Theme Parks: Lotte World

Lotte World is the world's largest indoor amusement park, with an adjoining outdoor section.

Merry Christmas

Dark Master by Raymond GIles

Dark Master
by Raymond Giles
1970 Fawcett

This slavesploitation novel feels like a follow up, but it appears to be Giles' first effort in the genre.  We meet blacksmith Absalom, who has been sold away from his family after getting into some trouble.  His new master is a freed black man, who can be as cold and sadistic as the white ones.

Absalom makes a failed attempt to return to his plantation, while his new master Hannibal flirts with Libby, the visiting cousin of the neighboring Drummond clan.  Various slave women try to jump into Absalom's bed, and things are fairly mild and chaste.  For the first half.

The community white folk gang rape Hannibal's housekeeper, who commits suicide.  In retaliation, Hannibal starts to rape Libby, but she's down for it, so they start seeing each other in secret.  Absalom develops a drinking problem, but finds a new purpose when Hannibal offers to buy his family if he earns the money blacksmithing.  Meanwhile, Hannibal makes plans to sell the plantation, free his slaves, and run off to France with Libby.

Hannibal gives Absalom his freedom, but makes the mistake of informing him that his wife and child are dead.  Absalom beats Hannibal from an inch of his life and lets the Drummonds know about Libby's affair.  We end the book with the Drummonds killing Hannibal and Libby, while Absalom steals Hannibal's arsenal and heading out for revenge, much like Sweet Sweetback. ..

Despite the themes, the text was quite tame.  All of the sex and most of the violence is off-page, and the most lurid passages are characters describing things that happened elsewhere.  Still, this is definitely more exploitation than historical romance.  Giles avoidance of actual sex scenes actually serves his style well.  The gang rape scene consisted solely of the dialogue of the rapists, which made it all the more horrific.

Giles wrote many more slavesploitation books, including the Sabrehill series, but this title evidently stands alone.

Used paperback from AbeBooks

The Ultimate Slavesploitation Novel list

Slavesploitation, also called Plantationploitation, Plantation Porn, or Plantation Gothic, is a genre that spun out of the 1957 book Mandingo.  At its core the genre is about proper white ladies banging black slaves in the 19th century, wrapped up in a package of historical romance/adventure.  It also intersects a vein of Southern Gothic, with themes of incest, torture, murder, and family sagas.

While these had a female audience and had covers that mirrored romance novels, the books also have a strong male audience, including an African American one.  While trashy and exploitative to the bone, they at least acknowledged the evils of slavery, and aren't as near as morally objectionable as racist trash like Gone With the Wind.

Through the 70s the genre became more adventure oriented, with escaped slaves becoming pirates or revolutionaries, and settings began to include the Caribbean.  The genre came to an abrupt stop by the mid 80s, with at least one series (Bloodheart) seeming to change genres by the end.  The thirst for interracial historical romance seemed to be diverted to native American romances with the word Savage in the title - Zebra printed more of these than horror in the 80s.


Links are to AbeBooks for paperbacks, or Amazon the few titles available for Kindle.

Series titles:

Falconhurst
1957 Mandingo by Kyle Onstott
1962 Drum by Kyle Onstott
1964 Master of Falconhurst by Kyle Onstott
1966 Falconhurst Fancy by Lance Horner
1967 The Mustee by Lance Horner
1968 Heir to Falconhurst by Lance Horner
1971 Flight to Falconhurst by Lance Horner
1973 Mistress of Falconhurst by Lance Horner
1978 Taproots of Falconhurst by Ashley Carter
1980 Scandal of Falconhurst by Ashley Carter
1983 Rogue of Falconhurst by Ashley Carter
1985 Miz Lucretia of Falconhurst by Ashley Carter
1986 Mandingo Master by Ashley Carter

Blackoaks by Ashley Carter (Harry Whittington)
1976 Master of Blackoaks
1978 Secret of Blackoaks
1981 Heritage of Blackoaks
1984 Farewell to Blackoaks

Wyndward by Norman Daniels
1978 Wyndward Passion
1978 Wyndward Fury
1981 Wyndward Peril
1981 Wyndward Glory
1984 Forever Wyndward

