Best worst of 2014 as they happen ....

[dem bones]

Wilkes Street, Whitechapel, E1. Photo: Chrissie

It can't truly be considered a new year until you've acquired your first great/ abysmal charity shop/ bookstall finds. My 2014 semi kicked off when I scored Christopher Fowler's Bryant & May and The Memory of Blood plus *ahem* William Codpiece Thwackery's potentially ghastly Fifty Shades of Mr Darcy: A Parody in Spitalfields Crypt shop (Watney Market chapter), properly got under way with the arrival in the post of Craig Herbertson's The Heaven Maker & Other Gruesome Tales, and is now officially up and running thanks to the-lovely-people-at-Robinson who provided a copy of Stephen Jones & fiends' Psycho-Mania!. To celebrate, a first instalment in this year's 'best/ worst saga.

Novel

Paul Monette - Nosferatu, The Vampyre. A slicker Dracula. Minus the dull interludes (eg, the Lucy - Mina correspondence), plus properly nasty ending.

Collection

Craig Herbertson - The Heaven Maker & Other Gruesome Tales. Forty years on from their horrific school days, the curse of Bellport High continues to strike down the few surviving old boys and girls. Sadism as an art form, child-abuse, cannibalism, sex with a dead girl, bloody billiards, cosmic dooms and the evil influence of The 3rd Pan Book of Horror Stories. I still have six-seven to read, but it will take something very special to prevent this from topping my 'best single author collection' come December.

Various shorts

Another pair from Clarence Paget (ed.) 27th Pan Book of Horror Stories, which, while not bereft of pedestrian moments, is a better than decent late entry in the series.

Alan Temperley - Pebbledene: The Kowlongo Plaything man's 's meaty, beastly tribute to The Good Life (inspiration for the cover painting)

Jonathan Cruise - The House That Remembered: Murder and all manner of supernatural mayhem in a Kilkenny village when the last of the Fellmartin's comes to claim his inheritance.

Would also add Stephen King's I Know What You Need, except I can't bring myself to think of him as a Pan Horror author.

Four more from Stephen Jones & David A Sutton (eds.) - Dark Voices 6

J. L. Comeau – Siren: Sex-change made easy in sweet home Alabama.

Michael Marshall Smith - The Fracture: The four and counting faces of David. Not quite up there with vol 5's More Bitter Than Death, but another terrific North London horror from the excellent MMS.

Nicholas Royle - The Trees: That M. R. James meets Algernon Blackwood vibe.

Nancy Holder – As Green as Hope Itself: Properly horrible, so obligatory pretentious 'nineties title forgiven just this once.

From Johnny Mains - Frightfully Cosy And Mild Stories

Pretty much flew through Mr. Mains' second collection, the stand-outs for this reader being its more sombre offerings including The Rookery, The Tip Run, and The Cure. Other bright spots, Aldeburgh,a decidedly non-Jamesian sequel to A Warning To The Curious, and the Cheywynd-Hayes-ish legend of The Were-Dwarf

Film/ soundtrack

Strangest visual - audio treat of recent weeks was definitely F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, soundtrack provided by those groovy gloomsters, Type O Negative. The bulk of the material is lifted from October Rust, though the crushingly sad Death in The Family, and a Christian Woman edit also feature. OK, it can be a bit jarring at times, and if you detest TON this is unlikely to change your opinion, but to these ears, it's certainly preferable to suffering the Queen version (unbearable even with the sound muted). Red Water, arguably the most miserable celebration of Christmas in rock music, has surely found its spiritual home.

Those We Have Loved

Eusebio: Benfica / Portugal football legend died aged 71 on Sunday Jan. 5th, 2014.
Alexandra Bastedo; 'The Champions' super spy Sharron Macready, whose guest star appearances included 'The Saint', 'Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)', 'Jason King' and Tyburn shocker 'The Ghoul', died aged 67 on Sunday Jan. 12th, 2014

[Jojo Lapin X]

Jan 20, 2014 20:35:28 GMT dem bones said:

it's certainly preferable to suffering the Queen version (unbearable even with the sound muted).

