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Post by dem bones on Aug 21, 2008 19:34:21 GMT
Richard Laymon - Funland (W. H. Allen, 1989) Blurb: 'Laymon uses a typewriter ribbon soaked in cold blood' - Burt Hirschfeld; author of Fire Island.
The seaside resort of Boleta Bay is not the carefree place it used to be. A series of unexplained disappearances has brought misery and fear to local families, casting, a dark shadow over the summer. And to add to the atmosphere of unease and foreboding, the tourists who throng the arcades and stroll along the board walk now have to pick their way through a growing army of leering, foul-mouthed bums who infest the dilapidated buildings of Boleta Bay's promenade.
But now Boleta Bay is fighting back. Convinced that the loathsome down and outs, nicknamed 'trolls', have been abducting its citizens for their own grim purposes, a gang of local teenagers decide to wreak their own violent revenge on what they see as a hive of murderous parasites.
Led by the charismatic Tanya, the gang soon graduate from simple beatings to other, more ambitious forms of punishment. And as they grow more daring, their campaign inexorably leads them to the old abandoned Funhouse, where the appalling truth about the disappearances awaits them."What the card says, you illiterate fuck, is Dear Troll, Greetings from Great Big Billy Goat Gruff" Funland would be equally at home on the Agro! section, although the introduction of a jaw-droppingly unnecessary 'supernatural' element toward the close marks it as hailng from a very different planet than dear old Skinhead Escapes and Chopper. If I had to choose a "favourite" Laymon novel, Funland would be up there fighting it out with The Cellar and Midnight's Lair: there's a nastiness about it from the off and even at 500 pages it fair belts along. Jeremy Wayne, sixteen, has just moved to Boleta Bay with his mother and he's already in love with the beach and, of course, the slightly bedraggled, joyfully unsanitized amusement park. Back home in Bakersfield, his only friend was the school dork and he's determined to make a fresh start, meet some hot babes, etc, and the best way to do that is to show 'em he's no wimp right from the start. As luck has it, the first local he meets at Funland is Cowboy, one of the local trollers who steps in for him when a bum tries to hit him for change. Cowboy rechristens him 'Duke' and introduces him to the gorgeous lifeguard and head cheerleader, Tanya. Tanya is the leader of Great Big Billy Goat Gruff (i.e., she gets to wear the red gym shorts in this one), a crew of well-to-do teens whose increasingly hostile campaign against the homeless has made them something of a cause célèbre in the local Evening Post. After a brief heated exchange of views which sees the lifeguard wind up with ice cream all down her shorts and Jeremy obliged to wipe it off, she invites him to join her little party on a patrol after Funland closes for the night. Also new to the area is Robin, a hippy street musician who plays a mean Puff, The Magic Dragon on her banjo (inexplicably, this goes down well with her audience) and nice cop Dave is worried about her. She ain't no bum, but just how discerning are Great Big Billy Goat Gruff? To be Continued
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Post by dem bones on Aug 22, 2008 11:06:40 GMT
See the amazing, astonishing wonders of Jasper's Oddities. See the two-headed baby, the hairless orang-utan of Borneo, the mummy Ram Cho-tep and other rare and mysterious wonders. She'll quiver and shake at the sight. She'll swoon in your arms.Cadaverous old Jasper Dunn is a bit of a boy! His decrepit two-storey Funhouse looms ominously over the amusement park, a reminder that Funland wasn't always the nice, safe family-friendly attraction it is today! Some years ago it was shut down after two of his most demented prize freaks ran riot, attacking a little girl and her granny who expired on the spot. A thorough cad and lech, it's rumoured that he had a section of the floor replaced with a grating so he could idle away the hours peering up his female customers' skirts. The Funhouse now serves as an unofficial night shelter for Boleta Bay's least discerning bums and it's pretty clear that not only Great Big Billy Goat Gruff are doing their bit to keep the tramp population down. Meanwhile, eager-to-impress Jeremy is fitting in comfortably with the gang who are slowly but surely coaxing out the psycho buried not too deeply below the surface ..... There were references to Funland in a compelling Silent Witness two-parter Supernova, (BBC1, 6th & 7th August 2006). The drama centered around a group of teen killers who communicate their activities via a chat room. One user signs in as "Great Big Billy Goat Gruff" and when a suspect is questioned over the murder of a classmate, she gloatingly shrugs it off, dismissing the victim as an "evil troll" who got what she deserved (to be fair,this, obviously, has come to mean something else these days: in Funland, of course, a troll is a tramp, wino, beggar or homeless person and very unlikely to have a Facebook account). The episode ends with the alarming on-line suicide of the charismatic 'supernova' herself. Still a fair bit to go .....
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Post by benedictjjones on Aug 22, 2008 11:11:52 GMT
i think i'll pick this one up. although i don't think that laymon was one of the greats i do have a soft spot for his very readable stuff.
