Book Review: The Portals

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Book Review: 'The Portals' by Edward Andrew Mann

2 / 5 Stars

'The Portals' first was published in hardcover in 1974. This Granada / Panther edition (204 pp.) was released in the UK in 1975.

The novel is set in California in the early 1970s. In the opening chapters we are introduced to protagonist Cary Ralston, an attorney whose practice has provided him with a very comfortable lifestyle, including a home in Beverly Hills. On a trip to France, Ralston decides to attend an auction held at the estate of the late aristocrat Henri de Chantille, a man with an interest in archeology and philology. An avid collector of antiquarian books, Ralston bids on, and wins, a box of books from de Chantille's library. When back at his home in the Hills, Ralston pokes through the box, where he finds a massive tome written in a strange language. 

Excited by this discovery, Ralston peruses the book, and realizes that it dates from medieval times (or even earlier) and it may deal with various aspects of magic and the occult, as a previous owner has annotated the text with the words 'Mu', 'Necronomicon', and 'The Philosopher's Stone'.

Ralston arranges for Professor Nelson, an archeologist at the nearby University of California Los Angeles, to examine the book in detail. While Nelson is stymied by the arcane language used in the book, he does see some success by asking physicists and mathematicians to decipher the symbols used in what appear to be equations contained in the text. 

As work progresses on the book, eerie events intrude: Nelson has strange dreams of otherworldly places and entities. Could the book in fact be a 'portal' in the sense of unlocking the human subconscious, and allowing it to experience things from either the distant past, or the far future ?

When a gruesome murder takes place in Los Angeles, and the victim has links to the effort to translate the book, addressing the book's function as a portal becomes even more important. But as Cary Ralston and his colleagues are to discover, there are some Eldritch Secrets that best are left alone.......

Within the first few pages of reading 'The Portals' I began wondering if the book had in fact been written by the UK writer Colin Wilson (1931 - 2013) using the pseudonym 'Edward Andrew Mann'. This is because 'The Portal' is very reminiscent of Wilson's novels 'The Mind Parasites', 'The Philosopher's Stone', and the nonfiction 'The Occult'. There is much of Wilson's approach to prose in 'The Portal', including all manner of esoteric allusions to lost civilizations; the conflict between the Cthulhu Mythos's Elder Gods and Great Old Ones; and the doctrines of Theosophy, ESP, astral projection, and the hidden powers of the human mind, all components of Wilson's philosophy of 'New Existentialism'. Indeed, later in the novel Wilson's term 'Faculty X' is introduced. 

Unfortunately, 'The Portals' fails to do anything exciting with these tropes. Much of the narrative is static in nature, focused on lengthy conversations among the lead characters; it is understood that these conversations impart to the reader the tenets of New Existentialism. As a result, the book tends to present more as a treatise, rather than a novel designed for entertainment. And when in the denouement the 'cosmic horror' stated in the book's cover blurb finally arrives, it is underwhelming.

The verdict ? 'The Portals' seeks, through the vehicle of a science fiction / horror novel, to be a rewarding treatment of Lovecraftian and Wilsonian themes, but never succeeds in capitalizing on those themes in an imaginative or overly engaging way. It's deserving of no more than a Two-Star Rating.

At the library sale, October 2023

 At the library Sale, October 2023

Time once again to make my way to the regional library used book sale, the site where, in the past, I have been to add to my collection of PorPor Books published from the late 1960s to the late 1980s.

The patrons mostly are older people, although there is a considerable presence of families on the weekends, taking advantage of the large number of children's books available. The Dealers were present and accounted for, using their smartphone apps to scan covers and see if a particular tome has a high resell value:

For my part, I was able to find some vintage titles:

I can't say any of them come across as must-reads, but for just a buck or two each, well, why not check them out.

'The Best of Fredric Brown' relies on Old School short and short-short stories, and features a great cover illustration by Richard Corben:

'Menace Under Marswood', with a nice Darrell K. Sweet cover, seems promising, in that I liked Lanier's novels in the 'Hiero Desteen' series.

I'm not sure about this 1972 novel from Dean Koontz, but at 124 pp., it's a light lift. Cover art by Josh Kirby.

I decided to pick up 'The Cingulum' because I thought John Maddox Roberts's novel 'Cestus Dei' was a pretty good read.

I also decided to pick up an old Laser Books title from Gordon Eklund, with a cover by Frank Kelly Freas.

And then there's 'Servants of the Wankh', a vintage Vance title, part of his 'Tschai: Planet of Adventure' series. Back in 1979, when this DAW Books edition was issued, I probably wouldn't have picked it up, but as I've gotten older I've come to appreciate Vance more than I had back in those olden, dim and distant days.

