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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.156
Posted on Thursday, October 04, 2012 - 10:11 pm:   

I am *intending* to issue submission guidelines shortly for next year's Megazanthus Press short story anthology: HORROR WITHOUT VICTIMS. A paying market, as before.
In the meantime, please feel free to start thinking about your submission to suit an anthology with that title. The guidelines are likely to be simply that - with a maximum of, say, 10000 words. Please don't send me anything yet.
For the style of fiction I favour please see the nine issues of NEMONYMOUS, 'The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies' and 'The First Book of Classical Horror Stories'.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.156
Posted on Thursday, October 04, 2012 - 11:31 pm:   

To avoid any ambiguity regarding the last sentence above, please replace it with: "For the style of fiction I favour please read the reviews of the nine issues of NEMONYMOUS, 'The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies' and 'The First Book of Classical Horror Stories'."
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.156
Posted on Friday, October 05, 2012 - 10:41 am:   

Here are the Guidelines for this new anthology:
http://howivi.wordpress.com/
Anonymous or non-anonymous submissions possible.
1p per word.
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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 62.255.207.128
Posted on Saturday, October 06, 2012 - 12:18 am:   

This is intriguing because it is difficult to imagine any sort of fiction without a victim...
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.156
Posted on Saturday, October 06, 2012 - 12:49 pm:   

It is difficult to imagine Life itself without victims, Mbfg, so let's eat monsters!
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.88.121
Posted on Saturday, October 06, 2012 - 03:39 pm:   

I remember Ramsey saying that his early novels all focused on someone under threat of harm or even death. He was determined to write something in which this was not the case, and the result was Incarnate.

I think this is an intriguing idea for an antho, Des, and I hope to submit.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.156
Posted on Saturday, October 06, 2012 - 05:12 pm:   

Thanks, Gary. And I look forward to reading your submission. You can put some classical music in it, if you like. ;)

Interesting what you say about INCARNATE. This has for many years been one of my favourite Ramsey books. I shall have to re-read it.

Is there anything in the public domain about Ramsey's intentions that you cite about this novel?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.88.121
Posted on Sunday, October 07, 2012 - 05:04 am:   

Er, don't think so. I'm sure he made the comments in supplementary notes somewhere. I've checked the afterword to Incarnate, but it's not there. Maybe we should summon the man himself . . . Hold on.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.8.25.52
Posted on Sunday, October 07, 2012 - 11:24 am:   

Ah! I think we've conflated two things here. Kim Newman commented that nobody died in Incarnate. Subsequently I set myself the task of writing a novel that didn't depend in any way on violence or the threat of violence (I said this somewhere). That was Midnight Sun, but you could say I failed at the end. The book that seems to achieve it without my having set out to do so is The Grin of the Dark, maybe. And, come to think, The Kind Folk.
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John Forth (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.24.1.217
Posted on Sunday, October 07, 2012 - 06:05 pm:   

Mind you, all of those novels can be said to have "victims". This is actually quite a challenge Des has set.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.156
Posted on Monday, October 08, 2012 - 08:54 am:   

Yes, John, I am fascinated by the prospect of the fiction submissions I may get.

Just one prospect among many:
to sense that Horror in a character's life is a learning process to be experienced (even sought and 'enjoyed') and factored into humanism or
spirituality (subconsciously or not).... towards but not as far as suicide cults or masochism?

Ramsey's references above are also fascinating to follow up. Thanks.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.8.24.65
Posted on Monday, October 08, 2012 - 01:24 pm:   

If we count tales in which the protagonist victimises himself psychologically - let's say something of mine like "Looking Out" - as having a victim even though nobody else is one, then I suspect we can't have victimless horror fiction.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.156
Posted on Monday, October 08, 2012 - 01:50 pm:   

I can visualise a horror image, say, somewhere in outer or inner space with no human being there to see it or consciously be affected by me.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.156
Posted on Monday, October 08, 2012 - 01:50 pm:   

by it! (not by me)
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Monday, October 08, 2012 - 02:02 pm:   

"I can visualise a horror image, say, somewhere in outer or inner space with no human being there to see it or consciously be affected by it."

