| Author | Message | ||
     Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.70 |
Here's what I've had my head in. Couple of Ken 'Ireland's Most Celebrated Crime-Writer' Bruen books, Cross, and The Devil, the latter being something of a horror story - though Bruen prefers to quote David Lynch and call it 'The Further-Out genre'. Anyway, interesting prose stylist. Short sentences, short paragraphs interestingly constructed on the page, resulting in very short books. When it works, it simply flies. When it doesn't, it certainly doesn't. But I found these two oddly diverting. I'll stick with him a while. Gone by Mo Hayder. Another Jack Caffery novel, and better than her last one, Skin. Peter Mayle's The Vintage Caper, in which a crime is committed but everyone is so nice (except the person whose gear was stolen) that when the culprit's identified the protagonist makes sure he comes to no misfortune in the eyes of the law. A slim book that's be all the slimmer without the descriptions of food and Provence. Buy Jupiter, a collection of short stories by Issac Asimov. Fun pieces for the most part, mostly dating from the 50s. Interstingly, in one of the introductions, the Good Doctor expresses his fear (dating back to the 50s) that the original anthology market was killing fiction magazines, making it harder for writers to get their first break as he did in a pulp publication. Mark Kermode's autobiography/filmisation. In which Ramsey gets a passing mention! Lee Child's 61 Hours, in which Child keeps writing 'It was an orphanage. For children,' and in which Jack Reacher, a man who seems to suffer annual amnesia, returns and wishes he had a coat during a freezing South Dakota winter. Not one to miss a trick, when he realised he'd got a long book on his hands, Child seems to have split it in two, leaving a cliffhanger ending. To be continued on the real birth date of great men (Ed McBain note you got it wrong but nearly right). Brian McGilloway's Bleed A River Deep. Seocnd book of his I've read. Writes a bit like Jack Higgins. Pared down, doesn't much finesse his stuff, gets it across all right, without ever really setting the page alight. I'm still in two minds as to whether to keep reading him. The Severance (early draft form) by some bloke called Gary Fry. Some superb ghostly imagery in a neat new take on the old zombie novel. And others I can't recall at the moment. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Just finished, last night, Joel's 'The Earth Wire And Other Stories' - a magnificent collection of highly literary weird tales of urban angst, doomed love and despair that reads more like European or Latin American fiction than British imo. The book has had me compulsively re-reading many of the stories to extract their meaning and noticing all kinds of subtle conceptual links - and I can think of no higher praise than that. Three quarters through the equally beautiful prose of J.G. Ballard's 'The Unlimited Dream Company'. An ecstatic high fantasy inspired by the visionary poetry and artwork of William Blake and his hallucinatory visions of an altered London. Imagine 'The Prisoner' set in Shepperton with No.6 as a messianic Christ figure, unable to escape but able to warp reality within that bubble however the whim takes him. One of the author's most original and fascinating books. Just started 'The 20th Pan Book Of Horror Stories' having finished the generally excellent 'Cornish Tales Of Terror' from Fontana - best story, Du Maurier's 'The Birds'. Over halfway through Dostoevsky's 'The Devils' - so engrossed in this one and its epic story of political idealism giving way to violence and bitter internal feuds that it's become like a regular soap opera to dip in and out of at my leisure - like hopping in and out of a time machine. Wonderful all-too-human characters and writing of almost supernatural power. Three quarters through the epic 'Lankhmar' collection by Fritz Leiber having just finished the extraordinary novella 'Adept's Gambit'. I'd now rank him third after Robert E. Howard & Karl Edward Wagner (Kane is second only to Conan imo) when it comes to this kind of vividly imagined blood 'n' thunder heroic fantasy. Next up is 'The Killer Inside Me' by Jim Thompson. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.2.211 |
fwiw: Nearly done with Darkness, and here's my assessment as it stands - I'm singling this anthology out, because it's Ellen Datlow's choice of the best horror stories of the last 25 years, so it's not quite just your usual anthology.... Anyway, here's how I rank the contents: Sublime: (those stories by) Clive Barker, Peter Straub, Gene Wolfe Excellent: Edward Bryant, George R.R. Martin, Dan Simmons, Stephen King, Dennis Etchison, Joyce Carol Oates, Ramsey Campbell Okay: Pat Cadigan, Joe R. Lansdale, Kathe Koja, Michael Marshall Smith, David J. Schow, Kelly Link Could Take or Leave Them: Thomas Ligotti, Lucius Shepherd, Neil Gaiman, Steve Rasnic Tem, Terry Dowling (Unread Yet): Poppy Z. Brite, Elizabeth Hand, Glen Hirshberg, Joe Hill | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.131.109.205 |
We talk about 'the zone'. We know it when we go there in writing. But is it what we feel when we read a good short, that we are going there? Is it what makes a good short 'good'? | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 213.81.118.182 |
Young Men in Spats by PG Wodehouse. Mishaps, mayhem and mirth with Mr Mulliner and Co. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.204.111.249 |
'Mr Vertigo' by Paul Auster. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.209.76 |
Here are my latest: The Fifth Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories Robert Aickman The Ninth Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories R Chetwynd-Hayes My Name Is Death & Other Stories Charles Birkin The Triumph of Night Edith Wharton Great Tales of Terror & The Supernatural Wagner & Wise | ||
| Johnny_mains (Johnny_mains) Username: Johnny_mains Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 82.22.75.99 |
At Mains Mansion the selection has been: Biography of Eliza Lynn Linton by Herbert van Thal The Day of the Robot by Frank Belknap Long The Kill Dog by Jonathan George (John Burke) Switch Bitch by Roald Dahl The Sherlock Holmes Scrapbook by Peter Haining Suffolk and Norfolk by M R James - which is probably one of the most delightful things I've read in a long, long time. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.239.148 |
Just finished reading Among Thieves by Mez Packer, an offbeat thriller with echoes of Irvine Welsh and Dashiell Hammett, about small-time Coventry drug dealers stepping into a wider criminal world they are not ready for. Beautifully written, comic, touching and insightful. Graham Joyce's blurb calls it 'brilliant', and I would agree. | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.171.253.12 |
Currently reading the latest Gary McMahon (well, it was the latest when I got it last week ;-) for critique but it's so bloody dark, I'm also reading a thing about the 100 greatest albums of the 80s to try and balance things out. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Joel, I can't imagine Dashiell Hammett being merged with Irvine Welsh as being anything other than a maddening dumbing down of Dashiell Hammett. Welsh is, for me, the most bafflingly overrated writer of the last 20 odd years. Just my opinion, but he's all modern "edgy" technique and no substance, whereas Hammett is as timeless on the human condition as Shakespeare. And I say that having listed the film of 'Trainspotting' in my Top 10 Movies of the 1990s. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
As much as I am loving and completely immersed in Ballard's 'The Unlimited Dream Company' I'm finding myself distracted by some of the lovelier imagery and praying that no one (please, God) ever tries to make a movie of this book as it would inevitably turn out the most sickeningly twee CGI-fest vision of a saccharine heaven I could ever imagine. I am reminded strongly of Peter Jackson's abysmal adaptation of 'The Lovely Bones'. I can only hope that the darker elements of the story - the beastiality and paedophilia and profligate semen spurting - dissuades anyone from ever attempting it... yes, including Cronenberg! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.235.250 |
(Oh hey, Joel and Stevie, since you both seem to be up on Hammett - I had read "The Gutting of Couffignal" in this anthology, and really loved it, as much as I remember loving "Fly Paper" in another anthology, the only two I've really read by Hammett (sadly, shamefully). Can you guys real quick tick off for me your opinions on Hammett's very best short-stories/novelettes/novellas? I'm pretty sure I already know what his best novels are (all of them?), but I saw a couple great collections of his shorter work recently, and didn't want to just venture in and have to flail around for the good stuff. Sorry to hijack the thread for this, but I've been meaning to ask... and I thank you in advance.) | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 95.131.110.102 |
Still reading Flicker - near the end now and loving it - highly recommended. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Joel is the expert on Hammett, Craig. I'm only coming to him for the first time recently myself. Read 'The Maltese Falcon' for an object lesson in creating instantly iconic characters that penetrate straight to the heart of the human condition. It is as profound a "crime thriller", on that score, as anything by Greene or Highsmith. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.156.16 |
The outstanding Hammett short story that I've read is 'Nightmare Town', title story of a recent collection. I was a bit disappoinrted by the collection The Continental Op – early stories from before his approach had quite gelled. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.248.6 |
Cool, Joel! I'll look for that one. I like others to do the heavy-lifting for me, when possible, when it comes to reading....  MALTESE FALCON someday soon, I hope, Stevie. Just read the Poppy Z. Brite story (see my post above): it goes into the "Okay" category. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 217.171.129.68 |
I've been really excited about reading the biography of Clarence Darrow, The Old Devil, but 50 pages in I've had to stop because, in places, it's just so bad. I may go back to it but just skip straight to the three big trial sequences. Has anyone else chanced upon this one yet? Next up in any case is A Disaffection by James Kelman. I read Busconductor Hines about three years ago and loved that, so I'm going at him again. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
Partial Eclipse by Graham Joyce and Embrace by Mark Behr. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 188.28.89.113 |
Oooh. I got an advance proof of the new Graham Joyce today. It's called The Silent Land. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Into the final chapters of 'The Unlimited Dream Company' and the action has taken an unexpectedly sinister and shocking turn. The final sentence of Chapter 27 is the most disturbing line of Ballard's I have read to date. It completely alters the meaning of the book and my sympathies toward the narrator, Blake, in a way that sent shivers down my spine. This is turning into one of my favourites. | ||
| John (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
'The Unlimited Dream Company' remains my very favourite Ballard novel. There's something disturbingly pure and uncensored in its obsessions that's admirable despite the dark turns it takes. Not sure how much you know about Ballard's life, Stevie, but his wife died very suddenly in 1964. This roughly coincides with the end of his early disaster novels and the start of his darkest period, which gave us novels like Crash, High Rise and The Atrocity Exhibition. The Unlimited Dream Company comes at the end of this period, and feels lot like the final stage of Ballard sort of writing himself out of the shadow cast by his wife's death. The description of the character of Miriam sounds a lot like Ballard's wife, Mary, and the events of the novel play out a lot like a sort of rebirth both for Ballard and his wife. Not essential to enjoyment of the novel, but I always found this an interesting way to look at it. In terms of my own reading - Ellen Datlow's Best Horror of the Year volume 2. The Gemma Files/Stephen Barringer, and Reggie Oliver stories are the strongest so far. Next up is The Faculty of Terror by someone who's no stranger to these boards, and then after that I may tackle Reggie Oliver's Dramas for the Depths, although there's 900+ pages of that, so may take a wee while to get through. | ||
| Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 121.219.174.115 |
