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Post by dem bones on May 21, 2022 14:17:46 GMT
Peter Coleborn & Jan Edwards (eds.) - The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors 3: A Miscellany of Monsters (Alchemy, 2021) Bryn Fortey & Johnny Mains Build Your Own Monster!!! Guaranteed to Scare the Whole Family!!!
Garry Kilworth - The Head
Steve Rasnic Tem - Inappetence
Jenny Barber - Songs in the Dark
Sarah Ash -The Beast of Bathwick
Tom Johnstone - Cuckoo Flower
Ashe Woodward - A Song for Christmas
Adrian Cole - Dream a Little Dream of Me and My Shadow
K. T. Wagner - Memories of Clover
Marion Pitman - Sun, Sand, Stone
Simon Bestwick - Redwater
Pauline E. Dungate - Dreamcatcher
Tim Jeffreys - The Daughters
John Llewellyn Probert - Black Spots
Mike Chinn - Echoes of Days Past
Ralph Robert Moore - What the Snow BringsBlurb: Monsters are many things. They come in all forms, shapes and sizes: from to the tiny to the titanic; from amorphous blobs to many limbed (or tentacled) monstrosities; Many things. Any things.
In this anthology we present a range of creatures, from the oceans, from the ground, from the air. With stories by Sarah Ash, Adrian Cole, Marion Pitman, Garry Kilworth, Steve Rasnic Tem, Ralph Robert Moore, John Llewellyn Probert .... and many others. Bryn Fortey & Johnny Mains Build Your Own Monster!!! Guaranteed to Scare the Whole Family!!! : Emily Vaught sends off for the novelty kit advertised in a 'fifties horror comic never expecting to receive anything for her $1. Some weeks later, a crate arrives in the post .... Garry Kilworth - The Head: Awaiting rescue after his yacht is wrecked on the coral reef, the narrator is persecuted by the giant man-eating severed head of Polynesian legend. Steve Rasnic Tem - Inappetence: "From Arabic mythology. Ghoul or Ghul. Ghouls feed on human flesh, drink blood, rob graves, prey on corpses, etc. It also refers to a person who revels in the loathsome and disgusting." Grandfather on his deathbed listening for the approach of the former variety across the windowsill ... Jenny Barber - Songs in the Dark: Pedrick, the island's wealthiest trader in contraband, conveniently forgets to inform his lover and benefactor, Meliora the mermaid, that he has taken a bride, Elowen, behind her back. The mermaid's scream seals the cave, trapping the newly-weds in darkness. For Elowen this proves no bad thing. The same can't be said for her husband. Sarah Ash -The Beast of Bathwick: Musical director Jim Herbert casts gifted soprano Gwen Beattie as the heroine, Rose Maybud, in a performance of Gilbert & Sullivan's comic operetta Ruddigore at the Theatre Royal, Bath. Myrna Barclay, who wants the role for herself, threatens trouble unless Gwen withdraws, which she does until a show-stealing intervention from a big cat whittles down the cast. According to the author, the story was inspired by reported sightings of a 'Beast of Brassknocker Hill' through 1979. It would not be out of place in the super Spooky Isles Book of Horror. TBC
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Post by dem bones on May 22, 2022 8:56:14 GMT
Tom Johnstone - Cuckoo Flower: Botanist Lucy comes to grief at the frisky fronds and throbbing tendrils of raunchy, paraquat resistant, hyper-intelligent plants. Ashe Woodward - A Song for Christmas: A lethal combination of raging fever, fancy dress carol singers, Maria Carey, and his wife's apparent mutation into a worm-infested, maggot-spawning monster ensures this Christmas will be the least cheery of protagonist's life to date. Adrian Cole - Dream a Little Dream of Me and My Shadow: Mean streets of New York City and ... elsewhere. Nick Nightmare and Ariadne, the ninja in crimson leather — see Tough Guys — on the trail of the Senders, skeletal creatures with Mr. Tickle arms who spit down their victims' throats and fill them with unendurable bad dreams. Luck is on their side. Nick's friend, the Mire-beast (former cop David Goroth post-chemical misadventure) has located the enemies' lair. Unfortunately, he insists they accompany him on a kamikaze mission. K. T. Wagner - Memories of Clover: Melisande reluctantly returns to the farm to check on her hated, bee-obsessed father, Beckett. Make that nominal father. She's not been back for seven years. With luck, the twisted old bastard will have topped himself in a barn as his beloved apiary failed. But .... Marion Pitman - Sun, Sand, Stone: In the wake of soon-to-be-ex husband's tragic death - her work in progress fell on him - Dan's widow visits Greece to further research the subject of her stone sculpture; Medusa. Early favourite of book contenders are The Beast of Bathwick, The Cuckoo Flower, and Inappetite, though in the case of the latter this has more to do with the subject matter that SRT's handling of it, ghouls being a personal obsession. The mermaid and gorgon horror fantasies likewise appreciated.
