|
Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 5, 2010 20:12:27 GMT
I think I unwittingly might have introduced the censorship idea? Which was probably wrong of me given that Vaultees I think would generally have a liberal idea towards censorship anyway and its a debate which has been done to death. I have to stress I wasn't attacking the idea of a readers right to say 'I won't read anymore of this publisher if he intends pursuing more stories like this' and my initial reaction was to say - it's only one story, don't give up on a series because of it. But John may have nailed it.
So far I've read the first three stories and they are absolutely marvelous and they are stories - unpleasant things happen but they happen in a way that you can empathise with or regard as cleverly plotted, neatly done, beautifully told, good idea and so. If the story in question had made some tremendous telling point, broke new ground in horror, changed my thinking on something, displayed marvels of some nature then the bestial gore preceeding the end could well be justified. If anyone has read 'Crash' by Jim Ballard for example or something of equal stature, which does deal with nakedly nasty clinical stuff you can still see its art. This story didn't achieve any of these arguable heights for me and my Mum has a copy in the living room. She's enjoyed the volumes so far although she isn't much of a horror fan. She's enjoyed them because she likes a good story. This could well put her and others who might be interested outside the boundary.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 5, 2010 20:32:05 GMT
I would only be thinking wether I liked the story or not Dem, not really rating each tale ... sorry elric, that "rated" was me resorting to my lazy slang ways ("i didn't much rate it") - "how many horror anthologies have you read where you liked every story?" would have been better. i can fully understand and appreciate your reaction to the story, likewise Lord P.'s. Paul, if i'd been aware of Nasty Piece Of Work's existence i'm pretty sure i'd have subscribed and for exactly the same reason as you did. i also remember back on our old board where one of the guys put me onto an erotic horror short about a randy nun containing several passages of extreme S&M. "Sounds just my type of thing!" i thought ... until i read it. By the way, i absolutely adore your contribution to Zombie Apocalypse
|
|
|
Post by marksamuels on Oct 5, 2010 20:50:12 GMT
Well, I quite appreciated "Bernard Bought The Farm". I thought it was more like an EC comic-strip in story form than anything else; with Bernie (who's certainly a memorable, supremely nasty chap) getting his deserved come-uppance in the end. Mind you, I've heard Bernie could have escaped, and the next installment might be "Bernard Bought The Donkey Sanctuary". But that could just be a hellish rumour... Mark S.
|
|
|
Post by paulfinch on Oct 5, 2010 21:25:06 GMT
I would only be thinking wether I liked the story or not Dem, not really rating each tale ... sorry elric, that "rated" was me resorting to my lazy slang ways ("i didn't much rate it") - "how many horror anthologies have you read where you liked every story?" would have been better. i can fully understand and appreciate your reaction to the story, likewise Lord P.'s. Paul, if i'd been aware of Nasty Piece Of Work's existence i'm pretty sure i'd have subscribed and for exactly the same reason as you did. i also remember back on our old board where one of the guys put me onto an erotic horror short about a randy nun containing several passages of extreme S&M. "Sounds just my type of thing!" i thought ... until i read it. By the way, i absolutely adore your contribution to Zombie Apocalypse Thanks for those very kind comments, D. It was a great honour to be in so amazing an anthology.
|
|
|
Post by corpsecandle on Oct 6, 2010 9:27:26 GMT
I believe the author's house should be set on fire and the ground where it stood strewn with salt, but I do not believe in censorship. You would not only kill me but my step daughter, fiancee and a loving cat (unbuggered) If the story is found as distasteful as some have put I can understand that, however do not let it over shadow the fine work others have put into the book or question Charles Black himself. The intention wasn't to be sick for the sake of it but an extreme take on food production and what can go upon a farm with no recourse to care for live stock. This isn't a story typical of my work but I want to cover a broad range of issues and styles in my writing. Some may work some may not but I don't like staying in one place or at one pace for long. On a happier note I am half way through and another stand out story is Rog Piles, a reflective narative with a chilling twist.
