Heavenmakers

The Black Book of Horror contains eighteen excursions on the night train to Hell. Its driver, Charles Black, has garnered a dreadful bunch of passengers. Dreadful, only in the sense that if you listen to their tales you are going to do a lot of dreading. These authors are the ones you don’t take home to mother unless she’s a practising witch.

There is not a single poor story in the anthology: only delightful highlights, insights, originality, humour and exceptionally good writing; and by ‘good’ I mean not stuffy literacy – the metaphors, analogies, plot twists, characterization, writing skills are all there but they are, throughout the volume, subordinate to the main thing: the story.

We open with CROWS by Frank Nicholas. Ronson is off to to Corbiewood Lodge where he hopes to make a tidy profit on the old house. ‘Aunt Jess hadn’t really been an inconvenience’ but Ronson unfortunately is. An eerie short tale masterfully told.

Mark Samuels introduces us to Mr. Dunn whose boss wants him to help with REGINA vs. ZOSKIA, a long standing case. Perhaps the poor man should have realised that when the mentally insane decide they want to be redefined as normal the consequences can be very sinister. A top class story by a veteran of horror.

‘Some argue that attraction is an evolutionary imperative’. In THE OLDER MAN Gary Fry explores young Jack’s sexual interests to a gruesome conclusion. There are some beautiful lines in this superb story.

POWER by Steve Goodwin opens with ‘The first time I saw Marek he was pissing in an unmarked grave.’ A young Englishman encounters swastikas and skinhead Satanism some place in Europe better avoided.

Roger B. Pile, a consummate tale teller, gives us another beauty with CORDS where a young couple make the mistake of following an unusual sign.  THE SOUND OF MUZAK –by Sean Parker is a Ballardian tale of an alien seeking habitation. It’s surreal, absurd and chilling. D. F. Lewis, strange genius of the genre, confuses us all in his inimitable prose with SHAPED LIKE A SNAKE. From its first line: ‘I needed Time to be a movable feast…’ to its last, Lewis’ Doctor of Philosophy encounters the apparently ordinary with a growing doubt echoed only by the troubled reader.  ONLY IN YOUR DREAMS by David A. Sutton introduces the poor nightmare of the child – the Jelly Man. The parents won’t believe the children but perhaps that’s just as well.

An ex police officer sees an animal at his window in THE WOLF AT JESSIE’S DOOR. Paul Finch has given us one of the longer stories in the anthology but the idea fits the length like a hand in a glove. In SIZE MATTERS John L. Probert makes horror out of a man who would like penis enlargement on the NHS. This is John at his best; wicked humour balanced with wicked evil. ‘Perhaps if his skin had been unsullied by the ravages of gangrene and two surgical procedures, there would not have been a problem’

SPARE RIB: A ROMANCE by John Kenneth Dunham is not the romance normally advertised in ‘Wedding’ but rather the takeaway sort. It concentrates on the visceral with a sickening attention to detail and may well make you stick to home cooking.

FAMILY FISHING by Gary McMahon is a repulsive tale with shocking undertones which advances the horror genre imaginatively while at the same time retaining the basics of horror as entertainment. It’s fishing, its family fishing but its maybe not the fish you want.

SUBTLE INVASION by David Conyers borrows much from John Wyndham and the other apocalyptic writers. The invader comes looking a bit like a little cacti but it is going to grow. A second slice of D. F. Lewis is always a welcome treat and he gives us A PIE WITH THICK GRAVY .

LOCK-IN in by David A. Riley is a scary tale where the mix of the blunt Northerner and the Twilight Zone centres round the local bar. Unfortunately for the locals, there’s no way out unless oblivion or madness appeals. LAST CHRISTMAS (I GAVE YOU MY LIFE) by Franklin Marsh demonstrates his ease with dialogue and affords a warning to those who decide not to stay home for Christmas dinner. Daniel McGachey’s SHALT THOU KNOW MY NAME? is almost Lovecraftian in its scope. Add a little M.R.James mix a bit of Blackwood and make sure you’ve salted the perimeter fence outside the house.

TO SUMMON A FLESH EATING DEMON is a grand and spectacular finish by our editor, Charles Black, as Professor Mellman and Professor Greydin argue the authenticity of an occult text. It’s going to lead to a pentacle and a lot of black candles but the story has twists and turns and a very unexpected ending.

All in all, this anthology is a breath of fresh air to a genre that sometimes seems to have forgotten its roots. Often compared to the Pan Horror stories, it is far from a pastiche. Some of the stories – I might cite THE SOUND OF MUZAK by Sean Parker and FAMILY FISHING by Gary McMahon  but there are other candidates  in the anthology – demonstrate a Hegelian upward step in the spiral of the horror genre. Others hark backward to a golden age and do it no discredit. Some like Lewis exist in a parallel world where horror is married to the mundane and the children of their union may well be beyond your understanding. All of the stories however, without being pretentious or over-erudite, are readable and enjoyable and what more can you want at the midnight hour?

The Black Book of Horror is edited by Charles Black and illustrated by Paul Mudie.

For availability and more details :

http://www.freewebs.com/mortburypress/

As if the editor Rog Pile had nothing else to do but astound, this edition of Filthy Creations 6# begins the serialisation of two novels. Sendings by David A Riley and The Death Tableau by, yours truly, Craig Herbertson: Both ‘Pan Books of Horror’ authors. Both novels set up in the grim north. Both their first appearance in print. Both about to be serialized in full. There’s ominous signs in both tales already. Let’s see how they develop.

The issue is packed with poisoned goodies.

