It seems the Halloween season starts earlier and earlier each year. I first began noticing Halloween candy in stores in July (!), and every time I turned around since then, there were more decorations, party favors, and treats at hand. Is it any wonder I´ve been wandering around the house humming The Monster Mash for the last few weeks?
Our 108th issue kicks off a truly epic celebration of the season, with a pair of nightmarish treats. You will never look at seagulls the same way after experiencing Adrian Cole´s The Birds Are Back in Town. And Lin Carter´s Keru is a tale that would have been right at home in Weird Tales in its heyday.
The Power of Evil, by Alan Orloff, is not a supernatural tale, but futuristic suspense (thanks to Acquiring Editor Michael Bracken), so it´s doing double duty this time. And the grisly-sounding A Burn That Reaches Bone, by Karen Odden is not a mad slasher tale, but a tale of a horrible crime that reaches through the generations. (Thanks to Acquiring Editor Barb Goffman for this one.) And, of course, there are traditional mysteries, too-I found a rare Victorian-era mystery by Australian writer Ernest Favenc while I was browsing issues of Australian Town and Country Journal looking for mysteries by Mary Fortune (my favorite classic Australian mystery writer) and couldn´t resist adding it to this issue. Plus we have a detective novel featuring Nick Carter and a solve-it-yourself puzzler from Hal Charles.
On the science fiction and fantasy side, we have another great Norman Spinrad story, a classic by Robert F. Young, and the first entry in the Pillsworth & Toffee series by Charles F. Myers (we have more coming up). Fun stuff.
Here´s the complete lineup:
Mysteries / Suspense / Adventure:
The Power of Evil, by Alan Orloff [Michael Bracken Presents short story]
Swimming into Troubled Waters, by Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself Mystery]
A Burn That Reaches Bone, by Karen Odden [Barb Goffman Presents short story]
The Mystery of the Death Stroke, by Ernest Favenc
The Forced Crime, by Nicholas Carter [novel]
Science Fiction & Fantasy:
The Power of Evil, by Alan Orloff [Michael Bracken Presents short story]
Entities, by Norman Spinrad [short story]
The Birds Are Back in Town is copyright © 2019 by Adrian Cole [short story]
The Courts of Jamshyd, by Robert F. Young [short story]
Keru, by Lin Carter
I´ll Dream of You by Charles F. Myers [short story]