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Post by benedictjjones on May 16, 2008 12:03:30 GMT
anyone else a regular reader? got a subcription for christmas that started at issue 2 and im yet to get my grubby little hands on issue one. i had a couple of issues of the previous incarnation The Third Alternative but appear to have misplaced them in a move =O(
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Post by troo on Jun 5, 2008 9:39:09 GMT
I picked up all four at Alt.Fiction and finally got around to reading issue one on holiday. Well, most of issue one.
I have every hope that the bits of issue one that I missed contained some actual horror, 'cause everything else I read had nothing whatsoever to do with the frikken genre...
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Post by benedictjjones on Jun 5, 2008 10:07:26 GMT
^agreed there does seem to be lot that is away from what i'd consider to be the 'genre' and some that feature themes that seem 'played out' (estate agent dealing with ghosts, haunted ship with vengeful ghosts).
i know theyre aiming for a certain type of horror - more the psycological etc. but sometimes i do wonder!!
that said i'm still enjoying the issues and there always seems to be one or two stories that really strike a cord. there was a fantasy tale about two cat burgalars and a killer fog that i enjoyed.
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Post by troo on Jun 6, 2008 11:12:54 GMT
Oh it's all good stuff, granted. I just don't see why they go to all the effort of claiming to be a horror mag when they're not.
Methinks they're just resurrecting The Third Alternative without calling it such, and branding it "horror" to try and make people think it isn't T3A, since T3A wasn't a commercial success.
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Post by benedictjjones on Jun 6, 2008 11:21:21 GMT
don't know why but i still hammer away sending them stories, taking a perverse pleasure in the rejection slip i know will arrive...
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Post by benedictjjones on Jun 20, 2008 13:27:18 GMT
the new issue actually has some stories which lean more toward horror (as i know it!)
'slap' - gary mcmahon (murderous undead happy slappers)and 'winters journey'(urban foxes)-joel lane were the stand outs for me, especially since they dealt with themes i have attempted to tackle myself. also 'the second death of johann kund'(well something like that...) was pretty good as well.
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stephenbacon
Crab On The Rampage
www.stephenbacon.co.uk
Posts: 78
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Post by stephenbacon on Sept 8, 2008 20:59:57 GMT
I'm a subscriber. I actually love the magazine. I think the fiction is great and the artwork is breathtaking.
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Post by benedictjjones on Sept 23, 2008 9:14:10 GMT
^it is a beautiful looking magazine, my missus always gives me funny looks when i show her the covers...(she should never have said she liked the cover on issue two)
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Post by Scott Wood on Sept 30, 2008 11:57:54 GMT
I used to read The Third Alternative and found it a part good read and part uncomfortable one but as Black Static was pegged as a 'Horror Fiction' magazine I got a subscription. I find it an uneasy mix of horror genre reviews and stories and more literary stories that are "horrible" in different senses. New Miserablist stuff about the pointless, heartless interactions in the grubby lives of unlikeable people. Horror has always had stories in it about the cynical, lost outsiders but some of the stories, well... I get the feeling that they are trying to do cutting-edge-sharp contemporary horror but the ofcus goes sometimes. Stories like Tony Richard's 'Night Game', Alexander Glass's "The Pit", the hoddie-horror story "Slap" and the shared-house horror story in the last issue that-I-can't-remember-the-title-of are all attempts at a new take on horror that work well-to-ok but, by crickey, the descriptive language is often dead depressing. Some more genre-y styles creep in too, like the story of the misty habour town invaded by El Chupacabras in "The Mist of Lichthafen” in issue 3 and that dreadful post-Dracula story where all the surviving charactors from the novel turn evil in issue 4 or 5. I've prefered the American stories best: "The Sentinels" by Tony Richards has an elemental power to it and Tyler Keevil’s “Cleaning the Western Kittiwake.” is a tidy, powerful, human ghost story the like-of-which I very enjoy (though The Fix doesn't agree with me on that). I'm enjoying it, I'm sticking with it but I'm not loving it. I think that may be because horror's a huge genre and I've never loved all of it though. |
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Post by benedictjjones on Sept 30, 2008 12:02:50 GMT
^have to fully agree with your last comment.
the stories i've liked the most have been 'all mouth' (the shared house one you mentioned), 'slap' and one about foxes by joel lane that i can't remember the title of.
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