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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 23, 2019 18:08:28 GMT
Using the absolute last of my Christmas money netted me:
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 22, 2019 22:39:28 GMT
Having finally gotten a copy of the "proper" Star edition (I used the Tor version for my review despite showing the Star cover), I can now say that I just flat-out do not like Tor's movie tie-in version with its blurb "In the startling tradition of Jurassic Park!"
No, dang it!
Michael Crichton may have already had Jurassic Park as a script he was shopping around since the 70s but he wouldn't actually adapt that into a novel until the 90s! Meanwhile, Brosnan got Carnosaur out in the 80s, independently of Crichton, effectively beating him to the punch without even knowing it (I've found no evidence to suggest Brosnan was even aware of Crichton's proposed movie script and plans to turn it into a novel), so Tor's suggestion that he wrote Carnosaur as a quickie Jurassic Park cash-in (like how and why Roger Corman made the movie) is disingenuous and does a disservice to Mr. Brosnan.
I know the Harry Adam Knight books aren't "high literature," but literature's literature, and Brosnan deserves recognition for getting his "rich guy clones dinosaurs for a private zoo" story out first. And I hate, hate, hate that Corman decided to adapt the book as a Jurassic Park cash-in, making everyone think the book it was (loosely) based on is a Jurassic Park ripoff, too.
...all jokes aside, am I right? I mean, at the time Brosnan did Carnosaur, Jurassic Park was a gleam in Crichton's eye and had been for years and did exist as a script, but that script was AFAIK unpublished and he hadn't yet written it out as a book. Unless Brosnan somehow knew about the script, or even its basic idea, there's no way he could've ripped Crichton off, right? In my mind, it was just a case of simultaneous invention where two guys got more or less the same idea.
And boy did they ever take it down wildly different paths! I love Jurassic Park, but also think Carnosaur is a better story. It isn't high literature (neither is Jurassic Park), but it has something Crichton's book lacks - an engaging story and actual characters with personalities. Crichton seemed less interested in telling a story than getting on his usual regressive anti-science "technology is bad" soapbox, and the characters are either mouthpieces (Malcolm), strawmen (Hammond) or just cardboard cutouts (damn near everyone else).
Even with its ruthlessly economical whittling down of the cast and cutting of several major setpieces I would've loved to see on the big screen, as well as the fact it completely ruins two of the few decent characters in the book by having one develop a sudden case of the Stupids and die a lame-ass death ("Clever girl!" being a great line notwithstanding) and reducing the other to cowardly comic relief and having him die, too (and on the toilet, no less!), Spielberg's film is an improvement over Crichton's novel because David Koepp's script drastically reduces the anti-science/technology-is-bad diatribes and mostly avoids using strawmen, except for two instances; Gennaro is always wrong because he's the comic relief but it doesn't matter because he dies the way Star Wars fans wish Jar Jar had, and Hammond is taken to task for Ellie for having the audacity to try and learn from his mistakes and start over.
My problem with how Hammond's desire to start over is ridiculed by an angry Ellie is it's clearly Koepp using an age-old trope wherein scientists and entrepreneurs are apparently supposed to only try something once and then abandon it if it fails because in the minds of conservative Hollywood writers, if something doesn't work the first time out, especially something dangerous, then it wasn't meant to succeed. I also don't like how Koepp reduces how and why the park fails to just "Nedry did it" and ignores the admittedly technophobic but nevertheless more interesting and completely believable problem in the novel that even aside from Nedry's shenanigans, Jurassic Park is understaffed and over-reliant on automation, and said automation is cruddy either because Hammond cheaped out on everything (his constant claims to the contrary notwithstanding) or his programmers were short-sighted (such as programming the computers to only search for X amount of dinosaurs, meaning they didn't realize the damn things were multiplying until halfway through the story).
But even with all these issues, the movie is in many ways, as noted, an improvement over Crichton's work because Steven Spielberg and David Koepp wanted to tell a story with actual characters and not just get on a soapbox, so I'm glad that they toned down Crichton's message. Hell, thanks to Koepp's writing and Jeff Goldblum's acting, Malcolm is my favorite character in the movie vs. the book where he's kind of a self-righteous douche-nozzle (being the author's mouthpiece and all).
