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Post by weirdmonger on Dec 30, 2010 18:55:30 GMT
Johnny, I haven't read WARP. So I'm interested by what you say. I'd heard on the grapevine that WARP is not as good as BRFG. I thought BRFG was very good. So intrigued to hear you think WARP is better than BRFG. Tastes differ, I guess. des
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Post by noose on Dec 30, 2010 19:02:01 GMT
I read BRFG about a week or two before hoohah began and I was seriously unimpressed, I remember it being full of pomp and posture. Maybe I'm looking at that time through rose tinted glasses, but I think for all of WARP's faults it has a little more humility to it, which meant I got on with it a lot more.
v@gina still = girl thingy - dammit why wont it work? Jo Jo have you done some hoodoo voodoo on proboards?
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Post by dem bones on Dec 30, 2010 19:38:44 GMT
can't believe i overlooked Leonard De Vries's 'orrible Murder: Victorian Crime & Passion - that was certainly among the most entertaining anthologies i read in 2010. had a deadly dull year as far as worst books go - worst as in "by worst I don't actually mean books I hated (those are best forgotten) but the books I read that were so terrible, so unbelievable, and in one case so reprehensible that for me they bordered on anti-genius" (© John Llewellyn Probert) - with nothing coming even remotely close to capturing the standard of past greats like Arabella Randolph's The Vampire Tapes, Ken Macaulay's The Nuclear Nazi's, Moffat's Dracula And The Virgins Of The Undead, Sidney Horler's The Curse Of Doone, and, of course, the Pierce Nace masterpiece to name but five, each of them much loved in demonik household and highly recommended. must be getting slightly more familiar with the territory now as i can't think of anything i hated. there are authors i don't have much time for, it's true, but they're easily avoided so i can't see any point buying their wares when the money could go on books i'm more likely to have a good time with.
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Post by David A. Riley on Dec 30, 2010 20:25:14 GMT
Johnny, I haven't read WARP. So I'm interested by what you say. I'd heard on the grapevine that WARP is not as good as BRFG. I thought BRFG was very good. So intrigued to hear you think WARP is better than BRFG. Tastes differ, I guess. des Intrigued that you have heard WARP is not as good as BRFG, Des. That was my impression too, though I have seen barely any references anywhere to the collection other than a couple of comments about it highlighted by Allyson. I didn't have as negative a reaction to Bull Running as Johnny, but I'm afraid I was very disappointed by WARP. I think she would have been better advised to hold fire for a while longer before putting out a new collection so she could be selective in what she included - and have given herself time to read and reread any new material to iron out the faults in them. A shame - and a wasted opportunity.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Dec 30, 2010 20:26:24 GMT
Right - SON: 'I think I'll pass on the ass Dad.' I don't know about the rest of the story Johnny but that's a good line.
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 30, 2010 20:40:26 GMT
Honourable mention to JAmes Doig's "Australian Ghost Stories" (Wordsworth) which I have just started in the last week. Really terrific start to the book, if you are redaing this JD is your earlier Australian Gothic collection still available? neither amazon nor the book depository had it when I looked today. But the first third of so of the wordsworth has left me looking for more. Thanks Chris! Both Australian Gothic and Australian Nightmares are available from Equilibrium Books, which is a pod publisher in Western Australia: www.equilibriumbooks.com/store.htm Postage is the usual pain, unfortunately - I'd send you a copy but I've none left. I'm just finishing off a 3rd collection to make a set.
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 30, 2010 20:44:20 GMT
Have you seen Wordsworth's revised edition of Sweeney Todd: The String Of Pearls from July this year? No, I haven't yet - must get it on ebay as I haven't seen it in the bookshops yet. Dem, in one of the earlier editions, or maybe it was Varney, Collins says Rymer was about 4 feet tall! Does he provide any evidence for this?
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Post by noose on Dec 30, 2010 20:52:38 GMT
Right - SON: 'I think I'll pass on the ass Dad.' I don't know about the rest of the story Johnny but that's a good line. posted it in the vault of filthy creation - don't know what happened to it - but it's as good as you'll get it...
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Dec 30, 2010 21:17:39 GMT
Jo Jo have you done some hoodoo voodoo on proboards? Not directly, no. But more generally, you are in fact inside a simulation that I control. I am sure you must have noticed some strange glitches in the laws of physics recently.
