What are you reading?

[Lorne Marshall Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Lorne Marshall]

I finished a few more volumes of YEAR'S BEST HORROR STORIES.

Tales I liked in #11: my old buddy Richard Laymon's "The Grab" (made me chuckle), David Campton's "A Posthumous Bequest" (more about that in a moment), Michael Kube-McDowell's "Slippage" (rather derivative of "Shatterday" and Richard Matheson's "Disappearing Act," but still chilling), Lawrence C. Connolly's "Mrs. Halfbooger's Basement," and Thomas F. Monteleone's "Spare the Child." The last story featured in this one is Al Sarrantonio's "Pumpkin Head," and while I've always had a soft spot for it, there are at least half-a-dozen other tales from where this was sourced - the terrific Charles L. Grant-edited TERRORS - that were more deserving of a place in here (especially Alan Ryan's "Baby Blood," Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's "Disturb Not My Slumbering Fair," and Stephen King's "Survivor Type").

Tales I liked in the somewhat weaker #12: Stephen King's "Uncle Otto's Truck" (don't think I much cared for it in his collection SKELETON CREW, but it shines brightly among most others here), Lawrence C. Connolly's "Echoes," Juleen Brantingham's "The Ventriloquist's Daughter" (although I thought it ended too abruptly), David J. Schow's "One for the Horrors" (a story about horror movies that is really kind of a sweet love story), and Al Sarrantonio's "The Man with Legs" (again he has the final offering in a collection). Honorable mention goes to Susan Casper's "Spring-Fingered Jack" (the late author herself has an intriguing backstory) and Jon Wynne-Tyson's "Mistral." I'm ambivalent about the very odd "The Flash! Kid" from Scott Bradfield.

Now, skip this paragraph if you don't want to read about my weird OCD... Going back to the David Campton story in YBHS #11, I know this is going to sound like my insanity kicked into astronomical gear, but I noticed a very unusual placement of a phrase in his story that really caught me by surprise. At the very end of page 109 appeared the words "at the bottom of the garden." These were not at the end of the story, nor even the end of a paragraph. They were in the middle of a sentence that continued over to the next page. It's very unlikely that when the book galley was laid out, the editor/publisher could have structured it in such a way that this would happen. Yet I find it hard to believe it's a coincidence, as it's the exact name of a story (and one of my favorites) from volume #6. And the most astonishing aspect about this? The author of "At the Bottom of Garden" was (wait for it)...David Campton!

Okay, moving on...

[Lorne Marshall Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Lorne Marshall]

Also finished the last of the novels a friend gave to me, F. Paul Wilson's NIGHTWORLD. Now this is the way to portray the end times (or sort of the end times). It was kind of like "The Mist," only with a supernatural origin and about a million times the devastation (as the events depicted are worldwide). It was the sixth and final title in a series called the "Adversary Cycle" (actually, there exists a seventh one, but it was written afterward and apparently is a prequel to this one). Prior to this I had read only the first and most famous in the series, THE KEEP, yet I may eventually go back and read the titles I missed, as I really had a blast with this one. I even teared up a couple of times (yep, even my coldness occasionally thaws a bit).

The next set of books sitting on my "to read" shelf are from a visit I made many years ago to a few used book stores in the area, inspired by my surfing a website at that time that either was or was similar to Too Much Horror Fiction (http://toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.com/), which Andrew and I discussed in this thread last year. From that group I'm selecting a couple of classics (since they're pretty short): John Russo's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and Dennis Wheatley's THE DEVIL RIDES OUT.

[The Silly Swede Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close The Silly Swede]

Radioactive dreams: the cinema of Albert Pyun finally someone wrote a book on the auteur of auteurs!

[Lorne Marshall Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Lorne Marshall]

I've been busy the last two months getting my house back in order after having work done on it over the spring and summer, so I didn't have a lot of time to read, but I finally managed to make it through the latest selections.

