Darrell Buxton [ed.] - The Ateth BHF Book of Horror Stories

[dem bones]

There is ghoulish, and there is ...

Darrell Buxton [ed.] - The Ateth BHF Book of Horror Stories (BHF, Sept. 2022)

Paul Mudie

Darrell Buxton - introduction

Barry Hale - Leather Apron
T. N. Shaw [Tony Earnshaw] - A Matter of Taste
Andrew Llewellyn - Medium Exceptionally Rare
Darrell Buxton - Dem Bones
Simon J. Ballard - Cannibal, Feral
Samantha Jayne Crosby - Shall We?
Adam Millard - Who's Eating Ginny Drake?
Christopher Tighe - In a Packed Programme Tonight
Jez Conolly - One Eyed, One Horned
T. N. Shaw - Eat You All Up!
Ken Shinn - There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Sawney
Sam Trafford - Crackling
Jason D. Brawn - Just Eat
Wayne Mook - Cursed to Live
Simon J. Ballard - Dissolve in Water
Christopher Tighe - Cat Food
James Stanger - Help Me Homunculus
Nadia Mook - Eats To Their Own
Ian Taylor - Fame/ Hungry
Stephen Lang - Specials
Ian Morgan - Got To Be in It To Win It
Jed Vesper - Homo Sapiens Anti Veganus
Kevin Hoxsey - Communion
Kevin Hoxsey - Communion, Too
Simon J. Ballard - House Of Morsel Sin
Ian Taylor - Swallow Your Pride
Andy Allard - Teeth
William Bitner - The Cost of Dental Work Can Be High
Ken Shinn - I Owe It All To Toto Coelo
Sam Dawson - Visiting Hours
Jez Conolly - Sticky Ends

Illustrations: Simon J. Ballard, Jez Conolly, Sam Dawson, Mark Hetherington, Selene Paxton-Brooks, Sam Trafford, Wayne Mook

Blurb:
Frying tonight!
Ratings-hungry radio presenter bites off more than they can chew when a ravenous caller reveals a peculiar penchant for body parts ... Meet the feral juvenile gang for whom "NHS means "Nourishing Human Sustenance' ... Pop idols feed the world. Live Aid? Quite the opposite...
You'll love the pub grub at the rural tavern serving up horrific hors d'oeuvres and a macabre main course...
Full of meaty goodness! The latest flavoursome volume in the popular BHF series brings you ghoulish gastronomy galore, as we dare to enter the anthropophagic arena of... the cannibal! Guaranteed to make you vomit, our selection of terror tales this time focuses on flesh-eating and the very worst aspects of human nature. We present a tempting plateful of sizzlingly succulent pan-fried shockers for your delectation. What's on the menu? Watch out - it might just be you, dear reader...

So let's get stuck in.

Barry Hale - Leather Apron: A deeply unpleasant torture fest to ease us in. A father stocks a larder with caged adults to provide nutrition for a hungry baby. The fate of comedy legend Ricky "the Rick-Meister" Gee is inhumane to the reader.

T. N. Shaw [Tony Earnshaw] - A Matter of Taste: Malc 'Brownie' Brown, seaman, confides why he can no longer watch Paul Newman's egg-eating turn in Cool Hand Luke. It is all the fault of Erik, a young Scot who took pride in his ability to digest the most disgusting dishes before a retching audience.

Andrew Llewellyn - Medium Exceptionally Rare: Charlotte, so hideously disfigured by a sexual sadist that she conceals her ruined face behind a mask, wages war upon the Fetal Flesh Society, a discreet supply service for the affluent gourmand of Montgomery, Alabama.

Darrell Buxton - Dem Bones: Bingo, a prolific, happy-go-lucky man-eating serial killer, hits upon a ghastly gimmick ....

Simon J. Ballard - Cannibal, Feral: Lucas Evans, prolific killer of chatroom homosexuals, chances upon a girl child living wild in the Wiltshire woodland. Evans chains her up in his garage for use as a waste disposal unit ...

On evidence of the above that "guaranteed to make you vomit" may not be so far wide of the mark.

[Jojo Lapin X]

Sounds like "splatterpunk" all over again.

[iant]

Having written two tales for this collection, I know that I went more brutal and splattery in one of them... it was perhaps the theme, but also the type of stuff I'd seen my peers writing in previous volumes. There is grim, gory stuff, but still diversity, I hope... and good writing. These collections are part-throwbacks to Pan but with fresh. modern twists. I've been impressed with what Darrell has helped to create. 

[dem bones]

Sept 25, 2022 20:36:20 GMT Jojo Lapin X said:

Sounds like "splatterpunk" all over again.

I was wary of an x-treme horror sado porn wallow, but nothing of the kind (not yet, at any rate). Some of the accounts of true/'true' historical episodes in the Alan Robson ghost book I've been reading are more explicit.

Samantha Jayne Crosby - Shall We?: Suburban witches Minerva, Rose, and her daughter, Georgie, take an instant dislike to the leering beer monster moved in next door. Appropriate measures are taken to ensure 'Raz's residency is a brief one.

