The Hashish Man and Other Stories

Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars for Lord Dunsany and 0 for the Publisher
Review: I have just received this book in the mail and I am sending it back on Monday. For one thing, the materials this book is constructed out of are very cheap. The cover picture is made with an off-the-shelf 3D graphics program and done in a very amateurish manner. The title "The Hashish Man" was chosen purely to attract what the publishers thought of as a "hip" target audience and smacks at Lord Dunsany's sober genius. Lord Dunsany never took drugs and one would know where he got his inspiration if they read any books about him. Of course, because our times produce writers of infertile minds we automatically assume he had to have been on a drug to write these beautiful and imaginative stories. The publishers are associating Lord Dunsany with "the Hashish Man", the title of this anthology, when in fact in his (fictional) short story Lord Dunsany is approached by the "Hashish Man" who relates to Lord Dunsany how HE travels to dream worlds (via hashish) which is in contrast with Lord Dunsany.

Besides trashing Lord Dunsany's character the introduction is a bad two-page college essay written by a person who is totally unknown. Who is Jon Longhi of San Francisco? Here are a few pathetic quotes by Mr. Longhi: Describing Lord Dunsany's writing, "At times these details veer toward the noisome realm of elves and hobbits". The "realm of elves and hobbits" is only "noisome" because the publishers think that readers of H.P. Lovecraft don't like fantasy writing and that Tolkien is not popular right now. However when Ballantine Books published "The King Of Elfland's Daughter" in 1977, when Tolkien was the flavor of the month with publishers, they boasted "A fantasy novel in a class with the Tolkien books!," which ever way the wind blows I guess. Another quote: "psychedelic rave-up of language and imagery...it's great fun riding on the hallucinations." More drug association. "Captain Shard pilots a boat which sails across the desert on huge wheels, just like the main vehicle in the movie Time Bandits." Doesn't this sound childish? What main vehicle in Time Bandits? The only thing with sails in that movie was the ship on the giant's head, but it did not have wheels. Mr. Longhi might be thinking of the building with sails traversing barren wastelands manned by the intrepid crew of the Crimson Assurance Co. in the mini-movie before Monty Python's Meaning of Life.

Either this guy is an absolute idiot or he is just failing miserably to convince me that he is really anything like the people he is trying to reach. Mr. Longhi, like some desperate college sophomore, has padded out his introduction with a variety of multi-syllabic words in the hopes of impressing the average (ignorant) reader. This introduction should be in an anthology of drugstore-swords & sorcery-escapist-self-indulgent-trash.

I know that anthologies of Lord Dunsany's writings are rare but I would rather have them rare and cherishable instead of common and degraded. Most libraries have some of Lord Dunsany's works and through interlibrary loan you should be able to get just about anything written by this laudable fantasist. Do not pollute your personal library with this trash. Let us not reduce Lord Dunsany to the level of pulp. Let us not patronize publishers that drag remarkable writers down to their seedy level so they can make an easy buck. We need to have more respect.

Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars for Lord Dunsany and 0 for the Publisher
Review: I purchased this book after reading about how Lord Dunsany was a direct influence on good 'ol H.P. Lovecraft. Let me just say that some of these stories actually exceed Lovecraft's. Like HPL, Dunsany crafts eldritch dreamscapes. He's the only person I've read besides HPL that can do this, and no wonder.

Rating:
Summary: An incredible collection from one of the greats
Review: It amazes me that so little of Dunsany's work remains in print. He definately ranks among the greatest to ever set pen to paper, in my opinion. This collection of stories is sort of a cross-section of his fantasy work without dwelling on his Pegana mythology too much. No one has ever put words together quite like this man. His influence on Lovecraft and others of the Weird Tales canon is clearly visible in 25+ pieces represented in this compilation. The reader of Dunsany is lulled into his world slowly as if under the influence of some strange and alien drug. Led through whole histories and fables of a world that lies "beyond the fields we know" and when you run out of pages and are forced back into a much less colorful reality of traffic jams and convienence store food these tales leave you yearning to visit his world again. In other words, I'm a big fan and if you like the old school of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror (i.e.Poe, Lovecraft, Bierce, C.A. Smith, Ellison, Bradbury, etc.) then give this a try and I seriously doubt you will be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Tales of the dreamer
Review: Lord Dunsany's works are gradually coming back into print, a great relief to someone who has liked his works for a long time. The pre-Tolkien fantasy authors are too often neglected because of their different style, but any person who appreciates beautiful language will appreciate Dunsany's unique fantasies.