Halfway through 'Banquet for the Damned' - so far this is brilliant. The 'night terror' sequences are terrifying, the overall atmosphere creepy, and the more graphic scenes really pack a punch. Will have to pick up his latest, 'Apartment 16', asap. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
I'm reading Aparment 16 at the moment, and it's even better than Banquet with the Damned. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
John, I've been reading Ballard's novels in chrono order and have read up quite a bit about him. I've loved the guy ever since discovering his weird and haunting short stories as a teenager - each one a brilliantly constructed puzzle that repays countless re-reads. I've always found his novels painfully honest and emotional in how they deal with the traumatic events of his life, primarly his boyhood experiences during the war and the psychological devastation he suffered after the death of his wife. I've yet to read anyone with a greater, or even similar, ability to translate the workings of the subconscious mind into such startling and vivid imagery. He paints with words. I found the mental anguish (grief is not a strong enough word) he poured out obliquely in 'The Atrocity Exhibition' & 'Crash' to be intensely powerful and not at all easy reading, though starkly hypnotic and utterly impossible to forget. I've been finding TUDC his brightest, most optimistic novel to date - often beautifully transcendent - and felt it was a sign of him finally coming to terms with his loss. But now... there was so much darkness in that man's soul, inextricable from his humanity. He is unquestionably the greatest British author of the modern era imo. | ||
| John (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
I agree completely, Stevie. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.104.142.59 |
Dipping into all the Ash Tree collections (wonderful) I bought at WHC and will start Indigo by Graham Joyce. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
The first copy I had of Indigo vanished while I was reading it. I had to buy a second copy. I put it down by my bed when I went to sleep, in the morning it was gone. When you consider the theme of the book, that's quite appropriate. | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.236.170.165 |
Finally gave up on the boilerplate thriller I was reading and continued on with "American Fantastic Tales" ed. by Peter Straub. Also enjoying "The Power of Ideas" by Isaiah Berlin and having a great time with "The Power Broker: Robert Moses . . . " by Robert Caro. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Just finished 'The Unlimited Dream Company' which is now vying with 'The Crystal World' for my fav Ballard novel. A work of mind-boggling genius! About to start Jim Thompson's 'The Killer Inside Me', with bated breath...  | ||
| John (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
I suspect we have very similar bookshelves, Stevie. I've got 'The Killer Inside Me' sitting waiting as well. Back to Ballard - you said you're reading his novels in order. Does that mean you haven't read any of the ones after 'The Unlimited Dream Company'? You've got some treats ahead. 'Running Wild' and 'Super-Cannes' are probably the best. The last couple are fairly forgettable, though. I had to look up the plot of 'Kingdom Come' just to remind myself what it was about... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
John, I found myself filling up in the last pages of TUDC, and purely because I knew what he was getting at with the whole transformation of Miriam. It is the most emotionally affecting of his novels I have read to date - like reading a man creating his own spiritual reality, out of aching necessity. Next up, a return to apocalyptic sci-fi with 'Hello America' and then the long awaited (by me) 'Empire Of The Sun', when he finally tackled the "conscious" mind of childhood memory. Ballard is one author for whom knowledge of his personal life adds immensely to the power and pleasure of his fiction imo. Meanwhile, the first chapters of TKIM are a powerhouse of subtly frightening characterisation. I get the impression I've worked with people like this guy on numerous occasions - one of the perfectly possessed... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.252.158 |
NORTH OF BOSTON (1914), by Robert Frost. Less a collection of poetry, than short-short stories, that's how they read - poetry even for poetry-haters. Wonderful collection, written I believe while he was living in Britain.... Finished now the Joe Hill story (see antho in my post above): Wow, it started off in the "Excellent" category, and for a few brief moments, flirted with "Sublime"... then swiftly plummeted down to "Could Take or Leave It." The prose is lucid and wonderful, but... I just have no patience at all for complete randomness, masquerading as depth.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
*** SPOILERS *** Finished 'The Killer Inside Me' and, like 'The Getaway', it is another apparently straightforward crime thriller that works on two distinct levels; as a disturbing first person narrative that takes us deep inside the warped values and self-deluded vanity of a vicious psychopathic killer, who gets his kicks by beating women to death with his fists & as a chilling examination of small town corruption and the way officialdom will move mountains to turn a blind eye to blatant criminality when the criminal happens to be one of their own... like good old boy, Deputy Lou Ford. The character is a thoroughly detestable ignorant thug, a strutting monster in uniform (when I think of him I keep visualising the menacing state trooper in sunglasses at the start of 'Psycho'). Yet, in his narration, this sadistic animal believes himself to be loved and respected by all, he's the most popular guy in town, a friend to rich and poor alike, affable, reliable, always willing to help, a loyal upholder of the law and fine upstanding pillar of the community - the cretins! However, it becomes obvious fairly quickly, that absolutely everyone is on to him from the beginning - he's just too thick to realise it - and the only thing protecting him is that he hasn't been caught red handed and, all too plausibly, that, as long as he doesn't go too far, his "losses of control" will be swept under the carpet by his fellow wielders of local power, to become nothing more than whispered small town gossip... because he is the Law, and his downfall would threaten the whole damn house of cards. It was fascinating to read this book so soon after finishing the Ripley series. Lou Ford shares many of the cold blooded character traits of Tom Ripley and commits his murders with the same sudden, unconcerned brutality but he entirely lacks the ever resourceful intelligence and finely honed survival instincts that gave Tom such an edge over the Law. Unlike Ripley, Lou’s attempts at deflecting suspicion or planting evidence or eliminating witnesses are so patently obvious and riddled with mistakes they actually point the finger of guilt ever more steadily at him, presenting an ever more tangled problem for the authorities to sort out - the driving force behind the book's cracking suspense. The final chapters are a tour-de-force of shattered arrogance retreating into complete mental breakdown, showing us the irreparably damaged human being behind the facade - extremely powerful, and ultimately moving, stuff! And the final, expertly delivered twist took me completely by surprise. A magnificently bleak and harrowing novel that paints an all too convincing picture of the dark side of the human psyche - individually and collectively. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Time for another bit of Heinlein... about to start his sword & sorcery epic, 'Glory Road' (1963). | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.16.11.218 |
Bad Boy. Written by Frank Miller, illustrated by Simon Bisley. A little boy tries to escape the clutches of the mad scientists who want to perform experimental brainwashing techniques on him. Not Miller's best work -- slick but insubstantial. The Mirror of Love. Alan Moore's poem describing the history of homosexuality from ancient times up to the modern day, accompanied by Jose Villarrubia's photos. Silverfish. Written and illustrated by David Lapham. Teenager Mia hates her new stepmother Suzanne and so rummages through her belongings to see if she can dig up any dirt from her past. But Mia gets more than she bargained for as she finds herself plunged into a nightmare of lies, larceny, fake identities and psychotic killers. Good fun with nicely built suspense and a few twists and turns to the plot. Although I thought the silverfish motif that gives the book its name didn't really work. | ||
| Skip (Wolfnoma) Username: Wolfnoma Registered: 07-2010 Posted From: 216.54.20.98 |
Just finished Maus by Artie Speigleman, reading Do Unto Others by J. Gonazales also Brain Cheese Buffet by Ed Lee. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Already 6 chapters into 'Glory Road' and this book is bloody brilliant, a pure joy. One of those books that rattles along at a furious pace and has me hugging myself with pure pleasure after every paragraph. Heinlein was a fucking genius! An unwilling, horribly scarred and naturally disgruntled Vietnam veteran (in 1963!) finds himself transported (ingeniously) to a primitive world that would give Robert E. Howard nightmares and somehow has to survive, armed to the teeth with 20th Century weaponry, limited by ammo & his own inherent decency, while having no idea why he is there, where he is, or even if he is dead or dreaming... but the women!!!! Mystifying, exciting, earthy, wonderfully satirical, laugh out loud funny (Heinlein plays the old culture clash trick to the max), incredibly sexy (how he describes those women!), brutal, gory, spectacularly imaginative, chock full of quotable lines already ("I object to conscription the way a lobster objects to boiling water: it may be his finest hour but it's not his choice."), gloriously un-PC and most of all ENTERTAINING to the Nth degree... It's official, I love Robert A. Heinlein and don't care who knows it! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
This is great stuff: "I found there the blade that suited me the way Excalibur suited Arthur. I've never seen one quite like it so I don't know what to call it. A sabre, I suppose, as the blade was faintly curved and razor sharp on the edge and sharp rather far back on the back. But it had a point as deadly as a rapier and the curve was not enough to keep it from being used for thrust and counter quite as well as chopping away meat-axe style. The guard was a bell curved back around the knuckles into a semi-basket but cut away enough to permit full moulinet from any guard. It balanced in the forte less than two inches from the guard, yet the blade was heavy enough to chop bone. It was the sort of sword that feels as if it were an extension of your body. The grip was honest sharkskin, moulded to my hand. There was a motto chased onto the blade but it was so buried in curlicues that I did not take time to study it out. That girl was mine, we fitted! I returned it and buckled belt and scabbard to my bare waist, wanting the touch of it and feeling like Captain John Carter, Jeddak of Jeddaks, and the Gascon and his three friends all in one." coupled with... "I picked up the Tommy chopper, checked that it was empty, started stripping it. It seemed almost new, just fired enough to let the moving parts work in. A Tommy isn't much more accurate than a pitched baseball and hasn't much greater effective range. But it does have virtues - you hit a man with it, he goes down and stays down. It is short and not too heavy and has a lot of firepower for a short time. It is a bush weapon, or any other sort of close quarter work. But I like something with a bayonet on the end, in case the party gets intimate - and I like that something to be accurate at long range in case the neighbours get unfriendly from a distance. I put it down and picked up a Springfield - Rock Island Arsenal, as I saw by its serial number, but still a Springfield. I feel the way about a Springfield that I do about a Gooney Bird; some pieces of machinery are ultimate perfection of their sort, the only possible improvement is a radical change in design. I opened the bolt, stuck my thumbnail in the chamber, looked down the muzzle. The barrel was bright and the lands were unworn - and the muzzle had that tiny star on it; it was a match weapon!" All that against hostile natives, evil sorcerers, shambling Lovecraftian monstrosities, fiendish plots, and more on a suicide quest through treacherous terrain on an utterly alien world... why hasn't someone filmed this?! | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
