Hounding After Hours

That's Battle Royale, and it was a novel first, which King blurbed when it was translated into English. And a movie adaptation, which Quentin Tarantino blurbed when Anchor Bay finally FINALLY put out a readily available DVD in the US. (I'd been hunting for it for years. Found one used and it only played for twenty minutes before breaking.)

Same premise, but I find them wildly different stories. THG is much more futuristic, the world building's more detailed, and the narrative scope is much smaller--all told from the POV of a single, central character, as opposed to spending a substantial amount of time with all forty kids. I liked the first book just fine; haven't read the other two yet, but they're on my list. LOVED the movie, because Jennifer Lawrence is a superhero.

Eh, I don't have any particular hatred or fangirl love for it. It's got a female protagonist with something other to do than pine over a boy FFS. And both boys and girls seem to be reading/watching it. It's not the best thing to ever happen to YA, but I'm glad it exists.

Ah, I'm just growly about it because I know too many adults who think that Twilight and Hunger Games are on par with any H P Lovecroft, or for that matter, any work of fiction at all. I rolled my eyes when my mom just squee'd about it the whole time. She wants to see the movies. Meanwhile I'm in tears of pain.

Heh--fair enough. As I said, their monsters aren't our monsters. That's like comparing a cheeseburger to an ice cream sundae. It's just . . . not the same thing.

I haven't read it, but there's a Hunger Games parody called Hunger Pains. The summary on the back says that the characters are named Cantkiss Neverclean and Pita Breadboy or something like that. It might be funny.

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Heh--fair enough. As I said, their monsters aren't our monsters. That's like comparing a cheeseburger to an ice cream sundae. It's just . . . not the same thing.

Click to expand...

Are we the ice cream sundaes?


pleasesayyes

^Of course we are! A cheeseburger might technically be bloodier, but you can put ANYTHING on a sundae. *tips hat*

*cover's face and tries not to say what's going through her head about 'anything' over ice cream.*

I like my monsters with teeth that actually bite, for sure. Things that might eat you rather than kiss you. I wish Laurell K. Hamilton wrote horror because her monsters have so much... potential creep. But she's not a horror writer, either.

Also, dang all the people who say they're NOT horror. There is no shame in scaring people, and it doesn't automatically make you any worse than any other genre, either. In my opinion, it's often hard to nail. Because you have to make people care, and then make them worry, and that's not easy. In that way, at least, horror is intensely personal.

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Borders was the last bookstore around here that had a horror section too. *sniff* B&N has them shuffled in with either SFF or general fiction.

Click to expand...

See, I'm not terribly bothered by the label "horror" disappearing as a lead category. (you can all beat me now, I'm sure I just lost my membership card) Because what I've found is that it's become kind of a subcategory of SF or Thriller. So, if I go to Thriller (which has it's own sort of genre rules and expectations) then I can drill down to the next level of "horror" and that sort of filters the results a little more. Same for SF/F. I can filter with the term "horror".

Horror is so broad... It's hard to tell people I write/read "Horror" because no one really gets what that is without further explanation. I usually have to give examples of plots.

Actually, maybe Horror should be the umbrella and SF and Thriller should be the subcategories.

I think I agree with you in one way Soapy. There are so many subcategories of Horror that you really can't classify everything under that broad heading. I prefer ghosts and monsters or psych suspense novels to a slasher book or a gore fest. On the other hand, it's so much harder to discover the type of novel you like in the bookstore when they're mixed in with everything else. I liked it better when Ketchum and King were next to each other on the shelf than when I had to go to SFF for King, then go to General fiction for Ketchum.

I think horror is a very distinct separate type of fiction, and the loss of it as a genre in the book stores makes it harder for the people who like it to find it. Which is always a bad thing.

Horror isn't as broad as all that - it's all down to a feeling. Atmosphere. Character. Peril. The need to leave the lights on at night. There are sci-fi horror stories. And fantasy. But they're horror stories, beneath the dressing - the bones of them. And they're unsettling.

