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Post by dem bones on Jan 2, 2017 21:10:12 GMT
Welcome to 2017 .... But before we consign 2016 to the grave with a filthy great stake through its heart, perhaps we might give some thought to the trad annual round up. What were the novels, anthologies, single author collections, publications, blogs, etc you most enjoyed discovering/ revisiting during 2016? Also film, tv, events, music, personal highs & lows - anything that helped you get through the past twelve months. Belated happy new year, BTW
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Post by Swampirella on Jan 2, 2017 23:01:25 GMT
Welcome to 2017 .... But before we consign 2016 to the grave with a filthy great stake through its heart, perhaps we might give some thought to the trad annual round up. What were the novels, anthologies, single author collections, publications, blogs, etc you most enjoyed discovering/ revisiting during 2016? Also film, tv, events, music, personal highs & lows - anything that helped you get through the past twelve months. Belated happy new year, BTW I love the....whatever it is above! For what it's worth, I think getting my greedy little hands on quite a few more Pan Books of Horror, as well as Black Books was what I most enjoyed last year. 2016's Advent Calendar was a treat, as were whatever stories from previous Calendars I read about a year ago and now can't remember. Belated Happy New Year to all at the Vault too!
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Post by cromagnonman on Jan 2, 2017 23:37:09 GMT
Egad! If I'd known there was an exam coming at the end of it I'd have revised. Or at least made notes. Oh man, am I toast.
Let's see; well, as I've said on more than one occasion I don't take much pleasure in anything unless its at least thirty years old and comics least of all (modern ones being incoherent unintelligible gibberish to my jaundiced old f*rt's eye). That being the case it was a real joy to belatedly discover the output of the short-lived Pacific Comics of the early 1980s. Gray Morrow's beautifully drawn Edge of Chaos was one of the most entertaining set of comics I've read in years. Eric Cleese: "Holy S**t!" Flan: "I do not know this great god of excrement you sometimes invoke".
I get to the cinema so rarely that it scarcely seems worth commenting upon but anticipation regarding Batman V Superman and Captain America: Civil War did not survive the viewing experience. I hated pretty much everything about BvS (Its a spear, you throw it Kryptonian dumbass). Everything that is apart from Gal Gadot's truly wondrous Wonder Woman. I have high hopes for her movie this year. CA: CW I liked to a degree, but as a friend of mine pointed out Marvel's films are now so Disneyfied that you half expect the characters to burst into song at any moment.
On the reading front: it will surprise no one who has kept track of the reviews I've posted here this year (meaning which it will surprise everyone) that John Burke's extraordinary THE DEVIL'S FOOTSTEPS remains my favourite read of the year. And I'm looking forward immensely to immersing myself in the two sequels this year.
Elsewhere, all but completing my collection of the 1970/80s small press publishings of Charles Saunders has been a great satisfaction. Saunders is an extraordinarily gifted and imaginative writer and its criminal that he isn't better known and more appreciated. His Imaro books are an absolute necessity for anyone with even the slightest fondness for heroic fantasy of the Conan variety.
My two most enduring memories of 2016 are being fortunate enough to attend a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark at the Albert Hall with live orchestral accompaniament. A truly amazing experience. And having the tremendous pleasure of finally getting to meet the great Dana Gillespie at one of those Westminster film fairs and finding her every bit as gracious and good humoured as you'd hope. Not all attendees at these things are. Many an illusion has been throttled there in the greedy grasping paws of a faded celebrity. But Dana Gillespie was just smashing. This was the woman whose appearance in The People That Time Forgot had once put a bunsen burner to my adolescent hormones. And how enjoyable it was to hear her swapping scurrilous stories of the late great Doug McClure.
