Horror Aficionados discussion

Has anyone read Meat? Obviously it's a graphic subject matter, but just how bad does it get?

Not yet, it's on my list to read though.

I'm a big chicken when it comes to animals being maimed, hurt, or slaughtered, even when I'm reading a fiction story. I couldn't watch the slaughterhouse documentary at the end of Eyes Without a Face. I want to be able to sleep at night.

I'm a curious cat though and don't want to miss discovering a good author and book just because I'm squeamish. And, no, I don't eat mammals or fowl and wouldn't touch William's alligator.

I'm the same way, Tressa. I think it's wierd, though. I can read or watch in a movie about humans being killed by the truck load, and my eyes are glued. Yet they put an animal in there, and I can't look...

It's hard to explain. It's not that I value animal life over human (well most of them, anyway), but I just cannot stand when an animal enters a book or a movie. It's like that saying about introducing a gun in act one of a play; you have to shoot it in the final act. I just dread what awful things are going to happen to it. I'm such an animal wuss.

BTW, the author of Meat PM'd me and he's a cool guy and I will definitely read his books ASAP. Well, I'm sure he PM'd everyone in this thread but for the lurkers here who lost out he's a nice guy.

That does look really good. I just ordered a copy. The only book I've read with slaughterhouses was the Jungle. Probably a different theme...

I read The Jungle back in my early twenties, I guess before I was too squeamish where animals are concerned.

Thanks for your introduction to Horror Aficionados, Tressa, and for saying pleasant things about me in public!

This is shaping up to be an interesting thread. In a way, I'm discouraged that there's a whole world of horror readers who haven't read MEAT, or even heard of it, yet but I suspect that's because it was first published in the UK and many of the folks in this group seem to be from the USA. The plus side, I suppose, is that there may be many more people who end up enjoying and talking about the novel.

So far, it has been translated into French, Russian, Turkish, Hungarian and German - the Germans love it; it's sold over 10,000 copies there. It has also been optioned for film but the reality of that may still be a long way off.

I hope everyone from this group who picks up a copy (or any of my other books) will enjoy it. But I'm keen to know people's views whether positive or negative. I'm also happy to answer anyone's questions - as long as they're not too personal!

Just before Christmas last year I bought Meat and Bill Hussey’s Through a Glass, DarklyI was really excited about reading them at the time, they look great, but I still haven’t gotten around to them. There’re just too many books. I saw this thread yesterday and bumped up Meat to read next. I’m determined to get Meat and Through a Glass, Darkly read this year!

And now that I think of it The Unblemished too, I bought that at the same time.

Phil, you are in for a treat! I've read all but Meat. Bill Hussey did a great job IMO, subtle and very effective. Now as for The Unblemished, this is what got me into horror all over again. It's a personal favorite and almost the polar opposite of Through A Glass, Darkly. I hope you enjoy both of them, I'll be interested in what you think of them!

I've read Meat and it's terribly disturbing and would be a real eye opener for those unfamiliar with the way our food is raised by those greedy, profit-driven factory farms. However, animals are not harmed in the story. I can't say anything else without giving too much away. Just read it. It's a fantastic book.

Bill Hussey's "The Absence" is another one I've recently read and found extremely haunting.

My pleasure, Joseph. We like to support our horror writers.

I normally don't buy new books but I bought a copy of Meat off Amazon a few hours ago. I'm psyched to read it. I've gotten very lucky lately by taking a chance on unfamiliar authors because some of the books have been outstanding.

However, animals are not harmed in the story.

I've been promised this and I'm holding out hope it's true.

I can heartily agree with regard to Bill Hussey; he's a great writer. For those of you who aren't following his career you might be interested to know he's just signed a three-book deal with Oxford University Press. The first book, 'Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide' (YA horror) is due in March 2010 and I've a hunch It's going to be huge. OUP reshuffled their entire publishing schedule to bring it to the fore.

Bill, Mathew F. Riley and I run www.horrorreanimated.com where we do our best to support the genre in all its forms, as well as promoting our own work. Come and say hi sometime.

Meanwhile, enjoy your meat...

