Electronic OtherRealms #21 Summer, 1988 Part 2 The Agony Column Rick Kleffel Copyright 1988 by Rick Kleffel Face Cecile Pineda Penguin Contemporary American Literature $6.95 horror readers:***+ literary readers: ***** Stinger Robert R. McCammon Pocket Books Fiction $4.95 ****- The Influence Ramsey Campbell Macmillan Publishing, also Scream/Press ***** The Scream John Skipp and Craig Spector Tor $3.95 ***+ The Kill Riff David J. Schow $17.95 Tor, ISBN:0-312-93065-8 ****- Night Visions 4 Introduction by Clive Barker, Stories by Dean R. Koontz, Edward Bryant, Robert R. McCammon Dark Harvest, $18.95 ***** Polyphemus Michael Shea Arkham House, $16.95, ISBN 0-87-054-155-2 *****+ Sphynx David Lindsay, Introduction by Colin Wilson Carroll & Graf, $18.95 ****+ Unassigned Territory Kem Nunn Dell, $7.95, ISBN 0- 440-50009-5 ***** One of the appeals of reading horror these days is that the field is now wide open to everyone who can't fit in any other genre. Books that may not have even been published ten years ago are being given the go ahead, with glossy covers and grocery store cardboard display stands. This process of opening up gives the horror genre the ability to encompass works of vastly different content, intent and execution. These books give a practical example of just how different two works in one genre can be -- and both still be good, reasonably well- written genre novels. It is now possible to travel from the inner mind of Face and The Influence to the Outer Limits of Stinger. Face In Face, by Cecile Pineda, we have an incarnation of the horror novel as haute- literature -- a book that aims for, and mostly reaches, the stratospheric heights of universal expression found in other horror works such as Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Jean Paul Sartre's Nausea. As such, it won't find a huge readership, either in the horror fraternity (most of whom will consider it a bit too talky) or in the world of high-falutin' upscale Writer-Readers (most of whom will consider it a bit too macabre -- just enough so to make it unacceptable for cocktail party synopses). But for those who like to think while grinding their teeth in terror -- your ship has come in. And it's a beauty. Helio Caras, the protagonist in Face is a dirt poor barbershop aide scraping away a meager living in the slums of Sao Paolo. Although he seems as poor as possible without being dead, in his own world, he is not yet at the bottom of the ladder. This split perception -- our view of his poverty as absolute, and his view of it as not absolute -- is at the center of the disturbing atmosphere created by the writer. She writes in short chapters (often only one to two pages), using sparse, clean prose, which gives the book a readability that is often missing in literature. But a fall from the cliff results in a horrifying facial disfigurement, one that Helio Cara cannot afford to have surgically corrected. In swift succession he loses his job, his girl, and his shack -- and what the reader might have once thought of as worst has become considerably worse. Helio flees the city and moves back to his mother's now-abandoned house in the country. There, with a knowledge gained from barbershop wart removal, interviews with plastic surgeons and the study of library texts, he picks up needles, thread, razor blades and procaine in an attempt to rebuild his face and his identity. The horror in this novel comes at the reader from two angles -- the poverty of the lowly in other countries, and the horror of losing your facial identity -- and it's an effective combination. The sparseness of the prose eliminates the poor starving third world overly-compassionate complex, as does the kitchen table plastic surgery. But the desperate search for employment by a man who has become a monster to his peers adds a believable tension to the surgical horror. This is the writer's first novel, and was nominated for an American Book Award. Her next novel, the blurb tells us, is set in 10th century India. You might have to go to some trouble to find this book -- but it's worth the search. Stinger You certainly won't have to go to much trouble to find Robert R. McCammon's new novel Stinger. You can pick it up with two quarts of milk and a box of diapers at the grocery store. If you do, fasten your seat belts, don't touch that channel, and get ready for the return of something that was invented a long time ago but is just now having a resurrection in the book world -- science fiction horror. Many of us can remember the terror and awe of those black-and-white monsters from TV's The Outer Limits. Ants with wicked human faces, stones that could talk, two-dimensional living lightning bolts -- whether or not you could imagine it, the creators of The Outer Limits would have it fall out of the sky and into somebody's back yard. But with the success of The Exorcist, Carrie and other such supernaturally-oriented novels, the monster lost a lot of ground as a central element of the horror novel. Another contributor to the downfall of the monster in horror novels was the success (a few years later) of monsters in science fiction films -- Alien and Jaws in particular. It seemed that novels just couldn't compete with the styro-gyro creations of the new breed of makeup-mechanical artists -- there are times when one picture cannot be equaled by any number of words. Unfortunately, none of these creations