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

 October 2023 is Spooky StORIES MOnth 
at the PORPOR BOOKS BLOG !

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

 October 2023 is Spooky StORIES MOnth 
at the PORPOR BOOKS BLOG !

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

 October 2023 is Spooky StORIES MOnth 
at the PORPOR BOOKS BLOG !

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. 

My top 22 horror short stories, October 2023

 October 2023 is Spooky StORIES MOnth 
at the PORPOR BOOKS BLOG !

My Top 22 Horror Short Stories
October 2023 

I've been reading horror stories since 1970, when I was 9 years old and I saw a copy of Alfred Hitchcock's Monster Museum (Random House, 1965) on the shelf of my grammar school library. 

While most of the stories in the book were rather tame - it was aimed at an audience of juvenile Baby Boomers, after all - Joseph Payne Brennan's story 'Slime' immediately gripped my attention, and from then on, my interest in the genre began, and has lasted since.

After some contemplation, I've decided to stand forth with a list of 22 short stories that in my humble opinion are the better ones I've encountered in 50 years of reading all manner of horror fiction. Since it's the interval covered by this blog, I've concentrated on stories that first saw print from the 1960s into the mid-1990s. 

I've posted a brief, one-sentence synopsis for each story, to jog memories or to give the reader a sense of what to expect.

One problem with focusing on such stories is that in many instances the books where they first appeared long are out of print, and copies in good condition have steep asking prices. Accordingly, where available, I've tried to provide alternate sources for obtaining these stories.

My Top 22, in chronological order:

The First Days of May, by Claude Veillot, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1961; Tales of Terror from Outer Space, 1975

‘Alien invasion’ theme, well done.

***

One of the Dead, by William Wood, The Saturday Evening Post, October 31, 1964; Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Scream Along with Me; A Walk with the Beast, 1969; Great American Ghost Stories, 1991

Although a bit over-written, this is a well-crafted melding of the haunted house theme with the anomie of mid-1960s life in suburban Los Angeles.  

***

The Road to Mictlantecutli, by Adobe James, Adam Bedside Reader, 1965; The Sixth Pan Book of Horror Stories,1965; The Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural, 1981

Morgan, a ruthless criminal, is travelling on a mysterious road in Mexico. The strange sights and passions he encounters will lead him to change his life........for good, or for ill.

'Adobe James' was the pseudonym of American writer James Moss Cardwell (1926 – 1990), who had his short stories published in a variety of magazines and anthologies during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. 

***

Longtooth, by Edgar Pangborn, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1970; The Best of Modern Horror, 1989

A resident of rural Maine discovers something disturbing in the deep, dark woods.

***

Goat, by David Campton, New Writings in Horror and the Supernatural #1, 1971; Whispers: An Anthology of Fantasy and Horror, 1977

Creepy goings-on in an English village.

***

Satanesque, by Alan Weiss, The Literary Magazine of Fantasy and Terror, #6, 1974; The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series III, 1975

Starts off on a thoroughly conventional note, then unexpectedly transitions into something entirely imaginative and offbeat.

***

The Shortest Way, by David Drake, Whispers #3, March 1974; From the Heart of Darkness, 1983; Vettius and His Friends, 1989;  Night & Demons, 2012

A 'Vettius' story set in the days of the Roman empire. Our hero elects to travel on a road that the locals take care to avoid. An atmospheric, memorable tale.

***

The Taste of Your Love, by Eddy C. Bertin, The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series III, 1975; The Whispering Horror, 2013

One of the better Serial Killer tales I’ve read.

***

The Changer of Names, by Ramsey Campbell, Swords Against Darkness II, 1977; The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories: 4, 1978; Far Away and Never, 2021.

I've never been a fan of Campbell’s horror stories and novels, but his sword-and-sorcery stories featuring the ‘Ryre’ character are entertaining exercises in creepiness. There are metaphors and similes abounding in the Ryre tales, to be sure, but as compared to Campbell's horror stories the purple prose is reduced in scope, and plotting receives due consideration. 

While the Swords Against Darkness paperbacks have exorbitant asking prices, a new (October 2021) reprint of Far Away and Never from DMR Press collects all four of the Ryre stories, along with other fantasy tales from Campbell's early career.  

***

Long Hollow Swamp, by Joseph Payne Brennan, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, January 1976; The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series V, 1977

Another great 'monsters-on-the-loose' tale from Brennan.

***

Sing A last Song of Valdese, by Karl Edward Wagner, Chacal #1, Winter 1976; The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series V, 1977; Night Winds, 1978, 1983

One of two entries by Wagner, who wrote a lot of duds, but when he was On, he was On. In a remote forest, a lone traveler comes upon an inn filled with sinister characters.

