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Post by dem bones on Nov 9, 2017 6:58:28 GMT
"Seeing somebody like that, I wonder if I'll ever be able to fit in up here. I mean, it would be as easy for me to strike up an acquaintance with a man from Mars." Brian McNaughton - The Poacher (Carlyle, 1978) Blurb: A study in psychopathic savagery!
Easton was a small, quiet town in Vermont. City people, like Dave and Carol, thought it fulfilled their dreams .. . until that terrifying day when bloodshed and violence arrived in the presence of the Poacher.
The town folk said the poacher wasn't natural, wasn't human. His dogs ran with him, slept with him, even talked to him. Then, his dogs started to kill for the Poacher.
A nightmare atmosphere building to an unbearable climax.I'm a fan of Brian McNaughton's 'Satan' trilogy, Satan's Mistress in particular, but was only very recently made aware of The Poacher when Justin Marriott included it in his 'Killer Dogs' survey ( Pulp Horror #6). Am very grateful to Crom for kindly gifting me a copy at the recent Pulp & Paperback Fair. The "psychopath" in question is Buster Callan, a racist, redneck wildman of the woods who recognises no law but his own. According to the cheery gal in the local store, he's "the closest thing we have to a village idiot" but Buster is way smarter, and far more capable, than she gives him credit for. His only weaknesses are his dogs - Ace, a black Labrador. Storm Trooper, an extremely vicious German Shepherd - and Peggy Rambo, "the hottest piece in two counties," who works the bar at husband Pete Jensen's roadhouse. She's the closest thing Buster ever had to a sweetheart and he's still banging her on a regular basis behind Pete's back. Dave and Carol Stern have a doggie too, Rags a playful little Airedale. The Sterns are recently arrived from NYC with kids Mark, sixteen, and Alice, fourteen. Dave's an author, middle class, liberal which, to Buster's way of thinking, makes him a Commie queer. His snooty bitch of a wife looks like she might appreciate a real man, mind. Dave Stern gets off to the worst start with Buster when he accidentally blows Ace's head off. Against Pete Jensen's advice, Dave wanders out to the poacher's hovel to explain what happened. Buster takes the news calmly, before breaking into his best friendly grin. "I got some bad news for you, too Jewboy. You're dead." The horrific persecution begins .... and, just as quickly, stops. Incredibly, Buster decides that, all things considered, Dave is almost a man, the way he stood up to him and everything. They become drinking buddies. Until ... Carol was all for living the country life until she arrived in Easton. How can people live in this primitive hell-hole where they look at you like you're stupid if you ask for the nearest Starbucks? If only they'd raze all this dreary woodland and build a shopping mall. She can't wait to get back to NYC for some quality sex with her toyboy, Jack Prewitt. Worst of it is, Dave's struck up this weird friendship with the missing link. Well she'll soon fix that! Carol phones Pete's Tavern and tells Jensen what Peggy has been getting up to with Buster. Jensen beats the hell out of his wife. Buster and an increasingly unpredictable Storm Trooper wage war on their enemies. As mentioned, The Poacher was recently covered in Pulp Horror, but it would be equally at home in Men Of Violence. Certain sequences gave me Straw Dogs/ Siege Of Trencher's Farm flashbacks; also had me wondering if perhaps the author had recently experienced a particularly bitter marriage break up. He may be the novel's star monster, but Buster has a strict moral code, even if those around him can't always comprehend it. Carol Stern is as self-serving and unsympathetic a character as Paula Denning in David Anne's The Day Of The Mad Dogs. Thanks, Crom |
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Post by cromagnonman on Nov 10, 2017 16:32:34 GMT
You're very welcome Dem.
I know next to nothing about the publisher Carlyle; how long they were in existence or who else they published. But if my own experience is any gauge then their books appear to be pretty uncommon over here. Too uncommon for me to pass up whenever I stumble upon one anyway: this one all the more so in light of your known fondness for "when animals attack" scenarios. Took a flyer that you wouldn't have it and am doubly glad I did now.
As it happens I also recently found another one of the books McNaughton published through Carlyle called GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY about the hunt for a homicidal rapist in a rustbucket New England town. I know Carlyle also published his Satan books but it would be interesting to find out what else they issued.
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Post by Dr Terror on Nov 10, 2017 19:28:22 GMT
There are four, Dem.
Love Child
Mistress
Seductress
Surrogate
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Post by andydecker on Nov 10, 2017 20:07:12 GMT
There are four, Dem. Love Child Mistress Seductress Surrogate Surrogate? There is a McNaughton I missed? 
The best McNaughten there is is his fantasy Throne of Bones. The best C.A.Smith hommage I ever stumbled upon. Absolutly revolting.
