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Post by cw67q on Jan 11, 2011 14:19:42 GMT
I think I'm in a very small minority of readers in finding the Imago Sequence a great let down. I'm in the position of not having read the IMAGO SEQUENCE but I have read his second collection: OCCULTATION which I found generally impressive. I think his reputation may now be based on OCCULTATION. But I can't say. des Occulatation is a recent release Des, LB's reputation might be further built on that book. But the web forums I visit have been buzzing with very enthusiastic reviews and raves about the Imago Sequence since it first came out. I have not seen any commentary yet on Occultation, which I might well pick up someday, other than how much people are looking forward to it based on earlier work. - Chris
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Post by weirdmonger on Jan 11, 2011 15:15:07 GMT
I have not seen any commentary yet on Occultation, which I might well pick up someday, The story JLP reviewed on this thread - THE LAGERSTATTE - is from OCCULTATION. My review of the whole collection is here. I'm enjoying your review on this thread, JLP, except the bit I quoted from your take on the Hirshberg.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jan 11, 2011 15:29:55 GMT
The Goosle - Margo Lanagan. I had to go back and look at this story again to remind me what it was about. And then I remembered - a rather dodgy spin on the fairytale world of Hansel & Gretel with male rape and other things that had me skimming through it to get to the end. Ms Lanagan goes on my list of authors I'll think twice about reading. Beach Head - Daniel LeMoal. Three hoodlums wake up buried up to their necks in sand and proceed to argue with each other about how they got there. None of them are right bit the young lad who comes along and proceeds to smash one's head in with a baseball bat and set fire to another might have some idea. The third manages to escape with the help of a small girl & then things get really weird. Not at all bad and a stunning image towards the end of a whole beach of people buried up to their necks screaming means this one gets a thumbs up. The Man From the Peak - Adam Golaski. I've read a few Golaski stories in David Longhorn's Supernatural Tales magazine and I've not found them easy. This one is a bit more straightforward, with the title character causing trouble at a party in the woods but I'm still not a convert. The Narrows - Simon Bestwick. And so we come to the final story, which I had already read in 'We Fade to Grey'. A post-apocalypse band of survivors end up going deeper and deeper into a system of tunnels that begin to defy logic. This is a really good story but it's very dark and very grim. Personally I wouldn't have ended an anthology like this on such a massive downer but that's not a criticism of Mr Bestwick. In fact I would have had this as the opening story to the book so that at least you knew things would have to get brighter from thereon in! So is the book as whole worth a read? On the one hand I found it quite heavy going - I wouldn't want to read one of these every week whereas I can read something like Black Book until the cows come home. On the other hand some of the stories in here were pretty good, with Steve Duffy the outright winner. It also pointed out that I really must read The Werewolf Pack, provided me with a couple of authors I might like to read more of (Graham Edwards in particular) and also identified a few writers who if they're collected together in an anthology again I know to leave it on the shelf. Very finally, I know that this book arose because the original Year's Best Fantasy & Horror series ceased publication and once again this has me wondering in my perhaps slightly controversial way . You see, in the past I have happily recommend anthos like Black Book to any number of friends and work colleagues and the response has always been excellent, but I wouldn't really recommend this book to anyone I know - there just isn't enough of what they would want to read, and too much of the book is a bit of a struggle with no real payoff. The only reason I say this is because if you produce a book and call it 'Best Horror of the Year' it's going to invite criticism if it doesn't do what it says in the tin. Maybe these books need to be called something else as, in a time when horror and books in general are under threat, a book like this could just as easily turn people off horror as onto it. That coupled with the fact that YBFH went under makes me wonder why there isn't a radically different type of Best Of out there. Anyway, that's quite enough from me for the moment - I'm in the states at the moment meeting Lady P's parents so scary books are paling into insignificance right at the moment!
