Stephen King Born 9.21.47

Wow who didn't love the '80s??

Birthday Score!

A birthday bonanza of '80s horror paperbacks! Hit Powell's Books in downtown Portland today after a lovely birthday brunch with my wife (who found Monster in their Nautical Fiction section, of course). Really looking forward to Girl in a Swing, but I spent the afternoon drinking mimosas and re-re-re-re-reading this first paperback edition of Danse Macabre.

Stephen King: The Futura UK Paperbacks

In the mid-1980s and early 1990s about half of Stephen King's books were published in England under the Futura imprint (the others were published by New English Library (home of the redoubtable Guy N. Smith's Crabs series!). The covers, most differing wildly from the American counterparts, ain't too shabby—except that one for The Dead Zone; that's the lamest ever. Oh, and I don't remember any bats in the moonlight in Different Seasons.

Stephen King Speaking at the University of Dayton, March 1982

Shadowings: Reader's Guide to Horror Fiction, ed. by Douglas E. Winter (1983): Not Dark Yet... But It's Getting There

An unexpected find in a Washington used bookstore with an otherwise decidedly anemic horror section, Shadowings had been on my want list for years. Editor Douglas E. Winter was the preeminent horror critic of the 1980s, to me a kind of personal guiding light, and so I knew any "reader's guide" he put together had to be sought out. Subtitled The Reader's Guide to Horror Fiction, 1981-1982, it was issued by Starmont House, a small literary press specializing in SF/F/H criticism, and intended more for library reference shelves than for the casual everyday reader. It's an enlightening foray into the state of horror art in that decade so pivotal for the genre. Winter's foreward notes the burgeoning of the field, as well as his aim for this collection critical essays:

Criticism—effective, conscientious criticism—is not simply a means of informing the reading public about the availability of books. It is vital to the integrity and advancement of writers as well as of the literary form in which they work... traditionally [horror fiction] has found its best critics within the ranks of its working writers, as attested by H.P. Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature and Stephen King's Danse Macabre.

Shadowings isn't up in the rarefied heights of those two works (what is?!), but there's lots here to enjoy: Winter's own general overview of highlights and lowlights of the genre between '81 and '82 will blow up your to-read list, or at least get you to reassess titles and authors you've already read (The Delicate Dependency is disappointing?!). Stephen King contributes a short review of Red Dragon, praising the novel's "raw, grisly power" and laments the fact that "serious critics" won't deign to review such a work of suspense, even though "the best popular fiction can combine art with nearly devastating insights into The Way We Live Now."  

Karl Edward Wagner takes a look at "an original visionary," Dennis Etchison and his outstanding collection The Dark Country. Jack Sullivan covers Ramsey Campbell's short fiction, noting his "uncompromising bleakness" and "compression and intensity" as he moved from Cthulhu Mythos tales to his own "fragmented, jagged" psychological horror. Charles L. Grant reviews Peter Straub's Shadowland, Alan Ryan reviews titles by Charles L. Grant, Michael McDowell, and Thomas Tessier, Winter himself talks to David Morrell about the part violence plays in fiction, while others like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, John Coyne, and Suzy McKee Charnas also weigh in (no one more perceptively than Etchison, however: "I submit that death, like anything else in art, may be used as a symbol"). Also included are several essays on "modern" horror films, Cronenberg, Creepshow, et. al. All this and more!

Douglas Winter, 1985

One can find copies of Shadowings online for around $10, which is what I paid for it; I'd say it's worth the sawbuck for an in-depth tour through early '80s horror at ground zero, back when Stephen King had published novels that numbered in the single digits and nobody yet, no matter what they thought, had seen the future of horror. Also: dig that typeset!

You Wanna Be A Dog?

You can, with this Cujo promotional mask, 1991.

Throwback Thursday

Oh, there should have been so many more pictures like this.

Happy Birthday Stephen King!

Stephen Edwin King born on this date in 1947. But you knew that.

 

RIP Kirby McCauley, 1941-2014

Sad news about a major behind-the-scenes figure in horror/science fiction/fantasy fiction: agent and editor Kirby McCauley died on August 30 from diabetes complications (today is actually his birthday). He was Stephen King's first agent and was instrumental in King's earliest success, and worked with major figures in genre fiction. Also, far as I can tell, even sold a lil' something called Games of Thrones to Bantam for a little-known author named George R.R. Martin. McCauley edited the seminal anthology of modern horror, 1980's Dark Forces, which surely made the genre fresh and relevant for the post Exorcist/Rosemary's Baby age. 

