alt.books.ghost-fiction

William Allison  (November 28, 1999)

Well folks, one of our regulars is about to have his first anthology story appearance:

SONG OF CTHULHU: Tales of the Spheres Beyond Sound

At the heart of the universe, the court of the blind idiot god Azathoth dances to the insane piping of demonic flute-players. The sinister music resounds across space and time, blasting the minds and ripping the souls of those who hear it. It is the melody of chaos, the sound of madness; the song of Cthulhu. This book includes nineteen stories and one essay, linked together by the alien and terrible music of the spheres. Stories selected by Stephen Mark Rainey. Includes works by H.P. Lovecraft, Ramsey Campbell, E. P. Berglund, Robert M. Price, and many other talented composers.
Edited by Stephen Mark Rainey ISBN 1-56882-117-4

Contents

Introduction by Stephen Mark Rainey
The Music of Erich Zann by H. P. Lovecraft
The Dark Beauty of Unheard Horrors by Thomas Ligotti [essay]
In the Rue d'Auseil by Fred Chappell
The Plain of Sound by Ramsey Campbell
The Last Show at Verdi's Supper Club by Stephen Mark Rainey
Water Music for the Tillers of Soil by Tom Piccirilli
Shallow Fathoms by M. Christian
How Nyarlathotep Rocked Our World by Greg Nicoll
Listen by James Robert Smith
Mud by Brian McNaughton
Paedomorphosis by Caitlin R. Kiernan
Intruders by Hugh B. Cave
Chant by Robert Weinberg
Ghoul's Tale by Robert M. Price
The Next Big Thing by Rob Suggs     <---<<
The Flautists by E. P. Berglund
Fall from Grace by D. F. Lewis
Drums by William R. Trotter
The Enchanting of Lila Woods by E. A. Lustig
Yog-Sothoth, Superstar by Thomas F. Monteleone

The official page is here:

http://www.chaosium.com/cthulhu/fiction/6032.shtml

Congratulations Rob!  Don't forget the little people on your way up...

Brandy and cigars for everyone!  Rbadac too!

Bill A.

oOo

 
 

John Pelan  (November 28, 1999)

Cheers Rob!

John

oOo

 
 

rbadac  (November 28, 1999)

I knew Rob when he was a struggling cartoonist, cross-hatching out meagre 300,000 copy runs of funnybooks. He was a quiet guy, kept to himself; there were those of us who thought he'd never amount to anything, and there are those of us who still do, but they're not buying the champagne, so to hell with them. This is just the beginning of a long and stellar career which will undoubtedly culminate in his autographing a copy of this damn book for me and letting me sleep on his couch when I'm in town. Move over, Ligotti, Chappell, Campbell and the rest-- there's a new kid on the block, and his name is Suggs. Don't try anything funny, he's fully insured. He's up and coming. He's blowing his nose on his rejection slips. He's *arrived.* No more beefaroni and Odouls. It's chicken and wine for our boy from now on. Look out world. Hey, buddy, we need this parking place out front, so beat it. Don't sweat, honey, you'll get your chance, you just stand there and look pretty. Geddoutta here, kid, Rob don't need his car washed, he's got me to do it.

rbadac, who always knew this day would come

oOo

 
 

Randy Money  (November 29, 1999)

William Allison wrote:
> Well folks, one of our regulars is about to have his first anthology
> story appearance: [...]
> The Next Big Thing by Rob Suggs     <---<<

Congrats, Rob.  And many happy reprints.

Randy

oOo

 
 

rbadac  (February 2, 2000)

[...HELPSOMEBODYPLEASE----]

Robert Suggs wrote:
> The first book that gave me occasion to consider the English ghost
> story as a serious tradition was a paperback version of The Oxford
> Book of English Ghost Stories...

Um, I don't know how this guy got into the building, but he's got the biggest Swiss Army knife I've ever seen, and he tells me if I don't post this for him, he's going to use all 33 features on me.
 

