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Post by Trace on Aug 28, 2019 21:52:16 GMT
I’ve noticed that 6 more of Marilyn Ross’s novels, outside of, and in addition to, all 32 of the DS books are on the schedule to be released. The non-DS books are on the schedule for 2 in a few days, 2 more in Nov., and 2 more in Dec. The narrator is Romy Nordlinger—which accounts for the initial confusion when she was listed as the narrator of the DS books, before it changing to Kathryn Leigh Scott. So far, I see no indication that the novelization of “House of Dark Shadows” is in plans for a release. But, if these all continue to sell well, it probably will be. i've preordered The Mistress of Ravenswood to see if I think non-DS non-KLS Marilyn Ross will appeal to me. Since he was very much a formulaic writer, I’ll bet they will be very similar to his DS books. You could probably substitute all the character names with DS characters! (young woman outside her element/unhappy/searching for something, finds herself in mortal danger. While there may or may not be supernatural elements present in the story, the danger usually comes from a human being with murderous intent). His/her true identity/motives all revealed at the end.)
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Post by Trace on Aug 28, 2019 21:58:46 GMT
That all being said, I’m sure I will order them too! I like the quaintness of his stories (everything wrapped up in 150 pages!), as well as the gloomy gothic tone. Funny, because I would never have thought that gothic romance/mystery of the dimestore paperback variety would EVER appeal to me! But even the tv series was like that in many ways.
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Post by gregm on Aug 30, 2019 3:22:28 GMT
i've preordered The Mistress of Ravenswood to see if I think non-DS non-KLS Marilyn Ross will appeal to me. Since he was very much a formulaic writer, I’ll bet they will be very similar to his DS books. You could probably substitute all the character names with DS characters! (young woman outside her element/unhappy/searching for something, finds herself in mortal danger. While there may or may not be supernatural elements present in the story, the danger usually comes from a human being with murderous intent). His/her true identity/motives all revealed at the end.) I suspect the reader will be the determinative factor on whether I get more than one. I recall you saying that Romy Nordlinger is a reader for a number of audiobooks, so that's potentially a good start.
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Post by Trace on Aug 31, 2019 0:03:35 GMT
Yes, she does lots of gothic romance series work. I don’t know too much, but just recall her voice being good for that style, and she does various accents very well.
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Post by gregm on Sept 15, 2019 18:57:15 GMT
Just finished the second of these audio books, Victoria Winters. This is one of the books that I read years ago, but the details had substantially faded away (I suspect my complete series watch a few years ago over-wrote much of this with the TV storylines) so the generality of the gothic elements was no surprise, but I couldn't have told you the resolution of the story. Roger Collins and Burke Devlin have bigger small roles in the story, and I certainly didn't recall elements of the previous book inform this one - not in such a way as you'd have to have read the earlier book for this one to work, but sufficent carry-over continuity that the books (well, the first two in any case) are a series rather than standalone stories about the same characters in the same setting. KLS continues to be an excellent reader, although these audiobooks are rather more leisurely in progressing their stories than the Big Finish audios are. I'd suggest this is a sign of the strength of the original concepts, allowing different styles of stories to be told within the framework.
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Post by gregm on Sept 23, 2019 3:32:56 GMT
I've received notice that The Demon of Barnabas Collins (the 8th in the series) has been released. No info on The Secret of Barnabas Collins yet!
In other news, my copy of Barnabas Collins (the 6th in the series) has arrived.
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Post by Trace on Sept 24, 2019 1:01:05 GMT
I've received notice that The Demon of Barnabas Collins (the 8th in the series) has been released. No info on The Secret of Barnabas Collins yet! In other news, my copy of Barnabas Collins (the 6th in the series) has arrived. And I know someone who has already received their CD of The Secret...! So weird, considering they’re both not even due to be released until 9-30-19. Neither are in the Apple store yet. But they DO have the Marilyn Ross non-DS book Shorecliff. No sign of the other non-DS book The Mistress of Ravenswood, which was supposed to have been released on the same day as Shorecliff, 9-3-19. I have a question for someone who uses Audible. Are the files in MP3 or M4B format? They are when I get them through the Apple Store....but I think I recall someone telling me once that they are some kind of proprietary file, like a .aa file or something. Are they playable in iTunes or the Apple Books player? And can they by played on any device? I like the universality of the MP3 and M4B files.
