David A. Riley's Blog, page 94

Inside No 9

Inside No 9 , written Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, is shaping up to be the best horror series of short stories on British TV for years. We're three tales into the series now and each has proved to be totally different and in many ways even better than the last. This week's episode, Tom and Gerri, had perhaps a little less humour, but more than made up for it with growing chills, especially as twist followed twist towards the end. The acting was superb.An immediate classic.

The good news is that a follow up series has already been commissioned by the BBC.

Hannibal - The TV Series

Halfway through the first season of Hannibal and am loving it. No attempts to make Lecter a likeable character with some screwy but positive virtues like those with which Dexter became increasingly burdened. It pulls no punches and is definitely not something to watch while eating - well, not unless you share a taste for Lecter's culinary delights! (He does like his livers, kidneys, lungs, brains, spleens, etc) And Jack Crawford spends too much time having meals at his house. I'm sure he'll be in need of therapy when the secret behind them is finally revealed.

The Return included in Robert Essig's "Killer Reads in 2013"

Nice to see my horror novel The Return is included in Robert Essig's Killer Reads in 2013. Thanks Robert!

"The Return by David A. Riley is a dark, depressing tale of Lovecraftian mystery and plenty of horror. If you haven't read David A. Riley then you need to pick up one of his 2013 releases and rectify that. He's been publishing short stories professionally for decades and I'm glad he has finally given us such a fantastic novel."

Killer Reads in 2013

A great review from Douglas Draa of Weird Tales magazine for The Lurkers in the Abyss

A great review posted on Amazon for The Lurkers in the Abyss and Other Tales of Terror from Douglas Draa of Weird Tales magazine:

"Lurkers" has to be the finest collection of single author short stories that I've read in many a year.
This collection is 100% entertainment. There's not a week story in the book. These are simply great stories extremely well told.
Every single one of these stories oozes straight forward old school story telling. And what sets them even higher above the competition than they already are is the hard edge of urbanity with a strong touch of modern sensibility. There's not one drop of ironic post modernism in the book. Just pure grim horror. There's no happy endings in these stories. and that's one of the books joys. Mr. Riley doesn't pull any punches or weaken his tales with false sentimentality. Bad things happen to the undeserving in David's universe.

If you love demons, monsters, zombies, cursed locations, sorcerers returning from the dead, a sly nod to HPL and Stephen king then this collection is for you. And it's no wonder that the titular story made not only the years best list when it came out, but was also chosen by John Pelan for Cemetery Dance's monster "Centuries Best" collection.

The only reason I'm giving this 4 stars is that if I gave it 5 then you would just figure that I was full of it if I gave it five stars.
It's a five star book though in all honesty.

Believe me though, (And I know what I'm talking about. I work for Weird Tales Magazine) I'm a tough sell after reading horror for over 40 years and this is one of the finest new collections that you can find today. Do yourself a big favour and order it now.
I purchased my copy through Amazon.de

Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Big Bang Theory

Spoiler Alert for the very small number of people who may still have not watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. After watching The Big Bang Theory and Amy Farrah Fowler's criticism of Raiders that, for all Indiana Jones' actions in the film, he didn't alter the outcome one bit, that if he hadn't been there the Nazis would still have ended up on the island with the Ark and what happened to them would have just been the same, that he made no difference to the outcome whatsoever, I decided to give it a watch as it was quite some time since I last saw it. And, damn it, she was right! Not only that, but aren't some of the things in it just plain daft, even for a fantasy adventure movie - such as the technology that enabled whoever built the temple at the start of the film to build traps that would send out deadly arrows or bolts at whoever crossed a beam of light! Light sensitive traps! Still an enjoyable romp, mind, even after all these years - and far, far better than the Crystal Skull fiasco.

Review of The Lurkers in the Abyss and Other Tales of Terror on Horror World website.

A great review penned by Mario Guslandi has just been posted on the Horror World website. You can read it on this link.

"For the fans of classical horror fiction, a very interesting collection by a  modern but classical author."

