PAN No 25

[erebus]

You can imagine the scenes at the Pan offices at the time.
"Yippee we got some Steve King stories for the latest volume"

"Yep but what about the other stories what they like ?"

"Who cares ! we got Steve King "

And so alas the rot began to set in further and the once great horror series became to commercialised and out went all the creepy tales that frightened and intrigued us as kids. The uninspiring cover also adds to this.

Although not a complete loss and nowhere near as bad as the dreadful 28th volume Van Thal's final effort just does'nt cut it sadly.

BABY'S BLOOD... Tells the tale of a stranger who brings his own bottle of special brew to a local bar/inn. Once the landlord takes a sip he is intrigued and wants more for his business. The title tells of its origins but its not as nasty, evil or sinister as it sounds and is told in quite subtle way.

UPON REFLECTION ... Silly fantasy tale that does'nt belong here concerning a mystical warlocks castle that can be viewed on a hill reflected in a lake. A blood offering can grant many treasures to those who believe the lecacy. ( load of twaddle )

JOSIE COMES TO STAY... Young gypsy trollop begs and begs for the hand of a local farmer. Reluctantly he accepts and they marry . Although she is only interested in what she believes is his hiddden fortune stashed away somewhere. After getting nowhere she decides to frighten him but it ends in his doom. Then a storm brews up ( why I dunno ) and her fate is sealed in a silly fashion. Sounds so much better than it actually is, and a story that really to me was a waste of time reading.

JOB CENTERS ARE LESS DANGEROUS ... Four local yobs go around to a local psychic for a reading. One decides to steal back the money they paid when they leave. Three of them succumb to accidents that kind of revolve around what the mystic initially foretold them. The last boy naturally gets worried and decides to beg for forgiving.

LETS DO SOMETHING NAUGHTY ... Nympho wife likes to screw a local man in her daughters room whilst her child plays in the back garden. The house originally was owned by a evil perverted alchemist who practised in sacrifice, devil worship, rape, sodomy ...the bloody lot. His sister Grizell Bell also resided with him. But are they really dead. And why are the two normally sweet children wanting to play with Mummy all of a sudden. Basic Reincarnation story.

GRAVE BUSINESS ... A mere two pages at that but better than those before it. Concerns a necromaniac in a graveyard.

ONAWA ... Nine pages of utter tripe. It opens with the words .. Yesterday- Almost three hundred years ago now- I bit off the head of a bird.... And basically that is what this is about. Some waith wanders from a forest and is found by a woodsman and is taken in and looked after by him and his wife. After having some chicken broth and getting the taste of the blood within. She decides she likes it . On wandering in the woods on a later date she finds a wounded bird and bites its head off. THE END. Now we gathered she had done that in the opening sentence of the story. So why waste nine piggin pages telling us again. Save your time and look at a blank wall than read this.

THE ARICHITECTS STORY ... A lot better. Arichitect checks in old manor in the country. Local farmer over the fence tells him a few of the odd stories that went on in the house before it became run down and empty. A foreigner owned it and dabbled in the black arts. Poultry and goats went missing . And later a tramp was found dead nearby in the bushes. On inspection inside the architect finds some books of black arts ( including the Necronomicon) and a door that is for some reason padlocked shut. At last a creepy tale in the book that harkens back to earlier volumes.

TELL MOMMY WHAT HAPPENED ...Little boy has a gift of seeing spooks and ghosties. It scares his Mum. But is it really ghosts or is it the future ?

THE SQUATTERS ... Rather Rosemary Timperley style haunted house story about squatters who soon realise why a decent house they discover to bed down in has been left in a hurry by previous owners. A window that is constantly open and wet footprints on the floor tell a tragic story. One of the better stories in the book.

BLACK SILK ... Rich man marries a beauty who has a strange fascination with silk. On their wedding night he finds out why and where it comes from. A grisly little number to end on.

THE BOOGEYMAN and THE WOMAN IN THE ROOM by King are in Night Shift and need no explaining apart from the fact as we all know they do not belong in a Pan book.

Poor volume this.

[erebus]

Ooops forgot Norman P Kaufman's

JUST ONE OF THE FAMILY ... Man complains to Dr of Pain in his chest. On closer inspection it is revealed he has a twin growing in his chest. It has to come out so that the man may live. But he shrugs off the Doctors help and decides to do the operation himself. Typical gory and bloody depravity you expect from this writer . And someone who is always good value to gross you out.

