Your best of 2013 as they happen

[dem bones]

Our end of year retrospectives don't work as they should, and that likely because, by the time it comes to compiling them, some of us have forgotten much of what we read over the course of twelve months. So perhaps we should try noting down those stand-out novels, novellas, short stories, articles & Co., as we read/ rediscover them while they're still fresh in our mind?

Here's personal January picks to date:

John Llewellyn Probert - The Nine Deaths Of Dr. Valentine: Taking his cue from Vincent Price horrors films, the eponymous surgeon kills off those of his profession he holds responsible for the death of his daughter even though they were entirely blameless.

Joseph O. Kesselring - King Cobra: Fab example of the tropical gothic weird melodramas so beloved of 'thirties pulp authors.

Graham King - Killtest: Rollerball repackaged as an extreme S&M version of It's A Knockout.

[dem bones]

Further inductions to the hall of shame:

Allison V. Harding - The Underbody. A burrowing corpse craves company of infants. Somehow even creepier the second time around.

Paul Meloy & Gary Greenwood - Loose: (from Terror Tales of East Anglia). Eastern European migrants introduce a new horror to the fens.

Roger Johnson - The Watchman: (From Terror Tales of East Anglia via The Best Of Ghosts & Scholars). Dead hideous ten-foot statue, destroyed in bomb blast, takes unkindly to mid-'eighties cat-burglar at St. Michael & All Saints, Stockbridge.

[cauldronbrewer]

Jan 30, 2013 11:12:03 GMT dem bones said:

Further inductions to the hall of shame:

Allison V. Harding - The Underbody. A burrowing corpse craves company of infants. Somehow even creepier the second time around.

This one has lingered on in my memory. I'd still love to see someone publish a collection of Harding's work.

My best of January 2013 . . .

COLLECTIONS: When the end of the year rolls around, I expect to list Dorothy K. Haynes's Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch as one of my favorite collections of 2013.

NOVELS: Mark Hansom's Master of Souls, which I rate a notch above his Sorcerer's Chessmen, particularly the tense opening sequence set at sea; Frank Walford's lunatic Twisted Clay, which I'm three-fourths of the way through--I can't believe no one has reprinted it in decades.

CHILDREN'S/YOUNG ADULT ANTHOLOGIES: I liked Barbara Ireson's Spooky Stories 6 enough to be on the lookout for other installments in the series. She has good taste: Two stories by Joan Aiken, plus one apiece by Alison Prince, Pamela Hansford Johnson, Rosemary Timperly, and Philippa Pearce.

SHORT STORIES: Dorothy K. Haynes's “Up, Like a Good Girl!” (the best of a good bunch in Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch); A. M. Burrage's “One Who Saw”; Marghanita Laski's “The Tower”; Fritz Leiber's “Lie Still, Snow White”; Marion Hough's "Spider Woman"; and Mary Fortune's “The White Maniac,” which I just read an hour ago in the James Doig-edited Australian Ghost Stories.

NONFICTION BOOKS: St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost, and Gothic Writers, edited by David Pringle; The Shudder Pulps, by Robert Kenneth Jones. I have Mr. Doig to thank for recommending the former and Dem to thank for recommending the latter.

FILMS: [REC], The Innkeepers, Shutter (the original Thai version), and The Woman in Black, in that order. I also loved the non-horror The Social Network (which at least includes a sequence scored with "The Hall of the Mountain King") and Argo (about a real-life CIA plot to smuggle six Americans out of post-revolutionary Iran under the cover of filming a screenplay based on a Roger Zelazny novel).

[jamesdoig]

Anyone bought Joshi's Unutterable Horror yet? Looks good, but the price is a bit steep for me at the moment.

[mcannon]

Demonik:
>Further inductions to the hall of shame:
Allison V. Harding - The Underbody. A burrowing corpse craves company of infants. Somehow even creepier the second time around.>

Cauldronbrewer:
>This one has lingered on in my memory. I'd still love to see someone publish a collection of Harding's work.>


Same here. Given the extent to which “Weird Tales” has been strip-mined over the decades, it’s hard to believe that there’s never been a collection of Alison V Harding’s fiction. According to one of the few articles I’ve ever found on her (http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/blog/?p=7210), she was WT’s most prolific female contributor, with 36 stories between 1934-54, and was actually a New York lawyer by the name of Jean Mulligan.

