David A. Riley's Blog, page 99

Alien Worlds

I came across my copy of what may be the only science fiction magazine published in Manchester, Alien Worlds, which came out in 1966 edited by Charles Partington and Harry Nadler. Unfortunately this was to be the only issue.

At 64 pages with stories by some well known, well-established names it was a quality production and has the distinction of having stories in it by two writers who were to become the first two presidents of the British Fantasy Society: Kenneth Bulmer and J. Ramsey Campbell, as he was then known.

Ramsey Campbell's story impressed me at the time - and still does - with its ghoul haunted cinema in The Childish Fear.

It had some superb artwork in it by Eddie Jones (then one of the biggest names in SF art whose book covers became prolific over the next few years), Terry Jeeves, Jack Partington and Jack Wilson. It also had a piece on the forthcoming major SF movie 2001 - A Space Odyssey, as well as a feature, plus pictures from One Million Years B.C.

Weird Window 2

My cover artwork for issue 2
Back in the very early 70s before he became a professional editor with Sphere Books' New Writings in Horror and the Supernarural volumes 1 and 2, Dave Sutton published Weird Window, which showcased new stories by a variety of writers like Robert J. Curran, Keith A. Walker, Alan Moore, Edward P. Bergland, Eddy C. Bertin, Gregory Francis, Alan Jones, and Colin Lee, as well as a couple of stories of mine, one of which ended up in The Year's Best Horror Stories 1 edited by Richard David (Sphere Books, UK and DAW Books USA).

Weird Window only ran for two issues. I provided the artwork for the cover of the second issue, plus a story, Corpse-Maker. Other stories in this issue were The Dog by Robert J. Curran, The Haunting of Edward Latimer by Keith A. Walker, Shrine of the Lizard by Alan Moore, and Homecoming by Edward P. Berglund.



Alan Moore's artwork for his story Shrine of the Lizard

Special Offer on Signed Editions Bundle at Shadow Publishing

 Shadow Publishing is offering a discount on a signed bundle of their books:



Eddy C. Bertin's THE WHISPERING HORROR (Signed bookplate issued at World Fantasy Convention, author, cover artist Harry Morris and editor David A. Sutton signatures), very limited supply! David A. Riley's LURKERS IN THE ABYSS AND OTHER TALES OF TERROR(Signed by the author). Limited number of copies available.  Samantha Lee's WORSE THINGS THAN SPIDERS AND OTHER STORIES (Signed bookplate). Limited number of copies available. The UK price for all three, including postage is £20.00.The European price, again including postage, is £30.00.The US and ROW price, including airmail postage, is £40.00.

Jim Pitts Artwork

These are a few examples of the fantasy artist, Jim Pitts. The four black and white ones are originals, which illustrated some of my stories and were published in World of Horror magazine and the hard cover anthology Northern Chills. The colour work is an LP cover he did for Nick Caffrey's folk group, The Wassailers, in 1978.

Northern Chills - illustrating Writer's Cramp
World of Horror, illustrating The Shade of Apollyon
World of Horror, illustrating Terror on the Moors
Nick Carrfey's folk group The Wassailers, 1978

The Wyrd Sisters - Oswaldtwistle Players

I'm looking forward to watching the Oswaldtwistle Players' next production, Stephen Briggs' adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters.

This will be performed at the Civic Theatre, Union Road, Oswaldtwistle on April 30-3 May, 2014 at 7.30 p.m.

Blood Bound Books Fourth Anniversary Sale

Blood Bound Books are having a Fourth Anniversary Sale on their ebooks, including copies of my novel The Return .

Check these out on Amazon.co.uk where it's available for £1.27 and Amazon.com where it's priced at $2.05.

