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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 05:29 pm:   

Currently deeply engrossed in Ramsey's 'The Count Of Eleven'. Feeling increasing resonances of Dostoevsky's nightmarish portrayal of obsession, 'The Gambler', while the depth of characterisation and moral dilemmas poor Jack embroils himself in makes me think of what Graham Greene may have produced had he ever written a horror novel.

Haly way through 'Lankhmar' and loving every single word of it!

After that on the pile are a re-read of William Peter Blatty's 'The Exorcist' followed by 'Legion' for the first time, Alfred Bester's 'The Stars My Destination' & Dostoevsky's great novel of violent political extremism 'The Devils'.

Just learnt that Blatty has his first full-length novel since 'Legion' about to be published in hardback called 'Dimiter'!
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 05:38 pm:   

I have a WPB book called Twinkle Twinkle Killer Kane at home that I've never read. Must put it on my TBR pile at some point.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 05:54 pm:   

I have that one too and never read it, Weber.
Though I'm a big fan of the film version, 'The Ninth Configuration', directed by Blatty himself.

I can only think of Clive Barker as another horror author who has had comparable success as a filmmaker.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 08:02 pm:   

>> I can only think of Clive Barker as another horror author who has had comparable success as a filmmaker.

What about novelist Michael Crichton? (He directed Westworld, Looker, Coma, a few others from the 70s/80s)
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.176.102.160
Posted on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - 11:36 pm:   

Near the end of "Slights" now - good stuff it is, too.
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 217.171.129.70
Posted on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - 12:18 am:   

Just read Tim Krabbe's The Vanishing, which was great but I found, along with Don't Look Now, is a "lesser" work than it's screen adaptation. Also just read, over the past couple of weeks, Matheson's Somewhere In Time, Stefan Zweig's Journey Into The Past, Jim Thompson's The Getaway, Hesse's The Prodigy, and Theodore Sturgeon's Some Of Your Blood, which was wonderful. I'm just finishing Jack Ketchum's The Lost. As usual with Ketchum it is the literary equivalent of a stout beating with an iron bar.
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Colin Leslie (Blackabyss)
Username: Blackabyss

Registered: 02-2010
Posted From: 86.164.67.73
Posted on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - 08:56 pm:   

Just finished the new Wordsworth, Australian Ghost Stories anthology (some excellent stuff in that) about to start Zombie ed by Christopher Golden (called The New Dead in some countries I believe) and I also picked up The Return Of The Sorcerer, The Best Of Clark Ashton Smith which I am really looking forward too but worried it may prove disappointing.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 80.47.103.170
Posted on Thursday, February 25, 2010 - 10:58 am:   

Reading Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon about Yugoslavia in the 1930's.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.158.101
Posted on Thursday, February 25, 2010 - 09:24 pm:   

"Just learnt that Blatty has his first full-length novel since 'Legion' about to be published in hardback called 'Dimiter'!"

That must be why a man came round the other day. He said he'd come to read 'Dimiter'.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.158.101
Posted on Thursday, February 25, 2010 - 09:34 pm:   

Colin, a glance at the contents list for The Return of the Sorcerer reassures me that you will not be disappointed. The inclusion of 'A Night in Malneant' is one sign that this is an authentic selection of the best of Smith.

No 'The Weaver in the Vault' however. ABORT PRAISE. ABORT PRAISE. This travesty of a volume...
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Colin Leslie (Blackabyss)
Username: Blackabyss

Registered: 02-2010
Posted From: 81.153.245.157
Posted on Thursday, February 25, 2010 - 10:05 pm:   

Thanks Joel, I shall enter with less trepidation and knowing that the best is yet to come.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, February 26, 2010 - 11:24 am:   

That reminds me of the C.A. Smith volume I picked up last year, 'The Emperor Of Dreams', which really is a brick of a book I may get round to reading after 'Lankhmar' sometime.

Up to now I've only read two of his Cthulhu Mythos stories, 'The Return Of The Sorcerer' & 'Ubbo-Sathla', both of which were on a par with Lovecraft at his best!
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Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 69.236.164.6
Posted on Saturday, February 27, 2010 - 12:41 am:   

I'm still working through Peter Straub's "A Dark Matter." Also reading "The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture" by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

And . . . for those of you have--or are thinking of--taking the e-publishing/e-book route, I've expressed my thoughts about same at: http://www.redroom.com/articlestory/ephemera-forever-an-adventure-e-publishing
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010 - 11:37 am:   

I couldn't resist starting 'Phantastes' (1858) and if George MacDonald (minister or not) wasn't off his face on mind-altering drugs while writing this then I'm a monkey's uncle!

The effect of the prose is similar to that of 'Needing Ghosts' with its dream logic stream-of-consciousness "structure"... and flows from scenes of ethereal beauty to nightmare horror with remarkable artistry. Definitely not a book for children!
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 62.254.173.35
Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010 - 02:54 pm:   

I've just finished Christopher Hitchens's GOD IS NOT GREAT, from which no one -- messiahs or Mel Gibson -- comes away in much good light to be honest.

Elmore Leonard's ROAD DOGS is just the business, though not as good as the book it's a sequel to, OUT OF SIGHT . . .

I'm re-reading John Connolly's THE KILLING KIND, and very soon shall be locking the door, puttig the kettle on, shuttering the windows and indulging in nothing but the new Peter Straub novel, A DARK MATTER.
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Clive (Clive)
Username: Clive

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 81.104.165.168
Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010 - 03:11 pm:   

I'm really enjoying Michael Chabons 'The Final Solution' at the moment. A cracking little novella about an aged, retired 'Great Detective', a mute German boy on the run from Nazi Germany and his parrot, an , of course, a murder.

I was going to start on John Connollys 'The Reapers' but i've been told it's an odd one for a first read so i think i'll go back to the library and check out the Parker books in order.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 01, 2010 - 03:40 pm:   

My new favourite 'Lankhmar' story is the nautical ('Dagon' inspired) Lovecraftian horror tale 'The Sunken Land' - a model of supernatural/fantasy understatement that chills to the bone!
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 01:49 am:   

Almost finished 'The Count Of Eleven' and it's got me in a bit of a quandary. I can't help comparing it to 'The Face That Must Die' and finding that earlier novel the more convincing and powerful depiction of a psychopathic killer.

'Count' works more as a nightmarish black comedy - similar in many ways to 'Needing Ghosts'. It could be seen as a reworking or extension of the themes in that book into a slightly off-kilter version of the real world. Fascinating stuff that has me wanting to go back and reappraise all the RC books I've read to date...
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 220.138.161.83
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 02:27 am:   

I loved The Count of Eleven!

Stephen, let us know what you think of 'Smoke Ghost' and the rest of the stories in Night's Black Agents...
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 02:33 am:   

I'm loving every word of it too, Huw.
But it is a very different beast in its depiction of homicidal mania from the kitchen sink reality of 'Face'.

I'd describe it as much more fantastical and darkly comic in tone. Right from the beginning as much seems to be wrong with the people around him as with Jack. It would make a marvellous Coen Brothers film imo.
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 92.40.27.40
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 01:22 pm:   

The Count of Eleven, to my mind, is one of the best Campbell novels, second only to The Face That Must Die. In fact, I think I might do that rare thing and re-read it when I've finished my current book: Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept. Beautiful and dense, this is not a long read by any stretch of the imagination but it's slowed me down after a run of more "plot driven" novels.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.167.138
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 01:52 pm:   

I remember not liking 'The Count Of Eleven' on first reading it. I just didn't get it, basically. I reread it a few years with the comment on how, had Stan Laurel had been a serial killer, this could have been his story, in mind. And then everything clicked into place... In fact, it's overdue another reading, once I get Dostoevsky out of the way (Crime And Punishment, in case you were wondering. Or even if you weren't.)
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 04:29 pm:   

Chapter XIII of 'Phantastes' by George MacDonald is a wonderful self-contained ghost story that someone really should anthologise some day.

It's quite possibly the definitive haunted mirror tale I have ever read - quite sublime!
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 05:32 pm:   

REUNION by Rick Hautala

MEMOIRS OF A MASTER FORGER by Graham Joyce
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 217.171.129.74
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 06:17 pm:   

Having had read The Tooth Fairy and loving it I've often wondered what Joyce's other novels are like.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.167.138
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 07:27 pm:   

Pretty much everything Graham's done is brilliant. The only novel of his I didn't enjoy was 'The Stormwatcher'; all the rest were excellent.
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Colin Leslie (Blackabyss)
Username: Blackabyss

Registered: 02-2010
Posted From: 86.132.5.239
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 08:03 pm:   

There's something deliciously Bradbury-ish (try saying that after 3 pints) about Reunion, I really liked it.
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Colin Leslie (Blackabyss)
Username: Blackabyss

Registered: 02-2010
Posted From: 86.132.5.239
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 08:06 pm:   

About to start the Sixth Black Book of Horror but have to say the list of contributors leaves me a bit underwhelmed.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 08:59 pm:   

Patrick, if you'll excuse the French, Joyce's work is fucking brilliant. I've loved everything of his I've ever read.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 09:00 pm:   

Colin - just finished Reunion. The plot was a bit obvious, but I don't think that mattered (nor was it supposed to). There was a wonderful sense of melancholy throughout. Very nicely written, too.
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 92.40.204.38
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 09:48 pm:   

Fucking brilliant sounds good. Which Graham Joyce would you recommend reading next then?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Sunday, March 07, 2010 - 10:03 pm:   

Smoking Poppy is one of my favourites, or Indigo.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.167.138
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 12:37 am:   

Smoking Poppy or Indigo... or House Of Lost Dreams.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 220.138.166.207
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 01:02 am:   

I haven't read Smoking Poppy or Indigo yet but I liked Dark Sister, Requiem, House of Lost Dreams and Leningrad Nights. His collection Partial Eclipse is well worth picking up too.
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 11:59 am:   

Indigo was the first Graham Joyce I read. It's a great book that deals with the theme of invivibility. I genuinely had to buy a second copy as my original copy vanished when I was halfway through it. I put it down by my bed at night, it was no longer visible in the morning.

That's one hell of a marketing trick.
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 12:01 pm:   

BTW I agree with the fucking brilliant comments that have ben made on this thread.

My favourite was The Facts of Life. The chapter set in the coventry blitz is one of the most powerful pieces of writing I have ever read.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 12:34 pm:   

Loved the passage in 'Count' when Jack confronts the fortune teller - the first time Ramsey Campbell has made me laugh out loud.

Also with only a few chapters to go I'm finding the build-up of suspense toward Jack's final visit masterfully done. I could imagine Hitchcock reading this book with a knowing chuckle and thinking what a ball he would have filming it - with just the right level of macabre humour.

Quite brilliant writing (as ever).
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 01:58 pm:   

I've never read any Graham Joyce and was only subliminally aware of his name.

Just looked him up on Wiki and any writer who is compared to Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood - as well as Gabriel García Márquez and Julio Cortázar - would get my vote of confidence. Do these comparisons stand up?

Must look out for some of his stuff.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 02:02 pm:   

If you do read him you'll think he's, like, the best ever writer in the world ever, with knobs on. And bells. And whistles and stuff. Ever.

Those comparisons are a load of pony: he's nothing like them.
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Clive (Clive)
Username: Clive

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 81.104.165.168
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 02:42 pm:   

Thanks to the thread here i'm now halfway through SLIGHTS by Kaaron Warren and very much enjoying it. Genuinely disturbing. The narrative voice reminds me a lot of Chuck Palanhuik.

Short story-wise i've got the Ex-Occidente collection CINNABAR'S GNOSIS, which looks sublime, as well as WEIRDMONGER and the new Tartarus Press Mark Valentine collection THE COLLECTED CONNOISSEUR. Plenty to keep me busy there for a while.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 220.138.161.77
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 02:55 pm:   

I agree with Zed - Graham Joyce is nothing like Machen or Blackwood or Marquez (can't comment on Cortazar). He's a good writer in his own right, and his books are well worth tracking down, in my opinion.

Clive, does The Collected Connoisseur include anything that isn't in the first two Tartarus collections?
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 03:24 pm:   

Apparently Joyce himself said he would like to achieve the same effect in his writing as Machen & Blackwood... he called it "old peculiar".

Other critics compared him to Márquez & Cortázar (read several of Cortázar's short stories in the Pan/Fontana collections - peculiarly abstract magic realism that lingers in the mind after reading).

Yes, this is one name I'll be looking out for...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 03:56 pm:   

A name I always look out for is Malachy.
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Clive (Clive)
Username: Clive

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 81.104.165.168
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 05:07 pm:   

>>Clive, does The Collected Connoisseur include anything that isn't in the first two Tartarus collections?<<

It collects the first two Tartarus collections plus...

The Rite of Trebizond
The Serpent, Unfallen
The Temple of Time
(all in the Ex Occidente collection)

and The Descent Of The Fire (which was in the Tartarus Strange Tales collection)

Strange Tales is the only collection i have so this was a great purchase for me.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.74.96.200
Posted on Tuesday, March 09, 2010 - 07:06 pm:   

Martin Edwards's DANCING WITH THE HANGMAN for me, a novel based around the life of Dr Crippen. Good stuff. Edwards's best book.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 12:49 am:   

Finished 'The Count Of Eleven' and can't get that final scene out of my mind... for once a character is subsumed by light and space rather than darkness and claustrophobia - echoing what I loved so much about the earlier novel 'Obsession'.

Redemption through madness - who'd ever have thought it possible. Ramsey Campbell is a unique and very important writer!
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.73
Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 07:46 am:   

Yeah, Ramsey used light interestingly in Obsession. It's a major marker to the supernatural scenes as well as the climactic stuff on the cliff at the end of the book.

I really enjoyed Joyce's Stormwatcher. Felt nicely slipstream. Haven't read as much of his stuff as I'd like to have, though I agree with Zed that Smoking Poppy is a wonderful book.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 61.216.46.71
Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 10:05 am:   

Clive, thanks for the details on the new Connoisseur collection.

Glad you enjoyed The Count of Eleven so much, Stephen!
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.29.180.243
Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 10:23 am:   

Scene of the Crime: A Little Piece of Goodnight written by Ed Brubaker, illustrated by Michael Lark and Sean Philips. Crime comic with PI Jack Herriman hired to find a missing woman. In the best noir tradition everyone is lying to him and he finds himself tangling with affairs, adultery, blackmail and new age cults. Not to mention the odd murder. The comic is dedicated to Ross Macdonald and while the tone is more noirish than the Macdonald novels I've read there's that same sense of long-buried family secrets seeping up out of the past to infect the present. Not a bad little book.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 11:59 am:   

Started straight into a long overdue reread of 'The Exorcist' on the bus this morning and already hooked by the perfection of Blatty's prose and how exactly the action of the book mirrors that of the film.

The prologue in Northern Iraq is a masterclass of understated scene setting and that first paragraph of Chapter 1 is as memorably shuddersome as the opening lines of 'The Haunting Of Hill House'. This book is one of the very finest in horror literature (imo) and superior to the film in every respect (which is saying something).
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.69
Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 11:31 pm:   

Just starting Ramsey's novelisation of Solomon Kane now! I haven't seen the movie, becuase I didn't want to spoil the enjoyment of reading Ramsey's version. Already some sly Ramseyisms are in the first couple of chapters, and the imagery conjured by his prose is, I suspect, more impressive than the movie's CGI...

It's fun to read Ramsey like this as well, letting his hair down if you will, and it feels like he's enjoying himself.
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Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 90.208.112.226
Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - 11:47 pm:   

Just started the BFS Yearbook and In Conversation, edited by James Cooper.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 11, 2010 - 01:02 pm:   

Mark, for most of its length 'Solomon Kane' is blessedly CGI-free and really quite impressive. There are two big CGI set pieces at beginning and end that feel like they belong in a different movie but apart from that the film is nicely restrained (with the few other CGI moments well integrated) and has a convincing feel for the times and solid gutsy performances all round. I really enjoyed it and think it's easily the best Howard adaptation that's yet been made.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.74.96.200
Posted on Thursday, March 11, 2010 - 07:17 pm:   

Chhers, Stephen. I'm enjoying Ramsey's novel of the movie.

Anotehr movie that's got CGI in it to good effect -- and I know this will set people hissing and booing -- is Guy Ritchie's SHERLOCK HOLMES, a good old fashioned piece of cinema storytelling which I enjoyed a lot.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.131.110.123
Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 - 07:29 am:   

I loved The Exorcist book! Not Legion so much, though. Some folk here thought it rubbish (the use of single words for sentences for instance) but I found it sort of impressionistic. King said it sucked, too.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.131.110.123
Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 - 07:31 am:   

BTW Paul Auster has had cinematic success possibly to equal his literary (this responds to a post way up). Neil Jordan has written a few books too, though no-one probably notices his books or his films now! :-(
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 - 11:40 am:   

Blatty's Legion is one of my favourite novels of all time.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.27.30.20
Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 - 11:54 am:   

Is Blatty really a good writer of prose? I recall reading his 999 novella and not being able to get beyond the first chapter because of a number of really clumsy grotesqueries.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 - 02:15 pm:   

I'd have to re-read the novels to comment on that, but I had a similar problem with that novella you mention...and the ending was bad.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 - 02:22 pm:   

The writing in 'The Exorcist' is well nigh perfect imo. If ever a book was compulsively readable and genuinely frightening it is that one - already nearly half-way through with a first read of 'Legion' to follow...

I wonder what his new novel 'Dimiter' will be like.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.27.30.20
Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 - 02:39 pm:   

Perfect? Oh go on, surely it had a flaw or two . . .

I do recall Blatty's irritating scene-setting single word lines. Ugh.

I think King calls the work of him and Saul the "dull thudding tract of horror fiction".
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 - 03:44 pm:   

I find the words flow effortlessly while reading and have a succinct visual power that cried out to be filmed while his dialogue is brilliantly naturalistic, like listening in on real conversations.

I rank him as a very fine writer indeed and I love the impact of those clipped "sentences". Only my opinion of course but the book really is a joy to read...
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 - 06:04 pm:   

This week I are mostly be reading Lavondyss.

It is the nuts.

Stephen, drop me a line at hoopyfrooddudeNOSPAMINTERNETSCUM!@hotmail.com and I'll get Rosemary's Baby over to you. Remove the obvious bit.
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 91.103.168.21
Posted on Friday, March 12, 2010 - 06:54 pm:   

As I said in another thread, and in agreement with the poster above, Blatty's Legion is also of my favourite novels of all time. I have yet to read The Exorcist however.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.19.172
Posted on Saturday, March 13, 2010 - 08:59 am:   

'I love the impact of those clipped "sentences".'
Me too! I found something Garnerish in them, impressionistic.
Not that I'm saying Blatty is like Garner you understand....
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.157.19.172
Posted on Saturday, March 13, 2010 - 09:00 am:   

Stephen; you'll LOVE Rosemary's Baby... it's even better.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Saturday, March 13, 2010 - 11:07 am:   

Rather than "thud, thud, thud" I'd describe Blatty's style as "bang, bang, bang" creating instant visual snapshots in the mind of the scene he is creating.

Thanks, Jonathan! RB is one of those books that's been in my mind to read for as long as I can remember...

I've also loved anything else of Levin's I've read, particularly 'A Kiss Before Dying' - I strongly suspect Bud Corliss to have been the inspiration for Tom Ripley.
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, March 15, 2010 - 10:24 am:   

Just started The Watchman by Davis Grubb. hope it's as good as Night of the Hunter was.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 15, 2010 - 11:49 am:   

What's it about or what genre is it, Weber?

You have me wanting to read 'Night Of The Hunter' after your comments.
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, March 15, 2010 - 02:12 pm:   

It's a murder story set in small towm America again. Just when I was thinking that it was maybe a little twee (and thinking that he needed a better copy-editor - a 19 year old girl who was apparently 5 years old when her now 17 year old sister was born? The maths seems a touch wrong) suddenly he hits us with a line about "Most of his face has been blown off with a police issue revolver". A line that wouldn't be out of place in any modern day crime thriller.


I also love the quote he opens the book with.

