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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 23, 2015 13:35:19 GMT
"The Chimney" is completely autobiographical, however. I may be mistaken, of course.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Feb 24, 2015 12:12:05 GMT
Don't call me lazy if I quote myself...
'I find this as hard to believe as anybody would, but when I wrote “The Chimney” I didn’t know it was autobiographical. It was conceived on Christmas Day 1972, after Jenny and I had watched that splendid tale of television terror The Stone Tape. “Child afraid of Santa Claus – Perhaps from a very early age has associated horror with the large fireplace in his bedroom? His parents tell him of Santa Claus – But when they tell him the truth about SC, the horror comes flooding back – And something’s always moving in there towards Christmas – He sees it emerge each year: but this year he sees it in more detail…” I got as far as the charred apparition but not, at this stage, its real identity (which, as David Drake pointed out, it has in common with L. P. Hartley’s “Someone in the Lift”, a tale I’d read back in the early fifties). Often my ideas lie low for years, and I didn’t start “The Chimney” until 20 June 1975, finishing it on the 27th. Only when I read the tale aloud at Jack Sullivan’s apartment on the Upper West Side years later did I remember how terrified I’d been on most Christmas Days of my childhood—not by Santa Claus but by having to go upstairs and knock on a bedroom door to invite my unseen father down for dinner. That he stayed unseen, then and for nearly all my childhood and early adulthood, only added to my dread.'
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Post by franklinmarsh on Dec 6, 2016 14:34:02 GMT
Read The Man In The Underpass last night. That evoked lots of unpleasant sensations.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Dec 8, 2016 20:35:28 GMT
The Whining. First children, then animals. Will Mr Campbell stop at nothing? NB Nice snow encrusted setting.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Feb 10, 2017 12:15:25 GMT
The Brood. Fascinating. There's something about folk looking out of their windows and seeing something going on. You get into a pleasant routine, ad then something changes...the yellow/orange sodium lighting is a spot-on backdrop.
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Post by fritzmaitland on Oct 18, 2019 8:24:44 GMT
The Companion - the one Stephen King really, really likes. Apparently. It features a funfair. Well, two funfairs. At the seaside. Although the beach seems to consist of red rocks, strewn with broken bottles and abandoned tyres. The main character is a big funfair fan, spending his holidays travelling in search of these entertainments, possibly with a half-idea of writing a book about them. He's initially disappointed in the one he finds, more arcade than funfair proper, but a genial pipe-smoking attendant gives him a ride on a lovely old fashioned roundabout and assists him in scaring off some juvenile toughs attempting to defraud a pinball machine with a coin on a wire. He also points the way to an older original funfair nearby. Yer man goes off and finds it in a state of abandon...although one of the trucks of the ghost train, glowing with a light phospheresence, seems to beckon him....not only supremely creepy, but, like the other Campbell tales I'm immersing myself in, drenched in a peculiarly English nostalgia, which adds to the effect.
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Post by fritzmaitland on Oct 30, 2019 11:55:25 GMT
To celebrate Ramsey Campbell's birthday - many congratulations, Mr. C! - a rematch with an all-time favourite chiller. To ease myself back in, i warmed up with Richard Laymon's Desert Pick-Up from Fiends, a nasty little mindless murder short with a neat twist, but would my incredible shrinking brain be able to cope with something more cerebral? could it possibly handle the sexual dread of Again again? In a word, 'yes'! Set in the Wirrall, Again is the story of Bryant whose impromptu nature ramble turns to nightmare when he stumbles upon a remote, decrepit bungalow with a disquieting old woman tending it's overgrown garden. She signals to him for help to find a lost door-key and, being a kindly chap, he crawls through the window into her fly-strewn kitchen. The over-perfumed, hairy pensioner must be seventy if she's a day, so he's taken aback to discover her stash of Contact magazines and hardcore bondage photo's of recent vintage depicting her in action with a bearded gent of advanced years. Worse, it's glaringly evident to Bryant that she wanted him to find them, but why? Wait until he cops a peek into the bedroom! If you've a sickly hangover and you've run out of things to drink, try this creepy classic to make you feel even more grotty! Perhaps I should have waited until January 4th...Gah! Again is horror. Not only the ..er..sexual dread mentioned by Dem above, but the opening sequence, where Bryant starts to get lost on his ramble, convinced he knows what he's doing when he attempts a short cut, but merely gets more and more disorientated until Huzzah! he spots a house - surely someone there can set him right - wait a minute it's uninhabited - or is it? Help the aged - no don't! Too late! Irresistibly reminded of the woman in the bathroom in The Shining - but it's worse.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 30, 2019 16:54:04 GMT
Perhaps I should have waited until January 4th...Gah! Again is horror. Not only the ..er..sexual dread mentioned by Dem above, but the opening sequence, where Bryant starts to get lost on his ramble, convinced he knows what he's doing when he attempts a short cut, but merely gets more and more disorientated until Huzzah! he spots a house - surely someone there can set him right - wait a minute it's uninhabited - or is it? Help the aged - no don't! Too late! Irresistibly reminded of the woman in the bathroom in The Shining - but it's worse. Here's an illo to go with it. Brad Hamann Again, Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, Nov. 1981.
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Post by helrunar on Feb 5, 2020 2:57:56 GMT
I enjoyed a glimpse of Mr. Campbell discussing the vampire in literature in an odd short video segment included on a UK DVD release of the Dr Who serial "State of Decay" I just acquired. (It's part of a set, "The E-Space Trilogy," which has been remaindered on a popular internet retail site. I feel very fortunate to have been able to get hold of this because the set comprises three stories, this one plus "Full Circle" and "Warrior's Gate"--the latter is one of the most bizarre yarns ever staged in the annals of Who--and the firesale discount price amounted to around $15 US.)
The segment is entitled "Leaves of Blood" and is thus described in the official blurb:
a history of Vampires in literary fiction featuring authors Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Gallagher, Kim Newman, Pete Crowther, Simon Clark, Alison L R Davies, Chris Fowler and vampire specialist Dr Tina Rath.
Mr. C doesn't get nearly as much screentime as some of these folk--the segment seemed peculiar to me because it is such a massive topic, but the running time was only about 15 minutes.
Dr Tina Rath, seen seated with very attractive black kitty in lap, makes a number of curious statements, including a speculation that people "a century hence" might be entering worlds online in which they live as members of the Undead--pretty sure that was pretty much old news in 2009, when this video was produced.
It was fun seeing Mr. C! I wish he had been asked to discuss some of his own work.
H.
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Post by fritzmaitland on Mar 2, 2020 21:31:45 GMT
Call First: Ned grows obsessed with an old man's habit of always telephoning before he leaves the library, merely to let somebody know "I'm coming home now". He also fixates about the ring the guy wears on his wedding finger, which seems to have a human finger-nail embedded where the stone should be. He decides to break into the man's home, where he encounters a highly sophisticated - and original - burglar alarm. Every black magician should have one. Out Of Copyright: Seriously great! Unscrupulous book dealer and horror anthologist Tharne reckons he's got it made when he tricks a widow into parting with Damon Damien's impossibly rare macabre masterpiece Tales Beyond Life including his semi-mythical The Dunning Of Diavolo for pennies. This story - of a dissected black magician whose limbs reanimate and "crawl down the throats of [the men who betrayed him] to drag out the twins of those organs of which the corpse had been robbed", will provide the perfect finishing touch to Tharne's latest selection Justice From Beyond The Grave .... Call First I found very frightening. Going into someone else's house without them knowing? And then catching a glimpse of...someone else who is in the building... Liked the setting and premise of Out Of Copyright but didn't feel it really delivered.
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