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Post by paulfinch on Feb 23, 2012 10:44:39 GMT
Very pleased to announce that the next volume in my series of original UK horror anthologies, TERROR TALES OF THE COTSWOLDS, is now ready to pre-order from Gray Friar Press. It includes 12 original works of horror fiction and two classic reprints, from such luminaries of the genre as Ramsey Campbell, Reggie Oliver, Gary McMahon, Alison Littlewood, John Llewellyn Probert, Simon Clark, etc. For the full TOC, cover art, back cover blurb and so forth, feel free to check my blog - paulfinch-writer.blogspot.com/ or go straight to the Gray Friar page - www.grayfriarpress.com/catalogue/cotswolds.html
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Post by dem bones on Feb 23, 2012 19:53:57 GMT
Consider yourself pre-ordered, Mr Finch. Terror Tales From The Lake District got the series off to a super start and looking at that impressive line up gives me every confidence this will be another stormer. Have taken the liberty to reproduce the details as would only have to do so when my copy arrives. Well done Paul and contributors! Paul Finch (ed.) - TERROR TALES OF THE COTSWOLDS (Gray Friars, March, 2012) Steve Upham Alison Littlewood - In The Quiet And In The Dark Fury From Beyond Gary McMahon - Straw Babies A Bizarre and Terrible Event Reggie Oliver - Charm The Grimmest Castle in All England Christopher Harman - Hoxlip And After The Undead Who Wander The Wye Simon Clark - The Shakespeare Curse Oxford’s Black Assize Thana Niveau - The Scouring The Cannibal Feast Steve Lockley - Wassailing Bloodbath Under A Spectral Sun Joel Lane - The Silent Dance What Walks In Ettington Park? Antonia James - Waiting For Nicky The Satanic Slayings at Meon Hill Ramsey Campbell - The Horror Under Warrendown Worcester’s Most Odious Relic Gary Fry - The Lurker The Beast of St. John’s Simon Kurt Unsworth - The Cotswold Olimpicks God’s Dire Warning John Llewellyn Probert - A Taste of Honey, A Horror of Stone Lovell’s Long Wait Paul Finch - Bog ManBlurb: The Cotswolds – land of green fields, manor houses and thatched-roof villages, where the screams of ancient massacres linger in the leafy woods, faeries weave sadistic spells, and pagan gods stir beneath the moonlit hills …
The flesh-eating fiend of St. John’s The vengeful spirit of Little Lawford The satanic murders at Meon Hill The ghastly mutilation at Wychavon The demon dancers of Warwick The cannibal feast at Alvington The twisted revenant of Stratford-upon-Avon
And many more chilling tales by Ramsey Campbell, Simon Clark, Alison Littlewood, Gary McMahon, Reggie Oliver, Joel Lane and other award-winning masters and mistresses of the macabre.
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Post by paulfinch on Feb 23, 2012 21:37:04 GMT
Thanks for the good show, D.
Hope you enjoy. We've got some good stories in there, if I say so myself.
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Post by paulfinch on Apr 11, 2012 19:35:49 GMT
Just to let all those interested know that after an unforseen delay at the printers, this book is now shipping.
Paul
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Post by dem bones on Apr 22, 2012 20:54:03 GMT
The second in what is already shaping to become a favourite series of mine. To give you a flavour, the anti-heroes and heroines of these stories include a debauched toff with a deadly skeleton in his wardrobe, teenage emissaries of the standing stones, a vengeful sixteenth century abortionist, an enormous, cycloptic slab of roast meat, and a crazed Richard III lookalike back from the grave with murder foremost on his agenda. Themes: witchcraft, demonology, male rape, petrification .... As with the original Fontana Tales Of Terror series, each of the stories is interspersed with a brief account of a macabre legend associated with the district. The advertisement at back advises that future additions to the series include Terror Tales Of East Anglia and (especially pleased about this) Terror Tales Of London.