What is Hate but Love that's lost it's way in the dark?
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 15, 2010 - 05:53 pm:   

A recurring theme in Davis Grubb's work seems to be a black and white battle between guileless innocence and calculating evil.

Both films I've seen, 'Night Of The Hunter' & 'Fools' Parade', were on that theme - by turns sweet and brutal.

Let me know if 'The Watchman' follows suit...
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Friday, March 19, 2010 - 06:09 am:   

Finished 'The Exorcist' feeling shaken and sad... can't stop thinking about the ambiguity of the ending. Was it a triumph or a tragedy? Who won? Who lost? From the very beginning I realise the possession was a trap but who was the bait and who the intended victim?

A real head melter of a novel and the most frightening of the modern era I have read to date. A great literary achievement that deserves to be every bit as famous a work of art as the film.

I'm now holding 'Legion' in my hand nervously hoping to gain some answers...
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.128.220
Posted on Friday, March 19, 2010 - 08:04 am:   

Did you get the group consciousness thing, that we all overlap?
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Friday, March 19, 2010 - 01:09 pm:   

In the words of Father Merrin, Tony... "there is only one".

The philosophy of C.G. Jung (a personal hero of mine) played an awful lot in the writing of this book.

Damien Karras has to be one of my favourite protagonists in horror fiction. The psychological, emotional and ultimately spiritual journey he takes in the novel is astounding and convinces completely. I read the book now as a resounding tragedy (I think) and felt like screaming at him on virtually every page to forget his pastoral duty and get the hell out of there...

Just about to start 'Legion'.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Saturday, March 20, 2010 - 12:10 pm:   

'Legion' has me hooked... right from the beginning it has that same sense of creeping dread with even the most everyday objects and events suffused with ill omen. The creaking noise as slowly melting ice cubes settle in a glass of water or a shadowed figure silently mopping the floor at the end of a corridor, etc. This is horror writing of chilling understatement in which you can almost feel the pulse of something evil and immense behind the scenes - not unlike, in its effect, the work of Ramsey Campbell.

It's great to be inside the mind of Lieutenant Kinderman again - one of the best characters from 'The Exorcist', with a much larger part in the book than in the film. A philosophising Jewish homicide detective with a love of classic literature and cinema who could easily have been turned into one of the great crime fiction detectives imo.

I'm loving this book!
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 12:41 am:   

Stephen, Blatty insists that the character Columbo was based on Kinderman - he approached the network with the idea for a weekly show featuring the character. They rejected his idea. Then Columbo appeared.

I can't believe you've not read Legion before. The book's been in my head for over two decades...nibbling away, never leaving me alone.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 12:59 am:   

It's one I'd been meaning to read for years, Zed, but was determined to do it properly - back-to-back with 'The Exorcist'. One hell of an intense reading experience!

I didn't know that about Kinderman but, yeah, it all fits! The rumpled overcoat smeared with food stains, the perpetual hangdog expression and feigned air of bumbling ineptitude - the way he always comes back having forgot one last question. Blatty should have bloody well sued!

I fell in love with the character and his inner monologues the first time I read 'The Exorcist'.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.74.96.200
Posted on Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 05:09 pm:   

I'm starting Thomas H Cook's (nothing to do with the UK travel agents) latest, THE FATE OF KATHERINE CARR. This guy was my discovery of last year. He's superb. So economical but not in the least insubstantial. Wow.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Monday, March 22, 2010 - 01:53 am:   

Just spent tonight racing through 'Legion' to the end - seriously unputdownable and terrified the wits out of me!!

More tomorrow...
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 22, 2010 - 01:02 pm:   

I've made my mind up... William Peter Blatty's 'The Exorcist/Legion' (I can't think of them as separate works now) is the single most frightening reading experience I have ever had.

I completely agree with you, Zed. It's the unanswered questions surrounding the central mystery and what Blatty doesn't tell or show us that is so disquieting until those last few chapters when he cranks the suspense and raw terror levels up to the Max.

Afterward you are left bewildered, upset, emotionally drained and not a little relieved to be out of that world. Then the questions start whispering (they are now) and scenes from the book (again strikingly cinematic) start flashing into your mind - for me, one in particular that I know will haunt me the rest of my days.

An absolutely immense horror masterpiece!!!!
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.150.201.203
Posted on Monday, March 22, 2010 - 01:16 pm:   

Sigh - I felt so let down with Legion about a quarter of the way through I deliberately left it on a bus seat. :-(
I have another copy though. It just felt too heavy (the story, not the book itself).
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.150.201.203
Posted on Monday, March 22, 2010 - 01:17 pm:   

How do you feel about the universe now, Stephen?
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Monday, March 22, 2010 - 02:19 pm:   

"Sigh - I felt so let down with Legion about a quarter of the way through I deliberately left it on a bus seat."

I found it. You'd crossed out each character's name and written yours instead in biro. No wonder you got confused.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 22, 2010 - 03:20 pm:   

How do you feel about the universe now, Stephen?

The book agrees with my philosophy entirely which is why I found myself identifying so strongly with Kinderman in his baffled struggle for understanding. I've been through that (clearly so has Blatty) and came to roughly the same conclusions... All is One and One is All.

And all that from a couple of horror novels!
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 22, 2010 - 04:00 pm:   

I'm about to start another one of the great genre classics: 'The Stars My Destination' (1956) by Alfred Bester.
Frequently gets voted the "Best Sci-Fi Novel of All Time" so I'm rather looking forward to it!

Having finished Blatty I can also get back into 'Lankhmar' (two thirds thru) & 'Phantastes' (three quarters)... and back to my horror short stories.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.29.186.71
Posted on Monday, March 22, 2010 - 05:32 pm:   

>>All is One and One is All.

Sounds more like you've been reading The Three Musketeers.

The Stars My Destination is brilliant. I hope you enjoy it.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - 11:35 am:   

Stu, hadn't you heard... Dumas was one of the Illuminati!
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - 12:00 pm:   

'Lean Times In Lankhmar' had me in stitches last night... proves Fritz Leiber was as adept at broad comedy as he was any other genre.

Brilliant!
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - 12:14 pm:   

Non-stop fun in your house, isn't it?
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.29.187.8
Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - 12:21 pm:   

You mean the Illuminati aren't just Mr Fantastic, Iron Man, Professor X, The Sub-Mariner, Black Bolt and Dr Strange? http://marvel.com/universe/Illuminati
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - 04:09 pm:   

Dr Strange was always my favourite Marvel character when I was growing up in the 70s. Loved the weirdness of the artwork and storylines in those old comics.
After him Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Man-Thing, X-Men... happy days.

I only reallty got into the DC Universe when I was older in the 80s. 'Swamp Thing' remains my all-time favourite - have the entire run (including original series, with Wrightson reprints) up until the end of the Rick Veitch era when it started losing its way imo.

I still recall the horror of watching Wes Craven's abysmal film version at the time - yuck!
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.148.31.179
Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - 04:23 pm:   

I got to like Doctor Strange quite late, but he's ace. He looks like Greg Wise, doesn't he? Marvel sucks now.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 193.109.254.20
Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - 04:30 pm:   

Currently still reading the BFS Yearbook - very impressed - half way through and no fillers at all, although Stephen Volk's "After the Ape" is easily best so far, in my opinion.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - 05:02 pm:   

It's odd that I was so drawn to Doctor Strange as a young child when the character and the eldritch beings from beyond that he faced were so clearly Lovecraftian.

Was that why Lovecraft resonated so strongly with me when I discovered him as a teen? I wonder...
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.29.191.139
Posted on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 - 07:02 pm:   

Mark Waid has got a Dr Strange mini-series out that I might pick up when the trade comes out. I normaly like Waid's stuff but I think there's been a revamp of Dr Strange so he's no longer the Sorceror Supreme -- he's still got magic powers but has been downgraded in status. I think Brother Voodoo is the current Sorceror Supreme.
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 217.171.129.69
Posted on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 - 08:50 pm:   

I just started an old ARC of Burial by Neil Cross. I've never had any inclination to read any of his stuff before but I picked it up at work, read the first two pages and was completely compelled to go on. Sixty pages in and I'm enjoying it thus far.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.146.88.46
Posted on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 - 09:32 pm:   

Just finished, again, Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale', and halfway through 'Under The Dome', and the first of Graham Greene's autobiogaphy. The latter is a masteclass in writing. Quite simply one of the finest books I've ever had the pleasure of reading, fiction or nonfiction.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.7.244
Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 07:51 am:   

I'm mostly unfamiliar with Graham Greene's written work, but I did score the other day The Portable Graham Greene for fifty cents, which includes two full novels: The Heart of the Matter and The Third Man. Either of those two worth reading/starting on? That second one is pretty short, though I've seen the movie many times, not much surprise in store....
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 10:35 am:   

I don't think Greene knew how to write anything that wasn't less than gripping - yet even his popular thrillers, that he labelled "entertainments", are always so much more than that. Basically, there has been no greater chronicler of the agonising moral dilemma in English literature.

Haven't read either of those, Craig, but 'The Heart Of The Matter' is generally regarded as perhaps his finest novel (tough call though) while 'The Third Man' is a novella he wrote, with a film version in mind, as the original story upon which his screenplay was based.

The man was so bloody talented and prolific that another film treatment he wrote around the same period, called 'The Tenth Man', he completely forgot about until someone reminded him in the 80s and it finally saw publication in 1985 - and was hailed as a lost classic!

The more I read of Greene, and learn about him as a man, the more I can't help but be in awe of him...
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 10:55 am:   

'The Stars My Destination' has taken a few chapters to start clicking but I'm in that world now - once you get your head round the notion of "jaunting" it all starts to fit into place.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.147.10.96
Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 11:36 am:   

Stephen - well said, mate. But I would have to quibble on what is generally regarded as his masterpiece. I think that would have to be 'The Power and the Glory'. But for me personally, everyting he wrote was sublime. I think he's my choice for writer of the 20th century.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 11:50 am:   

A few more novels as unforgettable as 'Brighton Rock' or short stories as haunting as 'A Discovery In The Woods' and I'll probably agree with you.

He's vying with William Golding imo... but then there are so many more I have yet to read (sigh).
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Clive (Clive)
Username: Clive

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 81.104.165.168
Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 12:58 pm:   

Well, 'SLIGHTS' was great. Quite an unexpected, chilling read. Definitely going to get hold of Warrens next novel. Just about to start GB84 by David Peace. Loved his Red Riding books and his Ellroy-ish take on english history so i'm sure i'll dig this.

Short story-wise i'm still dipping into Mark Valentines 'The Collected Connoisseur', 'Cinnabar's Gnosis' 'The Collected L.P. Hartley' and some stories from 'Sleep No More' by L.T.C. Rolt. All wonderful. When it comes to short story collections and anthologies i very rarely read one straight through from cover to cover. I tend to dip into them occasionally and randomly. I guess, as so many of my favourite writers are dead, i'm holding off the day when i have read their entire output. Robert Aickman and Walter de la Mare are maybe my favourite writers and i've had their complete stories on the shelf for years but still haven't read maybe half of them. I try not to guzzle.

Comic wise i'm still really enjoying Grant Morrisons Batman & Robin. The last issue, 10, really kicks it up a gear. I'm also loving Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire and published by Vertigo. A very interesting post apocalyptic story where most children have died off and the ones that are born since the event have animal like mutations and are hunted. It's got a very indie-like sensibility to it, is very sweet and horrifying in equal measures and is damn good. Walking Dead is still consistently great and i also read the League Of Gentleman 1910 by Moore which was predictably wonderful.

Just starting Devlin Waugh: Red Tide by John Smith and Steve Yeowell. Love those two so i'm sure i'll love this.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 05:40 pm:   

Frank, 'The Power And The Glory' was one of the very few books I was "made" to read in school that I actually loved and have never forgotten (along with Golding's 'Lord Of The Flies').

Quality will out...
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 05:40 pm:   

A line from The Watchman - 2 characters are talking about the town's ex-hangman


"He's up there playing with his ropes, I reckon. Yes, playing with his ropes. That poor old soul sits up there on the edge of his bed fondling them old limp, useless ropes like a man without a prostate playing with himself."
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.147.40.178
Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 06:55 pm:   

Stephen - my school, or I should say, my class, were made to read both 'The Machine Gunners' and 'War of the Worlds'. Go figure.

I'm not knocking them, great books, but hardly in the same league as 'The Power and the Glory'.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 07:32 pm:   

I'd have loved to have read 'The War Of The Worlds' in school but instead discovered it for myself on an uncle's bookshelf when I was maybe 11 or 12... a wonderful novel!

Looking back now I consider it odd that a Catholic school run by Christian Brothers would have had us reading such a novel as TPATG with its flawed, womanising, alcoholic priest protagonist. But then the message lay in his redemption... a message I consider humanist rather than religious. His inherent decency (like Karras in 'The Exorcist') simply meant he had to do his duty as the blind faith of the people demanded - despite any doubts of his own.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.147.40.178
Posted on Thursday, March 25, 2010 - 07:44 pm:   

My school was also Catholic, probably why GG was off the curriculum. But GG was one of the church's most famous sons, his return to the fold so to speak sparking a great interest among fellow writers, then and now, not to mention his detractors, who thankfully fell quiet long ago...I guess that's death for you

Don't get me wrong, Stephen. War of the Worlds was a great experience, and my teacher let me keep my copy which I still have today.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 01:03 pm:   

Have you read any of Greene's genre material, Frank?

I was hugely impressed with 'A Sense Of Reality' when I read it last year and remember the creepy little story 'The End Of The Party' being included in the 6th Fontana Horror Book.

I have his short story collection 'Twenty-One Stories' (1954) which I believe includes several genre tales.
The man was a born storyteller who could turn his hand to any style effortlessly - bit like Fritz Leiber, only more so.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.147.13.39
Posted on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 05:31 pm:   

Stephen - actually, I haven't read any of his genre stuff. Where would you recommend I start? With the above you mentioned?
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Clive (Clive)
Username: Clive

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 81.104.165.168
Posted on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 05:51 pm:   

There is a Penguin Graham Greene collected stories which contains all his seperate volumes and, i think, has all his short stories in. You can probably get it for a couple of quid on Amazon. I have yet to get stuck into it though and am still a Greene virgin, as it were. Definitely need to rectify that of course.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 06:04 pm:   

'A Sense Of Reality' has a horror/fantasy novella that is truly weird and disturbing, two Kafkaesque fantasies and one of the finest sci-fi short stories I have ever read.

I reviewed it on here in one of the earlier 'What Are You Reading' threads but don't read it as may contain spoilers.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.147.13.39
Posted on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 06:04 pm:   

Clive - cheers for the info. Try starting with "A Sort Of Life." Genius. The most beautiful prose; it aches with memories.

Mind you, it is the first in three of his autobiographies. So you may want to start with his fiction. Where to start is the question?

Perhaps 'Stamboul Train'. I don't know. I would recommend anything.

His books are so great, it makes me think of the word delicious.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 06:59 pm:   

I'd recommend reading the noir crime thrillers 'A Gun For Sale' & 'Brighton Rock' back-to-back as they are linked, with the events of the first triggering the events of the second, and the action is fast paced and easy to follow.

AGFS is sublime entertainment while BR is almost transcendental in its brilliance. Both are completely riveting compulsive page-turners!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.237.33
Posted on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 08:16 pm:   

Hey, my edition also has "The End of the Party" in it! I guess I'll start there, Stephen....
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.146.174.221
Posted on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 08:37 pm:   

Stephen - great recommendations, mate.

Craig - you've always reminded me of a Green archetype. Except you'll have to commit suicide, let your friends betray you or have a revelation which will ultimately prove your downfall...good intentions notwithstanding.

So, that'll have to rule you out on the basis that you are a persistent sonofabitch

Sorry, you'll have to make do with me since Weber has stepped outside for a smoke and a glass of port.
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 217.171.129.73
Posted on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 10:02 pm:   

I'd start with the "Catholic Quartet". They epitomise Greene's main concerns, his obsessions, and his great themes. Namely, Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The End of the Affair and, the greatest novel written in English, The Heart of the Matter. Of his "later" work, A Burnt-Out Case, The Human Factor and The Honorary Consul are probably his greatest. I might add The Quiet American. And as for his "entertainments", I love A Gun for Sale and The Ministry of Fear. As I mentioned in another thread, read the latter next to The Heart of the Matter. I thought it interesting!
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 188.147.151.251
Posted on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 11:20 pm:   

Patrick - what did you think of 'The Quiet American' film adaptation. I love the director for his previous work, Philip Noyce, well, some of his work, and I thought Caine was the epitome of the Greene character, but ultimately I thought it was poor. Caine says it's best role.
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 217.171.129.71
Posted on Friday, March 26, 2010 - 11:41 pm:   

Caine's best role was in Hannah and Her Sisters! I thought the film was okay. I also thought Caine epitomised the "later" Greene hero. He could have just as well played Maurice Castle in The Human Factor or Brown in The Comedians or maybe Querry in a Burnt-Out Case. Other than The Third Man though I don't think there's ever been a succesful Graham Greene film adaptation. And even that was written as a film treatment anyway! We could argue Brighton Rock I suppose but it misses entirely the essence of the novel.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.11.172
Posted on Saturday, March 27, 2010 - 05:04 am:   

I never read the book, of course, but I quite liked that Caine THE QUIET AMERICAN. Other Graham Green work I've not read, but on which movies I like was based: THE THIRD MAN, THE FALLEN IDOL (well, I did read that one), and THE END OF THE AFFAIR (1999).

I just don't know what to read next, as far as a novel/book-length work goes... *sigh*... I wish I were Stephen, and wanted/had the energy to read any and everything....
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Saturday, March 27, 2010 - 06:41 am:   

Craig, you got me all wrong mate!

I am the fussiest sod you ever met when it comes to reading. I literally could not continue with a book I wasn't enjoying - life is too short anyway.

That's why I'm determined to read all the established greats I possibly can with my own rule-of-thumb being - a work has to be at least 20 years old and still considered "great" by critics, whose judgement I trust, before I will even consider a new author. That's why I'm so behind the times with my reading. There are rare exceptions, of course, when the evidence from those whose opinion I respect is overwhelming - e.g. I can feel myself drawn to the fiction of Joel Lane & Graham Joyce by all I have read on here and my own, rarely mistaken, instincts.

Patrick, I thought 'The Fallen Idol' was a marvellous Greene adaptation.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.247.105
Posted on Saturday, March 27, 2010 - 02:28 pm:   

That's a good plan, Stephen - in that case, you can't go wrong with what you read. It's very much like me now and what I read when i do read... I have to be very very sure it's something worth my time... one way or another....

"The End of the Party" - nice little chiller, like a campfire tale or old-fashioned ghost story, only profoundly more disturbing at the close... fascinating use of shifting POV, moving from one twin to the other, so you're constantly having your "main protagonist" expectations dashed (a template wrecked, dare I say?..) - sets you up stylistically for the climax.
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 91.103.168.21
Posted on Saturday, March 27, 2010 - 03:03 pm:   

Yes, I didn't think of The Fallen Idol. It's something of a neglected little classic.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.224.118
Posted on Sunday, March 28, 2010 - 07:59 am:   

"The Destructors" by Greene - an excellent piece. We never get what we're waiting for, Mr. Thomas' full reaction, to the "beauty" of the boys' dismantling; as careful and innovative and determined an effort, as what went into what it is they're destroying, preserved only by chance anyway. It is funny, actually, at the end... unexpectedly....
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 82.38.75.85
Posted on Sunday, March 28, 2010 - 12:50 pm:   

I don't think I've contributed to this thread before? Anyway, I am now ..

Just started reading Christopher Fowler's collection of short stories, "Personal Demons" - excellent. These are great psychological horror stories which really make you think and stay with you afterwards. I've not read much of his work previously, but I'm going to seek out more after this. Highly recommended, if anyone here hasn't read much of his stuff.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 29, 2010 - 12:14 pm:   

Half way through 'The Stars My Destination' and the tone has subtly altered from one of exciting space opera adventure to something approaching the immensity of a Greek tragedy.

