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Monster Museum - Twelve Shuddery Stories for Daring Young Readers
Contents:
Introduction: A Variety of Monsters • essay by Alfred Hitchcock
• The Day of the Dragon (1934) • novelette by Guy Endore
• The King of the Cats (1929) • shortstory by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Slime (1953) • novelette by Joseph Payne Brennan
• The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles (1951) • shortstory by Margaret St. Clair [writing as Idris Seabright ]
• Henry Martindale, Great Dane (1954) • shortstory by Miriam Allen deFord
• The Microscopic Giants (1936) • shortstory by Paul Ernst
• The Young One (1954) • novelette by Jerome Bixby
• Doomsday Deferred (1949) • shortstory by Murray Leinster [as by Will F. Jenkins ]
• "Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall ..." (1951) • shortstory by Theodore Sturgeon
• The Desrick on Yandro (1952) • shortstory by Manly Wade Wellman
• The Wheelbarrow Boy (1950) • shortstory by Richard Parker
• Homecoming (1946) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury (variant of The Homecoming)
Introduction: A Variety of Monsters • essay by Alfred Hitchcock
• The Day of the Dragon (1934) • novelette by Guy Endore
• The King of the Cats (1929) • shortstory by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Slime (1953) • novelette by Joseph Payne Brennan
• The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles (1951) • shortstory by Margaret St. Clair [writing as Idris Seabright ]
• Henry Martindale, Great Dane (1954) • shortstory by Miriam Allen deFord
• The Microscopic Giants (1936) • shortstory by Paul Ernst
• The Young One (1954) • novelette by Jerome Bixby
• Doomsday Deferred (1949) • shortstory by Murray Leinster [as by Will F. Jenkins ]
• "Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall ..." (1951) • shortstory by Theodore Sturgeon
• The Desrick on Yandro (1952) • shortstory by Manly Wade Wellman
• The Wheelbarrow Boy (1950) • shortstory by Richard Parker
• Homecoming (1946) • shortstory by Ray Bradbury (variant of The Homecoming)
207 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1965
9 people are currently reading
230 people want to read
About the author
Guy Endore
37 books21 followersSamuel Guy Endore (4 July 1900 - 12 February 1970), born Samuel Goldstein and also known as Harry Relis, was a novelist and screenwriter. During his career he produced a wide array of novels, screenplays, and pamphlets, both published and unpublished. A cult favorite of fans of horror, he is best known for his novel The Werewolf of Paris which occupies a significant position in werewolf literature, much in the same way that Dracula does for fans of vampires.
He was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar for The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), and his novel Methinks the Lady . . . (1946) was the basis for Ben Hecht's screenplay for Whirlpool (1949).
He was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar for The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), and his novel Methinks the Lady . . . (1946) was the basis for Ben Hecht's screenplay for Whirlpool (1949).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
October 1, 2025
This anthology of monster stories was great but the Wheelbarrow Boy and the Great Dane story did not seem to fit in with tales of frightening monsters. The other tales like Slime were excellent inclusions in this book. Homecoming by Ray Bradbury was featured on NPR's Selected Shorts and it is a story that ranks at the top of the genre. Monster Museum was a fun read that you can read again and again.
June 9, 2022
One of the most important books of my youth and therefore my entire reading life. Allow me to explain...
It is a collection of stories that gives a slightly false impression of being for children. The stories are not children's fiction. They are adult stories of weirdness and imagination and every single one is excellent. There isn't a bad story in the volume. They opened my mind to the possibilities of 'weird' fiction.
This was the book that introduced me to the work of Ray Bradbury. The final story in this collection is 'Homecoming' (which also happens to be the first story in his first collection, Dark Carnival) and it's a remarkable piece, a horror-comedy, poetic and strange, uplifting and downbeat at the same time. A story that seems to be a parody but actually isn't. Bradbury subsequently became an extremely important influence on me. In fact I wouldn't be a writer today if I hadn't discovered his work.
But that's the last story in this book. Let's consider the others...
The first story in this collection, 'The Day of the Dragon' by Guy Endore is another extremely strong piece, well-written, ingenious, darkly funny. Endore is sadly underrated these days. It's surely time for his rediscovery. What impressed me about this story was the fact that the basic idea is just so ingenious. The prose itself is also of a very high quality.
'The King of the Cats' by Stephen Vincent Benet is marvellous. It reads like the sort of story Saki might have written but didn't.
'Slime' by Joseph Brennan often seems to be the favourite of many of those who have read this book. It's a very effective story, essentially a tale of pure horror.
'The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles' by Idris Seabright takes characters and situations invented by Lord Dunsany and gives them an even darker twist than they originally had.
'Gone to the Dogs' by Miriam Allen deFord is a humorous story about transformation.
'The Microscopic Giants' by Paul Ernst is a wonderfully disturbing story about a new form of life found deep underground, where the enormous pressures of the rock mean that any entities that exist must be extremely dense. This was the first oxymoron title I ever encountered and I still think it's marvellous (my favourite oxymoron title of all is probably The Dark Light Years by Brian Aldiss).
'The Young One' by Jerome Bixby is, in some ways, the most conventional tale in this book, but there is a delightful twist at the end which should be obvious but somehow isn't. And again, the quality of the prose is superb.
'Doomsday Deferred' by Will Jenkins. Another masterpiece. This story is about a gestalt entity in the Brazilian jungle.
'The Desrick on Yandro' is perhaps the best story Manly Wade Wellman ever wrote. It is certainly the best and most inventive (and perfectly paced) of his series of 'Silver John' tales.
'The Wheelbarrow Boy' by Richard Parker was my very first introduction to 'Kafkaesque' fiction, that deadpan delivery of the most outrageous and absurdist happenings.
I had just re-read this book after 38 or so years. It was magnificent.
It is a collection of stories that gives a slightly false impression of being for children. The stories are not children's fiction. They are adult stories of weirdness and imagination and every single one is excellent. There isn't a bad story in the volume. They opened my mind to the possibilities of 'weird' fiction.
This was the book that introduced me to the work of Ray Bradbury. The final story in this collection is 'Homecoming' (which also happens to be the first story in his first collection, Dark Carnival) and it's a remarkable piece, a horror-comedy, poetic and strange, uplifting and downbeat at the same time. A story that seems to be a parody but actually isn't. Bradbury subsequently became an extremely important influence on me. In fact I wouldn't be a writer today if I hadn't discovered his work.
But that's the last story in this book. Let's consider the others...
The first story in this collection, 'The Day of the Dragon' by Guy Endore is another extremely strong piece, well-written, ingenious, darkly funny. Endore is sadly underrated these days. It's surely time for his rediscovery. What impressed me about this story was the fact that the basic idea is just so ingenious. The prose itself is also of a very high quality.
