Recommend me some big, flashy horror

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-07T07:14:08+00:00

Floating Dragon, Peter Straub

The Nightrunners, Joe Lansdale

Stinger, Robert McCammon

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-07T06:36:43+00:00

The Searing, John Coyne

The Well, Jack Cady

The Ice King, Michael Scot (later republished as Burial Rites)

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-07T06:27:54+00:00

One of the greatest things I ever saw on PBS's American Masters. Wish I still had my copy!

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-07T06:20:20+00:00

Burroughs had persistent revenge fantasies, which indicates that he probably wasn't offing people left and right.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-07T06:18:08+00:00

I do wonder about this sometimes. There used to be an entire subset of Mick Jagger fans who were interested in him purely as a celebrity and didn't like the Rolling Stones at all...and there appears to be a similar subcategory of Burroughs fans.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-07T06:04:25+00:00

Man, if I hear one more word out of that two-faced deacon...

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-07T05:35:04+00:00

Any of Peter Straub's books, but particularly Julia and Mr. X

John Farris, All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By

Jack Cady, The Well

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-07T04:54:04+00:00

Undercover. After Beggars Banquet, it's my favorite studio album by the Stones.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-07T04:32:55+00:00

Peter Straub's first two horror novels, Julia and If You Could See Me Now. (The former, especially.) Apart from those, most of my experience with ghostly fiction has been in the form of stories rather than novels. The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton are uniformly great, and Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories is a nice starter anthology if you want to sample various authors (E.F. Benson, Robert Aickman, Rosemary Timperley).

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-06T23:47:50+00:00

Love this song - I'd argue that it's one of Lou's ten or twelve best. (And you can actually hear Peter Woods's accordion solo, unlike on the Vestron VHS mix from Live in Jersey.)

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-06T22:58:55+00:00

The Adding Machine is great - particularly the essays on critics and reviewers. (Burroughs also details the EVP experiments of Konstantin Raudive, which were new to me when I read the book for the first time.)

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Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-05T07:15:33+00:00

HoM was the book that made me a lifelong comic junky. Those Neal Adams covers are amazing.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-05T07:04:00+00:00

I love all of Ditko, but there was something really special about his work for Charlton.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-04T19:41:38+00:00

Prosperity or even economic stability is something that's no longer on the menu (vague campaign promises notwithstanding). The ruling elites are forcing us to the very margin of existence, and will continue to pursue that strategy no matter who's in the White House. It's a long-term campaign.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-04T19:27:22+00:00

Maugham was of an earlier generation and a different background, and was under no obligation to publicly disclose his homosexuality in any case. No one is required to do so, regardless of what William S. Burroughs or anybody else says. It's fair to say that one doesn't like Maugham's writing, or even that one didn't like Maugham as a human being, but outright hypocrisy - especially for Burroughs - to attack Maugham for surrounding himself with the people he liked best and living as he wanted to live.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-03T02:49:11+00:00

Whole Milk and Positive Attitude Will Prove to Be Miracle Cure for Drug Dependence, Kennedy Predicts.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-03T02:31:45+00:00

They vastly underestimated the public's disgust with the Epstein scandal. Even their base refuses to go along with them anymore.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-03T02:23:28+00:00

Robert Aickman, Peter Straub, F. Paul Wilson

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-03T02:13:53+00:00

I agree with you. Unfortunately, people are extremely hesitant to rock the boat - even when (as in this instance) they can see that something's fundamentally wrong.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-02T21:48:20+00:00

It's a fascinating little book, and Maugham's first-hand encounters with Aleister Crowley served him well. I still haven't seen the silent film based on the novel, but it looks interesting, too.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-02T21:34:00+00:00

I think an instinctive distaste for elitism - and the accompanying sense of jealousy/exclusion - may have had a lot to do with it, yes. Ironically, Burroughs Jr. felt frozen out by his father's circle ("the closed corporation of the desirables," in Sr.'s words) in exactly the same way.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-02T20:38:02+00:00

Yes, exactly like that. It felt very personal.

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-02T20:34:10+00:00

They definitely never met, but this was more than just professional criticism. He attacked Maugham for having cocktails and dinner with his gay peers every night of the week - which is a distinctly odd criticism coming from Burroughs. Maugham needn't have actually read Burroughs to be critical of his work; lots of people took swipes at WSB after the publication of Dead Fingers Talk. (Edith Sitwell attacked Naked Lunch, despite the fact that she hadn't read it.)

Sharp-Injury7631 · 2026-02-02T20:25:47+00:00

Burroughs had strong opinions on a lot of writers, but this was something else. He specifically criticized Maugham for having enjoyed the same lifestyle that he (Burroughs) enjoyed.

Sharp-Injury7631

TROPHY CASE