Doctor Who: The Glamour Chronicles

BBC Books

These fairly regular trios of 'New Series Adventures' hardbacks have become a real favourite of mine over the last few years.  I really like the design and the hand feel of them - hardbacks with printed covers - but equally they're a chance for a slightly longer and more outrageous Doctor story than the TV can provide yet they are less involved and embedded in the mythos than the old Virgin and BBC Books series were.  They do however tend to be a bit of a mixed bag but usually they're at worst readable and there's often at least one - the last set had two - that's just downright fun.

Royal Blood
Una McCormack

“The Grail is a story, a myth! It didn’t exist on your world! It can’t exist here!”
The city-state of Varuz is failing. Duke Aurelian is the last of his line, his capital is crumbling, and the armies of his enemy, Duke Conrad, are poised beyond the mountains to invade. Aurelian is preparing to gamble everything on one last battle. So when a holy man, the Doctor, comes to Varuz from beyond the mountains, Aurelian asks for his blessing in the war.
But all is not what it seems in Varuz. The city-guard have lasers for swords, and the halls are lit by electric candlelight. Aurelian’s beloved wife, Guena, and his most trusted knight, Bernhardt, seem to be plotting to overthrow their Duke, and Clara finds herself drawn into their intrigue...
Will the Doctor stop Aurelian from going to war? Will Clara’s involvement in the plot against the Duke be discovered? Why is Conrad’s ambassador so nervous? And who are the ancient and weary knights who arrive in Varuz claiming to be on a quest for the Holy Grail…?

I've read several of Ms McCormack' books before and they're usually a diverting enough read with a nice core concept.  This one though was decidedly weak throughout.

Knights and medieval castles are never going to particularly enamour me to a book and when you tie in King Arthur and the quest for the Grail I'm pretty much gone.  

What really let this one down though was some sloppy writing, plotting and editing.  The time frames are all over the place with, for instance, the questing knights travelling for three weeks over a distance that Clara and Emfil manage to subsequently travel in the turn of a page even though they're on the other side of the country.

This really should have been a lot better and a title like that could have sent the story to any number of interesting destinations but instead what we got was several strands of a story that failed to gel in any meaningful way.

Big Bang Generation
Gary Russell

“I'm an archaeologist, but probably not the one you were expecting.”
Christmas 2015, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Imagine everyone's surprise when a time portal opens up in Sydney Cove. Imagine their shock as a massive pyramid now sits beside the Harbour Bridge, inconveniently blocking Port Jackson and glowing with energy. Imagine their fear as Cyrrus "the mobster" Globb, Professor Horace Jaanson and an alien assassin called Kik arrive to claim the glowing pyramid. Finally imagine everyone's dismay when they are followed by a bunch of con artists out to spring their greatest grift yet.
This gang consists of Legs (the sexy comedian), Dog Boy (providing protection and firepower), Shortie (handling logistics), Da Trowel (in charge of excavation and history) and their leader, Doc (busy making sure the universe isn't destroyed in an explosion that makes the Big Bang look like a damp squib).
And when someone accidentally reawakens The Ancients of the Universe - which, Doc reckons, wasn't the wisest or best-judged of actions – things get a whole lot more complicated…

Gary Russell is a long term DW writer and aficionado with a plethora of novels and audio plays under his belt.  I've read and listened to a few and find them to be a bit of a hodgepodge in terms of quality.

As a writer he has a light, fluid and personable style, he's hugely knowledgeable on his subject and an easter egg spotters dream author (and for me the last two are a large part of the problem).  The plot of 'Big Bang Generations' is all of the above and makes for a heads down, see you at the finish ride as we watch the Doctor , an archaeologist friend and some others attempt to avoid the imminent destruction of Sydney followed closely by the universe.

There's a problem here though and it's a doozy.  Russell's version of the 12th is quite simply wrong;  it's just not him.  He's personable, likable, huggy, jocular, patient and wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.  His version of 12 says things like, "Cold pizza. My favourite. Not." which I just can't imagine 12 ever saying.  I spent much of the book picturing the Doctor here as a 10th / 11th hybrid.  A big kid running around with his mates saving the universe. This may sound like a small thing, they're all the same person after all but getting the specific doctor right is fundamental and he didn't.

The book itself is a romp. It's entertaining enough and an ok place to visit but fortunately you don't have to stay too long.