'The King of the Cats' by Stephen Vincent Benet is marvellous. It reads like the sort of story Saki might have written but didn't.
'Slime' by Joseph Brennan often seems to be the favourite of many of those who have read this book. It's a very effective story, essentially a tale of pure horror.
'The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles' by Idris Seabright takes characters and situations invented by Lord Dunsany and gives them an even darker twist than they originally had.
'Gone to the Dogs' by Miriam Allen deFord is a humorous story about transformation.
'The Microscopic Giants' by Paul Ernst is a wonderfully disturbing story about a new form of life found deep underground, where the enormous pressures of the rock mean that any entities that exist must be extremely dense. This was the first oxymoron title I ever encountered and I still think it's marvellous (my favourite oxymoron title of all is probably The Dark Light Years by Brian Aldiss).
'The Young One' by Jerome Bixby is, in some ways, the most conventional tale in this book, but there is a delightful twist at the end which should be obvious but somehow isn't. And again, the quality of the prose is superb.
'Doomsday Deferred' by Will Jenkins. Another masterpiece. This story is about a gestalt entity in the Brazilian jungle.
'The Desrick on Yandro' is perhaps the best story Manly Wade Wellman ever wrote. It is certainly the best and most inventive (and perfectly paced) of his series of 'Silver John' tales.
'The Wheelbarrow Boy' by Richard Parker was my very first introduction to 'Kafkaesque' fiction, that deadpan delivery of the most outrageous and absurdist happenings.
I had just re-read this book after 38 or so years. It was magnificent.
June 20, 2016
My first taste of the Hitchcock collections, as a pre-teen. As collections go, this is only mediocre but I read it at the correct age. I remember two stories terrified me: "Slime" by Joseph Payne Brennan and "The Young One" by Jerome Bixby. I couldn't enjoy "Homecoming", one of Ray Bradbury's finest, as it was too mature for my tastes back then.
Read
September 24, 2023I've had this collection since I was a little kid, as I was a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators and Hitch's anthologies (both the ones for kids and those for adults). It's an adequate set of stories for a kid - nothing *too* scary (well, we'll get to that in a moment) and nothing too deep, that might bore a kid. A fun collection of (mostly) monster stories.
A moment should be taken to acknowledge the weird and disturbing collage illustrations of Earl E. Mayan (which hopefully are retained in later printings, although I doubt it) - who also provided disturbing illos for Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Revisited. Here, working in Clyfford Still-esque washes of purple and black, with little Dada-type photo collage snips of anguished, screaming faces and people without eyes, it's some really great stuff!
I ended up re-evaluating a few stories here on the re-read, sometimes with an eye towards their inclusions for children and sometimes just because my tastes have expanded somewhat. On the weaker side: Miriam Allen deFord has a cute little thing called "Henry Martindale, Great Dane" (aka "Gone To The Dogs"), in which a writer wakes up one morning to discover he has turned into a Great Dane (he can still talk and think, though). It's a nice fantasy story for a kid's book (Charles Fort even gets name checked, and lycanthropy gets a call out) but a bit thin for an adult. "Shadow, Shadow On The Wall" by Theodore Sturgeon - in which a young, imaginative boy suffers under his cruel stepmother's care, until his shadowplay allows for a supernatural comeuppance - is a fairly standard and straightforward "revenge fantasy" story, fine for what it is, but this wouldn't be the first time I've found Sturgeon's prose oddly choppy and hard to engage with. And Richard Parker's "The Wheelbarrow Boy" has a schoolteacher turn a recalcitrant student into the titular object (seemingly a common occurrence for punishment) but then can't change him back. A droll little bit of urban fantasy, meant to be read symbolically I suppose, but not my thing.
Paul Ernst's "The Microscopic Giants" is a standard pulp yarn, simple but enjoyable, as workers at the bottom of an incredibly deep copper mine shaft encounter weird beings, who live in the rock as if it were their atmosphere. A good kid's story with some concepts to chew on, and some inadvertent (?) evocation of gnomes and earth elementals. "Doomsday Deferred" by Will F. Jenkins (aka Murray Leinster) features an entomologist tasked with finding a rare butterfly in the Amazonian rain forest. A native seems to have remarkable success at fulfilling his requests (and only asks for help in obtaining a large head of cattle as pay) but as it turns out his helpers are anything but typical. This is a solid little SF yarn with a well-handled, implicit threat (which does not achieve fruition during the course of the story but which lingers on after the last line). Solid. Jerome Bixby, meanwhile, in "The Young One," tells us about an average American kid who befriends a strange, Hungarian boy who just moved into the neighborhood. The boy is dark, disliked by animals, his family eats raw meat and they want him back before the moon rises on certain nights of the month. Fill in your blanks. It's not bad, just predictable, but as a story for younger readers it works well (and coincidentally - or maybe not - sets up Bradbury's "Homecoming" that finishes the books, with its tale of familial monsters just trying to get along). Finally, in the "good but unimpressive" section, is Joseph Payne Brennan's "Slime" which - when I read it as a kid - impressed me mightily (and was probably the longest piece of fiction I ever attempted at that age). This last bit makes sense as it's (again) a very simple, straightforward tale (essentially, a 50's monster movie compacted into a longish short story) as a volcanic upheaval throws a monstrous piece of formless, predatory slime (think a slightly more fluid, and pitch black, version of "The Blob", or that "Blot" episode of the 60s Spider-Man cartoon) from the sea-bottom up into the swamp near a coastal town, where it begins to prey on the locals (only at night - it can't stand the daylight) until the Army is called in. Juvenile, and without a thought in its head beyond being a ripping good monster yarn, it succeeds admirably at that goal.
