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Post by dem bones on Jan 9, 2018 19:22:40 GMT
Phil Harbottle [ed.] - Brian Ball & Sydney J. Bounds - The Baker Street Boys: Two Baker Street Irregular Novellas / Time for Murder: Macabre Crime Stories (Borgo Press/ Wildside, 2012) Brian Ball The Case of the Captive Clairvoyant: ( The Baker Street Boys, BBC/Knight Books, 1983) The Case of the Disappearing Despatch Case: ( The Baker Street Boys, BBC/Knight Books, 1983) About the Author. Sydney J. Bounds Time For Murder: ( Authentic Science Fiction, Oct. 1955) Terror Stalks The Seance Room: ( Suspense Stories #2, Sept. 1954) The House In The Pines: The Organ Bank Caper: ( Mystique: Tales Of Wonder, Jan. 1988) The Crime At Black Dyke: The Book Miser: (Robert Reginald [ed.], Whodunit? The First Borgo Press Book of Crime & Mystery Stories, 2011) The Footprints: (Maurice Flannagan [ed.], The First UK Paperback & Pulp Bookfair Official Souvenir Booklet, Zeon, Sept. 1991). Downmarket: (Stephen Jones [ed.] The Mammoth Book Of Monsters, 2007) Knife For A Canary: ( Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine, #3, Oct. 1964) Cardillo's Shadow: ( London Mystery Magazine, #20, 1954) A Little Night Fishing: (R. Chetwynd-Hayes [ed.] The Twelfth Fontana Book Of Great Ghost Stories, 1976) About the Author. Blurb: In the tradition of the Ace Doubles (flip the book over to read the second title), here's the eleventh Wildside Mystery Double: THE BAKER STREET BOYS: TWO BAKER STREET IRREGULAR NOVELLAS, by Brian Ball. If Mr. Sherlock Holmes had been in the country when the Baker Street Irregulars stumbled across the mystery of the Captive Clairvoyant, then no doubt he would have given immediate assistance. But Mr. Holmes was in Switzerland engaged in a deadly duel of wits with his most feared opponent, the evil Professor Moriarty; and so the Baker Street Irregulars, the gang of ragamuffins who sometimes assisted Mr. Holmes in his investigations, had to rely on their own wits. It all began-and ended-in Trump's Music Hall, the theatre where Sparrow was employed, where the star of the show was The Amazing Marvin, Hypnotist Extraordinaire and Mentalist Supreme! But Marvin had a secret and sinister agenda.... Two marvelous tales of Holmesiana! TIME FOR MURDER: MACABRE CRIME STORIES, by Sydney J. Bounds. When Chalmers decides to attend one of Dr. Lanson's nightly séances, it's not because he has any belief in the occult, but simply to find somewhere warm to rest his weary feet. It's a decision he soon regrets. First, a luminous cloud forms in the air over the heads of the assembled people. A strange voice speaks, warning that someone in the room is about to die to prevent him from revealing secrets. The man sitting next to him leaps to his feet, yelling his defiance - and then the lights are extinguished. As the man's voice is cut off, a girl's ear-piercing shriek reverberates...and Terror Stalks the Séance Room! Just one of eleven exciting macabre crime short stories by a master of the form!Cardillo's Shadow: A pre-Fontana Syd supernatural horror short. Mr. Cardillo lives alone in a house overlooking Cypress Hills cemetery. The house has a bad reputation and is especially unsuited to a bag of nerves like Mr. Cardillo. He is morbidly distrustful of his own shadow which, on the evidence of his own eyes, is out to lure him into a freshly dug grave. The Book Miser: Robert Bradman amasses an enviable collection of rare books as investments. Bradman takes advantage of a dying widow's ignorance to land her late husband's mint copy of A Study In Scarlet for less than the price of the average P.S. deluxe edition. Jo Royal, the sexy PI, is hired by the widow's daughter to get back the book. Jo, intent on teaching the book miser an expensive lesson, lures Bradman to a Soho strip-joint ..... Syd nails his colours to the mast: "Books were meant to be read, not hoarded to sell at a profit." Not the least "macabre," but who cares? References Hawkwind and "pot smoking." Time For Murder: Professor Gerald Laver advances physicist colleague Clifford Webb a substantial sum to fund construction of a time machine. Webb has no intention of repaying the debt and instead travels through time and space to commit the perfect murder. Inspector Burton of the Yard knows Webb is the killer but accepts that no court of law will ever convict him. Still, it sits badly with him to allow a criminal to escape justice. Webb's vanity is his undoing. Daisy the rabbit is the real heroine of this one.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 9, 2018 21:28:56 GMT
One futuristic locked room/ alien invasion mystery and a quiet ghost story. The Organ Bank Caper: Scientific Detective John Maracot and his biographer, 'Red' Hockney investigate a series of impossible thefts from the Organ Bank ("Body Re-building by Experts ... Donors freshly killed to your order.") It is as if someone is building their own version of Frankenstein's monster. Footprints: True to form, George Thornton, widower, mocked by his office colleagues as an "absent minded professor," forgets to fill his petrol tank before setting off home in a blizzard. Stranded in a West Midlands wasteland, he follows a signpost to St. Mary's house. The footprints of an unseen woman trace his own through the snow ....