Deep Time
Trevor Baxendale

"I do hope you’re all ready to be terrified!" 
The Phaeron disappeared from the universe over a million years ago. They travelled among the stars using roads made from time and space, but left only relics behind. But what actually happened to the Phaeron? Some believe they were they eradicated by a superior force… Others claim they destroyed themselves.
Or were they in fact the victims of an even more hideous fate?
In the far future, humans discover the location of the last Phaeron road – and the Doctor and Clara join the mission to see where the road leads.
Each member of the research team knows exactly what they’re looking for – but only the Doctor knows exactly what they’ll find.
Because only the Doctor knows the true secret of the Phaeron: a monstrous secret so terrible and powerful that it must be buried in the deepest grave imaginable…

There, I told you there'd be one.  'Deep Time' is fun one this time out.  It brings to a close the poorly conceived 'Glamour' storyline in a satisfying way.  

Unlike 'Royal Blood' it's tightly plotted and unlike 'Big Bang Generation' the Doctor (and Clara) is absolutely spot on.  The words feel like they are being spoken by Capaldi and his actions and reactions are true to the character.

The story is fairly straightforward as the Doctor and Clara join an expedition to investigate a deep space wormhole linked to the lost Phaeron race.  Joining them on board are a team of scientists, a rich adventurer and the four person crew of pilot, navigator and mechanics.  When everything inevitably goes wrong the crew find themselves stranded on a mysterious planet being periodically thrown further and further backwards in time as their numbers dwindle alarmingly and the Doctor frantically searches for the TARDIS whilst someone else in the crew searches for something else.

It was a delight to read. A big , fast, witty, Doctor Who romp that felt at home in the new series and also felt correct to the DW mythology without seeming to be slavishly mired in the history.  

I could happily read more like this and hope the next batch of three provides more of this and less of the others.

The Omega Factor

After leaving the TARDIS in 1978 and before confining herself to a Japanese POW camp for two years in 'Tenko', Louise Jameson starred in the single series of what, until recently, was perhaps one of the forgotten chapters of British weird TV, 'The Omega Factor'.

Created by scriptwriter Jack Gerson, 'The Omega Factor' was a 10 episode series produced by BBC Scotland that told of journalist Tom Crane (James Hazeldine also star of Chocky and The Last Train) and his involvement in Department 7, a shadowy government agency (is there any other kind?) concerned with psychic phenomena.  Also employed by the agency are, Jameson's, Dr. Anne Reynolds and Dr Roy Martindale (John Carlisle) the driven and unscrupulous department head.

Crane is drawn in to the orbit of the agency as a result of his wife's murder by evil psychic, Edward Drexel played by Cyril Luckham who will be familiar to some readers as 'The White Guardian' in the Tom Baker era Doctor Who storyline 'The Key To Time'.  The rather aggressive, slightly unlikeable and, where Ann is concerned, inappropriately attentive Crane is encouraged to join the organisation both to hunt for Drexel and to explore his own nascent psychic abilities.  Once involved he slowly comes to realise that there is a larger conspiracy at work, the Omega of the title, and that his own organisation may not be completely innocent.

Only 10, 50 minute episodes were made before the series ended on a bit of a cliffhanger.  In it's time it achieved a level of notoriety when self righteous, moaning, busybody Mary Whitehouse denounced the episode, 'Powers of Darkness' as being "thoroughly evil" which, according to his obituary in Scottish newspaper 'Herald Scotland', delighted Gerson.

The series boasted some fairly high production values and some nicely creepy and unpleasant moments.  It was definitely made with an adult audience in mind and this is reflected in the behaviour of the characters but also in things like the fabulous diegetic music choices. It is also very much of it's time in terms of things like Crane's (and Martindale's for that matter) behaviour towards Anne.

I've seen this series at various times compared to both 'Sapphire and Steel' and also 'The X-Files' but it rarely achieves the sublime craziness of the former and my knowledge of the latter is really too limited to accurately compare but on the surface it seems a fair comparison.

The series has recently been revived by audio maestros 'Big Finish' who have produced an audiobook of Gerson's novelisaton of the series and who have issued several series of new episodes starring Louise Jameson (whose Dr Anne Reynolds is now in charge of Department 7) and John Dorney (as Crane's son, Adam) which will hopefully raise the profile of the original.