I had previously read all the stories here that I would rate solidly "good" (although in two cases, I re-evaluated them up to that level). I was probably too dismissive of Idris Seabright's "The Man Who Sold Rope To The Gnoles" when I read it originally because it's a droll, Dunsanian (his "Gibbelins" even get a specific shout out!) piece of sardonic, dark urban fantasy (and I was probably too pretentious to have time for that stuff when I was feeling my critical way forward earlier in my life) in which a self-assured door to door salesman makes a fatal faux-pas in his pursuit of gaining the lucrative trade from some monsters. Short and cute, I can appreciate it a bit more now that I'm older. Meanwhile "The Desrick On Yandro" was probably considered too unambitious for my younger self, being another of Manly Wade Wellman's "John The Balladeer" stories of Appalachian backwoods folklore. Here, John gets conscripted by a rich and powerful man into leading him to the mountain which is the source of a folk ballad that concerns his singular family name, which leads to a witch who his Grandfather betrayed. It's an amiable thing, the thin plot used as an excuse to hang appearances on by a bunch of backwoods folkloric creatures - like the flying Skim, the hunching Flat and the unseen Behinder (which John *sees*, but find indescribable). I myself quite liked the impossibly quiet and stealthy Bammat, a lurking Woolly Mammoth thing that inexplicably sneaks up on you through the trees (it reminded me of Winnie The Pooh's Heffalumps). Fun. "The Day Of The Dragon" by Guy Endore, is a somewhat satirical tale that starts with a classic piece of Forteana (a Toad In A Hole), moves on to yellow journalists exploiting both a scientifically ignorant public (how contemporary!) and the mad dreams of an impoverished professor of Biology, finishing with the end of all mankind! Darkly humorous. And Stephen Vincent Benét's “The King Of The Cats” is a charming little fable – it put me in mind of a more light-hearted take on the film CAT PEOPLE – and it has a nice feel of an old folktale deployed in a modern setting. In circles of high society, average man-about-town Tommy Brooks is infatuated with the aloof, exotic Princess Vivrakanarda - who seems to tolerate him until the arrival of the famous, suave and urbane orchestra conductor, Mr. Tibault - who has a prehensile tail. And Tommy's friend Billy Strange suggests a remedy for the romantic triangle, derived from folklore. Breezy and humorous, this reminded me also of the Stephen Crane story “The Black Dog.”
"Homecoming" (which I probably skipped when I was a kid) is the best thing here and one of my favorite Bradbury stories ever, ur-text for Charles Addams's famous Family (here, The Elliotts), The Munsters, etc. and thus a component of the whole 1950's "Monster Kid" culture. It also still brings tears to my eyes. The "monsters" ARE REALLY monsters (as Cecy's interaction with the old woman and the mud-pits illustrates). I hope he continued to walk the fine line the originals tread so assuredly in his later re-use of this material (which I have not read). I wonder if all the Tim Burton fans even know a story like this exists?
A solid collection of stories for a kid!
A moment should be taken to acknowledge the weird and disturbing collage illustrations of Earl E. Mayan (which hopefully are retained in later printings, although I doubt it) - who also provided disturbing illos for Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Revisited. Here, working in Clyfford Still-esque washes of purple and black, with little Dada-type photo collage snips of anguished, screaming faces and people without eyes, it's some really great stuff!
I ended up re-evaluating a few stories here on the re-read, sometimes with an eye towards their inclusions for children and sometimes just because my tastes have expanded somewhat. On the weaker side: Miriam Allen deFord has a cute little thing called "Henry Martindale, Great Dane" (aka "Gone To The Dogs"), in which a writer wakes up one morning to discover he has turned into a Great Dane (he can still talk and think, though). It's a nice fantasy story for a kid's book (Charles Fort even gets name checked, and lycanthropy gets a call out) but a bit thin for an adult. "Shadow, Shadow On The Wall" by Theodore Sturgeon - in which a young, imaginative boy suffers under his cruel stepmother's care, until his shadowplay allows for a supernatural comeuppance - is a fairly standard and straightforward "revenge fantasy" story, fine for what it is, but this wouldn't be the first time I've found Sturgeon's prose oddly choppy and hard to engage with. And Richard Parker's "The Wheelbarrow Boy" has a schoolteacher turn a recalcitrant student into the titular object (seemingly a common occurrence for punishment) but then can't change him back. A droll little bit of urban fantasy, meant to be read symbolically I suppose, but not my thing.
Paul Ernst's "The Microscopic Giants" is a standard pulp yarn, simple but enjoyable, as workers at the bottom of an incredibly deep copper mine shaft encounter weird beings, who live in the rock as if it were their atmosphere. A good kid's story with some concepts to chew on, and some inadvertent (?) evocation of gnomes and earth elementals. "Doomsday Deferred" by Will F. Jenkins (aka Murray Leinster) features an entomologist tasked with finding a rare butterfly in the Amazonian rain forest. A native seems to have remarkable success at fulfilling his requests (and only asks for help in obtaining a large head of cattle as pay) but as it turns out his helpers are anything but typical. This is a solid little SF yarn with a well-handled, implicit threat (which does not achieve fruition during the course of the story but which lingers on after the last line). Solid. Jerome Bixby, meanwhile, in "The Young One," tells us about an average American kid who befriends a strange, Hungarian boy who just moved into the neighborhood. The boy is dark, disliked by animals, his family eats raw meat and they want him back before the moon rises on certain nights of the month. Fill in your blanks. It's not bad, just predictable, but as a story for younger readers it works well (and coincidentally - or maybe not - sets up Bradbury's "Homecoming" that finishes the books, with its tale of familial monsters just trying to get along). Finally, in the "good but unimpressive" section, is Joseph Payne Brennan's "Slime" which - when I read it as a kid - impressed me mightily (and was probably the longest piece of fiction I ever attempted at that age). This last bit makes sense as it's (again) a very simple, straightforward tale (essentially, a 50's monster movie compacted into a longish short story) as a volcanic upheaval throws a monstrous piece of formless, predatory slime (think a slightly more fluid, and pitch black, version of "The Blob", or that "Blot" episode of the 60s Spider-Man cartoon) from the sea-bottom up into the swamp near a coastal town, where it begins to prey on the locals (only at night - it can't stand the daylight) until the Army is called in. Juvenile, and without a thought in its head beyond being a ripping good monster yarn, it succeeds admirably at that goal.
I had previously read all the stories here that I would rate solidly "good" (although in two cases, I re-evaluated them up to that level). I was probably too dismissive of Idris Seabright's "The Man Who Sold Rope To The Gnoles" when I read it originally because it's a droll, Dunsanian (his "Gibbelins" even get a specific shout out!) piece of sardonic, dark urban fantasy (and I was probably too pretentious to have time for that stuff when I was feeling my critical way forward earlier in my life) in which a self-assured door to door salesman makes a fatal faux-pas in his pursuit of gaining the lucrative trade from some monsters. Short and cute, I can appreciate it a bit more now that I'm older. Meanwhile "The Desrick On Yandro" was probably considered too unambitious for my younger self, being another of Manly Wade Wellman's "John The Balladeer" stories of Appalachian backwoods folklore. Here, John gets conscripted by a rich and powerful man into leading him to the mountain which is the source of a folk ballad that concerns his singular family name, which leads to a witch who his Grandfather betrayed. It's an amiable thing, the thin plot used as an excuse to hang appearances on by a bunch of backwoods folkloric creatures - like the flying Skim, the hunching Flat and the unseen Behinder (which John *sees*, but find indescribable). I myself quite liked the impossibly quiet and stealthy Bammat, a lurking Woolly Mammoth thing that inexplicably sneaks up on you through the trees (it reminded me of Winnie The Pooh's Heffalumps). Fun. "The Day Of The Dragon" by Guy Endore, is a somewhat satirical tale that starts with a classic piece of Forteana (a Toad In A Hole), moves on to yellow journalists exploiting both a scientifically ignorant public (how contemporary!) and the mad dreams of an impoverished professor of Biology, finishing with the end of all mankind! Darkly humorous. And Stephen Vincent Benét's “The King Of The Cats” is a charming little fable – it put me in mind of a more light-hearted take on the film CAT PEOPLE – and it has a nice feel of an old folktale deployed in a modern setting. In circles of high society, average man-about-town Tommy Brooks is infatuated with the aloof, exotic Princess Vivrakanarda - who seems to tolerate him until the arrival of the famous, suave and urbane orchestra conductor, Mr. Tibault - who has a prehensile tail. And Tommy's friend Billy Strange suggests a remedy for the romantic triangle, derived from folklore. Breezy and humorous, this reminded me also of the Stephen Crane story “The Black Dog.”
