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Post by andydecker on May 12, 2017 12:57:46 GMT
Kim Newman: Anno Dracula 1899 and Other Stories (2017)
Content:
Famous Monsters
A Drug on the Market
Illimitable Dominion
Just Like Eddy
Amerikanski Dead at the Mosvow Morgue
The Chill Clutch of the Unseen
One Hit Wanda
Is There Anybody There
The Intervention
Red Jacks Wild
Sarah Minds the Dog
The Snow Sculptures of Xanadu
The Pale Spirit People
Übermensch!
Coastal City
Completist Heaven
Une Étrange aventure de Richard Blaine
Frankenstein on Ice
Yokai Town: Anna Dracula 1899
Kim Newman is really busy at the moment. A new collection, a new novel Angels of Music. Later in October there will be a new Anno Dracula novel. One Thousend Monster will be a more than a century of the vampire in Japan; Yokai Town: Anno Dracula 1899 is an excerpt. It is basically Newman's vampire gal Geneviéve Dieudonné shepherding a bunch of vampire refuges from England to Japan. I guess there will be more Anime and Kurosawa references than the average reader will know.
There are a lot of reprints here, both from earlier collections, but also from Stephen Jones anthologies of the last years. Five – if I counted right – are originals.
The artwork is a bit dull, as they want to establish a franchise here. Still, as Titan is doing a major re-issue of Newman's work this is understandable.
If you like Anno Dracula, the excerpt is as usual a lot of clever fun, I was particulary amused by the inclusion of Buffy's Drusilla, which makes a lot of sense, as there were a few tv-episodes of Drusilla and Spike, Joss Whedon's Sid and Nancy, cutting a bloody swath throug Shanghai in the 1920s, accompanied by Angelus and Darla, if memory serves. But his reinvention of the Henry James character Christina Light, the Princess Casamassima, as a sparkling Twilightesque vampiress seem to be inspired, as far as this first chapter go.
If you hate this self-referential stuff, you will roll your eyes and move on.
Still, this is not only for Newman completists.
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elricc
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 100
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Post by elricc on May 12, 2017 20:48:37 GMT
Ohh must get this, I finished the Angels of Music a few weeks ago, found it a bit hit and miss, but Mr Newman does have a real skill in plotting the characters in.
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Post by franklinmarsh on May 15, 2017 5:49:06 GMT
Talking of Kim Newman, the hospital second hand book shelf yielded a slim hardback of KM's entitled Where The Bodies Are Buried, a horror/comedy/political satire - reprints of four stories from the Dark Voices/Dark Terrors days. Read the first last night (having failed to get going with Hutson's The Visitation and Wheatley's They Wore Dark Trousers) and very good it was too. A corrupt councillor, whilst trying to push through plans to level a local play area in favour of a car park, notices a failing video shop has a window full of posters advertising dodgy material including a video nasty called WTBAB who's 'monster' shares the same name as him. Against his better nature he strikes up a friendship wih the gal gothique who works in the shop and hires the film. The main character, a put upon chap who becomes possessed , murdered and returns from the dead, his supernatural state enabling him to 'see' his enemies' darkest secrets. Our 'hero' begins to take on the characteristics and appearance of the film character, whilst the video girl keeps him abreast of developments in the film world where WTBAB is becoming a franchise. He can now use his character's 'powers' to bend other council members to his will. Great stuff. Don't know where it's going to go from here, but episode one was extremely enjoyable.
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Post by franklinmarsh on May 16, 2017 5:16:15 GMT
Where The Bodies Are Buried II - Sequel Hook (SPOILERS) - the second tale concerns Allan Keyes (groan) writer and director of WTBAB, an Englishman from Somerset, who's original story concerned childhood bullying - based on his own experiences. The bully would grow up to be a local councillor, whilst Allan and his girlfriend Lesley (a teacher) end up in Hollywood. Allan directs the first film in the series which is a hit, but the second is helmed by a female music video director, and Part III (in 3-D) by a Swedish wunderkind auteur with a big future ahead of him. Lesley returned to England where they'd kept her job open for her, there being nothing for her in the US. Allan is sent a video of part II and watches part III (in 3-D) at the home of the actor who plays the monster. During both screenings he blacks out whilst experiencing weird and horrible visions. The series is a massive success spawning all manner of merchandise. Deaths occur, for which Allan worries he might be responsible for. The story ends with him being called in for Part IV, which apparently is to be a return to the original film, the monster having transmuted into a wisecracking cartoon figure over the last two sequels.
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Post by franklinmarsh on May 17, 2017 21:57:24 GMT
Where The Bodies Are Buried 3 : Black And White And Red All Over. Easily the best story so far. An amazing piece of work. Scobie, an up and coming young journalist on a local paper, gets a dream tip off. A young woman has crashed her car. Not just any young woman ; a local nurse who has been child killing. Scobie's in at the beginning thanks to a police contact, and his exclusives power him to a job on The Comet (a thinly-veiled version of The Sun). He visits the nurse in gaol and the stories keep on coming - her murder spree is linked to the video availability of Where The Bodies Are Buried 3, and there's an anti-horror backlash throughout Britain. Anyone who remembers the video nasty episode, or attempts by the tabloid press to link Rambo : First Blood Part II to the Hungerford massacre (no evidence Michael Ryan even owned a VCR?) or Child's Play 3 to the dreadful killing of Jamie Bulger (a relatively innocuous film that was held up as the ultimate in depravity - although again, ISTR there was precious little proof the killers had even seen the video) will find that Newman is superbly accurate in his recounting of his alternate universe events. Entertaining and thought-provoking. The fourth story may involve virtual reality (I think it's set in 2020) but I've a feeling it won't reach the heights of the others. I'll be happy to be proved wrong though. Nice to see James Herbert and Shaun Hutson namechecked - during the backlash you cannot take their books out of a library unless you can prove you're at least 18 years old.
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Post by dem bones on May 21, 2017 20:09:16 GMT
Where The Bodies Are Buried 3 : Black And White And Red All Over. Easily the best story so far. Agree, this is excellent. |
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Post by franklinmarsh on May 23, 2017 11:27:22 GMT
The fourth story is proving quite difficult. All praise to Kim for adopting the modern day computer game/virtual reality stage of Rob Hackwill's latest incarnation. Once you get used to the weird parlance and techspeak we're in familiar territory although once again altered to fit the times.
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Post by dem bones on May 23, 2017 12:28:21 GMT
The fourth story is proving quite difficult. All praise to Kim for adopting the modern day computer game/virtual reality stage of Rob Hackwill's latest incarnation. Once you get used to the weird parlance and techspeak we're in familiar territory although once again altered to fit the times. Don't have a copy of the book but I read the four instalments in various Stephen Jones & David A. Sutton anthologies ( Dark Voices 5, Dark Voices 6, Dark Terrors, and Dark Terrors 2). Loved the first three - they're up there among my very favourite Newman's - but couldn't get along with "Where The Bodies Are Buried 2020" at all. |
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Post by franklinmarsh on May 23, 2017 20:39:07 GMT
Crikey but it was a struggle, perhaps because it was projecting a future rather than looking back at a past. *SPOILER* Religion as capable of spawning mass murder as much as a dodgy horror film? Who'd have thought it?
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