Latest Finds II

[helrunar]

Those are great fun, James. Love the photo of "Veronica" wielding the pruning shears! Reminiscent of Mrs Regera Dowdy.

cheers, Hel

[helrunar]

I loved the original version of "The Homecoming" by Ray Bradbury--I believe I read that it was his first story published in an important magazine (or maybe any mag at all). Unfortunately he later softened the story and I did not find that to be an improvement.

cheers, Hel

[andydecker]

Was there really a Wes Whitehouse, or was this just another finger to Mary?

[dem]

Jul 3, 2022 9:09:07 GMT andydecker said:

Was there really a Wes Whitehouse, or was this just another finger to Mary?

Apparently, Wes Whitehouse was the former editor of freebie newspaper, The Londoner. I read The Scurrying, a few years ago; can't remember a damn thing about it, 'cept it's pretty much all downhill from the cover illo. Recommended.

Market was fun again this morning.

Michel Parry & Milton Subotsky (eds.) – Sex in the 21st Century (Panther, 1979)

Michel Parry and Milton Subotsky - The Shape of Things to Come?

Robert Silverberg – Push No More
Irving Feldman – The Near Perfection of the USSS
John Novotny – A Trick or Two
Robert Sheckley – Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?
Robert Silverberg – In the Group
Charles Beaumont – The Crooked Man
Isaac Asimov – What Is This Thing Called Love? (Playboy and the Slime God)
Fritz Leiber – Game for Motel Room
Alain Doremieux – The Vana
R. J. McGregor – The Perfect Gentleman
Robert Sheckley – Love, Incorporated
Miriam Allen deFord – A Way Out

Pan-Galactic Swingers Dept:
Steven Utley – Personal Column

Blurb:
The Shape of Sex to Come ...
Paranormal powers, or sexual conquest – the choice is that simple ...
No more problems between the sexes – because now there's only one
Group sex at five hundred miles – with a computer link up ...
Kidnapped by aliens for research purposes – and released again because Earth practices are disgusting ....
Sex has been around for quite a while – but it's never been like it is in the 21st Century!
SPECIAL OFFER TO READERS: a night to remember with a mutant Venusian – see Personal Column

Dennis Wheatley – The Satanist (Arrow, Sept. 1970)

Blurb:
The Satanist is the story of a young man and woman who are prepared to acquiesce in appalling blasphemies and take part in horrific sexual rites in order to penetrate a Satanic circle in an attempt to solve a foul and brutal murder. The man, Barney Sullivan, is a secret agent who, horrified by the death of one of his colleagues whose body is virtually unrecognisable, becomes involved in the bestialities of the Devil whilst investigating Communist activities which threaten the security of the West; the girl, Mary Morden, has a past which enables her to put moral scruples aside – as she knows she must if she is to triumph over evil and bring the Devil worshippers to justice ...

Dennis Wheatley – The Irish Witch (Arrow, 1981)

Blurb:
The Hell Fire Club is being revived — by a sensuous wanton who calls herself the Irish Witch. Once more the titled of the land are being sucked into its vortex of vice and degradation. Among them is Susan, Roger Brook's young and lovely daughter.

Soon it will be Walpurgis Night. Soon a ruined castle will echo to the baying of initiates as Susan is led towards an altar — there to be ritually violated by the Priest of Satan.

John Sutherland – Offensive Literature: Decensorship in Britain 1960-1982 (Junction, 1982)

Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction

November 1960: Lady Chatterley’s Lover
November 1963: Fanny Hill - History’s Most Prosecuted Novel
April 1964: Cain’s Book - Junkies, Revolution and Obscenity
October 1964: The Naked Lunch - Trial by TLS
December 1965: Poetmeat/Golden Convulvulus
January 1966-July 1968: Last Exit to Brooklyn
April 1966: Sadism/Bradyism
September 1968: The End of the Lord Chamberlain
February 1969: My Secret Life
July 1970: Mr Tynan’s Nude Review
November 1970: IT - ‘Conspiracy to Corrupt Morals’
March 1971: The Mouth
March 1971: The Little Red Schoolbook
June 1971: OZ 28 - The Longest Obscenity Trial
September 1972: The Longford Report
January 1973: Nasty Tales
January 1976: Inside Linda Lovelace - The End of Obscene Libel
June 1976: ‘The Well Hung Christ’ - Gay News, Blasphemy and the Funny Bone of Society
February 1977: Libertine
March 1977: The Fall of the Dirty Squad
July 1977: Porn and the Treaty of Rome
November 1979: The Williams Report - ‘The Pornographer’s Charter’
October 1980-March 1982: Buggering Celts - The Romans in Britain
1982: The Censorship of Enlightenment - Feminism and Pornography

