Black Book fans alert! Pulp Horror's 3 & 4, Sleazy 4, more.

[dem bones]

An amazing 'just in' from Justin at Paperback Fanatic.

Paul Mudie (Provisional cover pending artist's approval).

Three new publications
On 1st July I’ll be going to print with three new issues - The Sleazy Reader 4, and issues 3 and 4 of Pulp Horror. As ever, I’ll be matching print run to orders, so place your order at the on-line shop by then if you want to be guaranteed of receiving a copy. Link to the on-line shop below. The prices are £8 per issue UK, £10 per issue Europe/North America, £11 for Aust/Japan. Please feel free to post on social media, blogs and web-sites. Spread the word!

London Paperback Fair
I’ll definitely be there - hope you will be as well as I think it’s going to be a cracker! (see HERE for details.)

The Paperback Fanatic 35
Is in progress, and will include a ‘Visual Guide to New English Library’. I’ve scanned literally hundreds upon hundreds of covers for this issue, so it’s shaping up nicely. I would like to get it ready for the London fair, but as ever, time is my enemy.

Men of Violence 4
Is slowly taking shape, so expect further announcements over Autumn/Fall.

Cheers.

Justin

Have seen the roughs and, as you will have already surmised, The Black Book's Of Horror feature prominently in Pulp Horror 3 to the tune of a rare - and revealing - interview with editor Mr. Charles Black, and Pan's Children, Justin's appraisal of volumes 7-10 inclusive.

Pre-order via the Fanatic Megastore, or email thepaperbackfanaticAsky.com (replace A with @)

Be sure to contact Justin by the end of the month, preferably sooner!

[Johnlprobert]

Cheers for the heads up, Mr D! All three titles ordered!

[dem bones]

Jun 9, 2016 20:27:33 GMT Johnlprobert said:

Cheers for the heads up, Mr D! All three titles ordered!

You are beyond super, yer honour!

If memory serves - to be fair, it doesn't usually - the Black Books are the first contemporary series to feature in a House of Fanatic publication. Reaction from regular subscribers should be interesting.

[David A. Riley]

Jun 10, 2016 10:20:21 GMT dem bones said:

Jun 9, 2016 20:27:33 GMT Johnlprobert said:

Cheers for the heads up, Mr D! All three titles ordered!

You are beyond super, yer honour!

If memory serves - to be fair, it doesn't usually - the Black Books are the first contemporary series to feature in a House of Fanatic publication. Reaction from regular subscribers should be interesting.

Ordered my copies too. As a bonus, I was so impressed with Justin's ordering pages that I set about getting some Paypal buttons on my own Parallel Universe site so that, for the first time, people can order our books directly from us rather than through amazon. Thanks, Justin, for the inspiration!

[dem bones]

Procrastinate no longer! These goes to printers end of month and you will want them. I tell you this as the only person in history you can trust. Pre-order via the Fanatic Megastore

[franklinmarsh]

The Black Books section is the tip of the iceberg with issue 3, as there are many other items, including Justin on Charles Birkin. It's a shame that the other Charles (Black) is such a shy, retiring, self-deprecating fellow, as the Black Book series, and Black Ceremonies, are really something to be proud of, as are Justin's championing of the wild, wild world of the paperback.

[dem bones]

Sorry it's late. As usual, will post the covers & contents first, review-of-sorts to follow - and there is plenty for read of this forum to get their teeth into. Great to see Charles and his horrific creations getting some extensive coverage at long last.

Justin Marriott (ed.) - Pulp Horror 3 (July, 2016)

Justin Marriott - Pulpit of Horror
Justin Marriott - The Monster Club: An Interview with Ryan Cagel, co-founder of Valancourt Books
Justin Marriott - Charles Birkin, Master Of The Conte Cruel
Will Erickson - Everybody Knows That The Bird is The Word: Stephen Gregory's The Cormorant
Justin Marriott - Journey To The Centre Of Cthulthu: Basil Copper's The Great White Space
Will Erickson - Lots Of Water Under The Bridge: Michael McDowell's Cold Moon Over Babylon
Justin Marriott - Weird Science: The Genre-hopping books of John Blackburn
Will Erickson - She Killed Your Baby Today: Bernard Taylor's The Godsend
Justin Marriott - Black Ceremonies: An Interview with Charles Black, editor & publisher of The Black Books Of Horror
Justin Marriott - Pan's Children: Review of Black Books Of Horror Volumes 7-10
Justin Marriott - John Blackburn: Hammer Script Writer?

