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Post by dem on Mar 28, 2016 14:18:15 GMT
Yet another thread inspired by the extraordinary Pulp Horror 2. A nice lazy, eye candy post to set the tone. Mostly tie-ins, some, surprisingly, yet to receive anything more substantial than a mention in passing from us. The Neighbours storyzations have attracted more attention than Something Wicked This Way Comes! Richard Matheson - I Am Legend (Corgi 1971: Originally Fawcett, 1954) Dean Owen - Reptilicus (Monarch, 1961) John Wyndham - The Day Of The Triffids (Penguin, 1981: originally Michael Joseph, 1951) Mike Jahn - The Six Million Dollar Man: The Secret Of Bigfoot (Star, 1976) Richard Matheson - The Shrinking Man (Gollancz, 2003: originally Gold Medal, 1956) Jack Finney - Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (Sphere, 1981: originally Dell, 1954) |
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Post by dem on Mar 28, 2016 19:36:06 GMT
Talk among yourselves. Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes (Grafton, 1985: originally Hart-Davis, 1963) William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson - Logan's Run (Corgi, 1976. Originally Gollancz, 1969) Blurb: A.D. 2000
The Era of Youth
There were too many people — and not enough food. So they had — in an orderly and systematic fashion— to get rid of some of the people — the old ones — all those over the age of twenty-one ...
It was easily done. In the palm of everyone's right hand was embedded a crystal flower. In adults — all those over fourteen — the crystal shone crimson. And when the crystal turned to black it was time to report to a Sleepshop ...
Those who didn't report for annihilation — those who tried to escape — were hunted down by the Deep Sleep-men—and exterminated. Logan was a DS man—efficient, fast, cruel. But one day the crystal in Logan's hand began to flicker.... black .... red ..... black ... and Logan discovered he didn't want to die!Yvonne Navarro - Species (Bantam, 1995) Blurb: Based on the screenplay by Dennis Feldman
Beautiful, blond, and deadly, she is part alien and part human, a top-secret government experiment scheduled to be destroyed. But she has escaped and – driven by powers not even she understands, and an instinct she cannot control – she descends on Los Angeles with a single purpose: to mate and reproduce.
Now a special team of uniquely talented individuals has been assembled to stop her. The only problem is that their quarry is like nothing they've ever encountered, and all they have to go on is a growing trail of bodies and the knowledge that time is running out. For if they don't catch her before she reproduces, the planet will be seeded with the spawn of an unknown species – a species genetically superior to our own and with no known predators...Greg Cox - Godzilla (Titan, 2014) Blurb: The Official Movie Novelization
THE WORLD'S MOST REVERED MONSTER IS REBORN. A powerful story of human courage and reconciliation in the face of titanic forces of nature, when the awe-inspiring Godzilla rises to restore balance as humanity stands defenceless."The world's most revered monster?" I think Frankenstein's creation may have something to say about that. |
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Post by pulphack on Mar 29, 2016 8:04:53 GMT
Some nice covers and some memories there, but I kinda like the fact that it's very Vault for the Neighbours novelisations to have had more interest. That slightly perverse tendency to be distracted by the trashy is what stops us being too serious about what, truthfully, isn't meant to be taken that way in the first place. Convoluted sentence - need more coffee - but you know what I mean. Carry on with the covers, though, they're cracking!
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Post by andydecker on Mar 29, 2016 9:23:15 GMT
No Jenny Agutter on the cover on Logan's Run? Since when Gorgi showed so much restraint?
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Post by dem on Mar 29, 2016 14:13:30 GMT
No Jenny Agutter on the cover on Logan's Run? A lamentable error of judgement on part of the designer. H. G. Wells – The Valley Of The Spiders: Featuring Empire Of The Ants (Fontana, 1978: originally Fontana 1964, as The Valley Of The Spiders). A super sci-horror selection with a few ghost stories thrown in. John Urling Clark & Robin Beresford Evans - The Experiment (Sphere, 1979). Book of the film that wasn't but still might be. David Bischoff - The Blob (Star, 1989). Victor Norwood - Night Of The Black Horror (Badger, 1962). Outrageous rip-off of Joseph Payne Brennan's Slime. John Lymington - The Star-Witches (Hodder & Stoughton, 1965). See also The Night Spiders (Corgi, 1964) I can feel a Nebula award coming on. |
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Post by dem on Mar 30, 2016 11:34:15 GMT
Richard Lewis - Rabid (Mayflower, 1977) The ultimate dream team: David Cronenberg, Marilyn Chambers & Richard Lewis (!) David Cronenberg - The Brood (Mayflower, 1979) Blurb: From the creator of Rabid comes THE BROOD.