Anyways, a nice way to spend a crisp Autumn afternoon !

Book Review: Squirm

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Book Review: 'Squirm' by Richard Curtis

2 / 5 Stars

Squirm was a low-budget, drive-in horror movie from American International Pictures released in the U.S. in 1976. It revolved around a rather contrived sort of ‘monster’, namely, the humble marine worms that live in the sand and sediments of the seashore. These so-called ‘clam worms’ or ‘bloodworms’ are relatives of earthworms, and are (unlike earthworms) carnivorous. They are harvested in great numbers and used as bait for saltwater fishing; you can buy them live and store them in your refrigerator until you go fishing.

This tie-in paperback was published by Sphere books in the U.K. in 1976. At 157 pages, it’s a quick read. I can’t tell if ‘Richard Curtis’ was a pseudonym or not, but the novel is based on the screenplay by Jeff Lieberman.

‘Squirm’ is set in Fly Creek, a coastal Georgia town. As the novel opens, in 1960, we are introduced to an eccentric named Willie Grimes, who earns a living from harvesting clam worms for use as bait. Willie discovers that applying electricity to the soil harboring the worms drives them into a biting, ravenous frenzy. But this can have consequences, as Willie and his son Roger soon find out..........

Fast-forward to the present day (i.e., 1976). Lead character Mick Gordon is on his way to Fly Creek to visit his girlfriend, Geri Sanders. A severe storm has left the highway blocked by debris so Mick has to hoof it into town, where he discovers the electricity is out and the villagers coping through patronage of the local watering hole. Meeting up with Geri and her family, Mick learns that some of the neighbors are missing, including Willie Grimes, who lives next door to the Sanders.

What Mick and Geri don’t know is that the storm knocked down power lines, and those lines are pumping voltage into the ground. Come nightfall, the earth will seethe with thousands of clam worms, intent on finding, and devouring, any human flesh within reach…………. 

‘Squirm’ is a competent enough tie-in novel. The fact that it’s based on a low-budget movie necessarily handicaps what the author can do, plot wise. So, for much of the narrative the worms necessarily remain off-screen, requiring considerable padding to the plot, and thus we get many scenes of people conversing, the odd popup appearance of a clam worm every now and then, and some manufactured domestic drama.

It’s only in the last few chapters that the action ramps up and the worms take center stage. In the film, these sequences happen at night (the better to conceal the contrived special effects), and there is a lot of jump-cutting from close-ups of actual, writhing clam worms, to ranged shots featuring mass quantities of what obviously are rubber worms. I won't disclose any spoilers, save to say that not all of the residents of Fly Creek are going to survive their 'wormy' ordeal come the morning light. 

The verdict ? Only those who are diehard fans of low budget films and the film Squirm are really going to want to seek out this novelization.    

Penthouse October 1983

Penthouse magazine

October 1983

Let's step back in time 40 years to October, 1983, when (in the week of the 22nd) the top song in the nation, according to the Billboard Hot 100 chart, was 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' by Bonnie Tyler.

The latest issue of Penthouse magazine is on the stands, with actress Pia Zadora on the cover. Anyone who purchased nudie magazines back then knew that such media regularly had celebrities of one sort or another posing, clothed, on the cover. But inside, of course, the eager, sweaty-palmed readers would discover that the whole thing was a marketing tease: inside the magazine, in the pictorial, the celebrity remained clothed. Would that be the case for this October, 1983, issue ? We shall see.....

Back then, you could get a good pair of boots for under $100:

At the time, for what I was earning as a clerk at a drug store, neither Northlake, nor the 'competition', were in my financial reach.

We've got a funny cartoon. And an advertisement for branded outdoor gear, that looks pretty cool, from Camel cigarettes. For those of cerebral bent, the October issue offers an interview with Simon Wiesenthal, and an article on wines.

As for the opening pictorial, it features Audrey, a winsome 22 year-old who, we are assured, is 'up for grabs'.

An article on computers, by Ken Uston, tells us all about the wondrous Coleco 'Adam'. For under $600, you get 80K memory, a reader for something called a 'floppy disk', a printer, a word processing program, and, via the purchase of an additional adapter, the ability to play the 400+ video games in the Atari VCS system.

The Penthouse Pet for this issue is athletic young woman named Nadine Greenlaw, who is photographed on the beach in the Philippines: 'curious Filipinos flocked around our blue-eyed blonde in delirious droves.'

None other than Lando Calrissian himself, Billy Dee Williams, appears in the Fall '83 fashion section !

