Skulls in the Stars

Day 13 of Blogtober, a Friday the 13th! Which makes it an appropriate time to talk about a real classic!

I have a special fondness for paperback horror of the 1980s, as that was the era that I first started getting really into horror fiction. I still have vivid memories of visiting Oakbrook Center in the Chicago suburbs and going to the now-vanished local bookstore chain Kroch’s and Brentano’s to hunt for new horror to read. There, in the back of the store, I could find all the twisted and often absurd titles, like Crabs on the Rampage by Guy N. Smith.

It was a golden age of horror, and you could even find paperbacks in the local grocery stores. I still vividly remember picking up my copy of Ramsey Campbell’s amazing novel Ancient Images at the local Jewel, which led me to a lifelong love of Campbell’s works. In 2017, Grady Hendrix wrote a definitive history of that era of paperback horror supremacy, Paperbacks from Hell, and many of the books he discussed are being rereleased by publishers such as Valancourt Books today, as horror has again grown in popularity.

Last year, Valancourt Books also released one of the cult classic paperback horror novels of that era, Carnosaur (1984), by Harry Adam Knight, and I jumped at the chance to finally read one of the books I missed as a teenager.

If you are not familiar with Carnosaur, you will be surprised at the similarities between this cult classic and a book that came out six years later! It is simultaneously a novel that really anticipated the future yet was also very much a product of its time, and overall very fun to read.

Day 12 of Blogtober, and I look back at one of the best novels written by John Blackburn, who was in essence the British Stephen King of his era (1960s-1970s). Our Lady of Pain is a novel inspired by the infamous Elizabeth Bathory, who may have murdered several hundred people while she was in power. I wrote an introduction to this book for Valancourt Books, and had a great time investigating the “real” history of Bathory and trying to separate the truth from the legend.

Our Lady of Pain starts as a mystery, where unexplained deaths lead to a truly twisted plan that connects all the way back to Bathory and her power over people…

For day 8 of Blogtober, let me share again a post about Larry Blamire’s sublime collection of Western horror stories, set in his unique setting of the haunted Callamo Mountains! Since the first collection came out, there has been a second — More Tales of the Callamo Mountains, and I hope even more will come at some point!

Day 7 of my Blogtober series to celebrate the Halloween month!

What better way to celebrate the spooky season than a story about a haunted house? While at the bookstore recently, the recently released debut novel of Carissa Orlando, The September House (2023), caught my eye.

Margaret and Hal, after years of moving from place to place, finally find their dream house — a gorgeous Victorian house that is available at a remarkably reasonable price. There’s only one small problem with it, that they learn after they move in: it is very, very haunted. But when you find a house that is otherwise perfect, you aren’t going to let a few phantoms scare you away, especially when most of them are innocuous Victorian children, and one is a genuinely helpful housekeeper. There’s only the thing in the basement that only the ghosts are afraid of that’s the real problem, and they can keep the basement door covered with bible pages and boarded up.

The only time that’s a real problem is the month of September, when everything goes crazy. Screams echo through the house, growing in volume and frequency as the month progresses. Blood starts dripping from the walls, starting upstairs and making its way down the house as September continues. Still, it is manageable, as long as one knows the rules for dealing with the inhabitants, and Margaret and Hal have managed several years — and several Septembers — with only minor incidents, like getting bitten by the ghost child Elias.

But now Hal has had enough, and has moved out, not leaving any indication of where he went. And their adult daughter Katherine, who has never been to the house, is frantic to find him. She’s coming to the house to look for him, and ignores any efforts by her mother to dissuade her. And it is the start of September.

For day 6 of Blogtober, I look back at one of the most unconventional novels by my favorite horror author, Ramsey Campbell. Is it a supernatural story or a murder mystery? Or both?

Day 4 of Blogtober! Here I reblog a post about a relatively unknown but absolutely wonderful 1914 novel of supernatural horror, curses, and unfathomable monsters.