THE CORPSE MAKERS
A Novelette of
Satanic Hordes
By G.T.
FLEMING-ROBERTS

* * *

THE SNAKE GOD KILLS
A Novelette of
Strangling Horror
By
FRANK
BELKNAP
LONG, JR.

* * *

INVASION FROM INFERNO
A Complete Terror Novelette
By HUGH B. CAVE

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SHADOWS IN ZAMBOULA
stark horror in the
sinister house of
Aram Baksh
by
ROBERT E. HOWARD

* * *

DOCTOR SATAN
spreads icy
terror in Detroit
“THE CONSUMING FLAME”

* * *

Paul Ernst
Leslie F. Stone
E. Hoffman Price

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Things That Make Me Smile

Enigmatic Shaped Things

Menacing Stuffed Animal Displays at Stores

Nonsensical Light Fixtures

Disasterous Lawn Ornaments

Egyptian Revival Architecture

and strange photos in eBay auctions.

In this issue…

BRAIN ROCKER
by Laurence Donovan

* * *

FEATHERED DOOM
by John Mallory

* * *

DEATH STALKS THE TRACKLESS
by Wyatt Blassingame

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Don't, Pelican.

Ha Ha! I love this picture. Found on somebody’s tumbler with no info on source.

Lovely and Strange Dolls

Fantastic handmade corpse dolls can be found at Kamila’s Dolls – blog here: Kamila’s Dolls. Sadly she currently has nothing for sale at her Etsy site. Her mom has asked her to tell everyone that she had a very happy childhood.

Japanese Monster Anatomy

Check out this cool page of Japanese monster anatomy illustrations by manga artist Shigeru Mizuki.

The title of this book is Spacewreck – Ghostships and Derelicts of Space and it was published in 1979. The author, Stewart Cowley, wrote a couple of these that all went together and were called “Terran Trade Authority Handbooks”. They’ve become something like collectors items over the years. Besides Spacewreck, there was Starliners, Great Space Battles, and Spacecraft 2100 to 2200 AD. None of the other books held as much interest for me, though, because they didn’t have ruined civilizations, scientific experiments gone horribly wrong, or haunted planets.

Illustration from Spacewreck by Tony Roberts

In addition to the great stories, the book is lavishly illustrated. To me, this is like an extensive catalog of exotic vacation spots. I would definitely pay money to visit a quarantined space derelict where an ill-advised agricultural experiment went awry and took the lives of an entire crew.

Illustration from Spacewreck by Tony Roberts

Another place I would pay to visit is a planet with numerous giant derelict space ships that are worshiped as holy places by the strange humanoid inhabitants. Are they the descended from the space voyagers, or did the unlucky visitors meet their fates on the planet, and leave massive crumbling hulks of alien technology?

Illustration from Spacewreck by Bob Layzell

One place that sounds too horrible to visit is a planet where the wars got out of hand and thrust the population back to stone-age civilization.

Illustration from Spacewreck by Fred Gambino

Of course, none of these places are real, but a monster can certainly dream. Here’s a list of illustrators who contributed to this book (links go to artist websites): Alan Daniels, Peter Elson, Fred Gambino, Colin Hay, Robin Hiddon, Bob Layzell, Angus McKie, and Tony Roberts. It’s interesting to see what these artists are up to thirty years later.

This isn’t so much a book review as it is a “look at this cool thing. Wow!” article, but my OCD is forcing me to grade this book in the normal manner.

Creepy Factor: 3 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 2 out of 5 (short stories)
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 0 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 5 out of 5

Final result: Look at this cool thing. Wow!

Spacewreck – Ghostships and Derelicts of Space by Stewart Cowley – Hamlyn Publishing – 1979
Buy Spacewreck at Amazon – what are you waiting for?!?

Thanks for reading another one of my book reviews. See you next time!

SIX WERE SLAIN
by Justin Case

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Powers researches real events and produces stories that are as historically accurate as possible, and then puts a major twist on them, and sort of tells a “secret history” of the event. The event being re-framed in The Drawing is the 1529 siege of Vienna by the Ottomans. If you have read and liked The Anubis Gates, the good news is that this book has something of the same flavor. It’s about adventure and strange underworld goings-on in 16th Century Europe. Powers also explores his interest in the Fisher King, which also figured into the plot of his later book Last Call (1993). To give you a summary, The Drawing of the Dark is about an aging mercenary who is hired by a wizard to be a bouncer at a brewery in Vienna. On his way to his assignment from Venice, things start getting weird. Different groups of people try to kill him. Supernatural beings, including a troop of dwarfs, come to his aid at strange times. Once he gets to Vienna he gets pulled deeper and deeper into a struggle between near-mythological forces. He feels like an ordinary mercenary, but it becomes obvious that larger forces are at work.

There is fighting, romance, adventure, and plenty of weird magical realism. The fighting is painful, the romance is complicated and maybe a little sad, the adventure is imaginative and interesting, and the magic is strangely plausible. This book also has a humorous edge to it. Sadly, for me the book really got bogged down about halfway through. Although some of the characters still don’t get what’s going on, the reader will have it figured out, and that tends to water down the tension of the narrative. Also, the ending ended up being a little anti-climactic.

Let’s see those numbers.

Creepy Factor: 2 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 3 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 0 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 3 out of 5

Final result: If you’re already a Powers fan and are working your way through his books, you’ll probably like this book. If you’re curious about Powers, I would instead recommend Three Days to Never (2006), or the oft-mentioned-here, Anubis Gates (1983). If you are interested in the One Thousand and One Nights (a.k.a. 1001 Arabian Nights), you will probably find Declare (2001) to be an amazing read. I thought it was really mind-blowing, but a friend of mine couldn’t get through it.

The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers – Del Ray – 1979
Buy The Drawing of the Dark on Amazon

Thanks for reading another one of my book reviews. See you next time!

Look at her! She’s saying “RAWR!”

I figured that anybody who looked that amazing and hot would be putting out some really bizarre music. In my mind’s ear I heard J.G. Thirlwell and The Knife with a dash of ’80s-era Madonna. Or something. What I got was all of the latter and none of the former. It was a letdown. I recovered quickly and simply contented myself with watching her great costumes. That’s enough for an old monster like me, who bumps around in attics. You can tell me that she’s really subversive under all that pop music and I’ll believe you, really I will. I mean, she’s on the Vigilant Citizen’s short list.

Observe as Lady Gaga makes everyone else on stage uncomfortable. Mmmmmm. The woman on the left is faking cool, I can tell.

Hello operator. Give me number 9. And if you disconnect me. I’ll grab you from behind.

Enough of the eye candy. On to the belly. Here is Lady Gaga crowd-surfing.

You can see our belly licker in this next picture. Amazed to find himself in this position.

And here it goes!

It’s only fair for me to say that I was alerted to this development by this post on Gawker. They also have a great graphic which I didn’t want to pilfer, and is totally worth it. You can also see video of this here on Youtube.

CLUTCHING HANDS
OF
DEATH
By HAROLD WARD

* * *

C. L. Moore
Robert E. Howard
Otis Adelbert Kline

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