silly in prose, and instead he actually comes up with some fun things for the big magic to accomplish.
And, as usual, we get some heart-wrenching moments and some great character development.
If you haven't read the previous books in this Saga, you may want to stop here, as I won't be able to avoid spoiling some parts of the end of Silverthorn in describing the beginning of this book.
