OSJ Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 On 1/15/2018 at 5:38 PM, bobholly138 said: Found my beat up and never finished copy of Splatterpunks II Over the Edge the other night. Reading the interview with Anton Levay.Which is reprinted from an old issue of Answer ME zine. Damn, that was a great zine. I've got the first three, wonder how long it lasted? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 On 1/16/2018 at 2:09 PM, Death From Above said: Would that be the S.T. Joshi edited texts of Lovecraft? Often as not "corrected texts" are much ado about very damn little, but in the case of material published in Weird Tales prior to 1940 there can frequently be huge differences. The editor, Farnsworth Wright was a ham-fisted moron who routinely butchered the prose of many writers. He was a failed writer himself which probably explains much. Anyway, he so infuriated Clark Ashton Smith that he pretty much quit writing fiction. Lovecraft's letters are filled with complaints about Wright mucking up his prose. My own experience was pretty profound, some years ago I bought a copy of the book version of The Trail of the Cloven Hoof by Arlton Eadie and thought it terrific. So much so that I ended up arranging to reprint it through Dancing Tuatara Press... But there was one thing that disturbed me... See, back when I was like 13-14 and my source of income was a paper route, it turned out there was this old-time SF fan on my route and she still had a big box of Weird Tales from when she was in college in the 1930s! Anyway, she didn't want them any more so she sold them to me for $3.00 an issue (don't get too excited, this was 1970). Anyway, one of the novels that was serialized in 1934/1935 was The Trail of the Cloven Hoof! At 13 I thought it was bloody awful! Choppy, poorly paced, sketchy character descriptions, just really bad on all levels. Now there are a bunch of books I enjoyed as a 13 year-old that don't make much of an impression on me at fifty-something, but I can't think of any other examples where the reverse was true. What could be the deal? I did a quick word count estimate and something seemed way out of whack. I rechecked my numbers and came up with a different total, but the difference was pretty insignificant, like 600 words (basically a page and a half out of a 234 page book). But my totals between the book and the six issues of the magazine is where it got weird. The magazine version was some 22,000 words shorter! I checked and rechecked and the answer kept coming up between 20,000 and 23,000 words different. Then I figured out what was going on and why the magazine version had struck much younger me as shitty, whereas the book version was a great read.... I'm sure that you can guess what happened... Farnsworth Wright had taken it upon himself to abridge the story by some 22,000 words or approximately 25% of the story! Can you imagine removing 25% of any book and getting a good reading experience out of the deal? Hell, even the most bloated Stephen King novel would suffer under that sort of butchery. So yeah, Farnsworth Wright = asshat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Control Posted January 24, 2018 Share Posted January 24, 2018 He’s the Gordon Lish of pulp fiction! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted January 24, 2018 Share Posted January 24, 2018 I don't know if it counts as reading, but while under the weather, been listening to the audio books of Hitchhikers and Long Dark Tea Time. Amazing all these years later,how much I still know word for word, esp in HH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace Posted January 24, 2018 Share Posted January 24, 2018 If you've never listened to the Hitchhiker's Guide radio series, you owe yourself to do so. Even the ones following Adams' death covering the other books are quite good, and the radio show gives a much happier ending than Mostly Harmless does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted January 24, 2018 Share Posted January 24, 2018 I'm old enough to have it in probably all the versions: radio show, tv show, books, audio book, stage play. And I guess the movie too. Sadly, the audios read by Adams are OOP and the current versions are read by Martin Freeman. (I still have the old ones all on cassette) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted January 24, 2018 Share Posted January 24, 2018 About halfway through the collection Made for the Dark by my buddy, John Llewellyn Probert. Pretty much collects his short fiction from 2011-2014, just as the previous book Wicked Delights did 2004-2010. Another year and he'll be due for another one! Now, truth in advertising... Not every story works, John is quite the film buff and sometimes gets caught up in his own cleverness in riffing on 1950s Hammer films, which is very cool for anyone except those of us who know 1950s Hammer films and stop and think, "Oh, he's riffing on insert title here. VERY CLEVER! However, it takes you out of the story at hand which isn't a good thing. He doesn't do it often, but enough so that I'm going to bitch about it when we next exchange e-mails. Over-all it's a great