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Post by helrunar on Jun 1, 2016 16:51:13 GMT
Simon Raven's short stories "The Amateur" and "The Team Photograph" could have been included. There are a number of horror setpieces in the novels involving ritualistically described horse-races and cricket matches.
H.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 1, 2016 17:54:06 GMT
Simon Raven's short stories "The Amateur" and "The Team Photograph" could have been included. H. These I must investigate. Can't believe I overlooked Future Sport until now. Examples include William Harrison - The Rollerball Murders ( Esquire, September 1973). (Read HERE) Gary K. Wolf - Killerbowl (Sphere, 1975) Graham King - Killtest (Arrow, 1978) Richard Bachman - The Long Walk (Nel, 1980). Any more? Saw a copy of Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games in the Charity Shop earlier, but passed. Can't help thinking I did a wrong one there ....
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Post by helrunar on Jun 1, 2016 19:41:13 GMT
The Raven tales are briefly discussed by Lord John L. Probert in this thread: vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/3853/simon-raven-remember-grammarI thought "The Amateur" was really quite a good yarn, though if I remember rightly His Lordship justly averred that the thing was a tangle of rank filth from start to finish. I believe someone once observed that "Simon Raven has the pen of an angel and the heart of a cad." cheers, H.
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Post by pulphack on Jun 2, 2016 15:33:33 GMT
Quick detour from sport to Raven generally - I agree with you that Raven's immaculate style masks some outre opinions (even by the standards of then) seem on the surface innocuous - they almost pass you by - but then I get the impression that if not reportage, they were designed to provoke as this amused him. If you've never read 'Brother Cain' then do - by the sound of it, you may well have - as it's a great book, part Fleming and part Genet ( !!!) - though that may be coloured by what I was reading at the same time. I know that Raven retired at at early age (forties, I think) to a nursing home on the Sussex coast so that he could be coddled, and from which he made frequent day trips to Soho to satisfy his satyric urges. And I was also surprised to find that Antony Blond had him on a retainer, rather than negotiate by book, which may explain some of the odder non-fiction excursions that were penned for the stipend. I've rarely heard of such an arrangement, though Hale had one with John Newton Chance (aka John Lymington) who was paid weekly to deliver a chapter, moving seamlessly from book to book. In his case, his fecundity made this convenient for a library publisher. In Raven's case, I suspect Blond did this as he knew if he gave Raven a chunk of cash chances are the bugger would disappear and the book never get delivered!
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Post by helrunar on Jun 2, 2016 16:29:53 GMT
Thanks for the recommendation for Brother Cain. That's one of the stand alone novels I haven't read. Perhaps we have it here in the Library. I wonder if you are thinking of the fact that in the late 1950s, when he was around 30, Simon Raven moved to a place called Deal on the Kent coast and lived there, on a stipend regularly issued by his friend and publisher Anthony Blond, writing novels and other works. He also wrote television screenplays for such series as The Pallisers, Edward and Mrs. Simpson, and a deliciously stylized adaptation of the Julian Symons mystery yarn The Blackheath Poisonings. Haven't seen the latter since original broadcast in the early 1990s but I think it is the sort of thing some of the hardy few who still frequent these chambers might enjoy. Raven's periods of keeping his nose to the grindstone in Deal were interspersed by lengthy excursions on the Continent. Corfu appears to have been a place he loved though whenever he wrote of it in his novels, which was frequently, he invariably complained about the food and how mercenary the people who lived there were. Raven also wrote dialogue for the Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I recently read Come Like Shadows (1970) and found myself wondering if it was something of a roman-a-clef from his experience working on the Bond film, no doubt mixed up with other real-life people and situations. There was a character in the book who seemed to be based, at least physically, on Diana Rigg. Apparently late in life he did retire to something called the Almshouse of the Charterhouse, I gather as a lay brother. Since from reading his books I personally regard him as an unrepentant, unreconstructed, unabashed Pagan of the classical Pax Romana variety, I have no idea just what machinations and cajolings were involved in finding a home for him there. Presumably he made the move due to illness, poverty or other considerations. See more details here, including a short memoir by Anthony Blond: www.thecharterhouse.org/simon-raven/Best wishes, Helrunar
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Post by Dr Strange on Jun 2, 2016 17:19:40 GMT
Apparently late in life he did retire to something called the Almshouse of the Charterhouse, I gather as a lay brother. Since from reading his books I personally regard him as an unrepentant, unreconstructed, unabashed Pagan of the classical Pax Romana variety, I have no idea just what machinations and cajolings were involved in finding a home for him there. Presumably he made the move due to illness, poverty or other considerations. Seems the term "Brother" is "purely traditional" and doesn't infer any religious meaning - www.thecharterhouse.org/explore-the-charterhouse/Looks like an amazing place to live though.
