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Post by andydecker on May 17, 2020 13:00:43 GMT
Robert Black – Death Angel ( Pageant Books, 1988, 236 p.) IT WAS A SUMMER NO ONE WOULD FORGET
The method was the same for each doomed child. First came a warning, a page torn from the Book of Exodus enclosed in a letter.. Then each little boy received a package containing a gruesome reminder of the evil to come. Finally, the evil would come a-calling. It had already come 28 times that summer. Johnny Wright got his letter … then the horrible package. Now all he can do is wait for Death Angel to come a-calling …The question who wrote this is a bit puzzling. The Isfdb lists this under Robert Holdstock. As Robert Black he wrote a few novelizations of rather obscure horror movies like Legend of the Werewolf.
But in the novel the writer is named as Robert Black, a reporter for the Shenandoah Evening Sentinel and founder of the Iowa Society of Hospital Public Relations. Now writer's bios in books are often made up, but Hospital Public Relations appear even for that really far out. The photo shows an elderly man right out of a 60s American news show. There also was an Shenandoah Evening Sentinel, which still may be published today or not. So if this wasn't a joke, I guess this Robert Black is not Robert Holdstock. The story unfolds in Iowa, starting in 1934 and ending in the 80s. Seems to more about a serial killer with not supernatural angle. And if one reads the last chapter - I never came to reading the novel, just bought it because of the Holdstock connection - a dull one too.
On Holdstock's website this novel is not listed in his bibliography. It is pretty clear, that his wasn't written by Holdstock and the entry in the Isfdb is wrong.
Pageant Books seems to have existed only for two years, according to the Isfdb a part of Random House. It is mostly generic looking Fantasy and SF, with a few Horror at the side. The embossed cover looks a bit better than the Fantasy and reminds one of Zebra.
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Post by Swampirella on May 17, 2020 13:07:20 GMT
Whoever wrote it, the story line certainly sounds both horrific and intriguing....
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Post by Dr Strange on May 17, 2020 13:56:21 GMT
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