Re: Alex Hamilton - The Attic Express « Result #1 Yesterday at 11:20pm »
A fascinating situation has developed here, John.
I read A BEAM OF MALICE quite recently. Of all the stories in there, I only saw fit to add THE ATTIC EXPRESS to my now legendary (in my own mind that is) list of the best horror stories ever written (the list alone now runes to over 80s pages; that's how long I've been at it and how f**k**g sad I am). Yet the tasters you present in this thread make several of the stories sound interesting enough for me to have another crack at them. So I've got the book out again.
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Gray Friar Christmas Chapbook 2007 « Result #2 Yesterday at 7:23pm »
Gary Fry (ed.) - The Gray Friar Christmas Chapbook 2007 (Gray Friar, 2008 [there was a printing delay])
Simon Strantzas
Nicholas Royle - Red Christmas Gary McMahon - Loving Angels Paul Finch - December Simon Strantzas - The Uninvited Guest Gary Fry - Just For You Conrad Williams - Foreign Parts John Llewellyn Probert - Last Christmas
As mentioned elsewhere to the treasured zero response, you get this as a free pdf whenever you order a title direct from Gray Friars Press and it's well worth having, i can tell you. Mine came lacking a cover (grumble, moan, complain, etc), so (pilfer, steal, snatch, etc) i've swiped this from Simon Strantzas's blog.
Here, as far as i can make out, is the Gray Friars catalogue to date. I could be wrong but most (if not all?) are short story collections: as you can see, a respectable smattering of names familiar from Black Book Of Horror. Another plus, Gray Friars pride themselves on being "the true home of British horror" and they're certainly having a good stab at living up to it.
Simon Bestwick - Pictures of the Dark Paul Finch - Stains Gary Fry - Mindful of Phantoms Gary Fry - The Impelled & Other Head Trips Gary McMahon - Dirty Prayers Lisa Morton - The Castle of Los Angeles (forthcoming) John Llewellyn Probert - The Catacombs of Fear John Llewellyn Probert - The Faculty of Terror Tony Richards - Passport to Purgatory Stephen Volk - Dark Corners
Anthologies: Gary Fry (ed.) - Bernie Herrmann's Manic Sextet (Paul Finch, Donald Pulker, Andrew Hook, Gary McMahon, Adam L. G. Nevill, Rhys Hughes, Simon Strantzas)
Gary Fry (ed.) - Poe's Progeny - "30 original stories from some of the finest practitioners in the field ..."
Novellas series: Conrad Williams - Rain Steve Vernon - Hard Roads Nicholas Royle - The Appetite Paul Finch - Groaning Shadows Stephen Volk - Vardoger
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty.
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Re: Wheatley at Forgotten Books « Result #3 Yesterday at 7:19pm »
cheers for that, andy. nice to see he's still capable of attracting plenty of feedback, in this case, actually positive!
and here's more details on the Wheatley biography, as mentioned by FM earlier in the week. Our friends at the Library (DW forum) don't seem overly impressed - too much on the black magic books, too much criticism of his rabid Tory politics seems to be the consensus - which, of course, makes it even more of an attractive proposition to some of us.
Phil Baker - The Devil is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley (Dedalus, October 31st, 2009)
Cover design: Jonathan Barker
Blurb One of the giants of popular fiction, with total sales of around fifty million books, Dennis Wheatley held twentieth-century Britain spellbound. His Black Magic novels like The Devil Rides Out created an oddly seductive and luxurious vision of Satanism, but in reality he was as interested in politics as occultism. Wheatley was closely involved with the secret intelligence community, and this powerfully researched study shows just how directly this drove his work, from his unlikely warnings about the menace of Satanic Trade Unionism to his role in a British scheme to engineer a revival of Islam.
Drawing on a wealth of unpublished material, Phil Baker examines Wheatley’s key friendship with a fraudster named Eric Gordon Tombe, and uncovers the full story of his sensational 1922 murder. Baker also explores Wheatley’s relationships with occult figures such as Rollo Ahmed, Aleister Crowley, and the Reverend Montague Summers, the shady priest and demonologist who inspired the memorably evil character of Canon Copely-Syle, in To The Devil - A Daughter.
