|
Post by dem bones on May 23, 2011 19:09:28 GMT
Stephen Jones and David Sutton (eds) - Dark Terrors # 5 (Gollancz, 2000) Bill Sienkewicz Stephen Jones and David Sutton - Introduction
Christopher Fowler - At Home in the Pubs of Old London Caitlín R. Kiernan - Valentia Richard Christian Matheson - Barking Sands Chaz Brenchley - Everything, in All the Wrong Order James Van Pelt - Savannah is Six Brian Hodge - Now Day Was Fled as the Worm Had Wished David J. Schow - Why Rudy Can't Read Ramsey Campbell - No Story in It by Graham Masterton - Witch-Compass Nicholas Royle - The Proposal C. Bruce Hunter - Changes Tanith Lee - The Abortionist's Horse (A Nightmare) Michael Marshall Smith - The Handover Roberta Lannes - Pearl Eric Brown - Beauregard Nancy Kilpatrick - Necromimicos Joel Lane - The Bootleg Heart Cherry Wilder - Saturday Gregory Frost - The Girlfriends of Dorian Gray Mary A. Turzillo - Bottle Babies Kim Newman - Going to Series Lisa Tuttle - Haunts Dennis Etchison - My Present Wife Melanie Tem - Alicia Brian Stableford - The Haunted Bookshop Mick Garris - Starfucker Gwyneth Jones - Destroyer of Worlds Peter Straub - The Geezers William B. Trotter - Honeysuckle Gahan Wilson - Final Departure David Case - Pelican Cay Had this from the library at the time and didn't get along with much of it at all, which possibly suggests my downer on contemporary horror had reached the point where i actually enjoyed hating it. 550 pages may be overgenerous - it's twice the size of the mighty Dark Terrors #1 - but then close on 100 are devoted to a magnificent David Case novella which likely planted the germ for Stephen Jones's Zombie Apocalypse extravaganza. We've visited Brian Stableford's anti-highlight The Haunted Bookshop - featuring a guest appearance from Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe - on the Badger Books thread - and personal favourites to date include: David Case - Pelican Cay: Biochemist Dr. Elston invites journalist Jack Harland to a remote island off the coast of Florida to leak details of a Government sponsored secret research program. Elston's pioneering work in chemical lobotomy holds huge appeal for the military and he's been 'encouraged' to develop it to worrying extremes, until he cultivates a highly contagious 'zombie' virus. When one of the infected volunteers (i.e., desperate convicts) escapes from the compound it's only a matter of time before the island community are reduced to a bunch of mindless cannibals. Harland, Sheriff Jerry Muldoon and his coastguard girlfriend Mary Carlyle are among the last survivors, but can they escape back to civilisation to whistle blow? Gets my vote for finest Case horror story this side of Fengriffen. Ace zombies ( "Yeah, we got him .... He was eating a dead dog."), a super-hostile pub ( The Red Walls), truly suspenseful lighthouse action and a number of memorable characters including Old One Eye Tate the small time smuggler and the sinister Larsen, ultra-sensitive head of security - if he'd only written this in the 'seventies it would be a made-for-NEL classic. Christopher Fowler - At Home In The Pubs Of Old London: The protagonist treats us to a crawl around 13 of the capital's boozers, rating their attributes, amenities and eccentricities. I found him a knowledgeable, interesting tour guide but it seems the girls and guy he chats up don't share this view as they're always falling asleep in the corner shortly before he leaves, never to regain consciousness ... This one made Best New Horror #12, just about the only story from that collection to excite me, and it's a great opener. Added bonus: you can tick off how many of the pubs you've drank in as you go along (six in my case). Ramsey Campbell - No Story In It: Jack Boswell, veteran author of pessimistic SF novels, finally has something to feel doom-laden about when he agrees to allow Quentin Sedgewick of Cassandra Press to reissue his entire back catalogue. Boswell's barely lives long enough to regret having encountered the small press as pitiful sales coupled with a grasping son-in-law combine to drive him over the edge. It was the splendid use of creepy shadows and several blackly humorous lines at expense of glorified vanity publishers that did it for me. Kim Newman - Going To Series: Tiny Chislehurst, a producer for Derek Leech's notorious Cloud 9 TV, is a man of creative genius. His inspired idea for the ultimate reality TV experience is the visionary It's A Madhouse. Take a religious fanatic, a sadistic ex-prison warden, a pyromaniac, an obnoxious gold-digger, a bimbo with an excruciating giggle and a wannabe Casanova, put 'em up in a house for a week, wind 'em up and watch 'em tear each other apart. His appalled staff set about the task of making it happen with commendable cynicism.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on May 24, 2011 9:27:21 GMT
a couple more; haven't found anything to dislike yet but it can only be a matter of time.
