A Succubus for Halloween has been out for a month or so now. Thanks to everyone who bought it, I hope you enjoyed it.
I thought I'd use this post as a general request for feedback. Let me know your favourite/least favourite story from the collection and what you liked/didn't like. This will give me a chance to tighten the screws on my internal filth compass and make sure it's still pointing in the right direction.
I'm going to continue killing 80% of my protagonists off regardless of what's requested. It's an addicton, I can't help it. :D But I do want to make sure the stories are still sexy and entertaining, and I haven't been tempted down the dark and dangerous path of trying to write fancy-and-pretentious-like.
Also if you have any questions about any of the new stories fire away right here (or to my email address manyeyedhydraATgooglemail.com if you'd rather not comment in public).
Ta
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Saturday, December 03, 2011
A Thing of Subtle Beauty (Not!)
Oh Anne Billson, you are such a tease. I saw a link titled Six Reasons Why The Thing Prequel Is Better Than John Carpenter’s 1982 Film and feared the worst. The film critic and horror author formerly known as Anne Billson must have been consumed, digested and copied by an alien shape-shifting horror. Fetch the flamethrower before it can infect others!
Then I read the article and all was right with the world.
I saw the film back around Halloween and as low as my expectations were, they were not low enough. My criticisms are the same as Billson’s—The needless introductory scene for Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character, her cute-but-clever scientist character coming straight out of the big book of Hollywood monster movie stereotypes, the evil scientist dude from the same boring book of clichés, the bland CGI fx, and the many many moments of bone-headed stupidity.
The biggest shame is this wasn’t a case of They Just Didn’t Care. Someone went to a great deal of effort in recreating the look of the Norwegian camp from Carpenter’s film and explaining how the camp ended up as it did right down to an axe embedded in a wall. Unfortunately, it seems like all that care and attention was thrown out of the window when it came to the script.
aside
Hollywood, you need to value writers and storytellers. They’re the people that link the flashy CGI explosions and fx together in a way that makes sense to people with more than a two-minute attention span.
/aside
[Spoiler Alert!] The tooth-filling test is a nice idea, but it’s crying out to be subverted later in the film. Even if the Thing cannot duplicate inorganic material (but apparently always has a spare set of clothes on hand. Either that or it somehow managed to eat and copy Joel Edgerton’s character without shredding his woollies), it should be smart and amorphous enough to realise it needs to put the earrings and tooth fillings back in afterwards to beat the imperfect test.
The main strength of the Thing concept is no one knows who a Thing is. This would have been a perfect opportunity to ramp up the tension as the audience has their safe conclusions on who is or isn’t a Thing rudely shredded. In John W. Campbell’s original Who Goes There?, characters make an initial assumption a person attacking a Thing couldn’t be a Thing as a Thing wouldn’t attack another Thing. They’re wrong.
This also highlights John Carpenter’s genius. His 1982 The Thing is a much more faithful adaptation of Who Goes There? than the 1951 film. Most of his characters have the same names as in the book. Now, considering the main strength of the concept is no one knows who’s a Thing, this could be a serious drawback. If he follows the source material too closely, anyone familiar with the original is going to know all the twists.
So what does Carpenter (or Bill Lancaster, the man responsible for the screenplay) do, he shuffles the characters around. This is best exemplified in the blood test set piece, where Kurt Russell’s MacReady has the rest of the crew tied to a bench as he tries to establish who’s a Thing. MacReady’s sure it’s the station commander Garry, the audience thinks it’s probably Garry, anyone who’s read the book knows damn well it’s Garry. So they sit there with a smug smile on their face as the film attempts to build tension.
Windows…MacReady…Copper…Clark…Palmer…What The Fuck!
Take that Mr Smug, I-Know-The-Original Man. They’re even more blind-sided than the regular viewer!
