mini-post that might encourage me to post more

i’m reading Wonder Tales by Lord Dunsany and loving every second of it. ex-Schwartz comrade Joe Lisberg introduced me to the Right Honorable Lord, but only recently have i begun exploring his works (unemployment begets free time).

his writing is superbly fantastic - and by that i mean it is steeped in surreal fantasy. these stories are short but exquisitely crafted and plotted, individual names speak volumes, specific words are chosen for the intense visual undertones they convey. everything is so damn epic that i can only indulge myself in short portions - i equate this phenomenon to slowly sipping from a glass of years-aged scotch, or gently tasting small squares of finely-wrought velvety chocolate.

indulge yourself, i implore you.

i’ve been looking for some excerpt that i could post, but everything is so long & involved that it’s difficult to find something short enough. i'll share with you this; it's the last paragraph from one of my favorite of the stories. i don’t think it quite adequately conveys the grandiose scope of the story, but it’s close.

"And Sippy very unwisely attempted flight, and Slorg even as unwisely tried to hide; but Slith, knowing well why that light was lit in that secret chamber and who it was that lit it, leaped over the edge of the World and is falling from us still through the unreverberate blackness of the abyss."

wow. epic? yes.

(this book was originally two books, the Book of Wonder and Tales of Wonder, repackaged into a single volume by Dover Editions)

also - check out what Joe is up to with Deep Sea Studios through their portfolio and blog.