Just been reading some Joe Lansdale shorts - the Writers of the purple rage collection. Love Doll and In a Cold Dark Time are two of my favourites. Although Bubba Ho-Tep was pretty darned good. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.91.114 |
Is Heinlein another genius, Stevie, or one of the many you've mentioned before? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
He's rapidly turning into my favourite genre writer... rollicking good stuff! | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.236.188.73 |
After putting aside the rather boring potboiler I was reading, I sampled some more from Peter Straub's "American Fantastic Tales" (including "The Jolly Corner") before picking up "Thieving Fear" by the Honorable Landlord of this site. I'll likely review it for my Red Room Web page. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
*** possible SPOILERS *** How does he do it? The wrestling match with Igli the stinking golem somehow combines all the excitingly imagined, sweat and dirt detail of Howard with the priceless hilarity of a Mad magazine spoof! "I looked Igli over more carefully. He resembled that scion of the man from Dundee, all chin and no forehead, and he combined the less appetizing features of those giants and ogres in The Red Fairy Book. I never liked that book much. [Note to self: must get a copy] He was vaguely human, using the term loosely. He was a couple of feet taller than I am and outweighed me three or four hundred pounds but I am much prettier. Hair grew on him in clumps, like a discouraged lawn; and you just knew, without being told, that he had never used a man's deodorant for manly men. The knots of his muscles had knots on them and his toenails weren't trimmed. "Star," I said, "what's the nature of the argument we have with him?" "You must kill him, milord." I looked back at him. "Can't we negotiate a peaceful co-existence? Mutual inspection, cultural exchange, and so forth?" She shook her head. "He's not bright enough for that. He's here to stop us from going down into the valley - and either he dies, or we die." What follows kinda has to be read to be believed... How can a writer combine the absurdist humour of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice' books with the nightmarish cosmic dread of Hodgson's 'The Night Land'? Somehow, Heinlein manages it and the result is already one of the most wildly imaginative and entertaining fantasies it has ever been my unmitigated pleasure to wallow in! As further example: the mean, bemused hero is called E.C. "Easy" Gordon (the E.C. stands for Evelyn Cyril, but don't mention it or he'll tear your head off) and when asked to pick a hero's name for himself, he replied "Oh... Scar" and goes through the rest of the book being called Oscar, much to his chagrin [poignant, as he was horribly disfigured by a machete blow to the face in 'nam]. See what I mean! I suspect RAH may have been experimenting with some of those mind altering substances so popular at the time...  | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
Just started a quick reread of To Kill a Mockingbird. Last read in 1984 for GCSE English | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.251.20 |
Almost everyone here I know had to read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD in school at some point, Weber. I didn't, don't know how I skated by.... I did see the film some time later, and am probably alone in disliking it. Another one was CATCHER IN THE RYE, yet another one I somehow missed, but everyone else I know had to read.... When they make a movie of that, I'll watch it. Reading at a snail's pace, a rather good book so far: ON BORROWED TIME, by Nicholas Mosley, about the year leading up to WWII. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
I love the book personally. the film ain't too bad but the book beats it hands down. I also once saw a stage version starring sally Webster from Coronation Street (an English soap) as Scout. That was quite good as well. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.251.20 |
Whooooops! That was supposed to be Leonard Mosley! I recently saw another movie with Gregory Peck in it, Hitchcock's THE PARADINE CASE... another courtroom drama that, to me, was uber-sub-par. I guess Peck-lawyer's just not one of my favorite film roles. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Never read 'To Kill A Mockingbird' but I adore the film, more after the second viewing having been vaguely underwhelmed the first time - expectations and all that. Watched again I got a lot more of the movie's beautifully understated nuances. I read 'The Catcher In The Rye' for the first time earlier this year and it remains my "best new read" of 2010, so far, including the magnificent pulp extravaganza I'm currently enraptured by... | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.71 |
Yep. Had to read Mockingbird at school, which put me off it of course. But Scout's a great character, in some ways a female Tom Sawyer, and I've recently felt a hankering to reread it. It'll be better than the new Jeff Lindsay Dexter book, Dexter Does Dallas or whatever it's called, which I'm on with now. Also dipping inand out of Jeremy Dyson's The Cranes That Built the Crames. Len Deighton's Bomber beckons as well, but I've promised myself I will develop He-Man muscles and read Under The Dome soon, which was an Xmas gift to me in hardcover. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.91.114 |
I liked 'Mockingbird - did it for A level. Certainly better the set novel we did: Jane Eyre - or Wane Drear, as it should be called. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Mark- currently reading Under The Dome. It's a massive beast but excellent so far- King playing to his strengths and writing what is, in effect, an angry impassioned commentary on the Bush years, Iraq and post-9/11 America. (That's how I read it, anyway; it could, on the other hand, just be a book about a town that gets cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible barrier...) | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
*** SPOILERS *** 'Glory Road' continues to astonish me! Three quarters through and the quest to find the Egg of the Phoenix (think about it) has come to an end with the climactic, and fantastically exciting physical and psychological battle with the Never-Born, Eater of Souls, already behind us... I have to say that sequence also includes the best written and most thrilling swordfight I have ever read, lasting five glorious pages (our Bob was a champion swordsman in real life so he knows what he's talking about). Anyway, now Heinlein is getting down to the real philosophical nitty gritty of what Gordon's whole experience was about. This book uses all the tropes and high octane energy of the greatest pulp fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs & Robert E. Howard, et al, to examine the very structure of reality and what constitutes science for some of us and magic for others - in a truly literary way. He rationalises black magic sorcery as a new kind of engineering that utilises energies we are yet unable to tap into and gives the whole world of Nevia, with its fire-breathing dragons, underwater zombies & giant rats, etc, as solid and workable a base in reality as the tommy gun he so lovingly described, and that they in their turn take as his own baffling brand of magic. In most fantasy quests the object they seek is merely a maguffin but Heinlein is such a perfectionist he insists on telling us what the Egg actually is - in physical, nuts and bolts terms, how it works, why it was lost to the forces of evil and what its all-important function is. Meanwhile, our hero is slowly starting to twig that everything he has been told so far may be a lie and that his greatest battle, to get back home again, has yet to come... I really wish I had a kid to read this one to, hmm, apart from the sex, that is! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.91.114 |
I'm looking . . . I've looked again . . . but . . . You didn't use the word 'genius'. What's up, dude? The prose not doing it for ya now? | ||
| Joelmurr (Joelmurr) Username: Joelmurr Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 82.169.25.44 |
I also liked To Kill a Mockingbird (even though it was assigned reading in high school). I reread it later, and didn't change my opinion. The film left me cold. Gregory Peck is excellent, as usual, but the movie itself is merely workmanlike and earnest, like many (or most) film adaptations of great novels. I just reread Fritz Leiber's "Our Lady of Darkness" (thanks to What Are You Reading thread no. 4). I first read it in my early teens and quite a bit of it went over my head. Reading it now was a revelation. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 62.254.173.35 |
>>Mark- currently reading Under The Dome. It's a massive beast but excellent so far- King playing to his strengths and writing what is, in effect, an angry impassioned commentary on the Bush years, Iraq and post-9/11 America. (That's how I read it, anyway; it could, on the other hand, just be a book about a town that gets cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible barrier...) I'm looking forward to it, SImon. Heard good thigns about it. Just building up my physiotherapy exercises in the hope I'll be strong enough to open and read the bloody thing now! Incidentally, anyone any thoughts on the UK paperback covers? I've noticed the book's not selling well in the supermarkets. Dunno if it's cos they've gone for similar covers to the great Mandarin (I think it was) Steinbeck covers and they look too literary, or James Patterson's finally won and the only people who buy books form supermarkets need single sentence paragraphs to get to the end of a book. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Not long to go now <sniff> and the book has taken a really poignant turn... I'm at a loss what I could read to follow this one? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Joel (No. 2), 'Our Lady Of Darkness' is one of the great ones. It's a book I find haunting my mind at odd times with its weird otherwordly subtleties. I can see me having to re-read it in years to come as well. I'd put it up there with 'The Ceremonies' and the best of Ramsey Campbell ('The Influence'/'Midnight Sun'/'The Long Lost') as one of the greatest modern horror novels I've ever read. Incidentally I'm now into the closing stages of the 'Lankhmar' collection with an extensive review and pick of my fav stories to follow... Leiber's use of humour in the genre is not unlike that of Heinlein's, only not quite so zany. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
"I'm at a loss what I could read to follow this one?" Go for something completely different - The Blunderer by Highsmith or The Minotaur takes a cigarette Break by Steven Sherrill. I think the other Joel is actually a Joe with a middle initial L | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Haven't got a copy of 'The Blunderer' but it's high up there on my "must get" list. I was thinking of a good modern horror novel, perhaps 'Harvest Home' by Thomas Tryon... | ||
| Joelmurr (Joelmurr) Username: Joelmurr Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 82.169.25.44 |
One of the many great things about "Our Lady of Darkness" is that it inspired me to read M.R. James. I realised I'd never read any of his fiction - I've no idea why! The Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories are a riot. Last year, I read the ones collected in the First Book of Lankhmar (the Fantasy Masterworks series). The Second Book is waiting in the bookshelf ... Actually, I answer to both Joe L. and Joel. ... (The latter is my given name.) | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
Never read Our Lady of Darkness but the praise it's received here was enough to send me off to order a copy. Another one for the pile. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
*** SPOILERS *** Finished 'Glory Road'...  The final chapters are amongst the most achingly sad I have yet read from Heinlein. Gordon's return to Earth, still clutching his trusty blade - the Lady Vivamus, brings feelings of dislocation and utter uselessness and an inability to communicate the enormity of the experience he has been through, presenting the perfect allegory of many a returning Vietnam vet (again, I stress, in 1963!). On a return to his old college: "The campus felt smaller and the students looked so young. Reciprocal, I guess. I was coming out of the malt shop across from Administration when two Letter sweaters came in, shoving me aside. The second said, "Watch it, Dad!" I let him live." He ends up a sad, broken-spirited old man before his time, stacking dishes for a crust of bread while living in a grotty bedsit, memories of Nevia fading, getting all scrambled up in his head, until: "Then I stood and looked at the Lady Vivamus. "Dum Vivimus, Vivamus!" Whistling, I buckled her on, drew blade, felt that thrill run up my arm..." The ending is as sublime, and oddly logical, as every other part of this wonderful book. One of the most magically entertaining and enthralling fantasies I have ever had the pleasure to read. Time now for a bit of classic supernatural horror: 'Harvest Home' (1973) by Thomas Tryon. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.231.151 |
Currently leafing through The Best Horror Stories (Hamlyn 1977), the companion volume to The Best Ghost Stories. Picked it up for one whole euro. It doesn't look like it's ever been read. Some inevitable overlap - Poe, Machen, Bradbury - but most of the stories in this 751-page book I've never seen before. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