What Queen version? Are you thinking of METROPOLIS?

[dem bones]

Jan 20, 2014 20:40:49 GMT Jojo Lapin X said:

Jan 20, 2014 20:35:28 GMT dem bones said:

it's certainly preferable to suffering the Queen version (unbearable even with the sound muted).

What Queen version? Are you thinking of METROPOLIS?

I don't own a copy but yes, there was a VHS video of Nosferatu with a Queen soundtrack. I know, because a work colleague inflicted his copy on me when I didn't have one, and needs must in a crisis.

[Jojo Lapin X]

Ok; I did not know this.

[pulphack]

When was this, Dem? Metropolis is bloody awful with the Queen soundtrack, and I shudder at the thought of Nosferatu with them going full pelt... I suppose this was all post-Flash (aaah-ah) - now that was a pretty good and apt soundtrack, and sold by the bucketload, so I can see the thinking here: 'Hey, we've got this dumb old movie with no sound - how about we get that band in who did Flasah Gordon? That's dumb old stuff, too...' Producers, doncha just love 'em?

[Dr Strange]

There are clips from Nosferatu in the "Under Pressure" video, but I've never heard of them doing a soundtrack for the film... was this maybe something put together by a fan after seeing the "Under Pressure" video?

[dem bones]

Jan 21, 2014 6:19:59 GMT pulphack said:

When was this, Dem? Metropolis is bloody awful with the Queen soundtrack, and I shudder at the thought of Nosferatu with them going full pelt... I suppose this was all post-Flash (aaah-ah) - now that was a pretty good and apt soundtrack, and sold by the bucketload, so I can see the thinking here: 'Hey, we've got this dumb old movie with no sound - how about we get that band in who did Flasah Gordon? That's dumb old stuff, too...' Producers, doncha just love 'em?

Jan 21, 2014 12:13:07 GMT Dr Strange said:

There are clips from Nosferatu in the "Under Pressure" video, but I've never heard of them doing a soundtrack for the film... was this maybe something put together by a fan after seeing the "Under Pressure" video?

This would have been the mid-late 'nineties. There was a newsagent across the road from then workplace who sold remaindered US paperbacks (Leisure, Zebra, the occasional Tor: they often had a groove cut across them) and boxes of withdrawn VHS tapes, kind of thing Poundland stores are prone to. Now I think of it, the only video I ever bought from him - The Psychedelic FursAll Of This and Nothing - was awful ropey in terms of quality, so could be they were bootlegs. Can't swear to it as I really did watch with the sound muted, but i'm sure as I can be that Queen's input amounted to much more than the Bowie collaboration.

[dem bones]

Anthologies

A little premature, perhaps, but with only seven three of forty stories to go, it would take a flat-line of Devon Loch proportion to deny Stephen Jones' Psycho-Mania! a place on this list. Highlights? Might just as well cut & paste the table of contents.

Sam Moskowitz's Horrors Unknown, meanwhile, eschews the 'greatest hits' route in favour of 'interesting' obscurities. Didn't think too much of it on first acquaintance, many moons ago, and five stories in, it's still the 'W. Fenimore' and supremely ridiculous Seabury Quinn vampire mummy yarn most tickle my fancy, though Ray Bradbury's The Pendulum, Edison Marshall's female Tarzan and the Robert E. Howard & Frank Belknap Long contributions to otherwise tedious round-robin story, The Challenge From Beyond, have also gone up in dem estimation.

Non-fiction revisited

Geoffrey Willans & Ronald Searle - Back In The Jugg Agane.

[dem bones]

Charity shops; Not entirely a dead end after all dept. Fave cover artwork of the moment;

Richard Matheson - The Shrinking Man (Gollancz, 2003: originally Gold Medal, 1956)

Chris Moore

Anthologies (revisited)

Hugh Lamb (ed) - Stories In The Dark. Liked it well enough on first acquaintance, but better the second time around. Three celebrated humorists leave their jokes at home to unite in the cause of the ghastly. Each acquits himself admirably. Personal picks would include Robert Barr's An Alpine Divorce and The Hour And The Man, Jerome K. Jerome's The Snake and The Woman of the Sæter and Barry Pain's Smeath and The Moon-Slave.

