Williams pretty much invented modern "urban fantasy."<div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 8:08 AM, Antonin Scriabin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kierkegaurdian@gmail.com" target="_blank">kierkegaurdian@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">That should have said "Tim" Powers, of course! I have only read <i>Last Call </i>and <i>The Anubis Gates</i>, but I liked them both quite a bit. I think that the latter is better, overall, but the former got off to an engrossing start. Have you read any of the sequels to <i>Last Call</i>? And what, out of curiosity, was the treatment of Tarot in <i>Blood Meridian? </i>I haven't read anything by Cormac McCarthy.<br>
<br>I think I might start with <i>War in Heaven</i> by Williams, or possibly <i>Descent into Hell </i>...they seem to be two of his more acclaimed novels.<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br><br><br><div class="gmail_extra">
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On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Daniel Petersen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:danielottojackpetersen@gmail.com" target="_blank">danielottojackpetersen@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>Yes, those were two novels by each of them that I hadn't yet read, so I read them both recently, hoping for resonances. My first impression is that they each took their own uniquely weird take on the tarot (about which, though, I know little) with about zero overlap! That's probably the best I've read by Powers so far - excellent. Williams's was a more minor effort in my opinion but had one of my all-time favourite theological moves (reminding me very much of the Wolfe's Outsider) and one of the best freakish visions in the Williams canon - whole novel was worth it for that alone.</div>
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<div>(I was subsequently weirded out to see the tarot feature in Cormac McCarthy's <em>Blood Meridian</em> as well!)<br><br>-DOJP</div><div><div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 3:54 PM, Antonin Scriabin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kierkegaurdian@gmail.com" target="_blank">kierkegaurdian@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex" class="gmail_quote">
<p>Interesting! I am a fan of Tin Powers for sure, it would be great to check out his precursors. I notice that Last Call and The Greater Trumps have some similarities, for example. Thanks for the input! </p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Dec 17, 2012 10:51 AM, "Daniel Petersen" <<a href="mailto:danielottojackpetersen@gmail.com" target="_blank">danielottojackpetersen@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution">
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex" class="gmail_quote">
<div>Oh goodness, yes! In terms of sheer intensity and originality of imagination, I put him up there with Wolfe and Lafferty and Lewis and Tolkien (as a theological myth-maker). And I think he possibly veers more into *weird* fiction (ala Lovecraft, Howard, Hodgson, Machen, etc.) than the others. Some of his visionary passages are flesh-crawling in their numinous grotesquery. He's not a great prose writer as a novelist and the passages can come and go as to stylistic excellence. But overall incredibly enjoyable to me. His tone is very middle-to-upper-class English and and the settings are almost Edwardian - a bit like Chesterton or Sayers if they were writing weird fiction. In fact, Williams is one of the early practitioners of 'Noird' fiction (noir detective + weird), at least in the novel <em>War In Heaven</em>. In some ways too he's a bit of a prototype for Tim Powers's version of 'urban fantasy' or 'urban magical realism'. Lewis has an excellent essay on Williams's fiction in the collection <em>On Stories</em>. </div>
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<div>I thought I remembered Wolfe mentioning Williams favourably in an interview once. Anyone know?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>-DOJP<br><br></div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Antonin Scriabin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kierkegaurdian@gmail.com" target="_blank">kierkegaurdian@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex" class="gmail_quote">Hello! Is anyone familiar with the work of Charles Williams? From a brief look online, he seems to have some similarities to MacDonald, and I thought there was a good chance some of you Wolfeans (?) would have some input. Any suggestions for a novel of his to start with?<br>
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