Arrowood

The year is 1895 and down the mean, and quite filthy, streets of London walks a mercurial private detective, maverick investigator and self educated psychologist: William Arrowood. If you could not afford to pay Sherlock Holmes to help you, then there was one other possible resource for detection you could turn to. Sherlock Holmes may have patented a seven per cent solution in order to stoke the fires of his imagination but a drop of Mother's Ruin, Gin, was more than enough for Mick Finlay's more earth bound creation. Brilliant in his own way, William Arrowood roamed the densely packed labyrinth of the then greatest city in the world in order to pursue the wicked in ways and means the ordinary forces of the law could not. 

              Deeply flawed but enjoyably curmudgeonally William Arrowood feels all too plausible in a way that Sherlock Holmes did not. That is not to detract from the enduring magic of Conan Doyle's seemingly immortal creation. It is perhaps that Mick Finlay's creation is such an unexpectedly enjoyable diversion as he plods, at times recklessly, down some very dark alleyways and along some truly grimy pathways to a terrifying underbelly of a city that feels alive with all manner of corruptions and infections.

               At times Mick Finlay's London seems similar to Conan Doyle's London in name only. Holmes strode along the Victorian highways and byways without encountering the myriad depravities which fed the belly of the beast. William Arrowood may well step over them at times but he acknowledged they were there.

              Mick Finlay assembles an impressive group of supporting characters as well as two very engaging main leads. There are no loveable street urchins, the children that prevail in these seedy merciless streets are hardy survivors almost as intimidating as the adults who make their lives such a daily grind and a misery. There is no Jack Wilde artful Dodger ready to charm more than alarm. The poor people in this book lead very tough lives and it is not to much of a stretch therefore for them to be toughened by their experiences. Yet Mick Finlay does not overlay them with obvious character traits and ticks as they struggle to be better human beings than circumstances allow, brave and decent if constantly hungry. In this situation Sherlock Holmes would feel a fiction while William Arrowood would not, though off course he is. Holmes accepts cases which intrigue him and because he wants to, Arrowood accepts them in order to survive. 

              It all goes a bit Peaky Blinders  with some pretty nasty gang action going on. But these street gangs do not get together through a shared appreciation for Gilbert And Sullivan, they are violent ruthless gangsters in pursuit of money and power. In that sense perhaps they do not differ that much from the Victorian elite and perhaps have more in common with Opera lovers than one would first assume. Quite a bit of their power came from violent shows of strength, a strategy many modern drug lords still capitalise on. It is their form of Instagram I suppose, not as horrific as TikTok  or as passe as facebook, platforms which also rely on the energies generated by shame, fear and horror. 

               Arrowood is a great introduction to an interesting group of characters in an equally interesting situation. Iremember reading Anthony Horowitz's Sherlock tales (Nee; Moriarity) and felt they strayed a little outside the continuity set up by Conan Doyle, to very entertaining effect. Credulity creaks a bit but that is no bad thing. Arrowood carries no such baggage, there is no urge to subvert expectations, it all feels disturbingly flawed and fresh. 

             Thegame is not afoot. The game is a bourgoise indulgence.

               
 

The Bride That Time Forgot.

The Further adventures of The Bride of Frankenstein.The poignant ongoing trials and tribulations of a hand made woman who is now a landlady running a Bed n' Breakfast in Whitby Harbour. The town where Dracula first leapt to shore from the doomed Demeter. It is a stunning location to act as a base from which to springboard a series of bizarre adventures. a haunting, and haunted, location which serves as a perfect set upon which to spin the outrageous yarns of the outrageous Paul Magrs.

              I have long been a fan of his work, his contributions to the world of Doctor Who, the creation of Iris Wildthyme (played by the force of nature that is katy Manning.in a series of stories from Big Finish.). His work, while always remaining thoroughly modern, always comes cloaked in an eccentric Englishness that is part poignancy part whimsy, and always charming. Feeling at times as though the mercurial compere of the BBC show The Good Old Days had turned his hand to writing. A colourful figure standing at the end of the pier always waving, never drowning. 