|
|
|
Post by Jojo Lapin X on Oct 6, 2010 10:07:20 GMT
Obviously you would have to get out of the house first. What do you think I am---some kind of monster?
|
|
|
Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 6, 2010 14:43:30 GMT
I believe the author's house should be set on fire and the ground where it stood strewn with salt, but I do not believe in censorship. You would not only kill me but my step daughter, fiancee and a loving cat (unbuggered) If the story is found as distasteful as some have put I can understand that, however do not let it over shadow the fine work others have put into the book or question Charles Black himself. The intention wasn't to be sick for the sake of it but an extreme take on food production and what can go upon a farm with no recourse to care for live stock. This isn't a story typical of my work but I want to cover a broad range of issues and styles in my writing. Some may work some may not but I don't like staying in one place or at one pace for long. On a happier note I am half way through and another stand out story is Rog Piles, a reflective narative with a chilling twist. I wondered about the meat consumption angle but that left the question for me why local farmers - presumably handling livestock humanely but still killing it - would be the ones to give the coup de grâce and also give it back with equal sadism. That kept the typical Pan Horror revenge motiff but sort of scuppered the moral point? Anyway, its only a story. I got to reflecting about this and if I listed the horrors inflicted on the public in my tales maybe I wouldn't be the best moral adviser. Relieved to hear you have an unbuggered cat though...
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Oct 6, 2010 15:24:40 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Johnlprobert on Oct 6, 2010 22:17:50 GMT
John, do you remember a zine called NASTY PIECE OF WORK back in the 1990s? It was billed as 'extreme horror' - and that's exactly what it contained. Whenever a copy arrived, you really weren't sure what you were going to get, which for me - I feel a little guilty to admit - was quite exciting in a 'naughty schoolboy' sort of way. Ellen Datlow selected many of its contributions for 'honourable mentions', but also railed against other parts of the content, which she labelled gratutious, self-indulgent, juvenile etc. It was a strange mix, that magazine. There were some very brutal and disturbing stories in there, which were so excellently written than I couldn't help but include them on 'My Best Ever Horror' list. But others were totally revolting, and I was almost embarrassed to have read them - but, as I said, that was part of the kick when it fell through the letter-flap. "Am I going to love this issue, or be sickened by it?" There was even a rumour that one chap, who regularly wrote to the magazine's letters page, praising everything in it, was a serious sex offender and that he was writing from a secure psychiatric unit. Another rumour held - and this one, I think, was at least partly factual - that a story in the last issue (I forget what it was called), was so disgustingly sick and perverted that the Arts Council funding that made the magazine look so impressive got pulled, and NPOW came to an abrupt end. It just goes to show. In horror, you can push the envelope significantly, but there are some boundaries you can't simply step over. That said, I haven't read BERNARD yet, but, in the spirit of that old cliche, "there's no such thing as bad publicity", I'm now quite eager to get to it. I'm not proud of that, I hasten to add, but I've always been a sucker for a freak show. Paul - I'm afraid that was way before I knew the small press even existed! I'm sure if I'd been aware of it I would have been a subscriber, and I would probably have read all the stories as eagerly as you did! Btw Corpsie - As well as all that negativity above (sorry!), I would like to add that the story was very well written (which is one of the reasons it's so disturbingly unpleasant!), and that it certainly hasn't put me off reading any further stories by you in the future.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 8, 2010 7:48:33 GMT
Joel Lane - Morning’s Echo: Birmingham. Denny, a member of the Falcons, is carved up by members of rival gang the Jackals and his body parts strewn across Digbeth. A police officer new to the area endures monthly dreams of locations unknown to him but familiar to Carla, the late Denny's girlfriend. At each of these they find a severed limb neatly wrapped in newspaper. By the following October, when the cop dreams of a vault in Vyne Street cemetery, they've recovered most of the dead boy ....