possessed any more intelligence, cunning or character than Bruce the shark. And, when the strings started to show, they left most folks cold. It seemed that the days of the intelligent, tortured monsters -- Frankenstein's created soul and the elegant and evil Dracula -- were gone. Lost to the horror genre, forgotten by science fiction writers. Good news for monster fans -- smart monsters and science fiction themes have been rediscovered by horror writers and are rearing their ugly -- but not brainless -- heads in the most recent crop of novels by todays top mainstream horror writers. First Dean Koontz gave us Watchers, with two genetic experiments -- one very good, and the other very bad -- on the prowl in Orange and Santa Barbara counties. These beings were more intelligent than the humans pursuing them, but like the human characters, they were driven by trauma, desire, love and hatred. Shortly thereafter, Stephen King introduced us to his version of B-movie monsters as raucous gangsters in The Tommyknockers. In Stinger, Robert R. McCammon delivers the all-stops-pulled-monster-invades-small-town novel -- with a vengeance. And, like Watchers and The Tommyknockers, Stinger immeasurably improves upon the sources it draws from, which are both plentiful and obvious. In his latest novel, Mr. McCammon has taken a bit of The Hidden, a touch of The Terminator, a liberal dose of Alien, borrowed from Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, and combined these in his own genetic centrifuge to create a novel that is as much -- or more -- fun to read than these movies are to watch. When a UFO appears over the dying Texas mining town of Inferno, all that is found is an unbreakable round object the size of a pool ball. An eight-year old girl is the one to find this object, and before she can say "Possession!", the alien inside of the sphere has taken control of her body and placed her mind (soul, whatever) inside the sphere for safekeeping. As it happens, this alien is a "freedom fighter" (as opposed to terrorist), on the run from one bad, bad, bounty hunter -- Stinger, who arrives all too soon on the "wrong side of the tracks" in Inferno. What ensues is gruesome, engrossing, and imaginative. The author handles the big cast of characters especially well -- his orchestration of character and action across the landscape of this town divided into Bordertown and Inferno proper is clearly and cleanly handled, and he build the suspense and horror perfectly to an appropriately large-scale climax. The science fiction elements are well thought-out, but most importantly, we are given well developed human characters, each instantly identifiable (and not overly stereotypical), and none of whom are rich and/or famous. Even better, the two monsters also have distinct characters, a rarity in SF horror. Yes, there is plenty of dripping slime, torn flesh, and alien genetic experimentation -- but there are also clear and comprehensible, if alien, motivations. They don't call him "one of the masters of modern [mainstream] horror" for nothing. Reading this book, you might not ever make it to the beach this summer. And it's cheaper than the movie tickets. Polyphemus But don't switch that dial -- there's even more fun in store, combined with some serious, high-quality literate writing and a top-flight publishing package that yields Polyphemus by Michael Shea from Arkham House. This collection of short stories is no less than the most amazing package to come down the pike since Scream/Press' version of Barker's Books of Blood, and it's been worth the wait. Handsomely illustrated by John Stewart, this volume is certainly a best buy for those interested in horror, science fiction or humor -- all three genres are represented here, along with heroic fantasy and urban folklore. It's enjoyable enough to be easily read, it's certainly shocking, and most importantly, it's high quality writing by a unique voice in the genre. Michael Shea isn't a new voice -- he's been around for quite some time, and this collection will definitely pique the readers' interest, and have them hunting up all his other work, along with this reviewer. What is impressive here is the range of stories, that are all recognizably written by the same author, yet have an incredible variety of subject, tone, and genre. The title story is ecological science-fiction horror in the tradition of Solaris and Dune, but don't let these quality references fool you into thinking that the story is devoid of blood, slime, horror or action. All are abundantly present. "The Angel of Death" is the story of what happens when an alien student comes to earth to study sexuality, and of his meetings with men, women, and something that may or may not be human -- one who thinks of himself as 'The Angel of Death". Once again, humor accompanies horror, to the reader's delight. And finally, there's "The Autopsy", which showcases for the reader one of the most intelligent, insidious aliens ever to find its way to earth. There is no one (on earth) who will be able to read this story without yelling at the characters in the book, to stop, stop! Actually, the less said about the stories here the better -- this is the kind of book readers will want to savor, enjoy slowly, and reread. As soon as they've stopped shaking. The Influence Although Ramsey Campbell is another writer who is often tagged with the dubious honor of master