SOUVENIRS FROM THE NIGHT GALLERY GIFT SHOP by Darren Humphries

This is the third short story collection I have produced based on a classic anthology series from my youth (or even before my youth, but watched on repeats). Rod Serling is one of my heroes for his writing on THE TWILIGHT ZONE and the much less well-known NIGHT GALLERY. 

It's very much my usual eclectic selection of tales of the fantastical, with all manner of styles and subjects and themes.

Now that this one's done, it's back to Man From U.N.D.E.A.D. 6.

The full blurb is:

"Souvenirs from the Night Gallery Gift Shop completes the trilogy of short story collections inspired by classic television anthology shows of the past, in this case the legendary Rod Serling's Night Gallery.

Like Sharing a Fence with the Twilight Zone, and Taking the Tube to the Outer Limits before it, this book brings together short tales of science fiction, fantasy and horror with some humour and darkness, along with occasional swearing and the odd bit you might not want to read to your grandmother.

These stories lie at the edge of map where the margins are marked 'Here there be monsters'. And monsters there are, as well as androids and witchcraft and fairies and possibly even miracles, but to say more would be to give too much away. The stories may make you gasp, may make you shudder, may make you cry and may even make you muffins for tea (though that last one is not very likely).

So enter the Night Gallery's gift shop and choose some souvenirs to take home with you to remind you of the time you spent admiring the canvases and the stories they told."

Available on Amazon kindle.

THE OUTSIDER by Stephen King

A child is horribly murdered by a man who was conclusively identified by multiple witnesses despite being irrefutably a hundred miles away at the time.

Stephen King's more recent output has been hit and miss and this starts off as a hit but descends into a miss. The early sections dealing with the identification and arrest of the clearly guilty party and then the discovery that however obviously guilty he is, he is just as obviously innocent, are very nicely handled and contain all of King's hallmark qualities of detail, character and atmosphere.

It is a shame, then, that after a significant event outside the courthouse, the whole genre of the book changes into a horror that has a very heavy sense of 'been there, done that'. His prose and writing style continue to impress, meaning that it is almost impossible for him to write a bad book (although some seem to be released on early drafts rather than finished polished articles (Joyland, Gwendy's Button Box, Elevation). That's not the case here, but the fact is that the second half is too reliant on characters explaining the plot to each other and the plot itself is too full of warmed over tropes from previous books (the dodgy detective is just Henry Bowers from IT under a different name in terms of how he is used).

Also the rules governing the creature in this feature seem to alter almost as much as the creature itself. The final showdown also fails to impress, which is ironic as I read it shortly after seeing the film IT:CHAPTER 2 in which there are several inside jokes about the author's problem with writing endings.

It's well worth a read, but ultimately does not satisfy.

Available on Amazon.co.uk

 

FALLEN KINGDOM by Darren Humphries

This book has been on Amazon for a while, but I haven't got around to announcing it on here because it's been one of those kinds of years and I was hard at work on the short story collection that has just become available and which you will be able to find in the subsequent blog post.

This one is a little bit different in tone for me. It's more of a slow burn adventure, a stranger in a strange land story in which a man returns to a country he thought he knew to find it changed beyond all recognition from the one he left.

As he travels in search of his wife, he learns how the oppressive regime came into power and what the secret of the shadowy police force known as the Hoods really is.

There are elements of Brexit in the UK shutting itself off from the rest of world, but that just provides the backdrop and isn't what the book is about. The book it about one man's journey to find that which is precious to him. That's a story I've wanted to write for a while and it's finally down and available on the kindle.

The full blurb is as follows:

"On V-Day, Great Britain removed itself from the world in an unprecedented act of isolationism. All foreign nationals were expelled and the borders were sealed. All trade stopped. All communications ceased. Anyone trying to leave by air was shot down by the RAF. Anyone trying to get in by sea was sunk by the Royal Navy. The Channel Tunnel was filled with concrete. The United Nations established an exclusion zone, preventing anyone from attempting to enter for their own protection.

Craig Benton, though, was not just anyone. Ex-special forces and trapped abroad whilst in deep undercover action, he is determined to evade the blockade, get into Britain and back to his wife, no matter what it takes.