Herbert Manning's Psychic Circus and Other Dark Tales by David Williamson

Herbert Manning’s Psychic Circus and Other Dark TalesBy David WilliamsonHazardous PressISBN: 978-0-615906836December, 2013; £4.27/$6.29 pb; £1.88/$3.09 ebook97 pages
David Williamson’s first story appeared in the Twenty-eighth Pan Book of Horror. The 30th volume saw an impressive three more tales - which I think must have made it inevitable that many years later he would become a regular contributor to that modern incarnation of the legendary series, with stories in the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th volumes of the Black Books of Horror (Mortbury Press). He has also been published by Hersham Horror (Alt-Zombie).
Perhaps more than any other writer I can think of David Williamson’s wickedly nasty tales fit in perfectly with the style of the later Pans. Although there may be little of the supernatural in most of them, they are full of all too human evil, with some of the most truly horrible sets of characters you could ever hope to find.
Like a very British Robert Bloch, Williamson is a master of the twist in the tail. A Night to Remember features one of Williamson’s regular types of characters: vengeful, even sadistic offspring. It is easy in this story to understand why the narrator hates his parents so much – or can we? Just how reliable a narrator is he? In any event, what happens to his parents is Grand Guignol at its bloodiest. The title character of The Chameleon Man is able to mimic every hideous disease known to man. Yet has he gone one step too far when he is goaded into trying to mimic death itself? In The Switch we have a story that reminds me so much of EC Comics I could visualize it in graphic form. It has also one of Williamson’s best twists. Matrimonial hatred, murder, revenge – favourite themes of the later Pan Horrors – are the major elements of Rest in Pieces in which a husband thinks he has found the perfect way to dispose of his hated wife, while Boys Will Be Boys has yet another bloody offspring whose actions are definitely not for anyone with a weak stomach! Blind Date, reprinted from Alt-Zombie, is one of the few supernatural stories in this collection, a zombie tale with a neat twist. The final story, the titular Herbert Manning’s Psychic Circus, has a circus owner facing ruin in today’s PC-ridden, health and safety obsessed world who is made an offer he can’t possibly afford to refuse by a mysterious stranger, though he fails to realize the full implications till far too late.
These are strong short stories, graphically told, with minimal subtlety. If you like your horror full in your face, these are definitely for you.

Unexpected Payment for Review

On Friday I received an unexpected payment via Paypal for a review I did for hellnotes from its corporate owner, Journalstone. This is the first time I have ever been paid for a review, though I have done quite a few over the years. Although it was only $10 this is more than many small presses pay for full-blown stories in their anthologies these days!

It's certainly nice to feel appreciated!

Inside No. 9 - "Sardines"

I very much enjoyed Inside No 9 last night, with its opening episode "Sardines". An amazing cast list - and a genuinely scary climax. How is it that some of the best horror on TV these days is comedy? Last night's episode was written by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, both of whom appeared in it.

IMDB

The World's End

I first became aware of Simon Pegg when I watched his two series on British TV, Spaced (1999-2001), which was an amazing saga of a young wannabe comic artist, Tim Bisley (Pegg), his flatmate Jessica, a would-be writer played by Jessica Hynes, Bisley's best friend, gun-mad, part-time soldier, full-time lunatic Mike (Nick Frost) and other eccentric oddballs, an inventive, endlessly funny series which amply displayed Pegg's love for science fiction, etc. His parodaic funeral pyre for his Star Wars collection after the release of The Phantom Menace is unforgettable - and spot on true.

He went on to make one of the best ever zombie comedies with Shaun of the Dead (2004), and Paul (2011) is a witty, enjoyable take on aliens and UFOs which could have been a follow-on to Spaced.

His track record, though, seems to me to have been uneven, with some downright dire films, such as Run, Fatboy, Run (2007) and the very uneven Hot Fuzz the year before, not to mention the very unfunny comedy Burke and Hare (2011).

The World's End is again, for me, a bit uneven, though mostly it succeeds. It's a frenetic tale of old mates being coerced by Pegg's Gary King into going on a mammoth pub crawl which they started but never finished decades ago when they left school. Pegg is on top form, as are the rest of the cast, as they revisit pubs that have altered out of all recognition since the halcyon days of their youth, morphing into characterless modern day wining and dining establishments rather than the earthy pubs of their memories. This, though, isn't the worst they need to worry about, because a mind-chilling disaster has begun to take over their old home town, a place none of them have visited in years. Hence the title, The World's End, which isn't only the name of the last pub on their crawl but maybe the fate that awaits us all...

This is a return to comedy science fiction for Pegg, a high-octane, frantic, ever more chaotic tale that makes even Shaun of the Dead look tame by comparison! If I have any complaints it would be that some of the well-orchestrated fight scenes go on for too long - but that's not uncommon these days. These and chases invariably seem to go on forever in films nowadays.

Still, putting this quibble to one side, the action, humour, and plot twists go on at a relentless rate and there is barely a second within which to get bored. Whether it's the kind of film, like Shaun of the Dead or Paul, which I would gladly watch again some time, I'm not so sure. But it's definitely a film I enjoyed first time round.