tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post7739916905393803645..comments2024-03-28T19:52:07.635-04:00Comments on Sweet Freedom: FFB: THE BIG BINGE aka IT'S ALL IN YOUR MIND by Robert Bloch (IMAGINATIVE TALES, July 1955; Curtis Books 1971; included in THE LOST BLOCH, V. 1: THE DEVIL WITH YOU!, Subterranean Press 1999; Pulpville Press 2006)Todd Masonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-81514369054033981522016-10-04T22:07:23.890-04:002016-10-04T22:07:23.890-04:00I very much appreciate your using Shakespeare'...I very much appreciate your using Shakespeare's name as a verb.Phillyradiogeekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06898493001431352624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-83167780718102752082016-09-18T17:07:36.099-04:002016-09-18T17:07:36.099-04:00I do have the sense of a marathon session at the t...I do have the sense of a marathon session at the typewriter in producing this story. Bloch hugely prolific. And as with all very prolific writers, some of the work is much better than others, but almost everything I've read at least swings for the fences...not always true of the very prolific, but usually true of influential artists such as he.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-9521880027254963972016-09-18T16:04:54.259-04:002016-09-18T16:04:54.259-04:00Hadn't known Bloch was so prolific. Ada and Pe...Hadn't known Bloch was so prolific. Ada and Perry Noid, eh? Gadzooks. Mathew Pausthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06157135006791553019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-50192022398484028422016-09-18T15:05:49.346-04:002016-09-18T15:05:49.346-04:00It certainly has comic as well as metafictional el...It certainly has comic as well as metafictional elements, but it is at base fine and serious horror fiction...and a few notable zombie anthologies have reprinted it over the last decade or so. Virgil Finlay's illustrations for it in FA, portraying the protagonist as Robert Bloch himself, add to the fun. George Hamilton is about as underwhelming as one might expect in the role, but he's trying...and the telefilm isn't terrible.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-4030562804147666412016-09-18T13:37:24.097-04:002016-09-18T13:37:24.097-04:00Funny you should mention "The Dead Don't ...Funny you should mention "The Dead Don't Die" because I also read it recently in FANTASTIC ADVENTURES. It's not a comedy but one of the more interesting zombie stories, in fact I think it's in the big Zombie collection that came out recently. I have a VHS tape of the TV movie based on the novelet starring George Hamilton and Ray Milland. I'll have to watch it soon.Walker Martinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16089880902426182100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-65693189108251893452016-09-17T22:50:33.826-04:002016-09-17T22:50:33.826-04:00The story Walker refers to was reprinted in IT as ...The story Walker refers to was reprinted in IT as "Black Magic Holiday"...Walker, Mike Ashley might well encourage your reconsideration. I would suggest that, as noted above, Bloch would put more into even the merest yardgoods writing he did for the Ziff-Davis magazines than most...and certainly the earliest issues of FA, before Ray Palmer's cynicism set in, and those from the period ca. 1950-51 when Howard Browne had been seeking out better material for the abortive upgrade of AMAZING (and presumably also FA?) that compares favorably with most magazines even in that period, can reward anyone seeking them out...slight, typical ZD work appeared cheek by jowl with Fritz Leiber's YOU'RE ALL ALONE and "The Ship Sals at Midnight", Bloch's "The Dead Don't Die!" (a very underrated bit of work, perhaps in part due to the pulpy title, but also adapted for a pleasantly mediocre telefilm in the early '70s, which is not a patch on the slightly metafictional original novella), Theodore Sturgeon's THE DREAMING JEWELS, and good work by Clifford Simak, "William Tenn", William McGivern, John D. MacDonald, Mack Reynolds and a number of others (I haven't read the Lester Del Rey nor William Campbell Gault contributions from those years yet). Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-83401243305343366452016-09-17T19:47:58.314-04:002016-09-17T19:47:58.314-04:00After reading this I pulled out my copy of FANTAST...After reading this I pulled out my copy of FANTASTIC ADVENTURES and read "The Devil With You". It was also reprinted in IMAGINATIVE TALES and is a crazy and zany comedy about magical events at a magician's convention. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I have to rethink my opinion of FANTASTIC ADVENTURES. It may be better that I've given it credit for being...Walker Martinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16089880902426182100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-68093378986687802522016-09-16T17:24:55.197-04:002016-09-16T17:24:55.197-04:00They are key to fantasy as it's practiced toda...They are key to fantasy as it's practiced today, and not solely fantasy...even if Bloch is also vitally important in suspense fiction, Leiber in sf (and considering horror as a part of fantasy fiction, as both were transformational there at least as much as in any other sort of fantasy, even given some of Bloch's gentler work and of course Leiber's pivotal role in S&S). (Consider even such excursions into surrealism on both their parts as Bloch's "The Funnel of God" and Leiber's "Gonna Roll the Bones"...)<br /><br />Bloch is having at least as much fun being the guy larding the work with puns as the reader will, I suspect, but I have no problems with wordplay either. I do suspect it was at least as much self-service as fan-service in writing this kind of work...which he imbues with more substance than most of his peers in such markets ever would and often more than they could.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-32791553983130891352016-09-16T14:11:42.048-04:002016-09-16T14:11:42.048-04:00Bloch (and Leiber) were my gateway to fantasy fict...Bloch (and Leiber) were my gateway to fantasy fiction. Bloch probably also influenced my sense (or lack of, according to some) of humor.Jerry Househttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482856733981933159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-28475112897322129762016-09-16T05:17:04.444-04:002016-09-16T05:17:04.444-04:00Thank you, Sergio. Thorne Smith was the single gre...Thank you, Sergio. Thorne Smith was the single greatest model for a lot of what UNKNOWN and the early IMAGINATIVE TALES published, as well as to a lesser but still important extent what F&SF, FANTASTIC, BEYOND and even much of McIlwraith's WEIRD TALES would publish, a mode sometimes dubbed, as by the contributors to John Clute and John Grant's THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FANTASY, "slick fantasy"...and certainly an ancestor of what's often referred to as "urban fantasy" today...fiction set in a fairly "realistic" world, with something like H. G. Wells's dictum in place that there be only one miracle (or fantasticated element) per story...Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-63107496576379504882016-09-16T05:02:37.243-04:002016-09-16T05:02:37.243-04:00Definitely unknown Bloch to me, thanks Todd. I lik...Definitely unknown Bloch to me, thanks Todd. I like the comparison to Thorne Smith, not an obvious writer int he same sentence but the way you have it, makes total sense!Sergio (Tipping My Fedora)https://bloodymurder.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com