"Going Home"
Apr. 10th, 2012 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexIn keeping with my resolution, I'm working on actually finishing books. This one I have something to say about it.
The book is Going Home by Howard Waldrop, whom you've probably never heard of. Howard Waldrop is:
a. a short-story writer of scientifiction with an output that sometimes amounts to just one story per year
b. an extraordinary storyteller
c. a curmudgeon
The answer is "d" all of the above. Waldrop is one of those people who gets nominated for Nebulas and World Fantasy Awards and never for Hugos. He writes infrequently and he writes in a style that isn't popular and doesn't give a rat's ass if it's accessible. It's not that Howard is trying to be obscure; it's that he has a head full of early-20th-century Americana, a near-encyclopedic knowledge of classic tales, and a lively grip on what America has been like in places most of us educated white coastal folk don't go. So when Waldrop decides to retell the story of the War of the Worlds hoax from the perspective of a small-town Texas sheriff, he's doing it from a well of knowledge few writers possess, not because of some conceit.
Waldrop used to do a thing at ArmadilloCon. It was called "The Annual Howard Waldrop Reading" and you never knew in advance what he was going to read. Sometimes he didn't, either. It was the best-attended event at the Con, including the Guest of Honor who always got a front-row seat. I've watched Howard read something so awful that he literally burned the pages later that night. I've also watched him hold 450 people spellbound as he read us a ghost story, by actual candlelight, in a darkened ballroom with every chair filled and people standing all around the edges. He can be that good.
Waldrop writes stuff that's kind of science fiction: worlds in which it is the Roaring 20s and airships are the major mode of transatlantic transport, with all the fancy partying of a cruise liner. And he writes stuff that's kind of fantasy: a spin-off story of Wells' Time Machine told from the point of view of giant intelligent insects.
Of course, writing short stories never was a good money-making career, particularly if you didn't write a lot of them. So Waldrop has spent a lot of his life broke, and isn't shy about how bitter that made him. Waldrop doesn't pretend, even for his readers. But he's damned good at what he does.
Going Home Again collects nine of his short stories from the late 1980s-mid 1990s. It's not something you can read in a small number of visits. I recommend nine, and take the time to read his afterwards, too.
The book is Going Home by Howard Waldrop, whom you've probably never heard of. Howard Waldrop is:
a. a short-story writer of scientifiction with an output that sometimes amounts to just one story per year
b. an extraordinary storyteller
c. a curmudgeon
The answer is "d" all of the above. Waldrop is one of those people who gets nominated for Nebulas and World Fantasy Awards and never for Hugos. He writes infrequently and he writes in a style that isn't popular and doesn't give a rat's ass if it's accessible. It's not that Howard is trying to be obscure; it's that he has a head full of early-20th-century Americana, a near-encyclopedic knowledge of classic tales, and a lively grip on what America has been like in places most of us educated white coastal folk don't go. So when Waldrop decides to retell the story of the War of the Worlds hoax from the perspective of a small-town Texas sheriff, he's doing it from a well of knowledge few writers possess, not because of some conceit.
Waldrop used to do a thing at ArmadilloCon. It was called "The Annual Howard Waldrop Reading" and you never knew in advance what he was going to read. Sometimes he didn't, either. It was the best-attended event at the Con, including the Guest of Honor who always got a front-row seat. I've watched Howard read something so awful that he literally burned the pages later that night. I've also watched him hold 450 people spellbound as he read us a ghost story, by actual candlelight, in a darkened ballroom with every chair filled and people standing all around the edges. He can be that good.
Waldrop writes stuff that's kind of science fiction: worlds in which it is the Roaring 20s and airships are the major mode of transatlantic transport, with all the fancy partying of a cruise liner. And he writes stuff that's kind of fantasy: a spin-off story of Wells' Time Machine told from the point of view of giant intelligent insects.
Of course, writing short stories never was a good money-making career, particularly if you didn't write a lot of them. So Waldrop has spent a lot of his life broke, and isn't shy about how bitter that made him. Waldrop doesn't pretend, even for his readers. But he's damned good at what he does.
Going Home Again collects nine of his short stories from the late 1980s-mid 1990s. It's not something you can read in a small number of visits. I recommend nine, and take the time to read his afterwards, too.
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no subject
Date: 2012-04-10 07:03 pm (UTC)Oh yeah, Waldorp is awesome.
later
Tom
no subject
Date: 2012-04-10 09:55 pm (UTC)