The Wet World of British Comics

April 25, 2016 greydogtales Leave a comment

Once upon a time there was a house. Then some idiot filled the loft so full of books, comics and vinyl LPs that the entire building collapsed into a rubble-filled crater. Luckily the idiot was out with his lurchers at the time. The idiot’s partner tried to comment, but little could be heard through her insane frothing. The dogs nodded, peed on the wreckage and wandered off…

317809-20703-124116-1-fish-police — the fish police never sleep

It hasn’t quite happened yet. However, whilst delving through mounds of really dodgy seventies science fiction and fantasy novels up there, we do regularly find a lot of comics and graphic novels. Many of these have been carefully stored (to maintain their pristine condition and collectable value) by shoving them under pieces of an old bunk bed to stop the rafters giving way.

They are in surprisingly good shape, the ones that the rats and squirrels haven’t found over the years. After many hours of going “Blimey, this one’s complete pants,” and “Wow! Tomb of Dracula,” we finally excavated the Fish Police. As we’d recently asked about aquatic-style comics on Facebook, and received some great suggestions, we decided to return to our nautical weird theme. It’s…

Stranger Seas Ten

We’re actually going to show off some British comics aquatic heroes today, but the Fish Police should never be forgotten, so we will mention them. This was a great series by cartoonist Steve Moncuse. It concerned an underwater city populated entirely by talking fish (why not?) and its law enforcement problems. Inspector Gill floated round in a sort of Bogarty, noir way, facing organised crime and generally being… a fish policeman. We like a title that sticks to the point.

The original Fish Police stories were published from 1985 to 1991, and for added greydogtales amusement, we note that it was made in to a short-lived Hanna-Barbera animated show for TV in 1992. Apparently only six episodes were made, and only three were ever aired in the States. Here’s an episode you can watch:

But let’s get down to a handful of aquatic characters from dear old Britishland. Time for Aquavenger, Norstad, Fishboy and more. Only two more actually, in case you get over-excited. We’ve tried to credit sources at the end of the article, but anyone is welcome to say “This is wrong,” or “This is mine, give it back,” and we’ll happily do the necessaries. We’re comics fans, not experts.

Aquavenger is triffid, as we say here. He emerged in (and only in) Pow! Annuals, from Odhams. Pow! was one of those British comics which tried to have more mergers than editions – well, almost. After a short run in 1967 and 1968, Pow! absorbed Wham!, but was itself eaten by Smash! This was a time when every magazine was soon to be called “The Amateur Angler, incorporating Lady Bicyclist and Boy’s Own Spiffing War Adventures”.

Bob Shane, captain of a rusty little ship called the Crab, somehow rescues an old chap who he finds clinging to wreckage at sea. Much to our surprise, the old chap turns out to be Neptunius, a being who possesses “ageless powers”. In order not to be confused with anyone else, Neptunius has thoughtfully left his trident at home.

Despite the fact that he doesn’t appear to have enough power to stop himself having to cling to wreckage, he offers our Bob “unlimited power in the crusade against the powers of darkness”. As far as we can tell, Bob then goes back to limping around in his ship most of the time. Except when he yells “Aquavenger” and transforms into a superhero.

We find it particularly fine that Aquavenger’s nemesis disguises his intentions by calling himself… Admiral Nemesis. Clearly a villain with a taste for wordplay.

Creative attribution – we think Aquavenger was created by Philip Hebden, and mostly drawn by Victor Ibanez at one of the Spanish comics studios.

Norstad of the Deep, on the other hand, is a heart-warming story of a fishman with an axe. Also from Pow! Annual, Norstad was definitely not human. Or a god.

In fact, he is the deposed rule of an underwater kingdom in the Pacific, who loses his strength and courage, and as a result is doomed to be picked up by yet another interfering human ship.

We see that you can still buy some of the original 1971 artwork for Norstad, watercolour on board:

SONY DSC — 11″ x 15″, ortiz, book palace

book palace comics art

Creative attribution – Leopoldo Ortiz for the art.

From fishman to Fishboy: Denizen of the Deep. This young chap appeared in the Buster comic from 1968 onwards, ending in 1975. Buster was a more long-lived comic than Pow!, and is fondly remembered from our own youth.

In a typical story of the time, Fishboy was abandoned at an early age somewhere on a remote island. Naturally under such circumstances he learned to breathe underwater and converse with fish. How could he not? Turning aquatic, he soon had slightly webbed extremities, and possibly super-speed or something like that. We got hung up on how exactly a small Brit mutated so violently without radioactive waste or cosmic rays. And also why they keep emphasising that his hands and feet are only slightly webbed.

Creative attribution – written by Scott Goodall and drawn by John Stokes.

