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Post by dem bones on May 8, 2012 17:01:26 GMT
Shaun Hutson - Relics (Star, 1986) Danny Flynn Blurb: Something evil is waiting ... Something monstrous is loose From the relics of the past comes a new nightmare. A force so powerful, so obscenely evil that it threatens to reach across the centuries and engulf mankind. When a hidden chamber filled with the skulls of hildren is discovered by an archaeologist, horror is unleashed on the town of Longfield: Black Mass orgies with heroin-addicted teenagers, savage dog-fights, mutilated corpses...
"He could already feel the erection throbbing in his trousers." Back in the days when his novels hit the ground running and his proofreader just left him to it. We begin with five pages of 'HUTSON FOR HORROR!' trademark unpleasantness at a modern day black magic ritual and an exciting bonus which-sensitive-part-of-the-human-anatomy-will-the-knife-penetrate-or-lop-off? saga until one of the disciples provides a goat. Cut to an archaeological dig on the outskirts of Longfield where Phil Swanson, Charles Cooper and Kim Nichols (twenty-five: "exudes a soft air of sensuality, all the more potent because it was uncontrived") of the local Museum have chanced upon an ancient Celtic settlement, their excavations rewarded with several valuable artefacts including daggers, slave shackles, chains, and pile upon pile of bone fragments. It's a race against time as property developer James Culter has suddenly decided to evict them. As they chip away at the rock face to retrieve yet another relic, the tunnel gives way beneath them. Swanson plunges into the pit where he's skewered on nice sharp stake. Once Inspector Stephen Wallace has unimpaled and body-bagged the late Mr. Swanson (Hutson details his injuries and agonising death throes with a zeal that borders on the religious), he invites Charles and Kim down into the underground passage as there's something he can't understand. Why is that gleaming stake surrounded by skeletons, and where have the heads gone? Meanwhile across town, Mick Ferguson, violent criminal and drug pusher, has organised a dog-fight in a disused barn. Two bull-terriers fight it out until eyes are slashed and bellies ripped, SPUTUM and excrement everywhere. The loser is finished off with a pitchfork. Inspector Wallace calls on Kim to take her statement. We learn that her husband has run off with one of many tarts, leaving her to bring up their daughter, Clare, alone. Kim and the policeman are already on flirting terms, so we've a fair idea where that's heading. Mick Ferguson is supplying heroin to millionaire Henry Dexter, leader of the local teen Satanic cult. He's the guy whose trousers are currently all a throb about something and not, we suspect, the two disciples who've just shot up in his dining room. To be continued ....
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Post by erebus on May 9, 2012 12:16:58 GMT
This is not going to say much for me, but this was the book that really got me into Hutson's stuff. After being drawn to the cover image of Slugs I read it and thought about checking out his other works. Relics was next and the rest was history.
This could probably be his most sickest, depraved and warped work ever. I lapped it up. So extreme was this when he wrote it he actually censored himself and took out some of the more outrageous violence and black mass stuff.
Theres a whole lot of sequences in this book I love. I will stay tight lipped as Dem may not have finished reading yet.
A huge personal favorite of mine this.
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Post by erebus on May 9, 2012 12:19:04 GMT
And to add ....Didn't he already write this book and call it THE SKULL. Ahem ! seems he got away with that one. Prefer this though.
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Post by dem bones on May 13, 2012 9:09:52 GMT
Theres a whole lot of sequences in this book I love. I will stay tight lipped as Dem may not have finished reading yet. A huge personal favorite of mine this. thanks for the consideration, mr. erebus. Have just passed p100 and so far it's reading like a compilation of all the sickest moments from the mid-period Pan Horror Stories with dog-fighting and the occasional butchered goat shoved up a tree thrown in as a bonus (it's not really a novel i would recommend to animal lovers). Much respect to the disposable lab assistant who cops a face-full of acid. If ever there was an author who gave his audience exactly what they wanted and never mind the critics, it was Hutson in the 'eighties. He's Ronseal man.
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Post by andydecker on May 13, 2012 13:45:10 GMT
If ever there was an author who gave his audience exactly what they wanted and never mind the critics, it was Hutson in the 'eighties. He's Ronseal man. What is the opinion of when the books were not as satisfactorily as they used to be? I dutifully read every novel of his, but after Assassin I found it often hard going. Still I am curious what he will do with this summers Hammer novelisation X The Unknown. This is a story which is so shackled into the 50s, both with its monster and the tale that it will be at least interesting how he approached this. It even has an okay cover, somehow reminiscend of the movie which I guess is pretty much forgotten today. And it is better as the cover for Morris´ Vampire Circus which is geared for the Twilight crowd.
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Post by dem bones on May 14, 2012 11:27:20 GMT
If ever there was an author who gave his audience exactly what they wanted and never mind the critics, it was Hutson in the 'eighties. He's Ronseal man. What is the opinion of when the books were not as satisfactorily as they used to be? I dutifully read every novel of his, but after Assassin I found it often hard going. After Victims and Assassin, i just .... stopped reading him, in much the same way i've skipped the majority of James Herbert post- Lair novels. It's ridiculous, as neither gent had written anything to put me off their stuff, but i guess i missed the sheer primitive power of their early work.
