Apologies to Koontz

I retract my earlier comments on The Funhouse. Well, not the comments on the novels plot – more an amendment due to the fact when I finished the novel the other day, I read the afterword and realised Koontz wrote it based on a screenplay. So the plot, or the larger outline of it, wasn’t Koontz from the start.

Partway through another of his at the moment called The Key to Midnight. At the moment I’m really enjoying it, although I’m still quite close to the beginning.

Also, in reference to my last post again; I’ve come up with a suitably twisted fairground story. Partway through writing it and intend to send it around some places. I figure it can’t hurt. Anyway, that’s enough babbling for now I think.

Skulduggery in the Funhouse

I was up last night delving hungrily into The Funhouse by Dean Koontz. It’s a pleasant enough read, but nothing special. I’m always slightly amazed how generic horror stories concerning carnivals and fairgrounds are. The setting is so perfectly lurid I just squeal in the expectation of something new; chilling and nightmarish. I'm left unsatisfied.

The stories are never that bad, they’re just – okay. Don't get me wrong, I still try to cram as many words of the tale as possible into my mind before I collapse into a snooze. I guess you could call it a fuzzy glove feeling though (and I'm aware that's a strange, potentially extremely insulting way to describe something in the horror genre). The whole 'I've been here before. I like it. Nothing lifechanging.'

I hope someone does something new with the whole haunted fairground setting. Maybe I should. I can feel the burble of a story germ in my head already.

Anyway, I read a book the other day that really excited me - I gobbled it up in one night. The book was Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy. The sequel is due in a few days. It's a childrens book (I quiver with disbelief that Harry Potter gets so far and yet Skulduggery Pleasant isn't a household name yet - it will be!) about a young girl and her adventures with a deliciously dry-humoured skeleton detective. It's not perfect, but I've already decided if I ever have a kid this is going to be a bedtime story favourite. It's the first childrens book (or young adult book) I've read in ages that doesn't patronise the readership at all. It's hilarious, but more importantly, it's a damn good story.

Tonight the intention is to do some work on Unseelie (cower before me, foul mistress of the shameless spam!) and grab a hot bath, so you may get an update post on my project journal - there's one I keep meaning to make - fairy folklore is starting to fascinate me. Anyway enough for now, catch you later!

I has Miaow? I has blog!

It took me long enough really, didn’t it? Yes I’ve set up a blog with the purest intentions towards updating it. After haunting the Nanowrimo forums in 2007 and swearing I would get around to creating one blog, I now have two! This one is for anything and everything (although the focus will remain on books, the English language and writing) - the other (you will observe a link in the side bar) is focusing on the progress of my first major (self inflicted) writing project, Unseelie.

Anyway, welcome to my quick and awkward introduction! That was it. Enjoy.