What are you reading 2019? Log Out | Topics | Search
Moderators | Edit Profile

RAMSEY CAMPBELL » Discussion » What are you reading 2019? « Previous Next »

Author Message
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.190.206.179
Posted on Thursday, April 25, 2019 - 09:54 am:   

There.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.153.254.41
Posted on Monday, April 29, 2019 - 12:01 am:   

I suppose I should put something here, since Tony went through all the trouble of creating a thread and all....

Dipping in and out, now almost done, with an old Asimov anthology: Magical Wishes (1986); every story themed around magical wishes, I guess I didn't need to write that....

"Monkey's Paw" still the best, of course. The stories by the biggest names - Charlotte Armstrong, Asimov himself, Fredric Brown, Ray Bradbury, Jack Finney, etc. - were all so-so. The best of those was "The Same To You Doubled," by Robert Scheckley, wherein someone is granted the ability to wish for anything he wants, on one condition - the person he hates most in the world, gets double of whatever's wished for. The two stories by authors I didn't know - J.F Bone, "Tween"; and Edward P. Hughes, "A Born Charmer" - were I found the best. The former, about a secret cabal of psy-aliens living peacefully amongst humans; the other, set in a post-holocaust Wales, in a standard but surprisingly engaging fantasy adventure (I guess there were a series of these collected into a connected anthology, came out the in 1980's... long forgotten by now, I'm sure).

Two left, the very long "Flight of the Umbrella," by Marvin Kaye; and Stevenson's "The Bottle Imp."

... of course, this would have been reported much more entertainingly, had Stevie written this... where is he, anyway?...
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.109.102
Posted on Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - 12:30 am:   

Joel Lane hated themed.anthos. I kind of knew what he meant. It sometimes feels like an aid to storing things in libraries. But if a book's good, why sniff?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.109.102
Posted on Monday, May 06, 2019 - 08:10 am:   

The Lost Estate by Alain-Fournier.
Wow. An old book, all carriages and candles, but just a few pages in I'm in love with it. It doesn't hurry but still feels light and modern somehow. You feel transported, want to be there in that tiny, huge world of just watching the blacksmith just to get warm and living your life by the rising and setting of the sun, no climate change or internet trolls.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.205.241.247
Posted on Monday, May 06, 2019 - 10:39 am:   

The book's about a boy who gets lost one day and meets a girl in a mysterious place, then when he tries to find the place again can't. Simple, but haunting. It makes you realize how little we used to know about our surrounding world.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.153.254.41
Posted on Monday, May 06, 2019 - 05:13 pm:   

I want to go back and read again a novel from the pre-20th Century. Like you say, Tony, they're usually of a pace wholly unlike our own - you enter and absorb novel world's in ways you can't enter through any movie or series.

I have no problem with themed anthos - it's all about the editors, and Asimov/Greenburgh/Waugh were brilliant and knowledgable collators - it's a way to get the best for sampling without having to eat through all the garbage yourself.

Started an old collection (this one put together in 1946) of Robert Frost's poetry. I expected to get something apart from the constant genre-reading I've been engaging in... but no, soon enough, I encounter "The Witch of Coos" - which is basically (like so much Frost) a narrative broken up into verse - and wow, what a suspenseful, powerful horror story that is! It would make a good movie....
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.109.102
Posted on Monday, May 06, 2019 - 05:36 pm:   

What freaked me out today was that old books ARE SF; different worlds to ours. There was a line today that chilled me; without maps you could GET LOST. Where in new movies or TV do we even get a hint of that? It's scarier than Game of Thrones. Walk a few miles and you could be meeting people literally alien to yourselves. I once worked with an old man who told me that in all his 80/90 years he had been to one place outside his village, and that people in the neighbouring villages were not to be trusted. The neighbouring villages were one short bus stop away. Meeting him and talking with him was invaluable. He was like basically Victorian.
I know of Frost but haven't even read one poem. He's in the little box room in my brain where Emily Dickinson is stored.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.153.254.41
Posted on Tuesday, May 07, 2019 - 03:58 am:   

Try this very poem, Tony - it's no more difficult than reading a very short story:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=19&issue=4&page=2

I like this version, because of the font/formatting. A superb bit of horror, but also just a great short story, and poem. Frost is one of the very few great artists who were both truly great, and also widely - mainstream-ly - popular at once.

Let Dickinson out of the box!

Geez - I've been feeling rather confined myself of late, but that guy you met beats the cake! But hey, why should it matter? One can live a very full life in one's own small town - more power to him!
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.109.102
Posted on Tuesday, May 07, 2019 - 03:24 pm:   

Protodroid once said that in the olden days the world was 'vertical', a little group of us with God at the top, little known of outside. I've been in dark villages at night and had this feeling. Curiously, it made the people around me feel more important. Maybe the net is adding to that sense of the world being too big? Obvious supposition, I suppose...
(I'll check the poem out today)
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.109.102
Posted on Tuesday, May 07, 2019 - 03:35 pm:   

Poem is great. Actually brings back memories, of a dream I had as a child of walking the streets at night pursued by a little group of toys, one a rag doll, one a teddy. They were too fast so I pretended to be dead in the kerb, but they dragged me to my grandmother's house where a skeleton opened the door to the house being all empty and dark but for an altar. They dragged me to the altar but there I woke up. The dream haunted my imagination for years.
Also, as kids, we would often stay at relatives and all us kids would be thrown into baths and beds together. Oh, the storytelling... Ghosts, the supernatural, were just taken for granted. The house was three storeys tall, the top floor never used and kind of abandoned looking. They were all thieves and quite poor but nice to me. It was like another world.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.109.102
Posted on Tuesday, May 07, 2019 - 03:48 pm:   

Got this book today.
http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/features/harrisburdick/readers_stories.html
It's not clear if Harris Burdick is real, really. I almost wish we won't know.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.153.254.41
Posted on Wednesday, May 08, 2019 - 07:43 am:   

I read that poem a couple of times. I love the scary details, and of course the ambiguity - is the story real or just a fable, told by this old witch? One mystery is what occurred back then - that's fairly easy to work out: witch and husband killed her lover and buried the body in the attic. But I like that Frost doesn't overtly explain the burning question: Why did the bones arise that night it tromped through the house, looking for...? I think the clue is in the opening, when the son says of his mom, "Mother can make a common table rear/And kick with two legs like an army mule." So she has the power to raise spirits - and when she was sleeping that night downstairs, she was dreaming of her lost lover, and that's what summoned him, her/his burning desire. Which becomes the cold, bitter sentiment behind the closing's "I don't remember why I ever cared.... I don't believe [my husband]/Could tell you why he ever cared himself." Frost's humor comes through with the narrator's final stanza, a bit of useless fact-checking - the narrator completely misses the point of his own story.