But it isn't horror until you experience it. "Red" doesn't exist without a human being to perceive it.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.156
Posted on Monday, October 08, 2012 - 02:29 pm:   

But I can describe the visualisation fictionally.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.156
Posted on Monday, October 08, 2012 - 02:43 pm:   

Another slant: http://www.ligotti.net/showpost.php?p=84568&postcount=6
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.44.186.70
Posted on Monday, October 08, 2012 - 03:05 pm:   

Fiction is making something impossible be seen or felt. But mixing it in with the familiar as a shoe horn. I am trying to not use my shoe horn lately though. In fact, I already have my story for this. I'll let it marinade a bit before sending, though!
I think it *is* possible for just the reader to feel the horror, not any of the protagonists. But then, does the reader count as a victim?
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.156
Posted on Tuesday, October 09, 2012 - 11:18 pm:   

It has today occurred to me that THE SWARM by Alison Littlewood (in the SCREAMING BOOK OF HORROR) is, for me, a great example of the new HORROR WITHOUT VICTIMS genre that was inaugurated on 5 October 2012 with my Submission Guidelines for a new anthology. How serendipitous!
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.145.216.44
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - 12:12 am:   

The best examples i can think of are Ray Bradbury's the Utterly Perfect Murder, Punishment Without Crime, and The Town Where No One Got Off
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.14.64
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - 10:56 am:   

Glad you're back, Tony.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.14.64
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - 10:58 am:   

Weber, isn't 'The Town Where No One Got Off' about victims of sexual repression?
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.14.64
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - 11:17 am:   

On the face of it, there's quite a lot of horror without victims in the work of writers like Metcalfe and Aickman. Take Aickman's 'The Next Glade' for example: the protagonist has a series of terrible visions that tell her something about reality, but does that actually make her life worse than it already was? In de la Mare's 'All Hallows', the protagonist comes to a very bleak conclusion about religion, but is he a victim of that knowledge? In both cases, arguably, the victim is all of us and the horror consists in the world we have made. In that kind of story – the metaphysical ghost story where the 'horror' lies in the bleakness of a revelation – there is no victim except humanity. But given that in most horror fiction, the supernatural agents are surrogates for terrors that affect us all – trauma, disease, despair, mortality – perhaps such stories are the truest 'victim' stories. As Woolrich said, time is the killer who never gets caught.

Which leaves us with quite a different kind of story: the supernatural story where the outcome is perhaps too gentle to be called 'horror', but there is a prevailing atmosphere of dread and unease. Fine examples include Henry James' 'The Friends of the Friends' and de la Mare's 'Bad Company'. Perhaps Ramsey's 'Concussion' is that kind of story too. In such hands, the effect can be quite frightening.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.14.64
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - 11:25 am:   

Des, I'm sure this anthology will be splendid but don't you think the title goes too far in telling the reader what to expect? I think the kind of story you're looking for is one where the horror creeps up on the reader unexpectedly in the absence of a conventional 'coming to a bad end' scenario. The title might dilute the sense of uncertainty. Imagine reading 'The Festival' in an anthology called The Conqueror Worm, for instance: would the ending have the same devastating impact?
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.156
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - 11:41 am:   

Thanks for input, Joel. You may be right about title.

The story by Alison Littlewood I mention above. - and this short summary does not do it justice - has many horror scenes that could be seen as pure Horror story but leading to an Algernon Blackwood or John Cowper Powys world soul in which all the victims reach a sort of transcendent gestalt stemming from their Horror experiences.