It pains me to see my childhood friend sunk to such depths as he has of late. Once a promising illustrator (though perhaps dependent upon cross- hatching as a technique to a frankly embarrassing degree), Suggs has chosen to parlay a juvenile attraction to phantom-ridden fantasy of the most mendacious sort into an ersatz critical career. How well I remember that fateful day when, in a fit of pique at being cut from the baseball team, he began toting around pathetic little paperbacks of this tripe everywhere he went, even going so far as to attempt to press this material upon those of us who yet maintained contact with him in the faint hope that he would someday grow up and accept the responsibilities of adulthood. Alas, his awakening was never to occur, and I watched his few friends fall away one by one, myself being the last, as his increasingly hysterical evocations of such pernicious hacks as James, Blackwood, and Bierce alienated him from the society of his peers. Poor fellow, he stood little enough chance of getting laid without these suicidal tactics, and indeed might never have seen an unclothed woman without leather restraints had he not somehow inveigled an innocent young girl into abandoning all common-sense and marrying him, a girl, I should add, possessed of much more heart than was good for her, who embraced him from a misguided sympathy for an imagined plight, that sad martyred angel who now shares his despicable domicile, the only woman I have ever loved.

But all of us must carry on despite life's disappointments, and I have even tried to forget the past and remain on cordial terms with Robbie, offering him the benefit of my greater experience and wise counsel, to deter him from the misguided life choices he persists in making, though I do so at the cost of enormous personal grief. It is, perhaps, a misguided mission itself; for daily I have witnessed the deterioration of his personality, abetted by the drooling idiots that frequent this laughable forum, all co-dependent in their common immaturity, not the least of which is this cringing slug I see before me, who is typing my prudent message under obvious duress. 'Estimable'-- pah ! The less said of *this* poseur, the better. Don't you give me that look, you cheapjack Edmund Wilson, you just continue typing, or... ahh, you know who's boss here, don't you? See that you don't forget it, my lad. As for the rest of you: while you all strain to make mountains out of the molehill scribblings of that charlatan Aickman, or attempt to elevate a dabbler like J.S. LeFanu to the heights of a Proust, you fail to realize the damage you do to weak-minded individuals like Robbie, to say nothing of literature itself.

Is there really anything to be gained from agonizing over the substandard efforts of a motley bunch of twee fantasists within a hidebound genre of worn motifs that could be counted on the fingers of a woodshop teacher's hand? Can you not snap out of your self-deception long enough to realize the futility of enumerating all possible variations of the tiresome shade, the inflexible revenant, the monotonous corpse? Does it add to the store of human achievement to elaborate on the ways a capriciously-chosen victim might be dispatched, with as much phleboid melodrama as possible, by a nonexistant entity who is conveniently unbound by any set of rules whatsoever?

When I think of what you and your ilk have done to people like Robbie, it makes me shed bitter tears. Such unrepentant escapism would be excusable in children, who don't know any better, not in arrested- development 'adults' ineluctably perplexed with their situations in reality, barely holding down meaningless jobs for ridiculous wages, scraping by until you can return to your miserable hovels to wolf down your Beefaroni and paw your tomato-stained Dovers and Oxfords; or squandering your disposable income from irresponsible abandonment of the necessities you should be spending it on in order to purchase high- priced slipcased limiteds you're afraid to open for fear of flaking the spine gilt.

For shame. Robbie, please see reason, if not for yourself, then for those hallowed scribes of genuine letters whose immortal works you slight in favor of these ghastly daubs unworthy of the paper they befoul, or for those around you who still care for your welfare, whose hearts you are breaking.

Oh, and give my regards to the missus.