Black Royal aka Black Lord, Black Master by Stuart Jason (some of whom are Michael Avallone, but I'm not untangling all that here) - these all reference each other in the covers or elsewhere, so presumably they're the same series, but I gave up trying to piece together the order or original publishing dates.  Some of these may be retitlings of the same story.
Black Lord
Black Lust
Black Prince
Black Master
Black Emperor
Black Love aka Black Lover
Royal Stud
Royal Master
Black Rebel (omnibus of Black Lord, Black Master, and Black Emperor)

Chane by Norman Gant
1968 Chane
1968 Black Vengeance aka Vengeance of Chane
1969 Slave Empire
1971 Wrath of Chane (omnibus containing Chane, Black Vengeance, and Slave Empire)

Dragonard by Rupert Gilchrist
1976 Dragonard
1976 The Master of Dragonard Hill
1976 Dragonard Blood
1978 Dragonard Rising
1979 The Siege of Dragonard Hill
1980 Guns of Dragonard

Slaves Without Masters by Rupert Gilchrist

1982 House At Three O'clock

1983 A Girl Called Friday Night

1985 The Wrong Side Of Town

Sabrehill by Raymond Giles
1974 Sabrehill
1975 Slaves of Sabrehill
1976 Rebels of Sabrehill
1981 Storm Over Sabrehill
1982 Hellcat of Sabrehill

Captain Jacob King by Leslie Gladson - I've gotten conflicting information about the years and order of this series - it appears to have run between 1968 and 1971
1968 Slaver 
King's Slaves 
The Abolitionist 
Beast 

Golden Stud by Lance Horner
1975 Six-Fingered Stud reworked into Golden Stud
1977 Sword of the Golden Stud

The Plantation by George McNeill
1975 The Plantation
1977 Rafaella
1978 The Hellions
1983 White Trash

Bloodheart by Richard Tresillian - note: while Bloodheart is packaged as slavesploitation, Bloodheart Feud is packaged as intra-racial historical romance. This appears to be set in Sri Lanka, so it might only be thematically similar.
1985 Bloodheart
1986 Bloodheart Royal
1987 Bloodheart Feud

Bondmaster by Richard Tresillian
1977 Bondmaster 
1977 Blood of the Bondmaster
1978 The Bondmaster Breed
1982 Bondmaster Fury
1983 The Bondmaster's Revenge
1984 Bondmaster Buck

Fleshtraders aka Black River by Richard Tresillian aka Raynard Devine
1984 Master of Black River
198? Black River Affair
1985 Black River Breed
1985 Revenge at Black River by Raynard Devine

Shame and Glory by Jerrold Mundis as Eric Corder
1967 Slave
1968 The Long Tattoo
1969 Slave Ship
1972 Hellbottom
1976 Savage Rite aka Running Dogs
1978 Shame and Glory (Omnibus)

Vane by Jeanne Wilson

1976 Weep in the Sun

1977 Troubled Heritage

Beulah Land Trilogy by Lonnie Coleman

1973 Beulah Land

1977 Look Away, Beulah Land

1980 The Legacy of Beulah Land

Ebony Masters by Simon Lascaux

1985 Chains of Rage

1986 Bonds of Shame

Dester Granville by Parley Cooper

1976 Dark Desires

1981 Golden Fever

1987 Grand Deception

Non-series titles (or I couldn't tell)

1978 Chains by Justin Adams (Lou Cameron)

1968 The Slave by Alston Anderson - this may have been a more serious piece, but at least the NEL cover is exploitative.

Roger Blake (aka James Moffat)
1978 Black Reaper
1979 Black Fury 
1979 Black Summer 

Harold Calin
1969 Black Cargo
1969 The Black and the Damned
1970 Black Hell
1977 Slave Ship

Leo Callan
1980 Black Sapphire
1980 Black Temptress
1981 Black Rebel

1983 The Outlanders by Ashley Carter

1974 Chindera aka Brown Sugar by Nancy Cato

Joseph Chadwick
1970 Black Velvet
1971 Sabrina

Lou Cameron (some may be in a series)
1968 Mistress of Bayou LaBelle
1969 Ashanti

Jonathan Craig

1970 Quadroon

Norman Daniels
1970 Slave Rebellion
1970 Voodoo Slave
1973 Jubal 

1978 Eulalie by Julie Ellis

Peter Gentry (Kerry Newcomb)
1976 Rafe 
1977 Titus Gamble 

Raymond Giles
1970 Dark Master by Raymond Giles
1973 Rogue Black by Raymond Giles

