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Post by Dr Strange on Aug 22, 2010 14:06:02 GMT
I read John Dickson Carr's The Hollow Man, Edmund Crispin's The Moving Toyshop and a handful of Michael Innes' "Inspector Appleby" books a while back when I fancied a bit of a change. Carr and Crispin both struck me the same way - technically adroit but (for me) ultimately unsatisfying. Just all a bit too neat and too contrived - which is in the nature of the genre I suppose (and awfully dated, my dear fellows. What ho?). I liked Innes' stuff more, but finally decided that I was really much happier even reading horror that I didn't really rate much, than crime fiction that I did. Weird, I know, but that's how it is.
On the "hard disk" thing, or factual errors in general, for me it boils down to how central it is to the plot. I too can get a bit annoyed when I spot something that seems obviously erroneous to me, but it's pretty quickly forgiven if it doesn't really matter for the plot. Have to say, it actually happens quite a lot and I would probably have to stop reading (and watching films) altogether if it started to really matter to me. Maybe the wrong time/place to mention it, but there was something so blatantly wrong (I think) in the first few minutes of the Solomon Kane film that it took a good half hour or so for me to put out of mind...
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Aug 22, 2010 14:08:15 GMT
By the way, is GRASSHOPPER (2000) by Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell) an unofficial sequel to ROOFWORLD?
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Post by dem bones on Aug 23, 2010 8:01:37 GMT
JoJo, friend Curt reviewed Roofworld (scathingly) on Groovy Age Of Horror. At the foot of the piece are (as i write) five comments, the third of which, from Christopher himself, may interest you.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Aug 23, 2010 8:25:56 GMT
Hey, I was practically a kid when I tried to read it! I should add that I have since thoroughly enjoyed other Fowler novels. In particular one, the title of which I forget, which was, it seems to me, about a scavenger hunt.
The consensus appears to be that there is a great idea in ROOFWORLD, one which has perhaps not yet seen its optimal expression.
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Post by David A. Riley on Aug 23, 2010 8:33:27 GMT
Oddly enough I have never read Roofworld, even though I've had a copy for years. For some reason I never quite fancied it.
On the other hand, I love Fowler's Bryant and May books.
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Post by Dr Strange on Aug 23, 2010 8:55:49 GMT
I love Fowler's Bryant and May books. Which I believe are very much in the John Dickson Carr / Edmund Crispin sort of tradition?
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Post by dem bones on Aug 23, 2010 8:59:55 GMT
i wish i could unread Curt's review as now somehow i've got to get on with Roofworld with his valid criticisms ringing around my head! I too can get a bit annoyed when I spot something that seems obviously erroneous to me, but it's pretty quickly forgiven if it doesn't really matter for the plot. Have to say, it actually happens quite a lot and I would probably have to stop reading (and watching films) altogether if it started to really matter to me. This, i think hits the nail on the head, although sometimes (for me), the errors, flaws, whatever, can work in a book's favour. M. G. Lewis's The Monk, still perhaps my favourite horror novel, is all over the map in terms of plot(s), but what does it matter if it works? i've known Rippergroupieologists to go off on one at mention of Robert Bloch's Night Of The Ripper ("how could the man who gave us the classic Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper write such junk?" etc), whose worst of several crimes is to introduce the culprit at the fag end of the novel after pointing the finger at anyone and everyone who was alive in 1888. He messes up on the geography. He misinterprets "the facts". And yet ... it is such a gloriously trashy exercise in exploitation i find it, not "better", but infinitely more enjoyable than the aforementioned "classic". To make Ramsey's day (lights blue touch paper, steps away sharpish), by his own admission Dennis Wheatley's plotting is away with the fairies but i still derive great pleasure from his Black Magic novels, albeit perhaps not always for what the author would consider the right reasons. To say i don't share his politics is putting it politely, but i'd actually be very disappointed if i were reading him and he didn't give it plenty of insufferable snobbery, break off for a tiresome party political broadcast/ tirade against trade unionists/ moan about johnny foreigner, etc. I guess it's just that most of my pleasures are guilty ones.
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Thana Niveau
Devils Coach Horse
We who walk here walk alone.
Posts: 109
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Post by Thana Niveau on Aug 23, 2010 9:23:07 GMT
i wish i could unread Curt's review as now somehow i've got to get on with Roofworld with his valid criticisms ringing around my head! I've just started it and am enjoying it a lot! I too can get a bit annoyed when I spot something that seems obviously erroneous to me, but it's pretty quickly forgiven if it doesn't really matter for the plot. Have to say, it actually happens quite a lot and I would probably have to stop reading (and watching films) altogether if it started to really matter to me. That puts it perfectly for me too. It frustrates us all to see howlers that would never have happened if we'd been there as consultants in our areas of expertise. But, as Lord P likes to say, if a film/book gets me on its side, I'm willing to forgive it almost anything. If I were a real stickler for accuracy I'd never be able to watch all those giallos I adore!
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Post by ramseycampbell on Aug 23, 2010 9:33:48 GMT
Let me confess before I'm outed - as soon as you open the first chapter of the first edition of Creatures of the Pool you're met by two errors. Both my fault, and both unintentional, and no, I'm not going to list them!
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Aug 23, 2010 10:16:46 GMT
I could make an amusing pun here, so please admire my restraint in refraining from it.
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