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Post by Dr Terror on Feb 23, 2008 13:09:56 GMT
I decided I didn't like the inscription on the first one I did. Then I spelt my name wrong on the second... You mean the one I've got is your THIRD attempt ...? Funnily enough, that inscription is very similar to one I had from Peter Haining in a book a few years ago. As a result, I've juggled some books on my shelves and sat you next to Peter Haining, Charles. I hope that's alright for you! I'm honoured! And it makes me wonder where else the Black Books have been shelved. And don't worry I was joking about the discarded inscription and spelling my name wrong. It was the fact that I signed it with the pseudonym I use for erotica: X.L. Lovecock.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Feb 23, 2008 13:30:01 GMT
That's some pseudonym! I'd just like to join in the cavalcade of congratulations to all the contributors especially the (son of Cilla, brother of Jack) editor. I opened my parcel yesterday, and much to my delight, my wife was appalled the cover ('Do you have to associate with such sick people!') Job done - and not a page turned! (I find that a bit rich coming from someone who always seems to be watching some animal hospital or real-life surgery programme when we're trying to eat).
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Post by carolinec on Feb 23, 2008 16:47:26 GMT
And don't worry I was joking about the discarded inscription and spelling my name wrong. It was the fact that I signed it with the pseudonym I use for erotica: X.L. Lovecock. I think I'd have been somewhat alarmed if you'd signed my copy that way, Charles!
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Feb 26, 2008 19:57:01 GMT
Son of Black Book arrived today. Not much time to spill the beans on it but suffice it say i finished it in about an hour and didn't put it down once.
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Post by troo on Feb 27, 2008 11:07:10 GMT
I opened my parcel yesterday, and much to my delight, my wife was appalled the cover ('Do you have to associate with such sick people!') I hope you said "Yes"
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Post by Dr Terror on Feb 29, 2008 10:40:30 GMT
Son of Black Book arrived today. Not much time to spill the beans on it but suffice it say i finished it in about an hour That was quick. That'll be the fast acting epoxy resin.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Mar 2, 2008 21:04:13 GMT
Well, I'll try ...
Firstly my mum finished it and strangely liked my story the best. But then she mentioned Rog's 'The Pit' as touching her quite deeply so I know when I'm beaten.
I have to say I really thought that my effort was kind of slick enough but in all honesty it felt the weakest of the bunch. I haven't read any horror book in a while that gripped me so much from the start. The stories seemed to have an uncanny balance with each other while being very different. Astounding work, Charles!
I stick my neck out and say that Rog Pile's 'The Pit' was my favourite. It just evoked something very sinister and deep and had a kind of indescribable overtone. I was also profoundly stuck by David Sutton's 'Amygdala', and that nasty ventriloquist image will rest for a long and uneasy time in my head. Gary McMahon 'Black Glass' was uncannily like my 'The Door' in some parts - I hasten to say no possibility of plagiarism as no one ever read 'The Door' except me and needless to say 'Black Glass' had some strikingly different elements and was simply better written.
Having said this I have a strong feeling that I am going to immediately reread The Second Black Book of Horror and reveal that all the preceding stories were not quite up to the ones I left out.
This little gem puts paid to the 'their first album was great but the second one was shit' theory.
I feel like clapping.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Mar 2, 2008 21:24:07 GMT
Just gave it a review. I could only get one on Amazon.com. I had to admit the vested interest but suspect no one will care. They didn't notice when I gave my novel five stars
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Post by Dr Terror on Mar 3, 2008 14:06:26 GMT
Thanks, Craig. Review is up now. Interesting that Amazon hasn't put the cover on display. Too revolting perhaps!?
