Photo © 2004 Mandy Slater
Stephen Jones and Ray Harryhausen (Dark Delicacies, Burbank, California, April 18th, 2004)
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Although I had been a fan of his films since the mid-1960s, my first meeting with Ray Harryhausen was
at an event organised by London's Gothique Film Society in April 1971. (For those who may be interested
in such things, here is a photo of my seventeen-year-old self inspecting the original models
from Jason and the Argonauts from the third and final issue [Summer, 1972] of the American
fanzine Special Visual Effects Created by Ray Harryhausen, or FXRH for short.)
17-year-old Stephen Jones holds a skeleton from Jason and the Argonauts for the first time. The Gothique Film Society, London, April 1971
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We met up again at various events over the years—including a BFS Open Night in Holborn, London,
that Jo Fletcher and I organised; the 1987 World Science Fiction Convention in Brighton, where he
was a Guest of Honour; and the Famous Monsters of Filmland convention in Los Angeles—it
was not until 1993 that I had the pleasure of getting to know him personally, after he kindly
contributed the Introduction to my reference book, The Illustrated Dinosaur Movie Guide.
Photo © 1980s Jo Fletcher
Ray Harryhausen, BFS Open Night, Holborn, London, circa 1980s
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Photo © 1993 Jenny Boyce
Ray Harryhausen and Stephen Jones signing at Forbidden Planet, London, August 14, 1993
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Not only was I invited to his London home to view his remarkable stop-motion models and bronze
sculptures, but we also undertook a brief signing tour together to promote my volume and the
reissue of his Ray Harryhausen Film Fantasy Scrapbook from Titan Books.
Photo © 1993 David Barraclough
Ray Harryhausen and Stephen Jones, signing at the National Film Theatre, London, August 23, 1993
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Photo © 1993 David Barraclough
Ray Harryhausen and Stephen Jones, signing a book for Steve's Mum at the National Film Theatre, London, August 23, 1993
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The last time I saw Ray was in April 2004, at Dark Delicacies bookstore in Burbank, California
(where he was signing with his old friend, Forrest J Ackerman), and at FantasyCon in
2008 I had the honour of accepting on his behalf the British Fantasy Society's Karl
Edward Wagner Special Award for his many contributions to fantastic cinema.
Photo © 1993 David Barraclough
Ray Harryhausen & Stephen Jones Signing at London's National Film Theatre August 23, 1993
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Photo © 2004 Mandy Slater
Stephen Jones and Ray Harryhausen (Dark Delicacies, Burbank, California, April 18th, 2004)
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Now childhood chums Ray, Forry and Ray Bradbury are reunited again, and our world feels
a little less animated without them. As Randy Broecker so eloquently observed upon the
news of the death of King Kong's #1 Fan: "I've a feeling that when Ray stands before
those Pearly Gates he will have seen them before on an island, where no island should be..."
I couldn't have said it any better myself.
—Stephen Jones
London, May 8, 2013
It was off to East London for Sarah Pinborough's third book launch event in less than a fortnight! This was a more
exclusive affair to celebrate the publication of Mayhem from Jo Fletcher Books, which kicked off at The Prospect
of Whitby—the city's oldest riverside pub dating back to 1520—and then moved over to The Wapping Project,
an overly pretentious restaurant/art gallery situated in the old Wapping Hydraulic Power Station.
Photo © 2013 Mandy Slater
Amanda Foubister and Stephen Jones
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Photo © 2013 Mandy Slater
Stephen Jones and Jo Fletcher
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Photo © 2013 Theresa Derwi
Sarah Pinborough and Stephen Jones at the launch of her new book, Mayhem – 30 Aprli 2013
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Photo © 2013 Mandy Slater
Sarah Pinborough and Stephen Jones
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Photo © 2013 Mandy Slater
Barry Forshaw and Stephen Jones
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Before his untimely death in March, James Herbert had agreed to be interviewed by Ramsey Campbell for an
event called 'Terror in the Tunnels' as part of In Other Words: Liverpool Literary Festival, organised by
Liverpool City Council and Writing on the Wall. As a tribute to the late author, Ramsey, Jim's biographer
Craig Cabell, Adam Nevill and Stephen Jones got together at the city's famous Williamson Tunnels for an
evening discussion about the man and his work, and to read extracts from his writings. About sixty people
showed up, and afterwards Waterstones hosted a book signing.
Photo © 2013 Madeline Henegham-WoW
Stephen Jones, Craig Cabell, Ramsey Campbell, Adam Nevill – James Herbert Celebration, Liverpool, 25 April 2013
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And so off to London's King's Cross Station for Christopher Fowler's second book launch of the year -- so far! Among the multitude helping
the author celebrate his latest biographical memoir, Film Freak, were Barry Forshaw, Amanda Foubister, Maxim Jakubowski,
Paul McAuley, Kim Newman, Mandy Slater, Stephen Volk and actress Victoria Jeffrey, the daughter of late and great character actor
Peter Jeffrey (The Abominable Dr. Phibes and If...). Thanks to publicist Kate Green from Transworld for supplying the wine!