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Wyrd Britain TV Themes

With several hours to spare the other day I decided to make a playlist of some of the themes from the shows we love here at Wyrd Britain.  I'm entirely certain I've missed more than a few out but these are the ones that came to mind most readily.

Included in the list are classic sci-fi themes (starting with the most obvious), cartoons, supernatural, spy and action themes, kids shows and some light entertainment.

If you think of anything I've missed from the list then please leave a comment below.

hope you enjoy.

The Time Machine (1960)

Today, September 21st 2015, marks what would have been the 149th birthday of probably the single most important author in British (if not global) science fiction, Herbert George Wells.  To mark this occasion I'm going to share with you one of my favourite things, the 1960 MGM adaptation of his novella 'The Time Machine'.

Originally written in 1895 Wells' novella tells of an anonymous inventor - identified only as 'The Time Traveller' - who uses his craft to travel far into the future to the 803rd century and then on another 30 milion years to the eventual end of the Earth.

The film, in many ways remains faithful to Wells' original just with the emphasis being, of course, more on action as opposed to Wells' meditation on class and society (and possibly free range farming).  Starring Rod Taylor as H. George Wells (can you see what they did there?) an inventor who creates a time machine - surely one of the most beautifully realised pieces of filmic sci fi gadgetry - and who uses it to travel forward to the seemingly idyllic surface world of the Eloi and the subterranean hell of the mutant Morlocks.

Taylor, in his first starring role, is an engaging enough lead in a movie that he mostly carries on his own shoulders with his co star Yvette Mimieux (playing the Eloi, Weena) mostly reduced to giving puzzled looks and being in need of rescuing.  The sets are nicely realised, the action sequences are slick and the supporting cast are solid.

Having been based on a novella that it follows fairly closely the core story at the heart of the movie is fairly thin but, for me at least, it remains a classic of its time and its genre and is a film I can, have and will watch again and again.

Buy it here - The Time Machine [DVD] [1960] - or watch it below

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Scroll of the Dead

David Stuart Davies
Titan Books

Holmes attends a seance to unmask an impostor posing as a medium, Sebastian Melmoth, a man hell-bent on obtaining immortality after the discovery of an ancient Egyptian papyrus. It is up to Holmes and Watson to stop him and avert disaster...
In this fast-paced adventure, the action moves from London to the picturesque Lake District as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson once more battle with the forces of evil.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless creation returns in a new series of handsomely designed detective stories. From the earliest days of Holmes’ career to his astonishing encounters with Martian invaders, the Further Adventures series encapsulates the most varied and thrilling cases of the worlds’ greatest detective. 

So, my guess is that David Stuart Davies is a bit of a Sherlock Holmes nut.  I've read several things with his name on and have several more waiting their time in the sun and they are all Holmes related.  A quick check of his website reveals many more strings to his bow (a Stradivarius played at night whilst pondering a tricky conundrum) but for me he's a Sherlock writer and a very good one at that.

David Stuart Davies

'The Scroll of the Dead' is an ancient Egyptian papyrus purported to contain the secret of immortality to whoever can crack it's code.  Hunting for it is a sadistic dandy by the name of Sebastian Melmoth who is determined to defeat death itself.  Through a tangle of events Holmes finds himself increasingly drawn into the hunt for the scroll as a trail of murders leads him further into it's mysteries and the obsessions of those surrounding it.

It's a fairly faithful Holmes tale with a hint of the supernatural about it although the arch-rationalist is having none of that in his pursuit of his quarry.  There are moments when I think DSD left Holmes uncharacteristically wide open and defenceless (the confrontation in the cellar for one) which is too out of character but for the main part Davies knows his characters and has created a very readable Holmes pastiche.

The Wombles

In 1968 Elisabeth Beresford created the first of what became some 20 books (6 of them novels) about small, furry, burrowing creatures that lived under London's Wimbledon Common called Wombles.  From the outset the books were a huge success that tapped very much into the emerging countercultural zeitgeist of simple, rural living and green issues.  The books have since been translated into various languages and continue to sell to this day.

Without wishing to take anything away from the books this enduring success can be, in no small part, attributed to The Wombles step away from the page and on to the screen with the 1973 BBC TV series. 

Elisabeth Beresford

This new series was written by Beresford and directed by Anglo-French animator Ivor Wood who had previously worked on 'The Magic Roundabout' (with Serge Danot) and 'The Herbs' and who would go on to make 'Paddington' and 'Postman Pat'.