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Post by Swampirella on Jan 2, 2017 23:52:53 GMT
Egad! If I'd known there was an exam coming at the end of it I'd have revised. Or at least made notes. Oh man, am I toast. Let's see; well, as I've said on more than one occasion I don't take much pleasure in anything unless its at least thirty years old and comics least of all (modern ones being incoherent unintelligible gibberish to my jaundiced old f*rt's eye). That being the case it was a real joy to belatedly discover the output of the short-lived Pacific Comics of the early 1980s. Gray Morrow's beautifully drawn Edge of Chaos was one of the most entertaining set of comics I've read in years. Eric Cleese: "Holy S**t!" Flan: "I do not know this great god of excrement you sometimes invoke". I get to the cinema so rarely that it scarcely seems worth commenting upon but anticipation regarding Batman V Superman and Captain America: Civil War did not survive the viewing experience. I hated pretty much everything about BvS apart from Gal Gadot's truly wondrous Wonder Woman. I have high hopes for her movie this year. CA: CW I liked to a degree, but as a friend of mine pointed out Marvel's films are now so Disneyfied that you half expect the characters to burst into song at any moment. On the reading front: it will surprise no one who has kept track of the reviews I've posted here this year (meaning which it will surprise everyone) that John Burke's extraordinary THE DEVIL'S FOOTSTEPS remains my favourite read of the year. And I'm looking forward immensely to immersing myself in the two sequels this year. Elsewhere, all but completing my collection of the 1970/80s small press publishings of Charles Saunders has been a great satisfaction. Saunders is an extraordinarily gifted and imaginative writer and its criminal that he isn't better known and more appreciated. His Imaro books are an absolute necessity for anyone with even the slightest fondness for heroic fantasy of the Conan variety. My two most enduring memories of 2016 are being fortunate enough to attend a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark at the Albert Hall with live orchestral accompaniament. A truly amazing experience. And having the tremendous pleasure of finally getting to meet the great Dana Gillespie at one of those Westminster film fairs and finding her every bit as gracious and good humoured as you'd hope. Not all attendees at these things are. Many an illusion has been throttled there in the greedy grasping paws of a faded celebrity. But Dana Gillespie was just smashing. This was the woman whose appearance in The People That Time Forgot had once put a bunsen burner to my adolescent hormones. And how enjoyable it was to hear her swapping scurrilous stories of the late great Doug McClure. I'm glad one of us could come up with a such a thorough list of what they enjoyed last year, given my pitiful posting. BTW I do have fond memories of enjoying The Devil's Footsteps, and one of the other Caspians as a teen, from the public library I used to haunt every Saturday morning. Sadly they're no longer in the catalogue....
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Post by mcannon on Jan 3, 2017 2:23:18 GMT
Best of the year….gawd, I’m hard-pressed to remember what I was doing yesterday, let alone up to 12 months ago……
Film Like some others, I rarely get to the flicks these day - I tend to catch up with most new films when they’re several years old. However, I did go to see both “Dr Strange” and “Rogue One”, and enjoyed them both. “Dr Strange” was certainly closer to the classic Ditko look of the comics than I ever hoped to see. I finally got around to watching the fine 2014 New Zealand vampire mockumentary “What we do in the Shadows”, and heartily recommend it. I think my viewing highlight of the year, though, was finally seeing 1974’s barking mad “Psychomania” - what a film!
TV Probably the best thing I saw was right at the year’s end - the latest “Inside Number 9”. Elsewhere, I greatly enjoyed “Stranger Things”, “Channel Zero” and “Westworld”, and while “Preacher” wasn’t as good as I had hoped, I’m hoping that it will kick into gear now that its prologue is out of the way and can start adapting the actual comics. I’ve been watching various superhero series, of which the most fun has been “The Flash”, and while I‘ve still kept up with “Supernatural”, I think that after 12 seasons it’s time for that faithful old beast to be put down.
Books The best new / recent horror novels I read were Paul Tremblay’s “A Head Full of Ghosts” (a real punch to the gut of a novel), Gemma Files’ “Experimental Film” (I’m always a sucker for horror stories about cinema) and John Langan’s “The Fisherman”. I’m looking forward to Ramsay Campbell’s “The Searching Dead” but only got it shortly before Christmas, and so haven’t gotten to it yet. The single-author collections I enjoyed the most were probably John Langan’s “The Wide Carnivorous Sky” (which is a couple of years old) and Caitlin Kiernan’s “Beneath an Oil Dark- Sea”, while the best anthology was “The Book of Shadows 3”, which I’m still working through. I continued to work through several volumes of the “Terror Tales” series, andI’m looking forward to it resuming.
There were lots of nice reissues of obscure and long unavailable books, particularly courtesy of Ramble House and Valancourt; the highlights were probably the Valancourt reissue of Charles Birkin’s Devil Spawn and the Swan River Press edition of Fritz Leiber’s “The Pale Brown Thing”.
