R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Fantastic World of Kamtellar

[dem]

It's RCH revival week in your super, post-arsegate, soaraway Vault!

R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Fantastic World Of Kamtellar: Stories Of Vampires And Ghouls (William Kimber, 1980)

Jacket design: Roger Garland

Introduction: R. Chetwynd-Hayes

Kamtellar
Birth
Looking For Something To Suck
The Gibbering Ghoul Of Gomershal
Amelia

The years have wiped all memory of the short novel Kamtellar from memory and it's doubtless far better than I ever gave it credit for, but I bloody HATED it on first reading and nothing - but NOTHING! - will get me to revisit it. Not even sure if I ever got around to Birth, but these three wouldn't look out of place in a Best Of .... Wonder if there's any significance in him giving Amelia the surname 'Roland'?

Amelia: Anthony Knight finds a man dying of malnutrition in a back alley who warns him: "I'm done for. But you ... you ... you get out of here before she comes." Anthony legs it, but his conscience gets the better of him - what if an ambulance crew could have saved him? He returns to the scene and Greta, an old woman in one of the plush houses, invites him in at the request of her invalid charge, the beautiful young Amelia Roland. Anthony is astounded - she is the double of a woman he met twenty-five years ago and has carried a torch for ever since. Despite falling madly in love with her, something warns him he's in terrible danger. This proves to be the case.

Looking For Something To Suck: One of his scariest and best. A vampire shadow, vulnerable only to the light, enters the Wilton's house in search of it's feed. Despite the protests of his wife Jane, a psychic who senses something terrible is about to happen, Tony insists on turning out all the lights when they retire to bed. When he awakens and turns on the light, he wishes he hadn't ...

The Gibbering Ghoul Of Gomershal: "That, my angel is yer actual, no-nonsense common or graveyard ghoul. But damn your best frilly knickers if I ever expected to see one."

Dashing, young-ish Psychic Detective Francis St. Clare and his glamorous assistant and sparring partner, Frederica 'Fred' Masters, investigate a haunting in the graveyard surrounding Woodbine Cottage near Clavering. The monster is great, all ugly and slobbering, and Francis has a tough time luring it into his brilliant ghoul-destroying invention "the phantocage", but as RCH advises, the St. Clare stories were "written more for giggles than shudders."

Respectfully dedicated, with protection spell, to a dear friend.

[Johnlprobert]

I can't remember anything about Kamtellar either, but I think it's one of Ron's parallel universe stories (like Manderville) that's a bit rubbish. The book is far better served by the shorts, including LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO SUCK. I have the Robert Hale hardback with that title, you know, & apparently it's as rare as an attractive Mock - even editor Stephen Jones told me he'd never seen a copy. I had to go to Glasgow to eventually find one! Of course the US edition was retitled THE VAMPIRE STORIES OF RCH because the original title was a bit too rude for delicate stateside sensibilities.

But I digress. The Fred & Francis story is a lot of fun, & I'm sure BIRTH is the same BIRTH as the BIRTH in THE ELEMENTAL. Kimber did reprint a few of the Fontana / Tandem stories in the hardbacks, sometimes changing the titles. And then of course there's that *very weird* story where a writer (ahem) falls through into another RCH parallel universe where his books are treated as the bible. He goes to a church and the vicar reads today's lesson, which is WHY DON'T YOU WASH? SAID THE GIRL WITH A HUNDRED THOUSAND PUNDS AND NO RELATIVES from THE UNBIDDEN - reprinted in its entirety!

[dem]

Nov 6, 2012 18:48:44 GMT Johnlprobert said:

And then of course there's that *very weird* story where a writer (ahem) falls through into another RCH parallel universe where his books are treated as the bible. He goes to a church and the vicar reads today's lesson, which is WHY DON'T YOU WASH? SAID THE GIRL WITH A HUNDRED THOUSAND PUNDS AND NO RELATIVES from THE UNBIDDEN - reprinted in its entirety!

Which is, of course, Birth.

On Looking For Something To Suck (for me, one of the all time great horror titles, and a top notch story to match), he writes "not perhaps a wise title in this age when people are apt to allow their minds to stray into erotic sideroads, but I never even considered such an implication when I wrote the story." Anyone else, I'd say "like f@*k you never!" but, in Ronald's case, I believe him.