Jeff Gelb & Mike Garrett - Hotter Blood

[dem bones]

Jeff Gelb & Michael Garrett (eds.) - Hotter Blood: More Tales Of Erotic Horror (Pocket, Jan 1991)

Introduction - Jeff Gelb & Michael Garrett

John L. Byrne - Nocturne
Richard Laymon - The Tub
Ray Garton - The Picture Of Health
Chet Williamson - Change Of Life
Nancy A. Collins - Demonlover
Kurt Busiek - Confession
Stephen Gresham - Wolf In The Memory
Gary Brander - To Have And To Hold
Lisa W. Cantrill - Cruising
Mick Garris - Dream On Me
Stephen Gallagher - DeVice
Paul Dale Anderson - The Best
J. N. Williamson & James Kisner - Something Extra
Kiel Stuart - Juice
Rex Miller - Surprise
Graham Masterton - Rococo
Elsa Rutherford - Dear Diary
Don D'Ammassa - The Splicer
R. Patrick Gates - A Hard Man Is Good To Find
Michael Newton - Bedroom Eyes
Lucy Taylor - Atrocities
John Shirley - Pearldoll
Karl E. Wagner - The Kind Men Like
Grant Morrison - The Braille Encyclopaedia

Author Biographies

The second book of the series - I think it eventually ran to ten. There was something of a trend toward erotic horror collections just then.

Ray Garton - The Picture Of Health: After attending one of his concerts, Caryl is seduced by her rock star hero Hawk who asks her to move in with him. It all seems like a fairytale come true ... except Hawk refuses to use a condom despite his having slept with hundreds of partners of both sexes. Soon Caryl is haunted by the disease-ridden corpses of Hawk's victims. Hawk, it transpires, has made a pact with Satan whereby he spreads Aids in return for immortality, and the picture in his attic is more hideous than that of Dorian Gray in his final moments. Killer ending.

Karl E. Wagner - The Kind Men Like: 'fifties glamour model Kirsti Lane (obviously based on Betty Page, who is mentioned several times in the text) disappeared at the height of her popularity, an exit that sparked many a wild rumour. "People said that Kirsty could get a little rough on the submissive model when she was the dominant one", her one-time photographer Steinman to Chelsea, who is trying to trace her for reasons which become apparent at the (spectacular) close of the story. "I know some of the girls wouldn't work with her unless they played the mistress."

Nancy A. Collins - Demonlover: Sexually frustrated Sina encounters a man in a club to whom she's almost painfully attracted. When she returns with him to his motel room he undresses to reveal that the lower half of his body is that of a snake. Feral is the demon lover of her dreams, her longing having brought him into existence. They embark on a murder and robbery spree before he introduces her to the family.

Chet Williamson - Change Of Life: Leonard Drew, a salesman known for his adaptability, is transformed first into a grizzly bear then a bull after propositioning Lisa at the Ramada Inn. Presumably intended to be humorous but it's the story of Williamson's I've least liked.

Gary Brander - To Have And To Hold: Harry Croft finds sex with his wife a far more fulfilling pursuit than he did before the kids were offed by an axe-murderer, though the constant interruptions from the police are a nuisance. Especially as they are investigating the disappearance of Mrs. Croft ...

Kurt Busiek - Confession: A vampire attends an AA meeting. Roger has sworn never to drink blood from source, surviving instead on refrigerated bottles of plasma (a poor second), but temptation is ever-present as he is irresistible to women. "These deeply felt, seductive smiles on the faces of women who would have nothing to do with me in life - it isn't me they're smiling at at all, its the curse. Its insulting to me, degrading to them and it never, never ends." With all these besotted creatures throwing themselves at him, it will be a miracle if Roger's resolve hasn't weakened by the end of this one.

Don D'Ammassa - The Splicer: Scott Barkin is a ticket collector, usher and projectionist at the fleapit Managansett Cinema, and he's worried. Somebody is messing with the films, inserting sexual scenes of violence and depravity which were certainly never included in the original prints.

"The first feature was Night Of The Comet. For a long time Scott was afraid that there would be no change in the script, that this would be another fruitless night. But when the insane stockboys stripped and spanked the two sisters before tying them up he knew his quarry was in the cinema ... two suspects remained, Acne Face and the quiet boy ... The second feature was Wavelength, a relatively low key story about a young couple who stumble on a secret military base where three extra terrestrials are imprisoned ... The story unrolled before him, but Scott's mind was elsewhere as Robert Carradine and Cherie Currie made their way through the tunnels, eventually to be discovered and captured. He was so preoccupied, in fact, that he never did see how the girl's sweater was lost during the struggle with the guard, and only the brutality of the beating administered afterward was enough stimulus to startle him from his reverie."

