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Post by dem bones on Oct 31, 2008 11:45:29 GMT
Dennis Etchison - Masters Of Darkness (Tor, August 1986)  J. K. Potter
Ray Bradbury - The Dead Man
Gardner Dozios - Flash Point
Robert Bloch - The Animal Fair
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - The End Of The Carnival
Richard Matheson - Dance Of The Dead
Ramsey Campbell - The Words That Count
Ray Russell - The Test Tube/ Doctor Of Dreams Verse
Karl E. Wagner - Neither Brute Nor Human
George Clayton Johnson - Sea Change (A Treatment)
Edward Bryant - Teeth Marks
Richard Christian Matheson - Third Wind
Steve Rasnic Tem - Preparations For The Game
Joe Halderman - Armaja Das
William F. Nolan - Saturday's Shadow
Jack Dann - Camps
Notes on the contributorsBlurb Horror has many faces, one more terrifying than the next.
Terror has many voices, each cutting frighteningly close to the bone
Horror's master writers gather to whisper true terror into an unsuspecting ear Loathsome embossed cover time again i'm afraid, but at least the concept is interesting - allow the author to select and provide an afterword for a story of their own which they consider to be underrated. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - The End Of The Carnival: Events at a whorehouse post nuclear strike. The girls are contaminated with radiation poisoning and their drug supply is about to be terminated by the Power Company who would rather they were dead, having become such a huge embarrassment. By way of revenge, Madame Becca and her glow in the dark broads arrange one last party, to which they invite the sons of the big shots. Her Saint Germaine novels bores me rigid, but this is a real treat! Ramsey Campbell - The Words That Count: The liberating powers of Black Magic. The repressed 23-year-old daughter of a Religious fanatic receives a pamphlet though the post (sent by her more worldly boyfriend?) on which the words to the Lord's Prayer are printed singly on each page, the whole in reverse order. Her father's predictable reaction and the seed of rebellion the pamphlet plants in her suggests that she will soon break free of her claustrophobic excuse for an existence. Or something. I must admit, I struggled with this one even if the author has made minor changes to make it run smoother and lets on that it's an acrostic in his Wheatley-blasting introduction! Robert Bloch - The Animal Fair: Hitcher Dave thumbs a lift from Carney showman Captain Ryder. As he drink drives, the Captain tells him about what those gd**n drugged up Hollywood hippies did to his innocent adopted daughter Melissa and how he did time for three of them, brooding the while that their leader, Dude, had evaded him. Dave gets to wondering where Captain Ryder's main attraction, Bobo, the flea-ridden dancing gorilla fits into the picture ... Bloch complains in his afterword that, when Playboy published it in 1971, "some moron" cut off the ending. Richard Christian Matheson - Third Wind: Success-fixated attorney Michael's Nike's pound the tarmac on his daily twenty mile run. The idea, he knows, in life as in running is to never give up, never slow down - that's what sorts the winners from the losers. Besides, practice enough and its like your legs don't know how to stop. Jack Dann - Camps: Companion piece to his collaboration with Gardner Dozios, Down Among The Dead Men. Present day hospital patient Stephen dreams vividly and coherently of events he could never have witnessed - the efforts of two Jewish Concentration Camp prisoners to save a friend from being loaded onto the death cart - but which are all too familiar to his nurse, Josie. A sombre and quite brilliant treatment of horrible subject matter. So far, so good, but i'm saving my absolute favourite 'til next ....