              Brenda, the Bride, is an intriguing and very sympathetic character surrounded by a pretend family of almost equally odd characters. Good friends and enemies who cluster in this harbour town, staring out at the hostile enviroment of The North Sea. A harsh enviroment to be sure but by turns beautiful if unpredicatable and dangerous. Whitby is such a perfect location for the stories Paul Magrs seems to relish sharing. In my minds eye I see the location for the BBC's lavish 1977 adaption of Dracula. The one with Louis Jordan as The Count. Which included my favourite on screen potrayal of Abraham Van Helsing with Frank Finlay in the lead role. Yes, even topping the almost perfect Peter Cushing and his Hammer interpretation of "professor Helsing"

                Almost a century has passed in Whitby since the original publication of Dracula when the BBC cameras started rolling on their production of Bram Stoker's novel. Yet it looks relatively unchanged. In fact more change have probably occurred in that town since the broadcast of the Beebs version of Dracula than had changed in the decades since the book first saw print.

                Paul Magrs has assembled a very entertaining witches brew of characters, almost on a par with the bonkers assemblage of characters he surrounds Tom baker with in his very entertaining Bakers end productions. Brenda and her chums are very engaging group whose experiences as perrenial outsiders enrich and entertain.

                 Always the Bride, as he previously said.

    

 

Rosemary's Baby.

Ira Leven's literary output might only extend to just over half a dozen titles but his cultural, as well as literary influence remains vast. His titles alone have become bywords for jarring cultural memes; Dead Eyed Concubines Born To Cook and Clean; Stepford Wives. Horribly Behaved Children Who make Their Parents Blush In Shame For Having Conceived them; Rosemary's Baby. Its dark humour, to be sure, done as whispered asides, yet their origins remain as potent as ever.

               As does the contents of this classic slice of American Gothic. Set among the sprawling brownstones of New York it has over the period of time since it first caused a sensation when published taken on a even more unsettling resonance. If a child of the Devil were to emerge from anywhere why not the luxuriant cloistered community of out of touch with reality socialites. in Christian faith the Son of god had the humblest of origins, always a consideration when faith is tested against mortal standards. 

               I found Rosemary's neighbors, the nosey , inteferring and quite bat shit crazy neightbours Minnie and Roman Castavet to be utterly terrifying. Filled to the brim with queasy old world charm they came across as komodo dragons draped in gingham, sans flickering tongues, nothing so obvious with this demonic pair. They are the head of the witches coven, completely ruthless in their pursuit of a Satanic birth. Always under the radar they also emit dangerous signals more modern readers will pick up on. In a more generous age they could easily pass for what they pretend to be. There are subtle warnings in the text, not easily missed in a post OMEN age but it was a book born and gestated in another era.

              What a shocker it must have been for anyone coming to the book but how even more disturbing must people have found the Roman Polanski directed movie adaption. The career best of a cinema autuer, it grips from the opening panning shot and never really lets go. All excell in their roles with Mia Farrow delivering a luminous portrait of innocence defiled and John Cassavetes delivering a blistering turn as an ambitious young man corrupted by a desire for success.He slyly betrays the trusting and vunerable Rosemary, his soul bought and paid for. Devilishly handsome and unfogiveably vain, he aids in setting in motion what could turn out to be an apocalyptic chain of events. 

               The setting is amazing. That Brownstone building feels like another world. Its inhabitants lost souls. Roman Polanski really delivers a film which has aged well. Its bouquet may now suit the subtlest of paletes, with an almost pleasingly decadent aroma.

               Haunting and surprisingly moving. 

 

A Biography Of Dracula; The Life Story Of Bram stoker.

" You will find Count Dracula listed in reference books the world over. You will not find any mention of his creator. Bram Stoker recoiled from personal publicity as his vampire shrunk from the sun. " so began the inner jacket description of its contents, the dust cover of this biography of Dracula. the same introduction lends the book an almost timeless quality, considering it begins with an interview with a once hugely famous actor and performer; Hamilton Deane. Who wrote the first stage adaption of the novel and who travelled the globe with it to huge and unflagging success. At the height of his powers Hamilton Deane felt the world could not get enough of the bloody count. The Transylvanian aristocrat who drank his way into the heart of London society., with an appetite for the blood of the English upper class.Hamilton Deane's own relationship with Bram stoker's creation was in itself a remarkable tale and reflects something of the wider world's fascination with the vampire king. the book, in whatever format it was adapted intowould go on to become absorbed into the shared cultural zeitgeist of the twentieth century.

