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Post by dem bones on Aug 15, 2013 13:30:55 GMT
Pamela Lonsdale (ed.) - Spooky (Thames TV-Magnum, 1984) Jennie Howarth (from a story by Paula Milne) - The Exorcism of Amy
Jane Bollowood - In a Dark, Dark Box...
R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Ghostly Earl
Maggie Wadey - War Games with Caroline
Leon Garfield - The Restless Ghost
David Hopkins - The Danny Roberts Show
Vivien Alcock - The Rivals Blurb: STORIES OF THE SUPERNATURAL
Crusading spirits, righting wrongs; warning spirits, averting disaster; inescapable spirits which, once unleashed, cannot be set to rest.
Here are seven stories which explore the idea that there is more to our world than we can reliably see. There are other realities which, when conditions are right, affect our own...
Do not read these stories alone, late at night, in a remote house with no-one else about!
This exciting and imaginative collection has grown from the Thames Television series, Spooky. Leading dramatists and novelists, among them paula Milne, Leon Garfield and David Hopkins, have contributed original, unforgettable stories guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your chair!David Hopkins - The Danny Roberts Show: Thirty-something Roberts, "the most popular man on radio," is the patron saint of the bedsit-land lonely-hearts, lending a sympathetic ear to their problems throughout the night. Everyone at Radio Summit knows he's a bullying creep, none more-so than his young assistant, Alice, and Vernon the security guard. Tonight Roberts is even more obnoxious than usual on account of an argument with his girlfriend, so he's in no mood to be messed around by a husky-voiced mystery caller threatening "punishment and retribution." Vivien Alcock - The Rivals: Young John Pearce laughs when the Milkman tells him that the gloomy, dark old house next door is haunted. Then he meets a pretty girl playing in the garden. John is awkward around girls because they are all stupid, they call him "Four-eyes" and laugh at his studious ways, but Lucy Wilkins is .... different, at least until he makes a joke about her "haunted" house, whereupon Lucy throws a frightful tantrum that he would dare laugh about such horrible things. To make amends, John volunteers to spend the night in the upper room, where the phantom of a murdered woman is said to walk during a full moon. Maggie Wadey - War Games with Caroline: Fourteen year old Kevin has been given detention by humourless music teacher Mr. Lilly for reading War comics in class. As Kevin sulks over his essay, an old woman walks into the classroom. Mrs Rawley taught at the school forty years ago during World War II and has been invited to give tomorrow's Founders Day speech. As Mr. Lilly, glad to have someone to suck up to, takes her to the head, a strange girl walks in on Kevin, begging his help. Caroline speaks frightfully proper English and she's wearing some kind of vintage school uniform get up. They both agree that it's October 14th, but she seems to think it's 1944, that Britain are still fighting it out with that beastly Hitler! Caroline has been sent out of class for disrupting the girls because she's insistent something awful is going to happen. And that's when they hear the distant hum of the Doodle-bug ... One I made earlier (it's from his Terror By Night collection) R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Ghostly Earl: The 250 years dead Charles Henry Fitzroy Carruthers, Eighth Earl of Rillington, befriends Clare, a precocious little girl whose parents have just inherited the castle. Financially distressed, they're on the verge of selling the property to slimy Mr. Wilkinson unless they can come up with £35,000 in a hurry. The Earl recalls that his father hid a treasure chest in one of the secret rooms. Can he find it in time to prevent his beloved home from being converted into a ghastly theme pub? RCH at his jolliest, it reads like an adaptation of a Shiver & Shake strip.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 17, 2013 17:39:44 GMT