Graham Masterton - Witch-Compass: Paul Dennison returns to Connecticut from Libreville after a decade, having made and been fleeced of a multi-million dollar fortune by the corrupt Gabonese government. On his last night in Gabon he stops before Jonquil, an ancient beggar woman peddling her trinkets in the street. Jonquil gifts him a witch-compass, an infallible means of securing money, women, whatever takes his fancy. Happily for us Paul succumbs to temptation. A sexed-up (necrophilia, no less), gored-up variation on The Monkey's Paw ensues and it is bloody good fun, i can promise you that.
David J. Schow - Why Rudy Can't Read: Rudy and Teresa share a secret special ability - the power to read minds. Teresa's 'gift' is by far the more developed - Rudy can only read surface material which tends to lead him to wrong conclusions, particularly where Teresa is concerned. One fleeting sexy thought about another guy on her part and Rudy flies into a brutal rage. Love or no love, you wonder why she tolerates such abuse and it's a relief when Rudy finally conquers his demons (losing his power in the process) only for Teresa to realise she likes this benevolent version of her man even less. Read enough Schow and even lines like "He stuffed the panties in her mouth and anally raped her" tend to pass you by as, in much the same way mid-period Richard Laymon gets samey, you become used to his excesses. On the plus side, his are proper horror stories and you can't argue with a nasty ending.
Tanith Lee - The Abortionist's Horse (A Nightmare): In Alice Barterlow's day, shamed young women would send for her if they had an unwanted pregnancy to terminate and Alice fixed it that they'd never conceive again. Rarely seen, folk knew she was about when they heard the hooves of her knackered old nag clip-clopping on the street after dark. A century on and, mercifully, unmarried mothers are no longer quite as frowned upon, but nobody's told Alice. And now Naine is looking forward to the birth of a daughter, the result of a one night stand ...
|
|
|
Post by cauldronbrewer on Feb 20, 2013 22:06:33 GMT
Had this from the library at the time and didn't get along with much of it at all, which possibly suggests my downer on contemporary horror had reached the point where i actually enjoyed hating it. 550 pages may be overgenerous - it's twice the size of the mighty Dark Terrors #1 - but then close on 100 are devoted to a magnificent David Case novella which likely planted the germ for Stephen Jones's Zombie Apocalypse extravaganza. I bought this about half a year ago specifically to acquire a copy of Case's novella, but only got to reading it last week. Given my habit of reading books from cover to cover, I saved "Pelican Cay" for last. As of now I'm halfway through it, and it's fully living up to expectations--Case has a marvelous talent for using the novella form to develop a sense of dread from a clear-eyed, rationalist perspective. I couldn't find the Badger Books thread in which you discuss "Brian Stableford's anti-highlight The Haunted Bookshop." Do you remember what you didn't like about it? I enjoyed it as a sort of self-referential anti-ghost story, but I can see how those same qualities could be off-putting. Some thoughts on the ones already described above: Christopher Fowler - At Home In The Pubs Of Old London: Sadly, I haven't visited any of the pubs, seeing as how it's been 23 years since I set foot in London, and when I did I was a bit young for pubs. Ramsey Campbell - No Story In It: The dark humor about small presses is what I remember best about this one. Graham Masterton - Witch-Compass: I'll give Masterton this: his stories aren't dull. My gripe is that the potentially relatable hero turned nasty too quickly. Tanith Lee - The Abortionist's Horse (A Nightmare): Skillfully told, though not one of my favorite Lee stories--maybe because the subject matter is so unpleasant in a not-fun kind of way. As abortion-themed horror stories go, however, I vastly prefer it to F. Paul Wilson's "Buckets." Of the ones not mentioned above, I'd recommend Caitlín R. Kiernan's Valentia, a low-key tale about a truly ancient horror; Eric Brown's Beauregard, which might be described as cosmic horror-meets- Withnail and I (given that the author name-checks the film, it's hard not to imagine Richard E. Grant as the title character); and Mary A. Turzillo's Bottle Babies, a deranged mix of malicious faeries, orgone boxes, Skinner boxes, and the finer points of Williams syndrome.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 21, 2013 2:51:34 GMT