The remake should have aimed for that spirit. Instead it retreads the set pieces from the 1982 version and plays them straight, failing to realise that completely diminishes their effectiveness. If you only watch American films and love monster movies, these are very lean times indeed as Hollywood seems to have forgotten or lost the people who knew how to make horror click.
One day I will write my pornified homage to The Thing. I already have the rules for the monster sketched out in my head. It will work and there will be rational explanations for the gratuitous amounts of sex. If you thought "The Orgy of the Pink Flesh" was squicky…
Then I read the article and all was right with the world.
I saw the film back around Halloween and as low as my expectations were, they were not low enough. My criticisms are the same as Billson’s—The needless introductory scene for Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character, her cute-but-clever scientist character coming straight out of the big book of Hollywood monster movie stereotypes, the evil scientist dude from the same boring book of clichés, the bland CGI fx, and the many many moments of bone-headed stupidity.
The biggest shame is this wasn’t a case of They Just Didn’t Care. Someone went to a great deal of effort in recreating the look of the Norwegian camp from Carpenter’s film and explaining how the camp ended up as it did right down to an axe embedded in a wall. Unfortunately, it seems like all that care and attention was thrown out of the window when it came to the script.
aside
Hollywood, you need to value writers and storytellers. They’re the people that link the flashy CGI explosions and fx together in a way that makes sense to people with more than a two-minute attention span.
/aside
[Spoiler Alert!] The tooth-filling test is a nice idea, but it’s crying out to be subverted later in the film. Even if the Thing cannot duplicate inorganic material (but apparently always has a spare set of clothes on hand. Either that or it somehow managed to eat and copy Joel Edgerton’s character without shredding his woollies), it should be smart and amorphous enough to realise it needs to put the earrings and tooth fillings back in afterwards to beat the imperfect test.
The main strength of the Thing concept is no one knows who a Thing is. This would have been a perfect opportunity to ramp up the tension as the audience has their safe conclusions on who is or isn’t a Thing rudely shredded. In John W. Campbell’s original Who Goes There?, characters make an initial assumption a person attacking a Thing couldn’t be a Thing as a Thing wouldn’t attack another Thing. They’re wrong.
This also highlights John Carpenter’s genius. His 1982 The Thing is a much more faithful adaptation of Who Goes There? than the 1951 film. Most of his characters have the same names as in the book. Now, considering the main strength of the concept is no one knows who’s a Thing, this could be a serious drawback. If he follows the source material too closely, anyone familiar with the original is going to know all the twists.
So what does Carpenter (or Bill Lancaster, the man responsible for the screenplay) do, he shuffles the characters around. This is best exemplified in the blood test set piece, where Kurt Russell’s MacReady has the rest of the crew tied to a bench as he tries to establish who’s a Thing. MacReady’s sure it’s the station commander Garry, the audience thinks it’s probably Garry, anyone who’s read the book knows damn well it’s Garry. So they sit there with a smug smile on their face as the film attempts to build tension.
Windows…MacReady…Copper…Clark…Palmer…What The Fuck!
Take that Mr Smug, I-Know-The-Original Man. They’re even more blind-sided than the regular viewer!
The remake should have aimed for that spirit. Instead it retreads the set pieces from the 1982 version and plays them straight, failing to realise that completely diminishes their effectiveness. If you only watch American films and love monster movies, these are very lean times indeed as Hollywood seems to have forgotten or lost the people who knew how to make horror click.
One day I will write my pornified homage to The Thing. I already have the rules for the monster sketched out in my head. It will work and there will be rational explanations for the gratuitous amounts of sex. If you thought "The Orgy of the Pink Flesh" was squicky…
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
A loss of one of Britain's under-appreciated film directors
It’s a sign I’m getting old when the authors and filmmakers that inspired me as a youth are exiting this world. Last week we lost the Grand Dragon-lady of Pern, Anne McCaffrey. This week one of Britain’s more flamboyant and iconoclastic film directors, Ken Russell, died at the age of 84. Sadly, his vision and talent never really found a home in either Hollywood or the British film industry, and he struggled to find funding in his later years.
