Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror

by Manly Wade Wellman, F. Marion Crawford, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, et al.

Book Overview

Weird Tales - Seven Decades of Terror. Selected by John Betancourt and Robert Welnberg This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0760704031
• ISBN13: 9780760704035
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble Books
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Well-worth getting

Unless you're prepared to dish out large amounts in order to obtain the original mags where these stories first saw light, which in many cases are next to impossible, you could do far worse than to search out this volume. There are some really nice chills to be found within its covers. Well worth the effort.

An anthology of the history of weird fiction

"Weird Tales" was a hell of a magazine. Not everything that appeared between its covers was a masterpiece, but it was the uncontested proving ground for the handful of geniuses that would rise from its pages, creating some of the most classic works of horror and weird fiction that would influence and shape literature for generations to come. The initial pulp run, mainly under editors Farnsworth Wright and Dorothy McIlwraith was the heyday for the title, showcasing authors like HP Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber and Ray Bradbury. After its initial demise in 1954, there have been a few attempts to resuscitate it, but with varied success. In 2007, yet another re-launch was announced of the famous magazine, so let's hope that it can live up to the promise of its ancestor. This book, "Weird Tales:Seven Decades of Terror", is a handsome hardbound collection of some of the best selections from all of the various incarnations of Weird Tales. There are four yarns from each decade, starting from the 1920's and up to the 1990's. Some, like Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls" and Bradbury's "The Crowd" are probably familiar to anyone considering picking up this title. Others, like Arthur J. Burks "Bells of Oceana" and Robert Sheckley's "Love Song from the Stars" are not so famous, but chilling reads and are exactly why an anthology like this is such a treasure. We all have plenty of Lovecraft in our libraries, but it is nice to explore his descendants and to see his influence. There are plenty of authors here, like Manly Wade Wellman, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, Brian Lumley, Tanith Lee, William Hope Hodgson, August Derleth, each showcasing the best they have to offer. Now out of print, and able to be picked up used very cheaply, "Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror" is almost possible to disappoint. Highly Recommended.