I wonder whether the lack of a collection might not have been particularly due to difficulties in obtaining permissions? But then, her work’s appeared in a number of anthologies over the decades, so presumably there must be some way of clearing publishing rights.

If there can be a collection of GG Pendarves’ work, why not Alison V Harding? Followed, of course, by “The Best of Bassett Morgan’s Brain-Transplant Stories”……

MarkC

[cauldronbrewer]

Jan 31, 2013 8:43:46 GMT mcannon said:

I wonder whether the lack of a collection might not have been particularly due to difficulties in obtaining permissions? But then, her work’s appeared in a number of anthologies over the decades, so presumably there must be some way of clearing publishing rights.

If there can be a collection of GG Pendarves’ work, why not Alison V Harding? Followed, of course, by “The Best of Bassett Morgan’s Brain-Transplant Stories”……

My hunch is that it's less about the permissions and more about the absence of a market, plus the perception even in Weird Tales circles that she was a hack.

I would buy that Bassett Morgan collection. I would also buy a "best of" Greye La Spina collection. My wish list for a Margeret St. Clair collection is here. And I own the G. G. Pendarves collection (there was supposed to be a companion volume that's never seen the light of day)!

[dem bones]

Jan 31, 2013 14:57:09 GMT cauldronbrewer said:

My hunch is that it's less about the permissions and more about the absence of a market, plus the perception even in Weird Tales circles that she was a hack.

Surely the majority of Weird Tales' most celebrated authors were hacks? Robert E. Howard certainly was, and that's not prevented his every last semicolon being recycled over and over. Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Hugh B. Cave ... they'd all write for whatever paying market was available. There was a depression going on, after all.

The above posts convince me that this is definitely a better way of going about it than waiting until the end of the year. Haven't read Fritz Leiber's Lie Still, Snow White, but share Mr. Brewer's sdmiration for the A. M. Burrage, Dorothy K Haynes, Marion Hough, Mary Fortune and Marghanita Laski stories, every one a classic of their kind.

Terror Tales of East Anglia is shaping up as a best anthology contender. Five stories in, five hits, the latest being:

Paul Finch - Wicken Fen: Essex boys fall foul of impossibly gorgeous marshland girls on a weekend boating jaunt.

Simon Bestwick - Shuck: The sometimes devil dog, sometimes monkey, defies black magician, adopts one of life's punchbags as human equal partner in destruction.

James Doig - Wolferton Hall: Young medieval scholar learns more than he ought about the Throgmorton family curse. This more in keeping with James' Ghosts & Scholars work than his delightfully gross contribution to our most recent advent calendar.

If you're after a trashy, Satan corrupts convent, horror pulp romp, John Tigges' Garden Of The Incubus will see you alright on the evidence of the first 170 pages. Warning: may include bad sex.

[dem bones]

These two from East Anglian Tales Of Terror

Reggie Oliver - The Spooks of Shellborough: Retired MI5 spooks in golf course reunion with red haired guilty secret.

Steve Duffy - The Marsh Warden: Pub landlord disappointingly benign, but otherwise impeccable tale of Norfolk hostelry with plague pit for a beer garden.

Anna Taborska - Cut!: Blackly comic film-crews-in-peril short (from The Screaming Book Of Horror).

[uncredited] - The Haunted Library: Strip from Misty annual, 1984. According to the fab Misty Comic site, it was originally published in School Friend annual 1973, and if anyone would know, my money is on they of the cavern of dreams.

Best TV:

"Unhand her, you brutes! unhand her this minute!"

Midsomer Murders on Hammer Horror in Death And The Divas episode: Ripper Street (episode 5 was another stormer): Utopia: Dr. Henrik Hansen's Swedish Jaunt in Holby City. Reruns of Whitechapel series 3 on ITV3.

Most nauseating thing I have ever seen in my life (Vol 17: entry # 18, 576): Robert Lindsay in that f**k**g Sky TV ad.

