2008-04-16 GREAT BOOK, DESPITE A FEW GLITCHES.

Just finished reading A New Heritage of Horror a couple of days ago.

Overall I would say that I'm extremely impressed with it, despite the publishers best attempts to sabotage it with their incredibly slack production values. Pirie's ideas are always well thought out and persuasively argued, and he certainly adds more than enough new information to warrant double-dipping, for those who already have a copy of the earlier edition.

A Heritage of Horror remains largely a book about Hammer Films, though. Despite their pre-eminence, the amount of coverage they receive is slightly disproportionate, leaving a slightly "glossed over" feel to some of the sections on Amicus, Tigon, Corman etc. Not a problem for me (a dyed-in-the-wool Hammer fanatic!) but I can imagine it possibly irking some readers. There's a nice (but brief) section covering the horror films made between 1972-2007, but it has to be said that the last 35 years have hardly been a golden era for British horror. It's good to see that Pirie actually likes a fair amount of the more recent stuff, though, and seems to have a genuinely positive outlook for the genre's future in this country - possibly encouraged by the likes of Neil Marshall and the reemergent Hammer Films franchise.

Pirie pays a particularly inspiring tribute to Christopher Lee; an underrated actor who isn't always given quite the respect he deserves, and also continues to champion the reputation of Hammer director Terence Fisher, something he started doing long before the French critics declared Fisher as an 'auteur'.

My only real criticisms are aimed at the publisher (I B Tauris), not at David Pirie himself. Sad to say, but the book is absolutely riddled with typos and/or spelling mistakes, incorrectly attributed stills and several factual errors which tend to stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. It's as though Tauris have taken a draft manuscript and then published it long before it was really ready. I hate to say it, but last year Sinclair McKay was justly criticised for the amount of errors in his Hammer book (A Thing of Unspeakable Horror) - and Pirie's new Heritage has (if anything) even more errors than McKay's book.

Also, for such an expensive book you'd expect something a little bit more professional looking. The book has no dust jacket (despite the photo that amazon are using, which is on the paperback edition only) -, and is printed on rather flimsy paper stock. The actual print quality and stills reproduction is fine , however. I just imagine that Pirie wishes he had a publisher like Tomahawk or Reynolds & Hearn - somebody who might have treated the book with the deference it merited.

Maybe some of the 'glitches' could be ironed out if the book ever goes for a reprint, but if you can pick it up at the right price, though, I'd still highly recommend it.