My sympathies toward the anti-hero, Gulliver Foyle, are constantly shifting which is something I love in a novel... a character at once inhumanly monstrous and painfully fallible in his misguided quest for revenge. Wonderful!
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.29.186.109
Posted on Monday, March 29, 2010 - 07:55 pm:   

Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber. I find Leiber very hit and miss but so far this is one of the hits.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - 12:12 pm:   

I'm now three quarters through 'Lankhmar' and have enjoyed each and every story for many different reasons. I can see how some sword & sorcery fans might find his tongue-in-cheek approach to the material a bit off-putting, and I did struggle at first to get used to his tone, but the sheer breadth of his imagination and the energy in these stories is a joy to experience.

I still think Robert E. Howard has it over him though...
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.29.185.5
Posted on Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - 01:51 pm:   

Yeah, all my friends who are S&S fans prefer Howard.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 10:13 am:   

Just finished A Most wanted Man by John Le Carre - a well written little spy romp but curiously devoid of any tension in the second half.

Started on Jon Mcgregor's Even The Dogs. By the end of the first chapter I'm already thinking this could be my book of the year. it opens with the discovery of a man's body in a wrecked flat and, intercut with the police examining the scene, we are given fractured details of the man's life, told to us by the most unusual narrators I've encountered for a while. In just a few pages we've already been given the broad sweep of the man's life, from moving into the flat with his loving wife, the birth of his daughter, hints at an addiction and his wife leaving. He's managed to give broad strokes by detailing the minutae of several individual incidents in the dead man's life.

In his previous two novels, Mcgregor managed to take the the most mundane aspects of life and infuse them with a magic and relevance. In this book he looks set to do the same but without repaeating any of the literary tricks used in his other books. (If nobody speaks of remarkable things, and So many ways to begin - just in case anyone wants to check them out. All his books come with a high recommendation from me)
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 11:38 am:   

I'm flying through the second half of TSMD and all the theories I had of how this was going to pan out have been blown out of the water... bewildering and impossible to put down.

*** SPOILERS ***

Many of the earlier events in the book are taking on a whole new poignancy which has me thinking this is one to re-read and read again to get all the subtleties of the plot (particularly in the first half). Gully Foyle has to be one of the most terrifying killing machines I have encountered in sci-fi and, strangely, the more inhuman he becomes outwardly the more human he grows inside... and the more impressive his powers, the more pitiful his aspirations. A book to set the mind whirling in freefall.

I should be finished in no time at this rate.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.133.88
Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 05:22 pm:   

I Am Alive and You Are Dead; the life of Phillip K Dick. It's great! After the Eels guy book I've decided I like weird loser-type biographies.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 05:38 pm:   

Tony, when I get home I'm going to type in a short extract of the memoir of Robert Heinlein that Philip K. Dick wrote, when he was at his lowest ebb, to give an added poignancy to his life story.

The two men were polar opposites - one strong willed and purposeful, the other insecure and deeply paranoid - yet both loved each other for their sheer talent and imagination and disgust at the hypocrisies of the established status quo. They argued fiercely and incessantly on many points but still maintained a friendship and mutual respect through it all.

Philip K. Dick is my all-time favourite sci-fi writer but Heinlein (since I got into him last year) isn't half giving him a run for his money!
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.133.88
Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 05:43 pm:   

I haven't read much Dick but am starting to actually love him as a person. I loved the Electric Sheep book compared with the movie. The movie, good as it was, was NOT a PKD movie...
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.152.206.97
Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 06:47 pm:   

That's the book I've re-read more than any other. I've had the same battered paperback for about 25 years now. It has "21st Century Bounty Hunter" at the top of its back cover blurb. Chortle.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 09:14 pm:   

A quote from Philip K. Dick:

"I consider Heinlein to be my spiritual father, even though our political ideologies are totally at variance. Several years ago, when I was ill, Heinlein offered his help, anything he could do, and we had never met [Heinlein was a fan]; he would phone me to cheer me up and see how I was doing. He wanted to buy me an electric typewriter, God bless him - one of the true gentlemen in this world.
I don't agree with any ideas he puts forth in his writing, but that is neither here nor there. One time when I owed the IRS a lot of money and couldn't raise it, Heinlein loaned the money to me.
He knows I'm a flipped out freak and still he helped me and my wife when we were in trouble. That is the best in humanity, there; that is who and what I love."

Kind of shows both men in a different light, doesn't it... the two greatest sci-fi writers of the 20th Century imho.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.165.4
Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 09:35 pm:   

The more I learn about Heinlein as a person, the more he goes up in my estimation.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.179.60.206
Posted on Thursday, April 01, 2010 - 01:16 am:   

Well into Steve Duffy's "Tragic Life Stories", although I'm taking my time with it - I've read the title story and "Tantara" so far.
It's all bloody splendid stuff and the only beef I'd have so far with Mr Duffy is the fact that he needs to churn out more stuff!
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.223.110
Posted on Thursday, April 01, 2010 - 01:30 am:   

Theodore Sturgeon also noted kindness shown to him by Robert Heinlein during a difficult phase of his life.

We can't assume that right-wing individuals are as cold and selfish in their personal lives as their ideology might appear to dictate. Nor that left-wing individuals are invariably considerate and unselfish. People are complex.

As Whitman said: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, so I contradict myself. I am infinite; I contain multitudes."
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.133.88
Posted on Thursday, April 01, 2010 - 09:21 am:   

Woah - never knew Slim was such a wise guy.

No - it's true; apparently John Wayne was one of the nicest, most down to earth people you could meet - until you deliberately tried to piss him off, a la Barry Norman. Same goes for Charlton Heston, who went on race equality/peace marches long before yadda yadda (I've mentioned this many times before).
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, April 01, 2010 - 11:19 am:   

I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the dismissal of Robert Heinlein and his works as "right-wing". There were elements of that in his character (his [far from blind] patriotism, his avowed despisal of the Soviet regime and no nonsense harking back to the values of the frontier spirit) but there were even more unapologetically liberal aspects to the man (his anti-establishment railing against big government and espousal of equality and respect for all irrespective of gender, sexuality, race, politics or religion - proved time and again by everything he wrote, by his sheer humanity in the way he lived his life and the liberal causes he supported).

If one had to sum up his politics I would call him a Libertarian first and foremost. But ultimately I don't think he was really that bothered about strict political ideology but was one of those rare individuals who loved people and took everyone as he found them.

I've now read four Heinlein novels; 'Methuselah's Children' (1941) [which tackles anti-semitism and the singling out of any group for condemnation by the State], 'Stranger In A Strange Land' (1961) [radically in favour of the rights of the individual over what society/government expects of them - reads as a libertarian call to arms], 'Farnham's Freehold' (1964) [tackles the ignorance of racism head-on in support of the civil rights movement], 'Job : A Comedy Of Justice' (1984) [tackles religious fundamentalism and its interference with the rights of the individual when linked to the State].

The more I read of him the more I find myself nodding along in agreement with him!

But more than that Heinlein is one of the most natural, gripping, original, versatile and thoroughly entertaining storytellers I have encountered... start one of his books and it gets its hooks into you and won't let go in a way I haven't encountered since Stephen King (and Heinlein is the better writer imho).
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, April 01, 2010 - 03:50 pm:   

Finished two books at lunchtime today!

Alfred Bester didn't half pull out all the stops with 'The Stars My Destination'! Profound, deeply moving and oddly life-affirming is the only way I can sum up the final chapters. This one is gonna take a long time to sink in... but that ending, and how it turns everything that precedes it on its head. The image of what Gully Foyle has become - wow! I didn't know whether to cheer or cry! One to mull over, let settle and re-read afresh.

What appears to start as straight (even derivative) space adventure gradually grows in stature toward something as fascinatingly existential as anything in the great works of classic literature... how this will colour a more understanding re-read I can only imagine. Worthy of its reputation? Oh, yes!! Can't say much else to avoid inadvertent spoilers... this is one novel that has to be experienced rather than read.

'Phantastes' by George MacDonald I have to admit I struggled with after the novelty of the stream-of-consciousness approach had worn off. The book is full of unforgettable imagery and clearly had a big influence on Lewis Carroll (there is even a white rabbit and other fleeting similarities) but the lack of any narrative structure (not to mention humour) does start to grate after a while given the book's great length and ponderously adult tone.

MacDonald was clearly a visionary writer of rare talent but I believe his style would be better suited to shorter more incisive works so I'm not surprised he is more famous for his children's literature - which I still can't wait to read.

To write an entire novel in dream logic style and make it consistently gripping is one hell of a tall order for even the greatest of writers. Ramsey Campbell only managed to pull it off by limiting 'Needing Ghosts' to novella length, written in one intense burst of creativity, while Lewis Carroll achieved it by the creation of unforgettably original characters and the injection of wonderfully absurd humour throughout. In the end 'Phantastes' falls under the weight of its own ambition imo.

Starting two new books tonight; 'The Devils' by Fyodor Dostoevsky & 'Conjure Wife' by Fritz Leiber!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Saturday, April 03, 2010 - 03:09 pm:   

'Conjure Wife'... what an inspired premise! The room for psychosocial satire and 'battle of the sexes' allegory as well as insidious horror is nothing short of inspired. The first four chapters are already the finest thing by Leiber I have read to date.

'The Devils'... every time I start a new Dostoevsky I'm always struck by how fresh his novels still are and the astonishing depth of his characterisation. A couple of chapters in and I already feel like these are real living and breathing people - it really is like taking a trip back in time to an alien culture. The very depths of humanity are on display in the minutest detail. Like all his books, an experience to completely lose yourself in...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Saturday, April 03, 2010 - 09:10 pm:   

I'm reading "The Leaping" by Tom Fletcher.

Fucking. Brilliant.
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John (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.24.1.217
Posted on Saturday, April 03, 2010 - 09:29 pm:   

Just finished Joe Hill's 'Horns', which was good, but didn't have quite enough substance to be novel-length.

Now reading the Lovecraft Unbound collection - the first couple of stories were, erm, just okay.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.68
Posted on Sunday, April 04, 2010 - 03:24 pm:   

Heinlein was indeed the first great SF writer of the 20th century, though for my money Arthur C Clarke achieved that much-sought after sense of wonder the best SF achieves more often than Heinlein. In his later years, when illness dogged him, Heinlein was apparently something of a sod, but you're allowed to be when you get older. Good for him. A terrific storyteller. EXPANDED UNIVERSE, a great collection, is a good place to start. I think his influence on Stephen King is apparent in there.

I've finished HORNS too, and share the view that at times there seemed to be a bit of padding in there to make it long enough to be a novel, but otherwise I enjoyed it a lot. Had that vibrancy horror fiction had for me in the 80s. Good deal.

I'm on with Ian Rankin's THE COMPLAINTS now, a non-Rebus novel. And pretty good it is, too.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 - 01:24 pm:   

One of my fav themes in horror is that of the ultra-rationalist scientist/academic/hard boiled detective/reporter having the supernatural intrude into their well ordered lives and tear down, bit-by-bit, their carefully constructed world view - usually driving them insane in the process.

'Conjure Wife' is one of the finest, and most unnerving, literary examples I have read to date... genius.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 - 01:40 pm:   

Most of the way through Even The Dogs now. This is definitely a book of the year for me, possibly a book of the decade. The fractured narrative is compelling and convincing. It really does feel like these down and outs and rejects of society are talking to us from the page. I cannot recommend this highly enough.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.29.187.65
Posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 - 04:57 pm:   

I bought Conjure Wife at WHC and was pretty impressed. Just ordered Night of the Eagle to refresh my memory of the differences in the stories.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 - 06:28 pm:   

'The Devils' is suprising me so far with its intimations that young Nicholas Stavrogin may be diabolically possessed.

Dostoevsky's insistence on his "unnatural strength" - tearing the iron grate off the cell door - and "abstracted look" - as though his mind were not his own - while committing inexplicable acts of violence and antisocial behaviour, and his mother Mrs Stavrogin's superstitious fear of him and ominous proclamation, "It's started...".

The character is clearly a sociopath, prone to periods of complete loss of control, but the author's painting of this in the superstitious undertones of the time is highly disturbing.

Explains why the title was originally translated as 'The Possessed'. Bit of a coincidence that I chose this book to read so soon after 'The Exorcist/Legion' thinking it a political thriller!
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Seanmcd (Seanmcd)
Username: Seanmcd

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 86.155.110.252
Posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 - 06:34 pm:   

I'm about halfway through George R.R. Martin's 'A Game of Thrones'. Part one of his gritty 'A Song of Ice and Fire' fantasy series. It is absolutely fabulous. I can't put this one down. Only another 400 pages to go of this 800 page plus doorstop and i just know I will be straight into the equally epic book 2 'A Clash of Kings' with books 3-5 waiting in the wings. This series has been described as 'The Sopranos meets Tolkien' and 'The Twelve Caesars of fantasy fiction'. I couldn't have put it better, highly addictive reading indeed.
I'm reading this series before the HBO TV adaptation airs next year which is currently shooting in my home town, Belfast, would you believe.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 - 07:11 pm:   

Hi Sean, only read one of Martin's books, 'Fevre Dream' (1982), and remember really enjoying it as a then original reinterpretation of the vampire myth.

Hadn't heard they were filming that here but I'm completely unfamiliar with his fantasy material. You should read some Fritz Leiber - up there with Howard, Tolkien, Pullman, et al...

Must meet up this week for a pint and browse round the bookshops!
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Seanmcd (Seanmcd)
Username: Seanmcd

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 86.155.110.252
Posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 - 09:29 pm:   

Hi Stevie, yes we must get out again for a pint or three and some craic. What about this Thursday as i'm off all week? My PC was buggered these past 5-6 weeks which accounts for my absence from the RCMB of late.
I do have that Fritz Leiber 'Lankhmar' collection on my shelf but to be honest I really can't see me reading ANY fantasy at all until i've finished the existing George R.R. Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' output. I've fallen completely for these characters and their 'Seven Kingdoms' even the vile ones. The book is more about characters and their inner workings than landscape or magic. These fantasy staples are present but take a back seat, in the first book anyway, to the scheming and thought processes of several principal characters. I LOVE the detail in this book with regards to the different family houses and various allegiances. The book is so effortless to read and flows beautifully from one cliffhanger to the next , it demands that you put your life on hold until you read just one more installment. I defy anyone to read the first 100 pages of book 1 'A Game of Thrones' and not commit themselves to the whole series, there and then, based on the characters encountered thus far.
I'll pass it onto you once i've finished it.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Tuesday, April 06, 2010 - 10:13 pm:   

Thursday should be okay, will let you know.

You should see my TO BE READ pile!!

Got 'Lankhmar', 'Conjure Wife' & 'The Devils' on the go at the minute. Have to get back into the Pan/Fontana anthologies and got Graham Greene's 'Stamboul Train' & Heinlein's 'Starship Troopers' lined up to start next...

SMBSLT...
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.72
Posted on Thursday, April 08, 2010 - 09:43 pm:   

At The Chime of a City Clock by DJ Taylor. A pastiche of 30s noir, which is engagingly easy to read, though the literary conceit of inventing slang and dropping it in with actual slang of the time irritates a bit.
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John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 - 08:55 am:   

Just finished ALRAUNE by Hanns Heinz Ewers which was quite quite brilliant.

Halfway through Madam Crowl's Ghost by J S LeFanu.

Dragging myself through Black Wings, the new Lovecraft anthology from PS Books / ST Joshi but it's a bit of a struggle.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 - 12:33 pm:   

Yet another Lovecraft anthology?!

Is this "new material" by any chance? There are still a handful of obscure stories and collaborations I don't have.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 - 12:43 pm:   

Tragic Life Stories by Steven Duffy

A Dark Matter by Peter Straub

And just about to start The Way Home by George Pelecanos. Been meaning to read him for years and finally took the plunge.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 - 12:48 pm:   

It's not Lovecraft material as such: just contemporary Lovecraftian stories, all new I believe. Some promising contributors.

I gather the editor had to keep going back to the strangely fashioned metallic cylinders on his shelf with queries. Contributors had to provide not just an e-mail address but a formula by which they could be called up.

One contributor had a call from the editor at 3am, saying "There are a few things we have to sort out." He dressed hurriedly, slipping his revolver and pocket grimoire into a briefcase. But that's another story...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 - 01:01 pm:   

Thanks, Joel!

Surely with Joshi's involvement it must be half decent? Comparable to Ramsey's 'New Tales Of The Cthulhu Mythos' perhaps?

BTW you were so right about Fritz Leiber! 'Conjure Wife' in particular is an exceptional horror novel.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.165.4
Posted on Friday, April 09, 2010 - 07:35 pm:   

Good choice with Pelecanos, Zed. He's the dog's bollocks. Not read the last couple of novels and need to catch up with him...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 12:46 pm:   

Finished 'Conjure Wife' in one quick burst over the weekend - one of the best and most unsettling horror novels I have read. A book to make you think differently about the world and those around you. The ending is one of the cleverest "let me just read that again" twists in fantasy literature that has been copied and reworked many times since but never with as much class. The subtle undertone of satirical black humour was the icing on the cake for me. One to cherish and pester even non-horror fans to read!

After that I read the first page of Leiber's 'Our Lady Of Darkness' and was drawn irresistibly in by the mention of Mater Tenebrarum & Thomas De Quincey's 'Suspiria de Profundis' with its Argento associations. I spent all day Sunday utterly engrossed and am already half way through... a tremendous novel that is building up a frightening head of steam. "Don't delve any deeper, Westen, for God's sake STOP!!!!"
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 02:27 pm:   

Just started Green Eyes by lucius shepard. My second zombie novel this year featuring zombies with glowing green eyes - but the treatment couldn't be any more different.
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Johnny_mains (Johnny_mains)
Username: Johnny_mains

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 82.22.70.137
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 02:39 pm:   

Also reading 'Black Wings' - I'm a bit biased though, because in Nicholas Royle's story 'Rotterdam' he features a Scottish script-writer called John Mains. But you can all rejoice as Mains is dispatched in a suitably nasty way...
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John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.253.174.81
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 02:55 pm:   

Rotterdam is one of the (few so far) good stories in that book, Johnny! And that sly reference made me laugh my head off
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.74
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 03:05 pm:   

Me, I'm reading Anne Billson's ghostly novel The Ex, and it's a lot of fun.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.243.48
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 03:47 pm:   

In this big ol' mystery tome I've mentioned, I've read my very first Cornell Woolrich story, "Rear Window" (original title: "It Had To Be Murder"). Knowing the movie pretty well, I expected to find this a rote read, but boy was I surprised! Not so much the differences kept me going (and there was a lot of changes [naturally] between the story and the film), but the precision of writing and the intensity of the tension - my God, how can one possible be "on the edge of one's seat" with a by-now-nearly-memorized story like this?! But I was, I was.... It's very clear now why he's one of the most filmed writers in Hollywood, and I've got to go out now and find more of his work... which I realize won't be easy nowadays....
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 04:18 pm:   

His stuff seems near impossible to find, Craig.

I've been keeping an eye out for him nearly a year now and only found one book - had to do a double-take - 'Waltz Into Darkness', which has also been filmed by Francois Truffaut, of all people. I think I'll make it my next crime read.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.243.48
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 04:29 pm:   

And isn't that a novel or something from only a few years back? Something posthumous?... You may have to do what it looks like I'm going to have to do, Stevie... tediously seek his stories out individually, through the pages of mystery/suspense anthologies....

(As a tangent, this big ol' mystery tome led me through a zig-zag path to discovering a delightful treasure I never knew existed: One of my all-time favorite writers, Avram Davidson - of whose work I thought I'd read almost everything - actually wrote three Ellery Queen novels under that pseudonym! Hell, with AD? I'll happily take pseudonymous trashy mysteries, if that's all that's left....[Ted Sturgeon wrote one too.])
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 04:47 pm:   

I've just finished The Night Boat by Robert McCammon, which was pants. Now reading To Kill a Mockingbird.
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Johnny_mains (Johnny_mains)
Username: Johnny_mains

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 82.22.70.137
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 04:50 pm:   

John - I want to get a Guinness Record for being the most dispatched name in horror fiction... - Shaun Hutson said he was going to work me in somewhere too...
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 04:57 pm:   

There isn't very much Woolrich out there in new editions, but there is some – and masses of second-hand paperbacks and hardbacks at reasonable prices especially if you look in the USA (directly or via abebooks.com). I built up a basic Woolrich collection in two years by that route, acquiring some forty books (mostly copies in beat-up condition) at an average price of £10 per book. Never regretted it.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 04:58 pm:   

Craig, it was a novel published in 1947 under the pseudonym William Irish.

