March Book Haul

Don't feel like reading? Watch the video instead (Part one is here. Part two and three at the bottom of the post)

Well, we made two months of cutbacks in book buying before I lost it. I’m weak! We picked up soo many great books this time around including some that were at the top of my wantlist.

First off, I actually ordered a book through an online seller. And par for the course, it was overpriced and in shitty condition. My wife always gets Rue Morgue Magazine which is a well circulated horror magazine out of Canada. In it there was an article about horror paperbacks. To my surprise in the article, they talk about a recent re-issue of the novel of Blue Sunshine. I LOVE the movie Blue Sunshine and didn’t even know it was a novel. I then figured other fans of the movie were also reading this article, learning there was a novel, and I would never be able to find an earlier edition and/or the prices would skyrocket. I mean, that’s cool that they did a new edition and all but I don’t want a new reprint. I’m particular, what can I say? So, I found a copy on Abe Books. I forget the seller. And I swear in the picture it wasn’t all beat up but it could have been and I was just too excited and didn’t notice. So yeah, here it is, the novel of that wacky 70s movie where some bad acid taken back in the 60s is making people go nuts ten years after the fact. Blue Sunshine by Ken Johnson. Even all beat up, it’s glorious!

A local fellow collector (@_the_book_abyss) who is downsizing hit me up on Instagram to see if I wanted to purchase any of his horror books. I said, hell yeah and he sent me a bunch of pictures. Unfortunately, I already had a bunch of them but there were a few I did not.

First up is this 1987 New Moon by William Relling Jr published by Tor. Love this occult city cover art. I reviewed his book Brujo on the blog. It was pretty bad but I almost always give authors another try.

Next is another 80s Tor Horror book, The Hunt by James Howard Kunstler. It looks to be a book about hunting Big Foot.

The Power Series was an eight entry YA series by Jesse Harris about a teenage psychic who gets into spooky mysteries. I picked it up for my wife but this one does have an amusement park setting so who knows, maybe I’ll give it a go, though I normally don’t do the YA thing.

Last up from this buy is The Space Vampires by Colin Wilson a Pocket sci-fi/horror book from 1977. Originally published the year before in hardcover. Wilson has stated that it is heavily influenced by HP Lovecraft and the Cthulu mythos. Also, it was the basis for the movie Lifeforce.

The first proper book shop buy of the month was at Bell, Book and Comic in Dayton Ohio. I’ve raved many times about how much I love this place and no matter how much I’ve pillaged it I still come up with great stuff.

First up I grabbed these two brutal looking Mickey Spillane Signet editions from 1958. Cover art by Barye Phillips.

Roadblaster no 3- Blood Ride by Paul Hofrichter. We’ve already got the first two so I figured what the hell we might as well grab the third and final installment in this short-lived post apocalyptical 1988 Leisure shit show.

Martyr by Brian R Utley I picked up purely for the fact that I had never seen a book from this publisher, Curtis Books. This is the first and only edition. It was published in 1971. From my short research Curtis Books was located in New York and was only around from 1969 to 1975 and had 96 publications.

One of my favorite stories from the Men’s Adventure Library collection, Atomic Werewolves and Man-Eating Plants was Theodore Sturgeon’s “The Blond with the Mysterious Body.” It was eerie and odd in a David Lynch kind of way. Caviar is a short story collection from 1955 published by Del Ray Books that I’m hoping has equally weird stories.

My Flag is Down by James Maresca is a 1950 Bantam book about the wacky stories of a New York City cab driver. True Taxi Cab Confessions of the 40s.

I have a werewolf book called Mark of the Werewolf written by Jeffrey Sackett so when I saw this Egyptian curse 80s horror book by him also, I couldn’t pass it up. Even if it does have lackluster cover art.

Grabbed this 1965 Ballantine edition non-fiction Exploring the Occult by Douglas Hunt.

I am a huge Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan so immediately the name Vivian Schilling jumped out at me as I know her as “the ambitious young woman” who wrote and starred in the movie Soultaker. Sacred Prey is her debut novel and Dean Koontz better move over. Originally published in 1994 as a hardcover this is the first paperback edition published by St. Martin’s Press in 1996.

