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Post by andydecker on Jul 5, 2018 13:38:57 GMT
A somewhat less ignominious fate, perhaps, than the final volumes of that abortive George RR Martin saga. Those will almost certainly be filled by texts composed on commission by a trade publisher, novelized from the television script. H. You know, this thought is more creepy then half of the books here But I fear, you are right. Those final volumes became obsolete in the minute the first non-book episode aired on tv. At least GRRM seems to take it with humour. I was really astonished when he appeared in this Z-Nation Episode (S2-Ep8) as a zombie chained to a typewriter, still finishing this last book.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 5, 2018 15:19:22 GMT
undefinable stylistic reasons The single word "overwrought" suffices.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jul 7, 2018 12:20:00 GMT
undefinable stylistic reasons The single word "overwrought" suffices. Indeed.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Jul 13, 2018 12:35:12 GMT
Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, December 1981 (Vol. 1, No. 9), which I got for Mike Ashley's article on M.R. James, includes an interview with Harlan Ellison where he's as hubristic as usual. While I find his fiction hard to read for undefinable stylistic reasons, I do recommend his non-fiction, particularly Harlan Ellison's Watching (which is mostly film criticism). I have the 2008 edition. His non-fiction gave me a title I couldn't resist using. Harlan was amused.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 13, 2018 16:47:27 GMT
His non-fiction gave me a title I couldn't resist using. Harlan was amused. Please be more oblique; I have trouble understanding straightforward.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jul 14, 2018 12:14:33 GMT
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Post by ramseycampbell on Jul 15, 2018 9:48:46 GMT
In the January 1991 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Harlan wrote an essay heralding the end of the horror boom and castigating those who insisted on applying the word “horror” to their fiction. “What possibilities that existed were explored… prior to 1974… Then along came Stephen King… Sui generis… he was the new Poe, the latest Lovecraft, the direct lineal descendent of Polidori… There never was a blossoming for ‘horror’. There was only Stephen King, and everyone else... all those who existed merely because Stephen King dominated the landscape will find themselves homeless. Dean Koontz will remain, and Joe Lansdale; Rick McCammon and John Saul; Lisa Tuttle and Dan Simmons (if he chooses to write in that vein); Bloch, as always, and Ramsey Campbell, probably.”
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 15, 2018 10:15:38 GMT
There is a biblical lilt to the "Dean Koontz will remain, and Joe Lansdale . . ." stuff. I am not entirely sure he was joking, either.
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 15, 2018 11:34:21 GMT
Must admit, I knew very little about Ellison other than the name and The Whimper of Whipped Dogs. Here's an interesting article (from 2014) I found - thesmartset.com/article01271401/
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Post by helrunar on Jul 15, 2018 13:15:09 GMT
Interesting quote, Ramsey, and quite in character for Harlan--may his perturbed spirit know rest.
Harlan really could be full of himself. And also.... excraeta.
cheers, Steve
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Post by Knygathin on Jul 15, 2018 14:10:35 GMT
I have not read Harlan Ellison, but I appreciated a very passionate video installment he did, that can be seen on Youtube, in support of the great visionary A. E. van Vogt (I can't decide if Vogt was a great writer or not - stylistically sloppy, probably, with occasional literary glimmerings).
The most immediately notable feature about Harlan Ellison, I think, was his hubristic, pushy, for self-confidence overcompensating personality, in the characteristic archetypical Jewish manner. There was certainly nothing indifferent about his enthusiasm and passion for the art of science fiction and the supernatural. Recently a dedicated fired reading by Ellison of C. A. Smith's "The City of the Singing Flame" (for our "pleasure", as he himself immodestly puts it) was posted on EldritchDark.com. A reading that sounds similar in its energetic penetrating mentality to that of another prominent Jewish character, Brother Theodore, reading C. A. Smith's "The Willow Landscape".
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Post by andydecker on Jul 15, 2018 19:13:33 GMT
In the January 1991 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Harlan wrote an essay heralding the end of the horror boom and castigating those who insisted on applying the word “horror” to their fiction. “What possibilities that existed were explored… prior to 1974… Then along came Stephen King… Sui generis… he was the new Poe, the latest Lovecraft, the direct lineal descendent of Polidori… There never was a blossoming for ‘horror’. There was only Stephen King, and everyone else... all those who existed merely because Stephen King dominated the landscape will find themselves homeless. Dean Koontz will remain, and Joe Lansdale; Rick McCammon and John Saul; Lisa Tuttle and Dan Simmons (if he chooses to write in that vein); Bloch, as always, and Ramsey Campbell, probably.” Horrorliterature is dead a market category which earns money. Insofar he was right.
Who did remain nearly 30 years later?
King - of course still going strong. I used to be a fan, but the last one I bought was "Bag of Bones". Which is 20 years ago.
Koontz - same as King. I was a big fan, still think "Whispers" one of the best thrillers I ever read. But he thoroughly lost me in the mid-90s and I stopped reading him.
Lansdale - now and then I still buy his work. The last book was his weird western tales.
McCammon - this is in the realm of speculation as he quit the field. I was a fan. Read his then new novel "The Five", one of those bands in peril books, and thought it thoroughly unremarkable and dull.
John Saul - he soldiered on and I guess he retired.
Lisa Tuttle - Always thought her work, which I read here and there, mediocre and absolutly boring.
Dan Simmons - still publishing. I always thought his SF stronger then his horror. "Hyperion" is in my top-ten of novels which left a deep impression on me. Last one I read was "Drood". I don't know much about Dicken's and Collin's, so I can't say how much this was pure fantasy in terms of the relationship of those two men. But it was an interesting glimpse into this period.
Robert Bloch - as long as Psycho is mentioned, he will be known.
Ramsey Campbell - still working.
Not a bad assessment on Ellison's part. He got it right.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 15, 2018 19:34:01 GMT
Not a bad assessment on Ellison's part. He got it right. He was very alike unto an Old Testament prophet.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Jul 16, 2018 11:28:07 GMT
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 16, 2018 12:59:31 GMT
As "a marketing category" maybe, but a rose by any other name... This is taken from horror.org/horror-is - " It's a funny fact of today's market that those writers whose works define the quintessential essence of horror are not considered horror writers. Millions of people read Stephen King, but the average King reader doesn't read other horror writers. Dean Koontz's books are filled with the strange and fantastic, yet he vehemently argues against being labeled a horror writer, despite being the first president of this very organization. John Saul thinks of himself as a writer of thrillers; Clive Barker is a master of the fantastic. HWA founder Robert McCammon stopped publishing altogether to avoid being trapped in a box not of his own choosing when the publishing world demanded more horror instead of the historical novel he had so desperately wanted to produce.
Yet, like the zombie who has become one of modern horror's most identifiable figures, the genre has resurrected. In the 21st century, horror is again thriving...even if the bestsellers or critically-acclaimed novels are not often identified as horror. The small press is thriving, academic studies are booming, and televised horror has never been more popular or (fortunately) smarter. Authors once considered "fringe" voices are now brought up in the pages of newspaper, in awards, and even in the plotlines of cult series (see Thomas Ligotti and True Detective). Many editors think of this as a new "Golden Age" for the genre. .
If the market experiences another period of over-saturation, horror may suffer another slump, but it will undoubtedly return. Just as our fears and terrors change with time, so too will the definition of horror, not just from age to age but from person to person.
Precisely as it should." My favourite example of all this is John Connolly's hugely successful Charlie Parker series of books - always described (and shelved in bookshops) as "crime fiction", despite the regular appearance of ghosts, demons, and ancient Lovecraftian gods.
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