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Post by dem bones on Nov 27, 2013 4:47:29 GMT
... It's the most wonderful time of the year, etc ....... but unfortunately, it's also the season of begging with menaces, because December 1st sees return of the wretched Vault Advent Calendar! Usual rigmarole. Wanted: Short horror and/ or supernatural fiction! Acceptable themes: Creepy nuns, sadistic surgeons, sex with dead people, (sex with live people if you must), black sorcery, obnoxious authors, slimy fans, murder at the fancy dress party, killer insect insurrections, sporting horrors, skewered eyeballs, rotting corpses, grave-robbers & body-snatchers, peeping toms, beastly cads, entrails, leprosy and other exotic diseases, all grist to mill. As is just about everything else just so long as its properly horrid! How?: Either PM me, or email story for consideration direct to whitechapelgothic Atgmail.com. Please name message 'Vault Advent Calendar' or similar so as not to confuse my spam filter. When?: It starts this Sunday, so best look lively. The story to dateIndex 2010-11And: Index 2012Please give 'til you can give no more. It's Christmas, after all
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Post by dem bones on Nov 29, 2013 7:45:38 GMT
ADVERTISEMENT Two days and the agony will be upon us. Two days - and our calendar is looking decidedly threadbare! On the plus side, the ads are getting worse, but that will be of little consolation come Sunday if all we have to say for ourselves is Bram Stoker rarity, Dracula's Guest, and - *exclusive* - twenty-three lugubrious selections from I, A floater on The Styx & other sonnets of self-loathing (Lulu World Classics, forthcoming), aka the dreaded dem "poetry" collection. Where are proper Vault people? You can't all be in prison! Remember, December can be magic again, but only if you support the 4th annual Vault Christmas Appeal!A very sincere thank you to those generous souls who have already succumbed. What can I say, but it will be a rare privilege to reproduce your work!
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Post by dem bones on Dec 1, 2013 7:01:05 GMT
This year, thought it best to start how we mean to go on. with something NASTY. The late Charles Lloyd (1907-1986) was the mysterious editor of the zero-budget Creeps anthologies, to which he contributed several stories, later collected under his real name as Devil Spawn. When the series was cancelled in 1936, Mr. Lloyd disappeared from horror fiction until 1964 when his friend, Dennis Wheatley, persuaded him to pen new material for his forthcoming Arrow anthologies, A Quiver Of Horror and Shafts Of Fear. Lloyd responded with a ghoulish missionaries-in-peril romp, and the now celebrated/ reviled A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts, arguably among the most extreme horror stories ever published. Most of you will know the rest and, suffice to say, Mr. Lloyd is not so mysterious these days. The Cockroach is an early, compact version of a story the author would later expand upon as Paris Pilgrimage for his 1966 collection, Where Terror Stalked. Good as it is, I still prefer the punchy original. Charles Lloyd - cockroach.pdf (62.96 KB)
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Post by mcannon on Dec 1, 2013 8:41:06 GMT
Thanks, Dem! Looking forward to this, and the further seasonal nastiness to come!
(Speaking of nastiness, it's the first day of Summer in this part of the world, yet I've managed to come down with the worst cold I've had in years. Hopefully this cheery tale will warm me up.)
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Dec 1, 2013 8:46:02 GMT
"half as many women of the type politely known as " unfortunate,""
Classic line. Another gem to start the run down to Christmas. .
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Thana Niveau
Devils Coach Horse
We who walk here walk alone.
Posts: 109
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Post by Thana Niveau on Dec 1, 2013 9:36:37 GMT
Hooray! I'm determined to read all the stories this year.
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Post by mattofthespurs on Dec 1, 2013 17:01:44 GMT
A fantastic start. I love Christmas
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Post by dem bones on Dec 2, 2013 7:50:04 GMT
Today's terror treat is courtesy of the king of the spicy pulps, Robert Leslie Bellem (1902 - 1968). Further comment would be superfluous. Thanks to Larry Estep's indispensable Pulp Gen, several of Mr. Bellem's famous 'Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective' adventures are available to download, but, to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time I Am A Monster, ( Spicy Mystery Stories, Jan. 1937), has suffered the same fate. A sincere 'Thank you' to all those kind souls who have sent in a story - had to invent an entire new Vault *bonus* feature to accommodate one particular offering, and that will be coming mid-month. The way things are shaping up, the contemporary crowd may well be making an appearance earlier than usual this year. The submissions have come in so fast, that i've still two to read, so if you've not heard back from me yet, please be patient! Get well soon, Mark! Attachments:I am a Monster.pdf (127.93 KB)
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Thana Niveau
Devils Coach Horse
We who walk here walk alone.
Posts: 109
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Post by Thana Niveau on Dec 2, 2013 8:49:47 GMT
"Lots of women have a sort of cat-like look - it doesn't mean anything." That was definitely something special. I can't help wondering how he wrote it all down, though, with his crab-like claws.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 3, 2013 6:32:31 GMT
"Spectre versus Rector!" Day three, and a Terror tale of the Cotswolds if ever was. The Rev. William Fairlee Clarke (1875-1950) authored a number of ghost stories during the 1920's, apparently without giving any consideration to their publication. Several years after his death, on the advice of Hugh Lamb, Miss Monica Fairlee Clarke forwarded her father's manuscripts to Rosemary Pardoe who published two long pieces as 99 Bridge Street (Haunted Library, 1982), followed by the exceptional The Poor Nun of Burtisford, which appeared in both Ghosts & Scholars: 4 (1983) and The Best Of Ghosts & Scholars, (1986). With grateful thanks to Rosemary Pardoe of the consistently excellent Ghosts & Scholars
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 3, 2013 8:16:32 GMT
The Cockroach is an early, compact version of a story the author would later expand upon as Paris Pilgrimage Perfect and tasteful Christmas cheer!
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Post by jamesdoig on Dec 3, 2013 8:27:03 GMT
Today's terror treat is courtesy of the king of the spicy pulps, Robert Leslie Bellem (1902 - 1968). Further comment would be superfluous. And that's one of the maddest things I've ever read - great stuff
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Dec 3, 2013 13:00:56 GMT
Today's terror treat is courtesy of the king of the spicy pulps, Robert Leslie Bellem (1902 - 1968). Further comment would be superfluous. Thanks to Larry Estep's indispensable Pulp Gen, several of Mr. Bellem's famous 'Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective' adventures are available to download, but, to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time I Am A Monster, ( Spicy Mystery Stories, Jam. 1937), has suffered the same fate. A sincere 'Thank you' to all those kind souls who have sent in a story - had to invent an entire new Vault *bonus* feature to accommodate one particular offering, and that will be coming mid-month. The way things are shaping up, the contemporary crowd may well be making an appearance earlier than usual this year. The submissions have come in so fast, that i've still two to read, so if you've not heard back from me yet, please be patient! Get well soon, Mark! "But Morna, beloved,” you argued gently. "After all, she’s been my neighbour for a number of years; we’ve been good friends. There's no harm in taking dinner with her.” I think there might be....
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Dec 3, 2013 13:44:43 GMT
WILLIAM FAIRLIE CLARKE -
sadly discovered where my true literary taste lies as I found this to be a bit poor man James and vastly preferred the preceeding two.
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Post by David A. Riley on Dec 3, 2013 16:25:55 GMT
I really enjoyed The Poor Nun of Burtisford by William Fairlie Clarke. I've not come across him before, but it was a deceptively easy read with a quite horrific climax.
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