Filthy Creations Magazine & The Thinking Man's Crumpet

The new website...

Cone Zero: Nemonymous 8 edited by D F Lewis (2008)

Cone Zero: Nemonymous 8 edited by D F Lewis

Megazanthus Press 2008

"The names of the authors who created the short fiction within this book are shown below but not in the same order as the titles in the contents list"

Neil James Hudson
Colleen Anderson
Jeff Holland
John Grant
A J Kirby
Eric Schaller
Kek W
S D Tullis
Stephen Bacon
Sean Parker
Dominy Clements
Bob Lock
Grant Wamak
David M Fitzpatrick

The Fathomless World: “They’d told him his head was in the clouds: that’s why he was taller than anyone else”.

The Gawkers are observers, and The Tall Man, an artist; this being so, one might have thought that their coexistence would be mutually rewarding. But the Gawkers might not have even noticed The Tall Man if he hadn’t cut a branch from the tree and begun carving it. By doing this, they told him, he had stopped something from forming into something else. And now he must pay for that crime.

He is banished to wander for all time in the Fathomless Building.

This story begins like a simple fantasy-SF tale or parable; and as The Tall Man lives out his punishment and somehow transcends it, the story takes on fairy tale qualities. It will probably remain in mind for a long time.

The Point of Oswald Masters: Oswald Masters’ latest art gallery ‘installation’ is a series of five cones of decreasing dimensions. But Oswald is furious when his work is first exhibited. It seems the exhibit is incomplete. There should be a sixth cone of zero height, zero diameter and zero volume…

Without this last cone, which Oswald considers the most perfect, the exhibit is meaningless; any attempt to review the work will entirely miss the point.

The search begins for this perfect cone of zero proportions, and an amusing idea is projected into realms of inspired lunacy and satire. Every unkind thought you’ve ever had about pretentious artists asking good money to look at heaps of bricks surface as Oswald and his long-suffering agent pursue the missing cone zero. A genuinely involving and funny story that actually had me laughing out loud.

Cone Zero: The first of four stories here to share its title with that of the anthology. The narrator visits his friends, the identical Ian and Steve, and begins a journey into a mind-bending drug-induced nightmare suggesting scenes from Withnail and I on a bad trip, the humour less forgiving.

Someone – or several people – leave identically misspelled, threatening messages on the door, the toilet resembles part of another much older building, and the stereo plays music from hell, while the girl with the green hair looks decidedly unwell. A look behind the curtains into someone’s private hell, this one is uncompromising and unrelenting.

Cone Zero: The second story to share the anthology’s title is one of the best Nemonymous stories that I’ve read yet; in fact I think it would grace any anthology it appeared in. Wise has had an accident and has sustained a head injury. This wouldn’t be good news at any time, but it’s particularly unfortunate here as this story is set in a grim alternate world where medicine and surgery have been outlawed, crimes punishable by death, and even the patients, the victims, are considered culpable.

Wise wakes up in what seems to be a secret hospital staffed by volunteers, aware that even if he recovers, there will be no return to his family and previous life.

As the story progresses, he begins to have doubts about the volunteers caring for him, and even about the other patients in the ward. Is it possible they’re watching him, waiting for him to make a move?

When he does move, the story takes a turn into even more bizarre regions, involving a ‘Slow War’ and the rewriting of history. The writing here is good, touched with brilliance, and there’s a brutal double-murder which will have any thriller-reader tightening his grip on the pages. If there’s satirical comment here, I’ll leave others to explore it; simply taken as a bizarre piece of SF, this one should repay most readers cost of admission.

Click on the picture above or this link to order the book.

More to come...

This is the cover for issue 2 of The Thinking Man's Crumpet, drawn by Rog Pile and Coral King, from an original idea by Coral King. :)

Seem to be a lot of creepy crawly things around here lately, which does my arachnophobia no good at all... :-/

