Horror Aficionados discussion

So does anyone here like him, besides me? Mind you I have only read two of his books (Gone South, Boys Life) but they made such an impact that I want to read. Swan Song (this is the next I will be reading from him), Mine, Stinger, Wolf's Hour, Usher's Passing, and Mystery Walk.

Mine has the most creepy first chapters EVER!!

Just read the first chapter of that book and that'll be enough to get you hooked...

I'm having a hard time finding a copy of Swan Song

trouble? they will have it at any major chain, barnes and noble or borders, i just bought swan song two weeks ago, and itf it's not in stock they will order it for free and have it shipped to their store within a few days(barnes and noble that is)

but swan song will always be in stock usually

I used to love McCammon's work, but haven't read him for years. I want to read Speaks the Nightbird Vol. I: Judgment of the Witch, but never get around to it.

My favorites of his old stuff is:

Mystery Walk
Swan Song
They Thirst
Stinger

Speaks the Nightbird is one of my all-time favorite books. It's a historical mystery, not really horror.

I loved Speaks the Nightbird, but couldn't get into Queen of Bedlam. I couldn't keep all the characters straight. Must not have been in the right frame of mind to read it. That happens with me sometimes.

I recently acquired Boy's Life. I'm really looking forward to it.

How I'd place the McCammon books I've read, in decreasing order of awesomeness:
1. Boy's Life
2. Stinger
3. Mystery Walk
4. Mine
5. The Wolf's Hour
6. Speaks the Nightbird
7. Blue World

I've had Mine on my to-read list for a while, and Speaks the Nightbird is there, too. I'll have to read more of him. I read Boy's Life just this year and it was great.

I have yet to read a Robert R. McCammon novel, but just added a few to my wish list thanks to this thread. I am most interested in Boy's Life, Mine, Stinger, and Blue World. I would also love to read Swan Song when I get the time. Any recommendations where to start?

Boy's Life is my personal favorite among his works, and also one of my favorite novels of all-time. It's absolutely brilliant, so I'd suggest you start there.
And Stinger is probably the best of his novels for sheer fun. Imagine if that old Brando film, The Wild One, had been made as a 1950's B-science fiction movie. It's just entertaining as hell.

It's been a long time since I read Boy's Life or Mine, but I read Mine after BL and can remember being shocked at how violent Mine was. Of course, that was before I read any splatterpunk books, so maybe there's not as much unrelenting violence as I remember?

McCammon, and Mine, is fairly tame violence-wise, at least compared to the splatterpunks. The majority of Stephen King's stuff, even, is much more brutal and bloody than McCammon's.

Jesse_william wrote: "McCammon, and Mine, is fairly tame violence-wise, at least compared to the splatterpunks. The majority of Stephen King's stuff, even, is much more brutal and bloody than McCammon's."

I loved Boys Life but Mine drove me nuts. It started sort of gruesome and dark and turned into a Koontz style chase thriller. I didn't like the break from that opener and even though I liked the hero of the story I thought the villain was sort of annoying.

Brandon, it doesn't really matter where you start. Swan Song might be a good place. That one's bound to become a classic, if it isn't already.

I didn't really like Boy's Life or Mine, myself. I'm not sure why, but they just didn't work for me. I might try Boy's life again, sometime.

I love Wolf's Hour! Can't believe I forgot that one. Gone South was pretty good, too.

Everybody says Swan Song is great, but I've tried and failed to read the thing so many times that I've lost count. I can't stand it. The characters and their storylines strike me as so cliched and uninteresting, and the writing, for McCammon, seems really off.

I read Swan Song when it came out in the late 1980s. It wasn't cliched back then, IMO. If anything, most of the authors who've written they're version of either Swan Song or The Stand are cliched.

Today, however, I'd agree with you on some of the characters and plot lines, Jesse. If I were to reread Swan Song today, I'm certain that Sister Creep might annoy me, for example. LOL

I put off reading this book for so long because it seemed so similar to The Stand. I got a copy for Christmas and do plan on reading it one day, but have had other books ahead of it on my TBR list.

Ha, I imagine that, yes, if I'd come to Swan Song when it was released, I might have an altogether different opinion. Thankfully, McCammon's other novels and I have become good buddies, despite the years.

Very true! Besides, Swan Song is not everyone's cup of tea. :) It used to be mine, but I'm no longer sure. I should reread it. The only problem with that is that I find myself saying this with nearly every thread I've posted on lately. It's making the TBR pile become a mountain...lol

That very reason is why I don't reread books. I just don't have time if I plan to get to all the books I haven't read yet.

I don't reread books, I reread passages. Two-or-three-page snippets that I have remembered fondly, and want to revisit. The final pages of It, for instance, which ends with that fantastic sentence...I won't recount it here, as it really holds no sort of resonance without the previous 1,000-odd pages to back it up, but lemme tell you, amigo, it gives me chills every time.

I some times reread passages of favorite books, too. But not entire books.

I sometimes reread books. Mostly if it's a series that I want to continue and therefore wish to remind myself what's happened. Also, if I really loved a book, I might get to rereading it sometime. But it's unlikely. If I am going to, I usually do it on Audiobook.

