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Post by killercrab on May 10, 2009 3:35:32 GMT
We've all got a certain type of book that interest us the most - be it an author or a series or an anthologist. My ongoing passion is for the 1970's New English Library Horror series'. Be it The Specialist or Dracula series or the standalone efforts like Village of Fear. They're competently written for the most part , they product place at times , use tried and tested cliches - not the sort anyone with literary ambition would want to emulate I guess?
What they do have in abundance are nostalgia - they represent a time when NEL couldn't get enough US books to republish and instead turned closer to home - guys like Brian Ball and Martin Jensen. Not big names in a Guy N Smith way or a Herbert - but there is an indefinable quality to these 128 page paperbacks. They smell of seaside holidays and caravan parks. They sport lurid covers - never tasteful - but always on the whole imaginative . They fit in your back pocket and can be sat on and still read. Disposable treasures.
I'm asking if anybody here feels like me ? I respect the scholarly aspects of detailing the
anthologies - the sharing of lists and websites. I love the Nels with no reservations - do you?
Just ordered Devil's Peak , Lesson for the Damned and The Severed Hand !
KC
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Post by jamesdoig on May 10, 2009 7:18:52 GMT
Most of the early 1970s NEL novels I've never seen let alone read. Raymond Giles is worth a look - he wrote a few books for NEL, including this one from 1971.  |
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Post by severance on May 10, 2009 14:08:02 GMT
I know what you mean KC, just picked up books 5 and 6 in Robert Lory's Dracula series (though only 'Witching' is a NEL, 'Drums' is a U.S. Pinnacle copy), to go with the first 4 I've already got and yet to read. Also on the TBR pile is a couple of Brian Ball's, the above 'Night of the Griffin', two David Gurney's, plus offerings by Lecale, Jensen, Clewett, Hammond and the superb Jack Shackleford. Now if I only had the time...
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Post by killercrab on May 10, 2009 14:44:09 GMT
Funny you guys should mention Raymond Giles - I'm halfway through Night of the Warlock - turning out excellent. I have his Night of trilogy and believe Vampire is next? Like Sev I've a few Nels outstanding in my pile to read but figured it was time to get more!
It occurs I need to catch up on The Witches too - but that's not Nel.
Thanks for the words!
KC
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Post by severance on May 10, 2009 15:26:52 GMT
I have his Night of trilogy and believe Vampire is next? I'm pretty certain they're unrelated other than the words 'Night of' in the title - so not a trilogy as such. It occurs I need to catch up on The Witches too - but that's not Nel. By way of coincidence, just picked up the first 4 of these as well - but on a major 50s crime binge at the moment, so who knows when I'll get to them... |
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Post by killercrab on May 10, 2009 15:37:45 GMT
I'm pretty certain they're unrelated other than the words 'Night of' in the title - so not a trilogy as such.>> Right - I wasn't sure so I checked the dates to get them in order. Has anyone we know read NIGHT OF THE GRIFFIN ? - I'm most fascinated about this one I think. WARLOCK and VAMPIRE were talked about on the older forum ( which is partly what got me back into a Nel jag). I still see both places as one group - lol I did read WHO SUPS WITH THE DEVIL and it reminded me what I'd been missing from my reading. The difficult thing is getting the books. I really like *finding* stuff in old bookshops - I found Brian Ball's The VENOMOUS SERPENT for instance - but it's getting harder to find the treasure - probably no thanks to groups like this - I'd suggest we keep sources under more wraps -lol Anyway as I said I've just ordered THE SEVERED HAND - which will be my second Specialist book after CASTLEDOOM. I'd like to get some Martin Jensen books like ODOUR OF DECAY - when the price is right. Got a real charge from ordering three Nels - sad really.  KC |
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Post by dem bones on May 10, 2009 22:36:15 GMT
It will be The Woman Who Slept With Demons next for me, 'cause i struggled to *review* it last time. Maybe it's just i ain't looking hard enough, but the 'seventies NEL's seem thinner on the ground than ever these days, unless you go the eBay route which i still treat as though it doesn't exist. It's hardly surprising but after Eat Them Alive any new ones that have landed in my lap have all seemed unusually sensible, even The Man With Mad Eyes (packaged like a horror but really crime and perversion). Roderick Grant's The Stalking Of Adrian Lawford (1974) is a low-rent Psycho minus the dressing up in ugly dresses but plus a suspenseful, protracted pursuit across marshland. It does what it needs to, does it well, and for once the ending doesn't disappoint. London is destroyed again in Conrad Voss Bark's The Big Wave (1979). Not a rat, cat or man-eating insect army to be seen but don't let that put you off, it's a page-turner and no mistake. Best of all (sorry, but it's from 1987) is Gerald Suster's creepy as fuck The Handyman. "Life ain't much but it's all you've got, Mrs. Foster, so stick a geranium in your 'at and be 'appy". Harry has a thing about women in hats. BTW, as Steve pointed out, Night Of The Griffin started life as Children of the Griffin by 'Elizabeth Giles' when it was published as a Lancer Easy Eye Gothic in 1971. Lancer's covers are usually pretty eye-catching heroine-pursued-by-the-evil-baron efforts, but the NEL goes them one better and certainly knocks spots off this rather dull effort. |
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Post by jamesdoig on May 10, 2009 23:28:38 GMT
Yes, Night of the Griffen is the third in the series after Warlock and Vampire. It's a witchcraft novel set in the US.