collection and even the few stories that didn't work for me might be enjoyable to someone else as my objections were things like under-developed characters and/or (to me) predictable outcomes and as to the latter cavil, it's a minor one, as many of us rely on one or two basic plots and you know where we're going to wind up, but it's how we get you there that makes it worth reading. That said, for me either the setting or the characters have to be well-developed enough for me to care about the journey and John often writes tales of 5000 words or less where it's really hard to develop characters or flesh out a setting. The stories work, but make me wish he'd added a few more pages to flesh things out a bit. Again, the stuff that I quibble about will probably not bother a lot of people that don't write or edit this sort of material for a living. In fact, I can see a lot of people on this board really enjoying the hell out of the film references. As for his straight-up reviews of cinema: https://johnlprobert.blogspot.com/ Enjoy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 Strange Wine got me way into Harlan Ellison so I got both Shatterday and Deathbird Stories. Shatterday is knocked out and I'm starting on the latter tomorrow. Fantastic stuff. Harlan says he doesn't "write diary" but you can tell there's a lot of him in Shatterday. Divorce will do that to someone I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 5 hours ago, Curt McGirt said: Strange Wine got me way into Harlan Ellison so I got both Shatterday and Deathbird Stories. Shatterday is knocked out and I'm starting on the latter tomorrow. Fantastic stuff. Harlan says he doesn't "write diary" but you can tell there's a lot of him in Shatterday. Divorce will do that to someone I guess. You know, if I had to pick just one author to have the Complete Works of and I couldn't have any other books at all, I'm not so sure that my pick wouldn't be Harlan Ellison. Graham Greene would certainly be up there and the body of work produced by Robert Reed would merit serious consideration, of course, Bob's only sixty-one and in phenomenal shape so there's every reason to think that he's got another couple of decades of productivity. I guess I'd round out the top five with Jack Vance and James Branch Cabell, but for sheer variety, I've got to give it to Harlan, with Graham Greene just a wee bit behind. Both gentlemen can write non-fiction as well as fiction and in some respects the non-fiction is even better. Both can write about a subject that I'm completely disinterested in and I'll read every word because the writing is so exceptional. You've cited three of Harlan's most mature and all-around excellent collections, The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, Paingod, and I Have No Mouth but I Must Scream are the ones that won him his initial shitload of awards after Ellison Wonderland really made people pay attention, but on a story-per-story basis Deathbird Stories might as well be "Greatest Hits" and Shatterday and Strange Wine aren't far behind. Also, don't sleep on Angry Candy or The Essential Ellison, (though the latter should be augmented by a "Part Two" of equal size, covering the years since). I still haven't picked up Can and Cantankerous, but mean to do so in short order. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contentious C Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 11 hours ago, Curt McGirt said: Strange Wine got me way into Harlan Ellison so I got both Shatterday and Deathbird Stories. Shatterday is knocked out and I'm starting on the latter tomorrow. Fantastic stuff. Harlan says he doesn't "write diary" but you can tell there's a lot of him in Shatterday. Divorce will do that to someone I guess. Hah, which divorce? He was on what, wife 3 by then? Deathbird Stories is probably going to hit the same way as Shatterday, really - I think he extensively mentions the dog who had just died throughout that collection (and inspired "A Boy and His Dog"). And it's readily apparent how often that bleeds through into other things. Or maybe it's something he wrote specifically in the edition I have; haven't looked at it in 15 years to recall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 #4, I think. It lasted less than a year and she slept with somebody else; he gave the exact dates and everything in one of the intros. Reading his Wiki she was 19 and he was already 41. Jesus H. At least the fifth marriage stuck... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contentious C Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 The Swamp Castle of marriages. