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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The General Horror Book Thread: Between Two Fires fucking RULED! Hell yeah!!!!
 
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DrVenkman
Dec 28, 2005

I think he can hear you, Ray.
Anyway, just starting on Dan Simmons' SUMMER OF NIGHT. It's alright so far though it's early days. I think the comparison to King is going to be inevitable given the subject matter, but he kind of lacks his gift for how well he can sketch out a town and its characters. He tries for the same thing but at the moment I'm just thinking hang on, who's this he's introducing now.

For people a bit more in the know, was there a decade when the genre was particularly prolific? I guess it's easy to say it really blew up big in the 80s, but for instance, what would horror fans have been reading in the 50s/60s?

* # ¿ Aug 13, 2018 20:21
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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 21:09
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DrVenkman
Dec 28, 2005

I think he can hear you, Ray.

Spite posted:

People talk about the bullies jacking each other off too.

That never really bothered me. Mainly because there was a group of kids around where I lived who did the same thing. But they did it while watching straight porn so it wasn't gay.

It wouldn't surprise me if it was something King had heard about in school and stored away somewhere. Though I feel like a lot of towns have rumours of kids like that.

* # ¿ Aug 14, 2018 09:41
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DrVenkman
Dec 28, 2005

I think he can hear you, Ray.
I think the key here is this bit:


quote:

so a few months ago, we asked you to nominate your favorite horror novels and stories, and then we assembled an expert panel of judges to take your 7000 nominations and turn them into a final, curated list of 100 spine-tingling favorites for all kinds of readers.

I would've preferred to see a separate judges list.

* # ¿ Aug 21, 2018 15:01
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DrVenkman
Dec 28, 2005

I think he can hear you, Ray.

Franchescanado posted:

I'm familiar with Grady Hendrix.

Ruthanna Emrys is currently reading through all of Lovecraft's stories to examine the racism and writing about it on tor.com. It would be a neat idea if she weren't Caucasian, in my opinion.* Her stance, from what I've read is, "Yeah, Lovecraft is super racist, but we should still read his racist writings because maybe someday someone will be able to make it not-racist**", and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But I've started the argument that Lovecraft is a waste of time because he's racist and a bad writer, so just read someone good instead, so I really don't feel like pursuing that in here.

*I'd rather it be done by a PoC and not a Caucasian person who is clearly a big fan of the racist
**she does cite books like Lovecraft Country and authors like Victor LaValle

Our own Hbomberguy already did a great video on Lovecraft, Lovecraft adaptations and also his incredible racism that I thought was great. As he points out, even 'for the time' Lovecraft was mad racist, though it also seemed to lead into the fear he had of literally anyone that wasn't him.

Also, the name of his cat.

* # ¿ Aug 21, 2018 16:58
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DrVenkman
Dec 28, 2005

I think he can hear you, Ray.
I think the inclusion of Junji Ito and Joe R Lansdale make that a pretty good list though. THE NIGHT THEY MISSED THE HORROR SHOW is ugly in the best way.

* # ¿ Aug 21, 2018 18:15
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DrVenkman
Dec 28, 2005

I think he can hear you, Ray.
Yeah THE RITUAL is an odd one. The first half of it works fairly well and the second half...doesn't. It kinda felt like reading something by Joe R Lansdale but without the same talent.

* # ¿ Sep 9, 2018 21:22
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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 21:09
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DrVenkman
Dec 28, 2005

I think he can hear you, Ray.

Drunken Baker posted:

I think going into the second half of The Ritual expecting the Blood Frenzy twist made me enjoy it more than I would have done going in blind. Plus I'm a sucker for Black Metal shenanigans anyway.

The film handled it all better though, in my opinion. The idea of Luke wandering across this old one God and the people who worship it gels better than a bunch of kids just trying to be as evil as possible. There's something more terrifying about the indifference in the film compared to the grotesque cruelty of the kids in the book.

So that's The Ritual and Last Days done in. Should I just say "gently caress it" and grab the rest of Nevill's bibliography? I like his books, but I think the comparison to King is apt... y'know, with the flubbed endings and all. :haw:

Yeah I think the movie handled it better, though I don't really think it needed to change the reason they were there. The book does a good job of illustrating being in your 30s and being a gently caress up.

The kids or whoever in the book were so cartoonishly over the top that I went from really liking the book to just wanting it to be over so I didn't have to deal with them again.

Weirdly struggling with SUMMER OF NIGHT, got about halfway through and it's... Fine. It feels so King-lite without his grasp of character.

* # ¿ Sep 24, 2018 14:58
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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The General Horror Book Thread: Between Two Fires fucking RULED! Hell yeah!!!!