| Author | Message | ||
     Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I thought this thread could act as a stimulating adjunct to the ever popular 'What Are You Reading' thread - as well as theoretically setting up the perfect environment for some interesting synchronicities... At lunchtime today, whilst browsing my fav second-hand bookshop, I came across a book I'd never heard of before that I picked up purely because of the title, intriguing cover art and the fact that the author's name meant nothing to me. On further examination my "interesting find" radar went into overdrive when I saw the introduction was by Lin Carter and the blurb on the back an extensive quote from C.S. Lewis. The book is 'Phantastes' by George MacDonald and before writing this I deliberately ignored the temptation to look up anything else about it. It only cost me £1.50  So can anyone shed any light (without googling) on this novel? | ||
| Colin Leslie (Blackabyss) Username: Blackabyss Registered: 02-2010 Posted From: 86.164.67.73 |
Oops overlaps a bit with my recent comment on the 'What Are You Reading' but I just put Clark Ashton Smith's Best Of - The Return Of The Sorcerer on the tbr pile. I have heard so much but read so little by C.A.S.and wanted to further my horror roots education. Also the very generous Des just sent me a copy of Cern Zoo as a prize to a little competition he is running on the BFS forums so that is also neer the top of the (teetering) TBR pile. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
One of the reasons I've been avoiding the bookshops lately is I can never just add one book to the pile. Last time I went into town I added Even the Dogs - Jon McGregor (which looks to be as different from his first two books as his first was from the second. Leviathan - Paul Auster Sometime a Great Notion - Ken Kesey Green Eyes - Lucius Shepherd's zombie novel which I did own 30 odd years ago but never got round to reading it. In the intervening years I kind of lost it. Now I'm getting back into his writing, this was a great find for £2.50 in a second hand shop. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I read Lin Carter's intro and apparently 'Phantastes' (1858) was one of only two adult fantasy novels written by Scottish poet & forward thinking christian minister George MacDonald. The other was 'Lilith' which I'll now have to track down. They are both considered masterpieces of surreal fantasy based on the logic of dreams which MacDonald is reputed to have captured better than any comparable author. Auden, Chesterton, Tolkien & Lewis all cited him as their greatest literary influence which is good enough for me!! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Definitely recommended, Stephen. He also wrote The Princess and the Goblin, which terrified me at an early age. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.47.191 |
Stephen, The Princess and the Goblin is another MacDonald book that is worth looking out for. I remember seeing Phantastes on my dad's bookshelves and wondering what it was about - I still haven't got round to reading it, nearly four decades later! | ||
| Clive (Clive) Username: Clive Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 81.155.149.11 |
Due to recent RCMB activity i've now got 'SLIGHTS' by Kaaron Warren and 'REAPERS' by John Connolly on the to read pile, both from the library. I've still got 100 pages of Conrad Williams 'Decay Inevitable' to go but i've left in in another town for a few days so i think i'll make a start on the Connolly today. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
It gets even better... 'Phantastes' was the direct inspiration for Lewis Carroll's 'Alice' books which I have adored and been oddly disturbed by since childhood. Apparently MacDonald & Carroll were great friends and rivals in the same way Tolkien & Lewis were! His children's novels 'The Princess And The Goblin', 'The Princess And Curdie' [it's sequel, Ramsey], 'At The Back Of The North Wind', 'The Wise Woman : A Parable' and his collections of fairy tales 'Dealings With The Fairies' & 'Works Of Fancy And Imagination' are all considered timeless classics. | ||
| Rosswarren (Rosswarren) Username: Rosswarren Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 81.157.139.144 |
Picked up I Sing The Body Electric by Bradbury on my last foray | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.156.233.165 |
I have 'At The Back Of The North Wind' - it looks lovely. Nice pictures, and while I've not read it it feels more modern than Carroll from the bits I have read. think writers benefit from friendly rivals? | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
who's it by Tony? | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Forget I said that. I'm not awake yet | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
I've just finished reading The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth. An exceptional SF novel, as good as Philip K. Dick or the best of Bester. My next reads will probably be The Roaring Trumpet by L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt, and Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Tony, I think it depends on the personalities involved when it comes to friendly rivalry. MacDonald, Carroll, Tolkien & Lewis were all liberal minded christians blessed by visionary imaginations and an innate decency which surely would have kept any bitterness at bay in their competition - rather each encouraged the other to ever greater flights of fantasy and for that we should all be glad. They stand as models of genuine christian philosophy as far removed from the pseudo-christianity of hypocritical hate-filled oiks like Jimmy Swaggart, Willie McCrea, Iris Robinson, etc as it is possible to get! | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
I ventured into town on Saturday and picked up In the city of last things - Paul Auster - because it's a Paul Auster I've not read No Dominion - Charlie Huston - the second book about Joe Pitt - a hard boiled noir style PI who just happens to be a vampire. The first book - every last drop was very good so I'm hoping this will be too. and thirdly The Blue Mask by some geezer called Joel Lane. Found this in the crime section of Waterstone. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
And (technically not a book) I also picked up a ticket for a Joe Hill book signing at Waterstone Deansgate on 17 March | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I was tempted to buy 'Bel Ami' by Guy de Maupassant in pristine condition for £2 today but it doesn't sound like a horror novel and as much as I love his short stories I don't know if I would ever get round to reading it. On the way home what should I do?! | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.167.172.190 |
I picked up 'HORNS' by Hill and 'DARK PLACES' by Gillian Flynn. So far the Flynn is remarkably written, rich in atmosphere and very dark in tone, with characters that jump off the page. Didn't read her debut novel 'SHARP OBJECTS' which was shortlisted for the Edgar and won both the CWA Newblood and Ian Flemming Steel Daggers. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.204.111.236 |
I've got Flynn's SHARP OBJECTS. Heard loads of good stuff about it so I might read it very soon. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.6.216 |
So anyone ever read any of these?... http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2010/03/ten-books-that-need-to-be-movies.html | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination is superb Craig - a bit like The Count of Monte Cristo as SF but so much more than that, written as a breezy adventure. You'll find 'dream casts' for imaginary films versions all over the web. It's only bettered for me by his The Demolished Man which has one of the most terrifying climaxes I've ever read. | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 86.169.163.57 |
Sharp Objects is brilliant. Loved it, loved it, loved it! Haven't got round to reading anything else by her, though. I've mostly been reading short stories lately and just read Machen's "Great God Pan". I'm amazed Hammer never filmed (and embellished) it! | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Scat by Carl Hiaasen - nice US first edition off the interweb. It keeps my collection of his books in US firsts up to date. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
From that list Craig linked to, I've read the Charlie Huston and agree with everything he says about it and I've got the Joe Abercrombie (full trilogy) but that's been at the bottom of my TBR pile because it was a present from my brother - and i've liked very few of the books he's recommended for me recently. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.247.217 |
John, Bester's novel was the only one I actually recognized by name - but it sounds like I should read that one. Actually, this guy managed to make a lot of these seem like compelling reads.... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Was well chuffed last night after my latest book hunt! Picked up 'The Green Brain' (1966) by Frank Herbert & three new Heinleins: 'Starship Troopers' (1959) - been dying to read this for ages. 'Time Enough For Love' (1973) - which I've just realised is the sequel to 'Methuselah's Children' [wonderful book!] and continues the intergalactic adventures of Lazarus Long & his band of banished immortals seeking a home. 'Requiem' (1992) - the uncollected works including two novellas and numerous short stories many of them never before published. This book also includes a host of essays, speeches, anecdotes & letters (read several of them last night) by many famous people enthusing with great affection about Heinlein the man and the influence his stories had on them, including: Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, Greg Bear, Joe Haldeman, Theodore Sturgeon, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, L. Sprague de Camp & his wife Catherine, Robert Silverberg, Philip K. Dick (a particularly moving testimony about Heinlein's generosity of spirit and personal support when he was at his lowest ebb, written in the 70s), Tom Clancy, Harry Turtledove, John W. Campbell, Spider Robinson, Jack Williamson, Ray Bradbury, Gordon R. Dickson, Fritz Leiber, Charles Sheffield, Tetsu Yano, Jon McBride (astronaut) & various other NASA luminaries & technicians, Jim Baen (publisher) & Virginia Heinlein (his wife of 40 years). I think I may have been right about the man... | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.78.35.185 |
