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Post by dem bones on Dec 11, 2023 9:15:41 GMT
Stephen Jones [ed.] - Robert Silverberg’s Monsters and Things (Drugstore Indian Press, May 2023) Front Cover: Monsters & Things#2, Nov. 1958 Back: You Can't Cheat a Demon. Monster Parade#2, April 1959 Cover design Smith & Jones Stephen Jones - Foreword: Robert Silverberg: Master of Horror
Robert Silverberg - Introduction: Little Monsters
Freak Show
The Werewolf Gambit
Call Me Zombie!
Dig That Crazy Scientist
The Man Who Believed in Werewolves
Secrets of the Torture Cult
Coffins Are for Corpses
"Find Me a Victim"
Crossroads of the Ghouls
The Thing Behind Hell’s Door
Demons of Cthulhu
Mournful Monster
Vampires from Outer Space
A Cry for Help
You Can’t Cheat
Death’s Demon
The Undertaker’s Sideline
Guardian Devil
The Day the Monsters Broke Loose
Beasts of Nightmare Horror
The Horror in the Attic
Monsters That Once Were Men
Birth of a Monster
Planet of the Angry Giants
Which Was the Monster?
The Loathsome Beasts
The Monsters Came by Night
The Insidious Invaders
Stephen Jones - About the Author
Stephen Jones - About the Artist Blurb: GREETINGS, MONSTERS—HOW'S THINGS? DR. HEADSTONE CALLING...
It was so nice of Massey's wife to buy him such a plush coffin... the only thing was... Massey wasn't quite ready for it...
Diane was young and beautiful... and suffering from headaches... until that strange Dr. Malfetti began curing her... but the cure... heh-heh... the cure was lots worse than the disease...
It seemed to be human... but it was inside out, all the organs exposed... the heart was beating, the lungs breathing, the stomach digesting...and now, the Thing began to come toward him... its mouth working hideously...
The weird seven-foot purple bats had come to Earth to stay.... Terror ran wild over the land when rumours spread that they were vampires who killed to suck human blood...
Sure... you've heard about pacts with the Devil... and other Fiends of Distinction! If you were smart enough, you wouldn't have to lose your soul, though. Roland Hawkes was smart... and he lived past the deadline... he thought...
And now we meet a ghoul's best friend heh-heh... the undertaker! Catch on? He buries 'em... and I dig 'em up! Only... this particular undertaker is different... horribly different...! Sci-horror shorts from trashy late 'fifties rock 'n roll enhanced horror pulps. As with previous books in Jones' eclectic 'masters of horror' series, iIllustrated throughout by Randy Broecker. Birth of a Monster, which we met on Super-Science Fiction thread is here eronneously attributed to Silverberg.  Fantastic March 1957 : ( Fantastic March 1957, as by 'Hall Thornton'). The show was a success. The Crowds cheered and the band played. But which were the customers and which were the freaks? Twelve-year-old Davy Kilbourne hates his home town with a passion. Hoytsville is Dullsville, strictly for squares. Only thing to look forward to is the arrival of the travelling circus, specially the freak tent exhibiting "the twelve strangest denizens of the galaxy" including a multi-tentacled "Man from Mars." Phoneys for sure, but who cares? Maybe this year they'll take him with them ... The Werewolf Gambit: ( Adam Dec. 1957). Very Tales From The Crypt. Keller, ladies man, is having no joy with tonight's intended conquest until he tells her a massive great fib - "I'm a werewolf." Incredibly it does the trick. Lora the ice maiden thaws, excitedly accompanies Keller back to his place on the promise of witnessing the moment of metamorphosis. Cheery mindless pulp horror. Even if you've not read Robert Bloch's The Bogeyman Will Get You you'll have the ending figured.  Llewellyn, Fantastic Aug. 1957 : ( Fantastic Aug 1957). Phil Marsh came home to find a new set of laws. No man his own master; no freedom; no individuality. A world of puppets. So Phil had a mission — to find the puppeteer. What if all but a dozen people on the planet were marionettes, and you suddenly discovered you were among the twelve who could switch them on and off at will? Dig That Crazy Scientist: ( Monster Parade, Nov. 1958, as by 'Alex Merriman'). The old guy was a lot hipper than the hipsters thought. Teenage hoodlum Skip Brewster takes poorly paid work as assistant to sane MAD SCIENTIST, Prof. Hitchen's, 89, figuring the frail old relic is only one scare away from a fatal heart attack. Between chores, Skip devotes his time to locating the boffin's fortune.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 12, 2023 16:52:13 GMT
The Man Who Believed in Werewolves: (Monster Parade #2, Nov. 1958, as by 'Charles D. Hammer'). Mr. Janos Ferencz, a Hungarian refugee, is so infuriated at the bigotry and arrogance of Mr. Jorgenson, a studio guest on Big Jack's late night radio show, that he takes a taxi to the studio to confront him. Jorgenson dismisses the whole idea of werewolves as "childish myth, superstitious baggage handed down to us by a less sophistic age." Will Ferencz convince him otherwise.
