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Lincoln (Lincoln_brown)
Username: Lincoln_brown

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 121.219.124.44
Posted on Sunday, December 26, 2010 - 12:55 pm:   

Have two collections on the go at the moment, and both are superb:
'Cold to the Touch', by Simon Strantzas and 'Northwest Passages', by Barbara Roden. Both are highly recommended.
Also read Gary McMahon's story in the 'Apparitions' antho - 'Proof'. Another quality tale from Gary -
My in-laws gave me 'Full Dark, No Stars' for Xmas, and I'm quite excited! Haven't read any new King since 'Insomnia'(mid 90's?)
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.176.147.163
Posted on Sunday, December 26, 2010 - 01:24 pm:   

Regarding King's collection, I posted the following in the All Hallows forum a while back:

I had already written that I was halfway "1922", the first, and longest novella in Stephen King's new 4 story collection.
My initial impressions were confirmed, this is a very well crafted story of murder, obsession, madness and guilt. Really quite special. Interestingly, it could be a story with a vengeful ghost, but perhaps it's all in the mind of the obsessed narrator, a remarkably well-read farmer driven to murder and manipulation by his greed. There is one thing he could only know at that moment if indeed a ghost told him future happenings; or perhaps his feverish memories are so messed up? A very good story, strongly recommended. Probably too long for the yearly anthologies? Well, I would rather shuck out a few shorter stories to get this one in. You rarely read dark novellas that are this well done.

Sadly, the second story "Big Driver" (a pretty standard revenge story) brought back a lot of what I don't like about many Stephen King stories. Details that the protagonist remembers at certain stressful moments are to me not very realistic, yet so very typical of his prose.
Furthermore, the protagonist is most of the time alone, yet she often dialogues with her cat, her navigation system, a dead body, etc, always impersonating the other side. This actually gets tiring pretty quickly. Towards the end the story may slip into the supernatural -based on how one of these inner dialogues suddenly evolves- yet it feels like a cheap trick.

Then there is "Fair Extension", or how far would you go to get rid of terminal disease? Think about the saying that "integrity is doing the right thing even if nobody watches". Here the story is the most obviously supernatural-influenced, and it turns pretty sinister. I have the feeling that many people in today's "me! me! me!" culture would gleefully act like the protagonist.
After a strong start -good dialogue with someone who might be the devil, or at least an associate, the story isn't that interesting in the end. And it kind of fizzles out, there is no interesting evolution. Not saying that it should have a happy end, yet I think that more could be done with this core idea, it's too simple now.

Currently halfway "A good marriage". This one actually begins too slow, simply too many chronological details of a happy marriage. Yes, ok, we get the message, now get on with it. Then it turns interesting -and King writes this part well- when the wife may have discovered something terrible about her husband, something much worse than that extreme bondage magazine she just found hidden. Not a deep story at all yet I'm curious where this one goes.

So, all in all currently a rather mitigated impression. "1922" is great though, a story anyone here would enjoy.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 89.194.8.130
Posted on Sunday, December 26, 2010 - 04:25 pm:   

Only a few chapters left of 'The House On Nazareth Hill', then, for my Christmas read, I brought over 'Rain Dogs' by Gary McMahon, to get a taste of bang up-to-date modern horror. Should be starting it tomorrow, hangover permitting. But first Boxing Night shenanigans in Leeds beckon...
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.78
Posted on Monday, December 27, 2010 - 02:15 am:   

Been struggling to get through much this last three weeks, but here's some I've read in the last week or three.

Mr Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennet. This guy's a young buck. I do worry he may've been published a couple of books too early. I hope his publishers stick with him and let him grow and develop. Cos he's gonna be good. Of this book I'd say it shows promise for the career ahead of him but I found it hard work to force myself through to the end. It took nearly two weeks to get through, the longest it's taken me with a novel in ages.

The House of Canted Steps by some bloke whose name escapes me. Interesting and compulsive ghost tale, and at its best the prose is evocative of the stuff the book's dedicatee produces. Has a likeable protagonist too, which is quite an echievement given he's an estate agent. Read this one in a couple of evenings. Some good shivers throughout. (And technically interesting for me to see how the author introduced a lot of disperate elements into the plot which happened to secondary characters while retaining the integrity of his single point-of-view character - though he did 'cheat' with the prologue on that score.)

Another Part of the City by Ed McBain. Sort of thing he wrote in his sleep, and still did it better than anyone else. Another quick read and highly enjoyable.
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Jamie Rosen (Jamie)
Username: Jamie

Registered: 11-2008
Posted From: 99.241.48.210
Posted on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 - 04:52 pm:   

With exam season upon me, and then recuperating from exam season, I haven't done much personal reading. I have, however, just finished the second volume of the Library Wars manga. Based on a series of novels in Japan, Library Wars is set in a future Japan where the federal government has enacted severe censorship laws, and the libraries -- assisted by the local governments -- serve as the main bastions of resistance. It's a comedy-romance-action series, in that order, and great shoujo fun.
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Seanmcd (Seanmcd)
Username: Seanmcd

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 217.35.242.218
Posted on Tuesday, December 28, 2010 - 11:14 pm:   

I'm into the last 200 pages of 'A Game of Thrones' by George R.R. Martin. A superb, gritty, non magical, medieval fantasy setting brilliantly realised.
I may well start straight into book 2 'A Clash of Kings' next on the strength of this opener.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.176.214.196
Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - 09:45 am:   

I'm into the last 200 pages of 'A Game of Thrones' by George R.R. Martin. A superb, gritty, non magical, medieval fantasy setting brilliantly realised.

I'll skip the book (still so many books behind) but I am looking forward to the upcoming TV series. With HBO budget and talent behind it, it should be worth watching.

---

Reading: I'm almost through "The Quantum Thief". SF books are all too often described as "mind-blowing", and this one certainly deserves the label. If you think that Peter Watts and Charles Stross provide light reading, then do try this one. A remarkable debut, if you like your SF intelligent and served very, very hard.
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Seanmcd (Seanmcd)
Username: Seanmcd

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 217.35.242.218
Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - 01:56 pm:   

Yes Tom, I'm waiting patiently for the HBO series too. Ever since it was described as a medieval fantasy version of 'The Sopranos'.
The TV show was recently filmed in Belfast at the huge old Harland and Wolff paint hall which is used regularly now as a film set and on location in the Mourne Mountains.
My son, Michael, was a stand in for the character 'Jon Snow'. He came back with loads of pics from the set of 'Castle Black' and 'The Wall'. It's looking good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atFX6keD95o&feature=related
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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 92.12.78.73
Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - 10:31 pm:   

I'm finally reading "Mr Norrell and Jonathon Strange" and loving it.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.182.24.98
Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - 10:46 pm:   

It's a good book, if somewhat unwieldy.

I'm halfway through Cinema Futura...
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Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 69.236.188.81
Posted on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 - 11:05 pm:   

I left my books down at my in-laws over Christmas, so, until I get them back, I'm reading "Bought with a Gun" by American western writer Luke Short (a very good writer, BTW, though I don't think this his best) and "The Gift" by V. Nabokov.
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Thursday, December 30, 2010 - 12:15 pm:   

The Gift is one of Nabokov's best works, ecstatic prose indeed. A good choice!

I've just finished reading a vast (1000 pages) anthology of SF from the 1930s called Before the Golden Age, edited by Isaac Asimov. Many of the stories in it aren't very good, to be honest, but there are some wonderful exceptions. The standout piece by far is Ross Rocklynne's 'The Men and the Mirror', surely one of the best science problem stories ever written! Jack Williamson also contributes a superb story, 'Born of the Sun', and there are some strong pieces by Clifford D. Simak, Charles R. Tanner, Laurence Manning, Nat Schachner and Murray Leinster... It has taken me 7 years to plough right through this tome to the end!

I have just started reading 334 by Thomas Disch and it's stunning.

My first book of 2011 will be old favourite, Raymond Queneau's Zazie in the Metro.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Thursday, December 30, 2010 - 12:47 pm:   

Currently reading Natural History by Neil Cross - V good so far...
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.143.98.68
Posted on Monday, January 03, 2011 - 10:29 am:   

Full Dark, NO Stars -
By Stephen King.

Possibly his best book for years. Started a Real-Time Review of it on my blog.
http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/full-dark-no-stars-by-stephen-kin g/
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.175
Posted on Monday, January 03, 2011 - 11:06 am:   

Curious if you'll like the other stories as much as "1922", Des.
1922 is a tour-de-force, the rest of the stories are, while professionally crafted, less interesting.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Monday, January 03, 2011 - 11:10 am:   

I just read "1922" and thought it was superb - until the ending. King often fluffs his endings, and this one suffers from the hoary old "They're at the door. I can see the handle turning as I write this. They're coming for me...aaaargh!" contrivance.

A writer of King's skill should've been able to avoid using that device, but it doesn't ruin the tale. Just makes it a 9/10 rather than a 10/10.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.143.98.68
Posted on Monday, January 03, 2011 - 11:23 am:   

(Possible spoiler) 'Big Dreiver' is not as good as (is more far-fetched than) 1922 but, for me, as a sort of continuation of it, 'Big Driver' makes the female victim-type in the first story now the female protagonist in the second story, first as victim then as crime-maker - describing the ambivalence of crime and victim.. . and whether Fate allows people to get away with things. We are all victims and crime-makers at once; it's just the viewpoint that makes each of us a blend of what we are, what others see us as, what we see ourselves as. Bad explanation, sorry.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.109.156.120
Posted on Monday, January 03, 2011 - 11:54 am:   

Sean - Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series is truly stunning and what got me back into epic fantasy. It's well worth continuing with. However, Martin is almost two years late now in delivering the next volume in the series, so we who have been waiting patiently for A Dance of Dragons are going a bit spare. His editor must have grey hair by now.
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.176.209.194
Posted on Monday, January 03, 2011 - 10:18 pm:   

Zed,

I agree with you about the ending of '1922', and also that the story was so well done that it didn't ruin the tale.

Des,
Didn't you hate that the woman in 'Driver' invented all kinds of dialogue? I did.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Monday, January 03, 2011 - 10:34 pm:   

I'm about half way through "Big Driver" and it's absolutely stunning - does it take a dip in the third act, or something?
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.143.98.68
Posted on Monday, January 03, 2011 - 11:40 pm:   

Just seen Tom's question. To answer - No,not really, and I hope I've rationalised those sequences within the whole book.

I think the three main novellas in FD,NS probably comprise, as a whole, the horror classic of all time. FAIR EXTENSION, however, detracts somewhet, but again I think I've rationalised its apperance in the book with the three novellas.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - 12:48 am:   

Just finished "Big Driver" and thought it was absolutely superb - perhaps even better than "1922". Loved it. King at the top of his game.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - 11:52 am:   

I'm reading Ramsey's 'Count of Eleven'. Superb stuff.
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John Forth (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.132.136.188
Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - 12:40 pm:   

FULL DARK, NO STARS felt to me like the strongest thing King's produced in quite a while. He's at his grimmest in those four stories, which is no bad thing. 1922 really captured that terrible sense of doing something horrible that cannot be undone, and the consequences that stem from that single act. Shame the ending let it down, but it survives due to the good work done up until that moment.

BIG DRIVER, I thought, was easily the equal of 1922, if not better. FAIR EXTENSION doesn't really go anywhere, although I suspect that the point was to subvert the readers expectations of how that kind of story will end up. I still found it pretty unsatisfying, though.

A GOOD MARRIAGE is, structurally at least, the same story as BIG DRIVER. But the approach is maybe more subtle, and more powerful for it. I'm loathe to say more for fear of spoilers.
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Skip (Wolfnoma)
Username: Wolfnoma

Registered: 07-2010
Posted From: 216.54.20.98
Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - 01:49 pm:   

Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain. A nice switch from the horror and railroad books I've been reading.
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Seanmcd (Seanmcd)
Username: Seanmcd

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 217.43.42.218
Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - 02:02 pm:   

Thanks Jonathan! I just hope 'A Dance of Dragons' is released before I get to Book 4 'A Feast for Crows'. Truly addictive and effortless reading.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - 02:44 pm:   

Yeah me too. It says September 2011 now, so fingers crossed.

At the moment I'm reading Erikson's Malazan series, which is also very good.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.69
Posted on Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - 12:10 am:   

I'm reading Dan Dare: The Biography by Daniel Tatarsky, and enjoying it very much. I've a soft spot for those old 50s serials and SF pieces, the sort of thing Charles Chiltern put on the radio, etc. Interesting to see Dan Dare was originally envisioned as being the chaplain of the Space Corp and that Eagle comic was meant to counter juvenille delinquency brought about by 'seedy' American comicbooks...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - 10:18 am:   

I'm reading stories by Laird Baron, Joe Pulver and Stephen King, and my next novel will probably be The Raw Shark Texts. Out of interest, the only one of these not on my Kindle is the King book.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - 10:52 am:   

RE Dan Dare, I know that Eagle Comics was set up by a Christian minister to publish improving comics. Can't remember his name though.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.143.98.68
Posted on Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - 11:16 am:   

One theory - that the process of reading (or rather, *experiencing*) FULL DARK, NO STARS is a sort of spear-carrier to benefit us all, by directing good fortune towards its readers. A true purging or catharsis, a 'fair extension' of the literary gestalt.

Or are you the comma in the title?
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 81.100.114.34
Posted on Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - 11:25 am:   

>>RE Dan Dare, I know that Eagle Comics was set up by a Christian minister to publish improving comics. Can't remember his name though.

According to Wiki his name was Marcus Morris. Seriously.

IIRC, Arthur C Clarke used to be the scientific advisor for The Eagle.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - 08:49 pm:   

Just read King's FAIR EXTENSION and it's a belter - as grim and bitter as anything he's ever written. This book is wonderful.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.252.126
Posted on Thursday, January 06, 2011 - 02:54 am:   

Let's see, been a while since I posted on here.

Just finished Ramsey's 'The House On Nazareth Hill' and I have to say it is certainly the bleakest and one of the most psychologically disturbing novels of his I have read to date. Not a book I found myself warming to, and one that reminded me of the author's early intensity, but uncomfortably so and not at all in a therapeutic way. It is either one of the best things he has written or one of the bravest... for now, I can't decide - but it certainly fucked with my head!

Still reading the tremendously enjoyable 'Stranger In A Strange Land' and having to fight the urge to quote page after page of (for me) inspired prose - especially when Bob steps outside of the story and goes off on one. I'm now up to the stage of "His Eccentric Education" and frightened anew by Valentine's casual annihilation of those he deems "wrong" and his confusion of "coming together", in the Martian way, with good old human lust and sex. Politics, religion, philosophy, science, psychology, and most of all blindingly satirical humour, are all grist to Heinlein's mill. The man was a wonder and remains the most purely enjoyable author to read I have discovered in recent years!

Approaching the final battle of wits between the madman (or is he), Nicholas Stavrogin, and the calculating bastard (or is he), Peter Verkhovensky, in Dostoevsky's mesmeric epic 'The Devils' aka 'The Possessed', a title I actually think reflects the themes of the novel more accurately. Of this more Anon... [see below for all Highsmith fans].

A hefty chunk of the way through 'The Complete Tales And Poems Of Edgar Allan Poe', having just read "X-ing A Paragrab", and I wonder if anyone else enjoyed the hilarious self deprecation of "A Predicament" as much as I did? It should stand as the perfect literary accompaniment to "The Pit And The Pendulum" imo, and has made me realise just how misrepresented Poe has been as a solely "horror author"!

Two thirds through Gary McMahon's wonderful debut novel, 'Rain Dogs', which reminds me wistfully of very early Ramsey Campbell, when he was still finding his literary voice but capable of spinning an utterly enthralling pulp horror yarn full of brilliantly realised characters one really comes to care about (compare with 'The Doll Who Ate His Mother' rather than 'Midnight Sun' to understand what I mean by that).

And I have just started and am already enthralled by (after 5 chapters) Patricia Highsmith's brilliantly paced psychological thriller 'A Dog's Ransom'. Her mastery of intricate plot mechanics and subtle accumulation of character detail is second to none among thriller writers imo, and I am hopelessly in love with her.
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Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 69.236.168.107
Posted on Friday, January 07, 2011 - 12:01 am:   

"and this one suffers from the hoary old "They're at the door. I can see the handle turning as I write this. They're coming for me...aaaargh!" contrivance."

I think of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" every time I see that now. "Maybe he was dictating!"
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 03:27 pm:   

I'm going to go out on a limb here by stating that 'A Dog's Ransom' is, so far at two thirds through, the best Higsmith novel I have read to date, and that Kowajinski is the most believably understated psychopath I have encountered in literature, while Clarence has to be the most enragingly sympathetic victim. This is writing of awe inspiring economy and intricacy that should be brought to the attention of all aspiring thriller writers of today imho.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 05:32 pm:   

Remind me again, which one of the two is the cop...
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.160.228
Posted on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 09:12 pm:   

Thomas, there are endless possibilities in the 'impossible scene of narration' paradigm. Think of "That is what they say I said" in 'The Rats in the Walls'... "Would you read this statement through and sign it, sir? No, ink is better."

Or think of some patient clerk in a backwoods post office, sending a telegram: "How do you spell AAAAARGH?"

But of course, most impossible scenes of writing in Lovecraft are jokes, especially in the ghost-written stories: "cannot help self – black paws materialise – am dragged towards cellar..."
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 10:36 pm:   

Currently engrossed in Neil Gaiman's short story collection, Fragile Things.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 10:55 pm:   

Slaughterhouse 5, for the first time. And it's genuinely brilliant.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.109.179.24
Posted on Monday, January 10, 2011 - 11:44 pm:   

Have you read any other Vonnegut Gary?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 12:15 am:   

No, but I will do now - this is an amazing book. I feel a bit silly for not reading it before now.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.71
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 12:34 am:   

RE DAN DARE.
Yes, Marcus Morris was the guy who set up Eagle. He edited - at quite a remove - the Dan Dare strip in there. Tatarsky's book's an interesting read, though there's a fair bit of 'filling' in the later chapters. Somewhat tenous connections and possible influences the strip may have had on later SF writers and movies.

Arthur C Clarke's involvement with the strip has always been unclear. The likelihood is that he offered plot and technical advice in passing to Frank Hampson, illustrator and main writer, through connections with the Britsih Interplanetary Society. That said, he has claimed in the past to have created the Treens.

I'm now reading Stephen Deas. A fantasy novel. The Thief-Taker's Apprentice.

But to be honest, I feel I'm treading water before I find a bit of time to gorge on James Lee Burke's The Glass Rainbow.
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Lincoln (Lincoln_brown)
Username: Lincoln_brown

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 120.144.25.22
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 01:45 am:   

Read the first two stories in 'Full Dark, No Stars', and thoroughly enjoyed both.
After a steady diet of short fiction, I've decided to tackle some novels from my TBR pile - first up is 'The Well', by Jack Cady.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 10:18 am:   

Ah, you shall love Vonnegut Gary. Now for my list of recommendations:

Cat's Cradle
The Sirens of Titan
Goodnight, Mr Rosewater
Slapstick

Everything and anything by this brilliant satirist and humanist thinker.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 10:49 am:   

Jon, I'm utterly sold on him. Brilliant, just brilliant. I plan to get hold of those titles you mention ASAP.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 10:57 am:   

Just ordered Cat's Cradle and The Sirens of Titan...
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 11:06 am:   

Try Breakfast of Champions, Zed, and then check out the stellar cast of the TV movie version. Quite a decent adaptation.

But it's a MUST for you as a writer to read A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. Especially his resentment for the semi-colon, which, even if you disagree, is both hilarious and scathingly too near the bone for some.

But seriously, it's a small book, but one whose contents range all over the proverbial show, and like King, his voice literally booms out of each page.

You're a lucky man starting off on this particular journey.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.215
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 11:25 am:   

>>>I feel a bit silly for not reading it before now.

So it goes, Zed.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 11:30 am:   

I've said this before on here but Kurt Vonnegut is one of those authors who becomes more like a wise old eccentric uncle, and a friend, the more you read of him (Heller, Heinlein & RAW share this trait imo). I love the guy's voice - by turns a witty raconteur, grouchy old man and wilfully barking mad, with always a touch of wry poignancy that becomes all the more cumulatively affecting for its easygoing undemonstrativeness. He highlights the absurd tragedy of the human condition better than any other author I've encountered. You're in for a treat, Zed. Now I must get round to reading 'Mother Night'!

