I've covered both Dracula and The Phantom of the Opera (the books, obv), with Justin Fraser on the Wordy Pair Podcast, but I thought it might be fun to contrast them with each other in a bit more detail, so that's what I'm gonna do here (and in the video above).
Both of these books are classics of the Gothic Horror genre, yet they are about as different as can be!
I recently re-read Massacre of Mankind, an official sequel to H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds that was published in 2017, written by Stephen Baxter. It's a decent book, and Justin Fraser and I talk about it on this episode of The Wordy Pair Podcast.
The Water Margin Story, a famous Chinese novel that goes by several different names here in the West, is so freakin' crazy.
Been meaning to read this one for a while, but I finally got around to Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. I've heard a lot of good things about the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games and this book is the basis for those, so I thought I'd give it a read.
My most basic top-level observation was the book's very dark, almost nihilistic tone... Roadside Picnic deals with a small number of characters, and those characters are very fragile... their numbers reduce significantly over the course of the story.
It's heralded as a great classic of Soviet science fiction, and I daresay it is packed with interesting ideas, from the merely mechanical ("empties" and "traps") to the philosophical ("the unlucky barber"). These ideas are presented in a range from obvious to subtle in the book, leaving potential rewards for repeated readings.
One great element of the story was its ambiguous ending. These can feel hollow or trite if done poorly, but I enjoyed it in this book.
Another thing that got me about this book was the tragic arc of the situation. The "zone" gets worse and worse, and so does the government's reaction to it. Eventually, people are forbidden from leaving, and those left behind suffer--the "zone" messes with them and especially their children. The area becomes more and more impoverished as people distance themselves from the "zone" and its inhabitants.
I also found it interesting how making the trade in "zone" artifacts illegal ensured that only the most unreliable people would offer payment for them. A lesson in bad economic incentives.
On the micro level, I found the descriptions of "zone" exploration vivid, creative, and tense. The characters were interesting and often surprisingly sympathetic. Even though mankind learned some useful things from the "zone," it was clear that, most of the time, what you got out of it was far less than you put in.
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| The cover of the copy of Dracula I got from the Archive. |
As a writer and a reader, I need a good source of things to read at all times. As I get older, I find myself with a growing desire to read the old classics, and it's easier than ever in history to do it. One thing I've been doing a lot recently is finding old gems over on the Internet Archive. You can find all kinds of out-of-copyright literature over there--great old books scanned in and ready for you to read.
I've enjoyed putting in the names of old authors and classic books and seeing what's available. It turns out that for books that are old enough, there's a fairly good chance of finding a nice PDF or two that is actually easy and pleasant to read on a screen.