The Devil At Your Heels by Robert Mammone deals with that unconscious horror – the hit and run accident. Who is the victim here, the driver who was hit or the driver who ran? Mammome is a sharp writer with a strong style and a sound balance between the beauty of metaphor and the progression of story. He creates some lovely lines: ‘The engine’s dull throb matched his heart’s jerking rhythm,’ and he’s a writer who can draw you in and leaves you hurt:  ‘A terrible truth flowered in Arthur’s mind. With sharp edged petal’s, this realisation scoured all other thoughts away and sent him staggering onto the road’

Mammone is one to watch.

In Easy Money by Penni McLaren Walker we move from a car to a house that has its own particular attitude to its incumbents. Penni is a well known song writer and I was gratified to see her talents in the field of horror. They are apparent. Penni writes more like a lady who has hundreds of stories under her belt rather than a couple. All the signs of a writer with a voice. More to come I hope.

D F Lewis has two short tales Rage and The Fat Shrike in here. Both betray the unmistakable marks of genius. Rage deals with the solution to a macabre jigsaw puzzle and the The Fat Shrike simply abounds with unforgettable lines some beginning in mildly prosaic observation before ending in a word feast carnival ‘Maternity in the old days, was a combination of mutual back-slapping and career gossiping: starting as soon as the womb could warm sufficient spaghetti connections into autonomous life and continuing until it was cold enough to keep plasma as well as pasta indefinitely.’ I ask myself who else could have written that?

We move to the face in Bad Manners by Colin Leslie. It’s a well told, enjoyable tale with a sinister theme that Ray Bradbury would have enjoyed writing and no doubt, reading.

There’s a Riot Going On by Franklin Marsh is short, sweet and wonderful. A touch of pathos a touch of humor as the old colonel goes down.

Grey by Charles Black takes residence at the beach but not for a suntan. It’s a dark almost Panesque tale of revenge with a woman at the heart of it but unfortunately, ‘her beauty had been long since vanquished.’ Good to see that the notorious editor of the Black Book of Horror has picked up the quill again.

Crocodile Tears by James Stanger, is a tale of an old demolition worker and a doctor who suffers his apparent hypochondria. But is it all in the old man’s mind or did something crawl up from the blitz-damaged London buildings? I think it might have but it’s not what you expect.

A Solace of Winter Rain by Stephen Bacon leaves us in the comfort of the Club’s leather chairs but we’re not comfortable for very long as Dr Trevelyan explores Mr Farnsworth’s ‘paralysing nightmare.’ I’m a sucker for a smoking room tale and this delivers the disquieting goods.

Night Tide by Rog Pile has a pilot survive his plane crash only to endure greater horrors from the past.  It’s a story which balances realism with a shadow world of memory, containing believable characterization which makes you instantly empathetic and horror which battles with pathos. Rog Pile has also managed five interior illustrations and a cover. The illustrations are a high point of this edition of Filthy Creations. Rog Pile has slowly developed as a fine illustrator with an improving technique and that elusive – and often undiscovered in lesser artists – eye for perspective. His illustration of Easy Money in the two corbies in is a beauty.

Filthy Creations 6# is an incredible £2.25 including postage. For the small press it’s a plush looking little thing and, more importantly, it’s full of enjoyable stuff. Purchase it together with issue 4# of The Thinking Man’s Crumpet, edited by Coral King for just £3.50

. This issue is dedicated to D F Lewis

After the success of ‘Back from the Dead’ Johnny Mains is going from strength to strength. Anyone who has the vaguest inclination towards Horror should check out this excellent website

Noose and Gibbet Publishing

where you will likely be terrified out of your wits. There should be a son of ‘Back from the Dead’ walking around zombie fashion in the future so we can all look forward to that after the excellent reviews of its dad (and Johnny may well include a morbid tale of mine in the new batch).

Fantasies

School: The Seventh Silence (2005) Editor: Storm Constantine

Novelettes

The Heaven Maker (1988) Editor: Clarence Paget The 29th Pan Book of Horror,

Short Stories

Soap 7 (1991) Editor: Dave W Hughes  Works 7
The Glowing Goblins (1992) Editor: Nik Morton Auguries 16
Under the Moons of Mars (1995) Editor: Frank Westwood Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Return to Greenwood (1997) Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Strange Fruit (2008) Editor: Rog Pile Filthy Creations 3
On the Couch (2008) Editor: Charles Black The Second Black Book of Horror
Synchronicity. (2008) Editor: Charles Black  The Third Black Book of Horror
Soup (2009) Editor: Charles Black: The Fourth Black Book of Horror.
Leibniz’s Last Puzzle ( 2009) Editor: Charles Black The Fifth Black Book of Horror.
A Game of Billiards ( 2009) Editor:  Benedict Jones Tales from the Smoking Room
Maidenhead ( 2009) The Thinking Man’s Crumpet
Spanish Suite (2010)  Editor: Charles Black: The Sixth Black Book of Horror.
The Waiting Game (2010) Editor: John Mains  Back from the Dead

Poetry

Timeless Love (2008) Editor: Rog Pile Filthy Creations 2
A White Rabbit in Gent (2005) Editor: Storm Constantine ‘School: the Seventh Silence’
Candlelit Waltz (2009) Editor: Coral King The Thinking Man’s Crumpet

Articles
Tarzan, Nietzschian Superman? Editor: Frank Westwood Fantastic worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Rope Editor: Frank Westwood Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Dumarest: The Coming Event?, (2010)  Editor:Stephen Theaker Dark Horizons 55#