My first read from Calvino. He take you into dreamy landscapes and transports you to picturesque cities. Fifty-five prose pieces each describe a diffeMy first read from Calvino. He take you into dreamy landscapes and transports you to picturesque cities. Fifty-five prose pieces each describe a different fabulous city and each contains a conceptual or philosophical puzzle or enigma. Cities that change according to moods and others moulded on the memories of the citizens. I have changed rating to one more as the images are some how still locked in my psyche somehow....more
A man of solitude and unhappiness survives through life with the encounters of good dreams. He dreams of friends and life-mate's and all is about to cA man of solitude and unhappiness survives through life with the encounters of good dreams. He dreams of friends and life-mate's and all is about to come to true in one inopportune encounter with a distressed lady. Can he live out his dream or must they just remain as dreams? The writing prose is well done and the story touches on the two characters despair and happiness well. Self reflection for one protagonist might be one way to sum up the story....more
Not the best of china's storytelling, I am sure even though this being the first of his I have read. I found myself just waiting for something really Not the best of china's storytelling, I am sure even though this being the first of his I have read. I found myself just waiting for something really good to happen to the plot. This world he's crafted is not easy to write he's done well to conjure up this world and characters. A Coupe is brewing Embassytown used to be just cohabited by The Host's then the humans came and language was learnt between the two. The story picks at the problems they have had, the ambassadors and breakdown or lack of communication with the Host's. I am looking forward to read The City & The City it looks good. Don't let me put you off, when it comes to sci-fi genre I tend to struggle sometimes to enjoy some novels....more
Ray's novels always incorporate a dose of weird and strange with horror and sex. I own this in a Limited Cemetery Dance edition and thought why not. TRay's novels always incorporate a dose of weird and strange with horror and sex. I own this in a Limited Cemetery Dance edition and thought why not. The story unfolds on the day of Halloween, and one boys finds himself invited to a powerful and influential family lair in most unconventional way. He's offered a opportunity that if he refuses will meet with a devastating occurrence. That family, 'The Folks' are shall we say, in Ray sort of way, are not abstaining type from enjoyment of the flesh and like to keep it in the family. The strange thing is they speak of the soul and God and religious teachings but take a look in the mirror.The ride is dark short ride of horror not for kids. (130pages)...more
This is a start of a new paranormal saga presented in novella form in parts. The author seems to want to adopt style of publishing to us this stories This is a start of a new paranormal saga presented in novella form in parts. The author seems to want to adopt style of publishing to us this stories via serial episodes, similar to Green Mile by King or Michael McDowell's Blackwater saga's approach. The writing style, plot and characters seem to hold up to king standards and a form an interesting thriller of supernatural sorts. I sense and I suppose a lot of readers tend to compare to previous novels also, but this is adopting the Gunslinger by king scenarios, 'the man in black walk across the desert and the gunslinger follows' except here it's the Dead Man walketh looking for answers and destiny. I am hooked so far so will have to move on to second part soon....more
We had Hunger Games to keep us entertained in dystopian adventures and now I think Enclave is a rightfully successor of a story. The main protagonist We had Hunger Games to keep us entertained in dystopian adventures and now I think Enclave is a rightfully successor of a story. The main protagonist is a Hunter and all her life she has been breed to Hunt, hunting is all she knows. Equipped with basic tools of killing she kills Freaks amongst other things. She knows not much at all of the upside world, for she has lived underground has not tasted the Sunlight or seen, cars or guns. The Enclave are a gang who consist of Brats, Hunters, Breeders and Elders. Enjoyable action packed read.
Good stuff a short sharp and deadly story. Hunter and hunted, hunter is the tracker and hunted is the wolfman. Written in flowing visceral pace a joy Good stuff a short sharp and deadly story. Hunter and hunted, hunter is the tracker and hunted is the wolfman. Written in flowing visceral pace a joy to read. We heard these stories before but the way Steve wrote this was good and engrossing. I would have not read this If it wasn't for cheapness and easiness of ebooks and plus a Goodread friend's review.
