Bookstore Saturday: Electric Boogaloo

A Bookstore Saturday happened. 

It almost didn't. We (the missus and I) were two bookstores in and had yet to find a store that suitably fit the requirements. As a reminder, Bookstore Saturday Requirements (BsSR) include the following:

1. Takes place on a Saturday (negotiable)
2. In a used bookstore (smattering of new allowed)
3. Involves 2 or more hours of in-store browsing (is it even possible to do less?)
4. Store must honor Used Bookstore Gods in look, feel and browsing experience

And in case you're wondering, requirement number 4 was the stumbling block. It usually is.

You know what Bookstore Gods hate? They hate when bookstore proprietors don't give horror its own section of shelves in their store. 

You want Bookstore Gods down on your neck, breathing all heavy and wet in your ear, just decide horror is not an actual genre and stick whatever horror titles you have in with "Mystery and Thriller." 

Or worse yet, just sprinkle those few horror titles you bother to stock in amongst your gigantic, sprawling "General Fiction" section that's already taking up half your shelf space.

Bookstore Gods are really pretty easy to get along with, as long as you don't cross them and as long as you don't make a mockery of sacred Genre Law. But if that's how you wanna roll, do it at your own risk. Just saying.

Okay. Harbinger Duty complete; let's get on to all the groovy books I found in this exceptionally groovy bookstore that does indeed honor all Bookstore Deities, major, middlin' and minor and had a horror section with shelves stacked three deep.

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Now I almost named this BsS post's title after this book, it being a sequel to Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain and all, but "Bookstore Saturday: Evolution" just sounded dumb to me. So I picked a sequel suffix out of a hat and went with "Electric Boogaloo" instead. Because "electric boogaloo" is such an amazing word combination that it could never sound dumb. Ever.

Can't say I've actually seen the original Breakin' film let alone its sequel. But my sister has.

So I do have the original Crichton novel on my shelf, but it's been a long time since I've read it and I think I'll be giving it a revisit before I jump into this one.

I think this is the newest one of the haul, this time. 2019, it was published. Clearly the publisher decided to bank on Crichton's name over the fellow who actually wrote this book. Daniel H. Wilson is a readily recognizable name to me, but I suppose Crichton does have him beat as far as whole-world-recognition. For NOW.

Still I might be a tiny bit miffed to toil away at a novel and then have my name down at the bottom in wee font. Probably Mr. Wilson is a better man than I and has no issue.

At any rate, I've read three or four other books by Daniel Wilson and loved them, so I've got no fear in me about whether or not I'll enjoy this once I do get to it.

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Okay, so John Saul is a reasonable bet with most of his books, but then you show me (almost) any book with the word "creature" for its title and I'm on the hook.

That being said, I'll be pretty darn surprised if I don't get into this one and realize I'd already read it back in the day. At first I was thinking it's the novel they based the 80s Watchers film off of, but pretty quickly realized than was Koontz, not Saul.

Still. Looks awfully familiar, front and back. It's older; first published in 1989. But... it didn't ring enough of a bell for me not to slap it into my book basket anyway. So we'll see...

Uh, front cover is giving me... Football Ape-man vibes. Those aren't two words I'd expect to go together... That back cover blurb has me cheering in the stands, though.

For one thing, we got that "rebuild him" bit in there. That appeals to my cyborg-love-ness. Then they've got the "won't hurt him again... they won't dare." Boohwaaauughaaauuughaaauuugh!

Huh. I was going for a kind of maniacal laugh there, but it sounds more like someone is choking or something. Anyway. Next book.

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Oooooh... I love me a good Evil Kid book or movie. And what's better than just a standalone-all-on-his-own Evil Kid? (Why, Evil Twins, of course!)

And bonus points for kids who don't just settle for sociopath-evil but really go the distance to be supernatural-evil. 

Like these two apparently are.

Haven't heard of this author before, even after digging down through the pen names (Rosalind Erskine; Laura Black; Ivor Drummond; Frank Parrish; Domini Taylor; Megan Barker and Grania Beckford) to find one Roger Longrigg. I'm excited for this one, too.

I think this is probably the oldest of what I picked up this time - first published in 1984 although mine's a couple of years newer. Peter and Pandora. I mean, Peter's fine but you'd think the girl's name alone would be enough to warn you off...

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Okay. Next up.

