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Post by vaughan on Sept 27, 2009 1:24:29 GMT
Slim pickings today.
Recently I picked up Dennis Wheatley Select and introduces Quiver of Horror (mentioned in an earlier post). It states there is a companion volume, but since only one was on the shelf.................
But today, strangely, I came across it: Dennis Wheatley Selects and Introduces Shafts of Fear. I guess someone had bought them, and read them. It took them a week to read the second book. ;D
I got a couple Dean Koontz: Night Chills and Demon Seed.
Both are "early" Koontz, and Demon Seed is a fun movie....so why not?
Finally I got Peter Benchley's The Beast. Looks like a Jaws riff but with a giant Squid. Great cover too.
I also bought a giant hardback. I thought it was "Great Ghost Stories of the World?". It's stacked with shorts, organized by country and has things in it from all the way back to 400 AD!
However, when I got home my wife asked: "Why did you buy "Great Short Stories of the World? That's not usually your thing."
I looked at it and.... she's right. It's just that the cover has the name of some horror writers (Poe etc.) on it. I had invented the "Ghost" bit in my mind somehow. I can't explain it. I was gutted.
But I thought some of you might get a laugh at my stupidity. ;D
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Post by vaughan on Sept 26, 2009 11:17:14 GMT
Must admit, I like the blue cover. It's a classic piece of movie art, imo.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 26, 2009 1:45:55 GMT
Ah, Videodrome. A favorite of mine.
That cover.... it looks like a still from the movie was used. However, the basis for it served for the UK Quad.
Most people remember the cinema poster for this movie as being blue, with the figure of a man crawling through.... but the UK Quad was quite different - red, with a drawing of Harry's character facing as she is here.
This is strikingly similar, although it's only a small part of the UK Quad.
How do I know? I have the original theatrical art on my wall. :-)
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Post by vaughan on Sept 25, 2009 17:21:45 GMT
I won't wax lyrical about this one, because basically it's a thriller where you know where it's going, but you enjoy the journey anyway.
The basic plot, as one might expect, is a cross between The Most Dangerous Game and the Kidman classic, Dead Calm.
Illicit lovers want some time alone so charter a boat to sail them around the Bahama's. Owners of the boat, a seemingly nice (yup - TOO nice) couple might well have other motives for their little adventure. When we learn the name of the boat is the "Penny Dreadful" then those with a modicum of knowledge can see where this going.
And go it does, out to sea, into storms, around the islands, passed the islands, into the infinite ocean.
The story has 270 pages to draw out the tension, to introduce doubt and suspicion. But as I say, it doesn't really work because by now we're familiar with this plot.
De Felitta gave us Audrey Rose, of course, and he's a good writer. My one and only criticism is that he loves the word "palpable". Everything is either palpable, or not palpable. Well, it seemed that way sometimes to me. ;D
I'm not at all complaining about the book because as I've said, it did exactly what I thought it was going to do. In that context there are no surprises, only details. How exactly will the evil on the boat come out? How precisely will they choose to wrap it up?
And so my own journey with the Penny Dreadful is at an end, and a good time was had by most (not all, BAD THINGS HAPPEN AT TIMES). Nothing shocking, nothing to get your blood racing, just a tale to told, and told well.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 25, 2009 16:08:56 GMT
The one on the left is the one I have - and since the back cover blurb mentions a bomb as the cause of the fire, I think we can assume the whole electrical thing was in the other novel, or was an invention of the screenwriter.
Terrific cover - no?
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Post by vaughan on Sept 24, 2009 11:13:11 GMT
Interesting it says "Now an awesome motion picture experience" when the novel also confirms "based on the screenplay".
Anyway, this is a fairly good movie actually. For those that don't know, Cohen also gave us It's Alive, Q the Winged Serpent, and The Stuff. All worthy ways to spend 90 minutes or so.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 23, 2009 21:39:58 GMT
Futura - 1981 - 218 pages
This is my first novel by John Hyde (The Prediction is sitting on my shelf as well).
I must say I was suitably impressed. After some "heavier" reads lately, it was a welcome respite.
