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Post by dem bones on Nov 16, 2010 5:09:32 GMT
Curses! Unless Lord & Lady P can tell us differently, i'm pretty sure this is receiving its official launch tonight (Tuesday 16 November, 6.30pm) at The Gallery, Foyles, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB. It's an all-ticket affair, but, provided they've any left, they're free from events@foyles.co.uk so contact 'em now if you wanna reserve a place! Why do i curse so? because, due to rotten real life stuff, i can't make it, but maybe you will have more luck. As mentioned before, it has the look of a jolly good collection! Jonathan Oliver (ed.) - The End Of The Line: New Horror Stories Set On And Around The Underground (Solaris, Nov. 2010) Luke Preece Introduction - Jonathan Oliver
Paul Meloy - Bullroarer John Llewellyn Probert - The Girl in The Glass Nicholas Royle - The Lure Rebecca Levene - 23:46 Morden (via Bank) Jasper Bark - End of The Line Simon Bestwick - The Sons of The City Al Ewing - The Roses That Bloom Underground Conrad Williams - Exit Sounds Pat Cadigan - Funny Things Adam L.G. Nevill - On All London Underground Lines Mark Morris - Fallen Boys Stephen Volk - In The Colosseum Ramsey Campbell - The Rounds Michael Marshall Smith - Missed Connection James Lovegrove - Siding 13 Gary McMahon - Diving Deep Natasha Rhodes - Crazy Train Joel Lane - All Dead Years Christopher Fowler - Down
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Thana Niveau
Devils Coach Horse
We who walk here walk alone.
Posts: 109
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Post by Thana Niveau on Nov 16, 2010 7:14:58 GMT
That's correct, Dem! A pity you can't go but yes, all the info is correct and it IS an excellent collection.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 16, 2010 7:28:45 GMT
thanks for the confirmation, Thana. a quick reminder. i remember lord P mentioned on another thread that he might take a hansom to TYPE in Bethnal Green while he was down this way. my advice is, save your fare and spare the horses. It is only open from Thursday through to Sunday. You might like to check out Lovejoys for any missing Wordsworth Editions while you're on Charing Cross Road, though. I'm sure his lordship knows where to find it! hope you both have a lovely evening!
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Post by pulphack on Nov 16, 2010 16:23:29 GMT
Jon is/was editor at Abaddon, and has done a fine job in building that imprint. Nice to see him moving into new areas; it looks good, and I wish him well.
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Post by robertmammone on Nov 19, 2010 1:37:22 GMT
Curses! Unless Lord & Lady P can tell us differently, i'm pretty sure this is receiving its official launch tonight (Tuesday 16 November, 6.30pm) at The Gallery, Foyles, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB. It's an all-ticket affair, but, provided they've any left, they're free from events@foyles.co.uk so contact 'em now if you wanna reserve a place! Why do i curse so? because, due to rotten real life stuff, i can't make it, but maybe you will have more luck. As mentioned before, it has the look of a jolly good collection! Jonathan Oliver (ed.) - The End Of The Line: New Horror Stories Set On And Around The Underground (Solaris, Nov. 2010) Introduction - Jonathan Oliver
Paul Meloy - Bullroarer John Llewellyn Probert - The Girl in The Glass Nicholas Royle - The Lure Rebecca Levene - 23:46 Morden (via Bank) Jasper Bark - End of The Line Simon Bestwick - The Sons of The City Al Ewing - The Roses That Bloom Underground Conrad Williams - Exit Sounds Pat Cadigan - Funny Things Adam L.G. Nevill - On All London Underground Lines Mark Morris - Fallen Boys Stephen Volk - In The Colosseum Ramsey Campbell - The Rounds Michael Marshall Smith - Missed Connection James Lovegrove - Siding 13 Gary McMahon - Diving Deep Natasha Rhodes - Crazy Train Joel Lane - All Dead Years Christopher Fowler - DownInteresting to see on the actual cover the carriage is daubed in blood and a message 'They are Watching Us' is written on the panel on the rear right hand wall. I imagine an allusion to the reader 'watching' the story. Read 3 so far - Fowler's tale is bittersweet and sad and and just a well told story. Campbell's is once again a hallucinatory ride that goes round and round and just about freaks you out. Gold. Probert's was pretty bland, unfortunately. A solid effort, without rising to any height (great or other).
