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Post by franklinmarsh on Oct 22, 2007 11:39:42 GMT
uk.geocities.com/carognesw/Herne/Herne23.htmIf this works check out the cover. Isn't that Christopher Lee with the axe? I have this novel but unfortunately haven't got around to reading it yet. I believe it may parody The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Horror Westerns! (Later) As with Slime I've decided to give it a go. Much more Deliverance than Texas Chainsaw so far. Even a banjo-totin' inbred hideous hillbilly. (Much later) I've almost completed Texas Massacre. Whew! A long slow build up then Laurence James goes into overdrive in the second half. The Cheney family are travelling through Virginia with their drunken half breed scout, attempting to reach California. They meet a couple of dubious hillbillies who offer to help them on their way. They camp at night coincidentally near to Herne(although they are unaware of his prescence.). The hillbillies turn nasty and Herne intervenes against his better judgement. A couple of killings later things get very nasty when it turns out that there's a tribe of around a dozen or more hillbilly McKeans living in the ghost town of Texas. A few Texas Chainsaw Massacre references later there's a torture/orgy that makes yer average Hells Angels initiation look like a vicars tea party. Rymer (who I am beginning to feel should be our moral conscience in these matters) describes The Witches No 1 (on Trash Fiction) as 'snuff porn' and I can see what he means as LJ mixes sex and violence to a nauseating degree. Mercifully we are only aware of the abuses and degradations through the jumbled memories of Pa Cheney who has gone insane. Herne has been locked up elsewhere and it only remains for him to get free and take on these demented,inbred,disfigured crazies in the final showdown. I can't resist quoting an extract/spoiler - 'Terror froze Mark's hands and the blood ceased to flow through his veins, paralysed by the appalling shock. His jaw sagged and a sigh came slithering out between pale lips.His bladder opened and warm urine poured down across his thighs, soaking the front of his breeches. Unconsciously he took one step back from the vision of horror,knife falling from nerveless fingers, the rifle sliding to the earth from his left hand. The man was hideously mutilated. In that moment of crystal time, Mark Cheney's mind registered that he was wearing some kind of mask, but it served only to heighten the nightmare.The mask was made from leather, but it was old and frayed, tied loosely among the sweeping mane of hair. It concealed most of the eyes, the nose and the upper part of the man's slobbering mouth. There seemed to be only one eye, glittering from the shadows of the mask, and the edge of a raw, weeping socket where the other eye might once have been...' And this is a Western....? On a lighter note I think I'll head for Edge 21 - Rhapsody In Red after this. Apparently it features Hy Fy, Rollo Stone and the Alice Cooper Memorial choir.
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Post by pulphack on Jun 7, 2008 18:16:43 GMT
Yep, that is Chris Lee on the cover. The artist (whose name escapes me) was very good chums with Laurence (which is why he's on the cover of one of 'em). He loved the in-jokes as much as LJ. He was also a replica gun collector, like LJ, although he used to get them enabled again. Once, they went to a pistol range to shoot a little, and LJ used to collapse into hysteric describing the looks on the faces of the guys with their target pistols as his chum pulled out a .357 and started to blast at the targets...
As for this particular Herne - it was very much a Texas Chainsaw rip, and designed that way as he was running out of plots by the time he got this far, being on about five westerns a year in different series, and this being the end of the western road.
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Post by jkdunham on Jun 7, 2008 18:26:41 GMT
The artist (whose name escapes me) was very good chums with Laurence (which is why he's on the cover of one of 'em). Chris Collingwood - see the 'Brit Western Cover Thread' for his Christopher Lee cover for this book and the cover of Herne The Hunter 17: The Hanging, starring Laurence James.
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Post by pulphack on Jun 7, 2008 18:29:04 GMT
just seen it! thanks, steve!
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Post by benedictjjones on Jan 18, 2017 11:28:56 GMT
sounds like I will have to hunt this one out!
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Post by ripper on Feb 14, 2017 20:43:24 GMT
Herne is one of my favourite of the PC series and Texas Massacre is among the best in that series imo. Writing duties were shared by Laurence James and John Harvey, with James working on odd entries and Harvey on even entries--not sure if this is valid for the entire series. James's contributions are usually more violent and sadistic than Harvey's. Another I would recommend is Herne 3: The Black Widow. In this one, Herne is after two of the men who attacked his wife in the first volume. They are a pair of brothers who live with their mother, servants and bodyguards in a remote, castle-like house. It is winter and the house is cut off from the surrounding area by snow. Herne has Becky Yates with him and Whitey Coburn, an old friend of Herne's, plays a major part in the plot. I have always thought that the Becky and Whitey characters were written out of the series far too early, and I think Whitey could have been spun off into a series of his own. The house in The Black Widow has a gothic feel to it, and I could see the mother being played by an older Barbara Steele in a film version. A really good entry in the series with an unusual setting.
