Iggy's Book Nook

[Matt]

Currently doing my annual re-reading of 'the Bachman Books' by Stephen King (except for 'Road Work', which is terrible).

- 'The Long Walk' would be a fascinating film, and I'd love to see someone like Frank Darabont tackle it. It would be a gruelling, draining experience for the audience, but I really think that it would resonate with many people. One of my absolute favorite stories of all time.
- 'Rage' could never, EVER be turned into a movie. Not anymore. I remember reading this for the first time back in the early 80s...who knew back then how accurate this book would turn out being?
- 'The Running Man' is still an incredibly powerful book. Get beyond the mechanics of the game show and you'll find a rather astute commentary on where society is going. I'd love to see a REAL movie made from this book, but there's no way that you'd be able to keep that ending...

[IggytheBorg]

Currently doing my annual re-reading of 'the Bachman Books' by Stephen King (except for 'Road Work', which is terrible).

- 'The Long Walk' would be a fascinating film, and I'd love to see someone like Frank Darabont tackle it. It would be a gruelling, draining experience for the audience, but I really think that it would resonate with many people. One of my absolute favorite stories of all time.
- 'Rage' could never, EVER be turned into a movie. Not anymore. I remember reading this for the first time back in the early 80s...who knew back then how accurate this book would turn out being?
- 'The Running Man' is still an incredibly powerful book. Get beyond the mechanics of the game show and you'll find a rather astute commentary on where society is going. I'd love to see a REAL movie made from this book, but there's no way that you'd be able to keep that ending...

Except for the stuff about Darabont directing a movie version of TLW (which is a happy, true statement), all the above are sad but true statements.

EXCEPT the one about "Road Work" Being a terrible book. I LOVED that story. It was my favorite of the bunch. The feeling of utter hopelessness, despair & impotent rage that permeates it it fucking palpable. I think it's a powerful little piece.

[Timothy225]

Excellent review, as always, Iggy. I'd heard of Hague before (I live too far south to know much about Hague), but now you've got me interested in learning more.

Off to my local library, then to Barnes & Noble I go!

[IggytheBorg]

Fuck. Yes. Get to writing, Ig! Make it the story Cloverfield SHOULD have been!

The problem with this is, I have the IDEA, and a vague image of the view from Liberty Park of the NYC skyline getting taken down, but even after a LOT of thought, that's ALL I got. I really have no idea where I want to go with this.

[Ed Hocken]

What's the word on HORNS by Joe Hill? I saw a copy at the local library.

[IggytheBorg]

Waiting for the paperback, but I'm definitely going to read it, considering how much I liked Heart Shaped Box & 20th Century Ghosts.

[IggytheBorg]

Finished a nifty little short story collection called "Cthulhu's Reign" last week. This was a collection of stories by modern authors about what they think would happen if the Old Ones ever DID get back to earth, which is something HPL himself never really got into very deeply. I have never heard of any of the authors. Most of the stories were just OK, but there were a couple of standouts, notably "Her Acres of Pastoral Playground" by Mike Allen and "Such Bright and Risen Madness in Our Names" by Jay Lake. Both were very well thought out, creative & skillfully written. "Acres" was also creepy as hell, while "Madness" was more vast, monolithic and unending hopelessness, a sense of the impending end of everything we know as a race. The last three tales had only the loosest of connections to the Mythos, and could have worked well as science fiction stories with no reference to them at all (but then I guess they wouldn't have fit into the anthology's rubric). But the mythos connection in these tales feels tacked on, to a greater or lesser degree. I suppose it's least noticeable in "Remnants" which actually kind of expands the canon a bit in a believable, interesting way. But really, any alien race the author made up could have been plugged in to replce the prinordial ones, and it would have worked.

Overall, worth a read for Lovecraft completists. But if you're not a fan of HPL, I doubt you'd like anything in here, except maybe the standouts noted above (I think they're that good).

Tearing thru Mammoth Book of Best New Horro Vol XX now. may take awhile, due both to its length and the fact I just got my 2010 Zagat NYC Restaurant Guide (my 1st ever; I'm very excited!), and I'm researching some places my brother & I may go to dinner at in the near future. Being the foodie I am, this is quite a distraction from the literary reading.

[V]

I've always loved the 'Mammoth' series of books. Their collection of ghost stories has a very long, entertaining, and informative foreword by Christopher Lee...

[Timothy225]

Tearing thru Mammoth Book of Best New Horro Vol XX now. may take awhile, due both to its length and the fact I just got my 2010 Zagat NYC Restaurant Guide (my 1st ever; I'm very excited!), and I'm researching some places my brother & I may go to dinner at in the near future. Being the foodie I am, this is quite a distraction from the literary reading.

Good for you, Iggy! The guide is highly recommended by some folks I know...



I'm curious about "Cthulhu's Reign" - been awhile since I delved into any Lovecraft Mythos, so this might whet my appetite a bit. I also found my Chaosium Encylopedia Cthulhuana - a pretty good rundown of all the critters and characters in the Mythos.

Now, who wants to attend a production of The King in Yellow?

[IggytheBorg]

Just finished Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Vol. XX. One of the best in a long time, IMO. There's some big names in here: Stephen King's "NY Times at Special Bargain Rates", Brian Lumley (contributing "The Place of Waiting", a well written if somewhat predictable tale, probably a standout), Neil Gaiman (whose contribution, "Feminine Endings", is pretty fucking creepy), and Tim Lebbon, whose odd, quirky "Falling Off the World" is refreshingly different. Ramsey Campbell's here again, of course, with yet another bland, mediocre entry. Tanith Lee's "Under Fog" had a great premise, and was well written & atmospheric. "The Oram County Whoosit" by Steve Duffy was an interesting blend of Lovecraftian and western. Not the best story in the collection by a long shot, but kinda cool. Two most pleasant (if you can call a horror story that) were "The Beginnings of Sorrow" by Pinckney Benedict, which takes a weird premise and even stranger backdrop and runs with it ( little reminiscent of Kafka, at times), and "2:00 PM: The Real Estate Agent Arrives", by Steve rasnic Tem. The latter is only a single, 4 1/2 line paragraph. It is nothing short of astonishing that Tem could cram as much creep into that as he did. It's so fast, you might miss it the 1st time; I know I kinda did, asking myself: "Wait; did he just say what I think he said?" & going back & reading it again.