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Post by dem bones on Jan 11, 2018 10:18:23 GMT
Syd, New Worlds, Feb. 1955 .... and another Biblio update. "In recent years, along with science fiction, Bounds continued to write new supernatural stories, appearing regularly in each issue of FANTASY ADVENTURES (Wildside Press, edited by Philip Harbottle). His dark fantasy stories there included Writer For Hire (#2, 2002), The Ballet Of The Cats (#3, 2003), The Wall (#5, 2003), The Excavation (#6, 2005), The Trunk (#7, 2003), Dreamboat (#9, 2004) and Victim, 2004). The final 13th issue featured seven of his last stories." From About The Author, Philip Harbottle ( Time For Murder, 2012). * Those publication dates seem pretty skewed to me, too. * Am hoping the library can help out with a copy of this: Sydney J. Bounds - Seance Of Terror (Linford Mystery Library, 2013) Blurb; Chalmers decides to attend one of Dr. Lanson's nightly seances because it's somewhere warm to rest his weary feet. A decision he regrets when a luminous cloud forms above the assembled people. Strangely, from the cloud comes a warning: someone there is about to die to prevent them from revealing secrets. A man defiantly leaps to his feet, the lights are extinguished, the man's voice is cut off and an ear-piercing shriek reverberates around the room...
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Post by dem bones on Jan 12, 2018 9:26:06 GMT
Cover via Galactic CentralTerror Stalks the Séance Room: (as by 'Clifford Wallace': Suspense Stories #2, Sept. 1954). Fleeced of his every cent by the woman he loved and destitute, ex-Marine Burt Chalmers contemplates throwing himself in the Hudson, but instead settles for spending the evening at Dr. Lanson the Medium's place, Séances nightly - All welcome. Among the attendees, a strikingly beautiful young woman, Ann Stevens, though in his current starved and dishevelled state, Burt ain't exactly an attractive proposition, and besides, Miss Stevens is accompanied by her fiancée - until the lights go out and the three-fingered man slams an ice pick through his skull! Our two-fisted tramp is not the man to abandon a damsel in distress, and when he learns that Dr. Lanson's set up is a front for a Satanism and human sacrifice you can bet Burt won't rest until he's delivered Ann from her tormentors. The House In The Pines: Charles Cassidy, misogynist, is trapped in a holiday home haunted by the spirit of a seductive vampire woman. Knife For A Canary: Johnny Quinn stabs his songbird squeeze, Stella Marguerite 'The Sex-Kitten of the Club Roma' for humiliating him before Soho's Mr. Big, Fat Rueben. The Mobster is bent on violently avenging her murder with a bike-chain. The Crime At Black Dyke: "These women are freaks, do-gooders, libbers - stupid! I'll never give in to them. Never!" A second Jo Royal adventure (see The Book Miser). This time the all-action freelance photo journalist joins a protest group opposed to Charles Pearson' s chemical factory whose employees have been dumping poisonous waste in the canal. Again no murder, nothing remotely "macabre" but good fun all the same. Jo Royal has a touch of the Simon Templar's about her, fighting crime with daring and better accomplished crime.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 27, 2018 9:44:13 GMT
Sydney J. Bounds - Séance Of Terror (Linford Mystery Library, 2013) Séance Of Terror (aka Terror Stalks The Séance Room) Strange Portrait The Crime At Black Dyke Time For Murder The Circus The Active Man Grant In Aid The Relic Public Service Cardillo's ShadowBlurb: Chalmers decides to attend one of Dr. Lanson's nightly seances because it's somewhere warm to rest his weary feet. A decision he regrets when a luminous cloud forms above the assembled people. Strangely, from the cloud comes a warning: someone there is about to die to prevent them from revealing secrets. A man defiantly leaps to his feet, the lights are extinguished, the man's voice is cut off and an ear-piercing shriek reverberates around the room...Many thanks to the staff at the Watney Market "idea's store" (trans: library - local housing office) for turning up a copy. Packaging gives no indication that this is anything other than a straight novel. In reality it's a ten-strong collection of Syd's (mostly) horror & supernatural greatest hits culled from the aforementioned Time For Murder and the two Best Of... volumes.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 27, 2018 23:58:34 GMT
Alan Hunter The Active Man The Active Man: ( New Worlds SF #33, Mar 1955). A man suffering from a lethal dose of radiation poisoning would, for the short time left at his disposal, be a far more effective weapon than a firearm. That is - if he lived long enough. "Shadowy forms closed in: laboratory workers in protective clothing with shiny metal claws for handling the 'hot stuff.' They were after him! Hunted like an animal .... no, not like an animal .... like a piece of waste matter that had somehow slipped out of the radioactive labs."An accident at the Garside Atomic Plant leaves young cleaner Frank Martin exposed to a fatal spillage of radiation. Frank learns that evil Henry Garside is planning to detonate an A-bomb in London, forcing the Government to continue heavy investment in his lucrative industry. With only six hours to live, our pimple faced hero resolves to expose Garside, save millions of innocent lives, and write goodbye to fiancée Ruth. Grant In Aid: ( Authentic SF#67, March 1956). Why is the fanatically reclusive Mr. Lazarus donating enormous sums to clairvoyants, parapsychologists, psychic researchers and all manner of individuals involved in unorthodox and fringe sciences of the mind? Stone, the tough as old boots New York private dick, is hired by one of the lucky benefactors to investigate.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 28, 2018 17:16:44 GMT