If you know me at all you know it was the word "golem" that got me to pick this one up for a closer look. I love a good (or not so good) man made men story. Before tossing it into my basket, I really just checked to make sure it wasn't some police procedural with some serial killer that some newspapermen were calling "the golem" or whatever. 

That would be lame.

But, between those font and back cover blurbs it seems a safe bet it's got some sweet supernatural shenanigans going for it. This one's more recent, published in 2014.

Also, these guys are a father and son writing team. On the father's end, I wanna say I've maybe heard of his Alex Delaware character? But can't say I've read anything from either of these fellows before.

Oh, and if this one IS a good read, there's a sequel...

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Nature does make mistakes. And Big Bird says that is a-okay.

Not sure why I grabbed this one. I mean, I picked it up because it looked like some kind of creature feature and I'm a sucker for 'em. But I'm not as big on cryptids as I am on more standard fare - killer regular animals or killer giant regular animals or animals being messed with by science-hubris with terrible results. 

Still, this could be a good read. It's fairly recent - got a 2016 date on it.

Actually, cryptid-wise, I took this guy to be Mothman at first. Don't know too much about Mothman, but he's my pal River's favorite cryptid, so I know a little about him. 

Know next to nothing about the Jersey Devil.

Ohhh. Hunter Shea. Thought that name sounded familiar. I've totally read at least two others of his books. Pretty good.

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Well, I'm always on the lookout for a decent werewolf novel. I say "decent" because, like werewolf movies, there are fewer out there than other classic monsters enjoy, and what there is tends (also like their film counterparts) to run a little subpar. 

So decent is good enough; I'll take it. Here's hopin'.

This one was actually the third or fourth werewolf novel in the horror section, but damned if the others weren't all of the paranormal romance variety, of which I am not a fan. Not a fan of romance in general (book-wise - I do love a quality film romance or rom-com) let alone paranormal romance novels.

But this one looks to be pretty romance-free so I'm giving it a try.

Hadn't heard of Ray Garton, and looking him up it seems he died fairly recently. Also seems he had a long and prolific career as a horror writer. So this pick-up is looking better and better.

And speaking of werewolves getting short shrift, the author himself feels just about like I do on the subject.

This one is from 2008, and it also has a sequel, so if it hits the spot I can seek out the followup.

Well then.

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Sea Horror. Mmmmmmm. 

This one was another no brainer to put in the cart. It was published in 1999 - just squeaking by as a 90s horror novel. Can't really tell much about particulars from the cover and blurbs, but I'm happy to take my chances it'll be at least fair and hopefully more than.

James Powlik apparently is an oceanographer who also writes! Good combination, I say. Ooh, and he has a giant tsunami thriller as well. Guess I'll be giving that one a try, too.

But. Only a slight downer - while looking up the author's details, I inadvertently discovered this book is about deadly algae blooms. Which doesn't sound very exciting. But I'm still down to give it a go. I still am.

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More Sea Horror! Mmmmmmm.

Look, I'm not gonna just assume that algae bloom up there isn't a good read, but this next sea horror (from 2003 in case you wuz wundrun) has an eyeball, which probably means it has teeth and wants to eat us. 

So that's good. Kind of looks like an otter eye. I didn't just buy a book about killer hairless otters, did I? Probably not. Anyway, we shall see once I get to this one.

Ooh. This author looks like he might have some other stuff to check out as well. Bunch of sea thrillers. Bunch of regular thrillers. Bunch of mysteries. Sweet.

Oh. Author research also gave me the sea horror's identity here - sounds like it's an unknown species of dolphin. Which sounds more exciting than algae. Or otters.

It shall be interesting...

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And, we finish up with the good old tried and true man of steel. Hard to go wrong, here. And this is the only nonfiction book I picked up this time around. I've actually got... probably several... Superman histories of one kind or another, but I'm always down for one more.

This is from 2012, and author Larry Tye looks to also be a journalist, and has a pretty eclectic bibliography. I think this one'll be a fun read too. Maybe give me some info not already rattling around my head on the subject.

Wow. Looks like the book has endorsements from no less than Noel Neill, Jack Larson and Richard Donner. ( ! ) 

That's sayin' somethin'.

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And that about wraps it up. Bookstore Saturday Success (BsSS)! 

If you like books, or bookstores, or are just super bored, you can read some other Bookstore Saturday shenanigans here. 