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Post by Calenture on Mar 15, 2008 21:42:13 GMT
By Paul Mudie I believe it’s a myth that classics of horror can only be found in the past. Certainly a great many originals are found in the past, Lovecraft, Poe, Machen, James and so on; but contemporary writers, building on early themes and techniques, sometimes produce work as good as or better than the writing which inspired it. It’s good to remember past glories. But I think it’s just as important to study what’s being done today. I had the pleasant task of helping Charles Black by doing some proofreading for his second Black Book, and frankly the work arriving by email wouldn’t have been amiss in any of the anthologies of years before that we celebrate here at the Vault. Discussing a possible topic for a column in Paperback Fanatic, Justin suggested that I might like to write about the “modern classics” being created here and now and presented in the Black Books and Filthy Creations. At the time I pointed out that I could hardly be considered objective as I’ve had stories in them. Yes, but that hasn’t stopped me in the past, so why get cold feet now? It’s taken me a time to get my head around the idea, but looking at some of the brilliant work which has gone into these books, Charles’ hard work and determination – being an editor is a damned lonely and exhausting business – Paul Mudie’s consistently excellent cover art, and the stories of the contributors, I don’t think sitting back now is any way to respond to that. And I don’t think it’s right to leave it all to Kev’ to write up, either. Thanks to Craig for starting off with comment on David Sutton's, Gary McMahon's and my own story earlier. And Craig, your mum rocks! Please jump in with comments of your own as you like. These synopses and impressions will appear in no particular order, just as they suggest themselves. End of long-winded 'intro'. The first story I want to do is Dan McGachey's The Crimson Picture, because I haven't been able to get it out of my mind just lately. The Crimson Picture by Daniel McGachey: Dr Lawrence receives a letter from his old classmate Drayton inviting him to discuss a curious matter which he thinks will be of interest to him, for “such was always your forte.” When Lawrence observes that Drayton appears to have aged well and makes a joking remark that possibly he has a portrait hidden in his attic like the fellow in that Wilde story, Drayton reacts dramatically. There is a picture, and a story relating to it, but he wants Lawrence to hear the story from the person who told it to him. This slightly labyrinthine way of weaving into the plot is a technique I’ve noticed a lot of good storytellers employ, casually drawing a reader down into the narrative. Drayton takes Lawrence to a picture gallery and tells him: “There is one picture I wish I had never brought before human eyes.” The picture is listed in a catalogue as “Unknown subject – A Portrait in Crimson.” Mysteriously, the artist is as unknown as the picture’s subject. That morning Lawrence had read a newspaper account of a commotion at the gallery when a picture had been slashed. Now it transpires that the picture was the crimson portrait, and the man who had attacked it, its artist – Hector Jardine, a man better known as a painter of landscapes. At last, in the presence of the crimson portrait, hidden behind a silk curtain, Jardine begins his story. And he tells how he was commissioned to paint the thing, and how, like Gericault, he found that perhaps he was not exactly painting “from the life”.
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Post by Dr Terror on Mar 17, 2008 23:45:29 GMT
I had the pleasant task of helping Charles Black by doing some proofreading for his second Black Book, Thanks are due to Rog and Ian for their help behind the scenes. Any flaws that slipped through are down to me and/or technical problems!
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Post by Calenture on Mar 23, 2008 23:36:32 GMT
I started with Daniel McGachey’s The Crimson Picture because I think it demonstrates how you can take a long-established story form, the ‘classical’ supernatural tale, and still use it effectively as a horror medium. There are those who stress the need to experiment, write in new ways. But Philip Dick used soap opera as a vehicle to great effect, and Daniel McGachey is obviously equally at home with the Jamesian story, and works extremely well within its parameters. So why not?
Another story seems to take its plot from a well-known story by William Sansom and builds Aikman-like twists into it until again it becomes something new.
Onion by L H Maynard and M P Sims gives us the story of an unnamed man not yet fully recovered from the break-up of his marriage. The last thing he has on his mind when he goes to a club is finding someone to start a new relationship. Been there? And got the usual T-shirt. As it happens, he meets Jill. It seems unlikely that Jill would be in a hurry to start a relationship with anyone. And the guy is not blind to the quick way she dumps her boyfriend of the night so that she can spend the evening with him. Pretty soon they’ve planned another evening together at her house and he’s exchanging blows with the man he meets there – who turns out to be Jill’s husband.
Not only has Jill got a husband, she has a small son called Peter.
“I heard a door open and then shut. She stood and pulled her blouse over her head, it covered her like a very short dress. In the kitchen I could hear shuffling, as if more than one pair of feet were scraping across the floor. Upstairs a door again opened and slammed shut. The corners of the room weren’t bright any longer. It was as if piles of dust had accumulated for years, and were now moving.”
As the evening wears on the house becomes disturbingly changed and his intention not to get into a relationship begins to look like a wise decision.
John Llewellyn Probert has an obvious fascination with the organic, with things that grow and how they can be changed - often disturbingly. In When Graveyards Yawn his story The Comeback Kid took us through the various reincarnations of a stepped-on spider (and how it gets its revenge). In the first Black Book of Horror, Size Matters introduced us to Mr Walker and his (frankly hilarious) quest for a larger penis. In Sickness and... takes us into the world of Marguerite Lucas, Marriage Counsellor.
Marguerite cares about her work, and she always gets a result. The result might not be quite what the troubled married couple has in mind, but they begin to think of their troubled marriage in a different way before Marguerite’s counselling is over.
Marguerite’s own marriage has not always been easy, of course; but one has to work at a marriage. That’s the difference between Marguerite and the people she counsels.
Where’s the ‘organic’ part of this story?
Now don’t expect me to tell you everything.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Mar 23, 2008 23:45:57 GMT
Gosh! That's probably the closest I'll ever get to someone writing a thesis about my stuff! Thanks Cal - that's very interesting, & I'm glad you found Size Matters hilarious - I've been debating whether or not to put it into my next collection.
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Post by carolinec on Mar 24, 2008 0:19:36 GMT
Gosh! That's probably the closest I'll ever get to someone writing a thesis about my stuff! Thanks Cal - that's very interesting, & I'm glad you found Size Matters hilarious - I've been debating whether or not to put it into my next collection. I found Size Matters hilarious too! I'm afraid I haven't got round to reading your contribution to the Second Black Book yet. ;D
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Post by Dr Terror on Mar 24, 2008 12:50:55 GMT
This reader has great taste.
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