"Sydney J. Bounds ... sold his first horror story [to Gerald G. Swan ] during the Second World War, but it never appeared and is probably now lost. His first in print was Strange Portrait (1946) which follows the Dorian Gray theme" - Mike Ashley, Who's Who In Horror & Fantasy Fiction, 1977. Strange Portrait: ( Outlands, Winter 1946). "Is it possible for an artist to create within his work, a life akin to biological life?" This is the question that haunts David Guest, a genius painter with a dangerous interest in witchcraft and black magic. Guest confides in his friend, Ralph Fisher, art critic on the Daily News, who in turn introduces him to fellow reporter Syd. These are accompanied on their regular visits to the Blue Anchor pub by June Heyward on eye candy duties. Both Guest and Fisher are smitten by June and when she opts to marry the latter, a crestfallen Guest shuts himself away in his studio to paint his masterpiece. Tragically, the self-portrait is fired with murderous loathing for his love rival .... The Circus: (Mary Danby [ed], 13th Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories, 1980). I'm guessing Syd was an admirer of Harry Harrison's short horrors. If Young Blood reads like a glam era upgrade on HH's Beatlemania-inspired vignette, They're Playing Our Song, then The Circus is At Last, The True Story of Frankenstein ratcheted up to eleven. Probably SJB's most famous horror outing, The Circus has been listed in both vampire and mummy bibliographies (it qualifies for werewolf and Frankenstein listings with equal justification). This next is absolutely brilliant and, post-Grenfell, eerily prophetic. Public Service: (John Carnell [ed.], New Writings in SF #13, Corgi, 1968). "Fire control means sacrifice, the sacrifice of the few for the many .... anyway, you know those fiction tapes have been banned, so get that stuff right out of your head." IT IS THE FUTURE AGAIN. An escalating population has resulted in chronic over-development of the inner cities. The homes of the wealthy are fully fireproofed, the millions of unemployed - robots have replaced all menial workers - left to fend for themselves in combustible high rise death traps. Fire Control come under attack from the outlawed Inflam movement who see them as pawns of a totalitarian government they hold responsible for the regular inferno's. Rookie Section Officer Shane Riley is friendly with a known Inflam sympathiser. Worse, he reads history books, although these have been outlawed as "fiction." Whatever these fairy tales allege, his superior advises him,the fire service has never been about fire prevention or saving lives. On the contrary, it is their duty to commit mass murder on an industrial scale. When a Government agent is captured in the act of bombing Inflam HQ, Riley is sent in to save him .....
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Post by dem bones on Oct 17, 2019 13:32:09 GMT
Brian Pedley ( Ghost Hunter, The Oxford Book of Nasty Endings, 1997) Ghost Hunter: (Mary Danby [ed.], 13th Armada Ghost Book, 1981: Dennis Pepper [ed.], The Oxford Book of Nasty Endings, 1997). Peter Matson, jumps on his bicycle, rides out to the London suburbs to investigate the alleged haunting at Rosemont, a Victorian pile that resembles "something out of Dracula. He learns from Swann the estate agent that the property has become virtually impossible to let, as whatever walks Rosemont scares away tenants within days of their arrival. The ghost - if ghost there be - could be connected to the suicide of a young woman. Peter explores the house over consecutive nights until .... an amorous spectre in high heels entices him up into the attic ....
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Post by helrunar on Nov 7, 2023 18:56:02 GMT
Those sound like a lot of fun. Great drawings which I presume aren't included in the reprint, but we have to take what we can get, these days.
Hel.
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Post by sadako on Nov 9, 2023 0:26:20 GMT
Unbelievable! I thought Sydney was just a sci-fi writer and have recently bought Robot Brains to see what it was like. After reading these posts, I realise that I first read his stories in the 70s, in Tales of Terror From Outer Space and Mary Danby’s Frighteners books. And I grew up only a mile away from where he lived, and went to two schools in Kingston very nearby. If only I’d known!
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on Nov 9, 2023 11:51:41 GMT
Like with John Burke, Linford Mystery Library reprinted quite a few of his novels. I noticed several westerns. The Robot Brains, from the goodreads reviews, sounds like the ultimate pulp novel, it seems to have everything you would want in that genre including a Yellow Peril villain.
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