Index

Blurb:
The 1960s and 1970s in Britain were, notoriously, the 'permissive' years. And the most important practical effect of permissiveness was undoubtedly the gradual relaxation of controls on obscenity: both verbal and pictorial. Now there are clear signs that the force of liberalisation is spent. Toryism is uniting with radical feminism to swing the pendulum back again.
In other words, permissive Britain is already history, and its annals may be written. This book is the first to attempt the task. It looks back at the main episodes in Britain's 'decensorship': Lady Chatterley, Fanny Hill, Oh! Calcutta!, Linda Lovelace, OZ, the Williams Report, and the rest.
This is a vivid, crisply written evocation of a phase in British public life that will arouse nostalgia, amusement, indignation and regret in readers. The conflicts seemed heroic, but there were also major ironies. Above all, the well-intentioned defenders of Lady Chatterley's Lover in the courts bear some responsibility for the 'sex-ghetto' of modern Soho.

John Sutherland is Reader in English at University College, London, and the author of Bestsellers and Fiction and the Fiction Industry.

Mark E. Smith with Austin Collings - The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith (Penguin, 2009; originally Viking, 2008).

Blurb:
"I've hung on in there this long, so why f**k off now? That's all part of who The Fall are anyway: the persistent effort that goes into it, the coping, the getting by, and the times when the group's tiptop and you go and have a drink ..."
"Ranting, raging, burning ... may also be the funniest music book ever written" - OBSERVER
"Unutterably funny ....a riot of aimings and blamings and score-settlings. Smith manages to have a right laff, and reveal himself as a figure of dazzling sociological import" - INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
"Remarkable, brilliant. A provocative joy, Smith’s rant gushes like a furious fountain of razorsharp invective over his childhood and the early days of The Fall, relationships/ marriage, the record industry/musicians and his views on everything from football to mobile phones, from drinking and drugs to driving, from books to bankruptcy, from Paul Morley to pubs. Unbeatable" - TIME OUT
"Engrossing, dense with fascinating detail. As both memoir and cultural history, Renegade is a remarkable achievement" - DAILY TELEGRAPH
"Smith's about as reliable a narrator as the members of Motley Crue were in their depraved memoir The Dirt. And just as entertaining" - SCOTSMAN .

Clinton Heylin - From the Velvets to the Voidoids (Helter Skelter, 2005; originally Penguin, 1993)

Blurb:
THE BIRTH OF AMERICAN PUNK ROCK FROM THE VELVETS TO THE VOIDOIDS
"No other book or account I've encountered succeeded so well in accurately bringing the period to life. It lifted me back in time." - Richard Hell of Television, the Heartbreakers and the Voidoids
Exhaustively researched and packed with insight, Velvets to the Voidoids is the definitive story of the birth of American punk rock. It documents its emergence from the noise-art of the Velvet Underground and the Detroit of the MC5 and the Stooges, through the early-70s New York scene centered around the New York Dolls to its mid-70s heyday. With a cast that includes Patti Smith, Pere Ubu and its precursor Rocket from The Tombs, Television, Blondie, the Ramones, Richard Hell, Talking Heads, and the Dead Boys, this is a vividly drawn account of an extraordinarily diverse musical scene. Heylin also gives due credit to the various fanzines, venues such as the legendary CBGB's & Max's Kansas City, and the scenemakers & sceneshakers, but without ever losing sight of what matters - the music.
Based on hours of original interviews with many of the key players, Heylin tells the story of the music's development largely through the artists' own words, while evaluating this groundbreaking music with critical candour. First published in 1993 to widespread acclaim, this was the first book to tell the origins of punk from an American vantage point. This long overdue second edition has been extensively updated, with a substantial new afterword bringing the story up to the present, as well as an entirely revised, updated discography.
This book has long been considered one of the seminal texts on the punk phenomenon, as well as an invaluable reference work for any fan of the bands of the era.

[andydecker]

Jul 3, 2022 13:01:48 GMT dem said:

Jul 3, 2022 9:09:07 GMT andydecker said:

Was there really a Wes Whitehouse, or was this just another finger to Mary?

Apparently, Wes Whitehouse was the former editor of freebie newspaper, The Londoner. I read The Scurrying, a few years ago; can't remember a damn thing about it, 'cept it's pretty much all downhill from the cover illo. Recommended.

Market was fun again this morning.

Dennis Wheatley – The Satanist (Arrow, Sept. 1970)

Blurb:
The Satanist is the story of a young man and woman who are prepared to acquiesce in appalling blasphemies and take part in horrific sexual rites in order to penetrate a Satanic circle in an attempt to solve a foul and brutal murder. The man, Barney Sullivan, is a secret agent who, horrified by the death of one of his colleagues whose body is virtually unrecognisable, becomes involved in the bestialities of the Devil whilst investigating Communist activities which threaten the security of the West; the girl, Mary Morden, has a past which enables her to put moral scruples aside – as she knows she must if she is to triumph over evil and bring the Devil worshippers to justice ...