Secrets of the Torture Cult: (Monster Parade #3 Dec. 1958, as by 'Hall Thornton'). "The man who possesses the stone has absolute power over the minds of any man within a fifteen-feet radius." A vast fortune is not enough for Matthew Blevins, who dreams of world domination. To this end, Blevens travels to Calcutta to steal or, if needs be, purchase the fragment from its caretakers. His contact, Dinesh Chandra, leads him to a cave where nine cultists are subjecting an obese idiot to the death of a thousand cuts. The American, realising theft is not an option, hands over $25,000. The stone is his — provided the souls of previous custodians regard him suited to such responsibility.
Crossroads of the Ghouls: (Monster Parade #3 Dec. 1958, as by 'Ralph Burke'). Fletcher, the corpse eater, Greeley (or Crosley - the proofreader clocked off early) the vampire, and Harrison the werewolf wait in ambush for the next lone motorist to reach the crossroads on the hill.
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Post by andydecker on Dec 12, 2023 17:57:36 GMT
I own the Gateway story collections which are their money worth alone for the introductions. Silverberg mentioned those stories here which at the time were not collected, but did not say much about them. The man was a writing machine and a keen business man. And even his commissioned stories which were written to suit a cover or to fill some left over space in a magazine are at least readable.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 13, 2023 12:48:44 GMT
I own the Gateway story collections which are their money worth alone for the introductions. Silverberg mentioned those stories here which at the time were not collected, but did not say much about them. The man was a writing machine and a keen business man. And even his commissioned stories which were written to suit a cover or to fill some left over space in a magazine are at least readable. Silverberg lets on in his introduction that he'd little option but to genre-hop when the Sci-fi market dried up. Back then, he didn't care for horror fiction, but once he got started, found he enjoyed writing the stuff. The Monster Parade stories are the solid, gleefully ghoulish comic book clichés I'd hoped for from the titles — just better done than most. Coffins Are for Corpses: ( Monster Parade Dec. 1958, as by 'David Challon'). Story perhaps better known as Back from the Grave ( Boris Karloff's Horror Anthology, 1965; Mary Danby [ed.], 65 Great Tales of Horror, 1981, 17th Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories, 1984, etc.) Three years into his wedding to a dream bride half his age, James Massey, a fantastically rich businessman, discovers Louise in bed with her long-time lover, Henry Marshall. A gloating Louise informs her distraught husband that she married him only on learning from the Doctor that a heart defect will do for him within a year or two at most. Marshall chimes in with a sneering "Die, you old fool! Die! Die!" James gradually recalls all this as he wakes up trapped inside a coffin .... "Find Me A Victim": ( Monster Parade Dec. 1958, as by 'Dan Malcolm'). Plagued by migraines, bride-to-be Diane decides against a visit to her family doctor and, on the recommendation of a friend, instead makes an appointment to see a Dr. Malfetti. The MAD VIVISECTIONIST duly cures her headaches, though, obviously, he requires something in return. |
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Post by dem bones on Dec 15, 2023 10:29:26 GMT
The last from Monster Parade which is a bit of a shame. Its been good fun getting to read this stuff. The Thing Behind Hell’s Door: ( Monster Parade #4, March 1959, as by 'Alex Merriman.') It seemed to be human .... but it was inside out, all its organs exposed ... the heart beating, the lungs breathing, the stomach digesting .... and now, the Thing began to come toward him .... its mouth working hideously. The previous occupant of the room, a scientist, nailed shut the closet, insisting landlady Mrs Garvey never allow it to be unsealed. Desperate for somewhere to hang his suit, the new tenant, Robert Harris, disregards her instructions to leave the wooden boards in place. He falls through the darkness into an inverted dimension, only escaping at ghastly personal cost.  Zachs: ( Monster Parade #4, March 1959, as by 'Charles D. Hammer.'). There are Beings who slumber beneath the earth whom even we here fear to disturb ... but Marty dared to call them forth to do his selfish bidding ... and he paid the lingering, hideous price. Marty, a teenage library assistant at Miskatonic University, is offered $10 by cadaverous grad student Theophilius Vorys to help him borrow a huge volume bound in black leather from the "special collection," ' The Necronomicon of Abdul Al-Hazred[/i]' or some such gibberish. Marty reneges on the deal, preferring to sell for big bucks to a rich New York dealer, but first he mya as well find out if these demon-raising spells actually work ... |