THE YEAR'S BEST HORROR STORIES #13 is the last of the series that I already owned, but like a few others of similar status, I didn't remember any of it, probably because it was pretty unmemorable. There wasn't much that I really enjoyed from this volume: only James B. Hemesath's "The End of the World" and Charles Wagner's "Deadlights," the first appearance in YBHS of the "prose version of a story from a comic book," which came from, of all places, Twisted Tales! Honorable mention goes to Daniel Wynn Barber's "Tiger in the Snow," Jovan Panich's "The Wardrobe," Vincent McHardy's "Angst for the Memories" (for its innovative approach), and David Langford's "The Thing in the Bedroom" (for its hilarious profaneness). There's even a contribution from Leslie Halliwell (of HALLIWELL'S FILM GUIDE/FILMGOER'S COMPANION fame) in here. Unfortunately, it employs the same formula as many of the ghost stories in these books, starting off with a character teasing a chilling account of some personal occurrence from his past and then segueing into a sleep-inducing yarn.

YBHS #14 was better. Initially I was anticipating a sense of relief that this was the last book containing Tanith Lee (my second least favorite writer in these compilations), but her "Pinewood" was pretty decent. Besides that I liked David B. Silva's "Dwindling" (while the plot device was familiar, the explanation for its use here was satisfyingly unusual), Phillip C. Heath's "Dead Men's Fingers," Leonard Carpenter's "Dead Week," Stephen F. Wilcox's "Mother's Day," Paul M. Sammon's "In Late December, Before the Storm," and David S. Garnett's "Red Christmas."

In the latter omnibus, a contender for worst story from this series (possibly ousting "Egnaro" in YBHS #10 from the top spot) is a novella by Steve Sneyd called "Too Far Behind Gradina." It's an oftentimes scream-...I mean stream-of-consciousness narrative by a mousey woman vacationing in Eastern Europe with her husband and kids being lured into a long trek by a German brother and sister to a mountain castle for a sinister ritual of some kind or another. Here's just one example of the bewildering passages: "...and the wind hissed and the two hollow human skins the German siblings had left behind danced like toy balloons half-deflated round the duts...pink, plastic looking, sacks for any deformed person, any hunchback with hump upon her stomach, and humpback with hunch to hide her fears, to crawl inside and conceal wounded mind in misdirectingly purloined letter obvious physical misshapeness...[sic for all of that]" James Joyce it was not.

Also in #14, "John's Return to Liverpool" by Christopher Burns confirms a comment I made in an earlier review that the death of John Lennon contemporaneous to the publication of these middle editions appears to have influenced some of the authors. Burns's portrayal of the Beatle as a kind of introspective zombie is as inspired by that event as one can get.

[Lorne Marshall Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Lorne Marshall]

I don't have a lot to write about the two novels I finished. John Russo's novelization of one of the greatest horror films in cinematic history, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, seemed remarkably flat. Naturally, it could never live up to expectations, although I thought its sympathetic portrayal of Barbara was rather poignant. And I'm trying to control my petty observations, especially concerning narrative structure, but I found one shift of the third-person POV from "limited" to "omniscient" particularly jarring. In the same paragraph on page 76, after Ben contemplates that his young sons were probably doing fine while in the care of their grandmother, Russo writes, "the old farmhouse was more a prison than it was a refuge, for him and Barbara - although he did not even know her name..."

Beforehand, I thought Dennis Wheatley's THE DEVIL RIDES OUT was going to be too highbrow for my lowbrow tastes, but I ended up really liking it. The more static scenes involving discussions of occult esoterica bogged down the goings-on a little, yet every time the effort to stop the Satanists from carrying through with their devious and deviant scheme resumed, the action picked up and it was quite exciting. I don't have anything more to say about it other than it now makes me want to watch the movie rendition, which I haven't seen in decades and don't recall being impressed by, despite the seeming consensus by "critics" that it's one of Terence Fisher's best works.