Weber, Kowajinski is the deranged dognapper and Clarence is the rookie cop.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 11:37 am:   

Nicely put, Stevie.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.143.98.68
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 04:08 pm:   

is reading THE BEST OF ALAN COREN (a 1980 book) -
I'm also a fan of Victoria Coren :-)
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 04:31 pm:   

Valentine Michael Smith's revelation while watching the monkeys at the zoo has to be one of the most memorable moments in 20th Century literature imo. Profound, hilarious and heartbreaking all at the same time.

I'll soon be finished this novel and have that aching feeling again of not wanting to say goodbye to these characters. As infuriating and confounding as he can be, in his curmudgeonly certainty, Bob never forgets to entertain and 9 times out of 10 I agree with his priceless rants and common sense philosophy anyway.

This book is beyond a good read or even a joy to experience but is rather a voyage of discovery that challenges every preconception of the reader every step of the way - and most of all it is hilariously funny. I'd forgotten the segue into pure fantasy territory, with the appearance of the same God & Devil that were such memorable characters in 'Job', but it is that wondrously picaresue unpredictability that makes this book so special and so gloriously redolent of classic Dickens imho.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 04:45 pm:   

Gary - I'd not have started with SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE only because it draws on characters and themes from his earlier novels. It's not necessary to read those first, but the novel becomes richer, because characters, etc., from SIRENS OF TITAN, MOTHER NIGHT, CAT'S CRADLE, and GOD BLESS YOU MR. ROSEWATER all appear in it.

My favorite Vonnegut is SIRENS OF TITAN, and second place is a toss up between CAT'S CRADLE and MOTHER NIGHT. I divide Vonnegut thusly: All the novels up to SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE; BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS, which seems to stand alone, in the center; and then all the novels he wrote after BofC. All, imho, are great and worth reading. Of his later novels, my favorites are probably GALAPAGOS and the rollicking TIMEQUAKE.

Put off to the very last reading PLAYER PIANO. It has its rewards, but it's his first novel, and extremely difficult reading, and will put you right off Vonnegut if you read it first (I'd also delay GOD BLESS YOU, MR. ROSEWATER, because it's such an anti-novel, and comes off initially as deeply unsatisfying). As for his non-fiction collections: start with PALM SUNDAY, and you'll find your whole other Vonnegut addiction, his musings and ramblings. Now that you've started, you won't be able to stop....

Like Stevie says, he's ultimately poignant, and only sardonic because he has to be. His atheism contains more expressions of faith and humanity than many believers.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 04:48 pm:   

Oh, and now see the film of SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, and discover one of the very best films of the 1970's. Then, later, read SLAPSTICK, and then watch the Jerry Lewis/Madeline Kahn disaster called SLAPSTICK (OF ANOTHER KIND), and discover one of the very worst films of the 1980's... no, of all time, actually....
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.177.92
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 04:51 pm:   

Myra Breckenridge!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - 05:06 pm:   

The movie, Tony? Never saw it, or read the book. Btw: the very odd films of MOTHER NIGHT, and BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS, are worth watching... though they're very odd indeed... sort of anti-movies in themselves....
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - 11:25 am:   

The film of 'Slaughterhouse Five' (easily George Roy Hill's best) is one of the greatest adult sci-fi movies ever made, and the most bafflingly neglected. In the same ballpark as '2001', 'Solaris', 'Blade Runner' or 'Inception' imho - and one that gets better, more haunting and emotionally powerful with each repeat viewing.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.177.92
Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - 12:36 pm:   

Ah yes, the movie. I was just reading about it and it sounded interesting, my kind of thing in some ways, though perhaps only in theme.
I've never seen Slaughterhouse five. George Roy Hill is a strange, erratic director. I remember really liking The World According to Garp. And Butch Cassidy of course.
I'm still struggling to read though it doesn't stop me buying books. Last purchase was a bunch of cheap Rupert Bears, including one that has the Ramsey-sparker about the Xmas tree. Well creepy, and it occurred to me while reading it I've been trying to write in the Rupert atmosphere all along.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - 01:04 pm:   

I just ordered the DVD for less than 4 quid on Play.com. Didn't even know there was a film version until now.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.177.92
Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - 01:07 pm:   

It has this woman I used to fancy in it, Valerie Perrine. I've only ever seen stills of it.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - 01:09 pm:   

She was in a lot of stuff in the 1970s...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - 03:54 pm:   

It's a beautifully made, gorgeous to look at film, that respects the viewer's intelligence and is graced with great understated performances that really get under the skin of Vonnegut's characters. Don't expect a big special effects extravaganza but a slow moving, poignant and incredibly haunting piece of intellectual sci-fi cinema that is the equal of anything produced in the 1970s, irrespective of genre (imho).
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 05:57 am:   

Ditto what Stevie said. It's one of the great neglected classics, sci-fi or otherwise, of the 70's. It does a justice to the novel that is laudable, though the novel is still the novel, and no movie can ever come close to approaching a Vonnegut reading experience.

(And I know it's flawed, and the soundtrack is truly awful, but given that... Robert Altman's QUINTET, from 1979, is certainly another neglected sci-fi gem.)
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, January 13, 2011 - 07:58 am:   

Just read "The Repairer of Reputations" by Robert W. Chambers in this big ol' horror anthology I'm almost done with. I'd only ever read "The Yellow Sign" years back, and forgotten how very odd and compelling Chambers can apparently be. This story feels so far ahead of its time, it's impossible to believe it was written in the early 1890's! And boy, does Lovecraft suddenly feel so very not-so-original-after-all....
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 12:07 pm:   

Last night I finished Patricia Highsmith's 'A Dog's Ransom' in a fevered rush. I can now say it is categorically the best of her novels I have read to date. Not so much a crime thriller as a psychological character drama, with cops and psychopaths, that easily bears comparison to Graham Greene at his most gripping and profound.

From a pathetically simple crime committed by an unstable petty criminal, with the biggest chip on his shoulder in literature, a spiral of subterfuge and violence ensues that sucks in various innocent parties, leading inexorably to tragedy... or does it?

I actually was Clarence Duhamel while reading this book and the last chapters became a tour-de-force of empathy the like of which I've rarely experienced before. The police interrogation sequence, in particular, is the most punishingly convincing (from inside the mind of the interrogated) I have ever experienced. Utterly devastating and quite, quite brilliant!!!!
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 12:38 pm:   

I'm reading People Live Still in Cashtown Corners by Tony Burgess - a lovely little book from U.S. indie publisher CZP. Also Sin & Ashes, a collection of short storied by Joe Pulver, on my Kindle.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 02:28 pm:   

Also reading Treasure Island to my son at bedtime...from the Kindle! Just call me Multimedia Dad.
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Rosswarren (Rosswarren)
Username: Rosswarren

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 81.157.140.118
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 05:57 pm:   

^ Read Treasure Island in one sitting whilst on my Christmas holiday. Brilliant stuff!
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 09:13 pm:   

Yep, it's a childhoos favourite of mine - one of my favourite things was an audio version read by Anthony Valentine. Used to scare me shitless...that parrot: "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!"

Shudder.
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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 82.6.90.22
Posted on Friday, January 14, 2011 - 09:37 pm:   

Read "Treasure Island" about five years ago and absolutely loved it. Most definitely the best Stephenson story.

On the subject of classics, I recently read "The Great Gatsby", which is another masterpiece. I love Scott Fitzgerald and this did not disapoint.

Regards
Terry
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 04:24 am:   

Well, finally finished this three-volume THE DARK DESCENT, and was greatly satisfied, reading new and over-again stories of the highest caliber. The last two I got to bear special attention: Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows" has lost none of its power in its 100 years (this year, I believe?...); and even more than Chambers, renders Lovecraft seem pitifully derivative by comparison (but only by comparison). Finally, Gene Wolfe's inclusion, "Seven American Nights," is the only one I found a bit of a stretch - it's far more sci-fi, than horror. But, reading it again (for the third time) I'm reminded again, at just how bloody phenomenal a writer Wolfe is... surely one of the best of the best, by any standard....
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 11:52 am:   

"The Great Gatsby" is a favourite from my teens. I adored that book - and there's a passage about a kiss that's simply one of my favourite pieces of writing.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.109.136.214
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 01:13 pm:   

Just read one of the most powerful works of fantasy and horror I've come across in a while. Now in negotiations to commission it, so I won't reveal who it is yet. It will be a familiar name to most though.

In other news still plowing on with Steve Erikson's epic Malazan fantasy series and loving it. Am also slowly getting back into comics.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 04:54 pm:   

Jon, that's not fair. You are such a tease.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 05:26 pm:   

Okay, um, I read Patricia Highsmith's short story, "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind." It was just okay at best - in real weight, to me, it was sub-par, rather pedestrian and clunky, bland and uninspiring. And yet this is apparently her own favorite, among her many short stories?... Maybe I'm missing something.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.153.151.150
Posted on Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 09:11 am:   

It's odd, isn't it, how little use an author is as judge of their own work?
I'm reading Howard's End is on the Landing by Susan Hill and am having difficulty putting it down. It's a non-fiction account of the year she stopped buying new books and went back to reading ones she already owned. It's absolutely fantastic, basically a woman describing her house and where all the books are, where seeing them and reading them again takes her.
There's an odd story behind it, too; I tried to buy it from her website over Christmas but she never got back to me. On Friday during a rare visit to Newcastle I find it in a charity shop - signed - for £2.75. To rub the oddness in I've been worrying about my story for Des's antho when in this book I see a title that exactly describes my story - and then find that Hill worships Elizabeth Bowen, and spent months exchanging letters with her towards the end of her life. I hope it's a sign I'm in tune with Des as he likes Bowen too.
Actually it was magic that this book was signed; Hill has met T S Elliot and E M Forster. The idea that the mind that encountered these three people has written their name in this book I've been holding is just awe-inspiring to me.
I worry about some daft bloody things.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, January 17, 2011 - 11:20 am:   

It's only odd if you think of all minds as distinct and seperate, Tony. Which, I'll grant you, they appear to be... but, in reality, all is infinite and ergo all is one.

Keep making your "random" associations but don't ever start to live your life by them - John Keel style.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.153.151.150
Posted on Monday, January 17, 2011 - 01:52 pm:   

Stevie - I think I have been, and as a result have the most dangerously cushy life you could imagine. Hence my depressive states.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, January 17, 2011 - 02:48 pm:   

HIghsmith is best as a novelist, her short work, while it can be very very good indeed, is nowhere near as affecting as her novels, where she has the room to drop you into even her most depraved character's mindsets - as Stevie will attest.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, January 17, 2011 - 03:36 pm:   

I agree about her strength as a novelist, Weber, but I've also yet to read a weak short story, though the only ones I have read have all been in horror anthos.

My fav is the Stephen King like 'The Quest For Blank Claveringi'... one the best monster stories ever written imho.

I'm still reeling from how involved she got me in Duhamel's plight in 'A Dog's Ransom'. Character creation of such power and empathy is incredibly rare and puts her in the very front rank of literary writers imho.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, January 17, 2011 - 04:37 pm:   

Just finished Natural History by Neil Cross. this really did suffer from an inaccurate cover blurb. Instead of the crime novel the blurb descibed, this was actaully a Patricia Highsmith-esque psychological story. When I realised this the book suddenly became much better and the ending, truly shocking (in a good way). I probably will be checking him out again.

Just started The Silent Land by Graham Joyce. Like Zed said on the last of these threads, it's the usual very high standard we've come to expect from Mr Joyce although (on page 70 where the revelation from the back cover has been revealed) I am wondering where he can go with the storyline... but this is Graham Joyce so I'm sure he's got something new up his sleeve.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, January 18, 2011 - 12:14 pm:   

Approaching the final chapters of 'Rain Dogs' and enjoying it immensely. The book may be derivative and a tad predictable, for a hardened genre fan like myself (apart from one great twist I didn't see coming), but the characterisation and attention to background detail is beautifully intricate and the narrative drive thoroughly entertaining. I don't know why but I'm being reminded more and more of early James Herbert (when he was at his best) as much as Ramsey Campbell now!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 12:55 pm:   

Just finished 'Rain Dogs' and found it a strangely nostalgic read, as well as thoroughly entertaining, in that it brought me back to the type of (better written) pulp horror novels I grew up reading in the 70s/80s.

There was a marked change in style between the first two thirds and the final third of the book - from the slow build up of intense Campbellian character based horror to the climactic rush of excitement and constant threat that made the likes of James Herbert's early works so effortlessly readable. A cracking debut that works perfectly within its own limitations imho. Well done, Gary!
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 01:01 pm:   

Thanks, Steve - that early James Herbert vibe was exacty what I was striving for (I even say this in my Afterword). It was my "commercial" novel.

I'm glad you enjoyed the book - that was actually the first novel I ever wrote. I'd only done short stories up to that point.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 01:05 pm:   

Reading Bradbury's 'One More For The Road.'
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 01:09 pm:   

*** SPOILERS ***

The plot devices that worked best for me, and created the often unbearable suspense in the later stages of the story, were your shock killing off of the mother early on - which made it feel no one in the book was safe from there on in - and the revelation of who Rosie actually was about halfway through. Two great strategies that showed the mark of a born storyteller!
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 01:13 pm:   

Cheers, Stevie - you're a nice modern gentleman.

Pete Tennant, in his (otherwise excellent) review in TTA magazine, gave away that twist about Rosie, you know. I was gutted.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 03:39 pm:   

Soon be finished 'Stranger In A Strange Land' and concentrating on getting through the climactic section of 'The Devils'.

After that I intend to follow Patrick's recommendation by reading 'The Ministry Of Fear' (1943) & 'The Heart Of The Matter' (1948) by Graham Greene back-to-back!
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Skip (Wolfnoma)
Username: Wolfnoma

Registered: 07-2010
Posted From: 216.54.20.98
Posted on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 05:26 pm:   

The Innswich Horror, been in an Ed Lee mood as of late.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.116.54.251
Posted on Friday, January 21, 2011 - 06:30 pm:   

Ah, been meaning to dip into Greene for a long time now. Let me know your thoughts on those two books, Stevie.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, January 24, 2011 - 11:32 am:   

Couldn't resist starting 'The Ministry Of Fear' yesterday and, so far, after two chapters, it's a perfect Hitchcockian "wrong man" thriller, with the added surrealism of being set amid the height of the London Blitz, with a protagonist who stumbles through this apocalyptic wasteland in a detached fog - due to having recently murdered his wife!

By circumstantial coincidence he finds himself the target of a deep cover Nazi spy ring, whom anyone - from the vicar to the milkman - could be a smiling member of... so think guilt and redemption, think post-apocalypse survival, think chase thriller, think 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' type paranoia - and that's this already wonderful thriller (and so much more) in a nutshell. Greene is the guvnor and no mistake!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, January 24, 2011 - 04:06 pm:   

I'm so glad I never got to see the classic Fritz Lang film version of this novel now! The plot has me completely stumped as to where it's going and has an unpredictable nightmarish quality to the flow of action I've never experienced from Greene before.

'Brighton Rock' was unflinchingly disturbing in its portrayal of the psychopathic impulse but was always grounded in gritty kitchen sink reality. This, almost abstract, psychological thriller of paranoia and pursuit, through a surreal landscape of bombed out buildings and life struggling to go on as normal, was billed as a "phantasmagoric study in terror" - and I can see why! The book is already mesmerising in its originality of vision.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.153.151.150
Posted on Monday, January 24, 2011 - 04:11 pm:   

It sounds fantastic. I dipped into his first novel once (written practically as a kid) and it had that surreal feeling to it. Capote reckoned Greene 'lost' it when he turned all Catholic. Any evidence this might be true?
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.182.24.98
Posted on Monday, January 24, 2011 - 04:22 pm:   

Currently well into 'Under the Dome'...
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.153.151.150
Posted on Monday, January 24, 2011 - 04:26 pm:   

I only got so far. Never saw what was in the middle.
:-(
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, January 24, 2011 - 04:31 pm:   

That's complete nonsense, Tony!

Graham Greene converted to Catholicism in 1926, as a very young man and three years before the publication of his first novel. He continued to question and struggle with his faith throughout his life, while believing (like Philip K. Dick) in kindness, empathy and the hunger for spiritual truth and redemption as the qualities that elevate human beings above the merely instinctive will to survive and procreate. It was his brutal honesty in exploring every pitfall of blind faith along the way that gives his novels their unmatched dramatic power and emotional resonance imo. His best novels all tackled his problems with Catholicism directly: 'Brighton Rock', 'The Power And The Glory', 'The Heart Of The Matter', 'The End Of The Affair', etc... but all of human life is in there as well, every painful, joyous detail.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.153.151.150
Posted on Monday, January 24, 2011 - 04:36 pm:   

I wonder if I read him right. Poor Truman - he did say some odd things. In fact, it might even have been in a film now I think about it.
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Monday, January 24, 2011 - 06:49 pm:   

Murder by Death, Tony
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - 05:02 pm:   

Of course, it's one man's personal Hell visualised as the universal Hell of the Blitz, and beset on all sides by devils, in the form of the arch evil of the time. Fascinating!

The sound of those throbbing German bombers' engines, invisible in the dark skies above, and familiar from 'The World At War' and countless movies, will never fail to remind me of Greene's inspired and nightmarish "Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?" device, from here on in. This is popular thriller writing, heavily inspired by Hitchcock, as the poetry of pure paranoia...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - 04:43 pm:   

The seance sequence in 'The Ministry Of Fear' is what I call frightening. I could feel the hair standing up on the back of my neck. The more I read of this book the more it comes across as a blatant fan letter to Hitchcock - even the touches of macabre humour hint at this - as if Greene was crying out to the master to film one of his books. The effect is superb as entertainment and riveting as character drama, while shot through with the author's trademark empathy for even the lowliest of his characters. Rowe is a man haunted by his murderous past and persecuted by those he would like to consider worse murderers than himself, but his conscience won't allow him even this small comfort. Detached from his innocent fellows and the law that he would otherwise turn to, detached even from the camaraderie of War, but not the horrors, he is a man adrift in a world gone mad and literally collapsing all around him - as potent a vision of Hell on Earth as I have read.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, January 28, 2011 - 03:14 pm:   

Halfway through TMOF and just heard the news that a remake of 'Brighton Rock' is about to be released and getting very good reviews apparently!

Pinkie is played by Sam Riley(?), Rose by Andrea Riseborough(?), Ida by Helen Mirren & Dallow by Nonso Anozie(?), and it also stars Andy Serkis & John Hurt. I wonder will they stick with Greene's original gut-punch ending or soften it the way the Boultings did, somehow I suspect the former? But Richard Attenborough's chilling original performance will be impossible to eclipse imo.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, January 28, 2011 - 04:39 pm:   

(For those here in America: TCM is showing THE MINISTRY OF FEAR this weekend, I think Saturday morning. Just fwiw....)
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, January 28, 2011 - 04:53 pm:   

I haven't seen the film, thankfully - to avoid spoilers, but keep seeing Ray Milland as Arthur Rowe in my mind's eye. He has the right mix of guilty desperation tinged with the sinister, a great actor.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, January 31, 2011 - 03:59 pm:   

Bloody hell, 'The Devils' is ending with an explosion of violence and unexpected deaths that has come as a bit of a shock to the system. I should be finished this monumental book in the next few days, almost exactly a year after starting it. It's like experiencing the death and destruction of real people and a real place I have come to know intimately, rather than fictional creations. Peter Verkhovensky has to be one of the most insidiously nasty villains in 19th Century literature, a real chuckling moustache twirler with the gleam of the serpent in his eyes, but terrifyingly real for all that...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, January 31, 2011 - 05:39 pm:   

To think the principal (but by no means only) villain of the piece is a so-called revolutionary socialist! His unwitting minions may have a misguided social conscience but Peter Verkhovensky's gleeful manipulating of them, and everyone else, to gain power and influence, spreading murder and mayhem in the process, is eerily chilling in its foreshadowing of Stalinism. Interesting, too, that they both descended into homicidal paranoia in the end. The entire book is a fascinating examination, in astonishing detail, of how radical political ideals are so easily corrupted from within, by the power hungry - 'Animal Farm' style.

