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Post by severance on Oct 21, 2007 11:34:33 GMT
Brian Ball - Witchfinder: The Mark of the Beast - Mayflower, 1976 "There was Evil in the air at the seance - Evil that was to transform their lives. Janice said she had not changed but there were signs Alan could not ignore. Like the strange mark on her hand, the naked wanderings in the moonlight, the unusual sexual demands. Like the blood stains on her clothes...
And so Alan turned to ex-priest Ruane, a man drained of self-respect, a drunkard, a reject, but still the only man who would listen. A man who knew the reality of the Devil."Brian Ball - Witchfinder: The Evil at Monteine - Mayflower, 1977 "When Richard was offered the chance to work for millionaire recluse Simon Miaolo, Anne was pleased for her fiancé's career.
But as time went by, he seemed to become a prisoner at Monteine Castle, Miaolo's feudal headquarters.
Slowly, Anne began to realize that Richard - and she - were being manipulated by a master of Evil in a hideous satanic ritual of sacrifice and renewal as old as time.
That was when, like others before her, she turned to Ruane the Witchfinder. A man who would listen. A man waging his own private war against the Devil."Just finished the first book, and like the two other Ball novels I've read, The Venomous Serpent and Lesson for the Damned, it takes place in a fictional part of the Peak District. The back cover synopsis sums it up more than adequately, so I'll just add that, though the ending was bit of a let-down, that's invariably the case with these sort of occult novels. Still a damned fine read though, if you're lucky enough to find them, and right up there with Peter Saxon and Jack D. Shackleford. |
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Post by franklinmarsh on Oct 21, 2007 17:02:11 GMT
Witchfinder:The Mark Of The Beast is an extremely entertaining novel. Utterly ridiculous but quite involving. Ball can write horror in the creepy sense rather than gorefest. He really brings out the banality and ordinariness of the main couple's lives, so that the supernatural events leap out at you. Dare I say Franklin cliche No 75 - the ending is a little anticlimatic. Builds up nicely a la The Devil Rides Out with spurned husband (armed with a briefcase of molotov cocktails) and drunken ex-priest (armed with a flask of whisky) heading off to confront thirteen naked witches in an ancient stone circle , but.....
All in all a good fun read though.
Blast! I omitted my favourite line - 'F*** the cocoa!'
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Post by andydecker on Apr 22, 2011 11:03:07 GMT
Witchfinder:Mark of the Beast is a lot of fun, but is also very dated. Most of the plot wouldn´t work today. Ball liked his heroes to be everyman, but Alan falls apart too quickly, and if he would have had one decent shag in his life he wouldn´t even have noticed most of his wife´s suddenly "unnatural" sexual cravings. Basically he is an repressed little toad, and his wife janice isn´t much better before being possesed. I also think that the end is a bit of a let-down. It is very underdeveloped, but this is more to do with Ball´s style than with the plot. His constant POV hopping between Alan and excorcist-priest Ruane is annoying and sometimes downright confusing, and it robs the end of much of its dramatic powers as it cuts the momentum. Of course it was a very basic end, and one wonder what Wheatley have made out of the lesbian sabbat - those foul fiends, is there no end in their debasement  - still, if could have been better. On the other hand, there is a lot to like, from the sacrificed cats and dogs to the Stepford circle and the naked antics in the church. And the cover sure is nice.  |
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Post by killercrab on Apr 22, 2011 18:59:49 GMT
That's kinda depressing.
Personally I'm enjoying Ball's LESSON FOR THE DAMNED. Yes it's sort of predictable but nobody does Derbyshire occult like this man.
F**k the Cocoa indeed!
KC
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Post by andydecker on Jun 2, 2023 8:08:42 GMT
Brian Ball - Witchfinder: Mark of the Beast (Mayflower, 1976, 176 Pages)  Brian Ball - Witchfinder: The Evil at Monteine (Mayflower, 1977, 171 pages)  |
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Post by sadako on Feb 17, 2024 23:30:53 GMT
Ordered a copy of this book blind (but cheap) and received this large-type library reprint. About to find out if it’s been censored…  |
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Post by sadako on Feb 17, 2024 23:52:44 GMT
Argh, the Linford Mystery Library edition from 2007 claims to be “complete and unabridged”, yet the aforementioned infamous scene reads as follows…
“ “Jan, don’t you want the chocolate?” She told him what to do with the chocolate - graphically. “
Think I’ll wait for a seventies edition before reading any further…
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Post by helrunar on Feb 18, 2024 0:49:05 GMT
Very disappointing. I detest prudes and their insistence on ruining whatever fun the rest of us want to have in life.
Wishing you all the best getting a 1970s Mayflower edition of the book.
cheers, Hel.
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Post by sadako on Feb 18, 2024 0:54:05 GMT
Very disappointing. I detest prudes and their insistence on ruining whatever fun the rest of us want to have in life. Wishing you all the best getting a 1970s Mayflower edition of the book. cheers, Hel. Thanks, Hel! Guess I’ll return to my copy of Venemous Serpent while I’m waiting! |
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Post by andydecker on Feb 18, 2024 13:02:39 GMT
Argh, the Linford Mystery Library edition from 2007 claims to be “complete and unabridged”, yet the aforementioned infamous scene reads as follows… “ “Jan, don’t you want the chocolate?” She told him what to do with the chocolate - graphically. “ Think I’ll wait for a seventies edition before reading any further… The really interesting stuff "Jan, don't bite! Jan, the curtains!" and so on is on the next page :-) Is this also changed?
The Linford editions were (are?) made for libraries, and I truly understand the need for appropriate covers. But this is just so fucking awful and artless it makes me wince.
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Post by sadako on Feb 18, 2024 16:57:20 GMT
Those lines are still intact! Seems they only corrected the ‘bad language’ but left intact the racist descriptions (of the Jamaican medium). A skewed remit to be inoffensive to some but not others. Final irony is that no one even took the book out of the library!    |
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Post by sadako on Feb 26, 2024 15:04:16 GMT
I don’t know much about publishing, but many of Brian Ball’s novels have been republished a few times, besides the awful Linford large-type series. Perhaps he retained the rights and kept monetising his work (he lived until 2020)? There are currently several reprints available from Waterstones - his two Keegan thrillers and Malice of the Soul.   |
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- still, if could have been better.