The Jellymen strikes out in a new direction, and their story is one of those “invasion from the deep” tales quite popular with British writers. Remember 1953’s The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham?

This strip was in The Beezer in 1960, and starred the jellymen themselves, who rose from the sea bottom to take over Britain. We have no idea why. Rationing in the UK had only ended six years earlier. Perhaps they felt some kin with the gelatine we were using in our trifles and plates of brawn, and sought to liberate wobbly food items everywhere.

Anyway, the jellymen were sort of see-through purple-grey creatures with lots of limbs and suckers, vaguely humanoid, who ‘bubbled’ on things, including people, and trapped them for later usage.

Fortunately, as so often happens, a science teacher was at hand. One “Potassium” Roberts, in this case, who mobilised his students and, with a knowledge of chemistry which somehow eclipsed that of the major academic and engineering institutes of the day, dissolved the jellymen’s plans. Our old chemistry teacher, dear “Bugsy” Blythe, would have been proud of him.

Creative attribution – all we can find is that the strip was drawn by Ken Hunter.

Almost finally, from The Hornet, which ran from 1963 to 1976, comes Dolphin Patrol, completely different again. The Hornet, as you might guess, then merged with The Hotspur, which was later incorporated into The Victor. After this they all became a wool-pattern magazine called Knitting for Boys (& Junior Taxidermy).

This one is set during World War Two, and describes the thrilling adventures of young Johnnie Dawson and his trained dolphins. Presumably refused entry by Brisbane Marineworld, Johnnie decides to spend his time fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. An odd choice which hardly seems fair on the dolphins, but that was how comics were at the time.

NOTE: Our researcher Django couldn’t find a decent-sized illo for this one. So it’s not our fault.

Creative attribution – art by Dave Sutherland and Shone.

We said almost finally because we’re going to end with another US aquatic hero whom we have only just encountered. Dolphin first appeared as far back as 1968 in DC Showcase #69. At this stage she looks sort of period-wholesome, like something from Bunty.

Later she was revamped, gained some sort of darker ‘alien experiment’ vibe, and turned into someone who seemed a lot more kick-ass. She started hanging out with the Aquaman gang, and even became Aquaman’s lover at one point. Whether this change is good or bad we leave up to you.

Creative attribution – Dolphin was conceived of by Jay Scott Pike.

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A number of the characters featured above were suggested by the Mighty World of British Comics group on Facebook, and we duly thank them. Snippets and some illos have also been drawn from the following sites, who deserve full credit:

http://petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogspot.co.uk

http://www.internationalhero.co.uk

http://kidr77.blogspot.co.uk

http://mangamax-aieeee.blogspot.co.uk

http://britishcomicart.blogspot.co.uk

Next time on greydogtales – Barring unforeseen events, Bitey Face: An illustrated guide to how your lurchers are not actually killing each other, and after that – more horror!

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Five Books What I Did Not (Quite) Write

April 23, 2016 greydogtales 5 Comments

Do you have an unsold novel under the bed? Did you write Larry Potter and the Chamberpot of Secrets years before J K Dowelling even thought of the endearing Weasel family? You are not alone, dear listener, for I, J Linseed Grant, have been there and wept the bitter tears of Why Didn’t I Get My Act Together Sooner.

hey, we can't play bitey face with these on... — hey, we can’t play bitey face with these on…

We’re going to return to the lurchers next week, including a post on the super game of bitey face, which is a common cause of sheer terror and misunderstanding if you come across it without warning. However, as it’s the weekend, we’re relaxing and throwing yellowed, crumbling manuscripts up in the air for fun.

All these money-making plot ideas were mine, once. Brooding young vampires called Edwin who are covered in shiny sprinkles when you get them in the sunlight, and who have a troubled relationship with a nearby clan of were-badgers. Found footage horrors such as the Bleurgh! Witch, in which a group of students drink too much pale ale and wander off in the woods only to become terrified by their lack of proper sanitary facilities. And my classic Fifty Shades of Beige, where a woman is lead into the strange world of Dulux paint charts, a journey of self-discovery which exposes her desire to paint her house in taupe, oatmeal and barley all at the same time.

SW_Neutral_04 — an unexpurgated version of that dulux chart

A long time ago, way back before I started greydogtales, before I began to write short stories, I produced big, solid novels. We’re mostly talking the late eighties and early nineties here. They were very big, solid novels. The sort where you settle for a rough weight in kilos rather than a word-count. I didn’t do much with any of them, I merely added to the stack every year or so. It wasn’t long before being in paid employment became more important than constant editing and re-writing for no tangible reward, and the process was pretty much abandoned.

