Mary Danby - Fontana Horror 17

[dem]

Mary Danby (ed.) - The 17th Fontana Book Of Great Horror Stories (Fontana, 1984)

"Morsels of the macabre ..."

Alan Temperley - Where No Wind Blows
J. C. Furnas - The Laocoon Complex
David Campton - Firstborn
Willis Hall - Waking Or Sleeping
Robert Silverberg - Back From The Grave
Patricia Highsmith - Harry: A Ferret
Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle - The Leather Funnel
Ramsey Campbell - Reply Guaranteed
Tina Rath - Fifth Sense
W. J. Stamper - Fidel Basin
Robert W. Chambers - The Yellow Sign
Mary Danby - True Love

Last in the series. Includes:

Alan Temperley - Where No Wind Blows: Two men are killed in a car crash. Factory farmer Andrew Newman descends into a personalised Hell, the other victim, an old-school natural toiler, ascends to Heaven.

Tina Rath - Fifth Sense: Jenny, the village idiot, has been murdered along the cliff, her head separated from her body which has been chewed. Little Sara's belief that a werewolf is responsible is not as wide of the mark as her father believes. The killer is no stranger to either of them.

Ramsey Campbell - Reply Guaranteed: Brichester. Recovering in hospital, Viv answers a lonely hearts ad. The address given, she later learns, is that of a house on Mercy Hill, once the domicile of a rapist. By the end of his days, this fellow was confined to a wheelchair thanks to his multiple venereal diseases. Viv encounters his bandaged ghost and the farcical climax is equal parts scary and laugh-out-loud funny.

Robert Silverberg - Back From The Grave: When John Massey, 44, discovers his young wife Louise in bed with her flashy friend, Henry Marshall, it triggers a coronary. Louise knew it was coming - the doctor had confided in her that she must prepare for widowhood - and as John sinks to his knees she explains how she and Henry have been lovers for years and that she only married him to get her hands on his inheritance. This is bad enough, but it gets far worse: such was the rush to get his funeral over and done with that John's been buried alive! Can he get out of his coffin and dig his way to the surface before the air runs out or the graveyard rats get at him?

W. J. Stamper - Fidel Basin: Haiti. having seen the squalor and starvation of the prisons where so many of the townsfolk are being unjustly held, Captain Vilnard is so disgusted at his army's treatment of their own people that he resigns his commission and defects to the rebels, advising his lieutenant, Fidel Basin, to do likewise. But Basin only has eyes for promotion and is quite happy to carry out whatever barbaric orders are forthcoming from Port au Prince. Now the army have had enough, the soldiers mutiny and Michel meets a deservedly dreadful end - trussed to the festering corpse of an innocent prisoner who died of tropical dysentery.

David Campton - Firstborn: Harry and Elaine are rescued from their debt Hell by his wealthy uncle who invites them to live with him at his magnificent Dorset home. Uncle has a mania for exotic plants and it is clear from the first that the chief reason for his charity is the close proximity of Elaine, though not for the reason Harry suspects. Uncle's proudest possession - even more-so than the bone-crushing, man-eating monstrosity in the greenhouse - is the multi-tendrilled, touchy-feely demon flower in the cellar whose perfume acts as a powerful aphrodisiac - it certainly solves the couple's bedroom problems. But when it molests Elaine and she falls pregnant, the lovers face an anxious wait to discover what she will give birth to ...

Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle - The Leather Funnel: Lionel Dacre is an occultist and collector of macabre artifacts, one of which is the inscribed funnel. To test his theory that one can divine in sleep something of the history of a given relic, he persuades the narrator to bed down with it. Our man duly witnesses the ordeal of a murderess who was put to the extraordinary question in a bid to get her to name accomplices. This involves her being tied to a wooden horse while gallons of water are poured down her throat. Unsurprisingly, the narrator wakes up screaming and his host comes rushing to his bed. On being told of his dreadful nightmare, Dacre enquires:

“Did you stand it to the end?”
“No, thank God. I awoke before it really began”
“Ah, it is just as well for you. I held out to the third bucket”.

Hugh Lamb has written of The Leather Funnel: ” … the torture of a 17th century woman is observed by the narrator in a dream, in a story almost pointless other than parading this cruelty.” Yes, it really is that good.

That cover. I never even realised that it illustrated a particular story before. I thought it was just there for good old gratuitous nastiness purposes, but it actually depicts a scene in Mary Danby's True Love when the happy couple are introduced to the delights of cannibalism.

Mary Danby - True Love: Jack and Vera Sprat have been wed for forty years and never a cross word. Now retired, he prides himself on his hand-crafted model village in the back garden while Vera is content dusting her fabulous collection of trinkets. Meanwhile, people continue to go missing in the immediate area: two paperboys, the door to door salesman from Kwik-O-Kleen, that rather plump woman looking for her cat ...

[allthingshorror]

Mary Danby is alive and well and has been made aware that I'm wanting to interview her.

