Rod Serling - New Stories from the Twilight Zone

[sean]

First published 1962.

Bantam pathfinder edition from 1965:


BLURB:

THINGS HAPPEN IN THE TWILIGT ZONE - MARVELOUS THINGS

A crummy Santa Claus in a rented suit finds that his bag of gifts is inexhaustable...

The clever their who dreamed up the Rip van Winkle Caper finds that gold doesn't matter in AD 2062...

TV's topnotch gun fighter, riding his red Jaguar and wearing his elevator cowboy boots, meets the real Jesse James...

ALL THESE IMPROBABLE THINGS HAPPEN IN JUST ONE PLACE - THE TWILIGT ZONE



All of the stories herein stick exactly to the episodes they are adapted from. I have to say that it is quite a strange collection, due to the episodes chosen. I think Serling could have picked much better ones to adapt. These (on the whole) rely too much on humour, which wasn't always TZ's strong point.

As a huge Twilight Zone fan, I have to say that this book was a tad disappointing, unfortunately.

The Whole Truth
A car salesman buys a vehicle that impells him to tell the truth at all times. In the end, he sells it to a Russian politician who just happened to be passing. Sporadically amusing, I suppose.

The Shelter
A nuclear attack warning brings out the worst in a group of neighbours who all want in to the only shelter on the block, and will do anything in their powers to save themselves.

Nifty ending to this one. A good adaptation of a good episode.

Showdown with Rance McGrew
An actor who plays a cowboy on a TV show finds himself confronted by the real Jesse James, whom is just a little pissed off at how the tv show doesn't actually reflect the reality of his life.

The Night of the Meek
Drunken bum dressed as Santa Claus is given a magic bag of gifts and spreads true joy on Christmas. Bleargh.

The Midnight Sun
The planet seems to be moving closer to the sun, closer to a fiery doom. But is this really the case?

Quite a good episode, although the twist is a tad unlikely.

The Rip Van Winkle Caper
A group of criminals commit a huge robbery, then put themselves to sleep for a hundred years in a cave. Haggling and arguing over their ill gotten gains, they find that times have changed, and that their gold is worth nothing.

Another good episode, and a workman like adaptation.

[dem]

Here's the cover of an earlier Bantam edition (May 1962) ....

.... and, lucky you!, here's some crap i wrote about it.

Like the original series, a fabulously entertaining mix of fantasy, SF and horror. Much "be nice to your fellow man" moralising, but if you're gonna have a message, I guess that's better than most. The Shelter is only marred by it's happy ending - the neighbours who share a fall-out shelter discover that it's not the nukes they have to fear, it's each other. Night Of The Meek is Serling's It's A Wonderful Life as a department store Santa gets pissed and loses his job on Christmas Eve. Turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to him. If that sounds too mawkish, cheer up, there's always The Midnight Sun to have you reaching for the razor.

[jkdunham]

As I understand it, some - if not all - of these Twilight Zone collections were penned by Walter Gibson, who did The Shadow ("Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" etc.).
Certainly both Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone and Rod Serling's Twilight Zone Revisited have Gibson's name attached to them, I'm not sure about this one. Can anyone confirm or deny?

[sean]

On this Gibson page

www.hycyber.com/MYST/gibson_walter_b.html

it doesn't mention this volume. The TZ related ones by the him appear to be

--Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1960.

--Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Revisited, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1964.

--Chilling Stories from Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, Tempo, New York, 1965.

Checking against the contents lists, 'New Stories' isn't one of those volumes re-named or anything. The Fantastic Fiction site lists the Serling-penned adaptations as

Stories from the Twilight Zone (1960)

More Stories from the Twilight Zone (1961)

From the Twilight Zone (1962)

New Stories from the Twilight Zone (1962)

Rod Serling Into the Twilight Zone (1963)

as well as a 1980 'Complete' TZ stories collection.