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Post by David A. Riley on May 9, 2011 7:41:49 GMT
That looks classy and very professional. Look forward to seeing it published. I'll bet Mary Danby's delighted with it.
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Post by andydecker on May 9, 2011 17:35:41 GMT
This looks very good! Well done.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Aug 16, 2012 23:46:03 GMT
I've been reading some of the anthologies that Mary Danby edited (the Nightmares series and The Green Ghost), and doing so has given me a deeper appreciation for her own contributions. Stories such as "Mr. Jones," "Arbor Day," and "The Grey Lady" are first rate as both young people's fare and adult fare.
The end result of all of this has been a decision to order a copy of Party Pieces. Great author, great cover, and a heartfelt thanks to Johnny for getting her work back into print.
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Post by dem on Oct 28, 2012 7:05:50 GMT
It really is wonderful to finally have the stories compiled in one handsome volume. Party Pieces gets it's special bonus in early with Red Shoes, written specifically for for the collection ("her first story for nearly thirty years!"). Saturday night sees Tina and flatmate Chloe out on the pull in Wandsworth. Tina accompanies a gent named William Stebbings back to his bedsit, where the poor man suffers a pre-snog fatal heart attack. Tina helps herself to the contents of his wallet and high tails it. Regretting her action the following morning, Tina decides she'll spend the pilfered cash on a pair of killer heels to wear in tribute to the dead man's memory. Bad things happen to tube passengers and wannabe rapists at back of Tesco's when Tina wears her red shoes. The coda is perhaps unnecessary but Red Shoes is proof that, all these years later, Mary Danby still has it! already annotated the rest of the 'for adult' content and much of the children specific material too, so will try mop up the rest beginning with: Slugs: The broccoli and spring cabbages at Dunn's Farm comes under siege from a marauding slug army. Ever-sparring brothers Jed and Sam Burdock insist they have the sure-fire solution to the crisis. Neither works. Even by 'gastropod molluscs on the rampage' standards this is too silly to be horrific, but a fun read nonetheless. Better is yet to come .... I'm surprised to find no mention of Chamber Of Horrors (Octopus, 1984) Ghost Stories (Cathay, 1984) or Tales From Beyond The Grave (Octopus, 1982; Treasure Press, 1989) among Mary's editorial credits as they all bear her hallmark and I believe she admits to compiling them? I certainly remember a confirmation on that effect on the Armada Ghost Book 1967-1983 : Index by Author thread, but that post has since mysteriously disappeared. |
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Post by noose on Oct 28, 2012 18:46:58 GMT
Here you go - Mary and I at her launch |
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Post by dem on Oct 31, 2012 19:08:53 GMT
Three good 'uns from the children's selection. Edward is a little mawkish for this reader, but The Haunters has some likeable comic touches and Lorimer's Bride is a lovely trad supernatural horror in the vein of Amelia B. Edwards' The Phantom Coach.
Edward: A little boy with a weak heart, packed off to the coast to stay with his well-meaning Aunt Lavinia in the hope that the sea air will do him good. It doesn't, and he's confined to his room on doctor's orders. Following a mighty storm, the cliff edge crumbles and, from his window, Edward watches Mrs. Augustus Settle and her party of nature ramblers blithely heading toward danger. He races to save them ....
The Haunters: The Westhampton Boys Club pay their annual visit to Mr. & Mrs. Portly at Blackwood Hall, a fifteenth century mansion house boasting a haunted gallery. Fledgling phantom fighters Jack and Bill Simpson sneak downstairs to investigate, but the spectre is so rubbish, it could only be one of their classmates fooling around with a sheet over his head. Couldn't it?
Lorimer's Bride: It's the Hope-Massie's annual Easter party and among the guests, young Elizabeth Fletcher, whose la-di-da parents are keen to find her an affluent husband. To this end, the hosts have thoughtfully provided Elizabeth with an escort for the evening. Hubert Glossington may be a dentally and mentally challenged upper class twit but he comes from good stock and his parents are loaded! After a miserable evening of failing to evade Hubert's clutches, Elizabeth thinks her luck has changed when a dashingly handsome gent signals for her to join him in the garden. It hasn't. Lord Lorimer, a century drowned, roughly escorts her to the lake. By the time they get there, he's fast losing his looks ....