Best - or most enjoyable - older books that I read were “The Door of the Unreal”, Gerald Biss’ loopy 1920 werewolf novel , Jack Mann’s “Grey Shapes” (the first Gees novel that I’ve read) and E H Visiak’s “Medusa”, which I finally got to read courtesy of an interlibrary loan through the National Library (and, of course, then found a reasonably-priced copy for myself just a few weeks later…..). People seem to either love or hate this novel; I loved it, and while Visiak’s archaic language takes a little getting used to, I think it actually added to my appreciation of the book’s weirdness.
Comics I buy fewer and fewer comics each year, and most of my current purchases tend to be reprints. I think my most enjoyable horror-related purchase in 2016 was “The Art of Ploog”, a huge Kickstarter-funded retrospective on the work of Mike Ploog, probably best-known for his art on various 1970s Marvel titles like “Ghost Rider”, Werewolf by Night” and “The Monster of Frankenstein”, though he’s done a lot more. I also enjoyed the wealth of public domain Pre-Code horror comic scans that can now be found on various websites like the Digital Comics Museum and Comic Books Plus. As a kid I dreamed of someday being able to access this stuff, and now I can - for free!
That’s probably enough - I’m sure that in five minutes I’ll remember something vitally important that I’ve omitted, but that’s half the fun of these sorts of exercises.
All the best to all for 2017 -surely there can't be as many shitty things awaiting us as in 2016? What a naive fool I can be.......
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Post by mcannon on Jan 3, 2017 2:38:39 GMT
And indeed, a few minutes later here I am, back again.
I didn't mention that one of my personal highlights of the year was seeing my four year old grandson’s love of dinosaurs mutate into an interest in all things monster-related, particularly classic “Godzilla” films. I’m hoping his brother, who’s only sixteen months old, will follow his example. Got to get them started young, you know…..
Plus I should have mentioned that an ongoing highlight of 2016 was the continued operation of the Vault, and the pleasant, friendly nature of its discussions. Thanks to all, and particularly to Dem, without whom I’m certain none of this would happen.
Mark
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Post by Swampirella on Jan 3, 2017 3:09:44 GMT
And indeed, a few minutes later here I am, back again. I didn't mention that one of my personal highlights of the year was seeing my four year old grandson’s love of dinosaurs mutate into an interest in all things monster-related, particularly classic “Godzilla” films. I’m hoping his brother, who’s only sixteen months old, will follow his example. Got to get them started young, you know….. Plus I should have mentioned that an ongoing highlight of 2016 was the continued operation of the Vault, and the pleasant, friendly nature of its discussions. Thanks to all, and particularly to Dem, without whom I’m certain none of this would happen. Mark Here, here!
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Post by ropardoe on Jan 3, 2017 12:02:06 GMT
I agree about the Vault: it continues to be a haven of civility and good manners.
My printed selections for the year are definitely two books from Sarob Press: Peter Bell's Phantasms and the Weighell/Valentine/Howard Pagan Triptych; the Swan River Press Pale Brown Thing and John Reppion/Leah Moore's graphic novel of the first half of Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. On TV I'd pick Mr Robot, but I also agree with mcannon over The Flash. In their very different ways, both of the shows are pretty mind-bending. While I don't entirely disagree that Supernatural needs retiring, the most recent season did have the spectacularly good episode in which Chuck revealed (as we all knew) that he was God. I'd rate this among my all-time half dozen favourite Supernatural episodes.
