Welcome back to the strange, misguided world of our tribute to William Hope Hodgson. Where, oh where, dear Lord, are the fun-filled days of leaping longdogs and writerly wittering? Will this horror never end? Today I am appalled to offer, amongst other nuggets:
- an exclusive new Carnacki story by author J Patrick Allen
- twenty more covers up in the gallery under October Horror
- details of the re-launch of web-site The Night Land
- a rare French graphic novel mention of Carnacki
- details of a German language audio version of Hodgson’s The Voice in the Night
I still have more WHH-related items than I can cram into a month, and have one tiny request. If you have enjoyed any of this so far, do please leave a comment. It would be nice to hear from you. Are you having a good time? Or was this festival a Thing which should never have been birthed?
But let us bite the bullet, and… Martha? What’s in these damned cartridges…
Our first feature is, as mentioned above, a brand new Carnacki story written especially for greydogtales! And we are, of course delighted.
J Patrick Allen is a Fantasy and Weird Western author out of St. Louis, Missouri. His first novel, West of Pale, arrives Spring 2016 from 18th Wall Productions and his first short story will be coming out this month in The Dragon Lord’s Library.
You can catch a free story every week on his website www.jpatrickallen.com, or you can follow him on Twitter @jpatrickauthor where he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. Click on the link below the image to read, or tell me and I’ll slam an .rtf version up pronto:
We’ve also heard from another writer Brandon Barrows. I obviously need to crush these pups quickly before my life-support fails (I suspect arming Willie Meikle is the answer).
The first book to be released under the new Dunham’s Manor hardcover series, The Castle-Town Tragedy features three brand-new tales in which Carnacki the Ghost-Finder faces tortured spirits, powerful other-worldly entities and things that go bump in the night. But, armed with an array of scientific instruments, a vast knowledge of the occult, and fueled by a drive to dispel the mysteries and horrors of the world, Carnacki welcomes the challenge as our world’s best defense against the malevolent denizens of the Outer Circle!
The Castle-Town TragedyOh well, maybe they’ll take up chartered accountancy instead. Brandon can be found at the link below:
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We move on to good news from Kate Coady, the new The Night Land web-hierarch (she said ‘web-master’, but our alpha female Chilli will have no truck with such terms):
In 1906, William Hope Hodgson published a long, terribly strange book called The Night Land. In 2001 Andy Robertson started a website about it. The front page read:
Argument: That the Night Land, Though Grotesque and Flawed, is one of the World’s Greatest Works of Fantasy.
The site’s content comprised criticism and essays based on The Night Land, and works of art influenced by it: visual arts, multimedia, and stories written by professionals and talented amateurs. These works form the substance of the Argument: The Night Land is great in itself, and great as a source of inspiration.
Later, Mr. Robertson would publish two anthologies of these stories (Night Lands Volume 1 and Volume 2). He planned to published more in book form. But his health began to fail, and in 2014, he died.
The Night Land website didn’t. Brett Davidson (who might be described as Mr. Robertson’s partner in Night Land literary creation) and I are keeping the site going, as previously arranged. The old domain was thenightland.co.uk. We are now at:
The Night Land web-siteI’ve recently redesigned the site to make it mobile-friendly and easier to navigate, while trying to keep the spirit of Mr. Robertson’s original atmospheric design.
We now have a journal on-site; I’ll be updating it much more often than the old site log. I’ll be posting news and essays concerning Mr. Hodgson and his writing, and some other weird fiction and science fiction. Feel free to email me and tell me about new Hodgson-related works. (nightland -at- starsofwinter.com)
Thanks Kate.
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Meanwhile, I’m still tripping over cover art for various editions of WHH’s books and stories, so have a look and get in touch if you have any rarities I haven’t included yet. We would be pleased to add them and credit the source. If I get a moment, I might improve the display and put them in some sort of order – chronological, by title, by language or just by the number of tablets I took.
I have one here that is only for the real completists – the extremely appealing La Brigade Chimerique.
I should warn you, Carnacki has only a passing involvement in this graphic novel, but I loved the art and the concept so much I had to include it. Georges Dodds, who has a far better grasp of French than I do, helped enormously with this, and provided me with his translation of the review in Le Figaro, November 2012. This extract is from the review by Laurent Suply:
La Brigade Chimérique harbours the solution to its own mystery: can Europe and France generate anew some superheroes, some modern myths? The answer is yes. A French interpretation of Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it draws from it the idea of reusing historical or literary individuals. The Chimeric Brigade is a game of mirrors, sometimes demanding for the reader, between Lehman’s obsessions, a rereading of European history, and the pure adventure of comics.
The narration is very solid, planting clues throughout the sequence of episodes for the stunning revelations to come. Gess’ layouts are admirably coloured by Céline Bessonneau. This complete/unabridged edition finally fills the work’s only void: a tendency towards name-dropping, which becomes almost pedantic at times. The bonus materials here instead bring light on the work’s genesis and the many literary and historical references throughout.
A cult graphic novel for a small number of the initiated since it’s appearance in 2009, it has been adapted as a role playing game and more recently, a somewhat anecdotal sequel has appeared by way of the graphic novel “Masqué,” also by Serge Lehman. This complete collection is a perfect Christmas present for any graphic novel, SF or contemporary history buff – basically, lots of people.
La Brigade Chimérique , Editions L’Atalante. By Serge Lehman, with Fabrice Colin. Illustrated by Gess (Carmen McCallum). I think you may have to hunt this one down on eBay.
As we are in France (or French Canada, as I suspect in Georges’ case), I was pleased to find a 2014 French language audiobook of The Ghost Pirates, entitled unsurprisingly Les Pirates Fantomes. I translated that bit myself, I’ll have you know.
And then lo and behold, a German audio version of The Voice in the Night turned up, which sounds rather good, narrated by Marc Gruppe. How would you ever clog your brain cells up like this without me?
Stimme in der NachtThat’s it for today. If anyone out there is still alive, yet to come in our blog-fest: features and interviews with author John C Wright, editor James Bojaciuk and WHH scholar Sam Gafford, plus more literary, musical and audio links.
No, Martha, no, I won’t leave the attic yet, I won’t…