Terror Tales of the Seaside

[paulfinch]

Chuffed to announce that the latest volume in my series of original UK horror anthologies, TERROR TALES OF THE SEASIDE, is now ready to order from Gray Friar Press and Amazon.

It includes 12 original works of horror fiction and two classic reprints, from such luminaries of the genre as Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Laws, Stephen Volk, Reggie Oliver, Sam Stone, Kate Farrell, Simon Kurt Unsworth, etc.

For the full TOC, cover art, back cover blurb and so forth, feel free to check my blog, Walking In The Dark or go straight to the Gray Friar page -

[dem]

Don't let this prevent you visiting Paul's blog - there's PLENTY of interest on there - but we'll be needing one of these, so best get the details down now.

Paul Finch (ed.) - Terror Tales Of The Seaside (Gray Friar, Oct. 2013)

Steve Upham

Reggie Oliver - Holiday From Hell
The Eerie Events At Castel Mare
Stephen Laws - The Causeway
The Kraken Wakes
Stephen Volk - The Magician Kelso Dennett
Forces Of Evil
Joseph Freeman - A Prayer For The Morning
Hotel Of Horror
Sam Stone - The Jealous Sea
The Ghosts Of Goodwin Sands
Ramsey Campbell - The Entertainment
The Horse And The Hag
Simon Kurt Unsworth - The Poor Weather Crossings Company
The Devil Dog Of Peel
R.B. Russell - Brighthelmstone
The Ghouls Of Bannane Head
Robert Spalding - Men With False Faces
This Beautiful, Terrible Place
Gary Fry - GG LUVS PA
In The Deep Dark Winter
Paul Finch - The Incident At North Shore
The Walking Dead
Paul Kane - Shells
Hellmouth
Kate Farrell - The Sands Are Magic
Wild Men Of The Sea
Christopher Harman - Broken Summer

Blurb
The British Seaside - golden sands, toffee rock, amusement arcades. But also the ghosts of better days: phantom performers who if they can't get laughs will get screams; derelict fun-parks where maniacs lurk; hideous things washed in on bitter tides ...

The death ships of Goodwin ...
The killer clowns of Bognor ...
The devil fish of Guernsey ...
The Night Caller of St. Derfyn ...
The Black Mass at North Berwick ...
The grisly revenge at Brighton ...
The tortured souls of Westingsea ...

And many more chilling tales by Stephen Laws, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Volk, Sam Stone, Simon Kurt Unsworth and other award-winning masters and mistresses of the macabre.

[dem]

A strong start to the new Terror Tales too, with a typically strangely strange surrealist nightmare from the ever-reliable Reggie Oliver and a bleak little something from Kate Farrell.

Reggie Oliver - Holiday From Hell: Some decades ago, and Reggie - or somebody very like him - is performing with a repertory theatre company at the Majestic Theatre, Brighton. Needing digs for the season, he persuades a reluctant Mrs. Warlock to rent him a tiny attic room at the Bellevue Hotel, Brightsea. Mrs. Warlock explains that she usually caters for those of senior years, notably Miss Harriman and her party of seven from the Old People's home in Diss who take their annual holiday here. The party duly arrive to behave in a uniformly bizarre manner which the young actor/ stage manager at first puts down to dementia. It's only when the weird pensioners begin haunting his every move that he suspects an unpalatable truth.

Kate Farrell - The Sands Are Magic: A cheap camper-van holiday in Cornwall during the Queen's Silver Jubilee piles fresh tragedy upon a young army widow. Boyfriend Rob, a friend and colleague of her late husband, assures Susan that the kids, Lucy and Nicholas will love the beach at Fort Trewithen as it is "magic." The local council have another word for one particular stretch of sand, but lamentably, they've neglected to replace the weather beaten old warning sign.