I overdid my book buying recently. Here is the result of a copy&paste from amazon uk (and 1 book from amazon fr) from the last 30 days (I am now back in a buying lull). The first book is a preorder. 1 of: Terminal World, Alastair Reynolds Condition: New 1 of: Sherlock Holmes - The Shadow of the Rat & The Tangled Skein (Mystery & Supernatural), David Stuart Davies Condition: New 1 of: Australian Ghost Stories (Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural), Various, James Doig Condition: New 1 of: Fusion: A Culinary Journey, Peter Gordon Condition: New 1 of: Beyond Armageddon: Twenty-One Sermons to the Dead, Walter M., Jr. Miller, Martin Harry Greenberg Condition: Used - Very Good 1 of: Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, Walter M. Miller Condition: Used - Good 1 of: Sleep No More: Railway, Canal and Other Stories of the Supernatural, L.T.C. Rolt Condition: New 1 of: Indian Market: Recipes from Santa Fe's Famous Coyote Cafe, Mark Miller, et al Condition: Used - Very Good 1 of: Tacos: 75 Authentic and Inspired Recipes, Mark Miller, Benjamin Hargett Condition: New 1 of: Pintxos: And Other Small Plates in the Basque Tradition, Gerald Hirigoyen, Lisa Weiss Condition: New 1 of: Seven Fires, Francis Mallmann Condition: New 1 of: Rasoi New Indian Kitchen, Vineet Bhatia Condition: New 1 of: Chindi, Jack McDevitt Condition: Used - Good 1 of: Omega, Jack McDevitt Condition: Used - Good 1 of: Holy Fire, Bruce Sterling Condition: Used - Very Good 1 of: The Box Man, Imiri Sakabashira Condition: New 1 of: Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka Volume 7, Naoki Urasawa Condition: Used - Like New 1 of: Against the Day, Thomas Pynchon Condition: Used - Good 1 of: Road Dogs, Elmore Leonard Condition: New 1 of: Blood's a Rover, James Ellroy Condition: New 1 of: The Dog of the South, Charles Portis Condition: New 1 ex. de : Been Doon So Long: A Randall Grahm Vinthology, Randall Grahm, Hugh Johnson Etat : Neuf - Nouveau | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Thanks Huw!! I've just received another two Fritz Leiber books in the post and they're both horror story collections: 'Night's Black Agents' (1947) & 'Shadows With Eyes' (1962) While on the way home last night I also picked up: 'Heart Of Darkness' (1899) by Joseph Conrad - I've never read it and this is the definitive annotated version including 'The Congo Diary' detailing Conrad's own life-changing trek into darkest Africa that inspired the novel. 'The Man Who Was Thursday : A Nightmare' (1908) by G.K. Chesterton - long been intrigued to read this given its uncategorisable reputation. I've heard it described as; metaphysical thriller, surreal fantasy, crime, horror, sci-fi, espionage & political thriller! Kingsley Amis's favourite novel apparently and is said to have inspired 'The Prisoner' TV series... gotta be good. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.205.144 |
Hope you enjoy them, Stephen! | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.151.112.39 |
All of the Nemonymous anthologies, courtesy of Des (I won one of his competitions over at the BFS website). Just finishing off a Bradbury collection, then am going to Nemonywallow for a while... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Victory' (1915) by Joseph Conrad which sounds great from the intro - an examination of the conflicting aspects of the human condition masquerading as a deceptively simple tropical island adventure novel (shades of 'Lord Of The Flies' but with men and one woman...). | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
'The Comedians' by Graham Greene 'The Glass Key' by Dashiell Hammett 'Waltz Into Darkness' by Cornell Woolrich - quite excited about this one... | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.138.60 |
The Glass Key is Hammett's best novel, a bitter and worrying portrait of power and betrayal that says much about why Hammett would soon give up writing. Waltz Into Darkness is well-liked but, to my mind, is not Woolrich at his best: too melodramatic, too moralistic, too far removed from the 1940s New York/New Jersey world that was his creative homeland. I'd recommend 'Phantom Lady' or 'Rendezvous in Black' or 'Black Alibi' or 'Night Has a Thousand Eyes' or 'I Married a Dead Man' instead. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Thanks, Joel. That's actually the first time I've seen anything by Cornell Woolrich and I've had my eyes open for him since your recommendation nearly a year ago. The intro by Francis M. Nevins makes him sound a tragic figure living the life of an emotionally starved sickly recluse completely dominated by his mother - quite a similar background to H.P. Lovecraft. The book is described as the ultimate femme fatale story taken to "literally diabolical" extremes - she is described as a nameless metaphysical female demon which sounds fun! Interesting that it was filmed by Francois Truffaut as 'La Sirène du Mississippi' (1969) with Catherine Deneuve - wouldn't mind seeing that after I've read the book. If 'The Glass Key' is even better than 'The Maltese Falcon' then it must be something else! With 'The Comedians' I've now collected nearly half of Greene's novels. After recent reads I'm beginning to consider his body of work arguably the finest in the English language of the 20th Century - up there with William Golding for me anyway... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.163.176.9 |
'quite a similar background to H.P. Lovecraft' - and Robert E Howard. And me. And Norman Bates. Funny - some folk dominated by mums become serial killers, others writers who write about killers. The rest are gay. Interesting. (er -  !!!) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.243.58 |
I downloaded THE COMEDIANS off of youtube, because it sounded quite intriguing (in the wake of the Haiti disaster)... then my dad said that it was one of the most boring movies he's ever seen... so I put it way down in my TBV (to be viewed) pile... still, I'd like to know...? Only two weeks ago, youtube had THE NIGHT HAS 1000 EYES (1948), starring Edward G. Robinson... it's since been taken down... and it had BRIGHTON ROCK on it too, but I can't find it... it's getting quite dicey, trying to see anything there anymore... if you wait too long, it vanishes (i.e., gets taken down).... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
I saw the film version of 'The Comedians' (1967) years ago, Craig, and your Dad's right it is overlong and dreadfully dull which is surprising given the stark drama of the premise (Papa Doc Duvalier's reign of terror in Haiti) and the excellence of the cast and Greene's script - which only leaves the plodding ineptitude of the director to blame. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.236.45 |
"Funny - some folk dominated by mums become serial killers, others writers who write about killers. The rest are gay." Some of us are all three. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.236.45 |
Stephen – sorry, I shouldn't have rushed to dismiss Waltz Into Darkness – it's effective in a claustrophobic, heat of the night sort of a way, I just found it far-fetched. It's likely some of it is written with a sense of irony – Woolrich quietly sending up a Southern culture in which a man who regularly visits a whorehouse is a 'gentleman', but a woman who smokes cigars is a violation of natural law. "The intro by Francis M. Nevins makes him sound a tragic figure living the life of an emotionally starved sickly recluse completely dominated by his mother." – true, and I feel Nevins' short intros to Woolrich books are often patronising, though his long biography of Woolrich gives a much fuller picture. Woolrich was a tough, embittered, brilliant, conflicted, alcoholic man, living at a time and in an environment when it wasn't easy for homosexual men to accept themselves. While his life was painful and unhappy in many ways, it also contained remarkable achievements. He should be credited with the strength, wit and passion his writing embodied rather than pitied as some kind of human train wreck. (Not that you're saying he was, of course.) | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 217.171.129.71 |
Graham Greene's my favourite writer. When I first read The Heart of the Matter I was overwhelmed; it was the first time I'd read a book that really touched my heart and my mind and mirrored the way I felt. I own all of Greene's novels, short stories (and four plays!) and have read all the "major" work. They're books I tend to "treat" myself to once in a while and I'll pick out another one I've not yet read. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Books added to my TBR pile this weekend - A most wanted man - John Le Carre - looks interesting and I've never read Mr Le carre before (and it was only 2.76 off amazon). The Last watch - Sergei wotsit - finishes the series The girl with the Dragon tattoo - Some swedish bloke - it was cheap in waterstone because I'd just spent more than a tenner. I will be adding Joe Hill's "Horns" on Wednesday when I go to the meet the author event at waterstone. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 217.171.129.70 |
Which Waterstone's branch is Joe Hill at? I have John Connelly coming to my branch in a few weeks. I'm sure he was mentioned in the Secret Horror Writers thread two or three weeks ago. I've not read him myself. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Manchester Deansgate on Wednesday. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
He's reading in Birmingham tomorrow night, but I'll be travelling at the time.  | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Patrick, have you read 'Brighton Rock'? That's my favourite Greene novel so far... An intensely powerful, disturbing and moving character study of a psychopath and those in his immediate circle (victims, accomplices, enemies). I believe I worked out how Pinkie committed his first murder (which adds a macabre double meaning to the title of the book) but loved the way Greene left it an ambiguous mystery... hinting at something unspeakable. An incredible novel that still reads like a contemporary thriller - the prequel, 'A Gun For Sale', is a first-rate crime/manhunt/revenge thriller as well. I'd planned to read 'The Ministry Of Fear' next but maybe I'll give 'The Heart Of The Matter' a go! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.163.176.9 |
Joel; '"Funny - some folk dominated by mums become serial killers, others writers who write about killers. The rest are gay." Some of us are all three.' Ha! I had a bossy, clinging mum, submissive, passive dad. I sort of got away though (she died quite young! Hurrah!*), so am only partly gay (Kurt from Glee is just delish!), only mostly and not totally sociophobic (Kill most of 'em!). Did you have that situation, Joel? It's sad, isn't it? My mum was quite flighty with her relationships, had high expectaions of people, always moving us on. She was so harsh on my poor, dumb, lovely dad, and could be so cruel to me sometimes, at least verbally. An odd time, though surely one that shaped me in good ways. * | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'"Funny - some folk dominated by mums become serial killers, others writers who write about killers. The rest are gay." What does that say about the Irish, Italians and Jews!! Joel, I found Nevins intro informative but when he said Woolrich was a homosexual consumed by self-loathing I did wonder how he could be so sure these two facts were connected. Often, when a well known artist appears to match a stereotype, self-styled authorities on their work cannot resist jumping to the easiest conclusion. Whatever, Woolrich sounds a fascinating man and just the kind of intense writer I'm virtually guaranteed to appreciate. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 217.171.129.68 |
Yes, I love Brighton Rock. The moment that always stood out for me and moved me almost to tears is during Pinkie's final chance of repentance when he's driving Rose to her "suicide" and Greene describes (and I'm half-paraphrasing) an "enormous emotion" like giant wings pressing against the glass. I remember when I directed Hamlet in 2006 and I used that as an example when trying to explain Hamlet's final erring from his persuit of blood revenge, "thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart - but 'tis no matter". Also, I'd actually recommend reading The Ministry of Fear and Heart of the Matter back-to-back. Greene wrote them likewise and you can see similar themes in both novels. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.163.176.9 |
