This week, the great children's author Aidan Chambers sadly passed away. And this show we take a fond look back on the ghostly books he penned and the various anthologies of spooky stories he edited.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Sunday, 18 May 2025
HYPNOGORIA 285 - Remembering the Ghostly Books of Aidan Chambers
Saturday, 30 November 2024
HYPNOGORIA 274 - The Box of Delights 40th Anniversary Celebration
In a special episode, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first screening of The Box of Delights TV series, the classic BBC adaptation of John Masefield's novel that first aired back in 1984. We take a look at the new revised and expanded edition of the book Opening the Box of Delights by Dr Philip W. Errington, and report on the wonderful remastered Blu-ray edition of the series, which includes the brand new feature length documentary Time and Tide - The Making of the Box of Delights! Splendiferous!
Sunday, 29 September 2024
MICROGORIA 125 - A Man At War
In this show we take a look a book by legendary horror editor Mr Johnny Mains, the very unsettling novel A Man At War
Sunday, 8 September 2024
MICROGORIA 122 - The Kooky Kids Guide to Black and White Monster Movies
In this little show we take at look at a new book written and illustrated by Joey Draper - The Kooky Kids Guides to Black and Monster Movies!
Sunday, 21 July 2024
HYPNOGORIA 266 - Kaiju History Part IV
In this chapter we discover assorted monsters from lost worlds created Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and encounter the first dinosaurs on the big screen!
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here plus more articles on the weird and wonderful here -
Tuesday, 2 April 2024
ALL THE FIENDS OF HELL by Adam Nevill
One of the oldest tropes in science fiction is the alien invasion, with the great granddaddy of this type of tale being of course War of the Worlds by HG Wells, first published as a serial in Pearson's Magazine back in 1897. Since then the earth has been attacked by strange beings from the great beyond countless times, with hostile invasions spearheaded by legions of flying saucers, and a seemingly never-ending menagerie of alien lifeforms attempting to take over the earth by various means. These alien invasions have given us a great many fantastic tales in movies, comics, and on TV, with the likes of Independence Day, V, and Doctor Who delivering famous stories of less than friendly extra-terrestrials coming to call.
However no alien invasion yarn has ever quite captured a key element that Wells conjured up in his seminal tale - the dread and terror that comes as enigmatic invaders seemingly wipe out our civilisation in one fell swoop. And I don't think we have had an alien invasion epic that has ever quite captured the same shock and awe of War of the Worlds...That is until now, and Adam LG Nevill’s new novel All the Fiends of Hell which brings home again just how utterly terrifying an alien attack would be. And while a story about our little blue planet being pummelled by strange invaders might seem something of a new direction for one of the best horror writers working today, make no mistake, he’s not left the genre for science fiction. For this is a uniquely terrifying novel, and by the time you finish it you won't just be watching the skies but be casting wary glances over your shoulder whenever a slight unexpected sound breaks a silence. Let me explain why…
Firstly we have the wonderfully unsettling cover from the great Sam Araya, whose art has graced the last half dozen books from Nevill under his own Ritual Limited imprint. And once again Sam has knocked it out of the park with a truly eye-catching image as it is as beautiful as it is horrible, and as subtle as it is brutal - indeed a perfect match for the novel inside. And as with all his art for various Nevill books, it’s only when you have immersed yourself in the horrors within that you realise what a perfect cover image it is, crystallising the vibe of the book into an eyeball-searing image.
So what of the story itself? Well, this is not your usual tale of alien invaders, and All the Fiends of Hell is much stronger for it. In previous works, we have seen how Nevill can take what seems like a well-worn trope such as getting lost in the woods, or tangling with a sinister cult, and weave imaginative and striking stories from what many would have considered tired and thread-bare concepts. And with this novel we have what is probably his boldest and most far-reaching treatment of a very familiar type of tale.
Now an alien invasion has been such a staple of popular culture for so long it has become somewhat cosy. We know how this type of story is supposed to go, the earth is over-run by an otherworld menace, a brave few strike back, and as quickly as it started the invaders are vanquished often by something unexpectedly simple and mundane, and normalcy restored in swift order. In other words, endless riffs on Wells’s Martian invasion, with humble earthly bacteria being replaced with by everything from water to car headlamps to even yodelling cowboys records. However you can expect no such familiar plot twists or story beats in All the Fiends of Hell which brings us perhaps the most original vision of an alien invasion in decades.
