Let's Talk About Horror Fiction and Film

[Davros]

H. P. Lovecraft.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Never heard of her.

[RJDiogenes]

I'm kind of anxious to read the novel because The Wolf Man is my favorite of the Universal Monster pictures. It's nice to know that he fit it into continuity like that. I'm also looking forward to his explanation of the wolf/wolfman thing. I've had a few thoughts on that myself over the years.

[Spaceman Spiff]

It's not a hard-line explanation, really, so much as a line or two.

I finished it last night, and I was kind of disappointed that the author had been broadcasting the ending throughout the course of the story. Don't get me wrong, it's a good ending, especially for a character like Talbot, but I was disappointed that it was so predictable.

Still, flaws and all, it's a quick little read, and it's fun to revisit that would again.

[RJDiogenes]

I am ordering today, so I'll be able to comment soon.

[Brendan Moody]

Thanks for mentioning American Supernatural Tales, Spiff. I'd looked through it at Borders in my search for Halloween books, but decided against it because I already own about a third of the stories in other collections. Looking at the contents again, though, I'm impressed by the range of authors Joshi has brought together, and it'll look nice on the shelf next to my other Joshi-edited Penguin Classics volumes, so I've put it on my Christmas list. (I almost bought it today, but decided instead to splurge and use my Borders coupon on a non-horror item I imagine you're familiar with.)

I also went to a nearby used book store today, where I found the new Datlow/Link-Grant Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. I don't generally follow this annual collection because it tends toward a particular variety of literary tale that isn't to my taste, but it was an as-new copy at 1/3 of the cover price, so I couldn't resist. I also grabbed the Joyce Carol Oates anthology The Collector of Hearts: New Tales of the Grotesque. Like her earlier collection Haunted, this includes a range of horrific stories both "mainstream" and "genre," all written in Oates's usual hypnotic-disturbing style.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Speaking of things Lovecraftian, I just noticed that the HLHS has a trailer for The Whisperer in Darkness.

I might order those Scary Solstice CDs, too.

[Brendan Moody]

Spaceman Spiff said:
I might order those Scary Solstice CDs, too.

I say go ahead. I have them, and they're excellent, with surprisingly clever lyrics and very professional performers. A Shoggoth on the Roof is great fun too; like all good parody, the better you know the original the more enjoyable it is.

[Spaceman Spiff]

^ Well, I've ordered them.

RJDiogenes said:
I am ordering today, so I'll be able to comment soon.

Amazon is swearing that Elizabeth Hand's Bride of Frankenstein novel is finally going to be released on Wednesday. That's the one that's got my hopes up.

In a similar vein, I've seen Frankenstein's Bride by Hilary Bailey in most bookstores recently. I may have to snatch it up. I haven't seen any reviews yet, though.

[Kegek]

Kegek recommends two of his lesser known countrymen:

Charles Robert Maturin, a penniless Anglican curate whose plays were derided by Coleridge for their immorality. His meandering, absurdly plotted Melmoth the Wanderer is a weird and captivating classic of the genre. A personal favourite.

Sheridan Le Fanu, a nineteenth century author who was an influence on Bram Stoker. Keep an eye out for his psychologically intense Uncle Silas, and/or a neat volume of his short stories in Through a Glass, Darkly.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I'm not very familiar with Maturin, but I've read a bit of Le Fanu and recommended one of his short stories, Green Tea, to RJDiogenes. I've bought the Penguin edition of Uncle Silas, though I haven't yet read it. I suppose horror readers are probably most familiar with Carmilla. And horror movie fans are probably familiar with some of its more titillating adaptations.

I tend to go through weird little moods. I'll want pulpy stuff for a while, then I'll want to read something from the 19th century, etc. Uncle Silas is waiting for that particular mood to strike again. I'm looking forward to it.

Brendan Moody said:
I also went to a nearby used book store today, where I found the new Datlow/Link-Grant Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. I don't generally follow this annual collection because it tends toward a particular variety of literary tale that isn't to my taste, but it was an as-new copy at 1/3 of the cover price, so I couldn't resist. I also grabbed the Joyce Carol Oates anthology The Collector of Hearts: New Tales of the Grotesque. Like her earlier collection Haunted, this includes a range of horrific stories both "mainstream" and "genre," all written in Oates's usual hypnotic-disturbing style.

Do you ever read the Best New Horror collections edited by Stephen Jones? I haven't yet read one, though I've got several. I've bought them mostly because of name recognition (Ramsey Campbell seems to be in every volume), and telling myself that I'm getting a feel for "what's out there," for that "someday" when I might try submitting a few things to magazines.

Some of the covers are a little embarrassing, though. I'd expect to get a few weird looks reading that on the train. I buy them anyway; I think I just like the idea that each one's got 500+ pages of short stories. (Though the first 60 pages or so are a summary of horror publishing in that particular year.)

One more suggestion in regards to anthologies is Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural. This is a great book. Its selection is all over the place, and you're guaranteed to get some repeats, but I can't recommend it enough. At over 1,000 pages (yet still fairly compact), it's a wealth of good stuff. I haven't gotten through it all (I tend to pick it up, read a few, then save the rest for later), but I'm very glad I ordered it.

[RJDiogenes]

I read "Green Tea" and liked it a lot.

It looks like the Lovecraft Historical site is down right now. I'm psyched about Whisperer In Darkness. The Call Of Cthulhu was great, as was their 'old radio show' adaptation of At The Mountains Of Madness. I love their retro approach.

[RJDiogenes]

Well, I read Hunter's Moon and I liked it, in and of itself. Larry Talbot was mostly well characterized. However, I didn't feel that it really conjured up that Universal Monster ambiance very well.

It seems that the author was trying to play the book both ways-- as a Universal sequel set in the 40s and as a contemporary novel for casual readers. As a result, there was an unsatisfying lack of detail. For example, Larry noted that cars were different eight years later, but that was it; those eight years could have been 1940-48 or 2000 to 2008. Nor were there any cultural or current events references; if I were Larry, I would have wanted newspapers and magazines. This omission was glaring, to my mind.

Nevertheless, it was a nice book and a pleasant read; one just has to accept it as an 'alternate universe' Larry Talbot.

[Kegek]

Green Tea is a brilliant short story. It, and Carmilla, among others, are collected in the Through a Glass, Darkly compedium of short Le Fanu stories I mentioned.

Maturin is best known for Melmoth the Wanderer, though it's not his only Gothic work. He was also related to Oscar Wilde, who adopted the pseudonym 'Sebastian Melmoth' whilst in France. Various authors from Balzac to Nabokov appear to have worked in references to Melmoth.

In some ways, Melmoth was one of the last classic Gothic novels - I mean in the tradition of Walople, Lewis, Radcliffe. The plot structure makes almost absolutely no sense (it's a story within a story, then within a story, then within a story), but it's all connected by the titular character.

[Maestro]

I'm a big fan of the F. Paul Wilson "Repairman Jack" series. I wanted to see how his non-RJ fiction was, so I've been reading his vampire epic, "Midnight Mass." Good stuff.