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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.161.241.208
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 05:43 pm:   

Has anyone else read 'The Lost District & Other Stories' by Joel Lane (Night Shade Books 2006)? I consider this to be a true masterpiece of modern inspiringly and painfully poignant horror fiction. Here's a thread that was started elsewhere: http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=1291
but it would be nice to have one here, I hope, for this important book. So far, woefully under-read, I guess.
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Griff (Griff)
Username: Griff

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.100
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 06:46 pm:   

Where can I get my hands on it?
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Laird Barron (Laird)
Username: Laird

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 71.212.80.63
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 06:59 pm:   

Night Shade in the US, I know for certain. I picked it up from NS at the 2006 World Horror con. Great book.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 79.70.59.198
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 06:59 pm:   

Wonderful book - pride of place on my best shelf.
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John_l_probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 90.209.204.82
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 08:17 pm:   

Marvellous book - I've read some of the stories in it several times and I marvel at his prose. Joel is the very best at describing beautiful, tender and poignant acts against an often bleak urban background. One of the few authors I have learned from in a good way.

And he loves Clark Ashton Smith and Cornell Woolrich so he's also a gentleman of impeccable literary taste whose recommendations I would always follow up.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.249.146
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 08:22 pm:   

I reviewed this for All Hallows, and was utterly unable to remain objective. It's a masterful collection by a masterful writer.

I constantly marvel at Joel's work.
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John_l_probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 90.209.204.82
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 - 08:28 pm:   

You did, didn't you? I remember reading that.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.161.241.208
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 - 09:52 am:   

Many books get superlatives these days. But this book deserves the best superlative of all!
Seriously.
It needs to be sipped, savoured or swallowed in one go. The last one would result in dire events, though! :-)
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Laird Barron (Laird)
Username: Laird

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 71.212.80.63
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 - 09:59 am:   

"The last one would result in dire events, though! :-)"

Gotta put away sharp objects, shoelaces, etc. if one embarks on that route.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.149.134.59
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 - 02:13 pm:   

Thanks for your kind comments, folks. I've had a busy day recompensing you all – hastily booked flights and train tickets, hardly time to brush my jeans or my teeth in between visits.

The comments from the Ligotti thread make me ashamed of my mildly critical comments about the forum. Suffice to say that I'm wary of Internet forums in general. The way Ligotti feels about the world, I feel about the Internet. Doesn't mean one can't find people of goodwill there.
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Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 83.92.216.182
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 - 05:44 pm:   

Is there some drama with the Ligotti board that I have missed? Come on folks, why don't we try to get along...
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.161.241.208
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 - 05:53 pm:   

Quote: "I consider 'The Lost District' to be the single most beautiful collection of horror stories published in my lifetime."

Move on. Nothing else to see here. :-)
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.24.122.40
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 - 06:36 pm:   

That Oxford comma on page 146 spoilt it for me.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 79.70.85.130
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 - 07:18 pm:   

Oh no - not the Oxford comma!
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.74.96.200
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 - 07:27 pm:   

The Oxford comma, was it not invented to describe that curl of hair in James Bond's haircut? Or was Bond a Cambridge man?
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.108.35.224
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 - 11:54 pm:   

Not. There isn't one. Or were you just winding me up, Gary?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.24.122.40
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 10:06 am:   

I was just jesting with ya, Joelly.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.216.159
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 12:07 pm:   

The really sad thing is that I read through the page to make sure.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.24.122.40
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 12:13 pm:   

[snigger]
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.161.241.208
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 12:16 pm:   

So did I. But even sadder - I don't know what an oxford comma is and so did not know what I was looking for. The story of my life.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.244.108
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 12:31 pm:   

It's an extra comma after the penultimate item in a list. As in 'Shake, Rattle, and Roll'. Insisted on by Oxford University Press and adopted by Arkham House among others. Big mistake. Huge.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.24.122.40
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 12:40 pm:   

That's why I thought you already had one foot on the banana skin, Joel. Just just needed a little shove...
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.161.241.208
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 01:09 pm:   

There should be a story about someone looking for a non-existent Oxford Comma ... or Cone Zero.
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Matthew_fell (Matthew_fell)
Username: Matthew_fell

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 216.232.189.45
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 04:38 pm:   

We've been here before, and there's no point in trying to change the view of people who don't like the Oxford comma. My view is that it provides clarity, and is therefore worthwhile. You'll certainly find it used in Ash-Tree publications.

