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Thursday, July 9, 2015

Today in Horror Birthdays

Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775 - 1818), who wrote the lurid Gothic novel The Monk, published in 1796. Here you see the 1975 Avon paperback

Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), author of the first true Gothic romance The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). Date unknown for this Penguin paperback.

Dean R. Koontz (1945), the man behind bestsellers too numerous to count. I liked Watchers (1987) and Lightning (1988) back in high school. These are the first-edition Berkley paperbacks.

The ever-enigmatic Thomas Ligotti (1953), whose exquisitely weird short fiction was first collected in Song of a Dead Dreamer back in 1985 by Silver Scarab Press.

And Philip Nutman (1963-2013), journalist and author. His "Full Throttle" was a terrific entry in 1990's Splatterpunks

5 comments:

  1. Keene's THE RISING is often given the nod as the work that largely created the zombie craze we now have in popular culture. I've often wondered why Nutman's fine novel didn't do the same, but earlier, given that it was published some ten years before. Perhaps it isn't as good (I read both too long ago to compare fairly) or maybe it just wasn't the right time for America to embrace zombies as a cultural phenom...sometimes timing and luck are everything.

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  2. Really want to read 'Wetwork'. Wasn't it an expansion of a short story, or novella?
    I don't think there has been a novel more over rated, or over hyped, in the genre, than 'The Rising'. Staggers me that it has such a following.

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    1. The Rising is very overrated like you say. I mean zombie trees!!!????

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  3. The novel is based on a short story of the same name that appeared in Skipp & Spector's BOOK OF THE DEAD in '89.

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  4. Thanks, Will.
    I have 'Book of the Dead', so will check out the short story asap.

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