As for Pia Zadora: born in 1954 in Hoboken, New Jersey, as  Pia Alfreda Schipani, at the age of 18, she married the 53 year-old Israeli financier Meshulam Riklis. Her career as an actress gained momentum after that, and  in '83 she was the star of the film The Lonely Lady, based on the Harold Robbins novel and released in September. As part of the promo for the film, Zadora agreed to pose nude for Penthouse and Bob Guccione. And the front cover of this issue was no tease, because Pia is indeed baring all for this pictorial........

Guccione seems to have had a particular fondness for Zadora. According to John Colapinto's 2004 article in Rolling Stone magazine, 'The Twilight of Bob Guccione', in 1987 Guccione wanted his son Bob, Jr., who edited the magazine, to put Zadora on the cover of Spin. When Bob, Jr. refused, an infuriated Guccione announced the magazine would no longer be published, only to discover that his son owned the right to the name, and thus it could be resurrected by another publisher. Guccione essentially disowned Bob Jr., who went on to continue publishing Spin with the aid of other investors. 

We'll close with the article 'Love Me, Kill Me'. 

It's an excerpt from a book-shopping endeavor by Deborah Spungen, mother of the ill-fated Nancy Spungen (born 1958). 

Nancy gained notoriety for being stabbed to death by former Sex Pistols member Sid Vicious, on October 12, 1978 in a room in the Hotel Chelsea in New York City. Her Mom's article makes clear that Nancy was an accident waiting to happen. Her last days were marked by drug addiction, violence, and squalor. 

And so, there we were, with our copy of Penthouse, forty years ago............

Book Review: Fears

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Book Review: 'Fears' edited by Charles L. Grant

 4 / 5 Stars

Well, from 40 years ago, here we have a quintessential Paperbacks from Hell anthology: 'Fears' (280 pp.), published by Berkley Books in May, 1983. 

This was one of four horror anthologies edited by Grant for Playboy Press and Berkley Books, the others being 'Nightmares' (1979), 'Horrors' (1981), and 'Terrors' (1982).

I previously have read 'Nightmares' and found it a decent collection of tales, less influenced in their selection by Grant for their 'quiet horror' qualities, than I would have expected. So I had expectations that 'Fears' would be a good anthology, too.

The stories in 'Fears' saw publication during the interval from 1972 to 1983 (presumably those written in 1983 were done exclusively for this anthology).

My capsule summaries of the contents:

Surrogate, by Janet Fox: Steve Winston and his wife Diane have hired a young woman to gestate their child. This may not be a good idea. A subtle, but effective, tale of suburban horror.

Coasting, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro: strange doings at sea. There is much build-up in terms of atmosphere and setting, but the denouement is so contrived it reads as something from fanfic.

Spring-fingered Jack, by Susan Casper: nepotism is in effect, as Casper was Gardner Dozois's wife. This is a short-short story about a particularly disturbing video game.

Flash Point, by Gardner Dozois: this story first appeared in Damon Knight's 'Orbit 13' (1974). It's set in a near-future USA where, alarmingly, violent behavior is on the rise. 

A Cold Day in the Mesozoic, by Jack Dann: Jody misses the school bus and on his long walk home, sees something perhaps he shouldn't have seen. A short-short tale, that fails to impress.

The Train, by William F. Nolan: practiced short-story hand Nolan gives us a well-plotted tale of a cold and wintry Montana night, and a train that you are better off not taking. Nolan later expanded this story into his 1991 novel 'Helltracks'.

The Dripping, by David Morrell: strange things are going on in a remote farmhouse. I suspect that most readers will guess the denouement quite early on in the story.

The Ragman, by Leslie Alan Horvitz: an affluent couple travel from their home in the Connecticut suburbs into New York City. Getting lost in the ghetto will have consequences.

Deathtracks, by Dennis Etchison: the obligatory Etchison entry. A young man is assigned to monitor the TV viewership of an elderly couple named Bob and Jenny Morrison. The television in the Morrison's living room makes strange noises and displays unusual lighting effects. This story is badly overwritten, and the horror / dark fantasy content unconvincing.

Father Dear, by Al Sarrantonio: the un-named, first-person narrator seeks revenge on his father for the infliction of all manner of cruelties during childhood. This story requires patience from the reader, as it take some time to unfold (and somehow the Greek goddess Artemis / Diana figures into the ending).  

As Old As Sin, by Peter D. Pautz: some punk kids learn, the hard way, that tomenting little old lady Mother Corbin is a bad idea. Another of the better stories in the anthology.