I'm sure there are many ways to skin the cat of victimless Horror, including the way you mention, Joel, of Horror 'creeping up'...
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - 12:35 pm:   

But even if there's no "victim" as such in the story, isn't the reader themselves a victim once they experience the sense of dread, unease, bleakness, etc? I find it very difficult to envisage horror without any victim at all.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.8.16.147
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - 01:03 pm:   

I wouldn't call the reader a victim myself. I certainly don't feel like one under those circumstances, any more than I feel (for instance) like a victim of Bach if I'm moved to tears by Ich Habe Genug.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - 02:08 pm:   

Fair point, Ramsey!
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.66.23.11
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - 06:09 pm:   

@Joel - I was going to argue with you over your interpretation of TTWNOGO but then I got the joke. I was giggling for a good minute.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.145.209.121
Posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - 07:05 pm:   

I do actually have an idea i've been knocking round in my head for a while that fits this perfectly. I'll have to try to get it from the cranium to the page.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.30.48
Posted on Monday, October 15, 2012 - 08:55 am:   

Today's Google search engine home page has an apparently nemonymous theme...
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.128.128.241
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 03:06 pm:   

Please don't forget that the opening for submissions to this paying market is 1 November: http://howivi.wordpress.com/

Meanwhile...

AN UNEASY DEATH
A self-republished selection in a new book of my more hard-core horror genre fictions from the 1990s (previously published in many great mags in those heady days including 'The Last Story in the Book' that appeared in the BFS' DARK HORIZONS.) Details can be found at the foot of this page:-
http://nemonymous123456.wordpress.com/numbskull-raw-air-lurk-descending-thingie/ 8


Having retired from real-time reviewing after four years, I have issued my very first post-real-time review and it is of the William Charlton book: "Canapes for the Daughter of Chaos":
http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/canapes-for-the-daughter-of-chaos
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.147.86.41
Posted on Wednesday, October 31, 2012 - 04:24 pm:   

The reading period for the HORROR WITHOUT VICTIMS anthology starts on 1 Nov 2012.
NoV - No Victims.
http://howivi.wordpress.com/
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.212.104
Posted on Saturday, December 29, 2012 - 10:20 pm:   

2013 the year of Horror Without Victims
A paying 'paper book only' market for Horror writers.
http://howivi.wordpress.com/
Happy New Year.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.147.87.58
Posted on Tuesday, March 05, 2013 - 06:17 pm:   

If you submitted to HoWiVi and received no acknowledgement, please send it again. Someone today ended up in my junk mail folder.
This anthology is paying 1 penny per word and remains open till 30 May 2013: http://howivi.wordpress.com/

PS: someone told me today that 'The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies' is.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.130.218.151
Posted on Tuesday, June 04, 2013 - 04:54 pm:   

The ToC fast developing here: http://howivi.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/toc/
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.158.253.196
Posted on Tuesday, June 04, 2013 - 06:59 pm:   

Thanks, Des! :-)
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.108.204.19
Posted on Tuesday, June 04, 2013 - 09:23 pm:   

Thanks, indeed. Looks intriguing.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.158.253.196
Posted on Tuesday, June 04, 2013 - 09:26 pm:   

Mark!
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.108.204.19
Posted on Tuesday, June 04, 2013 - 09:36 pm:   

Hello, Tony. Any news on your cover ideas?
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.158.253.196
Posted on Thursday, June 06, 2013 - 04:50 pm:   

Text description
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.158.253.196
Posted on Thursday, June 06, 2013 - 04:51 pm:   

Ah, bit big...
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.130.218.151
Posted on Friday, June 07, 2013 - 08:58 am:   

Thanks, Tony, so very much. Trying to look at it dispassionately, this is one truly great Horror book cover, I reckon.
Here it is smaller:
smaller
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.130.218.151
Posted on Friday, June 07, 2013 - 09:00 am:   

...and the supine face in the clouds was very fortuitous.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.158.253.196
Posted on Friday, June 07, 2013 - 12:44 pm:   

It's probably the best I will ever do.
(But then I felt like that about Busy Blood...)
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 98.220.186.143
Posted on Friday, June 07, 2013 - 11:39 pm:   

Tony, I think the cover is amazing -- seriously, mate: Well done!
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.25.45.80
Posted on Saturday, June 08, 2013 - 08:52 pm:   

Tony, you're the business. Stop doubting yourself. You have the touch and no mistake.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.158.253.196
Posted on Monday, June 10, 2013 - 12:49 pm:   

Gary - and Chris - that's so kind.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.144.6.140
Posted on Friday, June 14, 2013 - 05:09 pm:   

I have just had the first chance of reading, in book form, the whole text of HWV in one go. And if I say so myself (and on behalf of the authors) – WOW!
The book’s gestalt shines out far more powerfully than I expected.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.148.174.102
Posted on Monday, June 17, 2013 - 05:10 pm:   

I guess it's now published... :-)
http://howivi.wordpress.com/
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.237.187.186
Posted on Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - 05:07 pm:   

Excellent news, Des. I'll be dropping you an email shortly.

Oh, and I'll put this publication news on my FB page too, seeing as you're no longer on FB.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.148.174.102
Posted on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 09:59 am:   

All contributor copies of this anthology posted yesterday.
If anyone can use a review copy, please contact me.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.148.174.102
Posted on Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 12:26 pm:   

All contributor copies of this anthology posted yesterday.
If anyone can use a review copy, please contact me.
===================


Anyone who submitted a story to HoWiVi but was unsuccessful may purchase an editor/publisher signed copy from me post-free.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.108.201.43
Posted on Monday, June 24, 2013 - 12:21 am:   

That's looking very jazzy, Des. Nice job.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.148.174.102
Posted on Thursday, June 27, 2013 - 09:34 am:   

Generous deals available for bulk buys of DFL-signed copies of ‘Horror Without Victims’, ‘The First Book of Classical Horror Stories’ and ‘The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies’}. Please contact me, if interested.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.160.37.115
Posted on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 - 04:38 pm:   

I am pleased to report that HWV is now on Amazon co.uk and .com:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Horror-Without-Victims-D-Lewis/dp/1291451439/

http://www.amazon.com/Horror-Without-Victims-D-Lewis/dp/1291451439/

hwv
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Rog Pile (Filthycreations)
Username: Filthycreations

Registered: 06-2013
Posted From: 81.157.121.247
Posted on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 - 08:06 pm:   

I’m proud that my story In the Earth has been included in this anthology. There is in a way something inevitable about the titular theme as victims seem to be a prerequisite of most horror fiction; and as the Editor has constantly pushed to the limits both his own fiction and that of the contributors to his anthologies, it seems fitting and logical that writers should now be told: “No, no more of that, let’s see what you can do without your ill-used and misbegotten toys. Can you still scare us without them?”

Well, can we? Did we?

Read this book and find out.

I wrote the above a while back at another site. More recently I've been reading the book and discovering how fellow-contributors rose to D F Lewis's challenge. I wasn't sure at first about the correctness of posting impressions of peers' stories; but I've never been that correct anyway, and frankly I'm finding it all pretty damn impressive.

Embrace the Fall of Night by John Howard is less a story than a meditation on the nature of horror and asks whether one can become a victim without the conscious intention of an aggressor. The argument draws on Robert Frost’s Desert Places (in which the poet expresses more fear of the uncharted regions of his own mind than similar ‘desert places’ on Earth or in space); on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. And finally there is the continent of Antarctica itself and the still largely-unrecognized horror of global warming. ‘At the bottom of the world, that alien, frozen continent still adheres like a scab or a sticky leaf that once drifted in, touched, and is now firmly stuck fast. It waits…

It’s a thoughtful piece and a very good introduction to this anthology.

The Horror by Gary McMahon: The opening of this story reminded me of Bradbury’s The One Who Waits. But unlike Bradbury’s horror which lies in wait to trap the unwary, McMahon’s is actively sought out by those who sense it in their dreams. Just what they sense isn’t clear; perhaps the calling of like to like. Or perhaps it deceives them into believing that. McMahon’s horror does have something else in common with Bradbury’s. Its eternal hunger.

Hilary is one of those who seeks out this horror and – possibly not being a reader of The One Thousand and One Nights – decides to bottle it…

From a memory of Bradbury to one of Matheson; but I’m not going to mention the Matheson story, or why I thought of it, as I don’t want to create a spoiler for…

Clouds by Eric Ian Steele: Evan is not content with his life; he feels there should be more. His girlfriend Emma doesn’t understand him; probably she wishes he would keep his head out of the clouds. In fact, he does notice what’s happening beneath them. He notices when a gap appears in the nearby row of terraced houses and the workmen start filling a hole with cement. He also notices the banks of clouds that hang over the houses.

