Supernatural Tales

A while ago I received a submission for Supernatural Tales from Sam Dawson, complete with a nice illustration by the author... It was a slam dunk so far as I was concerned, but at that moment my pesky conscience invited me to wrestle. After two falls and a submission (as well as some ear-biting) my conscience won out and I told Sam that Ro Pardoe was putting together an anthology of stories about follies and grottoes, and his story would be a perfect fit. And now here it is in The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Follies and Grottoes .  The story is a simple one but all the more entertaining for it. A British country estate with a strange folly and grotto (see above) passes down through a succession of reclusive owners - not one of whom is related to the previous one. Strange beliefs plus a nasty mutilation seem to add up to an occult conspiracy. There's a nice Lovecraftian element with a strange constellation, too. So it's doubly good to see such a fine story between hardcovers, ...

Continuing my running (or possibly limping) review of The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Follies and Grottoes , we come to a tale first published in G&S in 1988. I remember enjoying it when it first appeared, and I'm glad to say it stands up well on rereading after all these years.  The plot is based on an outline by M.R. James in his 'Stories I Have Tried to Write'. A man visits a country estate to discover the eponymous folly a - kind of observatory tower - and an ongoing dispute between the owner and a neighbour. The folly itself is memorable, with its two stairways - one external, one internal. The hapless antiquary's sudden terror when he realises that he is not alone in a supposedly deserted building is nicely done. The gradual revelation of the story combines with the unfolding of a dastardly murder plot, and the climax is effective enough to please Dr. James, I think. C.E. Ward always brings plenty of historical detail and a solid sense of place to his storie...

Another tale of spookery for the Hallowe'en season. 

The next story from The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Follies and Grottoes is set in the ancestral home of the Longhorn family. Clearly, this is a branch of the clan I am not familiar with. I wonder what they're like?  A place like Longhorn Hall really needed a butler and an army of servants - instead it had beekeepers and, he supposed, goatherds. Yeah, that sounds about right. A council worker called Gareth goes to visit the current owner to strike a deal that will put the family's odd folly on souvenir items in the local library's gift shop. Lady Chloe is keen to promote sales of honey made on the estate, along with organic goat's meat. These two lines prove significant later.  This is one of those entertaining stories that keeps you guessing as to where it will end up. In this case the hapless Gareth has the very M.R. Jamesian 'fault' of curiosity, and takes the opportunity to explore the folly. It seems to be a fairly standard mock Greek temple, but with ra...

A humourous story for a change, from the collection Jorkens Borrows Another Whisky . Jorkens is one of those old-style clubmen who always has a tall tale to tell, and is always in need of liquid refreshment. 

We're going Down Under for the third story in The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Follies and Grottoes . Our narrator is a man on a journey who happens across a bar in a little town where the locals have a story to tell. The folly of the title is a tower constructed by the winner of a chess game, which settled a land dispute involving gold rights. Or did it? There's talk of fools gold, and the mysterious way the loser of the match vanished shortly after.  This is a nicely-constructed variant of the traditional ghost story, with some very effective scenes as the protagonist explores the strange tower. Its name comes from its uneven roof, which is inaccessible. And there may be something up there. But no final answers are offered, merely enough detail to let the reader form an opinion. It's a neat tale, clever and good-humoured. I particularly liked the description of follies as 'like garden gnomes on steroids'.

  Gosh, isn't that a lovely cover for The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Follies and Grottoes ? Paul Lowe dashed off a little masterpiece that recalls Atkinson Grimshaw to my not-very-cultured mind. The second story in the book makes for an interesting contrast with Christopher Harman's contribution (see below). Ward's approach is more traditional, with a late Victorian setting and a more M.R. Jamesian narrative style. The tale is short and pithy, but manages to pack in quite a bit - folklore, photography, and monied over-confidence being the principal ingredients. The lady of the title is an American gal who bags herself a British milord with modernising notions. Between the two of them they set about 'improving' their Scottish estate, but carry things a little far in the hydraulic department. This is a tale of murky aquatic terror, focusing on a mysterious loch. A few ominous incidents and the reluctance of local to take part in the work foreshadow a finale that bo...