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Post by dem bones on Nov 18, 2011 20:53:00 GMT
something i miss most about Milan's interzone@TYPE was the thrill of seeing issue's Paperback Fanatic in the window of a Bethnal Green shop. Not quite the same thing, but finding a copy of a book featuring two valued Vault regulars in the Whitechapel idea store (née Library) at least cheered me up some. Must say i'm looking forward to reading this, horror stories set on the underground being something of a personal favourite. The Mark Morris story, Fallen Boys, i know from the recent Best New Horror 22, but everything else is new to me, so let's get started. James Lovegrove - Siding 13: Graphic artist Marcus usually works from home but an interview at Whaam! comics' Soho office means he's forced to endure the claustrophobic thrill of a typical tube journey. At first it's not so bad as he's pressed against an attractive young woman but there's also a whiskey-reeking fat banker behind him. The carriage is soon jammed to the point where nobody can disembark while more bodies pile on at every station. Fortunately, London Transport have a contingency plan for just such an emergency. The train is detoured to Siding 13. John Llewellyn Probert - The Girl in The Glass: Dr. Tom Newfield is haunted by Emily Phillips, 23, who fell under a Central Line tube train. Emily sustained multiple injuries and has remained in a coma for the past fortnight. When Tom first became aware of her phantom presence on an evening journey to Ealing Broadway, she was desperately searching the carriage for something, but that seems to have been resolved the moment she set eyes on him and fixed him with a hungry smile. The proprietress of Eleanor's Alchemy on the Uxbridge Road - think a young and sexy Madame Orloff running a branch of Temptations Ltd - advises him that, as their intended victim survived, the Gods of the Underground must be appeased by another sacrifice - him. The way Tom sees it, he has two alternatives: either kill the girl, or unplug the mysterious glass bottle that Eleanor suggests might save him, though she'd strongly advise against his doing so.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 19, 2011 11:21:50 GMT
Rebecca Levene - 23:46 Morden (via Bank): After an unscheduled Sunday night session in the pub, office worker Adam legs it to Old Street tube, just in time to see the last train shut its doors and pull away into the tunnel. Never fear, there's another last train a minute later, and him the solitary passenger. The driver evidently favours the scenic route, but Adam arrives at London Bridge unscathed - or so he thinks. Unbeknown to him, a rough sleeper he handed his loose change to has pulled off a spectacular identity theft, literally borrowing him body and soul for the coming week. The tramp gleefully embarks on a campaign of very public defecation, sexual harassment and finally, brutal murder while Adam cops the resentment of colleagues, neighbours and family for his increasingly obnoxious antics. By the time Adam gets his life back, it won't be worth living. Stephen Jones isn't particularly generous in his appraisal of The End Of The Line in Best New Horror 22, but that's four winners out of four so far. I particularly liked the tramps plus the story-stealing cameo from the supremely mean-spirited Mrs. Matthews who has a fail safe method for keeping cats away from her begonias. Also, well done to Luke Reece who has achieved the near impossible in designing a post-1980's cover i actually like. Here's the back.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Nov 19, 2011 11:31:07 GMT
Adam L.G. Nevill's "On All London Underground Lines" should be compulsory reading for all LT managers, as it's a brilliant description of the Hell that is Underground travel.
I'm not sure that it's fiction....
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Post by Dr Strange on Nov 19, 2011 15:47:08 GMT
Adam L.G. Nevill's "On All London Underground Lines" should be compulsory reading for all LT managers, as it's a brilliant description of the Hell that is Underground travel. Haven't read this, but I've read all three of his horror novels and enjoyed them a lot. Especially impressed by the way he has shifted styles and settings for these - Banquet For The Damned is a black magic story set in and around St. Andrews University and shows a strong influence from MRJ and HPL, Apartment 16 is modern urban horror (although set in London, there is a slight hint of Rosemary's Baby about it I think), and The Ritual is a Blair Witch sort of story about horrible things happening to a group of friends lost in the woods in Scandinavia.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Nov 19, 2011 18:38:57 GMT
"On All London Underground Lines" is basically about trying to get somewhere on the Tube & encountering one delay/problem after another. But it's told in a decaying, claustrophobic style with a creeping sense of threat & a feeling of an ever more imminent collapse of reality that has the protagonist teetering on the edge of a psychotic breakdown in the face of it all.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 19, 2011 18:53:10 GMT
glad you wrote that, Mr. Proof because On All London Underground Lines is also the kind of story that's beyond my amazing "and so-and-so did this, and then that happened" powers of synopsis. Oxford Circus station as an enormous catacomb, peopled by the shambling corpses of thwarted commuters, desperately trying to find the train that will take them to the job they loath. The narrator, as dehumanised as the rest of us, wonders "Why do we go through with this? Have we forgotten what quality of life is?" but that doesn't stop him panicking that he's late for work. A headline in a discarded issue of Metro (i think) makes mention of the recession entering its eighteenth year.