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Post by andydecker on May 14, 2012 20:50:15 GMT
, but i guess i missed the sheer primitive power of their early work. I know exactly what you mean. After The Spear Herberts novels became increasingly not working for me. Still haven´t finished Crikley Hall.
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Post by erebus on May 20, 2012 13:38:22 GMT
Did you finish Relics Dem ? I would be interested on your views on the ending.
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Post by dem bones on May 20, 2012 22:18:28 GMT
, but i guess i missed the sheer primitive power of their early work. I know exactly what you mean. After The Spear Herberts novels became increasingly not working for me. Still haven´t finished Crikley Hall. It was his samey "everyman" heroes did for me. Picked up a copy of Secret of Crickley Hall three-four years ago and still haven't got around to it. Doesn't help that the Pan paperback is so huge it requires it's own bookcase. The last one i read and enjoyed was Haunted. I've heard only good about '48 but didn't get beyond the first chapter. Did you finish Relics Dem ? I would be interested on your views on the ending. Not yet, but "extremely unpleasant" would be my guess. Got sidetracked by Bloch's The Couch which is even easier on the brain, but am back on the case now. Inspector Wallace and his men have just found the flayed corpse of Stuart Lawrence, his eyes and entrails torn out by very strong person unknown. Beside the body, a grisly calling card. The letter 'M', "created with at least two feet of the dead surveyor's colon." Everyone is throwing up, the stench is unbearable, we've had some more lovely "sputum" - business as usual. It doubtless sounds ludicrous, but it's not, and never was, Hutson's fondness for "realistic" violence and gore that does it for me - if i wanted that, i'd trade in my horror novels for true crime/ murder porn. What got me reading him was the breathless pace of the first few to come this way, Slugs and Erebus.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Aug 16, 2012 12:07:59 GMT
If ever there was an author who gave his audience exactly what they wanted and never mind the critics, it was Hutson in the 'eighties. He's Ronseal man. What is the opinion of when the books were not as satisfactorily as they used to be? I dutifully read every novel of his, but after Assassin I found it often hard going. Been off the films for about a week and have surprisingly charged through some old favourites like Agatha (Murder On The Orient Express - one of the classic tearing up the book on who the murderer is - see The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd, And Then There Were None etc), Ed McBain (The Frumious Bandersnatch - an 87th Precinct) and a couple of later Hutsons - Dying Words - more or less a crime novel involving books, authors, agents, and something hidden within the texts that is coming to life to commit murder. A little underdeveloped, but some interesting bits. The only gore involves the aftermath of some grisly murders, but the ending set in an abandoned fairground was an unexpected pleasure. Also Twisted Souls which I'd read before but couldn't remember much about. Two couples, each with their own problems, try to get away from it all in a rented cottage in the Derbyshire village of Roxton. But there's something odd about the villagers, the nearby abandoned mine, the odd stained glass windows in the chuch. Much more restrained than the early classics but with some good atmosphere, and the occasional disgusto splatter (usually in dream (or nightmare) form).
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oatcakeredux
Crab On The Rampage
I STILL know where the yellow went.
Posts: 41
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Post by oatcakeredux on Dec 28, 2012 1:39:23 GMT
Relics has got to have one of the most ludicrously-rushed endings that I've ever read. Reminded me of the ending of Lucio Fulci's City Of The Living Dead, which is NOT a good thing.
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Post by Calenture on Dec 28, 2012 2:04:39 GMT
Been off the films for about a week and have surprisingly charged through some old favourites like Agatha (Murder On The Orient Express - one of the classic tearing up the book on who the murderer is - Yeah, but you're in good company, that was the one Chandler said only an idiot could solve. Looking at this post next morning, I hope it was taken the right way. 'Tearing up the book', I mean.
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Post by ripper on Dec 28, 2012 18:43:19 GMT
Relics was one of a group of Shaun Hutson books that I read almost back-to-back when I first became aware of his writings. I enjoyed it and was quite shocked at the considerable amount of graphic gore, which eclipsed the mid-eighties' crop of NEL-type nasties that I was used to. There's a scene in Relics where a guy gets a jar of acid spilled onto his face and it sticks in my mind as being particularly gruesome. Is it in Relics where a guy gets romantic with his wife on the floor while a crazed dog is straining at its chain just imches away and covering her with spittle, or am I confusing it with another Hutson book?
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Post by ripper on Sept 23, 2015 14:47:17 GMT
The discussion on another thread about Shaun Hutson made me pine for one of his earlier novels, so I picked on 'Relics' as it was my first exposure to Hutson and I haven't read it in ages. I know I gave my paperback copy away to someone many moons ago, so I thought never mind a library loan will be fine. Logging onto our county library site I was surprised to see that there were no copies of any of his early books available. The later ones were there but 'Slugs','Relics', 'Assassin', 'Death Day' etc were all absent. Perhaps that is a sign that those earlier books don't pull in the readers as they used to, but it really surprised and saddened me. I had a look on ABE and there was a cheap copy of 'Relics', so I bit the bullet and ordered it.
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Post by andydecker on Sept 23, 2015 15:35:24 GMT
Some of the early ones like Relic are avaiable as ebooks. Which of course makes the culling of library books very deplorable.
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