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Post by weirdmonger on Jul 25, 2023 17:19:52 GMT
John Metcalfe's work is seriously under-rated. Oh for a new, reasonably-priced collection of his stories. You might want to consider this new book of some of Metcalfe stories here: incunabulamedia.com/phantoms
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Post by weirdmonger on Jul 24, 2023 16:03:47 GMT
THE BAD LANDS by John Metcalfe This story I thought I remembered well from first reading it – in the sixties or early seventies – a story with its clinging atmosphere of ‘bad lands’ along a ‘queer road’ from the Norfolk coast after you have walked past a strange tower to a large solitary house that, I am now reminded, is called Fennington with a spinning-wheel seen inside it … a story that has genuinely haunted me ever since! It is even more haunting than ‘Three Miles Up’ and it still is! Re-haunting me now by this re-reading for the meagre remainder of my journey upon this earth…. *** “He had seen him pass the tower, strike the fatal gate in the slanting morning sun, and then dwindle up the winding path till he was no more than an intense, pathetic dot along that way of mystery.” A man called OrmerOD — whose ‘dot’ is seen vanishing up the queer road from a township called Todd, past the tower to purge Fennington of evil — had been staying at a hotel in Todd, and now with his disappearing into a dot as the narrative Point-Of-View abruptly switches to a chap to whom Ormerod had spoken at the hotel and who stays behind at the hotel. Then Joan turns up. The rest of the plot you will need to read for yourself, and establish your own point of view upon how this story can thus infect you and/or re-infect you with a severe desolation of the spirit alongside a sense of the bad lands beyond Todd. “He saw Joan talking very quickly to the manager of the hotel. She seemed to be developing a Point-of-View,…” *** Further ongoing reviews of John Metcalfe: dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2023/07/22/the-bad-lands-john-metcalfe/======================================== An old photo of me (from the original time of reading it) that someone has coincidentally exhumed today! I can’t remember ever seeing it before…
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Post by weirdmonger on Jul 8, 2023 17:19:32 GMT
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Post by weirdmonger on Jun 22, 2023 17:03:43 GMT
The Testament of Magdalen Blair has stuck with me since first experience in Peter Haining's The Nightmare Reader, to which it is ideally suited. October 22 - The Testament Of Magadalen Blair - a bright young thing blessed/cursed with the ability to read minds, and some form of second sight or supernatural awareness. Studying at Cambridge, she becomes involved with an older tutor who wants to record her abilities. They marry. He succumbs to Bright's Disease and. minds linked, she records his terrible descent into an abyss of diseased horror, both before and after death. Blimey. A thought-provoking ordeal and no mistake. No jolly, light-hearted romp this. THE TESTAMENT OF MAGDALEN BLAIR Possibly the most nightmarish story I have ever read! I, ALEISTER am REALITIES….
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Post by weirdmonger on Apr 22, 2023 17:28:37 GMT
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Post by weirdmonger on Apr 11, 2023 16:25:10 GMT
Elvis Presely: Death is Not the End! Ted Harrison - Pre-millennial tension: As year 2000 looms, the death cult prophets ecstatically welcome Armageddon, the Millenium Bug, and/ or the second coming of the Messiah, Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley Speaks (1979) Elvis Presley speaks from the Beyond (1993)
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Post by weirdmonger on Apr 1, 2023 23:37:59 GMT
I don't know how this AI picture program works, except that it somehow converts text into visual media. Just the prompt ‘The Old Knowledge’ to fledge this…
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Post by weirdmonger on Mar 29, 2023 13:24:31 GMT
For Mark Samuels fans…
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Post by weirdmonger on Mar 24, 2023 7:43:13 GMT
I'm interested in Mushroom Town. Has anyone read it? Google says: English artist and author George Oliver Onions is credited as one of the most important figures in the development of the psychological thriller. In the classic novel 'Mushroom Town', Onions puts his keen eye for detail to work in a loving portrait of a fictionalized village in Wales. I found this book excerpt: He carried a catapult in one hand. Both pockets of his moleskin knickers bulged with ammunition for this engine. In the heat of a catapult action, against hens or windows, he used his mouth as a magazine, discharging and loading again with great dexterity.--But, a mile or so back, his father, looking up over his paper, had called the Cease Firing. John Willie now plipped the catapult furtively, and without pebble. It was the chief drawback of the holiday from his point of view that it had to be taken in the company of his father. Among his brighter hopes was that Mr. Garden, having seen them installed, would return to Manchester on the Monday. Thanks, I’ve now acquired the Kindle of MUSHROOM TOWN, as well as reading about some of the other many novels of Oliver Onions.
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Post by weirdmonger on Mar 20, 2023 21:50:25 GMT
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Post by weirdmonger on Mar 20, 2023 16:53:40 GMT
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Post by weirdmonger on Mar 18, 2023 10:22:41 GMT
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Post by weirdmonger on Mar 18, 2023 10:00:40 GMT
aiCKMAN ? The bed outside aiCKMAN’s Hospice symbolises the sick car in which Maybury arrived and the bedroom shenanigans inside ?? You can see the pictures more clearly here: etepsed.wordpress.com/2023/03/18/a-few-of-my-praiternats/The title of this old thread seemed predetermined for this topic!
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Post by weirdmonger on Mar 9, 2023 9:52:04 GMT
I hope you enjoy it! I noticed that Galbraith has been anthologized in a few recent compilations, so it seemed interesting that somebody had devoted a volume to this author and their work. cheers, Hel. A GHOST’S REVENGE by Lettice Galbraith “Accept the possibilities of terrestrial elementaries and left-hand magic if you like; but the common or garden ghost, never.” Despite (or because of?) its melodramatics and coincidences, the skilled prose of this story makes a compelling, suspenseful ghost story with a chase across the country in a train, to save a friend in a large legend-haunted house in the back of Creamshire’s beyond. Featuring a ghost sceptic who becomes a dogged rescuer of one his gentleman friends from an actual vengeful ghost, resulting in some catharsis that makes me forget the repeat of number 112 from the previous story (The Missing Model) and the ‘cart tract’ in the snow, let alone the letters and wired telegrams that were received (almost?) too late! Upon an (almost?) endless turning of the old year into the new! A story that was was said to be repeated, ‘turned it inside and out and discussed it threadbare…’
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Post by weirdmonger on Mar 2, 2023 16:56:12 GMT
Notice seen in an M. R. James Appreciation Group on social media: F riends, may I present the result of five year's research; the true identity of mysterious ghost story writer Lettice Galbraith! THE BLUE ROOM AND OTHER TALES: The Ghost Stories of Lettice Galbraith. Includes all of Lettice Galbraith’s ghost stories in one volume, and the previously unpublished tale The Ghost of Vittoria Pandelli. With a full biography/bibliography by Alastair Gunn. Foreword by Melissa Edmundson.The book was published earlier in February by Wimbourne Books. cheers, Hel. Just received this book. Thanks for the heads up.
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