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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 526
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 09:52 am: | 
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Anybody read it? Whatdja think? |
Akaivyleaf
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Akaivyleaf
Post Number: 88
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, August 17, 2004 - 09:00 pm: |
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I read it.... Didn't particularly think it was her best work. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 528
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 10:26 am: |
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She is the dean of African American horror writers, so it is an important work. I thought that it had a lot of good stuff in there, a couple of real heavy moments--I even had a weird dream when I fell asleep reading it, which is good--but I thought it failed as a novel.
I thought the ending was a copout. I thought this was not good as My Soul to Keep, which I think is her best, despite all the good elements ie the Voodoo, the Native American curses, etc. |
Crystal
Veteran Poster
Username: Crystal
Post Number: 61
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 12:24 pm: |
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I haven't read this one yet but I usually find the endings of horror stories a let down. The horror is gone so there's no more story. It's as if the writers are trying to connect us back to our ordinary world which is not nearly as exciting as the storyland we were just in and it just doesn't quite fit. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 533
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 12:28 pm: |
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Crystal:
What horror stories have you read? Have you ever read any H.P. Lovecraft?
Reason why I ask is that most Horror written by Americans is what I call Horror-Lite--they have to end the story on a high note or bright note or with Good Triumphing Over Evil like in the movies, which does lessen the effect of the horror.
It is because I believe American audiences cannot stomach real horror. |
Crystal
Veteran Poster
Username: Crystal
Post Number: 62
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 12:35 pm: |
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Chris: not many at all and probably because of what you've just explained. And maybe I can't stomach it either. I don't know yet. But I'd like to give it a try. H.P. Lovecraft huh? I'll give him a shot at the library. I've read the usual Stephen King earlier stuff and Ms. Due's. Not many short stories either. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 535
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 01:35 pm: |
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Crystal:
Lovecraft is an acquired taste. He did almost all short stories and only one novel. Most of his work was published in a magazine called Weird Tales in the 20's and 30's. He was a stated admirer of Lord Dunsany and Arthur Machen but he writes most like Poe (he took a lot of stuff from him) and the Robert Louis Stevenson of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--but he isn't as good as them.
His writing is stiff, outmoded, and some of the stuff is racist. He is best known for his Cthulu Mythos stories.
He was a certified weirdo, but didn't kill himself or anything like Robert E. Howard. I would start off with The Best of H.P. Lovecraft.
My favorite stories by him were "The Colour Out of Space" and "The Dunwich Horror". "The Picture in the House" and "The Music of Eric Zann" have some moments. Good definitely does NOT triumph over evil in his work, almost all the stories wind up with the bad things out there still waiting to tear our hearts out and drive us insane. |
Bleekindigo
Veteran Poster
Username: Bleekindigo
Post Number: 55
Registered: 06-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 02:25 pm: |
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Chrishayden:
I haven't read The Good House, but I heard that it was a let down also. I did read The Between and My soul to Keep and they were absolutely brilliant!!
Besides the ending, what else was lacking in The Good House that The Between and My Soul to Keep didn't lack?
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 537
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 02:53 pm: |
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Bleek:
I can't say it was a let down, just that I had to make myself read it--which meant I was not enthused about it.
For one thing it lacked focus--it flashed back and forth between characters--some of them who were there only to be bumped off--you have them in these kinds of stories but my belief is you bump them off and get along with it. It did not get started fast enough and often dragged adding details and observations that, while well written and witty did not really further the story--it was not fatal to it and remedied by just skipping over these parts but they happened.
It also lacked a really terrifying menace. The menace was more subtle. The title gives you the idea that it is the house but it is not the house.