I so know what you mean - I come from a big family myself, Tony (six siblings not including me!), and we were often thrown together in various situations. I remember everyone sleeping in a room together on Christmas Eve, and me being terrified of Santa's face peering in at me through the window.

I for many years had this terrifying dream as a child: I wake up in the middle of the night (at the time, must have been like 5 years old), and I go out into the hall late one night, with my brother... and I look down the hallway, and see this woman standing down there, staring at us, pointing - in my mind, it's like a Medusa staring and horrifying - and we go running into our parents' room when the dream ends. Many years later, my brother expresses he had the same dream I did... which we later worked out to be, that, perhaps... it wasn't a dream at all. Maybe a woman had gotten into the house somehow, or didn't leave in time... I'll leave it at that. My dad was a wedding singer (think that one good Adam Sandler film), my parents often fought, after he came home from a wedding too late.... I wonder now, about what? Might be a Frost-like poem's explanation is in order here, too. Or, the incredible coincidence of two children having the same dream. It happens, right?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 89.19.67.97
Posted on Wednesday, May 08, 2019 - 10:03 am:   

I don't know if this is good, but...

https://www.firstshowing.net/2018/new-us-trailer-for-oscar-nominated-hungarian-f ilm-on-body-and-soul/
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.153.254.41
Posted on Thursday, May 09, 2019 - 06:25 am:   

Weird, Proto. People dreaming the same thing is a thing? I was thinking horror film at first, but... despite those accolades, I fear the sentimentality. I'll give it a chance should I ever come across it. How come no one dreams they're two slugs, or two earwigs?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.153.254.41
Posted on Thursday, May 09, 2019 - 06:28 am:   

Re-read "Flowers for Algernon," by Daniel Keyes (1959). Superb, of course, but a lesson for writers in maximum pathos potential. You are drawn emotionally - dragged more like - by all the little tricks and eft touches, Keyes manipulating his readers like a puppet-master. So that by the end, only the most hardened of souls wouldn't tear up. I know this was made into a film back in the 60's, CHARLIE, starring... dang, blanking on that actor - the one who got blacklisted for some reason - whose career was basically ruined by something he did, can't remember what it was. This seems like such fodder for filmmakers today, I wonder it's not been remade since? Or has it?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.109.102
Posted on Thursday, May 09, 2019 - 10:38 am:   

It's cropped up in a few things, in little ways, more to do with memory wipes, though. I tried reading that book but it had a softness to it that put me off. I'm not an unfeeling reader but too much emotion, emotion being rubbed in just turns me off. Being moved has to be felt for me, not shown.
Slightly connected, one of my funniest movie jokes was in There's Something About Mary where an idiot pretends to be a genius and becomes a top psychologist just to get close to her, then when she finds out just becomes an idiot again. It made me laugh but mindboggled me at the same time. Genius.
That dream you had was terrifying, Craig. Reminds me of one of my worst nightmares in which I went out onto the landing at the top of the stairs in the dark and bumped into Regan from the Exorcist. It was really dark but I knew it was her. I woke up like a shot.
My wife once woke up dreaming her son up in Scotland was sick; when she rang him he was - very. Odd, isn't it?
Craig - did you see my thing in another thread about Chevy Chase? That was odd, too.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.153.254.41
Posted on Friday, May 10, 2019 - 07:34 am:   

That did become a book, didn't it? I was talking about the original novella - a minor classic - masterfully pathetic (I mean that in a good way).

I don't remember that in Mary! I've not seen it since it came out, though. What a culturally influential movie - doubt we'll see another comedy as influential as that in a long time. The only two since have been The Hangover and Bridesmaids - the latter's style of comedy has dominated here since, and it's way past gone stale. Time to shake up comedy.

There's something about being in one's own home at night, as a child, isn't there, Tony? When you're young the family is in the home, in all the rooms - lights on, activity, chores or parties, boring daily activities or just being bored in one room, then another, then you eat in this room or that... but at night... it's so much more cavernous, terrifying. You know, I think this goes hand in hand with our talk of abandoned places, like malls. Every night, especially as a child - if you were to venture out of your bedroom - you'd be in a dark, abandoned home - all that dull daily activity, vanished - a ruin, an empty shell - it's a primal fear, that maybe informs us throughout our lives. Wandering out of our bedrooms at night, as a child, is our first encounter with the awe-inspiring, existential horror of the emptiness of the world, the Universe, and the ultimate death and decay of everything....

I'll check out that thread with Chevy Chase. I'm glad this post ended with Chevy Chase - and not what's just above this.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.150.214.76
Posted on Friday, May 10, 2019 - 04:14 pm:   

Yes! The place that spooked me the most was my grandmas. My parents were separated for a while and me and my mother lived with her. One day I found a glass in a cabinet, the letters of the alphabet and a little yes and no, and asked what it was. 'Oh,' my mum said, 'I forgot that was there. We must use it again.' Cue the house full of neighbours that night all gathered round the table where the cards are in a circle and all these fingers are resting on the glass. Ouija. My dead granddad starts speaking through it, asking this woman to leave, but everyone tells her to stay. Minutes later the table floats up in the air and crashes to the floor. Another boy claims to see a white figure dart down the hall.
Of course it terrifies me. At night I can barely walk around the place, or go to pee. Such a deep sense of otherworldliness takes it over. Nothing really happens there again but it's forever affected by that weird night.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.150.214.76
Posted on Friday, May 10, 2019 - 04:18 pm:   

Did you get this over there Craig, where abandoned houses were just left empty? It happened here. We used to play in empty houses. Totally dangerous but what a gift to us kids.
I mean, we did have a little girl here who murdered three toddlers in a few of them, but, well, that's part of it, isn't it. The catfish in the salmon tank. :-(
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.154.107.112
Posted on Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - 01:39 pm:   

Just popping in to pick up any mail.
Read a book by a chap on here, Mark Lynch, Walking Horatio, a collection of what you might call kitchen sink magic realism short stories. It's lovely for virtually the whole time, really poignant and wistful, with much gorgeous writing. I didn't want it to end. A couple of the tales could be meatier but Mark agrees.

