Monster of the Day #483

Updated on May 25, 2012 By Ken Begg 17 Comments

“Well, there’s your problem.”

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  • Flangepart

    Squid: “Oh, there you are, you lil rascels!”

  • bgbear_rogerh

    Never fails, you get the whole ship detailed and a giant squid attacks.  

  • Gamera977

    RELEASE THE KRA….

    Oh sorry guys, that’s getting a little old isn’t it…

    You know ‘Treasure Island’ would have been even better with a giant squid. Hell, even ‘The Sound of Music’ would have been improved with a giant squid. Giant squids make everything better.

  • SteveWD

    Calamari for everyone….and I mean EVERYONE!

  • bgbear_rogerh

    Wikipedia says the book is available on-line.  Giant Squids and the Sargasso Sea as well.  Sounds like The Venture Brothers or Spongebob Squarepants.  

  • MrTongoRad

    Well that is a Fantastic Mystery, allright- just how did that ship and giant squid get bogged down in that shallow swampy water full of vegetation, anyway?

  • Ken_Begg

    Sandy introduced me to the works of William Hope Hodgson via a five volume collection of the author’s work sequestered at Case de Petersen. (I have since picked up a few of the said volumes myself.)

    Many of Mr. Hodgson’s stories were nautical themed, and occult fiction was another specialty, with some overlap. Most famously, Mr. Hodgson was the creator of one of the first prominent occult detectives, Carnacki, the Ghost Detective. Unlike many of those who followed in his footsteps, Hodgson was savvy enough to have the solutions of Carnacki’s cases be sometimes natural, sometimes supernatural, thus lending a bit more uncertainty to each individual tale. Both these and his seagoing tales are well worth seeking out. As they are out of copyright, most or all of them can indeed be found free on the web.

  • Gamera977

    I just finished ‘The Nightland’ about a month ago and I found it a bit of a struggle. I hope his other works moved faster than it.

  • Ken_Begg

    Isn’t Night Land a novel, and a fairly longish one at that? I have pretty much just read his short stories, and they read pretty well to me. On the other hand, I’m conversant with writing from more or less this period (including the pulpier stuff), as I’ve hunted down a fair amount of people writing detective fiction contemporary with Conan Doyle’s stuff.

  • Gamera977

    Ken, yes it’s a novel, maybe 300 or so pages. In the far distant future the sun has burnt out and the reminder of humanity lives in a vast self-sufficent pyramid called ‘The Last Redoubt’ while savage men and monsters roam the countryside. One day a telepathic message comes in from a lesser redoubt whose walls have been breached. An army set out to contact them is destroyed so one man, our narrator, slips out to reach the lesser redoubt by stealth. Sounds like a great story idea but it’s written in the most bland dull way I can imagine.
    I’ve read a pile of work from the same time period by ERB, Lovecraft, Abraham Merrit, etc and enjoyed them. This novel just seems flat to me. I’ll have to give some of his short stories a try.

  • Flangepart

     Hummm…if the sun is burnt out, how can anything live on the earths surface. Wampa ice creatures and the like?
    Sounds like a plot that needs re-imaging. Or did that already happen?

  •  As I recall it Ghost Pirates moves pretty well.  It’s also a neat little novel,

  • Gamera977

     Well, as a 100 year old novel I’ll allow the science a little leeway but still he does refer to trees and bushes in the desolation and I was thinking to myself that even in 1912 they knew plants need sunlight to survive. I mean ‘A Princess of Mars’ was written in the same period and though the science is outdated now it at least did fit with Lowell’s current theories of what Mars was like.
     
    Thanks Cullen, I’ll have to check ‘Ghost Pirates’ out.

  • David Lee Ingersoll

    The Night Land is the worst Hodgson story to start with. It’s his longest book. The writing style he uses is convoluted and makes the story about a third longer than it needs to be. 

    Hodgon’s most famous story is probably “A Voice in the Night”. You might have seen the movie version – ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE.

    I also really like “The Derelict”, a short story about an encounter with what looks like an abandoned ship. 

  • sandra

    Talk about weird coincidences :  I was just thinking about THE NIGHT LAND the other day.  It’s been years since I read it, but I have it in paperback ( 2 volumes). It’s not exactly an easy read, but I found the basic situation, as the narrator travels through a landscape that might have been designed by Hieronymous Bosch, fascinating.

  • Gamera977

    Thanks! I liked ‘The Night Land’ – just found it difficult going at times. Someone, I think Ken had commented on ‘Mushroom People’ being based on one of his stories. I’m going to have to grab one of his short story collections.

  • Spetersen

    I really like the Night Land but agree parts are slow going. The reason there is still life on the surface is from geothermal energy. The entire novel takes place in a gigantic depression in the earth’s surface, the only place that enough heat and air persist for normal life to survive.

    His short stories move right along, as does Boats of the Glen Carrig and House on the Borderlands.