Anthologies (semi-revisited; what with this and that, never did get to finish vol 3 at the time).

Charles Black (ed.) - The Third Black Book Of Horror. Of those stories previously unread and/ or uncommented upon, particularly enjoyed;

Rog Pile - The Scavenger: A one-man diabolism for Jesus crusade is born when a mad priest adopts Black Magic versus perceived enemies of his God.

Gary McMahon - Takashi's Last Symphony: Revenge of the tortured artist. Contains scenes of extreme toy piano abuse. dem bonus point awarded for narrator hating The Beatles.

Steve Lockley & Paul Lewis - Family Ties: It's the zombie apocalypse, you are heavily pregnant, and your beloved husband returns from the daily forage intent on eating your brain. Can you bring yourself to shoot him in the head?

Paul Finch - In the Thicket: Stalker man turns his capable hand to an M. R. James tribute with genuinely creepy results.

Paul Newman - Widow’s Weeds: The curse of a Balinese witch spells ruin for civilised English gent and family.

Gary Fry - What We Cannot Recall: The pig-men are coming to kill us all!

Short Stories (mixed bag)

Barry Pain - Rose, Rose. Why Hugh Lamb chose not to include this tragic ghost story in Stories In The Dark is a mystery.

Neil Gaiman - The Wedding Present. Best stored in the attic and forgotten about - if only you could.

Chic lit!

William Codpiece Thwackery - Fifty Shades Of Mr. Darcy. Pitched somewhere between a Confessions of a Gothic Heroine and a post post-modern Lady Bum-Tickler's Revel. All my pleasures are guilty ones, but few more-so than this.

Magazine

Justin Marriott (ed.) - Paperback Fanatic 28. Just when you begin to delude yourself that you're making the tiniest dent in that rotten wants list, along comes a new issue ....

Missing you already ... (belated, admittedly, but its the thought that counts) Lovejoys, legendary book/ sleaze emporium on corner of Charing X Road/ Old Compton Street.

[Dr Strange]

Read "The Shrinking Man" a few years ago - I'm not much of a SF fan, but picked up an old edition somewhere (not the one pictured here) and thought I'd give it a go. Enjoyed it more than I thought I would - I particularly remember being surprised by some odd, round-about discussion of the implications of the shrinking man's situation with regards to his relationship with his wife.

[dem bones]

Charity shops; Not entirely a dead end after all dept. 2.

Simon Raven - Doctors Wear Scarlet (Panther, 1972)

Novella

Patrick McCabe - Hello Mr. Bones. A creepy supernatural thriller built around the uncomfortable theme of child molestation. The dead narrator is so dodgy you can never rely on his testimony which, on reflection, comes as a mercy. And to think I picked this up thinking it might be another Uncle Montague's Tales Of Terror. Hello to you too, Mr. McCabe.

Short Story

John Dickson Carr - The House In Goblin Wood. A plot laden with red herrings lulls you into a false sense of security: it's just your common or garden locked-room mystery with 'supernatural' trappings, right? And then ... Should have been included one of the earliest Pan Book of Horror volumes.

Anthology (revisited).

Dorothy L. Sayers (ed.) - Great Stories of Detection, Mystery & Horror: Vol 2.

The perhaps lesser known stories in the Mystery & Horror section make for my kind of grab bag. Some stories have worn far better than others, but they all got something.

Max Beerbohm - A. V. Laider. The whimsical business with the talking envelopes still grates, and Beerbohm never settles for one paragraph when ten will suffice, but the railway tale of terror interlude saves the day. Also sneaks some scary questions under the wire. Does free will even exist?

M. P. Shiel - The Primate Of The Rose: The Cask of Amontillado relocated to the wharves of the East End.

S. L. Dennis - The Second Awakening of a Magician. Circus intrigue. Just plain sad.

Stacy Aumonier – Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty: Bedroom farce involving the bluest of the blue rinse gorgons and the corpse of some insignificant foreign johnny. Perversely, I almost hope it was not intended as satire.

