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Shane

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I liked it overall. Not on the level of the later books, but enjoyable.

And quite possibly it'll be a much better experience on stage (or the inevitable movie.)

Having read it, there's no clear and obvious reason she felt it needed to be a play, except maybe she didn't want to write another novel.

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On 8/1/2016 at 8:34 AM, J.T. said:

My daughter has started reading Ender's Game for her Summer Reading List for school.  Pray for her.

I am so sorry... What a vile piece of shit that book is. Come to think of it, Scott Card is a pretty vile piece of shit, so that should be no surprise.

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On 01/08/2016 at 4:52 PM, Brian Fowler said:

I liked it overall. Not on the level of the later books, but enjoyable.

And quite possibly it'll be a much better experience on stage (or the inevitable movie.)

She said no movie. But that might be a way to get a better deal.

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I'd be shocked if, after the current spin-off trilogy thing runs its course, WB doesn't back up the dump try p trucks full of money until she eventually says yes.

Of course, I'm a theater kid at heart, and I desperately want to see it on stage but that won't be anytime soon.

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On 8/5/2016 at 11:36 AM, Brian Fowler said:

OSC is a vile piece of shit, but Speaker for the Dead is still one of the greatest books I've ever read.

That's one of the most irritating things about Card, the guy CAN write... Personally, SFTD didn't ring true to me because the OSC that I know would find the genocidal behavior in EG to be perfectly a-ok by his moral compass and thus wouldn't call for an apology.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was going to finish Andrey Platonov's collection of short stories called Soul tonight. I'd read all the stories in the collection so far, apart from the titular one, and I really wanted to do so tonight. I stopped after thirty pages or so because Platonov crushed my soul by writing, 'When he woke in the morning, Chagataev saw the dead camel -- lying nearby, his eyes turned to stone.'

The camel was only in the story for five pages or so, but the way Platonov described the animal was so very sad and so very wonderful. And then suddenly it's dead. I can't deal with this right now. I tossed the book across the room and got up to get a drink. Quite powerful writing, to be sure, to get me so heavily invested in a sickly camel with only a couple of sentences, but... I can't deal with this right now! I'll continue the story one of the coming days. But not tonight.

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Read a book called Fox Tossing which was a collection of sports, recreations and diversions from human history that have vanished. Most were activities that involved violence against animals and even other men. Some were just bizarre oddities like flagpole sitting and phone booth cramming. Very interesting read that is written in a lively and entertaining style.

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On 21/08/2016 at 1:11 AM, sabremike said:

 Some were just bizarre oddities like... phone booth cramming. 

Not much odd about that though. The natural human response to seeing a small space with a door like that is to wonder how many people you can fit in one. It's one of those things like Backyard Wrestling, most people who did it thought they'd invented it.Including the Sex Pistols:

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This is more professional though:

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Jack Reacher. "Make Me." I'm not a low-brow asshole for reading it. You're a non-low-brow asshole for NOT reading it. Who are you to judge me? Fuck you. Kiss my racially ambiguous ass...

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1 hour ago, just drew said:

Jack Reacher. "Make Me." I'm not a low-brow asshole for reading it. You're a non-low-brow asshole for NOT reading it. Who are you to judge me? Fuck you. Kiss my racially ambiguous ass...

Nothing wrong with reading something "low brow" every now and again. I'll usually read a Carl Hiaasen( and that's no more highbrow) novel after I do a long history run, just as a palet cleanser. . . 

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1 hour ago, Kuetsar said:

Nothing wrong with reading something "low brow" every now and again. I'll usually read a Carl Hiaasen( and that's no more highbrow) novel after I do a long history run, just as a palet cleanser. . . 

Good, because my ass isnt racially ambiguous. i do carry one for people to kiss, but my actual ass is whiter than bo dallas...

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You may find this hard to believe, but I'd never heard of the Reacher series until just now and from reading up on it, it sounds like just my kind of thing (now that I've finished off all the later Parker novels by Don Westlake). Is the whole series worthwhile? I see that you can still get a nice signed 1st of The Killing Floor for under $200, so I'm willing to go all-in if the books are that good... Opinions on the whole series, please?

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Could you give me some examples of what you mean by "modern folk horror" and I'll see what I can come up with. Seriously, this is the first time I've heard the term.

Never mind... Googled it, had no idea that there was a marketing label created for what I've always thought of as "the stuff I write" ;-)

Going by the definition I found, this covers everything from M.R. James' "Casting the Runes" to Clive Barker's "Rawhead Rex" to works by Robert Aickman, Simon Clark, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Laws, Terry Lamsley, John Llewellyn Probert, Simon Unsworth, and many others in the UK. It's a little trickier on this side of the pond as we don't have the history, but I'd say that Scott Thomas, Tim Curran, and myself play in this sandbox pretty regularly (even if we're unaware that we're doing so) ;-) 

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea of this being a sub-genre if you will, as I can see it encompassing everything from certain Jamesian ghost stories to Cthulhu Mythos tales and various period pieces as well... I guess that's the main reason I'd like some examples of what YOU consider "new folk horror" so I can use your tastes as a guideline for recs, as it is, it's about like asking "any good books out there"? Yeah, I think there's tons, but just because I like something doesn't mean anyone else will. ;-)

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I would say some Lovecraft stuff fits in to what I'm thinking about, in addition to early stuff like Great God Pan, etc. Basically, I want to know if people are writing stuff that is spiritually in the same world as Blood on Satan's Claw and the original Wicker Man. 