Yrs sincerely,

Langford Farewether
Assistant to Dr. P.T. Ridge
Department of Popular Culture
Popham College
Popham, Ohio

http://www.victorinox.ch/home_en/best_en/off/16795/index.htm

oOo

 
 

Finn Clark  (February 3, 1999)

rbadac writes:
> It pains me to see my childhood friend sunk to such
> depths as he has of late. Once a promising illustrator
> (though perhaps dependent upon cross-hatching as
> a technique to a frankly embarrassing degree), Suggs
> has chosen to parlay a juvenile attraction to phantom-
> ridden fantasy of the most mendacious sort into an
> ersatz critical career.

SUGGS?

He's currently presenting a karaoke game show on Channel 5 (UK TV) alongside a gimp in a suit called Pop Monkey.  All right-thinking persons have taken out contracts on his life.

Or were you talking about a different Suggs?  :-)

Finn Clark.

oOo

 
 

rbadac  (February 4, 1999)

Ha ! I'm letting ROB field THAT one !

rbadac, still laughing

oOo

 
 

Robert Suggs  (February 3, 1999)

rbadac wrote:
>It pains me to see my childhood friend sunk to such depths as he has of
>late. Once a promising illustrator (though perhaps dependent upon cross-
>hatching as a technique to a frankly embarrassing degree), Suggs has
>chosen to parlay a juvenile attraction to phantom-ridden fantasy of the
>most mendacious sort into an ersatz critical career. How well I
>remember that fateful day when,
blah, blah, blah, blah, sniffy sniff sniff ad nauseum, ad pukeum, ad
lapitupeum, ad nauseum redux.

Why Langford, have they really let you out again? I would be quick to call your patrons in the spiffy white apparel and the butterfly nets to chauffeur you back to your cheap, federally subsidized little hovel where your full complement of drooling, gibbering chamberfellows await you if I didn't find your conversation so droll. It was I, you will remember--or will you not? You must update me on whether your synapses are firing in a manner circumscribed by elementary cognitive capabilities--it was I who prevailed upon the faculty here at Popham to provide you the little desk and name placard so that we would be provided with an unceasing stream of amusing fodder for department meetings. If it not some surreally ignorant Langford-line which offers us a moment of academic levity (say, your frequent prattlings about the kiddie poetry of Walter De la Mare), it is another amusing anecdote from the prodigal biological pilgrimage of your mother (are the two of you still sharing a cell? Give her my regards, and tell her the evening in Cleveland still provides a smile in my memories, as I know it does for all the NFL Browns' interior defensive linemen). I hope the two of you will strongly consider the little surgery that has been recommended for you, though as for me, I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. Heh. You'll allow me my little joke at your psychic expense. My dear wife would send her regards if she would stop screeching and running to take a cringing, 6-hour shower when your name is mentioned. She insists that we keep bedrooms without windows now, and on the highest floor possible, but she still finds your memory a wee bit creepy, as I'm sure you'll understand. My gimp monkey does tip his little straw hat to you. Cheers! Friday is jello day at your Institute, is it not?

Dr. Suggs, Ph.D
Doctor of Phantology
Department of Contranatural Literature
Popham College
Popham, Ohio

More about Popham:
http://www.net-site.com/straub/putney's.htm

oOo

 
 

Dave Kurzman  (February 4, 2000)

[Boumphrey-SEA FARMERS (1929 Benn)]

Does this guy have a listing in the ST. JAMES guide? I found the book in the Bleiler CHECKLIST but he author is not listed in his GUIDE TO SUPERNATURAL FICTION. I just read this today and it's no great shakes but I'm kinda curious about the author. Thanks in advance for any info. Dave

oOo

 
 

Robert Suggs  (February 5, 2000)

I really know nothing at all about the author or the book, but I can entirely fabricate something, if that will help:

