collection! Mustread for fans of livid prose! Fantastic collection of stories, My favorite was probably C, M. Eddy's The Love Dead, a dark and disturbing comedy about a young necrophiliac who gets a job at a morgue to be with the kind of people he loves.
the second book of weird tales and i adored it, absolutely mesmerising! Though hardly a runaway success in its day, and a publication that faced financial hardships for much of its existence, the pulp magazine known as "Weird Tales" is today revered by fans and collectors alike as one of the most influential and prestigious.
Anthologies without number have used stories from its pages, and the roster of authors who got their start therein reads like a "Who's Who" ofth century horror and fantasy literature.
During itsyear run, from, and in itsissues, "Weird Tales" catered to a select readership that could not help but be impressed by early efforts from the likes of Robert E.
Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, C. L. Moore, Henry Kuttner, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson and dozens of others, "Weird Tales:Unearthed Terrors," unlike some of the other books that have cherry picked the best from the magazine's pages, takes a slightly different approach.
Its editors have selected one story from each year of the magazine's run not necessarily the "best" story of that year, but the one that the editors felt has been the most unjustly underappreciated, or too rarely anthologized, or simply most in need of a reappraisal.
The result ispages of some of the finest imaginative writing that any reader could ask for, Simply put, this is one helluva collection,
Several of the stories here are fairly well known, Lovecraft's complete posthumous novel, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," an offshoot of his "Cthulhu Mythos," has generously been offered as the token tale from.
Fredric Brown's "Come and Go Mad," a gripping tale of paranoia "Dust of Gods," a C, L. Moore story featuring spaceman Northwest Smith and Robert E, Howard's "The Shadow Kingdom," featuring the first appearance of King Kull, are all here, and are welcome presences, always, But there are also lesserknown works from writers who would one day become quite well known "Weird Tales" was as much an incubator and proving ground for horror and fantasy writers as "Astounding ScienceFiction" was for the scifi author.
Thus, we have stories here such as's "Let's Play Poison," an eerie tale of some devilish children, by a bloke named Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, in what can almost be seen as a warmup for his later, terrific novel "Hell House," here gives us "Slaughter House" one of the scariest stories in the whole collection, I might add.
Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl appeared only once in "Weird Tales," in, with their very amusing tale of a ghostly court case, "Legal Rites," and that story is here, too.
Other wellknown names in this volume include Edmond Hamilton, with a wonderful story of evolution run amok, "Evolution Island" Jack Williamson, telling the story of a scientist's matter materialization experiments gone horribly wrong, in "The Wand of Doom" Fritz Leiber, and his very humorous story of a supernatural firearm, "The Automatic Pistol" and Robert Bloch's hilarious tale of a witch, a mermaid, a werewolf, a tree nymph and a vampire, "Black Barter.
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Even nicer than encountering unknown works from old friends, however, is making the acquaintance of new ones, and this anthology should serve as an introduction to many readers of some terrific authors whose reputations died with "Weird Tale"'s demise.
C. M. Eddy's notorious story "The Loved Dead," with its creepy necrophiliac protagonist, should long linger in the memory it caused a scandalous sensation back in, Nictzin Dyalhis I LOVE that name! contributes here a scifi tale of the Venhezians saving the men of Aerth from some particularly nasty Lunarians, and pulpy and primitive as "When the Green Star Waned" is.
. . well, I just loved it, C. Hall Thompson, in hisstory "The Will of Claude Ashur," attempted a Lovecraft pastiche that, if no Lovecraft, is still awfully darn good, Seabury Quinn, the author who appeared in more issues of "Weird Tales" than any other!, is of course represented here, with one of his wildly popular Jules de Grandin adventures, "Satan's Stepson," a tale of demon things and the Black Mass.
Another new author here for this reader, anyway is Gans T, Field, whosestory "The Hairy Ones Shall Dance" a modernday werewolf thriller made me an instant fan, H. Warner Munn provides an unforgettable story of atrocious torture, "The Chain," and Robert Barbour Johnson, in his story "Far Below," tells a tale sure to chill the bones of anyone who has ever ridden the N.
Y. C. subway. I, unfortunately, do so every day!
And there are many other wonders to be found in this generous collection I haven't even mentioned the excellent contributions from August Derleth, Theodore Sturgeon, Henry Kuttner, Clark Ashton Smith and so many others.
The book is indeed a treasure trove of fantastic literature, with concise introductions AND illustrations for each story, There is only one quibble that I would like to register here, and that is the inordinate number of typoshundreds of them, I'd sayscattered throughout the Weird Tales's almostpages.
As a proofreader and copy editor myself, I find it deplorable that such a wonderful collection was so carelessly composed, Had I known, I would have volunteered my services for free back in, to help guarantee that this tribute to such a legendary magazine could have received the immaculate presentation that it so well deserves.
Still, the presence of these regrettable printer's errors should in no wise deter any potential readers, The book is still amazing, and remains a very fine introduction and tribute to "The Unique Magazine, " I can't recall if I ever finished this book so I'm starting it again, Some very creepy stories so perhaps not the best for bedtime reading but it sure serves the purposequieting my mind down so I can fall asleep.
Introduction by Robert Bloch. A superb collection of short and some notsoshort horror stories from the pulp magazine, There's something for almost every taste here, and it's a good way to take a dip in the waters before diving headlong into the seas of Lovecraft, Clark AshtonSmith, or Bloch, to name a few.
Found this bit of gold at a used book store, It's the kind of book I will keep with me even if I lose all my other possessions, The pulp fiction contained within it is incredible, reminding us the pulps provided the most imaginative fiction America ever produced, The writing isn't always "literary," but who cares Life is weird, The only way to deal with it is weird fiction! This collection some of the best tales from the magazine's glory years of thes through thes.
Included are A SQUARE CANVAS, THE PARASITIC HAND, EVOLUTION ISLAND, THE SHADOW KINGDOM, THE ROOM OF SHADOWS, BLACK BARTER, CARNABY'S FISH, SOMETHING FROM OUT THERE, and SLAUGHTER HOUSE.
I encourage you to read this collection with the lights on, Too much fun!!! Bookstore find some stories very good some not so good! this book is the best thing you can do to reflect Very good, I enjoy reading the old ones, often I see old friends
in them and as often, the first time an idea has made it to print and by now we know it as some movie that little resembles the first time it hit the pages of a hit series like Weird Tales.
Visiting the past in these is also interesting, the daily lives of past generations often reveal things most of us wouldn't even consider as part of daily life and some are actually interesting to puzzle out.
Born in, Stefan Dziemianowicz works for the publisher Barnes Noble as an editor, .