|
Post by pulphack on Oct 18, 2013 14:46:59 GMT
I always knew I liked Terry-Thomas...
Yes, that Subterranean London is indeed the book! I spent an hour and a half getting nowhere this morning, saw your post and googled the title and recognised the cover immediately! Good work. I see the Amazon reviews are mixed - I remember the content as being good as I knew nowt at the time and it was a great start, with lots of facts and fascinating by-ways, but I can understand why some people didn't get on with it as I did find the style rather dry and dull.One of those books it's worth persevering with, though.
Dr S - indeed, I think Ackroyd does presume his readers are as well versed in the geography of London as himself. Being born here and lived here ever since (?) this hadn't really occurred to me when reading, but I can well imagine anyone not a Londoner by birth or living could get lost. He's one of the few 'literary' writers I like (does Jonathon Coe count as literary, 'cause I love him) because although he has bags of style, he always remembers that there should be substance first.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 18, 2013 15:48:41 GMT
I've read a couple of Ackroyd's - including Hawksmoor and The House of Dr Dee - interesting, but very definitely "literary" (and it probably helps if you know the geography of London). For a less literary take on "occult London", I recently read London Falling by Paul Cornell, which was OK - it's part of a new series mixing the police procedural with the supernatural (the next one apparently has Jack the Ripper returning), which I might follow up on provided it doesn't get too "urban fantasy". From his bio, it looks like Cornell's done mostly TV screenplays plus some recent Dr Who books - speaking of which, I hear Ben Wheatley is lined up to direct some of the episodes for the next series! Thanks for the tip, Dr. S. damn it. as if they don't already hate the sight of me at the idea morgue. Might be best to hold off on the orders for a bit as they're coming in faster than i can read them, but might just have a crack at Mr. Cornell's Ripper novel when it's published. Personal pick of the chapters in London Under is perhaps the most 'occult' tinged, Far Under Ground, an exploration of the tube network which references ghosts, scary tramps, "unlucky" stations, those most popular with suicides, and such old friends as Death Line, Quatermass & The Pit, Walter de la Mare's Bad Company and R. Chetwynd-Hayes' Non-Paying Passengers! Also some pre-WWI thrillers concerning the hazards of tube travel, including Baroness Orczy's The Mysterious Death on the Underground Railway (1908) in which the killer of a woman passenger at Aldgate station is never found, surely quite unusual for the mystery fiction of the day? Found another of Ackroyd's non-fiction titles in Spitalfields market ((perhaps he pissed off one of his local fans), The English Ghost, this one an anthology of 'true' encounters with the spectral dead, to which he has essentially acted as editor rather than author, or so it seems at this early stage. Have spotted some Elliott O'Donnell and the odd newspaper report though, sadly, nothing from the golden age of News of the World 'black magic' sensationalism. Peter Ackroyd - The English Ghost: Spectres Through Time (Vintage, October, 2011) Simon Marsden Blurb The English see more ghosts than any other nation. From medieval times to the present day, stories have been told about ghosts who avenge injustice, souls who long for peace and spooks who just want to have fun.
The English Ghost is a treasure trove of such sightings; comical and scary, like all the best ghost stories, these accounts, packed with eerie detail, range from the moaning child that terrified Wordworth's nephew at Cambridge to modern day hitchhikers on Blue Bell Hill.