'Harvest Home' is my kind of horror novel and, so far, one of the best written and most gripping examples of my favourite theme, so popular in the early 70s i.e. 'The Wicker Man', Thriller's 'A Place To Die', 'The Events At Poroth Farm', etc... Could this be the best Stephen King novel Stephen King never wrote? It certainly reads as good as any of his early novels imo. | ||
| Skip (Wolfnoma) Username: Wolfnoma Registered: 07-2010 Posted From: 216.54.20.98 |
Plowing through Ed Lee's Infernal series and then I have a high dose of Laymon demanding my attention. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Already almost half way through 'Harvest Home', a compulsive page-turner if ever there was one. I'd describe this as a fine example of literary craftsmanship that, like the works of Stanley Ellin or Ira Levin, works because it is so sublimely, relentlessly predictable and the outcome one can see coming so insidiously chilling. The fun is all in the detail and willing the hero to catch on and get him and his family the fuck out of there!! Thomas Tryon is proving a writer of rare descriptive skill with a flair for sympathetic characterisation and nail-biting suspense, I love it. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Just finished reading Dagon by Fred Chappell, a 1960s novel (I have a 1980s paperback copy) that offers a literary take on Lovecraftian themes. A clergyman with academic interests falls under the influence of a scuzzy white-trash family whose interests include prostitution, bootlegging and the worship of a fish-god. Madness, addiction, murder, ugly sex and tattooing ensue... but these are merely staging posts on the road to an encounter with the unknown. Beautifully written, sensual, uneasy, rich in imagery and saying more in its 180 pages than most horror novels manage in three times the length, Dagon is an example of what Lovecraftian fiction can be when it gets beyond the mindset of anaemic fanboys with telescopes. Essential reading. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.111.129.71 |
I have to get a copy! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
One to make note of... thanks, Joel. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 91.103.168.21 |
Hi Stevie. Harvest Home is one of the best and most frightening horror novels I have ever read. As for the other things you mentioned, I've read "...Poroth Farm", but what is "A Place To Die"? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.250.150 |
Finished Ellen Datlow's Darkness with two novelettes: Glen Hirschberg, "Dancing Men" - okay. Elizabeth Hand, "The Erl-King" - excellent in almost every way. Whereas Barker's was film-ic in its leanness and relentlessness, Hand is the second-most film-ic writer, in this anthology at least, by her richness of vision; a vision that is, again, visually rich, film-big (intentionally? one would almost assume so), and wonderfully detailed. I've never heard of her or read anything by her before this antho, but... I suppose I should go about looking for more.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Patrick, 'A Place To Die' is a classic supernatural horror episode of Brian Clemens' 'Thriller' TV series, first broadcast on 26th May 1973. That was the same year 'The Wicker Man' came out, there must have been something in the air... The plot is very similar to 'Harvest Home' with a young couple moving into a quaint English village where all the locals are just a tad too friendly, they keep finding these creepy straw dolls hidden about the place and there are strange goings on in the woods as harvest festival approaches. Great stuff! The theme of an unwitting individual/couple/family arriving in a (usually) remote and outwardly charming community that hides a dark secret and from which they find themselves unable to escape is my very favourite in horror literature - there's something uniquely satisfying about it for me. Compare also with H.P. Lovecraft's masterpiece 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' (1931), John Sturges' 'Bad Day At Black Rock' (1955), the novel 'The Devil's Own' (1960) by Norah Lofts, filmed by Cyril Frankel as the unfairly neglected Hammer Horror gem 'The Witches' (1966) with a script by Nigel Kneale, Ira Levin & Roman Polanski's 'Rosemary's Baby' (1967 & 68), Sam Peckinpah's 'Straw Dogs' (1971), Amando de Ossorio's 'Night Of The Sea Gulls' (1976), Jonathan Carroll's inspired debut novel 'The Land Of Laughs' (1980), T.E.D. Klein's contender for horror novel of the century 'The Ceremonies' (1984), the Ramsey Campbell short story "Merry May" (1987) from his great 'Scared Stiff' collection & his novel 'Ancient Images' (1989), The X-Files episodes 'Gender Bender' (1994), 'Arcadia' (1999) & 'Roadrunners' (2000), and countless other examples. I'd also cite Series 1 of 'The League Of Gentlemen' and the recent 'Hot Fuzz' as great comedy versions. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.179.157 |
I just got all the Thrillers today, thanks to a certain board member! Turns out every second ep is set on a train with a young female American tourist and a man who might or might not be a killer. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
And how could I have forgotten Stephen King's scariest and best short story 'Children Of The Corn' (1977)... the film was shit though. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.16.9.12 |
Been reading James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux series. I tried them back in the '90s but couldn't get on with them but decided to give them another go and this time round I'm enjoying the hell out of them. Tore through the first seven titles in just over a fortnight and am just taking a quick breather before plunging into number eight. Fore those of you who haven't read any of the books Robicheaux's an ex-alcoholic Louisiana cop who writhes in Catholic guilt while his DT's conjure up conversations with dead loved ones as he tries to track down various murderers, drug dealers and rogue CIA hitmen. The books also contain lyrical descriptions of Louisiana and New Orleans, meditations on morality and redemption, reminiscences of Robicheaux's tour of duty in Vietnam and the occasional burst of violent action. Cool titles too -- Black Cherry Blues, Dixie City Jam, Cadillac Jukebox etc. Right now he's my favourite new author. Even if I did first read him over 10 years ago. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.27.152 |
Don't forget Midnight Sun, Stevie! Or Hungry Moon! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.27.152 |
Mark Morris's Longbarrow is good, too. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Hungry Moon' yeah and 'Midnight Sun' certainly isn't far off it, though the threat came more from the thing in the woods than the community. I've heard there's also a seminal version of this theme by Richard Matheson that I haven't read and can't remember the title. Anyone know it? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.27.152 |
Er, The Distributor, maybe. Which puts me in mind (as it did King) of Needful Things. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.251.39 |
I think "The Distributor" is the polar opposite of Stevie's examples, right?... But a disturbing story, nevertheless, especially for its emotionless, clinical/journalistic story style. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
I think it's a short story about someone, maybe a couple, arriving in a remote town in the backwoods and uncovering something horrific. I've been told it bears a striking resemblance to 'Children Of The Corn'. One I would dearly love to read. Another example I really shouldn't have forgotten is Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery' of course! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.27.152 |
SPOILER! Hold on, there's a story in Shock 1 about a couple who get pulled over by the cops and the guy gets taken to a house in which there are local residents' portraits on the walls . . . each with fangs. Then the room in which the guy has been locked gets hotter . . . and hotter. It's an oven, and he's lunch. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.27.152 |
One of my favourite RM tales is Big Surprise. Loved that one. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
And after all those examples, I'm finding 'Harvest Home', at two thirds through, threatening 'The Ceremonies' as the best novel version I've read to date - completely spellbinding and increasingly scary, real scalp-prickling stuff. Why isn't Thomas Tryon more feted in horror circles? I have got to get a copy of 'The Other' after this! | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.209.220.27 |
Isn't the Matheson story 'The Children of Noah'? | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Steve- that's the one! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Thanks, Steve, that's the one! As soon as you said the title I knew that was it. Must get a copy. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.27.152 |
What do you mean, 'thanks Steve'? I fucking identified it!! That Bacon steaming in and stealing all the glory again!! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.179.157 |
I think Thomas Tryon is ok. I loved Harvest Home when I read it in the seventies but The Other just grated on me recently for some reason (I think it might have been because I'd been reading a lot of Capote at the time, who does this sort of thing so effortlessly and invisibly. I really wish someone else here read Capote as well!). | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.179.157 |
And can i say that Capote is a superb horror writer. It's not out-and-out horror, but it has the eerie other-world atmosphere so many horror writers strive for and we even think accomplish, till we stumble on someone like Capote and find we were wrong. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Gary, so that story about the fanged people is 'The Children Of Noah'? Tony, I've read one Capote horror/ghost story and it is a perfectly crafted mini-masterpiece of startling originality; 'Miriam' (1944) in the 6th Fontana Horror Book. I also remember watching a near flawless adaptation of it as part of the old 'Twilight Zone'. A genuinely creepy gem. I also have 'In Cold Blood' in my TBR pile and consider Richard Brooks' enthralling film version to be one of the key movies of the 60s (along with 'Bonnie And Clyde', 'Rosemary's Baby', 'The Wild Bunch', etc) that pointed the way to the no-holds-barred adult cinema epics of the 70s. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.170.179.157 |
Capote was unread by me till last year. It felt like a sun coming out, a wonderful discovery after having given up thinking I'd discover someone who could make me forget I was reading ever again. (sorry - what a bumpy sentence!) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.12.32 |
Tony, I had that with Stanley Ellin, recently, and somewhat with Woolrich (though I've since read a clunker, "After-Dinner Story"), so I'd like to discover it with Capote. Certain authors just strike someone at some point in their reading lives, maybe there's no adequate explaining why, exactly. I've only ever read Capote's ss "A Tree of Night," an excellent quiet piece of horror, I'd say, and... must go back for more, surely.... | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
Fractured by Karin Slaughter. If that's her real name it's incredibly appropriate. She writes some of the better forensic crime novels out there and this one so far is one of her best. the usual doom and gloom atmosphere is punctuated by some refreshingly grisly humour which makes the characters more alive and likable. Reccommended. | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.236.188.73 |