Do people like seeing the same themes discussed, turned round? I have about one theme in me and have no qualms about discussing it forever whatsoever. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Tony – sorry, my comment was purely a joke. Stephen – Woolrich certainly had issues with his sexuality, but the reasons for his eventual physical and mental decline were complex and one can't assume an alcoholic is without pride or dignity. I just think Nevins is going for rather a trite and one-noted portrait of a complex and difficult man. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
"Do people like seeing the same themes discussed, turned round?" On the whole, no. But I do. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
P.S. Nevins is beyond doubt the leading authority on Woolrich in biographical and bibliographical terms. But IMHO he's not a subtle critic and he lacks depth of insight. You can be an expert and still not be a very good reader or writer. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.163.176.9 |
'Tony – sorry, my comment was purely a joke.' -  | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Do people like seeing the same themes discussed, turned round? I'm not sure what you mean, Tony? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Patrick, here's a thought... is there any Graham Greene novel that hasn't been filmed? His contribution to cinema both as purveyor of source material and screenwriter is too often overlooked. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.163.176.9 |
I mean by an author, seeing the same author discuss the same things in his work again and again. I think many people are born with 'one thing' inside them, and find it hard to move away from. Mine, it's alienation, I suppose. | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 62.30.117.235 |
A pair of books for BFS review... iReckon, by Greg Heywood, which looks really, really bad, and The Collected Connoisseur, by Mark Valentine and John Howard, which looks really, really good. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 217.171.129.71 |
Stephen. While most of Greene's major work, and more besides, has been adapted in to movies, there's plenty that hasn't been. His writing style is very cinematic I think so it makes itself very attractive to filmmakers. Often his work could almost be used directly as a screenplay, something also said of Jim Thompson I seem to remember. In fact, in the case of The Third Man I think that it was written as a treatment for the film it later became. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Funny but I've always thought the same about Ramsey Campbell's writing style. As I'm reading his books I can see how well the scenes would work on the big screen. I've said the same thing about 'The Exorcist' which I'm re-reading at the minute - a powerfully cinematic novel that almost wrote the screenplay for the movie itself. You're right, though, Graham Greene was the master of gripping, original (and often deceptively simple) plots that filmmakers couldn't resist adapting. I believe Fritz Lang's adaptation of 'The Ministry Of Fear' is considered a film noir classic (would love to see it). My own fav Greene adaptation is 'The Fallen Idol' - a criminally neglected psychological thriller that is riveting from start to finish, then 'The Third Man', then 'Brighton Rock', then 'Went The Day Well?', then etc... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Thanks again, Huw!! Just received Fritz Leiber's two famous horror novels in the post: 'Conjure Wife' & 'Our Lady Of Darkness'. And on the way home I picked up a mint condition second hand copy of a book I've been wanting to read for decades: 'Masks Of The Illuminati' by Robert Anton Wilson. The book that follows on immediately after 'The Illuminatus Trilogy' - one of my very favourite sci-fi epics. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.187.35 |
I keep meaning to re-read Masks of the Illuminati. Way more accessible than The Illuminatus! Trilogy which I found rather pretentious and dated. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Patrick - the copy of Scared Stiff arrived the other day. Thanks. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Weber, after reading 'Scared Stiff' you'll never be able to think of Ramsey Campbell in quite the same way again. Fav story was 'Lilith's' but they're all jaw-droppingly satanic and very scary. Stu, I have nothing but fond memories of reading 'The Illuminatus Trilogy' in my 20s and the later historical series. 'Masks Of The Illuminati' was the one I could never track down. I find Wilson's writing fast paced, anarchic, wonderfully entertaining, often hilarious, seriously paranoia inducing (the thought of Philip K. Dick being a big fan scares me rigid) and anything but pretentious. He belongs in the same rank as Kurt Vonnegut for me... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.250.166 |
I have a variety of RAW "Illuminati" books, but haven't yet cracked them. Should one read them in order? I gather they'll make the most sense that way.... Stephen, CONJURE WIFE has been filmed four times, and they're planning a fifth... but can't they find anything else of his to film?... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Craig, if you want to read the Illuminati series in story order it runs something like this: 1. The Earth Will Shake (1982) - 18th Century 2. The Widow's Son (1985) - 18th Century 3. Nature's God (1991) - 18th Century 4. Masks Of The Illuminati (1981) - early 20th Century 5. The Eye In The Pyramid (1975) with Robert Shea - 1970s 6. The Golden Apple (1975) with Robert Shea - 1970s 7. Leviathan (1975) with Robert Shea - 1970s Then I believe the 'Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy' is also linked but set in a number of alternate universes! 8. The Universe Next Door (1979) 9. The Trick Top Hat (1980) 10. The Homing Pigeons (1981) Once again I detect the influence of Robert A. Heinlein. Something that I believe RAW is on record as acknowledging. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.240.44 |
So that's the story chronological order, eh? I'm embarrassed to admit, I've never heard of the first three! (Though I have all of the last four, on the Illuminati list - and COSMIC TRIGGER: THE FINAL SECRET OF THE ILLUMINATI {1977} - did you forget that one, or is that one something else...?) | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Then there's the American Dad episode where Stan and Steve Smith bravely take on th Illuminutti - and uncover the dread secret behind the true invention of peanut butter... | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.177.28 |
Craig, Cosmic Trigger is non-fiction. From what I recall it's mainly autobiographical but with dollops of explanation about the subjects Wilson covered in his novels -- conspiracy theories, quantum physics, space migration, immortality etc. First Wilson book I read. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Weber, haven't seen that 'American Dad' episode but I know for a fact that RAW would have approved. | ||
| Rosswarren (Rosswarren) Username: Rosswarren Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 81.157.139.144 |
Just picked up Sarah Pinborough's A Matter of Blood. Took me ages to find it in Waterstones; they had it in the crime section. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.254.0 |
Oh - maybe COSMIC TRIGGER's worth the first read then! | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.203.42 |
Stephen, glad to hear the Leiber book arrived. Hope you enjoy it! | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Thanks again, Huw! Had another splurge today with three finds: 'I Sing The Body Electric' (1969) by Ray Bradbury - another one of his story collections I have yet to read. 'I Will Fear No Evil' (1970) by Robert A. Heinlein - one of his most debated and controversial novels apparently (saying something!) that turned off many of his older readers. In the 21st Century a dying billionaire has his brain transplanted into the body of an attractive young woman and embarks on a sexual odyssey!!  I guess this is him doing for prudes, misogynists & homophobes what he did for racists in 'Farnham's Freehold' & religious fundamentalists in 'Job'. Should be fun! and 'THE FIVE GREAT NOVELS OF JAMES M. CAIN' single volume collection, including: 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' (1934) - seen both film versions, the classic one several times and it never fails to shock. 'Serenade' (1938) - know nothing about it. 'Mildred Pierce' (1943) - the film is an absolute masterpiece I have watched and loved numerous times. 'Double Indemnity' (1945) - seen the film many times and never loses its mesmeric power, another perfect movie. 'The Butterfly' (1946) - know nothing about it. - I think this could safely be called an Essential addition to anyone's library!! | ||
| Clive (Clive) Username: Clive Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 81.104.165.168 |
>> I think this could safely be called an Essential addition to anyone's library!! << Indeed. I love M Cain and used to have that collection (should really get it again). In fact, out of the 'Big Three' i think i'll take Cain over Chandler and Hammett any day. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.235.174 |
More (i.e., see my entry, March 03, above) books this guy thinks would make great films, just fwiw.... http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2010/03/ten-more-books-wed-love-turned-into.htm l | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Only one of those I'd love to see done properly - Ballard's 'High Rise'. One of my favourite novels of his that would take a director of real vision and exceptional talent to make work. For me Michael Haneke would be a natural! In fact Haneke & Ballard would be so well suited I don't know why I didn't think of it before. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Craig, I never knew 'Conjure Wife' was filmed four times! I've vague recollections of seeing 'Night Of The Eagle' (1962) late one Friday night many years ago and being impressed at the time. Who's making the new version? | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 94.197.233.239 |
I picked up a pile of four early McEwan's at work today; I've been hungry for more ever since being blown away by First Love, Last Rights a month or two ago. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.234.136 |
Cain's 'Serenade' is remarkable. I really didn't see the twist coming for the first half of the book. Novels like this were acclaimed as 'daring' and 'modern' when they were written fifty years later. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.185.123 |
I'l have to get round to reading my copy of Serenade at some point. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
I'm finding that with Davis Grubb. The Watchman has a storyline which wouldn't be out of place in a modern novel. The motivation of one of the lead characters, and a lot of the plot, swings on the rape of a four year old girl by her mother's bofriend - while the mother was in the same bed. I just wish the whole age gap between the sisters was 5 years instead of 2 considering that the mother died in childbirth when the 17 year old daughter was born and the big sister is only 19 - but the 19 year old was 5 when her sister was born.. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.252.114 |
