In a Lonely Place by Karl Edward Wagner

[@OgBrog]

I am now listening to the audiobook, great review.

[@MustReadMore]

I'm glad they've reprinted In a Lonely Place and Nightmares and Geezenstacks. I've spent years hoping to come across the originals in thrift stores and used bookstores and have neither seen either one in person. The Bogart movie In a Lonely Place is pretty good too, but I haven't read the book it's based on.

[@JosephReadsBooks]

I plan on reading In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes in a few months. I will make a review when I do.

[@betterlatethannever4536]

The POV character of In the Pines was such a scumbag, I was looking forward to him getting got.

[@JosephReadsBooks]

I agree. His wife was a saint though and I was sad about what happened to her.

[@betterlatethannever4536]

@@JosephReadsBooks Absolutely! He really let his addiction ruin all of them, didn't he?

[@pleasereadyourbook]

Great to see others talking about this book, especially since it's not Stephen King, lol. I gave it an A on a tier ranking video I did a few months back and agree it is a stellar collection.

[@JosephReadsBooks]

I would love see Karl Edward Wagner get the recognition he deserves. He was a pillar of the Horror community during his time and we lost him way too early in his life.

[@someobserver844]

Waity, they republished KEW? In physical, affordable book form? Excuse me, I have a purchase to make.

[@JosephReadsBooks]

Valencourt Books is the best! 😎

[@kentjensen4504]

Why (on Earth) don't you like Lovecraft?

[@JosephReadsBooks]

I don't like his writing. Most of his stories are mediocre to bad and they are just hidden behind over the top prose. Clark Ashton Smith wrote the same style of stories at the same time but better in every way. Lovecraft himself said his writing was a poor imitation of Robert W Chambers and Edgar Allen Poe. He was right. I would rather read them. I have read all of his most popular stories and a handful of his lesser known works. Out of all of those The Dunwich Horror and The Rats in the Walls are my favorites. The rest have been repetitive or boring. I really enjoy reading the HP Lovecraft collections annotated by ST Joshi. I mostly just read the annotations. They are fun little tidbits of info.

[@kentjensen4504]

@@JosephReadsBooks Please don’t take this the wrong way, but it is typical of talented writers to too easily dismiss Lovecraft based on established norms of storytelling and fiction prose. But please look deeper. Great people like Belknap Long, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King, and Thomas Ligotti adore Lovecraft with good reason. His seemingly over the top style is not merely his personal aesthetic, though it is surely that too, but a very specialized form of poetry. Unlike his many imitators (including many really good ones), he does not seek to purchase a mood or sensation with that writing style alone, but, quite the contrary; he pulls us in with genuinely fascinating concepts first, and then, once he has earned the right to do so, he fully immerses us in his textual texture, painting the walls of his visions with his very sincere palette of words. The Call of Cthulhu is a perfect example. He starts the narrative in a very down to earth, journalistic manner, and only when we encounter the oddly sensitive sculptor telling of his dreams, does Lovecraft enable his textural style. Lesser writers launch straight into “Lovecraftian style” and think that will suffice. I say visions, not stories, because many or most of his stories are like dreams made only partly solid, and if he were to attempt normal story structure and prose style, his visions would feel a whole lot more flat. I thank you for your serious, honest, and friendly response.

[@JosephKelly-uj1zo]

@@JosephReadsBooks Do you like any writers who work in his universe of cosmic horror in general? Thanks for the review.