Alien Worlds

[David A. Riley]

Although not strictly a horror magazine, Alien Worlds did include a very early Ramsey Campbell horror story (as by J. Ramsey Campbell). The Childish Fear is set in a nightmarish cinema where the protagonist enjoys watching films like Hammer's Dracula and Quatermass II. I don't know whether this has ever been published elsewhere.

Other contents include Harry Harrison's Contact Man and Ken Bulmer's Not Human. Artwork in the slim 64 page, A5 magazine was by Eddie Jones, Terry Jeeves, Jack Partington and Jack Wilson. It was published in Manchester by Charles Partington and Harry Nadler and, unfortunately, only ran to one issue.





David

[dem]

The spacerocket on the cover: that's how i think of the rockets in Ray Bradbury stories, and that's the way they should look to me. As soon as I see such highly technical abominations as grace, say, Fritz Leiber's Ship Of Shadows (Granada, 1982), I just don't want to read any further. This is a terrible admission to make, isn't it?

A shame that The Childish Fear doesn't appear to have been exhumed since it's appearance here (in 1966?) as it sounds like good fun. Have you noticed how there's a lot of hanging around in cinema's in his work?

[David A. Riley]

Yes, the magazine was 1966.

And it is a shame this story has, so far as I know, not been reprinted. It is a very early Campbell, but you can see in it some of his trademarks, including the main character, who I am sure is Ramsey himself in some respects, especially his interest in horror films and his criticisms of them. It's a good story too.

There's also a feature in the magazine on One Million Years BC, which was new at the time.

It was a pity there was only the one issue. Price 2/6. Those were the days!

David

[Craig Herbertson]

Yes, Dem, that's a real space rocket. Mostly because these were the days of wonder best expressed in Bradbury's Martian Locusts - perhaps the greatest piece of writing ever.