Despite the subject matter this is another un-A.B.C. a story and therefore difficult for a dimwit like me to summarize. i'm more at home with;
Steve Rasnic Tem - Telling: A delightfully creepy haunted house story with perhaps a nod to MRJ's The Mezzotint? After months of fruitless searching, artist Maggie finally decides where she and Wayne are going to live. He's not best pleased at her choice - it's a gloomy, damp-smelling pile - but anything for a quiet life. Maggie paints pictures of houses for a living and very soon she's stuck into a new canvas, but this time the results have such a morbid atmosphere about them she knows it will never sell. Worse, she and Wayne both endure terrible visions of a child murder that took place on the staircase. Meanwhile, on her painting, a shadowy figure emerges and slowly makes its way along the pathway until it's ready to climb out of the canvas ...
Rog Pile - Walk To The Sea: No idea whether Rog intended it this way, but his creepy tale put me in mind of the Tales From The Crypt strip, Whirlpool in which the protagonist is doomed to live out the same awful experience on a never ending loop. In this instance, Susan walks through a sleeping village to the beach where she spots what she at first takes to be a log in the water ... except this one is long haired, heavily pregnant, reeks of putrefaction and Susan should never have disturbed it!
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 9, 2010 8:08:54 GMT
Claude Lalumière - Ted’s Collection: After his death old Doc Austin's private taxidermy collection passes to his next door neighbour, best friend and acolyte, Ted, a gawky teenager with a bent for accumulating bits of deceased cat (by the time he's fourteen he nearly has enough to stitch together a complete new moggy). With his mentor gone, Ted enrols in college - Doc provided for this in his will - where he meets the love of his life. Nicole introduces him to the Devotees, a local club whose members get a sexual kick from amputation. Time for Ted to take his work to the next level ...
i think that's me about done with 7th Black Book Of Horror for the moment! The story that most disturbed me wasn't Bernard Bought The Farm but the horribly plausible It Begins At Home. It's impossible for me to single out one as my favourite or, God help us, the "best" as this is perhaps the most varied of the collections since the debut. Swell Head and The Creaking made me sad: Minos Or Rhadamanthus, A Walk To The Sea, The Pier and Telling would be equally at home in a Years Best Ghost Stories collection (if only Robinson's would commission one): Walking The Dyke, Flitching’s Revenge and Rest In Pieces are unashamed Pan horror: Romero's Children wouldn't have been out of place in Skipp & Spector's mighty zombie anthology Book Of The Dead. New Teacher has a gloriously gruesome EC twist: in their very different ways, The Green Bath Minos Or Rhadamanthus and Ted’s Collection introduce a neat dash of erotic weirdness to set the pulses racing which is quite an achievement in my case as i don't actually have one. i've not read any of Tony Richards' other Birchiam Pier stories, but In-Betweeners is a beauty, as if his urban delinquents from The Lords Of Zero in Gathering The Bones had migrated to the seaside.
|
|
|
Post by Johnlprobert on Oct 9, 2010 8:21:34 GMT
The story that most disturbed me wasn't Bernard Bought The Farm but the horribly plausible It Begins At Home. Oh what a wonderful thing to read on this grim Saturday morning !Lady P & I are off out now to make the most of this gloomy weather
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 9, 2010 8:31:10 GMT
a nice thoroughly depressing relax in St. George's churchyard for me! please let it be all waterlogged and swampy with loads of old bones washing around!
gotta see a man about some carpet tiles first, mind.
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Oct 14, 2010 11:32:22 GMT
Stephen Volk's story Swell Head can be heard, narrated by Larry Connelly from this link: www.stephenvolk.net/.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 15, 2010 7:26:04 GMT
Stephen Volk's story Swell Head can be heard, narrated by Larry Connelly from this link: www.stephenvolk.net/. thought Mr. Connelly made a very decent fist of it! i've ripped the sound from the three part Lord P live at Brighton Two For Dinner with a view to stitching it all together for a Stars of Vault bootleg - maybe some of the rest of you might consider recording your stories as mp3s? in case anyone's having difficulty finding it, here's a near as direct link to the Stephen Volk sound files. Just scroll down to 'Swell Head' ... obviously.
|
|