| Author | Message | ||
     Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.20.239 |
I'm reading this Dark Descent antho, volume three, and am utterly taken with the story by Gene Wolfe, Seven American Nights. Why haven't I heard about this story? It's absolutely phenomenal, so prescient it could have been written this year. So full of ideas, too, and atmosphere, so many magic tangents. (Ugh! House of Hammer has just started behind me - that music is so creepy!) | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.163.48.60 |
I've not read any Gene Wolfe for years, but I always thought he was very good indeed. Only read one book of short stories - all the rest were novels (FREE LIVE FREE, the torturer books etc.). | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.193.64 |
His story in DARK FORCES ('The Detective of Dreams') is another good one. | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.48.97 |
I've not read any of his short stories but I ABSOLUTELY BLOODY HATED "THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS" and had a fair old bit of trouble getting through "THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN" (both times!) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.16.84.40 |
Okay, I'm a HUGE Gene Wolfe fan. His short fiction is phenomenal, and "Seven American Nights" is in his first and very best collection of short stories, THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR DEATH AND OTHER STORIES AND OTHER STORIES. My favorite novel by him is THE URTH OF THE NEW SUN, which plays with time travel in ways that are magical. Alas, the only way for this novel to really pay off in its richness, is to read the four Torturer books that preceded it - but those are equally phenomenal. And John? I admit too, I didn't like at all THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS, so don't judge him by that. A superb recent horror short he wrote was in the antho 666 I think...? Called "The Tree Is My Hat." Wonderful stuff. His Latro series, Christ... can't be equalled.... | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
http://www.iblist.com/book59201.htm here's the list. What stories take your fancy by the nuts? And what Religion are you? I'm God bashing today. Well, they do say pick on someone your own size.  | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.156.110.243 |
Huw, I think you'll find 'The Detective of Dreams' is a pool of sickly born-again chunder. Unless I'm thinking of another story, but I suspect I'm not. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I don't get the fuss about Gene Wolf. His story in the latest Best New Horror is awful. I've only ever read his short fiction, in various anthologies, but can remember nothing about any of it. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.10.222 |
You're thinking of the right one, Joel. Though to be perfectly precise, I think Mr. Wolfe is a Roman Catholic. Zed, he's not primarily a horror writer, if that's any excuse....  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.10.222 |
As for my religion, I worship something I found growing out in the yard. It's a warm and cuddly little God, but lately it's been whining at the children that occasionally pass by... I think it's hungry.... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.249.146 |
Craig, I tend to like writers who aren't primarily horror writers more than those who are. I love horror, but I have few heroes in the genre. Indeed, IMHO the best horror writers often produce stuff that is difficult to categorise as such. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.195.167 |
I just like good writing, regardless of how it's categorised. Craig, I think I may have to convert to your religion. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.230.203 |
Zed, I was just trying to excuse Wolfe for his horror story, I guess.... I've read PANDORA, BY HOLLIE HOLLANDER, I think it was called?... and CASTLEVIEW... neither of these especially lit my fuse, I admit.... But read SOLDIER IN THE MIST, and tell me it's not just an incredible piece of work. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.230.203 |
You wish to convert, HUW...? Here, then, let me spread to one and all the - seeds - [cue mad laughter] - of my God....  | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
I seeded myself once. That's like soiling yourself, right? | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
That's a very alarming mental image, Albie. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
You must be a granny.  Or I'm more gone than I thought.  | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
How 'gone' are you? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
On the horizon. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.224.127 |
Horizon. Urizen. Damned, it's contagious! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.20.239 |
Just read the Joyce Carol Oates. I liked it very much but it didn't quite have the 'awe' factor. That said, the image of the afterlife being so empty and confusing was a horrible one, and, when you consider how loopy messages from the other side have been known to be, quite plausible. I wonder how many glimpses of the 'truth' horror writers have had, if any? Or even 'straight' writers, for that matter? Have any of you guys felt that you have? Now and then I've thought so, but have had too many to think one more likely than the other. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
Have you met Albie, Tony? | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.20.239 |
No, but I keep asking. I know Hull well, though, where he lives, so could shock him one day.  | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
I'm tempted to pay a surprise visit during my tour of Britain. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.17.12.23 |
Just read the Joyce Carol Oates.... ? - which was that, Tony? It sounds like you read the short-story "Nightside," I believe it's called?... Or wait, maybe it was another from that book. Which is, to echo Stephen King, a great collection. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
YOU SHALL DIE IN A PIT OF SHARPENED SHINBONES!!!! Unless you go by road, and avoid MCGinty's field.  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.252.217 |
? Albie makes me feel stupid: half his posts, I just plain don't get.....  | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Maybe that's the point...? McGinty would love you. You got niiiiice shin bones. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.249.146 |
:-) Good God, Albs - that made snigger. Or did I chortle? Or perhaps I guffawed. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.129.20.239 |
Craig - yes, Night Side. |