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Post by andydecker on Oct 18, 2019 10:23:18 GMT
Robert Lory The Witching of Dracula (Pinnacle 1974) Elizabeth Bathory turns out to be a much older enemy of Dracula called Sabor. Or Circe. Harmon´s old friend Thorka again summons the Professor, this time the journey goes to Germany where Sabor has taken over a castle over the river Rhine and mentally enslaved dozens of citizens. There are a lot of speeches, Cam gets tortured and bound again, but at least he may save the day in this one. This novel got omitted in the German edition. Truth to tell, Mr Lory´s idea of the Rhine and its castles are ... well, lets call them romantic and not very realistic. ;D
A redone old thread for getting rid of the ph*t*b*tt nonsense
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Post by helrunar on Oct 18, 2019 16:30:27 GMT
That's fun to see again, Andreas. I remember when those paperbacks started coming out, and I may even have tried to read one, but I honestly can't recall.
This one sounds like good campy fun but might wind up seeming rote and oddly lifeless for a novel about the "Blood Countess."
It would be interesting if Miss Rice stole the main idea for her book Queen of the Damned from this effusion. The main idea sounds nearly identical.
cheers, Steve
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Post by dem bones on Oct 18, 2019 17:37:24 GMT
When the blood countess returns, even Dracula is filled with horror!Robert E. Lory - The Witching of Dracula (NEL, 1977) Blurb: One afternoon a fine, strong young man named Janos strayed too far into the solemn hills above his tiny Hungarian village. Suddenly he came upon an ancient castle, a dark, mysterious place where, according to legend, a young woman had been murdered many years before.
Venturing down into the cavernous dungeons, Janos discovered the legendary bed chamber. If the stories were true… this was the place! The place where Elizabeth Bathory had been walled up to die!
Then he saw it. A small skeleton crumpled before a massive iron gateway. Was it Elizabeth Bathory? Fighting a desire to turn and run, Janos crept past the bleached bones to the inner chamber. There, in the center of the room, was a huge, dust-covered glass box.
Trembling, he wiped the dust away. His eyes widened with horror. Inside was the body of a beautiful naked woman!Thanks for reposting, Andreas. I'm amazed the ph*t*buck*t extortion racket hasn't gone under by now. Their latest tactics prove the PR dept. are back to their own selves after a relatively benign period of lying low. That's fun to see again, Andreas. I remember when those paperbacks started coming out, and I may even have tried to read one, but I honestly can't recall. This one sounds like good campy fun but might wind up seeming rote and oddly lifeless for a novel about the "Blood Countess." It would be interesting if Miss Rice stole the main idea for her book Queen of the Damned from this effusion. The main idea sounds nearly identical. cheers, Steve Robert E. Lory joined Vault MK I when there was still some dispute as to whether or not he actually existed. Was great fun too, really gave the board a boost. Happy times. Justin got a lively interview from Robert for Paperback Fanatic. A slightly revised version of which is included in the recent Collected Pulp Horror: Vol 1
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Post by helrunar on Oct 18, 2019 19:21:44 GMT
I checked online and the cheap editions of the Robert Lory Dracula novels now go for around $35 apiece. But no doubt, they could be found for just 10p apiece at that car boot sale that's happening right down the road from all of you over in beloved old Blighty.
I want to read something ethnographic about the culture and structure of car boot sales in the UK and environs. I just finished reading a beautiful book, A Witch's Mirror by Levannah Morgan (published in the UK by much loved Capall Bann publishers which alas seem to be no more since the death of the founder around 3 years ago). On every other page, the author was advising one not to "shell out" for expensive items for use in the exercises she described because one could either find all of it either lying around in the countryside and beaches of parts of Devon, where she lives, or "for just pennies" (it was ALWAYS "just pennies") in a "jumble shop or car boot sale." I became really curious about those car boot sales. Are they held in supermarket parking lots where people just either set items out on an old blankie or let the back gate down of their vehicle if the old car is thus equipped? In Connecticut where I lived in the 1980s instead of yard sales, people held "tag sales"--same thing but I guess the expression came from little handmade price tags people contrived out of bits of card.
I wonder if there are services where you get texted to your telephonic device when the next "car boot sale" is about to start either down the road or in a nearby village or town.
No doubt it will all remain a mystery to this clueless Yank.... (I'll have to tell you the story of how I was almost arrested when I mistakenly tried to show the two-finger "peace sign" to a perturbed flight attendant on Aer Lingus. Yikes!!!!! So much for thinking all those episodes of Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Dr Who and Ab Fab taught me ANYTHING OF ANY PRACTICAL VALUE AT ALL about life over there!)
cheers, Steve
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Post by andydecker on Oct 19, 2019 10:21:53 GMT
When the blood countess returns, even Dracula is filled with horror!Robert E. Lory - The Witching of Dracula (NEL, 1977) Thanks for reposting, Andreas. I'm amazed the ph*t*buck*t extortion racket hasn't gone under by now. Their latest tactics prove the PR dept. are back to their own selves after a relatively benign period of lying low. I am still getting almost daily reminders from P*t*b*t that my acoount is full or something. I think I cancelled my free account but am not sure. Regardless I ignore them. I also updated the rest of my Lory scans after I managed to find out how to change the links without deleting the whole thread. Except one or two I still have to find on my harddrive. So the Dracula threads are now presentable again.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 23, 2019 18:42:25 GMT
Thanks, Andy. It's been so long since I read a 'Dracula Returns' I'd forgotten how compelling they can be. Robert E. Lory - The Witching of Dracula (NEL, May1977: Pinnacle, 1974) NEL blurb: In the dark recesses of an eerie dungeon where the legendary Elizabeth Bathory was walled up to die, a beautiful woman rises naked from her age-old tomb and disappears into the night on her frightening and deadly search to fulfil her ultimate obsession - to gain the dark and sinister powers of her eternal enemy - Dracula!
