| Author | Message | ||
     Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 92.40.20.138 |
So I recently read Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon. Not "overlong", as I've heard said once or twice, but an absolute masterpiece of gradual, slow-mounting dread. Beautifully paced and very disturbing. I'm curious (and I know I'll be disappointed) to see the 1978 full-length tv series. Anyone have it? Anyway, I am looking forward to reading the Centipede Press edition of Tryon's The Other (featuring a Ramsey Campbell foreword). Which brings me on to Sturgeon's Some Of Your Blood, also published by Centipede Press - again I read this recently and loved it. A brilliant little book; unsettling, and actually rather touching, I thought. Who's familiar with these novels? What are your thoughts? | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.179.37.211 |
Patrick - I read Harvest Home in paperback on its first release here. Also saw the mini series at the time, of which I have only vague memories, but I don't think I was that impressed. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Harvest Home the book is brilliant, but the TV film just doesn't capture that same slow-mounting dread you describe, Patrick. I was disappointed with the film after loving the book so much. The Other is, in my opinion, even better than Harvest Home, though I guess nowadays the storyline is a little too obvious. When it was first written, though, it was a real belter. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.240.106 |
Sturgeon's Some of Your Blood is probably my favourite vampire novel. It's a short, taut, utterly chilling book. never read (or seen) Harvest Home, but only yesterday I received a DVD of The Other...again, I've not read the book despite owning a copy for over two decades. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.47.94 |
I haven't read Harvest Home, but I agree entirely with Zed about Some of Your Blood, which is superb. Sturgeon was a true master. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.97.79 |
Harvest Home is very good -- or at least I quite liked it when I was a teenager. Some of Your Blood is an all-time favorite of mine. I frankly love Sturgeon's horror fiction. Wonder why no one's published a collection (or have they?) I've never seen the Harvest Home series, but a friend once told me it was horrible. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
I have subliminal memories of seeing the TV series when I was a kid in the 70s and it scaring the crap out of me... have always wanted to read the book as it's my favourite horror theme. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.187.35 |
Not read Tryon. Got a copy of The Other waiting to be read. Eventually. Some of Your Blood didn't do a lot for me. It's very clever but I didn't get excited about anything that happened in the novel. Chris, there was a series of Theodore Sturegon collections being published but it was the complete works so you got all the SF and fanatsy stuff mixed in with the horror. There was a short collection done a few years back as well but I can't remember which stories were in it offhand. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Selected-Stories-Theodore-Sturgeon/dp/0375703756/ref=sr_ 1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268987796&sr=1-5 | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Just ordered that, Stu - thanks for making me spend more money on books. ;-) | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.187.35 |
If you'd prefer you could just hand the money to me directly. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.229.205 |
I found Some of Your Blood genuinely disturbing when I first read it (a very long time ago). Have Harvest Home lying around somewhere, but haven't read it. Still looking for a copy of The Other which I haven't read either, but I did catch the film late one evening and enjoyed it very much. Those twins are great little actors. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.56 |
I've got Harvest Home on my bookshelves - it's been there for a good 10 years at a guess - but it's never worked it's way up the TBR pile. I might have to give it nudge up. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 217.171.129.71 |
You really must read it. It's a masterclass of quiet, understated terror and one of the few truly frightening reads I've had. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
>>Still looking for a copy of The Other which I haven't read either, but I did catch the film late one evening and enjoyed it very much. Those twins are great little actors.<< I've not seen the film of The Other. I think seeing the Harvest Home film put me off and made me think I'd be better just reading the book! But maybe I should give it a go if it appears on TV again (or if I can get it on DVD). Agreed with Patrick about those of you who have Harvest Home in your TBR pile but haven't got around to reading it yet. Nudge it up to the top of the pile - it'll be worth it. (but then given my ravings about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland you might not want to take any notice of me!  ) | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.229.205 |
There's something about the colours in The Other . . . Possibly it's just because it's an early seventies film. I remember a quiet scene with a big old barrel which was quite disturbing. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
It's a masterclass of quiet, understated terror and one of the few truly frightening reads I've had. That's 'The Other' & 'Harvest Home' at the top of my MUST FIND agenda now! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.229.205 |
Harvest Home does sound a bit like The Wicker Man imho . . . | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 217.171.129.73 |
It does, and more than probably influenced by it to some degree, but then it maybe owes just as much to Jackson's The Lottery. Nonetheless, it's better than the aforementioned film and as disturbing as the latter. Actually, funnily enough, the film that perhaps best captures the tone of Harvest Home is Haneke's The White Ribbon. Well, I can imagine a proper film adaptation being something like that anyway. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
.. or was Harvest Home written BEFORE The Wicker Man? Not sure, just asking .. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.179.37.211 |
That's a very good question, Caroline - THE WICKER MAN was released in '73, the same year that Harvest Home was published. Guess we may never know. | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.200.240 |
I remember 'Harvest Home' on TV...Memory can deceive but I enjoyed being scared by it at the time. |