A Warning: Beware of this author
 

I have been asked to warn TL members about the following author, Richard Staines. He was supposedly "big" in the 70s (on a cult level) and is now active again. He seems to be on a mission to lower the tone of horror fiction as low as he can.

His website can be accessed here, although I would advise no-one to follow the link.

Richard Staines website

Mark S.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

Good to see this writer coming back into circulation alongside TB and syphilis, neither of which quite matches his talent for ruining the body. I thought I was the only fan with Staines all over his bookcase. He used to attend conventions regularly, but these days I usually spend the whole Fantasycon weekend looking for Dick without success.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

Care to give us a hint of the darstardly contents?

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

My Special Plan has long been to launch a site dedicated to The Master. All of my labors with this site have been designed to hone my skills to a point where I could consider myself worthy of staining the interweb with Richard's visions. And now, to be beaten to the punch by a hapless relative. Do not follow this link, friends. You will not likely return.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

You're going to have forgive me, I'm slow on the uptake.
Is he a Garth Marenghi style spoof ?
If he's for real, he's so bad he's good.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

Well, I did look at that site. I couldn't resist the temptation (which will probably not surprise Mr Samuels). Lobster Holocaust! :D

After explaining that he's not connected to the Interweb, the aptly-named Mr Staines says: "I hear you can get a lot of porn 'online' so I may have to invest soon." It seems to me that many others would think the same thing, but I believe that few of them would express the thought on a public website. Is this a sign of the coming (in more ways than one) emergence of an Autosexual Liberation Front? That said, his picture makes him look so much like a bloated toad that I'm a bit relieved to think that his sex-life revolves around pornography, rather than inflicting his person on fellow humans.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

I hope Quentin Tarrantino makes the film adaptations.:D

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

My one criticism is that the name Richard Staines could be construed as a tad less than subtle. I also suspect it could alienate women who think that some men are overly obsessed with their underpants.

Arguably you should go for the jugular. A name referencing Shaun Hutson, James Herbert, Ramsey Campbell, Stephen King or [...insert name of your choice here...] would be more courageous.

Sometimes you need to draw a line in the sand and choose which side to stand on. You can't pine for award recognition while taking veiled potshots at the organisations and movers who bestow them. You satirise the BFS in stories like 'Cannibal Feast' but you're careful to keep Ramsey Campbell and Stephen Jones onside because they may be able to further your career: personally, I find that incompatible.

And, for the record, although I'm not a fan of Mr Hutson's work, I find Ramsey Campbell's snootiness towards him hypocritical. Robert Aickman (were he alive), Thomas Ligotti and Reggie Oliver could justifiably look down upon Mr Campbell from a similar height but they have the good manners not to.

It doesn't matter whether you're a hack writer or a literary genius, you're either part of the Establishment or you're against it. Play the game or slay the oligarchs as nature intended, it's your choice. Of course, the third alternative is to disengage totally.

The vast majority of people who succeed in life 'know thyself'. I sense that notwithstanding your talents, you are unsure of yourself. Well, at the risk of being very patronising and impertinent - to say nothing of being brazenly open - you need to decide whether you want money or critical sucess. You either need to compromise your principles, suck up to people you don't like and write stuff that is "beneath" you, or you need to offend the Establishment, write the fine prose that you aspire to, and die miserably in a gutter at a early age like Edgar Allen Poe.

What makes you happy? Money, family and nice things now, or crafting a sentence that a handful of people might remember in fifty years?

Yours very dramatically,

JK

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

Jesus. Warning not to look at the website is like telling someone not to rubberneck a horrendous accident scene while driving - and the effect is the same. Why did I subject myself to that horrible sight?

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

Having said that, the website is very funny.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

Well, I don't think I "pine for award recognition" at all. I'm on record for being quite the opposite.

And as for Steve Jones and Ramsey Campbell, sure, they're friends of mine. Just like you. They like my work. Just like you do. Do I keep you onside for a nefarious purpose? I don't think so.

Mark S.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

Wow. Should have taken your advice indeed...

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

Ah, but who are the establishment figures?

No offence, but the Shaun Hutsons of this world are easy targets, like Sun-readers and skinheads and those pesky immigrants. Yet arguably the problem with the genre is not with those writers who may lower the tone, but with those puppetmasters who manage it.

It's obvious that your very amusing and well-researched creation Richard Staines is satire, and satire almost always seeks to make a political point. And although many tens of thousands of readers who have read and enjoyed the simple if immoral pleasures of James Herbert and Shaun Hutson, I don't mind betting that none of them would dare to peep above the middle class parapet lest they are savaged with intellectual argument. I however am happy to argue their cause if only for the sake of Devil's advocacy.

Come on, be honest: if anyone were to create an equally funny website satirising Ramsey Campbell or Stephen Jones, there would be out-cry on the horror message boards from their friends and colleagues. A witch-hunt against the perpetrators would be instigated; at the very least they would be cold-shouldered. Threats against ISPs and web-hosts would be made, in addition to wild speculation about litigation. You know this is true, we all know this is true.

