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Post by dem bones on Nov 26, 2015 23:38:26 GMT
David Forrest – The Undertaker’s Dozen (Tandem, 1974) The Cynic
The Ghostwriter
Shingle
Whoever You May Be …
Boys Will Be ….
The Pilgrimage
The Wrong Christmas Spirit
The Voyager
The Finger Man
Pillion Rider
The Blackamoor
The Undertaker’s Dozen
Spare Parts Inc.Blurb: Terror can have such simple beginnings—a child’s letter to Father Christmas…a lovely girl glimpsed in a London street…a spin down the Brighton Road…a night spent in an empty mansion for a bet.
And the consequences can be so fearsome, as the unsleeping dead walk again, as strange emotions stir inanimate things to murderous life, as horrors beyond our imagining cross the threshold into everyday life; can anyone be sure that all is as it seems?
After you have read this book, can you?If it's as good as Mark Samuels' review on Vault MK. I suggests, then The Undertaker's Dozen is not lacking in bookstasy potential. "London-based horrors, "it's like Amicus" endorsements, a guest appearance from a Vault delegation ('hippies, layabouts, student trouble-makers, drop-outs'), dolly-birds, and motor-cycle mash-ups ..." The book fairy is smiling on me again.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 27, 2015 23:20:26 GMT
The author of these stories, David Forrest, is a dual personality. David Eliades is a newspaperman, at present on the Daily Express foreign staff. Bob Forrest Webb is also a journalist, a sportsman, and a former big game hunter and engineer. As well as horror stories, they have together written several humorous novels, including And To My Nephew Albert ..., and Bob Forrest Webb the author of two adventure novels, THE SNOWBOYS, which has been published Tandem Books, and BRANNINGTON'S LEOPARD which will appear shortly.
The Ghost Writer: TV star Marcus Benedict's meteoric rise to fame is followed by equally rapid plummet into obscurity, alcoholism, and desertion by wife, who he curses as a "slut" and "whoring vampire," even going so far as to compare her unfavourably to a tapeworm. Yet deep down he knows Janet was one of God's martyrs to have stood by him through five years of misery. Even so, he decides to pen a suicide note, blaming Janet for his demise, knowing the guilt will crush her. As he pounds the keys, a strange thing happens. A ghost takes possession of the typewriter and knocks out a complete three act play, which sees Benedict back on his uppers, richer and more successful than ever. All is well until, some years later, he again crosses paths with Janet while dining in a swanky Chelsea restaurant with his latest floozy. All the old spite spews forth is a volley of foul abuse, mortifying Janet, appalling his date. Benedict is such a dislikeable scrote you can only hope the authors will do the decent thing and kill him off really horribly.
The Undertaker's Dozen: Sci-horror. A totally brilliant, gory accident in Lab 7D of the Governments controversial, not so secret germ-warfare testing compound! Only the decisive actions of Director Stafford - who gives orders to flood the contaminated room with concrete - prevents catastrophe. But - oh dear - turns out he was maybe a little too quick off the mark ....
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Post by pulphack on Nov 28, 2015 18:28:04 GMT
And To My Nephew Albert I Leave the Island What I Won Off Fatty Hagen In A Poker Game... I read that nearly thirty years ago, couldn't have told you the author for the world, but it was an unforgettable title and a pretty good book. Humour as in satire, I think, as Albert inherits this lump of rock that seems to be worthless until it becomes strategically important in a face-off between Cold war powers, after which Albert becomes a man very much in demand, while all he really wants to do is chill out on his rock...
I remember it fondly, and as it was a little quirky it's made me look at this thread again, and maybe hunt for a few 'David Forrest' titles...
