And here I was thinking I'd already found the best in
canine carnage cover art! Foolish me. Playboy Paperbacks went for the throat with
The Accursed (Dec '82) and
The Haven (1977). Who knew the entrance to the underworld was paved with bathroom tiles?
Standard creepy kids cover with
The Banished (Nov '81), while the moody
Earthbound (Sep '82) is excellent; Swanson is a
Richard Matheson pseudonym.
Another monster?! Oh
Hellstone (Jan 1981), you tease.
Then we get the starkly named
Hex (May '80),
Death (Aug '82),
Nightmares (Sep '79),
Terrors (Jul '82), and
Horrors (Oct '81) all but the first quiet-horror anthologies. I love that they're actual photos! Blood and bone, baby, that's all you need. And a refrigerator magnet alphabet.
I had a copy of Night-Mares, once upon a time ago . . . I vividly remember that cover.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading my Dad's copy of The Haven over summer vacation back in the '80's. I was expecting something like Wolfen. But i was a more a weird mix of Middle Earth fantasy and horror.
ReplyDeleteWonderfully ridiculous in general, although the Earthbound cover is actually pretty decent.
ReplyDeleteI have a copy of Hellstone and never read it, I just love books fiction or non that have to do with Loch Ness. These Playboy covers seem understated to me compared to later 1980's Zebra horror novels but they are still remind me why I love horror novels in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading my brothers's copy of The Haven over summer vacation back in the '80's..
ReplyDeleteOttoman beds
The cover to The Banished gives off a Children of the Damned / Midwich Cuckoos kind of vibe.
ReplyDeleteI flirted with buying The Accursed for about 20 years. A Book Rack in Pensacola, Florida had a copy and I saw it there every year when I went for summer vacation. Every year I'd go back, and every year it'd still be there, and every time I'd want it for the cover, but something about the plot description turned me off. I probably would've eventually bought the damned thing if that Book Rack hadn't gotten flooded out in Hurricane Ivan. Alas, missed opportunity. Helluva cover, anyway.
ReplyDeleteMatheson hated that version of "Earthbound" (because the editor rewrote it).
ReplyDeleteI read the revised version that came out under Matheson's real name, and it was decent. Not one of his best.
If I remember right, it's along the lines of the movie "What Lies Beneath."
I vividly remember Steven Spruill because he insisted on lambasting me over a bad review of Ray Garton's 'Ravenous'. I said I'd be happy to entertain his opinion, and asked him what he liked about the book. He replied that Ray Garton had received a Grand Master of Horror Award, and didn't deserve some no-name punk like me slamming his books.
ReplyDeleteI said that didn't really tell me what he liked about the book, and asked in what sense he thought the review was wrong. He said that I clearly didn't understand how prolific and talented Garton was.
I replied once again that this told me nothing about the book under discussion, and suggested that if he couldn't say anything about 'Ravenous', specifically, it told me that he was more interested in sticking up for a friend than in discussing literature. He didn't respond.
Long story short, Steven Spruill is probably loyal to a fault. :)
Need help here a second guys.. I'm one of those who grew up in the 80's and read a boatload of horror paperbacks.. But there is one that I have forgotten the title..a Playboy paperback... I'll explain what happens-A rapist gets caught.. And nether regions are put in his tapered shut mouth... Anyone remember this one?
ReplyDeleteJohn Seavey--You should read the comments on my Laymon reviews!
ReplyDeleteSkippyflip--I'll post this description on a future Horror Fiction Help post. I have good luck finding stuff w those, so be sure to check back.
Two years later!
ReplyDeleteI found a copy of The Accursed at my local downtown bookstore. It's not a straight up horror novel. Most of it begins as a standard medical thriller and then towards the end it goes into a dark fantasy of Greek mythology with Cyclops in human form hunting down the last descendant of Ascelpius as part of an ancient revenge plot. The beast on the cover plays a minor part in the story. It's actually not bad and for a Playboy novel there's really no hardcore sex apart from a short uncomfortable assault scene, and gore is pretty tame.