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Post by dem bones on Nov 1, 2008 9:12:47 GMT
Robert Weinberg asked Karl Wagner for an original story to run in the programme for the 1983 World Fantasy Convention in Chicago. KEW obliged .... Karl E. Wagner - Neither Brute Nor Human: Why do we put ourselves on display just so an effusive mob of lunatic fringe fans can gape at us and tell us how great we are and beg an autograph and ask about our theories of politics and religion?"Fantasy authors and leftover hippies Damon Harrington and Trevor Nordgren strike up a friendship at Discon II in Washington 1974, when they are both still relatively unknown outside of MF&SF and Orbit, although Nordgren also has a published novel, Acid Test, under his belt ("a Lancer paperback, badly drawn psychedelic cover, bought [by Harrington] from a bin at Woolworth's ..). By the second World Fantasy Convention in New York two years later, their careers are taking off, and Damon is paraded as one of "Fantasy's new faces." The moderator had obviously never heard of Damon Harrington, introduced him as as "our new Robert E. Howard" and referred to him as David throughout the panel ... Most of the discussion was taken over by something called Martin E. Binkley who had managed to publish three stories in minor fanzines and to insinuate himself onto the panel . Nordgren was quite drunk at the outset and continued to coax fresh Jack Daniel's and ice from a pretty blonde in the audience. By the end of the hour he was offering outrageous rebuttals to Binkley's self-serving pontification; the fans were soon loudly applauding, the moderator lost all control, and the panel nearly finished with a brawl." And so we follow them, from convention to coke 'n booze fueled convention as the pair attain stardom, Harrington becoming the biggest selling fantasy author of his day and a household name into the process. His Desmond Killstar series is followed by Death's Dark Mistress, the first of the hugely successful Krystal Firewind (the cover blurb proclaims him "America's Michael Moorcock"). But Harrington can't help noting the worrying decline in his friend's health. From the first, Nordgren has maintained that the author-audience relationship is one of mutual, psychic vampirism, and at the World Fantasy Con in Miami he discovers just how right he was all along. Wagner's brief Afterword/ Disclaimer is fully in keeping with the grim black comedy of the thing and, in view of the tedious Stephen Jones versus Shocklines handbags, it's as relevent today as it was a quarter of a century ago. Neither Brute Nor Human also appears in Wagner's peach of a collection Why Not You And I? |
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Post by andydecker on Nov 1, 2008 18:20:57 GMT
Wagner´s story is great. I always wondered about the who is who in this tale, and how much was wish-fulfilment  I never visited a sf con (or horror con) abroad, but the stuff about the groupies and the hard partying always struck me as rather untrue, even in the 80s  |
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Post by dem bones on Nov 1, 2008 20:14:16 GMT
Yeah, it does come over a bit Motley Crue on tour at times, i'll grant you.
I love the scene in the elevator where two disgruntled fans - one of them "an acne farm with a shopping bag", full of Nordgren's books her mates in Des Moines have asked her to get signed - are moaning about what a total bastard creep the author is. "I know. I wrote him an eight page fan letter, and all I got back was a postcard."
Ten years on and what's the betting she gave birth to Eminem's biggest fan, Stan?
George Clayton Johnson - Sea Change: Doc Howard, a washed up alcoholic, is down to gun-running with small-time hoodlum and all round bad hat Al Lucio. Lucio bullies Doc, constantly puts him down for a 'Rumdum' and, when he smells whiskey on his breath, demands the bottle from him and lobs it overboard. Somehow, Doc musters the courage to ask for his cut of the loot, whereupon Lucio goes at him with a marlin spike, but in the ensuing scuffle is struck by a heavy chain which severs the hand clean from his wrist. The brilliant surgeon in Doc triumphs over any thoughts of self-preservation, and he tends the man's injury. He tends it so well, in fact, that a new hand grows on the stump!
But what happened to the missing one?
Written in 1960 for Rod Serling's Twilight Zone but rejected as the sponsors felt it was too gory. "They were .... after all a food company, and they didn't think that hacking a man's arm off was the image they cared to be associated with."
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Post by carolinec on Nov 1, 2008 20:19:48 GMT
I never visited a sf con (or horror con) abroad, but the stuff about the groupies and the hard partying always struck me as rather untrue, even in the 80s None of that kind of stuff ever goes on at FantasyCon or AltFiction anyway - and definitely not at the Doctor Who cons I've been to!  |
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Post by David A. Riley on Nov 1, 2008 21:31:03 GMT
Is that because very few of the males attending them have ever even kissed a girl?  David |
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Post by carolinec on Nov 1, 2008 21:36:20 GMT
Is that because very few of the males attending them have ever even kissed a girl? David Now, now, David - you're stereotyping a bit there I think! (but you could be right though!  ) |
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Post by mattofthespurs on Sept 30, 2013 15:37:09 GMT
I've had this book (mine is the Complete Masters Of Darkness in hardback) sitting on my shelf awaiting my attention for some years now.
Anyhoo, the point of the post is that in the listing you have the the Bradbury story as "The Dead Woman" when it's actually "The Dead Man".
Pedantic, I know, but for reasons for completeness I feel compelled.
I'll get me coat...
