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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9781596545526
ISBN number: 1596545526
Label: Black Mask
Manufacturer: Black Mask
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 350
Printing Date: July 22, 2008
Publishing house: Black Mask
Release Date: July 22, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 811057
Studio: Black Mask
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Product Description:
Three novels by the master of the eerie. Ringstones: Pagan rituals in the rural English countryside. The Sound of His Horn: an alternate future... if the Nazis had won the war. The Doll Maker: Young Clare Lydgate escapes her Oxford school grounds into a world of mystery.
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Rated by buyers -
Up until 2008 here were your options. Option 1: Track down one of the tattered Ballantine copies of Sarban's three core works (Ringstones, The Sound of His Horn, and The Doll Maker) at prices that are usually reserved for regular hardback novels (about an average of thirty bucks) and sometimes up to three times that amount. Option 2: Track down one of Tartarus presses absurdly difficult to find and absolutely beautiful hardback editions. Option two is the way to go, but became more difficult almost as soon as the books were released (especially for the edition with "The Sound of His Horn"). So for quite a while one of the 20th century's greatest fantasy writers has been, for all intents and purposes, inaccessible.
Sarban (nom de plume of John William Wall) is a writer that deserves to never be out of print. Thank you Blackmask for ensuring this. What you get here is a sturdy, reliable, TEXTUALLY ACCURATE reproduction of Ballantine's three Sarban paperbacks. I don't know about you, but I'm the kind of reader who likes to engage my books. I write notes on the margin as they come to mind; I underline passages; I dog-ear the corners of particularly memorable pages. I cannot do this with my Tartarus copies (for the love of God, it would be like underlining a passage in a 1st edition Whitman) and my Ballantine copies are too brittle to withstand such treatment. I CAN do this, if I so choose, with the Blackmask edition. I can also leave it untouched and have a copy that will allow me acess to great fantasy lit, knowing I will not have to worry about having to cover it in cellophane to make sure it doesn't crumble to dust. This is a GREAT reproduction of three great works of fantasy literature. My hope is that it reaches a new generation of fantasy fiction enthusiasts and allows them see the truly avant-garde writing of one of this genre's most underrated writers.
The very first tale, "Ringstones," involves Daphne Hazel and her encounters with ancient British relics and lore. Though this is Sarban's very first published tale, it has echoes of cosmicism in it that resembles Machen. Yet, the sinister and terrifying elements that made Machen's work like "The Great God Pan," and "The White People" classics are, to be honest, not so much absent in "Ringstones" as muted. One gets a sense that the volume is turned down at points in the story where it could have been raised. Having said this, however, I still believe it is a tale worth reading as it does have some truly memorable passages.
The second tale, "The Sound of His Horn," is the one Sarban is perhaps best known for. I appreciate how Blackmask kept the Kingsley Amis introduction to the story that Ballantine originally had. I believe it fits very well with this work and I don't know if I would say that the story could be the same without it. It is the story of Alan Querdilion, a WWII veteran who tells a story to his friend in a drawing room one night, a story of how he found himself in an alternate future where the Nazi's had won WWII. Most people have categorized this tale as a science fiction story. I guess it fits given the alternate future component, but you could also categorize Jorge Luis Borges' "Ficciones" as sci-fi. This categorization, however, loses so much. It misses the fact that this is an achingly beautiful tale of love. At least this is one way to read it. It has one of the most beautiful lines of any Sarban (or any fantasy writer) tale when it states that Querdilion "learned for the very first time how such a loss uproots all other agonies from the soul and makes of the heart a desert where fear and pain can never grow again."
The final tale is "The Doll Maker." I think this is, perhaps, the best point to address a criticism often leveled at Sarban, that of weak (and almost caricaturized) female characters. I will admit that Clare Lydgate is not the most well-developed character in all of fantasy fiction (and one could say the same more strongly of Daphne Hazel). Yet, Sarban never errs on the level of Jane Austen, giving us a female lead whose biggest problem is which gentleman she will fall in love with. (Pace Austen fans) There is depth to Clare and to her encounters with the eponymous Doll Maker, Niall Sterne. Without such depth, the story would be empty and the character would be more like a marionette (like in a Jane Austen novel) than a flesh and blood person, making the story about nothing. Clare is as integral to the stories sucess as is the Doll Maker. The interplay between the two is brilliant as Sarban unfolds each narrative element to the reader. I bring this point up here (and not when speaking of "Ringstones") because I actually can see merit in the criticisms when reading "Ringstones," but can see absolutely no merit in the criticisms when reading "The Doll Maker." Clare is a beautifully real character and, to me, shows a positive growth in Sarban's ability to create convincing characters ... Read More
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