tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8253516617485940232026-04-15T08:42:42.059-07:00Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.comBlogger871125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-85847540925321278732026-04-10T11:18:00.000-07:002026-04-10T11:18:22.489-07:00

Another completely unexpected death of a major horror author: Thomas Tessier died at the age of 78 on March 26th. If you've been reading Too Much Horror Fiction for long, you'll know he's one of my favorites; I discovered him in 1989 or 1990 while working in a used bookstore and picked up Finishing Touches on a whim, thanks to its come-hither cover art. It was an honor to get that book

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-40939663063138536802026-03-31T15:13:00.000-07:002026-04-13T19:23:04.505-07:00

The only novel by author and teacher Paula Trachtman (1931-2019), 1981's Disturb Not the Dream (Ballantine paperback, July 1982) is middle-of-the-road mainstream bestseller pop fiction, competently written, with some mild Gothic atmosphere, and lots of cheap thrills. Although Trachtman's prose veers at times into a heightened purple, she keeps the narrative at pace with only a few

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-31802893034955356742026-02-27T18:14:00.000-08:002026-02-27T20:44:10.828-08:00

Sad and to me, completely unexpected news: Dan Simmons, author of some of the most popular, award-winning, thought-provoking, mind-expanding, and iconic horror and science fiction of the last 40 years, has died at age 77. I first read him around 1990 or so, after hearing so much about his 1985 debut horror novel, Song of Kali. Boy, did that one do a number on me! In quick succession I read a

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-89672471189254070472026-02-10T18:34:00.000-08:002026-02-10T18:34:20.883-08:00

With his seventh novel, published in hardcover in 1996, Eighties horror icon Clive Barker outdoes even himself. Sacrament (1997 Harper Books mass market, cover by Phil Heffernan) in this story of Will Rabjohns, a gay British wildlife photographer. After a wild animal attack puts him in a coma, he dreams/remembers/revisits a strange couple he knew as a boy. Once he is well again, Will

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-13252897882121972432026-01-02T17:00:00.000-08:002026-01-02T17:06:57.831-08:00

Published only in Canada in 1982 by the Canadian wing of Signet/New American Library, Cold Front is one of the rarest horror paperbacks of that era. I'd bet there are only maybe dozens of copies in existence, if that. For years searchers after horror have had to contend with copies being sold online for hundreds of dollars. The handful of readers who did dole out the bucks fortunately, or perhaps

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-24947298773610811402025-11-03T17:26:00.000-08:002025-11-04T10:31:57.784-08:00

A slim but successful suspense thriller, Seance on a Wet Afternoon isn't really a horror novel, but I read it solely for that wonderfully evocative, moody title alone (I've long known about the movie adaptation but have never seen it). Mark McShane (1929-2013) was an Australian author of crime fiction, which is what this novel basically is—but it is also quite a bit more in its own quiet,

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-10717664741998417132025-09-26T15:36:00.000-07:002025-09-27T11:39:05.497-07:00

Well, the time has come: after seven years and almost two dozen titles, Valancourt Books' series of horror fiction reprints, curated by me and Grady Hendrix and inspired by our 2017 nonfiction book Paperbacks from Hell, will come to an end. I know that's not news you wanna hear! We're proud of what we've accomplished and the books we chose. But more and more, alas, it was getting difficult to

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-57157796972237874932025-09-02T13:32:00.000-07:002025-09-26T11:34:58.886-07:00

Prolific, long-time author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has died at age 82. Known for her historical horror novels about the vampire Count Saint-Germain, Yarbro also wrote excellent short stories and horror movie novelizations. Here is my (unfortunately incomplete) collection of her mass market paperbacks.

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-30671170190204522742025-08-04T12:17:00.000-07:002025-08-07T13:57:29.875-07:00

Now this is some serious paperback horror cover art. Such detail. Such care. Such skulls. What's this family portrait telling us? Maybe that there are few things more frightening for a child than the idea that her parents are not who they seem? Or perhaps this novel will expose the hypocrisies of the adult world, its shallow middle-class ambitions, its forced conformity, its ability to cover up

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-5766098192038535582025-07-13T11:31:00.000-07:002025-07-14T10:06:09.550-07:00

How do you tell a man, gently, that his wife is a homicidal nymphomaniac?This moody, erotically-charged cover art, by American romance illustrator H. Tom Hall, is perfectly fit for a sophisticated novel of doomed romance and obsession; I bought this paperback over a decade ago solely for its melodramatic atmosphere. I knew nothing of author Rosalind Ashe (1931-2006), and assumed the title,

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-6811529052526302222025-07-11T10:33:00.000-07:002025-07-11T10:33:40.874-07:00

Don't miss this recording of my live chat with The Book Graveyard! A great time was had by all. Below is a pic of all the horror paperbacks I mentioned. Lots of good stuff, especially for anyone new to this blog or Paperbacks from Hell—enjoy!