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Post by dem bones on Sept 30, 2013 17:02:18 GMT
I've had this book (mine is the Complete Masters Of Darkness in hardback) sitting on my shelf awaiting my attention for some years now. Anyhoo, the point of the post is that in the listing you have the the Bradbury story as "The Dead Woman" when it's actually "The Dead Man". Pedantic, I know, but for reasons for completeness I feel compelled. I'll get me coat... Thanks Matt. Am always noticing and amending mistakes and much prefer they're pointed out. Up until last week, we had a thread raving about something called 'The Hammer Years' which had been up for centuries. It was only while writing about co-author's Marcus Hearn's 'Saucy Postcards' i came to the horrible realisation that it wasn't called 'The Hammer Years' at all .....  |
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Post by pbsplatter on Jan 30, 2023 15:27:18 GMT
There were two more volumes in the series  1 • Up Under the Roof • (1938) • short story by Manly Wade Wellman 8 • Author's Note (Up Under the Roof) • essay by Manly Wade Wellman 10 • The Other Room • (1982) • short story by Lisa Tuttle 24 • Author's Note (The Other Room) • essay by Lisa Tuttle 26 • A Garden of Blackred Roses • (1980) • novelette by Charles L. Grant 54 • Author's Note (A Garden of Blackred Roses) • essay by Charles L. Grant 57 • Cottage Tenant • (1975) • novelette by Frank Belknap Long 93 • Author's Note (Cottage Tenant) • essay by Frank Belknap Long 95 • The Hounds • (1974) • novelette by Kate Wilhelm 127 • Author's Note (The Hounds) • essay by Kate Wilhelm 129 • Zombique • (1972) • short story by Joseph Payne Brennan 141 • Author's Note (Zombique) • essay by Joseph Payne Brennan 143 • Taking the Night Train • (1981) • short story by Thomas F. Monteleone 163 • Author's Note (Taking the Night Train) • essay by Thomas F. Monteleone 166 • Black Corridor • [Change War] • (1967) • short story by Fritz Leiber 181 • Author's Note (Black Corridor) • essay by Fritz Leiber 183 • Strangers on Paradise • (1986) • short story by Damon Knight (variant of Strangers in Paradise) 205 • Author's Note (Strangers on Paradise) • essay by Damon Knight 206 • Gemini • (1981) • novelette by Tanith Lee 229 • Author's Note (Gemini) • essay by Tanith Lee 231 • Glimmer, Glimmer • (1987) • short story by George Alec Effinger 240 • Author's Note (Glimmer, Glimmer) • essay by George Alec Effinger 242 • Perverts • (1983) • short story by Whitley Strieber 257 • Author's Note (Perverts) • essay by Whitley Strieber 259 • On Ice • (1973) • short story by Barry N. Malzberg 268 • Author's Note (On Ice) • essay by Barry N. Malzberg 270 • The Monkey Treatment • (1983) • novelette by George R. R. Martin 310 • Author's Note (The Monkey Treatment) • essay by George R. R. Martin 312 • Casey Agonistes • (1958) • short story by Richard McKenna Only ever read the Grant story in Dark Forces, but it's long stuck with me. |
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Post by pbsplatter on Jan 30, 2023 15:29:11 GMT
And here was the third and final volume:  1 • The Secret • (1966) • short story by Jack Vance 12 • The Patter of Tiny Feet • (1950) • short story by Nigel Kneale 25 • The Tenant • (1960) • short story by Avram Davidson 35 • Hallowe'en's Child • (1988) • short story by James Herbert 51 • After the Funeral • (1986) • short story by Hugh B. Cave 64 • But at My Back I Always Hear • (1983) • short story by David Morrell 86 • The Whisperer • (1976) • short story by Brian Lumley 102 • Doppelgänger • (1985) • novelette by R. Chetwynd-Hayes 141 • The Master of the Hounds • (1966) • novelette by Algis Budrys 174 • Judgment Day • (1955) • short story by L. Sprague de Camp 197 • In the Hills, the Cities • (1984) • novelette by Clive Barker 234 • Jamboree • (1969) • short story by Jack Williamson 248 • Family • (1989) • short story by Joyce Carol Oates 268 • Twilight of the Dawn • (1987) • novelette by Dean R. Koontz 303 • The Woman in the Room • non-genre • (1978) • short story by Stephen King A lot of good material here; the King story, while not horror, is horrific; the Barker is one of my favorites, and the Morrell and Kneale are good. |
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Post by Knygathin on Jan 30, 2023 16:08:23 GMT
Jack Vance won first place. Not bad in a collection like that.
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