Johnny Mains - A Little Light Screaming

[dem bones]

Johnny Mains - A Little Light Screaming (Parallel Universe, 2015)

David Whitlam

Alison Moore - Introduction

Resuscitation Andy
The Case of the Revenant
Blossom
The Girl on the Suicide Bridge
The Foul Mass at Tongue House
Paintings (with Simon Bestwick)
A Forest of Lonely Deaths
Sticking Your Head Out Is Dangerous
The Curse of the Monster (with Bryn Fortey)
The Gamekeeper

Author's Mumbles: Part 3
Acknowledgements

Resuscitation Andy: Off to an impressive start with a contemporary variation on John Collier's timeless Special Delivery. When Andy, an obese burger-monster, keels over and dies in the Scout Hut, his spirit passes into a resuscitation dummy set aside for this afternoon's St. John's Ambulance session. Chief trainer Tabitha, who valiantly fights to save Andy, has just been callously dumped by live-in lover Rob, and it hurts. She takes home the dummy on a whim. Soon they are more than friends.

Both parties derive much from their unusual relationship. Tabitha uses the dummy as both sex aid and confidante, essence-of-Andy has loving companionship for the first time. All is well until Randy Rob calls unexpectedly, all full of remorse and promises that this time it will be different (flaunting his enormous dick in her face seals the deal). Our plastic pal is understandably upset and angry at this development, but he needn't worry ... Probably my favourite of Mr. Mains' stories since The Rookery.

The Case of the Revenant (Simon Clark [ed.] The Mammoth Book Of Sherlock Holmes Abroad, Robinson, 2015). An entire family slaughtered in the frozen Austrian countryside. It seems a "dead" soldier has returned to take revenge on his widow for having a child by another man. A grumpy Holmes unmasks a killer whose motive will not sit well in the official records.

Sticking Your Head Out Is Dangerous: As unveiled on the 2014 Vault Advent Calendar (read here). Tough on young Alice, a dream come true for the heroic passenger in the grey suit ...

The Foul Mass At Tongue House: Christmas 1927, Tongue House, in the hills overlooking Loch Duibh. Dr. Sharman Summers' demon-raising activities prove fatal to his innocent old housekeeper, leaving Summers and his cohorts, who include the parish priest and the local bobby, with a dilemma. It is imperative they remain free to practice dark occult rites but how to conceal their complicity in Mary McDougal's appalling death? The reader wills the smug sorcerer to pick the worst possible option, and, happily, he obliges.

[dem bones]

Blossom (Poor Souls' Light: Seven Curious Tales, Curious Tales, 2014). All those happy years together and two lovely kids but now Elizabeth Danby has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, husband Simon can't wait to be rid of her. Still she clings to life, a shrunken, wispy haired imposter of the woman he married. Finally he convinces her that her continued presence at home is upsetting the children, better for everyone that she ends her days in the comfort of Dr. Maybury Bannard's hospice ...

I''ve not read the Poor Souls Light anthology, but find it hard to believe that a nod to one of it's inspiration's most famous strange tales constitutes "the only real tribute to Aickman" in the book.

Paintings: Co-written with Simon Bestwick. Bad enough to lose first his mum, then his beloved wife, but when daughter Amy goes skating on the lake and falls through the ice, Christopher's life is as good as finished. All he has left is painting, each horrific canvas a tribute to his lost little girl.

A very sad story, tied with Resuscitating Andy as my pick of the little light screamers so far.

The Girl on the Suicide Bridge (Scott Harrison [ed.] Beside The Seaside: Stories Set Around The Yorkshire Coast, Snowbooks, 2014). Another good 'un. Sadness and sacrifice. Ben Tabster, 17, hangs himself from Scarborough's Valley Bridge. Sister Elsie, 13, is heartbroken, but Mr. and Mrs. Tabster are themselves too grief-stricken to comfort her. Elsie's impulse is to follow Ben's example, but the notorious suicide spot, which has already seen too much sorrow, finds her a greater purpose. In short, a modern fairy tale.

[dem bones]

The Curse of the Monster: First read this when Mr. Mains kindly donated it to our most recent Advent Calendar where, by our woeful standards, it drew a favourable response. I liked it well enough on first acquaintance, but it's always preferable to encounter a story in physical book form, and that's certainly the case with this manic all-action romp.