Excerpt from Tracker's voice "The mid-morning bustle ebbed and flowed in waves of ill repute along the sidewalk - the wretched homeless, the addicted, the pushers and the pimps. He loathed this city and its inhabitants. The vain, the Godless, the packs of politicians and greed-blinded business- men who preyed on the sloth of the poor and the weak-minded, they were no different than his quarry. The World was infected." ...more
Greg F. Gifune’s “A View From The Lake” is an unrelenting journey into the depths of madness and terror that will forever(Introduction by T.M. Wright)
Greg F. Gifune’s “A View From The Lake” is an unrelenting journey into the depths of madness and terror that will forever change the way you look at a snowstorm or your favorite lake again.
There are not too many authors that can actually scare me, Mr. Gifune is one of them.
“A View From The Lake” is one of the best ghost stories I have ever read. Though calling it a simple ghost story might be an injustice, it is so much more than that. I found it very hard to turn the lights out after I finished, it had that much of an impact. This book will stay with you long after you finish the last page.
From the very first page Mr. Gifune draws you into a world of madness, where things aren’t always what they appear to be. His prose is dark and disturbing, the atmosphere haunting and unsettling. Mr. Gifune leads you on a horrific journey that ends….you, my friend will have to read the book to find that out, but it is safe to say the ending will leave you breathless and shaken.
Mr. Gifune continues to push the boundaries of what dark fiction can be, and in my opinion is one of the best authors in dark fiction today. If you have not yet read anything by Mr. Gifune what are you waiting for, use the link above to order “A View From The Lake”, I guarantee you will not be disappointed and I give it my highest recommendation.
My Review This is a chilling tale of dark mystery. The story is set around a Lake, there seems to be a mystery around it and it's presents a place of death for some individuals. A married couple bought some property near the Lake and life has seemed to have deteriorated for them....more
City of Bones has a lot going on inside the story. The cover for a start is bit over the top makes out to be more romantic than it is. I might be one City of Bones has a lot going on inside the story. The cover for a start is bit over the top makes out to be more romantic than it is. I might be one of the last bunch out of goodreads who only just read this. So many readers have this as read and voted for it as good story, I can see why in some ways but I felt it was too over crammed with things going on. Information overload and tried a bit too hard into making it a good story with a dialogue that just lost me being really engrossed into the story. The story has Shadow Hunters and Half Demons, vampires, werewolves, warlocks and few other beings. Clary discovers and is in search of truth in how these worlds and beings have a place in her life. There is The Mortal Instruments, that include an important Mortal Cup that can create Shadow Hunters, fighters destroyers of demons of evil. I have just read The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong which is also an urban fantasy and the first in a series voted highly by readers. I found The Summoning and Chloe really worked for me, the story really got me so much more engrossed, maybe the less elements of supernatural characters or shall we say healthy dosses of it and of dialogue in a story the better and the return to grass routes story telling through the eyes of these young female protagonists the better also. I will be looking forward to following Kelley Armstrong's Chloe in unchartered territory in book 2 The Awakening Of The Darkest Powers series. When it comes to vampires I still prefer Anne rice Interview With a Vampire so far. Oh yeah Who's you're Daddy! Lol if you've read the book you will know what I mean. I must be A Falcon tonight Shadow Hunter of the skies....more
Re-read this now sept 2022 ten years since reviewed with similar thoughts but more.
First published in the authors story collection The listener and ORe-read this now sept 2022 ten years since reviewed with similar thoughts but more.
First published in the authors story collection The listener and Other Stories in 1907, appeared in story anthology Famous Modern Ghost Stories in 1921. Reprinted in various of the authors collections, appeared in pulp magazine Tales of the Uncanny in 1934. Boris Karloff edited and had written an introduction to an anthology named Tales of Terror 1943. This available in recent collections The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, Roarings from Further Out and in Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories newest reprint of authors stories by The British Library and Penguin books.
