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Post by dem on Feb 7, 2016 15:35:13 GMT
Alan Temperley - Florence In The Garden: The Steel Mill has closed down, and, having cashed his redundancy cheque, all Eddie Lark requires from life is quality time to cultivate his allotment. Florence, NAGGING WIFE, has other ideas. She wants a state-of-the-art spin dryer. Eddie builds one from spare parts. It's an absolute beauty - even Florence grudgingly concedes as much. And then Eddie realises his wonder-spinner has potential as an industrial-size meat blender ...
Another winner from the master of the sick and twisted. Think we can safely assume Florence inspired the damned creepy cover photo. Fair to say John Knights indulged his artistic licence to the full.
Marcus Gold - The Cave: The eternal love triangle, etc. Idris Chaler and Paul Brodie, business partners and life-long friends .... until the car-crash that robbed Idris of his sight. Brodie is madly in love with Mary Chaler and she him, but Mary is insistent that she'll not leave her husband in his hours of need. So Paul lures Idris to Seal Cave resolved on abandoning him to drown when the tide comes in. Not at all bad. Kind of story you might find among the later Creeps volumes.
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Post by dem on Feb 14, 2016 14:13:57 GMT
It moves me to see comments about The Heaven Maker. I put so much of myself in the thing. I gave up writing short stories when I unwittingly assumed it was rejected. Thanks From Craig's site, circa 2006. Pan in the eighties. Really nice people to do business with. J. Murray Pickles - The Joonka Junka: When Amy, a timid, innocent English country girl, marries engineer Hugo Boothroyd, the happy couple emigrate to India for his work. Amy is hopelessly out of her depth in her new home. The oppressive summer heat, the monsoons, the scorpions and hornets all take their toll, but worst of all, the horrible encounter with a hideous mad beggar woman in the market. Amy falls pregnant shortly afterwards, and her trusted nurse, Umna, who has been filling the girl's head with all manner of local superstitions, warns her against Dr. Banerjee's maternity clinic which, she claims, is cursed by the Joonka Junka, "the vile one," who, since losing her own (two-headed) offspring, torments young mothers to death. Amy realises that the Joonka Junka and the terrifying beggar woman are one and the same right down to the jangling bracelets. She pleads with her husband to keep her away from Dr. Banerjee's place, but Hugo is not to be swayed by native mumbo jumbo .... Can only assume The Joonka Junka has been referred to as "weak" because its a suspenseful, atmospheric ghost story as opposed to a gore-fest. I think it's brilliant. Only relatively poor one so far has been Penny Dreadful. |
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Post by dem on Feb 15, 2016 7:35:05 GMT
Alan Temperley - Angel And Teacake: Correction: the cover photograph depicts a scene from this story, and not Florence In The Garden. As is invariably the case with Mr. T, it's a corker. On inheriting a fortune from a deceased relative, shy, virginal Mary Bennett, 31, quits her job at the library to open a coffee shop near the Cathedral. The Angel & Teacake attracts a loyal clientèle, business flourishes, until a ghoulish prankster gets to work, depositing human eyeballs in the coffee pot, fingers in the éclairs ... Could it be her immediate rival, Mrs. Frascati, the surly Italian widow who owns the flyblown Easi-Bite Tea Rooms along the street? But how is she gaining entrance to the premises while they are under police surveillance? At least she has finally found love - P.C. Steve Tallis is a demon beneath the sheets!
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Post by dem on Feb 15, 2016 19:12:32 GMT
Gee Williams - Beastie: Dr. Tony Maddox, vivisectionist, falls for his fifteen year old niece, Jane. But how can he possibly win over an animal rights campaigner? Maddox pins his hopes on a unique, genetically modified foal, albeit one with killing machine tendencies. Jane arrives from Oxford to see the playful little fellow, but "I've gotta get the six o'clock back. We've got tickets for Motörhead." Will she survive?
The leisurely style and subject matter have me wondering if Gee Williams and Alan Temperley are one and the same author. In my madder moments, I even suspect Murray Pickles has joined them in a ménage à trois. More likely, Clarence Paget preferred his horrors medium paced.
Just Jonathan Cruise and a rematch with Craig Herbertson's Heaven Maker to go. Will be sad to finish #29.
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Post by dem on Feb 17, 2016 9:22:54 GMT
Jonathan Cruise - The Missionary: As a child in England, Annabel Quale, the Parson's daughter, always knew she'd be a Missionary. Annabel would quote scripture to little brother Gabriel and terrify the shit out of him with her 27 strong posse of cuddly toy monkeys. Once she terrified him to the point where he had an epileptic fit, confirming he was a sinner. Gabriel has never forgiven her.
In 1918, Annabel duly married a fellow devout Christian, Edward Freydeville, and travelled to N'Dowla, Africa, to spread the Gospel. Her husband, totally unsuited to the climate, soon died of malaria, but by then Annabel had adopted a baby ape, Timmi, so Edward's passing was no big deal.
It is now July 1938. At her dying father's request, Annabel returns home to the rectory, her work in N'Dowla done. Timmi doesn't enjoy the voyage in the least. Gabriel has recently served a short stretch in Wandsworth for misappropriating his employer's money to place on a bet. Time has done nothing to ease his resentment of mad big sister, and that vicious little monkey makes matters worse. At least with his share of the inheritance he can fund a new start.
You can bet things are about to get completely out of hand.
Another winner. #29 would get my vote for the best of the Paget volumes by some distance.
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Post by dem on Feb 18, 2016 18:04:09 GMT
 The Heaven Maker, fronting Edinburgh punk outfit The Androids, c. 1980 "What a marvellous concept, young man - the new Messiah comes from Hell instead of Heaven." Morden can laugh at the newly converted Dr. Baptiste, but it's true - and he knows it. His son-in-law, John, recently willed himself back from the grave, and the news he brings is devastating. There never was a God, but there was something approximating Paradise, except now it's broken and unless someone can repair it, eternal pain is the lot of Saint and sinner alike. A word to the wise. Get the book! |
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Post by Swampirella on Dec 7, 2016 22:21:14 GMT
Just finished it yesterday and enjoyed all the stories to some degree or other. "The Surgeons Tale" is certainly memorable but a bit too over the top even for me. My favorite was "Angel and Teacake"....Then read Vol. 27 and just starting 23 if I can ever get myself off the internet....
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Post by dem on Dec 8, 2016 7:58:45 GMT
Just finished it yesterday and enjoyed all the stories to some degree or other. "The Surgeons Tale" is certainly memorable but a bit too over the top even for me. My favorite was "Angel and Teacake"....Then read Vol. 27 and just starting 23 if I can ever get myself off the internet.... As mentioned, #29 gets my vote as the most consistently rewarding of the Paget's and a vast improvement on at least three of the mediocre volumes published under Van Thal's name. Time was when I hated every volume post #14, so it came as a pleasantly unpleasant surprise how much enjoyment I found in revisiting them. Even the obvious filler is memorably awful (it is for me, any roads). |
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