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-83534468210403823662025-07-03T12:25:00.000-07:002025-07-03T12:25:56.445-07:00

Hey all, here's something you might dig: this Saturday, July 5, at 7pm EST, I will be doing a live chat/interview with The Book Graveyard, a supercool book blog/YouTube page that features vintage paperbacks of various genres. You'll be able to ask questions as Nick and I talk about horror fiction, this blog, book collecting, and obviously Paperbacks from Hell, but also anything else that

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-78450361928928447882025-06-16T06:14:00.000-07:002025-06-16T11:50:15.366-07:00

Hola amigos, long time since I rapped at ya! Got some horror (all good) news you can use...I've written two introductions for two new horror anthologies: one was published at the end of 2024, The Rack: Stories Inspired by Vintage Horror Paperbacks, edited by Stoker Award-winning author Tom Deady, from Greymore Publishing; order here. Also, the brand-new Claw Machine, compiled by an old East

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-41421320434827262592025-06-12T17:43:00.000-07:002025-06-12T17:44:13.453-07:00

The gritty, grimy New York City of the 1970s looms large in our pop cultural imagination. Movies like Taxi Driver, Saturday Night Fever, The French Connection, to name a quick few, are today all virtually everyday notions, while progressive music from Blondie, Talking Heads, the Ramones, and early hip-hop continue to symbolize the absolute essence of "cool." The politics of the day were

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-15597944720844895512025-02-15T13:01:00.000-08:002025-02-15T18:02:54.480-08:00

Vampires, vampires, vampires! Loathsome creatures of the night stalking and snacking on humans across the globe! There's no escape! Whatever can we do?!Nothing, it seems, or very little, to save ourselves. Thus is the setup for the stories in Under the Fang (Pocket Books, Aug 1991, cover by Mitzura), under the auspices of the Horror Writers of America coalition, with editing duties by iconic

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-10869936316167734652024-12-26T11:38:00.000-08:002024-12-27T12:00:46.515-08:00

Busting out of nowhere in 1977 with his debut novel from Dell, John Saul had success immediately, watching as Suffer the Children hit the bestseller charts and sold millions of copies, thanks to an easy-to-remember name and a first-ever tv commercial ad campaign. Saul wrote his books fast, like in a month, so the publisher was always happy to have a new paperback original from him every year.

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-59371755849775218852024-10-16T10:01:00.001-07:002024-10-29T16:59:18.563-07:00

Plucked this guy off my shelves at random, it's spooky season, right? The inaugural title in the long-running anthology series launched by specialty press Dark Harvest in November 1984, Night Visions 1 was intended as being a showcase for the best original short stories by the leading figures in both horror fiction and dark fantasy. Charles L. Grant was pretty well-established already as an

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-62727532328416350602024-08-09T16:40:00.000-07:002024-09-09T17:33:19.191-07:00

This past spring I was visiting San Diego to meet up with family and on the drive down that way lucked into finding a delightful little bookstore, Artifact Books (not to be confused with Artifacts bookstore in Hood River, OR). I poked around a bit, found a small horror section, and then found the long boxes of bagged vintage paperbacks, various genres, but mostly fantasy and horror. Unfortunately

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-84019426141674047032024-07-27T11:38:00.000-07:002024-08-02T15:16:44.031-07:00

I'm calling upon you again, dear readers, for assistance in identifying some forgotten horror tomes of yesteryear. Several are apparently from horror comix/magazines of the 1960s/70s, which are not really my area of expertise. Thanks in advance, everyone!1. I read this story in the late 70s - early 80s, I think its from one of the DC horror anthologies as I definitely read I, Vampire in them at

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-924108172832899402024-06-11T17:22:00.000-07:002024-06-12T14:24:20.136-07:00

Snake-handling, a bizarre cult behavior formed from several lines in the Bible, is ripe for horrific exploitation. While I was working in a Southern indie bookstore in the mid-Nineties we sold lots of copies of Salvation on Sand Mountain, a nonfiction account of the phenomenon. Eighties horror giant John Farris wrote a harrowing scene of it in his book Wildwood. Earlier, in 1976, noted grit-lit

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-85113082220649842182024-05-17T16:03:00.000-07:002024-05-21T16:29:08.154-07:00

All over the social media of bibliophiles you can see people who insist that they must finish any book they've started reading. Sometimes this dogged commitment comes off as bragging; more often, as a kind of desperation, a sad realization of a fault: the utter inability to not finish a book that is simply not grabbing you in the way you wanna be grabbed. Me, I've quit more books than I recall,

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-34292442809691480722024-02-14T12:21:00.000-08:002024-10-01T09:01:47.323-07:00

In 1993, in my early 20s, I was working in a giant chain bookstore known as BookStar in Cary, NC. It was basically a Barnes and Noble (who eventually bought, rearranged, and then closed down the store), guys had to wear ties and dress pants, like it was fucking church. Several of my coworkers were horror fiction fans, both of the modern and classic variety, and we wasted many a working hour

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-75767290155131492342024-01-28T13:47:00.000-08:002024-01-28T13:56:57.525-08:00

Around Spring 2024, Grady Hendrix, Valancourt Books, and I will be unleashing two devilishly good horror titles in our series of Paperbacks from Hell reprints: Jere Cunningham's The Legacy (1977) and The Abyss (1981). While the author, who died in 2018, only wrote a few horror novels, we think he deserves to be better known. The latter book, with Grady's intro, is available for pre-order; the

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-66142565377783315312024-01-24T18:49:00.000-08:002024-01-28T13:48:51.646-08:00

Despite it coming out at the height of the Eighties horror boom and published by genre giant Tor Books, I have no recollection at all of Fine Frights: Stories That Scare Me. An anthology of short stories compiled by the great and prolific Ramsey Campbell, the subtitle is the seller here: a story that can frighten one of horror's premier authors will surely reduce regular readers to a slab of

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-825351661748594023.post-28316667433706535262023-12-05T12:02:00.000-08:002023-12-05T15:44:17.429-08:00

Can you believe it's been over a decade since I read a Guy N. Smith novel?! Despite his having written a near countless number of books, none ever made it to the top of my to-read list. In my paperback collection I have maybe eight or so of his titles, some part of his infamous Crabs series, and others just random I've bought over the years. The itch was coming upon me to revisit the infamous

Will Erricksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285306262078600804noreply@blogger.com2