Robert Aickman: A Centenary Tribute

Cover and interior artwork
Johnny Mains will be publishing Robert Aickman: A Centenary Tribute next year. Its contents will be:

Introduction by S.T. Joshi
Foreword by Johnny Mains 
ESSAYS T.E.D. Klein - On Meeting Aickman
Lisa Tuttle - On Nearly Meeting Aickman
John L. Probert - The Adaptations
Hugh Lamb - Obituaries and Waterways
Jeremy Dyson - *untitled*
Roger Clarke - 'The Cicerones'
Reece Shearsmith - Reading Aickman
Philip Challinor- "Meeting Mr Millar" and "Letters from the Postman"
Richard Dalby - My friend, Robert Aickman
Sonia Rolt - Corrosion of a Friendship (about her husband L.T.C. Rolt)
David A. Riley - Robert Aickman Comes to Fantasycon
Douglas A. Anderson - The Film Reviewer
Johnny Mains - The Editor's Editor: Aickman and Fontana GhostsSTORIESOriginal Stories by:
Adam Nevill
Pete Crowther
Lynda E. Rucker
Simon Stranzas
Robert Shearman
Conrad Williams
Mark Morris
Stephen Volk
Reggie Oliver

Tales of the Grotesque by L. A. Lewis

David Sutton has unveiled the cover art created by Dave Fletcher for Tales of the Grotesque by L. A. Lewis, due to be published by Shadow Publishing next year.
This was the cover for the first publication of this collection. A decent copy fetches high prices on the second hand book market.

Schalken the Painter

As a dual format edition from the BFI this came in both blu ray and DVD. Only having a DVD player, this was obviously the version I watched.

What you get is Schalken the Painter, based on the Le Fanu story, broadcast by the BBC in 1979, two short films: The Pit (Edward Abraham, 1962, 27 mins) and The Pledge (Digby Rumsey, 1981, 21 mins), interviews with the director of Schalken, Leslie Megahey, and director of photography John Hooper on the making of the film (Look Into the Dark), some original production sketches for The Pit (which is based on the Poe story), and a fully illustrated and very informative booklet with essays by Ben Hervey, James Bell and Vic Pratt.

Obviously the main feature is Schalken the Painter, a gorgeously filmed adaptation of the Le Fanu story, narrated by Charles Grey, and starring Jeremy Clyde as Schalken, Maurice Denham as his mentor Dou, Cheryl Kennedy as Rose, Dou's ward, and John Justin as the sinister Vanderhausen. Leisurely paced, yet filled with details, this would have easily fit in the well respected Ghost Stories for Christmas based on the tales of M. R. James, if perhaps more akin to Jonathan Miller's Whistle and I'll Come to You, which like this was an Omnibus production.

If because of its source (the arts program Omnibus) there could be suspicions that the full horror of this story might have been diluted or made obscure, the final scenes dispel this completely and I think this was probably the most shocking ghost story I had ever seen on television when I first saw this in 1979. It has lost none of its impact now. Nor have the high production values in making it been exceeded either. This is a meticulously researched film with an impressive air of authenticity. Everything not only looks right, every beautifully designed scene could have come straight from a Dutch painting of the era in which it is based, from the sets, costumes and lighting.

No fan of Le Fanu will be disappointed by this rare adaptation of one of his stories.

The two short films accompanying it are not of the same class, but are interesting in their own right. My favourite of the two has to be The Pledge, a tale of three eighteenth century thieves who argumentatively decide to take down the rotting body of their friend, a highwayman captured, tried and executed and left hanging by the authorities in a gibbet on a lonely, windswept hill. The images of the body as it is glimpsed during the months it spends there, losing its feet to decay, are nightmarish and ugly. But there is a grotesque comic relief to all this when the three friends set out at the dead of night with a ladder to bury him in consecrated ground, even if it means dumping someone else's body elsewhere...

An Adventure in Space and Time - the Start of the Doctor Who Story

I can't claim to be a Whovian these days, though I probably was when the series first started in 1963, but I certainly enjoyed Mark Gatiss's dramatisation of the beginning of the series last night on the BBC. The recreation of the period looked spot on, and the performances of all those concerned really couldn't be faulted. I know that the end, when William Hartnell is compelled to bow out of the role, brought a tear to my wife's eyes. David Bradley gave a remarkable performance as the irascible Hartnell. I wish all TV dramas were as good as this.