While best known for The Devils and the Oscar-winning Woman in Love, which earned Russell a nomination for Best Director, I’ll always have a soft spot for his campy cult horror classics Gothic and The Lair of the White Worm. Here’s a clip of the delectable Amanda Donohoe vamping it up as Lady Sylvia Marsh in the latter film (won't allow me to embed unfortunately):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK61O6H3E9s
If you ever wondered how the characters in my stories "Naga Special Massage" and "Naga Massage Review" got their names, now you know.
While best known for The Devils and the Oscar-winning Woman in Love, which earned Russell a nomination for Best Director, I’ll always have a soft spot for his campy cult horror classics Gothic and The Lair of the White Worm. Here’s a clip of the delectable Amanda Donohoe vamping it up as Lady Sylvia Marsh in the latter film (won't allow me to embed unfortunately):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK61O6H3E9s
If you ever wondered how the characters in my stories "Naga Special Massage" and "Naga Massage Review" got their names, now you know.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Fun Things to do on a Black Friday
We don’t have Black Friday in Britain. The term confused me for a while as Black [Insert Weekday] in Britain is used for points in history when whatever moron we had for a chancellor at the time spunked millions (or billions) of pounds up a wall. I suppose the nearest equivalent we do have is the Boxing Day sales after Christmas.
I’m a bad person. Ok, that’s a lie. I’m a good person, probably boring by most people’s standards, but I do have bad bad thoughts.
After reading about the scrums, crushes and even shoppers using pepper spray on each other, impish little ideas started to germinate in my corroded black cortex. Wouldn’t it be fun to go to one of these stores, where people have been queuing outside all night and are grumpy and sleep-deprived, and hand out swords and maces like a regular Leland Gaunt. Out of idle curiosity…to see what happens next…
Hopefully, nobody actually died today, otherwise this blog post might be rather inappropriate.
I think I’d find it hard to be too sympathetic. All death is ignoble, but being trampled in a stampede to get the latest Playstation for a hundred dollars less has to be one of the more depressing and pointless ways to exit this earth. I’m being a curmudgeony young fart, I know, but pictures of mobs bulldozing into stores, their eyes lit up with naked greed at the thought of the bargains inside, highlight a side of human nature that’s a little unseemly to me. Kind of like Reality TV shows.
Anyway, how about this lovely--and very sharp--little sword…?
I’m a bad bad person.
I’m a bad person. Ok, that’s a lie. I’m a good person, probably boring by most people’s standards, but I do have bad bad thoughts.
After reading about the scrums, crushes and even shoppers using pepper spray on each other, impish little ideas started to germinate in my corroded black cortex. Wouldn’t it be fun to go to one of these stores, where people have been queuing outside all night and are grumpy and sleep-deprived, and hand out swords and maces like a regular Leland Gaunt. Out of idle curiosity…to see what happens next…
Hopefully, nobody actually died today, otherwise this blog post might be rather inappropriate.
I think I’d find it hard to be too sympathetic. All death is ignoble, but being trampled in a stampede to get the latest Playstation for a hundred dollars less has to be one of the more depressing and pointless ways to exit this earth. I’m being a curmudgeony young fart, I know, but pictures of mobs bulldozing into stores, their eyes lit up with naked greed at the thought of the bargains inside, highlight a side of human nature that’s a little unseemly to me. Kind of like Reality TV shows.
Anyway, how about this lovely--and very sharp--little sword…?
I’m a bad bad person.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Making my own personal NaNoWriMo
November is turning out to be one of those months. Certain projects (curse my atrophied artistic skills) are stubbornly refusing to get finished. I think I'll run from the official NaNoWriMo and make December my own personal NaNoWriMo instead.
A week or so of clearing out the nagging remnants of old projects and then 50,000 words of juicy Succubus Summoning here we come!