Needless to say, it was that title that made me pick it up - off the second hand bookstall in Enfield market, I think - I got a fascinating 70's paperback biog of William Hurst at the same time. God, it all comes back. Books are my apricot madelaines, perhaps.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 28, 2015 20:54:24 GMT
And To My Nephew Albert I Leave the Island What I Won Off Fatty Hagen In A Poker Game... I read that nearly thirty years ago, couldn't have told you the author for the world, but it was an unforgettable title and a pretty good book. Humour as in satire, I think, as Albert inherits this lump of rock that seems to be worthless until it becomes strategically important in a face-off between Cold war powers, after which Albert becomes a man very much in demand, while all he really wants to do is chill out on his rock... I remember it fondly, and as it was a little quirky it's made me look at this thread again, and maybe hunt for a few 'David Forrest' titles... Needless to say, it was that title that made me pick it up - off the second hand bookstall in Enfield market, I think - I got a fascinating 70's paperback biog of William Hurst at the same time. God, it all comes back. Books are my apricot madelaines, perhaps. Eliades/ Webb make for a very capable team if The Undertaker's Dozen is the typical standard of their output. Unfussy, easy on the brain trad. horrors, set for the most part in 'seventies London. The pick of the four to date is The Finger Man, a primer on the correct way to respond should some pompous City gent snitch on you for lighting up in a 'no smoking' compartment (it helps if your job involves unsupervised rummaging in morgue drawers on a daily basis). The Pillion Rider sees a seventeen year old girl survive a motorcycle accident only to hear the doctor's discussing how tragic it is that she should die so young. The mortuary assistants compliment her on her "good tits ... what a waste" before crating her up for cremation. |
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Post by mcannon on Nov 28, 2015 22:37:46 GMT
And To My Nephew Albert I Leave the Island What I Won Off Fatty Hagen In A Poker Game... I read that nearly thirty years ago, couldn't have told you the author for the world, but it was an unforgettable title and a pretty good book. Humour as in satire, I think, as Albert inherits this lump of rock that seems to be worthless until it becomes strategically important in a face-off between Cold war powers, after which Albert becomes a man very much in demand, while all he really wants to do is chill out on his rock... I remember it fondly, and as it was a little quirky it's made me look at this thread again, and maybe hunt for a few 'David Forrest' titles... Needless to say, it was that title that made me pick it up - off the second hand bookstall in Enfield market, I think - I got a fascinating 70's paperback biog of William Hurst at the same time. God, it all comes back. Books are my apricot madelaines, perhaps. Struth, I thought I was about the only person in the world who knew that book! I read it in serial form in one of my grandmother's women's magazines (probably "The Australian Women's Weekly", "Woman's Day" or "New Idea") back in the early 1970s, but had long since forgotten the author and title when I spotted the paperback in a charity shop a decade or so back. Like Pulphack the quirky title caught my eye, I read the synopsis on the back cover, realised what it was and bought it, probably for the princely sum of 20 cents or thereabouts. I wonder just when serials in popular magazines finally died out? The last one I can recall seeing in Australia was, of all things, a severely truncated version of Stephen King's "The Dark Half". Mark |
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Post by pulphack on Nov 30, 2015 8:47:10 GMT
I feel pretty much the same way - finding that someone else has read ...Albert and I didn't imagine it is a actually a bit of a relief.
As for fiction serials and when they died out - I don't know about anywhere else, but in the UK the only serial fiction I can think of these days is in DC Thomson's Peoples Friend, and that seems to be written specifically for the magazine rather than a serialised adaptation of a novel. My Weekly, from the same stable, may do serials still, but I'm not sure (I'm actually filled with enough curiosity to go out and buy PF, MW and the same company's Weekly News just to see!). IPC's women's magazines do fiction specials in summer rather than run it regularly now, and that seems to to all short fiction. Oddly, the magazine that comes with the tabloid Sunday paper The People runs short fiction, which is an anomaly.
It's a pity, as many novelists of the past got initial audiences this way, and as a hack it was a nice way of getting some cash coming in. But those days, etc etc...
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Post by dem bones on Nov 30, 2015 16:05:42 GMT
Do the Sunday supplements still publish the occasional short story? It's been ages since I bought one. The Sunday M*il used to do 'em, because I kept the one which gave Chris Fowler's The Laundry Imp it's début, and it might also have been them ran a few Caroline Graham Midsummer Murders shorts, still, as far as I'm aware, uncollected, and sought after by fans. The much-missed genre-hopping pulp great Syd Bounds used to encourage his writing classes to pen "news" items and features for Take A Break et al to gain experience of a paying market.
The Undertaker’s Dozen continues to weave it's unpretentious magic. The stories have a Hammer House Of Horror/ Mystery & Suspense feel to 'em. The Wrong Christmas Spirit should have seen exhumation in a festive horror anthology by now. A child's wish list is caught by the wind and drops in the local cemetery. 'Santa' pays a visit. Equally effective, opening story The Cynic. Paula agrees to bin all her spiritualist junk if Greville still feels the same about ghosts after spending a night with her at a haunted house.
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Post by ripper on Dec 24, 2015 17:11:44 GMT
I am surprised to hear that 'People's Friend' and 'Weekly News' are still published. My mom used to have them every week, together with 'Titbits' and 'Woman's Own.' I seem to remember all included short stories, often a supernaturally-themed one at Christmas and/or Halloween. I had imagined 'People's Friend' and 'Weekly News' had folded years ago, but am pleased they are still being published. Just looking at Wikipedia, both still publish short stories, and also serials in 'People's Friend.' Sadly, 'Titbits' folded many years ago, but can boast the first published article by P.G. Wodehouse, no less.
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