No sooner than I put down "Operation Mincemeat" than I picked up "The Power of Ideas" by Isaiah Berlin, which I'd been nibbling through off and on for a couple of years. And no sooner than I closed the cover on that one than I picked up P.D. James's "Talking About Detective Fiction," which I swallowed in two gulps (tasty, but the paper cuts on my tongue were something else. The band aids should come off soon). Now I'm on to "More Information Than You Require" by American Humor Practitioner (and Minor TV Personality) John Hodgman, while still nibbling away at "Despair" by Vladimir Nabokov. Finally, I'm more than halfway through Ramsey's "Thieving Fear." I'm liking it very very much and will have more to say about it later. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Harvest Home' has me by the short and curlies! The adrenaline surge of suspense in the final quarter is something to experience. A horror masterpiece - no arguments!! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I must also say that the Widow Fortune is the most memorable horror villain I have encountered since Rosie in 'The Ceremonies'. Her dark presence dominates every page of this book, even in the long passages she does not appear, like Dracula in Stoker's masterwork. Surely that is the mark of any great writer, to create characters who appear able to step off the page. I remember Bette Davis scaring me stiff in the role as a child (1978 TV version) and would love to see a serious cinema adaptation of this book attempted with someone like Anjelica Huston reprising the role. Twould be great... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Into the final chapters and the sense of impending doom is palpable. Hair-raising stuff!! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.31.8.83 |
I've never read this, to my shame. | ||
| Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 124.181.74.186 |
Finished 'Banquet for the Damned' last night. Brilliant! Highly recommended. A perfect combination of atmosphere and out & out horror. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.121.214.11 |
I'm reading Wolf hall which is good so far... Also reading the play Sylvia's wedding by Jimmy Chinn, preparing for my next foray into the realms of live theatre in early November at Farnworth Little theatre. Tickets very reasonably priced. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.229.30 |
Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977). I casually picked this up... read the part on the number 23... read the part on the Puck-ish "Mescalito"... read more... and so find myself hopelessly drawn into this odd thing now.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
RAW is brilliant and very funny! Once you get sucked into his mad (but knowing) conspiracy mongering there is no going back... | ||
| Skip (Wolfnoma) Username: Wolfnoma Registered: 07-2010 Posted From: 216.54.20.98 |
Reread Dark Hallow last week. Finished a couple Ed Lee collections over the weekend. Started Dead Lines by Skipp and Spector. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 89.240.140.137 |
Rereading 'The Wasp Factory' and just about to start 'I Am Legend'. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 91.103.168.21 |
Just finishing The Solitude of Prime Numbers. It has been my favourite read of the year along with M J Hyland's This Is How. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.14.48.5 |
Craig, Cosmic Trigger was the book that got me into Robert Anton Wilson. Enjoy. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.229.55 |
It's blowing my mind, every page... I keep wondering... is all this real?... I mean, is this RAW writing what really happened to him, recording real events through his own perception?... or is he fabricating even the supposed autobiographical data? Are the "facts" in here correct? How much of this is sci-fi, how much non-fiction?... Did anyone see THE NUMBER 23, with Jim Carrey? I didn't, but liked the script, and kind of want to now, after reading some of this. It must have been inspired by this book, right?... | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
'City Of Blok' by Simon Louvish- possibly my favourite writer- sequel to 'The Therapy Of Avram Blok' and precursor to 'The Last Trump Of Avram Blok'. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant- angry, funny, ingenious heartfelt. A stew of black and bawdy humour, political and philosophical allusions, social commentary, the magic realist and the surreal. Reads like an unholy hybrid of Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut and Jonathan Swift, with just a smidge of Harlan Ellison thrown in. All this and hugely funny too. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.11.92.186 |
Craig, yeah, it does mess with your head a bit doesn't it? I went into it a sceptic -- I was only reading it as research for a story idea -- but after reading the quote in the foreword about believing nothing and accepting everything I decided I would try to read the book in that spirit. It was a real headtrip, like being a kid again, suddenly believing in magic and aliens and stuff, the world suddenly ripe with possibilities. Even after the novelty wore off and I returned to my former scepticism I found myself with an interest in science, psychology and magic which I hadn't previously possessed. So, although I don't agree with all his ideas, some of which are quite frankly mental, I do owe him for opening up my "reality tunnel." Simon, do you still read Mark Timlin? I see he has a new Nick Sharman novel out. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Hi Stu- not read Timlin for a while. The last really good Sharman novel was Paint It Black back in 1996- after that the novels read like a stale, tired rehash. His heart didn't seem in it anymore. Maybe I should have another look to see if he's got his mojo back. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.11.92.186 |
He's also got a new non-fiction book about TV cop shows. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
*** possible SPOILERS *** Finished 'Harvest Home' - what a visceral shock to the system that ending delivers! Ned's discovery of "what no man may know nor woman tell" is truly harrowing, that scene has seared itself into my brain, but Tryon tops even it in the final chapter with one of the most subtly chilling codas in horror fiction. A remarkable work that leaves powerful resonances in the mind and would make for a great re-read to spot all the missed clues. This is the horror of every man's worst nightmare made real and reminded me, in no small measure, of Fritz Leiber's other secrets-of-the-fairer-sex horror classic 'Conjure Wife'. Read this and you'll never look at your wife or girlfriend or daughter in quite the same way again, ulp... Now for a chapter by chapter duel between 'Red Harvest' (1929) & 'The Man Within' (1929) - two debut crime novels from either side of the Atlantic by Dashiell Hammett in the red corner and Graham Greene in the, erm, green corner. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.4.252 |
It was a real headtrip, like being a kid again, suddenly believing in magic and aliens and stuff, the world suddenly ripe with possibilities. That's a great way of putting it Stu, because that's exactly how I feel reading this! I love how he refers to himself as "The Skeptic," or "The Materialist," or "The Atheist," and so on... those are all aspects of me, the reader, and it's an utterly succinct way of at all times saying: "Okay, on this side all the facts against what I'm going through, but on the other hand...." Instead of putting a page of conflicting data, he'll just have "The Materialist," say. On an aesthetic level, that's a brilliant technique, it keeps the headlong action/momentum going, without ever needing to slow down.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
You've been bitten, Craig, there's no going back now so enjoy the trip, I envy you... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Hammett's opening paragraph as a novelist (aged 35): "I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called a shirt a shoit. I didn't think anything of what he had done to the city's name. Later I heard men who could manage their r's give it the same pronunciation. I still didn't see anything in it but the meaningless sort of humor that used to make richardsnary the thieves' word for dictionary. A few years later I went to Personville and learned better." & Greene's opening paragraph as a novelist (aged 25): "He came over the top of the down as the last light failed and could almost have cried with relief at sight of the wood below. He longed to fling himself down on the short stubbly grass and stare at it, the dark comforting shadow which he had hardly hoped to see. Thus only could he cure the stitch in his side, which grew and grew with the jolt, jolt of his stumble down hill. The absence of the cold wind from the sea that had buffeted him for the last half hour seemed like a puff of warm air on his face, as he dropped below the level of the sky. As though the wood were a door swinging on a great hinge, a shadow moved up towards him and the grass under his feet changed from gold to green, to purple and last to a dull grey. Then night came." Could you have two any more different prose styles, Hammett cocky and conversational, Greene falling over himself in his eagerness to create a sense of pursuit and danger from the start. 'Red Harvest' is narrated from the point of view of a hard-nosed and dedicated detective investigating murder and civic corruption with a firm sense of duty, he's not particularly likeable but admirable in his steadfastness. 'The Man Within' centres on a craven criminal on the run from his former cohorts following a betrayal that led to one of their deaths, he is portrayed honestly without any attempt to make him sympathetic, rather the reverse in fact. I'm gonna enjoy this... | ||
| Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 121.214.129.83 |
I'm waiting for 'The Well', by Jack Cady, to arrive, so I've started a couple of short story collections - 'Just Behind You', by Ramsey and 'Pelican Cay & Other Disquieting Tales', by David Case. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.2.69.232 |
Just read the Landlord's The Doll Who Ate His Mother and The Parasite. Only read Ramsey's short fiction up until now so I was curious to see how his novels would compare. Doll was interesting for the ambiguity of the supernatural element and the fact that the whole thing read more like a crime novel, with the intrepid gang of amateur sleuths out to catch the killer. Parasite meanwhile was interesting in the way the inventive prose was at odds with the commercial plotting. And after the multiple viewpoints in Doll it was interesting to compare the use of a single POV in Parasite. Also enjoyed the New Age/occult elements, with all the references to the Golden Dawn (RAW's influence on my interests showing through again). I thought the story's pacing was a bit off but after reading the afterword it turned out that Ramsey wrote the book at his agent's prompting in order to have a bestseller and so ignored a lot of his natural instincts as a writer then made a lot of cuts to try and salvage the story. Consequently he isn't happy with the way the novel turned out. Actually, he was more critical of it than I was. Anyway, I enjoyed both books enough that I want to read some more of his novels. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Stu, I found 'To Wake The Dead' (The Parasite) almost unbearably intense and identified completely with that poor hapless heroine. Yes, the prose and pacing has its flaws, like all young writers, but they are charming flaws in their eagerness to communicate with the reader the sheer excitement of creation. I don't think Ramsey was ever more in-your-face terrifying than in his first five or six novels - they make up for their lack of subtlety with a pure entertainment value (if you can call it that) that makes me inordinately fond of them. I'm finding the same quality in the first few chapters of Graham Greene's 'The Man Within' - call it youthful exuberance. Meanwhile 'Red Harvest' is by far the more mature novel, with Hammett displaying a control of his technique so fresh it is invigorating. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.69.238 |
