If You Think Reading Is Boring...

Regular readers of the blog will know I've been writing my own stories since I was eight, but reading for longer than that.  I take reading seriously, I take book collecting seriously and I'm a real advocate for people losing themselves in a book.  And since it's World Book Day on Thursday, what better time to start than now?

I love the tactile nature of books (I've still not converted to Kindle yet), I love the smell of books, I love the delight of finding a new bookshop and losing myself amongst the shelves (especially 2nd hand ones).  In these current times, I'm really missing that.

I love the delight of finding a new author to enjoy, I love the thrill of starting a new book and falling in love with the style and the characters and the flow of the language and I love the sense of satisfaction - mixed with a certain sense of loss - when you close the book for the last time and put it on your lap and rub the cover and want to say "thanks, mate, I enjoyed that".

The book can be anything you want and you don't have to spend a lot of money on a glossy hardback, or read a certain title just because it's at the top of the charts.  Outside of lockdowns, go to the library (if you have any left near you) or buy a paperback, or download an ebook, or go into a second hand or charity shop (when you can) and pick up something for 20p.  It doesn't matter how you do it, it doesn't matter what you read, just pick something up and open the cover and start.

Dude, in 2014, reading his latest Coronet Snoopy collection and me, in a B&B in Bridlington in 1988, reading my latest horror anthology purchase

And here's an icon of our times, who enjoyed reading...

The Shelter, by James Everington - Redux Reviews 2

Welcome to the second edition of the thread where I revisit reviews of books by friends and writers I admire, to highlight the works for readers who might have missed them the first time they appeared.

This time it's The Shelter, by James Everington, a novella I originally reviewed in 2013.

It’s a long, drowsy summer at the end of the 1980s, and Alan Dean and three of his friends cross the fields behind their village to look for a rumoured WW2 air raid shelter. Only half believing that it even exists beyond schoolboy gossip, the four boys nevertheless feel an odd tension and unease. 

And when they do find the shelter, and go down inside it, the strange and horrifying events that follow will test their adolescent friendships to breaking point, and affect the rest of their lives...

During the long summer of 1989, thirteen year-old Alan Dean hung around with three friends - Mark, Tom and Duncan.  Mark was a charismatic bully, a bad seed who was used to getting what he wanted and when he suggested the four of them explore an old shelter, they all agreed.  At the same time, a local boy called Martin had gone missing and the newspapers are asking if a killer’s on the loose but once Alan and his friends find the shelter, they experience something strange and horrifying that will change all their lives forever.

I love coming-of-age tales and I love eighties nostalgia and so, as my introduction to the writing of James Everington, this couldn’t have gone much better at all.  Although he’s at the opposite end of the decade to me (in terms of points of reference), he perfectly evokes a long boring summer to the extent that the reader can almost feel the prickly heat and hear the flies buzzing and there’s nothing that knocks this illusion at all.  The characters are well drawn, though Alan - who narrates - is probably the only one most people will identify with - Tom and Duncan are herd animals, not quite smart enough to strike out on their own and instead happy to be the muscle, whilst Mark is almost chilling in his relentness need to be in control, though Everington spotlights his vulnerability well as the story progresses.  The peer pressure too is well evoked, with the other boys being two years old than Alan, so he goes along them with because he’s too scared not to, plus he likes the increased social status their comradeship gives him.

The shelter itself is a superb invention, very real and with a claustrophobic atmosphere that is almost tangible.  When Alan sees what he sees, we’re there on the ladder with him and equally desperate for release.

With an afterword that explains where the story came from, which is interesting in itself, this is an excellent novella.  It has good pace, believable characters, a nice use of location and a sureness in the telling that pulls the reader through.  A wonderful exploration of powerful, quiet horror, this is well worth a read and highly recommended.

The novella is available from Amazon as a paperback here and as an ebook here.

James & I first met at Andromeda Con in Birmingham in 2013 (which I wrote about here), though we'd been chatting through social media for a while. We instantly hit it off and I quickly became a big fan of his excellent writing. When he told me about The Shelter, which originally appeared in 2011, it sounded right up my street and proved to absolutely be so.

Our friendship endures to this day and his writing just gets better and better (he's been reviewed in The Guardian, don't you know!).

James & I are co-founding members of The Crusty Exterior

Sledge-Lit in Derby, November 2017
James, me and Alison Littlewood

Old School Horror 9: Tendrils, by Simon Ian Childer

The ninth, in an occasional thread, of blog posts celebrating those cheesy, sleazy old-school pulp paperbacks from the 70s and 80s, which are now mostly forgotten.  Yes, we’re not talking great art here but these books have their place - for better or worse - in the genre and I think they deserve to be remembered.

This time around, I'm looking at a novel that relishes being 'sick'...

cover scan of my copy - published in 1986 by Grafton Books

FROM OUT OF THE DRAINS

FROM OUT OF THE SEWERS

FROM OUT OF THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH CAME THE TENDRILS...

It started when a Hertfordshire drilling team struck something funny underground - a space where there should not have been a space.  'Hairs' where there should have been rock.

Then, suddenly, people were dying - eaten away by mysterious acid which gushed out of the ground.

But that wasn't the end of it.  Soon dozens of people were being killed.  Their insides were being dissolved, digested and sucked out until only the skin remained.

From across the boundless wastes of space - millions of years ago, the primitive black TENDRILS had made their way to Earth.  Now they were awake and looking for food - looking for meat to digest.  For the human race, it was to be a close encounter of a truly horrifying kind...

When a drilling company accidentally strikes an alien creature buried deep within the earth it responds by spewing acidic gunk that kills drillers and site protestors alike.  Nobody knows what the thing is and when it moves away, ever closer to London, it leaves a trail of destruction in its wake, reducing people and animals to brittle husks.  The only person who understands the gravity of the situation is a professor who lost his wife to the creature and, teaming up with a young reporter, he tries to stop more death.

Written by John Brosnan and Leroy Kettle (the SIC pseudonym is an in-joke, Brosnan also wrote as Harry Adam Knight - HAK), this slice of Brit horror from 1986 is an almost perfect example of paperback horror from that era.  Told with wit and pace, this has a lot of echoes with 50s horror pulp (you can almost imagine Hammer having a field day with it), with plenty of sex and gore thrown in. 

