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Post by vaughan on Sept 19, 2009 20:13:39 GMT
Perfect!
Thanks for helping me out!
Looks like an interesting collection of stories. Although i usually read novels, it's nice to have a break every now and again.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 19, 2009 8:13:45 GMT
and introduces Quiver of Horror - Tales of Strange Happenings.
Just picked up this short story collection. I'm sure someone had a cover scan of it. I'll come back later and list the contents if need be - it contains 14 short stories, one of them is by Wheatley.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 17, 2009 13:42:27 GMT
I had a thought.
If you don't want to read both The Exorcist and Legion back to back, then consider at least reading the Epilogue from The Exorcist before starting the second book. If only to refresh your memory........
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Post by vaughan on Sept 17, 2009 9:34:48 GMT
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Post by vaughan on Sept 17, 2009 9:31:20 GMT
William Peter Blatty - Legion (Fontana, 1984.) Blurb: Eleven years ago The Gemini killer finished with his trail of death, leaving twenty-six mutilated bodies, all with a name beginning in 'K'. Eleven years ago The Gemini had been hit with a rain of bullets when climbing the Golden Gate Bridge. His body was never found. Now, as new victims fall, Detective Kinderman is faced with an impossible fact: the new Gemini could not be or have known about the old. When the exorcism was performed, the evil did not die.We’re all readers. And what is reading if not the manipulation of words? Words that mean one thing when standing alone, are altered and changed by the words around them. Brief pieces of connective tissue, such as "if", "and", and "the", string together more complex meanings until ideas are transformed from the mind of one and planted into the mind of another. It’s the very essence of why we read in the first place. Coming to “Legion” immediately after reading the Exorcist, this is what came to my mind. If I had to ponder upon which character (or in truth characters) would carry over from the first book to the next, Lieutenant Kinderman would have been some way from the top of my list. He appears in the first novel, and while it wouldn’t be correct to say his was a minor role, you’d not call him the central focus either. On the other hand, The Exorcist is overcome by the author’s desire to shock, until many of us have forgotten what the book is truly about. But more on that later. So, Kinderman is a cop. In Legion he is on the case of what appears to be a copy cat serial killer. However, to say this book is about a mysterious serial killer is a rather shameful slight of hand. This is easier to explain with reference to The Exorcist. Ask someone, just about anyone, what the Exorcist is about and you’ll hear something like “It’s about a young girl who gets possessed by a demon. It’s caused by Mike Oldfield.” Okay, I added that bit about Mike Oldfield myself – but you get the gist. And yes, The Exorcist is indeed about a young girl who is possessed and does all kinds of unimaginable things to herself. However, like all good works of art, the book isn’t only about that. In fact, when you read the novel you find quite a bit of philosophy, lots of talk about grief, loss, the nature of faith, aging. Indeed, the majority of the book is about these things, but it all gets lost because of the action; the events, are so outlandish, so shocking, that you kind of forget all that other stuff. It’s exciting, and over-excitement of the senses tends to make us forget many of the details – it all becomes one big wash of sensations. However, with Legion – the professed “sequel” to The Exorcist - author William Peter Blatty pushes the central story of a copycat serial killer (or is it?) into the background. In fact it’s a long way back. It reappears at intervals infrequently, just when you begin to wonder if it’ll ever come back into the frame at all. Yet the cover blurb is adamant what the book is about, it uses words such as death, mutilated, bullets, exorcism. But don’t be fooled, these are the minor players on show here. Probably made it a better seller though. Kinderman – our hero – is a man who is ill (emphysema) and is preparing to draw up his final accounts. A Jew, he wonders long about the nature of the world. Is there a God? Why does God allow evil to occur? What is the nature of evil? What is the probability of change? What happens after death? Where did the world come from? It’s all probabilities and possibilities, and every time he see’s a little light in the world it’s extinguished by time on the job – he works in homicide. Time is short, and Kinderman knows it, not only for himself, but for everyone. And these questions become an intrinsic part of who he is, how he thinks and feels, and therefore how he goes about investigating his cases (the ultimate case, after all, is the creation of the Universe and Man.) As such Legion is a procedural book. But not a bog standard police procedural, rather it’s a spiritual one. There are many references to