                 But it is Bram, always Bram Stoker that we must return to when we think of this fantastical icon and its widespread impact on all things folklorically vampiric. He understood the nature of theater too well to think that he could totally avoid the limelight but he was at some pains throughout his life to become a man better suited to shaping things in a back ground capacity. A man who knew how to put on a show but who preferred to remain behind the curtain himself..The man who held up a distorting mirror before a repressed Victorian era while acting as a literary midwife to the rebirth of a golden age of Gothic literature. imagine a generation experiencing Dracula by candle light or the flickering imperfect light of a gas jet.

                This lovely book by Harry Ludlam takes the time, near the end of the book, to present for the reader an enlightening history of Gothic literature, from its gruesome inception through its meandering permutations. Dracula was a single blossom in a winter wreath, rather it was a scarlet bloom throwing seeds into the fertile ground of the imagination of generations.  It was a heady concotion for its time, one that bordered on the fringes of what passed for acceptable discourse. Written by a big, bearded Irish man who by all accounts was full to the brim with a passion for life and in particular an enthusiasm for theater life. Yet this burly giant of a man was born a sickly child, not expected to live. Emerging as a healthy child from about eight on he spent a lot of his formative years isolated in a sickbed. Protected through those years by affectionate parents, in what were pretty tough times the young Bram had a lot to overcome. With the memory of those sickly formative years it is small wonder his imagination leaned more towards the macabre and the outre. as an adult he first became a civil servant, then a writer and agent to actors. His most famous client being the legendary stage actor Henry Irving. it was perhaps this relationship which most strongly came to identify him in the public's eyes, even more than that of his life with his wife and children. The nature of celebrity and the publics intrest in it has changed little in the many years since. .His great success in theatrical terms was his time in charge of The Lyceum theater as he took it from a genteel moribund venue to it becoming a genuine world famous theatrical phenomenon. With some of its touring productions dominating the stages of the world. 

                In this book we are not only treated to a biography of Bram Stoker and Henry Irving ( a nd off course The Count himself) we are also afforded the very compelling insight into the life and career of Hamilton Deane, Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. As well as a very helpful spotters guide to Gothic Literature. This reader came away from this book with a few truly outre additions to a future reading list. 

                What a treat this book turned out to be, gifted by my old pal Scratch. Harry Ludlam writes in an easy conversational tone that meanders at times but always in the most charming ways. One could almost feel the chilly midnight wind of Whitby stir the hairs on the back of ones neck and it seemed to whisper; "Just one word of warning, Ladies and Gentlemen, there are such things...."

 

The White Road.

I do believe I have walked this road before but recently I was tidying (Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha....) through some piles of books when I found myself once more drawn to it. The story of The White Road begins in the dark bowels of the Earth. Specifically the winding and dangerous pot hole of Cwm Pot, the final resting place of three young pot holers who got caught in a flash flood and drowned. There they fell and there they lay in the cold unconsecrated ground. A young website creator descends in to the dark, accompanied by a guide, to photograph the bodies of the dead. Two men go down into the dark and only one of them is sane. 

               What follows is a nightmare scenario from which emerges an internet sensation as the pictures are posted on the web site; journey To The Dark Side. Which would not have been a bad name for the book given what follows. Simon Newman, the person who journeyed into the dark to get the pictures then looks to higher climes for more subject matter. Viral success proves to be something of a first world problem as he has to top the sensation that drew in the hits. He decides to follow his pot holing disaster pictures with some Himalayan disaster pictures. He decides to scale Everest and photograph the many fallen on the mountain paths. For the bodies of those who died trying to scale the heights of Everest are still there

              He poses as an adrenalin junkie, hiding his true purpose for being on the mountain from the other climbers. Who despite their many personal faults or personality short comings at least aspire to a purity of intent when it comes to climbing. Simon Newman is not a very nice person and we know this as Sarah Lotz provides us with a window to his personal intent. He cloaks his shallow and selfish agenda in a polyester jacket of casual goodness, almost at every turn his agenda being something other than the one he projects. This is a child of Facebook and instagram, where "seeming" is everything.as he aspires to the split second lie of being that is a selfie. This is a man willing to climb over the bodies of the dead in order to enhance his social media profile. as long as he can photograph them. I suppose in that respect he shares much in common with many modern day celebrities or those who see themselves as social media influencers...ugh..the levels of delusion..... 

              In a sense Sarah Lotz peoples the mountain with those who embody some of the worst aspects of modernity, at least the ones still up on their feet.The depths social media figures will descend to would swallow a Himalayan mountain range. 