[dem]

Gary Fry - GG LUVS PA: Neil, a lonely part-time benefits clerk of Sandsend, Middlesborough, is intrigued by a single word question scrawled in the sand, and unwisely reciprocates with a light-hearted reply. The bizarre correspondence continues in this vein for some days until he writes 'Who Do You Think I Am?,' to which the unseen hand replies 'Patrick Archer.' Researching this lead at the local library, Neil comes to the conclusion that the messages are the work of Gayle Greene, who vanished at Whitby in 1964 and has not been seen since. Suspicion fell upon her ambitious boyfriend, ambitious Patrick Archer, who was not one to be held back by a pregnant girlfriend, though he was never charged in connection with her disappearance. Now, slowly but surely, what's left of Gayle is coming back from the sea bed.

Am not sure if the two things are connected, but I had the most vivid nightmare featuring a long lost but still very dear friend after finishing Mr. Fry's story. Remind me to pray tonight ....

Folklore meets Dark Fantasy in;

Sam Stone - The Jealous Sea: The ocean seeks to reclaim those merfolk who defected to dry land. Though they realise the sea is hungry for them, still Angela and Garrick Briant are unable to resist their annual game of dare. Their luck eventually runs out at Rhyl during a terrible storm. Can't say I was terribly sad to see the back of Angela who seemed an awful snob. For those who are unaware, Sam Stone is the artist formerly known as Paigan Stone, whose début novel, Gabriele Caccini, led to "a bit of trouble" on its publication in 2007 (see Vault Mk I. Teacher investigated for writing vampire novel).

Next stop: Fun Land ...

[dem]

Paul Finch - The Incident At North Shore: With notorious psycho killer Blair 'The Night Caller' McKellan at large, two loved-up police officers choose the worst possible night for a tryst in St. Derfyn's abandoned amusement park. Right from the first, PC Sharon Jones is uneasy about Detective Geoff Slater's choice of passion pit - Fun Land is locally renowned as a hang-out for lone tramps, junkies and aspiring arsonists - and now he texts her to meet him inside the burned out shell of 'The Haunted Palace'! Unknown to them both, a third party has claimed the Palace for their personal slaughteryard.

With her mobile on the blink and no sign of lover boy, Sharon is stalked through the tunnels by a madman dressed in what appears to be a rotting fancy dress costume modelled on 'Bubbles,' the local mythical sea monster.

Torture, mutilation, decapitation and rotting entrails everywhere. This is one Haunted Palace where you're sure to get more than your money's worth.

Robert Spalding - Men With False Faces: The inspiration for Steve Upham's cover painting, and ...... it's a grower. On first reading, I struggled to make sense of what was going on (am little wiser after a rematch), but, like Reggie Oliver's opener, the wild surrealism of certain episodes stuck.

Gary is a young office worker newly arrived in Bognor Regis from Slough. All is rosy for the first seven weeks - give or take the mysterious disappearance of some Polish immigrants which he puts down to local xenophobes - until, taking his regular Friday night stroll, his fingers idly trace a strange message carved in the sea wall; "Beware of Men With False Faces." Gary has no idea what this means, but the fact it haunts his thoughts suggests he should heed the advice. Makes no difference. His fortunes have already fallen into steep decline.

His friends are quick to realise that there is something going on with Gary. He has takes to involuntarily whistling The Entrance of the Gladiators at inopportune moments and callously abuses a work colleagues without even realising it. As the 'World Famous Bognor Clown Convention' approaches, so the local residents take on a hallucinatory aspect until his days become one long round of persecution from vicious mimes and folk whose mouths, eyes and noses go walkabout across their faces. Perhaps most disturbing is the cute little girl with the imaginary playmate, Bobo ("He's an eighteen inch tall invisible clown with razor sharp teeth") who, apparently, has malicious intentions toward him. Can a regular diet of fish & chips have mangled his mind, or are the clowns really out to get him?

As synopses go, the above is yet another complete waste of time, but Men With False Faces is up there with my picks of the collection to date. 'Bugger Bognor,' as King George V famously probably didn't say with his dying breath.

