Orbit Horror in the 'seventies

[dem bones]

Orbit Horror in the 'seventies.

Erm. There must be more of them than this?

A. Merritt - Dwellers In The Mirage (Orbit/ Futura 1974)
A. Merritt - Burn Witch, Burn (Orbit/ Futura 1974)
A. Merrit - The Face in the Abyss (Orbit, 1974)
A. Merrit - Seven Footsteps To Satan (Orbit, 1974)
Michael G. Coney - The Hero Of Downways (Orbit, 1974)
Peter Haining (ed.) - The Ghouls: The Stories Behind The Classic Horror Films: Book 1 (Orbit, 1974)
Michel Parry (ed.) - The Devil’s Children: Tales of Demons & Exorcists (Orbit, 1974)
Dave Allen (ed.) - A Little Night Reading (Orbit, 1975)
Anthony Craze - Harvest Moon (Orbit/Futura, 1975)
P. B. Yuill (Joint pseudonym of Terry Venables and Gordon M. Williams) - The Bornless Keeper (Orbit, 1975)
Richard Davis (ed.) - Orbit Book Horror Stories (1976)
Peter Haining (ed.) - The Ghouls: The Stories Behind The Classic Horror Films: Book 2 (Orbit, 1976)
Peter Haining (ed.) - The Black Magic Omnibus Volume 1 (Orbit, 1977)
Peter Haining (ed.) - The Black Magic Omnibus Volume 1 (Orbit, 1977)

It's one of the big unexplainables how pioneering pulp horror fantasy legend Abraham Merritt has so rarely been mentioned on here. Orbit and/ or Futura appear to have published editions of The Face In The Abyss and Seven Footsteps To Satan alongside this pair in '74, but i've seen neither so left them off just to be on the safe side. I'm being strict about this, you see. If it doesn't have the Orbit logo on the cover, then it isn't a 100% Orbit as far as i'm concerned. So - oh smart - we can forget all about Dwellers In The Mirage even though I just scanned it, because brains here has just noticed a complete absence of same. How irritating!

Of the Haining's, The Ghouls is a neat idea but with much over-familiar material and - if memory serves - a truncated The Most Dangerous Game and The Devil And Daniel Webster? Happily, he's on top of his game with the highly recommended Black Magic Omnibus. Does anyone have the Robson original hardback?

Thanks to Franklin for supplying a scan of that brilliant Dave Allen cover!

[justin]

The only possible addition to the list is Firestarter by John T Smith (1980) but I haven't a copy so can't guarantee it's horror.

Merritt's Dwellers and The Face were both definitely Futura in 1974. The cover designs were the same as the alter Orbits, so were Orbit the SF/fantasy imprint of Futura? I have a few SF paperbacks which show Orbit on the cover but Futura inside and vice versa, mainly Moorcocks.

[pulphack]

as i understand it, justin, futura started off as an indepedent paperback house manned by ex-sphere staff, which was then - ironically, boughht up by macdonald, who also swallowed up sphere. which is how come orbit went from being futura based, and using futura owned rights, to being part of macdonalds, then little brown/warners, and now hachette. so whatever way editorial staff turned, they ended up being swallowed by the conglomerates they were seeking to escape. like kafka, if he'd been ghosted by jim moffatt...

[dem bones]

Thanks gents. I'm sure you're spot on there pulps, and if so it's such a shame they were swallowed up so quickly as on the strength of the few horror titles they published, they knew what they were about. The one I don't have from the above listing that fascinates me is the Gordon M. "Straw Dogs" Williams - Terry "El Tel" Venables collaboration. I knew they'd worked on stuff together, but not in my wildest dreams did I expect an incursion into the world of terror.

Something that's confusing me: T. Chris Martindale's Night Blood (it has a thread somewhere in this section but i'm too lazy to search) bears the Orbit logo and that was published in 1991 (just checked inside and it has "by Orbit Books, a division of MacDonald").

[pulphack]

oh, no real confusion there, dem. macdonald built Orbit into the premier sci-fi imprint and kept it going at that pitch right through when the staff were told they were now Little Brown after fatty Maxwell dived... John Jarrold was in charge then (he's agent now, i think) before he was headhunted for Earthlight by Simon & Schuster. so Harper's Voyager ousted Orbit. they would have still done a few horror titles here and there, but only if they couldn't be squeezed into other Macdonalds/LB imprints. the primary focus was sf and fantasy, though. not sure, but i think they went into Orbit if JJ acquired them, rather than the other p/b editors.

the company kept a really strong core of long-term personnel, mind. Jarrold was there for years. and Barbara Boote was a chumof LJ when she was at Sphere (comissioned Simon Rack, i believe) and was there all the way through the late nineties at least - in fact, she was my editor when i did a title for them in 1994, and was lovely considering the bloke i was ghosting was an arse. she was the editor who signed up Clive Barker for the Books of Blood.

it was difficult for them when Maxwell was at the helm, though. my mate Steph was in the royalties and contracts dept then, and they were based in the old Mirror building (now sadly gone) on the corner of Fetter Lane and Holborn. they were given two days to move their whole operation in there, and after this Maxwell would land on the roof in his helicopter on a monday morning and order people to move offices. once he wobbled into her office and barked 'what are you doing here?' 'er, you told me to move in here last monday,' she replied mildly. the fat fool stood there for a moment, then barked 'carry on, then' and marched out.

astounding anything got got published at all then, really...

[dem bones]

I must admit, I didn't have any great hopes for this thread, it had dead rubber written all over it, but it's turned out to be a fascinating insight into the murky history of publishing companies! Pulps, you have to write a book about this stuff!

[stuyoung]

I picked up The First Orbit Book of Horror Stories today. Looking forward to reading it.