But the ‘stack’ still existed in principle, and over these last few months I’ve been finding out where the little poppets were – under a table, in the loft, propping up an old printer etc. I’m pretty sure I’ve found all of them now, and I’ve even glanced through sample chapters. Having done so, I think it’s likely that most won’t ever see the light of day again (the only obvious exception is the horror novel I mentioned a few days ago, House of Clay, which which may yet happen -see author writes book).

You see, I didn’t write those books. Another me, many years ago, wrote them. It’s very tempting to go back and reflect on old, cherished things. You only need a shovel, a lantern and easy access to a cemetery, and you’re away… no, that wasn’t what I was talking about, was it?

The temptation I meant was that one where you get your early work out and wonder if you can still peddle it somewhere. A tweak here, maybe an ‘in’ phrase there, make that character a woman and take out the references to Disraeli…

The truth is that in most cases their time has passed. Some have concepts that were new and exciting when written, but are now commonplace. It’s quite irritating, really, to write something in 1986 and then see your idea used as a regular formula thirty years later. Whining “I thought of it first” will not get you gold stars, or even a pint at the bar.

Some were never the books I wanted them to be. In at least one case I no longer care if the characters accidentally fall down a well and drown en masse. I’d even push some of them. Let’s face it, most of your old work is… old work.

Anyhow, out of curiosity, I looked at five of my (roughly) completed manuscripts, and decided to grade them. Boy, do I know how to have fun? The answer’s still No, by the way.

A Song of Ice and Turkeys

Our number one spot goes to one of my first novels, The Path of Years. This gets an A for effort, and an F for any possibility of it ever being published or even understood. It’s a deep religious fantasy based on the politics of a monotheistic Aztec/Mayan-type culture riven by internal power struggles. It has maps! Dynasties! Betrayals! It has a culture so well-imagined that you’d be better off reading a history book, and you’d need a glossary for every page. It includes its own languages, based on Meso-American tongues and even some song extracts. Verdict: One absolutely for the Vault, or even under it.

I See Far Too Many Dead People

Number two, far more readable than Path of Years, is the oddly titled Shasten. A sort of horror novel, this recounts the problems of a medieval spiritual order taking refuge on an island off Tunisia, where they are in conflict with a growing Islamic movement. Not because they’re Christian or Jewish, but because they happen to be contemplative necromancers who use the withered dead as servants. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it – and it has the occasional cracking scene – but it’s hard now to imagine why anyone would want to amble through it. Verdict: Another for the Vault.

The Malazan Book of the Complicated

The third novel is almost sellable – The Wavedancer’s Daughter. It’s one of my Os Penitens fantasies, set in a culture where face-changing and manipulation of the flesh are commonplace, where grievances last for millenia and The Silence of His Voice can still be heard. Grimdark in a way, if you know the fantasy term. The Chrisante Gate watches the Gynarch’s dream unfold, and huge cultures clash at every level. There’s a lot of betrayal, and some great ideas. The trouble is, I can’t stand the main character any more and want to push her down that well I mentioned earlier. The rewrites would be enormous. Verdict: To be used to keep the Vault Door open.

High Plains Slaughterer

Number four, and we’re getting closer to something we could possibly use – Pale Woman, which was never properly finished off and yet has some of the bits I most like. A dark fantasy again, but not medieval, not quite like anything I’ve seen elsewhere. Its roots are a touch Anglo-Saxon, but more plain weird. Closer to horror, with a main character I loved: Pale Woman herself. She’s dead, restless and bound to a perverted form of justice, a thin, lonely figure with lank hair who destroys as much as she saves. One of the books I’d most like to risk re-visiting. Verdict: Near the Vault, but not quite in it.

The Starvation Games

The fifth and last – Strange Weapons. The only novel I submitted a few times, and one which almost got there. Read and re-read by more than one agent, praised but not taken at the last hurdle, very popular with its beta-readers. It needed a rewrite, and I didn’t have the energy at the time. This one, surprisingly, is a contemporary dystopian tale set in a world falling apart. Britain is engulfed in civil war, Europe has closed its borders, the States have descended into isolationist in-fighting. Across Africa, moderates, animists and Muslims alike struggle to hold back a right-wing Christian movement which seeks to establish the Black Cross over every city and village on that continent. Verdict: I’d need a lot of pale ale, but…

My concluding advice to me, and to others, would be to be brutal. Best use for old manuscripts:

steal any characters which worked in their own right – intriguing personalities, traits etc. – but don’t keep them just because you were vaguely fond of them.
check if there are plot-lines which were sound when the book itself wasn’t, and nick those at the same time (did they really work that well though, honestly?).
admire the amount of effort you put into get the hang of this writing thing, and feel pleased with yourself for once.
lock that vault up again and get on with writing something new.

My advice is, of course, quite worthless because I’m too busy producing short stories to concentrate properly.

Join us next time on greydogtales for something which is… not about me as much, at least.