***

Window, by Bob Leman, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1980; The 1981 Annual World’s Best SF, 1981; The Best of Modern Horror, 1989

A neat mix of sci-fi and horror, revolving around a portal to another dimension.

***

Where the Summer Ends, by Karl Edward Wagner, Dark Forces, August 1980; In A Lonely Place, 1983; The American Fantasy Tradition, 2002

 

A second entry from Wagner. It’s hot, humid, and dangerous in 1970s Knoxville. Stay away from the kudzu !

***

The New Rays, by M. John Harrison, Interzone #1, Spring 1982, The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XI, 1983; The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, 2012

A disturbing tale with proto-steampunk leanings. 

***

After-Images, by Malcolm John Edwards, Interzone #4, Spring 1983, The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XII, 1984; Interzone: The First Anthology, 1986

Another fine melding of sci-fi and horror, this time set in an English suburb. It’s too bad that Edwards, a playwright and editor, didn’t write more short stories.

***

The Man with Legs, by Al Sarrantonio, Shadows No. 6, October 1983, The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XII, 1984

Two kids learn some disturbing secrets about their family history.

***

High Tide, by Leanne Frahm, Fears, 1983

Frahm, an Australian writer, sets this novelette in the vicinity of the Newry Islands in coastal Queensland. A family camping trip to Mud Island discovers something strange is going on amidst the mangrove swamps: Eco-horror at its creepiest !  

***

Mengele, by Lucius Shepard, Universe 15, 1985, The Jaguar Hunter, 1988

Troubling things are going on at an estate located in a remote region of Paraguay.

***

Red Christmas, by David Garnett, The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series XIV, 1986

What seems like a conventional Mad Slasher story has a neat little twist at the end.

***

The Picknickers, by Brian Lumley, Final Shadows, 1991, The Year's Best Horror Stories: XX, 1992.

Unsettling events are happening in the graveyard of a Welsh coal-mining village.

***

The Bacchae, by Elizabeth Hand, The Year's Best Horror Stories: XX, 1992.

In a decaying near-future America, women have gained mysterious, and deadly, powers. This story has the amorphous quality of Weird Fiction, but laces it with splatterpunk imagery.

***

Shining On, by Billie Sue Mosiman, Future Net, 1996

A mutant suffering from severe handicaps finds a friend online. But you know what they say about online friends: just who are they in person ?

Splatterpunks in Penthouse

 October 2023 is Spooky StORIES MOnth 
at the PORPOR BOOKS BLOG !

Splatterpunks in Penthouse
Penthouse magazine, September 1988

It's only a one-page article, but it shows that by the early Fall of 1988, Splatterpunk was getting attention from one of the largest-circulation periodicals in the media. The subjects of this profile by Robert Sabat: Skipp and Spector, Richard Christian Matteson, and David J. Schow, are perfectly happy to bear the splat label and are adamant about replacing 'pedestrian horror' with something '....fast and frenetic and in your face.' Cool !

Book Review: The Stephen King Companion

October 2023 is Spooky StORIES MOnth 

         at the POrPOR BOOKS BLOG !

Book Review: 'The Stephen King Companion' edited by George Beahm

5 / 5 Stars

‘The Stephen King Companion’ first edition (365 pp.) was issued in 1989 as a trade paperback by Andrews McMeel Publishing. Followup editions were issued in 1995 and 2015 (with the page count necessarily expanded to 624 pp.).

By 1989 it was quite clear that King had become a pop culture and economic phenomenon unique in America’s literary history. Whether published under his own name, or the pseudonym 'Richard Bachman', King’s works were immensely popular. So much so, that a sector of the publishing industry was thriving by issuing both popular, and scholarly, studies of King’s output. Thus, ‘The Stephen King Companion’.

The 'Companion' is a grab-bag of King ephemera, with pieces of varying length covering his books, audiobooks, and films since the publication of his first short story, ‘Graveyard Shift’, in Cavalier magazine in 1970. The text has black-and-white photographs sprinkled throughout.

The content ranges far and wide, and includes reprints of newspaper articles about King, his works, and his Maine roots. There are pieces by critics and editors, and an overview of illustrators (Berni Wrightson and Michael Whelan) associated with King properties. Along with synopses of the books, there are reprints of features about King that first saw print in the national media. Of most interest here likely is King’s 1983 interview with Playboy magazine.

