John Llewellyn Probert - Wicked Delights

[dem]

John Llewellyn Probert - Wicked Delights (Atomic Fez, March 2010)

Introduction

At Midnight I Will Steal Your Soul
Special Offer Read by Dawn Volume 1
Daughter of the City
The Iconostasis of Imperfections
Ophelia Fusing Horizons Issue 1
Size Matters The Black Book of Horror
Recipe for Disaster Bound For Evil: Curious Tales of Books Gone Bad
Best Man’s Speech Horror Express Issue 5
The Mirror of Tears
The Comeback Kid When Graveyards Yawn
Last Christmas The Gray Friar Christmas Chapbook 2007
In Sickness and… The Second Black Book of Horror
Two for Dinner The Fifth Black Book of Horror
De Vermis Infestis The Fifth Black Book of Horror
The Dispossessed
Your Help Needed Urgently!
The Volkendorf Exhibition Poe’s Progeny
Some Must Suffer

Afterword

Blurb
The book that sucks the blood from children
The film that turns people into self-destructive sadomasochistic obsessives
The lunatic asylum that steals souls
The art exhibition of mutilated humanity … where the exhibits are still alive!

John Llewellyn Probert’s latest short story collection - containing 18 delicious selections - mixes the cruel with the carnal, the sadistic with the sexual, the erotic with the outrageous, to bring you tales of a cuckolded husband’s terrible revenge, the television channel where you can pay off your debts but at the worst price imaginable, the man willing to do anything to improve his chances of success with the ladies, a marriage guidance counsellor who goes to bloody extremes to prove her point, the woman who will do anything to keep her family, and a city made entirely from human bone. All of this, and the last Christmas ever, just to make things even more cheery.

"It's Christmas time, and according to one of those songs they were playing on the radio earlier, there's 'no need to be afraid'

If only that were true."

Might be a couple of weeks until we devise some fiendish strategy to land a copy that doesn't involve resorting to Am*z*n, but am confident I'll enjoy this collection as much as I have The Faculty Of Terror, The Catacombs Of Fear and Coffin Nails (ain't got Against The Darkness yet), mainly because we're familiar with six and a half of the stories. Size Matters, the gruesome case history of Harry Walker's thingy extension, was the first JLP I ever read; it's not clever, its not grown up and the last line made me laugh so much it damn near did me an irreparable mischief. After that, couldn't not check out his back and current catalogue, and, of course he's still a regular contributor to the Black Book's. In Sickness And .... has a touch of the Christopher Fowler's (in On Edge mood) about it. Sparring couples are disappointed that Lorraine, their nice marriage Councillor, is unavailable, but her voluntary stand-in, Marguerite Lucas, is more than capable of doling out advice. Unfortunately, it's of a kind that will ensure the destruction of their fragile relationships for good, as her lucky husband Roger would doubtless attest. The Pan Book Of Horror Stories tribute, Two For Dinner, was arguably the most commented upon story from the magnificent 5th Black Book, though in my affections, De Vermis Infestis - the worms of Satan infest a secluded Welsh cottage - just edges it out. Being a miserable bastard by nature, I take something approaching delight in reminding you it's not all Amicus-style fun and games as those who've been traumatised by some of the bleaker stories from Coffin Nails will agree, and Ophelia here is far from a bundle of laughs. Lighter of touch, Last Christmas - what do those old timers at The Seven Sisters get up to after lock-in? - ain't exactly bursting with seasonal cheer, though worst pub landlord fans will surely take to the ghoulish Alf.

[andydecker]

What a great cover. I am impressed.

[Johnlprobert]

Thanks Andy! Seeing as most horror covers are black or dark I like that this is lighter but most of all I hope it spearheads a well-needed renaissance in using sex to sell horror books

[andydecker]

Apr 1, 2010 11:31:14 GMT Johnlprobert said:

a well-needed renaissance in using sex to sell horror books

Amen, brother, amen !

[killercrab]

Nice one John!

ade

[dem]

"something that looked a little bit like a hunchbacked dwarf , limping heavily as it scuttled between the monoliths .... It had climbed up onto a large upright oblong gravestone and was now hanging onto the marker like a gargoyle. An outsized - even more obscene than usual - gargoyle, with a head too big for its body, legs that were nothing more than tiny atrophied stumps, and arms that were far too long, one of which was wrapped around the wet stone.
It was using the other arm to point at her ...."

At Midnight I Will Steal Your Soul: Against her better judgement, Lydia has agreed to participate in a late night choir rehearsal of Bach's St. Matthew's Passion at the Abergyfflaw Psychiatric Hospital. As organiser Dr. Sampson cheerfully enthuses, the gloomy building was once "your typical Victorian Bedlam" with the days Hooray Henries and Henriettas paying for the privilege of mocking the mad, the deformed, the hopelessly wretched, making it the perfect breeding ground for unquiet spirits. If the present day patients are a pretty disturbing bunch, the staff aren't exactly reassuring, but worst of all is the monstrosity Lydia glimpses outside in the graveyard.