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Well... However immodestly, I quote a recent review...

 

The collection starts with “The Sailor Home from the Sea”. I am admittedly predisposed towards this story because in the late 80s early 90s I had close friends that worked the fishing boats and still have fond memories of the bars in Ballard, full of fishermen and trade workers. Even without that connection most will delight in this tale of watery revenge from beyond the grave that would not be out-of-place in an issue of Creepy updated for our modern age.

scanned-page“The Sailor Home from the Sea” is told by Ian, proprietor of the pub The Smoking Leg. Both Ian and the pub are present in a fair number of these tales. I enjoyed this framing device, especially the concluding piece “Curly’s Story” about a patron of the bar who is there so frequently that he should probably pay rent. I look forward to the next collection where hopefully we will find out the reason why the bar is called The Smoking Leg.

For the Lovecraftian, there is the explicit, as in “An Outsider” which effectively uses that most dreaded of tropes, the pastiche, to bring the Mythos into the current age as a politically relevant force. “The Mystery of the Worm” pulls off an even harder task. Here I know the ice I’m skating upon is thin indeed for this is a short story that combines the Mythos with Sherlock Holmes. I am all too aware of the prickly nature of Holmes’ fandom so let me just say that to my admittedly unrefined palate this was one of the best Holmes/Mythos stories I have read so far.

That covers the explicit. However there are traces shot through others that will send thrills of recognition. “An Antique Vintage” stood out for me in this regard. The story in the beginning is very suggestive of “The Rats in the Walls” before it veers. To tell more would be to ruin it for you dear heart and this story is too much fun to wound it so. “Out West” may be read as a companion piece to “The Mystery of the Worm” as if Robert E. Howard had decided to take a stab at one of Uncle Howie’s creations. This is the level of joy I feel went into the creation of these stories and the enjoyment that awaits any reader with more than a passing interest in the genre.

I do not wish you to think those are the only tales on offer. I merely highlight them first due to the nature of this website. Actually, “Armies of the Night” which concerns collectors and their collections, will strike a resounding chord with a large number of readers as well. “Old Songs Waken” ventures into territory Machen devotees will feel quite comfortable with and one of my favorite stories, “Blind Chivvy, Green Door” details an absinthe fueled evening in which the poet Ernest Dowson and his companion Enoch Soames play a game of “Blind Chivvy” through the streets of fin de siècle London.

nightmarealleyIt is this wide-ranging pool of knowledge that finally allowed me to place my finger on why I enjoyed John Pelan’s work so thoroughly. He reminds me strongly of one my favorite writers, William Lindsay Gresham. Gresham is mostly known for his novel Nightmare Alley yet he also wrote fiction and nonfiction pieces for pulps or “men’s magazines” as the market was coming to be known in Gresham’s time. Both men utilize a very clear, direct style of writing, draw upon the aforementioned wide-ranging pool of knowledge, and just when you have grown comfortable with this will leave you absolutely gobsmacked with an exquisitely executed turn of phrase. I also feel a cocktail (or five) with either man would be a fascinating way to spend an afternoon.

I hope that I have conveyed just how much fun I had with Darkness, My Old Friend. This is a book that was lovingly crafted from the ground up to be read. I spend a lot of my life around books. I’ve spent more time than I care to admit in Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style. I lose my mind over writers that experiment with surrealistic forms, books filled with stunning art, pages of heavyweight expensive paper, and sewn in book ribbons. Yet Darkness, My Old Friend charmed the hell out of me by stripping everything back to concentrate on what matters most.

For a soundtrack I happened to be listening to Townes Van Zandt when I first cracked open this collection and they worked so well together from then on I kept queuing one album after another. As a long time fan it was not exactly a hardship.

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26 minutes ago, JRGoldman said:

I would say some Lovecraft stuff fits in to what I'm thinking about, in addition to early stuff like Great God Pan, etc. Basically, I want to know if people are writing stuff that is spiritually in the same world as Blood on Satan's Claw and the original Wicker Man. 

Let me add a few others to the list... (from the States)

Full disclosure, two of these are among my best friends, two I've never met...

Scott Nicolay

Laird Barron

John Langan

Alyssa Wong

 

 

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I've only read two of Laird Barron's works so far: the novel The Light Is The Darkness, which I didn't like, and the collection of short stories The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, which I did like, in particular two very intense, evocative stories. I'd definitely recommend picking up a copy of the latter book. I'll certainly purchase more Laird Barron stories in the future and I'm particularly eying his novel The Croning, mainly because it seems to be connected to one of the two short stories I loved.

Speaking of Laird Barron: I coincidentally just finished Simon Strantzas' collection of short stories Burnt Black Suns. Laird Barron wrote a glowing preface. Overall, I came out somewhat disappointed. Some of the stories were more free scenes than actual stories, which I'm generally not a fan of. It had some good stuff in it, but nothing too original or shocking.

I've been getting a lot of reading done lately. I've gone through the handful of 'Dutch classics' I forced myself to read, but my dislike of the dull Dutch language made it difficult for me to fully appreciate them, although there were definitely some good ones amongst them. I think it's time to get back into some English, French or Polish horror. I deserve it. Or perhaps I'll just finally pick up Guinn's The Scribe.

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