[ripper]

Some intrigueing-sounding non-fiction articles there...devil dogs, devil fish, ghouls...great stuff! I really like the format of including non-fiction accounts between the stories.

[paulfinch]

Researching and writing the non-fiction section of this series is almost as much fun as commissioning and selecting the fiction. The thing that amazes me most is how much gruesome and macabre folklore there actually is in almost every corner of the UK - and most of the locals don't even realise it.

[dem]

The format works really well, rip. For me, the Black Book & Terror Tales series' respectively are the nearest we have to contemporary Pan Book of Horrors and a Fontana Tales Of Terror. Doesn't matter that these are independently published, as, mercifully, they're not limited edition, ELITIST small press. Being POD means they're unlikely to become unavailable any day soon (please correct me if I'm wrong on that, gents!), so anyone can get hold of a copy when they want at the very reasonable cover price. I ♥ stuff like that!

Anyway: let's take another lucky dip and .....

Stephen Volk - The Magician Kelso Dennett: Nick Ambler, 28, Seagate born and bred, despises the resort as a depressing, dead, fun free zone and he's sick of holidaymakers telling him how blessed he is to live there. And then - the game changer. Kelso Dennett, the internationally famous illusionist, announces that he'll be returning to his home town to perform the most dangerous and controversial stunt of his career to date. He will spend forty days and nights Buried Alive in a sealed coffin six feet under the shore. Nick's local knowledge land him a job as runner to the production team - he even gets to wear a jacket - but best of all ...

Hardly is her husband secure in his grave than leggy Annabelle Fox, "most famous for a fish fingers commercial when she was five years old," hits on Nick in a bar and takes him back to her room for a marathon sex session. By day twenty of Dennett's ordeal, these orgies have become a commonplace, but, excited as he is, Nick can't help but worry that none of this is right. Away from the bedroom, Annabelle is such a cold fish, he can't work her out at all. And there's the nagging concern of what will happen should Kelso die?

To reveal any more would be unfair. Let's just say that Stephen Volk knows how to ratchet up the tension, and the ending is killer. In short, brilliant.

[ripper]

There must be lots of stories and accounts from all over the country that are forgotten over time until brought to our attention in books like Paul's.

I see what you mean about POD books, Dem. Does that mean that each time that someone buys a POD book from, say, Amazon, the publisher prints a copy especially for that order? By the way, Paul, is there any plan to bring out e-book editions of the Tales of Terror series?

[ripper]

Sorry, that should be, of course, the Terror Tales series :-).

[paulfinch]

Unsure about ebooks, Ripper. I have no personal objection. All my own novels are now out as ebooks, and my agents are currently reissuing my back catalogue of short stories and novellas in new e-collections. But with the Terror Tales books no arrangement was made with the authors beforehand, and it could take time sorting that out retrospectively. It may happen, but it's already the case that I can't work full time on these anthologies, so every spare moment I've got at present is spent bringing out new titles. However, I have mentioned it to Gray Friar Press, so something may happen along ebook lines at some point.

[ripper]

Thank you, Paul. I was just curious if the series might be published in e-book format. I still greatly prefer a physical book over an e-book.

[paulfinch]

One thing I would ask readers ... and obviously it's up to them whether they want to do this, but it will always help with sales, is to put reviews of the book on Amazon (which is the main point of sale). It genuinely does make a difference, and the more books we sell, the more money there is for future volumes. So if you like Terror Tales of the Seaside, or indeed any of the Terror Tales series, and you want to see it continue, please get your reviews on Amazon. It only needs to be a paragraph or so, and whatever number of stars you feel the book merits - but something is always better than nothing.

[dem]

Joseph Freeman - A Prayer For The Morning: Dunning, wife Kate and little Charlotte take a break at Dunwich on the Suffolk coast. Kate grew up here, but has not been back since childhood, and ... nothing is quite as she remembers it. Dunning is in his element, bravely shouting at some shambling locals to get out of the road once he's driven past them and generally showing off. The walkers take it personally. In bed that night, a blissed-out Kate gives thanks for her lot. "We have a wonderful life." If ever there were a phrase never to be uttered in a horror story.

