Will Errickson's Blog, page 4
June 8, 2022
The Case Against Satan by Ray Russell (1962): Hell is for Children
There was a rattling, gagging sound from the girl, and they turned to watch in pity and loathing as she retched violently, her body curling in spasms, her fingers and toes clenched, her gaping mouth spewing jet after jet of reeking substance that covered her and splattered the wall and ran sluggishly in long viscous tendrils down to the floor. A young teenage girl in unbearable torment of unknown
May 30, 2022
The Bridge by John Skipp & Craig Spector (1991): The Ultimate Sin
The horror genre isn't generally thought of as being socially conscious, and historically was often seen as just the opposite. This has changed most notably in the last few years, but back in the Eighties and into the Nineties, horror entertainment was more a place to indulge in anti-social behaviors than in healthy ones. Famed splatterpunk duo John Skipp and Craig Spector, those "bad boys" of
April 2, 2022
Where Nightmares Are: Peter Haining Born This Date, 1940
Anthologist and horror historian Peter Haining was born on April 2, 1940, in Middlesex, England. His books number into the hundreds, and his anthologies boast some of the most bizarre art of the late Sixties and Seventies, often by recognizable genre artists such as Bruce Pennington and John Holmes. Favoring "the subtle and the classic over the shocking and the graphic," he collected tales not
April 1, 2022
Harry Adam Knight's Carnosaur Coming from Valancourt Books!
Hey gang, look what's coming soon from Valancourt Books! It's the 1984 prehistoric animal-attack classick Carnosaur, by prolific pulp purveyor Harry Adam Knight (John Brosnan when he's at home). Highly sought-after in its original Star UK and Bart Books US paperback incarnations, you now will not have to pay an astronomical sum to own a copy. I've contributed a new introduction for this edition,
March 25, 2022
Some Say Love It is a Razor
In the early and mid Eighties Zebra cranked out a handful of paperbacks that featured photos of knives slicing through various fruit, and in one case, a rose—not too obvious now! You'll recognize a few names: Joe Lansdale's first novel, Act of Love; two from hack supreme William W. Johnstone; and two from "Philip Straker," an pseudonym of Edward Lee, who would become a prolific extreme horror
March 7, 2022
Kiki by John Gill (1979): Plastic Fantastic Lover
When I first saw a copy of the gloriously-covered Kiki (Fawcett Popular Library, October 1980) on a fellow paperback horror fan's Instagram, I bought a copy immediately, $5 on Abebooks. Mannequin horror, it looked like, promising illicit erotic thrills, you know I had to have it. How had this book passed me by? I'd never come across it before, and the author's name, John Gill, meant nothing to
January 27, 2022
Horror Fiction Help XXVI
Time once again in which I seek identification of these forgotten horrors for fellow blog readers. Thanks in advance!1. In the late 1990s or 2000 I read a paperback about a married couple who move into a new house. The wife somehow disappears in a room or door in the attic that leads to another world or dimension. 2. A horror/supernatural/ghost anthology published 1985-1993. One story was set in
January 21, 2022
Latest Title in Valancourt's Paperbacks from Hell Series: Progeny of the Adder!
Coming this summer, the 15th title in the Paperbacks from Hell reprint series published by Valancourt Books! Progeny of the Adder is a 1965 horror-thriller by Leslie H. Whitten (1928 - 2017), a Florida-born journalist who also wrote several genre novels. I first read this title over 10 years ago and reviewed it here, and mentioned it in my recommended reading afterward for PfH. I'm looking
December 31, 2021
2021: The Year in Review
Alas: 2021 was another year in which I've had more luck buying horror paperbacks than I have had in reading them. You've probably noticed the dearth of reviews on the blog. This year I started to read so many but gave up on them in a flash, realizing I'm having the same reaction to them as editors/critics like Karl Edward Wagner, Dennis Etchison, and Charles L. Grant had back in the day: the
December 9, 2021
Living in Fear: A History of Horror in Mass Media by Les Daniels (1975): Immaculately Frightful
Despite being able to Google any and all topics at any and all times, I still cherish having my own nonfiction collection of horror reference books. I've always been interested in author biographies and critical appreciations of the genre, especially for the general reader and not the literary academic. While my shelf of these titles pales in comparison to my shelves of actual horror fiction, my