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Post by pulphack on Jun 2, 2016 17:37:32 GMT
That probably is what I was thinking of. I knew it was some bloody southern coast! I know Soho came into it somewhere, too - but Soho and then the continent? Who wouldn't. The memory is not what it was, and research was never my strong point...
Raven was also responsible for Sexton Blake And The Demon God, the series that was - until the recentish radio revival - the last hurrah for the venerable tec. Jeremy Clyde was Blake, and a lot of Blakians were iffy as they thought it was taking the piss. Maybe it was, but at that time (1978) you couldn't really do retro without a BBC producer nudging it towards parody. There was a novelisation - sadly not by Ravem but by John Garforth, though it's not bad as such - but I haven't seen the series since it was on, and I was only 13 or 14 at the time so remember little about it other than I liked it in the same way I liked the Dick Barton TV revival. The Blackheath Poisonings passed me by at the time - I'd love to see it. I note it's still available on Amazon...
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Post by helrunar on Jun 2, 2016 17:45:09 GMT
I've never read any Sexton Blake yarns, though a friend pointed me to a couple of sites that gave me some info about the series or should it be called a "franchise"--this modern lingo, one simply can't cope. I would love to see what Raven did with it. I imagine there was indeed a fair amount of taking the piss. There almost would have had to be. If they had not wanted that, I doubt Raven would have been hired.
I'm not sure that that series survives, but who knows. It may be a little too niche and out of the way for home video release.
cheers, Helrunar
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Post by dem bones on Jun 5, 2016 9:31:06 GMT
"I'm one of the few with real regrets about what happened to the books. Everything is still on tapes, but it just isn't the same, is it? Nowadays only the computer specialists read the tapes and we're right back in the Middle Ages when only the monks could read the Latin script."
William Harrison - The Rollerball Murders: Reminiscences of Jonathan E, thirty-four, star assassin and fulcrum of the all conquering Houston rollerball murders team. Mr. E. reflects on how the game has grown increasingly psychotic in the fifteen years since he made his début, with rules endlessly tweaked to guarantee a higher mortality rate per game. University educated, the skater seeks something more fulfilling from life than banging groupies and killing opponents, but will the sponsors, or his ghoulish public, allow it?
Very glad to finally have had opportunity to read this short after hearing so much about it. An entire world ruled by seven multi-national corporates? That doesn't seem far wide of the mark.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 17, 2016 11:17:04 GMT
Copped this for 50p at Spitalfields Market yesterday. Striking cover artwork hugely influential in deciding whether or not to purchase. Another for the Sport is Bloody Murder gallery. Judson Philips - Murder Clear, Track Fast (Penguin, 1967; originally Gollancz, 1962) Bernard Lodge Blurb: Saratoga in summer. The last resort of traditional Southern elegance: the height of the racing season. And like a cloud across the scene - a murder. No ordinary murder either, but the son of one of Saratoga's first ladies and reputedly killed by his wife. Yankee lawyer Don Channing goes to Saratoga to find out the truth - and promptly falls in love with the chief suspect. From this point the action develops into a crazy whirl of greed and blackmail . . .
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Post by dem bones on Jun 22, 2016 14:16:27 GMT
Treated self to some Eve of Destruction paperback therapy earlier and copped this for £1.50 in London Buddhist Centre's Jambala bookshop in Bethnal Green. Not every day you have legit excuse to enquire "How much is that Rollerball in the window?" William Harrison - Rollerball (Orbit, 1975) Preface
The Warrior The Hermit Down The Blue Hole Eating It The Pinball Machines Roller Ball Murder The Blurb King A Cook's Tale The Arsons Of Desire The Good Ship Erasmus Under The House Nirvana, Gotterdammerung And The Shot Put Weatherman: A Theological NarrativeBlurb: Rollerball Murder – the deadly game of the twenty‑first century. At a signal forty players run, skate and bike for their lives around a high banked, hardwood track, dodging the careening 25-pound oval balls which scatter and maim at over 300 miles an hour.
No rules, no rest periods, no substitutes. It's play up or die. Just two hours of brute speed and crowd‑pleasing carnage viewed simultaneously the world over on multivision ...