Added another number into my collection of Monarch Books. The Red Planet by Russ Winterbotham is no 270, published in 1960 and it has 2 out of 5 stars on Goodreads but what the hell do those people know?

Grabbed this beautifully creepy DAW Books The Year’s Best Horror Stories VIII (8) from 1980 edited by Karl Edward Wagner. Featuring stories from Harlan Ellison, Charles L Grant, Hugh B Cave, Ramsey Cambell and more.

Found this savage looking Viking saga The Viking’s Revenge from the Haakon series by Eric Neilson. There were four entries in the series all published in 1984.

And last from Bell Book and Comic I grabbed this 1942 Buffalo Box by Frank Gruber. It’s not the most exciting cover art but what made me really want to bring this home was that it’s Bantam no 50. I think that might be the lowest catalog number I have found of one of the original paperback publishers.

I wasn’t even going to go to Half Priced Books this month as I’ve been striking out a lot lately but my wife wanted to stop by to see if they had a new release book she was looking for. Instead of hitting my usual crime and horror spots first I decided to take a slow look at the sci-fi section as I usually only glance there and I was shocked to find this 1984 Berkley MANLY Wade Wellman, The Hanging Stones for $1.58. Whaaaat?! I now have two of the five of the Berkely paperback editions.

Picked up this Leisure Horror from 1980, Bishop’s Landing by Richard Forsythe. The premise on the back sounds exactly like the 90s movie The Haunting.

I have never seen one of these photo cover Mike Shayne books in real life before and I ended up getting four this month. Weird how that happens. This one is Caught Dead from 1972 published by Dell.

They had a Travis McGee that I was missing in the clearance section, so we added One Fearful Yellow Eye to the collection.

Grabbed this Abyss by Kate Wilhelm which is the Bantam edition from 1973. This actually contains two novellas, The Plastic Abyss and Stranger in the House. The cover art looked to be Lovecraftian mixed with gothic mystery.

Night of the Big Heat by John Lymington. Macfadden Books 1969. Looked like some trippy 60s sci-fi horror.

Updated my beat up copy of this Scholastic 1969 Stories of the Supernatural.

Also in the clearance section was this sleazy looking 1980 Playboy Press, The City in the Glacier by Robert E Vardeman and Victor Milan. Book two of the War of Powers series.

Next up is this 1981 AC/DC inspired novel High Voltage by Thomas Chastain. Just kidding, it’s not inspired by one of the best rock songs ever written but maybe it should have been. Though this looks like a catastrophe novel I believe it’s a cop versus terrorists.

Found another horrific looking sci-fi/ horror book by Murray Leinster, Creatures From the Abyss. Berkely 1961. Monsters from the mystery of the deep ocean. Just that premise incites crazy imaginings of what the story could possibly be like.

Another John Lymington. The Star Witches. Macfadden Books 1970. The back blurb mentions a coven of witches that worships Satan and raise the dead. A scientist who has an “electronic device” that reaches the outer limits of space and an invasion of aliens. Sounds like a black and white B-movie from hell.

Magick in Theory and Practice by Aleister Crowley. This one wasn’t a cheap one, but it was worth it. The classic occult book by the man Mussolini had to kick out of Italy.

And lastly from HPB, I have the paperback edition of this Twilight Zone anthology but couldn’t pass up this beautiful Double Day book club edition hardcover.

And now for the mother load of this month’s haul. We stopped by The Bookery in Fairborn, and I guess they’ve been pulling out boxes of paperbacks from the basement to price out. And what’s cool about the Bookery is it is a collector-centric store. Meaning if it’s not in some sort of decent condition or rare, they put it out for a dollar. A dollar! Most of these are books that would have at least been four bucks in any other store. Some I did have to glue back together but whatever. When I walked in and saw that shelf that said everything is one dollar, I started pulling stacks.

