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Post by nightreader on May 17, 2008 8:51:30 GMT
The Macabre Reader Ed. by Donald A. Wolheim (Digit Books 1959) ‘The Crawling Horror’ – Thorp McClusky ‘The Opener of the Way’ – Robert Bloch ‘In Amundsen’s Tent’ – John Martin Leahy ‘The Thing on the Doorstep’ – H.P. Lovecraft ‘The Hollow Man’ – Thomas Burke ‘It will Grow on You’ – Donald Wandrei ‘The Hunters from Beyond’ – Clark Ashton Smith ‘The Curse of Yig’ – Zealia Brown Bishop ‘The Cairn on the Headland’ – Robert E. Howard ‘The Trap’ – Henry S. Whitehead
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Post by nightreader on May 17, 2008 8:43:01 GMT
Thought you might be interested in seeing this. Another recent find... From the back cover:The strange new beetles lool like exquiiste jewels - covered with emerald and yellow markings.
Accompanying them are something even more terrifying - gigantic worms that turn pink after feasting on human blood.
These lethal allies now converge in devastation and massacre of a terrified city. And no one in London can escape their horrendous onslaught...Not read it yet, but looks like fun
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Post by nightreader on May 6, 2008 17:52:21 GMT
Can a horror story go too far?
I think it came close with Miller's 'The Magic Show' story in 'More Devil's Kisses' - that made me feel uncomfortable for a good while afterward - I was half expecting to get arrested just for having it in the house! But then is that horror? Or is it closer to porn?
I'm a bit of a slow starter with the Birkin stories, and I certainly don't think they go too far (wherever that is) - I was expecting something horrible in 'A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts' and I'm glad he was brave enough not to disappoint, i guess it would have been easy to 'cop out'. Although some of the stories of his I've read are quite brutal, they also strike me as quite sad at times too.
Which story or stories nearly made you give up on the genre altogether?
There was a time, probably sometime in the 80's, when I nearly went off horror. About the time Anne Rice took over the bookshelves of nearly every bookshop on the planet. I could probably blame "Interview With A Vampire". When horror novels got bloated and the writers wanted literary credibility I got bored. I turned to crime fiction where there were (and still are) some very disturbing serial killer novels. I still get that old frustration in the bookshop when everything looks the same, I really loathe those endless series of trendy vampire novels with a fashionable vamp on the cover.
I have to say that the few Laymon books I've read have been entertaining - no one is pretending it's Art, and that's why I like them when I'm in the right mood. But then I always liked the pulps and a high gory death count usually works for me.
And 'Hostel' was ok I thought, but the sequel was dire and pointless (I should have known better, 'Saw' was the same).
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Post by nightreader on May 4, 2008 9:28:09 GMT
Cheers Pulp, that's bumped this one up the top of the pile I've not read a Sexton Blake before but I recall Martin Thomas' "Hands of Cain" was a good read.
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Post by nightreader on May 3, 2008 20:40:58 GMT
Damned If You DoCalhoun is a killer. Nine children in twenty five years. It’s almost inevitable that somebody will find out and that somebody turns out to be his wife Patsy. He starts digging a hole in the garden… The Hurting SeasonIn the middle of nowhere there are some strange customs. Theron isn’t sure if the the hurting season happens anywhere else, he just knows his Daddy hurts himself, does his penance from Winter Festival through to May Day. Chains and fish hooks and leather strops help him atone for a long forgotten sin. Into this private life stumbles Evan, with a broken down car, needing to use the phone… I Am Infinite; I Contain MultitudesAurora is an asylum for the criminally insane. There are some very bad people in there. Joe has been in Aurora for four months and has already caught the attention of Hype, one of the ‘old-timers’, so nicknamed because he claims to have hyperawareness. Hype tells Joe there had once been another asylum on the site of Aurora, built underground with the inmates kept locked away from sight, forsaken. Hype also tells of the atomic testing that had gone on years ago, out in the desert, underground. He tells Joe there is a way out… This was a really satisfying collection of stories. I’m definitely looking forward to reading more Douglas Clegg. He's got a very nice website at www.douglasclegg.com worth checking out.