But that's the movie. When I put the novel Jurassic Park head to head with Brosnan's Carnosaur, Carnosaur wins out because Brosnan has no agenda. John Brosnan just wants to tell a fun story. Mind you, having an agenda isn't necessarily a bad thing. There's plenty of good fiction that has an important message in it, but you shouldn't make the plot subordinate to the message, as Crichton does, and you shouldn't have the kind of regressive, anti-science BS message Crichton does. Seriously, the longer Crichton wrote books, the more obvious it became that he was a hack passing himself off as a legitimate novelist (vs. the kinds of guys who write the books reviewed on heere who admit that they're hacks), considering he went full climate change denier in his 2004 novel State of Fear, and then wrote critic Michael Crowley into Next as a baby rapist (!) with a small penis (!!) after Crowley called rightly State of Fear anti-science, climate-denying garbage. Stay classy, Mr. Crichton.
But enough Crichton-bashing. Returning to Carnosaur, and speaking of movie adaptations, what does everyone here at the Vault think of Corman's movie and the drastic changes made to the story, in particular the decision to relocate it entirely to the US?
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 22, 2019 22:01:43 GMT
It took me a while but I finally nabbed an affordable copy of the Star edition of Carnosaur, having previously only ever owned the Tor movie tie-in edition featuring the movie characters and the flat-out lie of a tagline "In the startling tradition of Jurassic Park!" More on this particular affront to Mr. Brosnan's honor another time. I'm especially delighted to find out it has a purple spine! I dunno why, but that tickles me.
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 21, 2019 22:00:46 GMT
Barry Colrayn is a sanitation inspector ("sanitary inspector" is the term Fanthorpe uses, but this makes Colrayn sound like an inspector who just has really good personal hygiene - which nevertheless I'm certain Mr. Colrayn does!) with the thankless job of ensuring that big companies adhere to laws against illegally dumping toxic waste into the environment. You'd think not pouring your sludge into rivers would be a no-brainer, but apparently not. He takes his job very seriously, and is unforgiving in his leveling of fines and punishments against companies that break the law. Consequently, he isn't very popular with the people he inspects. The almighty job creators (i.e. self-enrichers) don't like this pencil-pushing little civil servant nosing around and hurting their bottom line by daring to insist they properly do their jobs.
Think the relationship Donald Sutherland's character has with the restaurants he inspects in Invasion of the Body Snatchers; they break the rules and have unsanitary kitchens but it's his fault when they get caught so they vandalize his car. Because that's a completely rational reaction to being called out on a rat problem you refuse to solve. Colrayn is lucky in that his car hasn't been vandalized. Yet.
One company on Colrayn's inspection route in particular is a frequent offender. Jasper Leroy Inc. and its eponymous owner really, really don't like obeying the law and will find any means they can to avoid following the rules and properly dispose of their waste byproducts, because proper disposal costs money Mr. Leroy doesn't want to spend and it's easier to just dump it in the river. He needs that thousand or so for his fiftieth Rolls-Royce! Despite all his efforts, Colrayn has never been able to persuade the corporation to do the right thing, and so deep are Mr. Leroy's pockets that any fines he levels at them amount to a slap on the wrist, and he honestly doesn't think that this latest visit will be any different, but, hey, a job's a job. Leroy is brusque with the inspector, agreeing to meet with him but making a point of being impolite bordering on hostile. The meeting doesn't go well.
Meanwhile, it seems mother nature may soon have the last laugh. Although initially it was merely oil that Leroy Inc. dumped, now radioactive elements are finding their way into the river and contaminating the ecosystem. Exactly what Leroy Inc. does that means they have radioactive materials to dump in the first place, I'm not sure. Colrayn's assessment of the company existing solely to enrich its owner and namesake's "already overstuffed" bank account, while venomous, isn't really helpful at explaining to the reader what Leroy Inc. does. Maybe we'll learn a little more later.
Anyway, although the "radio-activity" (because hyphens equal power!) kills all the fish in the river, the native beavers and rats thrive on it, growing bigger and bigger and bigger. And with this increased size comes an increased appetite. And with all the fish they normally eat dead, the huge rodents will have to turn to... something else. Or perhaps... someone else! Mwahahaha!
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 21, 2019 18:50:50 GMT
Cower before the staggering might of the beaver apocalypse! Rodent Mutation arrived today and by God I'm gonna read it and tell y'all about it! And ignore the price quoted on the cover. I paid $154.99 for this damn thing. Oh, well, if it ends up sucking the sweat off of flea-infested donkey balls, it'll be my own fault. Nobody forced me to pay that much for a crummy book about giant killer beavers. I'll settle down to peruse it this evening and report back to you guys later.
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 20, 2019 15:21:04 GMT
On reflection, perhaps this section should come with a use at your own risk financial health warning. Alerting every Tom, Dick & Harriet that you are desperate for a copy of this or that paperback will likely tempt potential seller to substantially inflate asking price. True, but, eh...
