Two Envelopes And A Phone > Recent Status Updates

Was getting very sinister, and quite intriguing, Scroll of Saqqara vibes from this novel, for a while. But then, Betty's outburst at the end of the chapter I just finished suggested I'm not quite in Scroll of Saqqara territory...something a little different. It's a slow-mover, this one, but I'm enjoying it a lot.

Fingersmith was pretty cool, so I’m up for this. I was supposed to be reading a novel by a woman, every second choice, until Nov. 1st (at least)…but I decided I would read two books by men in a row, and now I’m going to read two books by women in a row. Is that reneging, are you pissed, do you consider me a liar, I hope not. Anyway, I’m looking forward to The Little Stranger, and then The Puppet Master.

It’s a fun one - very entertaining. I thought about the inadvisability of reading and elevator-peril novel and then riding in elevators on a regular basis, but I’m not in them all that much. I will not ride an elevator with another person, and certainly not a dog - so, stairs are my habit…tougher now that I’m older. Of course we all have to hope no one is in the shaft, messing with workings…

Looks like I’m in for some extremely no-nonsense noir. First story was bleak, where do we go from here?

I love how, whatever genre is in play, if a work of American genre fiction has an Introduction or an Afterword - especially if we're talking short stories - the name Anthony Boucher will almost inevitably appear. I just left him behind in the Bradbury novel, and here he is again! Boucher sure was a whole lot of everywhere. Anyway, as far as my return to Gores goes, I'm excited.

Living up to its promise. I’m not totally on board, whatever the book or story, with the fanciness of Bradbury’s prose. But, to go back to this style of his, every now and then, is a treat. I don’t want this style all the time; if everyone wrote like this, I would have short-circuited long ago. I can say that reading this book during spooky season is almost a perfect thing.

This completes a spontaneous 'teen trilogy' I seem to have wandered into, this spooky season: Under the Surface, The Traveling Vampire Show, and now this. Plus, I love creepy carnivals - so this and Traveling Vampire Show give me some of that, thought I hope this book is better than the Laymon bag of tricks. It's perhaps a bit strange I never got to this book before; I thought it was short stories.

‘A Story Told in a Church’, by Ada Buisson, was a winner. Some of these older stories are a little easy to predict, when it comes to the end - but I liked this one.

Not surprising that this book is unsettling. The titular character does remind me a bit of Roger Broome, another disturbed individual, the main character in the somewhat experimental 87th Precinct novel called He Who Hesitates. The books were published about a year apart - I think the mid-1960s saw a rise in this type of Crime fiction. Psycho had probably helped cause this to happen.

I had no idea what this novel was about. I’ve read the Introduction…and now I know I’m in for a disturbing read. Maybe not as disturbing as Billy by Whitley Strieber, but probably close to that. I’ve debated putting this book off for a bit - but I’m gonna read it right after some Power Man and Iron Fist escapism.

131 pages to go - so I should finish this tonight. Could not predict what's hiding around the next page.

It’s gone in a strange direction that I didn’t see coming. But I’m intrigued. It is now, just very faintly, starting to remind me of Cuckoo Song, which I loved. I don’t actually think it will end up resembling that novel much; but there are slight similarities - and this story could, like Cuckoo Song, just blossom into something much bigger than it started as. We’ll see. Me and tomorrow will embrace the book again…

So far, it’s terrific.