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Sugar Posted January 27, 2018 Share Posted January 27, 2018 Just finished The Shining. There's only three King books I've never read and I snagged them all last month to rectify that. Obviously this is an excellent story, and I've immediately followed with Dr. Sleep; hopefully the sequel works, despite such a long break between novels. Aside from the new-newest he co-wrote, that will only leave Dead Zone unread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted February 3, 2018 Share Posted February 3, 2018 I'm going to read Jurgen because of @OSJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted February 3, 2018 Share Posted February 3, 2018 You're going to hate me for this, but if you want the full James Branch Cabell effect, Jurgen is actually part six of the greater work, The Biography of Manuel. The sequence starts in the Middle Ages and winds up in the early 1900's. Jurgen is the most famous due to it being charged as "obscene", but most of these are well-worth reading. The over-arching theme is concerned with how a fairly unexceptional guy (Dom Manuel) is elevated by legend, innuendo, (read: bullshit) to practically the status of a demi-god over the years and the impact on his descendants. You might find the play and verse to be somewhat of a slog and two of the novels were retconned into the sequence in the 1920s. I actually bought the 18-volume Storisende Edition (signed by Cabell) for $350 some thirty-five years ago (huge money for me then), but I've never regretted it. I keep meaning to set aside a month or so and just read it straight through taking the time to research his place-names and references that he sprinkles throughout the books. With Cabell, you can never be sure whether something is completely fictitious or if there's a traceable reference in medieval literature, classical Greek or Roman literature, etc. Just amazing stuff, basically there are layers upon layers, you can just read the surface story and that by itself is cool, or you can totally immerse yourself and pretty much find something new every reading. Biography of the Life of Manuel Figures of Earth (1921) S2, B2. The tale of the rise of Dom Manuel himself from swineherd to count. The Silver Stallion (1926) S3, B3. The story of the Lords of the Silver Stallion, Manuel's court, after his death. The Witch-Woman (1948) B4. Consists of three related books: The Music From Behind the Moon (1926; S4*, B45), The Way of Ecben (1929; S18*, B48), and The White Robe(1928; S18*, B47), plus a new introduction. Domnei: A Comedy of Woman-Worship (1913 as The Soul of Melicent; revised and retitled 1920) S4*, B5. Chivalry (1909, revised 1921) S5, B6. The 1909 edition had no references to Manuel. Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice (1919) S6, B7. Cabell's most famous book. The Line of Love (1905, revised 1921) S7, B8. The High Place (1923) S8, B9. Gallantry (1907, revised 1922) S9, B10. The 1907 edition had no references to Manuel or Jurgen. Something About Eve (1927) S10, B11. The Certain Hour (1916) S11, B12. The Cords of Vanity (1909, revised 1920) S12, B13. From the Hidden Way (1916, revised 1924; 1928 as Ballads from the Hidden Way) S13*, B14 (verse). The Jewel Merchants (1921) S13*, B15 (play). The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck (1915) S14, B16. The Eagle's Shadow (1904, revised 1923) S15, B17. The Cream of the Jest (1917, revised 1922) S16*, B18. The Lineage of Lichfield, (1922) S16*, B19. A fantastic genealogy of the Biography. Straws and Prayer-Books (1924) S17, B20. Essays, plus two fantasy stories. Townsend of Lichfield (1930) S18, B 21. Essays, stories, verses and bibliography. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted February 3, 2018 Share Posted February 3, 2018 5 hours ago, OSJ said: You're going to hate me for this, John... Ok, fine. I have Figures of Earth digitally now. I think it'll go better if I have a hardcopy but we'll see how well I do with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 1 hour ago, Matt D said: John... Ok, fine. I have Figures of Earth digitally now. I think it'll go better if I have a hardcopy but we'll see how well I do with it. Matt: As it's been years since I've had any reason to look at Cabell prices, I did some poking around on eBay, abebooks.com, & amazon.com just to see what's what. I am blown away at how cheaply one can get all of the Biography of Manuel and some of his other (unrelated fantasies) for. I thought that The Witch-Woman might be a problem, but there's a 1st edition on eBay for twelve bucks. It looks like (if you're not picky about collectible copies and such), that one can assemble the whole enchilada pretty cheaply. There's also a ton of Cabell on Project Gutenberg if you want to try before you buy, but the first two, Figures of Earth & The Silver Stallion have had mass-market paperback editions and if you dig those two, you'll want to read the whole thing. On the other hand, if you bounce off those two, Cabell's probably not your guy. I'm having a hard time thinking of any modern writer I'd compare him to, but maybe Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories with more humor or Michael Shea's Nifft the Lean trilogy. Among his contemporaries, early Lord Dunsany (basically his first six story collections: Gods of Pegana, Time & the Gods, The Book of Wonder, Sword of Welleran, The Last Book of Wonder and the one that I can't remember and while completely different setting (China as opposed to Western Europe), the Kai-Lung stories by Ernest Bramah. The major commonalities being the fantasy elements and the obvious love of the language shown by the