Stephen - it's in development at Studio Canal/MGM. The only person attached is the writer so far, Billy Ray (STATE OF PLAY, FLIGHTPLAN, SUSPECT ZERO, SHATTERED GLASS, etc.) | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Weber, it's either a clue to some clever plot twist or I'd think of it as a misprint that no one caught on to and I'd mentally correct myself rather than let it spoil the novel... does that make sense? | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
I think it was a misprint. I'm only 20 pages from the end now and it could just be that she's a bit loopy and got her age wrong. It's highly recommended though. An extremely good read, dickensian levels of evil going on. It's a sort of whodunnit but where any one of the 4 main suspects could happily be the killer. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I spotted a possible buy on my way home last night that sounds interesting but I know nothing about the author... 'The Novels Of Freidrich Durrenmatt' - five "classic noir crime novels" described as "macabre Kafkaesque nightmares". One of them was filmed as 'The Pledge' with Jack Nicholson - a movie I loved and consider one of his finest performances. Worth getting anyone? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Done a bit of research and I'm rushing back to get that Dürrenmatt book now... hope it's still there! | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Got the Friedrich Dürrenmatt collection! All five of his noir crime novels: 'The Judge And His Hangman' (1952) - an idealistic detective, Inspector Barlach, on learning he is terminally ill, determines to frame the master criminal, Gastman, in the little time left to him. 'The Quarry' (1953) - in the final stages of his illness Barlach uses his own body to trap an infamous concentration camp doctor posing as the kindly Doctor Emmenberger, head of a private clinic in Zurich. 'Once A Greek...' (1955) - petit bourgeois bureaucrat Archilochos places a newspaper advertisement seeking a marriage partner and finds himself ensnared by a scheming courtesan. 'A Dangerous Game' (1956) - a businessman is accused of the murder of his boss due to a string of circumstantial coincidences and faces a nightmarish trial as he fights to prove his innocence. 'The Pledge' (1958) - a retiring police commissioner makes a pledge to the mother of a brutally murdered young girl that he will catch the killer and descends into obsessive madness as a result while using another innocent child as bait. Also: 'The Lazarus Effect' (1983) by Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom - Volume 3 of the brilliant 'Pandora Sequence' ('Destination: Void', 'The Jesus Incident', TLE, 'The Ascension Factor') that I read from the library in my teens (apart from the first). After 'The Dune Chronicles' it is Herbert's (and Ransom's) most astonishing achievement imo... an unforgettable world. Once I've collected them all a re-read will be on the cards. And: 'May We Borrow Your Husband?' (1967) by Graham Greene - twelve short stories on the subject of sex in all its many and varied forms! The blurb states "Affairs, obsessions, grand passions and tiny ardours... this collection contains some of Greene's saddest observations on the hilarity of sex." Would be interesting to compare with Ramsey's similarly themed 'Scared Stiff'. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
At lunchtime today I discovered another Ray Bradbury story collection that I haven't read, and in this case never even heard of before! 'The Day It Rained Forever' (1959) - I've taken a gamble on this one, as it only cost £1.50, that it wasn't a "best of" but an original collection. Can anyone put my mind at rest?... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.133.88 |
Yes - it's good. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Stephen: I'm a big Durrenmatt fan, particularly the Inspector Barlach books and THE PLEDGE, which was made into quite a good film with Jack Nicholson. Good stuff, all. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Tony, I know it's going to be good (it is Ray Bradbury!) but did all the stories appear in that collection for the first time? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Thanks, Chris... you've just cheered me up again!  I loved the film version of 'The Pledge' and can't understand why it isn't better known. A cracking neo-noir crime thriller with Jack Nicholson in one of his finest roles of recent years - in fact only 'The Departed' betters it imo. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Stephen, the stories in The Day it Rained Forever all (apart from one) appeared in the US collection A Medicine for Melancholy. The exception is 'And the Rock Cried Out' – the reasons for that remarkable story's omission from the US edition can only be guessed it (read it and see if any explanation occurs to you). | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 89.19.81.14 |
The Pledge is an example of a film that works because of the ending. Had it had a different one, it would have been just a bit mediocre. Funny how a small part of it transforms the rest. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
You have to admit, though, that it was great to see Nicholson giving such a committed performance again after years of coasting on his past reputation. I found the film gripping from start to finish mainly because of him... and the moral dilemma his character was trapped in. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
You are so wrong about Nicholson: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000197/ I see very little coasting in the years prior to the brillint THE PLEDGE. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.203.227 |
Pehaps I switched off half-way through the film when I thought I had the plot figured out. That ending changed my view of the film in the space of a few seconds, though. I didn't expect an ending so big and so small at the same time. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.133.88 |
Ooh, The Pledge is good. But hard to watch again, seeing a bloke ball up his life and throw it away so tragically. I thought it was very good. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Thanks, Joel. Just how many original story collections did Bradbury write anyway! They seem neverending... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.143.133.88 |
They overlap loads, though. I kept buying them and finding they were largely the same books again and again. Just buy the recent collected volumes - if you can lift the bloody things... BTW he did have a rough patch in the seventies when he was a bit crap, so tread carefully. Way too gloopy sentimentality/retch-making syrupy whimsy. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've decided to collect as many of the original books as I can, Tony, instead of those recent bricks. So I think it's time to try and get some perspective on Ray Bradbury's story collections. How many of these are original collections rather than later mix-ups (if you get my drift): Dark Carnival (1947) The Silver Locusts (1950) The Illustrated Man (1951) The Golden Apples Of The Sun (1953) - GOT The October Country (1955) The Day It Rained Forever (1959) - GOT R Is For Rocket (1962) The Machineries Of Joy (1964) S Is For Space (1966) I Sing The Body Electric (1969) - GOT Long After Midnight (1976) The Last Circus And The Electrocution (1980) Dinosaur Tales (1983) A Memory Of Murder (1984) The Toynbee Convector (1988) Quicker Than The Eye (1996) Driving Blind (1997) One More For The Road (2002) ...would that be them all or haved I missed any? | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.50.181 |
You can click on the titles of Bradbury's collections to see the contents here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury_bibliography | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Thanks, Huw! That will be very useful. | ||
| I'm bored (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
TDIRF contains at least 4 of my all time favourite Bradbury's - The Gift, The Dragon, Dark they were and Golden eyed, and the title story itself takes some beating. And the Rock Cried out was actually published as a novella in the first edition of Fahrenheit 451. Totally irrelevant to the rest of this discussion, but hey ho. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
How do you do that changing your name thing, Weber? | ||
| That's Mr Gregston to you (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Not sure. It just keeps happening | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I see what you mean!!  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.234.82 |
Scored something that is really enticing: For $1 at my local library, a hard-cover gigantic tome, pristine, handsome, looks like it just came off the shelf at Barnes & Noble - The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century (spans 1903-1999, published in 2000), edited by Tony Hillerman - for such a big tome, there's not a ton of stories (46 total), and almost none of them have I read - but the scant few I have read, I know of being such high quality, they make the potential quality of this whole so very promising (those being: Cain's "Baby in the Icebox," Kemelmen's "The Nine Mile Walk," Highsmith's "The Terrapin," Ellison's "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs," and King's "Quitters, Inc."). The author selection is intriguing, not being at all what I'd expect (Willa Cather, Pearl S. Buck, James Thurber, etc.); and judging by that and what I read in the two intros (by Hillerman and series editor Otto Penzler), I really believe this a collection based solely on quality, and not on author-status, etc. God, I'm drooling just looking at it! Anyone have/read this already?... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Now what are the conventions of a "mystery story", Craig?! I've read 'The Terrapin' & 'Quitters, Inc.' - both excellent. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.249.136 |
Interesting question... because I'd say both "Terrapin" and "Quitters, Inc." don't quite fit my OWN preconceptions!... "mystery" here must be a very broad term even I'm not very familiar with.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Three buys today: 'The Heart Of The Matter' (1948) by Graham Greene - an omen perhaps... now got half his novels and all but one of his short story collections ('The Last Word'). 'Guy Deverell' (1865) by J. Sheridan Le Fanu - one of his finest gothic chillers by all accounts; "What is the horrible secret of the Green Chamber, a hoary, mysterious room in the ancestral home of Sir Jekyl Marlowe? What awful events have taken place within its musty precincts? And why has Sir Jekyl refused to wall it up despite the deathbed entreaties of his wife and father?" 'Killer In The Rain' (1964) by Raymond Chandler - very excited about this find as it completes my collection of his fiction! These were the eight uncollected and largely forgotten 'long' short stories from his early career that weren't anthologised until after his death and that trace the evolution of the greatest detective (and first person narrator) in crime fiction, bar none (sorry, Sherlock... um, and Watson)! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
'Rosemary's Baby' (1967) by Ira Levin - at long last thanks to Jonathan!! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.13.128 |
In the bio-bits at the back of the mystery anthology I've mentioned above, there is this sentence that starts off the one for an author of which I'm frankly ignorant, named James Crumley: "An argument could be made that James Crumley's second detective novel, The Last Good Kiss (1978), is the most compelling private eye novel ever written." That's high praise indeed! So I'm wondering... has anyone read that book? I'd like to seek it out now.... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.13.128 |