What he finds on his return is a country greatly changed from the one he left, a country living in fear and ruled by a secret police force known only as the Hoods.

How was this possible? How could the home of modern democracy have fallen so low as to become a police state cut off from the rest of the world in self-imposed exile?

He was to find that the answer was much stranger than he could ever have guessed."

Available on Amazon kindle

BLOWING THE BLOODY DOORS OFF and other lessons in life by Michael Caine

The man himself

Michael Caine dragged himself up from almost cliched humble beginnings to become an oscar winning, restaurant owning national treasure, not to mention Batman's butler. His decades in the business have had highs and lows and a longevity that means what he has to say about the movie business (and by extension all business) ought to be worth listening to as he presents the lessons that he has learned in his life and times.

Those lessons turn out to be 'show up on time', 'know your lines', 'grab your opportunities', 'be kind' and 'be lucky' (plus a few others that I don't recall). Considering that I summed those up in a single line and don't even recall the others after a few hours suggest that they weren't really that much to hang a book on all by themselves. Certainly, quite a few of them got repeated several times.

That said, Mr Caine knows how to tell a story and be thoroughly entertaining whilst doing so. He also knows that a film star's autobiography (even a sort of autobiography like this) works best when it is filled with anecdotes about other film stars and Michael Caine seems to have met them all. He kicks of with a story about John Wayne and never looks back.

Michael Caine seems like an all-round good bloke, both from the stories that he tells and the tone in which he tells them. He seems to have maintained a sense of himself and his past despite the heights to which he has risen. He would certainly be someone to have in your list of fantasy dinner party guests. The time that you spend with him in this book may not profoundly change your life, or even tell you much that you don't already know about how to live it, but it will be time well spent as the book is as engaging and entertaining as the man seems to be and that should be enough for everyone.

ELEVATION by Stephen King

We have reached the point where anything that Stephen King writes will be published. I generally don't have a problem with that, but this 'novella' is a thin tome with what looks suspiciously like double spacing. If it took me two hours to read then I'm surprised.

It also felt like some reheated old ideas thrown together. The central conceit of Thinner was a man who got thinner no matter what he did. The central conceit here is that a man is getting lighter no matter what he does. Gravity is losing its hold. Does this cause anyone great concern? No not really.

The main concern is that there's a married lesbian couple running a restaurant and people don't approve. The local seasonal running race should take care of that. Really? In Trump's America, one photograph is all it takes to change conservative views?

It is a slight tale that doesn't last long or think deep, both of which are surprising for King.

That said, the man does know how to write and you breeze through it pleasurably enough, though by the end of the this snack you're left far from satisfied.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER FAQ

We've been a bit sniffy in the past about the FAQ books because they don't answer frequently asked questions and they don't address the subtitle of "everything that's left to know" about their subjects, but it's time to just accept that this is the marketing line and nothing is going to change that.

So here it is, the latest potted history of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of television's finest fantasy shows, with chapters on the major characters, each season's plots, the 'big bads', the spin off show ANGEL and more. 

It's written by people who clearly know the show and clearly love the show and contains interviews new and old, but it is not (as has been the case with the other books in the series that we have seen) revelatory. There is little here that the hardcore fan won't already know and the there is too much here for anyone who is going into the show for the first time. There are spoilers indeed here.

That said, the book succeeds in its primary function, which is to remind you just how wonderful BUFFY VAMPIRE SLAYER was and, after reading it, you'll be bringing down those DVDs and plunging back into the world of the Slayerettes once again.

NORRIS GOES WEST is released on Amazon

NORRIS GOES WEST, the sequel to SPENSER GOES NORTH has just been released onto Amazon sites around the world for anyone with one of those Kindle reading thingies to enjoy (or not, their choice). 

The street urchin of that first book takes centre stage this time as he investigates missing children on the streets of Liverpool and ends up in an adventure that will uncover a deadly threat to the British Imperial Commonwealth.

Yes, another one.

He'll find his street smarts tested, his courage stretched and his horizons forcibly expanded, but he will also face his greatest challenge yet - girls.

The hardback will be available on lulu.com as soon as I can get it formatted for that and checked.