The Best of Weird Tales reviewed by jseger9000

CharlasReviews reviewed

Únete a LibraryThing para publicar.

The Best of Weird Tales reviewed by jseger9000

Este tema está marcado actualmente como "inactivo"—el último mensaje es de hace más de 90 días. Puedes reactivarlo escribiendo una respuesta.

1jseger9000
Editado: Nov 17, 2010, 11:31 pm

Sorry to post another review so quickly. I was actually in the middle of The Best of Weird Tales when I read The Gunslinger.

Anyway this is a first run through and I think it's okay, but I can see it's missing something.
---
One of the several Weird Tales anthologies available is titled Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies. That title is appropriate as the magazine habitually goes in and out of print. The title of this one, The Best of Weird Tales isn’t quite as accurate. It is actually the best of the Weird Tales revival that ran from 1988-1994.

If you are looking for the original Weird Tales heavyweights: Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Seabury Quinn or H. P. Lovecraft, they aren't here (despite the beautiful image of Cthulhu on the cover).

The book does contain plenty of big names though. F. Paul Wilson, Brian Lumley, Tad Williams, Tanith Lee, Robert Bloch, William F. Nolan, John Brunner, Ramsey Campbell, T.E.D. Klein, Harry Turtledove, Thomas Ligotti, Gene Wolfe and Karl Edward Wagner. Whew! There’s others. Those are just the names I immediately recognized.

Like any anthology, the stories are of varying quality, but none of them was a total waste of time. F. Paul Wilson’s ‘Midnight Mass’ would probably be the best story in the book, but since the story is reproduced almost word for word in Wilson’s Midnight Mass novel, I was already familiar with it.

Weird Tales always contained a mix of horror, fantasy and science fiction (plus stories that defy classification) and that is certainly true of this collection. What surprised me is that a couple of the best stories were fantasy (‘After the Last Elf is Dead’ and ‘Magician in the Dark’), a genre I usually do not enjoy. On the spooky side, I loved ‘Fruiting Bodies’, ‘Night Bloomer’, ‘The Other Dead Man’ and ‘At First Just Ghostly’.

While none of the stories was quite an instant classic, all were at least good.

2VivienneR
Nov 19, 2010, 2:20 am

Shouldn't "there's others" be "there are others"? Or, there's more.

Otherwise, I don't see anything wrong with this. The long list of names was a bit overwhelming, but the "Whew!" lightened it considerably. If you have nothing better to do you could polish it to perfection, but it doesn't have any discernible flaws that I can see.

3readafew
Nov 19, 2010, 1:18 pm

There's something about the last 2 paragraphs but I can't put my finger on it. Otherwise I like it.

4jseger9000
Nov 19, 2010, 1:20 pm

#2 - Shouldn't "there's others" be "there are others"? Or, there's more.

Definitely. That is much better.

I knew that list of names was going to be a little overwhelming. I did it because Weird Tales is legendary among aficionados and they expect a Weird Tales anthology to contain certain authors. I wanted to show that no, those guys aren't here, but the book isn't made up of a bunch of slouches you've never heard of either.
---
One of the several Weird Tales anthologies available is titled Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies. That title is appropriate as the magazine habitually goes in and out of print. The title of this one, The Best of Weird Tales isn’t quite as accurate. It is actually the best of the Weird Tales revival that ran from 1988-1994.

If you are looking for the original Weird Tales heavyweights: Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Seabury Quinn or H. P. Lovecraft, they aren't here (despite the beautiful image of Cthulhu on the cover).

The book does contain plenty of big names though. F. Paul Wilson, Brian Lumley, Tad Williams, Tanith Lee, Robert Bloch, William F. Nolan, John Brunner, Ramsey Campbell, T.E.D. Klein, Harry Turtledove, Thomas Ligotti, Gene Wolfe and Karl Edward Wagner. Whew! There are others. Those are just the names I immediately recognized.

Like any anthology, the stories are of varying quality, but none of them was a total waste of time. F. Paul Wilson’s ‘Midnight Mass’ would probably be the best story in the book, but since the story is reproduced almost word for word in Wilson’s Midnight Mass novel, I was already familiar with it.

Weird Tales always contained a mix of horror, fantasy and science fiction (plus stories that defy classification) and that is certainly true of this collection. What surprised me is that a couple of the best stories were fantasy (‘After the Last Elf is Dead’ and ‘Magician in the Dark’), a genre I usually do not enjoy. On the spooky side, I loved ‘Fruiting Bodies’, ‘Night Bloomer’, ‘The Other Dead Man’ and ‘At First Just Ghostly’.

