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Post by dem bones on Dec 19, 2010 11:10:13 GMT
so I popped back to the three years dead Vault Mk I to exhume Franklin Marsh's creepy classic, and was amazed and delighted to discover that David A. Sutton had posted the following on December 4th of this year! As it was obviously meant for our attention, i repost it here. I published an excellent overview of occult/psychic detectives written by Mike Ashley in 'Shadow: Fantasy Literature Review' in 1974, "Fighters of Fear: A Survey of the Psychic Investigator in Fiction". I reprinted a comprehensively updated version by Mike in the 20th anniversary souvenir edition of Shadow, 'Voices from Shadow'. This was published in 1994 by Shadow Publishing and Airgedlamh Publications. If anyone is interested, copies are still available, if you contact me I'll let you have the full details.
David A. Sutton
David was writing in response to this listing of Occult Detectives, originally posted by Ripper (Sep 19th, 2005, later slightly fleshed out by franklin marsh, steve, severance, the monker, Hubert, demonik. |
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Post by andydecker on Dec 19, 2010 20:53:56 GMT
Hmm ...
Edward D. Hoch - Simon Ark
L. Fanthorpe - Val Steadman & La Noire
Paul McAuley - Mr. Carlyle
Anyone else?
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 19, 2010 21:07:17 GMT
A fairly obscure one is Max Rittenberg's Dr Xavier Wycherley, "psychologist and mental healer." Only a few of the stories are supernatural. but he is very much like an occult detective. The stories were collected in The Mind Reader. Also, Ron Goulart's Max Kearney: "People with serious supernatural problems probably still consult John Silence or Carnacki. Max Kearney usually gets the lighter, sometimes screwball, occult cases to work on. problems like: a tract house with a gnome under it, a young man who turns into an elephant on national holidays, a television set haunted by a ghostly guitar-playing uncle etc."  Contents Please Stand By Uncle Arly Help Stamp out Chesney McNamara's Fish Kearney's Last Case Breakaway House The Ghost Patrol The Strawhouse Pavilion Fillin the Blank. In Australia we have Rick Kennett's Ernie Pine, who appeared in G&S and All Hallows etc. Ella Scrymsour's Shiela Crerar - in Ash tree Press, Shiela Crerar, Psychic Investigator. Uel Key's Arnold Rhymer, in The Broken Fang and Yellow Death. John Nicholson's Costello, Psychic Investigator. In novels there's also Van Helsing, James Herbert's David Ash, Carl Kolchak, and Gees. |
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 19, 2010 21:55:52 GMT
Oops! Has anyone mentioned Mark Valentine's Connoisseur? One of my favourites. And MP Shiel's chap, or does he not count because not supernatural?
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Post by cw67q on Dec 20, 2010 8:22:17 GMT
People here might be interested in this yahoo discussion group: groups.yahoo.com/group/OCCULTDETECTION/?yguid=160738518I joined it when it formed up a while back but have hardly ever posted and not read the posts for a while. It is a freindly and well run group though and from popping over this morning still seemes to be active (last post dec 17th). These guys were trying to build and maintain a comprehensive list of occult detectives but were including non-written media such as tv and films. Whether or not to include consistently non-supernatural stuff was an issue of controversy. There used to be a nice website dedicated to Occult Detectives, but I can't find it this morning, I might try again later. Cheers - Chris |
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 20, 2010 9:23:28 GMT
Looks like an interesting group - I see Woolrich was going to post some Wycherley stories, though I'm not sure if he did.
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Post by Dr Strange on Dec 20, 2010 10:31:54 GMT
I read something in the occult detective genre years ago that I have never been able to track down again - I am talking the best part of 30 years ago (I think) so details are sketchy, but it was comtemporary at that time (early-to-mid 80s), I think set in UK, it was a novel but part of a series (not the first one), and I don't really remember the story... it had something to do with some sort of demon-worshipping cult based out in the sticks somewhere I think (for some reason I keep thinking it may have had something to do with a bull?) and the hero used ritual magic techniques to fight against that sort of thing. Anyway what I do remember is just the few odd details about the protagonist - like him drawing a pentagram behind himself in a tunnel (I think) so that an evil spirit couldn't follow him, and I seem to remember something about there being charms buried in jars around his house that kept evil spirits out... I know, very vague, but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas?
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 20, 2010 11:03:12 GMT
Not Robert Faulcon/Robert Holdstock's Night Hunter series? If not, it's still a bloody good series, if memory serves.
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Post by Dr Strange on Dec 20, 2010 11:23:22 GMT
Not Robert Faulcon/Robert Holdstock's Night Hunter series? If not, it's still a bloody good series, if memory serves. Brilliant, James - that's it! And having looked through the covers and descriptions on the Fantastic Fiction site, I can even say that it was this one I read - www.fantasticfiction.com/h/robert-holdstock/shrine.htm(That seems to be a horse, not a bull - but the bit about the tunnels was right!) In all these years I never connected that book with Holdstock - though I have read Mythago Wood (though it must have been a long time after). Anyway, I only ever read that one "Night Hunter" - but the fact it has stuck in my brain the way it has suggests it made quite an impression. The only problem now is... knowing what the series is makes me want to be able to read them all! |
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Post by andydecker on Dec 20, 2010 19:00:52 GMT
Hey, one of those rare US Thole covers. Nice. I never did like Goulart as a writer, I dónt know why. Maybe because I thought is "humourous" Sf so terrible dull and his Pulps by the number? As far as occult investigators go, there also is Robert Weinberg´s Sid Taine and Alex Warner. And Lovecraft´s character Inspector Legrasse as featured in the tales by C.J.Henderson. Lin Carter - Anton Zarnak (which I never read one story) And of course Holdstock´s Night Hunter Dan Brady. (I really have to re-read this next year) G.N.Smith - Mark Sabbat |
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 20, 2010 20:39:37 GMT
I've got these, but I think there's a couple more:   |
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 20, 2010 20:45:10 GMT
I agree about Goulart - sometimes humourous is just silly. Sometimes it's okay - was it Kornbluth, or someone like that, who made a career out of it.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 20, 2010 21:10:27 GMT
I love Goulart's Vampirella novelisations even if they are on the patchy side, but have struggled with what little else I've read of his work bar the non-fiction Cheap Thriils: An Informal History Of The Pulps, a very readable personal take on the evolution of these often fabulously lurid magazines, useful, too, for it's mini-interviews with 'Russell Gray', Frederick C. Davis, Richard Wormster, Paul Ernst and Ken Crossen, editor of Detective Fiction Weekly. Oops! Has anyone mentioned Mark Valentine's Connoisseur? One of my favourites. And MP Shiel's chap, or does he not count because not supernatural? Speaking of Mark Valentine, he introduces some more names for the list in The Black Veil And Other Tales of Supernatural Sleuths (Wordsworth, 2008). i've not made that big a dent in it yet, but the John Cooling story features Dr. Morrow of the School of Comparative Mythology at St. Edmundsbury, while Rosalie Parker brings us bang up to date with 'Spirit Solutions', a mysterious online "remote detective agency." |
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Post by Dr Strange on Dec 21, 2010 9:51:19 GMT
... I think there's a couple more The others are No.5: The Hexing and No.6: The Labyrinth. I'd completely forgotten the plot around his wife having been abducted by devil-worshippers (the one I read was in the middle of the series, so it was probably just "background" to me)... |
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Post by Dr Terror on Dec 21, 2010 14:20:28 GMT
Brian Lumley - Titus Crow
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