|
|
Post by weirdmonger on Jul 30, 2022 14:29:43 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by weirdmonger on Aug 12, 2022 15:29:20 GMT
I have just retrieved these four books (owned for many years) from a back-burner bookshelf… What I am interested in, if anyone can give me any advice, are the stories by these authors (not the more famous stories!) to which I should give my attention with regard to gestalt real-time reviewing…. I need priorities at my age and health!  |
|
|
|
Post by jamesdoig on Aug 12, 2022 22:17:21 GMT
Des, the Room in the Tower is a classic collection, and quite a scarce book, originally published by Mills and Boon I think.
|
|
|
|
Post by weirdmonger on Aug 13, 2022 7:13:35 GMT
Des, the Room in the Tower is a classic collection, and quite a scarce book, originally published by Mills and Boon I think. Not sure how scarce it is, but you are right about the publisher!   |
|
|
|
Post by pulphack on Aug 13, 2022 13:53:13 GMT
That's a lovely old edition, Des. The stories are good, but the seeming oddity of the publisher just adds to it. M&B didn't set out as purely romance, though, they were a general publisher who found a lucrative seam and stamped their identity on the market and became a brand (one of the first, I'd wager, in publishing). I've never read it, but in 1915 they published the autobiography of Edward VIII's chauffeur. I'd like to read it purely because it was ghosted by Dornford Yates, who basically turns his subject into Jonah Mansel (hero of his thrillers) in the way he speaks to the reader. Very odd, and of limited interest now, but nonetheless an example of how they M&B were just another publisher with an eye on the main chance before the romances clicked.
|
|
|
|
Post by weirdmonger on Aug 13, 2022 16:57:25 GMT
That's a lovely old edition, Des. The stories are good, but the seeming oddity of the publisher just adds to it. M&B didn't set out as purely romance, though, they were a general publisher who found a lucrative seam and stamped their identity on the market and became a brand (one of the first, I'd wager, in publishing). I've never read it, but in 1915 they published the autobiography of Edward VIII's chauffeur. I'd like to read it purely because it was ghosted by Dornford Yates, who basically turns his subject into Jonah Mansel (hero of his thrillers) in the way he speaks to the reader. Very odd, and of limited interest now, but nonetheless an example of how they M&B were just another publisher with an eye on the main chance before the romances clicked. Many thanks, pulphack, for that fascinating Mills and Boon Backstory! |
|
|
|
Post by weirdmonger on Aug 14, 2022 18:38:47 GMT
The Frontier Guards by H. Russell Wakefield“It seems to me sometimes as if I actually assist in evoking and materialising these appearances, that I help to establish a connection between them…” Modest though I think I am, I do sometimes have an inexplicable knack to evoke the same effects when entering story texts that I happen to choose to review, the same as Lander does when he dares to enter haunted houses. The fact that he is said also to be a novelist is neither here nor there, I guess! Ignoring all that for a moment I was genuinely terrified by this brief story, perhaps more than any other, particularly when encountering its two undoubtedly crucial ‘elbow’ moments, after having been justifiably obsessed with elbows as triggers in literature for the last year or so in my reviewing. The story itself is well-written, atmospheric, about this house that is purported to be both ‘malevolent’ and ‘fatal’, and Lander — who has avoided entering it to date for fear of his own aforementioned ‘skills’ — is tempted to take Jim Brinton, at the latter’s request, to view it briefly just after dark on a foggy day, a day which they had earlier spent playing golf. I shall leave it there! But I now wonder, as an aside, who or what tempted me into reading August Heat by W.F. Harvey a few days ago, a story that I had somehow instinctively avoided till then! “Concentrate on NOT concentrating.”
|
|
enoch
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 122
|
Post by enoch on Aug 15, 2022 3:32:40 GMT
The Frontier Guards by H. Russell Wakefield“It seems to me sometimes as if I actually assist in evoking and materialising these appearances, that I help to establish a connection between them…” Modest though I think I am, I do sometimes have an inexplicable knack to evoke the same effects when entering story texts that I happen to choose to review, the same as Lander does when he dares to enter haunted houses. The fact that he is said also to be a novelist is neither here nor there, I guess! Ignoring all that for a moment I was genuinely terrified by this brief story, perhaps more than any other, particularly when encountering its two undoubtedly crucial ‘elbow’ moments, after having been justifiably obsessed with elbows as triggers in literature for the last year or so in my reviewing. The story itself is well-written, atmospheric, about this house that is purported to be both ‘malevolent’ and ‘fatal’, and Lander — who has avoided entering it to date for fear of his own aforementioned ‘skills’ — is tempted to take Jim Brinton, at the latter’s request, to view it briefly just after dark on a foggy day, a day which they had earlier spent playing golf. I shall leave it there! But I now wonder, as an aside, who or what tempted me into reading August Heat by W.F. Harvey a few days ago, a story that I had somehow instinctively avoided till then! “Concentrate on NOT concentrating.” I'm glad you liked it. It's one of my favorites. For such a short story it certainly packs a punch. |
|
|
|
Post by weirdmonger on Aug 15, 2022 6:19:34 GMT
I’m glad you liked it. It's one of my favorites. For such a short story it certainly packs a punch. Entering Haunted Houses is like entering stories, you need your wits and instinctive skills to summon or resist… |
|
|
|
Post by weirdmonger on Aug 15, 2022 12:46:59 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by weirdmonger on Sept 4, 2022 16:16:45 GMT
|
|