I read Swan Song a couple of years ago. I thought the first half better (as in very good) than the second. I really liked Stinger. For once I thought(fairly or not) that he wasn't copying King. The guy can write, but most of the time it seems like he's copying someone else. I tried Mystery Walk, and was very so-so. I have Wolf's Hour, and Blue World waiting in the wings. Many years ago I read Usher's Passing, and was so-so on it.

I always thought the whole "copying King" argument was pretty weak. Certainly, there were elements of King in McCammon's stuff, but there were elements of Bradbury and Matheson in King's stuff, weren't there? I always thought McCammon got screwed over by being called a King and Straub rip-off. It just didn't seem fair, because here you had a really good writer doing really good work, and nobody bothered reading him because he was always getting lumped in with the dreadful hacks that stormed the bookstores after King hit it big in the early eighties. McCammon is his own writer, and a damned good one.

Sorry for coming on so strong, but I have a tendency to wave the McCammon flag whenever and wherever I can, and oftentimes get carried away.

i agree jesse, i love mccammon's work, although king and himself may have similarities, as far as their prose and genre, they are far and away very different in terms of work. I just recently found out that mccammon will not publish his first 4 novels/works because he doesn't think they are on par with his latter works. Such as 'Mine' AND 'They Thirst,' which imo are two of his best works, along with 'Swan Song', 'Boy's Life', and 'Gone South', which is highly underrated. It's a shame that artists like himself see their work as so cut and dry, in terms of good or bad.

so mine and they thirst are not currently being published, and won't be any time soon, there are i think at least 2 more that are out of production as well.

Baal, Bethany's Sin, They Thirst, Stinger, Mine, The Night Boat, Mystery Walk--if you want any of these books, you'll have to find them at a used bookstore, or online. It's a shame, too, but they're pretty easy to get a hold of.

they actually have mystery walk at a used bookstore down the street from me, i'm going to pick it up tomorrow, is it any good? i just need 'they thirst' and 'mine', mine is the one i've really really want to read

Mystery Walk is great. I actually prefer it to Mine. It's my third favorite McCammon novel, and was considered the masterwork of his early career. Basically, Mystery Walk is McCammon's The Shining. At least, that's how I think of it.

awesome

Oh, I need to take stock of my McCammon books and pick them up when I see them since they're hard to find.

I never thought McCammon was copying King; just seemed like the plot for Swan Song was similar to The Stand and I had just come off reading The Stand so I wasn't in the mood for another epic book like that. Still plan to read it one day.

McCammon is an original, IMO. Someone who writes something like Boy's Life and Speaks the Nightbird is talented as hell and doesn't need to copy.

Swan Song seems to me the only instance where the "McCammon copying King" claim can come into play. There are scenes in that book that seem directly lifted from King's novel, and set down in different locales.

I also think it's a shame that McCammon doesn't want his first four novels in print any longer. Some of them were not up to par with his later works, for certain, but they were still fun!

Tressa, didn't you meet McCammon at your library? If so, what was he like?

I wish he had wrtten more books. I liked his stories a lot.

Jason, I am not sure if its so much that he doesn't want them, that instead the publisher doesn't want to release them because they may fear that no one will buy copies. His first four books from my understanding were decent to good, but when they were released was when the market was being flooded with paperback horror novels that were almost a dime a dozen, so they may have been over looked or simple ignored altogether. I think that it wasn't until either They Thirst or Mystery Walk that people really started to take notice into McCammon as more of a writer instead of someone who is just throwing out book after book with the same basic story just to make a few extra bucks. Mind you this is how I am interpreting it, not what may have happened.

Also has anyone ever been to his site. I love looking at the fan art people do for him and his foreign book covers some are better then the ones we got and some are just downright silly.

http://www.robertmccammon.com/fan-art...
http://www.robertmccammon.com/gallery...

I'm pretty sure that McCammon himself has said that he doesn't want his first four novels in print, as he felt that they were not up to his standards, and that he was allowed to mature as a writer in public.
And Bob, yeah, the fan art is fantastic.

Jason, I did meet him for a few seconds. I'm too nervous to stand around and chat to famous people. He's very nice and did an excellent job reading an excerpt from his novel.

Awesome, Tressa! That you go to meet him. I know what you mean about the shy thing. I go to Toronto to meet with other writers from around the area, and I usually end up being the quiet guy in the corner. I never know what to say to them. I have no idea why they continue to invite me. LOL

yea jesse your right, it was mccammon himself, he doesn't feel like it's up to par with his latter works, so with that they will not be published for an indefinite amount of time, possibly forever....

his early works

and the publisher makes money, i'm sure if anything, they are the ones who would want to keep them in print, especially since his early works have a cult following....

@Bob. I agree with Jesse. I read it on his blog, of which another man writes for McCammon (I forget his name, it's something interesting like Goater). Anyways, Goater is in direct contact with McCammon, even calls him Rick. He said that his first books were not up to McCammon's standards, and so McCammon doesn't want them published any longer. Something along those lines, anyway.

Personally, I didn't know an author had that kind of pull with his/her publishers. I guess when you sell as many books as McCammon does, it no longer matters really.

Haha, I think it's Hunter Goatley, but Goater sounds even better.

Ah, that's it. Hunter Goatley. It's been some time since I've been there. LOL