http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2008-11.html#merritt ( )

http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2008-11.html#merritt ( )

El Estanque de la Luna, de Abraham Merritt, es una obra que transportará al lector más allá de los confines de la Tierra para sumergirlo en un mundo de fantasía y terror dominado por una desconocida entidad llamada El Resplandeciente. No exenta de ciertas dosis de erotismo que le hizo sufrir la censura durante largo años, el Estanque de la Luna se presenta por primera vez al lector español en su versión íntegra. Una obra imprescindible que influyó en el estilo de Howard Phillips Lovecraft y que inspiró, en gran medida, su creación de los Mitos de Ctulhú, Abraham Merritt forma parte, por derecho propio, junto a Robert E. Howard, Lovecraft o Edgar Rice Burroughs, del gran panteón de los escritores de fantasía del siglo XX.

I read this book as part of my project to read all of the books listed in the D&D Appendix N. I wanted a change of pace from another book I was reading. I picked it because the cover art is cool (but in the end not really relevant) and the fact that it wasn't part of a series of books.

The final result is that I'm not really sure if I enjoyed this book or not. Some parts were great while others I struggled with. The rest of my review will deal with spoilers so maybe skip to the end of my review.

As it often happens in early Fantasy novels, the pacing varied tremendously from one part of the story to another. For example, the search for the entrance to the underground world takes a full 10 chapters while an encounter with a huge 100' Dragon Worm taking less than 2 pages.

In regards to the elaborate prose, as beautiful and well written as it was, the descriptions were in actuality so vague that I often had trouble picturing the scenes in my mind. For some stories, (like [b: Empire of the East|42972023|The Anarchy The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire|William Dalrymple|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565769891l/42972023._SY75_.jpg|66799833] by [a: Fred Saberhagen|10082|Fred Saberhagen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207594469p2/10082.jpg]) this works because the situations are easy to relate to. But in this case, it's difficult to get a clear picture of certain protagonists and locations. This often prevented me from focusing on the story. I would find myself struggling to figure out what I should be imagining.

My first is example is Rador, the characters described as "the green dwarf". Was his skin green? Was it his hair? Nowhere is this clarified. So, as you can guess, I kept imagining an Oompa Loompa! How distracting is that?

My second example is the Dweller, also known as the Shinning One. It's always described as some ray of light with 7 magical orbs of varying colors. It was just so confusing. Often I would just imagine these stories were something spawned by an LSD induced bad trip. And since this is the main antagonist, it really feels like you're missing out on an important part of the story.

Also, some of the mesmerizing locations (like the Amphitheatre of Jet and the Crimson Sea) would have benefited so much from an extra few paragraphs of description just to set the stage. I eventually realized much too late that if I re-read this novel, I would just let my imagination run wild and fill in the gaps. I'm sure this strategy would allow me to fully appreciate this incredible adventure.

And finally, I'll just skip the recurring annoying theme of justifying everything scientifically vs. being superstitious. It was just laughable.

Would I recommend this book? I would but not to everyone.

Readers who want to learn more about the origins of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre would find this book quite interesting.

Also, fans of fantasy RPGs might find lots of inspiration here. I just might pick it up again to use as a background for an awesome dungeon crawl campaign with my group.

But I think most modern fantasy genre readers would have to work their way "up" to this novel. ( )

Forests of tree-high mosses spangled over with blooms of every conceivable shape and colour; cataracts and clusters, avalanches and nets of blossoms in pastels, in dulled metallics, in gorgeous flamboyant hues; some of them phosphorescent and shining like living jewels; some sparkling as though with dust of opals, of sapphires, of rubies and topazes and emeralds; thickets of convolvuli like the trumpets of the seven archangels of Mara, king of illusion, which are shaped from the bows of splendours arching his highest heaven!

I really liked the other Merritt i've read [b:The Face in the Abyss|952307|The Face in the Abyss|A. Merritt|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1456617424l/952307._SY75_.jpg|937218], but this one... My main issue with pulps normally is the lack of descriptive writing, hence my liking the previous Merritt i read, as he's a far better writer than the likes of Burroughs.
I like my prose as purple as possible... but there are limits! and Merritt blew those limits to pieces in this one. Take a look at the example above. There are dozens of sentences like that one, most of which have some allusions to ancient sumerian legend or Navajo myth or something like the "trumpets of the seven archangels of Mara, king of illusion" above. Its so much... Also no matter how much description was used i still found it very difficult to picture what was being described.

But the prose is only one problem, the plot only really starts about a third of the way through. We begin with frankly a more interesting setup and group of characters than the ones we get stuck with.
The entire middle section is the most pulpy bit but actually remarkably little happens in it, there is a distinct lack of incident. Then we have several chapters of exposition before a rushed and pretty jeopardy free ending.

There are plenty of interesting ideas but not enough to save it for me, still 2-stars i'll admit is being a bit harsh.

Notes:
I've noticed that Merritt includes elements of Lovecraft but also creatures which should be Lovecraftian but arn't. If Lovecrafts Deep Ones, appeared in a Merritt tale they'd probably be the good guys which is quite interesting.

Made available by the Merril Collection. I had to alternate between reading and a Librivox recording to get through it.
Edit: Having perused other reviews it seems like anyone who likes other Merritt books hates this one, which is comforting, since i have more Merritt on my to-do list :) . ( )