Just found The night land I had not heard of this book . You say the language is it’s strength and I do like well written or the unusual so will give it a go .
You speak so eloquently of so many authors and their styles, BP, I'm reminded of a world class sommelier enlightening guests at an upscale vineyard. That said, I am always inspired by your enthusiasm and expertise and never cease to be amazed at the depth of your perspective. Shameless endorsement aside, thanks for another engaging episode. Cheers.
The House on the Borderlands is indeed based in Galway. Hodgson's father was a Protestant Reverend from England; he moved the family to a small village called Ardrahan in the Galway countryside when Hodgson was a child. They lived there for a time but the locals didn't take too kindly to the father's evangelising mission... Or to the fact that they were English. Eventually Hodgson and his family were driven out. My dad is from Ardrahan and I've been there frequently as a child. It's an odd place... very insular, silent and green. There's something vaguely surreal and unsettling about the stillness of the surrounding landscape. Fuelled some wild nightmares in my younger years. Not surprised the place inspired Hodgson. Anyways, great video as always. Thank you sir!
That synopsis of Night Lands sounds absolutely wild. Someone get Michael Bay lined up (and optioned for the sequel with extra pyramids. Which will explode in slo-mo)
Tanith Lee; so underrated. My take on that is that in her fantasy she sometimes meandered a lot. Like Birthgrave, or Anackire you have to be in it for the journey because the destination is too obscure. So readers never knew if what they were getting ahead of time and that put some people off. A shame, she was unique and quite exquisite.
I've been going through Hodgson's short stories and finding them excellent. They are leaving me with a fear of night land in that it might be overwhelmingly wordy, stiltifyingly so. It's great to hear such a positive review with eyes wide open. I feel like house on the borderland does have a lot of firsts, and it may even be where orcs come from- or at least modern iterations.
Tanith Lee wrote a script for a very good Blake's 7 episode. It was very different from the normal scripts. I wish more TV shows had approached and attracted professional writers.
She did two Blake's 7 scripts: "Sarcophagus" in the third season, which is without question one of the outstanding episodes in the series. It's bit different in tone from the rest of the show, and is very much character based, meaning that its special introspective quality derives from having watched enough of the rest of the series to be familiar with its cast of characters. The other episode she wrote was "Sand" in the fourth season, which is also good, and also character based, and worth checking out. "Sarcophagus" is definitely her masterpiece of television writing though, and is my personal favorite episode of Blake's 7, an unevenly realized, yet often excellent show.
I'm happy for you. Having discovered Tanith Lee in the mid 80's, I read most of her early novels and continued doing so up until 1992. I did stop after Heart Beast because I felt that it no longer had much of what I liked about her story telling. It had good language but I didn't feel the story. I did pick up a few books that she wrote after that one but it took me a few years to get back to her. Of her 'newer' novels I like her YA series (Unicorn, Wolf and Piratica), and Mortal Suns. The last title was supposed to have a sequel but that never saw the light of day. Her Birthgrave trilogy is classic Sword and Sorcery at its finest. At least it is for me. Her SF is also good but not as vividly written. I have read 37 of her novels and 4 collections (including her Red As Blood by The Sisters Grimmer) so I am quite familiar with her. I have most of her novels on my shelves. I was sorry to hear when the bound editions of her novels stopped coming out in the late 2000's - early 2010's on the imprint TaLeKa. I got the Birthgrave trilogy and the first four of the Tales of the Flat Earth novels. The fifth, Night's Sorceries, was dropped. You have a lot of good reading in front of you if you decide to dig in.
Tanith is one of my absolute favorite authors. Evidently, she has a cult following in the UK, but it's always stunned me how unknown she is here in the US. Thank you for sharing her work.
Just started Night's Master a couple days ago (found the 2 hardback omnibus' at my local book shop) and was immediately blown away by the style. Definitely gonna have to check out more from her, any suggestions?
@@Scotticusmaximusmeta I wish it were my first time again! Okay, the rest of The Flat Earth Series, The Birthgrave, Don't Bite the Sun, The Silver Metal Lover, Red As Blood: The Sisters Grimmer, Electric Forest and Personal Darkness will do you for now, I'm guessing, :). Oh, and check out horror and scifi anthologies/special releases, because those short stories are amazing!
