Speculative Fiction Junkie

Hodgson's writing is of the visionary, rather than the cerebral, variety, which is to say that it's effectiveness is almost entirely a product of the potency of the underlying vision and atmosphere it reveals to the reader than of the plotting, characters, overall quality of writing, or anything else. In my opinion, this makes Hodgson an early forerunner of writers like Adam Golaski and Simon Strantzas.

As the title of this volume suggests, the thing that the materials that make up this collection share in common is that they all tell stories that take place at sea. Regarding the author's relationship to the sea, science fiction guru Sam Moskowitz once said that "Hodgson, whose literary success would be in a large measure based on the impressions he received at sea, actually hated and feared the waters with an intensity that was the passion of his life." Having now read his nautical fiction, I can definitely believe that this might be true.

The first piece in the book is the collection's only novel, entitled The Boats of the Glen Carrig. In it, an eighteenth century man recounts the events following the sinking of the ship on which he was traveling, the Glen Carrig. When the story begins, the travelers are already in life boats. They soon discover a hostile land in which they find a hastily abandoned ship and from which strange cries emanate. Their nights there are accompanied by clear evidence that something pursues them. They soon return to sea in their lifeboats where numerous new terrors await them. If the reader succeeds in placing herself in the place of the narrator, then this novel contains some of the most terrifying writing one is likely ever to encounter. I say "if" because the quirky writing style will prove too great a barrier for some. The reward is great, however, for those who persist. Hodgson's vision succeeds at terrifying the reader in several ways: by instilling a sense of utter isolation and then threatening the reader with all manner of things both manifested and merely hinted at. Sadly, the sense of terror that Hodgson creates rapidly dissipates towards the end of the novel, at which point the survivors' efforts to deal with their predicament take on something of a non-terrifying, utilitarian MacGyver feel.

The next six short stories are collectively known as Hodgson's Sargasso Sea Stories. Presented here in the order in which they were originally published (with one exception), the best of these stories are the first two: "From the Tideless Sea" parts one and two. All of them, like portions of The Boats of the Glen Carrig, take place in the Sargasso Sea, an area of the Atlantic characterized by massive seaweed clumps and frequently calm winds, which no doubt led Hodgson to populate these stories with ship-trapping islands of seaweed, strange, deadly creatures, and other things hinted at more than seen. These stories take place in the same universe as The Boats of the Glen Carrig and inspire terror for the same reasons. Unfortunately, they are all very similar. While it would be going too far to say that when one has read one, one has read them all, these stories rapidly lose effectiveness from one story to the next because the reader is confronted with more or less the same thing over and over.

The next thirteen stories, collected under the heading "The Exploits of Captain Gault," are really nothing like what precedes them except that they too concern the nautical life. In them, Hodgson has left the strange waters of the Sargasso Sea and moved into the calmer waters of the civilized world to relate the exploits of the fictional Captain Gault, ladies man, renaissance man, and smuggler. Most of these stories involve the outsmarting of customs agents through various ploys, many of which he reveals in detail to their victims after the latter can no longer harm him. These stories of cleverness and small adventures are lighthearted for the most part and are enjoyable to read. They do, however, constitute what in my opinion is the weakest part of this collection and can get a bit repetitious. I guess one must remember that these stories did not initially appear side by side, which likely would have diminished the feeling of repetition.

The third set of stories, only two in this case, are dubbed "The Adventures of Captain Jat," and their content is sort of a middle ground between the weird fiction of the first part of the collection and the adventure tales of Captain Gault. These stories concern two of the more interesting characters of the collection: the tall, "rum toddy" loving, hot tempered (I think we would say "abusive" today), Captain Jat, and his trusted, savvy cabin boy, Pibby Tawles. Both of these stories involve sneaking onto inhabited islands in pursuit of some treasure and both are excellent adventure tales that contain elements of horror and the weird. They're also slightly humorous due to the juxtaposition of the image of the tall captain next to his tiny cabin boy. I wish that Hodgson had written more of these tales.

In a similar vein are the last two tales in the book, which concern another fictional character named D.C.O. Cargunka. Here again, Hodgson's ability to inject the humorous into his adventure tales is manifest. "D.C.O," we learn, stands for "Dot-and-Carry-One," a reference to the way in which Cargunka is forced to walk as a result of having one leg that is longer than the other. The resulting limp led him to idolize Lord Byron, who suffered from a similar affliction, and Cargunka is constantly comparing himself favorably to the poet. A further humorous detail is that Cargunka, the wealthy owner of bars and ships, nonetheless insists on signing on to his own ventures as the ship cook. The two D.C.O. Cargunka tales are excellent adventure tales but they lack the elements of horror and the weird that the Captain Jat tales possess.

Despite the minor shortcomings noted above, Hodgson has become one of my favorite authors solely on the strength of this collection. His prose can take some getting used to and it is not for everyone, but those who penetrate it and reach the heart of his stories will find it difficult to come away unimpressed. In Hodgson's weird fiction can be found the seed of all that distinguishes true horror from the often ineffectual drivel that masquerades as horror today; a type of terror that often seems to be almost completely absent from contemporary books and film. In addition to the absolute terror that Hodgson's writing invests the sea with, his is also one of the greatest portrayals of human isolation and loneliness I've ever encountered. When you add to this his refined sense of humor and his excellent ability as a writer of adventure tales, Hodgson is revealed to have been not only one of our finest authors, but a man with an extraordinary range and depth of humanity; a human's human. It's nothing less than an absolute tragedy that he was killed in World War I at 40 years old. Who knows what further treasures he may have given the world?

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" and Other Nautical Adventures was first published in 2003 by Night Shade Books. While the first printing is now sold out, a second printing is available directly from the publisher. Furthermore, first printings can be still be found relatively cheaply.

[This review was not based on a review copy]