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Oct 18, 2013 16:46:26 GMT
Ha. Here's a tempter - upcoming4.me/news/book-news/paul-cornell-the-severed-streets-cover-art-and-synopsis-revealBut it has the dreaded "urban fantasy" tag in the quote on the cover (from F. Paul Wilson of all people!) - London Falling was a bit UF (is that an accepted abbreviation?), but the proper horror elements kept me interested. The comparison that seems to keep getting repeated is that Cornell's police/occult mash-up is like The Sweeney, whereas Ben Aaaronovitch's Rivers of London series is like The Bill. I read the first two Rivers of London books, and then gave up on them - too "Harry Potter" (policemen that can do magic... give me a break). Cornell's cops are grittier, and (so far) can't "do magic" - but they can "see" stuff that most people can't (how that comes about is all in the first book). But that's the bit that I'm wary of - if they start behaving like Harry Potter then I'll be gone.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 18, 2013 18:04:30 GMT
Dr. S., you might like to try Paul Finch's Stalkers, essentially a non-supernatural horror novel in anti-police procedural clothing, or so it seems to me, certainly no poncing about with soppy girly magic spells. Not sure i've read any "urban fantasy," but magic wands work for this reader like talking dragons, elves, gnomes (honourable exception: the evil animated garden ornament variety), and hobbits. Unic*rns? don't get me started on those fuckers. Yes, that Subterranean London is indeed the book! I spent an hour and a half getting nowhere this morning, saw your post and googled the title and recognised the cover immediately! Good work. I see the Amazon reviews are mixed - I remember the content as being good as I knew nowt at the time and it was a great start, with lots of facts and fascinating by-ways, but I can understand why some people didn't get on with it as I did find the style rather dry and dull.One of those books it's worth persevering with, though. Thought it would be! Funny enough, I didn't find London Under London the least hard going, most likely because it was read strictly as research, so the more info the better. I'm sure there was plenty more about the sewage network and London's abandoned tube stations than there is in Mr. Ackroyd's book, and the abundance of illustrative material is another plus. Keep hoping a copy turns up in one of my haunts, but no joy to date. * Mr. Hack, I checked out Spitalfields Market earlier. Where the Wednesday 'Book Fair' has never been anything so grand, the same can't be levelled at Friday's record fair. Loads of stalls, and looks as though it's an especially happy hunting ground for vinyl junkies. We'll have to arrange another world tour. *
|
|
|
Post by mcannon on Oct 18, 2013 23:30:22 GMT
Dr. S., you might like to try Paul Finch's Stalkers, essentially a non-supernatural horror novel in anti-police procedural clothing, or so it seems to me, certainly no poncing about with soppy girly magic spells. Not sure i've read any "urban fantasy," but magic wands work for this reader like talking dragons, elves, gnomes (honourable exception: the evil animated garden ornament variety), and hobbits. Unic*rns? don't get me started on those fuckers. >> It strikes me that, like "R ‘n B music", “Urban Fantasy” is a term that’s now used to describe something very much different from its original application. It used to be used in conjunction with stories like Fritz Leiber’s “Smoke Ghost” and some of the other material published in Campbell’s “Unknown”; fantasy and horror in a modern setting, but still frequently dark and gritty. If anything, it was all the more scary or unsettling for being set in a contemporary environment familiar to its readers, rather than in a country house or Gothic castle. These days, however, “Urban Fantasy” seems to be primarily used to describe light, often whimsical fantasy that just happens to be set in the modern era. I’ve read the first three of Ben Aaronovitch’s “London” novels, and enjoyed them a lot. While the first-person narration gives them a light, humorous touch, the actual plots and action are quite a bit darker (and by coincidence, the third one is concerned with the London Underground). Not as grim as Paul Cornell’s “London Falling” (which I also enjoyed – he’s also done quite a bit of comics writing and several highly-regarded “Doctor Who” novels), but certainly not Harry-Potterish. “The Bill” is a fairly apt comparison, but that could be a fairly gritty show, at least in its early days; the Aaronovitch books certainly aren’t “Merlin of Dock Green”.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 19, 2013 7:14:33 GMT
It strikes me that, like "R ‘n B music", “Urban Fantasy” is a term that’s now used to describe something very much different from its original application. It used to be used in conjunction with stories like Fritz Leiber’s “Smoke Ghost” and some of the other material published in Campbell’s “Unknown”; fantasy and horror in a modern setting, but still frequently dark and gritty. If anything, it was all the more scary or unsettling for being set in a contemporary environment familiar to its readers, rather than in a country house or Gothic castle. These days, however, “Urban Fantasy” seems to be primarily used to describe light, often whimsical fantasy that just happens to be set in the modern era. Thank you for putting me straight, Mark. There are some very notable exceptions - Leiber's Smoke Ghost, Manly Wade Wellman's The Devil Is Not Mocked, Boucher's They Bite, (choke) L. Ron Hubbard's Fear, and Jane Rice's Idol Of The Flies among them - but overall i don't really get on very well with Unknown, the more whimsical content in particular, so any modern equivalent is unlikely to appeal, though you never can tell. Am currently engrossed in Kim Newman's Anno Dracula: Johnny Alucard, which, while it probably doesn't qualify as unban fantasy, certainly belongs as much to the fantasy genre as it does horror, and probably more so. There was a short feature on Whitechapel in Monday's Crime Thriller Club on ITV 3, and I reckon Phil Davis nailed it just so; "We're the place where the cop show meets the horror movie and it's a really interesting place to be."
