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Post by Nightmare on Jan 2, 2013 19:14:03 GMT
Isn't the other infamous story Love on the Farm? I haven't read it yet.
I could have sworn Dengue Fever was about cannibals unless I'm thinking of a different story. At least according to one review I read!
I can't help but wonder if Kowlongo Plaything ever got complaints from readers.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 3, 2013 14:31:46 GMT
I can't help but wonder if Kowlongo Plaything ever got complaints from readers. That may be the case, but the only complaints i've read about it are on this forum !!!! We also had a contributor come over "angry" that Fay Woolf's superb Slowly in 21 "was ever deemed a worthy story to be included in the series"! And yes, Love On The Farm is every bit as infamous as Kowlongo Plaything. Mr Temperley had the knack.
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Post by Nightmare on Jan 3, 2013 19:23:37 GMT
I vaguely remember the comments about Slowly when I lurked here.
At first I thought the ending of Kowlongo Plaything was a bit abrupt, but the final lines weren't bad.
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Post by marcgreenman on Jun 24, 2013 16:24:14 GMT
i have just started re-collecting some of the pan horrors, used to have all of them but lost them. i am currently in the process of reading no. 23, while no.s 12 and 15 arrived this morning. started with kowlongo plaything, as i wanted to find out why this was regarded as the most notorious story. i have read graham masterton's eric the pie, which i found even more horrible because of the graphic cruelty against animals, but temperley's story is unforgettable, it is a real tour-de-force. once it gets started it never lets up, and the ending makes it even worse. must check out love on the farm when able. looking forward to re-reading some of the david case stories as he has always been one of my favourites! of the rest of 23, paul theroux's tale is probably the best so far, angus gellatly's story had a really nasty ending, and i am working my way through the rest. it's a bit of a mixed bag, none match kowlongo.
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Post by marcgreenman on Jul 2, 2013 2:20:59 GMT
just finished this collection, here is my verdict.
the sleeping prince 2.5/5 decent story, really nasty ending, yuck!
dengue fever 3.5/5 interesting story, effective, sad ending.
you can't be too careful 3/5 effective thriller.
a rhyme 1.5/5 a bit lame, not that good.
fat old women who wear fur coats 2/5 not scary, not badly written.
daughter of the house 2/5 interesting, but not that scary, could have had a stronger resolution
dr dichter and the terminal cosmetic 2/5 darkly comic, had the potential to be more grotesque.
foster parents 2.5/5 interesting story, not bad.
a backwards shadow 3/5 effective story, ghost rather than horror.
chance governs all 2.5/5 another tale of the supernatural, not bad.
the dogs 3.5 gruesome but fun, entertaining.rightfully mine 4/5 nasty nazi meets a grisly end, a gruesome winner!
rightfully mine 4/5 nasty nazi meets a grisly end, a gruesome winner!
kowlongo plaything 5/5 awesome, gut-wrenching, utterly bleak. best of the collection.
Overall: 2.75/5 mixed selection, entertaining, some effective, one unforgettable. kowlongo plaything is the best entry, quite liked rightfully mine as he deserved his fate. dengue fever and the dogs also quite good, hated the poem. might try volume 15 next, also have volume 12 and may get more. alan temperley is an author to check out, norman p. kaufman is also quite good.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 2, 2013 10:45:42 GMT
Hi marc. Good as Dengue Fever and The Dogs are, #23 really is a case of Kowlonga Plaything and supporting cast, ain't it? Temperley's The Boy With Golden Eyes in #18 is excellent, too, completely different to .... Plaything (he goes for relatively quiet and creepy rather than unflinching sadism on this occasion), but deadly effective.
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Post by marcgreenman on Jul 2, 2013 22:14:44 GMT
i think that's fairly spot-on demonik! kowlogo plaything was the one story i bought this collection for, and it certainly doesn't disappoint. the boy with golden eyes is one story i will always remember because of the children's eyes turning into spiders! have shared my thoughts on this volume on facebook, had some likes but no substantial discussion. what did you think of eric the pie, if you have read it? while kowlongo is deeply uncomfortable, eric goes to even more explicit extremes. i can see why it got the magazine it was published in banned, luckily i was able to download it online from graham masterton's website. must pick up volume 18 at some point!
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Post by dem bones on Jul 2, 2013 23:44:30 GMT
i think that's fairly spot-on demonik! kowlogo plaything was the one story i bought this collection for, and it certainly doesn't disappoint. the boy with golden eyes is one story i will always remember because of the children's eyes turning into spiders! have shared my thoughts on this volume on facebook, had some likes but no substantial discussion. what did you think of eric the pie, if you have read it? while kowlongo is deeply uncomfortable, eric goes to even more explicit extremes. i can see why it got the magazine it was published in banned, luckily i was able to download it online from graham masterton's website. must pick up volume 18 at some point! Disgusting as it is, I don't think Eric The Pie is quite in the same league as Kowlongo Plaything. For me, the most horrific thing about Alan Temperley's story is it's obscene plausibility. Eric ... is so blatant an attempt at writing the all-time most revolting horror story, it's hard to know whether to laugh or throw up. I suspect his publisher asked Graham to go over the top, in much the same way Peter Haining would encourage Guy N. Smith to trowel on the sex & gore. By interesting to know how the W. H. Smith ban impacted on Frighteners' sales. My uneducated guess would be that it did them the world of good.