Using London and the Home Counties as key locations really grounds it and the little vignettes of the victims amp up the suspense and terror but, really, it’s the mayhem that makes this.  Gory, gruesome, funny and occasionally unpleasant (Robin the reporter has something very nasty happen), this races to a thunderous climax and then tops it off with a wonderfully downbeat ending.  

If you like 80s paperback horror, as I do, you’ll likely love it.  If you don’t then, well, I feel sorry for you.

* * *

John Raymond Brosnan was born in Perth, Western Australia on 7th October 1947.  He moved to Sydney in the late 60s and became active in local SF fandom, then traveled with fellow fans to London in 1970, where he settled.  Remaining active in fandom, he began writing non-fiction on SF, fantasy and horror films, most notably in Science Fiction Monthly and Starburst (where I first became aware of him - I wrote about the magazine here and here).  He was also a novelist and wrote science fiction and fantasy under his own name, before branching out into horror (and comics, with 2000AD), utilising several pseudonyms on the way.

* As Harry Adam Knight he wrote Carnosaur (1984) on his own and Slimer (1983), The Fungus (1985), Death Spore (1990) and Bedlam (1992) in collaboration with Leroy Kettle.

* As James Blackstone (in collaboration with John Baxter), he wrote Torched (1986).

* As Simon Ian Childer, he wrote Tendrils (1986) and Worm (1987, with Leroy Kettle).  Worm was published in the US as by Harry Adam Knight.

I haven’t read his sci-fi work, but his horror books fit the times perfectly and their streak of dark humour is reflected in the pseudonyms he chose, with Childer (SIC) and Knight (HAK) reflecting the material.  The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction described Brosnan’s horror work as the “written equivalents of exploitation movies…slightly self-mocking but quite exciting as SF horror.”  In his wonderful piece Torching John Brosnan, David Langford mentions amusingly that Harry Adam Knight “was praised as "The New Stephen King" in a Starburst movie column whose authorship I shall not reveal)”.

Also a respected film writer and critic, Brosnan wrote James Bond in the Cinema (1972), Movie Magic: The Story of Special Effects in the Cinema (1974), The Horror People (1976), Future Tense: The Cinema of Science Fiction (1978, with a foreword by Harry Harrison), James Bond: For Your 007 Eyes Only (1981, with Tony Crawley - himself a Starburst writer too), The Dirty Movie Book (1988, with Leroy Kettle), The Primal Screen: A History of Science Fiction Film (1991), Hollywood Babble On (1998), Lights, Camera, Magic! (1998), Scream: The Unofficial Guide To The Scream Trilogy (2000) and The Hannibal Lecter Story (2001)

He also wrote most of the film entries for The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1979), edited by Peter Nicholls and John Clute.

Some of his books were filmed, the first being Carnosaur in 1993, from Roger Corman’s Concord Pictures.  Beyond Bedlam (also known as Nightscare) was made in 1994 by Vadim Jean and based on Bedlam (notable only, apparently, for being Liz Hurley’s first starring role).  Proteus (1995) was based on Slimer and directed by make-up effects genius Bob Keen but its disappointing box office meant a sequel - which Brosnan wrote the screenplay for - was never produced.

Sadly, Brosnan battled both depression and alcohol abuse for many years.  He died of acute pancreatitis and his death was reported on 11th April 2005 (after friends became alarmed at his absence over Easter), though it might have been several days earlier.

For a few years now, I've been collecting old 70s and 80s paperbacks (mostly horror), picking them up cheaply in secondhand bookshops and at car boot sales and slowly building a collection.  My friend (and fellow collector) Johnny Mains once told me that charity shops sometimes pulp old books like this because the market for them is so small - I understand why but I think it's terrible.  We might not be talking great art here but on the whole, I think these books deserve to be remembered.

To that end, on an irregular basis (too much cheese isn't good for anyone's diet), I'm going to review these "old-school" horrors (and perhaps include some bonus material, if I can find it).

Previous entries in the series can be found at this link

Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man, by William Shatner (a review)

In a new edition of the occasional series, I want to tell you about a book I've read and loved, which I think adds to the genre (biography, in this case) and that I think you'll enjoy if you're a fan (though if you were a fan, you've probably already read this...)

Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner first crossed paths as actors on the set of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Little did they know that their next roles as Spock and Captain Kirk, in a new science fiction television series, would shape their lives in ways no one could have anticipated. In seventy-nine television episodes of Star Trek and six feature films, they grew to know each other more than most friends could ever imagine.

Over the course of half a century, Shatner and Nimoy saw each other through personal and professional highs and lows. In this powerfully emotional book, Shatner tells the story of a man who was his friend for five decades, recounting anecdotes and untold stories of their lives on and off set, as well as gathering stories from others who knew Nimoy well, to present a full picture of a rich life.

As much a biography of Nimoy as a story of their friendship, Leonard is a uniquely heartfelt book written by one legendary actor in celebration of another.

I wasn’t ever the biggest Star Trek fan (although I watched the TV show and enjoyed the original cast films) but picked this up after reading Shatner’s making of book for the fifth film.  I was aware of him from a great many things, but Nimoy was more of a mystery to me and I found that intriguing.  My first hint he wasn’t just Spock was reading in Starburst magazine that he was in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (and he’s very good in it) and if him being in a horror movie was a surprise, equally so was jumping forward a decade or more to the fact he directed the very entertaining (and very successful) Three Men And A Baby.  So I took to the book not knowing quite what to expect but thoroughly enjoyed it.  Although Shatner charts Nimoy’s life from his beginnings in Boston and right up to his death, he also charts his own life (the ups and the downs, with Nimoy being of particular help when Shatner’s alcoholic wife took her own life) but this doesn’t feel crammed in and makes the friendship between the two men that much more special.  In fact, friendship is one of the driving factors of the story, with Shatner lamenting he doesn’t find it with many people and that he and Nimoy shared an extremely strong one, after a rocky start.