The clouds were lower than last night. Their orange-hued bulk obscured the top of an old church steeple. They wafted down over the town like a giant lung that was exhaling, all but smothering the sports field. The houses on Grey Street, squat and ever watchful with their tiny, unblinking eyes, disappeared from view…

This one generates quite a respectable degree of tension before being brought to a satisfying conclusion.

The Carpet Seller’s Recommendation by Alistair Rennie: As a newly appointed representative for Quartermain & Quartermain: Superior Turkish Carpets & Oriental Miscellany (official suppliers to Queen Victoria herself), Mr Devlin asks his contact how he should spend his spare time, and is instructed to take “A pleasure cruise on the Bosphorus… but be sure to find the boat of my good friend, Captain Mehmet Khan, who will offer you a most enlightening and stimulating voyage.”

The voyage quickly transpires to be more stimulating than Devlin would have wished when he’s set upon by two thuggish stewards and imprisoned below, where he soon overhears a blood-chilling conversation and realizes that he’s to be tortured to death.

Told with a beguiling artlessness, you’ll have to read it for yourself to learn how this one turns out.

Waiting Room by Aliya Whitely presents the occupants of a very strange room who are apparently tired of living and waiting for the moment – which only they will know – when they are ready to place their hand finally on the red door and pass through. In the meantime they pass the time in conversation and such prosaic activities as working out jig-saw puzzles.

The thing with conversation is that one gets to know one’s fellow-occupants, which is the case with Matt and Helen. Relationships of course are often uneven things; there is not always a perfect synchronization of feelings, a mutual opening up. And when one is distracted by a perfect square which is rising up in lumps on one’s hand, folding back to reveal…what?

Vaguely surreal and disturbing.

For Ages and Ever by Patricia Russo: I knew I’d read something by this author before, but I couldn’t remember if I’d liked it. I suppose that’s part of the deal you buy into when you decide to become a Nemonymous author. Eventually I tracked the author down to Zencore, but she hadn’t written the story I’d been thinking of – well, not in that volume, anyway.

Perhaps I’d better start again.

I was all prepared not to like this story; several pages into it, I was still looking for reasons not to like it. For one thing, second-person narrative can be horribly affected if not used well or for good reason. Aldiss wrote one of the rare good examples with Supercity (Find it in the early collection Space, Time and Nathaniel. Patricia Russo’s written another.

For Ages and Ever is perhaps a tale of a future or parallel city where there are rules, too many of them. Most of the rules seem pretty unreasonable, but most rules can seem that way until you learn the reasons for them. There is also a red house. And it eats people.

The protagonist of the story – a young girl, I think – has lost her brothers to the red house, and is angry. Why is the house allowed to stand? Wanting revenge, she takes the advice of the storyteller and goes to see Aunt Far Away, who continues her tale. Like Aldiss’ Supercity, this is a tale told to a child, and of a child.

I began it flipping pages to see how long the story was, then getting drawn in by the unusual imagery and technique and thinking at one point: “God, that’s quite grotesque! Ew!”

After a while, the word “brilliant” came to mind. (Some of that imagery is both original and disturbing.) I think I can use the word fairly safely. Anyway, you’ll gather I liked it.

Probably more to come sometime...
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Rog Pile (Filthycreations)
Username: Filthycreations

Registered: 06-2013
Posted From: 81.157.28.41
Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 07:10 pm:   

Night in the Pink House by Charles Wilkinson: Ostensibly Topcliffe is employed by the disabled Slater as a male nurse, but in fact he knows that his employment was arranged on the strength of his family name and his descent from an earlier Topcliffe employed by Elizabeth I in the role of her chief interrogator.

Obsessed with pain and the art of inflicting and protracting it, Slater repeatedly quizzes Topcliffe about his ancestor.