Now reading The Northern Clemency by Philip Henshell about two neighboring families in seventies Sheffield. Middle class kitchen sink I suppose, but so riveting and atmospheric, so detailed...it's fly on the wall and a very roving fly at that. Conversations in it are long and seemingly aimless, but it's very hard to stop reading. It really takes you back in almost microscopic detail. I love it.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.132.177
Posted on Friday, May 31, 2019 - 01:46 am:   

Well done, Mark!
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Wednesday, June 12, 2019 - 02:01 am:   

Hello, folks!

Just checked in here on the off chance for the first time in yonks and nice to see some old mates still keeping the place alive and ticking. Hope you are all well.

I do all my waffling on Facebook these days which is where everyone inevitably gravitated to from here. Still miss the intimacy and camaraderie of the old RCMB but if you want to get into wide ranging conversations with all and sundry on the type of stuff we love then Facebook is the only place to do it. Progress and all that...
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Wednesday, June 12, 2019 - 02:14 am:   

As for what am I reading at the moment?

Just finished ‘Jizzle’ (1954) by John Wyndham and it has to be one of his most entertaining books. It’s certainly his most varied - being a mixed bag of science fiction, horror, fantasy, comedy ad straight drama akin to Graham Greene. Really thoroughly enjoyed it and that means I have now read every Wyndham book ever published. Kind of sad about that as he is one of my favourite authors and I’ve been reading him since childhood. 53 now and time to start rereading lol.

And to follow that I’m about to start ‘Sleeping Beauties’ (2017) by Stephen King & Owen King - his then 40 year old son. Sounds intriguing. Another brick sized apocalyptic sci-fi epic that sounds like a cross between ‘The Stand’ (1978-90) and Frank Herbert’s ‘The White Plague’ (1982). I’ve been going through a major King renaissance the last couple of years mopping up everything I hadn’t read by the man. Thoughts on this one to follow...
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Wednesday, June 12, 2019 - 02:39 am:   

And before ‘Jizzle’ I read this and posted the below on Facebook:

Just finished ‘Caviar’ (1955) by Theodore Sturgeon. A collection of eight short stories:

1. “Bright Segment” (1955) *****

Shockingly gruesome grand guignol horror story that wouldn’t have been out of place at all in the old ‘Pan Books Of Horror’ series! A social misfit finds the body of a young woman dying on the street from savage razor wounds, brings her home unseen and painstakingly nurses her back to health. But when she recovers and wants to leave things turn rather nasty. Still packs a hell of a punch!!

2. “Microcosmic God” (1941) *****

Wonderfully entertaining and original black comedy sci-fi mini-epic that may have inspired one of my favourite ‘Outer Limits’ episodes; ”Wolf 359” (1964). An insanely gifted scientific genius with Aspberger’s Syndrome creates his own microscopic universe in the laboratory and becomes God to its rapidly evolving inhabitants.

3. “Ghost Of A Chance” (1943) *****

This is a brilliantly sweet, romantic and very funny supernatural love story that is about as far away from the horrors of “Bright Segment” as it is possible to imagine - but it is still very much a horror story! Two soulmates meet and fall instantly in love but are relentlessly troubled by the girl’s hopelessly besotted, maniacally jealous and very dead “boyfriend”. A joy to read!

4. “Prodigy” (1949) *****

Fascinating and chilling far future dystopian science fiction tale set in the aftermath of the Fourth World War in which the human survivors attempt to rebuild society by ruthlessly purging all mutant births in an attempt to genetically cleanse the race. Then one psychically gifted and frighteningly precocious young boy is born, and ill-advisedly kept alive for scientific study, but he decides to fight back by terrorising his wards with his ever increasing powers. Bleak and scary the story is reminiscent of the 'Twilight Zone' episode "It's A Good Life" (1961) and is every bit as memorable, with a right cracker of a twist ending!

5. “Medusa” (1942) *****

Brilliantly original (back then) and highly influential outer space adventure in which a crew of hand-picked veterans are assembled for a suicide mission to the mysterious planet Xantippe, from which no previous spacecraft has ever returned. They have undergone years of deep psychological training to face the onslaught of unknown terrors to come but the military brass have a hidden agenda and each man has been given sealed orders to be kept secret from all the others. Devoid of the usual adventure heroics one would expect from such a tale this is instead a deeply cynical and disturbing horror story of psychological manipulation and madness. It even reminded me of Claire Denis's 'High Life' (2018) - just seen in the cinema!

6. “Blabbermouth” (1946) *****

Very funny but also strangely disturbing black comic horror/fantasy, similar in style to “Ghost Of A Chance”, in which a New York high society radio star finds his career being unintentionally sabotaged by his new young wife’s strange talent for reading people’s minds at social occasions and not being able to help herself blabbing all. Clever and witty the tale takes an unexpectedly dark turn about two thirds through, and it involves demonic possession, but the priceless punchline ends the whole sorry episode on a high lol. Stylish and original and completely different from what any other genre writer was producing at the time. It would have made a great screwball comedy!

7. “Shadow, Shadow On The Wall” (1950) *****

A classic short sweet supernatural horror shocker of the "creepy kid" variety that deserves to be far better known and anthologised, imho. The story reads like a modern macabre fairy tale as an overly imaginative young boy who is ruthlessly bullied by his resentful new stepmother, behind the back of his loving but blinkered father, takes innocent but ultimately terrifying revenge through the medium of his "imaginary" shadow friends - after all his more tangible toys have been cruelly taken away from him. There's a subtly Lovecraftian streak to this story made all the more effective by its refusal to properly describe the unutterable thing that breaks through from the other side. Marvellous spine-chilling stuff!!