Nimoy is painted as a hugely creative and driven man (and troubled too, with alcoholism and family issues, both of which he thankfully worked through), working hard to establish himself and being true to his vision, even if it got him into trouble.  Shatner’s memories, aided by those of Adam Nimoy and other friends, paint a wonderful warts and all portrait of Nimoy, told in a brisk and breezy style (you can almost imagine him sitting across from you, having a chat) that ensures this is a quick read.  

Honest with his own feelings and the issues between them throughout, in the final two chapters as Nimoy’s health worsens, Shatner reveals there was a falling out he never properly understood and it’s with this bitter-sweet realisation the book ends (he clearly laments the loss).  

Lovingly related and very moving at times, I thoroughly enjoyed this and would highly much recommend it even if you’re not that big a Trek fan.

Dark Forces edited by Kirby McCauley at 40

On 18th September 1980, Macdonald Futura published Dark Forces as a hardback in the UK, a horror anthology that turned out to ground-breaking in a variety of ways, not least for helping open the door to the horror boom that followed in the decade.

Futura paperback, 1986 edition
cover scan of my copy

It all started when Kirby McCauley went to dinner with Anthony Cheetham, the publisher of Futura Publications Ltd in England.  He suggested McCauley, then an agent with an impressive stable of clients, edit “a anthology of new stories of horror and the supernatural” which he would publish.  McCauley writes in his introduction that Cheetham “liked my only other anthology of original stories, Frights, and seemed to feel I was the person to do a more ambitious similar volume for him”.  After some indecision as to whether he was the right man, he decided “to assemble [the] anthology with the same scope and dynamism of Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions, but in the supernatural horror field”.  Ellison’s groundbreaking 1967 anthology chose stories that were rooted in science fiction but willingly went off at tangents to “break new ground, say and do things in new and varied and daring ways”.  Cheetham immediately grasped the concept and agreed to publish the book.

McCauley “approached by letter or telephone near every writer living who had tried his or her hand at this type of story and whose writing” he liked.  He also “deliberately sought variety, stories ranging wide across the horizon of fantasy fiction” because, he felt, “nothing seems…more boring than an anhtology in one key, having similar backdrops or styles, or which are all variations on a narrow theme.”

From one of his more successful clients, Stephen King, he pursued The Mist, which would close the anthology and also took the “opportunity to meet Isaac Bashevis Singer”, the Polish-born Jewish writer who won the Nobel Prize in 1978.  A look at the table of contents shows a wide range of terrific writers, some just coming into their own at the time, some who wouldn’t have been considered horror but all of them producing fantastic work.

“I set out to offer as many of the subjects and moods and general directions the fantastic tale has tended traditionally to take as I could, but hopefully in imaginative, fresh ways.”

The table of contents:

Dennis Etchison - The Late Shift
Isaac Bashevis Singer - The Enemy
Edward Bryant - Dark Angel
Davis Grubb - The Crest Of Thirty-Six
Robert Aickman - Mark Ingestre: The Customer's Tale
Karl Edward Wagner - Where The Summer Ends
Joyce Carol Oates - The Bingo Master
T. E. D. Klein - Children of the Kingdom
Gene Wolfe - The Detective of Dreams
Theodore Sturgeon - Vengeance Is
Ramsey Campbell - The Brood
Clifford D. Simak - The Whistling Well
Russell Kirk - The Peculiar Demesne
Lisa Tuttle - Where the Stones Grow
Robert Bloch - The Night Before Christmas
Edward Gorey - The Stupid Joke
Ray Bradbury - A Touch of Petulance
Joe W. Haldeman - Lindsay and the Red City Blues
Charles L. Grant - A Garden of Blackred Roses
Manly Wade Wellman - Owls Hoot in the Daytime
Richard & Richard Christian Matheson - Where There's a Will
Gahan Wilson - The Trap
Stephen King - The Mist

1981 Bantam Books edition

Locus magazine called Dark Forces "the most important horror collection of the year" and I certainly wouldn’t disagree with that.  I didn’t find it until 1984 or so (thank you, thank you, thank you Kettering library) and thought it was astonishing, later picking up the paperback so I didn't have to keep taking it out of the library.  Already a fan of Stephen King, I instantly loved The Mist and there was so much here to enjoy it was a similar revelation for me as Danse Macabre had been, a new list of great writers to explore and enjoy.  It was the first time I’d read Dennis Etchison and his The Late Shift led me to his own collections, a writer I would come to admire and read ever after.

Kirby McCauley

As a young horror fan, discovering the genre in the early to mid-80s, you had to follow trails yourself and this quickly became a cornerstone for me (as was, later, Etchison’s Cutting Edge anthology).  It showed me that horror could be all manner of things, all manner of styles and that affected both my reading and writing habits.

* * *
Dark Forces won the World Fantasy Award for best Anthology/Collection in 1981 and Clive Barker, in Faces Of Fear, said that reading the “great variation of horror stories” in the collection encouraged him to start writing the short stories that would come to make up his Books Of Blood.

Kirby McCauley was born in Minnesota on 11th September 1941 and became a literary agent in the 1970s, representing the likes of Stephen King and George R. R. Martin.  Helping to found the World Fantasy Convention in 1975, he also helped create the World Fantasy Awards and edited “Night Chills” (1975), “Frights” (1976) and “Dark Forces” (1980).  He died on 30th August 2014, of renal failture associated with diabetes.  George R. R. Martin wrote a moving tribute on his livejournal.


Happy 40th, Dark Forces.

sources:
my copy of Dark Forces (McCauley's introduction)
Kirby McCauley information at Too Much Horror Fiction
Kirby McCauley obituary at Locus

Wikipedia

Old School Horror 8: Death Tour, by David J. Michael

The eighth, in an occasional thread, of blog posts celebrating those cheesy, sleazy old-school pulp paperbacks from the 70s and 80s, which are now mostly forgotten.  Yes, we’re not talking great art here but these books have their place - for better or worse - in the genre and I think they deserve to be remembered.

This time, I'm looking at a novel that not only appears to switch genres halfway through but is a classic example of exploitation artwork (ie, misdirection!)...

cover scan of my copy - NEL paperback edition, July 1980

It was crazy but it was a story.

The five students who specialised in weird features for the college paper needed a story badly when they heard about alligators infesting the city's sewers.

With a stolen map of the sewer system they climbed down a manhole into an underground world of fetid pools and sludge-filled tunnels.