studies from philosophers, doctors, scientists, and theologians, things that Kinderman ponders both periphery to the story at hand, and central to them. Each step of the way you’ll start thinking of these things too, even if you’re not wholly agreeing with him (such as in the case of the evolutionary path of reptiles eggs – but you’ll have to read the book to find out more on that). The point is – this is what Legion is about, this is the central theme that often overwhelms the more blatantly over-cooked pieces of the novel. And you can’t really miss it; you can’t avoid it, nor forget it. Legion isn’t, in this regard, the same as the Exorcist. In The Exorcist the different layers are torn asunder by the events in that bedroom over the stairs to M Street, but not so in Legion. The balance has changed quite considerably. It is best to have read The Exorcist before you come to Legion. I have now read them both – back to back – and I can tell you from my standpoint that reading both definitely allows for some of the surprises and shocks to truly hit home. I won’t spoil any of them for you here. Suffice to say there are two specific instances I have in mind, and one of those was so shocking I actually stopped reading at that point and went to have a cup of tea, returning only after 30 minutes had passed. No exaggeration. So Legion really packs a wallop. It’s also fairly heavy reading. As such it is sometimes interesting to ponder the nature of popular culture. Once you recognize it for what it is, you can spot the things that’ll bother the majority of people without thinking too hard. In the case of these two Blatty books the masses were helped out by cinema. Cinema can’t be bothered with all this introspective pondering – it usually requires the much maligned voiceover. No, cinema isn’t a book, the effect is different, the demands are different, the modus operandi alters and obscures the details, synthesizing them into titillating images (whirling cameras, panning shots, zooms, colour saturated night etc.) In truth, for those involved unconsciously with “popular culture” are best advised to seek out the movies (note that The Exorcist II movie is NOT based on Legion). Those who like their entertainment to fight back a bit, to have their brain stretched to ask the difficult questions, will want to start with the books. I’ll say this – if you’re only seen The Exorcist movies then you’ve not read the Exorcist books. Sounds obvious? Sure it is, but in the case of these works it’s doubly true, and in the books there is something else entirely going on, which is a surprise (and in reviews I’ve read has caused some to call a lot of the novel “boring”). There are mysterious happenings here, of course. There are gruesome murders, plenty of evil, and a boatload of loss. So don’t think I’m saying the book isn’t a good read if you’re into possession stories, or even detective works. It might suit. However, these elements are merely the top blankets in a well made bed. And with winter coming on, don’t we all want to be tucked up nice and warm, to experience every layer of our bedding? So, Legion is a good book. Another very good book from Blatty. It is in many ways the perfect sequel. Not only because it resurrects some familiar characters, but because I believe it might well tell the story the way Blatty might, on reflection, have liked The Exorcist to be. Or maybe with all the money and notoriety, he’d have changed nothing. I probably wouldn’t have! Read this book. You really should. Double-bill it with The Exorcist. But if you don’t want to do that then fine, read it as a standalone. I just don’t think the impact will be quite the same. To end I want to refer back to my first paragraph. Words. Our lead in Legion is Kinderman, and when I finished this book I thought about his name. Kind, Kinder. Kinder-man. A kinder man. Yes, that describes him perfectly. Yes, he is a very kind man, a man whose soul is aching, faith is hardening, and his worries many. There is justice in him, right to his core. There is a kindness, a kindness to his fellow man as he takes those that stray from the path and brings them to justice in order to help the poor downtrodden victims to cleanse themselves. He discovers the importance and value of being kind, intrinsically kind. As the book moves on – carrying on from The Exorcist where he performs another cleansing act on Regan et al – he becomes an even kinder man. But Faith? God? Demons? Satan? Good and Evil? Our challenges are many, our potential for failure legion.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 16, 2009 20:36:13 GMT
You both are far too kind.
And no, I'm quite some way from being a writer. I've written four short stories recently (some posted here) and have an outline for a novel I'd like to write one day, if only for myself. However, my hero is Guy N. Smith, so if I ever get around to starting it I can assure you it'd read nothing like Blatty. ;D
I have started Legion - and so far so good!
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Post by vaughan on Sept 15, 2009 4:07:21 GMT
Night Boat!
Read this recently (there's a thread around here somewhere).
An excellent read!
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Post by vaughan on Sept 15, 2009 4:06:18 GMT
William Peter Blatty - The Exorcist (Corgi, 1972, 1973, 1974, etc.) Blurb: `THE EXORCIST is a tremendous novel.,.. fast, powerful and completely gripping ... more than merely an accomplished horror story... the Devil is here, in this icy little room in a house in Washington. D.C., in the body of this all-American child... a stunning achievement.' - Sunday Express
No reader of this extraordinary, utterly compelling novel of satanism and possession will put it down unmoved by the plight of Regan, the agony of her mother and the courage of the two Jesuit priests who battle for Regan's soul...The first beer is the best beer: The taste, the texture, feeling its coldness running down your throat into the pit of your stomach, that first rush of alcohol to the bloodstream. The second beer is pretty good. By the time you reach the third beer, well, you’ve settled into things, and the third beer will taste pretty much like the fourth, the fifth – and each one until you fall over. And so to pulp horror. I love pulp horror, it’s part of a group of entertainment that in its entirety asks a lot of the viewer (the stretching of ones imagination and acceptance of the impossible as merely improbable) to asking nothing (brief outlines of characters, caricatures, brief descriptions always giving way to action and glib dialog). It’s a perfect blend of disparate elements that come together to entertain. It’s an entertainment that flows over you, you don’t have to work at it. And when it’s done, you can leave it behind to get on with more important things. I’ve been reading a lot of pulp lately, and with the odd exception I’ve enjoyed myself greatly. But I came to a point where I needed to clean my palette. And how to do that? Read some Graham Swift perhaps? Take a break from reading entirely? Maybe even get out of the house! Nah. Stick with the horror. But I needed something different, weightier, for many I suppose, something better. William Peter Blatty’s “The Exocist” was just the ticket. A revisit of a work I’d read many moons ago. One boot sale and 50p purchase later I was ready to tackle a work that had transcended the genre and become part of modern classic literature. And you know, this book is really very good. Very very good, in fact. Blatty’s writing is simply superb, his characterisation rich and deep, and his sense of the absurd so crystallized, it’s literally frightening. One feels, as you read, that Blatty could turn his enormous writing skills to any subject and he’d be worth reading. This is wonderful stuff, legion in its quality. But it’s not pulp. Approaching the Exorcist, or rather in approaching thinking about the novel, I was accosted by the story, the characters, the fine climax that answers enough questions but leaves doubts that strip you of feeling truly in the know. But more, I was struck by two things: this is not pulp; this novel is overcome by the movie. Why is this not pulp? There are countless pulp possession novels, but what sets this one aside from the rest of them? Many that followed the publication of this book in 1972 have borrowed, stolen, and emulated the formula. The Exorcist came to define this sub-genre, pretty much as James Herbert's The Rats did for animal attack novels. No, it isn’t the story itself that sets it aside. I’m not at all sure I have a full answer. One thing that struck me though was what is glibly described as ‘characterisation’. One feels that Blatty will never let the fantastic story he’s writing get in the way of the people. The people are central here, their convictions, their beliefs, their fears, their life away from the Regan and her mother. These people come together to tackle the startling events in the narrative, but they come together as individuals. This seems rare in pulp, because there isn’t enough time. The narrative, the plot, is the purpose, the central thrust. Everything else is secondary (not gone, but diminished). Fair enough. This isn’t an attack or complaint about pulp. Indeed, it’s why I love it so much. I just wanted to understand why, in the end, The Exorcist is such a good book, and why too many people out there, it’s a better book. It’s not the events, it’s all the things in between the events. Make sense? Moving forward – the biggest encumbrance to the book is, strangely, the movie. For many people (based on online reviews of the movie and book I’ve been reading) the movie is the real deal, the event, the story. The book comes second, and might even be ignored entirely. Such is the power of cinema, condensing 320 pages of a novel to a two-hour (and a bit) visual extravaganza, it has actually come to consume the original text. The old saying: “The book is better than the movie” doesn’t seem to ring true for many people. The film has had an impact that surpasses the story itself, it’s a cultural icon of sorts. That’s a good thing – especially for horror cinema that could always do with more icons – but it’s also had the effect of pushing the novel itself onto the back burner a little. Which is a real shame, because the novel has a lot to offer. Novels aren’t movies, or if they are they’re movies for our MINDS rather than our eyes. Blatty gives us so much to work with, it’s a pity to allow a film to colour any of it for us. But can you set aside a monumental piece of influential cinema entirely? Can you come to the book as though it’s something new? Must there always be a “this is better than that” mentality, rather than simply a “this and that”? If you’ve not read the novel then you’ve probably seen the film. Or maybe you’ve managed to miss both. To the readers on this site, and this after all a site about BOOKS, I’d say that if you have missed reading this one, then I highly recommend you grab a copy as soon as possible. At best you’ll be amazed at the quality on show, the extremes of both anger, violence, hate and vileness – as compared to the examination of the soul, of beliefs, of quietness and solitude– that the book contains. It’s extraordinary. At worst it’ll clean your palette for the next round of pulp. It’s not a bad deal then. You can read the Exorcist and be thoroughly entertained, or you can read it and at the very least get to taste that first beer again when you dig into a new piece of pulp. What a deal. Blatty’s The Exorcist is an incredible read. Don’t miss out.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 14, 2009 22:57:32 GMT
The Haunted House of Horror is a personal favorite of mine - with excellent echoes of a good giallo. The final scenes are genuinely scary.
Beast in the Cellar is great too, with Beryl Reid stealing the show for me.
As for Blood Beast Terror - it's difficult to find fans of this one - yet here are three of us all in a row! I think it's a wonderful film with an admittedly strange premise. Saw it as a kid and the blood seeping out from the cupboard is engraved on my mind.
Nice to see fans of these! I have most of those DD Video releases around here somewhere - the only one I didn't get, funnily enough, was Blood Beast Terror because I already had the R1 version.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 13, 2009 22:11:09 GMT
Don't forget Tigon - they made some good ones. There is a decent boxset of movies out there from Anchor Bay (in the UK).
Horror films changed quite radically from the early 70's onwards: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Last House on the Left etc.
Hammer didn't move with the times and just became outdated. They moved in "mysteries" and such, more psychological in nature. The final Hammer film, of course, was To the Devil a Daughter, which was a disaster from start to finish.
I'm sure I have a book on Tyburn around here somewhere..........
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Post by vaughan on Sept 13, 2009 22:07:41 GMT
Don't be sorry - tis fair enough!
There are some good set pieces, and the story itself isn't too bad of its type. It's only some of the writing and structure that I found extremely weak.
I have a lot more of his books and will give him another go later.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 13, 2009 13:26:48 GMT
I read this over the las couple of days. It really is a book that should easily be read in one sitting - but I'm on some painkillers right now, and one of the side effects is that they make you sleep. Dammit.
Anyway - this is a decent book for sure. In fact, after the nightmare read that was Hutson's Deathday, it was a relief to get back to some good old action. GNS is such a hero, he really knows what he's doing.
The story is short, and that's just fine. Perfect in fact. There are the usual assortment of over-the-top bad guys, strangers who meet and is instantly fall in love, and a few you're legitimately sad to see go.
If I had to pick fault (after all, this isn't PERFECT) it's the final couple of chapters. They've been welded on to wrap things around to Night of the Crabs, but they don't really fit with the book overall. In fact, the story of Cranlarich just gets abandoned.
But hey - this is a CRABS book! And it's all good.
Enjoyable one this - and simply essential. This is the reason I read horror novels!
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Post by vaughan on Sept 10, 2009 11:33:25 GMT
ps: 384 pages!
384 pages of THIS!
Ouch.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 10, 2009 11:17:53 GMT
Well, last night I finished this book. That's something to be grateful for!
The book doesn't get any better. I started the book by being genuinely interested, then started to laugh AT the book. Eventually though that wore off, and I was left dazed by the repetition, the silliness, and madcap plotting.
Apologies upfront to fans of this one, but for me this is grade Z stuff, with a germ of a good idea hiding beyond poor poor writing. A decent editor would have done wonders for it.
So okay, Hutson was 19 when he wrote this one - so I'll cut him some slack. But make no mistake, it READS like it written by a 17 year old. So that's not saying much. When the decision was made to finally print it, why didn't they do an edit and tidy up the prose?
Terms that drove me mad: "Big salt tears", "Fetid breath", "Red orbs", "particles in the air", "wincing" (at either cold tea or cold coffee - tea and coffee instantly goes cold in this book), "Big gulp".
There are many many more. In fact, in this book Hutson seems to have one description in any given situation, and he uses it over and over. Sometimes in subsequent paragraphs. It's incredibly tedious.
Characterization is weak in the extreme too. Our lead, Lambert (a 22 year old Inspector heading up a force of ten men?!?) clearly has mental issues. He likes someone one minute, and hates them the next (usually in the same conversation). He rants, raves, and offers no leadership at all. I couldn't get a handle on the guy at all.
I wanted his wife to die. She SITS ON HIS KNEE for half the book it seems. As soon as they were in the room together I counted the words before she perched herself upon his leg.
The plotting is nonsensical (and I'm not talking about the fantastical elements of the plot here, they're accepted of course.)
**MINOR SPOILERS**
There's a black magician who, if joined together with a medallion, can raise the dead. So..... back in the 1500's..... they BURIED HIM AFTER PLACING THE MEDALLION AROUND HIS NECK. Erm.... why not destroy it, or keep it somewhere far away from the magician?!?
A character solves the riddle of the medallion, but says to our hero: "Look I want nothing to do with it, sorry." So his wife has to translate two whole books of Latin because he refuses to even tell what it's all about!
The medallion has a code on it. A CODE! You know what the code is? The words are written BACKWARDS. They notice it earlier on in the book, but when it comes time for the wife to translate, she FORGETS this important fact and it takes her DAYS to remember. The phrase in question is three words in length....
A policeman is killed during a gun fight. Lambert - our hero Inspector - asks where he's gone, concluding: "Oh well, he probably run off." No-one ever looks for the cop again, the police force simply forget him. Days go by! Nothing, no-one cares.
I'm paraphrasing so not to spoil things too much - but here is an encounter (in my words) between our hero and the Head of Divisional headquarters:
"Sir, I need six extra men to deal with 90 disappearances in my town." "What's happened to them?" "They've turned into zombies." "Well that's rubbish!" "Yes sir, but true." "Well, you're obviously yanking my chain, you can't have anyone!" "How about some guns?" "Have you ever used a gun, have your men?" "Nope." "Well.... alright then. Pull your car up out back, we have a stock of whatever you want in the basement. A pump action shotgun for every one of your men, a couple of brownings, and as much ammunition as your Capri can hold. Will that do you?"
"That'll do nicely."
I mean come on....
**END OF SPOILERS**
I found this book a real struggle. There is clearly a germ of a really good story here, but it's made ridiculous by all the problems mentioned - and many many more.
Basically it's the craft of writing that fails badly - plotting, characterization, setting a scene, a lack of variation in the descriptions, the same words being repeated over and over... the best part of this book is the cover.
I do NOT recommend.
Unless you're going on a quiz show and your subject is "Early Hutson".
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Post by vaughan on Sept 9, 2009 18:02:10 GMT
I'm reading this right now. And yes, I have a copy with the cover shown here in fairly good condition.
However, I'm finding it a real slog to get through.
There is an author comment at the start of the book telling us he wrote it when he was 19 - and boy does it show!
We have Lambert (the lead) and his wife having sex half the time, usually after talking about a grisly death - we have cell doors in a police station that are "twelve inches thick". We have a doctor being called to the cell because the prisoner is smashing everything up and bleeding profusely who says: "Well, there's nothing I can do, just leave him until morning" - even though we're told the sink has been torn from the wall and water is pouring everywhere. We have a medallion with mysterious words on it - THEY MIGHT BE LATIN - the first word of which is: Mortis. Yet a head librarian has no clue, and an antiques dealer doesn't either. We have an EMPTY bottle of whiskey thrown at a wall where the "brown liquid flowed down the wallpaper" (?!?!?) We've got a man, having been tied down, who tears himself free only to be overcome when daylight arrives. So what do they do? Take him to a hospital and tie him down in even more flimsy restraints.....and.................. I could go on and on.
I mean, I've actually started laughing AT the book as I'm reading.
Clearly this is earlier Hutson, and I won't hold it against him. But the writing and plotting here is really quite terrible. I'm sure he mastered his craft as he went on..... but this is my starting point, and it's really very poor, imo.
Sorry to jump in with negativity. Maybe people can read it for a laugh. ;D
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