of modern horror, The Influence is anything but mainstream. His writing has more in common with P.D. James and Henry James than with Stephen King and Dean Koontz; in fact, he is often referred to as "a writer's writer" because, although he receives much praise from his fellow writers (many of whom cite him as an influence), he never seems to really break into the big-big bestseller/major motion picture bracket. And it's just as well, because Ramsey Campbell uses poetic prose techniques to create a subtle horror that can be likened to authors as diverse as Flannery O'Conner and Franz Kafka -- techniques that might not transfer easily to the big sell/screen. There are no gargantuan monsters or rich and famous runaways in The Influence, just lower-middle class English working parents and their children, under emotional and financial pressure after the death of an unlikable great-aunt. But Queenie, in her low-key fashion, soon becomes as frightening to the reader as the thought of a reptilian monster hatching in your stomach, made even more so the familiarity of the situations. For, while nobody wants an alien bursting through their chest during dinner, most of us are more scared that our friends, relatives or co-workers will do something to us that is cruel and embarrassing enough to be called monstrous. Queenie's menace is familiar enough to remind you of the mean relative you'd always disliked, but imaginatively expressed by the author, as is evidenced in this passage: When I was a baby they gave her one of my first teeth, and do you know what she said to me when I was old enough to realize? She told me that if I ever did anything she didn't like or said anything against her she'd make me feel as if the tooth were being pulled out. These are the kind of incidents that parents fear most, the relative whose comments, joking or otherwise, somehow affect a child into adulthood. In the wrong hands, this could seem like the cheesiest voodoo threat this side of Haiti, but in Campbell's hands, the intimations of child abuse overshadow and suggest the supernatural, rather than the other way around. And Campbell's thoughts on the supernatural are convincing and compelling: Hermione had always thought that the idea of hell presupposed a god, but perhaps hell was yourself after death: perhaps you were judged at the moment of death by that part of yourself you couldn't lie to, the part that knew everything you'd thought and done in your life. Somewhere in everyone was their own severest critic, and perhaps dying released it from a lifetime of constraints to judge what kind of eternity was deserved.... Perhaps life after death was an endless lonely dream, and whether it lasted for the moment of death or eternity didn't matter: its kind of time would have nothing to do with life awake, even if one were to invade the other. This is the kind of careful, philosophical thought that has characterized the great literary works of the genre -- Frankenstein, Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and Ghost Story come to mind -- combined with a aching look at life on the financial edge in modern England. But just because the book is thoughtfully written and philosophically sound, don't think it isn't also gripping and entertaining, a family mystery in the best tradition of English mystery writers. In particular, P. D. James' A Taste for Death comes to mind, for both are mysteries of what the characters will become, as well as what will become of the characters. This is a book that will satisfy those with a thirst for blood and those with a thirst for thought equally, without alienating one or the other. And, even better for those readers who double as collectors, is the news that Scream/Press is soon to publish a version of this novel set directly from the author's word processor disks, including part of a chapter that was deleted in the MacMillan edition, and an author's afterward that is not available in any other edition. This edition will be illustrated by J. K. Potter, with the photographs shot in England and Ramsey Campbell's daughter serving as the lead model. Like most Scream/Press books, this will undoubtedly be something to look forward to. The Scream But when people are tired of thinking and tired of bleeding, they turn on music. And, while music itself is a big moneymaker, other forms of art that deal with music and musicians often aren't. Once in a while, someone writes an Amadeus or Rocky Horror Picture Show but more often than not we're given half-baked concoctions like Rock and Roll Nightmare (don't even think about renting this video!). Rock music, in particular, has been heavily abused by writers who know nothing about 1) Music, 2) Musicians and 3) Musical Equipment. Other problems are that descriptions of music are boring, unless the writers have tied that description to something outside of the music, while descriptions of musicians who are only and exactly and just solely confined to being eccentric musicians are one dimensional characters. And novels where every major character is one- dimensional tend to be, well....flat. All of which is a way of saying that The Scream, by Skipp and Spector, is treading on dangerous territory by being, yes, yet another book about devil-worship-rock-and-roll-zombies (though you'd never guess so from the cover) -- one that, surprisingly, succeeds. The main reason this novel is a success