Joseph, thanks for the website link. I bookmarked it because it looks like it delves a little deeper into the horror genre than some do.

I'm going to check out Let's Go Play at the Adams'. Sounds creepy.

Cool website, I spent a couple of hours browsing around it this morning instead of getting work done, which is cool :)

Nice to see Let's Go Pay at the Adams get a mention. I read that by pure chance about 10years ago, someone gave me a box of books that they were going to throw out; mostly 70's sci fi and fantasy stuff but there was one horror book LGPatA. I hadn't heard of it and wasn't expecting much but it's a nasty and disturbing book. Any time I mention it nobody has ever heard of it.

I was delighted to find the free download of Echoes there too, look forward to reading that.

LGPATA is superb, everyone. I'll say no more. Wouldn't want to ruin it...

I'm glad you've enjoyed our humble site. Posts have been a bit thin recently with one of us working to a deadline, the other an expectant first-time father and the third, me, too busy writing fictions and being a house husband.

I invite everyone to download and read 'Horror Reanimated I: Echoes' and to make comment publicly if they wish. We plan to publish more limited editions in the next year or so.

**************SPOILERS***************


I just finished this book. Very good! For the record, when I think about animals in pens being led to slaughter for their meat, I put humans in their place. It really messes with the mind. Meat is meat, right?

I liked your afterward, Joseph. I'm sure there would be more vegetarians if they saw the process of how the meat got to their plate. But I think people love their meat so much they would acclimate themselves to the horrors of the slaughter. They don't get their hands dirty now because a middleman was put in place a long time ago.

How old is Abyrne? A hundred years old? And how isolated from the rest of the world? This is something that either went over my head or wasn't explained. Where are the animals? What does the rest of the world do for meat?

Did two of the characters suffer from Prion Disease?

And thanks for offing Mangus in the most brutal way. I needed that. My legs still ache from thinking of the way he fell.

Thanks for not turning Parson Mary into a cliche. I loved how she grew as a character. I expected her to continue digging up information and turn vengeful (well, she did say a little too much about Richard Shanti), but she arrived at the right conclusion at the end. It was sad to see her religion take such a blow.

And what you put Greville Snipe through. Tsk. Tsk. You should be ashamed.

I appreciated the dignity you gave to White-047 and Blue-792. The birth of White's baby and the act of processing it was heartbreaking. The silent crying of a newborn. :(

Whew, I just finished Meat. I never give 5 stars to horror books. I just don't. But this one gets all five.

Pretty disturbing read, huh? Post your thoughts about it. I'd be interested to hear what you thought about the characters.

******Spoilers*********

Greville Snipe is decidedly the creepiest character in fiction. The sleazebag got what he deserved.

I wondered about a prion disease, too. Very fitting to the tale.

The thing that most disturbed me was the alterations done to The Chosen. Certainly the Meat Barons and the Welfare would have had a harder time convincing people that The Chosen were mere animals if the 'cows' retained all of their human characteristics.

Rather than being farfetched, I loved the idea of 'living on light and air.' It was an interesting rephrasing of the Biblical quote, "Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Nice touch.

Only complaint - way too many bj's, Joseph. But you're a man so....

Loved the book. It's rare to find a horror story with substance. This author wrote one.

Snipe didn't start out creepy for me. At least he took care of the cows and didn't want anyone to abuse them. I guess his urges overtook his senses there near the end. His drawn out death was terrible. I tried not to think about the entire process of how a slaughtering works, but D'Lacey filled me in on every detail. :)

The cutting of the vocal cords was awful, especially when described being done on the baby. I guess their mangled hands and feet more resembled hooves, so you're probably right about that.

I didn't understand how Collins and his small group were able to fell the many men of the other two groups without weapons, or very few weapons.

I don't remember any bj's. I thought it was sad how bad the scrawny whorish woman felt about herself and her small boobs when she was around the dairy men.

Did Richard Shanti run so much so people wouldn't put two-and-two together and think he was shunning meat and living on "light and air"?

Hey, everyone, I'm on holiday in Canada at the moment with limited internet access but I will address these comments queries on my return.

