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Post by andydecker on Mar 27, 2020 9:14:16 GMT
Robert R. McCammon – Bethany's Sin (Sphere 1980, 5th reprint (?), Original Avon 1980, 342 p.) Even God has fled from …
BETHANY'S SIN
When Evan Reid brought his wife and small daughter to Bethany's Sin it seemed the perfect setting. A small village, far from the noise and pollution of the city, it was quaint and very peaceful.
Too peaceful. There were no sounds at all … almost as if the night had been frightened into silence.
Then Evan noticed there were very few men in the village, and that those he knew of were crippled. And sometimes he thought he heard the sound of horses galloping in the dead of night.
Soon he would know the superhuman secret that kept the village alive. And he would watch in horror as Kay and Laurie underwent a hideous transformation right before his eyes. He would know the terror that happened at night – and only to men … in BETHANY'S SIN.
The place were no man walks the street after nightfall.Absolutly love the blurb. Which is surprisingly complex for a paperback original. As with too many books I read 30 or more years ago I only have a hazy recollection of this. Something about amazons, with all the juicy details of the mythology OTT, if memory serves right. |
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Post by helrunar on Mar 27, 2020 14:12:31 GMT
Bethany's Sin sounds from the blurb like a riff on Thomas Tryon's Harvest Home (a book very popular amongst some in the Pagan community, and the TV film version is perhaps even more popular, with Bette Davis as "the Widow").
I think I've heard the name Robert R. McCammon but never read any of his books. Interesting to see the covers and read the blurbs.
Thanks, Andreas!
Steve
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Post by andydecker on Mar 27, 2020 16:21:49 GMT
I think I've heard the name Robert R. McCammon but never read any of his books. Interesting to see the covers and read the blurbs. Thanks, Andreas! Steve No problem. It is fun. This was the Golden Age of mass market horror, which I have to say at least for myself didn't recognize at the time or didn't knew how to appreciate it enough. In a blink it was the new millenium and it was gone like the dinos. To never come back. |
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Post by jamesdoig on Mar 27, 2020 20:48:59 GMT
I think I've heard the name Robert R. McCammon but never read any of his books. Interesting to see the covers and read the blurbs. He even had a fan newsletter:   With T-shirt:  |
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Post by helrunar on Mar 28, 2020 0:06:30 GMT
That's very cool, James. Even though I have no real interest in this author, it's always fun and in the midst of what we are enduring now, strangely heartwarming to see a fannish artifact of this kind from ye days of olde.
I hope you and your family are staying safe and have enough provisions and resources to see out this difficult time.
All the best,
Steve
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Post by andydecker on Mar 28, 2020 11:33:16 GMT
Great stuff, James.
I can't get the story together any longer why McCammon stopped publishing. Something to do with his publishers disagreeing to his new interests and being depressed about his work?
I remember buying his last books dutifully, but not reading them. When he started branching out into the "psychological thriller" territory I lost interest. I was no fan of these (still am not) and rather read a crime novel instead of a thriller with the length of 400 pages plus. So I never read Gone South or Boy's Life. Years later I read his first new novel The Five and didn't like it at all. A thoroughly limp book. One of his strength I think was the sheer originality of his earlier work - no novel was the same. So do I want to start a historical x-part series about a recurring hero? If I want to read something like this, I have Cornwell or Doherty. I know this sounds small-minded, maybe I am missing here a lot, but I also don't read King any longer, so what do I know.
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Post by doomovertheworld on Mar 28, 2020 11:52:12 GMT
Something about amazons, with all the juicy details of the mythology OTT, if memory serves right. Your memory is entirely spot on. It, along with Stinger are probably my favorite books by Mr McCammon.
Plus I adore that book cover
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Post by helrunar on Mar 28, 2020 12:06:58 GMT
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Post by Dr Strange on Mar 28, 2020 12:14:38 GMT
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Post by andydecker on Mar 28, 2020 12:25:19 GMT
Thanks. Yes, this is one of the small special publishers. Like so many bestsellers of yesterday none of the big corporate publishers won't do writers like him any longer. The Corbett series in translation are hardcover only (and ebooks) with the according pricing. Still it is quite a well made edition.
Thanks for asking. Everything okay. Hope in your territory all is well under the circumstances.
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Post by helrunar on Mar 28, 2020 14:11:54 GMT
I am personally fine. I do feel a lot of concern around what's likely to happen in the next few weeks. I saw a statistic that stated there were nearly 26,000 cases of COVID-19 in New York City last Thursday. No doubt there are more today.The numbers here in Metro Boston are much lower and I've been working "remotely" since the 16th. Beware the Ides of March...
I have not had any trouble getting food or other provisions. Yesterday I went grocery shopping during the morning "senior citizen hour" (since I am a few months away from my 62nd birthday, I qualify, which in and of itself feels quite surreal). People were calm and orderly and there was plenty of food though still no paper products. My Mother who lives in a gated retirement community in Florida heard from a friend that certain individuals sit in a store parking lot waiting for the paper products (toilet paper and paper towels) to be loaded on the shelves. Just how they know this has been done, I am uncertain. Once the goods are out, they descend upon the store and ransack the shelves. Apparently this happens like clockwork, every day.
I said to another friend last week that this may be the first time in American history that a crisis has not given rise to food riots, but toilet paper riots. I have no doubt it is coming. I wonder what a Guy N Smith toilet paper horror novel would look like.
I find getting outdoors and looking at the new flowers and the plentiful birds flying out helps reassure me that Nature continues in Her holy course, regardless of what happens in the human realm.
cheers, Steve
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Post by andydecker on Mar 29, 2020 11:47:44 GMT
since I am a few months away from my 62nd birthday, I qualify, which in and of itself feels quite surreal). I wonder what a Guy N Smith toilet paper horror novel would look like. I know what you mean. My 60th is also coming, and I can't put my head around the idea. Smith' novel would surely be called "The blocked Pit". |
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Post by andydecker on Mar 29, 2020 12:01:53 GMT
Thanks for the links. Very useful! |
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Post by helrunar on Mar 29, 2020 14:40:51 GMT
Hilarious, Andreas! Great title!
Maybe you'll love being in the "Swinging Sixties." Hope so!
cheers, Steve
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Post by goathunter on Jan 9, 2022 23:34:11 GMT
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