Amen tels the story of the battle between good and evil. Every 1000 years Satan accumulates enough strength to make a bid to take Dominion over the Earth and all of our pitiful souls. It's up to the chosen ones to meet the challenge head-on, and to cast Satan back into hell!
The highlight of the book, for me, was the Prologue. It's a short tale (five and a half pages in length) take of a baby-sitter and the parents of a 6 month old. It's really an incredible opening, one of the best I can recall in recent times.
It's never going to match that, and in the very next sequence we're tuned into the more traditional realm of heads turning around, Popes getting vomited on, and the ever pervading smell of Sulfur.
Things culminate at the portal to hell as the Catholic church and Satan do battle.
There are some gruesome murders along the way, and one of two twists as well, it would be criminal to let you in on them. Suffice to say, while the book does sometimes become a bit predictable, it's a worthy little read.
My first time with Hyde then, and it was a pleasant stay in his imagination. Kudos, Mr. Hyde, wherever you are.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 23, 2009 19:49:22 GMT
Why do those wanting to vote have to do so much reading for the competition? Do they not read throughout the year? Are the books chosen obscure in some way?
It seems strange to me....
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Post by vaughan on Sept 23, 2009 19:25:23 GMT
Saw this today, and while I don't usually dip into the crime genre I just couldn't leave it behind. It sounds far too good.
Front cover blurb: The Kind of book you read at the point of a switch blade.... faster than you can turn the pages.
But the best is kept for the back cover!
"Two naked girls with their throats cut - tied together on the bedroom floor of a ransacked apartment.
A homicide that sent Detectives Fenner and Cascade looking under every stone for a killer - flushing out lesbians, dope-freaks, and drop-outs, plus a psychopathic apeman with the weirdest taste in wallpaper.
L.A. was a city full of suspects, until one confessed. He was young and black with a rape record and an IQ you could count on your fingers..."
Nice!
But wait - two endorsement put a shine on things:
Yorkshire Post: First class...compelling...not for those with weak stomachs and strong morals.
Liverpool Daily Post: If sex crimes turn you on then read The Killings.
;D
Now tell you - would YOU have left it behind?
I thought not.
So someone tell me - does this live up to the hype or not?
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Post by vaughan on Sept 23, 2009 19:11:44 GMT
Two recent trips.
TRIP 1
Dennis Wheatley Select and introduces Quiver of Horror (Arrow) Dennis Wheatley - The Devil Rides Out (Lymington Edition HB) Dennis Wheatley - The Island Where Time Stands Still (Mayflower HB) 2nd Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories (Fontana) Graham Masterton - How to Be a Perfect Lover (Star) Pennethorne Hughes - Witchcraft (Pelican) Lionel Davidson - The Rose of Tibet (Penguin) John G. Jones -The Amityville Horror Pt II (NEL) Alan Dean Foster - Aliens (WB) James Herbert - Sepulchre (NEL) Joe Donnelly - Bane (Arrow)
TRIP 2
Dennis Wheatley - The Irish Witch (Arrow) JS Forrester - The Innocent Dark (Sphere) Clark Howard - The Killings (Pan) Raymond Rudorff - The House of the Brandersons (Corgi) Jere Cunningham - The Visitor (Corgi) Frank De Felitta - Sea Trial (Arrow) Bernard Taylor - Charmed Life (Grafton) Norah Lofts - The Haunting of Gad's Hall (Corgi) Graham Watkins - Dark Winds (Berkley) Richard Martin Stern - The Tower (Pan) Joan Paisnel - The Beast of Jersey (NEL) Stephen King - Carrie (HB) Dean Koontz - The Bad Place (HB) 2nd Book of Pan Horrors (Original cover) 3rd Book of Pan Horror (Original cover) This Devil's Days: Alfred Hitchcock
Of these there are five highlights.
The Visitor looks good, and I have the authors previous novel "The Legacy". Nice to get a second book from him.
Sea Trial by De Felitta because I happen to think he writes well.
The Tower - filmed as The Towering Inferno - because of the wonderful cover.
The Beast of Jersey because the cover is wonderful.
The Killings - because............ well this needs a thread on its own really.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 23, 2009 18:19:21 GMT
It's none other than the wonderful Bela Lugosi. Got to love him!
