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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Nov 28, 2009 16:17:17 GMT
Is it normal to keep walking back past the shelf and taking another sneaky look, just to convince myself that they're real? Anyway, an update... The deluxe edition with the two extra stories sold out quickly (so I'm stuffed if anything happens to my copy), but I've just spotted on the Dark Regions site that the Paperback is up for order now... www.darkregions.com/they_that_dwell_in_dark_places.html
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Post by Calenture on Nov 28, 2009 21:26:33 GMT
Is it normal to keep walking back past the shelf and taking another sneaky look, just to convince myself that they're real? Anyway, an update... The deluxe edition with the two extra stories sold out quickly (so I'm stuffed if anything happens to my copy), but I've just spotted on the Dark Regions site that the Paperback is up for order now... They That Dwell in Dark PlacesThis is another book that I'm happy to see selling well. I've promised myself a copy of this one for Christmas, Dan. I'm quite proud that one story in this volume, The Mound, first appeared in Filthy Creations . While The Crimson Picture, a story which actually made me feel off colour, the atmosphere was so intense, appeared in The Second Black Book. Your writing is always professional, often brilliant. Looking at the Dark Regions page, I figure there must be five or six more of your stories that I haven't seen yet in that book. That, and the illustrations by Jullia JeffreyLooks like a sure investment for a winter's evening, reading in front of the fire!
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Nov 28, 2009 21:55:28 GMT
Many thanks, Rog. I’m proud that “The Mound” made it into FC3, while it was “The Crimson Picture” appearing in “The Second Black Book of Horror” that caught the attention of Joe Morey at Dark Regions, and led to this collection actually happening.
Of the 13 stories, 6 have previously been in print – “The Shadow in the Stacks” and “They That Dwell in Dark Places” in “The BHF Books”, “Shalt Thou Know My Name?”, “The Crimson Picture”, and “And Still Those Screams Resound” in the “Black Books”, and “The Mound”, of course, in “Filthy Creations” No.3, while a further story, “The Beacon”, is based on a previously broadcast “Imagination Theater” script.
The rest are receiving their first airing here, most of them being specifically written for the collection. These are “Rags”, “A Ravelled Tress”, “The Travelling Companion”, “The Wager”, and “The Unmasking”, while two others were written for the deluxe edition, “Ingress” and “The Longman”.
One further story, “An Unwise Purchase”, is the first time in print for 100 years for a story by a forgotten contemporary of M.R. James, reprinted here as a tribute to one of my greatest influences.
And Julia's illustrations are the perfect accompaniment, adding to that old fashioned feel... while your presentation of your illustration for "The Mound" in FC3, with the caption beneath it, inspired me to ask Dave Barnett, the book's designer, to do the same here, and it works beautifully.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Nov 29, 2009 13:40:43 GMT
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Nov 29, 2009 19:02:06 GMT
Good one lurker
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Post by Calenture on Nov 29, 2009 23:59:00 GMT
Don't apologise; it's the chief reason this forum was put together. For people to promote their writing and get responses to new work in the workshops. Strikes me as a pretty good review.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Dec 14, 2009 23:17:14 GMT
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Dec 15, 2009 10:47:23 GMT
That's a great and well deserved review.
