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Post by Johnlprobert on May 8, 2008 18:22:56 GMT
This arrived today and seeing as the publication date is 1998 I thought it would best go here. Fans of the Pan series will be familiar with Mr Turner's work. I never realised it until today, but reading some of these stories I can now say without a shadow of a doubt that my story Size Matters in Black Book 1 is very definitely Harry inspired. I'll post my comments on the stories as I get through them:
Deep Secrets: What happened to the unborn babies of all the pregnant women who drowned in the Titanic? Nowhere near as unpleasant as it could have been this is a peculiarly weak opener.
The Venetian Chair: "Run me a bath and then lay out my green velvet jacket - today I shall spend at the card table!!" This is more like it! Lord Mandrake buys a chair in 17th century Venice and pretty soon he's winning at cards, having all sorts of lovely dreams, and all for the mere price of slaughtering prostitutes and rubbing their blood into the aforementioned item of furniture. Why this isn't the lead story I have no idea.
The Short Story: "Melanie Northwich was an exotic dancer and freelance prostitute whose specialty was fornicating in a barrel of lightly heated Marmite while dressed as Mary Queen of Scots" I don't think I have ever before cried with laughter over a four page story. Brilliant.
The Egg: Has the oversexed Dr Cyril Snockers found the missing link between man and chicken? So funny that after the last story I may just have given myself a hernia. I'm not going to read the next one until the ache has subsided
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Post by Johnlprobert on May 8, 2008 19:49:20 GMT
OK I feel better. Here are a few more:
Murder Most Perfect: Can super-rich Teniel commit several perfect murders and be back in time to tell his friend Basil Rockingham about it? Well...yes.
Killer: Tiny story. Tiny one-note joke.
Drains: New York sewers aren't the friendliest of places, especially not ones situated directly beneath abortion clinics. Another missed opportunity unfortunately
Time Shift: Professor Hinton uses his time travel machine to send a reporter back to the charge of the light brigade with less than startling consequences, sadly.
The Stripper: Quite possibly the most politically incorrect story I've read in a long time. It's 2130 & the UK is in the grip of an impotence crisis. Who can save the nation's men? Step forward Bubbles le Fontanbleu, eighty year old stripper who has in her time wrestled pythons in a vat of marmalade. She looks thirty due to a lot of plastic surgery. Surely all those nips and tucks are going to come apart sometime? Just as long as it's not during her nationally-televised performance at the Albert Hall, we hope! The Two Ronnies would have been proud.
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Post by dem bones on May 14, 2008 9:36:57 GMT
Most of these sound terrific with one or two fillers which, IMO, goes for his contributions to the Pan Horrors too, but it looks really worth hunting down. Such a shame that anthologists have overlooked him since the PBOH and Fontana Horrors series' went to their graves.
Thoroughly enjoying your synopsis', Mr. P. Please continue!
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Post by Johnlprobert on May 14, 2008 21:06:24 GMT
The Captain's Tale: Bonkers transplant stuff (see RCH's 'Head of the Firm') with a groan-inducing punchline
The Collection: Serial killer vicar! That spoils the punchline but it's not that special.
Ambition: Cornelius Hunter, the man who has done everything, has one unfulfilled ambition: to seriously snog the Queen of England. Can Zachary Treadbetter, the nation's Mr Fixit, sort it out for him? Or is there going to be a horrible twist (hint hint)
Reflections: A haunted mirror. A computer. Sadly this one's also a wasted opportunity
The Laird of Macarooni's Balloon: Time for me to put my truss back on as it's near hernia time in a tale that wouldn't have been out of place as a one-hour comedy enacted by Benny Hill & his gang. Funny Scotsmen, lecherous 90 year olds, and comedy Middle-Eastern terrorists all combine to produce politically incorrect hilarity. The balloon inquestion was filled with the breath of a Saint in 1327 and is about to be emptied to the assembled press of Great Britain. What no-one realises is that the Saint was actually quite a naughty boy and has filled the baloon from a quite different bodily. With plentiful jibes at The Sun, the Telegraph & Hello! magazine, you have to give points to a story that claims Esther Rantzen may be responsible for the world being on the brink of collapse
The Funeral Luncheon: A riff on The Cook, The Thief..
Maurice the Magician: Is insane. His sawing a woman in half trick rivals HG Lewis & his ilk. Read on if you dare.
The Soul of Hassan de Vere: Unlucky in this life all de Vere wants is to be reincarnated as something nice. Does he get his wish? Oh come on!
An Aquatic Annelid: Odd title for a scary story about a beautiful woman who is actually something very scary indeed
And I'm still not finished!
