THE LOST STRADIVARIUS
An early entry in the music-based horror fiction trope that included Algernon Blackwood’s “Human Chord” and H.P. Lovecraft’s “Music of Erich Zann”
WALKERS
WALKERS is vintage Graham Masterton, meaning it’s an eminently readable book with a unique premise and an unwieldy structure
WALKERS
A Gary Brandner novel that matches up with most other Gary Brandner novels is passable
THE TORTURE GARDEN
I can sum up the essence of this fin-de-siecle classic in two words: Ecstatic Delirium
THE DOLL WHO ATE HIS MOTHER
The first novel by Ramsey Campbell, and a mixed bag
THRILLING MURDER COMICS
An underground comic in which S. Clay Wilson, R. Crumb, Kim Deitch and others turned away from their standard choice of subject matter—sex and drugs—to focus on a new taboo: murder
BITCH
A sexier, druggier variant on THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR
MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM!
A moldy oldie from the 1960s science fiction market (and the basis for the 1973 film SOYLENT GREEN)
THE BOOK OF A THOUSAND SINS
Fifteen stories: energetic and focused to a fault, and exhibiting an unnerving willingness to gaze unblinkingly into the darkest depths of madness, mutilation and sexual deviance
IN THE DARK
By 1994 the late Richard Laymon had been a professional writer for over fifteen years, and that accumulated skill illuminates IN THE DARK