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Post by nightreader on May 3, 2008 16:02:53 GMT
Found these today...
"One Foot In The Grave" - Davis Grubb (Arrow 1966) No, nothing to do with Victor Meldrew...
"The Macabre Reader" - Ed. Donald A. Wolheim (Digit 1959)
"The Sorcerers of Set - Sexton Blake No.27 (5th Series)" - Martin Thomas (Mayflower Dell 1966)
"The Haunting of Toby Jugg" - Dennis Wheatley (Hutchinson April 1956) Nice hardback with a cover that made me buy it...
"50 Great Ghost Stories" - Ed. by John Canning (Book Club Associates 1984) This could be the only dud of the bunch, not sure yet...
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Post by nightreader on Apr 29, 2008 18:05:24 GMT
The Rendering Man It’s 1934 in Moncure County and Thalia and her brother have found something dead on the farm. It’s a pig, which will mean a trip to the Rendering Man. Thalia discovers what rendering is – using every bit of the dead thing for something else, the skin, bones, grease. As the Rendering Man says, someone must do it. Years later in 1952 and Thalia is now a grown woman on a train in Germany and once again she meets the Rendering Man, who reminds her of something terrible she did that he paid the price for, and he tells her of something terrible that he has done also…
The Night Before Alec Got Married A stag night party that goes horribly wrong. A best friend who thinks he’s giving the condemned man something amazing with a stunning looking prostitute. One night of dancing and whatever… Her pimp, seeing a bunch of rich guys, goes along to the party with his girl, warning the men: “head or hand, no tail”. There’s a very good reason for this, as Alec soon finds out…
The Ripening Sweetness of Late Afternoon Roy Shadiak returns to his hometown of Sunland City to make his atonement. He finds his the town under a curfew, it’s citizens being picked off by angelic harpies, taken to the nearby beach and devoured. He believes he’s had a message from God to atone for a crime he committed when he was young…
Chosen Bug horror. Rob Arlington’s landlord wants to get an exterminator in to kill the roaches, but Rob thinks it’s an excuse for the man to go snooping through his apartment. The slightly odd woman next door agrees with him, but then she likes bugs. Then Roy hears an odd noise from one of the disposal shafts while he’s doing his laundry in the basement, and finds a dead baby. Soon after his girlfriend tells him she’s been bitten by something during the night…
"The Little Mermaid" When the lady sprains her ankle while walking on the beach the old man offers to help her. He said he’d once been a doctor. The painkillers he gives her are so strong, when she wakes up in agony she eventually realises something is missing…
...yet more to come...
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Post by nightreader on Apr 26, 2008 15:29:03 GMT
The Nightmare Chronicles by Douglas Clegg (Leisure Books 1999) A collection of short stories bound together in a loose ‘framing’ story. The stories are not related nor do they have any bearing on the framing story, but they can be very dark, sometimes gruesome, sometimes shocking but I found them all to be well told. I really enjoyed this collection. I rarely read a collection from cover to cover, sometimes I’ll skip a story if it’s not ‘working’ for me, sometimes I’ll go back and finish it but often I don’t. With these I read them all. Underworld White Chapel O, rare and Most Exquisite Only Connect The Fruit of Her Womb The Rendering Man The Night Before Alec Got Married The Ripening Sweetness of Late Afternoon Chosen “The Little Mermaid” Damned If You Do The Hurting Season I Am Infinite; I Contain Multitudes The framing story concerns Alice and her sons, who have kidnapped a young boy from a wealthy family. The twelve year old boy is down in the basement in handcuffs with duct tape over his mouth. He’s been down there for two days. Alice’s sons believe there’s ‘something wrong’ with the kid. Alice goes to find out. Her sons prove to be right. Even though he’s bound and gagged he gets into Alice’s head and shows her his stories… UnderworldA ghost story set in New York. Oliver’s wife Jenny and their unborn child are murdered in their apartment. Oliver finds the body. Later the grieving Oliver turns to neighbour Helen for friendship and comfort. While out one night they pass a Chinese restaurant where Oliver had taken his wife, he sees the business has closed and through a grimy window he sees dead Jenny’s face. He is sure he has seen Jenny and eventually breaks in to the old restaurant. He finds something hanging