But what of the book's great enigma, the charismatic sociopath, Nicholas Stavrogin? To me he is a chaos engine, pure and simple (like the Trashcan Man in 'The Stand', if you will). A force that not even Peter, for all his intricate machinations, can manipulate or predict. Ah, the immersive joys of great literature!
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 82.2.66.47
Posted on Monday, January 31, 2011 - 07:04 pm:   

Mainly been reading comics this month. Also dipped into various prose anthologies and single author collections but it's the comics that I'm actually getting round to finishing. And before anyone screams in complaint I know I'm only crediting the authors and not the artists (except in the cases where they're one and the same person) but there's a very good reason for that -- I'm incredibly lazy.

*= reread.

Hellblazer: Bloodlines -- Garth Ennis*
Hellblazer: Tainted Love -- Garth Ennis*
Hellblazer: Fear and Loathing -- Garth Ennis*
Elektra Lives Again -- Frank Miller
The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the 21st Century -- Frank Miller
Spawn/Batman -- Frank Miller*
Green Arrow/Black Canary: Wedding Album -- Judd Winick
Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told (2005 edition) -- Various
There's a Vulture Outside -- Charles M Schultz
Gotham Central: The Quick and the Dead -- Greg Rucka
Daredevil: Underboss -- Brian Michael Bendis*
Green Arrow: Moving Targets -- Judd Winick
X-Men: Phoenix Rising -- Roger Stern, John Byrne, Bob Layton, Chris Claremont
Batman: As The Crow Flies -- Judd Winick
Uncanny X-Men: Manifest Destiny -- Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction
Fantastic Four -- Jonathan Hickman
Strange: The Doctor is Out -- Mark Waid
Hulk: Red & Green -- Jeph Loeb
Green Arrow: Heading into the Light -- Judd Winick
Secret Origins: Featuring the JLA -- Various
Wolverine: Not Dead Yet -- Warren Ellis
Frankenstein's Womb -- Warren Ellis
Skrull Kill Crew -- Grant Morrison and Mark Millar
Thicker Than Water -- Judd Winick
The Spirit Volume 2 -- Darwyn Cooke and various
Batman: The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul -- Various
Siege -- Brian Michael Bendis
The Question: Five Books of Blood -- Greg Rucka
Sin City: The Hard Goodbye -- Frank Miller*
Fallen Angel: Cities of Light and Dark -- Peter David
Batman: Monsters -- James Robinson, Warren Ellis, Alan Grant
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 - 04:35 pm:   

Greene has had the audacity to pull off one of the trademark Hitchcockian twists just over halfway through 'The Ministry Of Fear' while transforming soul-sapping paranoia into the joy of rebirth and a promised redemption. But at what price happiness...? A textbook perfect thriller.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 - 05:46 pm:   

In a quandary what to read next... back to horror with Ramsey Campbell ('The Last Voice They Hear') or get back into Clive Barker ('The Great And Secret Show' & 'Everville' back-to-back), mop up a short classic such as 'Heart Of Darkness' or 'The Outsider, continue the Foundation Saga with Volume 6 'Prelude To...' or the Factory Series with 'How The Dead Live'. Whatever I choose, I can't lose...
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2011 - 01:36 am:   

I saw MINISTRY OF FEAR. Pretty good Lang flick, not much to it - what would today be a pure thriller, and it is very forward-looking to the time of the "mind-f*ck" movie. Ray Milland was good. No one else I really recognized, except for a young(ish) Alan Napier, better known as Alfred the Butler in the 60's "Batman" TV series. The ending seemed too pat... I'm guessing the novel must have been a bit different....
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2011 - 11:38 am:   

Just started Flu by Wayne Simmons. A darned good apocalyptic zombie rampage type story.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2011 - 12:47 pm:   

Craig, I'm into the final section of TMOF, and your description of the movie as a "mind-f*ck" fits the book exactly. As much a character study of unrelenting guilt ('Crime And Punishment' style), and a surrealist trip into insanity and memory loss (which surely influenced 'Spellbound' & 'Marnie') as a straight Hitchcockian suspense thriller with a wartime propagandist agenda (in the style of 'Foreign Correspondent' or 'Saboteur'). Whatever way you look at it the novel was one of the most typical and innovative thrillers of its era - and one would expect no less from Graham Greene.
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Skip (Wolfnoma)
Username: Wolfnoma

Registered: 07-2010
Posted From: 216.54.20.98
Posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2011 - 01:25 pm:   

Six Days by Kelli Owen, along with Four Rode Out by various authors
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2011 - 01:27 pm:   

Never let Me Go by the guy who's name I can never remember

Kell's Legend by Andy Remic.

Stories edited by Sarrantino and Gaiman.

Occultation by Laird Barron

Blood and Ashes by Joe Pulver
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2011 - 01:55 pm:   

Ishigoru (something like that although I can't remember his first name except it begins with a K) wrote Never Let me Go.

Just noticed a typo on the back cover of Flu. The blurb writer has spelt quarantine with 2 r's.

The book is still a rollocking fun filled zombie ride though.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2011 - 02:00 pm:   

Wayne's a mate of mine -a cracking bloke. I'm yet to read Flu, but I've heard it's very good.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 220.138.163.80
Posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2011 - 02:20 pm:   

Kazuo Ishiguro (or Ishiguro Kazuo, to be more precise).

Happy Year of the Rabbit, everyone!
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.170.180.105
Posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2011 - 04:48 pm:   

That's my year!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, February 03, 2011 - 01:13 pm:   

Finished 'The Ministry Of Fear' last night and it had anything but a pat ending imo. Heart-rendingly poignant but also oddly uplifting while surprising me with its stridently anti-patriotic final message (even harking back to Tolstoy in support) and its sympathetic handling of the enemy agents - which must have caused grumblings at the time, one would imagine, as with 'The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp' (also 1943).

*** POSSIBLE SPOILER ***

The book also boasts one of the most sublime final lines I have read: "It seemed to him that after all one could exaggerate the value of happiness..."

Now gearing up to start what many people regard as Greene's masterpiece: 'The Heart Of The Matter' (1948).
And still mulling over what to replace 'The Devils' with - onto the final chapter.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 92.41.240.91
Posted on Saturday, February 05, 2011 - 04:54 pm:   

The first chapter of THOTM is just about as depressing a picture of an unhappy marriage, with both partners merely going through the motions, as I have ever read. This passage is the very definition of perfect prose imo:

"Scobie made the right reply. He never listened while his wife talked. He worked steadily to the even current of sound, but if a note of distress were struck he was aware of it at once. Like a wireless operator with a novel open in front of him, he could disregard every signal except the ship's symbol and the SOS. He could even work better while she talked than when she was silent, for so long as his ear-drum registered those tranquil sounds - the gossip of the club, comments on the sermons preached by Father Rank, the plot of a new novel, even complaints about the weather - he knew that all was well. It was silence that stopped him working - silence in which he might look up and see tears waiting in the eyes for his attention."
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 92.41.206.194
Posted on Sunday, February 06, 2011 - 04:30 am:   

Finished 'The Devils'... one of the greatest novels I will ever read. This is how I see the principal characters:

**** SPOILERS ****

Nicholas Stavrogin is the literary embodiment of Aleister Crowley's "do what thou wilt" dictum. A true sociopath, he is a man devoid of conscience or any sense of malice or charity, forever driven to act out his unpredictable impulses of anti-social violence or wrong-footing benevolence. He is the chaotic storm at the centre of the book, who draws to him, like moths to a flame, all those troubled spirits who feel reined in by social mores and secretly long to break free (I am struck by the similarities to that other literary Christ/Antichrist figure Valentine Michael Smith). The two most fatally attracted are Lisa Tushin, in her quest to save him, like all those poor misguided women who fall for criminal types, and Peter Verkhovensky, who wishes to mould him into a charismatic symbol of revolutionary freedom (Che Guevara style) around whom to build an ideological empire, with Peter pulling the strings. But the only character who has any real influence over Nicholas is the arch atheist, Kirillov, with his oddly compelling theories of becoming God through the ultimate Act of Will. Once this idea is allowed to grow in Stavrogin's consciousness, to become one of his ungovernable impulses, his fate is as sealed as that of Kirillov. I do not see Stavrogin (as some read him) as a man inevitably overwhelmed with guilt but as the ultimate expression of "do what thou wilt" made flesh. He is the Devil who wills himself to become God imo.

Peter Verkhovenshy, on the other hand, is ruled by his pride and ambition. He sees himself as destined to rule over lesser mortals because he has the Will to do anything, to use or destroy anyone, to attain that power. His fallibility is his ego. Time and again he over-complicates his plans by a petty thirst for revenge out of injured pride at some slight or other. He is a creature of pure calculating malice, whereas Stavrogin is completely without malice, even though both are ultimately revealed as cold blooded murderers! Peter senses the revolutionary fervour in the air and sees radical politics as his chance to fulfill his ambitions, as much to get back at his hated father, the pompous but likeable and ultimately tragic old windbag, Stepan Verkhovensky, as to gain power and influence. Stepan abandoned his son as a boy, for the radical politics of an earlier age, thus sowing the seeds of resentment that destroy everyone in the book. I see lust for revenge as the deeper motivating factor behind Peter's lust for power, and it this personal element that explains his viciousness and makes him one of the most convincingly human Machiavellian villains in all literature.

Kirillov is the character who appears to stand above all the machinations of his fellows but even he is insidiously manipulated by Peter to turn his suicidal theories to Peter's own advantage. Kirillov's final philosophical battle of wits with his gun-toting nemesis is the most powerful passage in the book and completely shattering in its conclusion.

Ivan Shatov is the great tragic figure of the book. A man driven by his religious faith to want to better the lot of his fellows through radical social reform, and drawn into Peter's web of deceit, and to his own ultimate doom, by the dictates of his conscience and love of his fellow man. What happens to him is emotionally devastating, as much for its sheer bloody needlessness, as for the callous brutality with which he is despatched.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.165.39.90
Posted on Monday, February 07, 2011 - 03:32 pm:   

HOLIDAY by M. RIckert (Golden Gryphon Press)
My RTR: http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/holiday-by-m-rickert/
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, February 07, 2011 - 03:47 pm:   

Only a quarter through and 'The Heart Of The Matter' has already had me sniffling. The book is all about the emotional anguish caused by inability to communicate, and the painful misunderstandings this results in. How we can never really know even the people we are closest to and the folly of trying to second guess them, no matter how well meaning the intention. The sense of unfolding tragedy is overwhelming.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.116.60.173
Posted on Monday, February 07, 2011 - 04:43 pm:   

Various old issues of "Fantasy Commentator", I'm not really sure what I'm looking for.
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Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus)
Username: Rhysaurus

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 212.219.233.223
Posted on Monday, February 07, 2011 - 04:57 pm:   

Fantasy Commentator was a great small-press publication!

All the books I'm reading, and have read in the past 3 years, can be viewed on my Goodreads [age here:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/122631.Rhys_Hughes

When I moved into my flat I had 153 books with me. I have finally reached the point where I have read more than half of them (77 read; 76 unread). I consider this an achievement, even though it's not really...
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Skip (Wolfnoma)
Username: Wolfnoma

Registered: 07-2010
Posted From: 216.54.20.98
Posted on Tuesday, February 08, 2011 - 06:42 pm:   

Ok, Rhys, added you to my follow/friends on Goodreads.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, February 09, 2011 - 01:26 pm:   

Just started a nostalgic trip back in time with Clive Barker's 'The Great And Secret Show' (1989), to be followed by 'Everville' (1994).

Can't get 'The Devils' out of mind... like I've lost a huge chunk of my life. Those characters refuse to leave me alone and I keep seeing echoes of even the minor ones in other great characters. Nicholas Stavrogin as Tom Ripley. Peter Verkhovensky as Jack in 'Lord Of The Flies' with the brutish killer, Fedka, his Roger & Ivan Shatov as the martyred Simon. Stepan Verkhovensky (Peter's father) as Mr Pecksniff in 'Martin Chuzzlewit'. Varvara Stavrogin (Nicholas' mother) as Jean Brodie by way of Mrs Bates. Alexei Kirillov as Blake in 'The Unlimited Dream Company'. Shigalyov as Alex in 'A Clockwork Orange' (yep, another one, with strutting vanity his Achilles' heel). Liputin as Winston Smith (the little man torn both ways). Lisa Tushin as Sibyl Vane in 'The Picture Of Dorian Gray'. Maurice Drozdov as Henry Miles in 'The End Of The Affair'. Governor von Lembke as Scobie in THOTM. Julia Lembke as Louise (his wife). Captain Lebyatkin as Captain Jack in 'Juno And The Paycock'. The madwoman, Maria Lebyatkin, as a fascinatingly tragic "wise fool" figure ala 'King Lear'. Bishop Tikhon as Father Karras in 'The Exorcist', his climactic hearing of Stavrogin's confession is as disturbing as any of the battles with Pazuzu in the novel. And they're only a fraction of the cast. I don't expect anything to eclipse this book as my "Read of 2010/11"...
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Wednesday, February 09, 2011 - 02:17 pm:   

For God's sake Stevie! Will you stop sitting on the fence!!! Did you like the f***ing book or not???
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, February 09, 2011 - 03:23 pm:   

It haunts my dreams...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, February 09, 2011 - 03:25 pm:   

...and I'm bored.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, February 09, 2011 - 04:53 pm:   

The comparison to Tom Ripley wasn't just made at random: both are charismatic, intelligent, resourceful, unpredictable psychopaths - prone to impulsive acts of violence or benevolence, and completely devoid of conscience. The reader never knows quite whether to love or hate them.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 - 04:59 pm:   

Once again I've been swept up by the effortless flow of Barker's narrative. His gift for creating fully rounded characters and whole worlds within worlds, in a few short pages, that would take lesser talents whole books to flesh out, is what makes him such an entertaining fantastist imo (ala Bob Heinlein).

He makes it seem so damn easy, yet the flow of visual and thematic invention, unfettered by any imaginative restraint, is just wonderful. I am already struck by certain similarities of narrative technique to Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials'... the sheer readability, host of memorable (almost Dickensian) characters, fast flow of the action and cosmic sweep of his ambitions.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 - 05:29 pm:   

Just what I thought, Stevie, re-reading Barker's early horror work! The effortless writing style (though certainly not minimalist), the dramatic and escalating tension, the characters you manage to empathize with.... But I just don't know if I could read his fantasies. Why? Dunno, really. There, that's prejudice for you!

Me, I'm starting THE BEST AMERICAN NOIR OF THE CENTURY, and enjoying it overall, even if it's not quite living up to its counterpart, THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERIES OF THE CENTURY (though many of the same stories are reprinted here).
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 - 05:44 pm:   

The opening sequence, set in and around the Dead Letter Office, is a classic short horror story in itself, Craig, that could have slotted perfectly into any of the 'Books Of Blood' imo. He then integrates it into the beginnings of a classic fantasy quest narrative, introducing memorable new characters at the drop of a hat, while pulling the reader along by the effortless flow of his prose.

I hadn't realised before how Barkeresque 'His Dark Materials' is and wonder if Pullman was consciously influenced by his style of high concept, yet highly visual, "incident driven" fantasy narrative.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2011 - 05:58 pm:   

The Jaff is my hero.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.254.215
Posted on Friday, February 11, 2011 - 05:36 pm:   

That long scene with the girls swimming naked in the "lake" was just beautiful - a perfect example of finely etched recognisable characters encountering something fantastic beyond description. The way both worlds touched and intertwined, with us knowing the back story, is how to write convincing fantasy imo - and the sense of gradually escalating but undefined threat, heightened by the presence of the voyeur in the trees, was as gripping as anything Stephen King has produced. This is great storytelling on the broadest of canvases (but then I already knew that).
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - 06:44 pm:   

(Just as a fwiw curio, for people who might find it mildly interesting [like Stevie]: here's a recent critique of Bernardo Bertolucci/Marilyn Goldin's scripted-version of Hammett's RED HARVEST by a blogger - he didn't seem to like it much: http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2011/02/red-harvest.html )
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Saturday, February 19, 2011 - 04:53 pm:   

FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, by Raymond Chandler, now. I want to go back and re-see both filmed versions of this, and figure, what the hell, why not go in armed....
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.254.215
Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2011 - 12:15 pm:   

I envy you reading those novels for the first time, Craig. Crime fiction doesn't get any better than Chandler & Marlowe - it's the absolute pinnacle of the genre for me.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, February 21, 2011 - 01:13 pm:   

Into the final section of 'The Heart Of The Matter'. Tracing Scobie's decisions back step-by-step really brings home the full tragedy of the tale. Every step of the way he was guided by his own inherent decency and wish to avoid causing pain or giving offence. He is a man damned by his own relentless morality and his open-eyed but inescapable fall represents a fascinating counterweight to Pinkie's wilfull embracing of damnation in 'Brighton Rock'. Powerful and haunting beyond my ability to articulate, this novel is one of the crowning glories of English literature. Shakespearean in its universal depth and simplicity.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, February 21, 2011 - 03:37 pm:   

Reading this book it's hard to believe that Graham Greene ever got any comfort out of his devout Catholicism. Scobie's faith is shown to be the very instrument of his own downfall. His belief in his own damnation, and inability to save his soul at the expense of those he loves, is what makes him abandon his own strict moral code - for what use has the already damned of morality. A chilling message and one that is anything but pro-religious! In this book superstition and faith are seen to be the enemies of doing what is logical and right, and adherence to the old dogma is what destroys a truly good man. I'd be curious to know what the official stance of the Church is with regard to this intensely moving and humanistic literary masterpiece...
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Monday, February 21, 2011 - 04:24 pm:   

I really should read that one next, Stevie - I've been debating about whether to do so anyway, and you're highly tempting me to go over the edge and just do it. Dammit.

Almost done with FAREWELL, MY LOVELY: it's like a big ol' lollipop, jammed down your throat, as Marlowe might say. Can't wait to see the filmed versions of it again, next.

I'm also moving at a snail's pace (no, actually, a snail is faster) through my noir anthology, THE DECLINE AND FALL..., and a five-volume epic on the life of Thomas Jefferson. I only wish I had Stevie's speed-reading abilities....
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, February 21, 2011 - 05:43 pm:   

Another interesting parallel I've just noticed between THOTM and Patricia Highsmith's equally gripping 'A Dog's Ransom' is how the relentless downward spiral of the main protagonist was triggered by the most innocuous of injustices.

In Duhamel's case it was the kidnapping of a harmless couple's pet poodle (and surrogate child) and in Scobie's it was being passed over for promotion in favour of a younger man. Perhaps it's true that the Devil's greatest weapon is the gentle chipping away of a good man's sense of justice - until that "last straw" event turns stoicism into bitterness.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - 03:18 pm:   

One chapter left and Greene has me begging God for this man's suffering to be over... things can't possible end well but the suspense is still almost killing me.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - 03:20 pm:   

do you ever read anything and just think "Well it wasn't bad... but it wasn't great."?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - 04:29 pm:   

I only pick the best, Weber. It's a really easy strategy to follow.

The last "classic" I read that I wasn't overly fond of was George MacDonald's 'Phantastes' last year. But that was largely down to the dated nature of the prose, and the fact this was a children's author struggling (in my view) to communicate his idyllic vision to an adult reader. I had similar language problems with 'The Castle Of Otranto' but generally when a book has attained a certain classic status, by critical consensus over at least 20 years since first publication (my 20 year rule), then it's a fairly safe bet you'll be in for a great read, or at very least an interesting one.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - 04:32 pm:   

And, seriously, 'The Heart Of The Matter' is much more than just a great read...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2011 - 10:41 am:   

Just finished it... ... .. . fuck

Don't ever let anyone tell you the ending of this book. The suspense generated in the final chapters is.. is...

We're fearing for someone we have grown to love and know almost as well as ourselves. Fear not just for his reputation or his life but for his eternal soul. The ending is just... fuck... read it! Stunning!!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2011 - 10:51 am:   

I see there is a 1953 film version with Trevor Howard as Scobie. Don't ever watch it unless you've read the book first!
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Lincoln (Lincoln_brown)
Username: Lincoln_brown

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 121.219.236.32
Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2011 - 11:51 am:   

'Pretty Little Dead Things', by Zed. 100 pages in, and I'm loving it.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2011 - 04:51 pm:   

As the perfect antidote to the emotional rollercoaster Graham Greene just put me through I couldn't have picked a better read than James Stephens' wonderful comic fantasy 'The Crock Of Gold' (1912). At last a funny, weird, disturbing, surreal, barking mad, stream-of-consciousness fantasy (for adults) that is the equal of 'Alice In Wonderland'. A quarter through and every page is a joy of quotable nonsense, laced with wisdom.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2011 - 05:14 pm:   

You're just making me read that book, aren't you, Stevie?... Drop everything and read it?...