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Post by Calenture on May 14, 2008 21:27:29 GMT
The Egg: Has the oversexed Dr Cyril Snockers found the missing link between man and chicken? ... Just reading the premise for this one had me in a fit of giggles. Great stuff! And the synopsis for The Laird of Macarooni's Balloon reads like the cover blurb for one of Tom Sharpe's more demented efforts!  |
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Post by Johnlprobert on May 16, 2008 9:51:01 GMT
OK last few:
Visions of Paradise: He's back! 'Mad' Jack McAlpine is a journalist in this one, knocking back the Jack Daniels and feasting on 'cracked lobster, champagne and ice cream' before setting off to investigate the mysterious island of Segami.
Leonardo's Groat: Money mismanagement in an an okay but unremarkable story.
Brainchild: Worthy of the Pan horrors. More bonkers that 'It's Hungry' - mad scientist puts funnel web spiders into the brains of monkeys so they can get huge and burrow out through the eyes. For no reason at all. Which is also why he decides to experiment on himself. Sheer gruesome, utterly entertaining, stupidity.
The Theatre of the Dead: Out in the desert Count Bruno von Luby, deranged stage actor, has created his own personal theatre, and his own personal audience as well, which keeps needing new recruits as the old ones are starting to fall to bits.
And that's it! A brisk fun read. Sorry I don't have the facilities to scan in the cover, but hopefully you can tell from the above if this is worth reading.
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Post by dem bones on May 16, 2008 17:14:22 GMT
hopefully you can tell from the above if this is worth reading. I'll say! "Sheer gruesome, utterly entertaining, stupidity." Who could possibly resist! And what a relief to learn that 'Mad' Jack McAlpine didn't give up the adventuring once he'd married Lady Fiona Selston-Bunter! I knew it wouldn't last. I was looking for more information on Harry E. Turner but there's very little other than what's on here. Locus give his date of birth as 1920 and there are a few dealers flogging The Venetian Chair, but that's about it. Your review is quite possibly the only one online! Why on earth is he so under-rated? Do you know if this pesky The Man Who Could Hear The Fishes Scream collection actually exists? |
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Post by Johnlprobert on May 16, 2008 17:29:53 GMT
OK Kev. Your wish is my...
The Man Who Could Hear Fishes Scream & Other Stories
Paperback- Louiebird Books (Never heard of them) 1978
I've just ordered it so I'll post my comments in due course
As for Harry himself, he was a director of ITN News 1986-92 and apparently worked in commercial television for 30 years. The blurb for The Venetian Chair says it's his first solo published work of fiction so maybe they'd forgotten about the above.
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Post by dem bones on May 16, 2008 18:22:54 GMT
Top man, John! That obscure publisher is what caused me to wonder if we had another ghost book on our hands, so it will be interesting what turns up! My hunch is that it's a collection culled from his Pan/ Fontana stuff. I've read the title story - it's in Van Thal's Bedside Book Of Horror (Arthur Baker, 1973) so don't go near that thread for the time being! On to more important matters; how's your stripy blazer bearing up now the temperature's dropped? I've been concerned about it all day.  |
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Post by Johnlprobert on May 16, 2008 20:09:03 GMT
I'll post a review whatever it contains, Kev.
I had to get the burgundy crushed velvet out again today! Thought I'd packed it away for the winter as well.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 7, 2008 21:21:42 GMT
Didn't notice this before John. Now I shall be scouring the net for this treat
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Post by Johnlprobert on Oct 7, 2008 21:55:14 GMT
Craig - almost every sentence of that one is utterly insanely funny, eg:
Major-General Colin Canonbury-Festering (was) a retired artilleryman, who while serving in Afghanistan strapped two dissident tribesmen to the mouth of a cannon and blew them into fragments of blood and bone while humming Rule Britannia.
Or,
The Laird of Trelooney was a Scots nobleman whose mistress Beryl was a Chinese monopode who sniffed zinc in order to attain a state of religious frenzy, a condition that made the laird vomit with disgust
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Post by allthingshorror on Oct 7, 2008 22:47:59 GMT
Managed to find a copy of Venetian on Abebooks - but Craig if your after a copy - there seems to be some available from WH Smoth - just type in Harry Turner (miss out the E) and Venetian and the link pops up.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 8, 2008 6:07:52 GMT
Thanks Johnnie - although looking at the bank balance I might be scouring the single second hand bookshop here - although I am back in Blighty for a couple of days in November...
John P - it just looks like a gem....although the canon incidents were certainly true of the times.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 8, 2008 11:52:21 GMT
John P - it just looks like a gem....although the canon incidents were certainly true of the times. Ha! If it's some hot 'let's tie some native johnny to a cannon and blow the blighter to smithereens!' action yer after, look no further than the master Les Daniels' Indian mutiny ripping yarn No Blood Spilled! Talk about messy! |
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