Ivor Wood

Responsibility for the theme tune was given to the then virtually unknown songwriter Mike Batt who obtained the rights to musical exploitation of the characters and later went on to be entirely to blame for 'Bright Eyes'.

Providing the voices for the Wombles was British TV legend Bernard Cribbins.  In the video below he talks about the show.



Two series, each consisting of thirty 5 minute episodes, of  'The Wombles' were produced in 1973 and 1975 and all 6 can be viewed in the two playlists below.

They are beautifully made, utterly charming, slightly mischievous and gloriously daft.

Enjoy.

The School Is Full of Noises

BBC Radio 4

Poet Ian McMillan explores the world of ceative music making in the music education of the 1960s as he uncovers the work of teachers and children who created avant garde music and wonders how this impacted on the participants.

At only 30 minutes long it's far too short for such a large and interesting topic but it is fascinating with contributions from both enthusiasts - Jonny Trunk - and experts - Stephanie Pitts.

The BBC link won't embed so listen after the jump...

The School Is Full of Noises 

(if that link goes dead Jon Savage has it has his site here)

If this sort of thing is as up your particular street as it is mine then this is a subject that we've featured before with reviews of two Trunk Records releases...

Music for Children (Schulwerk)

and

Classroom Projects

Enjoy.

Horror Stories

Susan Price (ed)
Kingfisher Books

Chills, spills and empty coffins! This wide-ranging collection of twenty-four spine-tingling stories draws on the best traditions of classic horror, from powerful myths and folktales to contemporary stories of man-made terrors. With contributions by writers of the calibre of John Steinbeck, Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, T. H. White, Philip K. Dick and Stephen King, this is a truly chilling anthology.

On one weird day out at a local town a few months back I found 3 books in this series of anthologies in 3 separate charity shops (and then a few weeks later another in a different shop in a different town).  I bought 2; this one and a Vampire one.

What we have here is very much the modern equivalent of the old Pan, Fontana, Puffin anthologies.  The contents selected by the author Susan Price, is a mixed bag of the famous and the less so, the old and the new, the ghastly and the funny.

There's 24 separate tales here each of which I jotted a sentence about in my handy little notebook as I read and that seemed a good enough idea for this review so here goes the most spur of the moment review I've ever written.

E. F. Benson

1. Algernon Blackwood - The Kit Bag.
- Dark and spooky story about a man terrified by a bag.

2. Stephen King - Here There Be Tygers
- Pointless tale of urine related shyness and a tiger.

3. E.F. Benson - The Room in the Tower
- Prophetic dreams of a horrid old woman and a creepy room lead to a poor ending.

4. Philip K. Dick - Beyond Lies the Wub
- Very odd sci-fi tale of the ethics of food.

5. Susan Price - Feeding the dog
- A short fun morality tale about the costs of evil.

Nicholas Fisk

6. Nicholas Fisk - Teddies Rule OK
- A thoroughly, and I do mean thoroughly, creepy girl with teddy bear story.

7. Eleanor Farjeon - Grendel the Monster
- A quick telling of the Beowolf story.

8. Leon Garfield - A Grave Misunderstanding
- A fun little ghostly tale of the differences between what a dog 'sees' and what a human does.

9. Charles Dickens - Captain Murderer
- An oddly written tale of cannibalism and revenge.

10. Joan Aiken - Something
- Enigmatic and terrifying hauntings & dreams affect the males of a family.

Guy de Maupassant

11. Guy de Maupassant - The Hand
- Spooky tale of a haunted murderous hand.

12. Ellen Emerson White - The Boy Next Door
- Psychopathy American teen style

13. Scottish folktale - The Murder Hole
- Murder on the moors

14. Terry Jones & Michael Palin - The Famous Five go Pillaging
- A deeply Pythonesque tale of the collapse of Roman Imperialism.

15. John Steinbeck - the Affair at 7 Rue de M-
- Pointless story of malevolent bubble gum.

Vivien Alcock

16. Vivien Alcock - A Change of Aunts
- A fun tale of swampy retribution.

17. Edgar Allen Poe - The Cask of Amontillado
- Poe really liked walling people up.  Someone should check his house.

18. English folktale - The Pear Drum
- Odd tale about the perils of misbehaviour.

19. Philippa Pearce - The Dog Got Them
- Dog versus the D.T.s

20. Saki - Gabriel-Ernest
- A story of lycanthropy that begins well and ends poorly.

Philippa Pearce

21. Jan Mark - Nule
- Creepy little tale of anthropomorphism .

22. Jerome K. Jerome - The Dancing Partner
- A robotic take on 'The Red Shoes'.

23. Margaret Bingley - The Ring
- Young girl buys jewellery with a hidden cost.

24. T. H. White - The Troll
- Odd little story of a man confronted by a hungry troll whilst holidaying in Norway.

I'm so pleased they still do anthologies of this type for kids especially ones with this much good stuff but do many young people read Victorian horror?  I hope so.