I'm also (on top of everything else) reading Kay Ryan's recent collection of new and selected poems, THE BEST OF IT. Even for those of you who abhor and avoid poetry, and I totally understand that - do find this in the bookstore and peruse it - these are all extremely simple, approachable, reader-friendly poems, I guarantee you - containing depths, and depths....
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Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts)
Username: Tom_alaerts

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.78.35.175
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:09 am:   

I recently read Reggie Oliver's "The Dracula Papers". A very entertaining look at the youth of Vlad Tepes, an interesting mix of imagination and historical details. Here and there I have a few issues with the writing style though. Even so, a recommended book.

I'm almost through Greg Bear's "Hull Zero Three". Icy cold yet interesting hard SF. Not for everyone, I think.

After that, most likely the closing volume of Haruki Murakami's magnum opus trilogy 1Q84, in dutch. The english translation of vol. 1 appears in september, I believe. While I liked volumes 1 & 2, I am not as impressed as many others are. In fact I think it isn't that deep, but at least it provides good entertainment.

After that, I'll probably delve into my pile of unread classics. Flaubert especially is calling out for attention.
That or Revenants, a recently published Chomu Press title. A dark story set amongst early American settlers, which is a period that always fascinated me. The prose seems attractive (I only browsed a bit so far).
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 01:09 pm:   

Half-way through 'The Crock Of Gold' already and will be finished it in no time. It really is very, very funny and so Oirish it's ridiculous. The curmudgeonly philosopher, with an answer for everything, has to be one of the funniest voices I've encountered. And I've never seen Leprechauns portrayed so maliciously, outside of that film series lol.

About to start Part 3 of the Factory Series: 'How The Dead Live' (1986) by Derek Raymond. After reading three books he's the only crime writer of the modern era who can hold a candle to Chandler or Hammett imho... and whose themes run as deep as anything by Graham Greene.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 01:26 pm:   

Just about to start Hallam Foe by Peter Jinks
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 04:55 pm:   

Interesting quote from Clive Barker in amongst the visionary pyrotechnics of 'The Great And Secret Show':

"He'd never had the instincts of a novelist. In his writing he'd sought a style that set the facts out as plainly as possible. No fancy foot-work; no flights of vocabulary. His mentor in this was not a journalist at all but Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, a man so concerned to communicate his satire with clarity that he'd reputedly read his works to his servants to be certain his style did not confound his substance. Grillo kept that story as a touchstone."

I wonder how much, if any, of this was self-confession? The thing I've always admired in Barker's prose is the ease with which it can be read, the effortless flow of the narrative and his deceptive simplicity of style while painting the wildest of pictures with words. He has me wanting to re-read 'Gulliver's Travels' now, after too many years.
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 81.100.120.202
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 10:03 pm:   

I actually managed to finish some books that weren't comics this month. Hooray! Although one of them was about comics so I suppose I lose 50% of that hooray. But I feel kind of silly shouting Hoo!

* = reread

Comics:
Fantastic Four: World's Greatest -- Mark Millar
Green Arrow: Crawling From the Wreckage -- Judd Winick
Green Arrow: Road to Jericho -- Judd Winick
Aztek The Ultimate Man -- Grant Morrison and Mark Millar
Arkham Asylum 15th Aniversary Edition -- Grant Morrison (I've read the story before but not the annotated script included with the anniversary edition.)
Queen and Country: The Definitive Edition Volume 1 -- Greg Rucka
The Invisibles: The Invisible Kingdom -- Grant Morrison*
Crisis on Multiple Earths Volume 3 -- Mike Friedrich and Len Wein
Superman: New Krypton Volume 1 -- James Robinson and Geoff Johns
Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale -- Joss Whedon and Zack Whedon

Novels:
Salt River -- James Sallis

Non-Fiction:
Our Sentence is Up: Seeing Grant Morrison's The Invisibles -- Patrick Meaney
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.199.129
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 10:25 pm:   

Just finished reading "Groaning Shadows" by our very own Paul Finch (and published by our very own Gary Fry). Great creepy stuff - most enjoyable. You're an excellent writer, Mr Finch! (and you're an excellent publisher, Mr Fry!)
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Stu (Stu)
Username: Stu

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 82.14.54.34
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 01:14 pm:   

Bugger. Forgot that I also read Unknown and Empire -- both by Mark Waid -- during February. That totally messes with the comics vs "real" books ratio.
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Skip (Wolfnoma)
Username: Wolfnoma

Registered: 07-2010
Posted From: 216.54.20.98
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 01:50 pm:   

Just got "Portents" in the mail. Great stories!
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Lincoln (Lincoln_brown)
Username: Lincoln_brown

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 121.214.18.44
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 02:52 am:   

Hello Skip - is 'Portents' the new Al Sarrantonio anthology?
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Skip (Wolfnoma)
Username: Wolfnoma

Registered: 07-2010
Posted From: 216.54.20.98
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 01:34 pm:   

Lincoln, yes it is. And let me say, the book is put together amazingly well and the tales from the authors that reside inside are quite frightening and disturbing on many levels. I hope that Al and his gang of literary misfits continue to produce at this unprecedented level of excellence.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2011 - 04:05 pm:   

Every now and again I read a passage of literature that sends shivers down my spine with its spooky perfection - like the author was speaking directly to me, articulating my thoughts exactly.

I don't know how many times I've watched some classic cop movie or episode of 'The Sweeney', 'Kojak' or 'Cracker' and been frustrated by the visual medium's inability to communicate what is going through the cop's mind at the minute of arrest of a character we have grown to care about.

So I make no apologies for quoting this incredible sequence from Derek Raymond's 'How The Dead Live'. Anyone who doubts my proclamation that he deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Patricia Highsmith or Graham Greene - read this and suck on it:

"I peered at *****; he was white faced and weeping. I was sorry for him now. I felt that we were all of us, without exception, filled with errors and that we knew it, yet had to live through them. It would have been better to have been stupid, perhaps even mad. It's the capacity of knowing that's the real agony of existence; maybe we would all of us be more honest without knowledge. Yet it was a hall of mirrors: I had a job to do, and do fast in the allotted time, and I was as disturbed over the ***** as I could ever be. I found I had some Kleenex on me and gave them to ***** for him to wipe his face, finding rain water in a bucket and saying, are you all right, *****?

He looked at me and said: "You know *****. I'll tell you about *****. You know he runs Thornhill?"

"Yes."

He sighed: "I feel bad at what I've done."

"What have you done?"

"It's as much what I've not done."

"Over Mrs *****?"

"I wronged her."

"Was it money?"

"Money," he breathed, "ah yes, money."

"Wronged her how?"

"Wronged her memory, and for money. But when you haven't any money then you have no memory."

"Look, we're alone here, *****," I said. "You can say anything you like, it'll go no further than it would anyway, I swear."

"How far is that?" he said.

"That I can't answer," I said. "The more I find out about the world by what I do, the more I see how much I don't know."

"I got in the wrong hands," he said, "young broke people do, we're used, and then we still have to pay. We pay the *****, we pay you coppers, why don't people just finish us off, or better still not have us?"

I had no haven to offer him; in a way I was as helpless as he was. I was strictly bound by the terms of my inquiry into a disappearance, a suspected death. I had to grind on and live, even if I didn't know why. My silly idea about absolute justice, I wonder if it's not just an excuse so as to go on talking to people, continue on in the light so as not to have to die, go into the dark. How balance my interest against disinterest? But as a police officer I couldn't possibly tell *****, not even my lover if I had one, any of that. And yet I saw ***** in that vague light, in that barn, both of us fresh from that drunken fire, exhausted by the shock of it, and I knew by looking at his face that he was begging me, reaching to me for the one thing that I couldn't give him - help.

How alone we are! The one real risk we run is to understand our state: the rest are stupid smiling, cruel or uncaring people, all of them idiots, broken into the confused tragedy of a herd driven forward across hard country to be killed, and at a profit."

I think you will agree that's a pretty devastating piece of writing and the reason I, for one, read in the first place! Note the shifts backward and forward between instinctive empathy and ruthless professionalism. Like all great writers the man easily transcended the genre he chose to work within. Genius!!
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2011 - 05:06 pm:   

I'm racing through Hallam Foe and loving it. It's an alternately touching/creepy/funny/tense story about a young voyeur who's evicted from his country home and moves to Edinburgh where he keeps up with his peeping tom habits.

He's a surprisingly sympathetic character and his habit is clearly not erotic in nature.

This was made into an interesting little film a few years back starring Billy Elliott himself - Jamie Bell (in a cracking little performance).

I would recommend this without hesitation.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2011 - 05:25 pm:   

If you liked 'Hallam Foe', Weber, you really must see the same director's 'Young Adam' (an unsung mini-masterpiece) and 'The Last Great Wilderness' (one of the most original debuts in recent years) - I have both in the DVD collection, and they're both borderline horror. His follow-up to them, 'Asylum', was less successful (have it too) but is still a quality psychological thriller with a great villainous performance by Ian McKellen.

I also hear David Mackenzie's new one is a sci-fi movie!
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, March 04, 2011 - 03:57 pm:   

I agree, 'Young Adam' is brilliant.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, March 04, 2011 - 04:07 pm:   

Finished Hallam Foe last night and started on Duma Key - already 100 pages in and getting hooked. I hope it doesn't do the King trick of going a bit rubbish half way through like a few of his more recent offerings.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2011 - 08:53 pm:   

Now tearing through Chandler's THE HIGH WINDOW (1942). Quite good. Hey, Stevie (or whoever): ever see the filmed version of this called THE BRASHER DOUBLOON (1947), with George Montgomery as Philip Marlowe? I see there's a terrible-quality version of it on youtube. (It apparently was also filmed earlier, the same year it was published, and called then TIME TO KILL, with Marlowe's name changed to "Mike Shayne.")
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.209.217
Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2011 - 10:15 pm:   

Stevie- yes, How The Dead Live is superb. Its ending is truly brilliant- no 'clever' twists, just a denouement that's absolutely devasting. The Factory novels get bleaker and darker and grimmer and more emotionally powerful with each one, and the nameless sergeant gets more damaged and worn down.

Weber- I think Duma Key is one of King's best in recent years, superior- imho- to Lisey's Story.

Currently reading Night Waking by Sarah Moss. Not exactly a horror or ghost novel, but there's a real sense of dread. That's not a surprise after reading her first novel, Cold Earth, which was a ghost story of sorts. And kind of an apocalyptic novel, too. This is psychologically unsettling, narrated as it is by a female academic caught between the pressures of childcare (with a very unhelpful hubby) and a book she's been commissioned to write, while plagued by lack of sleep (due to her youngest child's 'night waking'- hence the title) and fears that she's not equipped for motherhood. Not sure where exactly this is going, but am loving the journey, as on top of everything else, Moss can actually be laugh-out loud funny writer.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.209.217
Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2011 - 10:16 pm:   

Devasting? Gah. Not enough sleep, Bestwick.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.254.215
Posted on Monday, March 07, 2011 - 12:58 am:   

Jesus wept! Make that two devastating endings in a row... 'The Heart Of The Matter' & 'How The Dead Live' (just finished it).

I fucking felt that punch and loved every second of it!!

What has amazed me about the novel is what a damn great gothic horror movie, disguised as a crime thriller, it would make. In an ideal world I'd have cast an ageing Peter Cushing (post the death of his adored wife) as Mardy & Edward Woodward as the Detective Sergeant. Their scenes together are playing in my head now... just awesome writing. Emotionally shattering and so bloody satisfying at the same time!!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 07, 2011 - 03:53 pm:   

Clive Barker made me almost throw up my lunch today!

The true nature of The Lix, and how Kissoon spawned them, has been revealed - yecch!! Anyone who thinks the man lost any of the sick power of his imagination when he turned to dark fantasy need only read this book. The death scene I just read has to be one of the most fearlessly stomach churning in genre literature. Oh God, I'm starting to heave again...
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.59.115.60
Posted on Monday, March 07, 2011 - 04:29 pm:   

Half way through Barbara "Ruth Rendell" Vine's The Brimstone Wedding, which I bought several years back after the prof (I think it was) recommended it to me.
A fine read so far.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, March 09, 2011 - 11:14 am:   

Just finished TGASS and starting straight into 'Everville' for the first time... effortlessly brilliant storytelling on an epic scale that has more than rekindled my old excitement about Clive Barker.

I'm also going to re-read 'The Last Illusion' to remind myself of Harry D'Amour's back story. Barker's own film version, 'Lord Of Illusions' (1995), is much better than its reputation suggests imo. Superior to 'Nightbreed' actually, which wasn't half bad either.
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Lincoln (Lincoln_brown)
Username: Lincoln_brown

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 121.214.171.13
Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2011 - 10:16 am:   

'Dead Sea', by Brian Keene
'Pretty Little Dead Things', by Zed
'Over The Darkening Fields', by Scott Thomas

Three really different styles, but all fall into the Horror category.
I think a lot of you would like the Scott Thomas collection. Contemporary ghost stories that really pack a punch.
Zed just keeps getting better (and he was very good to start with), and it's great to have novel length work by him, to get stuck into. Beautifully written.
The Keene is really only concerned with plot and character - not style. But, it's got zombies, so I'm in. Enjoying it so far, and I've heard his later books are a lot better.(as far as the writing goes)
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2011 - 10:46 am:   

Some of you may be surprised to hear this but thinking about TGASS, with its dream sea, Quiddity, and floating islands of human emotion compacted into the Ephemeris, I am forcibly struck by the similarities to that other visionary work of cosmic fantasy... 'Voyage To Venus' (1943) [aka 'Perelandra'] by none other than C.S. Lewis!! Even Ransom's pursuit of the Un-man into the satanic underworld of Perelandra is echoed in the search for Jaffe in the caves beneath Palomo Grove. Who'd have thought it... Barker a C.S. Lewis fan?!

But then the roots of Lewis's vision go right back to 'The Divine Comedy'. So is anything truly original?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2011 - 10:57 am:   

This has put me in the mood to finally finish the Space Trilogy and read 'That Hideous Strength' (1945) after I finish 'Everville'...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2011 - 11:13 am:   

You really know how to live.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2011 - 11:23 am:   

You don't know the half of it, mate...
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.93.21.68
Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2011 - 11:44 am:   

Stevie, Clive is certainly a Lewis fan. On Abarat:

"Here is the best way, I suppose, of my telling it to you, what my models are. The three models are: the Chronicles of C.S.Lewis' great work of Christian apology in the form of a fantastic fiction; Cirque du Soleil, which I adore; and Fantasia. And those are the three things that started me off."
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Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 193.89.189.24
Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2011 - 12:07 pm:   

I just read Michael Marshall (Smith)’s superb new thriller ’Killer Move’. It’s almost impossible to talk about it without giving away any spoilers. It’s full of twists and turns and mounting dread in the menacing Florida sunshine. An excellent existential conspiracy thriller which further darkens and widens the reach of The Straw Men.

Don DeLillo’s amazing novella ’Point Omega’ takes its point of origin from Douglas Gordon’s infamous video installation ’24 Hour Psycho’- (Hitchcock’s film is slowed down so that it takes 24 hours to watch the film from beginning to end). I saw how the film moves in New York in 2000, and it’s a very haunting and strange experience indeed. And from that point DeLillo weaves a devastating and beautifully stark mediation on post 9-11 America, family relations, and it is also a mediation on violence. This was really a powerful novella.

Stevie: Earthling are publishing a 25th Anniversary edition of ’Weaveworld’ with illustrations by Richard A. Kirk! A must have! The third volume of The Art sequence seems far off...
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Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 193.89.189.24
Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2011 - 12:07 pm:   

But Abarat 3 in november this year...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2011 - 12:14 pm:   

Thanks for that, Ramsey, I had no idea and was almost too embarrassed to even raise the comparison... but the influence of 'Voyage To Venus' on 'The Great And Secret Show' is just too obvious to miss, having read both works.

Venus (or Perelandra) is portrayed as an ocean world dotted with floating islands of weed and with one vast central island that hides the entrance to a cavernous underworld full of Lovecraftian horrors. The book is a tour-de-force of imaginative fiction imo. I'm looking forward to any further comparisons between 'Everville' and 'That Hideous Strength', both of which I'll be reading for the first time.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 12:25 pm:   

All other books have been set aside as I've become completely immersed in the world of 'Everville'.
The most brilliant horror-fantasy I have read in years, if not ever.

The prose is a joy to read and his imagination just soars. Wonderful, wonderful story-telling!!
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 12:47 pm:   

The two Books of the Art have always been, for me, the perfect blend of horror and fantasy - they continue to influence my own writing in many ways. They represent Barker's creative pinnacle, IMHO. I just wish he'd written the long-promised third book when he was still surfing that creative wave.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.165.39.12
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 12:51 pm:   

"surfing that creative wave" is an interesting phrase.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 12:57 pm:   

I'm hip, daddio.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.165.39.12
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 12:59 pm:   

better than erecting MFI flatpacks. ;)
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 01:08 pm:   

I've still been impressed by any of his recent stuff I've read and seem to be alone in having loved 'Mister B. Gone' as a hilarious piss-take of Dante.

I'm just hoping Barker does a Joseph Conrad with the 'Third Book Of The Art' by completing a long cherished trilogy with a 20 year gap in between, as he did with the Lingard Trilogy. There was a great quote by Conrad in the intro to 'The Rescue' (1920) about how returning to these characters was like sailing back to a familiar shore and seeing all the old faces drift back into focus the nearer he got to the dock. Here's hoping Clive has a similar experience...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 01:23 pm:   

Des, one needs to be incredibly creative to put together an MFI flatpack. Even when MFI were still around.

And, no, I'm not contradicting my blog post here. Creativity isn't "magic".
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.122.108.107
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 01:40 pm:   

I get really sucked into my stories, even the crap ones i don't finish. Actually, no, I don't - if I'm not being immersed it just doesn't happen. For me, writing feels like a successful foray somewhere mysterious. If it intrigues me it usually follows that the story will work and intrigue others. In fact I'm sometimes not sure someone isn't writing me somewhere, to sound a bit poncy.
:-(
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 01:48 pm:   

This week I have mostly been reading Tales of Supernatural Terror by Guy de Maupassant. A mixed bag of cautionary tales, descriptions of madness, existential horror and dark humour. An interesting writer.

Next I'm going to give Apartment 16 another go, as I wasn't that taken with it the first time round, but then I don't think I was in the frame of mind to read supernatural fiction.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 194.75.171.106
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 04:05 pm:   

In the middle of reading that one myself, Jon. When I first started I just couldn't get into it, but now I'm engrossed. I think it is one of those you have to be in the right frame of mind for.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 04:14 pm:   

Yeah, first time through I gave up because I just found it too relentlessly and willfully bleak. I just wasn't in the mood for that kind of thing then. But I want to give it another chance because I generally enjoy Adam's writing and he's a top bloke.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.254.215
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 09:13 pm:   

I can never be happy reading just one book for long, especially a thick one, no matter how brilliant, so I've taken a random plunge into my TBR pile and come up with 'The Spire' (1964) by William Golding.

As he is my favourite author and I haven't read it before I'm rather chuffed!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 10:43 pm:   

I never read Lord of the Flies, but I did read Pincher Martin, which I greatly enjoyed. I should go back and read more of him - yet more fodder for my own endlessly-tall TBR pile.

And Stevie, having now finished The Lady in the Lake, with only two more Chandler novels to go (The Little Sister and Playback), I'm surprised to find myself saying that, just imho, the finest so far of the novels he wrote, of which I've read... the prize goes to Farewell, My Lovely: if anyone had asked me in advance, I'd have said that one would be the farthest down on the list! (Next, I think I'll polish off the short-and-so-not-too-daunting Playback.)
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 21, 2011 - 12:32 pm:   

You've got to read 'Lord Of The Flies', Craig!! It's one of those books that once read sets up resonances in the mind for the rest of your life. I've re-read it more times than any other work of fiction - currently five times - and always get something new out of it, while the emotional impact of what happens to the characters gets more devastating every time. A perfect work imo.