In a dark territory that played host to black rats and hideous reptiles their reporting mission turned into a nightmare as death sprang from the evil-smelling gloom ...

HOW MANY OF THEM CAN SURVIVE THE DEATH TOUR?

To start with, I'll address the elephant in the room.  This is called Death Tour and an alligator features on every single cover version there is (see more below).  If you're looking at this thinking "yay, a creature feature!" then, seriously, I'd advise you to move along now.

Still here?  Well that's an excellent decision because I picked this up expecting a creature feature and, far from being disappointed, found a lot to like.

Tom Marsh is a journalism student and member of a campus production group called Five-Star, whose regular feature Touring has become a hit in the University paper.  His partners-in-crime are Mary Malgren (also his girlfriend), overweight (and over-bearing) Cherry, Krevitch who does the photography but seems scared of his own shadow and the mentally impared Hunk who, it later transpires, isn’t a student at all but offered once to help carry their equipment and is now a member of the team.  A stock-in-trade of the horror novel (see also The Losers Club in IT), this little gang of outcasts works well together and we get some nice bits of history, later in the book, fleshing out their back stories.

The group is trying to work out which feature to work on next as Tom walks Mary home.  Clearly in love with her, their relationship is hampered by her father, a misanthropic alcoholic who controls her life and hates intellectuals (and plenty more besides) since his wife left him for a French teacher five years before, who expects Mary to be at his beck and call.  Mr Malgren (who has the great quote "The world is fine, but people stink") is the supervisor at the local sewage plant and, according to Mary, has just been bitten on the leg by an alligator, though he wants to keep that very quiet.  Tom realises this is their next assignment, attempts to butter Malgren up to get enough information on the sewers layout - and Mary secretly photocopies the plans - and then Five-Star launch their expedition.

Of course, nothing goes right and that’s not even counting the stories of people going missing in the tunnels.  Frightened by a turtle and “oversized goldfish” (a carp) in one of the holding tanks (more pet shop crazes, flushed away by their owners), they then derail an underground train before discovering they’re not alone in the sewers, as a shambling, white-haired troll who eats roasted rats seems intent on killing them.

The first half of the book enjoys a leisurely pace, taking its time to introduce the characters and their situation and works really well, especially their interplay.  Once they move underground, the pace picks up and Michael uses the locations and atmosphere well, especially the “things” in the water and the first appearance of the troll.  As the body count starts to rise (it’s obvious who the survivors will be from fairly early on, but at least one of the deaths took me by surprise), there’s a neat little twist that shifts the emphasis of the book and then we head off into proper horror territory, the victims pursued by a mad killer.  Brisk and to the point (the edition I read is all of 156 pages), this is good fun (so long as you don’t expect it to be a creature feature), populated by characters you care about and gleefully gruesome in its set pieces, while never outstaying its welcome.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

* * *
Not much is known about David J. Michael, even from the usual reliable sources (such as Will Errickson’s excellent Too Much Horror Fiction), though he published at least one other book, A Blow To The Head, in 1970 (reviewed favourably, as his first novel, in volume 30 of Best Sellers: From the U.S. Government Printing Office).  The New York Times Book Review liked it (check out the cover blurb - "Sheer, shuddering horror!") and the San Francisco Examiner wrote "Terrifying, it's a spine chiller" (on the back cover) while Kirkus were less complimentary, though our views on the first half are very similar.

The book is mentioned (along with a full-page reproduction of the Don Ivan Punchatz cover) in Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks From Hell and even makes an appearance in Stephen King’s excellent Danse Macabre (which I wrote about here) - when discussing Harlan Ellison’s excellent Croatoan, he calls Death Tour a “funny/horrible novel”.

Bobbs-Merill hardback, 1978

The novel appeared in hardback, from Bobbs-Merrill Co, in August 1978 and in Signet paperback (with the Punchatz artwork) in 1979.  New English Library, with cover art by Bob Martin, published the novel in July 1980.

Signet paperback, 1979

I wonder what Mr Michael did next...?

For a few years now, I've been collecting old 70s and 80s paperbacks (mostly horror), picking them up cheaply in secondhand bookshops and at car boot sales and slowly building a collection.  My friend (and fellow collector) Johnny Mains once told me that charity shops sometimes pulp old books like this because the market for them is so small - I understand why but I think it's terrible.  We might not be talking great art here but on the whole, I think these books deserve to be remembered.

To that end, on an irregular basis (too much cheese isn't good for anyone's diet), I'm going to review these "old-school" horrors (and perhaps include some bonus material, if I can find it).

Previous entries in the series can be found at this link

Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin (a review)

In a new edition of the occasional series, I want to tell you about a book I've read and loved, which I think adds to the genre (autobiography, in this case) and that I think you'll enjoy if you're a fan (though if you were a fan, you'd probably read this long before now...)

Steve Martin has been an international star for over thirty years. Here, for the first time, he looks back to the beginning of his career and charmingly evokes the young man he once was.

Born in Texas but raised in California, Steve was seduced early by the comedy shows that played on the radio when the family travelled back and forth to visit relatives. When Disneyland opened just a couple of miles away from home, an enchanted Steve was given his first chance to learn magic and entertain an audience. He describes how he noted the reaction to each joke in a ledger - 'big laugh' or 'quiet' - and assiduously studied the acts of colleagues, stealing jokes when needed. With superb detail, Steve recreates the world of small, dark clubs and the fear and exhilaration of standing in the spotlight. While a philosophy student at UCLA, he worked hard at local clubs honing his comedy and slowly attracting a following until he was picked up to write for TV. From here on, Steve Martin became an acclaimed comedian, packing out venues nationwide. One night, however, he noticed empty seats and realised he had 'reached the top of the rollercoaster'.

BORN STANDING UP is a funny and riveting chronicle of how Steve Martin became the comedy genius we now know and is also a fascinating portrait of an era.

I'll start this with the confession that I missed Steve Martin's stand-up - the golden period of Saturday Night Live and his groundbreaking shows came before I was able to either see or properly understand them.  Delving back into memory, I think I was first aware of him from The Jerk and The Man With Two Brains, two films that really tickled me at the time and continue to do so. The former was probably on BBC2 one night, the latter featured Kathleen Turner and following her turns in Romancing The Stone and Body Heat, she was a major crush of mine in the early 80s, who led me to a lot of interesting films.