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Post by dem bones on May 5, 2024 10:03:59 GMT
Vampires From Outer Space: ( Super Science Fiction, April 1959; as by 'Richard F. Watson'). Harriman's particular job in the workings of the Terran Security Agency was to deal with crimes involving Earth-men and aliens. There was plenty of bad blood between the people of Earth and the strange-looking visitors from space. A planet which had not yet fully reconciled itself even to racial differences in its own species of intelligent life could not easily adjust to the presence of bizarre life-forms, some of them considerably superior to the best that Earth had. San Francisco, June 2104. Neil Harriman investigates the murder of a used-car salesman, exsanguinated alive by a spectacularly ugly seven-foot bat-man — a Nirotan. These Dracula-Men From the Stars are a private people who refuse to cooperate with the authorities even to prove their innocence of this appalling crime. All the investigator can get from their spokesthing is that his are a vegetarian race who could no more drink the blood of a disgusting earthling than Harriman could eat a Nirotan. With reports of identical 'vampire murders' in London and Warsaw, public anger against the bat-men erupts into violence. The Undertaker’s Sideline: ( Monsters & Things #2, April 1959, as by 'Richard F. Watson'). A nosey kid makes the shock discovery that Mike Terry, family butcher, and Mr. Tenneshaw, the Reeseport mortician, are one and the same meat-trader.  Emsh: ( 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. Dr. Lamming regrets his midnight mercy dash to conduct a home delivery at the decrepit mansion on Larchmont Road. Editor's preamble and accompanying illustration spell out why. The book had already gone to press before the editor found out the story wasn't Silverberg's. You Can't Cheat Death's Demon: ( Monsters & Things #2, April 1959, as by 'David Challon'). Roland Hawkes barters his soul in return for 21 years of ask-and-it-shall-be-yours — after which he'll be assigned PR duties on the Devil's recruitment team ("Administrative work is the worst torture Hell holds. Trust me: I know."). To seal the deal, the demon brands him with an ineradicable mark. As the clock runs down, a desperate Hawkes seeks a loophole.
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Post by dem bones on May 7, 2024 18:16:25 GMT
Mournful Monster: (Super Science Fiction, April 1959, as by 'Dan Malcolm'). It was huge, massive, with a hide of scales, legs like tree trunks and a fanged mouth of utter horror. Yet it was unmistakably intelligent and filled with sadness. Five survivors of an air crash on Loki face a thousand-mile trek through hostile jungle to reach the nearest town. David Marshall, a 27-year-old anthropology student, takes charge over his fellow earthlings — colonists Clyde and Estelle Garvey, and financier Nathan Kyle — and 19-year-old Thorian looker, Lois Chalmers, a Governor's daughter [spoiler: the-one-you-know-is-going-to-die-horribly dies horribly]. Along the way, they euthanize a death-seeking fifty-foot pterodactyl-eating telepath, last survivor of a race who ruled Loki 20,000 years ago. He repays the kindness by transmitting their location to a search party. Very Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe circa Supernatural Stories (!)
The Thing In The Attic: (Super-Science Fiction, Aug. 1959 as by 'Alex Merriman'). It was a hideous, horrible THING on a gruesome errand. 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. Ed's worried he'll crash uncle's car and kill them both. Just in the nick of time, they arrive at a big, spooky, deserted farmhouse. Ed insists on exploring the attic — "maybe there's an old trunk full of money or something." Lina is already on edge before she opens a cupboard piled high with bones and her lover screams above ...
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