BriMaresh said:

I like my monsters with teeth that actually bite, for sure. Things that might eat you rather than kiss you.

Click to expand...

Now see, I like both, but it depends on the situation. I don't like being sold on a story being "scary" and then finding out it's another gorram PNR. I get pissy when my expectations are used against me. As for Hamilton--her first couple of books were legit creepy. The Laughing Corpse was DAAAARK. But then she went more into PNR/erotica, and . . . yeah. Expectations derailed. Sad Rhoda.

Horror is so broad... It's hard to tell people I write/read "Horror" because no one really gets what that is without further explanation. I usually have to give examples of plots.

Click to expand...

Good point. . . Although it was nice having our own sandbox while it lasted. I don't always know where to find stuff now. Also, sometimes the labeling seems so arbitrary--I've been looking for werewolf stuff lately, and depending on the book, I might have to check in general fiction, thriller, romance, SFF and YA to find what I'm looking for, sometimes for the same book depending on where I am.

Shail said:

I think I agree with you in one way Soapy. There are so many subcategories of Horror that you really can't classify everything under that broad heading. I prefer ghosts and monsters or psych suspense novels to a slasher book or a gore fest. On the other hand, it's so much harder to discover the type of novel you like in the bookstore when they're mixed in with everything else. I liked it better when Ketchum and King were next to each other on the shelf than when I had to go to SFF for King, then go to General fiction for Ketchum.

Click to expand...

BriMaresh said:

I think horror is a very distinct separate type of fiction, and the loss of it as a genre in the book stores makes it harder for the people who like it to find it. Which is always a bad thing.

Horror isn't as broad as all that - it's all down to a feeling. Atmosphere. Character. Peril. The need to leave the lights on at night. There are sci-fi horror stories. And fantasy. But they're horror stories, beneath the dressing - the bones of them. And they're unsettling.

Click to expand...

Okay, yes. Sorry, you guys are right. In a bookstore it's a little harder because maybe they can't put a book in both sections that it might be considered. Say, SF and Horror. I guess I was more thinking of online things. Even the library online. Because of things like "categories" and "tags" things can be tagged with multiple genres etc. So when searching, I can start out in SF and drill down to SF/Horror (or sometimes even deeper).

And I agree with you Bri, about those things that make horror horror. But I still think people have first a sense of what they like in terms of plot. Shail is a perfect example when she says she first likes ghosts and monsters and psych suspense. If it were me, I'd go to ghosts and monsters (which would maybe be SF/F?) and then filter to "horror" which would make sure that that particular story included the elements that you mention--fear, atmosphere, peril etc. And not, say, elements of romance? Does that make sense?

BriMaresh said:

I like my monsters with teeth that actually bite, for sure. Things that might eat you rather than kiss you.

Click to expand...

You'd probably find the monsters in my head squicky then. I think like a black widow spider. Kiss then eat.

See, but that's online, where tagging it multiple things works. In the book store you have to select one or the other, and taking horror out just means people who pick up a fantasy book expecting a little escapism are then unhappy when it's actually a horror story. If the book says ghosts and psychics and is in the fantasy section, you're going to assume it's PR/UF, since that's where they shelve Laurell K Hamilton and Rachel Caine half the time, and when it turns out to be darker, and less sexy, and more horror, that's not going to be a good thing for the reader who was in it for that other kind of story.

I would say Stephen King does horror - but wouldn't categorize him as SFF, because his books aren't.

Using Carrie or The Shining as examples, they might have some spec fic elements, but they're not about those elements. Nobody would say Carrie - for having psychics - is sff. Because it's not the same shape as traditional sff stories. It's shaped - it builds - like a horror. Because it is.

Readers DO come to the table with expectations. And if you don't meet them, you will let them down. It's like a bait and switch. And it just upsets people.

Rhoda Nightingale said:

Now see, I like both, but it depends on the situation. I don't like being sold on a story being "scary" and then finding out it's another gorram PNR. I get pissy when my expectations are used against me. As for Hamilton--her first couple of books were legit creepy. The Laughing Corpse was DAAAARK. But then she went more into PNR/erotica, and . . . yeah. Expectations derailed. Sad Rhoda.