Lynda's timidity - she is terrified by just about everything - makes her lethally attractive to the demonic entity which stalks the wards. In what will be the bravest action of her young life, our much put upon heroine faces down the shadowy form, and if she loses something in the process there's an upside.

No more neurosis for Lynda. Now it's everyone else's turn to suffer!

Macabre and atmospheric, an astute choice for opening story. The surfeit of pop horror culture references add to the fun; the title and first line come from an obscure flick and Pan Book Of Horror story respectively and, in, for this reader, the most striking scene, Lynda spots what appears to be that ghoulish fellow from the cover of Raymond Giles Night Of The Warlock frolicking among the tombstones (that's him incorporated into the tragic Vault Of Evil banner up-top). Special guest star appearances from squabbling Doctors Fry and McMahon (who deals "principally with trauma.")!

This next trio are just plain nasty, have no redeeming social values whatsoever, and are all the better for it.

Ophelia: Only two days into her first term at Uni and our unnamed victim is drugged, incarcerated and subjected to a water-only diet until her captors are satisfied she's slim enough to meet requirements. Fans of Charles Birkin may be reminded of his deeply unpleasant Hosanna!.

Your Help Needed Urgently!: Charity Worker Adam Stringer and skirt-chasing Mark Turley rendezvous in a wine bar after Mark's latest bust-up with Sheila. Mark reckons if he makes a conspicuous generous donation to a worthy cause it will persuade his girlfriend that, underneath his shallow, secretary-shagging exterior lurks a sensitive, caring individual. Stringer, takes Mark to a quiet room where he can show him a selection of (outrageous!) video clips. It soon becomes blatantly obvious that his company have no interest in collecting money for famine relief or any of that philanthropic nonsense ....

Special Offer: Tony Chivers hosts the graveyard slot on the dire Sit 'n Shop cable channel. For 90 minutes every night, however, the regular garbage makes way for the strictly hush-hush encrypted slot. Extreme debt settlement provides altogether more compelling viewing ....

A change of pace with:

Best Man's Speech: A sad spot-the-ghost story. The happy occasion of Richard Martin's marriage to Laura. The groom reclines on the four poster in the honeymoon suite awaiting the arrival of his blushing bride. Instead, he gets his brother Cameron. Everyone is uncomfortable around Cameron who harbours a bitter grievance dating back to a recent family tragedy ....

To be very continued

[dem]

spotted Wicked Delights scuttling across the top shelf earlier, so thought it best to pick up where i left off!

Recipe for Disaster: Sandra Purvis, recently divorced from Derek the drunken waster, is having difficulty getting the kids to eat until she loans a mysterious recipe book, Something For Everyone, from Chilmington Library on a whim. Five year old Jake and his big sister, Sarah, seven, take to mum's cooking in a big way, so much so that fanciable GP Martin Chivers comments favourably on the overall improvement in their health. Sandra gets talking to best her pal. It seems their old schoolfriend, Jenny, had been similarly inspired by a book - this one devoted to Arts & Crafts - shortly before she went mad, stabbed her husband and dragged her daughter under a bus. That night, after Sandra has tucked the kids in and given them their kiss goodnight, the foul-smelling vampire recipe book makes its move ...

It goes without saying that a copy of Something For Everyone has shot straight to the top of my wants list.

The Comeback Kid: Narrated by a gorging maggot who has endured a series of ever more demeaning reincarnations in a very short interval, the previous being a spider. Whatever his current life form, something always draws him back to the house at no. 57, and it's kind of strange that he should be the least interested in all the gentleman callers the lady has. What is it to him if the postman's giving her one? All is revealed (if not to the rather amiable maggot, then the reader) when a nosey neighbour calls the police over a grisly development in the merry widow's garden.

As with Recipe For Disaster, this one's as grimly feendish as you could wish.

[dem]

The Volkendorf Exhibition: "We appreciate that the destitute, the homeless, prostitutes and drug addicts do not always provide the best working material, which is why last year we began our overseas programme, arranging for the abduction of back-packing tourists ..."

The highly sought after creations of enigmatic artist 'Schlenker Volkendorf' are available to only the most exclusive clientele, namely those filthy rich types who pride themselves on possessing, albeit temporarily, something they believe will be the envy of their peer group. So what better than novelty good-as-corpses to decorate a lavish dinner party? Unfortunately for some members of the Volkendorf organisation, the founders, two young business types who initially set up the operation for a bit of a laugh, have recently sold the company to a third party, and redundancy ain't an option for the outgoing staff.

