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Post by andydecker on Jul 17, 2010 15:26:27 GMT
I re-read this over the last couple of weeks - in the bus, at the doctor, etc -, but finished the rest in one sitting. What a dense read. And still, compared to your serial-killer-of-the-month book this is so good. The details, which are often as obsessive as the killer´s fantasys, the rotten characters, the gore, the fun the writers have with the overblown gothic setpieces. I don´t care if the plot doesn´t make a bit of sense. To combine Lovecraft with Horror Rock, what a novel idea at the time. In which novel to do you have a starved hog killing a punk and a poisongas attack at the Royal Albert Hall by a psycho? I was especially intrigued by the rambling about the supposedly small boundaries between fantasy and reality. And how things changed but remained the same in the 25 odd years since publication. Today you got the vampire craze of young girls which seems to be okay for parents and mediahounds, but on another level this is just the same as the teenage enthusiasm for Death Metal or Rock which was back then seen as the devil´s tool. This novel is the counterpart of today´s slickly produced thriller fare, where every backtext reads the boring same. It is clunky and in parts overwritten, I know. And it is still better and more original then most of today´s output.
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Post by robertmammone on Jul 24, 2010 7:35:14 GMT
I re-read this over the last couple of weeks - in the bus, at the doctor, etc -, but finished the rest in one sitting. What a dense read. And still, compared to your serial-killer-of-the-month book this is so good. The details, which are often as obsessive as the killer´s fantasys, the rotten characters, the gore, the fun the writers have with the overblown gothic setpieces. I don´t care if the plot doesn´t make a bit of sense. To combine Lovecraft with Horror Rock, what a novel idea at the time. In which novel to do you have a starved hog killing a punk and a poisongas attack at the Royal Albert Hall by a psycho? I was especially intrigued by the rambling about the supposedly small boundaries between fantasy and reality. And how things changed but remained the same in the 25 odd years since publication. Today you got the vampire craze of young girls which seems to be okay for parents and mediahounds, but on another level this is just the same as the teenage enthusiasm for Death Metal or Rock which was back then seen as the devil´s tool. This novel is the counterpart of today´s slickly produced thriller fare, where every backtext reads the boring same. It is clunky and in parts overwritten, I know. And it is still better and more original then most of today´s output. I began reading the Slade books in the early 90s - had seen the books during the 80s but didn't have the inclination too buy them. I recall Headhunter being my first, it kept me sane during a particularly dicey plane flight, for which I'll be forever grateful! I think those early books are the best of the lot - I believe the original writers under the Slade name has changed in recent years and it shows in the latter books.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 24, 2010 11:10:30 GMT
The first ones were written by lawyer Jay Clarke and collegues John Banks and Richard Covell. Curently it is Clarke and his daughter Rebecca.
And you are right, the latter books miss the manic intensity of the first.
Unfortunatly the last one Red Snow seems to be only avaiable in Canada. It was published by Penguin Canada, but Amazon in the US or the UK don´t have it in stock.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 24, 2010 13:36:47 GMT
Just nipped back to the old board for this, a photo of the original 'Michael Slade' by Vicki Murdoch, taken from a Guild 1987 hardcover of Ghoul. Can't comment on the later books because i fell away altogether after Zombie (aka Evil Eye). Know I read Cut-Throat but can't remember a damn thing about it, not even whether or not i even "enjoyed" it. For me, Headhunter, Ghoul and Ripper are immense, very different to what was going on at the time and, for all that they are impossibly convoluted, I found them very fast reads.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 24, 2010 17:47:28 GMT
This is getting interesting On the Slade website Clarke cites himself, Banks and Covell as the writers. The cover says Clarke, Banks and Clarke. I seem to remember that I read somewhere the first ones were written by four writers. The Slade website is very vague about who wrote what. Guess they all had ironclad contracts :-)
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Post by benedictjjones on Jul 24, 2010 18:57:52 GMT
strangely enough someone gave me 'ripper' a couple of weeks ago and it is almost to the top of the TBR pile.
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