1969 Generation of Blood by I. A. Grenville

1971 Machismo by Gramm Hall

1969 Muscavado by Eleanor Loise Heckert

1969 Mantee by Robert J. Hensler

1969 The Long Whip by John Hicks

Lance Horner
1969 The Mahound by Lance Horner
1975 Six-Fingered Stud by Lance Horner - reworked into 1975 Golden Stud by Lance Horner

Stuart Jason (unknown if any of these are connected to the Black Royal series)
1969 Black Hercules
1969 Kingblood

1969 Beauty Beast by MacKinlay Kantor

1969 Slaves by John O. Killens

1976 Chinaberry by William Lavender

1973 Jeb by Jeffrey Lord (Michael Avallone?)

1977 The Unconquered by Margaret Maitland

1969 Plantation Breed by Hugo Paul

1969 The Stonehedge Slaves by Clement Purvis aka Gardner F. Fox (yes, the DC Comics writer)

Kenneth Roberts
1969 Blaze
1970 Flame
1978 Black Fire

Clint Rockman aka Kenneth Bulmer - These may be all related, most are about black pirate women.
1972 Black Slaver 
1972 Black Queen
1972 Black Gold
1972 Black Ivory
1973 Sable Diana 
1974 Sable Adventure 
1974 Sable Mistress 
1979 Sable Ivory (omnibus of Black Ivory and Sable Mistress)

1969 Fury by Mark Swanson

Robert Tralins (may be in a series)
1969 Runaway Slave aka Rampage
1969 Black Brute aka Black Stud
1971 Black Pirate
1970 Slave King
1974 Slave's Revenge
1977 Black Roots (omnibus of Black Stud, Rampage and Slave's Revenge)1980 Panther
1981 Chains

Richard Tresillian
1979 Fleur

1988 Giselle (may be plantation light)

1973 Voodoo Queen by Adam Turner

Boyd Upchurch

1968 The Slave Stealer

Robert Vaughan
1971 Mistress Of The Lash

1972 Slave's Blood

Lionel Webb
1968 Sparhawk by Lionel Webb
1968 Rogue Black by Lionel Webb
1970 Sebastian by Lionel Webb
1974 The Blackbirder by Lionel Webb
1977 The Flame and the Fury by Lionel Webb
1977 Night of Dark Fires by Lionel Webb

Jeanne Wilson

1976 Mulatto

Seem like slavesploitation but aren't:

1956 The Street of the Sun by Lance Horner
1963 The Tattooed Road by Lance Horner
1967 The African by Harold Courlander
1971 Swamp Girl by Evans Wall 
1978 Panama by Ashley Carter

Movies based on these novels include: Mandingo, Drum, Dragonard, and Slaves, as well as original films that I won't go into here.

As of this writing, George McNeill and Peter Gentry (Kerry Newcomb) are the only authors with ebooks in print.

Tie-Ins: Alien Nation

Alien Nation is about an alien ship landing on Earth and the social changes caused by them integrating into human society.  From what I saw of it, Bright was a direct lift, with fantasy instead of scifi.

There was one season of a surprisingly good television spin-off, and several years later a handful of TV movies.  Some of the novelizations are interesting in that they developed from scripts from the aborted second season, some of which were later rewritten into the TV movies.

1989: Alien Nation by Alan Dean Foster - movie novelization
1993: Day of Descent by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens - original prequel book
1993: Dark Horizon by K.W. Jeter - adapted from a second season script, later made into a TV movie
1994: Body and Soul by Peter David - adapted from a second season script, later made into a TV movie
1994: The Change by Barry B. Longyear - from an unproduced script
1994: Slag Like Me by Barry B. Longyear
1994: Passing Fancy by  David Spencer
1995: Extreme Prejudice by L.A. Graf
1995: Cross of Blood by K.W. Jeter

Tivoli Gardens - Skaersliden Funhouse

I spent the better part of three days trying to find this funhouse footage I came across a couple years ago.  My obsessions rarely pay off, but here you go

Ringo of Nebraska

Ringo of Nebraska (1966)

Mild oater, without the edge or creativity that mark good eurowesterns.  Stranger come to town Nebraska (not Ringo, and not Sartana) gets involved in a range war.

Available on Amazon Video - their print is a composite, with a few shots in Italian.

Kaheesh by Nathan Butler

Kaheesh
by Nathan Butler (Jerry Sohl)
1973 Fawcett

A family on vacation runs into a Hinduish holy man, Kaheesh.  The husband wants to study under him before becoming sick.  The wife is forced to sleep with Kaheesh or he will psychically increase her husbands fever.  Turns out she was his lover from previous incarnations.