'The Spire' is another one of Golding's deceptively simple allegories that builds up a cumulative power way beyond the events of the story. Over half-way through and I'd compare it to 'Pincher Martin' as another overwhelmingly intense tale of madness and obsession - that takes us right into the soul of the protagonist, unbearably so. Where Martin was obsessed with survival against ridiculous odds, Dean Jocelin is eaten up by his desire to honour the glory of "God" (i.e. himself) in the form of a stupendous Spire growing out of his (unworthy) Cathedral. Common sense tells everyone the structure cannot possibly stand as envisaged but, in the almost mediaeval fantasy realm of the book, the Dean's will holds sway over all... and the Spire begins to grow, claiming friendships, reputations, lives and souls as the building groans and buckles under its weight and the earth itself begins to slide. I can't see this one ending well somehow...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 21, 2011 - 03:50 pm:   

Into the final chapters of 'Everville' and I have no idea where he's going with this...

I haven't been this enthralled by a work of epic fantasy since 'His Dark Materials' - a work I still insist owes a lot to Barker's no nonsense writing style. To read an author in such full creative flow is one of the great joys of life imho.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 01:46 pm:   

Reading The Wrong Boy by Willy Russell. I've seen several of his plays but this is the first time I've read any of his prose. it's brilliant so far. Several laugh out loud moments already and I'm only on page 39.

It's written in the form of letters to Morrissey that make up a journal for our young lead and interspersed with the most cringingly funny song lyrics I've seen.

I reccommend this wholeheartedly
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 04:58 pm:   

'The Last Voice They Hear' finally arrived yesterday and already hooked after the first few chapters. The writing style is already noticeably leaner and more plot oriented than his last few novels. I think I detect a cracking thriller in the making.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 06:52 pm:   

Wait till you find out how the murders are performed...


One of the sickest ideas I've read. Absolutely brilliant.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.178.81.13
Posted on Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 09:37 pm:   

Half way through Conrad Williams' Loss of Separation.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.142.153
Posted on Friday, March 25, 2011 - 01:07 am:   

'relentlessly and wilfully bleak'

(burns shoe leather running to bookshop)
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, March 25, 2011 - 11:12 am:   

What are the bleakest novels you've read, Joel. I'm curious.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, March 25, 2011 - 11:32 am:   

Bleak House
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Friday, March 25, 2011 - 12:47 pm:   

Here's the review of Apartment 16 I just put on Facebook. As Roy Walker would say, 'it's good, but it's not the one.'

Firstly, let me just say that I think Nevill is a good writer. His short stories are never anything less than superb and his prose is assured, considered and immaculate. However, while there is no doubt in my mind that Adam will one day write a supremely brilliant novel of the supernatural, this isn't quite it. Apartment 16 feels like it could have been a lot shorter and punchier. It suffers from repetition. While the descriptions of the supernatural are brilliant the first time round, the same themes and tropes come round again and again. The main female protagonist didn't quite convince me, but Seth was an interesting creation, if only some more had been done with him. The idea of a mad artist breaking down the walls of reality would work well in something that wasn't this played out. There are certainly compelling scenes and reasons to read the book, but it wasn't quite the novel I was hoping it to be.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, March 25, 2011 - 01:18 pm:   

I love a good bleak read but I'm not fussed on bleakness or cruelty for the sake of it. There has to be recognition of the positivity in humanity as well, the beauty of pain and sacrifice as well as the anguish.

'The Heart Of The Matter' is indescribably bleak but also one of the most beautiful books I ever read. Same goes for Derek Raymond's Factory Series or the works of Kafka or Dostoevsky or the book I'm reading now, 'The Spire' by William Golding.

I have to say I found Ramsey's last novel 'The House On Nazareth Hill' rather too bleak for my taste. The pain and psychological torture inflicted on that poor girl was just too much. 'The Last Voice They Hear' is bleak as well but sweeps the reader along (a quarter through already) by the gripping structure of the narrative - so far it's a textbook perfect thriller imo.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, March 25, 2011 - 01:36 pm:   

'The House On Nazareth Hill' is one of the most upsetting books I've ever read. It's an extraordinary work of art.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, March 25, 2011 - 02:46 pm:   

It's as brilliantly written as anything of Ramsey's but I found it a hard book to love, Zed.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.254.215
Posted on Saturday, March 26, 2011 - 03:04 pm:   

Finished 'Everville' and now I'm another one of those poor haunted souls crying out for the conclusion to the trilogy. Imagine having to wait 20 years for 'The Amber Spyglass' or 'The Return Of The King'!! That's how staggering a fantasy achievement the first two 'Books Of The Art' are imho.

And any genre fan doubting their merits as horror literature can take my word that they deserve to be mentioned alongside such existential satanic masterpieces as 'The Exorcist'/'Legion' or 'The Ceremonies'. Stunning!!
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.116.55.86
Posted on Saturday, March 26, 2011 - 03:17 pm:   

Stevie, how you manage to read all those books so fast I cannot fathom. By my reckoning you must read at least five books a week. I used to be like that when I was sixteen; sometimes I read an entire book every two days, but alas I lost the faculty somewhere along the line.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.17.254.215
Posted on Saturday, March 26, 2011 - 05:42 pm:   

I usually read about three or four books at one time, Hubert, and carry them everywhere with me. I read on the bus, in the pub, in the park, during work breaks, in the bath and in bed. Some books take me much longer than others. I'm currently half way through 'The Complete Edgar Allan Poe' having been reading it couple of months now and it took me a full year to read Dostoevsky's 'The Devils'.

Clive Barker's 'Books Of The Art' may look thick and unwieldy but they are so damn unputdownable I flew through them in a few weeks!

Besides Poe, I'm currently reading: 'The Last Voice They Hear' (quarter through) & 'The Spire' (two thirds through). Now to decide what to replace 'Everville' with...
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, March 28, 2011 - 12:42 pm:   

A Manhattan Ghost Story would be the perfect replacement for Everville...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, March 28, 2011 - 03:41 pm:   

I've already started into another satanic horror trilogy, Weber. One that is guaranteed to have even Clive Barker quaking with trepidation! A work as majestic in its literary power as it is epic in its scope.. the second volume of... Dennis Wheatley's towering masterpiece, the Duke de Richleau Trilogy, 'Strange Conflict' (1941)!!!!

Already I feel moved to quote from this glorious opening chapters:

"The Duke and his guest, Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust, had much in common. Both had been blessed with an ancient name, good looks, brains and charm, which had made them outstanding figures in the European society of their day. That day was passing, but they had made the most of it and regretted nothing of their tempestuous early years when they had fought and loved to the limit of their capacity, or the quiet period that had followed, during which they had dabbled most successfully in high finance and played a hand in many of the secret moves behind the diplomatic scene. That a better world might emerge with the passing of the privileged caste that they represented they both hoped, but rather doubted, and as each was unshakably convinced that it would not do so if the Nazis were not utterly destroyed it is doubtful if Hitler had two more inveterate enemies!
It would have been utterly against the principles of either to allow the war to interfere with their custom of changing for dinner, but instead of the conventional black the Duke wore a claret-coloured vicuna smoking-suit with silk lapels and braided fastenings.
As Max, the Duke's man, left the quiet candle lit room the anti-aircraft guns in Hyde Park came into action, shattering the silence. Sir Pellinore looked across, and said a little thoughtfully:
'Wonder you stay here with this damn'd racket goin' on night after night.'
De Richleau shrugged. 'I don't find the bombing particularly terrifying. Anyhow, it's child's play compared to some of the things I have survived in other... wars.'
'Damn good!' guffawed Sir Pellinore. 'Damn good!' All the same, it makes things deuced uncomfortable. They've outed two of my clubs, and it's the devil's own job to get hold of one's friends on the telephone.'
'Ah, the devil...' replied the Duke smoothly.

I think it's time all you guys packed up and went home. Maybe considered gardening instead?
But seriously, you couldn't write comedy like that if you tried! Within a few short chapters we're into a stirring tale that ties the rise of Hitler & the Nazi Party to devilish goings on in St John's Wood! And before you know it the Duke and his trusty sidekick, Rex Van Ryn, are off in their Bentley on another stirring adventure, etc... Really, I ask you, he can't have been serious! The old goat must have been taking the piss - I'm convinced of it!


Weber, I promise you I'll read 'Manhattan Ghost Story' after I've finished 'The Spire', which should only take a few days...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2011 - 03:19 pm:   

Why do I get the impression Ramsey has some kind of head-swivelling twist in store with this one? As a thriller it certainly reads that way and is putting me in mind of an Argento-like giallo so far. The text plays clever tricks with perspective and has me constantly trying to second guess how reliable it is. The broad satirical humour of his last few novels is also absent. Comparing 'The Last Voice They Hear' to 'The Count Of Eleven', as psycho thrillers, reveals just how much Ramsey's writing has changed stylistically in those seven short years. Where the first was almost surreal in its black humour this latest one is as coldly precise as a scalpel in its chilling plot mechanics. Great stuff!!
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.109.133.106
Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2011 - 09:16 pm:   

Just finished the Basil Copper collection, Here Be Daemons, which I wasn't impressed with at all. Just all really dull and predictable.
Have now embarked on book 3 of Erikson's Malazan series, Memories of Ice. As complex and intriguing as ever.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Friday, April 01, 2011 - 01:03 am:   

I'm reading all sorts right now, but these are the main titles:

Loss of Separaration by Conrad Williams (possibly his masterpiece)

Everyone's So So Special by Rob Shearman (advance MS on my Kindle)

Occultation by Laird Barron (another Kindle experience)

Kell's Legend by Andy Remic

Sin & Ashes by Joe Pulver (Kindle again!)

All very good, for very different reasons.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.131.108.59
Posted on Friday, April 01, 2011 - 10:50 am:   

All these unfamiliar names!
Is everyone writing these days?

I will now take this opportunity to promote 'Bumchip' - a new device that saps stories from you whether you want to publish them or not, shapes them from your subconscious whims and shapes them into plots wherever you are, and gets you an instant reader(or rather 'buyer')ship of zillions because they will have the capacity to store them without actually looking at them.
Nobody loses!
Lovely Jubbly.
:-)
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.131.108.59
Posted on Friday, April 01, 2011 - 10:53 am:   

we've now reached a weird zone where not only can you think of an idea and find it already existed, but that there is someone with YOUR NAME who's already wrote everything you're writing!
It's a mad mad mad mad world alright.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, April 01, 2011 - 11:54 am:   

I know I'm going to take stick for defending Dennis Wheatley but I'm thoroughly enjoying 'Strange Conflict' and have to praise the man's gift for a fast paced gripping narrative. The characters and language are hilarious but when he lets rip in the fantasy/horror sequences his imagination soars to some vivid heights. The chapter entitled 'A Nightmare That Was Lived' is a tour-de-force that sees the Duke do battle with a Nazi spy on the astral plane through a bewildering series of astral body transformations. I cannot tell a lie and found the sequence genuinely thrilling and startlingly ahead of its time! So far this book is the very definition of a "ripping yarn" and with belly laughs to boot. Who'd have thought it...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, April 01, 2011 - 01:42 pm:   

I knew those Wheatley novels were rubbish even when I was reading them aged 11... they're deplorable, man!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Sunday, April 03, 2011 - 08:24 pm:   

Finished James Crumley's THE LAST GOOD KISS (1978). Gotta say, one of the worst novels I've read in a good many years - the thesaurus doesn't contain enough synonyms of "crap" to apply to this godforsaken pseudo-detective piece - how this got any kind of cult following is beyond me. Revolting and utter excrement. I couldn't donate it to my local library fast enough - I only didn't burn it because that's illegal where I live.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.109.133.106
Posted on Sunday, April 03, 2011 - 09:51 pm:   

Why did you persist with it? Life's too short for crap books.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Sunday, April 03, 2011 - 10:21 pm:   

I have a thing about not finishing books - I feel anxious if I don't. Which is why I'm SO selective - I usually like to get some assurance that something is pretty good, before venturing. I was plum fooled by this one... the first chapter too, was good, it promised a lot... and I kept going and watching in horror how, literally, it got actually worse as it went along. It's lost to history, but I'll bet this James Crumley lost all interest and really just got shoddy sloppy didn't-fucking-care by the end - any other explanation must involve a stroke or lightning hitting him.

I'm just about done with David Morrell's second novel, TESTAMENT. Oddly, despite its many flaws in logic, character reaction/action, its strange "boring" stretches (this novel reads a lot like THE ROAD, with its long sections of pure wilderness survival), its faceless villains, its plain old pedestrian writing ofttimes (note: I am a David Morrell fan, of his short fiction, most all of which is brilliant) - anyway, despite all that... the novel's compellingly readable, compulsively so. It's easy, it's enjoyable too. Giant problems, but a damn good read. There's a lesson in that, to the writer in me... I wonder what it is?...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 10:18 am:   

TESTAMENT is probably the best thriller I've ever read.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.12.129.13
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 01:15 pm:   

Nearly finished The Wrong Boy - it's stayed as funny and moving throughout or central character's oddysey to Grimsby as we could hope for. The only flaw in the book is that the narrators voice sounds too Liverpool when he's supposed to be from Failsworth...

But that might just be the voice in my head.

Next on my TBR pile is the Blue Mask by Joel Street, or Joel Road or something like that.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 61.216.201.48
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 03:48 pm:   

Testament is one of my favourites too. Morrell is hard to match when it comes to effective thrillers. Craig, I didn't feel it had any minor problems, let alone giant ones!

Has anyone read First Blood? It's one I keep meaning to read, but have never got around to.

Zed - are you reading mostly on Kindle these days? I just got one a couple of weeks ago for my birthday and am enjoying it a lot. It's a shame more small press books aren't available (although some are, thankfully).
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 03:53 pm:   

my last post should say "Throughout OUR central character's" etc
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 04:02 pm:   

Huw - First Blood is brilliant. And, yes, I find Kindle a lot easier than carrying books around with me. I'd say it's an 80/20 split in favour of the Kindle right now.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.116.55.63
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 04:08 pm:   

The only thing by Morrell I've ever read is the spell-binding short story "Orange is for Anguish, Blue for Insanity". It blew me away, I couldn't believe this was by the guy behind 'Rambo'.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 04:39 pm:   

I couldn't believe this was by the guy behind 'Rambo'

Why not? First Blood is a superb novel. The film's great, too.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.184.139.234
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 04:42 pm:   

First Blood is a superb novel. The film's great, too.

It is. And, it is.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 05:22 pm:   

I read and greatly enjoyed both 'Testament' & 'The Totem' back in the day. All I've read of Morrell.

Technically Dennis Wheatley is a terrible writer but, by God, he could spin an entertaining yarn. What I'm enjoying about 'Strange Conflict' is the ridiculous ease with which it flies past, the priceless unintentional humour, that is so far beyond parody it defies belief, the ripping atmosphere, the insane cliffhangers every few pages (involving everything from grenade chucking Nazi agents with hare lips, bone shaking Voodoo witch doctors, demonic entities oozing through the walls, the London Blitz, giant vampire bats, sharks, the appalling lack of good quality food & wine due to the damn'd war, zombies, astral tornadoes, poltergeists, ninja assassins, the lack of dependable manservants these days, etc) and the author's undeniably well researched and accurate knowledge of the occult. When de Richleau goes off on one of his finger wagging lectures about the "old wisdom" and the perils of dabbling in black magic the effect is quite wonderful - and all too frequently followed by some dastardly attack by just the elemental being he was warning them about! If it weren't for the sexism, racism and often shockingly explicit sex and horror I would rank these books as the perfect child's introduction to horror fiction.

Sometimes one feels the need for a break from highbrow literature and as far as rubbish pulp horror goes DW is the dog's bollocks imo. I haven't laughed and smiled at a book as much in quite a while...
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.116.55.63
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 09:59 pm:   

I haven't read the novel, but couldn't warm to the first Rambo, nor its sequels. Stallone is a lousy actor at best and in these films he comes across as a complete idiot imho.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.116.55.63
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 10:00 pm:   

. . . OR its sequels.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 10:15 pm:   

Hubert, by "the first Rambo" do you mean First Blood or Rambo?

First Blood was originally devised as a stand-alone film - a taut (and brutal) little thriller - one of my favourite actions films. The increasingly silly sequels have little to do with Morrell's creation.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.116.55.63
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 10:26 pm:   

First Blood was the first one, wasn't it? I recall at least one sequel where Rambo fights a Russian helicopter in Afghanistan (I think). Through the years I've come to associate dumbo Stallone (sorry, Sly) with the Rambo franchise and ultrabad acting (not necessarily in that order), so conceivably I'm doing David Morrell a disservice.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 220.138.160.248
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 10:31 pm:   

There certainly is a lot of silliness in the films, Hubert, but the first one is actually very good, I think. The sequels stink, for the most part (especially parts 2 and 3).
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 10:48 pm:   

Yeah, First Blood is excellent...the last film, John Rambo is actually pretty good, too - it almost plays like a deconstruction of the Rambo myth.

Stallone can act when he tries - he was very good in Copland, for instance; and his performance in the original Rocky (another unjustly lambasted film) was also pretty decent.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 220.138.160.248
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 10:51 pm:   

Don't forget Stop or My Mom Will Shoot!
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John Forth (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.24.1.217
Posted on Monday, April 04, 2011 - 11:07 pm:   

Yep, I'll support this - FIRST BLOOD was (and is) an excellent novel, and a very good film. I do think it's a shame that the movie lost some of the hard edge of the book. If they'd kept the original ending it would certainly have put paid to the increasingly ridiculous sequels (although I've never seen JOHN RAMBO, which I'm told is pretty decent).
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, April 05, 2011 - 02:38 am:   

Huw, it's just that I found that it adverts as a thriller, when most of it's wilderness survival - in that respect, it's a bit fuzzy. Beyond that, I just (to sum up) didn't buy Bourne and his family being on the run: it seemed there were SO many avenues to try first, and what this protag chooses to do and does, feels illogical. He and his wife have seemingly no extended family, no friends, no business associates, nothing; Bourne's background is addressed a tinybit, but it's like these three people really are completely alone - it strains credibility. The "amateurish" parts: besides character reactions (the wife I found in-credible as a character), the whole Roman Catholic-bashing interlude, which I found cringing, unnecessary (and I'm as critical as Morrell is of RC mind). The tedium of the survival sections isn't poorly written... but so much tedium, is a poor choice of the writer's, imho....

Anyway, though, despite all these problems - he must be doing a hell of a lot right, because yes, I'd recommend TESTAMENT to others to read. It's compelling, compulsively readable. I may not love it as much as Zed, but I did like it quite a bit, oh yes... so close to being finished, I should just do that, and see what I ultimately think....
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, April 05, 2011 - 09:54 am:   

Craig, why do stories and films that flit between genres disturb you so much?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, April 05, 2011 - 12:06 pm:   

They don't fit his "Template theory" - you know the one that dictates that a film has to be so much predicatble trash and follow one template rigidly...
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 02:41 am:   

Zed, seriously - it don't bother you? If you bought a Snickers bar and got a Milky Way, okay, they're similar... but wouldn't you be annoyed?

Forget similar: if you opened up a new Ramsey Campbell horror novel (advertised such) and it ended up being a swoony bodice-ripper, wouldn't you be annoyed?

It's just plain old simple logic. Weber be damned.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.27.223
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 08:49 am:   

No Craig, you're wrong. If I read a novel and it dealt with the themes described on the back cover, but did so in an original way rather than a familiar way, I would feel I'd read a better novel than usual. As a part-time writer I feel oppressed by simplistic 'genre' publishing, and so does nearly every writer I know. It's up to writers to renew genre fiction, to make it unexpected, not to churn out predictable 'product' for fans who have forgotten how to think. Where cinema is concerned you seem to have lost all sight of this principle. As a result, what you praise in films makes me want to avoid them and what you condemn makes me want to see them.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.27.223
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 09:06 am:   

P.S. Your comparison is misleading because there are virtually no films that capriciously switch genre in that way, only films that blend thematic elements usually associated with different genres – which is more likely to make for an interesting and worthwhile film than not. To take an outstanding example, The Devil's Backbone doesn't fail to decide whether it is 'horror' or 'mainstream', it tells its own story in its own way. It presents as a supernatural story and it is a supernatural story, but it has more thematic scope than the linear plotting and tunnel vision of most 'horror' cinema will allow. Narrow genre formulae are anti-creative and are driven by marketing executives, not by human imagination.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.27.223
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 09:21 am:   

I'm reminded of something Ramsey said in a book review in the 1980s: that "good stories well told" were choking the genre. For many readers, his point would have been incomprehensible. What else does a genre fan want? But his point was that the 'does what it says on the tin' approach generates a narrow commercial expectation that defines originality and challenge as a failure to provide what 'the market' demands.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 09:59 am:   

As usual, Joel says it so much better than I ever could.