[Newt Cox Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Newt Cox]

Escape from VHS Hell

Can't remember who wrote this short,barely 100 pages,novel. But it is based around one of my favorite indie wrestling lady wrestlers,Charlie Kruel.

Basic plot is sometime in the mid 80s a couple moved to Indiana from eastern Europe. The husband becomes obesssed with cheesy horror movies. So the wife puts a curse on their vcr. Where anytime a movie is played on it the lead of the film will come into the real world.

Skip ahead to present day and some young adults end up with the VCR and watch Friday the 13th part 4,Halloween,TCM original and Elm Street 3. And end up with the killers from each running amuck in their neighborhood. Once they learn what caused this they play a vhs of Charlie Kruel,a failed horror franchise about a lady who kills rapist and other scum.

Charlie comes to the real world kills the slashers and cause the VCR gets destroyed Charlie gets trapped in the real world. And decides to become a lady wrestler.

Nothing in the book is amazing but it was a fun quick read. I bought it a few months ago cause a local indie fed was having a one night women's tournament and Charlie was booked for the show.Then cause MS's Covid case numbers jumped up the show got canceled.

[Mark Tolch Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mark Tolch]

I'm reading Moon Lake by Joe Lansdale.

I really like a lot of Lansdale's stuff, but recently, with some of the Canadian prices of his books being off the charts and the fact that he puts out a LOT of product, have stuck to libraries. Kinda glad, the last one that I read was a recycle of old plots with new characters.

[Andrew Monroe Pallid Hands Find all posts View Profile Close Andrew Monroe]

I'm rereading some of Patricia Highsmith's novels. Finished People Who Knock on the Door the other day, and now it's The Glass Cell. Still my all-time favorite author. Peerless at quietly disturbing stories.

[Lorne Marshall Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Lorne Marshall]

I'm rereading some of Patricia Highsmith's novels. Finished People Who Knock on the Door the other day, and now it's The Glass Cell. Still my all-time favorite author. Peerless at quietly disturbing stories.

What did you think of the series made from some of her works?

http://www.rockshockpop.com/forums/s...nthony+Perkins

[Andrew Monroe Pallid Hands Find all posts View Profile Close Andrew Monroe]

What did you think of the series made from some of her works?

http://www.rockshockpop.com/forums/s...nthony+Perkins

I haven't seen that series. I'm somewhat interested, but I've never loved her short stories the way I do her novels. I've always thought her particular brand of psychological suspense works so much better in the long form (not that any of her novels are King-esque lap-busters, but you get what I mean).

[Andrew Monroe Pallid Hands Find all posts View Profile Close Andrew Monroe]

In between some M.R. James ghost stories (an annual December tradition), I'm rereading this. A real treasure for vintage crime paperback fans, this will have you making lists of all the authors you want to check out. Along with the major names like Chandler, Hammett, Woolrich etc, you'll find plenty of unjustly neglected writers. Along with biographies, lists of the authors' crime novels are provided.

[Mark Tolch Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mark Tolch]

Not Paperback, but I'm reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. I started the new book on Shane as well.

[Gary Banks Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Gary Banks]

I'm switching between Horror Films Of The 80's by Muir and Always A Bride, which is a bio of Elsa Lanchester.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

In between some M.R. James ghost stories (an annual December tradition), I'm rereading this. A real treasure for vintage crime paperback fans, this will have you making lists of all the authors you want to check out. Along with the major names like Chandler, Hammett, Woolrich etc, you'll find plenty of unjustly neglected writers. Along with biographies, lists of the authors' crime novels are provided.

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Thanks for the recommendation. Just bought the Kindle version.

[Darcy Parker Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Darcy Parker]

I just finished reading Mox by Jon Moxley. Probably one of the funniest and most enjoyable memoirs I have read since David Niven's and Michael Caine's first book, but definitely NOT as sophisticated!