Tom Ewing > Recent Status Updates

Let’s see what the scary coast has to offer!

I’m enjoying this but you can just tell it’s not actually going to resolve in any way, it’s just going to gnomically stop at some point (AND THAT’S WHY IT’S GOOD)

JB Priestly - “Demon King”: Wonderfully written comic horror about a village pantomime with an unlikely cast member. 5/5

H Russell Wakefield - “Lucky’s Grove”: Macabre and tense tale of a rich family’s doom when they choose the wrong Christmas tree. A strong finish! 4/5

Hugh Walpole - “The Snow”: ooo-er it’s all gone a bit literary. A malicious ghost, an internal monologue, but the weakest entry yet 2/5

AM Burrage - “Smee”: Does that ghost story thing of giving the entire story away in the framing narrative, though the actual story is well told 3/5

EF Benson - “Boxing Night”: A twist I did see coming within a broader shifting of expectations that was more surprising. Doesn’t make sense but this isn’t a genre where that matters. 3/5

Marjorie Bowen - “The Prescription”: a lot of rhetorical throat clearing disguising a pretty conventional yarn but some nice touches. 3/5

Algernon Blackwood - “The Kit-Bag”: nicely macabre descriptions but very standard fare 3/5

MR James - “The Story Of A Disappearance And An Appearance”: even minor Monty is a standout, and this is minor enough that I hadn’t read it in years (it’s the creepy Punch And Judy one) 5/5

“Number 90” - straightforward Victorian shocker told with relish 4/5

E Nesbit “The Shadow” - twisty, macabre and psychologically acute - Nesbit the best writer so far by a distance. 5/5

Frank Cowper - "Christmas Eve On A Haunted Hulk": excellent, atmospheric descriptions of a landscape and a haunting written by a guy who knows his boats. 5/5

Frank R Stockton - "The Christmas Shadrach": not in any sense a ghost story, a pleasant fantasy though about working out the rules and costs of a magical charm. 3/5

Brief notes on these spectral short stories as I go

Amelia Edwards - The Four-Fifteen Express: A dull encounter on a train has sinister consequences. Nice cosy atmosphere. 3/5

F,Anstey - The Curse Of The Catafalques - Gothic parody with an entertainingly awful narrator. 4/5

I do not think I've ever read a comic with such a low Goodreads average!

5 stars for the "Birmingham, FASCIST BRITAIN" location caption alone surely.

The Moore stuff takes up a lot less of this than I expected - for all its subsequent pillaging (and for all that it’s obviously the best CB yet) I don’t think it really cracks the “what is a British superhero?” problem any more than the previous attempts.

IT’S ALAN MOORE!!!!

I admit to being quite intrigued (now I’ve finally read the Dave Thorpe bits) as to where on earth this was going before the hairy one got on board.

At some point this stopped being the fun kind of bad and became very much the bad kind of bad. You can tell it’s poor when you catch yourself thinking “oh thank god an interesting villain” about fkn Arcade.

I have finished the five episodes of Captain Britain trying and failing to fight a radio controlled bird and am now onto the notorious mind controlled Queen story. Notorious because it is AMAZING.

Before you get to the Alan Moore stuff (which they can’t even admit is in it), you have the opportunity to read some of the most laughable guff ever published.

How can I only be 1/3 of the way through this, good grief. I want to finish it cos I think it's bad in unusual ways.

I'm starting to lean towards this not being very good, but I'll keep on.

This is taking forever to get through (because it is bad). Stretching the definition of “Masterwork” well beyond any sensible limit.

A classic of the Englishman Out Of His Depth subgenre of Thrillers, I’m going “ffs man don’t do that” every 3 or 4 pages