Craig - what you see as a flaw I see as a strength. I want to be suprised; I demand that films (and books) try to shake up the genres in this way, to be unpredictable in how they handle their themes. Sadly, not many do that.

You'd hate my latest novel: it's crime, it's horror, it's fantasy. It's being marketed as a horror novel, but it's boundaries are much wider than that.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.35.248.5
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 02:25 pm:   

Ugh, you see, I couldn't digest Devil's Backbone and couldn't revisit it. The veering from one form to another broke the other's spell for me - it felt like a broken cup I had to hold together to drink from.
I'm not sure Craig is talking about the unfamiliar or familiar - only the 'cohesive'.
I understand the template thing completely. It's not set in stone, just trying to explain something akin to trying to breath through your eyes.
As for the 'good stories well told' it seems 'something' finished off the short story - I don't know if it was a persistence in this type or a meandering too far away from it.
As an aside I've just been re-reading Herbert's The Rats and relishing every plain and simple, spot-on word of it. It just feels so damn real. It's up there with Wyndham, I'd say.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.152.191.64
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 02:29 pm:   

Poor Craig.
:-(
How about this cross-genre? You go to a mystic cave where you are told that you will find enlightenment. Inside you find a shop selling LOTR things. I think we would all be annoyed at this.
It sometimes seems people are deliberately not thinking about what Craig is saying. He's certainly not advocating trash, just truth and honesty to your material.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.55
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 02:59 pm:   

"He's certainly not advocating trash"

He has been known to praise the donkey tromboner himself - Michael Bay... If that's not advocating trash please tell me what is?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 03:06 pm:   

Indeed, Webber.

Tony -sometimes truth and honesty to the material means straying beyond predefined borders and just letting the story take its own course. In fact, I'd argue it always means that.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 03:07 pm:   

You go to a mystic cave where you are told that you will find enlightenment. Inside you find a shop selling LOTR things

That is enlightenment. The whole world's a big thrift store, baby.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 03:12 pm:   

Btw, how marketing people describe a book or a film isn't always what that book or film is. They're trying to sell a product, to make it sound like other successful products; a writer or filmmaker is just trying to tell a story.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 05:40 pm:   

If I read a novel and it dealt with the themes described on the back cover, but did so in an original way rather than a familiar way, I would feel I'd read a better novel than usual.

Joel, respectfully, how is this in any way contra what I'm arguing, or even have anything to do with the argument?

It's not about being oppressed by "genre" writing - you can't have it both ways. If a sonneteer is oppressed by the sonnet, well, the problem is not with the sonnet-form. If you want to put the label "Horror" on your fiction, you better have some elements of horror, right? It can't be a Danielle Steele novel, that would be an egregious abuse of the term "horror" (at least, the kind we mean). You can't praise a novel/story as "horror," as A horror novel, and only have peripheral elements of horror.

Ramsey Campbell does not blur the line - why is that? Whereas, Aickman does blur the line; individual works often blur the line, like Bradbury's "The Next In Line," and Dan Simmons' THE SONG OF KALI. But all three of these examples contain enough horror meat-and-potatoes elements, I'd argue, to make applying that term apt. But calling Toni Morrison's BELOVED a horror novel, would be as absurd as calling James Joyce's FINNEGANS WAKE "An INCEPTION-like thriller!"

Do you really think I am incapable of appreciating the surprising, the unexpected, the daring and original, the well-told film? In any genre, of any form? I judge each film individually, and yes, it's as much personal tastes as anyone; I do believe in some kind of artistic standards - we can't have GARBAGE PAIL KIDS on an equal par with GOODFELLAS.

So what are those standards? They are many, of course; and for people here who are so dedicated to genre material (horror is genre, as the sonnet is a form of poetry), I would think you'd agree that there surely are some standards, elements, expectations, built into that genre.

It has to be possible to make a BAD horror film, to write a BAD horror story. And to express why it is thusly bad. What is it Joel that Argento does that makes him worthy of, if I paraphrase you correctly, sucking donkey dicks in hell? Is Argento - may you clarify - is he doing a bad film, or bad horror (or mystery or whatever genre we mean)? Or a bad film AND bad horror? Maybe in there, somewhere, are the larger answers....
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 05:46 pm:   

He has been known to praise the donkey tromboner himself - Michael Bay... If that's not advocating trash please tell me what is?

Ugh. Get it right. I've expressed two things in praise of Michael Bay: 1) I thought the first half of the first TRANSFORMERS a pretty good epic/apocalyptic horror movie, until the Transformers actually appear as we know them, at which point the movie goes down the drain; and 2) I said that Michael Bay was, in the capacity as producer, at least helping to keep the horror film genre alive, by remaking a lot of old horror movies - many of which I greatly enjoyed as guilty pleasures: TEXAS CHAINSAW, AMYITVILLE, FRIDAY THE 13TH, etc. I mean, ef-me, but if Lord Probert can like the stuff he likes unabashedly and without making claims for artistry that aren't there, why can't I like my garbage?!
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Jamie Rosen (Jamie)
Username: Jamie

Registered: 11-2008
Posted From: 99.241.220.139
Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 - 02:12 am:   

Amongst others, I've been slowly working my way through Elizabeth Bowen's The Bazaar and Other Stories. She's not one I want to rush through.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 - 02:39 am:   

Finally finished TESTAMENT, btw: the ending dive-bombed. I'd still recommend this novel as a good quick tension-filled read, with good writing as the biggest thing going for it... but I can't now honestly say it's a good novel....
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 - 09:46 am:   

What? The ending is genius. It's almost meta-fictional.

Wow. You and I have such different tastes.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.158.59.122
Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 - 12:03 pm:   

Amongst others, I've been slowly working my way through Elizabeth Bowen's The Bazaar and Other Stories. She's not one I want to rush through.
===============

Wow! Yes, these are superb. They represent her UNcollected stories. Her wonderful COLLECTED STORIES, meanwhile, have been available for many years - and easy to obtain.
I have set up a dedicated website for Elizabeth Bowen: http://elizabethbowensite.wordpress.com/
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Jamie Rosen (Jamie)
Username: Jamie

Registered: 11-2008
Posted From: 99.241.220.139
Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 - 03:39 pm:   

I have both books out from the library as we speak, Des. But, as it's a rather hefty hardcover, Collected Stories is much more awkward for me to carry while I'm out.

I doubt I'll finish either before it's time to return them to the library, alas. But that's the joy of getting collections out; you can always borrow them again later without worrying about having lost the plot.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.181.84.113
Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 - 10:27 pm:   

Just finished Conrad Williams' Loss of Separation; now moving on to The Man Who Collected Machen.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 - 10:37 pm:   

Mick - I'm about three quarters of the way through Conrad's. Brilliant, isn't it? His best yet.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.181.84.113
Posted on Friday, April 08, 2011 - 12:28 am:   

It is - easily his best so far. Can't wait to see what's next!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, April 08, 2011 - 01:26 am:   

What? The ending is genius. It's almost meta-fictional.

?!? I'm beginning to think we read different books, Zed.

It felt rushed, clumsy, illogical, and unsatisfying. I'm down to the fact that the writing itself in this novel is superb, but... he's done much better....
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, April 08, 2011 - 09:34 am:   

No, Craig, we just have opposing views on what makes good art. You like to be comfortbale, to have everything fit inside a neatly labelled box, while I don't.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, April 08, 2011 - 09:47 am:   

comfortable, even...
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Friday, April 08, 2011 - 10:39 am:   

Glad you guys liked Loss. I do think it's one of Conrad's best. It was a pleasure to work on it.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.156.233.223
Posted on Friday, April 08, 2011 - 11:20 am:   

Poor Craig. He's like Frodo, but without the mates.
I suppose that makes me Sam Gamgee...:-(
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.156.233.223
Posted on Friday, April 08, 2011 - 11:27 am:   

I'm reading King's Just After Sunset - two stories in i'm not sure that I like it. The first story has too much gore and feels too concrete to be ethereal (maybe that's deliberate) and the next, about the running woman, is just so starkly blunt I couldn't enjoy it. It dipped the minute the woman found a corpse as soon as a character was mentioned as being a bit iffy. It felt like an undeveloped novel squeezed into a shortish story. Philip K Dick once said stories should feel 'complete and solid, symmetrical, like jewels'. I don't think any king short I've ever read has felt like this, they always have a scrappy, unfinished, unrounded feel, one that's sort of ok with novels.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Friday, April 08, 2011 - 11:28 am:   

I think Craig's clever, well-rounded and confident enough to hold his own, Tony. He's a bright lad.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.156.233.223
Posted on Friday, April 08, 2011 - 11:34 am:   

I dunno - I feel I can sense him being pissed off. Not so sure about the confidence.
I'm not always right about these things, though.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.156.233.223
Posted on Friday, April 08, 2011 - 11:36 am:   

That's the template thing in thick black ink; King trying to write the ghostly, breaking the spell with the gore. A lot of his work does that an I often feel pulled all over the place by him. He's never an easy read for me.
Maybe me and Craig are just autistic?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Friday, April 08, 2011 - 09:18 pm:   

Don't start sympathising with Craig. It doesn't fit the RCMB template. He only understands abuse. :-)

Seriously, we love our Craig, eccentric film tastes and all.
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Jamie Rosen (Jamie)
Username: Jamie

Registered: 11-2008
Posted From: 99.241.220.139
Posted on Saturday, April 09, 2011 - 12:11 am:   

Just read a story from May Sinclair's Uncanny Stories that rather struck me in its rather sympathetic portrayal of a spirit destroying her husband's second marriage. Particularly noteworthy given the time that it was written is the broad implication that sex with a living woman cannot compare to the sensual experiences offered by a ghost.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Saturday, April 09, 2011 - 03:25 am:   

I really don't get pissed off about this, these debates. Sometimes I'm amazed that others just can't see what I see... but that's so much of life.

But honesty for a moment on one front? Though I am very confident on my views of art (even if I have to alter them when I'm hitting up against walls, and such), I do admit to a lack of confidence often IN what I write. Not always. But there's not a thing I've ever written, concerning which I've not gone through a phase, or phases (and finishing them doesn't end them!), where I shake and shudder and wonder what the hell I just wrote. Where I wonder if I even have it in me, if I'm not fooling myself, if I'm not just totally deluded into thinking I have any ability at all to create (here) anything with words, etc. It's not always, if it were I wouldn't do it at all. But I've come to the realization that this self-doubt and fear won't ever go away, no matter really what I write or (please God) get produced someday... I guess I must be a writer on some level, because it's going to take a lot more than rejection - personal and otherwise - to throw me off the path. And no, though darkly tempted, I won't end that sentence with, "sadly."
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.156.184.245
Posted on Saturday, April 09, 2011 - 08:13 pm:   

Just finished The Wrong Boy (Willy Russell)

This is without doubt one of my favourite reads of the decade (going to do a Stevie here I'm afraid). It's a complete masterpiece. I cannot remember the last book that made me cry as much as this one did. Remarkably I was trying to laugh at the same time as tears were actually flooding out. For sheer emotional impact I have to say read this book. It's laugh out loud funny and almost unbearably poignant and moving.

After 20 miniutes to gather my emotional state again, I started on The Blue Mask by one of our regulars here.

Two chapters in and I'm really enjoying it.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Sunday, April 10, 2011 - 02:17 am:   

I just finished 'The Last Voice They Hear' and have to say it is easily the most mature and ingeniously constructed thriller I have yet read from the great man.

One of those books that sets up so many ambiguous resonances in the reader's mind that I felt compelled to go flicking back through it to re-read certain passages... and I'm still not sure if I've read it right.

The final chapters are amongst the most jaw-droppingly suspenseful I have read in years and this is yet another Ramsey Campbell novel that cries out for an adventurous director, who understands the mechanics of suspense, to turn into a Hitchcockian masterpiece. When will they see the light?!
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Monday, April 11, 2011 - 02:33 pm:   

@Joel - I am absolutely loving The Blue Mask. The section leading up to the attack is one of the most unbearably tense sections I've read for a long while. The attack itself was all the more horrific for the lack of gore, just giving us Neil's POV throughout.

This could well land in my best books of the year pile.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, April 11, 2011 - 04:41 pm:   

At Weber's insistence I have started 'A Manhattan Ghost Story' (1984) by T.M. Wright.

Finding it an intriguing and oddly slanted horror novel so far with an initially subtle weirdness to it that reminds me very much of Jonathan Carroll.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.28.87
Posted on Monday, April 11, 2011 - 11:30 pm:   

Thanks, Weber.

Stevie, I think Silent Children is Ramsey's best non-supernatural novel so far.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 01:30 am:   

I look forward to it as my next in line, Joel, just as soon as I track down a copy.

I think there was a marked leap forward in the maturity of Ramsey's prose in TLVTH that bodes well for the decade's worth of reading I have to come.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.19.122
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 09:14 am:   

Well, Ramsey has indicated that he wrote TLVTH under pressure to be more 'commercial' – but I think his writing was evolving anyway, becoming more lean and focused, with the real payoff coming in Silent Children and The Darkest Part of the Woods – all leading up to the corrosive terror of The Grin of the Dark.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 09:20 am:   

I really like TLVTH. Some structural triumphs of suspense in there. I love the scene in the hotel in which the kidnapper questions himself. Also love the whole treated-as-a-dog thing. Terrifying. In one of the opening chapters Ramsey chills with the single line of dialogue: "Red's my colour." Masterful.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 11:22 am:   

Joel - When did you write The Blue Mask? Before or after Blair showed his true colours? All the hope some of the characters have because of his election has a massively ironic ring to it now...
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 01:16 pm:   

Weber, I wrote it in 2000 and 2001. So after tuition fees and after Milburn's 'NHS reforms' but before the annexation of Iraq. And it wasn't until last year (in his 'memoir') that Blair said that he now supports the Conservative Party. Showing your true colours is one thing, waving them from the rooftop is another.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 01:18 pm:   

But the optimism around the 1997 election result in the book wasn't meant to be ironic. That's how I remember it. I was a Labour Party activist at that time, though I quit in 1998.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 01:38 pm:   

Tony Blair MP is of course an anagram of "I'm Tory Plan B"...

amazing how these things can ring so true. My all time favourite anagram is

I'm an evil tory bigot

10 points if you know who that is...
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 01:46 pm:   

Virginia Bottomley.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 01:57 pm:   

Just found out - David Cameron PM anagrams to Vapid Commander!

Prime Minister David Cameron anagrams to Trendier Demoniac Vampirism

While just the words David cameron anagram to

Cad Moved Iran
and
Odd manic Rave

10 points btw Joel

And yes I am bored at work...
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 02:31 pm:   

The House of Parliament = loonies far up the Thames

Etc.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 02:40 pm:   

Except of course that it's the House of Commons and the House of Lords making up the HOUSES of parliament...

So unfortunately that one doesn't quite work...
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 02:42 pm:   

But you've got two s's in the "loonies etc" so house of parliament was a typo and I look silly.

whoops
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 02:54 pm:   

Well, it was my typo, old boy. So you are forgiven.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 04:28 pm:   

Just finished 'The Spire' and find myself once again haunted by Golding's dense impenetrable and fascinating imagery. The reason I love the man's prose so much is because, of all the authors I have read and enjoyed, he is the only one who never gives in to what is expected (or demanded) of him or simplifies his vision for the sake of his readership. The man was one of the few true literary artists of the 20th Century, a prose poet of disarmingly deceptive simplicity and huge ambition who is perhaps the closest literature has to come to a crossover into pure philosophy.

We have here another philosophical parable that couldn't be more basic in plot but that in the characterisation of its archetypes couldn't be any more rich or convincing.

Dean Jocelin is the very embodiment of human pride and hubris and just about as unsympathetic a main protagonist as it is possible to imagine. If ever a man deserved to be buried under the weight of his own ambition it this jumped up sanctimonious bastard. Yet Golding takes us so deep inside the man's self-deluding psychosis that he cannot help but end up gaining our empathy. The ending is just about as pitiful a depiction of a retreat into madness as I have read in literature and devastatingly powerful in its impact.

We have here a tale of human frailty in all its complexity. Jocelin sincerely wishes to honour God and is eaten up by his own "unconscious" self-aggrandisement while breaking every Christian code of ethics in his ruthless determination to see his dream fulfilled. The words "for the Glory of God" become ever more feeble and (for him) heartfelt as the story progresses.

But his is not the only weakness on display. The master builder, Roger Mason (see what I mean about the language of parable), is the embodiment of science also overtaken by pride in his stubborn attempts to reconcile what he knows is impossible with what is the greatest challenge to his technical skill yet devised. Jocelin plays him like a musical instrument and isn't above eventual blackmail (both financial and sexual) to ensure his plans are carried out.

The image of the Cathedral as a priapic giant lying on its back and the constant threat of mistletoe growing from the fresh beams of the Spire are as potent a symbol of the clash between paganism and christianity as I have read anywhere.

Like all his books this is one to linger long in the mind and return to for many engrossing re-reads down the years. We can ask for nothing better from an author.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.153.150.118
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 04:57 pm:   

Did you like his boat books, Stevie? I forget the names - 'Trouble on Deck' or some such, 'Fire Down Below'. I read one ages ago and seem to remember enjoying it.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 05:14 pm:   

No, Tony.

I have the complete 'To The Ends Of The Earth' trilogy in a single volume and intend to read it as my next long term project.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 05:53 pm:   

'Trouble On Deck' sounds like something the Carry On team would have dreamt up!

The three titles are:

'Rites Of Passage' (1980)
'Close Quarters' (1987) &
'Fire Down Below' (1989)

The entire work is generally considered his greatest achievement so I've been keeping it for a special occasion.

Also still have to read; 'The Pyramid' (1967), 'The Scorpion God' (1971), 'The Paper Men' (1984) & 'The Double Tongue' (1995).
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 62.254.173.35
Posted on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - 01:29 pm:   

Just finished a belter by Elmore Leonard's son, Peter. All He Saw Was the Girl. Reads like his old man, and so yes please, some more of that.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, April 15, 2011 - 05:13 pm:   

Heinlein's 'Tunnel In The Sky' (1955) is just about the most shocking, and wonderful, of his juvenile sci-fi novels I have read to date.

The thought of a children's book being published today that has a classroom of teenagers thrown into a hostile environment, with a strictly limited weight of weapons and supplies to carry, where they are left to kill or be killed in order to survive is beyond unthinkable. Yet this novel was intended for a young teenage market and is unremittingly brutal.

We see kids turning into blood-crazed savages before our eyes - turning on their own and rending rubbery raw flesh with their bare hands and teeth out of the desperation of starvation - and experience the vain efforts of a civilized few to band together and form a primitive society while being assailed on every front by hideous bug-eyed carnivorous monsters (and worse), the natural perils of the bizarre landscape and the ruthless butchery of their less noble fellows.

Reading this book is like experiencing 'Lord Of The Flies' as an outrageously entertaining pulp sci-fi romp and to revel in the imagination of a master storyteller really letting rip as only an author who understands what teenage boys (and girls) really get a kick out of can do. Ruthless un-PC action, guts and mayhem abounds with every stock character from their own classroom portrayed to a tee and given exactly what they deserve - the bully, the joker, the leader, the shy one, the charismatic weirdo, the swot, the teacher's pet, etc, etc.

A glorious no-holds-barred joy of a book that I wish to god I had a son to read it to... or had read myself at that age. No wonder the guy was so loved by the generation who came after him. He respected them as intellectually sophisticated in their formative years and never once spoke down to them while firing their imaginations like no other popular author of the times. Just wonderful entertainment!!!!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 10:41 am:   

Finished 'Strange Conflict' with a great deal of satisfaction I have to say. The book was like a mindlessly entertaining holiday from my more serious reads and often incredibly funny. I can't help but feel a great deal of affection for Mr Wheatley, god bless him.

