By JOSEPH PAYNE BRENNAN (Ballantine Books; 1958)

The spirit of WEIRD TALES illuminates this slim collection of stories by Joseph Payne Brennan, whose work typified the mag’s content far better than more famous contributors like H.P. Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith.  These 1950s-spanning “Nightmares brought to grinning life,” taken largely from the pages of the aforementioned WEIRD TALES, are short(ish) and concentrated exercises in old-school spookiness, with syntax that’s richly descriptive and economic (i.e. without the faux-Victorian digressions of Lovecraft or the frenzied wordplay of Smith).

The highlight is the novella-length “Slime,” about just what the title claims: a mass of sentient slime, displaced from its ocean home by a submarine explosion and driven by a ravenous hunger to devour the residents of a seafront community.  What distinguishes “Slime” from most other blob narratives is that much of it is told from the blob’s point of view, which is well delineated and, on occasion, even sympathetic (“for the first time in its incalculable existence, the thing experienced something vaguely akin to fear.  The light…was an alien enemy against which the hood of horror had learned only one defense—flight, hiding”).  The slime critter is far more memorable, in any event, than the humans opposing it.

Other goodies include “Canavan’s Back Yard,” about a grass-lined New Haven backyard with supernatural properties; “The Calamander Chest,” in which a young fellow learns there’s a disturbing reason he was able to purchase an antique chest for what seemed an insanely low price; “The Hunt,” in which a man is tracked by a sinister other aboard a train for reasons that aren’t revealed until the final page (and could frankly be a bit stronger from a dramatic standpoint); and “Levitation,” which engagingly partakes of the ever-popular magic act-taken-too-far trope.

Lesser entries include “Death in Peru,” about a white man in Peru who attempts to use native sorcery to cure an ailing colleague; well written, but the tale hinges on a twist ending that’s not at all difficult to foresee.  “The Green Parrot,” about a strange woman and a parrot haunting the grounds of a rural Connecticut hotel, is likewise crippled by a crummy twist, while “I’m Murdering Mr. Massington,” whose narrator is contracted to write the life story of a man desperate to preserve his name after his death, isn’t distinguished in any respect.

I’d like to say that these stories on the whole have dated well, but that would be inaccurate.  Most pivot on ghostly manifestations that no longer seem terribly scary, much less surprising; even “Slime” has a distinctly archaic, out-of-place air about it.  Still, those of you who like their horror of the old school variety will find plenty to enjoy.