In this story there is none of the usual comfortable narrative furniture. No alien warlords pontificating on starship battle bridges, no fleets of sleek saucers lighting up the sky with lasers. Nor do the aliens have some outré plan involving clones, robots or meteorites. And as for the home team, there’s no smart scientist who figures out a convenient weakness, no square jawed hero ready to punch out any passing aliens, and there’s certainly no rousing speeches in bunkers. Instead we have something far more realistic, and indeed, an invasion that is truly and unsettlingly alien.
Our lead character is Karl, an ordinary middle aged man with real-life worries aplenty. He’s not the usual lead for this kind of story - that is to say, he’s not a scientist, nor a roving reporter, or even an ex-military fellow with a special set of skills. He's just a completely average guy, and that’s the first indication that there are no guard rails on this particular wild ride. Indeed, at the novel’s beginning, we find Karl is racked in the throes of a flu-induced fever. In his delirium, he dreams of bells ringing, red lights, and gravity seemingly reversing, with people tumbling into a crimson sky dominated by vast black shapes. When the fever breaks and he returns to ordinary consciousness he discovers a strangely silent world.
It seems like everyone is gone, vanished. The TV and radio channels are empty of broadcasts. There’s no sound of traffic. No birdsong even. It is a brilliant eerie situation, and the perfect foundation for further uncanny revelations. We will discover that there are some survivors, others who lived through what the characters term the night of the bells. But the world is now home to other things too, dubbed simply ‘the Horrors’, which are stalking through the now silent world, hunting down and brutally executing the few who have survived…
Now that is all the plot I am willing to reveal without risking unleashing spoilers, but suffice to say, All the Fiends of Hell is a compelling and very disturbing journey that you will accompany Karl on. In this tale, Nevill has brought back the terror to the concept of an alien invasion, the shock and dread at discovering that your world has been ended pretty much overnight by forces far beyond our understanding. As the novel progresses, Karl begins to pick together what has happened and learns something of the sinister and strange nature of the invaders. However there are no easy answers to discover, for this global assault upon the earth is by entities that are completely enigmatic, commanding technologies that seemingly can alter the laws of physics themselves, and are acting on utterly alien motives. Have they come from the stars or elsewhere? Is this an attack, or a hunt? A harvest, a sacrifice?
While it is perhaps something of a cliché that the most frightening thing is actually the unknown itself, it is very true that in a situation where things are not clear, the human mind excels in imagining increasingly disturbing possibilities. And Nevill adeptly harnesses this quirk of our minds to chilling effect - riding alongside Karl, being privy to his innermost thoughts and feelings, this apocalyptic invasion becomes a descent into a hell of uncertainty. Indeed part of the terror of the novel is not just seeing a devastated world, but trying, alongside Karl, to comprehend what has actually happened, to process the magnitude of what has befallen, and has now benighted, the earth.
Now much like alien invasions, a destroyed earth if often now somewhat cosy and familiar concept - cities being razed to the ground is the stuff of cinematic spectacle, an accompaniment for popcorn, and ever since George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, many of us have playfully put together our survival plans for an end of the world scenario.
However one of Adam Nevill’s great gifts as a writer is being able to think into the corners of a situation, finding a believable reality in common tropes, and giving the fantastic and the uncanny a genuine weight. He is a master at capturing a credible human response to such fantastical situations. Hence in All the Fiends of Hell, we do not just get to see a world emptied overnight, but through Karl, we get to feel it. We struggle with him as he attempts to comprehend the fact that everyone he has never known has probably vanished, swallowed up by a blood red sky, that human civilization is effectively over, and he is now staggering through the very end of the world.
And so, while Nevill’s vision of a devastated world haunted by shell shocked survivors and stalking horrors has all the infernal intensity of those paintings of the End Times by the old masters - for example Bruegel's The Triumph of Death - it’s the emotional impact on Karl, and by extension on the reader, that is truly bone chilling. For it’s not long before the novel makes you realise that in this situation, most of us would be utterly unable to cope; that the weight of the shock is more than most of us could bear, and our plans to hole up in the local mall seem trite and childish in the face of the strange intruders who are exterminating survivors with the cruel brutality of mediaeval demons. This novel doesn't just bring a vision of the end of days but makes you realise what living through such an apocalyptic event would be like, what it would mean to you personally. This isn’t just a book you read, it’s one you try to survive.
