tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post3364261933858581060..comments2024-03-28T19:52:07.635-04:00Comments on Sweet Freedom: FFB: FANTASY: SHAPES OF THINGS UNKNOWN, edited by Edmund J. Farrell, Thomas E. Gage, John Pfordresher & Raymond J. Rodrigues (Scott, Foresman 1974)Todd Masonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-58001854123749422762010-09-13T09:17:01.208-04:002010-09-13T09:17:01.208-04:00And, I suspect, a persistent inspiration for your ...And, I suspect, a persistent inspiration for your own eventual career...Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-73256143487954033302010-09-11T16:09:27.982-04:002010-09-11T16:09:27.982-04:00It was a textbook or at least a reader, i.e. antho...It was a textbook or at least a reader, i.e. anthology with questions and activities at the end of each story <i>I think</i>. I could be wrong. Wrote my first round robin story in that class, then we made covers and bound them. Way cool. She also had her actor friend come in and perform "The Tell-Tale Heart" while we sat cross-legged on the floor in the darkness of candle-light. Great class: super teacher.C. Margery Kempehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15910282257993793334noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-13012299311244528592010-09-10T23:05:16.693-04:002010-09-10T23:05:16.693-04:00Thanks, Steve--glad to be of service.
I have an ...Thanks, Steve--glad to be of service. <br /><br />I have an arguably reductionist view that if a story is horror, it must have supernatural or fantasy elements in it; if it's a "realistic" or other not actually fantasticated story, like the Lansdale, it's a suspense story, rather than a horror story. Thus, THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE is a horror story (though could be read as suspense, albeit by stretching the point), while "The Lottery" is suspense fiction...PSYCHO is suspense fiction, while THE DEAD DON'T DIE is horror fiction (Bloch has rather few novels that are horror thus). And so on. And I'll agree with you that the Lansdale is pretty damned extreme (it has a subtitle or dedication, depending on how you look at it, that describes it as "a story that doesn't flinch"). There are certainly other, perhaps even more borderline cases, such as "The Yellow Wallpaper," or stories involving monstrous animals or sufficiently delusional human perception. But if consensus reality says it can happen, by me it's likely suspense, and if the threat/terror is completely metaphorical, it's horror. They have (at times only slightly) a different flavor.<br /><br />ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE and the other crime fiction magazines have usually been willing to run a fair bit of criminous sf, fantasy and horror over the years...certainly such amphibian writers as Edward Wellen, who also got an unfantasticated, but Very arguably near-future, terrorism novella into F&SF (I reviewed it as an FFB a while back), were likely to sell that kind of thing to the CF magazines. I haven't read it yet, though I tend to like Harrison's fiction (I'll check to see if it's in his 50-year retrospective volume). I'll hope to have read the Fowler pretty soon, too.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-33977486449496550232010-09-10T21:37:33.835-04:002010-09-10T21:37:33.835-04:00Todd:
I enjoy almost all the FFB entries but some...Todd:<br /><br />I enjoy almost all the FFB entries but somehow yours are usually the ones I find most interesting, probably because I have some acquaintance with a large percentage of the books you choose – or, as in this case, not any of these books themselves but many of the individual stories. I am tempted to start commenting on each of the stories that I am familiar with, but I doubt that people would find that fascinating, unless, that is, they have nothing else to do for the next ten or twelve hours. So just a couple of points…<br /><br />I’m not sure why you don’t think the Lansdale shouldn’t be included in a book of horror stories. I find some of Lansdale’s short stories too unpleasantly strong for me to enjoy them, and “Night They Missed the Horror Show” would certainly fall into that category. It does seem to me at least as much a “horror story” as most of the supernatural entries.<br /><br />Two of the stories that I don’t know at all that sound particularly intriguing – “I Always Do What Teddy Says”, because I think that’s a great title and because it is, unusually for a science fiction story, from <i>Ellery Queen</i> and “Norman Wisdom and the Angel of Death”, because that’s an even better, and much weirder, title.SteveHLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01745665231586422220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-29237539925137249032010-09-10T18:27:12.207-04:002010-09-10T18:27:12.207-04:00Well, like the Pelan antho, Patti, the JJ Adams dy...Well, like the Pelan antho, Patti, the JJ Adams dystopia anthology is forthcoming...the others I found in my whip-around a few months back all being out of print...and I really should've broken the consideration of the retrospectives off into another posting, away from the FFB...but weariness will out. I'm a fan of Miro from way back...had one of his items in repro from the Hirschorn up on my bedroom wall in Hawaii. Also, the Brubeck Quartet snagged a painting for my once clear-favorit album, and still one of my favorites, TIME FURTHER OUT: MIRO REFLECTIONS.<br /><br />Glad you liked it, Scott--the info density seems to be putting some off a little, and I can sympathize...that's often true of my prose at the best of times, but adding all the TOCs only reinforces matters. Yes, I do have to wonder how many schools ever picked up this particular Scott, Foresman series.