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Post by dem on Apr 23, 2008 22:54:55 GMT
Robert Bloch - Such Stuff As Screams Are Made Of (Del Ray, Feb. 1979)  Howard Koslow
The Tunnel Of Love
The Unspeakable Betrothal
The Girl From Mars
The Head Hunter
The Weird Tailor
Lucy Comes To Stay
The Pin
I Do Not Love Thee, Dr. Fell
Luck Is No Lady
The Cure
The Screaming People
The Big Kick
The Masterpiece
Talent
The Final Performance
Life In Our Time
Underground
A Case Of The Stubborns
The Head
What You see Is What You Get
Nina
Author's Afterword.Blurb: Nightmares Turned Inside Out
The Tunnel Of Love: In the darkness of a romantic fun house, Marco had a rendezvous with a love who wanted more than kisses ...
The Unspeakable Betrothal: A lot of things can happen at night, especially in dreams. But what happened to Avis Long was something you wouldn't dare tell your best friend ...
Final Performance: Jim Chatham wondered what a nice girl like Rosie was doing with an old has-been like Rudolph, in a dump outside of Bakersfield. Unfortunately, he found out ...
The Screaming People: The voice Steve heard in the darkness could have beep only a bad dream. But it wasn't. And he wasn't the only one who'd heard it ... I adore that Howard Koslow cover painting. The selection is good, too, though something of a minefield for fussy bastards like me, showcasing as it does Bloch's versatility. Most of the genre hopping is between straight horror, horror/ SF and SF/ Time Travel, and certainly a decent introduction to his world of cannibal girls, bogus black widow spiders, psycho's, vampires, vengeful losers and people who lose their heads in a crisis. The Girl From Mars: What with the bad weather, poor takings and his girl Mitzie running off with Rajah the magician, Carney boss Ace Lawson hasn't had much luck of late. It seems all that is about to change when the Platinum girl walks in, asking to see the Girl from Mars. Ace explains that she, Mitzie, was a fake, bat wings and all, but hits on the idea of hiring this bombshell to take her place. She gives him some spiel about being from Mars - or "Planet Rekk' as it's known to its inhabitants - her rocket having crashed to Earth during an electrical storm. She also keeps reminding him that she's very hungry ... Underground: World War II: Eric Karon, once an actor in the Paris Grand Guignol, is now collaborating with the Nazis. To keep the superstitious villagers away from Chateau Barsac where he and three radio operators are holed up, he masquerades as a vampire. Things get out of hand when Karon kills the Mayor's daughter and the locals come seeking revenge ... Sometimes reprinted as The Living Dead. Lucy Comes To Stay: Vi is in rehab, drying out after a humiliating drunken episode at a party. Her friend Lucy convinces her that her husband George and special nurse Miss Higgins are having an affair and that they have no intention of seeing her released from the Asylum. In alcoholic and psychological meltdown, Vi is easily persuaded to make a desperate bid for freedom .... The Weird Tailor: For several years, the seedy tailor Erik Conrad's business has been going nowhere fast, but when he meets and weds the timid Anna at least he has the satisfaction of making her life even more miserable than his own, plus he can always beat and half-throttle her whenever an angry creditor calls. Driven half-insane by her unhappy existence, Anna confides her problems to Otto, the decrepit, one-eyed window dummy who reminds her so much of her dead brother. It seems Erik's luck is about to change when the fabulously wealthy Mr. Smith approaches him with his convoluted design for a suit to be made from a strange fabric, the like of which the tailor has never seen. Smith insists that Conrad must only work at specified times, explaining that he has an unshakable belief in Astrology. The suit is to be a surprise present for his son and, should Erik promise to observe Smiths conditions, he can name his own price. Well, this is all looking very promising for the odious Erik! But when he finally completes the suit and learns that, far from being rich, Smith is now all but destitute, having squandered his fortune on having his son preserved in ice until he can revive him with the magical suit, a fight ensues and the tailor bludgeons his customer to death. After ransacking Smith's lodging for saleable goods - his stash of black magic books - he returns home with the suit and tells Anna to destroy it. She hangs it on Otto instead .... The Head Hunter: 1937. Otto Kranz, ex-butcher, is the official headsman for the Third Reich, and he derives a great deal of satisfaction from his work. To the point where he's begun taking the job home with him. Masterpiece: The old man haunts the artist's cafes of Buenos Aires peddling shoelaces and paper flowers. Yet he has a painting of his beautiful, treacherous and very dead model Vivienne hanging in the Louvre. But that's not the painting he has in mind when he refers to his "masterpiece". Tunnel Of Love: Marco owns the tunnel of love in the amusement park and it's done him well financially over the years. These days he dreads taking the gondola through the huge, painted mouth into darkness ever since - but he can't bring himself to think of that fatal last quarrel with Belle. And now Dolores, his latest squeeze, is insisting he takes her on a slow, romantic guided tour ...