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Post by ropardoe on Jan 3, 2017 12:10:04 GMT
Welcome to 2017 I love the....whatever it is above! For more on these amazing diableries see: londonstereo.com/diableries/diableries.htmlI nearly treated myself to the stereoscopic book of diableries for Christmas (there was a good article on them a few issues ago in Fortean Times), but in the end I settled on the stereoscopic crinolines book, which is equally remarkable. I've no doubt I'll get the diableries book as well eventually.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 3, 2017 14:19:23 GMT
Part 1
Anthologies
Robert Weinberg, Stefan Dziemianowicz & Martin H. Greenberg (eds.) - 100 Creepy Little Creature Stories. Robert Weinberg, Stefan Dziemianowicz & Martin H. Greenberg (eds.) - 100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories. Clarence Paget (ed.) - 29th Pan Book Of Horror Stories Stephen Jones & David A. Sutton (ed's.) - Best Horror From Fantasy Tales. Nancy A. Collins, Edward E. Kramer & Martin H. Greenberg (eds.) - Dark Love: 22 All-Original Tales of Lust & Obsession Paul Finch (ed.) - Terror Tales Of The Ocean The anthology-on-the-fly that is the Vault Advent Calendar
Single Author Collections
Charles Birkin - Devil's Spawn Adrian Cole - Tough Guys Gaston Leroux - Bedside Companion Ezeiyoke Chukwunonso - Haunted Grave & Other Stories Richard Stains - England B: Ninety Minutes Of Hell Steve Lockley & Paul Lewis - The Winter Hunt Fishhead:The Darker Tales of Irvin S. Cobb Andrew Darlington - A Saucerful Of Secrets David Ludford - A Place Of Skulls
Novels Mark Morris - Toady Dean R. Koontz - Demon Seed Dean R. Koontz - Funhouse Stephen King - Joyland Gary Brander - The Howling Guy N. Smith - Cannibals
Novella John Llewellyn Probert - The Hammer Of Dr. Valentine
Non-fiction Robert Weinberg - The Weird Tales Story George Ives - Man Bites Man; The Scrapbook Of An English Eccentric Ronald Pearsall - Night's Black Angels; The Forms & Faces of Victorian Cruelty Dishonourable mentions Nicholas Witchell - The Loch Ness Story Nesta Webster - The French Revolution: A Study In Democracy Peter Haining - The English Highwayman
Publications Paperback Fanatic #34 & 35 Pulp Horror #2, #3 & 4 Ghosts & Scholars MR James Newsletter #29 Ghosts & Scholars MR James Newsletter #30 Worlds Of Strangeness #1 Men Of Violence #4 Men Of Violence #5 Sleazy Reader #4
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Post by andydecker on Jan 3, 2017 16:09:41 GMT
I read and re-read a lot of old stuff in 2016. Thanks to the vault I bought more anthologies like I used to. After seeing my order list I discovered that I maybe bought only two or three horror novels dated 2016. A new low.
Novels
Nicholas Kaufmann - In the Shadow of the Axe I thought it okay.
David Gurney - The Necrophiles I got a nice and affordable hordcover of this and was a bit disappointed when I discovered that this is basically a juvenile deliquency novel. Still well written.
Bought and still not read:
Steven McDonald - Event Horizon Ridiculous expensive novelisation of the movie which I got cheap for once. I hope I will finally understand the movie after reading
Kim Newman - An English Ghost Story
Klaus Vogel - Virgin Witch This was so obscure I had to have it.
John Lewellyn Probert - Dead Shift
Anthologies:
Most of these are works in progress. I read a story or two and then grab the next one.
Orrin Grey - Jazz Age Cthulhu The first two stories were very pedestrian. Stephen Jones - Best New Horror 26 Some stories I liked, some I thought disappointing. As always it's a matter of taste.
Johnny Mains - Back from the Dead This was great.
Johnny Mains - Best British Horror 2015
Jonathan Oliver - World War Cthulhu There were a few nice stories in this one.
Bobby Derrie - Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos
Paula Gurran - The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu
One Author Collections:
David Case - Fengriffen I bought this again as an Ebook for easier reading. A nice presentation.
Brian Stableford - The Legacy of Erich Zann I so wanted to like this, but mostly I thought it rather dull.
Sheila Hodgson - The Fellow Traveler I liked this a lot.
Laird Barron - Occultation Laird Barron - Swift to Chase I love Barron, even if I overdose fast on him.
Jeff Gelb - Hot Blood and Hotter Blood
Non-fiction David Hinds Facination: The Celluloid Dreams of Jean Rollin A bit too enthusiastic atr time, still an interesting read. A bigger format would have been better, though.
Comics
Providence by Moore was the highlight of the year for me, a masterwork in Terms of craft. Even if this must a boring, pretentious mess for all who don't know Lovecraft or about his cult. And frankly even as a fan you have to read the annotations on the Net to get all the stuff.
The Fade Out by Brubaker was a nice Hollywood Noir, nothing new or groundbreaking, but well done.
BPRD, the Hellboy-Universe book, which I only buy in tradepaperbacks these days, continues to disappoint with unsuited art.
Apart from this it was also only reprints. The current Marvel and DC is not for me any longer. The Omnibus of Master of Kung Fu 1 and 2 was nice.
Movies
Thanks to John Probert's great review site I bought a few english independents, some new, some old. I should have listended to him more
The Sleeping Room is just boring.
Call Girl of Cthulhu is a disappointing amateurish mess, even the nude scenes couldn't save this.
