On "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" Culbard adapting Lovecraft

                Lovecraft is one of those authors I want to have read, but in spite of having some of his book lying around the house, I haven’t found the time or inclination to read. So when I found this book at my library, I was happy. I like graphic novels because they feel like a cheat - I can throw myself in the world and it won’t take all the time. It’s better than a movie adaptation, but less than sitting down and reading the story.

                The story here is Randolph Carter trying to reach the city of his dreams. Having not ready the source, I cannot say how fully realized this book is over the original book. What I can say is that as an introduction to Lovecraft, I hope it isn’t a fully realized look. The journey Carter undergoes doesn’t have any real tension and it never feels like there’s anything really at stake. It’s like instead of trying to attain the city of his dreams, he’s walking to the deli. This is a shame because the setting is interesting. The world built by Lovecraft and drawn by Culbard could have some very interesting things happen inside of it. I just didn’t think that what was possible with it was attained. 

                At the end, I am not turned off by perusing more Lovecraft, but it didn’t whet my appetite to look for more stories. The books I have will remain on the shelf, gathering dust.

"Hello Devilfish!" by Ron Dakron: A Book to Avoid

I want to call this book bad.

                The only thing really keeping me from doing so is that it is, as far as I know, alone in its genre. There are no other books like it. Maybe that’s a good thing.

                I picked this up at my library. I’m not sure what the buyer was thinking. It sounded unique. Basically, it is the monologue of a giant stingray as he destroys Tokyo. A bigger monster, more of a squid, pursues him who the narrator thinks wants to make him his boyfriend.

                The narrator then falls into a vat of human growth hormone and become a human, albeit a blue human. Then he has to deal with being a naked human stranger in Tokyo that is still under attack from the giant squid thing. That plot resolves, but incompletely.

                The plot is bad.

                The author missed some weird character issues. Somehow the narrator speaks early about how he knows manglish – a jumbled English based on the aesthetic contents of the letters and not the meaning of the words. Think of the 90s vogue for kanji tattoos that “mean” strength but really represent the steadfastness of the peasant woman. But the narrator is also somehow very concerned and mock contemptuous of the modern study of language and big literature. I hate to apply the character’s faults to the author, but if this part of the book is an indication of the outsider status of the author, there is a very clear reason he’s an outsider – he’s just not that good of a writer.

                But don’t think the book is all bad. There is one redeeming quality. The book is very short. In fact, it was the reason I kept reading. Even if it was horrible, it was over soon.

 Edit:

One more thing. There's this annoying interjection the narrator uses all the time -- the title of the book, and variations of it. Is it an in-joke I'm missing? I don't know!

Symbology: An Academic Reflection

I realized

this morning

the Da Vinci Code

has been out long

enough that there is

probably an army of young

Symbology instructors

adjuncting

at directional schools,

wondering

why their lives are

nothing

like Robert Langdon's.

In their darker

moments,

they wonder

why they didn't listen

 to their uncle and

major in something

practical, like

engineering.

When they get

whimsical,

they go over

to the archaeology

department and swap

stories where they hear

about the exploits

of one Dr. Jones.