The Corn Exchange, 1901. As Queen Victoria nears her death, MP Archibald Thomas Rhymer's insult to Goraknath, a visiting Nepalese Yogi, leads to dreadful repercussions both for himself and the Empire. Goraknath's curse sees Rhymer slowly transformed into 'the Hyde Park Ripper,' a death dealing man-beast with a thing for tearing off heads. It is left to young Winston Churchill to curb Rhymer's reign of terror and utilise his talents on the war front.

An all star cast includes H. G. Wells, Michael Collins, IRA supremo, Edward Henry of the Yard, and shady Lord Rothmere, a frequenter of Whitechapel during a particularly terrible Autumn for prostitutes.

A Forest of Lonely Deaths: Lintonash Forest is an inexplicably popular suicide spot. From 1950 to the present, hundreds have hung, stabbed or shot themselves in dark and lonely corners of the woods. Imagine desperately craving to follow their example and failing over and over again.

[dem bones]

The Gamekeeper: A sprawling 80 page homage to (I think!) At The Mountains Of Madness. Action flits between the late 'forties and nineteen seventy. Difficult to summarise without giving the game away, but here goes.

Winter of 1946. Roger Casement, eight, accompanies his father on a deer-hunt in the Highlands. As they head home down the mountain with their prize, Dad falls, breaks his leg and suffers a fatal heart attack. A mortified Roger heroically drags the body to the Loch where it will be easier for the ambulance team to locate, and heads back for the shelter of the car. Something picks up the vehicle and hurtles it down an incline. Roger finds himself lost in a cavern.

Eight months pass. Roger, long given up for dead, is found naked and half dead on a jetty. He has no recollection of what happened to him. On examining Roger, Dr. Hogarth is mystified at the runic symbol scorched into his back. Word reaches Dr. Peter Swan, Satanist and all round master of esoteric lore, who takes a deep, extremely unhealthy interest in the boy.

Twenty-three years later, Roger has achieved his ambitions. He's a gamekeeper like dad, a devoted husband and father to Amanda and Shaun. But he's still haunted by vague memories of his troubled past. Comes the day when he chances upon a knife-man "raping" a woman in the road. Too far away to reach them before the fiend can do his worst, Roger takes aim with his rifle ....

As Roger's life unravels in the aftermath of this tragedy, so he - and we - get to discover the secrets of his youth and the terrible destiny that is his to fulfil.

One thing we can say without fear of contradiction is that The Gamekeeper is not lacking in incident - child abuse, alcoholism gone to madness, bogus snuff movies, matricide, hypnotism, in-jokes, threat from subterranean little purple bastards, etc. - but, having established a compelling mystery, seems to me the writing flags toward the end and the closing chapter in particular looks rushed. The credits advise that this is a different version of the novella which appeared in Scott Harrison (ed's) Whispers in the Dark: Three Cthulhu Novellas Set Between The 1940s And The Present Day (Snowbooks, 2015), which I've not read, so can't compare edits.

That criticism apart, I had a good time with A Little Light Screaming, and Resuscitation Andy, The Girl On The Suicide Bridge, and Paintings are excellent.

[Swampirella]

Jul 21, 2016 17:02:31 GMT dem bones said:

Johnny Mains - A Little Light Screaming (Parallel Universe, 2015)

David Whitlam

Alison Moore - Introduction

Resuscitation Andy
The Case of the Revenant
Blossom
The Girl on the Suicide Bridge
The Foul Mass at Tongue House
Paintings (with Simon Bestwick)
A Forest of Lonely Deaths
Sticking Your Head Out Is Dangerous
The Curse of the Monster (with Bryn Fortey)
The Gamekeeper

Author's Mumbles: Part 3
Acknowledgements

Resuscitation Andy: Off to an impressive start with a contemporary variation on John Collier's timeless Special Delivery. When Andy, an obese burger-monster, keels over and dies in the Scout Hut, his spirit passes into a resuscitation dummy set aside for this afternoon's St. John's Ambulance session. Chief trainer Tabitha, who valiantly fights to save Andy, has just been callously dumped by live-in lover Rob, and it hurts. She takes home the dummy on a whim. Soon they are more than friends.

Both parties derive much from their unusual relationship. Tabitha uses the dummy as both sex aid and confidante, essence-of-Andy has loving companionship for the first time. All is well until Randy Rob calls unexpectedly, all full of remorse and promises that this time it will be different (flaunting his enormous dick in her face seals the deal). Our plastic pal is understandably upset and angry at this development, but he needn't worry ... Probably my favourite of Mr. Mains' stories since The Rookery.