A week or so of clearing out the nagging remnants of old projects and then 50,000 words of juicy Succubus Summoning here we come!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Some Naughty Little Bondage Elves For Christmas
The season of new manyeyedhydra stories is not quite over. Literotica have kicked off their Winter Holidays competition and I have a runner. Because it's the season of goodwill, blah, blah, blah, etc., etc., I did the usual thing and entered a nasty horror story with lashings of gratuitous and inappropriate sex.
You might never look at Santa the same way ever again:
"What Bad Boys Get For Christmas."
Perfect bedtime reading for unruly children...
Bad Horror-Head! Get back in your cave!
With another anthology opportunity/deadline presenting itself and my glacial art skills leaving the cover for Succubus Summoning 101 still at the top of the Urgently To Do list, this is a bad month to attempt NaNoWriMo. I think I'll set myself my own personal NaNoWriMo from Mid-Nov to Mid-Dec to see if I would have achieved it with a clear run right from the start.
You might never look at Santa the same way ever again:
"What Bad Boys Get For Christmas."
Perfect bedtime reading for unruly children...
Bad Horror-Head! Get back in your cave!
With another anthology opportunity/deadline presenting itself and my glacial art skills leaving the cover for Succubus Summoning 101 still at the top of the Urgently To Do list, this is a bad month to attempt NaNoWriMo. I think I'll set myself my own personal NaNoWriMo from Mid-Nov to Mid-Dec to see if I would have achieved it with a clear run right from the start.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Don't Judge a Game by the Cover: Catherine
A little tale. I was in my local video games store. They’re a small store, so they tend to only stock the latest AAA titles. I was surprised to see Catherine sitting on the shelf. Catherine is an odd little Japanese game made by Atlus, the same people that did the Persona series. I’d been interested in picking it up, but had resigned myself to having to order it through Amazon or someone like that as my local games shop is useless and only stocks the latest slick-but-empty titles from Activision/EA.
I mentioned my surprise to the girl behind the counter.
“Oh, that one’s been popular. There are not many games for girls.”
Feeling my manliness being called into question, I of course responded with:
“Um. It’s a horror game.”
Doubtful glance from girl behind counter.
“A pair of girls bought a copy yesterday.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a horror game,” I said rather feebly as I handed over my money.
I don’t think she believed me.
It’s understandable as the cover looks like this:
But the game is actually this:
The uh-thing is firing pink hearts out of its mouth. I guess that’s girly. Right?
Despite the titillating nature of the promotional material, another reviewer summed it up correctly by describing it as an adult game without being an “adult” game. This isn’t Monster Girl Quest. It is, however, completely bonkers and a lot of fun. Well worth checking out. I'm also glad to see it's sold a lot as well, this bodes well for a future where oddball games can exist.
And Catherine, the character, is completely adorable, even if she is a [Spoilers!]
(Oh, and I know the concept of girl’s games and boy’s games is/should be an anachronism in this day and age, but you know what I mean--I hope!)
I mentioned my surprise to the girl behind the counter.
“Oh, that one’s been popular. There are not many games for girls.”
Feeling my manliness being called into question, I of course responded with:
“Um. It’s a horror game.”
Doubtful glance from girl behind counter.
“A pair of girls bought a copy yesterday.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a horror game,” I said rather feebly as I handed over my money.
I don’t think she believed me.
It’s understandable as the cover looks like this:
But the game is actually this:
The uh-thing is firing pink hearts out of its mouth. I guess that’s girly. Right?
Despite the titillating nature of the promotional material, another reviewer summed it up correctly by describing it as an adult game without being an “adult” game. This isn’t Monster Girl Quest. It is, however, completely bonkers and a lot of fun. Well worth checking out. I'm also glad to see it's sold a lot as well, this bodes well for a future where oddball games can exist.
And Catherine, the character, is completely adorable, even if she is a [Spoilers!]
(Oh, and I know the concept of girl’s games and boy’s games is/should be an anachronism in this day and age, but you know what I mean--I hope!)
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