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| George Zel's cover for the St. Martin's original; below, the Warner mm pb. |
Frights for its part was the first anthology of new horror fiction I recall purchasing, not long after discovering the then-new fifth volume of Gerald W. Page's The Year's Best Horror Stories...it was a banner year for me, and I'd just found the First World Fantasy Awards volume, and through that Stuart Schiff's Whispers and Charles L. Grant's Shadows anthologies in hardcover in the libraries, to supplement the ever-wider remit of fiction magazines I was finding (rather luckily, in the latter 1970s) on the newsstands. Frights led off with Russell Kirk's "There's a Long, Long Trail a-Winding" (already familiar from the World Fantasy Awards volume), and further discoveries of Kirk's ghost stories in back issues and anthologies from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction...I wouldn't read any of his conservative political thought, in the pages of National Review or elsewhere, for another couple of years, and a slew of stories by a number of the better writers still active in the field from the heroic years of the 1930s or '40s onward (Robert Bloch, Davis Grubb) as well as a couple of folks whose professional careers hadn't quite finished a decade and a half by then (Dennis Etchison, Ramsey Campbell), along with those a bit further along: R. A. Laffterty, Robert Aickman, Gahan Wilson (with a typically daft tale...Lafferty not too far behind in that). Aside from the lack of women contributors, save Karen Anderson in collaboration with her husband Poul, a not bad sampling of much of the best of the horror field in English in 1976.
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| Oddly functional (at best) covers. |
Dark Forces went a bit bigger, and demonstrated that the horror boom that McCauley and his star client Stephen King (among many other notable artists, but no others yet quite as commercially potent) helped to detonate was starting to let itself be felt. Again. light on women contributors (though Lisa Tuttle and Joyce Carol Oates, the latter having a new story published for the first time in an explicitly horror/suspense context, are excellent representatives), but featuring an Edward Gorey illustration story (or a graphic story, a term just coming into the language), and an even more impressive roster of contributors to the horror tradition, from Isaac Bashevis Singer and Manly Wade Wellman to the relatively young T.E.D. Klein and Ed Bryant, Karl Edward Wagner and Joe Haldeman, and reaching out also to folks as diverse as Clifford Simak and Gene Wolfe (not too often writers of horror fiction, less so than the likes of Singer, Oates or Kirk, certainly) to augment the previous crew and the addition of such other major figures as Sturgeon, Bradbury and Matheson (with younger Matheson)--even if the Sturgeon and Bradbury items were perhaps not the best in the book...which was led off by Etchison's brilliant and jarring "The Late Shift" and wrapped up with King's stupid but highly popular and well-regarded novella "The Mist" (this was one of the key works by King that helped put me off him almost as soon as Carrie had made me receptive to his work). Dark Forces, in part on the strength of the King draw, was a hard book to miss over the early '80s, and "The Mist" was famously adapted (in "3-D" sound) by the NPR radio drama anthology Earplay, in its turn issued widely as a "book on tape", in the decade or so before the film version...but for one reason or another, perhaps largely because of his personal and professional troubles, McCauley never put together another volume in the clear. Sparing a thought for him, and the good work he was able to do and to further over his career.Please see Patti Abbott's blog for more prompt reviews today. And the fine Vault of Evil blog for some reviews of the books story by story...
Courtesy ISFDB:
- Publication: Dark Forces
- Editors: Kirby McCauley
- Year: 1980-08-00 Pages: xvi+551+[2]
- xi • Introduction (Dark Forces) • essay by Kirby McCauley
- 1 • The Late Shift • shortstory by Dennis Etchison
- 18 • The Enemy • shortstory by Isaac Bashevis Singer
- 27 • Dark Angel • shortstory by Edward Bryant
- 44 • The Crest of Thirty-six • shortstory by Davis Grubb
- 56 • Mark Ingestre: The Customer's Tale • shortstory by Robert Aickman
- 77 • Where the Summer Ends • novelette by Karl Edward Wagner
- 106 • The Bingo Master • shortstory by Joyce Carol Oates
- 129 • Children of the Kingdom • novella by T. E. D. Klein
- 196 • The Detective of Dreams • novelette by Gene Wolfe
- 214 • Vengeance Is. • shortstory by Theodore Sturgeon
- 222 • The Brood • shortstory by Ramsey Campbell
- 235 • The Whistling Well • novelette by Clifford D. Simak
- 263 • The Peculiar Demesne • novelette by Russell Kirk
- 292 • Where the Stones Grow • shortstory by Lisa Tuttle
- 306 • The Night Before Christmas • novelette by Robert Bloch
- 327 • The Stupid Joke • shortfiction by Edward Gorey
- 342 • A Touch of Petulance • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
- 353 • Lindsay and the Red City Blues • shortstory by Joe Haldeman
- 369 • A Garden of Blackred Roses • novelette by Charles L. Grant
- 391 • Owls Hoot in the Daytime • [John the Balladeer] • shortstory by Manly Wade Wellman
- 404 • Where There's a Will • shortstory by Richard Matheson and Richard Christian Matheson
- 412 • Traps • shortstory by Gahan Wilson
- 419 • The Mist • novella by Stephen King
- Publication: Frights
- Editors: Kirby McCauley
- Year: 1976-08-00 Pages: 293
- 1 • Wonder and Terror • essay by Fritz Leiber
- 7 • There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding • novelette by Russell Kirk
- 47 • The Whisperer • shortstory by Brian Lumley
- 65 • Armaja Das • shortstory by Joe Haldeman
- 89 • The Kitten • novelette by Poul Anderson and Karen Anderson
- 119 • Oh Tell Me Will It Freeze Tonight • shortstory by R. A. Lafferty
- 139 • Dead Call • shortstory by William F. Nolan
- 147 • The Idiots • shortstory by Davis Grubb
- 167 • The Companion • shortstory by Ramsey Campbell
- 183 • Firefight • novelette by David Drake
- 207 • It Only Comes Out at Night • shortstory by Dennis Etchison
- 223 • Compulsory Games • novelette by Robert Aickman
- 251 • Sums • (1976) • shortstory by John Jakes and Richard E. Peck
- 269 • The Warm Farewell • shortstory by Robert Bloch
- 285 • End Game • shortstory by Gahan Wilson
- 291 • Afterword (Frights) • essay by Kirby McCauley
- Publication: Beyond Midnight
- Editors: Kirby McCauley
- Year: 1976-11-00 Pages: x+210
- Notes: Story Notes by T. E. D. Klein.