The French film version was called 'La Sirène Du Mississippi' (1969) and starred Catherine Deneuve & Jean-Paul Belmondo - a dream pairing if ever there was one! Haven't seen it.

Jonathan, I loved 'The Night Boat' when it first came out and was a huge fan of Robert R. McCammon back in those days. For my money the best "zombie Nazis" novel there is! But then I was only 15 at the time...
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 217.43.30.125
Posted on Monday, April 12, 2010 - 05:41 pm:   

I'm currently reading 'Literary Remains' by RB Russell (PS Publsihing 2010) and reviewing it here:
http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/literary_remains__by_rb_russell.htm
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 12:48 am:   

Incredibly, 'Our Lady Of Darkness' is turning out even better than 'Conjure Wife' and may be one of the greatest horror novels I've ever read.

Powerfully well written, original to the point of creating its own mythology and damn scary!!
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.227.112
Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 08:59 am:   

There are many good supernatural horror novels, but few great ones – the genre doesn't lend itself readily to novel-writing except within a formula. Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness is certainly one of the great weird novels, because it breaks with every formula and, as Stevie says, creates its own mythology: its own unique perspective on the supernatural. I've read it three times and got more out of it each time. Inspired stuff.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 10:47 am:   

Johnny - I just started on a new story yesterday. I was looking for a name for the first shreddie (don't know if anyone else here uses that term for a charcter who's only purpose in the story is to die as horribly as possible). Do you mind if I use yours?
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 11:17 am:   

Johnny Mains is the new John Doe.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 11:20 am:   

Or rather, the new Kenny. His name refers to his habit of being fatally electrocuted in every episode.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.77.198
Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 11:55 am:   

Do Shreddies fall victim to Cereal Killers?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 12:20 pm:   

Joel, do you detect the same cynicism about the human race in Leiber's writing as I'm getting? Albeit laced with pitch black humour.

It's like he sees us as an infestation of harmful bacteria in the world that will ultimately wipe itself out by consuming all that it needs to survive. I'm finding 'Our Lady Of Darkness' chimes eerily with the brilliant short story 'Black Glass' in that respect - and also, as an aside, the paranoid urban music of Talking Heads (my fav band) in songs like 'Life During Wartime' or 'Cities' or 'Don't Worry About The Government' or 'Nothing But Flowers'.

The vast metropoli we have erected as our greatest attempt to cohere against nature will become our magnificent tombs. The primal forces we try to control and regiment will ultimately rise up and use our own cleverest industry against us! It is almost reverse sci-fi completely negating the wary optimism about the future of that genre. Inspired it is...
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 01:14 pm:   

Leiber was a complex and ambivalent character. Politically he was a left-leaning humanist and pacifist – see such groundbreaking stories as 'Smoke Ghost', 'Coming Attraction' and 'America the Beautiful'. Like George Orwell, he was conscious of the force of propaganda and the inertia of false consciousness. He was pessimistic and sometimes bitter, but not cynical. He didn't blame 'human nature' for the state of society, he blamed the social, economic and cultural forces that twisted and blighted human nature. Even his fantasy stories show this perspective – see 'The Cloud of Hate' for example.
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Johnny_mains (Johnny_mains)
Username: Johnny_mains

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 82.22.70.137
Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 01:23 pm:   

Weber, why not. Can I be a male ballerina? :D
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 02:17 pm:   

No.

You will be called Johnny M the main man, and when he dies (quite horribly, a bystander (possibly called Stan) will say "Oh my god, they killed Johnny!" just for a real little in-joke.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.225.137
Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 05:12 pm:   

I read LADY OF DARKNESS, I'm sure I did, but it was so long ago, I have no memory of it... methinks I must go back and revisit....

Today I'm going to hunt a bit for some Woolrich if I have time. A few of his short stories I've read about I'd like to find, they sound intriguing: "The Talking Eyes," and "One Drop of Blood," and "All At Once, No Alice"... but I doubt I'll just find what I'm looking for, so anything, really.... Well, I guess life's worth living another day, if there's something yet I want to read....
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - 03:16 am:   

To me Leiber's writing shows a love of the individual (and individualism) but a marked pessimism, I would say not a million miles away from cynicism, toward the collective race - especially when it congregates together, as in the city of Lankhmar or indeed San Francisco.

I've read 'The Cloud Of Hate' and, now that I think about it, the story could be seen as an earlier stab at the ideas he expounded in 'Our Lady Of Darkness' - primal forces rising up from below to destroy the decadent city from within.

Leiber strikes me as a bit of a lone wolf romantic at heart (and borderline autistic judging by his autobiography in 'The Ghost Light') who longed to be out their exploring new territories unfettered by societies conventions but (like Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser) always found himself drawn back to the herd in the end. A fascinating and hard to pin down character... like all the best writers imo.
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Ian Alexander Martin (Iam)
Username: Iam

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 64.180.64.74
Posted on Wednesday, April 14, 2010 - 06:50 am:   

I'm currently finishing Christopher Fowler's Rune, and there have been several characters die in a horrible way — including one feller slashing his way to the BA flight's emergency door and then throwing himself down through the roof of a house in Highbury — but no one has yet been named either Kenny or Johnny.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 12:22 pm:   

Getting back into my short horror stories...

Last night I finished the Fontana anthology 'European Tales Of Terror' (1968) edited by J.J. Strating and every one of the stories was nothing short of exquisite. Not surprising when all the authors were recognised literary greats mostly not associated with genre material:

'Ghosts' (1966) by Marie Luise Kaschnitz - eerie little Aickmanesque haunted house story in which a ghostly couple of socialites are able to leave and interact with the world around them, even inviting guests home…
'An Apparition' (1884) by Knut Hamsun - frightening Norwegian fable about a boy who picks up and keeps an old tooth found in a graveyard until the owner comes looking for it.
'Who Knows?' (1890) by Guy de Maupassant - raving mad proto-Kafkaesque nightmare about a man who returns home one night to discover all his furniture has come to life!
'The Idol Of The Cyclades' (1956) by Julio Cortázar - the discovery of an ancient Lovecraftian relic on a Greek island brings obsession and madness into the lives of a pair of rival archaeologists.
'Vampires Limited' (1962) by Josef Nesvadba - satirical horror on the evils of capitalism that features a car which runs on human blood and has an interesting way of acquiring it.
'The Executioner' (1830) by Honoré de Balzac – French soldiers take a calculatedly cruel revenge on an aristocratic Spanish family that attempted to betray them to the English fleet during the Napoleonic wars - for their lineage to survive one son will be spared as long as he acts as executioner by beheading of the rest…
'In The Penal Colony' (1914) by Franz Kafka – the famous and timelessly disturbing tale of an important guest at an island penal colony being given a proud and bloody demonstration of the regime’s macabre execution device that fits punishment to crime.
'The Fate Of The Baron' (1923) by Arthur Schnitzler - brilliant and powerfully moving tale of a shy man's utter devotion to a beautiful but ruthless prima donna who feeds off his psychic pain to keep herself young, has one of the most hauntingly cruel endings I have read - the very essence of horror at its most human and personal.
'Just The Very Thing They Wanted' (1965) by Dino Buzzati - another brilliant and disturbing allegory from this criminally neglected author that details the vicious punishment meted out to a couple of naive tourists who stray into a small town in Eastern Europe and innocently break a local taboo, the terror of an angry mob unleashed has never been more nightmarishly portrayed.
'Our Father Who Art In Heaven' (1946) by Valentin Katayev - another unforgettable heartbreaker this powerful piece of Russian realism has you experiencing the panic and desperation of a Jewish mother fleeing with her protesting toddler son from Nazi death patrols combing the streets of the Odessa ghetto in the Arctic depths of winter. The singling out and detached following of her plight only makes the raw terror of what happened all the more immediate.
'The Great Happening' (1958) by Belcampo - possibly the best story here and certainly the weirdest this tells in matter-of-factly realist detail of the Day of Judgement, as predicted in Revelations, coming to a run-of-the-mill Dutch village as narrated by an avowed atheist whose affronted disbelief and sense of psychic shock is palpable and truly frightening (think about it), has a killer pay-off and enough ambiguity to remove any stigma of this being merely a crude Christian tract.

Next up it's 'The 19th Pan Book Of Horror Stories' (1978)...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, April 16, 2010 - 03:48 pm:   

Should be finished 'Our Lady Of Darkness' this evening and I haven't a clue how things are going to pan out... a true original that subverts all the conventions of Lovecraftian cosmic horror while quoting from them directly. Clearly a labour of love for Leiber.

Then it's straight into 'Stamboul Train'...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 12:42 pm:   

Finished 'Our Lady Of Darkness' over the weekend and I'm still trying to take it in... much the same reaction I had to 'The Stars My Destination'.

These are books one can't fully fathom without much thought, discussion and re-reading. Both works take the limited conventions of genre - supernatural horror and space opera sci-fi - and take them into the realms of high-concept philosophical fantasy. Thrilling and mind expanding in equal measure like all the works of great literature. I could happily spend hours talking about and examining both works with like-minded fans and know we were still only scratching the surface.

Meanwhile I'm already a third of the way through 'Stamboul Train' (1932) and the one thing I'm amazed at is its unselfconscious sexual candour. A disparate group of travellers embark on the Orient Express at Ostend bound for Istanbul - each running away from something and with secrets to hide. Along the way we get to know their innermost thoughts, emotions, desires, obsessions and weaknesses while the conventions of a mystery thriller are played out around them. But this is no 'The Lady Vanishes' (1936 novel) or 'Murder On The Orient Express' (1934) - though it clearly influenced both - but a tour-de-force of characterisation exploring the very depths of the human condition at its most selfish and selfless, most glorious and self-loathing. A ripping good read!!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 - 05:59 pm:   

Reading Dostoevsky and Graham Greene at the same time is really driving home to me how most writers are content to tell stories while the very greatest create lives... I am lost in admiration of such a gift.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, April 26, 2010 - 10:46 am:   

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo...

A real pageturner. Very good so far.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.145.36.248
Posted on Monday, April 26, 2010 - 04:47 pm:   

SOLAR by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape 2010)

"The past had shown him many times that the future would be its own solution."

I have read all McEwan's fiction work to date and this, for me, is the best yet. The optimum McEwan, where densely textured Proustian slabs of prose read easily and quickly and compulsively like the finest two-way filter with artful baffle-resistors. A page-turner with bite and constructive intractability.

Serial maritalisms. The coincidence of accidental or purposeful death. This is Updike's Rabbit now with actual body angiograms of prose, and eating-at-you words - but even more enveloping, moving through the twenty-first century, Bush and Blair, MPs' Expenses, Global Warming...

The Conflation of good and bad intentions. The primacy of scientific discovery, and whose pecking-order of credit you choose to join.

And matters concerning wind turbines, like those I've been watching grow like sea-trees from the very window where I write this.

A bag of crisps on a train and an icy urination, just two of this book's mementos to start calving glaciers to enter my bloodstream.

And the Icelandic Ash Cloud - one can imagine McEwan himself or McEwan's protagonist experiencing it and becoming conflated within this wonderful novel. Just an imaginary epilogue that has nothing to do with Global Warming? Or this novel?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, April 26, 2010 - 05:25 pm:   

Soon be finished 'Stamboul Train' and what a rattling fine yarn it is too... numerous brilliantly realised and wonderfully human characters speeding across depression torn Europe caught up in a game of deadly intrigue and murder.

A master criminal on the run from a botched robbery and murder using every ounce of his ruthless survival instincts to escape the Law, an idealistic socialist returning to a martyr's trial in Belgrade for political agitation to raise a class war, an ageing lesbian newspaper reporter drinking herself into oblivion as she pursues both her pretty young lover and the story of a lifetime, a world weary Jewish businessman facing casual anti-semitism as his livelihood collapses around him, a penniless young music-hall dancer taking a chance on a dream job with her body her only bargaining tool, a bestselling author of escapist fluff puffed up on his own self-importance and incapable of accepting criticism, and various minor characters perfectly etched as real individuals by a convincing few lines of dialogue or paragraph of their mental processes - how these disparate lives come together, twine and untwine, help, hinder and destroy each other by the vagaries of fate makes for utterly gripping entertainment

Sheer genius and impossible to work out what's going to happen next or what way each character is going to turn as the train hurtles toward the end of the tracks - just like real life. No wonder this early novel sealed Greene's reputation... it says as much about the desperate times it was written in as anything by John Steinbeck.
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Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 69.236.166.143
Posted on Monday, April 26, 2010 - 10:38 pm:   

Hello: haven't been around for awhile, as I've been bust with many editing and writing projects.

I just finished reading "A Private View" my Michael Innes and am now sampling bit by bit from Peter Straub's "American Fantastic Tales." (he was the first to start following me on Twitter ,BTW; Twitter's actually great for both smart alecks and haiku writers.)

I wrote a review of Straub's "A Dark Matter" here at: http://www.redroom.com/articlestory/lost-a-meadow
(I must confess, I didn't think it his best.)

I also just posted a reminiscence on Winnie-the-Pooh at: http://www.redroom.com/articlestory/boys-like-us-christopher-robin-and-me (This may outrage the hard-boiled among you, but . . . oh well, I can take it.)

Stevie Walsh: I knew Fritz Leiber toward the end of his life and he didn't seem autistic to me. Though eighty-plus years, his mind seemed sharp as a tack. "Stamboul Train" sounds cool. Makes me think of Eric Ambler, too.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - 12:48 am:   

Thomas, I've just finished A Dark Matter and though it was wonderful: like a supernatural spin on Rashomon (which I see you mention in your review).
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.182.229.104
Posted on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - 01:13 am:   

Stevie - I just ordered "Stamboul Train" partly on the basis of your write-up and partly because it's one of the few of Greene's books I've yet to read. Looking forward to it immensely!
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Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 69.236.166.143
Posted on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - 02:39 am:   

Thanks, Zed. Yeah, my main problem with that one seemed to be the narrator; he seemed to lack a certain zeal, a *need* to find out what happened.

I have "The Skylark" (PS's earlier version) sitting on my shelf. I'm going to wait awhile to read it, so I can approach it as though it were new. That way, I hope, it will better stand on its own.

I also apologize for the terrible typos in my previous post.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - 09:21 am:   

I can certainly see where you're coming from, Thomas, but I didn't find that a problem. I found your review very interesting, btw. Good stuff.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - 10:49 am:   

Thomas, I envy you having known the man!

I didn't mean "autistic" as in stupid or any kind of insult (he's in good company - including Einstein) but rather as in Leiber's highly analytical writing style and cool, clinical detachment from emotional response - that came across very strongly, for me, in his autobiography (remember the story of the cat and his rather "odd" lack of sexual experimentation as a youth). Also the plethora of references he always sows throughout his stories and the lateral-thinking way he ties them together - 'Our Lady Of Darkness' is the finest example of that I've read to date. I think he was a genius...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - 12:14 pm:   

Oh, you think everyone's a genius.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 - 12:59 pm:   

Can I help it if I'm drawn to excellence...
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Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 69.236.166.143
Posted on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - 01:33 am:   

Especially mine

At any rate, Fritz was a genius and a gentleman too, I remember him fondly.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - 05:00 pm:   

Finished 'Stamboul Train' and it's another choker...

About to start my lastest Heinlein and a book I've been itching to read for too many years: 'Starship Troopers' (1959) that opens with the immortal line, "Come on, you apes! You wanta live forever?" - apes vs insects says it all really...
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Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 69.236.166.143
Posted on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - 10:51 pm:   

I've just started "Do They Know I'm Running?" an extremely emotional and intense noir thriller about human trafficking by David Corbett. He also wrote "The Devil's Redhead" which I liked very much.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.189.50
Posted on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - 11:31 pm:   

Starship Troopers is liquid faeces. I'm willing to believe Heinlein wrote great books, but that certainly isn't one.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.165.4
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 12:23 am:   

Currently reading 'Kissing Carrion' by Gemma Files. A brilliant collection. This woman can bloody well WRITE.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 01:55 am:   

I'm reading that too, mate. Terrific writing, but a lot of the stories are kind of weak in the narrative sense. Still, it's not spoiling my enjoyment of the collection.
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John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.142.146.96
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 09:40 am:   

The two Heinleins I did like were 'The Door into Summer' and 'Orphans of the Sky'.

I've just finished reading:

The Sixth Black Book of Horror (Marvellous - a real mix of tales. Charlie's outdone himself with this volume and I'm delighted for him).

The Beautiful Red by James Cooper - A bit too unrelentingly grim for me but well enough written.

Money Shot by Christa Faust. Hardboiled crime in the world of hardcore porn - excellent fun.

The Bleeding Horse by Brian J Showers. Deserving of its Children of the Night award and a must read for ghost story fans in general and LeFanu fans in particular.

The Dance of Death & Other Stories by Oscar Williams. So unrelentingly bad that Ed Wood seems a master in comparison. I have read the entire volume to Lady P on a nightly basis and our howls of laughter have been heard across the channel. I have now sought out another book by Mr Williams and we await the delivery of our patented surgical trusses before embarking on this next literary venture.

Solomon Kane by Ramsey Campbell. The best anyone could make of novelising what was a pretty good film to begin with. This is classic stuff and Ramsey emulates Howard's style sufficiently that this could easily stand as a book in its own right. I really enjoyed it.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 10:55 am:   

Just finished Girl with the Dragon tattoo and really enjoyed it, intelligent, complex, well written blah blah blah, all the comments Mr B made about the film stand up here.

Just started Leviathan by the awesome Mr Paul Auster.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 11:53 am:   

Bloody hell but this really is controversial stuff. My first experience of Heinlein writing in first-person narrative which puts you right there as an armed to the teeth infantryman being launched (literally) into battle with all the adrenaline pumping fear and excitement that suggests (from the first sentence you are that soldier)... only this isn't a battle but the systematic annihilation of an alien city and the wholesale slaughter of its civilian population - right down to the burning alive of a church congregation.

This immediately and ironically puts the realistically human narrator and the buddies he would die for and the entire race they fight for in the role of merciless invading villain (like the Nazi blitzkrieg or the US cavalry wiping out villages of women and children) - how anyone can miss that fact after the opening chapter is beyond me... once again this is instant-hook storytelling that isn't afraid to challenge the reader's expectations and the one casually dropped fleeting mention of Bugs - and the fear they instill - was perfectly timed to whet the appetite for what is to come. I can already tell this is gonna be one hell of a ride!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.0.170
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 04:45 pm:   

The screenplay BURIED, by Chris Sparling (which is available for download here ["for educational purposes only," the disclaimer goes]: http://www.sendspace.com/file/zggxw1 ), already shot and coming soon, starring Ryan Reynolds. I'd heard about this one... a horror movie that takes place entirely in the coffin of a man buried alive. I thought, no, not entirely entirely... but, yes, the whole movie, ala-Cell, takes place in that one coffin. Riveting, claustrophobic, thrilling, horrific, a bit heavy-handed, but overall... quite excellent....

It's spurned some copycats in the spec world: ATM, by this same author, apparently takes place entirely at an ATM machine; there's one that takes place entirely in an elevator, floating around somewhere... I wonder what's next?... LOO?...
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 04:52 pm:   

Anyone see a short Spanish film (from the 1990s I think) about a man trapped in a phone box? As he becomes increasingly desperate, people walk past and ignore him... for days.

Like pretty much every Spanish horror film, it appears to be an allegory about Franco's regime.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 04:53 pm:   

Reminds me of that film with the guy stuck inside a phone box the whole running time... no, not the one with Colin Farrell, it was very much a horror film (everyone passing ignores his plight) - think it might have been French or Spanish?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 04:54 pm:   

Great minds and all that...
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.228.141
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 05:46 pm:   

Never heard of that film, Joel/Stevie....

