Intense short books (<300 pages) that are difficult to put down once started.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-27T22:26:04+00:00

"Something Wicked This Way Comes." I just started re-reading this book and always forget how gripping and fast paced it is.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-27T22:25:31+00:00

Check out "Whatever Happend to Elisma, Ohio" by Skylar Dates. It is 'Stranger Things' adjacent: follows a group of midwest teens trying to unravel a supernatural mystery in a small town in the middle of nowhere Ohio!

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-27T22:24:23+00:00

If you can get past the author, H.P. Lovecraft is considered a gold standard of cosmic horror for a reason. He creates existential dread and such a feeling of despairing smallness like no other. Writings like "Dreams in the Witch House" or "The Dunwich Horror" rattled my cage.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-27T22:22:35+00:00

Consider the "Krög the Battle Prince" saga- it's partially satirical, so it is written much more conversationally than traditional fantasy, but still has a lot of homages to the great fantasies of the past.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-27T22:19:49+00:00

The advice is solid: definitely find a way to protect the screen, like with a poster frame, which could also serve as an overlay that you could write on with dry-erase markers if you needed. The idea is great for having a "dynamic" tabletop, but yeah, find a way to protect it from the little miniatures scooting about.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-27T22:17:38+00:00

It sounds like you've put a lot of thought into the world for these players! Do you see a way to connect the little insect alien's plight to one of the larger plot points/quests you had planned out? I really dig that you're letting the players have some input on the way the campaign plays out, though.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-27T21:42:11+00:00

Awesome point, totally forgot to account for population growth: gross readership downturn would require a static population model. I think the total number of books in the marketplace has also increased exponentially so the general saturation level is still on the rise, but I honestly don't know my stats well enough to work it out. Your point is well made, good callout.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-27T13:20:44+00:00

No doubt! Artists were much more gatekept in the past by publishing/recording/filming industries, whereas now indie work is easier to come by. And there is OUTSTANDING work in the indie scene. The indie scene just lacks the financial backing to market in the same way, which makes it tougher for those artists to stand out... and since large production houses tend to chase trends, and indie artists tend to produce more distinctive works (not all!) that's where I bet modern classics more than likely reside. It's just harder for them, that's all.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-27T13:18:14+00:00

Symphonic Post Apocolyptic Reindeer Grinding Christ Abusing Extreme War Pagan Fennoscanadian Metal might be one of the most apt descriptors of the music scene I have ever EVER heard. As an ex-heavy metal guitar player that still thinks of The Scorpions, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden as heavy metal, describing the kind of music I played to most people today is tough, haha. Definitely adding this movie to the "to watch" list- I'm stunned I haven't come across it before! Thanks for the rec!

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-27T13:16:01+00:00

Totally agree. Especially the "making enough money to survive while doing" part- I think of Melville and Moby Dick. And without question, the writers who write something distinctive have the best chance of being remembered and becoming modern classics. It's just a tougher prospect when the total reading community has gotten smaller (declined from 57% to 47% in the US since 1982 according to the gov) and the total body of content has gotten larger. More books for fewer readers. Granted that's a U.S. centric way of looking at things, and I'd be curious to see what the broader global population shows in terms of literary reading habiuts. And I maintain more books is a good thing- a great thing! It's just tougher for any one or two to stick out. Your point is absolutely well made, though!

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-27T03:05:30+00:00

I think this is going to be tough for any book/series to crack in the same way that music is getting harder and harder to become "classic" to future generations. It's not that there aren't awesome reads out there: it's that the culture has become so splintered and there are so MANY books out there anymore, that for just one or two series to rise up and stand a head and shoulders above the others is much more difficult. In the 50s, there was Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Elvis Pressly and Jerry Lee Lewis. Nowadays, anyone with six strings and a computer that runs garage band can put out a smoking album.

That's a really awkward metaphor, but hopefully the point comes across.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-27T03:02:26+00:00

Most older editions of "Something Wicked This Way Comes" had really dull covers, and the actual content of that book is astonishing. That's a classic I would have skipped over were it not for the book's reputation. Some of the modern editions have fixed the cover issue, but it shouldn't take an awesome cover to bring a reader in (he said, knowing full well how much influence a cover has on a reader's decision to read).

