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Post by severance on Apr 17, 2010 17:22:41 GMT
I suppose it's time to get this thread off and running...
The Haunting of Alan Mais - Five Star, 1972 (Originally published by Berkley Medallion in 1969)
The old farm on Beacon Hill, not far from the River Medway in Kent, had lain deserted, due to its evil reputation, for many years. When its new owner, Langford Layton, called on The Guardians - "I heard of you from a friend, a former client of yours. Caroline Squires - she married a darkie of all things. She said something about your being real whizzes at the supernatural caper. So..."
It seems that Layton, and his staff, have experienced manifestations since moving in - tapping at the windows, muffled footsteps, a voice which seems to cry "Set me free! Release Me." A ghost that likes Engelbert Humperdinck - surely a case for The Guardians!!
Steven Kane had his doubts, this seemed too trivial, and he thought Father Dyball and Anne Ashby would concur with his judgment - until Layton mentioned the name of the farm to the newly-arrived Anne. Now she seemed interested, to Kane's consternation, and even her attitude toward Layton changed. Where, before, she was her usual indefinable self, seemingly disinterested in a mere haunting - suddenly she shows a side of her personality that her fellow Guardians rarely saw; dazzling smiles and apparent chemistry between her and Layton.
However the entry of Gideon Cross changes everything with this comment to Anne - "My dear, I'm sure if you think hard you'll remember why it's quite impossible for you to go to West Kent"
Therefore it is Kane and Dyball who accompany Layton to Beacon Old Farm, with Kane remembering something he dug up in the British Museum - the burning of an alleged witch in Maidstone, during the Cromwell years, for the murder of an Army Colonel. The protagonists were Mistress Anne Ashby and Colonel Gideon Cross. Reincarnation? It would explain the strange relationship the two had with the hints of dislike, and her dread of fire.
During the night they, too, encounter manifestations - extreme cold, tapping at the windows - Kane sees the barely distinguishable features of a face pleading "Set me free," and, while outside, both he and Dyball hear cries of either "Alan" or "Alas."
The next morning Kane is shocked to see a familiar Lotus Elan pull up to the farm. A car that should be in London, with its owner - Anne Ashby...
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Post by killercrab on Apr 18, 2010 17:34:21 GMT
The protagonists were Mistress Anne Ashby and Colonel Gideon Cross. Reincarnation? It would explain the strange relationship the two had with the hints of dislike, and her dread of fire.>>
This gets a mention in THE CURSE OF RATHLAW - Kane musing that he distrusts the two.I like this aspect of the books - we slowly fill in backgrounds of the Guardians but still retain mystery. My favourite character is Lionel Marks - a chubby balding Steed is how I picture him. He ties a guy in a human knot to a tree in THROUGH A DARK CURTAIN ! He has no occult powers as such - just a private dick - somebody we can connect with.
To me the series seems set from 1965-1969 . Curt suggested it was a bit like Hammer's SATANIC RITES timeline - but I'm feeling it's slightly earlier than 1970's. Thoughts anyone? I can't help thinking Hammer's THE DEVIL RIDES OUT when reading.
It's bloody good stuff - Looking forward to Alan Mais!
KC
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Post by pulphack on Apr 19, 2010 6:34:41 GMT
i think you're more on the money, ade - while curt has a point in that they SEEM very 70's, that's a bit of a red herring and more to do with the proliferation of editions that came out then.
Baker & Mann did the ground work around the time they were overseeing the SBL 5th, which ran during 1965-9 as well, and all the titles were originally issued during that period. if you look at press ed as a whole, there's actually very little new material - if any - that comes after 1969. Baker spent the next decade recycling in paperbacks and spending more and more time on his Magnet and Gem facsimilies as they connected to a now deceased (literally) market that was looking for nostalgia.
consider this - the reason they seem 70's is perhaps because the 70's cultural indicators were the interpretations of the 60's by middle-aged men? discuss...
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Post by andydecker on Apr 19, 2010 14:52:05 GMT
the reason they seem 70's is perhaps because the 70's cultural indicators were the interpretations of the 60's by middle-aged men? discuss... You have a point here, I guess. I read the originals a couple of years ago when - for me - thanks to the internet the easy ordering began. I have to say that I thought that they had more in common with the age of Wheatley then the age of Smith or Hutson. I don´t mean this in terms of gore, but the atmosphere. The comparison with Hammer movies is a good one. Dracula A.D. is in parts so hilarious today because not a thing there rings true. Van Helsing is an anchronism and you have trouble to take him seriously. But the team of the Guardians is spared the cultural changes; when they speak about dark forces, there isn´t any of the later self-awareness which increasingly makes todays entertainment so shallow. The don´t have to cite a Hammer movie or Buffy to move the plot along. And frankly one shudders to think what those in their core conversative guys would have made of a setting like a hippie comune or New Age. (If there ever was such a thing in britain at the time.) I also think it is no coincidence that the last of the books "Vampires", which I guess must have been written in 1969, is basically a typical lost world tale; the modern outsider coming into this old and closed community and destroying it. One could think that writers particulary of this time would have found it ever more difficult to write this sort of thing with a straight face.