Justin Marriott (ed.) - Pulp Horror 4 (July, 2016)

Justin Marriott - Pulpit of Horror
Postbag Of Horror - Letters from Stephen Sennit, Tom Tesarek, Nigel Taylor
Justin Marriott - Maggots Of Unease: Hugh B. Cave's Murgunstrumm
Andreas Decker - Damonenkiller: German Pulp series
Tom Tesarek - Horrors Of War: Armed Services Editions
James Diog - Fantastic: A Cover Gallery For Horror Fans
Tom Tesarek - Dark Melodies: Cornell Woolrich's weird menace stories.

[mcannon]

Hoorah! Hopefully they'll arrive here in Oz within a fortnight or so. Though with Australia Post's new improved "we'll deliver only three days a week, and don't expect anything in a hurry" service (no wonder their CEO is on a miserable pittance of $5 Million a year), I expect that the domestic leg will add at least another week to the wait.....

Mark

[dem bones]

Pulp Horror has fast become my very favourite of the Paperback Fanatic spin-offs so we might be here a while.

First up, here are several theme's Justin's considering for future issues

Circus & Carnival Horrors
Space Vampires
Bloody Kids1
Vile Vegetation
Swamp Things
Blobs
Archaeological Horrors

We've touched on most of the above, but Swamp Things & Archaeological Horrors are two subjects we've yet to stick our teeth into, so if you have any suggestions, please do start a thread.

Pulp Horror 3 is a real departure for Mr. Marriott in that it's the first time works of contemporary horror fiction have featured in any House Of Fanatic publication, so only fitting that this issue is dedicated to the Black Baron of Mortbury himself, Mr. Charles Black. Either I've not been paying attention, or Charlie has rarely given interviews in the nine years he's been publishing the Black Book's of Horror. The only one I can think of was that conducted by Caroline Callaghan for Pantechnicon, and that's not been an ongoing concern since ... it seems like an eternity. Not to make too fine a point of it, but I've known gobbier Trappist Monks, so it's an unexpected treat to find our man opening up on such subjects as the relative lack of female authors represented in the series (you can only publish what you're sent), the notorious Bernard Bought The Farm controversy and "extreme" horror in general, the editing process, and what sounds like an epic personal struggle to overcome self-doubt ... A taster? "I've come to realise I don't read horror fiction because I want to be scared, but because I like to read about horrible things happening to people, whether they deserve it or not, but only in fiction ... I do have a macabre and twisted sense of humour, but I'm not into worshipping serial killers, setting fire to noisy small dogs, wanking off over a collection of teeth from concentration camp victims, or anything like that."

The interview over, Mr. Fanatic then offers his thoughts on The Black Book Of Horror volumes seven through to ten, name-checking a number of personal favourites, and one or two he wasn't quite so keen on. Just goes to show that "shocking" is in the eye of the beholder. I can "enjoy" Mr. Stanger's report on the revolting events at Dernhurst Farm farm for what it is, but it didn't upset me half as much as Anna Taborska's Bagpuss. John Forth's Molli & Julli is no bed of roses either. Come to think of it, over the eleven volumes, the majority of the stories are grim ... As with the Birkin article, there's stuff I agree with, stuff I don't, but what does that matter? It's just brilliant to see the two Charles' - and their contributors - plus the quietly effective Bernard Taylor, Valancourt Books, John Blackburn, & Co., receiving deserved quality exposure. Pan's Children kind of sums it up. The reaction from long time House of Fanatic subscribers should be interesting.

More to follow? Trust me is there more to follow.

[dem bones]

Next under the microscope, Charles Birkin, Suffer The Little Children

"It is something of a relief to realise that this strange man, this writer who mingled viciousness with pity, hate with compassion, and social awareness with virulent monstrosity, by no means subscribed to the philosophies he placed in the mouths of his worst characters. What he often enough was doing was simply to say; 'I am showing you the world exactly as it is, without any camouflage or euphemism. People say these things, people believe and follow these philosophies, and people actually do what I have written - far more often and far more thoroughly than you might think. Our civilisation is a pretty foul affair, and human beings are frequently quite abominable - much more abominable than the average ingenious individual has ever dreamed - so what are you going to do about it?'"