A certain willows, a Dunabe lake, a Black Forest, in the month of June, a land and a realm of beauty and awe but thou who trespass a sojourn with disquieting malevolent malefic transmutation ineludible in a “beyond region” succumbing the mind and soul of man.
Various complexities and emotions visceraly brought alive amongst the wilderness, feelings of wonder and awe will turn, shifting souls to ones of disquietude and terror running through the two interlopers about to witness “multitudinous little patterings.” and “torrent of humming” perplexity and survival will arise and a “new order of experience, and in the true sense of the word unearthly.”
Alegron Blackwood in 19 had crafted a masterful work, the uncanny with man against something else in the cosmos another entity, jutaxpostioning the reader in the remote with a closeness to the distant, a transcendence with minds and souls at battle and deciphering these new perplpexities along with the atomsphere all brought alive with the great prose style, words delving into the psychological realm sewn in with the magnificence of a poet.
I refer to a scholarly work written by Michael Cisco Weird Fiction a genre Study, containing a case study on this work along with other great short works, with great analysis from one educated on the weird he mentions this:
“Here my thesis is spelled out very plainly: the danger in weird fiction is a threat to identity. Blackwood posits a new order of experience, the unhuman and unearthly, the infinity of experience which is everywhere, hence the lability of the man in the boat, the otter, and the willows. In these circumstances, it is insignificance that protects us; what is significant, symbolic, is part of this uncanny world, and the insignificance of our ordinariness is safe, because it has no hidden dimension. The symbolic world acts through the willows by using them as symbols, so instead of materializing in the willows, the willows are being diaphanized and turned into something immaterial, symbols. For Blackwood, the divine realm is a domain of independent, autonomous, uncreated symbols, rather than, for example, Platonically perfect ideas. What the narrator discovers, through direct experience, then, is a transcendence where meaning precedes being.”
These analysis and case studies also serve as something to ponder further on great works and allow the art to ruminate more amongst subjective views, wether you agree on the analysis or not, third eyes are always welcome on deciphering art.
Excerpts
“The change came suddenly, as when a series of bioscope pictures snaps down on the streets of a town and shifts without warning into the scenery of lake and forest. We entered the land of desolation on wings, and in less than half an hour there was neither boat nor fishing-hut nor red roof, nor any single sign of human habitation and civilization within sight. The sense of remoteness from the world of humankind, the utter isolation, the fascination of this singular world of willows, winds, and waters, instantly laid its spell upon us both, so that we allowed laughingly to one another that we ought by rights to have held some special kind of passport to admit us, and that we had, somewhat audaciously, come without asking leave into a separate little kingdom of wonder and magic—a kingdom that was reserved for the use of others who had a right to it, with everywhere unwritten warnings to trespassers for those who had the imagination to discover them.”
“The eeriness of this lonely island, set among a million willows, swept by a hurricane, and surrounded by hurrying deep waters, touched us both, I fancy. Untrodden by man, almost unknown to man, it lay there beneath the moon, remote from human influence, on the frontier of another world, an alien world, a world tenanted by willows only and the souls of willows. And we, in our rashness, had dared to invade it, even to make use of it! Something more than the power of its mystery stirred in me as I lay on the sand, feet to fire, and peered up through the leaves at the stars. For the last time I rose to get firewood.”
“..we were interlopers, trespassers; we were not welcomed. The sense of unfamiliarity grew upon me as I stood there watching. We touched the frontier of a region where our presence was resented. For a night’s lodging we might perhaps be tolerated; but for a prolonged and inquisitive stay—No! by all the gods of the trees and wilderness, no! We were the first human influences upon this island, and we were not wanted. The willows were against us.”
“”Death, according to one’s belief, means either annihilation or release from the limitations of the senses, but it involves no change of character. You don’t suddenly alter just because the body’s gone. But this means a radical alteration, a complete change, a horrible loss of oneself by substitution—far worse than death, and not even annihilation. We happen to have camped in a spot where their region touches ours, where the veil between has worn thin”—horrors!”