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A Ginger Horror: Jim McLeod Finds Out Where We Live

April 20, 2016 greydogtales Leave a comment

Today’s mega-interview is hard-hitting, includes some rude words, and is predominantly ginger. Yes, it’s Jim McLeod, taking a break from running that major horror fiction and film review site, Ginger Nuts of Horror, to bring joy and vitriol to our mild, puzzled lives.

Jim has many outstanding qualities – for example, he’s got a beard, and he comes from the well-known Yorkshire colony of Scottish-land (a little geography for our far-flung listeners). He’s also fun to know. Join us now and hear the truth about, uh, quite a lot of things…

Warning: There is a small amount of effing and jeffing involved. If you are a lurcher of a sensitive disposition, or a writer who thinks a spell-checker is the same as an editor, you might want to be prepared. The opinions expressed below belong to somebody, probably.

jim mcleod — a passing Scotsman, just as the sedative dart began to work

greydog: Welcome to greydogtales, Jim. We would say that it’s a great honour to have you here, but we’re dour Yorkshire folk and don’t believe in crawling.

What we do appreciate is you finding the time to join us, considering the amount of work you put into your site Ginger Nuts of Horror. So we want to look at that side of things first. For people who don’t know much about GNoH’s origins, how did it all start?

jim: Well that’s a story in itself. It all started six or seven years ago. I have no concept of time-frames – I ought to know because my daughter was just about to turn one year old. Yes I know I should know how old my daughter is and I’m a terrible parent, I’ll burn in hell, probably at the hand of my daughter Cthella.

So I was on a three month absence from work after getting my left wrist rebuilt. Apparently I had spent the previous seven years going around with a broken wrist and not realising it. I’m hard as hell, or as my wife says, stupid as hell for not going to the doctor earlier. And while mucking about on the internet I came across THE BRITISH HORROR NOVELS FORUM, a great message board that has sadly been killed off by Facebook. Inhabiting that space were such reprobates as William Meikle, Ian Woodhead, and a few other authors.

I can’t remember if it was Ian or William who suggested that I start interviewing authors on the forum. The interviews took a form of question and response on the forum and went on for as long as the natural discussion allowed. After a few weeks of doing this William suggested I started my own blog. It was supposed to be called THE GINGER NUTCASE OF HORROR as I am ginger, if you haven’t figured that out, and nutty about horror. However, thanks to being off my nuts on really strong prescription painkillers I registered the name as Ginger Nuts of Horror.

Looking back six or seven years later I would never have imagined that what started off as something to do while recovering from a major operation would have grown into one of the biggest horror review websites out there, let alone ever thinking that I would interview Joe Dante, Graham Masterton, Joe Hill, Simon Clarke, and numerous other heroes of mine. And never would have thought that it would take up so much of my life. I work night shifts, and on my day/nights off I get up at 4am just to keep up with the number of emails, reviews and interviews that I have to deal with.

greydog: We tend towards the weird, which often includes horror but which ranges across a lot of genres and interests. How do you set your own site’s boundaries? There must be areas which are too peripheral or too unpleasant for you to want to include – or is it case-by-case every time?

jim: It used to be easier when I was the only reviewer on the site, as I have a pretty strict and conservative set of values and morals. So the extreme side of horror was never going to be touched upon by myself, it’s just not my thing. Hell, I skip over any naughty business in horror books. But in more general terms I think horror is a pretty all-encompassing genre – you can go from the quiet end of the spectrum with the ghost stories of M R James, right up to the extreme end of the spectrum from the likes of Matt Shaw, but it can take in everything from Aliens, Bizarro, Terminator, serial killers, big hairy monsters and psycho clowns. To me horror is a feeling not a genre.

And now that we have a great team of reviewers I’m more open to cover the extreme side of it, mainly thanks to the contributions of Dawn Cano’s extreme horror fiction reviews and Alex Davis’ excellent extreme Horror column FILM GUTTER.

The rest of the spectrum is covered by Kit Power, George Illet Anderson, George Daniel Lea, Charlotte Bond, Duncan Ralston, and Kayleigh Marie Edwards, John Boden, plus Andrew Freudenberg and Adrian Shotbolt, who are taking the lead with the music side of the site.

I’m so lucky to have such strong team of reviewers, who are also a great bunch of guys and gals, ones I am proud to call friends.

greydog: We even know some of these terrifying people, but we wouldn’t dare let them loose on here. Despite that fact that you cover films, news, views and all sorts of horror-related matters, would we be right in saying that horror fiction, the written word, is still the heart of your work?

jim: It is and it isn’t. Personally I have become really disillusioned with the fiction side the genre. There seems to be a real sense of entitlement within the writer community these days. You know the sort, the ones who will spend all day posting that coffee writer meme, interspersed with whinging posts about bad reviews. They forget that writing is all about paying the dues – these are ones who slap a book together, think they can edit it themselves then slap it up on Amazon and wonder why they aren’t a best seller. It’s a rising problem and one that is really pissing me off. Christ, I’ve had death threats over book reviews.

