Iced On Aran

New Adventures in H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands #4

by Brian Lumley

Trapped in the Dreamlands and cut off from the waking world, David Hero becomes the latest model for a mad sculptor and suddenly finds himself frozen in ice. Original.

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Cthulhu Mythos, Fiction, Short Stories, Weird Fiction, Adventure

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 8, 1990

About the author

Brian Lumley was born near Newcastle. In 22 years as a Military Policeman he served in many of the Cold War hotspots, including Berlin, as well as Cyprus in partition days. He reached the rank of Sergeant-Major before retiring to Devon to write full-time, and his work was first published in 1970. The vampire series, 'Necroscope', has been translated into ten languages and sold over a million copies worldwide.

He was awarded the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award in 2010.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

And so end the Dreamland series following the adventures of Eldin and Hero. Now I remember saying that after finishing the Mad Moon of Dreams where could the adventures go next - well this book certainly shows us where.

And I must admit its a bit of a disappointment - now the action is still there and the wild and imaginative locations and inhabitants - however it appears that the duo are now little more than the kings own questers. I will not go in to more as that will be too many spoilers.

In addition there is no real story here - what you have instead is a series of interlinked stories which either start or end with the king sending them on some errand somewhere. Yes the grand scale is still here but it has lost something of the carefree and wandering spirits, who more blunder in to things rather than being sent it to deal with something.

The writing style also feels a little formulaic too which all add up to a book which feels more like some episodic instalment in a larger franchise rather than the final volume in a series which seemed determined to out do the volume before.

so why not a more scathing rating - well maybe I am too soft or just accept the fact that after the events of the previous book what really could they do to top it. So rather than go all out they decided on something more achievable - and I guess sustainable too.

This was a fun series - but I still think it does not come close to the Necroscope series

[Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* · Rating 4 out of 5]

A banger of a pulp swords-and-sorcery Lovecraft-derived buddy banter episodic fantasy adventure story, marred only by the distressingly colonial portrayal of African stand-in populations, a wholly unnecessary, unconsidered, and uncreative insertion.

Other than that (and thankfully it was not as heavy as in the author's Sorcery in Shad,) I enjoyed this book immensely. Lumley had a grand ol' time writing this one. His playfully purple prose is in peak form in this one, eliciting many an, "Oh, ho, ho!" from this appreciative reader.

The dialogue between the questers Hero and Eldin has never been better, and the format of chained adventures purposefully includes downtime for us to see the pair at their most leisurely. It's a lovely cap to their "proper" trilogy (Hero of Dreams, Ship of Dreams, and Mad Moon of Dreams. And while those previous books contained their share of nigh-nubile maidens in the tradition of Robert E. Howard, this one turns the Breasting Boobily up a notch, both in text and in the illustrations by Stephen E. Fabian:





This is the final book in my posthumous Lumley Cthulhu-Mythos reading project. I have a decades-long relationship with this author's books, as I documented in my review for The Caller of the Black. I've already started a reread of his Necroscope series, a very different thing aside from the breadth of his imaginative description of horrors and commitment to the hammy prose, and I still have a couple yet-to-read stories featuring this book's dreaming heroes in another Lumley story collection, but I feel wholly satisfied with my updated experience of Lumley's work. Let's do it all over again in another decade?

[hotsake (André Troesch) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lumley writes these Dreamland stories in a fun and entertaining way. These are fast reads and enjoyable in a forgettable kind of way. I couldn't rate this any higher because I find Hero and Eldin to be bland characters.

[JM · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a solid trilogy detailing the three times the Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser-inspired pair of questers David Hero and Eldin the Wanderer saved the Dreamlands from utter destruction in this Lovecraftian-flavored old school sword-and-sorcery series, this final fourth volume is a step down in the sense that instead of a full novel like the rest it's more like a series of chronologically narrated short stories detailing some lesser adventures of the famous rogues, usually on behalf of King Kuranes of Celephais, that lack a clearly defined overreaching plot so it feels kind of anti-climactic due to the feeling of lower stakes and to the more episodic nature of the volume. Still fun, but the previous three were much better in my opinion. On to the next Lumley story cycle.

[Tim Baruffi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Giving this book such a low rating was very hard for me because it is definitely a solid 4star read. But I got the feeling that this book was originally thought to be too short and so had some incomplete ideas tacked on. when compared to the other books in the series this one falls a bit short due to the aforementioned, also the name of the book and the blurb on the back describe one of the tacked on ideas and therefore do not paint an honest picture of what the book is truly about

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fourth and final book in Lumley's Dream series (based on H.P. Lovecraft's dream stories) concludes with a rambling adventure that slowly develops. It almost seems like Lumley just wrote it as he went along without any real plan or cobbled it together from a bunch of shorter pieces. Not that this makes it a bad book, not at all. I liked it just fine, even if it was lacking the bite of the earlier books. It just didn't have the feel of a defined, epic story, though everything did tie together. More than anything, it reminded me of a series of roleplaying adventures in a campaign. A little disappointed that the swan song of the series did not have a grander story to tell, but it definitely shines at parts with Lumley's signature mix of fantasy and horror.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you enjoyed the first three books in this series you should like this on as well.

[Little Timmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lumley should stick to vampire/horror books. This is his attempt at a fantasy/SiFi "man transported to another world" story. While not bad it's doesn't stand out in any way. Not recommended