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Post by pulphack on Nov 16, 2021 15:03:04 GMT
I've only read one novel by LP Davies - The Psychogeist - which I picked up purely because it was published by Herbert Jenkins, a publisher I have a fondness for. Most of their fiction was library list stuff, apart from Wodehouse, particularly post-WW2. This means that the quality is variable, but more importantly in context here it generally meant that the writers were one or two book a year writers who might earn a little on the side, but did not have the output or sales figures to be full time or mainstream, and so break into the leagues where their reputation is perpetuated.
The Psychogesit was a good book, actually - a little dour in the telling, but a compelling tale of a mysterious stranger and an alien in a cave which turn out to be the psychic projections of a nearby villager in a near-coma in his bedroom, whose mind is revisiting a pulp comic he read as a boy and creating it in the flesh. As I recall (I don't have it now and it was a few years back)the alien stranger became a threat and only persihed when the man creating himself succumbed to his illness. It's told from the perspective of the creature, the dying man, and also from a third person perspective. It examines identity through this, and is very astute at keeping the truth (ie that the creature is a mental construct and that the dying man is actually linked to this) hidden - you spend most of the novel trying to work out how the strands of narrative will tie up.
I didn't get on with his style enough to want to actively go out and get other books by him, though if I ever stumbled across them as I did this, I would pick them up, but he was certainly an interesting writer who deserved more attention than he got. Being stuck with a library publisher ensured publication, but was a ghetto for many who could have reached a wider audience.
Well worth checking out.
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david
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 45
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Post by david on Nov 16, 2021 21:10:53 GMT
Interesting information on Herbert Jenkins. Thanks. Doubleday published most of his novels in the U.S. Not sure of the differential between sales to libraries and regular sales in the U.S. A lot of my Davies books are library discards, but that could just be because I bought them well after their publication date, and I tend to haunt library sales. Apparently his books sold well enough so that 2 were adapted for film and one for tv, and several were translated into foreign languages.
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Post by Middoth on Nov 22, 2021 9:47:41 GMT
The London Mysteries of L.P. Davies (Ramble House, 2021)
Vol.1 Introduction The Way of the East The Prisoner The Sight of Blood A Touch of Murder No Vacancies Oasis Incident The Wall of Time The Wrong One Davey The Idol of Baked Clay The Crooked Smile The Flying Fox Infiltrant The Messenger The Last Evil The Word of Willy Spender Mandragora Sapiens Blow That Horn Frontier The Happiest Days . . . The Story of Leonard Vincent Survival The Rain-Makers Tea-Time The Doctor’s Story The Gold Plate The Man Who Lost His Past The Man With No Face Mirror Boy The Morgan Trust The Valley After the Great Light The Ju-Ju No School on Friday The Fourth Compartment Mr. Always Mrs. Pensum’s Statue The Self-Made Man Vol.2 Not On Sundays The Dream Pedlar The Addict The New Life Dressed to Kill The Miracle Workers Members Only Botany Bay Gilda Sleeping Beauty Time and Again The Witch’s Daughter The Seventh Man Mermaid Beach The Gate Time in Hand The Shadow Before BT 563 Death of a Witch Breaking Point Bait The Man Who Liked to Talk The Sleeping Man Weeds The Neighbour The Alien The Day of the Dog Poplar Cottage “Sorry, Mr. Hepple” 140,000 Red Toadstools Think Big To Maidy—a Son Interference Second Time Round The Monsters The Parasite Spare Part Number Eighteen Jenny End Game
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Post by sadako on Oct 12, 2023 20:30:26 GMT
Just watching William Castle’s Project X (1967), based on Davies’ The Artificial Man and Psychogeist. Am keen to find the novels to see how close the movie is. Have had this edition of his novel The Alien, filmed as The Groundstar Conspiracy, for years. Haven’t followed up on what else he wrote till now. Am also looking forward to some of his horror-edged stories and novels.
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