“The psychology of places, for some imaginations at least, is very vivid; for the wanderer, especially, camps have their “note” either of welcome or rejection.”
“All my life,” he said, “I have been strangely, vividly conscious of another region—not far removed from our own world in one sense, yet wholly different in kind—where great things go on unceasingly, where immense and terrible personalities hurry by, intent on vast purposes compared to which earthly affairs, the rise and fall of nations, the destinies of empires, the fate of armies and continents, are all as dust in the balance; vast purposes, I mean, that deal directly with the soul, and not indirectly with more expressions of the soul—“
“When common objects in this way be come charged with the suggestion of horror, they stimulate the imagination far more than things of unusual appearance; and these bushes, crowding huddled about us, assumed for me in the darkness a bizarre grotesquerie of appearance that lent to them somehow the aspect of purposeful and living creatures. Their very ordinariness, I felt, masked what was malignant and hostile to us.”
First published in author’s collection The Lost Valley and Other Stories in 1910. Five men in October on a journey, camping out in the wilderness, man First published in author’s collection The Lost Valley and Other Stories in 1910. Five men in October on a journey, camping out in the wilderness, man in charge Dr Cathcart with his nephew a divinity student, Simpson. There is the hired guide Hank Davis accompanied by Joseph Défago and Punk the cook. They venture out into the Fifty Island Water, a crescent-shaped lake.
These men will partake in usual things to distract and comfort, smoking, talking and keeping warm with a campfire burning whilst in the beyond in the darkness there is some kind of entity, a myth of folklore, one they are trying to comprehend, “Out there, in the heart of unreclaimed wilderness, they had surely witnessed something crudely and essentially primitive,” plagued with a feeling of imminent danger. They traverse emotional and psychological battles, feelings of hysteria, aberrations of dismay and terror amidst the monstrous and unexplainable, a dilemma with man in the wilderness at odds with the damnable, the mystery of the Wendigo, a speck against vastness, man against monstrous.
“Yet, ever at the back of his thoughts, lay that other aspect of the wilderness: the indifference to human life, the merciless spirit of desolation which took no note of man.”
The reader vividly interjected into these aspects, the desolation, the haunting sense of place and disquietness, a masterful direction with words and sentences that explore the inner and outer realms in an eloquent terrible beauty and a joy to read.
Excerpts
“Out there, in the heart of unreclaimed wilderness, they had surely witnessed something crudely and essentially primitive.”
“On such occasions men lose the superficial, worldly distinctions; they become human beings working together for a common end. Simpson, the employer, and Défago the employed, among these primitive forces, were simply—two men, the “guider” and the “guided.” Superior knowledge, of course, assumed control, and the younger man fell without a second thought into the quasi-subordinate position.”
“For this “divinity student” was a young man of parts and character, though as yet, of course, untraveled; and on this trip—the first time he had seen any country but his own and little Switzerland—the huge scale of things somewhat bewildered him. It was one thing, he realized, to hear about primeval forests, but quite another to see them. While to dwell in them and seek acquaintance with their wild life was, again, an initiation that no intelligent man could undergo without a certain shifting of personal values hitherto held for permanent and sacred.”
“The bleak splendors of these remote and lonely forests rather overwhelmed him with the sense of his own littleness. That stern quality of the tangled backwoods which can only be described as merciless and terrible, rose out of these far blue woods swimming upon the horizon, and revealed itself. He understood the silent warning. He realized his own utter helplessness. Only Défago, as a symbol of a distant civilization where man was master, stood between him and a pitiless death by exhaustion and starvation.”
“The dusk rapidly deepened; the glades grew dark; the crackling of the fire and the wash of little waves along the rocky lake shore were the only sounds audible. The wind had dropped with the sun, and in all that vast world of branches nothing stirred. Any moment, it seemed, the woodland gods, who are to be worshipped in silence and loneliness, might stretch their mighty and terrific outlines among the trees.”
