by William Hope Hodgson
If you've read my other reviews, you would have seen that I really like WH Hodgson's work. My opinion of this book is no different.
I loved this book. Most of the stories are good, a small number are uninteresting, and a few are just "fine". A small number of stories are exquisite.
About 80% of WH Hodgson's stories, among all of his short stories, take place on board a ship, whether it's a sailing vessel or powered. Usually it's a sailing vessel. A few of his stories in this collection are non-maritime, surprisingly. I've said that WH Hodgson likes to reuse premises for his stories. He did that with the stories in this collection too.
Here are a few notes.
- The Valley of Lost Children. This is a tragic fantasy story of parents looking for a missing child.
- Sea Horses. Another tragic fantasy story of a missing child.
- How Sir Jerrold Treyn dealt with the Dutch in Caunston Cove. Civilians help defend their town from Dutch invaders.
- "The copyright versions" are abridged versions of his other stories, intended to acquire a copyright for them in the US. This isn't 100% clear to me.
- The Dream of X. This is an abridged version of The Night Land. The prose in this story is really dense and very flowery. It takes concentration to grasp it. I think it's worth reading. I loved it. Because of this story, I ordered the Hodgson book in this series that contains The Night Land, which is volume 4.
- "The alternate versions" are alternate versions of some of his stories.
- The Crew of the Lancing. This is a creepy monster story that could be made into a movie.
- There are two stories labeled as counterfeits. The introduction to the book gives no explanation of why those stories are called counterfeits. While writing this post, I looked on another site about those stories, and it seems like they were attributed to Hodgson but neither are written by him.
- The Raft. This is one of the two "counterfeit" stories. It doesn't resemble Hodgson's prose style at all, but the content resembles Hodgson's stuff.
Here's the table of contents which I found at camelotbooks.
Contents:
* Introduction by Ross E. Lockhart
Fantastic Visions
* The Valley of Lost Children
* Date 1965: Modern Warfare
* My House Shall Be Called the House of Prayer
* Judge Barclay's Wife
* The Getting Even of Tommy Dodd
* Sea Horses
* How the Honourable Billy Darrell Raised the Wind
* The Getting Even of 'Parson' Guyles
* The Friendship of Monsieur Jeynois
* The Inn of the Black Crow
* What Happened in the Thunderbolt
* How Sir Jerrold Treyn Dealt with the Dutch in Caunston Cove
* Jem Binney and the Safe at Lockwood Hall
* Diamond Cut Diamond with a Vengeance
* Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani
* The Room of Fear
* The Promise
* Captain Dang
* Captain Dan Danblasten
Copyright Versions
* The Ghost Pirates
* Carnacki, the Ghost Finder
* The Dream of X
* Senator Sandy Mac Ghee
* The Last Word in Mysteries
* The Dumpley Acrostics
Alternate Versions
* An Adventure of the Deep Waters
* Captain Gunbolt Charity and the Painted Lady
* The Storm
* The Crew of the Lancing
Counterfeits
* The Raft
* R.M.S. "Empress of Australia"
* A Note on the Texts