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Post by Calenture on Jan 11, 2010 15:46:56 GMT
Cover and interior art by Julia Jeffrey They That Dwell in Dark Places by Daniel McGachey(Dark Regions Press; Ghost House, 2009) Introduction by Charles Black Daniel McGachey writes stories close in style and spirit to those of M R James; and at the moment we know that he’s also engaged in transcribing and editing the notes of one Dr. John Watson, Esq., with a view to their publication. I've wondered why Dan McGachey prefers to set his fiction over a century in the past; at a guess, I’d say that perhaps he feels he’s been born to late and his characters feel more comfortable in the soft glow of the gaslight. Buildings tended to be grander then – buildings like Mr Elmsmore’s house and estate in The Mound. Despite the industrial revolution, men and women were still close to nature and more held in its thrall, like the men combing the sands, looking for survivors, in The Beacon. The Shadow in the Stacks uses as a backcloth a setting which hasn’t changed much except in minor details over centuries – a library at St Montague’s, “one of our older and more forgotten colleges.” Perdew is a young and enthusiastic librarian there; but when Lawrence asks him to help find some old texts, he’s puzzled by Perdew’s reluctance to look in the cellars. At length Lawrence gets a strange story from him about some antique volumes found while rebuilding was being carried out on the older parts of the library. These volumes had been curiously bound in a substance that even old Harkwell the bookbinder had been unable to identify. And shortly after their discovery a grotesque red form had been seen in the library. “The impression that I had was of something crawling just out of sight, into the darkness. Something that was red and peculiarly glistening. Red and wet, like something that you might see in a butcher’s display...”This story is adapted from McGachey’s Imagination Theater radio play, which was first broadcast October 2006 (directed by Lawrence Albert and produced by Jim French). The story’s first appearance in print was in The Second BHF Book of Horror Stories (BHF Books, 2007) edited by Christopher Wood. I found it a creepy and stylish exercise in the macabre when I first heard the play online, and if anything it works even better in print. The Mound was posted to the original writers Workshop of Filthy Creation at the Vault of Evil forum, where Steve Goodwin and I saw it and wanted it for the 3rd issue of Filthy Creations magazine in Autumn 2007. The story opens with Mr Elmsmore surveying the gardens of his estate by moonlight, and noticing a strange irregularity of the ground where only a perfect lawn should have stretched. Instead of the lawn’s flatness, there is now, without doubt, a mound. And over the following days, the sinister protuberance appears to be moving closer. This is one of the shorter stories in the collection, and reading it again, I think it’s a grisly little gem, and I'm proud that it had its first outing in FC. The Beacon: In summer, Bleakfall is one of the prettier seaside towns dotting England’s coast; but tonight, with the moon nearly hidden behind scudding clouds and a tempest beating down on the shore, men are searching the sands for survivors of disaster, and it’s Dr Pardoe who spies the shape of the boy in the boat. The boy seems confused; he claims to have come not from a shipwreck but from Drearcliff, the lighthouse situated some miles out at sea. And gradually a story is coaxed from him of a young woman found washed onto the rock near the light; a woman whose passion and need for justice is so strong that it acts like a beacon for other restless spirits of the deep – spirits who resent those who’ve not succumbed to the waters, and the light-keepers who warn the living away. For the dead in the waters off Bleakfall's shores want company.I'd love to be able to post Julia Jeffrey's illustration for this story here, but so far it's defied scanning; it is, however, a lovely illustration, like many others she's drawn for this collection. Edit: After about ten more attempts, I finally managed to get what I think is a good scan of Julia Jeffrey's illustration for The Beacon (problem was caused partly by the size of the page and partly because unwanted colour kept appearing). Anyway, I hope it's satisfactory. I'll remove it if not. Julia Jeffrey More to come... Dark Regions Press
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jan 13, 2010 18:28:10 GMT
Thanks for this, Rog. It's so nice to see the stories getting the blow-by-blow breakdown. And the scan of Julia's illustration looks good to me.
As to why I write stories set a century or so back (though my latest project is going to break that tradition, as it'll have stories set in a number of different eras, including... choke... the present day), I've lots of reasons. A love of the somewhat overblown literary mode of speech, a love of many of the authors of the period, an escape from the day to day grind of the present... But I also think it's a time ripe for ghost stories, with spiritualism all the rage, and the world still in an intermediate stage between the superstitious 'old ways' and the dawn of so many new sciences and technologies that will go on to diminish old beliefs, old faiths, and push back the darkness.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jan 14, 2010 8:44:16 GMT
Stunningly close to my view Lurker. I'm actually setting a lot of my stories in the present but using to a large extent language of the past - for the reasons you outline. One of the reasons I tend to avoid contemporary fiction is because of a kind of betrayal of language. English is a remarkable language and to see it written by the older greats never fails to amaze me. Contemporary writers quite often fail to do this beauty justice - i include myself in the language criminal class.
You do a great job with language, setting and mood.
Incidentally, the illustrations are top class too.