But, unless I'm mistaken, the one who more-or-less started this sub-sub-sub-genre?... Again, the master of horror, King, with Cujo: it's not a 100% contained thriller, but it's pretty damn close to one....
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John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.142.146.96
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 06:55 pm:   

The Spanish film is La Cabina from 1972. It had one showing on BBC2 in the early 80s in between a Saturday night horror double bill (in fact so sad am I I think it was the 'Masters of Terror' season)
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.182.229.104
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 06:57 pm:   

That's a great little film, and yes, it's Spanish - LA CABINA - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065513/
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.182.229.104
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 06:58 pm:   

Lord P.! Timing, or what?
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.233.234
Posted on Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 08:04 pm:   

Hey! Google has the whole movie for free viewing or download!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1009304612427492860#

(looks like a lousy copy though... other sites listed along the right margin might be better versions....)
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, April 30, 2010 - 09:16 am:   

I saw the same showing of La Cabina as JLP...ah, such fnd memories. Great little film. It's also on Youtube: I watched it there a few months ago.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.182.229.104
Posted on Friday, April 30, 2010 - 10:04 am:   

I've seen it twice - once on TV and once in the cinema as support. Although what it was supporting I have no idea...
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.74
Posted on Friday, April 30, 2010 - 11:28 am:   

Atlético Madrid?

(And that's the only football joke you're ever likely to get from me, you'll be relieved to know.)
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.182.229.104
Posted on Friday, April 30, 2010 - 12:23 pm:   

Atlético Madrid?

jhf

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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Friday, April 30, 2010 - 01:48 pm:   

I must have seen it on that BBC2 showing as well but to think it was that long ago is pretty scary! The fact that it remains so vivid in my memory just shows what a powerful piece of filmmaking it is.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, April 30, 2010 - 01:54 pm:   

Again, the master of horror, King, with Cujo: it's not a 100% contained thriller, but it's pretty damn close to one....

Surely Gerald's Game would be the ultimate SK entry to that sub-genre
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Friday, April 30, 2010 - 02:18 pm:   

The short horror story 'Back From The Grave' (1958) by Robert Silverberg [17th Fontana Horror] takes place entirely within a coffin but I'm sure there are earlier examples.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.24.17.53
Posted on Sunday, May 02, 2010 - 10:46 am:   

Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane. PIs Patrick Kenzie and Angie Genarro find that their latest case leads to them tangling with a serial killer. Exciting, funny and with a poignant world-weary poetry to the prose but the story becomes increasingly OTT as it reaches its conclusion. Still enjoyed the hell out of it though.

Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry. Techno-thriller where instead of the terrorists using nerve gas, nuclear weapons or computer viruses they use a genetically engineered plague that turns people into zombies. So it's up to a group of plucky agents from the top secret Department of Military Sciences to save the day. Marketed as 24 meets 28 Days Later this is good fun with plenty of action, snappy one-liners and the odd bit of gore. The large cast means that some of the characters feel slightly underdeveloped but it's first in a series so hopefully that will be addressed in the sequels.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 82.38.75.85
Posted on Monday, May 03, 2010 - 03:39 pm:   

A delay on my train from Manchester, stuck in the middle of nowhere whilst they cleared some debris from the line, gave me plenty of time to dip into a couple of books I'd bought at the Doctor Who convention yesterday (signed in person by the author, of course!).

LOVE SONGS FOR THE SHY AND CYNICAL by Rob Shearman - a collection of strange but lovely short stories on the general theme of love. The few I've read so far are quite beautiful and somehow mesmerising; real stick-in-the-mind kind of stories.

I even accidently found "The Hidden Story" when the dustjacket slipped a bit. It's written on the inside of the dustjacket! What a superb idea - especially when the story itself is about hidden messages in books.

LOOK WHO'S TALKING by Colin Baker - a compilation of some of his pieces which he's been doing as a columnist for his local newspaper over a period of years.

Great fun! I think Colin is probably the original "grumpy old man" - and I mean that in an affectionate sense as he's a lovely guy. But if you want to sample his dry wit when he's writing about his take on the absurdities of modern life, this is the book for you. I could almost hear his booming voice reading aloud in my head as I read these pieces and chuckled to myself.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, May 04, 2010 - 06:03 pm:   

I think I'm getting the gist of what Heinlein intended with 'Starship Troopers'. It's basically a political/philosophical debate about the need, or otherwise, for a nation (or planet, as here), to have an armed force and whether it is ever morally right for that force to act as aggressor for the "greater good". He is too good a writer not to present all the arguments fairly and to show the true horror and corrupting influence of war on those who fight it but it does seem clear that he himself was a Hawk who believed fervently in the necessary evil of War when it was completely unavoidable - whether for direct self defence or to nip a problem in the bud before it had a chance to arise (as in Afghanistan but patently not Iraq!). I disagree with him (and no doubt he would have seen me as an unrealistic idealist) but sadly history does seem to bear him out more times than enough.

One thing is clear, however, this book is one of the most truly thrilling and action packed sci-fi adventure novels I have read - the driving force of the narrative is unstoppable. Imagine Guy Sajer's 'The Forgotten Soldier' set on an utterly alien world and it is not difficult to understand why the US Marine Corp have this book on their recommended reading list and have even stated their aim to strive toward the efficiency and technological might displayed by Heinlein's Terran Mobile Infantry... a terrifying thought!!
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Wednesday, May 05, 2010 - 10:59 am:   

I am reading Inconceivable by Ben Elton which, while not as funny have some have said, is very well observed when it comes to matters of fertility and clinics.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.77.197
Posted on Wednesday, May 05, 2010 - 11:21 am:   

It was made in a strangely cold film called MAYBE BABY, Jon.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, May 05, 2010 - 12:01 pm:   

Still working my way through 'The Devils' and once again Dostoevsky has nailed the banality of evil and how it worms its way into otherwise ordinary lives slowly and subtly.

This time the root cause is another one of those alpha male characters, Nicholas Stavrogin, who may also be insane or diabolically possessed and whose weird acts of anti-social rebellion against society's mores draw to him a group of disenfranchised individuals who wish to make their mark against the political reality of their day with increasingly disturbing results.

They may think of themselves as committed political revolutionaries but in reality they revel in spiteful self-aggrandisement and violent troublemaking every bit as much as the BNP do today. It is already a frighteningly potent examination of sociopathic tendencies given a patina of respectability by attachment to a political "ideal" - and I'm only a third of the way through...
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Wednesday, May 05, 2010 - 02:05 pm:   

Yeah, not my usual cup of tea. Reading it because it strikes a particular chord at the moment. Elton's comic writing usually feels a bit forced and, I hate to use the word, 'populist.' I don't tend to read a lot of 'comic' fiction, but the funniest writers in my mind are Michael Marshall Smith and Joe Lansdale. Also, Conrad Williams had a really nice acerbic wit. After this I shall be reading Player of Games by Mr Iain Banks, haven't read any of his SF in ages, but after seeing him at Eastercon I feel more motivated to do so.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.230
Posted on Wednesday, May 05, 2010 - 02:11 pm:   

Elton's Popcorn was very good. The rest of his novs are just fun, really.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 - 11:51 am:   

I'm reading Chosen by Lesley Glaister - an excellent psychological thriller about religious sects.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, May 10, 2010 - 04:14 pm:   

Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Just at a major turning point in the narrative, she's switched narrators and jumped back 40 years in time.

I'm impressed at the level of feeling this has roused because I really really want to keep going following the lead character to date but I'm almost angry at the sudden switch. This is a compulsively readable book and may well be her best so far.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 03:58 pm:   

Finished 'Starship Troopers' last night and it's certainly the most politically dubious of Heinlein's books that I've read so far but also the most fascinating in the wealth of creative detail he invests in this future world.

Basically he imagines a future in which all the historically attempted forms of human government have failed - monarchy, fascism, communism, democracy, Wellsian technocracy, etc.
He then creates his own new form of government that I can only describe as a military meritocracy on a galactic scale known as the Terran Federation. All people are born equal - irrespective of gender, colour, nationality, creed, sexuality or bodily impairment and have the free choice, once they are of age, as to whether to remain civilians or become citizens. A citizen is someone who willingly volunteers for military service knowing they are putting their life on the line for the protection of the human race. Conscription is mocked as an idiotic idea and civilians are actively discouraged from enlisting unless they are 100% sure and pass the most strenuous of mental tests. Those physically unable for combat but determined to "do their bit" are made citizens and given posts within their capabilities. The only people able to vote in this system are those citizens who are not actively engaged in military service i.e. non-serving veterans. Civilians do all the other non-military work and trust those defending their way of life to govern them. I have to admire his ambition and originality while questioning whether such a system would actually work. The unrelenting power with which he writes almost persuades a person he's onto something until you disengage from the grip of the story and actually think about it. That's more than a storytelling gift imo and, like him or loathe him, a level of imagination and technical skill to unashamedly admire.

Add to that the realistic technical descriptions of future body armour, weaponry, ships and battle tactics as well as the equally convincing biological, technological and political detail he puts into the Arachnids world and Heinlein's gift becomes nothing short of astonishing. Politically naive perhaps, controversial unquestionably but entertaining and impossible to ignore - hell, yes!

Now faced with what to read next? Got three choices: 'Nightmare In The Street' by Derek Raymond, 'The Long Lost' by Ramsey Campbell or 'Waltz Into Darkness' by Cornell Woolrich.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 03:59 pm:   

Go for 'The Long Lost'...it's amazing.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 04:35 pm:   

The synopsis sounds great!

'Nightmare In The Street' looks like a quick read, though, so I'll give it a go first and then get stuck into 'The Long Lost' - sorted...
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Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown)
Username: Lincoln_brown

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 124.180.227.217
Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 04:43 pm:   

'The Unblemished', by Conrad Williams. Have only read the prologue, but I'm hooked.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.77.197
Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 04:52 pm:   

Stevie, do you ever sleep? Or do you read surreptitiously at work? :-)
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - 01:54 am:   

It's a simple strategy... I carry my books everywhere with me and read anytime I can - on the bus, during work breaks, in the pub, in the bath, in bed.

Incidentally, I'm just in from seeing my film of the year so far...
'The Ghost' is Roman Polanski at the absolute top of his game and is set to become one of the all-time classic paranoid conspiracy thrillers. Every bit as good as 'Chinatown' or 'The Parallax View' or 'The Manchurian Candidate or 'Defence Of The Realm' in that respect - I kid you not. Absolutely bloody marvellous edge-of-the-seat riveting adult suspense entertainment, my nerves are still jangling!!
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Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 193.89.189.24
Posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - 08:57 am:   

Reading the Subterranean S/L of Ligotti's 'Songs of a Dead Dreamer' which just arrived a couple days ago. It's a really beautiful edition as well.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - 10:17 am:   

What's an S/L? Sorry I'm not awake yet.
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Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 193.89.189.24
Posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - 10:30 am:   

Signed Limited. A beautiful leather bound ed.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.178.156.161
Posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - 01:10 pm:   

Currently reading Johnny Mains' "Back from the Dead" then it'll be Adam Nevill's "Apartment 16".
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - 01:39 pm:   

I loved 'The Ghost', though its persuasiveness had far more to do with Polanski's sense of atmosphere and viewpoint than with the creaky, coincidence-laden, old-school Harris plot. The direction didn't blow the cobwebs off the storyline, it just used subdued lighting to thicken them. The result is pure retro entertainment, with the rain in a starring role.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 79.64.9.233
Posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 - 02:02 pm:   

It will be on at my local cinema next week so I'll go and see it. 'Retro entertainment...' sounds good.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, May 13, 2010 - 11:36 am:   

Bloody hell but this is bleak stuff... half way through 'Nightmare In The Street' already and found myself feeling desolate and depressed after putting it down (backed up by the sickening scenes on the News).

It reads like a metaphysical prose poem on the twin mysteries of love and death disguised as a formulaic crime thriller. The writing is superb but the tone really is hard to take in one concerted read - though perversely impossible to put down at the same time. Kleber reminds me of Jack Regan in 'The Sweeney' or the doomed characters played by Warren Oates in 'Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia' or Burt Reynolds in the underrated 'Hustle' and the entire book is steeped in that unremitting hard-edged grittiness of 70s pulp crime thrillers while the stark beauty of the prose completely transcends that genre. I like the guy's style.
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Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 69.236.166.143
Posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 - 01:04 am:   

I've increased my reading rat and am currently reading two books of non-fiction: "The Negro President" by Garry Wills and "The Power broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York" by Robert Caro.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 - 10:54 am:   

Your reading rat? You encourage small rodents to read to you?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.29.247.167
Posted on Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 12:11 am:   

Finished 'Nightmare In The Street' and found it quite sublime. A crime thriller for doomed romantics everywhere and very redolent of Graham Greene in the way it uses genre conventions to draw the reader in to what is basically a love story and heartfelt meditation on the tragedy of the human condition. I think Tony would get a lot out of this book.

Read the first few chapters of 'The Long Lost' and I'm in heaven. A good old fashioned rural-set supernatural horror yarn along the lines of 'The Wicker Man' or 'The Ceremonies'. If Ramsey can sustain the effect of the wonderfully creepy opening throughout its length this could turn out to be one of his best yet (for me).
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Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 90.210.209.136
Posted on Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 12:22 am:   

The Long Lost is one of my favourite novels ever, Stevie. There's a scene - one scene in particular - which is totally devastating.
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Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 90.210.209.136
Posted on Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 12:22 am:   

And some of the dialogue is hilarious.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 10:06 pm:   

Steve, the use of dark humour is something I've noticed Ramsey getting more confident and adept at with each book... reading them in chrono order. This evil old woman, Gwendolen, is already unsettling me more than any of his previous ghostly harridans because of that very element - you can almost see the devilish twinkle in her eyes. And once again I'm amazed at the cinematic quality in the writing and the fact no one has picked up on this. That beautifully descriptive opening on the coast in Wales is just crying out to be filmed imho! And Herb's stalking of his wife in Chapter 6 is pure Hitchcock or De Palma.

Yes, he's done it again!
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.109.134.168
Posted on Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 11:23 pm:   

I really must revisit The Long Lost. I think that I last read it when I was about 18 and utterly loved it. However, time has dulled my memories of it.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 01:11 am:   

Read the first few chapters of 'The Long Lost' and I'm in heaven. A good old fashioned rural-set supernatural horror yarn along the lines of 'The Wicker Man' or 'The Ceremonies'.

Eh? Did we read the same book? The Long Lost wasn't anything like that for me - it's a weird, unclassifiable masterpiece.
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Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 80.63.26.125
Posted on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 01:43 am:   

The Long Lost is one of my favourite Campbell novels as well.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 02:03 am:   

It certainly started that way, with the innocent couple out for a weekend motoring break in the Welsh countryside stumbling upon that strange coastal village and resident witch (all wonderfully atmospheric), but has since gone day another weirder and more disorienting path. I'm reminded of Alan Garner; ancient myth invading the present, the countryside invading the town.

Already a quarter through and it's a pure joy to read.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.237.149
Posted on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 03:32 am:   

Just read, from the big ol' mystery tome, a short story by an author named Stephen Greenleaf, called "Iris." Apparently he is a mystery novelist, and in fact, has ever written but a single short story... this one, way back in 1984. But WOW!!! What a sole short story to have written! A gut-wrenching tale, quite stunning. Truly, a loss, if this guy ain't but written one of these. I wonder how he is as a novelist?...
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.129.15
Posted on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 11:30 am:   

I can't read still, and have also lost interest in let alone ability to write. Feel awful, actually.
But then we've heard this before. Maybe I'll be another Stephen Greenleaf, with any luck.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 12:20 pm:   

Your motivation will return, Tony. What was the last book or short story you really enjoyed?
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.248.54
Posted on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 05:27 pm:   

I too lost all interest in reading - especially fiction of any kind - for almost a whole year, Tony. Then, it inexplicably came back. The discovery of both old joys and new - because if you haven't read 'em, they're new to you! - helped me through it.

Though I still read not nearly as much or as fast as Stevie.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Sunday, May 16, 2010 - 07:40 pm:   

I do take breaks, sometimes for years, which generally coincide with being in a relationship lol.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Monday, May 17, 2010 - 11:02 am:   

Finished Chosen by Leslie Glaister. This contained one of the best narrative turns I've seen in any book ever. I recommend it very very highly.

Started Kraken by Meiville and really enjoying that as well.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.16.8.175
Posted on Monday, May 17, 2010 - 12:42 pm:   

Trouble in Paradise by Robert B Parker. Second in Parker's Jesse Stone series. Smalltown police chief and recovering alcholic Jesse Stone thinks the worst he has to deal with is teenaged arsonists and local politics. But then a gang of crooks roll into town with big plans and big guns...

Parker delivers his usual stripped-down prose and snappy one-liners. Jesse is obviously cut from the same cloth as Parker's more famous creation Spenser but is more taciturn and less of a smartarse. And his drinking, plus the unresolved situation with his ex-wife, means he's more like the Spenser of The Widening Gyre, Valediction and A Catskill Eagle where you're not quite sure if he's going to manage to stick to his moral code. And seeing things from the crooks POV as they plan and carry out their heist allows Parker to explore his usual themes of love, loyalty and honour from a different angle, giving the book a slightly more Elmore Leonard feel.

Tightly told story with the emphasis on characterisation but with a few action scenes thrown in to keep things moving. Good fun.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.172.184.103
Posted on Thursday, May 20, 2010 - 11:15 am:   

The Peacock's Eye by Frances Oliver. A long lost classic?
http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/the_peacocks_eye__by_frances_oliver.htm
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 82.2.64.167
Posted on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 09:17 am:   

Hype and Glory by William Goldman. Non-fiction account of the year that he was a judge at the Cannes film festival and the Miss America Pageant. All while going through upheavals in his personal life. I'm not overly interested in the subject matter but Goldman's prose is entertaining and highly readable.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Friday, May 21, 2010 - 11:16 am:   

The Conan Chronicles vol 2. Damn but these are entertaining! Sure they're corny as hell but for sheer energy the Conan stories are just terrific. There's also some great weird imagery in some of them.
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 91.103.168.21
Posted on Sunday, May 23, 2010 - 02:53 pm:   

Regarding The Long Lost, as a poster mentioned above (and I am going to assume we're talking about the same thing here) that great long sequence about two-thirds through the book is absolutely devastating, and truly one of the most unforgettable and haunting things I've read in any novel. Though The Long Lost is not one of my favourite Ramsey reads, this section of the book has lingered in my mind over and above perhaps anything else in any Ramsey full-length,
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Sunday, May 23, 2010 - 11:56 pm:   

Half way through 'The Long Lost' and getting a bit worried after reading that as it's been unnerving enough up to now!

It's written very much in the fragmentary style of 'Incarnate' or 'The Hungry Moon' with various different storylines and groups of characters converging around a common evil. What lifts it above those earlier novels, so far, is the wicked and pitch perfect sense of humour that runs through every scene.

I wonder how much of an influence this modern style of grinning horror had on the people who created such sitcoms as; 'The League Of Gentlemen', 'Psychoville', 'The Mighty Boosh', 'Nighty Night', etc... with their concentration on the nightmarishly absurd?
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.23.233.247
Posted on Monday, May 24, 2010 - 12:45 pm:   

I kept wincing at the seeming anti-Welshness though. I couldn't decide if it was Ramsey being it or the characters. I didn't finish it. :-(
I read Philip K Dick's biography recently and loved the first half or so, but then he was just mad for the rest of it and it was hard to stick with. I found myself disliking him, as well as being given such insight into his works I found myself unable to easily read them any more. It was like finding how a clock works and so not having to look at the hands any more. :-(
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, May 24, 2010 - 12:57 pm:   

Give it another go, Tony, I'm finding it one of his most assured novels. Like everything is clicking just right. I don't detect any explicit anti-Welshness just the observation that they can appear a tad stand-offish and suspicious of outsiders which is something I found myself on visits there and is entirely their prerogative. Awaits a storm of controversy...