               I find myself drawn to stories set in remote locations but I much prefer those stories to be filled with the kind of empathic misanthropes a writer like Algernon Blackwood would create. Bookish loners who stray into the dark corners of the world.in many respects simon newman has it coming to him. The baggage he carries, the unforgiving ghosts of bad decisions.

               We probably all have it coming.

               The White road is a fast, entertaining read. Like the mountain range at the heart of the tale it has a tough surface. Take from that what you will.

                Everest endures.

                A good piece of prep before attempting a read would be to consider this excert from TS Elliot's The Waste Land and Other Poems;

                "Who is the third who walks always beside you?

                 When I Count, there are only you and i together.

                 But when i look ahead up the White Road

                 There is always another one walking beside you

                 gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded

                 - But who is that on the other side of you?
 

I am The Master.

 Six tales in the lives of The Doctor's oldest and most dangerous friend; The Master. Six very different tales ranging in tone from the absurdist Douglas Adams science frippery to the Stokeresque Gothic (Actually featuring Bram Stoker as the central not-quite main character.This story having a peculiar frission of familiarity for me having just finished the prequal to the Dracula; Dracul by Dacre Stoker as well as Powers Of Darkness, the Icelandic translation of the original Dracula text.) Thats a whole lot of Stoker.

              The stories lean towards the darkly comedic which works for some of The Master's incarnations better than others. Levity acting as a literary safety net for a very wicked character who cannot be seen to win the day as this would inevitably involve the "good guys" losing. A notion which hobbles the stories before they get the chance to take off. However one of the stories absolutely strikes the perfect balance  between the macabre, the malign and the mischief and that is ; The Master and Margareta by Matthew Sweet.  The story proves to be the most wonderful gift to The Master fanbase, assuming he has one, and the overall sprawling Doctor Who Universe.It really is that good and stands among one of the best Doctor Who related spin off stories this fan has read in some time. Darkly amusing, wittily paced and lovingly laced with some acidic continuity references that never felt forced or exploitative. 

               Oh Matthew Sweet, with this savoury and swarthy concoction you are spoiling us. I will not say too much more and allow the reader to discover for themselves what a Doctorless treat this particular story is.  Or perhaps I am just teasing, disguising the presence of The Master's oldest and most dangerous friend. If you ever wondered what an Alan Bleasdale script for Doctor Who would have read like then this should prove to be a taste of honey for you. 

                In total there are half a dozen good reasons for picking up this anthology, that is half a dozen possible winners for you, the reader. given the characters history of failure when standing against The Doctor that is much better odds than he normally enjoys.

Tom Tom Club

                                                      The Doctor (From my sketch book.)

The Condition Of Muzak.

 "Muzak is a trade name for piped music used in resturaunts, super markets, bars and other public places", michael Moorcock helpfully explains in the appendix at the rear of The condition Of Muzak paperback. perhaps envisioning an age when the book would still be in print in an era where the hollow reed melodies would no longer happen, an age when people did not gather in public places. Hmmmmm...

             Muzak in many way was just a series of noises that approximate the sound of actual music, unasked for but cordially piped into public areas as they did in golden days of yore, when we thought such things would last forever. "When we were beautiful, mister Poirot." you remember those days? When people could congregate together, breathing and rebreathing the same air. While also listening to, if barely registering, the piped in sounds of muzak. 

              Nothing to be heard here. Nothing to aspire to. Oh, our arrogance, my dears.

              there is an unspoken artificiality to what was going on but nothing appeals to the very soul of modernity like artificiality. Like so much in the life and lives of jerry Cornelius and friends, at once frivolous and deadly. it is strange to think of this novel as a period piece but in truth that former world has passed away, every iteration of it. The kalidoscope of the multi verse whirling away right before our eyes. we squint, attempting to find resolution and it just looks more confused and bloody glorious. It is something of a jolly romance, with some beautifully realised  and crafted vigennettes which frustratingly slip away just as we grasp them, when they are at their most sweet and compelling. just go for it, give nether a fig nor a penny farthing for nailing it down. go back to the start, hold on tight, take a ride on the wild side. 