8. “Twink” (1955) *****

The book ends with this beautifully moving little story that explores paternal love, grief and guilt with great skill. Told from the point of view of a father who was stupidly responsible for the car accident that left his young daughter a comatose vegetable the twist is that he secretly shares a telepathic link with the girl - and that gift comes into full play when she has to undergo dangerous surgery as the only possible cure for her condition. Full of empathy for its characters the story is heartrendingly sad but also uplifting in all it says about the strength of human love and the power of redemption.

An absolutely first rate collection of wonderfully varied and unpredictable mini-masterpieces that fully live up to the promise of the title.

...

Here's how I would rank them:

1. "Medusa" (1942) *****

2. "Prodigy" (1949) *****

3. "Microcosmic God" (1941) *****

4. "Shadow, Shadow On The Wall" (1950) *****

5. "Bright Segment" (1955) *****

6. "Twink" (1955) *****

7. "Blabbermouth" (1946) *****

8. "Ghost Of A Chance" (1943) *****

See I haven’t changed. Still waffling the same old enthusiastic nonsense lol.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Wednesday, June 12, 2019 - 02:43 am:   

And before that... this:

Recently finished, at a mad gallop, one of the very best books Stephen King has ever written, imho; the exceptional four novella collection ‘Full Dark, No Stars’ (2010). This is the third such work he has published, following ‘Different Seasons’ (1982) and ‘Four Past Midnight’ (1990), and I reckon it is the strongest and most satisfying of all of them. The stories are:

1. ‘1922’ (2010) novella *****
A brilliantly written, utterly enthralling and exceptionally dark tale of psychological manipulation, ghastly murder, nightmarish guilt and hauntingly inevitable retribution from beyond the grave that is unrelenting in its bleak power and one of the most impressively full-on horror stories King had written in bloody decades at that time!! Set on a struggling Nebraska farmstead in the year of the title his mastery of the period detail is exemplary, recalling the style of John Steinbeck (via EC Comics), while the hard-bitten characters are some of the most vivid he has ever poured his whole heart and soul into, imho. Financial desperation drives an ordinary joe to a truly unthinkable crime and boy does he, and everyone he cares about, regret it. A psychological horror masterpiece worthy of the best of Poe!! It was filmed in 2017 by Zak Hilditch to very positive reviews so I’ll have to look out for it.

2. ‘Big Driver’ (2010) novella *****
King goes all old school extreme ordeal horror in this intensely hard-hitting story of a psychopathic sexual predator and what he graphically puts his latest victim through... she, in her turn, going all 'I Spit On Your Grave' (1978) in the unbearably suspenseful second half. So it may not be his most original of plots but the power of the tale is in the utterly convincing strength of the characters he creates. I have rarely experienced a more sickening catalogue of real life horrors from this writer and he really makes you feel the pain of his female protagonist, as well as the psychological anguish she suffers in the aftermath and her complete vulnerability as she wrong headedly determines to pay the bastard back. Thankfully the pay-off is worth the read and nowhere near as predictable as one might think. Filmed in 2014 by Mikael Salomon to mixed reviews.

3. ‘Fair Extension’ (2010) novella *****
On the surface this is a textbook King Faustian horror/fantasy along the lines of 'Needful Things' (1991) or 'Storm Of The Century' (1999) but, in its economy and directness, it is far superior and more chilling than either of those much longer works! Another Kingian ordinary joe family man, who is dying of cancer, has an encounter with Old Nick and made an offer that he cannot refuse... it being a twist on the oldest one in the horror genre. In exchange for a miracle cure and guaranteed extension of his happily married life he only has to sacrifice the happiness and soul of his lifelong best friend. The way King describes the man talking himself into the deal and inventing imaginary resentments against his one true buddy is psychologically adroit and completely convincing but it is the long drawn out aftermath, spanning years, as we watch him reap the rewards devoid of guilt while another life disintegrates in one tragedy after another that haunts the mind and makes the story so much more than the sum of its parts. In all honesty what would you do and how would you feel? The only story in the book not so far adapted but I'm sure it's only a matter of time...

4. ‘A Good Marriage’ (2010) novella *****
This is hands down the best story in the book and one of the most hauntingly powerful and compelling things King has ever written... as well as one of the most plausibly frightening. He describes in great depth, spanning a lifetime, a perfect marriage that has been built upon a monstrous lie. Darcy Anderson has been married to her soulmate, Bob, for an idyllic 27 years when, one fateful day, she stumbles upon carefully hidden evidence of his secret life... and comes to suspect that the mild-mannered travelling salesman she loves, and the father of her children, is a sexual psychopath and the serial killer responsible for dozens of notorious unsolved murders and disappearances in the surrounding states. Inspired by the real life case of the infamous "BTK Killer", Dennis Rader, who was also happily married to his unsuspecting wife, Paula, for thirty years before his capture, this is no fictionalised true crime story but instead a heartrendingly empathic tale of the ultimate moral dilemma as King's all too human anti-heroine tries desperately to continue on as normal and talk herself out of what she deep down knows is true. As we read the story we are sickened to the core by her moral ambiguity but get to know the woman so well - just like 'Dolores Claiborne' (1992) before her - that it becomes impossible not to understand and care for her and the children she makes her first priority. A seriously disturbing, emotionally devastating and also incredibly suspenseful masterpiece of domestic horror!! Filmed, apparently not very well, in 2014 by Peter Askin.

...

Yeah, every one of the lengthy tales is a rock solid King classic and, as the title implies, he has rarely plumbed such a level of consistently dark and disturbing hardcore Horror in his entire career. It comes across as a statement of intent to recover his horror chops following the relatively weak sentimental fantasy stories that made up most of ‘Just After Sunset’ (2008). The guy was really cooking when he wrote this one! Fantastic stuff!!!!

...