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Post by coreywt on Sept 24, 2019 1:27:18 GMT
I got #7 the other day, but still waiting on #3. A while back I pre-ordered all I could from Amazon US at once (the first 22 titles).
Itunes files will have DRM and can only be played on iOS devices signed into the account that purchased them, I believe. They play in the Books app. And the DS audios cost almost twice as much on iTunes compared to CDs on Amazon Prime in the US.
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Post by gregm on Sept 24, 2019 10:19:40 GMT
I've received notice that The Demon of Barnabas Collins (the 8th in the series) has been released. No info on The Secret of Barnabas Collins yet! In other news, my copy of Barnabas Collins (the 6th in the series) has arrived. And I know someone who has already received their CD of The Secret...! So weird, considering they’re both not even due to be released until 9-30-19. Neither are in the Apple store yet. But they DO have the Marilyn Ross non-DS book Shorecliff. No sign of the other non-DS book The Mistress of Ravenswood, which was supposed to have been released on the same day as Shorecliff, 9-3-19. I have a question for someone who uses Audible. Are the files in MP3 or M4B format? They are when I get them through the Apple Store....but I think I recall someone telling me once that they are some kind of proprietary file, like a .aa file or something. Are they playable in iTunes or the Apple Books player? And can they by played on any device? I like the universality of the MP3 and M4B files. I have a CD of The Mistress of Ravenswood in transit to me. I haven't yet ordered Shorecliff, but Book Depository shows it as available. This collection of audiobooks (DS and otherwise) seems to be a bit random in how they become available from different retailers.
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Post by Trace on Oct 2, 2019 23:53:25 GMT
The 32 books are also being reprinted in a larger format by Hermes Press. The first one, ‘Dark Shadows’-will be available for preorder soon directly from Hermes. And there will be a limited number of book 2, ‘Victoria Winters’ signed by Alexandra Moltke.
Help me decide....I have the complete original set, am getting the complete audio set two at a time....do I really need this too? LOL
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Post by barnabaslives on Oct 3, 2019 0:56:11 GMT
The 32 books are also being reprinted in a larger format by Hermes Press. The first one, ‘Dark Shadows’-will be available for preorder soon directly from Hermes. And there will be a limited number of book 2, ‘Victoria Winters’ signed by Alexandra Moltke. Help me decide....I have the complete original set, am getting the complete audio set two at a time....do I really need this too? LOL I don't know, do I really need this too? :-) I think you at least need a signed copy of Book 2. Alexandra Moltke! I am amazed. I so wish she'd do an audio, a cameo, anything.
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Post by mark687 on Nov 8, 2019 23:08:53 GMT
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Post by Trace on Nov 9, 2019 0:13:37 GMT
They have released the first 10, on schedule! I’m loving this!! Also, 4 non-DS Marilyn Ross books!
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Post by gregm on Nov 9, 2019 6:12:16 GMT
I've heard the first 6 (next up... Barnabas Collins!) Be interesting to see how Barnabas is approached across the novels - I'm guessing villain at first, like the show, shifting to (semi-)hero over a few books.
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Post by gregm on Nov 13, 2019 23:04:58 GMT
I've heard the first 6 (next up... Barnabas Collins!) Be interesting to see how Barnabas is approached across the novels - I'm guessing villain at first, like the show, shifting to (semi-)hero over a few books. What a confused and inaccuate post that was! I'd heard the first 4, mistakenly thinking I'd listened to all the pre-Barnabas books ( Barnabas Collins is number 6!) - so when I turned to the next one, it was the fifth in the series, The Curse of Collinwood. And what a surprise it was! The first four books are gothic romances, occassionally suggesting something supernatural before Scooby Dooing their way out of it. Other than Victoria Winters, the TV cast tend to have small roles (Elizabeth and Roger in every book, Maggie Evans in the first two, David in the first one before being sent away to school, Carolyn in the first and fourth, being away at school or on holidays in between, and Burke's role slowly increasing over the four). The Curse of Collinwood is largely a Victoria and Burke book, with a blossomig romance (probably taking a lead from the TV series), from the opening of the book the supernatural is emphasised, and some events from the TV series are referenced in passing - Roger's absent wife has died (no substantial mention of the Phoenix storyline other than that), and Elizabeth's husband is not dead and is now away at sea (skirting the details again). An ongoing storyline for Victoria in the novels is cut short, bizarrely in the way of a future incident on the TV series). Elizabeth, Roger, Carolyn and David have reasonable sized roles. If you have been thinking about listening to these audiobooks but don't want a gothic romance with nothing really supernatural, this might be the one to try. I won't tell you about what supernatural jiggerypokery is afoot (but Kathryn Leigh Scott will, if you listen to her reading of the novel). It's a book in the style of the first four in the series while emphasising the supernatural among the gothic trappings, and invokes the TV series in the post-220 period.
