Intro's, forewords, contributors notes ....

[dem bones]

Introductions, notes on the contributors, forewords, afterwords & Co. They're usually the first thing I read when I buy a book, but how about you? Do you pore over them, give them a cursory browse or skip them entirely as all you're really interested in is the story or stories?

[mattofthespurs]

Can't tell you how many intros I've read that were better than the rest of the book.

I love em.

[benedictjjones]

in the akashic noir crime series the author notes and pictures are all together in the back and i'll often flick to them after i've read the authors story. i also like some of the stephen king ones where he gives a little more information on how stories came about.

[carolinec]

Yes, I tend to read all those odd bits and bats first too. And I'm the same as Ben - particularly in a collection, I like to read the bits which tell you how the stories came about.
;D

[benedictjjones]

i'm quite enjoying the small 'explanations/notes' at the end of some of ally birds stories in her collection.

[stephenbacon]

I like introductions - especially if they're written by a 'guest' - but I find story notes compelling. It's great hearing about the genesis of stories.

[allysonbird]

The one at the end of Hunter's Moon is especially telling. Sometimes I just dedicate to a hero - like Orson Welles or to a particular time in my life.

Happy that you like the short story notes Ben!

When I'm drunk in a bar sometime (you two) I'll tell you about the genesis of Shadow upon Shadow etc...Gary also did a great job on my intro

Starting a novel next!

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

Just found this, thanks to a mention on an Aickman thread. I'd been wondering if I was in a minority in liking the story notes at the end of books (mainly because I was trying to decide whether to include any of my own, though the book is nearly twice the size originally discussed, so I still don't know if they'll go in). Possibly because I'm so interested in the writing process itself, I love getting some kind of extra info on what might have sparked something off, though I'm always a good boy and leave these till the end, so as not to spoil the stories for myself. Good to know I'm not alone.

[dem bones]

Mar 23, 2009 8:52:13 GMT Dr Strange said:

Sorry if you've covered this before - but what is the best Introduction to a story collection you've read? (I suppose for a lot of Aickman fans it will be his Intros to the Fontana books?)

I can think of a couple of instances where the Introduction has been the best thing in a book... but that's not the same thing.

Thanks to Dr. Strange and lurks for reviving this topic as i still reckon it has some legs. Perhaps we could expand it to include examples of your favourite/ least favourite introductions. My one slight disappointment with the Fontana Horror series was that Mary Danby wasn't a great one for introductions - even the ones to her two Frighteners books are cursory. Peter Haining, whatever the criticisms of his often sloppy author attributions and dates, was always vastly entertaining in his intro's and incidental material, or so it seems to me, particularly in his Gollancz years.

To expand it further: multiple author anthologies and magazines. Do you immediately make a dive for notes on the contributors?

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

Roald Dahl's introduction for his "Book of Ghost Stories" is possibly the strangest intro I've read, starting off on-topic about how the stories were selected for an unmade tv series, before wandering off into the limitations of women writers, art criticism and saying that the majority of ghost stories are crap.

The Introes for Michael Cox's and R.A. Gilbert's "Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories" and "Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories" are well-researched and give good background detail without being dull.

As for story notes, Steve Duffy's "The Night Comes On" notes are pretty good, and the news that there were notes in his collaboration with Ian Rodwell, "The Five Quarters", actually tipped the balance in my decision to buy the book.

[dem bones]

I always thought Dahl had the right hump with someone when he wrote that. Love the bit where the old martyr whines on about how he gave up the best years of his life to researching the book, poring over "every ghost story ever written" in the reading rooms of the British Museum, etc. So how comes the end product looks like a it's virtually all been lifted from Cynthia Asquith's The Ghost Book series?

Story notes. His head's probably the size of a minor planet already, but the Right Hon. J. Probert, Laird of Portishead, is pretty hot on 'em. And Ramsey Campbell. I usually enjoy his notes and intro's as much as I do the stories.

[The Lurker In The Shadows]

You're right. JLP's "Faculty of Terror" story notes were rather good, as I recall. Don't think any of the RC books I own have any notes.

[benedictjjones]

i really enjoyed cambells introduction to meddling with ghosts.

[dem bones]

From what I remember of it, The Face That Must Die is, as the front cover of the MacDonald 'complete' edition (1991) proclaims, "A Horrifying Novel Of Murderous Paranoia", but it's nothing like as disturbing as Campbell's autobiographical introduction, At The Back Of My Mind: A Guided Tour. He's usually much lighter in touch; the foreword to Ghosts & Grisly Things is fun, as is his detached outlook his Cthulhu Mythos output in Cold Print. If I end up with a copy of Inconsequential Tales, it will be for the intro and notes as much as the content.

Who else? Karl E. Wagner's intro's to The Years Best Horror Stories revealed him as an astute commentator on changing horror trends. Skipp & Spector argued the merits of 'going too far' in Book Of The Dead to the point where even Ramsey Campbell conceded there might be something in this Splatterpunk lark after all. Bill Pronzini in that Tales From The Dead paving slab from the Book Club which collects his Voodoo!, Mummy! and Ghoul anthologies ....

[carolinec]

Mar 24, 2009 18:52:04 GMT dem bones said:

From what I remember of it, The Face That Must Die is, as the front cover of the MacDonald 'complete' edition (1991) proclaims, "A Horrifying Novel Of Murderous Paranoia", but it's nothing like as disturbing as Campbell's autobiographical introduction, At The Back Of My Mind: A Guided Tour

Is that the one where he talks about his childhood? He had a very strange childhood ...