daniel1976
Crab On The Rampage
hello all,
Posts: 39
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Post by daniel1976 on Jun 11, 2016 16:52:22 GMT
i saw that this novel was cited as part of the wordsworth editions |(but naw sadly no longer available) but not discussed in depth. has anyone read it and would like to share any details or impressions?
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Post by dem bones on Jun 11, 2016 18:19:07 GMT
Wagner ... is creeping ominously closer to top of my too-read pile. Basil Copper provides a detailed, spoiler-heavy synopsis in his The Werewolf: In Legend, Fact & Art (Robert Hale, 1977), incorporating a (very exciting) chapter-length extract. Author is G. W. M. Reynolds, btw, not the equally prolific Rymer.
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daniel1976
Crab On The Rampage
hello all,
Posts: 39
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Post by daniel1976 on Jun 11, 2016 18:27:51 GMT
my mistake about the last name. any impressions?
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Post by dem bones on Jun 11, 2016 18:52:27 GMT
my mistake about the last name. any impressions? Mr TheCoffinFlies has a few words to say about it here
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Post by David A. Riley on Jun 11, 2016 19:42:31 GMT
my mistake about the last name. any impressions? Mr TheCoffinFlies has a few words to say about it hereI must confess I have a copy of the Wordsworth edition of Wagner the Wrewolf and recently made a stab at reading it, but I couldn't really get involved with any of the characters and abandoned it for something a bit meatier - the latest John Connolly, I think.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jun 12, 2016 0:28:37 GMT
my mistake about the last name. any impressions? Those Victorian penny dreadfuls are pretty hard going - they were serialised in weekly penny parts and the publisher would keep the hacks writing them until sales started to drop, then they would wind up the story. That's why some of them - like Varney the Vampire - are so long and tedious. Mind you, Reynolds is better then most of them.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 12, 2016 8:34:28 GMT
Those Victorian penny dreadfuls are pretty hard going - they were serialised in weekly penny parts and the publisher would keep the hacks writing them until sales started to drop, then they would wind up the story. That's why some of them - like Varney the Vampire - are so long and tedious. Mind you, Reynolds is better then most of them. I had a great time with Varney The Vampyre. Read it in that beautiful three volume Dover edition with the original illo's which, incredibly, I found on the shelves of the old Whitechapel Library (R.I.P.) next door to the Art Gallery. Those were the days! Doubt I'd have the stamina to repeat the experience and, welcome as it is, the shelf-busting Wordsworth edition is 1166 pages of relatively tiny print.
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Post by helrunar on Jun 12, 2016 12:18:59 GMT
I have a funny memory about Varney the Vampire. I'd read the one chapter that showed up in several anthologies in the late Sixties or early Seventies--I'm pretty sure the book in which I found it was edited by Peter Haining, as I grabbed everything he put out that was in reach, back then.
Anyhow the high school librarian got some kind of grant from higher authority for new acquisitions and asked a group of us who were known to be die-hard book gobblers for recommendations. Well, I told her we should buy Varney. Incredibly, she bought TWO copies of it, one a very elegant edition with a bat motif on spine, from Arno Press I think--it was a very expensive book by the standards of the early 1970s.
I checked it out, took it home, and found myself getting nowhere fast with it. In all fairness, by the time this happened I had a lot of academic responsibilities and had also started writing the occasional article for a zine called Gore Creatures, keeping up a lively correspondence with a few film buffs and zine editors in Baltimore. But what I recall is that the "penny dreadful" manner of storytelling, as executed by the noble pen of Thomas Preskett Prest, just failed to ring my sixteen year old chimes.
H.
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Post by helrunar on Jun 12, 2016 16:38:52 GMT
Talking of werewolf novels, I wonder if anyone has read The wolf in the garden by Alfred H. Bill. I used to own the 1972 Centaur Press edition. Several years ago I finally read the thing, then sent it to a friend who collects rare werewolf novels. www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?196379The book had a slightly slow beginning, then really took off. The Count de Saint Loup is an interesting character in the vein of Count Fosco in The Woman in White. I'm afraid I don't recall all that much about the story. If memory serves, there was an 18th century American setting which made it interesting along with some other details. I recall this as being one of the stories where the wolf transformation occurred with the aid of a magic pelt. I am doubtful that it would be something that those who have posted on this thread would enjoy, but thought it worth mentioning. H.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 12, 2016 18:22:34 GMT
Alfred H. Bill - The Wolf In The Garden (Centaur, Feb. 1972: originally Longmans Green, 1931) Virgil Finlay Blurb: WEREWOLF THRILLER Here is a marvellous werewolf thriller set in upstate New York in the days close after the American Revolution. A series of bizarre and horrifying events besiege the village of New Dortrecht with the advent of the French Comte de Saint Loup and his hound DeRetz. A giant wolf, possessed with evil intelligence and savage fury, sates its desire for blood in a series of horrifying and supernatural killings.