Pinning the sheet up, shapes wriggled where she wasn't looking directly. She stood well back. Here was the cylindrical folly as seen outside, while around it were other shapes in which the dome, door and arrow-slit windows were the only recognisable features. Mystifying, the folly as a doughnut ring, the folly fattened into a pumpkin. There were versions of it in knots and teasing convolutions that made her feel faintly nauseous.  The first story in The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Follies and Grottoes is a remarkable hybrid of M.R. Jamesian and Lovecraftian sub-genres. Sam, a volunteer at a country house run by a National Trust-like organization, is curious about a relatively new folly in the grounds. It seems the landowner who created the mysterious tower-like building was a mathematical genius with some very odd ideas. His heir, Rupert Baines, who lives on the premises, is engaged in research whose ends are obscure. Sam has a series of odd experiences that she does not share w...

Here is a splendid Paul Lowe cover for a new anthology! Edited by Rosemary Pardoe who also provides an excellent introduction, this new anthology contains a baker's dozen stories, most previously unpublished. (One of the reprints is by me, so I will skip it in the review.) I'll be working my way through the tales over the next few weeks, probably, in a circum-Hallowe'en sort of way. In the meantime, find out more about the book and other Sarob publications here .

Another reading by yours truly. Rolt was a historian of the industrial era and his book Red for Danger is an engaging account of railway accidents. Narrow Boat, his account of a journey on the pre-war canals, is also worth seeking out - it led to the founding of the Inland Waterways Association.

A reading by yours truly of one of the lesser-known ghost story authors, who was much influenced by M.R. James. Malden's stories may be less disturbing, but they are atmospheric and contain some interesting ideas.

Another Rob Lloyd-Parry performance, and one of the best stories by the much-admired Irish Gothic author. A very weird story, to say the least.

I should have mentioned this low-budget but very enjoyable movie in my previous post about 'mild' horror. (It's in the public domain because the original US print didn't include a copyright notice.)

I recently came across a post on Twitter from someone who works in publishing and is easily spooked. They were asking for recommendations on which Halloween movies to watch, with the important proviso that they shouldn't be too scary. This is an interesting one. Look up 'mild horror movies' and you'll find quite a few lists, like this one . There are quite a few borderline cases - comedy horror like Gremlins, and Jaws, which is arguably a thriller or maybe a monster movie. I also wonder if Alien is precisely the kind of film that puts the wind up people unused to horror.  Marie Claire takes an even more eclectic view of things. Little Shop of Horrors, the Buffy movie,  Shaun of the Dead - there's a definite slant towards comedy, and this may be a good thing. What We Do in the Shadows has shown there's a decent audience for films that subvert the genre in a good-humoured way. For my money Tucker and Dale v. Evil is the best of the recent crop in this somewhat cro...

One of my favourite E.F. Benson tales. Click through to Richard Crowest's YouTube channel for more readings, mostly of Fred Benson's work, but with a sprinkling of other classic tales. 

Read by Rob Lloyd-Parry, best known for his M.R. James readings (though he also did a very enjoyable one-man stage version of The Time Machine). Check out more of his work and tour dates here . 

E.F. Benson's brother Arthur produced one undeniable classic in the spooky genre. It's the tale of a haunted composer living in a very well-described country house where strange doings occurred in days gone by. And here it is, superbly read by Simon Stanhope of Bitesized Audio. 

In the run-up to Halloween, I'm going to share some readings and short films etc. I'll start with this oddity - the first feature written by the legendary Leigh Brackett (1915-78). For those who don't know, Brackett was a very successful sci-fi writer of the pulp era. Brackett excelled at 'space opera' adventures with tough heroes battling long odds on Mars or Venus, but was recruited by Hollywood to write a horror movie - so far as the studio was concerned, genre fiction was all the same stuff, basically. So she came up with a vampire story, but set it in Africa and threw in some interesting plot twists. It's very much of its time, of course, but enjoyable. Brackett went on to work with Howard Hawks on classic Westerns such as Rio Bravo, plus the thriller The Big Sleep. Her last contribution was as co-writer on The Empire Strikes back, coming full circle back to space opera. 

Here's a little animated ghost story based on Fredereck Forsyth's 1974 novella. He wrote it as a Christmas gift to his wife after she requested a ghost story. I know it's an amateur film, but I think it's nicely done. 

It's here . Yes, it has a different cover to the print version. It's a special occasion, so special rules apply! And we need to cater to the growing 'severed hands are cool' demographic.