Wyrd Britain mix 6

It's a beautiful, sunny, late summer, Sunday afternoon here so I thought I'd share with you the latest Wyrd Britain mix.  This time out I've put together a summery soundtrack special.

Opening proceedings is Basil Kirchin's soundtrack to 1960s swinging London before Albert Elms clocks in with two minutes of The Prisoners time.  George Chisholm's trombone provides one of the most recognisable of cartoon themes and the legendary Barry Gray provides another.

Moving into the 21st century we find Broadcast running the 'Berberian Sound Studio' and then into a 1980s version of the far flung future with Ken  Freeman's synthtastic theme to The Tripods.

Two of my favourites next with Alan Tew's brilliant, and much used, theme for 'The Hanged Man' and then Geoff Love and his very busy orchestra provide their version of the sound of The Saints return.

Roy Budd stops trying to get Carter and instead goes after a funky 'Foxbat'. Edwin Astley is incidentally soundtracking Patrick McGoohan's second appearance in this mix and The BBC Radiophonic Workshop's Roger Limb looks for an aquatic spectre.

Finally, Mike Wilkinson conjures up a nude angel whilst trying not to get too much blood on one of Satan's toenails and Cat's Eyes open a very specific door for The Duke of Burgundy.

Enjoy.

Wyrd Britain 6 by Quiet World on Mixcloud

Joan Aiken

We're big fans of Joan Aiken here at Wyrd Britain.  Her crystal clear prose and peerless imagination has produce a body of work that includes works for adults, children and what we would now describe as young adults.

Her two most famous works, 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' series and the Arabel and Mortimer books for younger readers (illustrated by Quentin Blake)  have cemented her place in the pantheon of British writers but there was far more to the good lady's pen than these.  We've recently been finally treated to a complete edition of the Armitage Family stories that she wrote throughout her life - read our review here - and she produced several collections of supernatural fiction that we will be featuring in Wyrd Britain as we go - read our review of 'A Bundle of Nerves' here.

But today I have no new reviews for you, instead, on the occasion of what would have been her birthday, I would like to share with you this lovely little film, produced in 1969 for the Puffin Club, that follows Ms. Aiken around various locations that feature in her books and in her life.



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A Rag, A Bone and A Hank of Hair

Nicholas Fisk
Puffin Books

In the twenty-third century children have become scarce. The government have begun manufacturing 'Reborns', new people from old and an unusually bright boy is sent to live with an experimental family of reborn 1940 Londoners.

In the far flung future some 200 years from now a new society has emerged from the aftermath of a nuclear war.  This society is rigidly controlled both by the Elders and by the 'sleepers' implanted in the back of the populaces heads in order to moderate their behaviour. And, much like the society they inhabit, the people of this time are sterile.

To solve this problem, in a manner never explained, the Elders have developed a way of not only cloning people from the past but also of doing so with their memories and personalities intact (yeah, I know).  

In order to monitor these 'reborns' 12 year old genius - and doesn't he know it - Brin is placed into a scenario appropriate to the world from which the reborns have been taken, England 1940, in particular the kitchen of a London terraced house.The reborns - two children and one older lady - are treated as test subjects by the Elders, much to Brin's disgust, as they plot their behaviour in a variety of increasingly callous ways.

Nicholas Fisk

As the story progresses it starts to become increasingly clear that the reborns are not only becoming bored with the scenario they find themselves unwittingly living night after night but they also hint at the strange, vivid thoughts they are having regarding the increasingly elaborate stories Brin spins about his fictional, cover story, fighter pilot uncle.

This all leads into the books final and quite odd act as the world of those in the scenario changes catastrophically.  The conclusion is very ambiguous and one is left with feelings of sadness and confusion but tempered with a sense of hope and purpose as visions and a resounding command echo around this barren land.