We’ll do the Dells first. We got eleven mapbacks. Here they are in numerical order. (90% of the publish year and cover art details I got from flickr by a guy who goes by the name Steve. Thanks Steve!)

Dell 95 The Last Express by Baynard Kendrick. Originally published in 1937. 1st paperback edition 1945. Cover art by Gerald Gregg. This is the first appearance of blind detective, Duncan Maclain.

Dell 176 The Headless Lady (The Great Merlini no 3) by Clayton Rawson. Originally published in 1940, this is the first paperback edition from 1947. In real life Clayton Rawson was a magician and went by the name…The Great Merlini. Cross marketing magician is more like it.

Dell 198 The Glass Mask by Lenore Glen Offord. Originally published in 1944. This is the first paperback edition from 1947. Cover artist Gerald Gregg. Lenore published twelve novels, eight of which were mysteries, and she was the San Francisco Chronicle’s mystery critic for over thirty years.

Dell 248 Dangerous Ground by Francis Sill Wickware. Originally published in 1946. 1st Paperback edition 1948. Cover artist Earl Sherwan. The only thing I could find on this author was that he took his own life at the age of 39 by swallowing poison. Eesh. It looks like he had one more book, Tuesday to Bed. Which I coincidentally also picked up.

Dell 261 Do Not Disturb by Helen McCloy. Originally published in 1943. 1st paperback edition 1948. I love the geometric mapback drawing of the hotel on the back of this one.

Dell 263 The Panic Stricken by Mitchell Wilson. Originally published in 1946. 1st paperback edition 1948. New York City setting and the word “horror” used on the back cover twice got me to pick this one up.

Dell 266 Ghost of a Chance by Kelley Roos. Originally published in 1945. 1st paperback edition 1948. Cover art by Gerald Gregg. Kelley Roos is a pseudonym for married couple Audrey Kelley Roos and William Roos. Their series detectives Jeff and Haila Troy are also a married couple. D’aw.

Dell 272 The Velvet Fleece by Lois Eby and John C Fleming. Originally published in hardcover in 1947. 1st paperback edition 1949. Cover art by Gerald Gregg. This was the basis for the 1948 noir movie Larceny.

Dell 275 Where There’s Smoke by Stewart Sterling. Originally published 1946. 1st paperback edition 1949. Cover art by Gerald Gregg. A Fire Marshal Pedley mystery. I read and reviewed another Fire Marshal Pedley installment and loved it. It was incredibly hard-boiled.

Dell 560 The Neat Little Corpse by Max Murray. Originally published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1950 as The Corpse in the Sea. 1st paperback 1952. Cover artist Robert Stanley. Definitely my favorite cover art of the Dells I picked up this round. Sunken treasure and murder off the shores of Jamaica.

Dell 740 Blow-Down by Lawrence G Blochman. 2nd paperback edition from 1953. The 1st Dell edition is no 156 from 1947. Originally published in 1940. Cover art by Griffith Foxley. An undercover agent uncovers intrigue and murder in a tropical port.

That’s the last of the mapbacks. Here are the rest of the Dells:

Dell 718 Double or Quits by AA Fair/ Erle Stanley Gardner. Originally Dell no 160. This reprint is from 1953 and has cover art by Fred Scotwood.

Dell 757 The Hollow Needle by George Harmon Coxe. Originally published in 1948. 1st paperback edition 1954. Cover art by Verne Tossey. Kent Murdock is a newspaper photographer who focuses on violent crime and apparently solves them too.

Dell 759 Black Widow by Patrick Quentin. Originally published in 1952. 1st paperback edition from 1954 with cover art by Bill George. This is a Peter Duluth mystery. A Broadway producer and amateur detective. I love how creative authors were getting around this time for their detective protagonists. Black Widow was made into a film in 1954 starring Ginger Rogers, Van Heflin, Gene Tierney and George Raft.

Dell 806 Obit Delayed by Helen Nielsen. 1st paperback edition from 1954. Cover art by John McDermott. This one cracked me up because the first line of the blurb on the back says, “Down at the edge of Mexican town…” Which Mexican town? “A” Mexican town? But yeah, it looks to be a gritty southwest noir. I love the framing of the artwork on the cover.

