Super-Science Fiction

[dem bones]

Another corker of a pulp I'd have been very unlikely to experience were it not for the lovely folk at SFAudio, PulpCovers& Co. Super-Science Fiction, ed. W. W. Scott, Headline Publications, Dec. 1956 - Oct. 1959 (18 issues).

Emsh

It was a hideous, horrible THING on a gruesome errand.

Alex Merriman (Robert Silverberg) - The Thing In The Attic (Super-Science Fiction, Aug. 1959).

Eighteen-year-old Ed Donaldson and girlfriend Lina, almost sixteen, elope to Harmon City, away from their square parents and nosey parker neighbours, who say it's too soon for them to get married.A horrible, stormy afternoon, raining so hard you can barely see the road ahead, and Ed's worried he'll crash uncle's car and kill them both. Just in the nick of time, they spot a big, spooky old deserted farmhouse. Ed insists on exploring their shelter for the night from cellar to attic in case anybody left behind some treasure. Lina's not best pleased to be left alone. The place gives her the creeps, but she tells herself she's just being silly. There's nothing to be scared of. Which is when Lina hears the scream from above and opens a closet to find it crammed with human bones ....

Emsh

The doctor was frightened - as well he might be!.

Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake) - Birth Of A Monster (Super-Science Fiction, Aug. 1959). Those ghastly ghouls that have escaped the grave by feeding on a diet of blood from the living are the deadly enemy of all mankind, the unholy vampires.

In answer to a late night phone call , Dr. Lamming makes a mercy dash to an address on Larchmont Road to deliver a child. Funny, the gloomy old place stood deserted for years and he'd not realised anybody had moved in, but then Anton Cargill and his wife are a strange pair, thin and chalk-white pale, probably artists or something equally weird. It's only when, after the first bloodless birth in history, he catches sight of the new mum's fangs that Lamming realises what she is and what must be done. He doesn't mess about.

Both stories are sheer essence of 'fifties pulp horror and at least one ends on a delightfully grim note. Want more.

[helrunar]

Wonderful post, Lord Demonik.

I think "Mournful Monster" is going to be my Halloween costume for 2016.

cheers, Helrunar

[dem bones]

Emsh

Robert Silverberg - The Fight With The Gorgon: (Super-Science Fiction, Oct. 1958). "Flaherty's dead, and there's something out there that killed him." But what? According to biologist, Kal Framer, the planet Bellatrix IV is entirely devoid of animal life, and yet something turned the unpopular Irishman to stone! The seven survivors set off in search of the killer. Poor Phil Janus, the ship's chronicler, is the next to wind up stiff in a big way, but at least now Lieutenant Joel Kaftan and his men know what they're up against; a gigantic, multi-tentacle faced fiend who petrifies with but a glare!

Doc Steeger, the frog-pox scarred medical officer with the titanium legs, suggests they try taking down the creature with a synchronised laser attack. It's a helluva crazy stunt top pull, but it might just work!

[dem bones]

Was Jon just the victim of a cruel, sadistic sport?

James Rosenquest - Man-Hunting Robot: (Super-Science Fiction, Aug. 1959).

Emsh

" .... it swept down the slope toward his futile refuge, flailing the air with its four-fold compliment of surgical appendages: scalpel, scissors, bone-saw and clamp .....A small but blinding beacon sprang into life on top of the knobby bulge that served as a head and swept over the channel hall."

The BORING FUTURE. With machines doing all the work and the welfare state providing handsomely for all, most everyone is so content with their lot that entertainment is hard to come by. Seigneur Duplessis, among the richest men in the solar system, and Jon Pierce, "plebeian" no-mark, want more. Duplessis, his space yacht moored off the desolate, former pleasure planet Sybaris,
evidently seeks the ultimate cheap thrill, Jon wants a part of the elite. So when the former places an ad in the newspapers - "Wanted, young man, daring and courageous. Ten thousand credits for two hours' work." - the latter applies.

It is all very simple. Evade the Seigneur's man-hunting robot for two hours and Jon Pierce will be welcomed into the upper echelons of society. Lose, and there'll not be much left of him to regret it. Of course, Duplessis didn't get where he is today by playing fair ...

Ending is a bit meh but for the most part a proper thrilling candidate for any imaginary Future Sport is Horror anthology.