Jennie Howarth & Paula Milne - The Exorcism of Amy: Amy, an orphan, has been passed from pillar to post on account of her "disruptive and destructive" behavior, and now Elizabeth's parents have the dubious privilege of looking after her. Amy is not quite the monster they feared. Quiet and introverted, she is no trouble during the day, but, once she settles down in bed for the night, 'Amelia,' her bullying, not so imaginary friend, takes over. Matters come to a head at Elizabeth's thirteenth birthday party, a fancy dress do, which Amelia gatecrashes in an eyeball-searing orange rat costume. The disgraced Amy, faced with being sent back to the Orphanage, confides in her cousin. It wasn't she who trashed the decorations, vandalised the room and pushed Elizabeth into the jelly and trifle, it was the demonic Amelia. Elizabeth, having squared the "misunderstanding" with her parents, resolves to rid Amy of the anti-social entity. Arguably the pick of a strong collection. With the possible exception of The Danny Roberts Show which, unusually for a children's ghost story book, has an all-adult cast, none of the Spooky tales would have been out of place in Mary Danby's The Green Ghost & Others. This next is effective, too. Jane Bollowood - In a Dark, Dark Box...: A boy staying at his Granny's gloomy cottage in the woods is tormented by the dripping spectre of his drowned father after the old girl reads him a creepy bedtime poem. The following morning, Gran assures him that there are no such thing as ghosts, he's been dreaming is all, but when he investigates the locked trunk in the cupboard ,,,, Just Leon Garfield's cantankerous sexton vs. ghostly drummer boy outing to go (Peter Haiining would later resurrect it for Scary!)
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 6, 2013 17:26:44 GMT
Here's the cover of the 1985 Prentice-Hall edition: |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 9, 2013 20:12:51 GMT
Jennie Howarth & Paula Milne - The Exorcism of Amy: Amy, an orphan, has been passed from pillar to post on account of her "disruptive and destructive" behavior, and now Elizabeth's parents have the dubious privilege of looking after her. Amy is not quite the monster they feared. Quiet and introverted, she is no trouble during the day, but, once she settles down in bed for the night, 'Amelia,' her bullying, not so imaginary friend, takes over. Matters come to a head at Elizabeth's thirteenth birthday party, a fancy dress do, which Amelia gatecrashes in an eyeball-searing orange rat costume. The disgraced Amy, faced with being sent back to the Orphanage, confides in her cousin. It wasn't she who trashed the decorations, vandalised the room and pushed Elizabeth into the jelly and trifle, it was the demonic Amelia. Elizabeth, having squared the "misunderstanding" with her parents, resolves to rid Amy of the anti-social entity. Arguably the pick of a strong collection. With the possible exception of The Danny Roberts Show which, unusually for a children's ghost story book, has an all-adult cast, none of the Spooky tales would have been out of place in Mary Danby's The Green Ghost & Others. I had the exact same reaction to this one, even before reading your comments. It would have fit well in one of the Nightmares anthologies, as well. |
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Post by dem bones on Sept 11, 2013 6:59:34 GMT
Glad you thought so CB, as i had you in mind when reading Spooky. All the stories bar The Rivals were dramatised for a TV series i never heard of - no surprise there - and reviews suggest the radio story featuring Nicholas Ball in cracking up mode was a highlight. Prefer the cover artwork for the Prentice-Hall edition. Is it a hardcover?
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Sept 11, 2013 23:09:02 GMT
It is a hardcover. After finishing it, I still think that "The Exorcism of Amy" is the pick of the bunch.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on May 13, 2014 18:26:00 GMT
Glad you thought so CB, as i had you in mind when reading Spooky. All the stories bar The Rivals were dramatised for a TV series i never heard of - no surprise there - and reviews suggest the radio story featuring Nicholas Ball in cracking up mode was a highlight. Ah, that's 'Dramarama: Spooky', the supernatural themed first series of the long-running kids' drama anthology series from ITV, and very much in the mold of the earlier antho series 'Shadows'. The series also had the Alan Garner story, 'The Keeper', about a couple doing a spot of ghost-hunting in an old gamekeeper's lodge. Very atmospheric. Both it and 'The Danny Roberts Show' - the two episodes without any kid characters - could easily have been part of an anthology series for grown-ups. The full series of 'Dramarama: Spooky' (plus the three series of 'Shadows') are out on DVD from Network. |
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