Alison Littlewood - In The Quiet And In The Dark: Mum has deserted for a life's toy-boying in Italy, leaving young Steph and her father to quit London for the remote delights of Willow Cottage, Long Compton. Steph hates it on sight, wonders how she'll cope at a new school next term, but is soon befriended by Holly and Anne, who spend the holiday hanging around the Rollright Stones. Slowly she's drawn into their seemingly innocent world, and that of Kix, a strikingly handsome youth who seems to have taken a shine to her. But these kids say some very peculiar things. Steph sometimes wonders if they're affiliates of the fairy folk, said to drag children beneath the stones ....
Gary McMahon - Straw Babies: "I think Fred West lived near here." Just the words you want to hear when you're renting a desolate cottage in the Forest of Dean for a week, but then the craven Derek has a habit of making insensitive comments. Samantha, his far younger mistress, is still wondering if she did the right thing in terminating her pregnancy. She regrets agreeing to this jaunt even before he cheerfully announces that their love nest was home to Mother Stagfoot, a deformed hag who served the community as a healer and abortionist until the witch mania reached the Cotswolds. The discovery of a hideous straw doll hidden in the rafters heralds a series of disturbances. Noises in the night. A voice calling to her in grotesque mockery of a distressed infant pleading for its mother and what sounds like something wearing stilts prancing across the roof. Some of the goings on are clearly the work of three mischief-making Blair Witch Project casualties but who - or what - is that terrible misshapen thing approaching the cottage?
Reggie Oliver - Charm: A deeply unpleasant Hooray Henry horror story featuring not one remotely likeable character. In his day - the 'seventies - boorish aristocrat Roderick Foxe-Walter was a notorious party animal, rogering (© Dennis Wheatley) débutantes with impunity while holding court over anyone who was anyone on swinging Chelsea scene, etc. This, fatally, brought him into the orbit of the South London criminal fraternity, namely the infamous Freeman brothers (an extremely unpleasant amalgam of the Krays and Richardsons) with whom he became chums.
The reasons behind call-me-Roddy's subsequent fall from grace are something of a mystery, but now he lives as a recluse, renting out the family home, Stonehill Manor, to fund his high maintenance alcohol dependency. When the latest tenants, Oxford Professor Arthur Bertram and his wife Pauline, begin to show an interest, Roddy resurfaces for long enough to stir the ghost of his youthful victim from the shadows.
Christopher Harman - Hoxlip And After: Attractive tour guide Kate is especially knowledgeable on the subject of the Beast of Hoxlip. Schoolteacher Kevin, enduring a tedious holiday in the Cotswolds, takes little interest in legends of the local devil, preferring to spend the hours stalking her around the community. When, much to his surprise, Kate agrees to sleep with him, he can't help but notice that her skin has a crisp, dry texture. And what's the story with that pram she's forever wheeling around?
Simon Clark - The Shakespeare Curse: The McMahon and Oliver stories are particularly powerful, but this Amicus-style horror is my pick of the five read to date. Clive and Verity Cheadle move into their dream home, Glover's Yarn, a seventeenth century cottage in Stratford-Upon-Avon, after he sneakily sells off his shares in the family business. Redecorating the bedroom, Clive removes a section of panelling to reveal a door - bearing the legend 'Despair and Die' - which leads onto a secret chamber. Three centuries ago, a hunchback was imprisoned and left to starve here by parents who'd read too much Shakespeare and equated deformity with evil. Their poor victim evidently survived a long time down there, as the walls are covered in crude but powerful designs depicting the sob story of his life and what he plans to do to everybody when he finally gets loose ....