As a novel it is a curious sort of read; as a kids book it's quite odd indeed.  As readers we are being held at arms length, possibly deliberately to allow us access to Brin's initial remoteness and arrogant contempt for those around him but the problem with that is that as Brin thaws, and the little that does become clear does so, he remains quite unlikeable.

As I said earlier there is no clear resolution and as such I've ended up spending longer thinking about this book than I did reading it which surely can't be a bad thing.

The Perilous Descent

Bruce Carter
Puffin Books

Also published under the titles The Perilous Descent and Perilous Descent into a Strange Lost World. It tells the story of two English airmen shot down off the Dutch coast during the Second World War. They are washed up on a sandbar where they discover an entrance to an underground world.

One from a batch of Puffins and Penguins with groovy cover art that I picked up a few months ago and which have proved themselves very handy since I took a short cut down some stairs.  This one though, a WWII era hollow Earth story, turned out to be pretty bad.

It tells of two British WWII pilots - or 'airpilots' as the blurb calls them - who are shot down during a sortie over Europe and crash land in the channel.  After floating ashore the implausibly named Johnny Wild and Danny Black find themselves falling through a hole in the ground, crawling along endless tunnels and inexplicably parachuting deeper into the Earth before encountering a lost civilisation of English emigrants in their subterranean city of skyscrapers and electric cable cars.

Bruce Carter (Richard Hough)

They find that these sword wielding subterraneans are currently enmeshed in a civil war that our plucky heroes promptly end by introducing the locals to aviation which allows the locals to build a fully functioning a jet plane in just three days and then to top it off Black and Wild lead the attack on the rebels and use their pistols to massacre around 70 people purely on the word of a man they'd known for no more than a few days.

They then walk, underground, underneath the bed of the Atlantic Ocean to South America (a distance of some 9000 km) before climbing once more to the surface into the middle of a civil war where they are captured and narrowly avoid being both executed and blown up - there's also reference to them subsequently meeting up with some "very unfriendly head-hunters. We were half-gods and half-captives for two years".

It was absolute piffle but, at only 171 pages it was a mercifully quick read that ticked off another evening of recovery from this damnable broken leg.

I do love that Trevor Stubley cover illustration though.

Classic Tales of Horror

Stephanie Dowrick (ed)
Constable

What we have here is a journey around the world in the hands of a number of very famous and some significantly less so authors of the weird, the macabre and the ghostly.

The book opens with an almost throw-away yet very famous Edgar Allen Poe story about a vengeful 'Black Cat' and then heads off to court and a ghosts attempt to influence proceedings to ensure his murderers conviction in Charles Dickens' 'To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt'.

Wilkie Collins

Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu's contribution is an odd and slightly pointless tale of a drunks encounter with a ghostly army and a mysterious request.  W. Wilkie Collins was both a contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens and there's a real Dickensian quality to this story of class, poverty and madness.

The books fifth tale, 'The Open Door', by Mrs Margaret Oliphant explores loss and rejection at a Scottish house and our second lady Victorian Elizabeth Braddon provides one of favourites in  'A Cold Embrace' where unwanted love sends an artist to his grave.

Ambrose Bierce's 'Moonlit Road' is an series of overlapping tales telling of wrongful death, madness and ghosts and Henry James makes a very fine contribution with his story of jealousy and greed and finally revenge in 'The Romance of Certain Old Clothes'.

Bram Stoker

Maybe as should be expected the most macabre tale  in the book comes from Bram Stoker.  'The Judge's House' is a great little bloodthirsty tale that tells of a young man assaulted by the shade of the previous inhabitant of the house he's chosen to live in whilst completing his work.

Guy de Maupassant's 'The Hand' is a fun but slight and slightly vague tale that sits in advance of Robert Louis Stevenson's fabulous 'The Body Snatcher' with it's story of murder and comeuppance.

Rocking the most Hammer Horror of titles Francis Marion Crawford's ' The Screaming Skull' takes a fairly cliched idea and with it's first person, one sided dialogue treatment and a it of flair makes it quite fun.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

At this point we hit an absolute revelation of a story, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's fabulous slice of weird as a young wife, perhaps, goes utterly insane in a room covered in 'The Yellow Wall-Paper'. Next we've a classic with M.R. James' glorious 'Lost Hearts' which I surely don't need to tell you about and then we're onto Algernon Blackwood's 'Keeping His Promise' wherein a student receives a visitation from an old friend.