Like Sax Rohmer and John Buchan, Wheatley has now moved from being perceived as dated to positively vintage, and this groundbreaking biography offers a major reassessment of his significance and status.
for more info click on the cute little Dedalus logo;
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty.
Wheatley at Forgotten Books « Result #4 Yesterday at 6:02pm »
For those who are interested, The Devil Rides Out is part of the review circle Forgotten Books this weels. A weekly round-up of old novels, mostly on linked crime blog. Sometimes it is quite interesting.
Re: Cult Children's TV « Result #5 on Nov 19, 2009, 8:54pm »
"Favourites from years gone by?" Well, the aforementioned "Catweazle" and "The Ghosts of Motley Hall" for a start - possibly one of the reasons I got ratty with this very book when my ex-missus bought it. "Motley Hall" in particular is one of the finest examples of how childrens' telly used to be so bloody great, and didn't talk down to the audience - not something much of today's shows for kids can claim (with the possible exception of the very funny "Sorry, I've Got No Head"). And what a glorious cast of regulars and guest actors.
Other greats? The 70s "Phoenix and the Carpet", "Shadows", "The Owl Service" (does it count if I only saw it as an adult?), "Children of the Stones", "Spine Chillers" (spooky Jackanory with Freddie Jones, Michael Bryant and the like reading M.R. James, H.G. Wells and others), "Ivor the Engine", "Bagpuss"... actually, anything by Postgate and Firmin...
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Cult Children's TV « Result #6 on Nov 19, 2009, 8:41pm »
Richard Lewis - Cult Childrens TV (Allison & Busby, 2002)
blurb Revised and expanded to include even more shows...
Do you ever lie awake at night, wondering whether the Snorkmaiden was having an affair with Moominpappa? Have you ever drunk a bit too much, and started an argument about Button Moon? Do you find yourself drifting off during boring business meetings, trying to remember the names of the Flumps? If so, this book is for you.
The Encyclopaedia of Cult Children's TV will take you back to a better age. It will take you on a journey back to Chigley, to Moominvalley, to Toytown, high above the streets and houses, where it was all so honest and simple. Where it was perfectly ordinary for a camp man in dungarees, a big woolly bear, a fey pink hippo and a bitchy zipped-up gimp to get in bed with each other and sing a song ...
Sadly, not our Richard "Spiders" Lewis (if only), but at least the book is a neat dip-in, dip-out read and would probably succeed in its ambition to trigger a million savage pub brawls if only any pubs were still in business. Can't believe he's harsh on Richard Carpenter's brilliant Catweazle ("Tramp action") and The Ghosts Of Motley Hall - which he scandalously accuses of being unhilarious and to blame for Rent-A-Ghost - but at least he gets most of the important stuff right, correctly identifying The Clangers as a classic, Crystal Tipp & Alistair as "trippy" and The Singing Ringing Tree as quite possibly the most trauma-inducing children's programme ever broadcast. Anyhow; children's TV. your favourites from years gone by?
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty.
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Penelope Gilliatt - One By One « Result #7 on Nov 19, 2009, 7:18pm »
Penelope Gilliatt - One By One (Panther, 1967)
Sid Sutton
Blurb: A CITY TORN APART BY MADNESS, FEAR, SAVAGERY AND DISILLUSION ...
300 years after the Black Death, London is once again an isolated, panic-stricken city of the dying and the dead .... in the grip of a fearsome plague that has killed 10,000 people by the third week of August.
The boffins are baffled. The PM returns from his grouse moors ...
Theatres and cinemas close; the football pools continue by ballot .. .
Afraid of infection, men stop making love to their wives. Out-of-work prostitutes turn to collecting corpses ...