Flesh for the Beast is also amateurish in places, but it had a few chuckles.
Slugs has a great audio-commentary by Shaun Hutson, the movie was so-so as expected.
Count Dracula's Great Love is a Blue Ray of the old spanish horror movie with Paul Naschy as the count. A very nice edition with a superb transfer, well done extras and booklet. the movie begins where Hammer ends in terms of blood, violence and nudity.
Sushi Girl is a nice tarantinoesque gangster movie bordering on torture porn. Mark Hamill gave a good performance as a sociopathic gangster.
Vampyres is a spanish remake of the Larraz movie. The original is way better.
Mostly I bought new and restored editions of italian movies by German labels, some giallos, some gothic horror, some erotic commedies. A new collection of Rollin's horror movies started as mediabooks. The first two movies were nicely restored. A lot of fun of you like Rollin.
On TV I watched the usual suspects, from Supernatural - season 11 is not bad – to Netflix Originals like Marvel's Daredevil – it is okay, I guess - , The Expanse – this is one of the few new series I unconditionelly loved – or The OA – still on the fence if it is boring pretentious crap like Sense8 or brilliant. I watched Elementary, which I like a lot more then Sherlock (I know, sacrilege!), and Dr. Who, which was very hit and miss for me.
And of course still the old classics like Midsomer Murder, Lewis and Endeavour. Midsomer gets a bit creaky, I miss Jones, but Endeavour and Lewis I enjoyed.
And among the best was of course the Paperback Fanatic again.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 3, 2017 16:47:40 GMT
Anthologies:Jeff Gelb - Hot Blood and Hotter Blood I still love the first three Hot Bloods. Sampled one of the later volumes (no idea which; it was a library loan way back) and hated it. Maybe I just wasn't feeling so randy. In the dem scheme of things, Dark Love is a largely brilliant erotic horror selection, Forbidden Acts has its moments, but Daughters Of Darkness: Lesbian Vampire Stories is a monumental disappointment. Personal obsessions of 2016 included werewolf, mummy and French Revolution supernatural/ horror shorts. Love affair with twenties & thirties pulp mags continued apace. Finally getting to read Hugh B. Cave's Death Calls From The Madness - which has haunted me since I first set eyes on Peter Haining's Terror! A History of Horror Illustrations from The Pulp Magazines - was a particular joy. Event was the Pulp & Paperback Fair in Russell Square on October 30th. The books were secondary. Meeting Anna Taborska and catching up with Justin Fanatic, Sev, H. P. Saucecraft and Martin 'Cosh Boy' Heaphy was both privilege and pleasure. Blog of the year. Pulp CoversStill not done!
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Post by ropardoe on Jan 3, 2017 18:23:31 GMT
I watched Elementary, which I like a lot more then Sherlock (I know, sacrilege!).
Let me join you in that sacrilege. I don't hate Sherlock, but Elementary is a lot more enjoyable.
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Post by pulphack on Jan 4, 2017 6:39:29 GMT
2016 - 'may you live in interesting times' eh? Meanwhile, in the little corner of the world where I bumble around like Arthur-Marshall-meets-Sapper, not a lot went on that's worth noting. I bought less this year, which was in part due to a desire not to get overwhelmed with stuff (about 50 books, less than a dozen DVD's and only a handful of CD's - I've tried downloads of all kinds, but I tend to forget they're there for ages - for some reason I need the physical object to remind me I actually have something to read/watch/hear) and in part due to demands outside of the usual. Nearly all old stuff, too, when I had decided I would try actual new things. There's no doubt loads of good new things, but I'm still stuck between 1920 and 1970 for the most part. I haven't exhausted that seam yet: it appears to be my lifelong ambition.
So, let's do this...
Novels:
Lissa Evans 'Their Finest Hour And A Half' - a recent book, and basically a drama with a touch of comedy and romance thrown in, about a woman working for the ministry of information who finds herself co-opted in 1940 to co-write a propaganda feature about the Dunkirk evacuation. She meets a cynical hack screenwriter, a dodgy old actor, and we learn a lot about movie making back then as well as having a narrative that is by turns sad, funny, and moving. Picked up on a whim, it was the surprise find of the year. Roy Ward Baker is thanked for research, and I note they've turned it into a movie which will no doubt ramp up the romance as the old hack writer has become a dashing young cove... They dropped the 'And A Half', too, as that might be a bit hard for audiences to understand... thus proving a point of the novel that film-makers never change...