My sincere thanks to all of you who've given my fiction a try.

Tressa wrote: "**************SPOILERS***************


I just finished this book. Very good! For the record, when I think about animals in pens being led to slaughter for their meat, I put humans in their place. ..."

**********SPOILERS************

Tressa,

Abryne is around 150 years old.
It is entirely cut off by The Wasteland.
There are no animals.
There is no ‘rest of the world’ as we know it.

The prion disease, known as The Shakes in the novel, is similar to Kuru or BSE. It affects many of Abyrne’s population.

Magnus got what he deserved – although some people think I wasn’t harsh enough…

Parson Mary: thanks for thanking me but it really isn’t me! The work comes through me and I try to change it as little as possible.

Poor old Snipe. He did get worse than he deserved.

White-047 and Blue-792 deserved their dignity, as did the rest of The Chosen, as do all animals.

Thank you for being interested enough to ask some questions and make some observations. I’m delighted you enjoyed the read.

Maicie wrote: "******Spoilers*********

Greville Snipe is decidedly the creepiest character in fiction. The sleazebag got what he deserved.

I wondered about a prion disease, too. Very fitting to the tale.

Maicie,

5 stars? That’s wonderful. Thanks for ‘getting’ it.

Snipe: well, it depends how you look at it. Snipe’s situation is one of irony. Being around naked women all day, it isn’t really surprising that it affects him ‘that way’. It’s his society that views them as animals. By his own standards and theirs he has committed an act of bestiality, so, to himself and them he is pretty creepy. But he shouldn’t be so creepy to us. He is a rapist, it’s true, but not a rapist of animals.

Chosen ‘Alterations’: In setting MEAT up, I asked myself what it would take to utterly subdue a farm population of humans and make it impossible for them ever to escape or rise up. All the procedures, while they don’t apply exclusively to farmed animals, are things we do to animals to make their behaviour suitable for our purposes. Dogs have their larynxes cut to prevent them from barking. The de-clawing of cats is actually an amputation to the first metacarpal joint. Castrations and tooth removal are commonplace farm practices.

Light and air: Breatharianism is a well-documented, if rare, means of existence. I researched it thoroughly before writing the novel. It seems to serve fiction better than reality but even so readers often bemoan it as too far-fetched.

BJs: I’m aware of one BJ description. Another is alluded to but never occurs. If there are any more BJ descriptions, you’d better let me know what pages they are on. This has got to stop!

Once again, I’m very grateful to see your comments here and to know the book affected you.



..."

Tressa wrote: "Snipe didn't start out creepy for me. At least he took care of the cows and didn't want anyone to abuse them. I guess his urges overtook his senses there near the end. His drawn out death was terri..."

Tressa,

Vocal cords: Once again, I say: this novel was not ‘fun’ to write!

Collins and his followers: This is a group of morally and spiritually superior beings who subsist on the purest energies of light and air. They are way faster and stronger than their ‘heavy’ enemies who are weak and slothful from eating too much flesh. In the original draft of the novel, a passage describes the followers ‘downloading’ martial movements as pure information on beams of light. My publisher bid me cut those references.

Whorish woman: It was sad how she felt about herself. But every character in the book was emotionally crippled in some way. Except, perhaps, Collins who’d overcome his conditioning.

Shanti’s running: This is purely his attempt to somehow do penance for all the killing he is responsible for. It is, in fact, behaviour that puts him more at risk of being singled out and discovered.

Abryne is around 150 years old.
It is entirely cut off by The Wasteland.
There are no animals.
There is no ‘rest of the world’ as we know it.

Hey, isn't this the plot for Shyamalan's The Village? :-)

Thanks for explaining about Collins and his group. I guess through reading I just didn't absorb how they got their strength and ability to fight so effectively without weapons. I was saddened by Collins' death but wasn't surprised by it.

Oh, I don't know. I love how Mangus met his end.

I really loved the evolution of Parson Mary. She could have turned into a cliche by the book's end but she didn't. She went out with a lot of dignity and understanding of just how wrong they had all been for eating this meat. The downfall of her religion must have been crushing for her.