BUT MOST EXTRAORDINARY OF ALL IS WHAT HAPPENS TO JOE AND POLLY, AN ORDINARY HAPPILY MARRIED COUPLE, DURING THAT APOCALYPTIC SUMMER OF CLEAR BLUE SKIES AND ROTTING FLESH
-"Almost uncannily readable" - Sunday Telegraph
Early days yet, but two chapters down and this is already showing signs of living up to that rather glorious blurb. Joe Talbot, veterinary surgeon has been volunteering his services at the local hospital and finds himself drawn into the hush-hush team researching the worst plague to hit London since the Black Death. The first recorded victim, a sixty year old Jewish woman, seemingly contracted the disease at her Grandmother's funeral in Golders Green and the symptoms are appalling. "She ran a temperature for three days and began to stumble like a spastic if she tried to walk. The thing that confused and upset the family was that, though she was obviously in pain, she behaved as though she had had too much to drink, squinting suspiciously .... and blurting out accusations in the insulated way that is peculiar to alcoholics ... On her last day of life .... terrible incantations and Oedipal obscenities rang through the flat." The media and the unpopular Government do their best to play down the threat but with the corpses piling up and the Capital fast grinding to a halt, people tend to suspect that something fishy is going on. Joe, who knows more than most, is in anguish; the boffins no closer to finding a vaccine and there's his poor wife, Polly, heavily pregnant with their first child ...
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty.
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Re: M. G. Lewis – The Monk « Result #8 on Nov 19, 2009, 6:42pm »
Picked this up today
M. G. Lewis - The Monk (Elak Bestseller Library, 1960)
Blurb: This is the book which took the reading public by storm when it was first published in 1796 - and modem readers find it just as exciting today. One critic has called it `A mass of murder, outrage, diablerie and indecency'.
The monk, Ambrosio, of saintly reputation, is seduced by a young woman, Matilda, who has entered his monastery disguised as a boy and captured his interest. Once his vows are broken Ambrosio's fall is rapid. With the help of Matilda, who is in league with the Devil, he courts one of his penitents, but has to commit murder before his desires are satisfied. Then, in a panic, he kills his mistress to escape detection. But it is too late. The inquisition captures and tortures him. One last pact with the Devil seems to hold out hopes for his escape, but even Satan has deceived him.
If you compare this level of craft and art to today´s photoshop monstrosities - different worlds.
Andy was talking 'bout the recent batch Sev posted on his Covers with bird's arses onDown the back of the Vault thread, but surely it's equally applicable here. It actually looks like a book you'd want to read. And you'd be right.
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty.
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Re: A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers « Result #9 on Nov 19, 2009, 6:33pm »
Thanks for putting me onto it! ashamed to say, i must have skipped this when i read Cold Fear as it's not a story you forget! It took me a bit to get into Rosemary Timperley. For all her Pan Horror credentials, she was hardly your one stop shop for gratuitous sex 'n violence and The Darkhouse Keeper was never going to break with that tradition, which likely accounts for me putting off reading it 'til now. More fool me.
Rosemary Timperley - The Darkhouse Keeper: Lighthouse keeper Frank Valley is the last to find out that his wife Joan is having an affair with the womanising, vaguely saturnine Captain Markalon. Frank's job offers him the perfect opportunity to gain revenge - all he has to do is wait for the next time Markalon's boat is at sea during a storm, drug his companions' tea, turn off the light and descend the staircase ...
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty.
Re: Hardy & Shaffer - The Wicker Man « Result #15 on Nov 18, 2009, 8:45pm »
A really fine actor who always gave a touch of class to whatever production he was in. To most genre fans he will always be remembered for The Wicker Man, but whenever I remember him, it is as Callan, a truly memorable series for those fortunate enough to have seen it and surely long overdue for re-runs on one of the digital channels.
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Re: Richard Dalby - Chillers for Christmas « Result #16 on Nov 18, 2009, 7:39pm »
three blinders on the trot;
Shamus Frazer - Florinda: James 'Shamus' Frazer only seems to have written ten or so horror stories, but from the few i've read, he was brilliant at it. Little Jane is forever babbling on about Florinda, a girl her mother supposes to be an imaginary play-friend or, more likely with Christmas approaching, the idealised doll she wants for from Santa Claus. But whatever she is, Florinda is given to playing spiteful tricks, and after one such on Miss Reeve the Governess, Jane's parents decide it's time to have the overgrown pathway cleared before there's an accident. "Florinda won't like that" warns Jane. Florinda doesn't. The workmen clearing away the thickets and weeds are spooked by all the tiny animal skeletons they find and complain of something watching them, while at night a killer is abroad, tearing apart the neighbours' poultry. Matters come to a head when Jane quarrels with Florinda over her despicable behavior and withdraws the invitation to join them in the house for Christmas Eve .... Genuinely creepy.
