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Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books"

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Lawrence Watt-Evans <misenchantedpress@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 4 May 2018 19:41:37 -0000 (UTC), D B Davis <g@crcomp.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>>    Fair warning. This thread's about to take a turn for the worse.
>>Decent folk will find little of wholesome value beneath this point.



>>    Still with me? Hitchcock movie fans owe it to themselves to see the
>>2012 biopic _Hitchcock_. The biopic tells the story of how Hitch makes
>>the movie about the eponymous _Psycho_ (Block).
>>    Early on Hitch decides to purchase all available copies of the Block
>>in order to deny people the opportunity to read it for themselves. Both
>>the Block and the movie are based upon a sick, twisted, piece-of-work
>>named Ed Gein. [1] You need to know a little about Gein before we
>>proceed so you may want to take a quick peek at his Wikipedia bio if you
>>never heard of Gein before.
>>    In the biopic Hitch hosts a kaffeeklatsch presser to announce his
>>intentions for _Psycho_ the movie. He passes around some Ed Gein crime
>>scene photos. A general consensus of disgust registers on all of the
>>faces in the room. They hate it. But, as Hitch wryly notes, "They can't
>>take their eyes off of it, can they?"
>>    That's sort of how dystopic literature grabs me. It's hard for me to
>>take my eyes off of it.
>>    Joss #himtoo Whedon tells viewers to "bring your own subtext" when
>>they watch a Whedon movie. It seems that PKD more-or-less tells readers
>>to "bring your own paranoia" when you read his dystopic fiction.
>>
>>Note.
>>
>>1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein
>
> A nitpick and a bit of literary trivia:
>
> It's Bloch, not Block.  Lawrence Block, the mystery writer, spells it
> with a K, but Robert Bloch used an H.
>
> As for the trivia:  Bloch wrote _Psycho_ based on early newspaper
> accounts of Ed Gein's crimes; he didn't have most of the gruesome
> details.  I sometimes wonder what he (and later Hitchcock) would have
> produced had Bloch known all that sick stuff before writing his novel.

_In Cold Blood_ (Capote) strikes pretty close to home, for me. Beings
some of my extended family farms the part of Kansas where the quadruple
murder occurred.
    Capote was a warped, but gifted author. "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is
one of my favorites. He apparently indulged in poetic license in some 
parts of _In Cold Blood_, which remains unread by me thus far.
    Gein lends credibility to the criminal cannibal clan that appears in
"The Heirs of Sawney Beane" (Watt-Evans). My wife just naturally accepts
that psychopaths are a fact-of-life and you never know when you're going
to run into one. Situational awareness, which is its own form of
intelligence, is everything in such encounters.
   The red fox spotted by me yesterday while walking my dog around a 
nearby watering hole, was certainly situationally aware. It took to the
high ground and never took its eyes off of me.
 
✍

Thank you,

-- 
Don

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"19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2018-05-02 17:28 -0500
  "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Jack Bohn <jack.bohn64@gmail.com> - 2018-05-02 16:40 -0700
    Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-05-03 03:21 +0000
  Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Moriarty <blues95@ivillage.com> - 2018-05-02 16:45 -0700
  Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" "artyw2@yahoo.com" <artyw2@yahoo.com> - 2018-05-02 18:42 -0700
  Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" David DeLaney <daviddelaney@earthlink.net> - 2018-05-03 05:22 -0500
  Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2018-05-03 13:56 +0000
    Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2018-05-03 16:40 -0500
      Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Jibini Kula Tumbili Kujisalimisha <taustinca@gmail.com> - 2018-05-03 14:53 -0700
        Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2018-05-03 17:07 -0500
        Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Moriarty <blues95@ivillage.com> - 2018-05-03 15:10 -0700
          Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2018-05-03 19:04 -0500
            Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-05-04 04:49 -0700
          Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2018-05-03 19:46 -0500
            Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-05-04 03:08 +0000
              Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> - 2018-05-04 15:56 +1200
                Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-05-04 05:44 +0000
                Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> - 2018-05-04 19:38 +1200
                Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-05-04 19:41 +0000
                Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Lawrence Watt-Evans <misenchantedpress@gmail.com> - 2018-05-04 23:51 -0400
                Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-05-05 14:12 +0000
                Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Kevrob <kevrob@my-deja.com> - 2018-05-05 10:09 -0700
                Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" "Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> - 2018-05-07 14:23 -0500
                Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Peter Trei <petertrei@gmail.com> - 2018-05-04 06:47 -0700
        Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2018-05-03 22:07 +0000
          Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> - 2018-05-05 14:11 -0700
        Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" Juho Julkunen <giaotanj@hotmail.com> - 2018-05-04 16:48 +0300
    Re: "19 Best Science Fiction Horror Books" David Johnston <davidjohnston29@yahoo.com> - 2018-05-03 20:21 -0600

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