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Post by Calenture on Aug 24, 2008 5:38:49 GMT
I wonder if we have a thread for horror stories set in fairgrounds? Of course, they're usually novels, not short stories. Offhand I can think of entries by Dean Koontz, Guy N Smith, Ray Bradbury, a short story by Barry Pain...
(Incidentally, on Barry Pain, I found a collection of his light comic stories recently, which was a surprise to me - The Eliza Stories).
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Post by dem bones on Aug 25, 2008 7:48:28 GMT
I'm sure we could come up with some stories for that, Rog. You might like to we extend it to include Carnivals and Freak shows, but i'll leave the choice to you. As to Funlands, off the top of my head, Margaret St. Clair contributed a beauty to Galaxy SF magazine in 1952 (Horrer Howce: reprinted in Haining's Freak Show) and Ray Bradbury doubtless had a few - is The Dwarf a contender?
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Post by dem bones on Aug 29, 2008 8:15:03 GMT
"Gimme a buck! Gimme a buck 'r I'll put the cursa squirmy death on ya! .... Cursa squirmy death, cursa squirmy death! Whammy whammy presto fuck ya!"
"Unmistakably Laymon". There, that should be enough to have those who despise his stuff run shrieking from this thread and leave those of us who appreciate his seedy brilliance to get on with the job at hand!
Things take a turn for the West Side Story (but with bums and a giant spider) once Tanya's trollers kill the bookish tramp Poppinsack by cuffing him to the safety bar of a Ferris wheel gondola and hoisting him over the top. The bracelet snaps and - once he's landed in a crumpled heap on the deck - so do most of the bones in his body. Nate, Tanya's boyfriend, is disgusted that the group would celebrate the event with a party and quits on the spot ..... and shacks up with Robin the banjo gal! Jeremy gets very excited. Wait til Tanya finds out! Is it possible that he'll get into her Baywatch bikini after all?
Up until now Laymon has depicted the indigents as harmless eccentrics and crazies, more to be pitied than preyed upon by these spoilt rotten, dis-likable teens but slowly we're introduced to an evil element who lurk in the darkness under the broad walk and drag unwary tourists into the funhouse, where ..... The charismatic Tanya's special loathing for these, it transpires, is not so unreasonable: she was raped and cut open by three filthy sleazes in her beach hut and the trollers were formed to avenge her. And now Nate's dumped her for one of them! No prizes for guessing the identity of Great Big Billy Goat Gruff's next victim ...
And just to make for a party atmosphere, this time the troll army are ready for them.
Tanya and her friends are about to learn the multiple horrors of "walking the house" ....
It wobbles some with a jarring and (for Laymon) "phew! that all turned out quite well, considering" epilogue - although the last page is perfect - but to have had so much fun with this only to dwell overmuch on minor quibbles would make me a right moany git. Laymon wasn't always this good (I'm in no big hurry to revisit Alarums, Darkness, Tell Us or All Hallows Eve), but if you're curious to try one of his novels you can't go too far wrong with Funland.
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Post by benedictjjones on Aug 29, 2008 10:24:59 GMT
^How does 'FUNFAIR' COMPARE TO 'MANITOU DOLL' bearing in mind i have read neither.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 29, 2008 15:55:28 GMT
Tough question! Beyond the obvious, there's actually very little comparison. Whatever rubbish I wrote earlier, Funland does not include any "supernatural" interlude (on reflection, it's more of a surreal one) and is essentially a teen gang novel given a horror makeover whereas Manitou Doll concerns itself with Native American Black Magic at a British seaside resort! If anything, I found Funland the most unsettling, but that's most likely 'cause I've, uh, "had some experience" of the lifestyle and doubtless still look and smell the part to the innocent, whereas i've yet to have a voodoo dolly kick my head in and drown me in a cave.
I reckon they're both well worthy of your time and would be dead interested in reading the views of anyone who's encountered either or both!
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Post by benedictjjones on Aug 29, 2008 22:53:06 GMT
^he he!
is that an admission that scarily realised reality is much more disconcerting than 'horror'?
-they're both on the list anyways.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 2, 2008 7:19:37 GMT
is that an admission that scarily realised reality is much more disconcerting than 'horror'? Oh yeah, every time. I've been reading supernatural fiction for all my adult life but only seldom has it scared me, which is pretty crazy as that's supposedly it's prime objective. Charles Birkin is an exception. He has terrified me before now, but only rarely does he bother with ghosts/ 'supernatural' & Co. I picked up a second copy of Funland on Saturday to add to me swop stack - only to get it home and discover that some cretin has scribbled over passages in thick blue felt tip! I hope you have better luck, as I reckon you'll enjoy it. Something Laymon handles brilliantly in my opinion is his depiction of the trolls as almost phantom presences. We get to know the relatively harmless Poppinsack, "Charles Manson eyes" and the deranged old girl with the sock puppet seems to always be there or there abouts, but for the most part they're an unseen mass, much given to creeping from the shadows whenever an innocent tourist or two stray too near their camp under the broadwalk. You can read Laymon on Funland and much more at Richard Laymon Kills.