Christopher
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.5.152
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 04:43 pm:   

What novel is it, where it's related about a fellow who's obsessed with going back through pre-WWII books, looking for typos and errors that would spell, say, "Hitler," and thus be prophetic of the future...?

Now that I know what the Oxford comma is, I heartily approve of it, I'm sorry to say....
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.74.96.200
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 04:46 pm:   

>>My view is that it provides clarity, and is therefore worthwhile.

It gets my vote. I always thought it an American invention; it's certainly used more by US writers than British ones.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.5.152
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 04:59 pm:   

I'm eager to buy Joel's book... but knowing now that it lacks those Oxford commas... I don't know, man, I don't know....

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Barbara Roden (Nebuly)
Username: Nebuly

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 216.232.189.45
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 05:03 pm:   

The Oxford comma was certainly standard teaching in school in Canada when I was young. It provides clarity, and I'm all for that in writing.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.5.152
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 05:07 pm:   

Uh-oh... the Canadians are doing it...?

I'm starting to come over to your side now, Joel....

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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.74.96.200
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 05:28 pm:   

Aw man, there are just so many jokes there . . .
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Griff (Griff)
Username: Griff

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.74
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 - 06:00 pm:   

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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.161.241.208
Posted on Monday, June 16, 2008 - 03:25 pm:   

More JL fans seem to be arriving at the above linked TLO thread. Well done, Joel.
des
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.161.241.208
Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2008 - 04:00 pm:   

I spotted this on a private message forum today:

============================

Here is a passage from my favourite short story about drinking, Joel Lane's "The Country of Glass":

"Solitary drinking means never having to say you're sorry. For Lang, rearranging his life around alcohol had given him a measure of control and even of artistic vision. The way last night's vodka remained as a slowly melting icon in his gut through the afternoon at work; the way sweat crawled lazily over his skin in the first light of morning; the way ice chilled the flame of malt whisky without putting it out; these were at once reliable and startling, the painful treasures of his life. Sometimes he'd go to an unfamiliar district and comb the off-licences for exotic bargains or obscure links to the drinking lives of other cultures. Wine was an occasional delight, liqueurs a sentimental journey, strong cider a dose of cold realism. Spirits were the truth: cynical vodka, melancholic gin, turbulent whisky, furious rum, erotic tequila, devout cognac."
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.149.134.59
Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2008 - 04:06 pm:   

Odd, the things that Avril Lavigne fans will choose to post about.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.161.241.208
Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2008 - 04:10 pm:   

I don't think I've heard of Avril Lavigne. So I looked her up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avril_Lavigne

I'll now have to re-read the story in the 'Lost District' book to gauge Joel's power of relevance to his own story. :-)
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.149.134.59
Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2008 - 04:28 pm:   

Des, it was just a wild guess as to the nature of the private message forum. But if you can find relevance, so much the better.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.161.241.208
Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2008 - 04:48 pm:   

I thought it would be interesting to your friends here that 'The Lost District' book is still on people's lips.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.149.134.59
Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2008 - 05:14 pm:   

Er, relevance to Avril Lavigne, I meant. Apart from the obvious fact that when she wrote 'Sk8r Boi' she was thinking about you.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.161.241.208
Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2008 - 05:18 pm:   

Is that like the Skye Boat Song?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.242.126
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 02:50 pm:   

"Apart from the obvious fact that when she wrote 'Sk8r Boi' she was thinking about you."