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Post by dem bones on Apr 24, 2012 7:54:06 GMT
another pair of winners. was determined to read the stories as presented but should know by now it's an impossibility! Thana Niveau - The Scouring: Recently bereaved Natalie takes beloved son Charlie on a week long mini-tour of Britain's historical sites beginning with a visit to Oxford to see ancient hill figure, The White Horse Of Uffington. Charlie still holds conversations with his dead father, Michael, and seems to have inherited his artistic talent which he now puts to good use, sketching the horse adding his own improvements on the original as he goes. Natalie books them a room at a The White Horse in neighbouring Woolstone village where the waitress, initially cheerful, has a funny turn when she claps eyes on Charlie's handiwork. It transpires that her own little boy went missing in the hills and nobody knows what became of him. That night, Natalie wakes from a horrific dream to find Charlie has gone walkabout. She has a shrewd idea where he's headed, but can she reach him in time? It's hard to equate the glamorous and very funny young lady giving it her all in Corruption and Blood On Satan's Claw: The Pantomime with the author of such seriously downbeat shockers as The Coal Man ( Eighth Black Book Of Horror), Antlers ( Death Rattles) and now this latest on the spot report from the well of misery but there you have it! Sometimes i flash on ideas for shared anthologies, and the most terrifying i've come up with to date is this; a split volume collecting the macabre short stories of Lady P and Anna Taborska. Ramsey Campbell - The Horror Under Warrendown: Never offer a lift to that creepy drinking buddy of yours from The Sutton Arms who you don't actually like. Graham Crawley, pub bore in residence and the world's least likely ladies man, confides that he needs a lift to Warrendown where he's got a girl in trouble. The narrator, a book rep, knows the dump in question as this creepy sub-Loughville hamlet he does his best to avoid on business trips, but agrees to take him. When they arrive, Crawley is recognised by a woman with a huge face who directs him to the nursery. After nightfall, when the narrator returns to pick him up, Crawley insists on showing him .... something. The Horror is such that our man develops an aversion to children's books and you get the impression it will be many a year before he can again look a root vegetable in quite the same light. Reprinted from Stephen Jones & David Sutton's Dark Terrors 3, but new to me.
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Post by paulfinch on Apr 24, 2012 8:23:49 GMT
You seem to be enjoying so far, D. Keep it up, my man ; )
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Post by dem bones on Apr 26, 2012 7:24:24 GMT
Had high expectations and, I'm glad to say, Terror Tales of the Cotswolds is living up to them. Reading the non-fiction entries, was particularly struck by the fate of Richard III's henchman in Lovell's Long Wait, as I'd recently read a fictional variation, Tony Richards' delightfully grim The Girl In The Cellar in Mary Danby's The Green Ghost. Antonia James - Waiting For Nicky: Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire. A waiter subtly goads the obnoxious Nicky into climbing the 70ft needle of rock, known locally as the Devil's Chimney on account of Satan's house being submerged beneath the hill. Much to the consternation of Lillian, his downtrodden wife, Nicky decides that's what they'll be doing first thing tomorrow and who cares if it's illegal? Lillian, far the better climber of the pair, waits for her panting, hungover husband at the summit then gives him a gentle nudge into oblivion - or so she thinks. After the funeral, Lillian is constantly aware of a demonic figure shadowing her steps. She returns to the chimney for a final confrontation. Ending is a bit Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive for my tastes (as if it matters), but otherwise another hit. We remain in Chipping Campden for Simon Kurt Unsworth - The Cotswold Olympicks: Fillingham, freelance photographer, takes advantage of the colourful annual extravaganza to boost his portfolio, but on three occasions, rudely refuses to accept the offer of a drink. This is taken as an insult by Robert Dover, founder of the games in 1612 as a protest against creeping Puritanism. That night five women in white, 'the children of Dover', visit the ingrate's hotel room, and not in a nice way. This next would be right at home in a volume of The Black Book Of Horror. Paul Finch - Bog Man: Terror on Beltane's Eve at the John Morgan Museum, Cirencester, where students Rick and Tessa are working late in the lab, completing their papers on 'Avalon Man', an ancient Briton retrieved from Cornish bog-land. Rick's theory is that the mummified giant was a willing sacrifice to three Celtic Gods, but for some mysterious reason, the ceremony was never completed. When Ralph, the two-ton security guard, nips out for a Hot & Spicy, Rick leads his girlfriend into Prof. Holbrook's study for a quickie over the old tartar's desk. 'This will be great!' thinks Rick, who's been planning the escapade for weeks. But just as they're getting down to business - a huge crashing noise from the lab next door ....
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Post by dem bones on Apr 27, 2012 19:56:26 GMT
darker and darker ....
