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Post by dem bones on Apr 2, 2012 19:48:04 GMT
Stephen Jones (ed.) – The Mammoth Book of Vampires (Robinson, 1992) Luis Rey Stephen Jones - Introduction: The Children of the Night
Clive Barker – Human Remains Brian Lumley – Necros Brian M. Stableford – The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady F. Marion Crawford – For the Blood Is the Life Ramsey Campbell – The Brood Robert Bloch – Hungarian Rhapsody Edgar Allan Poe – Ligeia Richard Christian Matheson – Vampire Hugh B. Cave – Stragella David J. Schow – A Week in the Unlife Frances Garfield – The House at Evening R. Chetwynd-Hayes – The Labyrinth Karl Edward Wagner – Beyond Any Measure Basil Copper – Doctor Porthos Bram Stoker – Dracula’s Guest Dennis Etchison – It Only Comes Out at Night Peter Tremayne – Dracula’s Chair Melanie Tem – The Better Half M. R. James – An Episode of Cathedral History Manly Wade Wellman – Chastel Howard Waldrop – Der Untergang des Abendlandesmenschen E. F. Benson – The Room in the Tower Graham Masterton – Laird of Dunain F. Paul Wilson – Midnight Mass Nancy Holder – Blood Gothic Les Daniels – Yellow Fog Steve Rasnic Tem – Vintage Domestic Kim Newman – Red Reign Neil Gaiman – Vampire Sestina [Verse]Stephen Jones (ed.) – The Mammoth Book of Vampires: New Edition (Robinson, 2004) Les Edwards Stephen Jones - Introduction: The Children of the Night
Clive Barker – Human Remains Brian Lumley – Necros Brian M. Stableford – The Man Who Loved the Vampire Lady Michael Marshall Smith – A Place To Stay NewRamsey Campbell – The Brood Nancy Kilpatrick – Root Cause NewRobert Bloch – Hungarian Rhapsody Christopher Fowler – The Legend Of Dracula Reconsidered As A Prime-Time TV Special NewRichard Christian Matheson – Vampire Hugh B. Cave – Stragella David J. Schow – A Week in the Unlife Frances Garfield – The House at Evening Simon Clark – Vampyrrhic Outcast NewR. Chetwynd-Hayes – The Labyrinth Karl Edward Wagner – Beyond Any Measure Basil Copper – Doctor Porthos Paul McAuley – Straight To Hell NewDennis Etchison – It Only Comes Out at Night Chelsea Quinn Yarbro – Investigating Jericho NewPeter Tremayne – Dracula’s Chair Sydney J. Bounds – A Taste For Blood NewMelanie Tem – The Better Half John Burke – The Devil’s Tritone NewManly Wade Wellman – Chastel Howard Waldrop – Der Untergang des Abendlandesmenschen Tanith Lee – Red As Blood NewTina Rath – A Trick Of The Dark NewGraham Masterton – Laird of Dunain F. Paul Wilson – Midnight Mass Nancy Holder – Blood Gothic Les Daniels – Yellow Fog Steve Rasnic Tem – Vintage Domestic Neil Gaiman – Fifteen Cards From A Vampire Tarot NewHarlan Ellison – Try A Dull Knife NewKim Newman – Andy Warhol’s Dracula NewThe replaced stories are: F. Marion Crawford – For the Blood Is the Life Edgar Allan Poe – Ligeia Bram Stoker – Dracula’s Guest M. R. James – An Episode of Cathedral History E. F. Benson – The Room in the Tower Kim Newman – Red Reign Neil Gaiman – Vampire Sestina [Verse] Another anthology perhaps over-enthusiastically sampled by Otto Penzer for his The Vampire Archives. Please excuse orgy of of 'some I made earlier's but I'm a lazy bones, it saves time and anyway, you don't have to read it. Peter Tremayne - Dracula's Chair: The narrator's wife purchased it from an Essex antique dealer who'd landed it when the furniture from a certain asylum in Purfeet went to auction. Our man takes an instant dislike to the ugly chair, but to avoid arguments, dumps it in his study. It is more comfortable than he'd suspected, and he dozes off .... to reawaken in Cairfax Abbey as drooling, straitjacketed lunatic Upton Welford (the debonair Victorian gent turned vampire hunter in Tremayne's novel, The Revenge Of Dracula). Kindly Dr. Seward is striving in vain to cure his patients 'delusion' that he's being persecuted by vampires. To make matters worse, Dracula is determined to prolong his fiendish revenge on Welford over several nights. Originally written as the epilogue to The Revenge Of Dracula but Tremayne reconsidered and gave it to - what was he thinking ?!!!