For anyone who cares, which I realize is probably very few.... There's a script I've been trying to get my hands on for a while, and it's finally made available thanks to Scriptshadow's site, and can be found here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/9sq9hv It's SEASON OF THE WITCH by Bragi Schut - the trailer can be seen here: http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi289539353/ I've been wanting to read it, because the author was an unknown, until this exact script received a prestigious Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting, which is basically a writing contest open to any and everyone (to screenwriters out there: deadline May 1!). From this horror script winning the Nicholl, he's carved out an active career in Hollywood in the space of a heartbeat. So, I'm eager to see what kind of ordered words on white paper, were able to sway so many, and create such dreamed-of success for him.... I figured others here might too.... (Hey, Chris - it's original, too! ) | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.178.225 |
Craig, Crumley died a couple of years ago. About 15 years ago I read his first three PI novels The Wrong Case (featuring Milo Milodragovitch), The Last Good Kiss (featuring CW Sugrue -- "‘Shoog’ as in sugar, honey, and ‘rue’ as in rue the goddamned day”) and Dancing Bear (Milo again). I wasn't too taken with them at the time but glancing through them they look better than I remember and I keep meaning to find the time to reread them. The opening line to The Last Good Kiss is often cited as one of the best opening lines in PI fiction: When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Craig - that trailer is awful. Looks like a good (although derivative) idea for a film, but the realisation of that idea seems fucking terrible (whose idea was that modern rock/pop soundtrack?). Maybe the script is better. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.252.60 |
I dunno, Zed, that trailer does look little iffy... although one can't really blame the writer for what comes after s/he writes the script.... Is there a trend starting? This film, and SOLOMON KANE, and coming up CONAN... S&S maybe is coming back?... maybe less of the "high fantasy," the elves and kids and Lawful Good as opposed to Chaotic Neutral adventurers?... Funny you mention that, Stu; the next sentence in the bio-bit runs, "Hard-boiled aficionados can quote its opening paragraph verbatim." I have a soft-spot for all things hard-boiled detective, so I really must I guess go out and seek one of its more renowned tomes.... | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.187.65 |
Apparently PI fiction was in the doldrums back in the early '70s when Crumley published The Wrong Case. There are even claims that the genre was about ready to die out altogether. Robert B Parker's credited with reviving its mass market appeal but from what I gather Crumley is the one who gave the genre back its street cred. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.187.65 |
He did some screenplay stuff as well. Here's wikipedia on the subject: For about a decade, Crumley worked intermittently in Hollywood, writing original scripts that were never produced, or acting as a script doctor.[3] In that time he co-wrote with Rob Sullivan the screenplay for the Western film The Far Side of Jericho, which debuted at the Santa Fe Film Festival on 10 December 2006 and was released on DVD in the United States on 21 August 2007.[18] He worked on a number of drafts of the screenplay for the film adaptation of the comic strip Judge Dredd (1995), though none of his ideas were used in the final film. His commissioned but unproduced screenplay for the film The Pigeon Shoot was published in a limited edition. Additionally, Crumley provided the commentary for the 2002 English-language French film L'esprit de la route by Matthieu Serveau. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
'Sliver' (1991) by Ira Levin - reading the blurb this was very much marketed as a horror novel, once again centring on the paranoid(?) fears of a young woman (this time single) living in a New York apartment block. "It will scare you witless", "the ultimate fin de siècle horror novel", "No one turns the screw to more chilling effect", etc. Aren't I glad I never watched the reputedly atrocious film adaptation! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
'Mother Night' (1961) by Kurt Vonnegut - one of the few remaining I have yet to read. The Intro makes it sound irresistible and guess who is quoted raving about it in the blurb... Graham Greene. 'Brave New World' (1932) by Aldous Huxley - never read it, terrible I know! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.4.57 |
You've not read MOTHER NIGHT yet Stevie?! Of all the Vonnegut not to have read!... Well, come to think of it, might have been quite smart, saving surely a major contender for his best, for last. When you're done, rent the rather-strange-if-not-so-great movie made from it, starring Nick Nolte as Howard W. Campbell, Jr.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Looking forward to it, Craig. Interesting find today; a 1947 first edition omnibus volume, in good nick, of all three of George du Maurier's novels, fully illustrated by the author, for a couple of quid: 'Peter Ibbetson' (1891) - as merciful death approaches a homicidal maniac, locked up in an asylum for the criminally insane, writes out his life story and strange obsession with the mysterious "Duchess of Towers", an ageless beauty who visited him at crucial moments in his life and for love of whom his fate was sealed. 'Trilby' (1894) - the famous story of a tone deaf innocent waif transformed into the greatest singer of her day by the hypnotist Svengali, but at a terrible price. 'The Martian' (1897) - a weirdly satirical sci-fi/fantasy detailing the life and adventures, from boyhood to death, of an eccentric genius who caused a sensation in Victorian society due to his having been possessed by a curious Martian entity as an infant! Reminiscent of Wyndham's 'Chocky' and a possible precursor of Heinlein's 'Stranger In A Strange Land' perhaps? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Picked up 'Nightmare In The Street' (1988) by Derek Raymond on the way home. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.165.4 |
Not one of his best, I'm afraid, Steve. Raymond himself regarded it as a failure and I don't think it was ever published in his lifetime. Sorry to say this is one for the completists only, IMHO. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.182.229.104 |
Got "Feral Companions" by Simon Maginn and some other bloke, and Stu Young's WHC release, both received today from the lovely Chris Teague. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.204.204 |
Clint Eastwood? The enigmatic man with no name? The dude? The cool one? The cigar chomping deadly shot? Me? Oh, someone else you say. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 178.182.178.233 |
I'm currently halfway through Christopher Priest's 'The Prestige'. Still in two minds whether or not Nolan's dumping of the modern day setting to tell the story was a good idea or not. Also just bought Carrol's 'White Apples'. And I'm also reading Sam Millar's 'Bloodstorm', which is one of the darkest crime novels I've ever read. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Simon, I read the first couple of pages to get a flavour of Raymond's writing style and was immediately impressed - there seems to be something of J.G. Ballard about his spare, detached, compelling prose. I can tell already I'm gonna like this guy's stuff and probably will become a completist so perhaps not as bad a place to start (with his "weakest") as would first appear. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
I went looking for 'A State Of Denmark' where I saw it last but it was gone but finally, finally, finally I found a mint condition copy of 'Sleepers Of Mars' by John Wyndham - which would have completed my collection but for the recent release of 'Plan For Chaos'... then also there's 'Midwich Main' still lying unreleased in the Wyndham family vault. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 188.147.178.234 |
Steve - talking of Wyndham, I just bought for the equivalent of two quid, Children of the Damned, the follow-up (movie wise) to Village of the Damned, with Ian Hendry. I found it tucked away in a bargain bin in my local supermarket. This is Poland, mind you, so bargain bins are usuallly chock a block with stuff no later than the 1990's. Unusual. Anyway, it's bloody marvellous. Great dialogue, great everything. It has in fact improved immensely with age. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.64.121.35 |
I've got a copy of Wyndam's Wanderers of Time which I must read soon. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Just finished Peter Straub's extraordinary A DARK MATTER and started on sarah Pinborough's A MATTER OF BLOOD. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.182.229.104 |
Just finished a biography of John Martyn (you can have it back now, GCW!) and now started Simon's Lost Places, and I've so far read the last and first stories (yes, I know, but I'd read the last before in "At Ease with the Dead" so I started with that one) and it's turning out to be another stonker. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Frank, after the success of the movie 'Village Of The Damned' Wyndham was commissioned to write a sequel to 'The Midwich Cuckoos' that could then be filmed. The resulting unfinished novel is titled 'Midwich Main' and still lies unpublished in the vaults. The brilliant and hugely underrated movie 'Children Of The Damned' is based on what Wyndham wrote but he fell out with the studio executives over royalties or something and abandoned the project. His involvement explains why the movie sequel was such an artistic (if not popular) success. Ally, I too have 'Wanderers Of Time' and been looking the companion volume 'Sleepers Of Mars' literally for decades until yesterday! 'The Puffball Menace' is a fascinating forerunner of 'The Day Of The Triffids'. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.64.121.35 |
'Ally, I too have 'Wanderers Of Time' and been looking the companion volume 'Sleepers Of Mars' literally for decades until yesterday! 'The Puffball Menace' is a fascinating forerunner of 'The Day Of The Triffids'. And 'The child of Power' the forerunner for 'The Midwitch Cuckoos.' Looking forward to it, Steve :>) | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
I've just noticed a strange synchronicity between my last post and the John Carpenter thing I wrote last night: not only the truly awful remake of 'Village Of The Damned' but the even worse unofficial adaptation of the novella 'Sleepers Of Mars' as 'Ghosts Of Mars'... yep, the plots are identical. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.25 |
Found (!), and am halfway through, Ellery Queen's AND ON THE EIGHTH DAY (no more than a long novella, actually) - which is not by EQ at all, but the amazing Avram Davidson writing under that pseudonym. And this is so Avram.... Not sure if there are any other fans of his as rabid as I am, having devoured every known work of his I could find - there is little to compare to the encyclopedically-erudite rambling stylist and story master-craftsman. Some years back, Harlan Ellison spent much of his introduction to the Year's Best Short Stories (not Best Horror or Best Sci-fi - the snooty literary one!) praising the late Avram as the barely-recognized genius he was... plowing through this seemingly tossed-off potboiler - which (so far) is so much more than that! - I'm reminded again, of Harlan's frustration.... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
