Previous SFF Author: James Blish
(1917-1994)
Robert Bloch wrote a fan letter to H P Lovecraft at the age of 16. Lovecraft encouraged the young boy to begin writing fiction and to submit his stories to Weird Tales. Thus began a 60-year writing career that is one of the most distinguished in the horror and mystery field. Bloch is today most famous as the author of Psycho. He is also well-known for having said, “Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.”
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The Voice from the Edge Volume 3: Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes by Harlan Ellison & Robert Bloch
This is the third collection of Harlan Ellison’s short stories which he has narrated himself. Each of these Voice from the Edge audiobooks is quite excellent. I can’t say that I like every story — some of them are just too gross for me — but I can say that Ellison is a great storyteller and that there’s no better way to read his stories than to listen to him read them to you.
Kat Hooper and Stuart Starosta | Harlan Ellison, Robert Bloch | Audio, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch is justly famous for writing the scariest shower scene in history, even if it was Alfred Hitchcock’s movie that introduced it to a broader audience. Bloch is the author of Psycho, which introduced us to the cross-dressing, multiple personality-mass murder Norman Bates.
Over several decades Bloch wrote crime fiction, thrillers and horror. One recurring theme was that of the unsolved murders in Whitechapel, London in 1888, and the unknown killer with the nickname “Jack the Ripper.”
Subterranean Press has gathered together a collection of Bloch’s Ripper-themed work called Yours Truly,
Marion Deeds´s rating: 3 | Robert Bloch | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Viewers who tuned into the new Thriller program on NBC, on the night of September 13, 1960, a Tuesday, could have had little idea that the mildly suspenseful program that they saw that evening — one that concerned a male ad exec being stalked by a female admirer — would soon morph into the show that author Stephen King would later call “the best horror series ever put on TV.” The first eight episodes of Thriller came off as hour-long homages to Alfred Hitchcock Presents,
Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Charles Beaumont, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard | Film / TV, Horror | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors edited by Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg & Martin Greenberg
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 remembered 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” of 20th century horror and fantasy literature.
Weird Tales: The Magazine that Never Dies edited by Marvin Kaye
Marvin Kaye’s Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies anthology from 1988 takes a slightly different tack than its earlier sister volume, Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors. Whereas the editors of that earlier collection chose to select one story from each year of the magazine’s celebrated 32-year run (1923-1954), Kaye has decided here to not just limit himself to the periodical’s classic era of 279 issues, but to also include tales from each of the four latter-day incarnations of “The Unique Magazine”
Rivals of Weird Tales edited by Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz & Martin H. Greenberg
From 1923 – ’54, over the course of 279 issues, the pulp publication known as Weird Tales helped to popularize macabre fantasy and outré horror fiction, ultimately becoming one of the most influential and anthologized magazines of the century, and introducing readers to a “Who’s Who” of American authors. I had previously read and reviewed no fewer than six large collections of tales culled from the pages of “the Unique Magazine,” and had loved them all.
Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Anthony Boucher, C.L. Moore, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, H.P. Lovecraft, Henry Kuttner, Jack Williamson, L. Sprague De_Camp, Manly Wade Wellman, Norvell W. Page, Philip K. Dick, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, Theodore Sturgeon | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Weird Vampire Tales: 30 Blood-Chilling Stories from the Weird Fiction Pulps edited by Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, Martin H. Greenberg
The 1992 Weird Vampire Tales anthology is the only collection of stories derived from the famed pulp magazine Weird Tales to limit itself to a single subject. The slim paperbacks Worlds of Weird and Weird Tales had merely offered a hodgepodge of stories, as did the thick hardcover Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies.
Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Clark Ashton Smith, Henry Kuttner, Manly Wade Wellman, Robert Bloch | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror edited by John Betancourt & Robert Weinberg
This is the seventh anthology that I have reviewed that has been drawn from the pages of Weird Tales, one of the most famous pulp magazines in publishing history. Each of the previous collections had employed its own modus operandi in presenting its gathered stories. Weird Tales (1964) and Worlds of Weird (1965) had been slim paperbacks featuring previously uncollected stories. The Best of Weird Tales: 1923 (1997) had spotlighted tales solely from WT’s very first year.
Sandy Ferber´s rating: 5 | Brian Lumley, C.L. Moore, Clark Ashton Smith, Eric Frank Russell, Fritz Leiber, Gene Wolfe, H.P. Lovecraft, Henry Kuttner, Manly Wade Wellman, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Nancy Springer, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ray Bradbury, Ray Russell, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, Robert Sheckley, Tanith Lee, William Hope Hodgson | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
I haven’t actually read every page of The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, yet I’m giving it my highest recommendation. Edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, Master and Mistress of Weird, The Weird is 1126 pages long and should really be considered a textbook of weird fiction. It contains 110 carefully chosen stories spanning more than 100 years of weird fiction.
Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Abraham Merritt, Caitlín R. Kiernan, China Mieville, Clark Ashton Smith, Clive Barker, Daniel Abraham, Elizabeth Hand, Fritz Leiber, George R.R. Martin, H.P. Lovecraft, Harlan Ellison, Haruki Murakami, Jeff VanderMeer, K.J. Bishop, Kelly Link, Laird Barron, Lisa Tuttle, Liz Williams, Lord Dunsany, Lucius Shepard, M. John Harrison, Margo Lanagan, Mervyn Peake, Michael Chabon, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Stephen King, Tanith Lee | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Previous SFF Author: James Blish
What a perceptive and beautiful review. You make it clear that Yamada not only knows the story she wants to…
Read together with The Serpent Mage, the series is one of the best works of art out there. The main…
thanks for this really well-written review. You've definitely piqued my interest in this, particularly in how you highlight the still…
Thanks for the kind words, Ira! Much appreciated!
Fine review