Lots of telling, because good lord there's nothing to show.  The novel is packaged as a combination of sleaze and horror, and fails miserably on both fronts.  A titch of anxiety with Kaheesh influencing the family, nothing as scary as grandma giving all her money to a televangelist.  Tame sex sequences - after she gets back with her husband she shows her shameless adventurous side by having sex in the shower.

Nathan Butler is the name science fiction write Jerry Sohl used when writing sleaze, all of which has been reissued in ebook form.

Available for Kindle from Amazon

Ninja The Violent Sorcerer

Ninja The Violent Sorcerer

Sometimes it looks like Godfrey Ho/Tomas Tang is inching towards making an actual movie instead of editing in ninja fights to a crime drama.  Here, most of the footage is original, consisting of battles between ninjas and hopping vampires.

For once it looks like he edited in a decent movie, a gambling-fu comedy The Stunning Gambling, which I'll need to track down.

Earworm: Tages - I Read You Like an Open Book

Author Overview: Sidney Williams

Sidney Williams came in at the tail end of the horror paperback boom, writing several titles for Pinnacle.  As the adult market dried up and the young adult books grew, he published more titles under the name Michael August for Zebra, two in the Scream series.  All of his titles are currently available in ebook, and he has resumed writing horror fiction.  Find him at https://sidisalive.com/

Azarius (1989): In the small town of Ainsley, Louisiana, a terrible evil has been let loose--a deadly force that has already brutally murdered a priest and is now moving in on a young victim.

Night Brothers (1989): The drought-stricken Louisiana town of Bristol Springs was turning into a living grave. Little by little its desperate citizens were watching their dreams die. But the terrible blight was bringing something else to life--a deadly horror far worse than any earthly bane. A vampire as old as time with powers greater than mere legend, she summoned the beasts of the night to serve her foul will. Fierce, relentless, they made humans their unnatural prey, leaving them helpless victims of her endless blood-thirst...

Blood Hunter (1990): Legends abound about hideous creatures who live in the swamps near Aimsley, Louisiana. They’ve picked up the name Mormo, and they are said to be terrifying. but Jag Walker and Debra Blane discover the creatures are at the root of a larger conspiracy as they begin a search for her missing brother. As they unravel ancient secrets and modern evil, they find they must confront a nightmare.

Gnelfs (1991): What seem to be nightmares about Heaven's favorite cartoon characters soon lead Gab to a stranger paranormal conspiracy focused on revenge. She's faced with a living nightmare in which friends die and dangerous sorcery is at work.

When Darkness Falls (1992): Unconcerned by the series of wolf attacks that have terrorized the community, a teacher takes a job in Petittville and meets Charlie, a shy misfit who believes the wolf attacks are part of an ancient legend.

Deadly Delivery (1993, as Michael August): As summer approaches, Derek Cliver and his friends join a mail-order club that allows them to create their own monsters and "dispose" of their enemies, but The Terror Club turns frighteningly real.

New Year's Evil (1994, as Michael August): Determined to correct the behavior of Bran Hatten, the school bully, Tess Ryan and her friends at Penbrook High ask Charisse Bienville, rumored to be a witch, to help--and are shocked when bad things start happening.

The Gift (as Michael August): When you're down in the dumps, there's no better pick-me-up than a surprise present. That's why Veronica Mallory's father has just bought her a dollhouse that looks incredibly life-like. At first, Veronica is thrilled with the ancient treasure . . . until it starts having a violent effect on anyone who comes near.

The Supernaturals (1986)

The Supernaturals (1986)

Soldiers wander around in the woods and get chased by confederate ghost zombies.  Has both Nichelle Nichols and LeVar Burton, but it doesn't help.

On Amazon Video.

Tie-Ins: Planet of the Apes

Starting with the 1963 novel La Planète des singes, Planet of the Apes includes three sets of films, a TV series, a cartoon, and tons of comics.  The below are novelizations unless otherwise noted.