By a process of elimination Scott discovers that young loner Chuck Scusset is responsible for the insertions, having the mind-bending powers to project his fantasies onto the screen. Unfortunately for Scott, this is far from the extent of his bizarre abilities and he's not really the type of guy you'd want to cross ...

R. Patrick Gates - A Hard Man Is Good To Find: Euw! So that's why they call them 'cockroaches' ....

Lisa discovers that dead guys last longer when she shacks up for the weekend with a coke-addled construction worker. He has a stroke mid-session, but she's kinda preoccupied and doesn't notice at first.

Lucy Taylor - Atrocities: While Derek Mosby is entertaining his secretary Radell in a New York hotel room, his alcoholic wife Jess is hanging herself back home in Suburbia having just been on the receiving end of a spiteful phone call from her husband's mistress - or so she thinks. The kids, Blair and Woody, cut her down and put her to bed as though nothing has happened. They're fed up with their childish parents and desperate measures are called for ...

[andydecker]

Well, I lied. I don´t have Hot Blodd, I have Hotter Blood

Strangely Publisher Bastei threw the second volume onto the market, without rhyme or reason, and omitted the first. Don´t ask me why. As this was a regular bookmarket publication, long after the slim newsstand books of the 70s, the content is complete.


The first volume was published years later by Festa Publishing, one of our prominent Small Press Horror publishers who had the foresight to get the rights of Brian Lumely´s Necroscope, which no massmarket publisher ever wanted, but which for him seemingly paid the bills. Festa does mostly translations, ranging from a Lovecraft edition to Graham Masterton or Jeffrey Thomas, mostly in Hardcover. He even did a limited edition of Kim Newman´s Seven Stars. This is typical niche-publisher with an esoteric line-up for the german market.

Back to the topic. On the massmarket front, Gelb seemingly wasn´t that successful to merit the continuation of the series. Short stories just don´t sell.

Bastei-Lübbe, 1992

This one has a different cover than the Pocket, but the content is the same. I bought it second hand, and I seem to remember I did it only because the line-up was kind of bizarre.

Never in a horror antho I found so much comic writers. Kurt Busiek, John Byrne of all writers, Grant Morrison. And Michael Newton, for god´s sake, who wrote dozen´s of true crime and a hundred Executioner or more, who as a young guy even ghosted for the man himself, Don Pendleton.

the only story I can remember is Grant Morrison´s The Braille Encyclopaedia, which truly is a nasty piece of work.

[dem bones]

Here's a french edition, Histoires De Sex Et De Sang 2 (J'ai lu, 1999), striking artwork a clipped, monster-free edit of Tim White's original as seen in its full glory on cover of Ramsey Campbell's New Tales From The Cthulhu Mythos.

I stopped on the Hot Blood series after the first three as it seemed to me there was a big law-of-diminishing-returns thing going on. First one great. Second one has its moments. Third one, "a bit of a struggle" ....

[ohthehorror]

Published as an ebook by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc. in January 2011.

Cover art by John Fisk

It appears from the receipt, that I've had this book on my kindle for almost exactly a year, and I've not so much as glanced at the Contents until last night when I went looking for another book to read and couldn't decide upon one, so I chanced to see what I had stored in the cloud, which is when I realized that I hadn't read any of this at all. I was also surprised to see that Richard Laymon has a story in this one too, so that sold me on giving it a try. And I'm glad I did too. I've only read two stories from it so far, but they were both extremely enjoyable and I'm now looking forward to reading all the rest. Incidentally, I was pleasantly surprised to see they're up to volume 13! I haven't been so pleased at the prospect of all those future pleasures since I finished the first John Norman and wondered if there was a sequel, only get the shock of my life when I saw 36 of the buggers looking back at me.

Anyway, onward.

The Tub - Richard Laymon. Now, I have read a few of Richard Laymon's short stories before. I think it was in Fiends, but I'm not sure. I can't for life of me remember anything about them though so I didn't really know what to expect. I needn't have worried since this was a real doozy. A woman has an affair with a muscle-bound, giant of a man and he comes round to her place for a bit of fun whenever the husband is working away. She really wants to do it in the bath, which it would seem is her husbands pride and joy, only to get herself stuck and trapped under her hunk of a man when he pops his clogs while on-the-job. She's stuck fast and it takes all her ingenuity to extract herself from her predicament, especially once her husband eventually comes home and decides to leave her just as she is and go off on little beach holiday. He hasn't counted on her ingenuity though and gets the surprise of his life when he returns. I saw her solution to her predicament coming pretty early on, but it was still a great ride for all that. If this is a typical example of Richard Laymon's short stories then I'll look forward to more.


