Have you ever pondered the existence of dinosaur ghosts? The mighty saurians inhabited this Earth for over 100 million years, far longer than any of our ancestors in the genus Homo, and certainly many of them died violent deaths with unfinished business. If you believe that your dog might go to heaven, what of the titanosaurs, the largest animals ever to walk our world?
Read MoreOut of the entire oeuvre of this respected—even beloved—author, only her first story, “Les Bulles”/“The Bubbles,” has been translated into English, and this story provides the subject for the current installment of Stories from the Borderland. Granted, it’s a goddamn corker,
Read More“Little deal coming up for you: you’re going to write a novelet [sic] called I think THE BOTTICELLI HORROR for…Fantastic…they’ve got the cover already…shows a gal busting out of a shell or something…a touch of horror and fantasy is effective; science fiction is not ruled out.” Thus, Biggle wrote this novelette to match a preexisting title and cover art—which probably helps to explain why it stands out in his oeuvre for its atypically deep horror elements.
Read MoreMany readers fondly remember Schmitz for his monsters, of which “Greenface” was only the first of many, though to be sure most of the others occupy realms of outer space, and as bizarre as Greenface appears in the story, Schmitz never suggests that this creature is of extraterrestrial origin.
Read MoreIf humor was Counselman’s goal, I would find anyone very unfortunate to have her appointed their guardian angel from the afterlife, as her humor was of the darkly ironic variety that turns people away from religion, the kind where success leads to suicide and great gifts are distributed in such a way as to make the received bewail their lot. Sweet little old Mary Elizabeth Counselman. One wonders what Christmas was like at her house…
Read MoreThis installment of Stories from the Borderland marks only the third time Michael Bukowski and I have presented a Weird tale by a living author. Now here’s the bonkers part: Shiner didn’t make up the lizard men of Los Angeles. They were a real thing back in the 1930s and reptilian conspiracy theories still thrive today!
Read MoreBest known for her Galactic Milieu and the Saga of Pliocene Exile series, Julian May launched her book career with a Weird tale titled "Dune Roller."
Read MoreRobert Abernathy deserves more than my faulty recollections, however, especially for these two tales: both are worthy of comparison to Bradbury, and both are worthy of treatments in other media. Instead, neither has seen more than half a dozen reprints, with none in the last two decades.
Read MoreRather than relying on a single plot device or trope, Jane Rice presents the reader with several at once: the Bad Seed, demonic summoning, and The Weird—the latter arriving in the form of some deeply Weird creatures squirming and swimming about in their own obscure dimension. Most other writers would have been content to deploy only one of these elements, and would likely have split the others across multiple stories in the hopes of selling them separately. Jane Rice, however, does not hold back.
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