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A review by cellardoor10
The Horror on the Links by Seabury Quinn
Did not finish book.
DNF at 37% - on audiobook, that's 9.5 hours in, for reference. It's repetitive and formulaic, and since my goal is to explore Hugo winners and get a better feel for OG Speculative fiction, I feel like 9.5 hrs is more than plenty.
However, my biggest issue is not that it's repetitive, which would be understandable given they are disparate short stories previously published in different issues of magazines, it's the completely yikes "Product of his time" crap. Genuinely some of the most obvious and pervasive racism and sexism I have seen thus far. It's worth mentioning that Quinn wrote earlier than many of the writers I have already read, the 1920s and 1930s but wow, it is relentless. In every story is a rebuke against a woman for the one thing she did that provoked a mad scientist serial killer, or the absolute, unwavering justification of the theft of priceless artifacts from Egypt and elsewhere, the portrayal of stereotypical remote island cannibalism led by a biracial man, who is described as only a half man, etc. As much as Lovecraft really loved grotesque, racist descriptions of his villains and victims, Quinn is even more pronounced in that.
I *could* keep listening, but I just don't feel like there will be any new experiences in the next *checks notes* SIXTEEN HOURS of audiobook. No need to subject myself to any more of this.
Not quite a one star since Quinn does have some cool horror ideas that play to his medical background strengths (this was very much the era of mad scientists practicing all kinds of weird operations and wild attempts at eugenics, etc.), and Grandin is an entertaining enough oddball.
I assume it goes without saying, but just, all the content warnings, including medical experimentation and some rather gruesome descriptions.
However, my biggest issue is not that it's repetitive, which would be understandable given they are disparate short stories previously published in different issues of magazines, it's the completely yikes "Product of his time" crap. Genuinely some of the most obvious and pervasive racism and sexism I have seen thus far. It's worth mentioning that Quinn wrote earlier than many of the writers I have already read, the 1920s and 1930s but wow, it is relentless. In every story is a rebuke against a woman for the one thing she did that provoked a mad scientist serial killer, or the absolute, unwavering justification of the theft of priceless artifacts from Egypt and elsewhere, the portrayal of stereotypical remote island cannibalism led by a biracial man, who is described as only a half man, etc. As much as Lovecraft really loved grotesque, racist descriptions of his villains and victims, Quinn is even more pronounced in that.
I *could* keep listening, but I just don't feel like there will be any new experiences in the next *checks notes* SIXTEEN HOURS of audiobook. No need to subject myself to any more of this.
Not quite a one star since Quinn does have some cool horror ideas that play to his medical background strengths (this was very much the era of mad scientists practicing all kinds of weird operations and wild attempts at eugenics, etc.), and Grandin is an entertaining enough oddball.
I assume it goes without saying, but just, all the content warnings, including medical experimentation and some rather gruesome descriptions.