Having read Wild & Crazy Guys by Nick DeSemlyn (ostensibly about SNL it also features quite a bit on Martin), I decided to pick up his autobiography and I'm really pleased I did.  A slim volume, it charts his early life in the 40s and 50s, in a home dominated by a father generous in everything but his affection.  Martin escapes as soon as he can in the 60s, first to Disneyland where he works in the magic shop and learns the craft and then to San Francisco, where he starts performing.  His act slowly develops as he sticks to his guns and goes against the grain (he writes his stand-up was “10 years spent learning, 4 years spent refining, and 4 years spent in wild success”), finally hitting the big time in the mid-70s.  Around his burgeoning career, he was also in right place at the right time for a lot of things, from his girlfriends (he dated Mitzi Trumbo and was invited to dinners with her dad Dalton) to his comedy friends, while being part of (but slightly removed from) the zeitgeist.

Told with a lovely dry wit and a searing honesty, this is a cracking book, not only revealing Mr Martin as painfully shy but also a genuinely nice bloke, while proving how tough comedy can be (he tapes his acts, then reviews and analyses them in depth to work out what got laughs and what didn’t).  His decision to stop stand-up in 1981 and move into films is explained and the book pretty much ends there, which really made me eager for volume 2 of the biography (which, as of writing this, hasn’t appeared).  He does, however, complete the story to date (the book was published in 2007) explaining the situation with his family, which is both heart-warming (with his sister) and made me well-up (his parents).

Interesting, intriguing, funny and sad, this is the perfect autobiography and I’d highly recommend it.

Asking Writers Questions - a round-up

Following on from last weeks Mixtape round-up (which you can read here), as we move further into self-isolation I thought it'd be an idea to collect together some Q&A sessions I've had on the blog with writer friends.  In all cases, I review their latest book and then ask them questions around it (or, in some cases, on completely unrelated topics).  I had fun doing them, all the interviewees are excellent and the books are well worth a read so if you're looking for something new to try, you might just find it here.

As always, stay safe and happy reading!

Craze, by Steve Byrne

A wave of terrifying paranormal phenomena has swept the UK. A virulent plague known as the Red Death has decimated the population. Law and order has broken down.

The Crisis Powers Government, operating from the fortified heart of London, is attempting to regain control, whilst a shadowy terrorist organisation is rumoured to be harnessing the power of darkness for its own ends.

To escape a riot-torn inner city, a group of survivors must band together, but their flight will force a harrowing confrontation with the demonic forces at the heart of society’s collapse.

MW:   How much did the end result differ from the original idea?

SB:   Originally, in that first novel (that was consigned to the bottom drawer, and rightly so) it was really gung-ho, proper pulp—sort of like Jerry Ahern’s Survivalist series from the nineties, if you’re ever encountered that. People, mayhem and guns. Fast paced fun. I hope I’ve kept that feel, but as the characters developed  (particularly the female characters, who actually began to take over the novel), it evolved into what you’ve picked up on—a look at how friendship, love and loyalty are our only respite in a world of depravity.

Read the full post here


The Little Gift, by Stephen Volk

THE NOCTURNAL SCAMPERING invariably signals death. I try to shut it out. The cat might be chasing a scrap of paper or a ball of silver foil across the bare floorboards downstairs, say a discarded chocolate wrapper courtesy of my wife, who likes providing it with impromptu playthings. I tell myself it isn’t necessarily toying with something living, but my stomach tightens.

MW:  The novella seems to be a preferred length of yours, what do you like so much about it?
SV:  It didn’t start out as a novella, it grew from a short story into a longer one (same with many of my novellas, in fact). Generally, I just see how the story evolves, length-wise. Nobody is asking me to write these and nobody is giving me a deadline or word count. Yes, I could have written this as a 80,000 word novel but I don’t think I would have gained anything. Pitching and structuring a novel is entirely different, bulkier, more substantial in terms of the market and visibility, but in creative terms I like to think a good novella has everything a good novel has. Like it’s a novel shrunk down, condensed, but the intensity remains and nothing is wasted.

Read the full post here


The Smallest Of Things, by Ian Whates

There are many Londons. From pomp to sleaze, from sophistication to dark corruption, Chris knows them all. A fixer with a particular set of skills, he can step between realities, piercing the thin veils that separate one London from another to find objects or locate people that have fallen between the cracks.

When a close friend, Claire, comes to him fearing for her life he is forced to use his abilities as never before, fleeing with her through a series of ever stranger Londons, trying to keep one step ahead of the men who murdered her boyfriend and are now hunting her.   

At some point, Chris hopes that he and Claire can pause long enough to figure out why these mysterious figures from another London want her dead, but right now they’re too busy simply trying to stay alive.

MW:   A lot of Chris’ previous adventures are alluded to in the novella, have you written any of these?

IW:   This is actually the fifth of Chris’ adventures I’ve written (though the first at this length). One of the others, frustratingly, has been lost somewhere along the way without ever being submitted for publication. The first story, in which Chris attempts to save his sister’s life, is the safest in some senses, because it’s set entirely in our reality, although it relies on interaction with beings from other Londons (it’s currently available in my first collection Growing Pains). I wrote the second, which involves the Green Man (the creature of folk lore, not the pub), for an Alchemy Press anthology, and that’s now in my third collection Dark Travellings. The fourth, The Yin Yang Crescent takes us to the London that’s home to Jed, who has a cameo in the new novella. That one sold to an American publication a few years ago but for various reasons they never published it. I subsequently sold the Spanish language rights and it featured earlier this year in the excellent Windumanoth magazine, but has yet to appear in English.

Read the full post here


Hell Ship, by Benedict J Jones

1944, The Malacca Straights; Blood slicks the deck of a Japanese ship as a terrible ritual is enacting to aid the failing Imperial Forces against the Allies. The ritual rends the very fabric of our world giving access to another realm beyond the ken of man.

Nine survivors from the torpedoed Empire Carew are left adrift in a lifeboat but after weeks in the water they find haven on an abandoned ship they find floating in a strange fog – The Shinjuku Maru.