Dell 837 Detour to Death by Helen Nielsen. Originally published in 1953 as Detour. This is the 1st paperback edition from 1955. Cover art by Robert Stanley. I wasn’t aware of this book which is popular in it’s own right but I initially grabbed it because I thought maybe it was the novel they based the 1945 movie Detour on. It was not. That movie was based on a book also called Detour but published in 1939 by author Martin Goldsmith. Helen Nielsen’s Detour looks to be more of a juvenile delinquent noir.

Dell D221 Dead Sure by Herbert Brean. Originally published in 1956 as A Matter of Fact. This edition is from 1958. Some well meaning cops arrest a petty thief for murder and plant evidence when the original evidence goes missing. As the case gets closer to trial, they uncover some facts that maybe they made a mistake.

Dell 4741 Let Sleeping Girls Lie by James Mayo. Originally printed in 1965. 1st paperback edition from 1967. Cover art by Crowley. Man, what a lackluster cover. It almost looks like collage art they just put together by cutting up previous books. This is the second in the spy series of Secret Agent Charles Hood written by UK writer Stephen Coulter as James MAYO. Give me Ham on 5 and hold the Mayo.

And lastly of the Dells we have these three Mike Shayne 70s photo covers.

Up next is the Fawcett Gold Medals.

279 The Big Guy by Wade Miller. Paperback original 1st printing from 1953. Cover art by Jack Floherty. I LOVE the tagline on this book, “When a gorilla of a man meets a tigress of a woman.”

523 The Second Longest Night by Stephen Marlowe. Paperback original from 1955. Covert by Ernest Chiriaka. Stephen Marlowe is the pseudonym for Milton Lesser. I didn’t realize when I picked it up and in fact I was on the fence about it as it looked like a romance novel but upon further research (I actually read the whole blurb on the back), this is the first appearance of Private Detective Chester Drum. Very excited to add this to the collection even in rough condition.

Got this 1973 first edition of John D MacDonald’s The Scarlet Ruse. Paperback original. #14 in the Travis Mcgee series. I’ve quite a few of these but have only read one, The Dreadful Lemon Sky and was kind of underwhelmed. I’ve heard the series goes up and down in quality so we’re not giving up yet.

Not much horror this go around but I did find this Monsters Galore anthology with selected short stories, the oldest going all the way back to 1891! It has illustrations of horrific classic paintings accompanying the stories too.

No 13 in the Matt Helm series by Donald Hamilton, The Poisoners from 1971.

High Iron by EE Halleran is a 1965 Western about trains, silver mines and bandits.

Got three of the OFFICIAL Ballantine JRR Tolkien books. These are like 31st printings but still cooler than a later edition. There is a statement from the author on the back cover urging you not to buy the unofficial Ace versions. Book drama! I can’t believe the Houghton Mifflin Company had to have their ugly orange box logo on the front cover SOOOOO bad that they plopped it dead center on the Fellowship artwork. Seriously, they should be jailed for that atrocity.

I almost never grab romance or Nurse novels but I was really into this cover art by Bob Schinella on this 1964 Nurse Marcie’s Island by Arlene Hale.

Also, I used to never grab the ACE doubles but lately I’ve caved. I just want one cover on a book. I like organization and it’s difficult to organize these suckers. Anyway, I couldn’t pass these four up and this one here was damn near top of my wantlist. The first paperback appearance of our favorite Roman Centurion…er our favorite barbarian, Conan the Conqueror!! This is a 1st printing from 1953 with ill-fitting but wonderfully painted artwork by Norman Saunders. It’s for those of us who revel in sorcery, SKULDUGGERY and swordplay. I love skullduggery, personally. Unfortunately, this one was not in the dollar section.

On the B-side we have The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett which I knew nothing about but seems to be a famous classic sci-fi novel in its own right.

