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John Reppion - "Anthony Clarke Is Sick"
I give the first story, reviewed above, four stars. It was clever and memorable.
Wendell McKay - "Brierley Day"
The second story was okay, well written, but nothing special, just fairly typical Victorian gothic horror. It was a bit long at 20+ small type-font pages. Three stars.
Albie Swain - "Beneath You"
The third story was an allegory, almost a prose poem. I liked it as much as I like a lyric poem. It was okay for what it hinted at about life, its sequences and meaning, in its two pages. But ultimately the story was just hints and allusions that I might be misinterpreting altogether. Three stars.
Books mentioned in this topic
The First B.H.F. Book of Horror Stories (other topics)The Second BHF Book Of Horror Stories (other topics)
THE THIRD BHF BOOK OF HORROR STORIES (other topics)
The ATEth BHF Book of Horror Stories (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
John Reppion (other topics)Darrell Buxton (other topics)
The First B.H.F. Book of Horror Stories
ISBN: 9781447542674
eBook price: $2.50
Available at Lulu.com (search BHF or the editor's name Chris Wood)
Synopsis: 19 stories from the users of the British Horror Films web forum to make your spine tingle and your hair stand on end! Gothic tales with a Victorian feel mix with modern meditations on terror in this tribute to the Pan Books Of Horror we all fondly remember from the 1960s and 70s.
I read the first story in BHF #1: "Anthony Clarke Is Sick" by John Reppion and was thoroughly entertained. Relatively short, like most of the stories, it still packed considerable literary punch. The horror is subtle and all too modern, sort of Dilbert-ish. The protagonist is hired on in a business firm as soon as he is out of high school (or Britain's equivalent) to do office work in a cubicle. He isn't sure exactly what he does or is supposed to be accomplishing. But he gets a paycheck and hopes no one notices he isn't really producing anything. The job gets boring, so he decides to call out sick one day. That's when something happens. Great premise for a horror story.
The second story in BHF #1 is "Brierley Day" by Wendell McKay. The GR database does not list this author, it seems. Neither is he in ISFDB. (And they list every Spec Fic writer, don't they?) Anyway, I read the first paragraph. It's well written.
That was the first in a series of eight anthologies (so far). The second volume, The Second BHF Book Of Horror Stories, also edited by Chris Wood, came out the following year, 2007, and is also available on lulu.com as an eBook for just $3.92.
The entire series is thoroughly British, written in their dialect. It can be purchased in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and other British sorts of places, but NOT in the United States. In fact, it's not only hard to get here, but no one has heard of it. No one! That fact just made me want it more! So, I ordered Volumes 3 (2020) and 8 (October 2022) last week from Blackwell's, a British bookseller that always has the lowest prices somehow. The books just arrived, very nice paperbacks with a beautifully drawn piece of art on their slick covers. How do they cross the pond so fast?
The reason Volume 3 was published so many years after Volume 2 was due mostly to a change of editors, not to a dearth of material to print. Long waiting stories were finally printed in 2020 in Volume 3: THE THIRD BHF BOOK OF HORROR STORIES. The first story in Volume 3 was wonderful. People are going missing in the river Weir and our protagonist is determined to find the answer. It's an answer that apparently is typical for this author's work. The writing and the river setting were a nod towards magical realism, but the ending was all William Hope Hodgson.
BHF #8 came out in September of last year. The book, I see, is a play on words for Ateth and thus features cannabalistic horror. The ATEth BHF Book of Horror Stories. I don't know about this....
The third through eighth volumes came out in quick succession (2020-2022) because they had the same editor: Darrell Buxton. The ninth issue is to have a new editor because Buxton has gone on to other ventures. I hope we won't have to wait the thirteen years (the gap between Volumes 2 and 3) we did earlier for BHF #9. These anthologies are well produced, and contain really good stories, many with a strong flavor of weird fiction in them, though not all. Others are simple horror.