Q. P. "Lugey" Boumphrey (1889-1937) lived in and around Burpeeville, Vermont and is best known as a leading proponent of pet spiritualism, which flourished around this time with Burpeeville as its mecca, as the golden age of a broader spiritualism finally began to wane. Boumphrey held many elderly socialite widows among his confidantes; he announced seances during which the spirits of their departed poodles, Siameses and parakeets were summoned from the next world. One or two farmers trafficked quite emotionally with their felled cows after the Great Freeze of '31, but most of the writer's thriving trade involved wealthy elderly women. Boumphrey's untimely death came after the infamous Googleigh Scandal of 1937, at which time Lugey's 14-year-old sixth wife was detected behind a curtain simulating various animal sounds, during a particularly well-attended spirit-trafficking which abruptly concluded after a 400-pound widow named Elsinore Googleigh (her husband was L. Millicent Googleigh of Googleigh, Googleigh and Furp, the okra barons) sat forcefully upon Boumphrey's stammering countenance and smothered him to death, shortly after the curtain meant to obscure Mrs. Boumphrey inadvertently fell open. Lugey had tried his hand at various other trades during the Great Depression, including genealogy--he had proven particularly skillful at tracing the family lines of  wealthy elderly widows back to George Washington, William the Conqueror and John the Baptist. This proved another flourishing occupation for Boumphrey, who was married at the time to his fourth wife, a 12-year-old first cousin from Montpelier who also seems to have been the big sister of his fifth wife, who was involved with Boumphrey in his ill-fated period as a peddler of authentic holy relics from the Garden of Eden. Intermittently during this time, Lugey Boumphrey pursued the passion for which he is sporadically recalled today, the writing of fantastic literature. He sold the occasional $3.50 tale to such forgotten periodicals as Giant Squid Mysteries, Grunting Befuddlers, and Nymphets Imperiled Fortnightly. His oft-anthologized "Sea Farmers" (1929), probably his masterpiece, relates the saga of the McClatcheys, a nomadic family of farmers who live at the bottom of the Atlantic and fight starvation in doomed attempts to produce flourishing harvests of squash and beets. Gripping set pieces involve battles with giant carnivorous sea snails, nefarious, lust-driven seaweed clusters, and an evil poodle spirit said to have been inspired by actual characters Boumphrey knew. The McClatcheys refuse to let their nubile 11-year-old daughter be courted by the benevolent, charming and ingenious neighboring farmer Doumphrey, who proves himself and thereby wins the hand of his 37-year-younger love by inventing a machine to enable the growing of squash and beets under five miles of salt water, then saving the McClatchey family from a marauding galleon-sized tabby catfish with radiostatic whiskers, which rampages after the McClatchey's giant crop of ocean-catnip goes wrong. If the author had been two years earlier with this inspired creation, an entire catfish mythos might have resulted and we'd all be speaking of "Boumphrevian" elements instead of Lovecraftian ones, and there would be annual Burpeeville fan conventions. At any rate, all these story events, along with the time travel, earth-core, lost race and preadolescent amazon princess themes ingeniously interwoven as subplots, thrilled readers of the era and gave Wall Street tycoons something to chuckle about as they leapt off skyscraper on Black Friday. Surely Q. P. "Lugey" Boumphrey is deserving of a renaissance and reintroduction to a new age of fans of fantastic fiction, pedophilia and giant sea muffins--all vivid, larger than life colors from the brush of a larger than life literary figure.

Dave, sorry I don't have any actual facts but I trust this will provide you some help in any case.

Best,
Rob
http://www.gimpmonkey.com
Channel 5, UK, all karaoke all the time

oOo

 
 

rbadac  (February 5, 2000)

Robert Suggs wrote:

(don't ask.)

> Dave, sorry I don't have any actual facts but I trust this will
> provide you some help in any case.
>
> Best,
> Rob
> http://www.gimpmonkey.com
> Channel 5, UK, all karaoke all the time
 

Uhhhh, dude, I can't get that link to work.

rbadac, clipping his monkey (and fit to die laughing)

oOo

 
 

Reed Andrus  (February 5, 2000)

So it's called "clipping" now? Times do change, but some things are everlasting.

... Reed ("clipping" his words, saving better things for his monkey)

ooOoo