ROLLERBALL MURDER is one of thirteen tightly written, provocative and, ultimately, unforgettable stories of the past, the present and the horrifying future.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 7, 2016 9:36:37 GMT
Wiser heads are happy to consider chess a sport, so who am I to disagree, etc? Hugh Rankin E. R. Punshon - The Haunted Chessmen: ( Weird Tales, 1930. Originally The Novel Magazine, March 1916, reprinted in More Uncanny Stories, Pearson, 1918). A strange, gripping tale of a weird game played against an invisible antagonist, with terror and dread for referees. The set dates from the Middle Ages, the pride and joy of a sadistic Indian prince, who reputedly carved the pieces from the bones of a despised enemy. As several enthusiastic sportsmen have since learned to their cost, there is no "reputedly" about it. The undead Raja is a master of the dark arts, and those he defeats, by fair means or foul, are compelled to take their own lives. Peter Haining, in ' Richard Peyton' guise, revived the story for Sinister Gambits: Murder & Mystery At The Chessboard. An Anthology, (Souvenir Press, 1991) Richard Peyton - Introduction
I. GRANDPLAYER’S NIGHTMARES Fritz Leiber - The Dreams of Albert Moreland Lord Dunsany - The Three Sailors’ Gambit Gerald Kersh - The Devil That Troubled the Chessboard Stephen Leacock - Pawn to King’s Four Stefan Zweig - The Royal Game J. G. Ballard - End-Game
II. BIZARRE CHESSMEN Lucretia P. Hale - The Queen of the Red Chessmen Robert Barr - A Game of Chess Richard Marsh - A Set of Chessmen E. R. Punshon - The Haunted Chessmen Stephen Grendon [August Derleth] - Bishop’s Gambit Poul Anderson - The Immortal Game
III. BLOOD CHESS Agatha Christie - A Chess Problem Alfred Noyes - Checkmate H. Russell Wakefield - Professor Pownall’s Oversight Fredric Brown - The Cat from Siam Stanley Ellin - Fool’s Mate Kenneth Gavrell - A Better Chess-Player To which we can add: Craig Herbertson - All In The Game (Vault Advent Calendar, Dec. 2015)
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Post by dem bones on Sept 21, 2016 9:47:47 GMT
Sport is ... still murder.
Theodore Sturgeon - Night Ride: (Keyhole Mystery Magazine, June 1960). The runaway bus was carrying a strange group on its one-way plunge to doom. There were 32 live passengers - and one corpse!
The Hill City baseball team are travelling home following victory over Johnson Mesa in the biggest game of the season. Everybody is in high spirits ... until star player, Charley Romeo, dies screaming on account of some mean S.O.B. laced his post-match vodka with arsenic. The finger of suspicion points to the bus driver, Paul Cahill, following his one-man pitch invasion earlier that evening. It was only the swift intervention of Coach 'Turk' McGurk and 'Big Dome' Craig, the official SCHOOL WEIRDO, prevented Paul from braining Romeo with a wrench for making derogatory remarks about his wife. But Romeo was a loud mouthed bully and womaniser with several enemies who, unlike their driver, found it easier to laugh along with the cruel jibes and pretend he was a top bloke.
Cahill, realising it looks bad for him, wonders if perhaps it might be better to drive the bus over a ravine .......
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Post by dem bones on Sept 29, 2016 6:30:38 GMT
Anon - Race With Death ( Black Magic #23, Prize Comics, April 1953, and its British reprint, Black Magic Comics #15, Arnold, c. 1953). Jennie Rearden wakes screaming from a nightmare in which husband Bruce is involved in a fatal accident at tomorrows big race. Jennie doesn't approve of Bruce's "hobby" of "foreign car racing," but never before has she begged him to withdraw from a meeting. Despite never visiting a track, Jennie describes this one down to the last detail. The tragedy will occur at Curney's Corner and involve cars five, fourteen and his own. Bruce laughs off her fears, interpreting the dream as an omen that he is going to win. In a brave show of support for her man, Jennie attends her first and only motor race ... Two page text story from the 'fifties comics we met in connection with our "research" into the Gorbals Vampire incident.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Sept 29, 2016 16:43:36 GMT
For some of us Sport is/was horror. Every time this thread pops up I'm reminded of this terrifying work of genius....
'Sport, sport, masculine sport, equips a young man for society. Yes sport turns out a jolly good sort. It's an odd boy who doesn't like sport.'
(Shudder...)
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