              Things End, Things Begin, Things Aint Af Orrible, then they get better, sort of, before they fall apart again. Well, you get the picture. I think it would be a terribly dangerous thing to know someone like Jerry Cornelius, for a multiplicity of reasons. Mad, bad and dangerous to know, as they say. Fortunately he is just fictional enough to put on a bookshelf for safe keeping. a hero for the Neververse. Just dont introduce him to your sister. Or your brother. Or your ma for that matter.

               Journeys end in lovers meeting, after all.

Missy.

 Comics of the week for me was Missy #1 and #2. Not only for the fantastic covers but for the cracking script. Jodie Houser is such a good writer on this and the 13th Doctor title. She has such a grasp on the characters and a great ear for dialogue that reflects the ambiguity of the characters. Bad people doing bad things, bad people doing even worse things and then, surprisingly, bad people doing the occasional good thing. The last two series may have felt a bit all over the place but this lady's writing grounds it in a way its inspiration has not, as yet, achieved. 

            Perhaps She could be lured to script for the mother show.

            I would welcome that with all heart.

            However many that is.

I mean, just look at this beautiful portrait of Roger Delgado as The Master. Evil never looked as beguiling.  I believe the artist responsible is Claudia Caranfa. Just dazzling. Never felt the Masters following Roger Delgado ever struck the balance between likeability and malevolence as he did.Well, until Michelle Gomez ,that is, came along and lit up the screen.

  

The Moving Toyshop.

I was remembering a conversation I had with someone a few years back, regarding a particular season of The Avengers, which was then being repeated on Channel 4. about how exciting and dynamic  and yet undeniably otherworldly  every episode. The arch tone , the clever characterization of all the regulars and how visiting guest actors brought the same level of archness to their performances. Right from the first episode of that particular season Steed and Ms Peel were visiting a remote English village that had a load of nazis living within and underneath it, scheming a return to power. The setting was the quirky remote village, where everyone from the pub regulars to the village blacksmith was eccentric in some way.There was a heightened sense of reality, which was completely necessary in order to make it work. The visual suggestion that you were unlikely to bump into Steed or Ms Peel in your local Tescos. You had to build an almost surreal world in order to allow your hyper real characters do their thing. 

                 That is what I felt like reading this very eccentric crime drama by Edmund Crispin. Containing an archly constructed version of Oxford in order to allow events to flow. I presume, never having visited it I cannot be sure, it felt that way though.it felt that way. as though reality had been tweaked slightly. That said, I could be wrong. It could be an accurate depiction of life beneath its gleaming spires. Edmund Crispin could in fact have been describing an Oxford he walked through every day. A version only he saw. 

                 Anyway, the story begins with wandering, and wondering, poet Richard Cadogan traveling into late night Oxford who comes across the body of a strangled woman on a toy shop. It even sounds like an episode of the Avengers. Yet when he returns with the police not only is there no body, there is no toy shop. thus begins a baffling escapade involving Gervasse Fen, a mercurial professor also drawn to the eccentric and odd murders of his hometown. And so the two men team up to solve the mystery of the disapearing toy shop and the vanished victim. 

                 Its all hugely enjoyable. Part PJ Woodhouse, part Avengers with a dollop of Agatha Christie. It is rife with the most enjoyable literary asides with a pleasing smattering of Gilbert and Sullivan tropes, all seamlessly weaved into the dialogue as Richard Cadogan finds himself sheperded by the slightly barmy but equally charming Gervasse Fen, a professor who takes scant interest in his actual profession.  

                 The Moving Toy Shop is something of a moveable feast.

 

High On A Hill.

The first book I ever owned. high on a hill, gifted by Ms Caugher in Holy Cross Boys School. the start of something....

 
 

The English Assassin; A Romance Of Entropy.

 'Stuth, its a third collection of Jerry Cornelius related/ interconnected viginettes, just over half a dozen bewildering glimpses of catastrophy., with multiverses boiling away. People with familiar faces we can only witness the good, the bad and the sexy do good and bad things through a pinball machine of diminishing returns.the sands are running out for everyone involved but the time piece keeps being flipped. It is as close we get to a happy ending, or at least a series of less horrible ones. It seems the only thoroughly modern response to the apocalypse with do what thou wilt being the only universal law.

