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Post by dem bones on Aug 6, 2014 13:28:16 GMT
Oh dear. It is no good pretending that I am anything other than way out of my depth with .... Robert Aickman - Wood: Leonard Munn is a man of few friends and seemingly zero interest in women, so it comes as a great surprise to our narrator (Aickman ?) when he announces his impending marriage to shrill, domineering Miss Vi Pell, the daughter of an undertaker. Father-in-law, a skilled carpenter, promises to build them a house, and does. Munn is eaten up with resentment for his former employer, the inland Revenue, who evidently pensioned him off for being too diligent in his work. His only other source of income is the pin money he ekes from his "daffies," straw figures, which are popular with the Sussex locals. The wedding is a joyless affair - the Munn's are not a touchy-feely couple, and there is no honeymoon, not even a celebratory drink. Within three weeks Vi announces her pregnancy. The newly-weds move to East Anglia and the home Mr. Pell has built for them, a tiny weather-house carved in black wood complete with a cuckoo who springs out of the wall on the hour. It is several years before Aickman (or whoever) pays them a visit, though if Leonard and Vi are aware of his presence, they've no means of acknowledging it. As for baby ... Mr. Pell his fixed it that his daughter's runs like clockwork. If the Munns are an enigma the same is true of the narrator. Although he assures us that he survived the Great War - “I was, not killed, but badly knocked out, since when I have never been quite right in any way.” - could it be that he is a ghost, witnessing how his life would have panned out had he returned to a society where he no longer belonged? As mentioned elsewhere, lacking a classical education, Aickman's several literary allusions are lost on me adding to the sense of dislocation. LaterThere is a small piece on Aickman's story WOOD on this blog HEREHardly small, but very fine! Have read it now, and would strongly recommend you ignore everything above the word ' Later' and hit the link straight to peeldeel's blog for a proper review.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Aug 6, 2014 14:34:10 GMT
adding to the sense of dislocation. It is possible the author had some such effect in mind.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Aug 6, 2014 18:47:46 GMT
R. A. Lafferty - Fog In My Throat: Far easier on the brain than anticipated; in fact, as with The Petey Car and even The Viaduct, this story would not have been so out of place in Weird Tales (1923-1954 incarnation). Dr. Cornelius Rudisidl of the Advanced Experimental Institute argues that, whatever their fears in life, no person has ever been afraid at the exact moment of death. Gretchen Shrik, a young lab assistant, isn't so sure. Dr 'Rudy' has been treating the lab rats and hamsters with a serum which magnifies their brain capacity and powers of concentration to a phenomenal degree. They've even formed a mini-orchestra. Gretchen has discreetly disposed of the corpses of those few creatures who failed to survive the jab, noting the look of abject terror frozen on their poor dead little faces. Meanwhile a locally notorious murderer Lucius 'The Angel of Death' Flammens has decided that today a man and a woman will die, the former in "total terror." If his raid on the Institute doesn't quite go to plan, Lucius is at least correct in his prediction. There's some discussion of this story in the Lafferty thread. I found it one of his more unsettling tales.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 6, 2014 21:10:07 GMT
adding to the sense of dislocation. It is possible the author had some such effect in mind. I am sure you are right, JoJo, but my observation was intended as neither criticism or complaint. Unusually for an anthology, there wasn't a single story in Superhorror I didn't rate, and the two I most struggled with were at least as 'enjoyable' as the others, if not more so. Wood is perhaps the stand-out among stand-outs. R. A. Lafferty - Fog In My Throat: There's some discussion of this story in the Lafferty thread. I found it one of his more unsettling tales. It's the first Lafferty I can remember getting along with. Perhaps I'm finally ready for him!
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Post by stuyoung on Aug 25, 2014 8:02:43 GMT
So far I've only read the Aickman and the Leiber stories. I enjoyed both of them.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Feb 20, 2020 13:23:00 GMT
Here's the Star paperback edition of Superhorror, with a cover ghoul modelled by Timothy Spall!
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Post by helrunar on Feb 28, 2020 20:52:36 GMT
I guess it was retitled? Superhorror makes me think of my typical reaction to the latest "Marvel Comics Universe" bit of CGI trumpery.
Cute cover!
H.
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