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Post by vaughan on Sept 23, 2009 18:12:08 GMT
I found a copy of "This Day's Evil" today. I'll probably give it a look through at some point - but I mostly bought it because I thought there might be someone on this site who'd want a copy. Worse case, I'll read it myself. ;D
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Post by vaughan on Sept 23, 2009 11:25:31 GMT
The first thing that occurred to me was the following: Michael Caine is no B actor.
The Swarm was first published in 1974, and four years later a movie from Irwin Allen graced screens across the nation. For a short time. For a time shorter than it takes a hive of Africans to outgrow their community and, well, swarm elsewhere (a month).
I was amused by two sets of comments on IMDB. The first is the following: “Irwin Allen was so disheartened by the amount of money he lost on The Swarm (1978) that he forbade any of his employees to ever mention it again. He even cut short an interview when a question was asked about it.”
And then there is a review posted by a viewer: “Contrary to popular opinion, THE SWARM is not the worst movie ever made, and anyone who says otherwise clearly hasn't seen the collected works of Jesùs Franco, Andy Milligan or Woody Allen.”
If that isn’t a must see I don’t know what is!
But I digress; my comments are about the novel, not the movie. The Swarm was published by Pan with a striking cover (a single beer poised over a keyhole). It’s a small book of only 220 pages.
It actually took me longer to read this than is normal. In fact it took three days. Under normal circumstances this would be read in a single day. And yes, life got in the way a bit. But mostly it’s the strange writing style of Mr. Herzog that caused me some issues. The thing is, the author doesn’t like to wallow. And you know, a good insect book needs a good deal of wallowing. It needs to wallow in death and gore, gratuitous sex, ridiculous occurrences and abstract plot diversions. Wallowing is good, nah, essential.
The Swarm doesn’t wallow nearly enough. In fact to me it reads almost like a treatment for a movie. You know the kind of movie I mean – one with a big name star slumming it for a pay check and a grandiose landscape of glass screen FX and poor animation.
On the other hand at times the novel gets quite technical. The book has graphics interspersed with the text giving us charts, diagrams, readings from computer print-outs and whatnot. I won’t mention all the chemical names (oh damn, just did). It even, dare I say it, wallows in all that for a bit. But if you’re going to wallow that’s hardly the place I’d have chosen. Was Herzog trying to prove he’d done his research?
As it is you never really get attached to the characters, and the deaths are recorded merely as figures on a spreadsheet. There’s not a single stinger to the eyeball sequence – and damn that would have been pretty good I’d have thought.
But no. Herzog seems to taking this very very seriously. And I tried to as well. But you know, I’ve recently been through Guy N. Smith’s Bats, Childers Worms, Herbert’s Rats, and Lewis’s Spiders – and as such The Swarm just didn’t stack up.
Which is a lesson. If you’re going to write about the end of civilisation, have fun with it. If the world is doomed, it might as well go out with a real toss, turn, and gnaw. We want spasms, madness, cooky stereotypes coming to grotesque ends. Look, the world is over, I don’t need all the details. If the world was going to end tomorrow I’d not bother with scientific journals, I’d bury my head in a Playboy, you know?
So, I’d say The Swarm is a middling little number. It’s alright. Nothing special. And nowhere near a match for the other insect books out there. A diversion then. Honestly though, it had me craving some Guy N. Smith.
Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
ps: Another IMDB gem: "Michael Caine stated in an interview that during filming he thought the little yellow spots left by the bees on his clothing was honey so he began to eat it, unaware he was eating bee poop." ;D
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Post by vaughan on Sept 23, 2009 1:41:28 GMT
Do we honestly not think that is how all awards are done?
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Post by vaughan on Sept 20, 2009 21:51:08 GMT
Thanks for that, Demonik.
I know what not owning a "must have" feels like (having only two Crab books!) and on the one hand it feels like you have something a little "special", and on the other you know there might well be someone out there that would appreciate it at a different level than yourself.
As such - if there are any vaulters who collect titles such as this - and that want this title - I'd be happy to do a swap.
I like.... well pulp horror books. Any old monster will do. ;D
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