While none of the stories was quite an instant classic, all were at least good.

5jseger9000
Nov 19, 2010, 1:26 pm

#3 - There's something about the last 2 paragraphs but I can't put my finger on it.

Yeah, that's where I feel like I was running out of steam. Especially the last paragraph. I think I need to give a little more summary/opinion on the book as a whole or something.

I'll see what I can do when I get home.

6TLCrawford
Nov 19, 2010, 2:04 pm

Like any anthology, the stories are of varying quality, but none of them was a total waste of time. F. Paul Wilson’s ‘Midnight Mass’ could be the best story in the book, it is reproduced almost word for word in Wilson’s novel of the same name and I was already familiar with it.

Weird Tales always contained a mix of horror, fantasy, science fiction, and some stories that defy classification. That is certainly true of this collection. What surprised me is that a couple of the best stories were fantasy (‘After the Last Elf is Dead’ and ‘Magician in the Dark’), a genre I usually do not enjoy. On the spooky side, I loved ‘Fruiting Bodies’, ‘Night Bloomer’, ‘The Other Dead Man’ and ‘At First Just Ghostly’.

Just a quick rework of some minor things. I don't think I changed your meaning. Feel free to ignore it.

7jseger9000
Nov 20, 2010, 12:00 am

Thanks for the help. the second paragraph I integrated as is.

The first one though, I made a sort of hybrid between my original and your revision.

The 'Midnight Mass' story appeared in Weird Tales first. later he expanded it into a novel, which I read prior to reading this collection. So I was trying to imply that while it was probably the biggest crowd pleaser, my familiarity spoiled it for me.
---
One of the several Weird Tales anthologies available is titled Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies. That title is appropriate as the magazine habitually goes in and out of print. The title of this one, The Best of Weird Tales isn’t quite as accurate. It is actually the best of the Weird Tales revival that ran from 1988-1994.

If you are looking for the original Weird Tales heavyweights: Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Seabury Quinn or H. P. Lovecraft, they aren't here (despite the beautiful image of Cthulhu on the cover).

The book does contain plenty of big names though. F. Paul Wilson, Brian Lumley, Tad Williams, Tanith Lee, Robert Bloch, William F. Nolan, John Brunner, Ramsey Campbell, T.E.D. Klein, Harry Turtledove, Thomas Ligotti, Gene Wolfe and Karl Edward Wagner. Whew! There are others. Those are just the names I immediately recognized.

Like any anthology, the stories are of varying quality, but none of them was a total waste of time. F. Paul Wilson’s ‘Midnight Mass’ is probably the best story in the book, but since the story was reproduced almost word for word in Wilson’s later novel of the same name, I was already familiar with it.

Weird Tales always contained a mix of horror, fantasy, science fiction and some stories that defy classification. That is certainly true of this collection. What surprised me is that a couple of the best stories were fantasy (‘After the Last Elf is Dead’ and ‘Magician in the Dark’), a genre I usually do not enjoy. On the spooky side, I loved ‘Fruiting Bodies’, ‘Night Bloomer’, ‘The Other Dead Man’ and ‘At First Just Ghostly’.

While none of the stories was quite an instant classic, all were at least good.

8jseger9000
Nov 20, 2010, 12:09 am

I was thinking of expanding the final paragraph, but am not sure if this is valuable information or just a sort of ramble. What do you guys think? An improvement, or unneeded info?
---
While none of the stories was quite an instant classic, all were at least good. The biggest hurdle the book has is the name. I think a better name for the collection they presented would have been Weird Tales: The Best of the Terminus Years. When you title a book The Best of Weird Tales and have Cthulhu on the cover, readers are going to expect some Lovecraft or other writers from the magazine's golden age.

While this is a fine collection for what it is, the name and presentation of the book make it feel a little like a bait and switch.

9TLCrawford
Nov 20, 2010, 8:28 am

Your version is even better and I like the extra at the end. Truth in labeling is sometimes lax in publishing and yes, you should point it out.

10readafew
Nov 22, 2010, 10:20 am

I agree the your 'extras' should be added in.

11VivienneR
Nov 22, 2010, 1:52 pm

Polished to perfection.

12jseger9000
Nov 22, 2010, 8:27 pm

Cool, I've added the extra to the end of the review. Thanks for the feedback. The review is much better than what I started with.

Únete para publicar