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Post by dem on May 21, 2012 14:44:09 GMT
The Final Performance: Jim Chatham, author, is headed for Hollywood when his car gives out near Bakersfield, obliging him to find a place to stay the night while the local mechanic works his magic. At the nearest beat-up motel he finds a reluctant host in its equally beat-up proprietor, a fat perma-drunk by the name of Rudolph Ritzler. Ritzler gets to boring him about his peerless career in vaudeville as 'Rudolph the Great' and Chatham is all set to make his excuses, go hitch a lift when Ritzler's gorgeous young "wife", Rosie, puts in an appearance.
As she prepares a guest-room, Rosie begs Jim to take her away with him. Ritzler, she explains, isn't her husband but her guardian, a psychotically possessive one at that, who threatened to butcher the last man she tried to escape with. Jim agrees to help but, come the hour, Rosie has inexplicably changed her mind and calls him every foul name under the sun, Ritzler looking on smugly from beside her on the couch. It's almost as if the old soak were manipulating her vocal chords. And that's when Jim notices the bloodied butcher's knife ....
What You see Is What You Get: Charles Randall, tight-fisted drug pusher, buys a Polaroid camera at auction for a measly ten bucks. Shortly afterwards he receives a home visit from Frank Lumley, executor of the estate, who explains that there has been a mistake, the item was not for sale. The camera belonged to Desmond The Great, the big-time vaudeville magician, and his sons will pay $100 for its return.
Randall reckons there must be more to this Polaroid than meets the eye and holds out for a higher price. In the meantime, he tries a few experimental snaps. Within hours, his models are dead. His vicious guard-dog, Butch, succumbs to rabies. Lumley is killed in a car accident. Josie the maid O.D.'s. No wonder the Desmond brothers want the damn thing. It must be worth a fortune!
Milt Desmond - scowling, long-haired trendy (Bloch doesn't seem to have had much time for hippies) - calls in person. He's prepared to hand over $1000, and is not best pleased when Randall says he wants time to mull it over, but the pusher has hit upon a plan. Why not take the cash, kill Milt, dump his corpse in the quarry, keep the money and the camera? But first, a photograph of himself so he'll know if Milt plans a double-cross of his own ....