I'd need to write a book to respond to your comment on Philip K. Dick. Suffice it to say he was one hell of a complicated watch! I don't think half the implications of his astonishing body of work have been realised yet.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 61.216.48.62
Posted on Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - 07:02 am:   

I'm Welsh and I didn't detect any real 'anti-Welshness', just some observations on how some Welsh people act around outsiders.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 61.216.48.62
Posted on Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - 07:05 am:   

... and how people from outside sometimes see the Welsh, I suppose. It's been ages since I read The Long Lost but I honestly can't recall being uncomfortable with any of the portrayals of Welsh folk.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 04:21 pm:   

This book is starting to get very uncomfortable. I can feel myself literally starting to sweat reading it... <gulp>
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.158.58.28
Posted on Thursday, May 27, 2010 - 11:48 pm:   

Just started reading "REMEMBER YOU'RE A ONE-BALL!" by Quentin S Crisp.

Also real-time reviewing it:
http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/remember_youre_a_oneball__by_quentin_s_crisp.ht m
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.249.28
Posted on Sunday, May 30, 2010 - 09:40 pm:   

Still going through this large Stanley Ellin short story collection. All are entertaining, some middling, but some real gems. The last one I read was pure genius, a story worthy of de Maupassant, "The Last Bottle in the World." That makes a series of sheer genius Ellin stories, including: "The House Party," "The Specialty of the House," "The Blessington Method," "The Moment of Decision," "Robert," "The Nine-to-Five Man," "The Payoff," and a supremely unsettling, almost presciently contemporary, post-modern - hell, post-supernatural! - horror story, "Reasons Unknown." All worth seeking out... and I hope, a few others I still have to get to....
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.74
Posted on Monday, May 31, 2010 - 12:14 pm:   

Tony, I was once literally unable to read fiction for about six months.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.158.58.28
Posted on Wednesday, June 02, 2010 - 09:28 am:   

I've finished reading 'Remember You're a One--Ball!". The most singular novel I've ever read, with some connection with Ligottian (Corporate) Horror in feel, but essentially unique.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, June 02, 2010 - 01:04 pm:   

Only a few chapters left of 'The Long Lost' and I've never been more unsure of where a horror novel is going. Steve & Patrick mentioned one particular passage as the most devastating Ramsey has written and I think I know the bit they're referring to but, in truth, the whole final third has been one brilliantly written and emotionally powerful crisis after another for the groups of characters involved and I can't help fearing the worst is yet to come...

I get the impression Ramsey was striving for something completely original with this one and the effect is like one of those multi-strand urban dramas - or a series of gritty short stories - tied together by the subtle intrusion of supernatural evil that may or may not be pulling the strings. So subtle and underplayed are the supernatural elements that one wonders how any of the characters could possibly become aware of the threat they face unless our gleefully malicious villain (or is she?) makes an uncharacteristic blunder... intriguingly unpredictable is how I'd describe this one.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Wednesday, June 02, 2010 - 01:16 pm:   

Very much a book that uses the supernatural to emphasise the darker aspects of normal life, rather than one where people have to fight off a supernatural intrusion to get their normal life back. It's one of my favourite RC novels.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 10:26 am:   

Just starting King Death by Toby Litt - Very good it it too by the opening chapters.

Finished Kraken last night - Meiville managed to make London into nearly as weird a city as New Crobuzon. It was a slight shame that the characterisation wasn't as good as his other books though.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 10:26 am:   

very good it IS


my kingdom for an edit button
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John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.122.209.76
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 12:05 pm:   

I liked The Long Lost a lot.

I'm currently reading

The Bitten Word - Ian Whates' vampire anthology which has cracking tales from Simon Clark and Gary McMahon

Eat Them Alive by Pierce Nace - The infamous 'ultimate NEL nasty' from the 70s about giant bloodthirsty praying mantises which is utterly utterly awful in all the best ways

Masque of a Savage Mandarin by Philip Robinson.
This is the Probert Towers 'Book at Bedtime' at the moment. Lady P is currently being entertained by my reading of this bizarre tale of a man who is convinced his purpose in life is to destroy cell by cell the brain of his next door neighbour when he's not asking him complicated mathematics questions involving three prostitutes, two clients and a flying sausage. Oh, and a preacher has just had his head sawn off to provide our central character with a new skull, and the man from the electricity board has just had his brain wiped.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 12:17 pm:   

Should finish 'The Long Lost' today and it's been the most emotionally punishing of all Ramsey's novels to date (for me). Structurally it harks back to 'Incarnate' & 'The Hungry Moon' but in overall effect I've found it most like another one of my favourites, 'Obsession', with its potent characterisation, all too human tragedy (leavened by pitch black humour) and hints of the supernatural that could just be coincidence or all in the characters/readers' minds. Maybe Gwendolen is just a harmless old eccentric after all? Hmmmmm... this book plays some devious tricks.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 12:56 pm:   

'Eat Them Alive'... that doesn't half bring me back, can still see that lurid cover in my mind's eye.
Many's an argument was had in the schoolyard about who would win; giant crabs or mantises or spiders or ants, etc. Happy carefree times.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 82.2.65.112
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 01:30 pm:   

Grandville by Bryan Talbot. Steampunk espionage thriller set in a world populated by anthropomorphic animals and where France won the Napoleonic war.

Also Essential Captain America Vol 1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Daft but full of energy. And it's strange to see Cap written with a sense of humour; somewhere along the way he turned into Mr Serious.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 01:45 pm:   

I liked Grandville a lot, but I wish it had been a bit longer and the 9/11 thread of it a bit more suble. Heart of Empire and Alice in Sunderland are still my favourite Talbot books.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 82.2.65.112
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 01:52 pm:   

The 9/11 thread was incredibly subtle. I didn't finish the book feeling like I'd been hit over the head with a hammer at all.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 01:58 pm:   

I've got two 5 hour train journeys this weekend. I think I'm going to take Mr Vertigo (Paul Auster) for when I finish King Death and a Mo Hayder for when I finish the Auster.

I'm not sure if I should take Horns (Joe Hill) as backup in case I finish the Hayder as well...
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 02:08 pm:   

Hmm, I think it was more the idea that 9/11 was an inside conspiracy which left me a little uneasy. Thinking along those lines I feel is counterproductive and just massively misguided. However,I did detect an element of tongue-in-cheek so Talbot may well have meant it as a satirical element. It just didn't sit entirely right with me. Overall though, a beautiful book.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 82.2.65.112
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 02:14 pm:   

Yeah, I wasn't sure if Talbot is actually pro-conspiracy theories re: 9/11 or if it was just a case of introducing complications into the plot just to keep things interesting.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 02:23 pm:   

I hope to god it's the former. I used to work with a guy who believed 9/11 was an inside job and to call him a c*nt is to denigrate c*nts.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 05:11 pm:   

Sorry, I actually meant the latter. Read what you type, Oliver. Read what you type!

I've met Talbot on several occasions and he's a really nice guy.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 06:36 pm:   

Jon, I'm with you in broad terms but we actually know that the anthrax attacks, which killed two people, came from the CIA – the US Government admitted as much, saying those responsible had no authorisation. When that happens, it's not surprising that some people extrapolate to reach ridiculous conclusions. Insane times have an impact on unstable people.
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 217.171.129.68
Posted on Thursday, June 03, 2010 - 06:46 pm:   

I thought I'd read The Silence of the Lambs as I found it in the bookcase in my holiday home. It's not the sort of thing I would have ever read twelve months ago, but I'm enjoying it. I've just read two proof copies of novels by Neil Cross and finished each of them in two days. Burial in particular was superb. I picked it up at work, read the first page and was hooked; something that doesn't usually happen to me! Has anyone else come across his books?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 01:04 am:   

we actually know that the anthrax attacks, which killed two people, came from the CIA – the US Government admitted as much, saying those responsible had no authorisation.

Are you serious, Joel!!

...or am I missing another one of your jokes (hope so)!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.226.233
Posted on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 04:50 am:   

I think they've identified the anthrax guy as a rogue lunatic of some kind, sketchy on what finally has come out about that... but it was definitely not anything the government ordered... or even "ordered".... Even terribly cynical I don't want to believe the government is anthraxing its own citizens for utterly inexplicable reasons... to foment pure terror and chaos....

Well, I've now read my exactly second Cornell Woolrich story, "The Dancing Detective" (original title: "Dime A Dance," 1938), second only because it was the only other one I could locate in my entire local library (in an anthology: MASTERPIECES OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE). Though not as taut as "Rear Window," it was certainly a gripping, tension-filled piece; starts with little fanfare, ends with a bam; wastes no time with window dressing, but manages to humanize its characters with quick, deft slashes (pun). Two out of two: excellent! Will keep looking for more....
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 10:34 am:   

Didn't know that Joel. What pisses me off about conspiracy theories about 9/11 is that it's not a progressive or useful way of looking at the world, it's actually very damaging. But like you say, it's hardly surprising that in a Bush era that was some people's reactions. When that twat was in power, you sort of believed in the very very unlikely.

Anyway, back on topic. Finished reading The Everlasting which was terrifically written and had a great sense of otherness about it, that you get from the best of Lovecraftian fiction. I think that Lebbon could have perhaps gone on a bit longer and I can understand the open-endedness of it, but I sorted of wanted to stay in the world of the fiction a bit longer.

Now reading Captains Outrageous by Joe R. Lansdale. Terrifically entertaining as you would expect.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 04:32 pm:   

Just finished 'The Long Lost' and still marshalling my thoughts on it (but see the 'Shootings' thread)... I think it may be Ramsey's masterpiece (getting a bit tired of saying that, when is he going to have a dip in form?!?!).

Started 'The Earth Wire And Other Stories' by Joel Lane (see the 'Prejudices...' thread), which has been given the honour of displacing 'Cornish Tales Of Terror' temporarily.

Tonight I intend to start 'Ripley Under Water' with mixed feelings, but mainly excitement. Patricia Highsmith makes everyone else's crime fiction look parochial by comparison and Ripley is, deservedly, her greatest creation.

After that I have 'The Unlimited Dream Company' lined up.

And still chipping away through 'Lankhmar' and 'The Devils'... watch this space.

Phew.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 05:06 pm:   

I thought Ripley Under water was one of the best - remembering that there is no further sequel, the tension is ratchetted up another several notches as this could easily be the one where he gets his comeuppance.

Check out all her other books as well - the Blunderer is exceptionally good.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Friday, June 04, 2010 - 06:12 pm:   

Stevie, the official story was that the anthrax attacks came from a CIA unit acting without Government authorisation, trying to provoke an increase in security levels. As it's unlikely the US Government would admit anything of the kind unless it were undeniable, I assume that to be reasonably close to the truth.

Besides, do you really think an Arab terrorist would write a note (in childlike print) saying 'DEATH TO AMERICA AND ISRAEL'? That alone made the US origin of the packages pretty obvious.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Saturday, June 05, 2010 - 05:38 pm:   

All very 'X-Files', Joel, but I remain to be convinced, while it wouldn't surprise me in the least at the same time.

You don't happen to read 'Lobster' magazine, the Journal of Parapolitics, Intelligence and State Research? You'd love it! Sort of a sister mag of 'Fortean Times' and very highly respected. They cover all this kind of stuff in great detail. Essential reading for paranoiacs everywhere!
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.219.169
Posted on Sunday, June 06, 2010 - 12:56 pm:   

This was covered in the mainstream news media, Stevie. Not on far-fetched conspiracy theory websites. It *is* the official version.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Sunday, June 06, 2010 - 03:19 pm:   

'Lobster' is the mainstream news media, Joel. It's considered the official word on the stories that usually get buried.

You have me intrigued enough to look into this one.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.184.226.144
Posted on Sunday, June 06, 2010 - 05:26 pm:   

Greg Bear's "Eon"...
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 217.171.129.68
Posted on Monday, June 07, 2010 - 01:19 am:   

This Is How by M J Hyland. I'm loving this.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.140.73
Posted on Monday, June 07, 2010 - 11:18 am:   

Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese by Patrick Leigh Fermor. Wonderful writer and will work through all his books. His attention to detail makes the work rich and spellbinding. The intention to learn about the history of the people he stays with on his travels is a delight. Couldn't put the book down. So much mythology, geography and the passion of the storytelling Mani. Often with the usual amusing hyperbole on their part but it raises a smile :>).
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.232.47
Posted on Monday, June 07, 2010 - 05:14 pm:   

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived In The Castle, which apparently is in pre-production right now, Michael Douglas producing, Rachel McAdams rumored to star....
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.243.103
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 07:26 am:   

Took a break halfway through that one above (excellent, by the way...) to read my exactly 3rd Cornell Woolrich story ever: "Momentum" (orig. "Murder Always Gathers Momentum," 1940), found in another anthology (of Alfred Hitchcock teleplays) - and now Mr. W is 3 for 3! A master of suspense, and storytelling - no-frills, primal energy, simple story/through-line, emotional manipulation blatant yet still potent - doesn't get much better than this. More, more, must find more....
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.221.252
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 09:02 am:   

One of my favourite Woolrich stories, Craig. If you can find any of the collections or reprinted novels from the 1980s onwards, grab them. When you start working through his original collections, of which there are many, it gets a bit less certain but you'll rarely be let down. If you can find them, get hold of the novel Rendezvous in Black and the collection Dead Man Blues. Wow.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.241.3
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 09:09 am:   

Woolrich had a kind of subterranean influence on the supernatural horror genre: his fatalistic, grim psychological thrillers influenced Bradbury, Matheson, Bloch and Ellison among others, as well as having a more obvious influence on Thomas Harris. Oddly, Woolrich wasn't very good at supernatural horror: that just wasn't the way his creative mind worked. But he could invest crime stories with a bleak, depressive mood that was unmistakeably that of great weird fiction.
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 11:49 am:   

I'm not trying to be awkward but I have to say that Woolrich was fond of a stylistic device that annoys me no end: the conceit that from a character's point of view an object or situation might not be readily graspable.

For instance, Woolrich might write something like, "A lonely road at night. Two pale discs moving closer. Headlights." Or else: "Movement in the bush. Long and furtive. Weasel."

I hate it when authors pretend to know less than they do. That's even worse than when they pretend to know more than they do. Woolrich knew all along it was headlights and a weasel: he invented the fuckers for Chrissake! Don't invent something and then pretend it appeared from somewhere else: that's the opposite of embezzelment and it's a very eccentric and contrived thing to do!

Sorry Joel. I'm not disagreeing just for the sake of disagreeing (as I normally do) but because this stylistic device really does annoy me.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 12:01 pm:   

But, Rhys, if it's written from the character's PoV, that's a perfectly valid device. It's not the author who is fialing to grasp what he's seeing; it's the character.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 12:07 pm:   

That's what I was just about to say lol.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.157.25.52
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 12:13 pm:   

And me. :-)
There is also much experimentation in fiction with unreliable narrators, authorial collusion and mis-collusion etc etc.
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:14 pm:   

> But, Rhys, if it's written from the character's PoV, that's a perfectly valid device. It's not the author who is failing to grasp what he's seeing; it's the character.

But there are no such things as a "character". There is only the author and the reader. The only two characters in any work of fiction are the author and the reader. So-called "characters" in the story itself are merely words on a page.

For an author to write something from a words-on-a-page's PoV but to make it less aware than his own characterful PoV smacks to me of rank fraud. When we are reading a book there's a real author out there who is trying to tell us something: that's what's important, not what a words-on-a-page "character" is supposedly "experiencing" or "perceiving".

I find it bizarre when people empathise with "characters" that don't exist. I have known some readers to actually weep at the plight of a "character"! Does the "character" ever return the favour? Never. Why? Because that "character" is only words on a page.

My characters are never allowed to forget the fact they are fictional, that they are just words on a page. They don't expect you to waste your empathy on them. They never actually die or suffer pain, so why should you waste tears and feelings on them? In fact my characters feel sorry for you, the reader, because you are real: you ARE the one who's going to die or suffer pain, not them. The worst that can happen to them is that they might end up as part of a word salad.

A real reader feeling sympathy for the plight of words on a page strikes me as no less absurd than a tramp donating his last penny to the Queen.

Characters don't need empathy; save it for yourself. You DO need it. Or empathise with the author, but not with mere words on a page. Please!

RhysCorp -- toeing the metafictional line in perpetuity. No job too small.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.154.208
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:19 pm:   

Should I feel the need to kick RhysCorp in the bollocks? After all, he's just words on a screen. :-)
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:19 pm:   

My opinions on this are the polar opposite of yours. Ho-hum: horses for courses.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.157.25.52
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:20 pm:   

That's very interesting, Rhys, and my novel 'Nemonymous Night' is on that very subject.

But in many fiction works' aspirations, there is such a goal as 'suspension of disbelief' regarding plot, scene and character...seeking a belief and empathy.
Some obtain it better than others.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.154.208
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:21 pm:   

Seriously, if that's true, Rhys, why write fiction at all? Why not just write non-fiction? It's far less fuss. You can get your ideas across without getting some bloke out of bed and into his comfortable clothes and then into the world to prompt the thoughts. Cut the middle man out, as it were.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:23 pm:   

Or, indeed, why write about people at all? Use cardboard boxes or leaves as characters instead.

This is interesting, though, and has helped crystallise the reasons why I simply don't respond to some types of fiction: for me, it's all about the emotion.
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:37 pm:   

Oh I don't really believe any of that bollocks. But it's different. Nobody else says things like that. I do wait for them to, but they don't.

There is (or can be) a power in metafictional writing that is emotional as well as intellectual, by the way.

I ought to write a proper essay on this subject sometime.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.12.129.12
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:45 pm:   

I know a book is really good when I get upset if a character dies. Without feeling for the characters, even though they are just "words on a page", then horror fiction can't work. In fact no fiction can be satisfactory. If you can't make the reader to empathise with the characters' plight, you can't elicit any reaction from the reader.

This weekend I finished King Death - a very good if lightweight read, although the last few chapters seemed rushed - and I also read Mr Vertigo by Paul Auster.

Mr vertigo is easily the best thing I've read so far this year. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it messed with my emotions no end and thats on top of the pure blissful lucid prose you always get from paul Auster. I think he is rising through the ranks and may soon rank in my top 3 favourite authors.
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:46 pm:   

Mind you, this does raise the question of why write fiction at all? As Gary said, why not write non-fiction if all I'm interested in is getting across ideas...

The answer is that with fiction it's possible to present not just ideas but unpalatable ideas with less risk of censure.

Suppose, for example, I wanted to air the idea that maybe equality is wrong, that hierarchy and elitism are right (incidentally I DON'T want to air this idea; it's just an example) then I could do that in non-fiction only at the risk of being tarred with an elitist brush. But in a fictional form I could air the idea without being told off.

And bear in mind that I might want to air that idea just to get some debate going on it. It would be unfair to be tarred wrongly in such a case.

The chance to present unpalatable ideas, situations and truths in public without being condemned: that's surely the main justification for fiction. Isn't it?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.154.208
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:54 pm:   

Maybe. But I'd also argue that in fiction there's the necessity of elucidating the immutable dimensions of being, so that any false note - which would be easily struck in a non-fiction essay - jars noticeably and tellingly among the lived experience shared by the reader and the author.

Also, some ideas make no sense without embodied contextualisation. Think how hard it is to tell someone how to drive without actually demonstrating with embodied cues. Therefore, fictional characters contexualise ideas, and since ideas are about our experience of reality, then using characters as a meta-fictional vehicle facilitates comprehension and exploration.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.12.129.12
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:56 pm:   

But to get those ideas across effectively, you have to involve the reader in the characters' emotional lives. Otherwise it just turns into an intellectual exercise and won't get anyone involved or excited about it.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.154.208
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:56 pm:   

As someone once said:

Tell me and I'll forget.
Show me and I may remember.
Involve me and I'll never forget.

Fiction is a perfect vehicle for the third - and most valuable - of those instructions.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.154.208
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:57 pm:   

Yes, what Weber just said.

Involve is the word.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.154.208
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 01:58 pm:   

Mind you . . .

