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Post by dem on Nov 12, 2013 21:53:10 GMT
Another pair of crackers. Mr Thompson's gloriously gory, while Mr Sutton's reads like a very macabre take on The Who's Pictures Of Lily (ask your grand-pop)
Carl P. Thompson - The War Effort: The formidable Mrs. Eliot takes an instant dislike to Mr. Hardwick of the War Office. His aggressive begging on behalf of those brave boys away fighting the Hun is a bit rich coming from a lard-arsed spiv with a flash car and a married dolly bird awaiting his pleasure. When Harwick tries his bullying technique on bereaved and impoverished young Horace Renwick, Mrs. Eliot rounds up a few of the old gang to strike one for good old community values.
David A. Sutton - The Pre-Raphaelite Painting: A challenging case for Roman Blackwood, the pint-sized psychic debunker, and not one he can rationalise with his customary ease.
Clive Foster, once notorious for his womanising, has finally seen the error of his ways, and all thanks to a century dead artist's model. Clive is not only hopelessly in love with the late Amy Grignon, he's terrified of her. The beautiful ghost girl has taken to haunting him, which would be pleasant enough were it not that she is prone to blasting him with the most malicious glare.
Roman promises to visit his old friend's mansion and investigate this supposedly remarkable painting, provided Foster agree to consult an analyst.
Driving through the Worcestershire countryside on his way to keeping their appointment, Roman stops to pick up a veiled hitch hiker ....
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Post by dem on Nov 13, 2013 8:09:23 GMT
Mike Chinn - The Pygmalion Conjuration: "Horror movie actresses preserved in their youthful prime in old books; singers as they'd been at the start of their careers trapped on CD covers; newsreaders; weather girls; celebs from lists A to Z who were simply famous for being famous (and wearing very little). If Dennis had a picture of them, there was no limit."
The ghost of Aleister Crowley fixes it that sex-starved Dennis Crawleigh gets to sleep with any woman he desires provided he has a photograph of her to focus upon. With no shortage of newspapers and magazines to work from, Dennis need never again spend a lonely night! But sex magick has its disadvantages. With no inclination to eat, drink, bathe or leave the house, Dennis fast wastes away, whereupon the kindly old librarian, Miss Thelema Grant, forces her way into his flat to put phase II of the Great Beast's master-plan into operation.
Ian Hunter - Exploding Raphaelesque Heads: A visit to the Edinburgh National Gallery, and our narrator is so impressed by Dali's Hiroshima-inspired painting that he decides to film a re-enactment in the comfort of his own remote, soundproofed studio. It takes several attempts, a considerable supply of Semtex and ten reluctant models to achieve the desired effect.
If Lord P's Mousetrap!-abusing festive gorefest is The Tenth Black Book's answer to Pieces Of Mary, then Mr. Hunter's contribution is a credible impersonation of Norman P. Kaufman at his most wilfully sadistic.
Fuck me, only three to go. How long until vol 11, Dr. T?
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Post by dem on Nov 17, 2013 19:34:51 GMT
Gary Power - Deeper Than Dark Water: Just when you least expect it, an almost shudder pulp! MAD BRAIN SURGEON Prof. Carl Rosenburg gets his SADISTIC kicks performing lobotomies on anybody unfortunate enough to visit his Government-funded Neurological Institute.
The new boy, Dr. Felix Carter, finds his first days at the institute unremittingly boring, creepy too. "Think The Shining meets One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest," he tells girlfriend, Rebecca, over the phone, "sort of bleak and surreal with a few gormless patients wandering around like zombies." Perhaps she'd like to get her amazing bottom over there tonight and cheer him up? Rebecca, who'd been thinking along similar lines, enthusiastically consents. Felix retires to bed, counting down the minutes until ......
..... until a cerebrally dead little girl visits his room intent on scooping out his eyes with a screwdriver. The ensuing fracas sees Felix set upon and overpowered by the massed ranks of the cretinous. Paralysed on a gurney, the young medic realises he can't prevent the monstrous Dr. Rosenberg from removing his brain, but can he somehow warn Becks against driving straight into his clutches?
