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Post by paulfinch on Oct 20, 2010 8:57:07 GMT
Naah ... probably no more awesome than the next man's, but it's my new one. So if you've no paint to watch dry or grass to watch grow, pop in and say hello sometime. paulfinch-writer.blogspot.com/
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Post by paulfinch on Oct 6, 2010 18:32:35 GMT
Not sure whether it's permitted to self-promote on this board, or not, so apologies if it isn't. But I thought this might be newsworthy. My new collection, ONE MONSTER IS NOT ENOUGH, is now available from Gray Friar Press in hardback, with the softback to follow around November. From the icy wastes of the Russian Steppe to the grimy backstreets of industrial northern England, from the depths of the ocean abyss to a forgotten corner of inner London ... tales about monsters that will guarantee you never again dismiss the notion of mysterious and terrible creatures. www.grayfriarpress.com/catalogue/monster.htmlContains eight horror novellas, including four originals, one British Fantasy Award winner and one International Horror Guild Award winner. Again ... sorry for the self-promotion. Hope this doesn't tread on too many toes.
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Post by paulfinch on Oct 5, 2010 21:25:06 GMT
I would only be thinking wether I liked the story or not Dem, not really rating each tale ... sorry elric, that "rated" was me resorting to my lazy slang ways ("i didn't much rate it") - "how many horror anthologies have you read where you liked every story?" would have been better. i can fully understand and appreciate your reaction to the story, likewise Lord P.'s. Paul, if i'd been aware of Nasty Piece Of Work's existence i'm pretty sure i'd have subscribed and for exactly the same reason as you did. i also remember back on our old board where one of the guys put me onto an erotic horror short about a randy nun containing several passages of extreme S&M. "Sounds just my type of thing!" i thought ... until i read it. By the way, i absolutely adore your contribution to Zombie Apocalypse Thanks for those very kind comments, D. It was a great honour to be in so amazing an anthology.
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Post by paulfinch on Oct 5, 2010 16:59:49 GMT
I have to say that ‘Bernard Bought the Farm’ has possibly presented me with the first ever quandary I’ve had with horror, and certainly the first one since I started writing it myself. I’ll confess straight away that I personally didn’t like it – I thought it was excessive and the balance of gratuitous shock to worthwhile story was so far in favour of the former that I found it an extremely unpleasant reading experience. This is not necessarily a criticism – if that was the author’s intention then he succeeded, although I have found myself wondering quite why someone might have that intention in the first place. Anyway, reading the story hasn’t put me off the Black Books anymore than Kowlongo Plaything et al haven’t stopped me loving the Pans. Although they nearly did at the time when I was buying them. Which kind of brings me round to the point I want to make: I’m not the only one in my life who reads The Black Book of Horror. My family, my friends, and a lot of people at work all like to get copies of books I have stories in and Black Book 7 has been no exception. None of these people are hardened gore fans, they just like to read a good story and it’s been a delight to have them read the books and do the old ‘Hey this horror stuff’s actually quite good!’ routine. As soon as I read ‘Bernard Bought the Farm’ I had to ring round the people who I knew already had it to warn them off it, and I can’t possibly let family members get hold of a copy. This is not because I believe in censorship. This is because I know it will really upset them, and they won’t be expecting it based on books with stories of mine in that they’ve read before. I’ve only been moved to post all of this today because this morning my secretary said she’d read it ‘just to find out what kind of thing you would warn me about’ and doesn’t fancy picking up a Black Book in the future ‘in case there’s another one like that in it’. To be honest I felt a bit embarrassed about that. I support everything that’s been said on this board about it being perfectly within the rights and remit of the Black Book series to publish such a story and I would never presume to suggest to Charlie what he should and shouldn’t publish. But there’s also a part of me that wants to see the Black Book of Horror do really well, perhaps even gain a kind of mainstream acceptance. We’ll never actually be mainstream here and that’s part of the fun, but it’s only fun if we’re sidelined for good reasons, and I don’t think that kind of story is a good enough one. John, do you remember a zine called NASTY PIECE OF WORK back in the 1990s? It was billed as 'extreme horror' - and that's exactly what it contained. Whenever a copy arrived, you really weren't sure what you were going to get, which for me - I feel a little guilty to admit - was quite exciting in a 'naughty schoolboy' sort of way. Ellen Datlow selected many of its contributions for 'honourable mentions', but also railed against other parts of the content, which she labelled gratutious, self-indulgent, juvenile etc. It was a strange mix, that magazine. There were some very brutal and disturbing stories in there, which were so excellently written than I couldn't help but include them on 'My Best Ever Horror' list. But others were totally revolting, and I was almost embarrassed to have read them - but, as I said, that was part of the kick when it fell through the letter-flap. "Am I going to love this issue, or be sickened by it?" There was even a rumour that one chap, who regularly wrote to the magazine's letters page, praising everything in it, was a serious sex offender and that he was writing from a secure psychiatric unit. Another rumour held - and this one, I think, was at least partly factual - that a story in the last issue (I forget what it was called), was so disgustingly sick and perverted that the Arts Council funding that made the magazine look so impressive got pulled, and NPOW came to an abrupt end. It just goes to show. In horror, you can push the envelope significantly, but there are some boundaries you can't simply step over. That said, I haven't read BERNARD yet, but, in the spirit of that old cliche, "there's no such thing as bad publicity", I'm now quite eager to get to it. I'm not proud of that, I hasten to add, but I've always been a sucker for a freak show.