Sure, the middle and higher brow writers don't pander to the trashier end of the market where sexism and the glorification of violence should be condemned, but snobbery works both ways. The pomposity of the so-called middle and higher brow is fair game for satire, as is their politicking and intellectual hypocrisy. But where is it? I'll tell you: there isn't any, and what little there is is so vague and evasive as to be ineffectual. It's oh so easy to pick on the right or left wing extremists, or the animal liberation front, or the Fathers For Justice lobbyists, or the drunken tramp living in the bus shelter, but it's the well-heeled and well-connected professional politicians you should watch out for, because the the main difference between them and the 'untouchables' is education, cunning and luck. Or even worse, it could just come down to one really bad day (refer Batman).

Your mythical creation Richard Staines IS very funny and very well imagined (despite my tiny and impertinent reservation about the name). But beyond that, on a deeper level, I do have concerns about picking on soft targets while turning a blind eye to better-connected individuals who are equally ripe targets for satire.

JK

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

Well, I suppose "establishment figures" or "puppetmasters" is one way of looking at it. One could also say that they're highly respected figures within the field with proven track records. Both of them, incidentally, have been highly supportive of Thomas Ligotti's work from very early on in his writing endeavours. I don't think a friendly relationship with either of them, in and of itself, invalidates an author's standing in the community.

Staines work is, incidentally, a co-production. It's co-edited by me and a friend of mine who maintains friendly contact with Shaun Hutson. I'm not a fan of SH myself, having tried to read one of his horror books, SLUGS, and given up. From my perspective the Staines satire is generic rather than personal. He's more of a "taken to the extreme" cross between Richard Laymon, Guy N. Smith and Charles Birkin than he is a Shaun Hutson figure.

As for not writing a satire on Ramsey Campbell and Steve Jones, I just find much more comic potential with the "horror nasties" authors. That's just me, of course. I wouldn't, for example, I think, be able to write a Reggie Oliver type satire, or a Ligotti, or an Aickman etc etc. But that doesn't mean I'm self-censoring for purposes of career advancement.

In the end, the whole Staines thing is a bit of break from the norm for me. I've been bogged down with straight tales requiring a great deal of thought and it's been cool to do something else, fiction wise, for a bit of a laugh.

Mark S.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

Mark:

In hindsight, my comments may have come across as overly negative and critical, where down the pub over a pint they would be friendlier, albeit a tad mischievous. I think that's probably attributable to the cold, brutal platform of the internet and message boards in general. Smiley-faces icons are a poor substitute for actual body language and vocal timbre.

Having said that, you'll never get me to agree that some of your friends aren't paranoid manipulators like many of our politicians, or that there isn't a tiresome little cabal of self-important busy-bodies who get high on controlling genre organisations, awards bodies etc etc. It happens in EVERY walk of life, from parochial village hall committee groups to world leaders carving up empires, so the notion that we should pretend it doesn't happen in the horror genre just because the people involved are friends who can further our interests is one that I personally find unpalatable. Indeed, that's why I think the dictators who manage various genre societies commit greater sins than bad writers. It's a constant source of amazement to me that people invariably opt to bash such soft targets when real, genre-changing satire could be applied to the Sir Humphries of this world.

One of the key differences between Reggie Oiver and me is that I argue my case on message boards whereas he opts for subtler caricature via his fiction.

Sherlock Holmes was quite mercilessly satirised in his day (affectionately too). Well, thank god Conan Doyle wasn't the President of some Society For Detective Fiction Writers or else he might have ostracised those who poked fun at his creation while overseeing a vendetta against commoners who featured sex and violence in their work.

The publishing world is infamously, notoriously incestuous - which is the thing I most detest about it - because it mirrors one of the key injustices of life. But perversely I am obsessed with writers and writing, hence my love-hate relationship with a genre that I dislike on so many levels (none of them artistic, all of them bureaucratic).

JK

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

He may have been able to ostracise them from said society but I doubt if he could stop writing such stories or getting them published. Seemingly it would only matter to those who cared that they were not in the aforementioned society – and the people who cared that much probably wouldn't try to deliberately offend the head.

If they don't want to be part of a cliché why should they care what it thinks. It can't stop them writing and the more fuss it causes the more publicity it drums up for their work.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

Now that I can see it's a joke (sorry, I'm not the sharpest tool in the box:o), I actually think it's funnier than Garth Marenghi. Probably because you have a deeper knowledge of the genre than Matthew Holness.
Thanks.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

I take your point, but I always thought Garth Marenghi looked a little like a young Ramsey Campbell

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

I agree, particularly the photo of RC that appears in the Penguin Encyclopedia Of Horror & The Supernatural. It's practically a spitting image.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

It's interesting that three Staines collaborations have been mentioned at TLO. Perhaps a resurgence in his popularity is imminent.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

I think Lobster Holocaust is a wonderful title.

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

hahahahha this site is FUNNY!! love the satire!!

Re: A Warning: Beware of this author
 

whatever you do... buy this book! lol