Eden Philpotts -The Iron Pineapple: Cornish grocer develops unhealthy attachment to railing ornament. Strangely enough, it makes for ideal companion piece to Mrs. Bracegirdle's adventure.

TV Eye

Inside Number 9

Series opener Sardines is The Cask of Amontillado: AD 2014, while A Quiet Night In is sadder the more times you view it. As friend Shrinkproof advises, investigate soonest

[dem bones]

Can't remember a month for so many great finds as that just gone, with the stuff coming thicker and faster than I could keep tabs on. Some highlights.

Novel

Agatha Christie - Ten Little Niggers

Mar 10, 2014 20:41:11 GMT Jojo Lapin X said:

Christie was an extremely slick writer, perhaps the slickest. Her texts offer absolutely no resistance; you are barely aware that you are reading something.

Dishonorable Mentions

Derek Hyde-Chambers - The Orgy Of Bubastis
Peter Tremayne - Angelus!
Fleshbait
Richard Laymon - Dark Mountain

Anthology

Robert Weinberg, Stefan Dziemianowicz, and Martin H. Greenberg (ed.) - 100 Wild Little Weird Tales

Non-fiction

Peter Haining - The Classic Era of American Pulp Magazines

Adam Clayson - Death Discs: An Account Of Fatality In The Popular Song

Reissued collection

L. A. Lewis - Tales Of The Grotesque

Short stories

A Mary Danby's Nightmare Trilogy Top Twelve.

Tony Richards -The Brother
Lucy M. Boston - Curfew
Alan W. Lear - Gruesome
Alison Prince - The Loony
Alan Temperley - Evening Flight
Terry Tapp - Heads and Tails
Johnny Yen - The Runaways
Mary Danby - Arbor Day
Johnny Yen - Barnacles
Alan W. Lear - Dead Letter
Samantha Lee - The Diary
Roger Malisson - Shadow of the Rope

Mixed bag

Paul McAuley - Negative Equity (Dark Terrors 2)
James Hale - The St. Christopher Medallion (Fontana Ghost 14)
L. P. Hartley - Fall In At The Double (Fontana Ghost 14)
Capt. George Field Eliot - His Brother's Keeper (100 Wicked Little Weird Tales)
Patrick McGrath - Blood Disease (Blood & Water)

******************

II. Best-worst of 2014 personal interlude. V. self indulgent, advise you skip.

Event

On Saturday 29th March 2014 I relearned the same old painful lesson: namely dogs should never revisit their own vomit ......

Prior to tackling David A. Riley's The Return, paid a pilgrimage to my personal Grudge End for first time in three decades and, but for a few landmarks - the clock-tower, the faithful old bench where I seem to have frittered away most of my teens - how devastating to find that the old haunts are no more! Speed hoodlum hangout The Case Is Altered ("Is there really anything on the outside of this place? Is there life beyond The Case?") has been obliterated. Likewise The Railway Hotel is as late as its most celebrated sometimes patron, the 'Monster in Black Tights' himself, David 'Screaming Lord' Sutch. The ahem, "atmospheric" Duke of Edinburgh, famed for a Loughville-like mist swirling from beneath its green doors no longer graces the corner of Peel Road. The Boxtree has been totalled in favour of luxury flats. The once Red Lion is boarded up (on the plus side, so is The Queens Arms). Infamously, Wealdstone F.C.'s lovely, ramshackle Lower Mead Stadium is a f**k**g Tesco's, and they now play four miles away in the blue rinse heartland. The old Windsor & Newton premises are derelict. At least the house where I grew up still stands, but no black plaque as yet - perhaps they ain't realised I'm dead. All told, the kind of sobering experience that requires a full-on two week bender supplemented by the mandatory lifetime's counselling to reconcile. By way of very mild consolation, there are a couple of charity shops on the High Street and I copped pristine copies of Dave Roberts' superlative The Bromley Boys - most appropriate in the circumstances - and Kim Newman's The Quorum. But - devastating.