- the C**nt Dr*cula F** Club for use in one of their publications instead. Frances Garfield - The House at Evening: Gorgeous vampire hooker Garland invites two freshmen home to party with she and friend Claudia. She takes one boy up to her room and, while he lies entranced on the bed oblivious to the knockings and scratchings at the door, Garland fends off her hungry army of former victims, promising they can have all she leaves. My favourite of Mrs. Manly Wade Wellman's horror stories. Brian Lumley - Necros: "You grow old, Spook grows young ... what he wants is your youth. Except he uses it up very quick and needs more. All the time."Peter Collins, holidaying in Italy, is captivated by the beauty of Adrienne, youthful Armenian wife of an ancient-looking gent by the name of Nichos Karpethes. Collins can't believe his luck when Adrienne slips him the key to her room and informs him when she'll be alone, but the prospect of becoming her lover doesn't hold quite the same appeal when he realises what is to become of him ... David J. Schow - A Week in the Unlife: Journal of a "vampire hunter" of the more psychotic persuasion (is there any other kind?). The authorities take a dim view of his dubious activities, but then a prophet is never accepted in his own time. Manly Wade Wellman - Chastel: Judge Pursuivant, now 87 years young, and Lee Cobbett, a latter-day Wellman hero, join forces to combat an outbreak of vampirism centering around The Land Beyond The Forest - a musical version of Dracula - featuring Gonda Chastel, the 'daughter' of an actress Pursuivant had loved in his youth. The appearance of a pale, sharp-fanged face at his window heralds the vampire's first attack ... Richard Christian Matheson - Vampire: An ambulance-chasers eye view of a car smash. in The Transylvanian Library (Borgo Press, 1993), Greg Cox astutely describes tackling Vampire as "Sort. Of. Like. Reading. By. A. Strobe. Light."
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Post by ripper on Feb 11, 2014 10:32:04 GMT
This was one of the first, perhaps the first, Mammoths I bought, in its "Giant Book of Vampires" guise around 1995 from a remainders shop. It was the first time I had read anything by Hugh B. Cave and I am pleased to see that his story was not relegated from the updated edition.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 8, 2014 6:51:08 GMT
Had previously only had the 'new edition' on library loan, so was well made up to land a copy from friend back-of-the-van-man last weekend. To begin the refresher course;
Graham Masterton – Laird of Dunain: Mr. Morrisey takes his art class on a field trip in the Scottish Highlands to practice landscape painting. The Laird, who has put his castle at their disposal, takes a shine to young Claire and offers to sit for her. Claire struggles to do his deathly pallor justice. He explains that the Dunain's are notoriously ashen on account of an ancestor, slaughtered by Cumberland's men at Culloden in 1746, who vowed to make the English pay a million times over for every drop of blood he lost that day. His corpse was never recovered. Comes the day when Claire nicks her finger with a scalpel ....
Sydney J. Bounds - a Taste For Blood: Vic Farrow, gutter press hack, has so outraged the Undead with his sensationalist nonsense that Dr. Gregor and kindly Nurse Terry arrange for him to suffer a near fatal "accident" followed by a gargantuan blood transfusion ....
Christopher Fowler – The Legend Of Dracula Reconsidered As A Prime-Time TV Special: Aspiring screenwriter John Harker falls foul of Tinsel Town's appalling commissioning editors. We follow his rapid descent from dishwasher through unemployment, blood-doning for cash, prostitution, and a winter spent shivering with fellow down and outs in Central Park. Even the murder of his only friend can't deter him in his doomed quest for success.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 15, 2014 13:10:17 GMT
Howard Waldrop – Der Untergang des Abendlandesmenschen: Billy The Kid Versus Dracula is probably weird enough for most tastes, but just in case, here are William S. Hart and his Watson, Bronco Billy' Anderson transported to pre WWII Berlin to combat Nosferatu. Unfortunately, hangers-on Adolph, Hermann, Ernst, Joseph and Martin are on hand to pick up tips and they are fast learners. Kim Newman has made a career of alt-history fantasies, but rarely (never?) to such dark ends.
