Dale Nelson Wrote:
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>
> Knygatin, please suggest a Merritt novel other
> than The Ship of Ishtar, which I read in 2011. My
> inclination is to read Dwellers in the Mirage,
> which I have read, but so long ago that it
> predates my reading log begun Jan. 1974.
Very difficult, since I am not sure at all our literary tastes and preferences are close. I like the grotesque and bizarre and weird and colorful, while I assume you are more interested in something that supports and builds up human character in the reader. (I like that too, but it is secondary to me when reading fantastic literature.)
I have read
The Dwellers in the Mirage once, and found it slow going, with a few touches of excellent fantasy. I mean to reread it some day, but then the uncut magazine version.
I could suggest reading the original short-story version of "The Moon Pool" which is quite fine, and after that continue with the magazine version of
The Conquest of the Moon Pool,
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?265331. (It is more pulpy, but has some excellent imagery, like the dragon worm and underground auroras in sparkling colors.) That is what I intend to do next.
I am most impressed with
The Metal Monster, again in the longer magazine version and Hippocampus Press edition. And by
The Face in the Abyss /
The Snake Mother, yet again the two novella magazine versions, far superior to the truncated and melded book version.