Re: Forthcoming Books
 

If we are bendk . . . then I owe you a Coke!

Re: Ramsey Campbell
 

A bit confused which "this book" this reffers to as all the previous posts were about the Tarchetti ? XD

Re: Ramsey Campbell
 

I believe Mr. Campbell was responding to my post from 29 February, abridged below.

Re: Forthcoming Books
 

Alfred Doblin's Mountains Oceans Giants.

This is the blurbs from amazon

"The 27th century: beleaguered elites decide to melt the Greenland icecap. Why? – to open up a new continent, for colonisation by the unruly masses. How? – by harvesting the primordial heat of the Earth from Iceland’s volcanoes. Nature fights back, and it all goes horribly wrong...

Readers accustomed to following a story via Plot and Character may at first be disoriented by this epic of the future. Its structure is more symphonic than novelistic, driven by themes and motifs that emerge, fade back, emerge again in new orchestral voicings and new tempi. The prose – supple, rhythmic, harsh, elegiac, tender, unsparing – propels the reader on through scene after vivid scene. Mountains Oceans Giants is a literary counterpart to the painted dreams and nightmares of Hieronymus Bosch, in The Garden of Earthly Delights and The Last Judgement.



Alfred Döblin, born in Szczecin in 1878, initially worked as a medical assistant and opened his own practice in Berlin in 1911. Döblin's first novel appeared in 1915/16. In 1933 Döblin emigrated to France and finally to the USA. After the end of the 2nd World War he moved back to Germany, but then moved in 1953 with his family to Paris. He died on June 26, 1957.

Extravagant praise for this novel:

"I know of no attempt in literature that pulls together so boldly and directly the human and the divine, piling on every kind of action, thought, desire, love... Here perhaps the true face of “Expressionism” reveals itself for the first time. – Max Krell

“The account of the expedition to Iceland and the defrosting of Greenland … generates a poetry of fact that deserves to be considered a major literary achievement. … Döblin and Høeg remind us that man is not the centre of a divine cosmos but simply a phenomenon, an unruly and destructive one, within the unimaginably larger system of nature.” – Richie Robertson, 2009, comparing Mountains Oceans Giants with Peter Høeg’s 1993 novel Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow

“…this extravagant book, whose theme is the heaven-storming extravagance of humanity, written as if under a visionary over-pressure…” – Gunter Grass 1978

“A unique and mighty work. The writer has created a gigantic animated teeming living world-picture, analytical and mysterious, mythical and scientific. He has unsealed a flask of powerful potion.” – Ernst Blass, in Die neue Rundschau 35 (1924)."

and this is John Clute on SF Encyclopedia

"Of direct sf interest is Berge Meere und Giganten ["Mountains, Seas and Giants"] (1924; cut vt Giganten ["Giants"] 1932), an extremely ambitious Future History, which extends from the aftermath years following the Great War into the twenty-seventh century CE. In the later years of the twentieth century the world, already plagued by Overpopulation and racism due to worldwide economic migrations, becomes a rigid, polarized Dystopia, a fixity (see Roderick Seidenberg) only to be shaken centuries later, when an indolent but restive underclass, locked into a Machine-driven culture that fails to supply its needs, inadvertently foments a world War whose advanced Weapons cause huge damage. Meanwhile, the Japanese have occupied much of North America, and the focus of the History shifts westward from Eurasia. A campaign to settle Greenland results in the melting of its icecap, and attendant Disasters; connected to this, giant Mutations in plant and animal life threaten the human world, and Monsters roam the transfigured islands that have emerged from what was once Greenland. As in more recent Zombie Apocalypse tales, contact with these Mutants is instantly fatal, and Homo sapiens moves Underground, constructing at the same time giant quasi-living defensive towers. Eventually humans and others tentatively join together to begin to reinhabit the Ruined Earth."

Re: Forthcoming Books
 

Here's my 4-star goodreads review of the Ramsey Campbell book discussed above (The Little Green Book of Grins and Gravity which is in fact the unfinished novel The Enigma of the Flat Policeman with commentary):

This slim collector's volume is a unique treat for fans of British horror grandmaster Ramsey Campbell and golden age locked-room-mystery master John Dickson Carr. The book is in fact an abandoned draft (130 pages in) of a Carr pastiche that Campbell composed as a 14-15 year old before he shifted his focus to Lovecraftian horror, though the mystery is filled with rich and "eldritch" atmosphere. Campbell inserts meta-commentary throughout about his difficult childhood at the time, living with his paranoid mother and absent, intimidating father, and reveals how his real life seemingly seeped into the fiction. While a good bit of the murder method is revealed, the final secrets are lost to time (the reader knows up front this will be the case, so it is not too frustrating). The blending of the mature meta-commentary with the youthfully exuberant, atmosphere-rich pastiche makes this a real treat for mutual fans of Campbell and Carr. Perhaps subtract a star if you're not a golden age locked-room mystery fan.

Re: Forthcoming Books
 

These books by Centipede Press sound interesting. I doubt if I'll be able to afford any of them.


Falling Angel and Angel’s Inferno by William Hjortsberg.
These books are getting stained and then need to go out for slipcase making. Still a little ways off. Hopefully July.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.
We are hoping for end of May. But the signature pages are being held up due to the pandemic. However, everything else is going steadily through the bindery. The two-color letterpress printed illustrations by Vladimir Zimakov look magnificent.

Children of the Kingdom by Ted Klein.

Masters of the Weird Tale by Stefan Grabinski.

Re: Forthcoming Books
 

I am intrigued by Susanna Clarke's forthcoming novel, Piranesi, since I enjoyed Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell a lot when I read it years ago.

Apparently, she signed a contract for two books, this one and another that could be the sequel she mentioned during an interview ages ago.

Re: Forthcoming Books
 

Out this week so not strictly "forthcoming." But this nonfiction academic work, based on presentations at the 2016 "Demon Things Conference" in Swansea, may be of interest to some TLO readers.

Demon Things: Ancient Egyptian Manifestations of Liminal Entities

In March 2016, scholars from around the world gathered at Swansea University for a conference dedicated to exploring the range and variation of liminal entities that the ancient Egyptians believed were capable of harm and help. This inspired the papers in this volume, which present a broad array of manifestations given to demons through iconography, objects, or textual descriptions - all part of the vast numinous landscape of ancient Egypt.

Re: Forthcoming Books
 

Re: Forthcoming Books
 

David Peace's final installment of his Tokyo trilogy, will be published in July 21st. I was waiting for this to be released in order to read all three books in one go.

Tokyo Redux (Tokyo Trilogy, #3) by David Peace