The Picture of Health - Ray Garton. A very modern re-telling of The Picture of Dorian Grey if I'm not very much mistaken. Caryl Dunphy, a 20 year old virgin has her head turned by her rock star idol at one of his concerts and is soon shacking up with him. It's not long before she's seeing ghostly people who look like they've seen better days, and is getting warnings about sleeping with her man unprotected. There are further warnings as time goes on about a locked room in his house. She soon sees an opportunity to investigate the mysterious room, and you can probably guess the rest. There were no surprises here, and it was pretty obvious what this story was and where it was going very early on. It was another good little story that keeps you reading even though you know exactly how it's going to end. Very enjoyable. 


These two have been really good. I find that sometimes with these books that market the erotic element, they can go a little overboard with the sex and eroticism at the expense of the story, but this is certainly not the case here. At least, not with these first two anyway. I'm not reading these in order, so I'm jumping to a female author next since I've read two by male authors. It's only fair. 

[ripper]

I bought the first two or possibly three volumes in the 'Hot Blood' series, together with a number of other erotic horror anthologies of the late 80s/early 90s, but now find that I can remember few of the stories. The only one that brought back memories so far from 'Hotter Blood' is the Garton tale. There were a few similar stories around at the time where a rock band or member thereof turns out to be a satanist or Satan himself or something else devilish, and some besotted female fan finds out to her cost.

[ohthehorror]

I very nearly bought one of Ray Garton's novels while I was searching Amazon actually, Live Girls, but held off for some reason. I've had it on my to-read list ever since I saw Will Errickson's review for it on his Too Much Horror Fiction blog. I'll have to bump it up the list I think.

Next up is a story by someone I've come across before. In fact, it was one of the first ebooks I bought I think. It was called The Safety of Unknown Cities and it was by Lucy Taylor. Having just looked up my review for it on goodreads, I find the very first sentence says, 'My god! I really wish I hadn't read this book.', and then I proceed to gush about what a great writer she is. I ended up giving it 4 out of 5 stars.

Atrocities - Lucy Taylor. Well, having pretty much promised myself all those years ago that I'd never read another word this author wrote, the words 'sado-masochist torture-porn' spring to mind, I, of course made a bee-line for it the moment I saw her name. It's not nearly as sadistic as that novel I mentioned above, thank god. In fact, it's rather good. Little Blair is quite nicely deranged and doesn't seem to have much trouble taking control of things, including Daddy who is suitably shocked to find his little girl not only dressing in her Mum's gear, but actually seems to be turning into her. There's a bit of an 'eeek!!' moment when she acts the part a little too well and starts to grind her hips against Daddy when hugging him. Needless to say, he's a little taken aback by this behaviour and gives her a fair old slap across the chops. If Mummy's corpse upstairs is anything to go by though, I'd say it's all a bit too little, too late. Very well written, and certainly hits all the right freaky-horror type spots. Nice.

 

[ohthehorror]

Dear Diary - Elsa Rutherford. This might be my favourite so far. It's told in the first person by what might seem like several different women paying visits to a Dr Fillmore. We watch on as each of the women display quite different personalities and venture differing opinions upon what they think of him. Amongst others I recognised Joan(of Arc), and Cleopatra(of course). Subsequently, one of the women, a woman who we learn at the very end calls herself Lizzie, is disgusted when she walks into his office and finds both it and him in complete disarray. His hair is wet and matted and he stares up unblinkingly at her with his mouth hanging open. She leaves and heads for the front door of the building only to have the axe taken out of her hand by the 'doorman' who then escorts her back up in the elevator. It's a short one, but very, very effective. The sense of differing personalities and Lizzie's surprise/shock at the end when she walks into the office to find that Dr Fillmore has become a 'gurgling slob' is very well done. I really liked this one.

[ohthehorror]

The Braille Encyclopaedia - Grant Morrison. I've been reading a few stories from this anthology today and this one really stood out. A lonely, blind young woman is approached by a man in a cafe while her Mum is seeing to the coffees and tells her his name is 'L'Index'. He promises to be there tomorrow if she wishes to learn more about the 'Braille Encyclopedia'.

Back home in her room, she puts Debussy on her walkman, unzips her skirt and goes to it(as it were). I mention this simply because it seemed rude not to. After this delightful little diversion she vanishes with her new friend and is whisked away to a chateau where various unspeakable things are enacted upon the extremely willing and receptive Patricia, and all within spitting distance of a child-angel who's being used and abused by the various members of the aforementioned Braille Encyclopedia. Patricia, being a game sort of a girl, seems to enjoy it all immensely and subsequently finds herself stripped of her remaining senses whilst strapped to a chair and is formally admitted as one of the hundreds of people who make up the Encyclopedia. Her former identity as Patricia now having been sufficiently obliterated, she finds herself newly named as, The Meat Chamber.

Definitely one of those stories that makes you wish you hadn't read it yet just so you could read it again for the first time.