THE BROOD WILL TAKE YOU BEYOND FEAR, BEYOND TERROR, BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF THE MIND.
MORE FRIGHTENING THAN THE UNKNOWN ... SOMETHING YOU CAN'T CONTROL.Theodore Roszac - Bugs (Granada, 1984) John Farris - The Fury (Futura, 1982) Blurb: Robin and Gillian are 14 years old.
They were born with the power to speak without words -and kill
without contact ... They are THE FURYBrian Aldiss - Dracula Unbound (Grafton, 1992) Blurb WHEN LIFE, DEATH, PAST AND FUTURE ARE AT STAKE.
When Bram Stoker wrote one of the most famous novels in the world — Dracula — most people didn't realise that he had a little outside 'inspiration.' This came in the form of one Joe Bodenland from the 1990s who travelled back in time to secure Stoker's help on a desperate mission to save humanity from the Undead...
For Dracula is no mere character conjured up by a gifted scribe — he is undead and kicking, shrouded in wickedness bred by centuries of evolution. Stoker joins Bodenland in a crusade to exterminate all vampires once and for all. But the trail which begins in Utah in the 21st century ends far away in space and time, in a climax of devastating destruction.
A great page-whipping adventure merging supernatural horror with breathtaking science-fantasy, Dracula Unbound displays Aldiss at his romantic and imaginative best.Cover illustration: Chris FossSimon Bell - Morons From Outer Space (Virgin, 1985)
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Post by jamesdoig on Apr 1, 2016 9:08:07 GMT
Couple of beauts:   |
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Post by dem on Apr 11, 2016 8:40:15 GMT
Clouds Hate You! Fred Hoyle - The Black Cloud (Penguin, 1983: originally 1957) Blurb: A cloud of gas, of which there are a vast number in the Universe, approaches the solar system on a course that is predicted to bring it between the Sun and the Earth, shutting off the Sun's rays, causing incalculable changes on our planet.
The effects of this impending catastrophe on the scientists and politicians is convincingly described by Fred Hoyle, the leading Cambridge astronomer: so convincingly, in fact, that the reader feels that the events may actually happen.M. P. Sheil - The Purple Cloud (Allison & Busby, n.d. Originally 1901) Blurb: Spurred on by the love of a powerful and ambitious woman, Adam Jeffson becomes the first man to reach the North Pole. But his great discovery unleashes a deadly purple cloud smelling deceptively of peach blossom, which kills every living creature on the planet except Jeffson himself.
For seventeen years he runs amok, burning and destroying the remnants of the civilization of which he believes himself to be sole survivor, until prompted by mysterious voices he enters an underground tomb in Constantinople and there discovers a. strange new Eve ....
Front cover shows a detail from The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt courtesy of the Manchester City Art Galleries.
Cover design by Mick Keates.Michael Mannion - The Death Cloud (NEL, Sept. 1977) Blurb: Dorchester was just an average town; where nothing out of the ordinary ever happened — until .... DEATH CLOUD.
Suddenly huge stagnant black clouds of deadly poisonous gases descended on the town of Dorchester, mixing with the autumn fog, bringing tragedy and death to the local inhabitants.
There had been warnings, but these had only been ignored, ridiculed and scorned. The people had stayed and then it was too late — time had run out for those who had to face the DEATH CLOUD.Cover illustration: Tim White |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 11, 2016 9:49:34 GMT
THE PURPLE CLOUD is great.
