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Post by paulfinch on May 9, 2017 12:43:19 GMT
Not sure whether D will let me do this ... but I meant to mention on here a couple of days ago that I've recently posted some background info to TERROR TALES OF CORNWALL on my blog. Feel free to pop over there now, if you wish, though you'll need to scroll down a bit, as I've made another post since then: paulfinch-writer.blogspot.co.uk/
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Post by dem bones on Jun 9, 2017 16:39:55 GMT
So here goes ... Mark Morris - We Who Sing Beneath the Ground: Miss Stacy's 'Show & Tell' day at Porthfarrow primary school was going so well until shy loner Adam North unwrapped his pride and joy, a curious jagged something he claims dug itself out of the ground. When Adam fails to show for school, Stacy ill-advisedly pays him a home visit at decrepit North Field Farm. Adam shows her more buried stuff including what she at first takes to be a monstrous slug climbing from a well ... Ray Cluley - In the Light of St Ives: Why did Claire paint herself black and set every canvas in her bedroom-studio ablaze, almost cremating herself in the process? Emily has come to expect erratic behaviour from her arty sister, but Claire has surpassed herself on this occasion. Agree with Scarlet; either we're both missing something or the setting has no bearing on the story whatsoever. Jacqueline Simpson - Dragon Path: (Barbara & Christopher Roden [eds.], All Hallows #30, June 2002). Mick is hypersensitive to his friends' questioning his dubious Cornish "roots" and generally taking the piss out of his spasms of Celtic mumbo jumbo. Arriving at a stone circle, Mick finally gives a demonstration of his power by summoning every adder on Bodmin Moor to terrorise his detractors. Nasty, deadly effectively and most decidedly a Terror Tale of Cornwall! Pick of the 'non-fiction' & Co thus far. The Serpent of Pengersick: Was the second wife of the sixteenth century High Sheriff of Cornwall the inspiration for Hammer Films The Reptile? Morgawr Rising: Incorporates an appreciation of Peter Tremayne's The Morgow Rises. References Tony 'Doc' Shiels of Owlman and 'What a Whopper!'esque Loch Ness antics. From the Lady Downs: A teenage girl briefly finds employment as housekeeper to a fairy.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 10, 2017 6:59:08 GMT
"When Noel Edmonds' face is the most culturally relevant presence in a place of entertainment you know something has gone unfathomably, hideously wrong."
Steve Jordan - Claws: Murderous piskies on the rampage through wannabe business mogul Jared Talshoy's seriously underwhelming Pirates Bounty Arcade on Newquay harbour. Local kid Billy tries to warn the staff what they're up against but like anyone is going to listen to an idiot.
Paul Edwards - The Unseen: Gore fan Lee's pursuit of the rare, uncut version of torture porn extravaganza The Black Remote delivers him into the clutches of powerful Satan worshippers, the Cult of the Infernal Abyss. Another genuine Cornish shocker in that the snuff footage is filmed on location in Asterion House, Cranlock. Very Pan Horror, right down to the author's depiction of jobless Lee as a thieving scumbag who deserves all he does and doesn't get.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 11, 2017 19:08:32 GMT
this is what I love about the Terror Tales. A trio of absolute stormers on the spin. Paul Finch - The Old Traditions Are Best: (Barbara & Christopher Roden [eds.] , Shades of Darkness, Ash Tree, 2008: Stephen Jones [ed.], Mammoth Best New Horror 20, Robinson, 2009). Scott Sinclair, teenage housebreaker, is a beneficiary of the controversial 'Safari programme' which sees young offenders packed off on holiday as part of their rehabilitation. Scott spends a short break in Padstow under the supervision of soft touch do-gooders Mary and Russ Kidwell. The young Manc is soon abusing their trust, antagonising the atypically (?) friendly locals and generally setting himself up for a fall. When a passing Morris Dancer explains the significance of Padstow's 'Obby 'Orse as both fertility symbol and repellent of thieves and raiders Scott fails to take the hint. John Whitbourn - ‘Mebyon versus Suna’: Narrator is a staunch Cornish Nationalist who insists on speaking the native tongue - Kernoweck - and detests the English for liberating an entire island from his Celtic forefathers. Unfortunately, the wife's job necessitates their moving to Exeter