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 20, 2019 5:38:07 GMT
Got: Dennis Wheatley's Uncharted Seas. Invasions, the tenth and final book in Isaac Asimov's anthology series Isaac Asimov's Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction. The "Hitler on a motorcycle" version of The Iron Dream, an odd cover considering Feric Jagger doesn't look anything like Adolf per Spinrad's description of the guy. Still, this is just such a gloriously goofy cover I couldn't say no. Another copy of The Shapes of Midnight. 'Cause. I read it so often that my other copies are a bit on the worn side, and I don't like the reprint because it omits Canavan's Back Yard and Slime. For shame, Dover! And the "reaching hand" version of Slimer. I've been after this one for a while now, and I think, of the various Slimer covers, it's my favorite. Even if I do have a soft spot for the "Charlie lunging forward to swallow the reader" Star cover. The Polish version, titled Gen, features a similar "reaching hand" cover, although it depicts the slime on the guy's hand as being clear, making it look more like he had an encounter with the other Slimer, Venkman style, or, because I'm a filthy, dirty-minded homosexual, like he got too much Vaseline or Astroglide or, uh, ahem, some... other clear, viscous substance on his hand during a particularly raucous gay porno.
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 20, 2019 2:57:23 GMT
Oh well. I hope whoever ended up with it enjoys it. Free book for them (assuming they realize what they have and don't either chuck it or sell it to some used bookstore).
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 20, 2019 2:55:00 GMT
Okay, guys, can anyone help me out with Victor Norwood's Slime ripoff, Night of the Black Horror? I try eBay every so often but it never shows up. Google is no help, either. Maybe I just don't know the right words to put into the search engine. And while there were four copes on Amazon via third party used book sellers, I've failed to acquire all four.
The first one I bought only for the seller to cancel the sale because it turned out they didn't have the book.
The second one, the same thing happened all over again; I purchased it, then got an E-mail cancelling the sale saying that they didn't actually have the book. Neither ever shipped and I was refunded both times.
The third one apparently just up and vanished; Amazon went from two copies listed for sale to just one. Either someone bought it before I did or the seller realized they didn't have the book, either (yes, all three copies were offered by three different third party book stores).
As for the fourth one (also offered by yet another person), assuming it even exists, it can't be sent to me - I tried to buy it the other day with my Christmas money along with Rodent Mutation, but only Rodent Mutation went through the checkout process. Amazon automatically cancelled or otherwise prevented the sale of Black Horror, saying it could not be mailed to my location. Does the seller live in some iron curtain country? Who doesn't ship to America? The book's main product page now lists it as "currently unavailable," while my wish list alternates between saying there's one copy that can't be sent to me and saying it's unavailable (like right now).
How rare is this stupid book? I know it exists. People have read it. I've seen reviews for it as well as scans of the cover and photos of the actual physical book. What gives...?
I'm... upset, to put it mildly, that I'm batting 0 for 4 here with Night of the Black Horror. I've got blob monster blue balls! So, if anyone can provide me with a copy of a book so rare I had an easier time getting Bron Fane's Rodent Mutation than it, I'd be much obliged.
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 20, 2019 2:40:46 GMT
It's a good thing nobody took me up on my offer. I ended up selling it on eBay... and then needing to refund the buyer's money after the postal service sent the package to the wrong address! Oh, wait, it gets better! Not only did it get returned, they returned it to the wrong address! Uuuughhh. This happened late last year, and I'd actually forgotten about this thread I'd made offering my copy here on the Vault, but coming here to see if anyone had Night of the Black Horror I realized this was still here and so I figured I'd better inform anyone who was interested in buying the Star edition of The Fungus that it has apparently just up and vanished into the void, and that whoever the package was actually sent to has apparently seen fit to keep it. Uuuuughhhh.
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 18, 2019 1:32:58 GMT
Well, after that dang cover teasing me for a few years, I finally nabbed a copy of Bron Fane's Rodent Mutation off of Amazon using some of my Christmas money. How could I say no to giant beavers??!? Can't wait to read it!
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 9, 2019 20:21:39 GMT
Man, and I thought Slime was nasty.
In fact, I believe the fuel tanker sequence was recycled in that novel.
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 4, 2019 18:29:11 GMT
I've seen enough hentai to know where that's going...
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 4, 2019 5:55:41 GMT
I myself just nabbed a copy of Uncharted Seas based off of eBay on that cover alone. Giant grabs FTW!
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Post by kooshmeister on Nov 30, 2019 8:20:50 GMT
... and, as an aside, the shark's eyes on that cover are freakishly far up its face. Freaky-eyed shark syndrome. There was a lot of it about in the 'seventies ... *Alas, no novelisation.* There is this, though:
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