There are of course some bright points of light, little flickers of touching humanity, like candles in the darkness. However these moments, echoes of a now vanished normal sunlit world, only serve to expertly contrast the rising tide of darkness threatening to overwhelm the last of humanity hiding out in the emptied world. But as harrowing as this voyage into the end of humanity is, it is most definitely a journey worth taking. While there is eerie dread, creeping terror and visceral horror, there is also a huge imagination at work here that you cannot help but admire. This is an invasion story like no other, an unpreceded apocalypse, where the world falls to foes that are as mysterious and intriguing as they are horrific.
Furthermore this novel offers what might be termed the comfort of nightmares - for on finishing this often gruelling and unsettling tale one has the same reassuring relief that one has when awakening from a terrible dream, a glad realisation that the horrors have been unhappened, and the world is unfractured again. And after journeying into the haunting and disturbing end of days conjured by All the Fiends of Hell, one cannot help but be thankful for, and indeed freshly appreciate, our flawed but still intact world.
For fans, this book marks another glorious novel from Adam Nevill, exploring yet more new narrative territory. And while it is something of a baptism by fire, it's also a perfect jumping-on point for new readers too. Although be warned, you may not come back from this literary journey quite the same... But is a voyage that you will never forget!
All the Fiends of Hell is out now in paperback, audiobook and ebook. Signed copies available at the Ritual Limited webstore and there will be a hardback edition coming later in the year.
Plus you can get a free ebook of selected writings Cries from the Crypt here
Sam Araya’s art can be found here - https://www.arayaart.com/
DIRECT DOWNLOAD
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here plus more articles on the weird and wonderful here-
Sunday, 17 March 2024
HYPNOGORIA 255 - Necroscope and Beyond - A Tribute to Brian Lumley Part II
In the second part of our special tribute to the late great Brian Lumley, we explore his later works and in particular his epic vampire saga Necroscope!
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here plus more articles on the weird and wonderful here-
Sunday, 3 March 2024
HYPNOGORIA 254 - Calling Up the Black: A Tribute to Brian Lumley Part I
In the first of two special shows we celebrate the life and works of the late great Brian Lumley. In this first show we look at his first writings in the Cthulhu Mythos, meet Titus Crow, uncover the ancient Primal land, adventure in the Dreamlands, and the horrors of Psychomech trilogy!
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here plus more articles on the weird and wonderful here-
Sunday, 14 May 2023
Hypnogoria 242 - TerrorTome
The Doomscribe returns! Garth Marenghi returns with a new novel - TerrorTome - that is a trilogy in one single book! How does that work? Well, find out in this podcast!
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here plus more articles on the weird and wonderful here-
Sunday, 9 April 2023
HYPNOGORIA 238 - Ghosts and the Stars
In this show, Mr Jim revisits a favourite volume from his childhood - I've Seen a Ghost (1979) by Richard Davis, in which various stars of stage and screen related their own encounters with the supernatural!
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here plus more articles on the weird and wonderful here-
Sunday, 19 March 2023
HYPNOGORIA 237 - Folklore Field Guides
In this second show on weird gazetteers, we take a look at some hefty tomes that map and detail folklore and legends in the British Isles, and these include An Atlas of Magical Britain (1990) by Janet and Colin Bord (1990), Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain (1973) ed. Geoffrey Ashe, and The Lore of the Land (2005) by Jacqueline Simpson and Jennifer Westwood
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here plus more articles on the weird and wonderful here-
Sunday, 26 February 2023
HYPNOGORIA 235 - Ghostly Gazetteers
In this podcast, we once again have a delve on the haunted shelves and sample a selection of books providing guides to ghosts and hauntings across the British Isles, including the marvellous books by the late great Peter Underwood.
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here plus more articles on the weird and wonderful here-
Sunday, 12 February 2023
HYPNOGORIA 234 - Ghosts Galore Part II
This week we take another dive into the vaults and have a delve on some haunted shelves, with Mr Jim exploring some favourite spooky kids books from the 1970s and the 1980s featuring tomes from Aidan Chambers, Eric Maple, and the scarier Piccolo Explorers Books.
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here plus more articles on the weird and wonderful here-
Sunday, 15 January 2023
HYPNOGORIA 232 - Ghosts Galore
In a special episode unearthed from the Patreon vaults, Mr Jim takes a look back at some of his favourite books on ghosts and hauntings from his childhood. Feature tomes by Eric Maple, Aidan Chambers and of course some from Usborne!
