Post by Continuing Legend on Jan 1, 2010 15:39:37 GMT -5
Continuing Legend Writes About Stuff.
Yup.
Today's topic: Short Stories
Okay, so I've been doing a lot of reading lately of short stories. I'm a voracious reader of just about anything -- novels, short stories, comics, nonfiction, even textbooks and user manuals and stuff like that. So yeah. I read. A lot. I don't really have a favorite format, but lately I'm really into the short story.
Lately I've been into horror short stories -- I've always been a fan of horror writing (but not horror movies). As a young'un, I collected Stephen King novels (at least in my experience, they're quite easy to find for 25 cents at thrift stores and used book sales, and the guy writes a LOT, so it's not that hard to pick up a new book).
From King, I got into Lovecraft. I was too young to appreciate him at first, but now I finally "get" it. He didn't write that much long fiction. So my exposure to horror writing was pretty much King's long-ass novels and short stories, plus Lovecraft's mostly short stories.
From Lovecraft, I got into Poe. I had tried to read Poe as a kid, but also didn't really "get" it until just recently. I still find myself unimpressed with a lot of it (yes, he wrote the first detective stories, but face it, they're kind of crappy), and a lot of his horror is pretty much "look at me, I've gone INSAAAAAAANE!" Still, I'm enjoying the heck out of it.
Another horror short story writer I've come upon is Richard Matheson. I've read three of his short story collections and one of his novels (Hunted Past Reason). One of the short story collections, "Duel," was more sci-fi than horror, and since I was expecting horror, I was disappointed; maybe if I give it another try without such preconceived notions I'll like them. Unfortunately, I think Twilight may have ruined vampires forever -- I couldn't read I Am Legend or Blood Son without hearing Bill Corbett's mellow voice singing to me, "Sparkly vaaampiiirresss." Ugh.
I read Henry James's Turn of the Screw -- supposedly a classic ghost story. It was boring and crappy. I thought it would be, because most "classics" turn out to be boring and crappy. But yeah. Some lady and some kids see some ghosts and I don't care. I read a couple of his other stories (conventional, non-supernatural stories) -- equally boring and crappy. Washington Square for some reason compelled me to keep reading it, though that doesn't mean it was good, you understand. None of the characters are particularly sympathetic -- the main character is a girl who can't stand up to her domineering douchebag father, who turns out to be RIGHT in the end, but you don't care because he's such an asshole. I just wanted to see how it ended for all these miserable douchebags, and so I read the whole thing. Waste of time. James's Daisy Miller was equally boring and stupid, and also incredibly dated. Oh no. A young lady is such a FLIRT! How dare she! Yeah, I don't care. Let's move on.
Okay, since we're out of the horror genre, another short story collection I just read was Look at the Birdie, some unpublished short fiction by Kurt Vonnegut. I like Vonnegut, though I admit I haven't read that much of his work other than Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle, and these short stories were all pretty good. I read them all in a huge frenzy of short story reading, right after a Richard Matheson marathon, so I was still in kind of a horror mood, and therefore a lot of the stories felt creepier than they should have. With that in mind, I'm not exactly sure what to say about them, but suffice to say I enjoyed the stories a lot.
I read this one a while ago, but I gotta recommend it: Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, by Maile Meloy. I admit I only got the book because the author is the sister of the lead singer of the Decemberists, a band I really like, but her writing is amazing! The stories are all pretty much conventional (just realistic stories, nothing horror or sci-fi, which is my usual), but they're very well written with great characters. Short story characters can be hard because you don't have a lot of room to develop them, but Meloy writes friggin' awesome characters in just a handful of pages.
Yup.
Today's topic: Short Stories
Okay, so I've been doing a lot of reading lately of short stories. I'm a voracious reader of just about anything -- novels, short stories, comics, nonfiction, even textbooks and user manuals and stuff like that. So yeah. I read. A lot. I don't really have a favorite format, but lately I'm really into the short story.
Lately I've been into horror short stories -- I've always been a fan of horror writing (but not horror movies). As a young'un, I collected Stephen King novels (at least in my experience, they're quite easy to find for 25 cents at thrift stores and used book sales, and the guy writes a LOT, so it's not that hard to pick up a new book).
From King, I got into Lovecraft. I was too young to appreciate him at first, but now I finally "get" it. He didn't write that much long fiction. So my exposure to horror writing was pretty much King's long-ass novels and short stories, plus Lovecraft's mostly short stories.
From Lovecraft, I got into Poe. I had tried to read Poe as a kid, but also didn't really "get" it until just recently. I still find myself unimpressed with a lot of it (yes, he wrote the first detective stories, but face it, they're kind of crappy), and a lot of his horror is pretty much "look at me, I've gone INSAAAAAAANE!" Still, I'm enjoying the heck out of it.
Another horror short story writer I've come upon is Richard Matheson. I've read three of his short story collections and one of his novels (Hunted Past Reason). One of the short story collections, "Duel," was more sci-fi than horror, and since I was expecting horror, I was disappointed; maybe if I give it another try without such preconceived notions I'll like them. Unfortunately, I think Twilight may have ruined vampires forever -- I couldn't read I Am Legend or Blood Son without hearing Bill Corbett's mellow voice singing to me, "Sparkly vaaampiiirresss." Ugh.
I read Henry James's Turn of the Screw -- supposedly a classic ghost story. It was boring and crappy. I thought it would be, because most "classics" turn out to be boring and crappy. But yeah. Some lady and some kids see some ghosts and I don't care. I read a couple of his other stories (conventional, non-supernatural stories) -- equally boring and crappy. Washington Square for some reason compelled me to keep reading it, though that doesn't mean it was good, you understand. None of the characters are particularly sympathetic -- the main character is a girl who can't stand up to her domineering douchebag father, who turns out to be RIGHT in the end, but you don't care because he's such an asshole. I just wanted to see how it ended for all these miserable douchebags, and so I read the whole thing. Waste of time. James's Daisy Miller was equally boring and stupid, and also incredibly dated. Oh no. A young lady is such a FLIRT! How dare she! Yeah, I don't care. Let's move on.
Okay, since we're out of the horror genre, another short story collection I just read was Look at the Birdie, some unpublished short fiction by Kurt Vonnegut. I like Vonnegut, though I admit I haven't read that much of his work other than Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle, and these short stories were all pretty good. I read them all in a huge frenzy of short story reading, right after a Richard Matheson marathon, so I was still in kind of a horror mood, and therefore a lot of the stories felt creepier than they should have. With that in mind, I'm not exactly sure what to say about them, but suffice to say I enjoyed the stories a lot.
I read this one a while ago, but I gotta recommend it: Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, by Maile Meloy. I admit I only got the book because the author is the sister of the lead singer of the Decemberists, a band I really like, but her writing is amazing! The stories are all pretty much conventional (just realistic stories, nothing horror or sci-fi, which is my usual), but they're very well written with great characters. Short story characters can be hard because you don't have a lot of room to develop them, but Meloy writes friggin' awesome characters in just a handful of pages.
