Horror, Fantasy, and other non-sci-fi genres...

[Marley]

We've had this discussion plenty before, but I'll say again - I don't care how long a book is as long as it warrants its length.

"The Dark Tower" is a series of very long novels, but I don't think they'd work as a series of novellas (or, say, just one book).

Similarly, much of H.P. Lovecraft's work would have lost a lot of its effect if it had been stretched from short stories into novels.


I'm not discriminatory with regards to length. The length of a book does not indicate its quality.

I agree with this statement wholeheartedly. It's more of a personal preference for me to read something that is concise and shorter in length as opposed to a sprawling epic, which mainly stems from my own laziness and having a short-attention span.

I've read "The Gunslinger" years ago and remember feeling slightly underwhelmed even though it was only an introduction to what is apparently an epic series. Not sure I'd be up to the challenge of tackling the Dark Tower series since I'd hate to invest so much time and energy into them and then eventually lose interest.

[megladon8]

But it's OK to prefer one of the other. All thing being equal, I tend to gravitate towards shorter works, but that doesn't mean I don't like longer books as well.

Oh yes I understand that completely.

I'm just saying, I'm not going write a book off simply for its length. If it's a 900 page tome but is told wonderfully from page 1 to page 900 with no "filler" of any kind, I'm not going to automatically deduct points simply due to the fact that it's 900 pages.

I'm not sure if that's what you were saying, but I kind of got that feeling a bit.

In all honesty I'd also rather read a few 200-300 page books, than one 1000 page book. But I have read my share of, say, 750+ page books that I loved and would rank among my favorites.

[Marley]

It doesn't lose steam, but it never becomes EPIC. I think you'll see what I mean.

Good to know, thanks.

On a somewhat related note, have you read or heard anything positive about Jeffrey Thomas? I saw one of his books at the library which had this really funky cover and was tempted to pick up but I already have 10 books checked out and would not have been able to get around to reading it.

[D_Davis]

Playing for Thrills, Wang Shuo

Wong Kar Wai meets Raymond Chandler? Maybe.

I was never able to fully embrace any of the characters or the plot. There are interesting things happening to interesting characters, but everything is so detached and aloof, and the narrator is so unreliable that I was never sure if I should trust anything he was conveying.

As a style, it works, and Wang Shuo utilizes the style to convey modern China in a surreal, dream-like fashion. But everything was always at a distance just beyond my grasp, and thus I was rarely completely engaged.

[D_Davis]

On a somewhat related note, have you read or heard anything positive about Jeffrey Thomas? I saw one of his books at the library which had this really funky cover and was tempted to pick up but I already have 10 books checked out and would not have been able to get around to reading it.

I don't think I have.

[D_Davis]

And now...

[Marley]

I don't think I have.

Apparently he belongs to the new-weird type of horror writers like Cisco or Ligotti.

[D_Davis]

The Great Lover is going to be a dense read...

It switches POV (from first to third) mid-sentence.

[Marley]

That cover-art is da shiznit.

[megladon8]

That cover-art is da shiznit.

Agreed.

[D_Davis]

Man, that Jeffrey Thomas guy has a lot of books. You gonna take the plunge, Marley? Be the trail blazer on this guy?

[Marley]

Man, that Jeffrey Thomas guy has a lot of books. You gonna take the plunge, Marley? Be the trail blazer on this guy?

Sure, why not! It's the least I can do to return the favor for all your recommendations. "Punktown" sounds promising so I'll get back to you in the next little while on whether or not he is an author worth reading.

[D_Davis]

On page 37 of The Great Lover - the POV continues to be juggled like it's going out of style, and a small army of maggots have grouped together to spell the phrases THE GREAT LOVER and PLOT SYNOPSIS. The book has addressed me numerous times, a map interjected telling me that it would become important later on, and the main character - whoever that is - has sat by me while I was reading. Oh yeah, and at one point a doctor got on a train and the narrator stopped what he was telling me until the doctor got off, remarking to me that we could now continue the story because the doctor had left the scene.

[Marley]

On page 37 of The Great Lover - the POV continues to be juggled like it's going out of style, and a small army of maggots have grouped together to spell the phrases THE GREAT LOVER and PLOT SYNOPSIS. The book has addressed me numerous times, a map interjected telling me that it would become important later on, and the main character - whoever that is - has sat by me while I was reading. Oh yeah, and at one point a doctor got on a train and the narrator stopped what he was telling me until the doctor got off, remarking to me that we could now continue the story because the doctor had left the scene.