1963: La Planète des singes by Pierre Boulle (basis for Planet of the Apes)

The original film series:
1970: Beneath the Planet of the Apes by Michael Avallone
1973: Escape from the Planet of the Apes by Jerry Pournelle
Collected in Planet of the Apes Omnibus 1
1974: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes by John Jakes
1973: Battle for the Planet of the Apes by David Gerrold
Collected in Planet of the Apes Omnibus 2
2011: Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes by Andrew E. C. Gaska - untold tales illustrated novel
2017: Tales from the Forbidden Zone edited by Rich Handley and Jim Beard - anthology of stories set in the original series and TV show
2018: Death of the Planet of the Apes by Andrew E.C. Gaska - untold tales of Charlton Heston

Planet of the Apes TV Series novelizations by George Alec Effinger
1974: Planet of the Apes: Man the Fugitive - The Good Seeds and The Cure
1974: Planet of the Apes #2: Escape to Tomorrow - The Surgeon and The Deception
1974: Planet of the Apes #3: Journey into Terror - The Horse Race and The Legacy
1974: Planet of the Apes #4: Lord of the Apes - The Gladiators and The Tyrant
Collected in Planet of the Apes Omnibus 3

Return to the Planet of the Apes cartoon series by William Arrow
1976: Return to the Planet of the Apes 1: Visions from Nowhere - Flames of Doom, Escape from Ape City, and The Unearthly Prophecy
1976: Return to the Planet of the Apes 2: Escape from Terror Lagoon - Tunnel of Fear, Lagoon of Peril, and Terror on Ice Mountain
1976: Return to the Planet of the Apes 3: Man, The Hunted Animal -  River of Flames, Screaming Wings, and Trail to the Unknown
Collected in Planet of the Apes Omnibus 4

2001: Planet of the Apes by William T. Quick - novelization of 2001 movie version, collected in Omnibus 2 above
2001: Planet of the Apes Junior Novelization by John Whitman
2002: Colony by William T. Quick: Continuing story
2002: Force by John Whitman: prequel
2002: Resistance by John Whitman: a prequel to Force
2002: The Fall by William T. Quick
Two more novels were planned but not produced: Extinction and Rule

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - the only film to not have a novelization
2014: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm by Greg Cox - prequel
2014: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes by Alex Irvine
2017: War for the Planet of the Apes: Revelations by Greg Cox - prequel
2017: War for the Planet of the Apes by Greg Cox
2018: Caesar's Story by Greg Keyes- spinoff

Tie-Ins: One Step Beyond

One Step Beyond was anthology show that ran from 1959 to 1961, supposed recreations of clearly non-existent cases of the paranormal.  Psychic predictions were a mainstay.  Lightweight and clearly hokum, but with some charm if you're in the right mood.

There were two collections and a novel based on episodes:

1959: One Step Beyond: Supernatural Stories from American T.V. retold by Lenore Bredeson
1960: More from One Step Beyond retold by Lenore Bredeson
1964: The World Grabbers by Paul W. Fairman - "A Dramatic, Suspenseful Novel Inspired By The Popular TV Program: ONE STEP BEYOND"

Schoolhouse by Lee Duigon

Schoolhouse
by Lee Duigon
1988, Pinnacle

The best part of haunted house stories is the unveiling of the evil history of the site.  The second best part is when the spirits influence the living, possessing them with madness.  The dumbest part is the actual ghost, because ghosts are always stupid.

Good thing here that there are no ghosts, just alien brain worms.  This is spelled out pretty early, so no big reveal on this.

The titular schoolhouse is built on the site of a meteor crash.  An armored husk buried underground sticks worm tentacles up people's noses, causing them to go insane and create a separate psychic projection.  This is not explained well, and the better for it.

The actual prose is a bit clumsy and juvenile, but I got used to it after a couple chapters.  The school has always had a high turnover rate, and there is a little bit of the cursed history of the location.  The best parts involve the teachers who slowly lose their minds.

A woman becomes violently possessive of her former sancho, who in turn is obsessed with losing weight.  The Mandingo reading nurse flips out after seeing naked ghost children, and the school bully is getting more violent than usual.  The gym teacher cusses at the kids and makes them do push-ups, so he was clearly unaffected.

I like the build up, the slowly mounting insanity, so I was especially disappointed when things just kind of stopped there when the alien gets set on fire with floor wax.  Duigon seemed to try to make up for it a little in the epilogue, but this is a strictly low-stakes book.  If it wasn't for the cussing, it could pass for R.L. Stine.

If this was a proper ghost story, it could have kept the low-stakes in exchange for atmosphere, but when you're going with alien brain worms you need to ramp it up a bit.

