Ray Russell - The Devil’s Mirror

[dem bones]

Ray Russell - The Devil’s Mirror (Sphere 1980)

Comet Wine
The Runaway Lovers
Quoth The Raven
Here Comes John Henry!
Xong of Xuxan
A Most Miraculous Organ
The Humanic Complex
God Will Provide
The Charm
The Better Man
Ripples
Yesterdays
The Darwin Sampler
Acres Of Bread
The Devil’s Mirror
A Whole New Ball Game
The Freedom Fighter
The World Of Lights
Skin Deep
Space Opera
Ghost Of A Chance
The Hell You Say
Time Bomb
The Great Earth Centauri Galactic Postal System
The Fortunes Of Popowcer
Captain Clark of the Space Patrol
Unholy Travesty

Blurb:
Shattering Reflections Of A Terrifying Demonic Evil

In this chilling collection of tales the Grand Master of occult horror serves up a suitably satanic concoction of devilish delights.

There’s a Russian composer, Cholodenco, who makes a Faustian pact at his friend’s expense: the lecherous old man who exacts a particularly hideous revenge on his nubile young wife and her lover: a sinister musical time machine that reveals a ghastly atrocity from the dark abyss of time. and in each brilliantly abominable offering Ray Russell weaves a web of evil that captures the reader in a nerve-rending network of waking nightmares.

Another mix of fantasy, SF and horror stories from the Ray Russell not to be confused with R. S. Russell of Tartarus fame (or the musician!). This Ray Russell (1924 – 1999) edited Playboy for several years and contributed several short stories to the magazine, including a first appearance for Sardonicus. You can maybe spot a couple in this little lot.

The Devil's Mirror: After exchanging his soul for a mirror which foretells the future, Alan learns the age old truth that pacts with Satan are all very well but you have to study the small print. A decent enough story, just not in the same league as Sardonicus.

The Runaway Lovers: Much more like it for those of us who enjoy his Gothic horror moments: shades of The Torture Of Hope meets Raymond Williams' possibly less celebrated The Assassin from Pan Horror 8. When his comely young wife and her troubadour lover are hunted down and captured, the Duke sentences them to spend seven days in the torture chamber, at the end of which they will be "irrevocably demised." This is most unlike the Duke, who has a reputation for mercy to the point of meekness, a veritable Nun of a man, and the troubadour's guess is that the old fool won't have the stomach to harm them. So, nothing to worry about then. Until the jovial warder explains, in explicit detail, exactly what's in store for them this coming week. Then the lovers panic. Each curses and denounces the other. But look ... the warden has dropped his keys on the floor just beyond their tiny cells ...

The Hell You Say: John Stanley has been a meek, mild, doormat all his life, never complaining, just doing as he's told. So when he dies, the last place he expects to find himself is the fiery pit, with its "Whipping posts, racks, iron maidens - all most dreadfully engaged." A demon named Prong - who has a brother named Thumbscrew and a sister, Flagelletta - explains that there has been no mix up. This is his own personalised Heaven.

The Freedom Fighter: The problems of Miss Helen Lansing, film-director when the censors perform an about turn: now they'll only pass movies which contain an abundance of explicit sex scenes. It's not just the movie industry that has moved with the times: Driving through Hollywood past the "venerable Chinese Theatre where the cement, they say, used to display merely the footprints of the stars, Helen switches on the radio to be serenaded by latest from smash hit pop band, the Groin Gobblers ....

Unholy Travesty: Sir Bosley is invited to the castle of the masked Sarcophagus, who claims descent from Frankenstein, Dracula, a werewolf and a mummy. Having revealed his terrible secret, Sarcophagus escorts the drugged guest to the torture chamber. When Sir Bosley comes to, he is greeted by the sight of his childhood sweetheart, Gwendoline Blushmore, lashed to the torture-wheel. Bodice-ripping in its literal sense and featuring a few good lines, but nowhere near as funny as it ought to be.

[dem bones]

A Whole New Ball Game: A hidden body-snatcher gem. The narrator is the elder half of a contemporary Burke & Hare outfit, supplying fresh corpses to heart surgeon Dr. Quentin 'Maggie' Maguire on a strictly no questioned asked basis. Our man learns that his partner, Hank, is planning to streamline the business by getting rid of the dead wood, namely him.