Apparently there was little note of his passing, which is a crime. I only found out about it visiting ISFDB to see which genre writers were born today. Fortunately, the mighty Martin has a wonderful piece on McCauley; it is a must-read.

 

 

I offer a heartfelt, if belated, thanks to McCauley for all his contributions to the horror genre, and for his insistence that genre writers should have the best talent working in their favor so that their words can be read by millions.

Tangled Up in Blue

My Favorite Horror Reads of 2013

This year was the year I thought I had been dropping the ball on writing actual reviews of books I read. I found plenty of great horror covers to post, sure, but as far as reading, it seemed like I was slowing down, hitting too many snags with just okay books but not finding that something special I just had to share. But then I looked through this year's posts and saw that I'd really read some great books and short stories. Some were surprisingly satisfying rereads, and some were new and welcome to my pantheon of favorites. All would be stellar additions to your own bookshelves! Click on links to read my full reviews.

The Bad Seed by William March. The pitch-perfect exposé of a child's clinical sociopathy.
Borderlands edited by  Thomas F. Monteleone. One of the major anthologies of horror, filled with challenging, imaginative, unsettling short works.
The Brains of Rats by Michael Blumlein. Scalpel-sharp stories of medical madness and domestic doom.
Carrie by Stephen King. She still packs a powerful psychic punch after all these years.
Cast a Cold Eye by Alan Ryan. A quiet, cozy, creepy Irish ghost story.
Childmare by A.G. Scott. A teenage riot in sleepy London town.
Cold Moon over Babylon by Michael McDowell. Vengeful Southern ghosts, alternately quiet and grotesque.
Night Visions 3: The Hellbound Heart edited by George R.R. Martin. Stellar example of 1980s short horror fiction thanks to Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, and Lisa Tuttle.
The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories edited by Alan Ryan. Spectacular tales of the vampire from ages past and present.
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. Unparalleled popular fiction that dives deep into the pool of psychopathia.

Aaand one alternate: The Hunger by Whitley Strieber, a rich, violent, seductive novel of vampirism.

Additionally, I hit the jackpot several times throughout the year, scoring dozens of paperbacks at a local yearly book fair, while on vacation driving throughout Colorado, a random day at a regular haunt, and a brief Christmas visit to my hometown and the used bookstore I worked at while in college.

So you can see I've got plenty of reading material for 2014 - again, some rereads and some all-new to me - coming up, a review of a fairly well-known '80s horror novel in the next few days...

Paperback Horror: French Editions

Mon Dieu! Imagine my delight upon discovering these French editions of classic horror novels. French covers seem more likely to feature art that corresponds to the novel they adorn. J'ai Lu ("I read") is a French publisher, while "Épouvante" means "terror," so you can guess what's going on here.

At top is Joe Lansdale's blistering The Nightrunners (1987), and its French title translates nicely as "Children of the Razor."

Although this cover might look generic - snakes n' skulls! - both title (translating as "Scales") and image are relevant to the story John Farris tells in 1977's All Heads Turn As the Hunt Goes By.

"Mindless" - a perfect translation of Bad Brains, Kathe Koja's second novel from Dell/Abyss, published in '92, about a failed artist whose vision and imagination are being assaulted by a silvery nightmare.

1980's Firestarter's title was simply changed to Charlie, the little girl's name, which I like a lot as it links up with Carrie, Cujo, and Christine.

The black-and-white photos here of blank-eyed men make me think of the various kinds of WWII survivors, which Clive Barker touches upon in his first novel The Damnation Game, from 1985.

I haven't read Ramsey Campbell's 1986 novel The Hungry Moon, but I love how this cover evokes his gloomy, opaque, quiet style of horror.

This is kinda-sorta what's going on in Brian Hodge's third novel Nightlife (another Dell/Abyss title, from 1991); while it does involve some creature transformation, I don't remember any boobs.

Sometimes the French covers aren't so accurate; Nightwalkers, from '79, is a somber, ambiguous "werewolf" novel, and the subtle prose of Thomas Tessier is rarely if ever used for this kind of graphic monster shock.

A severed head adorning this cover for Song of Kali, Dan Simmons's seminal 1985 work of exotic horror? Mais oui.

And androgynous punk vampires, no doubt about it - this has got to be Poppy Z. Brite's classic first novel from 1992, Lost Souls (the French title is a literal translation this time).

More, as they say, to come!