On the contrary, I'm very fond of The Haunted Bookshop for its affectionate celebration of Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe, but it really has little business featuring in a book called Dark Terrors. Thought I'd posted it in amongst all the Badger Books stuff, but turns out it's buried at foot of first entry here. I've not checked, but our lovely dark, dank, decrepit old pubs are closing at such an alarming rate, I'd be very surprised if all thirteen of those referenced by Chris Fowler are still ongoing concerns. To walk Whitechapel High Street is to fucking weep. Latest casualty, the aptly-named Grave Maurice, as featured in The Krays, Whitechapel and on front cover of Morrisey's Under The Influence album. It's now a Betting Shop, oh joy of joys. The rest are either Pizza Parlours or Fried Chicken huts. There's good stuff to be found in Dark Terrors #5 for sure - At Home In The Old Pubs ..., No Story In It (might come back to that one!) and Witch Compass for three - but I can't help but think of it as Pelican Cay with an abundance of bonus material. David Case's novella is outstanding.
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Feb 21, 2013 9:08:07 GMT
I've not checked, but our lovely dark, dank, decrepit old pubs are closing at such an alarming rate, I'd be very surprised if all thirteen of those referenced by Chris Fowler are still ongoing concerns. To walk Whitechapel High Street is to f**k**g weep. Latest casualty, the aptly-named Grave Maurice, as featured in The Krays, Whitechapel and on front cover of Morrisey's Under The Influence album. It's now a Betting Shop, oh joy of joys. The rest are either Pizza Parlours or Fried Chicken huts. Our local, The Foxhill, closed down a short time ago to become of all things a funeral parlour. One night last week while walking past its open door to the Chinese a few yards away I almost absent mindedly stepped in for a pint as I used to do. Only the fact that it looked far too posh stopped me!
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Feb 22, 2013 10:36:57 GMT
Our local, The Foxhill, closed down a short time ago to become of all things a funeral parlour. One night last week while walking past its open door to the Chinese a few yards away I almost absent mindedly stepped in for a pint as I used to do. Only the fact that it looked far too posh stopped me! If The Foxhill is AKA The Potter's Wheel, they're asking for a whole lot of trouble. What was it this time: the smoking ban, brewery charging extortionate rents or the sinister "rejuvenation of a deprived area" (i.e., back-door gentrification)? The 'Death to Yuppie Slime Barbies!' revival can't come soon enough ....
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Feb 22, 2013 11:34:26 GMT
Our local, The Foxhill, closed down a short time ago to become of all things a funeral parlour. One night last week while walking past its open door to the Chinese a few yards away I almost absent mindedly stepped in for a pint as I used to do. Only the fact that it looked far too posh stopped me! If The Foxhill is AKA The Potter's Wheel, they're asking for a whole lot of trouble. What was it this time: the smoking ban, brewery charging extortionate rents or the sinister "rejuvenation of a deprived area" (i.e., back-door gentrification)? The 'Death to Yuppie Slime Barbies!' revival can't come soon enough .... Sheer bloody incompetence, I'm sorry to say. It was taken over by a family who treated it as a family and friends party place. The last time I called in, only a week before it shut for good, they had no draught beers available, only cans. I walked out. As in most areas these days, pubs are dying around Oswaldtwistle, though few to become an undertakers! That's a cheerful sight on a block with an Indian, a Chinese, a traditional (and exceptionally good) fish & chip shop, sun tanning, a barbers, florists, antiques, books, newsagents, and a general second hand emporium, etc. The Foxhill was okay but it never rose to the heights of a Potters Wheel.
|
|