You are lucky.

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Bookstore Saturday: The Quickening

Yes, we do indeed have a sequel-title-reference thing going on with these bookstore posts. (It just happened. Accept it. So much easier than resisting, which is - as we know - futile.)

Today's title reference is nothing to do with any of the books below -- it just popped in-head as I was casting about (fly fishing of the mind) for a suitably catchy, sequel-y title....

What's a Bookstore Saturday (BSS), you ask?

1. It takes place on a Saturday (somewhat negotiable)
2. In a used bookstore (smattering of new allowed)
3. Involves 2 or more hours of in-store browsing (is it even possible to do less?)
4. Store must honor Used Bookstore Gods in look, feel and browsing experience

If you're (a) bored or (b) interested, you're welcome to check out All Things Bookstore Saturday, right here. Otherwise, on to today's bookstore loot:

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Whaaat? This book was GOOD.

Okay, usually Bookstore Saturdays consist of me writing about books I've just purchased and not had time to read, but take a look at the dates for this post and the one before it--been like six months or some damn thing.

Truly, Other Life Endeavors (you know, the ones generally responsible for getting in the way of being able to just do what you want all the time) have been at my forefront for a while now. Still are at the forefront, truth be told, but I'm feeling rebellious this morning, and busting out with some for-myself-writing-time regardless. So there.

Which is a long-winded (my usual) way of saying this Bookstore Saturday actually happened a while back and I've totally already read this particular book.

AND IT WAS REALLY GOOD.

Which is to say, I didn't think it would be.

Not that I knew anything about the author's previous work--no inside information to put me off before I'd given it a try--I'm just old school (stubborn) when it comes to King Kong. I love the story of it all--the Story of Kong, I mean.

For me, Kong is as much his myth as he is an overgrown ape: Ann Darrow, Jack Driscoll, the Venture and that harrowing Empire State death. And, y'know, Kong dies at the end of his story. And I'm unapologetically recalcitrant when it comes to separating this particular character from his myth, for almost any reason at all.

That being said, I (of course) saw the movie, and enjoyed it--great effects, decent story, fun to watch--but that ape wasn't really Kong, not to me. It was a completely different character, using a well-loved name, to decent effect. So. Now we know how I feel about that.

Thing is, having seen the movie (and enjoyed it well enough for what it was), I was completely unprepared to have this novelization surpass the film the way it did for me. And we're not talking by a little bit--this novel was amazingly well-written, and raced past it's source material by ridiculous, heaving, lumpy amounts (not sure what that phrase means, exactly, but I'm sure it's good).

So much more characterization going on--for Kong, the other beasts, and the story's human characters--than the film could ever have hoped to provide--this book seriously hummed along its path and was an absolute joy to read.

So. Even if I'm not a fan of separating Kong from his myth, I'm a fan of this particular novel.

Nuff said.

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Yep. Read this one too.

I'll tell you right up front (digression alert!), I enjoyed Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk movie (which this book is the novelization of) a lot more than most folks seemed to have done.

For all my talk up there on keeping Kong tied to his myth, that stubbornness is really an exception to a rule--I'm generally pretty open to watching and reading new interpretations of well known/well loved material. (hulk film to kong: digression within a digression...)

And (back to original digression) such was the case with Lee's film--he and writer James Schamus did a courageous thing, I thought, interpreting characters the way they did, and people seemed to judge the movie (harshly) more because it was different and unexpected, than due to it's own merits or lack thereof. But we're not talking about Hulk films, Lee's Hulk (2003) or Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk (2008) here--not really. Suffice it to say I enjoyed both films quite a bit, but enjoyed the 2008 movie a little more.

I had assumed it'd be the same with the film novelizations (both written by experienced Hulk-scribe Peter David, and hey, we made it back around to the pre-digression subject of this bit!), but things flip-flopped (as things sometimes do) and I ended up enjoying this first film's novelization over the second film's one, by a fair amount.

With this particular novelization, I thought David took interesting, unusual premises, and did interesting, unusual things with them--I mean he expanded on Lee's source material in intriguing ways. And his novelization of the second film was more "straight up adaptation of straight up Hulk story." Enjoyable, but not as intriguing. To me.

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aaah-ooooooooooooooh[coughcough]whine... whimper

Yep, I already read this one, too. (This Bookstore Saturday really was a long time ago... TOO long, Dan, TOO long.)

