| Author | Message | ||
     Alansjf (Alansjf) Username: Alansjf Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 93.97.93.216 |
Just ordered a copy of Poe's Children: The New Horror, a chunk 500+ page reprint anthology edited by Peter Straub. I haven't seen a full TOC, but I know I've read a good three quarters of the stories already - but it looks too good to resist. Here's what the publishers have to say about it: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780385522830.html | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
That reminds me: I need to sue that Straub fellow.  | ||
| Alansjf (Alansjf) Username: Alansjf Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 93.97.93.216 |
Well you know what they say about imitation. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.114.136 |
And the cover looks like Gathering Bones. And not as good as your cover was. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Can it be described as 'edited by'? Hasn't he just 'selected'? When I think of the blood and sweat (and cash) I shed over PP... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
I'm only joking, btw. Looks like a cracking collection. | ||
| Alansjf (Alansjf) Username: Alansjf Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 93.97.93.216 |
Agreed, Gary (about it being a cracking collection). I'm looking foward to Straub's introduction as much as finding out of there are actually any stories in it I haven't read... | ||
| Simon Strantzas (Nomis) Username: Nomis Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 99.225.111.224 |
Nothing against Straub, but is this really the "new horror"? It seems to me to be the old guard ... the established guard of the genre. Nothing about the contents list screams "cutting edge" to me. Or is it just me whose bothered by that title? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Poe's Children are all older folk. | ||
| Alansjf (Alansjf) Username: Alansjf Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 93.97.93.216 |
Simon, I'm sure Straub will define exactly what he means by 'the new horror' somewhere along the way, and how these authors/stories qualify... Regardless, it is a tasty lineup, but it's the contents of the book, not the label on the cover, that make it so. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.214.11 |
I have to say from reading the blurb I think Gary Fry's Poe's Progeny wins over this other book here in terms of title, cover, ambition and degree of originality within its pages. But it does look as if the Straub book will be a good re-read of some modern classics. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
But does the Straub book have a decent-sized font? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
Why does Joel need his eyes testing? | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 69.157.35.252 |
According to Straub's Introduction, the anthology represents what he himself feels are the most innovative tales of horror that have appeared in print over the last two decades. The antho's title is a tad misleading, I suppose, considering that the book's not meant to be a hint of what is to come in the field, rather a sampling of how much innovation can be injected into the horror story if approached with a literate sensibility and a bit of artistic daring. He named it POE'S CHILDREN because the authors, according to Straub, all demonstrated the same unflinching introspection and innovation that Poe himself did back in the 1800s. They are (again, according to Straub) stories of horror that don't rest cozily on the contrivances of genre fiction. I'm reading it now, only for the John Crowley and a few other tales I've not read. Though I've read most of the stories before, the Table of Contents is pretty damn impressive; far more interesting than a lot of other reprint anthologies that have appeared over the last few years. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.3.65.135 |
>>>He named it POE'S CHILDREN because the authors, according to Straub, Oh, pull the other one. We all know he hacked into my PC. I had that King fella rooting around my hard drive the other day, too. Nosey bleeders. | ||
| Simon Strantzas (Nomis) Username: Nomis Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 38.113.181.169 |
Easy, Barker. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.235.128 |
Is there any such thing as a Horror fiction competition? I mean, there's any number (too many!) of screenplay competitions, of which a handful - if you just want to be selective - are prestigious enough to be respectable. The Nicholl Fellowship, say, gets now about 6-7 thousand entries, which they whittle down to the 5 best/winners. Is there no horror fiction competition? Is there just not enough horror writers out there - even in a pinch? Thousands of anonymous entries, judged in stages by panels, whittled down to say, oh... 15? Slap on two book-covers, order up? Has no one attempted some/anything like this before?... Maybe they have, and I'm just ignorant of it. | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.92.55.216 |
Once in a blue moon a publisher holds horror story competitions. 'Chiaroscuro,' a great online arena for dark stories, just hosted one. How's this for synchronicity...Peter Straub was the tie-breaking judge. (Perhaps Gary's right; maybe Peter is hacking in to the PCs of genre personalities? He's everywhere!) There used to be a ghost story competition in England, judged by folks like Christopher Lee. I know this because Ramsey says so in ALONE WITH THE HORRORS in relation to his story 'In the Bag', which won. |