 

There are two features with Harlan Ellison. One is a 1989 interview where Ellison tells us why King is so popular, and tells us about those works of his that Harlan thinks are worthy of greatest merit. Then there is an essay published in 1984 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in which Harlan fulminates about the film treatments of King’s novels. Here, Harlan uses obscure words like ‘agora’, ‘scansion’, ‘tenebrous’, ‘dialectic’, and ‘sui generis’ (twice) to remind us how very, very smart he is................

For me, reading ‘The Companion’ revives 1980s pop culture in strange and somewhat jolting ways. For example, there is a review of the 1984 movie Firestarter by none other than Joe Bob Briggs - ! 

Briggs was a prominent figure in the 1980s and early 1990s, thanks to his well-crafted persona as a down-to-earth Good Ole Boy who wrote folksy, ‘redneck’ reviews about movies and TV and suchlike. In reality, Briggs was a nice Jewish boy named John Irving Bloom who grew up in Little Rock. As the 1990s dissolved into the 2000s, Briggs persevered as an author and television host; his 2016 nonfiction book 'Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story', garnered considerable critical praise.

‘The Companion’ contains all manner of interesting little factoids and tidbits that I was not familiar with, such as King’s ownership (from 1983 – 1990) of the Bangor oldies radio station WZON. King apparently purchased the station after renting a car that had only AM radio in the dash, and discovering that the AM band was devoid of rock-and-roll programming.

Summing up, if - like me - you think King's most meritorious works were those published between 'Carrie' and 1974, to 'The Dark Half' and 1989, then this book is well worth reading.

Spooky stories month October 2023

 October 2023 is Spooky StORIES MOnth 
at the PORPOR BOOKS BLOG !

Here the the PorPor Books Blog, every October is 'Spooky Stories Month', where we review books devoted to horror and the supernatural, books that first saw print in the interval from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. This October, we take a look at some anthologies, movie tie-ins, encyclopedias, novels, and a 'Stephen King Companion'. Stand by for reviews of these Spooky Stories !

MTV programming list week of September 28, 1983

MTV Programming List, Week of September 28, 1983

Here is a neat little 'blast from the past', courtesy of shatterdaymorn at the IMDb website: the 86 songs on the MTV programming list for the week of September 28, 1983. 

Some of the videos are noted as being in 'heavy rotation' (3-4 plays per day) while others are in 'light rotation' (1-2 plays per day). 

Mingling with the more remembered compositions are quite a few obscurities. I mean, I certainly remember Big Country doing 'In A Big Country', but does anyone remember Three Dog Night doing a reggae song titled 'It's A Jungle Out There' ?! 

Or a group called 'Units', doing a New Wave song called 'A Girl Like You' ?! Even Lou Stathis, the 'rok' critic at Heavy Metal magazine, never referenced 'Units', and he was among the hippest of the hip when it came to New Wave bands !

Don't be surprised if going over the list results in spending an hour (or hours) searching for video and audio clips for some of those oldies, but goodies. A reminder of how influential MTV was, forty years ago......

Book Review: Orbit 11

Book Review: 'Orbit 11' edited by Damon Knight

3  / 5 Stars

Well, here we go with another review of another installment in the 'Orbit' franchise, the franchise that delivers pure and unadulterated New Wave sci-fi. Or 'Speculative Fiction', as they were fond of saying back in those New Wave days. Editor Damon Knight always was receptive to stories that pushed the boundaries of the genre, which sometimes worked, but more often, didn't. Anyways.........

'Orbit 11' was issued in hardcover (216 pp.) in 1972 by G. P. Putnam, and in paperback, from Berkley Books, in March 1973. The cover art is by Paul Lehr.

The cover blurb tells us that Orbit 11 offers 'The Most Exciting Fiction of Our Time !'. Does it really ?

Well...............no. It's just another 'Orbit' volume. A few good stories, and some bad ones. Many stories have no sci-fi content. All exclusively were written for this anthology.

My capsule summary of the contents:

Alien Stones, by Gene Wolfe: a miles-long Terran spaceship, the Gladiator, meets up in deep space with an alien ship that is also miles long. Are the aliens friendly or not ? How do you find out ? This novelette stakes a claim to the Giant Spaceship theme a year before Arthur C. Clarke and his 'Rendevous with Rama', which I guess is to author Wolfe's credit. It's a hard sci-fi story, competently written, so it's one of the better entries in 'Orbit 11'.

Spectra, by Vonda N. McIntyre: the first-person narrator endures a dystopian future where dissent is punished by messing with your eyesight. This story is more horror than sci-fi, and is effective.

I Remember A Winter, by Fredrik Pohl: a middle-aged man ponders the choices he made in life and wonders how things could have, and would have, been different...... had he not made those choices. There is no sci-fi content.