@@meesalikeu Her books were definitely around in the 80's, but so were a lot of authors, the 70's and 80's were booming with authors and readers alike. Tanith hasn't been remembered like Ursula or Moorcock and I think it's a shame.
I just found out that Richard Corben and Simon Revelstroke did a graphic novel adaptation of The House on the Borderland, and now I have to track that down and read it. As to Tanith Lee, concur. The ony reason I haven't read all of her books is simply that there are so many books I want to read. But, in the 1970s and 1980s, when she released a new book, I read it right away.
richard corben was the beyond belief legend of the 1970s underground comix scene. love his work but its not for everyone. i have to check this adaption out - gracias. 🎉
I am already scornful of your new Top 15! Incensed! Irate! Mystified! Livid! I shall mock your choices until my throat is sore! I am writing my congressman at this moment! I can't wait!
I have a copy of Nights Master but haven't read it yet, I remember reading Drinking Sapphire Wine by Tanith Lee in my late teens I may have to read it again with older eyes. I DNF'ed The Night Land but that was in my late teens too I suspect I wasn't mature enough to appreciate it that too I hope to revisit. Looking forward to your updated top book list.
I feel like we have similar tastes but I've been striking out with fantasy recently. Maybe I'll give Night's Master a shot if it comes my way. And don't worry all the die-hard Heinlein fans have gotten me properly braced for indignation 😅
Hey Bookjack, I am a subscriber to your channel as well as Matt's, I just finished the first fantasy book I have read by Simak called "The Enchanted Pilgrimage" While it can be a bit...slow at first once it gets moving it's pretty good. Simak couldn't help but throw in a bit of Sci Fi at around the half way mark and I must say that really kept me motivated to finish it. Also, you might give The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks, a try its a huge long series but pretty much all the books are actual stand alone novels. Sword of Shannara is the first book and has the most descriptive world building I would say. Later!
@@jackallen6261I actually have The Enchanted Pilgrimage on my TBR right now so thanks for the recommendation. I've liked everything of Simak's that I've read so far
Hodgson is my favorite writer and The Night Land, in spite of its many faults, is my favorite book. Happy to see people still reading him and talking about him over 100 years later.
I do like the sound of The house on the borderland . Not read anything by William hodgeson some great covers on those .Great stuff as always Matt thanks
i became an instant whh fan years ago when i read adrift on the haunted seas, a collection of his weird horror sargasso sea stories. one of the stories, a voice in the dark, was adapted into the mezmerizing early 1960s japanese classic horror movie matango aka attack of the mushroom people. love everything i have read by him since, including the novels you reviewed and his carnacki stories. which reminds me, i wish you would review some short story collections for us sometime.
I have that same edition of House on the Borderlands. I love that cover. The writing reminded me of Zelazny. That whole trippy journey thing you find in Amber.
I have read a few of Hodgson's S F sea stories. The Derelict stands out in my memory. I read a short biography about him somewhere over the decades, he had an adventurous and short life, as I recall? Sounds like I need to read these.
I finished The Night Land. It is certainly a memorable read and you could really get wasted making a drinking game of certain phrases such as "an hundred thousand", "brain-elements", "dainty maid", etc. The gender stuff.... it's hard to know whether that reflects Hodgson's views in 1912 or if that is what he thought his protagonist from the 1700s would think. I also got the sense that the author might have had a very naive view of romantic love and maybe no real life experience. Don't know if he was married IRL. {Edit: In fact, he wrote the novel while courting his wife who he married shortly after} As you said there is a lot of very repetitive stuff especially when he and the maid are making the journey home and he says over and over how he suspects she kissed him while he was asleep, etc.
I read Night's Master and Death's Master this year after learning about Lee on SFUltra. And they were some of my best books of the year. My very short synopsis: it's a weird gay bible.
All the Flat Earth books are great. Death"s Master being my favorite, along with the 4th in the series, Delirium's Mistress. She apparently had a 5th (or 6th?) she was working on called Earth's Master.
Delirium's Mistress is my favorite of the series, there is a 5th book now that collects the remaining Flat Earth stories. The Earth is Flat: Tales from the Flat Earth and Elsewhere (2023)
Yeah, The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson was very evocative & enjoyable. I'll read The Night Land next time I decide to read him, but I'll have to go into my Gene Wolfe reading-mode for that one, & take my time & be committed to reading it, because of it's old-school style of language. I've read 2 short story collections by Hogdson which were good as well. One about a psychic detective's adventures... - & the other was a compilation of his sea/horror stories. He wrote two more sea novels with horror/fantasy tropes, called The Ghost Pirates, & The Boats of Glen Carrig, but I haven't read them.
