Truegho
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 135
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Post by Truegho on May 27, 2017 20:59:24 GMT
Browsing through charity shops, it's really amazing what little gems you can find in the used books. Today I was really pleased to stumble upon an old Ray Bradbury short story collection which I have never read. The book is called The Small Assassin, contains some of his horror stories, and was first published in 1976. Any of you read this book? If so, what was your favourite story in it?
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Post by Knygathin on May 28, 2017 7:14:59 GMT
I have not read this book, but when in my upper teens I had The October Country, which contained some of the same stories. I didn't like it, and sold it. I thought of him as a much too normal, sane, and nice guy, to write really great horror. Not atmospheric like Lovecraft at all.
I prefer Bradbury as science fiction writer, with The Martian Chronicles, "A Sound of Thunder", ... . And his celebration of American small town suburban settings (at the golden age, before it had deteriorated under too much global capitalism and mass immigration); I loved Something Wicked This Way Comes (it did have horror suited in that particular atmosphere).
Maybe I would enjoy his horror short stories more today ...?
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Post by ropardoe on May 28, 2017 13:00:33 GMT
I have not read this book, but when in my upper teens I had The October Country, which contained some of the same stories. I didn't like it, and sold it. I thought of him as a much too normal, sane, and nice guy, to write really great horror. Not atmospheric like Lovecraft at all. I prefer Bradbury as science fiction writer, with The Martian Chronicles, "A Sound of Thunder", ... . And his celebration of American small town suburban settings (at the golden age, before it had deteriorated under too much global capitalism and mass immigration); I loved Something Wicked This Way Comes (it did have horror suited in that particular atmosphere). Maybe I would enjoy his horror short stories more today ...? My favourite Bradbury is actually quite a controversial choice: it's his late (1980s) noir detective novel Death is a Lonely Business. But then, I have a huge weakness for anything set in Venice, California, in its old, oil polluted days (which is also why "The Black Gondolier" is one of my favourite Leiber tales, of course).
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Post by Knygathin on May 28, 2017 13:01:42 GMT
Hmmm, ... I just decided to reorder The October Country. I remember very little from it. But I think it may be an essential piece of Americana, after all, for those of us who prefer to live in the past. I hope it has nostalgic descriptions of old settings.
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Post by Knygathin on May 28, 2017 13:13:54 GMT
.. But then, I have a huge weakness for anything set in Venice, California, in its old, oil polluted days (which is also why "The Black Gondolier" is one of my favourite Leiber tales, of course). I guess any settings connected to ones early childhood, become nostalgic favorites ...? I must read "The Black Gondolier" soon! It has a very interesting premise. For what is oil drilling, really, other than grave digging and bringing to the surface the remains of the dead?
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Post by ropardoe on May 29, 2017 8:49:14 GMT
.. But then, I have a huge weakness for anything set in Venice, California, in its old, oil polluted days (which is also why "The Black Gondolier" is one of my favourite Leiber tales, of course). I guess any settings connected to ones early childhood, become nostalgic favorites ...? I must read "The Black Gondolier" soon! It has a very interesting premise. For what is oil drilling, really, other than grave digging and bringing to the surface the remains of the dead? Er, not sure what you're implying with that first line!? Oxford wasn't all that oil-polluted! I do urge you to read "The Black Gondolier". It's marvellous. Admittedly, the ending is predictable, but it's also inevitable, so the fact that we know it's coming isn't a letdown.
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Post by cromagnonman on May 29, 2017 10:12:41 GMT
THE SMALL ASSASSIN was actually first published as an Ace pb back in 1962. One of the more interesting aspects to it lies with the fact that it reprints a full half of the contents of Bradbury's very first book, that seminal venture into the macabre that is DARK CARNIVAL issued by Arkham House in 1947. This remains a book every bit as expensive as SKULL-FACE AND OTHERS and more so than the equally important THE OPENER OF THE WAY despite the latter having a thousand fewer copies printed. So THE SMALL ASSASSIN is a cheap and convenient excursion into some pretty prime macabre real estate. That said, at least half those contents again are in the revised format that Bradbury preferred and which he first published in THE OCTOBER COUNTRY. Revision is not a tendency I favour with regards to any author. It explains why Bradbury wouldn't allow DARK CARNIVAL to be reprinted for much of his lifetime. Even so, put them together and the two books give you, roughly, half again of the total number of stories that Bradbury published in Weird Tales.