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Post by paulfinch on Dec 9, 2009 0:03:54 GMT
Can anyone any series of novels about a werewolf? You know how you have vampire detective series? Any werewolf equivalent? THE WOLF'S HOUR, by Robert McCammon, certainly should have been. Don't know if you remember that one, but it concerns a werewolf who works as a secret agent for the British during World War Two. He isn't some politically correct, pitiful manbeast who despises his condition, but a fearsome predator of the night who gives full rein to his lusts when the mood, and the fur, is on him - though you won't be surprised to learn that the Nazis are infinitely more evil and frightening. It provided an utterly riveting read when it first came out around 1990. A sequel, or two, would have been most welcome, as would a movie adaptation, though it wouldn't be possible to realise such a tale cheaply and there, sadly, lies the problem.
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Post by paulfinch on Dec 7, 2009 10:51:40 GMT
Any other Vaulters going along to the BFS London Open Night tomorrow? I'm planning to be there (if they let me in ) Mark S. Can't make it, I'm afraid to say, Mark. Have urgent work that needs to be finished. Best wishes to all who are there.
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Post by paulfinch on Nov 23, 2009 15:15:45 GMT
Well Paul I hope you'll take note of the fact that I was rather underwhelmed by this collection, and in fact it was a bit of a struggle for me to finish it! If your reading of it suggests any stories I should revisit I'd love to know. I did indeed note that John. Never fear. I really enjoyed THE ATTIC EXPRESS, but yes, the others didn't really strike me as full-on horror stories. Not a bad thing in itself of course, but that's what I was looking for when I first bought the book.
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Post by paulfinch on Nov 21, 2009 10:39:04 GMT
Pardon my ignorance. Not read my Pans in a while, but the one that struck me was the tale of the guy stuck under the fallen fairground ride. When the machinery is lifted he can see the lower half of his body squished beneath it. Which one was that. Also wasnt there a gory one in Number 8 called Sugar and Spice. Some kid cuts up his dead Mum who has had a nasty fall and died springs to mind. I think you may possibly be confusing two different stories there. I may be wrong, but in SUGAR AND SPICE didn't the naughtly boy try out his new handyman's kit by dissecting his little sister? Other gory stories also spring to mind. THE INN, by Guy Preston, had the aura of a classic horror story, but I seem to remember it having a particularly gruesome finale. Also - and the name of both this story and its author escape me - wasn't there a very grim tale about a shift-worker returning home early, finding his wife and best friend shagging, and tying them both to the nearby railway line? The next train that comes along severs both their limbs, but that isn't the end of the horror - rats then emerge from the tunnel and start gnawing on the stumps. Here's a question about a very grisly story. A bloke learns that, at birth, he absorbed his own twin. He thus tries to operate on himself and, if that isn't horrible enough, then discovers that his monstrous brother is still alive inside him. Was that a Pan story or a Fontana story? If anyone knows, please post its title and location - I'd love to track that tale down again.
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Post by paulfinch on Nov 20, 2009 23:20:35 GMT
A fascinating situation has developed here, John.
I read A BEAM OF MALICE quite recently. Of all the stories in there, I only saw fit to add THE ATTIC EXPRESS to my now legendary (in my own mind that is) list of the best horror stories ever written (the list alone now runes to over 80s pages; that's how long I've been at it and how fucking sad I am). Yet the tasters you present in this thread make several of the stories sound interesting enough for me to have another crack at them. So I've got the book out again.
Do NOT disappoint me, dear boy!
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Post by paulfinch on Nov 18, 2009 9:15:29 GMT
Embarrassingy, I can't think of a single individual title at this moment, but Reggie Oliver's masterful collection, MASQUES OF SATAN, features several tales of stage-struck ghoulishness. Well worth reading.
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Post by paulfinch on Nov 18, 2009 9:09:35 GMT
Has anyone considered THE DARKHOUSE KEEPER by Rosemary Timperley? Surely that's one of the great lighthouse horror stories.
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Post by paulfinch on Nov 18, 2009 0:14:03 GMT
Has anyone mentioned 'The Man Whose Nose Was Too Big' by Alan Hillery? That's a truly gross one, John, if memory serves. Another particularly frightening example of eight-legged terror is THE FINNEGAN, by Ray Brabury.
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Post by paulfinch on Nov 18, 2009 0:07:32 GMT
Thanks, chaps.
Very cool to be among those who prefer their seafood when it bites back.
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Post by paulfinch on Nov 16, 2009 21:11:28 GMT
Not sure if I'm allowed to do this on here, D - please forgive me, I'm a newbie. But I could add one of my own efforts to this list. In my first collection, AFTER SHOCKS, there's a story - ENEMY OURS, which first appeared on a spoken-word anthology called SPILLED BLOOD, read by Liza Goddard (1998).
It concerns a bunch of Greenpeace protestors who get shipwrecked on a Hebridean isle, where they find the staff of the oil-base they're protesting against mysteriously pinched to death by multiple pairs of pinchers ...
Again, sorry if self-promotion is a no-no on these boards.
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Post by paulfinch on Nov 16, 2009 10:35:31 GMT
Rog sent me The Spanish film To Let some time ago - I watched it alone in a hotel room in Germany. It scared the life out of me. Had to sleep with the light on; rather embarrassing for a horror writer. This thread got me thinking: why do I like being scared? On the subject of Spanish horror, can I assume that all of you chaps and chapesses have seen REC - I mean the Spanish version, not the American remake? A horror classic in my opinion. John, if you haven't check that out, go for it forthwith. I'd be interested to hear anyone else's views.
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