Dennis Etchison - It Only Comes Out At Night. It's probably sacrilege in some quarters to "admit" so, but I find his work hit and miss. So what, I love this. A motorway through the Mojave desert, impossible to navigate during the day, an endurance test after sunset, hence welcome pit-stops en route. Except, as McClay and wife Evvie are to discover, this one is better avoided.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 19, 2014 16:51:57 GMT
Dennis Etchison - It Only Comes Out At Night. It's probably sacrilege in some quarters to "admit" so, but I find his work hit and miss. You and me both. For me, it's more miss than hit, though I have liked a few of his stories. Some of the others are real head-scratchers, and unlike Etchison I just don't find organ transplants inherently horrifying.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 21, 2014 5:23:07 GMT
Time was when all I ever read was vampires this, vampires that, now the soppy fang-faced bastards mostly get on my nerves. Having said as much, Mr. Jones' selection is more fun than most. Nancy Holder - Blood Gothic: Unidentified young Kindergarten teacher with fondness for Gothic romance novels, diaphanous white gowns and horror flicks, wills herself a vampire lover. Come the summer holiday, she travels from New York to Transylvania, falls ill with a blood disease and returns with the handsome hunk of her dreams. Unfortunately, her imaginary Lestat requires one last sacrifice before he will make her his bride. Pocket, 1972 "The inspiration for this story was the cover of a paperback edition of Dracula ("The Most Famous Horror Story Ever Told"). The illustration was obviously inspired by the Bela Lugosi Dracula film, and shows the Count in his vampire cloak bending menacingly over the sleeping Lucy. She is wearing a frilly nightie, there is a pretty coverlet on the bed and a flowered lamp beside it.
The contrast between the cosy bedroom and the dark, menacing (but erotic) figure of the vampire fascinated me and i tried to reproduce the atmosphere in my story." - Tina Rath in the introductory notes. Tina Rath - A Trick Of The Dark: Maddie is another young woman driven to destruction by a phantom. Nineteen going on ten and terminally bedridden due to a heart condition, her one entertainment is spying on the house opposite, where Mrs. Monkton has recently taken to entertaining the man with the beautiful skull who lurks between lamppost and the pillar box after sunset. One evening the beautiful stranger turns his attentions to a delighted Maddie .....
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Post by franklinmarsh on Nov 7, 2018 23:19:26 GMT
Stephen Jones (ed.) – The Mammoth Book of Vampires (Robinson, 1992) Luis Rey Stephen Jones - Introduction: The Children of the Night
Clive Barker – Human Remains
This is the one I've found. Clive's opener is pretty strange. Male prostitute Gavin is thinking of giving up the life and settling down. He's beautiful but at 25 has to start thinking of the future. He picks up Reynolds outside a repertory cinema, and they go back to the older man's flat. Something's not quite right here. There's someone (or something) else in the apartment. And Gavin's life is about to take another direction. Reynolds is in archaeology and has been a bit light-fingered with some of his finds. And has something awful in his bath.... Not your conventional vampire tale by any means.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Nov 8, 2018 8:31:55 GMT
Ramsey Campbell – The Brood
Whereas Clive Barker's tale had a whiff of moral decay hanging over it, Ramsey's is overflowing with physical decay. A gent is fascinated by a woman who haunts pools of light from street lamps opposite his house, particularly when she leads another woman into her crumbling edifice. The other woman is never seen again, but the original female is often seen transporting animals into said abode. Just what's going on in there? Is that crying he can hear? You want to shout whatever you do, don't go...too late. And the nosey neighbour theme continues with
Robert Bloch – Hungarian Rhapsody
A much more conventional story than the previous two, in the vampiric theme as well as the actual storytelling.Solly Vincent has moved to a more secluded town and keeps himself to himself, apart from the occasional card game with the locals, oe of whom takes great delight in telling him he's about to get a new neighbour - a Hungarian Countess no less, who's not only loaded , but stacked. Vincent isn't too happy about having someone living close by until he spots a light shining from an uncurtained bedroom, and , with the aid of some powerful binoculars sees a couple of things that make him want to make his new neighbour's acquaintance (as well as his eyes pop out). It will end badly.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 8, 2018 13:53:21 GMT