where our man soon takes the fight to his unassuming next door neighbour, Mr. Ayling, flying St. Pirans flag in his garden and belting out anti-English anthems. Alfred Ayling is tolerant to a fault but in the face of unrelenting provocation he finally reports his racist tormentor to the "proper authorities." Whether narrator's subsequent vanquishing back across the border is the result of supernatural powers or the combined stresses of alcoholism, paranoia, hallucination and mental collapse is left for the reader to decide. Kate Farrell - His Anger Was Kindled : "Your parish is no longer viable." David Denshaw travels to St. Michaels, Penharrack on behalf of the Church Councillors who are bent on retiring the crazed Rev. Luke Prideaux, deconsecrating the church and flogging the land to property developers. Prideaux and his strange congregation are of a mind that it is better to die in a blaze of glory than surrender St. Michaels to the Godless. Pop culture references include sundry slasher flicks, Deal or No Deal, Guns 'n Roses, Last House On The Left EastEnders, and, courtesy of Reggie Oliver, The Happy Hooker, Valley Of The Dolls and Adam Dimant's Dolly Dolly Spy
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Post by dem bones on Jun 14, 2017 5:10:34 GMT
Reggie Oliver - Trouble At Botathan: Three centuries on from Parson Rudall's epic struggle with the famous ghost, Oxford scholar Roger Tregillis encounters a female entity on a gloomy woodland path outside Botathan Place. His subsequent discovery of a diary tucked between a row of paperbacks reveals the dreadful events culminating in a troubled young woman's death in the river. An absolute masterpiece of gloom. D. P. Watt - Four Windows And A Door: The Flanagan family holiday turns sour when Emily, four, develops a strange fascination with the "haunted house" atop the crumbling cliff-top at Polperro prior to being abducted by a Mr. Man. Adrian Cole - A Beast By Any Other Name: Ruthless killer Ransome exploits the legend of the Beast of Bodmin to conceal his murder of the head of a mining empire. Cranlow, researching a book on big cats, is alerted to the truth by a suspiciously well informed mystery man in a pub and sets out to explore the scene of the alleged crime, the disused tin mine known as Wheal Mary. Owlman: More of world champ hoax bloke 'Doc' Shiels malarkey or Mawnan's answer to Mothman? For a horror fiction treatment of the story, see Mike Chinn's The Owl That Calls ( Radix Omnium Malum & Other Incursions (Parallel Universe, 2017)
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Post by dem bones on Jun 15, 2017 9:56:09 GMT
Mark Valentine - The Uncertainty Of All Earthy Things: Sancreed, Penzance. A graduate finds employment as curator of a museum devoted to 'Congo' Grenfell, explorer and missionary. Fate brings him into the orbit of artist of Leah Penrose who is designing a set of tarot cards based on the figures carved on the rood screen in the local church. Ultimately they share a vision of the triple-headed king. Agree with Scarlett that it ends "abruptly" and with Ro that it is a cracking story, albeit far too optimistic for personal miserable bastard preference. Mark Samuels - Moon Blood-Red, Tide Turning: That 'Destination Nihil' vibe. Where a story like The Unseen is all screaming evil and violence this offering from Richard Stains' altar-ego is a deathly quiet enigma. The luckless performers of Dr. Prozess's experimental work, New Quests For Nothing, whose dialogue largely comprises random gibberish, are doomed to act out the play in perpetuity.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 19, 2017 11:34:24 GMT
A swift catch up on some examples of the non-fiction/ 'non-fiction.'
Voice In The Tunnels: A benign ghost who may even have saved a man's life? If you ask me, Dorcas, the beckoning phantom of the Polbreen tin mine is included herein under false pretences. Where are the Plague Of The Zombies when we most need them? Of the Demon, Tregeagle: Squire Jan Tregeagle is pursued by ferocious Hell-hounds through the skies above Bodmin Moor. Slaughter at Penryn: After several years at sea, the son made good returns home unannounced and books lodgings at his impoverished parents' Bohelland farm. As hoped, they fail to recognise him. Now all he need do is wait for his sister to arrive tomorrow and break the happy news that, Mum and Dad, your money worries are behind you! Unfortunately, he's underestimated just how desperate is their situation.
