Rulin' and A-Ruin'

[handful_ofdust]

The SF Signal Mind-Meld I was invited to take part in is finally up, here (http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/11/mind-meld-which-horror-novel-would-make-a-great-film/). And I just got an email from Adam LG Nevill as a result, so damn, go me! How I love this era.;)

Not a great day otherwise, unfortunately; I woke with a massive crick in my neck, and have been sleeping on and off ever since. Still, lunch with Cal calls. Here's hoping the afternoon will be better--more productive, anyhow.

Comments

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I just bought a very used copy of The Elementals (which I had never heard of!) because of your post!

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Here's hoping you like it better than you liked Jeff Long's The Descent.;)

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Are you stalking the back shelves of my journal?? Anyway, I hope so too. I think the key to my happiness is staying away from action/thrillers.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

A) But of course!

B) Maybe. I have to tell you, though, I really do think there's a lot of horror mixed in with Long's thrills. I understand that the Wiki-research may have thrown you off, but I also think you'd appreciate how discovering the Hadals influences American culture--they essentially declare war on Hell, crawling up the earth's ass to fight the Vietnam of all Vietnams for shaky, shaky reasons. They start calling themselves Templars, for God's sake. And Hadal culture turns out to be really...interesting, too, both biologically and otherwise. And things don't necessarily go the way you think they will, once the taint of the Abyss soaks into everybody's pores. (Plus, in the sequel--Deeper--there's a reverse Children's Crusade.)

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I could tell there was horror involved - as I wrote back then, the opening scene in the Himalayas was amazing, and seemed to have been written by a totally different writer. But all the (human) characters that followed seemed straight out of a Da Vinci Code knockoff, and I guess I didn't see that changing in the coming pages - that's what ultimately sticks with me about the book. I really hate reading characters like that.* I'd probably watch a movie made from it, but I felt the execution of the concept was too not-to-my-liking to read. I'm sorry :( I think I'll just have to miss out on this one.

*ironically, I can withstand cliched horror characters more easily, so I suspect a lot of this comes down to preference.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

A movie version would indeed rock, if you got the right design--vague surface resemblance to The Descent was one of the things that attracted me to The Cave, shit as that turned out to be. All I can tell you is that I re-read that book intermittently, almost every year...but then again, I do that with The Stand, too. So take it with a grain of salt.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Heh. Maybe you should have given that as an answer to SF Signal?

Speaking of The Stand, I eavesdropped on your comment below about Swan Song - I haven't read that either (never even heard of the author... terrible, I know) but I read the plot summary on wikipedia and the Job's Mask thing sounds really creepy.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

There's definitely stuff to like about Swan Song, like most McCammon--he's the best of the faux-Kings, with a crazy sort of energy and invention (especially in his earliest books, the ones he now refuses to allow to be reprinted). My favourites of his are They Thirst, Stinger, Baal and Bethany's Sin, though I recently read The Wolf's Hour for the first time, about a Nazi-fighting werewolf, and that was NUTS.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Interesante. McCammon may be in our city library.

[lonesome-crow.livejournal.com]

Straub's Shadowland and McCammon's Swan Song.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Steve agrees with you on the former, and I might agree with you on the latter (though given it's McCammon's The Stand rip-off, a miniseries might be better).