[allthingshorror]

Heya Erebus - this may explain a little about Pan 25 and have taken this and amended it from my van Thal bio in Back From the Dead.


Herbert van Thal was 76 years of age and in December 1980, not long after the 21st volume was issued, he suffered a fall and broke his ankle.

Recovery was slow and painful; visits to his beloved Reform Club in Pall Mall where he had spent many long lunches with friends of the literary and film world had all but stopped. His offices in Regent Street were there, but Bertie preferred to work under the London Management banner from his flat in Clifton Crescent, Folkestone.

He was officially retired, and had been for many years, but like Clarence Paget, who had been receiving royalties from the very first Pan Horror volume, (Clarence‘s full involvement in the early books will never be known) The Pan Horrors were a ready source of income.


The 24th volume contains eight tales, the least of any volume, with Ken Alden‘s 'The Moment of Death‘ and Roald Dahl‘s excellent 'The Landlady‘ showing the most skill but which Bertie had already published once before in The Bedside Book of Horror in 1973.

The lack of stories sadly mirrored Bertie‘s declining health which had got progressively worse that year. He was moved into Heather Lodge nursing home, and only a few weeks after the 24th Pan Book of Horror Stories was released, Bertie Maurice Van Thal died on 23 December 1983 of a stroke, brought on by bronchopneumonia. He was 79 years old.


Bertie was cremated on the 29 December, 1983 at the Hawkinge Crematorium. His extensive library was split up and sold to several book dealers in Folkestone. In August 1984 local newspapers carried that he had left an estate of £87,849 – roughly £174,000 in today‘s money. His ashes were scattered by his step-daughter Susan Brooks, within sight of the flat from whose study he used to gaze affectionately at the waters of the English Channel.

The 25th Pan Book of Horror Stories was issued in December 1984 and even though Herbert van Thal‘s name was on the front of the book, I believe that Clarence Paget was mainly responsible for the editing and putting together of this book. However more than a few stories may have been 'locked in' by Bertie for this publication before hand, and also for a couple for the 26th volume. One of van Thal's regulars has three stories appear - Ian C Strachan writing under the names of Pater and Shiffman.

I believe that a lack of a decent cover is down to the series coming close to being cancelled. I think the axe was lifted at the last moment; Clarence still wielded considerable power at Pan and may have guaranteed the short term survival of the series by agreeing to take it over. The cover we see today is down to a rush job at the art department.

Clarence Paget finally got his name on the front of the book with the 26th volume and the series rapidly plummeted, both in the quality of stories (which had been poor for a while, but now only got much worse) and in sales. Volume 25 sold 25,435 copies and then the last few books even less with volume #30 selling a whimpering 6,829 copies. By this time, the horror boom with its overlong novels had taken its grip on the public and their reading habits.

[erebus]

Thank you so very very much for this information. It truly is fascinating and I applaud your research Sir.
I for one cannot wait for the book .

[dem]

Herbert Van Thal (ed.) – 25th Pan Book Of Horror Stories (1984)

Alan Ryan – Baby’s Blood
Terry Jeeves – Upon Reflection
J. I. Crown – Josie Comes To Stay
Norman P. Kaufman – Just One Of The Family
Curt Pater – Job Centres Are Less Dangerous
Alan W. Lear – Let’s Do Something Naughty
Christina Kiplinger – Grave Business
Alan Ryan – Onawa
Ian C. Strachen – The Architect’s Story
Stephen King – The Boogeyman
Alan Ryan – Tell Mommy What Happened
Carl Shiffman – The Squatters
Stephen King – The Woman In The Room
Barbara-Jane Crossley – Black Silk

used to see this around quite a lot, never picked up a copy because the cover looked so damned uninspired and line-up lacked top PBOH regulars like Alex White, Alan Temperley, Rosemary Timperley ... . of course, once i suddenly decided it was no longer surplus to requirements, most copies had vanished off the face of the earth/ onto poxy Am*z*n, Arsebooks & Co, and it's taken from since we started until this morning to find one. already had a quick sample. 'Carl Shiffman's The Squatters is an effective ghost story which pits workshy fops Kevin and Marjorie versus a cold, dripping spectre in her bridal veil. Christina Kiplinger's Grave Business is two pages of nifty necrophiliac antics worthy a place in tasteful If it ain't stiff ... sex with dead people imaginary anthology. expect plenty further drivel about these in future posts.