Only 'Gateway To Hell' (1970) left to complete this remarkable trilogy...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 10:51 am:   

Meanwhile 'A Manhattan Ghost Story' has me firmly in its surreal grip. If I didn't know better I could swear this was Jonathan Carroll writing under a pseudonym. The oddly teasing first person narration, the well-to-do New York setting, the theme of supernatural romance, the subtly increasing weirdness amid scenes of innocuous everyday reality and the supporting cast of eccentric oddballs (straight out of a David Lynch movie). Captivating stuff that has me nicely at a loss as to where it's going - and that's always a good thing.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 10:54 am:   

'A Manhattan Ghost Story' is one of the best horror novels I've ever read - Terry Wright is such a good writer that it disgusts me.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 01:33 pm:   

I hadn't heard of him before Weber's recommendation and the literary quality of his writing is immediately evident. Makes me wonder how many other lesser known horror writers are out there from the classic era of my youth that passed me by!! So far this guy belongs in the upper echelon along with the likes of Ramsey Campbell, Barker, Klein & Carroll imho.

Only a third through so he could still potentially fluff it... but every instinct makes me doubt that.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 02:06 pm:   

He's very well known on the horror scene, Stevie - I remember his books being in mainstreasm bookshops years ago (when horror was hot), but only got around to reading him about 5 or 6 years ago.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 02:06 pm:   

mainstream, even...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 02:55 pm:   

Like I've said before, Zed, I grew up reading every kind of horror fiction I could get my hands on and then sort of grew out of it in the late 80s/early 90s until rediscovering Ramsey Campbell a few years back. So there must be loads of great material and authors out there I've missed. It gives me a unique and unbiased perspective on what's happening in the field nowadays and I wouldn't have it any other way.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 03:15 pm:   

I hear you, matey. I think I've fallen in and out of love with horror fiction my entire life - I also think that consistently reading outside the genre has allowed me to return to horror every time. I know you do the same, Stevie, and I find it terrifying whem I come across readers who only read within their chosen genre. Think of how much amazing srt they're missing out on...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Sunday, April 17, 2011 - 03:43 pm:   

"Amazing art" and some of the most amazing horror ever written...

As evidence I am about to start Jim Thompson's early novel 'Heed The Thunder' (1946), written before he turned his hand to crime fiction. It is described by James Ellroy in his introduction as an American gothic family saga with an aura of palpable evil, as "social realism/soap opera verging on horror" and as "Ma and Pa Kettle meet Steinbeck and Dostoevsky". I know I'm in for a treat with this one...
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.199.129
Posted on Monday, April 18, 2011 - 01:11 pm:   

>>I find it terrifying whem I come across readers who only read within their chosen genre. Think of how much amazing art they're missing out on...<<

I'm afraid I'm one of those readers who must terrify you, Zed. I have little time/energy for reading nowadays, so I tend to stick to the genre I love - ie. horror. I used to read more widely years ago, but alas I don't have much time for that nowadays. I envy you guys who seem to find so much time to read. I know I'd be so much "richer" if I could still do that.

Anyway, I have just taken a book away with me for a few days break, and I've now finished one of those books I got from Johnny Mains' Japan auction - The Obverse Book of Ghosts. Some nice little stories in there with a more modern "take" on an old theme - eg. Paul Magrs' "Facebook For The Dead".
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.38
Posted on Monday, April 18, 2011 - 01:47 pm:   

Finished Joel's Blue mask on Friday - I reccommend it very highly indeed. It's almost a shoo in for my best book of the year top ten list.

Just started on Paul Auster's Invisible. As usual with his prose I'm racing through the book (40 pages in just under half an hour) and so far it's a really intriguing and beguiling book. I have no idea where it's going (except for what the back cover says) but I'll just let the effortless prose of Mr Auster take me whereever he wants to go.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.185.224.251
Posted on Monday, April 18, 2011 - 01:57 pm:   

I've read a fair few of Auster's books, with some more waiting to be read on my shelves - I love his stuff.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.36
Posted on Monday, April 18, 2011 - 02:22 pm:   

SNAP!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, April 18, 2011 - 05:17 pm:   

I owe Bob Heinlein an apology for calling 'Tunnel In The Sky' a pulp sci-fi romp. It certainly starts off that way but, having almost finished it now, the second half is much more of a fascinating pioneer adventure spanning years of exploration, survival and settlement building after the terror and murderous mayhem that came on first arrival - wherever in the Galaxy they are!

A small group of survivors, boys and girls, banded together and managed to contrive the beginnings of a modest civilization. Those that brought fancy laser cannons and blasters have long found their equipment reduced to scrap after power packs died out and those wise enough to carry swords, knives, axes, bow and arrows and other hand tools ended up wielding the real balance of power. Those of anti-social or bullying tendencies were also long ago found out and paid the price. But the new threats he was wise enough to introduce his teenage audience to come from the politically power hungry and manipulative within this primitive society, the ever increasing disruptive force of sexual jealousy as children grow into adults and the lack of medical expertise, especially when the first babies come along...

As 'Lord Of The Flies' was published the previous year to immediate universal acclaim I have no doubt Bob must have read it and been fired to write this book as his own science fiction spin on the theme. Mention of the importance of not letting the signal fire go out was, I believe, his own deliberate acknowledgement of Golding's masterpiece. But the inclusion of girls as central characters and the greater span of time his story covers, as well as the brilliantly realised alien ecosystem they have to adapt to, gives this wonderful book its own distinctive identity. I've already been moved at the (frequently horrible) deaths of certain characters every bit as much as Piggy's or Simon's and know this is a book I will be returning to.

The words "stobor" and "dopey joe" have already become part of my own personal vocabulary but to understand what I mean you'll have to read the book. It is quite deliriously wonderful!
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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 82.6.90.22
Posted on Monday, April 18, 2011 - 05:57 pm:   

Long. logn time since I read any Heinlein. The last one was "Glory Road" but I gave up about a quarter of the way in because it bored me to tears. However, I loved "Time for the Stars" which I read when I was a kid.

Just started "Brave New World" and I'm already stunned and blown away by it.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.145.128.20
Posted on Monday, April 18, 2011 - 05:58 pm:   

I once heard an interview with William Golding where he said that the reason there are no girls in LOTF is because he didn't want the issue of sex to raise it's ugly head...

Methinks he was perhaps a tad more naive than we realise.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - 12:37 pm:   

Finished TITS last night... boy was it fun!
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.49
Posted on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - 12:38 pm:   

lollol
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - 01:33 pm:   

The words "stobor" and "dopey joe" have already become part of my own personal vocabulary

I bet you're a real laugh-riot after a few beers on a Saturday night, Stevie.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - 03:10 pm:   

A positive hoot.

But seriously Heinlein deserves no end of recognition for what he achieved with this novel. Not only does it include several strong female leaders as central characters, who put the boys to shame with their pioneer toughness and practicality, but the main protagonist, Rod (equivalent to LOTF's Roger), on the very last page is revealed to be... but that would be to spoil one of the most revolutionary liberal headfucks ever pulled on a teenage American audience of the ultra-conservative 1950s. The man stands as one of the great unsung civil rights champions of the 20th Century imho.

Talk of 'Planet Of The Apes' has put me in the mood to read Pierre Boulle's classic novel from 1963 as a strangely fitting follow-up.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - 03:19 pm:   

Sorry that should have read "equivalent to LOTF's Ralph" although there is an equivalent to Roger as well, and Jack, etc...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - 04:48 pm:   

'Heed The Thunder' has a charming picaresque feel to it with some of the most vivid character descriptions I have come across. The Fargoes of Verdon, Nebraska and the community they inhabit are so richly yet economically detailed as individuals it's like they live and breathe. I always found the same strengths in Dashiell Hammett & Raymond Chandler - like they were the true unheralded successors to the rich characterisation that typified the 19th Century novel. Comparisons to Dickens or Dostoevsky are not out of place.

For all the folksy charm of the opening chapters there are dark intimations of violence under the surface and tightly held secrets that threaten to come out. A beguiling slow burner so far...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - 05:47 pm:   

Two thirds through 'A Manhattan Ghost Story' now and it's starting to get really creepy... this is a stunning book!

Thanks, Weber.
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John Forth (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.24.1.217
Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - 08:42 pm:   

Just started Vanilla Ride by Joe R Lansdale, and I'm also about to start The Limits of Enchantment by Graham Joyce.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.130.94
Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - 10:24 pm:   

'A Manhattan Ghost Story' and 'Vanilla Ride' both great. As for Graham Joyce ...well you can't go wrong with him. I love 'Indigo.'
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - 10:27 pm:   

Just finished Conrad Williams' breathtakingly good (and rather Campbellian) "Loss of Separation" and started "Every Shallow Cut" by Tom Piccirilli. The next novel I try (which I'll read on the flight to Austin for the World Horror Convention) will probably be "Finch" by Jeff Vandemeer.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.24.131
Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - 10:46 pm:   

I'm looking forward to "Vandemeer" by Paul Finch.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.209.217
Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - 11:40 pm:   

Totally agree about Graham Joyce. Currently reading 'The Silent Land', which is so far enjoyable but not great, but I suspect will have me totally blown away by the end. Also have Philip George Chadwick's 'The Death Guard' on the go, as well as a couple of story collections the authors have asked me to read... it's all go at this end.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - 11:45 pm:   

'The Silent Land' was the best novel I read last year - by a long shot. Graham's a brilliant writer and a great bloke.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.158.61.10
Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 12:21 am:   

I found the Silent Land very well written but predictable. Limits of Enchantment is one of his best IMHO - certainly has one of the best opening chapters.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 10:17 am:   

Weber, to me part of the point of The Silent Land was that inevitability. You know exactly where it's going, but you're fascinated to see how it gets there - and by the time the end comes you're so invested in the characters and their relationship that it breaks your heart. It's a complex novel, but written very simply and directly. I adored it.
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John Forth (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 217.20.16.180
Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 10:57 am:   

I found the Silent Land very well written but predictable.

In his latest blog post, Graham Joyce talks about being mystified by some of the reviews saying "I guessed what was happening from page 50", as he intended to - and does - telegraph what's going on from pretty much the first page.

The book is not so much about what is going on (as with a lot of lesser fiction), as what it means to the characters. And, as Gary mentions, what happens is quietly devastating. Definitely one of the best books I've read in the last year.

So far I've only read Dreamside, The Silent Land, The Tooth Fairy and the short stories in Black Dust. But I reckon that once I've delved a bit deeper into his back catalogue, he'll become a great favourite of mine.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.45
Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 11:56 am:   

Graham Joyce is one of my favourite writers. I really enjoyed The Silent land. My only problem with the book (and it's only minor) is that it feels like a book that's going to take us somewhere unexpected but then it never does.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 12:01 pm:   

Must get into this fella. Getting nothing but good vibes about him...
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.37
Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 12:11 pm:   

Must let him know to run as you apparently want to peel his skin off and climb inside...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 04:34 pm:   

Get this, from Jim Thompson, written in 1946, for how to paint a character and the times he lived in - in 2 short pages:

"In time Lincoln Fargo owned a thousand acres of the richest Nebraska bottom land. In 1918 those acres would be worth three hundred thousand dollars. But he did not own them then. He did not own them now. He had been on the wrong side of the fence in the Verdon townsite boom.

Now, he had his pension. He had his home and ten acres on the outskirts of Verdon. He had turned over one hundred and sixty acres to his oldest son, Sherman.

Actually, he did not even own his home. He had deeded it over to his wife, upon the advice of a lawyer, to escape payment on the ancient river-boat notes.

Lincoln had no use for lawyers.

He was sixty or sixty-five now - he didn't know which. He knew he was old enough.

He sat on the front porch of his rambling cottage, his Congress gaiters propped against a pillar, his big black hat pulled down upon his graying horseshoe of hair, his bright blue eyes buried in scalene triangles of flesh.

His seven acres of corn wouldn't be worth harvesting this year. Which meant that he would have to buy if he was going to feed. But why feed, anyway? A damned nuisance and no money in it.

Thoses chickens were a damned nuisance too. (He swiped at one viciously with his cane.) Always messing up the porch or getting into the garden; too tough to eat and too lazy to lay. But, what the hell? Let the old lady clean the porch; it would take some of the meanness out of her. Let the garden go to hell. It was cheaper to buy canned sass.

Anyhow, he didn't care much for eating. You couldn't gum food and get any fun out of it.

He had no use for dentists, either.

Thinking, dreaming, he rolled his long black stogie from one corner of his mouth to another, absent-mindedly cursing the proximity of his nose to the cigar... Another year or two, by God, he thought, an' I'll have to cut a hole in my britches and puff through my arse... And he laughed scornfully, his accipitrine facade trembling with amusement at the tricks time had played on him.

It was strange, shocking, the number of things he no longer cared about, could no longer trust. He had seen and had all that was within his power to see and have. He knew the total, the absolute lines of his periphery. Nothing could be added. There was now only the process of taking away. He wondered if it was like that with everyone, and he decided that it must be. And he wondered how they felt, and reasoned that they must feel about as he. That was all there was to life: a gift that was slowly taken away from you. An Indian gift. You started out with a handful of something and ended up with a handful of nothing. The best things were taken away from you last when you needed them worst. When you were at the bottom of the pot, when there was no longer reason for life, then you died. It was probably a good thing.

He had no use for life. Very little, at any rate.

He was pretty well stripped, but it had been a good long game and the amusement was worth something. It wasn't so much loss as the losing he minded. If there were some way of calling the thing a draw, he would have pulled back his chair willingly enough.

He supposed he was living on pride. Will power.

He wondered how long it would be before he had no use for that.

He decided that it would not be very long."


Now that's literature...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 08:15 pm:   

I've been a fan of Thompson for years - he's my favourite crime writer. He does stuff like that with a flick of the wrist. A brilliant writer.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.176.15.88
Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 09:04 pm:   

He was indeed - I went through his stuff in the 'nineties and loved every book I read.

Reading David Morrell's Long Lost at the moment...
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 09:26 pm:   

Morrell's great!
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.176.15.88
Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 10:50 pm:   

He is!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 12:34 am:   

Several chapters into 'Planet Of The Apes' (1963) and the differences and similarities to the original film (1968) make for a fascinating read.

The novel is more of a broad allegory than any kind of hard science fiction. I'm finding more similarities to 'Out Of The Silent Planet' by C.S. Lewis than anything by Heinlein, Asimov or Clarke - and consider that no bad thing!

At the beginning a bottle is found drifting in deep space within which is a handwritten manuscript detailing the adventures of a crew of three who set off at near the speed of light to explore the planetary system around the red star Betelgeuse.

The story is narrated by Ulysse Mérou, a journalist and friend of Professor Antelle, the genius who invented and pilots their interstellar spaceship, while a renowned physicist, Levain, makes up the third crew member.
They discover an Earth-like planet in the Betelgeuse system, land their craft in a forest clearing and set out to explore... I wonder what they'll find?
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John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert)
Username: John_l_probert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.108.144
Posted on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 03:27 pm:   

Just finished Harlan Ellison's Deathbird Stories which has just (last week!) been reissued in a gorgeous hardcover from Subterranean Press. As ever I've been blown away by most of the stories, and by Ellison's abrasive style, which is something I find I can very much relate to.

Oh, and we loved The Silent Land at Probert Towers! Of course it's predictable - that's not the point of it at all, & I would suspect any genre-savvy individual of today would be able to see where it was going.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.209.217
Posted on Monday, April 25, 2011 - 03:45 pm:   

Totally agree about both, Lord P- finished The Silent Land yesterday and inevitability of the ending didn't mar my enjoyment in the least. A book is more than the sum of its plot twists. And Deathbird Stories may be due for a re-read here at Chez Bestwick, now that you've reminded me...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - 12:49 pm:   

Just finished 'A Manhattan Ghost Story' and I concur with other comments here that it is one of the finest supernatural horror novels I have ever read. Indescribably haunting and enigmatic with an almost Kafkaesque nightmarish quality to it. T.M. Wright is the most exciting "new" horror author I've discovered (thanks to Weber) since T.E.D. Klein - which reminds me, what a cracking year 1984 was for horror literature!

Starting 'The Dain Curse' (1929) as a replacement - Dashiell Hammett's second and last Continental Op novel and one with a pleasing hint of the supernatural in the plot synopsis. His spin on 'The Hound Of The Baskervilles' perhaps?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.43
Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - 12:57 pm:   

Stevie - check out Strange seed as your next TM Wright book
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - 01:10 pm:   

Stevie, 'The Dain Curse' is a kind of satire on pulp themes, enjoyable but 'The Maltese Falcon' did that much better. I think 'The Glass Key' is the best Hammett novel, though.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - 08:02 pm:   

Having now finished reading every single Chandler novel, I'd personally say that FAREWELL, MY LOVELY stands out as his best, with a very very close second being THE LONG GOODBYE (and I think Hollywood follows my assessment, since FAREWELL has been made more times than any other Chandler novel.)
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John Forth (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.24.1.217
Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 05:57 pm:   

I did a power of reading over my holiday. Managed to get through, in this order: THE FACULTY OF TERROR, by our own JLP (Set in Stone and States of the Art being particular favourites). VANILLA RIDE by Joe R Lansdale, which was a rollicking read, if a bit meandering at times. THE LIMITS OF ENCHANTMENT by Graham Joyce, which I thought was an utter delight. THE LANGUAGE OF DYING by Sarah Pinborough: a far cry from her novels indeed! But very affecting. And LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, which I enjoyed, but thought it lacked focus. And I felt that the ambiguity of the film served the story better, but that may just be a case of me seeing the film before reading the book.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.155.216.168
Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 06:47 pm:   

I much preferred the book to the film. I thought the extra levels of explanation worked, and the continuation of the Hakan story after Eli dropped him out of the window was the scariest bit of the book for me - and chopped entirely from both film versions...
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.155.216.168
Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 06:48 pm:   

But I read the book before I saw the film...
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John Forth (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.24.1.217
Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 07:18 pm:   

I agree that it was a shame they lost Hakan's resurrection and subsequent rampage. Strange that neither version made use of those scenes. Rather makes a lie out of the US director's claim that he was re-adapting the book rather than remaking the original film.

That said, it was Hakan's back story that disappointed me the most in the book. I'd always felt that the suggestion in the film was that Hakan had once been a kid like Oskar, and that his fate was ultimately what awaited Oskar in the future. The novel's back story for him was interesting, but I think it lacked some of the subtelties of the film.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.176.183.221
Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2011 - 11:43 pm:   

Finished the David Morell book - now re-reading John Dickson Carr's "The Hollow Man".
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Monday, May 02, 2011 - 01:33 pm:   

Finished 'Planet Of The Apes' and found it a quite brilliant and savage satire dressed up as a thrilling sci-fi adventure. I can just imagine the sensation this book must have made on its first appearance in the early 60s. On the whole the book is better than the film but there are certain elements the film did improve upon:

**** SPOILERS ****

The famous twist of the spaceship having gone in a complete loop and arrived back on Earth far in the future does not happen in the book. They are indeed on an entirely new alien planet, called Soror, circling the red star Betelgeuse, that just happens to be a mirror image of Earth with apes dominant instead of humans. This paints the book as even more of a fairy-tale allegory than the film - in the manner of 'Gulliver's Travels' (as pointed out by Brian Aldiss in his intro).

The apes speak their own language, not English, and the narrator has to painstakingly learn their language under the tutelage of the chimpanzee scientists, Zira & Cornelius, who study him.

Ape society as a whole is not as brutally hostile to the idea of intelligent humans as in the film and instead finds the narrator a fascinating specimen of alien life from whom they can learn much. The threat comes from a small inner circle of orang-utans, led by Zaius, who represent the religiously conservative element of ape society. As with Earth in the 20th Century their influence is shown as waning but still dangerous in the hands of fanatics.

Technology on Soror is every bit as advanced as that of mid-20th Century Earth with apes driving cars, watching TV, flying private jets and even launching satellites into space. They have yet to put an ape into space but have used trained humans as test pilots!

The final twist in the book is much more contrived and driven by coincidence than in the film making for a less satisfying ending. This does not negate, however, the overall power of the book as a deeply disturbing satire on the veiled barbarism of supposedly advanced human society. In its unflinching treatment of humans as animals devoid of souls the book reaches heights of nightmarish horror that nothing in any of the films can match. A wonderful work of visionary literature imho.


Now what to read in its place... any suggestions, people?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.150.135.156
Posted on Monday, May 02, 2011 - 04:16 pm:   

Don't know. What have you got on your bookshelves?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2011 - 01:58 am:   

I've already started 'Full Dark House' (2003) by Christopher Fowler - the first of his series of Bryant & May mysteries.

After the first 7 chapters I can only say I am completely enthralled and loving every second of it. Sherlock Holmes meets The X Files (with a hefty touch of Tom Sharpe) in the form of the Peculiar Crimes Unit of Scotland Yard.

