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Every reader of SF comes across a title now and then that intrigues you, infuriates you, confuses you and/or enervates you. It leaves you with such a strong impression that you just have to share with others the impressions it left. It is so different from other books you have read. You recommend it, you pass along copies because you want to see if it is just you or that the book is really as interesting, you mention it constantly. Time passes and the book becomes harder to find. It is slipping out of print. How can you keep spreading the word about this fascinating book that you see as an overlooked odd speculative fiction classic?

This is another in a periodic list of such titles. This time, Michael Moorcock tells us (in no particular order) what titles have struck a chord with him. Once you are finished with this list, have a look at the others in the series of Ten Overlooked Odd Speculative Fiction Classics.


Ten Overlooked Odd Speculative Fiction Classics
by Michael Moorcock

 
After Silence After Silence
Jonathan Carroll
After Silence is my favourite of all Jonathan Carroll's books. He is a master at defeating expectations and here he turns his subtle intelligence to a moral dilemma that we can all understand.


Boy In Darkness Boy In Darkness
Mervyn Peake
Boy In Darkness is a Titus Groan story that is out of the sequence of the main books. It's a spine-tingling evocation of dark, old animistic notions.


Mistress Masham's Repose Mistress Masham's Repose
T.H. White
Mistress Masham's Repose is T.H. White's charming 'sequel' to Gulliver's Travels. It's a fine, sharp little novel, though not as funny as his Elephant and Kangaroo.


Viriconium Viriconium
M.John Harrison (Gollancz)
M.John Harrison writes gritty urban realism and first rate exotic fantasies like Viriconium. He and Fritz Leiber are the outstanding fantasists of this kind of fiction.


The Smell of Telescopes The Smell of Telescopes
Rhys Hughes (Tartarus)
Here's a Welshman worthy to succeed John Cowper Powys. The stories in The Smell of Telescopes are quirky, dark, funny and weirdly Celtic. Worth ordering...


 
The Auschwitz of Oz The Auschwitz of Oz
David Britton (Savoy)
You can't get much more crazed, obscene or furious than David Britton whose take on the holocaust, while in no way disrespectful, matches the event itself for a sense of horror. I know of no writer confronting the greatest crime of the 20th century in the same effective way. The Auschwitz of Oz is one of his three Lord Horror novels. You need a strong stomach.


Endland Stories Endland Stories
Tim Etchells (Pulp Books)
Endland Stories is characteristic of a new kind of English fiction which blends solid social observation of working class life (Full Monty style) with a bizarre imagination. The story where the lads chain their Greek mate to a rock behind the pub, where vultures regularly devour his liver, is superb. Keep your eye out for Tim Etchells. He does theatre, too.


The Early History of Ambergris The Early History of Ambergris
Duncan Shriek (Necropolitan Press)
Duncan Shriek's alter ego Jeff VanderMeer won a World Fantasy Award last year at the Corpus Christie convention. He is a fine, quirky, darkly humorous writer. The Early History of Ambergris is done as a guide book to an imaginary place.


The Sound of his Horn The Sound of His Horn
'Sarban' (Tartarus)
Tartarus produces fine editions of hard to get fantasy and Sarban wrote perhaps the first and most terrifying of all 'the Nazis have won' books. Men hunted like animals sounds familiar -- but expect the unexpected. Other Sarban, a strange guy, titles are now available from the same source.


The Song of Hiawatha The Song of Hiawatha
H.W. Longfellow (various)
While The Song of Hiawatha might not be an authentic poem about native American life and customs, it is a superb American literary fantasy and deserves its place in the canon. Hiawatha and the Little People, Hiawatha and his Flying Canoe. This went out of fashion, mostly because it is so easy to parody. Like Tennyson, it deserves to be relished for what it is -- high-class imaginative fiction.



Copyright © 2001 Michael Moorcock

Michael Moorcock has published over 70 novels in all genres. These include several series that share, to different extents, a common multiverse: the Cornelius Chronicles, The Dancers at the End of Time, Erekose, The Books of Corum, Hawkmoon: The Chronicles of Castle Brass, Hawkmoon: The History of the Runestaff and the classic Elric of Melnibone Saga.

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