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Post by Dr Strange on Dec 10, 2012 11:59:52 GMT
oh well, the Hammer books have come to an end anyway... That's a shame... though not really a fan of the standard novelization churned out on the back of a film release, I personally thought that getting contemporary authors to tackle some of the old Hammer classics was a great idea. Maybe they thought there was more business to be had in publishing stuff unconnected to those creaky old fims, but I can't help but think they somehow lost sight of what people who genuinely connect with the Hammer 'brand' would want. |
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Post by killercrab on Dec 10, 2012 17:10:44 GMT
Their website has four books scheduled for 2013. So ...?
KC
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Post by Johnlprobert on Dec 10, 2012 18:11:00 GMT
Their website has four books scheduled for 2013. So ...? KC They were commissioned last year - it's just taking them ages to bring out books contracted from way back when. |
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Post by killercrab on Dec 11, 2012 3:00:47 GMT
Ah I wondered. Thanks.
KC
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Post by Dr Strange on Jan 18, 2013 15:23:42 GMT
Francis Cottam - The Resident (Hammer, 2011) Blurb: Every year, three million single women in America move into an apartment for the first time. Few of them change the locks.
Juliet Devereau can't believe her luck: after weeks of looking for a place to live, she's found a beautiful spacious apartment overlooking Brooklyn Bridge. It almost seems too good to be true.
It is... Over the weeks, a chilling sense of being watched stalks Juliet. Strange sounds wake her in the night, the mirror in the bathroom trembles, and doors she thought shut are open. Then the silhouette of a man standing in her living room makes her realise that she's not alone in there. But what's haunting her is far more terrifying than a malevolent spirit; it's alive, strong and obsessed. Suddenly Juliet is caught up in a deadly game of cat and mouse, and there's no guarantee that she'll come out alive...am a massive fan of novelizations good, bad, and indifferent but for some reason, have yet to get worked up about the new Hammer series beyond initial "that's a good idea!" burst of enthusiasm. When i heard that in some instances, the original period settings were being updated, i kind of lost interest. Just found a copy of The Resident in local charity shop so should get around to that early in new year. We've an earlier thread for this: Hammer 2.0 I'm about half way through this, and my advice would be - don't bother. It is incredibly slow, with zero sense of suspense. And really badly written, with embarrasingly horrible, clunky phrases on every page. It reads like it was written in a major hurry, with no attempt to polish up the first draft. I can imagine the author in front of a TV screen, watching 10 minutes of the film, pausing it, typing for a few minutes, then re-starting the film and repeating the process. I really enjoyed Cottam's first couple of books ( House of Lost Souls & Dark Echo) but he seems to have really lost it. His last one ( Brodmaw Bay) suffered from a lot of the same problems as The Resident - too much time spent trying to give the characters a rich emotional back-story, that ultimately had very little to do with the main action of the plot - but this is one of the worst things I've read in a long time. |
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Post by jamesdoig on Jan 20, 2013 9:31:02 GMT
but this is one of the worst things I've read in a long time. There are a couple of Hammer novels at the remainder bookshop for $4 each- Kronos is one, can't remember the other, and still tossing up whether to buy them - might be worth collecting. |
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Post by Dr Strange on Jan 21, 2013 14:22:43 GMT
There are a couple of Hammer novels at the remainder bookshop for $4 each- Kronos is one, can't remember the other, and still tossing up whether to buy them - might be worth collecting. I didn't enjoy Kronos much either... |
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Post by killercrab on Mar 22, 2013 21:03:23 GMT
Took the plunge and am reading Vampire Circus. The book opens with an updated contemporary version of the film's prologue. Count Mitterhouse isn't named as the arch vampire but it's not hard to see Robert Tayman in the part.If anything it's more savage than the film ( Hammer's bloodiest btw). What I like about the book so far is it's similarity in feel to the great Salem's Lot. The old Mitre house standing oppressively over the town.So far I'm liking it.