Punisher War Zone: The Resurrection of Ma Gnucci. Written by Garth Ennis. Illustrated by Steve Dillon. Ennis ditches the probing character study and social commentary of his Punisher MAX run to return to the black humour and silliness of the Marvel knights version. Paraplegic mob boss Ma Gnucci has risen from the grave to wreak revenge upon the Punisher. Or has she? Meanwhile a vigilante also plans revenge on the 'Nam veteran turned one man army. Plus, lesbian cop Molly von Richthofen struggles to balance her relationship with her bisexual lover with her assignment to the NYPD's Punisher Task Force. Of course all these threads tie up to be resolved in a huge gunbattle. Slick but shallow fun with the Punisher's merciless violence at odds with his occasional displays of humour and sentimentality. Green Arrow/Black Canary: A League of their Own. Written by Judd Winick. Illustrated by Mike Norton. I quite enjoyed what I'd read of Wincik's early run on Green Arrow but this has too many characters and too much exposition for the story to take hold (to be fair it's the second half of a story and I haven't read the first half). Winick seems to be better when working with a smaller cast so he can get his teeth into the characterisation and fire off his one-liners. Disappointing. Brave and the Bold Vol 1: Lords of Luck and Vol 2: The Book of Destiny. Written by Mark Waid. Illustrated by George Perez. This revamp of Brave and the Bold alters the concept so that instead of Batman teaming up with a different co-star each month pretty much any combination of DC heroes can appear in any given instalment. And as the story revolves around a mystical artifact that keeps zipping across time and space you get superhero mash-ups such as The Blackhawks/The Boy Commandos in WWII, Superman/Silent Knight in mediaeval England and Green Lantern/Adam Strange/Supergirl in outer space. Waid does his best to find the emotional heart of each team-up but cramming in so many different characters and locations leaves the story feeling both overcrowded and underdeveloped. Perez's art doesn't help -- although nice to look at the amount of panels he squeezes into each page doesn't always leave the scenes enough room to breathe. I can't help feeling that either some of the bit-part players should have been ditched or else extra pages added to the story. Not a bad comic but it could've been better. Batman: International. Written by Alan Grant and Mark Waid. Illustrated by various artists. Three Batman stories originally published separately but collected together as they all feature Bats in foreign locales. Grant's Edinburgh-based tale is a story of revenge revolving around Scots immigrating to America and the ancient secrets of the Knights Templar. Waid's story sees Batman pursuing Killer Croc to Barcelona as the mutated villain attempts to fulfil an ancient legend. Grant's second tale features flashbacks to Bruce Wayne seeking to learn Taoist fortune-telling in China and the bearing this has on Batman's current case. (Quite why a sceptic like Batman would put stock in fortune-telling is never explained.) All the stories are workmanlike with any interest arising from their emphasis on history and legend rather than brilliant storytelling. | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.171.253.12 |
Currently reading "Blonde On A Stick", by Conrad Williams. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.180.45.171 |
Currently reading Mark West's story in "Where The Heart Is"! | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.158.238.131 |
Struggling to read at the mo...Too much buzzing around in my head. Biographies seem to work though. gcw | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.171.253.12 |
Hope you're enjoying it, Mick! | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.180.45.171 |
I did, Mark - an excellent story in an excellent collection. | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.171.253.12 |
Cheers, Mick, thanks for that! | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21 |
Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny. Not horror, of course, but it deservedly won a Pulitzer. | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 84.197.166.202 |
Roughly 1/3 into the first two volumes (published otgether) of Haruki Murakami's latest: 1Q84. Very good, his best one perhaps so far even if some passages could be a bit shorter. | ||
| Johnny_mains (Johnny_mains) Username: Johnny_mains Registered: 04-2010 Posted From: 82.22.75.99 |
Reading a pike attack novel called "Devour" and Conrad's "Blonde on a Stick". | ||
| Degsy (Degsy) Username: Degsy Registered: 08-2010 Posted From: 86.134.93.9 |
>>Reading a pike attack novel called "Devour" and Conrad's "Blonde on a Stick"<< I remember reading something years and years ago about a man-eating pike on a rampage but I'm fairly sure it wasn't called 'Devour' which leads me to conclude that there must be an entire sub-genre of killer Pike fiction that I have yet to discover! "Bet your life I'll meet a pike who'll wolf me down for tea tonight." | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Degsy- could it be Cliff Twemlow's imaginatively-titled 'The Pike' you';re thinking of? Or, on a lighter note, you could have a listen to this: http://www.darksmile.co.uk/Mp3/MapandSteads/2%20-%20Map%20&%20Steads%20and%20The %20Irwell%20Pike.mp3 Who on earth wrote that rubbish? Oh, hang on... | ||
| Degsy (Degsy) Username: Degsy Registered: 08-2010 Posted From: 86.134.93.9 |
Aha! Just gooogled a cover of Twemlow's 'The Pike' and you're spot-on Simon, that's the one I remember. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Flying through 'Red Harvest' & 'The Man Within' now and finding both books thoroughly gripping character studies of polar opposites: Hammett's frighteningly indomitable force of justice, relishing bringing the bad guys to book & Greene's morally bankrupt, snivelling wretch, digging an ever deeper hole for himself as he squirms to avoid retribution (spiritual as much as physical). Both books are best read as basic templates for all that was to follow in 20th Century crime fiction - driven by natural storytelling flair and a knack for potently primal characterisation, though somewhat rough-edged and simplistic compared to the later works of both writers. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
The experience of reading these together is doing funny things to my head: I keep seeing the Continental Op closing in on poor old Andrews - like Bogie confronting Peter Lorre lol. Brownie points to Greene for turning genre stereotypes on their head: the token homosexual character (Mr Farnes) is an incorruptible church-going man of the law here, while the ruby-lipped femme fatale is the bored prosecutor's woman rather than the gangster's moll. Her taunting seduction of Andrews is powerful stuff! Greene's writing is inferior to Hammett's in this one but his themes are writ far larger. | ||
| Skip (Wolfnoma) Username: Wolfnoma Registered: 07-2010 Posted From: 216.54.20.98 |
Funny thing is, yesterday I was in my spare bedroom going through my bookshelves and picked up "Farenheit 451" by Bradbury and now the video has become Viral!! | ||
| Degsy (Degsy) Username: Degsy Registered: 08-2010 Posted From: 86.134.93.9 |
Nice one Simon! Just listened to 'Map & Steads and the Irwell Pike' and me sides are sore.  Random quote: "That bloody fish, it swallowed an XR-2! It has two chavs inside..., and it was tuned to Galaxy!" So I was right. There is an entire sub-genre of killer Pikes that I have yet to discover! (I'm sure sometime in the distant past someone out there must have brought out 'The Angling Times Book Of Fishy Horror' or suchlikes, with the byline: 'When Roach go BAD'.) Incidentally, the most horrifying fishy story is, in fact, not fictional at all (see below). http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2551/can-the-candir-fish-swim-upstream- into-your-urethra >>CRINGE!<<  | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.209.76 |
I am currently reading Simon Raven's 'Remember Your Grammar & Other Haunted Tales' to Lady P at bedtime. It's engagingly written and deliciously debauched and I think I'll tackle 'Doctors Wear Scarlet' (I know I do) next. When she's asleep I'm reading Tenebrous Tales by Christopher Barker. Have you finished it yet, Ramsey? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Between the day job, proofing and editing, and writing a new novel, I'm manging to slip in a few pages of "Remember You're a One-Ball" by Quentin S. Crisp. And it's fabulous. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.209.76 |
Ah! We've got Quentin's All Gods Angels Beware from Ex Occidente and Kate liked what she's read of him in there. I liked his Tartarus 'Morbid Tales' | ||
| Degsy (Degsy) Username: Degsy Registered: 08-2010 Posted From: 86.134.93.9 |
>>Ah! We've got Quentin's All Gods Angels Beware from Ex Occidente and Kate liked what she's read of him in there. I liked his Tartarus 'Morbid Tales'<< I thought about ordering this. But sadly, my copy of 'The Man who Collected Machen' from Ex Occidente never arrived from the publisher (a quick google shows that I'm not alone). And to compound things further, Crisp's 'Morbid Tales' can't be had for love or money now it's out of print. But like Zed, I too am currently consoling myself with his 'Remember you're a One-Ball!' from Chomu Press. 'Consoling' is probably the wrong word to describe a book that is as dark and relentless as 'The Harm' by Zed (another recent purchase). I can see why Crisp had trouble getting this into print! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Quentin's a real talebt; technically speaking, he's just about the best writer in the indy press. Hey, Degsy - I hope you liked The Harm (enjoyed is probably the wrong word). | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
talent, even... | ||
| Degsy (Degsy) Username: Degsy Registered: 08-2010 Posted From: 86.134.93.9 |
I've really enjoyed all the stuff by Crisp that I've managed to get hold of over the years - there's something about his pared-down aesthetic and his laconic prose style that really does it for me. My real frustration is that all of his recent collections have been limited editions and hence mostly out of my price range. 'The Harm' was strong stuff Zed, and it took me to all sorts of uncomfortable places. I'm still trying to piece together my feelings for the various characters... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
That's music to my ears, sir. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.4.55 |
Found online (easy to do - takes 2 seconds of a google search) the original spec script for the movie SALT, back when it was called EDWIN A. SALT, and the lead protag was male instead of female, as it became with Angelina Jolie starring. But wow - what a nifty little power-packed script! If you like total mind-f*ck movies, this one action-packed, that keep you back and forth guessing until the very end... I'm hoping, when I finally see it, they did a good job on this, and the movie stands up.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I'm beginning to wonder if Hammett's 'Red Harvest' (ever filmed anyone?) wasn't the inspiration behind 'Yojimbo'/'A Fistful Of Dollars'? The parallels are unmistakeable. A lone resourceful hero with a strong sense of honour arrives in a small town riven by corruption and organised crime, with various rival groups vying for power. He then sets about craftily ingratiating himself with the various factions and ruthlessly playing one side off against the other in his grim determination to bring them all down and return the town to the hands of decent god-fearing people. Bogart would have been a natural to play the role but perhaps the Continental Op's unscrupulous methods were thought unsuitable for popular cinematic entertainment in the 30s/40s? Although a lawman he deems the criminals unworthy of honourable treatment and uses every nefarious trick in the book to wreak "justice" on them - I'm finding the character very much an anti-hero and genuinely menacing in his implacable ruthlessness. So could Kurosawa have been influenced by Hammett? I don't think it's beyond the bounds of possibility... | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.18.206.172 |
As far as I know the influence goes full circle from Red Harvest (gangsters) to Yojimbo (samurai) to Fistful of Dollars (cowboys) to Last Man Standing (gangsters). | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.176.19 |
I'm reading Tony Richards' collection Passport to Purgatory, a Gray Friar Press title from 2008. Absolutely superb. Horror, crime and weird SF. Ghosts, nightmares, murder, jazz, the shadows of the world's cities. Beautifully controlled and weighted. Not an excess syllable. Let's hope Richards' current success with novels leads a mass-market publisher to do a big collection of his short stories. Meanwhile, this book demands your attention. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
His stories in the Fontana Ghost Books really stood out from the other "new" authors Chetwynd-Hayes selected (apart from Ramsey, of course). I was particularly impressed with 'Our Lady Of The Shadows', which made Paris a truly frightening place to be wandering alone in... | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
