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Post by Scott on Aug 7, 2018 22:33:20 GMT -5
I can’t remember if we’ve ever talked about him or not. I’ve heard good things, but can’t remember ever reading anything. Anybody read the Nifft stories?
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 8, 2018 7:30:14 GMT -5
I haven't read Nifft but I have read A QUEST FOR SIMBILIS (1974). Shea asked for permission from Jack Vance to write a sequel to THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD using Cugel the Clever and, amazingly, was granted permission to do it. That is what A QUEST FOR SIMBILIS is and it is very good. Of course no one can match the Vancian language style but this does have the same level of extravagant imagination. I've always wanted to read more Shea, since he liked what I like: Vance, Leiber, Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, etc. -- a bit of fantasy, a bit of horror.
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Post by Scott on Aug 8, 2018 10:15:12 GMT -5
They discussed his story Tsathoggua on the HP Podcast recently and I started looking into more of his stuff and it all looks pretty good.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on Aug 20, 2018 19:49:24 GMT -5
I am, completely coincidentally, currently about a third of the way through Nifft the Lean, which I'd had sitting on my bookshelf for at least a decade. So far it's very, very good - clearly influenced by Vance and Cugel (as well as CAS) but it doesn't come across as a rip-off or pastiche. If it maintains this level until the end of the book this will be the best fantasy book I've read in a very long time and will earn a very strong recommendation.
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 21, 2018 10:30:58 GMT -5
I've had THE INCOMPLEAT NIFFT (first two books collected together) on my watch list for a while, but the price has been ridiculous -- currently $25 and up for the paperback on Amazon.com. Just yesterday, I ordered some more "Appendix N" paperbacks that had fairly reasonable prices: under $10 each including shipping, like LEST DARKNESS FALL, THE FALLIBLE FIEND, CHANGELING EARTH, JACK OF SHADOWS, BURN, WITCH, BURN! and CREEP, SHADOW, CREEP! Too bad so many of them are out of print. Something I notice about the older generations of fantasy writers is that their books are shorter and feel more authentic, if that makes any sense. They get to the point without all the extra padding. So much modern fantasy feels like the copy of a copy, -- very derivative with not as much creativity or connection to traditional fantasy sources. When did the decline begin? Maybe in the 70's and 80's when all the franchise fantasy series seemed to get so popular... SHANNARA, DRAGONLANCE, IRON TOWER, etc. I guess that's why I always find myself reaching back to the older sources.
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 21, 2018 10:39:48 GMT -5
Thats my crazed theory coming back about "DUNE" being the tell because it was the first Nebula award. Hugo awards were selected by the few and far between fans of sci-fi then the Nebula Awards made it win by technicalities with its writers for writers approach.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on Aug 21, 2018 11:45:27 GMT -5
I've had THE INCOMPLEAT NIFFT (first two books collected together) on my watch list for a while, but the price has been ridiculous -- currently $25 and up for the paperback on Amazon.com. Just yesterday, I ordered some more "Appendix N" paperbacks that had fairly reasonable prices: under $10 each including shipping, like LEST DARKNESS FALL, THE FALLIBLE FIEND, CHANGELING EARTH, JACK OF SHADOWS, BURN, WITCH, BURN! and CREEP, SHADOW, CREEP! Note that Changeling Earth is actually the third part of a trilogy, following The Broken Lands and The Black Mountains. Changeling Earth is definitely the best of the three and can probably be read as a stand-alone (that's how I originally read it, because the book itself (at least the DAW printing I had) doesn't actually mention that it's the last part of a trilogy), but will make more sense if you've read the first two books (and they're all under 200 pages apiece so it's not a big commitment). |
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 21, 2018 11:54:43 GMT -5
Thats my crazed theory coming back about "DUNE" being the tell because it was the first Nebula award. Hugo awards were selected by the few and far between fans of sci-fi then the Nebula Awards made it win by technicalities with its writers for writers approach. It feels like a long, gradual decline, so it is hard to pinpoint the start. Who knows, the Nebula may be one of those points of decline... DUNE is an example of a solid, original book that was self-contained and needed no sequel and yet was turned into a franchise. One could argue that many classics of the pulp era were franchises as well with Sherlock Holmes, Oz, Conan, Tarzan, etc. never seeming to end, and maybe readers at the time felt the same way I do now ("Fiction just isn't what it used to be!"). But at least they weren't all copying Tolkien! |
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 21, 2018 12:00:05 GMT -5
Note that Changeling Earth is actually the third part of a trilogy, following The Broken Lands and The Black Mountains. Changeling Earth is definitely the best of the three and can probably be read as a stand-alone (that's how I originally read it, because the book itself (at least the DAW printing I had) doesn't actually mention that it's the last part of a trilogy), but will make more sense if you've read the first two books (and they're all under 200 pages apiece so it's not a big commitment). Aw, crap, I see now that it is a retitling of ARDNEH'S WORLD, which I already read. Good trilogy. And I see there was a fourth one written: ARDNEH'S SWORD (2006) so I'll have to pick that up. |
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 21, 2018 12:43:41 GMT -5
I'm not knocking DUNE, the Nebula award shift is just a pet theory of mine.