Click to expand...

yes!

I don't always know where to find stuff now. Also, sometimes the labeling seems so arbitrary--

Click to expand...

Well, yes. That's true. I guess part of the reason I'm not terribly upset about the term "horror" not being used as prevalently is because it was being corrupted anyway. And things can be very arbitrary. Honestly, I didn't pay attention the genre until I joined AW. I just browsed all the shelves and categories until I landed on a plot that I liked. Now, (with the internet) things are more streamlined, so in a way it's easier for me to find what I want. But, because things can be arbitrary sometimes, in a way it's harder. It may have been easier when I'd just roam until I landed on something that looked good.

I've always pictured us more like a rowdy bar crowd than a burger or a Sunday. Might be all the vomit.

BriMaresh said:

If the book says ghosts and psychics and is in the fantasy section, you're going to assume it's PR/UF, since that's where they shelve Laurell K Hamilton and Rachel Caine half the time, and when it turns out to be darker, and less sexy, and more horror, that's not going to be a good thing for the reader who was in it for that other kind of story.

Click to expand...

This is the truth. I had a little accident with Amazon. Picked up a book called Shadowfae or something like that. Was supposed to be an urban fantasy about a fae thief and her group of friends which happened to include a hunky love interest. Was seriously pissed when it turned out to be an erotica. That was nowhere in the description. Never trusted the tags on Amazon again. Never bought another book without checking it out at the library first.

Unfortunately, I have high expectations of scary. It takes a lot to scare me, so I'm frequently disappointed in supposed 'scary' books. Things that scare me are considered 'over the edge' by quite a few others.

BriMaresh said:

Readers DO come to the table with expectations. And if you don't meet them, you will let them down. It's like a bait and switch. And it just upsets people.

Click to expand...

Yes, this is true. I don't actually get to the book store that often, so I don't usually run into trouble with this there. And online I filter a lot with tags and categories, hoping that if I specify my expectations enough, they'll be met. (whether it be movies or books)

Shail said:

This is the truth. I had a little accident with Amazon. Picked up a book called Shadowfae or something like that. Was supposed to be an urban fantasy about a fae thief and her group of friends which happened to include a hunky love interest. Was seriously pissed when it turned out to be an erotica. That was nowhere in the description. Never trusted the tags on Amazon again. Never bought another book without checking it out at the library first.

Click to expand...

...and because filtering and tags can still fail to come up with something that meets my expectations, I have a tendency to first download a sample, then look for it at the library and often read the whole things before buying it.

Unfortunately, I have high expectations of scary. It takes a lot to scare me, so I'm frequently disappointed in supposed 'scary' books. Things that scare me are considered 'over the edge' by quite a few others.

Click to expand...

And I, too, do not get scared easily by books. I do with movies though.

BriMaresh said:

Might be all the vomit.

Click to expand...

That was from all the sundaes. Sorry.

Ahhh, I thought it was from the raw eyeballs we used as sprinkles!

Legit, though, the sensation of being frightened is a personal thing, and not everyone is frightened the same way. But I often find it is overused as a tag. Forest of Hands and Teeth has zombies, but it's not horror, for example.

Speaking of sundaes and vomit . . . I don't normally start with the title first, but I've got this title in my head that just won't let me alone.

"Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice" Or just "Pumpkin Spice"

I'd like to do a twisted fairy tail involving Hansel and Gretel, but that's been done so many ways from Sunday with the recent release of over five movies . . .

Ideas?

Shail said:

"Pumpkin Spice"

Click to expand...

Wait--which one was she?




Sorry. I'll be serious.


Or try to be, at least.

It reminds me of that little rhyme, about what little girls are made of. So I'd have a Halloween child - an October baby - as a bad ass female main character. Whether she fights her inherent Halloweenyness or not, though, is up to you.

I just know a lot of October/early November babies who are horrortypes, I think.