Dracula is afraid, his existence is threatened and that means danger for Professor Harmon, Dracula's controller. Will they be able to prevent their new enemy from taking control of the world? For if they cannot - then no one can!Janos, hunting the wolf pack who feasted upon his sheep, is enticed by their leader to enter the hillside castle after dark. Regardless of a promise to father, Janos defies superstition, boldly pursues the uncanny beast behind a panel and down a tunnel. Eventually he has the grey wolf cornered in a cell. Moving in for the kill, he disturbs the bony arm of a skeleton. Oh no! It can't be! The bones of the walled-up Bathory woman! Beyond the wall, the bars of what Janos assumes to be a torture chamber, and within, an elongated glass box. Maybe it contains treasure! He puts his weight against the bars. The door falls open. A gold plaque on the box reads. "Go, leave her and live. Interfere, and become her victim. And thus earn the world's vengeance Upon your soul."Janos wipes the glass to reveal beneath a stark naked red-head, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen! He lifts the lid. "Than you" says the countess, before flashing her fangs .... A mere three months on from the horrific events described in Dracula's Gold *, a finely-dressed, handsome-looking woman arrives in the little Romanian village of Arefu, walks into the pub and requests directions to Dracula's Castle. The barman confirms it's on Dracula's Mountain. A policeman is more helpful, slipping her the business card of a chap who knows all about Dracula. ALEXANDRU THORKA - University of Bucharest It begins again! To be continued* By p. 30 we've had additional plugs for Dracula Returns, Dracula's Brothers and The Drums of Dracula. An authentic Nel, in other words.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 25, 2019 8:27:17 GMT
Following an attack by one whose mind has been entirely absorbed into that of the once-'Blood Countess,' Alexandru Thorka, terrified for his life, flees to Germany. He writes his old friend, the action-invalid Professor Damien Harmon, warning that Sabor (aka Circe, Lilith, Elizabeth Bathory), the world's deadliest psychic vampire is at large and out to destroy her nemesis of old, Count Dracula!
Sabor arrives in Budapest, Finding that Thorka has wisely scarpered, the red-head instead feeds on the mind of his associate, Petre Ulesku. She learns that her sworn enemies, Dracula and "the she-bitch," have quit Europe for something called "America," where they've somehow hooked up with this Prof. Harmon character. Harmon, being a puny mortal - and confined to a wheelchair, at that! - isn't going to cause her any problems, and big as he is, neither will his minder, though she might have some fun with the latter before she destroys him!
Westhampton Manor, Long Island. Come the end of the month, Dracula will have fulfilled his pledge to Harmon, whereupon he intends to kill him very slowly. How irksome, then, that Sabor should pick this precise moment to escape her confines! Once again he and the Professor are obliged to share a common cause.
Harmon, Cam, and Ktara fly to Frankfurt (Ktara hypnotizes an official to whisk a huge crate through customs, no questions asked, which at least goes some way to making up for her execrable "poetry"). Hardly have they exchanged 'hello's with a grateful Alexandru Thorka than Harman is abducted from his room by two Sabor heavies and whisked off to her Castle. The Blood Countess is intrigued and mildly annoyed that, uniquely, his mind is a blank to her - but how long before she realizes the barrier is a metal plate in his skull? Little does she realise that, if she were to kill him, she would simultaneously destroy the Count for it is only Harmon's telekinetic powers holding back the micro-stake implant from his heart!
Cam and Ktara battle their way past a combined zombie-spectral armed guard and a wolf pack to reach the castle, but as the cat-woman cautions, this is no time for self-congratulation, Sabor always intended them to reach her stronghold. To prove it, she sets free her champion - a jousting knight with a monster lance - to take down Cam immediately he passes beyond the portcullis. The felled bullet-headed giant is dragged unconscious to the dungeon for a taste of the rack. Ktara, knowing she can't offer any assistance, adopts feline form and discreetly fades out of eye-shot.
Cam's muscles hold out against the agonies of the rack. Ktari frees him from the ropes, but she can do nothing about the wall of flame that traps them among the torture implements. Meanwhile a triumphant Sabor has her mind-slaves encircle Dracula. The vampire takes it in his stride until they each whip out a crucifix! No point looking to the Professor for help - he has lances trained on his crippled body left, right and centre. If we didn't know there were still three volumes to come ....
In his The Transylvanian Library (Borga, 1993), Greg Cox writes: "Of the series the best is The Witching of Dracula (....) the focus of the book is on history and magic ... the fun stuff. In contrast, the worst of the lot must be ....."
It's up next.
Product placement update: The Hand of Dracula, p.39. Full house.
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