[andydecker]

Alan Ryan just died, I read in another blog.I read two of his novels but have only a hazy recollection. He wrote quite a lot of stories, I gather.

[Johnlprobert]

Unlike erebus above I quite liked Upon Reflection, and Job Centres are Less Dangerous wasn't bad either. But I was about 15 when I read these and a recent attempt at the weekend at reading the Inseminoid novelisation for the first time since 1981 has made me realise some things are better left as blood-tinted memories so I don't think I'll be revisiting this one!

[noose]

Yeah, he died - sad news. I had been trying to track him down for years - turns out he was living in Brazil.

toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.com/2011/06/rip-alan-ryan-1943-2011-author-of-dead.html

[dem]

Jun 13, 2011 11:42:45 GMT andydecker said:

Alan Ryan just died, I read in another blog.I read two of his novels but have only a hazy recollection. He wrote quite a lot of stories, I gather.

yeah, a number of novels too, including a when animals attack effort, Panther, although i don't think it was typical of his work. as far as i'm aware, Alan Ryan was the only editor outside Fontana yet to include a Mary Danby story in an anthology (Robbie in Haunting Women), and his Vampyres/ The Penguin Book Of Vampire Stories is an excellent introduction to the literature, not least for his own contribution, Following the way which has something of the mighty Last Days Of Christ The Vampire's about it, although Ryan's story is presented poker faced.

Jun 13, 2011 12:28:12 GMT Johnlprobert said:

Unlike erebus above I quite liked Upon Reflection, and Job Centres are Less Dangerous wasn't bad either. But I was about 15 when I read these and a recent attempt at the weekend at reading the Inseminoid novelisation for the first time since 1981 has made me realise some things are better left as blood-tinted memories ....

this might well be one of them, John. reading Pan 25 for the first time so long after the event has been an eyeopener. i like the two pseudonymous Ian C. Strachen contributions - Job Centres Are Dangerous and The Squatters - well enough, but both have a vaguely unsettling The Daily Mail Book Of Horror Stories aspect about 'em (if i'd not had the abject misfortune of living under the previous Tory government, i'd have sworn Job Centres Are Dangerous had been written yesterday). . Alan W. Lear's Let's Do Something Naughty begins like it's going to be The Ups & Downs Of A Handyman given a black sorcery slant and turned up to eleven before settling into familiar, if commendably unpleasant, demonic possession territory. my favourite of the originals so far, just shading it from 'Shiffman'/ Strachen's The Squatters. the King duo have not long received their just desserts on the Night Shift thread, great stories both in their very different ways, can't think of a damn thing new to say about them here. Barbara-Jane Crossley's Black Silk reads like the kind of competent-if-no-great-shakes material the London Management crew regularly threw up, and as such is welcome and far more representative of a Pan Horror story than the King or (i'm guessing) the Ryan contributions (i know Baby's Blood from an earlier Charle's L. Grant collection). so far, so much better fun than anticipated.

Alan W. Lear - Let’s Do Something Naughty: Edinburgh. Frustrated housewife Pat Ashover has been carrying on with well-hung Callum the gormless super-stud, while her husband Paul, an authority in British Seventeenth Century Witchcraft, gets on with consulting his infernal documents and being boring. Their house once belonged to Hellfire preacher Robert Bell, who consistently performed to full congregations ("he was as popular in his day as Barry Manilow", quips Paul). Rev. Bell and his sister Grizell were burnt at the stake in July 1670 after his spectacular turn at the pulpit of St. Giles where he cheerfully boasted that he and sis had sold their souls to the Devil forty years earlier and had since indulged their master by practicing every abominable perversion known to man and some entirely of their own devising. Necrophilia, Bestiality, Paedophilia, Cannibalism, Sadism, Human Sacrifice ... Robbie and Grizel enjoyed 'em over and over. Even as the flames did their worst the incorrigible pair were all smiles, promising they'd return.

Now Pat is getting worried. All her husband's talk of Reverend Bell is getting to her as, when it comes to perversions, she and Callum have indulged in some fairly disgusting games of their own and he's ever demanding they take their sexperiments further. Much as she detests her little girl Tracy as a prig and a teachers pet, still she hates that Callum insists they use her nursery for their love nest. Worse, of late Pat's had this dreadful urge to brutalise her daughter. But Tracy is quite capable of handling herself, especially now she has a boyfriend ....

lots of pop culture/ high fashion references including a Darth Vader t-shirt and Callum's ghastly briefs which have a 'super cock' motif emblazoned across the crotch.

