Lofgeornost
Feeling Martian!
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2020
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Captain Janni Nemo actually has her own spin-off trilogy, consisting of Heart of Ice, Roses of Berlin, and River of Ghosts. I've never actually read Century, but I thought Moore was already loosing the thread, so to speak, by Black Dossier...[/ISPOILER]".
I've read Heart of Ice and Roses of Berlin recently; I'm not sure I'll bother with River of Ghosts. I don't find Janni very interesting. I thought I would enjoy Heart of Ice, with its riffs on "At the Mountains of Madness" and other fictions with Antarctic settings, but it just fell flat. Roses of Berlin had some neat concepts--I liked the Nazi Berlin built from Weimar science fiction and fantasy, including the somnabulist 'sleep troopers' of Dr. Mabuse--but the story did not grab me. Including pages of untranslated German dialogue seemed unnecessary as well.
Personally, I've always thought Newman's best work was done in the short story/novelette sphere. Some of my favorite works of his are actually novel-length collections of linked shorts, such as Back in the U.S.S.A, Professor Moriarty: Hound of the D'Ubervilles, and Angels of Music. Some of the later Anno Dracula books are like that, too.
I've never read any of his short fiction, but now perhaps I will.
The Internet no doubt make both writing and spotting such references easier, but I find it's also pushing authors to be more subtle and creative with their shoutouts than just name- or description-dropping. If anyone is interested in that kind of thing, I recommend the Tales of the Shadowmen series from Black Coat Press, and the Royal Occultist stories by Joshua Reynolds (yes, the Warhammer author).
(Say, wasn't Kim Newman a Warhammer author, too?)
Yes; if memory serves one of the characters in the original Anno Dracula is borrowed from this Warhammer fiction--the vampire Genevieve Dieudonne. I've never read his Warhammer stuff though I've meant to get around to it someday.