Immagine dell'autore.

Abraham Merritt (1884–1943)

Autore di The Moon Pool

65+ opere 2,795 membri 55 recensioni 2 preferito

Sull'Autore

Opere di Abraham Merritt

The Moon Pool (1919) 552 copie
The Ship of Ishtar (1924) 419 copie
Dwellers in the Mirage (1932) 400 copie
Il mostro di metallo (1920) 320 copie
The Face in the Abyss (1931) 304 copie
Seven Footprints to Satan (1927) 223 copie
Burn, Witch, Burn! (1932) 138 copie
Creep, Shadow! (1934) 60 copie
The black wheel (1948) 53 copie
The Woman of the Wood (1926) 21 copie
Renegade Swords (2020) — Collaboratore — 20 copie
Through the Dragon Glass (1917) 18 copie
The Pool Of The Stone God (2012) 10 copie
The Drone (2010) 8 copie
Hexen & Teufel (2004) 2 copie
König der zwei Tode (1926) 1 copia
The Drone Man 1 copia
A fémszörny (2021) 1 copia
Kígyóanya 1 copia

Opere correlate

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (2011) — Collaboratore — 815 copie
Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy (2003) — Collaboratore — 608 copie
The Big Book of Science Fiction (2016) — Collaboratore — 412 copie
Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment (1988) — Collaboratore — 260 copie
The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories (1994) — Collaboratore — 191 copie
Nameless Cults (2001) — Collaboratore — 178 copie
The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (2019) — Collaboratore — 166 copie
The Mammoth Book of Fantasy (2001) — Collaboratore — 144 copie
The Young Magicians (1969) — Collaboratore — 139 copie
Chilling Horror Short Stories (2016) — Collaboratore — 136 copie
The Road to Science Fiction #2: From Wells to Heinlein (1979) — Collaboratore — 135 copie
A Treasury of Modern Fantasy (1981) — Collaboratore — 129 copie
The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy (2000) — Collaboratore — 91 copie
Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic (2019) — Collaboratore — 88 copie
H.P. Lovecraft's Favorite Weird Tales (2005) — Collaboratore — 83 copie
The Mammoth Book of Fantasy All-Time Greats (1983) — Collaboratore — 81 copie
Heroic Fantasy Short Stories (Gothic Fantasy) (2017) — Collaboratore — 79 copie
Supernatural Horror Short Stories (2017) — Collaboratore — 75 copie
The Mammoth Book of Twentieth-Century Ghost Stories (1998) — Collaboratore — 73 copie
The Fantastic Pulps (1975) — Collaboratore — 70 copie
Famous Fantastic Mysteries (1991) — Collaboratore — 66 copie
Masters of Fantasy (1992) — Collaboratore — 64 copie
Swords & Steam Short Stories (Gothic Fantasy) (2016) — Collaboratore — 61 copie
Lost Worlds Short Stories (Gothic Fantasy) (2017) — Collaboratore — 55 copie
Masters of Horror (1968) — Collaboratore — 46 copie
The Challenge From Beyond (1985) — Collaboratore — 45 copie
The Third Omnibus of Crime (1935) — Collaboratore; Collaboratore — 44 copie
Horrors unknown (1971) — Collaboratore — 41 copie
Gosh! Wow! (1982) — Collaboratore — 40 copie
Futures Unlimited (1969) — Collaboratore — 40 copie
The Screaming Skull and Other Classic Horror Stories (2010) — Collaboratore — 37 copie
Alien Invasion Short Stories (2018) — Collaboratore — 34 copie
The Monster-Maker and Other Science Fiction Classics (2012) — Collaboratore — 29 copie
Realms of wizardry (1976) — Collaboratore — 21 copie
The Second Book of Unknown Tales of Horror (1826) — Collaboratore — 14 copie
Lovecraftin lähteillä (1887) 10 copie
Beyond Midnight (1976) 10 copie
Univers 01 (1975) — Collaboratore — 9 copie
More Voices from the Radium Age (MIT Press / Radium Age) (2023) — Collaboratore — 3 copie
Argosy, December 3, 1938 (1938) — Collaboratore — 2 copie
Die Zaubergärten (1969) — Collaboratore — 2 copie
Fantastic Novels Magazine, Volume 2, No. 5, January 1949 (1949) — Collaboratore — 2 copie
Der verzauberte Kreuzzug (1981) — Collaboratore — 2 copie
Explorers of the Infinite (1963) — Collaboratore — 1 copia
Classic Moon Stories, Vol. 2 (2013) — Autore, alcune edizioni1 copia
Fantastic Novels Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, November 1940 (1940) — Collaboratore — 1 copia
Wakacje Wśród Duchów — Collaboratore — 1 copia