And yet this has never happened from the film side of the genre, and you should read some of my film reviews, that’s where I really fly off the handle and let my piss and vinegar spurt forth with unfiltered glee.

Having said that it probably still is the heart of the site even if it feels a bit rotten at the moment.

greydog: Fortunately we don’t feel entitled. We just write the stuff and beg for as many cents a word as possible. Or free meaty bones and chicken carcasses. Now, we’re not going to ask how people can get a mention on GNoH. They should be able to work that out for themselves if they want to get on in the world (we know, we’re harsh). We’re more curious about what happens next. There are many published works with potential, or brilliant concepts, which aren’t quite there yet. How do you tackle reviewing those awkward animals?

jim: I always review with an honest and open mind. I try and not be mean with my reviews, but if the book/ film is crap the book/film is crap. And I don’t care who created it. There a number of sites out there who are either beholden to advertising revenue or some misbegotten notion that you can make a living out of reviewing horror, and they will give positive reviews to films and books just to keep on the good side of writers, agents and publicists. I don’t care about that. Hell, one of the big American publishers won’t send me books anymore after my damning review of a book from a BIG name in horror. I know I’ll never get an interview with the author now, but at least I know I told the truth about the book.

And before anyone says all reviewing is subjective, yes it is, but there is a line where subjectivity means nothing and something is just badly made.

greydog: Last year a number of writers put together the book Jim McLeod Must Die as a tribute to you and your work with GNoH, but it must sometimes seem like a thankless task. You mentioned threats. Do you get much hassle from people believing they deserve your attention or applause?

jim: Oh god yes, I had to block two authors this month for constantly asking me when the review of their book was going up. If you submit a book or film to the site without reading the submission guidelines then it’s your own fault if you don’t understand that I don’t generally reply to submissions until the review is posted. I get over a hundred emails a day that actually require me to read them, I don’t have time to reply. And even if I do reply on submission it’s not a contract that I will actually review your book. Submitting a book or film to the site just means that we have added it to basically is a watch list. To put it in perspective the current list of books which have made it onto the review list sits at over 400 books. Even if all of the reviewers reviewed one book a week it would take us close to a year to clear the list. Which is a stupid thing to even consider.

Last year I ended up in hospital with blood poisoning, they reckon I was at six hours away from dying if I hadn’t gone into hospital, I posted a Facebook post after spending two days in hospital telling everyone what had happened and not worry about my Facebook silence. I got thousands of messages of support, but one tactless author, and I use that term loosely, actually sent me a message along these lines

“I know you are in hospital, but I thought you might like to read my new novel and review it when you get out of hospital”

Seriously WTF? I really believe that at my funeral there will be a line of half arsed writers waiting to ask my family if there is an unposed review of their book on my hard drive. Fuck it, I bet you £1000 there will be some fucknut trying to get a review from beyond the grave with a Ouija board.

I have had death threats, idiot writers getting their fans to down vote my reviews on Amazon, threats against my family. And even some nut job writer sending me a letter written in their own blood. To be honest I find it all rather funny, that anyone could get so worked up about a genre where no one is ever going to be famous. There will never be another Stephen King, take the review and deal with it.

greydog: We would only ever write to you in someone else’s blood – we like to hang on to ours. As far as the range of your site goes, film is an area we avoid, maybe because it’s often even more subjective than fiction (and we don’t have enough time as it is). What slid you into that area – readership demand or something else?

jim: It was purely a way of getting a bigger audience, plus a small pinch of being able to have a lot more fun with the reviews. I think films are easier to write bad reviews for. I can’t remember what film it was but my review of the film was a half-finished game of hangman, The answer to which was “HELL NO”.

The larger audience is also why we have broken out into music and now art. The horror fiction side of it is a small market. After a while you find you are just talking to the same crowd, and I want the effect of the reviews to reach as big an audience as possible. Not for some sad ego trip, but just so all of the great writers who I love can get that extra bit of exposure. The site has never been about me, that’s why I never put my name to any reviews I write.

greydog: While we have you, we also wanted to ask about small presses, because you’ve done a lot of work promoting books from them. It’s a subject we touch on here every so often. We still see them as the engines which drive a lot of unusual and innovative fiction to the marketplace. On the other hand, a number of writers now self-publish right from the start. Any thoughts?

jim: Self-publishing only works when the writer treats it as a professional project. And you can tell which writers do this. Anyone who thinks self publishing is easy or an excuse to not get a decent cover image, or even have another person edit your book, is on a road to nowhere. The small presses have changed over the years, especially here in the UK, where they seem to be more of a place for established writers to publish limited editions of their work. There are still some small presses publishing new writers, such as Horrific Tales, Boo Books, Pendragon Press and Nightwatch/Black Shuck books to name a few. But a lot of the more established ones are just publishing the same old names.

