Well, that about wraps it up for Poughkeepsie

[mme_hardy]

I am rereading The Worm Ouroboros and savoring it. I had forgotten the long mountain-climbing section entirely; I fear teen me must have skipped it.

In any case, Ursula Le Guin once wrote an essay, "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", essentially arguing that all fantasy protagonists should speak in an elevated, heroic style. She was particularly mean to a very recognizable Katherine Kurtz, with some side shots at Roger Zelazny. She quotes and praises Eddison as an example of what should be done.

At one point she quotes from Zelazny, "I could have told you that at Carcosa", and lays down the law that great heroes don't say "I told you so".

"Well," said Juss, "thy counsel hath been right once and saved us, for nine times that it hath been wrong, and my counsel saved thee from an evil end. If ill behap us, it shall be set down that it had from thy peevish will original."

Comments

[ankaret]

My friend Andy once told me after reading one of the unpublished and probably unpublishable novels I wrote while I was at uni 'You write all these grand sweeping landscapes and people stumbling around in front of them saying 'um' and 'bugger', and I have always cherished that remark.

Zelazny is one of the very few writers from whom I'm willing to read noir pastiche. I can't cope with it at all usually.

[mme_hardy]

I want to try rereading Nine Princes (but not the second series of sequels) one of these days.

[dsrtao]

It's an incredibly fast hell-ride, and then the plot slams into a brick wall of prison. In my head, that goes on and on and on and...

In the book, it lasts two short chapters.