in an old walk–in freezer… White ChapelJournalist Jane Boone goes first to Calcutta, then to a remote place called White Chapel, down river in the heat and the mosquitoes. She is on the trail of a story. The story will be about a man called Nathan Merritt, deserter during the war then found to be a mass torturer and murderer, a man with a talent for killing and skinning the faces off his victims. Jane also learns about the legend on the Monkey God Y-Cha and the man Hadriman the Third who skinned monkeys to show his power over the Monkey God and people of White Chapel. The two stories collide when Jane finds Nathan Merritt and also discovers pain and blood… O, Rare and Most ExquisiteA young man learns about love in a nursing home for the elderly. A dying old man shows the boy the rarest flower that ever existed and tells him the story of how he found love. A story about how far someone might go to show his love, even when it’s not returned... Only ConnectJim works for the rail company and gets terrible headaches. Or does he? Or is he really an old lady in a hospital, one of a group of people leading similar double lives? Perhaps it has something to do with the Arc Project. And then there is the problem of the Intruder... The Fruit of her WombA couple retire to the country, buy a beautiful house called Tierraroja and life seems good. They find a Victorian urn sealed with wax. Inside is a smokers pipe inscribed with the initials J.R. They find the house (and pipe) once belonged to a Joe Redlander who chopped up his wife and children one night then headed off into the desert. The police caught him but he claimed his innocence. Then there is Ed the gardener who had been hopelessly in love with the eldest Redlander daughter... ...more to come...
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Post by nightreader on Apr 26, 2008 7:03:24 GMT
Here's a couple more I found for the list:
Gerald Suster - Striker (1984) and John Farris - Son of the Endless Night (1987)
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Post by nightreader on Apr 24, 2008 19:11:01 GMT
Remember we tried listing the 80's NEL's once? Think we might have missed a few...
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Post by nightreader on Apr 23, 2008 18:45:09 GMT
The Devil's Kiss by John Hyde (NEL 1984) The story begins in 1943, in a wintry Nissan hut laboratory somewhere in the English countryside. A scientist anxiously awaits the decision of the War Cabinet on the use of a deadly virus – any one of the Four Horsemen as they’ve nicknamed the toxins could defeat the Nazis. Word arrives that Churchill has forbidden the use of any biological weapon unless the Allies are in certain defeat… Forty years later Arthur and Tony are at work deep in the sewers beneath London searching for a blockage somewhere beneath the city. They find instead an old bunker and an unexploded bomb from WWII. A collapse in an old sewer wall has set the bomb off ticking. And Tony has found a small glass phial in a desk drawer in the bunker, then he drops it. Then the bomb goes off, causing the tunnels of the nearby Underground to cave in just as the train approaches Moorgate station. On the train is Detective Sergeant Andy Wise who leads the survivors in his carriage to safety. Over the coming days Londoners begin to commit irrational acts of violence and then have no memory of doing so. Others break out in skin rashes and seeping sores. Andy Wise starts to piece together a Government cover up. He traces the survivors of the Tube cave in but finds them missing and their houses inexplicably burned down. He learns that others are being taken away in secret to an army base in the country… It turns out the scientist during the War had developed a strain of the anthrax virus, of the four cultures created Diabolus was the most virulent and dangerous which was why it was never used. When Churchill vetoed it’s use the scientist absconded with one of the phials, went to the bunker in London just as a German bomb dropped on it. Where it lay until the sewer workers found it. This was quite an entertaining read, quite pacy over it’s 155 pages – this must have been just before most books were given that weird growth hormone that packs them out to 500 plus pages… Anyway all the better for this. I liked the way it turned the WWII conflict around, usually it’s the evil Nazis cooking up some horror to defeat the Allies but here of course it’s the other way around. And throw a good Government conspiracy into the mix adds to the fun. (No artist credited for the cover - wondered if this was a Les Edwards? Pretty good I thought...)
