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Post by Bartwald on Nov 17, 2010 2:31:37 GMT -5
"It" is the one I meant. "Dolores" is alright, but not one of my favourites by King.
Incidentally, I'm now reading King's latest collection of novellas "Full Dark, No Stars" and the story I'm finishing now bears some resemblance to "Dolores Claiborne" - only here it's a man that's murdering his pain-in-the-ass wife.
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Post by spacer on Nov 19, 2010 15:54:07 GMT -5
Just got back into reading in the past few months. Here's a list of novels I've taken the time to read: "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley That's the novel which was a starting point of my MA thesis. I was shocked when I read it for the first time by its prime quality, my point of view being biased up till then by all those low budget, miserable pop movies. Few flicks if any about Frankie lived up to my expectations after reading this classic masterpiece, the father of sci-fi modern literature. |
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Post by spacer on Dec 19, 2010 17:30:39 GMT -5
Now I'm reading quite a strange book "Provokado" written by little known Polish author Andrzej Jarczewski. It's about the German Nazi provocation that occurred in Gliwice radio station which preceded the day WW II broke out. The man is one hell of a story teller (I've got the opportunity when I visited the museum of Gliwice radio station where he's a curator and bought this book) but reading his book is definitely not the same treat.
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Post by Bartwald on Dec 26, 2010 16:21:48 GMT -5
Jerzy Kosinski's Being There, again - simple but powerful. Will have to watch the Peter Sellers adaptation as soon as I finish the book. His performance was so great that now whenever I come back to the book I can't see anyone else but him as the main character.
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Post by Fenril on Jan 6, 2011 19:05:50 GMT -5
Hit a few mass-market horror paperbacks during the holidays and a brief stay in the hospital. Had strayed away from most American horror for some time (not counting the Halloween short story club), so I wondered if I'd enjoy this books as much as I used to. Did I? See:
- The uninvited. John Farris. Barry Breenan mourns her dead boyfriend on the anniversary of his hunting accident. She's so consumed by grief she doesn't notice the strange man standing a few feet from her car until she runs him over. The man survives and, riddled with guilt, Barry takes him home. She's preplexed by the man's unique resemblance to her old boyfriend. Perhaps Barry should have paid more attention to the old legends concerning her family, the Thulpa, and her mother's strange dissapearance... An okay superantural thriller with a good premise and interesting (if not quite sympathetic) characters, only hampered by a weak third act. In retrospective, Farris' work isn't quite as good as I found it a few years ago, but he does have original ideas and ocassionally creative narration. His endings are terrible.
- The vampire Lestat. Anne Rice. The sequel (and expansion) of the infamous "Interview with the vampire", detailing the origins of the title character and of the vampires in Rice's world. I read Interview years ago; found it interesting but not all that great. I wondered why Rice had so much detractrors back in the 90's, and having read Lestat I finally know why. This novel has several good passages (in particular the scenes in the Theatre des Vampires) combined with a lot of pretentious ideas and awkward execution. In the end it's a book that should have been very interesting, but is so self-indulgent it becomes irritating. It's still better than those Twilight books.
- The summoning. Bentley Little. A small town in Arizona is plagued by a cup-hu-grngrsi, a chinese variant of the vampire. This book pretty much sums up my thing with Bentley Little: he has very good ideas yet invariably fills his books with lots of gratitous and over-the-top scenes that feel widly incongruent with the main story. Like Rice, a writer that would be so much better if he weren't so self-indulgent.
- Psycho II. Robert Bloch. Twenty years after the events of the infamous "Psycho", Norman Bates is about to make a comeback just as the events of the previous novel are about to be adapted to a Hollywood thriller. This novel is much more clever than it seems at first, playing with readers' assumptions and expectations until the last scene and mirrors the original (more than the movie adaptations) in clever ways. Despite his legacy, I think Bloch has less in common with Stephen King or Richard Laymon than with Peter Straub or Ira Levin. The former take shock tactics to the limit. The latter attract readers with an over-the-top exosqueleton to propose more complex readings instead.
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Post by Bartwald on Jan 8, 2011 2:19:00 GMT -5
I'll have to read "Psycho II" finally... And I agree about Little's writing. My favourite book of his so far is "The Association" because even if it does have its share of grotesque and OTT moments, it's always focused on telling the main story. A rare thing in his writing, it appears.
Reading now: S.T. Joshi's biography of H.P. Lovecraft. What a huge volume, this!