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Post by noose on Dec 30, 2010 21:57:08 GMT
Jo Jo have you done some hoodoo voodoo on proboards? Not directly, no. But more generally, you are in fact inside a simulation that I control. I am sure you must have noticed some strange glitches in the laws of physics recently. No.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 30, 2010 22:29:39 GMT
Have you seen Wordsworth's revised edition of Sweeney Todd: The String Of Pearls from July this year? No, I haven't yet - must get it on ebay as I haven't seen it in the bookshops yet. Dem, in one of the earlier editions, or maybe it was Varney, Collins says Rymer was about 4 feet tall! Does he provide any evidence for this? Yes, he does! Although he's even-handed enough to admit it's hardly conclusive evidence (i don't want to spoil it for you, but the claim first appeared in a letter published in a Liverpool newspaper almost a century ago, and from as reliable a source as we're likely to find at this late juncture). My knowledge of Penny Dreadful's is sub-scant, but i suspect Dick Collins has pulled off a commendable feat of literary detection - the introduction is certainly among the most fascinating i've read to any Wordsworth edition, and i appreciate that he's included a list of recommendations for 'Further Reading' (i'm tempted to lift the title of Louis James' Fiction For The Working Man as the Vault byline to prevent further unfortunate "misunderstandings" about this board's original bias, but it looks a bit clumsy with 'Plus!' on the end of it). Collins also casts suspicion on just who was responsible for the Peter Haining edited Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street by Frederick Hazleton (W. H. Allen). According to Dick, "it seems to have been his [Haining's] own work, based partly on Hazleton's play, with additions from Charles Fox's serial [of the same title]." Somehow, this does not come as any kind of shock whatsoever! How i wish he was still around.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Dec 31, 2010 8:33:38 GMT
Worst Anthology: Lovecraft Unbound ed by Ellen Datlow. For the life of me I just couldn't get into this book - and maybe I'm missing something that all the other bloggers/reviewers seem to get - they gushed all over the shop for this anthology. She stated that she didn't want a pastiche of Lovecraft's work, but that's exactly what the book is - and the bulk of the stories were just boring. There were two standouts to the book, Laird Barron's 'Catch Hell', and 'That Of Which We Speak When We Speak Of the Unspeakable' by Nick Mamatas - but when they are surrounded by people who seemed to have turned in a story just to get the cheque (Joyce Carol Oates the guilty offender with her story 'Commencement') and others where they were just used as page fillers 'One Day, Soon' by Lavie Tidhar, (a really appalling, thinly veiled Holocaust story and only put in there as a lame attempt to challenge Lovecraft racism) - even Simon Kurt Unsworth's solid, if draining tale makes you despair that it's in the book - in any other anthology it would shine - here it's just swallowed up by too many mediocre tales. My disappointment in that area was the PS anthology 'Black Wings' edited by ST Joshi, which had a few good stories by Michael Marshall Smith, Ramsey Campbell and Nicholas Royle (which I'm sure you loved, Johnny!) but too many stories that just didn't go anywhere or do anything for me and unfortunately after a while the meandering dullness swamped the couple of good pieces in there. Again, this seemed to get quite good reviews so it's probably me who has the problem but there we are. After that I decided to give Lovecraft Unbound a miss in case it was more of the same.
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Post by noose on Dec 31, 2010 10:20:17 GMT
Worst Anthology: Lovecraft Unbound ed by Ellen Datlow. For the life of me I just couldn't get into this book - and maybe I'm missing something that all the other bloggers/reviewers seem to get - they gushed all over the shop for this anthology. She stated that she didn't want a pastiche of Lovecraft's work, but that's exactly what the book is - and the bulk of the stories were just boring. There were two standouts to the book, Laird Barron's 'Catch Hell', and 'That Of Which We Speak When We Speak Of the Unspeakable' by Nick Mamatas - but when they are surrounded by people who seemed to have turned in a story just to get the cheque (Joyce Carol Oates the guilty offender with her story 'Commencement') and others where they were just used as page fillers 'One Day, Soon' by Lavie Tidhar, (a really appalling, thinly veiled Holocaust story and only put in there as a lame attempt to challenge Lovecraft racism) - even Simon Kurt Unsworth's solid, if draining tale makes you despair that it's in the book - in any other anthology it would shine - here it's just swallowed up by too many mediocre tales. My disappointment in that area was the PS anthology 'Black Wings' edited by ST Joshi, which had a few good stories by Michael Marshall Smith, Ramsey Campbell and Nicholas Royle (which I'm sure you loved, Johnny!) but too many stories that just didn't go anywhere or do anything for me and unfortunately after a while the meandering dullness swamped the couple of good pieces in there. Again, this seemed to get quite good reviews so it's probably me who has the problem but there we are. After that I decided to give Lovecraft Unbound a miss in case it was more of the same. Black Wings was a really poor anthology - Ramsey's tale blew all others out of the park for me. Really enjoyed it. And of course, Mr Royle's(for those who haven't read it - a character called John Mains gets horribly killed... ) - I hear that there's a Black Wings 2 in the offing?
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Post by andydecker on Dec 31, 2010 11:37:58 GMT
bit blurry on timelines, but i think the best stuff i read this year was vols1-6 of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol (discovered by chance when i came across some old issues in someone's comic cupboard) and the three volumes of Sandman Mystery Theatre i picked up. Morrison is very hit and miss for me, but I love his Doom Patrol to pieces. One of the rare examples where the surreal bent works and didn´t feel forced. So many great ideas on the page. Sandman Mystery Theatre is as different as imaginable, but also well done. Matt Wagner is good with those period pieces. Right - Worst Anthology: Lovecraft Unbound ed by Ellen Datlow. For the life of me I just couldn't get into this book - and maybe I'm missing something that all the other bloggers/reviewers seem to get - they gushed all over the shop for this anthology. I got Datlow´s Poe and had much of the same reaction. After a very clever tale by Newman I stopped reading fast. Maybe I am being unkind but if you desperatly need to read the author´s note to understand what the story has to do with Poe except a few catchrases sprinkled into the narrative something is off. It more often than not came away as literary fanwank. In the vein of: in Poe´s tale xxx there is a comb mentioned on page 4 which I could never forget and drove me to write this story. After this experience I skipped on the Lovecraft. Even if I like pastiches if they are good, I have no tolerance anymore for stories where young HPL discovers something frightening on a stroll through the city which sets him to writing or any such fare. Any writer who does this should get a visit form the cliche-police and a stern reprimand. I also bought Cthulhu´s Reign edited by Darrell Schweitzer which I also got stuck in. Guess this would qualify for the Worst Cover. This just spell´s "We don´t care any longer and why should you?"
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Post by weirdmonger on Dec 31, 2010 11:46:27 GMT
And of course, Mr Royle's(for those who haven't read it - a character called John Mains gets horribly killed... ) There was a character named Johnny Mains in A Man of Ice and Sorrow by Simon Kurt Unsworth, but that may have been coincidental. des
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