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Post by dem on Nov 1, 2012 14:20:04 GMT
The House Ghosts: The Wetherby's hopes of a happy Christmas are threatened when ghastly Aunt Prudence invites herself over for the duration. Mischievous phantoms Albert and Victoria remember what it was like to have their festivities ruined by Great Aunt Isobel, and intervene on the family's behalf. Another jolly one, similar premise to the original Shiver & Shake strip in Fleetway's "Cor!!" comic, with fifty years dead Albert and Victoria standing in for the Duke's Spook and the lugubrious cavalier.
Even above Lorimer's Bride, The Ghost Writer and Mr. Jones, this next, a supernatural horror from Nightmares 2, is my pick of the "children"'s stories to date.
Arbor Day: June 21st is the most important date on the calendar for the residents of Oakholme Village. The Arbor Day festival stretches back to pre-Roman days and it's said that, should there be any attempt at disrupting the smooth running of the occasion, the Green Man will unleash the trees of Baxter's Copse versus the errant party. Lisa doesn't hold much with soppy tradition, and, miffed at playing mere leaf maiden to Stephanie Pendleton's Green Lady, liberates her rival's all-important head-dress from the potting shed ....
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Nov 5, 2012 20:05:07 GMT
I just received my copy. It's a beauty. Great work, Johnny.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Nov 11, 2012 13:12:55 GMT
A recent read of four of Mary Danby's Armada Ghost tales only confirmed that the nastier her stories get, the more i like them. Benevolent spectres rarely do it for me, so the main excitement i got from A View Of The Sea was when the girl at the candyfloss stall's 'Kiss me quick' hat blew away. Given that I recently read Danby's The Green Ghost and her Nightmares series, I decided to begin Party Pieces with the children's stories. I second this take--the early stories tend to be a bit gentle for my tastes, whereas the later stories are wonderfully nasty. "Arbor Day" gets my vote for her best children's story, but "The Grey Lady," "Lorimer's Bride," "Mr. Jones," "Slugs," and "Old Wiggie" aren't far behind. She was really at the top of her game when she called it a day. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Nov 15, 2012 14:51:53 GMT
Of the "Stories for Adults," I would give the honors to "The Engelmayer Puppets." I'm just an easy mark for evil puppets. Place and show would go to "Woodman's Knot" and "Harvest Home," two stories that use another one of my favorite themes: the survival of horrific pagan rituals in out-of-the-way places. Both are worthy entries in the tradition of The Wicker Man and Thomas Tryon's Harvest Home. Just a little ways behind would be "Curlylocks" and "Nursery Tea." Red Shoes is proof that, all these years later, Mary Danby still has it! No one can accuse her of having gone soft in the intervening years. It's one of the nastiest ones of the bunch. |
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Post by dem on Nov 15, 2012 17:18:52 GMT
Red Shoes is like Mary has never been away. Have still to complete the children's section (four to go, and two of them among your runners up to the excellent Arbor Day), but they'd have to be bloody awful to prevent this claiming a place on 'my best things I read in 2012' listing. There really should be a mass market paperback edition.
What with Party Pieces, David Riley's His Own Mad Demons and Craig Herbertson's imminent The Heaven Makers, it's been the year of the three decades overdue début collections.
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Truegho
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 135
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Post by Truegho on Jul 9, 2013 1:46:12 GMT
Is this book available on Amazon or any other online retailer? I have fond memories of reading Mary Danby's cracking little horror stories as a young man growing up in the seventies.
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Post by David A. Riley on Jul 9, 2013 7:13:14 GMT
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Post by patblack on Aug 18, 2013 22:17:00 GMT
Adored the Nightmares series she edited for Armada when I was a lad - recently invested in the paperbacks off Amazon. This one's intriguing, might have to check it out!
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Post by patblack on Oct 30, 2013 12:26:21 GMT
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