Nine souls are heading straight for hell.

MW:   How much research was involved?

BJ:   A fair bit. Some things I knew already from reading and previous research but I was drawn to find out more about the merchant seamen during World War two. My family is originally from the north east of England and we have strong ties to the Merchant Navy, as well as the ship building industry and the Royal Navy. Once I started researching shipwreck survivors I came across some really interesting accounts and all that fed into Hell Ship – including that of Poon Lim who spent 133 days adrift.

Read the full post here


Closer Still, by Richard Farren Barber

Keep your friend close, and your enemies closer still.
- Origin contested

“Closer Still is about childhood friends and childhood enemies. It is a story about how the two are often not as far apart as one might believe. It is my thoughts on the strength of children to navigate an environment in which they are often powerless. It is about love and betrayal. The casual pain inflicted by friends. It is the visceral cry of youth against the injustice of life.”

MW:   Obvious question but I’m intrigued - have you ever had a supernatural experience?

RFB:  I haven’t had a supernatural experience. The closest I’ve come to was going into St Mary’s Close in Edinburgh and having a ghost tour in the semi-darkness. By the end of the tour I was living on the edge of my nerves – the place was genuinely eerie. I found myself at the very back of the group and constantly looking over my shoulder into the darkness. Did I see anything moving behind me? I don’t think so, but I realised that if anyone had put a hand on my shoulder I would have screamed loud enough to wake the dead.

Read the full post here


A Summer To Remember, by Sue Moorcroft

COME AND SPEND SUMMER BY THE SEA!

WANTED! A caretaker for Roundhouse Row holiday cottages.

WHERE? Nelson’s Bar is the perfect little village. Nestled away on the Norfolk coast we can offer you no signal, no Wi-Fi and – most importantly – no problems!

WHO? The ideal candidate will be looking for an escape from their cheating scumbag ex-fiancé, a diversion from their entitled cousin, and a break from their traitorous friends.

WHAT YOU’LL GET! Accommodation in a chocolate-box cottage, plus a summer filled with blue skies and beachside walks. Oh, and a reunion with the man of your dreams.

PLEASE NOTE: We take no responsibility for any of the above scumbags, passengers and/or traitors walking back into your life…

MW:   Where did the idea come from? Clancy is another in your line of strong, if slightly wounded heroines.  What prompted you to make the choices for her character you did?

SM:   The spark for the story, which also formed a chunk of Clancy’s issues, was a Tweet. It depicted a couple caught in an intimate moment on the guy’s video conferencing software which, somehow, he’d managed to leave running. Because he was fully dressed it wasn’t pornographic but the activity in which they were engaged couldn’t be mistaken. I began to wonder whether the man and woman were single or, if not, who they were cheating on. How did the video, or a still from it, make it onto social media? Where were these people employed? Did they lose their jobs? Did it cause embarrassment to the employer as well as to the couple? Or, as the still didn’t show faces, did they get away with it? Who else had been involved in the video call?

Read the full post here



And because it never fails to make me smile (we look like a boyband the world's forgotten, just about to launch a new tour), here's a picture of me with Richard (plus Stephen Bacon and Wayne Parkin, taken by Sue), at FantasyCon Scarborough, September 2016 (you can read a full report of the Con here)

from left - Richard, Steve, me and Wayne

Stay safe, people and happy reading!

Review Round-up, for World Book Day

Regular readers will know I take my reading seriously (check out my Westies posts - now up to number eleven! - rounding up what I've read in a particular year), I take book collecting seriously (my sleazy paperback library is something teenaged me would have been proud of) and I'm a real advocate for people losing themselves in a book.

So do yourself a favour - as it's World Book Day on Thursday go out and pick up a book.  You don't have to spend a lot of money on a glossy hardback, go to the library (if you have any left near you, he wrote sarcastically) or buy a paperback, or download an ebook, or go into a second hand or charity shop and pick up something for 20p.

Tastes vary but here are some suggestions, based on books by friends I've read over the past couple of years and liked enough to blog about.

Closer Still, by Richard Farren Barber

(full review here)

“Closer Still is about childhood friends and childhood enemies. It is a story about how the two are often not as far apart as one might believe. It is my thoughts on the strength of children to navigate an environment in which they are often powerless. It is about love and betrayal. The casual pain inflicted by friends. It is the visceral cry of youth against the injustice of life.”

I thoroughly enjoyed Barber’s previous novella Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence and this is equally as good, if poles apart.  A perfectly paced ghost story that turns up its horror - both real and supernatural - as it goes, this benefits greatly from having Rachel as the narrator (unreliable at times), with Barber capturing her voice exceptionally well.  School life feels real and raw with the sense of being alone in a crowded classroom or playground, the demeanour of the teachers which can be threatening or benign but never fully on your side, the smell of the rooms and corridors, the terror of being trapped in a toilet block.  Exceptionally well written, with a great sense for location and atmosphere, this is a perfectly realised ghost story.
* * *

A Summer To Remember, by Sue Moorcroft
(full review - and Q&A - here)

COME AND SPEND SUMMER BY THE SEA!

WANTED! A caretaker for Roundhouse Row holiday cottages.

WHERE? Nelson’s Bar is the perfect little village. Nestled away on the Norfolk coast we can offer you no signal, no Wi-Fi and – most importantly – no problems!

WHO? The ideal candidate will be looking for an escape from their cheating scumbag ex-fiancé, a diversion from their entitled cousin, and a break from their traitorous friends.

WHAT YOU’LL GET! Accommodation in a chocolate-box cottage, plus a summer filled with blue skies and beachside walks. Oh, and a reunion with the man of your dreams.

PLEASE NOTE: We take no responsibility for any of the above scumbags, passengers and/or traitors walking back into your life…

GET IN TOUCH NOW TO MAKE THIS A SUMMER TO REMEMBER!

I'm a huge fan of Sue's and have reviewed all her books but, for me, this just pips the others as the best of the lot.
* * *

Hell Ship, by Benedict J. Jones

(full review - and Q&A - here)

1944, The Malacca Straights; Blood slicks the deck of a Japanese ship as a terrible ritual is enacting to aid the failing Imperial Forces against the Allies. The ritual rends the very fabric of our world giving access to another realm beyond the ken of man.