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Post by andydecker on Feb 15, 2017 23:02:23 GMT
Whitey - yes. Becky - I don't know. Didn't Jubal Cade have a similar sidekick, a blind boy whom he cared for? My memory is hazy on this, I have to look this up. It is amusing how the PC Cowboys cannibalized the concepts of their collegues. Caleb Thorn is basically the Edge flashbacks of the Civil War in its own series. Of course just more exaggerated in its character concepts. Which LJ had a knack for
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Post by ripper on Feb 16, 2017 10:09:35 GMT
Whitey - yes. Becky - I don't know. Didn't Jubal Cade have a similar sidekick, a blind boy whom he cared for? My memory is hazy on this, I have to look this up. It is amusing how the PC Cowboys cannibalized the concepts of their collegues. Caleb Thorn is basically the Edge flashbacks of the Civil War in its own series. Of course just more exaggerated in its character concepts. Which LJ had a knack for I would have liked to see Becky Yates returning from time to time throughout the series, but not always at Herne's side as she was in the first few volumes. I have always thought LJ and JH missed some potential storylines by writing her out relatively early in the series. If my odd/even volume numbering is correct, it would have been LJ who was on duty on Becky's last appearance. I wonder if that was agreed between LJ and JH, or if LJ decided on it by himself? I assume that the publisher would have given the nod to Becky being written out, so perhaps it was their idea? I'm not sure about Jubal's companion, Andy. I only have a single volume in that series and I don't recall a blind boy being in that particular one--Death in Grey.
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Post by ripper on Feb 16, 2017 14:58:20 GMT
Sorry, that should have been the Jubal Cade entry Death wears Grey, not Death in Grey.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Mar 5, 2017 17:34:07 GMT
Another I would recommend is Herne 3: The Black Widow. In this one, Herne is after two of the men who attacked his wife in the first volume. They are a pair of brothers who live with their mother, servants and bodyguards in a remote, castle-like house. It is winter and the house is cut off from the surrounding area by snow. Herne has Becky Yates with him and Whitey Coburn, an old friend of Herne's, plays a major part in the plot. I have always thought that the Becky and Whitey characters were written out of the series far too early, and I think Whitey could have been spun off into a series of his own. The house in The Black Widow has a gothic feel to it, and I could see the mother being played by an older Barbara Steele in a film version. A really good entry in the series with an unusual setting. Good call, Rip. Amidst teetering piles of unread tosh I found I had a copy of this, and started it this after. Dodgy creepy twin brothers, one (a heroin addict) dressed all in white, are idly torturing a black widow spider and interrupting their mum's reading of Christina Rosetti's love sonnet. She (clad all in black save for a ruby belt buckle) enters their room, causing the spider's release and destruction, and their conversation drops heavy hints about incest and sado-masochism. I hope this keeps up.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Mar 7, 2017 12:33:51 GMT
It didn't! But Ma and the boys fleeting appearances delicately lace the trad oater tale with a hint of baroque decadence. Jed Herne is on the trail of the two bit peckerwoods who raped his wife, causing her suicide. He has inherited Becky the daughter of his neighbour, collateral damage in the owlhoots' rampage in book one. Here at book three it's five down, two to go - the twins Mark and Luke Stanwyck who are holed up (oo-er!) with their somewhat louche mater in a pseudo-castle in the high sierras. Jed's tracked them thus far but things are complicated by a posse of different owlhoots who've been commissioned by Senator Nolan (who's son was involved in the unseemly events of Vol. 1) to get Herne. Things are further complicated by said posse being led by Whitey Coburn , an old pal of Jed's from the Civil War days. Whitey gets the drop on Herne, but changes allegiance when he discovers his wet-behind-the-ears snotnose compadres have a hidden Nolan agenda involving Becky which Coburn didn't sign up for, and they think of the two old-timers as well past their sell-bys. Herne and Coburn's superior experience gained through their longevity enables to blast the shit out of the kids and camp up near the castle with Becky - who's none too impressed with Jed's albino pal. With the aid of some blasting powder, the two oldsters seal off the trail to the castle and wipe out half of the Stanwyck's private army of twelve, capturing one poor lad to torture an alternative way into the castle out of him. During a desperate escape attempt, the boy is gunned down by Becky, who discovers that killin' ain't so glam. And so, it's up to Jed and Whitey to gain entrance to the castle and let Herne take his vengeance, and then they'll settle their differences...just time for Laurence James to slip in some mum solo delight in front of a mirror, and then some bondage sex with Whitey (shouldn't he be concentrating on finding the twins?) before the hoped-for bloodbath (white clothing does help to show up the red.) Typical Piccadilly Cowboys fare - an efficient quick and bloody Western, with additional perversity and a few of the expected in-jokes - 'Frank Janson', 'Duke Harknett', and nods to Citizen Kane and Upstairs, Downstairs.
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Post by ripper on Mar 8, 2017 11:31:21 GMT
Nice summation, Franklin. The two brothers are nasty pieces of work and it is satisfying to see them get their just desserts. I thought LJ did a pretty good job with this one and it is a favourite of mine in the Herne series. Whitey and Herne make a good team and it is a shame they didn't have too many adventures together.
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