Half, half and half again; its like some winnowing divisional ratio. I remember spending one entire winter in my teens completely entranced by Bradbury's work. I must have read seven or eight of his classic collections back to back. He seemed able to open up entire new territories and landscapes of the imagination denied to other writers. I haven't read anything by him in years now though. To my mind all his best work was completed by 1963. By the time he attempted a comeback in the mid 1980s it seemed to me as if either success or time had distanced him irrevocably from his inspiration. Or perhaps the cynicism of age had divorced me from his earlier appeal. Either way nothing in his later work ever succeeded in doing anything for me.
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Post by Knygathin on May 29, 2017 11:46:59 GMT
I guess any settings connected to ones early childhood, become nostalgic favorites ...? Er, not sure what you're implying with that first line!? Oxford wasn't all that oil-polluted! ... Ha ha, sorry, the thought struck me that maybe you were born and raised in Venice California, spending your childhood playing around the canals, surfing by the beach, ... :.)
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Post by Knygathin on May 29, 2017 11:55:55 GMT
... That said, at least half those contents again are in the revised format that Bradbury preferred and which he first published in THE OCTOBER COUNTRY. Revision is not a tendency I favour with regards to any author. It explains why Bradbury wouldn't allow DARK CARNIVAL to be reprinted for much of his lifetime. ... Perhaps he rubbed off the sharpest edges of horror in those stories?
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Post by cromagnonman on May 29, 2017 13:57:42 GMT
... That said, at least half those contents again are in the revised format that Bradbury preferred and which he first published in THE OCTOBER COUNTRY. Revision is not a tendency I favour with regards to any author. It explains why Bradbury wouldn't allow DARK CARNIVAL to be reprinted for much of his lifetime. ... Perhaps he rubbed off the sharpest edges of horror in those stories? Shell out £700 for a copy for me and I'll be delighted to let you know.
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Post by ropardoe on May 30, 2017 8:52:16 GMT
Er, not sure what you're implying with that first line!? Oxford wasn't all that oil-polluted! ... Ha ha, sorry, the thought struck me that maybe you were born and raised in Venice California, spending your childhood playing around the canals, surfing by the beach, ... :.) I wish. In England you don't get much further from the sea than Oxford, though we did spend our holidays in Ilfracombe (and Birkenhead!).
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Post by Michael Connolly on May 31, 2017 13:10:20 GMT
"The Handler", originally in Dark Carnival, and the best story in The Small Assassin, is the blackly funny story of an everyday small-town undertaker not doing what undertakers do every day (or night).
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Post by Knygathin on Aug 16, 2017 9:49:06 GMT
Have any of you read Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? What do you think? Are they worthwhile must-reads? They were always in our bookcase, but never got around to reading them. Are they similar to Bradbury in tone (but without the supernatural elements)?
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Post by Michael Connolly on Aug 16, 2017 12:16:18 GMT
Have any of you read Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? What do you think? Are they worthwhile must-reads? They were always in our bookcase, but never got around to reading them. Are they similar to Bradbury in tone (but without the supernatural elements)? I recently re-read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. There is nothing about the tone or content that reminded me of Ray Bradbury. However, of some interest are the many references to contemporary superstitions and folklore. Overall, I would recommend the book as it is very funny. For example, one female character has written a poem about a boy who drowned. While it is meant to be reverential, the fourth last line made me laugh. It is obviously a parody. It is an obituary poem by the deceased Emmeline Grangerford (who died before her fourteenth birthday) as printed in the Presbyterian Observer. Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots, Dec'd.And did young Stephen sicken, And did young Stephen die? And did the sad hearts thicken, And did the mourners cry? No; such was not the fate of Young Stephen Dowling Bots; Though sad hearts round him thickened, 'Twas not from sickness' shots. No whooping-cough did rack his frame, Nor measles drear, with spots; Not these impaired the sacred name Of Stephen Dowling Bots. Despised love struck not with woe That head of curly knots, Nor stomach troubles laid him low, Young Stephen Dowling Bots. O no. Then list with tearful eye, Whilst I his fate do tell. His soul did from this cold world fly, By falling down a well. They got him out and emptied him; Alas it was too late; His spirit was gone for to sport aloft In the realms of the good and great.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Aug 16, 2017 18:34:44 GMT
Mark Twain, hysterically funny. My brother used Tom Sawyer's 'painting the fence' routine on us for years. From The Small Assassin "The Lake" is in my top ten stories of all time and "The Crowd" is an absolute classic.
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