07 August 2007

Reviewing Sargent's The Taint of Lovecraft - Preamble

I find it tricky to review collections of short stories. Even when they come from the same author, there tends to be a certain degree of variety in the stories even if all from the same author. (Sargent's book being no exception.) I'm not fond of oversimplification, so attempting to sum up a collection of stories feels somewhat wrong or at least beyond my current ability to achieve successfully. My tendency would be to review each story individually, but I imagine this would make for an unnecessarily long-winded review, one perhaps itself lacking in cohesion.

So, in approaching Stanley Sargent's The Taint of Lovecraft I've decided that the most reasonable thing to do might be to split the difference. I will review several stories individually, followed by a review of several of the lesser stories, then I will attempt to conclude with a summary of some sort. In all likelihood, I will skip over the poetry (for which I have no ear), though I may comment on the essays.

My first entry: "Their Love of Craft"

No comments: