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Book Review: H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories, adaptation and art by Gou Tanabe, translated by Zach Davisson

H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories, adaptation and art by Gou Tanabe, translated by Zach Davisson

Dark Horse, 2017

ISBN: 9781506703121

Available: print

Gou Tanabe, known in Japan for using manga to adapt literary works, has adapted three tales of the macabre in H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories. This volume includes “The Temple,” “The Hound,” and “The Nameless City.” Each of the tales includes information regarding when the story was written and published. Dark Horse hopes to publish further volumes of Tanabe’s Lovecraft adaptations in the future.

In “The Temple”, a German submarine crew is driven to madness by a mysterious influence. The captain eventually discovers an underwater temple. Will he, too, fall prey to the madness? Two decadent young men are obsessed with the practice of grave robbing in “The Hound”. Their midnight escapades lead to a deadly discovery. An explorer in the Arabian desert discovers an ancient city when he passes through a mysterious doorway into “The Nameless City.” What he sees on the other side is pure nightmare fuel.

H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories is the first manga I have read by Tanabe, and I need to pick up more of his work. This is a must for Lovecraft fans. The dialogue is minimal, leaving Tanabe’s artistic work do much of the communicating. The artwork is all in black and white which lends to the oppressive and macabre atmosphere of the source material. Recommended.

Contains: images of the macabre

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

Posted on October 20, 2017 by , Reply

Book Review: Lady of the Tarot by Juli D. Revezzo

Lady of the Tarot (Reign of Tarot, Book 2) by Juli D. Revezzo
Createspace, 2016
ISBN-13: 978-1537434148
Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

 

Lady of the Tarot is a historical Gothic novel set during the French Revolution. I reviewed the audiobook version of the book. Although Lady of the Tarot is the second in a series, it stands alone just fine. I didn’t read the first one and don’t feel like there was any parts that were confusing. Book one might enhance it, but it didn’t feel necessary.

Strangely, this relates to the last book I read:  The Sandcastle Empire. The plots were very different, but the aspect of falling from high status was a theme in both. I feel that this book addressed it a lot better, and that was refreshing. Where Emilie came from, and her current status, is constantly on her mind, and I think this would be true in both stories.

The romance didn’t interest me, but it seemed to follow a classic triangle formula. Emilie had to choose between the “right” choice and the one she actually loved. Normally, love triangles really irritate me, but this one was fine, since she wasn’t waffling about her feelings, just trying to figure out if she could somehow be with one she really wanted instead of who she should be with.

The horror is of the lurking type, always in the background, and does not come to the fore until the final act. I wish it were more present throughout. There were vast stretches of the story that only dealt with the mundane horror of losing status, and not the supernatural horror that Emilie ultimately has to battle. I did like the small horrors that showed up from time to time, but I would have liked to see more of them.

Despite the shortcomings it was a fun read.

Reviewed by Nathaniel Olsen

 

Posted on October 20, 2017 by , Reply

Help a Reader Out: Are Myths Fiction or Nonfiction?

Interestingly, this question popped up in keyword searches a number of times, so I’m going to briefly address it.

“Are myths fiction or nonfiction?”

The answer probably depends on who you ask and why. I imagine that if you ask an atheist, you’ll get the answer “fiction”. But in the wonderful world of the Dewey Decimal System, books (and other media) on mythology are in the 200s, the category for philosophy and religion. So for straight mythology or books about mythology, it’s considered nonfiction. Poetry (like Homer’s Odyssey will generally end up in the 800s, with other books of poetry. Yes, poetry is considered nonfiction.

Novels and stories inspired by mythology usually end up getting pulled from the 800s and end up shelved with fiction, though. So if you’re asking because you want to know where Rick Riordan’s books fall on the shelf, you’ll find those in fiction. And if you are asking about a graphic novel, it kind of depends on the library. Some libraries will shelve all graphic novels under 741.5, the number for that format, and some pull the graphic novels into a separate section and shelve them by either subject (my daughter’s elementary) or author (my son’s middle school).

So the answer is that, especially in the library, it’s complicated. And sometimes it is kind of hard to figure out. If you’ve encountered Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods”, it probably falls in nonfiction, even though it is written in the annoying contemporary voice of a fictional character(that’s just my personal opinion, my kids love it) and “updated” versions of many myths. But the novels will end up shelved in fiction. Ultimately, though, the myths of a culture are stories of their gods, and their religion, and as long as people believe in gods, mythology is nonfiction.

It occurs to me that, given that this site focuses on horror fiction, someone reading this might think “Well, what about the Cthulu mythos? That’s a mythology, right? Why isn’t Lovecraft in the 200s?” As it was originally the invention of one person recognized as a writer of fiction, and how that person felt about religion is publicly known, I don’t see why it would be anywhere except in fiction. If you do know a person who worships the Elder Gods, please encourage them to seek help.

Posted on October 19, 2017 by , Reply
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