Adam Millard - Who's Eating Ginny Drake?: A plague comes to Alabama, possibly everywhere else, too, killing crops, poisoning meat, necessitating the wholesale slaughter of cattle. Famine decimates the population. Most weeks twelve-year-old Ginny is lucky to eat every other day, but tonight — a miracle! Pa and Uncle Mac, the surgeon, have three juicy beef steaks on the fry!

Christopher Tighe - In a Packed Programme Tonight: A ratings conscious Talk Radio presenter interviews a convicted cannibal live in the studio. Chatty guest enthuses over the marvel that is the George Foreman grill. Here, lemme demonstrate.

Jez Conolly - One Eyed, One Horned: Our senior literary correspondent, Jez Conolly, meets best-selling horror author Randolph Villiers, a wilfully offensive, notoriously "difficult" interviewee, to chew the fat over the latter's prodigious output.

[dem bones]

T. N. Shaw - Eat You All Up!: American scholar Jack Keysburgh, a noted authority on anthropophagy, spends a working holiday with wife Debra and their two young daughters at Girvan on the Ayrshire coast. The locals are friendly, but when Keysburgh lets on that he's researching the legend of Sawney Beane, they laugh in his face. The exception is Leigh Stuart, a prodigal son made good, returned to his childhood home to systematically buy up the village. Everyone, the Keyburgh's included, detests the old man, not least for his unashamed slobbering over underage girls, but he's Jack's only lead. Stuart is adamant; not only were the Beane cannibal clan a reality, but their legacy lives on in the community to this very day.

Ken Shinn - There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Sawney: The proprietor of the town's most popular fast food joint offers partnership to his youthful apprentice, Sam Cockrell, but the lad's still sore over that whole lamb kebab episode. Fans of a certain Martin S. Waddell Pan horror are likely to appreciate this one.

Sam Trafford - Crackling: Erin, the girl with the Burnley FC tattoo, arrives late for the meet-the-parent's dinner at her posh foodie new boyfriend's mildly notorious "haunted hall." Not that it matters. They started without her.

Jason D. Brawn - Just Eat: A well-to-do Highgate Village couple order a takeaway online. David fancies a vegetarian. Alice is gagging for the Caribbean spice.

[dem bones]

Of the six Darrell Buxton edited theme-BHF Horror's, Ate was the one I had doubts about. Wouldn't an entire volume of cannibal stories grow samey after three or four on the bounce? I'm 200 pages in now, and, in common with certain of our protagonists, still having a ball.

Wayne Mook - Cursed to Live: If you must dissect and eat someone, first make sure they're not a self-regenerating refugee from some Victor Frankenstein wannabe's laboratory ...

Simon J. Ballard - Dissolve in Water: "Your death can be your gift to the planet." Aquamation - the eco-friendly alternative to cremation; the corpse first liquified in a tank, distilled and sprinkled over the soil. Business was so booming at Aquarium Inc., until Donovan Leyland, the brains of the outfit, took to drink ....

Christopher Tighe - Cat Food: Mrs Hesselthwhite hires a youthful hit man and her couple to off her parsimonious ex-husband following their bitter divorce. The marriage went downhill after their second honeymoon when their plane crashed in the Swiss Alps. Eight weeks stranded on a snowy peak with nothing to eat but the corpses of the mangled. Consequently, Mrs. H. has contrived a poetic after-demise for former spouse with a starring role for his mangy cat, Mrs. Tiddles.

James Stanger- Help Me Homunculus: A painfully thin man, consumed by self-loathing, takes the battle to the enemy within. Pretty short on chuckles.

Nadia Mook - Eats To Their Own: A Manchester vampire cell invite the wrong girl to their Houseparty. Anna Marie is several decades older than the twentysomething she looks, and she owes it to a strict diet.

[jepersonoatcake]

Compared to an actual Pan Book of Horror Stories tale? I feel duly flattered!

Glad that you're enjoying our bill of fare thus far, and hopefully will do so for the remainder. My second story is somewhat less light-hearted than 'Sawney', with arguably some important things to say about misogyny and power, but even more lurid - and, I personally reckon, with a much happier ending! Looking forward to seeing what you think of it...

[dem bones]

Ian Taylor - Fame/ Hungry: Foodbank Britain PLC is truly the gift that keeps on giving for the caring celeb. All those lovely photo opportunities! Overlooked for the lucrative #MeToo promo campaign - "They said they wanted the most visible stars" - Tybeau Cantrell, pop punk legend of fast diminishing status is desperate to upstage rapper Larkin Gildrose at the Wealth V. Hunger's Big Buffet. Happily, both are persuaded to make a substantial contribution.

Stephen Lang - Specials: The catering industry was among the hardest hit by lockdown, countless pubs and restaurants broken by two years of zero-income. Facing redundancy, Katie hits on a radical initiative to save the Hickory Tavern, a favourite dining haunt of coastal walkers of Br*x*t**r persuasion.

Ian Morgan - Got To Be in It To Win It: Laura is among the fortunate few invited to contest a new, particularly tasteless game show. A few rounds of questions, stuff your prize money in a suitcase, and into the maze. "Want to keep the money? Well, all you have to do is outrun .... the Beast!"

