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Post by dem bones on Jun 28, 2010 17:44:21 GMT
Richard Lortz - Children Of The Night (Dell, 1974) Blurb: The schoolteacher looked around her in this stretch of abandoned land, this peculiar hidden valley, where she had been led by the naked child running before her.
Like an instant stinging rash, gooseflesh prickled the woman's body head to toe, for now she could actually see and count five children; five; all graceful and strong, all shaggy-haired, wet, inexplicably naked; and all — what? drugged, mad, possessed, rabid? No word would suffice, no word explain.
Why had they lured her here! What did they want to do with her?
"No, children. No—please...!"This one looks like it might be a bit rotten! "A band of five children gathered in the abandoned wilderness of Central Park to wreak unspeakable vengeance on the world that spawned them in its image. You will not want to believe — and you will never forget Children Of The Night"! Chances are, it will turn out to be just another middling vampire novel but at 140 pages shouldn't take long to find out. Lortz (1917-1980) wrote a further five novels in the genre including the winningly titled Bereavements: A Tale Of Dysfunctional Horror and Lovers Living, Lovers Dead.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 2, 2010 7:47:28 GMT
Forty pages in and I'm getting a good feeling about Children Of The Night. Looks like it has more in common with W Baker-Evans classic The Children from Pan Book Of Horror Stories # 8 than the anticipated humdrum vampire novel.
New York in the early hours, following the worst storm in living memory. Fog, five inches of rainfall and hailstones hurled down with such force they crack windows. A middle-aged school-teacher returning home from a lecture, still a little tipsy from the effects of two cocktails. She cuts through the trees where five naked children lie in wait ...
A dawn jogger discovers a human torso and sundry lumps of flesh scattered across his usual route. Lieutenant James Shrader and eager to please young sidekick Art Davis arrive at the crime scene. To Art the murder has all the hallmarks of another Murders in The Rue Morgue - or maybe a pack of half-crazed dogs is abroad. Meanwhile, the morbid thrill-seekers and refugees from Ray Bradbury's The Crowd chatter excitedly on the sidelines until an English nanny can take no more. "Enough of these peculiar Americans and their dismembered corpses in Central Park!" The nearest Shrader can find to a clue is the several sets of child footprints which must have been made yesterday before the storm hit, though why they're not been washed away with the animal tracks (he's still pursuing that theory) is a mystery.
To be continued ...
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Post by dem bones on Jul 6, 2010 7:22:39 GMT
The children. First we meet them briefly as a strange, vaguely threatening group on the busy sidewalk, before Mr. Lortz treats us to shocking chapter length snapshots of each kids domestic situation. These do not make for comfortable reading. Angel, Jamie, Julia, Kathy and Maria have been dragged up in appallingly overcrowded slum hellholes, the unloved offspring of Puerto Rican alcoholics, junkies, prostitutes and child-molesters. The depressing, squalid grind of their young lives has transformed them into werewolves! After enduring yet another beating from her dipso mother, Julia takes off into the darkness and rips apart a mean and mangy rat, her friends carrying out similar murderous assaults on "black fairies", pimps of various ethic origin, household pets and other 'undesirables'. Yes, our old friend HORROR WITH A KEEN SOCIAL CONSCIENCE .... and by this stage the novel has become so completely un-politically correct and offensive to a 2010 audience you are beginning to appreciate Death Wish 2 as a model of subtle restraint. Having got all this out of his system, Lortz has only ten pages to pick up where the plot left off - somewhere around page 40 - so Lieutenant Shrader has no choice but to hire a 'jungle expert' who dutifully discovers the cave of the "monsters" in double-quick time for Shrader's men to effortlessly wipe them out. But, as the author warns in the inevitable "chilling" kiss off, there are other slums in other ghettos breeding similar children of the night .... Well! Children ... certainly falls into the 'unputdownable' category and perhaps at some later date I will be able to decide if I loved or loathed every second spent reading it. Need (some of you) require further recommendation? Tony Fonseca writing on Necropsy: The Review of Horror Fiction clearly rates him - "In terms of writers in the horror genre, I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that Lortz ranks with the best - Ramsey Campbell, Simon Clark, Charles S. Grant, and Poppy Z. Brite." - and if copies of Bereavements or Lovers Living, Lovers Dead turn up on a stall near here you can bet I'll be all over 'em like a rash.
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Post by Middoth on Oct 14, 2021 12:16:52 GMT
The cover with Patricia Krenwinkel is what caught my eye from the very beginning.
The French covers made me a fan of Lorz even before I read it.
I approached "Children of the Night" when I was already familiar with "Lovers Living, Lovers Dead".
Looking at the goodreads, I found a stream of insults against the author, including one from a secretly sympathetic reader, but not only that, but also valuable information that the book was included in the list of recommended reading from the University of Iowa. What can I say: honor and praise to the teachers who make sure that the students do not get bored.
The composition of the book is generally thought out to the smallest detail. The scene with detectives who appear and disappear only emphasizes the general sleepwalking of the characters, each of which is not aware of their role in what is happening.
Lorz lived somewhere near this area, so that every brick and crack on the wall is clearly described by him from nature. I doubt very much that he criticizes social injustice, no one thinks 'Rambo" is an anti-war book? My favorite places: a duel on bricks between the father of one of the heroines and passers-by, a description of the sleeping conditions of a large family and an episode near an institution called "The Itching Ghost". And of course the chapter "Park".
Despite the abundance of dirt, the book is poetry in its purest form. Pulsing with destructive punk energy.
I'm glad I have two more books by Richard Lorz on hand.
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drauch
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 56
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Post by drauch on Oct 14, 2021 14:05:04 GMT
Ah, coincidentally was reading those same Goodreads reviews just on Monday. A bit offputting, but I take GR reviews with a heaping pile of salt as one should. Thanks for the review; I think I'm sold.
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Post by gooseflesh on May 24, 2023 23:58:05 GMT
I discovered Lortz by chance long ago when, Lovers Living, Lovers Dead appeared in HB. What a wild book! I searched for it again years later but couldnt remember the title just the cover! Then I knew after a re-read I had to look for his other work. I have since read them all and was not disappointed! He is certainly unique. Sometimes I think his horror is more literary than pulp based , with sort of a southern gothic vibe like Williams/Capote/McCullers. Children of the Night is his most gritty and urban nightmare. Bereavments...is just plan weird and bananas. His lightest entertainment , Summer in Spain, aka The Valdepenas is deceptive in its humor that turns gradually darker as it goes toward a rather apocolyptic satire-like ending. I actually wish he'd written more. He was one of my favorite niche discoveries of recent years. I envy anyone who has yet to read his work.
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