"Homecoming" (which I probably skipped when I was a kid) is the best thing here and one of my favorite Bradbury stories ever, ur-text for Charles Addams's famous Family (here, The Elliotts), The Munsters, etc. and thus a component of the whole 1950's "Monster Kid" culture. It also still brings tears to my eyes. The "monsters" ARE REALLY monsters (as Cecy's interaction with the old woman and the mud-pits illustrates). I hope he continued to walk the fine line the originals tread so assuredly in his later re-use of this material (which I have not read). I wonder if all the Tim Burton fans even know a story like this exists?
A solid collection of stories for a kid!
June 28, 2016
This is an anthology brought to us by the master of horror Alfred Hitchock. Unfortunally I didn't connect to most stories.
Some stories were outdated in my opinion with all stories more than 60 years old.
"The Day of the Dragon" by Guy Endore (1934)
"The King of the Cats" by Stephen Vincent Benét (1929)
"Slime" by Joseph Payne Brennan (1953)
"The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" by Idris Seabright (1951)
"Henry Martindale, Great Dane" by Miriam Allen deFord (1954)
"The Microscopic Giants" by Paul Ernst (1936)
"The Young One" by Jerome Bixby (1953)
"Doomsday Deferred" by Will F. Jenkins (1949)
"Shadow, Shadow on the Wall" by Theodore Sturgeon (1950)
"The Desrick on Yandro" by Manly Wade Wellman (1952)
"The Wheelbarrow Boy" by Richard Parker (1953)
"Homecoming" by Ray Bradbury (1943)
My favourite were
The Day of the Dragon is about an experiment gone wrong where alligators turn into dragons. Excelent. After all the crocodiles have millions of years old so...
Slime - It's a story about something that has lived in the botton of the ocean for all eternity and now it came to our doorstep. It is black and pure evil. It remind me of an episode of Star Trek called Skin of Evil where Yar was killed.
The Microscopic Giants tells us a tale about deep exploration and what might live there. Gnomes or Dwarves that could tranverse walls.
Doomsday Deferred by Paul Ernst is a story about a man who went to amazon so he could capture a butterfly. There is met a man who is willing to help if he brings cattle for him. He even gives gold nuggetts to swift the deal because he can't leave his farm. In the end we understand that the man and the army ants share a bound - hive mind. Quite good story.
The Young One is a tale about werewolves but with a twist. I really enjoy this tale. I could picture myself in it.
I can't reccommend to anyone but one who wish to know more about horror fiction done throughout the time (not counting with those more famous like HP Lovecraft, Robert Howard or Clark Ashton Smith)
Most of these stories are going to be free in a couple of years. Wait and then go read it at Project Gutenberg
Some stories were outdated in my opinion with all stories more than 60 years old.
"The Day of the Dragon" by Guy Endore (1934)
"The King of the Cats" by Stephen Vincent Benét (1929)
"Slime" by Joseph Payne Brennan (1953)
"The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" by Idris Seabright (1951)
"Henry Martindale, Great Dane" by Miriam Allen deFord (1954)
"The Microscopic Giants" by Paul Ernst (1936)
"The Young One" by Jerome Bixby (1953)
"Doomsday Deferred" by Will F. Jenkins (1949)
"Shadow, Shadow on the Wall" by Theodore Sturgeon (1950)
"The Desrick on Yandro" by Manly Wade Wellman (1952)
"The Wheelbarrow Boy" by Richard Parker (1953)
"Homecoming" by Ray Bradbury (1943)
My favourite were
The Day of the Dragon is about an experiment gone wrong where alligators turn into dragons. Excelent. After all the crocodiles have millions of years old so...
Slime - It's a story about something that has lived in the botton of the ocean for all eternity and now it came to our doorstep. It is black and pure evil. It remind me of an episode of Star Trek called Skin of Evil where Yar was killed.
The Microscopic Giants tells us a tale about deep exploration and what might live there. Gnomes or Dwarves that could tranverse walls.
Doomsday Deferred by Paul Ernst is a story about a man who went to amazon so he could capture a butterfly. There is met a man who is willing to help if he brings cattle for him. He even gives gold nuggetts to swift the deal because he can't leave his farm. In the end we understand that the man and the army ants share a bound - hive mind. Quite good story.
The Young One is a tale about werewolves but with a twist. I really enjoy this tale. I could picture myself in it.
I can't reccommend to anyone but one who wish to know more about horror fiction done throughout the time (not counting with those more famous like HP Lovecraft, Robert Howard or Clark Ashton Smith)
Most of these stories are going to be free in a couple of years. Wait and then go read it at Project Gutenberg
December 2, 2012
I absolutely adore this book -- my favorite from the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" series, which I read at far too early and impressionable age.
This series introduced me to H.P. Lovecraft, Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, and many more. The stories contained in this volume are some of the best, in my opinion -- well worth re-reading as an adult.
(I spent quite a bit of time tracking down all the volumes for my daughter, so that she'd have the opportunity to read them as I did -- but perhaps at a SLIGHTLY less early age, heh.)
This series introduced me to H.P. Lovecraft, Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, and many more. The stories contained in this volume are some of the best, in my opinion -- well worth re-reading as an adult.
(I spent quite a bit of time tracking down all the volumes for my daughter, so that she'd have the opportunity to read them as I did -- but perhaps at a SLIGHTLY less early age, heh.)
January 16, 2016
This is a great collection of mostly science fiction from the fifties with a few from earlier days. These stories were all previously published in the sci-fi magazines of the era and were curated together here with a theme of "monsters" and chosen as appropriate for young readers. I loved these Alfred Hitchcock collections as a kid and I'm pleased to say I thoroughly enjoyed reading this as an adult. The selection of authors contains a few famous names, and other lesser-known names but research shows they were all prolific short story writers. I really enjoyed the selection only finding one dud in the whole group and several very excellent ones.
