Edited by Justin Marriott
January 2020
Well, here we go with another 'reviews' special from UK author Justin Marriott, compiled from the pages of his bookzine of the same name (which is up to issue No. 8, as of 2019).
[My review of Marriott's Men of Violence bookzine is posted here. An interview with Marriott, which provides all manner of insights into his KDP Print / POD catalog - all available at amazon - of bookzines devoted to vintage paperbacks and other media, is available here.]
In his Introduction, Marriott states that the 130 reviews in this Special cover the time interval from 1918 - 1998 and use a maximum five-star rating system. The media covered include paperback books; comics; and magazines. Most of the reviewed materials are accompanied by a black-and-white scan / photograph of the cover.
Needless to say, if you are a fan of paperback horror, especially horror from the 60s to early 90s, then you are going to be familiar with some of the books and magazines presented in the pages of this Review Special. However, even ardent collectors of Paperbacks from Hell and / or readers of Too Much Horror Fiction are going to find some overlooked gems here. This is due in large part to the inclusion of titles published in the UK by the hallowed paperback firms of the New English Library, Corgi, and Pan.
There are some real wildcards present in this All Reviews Special: reviews of selected back issues of comic books and comic magazines from the 70s and 80s (like Bizarre Adventures, Nightmare, Psycho, Vampirella, and Twisted Tales) lend just the right note of eccentricity by standing alongside reviews of such gems as Norman Bogner's Snowman, Edward Jarvis's Pestilence, and Robert Holdstock / Robert Faulcon's 'Nighthunter' series.
Sadly, even as I read through the pages of 'Pulp Horror: All Reviews Special Edition' I did so with the knowledge that 90% of the profiled titles are out of print, and have steep prices (on amazon, a copy in 'good' condition of Angus Hall's 1971 Beagle Books novelization of the movie Scars of Dracula will cost you $29).
Still, having a copy of 'Pulp Horror: All Reviews Special Edition' at hand is a good thing, for when you are perusing the shelves of a used bookstore, or maybe poking through some paperbacks piled onto a table in an Antiques Mall, or noticing a box of paperbacks shoved into the back corner, behind a broken lawnmower, in someone's garage. You never know when and where a treasure described within its pages, might come into your life..............
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