Dulwich Hamlet fans celebrate being Dulwich Hamlet fans - and so they should, they're proper.
Photostory: Mike Urban, Brixton Buzz

After that, it was on to Grosvenor Vale, Ruislip, present home of aforementioned Wealdstone F.C. to catch their first versus second clash with Dulwich Hamlet F.C., and it was bloody brilliant, both in terms of the game itself - a pulsating 2-2 draw - and the vociferous and passionate support of both sets of fans, most notably the away side's pink and blue army who never shut up throughout. In recent years Hamlets' core trad working class support has been augmented by local anarchists with a flair for original chants ("Ain't no team like, Dulwich Hamlet, makes ne happy, makes me feel this way... ") and banners ("Dultras", "This is Tuscany"). One gent even travels with a massive DIY voodoo stick. Fell in love with 'em in a big way, I tell you.

[pulphack]

Blimey! 'He's here, he's there, he's every-f**&&!g-where, Scott McGleish, Scott McGleish!' The lower-leagues best-loved striker (well, he was at Orient) still banging them in down the pyramid. He must be nearly forty now, but apart from lack of pace, no REAL striker loses that goal touch. I love the little man (in a sporting fashion, naturally). And anarchists at Dulwich Hamlet? Sod the Premiershit, there's loads to be said for the lower leagues. Not that either of us need to say that...

[dem bones]

Apr 14, 2014 9:35:52 GMT pulphack said:

Blimey! 'He's here, he's there, he's every-f**&&!g-where, Scott McGleish, Scott McGleish!' The lower-leagues best-loved striker (well, he was at Orient) still banging them in down the pyramid. He must be nearly forty now, but apart from lack of pace, no REAL striker loses that goal touch. I love the little man (in a sporting fashion, naturally). And anarchists at Dulwich Hamlet? Sod the Premiershit, there's loads to be said for the lower leagues. Not that either of us need to say that...

Yeah, Mr. McGleish recently turned forty and he is still a class act. There's speculation that once he eventually hangs up his boots circa 2023, he'll go into lower league management. Needless to say, Scott scored the first v. Dulwich and won the man of the match award. The fans adore him. Stones, two up at half time, but were pegged back by a pair of long range scorchers. A seasons best attendance of 1 ,151, too, so I certainly picked the right match. WFC need just two points from remaining four games to win the Ryman Isthmian and step up the pyramid into Conference South - only those Bognor blighters can catch them now!. Dulwich looking good for a play off spot - would be delighted to see 'em come up too. And their Champion Hill ground is only a no. 40 bus ride away from Aldgate .....

[dem bones]

Walter M. Baumhofer

Anthologies

Robert Weinberg, Stefan Dziemianowicz, and Martin H. Greenberg (eds.) 100 Wild Little Weird Tales now firmly established as my best read of year to date. Further choice selections include;

Robert C. Sandison - Burnt Things. Revenge of the cinder people! Horrible!

Fritz Leiber - Alice and the Allergy. Revenge of the rapist's ghost. Harsh!

Maurice Level - The Cripple. Drowning woman presents our tragic invalid with a moral dilemma. Will he do the right thing? Charles Birkin would know.

Ethel Helene Coen - One Chance. Marie's daring escape from plague-stricken New Orleans ends in tragedy. Grimly feendish!

G. Appleby Terrill - The Church Stove at Raebrudafisk. Yeah, leave it to the blind guy to fire the furnace ....

Edmond Hamilton - The Seeds from Outside. Plant boy stole by baby.

Manly Wade Wellman - Parthenope. The siren's feast. His These Doth The Lord Despise later in book is pretty damn hot too.

Am also very much enjoying the orgy of body-snatching, torture, and mad goth mayhem that is Chris Baldick & Robert Morrison (eds.) The Vampyre & Other Tales of the Macabre.

Novels

Agatha Christie - The Pale Horse. A former pub down Bournemouth way is base of operations for a creepy trio offering murder to order by witchcraft, and no legal consequence for the client. Or is it all just hocus pocus mumbo jumbo?

David A. Riley - The Return. The Grudgenders summon forth the Great Old Ones.

Non-fiction

Martin Fido - The World of Agatha Christie. A very decent beginners guide.

RIP

Bob Hoskins
Eusebio