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Post by severance on Apr 20, 2010 14:02:39 GMT
[sound of foot tapping]So - is anyone else reading a Saxon yet, or not?[/sound of foot tapping] On with 'Alan Mais' then... Anne explains that Gideon had a change of mind and that a woman's touch might be important, but Kane wonders if he even knows. Layton is only too pleased and, much to Kane's bewilderment, she starts responding to his advances - agreeing to drink champagne, crossing her legs in her short skirt - most unlike the Anne Ashby he normally sees. All doing their own thing that morning, Father Dyball goes to the local church to look at records, Kane inspects the house and grounds and, deciding then to go the local pub, is even more astonished and annoyed when Layton and Anne flash past him in Layton's red Lamborghini. After their drive Layton suggests a horse ride, and is curious when Anne appears to lead him on a merry old chase, seemingly looking for a particular place, and after several hours they stop at a secluded dell and have sex. But is Anne really there in spirit?, her eyes seem to look past him and she moans "here...here." Afterwards Layton resents the implication that he was just the instrument of her pleasure and that he means nothing to her. That evening, back at the farm, Kane receives a phone call from their colleague, Lionel Marks, from whom he learns that Langford Layton doesn't exist - or rather, there's no record of his birth at Somerset House. So who is Langford Layton? Who is Alan? Why is Anne acting so strangely? Must get some more read tonight...
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Post by killercrab on Apr 20, 2010 15:06:15 GMT
Reading RATHLAW at present but I'm not a reviewer so expect comment only!
I'm halfway through and it's quite an odd Guardians book. Whole chapters go by without them being involved as other characters stories are uncovered. I think you tend to lose the idea it's a *team* book this way - one aspect I like about the series.
KC
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Post by killercrab on Apr 22, 2010 15:20:51 GMT
RATHLAW update!
The pace has picked up considerably with the Guardians Ann Ashby gatecrashing the occult hermit's meeting! Lionel Marks is under hypnosis whilst Kane heads off oblivious to all this! Great stuff and not many page turners to turn. After this I'll be reading VAMPIRES OF FINISTERE which will exhaust my Guardians library. Must find more pronto!
KC
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Post by killercrab on Apr 24, 2010 0:53:42 GMT
I can't read the publisher on this scan - anybody know which one it is? I love the Hammer Reptile style cover! KC
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Post by Dr Strange on Apr 24, 2010 8:42:39 GMT
I can't read the publisher on this scan - anybody know which one it is? Mayflower
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Post by killercrab on Apr 24, 2010 15:50:40 GMT
Thanks Doc !
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Post by severance on Apr 24, 2010 18:20:08 GMT
An exorcism out at the secluded dell brings a satisfying close to another Guardians case, yet there's still no real expanation for some of Anne's behaviour - until a final dramatic scene back at the farmhouse, the implications of which make you wonder even more about the character, motivations and past of Anne Ashby. An inspired ending that quite makes the book.
Think I'll have another bash at Through the Dark Curtain now...
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Post by killercrab on Apr 25, 2010 17:07:11 GMT
Nice one Sev - looks like it's just you and me on the Saxon Hoard case right now!
I just won VAMPIRES MOON on Ebay - you weren't the other bidder were you?! I'll probably wrap up CURSE OF RATHLAW tonight and hit VAMPIRES OF FINISTERE next ( making it a Guardians triple actioner!) , before VAMPIRES MOON turns up.
KC
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Post by dem bones on Apr 26, 2010 13:57:50 GMT
Peter Saxon - The Torturer (Mayflower-Dell, Dec. 1966) .... she screamed and screamed again ...Found it difficult to write anything new about this one as i remembered it so clearly, but here goes. The prologue sets us up nicely. Mulgannon, a beatnik University drop-out, is backpacking across the Spanish marshland, composing dreadful poetry as he goes. Its a rotten night and he needs shelter, so lucky for him, lying in the shadow of the crumbling Castle DelMorte stands an abandoned village. Mulgannon picks his doss for the night, settles down with a bottle of wine, and wakes to find himself spreadeagled on a rack - yet another helpless hippie victim for the Torturer! Now to the story proper. Max Grant, esteemed movie director and founding father of Wonder Films, arrives in the village with his entourage. Prominent among these are John 'The Englishman' Barker, a broken down screenwriter with a shady past. Gela Tyrell, former Miss World contender and Max's devoted Girl Friday. Francisco 'Fattie' Perez, lecherous financial backer (five years on and i still remembered his over-active sweat-glands more than i did the ending). Drivers Heimie Weiss and Liam O'Hagan (the former as fiercely loyal to Max as Gela, the latter a serial rapist although he prefers to think of himself as a ladies man). Niko Kovacs (ace cameraman; doesn't really have much of a part) and last but certainly not least, Petronella, Max's fifth wife, a Mexican babe whose favourite pass-times include tormenting Max, making Fattie grovel, moaning about everything and being unpleasant. Max and John are knocked out to have stumbled upon such a dream location for their next masterpiece and set up camp in the castle. Naturally, they're hellbent on finding the torture chamber and almost come a cropper on the booby-trapped staircase (the old rigged banister/ pit of spikes favourite). The village seems to have