I was super excited at the thought of new-Universal-Monsters-ness-to-be-had as I picked this book up. Sadly, doing so resulted in a Catastrophic Double Whammy of Regret (CDWoR).

Not only did the book suck when I recently read it, turns out I'd totally read it several years ago and forgotten. Well, the re-read brought it all back to memory. I actually remember being pissed I'd spent money and time on it, back in the day.

(Nothing against the author: he's written other stuff I've read and enjoyed more....)

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Como Mexico No Hay Dos

Now this one I have NOT read yet. (It's not really a "read straight through" kind of book anyway, but regardless I've just lightly browsed. So far.)

The book is a (fully bilingual, as it turns out) collection of Mexican movie posters, starting at 1957 and going up through 1990. (So, sixties, seventies and eighties, basically.)

Amazing artwork abounds, and I always love love love catching a glimpse of another culture's collective consciousness through its art. Seriously, some cool stuff in this book.

With chapter titles like "Lawless Youth," The World of the Dead" and "Pum!," how can you go possibly wrong?

(Answer: You can't.)

Author runs a sadly-not-open-to-the-public archive of Mexican film-related stuff. Maybe some day it will be. Open to the public, I mean....

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Step right up! Test yer Vintage Horror Chops right here!
Six movies on the cover - name 'em all and win yer very own Good Guys doll...

Same with this bound-page fellow--I haven't journeyed with him cover-to-cover, yet. But just look at 'im!

mmmm... horror...

Now, the book was published in 2010, so obviously it only covers films up through that point, and is a countdown of (the author's) top 100 horror films of all time. And it's chock-full of gruesome goodness.

Really. Sooo many great films in this thing. (And, by the way, that cover is a collage of the book's top six movies--you miiiight be able to guess said author's very favorite just by looking at it....)

All in all this book is yummy. Like seedless grapes. And chocolate peanut butter ice cream. Not together; that'd be gross.

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Bookstore Saturday Escapes (to Next Chapter Books)

A Bookstore Saturday, to refresh those in need, is that most-grand of events, comprised of the following:

1. It takes place on a Saturday
2. In a used bookstore (smattering of new books allowed)
3. Involves 2 or more hours of in-store browsing
4. Store must honor the Used Bookstore Gods in its look, feel and browsing experience

And yes, that is another Kong-reference (fun!) in the title up top. Oh, wait. This particular bookstore-visit didn't actually happen on a Saturday. Hmmm.... Okay, new rule: it still counts. This visit was on a Wednesday and it's going into official Bookstore Saturday canon. Executive decision.

Here's what went down:

I'd found myself with a few pre-airport hours at the end of my last business trip. You know the drill: checkout's at eleven but flight's not till three, you don't want to sit at the airport all day so what do you do with the time. Well if you're anything like me, you grab your smartphone and type in "used bookstores nearby" to see what your options might be. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you find yourself in the midst of a Used Book Desert. (Aieeee!)

As it turned out, Lady Luck was with me on that day: My phone search led to an oh so enjoyable Canoga Park shop called Next Chapter Books. Which is a great name for a used bookshop, it being the next chapter in a book's life, and you being the next person to read it. Okay, technically books don't have lives, but you know what I mean. (Well, they kind of do have lives....)

Anyway, walking through the front door, this place just exuded Genuine Used Bookstore--it had the feel, you know? If you're a used book lover, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There were plenty of books on the shelves--no problem finding the more recent and/or popular stuff here--but the shop also had a really nice selection of older and more unusual books. I'm telling you, I could've spent so many more hours roving around its stacks than I had the time for that day.

Turned out the place is owned and run by a fellow named Boyd, who I'm happy to say offered up just the right amount of assistance before stepping back and allowing the shelf-scouring to begin. And this guy knew books, in general and what was on or not on his shelves, which always makes for a nice bookshop browse.

Speaking of knowing books, I'm always amazed when a shop owner--after hearing my latest ridiculously obscure title request--gazes out over thousands of books and says "Yeah, I have a copy of that." And then leads me straight to it. It's just as amazing when the answer is "no I don't." How does a non-cyborg keep that amount of constantly changing information in their head, anyway? (I'm only assuming Boyd wasn't a cyborg; I don't actually know, do I?)