authors; you could also add in some of the works of Clark Ashton Smith (particularly his Averoigne series), though Smith's idea of what constitutes "humor" might send most people running from the room. ;-) Apropos of nothing, but I recall bitching about having to sign some 1500 signature pages some time back, it just sank in what Cabell did for the Storisende Edition. There are 18 books in the set (it was published over two years, 1927-1929), and each book is signed at the end of the foreword, which means he signed the actual book, not a limitation page that was tipped-in by the publisher. There were 1550 sets issued... Sweet tap-dancing Jesus, that's almost 28,000 books!!! I can't even fathom tackling something like that. FWIW, he signed in pencil, which is actually harder on the hand than ball-point pen, (although not nearly the pain-in-the-ass that a fountain pen represents), Edward Lee and I did that with a mix of red ink and blood for the 52-copy deluxe edition of Shifters and not only was it a messy process, I had to listen to Lee whining about cutting his thumb to squeeze out a few drops... Some fucking wrestling fan, I showed him how it should be done properly and gigged my forehead, after all, we're supposed to be hardcore... ;-) Worst of all, ink and blood mix poorly and the resultant signatures look like shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 The bit I read of Jurgen (just a few pages) gave me Candide vibe as much as anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 6 minutes ago, Matt D said: The bit I read of Jurgen (just a few pages) gave me Candide vibe as much as anything else. Voltaire! Excellent call! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 10 minutes ago, OSJ said: Voltaire! Excellent call! The other thing that was vaguely close was the autobiography of Henri Blowitz I made it a good chunk of the way through last year (admittedly after I encountered him in a Flashman novel). Anyway, I'll take a hack at this. Thanks as always. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted February 4, 2018 Share Posted February 4, 2018 3 hours ago, Matt D said: The other thing that was vaguely close was the autobiography of Henri Blowitz I made it a good chunk of the way through last year (admittedly after I encountered him in a Flashman novel). Anyway, I'll take a hack at this. Thanks as always. As always, you're quite welcome! The only more fun than discovering great stuff to read is turning other folks on to said discoveries! I wonder how many pro rasslin boards feature discussions wherein Voltaire, James Branch Cabell, Harlan Ellison, George MacDonald Fraser, both Burroughs (William and Edgar Rice), and Cormac McCarthy (among others) get name-dropped? Maybe we should check out Scott Keith's board and see what the current thoughts on Micromegas are, or, perhaps there's some lively conversation on RSPW dealing with the novels of George Gissing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Control Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 Finishing up Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing. Hot damn. If the rest of her work is like this, it’s all going on the To-Read List. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 Just a heads-up for the Wire fans here, this is arriving on my doorstep Friday As soon as I read "oral history" I was sold. In the meantime, Dracula is amazing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 What am I reading, you say? Oh, my... I may have mentioned this dream assignment of heading up a series of collections by authors that we could (for lack of another term) call practitioners of the New Weird. WE're going to launch with three books in spring 2019 followed by two in the fall, two in spring 2020, two in the fall and so on. These books will all be big suckers of about 700 pages and retail for $45. Since they're nice sturdy hardcovers and signed by the author, introducer, artist and me, that's quite the bargain. To say nothing of the fact that in most cases, it's the author's first hardcover and if nothing else, the definitive collection of their fiction. So what am I reading? All of the previous work by the folks that will be in this series! And who are these good people, you may well ask? Here ya go: Kaaron Warren, Michael Cisco, John Llewellyn Probert Lisa Tuttle, Simon Kurt Unsworth Richard Gavin, Gemma Files John Langan, Silvia Moreno-Garcia Currently , these authors have a bunch of trade paperbacks out, check 'em out now and get ready for the revolution. You heard it announced here first. What I'm doing is reading a story or two by author x, then a couple by author y then a couple by author z and so on. Basically have a big stack of bookson the night table and just going through them a story or two at a time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam Posted February 15, 2018 Share Posted February 15, 2018 Does anyone read poetry? It is always something I've tried to get into more - especially being an English teacher - but I'm never sure where best to look when it comes to more contemporary poetry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts