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Post by Knygathin on Sept 25, 2023 9:37:37 GMT
Does your experience confirm what Ed Fitch asserted in the documentary above, that if you use Pagan magic to do harm against another (such as revenge for a perceived injustice), it will hit back upon the practitioner threefold?
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 23, 2023 13:42:10 GMT
I began reading "Guts". It is perverse, so I stopped. Not the kind of thing I was looking for.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 23, 2023 12:48:45 GMT
And I've no idea why, but this dreadful 744 page edition of Lovecraft for $35 published by Golgotha Press in 2011 - it has a potted biography of HPL, a thematic and plot round up for each story, but the layout is bizarre and is clearly a POD effort: Yes, looks truly awful. I don't know why digital texts put a space between each paragraph (they give some lame excuse about it being "easier to read", which it is NOT), but I think it ought to be criminalized. It is ugly, fractionated, and most importantly, they vandalize the authors's texts. And genuinely intended spaces become lost, and therefore meaningless. About the cover: If the photo had been placed a centimeter lower down, the pointless corner glimpse of a road would have been out of the picture, and the mountain tops freed from the "H.P. Lovecraft" name strip (or if this had been raised higher up). Sloppy careless design. Sign of the times.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 21, 2023 18:02:51 GMT
I enjoyed Queen of Blood more than Planet of the Vampires because of Florence Marly's creepy, weirdo, totally nonverbal performance. ... Indeed. She reminds me of Barlow in Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot (1979). That's how creepy she is.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 21, 2023 9:55:03 GMT
I've seen Planet of the Vampires and it was interesting, obviously influenced Alien, but I disliked the ending. Queen of Blood (1966) may also have inspired Alien. It is an English-speaking film, but uses footage from earlier Soviet films Nebo Zovyot (1959) and Mechte Navstrechu (1963). The monster in Queen of Blood was influenced from Clark Ashton Smith's short story "The Flower Women".
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 19, 2023 11:57:57 GMT
Comparing this bland artwork with the original vibrant Jeff Jones paintings for the Ace paperbacks, there is a certain quality of magic missing. This dearth of magic in artwork seems to have become a solidly entrenched habit since after the 1980s.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 19, 2023 10:52:47 GMT
Do you remember Fafhrd's love affair with the translucent woman? One of the best episodes in the whole series. I didn't get that far. And probably never will. Ok. I hope you find some other good books.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 19, 2023 10:48:15 GMT
Many years ago, on one of my secondhand bookstore rounds, one dealer had received a collection of sf paperbacks, and I recognized a few by Jack Vance. I asked if he had more books by Vance. He first smirked (because he was a rather highbrow, jaded aristocrat, stuck in his ways, not interested in sf/fantasy) and asked rhetorically, "Jack Vance, ho-hum, mm-mm hmm, yes, could he be something worth reading now, mm-mm?", then replied, "Well, if you are a good customer, and actively buy what is on the shelf, I will bring out more."
Comments like that make me loose all desire to visit again.
But I am sure he was a good gentleman in other ways. He is gone now. God bless him.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 19, 2023 6:23:45 GMT
I am currently rereading Fritz Leiber's Swords series with much attention. The best short stories are mostly his earliest collected in Swords Against Death. On the whole, his later stories are less good, with the longer ones being padded out and tedious. That is the reason I stopped reading The Swords of Lankhmar on my third attempt. I agree that some of the longer stories felt padded. My favorite story is still probably the beginning of Swords Against Death - that introduces Sheelba's hut for the first time - and "The Jewels in the Forest". However, The Swords of Lankhmar is not padded. Do you remember Fafhrd's love affair with he translucent woman? One of the best episodes in the whole series.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 18, 2023 22:15:53 GMT
For some reason, much as I like the short stories, I did not take to The Swords of Lankhmar. In the light of what you thought of it, I will give it another go. The only reason I can think of why anyone would not like The Swords of Lankhmar, is if the reader was in too much of a hurry and not attentive enough.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 18, 2023 10:48:15 GMT
The most damage I experienced with paperbacks so far is the bleaching of the spine. Some spines have become blank. Alas, sunshine and daylight, the enemy of all books.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 16, 2023 20:49:50 GMT
Not sure that it's the done thing to reference one's own stories, ... WHY NOT. Famous writers do it all the time, promote their own work, blow their own trumpet, ... all the time. It is requisite for success. Without the ambition for glory - there will be no author, no poet. It is just as important as talent and work.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 14, 2023 3:01:16 GMT
And at the same time funny! You must have had some good laughs while you wrote it. My occasional chuckles were the kind that comes from shock at something which is over the top. It must be said that the setting was actually very miserable and depressing.
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 13, 2023 18:17:24 GMT
Not sure that it's the done thing to reference one's own stories, but I wrote one about unruly hairs ( Hairberg, published in Nightscript VIII last year). Can cut and paste it into a PM if of interest Thank you very much for "Hairberg". Yep, that was 'body horror' alright!! I suppose this is what is called 'kitchen sink realism', or bathroom sink horror realism. UUGH!!! Disgusting! Horrendous! And at the same time funny! You must have had some good laughs while you wrote it. Except the supernatural ending, which was very creepy - and original in concept!
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Post by Knygathin on Sept 12, 2023 21:12:15 GMT
Primitive Japanese animation with some bizarre ideas inspired by Bosch.
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