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Wyrd Britain: Over Sea, Under Stone
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Thursday, 22 December 2016. Over Sea, Under Stone. In the literature of Wyrd Britain a few authors work has come to define the various aspects of the aesthetic, James, Wyndham, Wells, Kneale, Garner and a few other worthies reign supreme but there are other authors whose impact has yet to be fully assessed none more so than Susan Cooper. In this first book the storyline is a fairly typical quest story with the 3 kids up against some remarkably ineffective adults and a rather stupid bully of their own age...
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Wyrd Britain: November 2016
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Sunday, 27 November 2016. As I'm currently knee deep in the 4th book in George Mann. S series of steampunk romps I thought I'd share with you my write-ups of the first three that appeared a few years ago in the pages of another blog. That said though, Mann has an engaging style and the book was a fun, fast-paced read with a third volume still to come. This is the third of Mann's Newbury and Hobbes books and, judging by the way it ends, not the last. As the investigation proceeds events start to tumble ov...
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Wyrd Britain: A Foot in the Grave
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Monday, 26 December 2016. A Foot in the Grave. There are a few of these collaborations between Aiken and Pienkowski with this one being the second I've managed to track down. The first was a collection of Eastern European folk and fairy tales with the art interlaced through and framing the words (my review is here. This time it's a much more straight forward writer / illustrator relationship with Pienkowski providing a series of paintings and Aiken writing stories to accompany them. It's a quick and thor...
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Wyrd Britain: The Infinite Ghost Cage
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Wednesday, 28 December 2016. The Infinite Ghost Cage. This is a special Xmas edition of the fabulous BBC Radio 4 series 'The Infinite Monkey Cage' dealing with that most Wyrd Britain of topics, ghosts. Woooooooooo (sorry, I promise I won't do that again). Alongside hosts Robin Ince and Brian Cox this episode features Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, actor and writer Mark Gatiss, cultural anthropologist Deborah Hyde and Nick Baines, the Bishop of Leeds. The Infinite Monkey Cage. Visit our Etsy Shop.
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Wyrd Britain: Great Ghost Stories
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Thursday, 5 January 2017. A volume which brings together 46 of the very best ghost stories ever written and includes classic works from masters of intrigue like M. R. James, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Ambrose Bierce, Edith Nesbit and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Handily presented in alphabetical order the book provides us with a veritable who's who of ghostly fiction with stories from the likes of Robert Aickman. Both the James' ( M.R. Here represented by the lovely 'Autumn Cricket', Cynthia Asquith.
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Wyrd Britain: January 2017
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Tuesday, 31 January 2017. In the figure of the witch, our ancestors summed up their fears of nature, women, and social outsiders. Today, this archetype still possesses the power to disturb and unnerve us- especially in the hands of such masters of the horror genre as Saki, M. R. James, and Stephen King, all of whom are represented in this collection of seventeen tales. S occult detective collection ' The Black Veil. And Susan Dickinson's ' Ghostly Experiences. Opening the book is Saki. N Dennett's 1933 s...
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Wyrd Britain: The Horse of the Invisible
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Saturday, 24 December 2016. The Horse of the Invisible. Broadcast in 1971 'The Horse of the Invisible' is so far the only live action adaptation of one of William Hope Hodgson's ' Thomas Carnacki. Created as an episode of the TV series ' The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. A series which featured an adaptation of a different Holmes contemporary in each episode such as Guy Boothby's 'Simon Carne' and Emma Orczy's 'Polly Burton'. In the story Carnacki (played by Donald Pleasence. The Horse of the Invisible.
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Wyrd Britain: The Woman In Black
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Tuesday, 27 December 2016. The Woman In Black. I've avoided the Harry Potter version of this like the plague but the Nigel Kneale adaptation was particularly good so I was pretty intrigued to read the book at some point and so when I finally came across a copy I dived in. The supporting cast are, for the most part, fairly sketchily drawn which is unsurprising in a novella but Hill uses a lovely light touch to give them anima such as Tomes the clerk with his constant sniffing. Buy it here -. A Touch of Ch...
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Wyrd Britain: Murrain
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Saturday, 31 December 2016. Screened in 1975 as an episode of the, for the most part forgotten, ITV series 'Against the Crowd' and written by Wyrd Britain legend Nigel Kneale. Murrain' (an old term meaning a disease affecting animals) is a TV play exploring that most Kneale of topics the clash of science and the supernatural, the modern and the archaic, the logical and superstitious. The story tells of a visit by veterinarian Alan Crich ( David Simeon. But sometimes there's gold in a footnote and I think...
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Wyrd Britain: July 2016
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Thursday, 28 July 2016. The Giant Under The Snow. I love my collection of Puffin (and similar) books mostly because of the stories that tell of a very different type of Britain where history and legends seep through into the present or a Britain that many authors have happily pulled the trigger on in order to watch it burn but also because of the utterly beautiful cover art of which this is one of my favourites but it's the story we're here to talk about so. The Giant Under The Snow. Sunday, 24 July 2016.