HOUSE ON THE BORDERLAND is a lot easier to get into compared to THE NIGHT LAND; his short stories are cool; one was the basis for ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE. Lee was fantasy's Joyce Carol Oates, she seemed to publish something every other month. Her early fantasies are well-paced and colorful, from the period when she wrote my favorites of hers: DON'T BITE THE SUN (sf), LYCANTHIA (werewolf love story); DAY BY NIGHT and ELECTRICC FOREST, not small-focus SF with love stories. She went too soon.
I really like Hodgson a lot, and covered a whole lot of his stuff on my podcast in 2022, including House on the Borderland. I think that is his best work, probably, and I do think it's one pretty coherent story. The Night Land is really wild an ambitious, but that writing style is pretty hard to take in my opinion. It's a weird personal choice on Hodgson's part as I don't know he was particularly good at this. For someone who was a contemporary of his and wrote *successfully* in a faux-archaic style, and did so with what I think is great distinction, I think E.R. Edison is very much worth checking out. But yes, Hodgson is pretty wonderful at this strange, horror-at-the-borderlands atmosphere. I think House ... is really a meditation on grief, and Lovecraft though he praised the book, seemed to miss that aspect entirely, dismissing the "sentimental romance" as if that sentiment weren't the very reason for everything else that happens.
Feel like one of Lee's challenges was that audiences are fickle about that whole Vance-ian niche that plays fast and loose with the boundaries between SF and fantasy. There's beloved media like Final Fantasy and that Arcane cartoon that are dead ringers for it, but you don't see it getting much pub or reader attention in prose fiction anymore.
Have you thought about reading Celia Friedman’s “Coldfire” trilogy? That might tickle your Science Fantasy nerve. It reads like a fantasy but is arguably SF because it’s set on a colonized planet. The “magic” is explained as a real physical manifestation of “fae” which emanates from the planet, affecting the dreams of human settlers and making their nightmares come physically true. I will definitely be checking out Hodgson’s Night Land. Thanks for the Vid!
FWIW, my three favorite obscure SF authors are G C Edmondson, Colin Kapp and C C MacApp. They are quite different from each other and tell very good stories.
I'm a complete beginner when it comes to science fiction. I read a lot of literature, particularly Russian. Anything you'd recommend to get me into the genre? Thanks, love your videos.
ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gycpEHTQQgo.htmlsi=mLqaotRwbBkf0PnV I started here with his beginner books. Tiger Tiger I'm book clubbing with some friends and then I read The Dispossessed as my free time book. Honestly I trust his opinion on books especially sci-fi and if he says it is good or engaging I'd take the leap
My brain-elements registered a stirring of the aether around me, such that I well knew with great certainty that the forces of Bookpilled was awake and moving in that land, and that a video upload was upon me.
Those trees look like you're well North of San Diego - are you traveling, or am I just way too ignorant of Mexico's Flora? I'm really glad to hear your review of these! Rork! Always looked like a missbegotten artifact of another time, it sounds like that's a case where you can judge a book by its cover. I never come across those Balantine Adult Fantasy Night Lands, - that's a Hodgson book I've been looking forward to reading. Thanks for getting into the meat of it a little bit more! As always great stuff.
Have you read The Chronicles of Morgaine, by C J Cherryh? I'd be interested in your take on it. It must be 25 years or so since I read it and have always meant to go back to it.
I've had Night Land on my tbr and I wanted to get to it soon. My copy of volume 1 has been on the shelf for a little while. Which also means I'll be skipping your review just for today :) however, I'm hoping someone can address this in the comments - the paperback versions have been altered or shortened in some way and I'm wondering if I should wait to track down an earlier version. I'm patient and I wouldn't mind waiting, as difficult as it may be to find. But would anyone know if it's worth it or how drastic the changes are?
I bought a copy of The Night Land a bit ago and it's a print-on-demand thing that has all of the text presented in centered justification. Is this correct or did I buy a weirdo copy?
