3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Swash-buckling adventure in Lovecraft's Dreamlands, March 16, 2001
Continuing with the characters and swords-and-sorcery style of the first Dreamlands book, this book moves the action into the seas and skies. Plenty of swashbuckling adventure aboard ships, with cannons roaring, fierce battles by boarding parties, and prisoners forced to walk the plank. However, since these ships spend most of their time flying through the air, this isn't your normal naval adventure! If you like a rip-snorting adventure tale, there's plenty of action here, which I think you'll enjoy whether or not you're interested in the Lovecraftian setting.
The hard-core Lovecraft fan might react a bit differently. Although the story is set in H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands, Lumley puts his own twist on things. In the original dreamlands stories, magic and mystery surrounded most of the amazing aspects of the setting. Lumley puts a more pragmatic, scientific explanation behind things. For example, he provides a scientific, practical explanation for how the floating city of Serranian stays airborne, and how the sky ships fly. Another twist on the original HPL stories is the role of the Nightgaunts. In Lovecraft's stories, they are loathesome, inscrutable, and usually operating on behalf of greater powers. Lumley has a human character who can control a grim of Nightgaunts to do his bidding, whether his goal be evil or good.
Lovecraft fans who like pulp adventure and are not bothered by Lumley's shift of style, emphasis and detail from the original will have a great time sailing the skies of the Dreamlands and wandering the streets of Serranian. Purists will take offense.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
#2 in the Dreamlands of H.P. Lovecraft series., February 18, 2001
The proper background for this book would be to read THE DREAM CYCLE OF HP LOVECRAFT, then the first book of this series, HERO OF DREAMS, but if you insist, you can get by without it.
Take timeless Celephais, and the sky-city of Serannian, for instance - created by the dreams of a young English boy at the seaside, a beautiful place where nothing ages, changes, or passes away. The boy, upon his death as a grown man, re-entered Celephais to rule it as King Kuranes. (All this is recounted in Lovecraft's "Celephais".)
Celephais, ideal city of dreams - no crime, no wars, no problems, no slums - just timeless perfection, marble temples, and a gentle king.
Yeah, right. :)
Enter David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer, once of the waking world but cast in a different mold - two professional questers. Knights-errant, mirrors of chivalry? Not even in your dreams (although you'll note that no language worse than "Damn me!" is ever needed). Having lost the love of his life when she woke up at the end of HERO OF DREAMS, Eldin has been working on staying drunk, and Hero has stayed with him. Not being blessed with much business sense, they've been staying in the same low dives they've always frequented, even though they have (or rather, had) money.
So we begin SHIP OF DREAMS with "Down and Out in Celephais", as the two of them are hauled before a judge for drunkenness, non-payment of debts, vagrancy, assault, seduction, and arson, not necessarily in that order. (Eldin has a touch of pyromania, which comes out when he gets annoyed.) Yes, they're guilty of everything - except that Hero protests the seduction charge, since *she* seduced *him* ("Why, man, I'll carry scars down my back for the rest of my dream-life. That girl has nails as long as --")
Ahem. This puts them right behind the 8-ball, where Kuranes wants them - they have the choice of either accepting his commission, to act as his questers, or to rot for 5 years in jail.
Introducing:
- Curator, the mysterious, silent robot guardian of the Museum, who only comes out when visitors start thinking of stealing the treasures therein. After their first meeting: "If he ever lays eyes on me again, he'll kill me. And I'm sorry but...I think the same goes for you two." "What did *we* do to annoy him?" "You were with me, " the Wanderer answered. "That's enough."
- Zura, the Princess of Zura - a beautiful, living woman, ruling over Zura the land, which carries the stench of death, and to which no living person willingly goes.
- Gytherik, master of night-gaunts - and nephew of Thinistor Udd, the ambitious sorcerer that Eldin, Hero and Aminza faced in the previous book.
- Ula and Una, the lovely twins who are *really* interested in learning about the world...
A lonely princess who wants nothing more than to seduce Hero. A sorcerer's apprentice, grimly seeking vengeance for his fallen master. Two lovely, lusty twins, highborn girls out for a bit of excitement.
And if you take any of this at face value, there's a bridge in Inquanok that we'd love to sell you. :)
Lumley is **NOT** trying to mimic the Dunsany-like style in which "Celephais" was written, nor is he making any extraordinary effort to, e.g., scare the reader into swearing off subways forever (see "Pickman's Model"). If you want Dunsany, check some of my other reviews for links to his books; if you want horror, seek out some non-Dreamlands Lovecraft.
All you need is to appreciate this book for what it is - fantasy with a bit of humor. The *settings* are the same as Lovecraft's - I don't think anybody's going to catch Lumley out in a discrepancy with Lovecraft's framework, mythology, or characters, e.g. Kuranes, Randolph Carter. The tone is generally lighter than Lovecraft.
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