Which I can understand as the margins of profitability can all rest on the sale of one copy of a book. So I can get why they publish writers with a proven track base.

greydog: Let’s turn more to Mr McLeod himself. Getting greydogtales together on time is often nightmarish, and yours is a much larger and more complex site. How do you juggle the site, work and life?

jim: By spending every waking minute working on it. I’m lucky in that I work nights and my usual shift pattern means I have a lot of free time without the kids. So as I said, on my nights off you will often see me get up at 4am just to clear the backlog. I’m lucky in that I can get by with very little sleep. However it has meant that a lot of my other hobbies have fallen by the wayside. This is the year that I am determined to get back on my mountain bike. You’ll notice a drop in posts/reviews from me when the schools are on holiday, as I would rather be out having fun with the family.

greydog: What’s a good day off, away from horror and GNoH?

jim: A good day off involves the family and a nice big hill to climb. I love getting out there with my kids and partner, whether it’s a day of hillwalking or a visit to a museum, it really doesn’t matter so long as I get to spend time with them.

introduced by jim, and not for the faint-hearted

greydog: There’s some strange stuff out there. Do you personally ever get grossed out by the books or films that you’re asked to consider?

jim: Not very often, even something like Martyrs. Watched that with very little emotional attachment, right up until they forced fed her with a spoon, the noise of the spoon or fork scrapping of her teeth, freaked me out. I don’t know what that says about me psychologically but that is about the only time a film has really grossed me out.

greydog: We were quite upset by the Ghost Rider films – but that was because they turned out to be crap. You’re pretty steeped in the field. Ever considered writing yourself?

jim: Never, I know I don’t have the skill to do it. I do not subscribe to the notion that everyone has a book in them, there are some writers out there who shouldn’t even write a shopping list let alone a novel.

Having said that I did start to write a story composed sole of phrases from that terrible Horror Writers phrasebook that was published last year. I posted it as a live writing experiment on facebook, but I sadly lost the original document before I could finish it. It was awesome if I say so myself. So if anyone happens to have a copy of the last update of it please send it over. i would love to finish it.

greydog: Call our hotline now if you know where Jim’s last update is. Every pound raised goes towards supporting a cranky old Yorkshireman and his dogs. And just to be mean, how about finishing with a bit of name-dropping. Who really does it for you as a reader, rather than as a reviewer/website supremo, at the moment?

jim: For me right now, it’s a mix of old favourites like Adam Nevill, Gary McMahon, William Meikle, John Llewellyn Probert, Sarah Pinborough, and Brian Keene. Mixed in with new writers like Kayleigh Marie Edwards, Kit Power, J.R. Park, Duncan Bradshaw, Lee Thompson, James Everington, Phil Sloman, Laura Mauro, VH Leslie (Laura & Victoria featured in our feature scary women again), Cate Gardener – the list goes on and on. I really think we are in a golden age of talent.

Greydog: Many thanks, and the very best for Ginger Nuts of Horror in the future.

Jim: Thanks for having me. I have had a blast taking part. It’s not often I get to be on the other side of the fence, it’s a lot more fun than my side.

And don’t forget that you can find a wealth of trivia, news and hard-hitting reviews every week here on Jim’s site:

ginger nuts of horror

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Remember, you can now buy the new John Linwood Grant bestseller, “A Study in Grey” (or Gray, if you’re American). We say bestseller, but that’s what you’re for, dear listeners. Link on the right-hand sidebar. Not that we’re begging or anything, but…

Next time on greydogtales: We interview Nicholas Cage to find out why, although we think he’s done some great stuff, a lot of his films are utter rubbish. No, we’re lying again. It’ll be dogs and the weird, with probably a tad less horror.

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Author Writes Book: No Comment from William Hope Hodgson

April 18, 2016 greydogtales Leave a comment

Yes, we has writted a book. And now we is supposed to tell you. Oh Gods, spare us! Self-promotion is far more tedious for the author than it is for you, dear listeners. “Look, I’m a bricklayer. I did bricks in a row.” “Yep, so you did.” “They is good bricks.” Etc. So today we offer you a free extract from House of Clay, the novel that started it all. At least that’s almost proper content.