[dem bones]

Graham Masterton - Rococo: "There's a pattern in the world, that's all. A symmetry. Blessed are those who have, and cursed are those who don't. You're one of the haves." Margot, an account executive, the richest woman she knows, attracts a not-so-secret admirer. James Blaskoe's pleasure is in showering her in ever more extravagant gifts - the rarest of jewels, the most exquisite perfumes - culminating in a sex aid that once belonged to Queen Nefertiti. But things are not as rosy as they seem. Blaskoe is a Wandering Jew/ Typhoid Mary figure, a tramp roaming from city to city, dealing death to those he favours. "For every bag-lady who died in a trash-filled doorway, one of life's brighter flowers had to be plucked."

Stephen Gresham - Wolf In The Memory: Thirteen-year-old Dyson Bonner's hots for witchy music teacher Lavinia Wolf are reciprocated, but ever-vigilant fledgling psycho, Mrs. Eudora Hoagland (Eng) is on their case. Not particularly macabre, though the illicit lovers are lucky to escape with their lives.

Elsa Rutherford - Dear Diary: A woman with multiple, very famous personalities, none of whom like their therapist, Dr. Fillmore.

Paul Dale Anderson - The Best: Helen's insatiable desire is bad news for every guy in the neighbourhood. She can only get off on their death throes. Loving husband is in the best position to cover for her crimes.

J. N. Williamson & James Kisner - Something Extra: Ron and Monica fantasise about one another during love-making with their respective partners. Turns out that mental cheating is not the safest form of safe sex after all.

Rex Miller - Surprise: Company boss Warren Childress sure gets one when he finds out who his sex-kitten on the side is working for. A 'How to divorce a multi-millionaire and ruin him' primer. The 'horror' content might have been added as an afterthought.

Liked Masterton's, wasn't especially impressed with the rest.

[pbsplatter]

Lisa W. Cantrell - Cruising: Danny Norvill isn't the richest or most popular kid in school, but his Jaguar XJ6 is probably the coolest car, and he loves it. His lust for the Jag is exceeded only by his lust for Karen, and tonight he's going to meet up with her. There she is now. . .with that jock Brad on her arm! Danny follows their car up to lovers' lane. He's going to keep his date one way or another. . .

It's nice and sleazy, with a very nasty ending. Could have been a story from Bruce Jones' Twisted Tales. 

[pbsplatter]

John L. Byrne - Nocture: Edelman lives a lonely, unhappy life, in part due to his history of delusions (now cleared up with therapy). His only solace from his work at DeVere Pharmaceuticals is fantasy literature and role-playing games--until he learns that dream girl model Rachel McNichol lives in his building. She doesn't take to him either, even after he catches her in his strong arms, so it's time to stalk her. And that's when he stumbles upon Nocture: The Book of Night Journeying. It's not just something that his formerly-favorite fantasy writer David Sinclair made up--it's real, and now astral projection means he can access her, or anyone else. Which is very bad news for Rachel, as well as for any other guests she happens to have. . .

Strong choice for an opener; good nasty stuff.  

[pbsplatter]

Michael Newton - Bedroom Eyes: Milo Grymdyke, 37, is a virgin who frequents the peep show at the Ecstasy Arcade. One night, a swarthy woman is giving a performance when she seems to wink at him with an eye in her nether regions. A little bribery at the front desk gets him her name—Laney Thatcher. He tracks her down and surprise, agrees to a date! Meeting at her oddly bare house, she tells him she’s a Greek immigrant—her real name is Lamia Thanatos…


You think you’ve read this story before, but the twist at the end is a decent subversion of a stock sex horror plot.

[pbsplatter]

John Shirley - Pearldoll: LA urchin Candy runs into ex-boyfriend Frank, who dropped off the face of the earth weeks ago. Turns out Frank was laid low after OD’ing following the death of his ex girlfriend Pearldoll. Pearldoll was into weird voodoo stuff and killed her self as a sacrifice. Could this have anything to do with The Face Eater, a serial killer who’s been munching his way through LA’s underbelly?

It’s Shirley so you know it delivers. A pleasure to read.

[pbsplatter]

This is still a strong collection I think. There is a lot more filler and some of the stories aren’t even really horror or even fantasy or SF (the Gresham, Williamson/Kisner, and Miller pieces). And I ultimately found the Laymon a little underwhelming.

Still, this collection has some heavy hitters—the Gallagher, Shirley, Taylor (my favorite), Morrison, Masterton and Garton all anchor this collection and are the most disturbing and provocative. Among the “second string” I really love the Cantrell—it reads like a Bruce Jones story in the nastiest way—and the Boyce. “The Splicer” is tons of fun with a really gross ending, and it would have been a shoe-in for a Silver Scream II.

And the Wagner story is…something else

It’s also interesting how omnipresent AIDS is in this collection; it comes up again and again, as does the related interest in safe sex.