Herbert Van Thal (ed) - 13th Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1972)
Josh Kirby We never really gave this one much of a look in on the old board beyond giving a thumbs up to
The Dead End and the minor masterpiece
Spinalonga. Began re-reading it two nights back and so far it's not so bad at all.
Alan Hillery - The Man Whose Nose Was Too Big
Norman Kaufman - Flame!
Harry E. Turner - The Twins
Carl Thomson - The Swans
David Farrer - The Revenge
Dulcie Gray - The Window Watcher
John Ware - Spinalonga
L. Micallef - Aggrophobia
Norman Kaufman - Awake, Sleeping Tigress
David Case - The Dead EndAlan Hillery - The Man Whose Nose Was Too Big:
"Young man, you are about to hear a story so strange, so horrible, so unbelievable that it defies human comprehension, a story of such suffering that the mind of man baulks at its understanding, the story of the last months in the life of General Randolph Locie." I must admit, my initial reaction to this was "oh, get over yourself Sir Miles, you big drama queen, you!" but fortunately for us, he is not a man given to exaggeration. The young man in question is a journalist who is far from happy with the official explanation given for Locie's death and wonders why he should have been shipped home from Africa in a sealed coffin. After weeks of pestering, British foreign diplomat Sir Miles Gorman finally agrees to meet him in London's Cardinal Club and finally unburdens himself of all the ghastly details surrounding Locie's protracted demise. While he was laying unconscious after a road accident, something nasty crawled up his nostril ....
Similar to Oscar Cook's all-time classic
Boomerang but minus the revenge motive and gored up some for a 'seventies audience. A superb choice to open the book with.
John Ware - Spinalonga. The dreadful plight of a visitor to the desolate island which once served as a leper colony. While the other tourists content themselves with gawping in morbid fascination at the deformed skeletons, our man pilfers an ikon and is ticked off by a kindly priest. By this point I was thinking
Spinalonga would've been ideal for the
Fontana Ghost series. Once I'd finished it, I'd decided on the
Fontana Horror books instead.
"I'd wanted to use Spinalonga as a setting ... having forgotten that John Ware had already done so in the thirteenth volume of Herbert Van Thal's increasingly pornographic Pan books of horror stories, a series later rescued from itself by Steve Jones and his partner in excellence David Sutton. Ware's tale is an old fashioned ghost story. How about mine? (The Same In Any Language)"
Ramsey Campbell in his introduction to Ghosts And Grisly Things(Pumpkin, 1998)Norman Kaufman - Flame!: When Ramsey Campbell penned the "increasingly pornographic" criticism, chances are the contributions of Norman Kaufman were not far from his thoughts as most (all?) of them are exercises in sadism with no redeeming features whatsoever. Such is the case with this snappy four-pager which begins with the immortal line "I like to burn children." He's a nasty piece of work for sure, gleefully reminiscing on that joyful moment earlier in the day when he stubbed his cig out on the tongue of a screaming toddler. But when he falls asleep on a remote patch of woodland, two sadistic brats with pokers show him how to do the job properly.
Harry E. Turner - The Twins: The van Droog brothers, Carl and Hans, two hideous, hunchbacked dwarfs who nevertheless find fame and fortune with their travelling fair. They're also a pair of vicious murderers. They take a shine to a gypsy girl who dances for a rival, downmarket concern but her negro owner won't let her go and calls them names. A knife in the throat does for him and the girl is soon sharing top billing with the ugly pair who dote and lavish huge luxuries upon her. Finally, she allows them both a bunk up. A child is born and they proudly share daddy duties. But ...
"Those two repulsive swine. How I despise them"
"My pretty one" he said, "how long before we take flight and leave these gargoyles for ever? I can't bear the thought of them drooling over you!" So! She's been leading them on! And as they listen unobserved, the revelations get worse!
Well, they've just added a 'House of Horrors' to the fair and now's as good a time as any to add a new exhibit ...
I like Harry Turner's work. He seems to have a great fondness for taking 'thirties horror stories and reworking them, always bringing something of his own to the party.
L. Micallef - Aggrophobia:
"I just love London. It's so safe ... You English are just so civilized. It's unbelievable." Ho ho ho, that's her dead then.
Alfrida, a fat, pushy stage Californian is in the capital researching material for next semester's anthropology course when she ambushes Tom in a Shaftsbury Avenue bar. He's a surly working class stage Cockney with a reform school past and an improbable line in put downs ("shove off, nosy-knicks"). He also has a fear of wide open spaces so she takes him up on Hampstead Heath after dark to cure him. As you would.
It's the usual case of setting an obnoxious woman up to be horribly mutilated and you can't help but think Micallef is pandering to his or her perceived prejudices of the reader.
Carl Thomson - The Swans: After a beautiful day out in the countryside he asks her to marry him but she denies him. Back at his home in the village that evening she accidentally upsets a cup of scalding coffee in his lap. He goes insane and blacks out. When he regains consciousness, her corpse is sprawled before the fireplace. He finds her irritating now and fetches the carving knife.
To be honest, this did as little for me as
Aggrophobia.
David Farrer - The Revenge: Tipped off by a friend in the office of public prosecutions that he's about to be arrested for his part in a swindle, Maurice Ashread fled England for Morocco leaving his friend and business partner to take the rap. Some decades on they are reunited when Ashread's car breaks down on a treacherous road on the outskirts of Tangier. Edward Finlay insists he bears Maurice no grudge over the three years he spent at her majesty's pleasure and invites him to stay the night as his guest. Finlay has indeed turned his life around: Ashread can't decide who he'd like to shag most - Finlay's beautiful wife or that handsome devil of a servant boy! That night as he lies in bed a midnight visitor snuggles down beside him ...
If you've read Charles Birkin's
Shelter - and I think we can safely say Mr. Farrer has - you'll know what's coming.
Norman Kaufman - Awake Sleeping Tigress: Sexual blackmail, never the most pleasant of subjects so no surprise to find Kaufman taking to the theme with his customary ghoulish relish - he certainly was on form in 1973!
His landlady knows all about his participation in the wage snatch and gives him an ultimatum: you either come to my room at 8 o'clock tonight or I hand you in to the police. He's a twenty-three year old Romeo so it shouldn't be too much of a hardship to comply, except .... Miss Eliza Mary Hannam is one hundred years old. Well, at least she has a pulse; or at least, she had one the last time I checked ....
More to follow .....