Peter Tremayne - Buggane: Jon Jameson, scriptwriter for a successful soap opera, rents Rhullick cottage on the Isle of Man for the winter months. Hardly has he settled than he's urged not to spend Christmas Eve there, first by a mystery girl on horseback, then by the locals at Thie-ny-Cailleeyn pub. Rhullick is reputedly haunted by fiddler Kerron Moughty whose daughter Calyhony was seduced and abandoned by a cowardly soldier, an act that lead to the murder and death of three people. Moughty is a buggane, "a spirit of retribution for an unpunished wrong." Not being the superstitious type, the writer spends the 24th at home regardless. Rotten time to discover which of the parties he's descended from.
It's Tremayne at home with his favourite source material, there's a neat pub interlude and a satisfyingly portentous climax. What more do you want?
Alexander Welch - The Grotto: Closing time, Christmas Eve in the department store and Santa, aka Charlie, sneaks another swig from his hip flask before shutting the grotto for another year. It sure is bloody cold in here and, just when you want to get away to the pub, there's that weird-looking bloody kid wants to play hide and bloody seek over by that disused Victorian lift-shaft ....
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty.
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Re: Phwoar! It Shouldn't be allowed « Result #17 on Nov 18, 2009, 4:24pm »
Polly Larkin - Diary Of An Usherette (NEL, 1977)
Blurb:
Polly Larkin's diary is a side-splitting, sex-soaked saga of work - and play - in the stalls and balcony of a local cinema. In that cavern of celluloid and seduction, a quiet evening at the movies seems to be the last THING on people's minds! Polly finds her usherette's torch illuminating the most amazing goings-on; orgies at the pensioners' matinee, bizarre tales in the projection room and teenage romps in the back rows. But Polly's ambitions could well lead her into more serious trouble, especially since blackmail lurks just around the corner, only five minutes from this cinema ....
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty.
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Re: The Stage: take 2 « Result #18 on Nov 18, 2009, 3:45pm »
i can see i'm going to have to make a start on updating a load of these, Paul. i've not read as much Reggie Oliver as i'd like but but of course, Mrs Midnight and her Animal Commedian's in 5th Black Book Of Horror fit the bill so to speak.
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty.
Re: The Screaming Mimi by Frederic Brown « Result #19 on Nov 18, 2009, 2:51pm »
I've read this four times and love it. Still - I know you're trying not to give things away but you don't mention the two big flaws of this book.
1. the damned authorial voice that keeps addressing the reader directly. At one point Fredric Brown even tells the reader something like, "I, the writer, am extremely clever for coming up with the pun of that newspaper name: The Blade. Like it?" The weird thing is I'm not exaggerating, it's that extreme.
2. page after page what I can only call filler: "He walked three blocks left onto Magdalen and then took the curve of Eighteenth Street. Then he turned right onto Eldon Avenue and walked four blocks until he hit the T-junction of Moses and Whosis. He turned left there and walked two blocks to the City park, which he cut across in a southward direction before picking up the streets again at Twelth and walking three blocks west to Main Street..." there are literally pages of that stuff...
yet I keep re-reading it. I guess it's the story, the characters of Sweeney and Doc Greene, and of course, as you mention, that gripping final act.
Re: The Stage: take 2 « Result #20 on Nov 18, 2009, 9:15am »
Embarrassingy, I can't think of a single individual title at this moment, but Reggie Oliver's masterful collection, MASQUES OF SATAN, features several tales of stage-struck ghoulishness. Well worth reading.
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Re: John L. Probert - The Catacombs of Fear « Result #22 on Nov 18, 2009, 5:45am »
Perhaps oddest of all is that i came to Catacombs ... straight from a mini-Seabury/ 'twenties-thirties Weird Tales fest and it just .... followed on all rather seamlessly. Anyway;
So, Bishop Straker continues the guided tour, this time leading an increasingly unnerved Reverend Clements down a flight of well worn steps to a cell which, on first glance appears empty. But then, a croaking whisper from the shadows relates the sad and grisly story of what he did for love ...