Topcliffe comes up with a little scheme which he’s sure his employer will appreciate, and certainly Slater gets great enjoyment from the sound recordings Topcliffe makes of certain sessions he has with a local wench. While Slater has no ear for music and dismisses it as nonsense, he does have a keen appreciation of the human voice; and Rose’s voice, her screams when his employee attends to her, gives Slater much pleasure.

The pink house is a Tudor cottage on top of a cliff. One day, investigating a cupboard, Topcliffe finds a curious area of wall. It seems to be bandaged.

The moral of this pleasingly ambiguous and disturbing tale is possibly that if one has a good trade, one will never suffer unemployment.

Point and Stick by Mark Patrick Lynch: When he takes the rented room, he’s disappointed to find that the expected mattress is not part of the deal. But there is a hole in the floorboards, so when he lies on his old sleeping bag, at least he can amuse himself by watching the very large woman in the apartment below.

One day when he comes up the stairs he notices that the large woman’s letterbox is open, and peering through he sees the stains on the floor, which are dark. In a better light, he thinks they might be red.

This is one of those stories which have you going back over them because you’re sure you missed a page somewhere… although it seems to make sense without it.

The Blue Umbrella: A Reverie by Mark Valentine: The old Victorian sanatorium town is careworn now, but it suits him; in particular he likes the library with its vaulted ceilings and alabaster stairs. He also has a pleasant memory of the civic hall which, though less grand, once hosted a book fair. He reads three or four books a week, and loves these adventures of the imagination.

He wonders sometimes if it’s possible to be haunted by books; if the pages, like living things, wait for him to venture through them. Just as “the dust in the sunlight in the library became changed to translucent gems, suddenly more real to him than the pale shelves and the stone floor”, so these adventures waiting to be lived become more real to him than his surroundings. Perhaps the vaulted ceiling of the library and the dome of the civic centre are repeated in the shape of the blue umbrella he carries and again in the dome of his skull, microcosm within microcosm, wherein his imaginary life is more focused and vivid than anything outside it.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.255
Posted on Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - 03:23 pm:   

Thanks, Rog.
I have just completed my own personal commentary on the stories post-publication: http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/horror-without-victims-an-editors -commentary/
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.147.65.165
Posted on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - 07:14 pm:   

The first full review of HWV: http://paintthistownred.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/my-review-of-horror-without-victims-an-anthology-by-df-lewis/

A substantial one.

HWVc
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.160.39.96
Posted on Saturday, October 05, 2013 - 09:53 am:   

Three more reviews:

http://frankmichaelserrington.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/horror-without-victims-anth ology-from.html (by Frank Errington)

http://noondaystars.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/horror-without-victims.html (by Brendan Moody)

http://wwwbillblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-kind-of-face-you-slash-day-5-where .html (by 'The Kind of Face You Hate'!)
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.160.38.7
Posted on Monday, October 28, 2013 - 12:09 pm:   

A long and intriguing review of HWV: http://reviews.futurefire.net/2013/10/lewis-horror-without-victims.html
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Matthew Fryer (Matthew_fryer)
Username: Matthew_fryer

Registered: 08-2009
Posted From: 151.225.204.11
Posted on Thursday, November 07, 2013 - 09:48 pm:   

Some good reviews there, though I disagreed with most of the complaints of that last long review. It missed the point of several stories, got bogged down over the failings of the theme (certainly worth discussing, but not relentlessly so) and was too quick to get sniffy about misogyny and so forth as though these ugly traits were being validated rather than just addressed. But it did nail the triumphs.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.96.186
Posted on Wednesday, November 13, 2013 - 08:54 am:   

And further to that, Matthew has now done a full review of HWV. Thanks, Matthew.
http://matthewfryer.com/2013/11/12/review-horror-without-victims-edited-by-df-le wis/
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.129.37.12
Posted on Thursday, January 02, 2014 - 08:37 am:   

Hellforge has picked out HoWiVi as a favourite for 2013:
http://matthewfryer.com/2014/01/01/hellforge-horror-picks-of-2013/
Happy New Year.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.129.33.32
Posted on Thursday, May 15, 2014 - 01:12 pm:   

Found Art and latest news:
www.nemonymous.com

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