THE WOLF IN THE GARDEN is destined to become a classic werewolf tale. First published in 1931, this long-forgotten novel may be the finest werewolf thriller ever written.Have had this for such a long time I can no remember if I ever read it. Neither the blurb or your comments ring any bells. Gonna have to stick around a lot longer than intended if I'm to tackle stupid to read/ re-read pile. Peter Haining sampled Varney ... in at least four anthologies to my knowledge, usually the opening chaper, which Augustus Hare also recycled as The Vampire Of Croglin Grange. Certain "experts" still cite Hare's mischief as "proof" that their beloved undead exist.
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Post by pulphack on Jun 13, 2016 4:57:25 GMT
Whilst we're at it on the werewolves, has anyone else read Gerald Biss' Door Of The Unreal? I posted a tumbleweed thread in the Gruesome Cargoes section last year, and would love to know what anyone else made of it. If anyone else here now has actually found a copy (mine was an accidental find rather than a search).
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Post by Dr Strange on Jun 13, 2016 11:30:13 GMT
Whilst we're at it on the werewolves, has anyone else read Gerald Biss' Door Of The Unreal? I posted a tumbleweed thread in the Gruesome Cargoes section last year, and would love to know what anyone else made of it. If anyone else here now has actually found a copy (mine was an accidental find rather than a search). I read it a few years back when I found a copy of the Ash-Tree edition in a local second hand bookshop. Overall, I was a bit disappointed - it seemed to have a very long, drawn-out "set-up", which probably would have worked much better if I hadn't already known what the story was about. And the ending, I thought, was ridiculous - especially the ease with which the main character got the police to agree to his "theory" and his plan for dealing with the situation. I think the book it most reminded me of was Richard Marsh's The Beetle, which, when I eventually got round to reading it, I also didn't enjoy nearly as much as I had hoped I would.
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Post by helrunar on Jun 13, 2016 14:15:54 GMT
Thanks for that great scan, Dem Bones!
I thought the story was an enjoyable romp of its kind. I think there's more than a mere soupcon of hyperbole in describing it as the "finest werewolf classic" of ye days of yore. But reading this thread did make me realize that the novel was somewhat more exceptional in terms of its subject matter than I had realized at the time.
H.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 13, 2016 18:44:59 GMT
Whilst we're at it on the werewolves, has anyone else read Gerald Biss' Door Of The Unreal? I posted a tumbleweed thread in the Gruesome Cargoes section last year, and would love to know what anyone else made of it. If anyone else here now has actually found a copy (mine was an accidental find rather than a search). I read it a few years back when I found a copy of the Ash-Tree edition in a local second hand bookshop. Overall, I was a bit disappointed - it seemed to have a very long, drawn-out "set-up", which probably would have worked much better if I hadn't already known what the story was about. And the ending, I thought, was ridiculous - especially the ease with which the main character got the police to agree to his "theory" and his plan for dealing with the situation. I think the book it most reminded me of was Richard Marsh's The Beetle, which, when I eventually got round to reading it, I also didn't enjoy nearly as much as I had hoped I would. Never even see, let alone read a copy, but here's Neil Barron's Shorts and sweet review in Horror Literature: A Readers Guide (Garland, 1990). E. F. Bleiler concludes his synopsis in The Guide To Supernatural Fiction (Kent State University, 1983) "Routine mystery, ending sloughed off rather hastily, without much thought."
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Post by pulphack on Jun 14, 2016 4:41:33 GMT
Blelier succinct and on the money there, really. I wobn't repeat what I said, but it does read more like a thriller of the era that has supernatural elements as a novelty than as an all-out piece of supernatural fiction. There is much to enjoy, but I must concur that the ease with the which the police go along with a werewolf theory is a little astonishing, and I think Biss missed a trick for upping the suspense. I also agree that the set-up would have been more effective if I hadn't come to the book with the knowledge that it was about a werewolf - if I'd found an old hardback copy without a dustjacket, it would have been a bit more of a surprise... I did enjoy the book a lot, but it required a tad more suspension of disbelief than the average thriller of the period, and it did also leave me wondering what it would have been like in the hands of, say, Sydney Horler... oh yes... that might have been worth a look!
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