Daughter Of The City: Lisa, honeymooning in Chile, is among a party of tourists who bus out to the 'Dinosaur Valley' in the sweltering Atacama desert. By the time they reach the village at Chapiero, she is bored to distraction, so when a toothless old hag starts babbling at her to stay clear of the church, she's glad of something to stir her curiosity, especially when a solemn looking gent shuts its door in her face. When the coach pulls away, Lisa stays behind determined to investigate. This time she gains access with no difficulty at all, but the vast, seemingly empty building makes her uneasy. Just for a moment she thought she saw a hacked corpse splayed across the altar!

A cowled dwarf with a mutilated arm emerges from the confessional box. She is THE CHOSEN ONE. But for what? Well Lisa, if you'll just step through the portal into this here City of Bones ....

The Dispossessed: Speeding to the office in the early hours, recovering alcoholic David Saunders knocks down frail 83-year-old Dorothy Pargiter. Before she dies, the victim raises a bloody arm and curses him: "Everything that is dear to you, everything that is important will be stripped from you, as you have stripped me of this life." When the police launch their murder inquiry, Saunders learns that the late Ms Pargiter was a locally unpopular recluse and practicing black magician, not that this brings him any comfort. Sure enough, he loses everything in one of Wicked Delight's few strictly chuckle-free zones.

[dem]

Some Must Suffer: Somerset. The late Sir Henry Sterling, psychiatrist, amateur astronomer and anthropologist of some repute, gained a degree of notoriety in the '70's when he knocked up a series of best selling thrillers. What turned out to be his final novel, Some Might Suffer, has never seen publication as he withdrew it when, on its completion, something fatal happened to his wife during a bizarre sex game. The incident so upset Sir Henry that he became a staunch campaigner for the Festival of Light, railing against the same proto-torture porn he had once so cheerfully visited upon society, making himself a tidy profit in the process.

Now Andy, his 23 year old grandson and sole benefactor, is hoping to make a fortune by adapting the lost masterpiece for the big screen and, to this end, has entrusted the project to old school friend, shag-happy entrepreneur John Parkes and aspiring screenwriter Jimmy Carstairs. Somehow they manage to rope in washed-up cult director Gregory Fennell, 63 and some desperate z-listers and shooting begins. To save on costs, they film on location at Sir Henry's remote, splendidly decrepit Gothic mansion and right from the off things go horribly wrong. A manacled Jimmy Carstairs is found beaten to death, the murderer having left a bloody tawse at the scene of the crime. The leading man gets carried away in his big scene with dishy Debra Yates, improvises some nasty stuff with a corkscrew and has to be pulled off her. Rather belatedly, Andy decides it might be a good idea to actually read Some Must Suffer ....

This story appeals to so many of my personal obsessions and perversions - film-crew-in-peril, 'seventies pulp horror fiction, movies real and imaginary: fans of Dracula AD 1972 will appreciate that, when we first meet him, Andy is wearing a Stoneground t-shirt - so it was a safe bet we were going to get along famously. i even got most of the in-jokes (in his afterword, Lord P claims there are approximately thirty). Not sure who the hospital surgeon in the immaculate red crushed velvet jacket is based upon, though the word on the street has it that the author of this exhaustive study is our prime suspect.

Here's one i made earlier: reread it last night and the pay off line brought on a coughing fit!

Size Matters: "His penis looked like the huge maroon salami sausage that he had seen on Nigella Lawson's cookery programme last week, right down to the runny brown gravy she had poured over the end ...."

Funded by the unexpected fortune left him by his late mother, Harry Walker decides to splash out on an extension in the hope it will improve his luck with women. As we can see from the passage quoted above, the operation conducted, by the dubious plastic surgeon Dr. Lockhampton, doesn't go as well as it might and the resultant gangrene sees poor Harry bitterly regretful that he tampered with his healthy six inches. A chance meeting with a crone along the abandoned railway line restores what he's lost - with way too much interest.

[Jojo Lapin X]

Are there other urologists working in the field of horror fiction? Would there be enough material for a urology-themed anthology? What would be a clever title for such a volume?

[David A. Riley]

I'm not a urologist but I do have a story coming out in an antholoigy in the States that might fit such a book: They Pissed On My Sofa.

[Jojo Lapin X]

Oct 18, 2010 12:19:53 GMT David A. Riley said:

They Pissed On My Sofa

Very direct; very to-the-point.

[cw67q]

"They Surfed on my Pisser", this is the Killer Crabs thread, right?

[andydecker]

Isn´t it the proctologist´s who have all the good stories?

[Jojo Lapin X]

Apr 1, 2010 11:31:14 GMT Johnlprobert said:

Seeing as most horror covers are black or dark I like that this is lighter

Specifically, it is the color of . . . oh, never mind.