I thought the first Tony Richards story I'd read was 'Going Back' in TTA when I reviewed it a few years ago. Then I bought the collection and realised I'd actually been reading Tony's stuff for years, in anthologies by Mary Danby and Richard Davis among others. But for some reason, I always seemed to think they were by Richard Matheson (or in one case, John Wyndham!) Luckily Tony was very flattered when I told him this... He's a superb writer and one of those who shows you what it's all about. I love that deceptively simple style of writing where it all looks so obvious, so natural, so straightforward- it's not until afterwards that you realise what an incredibly high level of both art and craft has been employed. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Joel - I'm currently reading Passport to Purgatory, too - started it last week, at the back end of my holiday. Top-notch, isn't it? Tony's a wonderful writer. | ||
| Seanmcd (Seanmcd) Username: Seanmcd Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 86.139.117.246 |
I held 'Carrion Comfort' by Dan Simmons in my hands today. Is this as good as the blurb says? I haven't read any of his output at all ...yet! I've a niggling feeling i'm missing out. | ||
| Skip (Wolfnoma) Username: Wolfnoma Registered: 07-2010 Posted From: 24.254.201.25 |
You know, Carrion Comfort has been recommended to me by several people. I may now have to check it out. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.18.198.121 |
Justice League of America: That was Now, This is Then. Written by Roger Stern. Illustrated by John Byre and Mark Farmer. An immensely powerful alien named Titus arrives on Earth claiming to be a god and challenging the deities from the world's religions to fight him. When no gods accept his challenge it is up to the Justice League to stop him. But can mere mortals defy a being with the power of a god? And why does Titus claim to know the Justice League when no one has any memory of him? The story cuts between the present day and a mission by a previous incarnation of the League as the truth is revealed. Stern delivers non-stop thrills with only the briefest of moments for quiet reflection, this is very much a case of showing character through action. As such there are no real surprises; the villain is villainous and the heroes are heroic, albeit with distinguishing traits -- Superman is nobility personified, Green Arrow cocky and impetuous, The Atom wisecracking but pragmatic. The dialogue feels a little clunky in places but behind the awkward one-liners and the super-powered fisticuffs Stern works in themes of religious tolerance, the abuse of power and the nature of faith and prayer. If you really want to start reading stuff into it he even touches on the varieties of godhood -- monotheism, polytheism and pantheism. Not bad for a story which is just an extended punch-up. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Sean and Skip- Simmons is damn good. Try his collection 'Prayers To Broken Stones'- it's got some great stories, including the novella 'Carrion Comfort', which was the basis of the novel. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
I've tried to read the novel Carrion Comfort three times, and never finished it. The beginning is excellent, but it gets bogged down about half way through, IMHO. The original novella is far superior - superb, in fact. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Read Simmons' Song of Kali instead: one of the best horror novels ever written. Hollow Man is great, too. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 61.216.200.131 |
I agree, Song of Kali is a must read. I have only dipped into Passport to Purgatory, but I've liked what I've read so far. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Stu, I was afraid someone would mention 'Last Man Standing' - a film so bad it defies belief imo! All cod-style and no substance whatsoever - Willis has never been more irritating. Sadly this was the movie that convinced me Walter Hill was all washed up as a director. I've just checked Wiki and see I wasn't the only person to notice the similarities between 'Red Harvest' & 'Yojimbo'. Also RH was filmed, unfaithfully, as 'Roadhouse Nights' in 1930 with Jimmy bloody Durante, of all people!! They also mention 'Miller's Crossing' as being influenced by the novel but I think that's stretching a point. I see that Greene's 'The Man Within' was also filmed, routinely in 1947, with Richard Attenborough as Andrews & Michael Redgrave his crimelord nemesis Carlyon. Is there any Greene novel that hasn't been filmed?! | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.18.198.121 |
>>Stu, I was afraid someone would mention 'Last Man Standing' - a film so bad it defies belief imo! Sorry for mentioning such an awful film but you did open the door. Now console yourself by watching 48 Hours. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I'd rather take some 'Southern Comfort'... | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.18.198.121 |
Did Powers Boothe's film career totally dry up after Walter Hill pretty much stopped directing films? Oh, wait -- he was in Rapid Fire with Brandon Lee and Sin City with Bruce Willis. (Hmm, mentioning Walter Hill makes me want to watch Trespass again. Not seen it for years.) | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.68 |
"They also mention 'Miller's Crossing' as being influenced by the novel but I think that's stretching a point." I think so too! It's very much an unofficial version of The Glass Key (though if anything the Stuart Heisler version is even more uncompromising). | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Haven't yet read 'The Glass Key', Ramsey, but recently acquired a copy and will do so after 'The Dain Curse'. Is it possible to get a definitive collection of Dashiell Hammett's short stories, or is that a stupid question? Just finished 'The Man Within' at lunchtime. Greene betrays his immaturity with a stupendously melodramatic finale, but, despite myself, I still felt a moistness around the eyes at how things turned out. This exchange, between the wretch seeking redemption and the woman he has doomed by his cowardice, stood out for me: "'Go on talking to me. While I hear you all this chaos,' he put his hand to his head, 'is smoothed out.' He looked up at her suspiciously, expecting her laughter. Elizabeth asked with a small puzzled frown, 'What do you mean by chaos?' 'It is as though,' Andrews said slowly, 'there were about six different people inside me. They all urge different things. I don't know which is myself.' 'The one who left the knife and the one who stays here now,' she said. 'But then, what of the others?' 'The devil,' she answered. He laughed. 'How old fashioned you are.'" Even a genius has to start somewhere... | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.180.45.171 |
Finished "Where The Heart Is" and thought it was a superb collection - well done everyone involved! Now about to start Mark West's "In The Rain With The Dead", which by rights I shouldn't be reading for several years yet (Mark sent it to me last year) as there're loads of books I got before that one, but I leapfrogged it up my tbr pile as I thought it would be a bit embarassing to meet up with Mark at FCon and still not have read it! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Soon be finished the quite brilliant and relentlessly brutal 'Red Harvest' and in a bit of a quandary what to read next... it's between 'The One Safe Place' (1995) by Ramsey Campbell, 'The Dreaming Jewels' (1950) by Theodore Sturgeon or to get stuck into the final three volumes of the Foundation Saga with 'Foundation And Earth' (1986) by Isaac Asimov. Maybe I'll just roll some dice. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 62.254.173.35 |
THE HUMBLING by Philip Roth. Alas, it’s an old man writing out a dry sex fantasy about screwing a lesbian and it all going wrong. At least it’s short. NEED TO KNOW by Timothy Good. Good collects an enormous number of pilot, military, and intelligence community testaments relating to the actuality of strange things flying about our skies. It’s a bit dry, and any potential awe gets bludgeoned to death by his matter-of-fact account, after account, after account. Interesting. Many governments have testified to the reality of UFOs, it seems. THE MAGDALEN MARTYRS by Ken Bruen. An Irish noir unrelenting pulp bashabout. Fun when it works, a bit not fun when it doesn’t. | ||
| Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.171.253.12 |
Cheers, Mick  . Hope you like it. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.104.135.73 |
Going to read INDIGO by Graham Joyce. The sun is shining....I've the house to myself so I'm going to sit in the garden with a glass of wine. Peace. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
As it's Ray Bradbury's birthday I've decided on a long overdue (by about 30 years) re-read of 'Dandelion Wine'. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
'Dandelion Wine' is the very definition of the sublime, and I am struck, more forcibly than ever, how profound an influence Bradbury's writing had on the homespun Americana of Stephen King's fiction - only with all the artistry put into the creation of a mystical otherworldly atmosphere, rather than straight narrative and overwhelming attention to detail. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Finished 'Red Harvest' and can't for the life of me understand why this textbook perfect crime thriller has never officially been filmed. It certainly transformed the art of thriller writing like no work before or since and had a profound influence on film noir and macho action cinema in general. Hammett's knack for cinematically descriptive detail and the authentic dialogue of the streets, the labyrinthine twists and turns of the plot, the searing shootouts and action sequences, the casual blood-soaked brutality that permeates every page and swaggering charisma of his hard-boiled characters must have sent shockwaves through the literary world of the 1930s. The last chapters take an unexpected turn that had me flipping the pages with suspense and seeing the narrator in a completely different light - one mean bastard, and then some. Often imitated, never bettered - a real belter of a crime novel that has lost none of its power to grip. | ||
| Thomasb (Thomasb) Username: Thomasb Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.236.169.250 |
I just picked up "Invitation to a Beheading" by Nabokov and "The God Patent" by Ransom Stephens, one of the first of the major "e-novels" to be published last year. Quite promising so far. Stevie: The story of why "Red Harvest" has never been adapted directly for the movies is a long, mysterious one. Most of it seems to center around who owns the film rights. One version I heard from Hammett's grandaughter is that producer Alberto Grimaldi ("The Good, the Bad & the Ugly" et al) claims he bought the rights from Hammett years ago and won't let anyone even get a fingertip on it without paying a huge fee. Another version of this story can be found here: http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/02/28/hammett Until someone somewhere gets it together, we'll have to be satisfied with Kurosawa's "Yojimbo", Leone's a "A Fistful of Dollars' and Walter Hill's mediocre "Last Man Standing", all three indirect adaptations of "Red Harvest." The first two are definitely worth anyone's time. There's also "Miller's Crossing" by the Coen Brothers, a splicing of both "Red Harvest" and "The Glass Key" and equal to "The Maltese Falcon" in capturing Hammett's spirit. Hope that enlightens. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Thanks, Thomas. That does explain the mystery. I knew nothing about the plot of 'Red Harvest' before reading it and, being an avid movie buff, was struck by the similarities (mostly in the first half) with 'Yojimbo' & 'A Fistful Of Dollars'. They got the double cross elements and casual violence just right but what they lacked, as unofficial adaptations, was the sense of mystery in the novel and the brilliantly paranoid "did he or didn't he" element of the final chapters. Of all the classic novels I've read this is the one that most cries out for a faithful cinema adaptation - the script would virtually write itself and I could think of no one better than the Coen Bros to bring it to life. We can live and hope... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
What a lovely book 'Dandelion Wine' is... half-way through and I've found myself filling up with conflicting emotions at several passages - not knowing whether to smile or cry. I can see how this kind of sentimental fantasy might not be everyone's cup of tea but for me it's absolutely gorgeous. Bittersweet and mysterious with a perfectly judged undercurrent of subtle menace. I can think of no other writer of weird fiction who can perform such a fine conjuring trick on the reader. A book to treasure like none other. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 213.81.123.238 |