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Post by benedictjjones on Sept 2, 2008 9:10:37 GMT
^ta, i'll make sure i have a look at that.
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Post by ohthehorror on Feb 27, 2015 13:28:07 GMT
If ever there was a time to start reading this one it's now. Just got back from Limerick city(affectionately known to the locals as stab city) and while waiting for the bus back was approached by a man who demanded a roll-up. Having given up smoking years ago I made my apologies assuring him I'd have been happy to help if I'd been able. At this point the guy (who was clearly homeless, as well as drunk or on something) started screaming at me nose to nose, f-ing and blinding like a good-un promising all kinds of violent retribution before moving onto the man a few feet along who unfortunately for him was desperately trying to finish his cigarette without attracting his attention.
The upshot of all this is that I'm now in the perfect mood to start reading about Tanya and her Troll-bashing gang. Oh, am I ever in the mood for it. I'll put up a little review here as I go, but I'll give you fair warning, it ain't gonna be pretty...
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Post by ohthehorror on Feb 28, 2015 12:25:16 GMT
I have the kindle edition, which as you can see has a very bland and uninspiring cover(Headline Publishing Group, 2012). (Cover photograph: Kellie L. Folkerts/Shutterstock)We open with Tanya in her sweatsuit down by the arcade. A homeless guy asks her for money, ' Can y'spare two bits, darlin?', he says. I've a feeling he's going to wish he hadn't though before too long. Tanya plays along, maybe for lolz, or maybe just because she's that kinda girl, either way she goes right up in my estimation when she hands him a card with a lovely little message on it, ' Dear Troll, Greetings from Great Big Billy Goat Gruff.' Heh heh! What a gal. After reaching into her top and producing a handy little whistle her gang of dependables come running and before long the troll is swinging first by his neck and then by one leg from the nearest lamppost. He's been stripped by this time and while they tie off the rope and step back to admire their handiwork, Tanya sets his bundle of clothes alight and kicks it so it comes to rest under him. Nate, Tanya's current squeeze is mortified and kicks the bundle away. Killjoy... This was a truly great opening chapter. It has practically everything you could wish for. A beautiful but unhinged girl, a good old fashioned lynching and the promise of more to come. Not to mention it's all going down at the seaside which holds the further promise of semi-clad young ladies described, if I know my Richard Laymon, in minute and loving detail. And then of course there's always the red gym shorts to look out for. It's kind of like a Where's Waldo? for perverts. I can't wait. Onward then, and we meet two cops, Dave and Joan going about their daily business when an old lady sitting crosslegged on a bench wielding a sad excuse for a sock puppet admires Joans gams, ' Oooo, nice gams. Yum yum.' They stop and Dave begins to ask her what she was saying about Enoch biting the weenie. Apparently Enoch is dead, not that we're told any more than that at this point though. Was that the troll swinging from the lamppost? Is it someone else entirely? Ah, a bit of suspense enters proceedings then is it? Jolly good. So anyway, Joan has a little rant about the trolls and Dave suggests she join up with the trollers, presumably in jest, to which Joan admits that she'd rather join 'em than bust 'em, and who amongst us could blame her really? I might join 'em myself if I have any more days like yesterday. While Dave goes to wash the troll's cooties off his leg where she touched him, he starts to compare Joan and Gloria(his current squeeze) to a pair of dogs! Yes, I kid you not, he actually compares them to dogs. Apparently, Joan is a Golden Lab while Gloria has to suffer being compared to a mere Poodle. Great stuff. We meet Jeremy next who's just moved to Boleta Bay. He's heading for the boardwalk and admiring the ' nifty girls' sunbathing as he goes(and who can blame him?), thinking how very, very lucky he is that he ended up here when he's accosted by a troll who once again asks for money. Luckily before anything can happen the troll is sent on his way by another lad calling himself 'Cowboy'. They hit it off pretty well as it goes and Jeremy is soon being guided around the place by his new friend, meeting Cowboy's squeeze, Lizzie, who is perched above a tank of water on a platform that collapses when the metal target is hit with a ball. This is worthy of note at this point because it allows us to perv just a little bit on Lizzie as she's dunked and the water pushes her t-shirt up her belly. Sigh. Good old Richard. Little did I know this was nothing compared to what we're treated to a couple of chapters from now. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. ...to be continued!
Edited: ...to show the publisher.
