From the Bookshelf of The Evolution of Science Fiction…

A Voyage to Arcturus

David Lindsay

Start date: December 1, 2013

Finish date: December 31, 2013

Discussion: Group Reads 2019

Why we're reading this: Chosen by the group as joint winner for December
[close] Chosen by the group as joint winner for December

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Group Reads 2019

* December 2019 Group Read 1/2 Alas, Babylon
By Cheryl · 47 posts · 28 views

last updated Dec 31, 2019 01:26PM

* December 2019 Group Read 2/2 1984
By Cheryl · 89 posts · 35 views

last updated Dec 23, 2019 08:50AM

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What Members Thought

Feb 16, 2013 Axolotl rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ballantine-adult-fantasy, axolotl-s-idiosyncratic-selection, horror-100-best-books, 2013-short-list, reviewed, best-of-2013

I don't think I can write properly and it may be entirely because of reading this "dizzlingly" piece of art.

I've not read anything like it before and I tend to doubt there is anything like it out there. However, like Maskull & Nightspore, I will spend my life "out there" pursuing it--whatever "it" is--hopefully I'm longer for this world. Though in this hope I sometimes falter.
"Arcturus" a pitch-perfect "something".
It is a great lumbering, spiritually forgetful romp! I believe I have heard it r I don't think I can write properly and it may be entirely because of reading this "dizzlingly" piece of art.

I've not read anything like it before and I tend to doubt there is anything like it out there. However, like Maskull & Nightspore, I will spend my life "out there" pursuing it--whatever "it" is--hopefully I'm longer for this world. Though in this hope I sometimes falter.
"Arcturus" a pitch-perfect "something".
It is a great lumbering, spiritually forgetful romp! I believe I have heard it referred to as an amalgam of disparate religious doctrines, rituals, etc.
This book surges while disorientating, disorientating while it shows you glorious unknown things.
The book itself is such a rich fantasy, perhaps even an esoteric allegory, as some have suggested, but the writing is working seamlessly to hide all the cogs about how its trick of credibility was accomplished. The one thing that struck me were the characters' wonderfully ridiculous* names, which you would think would completely undercut the power of the story somehow and force it to seem all at least a little bit silly, however this is not the case. While brimming with symbolism, madness---there is even a touch of humor in the symbolism and story: Haunte's "masculine stones" the conceit of which made me giddy in its sheer audacity. His stones help propel his craft: now isn't that cute (and so true!).

It is a fully-realized world and I can't help but wonder if it influenced Jack Vance's enjoyable and highly detailed entertainments. "Arcturus" obviously has bigger fish to fry than simply entertaining you. It stimulates the senses...more than just the five, if you possess a sorb. Despite the comparisons, mine to Vance, others to Bunyan, it is not only a good novel of its kind: it is the only novel of its kind.

Tentative conclusions
Conclusion: This book is a "more than human" flight of fancy. Further Conclusion: David Lindsay was obviously not a man of this world.

*Further note on Lindsay's "Arcturian" names: Lindsay was perhaps referencing the improbable names of the heroes and villains in the pulp novels of his days while twisting them into transcending such humble origins=charging them with somehow mythic significance; WOMBFLASH FOREST / FLASH GORDON / GORGON. In other terms, the names, like the story itself, are oddly harmonious hybrids that against all odds work. ...more

17 likes · Like · see review

Oct 20, 2017 Peter Tillman rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: freebies, own-copy, fantasy

I read it as the Lin Carter reprint, back in the days of psychedelia, and liked it. It's kinda like Doc Smith, in that you have to see through the awful prose, except that Lindsay couldn't really write a novel, either.

Well, I can see I'm going to cause a stampede to the bookstore with these comments -- but I did like it, and still remember bits, three decades later. Lindsay's a bit like Van Vogt in writing vivid word-portraits of lucid dreaming, except Lindsay's doing hallucinations and fever-dr ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 14, 2013 Buck rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, reviewed, abandoned

A Voyage to Arcturus is bizarre and absurd. Finally, about halfway along, I have decided to abandon it. I just can't continue reading it. It has become more tedious than enjoyable. ...more

1 like · Like · see review