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Post by dem on Oct 20, 2007 7:40:08 GMT
Ramsey Campbell (ed) - The Gruesome Book (Piccolo, 1983)  Ivan Lapper
Ramsey Campbell - Calling Card
Nigel Kneale - The Pond
August Derleth - The Extra Passenger
Robert Bloch - Hobo
Donald A. Wollheim - Bones
Brian Lumley - The Deep-Sea Conch
Richard Matheson - Long Distance Call
Henry Kuttner - The Graveyard Rats
David Langford - 3:47 AMRamsey Campbell will take your breath away with the heartstopping shock and horror of these spinechilling tales. Begin your journey into nightmare with The Calling Card and end it in the ultimate horror of The Graveyard Rats.
A chillingly brilliant collection of truly gruesome stories!
WARNING: These stories are NOT to be read by the very young. In 1983, somebody at Pan got it into their heads that it would be a neat idea to get RC to compile a book of horror stories for children. Were they mad? The resultant night-terrors and bedwetting epidemics must have well cheered up the parents of any kids who dared buy The Gruesome BookRamsey's justification for this wonderful selection is simple. When he was a child, he always felt cheated by the horror story collections aimed specifically at young adults because they weren't scary. Even so ... Yes, that is the same The Graveyard Rats, justly selected by Peter Haining to grace his The Unspeakable People. Kneale's The Pond concerns an old man whose hobby is stuffing frogs and fitting them out in elaborate constumes ... until the frogs have had enough of it. Hobo - which I haven't found anywhere else - sees a bum jumping a freight-train out of town to escape a serial killer. Bones, and an experiment to revive a centuries-old mummy fail horribly. And then there's Dekker and his week old digital alarm clock that keeps waking him at 3.47am, no matter what time he sets the alarm for. He's been having nightmares, too. Nightmares in which insects burst from his skin, his teeth shatter and his eyeballs explode. Deciding to face his fears head on, he lies awake, waiting to see what happens as the seconds tick closer to the 3.47 mark ... Put it this way. If this had been compiled as a book in the "Fontana Horror" series, nobody would have complained.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 25, 2007 13:48:15 GMT
I wonder if kids were different then. I know we used to scare the shite out of each other and were definitely reading Pan horror stories at about 8 or 9. Then we would tell the most gruesome (adding more grusemome bits than any living horror author could invent) at break time.
I have a feeling somebody official might ask a few questions if we strated produces books like this for kids now. I mean, Harry Potter is banned in some parts
Craig
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Post by dem on Oct 25, 2007 16:44:29 GMT
I think that bears out the point Ramsey was making very well. I'd read any of the books in this section nowadays, but as a kid it doesn't help that often the cover art makes you feel patronised half to death before you even get to the stories (Ivan Lapper's brilliant wrap-around painting and illustrations within The Gruesome Book are a notable exception).
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Post by thecoffinflies on Jul 6, 2008 14:33:49 GMT
Another book I've owned most of my life.
I still get a shudder if I notice a digital clock telling me it's 3.47am...
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jeperson
New Face In Hell
I now know where the yellow went.
Posts: 4
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Post by jeperson on Jan 1, 2009 23:54:38 GMT
Yeah, that last story still makes me shudder! Who'd have thought that cuddly old Dave Langford could have such a viscerally unpleasant horror yarn inside him?
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Post by dem on Aug 12, 2010 14:08:57 GMT
While we're on the subject of Ramsey Campbell's work, thought i'd give The Gruesome Book a booster as it really is a gem of a collection. On the slim side - 110 pages including illustrations: a NEL fiend's delight in other words - the only thing wrong with The Gruesome Book is that it wasn't the first book in a long running series (uniform, utilizing Ivan Ivan Lapper's incredible artwork throughout obviously).  Ivan LapperYeah, that last story still makes me shudder! Who'd have thought that cuddly old Dave Langford could have such a viscerally unpleasant horror yarn inside him? Oh, i don't know. Any man who can write a story that pits a psychic detective against a spectral disembodied penis .....  |
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Post by lemming13 on Aug 16, 2010 14:21:12 GMT
What? A spectral penis? This I have to read. What's it called? |
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Post by dem on Aug 16, 2010 16:56:01 GMT
What? A spectral penis? This I have to read. What's it called?  Michael Whelan in Karl E. Wagner's Years Best Horror Stories XIII, featuring gentleman, adventurer & psychic sleuth Smythe ("It happened to me once, did death - you may remember my telling you about that hideous affair of the haunted percolator?"). Don't come crying to me if the terrible apparition gives you nightmares! His story from The Gruesome Book, 3. 47 AM made
Years Best Horror Stories XII. |
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