Fascinated by the legend of the City that crumpled into the sea, Dunning sets out alone one evening to visits the crumbling remains of the Franciscan priory, and what's left of St James' leper hospital. He grows uneasy. Every once in a while he'll glimpse a white something lurching about the ruin but puts it down to imagination. A fatal detour into the woodlands soon sets him straight on that score.

R.B. Russell - Brighthelmstone: A leisurely, deceptive quiet account of the mugging of a little boy on Brighton Pier, and the fatal repercussions for one party. 'Tom', sixteen, unimpressed with his haul, demands the victim lead him back to the guest house where he's staying with his mother, who, fortunately, is out playing bingo and never finds out what happened next.

Stephen Laws - The Causeway: (Paul Kane & John B. Ford [eds.], Terror Tales #3, Rainfall, 2006). Very similar premise to Hester Holland Gaskell's splendid Creeps contribution, High Tide - with additional handcuffs. Hugh married Pauline out of greed for her Industrialist father's wealth, and, to nobody's surprise save his own, the blushing bride has shown herself to be of even less endearing personality than feared. Hence this day out at Pitcher's Island. Hugh has meticulously planned for her drowning so that no suspicion could reasonably fall upon him. What could possibly go ....



As mentioned, the non-fiction/ "non-fiction" interludes are great fun.The Ghouls Of Bannane Head, for example, revisits the legend and appalling crimes of Sawney Beane, referencing his less celebrated, and possibly, equally dubious prototype, Christie Creek. As for The Walking Dead, I once had it from a medieval scholar that there is no reference to 'v*mp*res' whatsoever in the literature of either Walter Map or William of Newburgh. Seems when it came to translating De Nugis Curialium and Historia Rerum Anglicarum, Montague Summers let his talent for embroidery get the better of him, just for a change. Try telling a wannabe Van Helsing that, they just won't believe you. Apparently Hellmouth is not located in Sunnydale, California (or Whitechapel) after all, but Brighton, which possibly explains why Nick Cave has made it home.

[dem]

Paul Kane - Shells: "I can hear the sea. Would you like to hear too?". Location unspecified. Aaaron is holidaying at a caravan park with his warring parents. Desperate to escape the poisonous atmosphere, he hooks up with Dean, a kid from the village who knows all the best places to explore. One morning they discover something even Dean is unfamiliar with. A stretch of beach covered in row upon row of shells, all meticulously laid out as though tirelessly arranged overnight by an obsessive-compulsive.

Dean puts a shell to his ear, yells and falls to the sand in convulsions. The panicked Aaron runs for help, but by the time he's persuaded a young couple to follow him, Dean has evidently recovered. Except he isn't Dean any more. He's a vacant eyed, monosyllabic shell of a boy, like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Gradually all but one of the village and van site population are overcome by the same virus of imbecility ....

Fans of James Herbert's The Fog will likely appreciate the ending.

Simon Kurt Unsworth - The Poor Weather Crossings Company: The service provided by the the Poor Weather Crossings Company is exactly as promised in their advertisements. A nerve-shredding tip-toe around the quicksands and treacherous mudflats of Morecambe Bay during the most appalling storm. Sykes, with nothing better planned for the evening, completes the a party of thirteen thrill-seekers, out to ghoul over the scenes of tragedies innumerable. As the Kings Guide to the Sands, nimble-footed Mr. Calcraft, leads them further out through the sheeting rain, Sykes loses sight of those of the party who can't keep pace, until finally he's the only man left. Mr. Calcraft explains the compact struck between fisherman and sea when the world was young. Man may have conveniently forgotten to keep his end of the deal, but not Neptune.

Mr. Sku's contribution to Terror Tales Of The Cotswolds made Mammoth Best New Horror 24 selection, and will be quite surprised if there is no .... Seaside presence in next year's edition. They're most of them in with a shout.