If this makes no sense, then harken unto us, but only briefly. Four Tales of the Last Edwardian are now available for the discerning – including lurchers – to read. These are stories of psychic unease, period mysteries and underlying horror. They are moderately accurate in their historical setting (says we), and draw on William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki the Ghostfinder for a degree of background. Occasionally they get real dark, but not always. If you like Sherlock Holmes, Edwardian horror, Carnacki, John Silence or classic ghost stories, you might enjoy them.

Three short stories are already free from Smashwords (see link on right-hand sidebar or go here The Last Edwardian), and are gaining 5 Star reviews on Goodreads from very kind people.

The Intrusion – A tale of Mr Dry, the Deptford Assassin, and his first encounter with Carnacki’s successors.
A Loss of Angels – In which alienist Dr Alice Urquhart is confronted with a killer who may or may not be insane.
One Last Sarabande – A investigation by Henry and Abigail into strange disappearances around a Sussex village.

dry1ad — the character people really want to see

And now comes the much more substantial novella A Study in Grey, from 18^th Wall Productions and available from them (in North America) or from Amazon UK and US. Here’s our own quick blurb:

“An Edwardian thriller, with a dark secret. The psychic Abigail Jessop and her companion Henry are drawn into a circle of seances and spies by a man who cannot afford a conscience – Captain Redvers Blake of British Military Intelligence. Assisted from the shadows by an ageing Sherlock Holmes, these three face an unknown foe and discover what lies behind the painted mask.”

12517126_10209039147156962_2048152109_o — ninety nine pages of sheer… words

UK link to the right, North America links here:

science of deduction 4: a study in gray 18th wall

a study in gray amazon us

There, that’s got that over with. So, House of Clay. This novel was written many years ago, gained interest from a publisher and was then deemed too uncommercial to risk. So we abandoned it. The same thing happened with horse-riding after we fell on our headses rather painfully. During the intervening years, we lost the entire middle segment (of the novel, not the horse). Physically. It disappeared during moving house. Now that there is interest again, the whole thing needs rewriting, in effect. Pah!

Here’s an unpolished extract for fun…

Three of Carnacki’s circle have attended his funeral in Yorkshire. Carnacki is presumed dead, although the corpse is annoyingly absent. Henry Dodgson, accompanied by Abigail Jessop, endeavours to follow the dictates of Carnacki’s will. They are to make contact with a local psychic who dwells at Hathering, a house in the wilds and a place of which Dodgson has never heard, much to his puzzlement. Carnacki, it seems, had many secrets…

Quiet Beasts

The trap lurched on a pothole, and for a second I was thrown nearer to her than I had anticipated. My face inches from hers, her look pierced me with an intensity which I could scarcely bear, and a strange herbal scent prickled at my nostrils. Abigail’s eyes were an iridescent grey like burnished steel.

I regained my seat and covered up my discomfort by leafing through “The Keighley Courier”, until I found the report of yesterday’s funeral. There was a list of mourners, not difficult given the numbers, in which both my name and Arkright’s were spelled incorrectly, and then a curious entry on Carnacki himself, which I read out to her.

“Whilst he had not resided in this parish, the late Mr Carnacki was perhaps best known around Keighley and Ilkley for his sponsorship of the noted local medium, or “spirit channeller”, Miss Catherine Weatherhead of Hathering. This paper has in the past been convinced of the danger which such activities can pose to those of unsettled mind, and it is to be hoped that Hathering remains a respectable institution now that it is sadly no longer able to profit from the deceased’s patronage.”

“You knew nothing of this?” asked Abigail.

“Afraid not. It looks as if none of us knew him as well as we thought.”

“But were you never aware of his visits to Keighley?”

I thought back, remembering again those comfortable dinners at Cheyne Walk, evenings pottering through the library while Carnacki expounded on some principle or other and Arkright coughed out refutations. Carnacki had little patience for interruption, and always seemed to have directed the evening’s talk, whilst we had generally been tolerant to follow the flow.

“He may have mentioned the odd journey up north. Generally he seemed to visit Lancashire. Had some connections on the coast, I think.”

“And you never asked him about more personal things?” she persisted.

“I suppose not. Usually I was more interested in his latest case.”

It was strange to reflect again on those evenings in a different light, and I felt a sudden irritation. Carnacki had certainly known a considerable amount about me, personally and professionally, and yet he had never responded to such questions in return, always closing the conversation or bringing up another subject.

“Mr Dodgson?” she asked after a minute of silence. “Have you thought of something?”

“Hmm? No, I was just letting my mind wander.”

But the truth was that I had begun to confront an unwelcome fact – for all my bravado in the Clubs and in those circles at social gatherings, I had not known the Ghostfinder. I may have inhabited part of his world, and yes, I was one of only four who were permitted to learn of his latest exploits, but what did that amount to? Only distraction from the truth that my own life was a hollow thing with little purpose.