And the nosey neighbour theme continues with Robert Bloch – Hungarian Rhapsody A much more conventional story than the previous two, in the vampiric theme as well as the actual storytelling.Solly Vincent has moved to a more secluded town and keeps himself to himself, apart from the occasional card game with the locals, oe of whom takes great delight in telling him he's about to get a new neighbour - a Hungarian Countess no less, who's not only loaded , but stacked. Vincent isn't too happy about having someone living close by until he spots a light shining from an uncurtained bedroom, and , with the aid of some powerful binoculars sees a couple of things that make him want to make his new neighbour's acquaintance (as well as his eyes pop out). It will end badly. The most terrifying thing about the first edition is that it's over a quarter of a century old! Have good memories of this one. It's just one of those things but this reader always seems to get on better with Stephen Jones' theme anthologies than the 'Best New Horror' selections. Never really got into the Clive Barker hype, but thought Human Remains was terrific first time around, really should fit in a rematch. Love both Ramsey's urban nightmare The Brood and the-man-who-wrote- Psycho's almost-a-Spicy Hungarian Rhapsody. I find Bloch's vampire stories hit and miss ( Tooth or Consequence - Dracula clone visits dentist - and the later The Bedposts of Life ain't great), but this one is loveable right down to the brilliant/ cringe-inducing pay-off.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Nov 8, 2018 14:18:55 GMT
this one is loveable right down to the brilliant/ cringe-inducing pay-off. Yep, real EC stuff. Do like Mr Bloch's nudges about Solly's past being somewhat outside the law too. Internet noodling has thrown up a rather good Tapping The Vein comic book version of the Barker, and some interesting insights into Ramsey's tale
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Post by franklinmarsh on Nov 8, 2018 14:21:05 GMT
Woah! Thanks for the link to Dark Feasts - I thought The Brood seemed familiar.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Nov 8, 2018 22:04:27 GMT
Edgar Allan Poe – Ligeia
Always a pleasure.
Richard Christian Matheson – Vampire
What. The. F? Read. This. Several. Times. Still can't quite get it.
Karl Edward Wagner – Beyond Any Measure
About halfway through this, and it's a corker, with more references than you can shake a stake at. Hammer films, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Aleister Crowley, the Equinox bookshop (Jimmy Page!), Tangerine Dream, a female character with the surname Seyrig...
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Post by franklinmarsh on Nov 9, 2018 8:32:44 GMT
Karl Edward Wagner – Beyond Any Measure
...and it keeps up it's manic lurid pace to the end. Punk (including spitting and safety pins), New Wave(including a fictional (?) group called Needle who aren't very good), Blondie's new album, the Rocky Horror Show, characters with the surnames Magnus and Borland, champagne and cocaine fancy dress parties in London, Sapphic eroticism, and a bizarre Clive Barker ending. Yowsah!
Basil Copper – Doctor Porthos
Sedately Gothic tale, reminiscent of Edgar Allan...great stuff, with a (SPOILER) The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd ending. Hee!
M. R. James – An Episode of Cathedral History
Just started this one. We're in Southminster Cathedral.At night. Spooky.
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albie
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 134
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Post by albie on Nov 9, 2018 11:26:05 GMT
Someone else on this planet has also read Waldrop? Few are the blessed. Great vampire story too. I recall the coach riding over undulating streets.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 9, 2018 12:35:24 GMT
Richard Christian Matheson – Vampire What. The. F? Read. This. Several. Times. Still can't quite get it. My interpretation, doubtless miles wide of mark, is that protagonist draws sustenance from close proximity to death, blood and suffering. Any major accident, he or she will race there to lap up the lovely misery. Bit like a minimalist version of Ray Bradbury's The Crowd. Beyond Any Measure is class. Needle frontman, Nemo Skagg, a Syd Barrett - Sid Vicious hybrid, returns to hang around Kensington Market in KEW's Did They Get You To Trade.
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