             There are other universal laws at play here beyond the unfolding entropy of the title. One best viewed through the lense of a Logopilitan observer, in the end entropy always wins, the "always" being our only bolt hole. the various story lines at play go some way to re-inforcing this notion. It only pays lip service to the laws of thermo dynamics as only the vey well dressed may do so. mind you, everything I think I know about entropy I learned in a 1981 episode of Doctor Who; Logopolis. A dazzling and melancholy tale of a race of mathematicians who try to hold the entropy and decay of the aging universe at bay using block transfer computations, the language of the universe (with a featured performance by the much missed and lovely John Frazer as the doomed Monitor as well as the even sadder last appearence of Tom Baker as the Doctor. I cannot look at a radar dish without thinking of my heroes demise.That alone should illustrate what a huge notion entropy as a threat is!)

              I can toss around Logopolitan memes like a ripe old mathmatician and convince a casual listener that I know what I am talking about. it is boobie-babble off course. Alas, I am not sure I could describe the life of Jerry Cornelius with the same degree of casuality. There are however some beautifully constructed vigenettes in this book which might go some way to almost doing that. My heart ached for the worlds that unfolded and then collapsed within the book, with touchingly familiar worlds crumbling to memory. with societies we thought would last forever just coming apart, just so much debris in the wake of catastrophy, the truth of history. A bullet from a gun that loves its victim.

              If only we could sing them back into being.

Sea Monkeys?

Growing up when I did, one could not help but absorb the advertisements in American comic books. They seemed to be a staple pet for those infected by the four colour fever of comic collecting. I doubt these ads could be run now. If only because the notion of sending living things through the post seems so cruel and otherworldly.

                   Not to mention a probable bio-hazard
 

A Cure For Cancer.

                Oh blimey, what was going on inside your head, Mister Moorcock? with the first Jerry Cornelius novel I had a fair idea idea what was going on. anchored by repeated viewings of the Final Programme movie, whether that can be considered a rossetta stone to the arcane literature of Michael Moorcock is probably not even debatable among his core audience. I am but a stupified pilgrim on a winding pathway so it will do for me. And Jon Finch made a fantastic Jerry Cornelius. My grasp on this text could be described as slippery at best. It felt like something linear was unfolding, first on the page and then in the recesses of my brain as I absorbed the text. A bendy sort of narrative and I have been blessed with a bendy sort of brain. I was not always able to figure out who I was tagging behind, it was a packed party in my head, I held on to any friendly arm I could grasp, just stumbling through a jam packed room of beautiful and terrible people.

                 There is no user friendly sound bite that can sum this book up for a casual visitor. it just has to be experienced. With a Michael Moorcock you are just never going to get tha.

                  Are you 'aving a larf?  I should bleedin' coco.

                  The formating of this book would be considered experimental in any age. At times it felt as though Michael Moorcock may have visited his publishers with a manuscript, stopped along the way for a tipple or two, or three, tripped over a friendly Jack Russel in the pub, spilling the pages of the manuscript and allowing it to mix with some annotations intended for his own thinking, and then charmingly handed over the jumbled pages and declared "Make of it what you will , my dears," and so we must.

                 Its the way stories and memories bleed into each other after all. Our lives are an unscipted loose ensemble of events and genres. An apocalyptic thread runs throughout the book, its a stew of disasterism. With so many ingredients Jerry Cornelius becomes the brown sauce that makes it palatable. 

                 As palatable as a pot of apocalyptic pease pottage can be, my dears.

the Trail of Fu Manchu.

 It cost 3/6 originally. published by Consul books who were a off shoot of World distributors (I think). The cover design, front and back, were specifically designed to help it compete with other less garishly jacketed paperbacks on a paperback spinner or newsagent shelf. How to lure the casual buyer away from the equally supernatural faux erotica of a Dennis Wheatly. Discussed by a smoking jacketed pipe smoking head of design, over a swirling bowl of brandy...er,probably. 

                The worn and well thumbed paperback had an interior stamp proclaiming its exchange value from the the old Union Street bookshop. Also now long gone.

                 The book itself and its contents are also perhaps redolent of another former world now passed away with the smoky vision of so many Chinese immigrants were viewed through the prism of a faux-Orientalism. With the invention of a labyrinthine warren of Victorian tenements masking an underground of Opium dens and sinister cellars sheltering the wicked Doctor's latest inventions for taking down the decadent West. The work of Sax Rohmer undoubtedly influenced this impression to a world wide degree as the work traveled well, thrilling, exciting and terrifying generations, as well as misleading the readers into believing in a London based Gotham called Limehouse. From the books, to the series of films starring Christopher Lee, the pulp magazines, the comic books and radio plays, traversing all mediums, reinforcing the stereotype, a single street mythically hyped as something else.