In my last haul I stated that I had never seen a boxing novel out in the wild so I had to order one and as most people who collect shit know, once you’ve gotten that relic of your dreams, you will now find it on a consistent basis. Knock ‘Em Dead by Jack Karney is a paperback original from 1955. I believe the story is less about boxing and more of a noir with a boxing setting but either way, it’s things I love so I was very excited to pick this up.

On the B-side (which btw, I’m not saying these are the lesser stories but ultimately, I bought it for the other story) is Point of No Escape by Mel Colton. The front cover states it is complete and unabridged, but I can’t find the original publication date. Anyway, looks to be a great one man against the mob story.

Grabbed this double 1963 Harry Whittington western book. I’ve never read anything by him but I could literally hear Tom from the Paperback Warrior podcast saying his name many times in my subconscious, so I grabbed it. I don’t always remember what they say about the authors, but I always remember the authors’ names they talk about. Also, I really loved the cover of Drygulch Town, though PW did give it a meh review on their blog.

Lastly for the ACE doubles I grabbed this 1961 Andre Norton double shot; The Beast Master and Star Hunter. Star Hunter is a paperback original but Beast Master was originally printed in 1959. Ok, so yeah, I know it’s not the movie Beast Master and has nothing to do with it but I was amused and got it anyway.

They had a couple different editions of A. Merritt’s The Metal Monster including an older ACE edition but I went with this 1966 fourth printing Avon edition because I have A Merritt’s Seven Footprints of Satan with a stylistically similar cover and I like things to match.

Artist Josh Kirby’s monstrous horse alien creature on the cover of CC MacApp’s Bumsider was calling my name. Lancer books 1972. The men on the outside wanted inside…the bum…sider. Sorry sorry.

Zebra done got me with this 1976 “in the tradition of Robert E Howard” marketing cover. Talbot Mundy’s (William Lancaster Gibbon) Tros of Samothrace Vol 2 Avenging Liafail. So I thought this was a 70s writer inspired by REH and continuing the legacy but upon further research this was a contemporary of Howards who also wrote adventure pulp. In fact, the copyright on this is 1925. Interesting! Cover art by Tom Barber.

There were quite a few Avengers but I only grabbed these two. I try not to pick the bones clean when a local store has a sale like this. I posted a review of the Avenger #29 The Nightwitch Devil on Instagram a long time ago that basically stated I wasn’t that impressed. I had a few comments that only the first few that were actually written by Kenneth Robeson were good so I snagged this no 5 Frosted Death to see how it goes.

And as a pure cover grab I got no 36 Demon Island cause it’s witchy and I liked the George Gross art featuring Steve Holland cover art.

Found a 1976 1st printing DAW Michael Moorcock for a dollar so that’s good. The Land Leviathan looks to be a fun time travel with parallel dimensions plot. Cover art by Michael Whelan who you may know as the cover artist of legendary metal albums Obituary’s Cause of Death and Sepultura’s Arise and many others of course.

I couldn’t believe I found this Badger in the dollar bin. I’ve rarely found any of the famous UK paperback publisher out in the wild and to find this “Supernatural special” with comic book looking artwork on the cover was so exciting. Out of the Night by John E Muller 1956.

The Maras Affair by Elliot Reed. Perma Books edition 1955. Cover art by James Meese. Originally published in 1953. The golden Cold War era of pulpy espionage crime fiction. Elliot Reed is the pseudonym of Charles Rodda and Eric Ambler.

Speaking of Eric Ambler, Background to Danger. Copyright 1937. Pocket Books edition 2nd printing from 1945. World War 2 spy thriller featuring a British journalist protagonist.

I’ve almost picked up this 1965 Signet 2nd edition I’ll Kill You Next! By Adam Knight many times but it always lost out to others. The stars were aligned this time. I love the artwork by J Allison with the hood coming out of the darkness, grizzled face and pistol pointed at the viewer. Simple but effective.

I don’t know if this is supposed to be a comedy or what but this Beagle Books 1971 paperback of Hijack by Edward Wellen is downright hilarious in premise. “The Mafia takes to space!” right there on the front cover with the pin stripe suit and fedora smashed over top of a space suit wearing astronaut is beyond ridiculous.