Meat made me even more glad that I haven't eaten it since 1990.

Thank you for participating here. I'm going to read your other book ASAP.

Tressa wrote: "Abryne is around 150 years old.
It is entirely cut off by The Wasteland.
There are no animals.
There is no ‘rest of the world’ as we know it.

Hey, isn't this the plot for Shyamalan's The Village? ..."

My great pleasure, Tressa. Talking to readers and getting genuine opinion is a real boost. I hope you enjoy my other works when you get to them.

If anyone has any more comments or questions, feel free to ask them publicly or get in touch with a direct message. I'll always do my best to address readers' queries.

Thanks again to all!

One last word...or two. Magnus was overtly monsterous. What you saw was what you got.

Snipe, though, ugh. He's that kindly uncle that's always bumping up against you, that young children and dogs shy away from. That makes him uber creepy in my book. I know, I know, it's your book but I gotta add my 2 cents.

Bj's. Pages 11, 115, 166. Keep 'em in. My husband only reads non-fiction but after telling him about your book, well all of a sudden he wants to read it. Dog!

Seriously, I can't wait to read more of your books.

Ha! Nice moves Maicie!

I take your points, all of them, and how nice that Mr. Maicie is now interested in my work. Albeit for very minor and incidental reasons...

Let me know how you get on with any other JD'L titles you may run into and thanks for all your input.

I just started it. It's a page turner.
Got the UK version, flashy cover, I wondered what was reflecting above my bed until I saw the book lying there on the floor.

This cover?:



I really enjoyed this book. Hope you do, too.

yes. :-)

This book was great! I really enjoyed it! I hightly recommend it! One of the best books I've read in awhile!

Glad you enjoyed it. I did, too.

It was so much more than horror! It gave you so much to think about! Unfortunately, it's not widely available. I work at a bookstore and want to make it my staff pick, but it's not available through the major distributors. Well, I can be patient. I'll just keep checking! :)

I agree. Being a vegetarian Meat made me think about many different things, especially how much animals feel and what they go through in the processing stages.

Ha! I have the same trouble with staff picks here at the library. I had to wait until Pilo Family Circus was bought, and haven't been able to write about some other great books I've read because we don't buy bizarro books.

His The Garbage Man looks like an interesting read, too.

I definitely need to read more of his! I have to say, I made my library buy Meat so I could read it. When I'm done, we'll have a nice Joseph D'Lacey collecteion! ;)

My library system doesn't have Meat and since our budget is being cut we won't be getting books like this for a long time to come.

That's such a shame! There are so many ways libraries can raise money, but they don't. Ours won't accept used books. I don't understand this. If they are in good enough condition and we don't have it, we should keep it, if not sell them to earn money.

We accept used books but put them in our bookstore. It's rare we add one to our collection.

I recommend Garbage Man, too. It has a deeper message...just like Meat.

It's so nice to hear some positive chat about these novels here.

For everyone's information, my publisher is looking at a distribution deal which will include the USA. If it goes through, it ought to mean MEAT being available in regular stores throughout the States. I'm ever hopeful..

And thanks to everyone for such great vibes!

By the way, this is readily available in America because that's where it's published!

Joseph, that's great! As soon as it's available, I'll make it my staff pick at work! Very cool!

I bought Kill Crew ages ago but am saving it for our week long camping trip in May. Don't like to take library books camping because it's hard to juggle a fly rod, a beer, a smoke and a book at the same time. If something is going to fall in the water, it's going to be the book. Geez, librarians can be sooooo uptight :)

I'm ordering The Garbage Man tonight. It's on my 2010 reading challenge list anyway, so I can kill two birds with one stone.

I'm almost done reading Meat. I have to say that it is a marvelously dark piece of work created by a mad genius! I mean that as a compliment... LOL.

I will definately be ordering The Garbage Man!

I've got The Garbage Man on standby. Can't wait to get to it.

I loved Meat, I just have to get The Garbage Man!

Why are his books so hard to get? Now even Amazon has anymore Meat and doesn't even have new Garbage Man. :(