That's Alan Hull Watson, putting words in the Marquis de Sade mouth, from the introduction to Justine, or The Misfortunes Of Virtue (Corgi, 1965). I wouldn't call Sir Charles Birkin a "strange" man, but otherwise it seems to me that Mr. Walton's words might be applied with equal justification to his horror fiction. It's true Birkin's influences include the Grand Guignol, but he'd just as certainly sampled the delights of Maurice Level, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Villiers de L'Isle Adam, and almost certainly his near contemporary, Italy's Dino Buzzati, to the point of occasionally borrowing a particularly admired plot for his own exercises in cruelty (in Level's case, a nasty reworking of the already deeply unpleasant revenge story The Kennel). Bad things happen to the most inoffensive people in such challenging literature. As de Sade was "inspired" by the most atrocious episodes of the French Revolution, so Birkin, in his later work, channelled his (and others') World War II experiences into the unflinching likes of A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts, Green Fingers and Waiting For Trains. A much earlier piece, The Happy Dancers, is an account of a war crime on the eve of the Russian Revolution. That these very real horrors appear sporadically among a bunch of often gleefully sick works of fiction makes them all the more effective. "You want horror stories. Fair enough, here's a horror story. En-fucking-joy." (me putting words in Sir C.B.'s mouth).

I don't get that Birkin had a down on the working class - I think he saw everyone as fair game. The later collections suggest he wasn't a big fan of the "young generation," and his attempts at hipster dialogue (The Beautiful People, and, from memory, Dinner In A Private Room) are excruciating. It doesn't ruin an extraordinary body of work. For this reader, he's among the greatest horror authors this country (with a little help from France) has ever produced. But then, like Sir Charles, I always see the best in people.

[dem bones]

Today's exciting instalment!

I can't help but love Valancourt books, not just because they brought Birkin's Devil Spawn and J. U. Nicolson's Finger Of Fear among many other board raves back into print, but for their whole ethos. No elitist, numbered-limited-collectable edition bollocks for them, just a steady stream of affordable paperback reissues of titles we'd otherwise have huge difficulty locating at anything other than heart-attack prices. Interviewee Ryan Cagle comes across as an engaging, enthusiastic fellow, and the eclectic catalogue he and James D. Jenkins have compiled over the past ten years is astonishing. In my experience, James & Ryan are very open to suggestions as to other 'forgotten' classics they might consider for reissue, which is a definite plus in their favour.

Can't really comment on Will Erickson's reviews of Stephen Gregory's The Cormorant and Michael McDowell's Cold Moon Over Babylon as I've not read them, but I enjoyed his piece on Bernard Taylor's The Godsend. Mr. Taylor's The Moorstone Sickness is that rarest of beasts, a supernatural horror novel that actually frightened me. Like that earlier Vault legend, Frederick Cowles, he's something of a magpie of macabre lit. Plot-wise, several novels owe a debt to earlier works, but he always brings enough of his own to the party to create something fresh. Cases in point; the magnificent Sweetheart, Sweetheart is a (then) present day The Beckoning Fair One. Evil Intent is Casting The Runes with the horror turned up to eleven. Mother's Boys is not a million miles removed from Mendal Johnstone's babysitter-in-peril shocker, Let's Go Play At The Adams'.

[jamesdoig]

Jun 9, 2016 16:02:10 GMT dem bones said:

An amazing 'just in' from Justin at Paperback Fanatic.

My copies arrived yesterday. Very nice indeed - Justin certainly goes from strength to strength. A nice touch are the publisher interviews - they make fascinating reading. I particularly liked Any Decker's article on the Damonenkiller series series and Tom Tesarek's review of Cornel Woolrich's horror stories, but it's great just to brouse the covers (I'm not proud!). An unexpected surprise was #4 of Men of Violence in the package. A couple of nice articles on Nick Carter - I've never read a single one, though I've these old US paperbacks, evidently part of a neverending series:

[linbro]

Pulp Horror 3 & 4 landed here today, and they look fantastic. Only had time for a quick browse, but every page I flicked to looked very interesting.
Anyone know where I can pick up vols 1 & 2?
Lincoln.

[jamesdoig]

Aug 16, 2016 10:25:02 GMT linbro said:

Anyone know where I can pick up vols 1 & 2?

Hi Lincoln. These are usually sold out on publication, after which it's quite hard to find them at reasonable prices. I've got the same problem with Paperback Fanatic - I subscribed from issue #8 and don't have the earlier issues. By the way, can someone tell me if there is PF #1 to #7, or did Pulp Mania become PF at some point?

[linbro]

Thanks James, I thought that would probably be the case.