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Post by ohthehorror on Mar 1, 2015 14:33:58 GMT
Well, we do seem to be meeting a lot of people these days. We're back with Joan and Dave again, and this time they've stopped to watch a young girl with a banjo(of all things) busking and doing a mean rendition of 'Puff, the Magic Dragon'. Not a great deal happens but it's a sweet enough scene what with Dave attempting to help her out, making sure she knows about the trolling and homeless people getting attacked etc. He even tries to give her money so she can get a room for the night but she's not having any of it, and he decides that inviting her to stay at his for the night is probably not a good idea. Her name's Robin by the way. I'm hoping she's not a future corpse actually, because she does seem rather sweet. Meanwhile Jeremy(Duke) and Cowboy are off to see Tanya, winding their way through the sunbathing beauties, thinking how wonderful life is while pondering the possibility of drugging Tanya as a means of getting with her. And once again I kid you not. It's Jeremy that suggests it, but more as means of convincing Cowboy that he's no wimp or dork. He's happy enough with his comment now that he's won him over. We finally get a good look at Tanya now in all her sun-drenched glory. Tall, almost six feet with bare, bronzed legs that look shapely and powerful, adorned with, wait for it ...red shorts(hoorah!!) and a white T-shirt that we're reliably informed isn't tucked in. Presumably this has some bearing on matters. Or maybe not. Never one to pass up the opportunity of lusting after the ladies, we're now treated to a quite lengthy description of Tanya which includes bulging, strong, round buttocks in their loose shorts and the wind rippling her shirt against her flat belly as her hair shines like gold. Cowboy introduces Duke and talks about their meet-up tonight, resulting before long in her referring to Jeremy as a 'wimp'. This doesn't go down at all well and he throws his ice-cream at her striking her golden thigh. This is where things get really, really interesting as Tanya insists he clean it off, which involves Jeremy sticking his hand up her loose red gym shorts leg and caressing her thigh like he's just died and gone to heaven. You can practically hear Mr Laymon's heart beating faster at this point as his fingers dance over the keyboard in a bid to make the most of this happy little incident. Best thing to do at this point is let the man speak for himself I think, and, Phew. That's good stuff right there, and that's nowhere near all of it. Plenty more where that came from. Who'd have thought an ice-cream could have such an effect on a young man. ...to be continued!
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Post by ohthehorror on Mar 2, 2015 14:38:14 GMT
Now this is interesting. This chapter opens straight into a newspaper article called Monsters Among Us by Gloria Weston(Dave's other half), and it's notable for me in that it actually brought a bit of a lump to my throat when I read it. I could easily imagine this article being cut and pasted directly from a real newspaper, it's very poignant. I actually feel a little guilty now. It's an article about how the real problem in Boleta Bay isn't the homeless, but the gangs of youths attacking them. It gives us some examples in Harrison Bentley otherwise known as Bents who was stripped and bound to the tracks of the roller coaster, or Mad Mary who was stripped and handcuffed to a railing, beaten and painted green all over, or Biff who was painted with red and yellow stripes and Lucy whose buttocks were glued to a bench and her little plastic bowl glued to her face. The article reminds us(or at least the residents of Boleta Bay) that they only guilty of one thing. Being homeless. Ouch...! And that the only disease they spread is one of guilt. And just to really rub it in, it goes on to point out that they were all children once. All someone's daughters and sons, all with hopes and dreams similar to ours. It's quite hard hitting really, and caught me a little off guard. It also puts paid to those nay-sayers I think that suggest Mr Laymon wasn't up to much. Dave and Gloria argue about her article now which turns into more of an excuse to simply have a go at each other. Joan is mentioned and Gloria ends up storming out with tears in her eyes. That ain't gonna end well. Joan, meanwhile is getting ready for her date with Harold, who to all intents and purposes comes across as a bit of a drip but who I've a sneaking suspicion may yet show hidden depths. They don't seem too well matched from where I'm sitting though. He'd rather go to the local production of Macbeth while she wants to visit Funland and have a bit of a time. In fact, it would seem that Joan has been hoping poor Harold will at least attempt to make a move on her. He insists the reason he hasn't is due to him really being very fond of her and not wanting to scare her off. It turns into one of those quite awkward situations where neither of them wants to end up having a row so it kind of ends up petering out into an awkward silence, or near as damn it anyway. They do go to Funland, although Harold remains reluctant to ride anything(no pun intended), he does eventually, and reluctantly, accompany her on the Ferris Wheel. They really don't seem to be having much fun together and it is a little painful to watch. When Harold finally drives her home, we're left with the feeling that Joan has lost patience with Harold, and that Harold in his turn is really just a kind, sensitive guy trying to do his best by her. It's never going to work. And with that, I think I'll try to condense any further thoughts on this down a little or it'll turn into a novel in itself ...to be continued!
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