               Mind you, for lovers of lurid pulp adventure this is a real page turner. Its depiction of a fog bound London and the colourful motley of heroes making an almost jingoistic stand against the evil Doctor and his complex machinations makes for a thrilling ride. It feels as though Sax Rohmer is a be-goggled leather jacketed motor cyclist and the reader is in the attached side car holding on for dear life as the vechile roars round the sinister bends in the road. The schemes of Fu Manchu do not only generally involve a high body count but have a notably twisted quality to them. As though he were saying "Why only kill them when you can be so much more cruel to insert them into some personal hell of their own devising." yet he employs a code, one that only Fu Manchu appreciates, as he wills so mote it be. As they say...

               Each of the old movies with Christopher Lee would end with the chilling promise " The world will hear from me again." I think in this instance it may well be about to do so again. In the original marvel comics Shang Chi Master Of Kung Fu his father is Fu Manchu. Now I am not sure of the details but I think Marvel Comics were discouraged  from using the character by the Rohmer Estate, or for whatever reason, whoever owned the rights to the character, but with a big budget Master Of Kung Fu movie on the horizon perhaps we will hear from him again. Maybe not using the same name but opium by any other name would smell as sweet, so to speak. 

The Bonemen Cometh. And Goeth. Probablyeth.

 Here is a glimpse of a little something I have coming later in the year. some familiar, i hope, faces and afew charmingly, again I hope, ugly new ones.

               SPIDER PRAM, SPIDER PRAM, UNBELIEVABLE SPIDER PRAM!

               DOES WHATEVER A SPIDER PRAM CAN!

Captain And The Cavalier.

 Heres a delightful blast from the past. It was a picture taken at the Cavaliers In Need event at the forbidden Planet International store in Belfast, trying to raise money towards this worthy charity. It was all hands on deck that day and quite a success. That included the mighty Belfast Captain America (Jonathan) who ably assisted and inspired on the day. off course, we all inhabit a post social distancing world so such events are tricky at the moment but hopefully in time and with good graces those days will come again.

             Those big beautiful eyes so full of life and happiness always make me smile.How could anyone ever be cruel or mean to them.

             The wee dog Lexi also has beautiful eyes.

Powers Of Darkness; The Lost Version Of Dracula.

 In 1901 Bram Stoker's Dracula was translated and serialized in an Icelandic newspaper, in Reykjavik named Fiall Konan. It has since been largely forgotten in the many years despite the original book being something of a publishing phenomenon. turns out this was so much more than a translation of the original text, it was in fact a rewritten version of Bram stoker's novel. What the bourgoise lazy press of modernity label a "reimagining", as though only the parts the translator enjoyed were retained and oh so much was either ignored or tossed in the Icelandic waste paper basket.

              Jonathan Harker's journey to, and lengthy imprisonment in, Castle Dracula becomes the real focus of the tale. Even he has been renamed; thomas Harker. The same with several other of the characters, either renamed or junked. The castle itself becomes a real presence, as does the bizarre household and weird hangers-on, human and otherwise, who inhabit the Transylvanian mountaintop bolt hole of the malevolent Count. And The Count emerges as more of a slyly amusing Hannibal Lector figure, toying with Harker, teasing his fate, totally in control of his victim, as well as being a master of the dark arts.  Much is not explained, much tails off in a dreamlike fashion employing its own self contained fashion. 

              Its a nightmarish fit, especially the first half of disturbing ly detailed journal entries. Poor Thomas Harker is in a pickle, far from home and surrounded by monsters. Reading it I imagined, or reimagined, his not getting out of this in even the damaged form he inhabits in the original text.

              Stephen Moffet and Mark Gatiss' recent take on the Dracula myth proved a magpie flight into Stoker's nest, pushing aside the original eggs. Yet the Sister Agatha of this version and their version emerges as the breakout character of both. I hugely enjoyed experiencing both and am delighted this side character proved so much more substantial (So much so I suggest Dolly Wells for the next Doctor.)

              This is a bizarre Dracula treat for fans and casual blood dippers as well. Neglected and unknown for so long it is delightful to see it emerge into the light, so to speak. 

Algernon Blackwood.