RIP:
Nic 'Mozart' Potter, Van Der Graaf bassist. (died Jan 16th, 2013)
Reg 'One, two, a-one, two, three, fo .... Yer doing it fuckin' wrong!' Presley , legendary Troggs frontman, saucer-head and crop circle enthusiast. (died yesterday, Feb. 4th, 2013)

[dem bones]

Mo' better horror ...

Sydney J. Bounds - Plague Pit: Why it's never a good idea to build a medical centre above one. (Phil Harbottle (ed.), Fantastic Adventures 13)

E. F. Benson - The House With The Brick Kiln: Ghost of a maniacal artist re-enacts his grisly crime. Perhaps one of the stories M. R. James had in mind when he tempered his praise for Benson's work with a cautionary "though to my mind he sins occasionally by stepping over the line of legitimate horridness." (Night Terrors)

There's no duff story in East Anglian Tales Of Terror. Another two that pressed this reader's buttons.

Gary Fry - Double Space: Personalise that email with a terrible death curse!

Christopher Harman - Deep Water: Is the Seagrim MS on Celine's computer (A) a suicide note: (B) a children's short story: (C) a Black Magic spell visiting death on her cheating husband: (D) All/ none of the above.

Very well done to Mr. Finch and all the contributors.

Non-fiction.
Philip Harbottle - Remembering Syd Bounds: A touching, anecdote-laden celebration of the much loved pulp idol. (Fantastic Adventures 13)

[Jojo Lapin X]

The first sentence of "The House with the Brick-Kiln" manages to mention no less than three of the four cardinal directions. I think it is meant as a joke of some kind.

[dem bones]

"Impeachment, impeachment, impeachment and the return of George bleeding Best. Bestie. Turning out for Dunstable Town and beating Manchester United 3-2. I've got a smile on my face and the radio on as I drive, a smile on my face until I see him, Bestie, by the side of the road, larger than life, any life ...

His head full of demons, his own throat cut ....

To sell them Brylcreem. Double Diamond beer and pork sausages.

They hate flair around here. Hate and f**k**g loathe it. Drag it out into the street and kick it in the guts, kill it and hang it from the posts for all to mock and see, from the motorway and the railway, from the factories and the fields, the houses and the hills ...

Elland Road. Leeds, Leeds, Leeds -

Yorkshire Nineteen Seventy-Four ....."

David Peace - The Damned United: Ill-conceived appointment of Brian Clough as successor to Don Revie, his arch nemesis at Leeds United, makes for the football marriage forged in Hell and one extraordinary "English Fairy Story." If The Fall's Kicker Conspiracy were a novel, it would be this one. Brilliant.

Seabury Quinn - Suicide Chapel: Was in two minds whether or not to re-read this as some stories just don't have the same clout the second time around, but Suicide Chapel remains among my top ten de Grandin adventures by virtue of it's sheer nastiness.

Four from The Screaming Book Of Horror (there'll be at least another three because i've read 'em: just haven't written the notes).

John Llewellyn Probert - Christenings Can Be Dangerous: A case of unrequited love gone bitter and twisted. Witchcraft and fat spiders. Think M. R. James' The Ash-Tree on hallucinogens and you're getting warm.

Kate Farrell - Helping Mummy: An old favourite given a new ... spin.

Reginald Oliver - What Shall We Do About Barker?: Macabre sex comedy. A glorious throwback to the 'I ♥ Kinky Classics' school circa May Sinclair's The Nature Of The Evidence.

Paul Finch - The Christmas Toys: While the family attend a church function, the festive decorations turn vigilante. Bad news for a pair of career burglars.

[dem bones]

Craig Herbertson - The Iron Cross: Wilhelm Muller's macabre practical joke at his Nazi brother's expense pays posthumous dividends. N.B. A word to the wise. If Fanantino's daughter invites you to one of her father's parties, make your excuses. Don't ask me why, because I don't know. Just .... trust me.

David A. Riley - Old Grudge Ender: US author realises there's a new The Amityville Horror to be had from Edgebottom's dark history of violence, witchcraft and black magic, commits fatal mistake of making his intentions known in The Potter's Wheel ....