That utterly cracked me up. :-)
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 03:32 pm:   

Is there a joke I've missed, then?
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.149.134.59
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 03:40 pm:   

Not so much a joke as a mildly amusing juxtaposition of Des and teenage skateboard culture. But maybe you really are a sk8r boi.

COP: "Get your skateboard down off the monument. What do you think you're doing?"
DES: "That question implies an intentional fallacy..."
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 03:51 pm:   

HYDE DISTRICT ASSEMBLY
7th April 2003

[...]
Mrs. Minister of Rock Street, Gee Cross, raised the following;-
(i) Thanked those Tameside Departments who had been responsible for the lovely displays of spring flowers across the Borough.
(ii) Had their been any progress on the “hole” in the road at Joel Lane.
(iii) Raised concerns regarding vehicles parking on the lines on either side of the pedestrian crossing in Stockport Road, Gee Cross, between Rock Street and Joel Lane.

[...] The site would include skateboard park, football pitch and basket ball rings and would provide an enhanced replacement for the Ridling Lane play area.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.149.134.59
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 04:13 pm:   

Joel Lane (in Hyde) was part of the address of the woman whose will was faked by Harold Shipman. The faked will with that address on it was on the front page of every newspaper a few years ago.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 04:23 pm:   

Hyde District seems very appropriate somehow as another Lost District. 'Seek and one shall never Find' (motto of the Miserabilists).
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 05:28 pm:   

Since writing above, I have been reading two books. One: Grin of The Dark (by RC) and Two: The Bazaar & Other Stories (by Elizabeth Bowen) and the passages I was reading coincidentally in both books mentioned Hyde Park. (I feel I'm being stalked!).
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 05:34 pm:   

And Gary F today mentioned Jekyll & Hyde on the 'Selves as Elves' thread, I notice...
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.149.134.59
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 06:18 pm:   

Des, you can skate but you can't Hyde.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.149.134.59
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 06:19 pm:   

"...the passages I was reading coincidentally in both books mentioned Hyde Park"

What do you mean, coincidentally?
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 79.70.33.110
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 06:44 pm:   

And Joel shoots and gets it in the net again :>)
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.24.122.40
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 07:15 pm:   

Here is the greatest piece of writing about booze ever:

I would you had but the wit: 'twere better than
your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-
blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make
him laugh; but that's no marvel, he drinks no wine.
There's never none of these demure boys come to any
proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood,
and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a
kind of male green-sickness; and then when they
marry, they get wenches: they are generally fools
and cowards; which some of us should be too, but for
inflammation. A good sherris sack hath a two-fold
operation in it. It ascends me into the brain;
dries me there all the foolish and dull and curdy
vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive,
quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and
delectable shapes, which, delivered o'er to the
voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes
excellent wit. The second property of your
excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood;
which, before cold and settled, left the liver
white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity
and cowardice; but the sherris warms it and makes
it course from the inwards to the parts extreme:
it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives
warning to all the rest of this little kingdom,
man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and
inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain,
the heart, who, great and puffed up with this
retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour
comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is
nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and
learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till
sack commences it and sets it in act and use.
Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for
the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his
father, he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land,
manured, husbanded and tilled with excellent
endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile
sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If
I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I
would teach them should be, to forswear thin
potations and to addict themselves to sack.

Falstaff, Henry IV Part 2
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 07:27 pm:   

I can't find the audit trail of this thread leading to a piece on booze?

Ah yes, I do. I quoted someone quoting a piece from 'The Lost District' book about booze.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.24.122.40
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 07:31 pm:   

Audit trails are for Mondays to Fridays. It's the weekend! The time for much quaffing of ale and non-sequitors aplenty.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 07:36 pm:   

Audit trails are for Mondays to Fridays

Very quotable.
That and 'Seek and One Shall Never Find.'
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 79.70.33.110
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 07:36 pm:   

I have rather a nice bottle of shiraz cabernet open and I'm going to cook pork chops, mashed potato, creme freche and spinach. Do you think that Falstaff would like that?