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Post by dem bones on May 24, 2022 5:23:42 GMT
Simon Bestwick - Redwater: A Russian trio hire a boat to take them to a semi-submerged church in the Floodland to retrieve a package. The Jane comes under attack by humanoid pike slash alligator hybrids twice the size of a man. A very bloody pulp adventure.
Pauline E. Dungate - Dreamcatcher: "Spiders. They are coming to wrap me up and eat me." Set in a hostel for paroled women. When Ashley was six, Gran made her a dreamcatcher to hang above her bed, trap the little girl's nightmares. Ashley has kept it through thin and thinner to keep the monstrous arachnids at bay.
Tim Jeffreys - The Daughters: Another male tourist goes missing in Port Jared; Elliott, two years married to devoted wife Kiara, disappeared while exploring the seafront ruins on Begert Beach. A renegade local girl leads Kiara to a cave where the Daughters — eagles with the heads and breasts of women — feast on those abducted and caged by the locals.
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Post by dem bones on May 26, 2022 15:25:59 GMT
John Llewellyn Probert - Black Spots: Michael visits Somerset to visit the stretch of motorway where his wife lost her life a year ago. Julia's last panicked call implies that she was forced off the road by a man-size creature formed from black oil. The widower's desperate pleading moves a reticent old woman to confide them as caused Julia's death inhabit a tunnel beneath the motorway.
Straight to top of personal favourite of book chart. So help me, this one reads like JLP does a very sad Arthur Machen. We live in hope that, once he's completed his projects on the go — according to the contributor's notes, two portmanteau books, two novels, a pair of film works, and his memoirs - Lord P. will maybe compile another collection?
Mike Chinn - Echoes of Days Past: April 1936, the Labrador Sea. The maiden voyage of state-of-the-art submarine The Oswin is enlivened by a death battle with an enormous, Medusa-haired mermaid with a metal-tearing bite.
Ralph Robert Moore - What the Snow Brings: A snow blizzard forces John, Laura and their guide, Joachim, to take refuge in an abandoned fort. Problem is, it's infested with starting bugs, fish-eyed cockroach-a-likes who make for rotten company when angry. A lovely grim one to end on.
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Post by Johnlprobert on May 26, 2022 19:55:30 GMT
John Llewellyn Probert - Black Spots: Michael visits Somerset to visit the stretch of motorway where his wife lost her life a year ago. Julia's last panicked call implies that she was forced off the road by a man-size creature formed from black oil. The widower's desperate pleading moves a reticent old woman to confide them as caused Julia's death inhabit a tunnel beneath the motorway. Straight to top of personal favourite of book chart. So help me, this one reads like JLP does a very sad Arthur Machen. We live in hope that, once he's completed his projects on the go — according to the contributor's notes, two portmanteau books, two novels, a pair of film works, and his memoirs - Lord P. will maybe compile another collection? Mr D you are far, far too kind! It's comments like yours that keep pulling me back from the brink of retiring from this writing game and getting into model trains or filming staged fights between very large toads and very small horses (one of last night's subjects of discussion with Mrs P). I had actually forgotten that I have been so busy. The first of all those promised volumes is due out in September and contains a story so "unpleasant" that the (obviously rather delicate) publisher of ghost stories I sent it to said it upset them so much they didn't know what to do with themselves after reading it other than email me a lengthy reply as to why they hated it so much. I have kept it to prove I must still be doing something right. Anyway the book's going to have some quite amazing illustrations (cover and inside) and the whole project is done & dusted. I'll see about sending you a copy. |
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Post by dem bones on May 27, 2022 11:08:18 GMT
Bless you, yer worship! This is one of the "portmanteau books," I take it? I do hope so!
I love Black Spots — in fact, I was very taken with to bulk of Alchemy Press Horror 3, so much so that I just blew my am*z*n credit on #2.
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