I can only say that to start a series spanning 60 years with the death of one of the principal duo (in Chapter 1) is one of the most exciting introductions to a cast of characters, I already know I'm going to fall in love with, I have possibly ever experienced. Great stuff, with an entertainment value it is beyond mere words to explain - read it to see what I mean.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2011 - 12:48 pm:   

I've flown through 'The Dain Curse' and only a couple of chapters left. The book is structured like three interlinked short stories - each with its own distinct mystery, location and cast of characters - through which the Continental Op and a very peculiar femme fatale weave their way in ever increasing bewilderment.

It's great to see a famous detective admit he hasn't a clue what is going on as each of his tentatively built up theories crumble one after the other before his eyes. The blood curse that follows Gabrielle Dain Leggett remorselessly through the book may turn out to be the only theory left in the end... but our man refuses to entertain any belief in the supernatural. A wonderful maze of a book that Hammett will be going some to tie up any way rationally by story's end.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2011 - 05:59 pm:   

'Full Dark House' is seriously brilliant - an unstoppable page-turner. The last chapter even managed to scare the crap out of me. This is what I call effortlessly entertaining storytelling.

The man may just be a modern day Arthur Conan Doyle on this evidence!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2011 - 01:09 pm:   

**** SPOILERS ****

Finished 'The Dain Curse' and the final solution is brilliant and just as convoluted as any of the others cobbled together during the story. The real point of this book is that there is no one satisfying solution that plausibly explains all the events of the story without implicating Gabrielle herself.

Our hero is faced with the intellectual dilemma that either Gabrielle is supernaturally damned (impossible!) or she is a consciously destructive force of evil tying all the deaths together (likelier but surely not) or the whole thing is a string of coincidences (feasible but unlikely) or the author Fitzstephan's self-aggrandizing melodrama of a solution will just have to be made to stick (I'll buy that).

I believe it was Fitzstephan's decision to confess and concoct a story (that being his profession) that paints him as some kind of criminal mastermind because after being reduced to a mangled shell of a human being in the bomb explosion what else did he have to live for.

One could concoct any number of equally neat solutions and part of the addiction of the book is in trying to. Personally I believe Gabrielle was the real guilty party due to her perverse delight in destroying everyone she came into contact with - including, ultimately, the Continental Op's professional integrity.

Then again...
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.35
Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2011 - 01:58 pm:   

@Zed - Thank you.

I just read chapter 31 of Hungry Hearts. that one chapter contains two images that I think I'm going to have great trouble erasing - the origin of the thumping sound followed by the... disturbing stuff indeed. I got strange looks in the kitchen at work because I actually did make an Auuuughhh! sound when it got to the maggots.

I can't decide who's most insane, Rick or Daryl.

Well done indeed. You have provoked an intensely physical reaction to the book. I love it.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2011 - 02:36 pm:   

Thanks, Weber - much appreciated. I just let my inner sicko out of the bag with this one.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.51
Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2011 - 04:34 pm:   

Just emailed you zed
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2011 - 10:17 pm:   

As I've been noticing his influence a lot recently I've decided, at long last, to finish off C.S Lewis's Space Trilogy with 'That Hideous Strength' (1945).
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.145.130.233
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 12:15 am:   

Zed,you're a twat!

I can't get THAT image out of my head now. It's got to be the most vile use of maggots in literature since the Wasp Factory... In fact it might even top THAT scene in the Wasp Factory, I'll have to dig it out for a reread.

Twat!
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 01:08 am:   

My work here is done.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 01:24 am:   

You know how sometimes you encounter characters in a work of fiction you just know are destined for greatness and a life off the printed page... Holmes & Watson, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, etc.

At a third of the way through 'Full Dark House' that's exactly how I feel about Arthur Bryant & John May. This book is sublime - part wonderfully old-fashioned detective thriller, part gothic horror, part delirious black comedy (with real belly laughs in between the scares) and all rip-roaring adventure and a portrait of undying friendship spanning 60 years. The thought that there are another seven volumes of this quality to come is the icing on the cake. In all honesty, this is the best genre fiction of the new millennium I have read to date... by quite some way.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 01:30 am:   

I should also mention it is a classic whodunnit... and I haven't read one of those in too many years.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 05:27 am:   

A classic whodunnit! I'm a damn sucker for those! But they gotta come well-recommended, 'cause you just never know, right? I guess I'm gonna have to go get that one, Stevie....

And the same with THE DAIN CURSE, which I wasn't sure if it were among his best or not. Does it compare well to the Continental Op stories? Man, some of those were some of the most enjoyable mystery/suspense/action/thriller fiction I've read in years....

Why won't they make a C-Op movie, already?!
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.28.205
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 09:15 am:   

Weber, belated thanks for your comments on The Blue Mask. I'm glad it made sense to you. There was some negative response to the content among reviewers in the local press. In fact all the reviews were polarised depending on how the reviewers felt about the subject-matter. The third novel took a long time to write (for various reasons), and is currently seeking a publisher.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.51
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 11:13 am:   

I wasn't aware there was a second...

What's it called and where can I get a copy? I lucked onto Blue mask in my local Waterstone...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 11:14 am:   

Craig, 'The Dain Curse' reads like three Continental Op short stories that Hammett cobbled together into his second novel, using the linking device of a femme fatale who believes herself to be the victim of a family curse. Various characters fall under her spell throughout the book and virtually all of them come to a sticky end.

I got the implication that the Op falls in love with her as the stories progress and blinds himself to the obvious rational solution. The most entertaining parts of the book, for me, are when he and his writer friend, Fitzstephan, who is also an expert on the occult, settle down to strike theories off each other - it is pure Mulder & Scully territory.

Of the three Hammett novels I've read to date I'd rank them:

1. Red Harvest
2. The Maltese Falcon
3. The Dain Curse

But they're all stone cold classics of the genre imho.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 02:07 pm:   

Stevie, I think The Glass Key is the best. The Thin Man is slight but wonderfully ironic and sharp.

Here's an idea you might like to ponder: all of Hammett's heroes appear to be bisexual. I don't have definite evidence of that, but the way they describe people and talk to them makes their attraction to both genders a fairly safe bet.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 02:17 pm:   

Weber, I'm surprised you found The Blue Mask in Waterstone's (unless it was aeons ago) as most branches just destroyed their unsold copies, leading to the book going out of print over two years ago with many copies unsold. That appears to be how they do business these days.

TBM was my second novel, the first being From Blue To Black, which went into a second edition and may still be available (if not, it's easily found second-hand).

Thanks again.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.49
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 02:30 pm:   

It was in the crime section last year. Just the one copy.

I did lend it to a friend who showed an interest when he saw me reading it at rehearsal. His appraisal was "unremittingly bleak from start to finish". I think he meant it as a good thing...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 03:40 pm:   

Joel, surely for a hard-boiled detective of the old school to have had any success he would have had to make himself not only attractive but threatening to all those individuals - irrespective of gender - from whom he needed to extract facts, rather than inject them... as it were.

The difference between the Continental Op/Sam Spade & Philip Marlowe is that Marlowe was a romantic at heart, while they were ruthless bastards - right up until the Op's last great case - and even then...

What ya think? Am I just talking nonsense lol? Did he fall for Gabrielle or didn't he?
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 82.210.134.81
Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2011 - 04:46 pm:   

Reading Russell Bank's masterful 'Affliction.' The DVD awaits, directed by the ever reliable Schrader.

Only problem is, knowing that Nolte and Coburn play son and father respectively, I can't quite get them out of my mind when reading the book. Though Nolte does seem like the perfect choice for the Wade, while Coburn seems physically too large. Mind you, he did win an Oscar for the role, so he must have been doing something right.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, May 06, 2011 - 04:40 pm:   

I'm loving this book so much I just had to give you people a small flavour of the peerless way with prose and characterisation and humour Mr Fowler has:

"'There is no precedent for what we're trying to create here, Mr Biddle,' explained Bryant. 'There are no superior officers correcting our mistakes. The last thing I need is you going to Davenport and informing him of our progress.'

Bryant had received another scalding telephone call from the unit director about the amount of time the detectives had spent at the theatre, and he could have found out only through his newly appointed agent.

'I'm just doing my job,' said Biddle hotly. 'Mr Davenport wants the matter cleared up quickly, and for the law to be observed. How else can he report back to the victim's father? Your absence from the office contradicts -'

'You don't decide how I choose to work.' Bryant ran his hands through his floppy fringe and thumped down behind the desk, then dug about in a drawer for a packet of 'Nervo' fortified iron pills. Bryant did not enjoy the best of health, and was forever testing new cold remedies. In this case his cold symptoms were more to do with the resentment he felt at losing DS Forthright to something as pointlessly career-damaging as the state of matrimony. He studied Biddle resentfully. He had seen the type before. Thin-skinned, competitive, angry with the world. School had been filled with boys who saw everyone else as a threat. Half of them became so confrontational that they lost their friends by the time they left and ended up in the Territorials, where the war would take them.

'We can investigate this case in any way we see fit,' explained Bryant. 'We have none of the prejudices of the regular police force.'

'You have none of the resources. No equipment. No manpower. They've given you nothing at all,' muttered Biddle. 'That's why they leave you alone, you don't cost anything.'

'We have our minds, Sidney, the most powerful weapons we possess.' As far as Bryant was concerned, his office was a monk's cell, a sanctified if incredibly untidy billet where acolytes concentrated on their devotions to the cause. It was not simply a cheap place to dump dead cases.

'You'll see I'm using a blackboard,' Bryant pointed out. 'I gave Mr May a chance to explain his audiophonic filing system and it failed to impress me, so I'm falling back on a tried and trusted method.'

'You didn't give it a chance, Arthur,' May pointed out. 'It'll work if you just learn how to use the deck.' He had borrowed the cumbersome tape machine thinking it might help, but Bryant had managed to wipe the tape clean and irreparably damage the recording heads, although quite how he had managed to do it remained a mystery. It didn't help that he kept magnets in his overcoat pockets.

For Arthur this was the start of a lifelong stand against technology that would one day result in his crashing the entire central London HOLMES database and part of the air traffic control system at Heathrow. The young detective possessed that peculiar ability more common to elderly men, which produces negative energy around electrical equipment, turning even the most basic of appliances into weapons of destruction. The more Bryant tried to understand and operate technical systems, the deadlier they became in his hands, until, at some point in the nineteen sixties, just after he had set fire to his hair by jiggling a fork in a toaster, man and machine had been forced to call a truce.

'So,' Bryant brandished a piece of chalk, 'Runcorn's mysterious footprints suggest a second person at the death site, but not much else.'


And it goes on and on like that, page after glorious page...
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Thomasb (Thomasb)
Username: Thomasb

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.25.141.120
Posted on Saturday, May 07, 2011 - 05:43 pm:   

Let's see, I'm reading "The French Revolution" by Matt Stewart--crazy, funny book in the manner of "A Confederacy of Dunces";"VN: The Life and Art of Vladimir Nabokov" by Andrew Field; rumor has it that it's not good; the rumors seem to be true, so far. And "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay" by Michael Chabon
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Saturday, May 07, 2011 - 06:18 pm:   

"Eutopia" by David Nickle in physical book. About ten short story collections on the Kindle.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, May 09, 2011 - 01:37 pm:   

Finished 'Full Dark House' in a non-stop page flicking frenzy over the weekend. Completely, totally and utterly brilliant!! The most sensationally satisfying work of genre fiction I have read in donkey's years!!

I'm fighting the urge to start straight into 'The Water Room' (2004) as I want to string this wonderful series of books out as long as possible.

Christopher Fowler pulled off exactly what he set out to do by creating the greatest detective duo since Holmes & Watson. After a few chapters with these adorable characters it's like you've known them all your life and can't remember a time when they didn't exist - they, and the world they inhabit, are so perfectly realised. No mere caricatures these are two real people who live, breathe, feel fear, frustration, joy and sadness, and with whom we embark on a double adventure straddling their first and last great case - in their 20s as callow young police detectives during the London Blitz of 1940 & as world weary octogenarians in 2002, baffled by a new millennium that sees London under siege again and shamelessly devoted to each other after a lifetime fighting "peculiar" crimes and for whom one of them is about to take his final bow.

Arthur Bryant & John May are exquisite creations but more than that the book has an equally well painted supporting cast of regular characters - as real as your next door neighbour even at their most bizarre (Edna Wagstaff & her stuffed Abyssinian are a hoot) - and a cast of believably vulnerable suspects and victims who fill out the ingenious intricacies of the plot to perfection.

This book thrilled and intrigued me as a classic mystery that payed homage to and gloriously spoofed the works of Arthur Conan Doyle & Agatha Christie while staying true to the grittier blood-spattered character driven style of detective fiction that replaced them. Not only that but it manages the same trick with the gothic horror genre presenting a monster that riffs on the Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein's creature and Norman Bates with a control of atmosphere and the mechanics of suspense that builds to passages of genuinely frightening power. Add to that already heady mix Fowler's genius at writing comedy - that had me laughing out loud in public - and an accumulating sense of tragedy - that will have you misty eyed and swallowing like billyo by story's end - and the result is the single most entertaining fictional creation of the 21st Century to date imho...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, May 09, 2011 - 03:24 pm:   

Reading 'Planet Of The Apes' has put me in the mood for another bit of classic novel/movie adaptation cross-appraisal, again from the 1960s.

Yep, at long last I'm gonna read 'Rosemary's Baby' (1967) by Ira Levin...
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.49
Posted on Monday, May 09, 2011 - 03:44 pm:   

Just finished Hungry Hearts - And Zed, I still think you're a twat for THAT scene - very good indeed. Cheerful by Zed's standards...

About to start Disgrace by JM Coetze
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.253.77
Posted on Monday, May 09, 2011 - 07:46 pm:   

Cheers, Weber - much appreciated. It's nice to know someone's read ithe fucker...
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.158.58.252
Posted on Monday, May 09, 2011 - 08:24 pm:   

Just check the mental wards for anyone curled up in a foetal ball and mumbling about maggots... that's where the rest of them are.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.186.66.18
Posted on Monday, May 09, 2011 - 08:36 pm:   

Disgrace is good.

Hey, I read Hungry Hearts. Was great.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.158.58.252
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 12:38 am:   

You know what I mean when I mention the maggots don't you?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 01:09 pm:   

A couple of chapters into 'Rosemary's Baby' and so far the book is a scene-by-scene carbon copy of the film. It's a weird experience to get such vivid and precise visual imagery from reading prose. Even 'The Exorcist' wasn't as exact a match. I suppose it is a testament to Levin's storytelling ability and Polanski's directorial skill. The one bit that really stood out so far was Hutch's warning of the Bramford House's dark history, and how certain places seem to attract and harbour evil... stolen shamelessly by Stephen King in 'Salem's Lot'.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.41
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 01:51 pm:   

I thought Stephen King stole that more from the intro to Hill House myself...

Quite a common trope in horror fiction though.
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 02:00 pm:   

A couple of chapters into 'Rosemary's Baby' and so far the book is a scene-by-scene carbon copy of the film

Shouldn't that be the other way round? The book (1967) was written before the film (1968).
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Darren O. Godfrey (Darren_o_godfrey)
Username: Darren_o_godfrey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 207.200.116.133
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 02:26 pm:   

When someone (after seeing Rosemary's Baby) commented to Polanski that he'd remained so faithful to the book (even down to the characters' hair color), Polanski replied, "I thought that's what you were supposed to do."

Or something to that effect.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 03:52 pm:   

You know what I mean, Zed.

This is one time when the personal experience of reading the book for the first time is so coloured by my lifelong love of the film, and the two match so precisely, that I'm finding it impossible to divorce one from the other. I managed to do that quite comfortably with 'The Exorcist' but, so far, not here. Needless to say the story has me in its vicelike grip all over again and I'm enjoying the sly hints the author drops in about Guy's true nature - "Oh Guy, you're such a good liar", etc.

For the record 'Rosemary's Baby' is my second favourite horror film of all time, after 'The Exorcist'. To my mind adapting horror films from classic novels or short stories that caused a real stir in the genre always delivers the best results.

Witness: 'Frankenstein', 'Dracula', 'Night Of The Demon', 'Psycho', 'The Birds', 'Don't Look Now', 'The Omen', 'The Shining', etc...

So (and I'm getting sick saying this) when is somebody going to adapt a Ramsey Campbell classic for heaven's sake!?!?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.166.117.210
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 03:56 pm:   

The Nameless has been adapted for the screen. And very good it is, too.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 04:01 pm:   

You're right, Weber, but Levin elaborates on Shirley Jackson's theme by talking of the Bramford House as a kind of Unholy Mecca to which the forces of evil are drawn from the four corners of the world on satanic pilgrimage. Much as King said of the Marsten House in his vampire classic - I'm not criticising him, by the way, just pointing out origins of influence.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 05:18 pm:   

While, on the other hand, the first few chapters of 'That Hideous Strength' (1946) are surprising me by how different they are from the first two Space Trilogy volumes. An earthbound paranoid conspiracy thriller with no Ransom, as yet, and a whole new cast of characters.

The story seems to be taking the form of a battle of the sexes allegory with a young married couple finding themselves on opposite sides of an intellectual struggle between male-dominated scientific pragmatism and female-dominated instinctive empathy.

He, as a talented and ambitious academic, is inducted into a shadowy research organisation, the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments (The NICE), aiming to mould the human race and the planet into a state of steely perfection, for the good of us all and the assured continuance of the species.

She, as a latent psychic of great potential ability, is inducted into a loose group of spiritually inclined shamanistic individuals who practice magic and hark back to paganism and a time of being at one with Nature and living in harmony with each other and the planet.

Both sides claim to be locked in secret warfare for the future of the human race and both spouses hide their new found affiliation from the other, thinking they know best.

All this takes place against the backdrop of a college campus, with all the in-fighting and power struggles that go on in such establishments, and is reminding me, in no small measure, of Fritz Leiber’s masterful horror novel ‘Conjure Wife’ (1943). The action so far has been surprisingly brutal for Lewis and follows the template of a conspiracy thriller almost exactly. We’ve already had one poor sap announce he is leaving the Institute only to be found mercilessly beaten to death by the side of the road next day – just as he was about to spill the beans on his misgivings to our hero. Gripping stuff and completely different in tone from anything else by Lewis I have read…
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 11:16 pm:   

Finished 'Heed The Thunder' with nothing but admiration for Jim Thompson. This was a beautifully written picaresque family saga with a richness of detail and emotional power worthy of Dickens. There is horror, pathos, humour and tragedy in the epic unravelling of the Fargo clan.

What the book may lack in any form of plot it makes up for in the vividness of the lives depicted and Thompson's humanity and quiet rage as he plots their misfortunes at the hands of faceless politicians and businessmen who consistently throw their simple decency back in their faces in the name of progress and profit.

I must say the final chapter had me filling up as it summarised, through the eyes of young Bobbie Dillon(!), where each of the characters had ended up. The dead, the dying, the winners, the losers, the loved and the lost. Comparisons to John Steinbeck have me wanting to get more into that great author if this novel of the Great Depression is even a shadow of his achievement.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.4.19.77
Posted on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 - 11:23 pm:   

And to replace it I've decided on 'The Glass Cell' (1964) by Patricia Highsmith.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.150.134.39
Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - 02:55 am:   

good choice...
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - 11:24 am:   

I love tales about injustice, don't ask me why. This one sounds an absolute belter!

One of my all time favourite novels is 'His Natural Life' (1872) by Marcus Clarke [not the truncated version 'For The Term Of His Natural Life'] - the ultimate unfair imprisonment, escape & pursuit novel written from firsthand experience of the Australian penal colony system. Concentration camps were nothing new to Nazism.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.147.143.142
Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2011 - 01:00 am:   

Also dipping my nose into the new short story collection - Baby's first book of Seriously Fucked up Shit - by Robert Deveraux - ordered on Amazon the day before my car engine exploded. The title is extremely appropriate. The couple of stories I've read so far are indeed seriously fucked up shit and excellent entertainment to boot. More detail when i've read the whole lot.
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Jamie Rosen (Jamie)
Username: Jamie

Registered: 11-2008
Posted From: 99.241.220.139
Posted on Thursday, May 12, 2011 - 04:05 am:   

The 80s edition of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Fascinating case studies, and an interesting glimpse into the very different terminology of only a few years ago.

Should we be considering a new thread? This one's getting rather large.

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