is that at least some of the characters are three dimensional people with lives to be lived. The women characters are particularly commendable, and one of the highlights of horror in this novel the trip they take to an abortion clinic. No, it's not Rosemia's baby, it's something that could happen to a friend of yours -- and that's why you won't forget it. Like real musicians, the people in this book have families and children and parents -- three elements often reduced to absurdity in other rock novels. Then, of course, there are the devil worshipers, the child molesters, la, la, dee, dah -- in short, the typical middle-american picture of Lead Guitarist for Radical Rock Group, who in this case, has about 75 bodies buried in the walls of his mansion. Or the seductive, evil lead singer who (literally) devours men. Yes, within the two dimensions, they're clearly drawn, but in the end, these are the cardboard characters we've come to expect in rock horror novels, and it is unfortunate that we must find them here. On the other hand, the authors are writing about what they know, and when they didn't know, they asked someone who did. The descriptions of the mechanics of music (the tour, the equipment, the roadies) are first rate and solidly believable. And the invention the authors propose is not only clever, but sensible. As a musician who has performed live, I'm in a good position to evaluate these aspects, and everything adds up. That alone made this book readable, where it might otherwise have been laughable. Incorporating these elements with a Supernatural from Vietnam theme is like smoking at a gas station, but the authors bludgeon ahead, and come up with yet another surprisingly strong story line. Like the musical/technical aspects of the novel, the supernatural in The Scream is logically developed, but appropriately mysterious, and keeps the reader guessing and reading until the last line of the last page. In fact, this book is good enough to make the reader forget that "it's only rock and roll". The Kill Riff But, if after reading The Scream, you think it's safe to go a concert -- think again, because David J. Schow, a noted short story writer for The Twilight Zone Magazine, has just unleashed his first novel -- The Kill Riff, and, when read in the same vicinity, there's no question that The Kill Riff blows away The Scream and a good many other rock novels. In the first place, there's no supernatural element to this novel, and that in itself is a refreshing breath of clean air. There are no devil/demon worshipers of any kind to be found in this book, and even better, it largely sidesteps the censor rock issue that will soon become a trite element in music novels. What we do have is very well drawn characters, and, some of the best observations about showbiz of all types to be found in any recent novel. What is missing are major characters whose net yearly income is less than $100,000, but, if we have to have yet another novel about the rich and famous (one of whom must, of course, is an ex-Viet Nam veteran, no less!), let it be The Kill Riff. The plot concerns Lucas Ellington's revenge for the death of his daughter in a stampede at the Civic Auditorium during a concert by rock's new bad-boy band, Whip Hand. Mr. Ellington decides that since these people are scum-of-the-earth and a convenient scapegoat, he will use his Army training to "be all he can be" -- in this case, a murderer committing the perfect crime(s). Amazingly, the reader's sympathy is with Lucas, as he tracks and kills the members of the band, saving Gabriel Stannard, the lead singer, for last. A good part of the terror in this novel comes from the realization (as demonstrated by Lucas) how easy it would be for a reasonably intelligent person to commit a number of murders for which he/she is never caught nor punished. What Lucas does not count on is the fact that Gabriel Stannard is something of a gun freak himself, surrounded by bodyguards who are less than stable. And what the reader won't realize until they start the novel is how great the characters are going to be, how funny the jokes will be or how gripping the narrative will become. All too soon (and perhaps against your better judgment), you'll find yourself clutching this book, yelling out loud to the characters in an effort to try to convince them "Don't go in there!" And once you're caught up in the narrative, you won't be ready for some of the major twists and surprises that Mr. Schow hands to you. This is a book that will especially appeal readers of action-oriented crime novels, as well as those who are looking for horror. Because of the lack of a supernatural element, I was prepared for disappointment, but there wasn't any of that, or relaxation coming around the corner. Great characters, gripping action, good jokes and observations about music -- this novel abound in these elements, and the words Blockbuster Movie in subtitles flashing at all the right times. Next time though, let's see if we can bring things out of the financial stratosphere. Dark Visions 4 Dark Visions 4 is the newest entry in this top-flight series from a new star in the small American publishing houses, Dark Harvest books. Despite the high, high quality of the previous issues, this is by far the best of the series. The idea of this series is to give top notch veterans and newcomers to the field of horror 30,000 words to do with