This includes such stories as "Charon," a brief story about the ferryman of the dead; the rather odd "Three Infernal Jokes"; "The Guest," about a young man who launches into a strange monologue; "Thirteen at Table," about a strange house and a fox-hunt; "Three Sailors' Gambit" is somewhat more prosaic, the tale of three sailors in a pub; "The Exiles' Club" is the story of a sumptuous but somehow strange and sinister house in London; "Where the Tides Ebb and Flow" is a dream -- and a darn disturbing one at that, where a young man dreams that "I had done a horrible thing, so that burial was to be denied me either in soil or sea, neither could there be any hell for me"; "The Field" is at first mysterious and then saddening, where someone visits a beautiful field where he senses something terrible; "A Tale of London," where a sultan asks his hashish-eater to tell him about the far-off city of London; "Narrow Escape" tells what occurs when an evil magician decides to obliterate London; "Bethmoora" is the reminiscences of an exotic city that no longer exists; "Hashish Man" is something of a sequel to "Bethmoora," in which a man tells the narrator about how he uses hashish to travel to the city of Bethmoora. "How An Enemy Came to Thlunrana" is how a mighty wizards' citadel was overcome by an unexpected means; "In Zaccarath" is the story of a mighty, beautiful, and seemingly everlasting city and its king; "Idle City" is a very odd one, about a polytheistic/monotheistic city, now very lonely-looking; "The Madness of Andelsprutz" is another story about a "dead" city, in which the narrator is told how a certain city became "soulless".

"Secret of the Sea" is about a very sad sailor; "Idle Days on the Yann" is exactly what it sounds like, a pleasantly plotless but beautifully written story about sailing on the mythical Yann River; "A Tale of the Equator" is about the foreseeing of a magnificent city; "Spring in Town" is about the arrival of a season; "In the Twilight" is the beautifully-written vision of a man whose boat had capsized; "Wind and Fog" is a slightly odd little story about the North Wind and some fog; "A Story of Land and Sea" is the sequel to a story in Book of Wonder, more about Captain Shard; "After the Fire" is what happens when a dark star collides with the world, and what other creatures see in man's temples; "Assignation," the last story in the collection, is about what a poet and Fame have to say to one another.

As for this edition: I must agree with the previous reviewer who commented on the lame cover and unfortunate title, as well as the fact that the binding could be better. That's why it rates four out of a potential five stars. I will also warn buyers that several of these stories appear in other anthologies, so don't be surprised if you bump into things you already have. Many are from the "Last Book of Wonder" or "Dreamer's Tales" and overall they tend to the less fantastical stories.

Dunsany's prose tends to be dreamy, lush, and unabashed in its Eastern tone. There's no starkness here. Despite the title of the collection, there is minimal drug use and it is definitely not recommended by Dunsany's works. His story vary widely in range, but this is an excellent collection and well worth finding.

Rating:
Summary: A terrific collection of obscure gems
Review: While I'm not a die-hard fan of fantasy and science fiction, I really liked this collection of short stories, which transcend the usual definitions of the genre. Unlike some readers who believe that obscure literary gems like these tales should be hallowed in the dusty stacks of libraries, I salute the publisher who has made these amazing works available again - I certainly would have never stumbled upon this book otherwise! Edgy like Lovecraft (whom I adore), these stories reflect a sense of wonder and imagination that is often missing from the fiction of today - a great read, highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: A terrific collection of obscure gems
Review: While I'm not a die-hard fan of fantasy and science fiction, I really liked this collection of short stories, which transcend the usual definitions of the genre. Unlike some readers who believe that obscure literary gems like these tales should be hallowed in the dusty stacks of libraries, I salute the publisher who has made these amazing works available again - I certainly would have never stumbled upon this book otherwise! Edgy like Lovecraft (whom I adore), these stories reflect a sense of wonder and imagination that is often missing from the fiction of today - a great read, highly recommended!