Avalon Brantley (1981–2017)

My money’s on practical joke. I may wade in later to elaborate but I was so disappointed I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. Remember when you were in creative writing and the teacher told you you had to write a 10000 word story so you started by getting out the thesaurus...?

I honestly don’t know where to start. I liked [b:Aornos|18620619|Aornos|Avalon Brantley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1380697630l/18620619._SY75_.jpg|26405041] which was an entirely different thing; odd but good. Maybe it was a joke too.

The genre, or trope if you like, is the “found” manuscript with an unreliable narrator. Lovecraft used this a lot. Homage or parody? There are nods to [a:William Hope Hodgson|51422|William Hope Hodgson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1246727581p2/51422.jpg]’s [b:The House On The Borderland|1848137|The House On The Borderland|William Hope Hodgson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348595193l/1848137._SX50_.jpg|3150114] and [b:The Night Land|6056609|The Night Land|William Hope Hodgson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328301300l/6056609._SX50_.jpg|955499] but they don’t add anything. In fact, they are a distraction. In the middle we get some [a:H. P. Lovecraft|21292663|H. P. Lovecraft|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and at the end some [a:Robert E. Howard|66700|Robert E. Howard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1210954603p2/66700.jpg]. Throw in some Celtic myth and a dash of Hodgson’s actual life and you’ll see that the author has a mighty task to make all this work.

So what tools can she/he use? Let’s get out the thesaurus. Now I like purplish prose as much as any Lovecraft fan does, but here we have to use an obscure or archaic adjective or adverb where the simple will suffice. Okay, this might just be a style thing that runs against my grain. However we also have an overuse of the pulp writer’s old friend alliteration. There are scores of sentences where Peter piper picks the peck so to speak. Limbering limbs, indeed. Finding Foundered Foundations. “We could stay here, in this garden, eleven lifetimes in these elven-nights of it.” What does this sentence mean? Even in context it’s rubbish.

Strained metaphors (chortling fires). Made up words (blurid).

I had to keep looking back to see if I was in a dream sequence or reality. Oh, and where most writers in this vein would have a protagonist faint, Ashley vomits (not that I’m a fan of either).

It seems that there is some controversy about whether the author of this book is a real person. Let me back up. The identity of the actual author of this book seems to have become a controversy. There is a fair amount of speculation about this on the internet (and we know everything on the internet is true). Well it doesn’t really matter. We have this work of fiction here that somebody wrote and it stands on its own merits. Authenticity is only relevant if you see the book as an investment rather than something to stir the mind. Did Stephen King write it? Did your grandmother write it? Did an infinite number of monkeys using an infinite number of typewriters do it? In the end there is just a book here.

For what it’s worth, and that isn’t much, I come down on the side of Avalon having not been a real person: dodgy birthdate, no photos, sketchy biography, odd home state. It just doesn’t add up. Whether it’s a pseudonym or a practical joke, doesn’t matter. The book is in front of me and it won’t matter who or what Avalon Brantley was as I read it.

I did a deep search and found nada for this person. No address, no phone#, no ss#, no social media, etc. If I offend anyone, I don’t care.… (més)