Photo © 2013 Mandy Slater
Paul McAuley, Christopher Fowler, Stephen Jones and Kim Newman
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Photo © 2013 Mandy Slater
Stephen Jones, actress Victoria Jeffrey and Barry Forshaw
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Photo © 2011 Mandy Slater
Stephen Jones & Basil Copper, Kent, July 2011
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I first met Basil Copper more than thirty-five years ago. Neither of us really
remembered much about the encounter, which is probably a blessing.
Photo © 2000 Mandy Slater
Left to right: (standing) Basil Cooper, Jay Russell,
Brian Lumley and
editor Stephen Jones.
(sitting) Kim Newman and artists
Les Edwards & Randy Broecker
at the BFS launch of
Dark Detectives in London (February 4th 2000)
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I had almost certainly already read his story 'The Spider' in Herbert van Thal's The
Fifth Pan Book of Horror Stories (1964) while still a teenager in my school's library, and I
had admired Rod Serling's adaptation of his story 'Camera Obscura' on TV's Night Gallery in
the early 1970s; but at the time we first met I knew him best for his classic tale 'Amber Print', which
I had discovered in Peter Haining's anthology Dr. Caligari's Black Book (1968).
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Photo ©
Basil Copper, Mandy Slater and Stephen Jones at the 1994 World Horror Convention in Phoenix, Arizona
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It was 1977, and I was attending Fantasycon 3 in Birmingham, England. Basil was the Guest of Honour
that year and, according to the programme booklet that I have before me (for which, incidentally, I
contributed the cover illustration), he gave an hour-long lecture on the Saturday afternoon. I know I
was there (I used to attend all the programme items at conventions in those days-I was keen), but
more than three decades later the only memory of the entire weekend that I can recall is being in the same
room party as Basil on the Saturday night, surrounded by crates of beer and a well-known book dealer
dancing around with a pair of ladies knickers on his head!
I believe that it was more than a decade before Basil was sufficiently recovered from
the ordeal to attend another fantasy convention.
Photo ©
Basil Copper and Stephen Jones at Knole House, Kent, circa mid-1990s
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In the meantime I had become a big fan of his work. My shelf of Basil's books now included his
two excellent collections for Arkham House, From Evil's Pillow (1973) and And Afterward, the
Dark (1977), and the novels Necropolis (1980) and The House of the Wolf (1983). I
had also managed to pick up a copy of his earlier novel, The Curse of the Fleers (1976), and
our mutual friend at Arkham House, James Turner, had sent me some of Basil's Solar Pons collections
as they were published in paperback by Pinnacle Books during the late 1970s.
Photo ©
Stephen Jones, Basil Copper and Randy Broecker, London, England, January 1997
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I was going to say that our next meeting was under more sober circumstances, but that is not entirely
true. It was in 1988, at the lunchtime opening of a new crime and mystery bookstore in London's West
End named after one of his Mike Faraday novels. In the course of admiring the new shop fittings and
drinking the indifferent white wine usually served at these occasions, we got to talking, and I think
Basil was genuinely surprised to meet someone who was such a fan of his work and who could quote title
and publication date from memory (at least before we began drinking!).
Whatever the reason, when the party started to wind down, I suggested we move on to a small all-day
drinking club I happened to know in Soho. Basil readily agreed. Over several hours-and many, many more
glasses of wine-we talked about the art of writing and bemoaned the state of the horror field (some
things never change), and when we finally reeled out into the dark night to make our bleary journeys
back to our homes, a lasting friendship had been forged over alcohol and good conversation.
Photo ©
Stephen Jones, Dixon Smith and Basil Copper on the "Basil Copper on Film" panel,
October 30, World Fantasy Convention 1993, Minneapolis, Minnesota
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Photo © 1993
Basil Copper and Stephen Jones
at World Fantasy Convention 1993, Minneapolis, Minnesota
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In the quarter-century since then we met up on numerous occasions-often at conventions and
gatherings on both sides of the Atlantic, sometimes sharing the same panel discussions and signing
sessions, and I had the honour of interviewing him in depth about his fascinating life and career at
Fantasycon XX in 1996. I was his guest, and that of his beautiful French wife Annie, on many
occasions at their charming home in Kent. As an editor, I was proud to work with Basil on numerous
anthologies and non-fiction books, and (with his help) I even managed to fill almost all of those
gaps in my Basil Copper shelf as the years passed.
Photo © 2002 Roger Robinson
Stephen Jones, Basil Copper and Sarob Press publisher Robert
Morgan
at the launch signing for Basil Copper's new collection from Sarob,
COLD
HAND ON MY SHOULDER: TALES OF TERROR & SUSPENSE,
at London's Fantasy Centre bookshop
on March 22nd, 2002.