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Post by Dr Terror on Nov 10, 2017 21:01:51 GMT
Yeah, unfortunately, I don't think Star published it. I've only ever seen the Carlyle edition, and the revised version called The House Across the Way.  |
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Post by cromagnonman on Nov 10, 2017 21:09:39 GMT
There are four, Dem. Love Child Mistress Seductress Surrogate Surrogate? There is a McNaughton I missed?
The best McNaughten there is is his fantasy Throne of Bones. The best C.A.Smith hommage I ever stumbled upon. Absolutly revolting.
Sure is Andy. The fourth one was also a Carlyle issue published in 1982. Not an easy title to source now, but then which of McNaughton's are nowadays? Was hoping to find someone owning up to having read THRONE OF BONES as I was toying with the idea of getting a copy. Opinion seems to be polarized between it being considered a masterpiece by some and incoherent gibberish by others. |
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Post by Dr Terror on Nov 10, 2017 22:11:50 GMT
You're very welcome Dem. I know Carlyle also published his Satan books but it would be interesting to find out what else they issued. Here's a list of a few. |
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Post by andydecker on Nov 11, 2017 16:43:03 GMT
Surrogate? There is a McNaughton I missed?
The best McNaughten there is is his fantasy Throne of Bones. The best C.A.Smith hommage I ever stumbled upon. Absolutly revolting.
Sure is Andy. The fourth one was also a Carlyle issue published in 1982. Not an easy title to source now, but then which of McNaughton's are nowadays? Was hoping to find someone owning up to having read THRONE OF BONES as I was toying with the idea of getting a copy. Opinion seems to be polarized between it being considered a masterpiece by some and incoherent gibberish by others.
Untypically tender-hearted, she would sometimes shed a tear for a dead infant that her nature compelled her to devour. She was considerate of her fellows, too, and her feeding habits were all but mannerly. Least typical of all, for ghouls love to laugh, was her inextinguishable sorrow for the world of sunlight and human warmth she had lost. - Meryphillia
My passion for collecting had expanded to include desiccated corpses in their entirety, those which struck my fancy either through freakishness, through some dim hint of former beauty, or through mad contortions suggesting the horror of untimely entombment. Now that my collection numbered more than five hundred specimens, I was very particluar in my selection, and if I found no human relic worth taking, I would justify my time and trouble by gathering up a necklace or a few rings. By the age of eighteen, I, Lord Glyphtard, had become a grave-robber. - Throne of Bones
Throne of Bones is not an easy collection. I can understand the criticism. The stories are often too long, rambling and a bit - or a lot according to ones taste - light on plot. And one has to read it in small doses, as the stories tend to blend. Basically it is always the same. Ghouls in a C.A.Smith fantasyworld.
Still, I really like McNaughton's world building here, his names are on the spot and the constant morbidity is often laugh out loud funny.
And as McNaughton is avaiable as Ebooks at modest prices, you can't do wrong.
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Post by cromagnonman on Nov 17, 2017 23:21:39 GMT
You're very welcome Dem. I know Carlyle also published his Satan books but it would be interesting to find out what else they issued. Here's a list of a few. Belated thanks for the list Doc. Going through it it now seems pretty clear just which direction Carlyle was coming from. It also served to remind me that I happen to have one of their books on the shelf, and not one of those listed either. A few years back, when I was in the habit of picking up pretty much any vintage sword and sorcery novel I could get my hands on, I stumbled upon something called THE COMING OF CORMAC. The back cover blurb bills it thus: "The first sword and sorcery book to ever hit the stands - with plenty of hot far-out, uncensored sex!" Now it might not have much in the way of literary merit but no way can it be said to fall afoul of the Trade Descriptions Act. Far-Out is putting it mildly. Even at the best of times there is often little to differentiate straight sword and sorcery from parody. This one is quite unapologetic about which side of the line it stands on. When Howard opts for a discretionary fade out as Conan and the scantily clad heroine get it on together this one goes right on filming in Supermarionation and full dolby stereo. Some of the jokes are actually quite amusing, like having an evil sorceress called Sheheit (say it quick) who smears Cormac's -hm, equipment - with an ointment that prevents him from - hm, finishing what he's started. But when the Fantastic Four turn up (I swear I'm not making this up) and the Thing proves to be sex obsessed and more interested in rodgerin' than clobberin' then the whole farrago lifts off into the stratosphere of the surreal. You know, I may just have to go back and read it again now just to prove to myself I didn't hallucinate all of this. The name on the cover is Caer Ged. I'm not entirely certain now if this was covering the blushes of Geo Proctor or David Gerrold. I've seen both accredited with it. Proctor wasn't actually a bad fantasy writer. Gerrold is more generally associated with SF including the Heinlein venerating War Against the Chtorr which I seem to recall John Brosnan memorably dismissing as a "wart on the arse of literature". |
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Post by ramseycampbell on Jan 4, 2018 10:17:18 GMT
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