Anyway, suffice it to say this shop is very much worth your time, should you find yourself in LA with thumbs a-twiddling. Heck, if you're in LA and wildly busy, the place is still worth stopping into.

Enjoy these shots of the place I grabbed from Google Maps, which just happen to include myself as I browsed about the place. In my red sweater. And red pants. Okay, that may or may not actually be me. Could be a clever and high-tech illusion. YOU BE THE JUDGE.

That's the shop; now let's get a look at all the book-spoils I rode away with (by Uber, not horse) that day. As always, feel free to click through images for larger (readable) versions....

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I was entirely unable to pass up this copy, when I ran across it, of the very novel that deadmansbrain is named for. Well, technically the blog is named for one of the associated film's taglines, but still....

It's a 1969 Berkley Medallion edition of Curt Siodmak's (pronounced see-ODD-mack, in case you were wondering like I was) novel, which was first published in 1942. Apparently this edition's cover designer was so enamored with that cover art they decided to use it on both sides. That or they ran out of time as the book went to press. Either way, it's a nice looking image. Creepy.

I had thought I'd read this way back in the day, and that may be true, but flipping through this copy today isn't ringing any obvious bells, so we'll see once I actually get into it. I know I read one or both of the sequels, and I don't usually do that without reading the source material first....

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This one had me at "50-meter monsters." Sadly, having already given that particular story a read on the airplane-ride home, I can safely say it was pretty underwhelming. Definitely not a "tale of terror" as the book's title would have me believe.

Anyway, the book is a 1976 Archway Paperbacks (Pocket Books) original, targeted at younger readers. That could have something to do with the tepidity of the story I read--tough to go full-on-terror when you're marketing to tweens.

The book's editor, Roger Elwood, seems to have carried a bit of controversy around with him. I know this because the book has an About the Editor page which mentions Mr. Elwood was, at time of publication, "...working on book versions of classic science-fiction and horror films." Now that's not something I'm going to just read past without further research. No joy, though. I couldn't find a thing he'd ever done to fit that bucket.

I did find the guy had garnered a reputation for glutting 1970s sci-fi/horror short-fiction markets with substandard material, making it harder for the higher quality stuff to get published afterward. I don't know one way or the other, but folks out there have written articles both for and against the man. Interesting bit of history....

At any rate, the book's story titles were enough to get me to lay down a fiver for it:

• "The Spider Ring" by Howard Goldsmith
• "The Museum" by Matt Christopher
• "The Most Horriblest Monster" by Arthur Tofte
• "The 50-Meter Monsters" by Nick Anderson
• "The Whispering Sea" by Ward Smith
• "Feeding Time" by Dave Bischoff and Chris Lampton

We'll see how it all pans out.

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My wife and I had recently (pre-bookstore visit) been talking about Robert E. Howard and his Conan stories. I'd read a few Conan stories in high school, due to a friend-fan's insistence, but hadn't gotten sucked in enough to continue on my own. "Who knows," I said to my wife, "maybe I'd enjoy them more today...."

And then the very first volume of the collected stories showed up, right in the middle of my next Bookstore Saturday. An omen? A portent? Let you know after I read.

Ah. The book (one of the Lancer/Ace paperback editions, 1966-1977) includes some nicely done line drawings, such as this one:

Interior art in a non-graphic (non-comics content) novel of this type is always a nice touch. I think.

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And here's one I'd been looking to find for quite some time. Seems the used bookshops I frequent habitually have Volumes 2 through 13 of this series by James Blish, but not Vol. 1, so you can imagine my glee at pulling this off the shelf.

Come to think of it, I have the same (lack of Vol. 1) problem with this related series by Alan Dean Foster....

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Yeah, title alone was enough to add this one to my bag. It's a 1976 Archway Paperback edition of the previous year's Doubleday hardcover by Edward Edelson. Pretty interesting guy, this Edelson.

 I'll give this one a read and maybe check out his Great Monsters of the Movies and Great Movie Spectaculars.... Come to think of it, that monsters book looks awfully familiar. Might've checked that one out of my childhood library a few times.

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Ah yes. It was the publication date and sheer number of stories that landed this one in my bag. It's a "Bantam Giant" from 1957 (I'm a sucker for vintage paperbacks), and I figured: "Nineteen tales of terror for four bucks? I'm in." Besides, the book just felt nice in-hand, being all old and crackly and stuff. Had the old paperback smell, too (the good one, not the got-wet-and-moldy-long-ago one).

