‘Alfred Hitchcock’ – This One Will Kill You

‘Alfred Hitchcock’ (ed.) – This One Will Kill You   (NEL 1972: originally Dell, 1969)

Jonathan Craig – Six Skinny Coffins
Richard Deming – Clock Is Cuckoo
Jack Ritchie – Plan 19
James Holding – Misopedist
John Lutz – Fair shake
Henry Slesar – Item
Ed Lacy – Curtain Speech
Richard Hardwick – His Brother’s Caper
Robert Edmond Alter – Shunned House
C.B. Gilford – Don’t Call It Murder
Michael Brett – Comfort, In A Land Of Strangers
Hal Ellson – Where Credit Is Due
Fletcher Flora – Variations On An Episode
Robert Colby – Voice In The Night

Alfred Hitchcock – The Graveyard Man

Alfred Hitchcock – The Graveyard Man (NEL, October 1968)

 

Josh Kirby

C. B. Gilford – The Cemetery Man
Clark Howard – Spook House
W. Sherwood Harman – Poltergeist
Robert Bloch – A Killing In The Market
C. B. Gilford – Never Marry A Witch
Avram Davidson – A Shot From The Dark Night
Henry Slesar – Murder Delayed
Lawrence Treat – Shoot A Friendly Bullet
William Link & Richard Levinson – The Man In The Lobby
Robert Edmon Alter – The Shunned House

Blurb:
“Some of the best and most eerie story material in the world can be found in the locale where I am pictured on the cover.’
So writes Alfred Hitchcock, King of Chills and Master of the Macabre, in the introduction to this latest unholy collection of tales.
And he backs up his claim by presenting herein for your delectation stories by such literary ghouls as

Robert Bloch
Avram Davidson
Lawrence Treat
Henry Slesar
and many more.
We suggest you check on your nerves before ven­turing into this domain of death.

At 96 pages all in, minimalist even by NEL standards and doubtless much of the material is more crime than horror-supernatural orientated, though where there are titles like The Cemetery Man and Poltergeist there is hope. i’ve heard only good things about Carney Kill author Robert Edmon Alter’s haunted house story and Clark Howard wrote the occasional horror short including the ghoulish The Keeper Of The Crypt, which enlivened a summer of love issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Columbo co-creators Link & Levinson contributed a minor ‘when seafood attacks’ effort to Fred Pickersgill’s And Graves Give Up Their Dead. Bloch’s is only one of three stories i didn’t write up from his Fear & Trembling collection, meaning it was either too complex or routine for me to desecrate.

interzone books @ Type

We are delighted to report that the nomadic interzone books has now taken up permanent residence at TYPE – as distinguished by sign of the twin typewriters – in East London. The address and details:

interzone books @ Type
138 Bethnal Green Road,
London
E2 6DG.

Open every Thursday to Sunday inclusive, hours of business 7.30-18.00.

interzone books is now only selling at Type and via the website.

Along with the wall of pulp there is also a coffee bar and a section devoted to one-off pieces of lighting and furniture.

Denys Val Baker (ed.) – Haunted Cornwall

Denys Val Baker (ed.) – Haunted Cornwall (NEL, 1980: reprint jointly published with the Cornish Tourist Board).

Editor’s Introduction

Frank Baker – Chocolate Box
Daphne Du Maurier – The Old Man
Ronald Duncan – An Act of Charity
David Eames – Inheritance
R. S. Hawker – The Botathen Ghost
Kenneth Moss – Snow
Donald R. Rawe – Night on Roughtor
M. E. Simpson – The Castle
Howard Spring – Christmas Honeymoon
Nigel Tangye – Episode
J. C. Trewin – Window in the Attic
James Turner – The Wheel
Denys Val Baker – The Sacrifice
C. C. Vyvyan – The Ghost at the Old Ford
Rosalind Wade – Shepherd, Show Me
Mary Williams – The Lost Ones

Thanks to Justin Marriott of Paperback Fanatic for the cover scan.

Ghidalia & Elwood – The Venus Factor

Vic Ghidalia and Roger Elwood (eds.) – The Venus Factor (Nel, 1976. Originally USA, McFadden, 1972: Manor, 1973, 1977)

Cynthia Asquith – “God Grante That She Lye Stille”
Gertrude Atherton – The Foghorn
Agatha Christie – The Last Séance (The Woman Who Stole a Ghost)
Miriam Allen deFord – Against Authority
Zenna Henderson – J-Line to Nowhere
Anne McCaffrey – The Ship Who Disappeared
Rose Sharon [Judith Merril] – The Lady Was a Tramp
C. L. Moore – The Dark Land

Blurb

A medium evokes a vision so real it threatens her very existence …

A dying woman is snatched into another time dimension ….

A long dead spirit fights to inhabit a living body ….

These are but a few of the chilling and gripping ideas contained in The Venus Factor, an anthology of science fiction stories written about women by some of the top women SF writers.

i’ve had enough arguments for one year, so i’ll leave you to decide for yourselves whether or not the Christie, Asquith and Atherton stories actually constitute “science fiction” ….