>>>Otherwise it just turns into an intellectual exercise and won't get anyone involved or excited about it.

You've obviously never met a professor in cognitive psychology. :-)
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.154.208
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 02:00 pm:   

We can easily be involved by good essays, tho. So fiction isn't the one royal road.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 02:30 pm:   

A friend of mine, a remarkably talented writer (not one who has ever turned up or been mentioned here), has in my view wasted five or more years trying obsessively to make the reader 'care about' his characters. He dismissed one of my favorite recent films on the grounds that 'the viewer doesn't feel for the characters'. His insistence that his readers must 'identify with' his protagonist is, my mind, laying waste to his creative talent.

However, I don't see anything wrong with the reader sharing the protagonist's subjectivity: their blind spots, delusions, etc. That can be highly effective as a way of intensifying viewpoint. Woolrich's use of the unreliable viewpoint is one of his most influential techniques, and of course it links him to the weird fiction genre as it is a technique used heavily by M.R. James and others.

Woolrich was also a pioneer of 'real time' narrative: the storytelling technique whereby the time taken to read about an event is roughly equivalent to the time the event would take to happen. That facilitates the use of subjective viewpoint within an strongly event-driven story. It's one of the core innovations of pulp fiction.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 02:35 pm:   

I don't think you need to care about a character per se; but you do need to believe in that character's reality and invest something emotionally in his or her experiences. For instance, I love books and films about unlikeable characters.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 02:35 pm:   

Hey, Rhys – doesn't Arthur Machen do that all the time? I think you'll find he does, most notably in 'The Terror'. So nerr.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 02:35 pm:   

Joel - have you been receiving my emails? I suspect that something's amiss...
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 02:36 pm:   

(I mean specifically, giving a viewpointed observation that is then corrected or at least clarified further down the line.)
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 02:38 pm:   

Zed, see recent e-mail response.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 02:44 pm:   

Hmmm...I didn't receive one. Email tomfoolery is afoot!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 05:13 pm:   

Sorry, Rhys, but your understanding of literature and my own are diametrically opposed. I could never begin to understand your artistic world view... and I find that thought quite exhilirating!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 05:20 pm:   

Exhilarating even... sigh
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.248.64
Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 05:22 pm:   

I will most certainly look for those books, Joel!

I think something to remember, is the very act of picking up a book to read, by the reader. No one is capable of performing a purposeless act, is my own belief - and anyone who picks up a work of fiction to read, is reading at all TO be engaged, on some level somewhere, on all levels most of the time (or to pick it apart - leave those nasties aside). There is a part of the reader's mind that's always saying: I'm here, writer, and I'm willing to play along - so engage me.

Woolrich (taking him, because I've just been reading him), seems to have figured out exactly what produces "sugar-rushes" in the readers' minds: petting the dog (the found love in "The Dancing Detective"), kicking the cat (the poor wife in "Momentum"), getting the privilege of keeping a very special secret along with the protagonist ("Rear Window"), the attendant lonely punishment of carrying around such a secret (the Hitchcockian lone hero on the run), escalating tension, the inescapable trap, etc. What's so remarkable about him so far, is he wastes almost no time, before presenting to the reader those very items in XXL sizes.

Woolrich (again, the example here) has seemed to figure out right away the simplest rule of writing: that the reader wants to be swept away, right away. The best writers deliver on that.
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 10:25 am:   

Re Woolrich: I simply don't like some of the stylistic devices he uses. It's just a question of taste. I don't object to anyone else liking Woolrich, obviously. I'm not a fan of "pared down" prose and never have been.

As for the emotional debate above: please don't forget that it's possible to receive a strong emotional charge from intellectual satisfaction. I know that's an unpopular view right now, but it's true nonetheless.

Take Borges. There's no characterisation of any sort in the works of Borges. When you read Borges you are dealing with the author almost directly, with his intellect, but the pleasure to be found in his stories, in his astounding concepts and conceits, is intense; this pleasure is emotional as well as cerebral, indeed they are inseparable.

As another example, Donald Barthelme is one of my favourite short story writers, but he doesn't rely on characterisation to make an impact. In fact his "characters" barely exist in the orthodox sense: the reader's pleasure comes from engaging with him almost directly. He is one of the two main characters in all his fiction, and you, the reader, are the other.

Lem is another good example of an amazing writer for whom characterisation isn't necessarily of great significance; Cendrars is another; Perec is another; Vian is another; Calvino is another. The list goes on.

What are we to make of Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style -- a brief retelling of the same story 99 times? The joy of that book comes in the way Queneau manipulates form: by telling the same story in a different style he changes the story each time, showing how form can control content. There's no characterisation worthy of the name in that book, but it's still a brilliant work of fiction.

What I'm saying is that there's an overemphasis on the importance of "characterisation". It's the ethic and aesthetic of the Creative Writing Class where a sentence such as "the not unbrown dog ran not unfrantically over the not ungreen field" is tantamount to a sin or a crime, and where "character interaction" is the Holy Grail, the only worthwhile quality in any writing endeavour.

I simply don't believe that. Great characterisation is nice, yes, but what about ideas? Is it simply too difficult for most authors to create original ideas? Is that why they are denigrated in favour of characterisation?
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 10:31 am:   

Further to the above...

One of the most delightful and involving books I've ever read is Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. The story of a square in a two-dimensional universe and his attempts to understand the wordview of a visiting sphere from a three-dimensional universe.

Characterisation? Minimal. Psychological depth. Less than minimal.

In essence it's a lecture on hyperspatial geometry in fictional form. Intellectual in an extreme degree (genuinely mind expanding) and emotionally exciting as a result. As for being involving: it made me want to share the workings of hyperspatial geometry to other people. That's quite involving, I think.
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Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 65.110.174.71
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 11:50 am:   

Surely both strands, the idea-driven metafiction and the emotional/character-based story, can be equally valid modes of writing. There's plenty of room for both types, at least in my world. Some days I feel like reading Woolrich, others Borges. They are both great writers, just ones with different creative drives.

In fact, I feel that some of the truly great stories in the world offer *both* strands at once.

I always try to engage readers with believable characters, honest dialogue, and scenes of stirring emotion. Yet I also weave ideas (or attempt to, at least) into the plot, something that sticks with the reader and hopefully inspires them to think and talk about what they've read.

An example of this kind of two-pronged Horror story that leaps immediately to mind is T.E.D. Klein's "Nadelman's God."
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 11:59 am:   

Anyhew, as to what we is reading...

Just finished Captains Outrageous by Joe Lansdale, which is great fun. Lansdale manages to balance laugh-out-loud dialogue with dark, vicious crime fiction. Possibly not one of the strongest Hap and Leonard adventures, but there's a sadness to this novel as both realise that they are drifting apart from each other and growing older.

Now reading Un-Lun-Dun by China Mieville. 'Tis a kid's book with pictures and everything.

After this I shall be reading some Sturgeon, before checking out Adam Neville's latest.
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:13 pm:   

> In fact, I feel that some of the truly great stories in the world offer *both* strands at once.

I agree with you, Richard. But the truth is that ideas-based fiction is (more often than not) considered to be less significant and profound than character-based fiction. I have come across this prejudice again and again in the past 20 years.
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Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin)
Username: Richard_gavin

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 65.110.174.71
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:25 pm:   

Rhys: Very good point. Like you, I believe idea-based fiction can be every bit as stimulating and worthwhile as character-driven fiction.

In fact, a project I've been trying to write for some time is a Horror story that involves monsters and monsters only; no human characters, no human pathos/anxieties injected into the monster's make up. I want to see if I can conjure an ideaspace that is compelling but utterly alien. I don't know how it will eventually pan out, but at least I'll know that the basic concept will have the support of RhysCorp.

Oh, and getting this thread back on track: I'm reading Darkness, edited by Ellen Datlow.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:27 pm:   

Ideas and characterisation are not mutually exclusive but that should go without saying.
I love the works of Borges. His ideas tend to agree with my own personal philosophy and view of the universe, as also Jung.

'Flatland' is one of those seminal classics I've long wanted to read. Must seek out a copy.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:28 pm:   

"But there are no such things as a "character". There is only the author and the reader. The only two characters in any work of fiction are the author and the reader. So-called "characters" in the story itself are merely words on a page.

For an author to write something from a words-on-a-page's PoV but to make it less aware than his own characterful PoV smacks to me of rank fraud. When we are reading a book there's a real author out there who is trying to tell us something: that's what's important, not what a words-on-a-page "character" is supposedly "experiencing" or "perceiving".

I find it bizarre when people empathise with "characters" that don't exist. I have known some readers to actually weep at the plight of a "character"! Does the "character" ever return the favour? Never. Why? Because that "character" is only words on a page. "

This is the statement we have been refuting.

In the hands of a good writer, a character isn't just words on a page. A character becomes a living and breathing person sharing our heads with us while we have the book in our hands. A great writer makes you invest emotionally in the people in his/her stories and see the world through their eyes - with characters like Ripley you may not feel entirely comfortable having him sat in your left cortex sharing a nice glass of whisky but he's there.

For evidence of emotional attachment to characters, check out the amazon reviews of Skin Privelege by Karin Slaughter and see what the reaction can be when an author definitively kills off a central character in a long running series.

I've no doubt that the writers you name are very good writers, but the best books combine ideas with characters. To take one or the other out of the equation lessens the experience of reading. This is of course all IMHO.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:29 pm:   

Warning - there's a spoiler in my previous post for any readers of Karin Slaughter's books.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.230
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:32 pm:   

Let's not be prescriptive. Let's just celebrate good fiction in any form. Let's just wade into incompetent drivel.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:36 pm:   

BTW - one of my favourite Bradbury stories is "And there will come soft Rains" which is about a robot controlled house slowly breaking down. Let alone not having any humans in it, the only living creature in it is the family dog which crawls in and dies within a couple of sentences.

But that story manages to be one of the most intensely moving things I've read.

But one of the reasons for that is that the personality of the family is infused in the house, the music it plays, the decorations... we feel the loss of the family through the emptiness of the house and it's automated attempts to keep going despite the absence of any person to give it meaning.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:40 pm:   

What a joy 'Ripley Under Water' is... Patricia Highsmith returned to her beloved character after 11 years determined to bring the series to a finish worthy of him.

I'm already a third of the way through and loving the playful sense of excitement the author imparts in every single paragraph. She clearly went back over the previous four books, absorbed every detail, looked for every remotest loose strand in his history and took her time devising the ultimate satisfaction for the committed fan by tying them all up integrated with one final plot of blinding simplicity and appropriateness.

With one devastating phone call every one of Tom's sins come back to haunt him with a vengeance and he has no idea who was on the other end of the line. Suspense fiction simply doesn't get any better than this! Utterly superb!!

I don't want this book to ever end...
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.230
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:42 pm:   

>>>Suspense fiction simply doesn't get any better than this!

It will, Steve. It will.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:43 pm:   

I'll pop round and tear the last chapter out for you if you want.

Then I can tear it into little pieces, hide them all over and send you cryptic clues about where to find them.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:44 pm:   

We empathise with characters because, as humans, we have empathy. Empathy is one of those things that makes reading worth doing surely?

As for being moved by characters, in Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy, I cried like a baby when Hester died. And that was a hare!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:58 pm:   

Couldn't agree more, Jon. A magnificent example of courageously groundbreaking ideas being perfectly integrated with the lives of unforgettable characters. 'His Dark Materials' is also the greatest fantasy masterpiece of recent times, bar none.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 12:59 pm:   

I'd love that, Weber...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 01:19 pm:   

'His Dark Materials' is also the greatest fantasy masterpiece of recent times, bar none

Another one? I'm sure you said last week that somethign else was the greatest fantasy masterpiece of recent times, bar none...
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 01:25 pm:   

It is very very good, and one of my very favourite fantasy things.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.230
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 02:01 pm:   

Even better than that specialist doll you bought online last week, Jon? :-)
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 02:04 pm:   

Well....

Now you come to mention that....
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.228.230
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 04:07 pm:   

Rhys, I've come to Woolrich, I think, from a long absence - i.e., from reading lots of non-fiction, poetry, challenging prose, etc. And a lotta tepid screenplays. Woolrich is like being jolted with a shot of whiskey for me. Much fiction I'm reading now, is.

Fiction that emphasizes aesthetics or ideas over characterization, I actually gravitate naturally towards a little more, though... so I get your perspective....
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 04:44 pm:   

Another one? I'm sure you said last week that somethign else was the greatest fantasy masterpiece of recent times, bar none...

Name me one other work of epic fantasy, in its classic form, written in the last 30 years that is in any way comparable? In this case alone the comparisons to 'The Lord Of The Rings' were deserved!
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 04:54 pm:   

Name me one other work of epic fantasy, in its classic form, written in the last 30 years that is in any way comparable?

Fionavar tapestry - Guy Gavriel Kay
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.140.73
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 05:22 pm:   

For any who like Philip K. Dick's work. I'll put this link here...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/30/philip-k-dick-visionary-journals-pub lished

'HMH also snapped up rights in 39 titles from Dick's backlist, which it will publish in autumn 2011. Nichols said the author's books were "as provocative and cutting-edge today as ever" and that "each generation wants to claim him as its own".'
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Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels)
Username: Mark_samuels

Registered: 04-2010
Posted From: 86.142.169.99
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 05:45 pm:   

"In fact, a project I've been trying to write for some time is a Horror story that involves monsters and monsters only; no human characters, no human pathos/anxieties injected into the monster's make up. I want to see if I can conjure an ideaspace that is compelling but utterly alien."

Richard: me too! I had a bash at that idea in a story called "The Black Mould" about a ... ermmm ... mould that contaminates the entire cosmos.

All in four pages, no less. Not very successful, I fear, but very cosmic.

Clark Ashton Smith was another author, of course, who eschewed anthropocentrism (or is it anthropocentricism?).

Mark S.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.157.25.52
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 06:00 pm:   

The Black Mould by Mark is a genuine creeping cosmic horror classic in my opinion.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.157.25.52
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 07:55 pm:   

I am real-time reviewing 'The Tourist Season' by Frances Oliver at the moment.

I just wrote this 'in media res':

But at the end of the day we are all meat, no doubt. Only by reading fiction we can make ourselves something more.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.139.167
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 09:24 pm:   

Rhys, your enthusiasm for mathematics makes me think you might appreciate this:

Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip?

To get to the same side.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 09:35 pm:   

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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 80.4.12.3
Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 10:13 pm:   

It takes a lot of Klein Bottle to tell a joke with a punchline like that... :-)
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.24.21.38
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 08:23 am:   

Everyone has probably already seen these but if we're doing why did the chicken cross the road gags...

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?

PLATO: For the greater good.
KARL MARX: It was a historical inevitability.
MACHIAVELLI: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear. For whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken’s dominion maintained.
HIPPOCRATES: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas.
JAQUES DERRIDA: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is dead, dammit, dead!
THOMAS DE TORQUEMEDA: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I’ll find out.
TIMOTHY LEARY: Because that’s the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.
DOUGLAS ADAMS: Forty-two.
NIETZSCHE: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.
OLIVER NORTH: National security was at stake.
B.F. SKINNER: Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will.
CARL JUNG: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN: The possibility of ‘crossing’ was encoded into the objects ‘chicken’ and ‘road’, and circumstances came into being which caused the actualisation of this potential occurrence.
ALBERT EINSTEIN: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.
ARISTOTLE: To actualise its potential.
BUDDHA: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.
HOWARD COSELL: It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history. An historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such a Herculean achievement formerly regulated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurrence.
SALVADOR DALI: The Fish.
DARWIN: It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.
EPICURUS: For fun.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON: It didn’t cross the road; it transcended it.
JOHANNE FRIEDRICH VON GOETHE: The external hen-principle made it do it.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die. In the rain.
WERNER HEISENBERG: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.
DAVID HUME: Out of custom and habit.
SADDAM HUSSEIN: This was an unprovoked act of rebellation and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.
JACK NICHOLSON: ’Cause it (censored) wanted to. That’s the (censored) reason.
RONALD REAGAN: I forget.
JOHN SUNUNU: The air force was only too happy to provide the transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed himself of the opportunity.
THE SPHINX: You tell me.
MR T: If you saw me coming you’d cross the road too!
HENRY DAVID THOREAU: To live delibeately . . . and suck all the marrow out of life.
MARK TWAIN: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.
MOLLY YARD: It was a hen!
ZENO OF ELEA: To prove it could never reach the other side.
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 10:21 am:   

Why did the spider cross the road?
Because it was nailed to the chicken's eye.

That's my favourite chicken/road joke...
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.24.21.38
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 10:41 am:   

From The Last Boy Scout:

"Why did Mr. Milo cross the road?"
"I don't know. Why?"
"Because his dick was stuck in a chicken!"
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 11:06 am:   

Huzzah! The Last Boy Scout is a neglected action classic...I knew someone would mention it on here some day.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 213.81.120.84
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 11:34 am:   

TLBS is great. So many quotable lines:

'Wrong place, wrong time. Nothing personal.'
'That's what you think. Last night I fucked your wife.'
'Oh you did, hah? How'd you know it was my wife?'
'She said her husband was a big pimp lookin' motherfucker with a hat.'
'Oh, you're real cool for somebody who's about to take a bullet.'
'After fucking your wife I'll take two.'

And as we're talking Shane Black what did you think of The Long Kiss Goodnight?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 12:04 pm:   

The Long Kiss Goodnight is another modern action classic: clever, daft, witty, violent and with some wonderful lines. My favourite:

"Never assume. It makes an ass out of Umi." I don't know why I find that funny, but I do...
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.140.73
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 12:06 pm:   

Brilliant film...
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=the+long+kiss+goodnight&FORM=IGRE&qpvt=the+l ong+kiss+goodnight#
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 12:07 pm:   

Stu, have you seen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang? It's hilarious.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 213.81.120.84
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 12:19 pm:   

Nah, still not seen that one. I've heard it's good though.

Damn, I want to rewatch The Long Kiss Goodnight now.

'We just jumped out of a building!'
'Yes, it was very exciting. Tomorrow we go to the zoo.'
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.140.73
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 12:36 pm:   

Can't fault it Stu. It is one of my favourite films....now I want to rewatch it again.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 12:52 pm:   

Talking of brilliant dialogue, why has no one attempted a Hap and Leonard movie based on Joe Lansdale's novels?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 12:55 pm:   

I've been wondering that for years, Jon. They're crying out to be filmed.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 213.81.120.84
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 12:58 pm:   

David Lynch bought the rights to Two-Bear Mambo back in the 90s but for one reason or another it never got made. Dunno if there's any other H&L adaps on the horizon.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 01:01 pm:   

I need to catch up with the books - the last one I read was, I think, Bad Chilli. How many have I missed?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 01:04 pm:   

Actually, it was Rumble Tumble, so I haven't missed many. Two?
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 213.81.120.84
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 01:07 pm:   

Captains Outrageous and Vanilla Ride (which I've not read yet). I think there's supposed to be some short stories about as well but I've only read one, Veil's Visit, co-written with Andrew Vachss.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 213.81.120.84
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 01:15 pm:   

Apparently there's plans for a film of Cold in July which, if done right, should be amazing.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.140.73
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010 - 01:24 pm:   

'Talking of brilliant dialogue, why has no one attempted a Hap and Leonard movie based on Joe Lansdale's novels?'

I'm amazed someone hasn't, too.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, June 11, 2010 - 12:06 pm:   

'Thicker Than Water' is my favourite story in 'The Earth Wire' so far... a Ballardesque sci-fi/horror/fantasy that won't leave my mind this morning. What did that ending mean? Had he been killed and was this the beginning of afterlife? Who had set the trap? One to return to in happy bafflement, like all the tales here.

What with these stories, the machinations of Tom Ripley (and an adversary finally worthy of him), 'Beasts' & 'Psychoville' I'm really being treated these nights.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.72
Posted on Saturday, June 12, 2010 - 12:14 pm:   

I didn't think Shane Black could top his previous movies/scripts, but Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is his masterpiece. It is deliciously subversive of the Shane Black universe. And fantastic chemistry between Downey and Kilmer.