Curt Pater (Ian C. Strachen) - Job Centres Are Less Dangerous: It's been three years since they left school and still no jobs for Eddie Good and his lary mates Peter, Bob and Dave. Out of sheer desperation, Eddie approaches black magician Mr. Robbins who he's evidently confused with Jimmy Saville. "Can you fix it so we all get work?" Mr. Robbins assures them that he can, all they need do is clasp hands and envision their dream career. despite their initial scepticism, each of the youths is aware that something nasty has joined them at the table. Mr. Robbins is as good as his word. Each of them land their dream job after a fashion, but it could have been so much better if only light-fingered Bob hadn't seen fit to steal back the old man's fee for his services ...

Barbara-Jane Crossley – Black Silk: Fashion mogul Melvin de Ryan falls for impossibly glamorous widow Tania Stephanos, a designer of some considerable talent who only ever works with her favourite fabric. It's taken a tremendous effort on Melvin's part to keep his hands off Tania until their nuptials but now, at last, she awaits him on the bed, all peeled down to her black lingerie. What could possibly go wrong yet again, etc? Nothing really - provided you don't mind becoming yet another victim of Princess Spider Mk. II!

[dem]

Christina Kiplinger – Grave Business: short and sweet account of an evening in the life of Arthur Justine, the cemetery supervisor at Greenville, who loves to love those pretty corpses. all the trouble he goes to, they might at least show a little gratitude.

Carl Shiffman (Ian C. Strachen again) - The Squatters: More borderline necrophilia, although in this instance it's involuntary. Evicted from their London flat, serial squatters Kevin and Marjorie up sticks and quit for Thornsea in Sussex where they've heard the pickings are far better. Their informant was spot on, sure enough they land a to-die-for cottage almost without trying. But why would such a lovely, tastefully furnished property be left untenanted and unsecured? and what's with the slimy footprints leading from the kitchen window? At first neither of them much care, but once Kevin has test driven the local pub and been informed of the twin-tragedy concerning the previous occupants - a drowned sailor, his bereaved bride-to-be who threw herself in the river - he's a bundle of nerves. Colliding with a damp shirt left drying by the stove reduces him to a gibbering wreck and he nails shut the window. Comes the night when he disturbs the veiled spectre sat staring through the window, waiting for her fiance to return. Comes the night when he turns over in bed to embrace .... someone who isn't Marjorie ....

Alan Ryan - Baby's Blood: an employee at the Babysitters Service For Shoppers does a spot of moonlighting, selling his tempting wares to unscrupulous bar-tenders and ice cream salesman. it's delicious!

[dem]

Ian C. Strachen – The Architect’s Story: Set in Boarwood, 1951. Bretton Manor is due for demolition but work can't begin until an owner has been located, so a junior architect is sent from London to resolve the situation. A garrulous rustic informs him that the last tenant - who's not been seen for several years - was a surly Dutchman, a fellow who avoided all social contact and scared horses with his unsavoury aura. The architect procures a key from the local estate agent and gives the decrepit, mouldering house a once over. On the top floor he finds a library stocked with black sorcery titles, all the usual suspects - Alhazred's Necronomicon, Comte d'Erlette's Cultes des Goules, Ludwig Prinn's unspeakable De Vermis Mysteriis, etc - and certain titles so disgusting they've been excised from all bibliographical records, not least of them "Doctor Hugh Lamb's seventeenth century Dissertation on Witchcraft, which under the guise of a scholarly treatise had disseminated unholy beliefs and practices until it was declared a banned book by the Church." (lucky for us, nobody alerted the Vatican to the existence of Tales From A Gaslit Graveyard and Cold Terror or we'd have nothing left worth reading). Beyond the library, a door sealed with a stout brass padlock ...

The architect bones up on the history of Bretton Manor and learns that, during the Dutchman's residence, a dubious crowd would come to stay certain weekends and the locals blamed for the disappearances of two cockerel and a goat. During the mid-thirties, another curious incident; a tramp died when he threw himself out a top floor window - he was in such a hurry, he didn't even think to open it first.

