Favorite Campbell

Quote Originally Posted by Knygathin

I believe Blackwood and Campbell come from very different outlooks. Blackwood's interest in the supernatural, comes from the actual source itself. While Campbell's interest comes more from literature and being a fan of supernatural and horror fiction, ... and perhaps a need to express something about real life social horrors, through the use of horror fiction symbols.

I agree with this, but I still think many of Blackwood's stories deliberately fit the ambiguously supernatural and psychological model of fiction. I think Blackwood's fiction often shows the supernatural as simply the communication of the natural or our higher perception of the natural.

There is a big difference between, say, his John Silence stories about a scientific man unambiguously fighting outre forces, and those in Incredible Adventures about characters feeling the vague, bracing and intimidating pull of nature – as in his stories The Regeneration of Lord Ernie or A Descent Into Egypt .

[Knygathin]

What do you guys think of The Hungry Moon? Is has been said to be a slow burner. Is it well integrated? What about the supernatural elements, are they a return to his early Lovecraftian style?

[Jeff Matthews]

Grin of the Dark is one of the finest novels I've ever read.

Supremely unsettling and entertaining

[Shear]

Needing Ghosts

I really need to read his more recent novels. Any recommendations?

[Jeff Matthews]

Quote Originally Posted by James

I really need to read his more recent novels. Any recommendations?

Darkest Part of the Woods is pretty essential (not very recent, but post-2000 anyway). I also really enjoyed Seven Days of Cain, which is a successor in a way to Grin of the Dark, and actually very poignant (Think Yourself Lucky completes the "trilogy"; it's not as strong, though still darkly entertaining.)

[Knygathin]

What do you think of Incarnate? Is it the quintessential Campbell novell? The staggering culmination of his troop ideas up till then?

Shortly after, he returned to his Lovecraftian roots with Hungry Moon. Sort of, ... is that right?

Have not had time to read them yet. But I shall! For some intuitive reason I have targeted these two particular novels. The premises intrigue me.
(And the 1980s was my decade (even remember those fanatical Christian preachers, comically and insanely crying out on TV, one named Bakker, which surely must have inspired Hungry Moon) ... not as fond of the 1990s, or the 2000s, not to speak of the absolutely horrid 2010s!!! Wish I could go back!, ... or even further back, to my parents's favorite decade, which I could not experience, the 1950s, re-cycled forever, golden age peak of modern western civilization (for an aesthetic the best dressed decade, with local harmony, integrity, style, quality, taste, not the cheap ugly poisonous imports stocked for today's invading chaotic masses). We had better regain control again, ... or loose it all, and perish under the evil mongering globalists! Wake up you "leftists", realize that you have been completely fooled by the capitalists's wicked, multiple layered propaganda. You think you are "good", but you are only despised as discardable lower beings by those in control that you so willingly serve.)

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

50s was full of scarier witch hunts than we have today (if we're talking about America). Strict censorship. More mobsters involved in the entertainment industries. Most people didn't dare and still don't dare talk about sex crimes that happened to them back then. Lots of social problems were not addressed. Capitalism was becoming worse. War paranoia.
50s dress style has its charms but most people didn't look as good as Cary Grant and it fit them awkwardly.

I probably wouldn't be able to find as much that I'd like to read in the 50s. Weird fiction would certainly be more scarce.

If there's anything I yearn for from the 50s, it's the same as any time in the past: there was more grass and trees.
I miss the quiet of the past (acknowledging that some places did not have noise regulations and were miserably noisy).
I miss there being less screens in streets and shops.

Who are the chaotic invading masses? What imports don't you like? Are you just talking about clothes here?

[Knygathin]

Quote Originally Posted by Robert Adam Gilmour

50s was full of scarier witch hunts than we have today (if we're talking about America). Strict censorship. More mobsters involved in the entertainment industries. Most people didn't dare and still don't dare talk about sex crimes that happened to them back then. Lots of social problems were not addressed. Capitalism was becoming worse. War paranoia. 50s dress style has its charms but most people didn't look as good as Cary Grant and it fit them awkwardly. I probably wouldn't be able to find as much that I'd like to read in the 50s. Weird fiction would certainly be more scarce. If there's anything I yearn for from the 50s, it's the same as any time in the past: there was more grass and trees. I miss the quiet of the past (acknowledging that some places did not have noise regulations and were miserably noisy). I miss there being less screens in streets and shops. Who are the chaotic invading masses? What imports don't you like? Are you just talking about clothes here?