Has anyone seen the programme where they eat like Elizabethans etc? Like people in WW2. Can't find the link.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.24.122.40
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 07:38 pm:   

Falstaff likes potatoes and sack. A sack of potatoes isn't the same thing, though. Don't get him started.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 07:38 pm:   

Can't find the link.

Audit trails are for Mondays to Fridays.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.24.122.40
Posted on Friday, June 27, 2008 - 07:45 pm:   

Ha!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.241.81
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2008 - 06:38 am:   

Gary - ever seen CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT?... I've heard of it, supposed to be an Orson Welles classic, but has yet to make the transition to dvd....
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2008 - 09:23 am:   

And Verdi's opera Falstaff? ... and Elgar's tone poem Falstaff?

....he babbled of green fields

Audit trails are for Mondays to Fridays

The audit trail of one's life can end on any day of the week.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.24.122.40
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2008 - 11:02 am:   

Tone poem - now who invented them...? :-)
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.24.122.40
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2008 - 11:10 am:   

Anyone ever seen Anthony Quayle playing Falstaff? Genius.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.159.143.25
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2008 - 11:36 am:   

Anthony Quayle, eh? He was a wonderful actor...
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.159.143.25
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2008 - 12:10 pm:   

Well, I've just ordered The Lost District. It'd better be good, that's all I can say.

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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 79.70.41.18
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2008 - 01:51 pm:   

It is :>)
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2008 - 02:06 pm:   

Tone poem - now who invented them...?

Tone Poem or Symphonic Poem: Please see Classical Music thread.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2008 - 02:20 pm:   

Who goes with the 'babbled of green fields' reading - or 'table of green fields'?

I think the former is beautiful on Falstaff's lips as he dies so I prefer that one.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Thursday, July 10, 2008 - 11:18 pm:   

Another addition to the JL thread on TLO:
http://www.ligotti.net/showpost.php?p=10633&postcount=16
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.108.15.224
Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 10:16 am:   

Which is very sweet. Somehow I think of all Ligotti fans as small, thin Goths with black spiky hair and huge eyes, but that's probably a misconception. Or wishful thinking.

If we say that all atypical or less overt supernatural horror fiction is outside the genre, however, doesn't that leave the genre looking a bit limited? It's a point Ramsey has made a number of times, and it was always my problem with the 'slipstream' concept: if the SF or horror genre doesn't have room for these stories, why not?

To me, 'The Lost District' was always SF. It's even got alien-human hybrid embryos on loan from THE X FILES.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 10:24 am:   

I'm a Ligotti fan! And my hair is spiky grey or spiky nothing (not black). :-)

I think all fiction literature is Horror (see my essay on 'The Ominous Imagination').
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.163.170.232
Posted on Saturday, July 12, 2008 - 09:51 am:   

More interesting discussion has turned up on the JL thread on TLO (now up to page 3):
http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=1291
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.148.96.124
Posted on Saturday, July 12, 2008 - 09:56 am:   

I like that subgenre of horror, or rather sf, the little snug where they meet from time to time. Fantasy tinges it too. All luminous blue stones found in forests that make children suddenly able to travel to other worlds, or little white domed cities you can't leave because the world is deemed too dangerous, only suddenly a boy finds he can and goes exploring the weird countryside.
Er...
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.222.101
Posted on Saturday, July 12, 2008 - 08:46 pm:   

Tony, I'm not sure what kind of theme you mean – is this the enchanted mechanism, the unexplained device that pitches you out of average reality into the unknown? Like H.G. Wells' door in the wall? If so, there are some strikingly grim examples in the weird fiction genre: the amulet in Lovecraft's 'The Hound', the scarab watch in del Toro's film CHRONOS, the binoculars in M.R. James' 'A View From a Hill', Machen's black stone and white powder... Little bits of midnight they forgot to sweep up when the dawn came.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.21.232.26
Posted on Saturday, July 12, 2008 - 09:46 pm:   