Nine survivors from the torpedoed Empire Carew are left adrift in a lifeboat but after weeks in the water they find haven on an abandoned ship they find floating in a strange fog – The Shinjuku Maru.

Nine souls are heading straight for hell.

The Shinjuku Maru has been there before…

Scary, thrilling, often amusing (especially in the interplay between some of the characters) but above all relentless, this has a great pace and a superb sense of location, which is well realised and maintained.  If you’re looking for a grim and gruesome horror novella, this is ideal.
* * *

Naming The Bones, by Laura Mauro

(full review here)

First there was darkness…

Alessa Spiteri survives a bombing incident on the London Underground only to discover that the horror she experienced there is only the beginning of the nightmare.

As she struggles to rebuild her life, she finds herself haunted by grotesque, shadowy creatures – monsters Alessa believes are hallucinations, born of her traumatised mind until she meets Casey, also the survivor of an Underground bombing, who tells her she can see the monsters too.

Together, the women plan their fightback against the creatures, a course of action which takes Alessa back into the tunnels beneath the city.

​

Back into the darkness. 

Hugely enjoyable, the claustrophobic atmosphere of the tube - and, indeed, Central London - is well used and becomes genuinely oppressive as the story reaches its conclusion.  Original, full of tension and very scary.
* * *

The Summer Of Impossible Things, by Rowan Coleman

(full review here)

If you could change the past, would you?

Thirty years ago, something terrible happened to Luna’s mother. Something she’s only prepared to reveal after her death.

Now Luna and her sister have a chance to go back to their mother’s birthplace and settle her affairs. But in Brooklyn they find more questions than answers, until something impossible – magical – happens to Luna, and she meets her mother as a young woman back in the summer of 1977.

At first Luna’s thinks she’s going crazy, but if she can truly travel back in time, she can change things. But in doing anything – everything – to save her mother’s life, will she have to sacrifice her own?

A wonderful novel, full of love and friendship and vitality, this doesn’t shy away from the darker elements of life though there is always hope and it’s told with an assured style that drags the reader through at breakneck pace. Beautifully constructed, fantastic in every aspect and moving, I loved this.
* * *

Dead Leaves, by Andrew David Barker
(full review here)

To Scott, Paul and Mark, horror films are everything.

The year is 1983, the boom of the video revolution, and Scott Bradley is seventeen, unemployed and on the dole. Drifting through life, he and his friends love nothing more than to sit around drinking, talking about girls, and watching horror movies.

But things are about to change.

As the ‘video nasty’ media storm descends, their desire to find a copy of the ultimate horror film – The Evil Dead – is going to lead them to the most significant days of their young lives. As the law tightens and their way of life comes under threat from all quarters, they come to learn what truly matters to them – and what doesn’t.

A heartfelt story of friendship, loyalty and youthful rebellion, Dead Leaves is a darkly funny and brutally honest depiction of aimless life in a Midland town, and perfectly captures the impact those first few years of video had on a generation.

I love coming-of-age tales, I love the 80s and I love horror - this was absolutely the perfect book for me and I thought it was a superb read, a paen to the teenage years of horror fans wherever they might have grown up, a This Is England for the Fango crowd.

Into The River, by Mark Brandi (a review)

In a new edition of the occasional series, I want to tell you about a book I've read and loved, which I think adds to the genre (crime, in this case) and that I think you'll enjoy if you're a fan.

Winner of The Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger and The 2018 Indie Debut Fiction Award

Growing up in a small country town, Ben and Fab spend their days playing cricket, wanting a pair of Nike Air Maxes and not talking about how Fab's dad hits him, or how the sudden death of Ben's next-door neighbour unsettled him. Almost teenagers, they already know some things are better left unsaid.

Then a newcomer arrived. Fab reckoned he was a secret agent and he and Ben staked him out. He looked strong. Maybe even stronger than Fab's dad. Neither realised the shadow this man would cast over both their lives.

Twenty years later, Fab is going nowhere but hoping for somewhere better. Then a body is found in the river, and Fab can't ignore the past any more.

I came to this without knowing anything about it - I was browsing in The Works and saw the cover blurb by my friend Louise Jensen - and I'm pleased about that, because if I'd known the issue at the heart of the story, I might have passed on it.  I'm so glad I didn't.

Ben and Fab are best friends, ten-year-olds growing up in a small town in Northern Australia at the tail end of the 80s (though this isn't specified until later).  They spend their days watching TV (including The A-Team, which I thought was a brilliant touch), playing cricket and yabbying in the local creek.  What they don't do is talk about how Fab’s dad hits him or how the death of Ben’s next door neighbour Daisy unsettled him, certainly once the awful rumours start.  Then someone new moves in, a loner called Ronnie with a flash car and the shadow he casts over both boys lives will be felt for a long time to come.

The situation between Ben and Ronnie is harrowing but the worst of it happens off the page which, I think, makes the drama even more intense.  Brandi captures the dry and hot atmosphere of a country town well, so you can almost feel the parched pavements and gardens and his characterisation of the ten year olds feels accurate - they’re smart, but not as clever as they think they are while their relationship is boisterous and natural.  The adults are seen through their eyes, involved but aloof and Fab’s homelife is nicely done, the violence countered by his wonderful mum (who Ben falls for).  The book is split into three parts, with the first told from Ben's POV (he knows there's a problem with Ronnie, he just can't see what it is) and once that storyline has built to its horrific conclusion, Feb takes the next part, as an adult clearly damaged by life and barely scraping by.  So when the past does return - as heralded by the prologue - things start to crumble.

I liked this a lot, it’s tense but often funny, real and harrowing but mostly hopeful, that friendships do conquer fear sometimes.  Engaging, briskly told and well paced, this is a cracking novel and thoroughly deserving of its acclaim.  Highly recommended.

Looking For Rachel Wallace, by Robert B. Parker, at 40

Forty years ago this month, Robert B Parker published the sixth Spenser novel, Looking For Rachel Wallace.

cover scan of my 1987 Penguin edition

Spenser is hired to look after the campaigning lesbian-feminist author Rachel Wallace.