KC
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Post by killercrab on Mar 23, 2013 18:33:09 GMT
A formidable barrier encircles the town of Shettle much like in the film The Village of the Damned. Any towns people that try to cross it become increasingly sick eventually passing out. In the film Vampire Circus the sick villagers were stopped from seeking help by outside forces scared of the plague spreading. The Circus of Nights has appeared in town and stage the first of three shows. Everybody is drawn like moths and the book includes Serena the Tigerwoman in sexual frenzy ( shaved in fact) and the Acro-Bats. Unlike the film the book has the scope to describe a bigger circus tent and other attractions. It does however tell the reader that the circus has old Romanian roots which keeps it within the original film's remit. Emil now dressed in black ( beats me why he wasn't in the film actually) steals the show and proves the first vampire to have a personality since *Mitterhouse* - sorry - the arch vampire was staked. Mark Morris' writing improves as the book progresses as he relaxes into enjoying the story he's retelling with gusto.
KC
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Post by dem on Apr 3, 2013 11:43:08 GMT
A formidable barrier encircles the town of Shettle much like in the film The Village of the Damned. Any towns people that try to cross it become increasingly sick eventually passing out. In the film Vampire Circus the sick villagers were stopped from seeking help by outside forces scared of the plague spreading. The Circus of Nights has appeared in town and stage the first of three shows. Everybody is drawn like moths and the book includes Serena the Tigerwoman in sexual frenzy ( shaved in fact) and the Acro-Bats. Unlike the film the book has the scope to describe a bigger circus tent and other attractions. It does however tell the reader that the circus has old Romanian roots which keeps it within the original film's remit. Emil now dressed in black ( beats me why he wasn't in the film actually) steals the show and proves the first vampire to have a personality since *Mitterhouse* - sorry - the arch vampire was staked. Mark Morris' writing improves as the book progresses as he relaxes into enjoying the story he's retelling with gusto. KC (Hammer 2002) Blurb: `YOUR CHILDREN WILL DIE. YOUR COMMUNITY WILL DIE. TO GIVE ME BACK MY LIFE.'
The small rural community of Shettle has fallen into a decline. It is rife with crime and its inhabitants plagued by ill-fortune.
When the Circus of Nights arrives, the people are drawn to it like moths to a flame: it's as though they are bewitched.
Only four men realise that there is something terribly wrong. And as the town is enclosed in a barrier of 'sickness' through which no one can enter or leave, they must do their utmost to protect their loved ones.
Before it's too late ...
HAMMER: THE LAST WORD IN HORROR
NEW AND CLASSIC STORIES THAT WILL PROVOKE, SCARE AND SURPRISEFound a copy in the idea store on Saturday (relax: I was wearing a contamination suit). Just finished the marathon prologue outlining the events of ten years ago and liked what i've read, so will try alternate between this and the rest of John Blackburn's Broken Boy before jumping in on another novel. |
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Post by killercrab on Apr 4, 2013 16:30:59 GMT
I won't comment any further on the book than to say it was the quickest read I've had in a long while. I was impressed enough to get some more Hammers and am reading Shaun Hutson's The Revenge of Frankenstein now. It's perhaps less visceral than the Hutson we know but he goes to pains to explain in his introduction that he wanted his adaption to compliment the film and the era it was made in. Gotta admire that and his restraint - he obviously has great affection for the film. That said there is some gory stuff.
KC
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Post by dem on May 14, 2013 10:29:53 GMT
Guy Adams - Hands Of The Ripper (Hammer/ Random House, 2012)  Cover photographs @ Getty Images
One night at an intimate seance in Aida's house, the lights go out and one of the group is brutally murdered. John has his suspicions but he can't prove anything. He senses that Aida has some hold over the girl and he offers her a place of refuge in his home. But the dead won't stay quiet. And all too soon the past will catch up with them all...
