Kveto's logs

[Kveto from Prague]

to buy list:

"Paladin"
"wolf time"
"Men of Bronze" George Shipway

"Sea of ravens"
"3 palladins"
"durandal" Harold lamb

"Prince of foxes" Samuel Shellabarger

"I am a barbarian"
"cave girl" (k)
E. R. Burroughs

"Portrait of a cavalier"
"Mandeville" Geoffrey Trease


"Flashman" George McDonald Frasier

"Kings of Vain Intent" Graham Shelby

"Captain Blood" Rafael Sabatini

"Theophano, crusade of the 10th century" Fredric Harrison

"barbarian princess" by florence king

"Rakossy"
"great maria" or
"hammer of princes"
"2 ravens" Cecelia Holland

"elephants and castles"
"founding fathers"
"king of athelney" Alfred duggan


"casca" barry sadler

[Kveto from Prague]

"daughter of erlik khan" Robert e Howard

"Isle of the undead" lloyd arthur eshbach

[Kveto from Prague]

"last of the legions" by Arthur Conan Doyle

[Kveto from Prague]

"bride of the serpent god"
"ki-gor and the nirvana of the 7 voodoos" john peter drummond

[annis]

"last of the legions" by Arthur Conan Doyle

Thanks for putting me on to this one, Keny- apart from the Sherlock Holmes stories and White Company, I hadn't read much of Conan Doyle's work.

These stories set in the ancient world have a very end-of-empire feel and a message. As well as fiction (and pretty good fiction at that) they're an expression of fear and regret that moral lassitude and greed have replaced duty and selflessness, that complacency is causing the British Empire to go the way of the great lost empires of the past. The Last Galley (a tale about the last days of Carthage) makes this very clear with its epigraph "Mutato nomine, de te, Britannia, fabula narratur", which loosely translates as "just a change of name and the story told here could well be yours, Britain". The story The Last of the Legions also serves as a "be careful what you wish for" warning to imperial possessions pressing for self-determination.

This fin-de-siècle melancholy, the sense that a tipping point has been reached, can also be seen in other British authors of the Victorian/Edwardian period like Conrad and notably Kipling, as seen in works like his Recessional (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176152).

[Kveto from Prague]

happy to, annis. it amazed me how much content conan doyle was able to get into such short stories. really a pity hes only known for sherlock holmes. theres so much more to acd's writing.

"through the fray"by g a henty

[SGM]

happy to, annis. it amazed me how much content conan doyle was able to get into such short stories. really a pity hes only known for sherlock holmes. theres so much more to acd's writing.

"through the fray"by g a henty

I seem to remember hearing that ACD didn't much rate his Sherlock Holmes work and considered his historical novels to be his best work.

[Kveto from Prague]

I seem to remember hearing that ACD didn't much rate his Sherlock Holmes work and considered his historical novels to be his best work.

oh, ACD hated holmes. he even killed holmes off in a story set in Austria but the public demanded his return. "I remember some quote from ACD about holmes "I finally killed the bastard."

I like his holmes stuff but it does get formulaic quickly. ill take his historical stories or his professor challenger stories over holmes.

[Kveto from Prague]

"outlaw of torn" by e r burroughs

[Kveto from Prague]

"the brethern" by H rider haggard

[Kveto from Prague]

"the mucker" by ER Burroughs

[SGM]

I read some ERB Sci-Fi and probably one Tarzan as a kid. i really can't remember them much except that found the style very old-fashioned but that was probably because I was too young to appreciate other aspects.

ERB has been coming to mind recently because of the John Carter film which I would have seen simply for Dominic West but it has had some truly terrible reviews so I might not bother.

[Kveto from Prague]

Yeah, ERB has always been hit or miss for me. Ive never got into his Mars stuff and never even tried tarzan. His "land that time forgot" was too slow to be interesting. but the "mucker" was good. the best thing ive read by him is "the Monster men" a very cinematic fast paced thriller with a real moral punch, written early in his carreer. If you read anything from ERB read that.

[Kveto from Prague]

"return of the mucker" by ERB

[Kveto from Prague]

"the crusaders" (NF) by Harold Lamb

[Kveto from Prague]

"A Jacobite exile" by GA Henty

"The red Mask" by Rafael Sabatini

[Kveto from Prague]

"Charlemagne" by harold Lamb (NF)

[Kveto from Prague]

"in freedoms cause" by g a henty

[Kveto from Prague]

"havelok the dane" by charles a whistler

[Kveto from Prague]

"gangs of chicago" by herbert ashby (reread)

[Kveto from Prague]

"A ladys captivity among Chinese pirates in the Chinese sea" by Fanny Lovoit (NF)

[Kveto from Prague]

"the Court jester" by cornelia baker

[Kveto from Prague]

"the cave girl" by ERB

[Kveto from Prague]

"a roving commision" by g a Henty

[Kveto from Prague]

"4 just men" by edgar Wallace

[Kveto from Prague]

"No orchids for Miss Blandish" by James Hadley Chase

Best read of the year, so far.

[Kveto from Prague]

"floating isle of madness" jason Kirby

[Kveto from Prague]

"the green rust" by edgar wallace

[Kveto from Prague]

"Knight of the White cross" by G A Henty

"the Vampyre" by John Poldori

[Kveto from Prague]

"true to the old flag" G A Henty

[Kveto from Prague]

"the Saracen: land of the Infidel" by Robert Shea

[Kveto from Prague]

"the Saracen: holy war"
by Robert Shea

[Kveto from Prague]

"Czechoslovak fairy tales" by various

[Kveto from Prague]

"the Thirsty Sword: a story of the Norse invasion of Scotland (1262-1263) by Robert Leighton

[Kveto from Prague]

"Armaggedon 2419" by Phillip Nowlan

[Kveto from Prague]

"airlords of han" by philip nowlan

[annis]

Wasn't Philip Nowlan the "yellow peril" guy? I haven't actually read any of his work - is it any good, or a bit dated?

[Kveto from Prague]

Hey Annis, yeah he's one of them along with Sax Rohmer among others. I read these for a couple of reasons, I'm a fan of old Buck Rogers newspaper serials and this was what inspired them and also as a cultural time capsule of the times.

These two stories do play up the "yellow peril" attitude of the 1920's, especially. I was interested because they are very early "future apocalypse" examples, rare in those times of hope for the future. His premise is that the US and Europe wear each other out fighting wars, so the Chinese and Mongols are able to conqueor the world with new technology. Interestingly, the Asians for him represent a very privledged, rich on top, right wing society. the rebel americans are only able to defeat them by bonding together in a selfless almost communal society. In fact, the American "gangs" work in almost the same way as a kibutz.

Anyway, ive always like to see what people in the past imagined the future to be like. they are free kindle reads. if you can overlook the "good guys as white americans fighting the bad yellow people angle", they make for a decent quick read. Can't really recommend them unless you have a kind of interest in the subject matter. Nowlan really plays up the "science" angle to the sci-fi, so you can see why that made buck rogers popular. Not sure how interesting they are within the topics of this board, tho. I mostly needed a HF break.

[Kveto from Prague]

"buck rogers in 25th century complete newspaper dailies vol 1" by phil nowlan