The novellas ranked:

1. ‘A Good Marriage’ (2010) *****

2. ‘1922’ (2010) *****

3. ‘Big Driver’ (2010) *****

4. ‘Fair Extension’ (2010) *****
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 89.100.87.82
Posted on Wednesday, June 12, 2019 - 01:48 pm:   

Tony hasn't been around for a while; he seemed quite glum lately, but I hope he's doing better.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 31.53.202.0
Posted on Wednesday, June 12, 2019 - 03:17 pm:   

I hope so too, Porto. Still good to be back on her again. Will make a point of checking in every day from now on. Intelligent conversation and debate is hard to come by these days lol. So how are you doing anyway and what has been amusing or exciting you recently?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 31.53.202.0
Posted on Wednesday, June 12, 2019 - 03:18 pm:   

Porto lol. There’s a new nickname for you!!
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.150.78
Posted on Wednesday, June 12, 2019 - 10:41 pm:   

I don't have much time to be on here either! I've been getting into filmmaking. That's quite a deep world to dive into, but then I suppose everything is infinitely deep.

I think FB has made everyone have their own bulletin board. Which erodes the very social aspect having a bulletin board in the first place.

Porto Lol is lovely this time of year.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2019 - 11:31 am:   

Yeah, I just post all my musings on my own Facebook page and answer whatever feedback I get. Still chatting to most of the usual suspects who were on here - including the man himself. So it’s fun but still lacks the intimacy of the RCMB. Better than nothing, though, and the contenders for each year’s Stevie Awards need posted somewhere lol. Favourite for Best Film at the minute, for example, is the rather sublime ‘Under The Silver Lake’ by David Robert Mitchell.

So tell me about your adventures in filmmaking, Proto! Sounds like you’ve been busy.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2019 - 11:45 am:   

Voices! Just dropped by to check the mail and here you are.
Hi, Stevie! Hope you don't mind where I put the settee.
Sorry...it's getting weird, now.
Had a couple of bad times lately. Even ran amok up the street with an axe, wacking the village sign. It was awful. I can't even believe it happened.
I don't want to post negative things but they've taken over. :-(
Had some man on a quad bike smash five of our windows this week, too. I can't describe how it feels.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 88.96.193.190
Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2019 - 06:23 pm:   

Voices from the past indeed, Tony. Hope you’re kidding about the axe incident but if not I’d suggest counselling! What on earth brought that on?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2019 - 07:04 pm:   

We have had all kinds of bad things happen through the years and I thought someone had stolen my laptop with all my short stories on it, which I'm almost finished revising for publication. I went blind with despair. I'd left it in a cafe. Its since been found. But really, where we live has been not the best for me. Last year a man threatened to kill me and chased me in his truck. It was terrifying. We are talking of moving.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2019 - 07:10 pm:   

Seeing this place spark back into life here a bit has meant so much to me. Facebook really was no good for me at all.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 88.96.193.190
Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2019 - 07:51 pm:   

Sounds like it was a road rage incident, Tony. Was that it? People driving can be complete wankers sometimes.

I use Facebook on my own terms and have no truck with idiots on there. If you only interact with civilised knowledgeable people then it’s worthwhile and actually a great social tool.

Where do you live now anyway? City, town or village?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2019 - 08:45 pm:   

I'd told a dog rescue that I'd seen what I thought a lost neglected dog and it turned out to be his. I think they told him and somehow linked me to fb. I was walking past his house and he called me a four eyed cunt and came after me in a truck. It was absolutely terrifying. This and being surrounded by an angry mob for grabbing a kid who'd stolen my son's bike have meant I don't fit here. It's the country.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2019 - 11:02 pm:   

Country people are notoriously insular and unintelligent, Tony. They look after their own and are hostile to outsiders. Especially intelligent outsiders. My advice is to move! What part of England is it? They all have their own daft prejudices.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Thursday, June 13, 2019 - 11:58 pm:   

It's actually an ex pit village. I kind of feel sorry for it - there's nothing here. But it is harsh.
To top things off my wife says today she wants to live away from me for a while. I don't think I can bare another thing.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 12:49 am:   

Well, Tony, if you are running amok with an axe then I can kind of understand where she is coming from lol.

In all honesty you need to become more self aware and understanding of how your behaviour might impact on other people. You’re a nice guy but even the nicest of us will cause harm if we don’t think of others above and beyond our own neuroses. To survive in this world one needs to integrate and go out of one’s way to avoid causing even unintentional harm. Especially to those we profess to love. It isn’t rocket science. It is merely self awareness and human kindness. The things that seperate us from the animal kingdom. Philip K. Dick was right when he identified what “Human Is”.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 01:13 am:   

I'm just lonely, and too sensitive. Everything hurts me. I've never felt part of this world, Stevie. I was adopted and apparently these are common feelings among us. I feel I wasn't meant to be. I'm not blaming anyone, I just wish I could change - the only way I can seems to have been to clear people out of my life. I'm sorry this is so gloomy, I really am.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 01:15 am:   

To go back to the thread, I'm reading a very plain book, The Chalk Man by C J Tudor, which despite reading like a movie tie in has a very welcome sense of sweetness to it I'm very glad of.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.150.111
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 01:21 am:   

Jesus, Tony, I'm sorry times are so tough! Do something small that's reliably nice for yourself. Be good to yourself!
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 04:13 pm:   

Well we did talk about the whole adoption issue back in the day, Tony, and for me it isn't one. I was told I was adopted from as young as I was able to understand the concept and so grew up thinking it was in no way strange - just a part of my life story. Then, at my mother's instigation and to satisfy my own curiosity, about 16 years ago I tracked down my birth parents and gave getting to know them a try for a couple of years. But it fizzled out and we are no longer in contact, as I believe happened you as well. Apparently that's how the vast majority of such cases pan out. Even though they may be blood related they are still complete strangers who played no formative part in your life. So you satisfy your curiosity and then close that chapter of your story and move on. That's what I did and no longer even think about being adopted unless someone brings the issue up - such as now. Being adopted isn't a handicap it is merely a fact that makes us that wee bit more interesting lol.

As for recent years... my life has completely turned around for the better. I took early retirement from the silly service four years ago and it was the best decision I ever made. My life is my own now and the world is my oyster, while I'm still young enough to enjoy it. Then two years ago I finally met THE ONE, my soulmate Alexis, we have been living together nearly a year and a half now and we got engaged last summer - a first for me! This girl gets me completely and loves me for who I am - another first lol.