Overall, a most worthy entry in the series. Now, on to "Ladies' Night" by Jack Ketchum.

[IggytheBorg]

Finished a novel by Jack Ketchum, "Ladies Night". This was the second novel he wrote, but was not pulished until fairly recently because the publication of "Off Season" caused such a backlash in the spineless suits that run the publishing biz, this book never saw the light of day because of its violence. To be sure, it's nowhere near as violent as "Off Season", "Offspring" or GND. But it has its moments. It was a fun, & very quick read (under 200 pages).

The premise is that a mysterious unmarked tanker truck is involved in an accident, & releases a mysterious substance into the air over Lower Manhattan that causes all the women who breathe it in to have psychotic breaks, and turn violent. Deadly violent. They also develop exceptional strength and bloodthirstiness. The protagonist is a philandering husband & father, out on the prowl for another one night stand when the epidemic strikes. The rest of the book is mostly a chronicle of his efforts to make it the six blocks or so home, where his son has been left alone. . . with his mother.

I suppose Ketchum could have used such a premise to ham handedly get moralistic about womens' roles in society. He does mention some things of that nature, but I think they're more plot devices than an attempt to moralize (such as, the female newsstand owner's distaste for, but grudging tolernace of porn because of its profitability). They seem more specific to the individual characters (not surprisingly, the philandering protagonists's wife is not at all happy about his cheating, but you never get the sense she feels all men are like that & no good at all for that reason). And there's a few that seem not to detest men at all before the plague strikes. Although the ending does get a touch heavy handed (not to mention derivitave; any horror fan worth their salt will know immediately what I'm talking about), I think it's a credit to Ketchum's credibility that he doesn't choose to get up on a high soapbox & preach to us. There's flawed male characters here, but not all of them are. And there's some flawed females, too. It's the individuals in some cases that are fucked up, and not society as a whole. The moral never got in the way of the story, much as it doesn't in Stephen King's stuff when he's one.

As mentioned above, there is a fair amount of violence to be had here. Nothing stomach churningly gross for veteran gore hounds like me, but a few cringe worthy scenes. So if you like that (as I do), you won't be disappointed. There was at least one scene that was horrifying in its emotional implications, and a few that'll make you shake your head and say "Damn, that's fucked up. Can't believe he went there." Never a bad combo in a horror novel, IMO.

One serious flaw the story has, IMO, is it's too short. And I'm not trying to flatter Jack here. In his intro he notes that when he originally wrote it as the planned follow up to "Off Season", it was almost twice as long. It delved a lot more into the scientific aspects of the phenomenon. He says he had a trusted friend help him pare it down to its current form, and it feels a little choppy in places, like you can tell something's missing. It sems like watching a DVD on the fastest FFWD setting, wherein it seems to skip frames rather than just play really fast. You get the sense that transitional scenes have been cut in a few places. I guess we didn't need the science delved into, but the choppiness I could have done without. I'm all for economy of language & being against bloat, but genuine plot advancement, character development and action are hardly (in most readers' opinions, I daresay) bloat. I would love to read the original version, if he ever has it published. I think the lack of character development hampers the book quite a bit, because we're not heavily invested in even the most important characters. This prevents it from being a great book, as opposed to a fun genre read, more than anything else, IMO.

Overall, this was far, far from Ketchum's best work. It's not in the same league as GND, the Lost or Off Season by a long shot. It's probably not as good as Offspring, She Wakes or Red. But it's better than Hide & Seek. And way better than a lot of the shit being published today. I'd recommend it to any horror fan, because it's such a short quick read that even if you DON'T like it (and I think you probably will), it won't take up too much of your time.

[IggytheBorg]

Just finished a collection of short, mostly raunchy, water/aquatic themed short horror stories called "Dead Bait". I had only heard of one author in this collection (David Dunwoody, who wrote "Crawlies", which was probably the most disturbing tale in the book). And that's a shame, as some of this stuff was quite good.

Don't get me wrong; none of this stuff is high literature. And save perhaps for Ron Leming's "Fox Goes Fission" and Mark Onspaugh's "Death Roe" (the opening & closing tales, resepctively ) none of them is particular genre standouts, for that matter.


A couple were also kind of (intentionally) silly, like Mark Zirbel's "Something Fishy is Going On". Although I will admit, despite its seemingly stupid premise, the imagery form that one kind of stayed with me. And there were not one but two - count 'em, two! - zombie fish stories. One involved zombie piranha. I kind of have to wonder: why bother? Piranha are reputedly savage eating machines already; did one really need to turn them into zombies?

I think it's fairly safe to say we all hold at least some fear of the sea on some level. And this book's tales tap into that fear - sometimes in surprisingly disgusting but effective ways. Good show overall for ahorro fan. Recommended.

[Shit Dickface]

I picked up Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts after really enjoying Horns. Can't wait to crack it!

[Captain Russ]

For a change in pace, and a recommendation from the hermana, picked up a collection of Flannery O'Connor and John Osbourne's Look Back in Anger.

Must crack them spines as soon as I finish the latest Lapham's.

[Shit Dickface]

Flannery O'Connor is amazing. One of my favorite authors.