been abandoned in a hurry - the Englishman wonders if they'd suffered an outbreak of bubonic plague - but even the discovery of several skeletons scattered about the place can't dampen Max's enthusiasm. His one concern is who do they approach for permission to film here? That one is settled by the fortuitous arrival of the charming Don Pedro Conde Delmorte, the last of the family line, who instantly sets about seducing Max's wife (everyone else has). Delmorte recognises Petronella as a reincarnation of his soul-mate, the Aztec Princess he disemboweled in sacrifice to Quetzalcoatl/ Q, The Winged Serpent three hundred years ago! Delmorte is semi-immortal - he needs regular fixes of others' pain to keep him going - so the plan is to introduce each of the crew to the delights of the dungeons where, assisted by his slavering cronies Juan and Juanito, he will slowly torture them to death! Its not, as i first thought, that the ending is particularly duff, but the incident packed final third of the novel is taken at such a belt that McNeilly leaves himself little room for tension. On the plus side, there's so much action you're not likely to doze off. Particularly effective is the sequence where the odious O'Hagan chases a half-naked Gela across the marshes only to blunder into a quicksand. Gela can only watch as his mouth fills up with slime, but if she thinks her terrors are over wait until she takes a look down at what she's standing in .... If i were to be critical, then some set pieces work better than others. The otherwise quite nasty torture session, for example, is sabotaged by Delmorte's ultra-camp running commentary. McNeilly would later recycle the walled-up dinner guests & raven with a taste for juicy human eyeballs combo when he adopted his 'Errol Lecale' persona for Castledoom. But perhaps of more interest are the similarities to Vampire's Moon which, as far as we know, was one of W. Howard Baker's! Again, a torture chamber is the predominant setting -Baker replaces McNeilly's lumbering mute henchmen with a pair of equally sadistic Nazi war criminals - while, after the final conflict, the journalist hero is forever remembered in village folklore as .... 'The Englishman'. Perhaps the final word on The Torturer belongs to Gela as she shuffles uneasily in her room, fretting over what havoc those nasty bats could play with her hairdo. "Maybe, she thought, I've seen too many B features, too many shoddy Dracula's". That, for me, is the key to the best non- Guardians Saxon horrors. They read like novelisations of the finest Hammer films that were never made. The Torturer: take one
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Post by killercrab on Apr 27, 2010 15:31:53 GMT
Love the Paperback Library covers Dem! Thanks for the new review. I've just finished RATHLAW and it ended on a bang - brilliant in fact. This is proper 1960's occult madness written in the right way! Started VAMPIRES OF FINISTERE - quite a different *Peter Saxon* writing style on this one. It's densely detailed and will take longer to read. Looking good so far.
KC
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Post by dem bones on Apr 27, 2010 19:41:31 GMT
.... there's a good entry on Peter Saxon by David Mathew in the St James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers - he doesn't list Brother Blood in the bibliography, but he says some good thing's about Vampire's Moon that makes we want to read it, eg " Vampire's moon is a Peter saxon contribution to Gothic fiction...an homage to the 18th century cloying atmospheres of Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Gregory Lewis." Peter Saxon (W. Howard Baker ?) - Vampires Moon (Belmont, 1970, Unibook, 1970?, Five Star, 1972) As with The Torturer, once i got started i remembered Vampire's Moon far more vividly than i thought, just this time it didn't take me until the halfway mark to start getting into it. Must admit, when i read James' post, i couldn't help thinking that David Mathew had overstated the case but on reflection there are two exceptional Gothic set-pieces in Vampire's Moon, the grisly opening chapter and the super-eerie Black Wedding in the castle catacombs. Throw in a vampire-werewolf, some James Bond gadget-fetishism, a torture chamber operated by escaped SS executioners and some excellent rhubarbing superstitious peasants and no surprise this is another page-turner. After a particularly nasty torture flashback, the opening proper is deceptively laid back. Nosey English journalists Mike Mills and Penny Cord pursue a pair of American girls through Transylvania for no other reason than Mike reckoning the looker of the pair, Laura Dasart, has a nice pair of legs. Laura and her enigmatic companion, Hilde Schnitz, resent the intrusion as they're on very private business. Unknown to Laura's parents, she's about to wed the creepy "Waywode" Count Zapolia, who has groomed her these past months since a supposed chance meeting in Paris. Hilde, plain and moribund to the point of catalepsy - at least, on the surface - also figures prominently in the Count's plans. But what could he be up to that the CIA have sent two of their agents to sniff around his castle and why is it so imperative they halt the wedding? I note in the biography Sev has credited Vampire's Moon to Baker and while that's doubtless the case, i can't help thinking McNeilly. Not only does the story bear certain similarities to The Torturer but there's also that frenetic pace once we get out of first gear. Whoever wrote this has obviously studied macabre folklore as Zapolia gives a lengthy lecture on cannibalism, citing the life and crimes of the Sawney Beane clan (and the Sweeney Todd-Mrs. Lovat human pie caper!) while the revolting sequence which gets us underway is, regrettably, based on historical 'fact'. For more about the horrible bits: Vampire's Moon: take one
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