The years just before this turnaround were the darkest and most soul-destroyingly bleak of my life but I soldiered on and feel blessed now by good fortune and the kind of life I always dreamed about. It can happen. You just have to stay positive, immerse yourself in the things that you love and treat each day as a new adventure. Your talent and your family should give you great comfort. Never take either for granted and don't let the gormless bastards out there grind you down.

I would recommend psychiatric counselling as it helped me when times were hard and I ended up being officially diagnosed with Aspberger's Syndrome with an IQ of 146! I took great comfort from that as it suddenly made sense of my "eccentric outsider" status and made me realise there is nothing wrong with me but that I have a special gift that sets me apart from the herd. I believe you are in some way gifted too. You just have to accept who you are and take strength from your talents. Get me?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 04:29 pm:   

But I heat of so many adopted folk with rejection issues, mood swings, addictions - and yes, autistic traits. I'm in touch with quite a few. I don't want to make something out of nothing but it does feel like something is going on.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 04:32 pm:   

I know this isn't the place, but this was a huge help to me.
https://youtu.be/3e0-SsmOUJI
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 04:38 pm:   

But getting back to what I am reading:

I'm really getting into this King(x2) book. It has all the storytelling and character strengths one would expect from King Snr but there is a certain youthful freshness to it as well, particularly in the depth of the younger characters, that feels like King Jnr's voice. The plot does indeed echo 'The Stand' but in a more intimate way. We have a global plague of unknown origin that affects only women but its impact is all played out in one small American town ala 'Under The Dome'. Women and girls who go to sleep simply never wake up and their bodies become swathed in a mysterious fungus like growth that starts on the face, seemingly emanating from the mouth and nose, and eventually becomes a full body cocoon. Attempts at trying to remove the growth end in bloody horror - that I won't spoil here. That's the set-up and the narrative follows virtually the whole population of the town as they watch events unfold on the TV News and react in their own particular ways once the plague hits home. Gripping stuff so far. You have strong female characters desperately fighting to stay awake and one-by-one succumbing to the inevitable while their menfolk crack up in a helplessly escalating social panic.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 05:09 pm:   

I always knew I was different, Tony, and always found it very difficult fitting in socially. School days and mixing with people in work were always a bit of a nightmare lol. I always found I was able to work better and concentrate more if I was on my own and left to my own devices. Relationships also were a minefield for me - and I adore women! I went through most of my life thinking I was the only normal person in it lol and then worrying if maybe I was the oddball and everyone else was normal. I was one of those people who always felt more comfortable with animals than human beings - apart from a select few lifelong friends who get me lol.

Having the balls to get out of a job I hated, and that was slowly destroying me, and then having the luck to meet someone who loves all the things about me that make me stand out has transformed my life. I never gave in to despair but then that's not in my nature. You have to love life and yourself, warts and all, to get the most out of it.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 05:29 pm:   

Those are the adoption issues exactly! Honest.
I got diagnosed autistic, too, a couple of years back. I didn't like it; like finding I was a robot all along. People who've known you step back all of a sudden.
Anyway, this must all be very alienating to the, um, Proto.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.132.152
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 08:15 pm:   

I'm not alienated, just have no first hand knowledge so remaining respectully quiet!
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 08:44 pm:   

Sigh...I need working knowledge!
My son is also self harming, generally when I get angry or upset. He's just done it again because of something I found in his room which made a terrible mess (his room we've been cleaning loads lately). It's like the man with the alarm connecting his false heart that made a huge noise reminding him to calm down fast. I don't know what to do.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.132.152
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 10:08 pm:   

I think you need help coming from many directions. A multi-stranded approach. This might sound trite, but I'd start with simple physical things that you can control and make happen - a bath, a cup of tea, and mindfully enjoying them in the moment. Removing some stress first before thinking about things, as our thoughts are never true when we're stressed.

It sounds like steadying the boat should be approached as a project. Sit down at the kitchen table with a pen and paper and get an overview of everything, including any sense of despair you feel at being overwhelmed, and any good things.

External help could be useful here, even just some advice. Some specifically dealing with specific issues, but also some general wider advice or counseling on the bigger picture. There's help there.

Just some initial thoughts.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2019 - 10:33 pm:   

I don’t know what your views are on taking meds for stress and depression, Tony, but they helped me cope when I was at my lowest ebb. Have you talked to your doctor at all about these feelings? I did, when everything had got too much and I was close to cracking up under the pressure, and he prescribed me tablets that helped me get through a very bad five year period. Been off them now over two years and never felt better or happier in my life. But without the professional help to get me through the bad times I probably wouldn’t have made it. Speak to your doctor if you haven’t already done so.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Sunday, June 16, 2019 - 10:24 am:   

I tried meds but they made me feel empty. But then maybe empty is better.
Shouted at a woman yesterday. My dogs ran up to her dog and they all started playing. Nothing was happening. But she wanted my dogs on their leads. I started doing a Network style rant, shouting at the top of my lungs for anyone who could hear me how fucking weird people had become, because they have.
But then my son said I'm frustrated my wife never let's me criticise a single thing she does and it's driven me to anger at everything.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Sunday, June 16, 2019 - 11:20 am:   

I know what you mean about feeling "empty" on the meds but to me feeling calm and unphased by anything was preferable to having panic attacks and sleepless nights due to nightmares. I never experienced feelings of anger but rather desperation and extreme crippling anxiety. Anger sounds worse and I would say is even more important to have treated.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Sunday, June 16, 2019 - 11:25 am:   

It's anger at an increasingly weird and irrational world. We have seventies comedians in power now and people let them happen. It really depresses me and I get angry at the downward slide. Frightened, really.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Sunday, June 16, 2019 - 11:26 am:   

I feel like going to a mental home, if only they didn't sound worse than prison.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Sunday, June 16, 2019 - 12:27 pm:   

We do seem to be slipping into a new Dark Age or something, Tony, what with general dumbing down and sensationalism in the Media, the whole ridiculous Brexit quagmire, Donald fucking Trump, Putin buddying up to the Chinese and World War appearing closer than at any time since 1945, fanaticism run rampant with the likes of ISIS and the insidious rise of the Extreme Right, and extreme climate change caused by human activity that is now obvious for all to see, etc, etc... But the world has always gone through dark times and we just have to look after our own lives and microcosms and let the bigger picture take care of itself. We can vote and protest and rant on social media but that's about all we can do. I don't like to dwell too much on what is out of my control.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 2.219.171.231
Posted on Sunday, June 16, 2019 - 12:35 pm:   