Special thanks to Ron Clinton (@ron_clinton) for the book!  Follow him on twitter and read his article Collecting The Macabre: 30 Years of Pursuing Books of Wickedness & Wonder in Strange Stories

I wouldn't bother with the paperback on Abebooks unless the prices have moved a digit or two since this writing.

Tie-Ins: The Equalizer

The Equalizer was an 80s TV series about a former secret agent turned vengeance-for-hire-an-episode operator.  Seemed stuffy to me as a kid, but I might enjoy it more now.  Like everything else from the 80s there was reboot movie, this one with Denzel Washington.

There were three tie-ins to the original TV series written by David Deutsch:

1987: Equalizer
1988: To Even the Odds
1988: Blood and Wine

Two more recent books written by series creator Michael Sloane:

2014: The Equalizer - novelization
2018: Killed in Action - novel reboot

Bangkok Revenge (2012)

Bangkok Revenge (2012)


Boy's parents are killed, boy grows up being trained in the martial arts, boy seeks revenge.  There might have been an interesting angle in the lead being a compassionless sociopath, but I just couldn't, it's so badly put together.  Bad performances, bad direction, bad editing.  The real shame is that the action choreography looks like it was probably really good, and John Foo has some moves, but they're completely lost in poor camera angles and incompetent editing.

On Amazon video.

Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson

Darker Than You Think
by Jack Williamson
1948 (expanded from a 1940 shorter version)

Drunken reporter Will Barbee falls under the spell of witch reporter April Bell after an elderly explorer dies after announcing a mysterious box contains the means to fight an ancient evil.

Bell and Barbee have the genes of an ancient exterminated race of witches, and as such can kind of astrally project themselves in animal forms to cause fatal accidents by manipulating probabilities, exactly like the Scarlet Witch.  Yes, April is a redhead.

April is trying to get Barbee to kill those protecting the box, while Barbee spends way too many pages wondering if it's all a dream or an hallucination, which is especially ineffective given that there is no dream-like atmosphere at all, what with April talking (while in wolf form) about carbon atoms and Duke University studies.

Near the end things pick up a little, with some paranoia about how a race of half-witches may be secretly controlling the world's institutions, but that goodwill is immediately wasted by the rushed, goofy ending.

Not sure what the big deal is with the contents of the box, seeing how the half-witches can be killed by conventional means.  Barbee dies, and hangs around in astral form in a sequence that makes no sense, is now a vampire, the kind of vampires that are really ghost pterodactyls that don't drink blood, and he can grab the box and throw it into the sea.  Something a human thug could have done for like $20. 

Urania always has deceptively honest covers

I haven't read the original magazine version, but this felt padded out to novel length with incessant adjectives.  Other than the paranoia section this doesn't approach horror, and spends a scifi length of time explaining away the supernatural.

Kindle ebook from Amazon

Happy Halloween!

If, November 1959

Back issue from AbeBooks

Tie-Ins: Halloween

It would take a scientist to explain the branches of reboots and canon for the Halloween movies.  You can ignore most of that since the only good Halloween movie, Part III, is a standalone.  All of the below easily go for 3 figures online.

The novelizations:

1979: Halloween by Curtis Richards
1981: Halloween II by Jack Martin (Dennis Etchison)
1983: Halloween III: Season of the Witch by Jack Martin
1988: Halloween IV by Nicholas Grabowsky
2018: Halloween by John Passarella

Young adult tie-ins by Kelly O'Rourke:

1997: The Scream Factory
1997: The Old Myers Place
1998: The Mad House

Colt 38 Special Squad

Colt 38 Special Squad
1976


Probably the dullest poliziotteschi I've seen, notable only for a weird, out of place car stunt on top of a train and a swinging disco with a very normal looking Grace Jones.

DVD from Amazon.

Author Overview: John Byrne

John Byrne is mainly known for his comic work, as artist/writer on legendary runs of X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Superman, as well as for being an occasionally bigoted loudmouth.

He also made a brief foray into the world of horror prose fiction:

1988: Fear Book - featuring a haunted mail order catalog

1991: Nocturne in Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

1992: Hide in Plain Sight in Shock Rock

1992: Whipping Boy

TV Obscura - Letters to Laugh In

Daytime quiz show spin-off from Laugh In.  Contestants mailed in jokes that were read by Laugh In regulars.  Probably as funny as the original show.