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Post by dem on Apr 11, 2016 12:10:54 GMT
THE PURPLE CLOUD is great. Which doubtless explains why, all these years on, I've not got beyond the first page. Maybe if Allison & Busby had reproduced this artwork .... Cover & interior illustration, Stephen Lawrence, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, June 1949. Was very disappointed on learning that the doomed Dorchester of The Death Cloud is not the Dorset model with the cathedral and non-league football club but some rotten American imposter. |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Apr 11, 2016 15:37:03 GMT
Try a few more pages. It is completely insane (as is much of Shiel's stuff), and extremely entertaining. Although it inspired a whole genre, it is very different from other last-man-on-earth stories. For instance, at one point the protagonist goes on an extensive destruction spree.
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Post by severance on Apr 11, 2016 16:31:29 GMT
Sorry to be pedantic, Dem, but Dorchester - and Dorset, for that matter - doesn't have a cathedral.
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Post by dem on Apr 11, 2016 16:45:29 GMT
Sorry to be pedantic, Dem, but Dorchester - and Dorset, for that matter - doesn't have a cathedral. Mother of Dem is in for a crap day out then. She set out on a coach tour to Dorchester this morning to "see the cathedral"! Can't say I noticed one in the 'nineties, but assumed they must have thrown one together in meantime on the quiet. H. G.Wells - The Island of Doctor Moreau (Penguin Modern Classics, 1964) Blurb: H. G. Wells, the father of today's science fiction, remains unsurpassed as a creator of improbably probable situations, such as those depicted in The Island of Doctor Moreau (first published in 1896). A young naturalist, Edward Prendick, is shipwrecked, and finds himself stranded on a Pacific island, the headquarters of the sinister Doctor Moreau. Gradually Prendick realizes that Moreau, once a famous London vivisector, is carrying out his long-projected plan of `humanizing animals', moulding unfortunate beasts to the semblance of a human form. The island is populated by incredible creatures, half human, half animal; wolves, dogs, monkeys, and leopards have been transformed into Beast Men, capable of thought and speech. Moreau, his assistant Montgomery (ruled by his craving for drink), and Prendick are the only true humans on the island. And Moreau's greatest fear is that the Beast Men will one day taste blood . . .
One of Wells's earlier novels, The Island of Doctor Moreau shows his vivid imagination at full stretch and its ability to enthral and to terrify remains as potent today as it was when the book was first written.
For Copyright reasons this edition is not for sale in the U.S.A.Cover drawing by Charles RaymondA. C. Crispin - V (Nel, 1984) Blurb: TRY TO RESIST
They arrived - tens of thousands of extraterrestrial beings - in huge spaceships the size of a modern metropolis. They came from a dying planet.
All they wanted, in exchange for their vast knowledge of science and technology, was a small share of the Earth's natural resources.
Theirs was a mission of peace ... and mankind believed them. Until they began to multiply into an army of alien invaders. Until men, women and children - entire cities - began to vanish from the Earth. Until the horrifying reality behind their mission of peace - a reign of terror reminiscent of Nazi Germany on a global scale - created the human imperative ...
RESIST OR PERISH! |
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Post by Shrink Proof on Apr 11, 2016 17:41:11 GMT
A fine selection here, although with one pretty glaring error. I really wouldn't file "Morons from Outer Space" under Sci-Horror. Admittedly I haven't actually read the book itself, but I really couldn't take the risk after seeing the film. About the only positive thing I can say about that piece of celluloid sewage is that it was in colour. A comedy?? Yeah, right. It was several days before I was back on solid food...
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Post by pulphack on Apr 11, 2016 18:36:59 GMT
No cathedral in Dorchester, but a really good market (though I think that's on a Thursday) and a really great earthern burial circle on the edge of the old town. Mother-of-Dem should do a coach trip to Sherbourne as they have a really nice Abbey.
But back on topic (ish) the main reason I bought that anthology Dem unearthed for me on the Spitalfields stall a few weeks back was because it had a lot of MP Shiel in it, and I've read nowt beyond some Prince Zaleski stories in other anothologies - I must get a copy of The Purple Cloud as (make of this what you will) I trust Jojo's judgement.
And Morons From Outer Space? I agree with Dr Proof - Morons In The Producers Office would be more appropriate...
Edit: just checked after discussing with Mrs PH and according to Heritage Britain the Abbey Church at Sherbourne is classed as a cathedral. Not sure how the CofE view this, though.
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