The Case of the Revenant (Simon Clark [ed.] The Mammoth Book Of Sherlock Holmes Abroad, Robinson, 2015). An entire family slaughtered in the frozen Austrian countryside. It seems a "dead" soldier has returned to take revenge on his widow for having a child by another man. A grumpy Holmes unmasks a killer whose motive will not sit well in the official records.

Sticking Your Head Out Is Dangerous: As unveiled on the 2014 Vault Advent Calendar (read here). Tough on young Alice, a dream come true for the heroic passenger in the grey suit ...

The Foul Mass At Tongue House: Christmas 1927, Tongue House, in the hills overlooking Loch Duibh. Dr. Sharman Summers' demon-raising activities prove fatal to his innocent old housekeeper, leaving Summers and his cohorts, who include the parish priest and the local bobby, with a dilemma. It is imperative they remain free to practice dark occult rites but how to conceal their complicity in Mary McDougal's appalling death? The reader wills the smug sorcerer to pick the worst possible option, and, happily, he obliges.

Bought this last night, along with "Frightfully Cosy and Mild Stories for Nervous Types" and "Will Anyone Figure Out That This Is A Repackaged First Collection".

[johnnymains]

Sept 3, 2016 9:54:11 GMT dem bones said:

The Gamekeeper: A sprawling 80 page homage to (I think!) At The Mountains Of Madness. Action flits between the late 'forties and nineteen seventy. Difficult to summarise without giving the game away, but here goes.

Winter of 1946. Roger Casement, eight, accompanies his father on a deer-hunt in the Highlands. As they head home down the mountain with their prize, Dad falls, breaks his leg and suffers a fatal heart attack. A mortified Roger heroically drags the body to the Loch where it will be easier for the ambulance team to locate, and heads back for the shelter of the car. Something picks up the vehicle and hurtles it down an incline. Roger finds himself lost in a cavern.

Eight months pass. Roger, long given up for dead, is found naked and half dead on a jetty. He has no recollection of what happened to him. On examining Roger, Dr. Hogarth is mystified at the runic symbol scorched into his back. Word reaches Dr. Peter Swan, Satanist and all round master of esoteric lore, who takes a deep, extremely unhealthy interest in the boy.

Twenty-three years later, Roger has achieved his ambitions. He's a gamekeeper like dad, a devoted husband and father to Amanda and Shaun. But he's still haunted by vague memories of his troubled past. Comes the day when he chances upon a knife-man "raping" a woman in the road. Too far away to reach them before the fiend can do his worst, Roger takes aim with his rifle ....

As Roger's life unravels in the aftermath of this tragedy, so he - and we - get to discover the secrets of his youth and the terrible destiny that is his to fulfil.

One thing we can say without fear of contradiction is that The Gamekeeper is not lacking in incident - child abuse, alcoholism gone to madness, bogus snuff movies, matricide, hypnotism, in-jokes, threat from subterranean little purple bastards, etc. - but, having established a compelling mystery, seems to me the writing flags toward the end and the closing chapter in particular looks rushed. The credits advise that this is a different version of the novella which appeared in Scott Harrison (ed's) Whispers in the Dark: Three Cthulhu Novellas Set Between The 1940s And The Present Day (Snowbooks, 2015), which I've not read, so can't compare edits.

That criticism apart, I had a good time with A Little Light Screaming, and Resuscitation Andy, The Girl On The Suicide Bridge, and Paintings are excellent.

Heya Dem,



It started out as a novella length version of 'The Rookery' - you'll see that the characters of Roger and Shaun appear again in this. Was approached by the editor to write a Lovecraft novella and stupidly tacked on and wrote in all the supernatural bits, although I did have an EXCELLENT time writing about Dr Peter Swan and I wouldn't mind writing about him again.  It's the biggest mistake I've ever made - but then it was my first novella and I didn't know what the hell I was doing. As to this being a different version, the bit with the purple bastards feature right at the start of the story when the wee lad falls in the hole and he shoots one. 



The original novella outline is son loses gamekeeper father up a mountain, is abused by mother as he's growing up, accidently kills her when she attacks him. As an adult is happily married, then comes across the 'snuff movie', kills an innocent person, has a mental breakdown, wife takes son away from him - he kills wife and son then himself. I still want to do the non-supernatural version which is called The Anger of Guns - maybe if I'm ever lucky enough to have another collection out it will feature in it.



Thanks for your kind words on the other stories!