Sci-fi failures (writers who could not master the short tale) held up the thickness of winning DUNE as a viable excuse for more lucrative competitiveness in the sci-fi industry and the "AWARD-WINNING" labels shifted the industry.
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 21, 2018 23:51:55 GMT -5
I was reading the description in this review of THE INCOMPLEAT NIFFT here: swordssorcery.blogspot.com/2012/05/into-darkest-places-nifft-lean.htmlI recall definitely read the first story somewhere. Maybe in a fantasy anthology. Sword and sorcery Dante's Inferno with everyone asking for a body part to pass and they were sent on a quest by a woman who forms from a skeleton. |
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 26, 2018 11:13:19 GMT -5
Yesterday, I bought DEMIURGE: THE COMPLETE CTHULHU MYTHOS TALES OF MICHAEL SHEA. I've had it on my wishlist for a while, but I finally bought it because it is currently only $3.99 on Kindle.
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Post by Scott on Aug 29, 2018 21:48:15 GMT -5
I started Nift the Lean. Shea has a style similar, but destinct from Vance, Lovecraft, etc. Came across this awesome paragraph: “They blocked the bridge, bobbing and leering as the hounds were reined up in a scramble of paws. Stooped as these crones were, their height matched the Guide's. They were huge in their stench too, charnel house mixed with the smell of a brothel's slop room. Their eyes were flat and opaque, like glazed snot in the wrinkled cups of their sockets. They all had torn-out patches in their hair, and what showed was not scalp, but yellowed skullbone. Yet their faces were fleshed—wenned and warted. They wore grave-rags cinched with gallows rope at the waist. A glimpse through the robe of one, where a cancered breast showed a tumor-pit you could get your fist into, was enough to tell us that their rags were a mercy to our eyes. The fiercest of the three came forward, grinning. One of the hounds leaped on her with a roar. She gave it a clout to the skull with her fist that sprawled it shivering in the traces.”
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 30, 2018 10:26:16 GMT -5
Now that's the way to describe monstrous hags. Lovely. I like Shea's writing style. I just read his Lovecraftian story "Fat Face." It was set in seedy Los Angeles with prostitutes, and man, does Shea have a dark sense of humor... I listened to the same podcasts you did, with Patton Oswalt, so that piqued my interest. You'd never see HPL writing a story from the point of view of prostitutes!
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on Sept 4, 2018 12:51:20 GMT -5
Finally finished this a couple days ago after losing momentum in the final story, which isn't nearly as good as the first three and left me with a somewhat diminished opinion of the work as a whole. It's definitely worth reading for the first three stories, all of which are top-notch and probably the best Vance/CAS stories that Vance and CAS never wrote. Even the fourth story maintains that feel, it's just not as good. The notion of two distinct underworlds felt very D&Dish to me - lawful Hell vs the chaotic Abyss - and made me think of the different types of adventures suitable for each: that the former is someplace you're likely to go with a specific mission and goal (and probably at least tacit/reluctant permission from the rulers to be there) while the latter is pure lawlessness and violence and every-man-for-himself, might-makes-right adventure.
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Post by Scott on Sept 12, 2018 7:01:58 GMT -5
A criticism I have with the book is the stories are more event/activity driven than character driven, especially the Goddess in Glass. The writing is good, the settings, creatures, etc. are unique and fantastic, but there is almost no depth to any of the characters. Their thoughts and actions are just brushed over. It makes it hard to really identify with the characters.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 12, 2018 9:41:23 GMT -5
A problem with writing in the Vancian style is only Vance seems to be able to get away with it. Vance is usually more focused on exploring settings and concepts. Characterization in Vance stories is quite spare yet he somehow pulls it off.
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Post by geneweigel on Sept 12, 2018 10:07:54 GMT -5
Yeah, I understand in the case of the Cugel material and in Cugel specifically that its about the tone. We certainly can't relate to Cugel and if we knew how he arrived, at being Cugel, it might ruin that feeling but it is somehow implied that we already know him.
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Post by GRWelsh on Sept 12, 2018 11:55:59 GMT -5
Cugel is that guy who's always running a scam because he doesn't want to work a regular job. And his scams never work, so he ends up working twice as hard as the rest of us. Yeah, I know him.
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