1. The Day of the Dragon by Guy Endore (1934) - An apocalyptic tale of how an underappreciated professor brings about the apocalypse. He determines to experiment on alligator brains to improve their slothfulness and eventually succeeds but his experiments not only become lively they start to change, evolve as it were, until they become dragons, eventually mating, man-eating. The narrator, one of the last of the human race left living underground records the tale from the beginning for posterity's sake, in case the human race does survive, which he admits is not likely. Readable, but scientifically dated from the thirties. (3/5)
2. The King of the Cats by Stephan Vincent Benet (1929) - Wickedly delicious! I loved this! Rather like a fairy tale in some ways, but contemporary. A man is in love with a Siamese princess who is visiting New York but then a famed conductor comes to town whose claim to fame is that he has a tail. A bit of a mystery follows with the paranormal. Romantic gothic. Delightful. (5/5)
3. Slime by Joseph Payne Brennan (1953) - This was written five years before the cult hit movie "The Blob" but is basically the same thing. Here the slime is some sort of primordial beast from the sea who makes its way to land and starts absorbing living beings leading its way up to humans. As typical with '50s monster movies, the army is called in, well the Home Guard in this case, and they figure out its weakness and save the world. Typical of its genre. (3/5)
4. The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles by Idris Seabright (1951) - Macabre little tale of a salesman who goes to a house inhabited by unknown creatures to sell his wares. It ends as one would expect. (3/5)
5. Henry Martindale, Great Dane by Miriam Allen deFord (1954) - My favourite story so far. A writer of short fiction wakes up one morning, with shades of Kafka, to find he has turned into a great dane. He and his wife wait a week to see if he'll change back but he doesn't and they determine he has the body of a dog, the instincts of the dog, but has retained his human eyes, human voice, and human brain. They pack up and move to the country where no one will know them. In this, I felt the most for the wife who was given little choice in the matter and I think the real monster here was not the dog the husband turned into but the husband's true self that never changed and held an unfortunate dominance over the woman until the (to me) tragic end. Of course, she had plenty of opportunities to change the outcome but never took any. A freaky story. (5/5)
6. The Microscopic Giants by Paul Ernst (1936) - A copper mining operation taking place in the depths of the earth for the war effort has the miners discovering fossilized tiny little feet. Until the footprints start to multiply and then a tiny person is seen and the two men in charge go to investigate. A great sci-fi story from this age, filled with pseudo-science but creepy nonetheless. (4/5)
7. The Young One by Jerome Bixby (1953) - I really liked this! A family moves to America from Hungary deciding it is time to give up the old ways and get by as humans in the New World which doesn't believe in their kind. Their young son knows he's different but doesn't know what he is yet, but after he befriends a local boy whose insatiable curiosity makes him play a trick on the young boy to learn his secret himself, he luckily keeps his life and makes the boy's parents decide it is time to tell their son the truth. Fun and unexpected turn of events. (5/5)
8. Doomsday Deferred by Will F. Jenkins (1949) - Really enjoyed this! A man goes to the Brazil jungle to find a rare butterfly and gets caught up in a horrifying insect invasion. A hive collective of army ants are controlling a lone family far out in the jungle but the entomologist realizes how close they are to gaining control of mankind. With his insect knowledge, he saves the day, South America and perhaps the world. Good old-fashioned apocalyptic fifties fiction. (5/5)
9. Shadow, Shadow on the Wall by Theodore Sturgeon (1950) - A vicious stepmother gets hers after she locks a boy in his room with all his toys removed while his dad is away on business. Creepy! (4/5)
10. The Desrick on Yandro by Manly Wade Wellman (1952) - This has to come in as my second favourite! A creepy story written like a Smoky Mountain legend. A guitar-playing hitch-hiker ends up taking a power-hungry, greedy rich man back to his grandfather's origins in the Smokies. Well-told. (5/5)
11. The Wheelbarrow Boy by Richard Parker (1953) - A strange little magical tale which seems to be bemoaning the loss of corporal punishment in the schools. I think (?) it may have been meant as satire at the time it was written. Doesn't hold up well. (2/5)
12. Homecoming by Ray Bradbury (1946) - I like this story, it's a fun family to imagine. Bradbury paints the characters vividly so we can see how wild this Hallowe'en homecoming party must be. But it is a sad story and even though mortal Timothy is assured by both his mother and a favourite Uncle that he is loved and will be even beyond death, I can't help but think that doesn't satisfy Timothy. I think Timothy wants them to tell him that if he dies they will use their powers to bring him back, and he is dejected by their assurances that he will have it better as a mortal. This story always leaves me feeling sad for Timothy. (4/5)
1. The Day of the Dragon by Guy Endore (1934) - An apocalyptic tale of how an underappreciated professor brings about the apocalypse. He determines to experiment on alligator brains to improve their slothfulness and eventually succeeds but his experiments not only become lively they start to change, evolve as it were, until they become dragons, eventually mating, man-eating. The narrator, one of the last of the human race left living underground records the tale from the beginning for posterity's sake, in case the human race does survive, which he admits is not likely. Readable, but scientifically dated from the thirties. (3/5)
2. The King of the Cats by Stephan Vincent Benet (1929) - Wickedly delicious! I loved this! Rather like a fairy tale in some ways, but contemporary. A man is in love with a Siamese princess who is visiting New York but then a famed conductor comes to town whose claim to fame is that he has a tail. A bit of a mystery follows with the paranormal. Romantic gothic. Delightful. (5/5)
3. Slime by Joseph Payne Brennan (1953) - This was written five years before the cult hit movie "The Blob" but is basically the same thing. Here the slime is some sort of primordial beast from the sea who makes its way to land and starts absorbing living beings leading its way up to humans. As typical with '50s monster movies, the army is called in, well the Home Guard in this case, and they figure out its weakness and save the world. Typical of its genre. (3/5)
4. The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles by Idris Seabright (1951) - Macabre little tale of a salesman who goes to a house inhabited by unknown creatures to sell his wares. It ends as one would expect. (3/5)
5. Henry Martindale, Great Dane by Miriam Allen deFord (1954) - My favourite story so far. A writer of short fiction wakes up one morning, with shades of Kafka, to find he has turned into a great dane. He and his wife wait a week to see if he'll change back but he doesn't and they determine he has the body of a dog, the instincts of the dog, but has retained his human eyes, human voice, and human brain. They pack up and move to the country where no one will know them. In this, I felt the most for the wife who was given little choice in the matter and I think the real monster here was not the dog the husband turned into but the husband's true self that never changed and held an unfortunate dominance over the woman until the (to me) tragic end. Of course, she had plenty of opportunities to change the outcome but never took any. A freaky story. (5/5)