Been reading some James Sallis. Cypress Grove and Cripple Creek are about a city detective turned small town deputy. The novels take all the hardboiled cliches -- troubled yet compassionate detective with ridiculously impressive qualifications and life experiences (psychotherapist, former convict and ex-special forces soldier) who is forced out of retirement and uncovers murder and intrigue -- then shoves the tired tropes into the background while the hero concentrates on telling anecdotes about his past and how he is settling into the small town. Also read Drive. A stunt driver turned getaway driver is double-crossed while working his latest heist and has to stay one step ahead of the crooks who want him dead. All while the narrative keeps flip-flopping between the present day and the events that led to him becoming a wheelman. Also reread Sallis's The Long-Legged Fly about New Orleans PI Lew Griffin. Griffin works various missing persons cases over the course of four decades while falling in love, committing murder, being hassled by cops for being black and hassled by activists wanting him to aid the civil rights movement. In fact back in the '90s when I first read this I remember seeing copies in Forbidden Planet stocked under 'Black Fiction' despite Sallis actually being white. All the novels contain sparse prose with a poetic streak accompanied by philosophical musings and the occasional wisecrack. Good fun. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.24.31.17 |
Punisher Max: Six Hours to Kill. Written by Duane Swierczynski. Illustrated by Michel LaCombe. This is the first story I've read in Marvel's 'mature readers' version of The Punisher since Garth Ennis left the title. Unfortunately Ennis's depiction of The Punisher's mental scarring and the mirroring of his one man war on crime with the futility of the conflicts in Vietnam and Afghanistan has been abandoned in favour of sex, violence and gimmicky high concepts. So in Six Hours to Kill the Punisher is injected with a slow-acting poison and will only be given the antidote if he uses his remaining hours of life to kill a crooked local politician. The writing and art are functional, with the odd burst of creativity, but the whole thing feels soulless -- just cram in as much cynicism, gore and gratuitous nudity as possible, that'll keep the fanboys happy. The backup strip, Force of Nature, continues the high concept approach -- how does the Punisher get intel out of crooks who won't succumb to torture? Cue psychological trickery. Then finish with a pointless action money shot and a totally out of character one-liner. Ennis used this series to make a serious point, Six Hours to Kill seems designed only to make money. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Horns by Joe Hill. Very good so far: funny, edgy and original. Just finished Quentin S. Crisp's Remember You're a One-Ball, which was bloody brilliant. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Ghost Story at the moment, one of the most bold, beautiful and imaginative novels of the genre, and outside of the genre; the prose is beautiful. A truly gorgeous tome. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.237.21 |
What a lovely book 'Dandelion Wine' is... I agree. It's one of my personal favourites, too, mainly because it reminds me so much of my own pre-adolescent childhood. We had our little gang composed of neighbourhood kids, and a summer was an eternity in itself filled with incredible adventures, some of them indeed bordering on the horrific. Those afternoons in the blistering sun were endless, every single one of them filled with new experiences, whereas now . . . one blink and an entire day has passed me by. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Just finished 'Dandelion Wine', and I have to agree, the memories it brought back of those two blissful months off school in the summer holidays, risking life and limb with my mates, were just magical. A seriously captivating and emotional read that has a little bit of everything in it - tragedy, comedy, romance, excitement, horror and pure poetry. Ray Bradbury stands in a league of his own. Now for 'The Dreaming Jewels' by Theodore Sturgeon... | ||
| Skip (Wolfnoma) Username: Wolfnoma Registered: 07-2010 Posted From: 216.54.20.98 |
The Emerald Burrito of Oz by John Skipp and Marc Levinthal | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Thinking over 'Dandelion Wine' I'm struck by the fact that Douglas Spaulding (i.e. the thinly disguised Ray Bradbury as a 12 year old boy) was so obsessed with never wanting to die and the fact that Ray has reached the age of 90, with his faculties intact. When you think of the stress that was put on the death of wise elderly characters in the book, compared to Doug's effervescing youth, it makes the experience of reading it now even more poignant. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
Check out Farewell Summer now - the long delayed sequel to DW - let us know what you think. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
So there's a sequel! Thanks for the info, Weber. I imagine it must be some tearjerker. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
You'd imagine... yes | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Okay, I'm well ensconced in 'The Dreaming Jewels' and two authors spring immediately to mind, if you can imagine Clive Barker writing in the style of one of Roald Dahl's children's books, that's what this intriguing fantasy reminds me of... they're all there, the evil step-parents, the misunderstood weird kid who runs away and the cavalcade of otherworldly freaks who take him in without judging. 'James And The Giant Peach' meets 'Cabal' - but this stunningly imaginative novel was written in 1950! Only the second piece of fiction by Theodore Sturgeon I have read, following the uncategorisable short story 'The Other Celia', and I'm hugely impressed. Looks like another Heinlein or Leiber type revelation could be on the cards. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I spent most of last night swallowed up by 'The Dreaming Jewels' and now three quarters through... an incredible novel. It has the humanity and emotion of Dickens, the primal power of a Grimm fairy-tale, the grotesque humour and deceptive simplicity of Dahl & the dark celebration of freakish otherness I get from Barker. If this is Sturgeon, I'm addicted! And, thanks to Weber, I got another three books of this to come... | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Stevie, Barker's early work drew heavily on the likes of Sturgeon, Matheson and Reamy. That's why I get cross when critics who don't know that stuff claim that Barker revolutionised the horror genre. He just took a strand of the postwar American horror genre and popularised it for the UK market. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
I've just finished reading Nina Allan's collection A Thread of Truth. Wonderful stuff – one of the best and most individual 'slipstream' writers, weaving threads of weird and speculative fiction into narratives grounded firmly in realistic accounts of the lives of rather troubled and traumatised people. The book includes two really frightening understated horror stories – though the title story, which is about arachnophobia, turns out to be a haunting love story (love between humans, I hasten to add) rather than a horror story. Allan's style is distinctive, moving fluidly between past and present, objective and imagined, normal and weird. Hers is a world of buried memories, cryptic artefacts, tenderness and danger. Essential reading. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
She is good that Nina Allan. And she's contributing to my next anthology. Which is ace. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Finished 'The Dreaming Jewels' over the weekend - absolutely bloody brilliant!! Just started 'The One Safe Place' by the man himself yesterday and within the first few chapters I'm completely gripped. A refreshing change to see Ramsey do a non-supernatural suspense thriller with the accent very much on suspense! I already fear desperately for that poor respectable American family unintentionally attracting the psychotic ire of the most monstrous family of Mancunian chav headbins you could possibly imagine... like the similarly themed 'Straw Dogs' I see this one getting very nasty indeed. | ||
| Adriana (Adriana) Username: Adriana Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.225.78.195 |
Needed a Shirley Jackson fix, so started THE SUNDIAL, which I've never before read. As well as some material on palliative care, as I'm about to start some volunteer work in the field... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.12.24 |
Hey, A, I just read We Have Always Lived In The Castle earlier this summer! I really liked it... the ending sort of petered out, in my opinion, but overall, a phenomenal little novel... makes me want to go out and read more.... Stephen King says in Danse Macabre that The Sundial was a major influence on The Shining - no, not The Haunting of Hill House, he said The Sundial - so do tell me if there's a similarity, it may make me pick that one up sooner. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.55 |
Currently reading Star Island by Carl Hiaasen - a spot on laugh out loud funny satire on the cult of celebrity. This also features the return of Skink (ex governor of florida now militant eco-warrior dishing out his own brand of rather vindictive justice on those he sees despoiling the everglades) and Chemo (6'7" tall moon faced weed-whacker handed serial killer turned bodyguard to the rich and famous while he can't make a living as a mortgage advisor). I've neen giggling like a child all the way through this. A definite return to form after the slightly disappointing Skinny Dip. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Stevie, Barker's early work drew heavily on the likes of Sturgeon, Matheson and Reamy. That's why I get cross when critics who don't know that stuff claim that Barker revolutionised the horror genre. He just took a strand of the postwar American horror genre and popularised it for the UK market. Joel, while the authors Barker was inspired by deserve to be recognised and rediscovered for their originality - I'm still reeling from how ahead of its time 'The Dreaming Jewels' was - I still think Clive deserves recognition for his fearless modernising of those themes. | ||
| Adriana (Adriana) Username: Adriana Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.225.78.195 |
Craig -- thanks for that tidbit about SK and The Sundial! I'd never heard that before. Personally I really loved WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE. And the low-key feel was a big part of why... This one didn't suck me in quite as quickly, maybe because there are so many characters, which with my inability to remember names made getting into it a little daunting. But I'm loving it now! And feel like I might have an inkling of what SK was responding to as per the inspiration for THE SHINING -- for one thing, THE SUNDIAL features a wonderfully atmospheric hedge maze. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.218.59 |
They cost a lot of money to build, they do. You need a hedge fund. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Just finished Joe Hill's Horns, which was very good indeed - creepy, funny and oddly moving. Now I'm largeing it up old school (whatever that means) with Whitley Streiber's The Wolfen. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.8.159 |
Here's King's exact quote, Adrianna: "The new American gothic provides a closed loop of character, and in what might be termed a psychological pathetic fallacy, the physical surroundings often mimic the inward-turnings of the characters themselves - as they do in The Sundial*.... *[footnote] Or in The Shining, which was written very much with The Sundial in mind." Not just American - that first sentence applies oh so aptly to Ramsey's work! | ||
| Adriana (Adriana) Username: Adriana Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.225.78.195 |
indeed. | ||
| Adriana (Adriana) Username: Adriana Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.225.78.195 |
Just paused to read Tony Lovell's THE SHELL. Jesus Tony, when are you going to give the world a collection??? On the subject of Shirley Jackson, it never ceases to amaze me that much of what I crave in her work, I find in Tony's.  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.245.103 |
Another thing we have in common, A! I just read "The Shell" a month or so back, Tony had sent it to me, and I really loved it. Did he get it published (I hope!), or did he send it to you too? Or has it been published already, long before I got it? A superb story, and yes, S. Jackson does come to mind! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I totally agree, Adriana. The little of Tony's fiction I've read is of an incredibly high standard - subtle, haunting, cerebral and otherworldly. His is a rare talent imo. Where is he these days anyway??? |