Ah, thanks for the info.

Good god, Arrow Wheatley's are the gift that keeps on giving. I can't remember seeing this one anywhere, not even on the Wheatley page. Great find!

[jamesdoig]

Another haul from the junk shop for $2 each - has the same owner's stamp as the others, so someone's collection:

[andydecker]

Great haul!

Any word on Undertow and The Conjurers? To search for or to avoid?

[jamesdoig]

Jul 7, 2022 20:23:49 GMT andydecker said:

Great haul!

Any word on Undertow and The Conjurers? To search for or to avoid?

Funnily enough, they're the two that attract me the most - The Conjurers is part of the Panther horror series, and quotes Colin Wilson and Helena Blavatsky up front, while Undertow sounds good, but who knows? I'll have to read them and report back, but there might already be reviews on the vault somewhere.

[Jojo Lapin X]

I believe I have read DOWN RIVER, and several other Gallagher novels, but I have no other memory of them.

[helrunar]

The cover of Hell Board is a sweet little giggle.

Elizabeth Hand is a very good writer.

H.

[Dr Strange]

I remember enjoying Fevre Dream when I read it back in the olden days. I think it's the only thing by George RR Martin I have ever read. I had this Sphere UK paperback from 1983, and reckon I must have read it within a year or so of it coming out -

[andydecker]

Jul 7, 2022 21:15:11 GMT helrunar said:

Elizabeth Hand is a very good writer.

H.

Absolutely. I read Glimmering back then, but I was more impressed by the writing than the plot. It is one of those Apocalypse novels, at times very strange and without a doubt very individual, but a real downer at the end, all ends with a whimper, not a bang. Nothing I would want to read today, to be honest.

[dem]

Kim Newman - Anno Dracula: The Bloody Red Baron (Titan, 2012)

Blurb:
WAR IS HELL...

It is 1918 and Graf von Dracula is commander-in-chief of the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The War of the Great Powers in Europe is also a war between the living and the undead. Caught up in the conflict, Charles Beauregard, an old enemy of Dracula, his protégé Edwin Winthrop, and intrepid vampire reporter Kate Reed go head-to-head with the lethal vampire flying machine that is the Bloody Red Baron...

In the brand-new novella Vampire Romance, Geneviève Dieudonné, newly returned to England, infiltrates a singular vampire gathering in the service of the Diogenes Club.

Kim Newman - Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'urbervilles (Titan, 2011)
Blurb:
Imagine the twisted evil twins of Holmes and Watson and you have the dangerous duo of Prof. James Moriarty — wily, snake-like, fiercely intelligent, unpredictable - and Colonel Sebastian 'Basher' Moran — violent, politically incorrect, debauched. Together they run London crime, owning police and criminals alike.

A one-stop shop for all things illegal, from murder to high-class heists, Moriarty and Moran have a stream of nefarious visitors to their Conduit Street rooms, from the Christian zealots of the American West, to the bloodthirsty Si Fan and Les Vampires of Paris, as well as a certain Miss Irene Adler ...



From the market, Sunday gone. I attempted The Bloody Red Baron not long after publication, gave up around the p. 100 mark, just couldn't get on with it at all. I've been following friend Decker's Newman retrospective - any thoughts on D'urbervilles, Andreas?

[andydecker]

Jul 13, 2022 5:19:35 GMT dem said:

I've been following friend Decker's Newman retrospective - any thoughts on D'urbervilles, Andreas?

Not really. I bought it dutifully when it was published, read the first chapter which is a nice fictitous contemporary introduction to the fictitious memoir of Moran. Hated the tiny print which borders on being unreadable, and while it seems to be fun, I am not desperatedly interested in Moriarty anyway - I never shared the fascination with the character and find him tiresome, the only interesting M interpretation was the one in tv's Elementary - and put it on the shelf. Maybe I buy it as a Kindle one of these days if the urge takes me.

I share your view on Baron, dem. As much as I love the whole series and am very interested in everything WWI, always thought this novel difficult to get into. Can't put the finger on it why. Compared to the last ones with their overwhelming Japanese setting it is easy to follow, and still ... Maybe it is the Poe character which seems a bit out of place in this.

[dem]

Thanks Andreas. Can't see me reading Moriarty to be honest — I've not managed to finish a Newman novel since the first Anno Dracula book (Red Reign?). Not sure why Bloody Red Baron annoyed me so, but it did, to the point where I swore never to waste time on his stuff again, though have since relented. To my way of thinking, the first three Where the Bodies are Buried novellas are a treat, as is Pitbull Brittan, his genuinely terrifying Bulldog Drummond upgrade. It reads less like satire with every passing year.