HAMMER - THE LAST WORD IN HORROR
NEW AND CLASSIC STORIES THAT WILL PROVOKE, SCARE AND SURPRISE"Oh, come on .... A nutter chops up women a stones throw from Whitechapel what else are the papers going to call him?" John Pritchard, the recently bereaved psychology lecturer, is arguably our male lead, but by my reckoning at least, he is far from the most interesting character in this wild update on Hands Of The Ripper. As with Spencer Shew's original, all roads eventually lead to the Whispering Gallery at St. Paul's Cathedral, but we arrive by a very different route. The plot centres around the exploits of phoney medium Aida Golding, Alasdair, her astute business partner, and 'Sandy', her adopted daughter, now grown to womanhood. Unlike her stepmother, Sandy is a genuine psychic, has been ever since infancy when her father, Douglas 'The East End Ripper' Reece, took a poker to her mother and splattered her brains over the fireplace. Pritchard is struggling to come to terms with the death of his wife. In truth, he detested the semi-mummified wreck Jane had been reduced to, refusing to accept the bedridden, cancer-stricken travesty as the woman he'd fallen in love with. Death came as a mercy to both of them. But, of course, now she's gone, he's eaten up with guilt. A student suggests he attend a seance in the cause of psychological research, and his son Michael agrees. Michael, a struggling actor, is married to Laura, an ever-cheerful young woman who refuses to accept her blindness as an obstacle to getting the most from life. Both John and Michael adore her. It transpires that Aida Golding holds the occasional private session for favourite customers, and, thanks to Davina Harris - a wealthy widow who seemingly attends only to moan at the ghost of her late husband, Henry - he's soon invited to join this inner sanctum along with serial attendee Father Goss and - good grief! - Lord Llewellyn "Helly" Probert, Peer of the Realm and S&M freak, a man with a very dark secret in his recent past. Probert fell foul of violent Mr. Fixits, the Barrowman brothers, but it wasn't him who paid for his transgression. The brothers prefered to make an example of his mistress, Thana the dominatrix, by carving out her eyes. Father Goss reveals that, when he worked in Tower Hamlets, the East End Ripper was among his parishioners. He doesn't get much opportunity to expand further as, when the lights go out, somebody cuts his throat. Probert, horrified at the prospect of yet more scandal attached to his name, arranges to have the sordid little business hushed up. Goss, he insists, committed suicide. Several shouty phone calls later and "I've got the whole thing sewn up tighter than an NHS budget cut" brags his Lordship. He really is a rotter. After this nasty episode, 'Sandy'/ Anna Reece throws herself upon John's mercy. She has to get away from ghastly Golding and the manipulative Alasdair, and he has such a kind face. Can she hide out with him for a few days? John has already promised the top half of the house to between-jobs Michael and Laura, but he agrees. After all, she's a beautiful girl but he's old enough to be her granddad, so nobody could get the wrong impression. Except Anna does .... Anna and Laura become firm friends, but murder seems to follow in Anna's footsteps, and when a leading character is disemboweled during a seance in Bermondsey, Probert decides it's time Pritchard was informed that his lodger isn't quite what she seems. Lots of nasty murders ensue .... Very good fun, this one, or at least, I thought so. Mr. Shew's original struck me as v. pedestrian on first reading, but am likely to give it another go.
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Post by dem on May 16, 2013 17:11:32 GMT
Hands Of The Ripper - E. Spencer Shew (Sphere, 1971) Blurb: It was an autumn of terror in the shadowy streets of Whitechapel .... for JACK THE RIPPER roamed abroad leaving a bloody trail behind him ...
But was the Ripper a man? Or were the hideous murders committed by a girl ... A girl possessed of the devil!So, after getting along famously with Guy Adams' audacious update on Hands Of The Ripper, a rematch with Spencer Shew's original which didn't really do it for me first time around but now, who knows? We are back in London, 1888 yet again. Paternoster Row, St. Pauls to be specific. Professor Sir Giles Pritchard, Fellow of the Royal Society, and his pal, the famous neurologist Dr. Malcolm Dysart, moonlight as the Central Bureau for the Investigation of the Occult. The CBIO have made it their business to investigate mediums, exposing the fraudulent variety when necessary, but their primary objective is to seek out "inexplicable fact that rejects all reason." The quest for the genuine article has brought them to a three story house on Lambs Conduit Street, Bloomsbury, where Mrs Emma Golding, a 55 year old widow, hosts a weekly séance. Sir Giles, who has a good nose for this type of business, knows he's onto something the minute they set foot in the place. Fresh from exposing Mrs. Franklin, "the cleverest fraud in the business" and wary of frightening off Mrs. Golding before she can get up to any nonsense, he and Dysart introduce themselves as 'Michael Dunstable' and 'Graham Peterson.' On first acquaintance, Mrs Golding's clientele - Colonel Loder, Mr. Ewing and Miss Carvelle - are an indifferent bunch, while 'Mary' the spirit guide comes on like the Violet Elizabeth Bott of the Spirit World. In short, this has all the makings of a complete waste of time and a really shite night out, until .... Sir Giles soon establishes that Golding is a charlatan, but the seventeen year old girl sat watching in eerie silence from the stairs is another matter. For one remarkable moment she holds out her arms and the slim hands transform to the huge hairy fists of a man. Mrs Golding explains that Alice is her niece, a complete simpleton who she adopted out of the kindness of her heart when the poor child's parents died. Sir Charles is intrigued. He invites Alice to visit St. Pauls Cathedral with his daughter-in-law Laura acting as chaperone to keep things respectable. Alice is fascinated by the piano in the Pritchard mansion. Her hands undergo the same extraordinary transformation and, despite never having played before, she is soon knocking out a mean e Flat Concerto. Sir Giles has truly found his Grail. What could possibly go right, etc.? to be continued ....
