scar city de joel lane

/26 Comentários/em /por

A new collection from one of the most powerful voices in slipstream and horror writing is a significant event. This collection of twenty two stories was one of the last that Joel Lane put together before his death in 2013. Frequently taking the form of dark urban fantasy, with his home city of Birmingham as their nucleus, these are intense and often painful stories that linger in the mind for a long time.

from the publisher

These stories are populated by troubled people living troubled lives in troubled places. A pervasive melancholia overhangs the tales, and seeps its way into their fabric (in tandem with the copious amounts of alcohol imbibed by their complicated characters trying to make sense of and otherwise cope with their circumstances). These tales, then, wear their scars plainly, and it’s this fragile, fractured quality which imbues them with their beauty. They are difficult stories, but then they have to be, considering their subject matter.

As a reader and as a writer, I’ve always been drawn to the dichotomy of living in a world made of equal parts beauty and tragedy, and how this kind of living affects us. This effect is on display everywhere in these pages. It’s a bittersweet vision to be sure, and an important one that we should not look away from, not ever.

from the foreword by Alexander Zelenyj

Contents:

  • Publisher’s Note and Bibliographic Data
  • Foreword by Alexander Zelenyj: Echoes from the Place We Met
  1. Those Who Remember
  2. In This Blue Shade
  3. A Faraway City
  4. The Willow Pattern
  5. Echoland
  6. This Night Last Woman
  7. Birds of Prey
  8. The Last Gallery
  9. Making Babies
  10. Keep the Night
  11. My Voice Is Dead
  12. A Hairline Cut
  13. The Long Shift
  14. Internal Colonies
  15. Among the Leaves
  16. The Grief of Seagulls
  17. By Night He Could Not See
  18. Feels Like Underground (with Chris Morgan)
  19. Upon a Granite Wind
  20. Winter Song
  21. Rituals
  22. Behind the Curtain
  • Essay by Nina Allan: Socialism or Barbarism: Joel Lane’s Blue Trilogy and the Poetry of the Lost

A iniciar a leitura.

Talvez goste dos artigos
coisas boas
boas – duas – aquisições
samitério de animais de stephen king
moonshine: sangue e whisky, vol. I de azzarello e risso
obscurum nocturnus por diogo carvalho
where are we going edited by allen ashley
26 respostas
  3. paulo brito
    paulo brito says:

    A Faraway City – quando o nosso eu não é o que julgamos ser. Quem somos afinal?
    The Willow Pattern – não confundir com os diversos padrões cobrir para travesseiros.

    He wanted me to help him release the memories. I understand that now.

    Richard’s absence was all I had of him. Once I stopped missing him, he’d be gone.

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  4. paulo brito
    paulo brito says:

    This Night Last Woman – as coincidências podem ser mortais.

    “I don’t care about what you’ve done. I need to know… why you didn’t kill me.”
    There were silence. Twice she began to speak and stopped herself. Then she said quietly: “Because it wasn’t worth it. You’re already dying.”

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  6. paulo brito
    paulo brito says:

    The Last Gallery – uma história que nos dá sem aviso prévio um murro no queixo – tonturas!

    Even the first time was like a ritual. Buying the razor blades at the local chemist’s shop, unwrapping a frail silver of metal, holding the edge up to the light. Guns were difficult and expensive to buy, and even knifes weren’t cheap, but this fragment of death cost no more than a postage stamp.

    página 85

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  7. paulo brito
    paulo brito says:

    Making Babies

    Wendy smashed all the clocks in the flat. She even burned the calendar. “Time has no meaning,” she explained to Mike. “Nothing ever changes.”

    página 96

    “It used to be sad,” he said. “Now it’s just a tragedy.”

    página 97

    All the children were silent. Their life as a cry.

    página 98

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  9. paulo brito
    paulo brito says:

    My Voice Is Dead

    The peace was too valuable to waste on sleep, so he reached for the book and started reading.

    página 113

    A Hairline Cut

    Then Alan said quietly, “I want do die”.
    I know how you feel,” Gary said. “really know how you feel. I wanto you to die too.”

    página 123

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  10. paulo brito
    paulo brito says:

    The Long Shift – História excelente. Claustrofóbica. Plena de suspense. Surpreendente.

    He experienced grief as an injury than an emotion. No doubt that had to with him being insane.

    página 128

    He’d stabbed the cunt so many times in his mind, he’d become a serial killer with a single victim.

    página 130

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  11. paulo brito
    paulo brito says:

    Internal Colonies

    It was colder than last night, as cold as winter. As he walked on past the white statues of the Yardley cemetery, he thought he could still hear the two dogs calling to each other across the canal. The echo would never become real, or fade.

    página 141

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  16. paulo brito
    paulo brito says:

    Upon a Granite Wind

    Years passed in the waking world. I grew used to work and datinbg, though intimacy always seemed to lead back into the cave of isolation.

    página 188

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  17. paulo brito
    paulo brito says:

    Winter Song

    The star of winter is always fucking miserable. A sudden chill burns up the dead leaves with fever, the naked trees are wreathed in mist, and the four horsemen of seasonal disease – influenza, bronchitis, gonorrhea and depression – ride into town on their rachitic horses.

    página 193

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  19. paulo brito
    paulo brito says:

    Behind the Curtain

    Enjoy. Dance in the graveyard you used to call a city. Try to find a home. Try to love and pay taxes. Get a life, if that’s what you want to call it.”

    página 210

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