Jerome K Jerome 'Three Men In A Boat' and 'Three Men On A Bummel' - someone has been trying to convince me to read this for years. I thought I had and didn't like it, but I was con fusing it with something else (don't ask me what) as I discovered when I picked this up. '...Boat' is gently funny and fascinating for a way of life long since gone but so influential to popular literature (it was the 'clerk class' portrayed here who fuelled the magazine and cheap fiction boom). '...Bummel' is less funny but perhaps more fascinating as it's a tour of Germany in 1909, and Jerome (who lived there and loved the place) is perceptive about the state of Germany in the years leading up to WWI.
Herbert Jenkins 'The Adventures Of Bindle' and 'The Nightclub' - both from 1916/17, they are fueillades about cockney furniture remover Bindle and the people he lives in and around. Jenkins was a journalist turned publisher who dabbled in fiction writing (9 books between 1916 and his death in 1925, with two more posthumous volumes). Lightly humorous and with great character drawing, the latter title concerns a regular meeting where Bindle and others swap stories, rather than anything racy and jazz based. Again, fascinating as much for social history as anything. I already had his 'Patricia Brent, Spinster' from a couple of years back, and I was enamoured of these that Mrs PH went through my ebay searches and got me editions of the 8 books I didn't have for Xmas - the best present since my cousin Bob got me three Cannon paperbacks in 1974 (ish). How sad is that last part of the sentence?
Desmond Skirrow 'It Won't Get You Anywhere' - the first John Brock novel, which I've been vaguely looking for on and off for years. Set me off reading some old 60's spy novels off the shelf that I hadn't been near for ages. Skirrow is still, for me, one of the best writers of this type. Funny, thrilling, greater depth than most, and some oddly off-centre plotting.
Thomas Burke 'Limehouse Nights' - I've written about this at length elsewhere on here. I love his writing and cannot be objective about it. Enough said.
Non-Fiction:
AA Thomson 'Strolling Commentaries' - some years ago (about 25) I picked up cricket writer and occasional funny novelist Thomson's 'Listeners License' (with Ashley Sterne) which is a funny books about radio from 1938. This collection of columns from the Radio Times was advertised in the back, and every few years I thought 'I must see if I can find that' without doing anything about it. Then it turned up on a book listing for 50p + £1.50 p&p. This was surely a sign! But would it be awful? Thankfully not - at least, not if you put you head into 1930's gear. I mean, who but Thomson would write in the Radio Times about AJ Alan, but this AJ Alan was not the broadcaster but his neice's horse? Eh? Exactly...
Len Deighton 'Fighter' - his breakdown and analysis of the Battle Of Britain. If Goering had half a brain, Britain would have fallen. If everyone in the RAF and the Luftwaffe hadn't been obsessed with bombing, the war would have, of necessity, been shorter. Douglas Bader and his 'big wing' theory that nearly blew it at the last? War hero or arse: I know which one I'd choose. Fascinating stuff.
Stuart Hylton 'Careless Talk' - an analysis of the 'Home Front' and the war fought in the houses and streets of Britain. A very different picture ot accepted history in some ways, but easy to see where distortions arose, sometimes out of necessity, and a salutary lesson in how a bit of manipulation and lying can sometimes be a harsh necessity in times of stress. Moral lines get blurred. As might be apparent, I was doing a bit of research on WWII earlier this year, and some of the books became a bit more than just a necessity to plough through...
Comics:
Eric Powell 'The Goon: Rough Stuff' and 'The Goon: Nothin' But Misery' - I picked these up as they just looked good. 1930's mobsters versus Zombies. Great art and lots of gratuitous violence, but also writing that has lots of references that don't overwhelm as well as snappy dialogue and a lot of jet black comedy. I note there are now 16 volumes of this, and these are just the first two... I have next year's Xmas list ready for Mrs PH now...
Magazines:
Basically, Justin's stable of Paperback Fanatic, Men Of Violence, et al. The only consistently fascinating magazines. I note that the only music mags I got this year were two issues of Prog, two of Shindig, and one of Classic Rock. Otherwise, there just wasn't enough there. Oh, and I did buy Mojo once, but that was just for the Black Sabbath interview and the Heavy Nuggets CD attached (the first three of those I still have and play). Mojo is still snobby and up it's own fundament, even when it covers interesting stuff, sadly.