After a skinful in the village pub, the architect returns to the Manor after dark, this time armed with a crowbar. That padlock is coming off tonight and no mistake!

agree with erebus that this is among the best stories in #25 which really isn't such a bad Pan Horror at all. if you really want to suffer, i'd suggest #18

this mini-Strachanfest reminded me of Dr. Terror's interview with the author in an early edition of Filthy Creations when the magazine was still very much rooted in Vault. here's a taster:

"For anyone who has read any of my tales in the Pan Book Of Horror Stories, I'd like to mention that these are now very out of date as I've tinkered with them over the years, and I think the new versions are very much better.... I'm genuinely bewildered at the interest that has recently been shown in my Penny Dreadfuls! I honestly never considered most of them all that good, maybe five stories I've written (including some not in the Pan Book Of Horror Stories) were almost up to scratch, I always thought."

- Out Of The Shadows: an interview with Ian C. Strachan by Charles Black, Filthy Creations #2, 2007.

[dem]

Alan Ryan – Onawa: revived from Stuart David Schiff's Death (Playboy, 1982), i'm not entirely sure why. Edward Brackwell takes in an eleven year old half breed native American girl he found roaming the forest. None of the local tribes recognise her for one of their own so kindly Edward and wife Adelaide are left to raise a fledgling vampire. i wouldn't go quite so far as erebus, but it didn't strike me as a Pan Horror story either, and as for the opening line, i shake my head even as i type.

no worries of our next author taking the same route, as it's veteran PH goremeister Norman P. Kaufman - Just One Of The Family. Norman's speciality is lead characters so frenzied they're ever on the verge of spontaneous combustion and the young narrator of this unspeakably grisly auto-surgery barf fest is no exception and with good reason; he has an unborn twin attached to his lung and it's slowly choking him to death. Dr. Murdo strongly recommends immediate amputation, but such is the young man's distrust of the medical profession, he demands to perform the operation himself. A lack of the most basic surgical knowledge proves no obstacle, he'll just speed-read some books and learn as he goes along. A bloodbath of extraordinary proportions ensues. Not Kaufman's best (worst?), but a relief that he's got us back on track.

[dem]

Terry Jeeves - Upon Reflection: Domby Grork, adventurer, is ambushed by an evil Krasnan assassin seeking the lost treasure of Castle Hill. The Castle - long razed to the ground by outraged villagers - was home to Mordered the mad warlock who .... this is bloody sci-fantasy, ain't it? There'd best not be any goblins. Or elves. i f**ken hate elves. if it's all the same to you, it might just ... oh wait. it's alright. false alarm. there's a skeleton in a dungeon coming up and i just spotted a reference to a tentacled monstrosity.

J. I. Crown - Josie Comes To Stay: Sexy gypsy teen Josie snares forty-something bachelor Solly at the bar of the Spade & Bucket and floors him with a marriage proposal. Solly accepts, grateful if trepidations (he's terrified of women, thinks they'll upset his routine). Josie makes no qualms that she's married him for his money - he must be raking in a fortune from his farm - but Solly pleads poverty. When Josie falls pregnant, Solly is so thrilled that he lets his guard down. His wife, who by now detests the very ground he walks on, gets him plastered, dumps him in a wheelbarrow and it's off to the stables for a low-budget re-enactment of The Execution Of Damiens before story then takes an unlikely turn for the supernatural. Whoever J. I. Crown was, i very much doubt this was his or her first published story.

Alan Ryan - Tell Mommy What Happened: Three year old Robbie Lockwood sees dead people ... sort of. He has premonitions at any rate, and they're cause for concern to his mother Margaret, especially when her fireman husband is working the night shift. Robbie seems to be aware of dad's every move, like he's watching him on a web cam. Now Robbie has acquired an imaginary friend, Alec, who can walk through the garden wall but refuses to enter the house. Mrs. Lockwood isn't too fazed by this development - lots of children invent playmates and she thinks of Alec as the best babysitter money can't by - if only he'd venture indoors and keep the boy company while she gets on with the chores! She won't be saying that when he eventually crosses the threshold for a game with Robbie's toy fire engine ...

doubtless it has plenty to do with the novelty of having a brand new (for me) Pan Horror to read, but i had a miles better time with #25 than i'd ever have thought possible. it's not even as if all the stories are great by any stretch, but there's a sick fun to the enterprise that's awfully engaging. And Upon Reflection? relax, no goblins. At sword-point, the Krasnan stupidly explains why he made an unprovoked attempt on Grork's life: the treasure chest is only accessible to one who has murdered that very night!

One dead Krasnan later, and Grork descends into a slimy subterranean chamber thick with the stench of putrescence ....