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Post by benedictjjones on Feb 8, 2010 17:59:59 GMT
hahaha - i'm finally working again so should be able to order copy (at last!) nextweek =O)
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Post by Calenture on Feb 10, 2010 23:19:12 GMT
After far too long, another post on this excellent collection. Shalt Thou Know My Name: Occult scholar Dr Lawrence is all set for a pleasant evening’s reading in front of a crackling fire, when his peace is disturbed by the arrival of his acquaintance Dower. The man’s arrival is a surprise – ‘Dour Dower’ isn’t known for socialising. The man is obviously in a distracted state, and strangely anxious to determine that Lawrence is really alone. He tells Lawrence about the time he was a student and had met the underhand Edgar Bright - who plagiarised his thesis. Bright had reappeared recently while Lawrence was researching the Heskith family archive at Seachester – an archive Bright was keen to investigate for his own purposes. Among the profusion of letters and dockets, Dower finds some pages written by Meriel Pearson – about to be hanged as a witch. Her writing tells of the burning of a sacred grove, and an unholy revenge carried out by a ghastly scarecrow thing, which comes when it’s name is spoken. Believing that Edgar Bright is planning to plagiarise his work again, Dower comes up with a plan to discredit him, and after a little creative editing of the archive, leaves it unguarded one night in the Seachester museum. The following morning, he learns from the museum curator that, sure enough, Bright had visited the archive. “Then he was gone, and didn’t even wait for his companion.”The following pages relate the haunting of Edgar Bright, when the thing from the grove answers the calling of its name. The Wager: Vincent Style and Cardew are drowning their sorrows after a bad night at the card tables, when the even-more-inebriated Wheeler appears. A flippant remark about having a flutter with the Devil, prompts Wheeler to ask if they’ve yet visited the Club Tenebrosa. The other two are intrigued, but strangely it seems that Wheeler now regrets mentioning the club. Careful prodding reveals that the club is a moving game, it’s location known only to members who are informed by the sinister ‘messengers’. The games are never held in the same place twice, played in derelict abattoirs, hospitals, theatres. And membership of the club is by invitation only. Perhaps most mysterious of all, though, are the stakes, for players stand to win or lose ‘that which they most hold dear.’ The Crimson Picture: Dr Lawrence receives a letter from his old classmate Drayton inviting him to discuss a curious matter which he thinks will be of interest to him, for “such was always your forte.” When Lawrence observes that Drayton appears to have aged well and makes a joking remark that possibly he has a portrait hidden in his attic like the fellow in that Wilde story, Drayton reacts dramatically. There is a picture, and a story relating to it, but he wants Lawrence to hear the story from the person who told it to him. This slightly labyrinthine way of weaving into the plot is a technique I’ve noticed a lot of storytellers employ, casually drawing a reader down into the narrative. Drayton takes Lawrence to a picture gallery and tells him: “There is one picture I wish I had never brought before human eyes.” The picture is listed in a catalogue as “Unknown subject – A Portrait in Crimson.” Mysteriously, the artist is as unknown as the picture’s subject. That morning Lawrence had read a newspaper account of a commotion at the gallery when a picture had been slashed. Now it transpires that the picture was the crimson portrait, and the man who had attacked it, its artist – Hector Jardine, a man better known as a painter of landscapes. At last, in the presence of the crimson portrait, hidden behind a silk curtain, Jardine begins his story. And he tells how he was commissioned to paint the thing, and how, like Gericault, he found that perhaps he was not exactly painting “from the life”. Possibly this is Daniel McGachey’s most powerful story to date. ‘Possibly’, because I haven’t read them all. It’s assured, confident; and the first time that I read it, I felt a little queasy, as if the lines of text were actually seeping their gruesome descriptions. More to come... Get this book at Dark Regions Press
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Feb 11, 2010 10:18:10 GMT
This is a collection I am going to eventually seek out. I am really broke or I would have bought one immediately.
I have to put in again that although the Crimson Picture is an absolutely dandy story and one of my favourites in the Black Books it is not my favourite McGachey. That accolade goes to “And Still Those Screams Resound” which is in this collection and of course Charles Black's anthology. I reread it last night to see if I was overestimating its grandeur but I'm afraid I underestimated: Darkness, evil, twists and turns, characterisation, atmosphere, dread, angst and fear but most tellingly Pathos tumble off the page.
But it's the pathos that does it for me. A horror story that provokes fear and loathing is always accentuated and brightened by a heart breaking moment and we get that and more in this wonderfully dark tale.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Feb 11, 2010 23:13:19 GMT
If you think for a moment that such praise is having any effect on my ego...
...you're absolutely right! Thanks very much!
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