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Post by dem on May 25, 2012 7:40:20 GMT
I Do Not Love Thee, Doctor Fell: Stressed press agent Clyde Bromely has another appointment with his shrink. He can't remember how, when or why he arranged it, the previous sessions are entirely wiped from his memory - he doesn't even know where he first heard of Dr. Fell in the first place. But Dr. Fell knows all about Clyde Bromely, and his receptionist looks awful familiar, too. The Doc is even prepared to see him five times a week, entirely free of charge, as: "Your case is important, Clyde. You're the first of the new maniacs." It transpires that Bromely has immersed himself in so many Self-help and DIY Psychiatry manuals that he's duped himself insane. Bloch predicts an epidemic. From one pet hate to another: The Big Kick: Greenwich Village, early 'sixties. Judy is making it with Mitch. a hairy, bongo-bashing philosopher and real gone cat. Only problem, no job equals no steady income. True, what Mitch needs he sponges, but even a crazy beatnik chic likes her security, Daddy-o. So Mitch introduces Judy to Kenny. Kenny is a wealthy, irredeemably square hanger-on, a "sicknik" to be tolerated on the party circuit only as long as he continues picking up the tab. Mitch encourages Judy to play up to lover boy, take him for what she can get, because their dream vacation in 'Frisco ain't gonna fund itself. But Kenny, far from being a "meatball," has an agenda all of his own, though Mitch was quite right about the sicknik part. The Bogeyman Will Get You rewritten as an ill-tempered rant versus the beats. Bloch's seen it all before but better, and a shower of free-loading drop outs setting the world to rights with poetry was never going to sit well with a soul forged in the great depression. It wasn't just the beats who bugged him. Genial Bob - or somebody very like hiim - had already endured cremation courtesy of those teenage demon spawn, the Hell's Angels ( Sweet Sixteen) and would later mutate a "goddamn Hollywood hippie" with a gorilla ( The Animal Fair). The Big Kick, I Do Not Love Thee, Dr. Fell, Final Performance The Masterpiece and The Pin, also appear in Blood Runs Cold (Corgi, 1964).
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Post by dem on Jun 27, 2012 6:48:45 GMT
Original artwork to Bloch's The Head Hunter as it appeared under it's original title in the June 1950 issue of 15 Mystery Stories magazine. The uncredited illustration is nastier and far more horrific than the story, that's for sure. for all my moaning and groaning, i'm having a good time with this. Life In Our Time: When Prof. Harry Cramer is handed sole responsibility for stocking a time capsule to be installed in the Humanities Building , he turns to young trophy wife Jill for advice, she being something of a connoisseur of contemporary arts. He doesn't want the best, he explains, but a true reflection of mid -sixties civilisation Jill, who only married the Prof for his money and is colluding with her hunky attorney lover, Rick, to murder the old fool, happily complies. Yet another Bloch modern life is rubbish moan, with rock music ( The Poodles Bark Again, gormless TV soap opera's, the theatre of the absurd, Hells Angels and sexy spy paperbacks (featuring Steve Slash) among his targets. Luck Is No Lady: Frankie, a wino, reckons his life would have taken a very different turn had Lady Luck only once given him a break. He's explaining all this to an "old Professor guy" he's been cadging drinks from all night when a beautiful lady in red walks into the tavern and gives him a smile. Frankie, who looks and dresses like a swamp hit him, can't believe it when the mystery woman silently leads him into the classy joint out back and none of the wealthy patrons give him a second glance. Finding a $20 chip on the floor, Frankie wins big on the roulette table, and within the next 24 hours he's landed a job, foiled an armed robbery - and pulled Margot, a stacked blonde. Fortuna - for it is she - doesn't take kindly to this latter development and abruptly stops smiling on her ungrateful beneficiary. Nina: Brazil. Desperate for money now he and Darlene have a child on the way, Nolan accepts a post as plantation owner on Manaus though it will mean a year away and he'll miss the birth of their first child. It's a far more wretched experience than he'd bargained for and a combination of loneliness, swinish heat, persistent night-drumming and ready suppy of alcohol contrive to drive him inro the arms of the mysterious 'Nina', a stranger to the village, with horrifying consequences. 'Nina', his housekeeper explains, is one of the Snake People, and they're called that for a reason. It sure doesn't do to have one of them develop a crush on you. And then Darlene arrives with little Robbie .....
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Post by Knygathin on Jul 25, 2012 6:23:00 GMT
. . . The uncredited illustration is nastier and far more horrific than the story, that's for sure. I think Bloch's own head is among the victims, on the lower far right. |
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Post by dem on Jul 25, 2012 20:29:27 GMT
I think you're onto something. Well done, Mr. K!