Andrea Janes - The Last Wagon In The Train: Parched and dead on his feet in the blistering desert sun, Tackett is not in the best of moods. He lost his horse and two saddlebags of gold during a shoot out with his duplicitous accomplice, and if he doesn't reach water soon, he's had it.
And then, he spots the wagon train.
A kindly wheelwright gives him drink, and welcomes him to "town". He explains that his entire community set off across the desert for the promised land of California, their cargo, a flat-packed town square, all ready for reassembly when they reach their destination. Tackett takes the man for a Goddam fool - where are the preacher, the doctor, the woodcutter and all those other clowns he keeps droning on about? Tackett resolves to murder him and make off with whatever it is he has secured in the tenth wagon, the one with the black cross painted on the canvas flap. But first, a few more strips of that odd-tasting jerky to get his strength up ....
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Post by dem on Nov 18, 2013 22:12:19 GMT
Finally, a grim novella from the super-prolific Sacrifice man. Paul Finch - Marshwall: Mrs Letitia Owen, 75, has not spoken to her daughter, Marissa, since the tragic events of nineteen years ago, save to inform her that she would not be welcome at father's funeral. Now aged 75, and conscious of her own mortality, Mrs. Owen breaks the lengthy silence by inviting Marissa to the family home for clear the air talks. Duncan MacKintyre, Marissa's live-in lover of four years, is all in favour of a reconciliation. An only (surviving) child, Marissa stands to inherit her mother's fifteenth century cottage on the Norfolk bog-land, and the property is sure to fetch a few bob on the market. From the tone of the old cow's letter, she can't have long to go! Blinded by £££ signs, Duncan is mortified when, on their arrival at Marshwall, Marissa is reassured by old Vicki the housekeeper, that, but for a bad case of hypochondria, Mrs Owen is in rude health, and likely to outlive them all. As Marissa suspected, the whole kiss and make up thing was a cruel ruse on her mother's part, just another excuse for the old bat to shame her over the death of her oh so saintly little boy, Albie. Had Marissa not been so busy flaunting herself before the gardener in her skimpy bikini, she might have prevented the child's bizarre death by rocking horse. From Duncan's perspective this is not going to plan at all, and things are about to get a whole lot worse. There's something nasty in the attic... And that's the ghastly and wildly entertaining volume ten. A world of necro nuns, transvestite cannibals, brain surgeons gone bad, torture porn perverts, bloody kids, weird wagon trains, extreme Mousetrap! abuse, the Bee Gees, a rabid rocking horse, and more, the whole smothered in a rancid dollop of human misery. Sure works for me.  |
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Post by Dr Terror on Nov 27, 2013 15:37:15 GMT
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Post by dem on Nov 28, 2013 13:34:19 GMT
"Not convinced by Dem's verdict" ??! "Not ****ing convinced by Dem's verdict" !!!! My dear Dr. T., the idea that anybody would question the sollim judgement of one whose flair for literatureness criticalism is unsurpassabled is, quite frankly, balderdash, poppycock, tommy-rot, pure fiction, and, furthermore, too preposterous for any words to be said! Lovely, positive review from Mr. Flint. "... no weak links in the selection". I'll go along with that. And another "Stiff" enthusiast, too! |
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Post by pulphack on Nov 28, 2013 19:02:12 GMT
Any fule kno that Dem is the FR Leavis of pulp kriticism!
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Post by dem on Jan 3, 2014 8:21:43 GMT
One day all new year greeting cards will look like this Many thanks to Gary Power for providing us with this fetching action photo of himself (mad surgeon) and the 'real' Ant and Justyna from his 10th Black Book shocker, Deeper than Dark Water. |
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Post by Swampirella on Nov 22, 2016 17:43:58 GMT
My copy just arrived; can't wait to start it later today or tomorrow. I've already read a few stories in it, but the rest should still be well worth the price  |
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