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Post by gregm on Dec 1, 2019 4:21:42 GMT
And so... Barnabas Collins! This novel sees a change of format - there's a framing sequence (prologue and epilogue) where Victoria and Elizabeth discuss a past event in the Collins family, and the body of the novel is from a different time. In this case, it's a story about Barnabas Collins, still a gothic romance but far more overtly a horror story than the preceding books. This reflects the shift in the TV show around episode 220... but the previous novel's aligning with events from the TV series is largely out the window in a novel that doesn't fit with contemporaneous or future TV storylines.
I'm tempted to add the rest in spolier tags, but the book was published in the late 1960s and isn't a spoiler for the TV series or Big Finish audios, but you might want to skip this if you asre planning to read the noel reprint or listen to this audiobook!
Barnbas Collins is a vampire due to a curse from Angelique back in the time of Joshua Collins. Hoever, this version sees Barnabas leave America and move to England, returning in 1902. The body of the novel unfolds over a number of years, is narrated by Margaret Collins (Elizabeth's grandmother - not her grandmother, Laura, as seen n TV). Her husband, Jonas, and daughter, Greta, make up the Collins family at Collinwood when a man claimimg to be the descendat of the original Barnabas Collins comes calling and rents the old house to live in and carry out is scientific researches. He's a recluse with and unpleasant servant (Hare, a deaf-mute); he is busy all day and sometimes visits his cousins at night; and he gains a bit of a reputation as he seeeks out and dates loswer status women who frequent the tavern in town. He endears himself to Margaret by becoming a frirnd to Greta, who has been confined to a wheelchair for much of her life. He notes her resemblance to Josette, whose paining in still displayed in Collinwood. Barnabas' true nature and his predations across a range of female charcters are revealed as he uses the benefical impact on the health of Greta and a series of threats to force Margaret to cooperate with him.
The novel unfolds like a blend of Dark Shadows and Dracula, with Barnabas' evil plotting to be reunited with "Josette" making this story a long game. You'd be hard pressed to describe Barnabas as anything other than evil, and Margaret must plan and plot to keep his worse excesses in check. The story unfolds slowly, in the style of the time, and you may be inclined (as I was) to want to give Margaret a good shake in the hope she'll become more proactive in the struggle. There's a lot more plot than I've mentioned, as well as a sizeable cast of characters who play roles in Barnabas' plan. Many of these are not that well drawn (one who has a couple of plot-advancing roles has the surname Blandish, which describes her personaity perfectly). It's pretty decent, but it's not Dark Shadows as we know it. Chalk it up as a different band of parrallel time, sit back and enjoy!
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Post by Zagreus on Jan 9, 2020 16:00:54 GMT
the real question is: where do I put these in a marathon of the franchise?
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Post by gregm on Dec 11, 2020 8:55:54 GMT
the real question is: where do I put these in a marathon of the franchise? I rudely didn't notice this question from January (how rude!). The Marilyn Ross novels are Dark Shadows, but happen in one or more bands of parallel time. Barnabas becomes a vampire due to a curse placed on him by Angelique, but he's never imprisoned in the secret room of the Collins mausoleum. Imstead he actually travels to England, and becomes quite a nomad, leaving the different places he lives as suspicions on who is behind the attacks on young women in his area start to coalesce around him. He returns to Collinwood from time to time, generally pretending to a cousin who is conducting research to write a fdamily gistory - a task that keeps him busy all day, so he can only be called upon at night. Their position in a marathon would be wherever you like!
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Post by gregm on Dec 11, 2020 9:01:23 GMT
The real reason for revisiting this thread is that Book Depository is preparing to ship me the last two books in this series (32 in all). I have most recently listened to #19 Barnabas, Quentin and the Crystal Coffin. It's somewhat exciting to shortly have another complete run of Dark Shadows!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2020 20:18:36 GMT
Well I decided to buy one to see how it is...I see they are all available for download if I get stuck on ITunes too but will be a Cd first if I like them ....while I wait for Windcliff
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