Twilight Zone Magazine - May/June 1985 (published bi-monthly at the time by TZ Publications, 102 pages)
Content:
Editorial by T. E. D. Klein - Inspirations
Letters
Doc Kennedy - Books
Review: The Worms by Al Sarrantonio
Review: The Copper Crown by Patricia Kennealy
Review: Blood Autumn by Kathryn Ptacek
Review: Emergence by David R. Palmer
Review: Dinner at Deviant's Palace by Tim Powers
Review: In the Drift by Michael Swanwick
Review: Master of Space and Time by Rudy Rucker
Review: So Long and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams Review: Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
Review: Tales by Moonlight by Jessica Amanda Salmonson
Review: It Came from Schenectady by Barry B. Longyear
Review: Firewatch by Connie Willis
Review: Chapterhouse Dune by Frank Herbert
Gahan Wilson - Screen: Winter Doldrums
Stanley Schmidt - Viewpoint: Broccoli, Oranges, and Science Fiction
James Verniere - TZ Profile: John Hurt: Man of the Year
Lorenzo Carcaterra - TZ Profile: Charles Martin Smith: Lighting Up Starman
William Fulwiler - Quiz: Fantasy Film Refresher Course
Lisa Tuttle - Flying to Byzantium
Flying to Byzantium - interior artwork by Jill Karla Schwartz
Flying to Byzantium - interior artwork by Jill Karla Schwartz
Charles Baxter - Through the Safety Net
Through the Safety Net - interior artwork by Matthew Finch
Roger Zelazny - Dayblood
Dayblood - interior artwork by D. W. Miller
Michael Blaine - The Screening
The Screening - interior artwork by Kevin Pope
James Verniere - Oz Revisited
Mike Ashley - Algernon Blackwood: The Ghostly Tale's Great Visionary
Algernon Blackwood - The Occupant of the Room (1909)
The Occupant of the Room - interior artwork by Paula Goodman
Algernon Blackwood - The Little Beggar (1919)
The Little Beggar - interior artwork by Paula Goodman
Paul Di Filippo - Rescuing Andy
Rescuing Andy - interior artwork by Leslie Sternbergh
Darrell Schweitzer - Jungle Eyes
Jungle Eyes - interior artwork by Claudia Carlson
Kathryn M. Drennan and J. Michael Straczynski - Rod Serling's Night Gallery (2)
A Show-by-Show Guide to Rod Serling's Night Gallery: Part Two
Jim Ryan - TZ Theater: The Hook (Comic)
Rod Serling - And When the Sky Was Opened (teleplay)
Looking Ahead: Next in TZ ... I have to confess that I never could understand the cult of Serling. When the show was first on German tv in the 60s, I was too young to watch it, when it was re-run 30 years later I had read about it and there had been the new movie adaption. But at the time of the re-run the sort of whimsical and sentimental brand of soft sf and urban fantasy left me cold. I guess it is on of those "You had to be there" things. The impact of the show is undeniable though, still remember a funny scene in an early episode of
Will & Grace where Grace got hysterical once again and thinks she is in The Twilight Zone. A show must be really entrenched in the public mind to pull this joke off.
So I bought a few odd issues of Twilight Zone Magazine when it was avaiable. In hindsight its best time under the guidance of T. E. D. Klein were already over. I seldom read all, the industry news and interviews were more interesting to me than most stories. It ran from 1981 to 1989. It began monthly, but after a few years it published much less issues every year, went bi-monthly and then become more erraticially. Gone were the days of a circulatrion of 125000 issues.
Why not revisiting it?
This is one of Klein's last issues as editor, and frankly it is pretty disappointing.
Roger Zelazny – Dayblood: The modern day narrator stalks an old vampire and prevents some vampire hunters to stake him because he feeds of vampires. Or something. By the numbers and a whiff of EC, but sadly more of an old Atlas Horror Comic. Forgettable.
Lisa Tuttle - Flying to Byzantium: Insecure fantasy writer Sheila who only had one novel in her travels to a convention in Texas. Her few fans won't let her go until she writes the sequel and reality fades. Did she really lived in L. A. and had a boyfriend or was it all in her imagination? I never was a fan of Tuttle and his didn't change my mind. Too long and whiny, right down to the soft ending.
Michael Blaine – The Screening: They let excentric arthouse director Weltbounder, whose
The Starcrossed Night of the Collision of the Thirteen Moons got a lot of praise, direct a slasher movie. Weltbounder made a lot of noise during production, hinting that Idi Amin would make a cameo. But nobody has seen a meter of film yet. Now over time and over budget producers Fitzgibbon, Hertzman and Klice see it for the first time on the screen. They really shouldn't have …
This short story is a winner, an honest to god
Filmcrews in Peril story and a great one too. Seemingly Blaine only published two stories. With its few pages more fun than the rest together. A few month later Blaine became the editor of TZM for two years, when it took a huge drop - onyl 2 issues in 1986 - from which it never recovered.
The reviews by "Doc Kennedy" are also a lot of fun. Surprisingly blunt and edgy for a mass-market publication. "Gorgeous gal (There was a
presence about her, a grace; no, an
impression of unrivaled loveliness) is bad news to men from Raj India to Victorian London to steamy Savannah. She's not a vampire, but, worse, a
lamia, who uses sex appeal to drain not only veins but gonads. Yikes! Can Father Daniel prevail against her? Find out in
Blood Autumn by Kathryn Ptacek (Tor, $ 3,50), a creaky routine fanger with a soft-porn update."
On
Chapterhouse Dune: […] In short, Frank Herbert has deep-sixed Meaning and has pitched headlong into pulp Shenanigans. Those Jews should give a clue, as should the fact that the head Honored Matre is known as the Spider Queen. And too, Duncan Idaho, heretofore discreet in all his clone guises trough earlier books, has discovered
sex! In a big way, too. The Honored Matre who was supposed to enslave him sexually has become
his sex slave, so that the two of them can't keep their hands of each other through the whole book. This has its humorous moments."
The rest of the articles are the usual mix. Interesting in a kind of failed way is Mike Ashley's article on Algernon Blackwood in the guise of an interview. "The above, therefore, is by no means fictional. The answers are, for the most part, in Blackwood's own words, taken from letters he wrote, radio talks that he gave, or essays that he completed, some of which never have been published", writes Ashley. I guess it is a novel way of presenting such a topic, still I thought it a bit corny.
Twilight Zone Magazine June 1985 is not exactly overwhelming. At least it had a paying audience and mostly well-known writers. A veteran of the times when horror was a hot market for a few years.