Etichette

Informazioni generali

Nome legale
Merritt, Abraham Grace
Altri nomi
Merritt, A.
Merritt, Abe
Fenimore, W.
Data di nascita
1884-01-20
Data di morte
1943-08-21
Sesso
male
Nazionalità
USA
Luogo di nascita
Beverly, New Jersey, USA
Luogo di morte
Indian Rocks Beach, Florida, USA
Luogo di residenza
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Attività lavorative
magazine editor
author
Organizzazioni
The American Weekly
Premi e riconoscimenti
SF Hall Of Fame (1999)

Utenti

Discussioni

Burn Witch Burn Centipede press in Fine Press Forum (Gennaio 2023)

Recensioni

This pulp fiction adventure story was first published in 1932. It is surprisingly free from the prejudiced attitudes to women and ethnic minorities seen in other such fiction, although I did find it a bit irritating that the protagonist often refers to his best friend Jim, who is Cherokee, as "Indian" which seemed racist compared to Jim's nickname for him as "old timer". However, they are close friends as is shown in the story so I made allowances for the period in which this was written.

Leif, who has Nordic heritage, and Jim are travelling in a remote area of Alaska where they are meant to be looking for gold, at some time after WWI (where they served together after meeting at University). After they hear mysterious drums, Leif eventually unburdens to Jim and tells him of his experiences when he was working as an engineer in the Gobi Desert. He got on very well with the Mongolian tribes and found that his natural gift for languages enabled him to communicate with them easily (and refreshingly there is not the kind of description of such people that would have been found in the work of contemporaries of Merritt's such as H P Lovecraft). When his team moved north they came into contact with a strange tribe who usually kept themselves to themselves, but who showed an instant proprietary interest in Leif and taught him their language. They then showed up in force and Leif told his employer and colleagues to let them take him as he realised there would be a bloodbath otherwise - and to instantly depart south to the area of the friendly tribes leaving him to extricate himself.

The experiences which followed have haunted Leif since and now he senses that he is about to be drawn into the ambit of the Lovecraftesque being which is worshipped by the mysterious tribe. I won't say more about the plot other than it in some ways draws on the romantic tradition of the lost peoples living in their own mini paradise - Shangri La and the like - which were popular in fiction of the late Victorian period, popularised by writers such as H. Rider Haggard. On the whole, the various ethnic characters and women are treated with respect although Leif's romantic interest Evalie is a bit of a non character.

I found this a bit slow in the middle but it did pick up and on the whole is an entertaining adventure romp with a bit of philosophy regarding whether reincarnation exists or an ancestral memory. It wasn't a keeper, but was a workmanlike read and I am giving it a 3-star rating.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
kitsune_reader | 4 altre recensioni | Nov 23, 2023 |
This novel, first published in 1928, and probably a magazine serial before that, differs from the other novels I've read by this author. In this, although there is a hinting at a supernatural element, everything in it is explicable by technology and trickery, and it falls rather more into the fast paced detective/thriller/adventure genre of the time with lots of action.