- ix • Introduction (Beyond Midnight) • essay by Kirby McCauley
- 1 • The Nameless City • [Cthulhu Mythos] • (1921) • shortstory by H. P. Lovecraft
- 17 • Terror in Cut-Throat Cove • (1958) • novelette by Robert Bloch
- 63 • The Grey God Passes • [Turlogh O'Brien] • (1962) • novelette by Robert E. Howard
- 103 • The People of the Pit • (1918) • shortstory by A. Merritt
- 123 • The Traveller • [The Elliott Family] • (1946) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
- 141 • A View from a Hill • (1925) • shortstory by M. R. James
- 163 • The Interloper • (1973) • shortstory by Ramsey Campbell
- 175 • The Cotillon • (1931) • shortstory by L. P. Hartley
- 197 • A Watcher by the Dead • (1889) • shortstory by Ambrose Bierce
- Publication: Night Chills
- Editors: Kirby McCauley
- Year: 1975-11-00 Pages: 260
- ix • Introduction (Night Chills) • (1975) • essay by Kirby McCauley
- 1 • At Midnight, in the Month of June • [Green Town] • (1954) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
- 13 • A : B : O. • (1896) • novelette by Walter de la Mare
- 31 • Minnesota Gothic • (1964) • shortstory by Thomas M. Disch
- 47 • The Jugular Man • (1973) • shortstory by Joseph Payne Brennan
- 55 • Alice and the Allergy • (1946) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
- 65 • The Island • (1924) • shortstory by L. P. Hartley
- 81 • Yesterday's Witch • (1973) • shortstory by Gahan Wilson
- 89 • Wet Season • (1965) • shortstory by Dennis Etchison
- 103 • Innsmouth Clay • (1971) • shortstory by H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth
- 117 • People of the Black Coast • (1969) • shortstory by Robert E. Howard
- 129 • Call First • shortstory by Ramsey Campbell
- 135 • From Beyond the Stars • (1975) • novelette by Richard L. Tierney
- 157 • The Funny Farm • (1971) • shortstory by Robert Bloch
- 169 • The Face in the Wind • (1936) • novelette by Carl Jacobi
- 193 • Goodman's Place • [Southern Appalachia] • (1974) • shortstory by Manly Wade Wellman
- 209 • Kellerman's Eyepiece • (1975) • shortstory by Mary Elizabeth Counselman
- 221 • Sticks • [Cthulhu Mythos] • (1974) • novelette by Karl Edward Wagner
- 243 • The Sign-Painter and the Crystal Fishes • (1933) • shortstory by Marjorie Bowen
7 comments:
I have the paperbacks of both of those you discussed and read them with enjoyment long ago. Don't have the other two, though.
They definitely look like interesting assemblies.
I remember coming across them but not picking them up (bit of a wuss when it comes to horror on print and on screen in fact...)
Well, as McCauley is careful to note (and is one of those who taught me to be careful similarly), the anthologies include suspense fiction as well (and Dennis Etchison, particularly, rather as with Joe Lansdale, is usually more disturbing with his suspense fiction than with his horror)...I suspect you'd've enjoyed these back when, and would still...
Todd, this is fascinating stuff as ever. I recently came across short stories and novellas of Robert Bloch, R.A. Lafferty, Robert Aickman, and Many Wade Wellman (at UNZ, I think) but didn't quite know which ones to download and read. They all seemed interesting. Spoilt for choice, am I? In fact, I was looking for links to UNZ here but then, I guess, one can't do better than isfdb for a comprehensive picture.
Well, all four of those writers have some work that is pretty minor at times, but their best work has been among the most influential written in horror, fantasy, suspense fiction and sf...the problem with what UNZ has posted is that it won't all be among the minor work (particularly if you're looking at posted issues of WEIRD TALES in the 1940s) but that a whole lot of the best work (from the pages of THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, for example) will have been taken down because UNZ.org was trying not to be seen to be violating copyright. The best way to get to know the work of these four, and most major writers, is to find a good collection of their own work, or a good selection in an historically-minded anthology that has been edited by people who actually know the field and are interested in doing a good job...two strikes for someone in your position, where the physical books are hard to come by, and where the experience of knowing who is actually knowledgable about the literature and not too much wedded to certain hobbyhorses (S. T. Joshi comes to mind here) only comes with reading the literature and gaining perspective...something very difficult to do with any sort of systematic approach when only a small fraction of the literature is easily available to you. Not a happy problem, and not one which is going to resolve itself as soon as the Cybernetic Revolution might've led us to hope it might.
That's me, Todd Mason, posting accidentally under Alice's login again.
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