The William Hope Hodgson thread

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Schulz? That's really interesting. I remember reading this really long interview with Day by Phil Sandifer and seeing what he objects to in these things
The Vox Day Interview: Transcript | Eruditorum Press
Like I disagree with a lot of things he says here but you wouldn't imagine this is the same guy who said all that stuff about women shouldn't be allowed to vote, or the terrorists being justified in killing and acid attacking women and depriving them of education.

I can't remember if it was Day or someone else but one of them criticized Martin's Ice And Fire series for having a dwarf main character, as if that was too depressing or something earlier fantasy writers would never do.

[Nemonymous]

Avalon Brantley's 'The House of Silence' -
I am past halfway in this novel. I already believe that this is the perfect form of THE HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND ethos. Superbly so.
The House of Silence Avalon Brantley | GESTALT REAL-TIME REVIEWS: Dreamcatcher of Fiction Books

[Shadenuat]

I don't see how someone like John C. Wright can even write something Hodgson-inspired as he seems to loathe anything that isn't based on optimist and fundie christian worldview.

[Evans]

Quote Originally Posted by Shadenuat

I don't see how someone like John C. Wright can even write something Hodgson-inspired as he seems to loathe anything that isn't based on optimist and fundie christian worldview.

Wright is also very keen on A.E. Vogt, a writer whose philosophical worldview at least as depicted in his fiction, is at odds with Wright's own. Somewhere he - Wright - had a blog entry about how he consciously tried develop and explore Vogt's philosophy (despite disagreeing with it) in his Vogt tribute novel.

Hodgson on the other hand would be an easier choice - I'd imagine the theosophical mysticism about spheres of good and bad souls as scene in some of the later scenes in House on the Borderland (the scene which triggered H.P. Lovecraft due to the mention of romance I recall) would be easy to fit into a light, feel good pulp story if one so wanted.

[Gnosticangel]

Responding to both Evans and Shadenuat here:

Quote Originally Posted by Shadenuat View Post
I don't see how someone like John C. Wright can even write something Hodgson-inspired as he seems to loathe anything that isn't based on optimist and fundie christian worldview.

"Hodgson on the other hand would be an easier choice - I'd imagine the theosophical mysticism about spheres of good and bad souls as scene in some of the later scenes in House on the Borderland (the scene which triggered H.P. Lovecraft due to the mention of romance I recall) would be easy to fit into a light, feel good pulp story if one so wanted."

I understand the question but sometimes something emerges from people that just seems to come from an inspired place rather than other aspects of their personality. Along with CA Smith and Ligotti, WH Hodgson has been for many years a source of study and enjoyment for me and I'm always interested to see works that follow in his thematic lineage, whether that be Carnacki, Sargasso Sea stories, the Night Land or the House on the Borderland.

I'd enjoyed Wright's "Awake in the Night Land" some years ago and in fact just happened to reread it last week. As an imaginative and well-written development of Hodgson's Night Land mythos, it actually holds together really well. For what it's worth, I found it captivating and recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the Night Land.

There's a couple of nice references in the latter sections to David Lindsay also.

[Hidden X]

For what it's worth, I actually really liked "Awake..." (original novella) too, and I think that I recommended it to Robert in some other thread. It flows like a Greek tragedy, and stylistically it is much closer to Gene Wolfe than to Hodgson (which is a good thing).

It's a shame that Wright is the way he is, since he's probably the only genuine talent among the sad/rabid puppy crowd.

[Nemonymous]

The Avalon Brantley is brilliant and compulsory reading for any Hodgson fan.

[Hidden X]

I definitely plan to check her novel out. Wish that rest of her work was more easily available, but I suppose there is no sense in hoping for something like that given her tragic passing.

BTW, nobody answered my earlier inquiry about John B. Ford's Hodgsonian stories. Some of them can be found online, like this one:
http://talestoterrify.com/tales-to-t...d-rick-kennet/

[Gnosticangel]

Hidden X wrote: "For what it's worth, I actually really liked "Awake..." (original novella) too, and I think that I recommended it to Robert in some other thread. It flows like a Greek tragedy, and stylistically it is much closer to Gene Wolfe than to Hodgson (which is a good thing)."

That is an excellent comparison, it does have a Wolfe-esque quality (even down to the unreliable narrator)!

[Gnosticangel]

Hidden X wrote, "BTW, nobody answered my earlier inquiry about John B. Ford's Hodgsonian stories. Some of them can be found online, like this one:
http://talestoterrify.com/tales-to-t...d-rick-kennet/"

Ford's Hodgsonian stories are excellent. "The Haunted Ocean" is a particularly terrifying Sargasso Sea sequence.