Unfortunately, I think I should have read the blurbs more closely in-store--turns out the book is full of stories of psychological horror, basically people going mad. Hum. I'm not generally a fan of psychological (versus creature and supernatural) horror, and I'm even less a fan of man-or-woman-goes-mad-and-terrible-things-happen stories. But I'll give it a go to see what happens. At least I have nineteen tries to find something I like.

Although, now that I do a bit of research, the book was edited by Whit and Hallie Burnett, a couple of fairly influential writers themselves, so who knows, I might find more to like here than I'd've first thought.

And the book, being as vintage as it is, does have some nice ads inside it. Check out this Perry Mason deal....

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Okay, there you have it. Another Bookstore Saturday is complete. And thanks to Boyd over at Next Chapter Books for helping this one to happen. (And yes, NCB hands out bookmarks and business cards, the way any Genuine Used Bookstore should do....)

Till next time.

20 Million Miles to Earth (1957): The head, the tail, the whole damn thing.

(&)

The Setup

So there I was, minding my own business over at Amazon, when a particular little book flies into my cart and orders itself without my having done a thing to encourage it.

It's true the book had been on my Wish List for quite a long time.... Maybe it got to feeling ignored, even a bit panicky, wondering if it  ever would trade that cold, dark Amazon warehouse for my own tender embrace. Could be the novel felt like it had to take matters into its own hands... or pages. You know what I mean.

Of course I was shocked at its behavior: that's just not the way you win friends and influence people. (You say hello, strike up a conversation, maybe see if there are mutual interests. You don't just hurl yourself unannounced into someone's online shopping cart.)

But in the end, the pleading look that wee tome gave me, I couldn't turn it away.

And THAT, my friends, is a somewhat true story.

Well then, what book am I talking about? I'll bet, having seen the post's title as well as that poster up top, you could make an educated guess that I'm talking about a novelization of the 1957 film 20 Million Miles to Earth. (And you'd be right!) Of course one doesn't talk about a film's novelization without also giving the film a little attention, so buckle in, we're gonna be here a minute....

The (Original) Novelization

1957's Amazing Stories original

Now, if you're saying you never even knew there was a novelization of this particular film, until a year or two ago I'd've been right there with you. I didn't know the book existed until after discovering BearManor Media, where horizons were gleefully broadened on this and many another subject. (Seriously, the place is a treasure trove of film, TV and radio-themed books.)

But this novelization first saw light before BearManor was ever a twinkle in anyone's eye--it was Amazing Stories first (and only) foray into standalone novel-length fiction. This was in 1957 (same year as the movie's release), and it was written by a fellow named Henry Slesar. I didn't recognize his name off hand, but apparently the guy was quite prolific, putting out a ton of dark fantasy, detective fiction, science fiction, mysteries and thrillers in various formats--novels, short fiction, TV and radio scripts, even a stage play--over a 40 year timespan. (Go, Henry!)

Now, take a look at that cover, will you? This 1957 edition looks cool as a pool (hip as a chip), and I'd warmly welcome a copy onto my bookshelf for its hep artwork alone. However. A copy of said original currently runs north of a hundred bucks, and that's a bit steep when I have no idea if what lies behind the cover is anywhere near as cool as the cover itself. Which brings us back to BearManor Media, with its much less expensive (ten to fifteen bucks as I write this) reprint edition of the novelization.

The Reprint

2013's BearManor Media reprint

So it seems not too long ago a fellow named Philip J. Riley put a considerable amount of time and effort into getting several out-of-print horror film novelizations put back into print and available through BearManor--including the one for 20 Million Miles to Earth. He called his project "Philip J. Riley's Nightmare Series," and while I was hoping to give you a list of all the novelizations included, figuring that bit out wound up being harder than I'd thought and so... I gave up. (There you have it--an ugly truth laid bare.)

Turns out neither BearManor or Amazon (or anywhere else I could find) have an out and out list of what titles comprised the series, and since Riley wrote and edited a lot of other classic horror-themed books as well, I got all bogged down searching through synopses and cover blurbs trying to figure out which books were actually novelizations/part of the series and which weren't. So no list. I did send out an email or two that will hopefully net me some info on the subject.