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jan 11, 2011 15:33:57 GMT
I have not seen any commentary yet on Occultation, which I might well pick up someday, The story JLP reviewed on this thread - THE LAGERSTATTE - is from OCCULTATION. My review of the whole collection is here. I'm enjoying your review on this thread, JLP, except the bit I quoted from your take on the Hirshberg. Awww - thanks Des! Even if only a tiny bit of what I've put here provides enjoyment it makes writing these pieces worthwhile for me! And on a more serious note - I do try hard to approach all these stories with optimism - I genuinely want to enjoy them, or be moved by them or affected by them, and I appreciate that the definition of 'literary' is entirely arbitrary on my part and, like you say, there probably doesn't really exist any kind of schism at all!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2011 20:01:19 GMT
The second Datlow volume is similarly patchy, although for me the overall quality was better. Particular standouts are Gemma Files' and Stephen Barringer's Each Thing I Show You Is A Piece of My Death (which used to be available as a PDF online, but appears to have vanished), Reggie Oliver's Mrs Midnight, and What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night by Michael Marshall Smith.
Alas, the few stories I've read by Laird Barron have never done anything for me. I find them a bit impenetrable, the style very much getting in the way of the story.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jan 11, 2011 20:50:21 GMT
That coupled with the fact that YBFH went under makes me wonder why there isn't a radically different type of Best Of out there. Karl Edward Wagner's Year's Best Horror Stories may have fit the bill. And it sounds like Johnny Mains' annual anthologies will also be a closer fit, given his Pan Horror enthusiasms . I guess "Year's Best" is really a marketing ploy - probably wouldn't be the same if it was titled "Ellen Datlow's Favourite Stories of the Year."
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Post by jamesdoig on Jan 11, 2011 20:54:53 GMT
I think I'm in a very small minority of readers in finding the Imago Sequence a great let down. I haven't got his collections, but I read "Proboscis" and "The Forest," in Year's Best anthologies in fact, and really liked them.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 11, 2011 21:04:54 GMT
Very finally, I know that this book arose because the original Year's Best Fantasy & Horror series ceased publication and once again this has me wondering in my perhaps slightly controversial way . You see, in the past I have happily recommend anthos like Black Book to any number of friends and work colleagues and the response has always been excellent, but I wouldn't really recommend this book to anyone I know - there just isn't enough of what they would want to read, and too much of the book is a bit of a struggle with no real payoff. The only reason I say this is because if you produce a book and call it 'Best Horror of the Year' it's going to invite criticism if it doesn't do what it says in the tin. Maybe these books need to be called something else as, in a time when horror and books in general are under threat, a book like this could just as easily turn people off horror as onto it. That coupled with the fact that YBFH went under makes me wonder why there isn't a radically different type of Best Of out there. I guess "Year's Best" is really a marketing ploy - probably wouldn't be the same if it was titled "Ellen Datlow's Favourite Stories of the Year." To be brutally honest, i'm as indifferent to a "year's best", "ultimate" or "definitive" in a title as i am a "winner of this and that award!" notice on the cover, taking neither as any guarantee the book will do it for me or that it will necessarily contain anything approximating a recognisable horror story. Even the mighty Karl E. Wagner's Year's Best Horror's for DAW lost me toward the end when he began to include ever more experimental/ ground breaking/ "at the cutting edge of literary pretention!" material, though i guess its always possible he was just enjoying a parting piss-take (read some of his introductions) - the genre was taking itself VERY seriously just then. Where were we? oh yes. could that 'Years Best' put people off? i think so. if you're on a limited budget and you splash out on something called "Best Horror", you're not going to be too thrilled when it veers off into best sweet natured fantasy, best clever-clever wordplay, best incomprehensible gibberish, etc. Having said that, what's kept me going with the Stephen Jones 'Best Of's is that, even if sometimes i can only get into three-four stories he's selected for a particular year, the introductions are indispensable and the £7.99 price tag ain't ripping the skin from your back. The Datlows retail at £11.99 on Amazon which doesn't sound unreasonable.
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Post by weirdmonger on Jan 12, 2011 9:24:14 GMT
...I appreciate that the definition of 'literary' is entirely arbitrary on my part and, like you say, there probably doesn't really exist any kind of schism at all! ....ever more experimental/ ground breaking/ 'at the cutting edge of literary pretention!' material, ... best clever-clever wordplay, best incomprehensible gibberish, ...
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