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Post by Fenril on Jan 17, 2011 22:31:32 GMT -5
I'll have to read "Psycho II" finally... And I agree about Little's writing. My favourite book of his so far is "The Association" because even if it does have its share of grotesque and OTT moments, it's always focused on telling the main story. A rare thing in his writing, it appears. Reading now: S.T. Joshi's biography of H.P. Lovecraft. What a huge volume, this! I do recommend Psycho II. Yeah, some of it is quite tame by today's standards, but it's still a solidly plotted book. Of Litttle, I have read "The store", "The mailman", "The ignored", the aforementioned "The summoning" and his short story collection, "The collection" (boy, laid out like that, his books have terrible titles, don't they?). I really liked the premise of "The store", as it seemed a novel concept on its own (an evil chain of discount stores) and a critique of consummerism. But after a while it seemed evident I was reading that Wall-mart episode of South Park, only with more rape and less finger-pointing at the buyers themselves (i. e. us, the audience). And, well, it eventually dawned on me that it's the same thing with all of his work, a good premise executed in over the top (and sometimes downright tasteless) manners. On the biography of Lovecraft, a curiosity: Does it mention the annecdote about him getting food poisoning from raw fish early in his youth? (I've only seen this mentioned on a spanish biography by Rafael Llopis; if true, it would explain a lot). And the part about him regretting some of his own xenophobia in later life? |
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Post by Bartwald on Feb 16, 2011 13:41:20 GMT -5
On the biography of Lovecraft, a curiosity: Does it mention the annecdote about him getting food poisoning from raw fish early in his youth? (I've only seen this mentioned on a spanish biography by Rafael Llopis; if true, it would explain a lot). And the part about him regretting some of his own xenophobia in later life? No fish and no regrets for xenophobia so far. But I'm currently focusing on the parts that interest me most, i.e. the genesis and critique of his stories. Will let you know if I find anything about this fish poisoning! Currently reading as well: Gary Brandner's The Howling. It's horror pulp, sure - but really enjoyable horror pulp. Still: one of these rare cases when you can say "It's not as good as the movie was". |
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Post by Fenril on Feb 16, 2011 15:43:16 GMT -5
I really want to read "The howling" sometime, if only because Richard Laymon stated he found this particular book so good it made it pointless for him to ever adress werewolves.
In fact, I really want to read anything by Brandner. Pulp horror can be fun when it doesn't pretend to be something it's not.
Currently reading "Bala con alas de mariposa" (Bullet with buttefly wings, more or less) by Bernardo Esquinca, but not enjoying it much. It basically wants to be a Mexican American Psycho (it even has Bret Easton Ellis' sentence structure), but well, Mexico City isn't the same thing as New York, plainly.
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Post by Fenril on Mar 7, 2011 13:57:39 GMT -5
Read "The rising", by Brian Keene. This was his first published novel (he had had a few short stories published first) and made him a moderately sucessful genre author. It's a zombie apocalypse story... I found it a bit overrated (particularly when a lot of reviewers praised it for being so innovative with zombies... the innovations in question are that his zombies are smart, use weapons and tools, include both humans and several animals, and are actually extradimensional demons --none of that seems so original to me, frankly). It's nevertheless entertaining and delivers what it promises (lots of action and gore, gratitous but competent drama, fairly interesting cast, etc.), so there's that.
It was followed by a sequel, "City of the dead".
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Post by Bartwald on Mar 8, 2011 14:25:33 GMT -5
I've read Keene's "City of the Dead" and found it rather dull. The idea of "different" zombies wears off quickly and the premise - as well as most of the characters - seemed so artificial I just didn't care about anyone.
Now I'm reading Gaiman's "Coraline" - now that's a fine book!
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Post by Fenril on Mar 8, 2011 14:40:02 GMT -5
I've read Keene's "City of the Dead" and found it rather dull. The idea of "different" zombies wears off quickly and the premise - as well as most of the characters - seemed so artificial I just didn't care about anyone. This guy sums it up much better than I could: mightygodking.com/index.php/2010/12/24/bad-movies-vs-bad-books/ in the comments he specifically mentions the problem with both of Keene's books, which, yeah... Never read Coraline, through I really liked the movie, might have to check out the book sometime. Neil Gaiman usually works better in comics, but some of his prose books are pretty good. |
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Post by Bartwald on Mar 8, 2011 14:56:48 GMT -5
Ah yeah, Selick's movie was just wonderful! And I liked the comic book version, too, though in comparison to the movie it was kinda tame.
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Post by Fenril on Mar 26, 2011 19:42:49 GMT -5
Read "Orca", by Arthur Herzog. I think this is actually a novelization of the movie, and the interesting part is that Herzog had written a different animal attack novel previously, "The swarm" (which in turn got made into a movie a couple years later). This novel follows the original movie mostly bit by bit, with a few small changes here and there, so it has the same qualities and flaws.
Flaws: it's very obviously a Jaws ripoff, yet it has the audacity to have a main character declaring that "Sharks aren't scary, I felt asleep watching Jaws!". Also, a lot of scenes are impossible to take seriously, especially the concept of a vengeful Orca not just stalking a man he wants revenge on, but purposefully attacking said man's dog and wife just to provoke him...
Qualities: the main character, Jack Campbell (Richard Harris in the movie, I think) is acutally quite interesting and more complex than is the norm for B-movies or pulp horror --essentially he's a man who feels his life is so meaningless he goes on thrill-seeking adventures just to feel something. The story delivers the expected animal attack scares and an okay (if just as over-the-top) ending.
"The swarm" was far better, possibly because "Orca" was an editorial assignement.
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Post by Bartwald on Jun 7, 2011 16:06:42 GMT -5
Yeah, well - I haven't read the books, but as far as the movies go The Swarm was WAAAY better than Orca.
And interestingly, I was just thinking I should read another Peter Benchley book, possibly The Island as this is the latest one I bought. Anyone has read it?
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