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Photo © 2008 Peter Coleborn
Basil Copper and Stephen Jones at the launch of
Basil Copper: A Life in Books, London, England, February 23, 2008
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In more recent times, as Basil's health began to deteriorate, I have been able to help bring much
of his work back into print with the assistance of PS Publishing and others, and a high point was
getting him to the World Horror Convention in Brighton in 2010, where he received the convention's
inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award.
With the passing of years, my memory of our first meeting may now be getting a little hazy, but to
any new readers who are just beginning to assemble a collection of his books, I can guarantee that
like me, you will find Basil Copper's fiction distinctly . . . unforgettable!
Photo © 2012 Stephen Jones
Basil Copper, Sevenoaks, September 25, 2012
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Photo © 2009
Basil Copper with the 2009 British Fantasy Award for Non-Fiction
awarded to Basil Copper: A Life In Books (2008)
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Photo © 1992 Bob Knight
James Herbert's 25th Wedding Anniversary Celebration, Brighton, August 29 1992
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I knew James Herbert since the 1980s—first as a young book reviewer and then as a friend. Although he basically created
the modern mass-market horror genre with the publication of his first novel, The Rats, in 1974 (for the record,
Stephen King's Carrie was published a few months later), he was always wary of the "fandom" aspects of the genre (although
not of the fans themselves, who he embraced with genuine enthusiasm and affection).
It was therefore something of an achievement when I convinced him to be a Guest of Honour at the World Fantasy Convention
in London in 1988. As always, he was friendly and garrulous with everyone he met and, over the years I managed to persuade
him (albeit always with some initial scepticism on his part) to participate in several other such events, most notably
World Horror Convention 2010 (where we presented him with the convention's Grand Master Award—which he was incredibly
proud of) and, more recently, FantasyCon in Brighton just last September (where he insisted on buying Ramsey Campbell and
myself drinks in the bar after his very successful signing session).
While I was researching my 1992 book about him, James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, I was a guest in his Sussex home on a
number of occasions, and I was lucky to attend several events in his honour over the years, not least his 25th Wedding Anniversary
to his lovely wife, Eileen.
Jim was born on April 8, 1943, in the East End of London, the son of street traders. His family lived at the back of Petticoat
Lane in Whitechapel—once the stalking ground of Jack the Ripper. At the age of ten he passed the Eleven-Plus exam and won
a scholarship to St. Aloysius Grammar School in Highgate. At sixteen he went to the famous Hornsey College of Art, where he
studied graphic design. This led to him joining a leading London advertising agency, where he worked his way up to the position
of Group Head/Associate Director.
Feeling there was more he could do, at the age of twenty-eight he started secretly writing a novel. Ten months later he had
completed The Rats—inspired by his childhood upbringing and depicting a London overrun by monstrous, flesh-eating
rats of unknown origin. He submitted the manuscript to six publishers on the same day. Within three weeks he had received
three replies. Two publishers turned the novel down, while the other enthusiastically accepted it.
New English Library published The Rats in 1974 with a first printing of 100,000 paperback copies. Within weeks that first
printing was completely sold out. The book has never been out of print, and since then he has reigned as Britain's undisputed #1
author of horror fiction, with more than twenty novels to his credit.
Jim's list of best-selling titles includes The Fog, The Survivor, Fluke, The Spear, Lair,
The Dark, The Jonah, Shrine, Domain, Moon, The Magic Cottage, Sepulchre,
Creed, Portent, '48, Others, Once, Nobody True and The Secret of Crickley Hall. His
final novel, Ash (2012), was the third in a trilogy featuring psychic investigator David Ash, which began
with Haunted and The Ghosts of Sleath.
Alongside the full-length works, The City was a graphic novel in The Rats sequence illustrated by Ian Miller, while
James Herbert's Dark Places: Locations and Legends was an atmospheric collaboration with photographer Paul Barkshire.
One of the world's most popular novelists, his books have sold more than fifty-four million copies world-wide and have
been translated into more than thirty-five languages, including Russian and Chinese. The Rats (aka Deadly Eyes),
The Survivor, Fluke, Haunted and The Secret of Crickley Hall have all been filmed, the latter as
a BBC mini-series last year. He was awarded an O.B.E. in 2010.
James Herbert died peacefully in his bed on March 20, aged 69. It was far too early. He had more books in him (although
he recently admitted to me that he was beginning to slow down—not surprisingly, since he wrote them all in
long-hand), and we had already made plans to meet up again later this year in Brighton.
Jim was one of the genuine nice guys in the genre. I'll miss him more than I can say—but so too will his millions
of fans around the world.
—Stephen Jones
March, 2013
Photo © 1989 Peter Coleborn
James Herbert and Stephen Jones, Fantasycon XIV, Birmingham, Oct 7, 1989
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Photo © 1990 Forbidden Planet–Dick Jude
James Herbert and Stephen Jones, DARK VOICES signing, London, April 7, 1990
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Photo © 1989 Seamus A. Ryan
James Herbert Interview, Fantasycon XIV, Birmingham, October 7 1989
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