Stephen Gresham Born Today, 1947

According to his informative website, author Stephen Gresham wasn't thrilled with these Zebra paperback covers for his novels. Can't say I blame him, but looking back on 'em today, hoo boy. Awesome. Credit goes to illustrators David Mann (Runaway), Lisa Falkenstern (Rockabye Baby and Shadow Man), Jim Thiesen (Blood Wings) and Richard Newton (Abracadabra).

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Stephen King!

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

 

Summer of Sleaze Comes to an End

And so we've reached the final installment in Tor's Summer of Sleaze series. Grady Hendrix and I sure had a blast writing 'em, and seems like readers enjoyed learning about vintage forgotten horror fiction and writers. For this last post I reread and reviewed Ray Russell's guilty-pleasure Incubus, his 1976 novel of demonic perversity. You know you love it!

Victim of Agony: The Horror Paperbacks of Florence Stevenson

I am not much sure who Florence Stevenson is but going by these paperbacks of hers written throughout the late '60s, '70s and into the horror heyday of the 1980s, she wrote the gamut: quiet horror, Gothic horror, witches, vampires, even cat lady horror--I love Ira Levin's blurb on Ophelia (Signet/Apr 1969): "fresh, delectable, refinedly sexy."

Amazon lists dozens of her paperback novels. The cover art on all of these offers much to be enjoyed, from the creepy-kid vibe of A Feast of Eggshells (Signet/Dec 1969--and don't miss that body at the bottom of the stairs) to the proto-paranormal romance imagery of Moonlight Variations (HBJove/Jan 1981), or the delicious bosomy Gothic of The Curse of the Concullens (Signet Gothic/Nov 1976) and The Witching Hour, to the luridly overdone '80s covers for Household (Leisure/Mar 1989) and The Sisterhood (Leisure/Oct 1989).

 

 

I found only the most basic biographical info on a romance site; if anyone knows anything more, let us know. And oh yeah, if you've read any of these too!

The Unfinishing

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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.

Horror Fiction Help XIV

Okay everybody, you know how it goes, who can help some TMHF readers track down these lost and forgotten horror novels?

1. It's no older than 1993, and I believe it was a paperback. The cover had a very deep blue tint, a haunted looking house in the distance with a log in the foreground, perhaps a felled tree, and above the house was a giant skull with its hands around the house.

2. A large image of a skull filling up the cover with type above it.  A very straight-on and brightly/flatly-lit (not shadowy) shot of a skull, but I think perhaps a skull-headed figure (perhaps from the top of the shoulders on up) wearing clothes (and a hat?) - but with a straight-up skull head, and done in a fairly "realistic" style I think.  After looking online at countless 1970s (not '60s or earlier) paperback covers I'm sure, based on my basic memory of the cover layout + illustration, that it would have been ten years old or less at that time.  Found! It's: 

3.  I think I read it in the late '70s.  It most likely would have been in the horror genre section of the library, since that was my big interest back then. The main character was a young teenage girl, whose mother was dead (possibly had recently died). Her father was devastated by grief, and didn't pay much attention to the girl. As she matured, she bound her breasts down with tape...I assume to try to stay a little girl, and keep from growing up. At the end of the book, she unbound her breasts, let her hair down, dressed as an adult, and went to her father, pretending to be, or possibly believing she was, his dead wife (her own mother). Found! It's:

4.  A fairly well-to-do couple move from the city to a place in the woods (I even think they're renovating the place they buy). The wife is doing research in the area about the mountain folk who have been inbreeding and eventually comes to respect them... but of course there's some sort of menace in the woods. I remember she throws a fit at a high society party, a handsome but shady local laborer, and that she finds safety with the inbreds. Found! It's:

Misquamacus and the Summer of Sleaze

The Summer of Sleaze at Tor.com is nearing its end; today my article on Graham Masterton's wonderful first novel The Manitou (1976) is up; be sure to check it out!

Snakes... Why'd It Have to Be Snakes?