Martin Roberts's Blog

Back in the 1980’s, when I first got into watching horror films and reading horror novels etc., people always asked ‘why do you watch/read that stuff?’

[image error]Not gory, though I did have this quad on my bedroom wall…

I was a total addict to everything horror too, I brought all the magazines I could afford, I’d hit the local video shops up for free posters. I started buying soundtracks, which I’d play on an old standalone record player, one with a arm that held the record, before dropping it onto the turntable.

I’d already been listening to Mike Oldfield, and Tangerine Dream LPs when I brought my first couple of OST – The Burning by Rick Wakeman, and Friday the 13th part 3 by Harry Manfredini – both from a used record store that had once been a video rental shop.

I soon progressed to collecting John Carpenter albums, and pretty much got to the point where I’d see the movie, buy the t-shirt, LP, and film tie-in, if they were available and I could afford to.

All this led up to the inevitable, how can you sleep with all those gory pictures on your walls?

Simple, I don’t know about you but I tend to sleep with my eyes closed.

Sadly, the same old question was asked regarding the music scores… how do you listen to that, it’s depressing ( my mother’s review of The Thing OST). These days no one really questions my love of all things horror, and although it was so very annoyed at the time, I miss the questionable looks from the folks with all the questions.

www.goodreads.com/book/show/6850571

One of the best books I’ve read this year has been sitting on my bookshelves for a ridiculously long time.

[image error]Adrian Fisher, Randoll Coate and Graham Burgess

Sadly, the canal is long gone, though signs can still be found of its existence throughout the area, whilst Trent Vale itself is predominately made up of social housing from the local council and The Sutton Model Dwellings Trust, which helped to build a community in the post-war years. I’ve heard locals call this area ‘Trent Vegas’ due to the bright lights of numerous take-a-ways, and the Springfields Retail Park, built on the former site of Springfields Tile Works.

Trent Vale is a village in Stoke-on-Trent that has been developed over a number of years. Its origins are suspected to date back to the Iron Age, though a number of significant Roman artefacts were discovered in the 1920s and 1950s. During the 19th Century, the landscape was industrial with Brick and Tile yards on the Newcastle-under-Lyme Canal, and sporadic ”villa residences . . . snug, rural boxes’. St. John’s Church was built in 1843-44, one of a small number of 19th Century buildings still in use today.

Source: A Sociological History of Stoke-on-Trent – E.J.D. Warrillow 

Opposite the retail park is a Tesco supermarket, worthy of note due to the small selection of second-hand books on sale for local charities. It was here that my eye caught, among the beach reads and tatty copies of 50 Shades, a slim volume entitled A Celebration of Mazes – Adrian Fisher, Randoll Coate and Graham Burgess (1984) in its third edition from Minotaur Designs.

I dropped my 50p into the box and promptly pocketed this 40-page booklet, with its brief history of mazes, mazes the authors themselves have designed and plenty of B&W illustrations and images throughout. I have listed the full table of contents below, and have to admit to being a little curious to find out what effect the passage of time has brought to the world of mazes within these pages.

The Beatles Maze

[image error]International Garden Festival, 1984 – Liverpool

However, the main reason for writing this post was to let folks know that interesting books can be found in the most unusual of locations. I for one did not expect to find or even need a book about mazes when I entered this supermarket to pick up a medical prescription.

Table of Contents

“This is as strange a maze as e’er men trod; And there is in this business more than nature Was ever conduct of…“

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

The History of Mazes:
The Cretan Maze
The Medieval Christian Maze
The Turf Maze
The Puzzle Hedge Maze
The Symbolic Maze
Mazes designed by Minotaur Designs
Lists and Map of British Mazes
Maze Reference Books, Organisations and Magazines
Glossary of Maze Terms
Profile of Minotaur Designs

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A gallery of mazes as featured in the booklet, A Celebration of Mazes.

This video includes footage of the Beatles Maze from The International Garden Festival, 1984 – Liverpool.

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I love all forms of horror, in whichever media’s available to me e.g. films, books, games and soundtracks etc.

I like quiet, spooky horror, both psychological and supernatural. I also like loud, even splattery horror, both psychological and supernatural. As long as it entertains and/or informs.

I’ve realised, over the past few years that I’m quite seasonal with my reading/viewing habits.

October and the lead up to Halloween find me looking towards more modern horrors. As a teenager, I was weaned on magazines like Fangoria, which has just been raised from the dead to positive reviews and even includes a paperback range of novels and one film so far. This is where I cut my teeth on all things creepy, and nostalgia plays it’s part too.

Autumn will gradually fade into winter, and I will inevitably turn towards ghost stories from both past masters and modern practitioners. Here, I turn to my friends from Swan River Press, Tartarus and Zagava to name but a few. Though I also like to read the classics in old, dusty volumes, printed when the authors of these texts were alive to see the strange fruits of their labours.

The world may be a scary, dangerous place right now, but as fans of fictional horrors that go bump in the dark, we have never had it so good.

Any rich uncles or aunties out there in la la land that I don’t know about, kindly come forward and pre-order the following to help celebrate my day of aging:

Karim Ghahwagi

My novella, The Secretariat of Tenebrous Anatomies, is now available for pre-order from Raphus Press in a limited edition. Split into two volumes consisting of a story and a rulebook written by the principal character featured in the first story, the set is additionally accompanied with an A3 poster designed by Bethany White, which also serves as a game board. Alcebiades Diniz Miguel provides a very generous introduction, where he writes: ‘It is a fantastic and puzzling construction, a tribute to the wild imagery intended by authors like Kafka and Mervyn Peake.’

Publication date is June 5th, 2018. All pre-orders placed by May 31st, receive the benefit of reduced shipping. Orders can be placed here

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I’m often told by health experts that graded exercise is beneficial to me, so we made a trip out to Alderley Edge, where legend has it Merlin purchased a white horse for King Arthur who was hidden from all by a mystical cave!

These images were taken by myself over the course of that walk and feature a druids circle and the remains of a Bronze Age copper ore mine, and a burial mound.

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Just one of many photographs taken along the Wizard’s Walk, Alderley Edge.

A small sample of my photographs from a short holiday in Dunwich (2015)…

I finally got to read Slam by Lewis Shiner, 27 years after it was first published! I didn’t find a copy until 2015 when visiting Powell’s in Portland, where I was lucky enough to find a signed hardcover in pretty much new condition.

I never spotted a copy in the U.K. though I did find several other books including the US hardcover of Deserted Cities of the Heart and Say Goodbye.

I really enjoyed this novel, but I can’t help wondering what impact it would have had on my life if I had read it back when I was 19 years old.

Just over 30 years ago today, director Ethan Wiley’s sequel to Steve Miner’s House, imaginatively subtitled the second story, was released in U.K. Cinemas on 15th May 1987. Both movies were based on stories written by Fred Dekker, who should need no introduction to genre film fans.

I didn’t get to see this during its theatrical run, but I did catch up with it later, on it’s VHS debut.

I really don’t recall much about this film… was there a zombie cowboy in this one? Let’s take a look at the theatrical trailer and find out.

Having watched the trailer, I still can’t remember anything about this sequel.