DVD:
Fringe: got the first two seasons in a charity shop as it looked interesting and was only a couple of quid. Goes from monster of the week to a more involved narrative quickly, ala the X Files model, but is a far better series for me as I love the parallel worlds schtick and also like the actors a lot. It's nothing new, but put together in a way I liked. I bought the other three seasons off ebay as a result, and am still working through those.
The Dead Eyes Of London : yay! Finally picked up a copy of this after meaning to for ages, in my usual way. The Rialto version of EW's 'Dark Eyes Of London' with a few plot changes but little else deviating from the book/film originals. Klaus Kinski is wonderful and OTT as usual. Splendidly daft. Speaking of which...
Killer Klowns From Outer Space: I had this on VHS back when it came out, and could quote great chunks of it. My stepson Tom got it for me for Xmas, and it's just as silly, daft and brilliant as it was then. Not really scary of gory compared to some, but the sound of a bunch of effects guys having a blast is never far off. And check it out - how many times do the characters say 'check it/this out' in the course of the film??
Happy Valley: got seasons 1&2 for Mrs PH after she caught one episode and fell for it. I have to say, she's right. Sarah Lancashire is downtrodden beat copper in a small, depressed Yorkshire town having to deal with scumbags, idiots, and her dead daughter's psychotic ex. Great cast of Brit TV actors, some nice set pieces that make Killer Klowns look bloodless, and some real ramping up of tension. And lots of sheep, especially at the start of season two...
Other mentions:
Central Intelligence - we didn't get to the pictures much this year; usually by the time we saw something was out, it was already gone from local screens. But Mrs PH does love the Rock, and so we did see this. To my surprise, I liked it. The plot is bog standard spy stuff with a few twists to make you think it's more complicated than it is, but really it's about Kevin Hart doing his sweary, confused coward thing, and Dwayne Johnson (as he is now) showing that unlike most lunks in films, he can act and actually do comedy. His psychotic and perpetually confused adolescent fat boy turned mean machine CIA killer is well worth seeing. The fat suit he has at the beginning is pretty good, too.
Martin Stone - in amongst all the other deaths last year, I note Mr Stone passed away. Book and antiquarian dealer, Sufi mystic and eccentric, and shot-hot guitarist (most notably Mighty Baby and Chilli Willi & The Red Hot Peppers, but also The Action, Savoy Brown, The Pink Fairies and Stones Masonry) he was a one-off who I regret never accosting when I last saw him a few years back, talking to Moorcock and Iain Sinclair after they (and Alan Moore) had been 'in discussion' at the library at Bishopsgate. Somewhere on here, Michel Parry relates the rigours of having to try and edit in a downstairs room while Stone & Phillip Lithman turned up their amps and rehearsed a Chilli Willi set in the room above. With all three now gone, I'd like to think there is some ethereal space where Michel is banging on a Notting Hill ceiling while Stone weaves through the guitar solo on 'Desert Island Woman' (cf track three, side one of 'Bongos Over Balham')...
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Post by cromagnonman on Jan 4, 2017 12:53:45 GMT
Too much here for me to process all in one go PH, and a lot of it is outside of my orbit of reference in any case: (when it comes to tv and dvd releases the map is pretty much a "here there be dragons" blank for me at the moment). But I really did appreciate you taking the time to post this. A couple of sticky strands of interest did especially catch at my bluebottle mind.
It wasn't so wonderfully long ago that the Bindle books seemed to be a resident fixture of the AAoB basement in Charing Cross Road. I never picked any of them up and now I'm kind of wishing I had. I'm more familiar with Jenkins' reputation as a publisher. It was the Jenkins firm that published Robert E Howard's very first book, A GENT FROM BEAR CREEK in 1937; a covetted volume of almost legendary scarcity. In this context I once swapped a few letters with a former director of the firm and he related to me the following horror story. When the firm went out of business in the mid 1960s the staff were given just days to vacate the building. As a consequence more than forty years worth of contracts, file copies, unsold stock and original cover art was unceremoniously dumped into a skip in the street. He remembered salvaging a few bits of Wodehouse material but everything else in the Jenkins archive was destroyed. I still wake up screaming in the night whenever I think about it.
The name of Desmond Skirrow has cropped up in the course of my Odhams researches. Have never read anything by him but based upon your estimation I see I'm now going to have to bump his volumes several rungs up the priority ladder. Many thanks.
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