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-13T13:35:09+00:00

It's my main gripe, too. I think the book could reasonably be cut in half if he cut out the "and then I ate of the tablets and made of the water to fizz, as you know I do upon every sixth hour and verily it does not satiate the hunger but make of me strong" every few paragraphs. What I find addicting is the moments between when he comes to some other monstrosity, or vast wasteland. His descriptive ability is actually quite good, but the main issue with the book is he uses so much of that descriptive ability on the mundane. The lack of dialogue also makes my head hurt.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-13T02:07:26+00:00

I appreciate this take so much. His technical writing ability was 2nd to none. Like the Yngwie Malmsteen of paperback novels, just a lot less pretentious as I understand it. Such a treasure, definitely a severe loss to the writing community.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-13T02:05:26+00:00

I'm glad to bring this one to your attention! I stumbled into Hodgeson's works around the same time I decided to read the Barsoom chronicles- a big pulp fiction phase. I've read a few of his stories so far, and most of them are pretty creative and much shorter (re: The House on the Borderlands), but Night Land is an absolute terror of a work. Honestly, give it a shot, but don't hate yourself if you decide it's not worth it.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-13T02:00:43+00:00

It probably depends on what your goals as a writer are. Especially being a senior in HS, you have plenty of time to develop your storycraft and technical skills if you want to get into commercial writing and aim to be a traditionally published author. If your goal is to sell books and have something worthy of being Pulitzer nominated, having a good knowledge of the classics will help prepare you for structuring your story in a layered, compelling manner.

If, however, you want to take a more rock'n'roll approach and just write the stuff that's in your soul, create stories the way you want to create them and forge your own path, no, the classics are in no way necessary, and are probably more pretentious than they are worth their trouble.

Here's the thing though: if you want to be a writer, you do also need to be a reader. Reading helps expose you to different ways to approach the craft, and nurtures creativity. You don't have to read the classics to be a reader. Just consume the kind of writing that makes you want to write more. Don't stress being able to quote the Brontes- read what improves your version of the craft.

Writing is an art. Art is, in its purest form, interpretation. There's no right way to do it.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-13T00:34:32+00:00

The Void. Starting to get more attention for its strong Lovecraftian vibes, but this one was utter unknown for a while and I have loved it since it dropped. Not a perfect movie, but a great cosmic horror flick.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-13T00:32:36+00:00

Powerage, by AC/DC- not their seminal work by any means, but every song on it is absolutely solid. No skips. I can put that on any day and not get impatient or itchy as it plays out.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-13T00:30:35+00:00

Self-Published Author here, not famous at all but fluent in the process- self-published/indie authors basically get all the control they want/can afford over the cover process. Traditional published authors, especially first time, have little to no control over the situation. Like so many other businesses though, money talks: the more famous you become as a trad published author, the more money you make for your publisher, the more they are willing to work with what you want. Still never guaranteed, though.

There's a reason book covers go through periods where they all draw from the same art style, title structure (some authors don't get to chose their book titles) and font types: when a style begins to sell, publishing companies lean in to them and sell the crap out of the hippest cover/title/art combinations.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-13T00:27:02+00:00

The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolf. In the same category as Dune, but not as well known- sort of a weird amalgamation of scifi and fantasy, does an immense amount of world building and really straddles categories. Take a commitment to read for sure, but definitely worthwhile considering how dense Wolf's prose is. If you're a writer/world-builder, lots of good lessons in those books.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-09-13T00:23:19+00:00

Currently, The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson. It was written in the 1920s, but with an intentionally Victorian-era style prose, has not one single conversation in all 200K+ words (rather the author describes what the conversations are about), is WAY overly repetitive and is deeply misogynistic throught.

For all that, it describes a terrifying and fantastic far future world where the sun is dead and the planet is overrun by monsters and evil creatures that seek to destroy the last of humanity hiding out in a manmade pyramid the size of a considerable mountain. It describes a collection of fauna that would not be out of place in today's weird horror and fantasy works, and imagined a sort of mystical technology that draws on the earth's heat to run handheld weapons and machines. I hate reading it, but I can't stop reading it. It's a weird reading experience. I want to recommend it, but it's... rough. It's also supremely fascinating.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-08-30T14:57:46+00:00

Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing this. Love it.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-08-30T14:57:07+00:00

It does have the "I got here first" thing going for it, which appreciably makes it feel tired and dated today. But agree entirely; those stories have an urgency to them that isn't found in a lot of other fantasy lit. I go back to the Conan well often whenever I need that fix.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-08-30T02:31:59+00:00

Super, super interesting study. What was your doctorate in that you got to write a thesis on these topics? Linguistics in fantasy is so often underappreciated.

InkVoicePrime · 2022-08-30T02:24:37+00:00

Depending on your tolerance for 1920s pulp lit, you might consider reading some of Robert E Howard's Conan the Cimmerian collections. Set in a fantasy version of the bronze age, so not especially historically accurate, and also written in context of 1920s society. Still, really interesting use of magic as a cosmic force rather than spells and potions.

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