In fairness to Ms. Due horror fiction is very difficult fiction to write and this his her fourth one and her sixth book overall and you expect some clunkers along the way--
But I wonder. She has gotten married, has a six month old child, I wonder if she is even feeling this genre anymore. One of the reasons why Poe was so successful was that he had a tragic life, and Lovecraft's while not as overtly tragic, was permeated with the decadence, rot and dispair which permeates his work. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 1019
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 03:35 pm: |
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"The Good House" was the selection of my book club a couple of months ago and received mixed reviews by the members. Some found it disturbing. Others didn't quite understand it. Some thought it was good and others didn't like it. Me, being me, didn't finish it because it was too long and didn't rivet my interest. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 540
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 03:48 pm: |
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Cynique:
If some found it disturbing it was successful since it was a horror book, I would think. Those that didn't understand it why didn't they? Just curious. Also, did the book not rivet your interest because you don't like horror, or for another reason? |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 1021
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 04:08 pm: |
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Well, some folks had trouble with the flashbacks and with the ending which I understand made it seem like time had been rolled back. One girl said it gave her bad dreams.Another girl said she could hardly put the book down because she had to know how it came out. To me, I had a mental block. I looked at this big thick book, at the small print and I thought about her other books that I had read, and I just couldn't get it going. (My reading habits nowadays are very strange.) |
Bleekindigo
Veteran Poster
Username: Bleekindigo
Post Number: 58
Registered: 06-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 04:18 pm: |
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Chris/Cynique:
What is the difference between Sci-fi and Horror and mystery and Goth? I think that I have an idea but then--not really.
When I think Horror, I think Poe, when I think of Sci-fi, I think of Due and when I think of Goth, I think of Frankenstein. When I think of mystery (pause)I don't--not much of a mystery reader.
Maybe I have my elements/genre's all mixed up.
And what about Octavia Butler's The Kindred? Historical/Horror? Historical/Sci-fi? None of the above?
By the way, she's a wonderful writer isn't she. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 1023
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 05:36 pm: |
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I don't think Due is sci-fi. She is horror. Sci- fi deals with UfOs and aliens and outer space and alternates universe stuff. Horror is scary supernatural, occult things. Mystery is, you know, about solving murders. Gothic is about mysterious things that go in dark mansions that endanger the heroines, e.g. Jane Eyre. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 542
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 05:41 pm: |
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Bleek:
I'll try. The genres sometimes overlap. There are long lists of what each type of fiction contains--
All fiction involves a question--What if? Science Fiction or sci fi asks this question with regard to some sort of scientific discovery, development or extrapolation (ie, What if people could travel to the stars, what if there were intelligent machines, etc). Horror involves a question with regard to supernatural menace or mystery (What if you were trapped in a haunted house? What if there were vampyres?)
Gothic is an older genre, elements that persist to day, that generally involved an imperilled heroine trapped in an enchanted or haunted castle with a mysterious or menacing lover. Elements of it are in Frankenstein, Dracula, and some modern fiction.
There can be Sci Fi Horror--such as Frankenstein or your Thing from Outer Space on the rampage story, by the way.
Mysteries often involve the solving of some crime, usually murder--but there can be Sci Fi or Horror mysteries, too.
Poe is often grouped with Horror writers but he rarely wrote of the Supernatural. Due is a Supernatural or Horror writer, though there can be Sci Fi in it. Frankenstein does have elements of Gothicism.
I think The Kindred is thought of as Sci Fi.
Yes she is one of the deans of Black Science Fiction. |
Akaivyleaf
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Akaivyleaf
Post Number: 89
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 - 06:46 pm: |
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I was in a wierd place with The Good House. On the one hand, there were mounds of mindlessness- read way too many pages in this book. The reader was bogged down with what seemed to be indecisiveness of the author, which way do I want to take this character? kind of stuff. Flash backs, extra characters just to kill them off a few pages later. However I was intrigued enough to want to know what was causing all of this madness so I plunged forward with the reading.
I found the last few pages the most interesting of the entire book, after the book concluded, Ms. Due clued us in to her research which made the reading a little more tolerable for me. The ending of the book however left me with the question....What WAS the point? |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 544
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 19, 2004 - 10:07 am: |
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I have read few books like this one where it seemed that everybody had a different reason for disliking it. |
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