If she agrees - wow - wow - wow.

[dem]

Top Vault heroine!

Good luck with that, and good luck with the radio suffolk appearance on Aug. 18th, John. Nice timing, too, because on that day Vault will be three years old!

[albie]

The Leather Funnel really disturbed me. Maybe it was just that particular kind of torture.

[Calenture]

Aug 13, 2008 19:57:44 GMT @allthingshorror said:

Mary Danby is alive and well and has been made aware that I'm wanting to interview her.

If she agrees - wow - wow - wow.

If she does, please tell her that Rog Pile still has her letters and books and remembers her encouragement and guidance with gratitude.

Incidentally, there was one of her books I always regretted not picking up. I believe it was a thriller which she wrote, but I forget the title and only saw it once.

[allthingshorror]

Well...spoke to her for half an hour today, she's agreed to be interviewed by me - which is just a great honour. If anyone has any questions they've always wanted to ask her - pm me - and I'll pass them on in the next week or so when I send her the interview.

All Hail Mary Danby!!!!!

[erebus]

Gave this one a quick going over recently. Not to bad but it doesn't really have anything that sticks out or is memorable.
For me David Campton's FIRSTBORN is probably my choice story here. Depraved and corrupt, and I always like those nasty plant stories that tend to surface in these collections. The Pans certainly had a few about, but none had perverted plants like these.
Second best would be THE LEATHER FUNNEL. Horrible way to be tortured, well any torture is horrible although this one ends with a grim little quirk in its closing.
Also a nod to BACK FROM THE GRAVE. Not so much the story, but for the descriptive way it is written, it certainly brought home to me the fear and horror of being buried alive.

LAOCOON COMPLEX ( what ? ) for me was just a little to ridiculous, a chap who has a fear of snakes appearing in his bath so much he wills them into existence. Why not have a fear of Holly Willoughby appearing naked in your bathroom or something. Stupid and didn't work for me.
HARRY A FERRET. Young lad gets attached to his pet. His Mothers Housekeeper is told to take it out into the woods and release it. Revenge ensues. Bit like WILLARD, but with one Ferret.
WAKING OR SLEEPING. The title gives this one away instantly. A man has the same nightmare over and over. He is suspended in a tiny cage in a filthy dungeon, a ragged old crone comes infrequently to feed him scraps. His wife sends him to the Doc who helps him rid him of the delusions and get him back to his normal life. Guess which is the dream and the normal life.. ? Yep you've guessed it.

WHERE NO WIND BLOWS is ok. Not to happy with the animal cruelty but He does get his just desserts. I was puzzled initially, is this his own private hell. Or has he been reincarnated as a farmyard animal and is seeing through their eyes now ?

I've not had much experience with the Fontana books. I am on course to rectify that with reading more. They do seem more certificate 15 as opposed to 18 certificated Pan's, if you get my meaning. But an entertaining collection nevertheless.

A nod to the grisy cover ( Its not depicted above sadly ) That soup doesn't look to bad if I'm honest. It does however remind of a tale my Nephews friend once told him, about how he apparently found an eyelid in his steak pudding. I did say apparently. Urban legends in the US have nothing on ours. And with that.....

[dem]

Mar 7, 2015 20:45:04 GMT erebus said:

WHERE NO WIND BLOWS is ok. Not to happy with the animal cruelty but He does get his just desserts. I was puzzled initially, is this his own private hell. Or has he been reincarnated as a farmyard animal and is seeing through their eyes now ?

Been so long since I read Where No Wind Blows that the ins and outs of the thing are a blur to me now, but it sticks in the memory as the one horror story of Alan Temperley's that failed to score with me.

[marcrhodestaylor]

I love the cover it is simply brilliant; I am almost surprised that they got away with that one. Alan Temperley's Where No Wind Blows is the one story from this collection that I really do remember, fairly good in my opinion although some of his other stories were even better. I think that I remember Robert Silverberg's story possibly, or I may be getting it confused with Henry Kuttner's The Graveyard Rats.

[dem]

Feb 19, 2021 21:56:46 GMT marcrhodestaylor said:

I love the cover it is simply brilliant; I am almost surprised that they got away with that one. Alan Temperley's Where No Wind Blows is the one story from this collection that I really do remember, fairly good in my opinion although some of his other stories were even better. I think that I remember Robert Silverberg's story possibly, or I may be getting it confused with Henry Kuttner's The Graveyard Rats.

Hi Marc. Thanks for registering and I hope you enjoy your time here. It's possibly fair to assume Robert Silverberg was familiar with The Graveyard Rats when he wrote Back From The Dead. I loves the Fontana Horrors. Such a shame they didn't make it to #20.

[marcrhodestaylor]

thank you for the welcome. i can't remember the animal violence in temperley's story; contrast this with graham masterton's eric the pie, which featured some hideous cruelty towards animals which was very hard to read.