It's the last week of October, and it's raining this morning. Everything about it fills me with delight: the sound of rain drumming in the gutters, the smell of damp pine and oak, the feel of moist air that requires extra socks, and robes, socks and pillows, the flavor of warm tea in my mouth, the sight of my little armies of young round nasturtium leaves being tousled about by grey rain drops. Can I convince my husband to go out into the rain to fetch a log and set me a fire? Or perhaps easier, make me a mocha? It's a perfect day to read and write. It's also a perfect day to finish the fortieth book in my "100 Fantasy Books" reading list.
The Lost Continent is also a lost book. I found it only after scouring many, many sources for interesting authors with the last name of "H." This one was published by Forgotten Books and was originally written in 1900. The only information I could find on this adventure serial writer was in the short preface to this book, which notes he -- and this story -- was quite popular in his day.
Hmmm. Perhaps there is more under his novelist nom-de-plume,Weathersby Chesny.
This is a swash-buckling story with a very faux-modest warrior-priest-king named Deucalion, a delightfully devious empress, a red-haired mammoth, pterodactyls* ("hairless man-eating birds"), and of course, "cave tigers." If you thought Girl-Power was a modern phenomenon, this story proves you (and me!) wrong. It was written to provide delight, in short bursts and it does, and therefore reads as easily as much more modern works. The story only failed for me when it forgot its unique and imaginative setting and focused only on Deucalion's angst.
One of my favorite passages:
"But these tarry shipmen faced it all with an indomitable courage, and never a cry of quailing. Life on the seas is so hard and (from the beasts that haunt the great waters) so full of savage dangers, that Death has lost half his terrors to them through sheer familiarity. They were fellows who from pure lust for a fray would fight to a finish among themselves in the taverns ashore; and so here, in this desperate sea-battle, the passion for killing burned in them, as a fire stone from Heaven rages in a forest; and they took even their death-wounds laughing."
This author of serials has a great lesson for writers: Write your story as if the reader will only see this one part of it, not its entirety. Don't save your best stuff for later. Throw it out there!
Forgotten Books has this story and other buried gems.
*Pterodactyls are probably as necessary an element to every story as are dodos. So here is an important reminder from Deviant Art.
The Lost Continent is also a lost book. I found it only after scouring many, many sources for interesting authors with the last name of "H." This one was published by Forgotten Books and was originally written in 1900. The only information I could find on this adventure serial writer was in the short preface to this book, which notes he -- and this story -- was quite popular in his day.
Hmmm. Perhaps there is more under his novelist nom-de-plume,Weathersby Chesny.
This is a swash-buckling story with a very faux-modest warrior-priest-king named Deucalion, a delightfully devious empress, a red-haired mammoth, pterodactyls* ("hairless man-eating birds"), and of course, "cave tigers." If you thought Girl-Power was a modern phenomenon, this story proves you (and me!) wrong. It was written to provide delight, in short bursts and it does, and therefore reads as easily as much more modern works. The story only failed for me when it forgot its unique and imaginative setting and focused only on Deucalion's angst.
One of my favorite passages:
"But these tarry shipmen faced it all with an indomitable courage, and never a cry of quailing. Life on the seas is so hard and (from the beasts that haunt the great waters) so full of savage dangers, that Death has lost half his terrors to them through sheer familiarity. They were fellows who from pure lust for a fray would fight to a finish among themselves in the taverns ashore; and so here, in this desperate sea-battle, the passion for killing burned in them, as a fire stone from Heaven rages in a forest; and they took even their death-wounds laughing."
This author of serials has a great lesson for writers: Write your story as if the reader will only see this one part of it, not its entirety. Don't save your best stuff for later. Throw it out there!
Forgotten Books has this story and other buried gems.
*Pterodactyls are probably as necessary an element to every story as are dodos. So here is an important reminder from Deviant Art.
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