Her new book is going to dish the dirt on people in high places, but its publication brings death threats.  The reluctant Rachel doesn’t like macho wise guys like Spenser and a clash of personalities is inevitable.

After Spenser is fired, Rachel Wallace is kidnapped but the Boston private eye feels honour-bound to find her.

As I wrote in my appreciation of Robert B. Parker (from 2014, you can read it here), I got into crime fiction in the late 80s, starting with Raymond Chandler (after watching The Long Goodbye on Alex Cox’s wonderful Moviedrome thread) who led me to Sara Paretsky’s V I Warshawski series, the Hannah Wolfe novels from Sarah Dunant and various stand-alone titles.  In early 1988, while browsing in Kettering W H Smiths, I picked up - quite by chance - Parker’s Promised Land and fell in love with it (I wrote about it here), becoming an instant fan and working my way through the series until Double Deuce in 1992 (when we parted company).  The earlier novels, in my opinion, are definitely the better ones and I was really pleased to find Looking For Rachel Wallace, on re-reading, still stands up perfectly well, sexual politics and all, being a cleverly constructed mystery with great characters.

Hired by her publisher, Spenser is assigned to protect the feminist-lesbian writer Rachel Wallace, who is ruffling feathers left and right with her new book, Tyranny, that exposes prejudice in high office and business in the Boston area.  When his macho ways include getting into a fight to protect her, Rachel fires Spenser and when, three weeks later she’s kidnapped, he feels duty-bound to find her.  Told with engaging wit and nicely playing the whole spectrum of sexual politics, this sees Parker fitting into the rhythms he’d use for the remainder of the series and promotes Susan Silverman to full partner (she plays a considerable role in the story too).  The characters are well rounded, the mystery falls into place well and Quirk and Belson have much more to do than usual (though Hawk doesn’t make an appearance, more’s the pity).  In keeping with the timeline, this is more violent (Spenser kills two people at one point) than the later books, but Parker also tries to explain the ‘male code’, which is interesting (and sets up a nice relationship with a young cop called Foley).  With a cracking climax - Spenser staging a break-in - that takes place against a blizzard which has brought Boston to a stand-still, this zips along at a rapid pace and is never less than interesting.  Well worth a read!

Robert B. Parker

There really is a lot to like in this.  Spenser and Susan work well together, without a lot of the over-the-top relationship material which tends to overpower the story in later novels and Parker smartly allows Susan to add weight to Spenser’s interplay with Rachel Wallace.  The writer is a terrific creation, strong, smart and resilient and although she and Spenser will never see eye-to-eye, you get a sense of mutual respect from the midpoint (certainly towards the end) and Rachel would re-appear in A Catskill Eagle (1985), Stardust (1990) and Sudden Mischief (1998), developing a strong relationship with Spenser.

Although Hawk doesn’t appear (which is a shame, as I love his character), Lieutenant Martin Quirk and Sergeant Frank Belson do, with fairly big roles (Belson especially) and there’s a well played flare-up between Spenser and Quirk where both men are aware that our hero has slipped up (he fails to make a connection between the villains and a character we already know).  Indeed, the novel’s not afraid to show Spenser making mistakes, not least in his indirectly allowing Rachel to be kidnapped and I think this is one of the few occasions where he loses a fight (though, to be fair, it is against four people) and suffers the physical pain for it.  We also meet the neatly drawn Foley, a young policeman who proudly wears his Vietnam War decorations and clearly follows the same moral code as Spenser & Hawk.

Boston, as ever, is well captured with Parker presumably giving us some of his own thoughts on the city, especially the Boston Public Library at the start of chapter 19:

"The main entrance to the Boston Public Library used to face Copley Square across Dartmouth Street. There was a broad exterior stairway and inside there was a beautiful marble staircase leading up to the main reading room with carved lions and high-domed ceilings. It was always a pleasure to go there. It felt like a library and looked like a library, and even when I was going in there to look up Duke Snider's lifetime batting average, I used to feel like a scholar.
Then they grafted an addition on and shifted the main entrance to Boylston Street. Faithful to the spirit, the architect had probably said. But making a contemporary statement, I bet he said. The addition went with the original like Tab goes with pheasant. Now, even if I went in to study the literary influence of Eleanor of Aquitaine, I felt like I'd come out with a pound of hamburger and a loaf of Wonder bread."

One nice touch, I thought - Spenser & Rachel meet Susan for dinner at Rosalie’s restaurant in Marblehead which is not only a real place, it’s still operating.  As for the blizzard, Boston really was brought to a standstill by one in 1978 (you can read more about it here, at the Boston Globe) which would make sense in terms of the time Parker was writing the novel.

Part of the clash between Spenser and Rachel is her assertion she has no sense of humour and his frequent quipping.  There’s usually plenty of wisecracks in the series but this has some really smart lines.

After being introduced to Rachel she grills him and Spenser reckons “if I’d had tires, she’d have kicked them.”

When he meets Rachel’s publisher, John Ticknor, the man comments he’s been told Spenser is “quite tough.”

“You betcha,” I said. “I was debating here today whether to have the lobster Savannah or just eat one of the chairs.”

Ticknor smiled again, but not like he wanted me to marry his sister.

Crossing a picket line at the Belmont Public Library, one of the demonstrators yells “Dyke!”

I said, “Is he talking to me?”

Rachel Wallace said, “No.”

The Belmont library scene also includes a nice touch in that the audience is under-appreciative, which happens a lot more than non-writers would imagine and it only gets worse later when they go to a book signing and Rachel has to contend with “where do you get your ideas?”

Lastly, in Chapter 10, while guarding Rachel’s hotel room, he’s approached by Callahan, the house detective (he also re-appears in other novels) who asks him for identification.

I handed him my license. He looked at it and looked at me. “Nice picture,” he said.
“Well, that's my bad side,” I said.
“It's full face,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.

hardback third edition (1980) from Delacorte Press (New York)

If you’re intrigued by the Spenser series and looking to get into it, then I envy the enjoyment you have to come.  Although I would, of course, recommend Promised Land (wholeheartedly) or this as starting points, it’s worth bearing in mind the books sit in a chronological timeline so it’s perhaps best to start at the beginning with The Godwulf Manuscript.



Sources:
Bullets And Beer: Looking For Rachel Wallace