Tie-Ins: Resident Evil

It all started with the 1989 film Sweet Home


which had a video game version, which was the basis for the video game Resident Evil, which was the basis of the film series, both of which had series of tie-in novels.

The first prose installment was the novella Biohazard: The Beginning by Hiroyuki Ariga, included in the preorder bonus The True Story of Biohazard.  A version of this was released in English titled Resident Evil: The Book, which doesn't seem to be available commercially.  There are additional Japanese novels that haven't been translated to English.  As of this writing, all of the below are available for Kindle.

S.D. Perry wrote a series of novelizations of the video game, with a couple of tie-ins between installments:

1998: The Umbrella Conspiracy - novelization of the original Resident Evil
1998: Caliban Cove - between 1 & 2
1999: City of the Dead - Resident Evil 2
1999: Underworld - set after 2
2000: Nemesis
2002: Code Veronica
2004: Zero Hour

There are novelizations from each movie except for Afterlife:

2004: Genesis by Keith DeCandido (novelization of Resident Evil)
2004: Apocalypse by Keith DeCandido
2007: Extinction by Keith DeCandido
2012: Retribution by John Shirley
2017: The Final Chapter by Tim Waggoner

Things I Didn't Finish: The Strange and the Unknown

The Strange and the Unknown

Fate Magazine

Paperback Library, 1965

I grew up devouring unexplained phenomena books from the 60s to 80s - not particularly believing it but wishing it was true, and at least entertained by the reading.  These tales are so dull they probably are true.

We open up with a defensive screed against mainstream science, the corrupt industry that famously makes billions of dollars by not ever discovering anything new.

A book falls off a shelf.  Is it a poltergeist or a banshee?

A man dreams about something other than his wife.  Weeks later he dies.  Explain that, science!

I've become considerably less tolerant of pseudo-science since I stopped being an idiot child, but there's not even enough here to bother scoffing at.

TV Obscura: Dusty's Trail

Bob Denver in a carbon copy of Gilligan's Island set in the Wild West

Tie-Ins: Blair Witch

I'm a bit lukewarm to the actual films, but I appreciated the expanded mythology around the series from the "documentaries" and website.  There are no straight novelizations, but there are two fictional non-fictional companions written by D.A. Stern:

1999: The Blair Witch Project: A Dossier

2000: Blair Witch: Book of Shadows

D.A. Stern also wrote two tie-in novels about cases in the mythology's past:

2000: The Secret Confession of Rustin Parr

2000: Graveyard Shift

There was a young adult series by Cade Merrill that followed the cousin of the first film's lead:

The Witch's Daughter
The Dark Room
The Drowning Ghost
Blood Nightmare
The Death Card
The Prisoner
The Night Shifters
The Obsession

Chamber of Horrors

Chamber of Horrors (1966)

A madman forces a priest to complete a wedding ceremony with a corpse, then goes into hiding at a brothel where he orders women to lie very still - more explicit  shades of necrophilia here than the hints in the Poe based film this draws from.

To escape police custody, the madman chops his hand off with a hatchet.  Underwater.  He then seeks revenge, using different deadly accessories on his stump.  Amateur detectives associated with a wax museum investigate.

Originally a pilot film for TV series, it was padded out to be released theatrically.  It has William Castle style gimmicks, such as the Fear Flasher and Horror Horn to warn of impending implied off-screen violence.

Crime and the Psychic World by Fred Archer

Crime and the Psychic World
by Fred Archer
William Morrow 1969

Say "Murder Most Foul" and the instant response is "Jack the Ripper!"

I would have thought of Macbeth seeing how it's Macbeth, but Archer spends the first paragraph of his book defending the assertion.  The perfect introduction to the writing style of Fred Archer.  Rambling, anecdotal, impenetrable attempts at wit, name-dropping obscure figures, and I guess a little psychic stuff.

Most claims of psychic skill demonstrate the uncanny ability to predict things after they happen, but Archer's psychics can't even manage that.  In the first two cases, involving Jack the Ripper and the Brighton Trunk Murders, the psychics claim facts shown by Archer to be wrong, and each case remains unsolved.

Most of the cases are even more vague than that, and Archer's rambling style doesn't help.  Several times I had to go back a few paragraphs to try and match the psychic phenomena to the outcome of a criminal case, and it still didn't make it any clearer.

Happily, there was very little of the full-time con artists that manipulate grieving families.  Most of the stories involved mediums or prophetic dreams.  The whole affair seemed horribly outdated even by the 60s.

Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille

Story of the Eye
by Georges Bataille
1928

Bataille was a French intellectual and philospher, influential to the school of poststructuralism.  Story of the Eye is a rambling porn of two teens doing increasingly nasty sex stuff.  No fancy French philosophy, just peeing and fapping and screwing.

Two teens fool around, involving another teen girl who goes insane and is institutionalized.  They break into the asylum, do more sex stuff, and drive her to suicide.  The couple go to Spain where they get horny on bullfighting and hook up with a sugar daddy.  They bang a priest to death and sail off into the distance, the end.

It's pure nastiness with no philosophical message beyond maybe "screw your morality".  It's as philosophical as GG Allin.  This doesn't stop eggheads from declaring it's not porn and worthy of deep critical analysis, because there's a central theme of soft round stuff, from eggs to bull testicles to eyeballs.

Let me put some patches on my tweed jacket, grow out a goatee, and light my pipe.  Yes.  Yes, those things are similar, and are all in the story.  Mostly as ben wa balls.

TV Obscura: Masquerade

Kirstie Alley and My Second Dad B.J. star in this "Mission Impossible meets Love Boat" series, the fourth time this concept was attempted.

Tie Ins: Amityville Horror

The Amityville Horror franchise is based on the alleged haunting experienced by the Lutz famiy, and the real life murder of the previous tenants by Ronald Defeo Jr.  We begin with:

1977: The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson (presented as non-fiction, filmed in 1979)

There are a few branches off this tree, as books become movies with sequels with novelizations and book sequels have movie made from them.  I'm only going through the early 90s with this one - since you can't copyright a town's name, there's been a glut of self published books (some by sequel writer John G. Jones) and indie horror films over the last couple decades.

1982: The Amityville Horror Part II  by John G. Jones (presented as non-fiction)
1985: Amityville: The Final Chapter  by John G. Jones (still "based on" but with even less connection to the Lutz' account)
1985: Amityville Horror: Untold Stories by John G. Jones
1988: Amityville: The Evil Escapes by John G. Jones (presented as fiction. TV movie made in 1989 and Direct to Video movie Amityville 1992: It's About Time released in 1992)
1989: Amityville: The Horror Returns by John G. Jones
1991: Amityville: The Nightmare Continues by Robin Karl

A separate branch of books written by Hans Holzer concentrated on Ronald Defeo Jr.

1979: Murder in Amityville (re-released as Amityville: Fact or Fiction?; filmed as Amityville II: The Possession)
1981: The Amityville Curse (filmed in 1990)
1985: The Secret of Amityville

And the only novelization of a film:

1984: Amityville 3-D by Gordon McGill

TV Obscura: Blue Thunder

The TV series of the movie that got beat by Airwolf, the knock-off TV series of the movie.  With Dana Carvey, Dick Butkus, and Bubba Smith.

Tie-ins: Timecop

I watched a local premier of Pulp Fiction, and ended up sitting directly behind Quentin Tarantino and Richard Linklater.  I was excited about film in general, and this was shaping up to be the high of my movie going life.

Then the movie started.  Quentin promptly fell asleep, and I almost joined him.  Around hour four I thought to myself, what was the last movie I saw before this?  Timecop.  I wouldn't put Timecop in the top ten of Van Damme movies, and I'd struggle to name another nine.  It was still better than Pulp Fiction.  I was never bored and staring at the exit sign at Timecop.

While not the greatest, I did appreciate the little butterfly effect touches.  Every time Timecop came back to the present, little things would be different all over.  I guess the concept had legs.  The film was based on a comic, and there was a TV series based on the film, and a series of novels based on the series.

The series was written by Dan Parkinson and have neither Van Damme nor Ron Silver.  I haven't seen anything Timecop since the original airing.  I have seen Pulp Fiction, and my opinion has only gotten worse.

1994: Timecop by Steve Perry - novelization of the film

1998: Viper's Spawn by Dan Parkinson

1998: The Scavenger by Dan Parkinson

1999: Blood Ties by Dan Parkinson

TV Obscura: Shaping Up

With Leslie Neilsen, Jennifer Tilly, and Jake "Body by Jake" Jake.

Tie Ins: The Tomorrow People

Five novelizations by Roger Price

1973 The Visitor

1974 Three in Three

1975 Four into Three

1976 One Law

1979 Lost Gods, Hitler's Last Secret, and The Thargon Menace