Sarah Singleton - The Memory of Stone: Fifty-two-year-old Michael's all consuming lust for an attractive young work colleague leads to a complaint of sexual harassment costing him his job, his marriage and his reputation. Michael goes to ground at his brother's derelict property in remotest Penzance as he tries to make sense of what has happened to him. As if he's not under enough pressure, a pack of spectral children set to luring him to his doom. More symbolism and strangeness: what are the pebbles all about?
Cornwall would appear to have aroused a sense of cosmic wonder in our Terror tale-tellers with only a handful adopting the earthy TRAD. HORROR-WRIT-LARGE approach, our next contributor being among them.
Ian Hunter - Shelter From the Storm: Billy, Juggs Johnson, and Murray, three teenage scouts in training for a marathon, lost in snow en route to Port Isaac with only Juggs' cider and beer supply to sustain them. Rather than pitch their tent in the open, the trio hole up in an abandoned church for the night. Unfortunately, Juggs' weight proves too much for the rotten floorboards and his boot goes through the lid of a cheap coffin stowed beneath. Unhappily for them all, he has disturbed the perfectly preserved corpse of "he who was bound in darkness" ....
Thana Niveau - Losing Its Identity: Porthkellis. Seventy-three-year-old Miranda's visits to the picturesque but dangerous Lost Moon cove are a cause of dismay for daughter Tressa, who fears that she is losing her mother to dementia. But Miranda is not to be deterred. The cove is where she met her late husband, Will, where Tressa was conceived and where, ten years ago, she scattered her beloved's ashes in accordance with his wishes. It comes as no surprise when Tressa's concerns are realised, although Miranda's final visit to Lost Moon - and beyond - does not lack for adventure, and strange and varied anthology ends on a quietly optimistic note.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Feb 27, 2021 14:29:29 GMT
So far this book is living up to my high expectations: Mark Morris -We Who Sing Beneath The Ground Newly appointed assistant-deputy head teacher Stacy has just moved to Porthfarrow from Manchester after her divorce. After quiet but rather odd pupil Adam North doesn't turn up for a few days, she decided to go to his parents' farm to see what's going on, despite the school secretary's (rather feeble) attempts to discourage her. Of course, she'll wish she'd listened and stayed away.... This tale makes for a solid start to the anthology. There's a nifty bit of misdirection with the standing stones. Golden Days of Terror - An enjoyable description of Daphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca" and "The Birds" and how these works put Cornwall "firmly and forever...onto the horror story map". "The Birds" is a classic, and the movie's not too shabby, either. I think I started to read Rebecca once only to get distracted; I should give it another shot.
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Post by andydecker on Feb 27, 2021 16:27:50 GMT
I think I started to read Rebecca once only to get distracted; I should give it another shot. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. :-) If there is one immortal opening line, this must be it.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Feb 28, 2021 12:34:24 GMT
I think I started to read Rebecca once only to get distracted; I should give it another shot. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. :-) If there is one immortal opening line, this must be it. "It was a dark and stormy night..."
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Post by andydecker on Feb 28, 2021 13:22:49 GMT
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. :-) If there is one immortal opening line, this must be it. "It was a dark and stormy night..." If you can say who actually wrote this for the first time, you win.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 28, 2021 13:30:26 GMT
"It was a dark and stormy night..." If you can say who actually wrote this for the first time, you win. Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Feb 28, 2021 13:54:23 GMT
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. :-) If there is one immortal opening line, this must be it. I remember that I at least made it that far into Rebecca. If you can say who actually wrote this for the first time, you win. Edward Bulwer-Lytton. There's even a Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for composing the worst possible opening line to a novel. Madeleine L'Engle also used "It was a dark and stormy night" as the opening line for my wife's favorite childhood novel, A Wrinkle in Time.
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Post by Swampirella on Feb 28, 2021 14:06:58 GMT
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. :-) If there is one immortal opening line, this must be it. I remember that I at least made it that far into Rebecca. There's even a Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for composing the worst possible opening line to a novel. The entries can be quite amusing, at least I think so:
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Feb 28, 2021 14:16:32 GMT
The entries can be quite amusing, at least I think so:
Part of me would like to read some of the novels those opening lines suggest. And not necessarily in an ironic sort of way.
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