 Considered by many, MR James among them, to be the foremost British supernaturalist (Damn fine word.) of the twentieth century, Algernon Blackwood  has come to worthily occupy such a revered, if unfamiliar, place in such an arch and august pantheon. He certainly left some hefty footprints in the meandering pathways through the densely packed and dangerous forests of the mind. 

             I came across a copy of the book The Best Of Algernon Blackwood many years ago in The Strand Bookstore in New York. A dream of a bookstore with miles and miles of books covering all the highways and byways of literature with literal archipelagos of subjects and themes. i picked it up and returning home to Belfast next to a ventriloquists doll I also picked up on that trip.Somehow,while waiting at the baggage carousel my suitcase came down the conveyor belt with the doll's grinning head poking out of the partially opened zipper.

            "Thats definately your bag" my traveling companion pointed out. 

             The Algernon Blackwood sat in my book collection for quite some time before I got around to complete reading it. Thus, I missed out for far too long on what an intriguing and beguiling writer he truly was. Not neglected, just perhaps taken for granted. by all reckonings he led an interesting and event filled life as he traveled the world experiencing all its ups and downs, triumphs and painful disapointments. Algernon Blackwood's literary output, his many stories, mirror the passions that drove him in his personal lif and informed the characters that inhabit his fictions. He was a great lover of the outdoor life and distant remote places but he was also no stranger to the seedy noirish underbelly of great cities like New York.

              There are thirteen stories in the anthology I read; The Best Of Algernon Blackwood published by Dover press. there are ,off course, two of the most highly regarded and powerfully influential stories in this collection' The Willows and The Wendigo. That is the names of the two stories, by the way. Not the name of a wrestling tag team. They have been read and reprinted for the best part of a century and are probably scattered through your own book collection, just waiting to be reread.

              Go do so, whoever you may be.

isabel's Skin.

 

 Shallow Mal, suckered in by a lovely cover. And why the hell not. Mostly you can judge a book by its cover, despite other unworldly claims, and this lovely cover proved to be a window to a garden of mostly Earthly delights. Oh, Mister Peter Benson with your Gothic melodrama you are spoiling us. Actually its much better than that, its more of a darkly pleasing mellow drama, forgive my misjudged frippery.

             A closeted, in the Edwardian sense of the word (which actually almost means the same thing as the more modern use of the word, to be sure.) Book collection valuer finds himself near the gloomy village of Ashbrittle (Which would have made a great title for the novel.) and an encounter with a screaming desperate woman literally in the clutches of a nutty professor. He finds his previously orderly world turned on its head as he sets about trying to set her free. Peter Benson manages a very entertaining mash of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sheridan Le fanu, elevating it to so much more than an Edwardian folly. More than a few of his mercurially constructed sentences stream of into poetry of composition. it never feels forced and almost conversational at times, in that a spoken sentence meanders in its own dreamy abstraction.

            I imagine Peter Benson might tire having pointed out obvious similarities with the Hammer film The Reptile, in that at its narrative heart is the sad tale of a young woman turned into a vaguely reptilian hybrid, even though the creature at the black heart of the film is a hissing, biting monstrosity while the one in Isabel's Skin is an equally decent young person horribly violated by some one no better than they ought to be. Its the period, the striking optic of a woman of that era, dressed as she would be, with the skin of a reptile that really reminds one of The Reptile's echo. And it is a nice excuse, were any one needed, to reprint a still of the much missed Jacqueline Pearce at the very peak of her star quality. Ms Pearce made two films with Hammer filmed back to back; Plague Of The Zombies and The Reptile. A superlative double bill.

             Peter Benson's book is by turns tragic and dreamily unsettling.

             Much like the strange days we find ourselves in.

             

Ice Warriors On Vinyl.

Oh My Giddy Aunt, look what is coming out on vinyl. The narrated story of The Doctor's encounter with those Martian storm troopers The Ice Warriors. It was something of a legendary story to me as a boy, only familiar with it through the Target novelization and the occasional photograph. Which I supposed is a lot more familiar than say, someone with a casual interest.  I grew up never expecting to ever seen so many of these classic era stories and sadly for a few that may well remain the case. However, some of those stories survived, in bits and pieces and I have nothing but affection for the BBC's attempt to share those stories with a newer audience and I have always enjoyed their partially narrated adaptions.the same goes for sets on vinyl, the format I grew up with and which I believe will never grow old. 

              Yes, the format stumbled but it regenerated.

              Bring on The Ice Warriors.