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Oct 21, 2013 10:55:49 GMT
The way "urban fantasy" seems to be most often used now is to describe a story where "magic" is pretty much part of everyday life, accepted as real by everyone, and available for use by pretty much everyone (as in many "traditional fantasy" stories - from Tolken to Harry Potter). That's the bit I don't like - personal taste, and no criticism of anyone who likes this sort of thing. I was OK with Rivers of London until the gods, godesses, mermaids, etc. starting making an appearance (only a matter of time before there's herd of unicorns too, I suspect). I really hope London Falling doesn't go the same way.
There's also a Scottish author, James Oswald, doing a police/occult mash-up series (set in Edinburgh) and the first book, Natural Causes, got the balance just right for me - the possibility of a supernatural element was always kept open, but it was ambiguous right til the end. I was slightly less taken with the second book, The Book of Souls, because there was actually too little of the occult element in it for me (and the central character seemed strangely reluctant to consider it, given what had happened in the earlier book). Oswald actually started off giving his books away for free as e-books on Am*z*n - then Penguin grabbed him last year with a 6 figure deal.
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Oct 22, 2013 17:50:14 GMT
The way "urban fantasy" seems to be most often used now is to describe a story where "magic" is pretty much part of everyday life, accepted as real by everyone, and available for use by pretty much everyone (as in many "traditional fantasy" stories - from Tolken to Harry Potter). That's the bit I don't like - personal taste, and no criticism of anyone who likes this sort of thing. I was OK with Rivers of London until the gods, godesses, mermaids, etc. starting making an appearance (only a matter of time before there's herd of unicorns too, I suspect). I really hope London Falling doesn't go the same way. There's also a Scottish author, James Oswald, doing a police/occult mash-up series (set in Edinburgh) and the first book, Natural Causes, got the balance just right for me - the possibility of a supernatural element was always kept open, but it was ambiguous right til the end. I was slightly less taken with the second book, The Book of Souls, because there was actually too little of the occult element in it for me (and the central character seemed strangely reluctant to consider it, given what had happened in the earlier book). Oswald actually started off giving his books away for free as e-books on Am*z*n - then Penguin grabbed him last year with a 6 figure deal. I have yet to read a UF novel where the gods don't make an appeareance after they got some mainstream appeal Most writers seem to think the have to go the Holllywood blockbuster routine in that regard. Thanks for the tip about James Oswald. This looks interesting. The market seems to burst with potential interesting novels. I guess this is kind of coincidence, but I found a couple of historic crime novels which seem to follow the path of Ripper Street. Books like Alex Grecian "the Yard" and others. If only MacAuley had continued his occult London UF which was published in Best New Horror. That was good.
|
|
|
Post by Dr Strange on Oct 23, 2013 10:11:51 GMT
I'd strongly recommend Natural Causes. Maybe the closest comparison would be John Connolly's Charlie Parker - but with a much less 'damaged' central character, and none of the guns and big explosions (this is Scotland after all, not the USA). The occult element is very strong (and I mean occult - black magic and demons - not just some vaguely ghostly stuff), but never taken for granted - oddly (or maybe not) the books seem to be marketed as mainstream crime fiction, with very little mention of these occult elements.
And Ripper Street makes a return to UK TV next monday - WOOO HOOO!
|
|
|
Post by killercrab on Nov 19, 2013 20:09:52 GMT
Whitechapel cancelled to make way for new drama. Shame.
KC
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2013 22:52:36 GMT
To be honest, and I know a lot of people on here are fans so shall tread carefully, it never reached the dizzy heights of the first series.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Nov 20, 2013 7:46:13 GMT
Whitechapel cancelled to make way for new drama. Shame. KC Yarbles! And all those intriguing loose ends from series IV to explore, too. Bring me the heads of the entire ITV comissioning team.
|
|
|
Post by valdemar on Nov 22, 2013 23:45:50 GMT
For 'Drama', insert 'More reality TV rubbish'. It makes ITV millions in phone charges, and takes no effort to cobble some load of so-called 'celebrity' dog crap together. It's exactly what they did with 'Primeval'. I'm hoping that another network, possibly one that cares, picks it up. I don't think I'm alone in wanting to know what that nasty little old lady is.
|
|