Tämä sivusto käyttää evästeitä palvelujen toimittamiseen, toiminnan parantamiseen, analytiikkaan ja (jos et ole kirjautunut sisään) mainostamiseen. Käyttämällä LibraryThingiä ilmaiset, että olet lukenut ja ymmärtänyt käyttöehdot ja yksityisyydensuojakäytännöt. Sivujen ja palveluiden käytön tulee olla näiden ehtojen ja käytäntöjen mukaista.
Forever Stand the Stones by Joseph F. Pumilia: The first story in the collection starts, unexpectedly for an anthology about a Victorian London serial killer, at Stonehenge in Celtic Britain, then unravels through time. It's an interesting horror-fantasy concept, which the author doesn't quite pull off, but still, it's a reasonable start, and the unexpected is a whetstone for the appetite's edge. 3🗡
The Demon Spell by Hume Nisbet. Written just a few years after the Ripper murders, this story starts with appropriate atmosphere in a gaslit Victorian seance, but at a bare five pages Nisbet didn't really give himself enough space to develop his idea. An ok 2.5🗡
The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes. The short story in this collection was so popular on its publication in 1911 that a couple of years later, Lowndes had expanded it into a novel. 12 years after that, it was the source of Alfred Hitchcock's first mass-released film, a silent movie masterpiece which certainly set the tone for the rest of his career. I wish I'd realised sooner that I had this story! A creepily fantastic 4.5🗡 I think seeking out the expanded novel version is definitely on the cards.
In the Slaughteryard by Anonymous. Ha! This was superb pulp fare 😁 A chapter from a "Shilling Shocker" published in 1890, entirely improbable and lurid. The gentlemen and the lady of the Adventurers' Club take it in turns to tell their tales of daring-do, and this exploit of Mr. Horace Jeaffreson in the Whitechapel slaughteryard of Melmoth Brothers explains how the Ripper's bloody reign of terror was brought to an end, Terminator-style! 4🗡
Of the stories I haven't separately reviewed, two are worthy of mention: The Gatecrasher by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, with Jack a demonic, possessing spirit, or a symptom of madness? And, Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch, with a twist that was always going to go one of two ways, and for which I think he chose the least interesting. Favourites were The Lodger and The Slaughteryard, already reviewed above. The collection averages out at 3🗡
What I take from this collection is confirmation of my enjoyment of gothic storytelling (which I didn't really need confirming), and a reaffirmation that I don't really enjoy True Crime narratives, even if couched in fantasy trappings, in which the detailed descriptions of violence, mutilation and torture is part of the supposed spectacle. That The Ripper's victims were sex workers seems to have given most of these (predominantly male) authors licence to use derogatory language and to revel in the details of their murders. Obviously, a less graphic approach lends itself to sanitisation of the horror of violence, so it's a complex thing for me to process. I do find fictional murder-horror stories easier to digest, which is probably one of the reasons why I preferred the two which used the fewest real-life details in their narratives. ( )
Google Books — Ladataan...
(3)
1
The Demon Spell by Hume Nisbet. Written just a few years after the Ripper murders, this story starts with appropriate atmosphere in a gaslit Victorian seance, but at a bare five pages Nisbet didn't really give himself enough space to develop his idea. An ok 2.5🗡
The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes. The short story in this collection was so popular on its publication in 1911 that a couple of years later, Lowndes had expanded it into a novel. 12 years after that, it was the source of Alfred Hitchcock's first mass-released film, a silent movie masterpiece which certainly set the tone for the rest of his career. I wish I'd realised sooner that I had this story! A creepily fantastic 4.5🗡
I think seeking out the expanded novel version is definitely on the cards.
In the Slaughteryard by Anonymous. Ha! This was superb pulp fare 😁 A chapter from a "Shilling Shocker" published in 1890, entirely improbable and lurid. The gentlemen and the lady of the Adventurers' Club take it in turns to tell their tales of daring-do, and this exploit of Mr. Horace Jeaffreson in the Whitechapel slaughteryard of Melmoth Brothers explains how the Ripper's bloody reign of terror was brought to an end, Terminator-style! 4🗡
Of the stories I haven't separately reviewed, two are worthy of mention: The Gatecrasher by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, with Jack a demonic, possessing spirit, or a symptom of madness? And, Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch, with a twist that was always going to go one of two ways, and for which I think he chose the least interesting.
Favourites were The Lodger and The Slaughteryard, already reviewed above. The collection averages out at 3🗡
What I take from this collection is confirmation of my enjoyment of gothic storytelling (which I didn't really need confirming), and a reaffirmation that I don't really enjoy True Crime narratives, even if couched in fantasy trappings, in which the detailed descriptions of violence, mutilation and torture is part of the supposed spectacle. That The Ripper's victims were sex workers seems to have given most of these (predominantly male) authors licence to use derogatory language and to revel in the details of their murders. Obviously, a less graphic approach lends itself to sanitisation of the horror of violence, so it's a complex thing for me to process. I do find fictional murder-horror stories easier to digest, which is probably one of the reasons why I preferred the two which used the fewest real-life details in their narratives. (