The Thinking Man's Crumpet Magazine

Duffy - Mercy

Jango Jukebox

www.Jango.com

New Multiply Site

The Black Book of Horror - Charles Black (editor) Mortbury Press 2007

The Black Book of Horror - Charles Black (editor) Mortbury Press 2007

CROWS - Frank Nicholas
REGINA vs. ZOSKIA - Mark Samuels
THE OLDER MAN - Gary Fry
POWER - Steve Goodwin
CORDS - Rog. Pile
THE SOUND OF MUZAK - Sean Parker
SHAPED LIKE A SNAKE - D. F. Lewis
ONLY IN YOUR DREAMS - David A. Sutton
THE WOLF AT JESSIE'S DOOR - Paul Finch
SIZE MATTERS - John L. Probert
SPARE RIB: A ROMANCE - John Kenneth Dunham
FAMILY FISHING - Gary McMahon
SUBTLE INVASION - David Conyers
A PIE WITH THICK GRAVY - D. F. Lewis
LOCK-IN - David A. Riley
LAST CHRISTMAS (I GAVE YOU MY LIFE) - Franklin Marsh
"SHALT THOU KNOW MY NAME?" - Daniel McGachey
TO SUMMON A FLESH EATING DEMON - Charles Black

Cover by Paul Mudie ISBN 978-0-9556061-0-6

Crows by Frank Nicholas: Ronson's parents have been killed in a car crash and now that his uncle and aunt are also dead, Corbiewood Lodge is his. It's a grim old pile in the heart of the country, hidden away behind trees and massive, chained iron gates. The atmosphere builds impressively as he approaches the house, surrounded by corroding statues in the mist.

There are also questions to intrigue us, such as what happened to the driver who walked away unscathed from the crash which killed Ronson's parents? Who is the mysterious Mr Saville and how does he fix Ronson's problems? And why does the house show no signs of vandalism by children or occupation by derelicts?

As Ronson explores the house, he remembers childhood nightmares about the birds which flock in the trees around the Lodge and in its deserted upper rooms. His aunt had told him once that she and his uncle had sworn to protect the birds. The crows had lined the trees like mourners on the day of his grandmother's funeral, when he'd seen black feathers sticking in the earth of the freshly-dug grave.

After reading this story, I started looking around on the net for information about Frank Nicholas. This story is accomplished and sustains its eerie mood well, right up to a nasty – and very imaginative – end. It seemed there had to be more information about him out there. I couldn't find anything. Charles Black tells me that "I think Frank N's only previous published writing credit was about Scottish literature in a guidebook." I'd certainly like to see more of this writer's work, and if it's his first published story, then Charles is to be congratulated at finding an exciting new talent.

Franklin Marsh wrote: Crows is an excellent mood piece. Our main character visits his aunt's house, which he has been bequeathed. Wandering around the spooky interior, frightening childhood memories push their unwelcome attentions on him, as he nears the source of the horror. A disgusting Pan ending.

Coral King wrote: The collection opens with Crows, a marvellously well crafted haunted house tale by Frank Nicholas. Atmospheric and suspenseful, the tension heightening by such seamless increments as to leave the reader positively breathless. A fantastic beginning.

Regina vs. Zoskia by Mark Samuels: I've only read three of Mark Samuels' stories so far, more's the pity, but I've already begun to appreciate the careful way that he sets up familiar and believable, even prosaic settings and characters, before nudging the picture he's created maddeningly askew. So in Vrolyk a couple sit talking in a late night coffee bar and seem to have nothing to do with the insane and brilliant graffiti scrawled on the walls of the surrounding city streets. Then the picture is tilted and the streets become those of some early German surrealist film. But who is Caligari and who Cesare?

In Regina vs. Zoskia, Dunn is a young solicitor who is instructed by his boss Jackson to take on a case which promises to run interminably, and which Jackson expects to "finish him off". He drives Dunn out of the city to a place formerly used as an insane asylum. Its Director is the enigmatic Dr Zoskia. Jackson explains how the firm had become involved.

"When the inmates decided they no longer wished to be classed as insane. They've been challenging the legal basis on which the definition rests for the last forty-odd years."

The description of the former asylum and its occupants, filthy, the place littered with broken medical equipment, is disturbing and fascinating. At one point, the suggestion that Dunn might have either heard or imagined a peculiarly off-key remark adds to the air of disquiet. But I really don't want to give too much away here.

Franklin Marsh wrote:Regina vs Zoskia - Ever thought the legal profession mad? Here's proof! A jobbing would-be solicitor is given the chance to take on his firm's most important and lucrative case - but at a very heavy price. The description of the Zoskia establishment is brilliant - and the Doctor's introduction wonderfully bizarre. A sudden transition early on threw me, but the denouement prolongs the agony...

Craig Herbertson wrote:[As a favourite] I might go for "Regina vs. Zoskia" which seems Ballardian in its style but more menacing.

More to come... Buy the book at Mortbury Press