| Author | Message | ||
     Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Hey, everyone, give a cheery hello to the one and only Simon Bestwick! | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.62.122 |
Yayyyy!!!! Simon finally arrived!!!! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Welcome, Simon! Don't dream of Pendemon! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Yay, welcome, my Brother From Another Mother. :-) | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.187.180 |
Welcome aboard! | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.156.32.207 |
Welcome, Simon. des | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.157.91.19 |
Welcome Simon... | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.92.54.201 |
Welcome, Simon! It's good to have you here. Best, Richard | ||
| Simon_b (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Thanks everybody. Nice to be here! | ||
| Danzinger (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.50.191.46 |
"But when I asked Father about the stain on the photograph- the stain disfiguring Uncle Peter's face and filling half the sky like a cloud- he just smiled and told there was no stain." | ||
| Simon_b (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Got to track down all these 'Danzinger' posts and put them together. In the right (or perhaps any) order they must make one eerie story... | ||
| Danzinger (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.50.191.46 |
"We never found Uncle David in the end, but as we watched his cottage slowly collapsing in the storm, Suzy said you saw a patch of bright red brick amongst the sandstone rubble, that seemed to be falling away from the destruction, as if attempting to reach us by the gate." | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.11.102 |
What's with the multiple "Simon"s and "Gary"s? Over here, you find - well, damn few Simons, that's for sure. I've never known a Simon, nor heard of a Simon lurking about. I've known but a single Gary, a friend back in high school - nice guy, a little full of himself, but overally pretty cool. Kinda miss him. So, yeah. Welcome Gary!  | ||
| Simon_b (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
As a first name for your kids, I guess, Simon has become a minority taste! A bit like horror really... | ||
| Guy (Guy) Username: Guy Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.144.252.203 |
Now then Bestwick! | ||
| Simon_b (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Wotcher there Guy! How goes it? Actually, the indicators are the genre's making a comeback. Which is great news. We live in scary times, so maybe that's why. Can't help noticing that the long horror boom (late 70s-mid 90s) generally coincided with tough times economically. If not for Black Thursday in '87 and the early 90s recession, would the boom have tailed off earlier? As it was, wider interest in the genre seemed to slacken off mid-90s as the economy boomed and everyone got happy-clappy. Might be talking completely out of my arse here, of course. | ||
| Simon Strantzas (Nomis) Username: Nomis Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 38.113.181.169 |
It sounds like arse-talk, but pleasant nonetheless.0 Welcome, Mr B. With two Simons on board, is there any force in the 'verse than can stop us? | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.62.122 |
Will you appear Simontaneously? | ||
| Alansjf (Alansjf) Username: Alansjf Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 93.97.93.216 |
Welcome, Simon. I'm still sort of a newbie here myself, and so far I can report no adverse effects. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.43.119.113 |
Hi Simon B! gcw | ||
| Martin Roberts (Martin_roberts) Username: Martin_roberts Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.5.239.91 |
Welcome aboard Simon... were in Manchester on Saturday visiting a friend, but we may not be able to go for a drink during the day - end of the month pocket money blues... ...we were also toying with the idea of trying to pop over to Ally's event on Saturday night. It looks like its less than an hour away. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.234.94 |
Hello there, Simon. | ||
| Simon_b (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Other Simon, Alan, Gcw, Martin, Hubert- hiya! Ally... that's a truly terrible pun. You've been hanging around with bad influences too long. Joel, probably. Or Dr Fry. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.62.122 |
'Ally... that's a truly terrible pun. You've been hanging around with bad influences too long. Joel, probably. Or Dr Fry.' Both of the buggers :>) Martin - the mist creeping in over the moors, an event in the depth of the countryside - how can you not? Did you get the hypnotic tone in the writing there lad? I'll read the whole of your favourite story from Bull Running for you... | ||
| Coral (Coral) Username: Coral Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 91.108.104.206 |
Hello and welcome! | ||
| Simon_b (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Hi Coral! | ||
| Michael_kelly (Michael_kelly) Username: Michael_kelly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 207.188.88.103 |
Greetings, Simon! | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.39.177.173 |
Hi Simon | ||
| Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 121.214.140.185 |
Hello Simon. 'Come With Me, Down This Long Road' was one of my favourite reads of this year. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.167.124.223 |
Hello Simon and Coral (who I faven't said hello to either! Been away from the board over the summer. I wonder Simon if these times will translate to a renewed wider interest in the genre, but with places like amazon etc also being hit hard its difficult to tell. I'm afraid I'm a little more pessimistic, as people perhaps spend less on 'entertainment' as their economies tighten. Ofcourse the cinema always booms during recession and depression for the denial effect. Maybe it will translate to more sales in the book business! | ||
| Simon_b (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Michael and Mark- hi right back atcha! Hi Lincoln, and thanks very much for the kind words. Much appreciated. Hi Karim- I think it's going to depend on the book trade as a whole. In the last big horror boom they didn't have the internet, and video was still comparatively new, at least in the early eighties. And, of course, books were a hell of a lot cheaper. But if people still read for pleasure, then it wouldn't surprise me to see horror making a comeback. In the UK mass market you've got both Virgin and Bloody Books marketing out-and-out horror in Waterstones- not to mention the wonderful, fantastic and extremely discerning Abaddon Books (OK, I admit it, they're publishing me) which suggests a revival of interest. I mean, a casual glance at a news broadcast or paper basically tells us that we're all stuffed in more ways than we can count. If it isn't the economy- scenarios seem to run from a) rerun of the 90s recession through b) rerun of the Great Depression to c) Mad Max 2- it's the meltdown of the polar icepacks, a McCain/Palin presidency (or Dubya thinking 'sod it, let's push the big red button anyway'), an avian flu pandemic, mass starvation, resource wars, our countries being turned into fascist dictatorships by the crazed authoritarians who run them, being blown to smithereens/nerve-gassed/irradiated/infected with anthrax, smallpox or whatever by nutcase terorists... have I missed any out? The terrorist one is actually very low on my radar compared to the rest... Let's face it, with that to deal with, reading about an attack of flesh-eating zombies or some other kind of apocalypse is strangely comforting. At least the worst is known. And with the zombies it comes down to something you can face up to and take on, bare-handed if necessary. A good old-fashioned blow to the head and they're out of the game. Plus which, as far as I'm aware, flesh-eating zombies are one of the few things we don't have to worry about in the real world. Them and firebreathing pterodactyls with machine guns. >>checks Guardian website just to make sure<< Phew. | ||
| Simon_b (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Um, I may have spoken too soon... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IoXgRtDysLY | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.167.124.223 |
You know I always found it odd that people make comments like,'during times of disaster the last thing I want to do is to read horror/ apocalyptic science fiction etc', which is really a moot point. On the contrary, sometimes fiction helps us understand what we may find inexplicable and meaningless in real life etc. It gives a certain aesthetic structure to what might seem random and chaotic. Also some (and certainly not all) horror fiction invites the reader to feel compassion for the protagonist, to live in the shoes of someone experiencing some traumatic occurence etc, and thus attempt to understand and deal with the traumatic events. Basically nothing short of nukes would stop the reading! (So please don't give the world's largest nuclear arsenal to a parrot-pitbull ice hockey mum from Alaska is what.) | ||
| Simon_b (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.182 |
Damn it, Karim! You've just put it ten times better than I ever could! | ||
| Tom English (Deadletterpress) Username: Deadletterpress Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 68.10.197.98 |
Howdy, Simon! | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 79.187.206.46 |
Hey Simon, welcome to the nuthouse. You'll find plenty of inspiration here. |