I've read maybe two of Avram Davidson's long stories, and was very impressed. I've long wanted to read more by this author. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.109.146.105 |
Bit of an eclectic mix for me at the moment. Have just finished To Kill a Mockingbird, which was fantastic. Now on Gathering The Bones, next up is Inconceivable by Ben Elton, then I'm going to read Player of Games by Iain Banks. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.230.148 |
Zed - The Enquiries of Dr. Eszterhazy is my favorite, a collection of his Dr. Eszterhazy stories (though there's more than in this book); his The Phoenix and the Mirror is a classic, fantasy in early Rome, with Virgil as the protagonist; hard to pick - everything's great, in my opinion!... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.165.34 |
Gathering The Bones - now there's a blast from the past. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Informers' (1994) by Bret Easton Ellis - for me the most important new American author of the last 25 years and this is the one I have yet to read... or rather was until hearing that his new novel & sequel to the epoch defining 'Less Than Zero' is due out in a couple of months! 'Au Rebours' or 'Against Nature' (1884) by J.K. Huysmans - the notorious novel of one man's descent into willful decadence that inspired Oscar Wilde to write 'The Picture Of Dorian Gray' and the reading of which was used by the dick-headed Victorian British establishment against him in his trial. One of those classics of weird literature I have long wanted to read to see what all the fuss was about. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Bret Easton Ellis is terrific. My kind of writer. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Dancing With The Dark' (1997) edited by Stephen Jones - an unusual anthology of puportedly "TRUE encounters with the paranormal by masters of the macabre". The list of contributors reads like a who's who of nearly every horror fiction writer you could think of including; Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, H.R. Wakefield, M.R. James, Clive Barker, Arthur Machen, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Guy N. Smith(!), and countless more besides... sounds like a fun, interesting read as I've always been intrigued by horror writers' opinions on the supernatural. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Three lovely finds today: 'The Man Within' (1929) by Graham Greene - in the the words of the man himself: "'The Man Within' was the first novel of mine to find a publisher. I had already written two novels, both of which I am thankful to Heinemann's for rejecting. I began this novel in 1926, when I was not quite twenty-two, and it was published with inexplicable success in 1929, so it has now reached the age of its author. The other day I tried to revise it for this edition [1971], but when I had finished my sad and hopeless task, the story remained just as embarrassingly romantic, the style as derivative, and I had eliminated perhaps the only quality it possessed - its youth. So in reprinting not a comma has been altered intentionally. Why reprint then? I can offer no real excuse, but perhaps an author may be allowed one sentimental gesture towards his own past, the period of ambition and hope." I will add myself that the book is described in the blurb as a crime thriller and a remarkable achievement, given the age of the author, that still retains its grip, tension and freshness of impact... 'Island' (1962) by Aldous Huxley - his last great sci-fi novel (of three) and the last work of fiction published in his lifetime that describes a Utopian island paradise under threat from the greed of a capitalist world gone mad outside. Cuba, anyone? 'Long After Midnight' (1974) by Ray Bradbury - yet another short story collection I haven't read! | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.241.47.224 |
'Long After Midnight' (1974) by Ray Bradbury - yet another short story collection I haven't read! There are really good stories in that one - I read them some 25 years ago so I can't remember details, but at least as a teenager I thought it was a great collection. --- In the post towards me is China Mieville's new novel "Kraken"... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
The title story of Long After Midnight is one of my all time favourites. I believe there's a story called The Dragon in there as well which is also right up with the best Bradbury ever wrote. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.182.229.104 |
Just received the lovely box set of Basil Copper's short fiction, published by PS. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.142.146.96 |
I couldn't honestly say I like Copper's fiction enough to shell out for that Mick, but let me know if it's full of gems and maybe I'll invest | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
Just received Ysabelle by Guy Kay in the post yesterday. I have King Death by Toby Litt on preorder and I will be picking up copies of the new China Mieville and the new Lesley Glaister as they're released this coming month. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.182.229.104 |
I knew it was launched at WHC but I had a feeling that I'd had more than enough dosh in my PayPal account from some time before Christmas so I waited until I got back from Brighton to order it. I find his fiction is a bit hit and miss but when it works, it works very well indeed. I used to have the Arkhams of "And Afterward, The Dark" and "From Evil's Pillow" and whilst the stories didn't set the world on fire, they were solidly written and enjoyable, with some real gems, so I thought I'd get the lot in two nice volumes. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
I'm having a bit of a graphic novels binge at the moment. Recently finished Bryan Talbot's "Grandville", and now I've just received "Fables: Legends In Exile" by Willingham, Medina et al. It was a review (on the BFS website) of the 13th volume of this which alerted me to the series and made me think it sounded just my kind of thing. So I thought I'd order the first in the series and see what I thought of it ... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Returned home with a right treasure trove of second hand books today: 'The Unlimited Dream Company' (1979) & 'Hello America' (1981) by J.G. Ballard - oddly these are the next two I have to read as I work my way through his novels in chrono order. 'The Forever War' (1974) by Joe Haldeman - another great genre classic I've long wanted to read that should bear interesting comparison to 'Starship Troopers' (thrilling so far!). 'Little Tales Of Misogyny' (1980) by Patricia Highsmith - a slim little volume of "seventeen menacing spine-chillers full of simmering malice" and each one only a page or two long, bit like Des's 'Short Shorts'. 'The Demanding Dead : More Stories Of Terror And The Supernatural' (2007) by Edith Wharton - nicely illustrated companion volume to 'The Ghost Feeler : SOTATS' (1996) also edited by Peter Haining that together contain all seventeen of her exquisite ghost stories - amongst the finest ever written imho. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Confessions Of An English Opium Eater & Other Writings' by Thomas De Quincey - snapped this up when I saw it included the complete uncut version of 'Suspiria de Profundis' with its visionary tale of the Three Mothers; Mater Suspiriorum, Mater Lachrymarum & Mater Tenebrarum which ties in nicely with Leiber's 'Our Lady Of Darkness' and may help in unravelling the mysteries of that weird, unforgettable novel. 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' (1967) by Joan Lindsay - the novel, loosely based on fact (allegedly), that spawned the movie masterpiece. Remember the days when bestselling horror novels like this one or 'Rosemary's Baby' or 'The Exorcist' or 'The Omen' or 'The Shining' led to equally brilliant film adaptations? Anyone who thinks that the long 1970s wasn't the golden era of horror cinema need only mull over that fact... | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.132.173.248 |
I agree Stephen. I wish the seventies has been longer, with more films and books in them. I have that book but found it a hard read. The fact I didn't like the cover might have been a hindrance. | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.236.166.143 |
I live in the SF Bay Area, an intense literary community, so a certain number of books are by writers I know. The pile has been home to some of the folks here (like The Landlord and Gary Fry)and will be again (when's your book coming out Allybird?) | ||
| Rosswarren (Rosswarren) Username: Rosswarren Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 86.143.49.121 |
Kraken by China Mieville - Who could resist a title like that? | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.64.121.35 |
Hi Thomas! Thank you for asking. There is some info and covers on books coming out...on my website below. WINE AND RANK POISON will be launched September and the novel, ISIS UNBOUND, hardback in the autumn/winter but definately having a 'pemiere' as Dark Regions say - for the softback at WHC Texas. Will you be going to Texas, Thomas? www.birdsnest.me.uk | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.109.177.106 |
I had Kraken on order but the fucking thing sold out before my bookshop could get it. That's what you get for supporting local business and not ordering through Amazon. (; Seriously though, I'm happy to wait. I like our wee local bookshop and they are much better than shopping online or in Waterstones. This week I are mostly be reading Player of Games by Banks. Then we have the Conan collection vol. 2 followed by some James Ellroy. Recently purchased Adam Nevill's Apartment 16 too. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
I'm going to pick up a copy of Kraken this weekend - and the new Lesley Glaister if it's out. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Doctor Geneva of Fisher bomb or something like that by Graham Greene - I'm very drnk. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.210.209.136 |
I'm almost done with Best Horror of the Year 2. Next up is Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill - a writer whose work really terrifies me. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.165.34 |
His FaceBook photo album is scarier yet! He does love a gurn, our Adam . . . | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.165.34 |
Ramsey was the first person to publish Adam's horror fiction; I was the second. He owes it all to us, you know. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Apologies to Graham Greene, it was: 'Doctor Fischer Of Geneva Or The Bomb Party' (1980) - the plot sounds fascinating and verging on horror, a bored billionaire and notorious misanthrope invites a group of rich sycophants to a lavish dinner party and explains that he intends to humiliate and debase each of them in turn focussing on each guest's known failings and insecurities. They are all free to leave anytime they like but if they stay until the end each one will be given a carefully prepared gift worth a great fortune and tailored specifically to each of their heart's desires. Why am I reminded of Vincent Price? Also just arrived in the post: 'The Ghost Feeler : Stories Of Terror And The Supernatural' (1996) by Edith Wharton completing the set. I am so hungover... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