what they wish. In general, the fiction published in these books is darker, more extreme and more experimental than that found in the writers more generally available releases. Last year brought us Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart, which he directed as the movie Hellraiser. This year brings us three stories by Dean R. Koontz, a passel of tales by Edward Bryant and three stories by Robert R. McCammon. Koontz's work in this collection takes elements of his bestseller style writing and combines them with elements of shock horror. The results (surprisingly enough to me) are wonderful, shocking, exciting stories that are definitely this writer's best, most uncompromising work. Two of the tales use classic SF monsters (a shape changer, a body snatcher) and rather extreme gore, but amazingly, end up being convincing tales of -- love! There's a smidgen of black humor and a truckload of dark horror, but these are stories about man's capacity to love. The shock of finding out what the subject is in these works is as great as those provided by the SF/horror elements. The final story subjects a rather unlikable atheist narrator to the horrors of extreme bad luck. The prose in this story is remarkably controlled, allowing the reader to see limitations in the narrator that he himself is unaware of. This is the kind of story that is too emotionally severe to be published as mainstream fiction, yet too muted and normal for most horror or science fiction magazines - and it finds a home in Dark Visions 4. Edward Bryant's stories also catch the reader unawares -- but then, that's the point of horror, isn't it? They're all shorter than Koontz's, and have a wider variety -- from the humorous mystery of "Haunted" to the senseless, brief violence of "Doing Colfax", to the classic Twilight Zone twist of "Buggage". But, by using an ingenious device, just when one starts to think that their impact will be blurred by the variety and humor, Mr. Bryant manages to sneak up and bury a very surprising hatchet in our unsuspecting brains. Like Mr. Koontz, Edward Bryant bludgeons us with horror, but surprises us with the subtlety of his written art. Robert R. McCammon has written many, many mainstream style horror novels from They Thirst (an excellent large-scale modern vampire novel) to Usher's Passing, a Gothic novel of the arms race and black magic set in the South. His writing style has always been superior to the run-of-the-mill-Graham Masterson/Whitley Streiber-let's-crank-out- another-monster-black-magic-story school of fiction, so I was a bit disappointed that he didn't offer the freshness of artistic vision offered by the other writers. But, for sheer peek- between-your-fingers terror, he certainly delivers the goods, particularly with "Best Friends", the story of some very, very bad demons that are called into our world by an emotionally disturbed teenager, with results that are appropriately disastrous and unexpected, to quote "Ready or not, here they come!" Which, might be said about Night Visions. Next month, we can expect to see Dark Visions 5, with contributions by Stephen King, Dan Simmons and George R. R. Martin. If King doesn't pull this series into the limelight, then -- maybe my hat will eat me. Sphynx Horror and supernatural fiction devices -- telepathy, lycanthropy, vampirism, etc -- are often used by authors to externalize otherwise invisible internal, emotional conflicts. Unfortunately, if the emotional observations don't ring true or aren't interesting, the supernatural device rapidly becomes gratuitous, and the novel loses it appeal once the freshness of its supernatural plot device has worn thin. This is why so many once- interesting classics of the supernatural now seem rather flat. But the respected publishers at Carroll & Graf have seen to it that the works in their new series of Classic horror reprints is edited by none other than Colin Wilson, the notable author and philosopher who brought us The Mind Parasites so many years ago. If Sphynx by David Lindsay, the first volume in this series, is representative of the quality of those to come, then this line will rapidly become a must buy for all those seriously interested in entertaining, literate, supernatural fiction. Sphynx is, in fact only borderline supernatural/science fiction; it has more in common with Evelyn Waugh than with H. P. Lovecraft. The novel tells the story of Nicholas, a young English clerk who inherits a large sum of money, and, as a result, decides to rent a room in a house in the country, where he can continue his scientific research into the recording of dreams. He has already completed the majority of the research necessary to create a camera-like device that records his dreams on chemically- coated film, and now plans to construct a production size device that records, first, five minutes, then later on, one hour of the dreams of those who are in its presence when they are dreaming. Nicholas has rather naively counted on relative peace and quiet in his newly-rented room, but he is so unworldly that he (a young single man with money) has elected to rent a room in a house where the three unmarried daughters of the landlord still reside. The social situation is complicated even more by an excitable, irresponsible two- timing metalworker Nicholas employs, who is having dating one of the daughters, a neighboring young female compose, and an