| Author | Message | ||
     Lincoln_brown (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 121.220.125.45 |
...any good? I'm thinking about picking up his short story collection. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.83 |
Laws has written some good stuff in the short form - the award winning short "The Song My Sister Sang" is excellent. His work isn't exactly ground-breaking, but he's a solid storyteller with some great ideas.His novels are usually a good read, too. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.144.44.37 |
Ah... Opinions have been divided here...personally I loved his unpretentious scary books up to the early 90's, then I think he got a bit lost in the Great Horror Purge.. I haven't read any of his short stories, but I would certainly recommend:- Spectre Ghost Train Darkfall The Wyrm The Frighteners gcw | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.2.133.184 |
He's a goodish writer. I always found him a big clunky and his plots to have "too many notes". He's more Herbert than Campbell, but he has done some decent work. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Any story with an animated mannequin is good stuff. Unless it's Kim Cattrall. | ||
| Lincoln_brown (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 121.219.147.1 |
Thanks for the input. Think I'll give him a miss, for the moment. While I'm here - what about Simon Clark? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
I think Laws, and most of the horror crowd, are best when you are a teen. Probably not a popular opinion that. If you are only now reading their works then it will be mostly for research. I could be wrong. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.151.135.41 |
Y'are, Blanche, y'are. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.151.135.41 |
The Laws short story collection is uneven but some of it is excellent. Albie – to be fair, I think you get more raw excitement out of horror fiction (whether you're talking Arthur Machen or James Herbert) in your teens, because you take it more personally. But at a later age you read with more perspective, and hence either a deeper enjoyment or (if the work lacks depth) less enjoyment. In that regard it's like music. And as with music, there are some horror writers who mean more when you're older because you see things in a more complex way – Henry James, John Metcalfe and Walter de la Mare are all good examples. They're not, of course, 'horror' writers on the same wavelength as Shaun Hutson, whose readership really does have to be adolescent as well as male, bigoted, aggressive and as thick as two short planks nailed together with a sizeable turd in between. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
But what are the bad points when it comes to Hutson readers? | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.144.49.225 |
oH No! - Its Hutson Tiiime Ageeen! Stephen laws Is/was better than The 'Hut. Particularly the early stuff, definitely on par with a good Herbert I reckon. Doesn't have the breadth of vision of RC, or the lean superb skills of Steve Gallagher but, still...A good read. gcw | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.151.135.41 |
I liked Laws' SPECTRE a lot. Especially the characterisation and setting. He's a man with his feet on the ground. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.2.133.184 |
Like later Herbert, he tends to throw too much horror stuff into his stories, so it's all screech. But he's inventive and fun. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.179.94 |
I feel the same way. I quite enjoyed some of his novels, though - GHOST TRAIN, and another whose title eludes me. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
I'm not sure we can gauge horror against the sliding scale of intellect. I'm sure lots of smart people can enjoy bad, violent horror and plenty of stupids can enjoy emotive Campbell. They are different parts of the mind. I don't find gore so interesting anymore. But not because I'm smarter than I was. Is becoming bored being smarter? Reading Campbell or Aickman doesn't require anything above average intellect to get a pay off. Just a little patience, and the right expectation of what the story may give. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.2.133.184 |
Reading Joel's post, I think he was focusing more on experience than on intelligence - that is, the reader at whatever age will invariably be more interested in deeper issues if s/he's coming at with more perspective: something that correlates with experience rather than intelligence (though perhaps the two are positively related). | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Relating to what Mr Fry says above, I re-read "The Invisible Boy" by Ray Bradbury the other day. When I first read this story aged about 15, I hated it. I couldn't see any point to it, the boy wasn't really invivsible etc. I rearead it the other day and I loved it. Suddenly because I'm reading it with a more developed mind and empathising with the correct character - it's about the woman, not the boy, which is something I missed entirely on my first reading all those years ago- I thought it was heartwrenchingly sad. Age and experience colour our responses to books and stories. I can still read the John Halkin novels and have a good laugh, but I can't pretend that they're a good read. I thought Graham Masterton was a good read when I was young but now I see him as repetitive, one dimensional and really quite silly. I have to read his stuff as a laugh now because I can't take him seriously any more. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
Albs, the problem with Shaun's stuff probably stems back to the perm. MIDNIGHT MAN was Laws's short story collection. I nejoyed it a lot. Of his novels, only MACABRE really worked for me; I enjoyed it a lot. Yes, certainly stream him alongside James Herbert. He's something new out at the moment, hasn't he, Mister Laws? A big cat novel? Good luck to him. Whenever I've met him he's been charming and seemingly geniune, very passionate about his book CHASM, which, alas, I couldn't take to. I liked him. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
He can spell, too. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
And uh, if anyone remembers the Stephen Gallagher-penned episode of ROSEMARY & THYME, the two blokes walking around the hotel with the video camera, renacting moments of classic old fright films, were meant to be fun representations of Gallagher and Laws, cos they'd done that in real life. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.83 |
Laws is an honest writer, and his work has a nice sense of place. SPECTRE is a very good novel indeed. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
And yet that one didn't really fire me at all. of his early work, I quite enjoyed DARFALL. NEL published his books in a groovy pen and ink set of covers and the DARKFALL one looked great. |