Re: "The Scallion Stone" by Basil A. Smith
Posted by:
Sawfish (IP Logged)
Date: 12 July, 2021 01:24PM
Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> I used to have a copy, Sawfish. The Scallion
> Stone was published by Stuart Schiff's Whispers
> Press, with, I think, a subsidy from Russell Kirk,
> a friend of Canon Basil Smith and with him a
> practitioner of the ghost story. The dustjacket
> painting by Stephen Fabian appears to illustrate a
> Lovecraftian story -- I'm quite sure it was art on
> hand, not actually a painting of a scene in one of
> Smith's stories, although the interior drawings by
> Fabian were.
I think there are valid criticisms, for sure: it's plot is indirect; the POV is what, twice removed from the action; and what actually happened is so odd and arbitrary that it takes an extra dose of suspension of disbelief.
And yet somehow I liked the clubby tone, and for some reason liked the idea of a religious hermit on Lindesfarne.
Go figger...
Many would not like it, I think.
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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