Briefly, the hero, James Kirkham, is an adventurer known for retrieving ancient artefacts sometimes in rather daring fashion - a sort of Indiana Jones before that character was even thought of. At the start, he has been well paid for one of these missions, but has just lost the lot in bad investments on the stock market - which turn out to have been deliberately manipulated to do so by a crime boss with a difference. This man, who leads a worldwide organisation that includes people highly placed in the government, media, industry and other sectors, and who also keeps an army of drug addicts who will do anything for him for their next fix, has a large collection of stolen art treasures. He has had James watched for some time, has been manipulating him, and has now decided to force James to join his organisation. He arranges to kidnap James in such a way that James' appeals to authority go nowhere. James ends up at his hideout and is drawn into the crime boss' game - and the central part of that is his self-styled posing as Satan.

James and the heroine Eve, with whom he first clashes but shortly forms a devoted attachment, are pretty cardboard as characters, but I liked the Cockney thief/engineer without whom they would not have a prayer. A stereotype, but still engaging.

The book is quite a page turner and not hard to zoom through in a day or so. Pretty forgettable, but good fun while it lasts. There are some slightly old fashioned attitudes in it, with James' views of Satan's possible part Chinese heritage, and the term the Cockney uses which wouldn't be acceptable today - chink - but the book is much less beset by racism than a lot of the popular writing of that period, and even if the heroine is quite often tearful at least she doesn't faint or have hysterics. So a 3 star read.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
kitsune_reader | 3 altre recensioni | Nov 23, 2023 |
A lost world fantasy, reminiscent of Edgar Rice Burroughs or Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost World), featuring dinosaur survivals in a remote area of Peru, cut off from contact with the outside world, but with an early genetic engineering vibe - a race who originated in the South Pole before a polar shift made that area uninhabitable have somehow banished death (while at the same time making it impossible to have children, in order to keep their numbers in check), and have manipulated others into particular physical types such as humanoid spiders called Weavers.

The protagonist stumbles upon this remnant of an advanced civilisation as part of an expedition looking for fabled riches. He falls out with the expedition leader when the latter assaults a young woman who originates from the hidden race. She later returns to lead them to the riches the other expedition members crave, though the protagonist cares only for her welfare, having instantly fallen in love with her. The riches then turn out to be a form of judgement. After that, the story takes a different turn as the hero becomes entangled with an imminent civil war between factions in the lost world, the apparent good guys being led by an apparent human-reptilian hybrid, the Snake Mother, who may be less human than she leads him to perceive.

The story concentrates on action, but flags in places, and has very little character development. The protagonist and his would-be girlfriend are particularly cardboard. The book has elements which later would become fantasy tropes such as a dark lord (it was published in 1931, apparently based on magazine stories dating from the 1920s). In some ways it better fits the label of science fantasy, as the various ray-weapons etc are, we're told by the Snake Mother, all products of the former civilisation of which she is the only direct member, and not magical. Obviously it cannot avoid being dated by today's viewpoints, though, to the author's credit, manages to avoid racism in relation to the Native Americans who form the labour force and are the spear carriers in the armies of the various factions. But it rather loses impetus by the end and fizzles out, and has rather too rambling a plotline to always hold interest, hence only 2 stars for me.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
kitsune_reader | 6 altre recensioni | Nov 23, 2023 |
Read this some years ago and wasn't very interested. It is a probably fairly typical example of a particular kind of pulp fiction: mightly hewed Vikings, beautiful compliant women, trusty sidekick of a non Caucasian extraction. People are on ships, they are different groups and the groups are backed by different gods, including Ishtar. There's fighting, and the hero is a slave part of the time. That's all I remember, but I do know I wasn't very keen and there are other books by Merritt that I far prefer to this one.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
kitsune_reader | 6 altre recensioni | Nov 23, 2023 |

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Statistiche

Opere
65
Opere correlate
64
Utenti
2,795
Popolarità
#9,200
Voto
½ 3.7
Recensioni
55
ISBN
315
Lingue
11
Preferito da
2

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