|
Post by dem bones on Sept 24, 2021 18:43:45 GMT
I quite like old horror films, like the Hammer ones, and was wondering if there are any novelisations of old films that are actually worth reading, and aren't just hack work. You might enjoy Robin Hardy & Anthony Shaffer's (non-Hammer) The Wicker Man, as I gather that is regarded as a serious novel or some-such non-"hackwork" thing. Some personal favourites would include Michel Parry's excellent Countess Dracula which fleshes out a flimsy script to good effect, and John Burke's linear but fun Hammer Horror Film Omnibus Vol 1 and Vol 2. If you're looking for "great" literature, probably best to seek elsewhere ...
|
|
|
Post by ripper on Sept 24, 2021 19:48:46 GMT
I would add Guy Adams update to the Countess Dracula novel (still titled Countess Dracula), which moves the story to Hollywood at the beginning of the sound era when stars had to have tests to see if their voices were okay for sound movies. I wouldn't class it as highbrow literature, but it is a cracking good read.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Sept 24, 2021 20:12:51 GMT
I would add Guy Adams update to the Countess Dracula novel (still titled Countess Dracula), which moves the story to Hollywood at the beginning of the sound era when stars had to have tests to see if their voices were okay for sound movies. I wouldn't class it as highbrow literature, but it is a cracking good read. Agree, Mr. Adams' Countess Dracula is fun. Also liked his updated Hands of the Ripper guest-starring Lord & Lady Probert.
|
|
|
Post by ripper on Sept 25, 2021 9:33:37 GMT
I would add Guy Adams update to the Countess Dracula novel (still titled Countess Dracula), which moves the story to Hollywood at the beginning of the sound era when stars had to have tests to see if their voices were okay for sound movies. I wouldn't class it as highbrow literature, but it is a cracking good read. Agree, Mr. Adams' Countess Dracula is fun. Also liked his updated Hands of the Ripper guest-starring Lord & Lady Probert. Yes, that one is also worth reading, though I wouldn't bother with the original from 1971 by Spencer Shew.
|
|
|
Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 2, 2021 19:36:25 GMT
Weirdmonger can you recommend books about John Cowper Powys, or his family, or other family members.
|
|
|
Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 2, 2021 19:43:07 GMT
I was thinking that Dickens toured doing readings of his work. Do you think anyone specialised in live ghost fiction or horror readings in the days of theatre and music hall? I will have to look and see, but perhaps some of you know. I would have thought it was likely.
|
|
|
Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 19, 2021 16:30:17 GMT
After the terrible murder of an MP, which was so sad, Southend is to be made a city in his memory. That will make 70 cities in the UK. It used to be that you had to have a cathedral to qualify, but it's not like that anymore. I read that in 2018 there are 19,495 cities in the USA. How do they define what makes a city? Do different states have different laws?
|
|
drauch
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 56
|
Post by drauch on Oct 19, 2021 17:54:10 GMT
Population is what defines it, but how many people I don't know. And yeah, there's different laws in different states. Death penalty, smoking the ganja, gambling, age of consent, etc.
|
|
|
Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 20, 2021 9:00:25 GMT
Population is what defines it, but how many people I don't know. And yeah, there's different laws in different states. Death penalty, smoking the ganja, gambling, age of consent, etc. Thank you. Yes, I know there are different laws, I was wondering if there was for what defines a city. Cities can be as small as 2,500 people. It seems it is to do with legal recognition, it becomes incorporated which allows it to define its own laws to a degree.
|
|
|
Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 20, 2021 14:03:40 GMT
I have an idea for something to do for Halloween, oh but you will have to wait, as it is still too early to start it.
|
|
drauch
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 56
|
Post by drauch on Oct 20, 2021 14:10:45 GMT
Are you going to be a city?
|
|
|
Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 20, 2021 14:58:29 GMT
Are you going to be a city? Don't be silly. I'm British and it is much harder here to be a city. It seems in America anything can be called one, but here they are much rarer and I do not have a cathedral anywhere on my person, which is just as well as it would only get in the way of my stunning beauty.
|
|
|
Post by Shrink Proof on Oct 20, 2021 16:35:42 GMT
Population is what defines it, but how many people I don't know. And yeah, there's different laws in different states. Death penalty, smoking the ganja, gambling, age of consent, etc. Thank you. Yes, I know there are different laws, I was wondering if there was for what defines a city. Cities can be as small as 2,500 people. It seems it is to do with legal recognition, it becomes incorporated which allows it to define its own laws to a degree. Historically, city status was awarded to places in England and Wales that had a cathedral - or even two, e.g. Liverpool. This resulted in some small places like Ely being cities for centuries while much larger places like Manchester had to wait until the 1850s for city status. The system was/is quite different in Scotland, so that both Kirkwall in Orkney or Dornoch in the Highlands, for instance, each has a cathedral but they remain towns (and are both well worth a visit - St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall in particular is splendidly Jamesian). Inverness had a cathedral for over a century before being granted city status in 2000. If you're interested, this is the link to follow.
|
|
|
Post by weirdmonger on Oct 20, 2021 17:29:06 GMT
Thank you. Yes, I know there are different laws, I was wondering if there was for what defines a city. Cities can be as small as 2,500 people. It seems it is to do with legal recognition, it becomes incorporated which allows it to define its own laws to a degree. Historically, city status was awarded to places in England and Wales that had a cathedral - or even two, e.g. Liverpool. This resulted in some small places like Ely being cities for centuries while much larger places like Manchester had to wait until the 1850s for city status. The system was/is quite different in Scotland, so that both Kirkwall in Orkney or Dornoch in the Highlands, for instance, each has a cathedral but they remain towns (and are both well worth a visit - St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall in particular is splendidly Jamesian). Inverness had a cathedral for over a century before being granted city status in 2000. If you're interested, this is the link to follow.My Essex now has the Tale of Two Cities. My Clacton on Sea, next.
|
|
|
Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Oct 22, 2021 16:33:22 GMT
I found a writer on my ebook site called Inez Holden. She wrote stories with a World War 2 Blitz setting but there was an interesting bit of information about her: The best examples of Holdenās affirmation of simplicity of speech, suitable for the dark, pared-down years of the Depression, are the stories that she published in a collection titled Death in High Society (1934), some of which were later reprinted in her 1945 collection To The Boating. Holden had translated these stories, which had previously appeared in magazines like Harperās Bazaar, Nashās and The Evening Standard, into Basic English, an experi- mental language of 850 words developed by CK Ogden. Ogden believed that any- one with a phonograph, anywhere in the world, could learn Basic on his or her own in thirty hours. Basic English came to be associated with Orwellās totalitarian Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four, but it was inspired by egalitarian impulses and pacifist ideals. As Ogden explains in the foreword to Death in High Society, Basic English āis an all-round language for everyday use, which may be turned into a lan- guage for the expert by the addition of short special listsā. He introduces Holden as his expert on the short story, assuring readers that Holdenās stories āare represen- tative of an important part of the reading material on which the value of Basic for general purposes has to be testedā (Ogden 1934, 8ā9).
From: Blitz Writing: Night Shift & It Was Different At The Time: 8 (Handheld Classics) Paperback ā 30 May 2019 by Inez Holden.
|
|