The Better Man: She is the last woman on earth and much choose her suitor from the only two surviving men. John is a balding, toothless old codger, while young, attractive Nine (aka Bill) claims to be an android. Who will convince her that he's the pick of the two?

Having reread Unholy Travesty earlier, strikes me that i was unduly harsh. Russell gets in some decent, affectionate jabs at the Gothic Romance and readers of a certain dubious persuasion - i.e., the notorious Vault globeswatch brigade - are sure to be won over by Gwen's "large, round, lovely orbs". i guess the reason for my initial disappointment was that i read it around the same time we were getting stuck into Don Glut's New Adventures Of Frankenstein series, and, for me, Glut's the master of the ultra-camp Gothic horror R. R. was attempting with Unholy Travesty. In The Devil's Mirror, Russell provides a brief introduction to the story: "In which the author, on a dare, undertakes to self-satirize his own canon of Gothic novellas ... published as Unholy Trinity." So, back when i've had a punch up with myself.

[Johnlprobert]

Oh goodness! This one's looking tempting to me!

[dem bones]

I think you'd enjoy enough of 'em to make the effort of tracking down a copy worthwhile, Lord P. He was certainly an ideas man, though as with the Sardonicus collection, for 'Give me horror or give me death!' merchants, The Devil's Mirror is a real lucky dip of a book. Many of the stories run to only three pages and you can't always tell what you're going to get from the title. Who could expect, for example, that A Whole New Ball Game would concern itself with modern day Resurrection men? Similarly, Quoth The Raven - Algernon De Witt of the Raven Society aggressively pursues a copy of Poe's Masque Of The Red Death in it's original magazine form - has all the trappings of a trad horror yarn but it's nothing of the sort.

Ghost Of A Chance: Occult author Austin Wade thinks he's finally hit upon a fool-proof method for convincing his harshest critic, Melville Stone, of the existence of ghosts. He will visit Stone at home and produce one before his very eyes! Of course, this will require the trifling inconvenience of blowing his own brains out, but needs must where these skeptic bastards are concerned!

Time Bomb: Corydon Kelley props his stripped down, beat up old convertible on piles of bricks and, one radical custom job later, has truly converted it - into a Time Machine. He sets the controls of the Chronomobile for the heart of Prehistory. Great inventor. Bloody clueless motorist.

Acres Of Bread: The Devil has upped his game, adopted a new moniker (The Pusher), the appearance of an acid rock guitarist and the lingo of a really irritating hippie. It falls to clued-in author Grant Hayward to teach him that he's still missing one vital trick if he wants to operate successfully in present day Los Angeles.

Skin Deep: One of R.R.'s best Sci-horrors, or so it seems to me. In deep space nothing is as it seems and the inhabitants of the million moons cannot be judged on their looks. Explorers Croydon and Stark are entirely reliant on the insect-like antennae probes on their helmets to discern whether, say, that beautiful nude woman on Moon 9 is really as welcoming as she appears, or if the swarm of mean looking black, furry, spidery creatures on Moon 10 actually intend them harm. When Croydon's probe is damaged, he has to rely on his older partner Stark, which is a shame for him as they've just had a major falling out ....

Without wishing to imply that these are in any way Jamesian, in its own perverse way The Fortunes Of Popowcer is Russell's very own Stories I Have Tried To Write. Four incomplete adventures of the hero, each of them ending an infuriating cliffhanger, though it could be argued that the first and fourth don't really need any more done to them. The Mom Bomb sees Popowcer investigate a top secret bunker under Death Valley where US, Russian and Chinese scientists have developed the ultimate birth control method. Throw a switch on the Mom Bomb and it renders the entire world population sterile. Deactivate it, and we're all busy making babies again with no harm done. The Return Of Popowcer: Dial Nine Three Seven. Why does Popowcer's business partner keel over and die? And why does his corpse have the look of something centuries dead? The Secret Of Popowcer: The Hunchback Of The Opera: This particular short is building just so until Russell yanks the plug! Rinaldi, the great baritone, his talent scuppered by a deformed, twisted body, will be restricted to a very few stage roles unless he compose his own opera. Last but not least, The Perils Of Popowcer: Licked Before You Start: Popowcer, stripped naked, tied to a chair, wired up to a polygraph machine and at the mercy of Sonya Gorchenkov. Flex one muscle and he'll be injected with a syringe-full of cyanide. The shapely Sonya is in a saucy mood.