I picked up this 1950 Graphic Publications western The Singing Scorpion by William Colt MacDonald purely because I had never heard of the publisher. I tried looking into it but with such a bland name with the word “graphic” in it it was impossible to find anything. I love the action-packed artwork with the nighttime cloudy gloom background and the bullet smashing into the overhead bar light and the bartender hitting the deck. Not thrilled about that “abridged edition” on the cover though. The story was originally published in 1934.

Passport to Peril by Stephen Marlowe Crest edition 1959. A non Chester Drum novel with a photo cover. I didn’t realize photo covers started so early.

I was way into this machismo cover for The River Devils by Carter A Vaughan. Originally published in 1968. This is the Popular Library paperback from 1979. Everywhere online it says this is “A Hall of Fame Historical Novel” whatever that means. Is there a Hall of Fame for historical novels? Seems so specific. (just a joke- no need to respond)

Naked butts and giant bats with a man’s head sprouting out of its forehead is selling you on picking up this 1971 Popular Library horror novel The Late Great Creature by Brock Brower. The plot is about an aging classic horror movie actor making a comeback in the 60s.

Scandalous shenanigans on the cover of Wide-Open Town by Robert F Mirvish. I love the suggestive re-titling of the book to appeal to the sleaze audience. Originally published in 1954, this Popular Library edition was published just the next year in 1955. Texas oil town debauchery with drunken unruly sailors and a lusty waterfront hostess. Ok. Tell me more.

Unfaithful wives and desire filled revenging husbands in this pretty unsexy cover for Tuesday to Bed by Francis Sill Wickware. Popular Library 1951. Originally published in 1948. I think this is the only one in the dollar grab that after I got home and was going through them I thought, meh, I should have left this one at the store. Oh well.

The Phantom Canoe by William Byron Mowery. Popular library 1947. Cover art by Im-Ho (Sol Immerman and H Lawrence Hoffman). Almost looks like a 1940s Friday the 13th prototype.

I’ve only ever seen Fantasy novels from John Jakes so I was surprised to see this PI crime novel from him. I guess he also wrote a bunch of historical novels in the 70s but the covers were so bland I probably glazed right over them. Johnny Havoc Meets Zelda. Belmont Books 1962 paperback original.

Another train centered Western but check out that blurb on the cover- “1861: Mosby’s guerillas stage a daring raid to rescue a captured woman spy!” Whaaat? Western era guerillas and espionage?! Sounds awesome. Rebel Raid by Ray Hogan. Berkley 1961.

And lastly for the paperbacks from The Bookery I grabbed four more Lasers for the collection. But don’t leave yet because we picked up two Pulps posted after the Lasers.

We’ve only recently been diving into the world of actual pulps. Pulps are quite a bit more pricey than paperbacks so there definitely won’t be a bunch pouring in but I would like to grab some every once in a while. First of the two is this January 1940 Street & Smith’s Unknown with amazing witch trial era artwork by HW Scott. Fiction by Marian O’Hearn, AE Van Vogt, J Allan Dunn, Harry Walton, Lester Del Ray and poem by Theordore Sturgeon, edited by John W Cambell author of Who Goes There? Later made into a few movies, one being John Carpenter’s The Thing. Unknown was Cambel’s response to Weird Tales.

And the very last book of the haul is this November 1949 Fantastic Novels magazine with cover art by Virgil Finlay. This one has fiction from Charles B Stilson, Tod Robbins, Francis Stevens and Elmer Brown Mason.

And that’s all. I’d just like to point out that we are very fortunate to live in a town with so many amazing bookstores with long rich histories. The Bookery owned by Tim Cottrill, where we picked up the bulk of this haul and the pulps is an authority in the pulp world having written four books on the subject, the last one was a pulp pricing guide published by Heritage Auctions and came out in 2020 and is itself a collector item, completely out of print already. Here is a picture of it I took off of the internet because I don't actually own it.