Fish Night, by Joe R. Lansdale: in 1983, Lansdale was a little less notorious, and a little less transgressive, than he would be later in the decade. Perhaps that's why editor Grant, a staunch advocate for Quiet Horror (and a firm opponent of splatterpunk) published this tale, which is more fantasy that horror. It's about some can opener salesmen stranded in the Arizona desert.

Remembering Melody, by George R. R. Martin: Melody is one of those dissipated hippie chicks that comes into your life.............and doesn't leave.

The Pond, by Pat Cadigan: little kids should stay away from the pond at grandma's house. This story takes its time developing, but has a satisfying conclusion.

The Beasts That Perish, by R. Bretnor: you'll never look at roadkill the same way after reading this imaginative story, one of the better ones in the anthology.

Cassie, Waiting, by Julie Stevens: maybe the bag lady who mumbles to herself as she stands at the corner of Eighty-third and Lexington knows something you don't. 

High Tide, by Leanne Frahm: this novelette, by Australian Frahm, is the best story in 'Fears'. It's about a camping / fishing trip to Newry Islands in the Seaforth Bay area of Queensland. Peter Cleaver, his son Mike, and Mike's friend Drip discover something alarming in the mangrove swamps. 'High Tide' presents its eco-horror theme with skill and suspense.

Summing up, I am comfortable with giving 'Fear' a 4-Star Rating. The inclusion of the stories from Fox, Nolan, Pautz, Martin, Bretnor, and Frahm gives it an impact that tended to be lacking in more than a few anthologies released in the early days of the Paperbacks from Hell.

Fantasy Tales 45th Anniversary Special: Phantasmagoria magazine

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Fantasy Tales 45th Anniversary Tribute

Phantasmagoria Magazine, 2022

Following in the footsteps of Justin Marriott, a number of enterprising U.K. fantasy and science fiction fans have begun issuing print-on-demand bookzines of professional appearance. So it is that Trevor Kennedy of Belfast has been publishing Phantasmagoria magazine. As of the Fall of 2023, it's up to issue number 23. Along with regular issues, Phantasmagoria also puts out periodic 'special issues', devoted to a single topic, and in 2022 a special issue devoted entirely to Fantasy Tales was published.

Fantasy Tales was a semi-professional magazine published in the UK from 1977 to 1991 for a total of 24 issues (spaced over two Volumes). 

Editors Stephen Jones and David Sutton consciously modeled their magazine on the classic pulp Weird Tales, and thus, Fantasy Tales published as many (if not more) horror stories than fantasy, and featured black-and-white and graytone illustrations by artists such as Stephen Fabian and Jim Pitts. 

Fantasy Tales can be seen as the British counterpart to American semi-professional magazines of the 1970s and 1980s, such as Whispers, Grue, Cemetery Dance, and Midnight Graffiti. The magazine has come to occupy a special place in the hearts and minds of U.K. fantasy fiction devotees, and is remembered with much affection.

[ My reviews of anthologies compiled from Fantasy Tales are presented here and here. ]

The 45th Anniversary Tribute issue of Phantasmagoria is a thick chunk of a trade paperback, measuring 10 x 7 inches and 364 pages. It uses a larger, quite readable font / typeface, and numerous black-and-white and graytone illustrations with reasonably good resolution.

Along with reprinting stories and illustrations that originally appeared in Fantasy Tales, the 45th Anniversary Tribute issue also provides interviews with authors and editors of the magazine. These interviews and reminiscences often are accompanied by photographs, some of these taken decades ago. Somewhat eerily, there is a group photo that includes Karl Edward Wagner, taken less than a week before he died of alcoholism-related causes............

The end chapters in the 45th Anniversary Tribute issue provide listings of the contents of each issue of Fantasy Tales, along with capsule summaries of films and television shows (e.g., Candyman) derived from stories that appeared in the magazine.

When all is said and done, if you are a fan of Fantasy Tales and the British horror and science fiction scene, then Phantasmagoria's special 45th Anniversary Tribute issue is worth picking up.

Book Review: The Shaft

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Book Review: 'The Shaft' by David J. Schow

2 / 5 Stars

Nowadays Splatterpunk is mainstreamed as a horror genre, so much so that if I go to amazon.com and do a book Search for the noun, I get deluged with an entire library of small-press, self-published, Print On Demand trade paperbacks and Kindle titles. 

I'm sure the majority of such titles receive little (if any) editorial oversight beyond asking submitters to do a Spell Check, and maybe Grammarly, on their Word files. So I'm not especially motivated to obtain, and read, very many of them. 

But I am willing to take a trip back to when splatterpunk was just emerging as a genre, and one of its foremost practitioners was mining new territory in the era of the 'Paperbacks from Hell'.