I would say, if anything, fans of The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman would be better off trying The House on the Borderland rather than The Night Land. You got me thinking for a few hours…and I would also say that the Angela Carter book would possibly match up better with stuff by James Branch Cabell - like Something About Eve. Certain scenes from Doctor Hoffman also remind me of Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. And although this may be a stretch too far, David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus is vaguely more life Doctor Hoffman. I’m no scholar or thematic expert; I’m just going by my own attempts to understand any of these books and what I feel is similar, especially as it applies to trying to focus on what older Fantasy works possibly might appeal to fans of a book like Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman. The Night Land doesn’t remind me of it at all. Funnily enough…if The Night Land reminds me of anything, of all books it makes me think of the ancient Chinese Fantasy classic, Journey to the West, unabridged, in structure and general effect (repetitive; one long slog through a never ending landscape of monsters). BUT, Journey to the West generates humour over nightmare.
Does anyone here know whether Matt ever reviewed 'A Voyage to Arcturus' by David Lindsay? It is from 1920 and also counts among the most outstanding and unique early 20. century science fiction works.
I read both The Night Land and House on the Borderland back around the late 80s-early 90s, because they were on a list of "100 Best" Fantasy books edited by Moorcock and Cawthorn. I think I read The Night Land first, and House on the Borderland shortly thereafter. I remember being part-way through Night Land, and having my copy on my person when I was sitting in a university History course that was about to start for the day - but there was time before the lecture for the guy beside me to ask me about the book I had with me. And I said something like "well, it's this incredible Fantasy novel from 1912, that I guess some people would hate, because you just follow this guy on a quest, and then he kind of covers the same territory going home...but, it's not like anything else." How this got dreamed up and believed in enough to write down, in 1912, I don't know. It's potentially boring and repetitive - but it isn't. It's fabulous in how alone it stands - there would be no point to ten authors trying to copy this, and I could not live off this kind of book over and over again. But geez louise, what an icon of a book. Years later, when I was willing to part with my Grafton copy with the pyramid hogging the cover, I gave it my friend Richard, even though he had had such a tough time with The Worm Ouroboros (mostly because of the archaic style). We talked about The Night Land when he was well into it, and he reminded me of the gender roles, and I started realizing the book was not so wonderful in certain aspects as younger me had thought. I did go to Goodreads and change my rating from 5 to 4 stars, because talking about that aspect of the novel soured this perfect book - well, the perfect memory of it - a bit, for me. But reading it was an awesome experience, way back when, and I've never been put in quite the same mood by any other book. Aldiss and Wingrove, in their SF overview Billion Year Spree, praise the opening of the novel, and then are not so in praise of the bulk of the novel as it "squanders" its brilliantly-conceived future world of darkness and nightmare - creatures and geography - on such a slow-moving, aggravatingly-written (for some) walkabout. I'm paraphrasing a bit here, because I haven't read Billion Year Spree in ages, but that was the gist. Personally, I just know I got about halfway through The Night Land and said "just carry me home, to the end. I'm all in.". May I ask, did you sell Amy Thomson's The Color of Distance...I mean, just so I know I shouldn't expect it any time soon as one of your reviews. I know you discovered it was signed; and if you did sell it, I'm betting it will find love with some SF hidden-gem seeker out there.
It's a singular thing, I agree. Apparently many other authors have written homage to it, including one guy who completely re-wrote it in more reader-friendly prose style, an idea I hate. I think the ending is so good that it excuses the preceding 40% of it that slogs. I am keeping Color of Distance, yes. May or may not get to it before my next travel jaunt.
@@Bookpilled Thanks for letting me know about that. We are coming up as kind of similar in tastes, gut reactions and critical assessments of books - and yet not always similar - so I have to admit that since Color of Distance was my Blindsight before there was Blindsight (and Orbitsville has come down a teeny bit with a recent re-read), I would be curious what you eventually think of my third favourite SF novel. Whatever - I hope some of your best book experiences are still in your future.
Can you at some point give "The Night Land, A Story Retold" by James Stoddard a go? It's the same story deprived of the archaic language and outdated themes apparently
You neglected to mention that Hodgson died on the fields of Ypres at the close of World War One. He probably wasn't concerned with the gender norms of 21st Century USA I suggest. Great recommendation however. Many thanks.
![I Cannot Believe This Forgotten Science-Fantasy Epic Exists [100 Book Challenge #87-90]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