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-89956725340822134762010-09-10T17:38:07.811-04:002010-09-10T17:38:07.811-04:00Fascinating stuff there, Todd. I would have loved...Fascinating stuff there, Todd. I would have loved to have a textbook like this at any point along the way. And the other anthologies listed look equally fun. Thanks for pointing it out.Scott Cuppnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-79086653669995411432010-09-10T17:13:24.648-04:002010-09-10T17:13:24.648-04:00And yes Miro is worth the price alone.And yes Miro is worth the price alone.pattinase (abbott)https://www.blogger.com/profile/02916037185235335846noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-41994537643128645412010-09-10T17:12:55.670-04:002010-09-10T17:12:55.670-04:00Had quite a job finding my way to the end. I like ...Had quite a job finding my way to the end. I like anthologies too. My husband uses stories like this in his utopia/dystopia course but only in fragments. I wonder if anyone will publish the whole shebang except as an ebook soon.pattinase (abbott)https://www.blogger.com/profile/02916037185235335846noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-8083380965283231852010-09-10T16:59:17.113-04:002010-09-10T16:59:17.113-04:00And did he/she assign a text with the Poes and &qu...And did he/she assign a text with the Poes and "The Monkey's Paw," or was it more along the lines that she/he read to you?Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-59882959494606261202010-09-10T16:57:25.707-04:002010-09-10T16:57:25.707-04:00Yeah, too tired when completing it to go get more ...Yeah, too tired when completing it to go get more illos. Probably could set the borrowed and/or upgraded indices off better, but work calls.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-18292306747607711702010-09-10T16:36:13.584-04:002010-09-10T16:36:13.584-04:00Whoa -- too much text! Eyes glazing over; but that...Whoa -- too much text! Eyes glazing over; but that Miro cover! Wow. I should figure out what book it was my sixth grade teacher used where we read Jacobs and lots of Poe and a few other things. Guess that would be early 70s...?C. Margery Kempehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15910282257993793334noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-13722732556244462922010-09-10T11:51:27.717-04:002010-09-10T11:51:27.717-04:00...and I think Matheson and Collier often speak pa......and I think Matheson and Collier often speak particularly well to the young...suprising that Saki got only one entry.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-8320954480725270142010-09-10T11:13:56.033-04:002010-09-10T11:13:56.033-04:00Well, one was already a chestnut (his first public...Well, one was already a chestnut (his first publication, after all), the other a fairly recent publication at the time...and Matheson was at the zenith of his popularity at the time (at least so far!), I'd say.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-7249518119893491822010-09-10T11:05:43.728-04:002010-09-10T11:05:43.728-04:00In Shapes, two by Matheson? I'm surprised at t...In Shapes, two by Matheson? I'm surprised at that, perhaps they were cheap to obtain.Richard R.http://brokenbullhorn.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-56046931999490383692010-09-10T10:37:43.235-04:002010-09-10T10:37:43.235-04:00There is, indeed, and as I noted in a discussion i...There is, indeed, and as I noted in a discussion in the Horror list at Indiana U, I hope the Pelan, despite my disagreements with some of the premises and judgements, doesn't end up even more a sinmple collectors' item/forgotten book than it might be (the Peter Straub and other retrospectives have his name and larger publishers behind them)...though even David Hartwell's THE DARK DESCENT, which I have very strong criticisms of, is growing obscure as well.<br /><br />Part of the problem with the courses in college (and my FFB here is definitely a younger-readers text, with even the public school sign-in/sign-out roster in its inside front cover, careful to list both "county" and "parish" as a possible local political entity as the owners of the text) and not a few in the high schools is not only the graying of the audience for fiction, but more importantly I fear the notion that these courses could go to the seoond-raters and more callow junior faculty, or needn't be taken too seriously...certainly, in my own university career, it wasn't Robert Onopa nor A. A. Attanasio nor Ian MacMillan teaching the sf lit course at the University of Hawaii, but a relatively callow fellow (and the possessor of one of the most annoying speaking voices I've ever heard)...it was the only course I ever dropped at that campus (I was able to get into David Morrison's planetary astronomy course, which was a trade up I wouldn't've made in that semester if the first course looked at all promising); at George Mason University, where I finished my BA, the horror course was taught by a very competent professor who was taking a flier on a subject she was not confident about at all...I stuck with that one.<br /><br />More happily, the incorporation of fantasticated literature into eclectic literature courses is more common now than it was even in the '80s...a very real triumph of Culture Studies, at least in the literary end of academe...and the good courses, those taught by people passionate about the work, often survive, even in these straitened times...Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-41026215392284925242010-09-10T09:49:59.174-04:002010-09-10T09:49:59.174-04:00Wow! There's plenty of great reading here! A...Wow! There's plenty of great reading here! At one time, SF and FANTASY courses were popular on college campuses. That trend seems to be fading.Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04546161337366365635noreply@blogger.com