“I can’t answer any of these questions,” I said finally, watching the churned earth spatter up from the horse’s hooves and add further to the filth along the sides of the trap. “I’m not even sure that my presence at Cheyne Walk was based on anything other than that I amused him occasionally.”

“You amuse me, Mr Dodgson. That doesn’t seem so worthless an ability in times such as these.”

I thought that she toyed with me, but when I looked up, there was no trace of mockery. I smiled.

“Perhaps not. Look, I keep blowing hot and cold on this thing, damn me. I can’t imagine why Carnacki wanted us to check up on this Weatherhead woman, and it’s probably none of our business – some domestic problem of his.”

“Now you let your feelings speak. Whoever Carnacki was, a larger mystery is still at our doorstep. Don’t forget your letter, and that which accompanied it.”

“I don’t see that as anything to do with the Weatherheads. The old Ghostfinder was always following up leads, no matter how queer they seemed; he had some damned odd contacts. It wouldn’t surprise me if this is just another psychic crackpot.”

Abigail brushed her neck swiftly. Her cameo was there, almost hidden under a high lace collar. “Oh no – it’s more than that, believe me. Something watches us, or possibly just you, I don’t know. I hear the breath of it wheezing at our backs.”

I frowned, automatically reaching under my coat in case trouble was upon us. Even as my fingers touched the grip of my revolver, the trap jerked and slowed, the driver tugging on his reins.

“Whoa, y’buggers,” he muttered, and we creaked to a halt. Around us stood nothing but trees; the track had petered out completely.

“‘Atherin’.” he said, with no more feeling than when we had started our journey. We were at the end of a small lane between rows of decrepit trees. Polled once, they now sprouted a confusion of branches from the foreshortened ugliness of their trunks, branches which hung leafless and gaunt. The only signs of real vitality were the suckers which struggled up from their roots to challenge the crowns.

Beyond them, I could see an overgrown path through thicker foliage.

“Tha goes up theer.”

“We’ll want you back here by three,” I said, handing him the fare and a shilling beside. Understand?”

“Three. Aye.” The coins disappeared into his coat. I shook my head, and applied myself to the trail which Abigail had already begun to explore. As the trap rattled away behind us, I made my way to her side, cursing as cold mud squeezed its way over my boot top.

“They should sack the gardener, that’s all I can say.”

We wound our way through a tunnel of trees, the sunlight dripping through occasionally to highlight a lone cobble or the remnants of an ancient wall. The ground was rising under our feet, and I had almost relaxed into the walk when the path twisted to the east and we stepped out into a clearing.

“Good heavens.” I murmured. To either side of us stood two enormous, weathered stone lions, towering my own height and more above the leaf-carpeted path. Although patchworked with the grey and green of lichen, the tawny stone from which they had been carved gave them an uncomfortable semblance of life.

“Impressive.” Abigail moved up to the statue on our right and gently laid her hand against its flank. Her eyes closed for a moment, and then sighed.

“What is it?” Peering beyond the lions, I could see an unkempt expanse of lawn which must surely belong to Hathering itself. Abigail let her hand slide away from the stone.

“Just something old , something watchful, Henry. But these fellows are too well set in their ways to care about small mysteries and our comings and goings.”

“I should think so.” I gestured to the grass beyond the last straggling trees. “‘Atherin'”

My imitation of the driver brought a faint smile to her lips.

“I hope, Mr Dodgson, that you don’t think yourself too far above the local people to have dealings with them?”

“It’s not their intellect which confounds me, but their vocabulary. I swear I never met a bunch so short on words.”

We stepped out into a place where the grey of November gave way to a more mellow autumnal pallet. A multitude of stacked chimneys rose beyond the tall hedge of beech at the end of the lawn. In five minutes we found ourselves before a house which, if not neglected, had certainly been allowed to slump into its dotage. I can best describe it by saying that it would not have looked out of place on the flyleaf of a Stoker novel, all brooding turret rooms and whatnot.

As to its age, I could not say, but ivy crawled around the portico and seemed to cling to every nook of the architect’s fancy until it fumbled for the eaves themselves. Some windows were entirely overgrown, and it would have needed radical surgery to uncover the true face of the building. It was easily twice the size of Cheyne Walk, itself no clerk’s lodgings, and regarded us with manifest disinterest.

“How do you feel about this, then?” I asked lightly. Abigail looked around to where we had emerged from the trees.

“The lions were silent.”

I bit off a humorous rejoinder, realising that she spoke in all seriousness. “Ah.”

It was time to knock on Hathering’s door.

####

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Remember, you can now buy the new John Linwood Grant bestseller, “A Study in Grey” (or Gray, if you’re American). We say bestseller, but that’s what you’re for, dear listeners. Link on the right-hand sidebar. Not that we’re begging or anything, but…

Quiet Beasts

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