6. The Microscopic Giants by Paul Ernst (1936) - A copper mining operation taking place in the depths of the earth for the war effort has the miners discovering fossilized tiny little feet. Until the footprints start to multiply and then a tiny person is seen and the two men in charge go to investigate. A great sci-fi story from this age, filled with pseudo-science but creepy nonetheless. (4/5)
7. The Young One by Jerome Bixby (1953) - I really liked this! A family moves to America from Hungary deciding it is time to give up the old ways and get by as humans in the New World which doesn't believe in their kind. Their young son knows he's different but doesn't know what he is yet, but after he befriends a local boy whose insatiable curiosity makes him play a trick on the young boy to learn his secret himself, he luckily keeps his life and makes the boy's parents decide it is time to tell their son the truth. Fun and unexpected turn of events. (5/5)
8. Doomsday Deferred by Will F. Jenkins (1949) - Really enjoyed this! A man goes to the Brazil jungle to find a rare butterfly and gets caught up in a horrifying insect invasion. A hive collective of army ants are controlling a lone family far out in the jungle but the entomologist realizes how close they are to gaining control of mankind. With his insect knowledge, he saves the day, South America and perhaps the world. Good old-fashioned apocalyptic fifties fiction. (5/5)
9. Shadow, Shadow on the Wall by Theodore Sturgeon (1950) - A vicious stepmother gets hers after she locks a boy in his room with all his toys removed while his dad is away on business. Creepy! (4/5)
10. The Desrick on Yandro by Manly Wade Wellman (1952) - This has to come in as my second favourite! A creepy story written like a Smoky Mountain legend. A guitar-playing hitch-hiker ends up taking a power-hungry, greedy rich man back to his grandfather's origins in the Smokies. Well-told. (5/5)
11. The Wheelbarrow Boy by Richard Parker (1953) - A strange little magical tale which seems to be bemoaning the loss of corporal punishment in the schools. I think (?) it may have been meant as satire at the time it was written. Doesn't hold up well. (2/5)
12. Homecoming by Ray Bradbury (1946) - I like this story, it's a fun family to imagine. Bradbury paints the characters vividly so we can see how wild this Hallowe'en homecoming party must be. But it is a sad story and even though mortal Timothy is assured by both his mother and a favourite Uncle that he is loved and will be even beyond death, I can't help but think that doesn't satisfy Timothy. I think Timothy wants them to tell him that if he dies they will use their powers to bring him back, and he is dejected by their assurances that he will have it better as a mortal. This story always leaves me feeling sad for Timothy. (4/5)
August 14, 2015
I just love the Alfred Hitchcock short story collections. "Monster Museum" is definitely strange and not for those who don't like fantasy, a little gore, and some messed up plots. Overall, the stories are a bit long to be taught in one classroom lesson. Most would have to be taught over a two day span to allow for a thorough reading and then discussion/analysis. I still think there are a few pieces I could pull and use with my 7th graders. Another great, rare find! For a longer, creepy tale I would use "Slime" by Joseph Payne Brennan. Other good stories from the collection include; "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" by Idris Seabright, "Henry Martindale, Great Dane" by Miriam Allen deFord, and "The Wheelbarrow Boy" by Richard Parker.
July 24, 2020
The Alfred Hitchcock spooky story anthologies are often a lot of fun for me, and this collection(which I have read multiple times now) is one of my favorites! Most of the stories were very readable and at least a little bit scary, though I found some of them sub-par. I felt that "Doomsday Deferred", while it was a clever story, was a bit too drawn-out, and I'm not a fan of the Ray Bradbury story "Homecoming", which is the last story in the book. I wish that they'd chosen a creepier and more interesting story to end the book with. But most of the stories are good spooky fun! My personal favorites are "Slime", "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles", "Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall", "The Desrick on Yandro", and "The Wheelbarrow Boy".
July 12, 2011
Valley Institute Elementary School had a number of Alfred Hitchcock selections for young readers. I remember reading several of the "Three Investegators" books -- "The Mystery of the Green Ghost," comes to mind. More important were three short story collections: "Monster Museum," Ghostly Gallery," and "Haunted Houseful." These books were constantly in my posession; when one was due, I would check out another. The illustrations -- particularly in "Monster Museum" -- were as chilling as the stories. I've found two of the three so far -- gifts for my daughter Harper to enjoy as she gets older.
July 20, 2016
I read this as a kid and it spooked me! I forgot until I saw it here while searching for another book. Highly recommended for young readers who aren't too scared to be a little spooked.
February 25, 2020
As a kid I used to come across these kinds of anthologies in the public library – and while I was only vaguely aware of who Alfred Hitchcock was, I knew he was associated with suspense and horror stories, to include the Three Investigators series, which I loved. So when it had Hitchcock’s name on it, it captured my attention.
Of course, as it turns out, Hitchcock had little to do with the story selection – he mainly licensed his name for pulp magazines and collections like this one, which was edited by Robert Arthur (who also created the Three Investigators books). As the title suggests, this one has a monster theme, which it mostly sticks to, albeit in unusual forms – dragons, shapeshifters, werewolves, tiny subterranean humans, army ants, and something that I swear must have been the inspiration for The Blob. So points for avoiding the usual tropes, or taking a different approach to the standard monster stories.
That said, there’s nothing especially scary here, and not that much suspense, but there are a few good stories – notably Miriam Allen deFord’s “Gone To The Dogs”, Idris Seabright’s “The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles”, Jerome Bixby’s “The Young One” and Richard Parker’s “The Wheelbarrow Boy”. However, the best of the lot by far is Ray Bradbury’s “Homecoming”, which also appears in The October Country, so if Bradbury is the only attraction here for you, I'd recommend you get that one instead.
(Note: Theodore Sturgeon’s “Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall” apparently appears in a different edition than mine, sadly.)
Of course, as it turns out, Hitchcock had little to do with the story selection – he mainly licensed his name for pulp magazines and collections like this one, which was edited by Robert Arthur (who also created the Three Investigators books). As the title suggests, this one has a monster theme, which it mostly sticks to, albeit in unusual forms – dragons, shapeshifters, werewolves, tiny subterranean humans, army ants, and something that I swear must have been the inspiration for The Blob. So points for avoiding the usual tropes, or taking a different approach to the standard monster stories.
That said, there’s nothing especially scary here, and not that much suspense, but there are a few good stories – notably Miriam Allen deFord’s “Gone To The Dogs”, Idris Seabright’s “The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles”, Jerome Bixby’s “The Young One” and Richard Parker’s “The Wheelbarrow Boy”. However, the best of the lot by far is Ray Bradbury’s “Homecoming”, which also appears in The October Country, so if Bradbury is the only attraction here for you, I'd recommend you get that one instead.