experienced, worldly young widow who is also a neighbor of Nicholas' new residence. All of these characters far outstrip Nicholas in social expertise, and his whirlwind learning experience is filtered and diffracted by the dream recorder of his invention. The author's perceptions of people are are so right-on that this novel becomes riveting, sometimes hilarious, reading, even by today's most jaded standards. Where else could one read the complaint of Lore, the composer, who laments that "Women are nine-tenths reputation and one-tenth human being"? Murder, jealousy, abuse, callous disregard for other's pride, all are stirred expertly, then reinvented in the sparse but highly imaginative dreams that Nicholas' device records. The climax is surprising, but leaves the reader with enough to feel satisfied with everything but this series -- when does the next volume come out, and who will it be -- and this author, whose works I will now have to endeavor to read. Unassigned Territory And finally, we come full circle, this time with a magnificent entry into science fiction, Unassigned Territory, the second novel by Kem Nunn. Tapping the Source, his first novel, showed an almost Lovecraftian sense of the pervasiveness of evil, as it followed a naive young man from the desert into the scummy beach life of Southern California, searching for his sister, who may be missing, dead or moved away, no forwarding address. Starting out in a low-key, almost absentminded fashion with a single character and a single point of view, the reader was gradually introduced to an ever-deepening chain of evil, until the novel built to a truly demonic denouement. In retrospect, it becomes clear that Tapping the Source was written more within the genre of horror than mystery, despite the fact that is was marketed as a mystery. Unassigned Territory brings all of those Lovecraftian intimations of evil out into the harsh desert sunlight, and under the scrutiny of Obadiah Wheeler, a canny young member of a splinter fundamentalist sect called simply The Friends. It's 1970, and in order to preserve his 4D draft status, Obadiah must do at least 120 hours work per month to preserve his status as a minister. It is this that prompts him to head out into the unassigned territory of the title, accompanied by members of his congregation, to seek new converts for his religion. In the course of doing so, he stumbles across "The Thing" in Sarge Hummer's Mystery of the Mojave Desert Museum -- something that may or may not be an actual extra-terrestrial artifact, and Delandra Hummer, Sarge's daughter. In a moment of sun-drenched decision, strikingly similar to that which occurs in Camus' The Stranger, Obadiah sees his ministry going down the drain, and decides to hitch up with Delandra, stealing "The Thing" from the museum in hopes of selling it to Dr. Ceton Verity, builder of a red-white and blue Electro-Magnetron resting peacefully near the site of the disappearance of the Table Mountain Indians. What ensues is a hilarious -- but sometimes horrifying -- update and remix of Lovecraftian cult-terror with a modern sense of paranoia. Nunn uses the time-honored technique of ridiculing the fathers of the obscure theories, thus making them even more believable once all those hard questions have been asked -- and answered. This book has some consummate moments of open-ended terror, but they are accompanied hand-in-hand by some of the funniest writing to come down the pike since Vonnegut demonstrated the use of humor in science fiction. Imagine Flannery O'Connor writing science fiction set amidst the losers and dreamers wandering around the Mojave Desert and you'll come close what the author does in this novel. But you'll never be able to pin down all the references, any more than you'll want to put down a book that makes you laugh out loud. The characters here all extremely memorable, but the book is constructed in the opposite manner of Tapping the Source; rather than starting with one character, then spreading out, Nunn starts with several characters, then slowly draws them together towards a nexus that no-one wishes or is able to think about. Rex Hummer, Sarge's son, and Harlan Low, Obadiah's Church Elder, seem at the beginning to be minor characters, but develop into major forces by the end of the novel -- and into people you look more and more forward to hearing from. This is a novel you won't find in the SF ghetto at your bookstores, but wherever it's pigeonholed, any science fiction or horror fan looking for a good time -- can be sure to find one here. Next Time Coming soon are reviews of: The Blood Kiss, by Dennis Etchison (Scream/Press), Servants of Twilight by Dean R. Koontz (Dark Harvest), Toplin by Michael McDowell (Scream/Press), and Tapping the Source (Dark Harvest), featuring all new stories by Stephen King, George R. R. Martin and Dan Simmons. OtherRealms #21 Summer, 1988 Copyright 1988 by Chuq Von Rospach All Rights Reserved One time rights have been acquired from the contributors. All rights are hereby assigned to the contributors. OtherRealms may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from Chuq Von Rospach. The electronic edition may be distributed or reproduced in its entirety as long as all copyrights, author and publication information remain intact. No article may be reprinted, reproduced or republished in any way without the express permission of the author.