Joel Lane - The Silent Dance: Leamington. Daniel and fellow staff at Neotechnic had been relatively contented with their lot until the arrival of new broom Laura Ferguson, whose aggressive management style drove a stake through the peace and harmony of the children's book department. Among her victims, Alice, Daniel's best friend, bullied from the workplace and now living abroad. Laura's reign of terror ended abruptly when she took a fatal tumble down a flight of stairs, but she'd achieved her worst.
Now Daniel sets out for a concert in Warwick, passing the hideous Neotechnic building on the train. All the bitter memories come flooding back - and so too, the cause of them. Laura Ferguson remains as spiteful and manipulative in death as she was during her brief heyday.
The most Britain in 2012 story in the book to date. The sequence involving Morris Men, Mummers and a gifted folk singer are especially effective.
John Llewellyn Probert - A Taste Of Honey, A Horror Of Stone: Cornerstone Village, near Moreton-on-the-marsh. Sally's unscheduled visit to the standing stones attracts the interest of the ever-vigilant Piskies, the child-stealing winged monstrosities who may have been the basis for the fairy legend. First they steal her handbag, replacing it with a lump of the yellow Cotswold stone, then they invade her dreams. Soon Sally is seeing the wasp-like terrors crawling everywhere, while all around her remain oblivious. She insists that they've selected her as the conduit by which they will return to the world and carry on their dreadful ways. Husband Mark worries that she's going as crazy as his half-demented mother, and even the Reverend of St. Vespers thinks she's taking these fanciful tales too seriously ...
we're only two books into the series but this is shaping up like it's going to be my favourite since Dr. Terror's Black Book Of Horror.
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Post by paulfinch on Apr 27, 2012 23:28:18 GMT
Glad you're enjoying this one, D.
The stories for TERROR TALES OF EAST ANGLIA will not disappint. And that one will be sooner rather than later.
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Post by dem bones on May 6, 2012 7:16:24 GMT
delighted to hear it, Mr. Finch.
Gary Fry - The Lurker: Following the death of his American wife Kate, Arnold, sixty, takes up with widow Pam. Had it not been for Kate, it's possible that Pam would be the love of his life, but they share few common interests. He's particularly disappointed that Pam cannot share Kate's passion for England's cultural heritage.
Disastrously for their relationship, Arnold coerces Pam into accompanying him on a sight-seeing tour of Gloucester. The holiday sees Arnold distracted to the point of rudeness, while Pam's recent adoption of Trash TV Americanisms infuriates him. Is she mocking his bereavement? What he could never have guessed is that Pam's indifference to the Roman remains in the Eastgate Street shopping centre has enticed an infuriated Kate from her grave. When Pam goes missing from their hotel, the only person to witnesses her departure is a local tramp who makes the episode sound like something straight out of Dracula ....
Steve Locksley - Wassailing: Amidst all the misery, of all things, a feel-good Christmas story, albeit one with its share of blood-letting. The house cider at The Black Bull has elixir of life properties, but it comes at a high price - to outsiders. George Harty, whose wife Anne is among the beneficiaries, suffers a crisis of conscience when affluent Londoner Alex Carmichael buys Orchard Cottage. The trees on his new property demand their Yuletide tribute and Carmichael is just another despised townie, except George is quite fond of him. Do he and Anne stick with tradition or will their guilt over yet another ritual murder win out?