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Post by dem on May 20, 2013 12:38:27 GMT
We got another of those (lottery-funded) idea stories sprung up on Commercial Road as a replacement for the already much-missed Watney Market Library, meaning now you can borrow books/ DVDS, grab a sticky donut, and do battle with the housing office, all from within the same building (the massive Whitechapel complex even has a Job Centre Plus: no food bank as yet, but an increasing multitude of Tower Hamlets' animated skeletons starve in hope). Anyway, such is my devotion to duty, figured it best I check out this latest abortion, and, true to form, the horror section amounts to Stephen King, a few James Herbert's, various Koontz (no Laymon!), a Poe compilation, 'The Best of H. P. Lovecraft', Anne Rice and, thankful for small mercies .... Shaun Hutson - The Revenge Of Frankenstein (Hammer/ Random House, 2012) Blurb: Escaping the guillotine, Victor Frankenstein is now posing as Doctor Stein, altruistic patron of the Hospital for the Poor. But in a secret basement laboratory he is harvesting body parts from his helpless patients, using them in his twisted experiments in a bid to create the perfect man. And this time he has help from a would-be pupil. His pupil seeks knowledge, but Frankenstein desires vengeance against all those who have tried to stop his terrifying work.
The first time he tried, it ended in bloody mayhem, but now he is determined that nothing will go wrong. He wants revenge and God help anyone who gets in his way...From Hutson's introduction: "Hammer films have always had a recognisable stamp of quality about them but they also have a recognisable style and I felt that any novelisation of the movies concerned should display the same kind of respect with which the original was presented to its audience. For example, the character of Margaret could have been seen as a bit of 'female interest' lusted after by patients and doctors alike - but I couldn't bring myself to do that. Similarly, the scene when two potential young lovers are preparing for a carnal interlude could have been the occasion for some gratuitous sex - but I couldn't bring myself to do that, either! Inserting sex scenes into some of the older Hammer stories would be like catching your grandparents in bed! It's just plain wrong. But more importantly it would detract from the overall feel (excuse the pun) of the film and the characters and I was never going to do that." How times change. In John Burke's Hammer Horror Film Omnibus, the author's novelisation Revenge Of Frankenstein is all done and dusted in seventy pages, whereas Hutson manages to string out the flimsy storyline to 335. Maybe everything will work out fine, and his Revenge .... will provide as much good-time horror thrills as Mr Adams' frisky Hands Of The Ripper, but, commendable as his intentions unquestionably are, I can't help thinking that Hutson was offered this gig thirty years too late. Perversely, I'm now more inclined to attempt Revenge ... than if Mr. H had assured the reader that he'd reinvented the Baron as an Iron Maiden fan in another bad sex, gore 'n sputum extravaganza. Anyone read it? |
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Post by David A. Riley on May 20, 2013 12:48:43 GMT
I still like this one from Panther in 1958. I managed to get a copy of that second hand a few years after it was published (at 7 years of age at the time of publication I doubt I would have been allowed to buy it). Interesting that this film has now had three novelisations. That's quite some going.  |
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