I agree with a few things you say about the 50s. At least the air and sea was cleaner, not yet as polluted from mass-consumption as today. It was less crowded, more secure, and it was safer to go out at night. It was more social, outgoing, and fun, there was more trust; people went out without locking their doors, and you could leave your bicycle without locking it. There still existed a high quality of natural materials, and locally made products, which was possible because the size of our society was on a more quiet and sensible level. The pressure on stock available was not so hard as today.
But in truth the road towards destruction had already started back then, the globalist capitalists were planning what we have today, and planning the evils we are moving towards.

I am talking about the tsunamis of foreigners, flooding into Europe, from Africa, the Middle East, and in lesser degree from distant Asia. Which you apparently don't see any problem with at all, ... yet. It's your choice, ... but you simply don't understand the globalistic capitalist organized agenda behind it all, and the attack this is upon Europe. They control the EU and the US senate, control (and own) the FED, they are the heads, by controlling the international financial flow. You don't understand how they plan and make deceitful foreign wars (upon Irak, Libya, Syria, etc) to have an excuse for their globalist power agenda, to destroy all independent and self-sufficient nations, to bring havoc on Europe by driving all the refugees (and even larger numbers of economic migrants) here. They break down the nations of Europe, and elsewhere, it is all well planned. (They hate it that they can't get so effectively at the eastern european nations, at Japan, and other countries with strong integrity and desire to remain independent.) So they use economic pressure, and, if they can get away with it, finally war. They want total world control, and this is how they do it.

Those foreign people should not come here, definitely not in those numbers. We europeans should protect our own interests, stability, cultural heritage, and well-being. And a revolution against the globalist capitalists is coming. People are starting to wake up.
(Wrong thread to be discussing this. Sorry for bringing it up in my previous post. A most upsetting subject, and I easily get carried away with it.)

[Frater_Tsalal]

I really need to read Grin in the Dark one day as I've heard many good things about that book. I do still want to read that book he did set at a bookstore as well (being a bookseller myself).

Last night I finished reading his latest book, Born To The Dark. Here's my Goodreads review:

"This book is a sequel to 2016's The Searching Dead, and the second book in Campbell's ongoing The Three Births of Daoloth trilogy. The setting is once again Liverpool, only now it is 30 years after the events of the first book, which places it in 1985. Returning as the narrator from the first book is Dominic (or "Dom") Sheldrake, who is now in his early 40's in terms of age and who is making a living doing lectures on films at the local university. Dom is also married and has a five year-old boy named Toby. When Toby begins suffering from strange sleep seizures, Dom and his wife enroll the boy at Safe to Sleep, a local institution which practices a mysterious treatment believed to cure those who suffer from the same ailment Toby has. But when Toby's dreams and visions become increasingly disturbing, Dom takes it upon himself to begin investigating Safe to Sleep and the people who run it. This puts him on a collision course with his own dark past, as both friends and enemies alike from his teenage years in the 1950's reappear in his life. It's fun to see the (often unexpected) ways in which some of the characters from the first book have changed, and the malevolent cosmic menace that was only hinted at in the first book is slowly unveiled in slightly greater detail in this middle volume.

Like the first book in the trilogy, I found Born To The Dark to be an entertaining read, with some exciting plot twists and the usual solid writing. As to be expected, Campbell's prose is lucid and un-hysterical, and he still hasn't lost his knack for setting the reader's hair on edge: two chapters towards the end of the book which see Dom and a friend exploring a seemingly abandoned house is a nightmarish masterpiece of of suffocating atmospheric horror, and ranks as one of the most terrifying set-pieces I've encountered in Campbell's work: like Thomas Ligotti he has the ability to make shadows and darkness a palpable and menacing threat, and he's also one of the few writers I can think of who can make something as mundane as a character searching through desk drawers into an experience that has one holding their breath. I greatly look forward to the third and final book in the series, which I presume will be set in modern times and find the characters in the last stage of life."