Friday, April 30, 2010

Friday's Forgotten Books

When Patti Abbott suggested that this week's Friday's Forgotten Books be story collections or anthologies, I thought great, I can do this one. Then I looked at my shelf of anthologies and thought, Oh my God, how do I choose just one?

Yeah, I've been collecting short stories for the past several years. Every time I go to the summer book sales I find at least one collection or anthology of shorts in various genres. There's "Great Stories of Suspense" edited by Ross Macdonald, "Crime Classics" edited by Rex Burns and Mary Rose Sullivan, and "Luke Short's Best of the West" collection. With so many, how do I choose just one?

So, I thought about the stories themselves, which ones stuck with me the most? And I chose "Alfred Hitchcock Presents:Slay Ride". One confession, I didn't read the novel included in the book which is "Out of the Deeps" by John Wyndham, but the shorts - I read them all. And you won't find a more chilling collection of shorts anywhere, in any genre.

"Slay Ride" was published in 1967 but most of the stories inside were first published in the Fifties with a couple of exceptions. What amazed me the most reading these stories was how the writers could terrify you without resorting to the blood and gore and obscenities that pepper short stories today. Each story takes you on an incredible "ride" that scares the bejesus out of you. And every story blurs the genre lines, slipping from horror to crime to sci-fi without missing a beat.

My two favorite stories in the collection are "Men Without Bones" by Gerald Kersh and "The Cage" by Ray Russell. The stories are as different as night and day but it was the endings of both that turned the stories on their heads. If you ever want to learn how to end your short stories with a shiver and a bang find these stories and just read.

Kersh's story had me believing I was reading the story of a man who was confessing to murder until I read that very last sentence which spun the story on its ear. And Russell's story of lust and betrayal ended with an image that I still can't shake from my head and I shiver every time I think about it, a year after first reading it.

Here's a list of the shorts:

Men Without Bones by Gerald Kersh
Not With a Bang by Damon Knight
Party Games by John Burke
X Marks the Pedwalk by Fritz Leiber
Two Spinsters by E. Phillips Oppenheim
The Cage by Ray Russell

If you can find them, read them, you won't be sorry. You may not be able to sleep after you do, but they're well worth the read.

Almost forgot! You can find the entire list of folks participating this week at Patti's blog http://pattinase.blogspot.com/ Loads of great books to start hunting for.

5 comments:

pattinase (abbott) said...

I couldn't pick just one. I must have two hundred books of short stories from library sales and used book stores. Thanks, Sandra.

Charles Gramlich said...

I'm gonna see if I can find this one. I haven't read any of these stories.

Todd Mason said...

Robert Arthur, that excellent writer in his own right, was the editor of this volume, which is the retitled Dell paperback back half of this, one of the series that Arthur ghost-edited for Hitchcock and his people and Random House till Arthur's death (Harold Q. Masur then took over till Hitchcock's death). If you want the full volume, look for:

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories That Scared Even Me [ghost edited by Robert Arthur] ed. Alfred Hitchcock (Random House LCC# 67-22678, 1967, $6.95, 463pp, hc); Derivative anthologies: Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories That Scared Even Me (Rinehart 1967), Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Scream Along with Me, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Slay Ride, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories That Scared Even Me, Part One.
xiii · Ahem! If I May Have a Moment- · Alfred Hitchcock · in
3 · Fishhead · Irvin S. Cobb · ss The Cavalier Jan 11 ’13
13 · Camera Obscura · Basil Copper · nv The Sixth Pan Book of Horror Stories, ed. Herbert van Thal, London: Pan, 1965
33 · A Death in the Family · Miriam Allen deFord · ss Dude Nov ’61
46 · Men Without Bones · Gerald Kersh · ss Esquire Aug ’54
55 · Not with a Bang · Damon Knight · ss F&SF Win/Spr ’50
61 · Party Games · John Burke · ss The Sixth Pan Book of Horror Stories, ed. Herbert van Thal, London: Pan, 1965
73 · X Marks the Pedwalk · Fritz Leiber · ss Worlds of Tomorrow Apr ’63
79 · Curious Adventure of Mr. Bond · Nugent Barker · ss The Cornhill Magazine Jul ’39
102 · Two Spinsters [“The Spinsters”] · E. Phillips Oppenheim · ss The Grand Magazine Jun ’26
114 · The Knife · Robert Arthur · ss The Mysterious Traveler Magazine Nov ’51
122 · The Cage · Ray Russell · ss, 1959
129 · It · Theodore Sturgeon · nv Unknown Aug ’40
154 · Casablanca · Thomas M. Disch · nv *
174 · The Road to Mictlantecutli · Adobe James · ss Adam Bedside Reader #20 ’65
189 · Guide to Doom · Ellis Peters · ss This Week Nov 10 ’63
195 · The Estuary [“The Last Three Ships”] · Margaret St. Clair · ss Weird Tales May ’50
200 · Tough Town [“Stranger in Town”] · William Sambrot · ss, 1957
207 · The Troll · T. H. White · ss Gone to Ground, 1935
219 · Evening at the Black House · Robert Somerlott · ss Cosmopolitan, 1964
230 · One of the Dead · William Wood · nv The Saturday Evening Post Oct 31 ’64
258 · The Real Thing · Robert Specht · ss AHMM Apr ’66
263 · Journey to Death · Donald E. Westlake · ss Mystery Digest Jun ’59
272 · The Master of the Hounds · Algis Budrys · nv The Saturday Evening Post Aug 27 ’66
301 · The Candidate · Henry Slesar · ss Rogue, 1961
309 · Out of the Deeps [The Things from the Deep, Everybody’s 1952; The Kraken Wakes, M. Joseph 1953] · John Wyndham · n. New York: Ballantine, 1953

Todd Mason said...

The Thomas Disch story in the full volume, "Casablanca," is an original in that book, and is brilliant.

sandra seamans said...

Thanks for the info, Todd. I'll keep a look-out for the hardback copy of this. Mine is the Dell paperback but I didn't realize it was the full text.

They'e great stories, Charles, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Wow, Patti, my shelf pales beside your collection!