David J. Schow (pronounced 'Skow') was born in Marburg, Germany in 1955 to an American military family (his father was a gunner on a B-24 Liberator bomber in World War Two). The family moved to the U.S. when Schow was of kindergarten age and eventually settled in Huntington Beach, California. Schow grew up in rather strained circumstances, but realized at an early age he loved monster magazines, the Outer Limits TV show, and the idea of writing stories.

Schow went on to coin the term 'splatterpunk', and unlike other writers associated with the term (such as Joe R. Lansdale) he never has shied from standing forth as a representative of the genre. He made his first short story sale at age 23, to Odyssey science fiction magazine, and later published his second short story in the Twilight Zone Magazine in 1982. Schow advanced to publishing novels, screenplays, and nonfiction books, emerging as one of the more successful horror writers of the 1990s and beyond.

'The Shaft' originally appeared as a short story in the Spring of 1990, in a special 'David J. Schow' issue of yet another revival of Weird Tales. The story also is available in the anthology 'DJStories' (Subterranean Press, 2018).

Later in 1990, Schow expanded the story into a novel, which was published in the UK in both hardcover and paperback editions.

Both the original printings of 'The Shaft' are long out of print and command very steep prices. Fortunately, this trade paperback edition of 'The Shaft' was issued by Macabre Ink Press / Crossroad Press in April, 2020. According to Schow, the trade paperback (372 pp.) contains additional content as compared to the 1990 version.

'The Shaft' is set in wintertime Chicago in the late 1980s. Three young people, all 'damaged' in some way, find themselves taking residence in the deteriorating tenement known as the Kenilworth Arms:

Jonathan is a graphic designer who, after breaking up with his girlfriend, decides to leave Texas for Chicago and a new start in life. Consumed with self-pity, Jonathan is a cuck who finds the northern snow, sleet, and freezing temperatures as just one more injustice visited upon his hapless shoulders.

Jamaica is a streetwise and sexy call girl whose clientele are not very nice people. But they are well-equipped with drugs, and liberal with their cash. An encounter with a resident at the Kenilworth Arms sets in motion a chain of events that will have unpleasant consequences for some of the debased Chicago residents that make up her social circle.

Cruz is a young up-and-comer in the Miami drug trade, but when something goes really wrong, he has to flee to Chicago and wait for tensions to subside. Unfortunately for Cruz, his place of residence in the WIndy City turns out to be the Kenilworth Arms.............

What Jonathan, Jamaica, and Cruz don't know is that Something Evil is lurking inside the slime-covered ventilation shaft inserted into the structure of the Kenilworth Arms. As a blizzard strikes Chicago, our trio will find themselves threatened by this malevolence.....and they have no one to rely on, save themselves........

'The Shaft' declares its commitment to splatterpunk in its very first chapter, which is simultaneously gross, and laugh-out-loud funny. Needless to say, it likely would have repelled and disgusted Charles L. Grant.

But the first chapter also signals that 'The Shaft' is not an easy read. Schow’s diction is an overload of dense prose and resolutely hard-boiled language. Here’s a description of the manager of the Kenilworth Arms:

His first shock had been Fergus, the “manager”, whose job description would read “pusbag” on some document if there was any justice in the cosmos. He lived in clothes that looked scrounged off dead winos and smelled as if he drank a pint of Aqua Velva a day…perhaps to pickle his flesh, which was doughy and spotted like overripe fruit. His ratty Converse All-Stars were slick and grimy; they had been white at the beginning of time. Maybe. Things had been hatched inside them, Cruz thought, and Fergus had slipped them onto his plump, horny feet while the membranes and afterbirth were still warm. Gnomish and dull of gaze, he exuded the aromas of stale dates and sour breath from beneath his megadose of aftershave. There were brown gaps between each of his teeth, and even in this freezing climate the tips of his hacked-off and slicked-back hair were perpetually gravid with droplets of some opaque liquid. Cruz would learn that the guy only understood English clearly around the first of the rental month. He had informed Cruz – in English – that rent would be acceptable only in the form of cash or money orders, the ukase new and the fault of newer tenants, who were unbelievable in such responsibilities. 

The plot of 'The Shaft' is rather thin, and struggles to bear the weight of too much exposition. I finished the book thinking that it would have benefitted from curtailing the descriptive prose sufficiently to reduce its length to under 250 pages. 

The verdict ? Die-hard Schow fans and aficionados of Splat will want to have 'The Shaft' in their collection, but in my opinion, the original short story, by virtue of its condensed nature, makes it a better read than the novel.