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Post by nightreader on Apr 20, 2008 20:39:57 GMT
Ade - I'd go for Warlock if I had a choice. By far the best of the three I think. Vampire starts out well but loses it later on...
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Post by nightreader on Apr 20, 2008 7:21:00 GMT
Night of the Griffin by Raymond Giles (NEL 1971) This is a pretty straightforward gothic romance with all the traditional elements you’d expect. Even for a reader who doesn’t know this genre it follows a fairly predictable pattern. Beth St. Dennis is the heroine. She is encouraged by her far more glamorous flatmate Nina to accompany her to a Halloween party at her wealthy friend’s mansion, Griffon House, a suitably grand but spooky location. Griffon House is the family home of the Griffon family, in residence are the strikingly beautiful but wicked Maretta and her moody but attractive brother Robert. Maretta is a witch, a white one she says, and wants Beth to view a Sabbat that is being held later in the evening. Maretta is interested in Beth because she has shown a talent for the Tarot and may be a gifted psychic. At the Sabbat Beth is charmed by Robert who persuades her to leave the Sabbat and spend time with him. Robert is a troubled man, he has scars on his wrists from a suicide attempt and is prone to deep and dangerous depressions. Naturally Beth falls in love with Robert and he asks her to marry him. That is when things start to go wrong. Robert and Beth marry and this seems to be the catalyst for things to change. Beth begins to sense a great evil in the house, the stirring of the griffin perhaps, then Robert’s depression returns and he wants Beth to leave but wont say why. It eventually emerges that Maretta is the leader of a coven called the Children of the Griffin, whose members worship the Griffin as a manifestation of Satan himself. A sceptical Robert once pledged himself to the cult which demands that a member should never marry one outside the cult. Maretta now wants Beth to be initiated into the cult… Sadly there isn’t a big satisfying Wheatley-esque finale but a kind of soppy cop-out, as Robert attempts to sacrifice himself to save Beth. Like I said this is all fairly predictable stuff, but apart from the weak ending, there are some good moments in the book. I liked the Children of the Griffin idea, the classic coven of hedonists, all prospering from their nefarious doings. Maretta is a good baddie, cool and sophisticated and scheming. But in the end it’s not as good as ‘Night of the Warlock’…
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Post by nightreader on Apr 5, 2008 10:37:07 GMT
Here's another cracking cover - sadly no artist credited on this 1980 Sphere book... Barbara (for this is she presumably) is not looking too well...
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Post by nightreader on Apr 5, 2008 10:32:52 GMT
Speak Of The Devil - Ed. by Ned E. Hoopes (Mayflower Dell 1967) 17 Diabolic Tales ‘The Devil and Tom Walker’ – Washington Irving ‘The Devil and Daniel Webster’ – Stephen Vincent Benet ‘The Painter’s Bargain’ – William Makepeace Thackeray ‘The Devil and the Old Man’ – John Masefield ‘The Devil and the Deep Sea’ – Rudyard Kipling ‘Satan and Sam Shay’ – Robert Arthur ‘The Friendly Demon’ – Daniel Defoe ‘The Devil in the Belfry’ – Edgar Allan Poe ‘Young Goodman Brown’ – Nathaniel Hawthorne ‘The Lightning Rod Man’ – Herman Melville ‘The Devil’ – Guy de Maupassant ‘Madam Lucifer’ – Richard Garnett ‘The Demon Hope’ – Richard Garnett ‘Little St. Michael’ – Laurence Housman ‘The Demon Lover’ – Elizabeth Bowen ‘The Devil, George and Rosie’ – John Collier ‘Dance With The Devil’ – Betsy Emmons I'm sure many of these have turned up elsewhere but it might be of interest. And I do quite like the (uncredited) cover...
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