“Yet, ever at the back of his thoughts, lay that other aspect of the wilderness: the indifference to human life, the merciless spirit of desolation which took no note of man.”
“He remembered suddenly how his uncle had told him that men were sometimes stricken with a strange fever of the wilderness, when the seduction of the uninhabited wastes caught them so fiercely that they went forth, half fascinated, half deluded, to their death.”
“He did not realize that this laughter was a sign that terror still lurked in the recesses of his soul—that, in fact, it was merely one of the conventional signs by which a man, seriously alarmed, tries to persuade himself that he is not so.”
“It must’ve been just that song of mine that did it. It’s the song they sing in lumber camps and godforsaken places like that, when they’re skeered the Wendigo’s somewhere around, doin’ a bit of swift traveling.—”
And next—almost simultaneous with his waking, it seemed—the profound stillness of the dawn outside was shattered by a most uncommon sound. It came without warning, or audible approach; and it was unspeakably dreadful. It was a voice, Simpson declares, possibly a human voice; hoarse yet plaintive—a soft, roaring voice close outside the tent, overhead rather than upon the ground, of immense volume, while in some strange way most penetratingly and seductively sweet. It rang out, too, in three separate and distinct notes, or cries, that bore in some odd fashion a resemblance, farfetched yet recognizable, to the name of the guide: “Dé-fa-go!”
“For the Panic of the Wilderness had called to him in that far voice—the Power of untamed Distance—the Enticement of the Desolation that destroys.”
“They were talking against time. They were also talking against darkness, against the invasion of panic, against the admission reflection might bring that they were in an enemy’s country—against anything, in fact, rather than allow their inmost thoughts to assume control. He himself, already initiated by the awful vigil with terror, was beyond both of them in this respect. He had reached the stage where he was immune. But these two, the scoffing, analytical doctor, and the honest, dogged backwoodsman, each sat trembling in the depths of his being. Thus the hours passed; and thus, with lowered voices and a kind of taut inner resistance of spirit, this little group of humanity sat in the jaws of the wilderness and talked foolishly of the terrible and haunting legend. It was an unequal contest, all things considered, for the wilderness had already the advantage of first attack—and of a hostage. The fate of their comrade hung over them with a steadily increasing weight of oppression that finally became insupportable.”
This story covers ground that's been covered so don't expect great surprises. The writing started off slow and i was bit hesitant from first 80 pages This story covers ground that's been covered so don't expect great surprises. The writing started off slow and i was bit hesitant from first 80 pages or so in finishing it, but it all picked up momentum halfway and leading to a showdown of sorts. The writing became more gripping and flowed better. Story is written in the similar vein of No Country For Old Me, involving drugs and things going wrong. The story opens a view into a realistic world of drug mules....more
Finally I stepped into untreaded waters! that is to say reading YA Urban fiction that a majority of the female audience seem to have been reading on gFinally I stepped into untreaded waters! that is to say reading YA Urban fiction that a majority of the female audience seem to have been reading on goodreads and enjoying. I must say it has been pleasant and enjoyable experience reading Armstrong's first novel of a series here and I am hooked and loved walking P.O.V through Chloe's world in this story. "I see Dead people" Chloe is a Girl you'll love a movie buff who's got boyfriends at the bottom of the list at the moment.
Put a label on it! Medicate it! Hope it will just go away! No! This is one symptom that will not go away!
What are people around Chloe trying to cover up?
Written in a style that makes the words flow off the page and enjoyable to read. You are immersed into Chloe' s life. A fifteen year old girl you will love to get close to and follow in her footsteps through a world of Necromancers half-demons and Shamans. Well maybe let's say the beginning of this world.
Chloe comes together with other kids like her very special and gifted Rachelle, Victoria and Simon are important and special to others also. What about Derek? How can Chloe help him?...more
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