Creepy but also very cool. I've never read anything with shifting narrative techniques and perspectives like that before.

[D_Davis]

Creepy but also very cool. I've never read anything with shifting narrative techniques and perspectives like that before.

So far it's the most experimental novel I've ever read, even out doing Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition.

[D_Davis]

It's also very absurd, and funny. The main character - who I guess is The Great Lover (although I'm not sure if TGL is just a projection of the guy who dies at the beginning) - dies in the first few pages after falling into a manhole. He comes back to life and starts collecting bodies in the sewers. He wears all kinds of crazy clothes. At one point he has on a long fur coat, dozens of pairs of glasses around his neck, and a monocle on each eye. Then he goes around the subway stations trying to chase girls. He's somehow able to enter dreams of women, through some kind of alchemy.

From the Amazon plot synopsis:

The latest phantasmagorical offering from Cisco (The Narrator) is a fusion of dark fantasy, literary fiction, and existential horror that revolves around the eponymous character of the sewerman, an undead tramp in search of capital-L Love who can enter into women's dreams. As he pines for a blind woman named Vera, he also helps a disgraced academic turned prophet to establish a "ptochocratic" cult that wants to create its own reality underground and battle a soul-sucking plague of white noise. The surreal narrative is something like a 400-page T.S. Eliot poem: otherworldly, lyrical, deeply philosophical, and supersaturated with extraordinary imagery and ideas (like the Prosthetic Libido, a golem-like device constructed to house a scientist's unwanted desire). Fans of stylish and thematically sophisticated weird fiction should seek out this mad testament to Cisco's visionary genius.

[Marley]

Wow, I just found out my library actually has 1 copy available of 'San Veneficio Canon" by Cisco available which does not require me to read it only at the reference library. ritch:

[Marley]

Man, that book sounds undeniably whacked...but in a good way. He's like a new evolutionary breed of female stalker.

[D_Davis]

Wow, I just found out my library actually has 1 copy available of 'San Veneficio Canon" by Cisco available which does not require me to read it only at the reference library. ritch:

Nice. That's the version of The Divinity Student that is still in print. Man, your library system rules. Where do you live?

[Marley]

Nice. That's the version of The Divinity Student that is still in print. Man, your library system rules. Where do you live?

It's the only work by Cisco that is available right now to take out but I remember before that it was only available by special request and you could only read it at the facility. They also have 'tyrant', "secret hours" and "mortal coils" but again, you can only read them there under surveillance. It's almost as if these books have been flagged by the authorities :lol:

I live in Vancouver, Canada.

[D_Davis]

Reading Cisco probably puts you on some kind of watch-list.



I'm going to be up in Vancouver sometime this summer, we should hang.

[Marley]

Reading Cisco probably puts you on some kind of watch-list.



I'm going to be up in Vancouver sometime this summer, we should hang.

Seriously, what kind of diabolic evil is contained in these books that they are not made widely available to the public? haha

Oh, cool! Vancouver is a beautiful place (well, depending where you are of course) but I'm actually moving back to Toronto in two months with my girlfriend who got a new job while I go back to school. When did you plan on visiting here?

[D_Davis]

The third chapter of The Great Lover is told from the POV of The Sewerman and The Great Lover (who are two facets of the same being), a scientist, a blind woman (who declares that she is not a character in the book), and Michael Cisco (as the author, who tells us things that he can see in the scene that the characters cannot), all from an alternating first, second, and third-person narrative form.

It's one of the coolest things I've ever read.

[D_Davis]

So...

Vera, a girl in The Great Lover, has once again declared that she is not a character. She asked me if I knew what she was, but said she would be surprised if I had figured it out already.

What I know:

-She's blind
-Her father is a failed scientist, and is now the leader of the subway cult
-She was expelled from school after an incident involving a boy which has caused her to periodically vomit up stones inscribed with strange ruins
-She is the object of The Great Lover's affection
-Her and her cult-leader father live in the subway system below the city
-She can see in her dreams

[Marley]

Ok, I'm 3/4's through "John Dies at the End" and can't bring myself to finish it. It's like Supernatural meets Evil Dead, scattered with penis jokes and a plethora of pop-culture references. It's far too uneven in its humor (some parts are incessantly lame but maybe that was the intention?) and repetitive with sub-par writing. Some elements of the excess violence and humor works surprisingly well but more often than not I am struggling to gel with the it's lunacy. Maybe I'll come back to it, we'll see.