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here plus more articles on the weird and wonderful here-
Sunday, 6 November 2022
HYPNOGORIA 227 - Rituals Unlimited Part VII - The Vessel
In this episode we take a deep delve into the latest novel from Adam LG Nevill - The Vessel, a contemporary, cutting-edge tale of haunting folk horror!
Plus for more coverage of the works of Adam LG Nevill check out my podcast series on his books
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here plus more articles on the weird and wonderful here-
Tuesday, 1 November 2022
THE VESSEL by Adam LG Nevill
'A watcher may remark that after sleeping for so long, the building appears to have been roused.'
Once again, as is now becoming traditional, Halloween has brought us a brand new book from Adam LG Nevill. The Vessel is his eleventh novel and once again has been published by his own imprint Ritual Limited as a limited edition hardback, paperback and electronic editions, and there will be an audiobook coming very soon.
Like its predecessors - The Reddening, Wyrd and Other Derelictions, and Cunning Folk - The Vessel features another strikingly eerie cover from the brilliant Samuel Araya. Now sad to say we have been living through something of a dark age in book cover design, with lazy photoshopping and big fonts replacing the glorious painted covers of yesteryear. However this run of covers for Nevill’s recent works have been a fabulous return to truly evocative art, and Araya’s cover The Vessel is something of a masterpiece. It’s a textbook example of what good art should do for a book - it provides a visual first tantalising taste of the story, a single image to beguile your imagination, to set you wondering what intriguing tale the pages hold.
Of course the joy of a new Adam Nevill book is that you are never entirely certain what courses will be served up in this latest banquet for the damned. He has never been content to plough the same furrow, something amply demonstrated by his latest three novels, which all can be described “folk horror” and yet are very different tales of terror. The Reddening gave us a gruelling epic with multiple narrators falling into the shadow of a very ancient and bloody menace, while last year’s Cunning Folk, drew on different aspects of old English magic and witchery. And where The Reddening gave us a tense tale of survival horror, Cunning Folk was a more intimate story of creeping dread and liberally laced with some potent black humour.
And now we have The Vessel, which can also be described as contemporary folk horror, but gives us something very different again. As is deftly suggested by Sam Araya’s cover, this is a more spectral sort of tale. Young single mother Jess is having a hard time, stuck in a grotty area, struggling to make ends meet, her ex Tony being more of a hindrance than a help, and her daughter Izzy is being bullied in school. However a new job as a residential carer promises to be the long sought solution - steady work and enough money to move to a better area, send Izzy to a better school, and to put the troubles of the last few years behind them. The job in question is doing shifts caring for an elderly lady, Flo who lives alone in a once grand vicarage, Nerthus House. Flo is wheelchair-bound and seemingly lost in a world of her own. However as Jess will discover, Nerthus House holds many secrets and its past is not going to lie quiet…
Naturally this being a Nevill novel, this is no straight-forward tale of spooks and spectres. For while there are seemingly paranormal happenings and even apparitions, this is as much a story about the spirits of a place as it is the lost souls of the dead. Without giving about any spoilers, a good point of reference would be the eerie tales of Algernon Blackwood where the essence of landscape and location loom large, becoming potent and sentient, spectral and ethereal. Likewise there are touches of Arthur Machen here, where what is manifesting is not so much a returning spirit but a survival of something from an ancient pagan past.
However The Vessel is no modern pastiche of either Blackwood or Machen, and as in his previous forays into folk horror, Nevill very much brings his own distinctive and imaginative vision to the tale. Refreshingly this is not the usual story of a city dweller venturing into the countryside and coming face to face with chanting pagans re-enacting The Wicker Man. Rather when Jess takes the job caring for Flo at Nerthus House, what follows is a carefully constructed series of odd incidents creating an atmosphere of encroaching weirdness, and slowly weave together a story of some strange and troubling survivals.
And survival is a key theme in The Vessel. Obviously there is the central menace, which I won’t reveal, but suffice to say it is something from an ancient time of forgotten rites and primitive worship, that has lingered into the modern age. However there are also other survivals too, the strange figures and images conjured up the gloom in Nerthus House, what MR James’ Mr Abney would term “the psychic portion of the subjects”. Likewise Nerthus House and the sleepy village of Eadric still endure too, despite new developments and modern estates getting ever nearer, and the halcyon days of the village seemingly being long past now.