Of course I couldn't speak to Mr. Riley himself, as he has left the mortal vale, but assuming I hear back from any of the folks I did reach out to, I'll update with a list at that point.

UPDATE: I heard back from author Richard Eksted, who contributed to the first few books in the Nightmare Series. He says the following is a definitive list of books included:

• THE BRIDES OF DRACULA by Dean Owen - Book #1
• REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN by Jimmy Sangster - Book #2
• THE RAVEN by Eunice Sudak - Book #3
• THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM by Lee Sheridan - Book #4
• REPTILICUS by Dean Owen - Book #5
• 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH by Henry Slesar - Book #6

So there you go. Although, now that I think, I recall seeing one for Gorgo on Amazon as well. And now that I double think, I'm pretty sure there was one for Dr. Cyclops, too. So maybe Mr. Eksted's list isn't definitive after all....

At any rate, it's a reprint copy of 20 Million..., and not an original, which had (as noted way up top there) stowed away in my shopping cart. Not nearly as cool a cover as that 1957 original had, but it has some nice extras inside to compensate.

How about we take a look?

The Reading of the Reprint

Being a longtime fan of stop motion animation master Ray Harryhausen (pictured at left, alongside his Ymir puppet), I'd already seen the film version of 20 Million... a time or two, though not in a few years. I was of course down for a re-watch, but once the novelization arrived I decided to give it a go before I revisited the film. (As one knows, one does not read a film novelization without also watching its source film within a reasonable time-frame, be it before or afterwards. This is a Law, and I am a Law Abider.)

Anyway, the reprint starts out with an intro by Randall Larson, which contains quite a bit of cool information, including interview excerpts from Slesar on his experience writing the novelization. (Slesar went on [and on] about the screenplay not offering him much to work with and that he wasn't particularly proud of his finished product.) Along with groovy intro, there are a fair number of lobby card, promo still and film poster reproductions to be had, as well as the original edition's interior illustrations (which are extremely cool).

On the down side, this book looks to have been either superficially proofread or not proofread at all. I mean there are tons of typos--enough to be seriously distracting as you read--and I'm assuming story text was scanned from a 1957 original using OCR and then just... left as-is. (Granted, I write/edit/proofread for a living, and I may be more sensitive to this kind of thing than some, but oy vey this book was rife with typos.)

Intros and illustrations aside, I have to agree with Mr. Slesar and say the novelization itself is none too impressive. And you know, Slesar was so well regarded as an author, it makes me want to read some of his other stuff, 'cause this thing couldn't have been his best work. He did gallantly try to shore things up along his way, expanding out a few side plots not in the movie--personal and political problems for the various characters to deal with, etc. And while usually those bits are the things in a film novelization that really get me going, it was falling flat for me here. It was honestly a bit tough to slog through.

Which I'm quite confident is not a reflection on Slesar's talent or lack. The guy had an impressive track record, and I've read enough novelizations where the same author went from amazing to what-the-hell (cough Hank Searls Jaws 2 → Jaws: The Revenge cough) to know the screenplay someone's given to work with can make or break their end result. And that's gotta be what happened here. So yeah, definitely want to give some of Slesar's other novels and short fiction a go, just to broaden my perspective.

The Illustrations

Oh, right. I'd mentioned the novelization's illustrations: Being originally published in pulp/digest format, this book included some sweet interior artwork. We know the original had sweet cover art (by Luigi Garonzi, I discovered), but check out these interior illustrations (artist unknown [to me]) the book had as well. I couldn't find a complete set of these illustrations on the Web, so I snapped photos directly from my reprint (hence the curvature on most of the images).

Okay, after the buildup maybe this first one is a bit underwhelming: weird looking
Ymir and all. Still.

Gronk! If anybody knows who drew these, back in the day, let me know....

Yeah, that caption doesn't match the artwork. The beast would've been coming
out of shock after the electrical equipment shorted out, and no one was calmly
standing around at that point....

...as we see here.

Yeah, so I'm placing these images in the order they're presented in the reprint
copy--can't say if the 1957 edition also used this order--but in the reprint it's out
of sequence with the story: The Ymir didn't find himself atop the Colosseum till
the very end. (Shrug.)

Nuff said.

The ignominious end of a glorious beast....

Nice, huh? Feel free to click through any of those for a larger image.