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Post by Nightmare on Jul 3, 2013 20:36:10 GMT
Now I sort of want to read Eric The Pie out of curiosity.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 3, 2013 20:44:52 GMT
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Post by Nightmare on Jul 3, 2013 20:58:35 GMT
I just read it and the cat scene did bother me a bit since I have 3 cats of my own. The story was actually decent and probably just as icky as Kowlongo Plaything.
Before I forget, demonik did you see my review for New Terrors 1 yet? I had a question about one of the stories.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 3, 2013 21:07:59 GMT
I just read it and the cat scene did bother me a bit since I have 3 cats of my own. The story was actually decent and probably just as icky as Kowlongo Plaything. Before I forget, demonik did you see my review for New Terrors 1 yet? I had a question about one of the stories. Oh, sorry, I forgot about that. you'll have to give me a bit of time, as it's been way too long since I read New Terrors, and there are four novels i'm determined to finish before a rematch, but will get around to it ASAP.
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Post by Nightmare on Jul 3, 2013 21:14:29 GMT
Ah OK. I'm not quite sure what a Marmite sandwich is. (Nevermind. I looked up what it was thanks to Google.) I posted at Graham's message board. Hopefully he'll reply if it's really him.
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Post by marcgreenman on Jul 3, 2013 22:14:40 GMT
yes, the cat scene, this moment really stuck with me after reading the story. the bit with eric raping the calf while eating it alive is also nasty, there is another bit with a dog whose legs have been burned which is still alive that stands out. the story is pretty relentless, makes sense in a horrible kind of way and continues to build to a great climax. kowlongo is also pretty relentless, once the background has been set up it's one shock after another until the horifying conclusion. both stories involve an element of sexual perversity, in eric the protagonist sometimes rapes the animals as well as torturing and eating them, in kowlongo there is sadism, repeated male rape and much abuse of a blow-up doll. the doll actually added some twisted humour to the story of a very black kind, and an added irony considering stephen's eventual fate. i wasn't clear as to exactly how much consent mary gave to general ngwami. obiviously, their situation was hopeless, she had no real choice, but i thought she consented to the general initially before her consent became forced. i'm not sure whether she was raped or not, there seems to be some implication that she may have been, but i'm not sure, she may have been forced to consent to avoid a worse fate. as for stephen, the general really did go to extremes with him, albeit after some provocation. i liked the way that stephen continued to resist at every stage even as he became increasingly helpless, this also made the ending even more brutal. i haven't read 1984 so can't say whether there are any comparisons, for some reason though it did make me think of idi amin, can't say why, but it didn't. don't know if this has much truth to it as i don't know a lot about amin's story, but i kind of saw ngwami as an amin figure. one question, why did they become so close to the general, did they really have no idea of the danger they were in? surely they would, in a more realistic scenario, have known something of the country's background and reputation and stayed well away from making such contacts if at all possible, assuming that one would actually go anywhere near such a place! also not sure that the story as a whole is completely realistic, while it's certainly horrible, i iamgine that real people would have died pretty quickly from such extreme treatment, rather than things going on endlessly.
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Post by Nightmare on Jul 3, 2013 22:35:25 GMT
yes, the cat scene, this moment really stuck with me after reading the story. the bit with eric raping the calf while eating it alive is also nasty, there is another bit with a dog whose legs have been burned which is still alive that stands out. the story is pretty relentless, makes sense in a horrible kind of way and continues to build to a great climax. kowlongo is also pretty relentless, once the background has been set up it's one shock after another until the horifying conclusion. both stories involve an element of sexual perversity, in eric the protagonist sometimes rapes the animals as well as torturing and eating them, in kowlongo there is sadism, repeated male rape and much abuse of a blow-up doll. the doll actually added some twisted humour to the story of a very black kind, and an added irony considering stephen's eventual fate. i wasn't clear as to exactly how much consent mary gave to general ngwami. obiviously, their situation was hopeless, she had no real choice, but i thought she consented to the general initially before her consent became forced. i'm not sure whether she was raped or not, there seems to be some implication that she may have been, but i'm not sure, she may have been forced to consent to avoid a worse fate. as for stephen, the general really did go to extremes with him, albeit after some provocation. i liked the way that stephen continued to resist at every stage even as he became increasingly helpless, this also made the ending even more brutal. i haven't read 1984 so can't say whether there are any comparisons, for some reason though it did make me think of idi amin, can't say why, but it didn't. don't know if this has much truth to it as i don't know a lot about amin's story, but i kind of saw ngwami as an amin figure. one question, why did they become so close to the general, did they really have no idea of the danger they were in? surely they would, in a more realistic scenario, have known something of the country's background and reputation and stayed well away from making such contacts if at all possible, assuming that one would actually go anywhere near such a place! also not sure that the story as a whole is completely realistic, while it's certainly horrible, i iamgine that real people would have died pretty quickly from such extreme treatment, rather than things going on endlessly. Yeah. The calf scene was really sick as well. Strange how the animal scenes in Eric The Pie caused me to wince, but not the Raspberry Jam story in Pan Horror 1! That was a good point about the ironic ending. I actually never considered the connection between the blow up doll and the ending until now. Graham just replied on his message board (IF it is him.) Glkad you enjoyed it! Actually, a Marmite sandwich is much more horrific than anything else mentioned in that story!
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