| Author | Message | ||
     Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.63.6 |
by Harlan Ellison. It was everything everyone said it would be and more. I want to read the Deathbird Stories days apart because I don't want to get to the end. It was the same with Lisa Tuttle's Nest of Nightmares which is on its way back with gratitude to its owner soon :>) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
Reading this story years ago was a defining moment in my creative life - something clicked inside me, like an ON switch. It hasn't gone off yet. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.16.79.215 |
Where can you cash "gratitude" nowadays? Will the thrift stores barter for it?...  | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.63.6 |
Definately an on switch Zed. Tell me about your adventures in NY next time we meet! Craig - what can I say? Those stories will influence me forever - thank you so much. My clippy art won't send you a kiss - so big snog to you. You do know what a snog is don't you? | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.63.6 |
Ah - here we go - | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Some of Harlan's stories should require the reader to wear seatbelts. This one's a beauty. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.63.6 |
Certainly is Chris - unusually for me I took the roller coaster ride whilst trying to avoid my family. Room to room I went with it refusing anything to all! | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.211.103.83 |
This is one of the best short stories ever written, in my opinion. With a sublime opening line. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.185.94 |
Glad you are enjoying these stories, Ally. There are some powerful ones in Deathbird Stories (and the otherbooks, for that matter). Have you read Angry Candy yet, or did you start with Deathbird? | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.77.145 |
I started with Angry Candy but when I flipped through Deathbird I saw The Whimper of Whipped Dogs. Both Lisa Tuttle and Ellison's stories resonate on so many levels. SPOILER - Some might not have read the end of THE NEST by Tuttle. This story struck a chord because my own sister Sylvia died last year. One of the sisters in the story has the same name. 'All I can do is wait. And so I do, lying in Sylvia's bed every night, listening for noises from above.' | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.77.145 |
Even with without that connection THE NEST is such an powerful story. STRANGER IN THE HOUSE also for the ending I expected but loved all the more for that. The whole collection is masterful. I have to send the book back but I'll have to look for it on the net. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.185.94 |
Keep the book and tell Craig it 'got lost' in the mail, Ally! It'll teach him to diss The Changeling...  | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.77.145 |
He hasn't forgiven me for liking Donnie Darko yet.  | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
What, Craig didn't like CHANGELING? The Eastwood-directed film from last year? I'm beginning to suspect that Craig's main function in our lives is a negative touchstone of film quality: if he hates something, it will nearly always be unmissable; if he likes something, it is highly unlikely to be any good. Sorry Craig, and we love you, but still. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
'The Whimper of Whipped Dogs' is a fine story, though on repeated reading (and I've read it many times over the last 25 years) it's clear that he's improvising in the middle part and trying too hard in the last few pages. The opening, though, is pure genius: that whole first section is magnificent. If he can't quite follow through on its promise, he can be forgiven. Didactic weird fiction (and this story is nothing if not didactic) calls for a slightly subtler approach... see, for example, Ellison's 'Croatoan' and 'Broken Glass', as well as Leiber and Sturgeon. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Although I tend to agree with what you say about didactic weird fiction Joel, I'd say that "Croatoan" is possibly even less subtle than "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs". Both are excellent stories, and represent a facet of the genre I adore - the didactic weird tale, as you call it. This didacticism is the main reason I love Ellison's work. He's bleeding onto the page. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.185.94 |
The problem I have with some (not all, obviously) 'didactic' (although 'preachy' may be a more appropriate word) weird fiction is that it often tends to become pedantic and pretentious. The writer is so preoccupied with getting a moral message across that he fails in the most important task: telling a good story. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.251.197 |
Sorry, Joel, you've jumped the gun there - I disliked THE Changeling - in fact, I agree with you, I quite liked Changeling, definitely one of the best movies from last year. Not to say I want my reputation as a touchstone damaged at all.... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.251.197 |
Ally - we must all look over those imperfections in our friends, and even those damaging and self-destructive aspects - for you, it's your fondness for Donnie Darko.  And also Ally - what did you think of "Flying to Byzantium"? I found that story equal only to "The Horse Lord," but perhaps better - the latter is straight horror, but the former, is a beautiful, disturbing piece of pure fiction. It alone was worth the price of admission.... | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Donnie darko is without doubt one of the best movies of the last 20 years. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.227.0 |
If by "the best" you mean every single film ever made anywhere in the world in the last 20 years, then indeed, it is one of the "best." | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
You just failed the Turing test again | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.227.0 |
What is the Turing test?!? Wait, lemme guess - I just failed again by asking what it is, right? Friggin' Turing test - I hate you! | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Yikes – sorry Craig. My bad. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.77.145 |
Caig I love nearly all the stories especially Flying to Byzantium and The Horse Lord. The Other Mother was a little too Jamesian for me but still excellent - although the more I think about it she certainly developed that story nicely. Not keen on A Friend in Need but all wonderful stuff! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.7.6 |
I agree with your assessments, Ally. "Bug House" was another effective straight-horror story; "Treading The Maze" was a little stretched-out, but quite good; "The Memory of Wood" I remember quite liking, predictable but chilling; "Sun City," not quite as fine as the others, but hey - we're talking Lisa Tuttle - and her lesser-thans are better than a lot of others' more-thans. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
MEMORIES OF THE BODY is another wonderful Tuttle collection, more recent and a bit more low-key. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.185.94 |
Ghosts and Other Lovers is another great Tuttle collection. I'm looking forward to the Ash-Tree 'collected' edition, and hope it contains all her supernatural/weird stories. There are a lot of uncollected tales that only saw publication in magazines and anthologies that deserve to be collected together. I thought all the stories in A Nest of Nightmares were very good, but a few that stood out for me were 'Bug House', 'The Horse Lord', 'Need', 'Dollburger', 'The Memory of Wood', 'Flying to Byznatium' and 'The Nest'. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.211.103.83 |
I thought Tuttle's novella, My Death, from a few years ago was excellent. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.185.94 |
Steve, I thought My Death was excellent. There are a lot of weird tales she wrote that I'd like to see brought together and published: stories like 'Redcap', 'Kin to Kaspar Hauser', 'Replacements', 'Sangre', 'A Piece of Rope', 'Closet Dreams', 'A Dress', 'In the Arcade' and many others. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.77.145 |
I'm going to get the Ash-Tree collection. Does anyone know when it is coming out? | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.77.145 |
At Eastercon picked up ELLISON WONDERLAND and WEB OF THE CITY £4 each. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Good things in both – even relatively minor Ellison is well worth reading. The story 'Nothing For My Noon Meal' is stunning. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
"My Death" is indeed stunning. Didn't think much of "Closet Dreams", though: for me, the ending was way too obvious. |