The book ends on a real high with a quick story by H.H. (Saki) Munro that tells a brutal tale of rural horror at the hands or rather pipes of Pan and finally a great piece of shape-shifting horror in Hugh Walpole's 'Tarnhelm'.

I've never been a fan of short story anthologies but over the last year I've got really into these collections of Victorian & Edwardian weirdness and I've found a few absolute gems and this was one of them.

The Daylight Gate

Jeanette Winterson
Hammer

Good Friday, 1612. Pendle Hill, Lancashire.
A mysterious gathering of thirteen people is interrupted by local magistrate, Roger Nowell. Is this a witches' Sabbat?
Two notorious Lancashire witches are already in Lancaster Castle waiting trial. Why is the beautiful and wealthy Alice Nutter defending them? And why is she among the group of thirteen on Pendle Hill?
Elsewhere, a starved, abused child lurks. And a Jesuit priest and former Gunpowder plotter, recently returned from France, is widely rumoured to be heading for Lancashire. But who will offer him sanctuary? And how quickly can he be caught?
This is the reign of James I, a Protestant King with an obsession: to rid his realm of twin evils, witchcraft and Catholicism, at any price...

To my mind Winterson is one of the unsung heroes of current weird and supernatural fiction.  I've been a fairly devoted reader of her work since I was handed a copy of 'Sexing The Cherry' back in 93 / 94.

This latest excursion into the unusual side of life takes us back to Pendle, Lancashire at the time of the witch hunts where the wealthy newcomer Alice Nutter, proud and confident in her rightness and her self and unwilling to kowtow to local bigwigs and their toadies becomes embroiled in the lives of a local family accused of witchcraft.  The reign of James the First is an unhealthy time to have any association with witchcraft or popery and Alice has both.

For much of the narrative Winterson retains a degree of period normality, peopling the cast with uneducated, superstitious peasants, officious religious zealots and people just trying to get along in an uncertain time.  Behind this though there is an undercurrent of magic about which you are left, for much of the novel, uncertain about whether it is real or simply superstition and vain hope.

The book's devastating final act allows us to see beyond the mundane circumstances and as such we are granted an understanding of both Alice and her motivations.

Over the years there have been several of Winterson's novels that have earned a permanent place on my shelves and I'm pleased that this story of humanity at it's most vile, most compassionate and most incredible will be joining them.

Buy it here - The Daylight Gate (Hammer)

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Below is a short snippet from a talk by Winterson about the book.  The full version can be found by clicking here.

The Rhesus Chart

Charles Stross
Orbit Books
Audible

London can drain the life out of you...
Bob Howard is an intelligence agent working his way through the ranks of the top secret government agency known as 'the Laundry'. When occult powers threaten the realm, they'll be there to clean up the mess - and deal with the witnesses.
There's one kind of threat that the Laundry has never come across in its many decades, and that's vampires. Mention them to a seasoned agent and you'll be laughed out of the room.
But when a small team of investment bankers at one of Canary Wharf's most distinguished financial institutions discovers an arcane algorithm that leaves them fearing daylight and craving O positive, someone doesn't want the Laundry to know. And Bob gets caught right in the middle.
The Rhesus Chart is a brand new supernatural thriller from Charles Stross, and sees hacker-turned-spy Bob Howard take on the (literal) bloodsuckers running London's financial district.

Charles Stross

Now here's one I've been waiting for.  I've absolutely loved these Laundry books from Stross but with the exception of one short story about unicorns I've never read one.  Instead I'm utterly besotted by the audiobook versions as read by Gideon Emery.

This time out Bob finds his newly promoted self hunting for vampires and finding a figure from his past just as his present starts to fracture alarmingly.

As ever with this series much of the time is spent exploring the bureaucracy of the Laundry and, in this case, the feasibility of vampirism.  In both cases it is inordinate amounts of geeky fun.

Gideon Emery

The story as a whole is perhaps less expansive and absorbing than some of it's predecessors and the identity of the big bad is perhaps a tad obvious but as a romp it is romptous indeed particularly during the game changing finale.

As ever I'm leaving one of these Laundry books desperately craving more but this time in the sad knowledge that one of my favourite modes of address will likely be absent from here on - although I sincerely hope not.

Buy it here - The Rhesus Chart: A Laundry Files novel

NB - My write-up of the rest of the series can be found here.