I'm currently reading a biography on Peter Cook. I'm also about to start 'The Secret Life of Lazlo, Count Dracula by Roderick Anscombe. But I have a feeling that the latter won't be terribly interesting.

The author's name feels like a tie-in of sorts to the story.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.24.11.239
Posted on Saturday, June 12, 2010 - 04:23 pm:   

I notice that none of the praise for Shane Black's films includes Last Action Hero. Nice idea, rubbish execution but still with the occasional great line. I love it when Charles Dance tests police response times by shooting someone and the police don't even turn up. The bemusement and delight in his voice as no one in cynical New York even reacts to his gunshot is wonderful: "Hello... I just killed somebody.... I did it on purpose."
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.72
Posted on Saturday, June 12, 2010 - 11:33 pm:   

Stu - to be honest, mate,that shows you how much I purport to know. I never knew that shambolic disaster was a Shane Black screenplay/script.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.1.45
Posted on Sunday, June 13, 2010 - 04:09 am:   

It's been many many years since I saw THE LAST ACTION HERO, but I think it an underrated gem, a movie that has yet to be discovered again... but again, I'm going off of memory here, so don't hold it against me just yet, until I DO actually revisit it once more....

I really like Shane Black's stuff, and I love hardboiled detective work, and I love homages and send-ups and such... so why is it that, despite knowing for sure I saw KISS KISS BANG BANG, I have absolutely no memory at all of any bit of it?... I know I wasn't high watching it... was it that forgettable?...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.106
Posted on Sunday, June 13, 2010 - 01:22 pm:   

Nice idea, rubbish execution but still with the occasional great line.

I agree with that, Stu.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.16.14.6
Posted on Sunday, June 13, 2010 - 04:05 pm:   

Shane Black was one of several writers credited on LAH. I'm hoping that all the rubbish bits were down to the other writers.

That said Steven E de Souza wrote brilliant action films like 48 hours and Die Hard but also wrote Street Fighter.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, June 17, 2010 - 01:26 pm:   

Joel has done it again... 'Death Of The Witness' has me haunted this morning. Were the two teenagers on the balcony and what happened the girl a vision of what had happened the heroine in her youth? Did the girl not die but end up hospitalised? What on earth was in the pyrex bowl? Was Joel criticising Argento's 'Suspiria' and films of its ilk? I need to know these things...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Saturday, June 19, 2010 - 01:03 pm:   

I had to read that story again. Where first the ending read as some kind of weirdly symbolic dream it now comes across as straight tragic narrative... a weird effect. I'm assuming the death referred to was Sarah's apparent lack of emotional response? Were the teenagers glue sniffing?

I'm finding Joel's stories work on several diffent levels and are never clear cut in their meaning, despite the grim realism of his imagery - which he also manages to invest with a strange elegiac beauty. Genuinely haunting...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, June 21, 2010 - 04:09 pm:   

The world cup has rather ate up my reading time this last week but fast approaching the grand finale of 'Ripley Under Water' - the only one of the series I hadn't read before. Patricia was pulling every trick in the book to make the reader side with the old bastard this time and never have I relished the imminent demise (I hope) of a character more than that snooping Preek-ard while experiencing genuine fear and, dare I say, affection for a fictional psychopath!

It's a sad thought that in a few short chapters I'll never again go through the gates of Belle Ombre...
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.72
Posted on Monday, June 21, 2010 - 04:46 pm:   

Reading John Le Carre' 'Our Game'. A true master.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - 12:54 pm:   

Finished 'Ripley Under Water' last night and once again Patricia Highsmith has confounded all my expectations . The ending is made memorable by its very subtlety, what is left unsaid and what doesn't happen, but we know must inevitably follow... in a way Tom wins and loses everything. Far from clear cut or patly tied together (she's far too clever a writer for that) this is one finale to ponder over for quite some time. I am left with the disquieting feeling I must have missed something, and no doubt did, but it was one hell of a ride. The reread potential remains enormous.

And that's it, I've finished the Ripley books. Throughout his nefarious life and times I've always had the impression that there are hidden depths to these texts, that the author is persistently playing tricks with us, revealing only half the truth, keeping us unsure whether to trust Tom's own interpretation of the facts or even of reality. I find his way of thinking, the character's bending of the rules of conformity to be insidiously seductive... a part of me can't help wanting to be like him, able to solve all his problems with cold, ruthless logic untainted by morality or conscience. Then I catch myself on and can almost feel Patricia up there, somewhere, grinning.

Now for another literary wizard: 'The Unlimited Dream Company' (1979) by J.G. Ballard.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - 05:03 pm:   

Ballard does a first-person narrative! Five chapters in and I'm finding this intoxicating stuff.

I'm already tempted to compare the book to William Golding's existential fantasy 'Pincher Martin' but knowing Ballard anything could be on the cards...
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Seanmcd (Seanmcd)
Username: Seanmcd

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 86.153.167.211
Posted on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - 08:26 pm:   

Arthur C Clarke's 'The collected short Stories' for my Bday.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - 02:00 am:   

Happy Birthday, Sean!

Must get another run out next week...
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - 10:32 am:   

Just about to start Horns by Joe Hill.

Finished Tokyo by Mo Hayder last night. My god the explanations were deeply unpleasant and disturbing. Well done Ms Hayder.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - 12:53 pm:   

How I'd rank the Ripley books and their themes:

1. The Talented Mr Ripley - immature obsession & covetousness
2. Ripley's Game - spiteful corruption of an innocent & twisted view of loyalty
3. The Boy Who Followed Ripley - vanity stoked by youthful infatuation (Tom has come full circle)
4. Ripley Under Water - realisation of one's own mortality & fear of retribution
5. Ripley Under Ground - fakery, illusion & disguise (appearances can be deceptive)

Every one a classic of dark psychology! I was just thinking that apart from Ripley's casual immorality what also adds to the series subtly disturbing power is the tacit support of all those hanger-on characters who rely on him for their livelihoods and turn a blind eye, time and again, to his monstrous actions. Heloise, Jeff Constant, Ed Banbury, Reeves Minot & even sweet little Madame Annette (whom I've always suspected knew far more than she was willing to let on). To have Tom as a friend is to have the Devil on your side and to hell with the consequences.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.72
Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - 06:21 pm:   

Happy belated birthday, Sean.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.154.208
Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - 07:19 pm:   

I've read Our Game, Frank. It's superb.

Stevie, have you read Ballard's Super-Cannes. Chilling stuff.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.182.163.130
Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - 07:21 pm:   

Weber; I'm sure I've said so many times before on here, but "Tokyo" (or "The Devil of Nan-King" as my copy is called) is easily, for me, the best of Hayder's work.
Stunning stuff, I thought.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Thursday, June 24, 2010 - 02:47 am:   

Gary, I've been reading Ballard in chrono order over the years so it'll be a while before I get to 'Super-Cannes' and, yeah, that means I still have to read 'Empire Of The Sun'!

'The Unlimited Dream Company' appears to be his first full-blown fantasy without a sci-fi framework for all the weirdness. The chapter in which Blake (definitely a reference to my favourite poet) tries to walk out of the town and finds himself trapped in a never-ending wasteland with the motorways forever out of reach was truly nightmarish. Either he's dead, or he's dreaming, or something very fucked up is going on!! For all the surreal imagery I'm actually finding this one of Ballard's most straight forward and easy to follow narratives, so far... a million miles away from 'The Atrocity Exhibition' but just as hypnotically well written.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.16.1.130
Posted on Thursday, June 24, 2010 - 09:46 am:   

Recently finished The Whisperers by John Connolly, the latest in his Charlie Parker series. Wisecracks, demons, torture and an examination of the US government's shameful treatment of Gulf War veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Also read The Pusher by Ed McBain. A simple suicide case turns out to be much more complicated than the 87th Precinct expect. Soon there's murder, blackmail, prostitution and drug addiction. Plus, the greatest horror of them all -- Christmas shopping! Probably quite hard-hitting when it was written (1956) although with a more commercial sheen than say, Jim Thompson. It's a little dated now but still has some good moments. There's also an interesting little afterword where McBain reveals the ending he originally planned for the novel. Even though I've not read a lot of McBain this did feel almost comfortably familiar as he's an influence on various other writers I've read -- John Connolly, Chris Claremont's X-Men run and Denny O'Neil's stab at The Question. I think I might have to try one of the more recent ones next time though to avoid the sense of old-fashioned quaintness that ran through this one.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, June 24, 2010 - 05:45 pm:   

'An Angry Voice' is the best story in 'The Earth Wire' yet - wonderful imagery. Yet another one to haunt the mind, that creepy old man sat on the oil-drums... reminded me of Graham Greene's 'A Discovery In The Woods'. Great stuff!
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Thursday, June 24, 2010 - 06:39 pm:   

Stevie, you worked out 'The Death of the Witness' completely in the end – glad it made sense to you, and thanks for your comments.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Thursday, June 24, 2010 - 07:27 pm:   

Thanks, Joel.

I read it the first time with the fantasy ending of 'Thicker Than Water' in my mind (had he been taken for one of the canal people and shot dead?) which made me assume Sarah in TDOTW wasn't seeing "reality". I like the way your writing plays with the reader, you're never quite sure what to take at face value and what to read as symbolic - surely the mark of great literature.

Loved the Pied Piper imagery in 'The Angry Voice' which tied in with an article on the original event in Hamelin, on 26th June 1284, I'd synchronicitously read earlier that day just after another article on the Sage of Küsnacht. It's all linked you know...
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 81.100.115.118
Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2010 - 09:15 pm:   

Death in Paradise by Robert B Parker. The third book in the Jesse Stone series. Jesse is still struggling with his alcoholism and his divorce but still finds time to investigate murder, prostitution and domestic abuse. Cue sparse prose, snappy one-liners and meditations on the nature of love and obsession. Good fun.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.209.217
Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2010 - 10:58 pm:   

Mick & Weber- 'Tokyo' is indeed brilliant, but I'm never sure whether I think it or 'The Treatment' is Hayder's best. They're both bloody good, though.

Just finished Rebecca Levene's 'Cold Warriors', which was an excellent start to Abaddon's new 'Infernal Game' series (espionage and black magic- nice combination) followed by (major gear shift) Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart'. Everyone should read this last one because it's just so damn good- clear, beautiful, deceptively simple prose that tells of one man's rise and fall and a whole culture's destruction in about 150 pages, without ever once being preachy or sentimental. And compulsively readable.
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Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown)
Username: Lincoln_brown

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 124.181.87.92
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 11:43 am:   

Finished 'The Unblemished' last night. Highly recommend it. But, be warned - very graphic. In fact, in some ways, one of the most disturbing books I've ever read.
Zed, have you read it? I think it would be right up your alley.
Anyone else?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 12:12 pm:   

Yes, and I loved it. I'm a big fan of Conrad's work.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 12:13 pm:   

Really enjoying Joe Hill's Horns. IMO he's up there with his pop in the writing talent department.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 03:11 pm:   

Read two really cracking horror stories last night: 'Mrs Lunt' by Hugh Walpole & finally 'The Birds' by Daphne du Maurier - exceptionally fine storytelling imo.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 03:16 pm:   

Not masterpieces?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 03:16 pm:   

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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 80.4.12.3
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 03:23 pm:   

I'm currently reading:

* BILLY LIAR -- Keith Waterhouse
* DESPAIR -- Vladimir Nabokov
* THE COMPLETE COSMICOMICS -- Italo Calvino
* LUST, CAUTION -- Eileen Chang
* CIRCUS WORLD -- Barry B. Longyear
* THE REAL STORY OF AH-Q -- Lu Xun
* BEFORE THE GOLDEN AGE -- edited by Isaac Asimov
* THE BOOK OF FANTASY -- edited by Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy-Casares & Silvina Ocampo
* LEAF STORM -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
* COMPLETE SHORT STORIES -- Saki

Frankly that's too many books to be reading simultaneously. I'll be glad when I reduce them to a more manageable level by declining to start a new book until I have finished these...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 03:29 pm:   

Har har...

I was really impressed with 'The Birds'. So much so I didn't want it to end. Can't decide whether it works perfectly as a short and sweet snapshot of apocalypse or should have been extended to at least novella length. Was surprised how like John Wyndham it read.

'Mrs Lunt' is one of those completely unoriginal, old-fashioned, and quintessentially British, ghost stories that succeeds brilliantly because of the sheer perfection of the atmosphere. On a par with 'Thurnley Abbey' or 'The Red Lodge' for me.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.154.208
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 03:35 pm:   

Don't forget to get hold of Martin Amis's Money, Rhys. Or London Fields. Or The Information. Or Time's Arrow. Or anything by the man.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.154.208
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 03:36 pm:   

I liked The Birds novella, but disliked Don't Look Now. The films is both cases are far superior. Du Maurier wrote a very creepy pungent horror tale called The Blue Lens, which I recall fondly (and with smokey dread).
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 80.4.12.3
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 03:37 pm:   

I'll certainly do that, Gary; but only after the above ten has been reduced somewhat.

I'll probably go for MONEY first.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.154.208
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 03:43 pm:   

It's commonly regarded as his masterwork, but I love London Fields for sprawling brilliance. Time's Arrow is probably the most powerful.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 04:19 pm:   

I read 'The Blue Lenses' (1959) in the 5th Fontana Horror Book and, you're right, it's an unforgettable surreal horror/fantasy brimming over with macabre black humour. It was one of the most memorable stories in that entire 17 volume run and the best thing of her's I've read to date (not read 'Don't Look Now').
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.16.13.2
Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - 10:13 am:   

Just reread Buffy Season 8 in an effort to decide whether to buy the rest of the storyline. The series started off well before running out of steam but apparently there's only two more volumes to end the current 'Twilight' storyline. Still undecided but the weaker stories didn't seem quite so bad second time round I'm leaning towards finishing 'Twilight'. Whether I continue with the series after that remains to be seen.

Actually, typing in the word Twilight has made a little lightbulb go off over my head and I'm wondering if the title of the story-arc, plus some of the plot developments, are a dig at Stephanie Meyer. Not having read any of Meyer's books I don't know if I'm on the right track here or not.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.16.13.2
Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - 10:14 am:   

I'm only up to Buffy volume 5 in case anyone was interested. No? Oh well.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 86.29.66.35
Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - 05:25 pm:   

Recently read The Tale of One Bad Rat written and illustrated by Bryan Talbot. An abused teenaged girl runs away from home and finds herself undergoing a road trip around Britain following in the footsteps of Beatrix Potter. As she travels she is alternately comforted and disturbed by visions of Potter-style animals. Well-researched with great artwork but it's not as powerful as when it was written 15 years ago. Still, an important and engaging story.

Btw, I spotted Ramsey's name on the acknowledgements page.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 82.14.58.15
Posted on Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - 10:07 am:   

The Thing at the Door by Henry Slesar. Slick psychodrama with a rich heiress suffering hallucinations relating to a childhood trauma. But is she really hallucinating or are the visions real? Twists and turns abound along with witty dialogue and polished prose. The story's completely ridiculous but huge fun. Slesar wrote Alfred Hitchcock Presents and it's tempting to think what Hitch would have made of this if he'd brought it the big screen.
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Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 69.236.170.165
Posted on Saturday, July 03, 2010 - 11:48 pm:   

Currently "All Fall Down" by Simon Wood, a pretty decent thriller so far. Still digging through "the Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York." Finished "The Great Car Craze" by Ashleigh Brilliant (Ring any surprising bell, anyone?). And have JUST started "Operation Mincemeat" a true WWII spy tale that's great so far!
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Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown)
Username: Lincoln_brown

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 203.171.196.76
Posted on Monday, July 05, 2010 - 04:53 am:   

'Banquet for the Damned', by Adam Nevill. So far, so good.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Monday, July 05, 2010 - 11:13 am:   

I'm reading some Nevill meself. Just started on Apartment 16
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 80.4.12.3
Posted on Monday, July 05, 2010 - 11:17 am:   

I've just finished BILLY LIAR by Keith Waterhouse, a surprisingly poignant satirical novel from 1959. It has just been reissued as part of the 'Penguin Decades' series. Highly recommended!
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.182.231.124
Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2010 - 09:30 pm:   

'Flicker' by Theodore Roszak - almost half way through and I'm loving it, although I'm also feeling a tad guilty that I've just been lent this, and my tbr pile is already huge, yet I've started in on this book straight away.
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Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 90.204.111.249
Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2010 - 10:11 pm:   

Mick, I keep meaning to read that. Its size puts me off. I keep passing it over for thinner books.

Maybe that's literary karma.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.186.67.185
Posted on Tuesday, July 06, 2010 - 10:28 pm:   

Rhys, if you like Billy Liar, try anything by John Braine or John Wain.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.133.63
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 11:43 am:   

Or Stan Barstow.
Gary - John Wain wrote one of my favourite shorts - the one about the tree in the garden the chap goes back to see, the one he climbed as a child. It's heartbreaking.
I'm reading and very much enjoying Picnic at Hanging Rock. I struggled at first but now am eating it up. It's deceptively plain, and actually is plain in places, but has such a sad ache to it, and is so unforcedly beautiful. The first time in ages I've enjoyed a book so much.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 12:05 pm:   

I read Flickr in one day. It was so good I put everything else to one side so I could finish it.

A great book
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.133.63
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 12:46 pm:   

I thought it was a 'foto' website.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 12:46 pm:   

I loved 'The Vodi' by John Braine and have been toying with reading more of his ever since.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.133.63
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 12:49 pm:   

I once found he used to work in this tiny, dot-sized library by the sea up in Newbiggin, down the road from where I used to live. Lovely place, and odd to think of him reading and working there.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.133.63
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 12:52 pm:   

'Newbiggin Library & John Braine
John Gerard Braine was born in Bradford in 1922, but in the early 1950s he found himself working in this building (now sadly demolished, replaced by a small car park) as a librarian. Having left school in 1938 with no clear direction in life, he moved from job to job until 1940 when he became an assistant librarian in Bingley. His
National Service in the Royal Navy was cut short when he developed TB and after his convalescence, he spent a year in London trying to earn a living as a writer. It was then he returned north, to Newbiggin, and here he met his wife.

His first novel, ‘Room at the Top’ (click here for Amazon link to buy book) was published in 1957 shortly after he left the village, but it is more than likely that he would have been working on it whilst living in Newbiggin by the Sea. The book was a major success selling 5,000 copies in the first week, and over half a million copies by the end of the 1950s. It reached even greater audiences when it was made into a film starring Laurence Harvey and Simone Signoret (click here for film info). This was regarded as ‘the first British film to take sex seriously and the first to show the industrial north as it really was.’ The film won 2 Oscars. John Braine wrote 11 other novels before his death in October 1986 in London.'
It was a lovely little library! Sigh...
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 12:52 pm:   

Flicker

whoops
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.133.63
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 12:58 pm:   

I used to live round there! Lovely, sleepy place.
http://www.newbigginbythesea.co.uk/history/hritage_trailx.html
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 01:03 pm:   

For some reason, Tony, that gives me the image of you as a giant doughnut-shaped entity. Which I assume to be erroneous.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.133.63
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 01:08 pm:   

No - that's quite accurate.
D'oh!
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 02:19 pm:   

> Rhys, if you like Billy Liar, try anything by John Braine or John Wain.

Thanks, Gary, for that recommendation. It might take me a while to get to John Braine, though. First I'm giving David Lodge's The British Museum is Falling Down a go; then it'll be Scenes From Provincial Life by William Cooper. I'm working my way through the Penguin 'Decades' series, see.

After that I guess I might try some Martin Amis.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 - 03:58 pm:   

His National Service in the Royal Navy was cut short when he developed TB and after his convalescence, he spent a year in London trying to earn a living as a writer.

That explains where the inspiration for 'The Vodi' came from... it's mostly set in a TB recovery ward with the hero plagued by fever dreams of his youth and boyhood bogeymen. It really reminded me of William Golding's 'Free Fall'. Both great books about childhood and the illusions of nostalgia that really haunt the mind with their skewed yet vivid impressions of time and place and the vagaries of memory!

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