Mors Gratia Artis: TV Producer Mike Hayes is disenchanted with his lot. He's four-five months into a blossoming relationship with children's author Louise Davidson, financially he's getting by nicely off the back of mindless after-the-pub-shuts dross like After Hours and the pending Who's Got The Fattest Teenager?, but he wants to work in serious documentaries. The absolute nadir; he's now obliged to narrate a feature on the Jurgen Harkenschenkel exhibition at Bristol's Ingleton Gallery. Harkenschenkel is famous for his replicas of national monuments moulded in his own body fluids - you really wouldn't want to stand downwind of his Taj Mahal - but Mike's visit takes a turn for the life-changing when he catches sight of a strangely captivating landscape painting by obscure artist Phillip Reynolds. The cheery proprietor, Jeffrey Ingleton, confides that this is the gallery's "secret weapon", people can't help but return to see it over and over. Turns out Jeff has Reynolds' collected works in storage. They were presented to him by the artist, along with an incriminating notebook, shortly before his messy suicide during a family gathering at a remote Welsh cottage. Nasty business; many charred bodies. Sadly, he can't display these works of genius as they have a weird effect on the public who invariably try to steal them. Mike is delighted; at last, a fitting subject for some serious TV work, although Ingleton initially feigns reticence. Mike, enthused like never before, delves further into Reynolds' dark history, never realising Ingleton is using him as a pawn to resurrect his dead brother for a second reign of terror. Multiple murders, a Satanic pact and demonic possession all get a look in an incredibly convoluted plot which veers from black comedy to .... well, just pitch black and in part recalls the David Warner episode in From Beyond The Grave (via Chetwynd-Hayes' The Gatecrasher).
By now, Patrick has twigged that this isn't a normal Anglican Cathedral and his first guess is that he's already dead and enduring a Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors moment though that's not strictly the case. The Bishop promises to reveal all once he's shown him the organ loft, by which time he expects Patrick to have remembered everything about his previous stay at Chilminster ....
A Dance To The Music Of Insanity: Dolbydwr village in remote mid-Wales, and a family reunion at Stapleton Manor. The occasion is the funeral of Edric Stapleton, a martinet of a music teacher to son Matt, if not quite so tyrannical toward his wilder, flashy brother Luke. The general consensus has it that there was more than a touch of madness to Edric, but he was also a capable, self-willed man, whose second wife, Miriam, a good two decades his junior, dearly loved him. As things turn out, she was not alone in this. Edric was also the solitary patron of old man Morgagni's Mechanical Music Museum in the village and it's here he spent much of his time, obsessing over a music box reputed to play the 'forbidden notes.'
So, this funeral party, and the roll call of the damned includes; Matt and his sexy girlfriend, Juliette Winters; the constantly sparring, we're-only-here-for-the-inheritance, Luke and Stacey Stapelton; Eldric's widow Miriam; and the permanently pissed Reverend Norman Corby, who has to get back to the church in a dash on account of a break in. Some ungodly soul has filched the keyboard from the church organ. As the night progresses, so, one by one, the assembled are murdered in horrible fashion until only two are left standing. And that's when the full extent of Edric Stapelton's mania is revealed to his incredulous, not to say horrified, former pupil. Too many lazy comparisons already, i know, but if you can imagine a miniature of Michael Slade's gored-up Agatha Christie novel, Ripper, minus the police procedural content but plus plenty of the malign supernatural, you're getting warm.
Which leaves us with the finale which i won't spoil for those of you yet to read it, but a timely reminder that Catacombs Of Fear is actually a novel, and one that gets its business settled in under 170 pages. Ladies and gentlemen, there is still hope after all.
And before we bid farewell to the Catacombs ... for the time being, read Steve Jenson's informative interview with the author at Shadows & Illusions
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty.
Only the vaguest memories of Callan, but who will ever forget his performance as the doomed Sergeant Howie in The Wicker Man? And it's scary.
Edward Woodward (1930-2009) R. I. P.
And who could forget his unforgettable cameo in the *ahem* highbrow Incense for the Damned.
QUOTE:Yes, of course! Now, come, come, Tony, don’t be naïve. Man works and loves in many ways. Some men, for instance, get excitement only from statues – the "Pygmalion Syndrome". Other men can only make love in coffins. You have voyeurs, transvestites, narcissists, bestialists--- Ah, it’s a funny old world we live in!
From the first, I set myself against "literature"; the story was the thing, and no amount of style could persuade me to select a story that lacked genuine, unadulterated horror. For those who wanted something high-brow there was plenty.