(Note: Theodore Sturgeon’s “Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall” apparently appears in a different edition than mine, sadly.)
February 25, 2015
First, a warning - I read this book about 25 years ago. I have no recollection of several of the stories in this collection. Then again, the fact that I still remember any of them is probably significant.
"Slime" by Joseph Payne Brennan is the best story in this collection; it has stuck with me for decades, I recently re-read it and it has lost nothing over the years (of course it has plenty of problems now I read it as an adult, but I can still see why eight-year old me loved it).
"The Day of the Dragon" by Guy Endore has also stuck, although I suspect that this story, and many of the other stories in this collection, would have dated less well. That isn't necessarily a problem for me, since most of the joy of reading old science fiction is about making the effort to see a story from the perspective of the time when they were written, but some may not like it.
For young children just getting a taste of how SF and horror have changed over the years, this has got to be on the list.
"Slime" by Joseph Payne Brennan is the best story in this collection; it has stuck with me for decades, I recently re-read it and it has lost nothing over the years (of course it has plenty of problems now I read it as an adult, but I can still see why eight-year old me loved it).
"The Day of the Dragon" by Guy Endore has also stuck, although I suspect that this story, and many of the other stories in this collection, would have dated less well. That isn't necessarily a problem for me, since most of the joy of reading old science fiction is about making the effort to see a story from the perspective of the time when they were written, but some may not like it.
For young children just getting a taste of how SF and horror have changed over the years, this has got to be on the list.
September 7, 2013
I first read this when I was 10 or 11, and recently got a wild hair to read it again. For the most part, the stories held up (for example, "Shadow, Shadow on the Wall" is still just as creepy). Others haven't aged quite as well, but it's still worth tracking down a copy of it.
June 28, 2021
Most of the stories here (there are 12) are excellent
April 7, 2023
I first read this book in elementary school - and hadn't seen it since. I just finished it Thursday, and found it worth rereading.
Two of the stories had especially stuck with me, though of course over the course of 50 years and more I'd lost almost everything to do with them - "Slime" and "The King of the Cats." Rereading them I found myself remembering what would come next, though until I got to that point I couldn't have told you. I had entirely forgotten "The Man Who Sold Rope To the Gnoles," but upon seeing the title I knew I'd seen it before, and bits and pieces proved familiar. The same was true for "The Young One." And when I came to "The Desrick On Yandro" I wondered how I could have forgotten the story - if nothing else the Bammat and the Behinder ought to've stuck with me. But since I had forgotten it, reading it now was like reading it for the first time.
These stories aren't horror as people today think of horror. Stephen King, with his practice of grossing people out if he can't scare them (I'll never read Misery again - I don't have the stomach for the physical torture scenes), and Hollywood movies which think horror is nothing but psychopaths slaughtering people, have given people the impression that horror fiction is nothing but blood and guts splashing on the walls. You won't get that here. What you will get is stuff that's not gross, but scary. And there is a tremendous difference.
The best way to scare people is by just hinting at the horror of the matter. H.P. Lovecraft didn't describe the figure his narrator saw in the railroad cut in the moonlight in any detail - he simply said that "one, who led the way, was clad in a ghoulishly humped black coat and striped trousers, and had a man’s felt hat perched on the shapeless thing that answered for a head…" Unlike modern vampire stories, with blood flowing in rivers, Dracula shows Bram Stoker's genius, where most of the predation occurs out of view, and even the most graphic scenes would be nothing in today's fiction. Even Stephen King can achieve this, more perhaps than he realizes, as we see in 'Salem's Lot where he only describes the beginning of a ceremony, and then says, "It became unspeakable." Or there's Saki's almost perfect story "Sredni Vashtar," where the conclusion is simply, "Conradin made himself another piece of toast."
That's the kind of thing you find here. Mommy Gwen clearly is the victim of the shadow thing that lives on the wall - but we never see any graphic description of what happened. Perhaps the most explicit story is "Slime," but even then the action takes place at night, with the monster blending with the darkness - and there are no descriptions, in clinical detail, of what happens when the creature captures a human being.
I could go on and on, but I dislike interminable effusiveness, and so I'll try to avoid that. I'll just say that this is one worth reading over and over again.
Two of the stories had especially stuck with me, though of course over the course of 50 years and more I'd lost almost everything to do with them - "Slime" and "The King of the Cats." Rereading them I found myself remembering what would come next, though until I got to that point I couldn't have told you. I had entirely forgotten "The Man Who Sold Rope To the Gnoles," but upon seeing the title I knew I'd seen it before, and bits and pieces proved familiar. The same was true for "The Young One." And when I came to "The Desrick On Yandro" I wondered how I could have forgotten the story - if nothing else the Bammat and the Behinder ought to've stuck with me. But since I had forgotten it, reading it now was like reading it for the first time.
These stories aren't horror as people today think of horror. Stephen King, with his practice of grossing people out if he can't scare them (I'll never read Misery again - I don't have the stomach for the physical torture scenes), and Hollywood movies which think horror is nothing but psychopaths slaughtering people, have given people the impression that horror fiction is nothing but blood and guts splashing on the walls. You won't get that here. What you will get is stuff that's not gross, but scary. And there is a tremendous difference.
The best way to scare people is by just hinting at the horror of the matter. H.P. Lovecraft didn't describe the figure his narrator saw in the railroad cut in the moonlight in any detail - he simply said that "one, who led the way, was clad in a ghoulishly humped black coat and striped trousers, and had a man’s felt hat perched on the shapeless thing that answered for a head…" Unlike modern vampire stories, with blood flowing in rivers, Dracula shows Bram Stoker's genius, where most of the predation occurs out of view, and even the most graphic scenes would be nothing in today's fiction. Even Stephen King can achieve this, more perhaps than he realizes, as we see in 'Salem's Lot where he only describes the beginning of a ceremony, and then says, "It became unspeakable." Or there's Saki's almost perfect story "Sredni Vashtar," where the conclusion is simply, "Conradin made himself another piece of toast."
That's the kind of thing you find here. Mommy Gwen clearly is the victim of the shadow thing that lives on the wall - but we never see any graphic description of what happened. Perhaps the most explicit story is "Slime," but even then the action takes place at night, with the monster blending with the darkness - and there are no descriptions, in clinical detail, of what happens when the creature captures a human being.
I could go on and on, but I dislike interminable effusiveness, and so I'll try to avoid that. I'll just say that this is one worth reading over and over again.
January 26, 2025
Alfred Hitchcock’s Monster Museum [Random House, 1964].
A collection of monster-themed horror stories selected—though not originally intended for young readers. Includes:
“The Day of the Dragon,” Guy Endore. In this semi-comic story, Professor Crabshaw—a biologist who is mocked and scorned in his field—unwittingly releases mutated alligators, triggering an apocalypse.
