David A. Riley's Blog, page 122

The Crazies & Creepshow

Felt in a retro mood today so I got the original George Romero The Crazies and 1982's Creepshow with Stephen King on DVD. I can't remember ever having watched The Crazies (though I love the remake) and I haven't seen Creepshow since we rented it in the early 80's. They'll make a nice change from the dross of normal TV!

The Unspoken

It looks like The Unspoken, a charity anthology in aid of cancer research, edited by Willie Meakle, has been dropped at the last minute by Dark Continent Publishing because of "internal changes" and because "they have overextended themselves."  Though this is devastating news at this stage, Willie is determined to find a new publisher. Good luck to him!

That this has happened a great shame as Willie has assembled a great lineup, which includes:

Ramsey Campbell - Introduction
Tim Lebbon - Just Breathe
Simon Kurt Unsworth - Photographs of Boden
Steven Savile & Steve Lockley - The Last Gift
John Shirley - Where the Market's Hottest
Stephen James Price - Pages of Promises
Stephen Volk - Bless
Scott Nicholson - Heal Thyself
William Meikle - Metastasis
Nancy Kilpatrick - Alien Love
David A. Riley - A Girl, a Toad and a Cask
Allyson Bird - Oyster Pink
Johnny Mains - The Cure
Guy N Smith - The Big One
Pete Crowther - Cankerman
Steve Duffy - X for Henrietta
Gary McMahon - Bitter Soup

Buzescu

On checking the statistics on my blog, one of the consistently most looked at entries is about the Romanian Gypsy town of Buzescu. Why this is I don't know, though the town itself is certainly one of the oddest I have ever come across in my travels and somewhere, having seen, no one is likely to forget. It's style of architecture is unlike anything I have seen elsewhere. Well worth driving through just to look at. We did think, when we first saw it, of returning one day for a longer visit, perhaps booking into a local hotel. At the time we didn't know it was a Gypsy town. I don't think there are any hotels there. I don't even know if it has any shops, cafes, restaurants, etc. We didn't spot any, though that doesn't mean there definitely aren't any somewhere in the town. Next time we pass through we'll probably drive around just to see. And perhaps take a few more photographs of its strangely extravagant buildings.

The Satyr's Head: Tales of Terror edited by David A. Sutton

This release was just given by Dave Sutton:

New from Shadow Publishing: The Satyr's Head: Tales of Terror, Selected by David A. Sutton. Cover art by Steve Upham. This is the first new edition of the long out of print Transworld/Corgi Book "The Satyr's Head & Other Tales of Terror", first published in 1975. With stories by Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley, Joseph Payne Brennan, Eddy C. Bertin, David A. Riley and others, this new edition will bring back into print some ten chilling tales of the supernatural and the sub-human, of ghosts and demons, strange phenomena and the inexplicable. ISBN 978-0-9539032-3-8, Paperback, 170pp, £5.99
"The Nightingale Floors were part of a crumbling Chicago museum and only the brave or the foolish ventured there after dark. The building had a weird history – and no night watchman stayed there long..."
"Winnie was The Prefect Lady and Rupert loved every little bit of her. But when the neighbours saw her at close quarters, panic spread through Lavender Hill..."
"Aunt Hester had strange powers. Her ability to transfer herself into the body of her twin brother had a hideous ending – or was it a beginning?"
"Lamson was intrigued by The Satyr's Head. He bought the little relic from an old tramp. It brought him nightmares, disease and, worst of all, unnatural passion from a foul incubus..."

More Information: http://davidasutton.co.uk/Question.html

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The Satyr's Head: Tales of Terror edited by David A. Sutton

Steve Upham has just revealed the amazing cover he has done for this anthology, which was originally published by Corgi Books in 1975.

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The Century's Best Horror Fiction

Just picked up my copies of The Century's Best Horror Fiction from the Post Office this morning. Surprised at just how large they are! It might take Cemetery Dance a long time to produce a book, but when they do it's magnificent.

The Eighth Black Book of Horror

An amazingly good, in-depth review of The Eighth Black Book of Horror is on The Zone site. I particularly loved the remarks about my own story in it, The Last Coach Trip.

"..but following story from David A. Riley seems to be heading in an even quieter direction, more Last Of The Summer Wine than I Know What You Did Last Summer. His brilliantly titled Their Cramped Dark World, a disturbing tale of a dare gone horribly wrong, in The Sixth Black Book Of Horror, might be more the kind of thing fans of his classic urban horror story Lurkers In The Abyss might expect from this veteran of Pan horror.

The Last Coach Trip by contrast is a tragicomic elegy to traditional northern working class culture, rather like a Twilight Zone episode, but with dry humour undercutting any tendency to sentimentality that might imply. It's also a touching portrait of a friendship. Harold is worried when his friend Eddie turns up late and the worse for wear to the last of their working men's club's annual outings and piss-ups, where they visit country pubs and bookies and bemusedly watch an X Factor runner-up. Maybe Eddie's got Alzheimer's, but the change in Eddie is more profound, and the Last Coach Trip of the title has a more macabre meaning. "Some days should never end," says Eddie, and their eerie fate is a warning about being unable to cope with change."


That's the kind of review that can't help but make me smile. 

The Century's Best Horror Fiction - review

Just come across the first review I've found so far for The Century's Best Horror Fiction. I've been a bit wary of seeing these as I know there has been some contention over the years about the stories chosen by editor, John Pelan.

Zombies: A Compendium of the Living Dead

For anyone interested in this anthology, edited by Otto Penzler, there is a lively ongoing discussion about it on the Vault of Evil.

Lovecraft eZine

Just received an email from the editor of Lovecraft eZine accepting my 10,000 word story Fish Eye.