What do you feel was going on in the field?

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Mar 12, 2010
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I wish SK and Joe would write a series... Stories from The Black Rock of the Redeemer. There's still so much to tell. How does the cult even know the Rock is out there? Lots of interesting back story there :) Does the sun move if you're looking at the sky while the field moves you? Where did the glacier pick up the rock? I loved the story as written, I just want more :)
 
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Mar 12, 2010
6,538
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Texas
I watched something on tv recently - probably one of those Ancient Aliens shows, and the opinion was expressed that life on earth may have had its start from tiny life forms on a meteor which crashed to earth. I was thinking of a meteor while reading about the Black Rock.
 
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Gerald

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Full novels sometimes start as short stories. Carrie was a short story first. I think a short story is a bit of a tease sometimes - you present an interesting idea but not the background of it.
But other times the short story format fits perfectly: would The Last Rung on the Ladder really benefit from being drawn out into a lengthy novel. In a couple of pages it manages to have the depth of a full novel.

How he decides which ones become full novels and which short stories or novellas, I'm not sure. It probably depends on how much he is fascinated by it himself.
 

Gerald

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In the Tall Grass could be a good graphic novel. I loved the style of the N graphic novel, but in the actual comic book (not the online comic) they put in a new ending, which wasn't as good as the original ending of the short story I thought; but the atmosphere of the drawings was really good.
 
Mar 12, 2010
6,538
29,004
Texas
I saw it as related to the field in "N", just covered with tall vegetation.

In the Tall Grass could be a good graphic novel. I loved the style of the N graphic novel, but in the actual comic book (not the online comic) they put in a new ending, which wasn't as good as the original ending of the short story I thought; but the atmosphere of the drawings was really good.

I havn't read N. I had to look in TheLibrary to see if it was in a collection. I think I purchased Just After Sunset shortly before we moved so I need to search through all my boxes of books... might be easier to just buy it for my kindle lol.

Thanks y'all for mentioning it :) Just After Sunset sounds like a good read to fill in time before End of Watch is released. I'm being very careful not to accidently start another trilogy until after I read End of Watch. Everything I've started reading lately turns out to be a trilogy or a series.
 

GNTLGNT

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Jun 15, 2007
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I havn't read N. I had to look in TheLibrary to see if it was in a collection. I think I purchased Just After Sunset shortly before we moved so I need to search through all my boxes of books... might be easier to just buy it for my kindle lol.

Thanks y'all for mentioning it :) Just After Sunset sounds like a good read to fill in time before End of Watch is released. I'm being very careful not to accidently start another trilogy until after I read End of Watch. Everything I've started reading lately turns out to be a trilogy or a series.
...it isn't a bright and sunny read, so be prepared...
 

Gerald

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Sep 8, 2011
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I havn't read N. I had to look in TheLibrary to see if it was in a collection. I think I purchased Just After Sunset shortly before we moved so I need to search through all my boxes of books... might be easier to just buy it for my kindle lol.

Thanks y'all for mentioning it :) Just After Sunset sounds like a good read to fill in time before End of Watch is released. I'm being very careful not to accidently start another trilogy until after I read End of Watch. Everything I've started reading lately turns out to be a trilogy or a series.

I'd say N is my favourite in Just After Sunset. Stationary Bike I quite like too - it's just a quite funny idea. I also liked Mute, Cat from Hell (which is a much older story) and Gingerbread Girl. Willa's nice too.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
87,651
358,754
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Cambridge, Ohio
In the Tall Grass could be a good graphic novel. I loved the style of the N graphic novel, but in the actual comic book (not the online comic) they put in a new ending, which wasn't as good as the original ending of the short story I thought; but the atmosphere of the drawings was really good.
...I always feel claustrophobic when I read the tale....it is a mentally twisting number....re: Grass, they could probably wring a 4 issue limited run series out of it....
 

Gerald

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Sep 8, 2011
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...I always feel claustrophobic when I read the tale....it is a mentally twisting number....re: Grass, they could probably wring a 4 issue limited run series out of it....

It's one of the few where I put the book down toward the end, looking at it thinking 'Do I want to know the rest?' But I love when horror is strong but still written so well you want to finish it. It's not JUST awfulness, there's interesting character arc's as well - I like that she has a dream towards the end, which corresponds with what is going on in the field.

This is one of those stories that is pure, undiluted horror. I'm sometimes disappointed when stories by him are not 'horror' enough to my taste (but we have to keep in my mind he never called himself 'the king of horror' - the press did that - it's his favourite genre I think, but he doesn't want to limit himself to just horror), but this one clearly is.
 

Gerald

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I was about to say N is pure horror too, at least it feels to me like that, but I'm not sure if it is.
There is horror and there is the more 'cosmic horror'. N feels like the latter. It feels Lovecraftian. I think Lovecraft called what he did 'weird fiction' rather than 'horror'.
N was also inspired by Arthur Machen and while Machen was an inspiration to Lovecraft, I don't think he was in the actual Lovecraft circle of writers.

Actually it's often hard to categorize writers in certain genres, because most practice several genres. And also it's often critics/journalists/historians that label writers, not the writers themselves.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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Cambridge, Ohio
I was about to say N is pure horror too, at least it feels to me like that, but I'm not sure if it is.
There is horror and there is the more 'cosmic horror'. N feels like the latter. It feels Lovecraftian. I think Lovecraft called what he did 'weird fiction' rather than 'horror'.
N was also inspired by Arthur Machen and while Machen was an inspiration to Lovecraft, I don't think he was in the actual Lovecraft circle of writers.

Actually it's often hard to categorize writers in certain genres, because most practice several genres. And also it's often critics/journalists that label writers, not the writers themselves.
...there is no doubt that N is a Lovecraftian nod.....
 

Gerald

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...there is no doubt that N is a Lovecraftian nod.....

If Machen was an influence on Lovecraft you'd get that Lovecraftian feel, but Stephen quotes Machen at the beginning of Just After Sunset.

This is Lovecraft's definition of weird fiction:

"The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain--a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space."

That certainly fits to N (I was thinking of the word 'dread' to describe N before I looked at the quote again) and you could argue it fits with In the Tall Grass, although in the latter you don't really get a glimpse of 'daemons of unplumbed space' and in N you do. In the Tall Grass is very open to interpretation as to what it's actually about.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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tumblr_n1u1og1Szt1tr7kk5o1_500.jpg
 

Gerald

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Sep 8, 2011
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I think Arthur Machen was an influence on/favourite of John Carpenter too. In The Fog (1980) the character at the very beginning who tells the story to the children is called Machen. He's played by John Houseman who also happens to be in the adaptation of Ghost Story (1981) by John Irvin. Coincidence or not...?

Carpenter said he got the idea for The Fog when he visited Stonehenge, which is a similar kind of place as in N, a circle of mysterious stones. So there are some interesting links there.

Machen is hardly adapted for film: Arthur Machen - IMDb
Only four unknown titles, which also explains why he is not so well known anymore.

The character of Machen (played by R. Nelson Brown) is still in the 2005 remake of The Fog, his role is bigger, but different from the original. He's used as an old, mysterious man who seems to have more information on the Elizabeth Dane.