That's five crackers out of five now. bollocks, i'll have to get a copy.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Nov 19, 2011 19:04:04 GMT
In my work in a previous life I spent considerable periods of time dealing with folk whose realities had collapsed. "On All London Underground Lines" reminded me of the feelings they described when they related what they'd experienced as they headed into psychosis.
Yep, definitely a book worth buying.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 22, 2011 18:22:17 GMT
In my work in a previous life I spent considerable periods of time dealing with folk whose realities had collapsed. "On All London Underground Lines" reminded me of the feelings they described when they related what they'd experienced as they headed into psychosis. that is not the most comforting of thoughts, Dr. Proof .... Michael Marshall Smith - Missed Connection. More dislocation. Christmas shopper Lawson somehow disembarks at Russell Square from the wrong side of the train, eventually emerges into a desolate anti-Oxford Street. Good stuff again, but maybe it suffers if you've not long read Rebecca Levene's contribution.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Nov 22, 2011 19:08:31 GMT
that is not the most comforting of thoughts, Dr. Proof .... Indeed not, but the tale made quite an impact on me. I nominated it as an entry in my Railways thread in the "DIY Anthologies" section - vaultofevil.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tops1&action=display&thread=4350. In horror, there's real mileage in that feeling of inexorable & unstoppable loss of control. The psychotherapists call it "psychotic anxiety", that existential terror linked to the disintegration of things that were so deeply assumed to be permanent that their existence wasn't even acknowledged (like the way we never think of gravity existing, we just always assume that things, well, fall downwards because they always did). Till one day they don't...
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Post by dem bones on Nov 23, 2011 19:30:27 GMT
In horror, there's real mileage in that feeling of inexorable & unstoppable loss of control. The psychotherapists call it "psychotic anxiety", that existential terror linked to the disintegration of things that were so deeply assumed to be permanent that their existence wasn't even acknowledged (like the way we never think of gravity existing, we just always assume that things, well, fall downwards because they always did). that seems to be a recurring theme in this collection (i'm thinking the MMS and Rebecca Levene stories in addition to Mr. Nevill's) i'm kind of reading this through my fingers now, knowing there's got to be at least one story disappoints, but reaching halfway and it's still not happened. Ramsey Campbell - The Rounds: Liverpool Underground, in and around Lime Street station. A Muslim woman leaves a battered briefcase on a train. Public-spirited Mr. Conrad doesn't want to appear prejudice, but 7/7 paranoia has a hold of the best of men, and the odd behaviour of a station employee convinces him that he's uncovered a conspiracy to detonate a bomb on the tube. Of course, his fellow passengers are quite put out at this mad old geezer inconveniencing them with his increasingly bizarre antics. As with Chris Morris's masterly Four Lions, it's funny right up until ..... This next is one of the saddest supernatural horror stories i've read all year and, i must say, absolutely beautiful. Christopher Fowler - Down: Thornhill's motivation for taking permanent nights on a London Underground maintenance team is his desire - need, even - to see a ghost, and tonight his perseverance pays off. Attempting to locate an electrical fault, he and his colleague Sandwich split up to wander the tunnels beneath the city. Far below Euston station Thornton encounters a teenage casualty of the Blitz, then, further along the line, a horribly mutilated phantom, still reeking of drink, who went under a train in the lead up to Christmas 1976. The sight that greets him at King's Cross is most heartbreaking of all, but at least it gives him renewed hope that somewhere down here she is waiting for him ...
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