Even Clive Barker Would Flinch: The Horror Paperbacks of Gene Lazuta

Late '80s and early '90s horror writer Gene Lazuta was born on this date in 1959. Lazuta wrote several paperback originals under pseudonyms (as well as a mystery series), but did not continue his career as a horror author; indeed, you can see his professional bio here. While the cover art is striking and in keeping with totemic pulp horror imagery—drippy typeface, fangs, skulls, hands crawling out of eyes—I haven't read any of these titles, and I don't think I've seen any in the wild when I'm out haunting used bookstores, so I can't tell you whether Barker would actually flinch or not! Bloodshot Books reprinted 1992's Vyrmin in 2016.

 

 

Blood of Nostradamus Trilogy by Andrew Laurance (1991): Eye of the Prophet

Consisting of three occult horror novels originally published a decade prior in the UK under different titles, Blood of Nostradamus (Diamond Books/1991) is the work of one Andrew Laurance, the pen name of a French-British author André Launay. Not sure if the original novels, the titles of which you see on the paperback covers, were related; seems like that "Blood of Nostradamus" titling (and I suspect the trilogy-izing) was an after-the-fact creation by the publisher. Speculation on my part; I had never heard of any of this till this very day.

Nostradamus and his supposed prophesying is a topic that bores me to tears. Going by the back-cover copy, these don't sound too terrible, but I really have no idea and probably won't find out. In my research I see that Diamond Books reprinted several other of his early '80s horror novels, including Ouija, The Black Hotel, and Catacomb. Haven't seen any of these out in the wild at all, and I wonder if any horror fiction readers have any familiarity with them. Let me know!

Jack Cady Born Today, 1932

Read a nice little bio of the late Mr. Cady from Valancourt Books, who recently republished his well-regarded 1981 horror novel The Well. Cady was a beloved creative writing teacher in the Pacific Northwest and published works in the horror, science fiction, and historical fiction genres, as well as dark fantasy under the pseudonym Pat Franklin (with decidedly '90s cover art!).

 

The Bloody Books of Halloween Continues!

Everybody be sure to read Grady Hendrix's latest Bloody Books of Halloween review of the outrageous 1991 novel Wurm by Matthew J. Costello! My God, what a blast it sounds like. Anyway Costello's got some other excellently skeletal '80s and early '90s paperback covers as well: