Contest Finalist Discussion - One Thousand Dead Names
Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 2:11 pm
I've collected everything said about the winner, One Thousand Dead Names, right here. I'm looking forwards to hearing from the author, and the other ten people who voted for it.
-Victimizer"One thousand Dead names". This tale has, in my not-so-humble opinion, quite a few flaws, beginning with an overly abundant flowery language, which can be a bit jarring in places (and seems to oddly lessen as the story continues, and not just due to the introduction of the side-characters and conversation). One of the paragraphs also omits a few words/has a few mistakes in it which, while forgiveable, did break my flow of reading. It also features one of my least favourite types of protagonists: The "Paranormal detective", i.e. the kind that either has super-powers, access to spells or a pretty darn good knowledge of what he is dealing with.
Nevertheless, it had somewhat original concepts, had a good flow in both plot and tension and showed off the lingual mastery of the author (if somewhat abundantly, as previously stated).
-WelshThe hard toss up for me is Miskatonic Moon- which as a grad student I thought was great and a thousand dead names- which made me think- yes, a real defender from the forces of darkness would probably be kind of like this. Overall, A thousand Dead Names is, to me, the most polished story and I really enjoyed the many arcane references.
-MikcI tend to broadly agree with Victimizer's assessments; s/he has obviously put a lot of thought into hir analyses and taken the time to share hir opinions - admirable when compared to my own laziness.
The whole issue of what constitutes a Cthulhu Mythos story was also a factor in my decision to vote for "A Thousand Dead Names" rather than "Death of Ages".
Where our opinions differ is that, on the basis of content rather than style, I still enjoyed "Names" the most.
I wonder if the writer is a fan of the DC "Hellblazer" comic series, as I was fondly reminded of the sort of atmosphere evoked in the better story-arcs from its pages.
-VictimizerI also admit that "Names" gave off a distinctive John Constantine/Trenchcoat Brigade vibe. Oddly enough, I like all of those characters (despite not having read all that much about them), i.e. the DC/Vertigo practitioners of Magic and such, but for one reason or another I don't like them mixing with my Cthulhu Mythos - peas to the one side, mashed potatoes to the other and all that.
Perhaps I still suffer from the overdose of that mixture that is Titus Crow. Though I look forward to reading the two newish Lumley collections I've acquired - The Taint and Haggopian - I'm still pretty hesitant to pick up Lumley's other longer works like Khai of ancient Khem or his Dreamlands novels. Though I guess Sorcery in Shad wasn't too terrible.