Doucement, S'il Vous Plait (Gently, if it pleases you), by James Sallis: I challenge anyone to dispute my contention that James Sallis was the most pretentious of New Wave authors. And yet, the editors of New Wave anthologies never could turn down a Sallis submission. This story is the first-person narrative of a letter, experiencing the process of being delivered. Is such a concept the apogee of Speculative Fiction, or what ?!

The Summer of the Irish Sea, by Charles L. Grant: clad only in a loincloth, a feral man navigates the terrain of a near-future United Kingdom. This early-career story from Grant is quite untoward, reading more as a Harlan Ellison tale than the kind of overwritten, decorative fiction that would come to represent Grant's literary style. Because it emulates Ellison, it's a good story and one of the standouts in the anthology. 

Good-Bye, Shelley, Shirley, Charlotte, Charlene, by Robert Thurston: this tale opens with an allegorical scene of the narrator playing cards with God. I sighed and prepared for metaphysical, artsy-fartsy bullshit in that inimitable New Wave style. But after the prologue, 'Good-Bye' settles into more conventional storytelling, about a man whose girlfriends are so similar in looks and temperament as to suggest otherworldly forces at work. There's little sci-fi content, but it's a readable story.

Father's in the Basement, by Philip Jose Farmer: Millie's father is busy writing the Great American Novel, and he must not be disturbed. A subdued horror tale from Farmer, one that would have been more at home in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine than 'Orbit'.

Down by the Old Maelstrom, by Edward Wellen: some people in a research laboratory have dreams, which are related to the reader in surrealistic prose. The verbs 'amoebaed', 'alligatored', and 'depontiated' are encountered. This easily is the worst story in the anthology.

Things Go Better, by George Alec Effinger: allegory about a nice Jewish Boy named Steve Weinraub who decides to hitchhike across Pennsylvania, to 'find' both himself, and America. It's devoid of sci-fi content.

Dissolve, by Gary K. Wolfe: the author of 'Killerbowl' addresses the philosophies of Marshall McLuhan, who, in 1972, was very much an influential figure in both pop and highbrow culture. The narrative, which is designed to mimic the changing of channels on a TV, is choppy and a bit contrived.

Dune's Edge, by Edward Bryant: some people find themselves in the desert, and compelled to climb a dune. It's all so very existential.

The Drum Lollipop, by Jack C. Dann: Her parents' marital quarrels lead Maureen Harris to project her anxieties onto a toy drum, which in turn leads to all sorts of phantasmagorical phenomena. An exemplar of seventies, New Wave, speculative fiction. I found it boring.

Machines of Loving Grace, by Gardner R. Dozois: in the Future City, machines will do everything for you. And perhaps that can be a bad thing. Sardonic humor makes this one of the standout stories in the anthology.

They Cope, by Dave Skal: in the future, everyone is bipolar, which makes for a complicated society.

Counterpoint, by Joe W. Haldeman: some are born into wealth and privilege, while others, into poverty and misery. This is a very good story, but it's devoid of sci-fi content and would have been more at home in Esquire, Playboy, Penthouse, Cavalier, or any other early seventies 'slick' that published fiction.

Old Soul, by Steve Herbst: a nurse's interactions with a dying elderly man are complicated when his memories of his younger days 'infect' her mind. This story is supposed to say something profound about The Human Condition. I was bored.

New York Times, by Charles Platt: a three-and-a-half page prose poem about the dangers of living in the city. There is no sci-fi content. I was bored.

The Crystallization of the Myth, by John Barfoot: a two-page prose poem about the aftermath of Armageddon. Meh.

To Plant a Seed, by Hank Davis: using something called the 'McJunkins Field', researcher Roy Cullins wants to put a spaceship into suspended animation for billions of years, with the goal of having humans present when a new universe emerges from the old. It's an interesting premise for a sci-fi story but the author's prose veers from the straight-faced, to the awkwardly comedic, even puerile:

Cullins, Cain, and Erika realized simultaneously that the thing looked like an enormous athletic supporter. Looking at it made Erika hornier than ever. 

On the Road to Honeyville, by Kate Wilhelm: Elizabeth and her mom are making the long drive on two-lane blacktop to the town of Salyersville, by way of the town of Honeyville. En route, they enter the Twilight Zone. The story lacks sci-fi content.

The verdict ? As with the other entrants in the 'Orbit' series, Damon Knight's eccentric approach to selecting content meant that the anthology has more than its share of duds. I am comfortable giving 'Orbit 11' a three-star rating based on the contributions from Wolfe,  McIntyre, Grant, Dozois, and Haldeman.