E. F. Benson - Roderick's Story: Poignant, optimistic, plain nice. In short, just about everything I would normally dislike in a ghost story. There's even a deathbed miracle, for crying out loud.

Gloomy sundae's soulmate of the month: Hoodie girl with Alsation, stalking the streets at night, seeking out next random victim in current British Red Cross advert.

"I am the fire that leaves you homeless .... I am the boiled sweet stuck in your child's throat .... I'm the reason you need a wheelchair. The flood that leaves you stranded. The empty house when you return from the hospital. I am a crisis. And I don't care who you are."

(click on picture to play video, or not as case may be)

Shame that Red Cross have signed up to the Id monster's slave labour scheme, though.

[dem bones]

The rest of February's dishonourable mentions

Shorts: E. F. Benson - The Wishing Well: A bachelor in peril classic, featuring one of EFB's most hideous spectres and not a golf club in sight. Girl on hideous corpse action comes as unexpected bonus.

Anon - Voodoo (Misty Annual, 1984): Unpleasant girl gets more than she bargained for when she steals lump of malevolent modelling clay from old Miss Fiske, Brinkley Green's resident sculptress and voodoo adept. Read here.

Steve Fisher - Satan's Faceless Henchmen (Ace Mystery May 1936): Facially disfigured mad scientists adopt monk fancy dress, embark on career in corpse-raising and blackmail. Soon-to-be-weds fall foul of their scheme. You really can't go wrong, can you? Read here:

Collection: Night Terrors: The Ghost Stories of E. F. Benson.

Novel: L. Ron Hubbard - Fear: Prof. Lowry ruins his tweeds, loses his hat and realises there are for hours of his recent life he can't account for. What can he have been up to?

TV: Ripper Street. Missing you already.

R.I.P.: Richard Briers.

[dem bones]

latest batch:

Favourite shorts revisited:

Three from Anthony Masters' excellent Cries Of Terror:

J. D. Beresford - The Misanthrope: He's not posing. He's not adopted it to mask fact that nobody likes him. H avoids his fellow man out of sheer necessity.

John Keir Cross - "Music When Soft Voices Die ...": A cuckold develops bad case of bongo fury. Wife displeased with new boob job.

C. M. Eddy - The Loved Dead: Over-zealous mortuary assistant rogers anything without a pulse.

A pair of pulp romps from 'Carlos Cassaba's rivals of the triffids selection, Roots Of Evil:

Manly Wade Wellman - Come Into My Parlor: Manly's botanical pursuits deliver him into the clutches of the Gardinel, Man-eating plant and master of disguises.

Margaret St. Clair - The Gardener: An interplanetary arborcide receives his ghastly comeuppance.

Favourite shorts new (to me):

Two from the recent Screaming Book Of Horror:

Bernard Taylor - One Of The Family: His first visit to England, so why not look up his parents' relations? It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Charlie Higson - Dementia: E. F. Benson's The Friend In The Garden once helped me cope with a bereavement. Dementia just rips the wound raw. All questions, no answers. Comic touches ultimately murdered by sheer weight of subject matter.

Single author collection:

E. F. Benson - More Spook Stories.

Novel

Donald E Glut - New Adventures Of Frankenstein #3: Bones Of Frankenstein:

Non-fiction

Paperback Fanatic #25: You can't really go wrong with a Weird Tales special, but there's no guarantee it will look as gorgeous as this one. Stand-out contributions from Ramsey Campbell, Jim Walker, Graham Andrews & editor Justin Marriott.

[cauldronbrewer]

Mar 15, 2013 13:39:58 GMT dem bones said:

Manly Wade Wellman - Come Into My Parlor: Manly's botanical pursuits deliver him into the clutches of the Gardinel, Man-eating plant and master of disguises.

Margaret St. Clair - The Gardener: An interplanetary arborcide receives his ghastly comeuppance.

I love both of these stories (no big shock there, I'm sure). Wellman was excellent at creating pseudo-folklore; those gardinels appear in other works of his, as well.