Anyway, getting back to recent reads, here is my analysis of the book I just finished:

Just finished a gloriously entertaining short story collection by John Wyndham; 'Jizzle' (1954). This was his first published such set of tales and it is the only book I had not read by the man. Interestingly only some of the stories are science fiction with the rest being a nicely mixed bag of horror, fantasy, comedy and straight drama. I've loved Wyndham's writing since I was a child and he is easily my all-time favourite British sci-fi author. If I had to pick a favourite novel it would be 'The Kraken Wakes' (1953) but they're all great tbh. The fifteen stories here are:

1. "Jizzle" (1954) *****
The first tale is a darkly comic horror classic, imo, that took obvious inspiration from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's "Green Tea" (1872). A carnival showman purchases a monkey called Jizzle at a ridiculously low price from an owner only too glad to be rid of the thing. The creature has the talent of being able to render vivid caricature portraits of anyone who sits for it but the thing also has a demonically malicious streak that causes no end of trouble for its new owner and his resentful wife. The twist in this tale is one of pure perfection making it no surprise that it was adapted as a particularly memorable episode of 'Alfred Hitchock Presents', retitled "Maria" (1961). One of Wyndham's finest short stories!!

2. "Technical Slip" (1949) *****
A clever and rather moving Faustian fantasy that would have made a great episode of 'The Twilight Zone' and, indeed, may have influenced one of its most famous stories, "Walking Distance" (1959). A rich elderly misanthrope who is dying of cancer is approached by an emissary of the Devil and, in return for all his worldly goods (souls having depreciated in value lol), he is given the opportunity to live his life over again. He awakens as a young boy, back at the happiest moment of his life, but cannot resist using his foreknowledge of what is to come to alter things... he hopes for the better. This one has another classic sting in the tail. Great stuff!!

3. "A Present From Brunswick" (1951) ***
This is a rather slight and jokey tale that imagines the fantastical effect on a small American town when a GI serving in Europe sends a present home to his musician mother that just happens to be the infamous flute used by the Pied Piper of Hamelin! When she plays it the inevitable happens much to the townsfolk's consternation. It's a fun read but also rather frivolous, lacking any real sense of threat.

4. "Chinese Puzzle" (1953) ***
The frivolous light fantasy theme continues with this remarkably similar story. Once again a son serving abroad, this time in China, sends a present home to his farming family in Wales that turns out to be a real honest-to-goodness Chinese dragon's egg! When it hatches his parents attempt to keep the thing as a pet until a real honest-to-goodness Welsh dragon turns up and doesn't take too kindly to this wingless Asian intruder. Again it's fun in a daft kind of way but also rather slight.

5. "Esmeralda" (1954) ***
I was starting to have doubts about the book by this stage as, after such a strong opening, this one made it three rather throwaway tongue-in-cheek little fantasies in a row - that could have been aimed at children if it weren’t for certain disconcertingly adult details. The story here has us back in carnival land and concerns the proprietor of a flea circus who comes into possession of a rather unusually talented flea called Esmeralda, who becomes overly attached to her owner to the detriment of his love life. Again it’s a bit of quaint harmless fun but no more than that.

6. "How Do I Do?" (1953) *****
Things got back on track with this wonderfully witty and original time travel story that, again, would have been a natural for a ‘Twilight Zone’ adaptation. A rather ditzy young woman agonises over whether she did the right thing in breaking up with her fiancé and decides to consult a gypsy fortune teller. After antagonising the old woman by angrily disagreeing with her reading (lol) she is briefly thrown into the future in order to be taught a lesson! There she meets herself, now happily married with a child, but the question is to whom? Funny, cleverly constructed and ultimately rather poignant this is a classic tale of its kind!

7. "Una" (1937) *****
Another stone cold classic this has to be one of the most laugh-out-loud hilarious sci-fi comedy stories I have read! It literally had me in stitches! A couple of animal rights activists, one of them maniacally self-righteous, pay a call on a reclusive scientist living isolated in the country, having heard distressing rumours of barbaric animal experiments being carried out in secret. What they discover there beggars belief! The man has created an artificial lifeform that he calls a “perfect creature” but that they see, rightly, as a hideous monstrosity. Unfortunately the thing is a female desperate for a mate and she takes rather a shine to our crusading hero lol. This is one of the best “monster on the rampage” stories ever written, imho, and it is certainly the funniest. Read it and you’ll see what I mean!!

8. "Affair Of The Heart" (1954) ****
This is a nicely nuanced little straight drama story that sees a young couple become entangled in what appears to be a beautiful lifelong romance between an elderly couple that has been forever thwarted by heartbreaking circumstances in their youth. However, appearances can be deceptive, as they find out at the story’s rather shocking twist conclusion. It’s an enjoyable story that, once again, would have made a great ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ episode but it also proves that John Wyndham was no Graham Greene when it came to writing about the depths of the human condition.

9. "Confidence Trick" (1953) *****
Another one of the best stories in the book this, again, darkly comic and wonderfully imaginative horror/fantasy has a particularly dark edge to it and another great twist ending. A packed Tube train during the London rush hour is suddenly plunged into darkness and when the lights come back on everyone has mysteriously vanished apart from a small group of disparate commuters. As the train hurtles on they band together in fright and bewilderment while trying to solve the mystery but it soon becomes apparent that this train is on a one way journey to Hell! But on reaching their destination one of the travellers steadfastly refuses to believe in what is happening and thereby hangs the existential meat of the tale. A brilliant shocker with a pay-off that is as wittily disturbing as it is ingenious!

10. "The Wheel" (1952) *****
Perhaps the most dramatically powerful and intensely moving story in the collection this is an absolute classic post-apocalypse sci-fi shocker! Wyndham would return to the theme of this tale in one of his most ambitious and emotionally affecting novels, the brilliant 'The Chrysalids' (1955), but in its own succinctly perfect way this short story is just as memorable. Set amid a backward farming community of religious fundamentalists in the aftermath of a long ago nuclear war it involves an innocent young boy who incurs the zealous wrath of his elders by breaking one of their great taboos when he "reinvents the wheel". All technological innovation has been strictly forbidden because of what it resulted in in the past and those who break this rule are deemed possessed by Satan! The boy's loving grandfather takes it on himself to defend the youngster but you know how irrational God botherers can be... Packs a hell of a sobering punch!!