This, perversely, is one of my favourite Bloch collections as, for all his reputation as a laugh a minute guy he comes across as genuinely grumpy in a number of stories. I much prefer it over the Del Rey Best Of ....
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 26, 2012 17:32:42 GMT
I much prefer it over the Del Rey Best Of .... You have read THE BEST OF LESTER DEL REY?  |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 26, 2012 23:57:49 GMT
I much prefer it over the Del Rey Best Of .... You have read THE BEST OF LESTER DEL REY? Since you mentioned him, Del Rey wrote two good horror stories: "Cross of Fire" and "Carillon of Skulls." Sadly, neither appears in The Best of Lester Del Rey. As for Bloch: If I had to choose one of his collections to take to a desert island, it would be The Early Fears. |
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Post by dem on Jan 11, 2020 12:06:12 GMT
 Virgil Finlay The Screaming People, ( Fantastic, Jan. 1959). : Stephen lived in a world of agony - always fearful that he, too, would become one of the Screaming People. As a consequence of a terrifying, near fatal car accident in the desert, Stephen Edmundson has no recollection of events before the day it happened, his thirtieth birthday. Edmundson has since managed to build a new life but, of late, he is plagued by nightmares, the most recent of which sees him break into a mansion, murder a Mr. James P. Hexler in his bed, and slip away with a velvet box of emeralds - all at the command of a voice in his head. Before shinning it down the drainpipe, he tramples a tiny silver ruby-eyed skeleton into the carpet, its appearance having unnerved him so. He screams himself awake. Thank goodness it was only a bad dream! Setting out for work, he discovers the jewellery box in his pocket. Worse still, he is tormented throughout the day by the minature dancing silver skeleton. Rather than confide in Roxy (obligatory hot, too-good-for-him girlfriend), Stephen consults his benefactor and father figure, Dr. Carl Wagram, incontrovertibly the most saintly man on the planet. It was Doctor Carl rescued Stephen from beneath his overturned car in the desert, pieced together his shattered body, performed life-saving brain surgery on the fractured skull, oversaw his convalescence, and all at his own expense. Wagram runs a private sanatorium for those of dangerous psychological disorder, the hopeless cases whose wealthy families will pay anything to keep them from public gaze. Which suits Wagram just fine .... The lengthy denouement is perhaps too convoluted for it's own good, but worth sticking with .....  Lee Teaford The Pin, ( Amazing Stories, Dec. 1953/ Jan. 1954). : Do we live and die by some great Cosmic Law? Or do we survive or perish by vague and casual chance involving things no more awesome than a pin and a telephone book? Barton Stone, struggling artist, rents a garret in a condemned office building on the understanding that he'll have the place to himself. Stone is not best pleased, therefore, to discover he has inherited a squatter in the attic. Day after day, the fat, weary old man drags volumes of directories from the shelves, leafing through pages, stabbing randomly at names with a pin shaped like a scythe. |
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Post by dem on Jan 18, 2020 17:31:20 GMT
The Head: (Terr Carr [ed.], The Ides of Tomorrow: Original Science Fiction Tales of Horror, 1976). In the aftermath of Thermonuclear war, the few survivors take to subterranean caves and embrace primitivism. As the bombs fell, scientists removed the brains of men of genius, wired them to computers that they may be revived electronically at a later date. One such brain is desperately attempting to teach a cannibal that "there is more to life than feeding and killing and copulating." The savage (who speaks fluent hippie) doesn't want to know.
A Case of the Stubborns: (MFSF, Oct. 1976). When Grandpa Titus Tolliver's heart gave out last night, Doc Snodgrass examined him and duly wrote out a death certificate. Damned if the old goat ain't too obstinate to remain deceased long enough for folk to bury him. Even with the flies buzzing around him. And rigor mortis kicking in. And the stench. Young Jody decides there ain't nothing else for it. This is a job for the Conjure Lady of Spooky Hollow.
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