Jed Vesper - Homo Sapiens Anti Veganus: Alone among Grimfield's supermarkets, the ThriftZone continues to stock a full range of meaty treats in defiance of Vegan Party protests. In fact, this morning there's a vaster selection of chops, joints, shoulders and ribs than ever - and that's just the fruit & veg section.

Kevin Hoxsey - Communion: Post-Armageddon. Enormous amorphous flapping things and ghouls prey upon the few humans left alive. Holed up in the Sacred Heart, Cody must protect Father Michael from predators or all is lost.

Kevin Hoxsey - Communion, Too: A multiple murderer believes he may still receive God's mercy by taking Holy communion from his childhood Priest.

[darrell]

Picking a favourite story isn't the 'done thing' for an editor, but not playing by the rules is my forte and I always make a point of singling out the best from each new BHF volume. And when Jed Vesper's 'Anti Veganus' arrived in my in-box I was enthralled. Genuinely surreal, and that's coming from someone who hates the overuse and misapplication of that term. I could envisage this as a vignette in one of Bunuel's early 70s screen classics.

[dem bones]

"Do you honestly believe that voodoo turned me into some sort of slut of vengeful death?"

Simon J. Ballard - House Of Morsel Sin: A sequel to Good Girl Gone Bad in Fifth BHF Book of Horror Stories. Jay Edwards' latest boy shows such an unhealthy interest in the recent Holywell cemetery murder as to sicken even the perpetrator.

Ian Taylor - Swallow Your Pride: With husband Jonty's carpentry business in dire straits, Samantha turns to estranged little-sister-with-the- business-acumen for help. Joanna takes care of the immediate threat in trademark uncompromising fashion.

Andy Allard - Teeth: Night of the Manchester sex cannibal. Ezra Hinds' replacement choppers - as supplied and fitted by a backstreet monster dentist - retain their unhealthy appetite for female flesh ......

William Bitner - The Cost of Dental Work Can Be High: .... while Eva's pre-loved dental implant carries on where it's late donor left off.

Ken Shinn - I Owe It All To Toto Coelo: The suicidal victim of a particularly callous male slag returns as super-buxom Angel of Vengeance following initiation into Mother Teeth's cannibal cult.

Sam Dawson - Visiting Hours: (Pariah & Other Stories, 2021). A decade since were buried alive during the London blitz, the missing children emerge from their tunnels under cover of thick fog to slip inside a hospital .... Outstanding on first reading, if anything, I liked it more second time around.

Jez Conolly - Sticky Ends: What's left of a long-term patient live from the Privatklinik Bluttbadstrausse who provide a service for amputee fetishists and auto-cannibals. Quite a coincidence, but I read an article on the former only a few hours before finishing off this anthology. "They aspire to an idealised shape. It can start with chopping off fingers and end by chopping off one bit after another. They are not mad. They can be well-organised, successful, creative people. It's just they have this compulsion." (Dr. Bryan Tully on "stump fetishism," Fortean Times #80, April-May 1995).

Oct 12, 2022 11:31:17 GMT darrell said:

Picking a favourite story isn't the 'done thing' for an editor, but not playing by the rules is my forte and I always make a point of singling out the best from each new BHF volume. And when Jed Vesper's 'Anti Veganus' arrived in my in-box I was enthralled. Genuinely surreal, and that's coming from someone who hates the overuse and misapplication of that term. I could envisage this as a vignette in one of Bunuel's early 70s screen classics.

Just now my pick from seven strong candidates — including the aforementioned Homo Sapiens Anti Veganus — is the solitary (?) reprint, Visiting Hours, for giving me Death Line vibes each of the three times I've read it. Of the originals, 'T. N. Shaw's Eat You All Up! is an instant BHF Horror classic.

Didn't think I'd get on at all well with an entire book of cannibal stories, but breezed through!

[iant]

Sam's Visiting Hours is absolute class.

[samdawson]

Thank you Dem Bones and Darrell for your kind comments on Visiting Hours. 

While I'm here can I put in a good word for John Hadfield's 1960s anthology A Chamber of Horrors which is one of the books that made its way out of the box it's been in since 1982 or '83 thanks to the latest set of bookshelves (I know it has its own VoE slot, but since I'm here and all that). It offers a rather good, even erudite, collection of stories, along with some artwork, and I now realise that this is probably where I first read tales such as The Yellow Wallpaper as a teen. I am now moving on to another box escapee, The Fonatana Book of Horror Stories, with its slightly disappointing out of focus cover.

[iant]

Outrageous, Sam! What about me??? I just called it absolute class!

[samdawson]

Oct 13, 2022 20:13:43 GMT iant said:

Outrageous, Sam! What about me??? I just called it absolute class!

You did and I missed it, probably because I was looking at 'View recent posts' rather than the relevant thread. Thank you, as always, Ian, I am going to have to try and stop all this praise going to my head.

[iant]

Well, I'll make that more difficult by praising the entirety of Pariah and Other Stories. A quality collection.