Giant Squid Creations

I downloaded the ebook of this after I read an article suggesting that Henry Kuttner was an important figure in the evolution of Sword and Sorcery, helping to shift it from Robert E Howard to Fritz Leiber. So I assume, I forget most of the article to be honest and in retrospect I think it left a fair bit to be desired. I was clearly a bit confused when I downloaded it and took what must have been chapter titles as titles for short stories, so when I decided to read it recently I was a bit surprised to find it was a short novel. I was also surprised to discover it’s not really what I’d call Sword and Sorcery, although it’s not that far from the mark in some respects. The Dark World tells the story of Edward Bond, an American veteran. Something happened to him in the war and he never felt quite like himself afterwards. He also had a strong sense that someone or something was pursuing him. Indeed they are and they find him and pull him through limbo from our Earth to the Dark Worl...

Full disclosure, this was the second time I read this story, but my memories of it were vague at best. I had an image of the diabolical ghost from the end of the story in my mind but I remember feeling rather nonplussed by the story as a whole. So why read it a second time? I think because I felt nonplussed and that didn’t make sense to me. Le Fanu entered my consciousness when I read Carmilla while studying vampires in my Honours year and he blew me away. If you haven’t read Carmilla , do it, the prose is beautiful. I then read the next story in the anthology I was using, Schalken the Painter . For the life of me I can’t remember what happens but I know I enjoyed it immensely; I must reread it too. It was probably a year or two after that that I read Madam Crowl’s Ghost and I was quite surprised to be so disappointed. Having forgotten the details I couldn’t remember why such a master of 19th century supernatural thrillers would disappoint me. So I reread it to see if it was as dr...