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Post by Steve on May 11, 2009 0:37:58 GMT
Just ordered Devil's Peak , Lesson for the Damned and The Severed Hand ! KC Just a little something from the old place to get you in the mood for your forthcoming Balls, Ade; The Venomous Serpent Brian Ball New English Library, 1974 It was a dark and stormy night... It was also the first time the priest of the little parish church at Stymead had ever seen a woman naked - the ivory skin, the deep black hair, the red lips, the sensuous curves, the exquisite breasts, the taloned fingers... the fangs. So, exquisite breasts or not, it was probably best that the priest wasn't alone with the Lady of Stymead, beautiful but venomous wife of the gallant knight Lord Humphrey. Probably best that some stout-hearted men of Stymead - masons, smiths & carpenters to entomb her and ensure she stayed entombed, the swine-killer with his broad-bladed knife... were also in attendance. And something else... some small, sleeping thing curled at his lady's feet beneath the grave-wrappings. The lapdog. The night creature. And the next thing you know it's 1974. Sally and Andy are art school drop-outs living in a converted barn in the Peak District with a large mongrel dog and two fluffy little kittens. They have a craft shop that does a reasonably brisk trade in garish candles, reclaimed Victorian scrap, one-guinea watercolours and garden gnomes, and an ovine local farmer for a landlord who wants them off his land - not taking too kindly to their co-habiting, tinned spaghetti-eating, beardy ways. If they'd stuck to the plaster gnomes everything may have been OK, but Sally makes a fateful error - she dabbles in one of the black arts... brass rubbing. Soon faceless, beckoning spectres are forming in the moonlight. Sheep and various small, furry animals are being found completely drained of blood. Mysterious dank-haired men with bad skin take to hanging around the craft shop full of ominous foreboding. And Sally's not quite herself. I enjoyed The Venomous Serpent so much that I read it in just two sittings (and I'd have probably finished it in one go, if it wasn't for annoying distractions such as work). This is unusual for me - even for a hundred and twenty-odd pager - as being both fickle and easily distracted, I'll almost inevitably have my head turned by some other eye-catching cover or well-turned blurb... While not exactly a page turner, I still found myself well and truly drawn into this tale of diabolical Derbyshire which reads almost like a long short story (most of which takes place either in the converted barn, the ruined church or the brooding High Peak village of Stymead - "like a village underwater"). The characters for the most part are fairly stock, but there are a few colourful extras brought in to considerably liven up the proceedings. Foremost among them is local eccentric clergyman, I. C. J. Cunningham, M.A. I'll say one thing for the New English Library, they certainly gave good vicar. Running him a close second is Arthur "sodding townies" Meggitt, toothless, large-trousered landlord of Stymead's only pub, 'The Black Nigget' (it's an Old English word for a witch's familiar in case you were wondering).
"I'll have a pint of shandy."
"Bloody fancy town drinks!"As is usually the case with these things, the 70s period detail adds much - I was particularly struck by how much of his time our woolly-jumpered protagonist Andy spends drinking and driving. Eerie rather than blood-spattered, I was strangely unsettled by some passages for reasons I couldn't begin to explain; She looked down at the kitten on the duvet and poked it with her finger.
It looked at her, mewed and then, quite deliberately, spat in her face.This is good old-fashioned seventies British horror. Where else would you find a couple who, facing nameless nightcrawling terror - their mortal souls in imminent peril of eternal damnation, would decide that their best course of action was a pie and a pint in the local pub? Maybe it's a Derbyshire thing. [Dec 2005] |
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Post by jamesdoig on May 11, 2009 6:35:13 GMT
"she dabbles in one of the black arts...brass rubbing" - priceless!
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Post by killercrab on May 11, 2009 7:53:04 GMT
The Venomous Serpent is fabulous James. I understand it's been released recently in large print in the UK. I love the idea of Nel horror in public libraries. Steve - still a great review ! KC Edit- East Riding library in Yorkshire has a copy! |
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Post by severance on May 11, 2009 11:45:51 GMT
It appears that Brian Ball has several recently released in hardback for libraries - Venomous Serpent, Devil's Peak, Mark of the Beast (the first Witchfinder) and one called Malice of the Soul which I can't see on any bibliography. Synopsis read as follows: When elderly Mrs Peters appears to suffer a stroke at her nursing home, only Diana Knightson knows the truth: her colleague, Marguerite, has deliberately terrified the old woman and isn't as she seems. Then when Phil Walsh, Diana's fiancé, is seduced by Marguerite he turns against her and her life is in danger. But Diana gains an ally in Jarvis, Mrs Peters' son. He's determined to avenge his mother's death - and together they fight the forces of evil.
My Central Library have a few of these, so might have to request them just to have a look...
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Post by Dr Terror on May 11, 2009 13:29:57 GMT
I think the large print Balls were mentioned by Phil Harbottle in Paperback Fanatic.
Mike Linaker's Scorpions and Touch of Hell are also in large print. As are some PC westerns in the Bodie, Brand, and Herne the Hunter series.
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Post by killercrab on May 11, 2009 18:26:21 GMT
I'm behind on PF's - must rectify that. I just love the idea that Brian Ball is getting PLR payments from The Venomous Serpent written in '74 ! - if it was in my library I'd get it out. Sev - let us know on this new mystery Balls.  KC |
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Post by pulphack on May 12, 2009 17:40:57 GMT
just to backtrack a bit as i haven't been around for a week or so - the pulps pf the sixties and seventies are the real passion for me, though i haven't been reading many of late as work and the need to read up for it has sidetracked me. but i must say, as someone who felt he was dragging the vault off original target when joining, i'm kinda glad it's veered back towards the anthologies a little of late as i'm really learning a lot about some areas of short fiction that were uncharted waters.
having said that, i'm more likely to pick up a p/b with a half-naked bird and leering robin askwith lookalike on the cover than a hugh lamb antho, but maybe that's just me...
which, incidentally, is why the Dick Staines stuff tickles me so much. is it satire, parody, or loving pastiche? ah, there's one for the pitbull to answer...
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