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Sunday, September 17, 2006
I was a science fiction freak when I was growing up. I lived for the stuff and I read dozens, if not hundreds of SF books. There came a time however, in the early 1980's, that I began to gradually tire of that genre. I had read most of the works by my favorite writers and I wasn't that impressed with the majority of the newer writers. I had heard (of course) about this writer named Stephen King, but in my ignorance I thought he wrote trashy potboilers. But I was seeing more horror books on the shelves and I had read an interview with Charles L. Grant in one of the SF magazines. I liked what he had to say and I bought a book by him: Nightmare Seasons.
To say that I liked Nightmare Seasons would be an understatement. Immediately I was hooked and I started buying more books by Grant. The next books I got from Mr. Grant were The Nestling and The Hour of the Oxrun Dead. Both of which I loved.
I went on to read other writers of horror, including that guy from Maine and I liked just about everything I read. Great stuff was coming out and though I still read some science fiction, the majority of what I bought and read was horror.
Among the many books I devoured in this period were anthologies edited by Charles Grant. The Shadows series of anthologies were my favorites, though I liked others like Terrors, Fears and the wonderful Greystone Bay books.
 With his own fiction as well as the stories he bought and published, Charles Grant championed suggestive, rather than explicit horror. Chills up the spine instead of a gag reflex from the reader. When done right (and Grant certainly did it beautifully), this kind of horror can be more effective than stories than contain brutal violence and bloodshed.
One thing I remember most about Grant was the well publicized sparring over loud vs. quiet horror during the splatterpunk days. I never knew how serious all of that was, but I assumed that the fighting was mostly affectionate. But I never knew for sure. Around this time, the market was changing. Upstart writers that appeared to be more influenced by rock and roll and splatter movies, rather than any literary tradition, were selling books in big numbers and fewer people seemed to be buying and reading the kind of fiction that Charles Grant excelled at. That had to have hurt the man.
Don't take me wrong with what I just said. I loved the splatterpunks. I never stopped reading Grant, but truth be told I loved the loud guys more at the time. The 80's were a great time to be a horror fan. All kinds of fiction was being published. Traditional and radical and I was one of the ones that loved the wild stuff more. It was an exciting time. Just as today must be exciting to those that are into the Bizarro style of writing. Honestly, I don't get most of that stuff. Maybe I'm just getting old, but give me a story with a start and a finish that has credible and likable characters and I'm happy.
Anyway, the years dragged on. The much heralded horror fiction boom died down and it was harder for veterans like Grant to sell books. Still the man doggedly produced quality fiction and eventually began writing fiction that seemed to be influenced by the enormous popularity of The X-Files.
Still more years passed and news started circulating about Charles Grant's failing health. It saddened everyone. And yesterday I heard the news that Charles L. Grant had passed away at his home.
I cried when I heard it, even though I never personally knew him. It hurts even more today. That may sound silly, coming from someone that never met the man. It seems like a part of me is missing now. Charles Grant was, is and always will be a God to me. He represented all the best things about the horror genre; all that it had to offer and the high potential it always had. Grant wrote horror fiction in beautiful language that rivals anything that the literary authors can boast of. He could scare you with a whisper, which is much harder than scaring you with a bloodcurdling scream. Or the sound of an ax landing in someone's skull.
Charles Grant is at peace now. I do not know if he was a religious sort of man, or if he believed in any sort of immortality. I do believe that his work should achieve immortality. It should be read, praised, taught and preserved for future generations to come. Yet at the present I'm not even certain that anything of his is in print. And that is the biggest crime of all. But for the time being, there is a huge body of literature to be cherished. Charles Grant sold a lot of books in his time and used copies are plentiful and cheaply obtained. Find them. Buy them. Read them and pass them on. Keep Charles Grant alive in the only way we can.
I wish I had never sold my copy of Quietly Now, the magnificent tribute anthology for Charles Grant that was edited by Kealan Patrick Burke. That makes me sadder than anything right now.
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Saturday, September 09, 2006
I admit my absolute addiction to DVDs. I buy a ridiculous amount and I just can't seem to stop. There are always more out there that I feel that I have to own in my collection. It's become a real problem, both in my finances and in the available space in my house for them. I thought about losing the boxes and only have the discs in paper sleeves on shelves, but that would kind of suck. Even if I had a catalog with the order listed in them and alphabetical markers that show where the A's, B's, C's, etc start on the shelves.
The main culprit for me these days is Deep Discount DVD. Not only are their prices extremely low, but they constantly have unbeatable sales.
I just realized that there is also a Deep Discount CD. Now I can haunt that place to find the lowest prices on brand new music releases. I'm a big music fanatic as well as a book and movie nut.
Deep Discount CD. It's a cool idea, but there's one problem. The music industry.
Take a look at movie distributors. These people have gotten pretty sharp over the years as they have dropped the prices on older DVDs. And not just junk movies either. All kinds of terrific titles can be gotten for extremely low prices. Just today I was looking at a Deep Discount sale and they had all kinds of great movies for $5.50. They offer free shipping too, and while it might take a while for them to process an order, I've always gotten mine in a somewhat reasonable time frame. If you pick the free shipping option at Amazon, it takes quite a few days to process those orders as well.
Yet the music industry hasn't gotten on the ball about lowering prices. The movie studios get a far lower profit on drastically reduced DVDs, but I think it more than evens out in the millions of movies that are sold on a regular basis. The music companies will tell you that they have suffered devastating blows due to piracy and copyright infringement, and I'm sure that they have. But the movie studios have taken their share of losses too. They have found a way to keep the consumers happy as well as make profits off of their enormous catalog of titles.
There has always been piracy and no matter what measures are taken, I think there always will be. As long as the faltering dinosaurs of the music entertainment industry refuse to bend and lower their prices, people will continue to mercilessly download, burn and help destroy them as much as they can.
ADDENDUM:
I am not, in any way, advocating illegal filesharing and bootlegging. I don't do it. I really think it's important to support the careers of the musicians we love. Just as it is vital for us to show our support to the writers and filmmakers we enjoy.
There are ways to show support to them and help them out. One: Most bands/artists have homepages. And most sell their recordings from them. It's a good idea to buy direct. Sure the record companies still get their cut, but the artist probably gets a greater one this way. Also, some will have a link to Amazon to buy the CDs. I think they may get a small cut when we buy this way.
It might cost a few more dollars to buy direct, but if you love music as much as I do, you will hopefully feel that it's important to support your favorites at the source.
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