11. "Look Natural, Please!" (1954) ****
Another straight drama that tackles a theme I have often thought about myself and have a lot of sympathy with. An enthusiastic amateur photographer finds himself dissatisfied with his typically posed wedding photographs and declares that he could do better himself. So he sets up his own wedding photo business and advertises himself as taking only natural unposed pictures of the happy couples' big day. Incredibly his style is a roaring success and he finds his business booming while he is hailed as something of a genius. Then he starts to believe his own hype and tinker with his portraits in an effort to keep improving... and the inevitable happens lol. This is an entertaining little story of human frailty, the pitfalls of success and ultimate self-deception that gets its witty point across very well. A minor gem.

12. "Perforce To Dream" (1954) ****
Two women submit romantic novels for publication and they turn out to be virtually identical in plot and characters, yet they have never met, and both claim to have received inspiration for their creations from a recurring dream! This is another witty fantasy that takes gentle digs at the publishing industry and the popularity of women's romantic fiction in particular. The women, having convinced themselves that no foul play was involved, set out to solve the mystery and eventually track down a lonely young man with a weird talent for projecting his lovelorn fantasies into the dreams of attractive young women. Unfortunately he isn't particularly discriminating in who he targets lol. Another irresistibly pleasing little gem.

13. "Reservation Deferred" (1953) *****
Another hilariously funny genre comedy this is a great little ghost story with a peculiar twist. A precious young girl who is convinced she is soon to die "romantically young" from consumption and who fully expects to go straight to the Heaven of her dreams has an encounter with the ghost of a murdered young woman who casually disavows her of all her rosy pictures of the afterlife lol. This is a wickedly funny and clearly heartfelt riposte to all those comforting Christian fairy-tales of pearly gates and angels that I found a joy to read. Needless to say the heroine soon recovers and lives to a ripe old age lol!

14. "Heaven Scent" (1954) ****
A rather charming romantic comedy with a sci-fi twist that I suspect may have been strongly influenced by the great Ealing film 'The Man In The White Suit' (1951). An eccentric young inventor, with an adoring secretary he is blithely uninterested in, is forever frustrated by society's failure to take any of his scientific breakthroughs seriously - until, that is, he comes up with a chemical additive that when combined with any perfume has an irresistibly amorous effect on the human male. On demonstrating his invention - rather hilariously lol - he is swamped with offers for the formula from every perfume company in the land, while women go crazy demanding the product, but... his secretary has other ideas. Yet another beguiling gem of a story!

15. "More Spinned Against" (1953) ****
A whimsical fantasy based on Greek mythology in which an obsessive collector of spiders captures a beautifully marked specimen of no species he is able to identify, unaware that it is in fact the immortal Arachne, who was cursed by the goddess Athena for being a more masterful weaver than she. The story takes a dark turn when his interfering wife discovers the truth and is tricked into swapping places with Arachne, becoming a spider for a day. One can see the twist coming a mile away but this is still a lovely little moral fable that ends the book on a thoroughly satisfying note.


A lovely collection full of genuine warmth and humour yet laced with enough darkness and satirical wit to make it consistently surprising and thought provoking. John Wyndham at his best as a natural weaver of spellbinding tales, imho.


Here’s how I would rank the stories:

1. “Jizzle” (1954) *****
2. ”The Wheel” (1952) *****
3. “Confidence Trick” (1953) *****
4. “Una” (1937) *****
5. “Technical Slip” (1949) *****
6. “How Do I Do?” (1953) *****
7. “Reservation Deferred” (1953) *****
8. “More Spinned Against” (1953) ****
9. “Affair Of The Heart” (1954) ****
10. “Perforce To Dream” (1954) ****
11. “Look Natural, Please!” (1954) ****
12. “Heaven Scent” (1954) ****
13. “Chinese Puzzle” (1953) ***
14. “A Present From Brunswick” (1951) ***
15. “Esmeralda” (1954) ***
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Monday, June 17, 2019 - 08:50 am:   

I thought only yesterday that heaven might be just a second.go at.life.
Have you seen About Time? Saw it only this year but.straight away it became my.favourite time.travel movie. So moving.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Monday, June 17, 2019 - 08:51 am:   

Why.do.tablets.do.this?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Monday, June 17, 2019 - 08:53 am:   

Couple of spoiler in there, Stevie!
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.145.102.161
Posted on Monday, June 17, 2019 - 08:57 am:   

When taking photos I take ones between the "say cheese" ones without saying. They're just better. I rarely take on its of people, they are too sad for me to look back on.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 94.175.199.42
Posted on Thursday, June 20, 2019 - 05:36 pm:   

Oblique hints at what happens but no direct spoilers that aren’t obvious from the off, Tony. It was a real pleasure to read such a varied collection of stories.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.150.214.79
Posted on Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - 12:26 am:   

The Outsider by Stephen King. A bit fast for me, the usual King warmth used sparingly for modern people.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 90.198.230.159
Posted on Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - 10:48 am:   

I loved ‘The Outsider’, Tony, and thought it was possibly King’s best of the decade. Between it and ‘11/22/63’ for me. Have you got to THAT BIT yet? You’ll know the bit I mean when you do. Knocked me for six!
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.150.214.79
Posted on Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - 01:14 pm:   

I don't think so... But it feels like it's warming up to be a Dark Tower story, or Colorado Kid follow up.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.145.220.160
Posted on Monday, July 15, 2019 - 09:00 pm:   

Yeah, yeah.

Add Your Message Here
Post:
Bold text Italics Underline Create a hyperlink Insert a clipart image

Username: Posting Information:
This is a private posting area. Only registered users and moderators may post messages here.
Password:
Options: Enable HTML code in message
Automatically activate URLs in message
Action:

Topics | Last Day | Last Week | Tree View | Search | Help/Instructions | Program Credits Administration