Or take John Wyndham's "Survival", which has all the trappings of a science fiction story; gradually it dawns on one that one is dealing with a horror story of the blackest kind. Lots of stories by Dick, Matheson, Sheckley, Bradbury and Erik Frank Russell are likewise presented as sf but are really horror.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.108.47.87
Posted on Saturday, July 12, 2008 - 11:38 pm:   

Ah, I see what you mean. The crossover between SF and weird fiction. Which quite often involves strange devices. But it's worth remembering that any SF story that involves hyperspace or time travel is actually fantasy, since these are scientifically not possible. Any SF story that involves telepathy or clairvoyance is actually supernatural fiction for the same reason.

Most of Lovecraft is on the cusp between SF and the supernatural. Fritz Leiber's 'Black Dust' and C.L. Moore's 'Shambleau' are fine examples of this. And Clark Ashton Smith's pulp classics 'The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis' and 'The Planet of the Dead'.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.148.96.124
Posted on Sunday, July 13, 2008 - 12:29 am:   

'Little bits of midnight they forgot to sweep up when the dawn came.'
Joel, that's utterly lovely.
I suppose I'm thinking of dreamlike sf, things that have an sf mood but none of the trappings as such. Damn; I've opened something I can't close!
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 218.168.186.27
Posted on Sunday, July 13, 2008 - 01:22 am:   

I agree, that's a nice image!

Joel, did you mean 'Black Glass'? There are several stories by Leiber with 'black' in the title, but I've never heard of 'Black Dust' (I hope I'm wrong and I've missed one).
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.176.205
Posted on Sunday, July 13, 2008 - 03:24 pm:   

Sorry Huw. My error.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 218.168.197.45
Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 12:22 am:   

Damn - I was hoping there was a 'forgotten' Leiber tale out there waiting to be read... ;-)
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.159.137.236
Posted on Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 02:51 pm:   

Well, to return to the thread's subject, I'm now four stories into "The Lost District" and it's one of the best books I've read in a long while.
Unless the rest of the stories are rubbish, of course.

:-)

Thanks for the original recommendation, Des - I'd not heard of the book before this thread was started.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.157.91.38
Posted on Thursday, August 07, 2008 - 11:02 pm:   

...and I've finally finished it - a superb book, Joel - well done.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.108.40.118
Posted on Friday, August 08, 2008 - 01:03 am:   

Thanks, Mick. Apart from one typesetting glitch (a new paragraph in mid-sentence), I think Night Shade Books did a great job with the production. My third collection will hopefully be completed by 2011.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.242.126
Posted on Friday, August 08, 2008 - 01:13 am:   

Got a publisher for that, Joel?
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.108.23.54
Posted on Friday, August 08, 2008 - 09:00 am:   

Too early, Zed. I'm trying to focus on my long-delayed third novel. Which should be finished by the end of this year. If I looked for a publisher for the collection I'd get sidetracked and be working on both books, and that way madness lies. Actually, madness lies in every direction, but we need to keep that quiet.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.242.126
Posted on Friday, August 08, 2008 - 09:19 am:   

Indeed.

Keep me posted, mate.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.160.23.143
Posted on Friday, August 08, 2008 - 10:13 am:   

I don't need to keep you posted about the madness. You understand. I'll let you know about the book, though I can't do much if by 2011 there is no longer a world for it to be published in.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, August 08, 2008 - 10:21 am:   

Joel, are you available to entertain at kids' parties?

:-)

Cheers - if we're all still here, I'll be first in line to buy the next collection.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.156.32.207
Posted on Sunday, September 07, 2008 - 11:00 am:   

Has anyone got 'Lost District' as a result of seeing it mentioned here?
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.154.242.64
Posted on Sunday, September 07, 2008 - 12:17 pm:   

Yep... and very good it was too!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.250.30
Posted on Sunday, September 07, 2008 - 04:04 pm:   

It's on my "to buy" list. So is food.

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