Adventures in Horror Vol 1 No 1 October 1970

Adventures in Horror
Vol 1 No 1 October 1970

The longest running of the "Monster Porn" tiles of the 70s.  The prose had a Men's Adventure Magazine vibe - short, semi-confessional first person stories, many with a "as told to" byline.  Some of the stories had a Herschell Gordon Lewis or "Orgy of the Dead" era Ed Wood vibe to them, and indeed Wood wrote some of the stories in later issues.  A few bare breasts in the photos, but not enough for a full on spank rag.

Love is the Color of Blood: Vampire rape.
The Spell of the Witch: The old "witch told me it was a dream so I didn't think I was really killing my professor" trick.
Howl, Wolf, Howl: Attempted werewolf rape.

Gory Terror in the Night: Gang rape torture porn
The Unholy Six: A beach pickup leads to a Satanic mass with a witch who adds her lovers to her obscene carved headboard.
The Naked Slaves of the Master of Hell: Under the guise of a photo session, a sadistic madman lures four models to their doom
Devil of Denham Swamp: A couple take the wrong road, get genital tortured, and doomed to hell

Find it here at archive.org.

Them by William W. Johnstone

Them
by William W. Johnstone
Zebra Books 1992

Alien brains with tentacles land on Earth and communicate with Jake Silver, a nerd who is teased around town and beaten by his ignorant father.  After a few pages of Jake's snide pedantic attitude, I'm rooting for the dad, but we're told early on that Jake is evil, so it's OK.

The leader brain, named Cag, gives Jake telepathic powers, which he uses to have sex with his teacher and wreak revenge on his tormentors.  He makes one masturbate in public while two others sodomize each other in a grocery store (box ticked).  I was thinking there would be more in this direction, but Johnstone loses interest in Jake pretty quick.

Other alien brains take over Earthling brains with unhappy results.  Some humans go a little slow and turn to baser instincts, committing acts of violence and incest.  Others have their brains explode out their eye sockets.

This leads to the best part of the book, as an already deranged town idiot goes on an ax murdering spree.  Those segments may be the most horror novelish of anything Johnstone has produced.

Cag is communicating with Jake's Mom and some scientists and has a mind laser war with the other alien brains.  The last chunk of the book is Cag bemoaning how humanity values sports over intellect, and how he decided humanity doesn't deserve to be conquered.

Over pages and pages of this, it slowly dawned on me that Cag is supposed to be the good guy, and that his exposition is the clearest form of the worldview that runs further in the background of Johnstone's other books.  Cag's plan is to murder half the population of Earth - those that break the slightest rule or don't produce enough.  Everyone left will be reasonable and productive, so there will be an end of conflict.

As long as you can manage a looooot of skimming, the good parts of Them are some of Johnstone's best.  The bad parts (college vocabulary insults and repetitive soap-boxing) are probably the worst.

Available in Kindle ebook from Amazon.

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Paperback from AbeBooks

The Devil's Laughter by William W. Johnstone

The Devil's Laughter
by William W. Johnstone
1992 Zebra Books

Something funny was going on in Louisiana's backwoods, but the devil was the only one laughing.

Less of the same.  People are acting funny in town, nobody's showering, etc.  Our hero, former CIA operative and reporter (?!) Link Donovan is at the center - the Balon family is mentioned but doesn't appear, along with Satan, sodomy, and everything else that made the Devil series sleazy fun.

Donovan takes care of wounded animals at his ranch home and is harassed by violent rednecks who he just guesses are Satanists.  Everything's small scale here - only a couple hundred Satanists instead of the whole town, God and his "mercenary angel" Michael don't show, and Satan is said to barely make an appearance.  We're teased with beasts, but their just an illusion, and the undead only appear in a comedic epilogue.

This one's more action packed than the rest, with Link spending his time tossing grenades and mowing down rednecks in the woods with a MAC-10.  At least Johnstone's action scenes are improving.

There are no evil clowns.

Available in Kindle ebook from Amazon

Click here to read a sample