In addition to Kraken and Chosen, I also bought a copy of The Harrowing by some woman whose name starts with an S. It bills itself as Scream meets the Exorcist and has a nice quote from the landlord on the back of it. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've been looking copies of 'The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles' since reading them from the library in my 20s and finally found Volume 2 yesterday: 'The Widow's Son' (1985) by Robert Anton Wilson - this is the spur I needed to order the other two and then re-read all seven books with the one I missed, 'Masks Of The Illuminati'... phew. A centuries spanning, character packed sci-fi epic and the ultimate paranoid conspiracy thriller as well as laugh-out-loud black comedy, serious political satire, anarchist manifesto and new age sex romp all rolled into one - wholly unique entertainment. 'Harvest Home' (1973) by Thomas Tryon - have very fond childhood memories of being scared stiff by the TV adaptation with Bette Davis and recent comments on here have me really looking forward to this one. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.247.167 |
Found two new Heinleins today!! 'Podkayne Of Mars' (1963) - outer space adventure novel with a feminist slant relating the danger strewn first voyage to Earth of a resourceful teenage girl and her younger autistic brother from their home colony on Mars. 'The Best Of Robert A. Heinlein 1947-1959' (1973) - contains three of his most famous short stories; 'The Green Hills Of Earth' (1947), 'The Long Watch' (1949) & 'All You Zombies' (1959) as well as the classic novella, 'The Man Who Sold The Moon' (1950) - which has been cited as one of the prime inspirations for JFK's famous promise and the Apollo missions. Must get the 1939-42 companion volume. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
'Cocaine Nights' (1996) by J.G. Ballard - the book that reinvented him as a crime novelist for the new millennium. That's decided me... gonna read 'The Unlimited Dream Company' next. | ||
| Rosswarren (Rosswarren) Username: Rosswarren Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 86.143.55.77 |
Picked up Tiger,Tiger by Alfred Bester - already own a copy of The Stars My Destination but couldn't resist a copy with the original title. Got a Richard Laymon Short collection at the same time too | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
the book that reinvented him as a crime novelist for the new millennium. Er, says who? ballad wasn't any kind of genre writer: he was his own genre. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.63.26.125 |
But Ballard did mostly do crime writing towards the end of his life, creating some astonishing works,(Millenium People, Cocaine Nights, Super Cannes, Kingdom Come) and the amazing novella 'Running Wild' a little earlier. The crime writing was all rather subversive for sure, but crime writing none the less, but I also agree that Ballard was completely an original. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Karim, I've been reading Ballard off-and-on in chrono order up as far as 'High Rise' and there is no other British author to touch him in modern times imo. That's without having read some of his most famous works; 'Empire Of The Sun', 'The Kindness Of Women', etc. I always feel this irresistible urge to read him aloud, the sentences flow so beautifully, and talk about imagery that lodges itself in your brain. Yep, despite playing with genre he was a writer in a field of one. It still upsets me to think there'll be nothing new from him... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
Plague Dogs by Richard Adams and as a complete contrast - Tropic of Ruislip by Leslie Thomas. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I love 'The Plague Dogs' - one of the first books I ever read that made me cry buckets. Read it again in recent years and was impressed by what a clever satire it still is. I'm a big fan of Richard Adams. 'The Girl In A Swing' (1980) is a brilliant adult horror novel that should be much better known imo. Allegations of over-sentimentality tend to come from those who haven't actually read his books, which are much harder-edged than one might expect. | ||
| Rosswarren (Rosswarren) Username: Rosswarren Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 86.159.61.232 |
JUst got Audrey's Door by Sarah Langan - Probably gonna fit it in between Kraken and Blockade Billy | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.72 |
Halfway through Ellroy's 'L.A. Confidential'. A masterpiece. Fascinating use of tenses. Reads like some fractures hip-hop beat. That last sentence sounds as if I'm high on Maryjane, (: | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.2.64.167 |
LA Confidential's one of those books I'd love to reread if I had the time. Way more complex than the film (although I love that too). | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Just arrived in the post: 'The Best Of Robert A. Heinlein 1939-1942' (1973) - another three all-time classic short stories, including his first published (that made his name overnight), 'Lifeline' (1939), 'The Roads Must Roll' (1940), 'And He Built A Crooked House' (1940) topped by the much admired and often imitated fantasy novella 'The Unpleasant Profession Of Jonathan Hoag' (1942). | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Synchronicity alert!! What did I pick up today but a horror novel I've never even heard of before by an author whose short stories I greatly admire, having the excellent 'The Bishop Of Hell' collection: 'Black Magic' (1909) by Marjorie Bowen - and guess who wrote the introduction but the Prince of Darkness himself, Dennis Wheatley. Bowen is genuinely one of the greatest authors of weird fiction of her generation (and what a generation) and a writer singled out by Graham Greene as one of the prime inspirations of his youth. Subtitled "A Tale Of The Rise And Fall Of The Antichrist" this is an epic mediaeval-set horror/fantasy relating the life stories of two friends united from boyhood by a common interest in alchemy and the occult who are seperated as young men by a scheming woman who leads one down the Left Hand Path while the other takes the Right until years later both are brought head-to-head in a final battle between the forces of Good and Evil over control of the Holy Roman Empire and the very future of the world itself! Sounds fun! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Another genius? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
She's not quite a genius... more a mistress of the quintessential Edwardian ghost story imho. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
Just received a text message from waterstone to tell me that my copy of King Death by Toby litt has arrived. I think I'm popping into town after work! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Silver Locusts' (1950) by Ray Bradbury - nuff said. | ||
| Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 124.180.13.222 |
'The Harm' and 'Different Skins', by Gary M. 'Black Book of Horror' #5 and #6. These 'Black Books' are super value, even when you take postage (Int. AirMail) into account. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.121.214.11 |
While I was in Waterstone picking up my copy of King Death I realised I still had enough points on my card that I picked up a copy of Mr Vertigo by Paul Auster for absolutely nothing. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Just ordered two nice luxuries: 'The Earth Wire And Other Stories' (1994) by some bloke & the DVD Box Set of Nigel Kneale's 'Beasts' (1976) which I've been dying to see since it was first released. Will be curious to see how many, if any, of them I have subliminal 10 year old memories of... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Another two Heinlein's: 'For Us, The Living : A Comedy Of Manners' (1939) - his "lost novel" and first attempt at writing one as a young man, fired by the works of H.G. Wells, that lay unpublished and forgotten until the one existing typescript was stumbled upon in a garage 15 years after his death! This is another one of Heinlein's anarchic culture clash comedies in which he has a young man of that period transported by time-slip to the year 2086 and struggling to come to terms with a world in which nudity and free love are the norm and, in the words of feminist critic, Cynthia Brown: "(...)Heinlein depicts a society where it is taken for granted that a woman may freely pursue a career, as well as choose her sexual partner(s) and live openly with a man without need of any sanction by a religious or secular authority. Already many decades before 2086, we live in such a society, and tend to forget that in 1939 when the book was written this was still quite a radical vision, and that this may well have been a major reason for publishers to reject it. We have not yet gotten to the point where possessiveness over another person and the use of even "mild" violence in pursuit of such possessiveness is regarded by society at large as an intolerable social and mental aberration; perhaps by 2086 we will get there, too." Good on him, I say... if 'Stranger In A Strange Land' was deemed "controversial" in 1960 think of the look on the publisher's face, back in 1939, when this landed on his desk!! 'Beyond This Horizon' (1942) - his second published novel and another satirical attack on Nazism (following 'Methuselah's Children') with Heinlein depicting a future "utopia" in which all disease and illness has been eradicated, all physical and mental weakness has been genetically bred out of the race, war has been done away with due to strict population control and the concept of inferiority no longer applying, everyone enjoys lives of feckless hedonism and the first superhuman, next stage of evolution, has just been created... a virtually indestructible immortal called Hamilton Felix - and he's bored to death. | ||
| Seanmcd (Seanmcd) Username: Seanmcd Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.153.166.193 |
Just picked up 'Whispers in the Dark' by Jonathan Aycliffe, one of the pen names of Denis MacEoin. Apparently this is a classic ghost story with Lovecraftian undertones. One of several chillers he has produced such as 'Naomi's Room' and 'The Vanishment'. I've never heard anything about him and he's from Belfast my neck of the woods! Anybody read anything of his ? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.239.78 |
Yeah, he's OK. Pretty strong stuff. Not amazing, but solid enough. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
'The Dain Curse' (1929) by Dashiell Hammett - what's this one like, Joel? | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Sean- I've enjoyed most of the Aycliffes I've read. 'Whispers In The Dark' is very strong, but his best, for me, is probably 'The Matrix'. I found that one truly unsettling. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Great stuff! 'The Earth Wire And Other Stories' has just dropped through my letterbox. It is a lovely book, nice and heavy. I see the stories range from 1986-94 (didn't know you were that old, Joel) and Graham Joyce(!), Karl Edward Wagner, Ramsey & our Des mentioned... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
