Charles L Grant

[Phyrebrat]

I will post more on this later, but had to knee-jerk react and start a gushy thread about this horror author.

Now I have a Kindle, finished (writtng, but not editng) my own novel, and am sequestered on the corner of Epping Forest whilst the Zombie Apocalypse rages worldwide, I thought I'd try new authors. I'd heard much about Matheson but I think as I was so late to that party, a lot of his excellence and novelty has been 'spoilt' because he informed so many televised short stories and was respobsible for famous tales I didn't know the provennce of.

Today I downloaded Charles L Grant's first book of collected shorts - 4 novellas. I'm only into the wonderful prologue and feel blown away by the beauty of the darkness in his writing. I've not felt like this about a horror story since Ray Bradbury's SWTWC.

I've finished the prologue, and will gush more when I finish the short book.

pH

 

[Toby Frost]

I know nothing much about him except that Stephen King gives his work a good review in Danse Macabre. I ought to give it a look.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Toby, this is the one I’m reading (book 1).

it says not available but I got it for £2.85 from the kindle store on my device.

 

[Randy M.]

FYI: Nightmare Seasons won the World Fantasy Award for best collection in 1983. I read it a few years ago and enjoyed it well enough, but have to admit Grant doesn't grab me like some of his contemporaries like King, Straub, Ramsey Campbell or what little I've read of Dennis Etchison's short work. But what I've read is entertaining and I have The Pet in Mount TBR for one of these days.

Randy M.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Wanted to circle back to this thread as I have read a lot of the Oxrun Station books from Charles L Grant. I have to say I preferred the collection in Nightmare Seasons; so far his first three Oxrun Books have followed an almost identical structure and although the langauge is as nice as ever, the plots seem self-plagiarised.

It maybe however that horror of this type has become a little more sophisticated perhaps. I can't put my finger on it, but there is something lacking in the novels that the antho has in spades.

I should also admit I've been reading Laird Barron and Thomas Ligotti so it's a tough comparison bearing in mind the deep disquiet of Ligotti and nightmare (often horror-adjacent) stuff of Barron.

Still, I'll probably still end up reading his catalogue.

pH