I found the two final stories well up there with the very best of the Cotswolds terrors. Being a pushover for anything from the 'surly villager community versus solitary city slicker' case-files, Wassailing was always gonna go down well with me. The Lurker, another best-in-book contender, reads like a contemporary variation on Poe's Ligeia, the narrator's current love interest not so much possessed as ultimately consumed by her dead predecessor.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jan 3, 2013 14:46:59 GMT
Just reviewed this here : www.heavenmakers.com/?p=747But to save that extra click:- As one would expect from a cast of award winning authors and new contenders to that title, this offering from the Terror Tales series edited by Paul Finch is well worth a look. Beginning with Alison Littlewood, who sets the superior tone of most of the collection, we have ‘In The Quiet And In The Dark’ where young Steph comes from out of town to Willow Cottage, Long Compton and instantly hates it. The horrible prospect of the coming term at a new school is mitigated by a chance meeting with new friends and the fond hope of a `liaison’ with Kix, a handsome enigmatic youth who seems to take a shine to her. The young people have a strange way of talking and Steph wonders about their connection to the stone circles…. It’s a well written piece echoing many of the motifs that follow – strong, character based tales which include such delights as the flesh-eating fiend of St. John’s, the vengeful spirit of Little Lawford and the satanic murders at Meon Hill. Stuff to freeze the cockles of the horror fan’s cold heart. As a man with a fairly old fashioned taste in horror I was struck at times by the high quality of the prose which sometimes competed with the terror invoked. This may sound contradictory but there were moments when I had to do a little too much thinking for my tastes. However, the modern horror fan will have no such quibbles and there was enough variety to please the most discerning. Highlights for me were Reggie Oliver’s Charm a delightful tale of the degeneration of a Hooray Henry – impeccably told – and Thana Niveau’s ‘The Scouring’ a savage psychological drama about the White Horse Of Uffington. Thana, who never fails to inflict a suitable degree of pathos in her awful tales, is one of the best new female writers in the genre. Ramsey Campbell in ‘The Horror Under Warrendown’ and Paul Finch in ‘Bog Man’ both pack a powerful punch in tales that seem perhaps to evoke a darker sense of ancient history than some other contributors: No surprises really given their maturity and scope. John Llewellyn Probert in ‘A Taste of Honey, A Horror of Stone’ also scores a big winner as he contrives to extract the maximum possible horror from a simple piece of yellow Cotswold stone. It would be churlish to dismiss the other stories, all strongly written and conceptually perceptive. Interspersed with fascinating historical snippets of truly terrible history (I just love this stuff) there is something here for everyone. I haven’t yet read any of the other collections in this series but certainly aim to redress that.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 3, 2013 18:40:31 GMT
Thoroughly enjoyed that, Craig. Have yet to begin Terror Tales of East Anglia, but can highly recommend Terror Tales of The Lake District. Remind me to add Cotswolds to my best of 2012's, because it was one of 'em.
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Post by fritzmaitland on Oct 21, 2020 20:53:01 GMT
Reggie Oliver - Charm: A deeply unpleasant Hooray Henry horror story featuring not one remotely likeable character. In his day - the 'seventies - boorish aristocrat Roderick Foxe-Walter was a notorious party animal, rogering (© Dennis Wheatley) débutantes with impunity while holding court over anyone who was anyone on swinging Chelsea scene, etc. This, fatally, brought him into the orbit of the South London criminal fraternity, namely the infamous Freeman brothers (an extremely unpleasant amalgam of the Krays and Richardsons) with whom he became chums. The reasons behind call-me-Roddy's subsequent fall from grace are something of a mystery, but now he lives as a recluse, renting out the family home, Stonehill Manor, to fund his high maintenance alcohol dependency. When the latest tenants, Oxford Professor Arthur Bertram and his wife Pauline, begin to show an interest, Roddy resurfaces for long enough to stir the ghost of his youthful victim from the shadows. October 21st - looking for a Reggie Oliver story and alighted upon Charm. Dem captures it bang on. Horribly reminiscent of the 'Cotswolds' of David Cameron, Rebekah Brooks, Jeremy Clarkson etc, the initially pleasant opening - Oxford Prof and his wife rent a pile in the country so that he can work on his book, until they gradually get distracted by his ex-sister-in-law, their once absentee landlord, and a horrible , horrible leakage of the permanently gone past into the present. The final terror with the tenants trying to get upstairs from a phantom 'Cockers P' followed by a naked horror and literal encroaching darkness is hair-raising indeed. Reggie's posh world invaded - excellent.
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Post by fritzmaitland on Oct 14, 2021 6:56:27 GMT
October 13th.Yipes. Moldova and Paris having proven pretty grim, I need to go somewhere nicer. The Cotswolds! Can't go wrong there, surely? Uh oh. Here comes salty ex-copper Paul Finch and his Bog Man. Yeah! Good to see Dem and Craig appreciate this. The Wicker Man gets a nod, there's The Jolly Jape pub which we don't get to go to, as our student scientific sweethearts are too conscientious (and randy), plus poor old cannon-fodder Ralph. At least he got his pizza.
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