I tried a Jonathan Aycliffe novel once but couldn't get beyond the second chapter - it was something about an old woman in Newcastle thinking back on her life. Might have been Whispers in the Dark. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood for the book, but it just didn't grab me. | ||
| Seanmcd (Seanmcd) Username: Seanmcd Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.171.240.158 |
Thanks Simon. I'll scan E Bay for 'The Matrix'. | ||
| Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 203.171.197.162 |
Added 'The Shaft', by David Schow. Hard book to find. Will start it once I've finished 'The Unblemished'. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
The Shaft is a very good novel, Lincoln. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Sean: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Matrix-Jonathan-Aycliffe/dp/000649319X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF 8&s=books&qid=1275298163&sr=1-2 | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.219.40 |
Steve, The Dain Curse is the slightest Hammett novel but still worth reading. It's a dry parody of pulp melodrama. The best Hammett novel, I think, is The Glass Key, which is so bitter it hurts. And yes, I am old – so old I remember when I could buy new books in paperback every week that I wanted to read, simply by going to a bookshop and finding them on the shelves. So old that I remember when you had a choice of over twenty print magazines to sell your stories to. So old that I grew up believing I had a future writing books that people would find in bookshops, buy and read. Hard to imagine any of that now. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.156.233.202 |
Yeah, books for everybody back then. Every odd person could find something to love and speak to them alone. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.47.160 |
Simon, I found The Matrix unsettling too. I've enjoyed all the Aycliffe novels I've read. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
I loved the bit with the helicopter crashing into the side of the building - and Larry fishburn's fight with Agent Smith | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
After wading through half of vol 2 of the complete Conan, I have now switched to Tim Lebbon's The Everlasting, which is rather good so far. Existential fantasy rather than horror, but it belts along nicely. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
I really enjoyed The Everlasting, too. Tim's a lovely writer. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
He is, and I also like that I can never tell where his stories are going. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Old and talented enough to have several novels and short story collections and poetry collections(!) and Awards AND the envy of your peers under your belt, Joel. I wouldn't have you sandwiched in between Henry Kuttner & J. Sheridan Le Fanu on the old bookshelf for nothing you know! The world has changed since we were nippers but that doesn't mean your writing fiction is any less worthwhile than at any other time in the brief history of the printed word. I actually think people like Des are pointing the way ahead with imaginative use of the Internet to get their Art into the public consciousness. Similar things are happening in the music world. We may not like it, and feel an aching poignancy for the conventions of our youth, but the survival of great literature is worth adapting for... otherwise the very champions of Art, as challenging and unashamedly intellectual, will become complicit in its dumbing down. I look forward to reading 'The Earth Wire...' once I've finished 'The Long Lost'. | ||
| Martin Roberts (Martin_roberts) Username: Martin_roberts Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.5.239.91 |
I'm probably going to read John's debut novel The Terror and the Tortoiseshell next, however a few random titles I came across in secondhand bookshops this past weekend... The Finger and the Moon by Geoffry Ashe The Shroud by John Coyne City Whitelight by John McKenzie The Astrologer by John Cameron Has anyone here read any of these by any chance? | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 86.142.169.99 |
Old and talented enough to have several novels and short story collections and poetry collections(!) and Awards AND the envy of your peers under your belt, Joel. I wouldn't have you sandwiched in between Henry Kuttner & J. Sheridan Le Fanu on the old bookshelf for nothing you know! Not sure about the "envy", but there's certainly a whole lot of love around for da man. Mark S. | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 86.142.169.99 |
Certainly from this quarter! Mark S. | ||
| Mark_samuels (Mark_samuels) Username: Mark_samuels Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 86.142.169.99 |
I mean the Samuels quarter. Christ, I'm desperate to clarify myself all of a sudden.. Hare Krishna. Mark S. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
And this one as well. Which makes a half. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.131.67 |
Cheers! Either the whole evening's been happy hour at the pub or the BMA has designated this Be Kind to Joel Week. Peace and love to you all. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
As I keep telling the man, I genuinely think that he is one of the finest short story writers working in the UK (and a bloody good novelist too), Joel was actually pretty much one of the first people I asked to contribute to The End of Line. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Not just the UK. Campbell, Etchison, Lane are three of the very best short story writers working in any genre, IMHO. So there. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 129.11.77.197 |
He's crap in bed, though. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
I've had worse booty calls, believe me. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
Oh yes, certainly one of the finest English writing short story writers. That's what I meant really. Didn't mean to restrict my praise to UK only. (I have that Zed and I couldn't walk for a fortnight. Mind you, saying that, Zed will never ride a horse again!) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Ooh, you saucy mare. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
It is better to give than to receive... (name the Joel opus that quote's from) | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Er... Joel Opus Smith? Joel Opus Tumblestone? Joel Opus Carrington III? Joel Opus Lupus? Joel Opus Zeitgeist? Joel Opus Duckworth? Joel Opus Connor? I don't know any other Joel Opuses. Can you give us a clue? | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.2.65.112 |
Night and Day by Robert B Parker 'cos I really like his stuff. 87th Precinct omnibus by Ed McBain 'cos I read one of his novels once and liked it enough to try more. Hollywood Crows by Joseph Wambaugh 'cos that allowed me qualify for the three books for a fiver deal. (Plus Wambaugh is supposed to be the dog's bollocks.) | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Mein Gott!! I'm sitting here holding a book I didn't know existed, turning it over in my hands, examining every detail, trying to convince myself I haven't hallucinated it... 'Exiles On Asperus' (1979) by John Wyndham - published by Coronet in the same lovely format as 'Sleepers Of Mars' & 'Wanderers Of Time' - though six years later! It appears to be a collection of two ultra-rare early novellas and one equally rare later short story, namely: 'The Venus Adventure' (1932), 'Exiles On Asperus' (1933) & 'No Place Like Earth' (1951). Now I really do only need 'Plan For Chaos' (I think) to have the lot... | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.235.168 |
Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone and Jay Anson's The Amityville Horror which I bought today, for next to nothing. I've never read anything by Collins and Lovecraft mentions him somewhere - too lazy to look it up, sorry. The latter I bought because the film has been mentioned here recently. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
'The Amityville Horror' is one of the guilty pleasures of my youth I have most affection for... taken at face value it is still one of the most genuinely frightening books to come out of the 1970s. I almost wish they would rebrand it as a straight 'haunted house' horror novel. In that respect it works perfectly imho. The original film too is a minor classic of its kind. Without either there would have been no 'Poltergeist', 'The House That Bled To Death', etc. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.239.78 |
I thought it was bollocks, personally. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.104.140.73 |
'Cheers! Either the whole evening's been happy hour at the pub or the BMA has designated this Be Kind to Joel Week. Peace and love to you all.' I think you are great, too :>). Just got back from Greece. Went to Corinth, Epidaurus and the wild hills of the Agolida. Heaven for one week....except for the yellow scorpion and the big grey snake... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.239.78 |
Greece? Any sign of all that austerity . . . ? | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.104.140.73 |
Everywhere building seems to have stopped. Half finished houses with no work going on at all. We stayed out of Athens but I'll bet their chief source of income, the tourist trade, is well down. I did my bit to help...buying plenty of retsina :>). | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
> Everywhere building seems to have stopped. Half finished houses with no work going on at all. I think that's called the Parthenon... | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
As the Hannah Sell article I recommended a while back says, Greece is coming here. When the extent to which ordinary people are expected to foot the bill for the bankers' gambling debts becomes clear, there will be general strikes and major disruption across the country. And have you noticed how the media propaganda offensive has already started, with innumerable references to how the Labour government's profligate public spending has bankrupted the country? All complete nonsense, and the New Labour programme of minimal public spending has been pretty much applauded by the Tories for a decade. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.104.140.73 |
'I think that's called the Parthenon...' | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Joel: the State are crap at spending our money. It doesn't matter what 'colour' happens to be in power: red, blue or blue-yellow. They all take our money and the things they do in return are always expensive and not very good. If we got the equivalent level of overpriced substandard quality in a pizza restaurant, for instance, we would refuse to go back there ever again. Maybe it's time we started refusing to tolerate any State control rather than hoping for a better government? Why strike for a better government? Even a better government will still be inefficient and incompetent with our money, and that's because it's ours, not theirs. It's human nature to be less careful with things belonging to other people. I'm sure we can run things better and cheaper ourselves. Devolved power, self-sustaining autonmous communities, cottage industries, etc. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
"Everywhere building seems to have stopped. Half finished houses with no work going on at all." Mind you, the Greek islands have been scattered with those at least since we started holidaying there thirty years ago. | ||