On another level, it is also the story of more personal survivals. We have Flo’s situation, infirm, nearly immobile, and perhaps lost to dementia, yet still surviving all these indignities that time can inflict upon us. In contrast this old lady at the end of the days, we have young Izzy who is just beginning hers, but she has trials and tribulations too - she's a child still learning about the world but also having to come to terms with separated parents and facing bullying at her school.
And then of course there are various survival challenges for Jess. For as ever in an Adam Nevill excursion into dread, the weirdness and supernaturalism are firmly wedded to the real world. For despite being troubled by the strange events that begin to escalate around her, she can’t afford to quit this job. As it is she is struggling to get through the aftermath of her relationship with Tony collapsing. But then as she starts her new job, there are odd incidents, and haunting dreams, and a client who is apparently active in a most unusual fashion. All of this is indeed very disconcerting and increasingly troubling, but also looming over her is the threat of being unable to provide for her family, to pay the bills, to keep her daughter safe; things that may prove to be larger and more immediate perils. The twin spectres of poverty and failure can more than give the horrors haunting Nerthus House a run for their money.
However as I have mentioned nothing is to be taken for granted in an Adam Nevill novel. For, as is often the case, this tale has one particular moment, when we get what I have in the past called the Nevill swerve. This is a scene that will radically alter the expected shape of the tale he is telling. For time and time again, he deftly manages to anticipate where the reader thinks the story is going, and then, at just the right moment, will throw in something that changes the course of the narrative. And the swerve in The Vessel is a belter, a scene that is genuinely shocking and seems to come out of the blue, although on reflection you will realise the path to getting to this stunning moment was carefully laid out right from the beginning, and you have been expertly guided to this pivotal moment.
But what follows this particular scene is equally surprising, building logically to the story’s memorable conclusion. Now in many ways The Vessel is a very compact tale but it is also a masterclass in storytelling. For while the storyline might seem simple at first, there are subtle complexities here, connections that only become apparent after a little reflection. Certainly it is a novel that will reveal deeper secrets on a second reading. And while the tale concludes in a very satisfying final scene, with various plot threads all neatly coming together in ways one may not have anticipated, there is a kind of transcendence in the finale, with awe joining the horror.
And there are ambiguities here about the nature of the powers lingering around Nerthus House, for like the ancient mysteries called up in the works of Blackwood and Machen, what may seem terrifying and otherworldly may not be not necessarily evil, and indeed where and how we draw lines of morality when assessing the haunting events of The Vessel are questions that will linger with many readers. The Vessel is a tale of surviving practices and powers that reveals far more than the usual elderly gods and monsters stalking the fields and furrows. Rather it is a story concerning how, and indeed why, some things are not forgotten. It’s a tale that embodies some truly ancient pagan ideas, that events fall in patterns, often becoming cyclical, coming around again and again like the seasons. And the turn of this wheel shapes both the present and the future. This is folk horror with imagination, intelligence and heart, and highly recommended.
Plus for more coverage of the works of Adam LG Nevill check out my podcast series on his books
Sunday, 25 September 2022
HYPNOGORIA 222 - Remembering Peter Straub
In this special tribute show we look back and celebrate the dark and magical books of the late great Peter Straub who passed away earlier this month.
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here plus more articles on the weird and wonderful here-
Sunday, 27 February 2022
HYPNOGORIA 206 - The Rise of the Horror Novel
As a follow up to our three part series on the history of the horror anthology book, in this show Mr Jim investigates why there was such an explosion of horror novels, and indeed, a whole pantheon of horror writers, springing out of nowhere in the 1980s!
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Sunday, 20 February 2022
HYPNOGORIA 205 - Not at Night 3
In our final exploration of the history of horror anthologies and the brilliant women who edited the leading titles in the field, we look at the spooky collections for younger readers from Barbara Ireson, and the remarkable career of Mary Danby who helmed the Armada Ghost Books and the Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories.
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Sunday, 13 February 2022
HYPNOGORIA 204 - Not At Night Part 2
In this podcast, Mr Jim delves further into the history of the horror anthology, detailing the legacy and influence of pioneering editors such as Helen Hoke and Christine Bernard, and paperback ranges such as the Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories and The Armada Ghost Books.
Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here -
HYPNOGORIA HOME DOMAIN - Full archive, RSS feed and other useful links
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