“The King of Cats,” Stephen Vincent Benét. New York socialites are visited by a celebrated European conductor, who is part feline.
“Slime,” Joseph Payne Brennan. From the depths of the sea, a sentient blob claims victims in the bayou.
“Henry Martingale, Great Dane,” Miriam Allen deFord. Another semi-comic story, in which a writer interested in werewolf lore finds himself transformed into a Great Dane.
“Shadow, Shadow on the Wall,” Theodore Sturgeom. A boy who is mistreated by his stepmother, retreats into a shadow world.
“The Wheelbarrow Boy,” Richard Parker. An exasperated grade school teacher transforms a misbehaving student into a wheelbarrow (!)
“Homecoming,” Ray Bradbury. A family reunion of vampires includes a son with an aversion for blood.
***
Alfred Hitchcock was a British-American filmmaker, known as “The Master of Suspense.” His films include Rebecca, Strangers on a Train and Vertigo.
A collection of monster-themed horror stories selected—though not originally intended for young readers. Includes:
“The Day of the Dragon,” Guy Endore. In this semi-comic story, Professor Crabshaw—a biologist who is mocked and scorned in his field—unwittingly releases mutated alligators, triggering an apocalypse.
“The King of Cats,” Stephen Vincent Benét. New York socialites are visited by a celebrated European conductor, who is part feline.
“Slime,” Joseph Payne Brennan. From the depths of the sea, a sentient blob claims victims in the bayou.
“Henry Martingale, Great Dane,” Miriam Allen deFord. Another semi-comic story, in which a writer interested in werewolf lore finds himself transformed into a Great Dane.
“Shadow, Shadow on the Wall,” Theodore Sturgeom. A boy who is mistreated by his stepmother, retreats into a shadow world.
“The Wheelbarrow Boy,” Richard Parker. An exasperated grade school teacher transforms a misbehaving student into a wheelbarrow (!)
“Homecoming,” Ray Bradbury. A family reunion of vampires includes a son with an aversion for blood.
***
Alfred Hitchcock was a British-American filmmaker, known as “The Master of Suspense.” His films include Rebecca, Strangers on a Train and Vertigo.
April 16, 2025
This enjoyable anthology book has stories about critters like a slimy blob-creature and intelligent ants. The story I liked a lot was 'The Desrick on Yandro', by Manly Wade Wellman. This tale has the character Silver John (who was featured in the movie THE LEGEND OF HILLBILLY JOHN) encounter various folklore creatures on a mountain, including a Bammat (a kind of mammoth), a Skim (a kind of living frisbee), and a Flat (which is, well, a flat, carpet-like thing). There's also a Behinder, which is a variation on the Hidebehind creature featured in lumberjack lore (and appears in GRAVITY FALLS). Great fun.
I review the 'The Desrick on Yandro' short story in more depth here: https://monsterzone.org/2025/03/26/th...
I review the 'The Desrick on Yandro' short story in more depth here: https://monsterzone.org/2025/03/26/th...
July 21, 2023
Yes, that's right, I gave this little book 5 stars. It is great for what it is, but I totally understand if it's not for everyone. These stories are definitely aimed toward younger readers. Most of them are pretty dang creepy, but not too horrific.
I know I read this book in my childhood sometime, but the majority of the book still felt new to me and I liked it a lot. It was an impressive list of authors including Theodore Sturgeon and Ray Bradbury.
I know I read this book in my childhood sometime, but the majority of the book still felt new to me and I liked it a lot. It was an impressive list of authors including Theodore Sturgeon and Ray Bradbury.
August 13, 2024
A creepy collection of stories aimed at younger readers (I suppose, meaning that they weren't too scary). And yes, to be sure, there wasn't a lot of blood and guts in these tales. But, they were pretty unsettling and I can't exactly say that I enjoyed the experience of reading them. However, there were some real chillers here that made it fun.
January 16, 2023
It's hard to think of a better anthology of its type The Day of the Dragon alone, pushes it into 5 star territory. NA GR: Slime, see omnibus.
October 2, 2014
This horror anthology is the usual mixed bag. We have solid work from masters of the craft, like the contributions from Jerome Bixby, Theodore Sturgeon and Ray Bradbury. Will F. Jenkins is new to me, but I'd put his story about ravenous soldado ants up there too. At the other end of the spectrum we have dross from rank amateurs, like "Slime", a rote monster mash in which the denizens of a small town devoured by a carnivorous blob from the ocean floor. Just as bad is "The Day of the Dragon", in which a silly mad scientist does heart surgery on a pair of crocodiles, thereby creating a race of dragons. Yes, really. SyFy channel execs take note: the movie rights are probably still available.
We have also a few spins on obscure folk tales. "The Desrick on Yandro" has this vibe down pretty well. Less so "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" and "The King of the Cats".
Then there are a slew of oddities, variable in quality. I daresay there are a lot of these. Literal shaggy dog story "Henry Martindale, Great Dane" is amusing but doesn't really seem to fit with the rest of the collection. Nor does "The Wheelbarrow Boy", in which a teacher transforms an unruly pupil into a wheelbarrow, and looks to have his job on the line when the boy refuses to turn back.
We have also a few spins on obscure folk tales. "The Desrick on Yandro" has this vibe down pretty well. Less so "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" and "The King of the Cats".
Then there are a slew of oddities, variable in quality. I daresay there are a lot of these. Literal shaggy dog story "Henry Martindale, Great Dane" is amusing but doesn't really seem to fit with the rest of the collection. Nor does "The Wheelbarrow Boy", in which a teacher transforms an unruly pupil into a wheelbarrow, and looks to have his job on the line when the boy refuses to turn back.
January 16, 2021
Read as kid, still think of with affection. My introduction to horror story, c/o editor, Hitchcock. Meet scientist breeding dragons through alligators; supernatural feline humanoid as famous and, fawned upon, conductor; hapless salesman of rope to secretive gnomes who find grisly uses; underground small aliens with ghastly technologies and dense structure; Lovecraft homage; and werewolf boy who does not realize his heritage, yet his parents do. There's more.
They make you shudder, but you won't stay up all night.
They make you shudder, but you won't stay up all night.
May 29, 2022
get a copy of this if you can...it is creepy. Keep in mind its geared towards young readers.
January 11, 2008
"Shivery Stories of Vampires, Slimy Blobs, or Worse!!!"
May 30, 2008
loved this as a kid.
October 3, 2011
it was terrifingly awesome
December 9, 2013
Very original, scary stories. Enjoyable for adults as well as children.
October 15, 2013
May I ask a question? Just what in the hell happened to Mommy Gwen?
Read
September 17, 2015it is very good book and i like all the words in the book
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