The Film

By the way, I keep calling this beast the Ymir, and nowhere in the film or novelization is that title actually used--it's always just "beast," "creature," etc. Word has it that Harryhausen had named his creation Ymir after the mythological Norse giant, and the film's original working title was The Giant Ymir, but apparently he got last-minute-worried audiences could confuse "Ymir" with the Arabic title "Emir" and had references to it removed. Too bad. I like the name and could just see a little scene in-film where the scientist dude muses on what to call it and settles on "Ymir."

At any rate, with novelization underwhelmingly finished (took me awhile to get through, even if it is a tiny tome), I finally sat down for a re-watch of the film. My take away from that?

Well, um... the movie wasn't actually as amazing as I'd remembered, either. Now this genuinely surprised me. I mean, I'd seen the film at least twice before and recalled just loving it. But a bit of reflection had me realizing my previous watchings were very Harryhausen-centric (if that wasn't a term before, it is now). I think with previous viewings I'd been so focused on his amazing creature effects, I hadn't really noticed the film in its entirety. And the film in its entirety is chock-full of awkward dialogue and wooden performances.

And the wooden performances part is especially bummersome, since I'm a big fan of William Hopper from his time on the old Perry Mason TV show. I haven't seen Hopper in a ton of things other than Perry Mason, and I'd just assumed he would be shining as Col. Calder in this film the way he does there. Nope. And it had to be the script, etc. holding him back: His character in Perry Mason was surprisingly varied, and playing him clearly called for some versatility from Hopper. I'm just saying the man was a competent actor, and you might not see it in 20 million Miles....

Anyway, here are some notes I jotted to myself as the picture progressed. Probably won't make a lot of sense unless you're quite familiar with the film (and if you're not, give it a watch--warts or not, this movie is worth multiple viewings just for the creature effects, and my notes will make sense as a bonus)....

• Hey, in that long shot the boat hook is already in the kid's hand, then in the subsequent close up the dude tells him to get the boat hook out. Hmm.
• The inside of that space ship has cinder block walls....
• But the tilted camera to mimic the ship's angle is a nice touch.
• Even though they loaded two men in, I am convinced there are no additional people in that boat as they row away.
• I'm not caring much for this actress. Not sure I've seen her in anything else to know if, like Hopper, the script/direction were limiting her performance here....
• Let's see... 1 USD = 625 Lit. in 1949, rate maintained till early 1970s... that means that half million lire the kid gets in reward money equaled about 800 bucks in 1957. Adjusted for inflation, that's a little over 7,000 USD today. Not a bad haul for an eleven year old kid. (My brain just tends to go down rabbit holes like this.... No help for it.)
• Ooh, that life-size Ymir hand and arm in the cage escape scene was nice.
• Okay, in the barn, those chickens we're obviously being thrown onto the set from off-camera.
• Wait, that beast just broke out of a heavy duty metal cage, but you guys think that old wooden farm cart is gonna hold it?
• Oh man. That stop motion Ymir/farmer fight, with live action Hopper worked in, is AMAZING.
• Hey, does that live action elephant have fake tusks? (I'm guessing, after a little research, probably not.)
• Whoa. That live action elephant looks really big next to it's trainer. What's going on, there? (Turns out, since he planned to use a real elephant for some footage, Harryhausen asked for one that was 15 feet tall, but the tallest they could find was eight feet. So to make the elephant look bigger, they got a 4' 6" actor to play the zookeeper.)
• How tall was the Ymir at this point? Let's see, elephant's about the Ymir's height.... Largest recorded Asian elephant was twelve feet high, so I'm going with the Ymir at twelve feet as well. Although if Harryhausen wanted a 15 foot elephant, was he assuming his Ymir was 15 feet as well?
• Huh. I notice the novelization had the Ymir explicitly killing the farm dog, elephant and at least one pedestrian, but the movie makes a point of showing post-battle movement and/or breath in all its victims. I guess the film wanted to garner a bit of sympathy for the beast?
• Oh. Except for the military. Lot's of Ymir-Military-Killing onscreen. Hollywood military is always fair game as creature bait.
• Totally unrelated... recently saw An American in Paris on the big screen and noticed an uncredited Noel Neill in a couple of scenes. Joan Taylor in this movie reminds me of her just a bit. In look and style, not acting.

Yep. Those were my movie thoughts. Well, not ALL of them: Per usual, I got a little preoccupied with creature size while watching the film, and got to wondering just how tall the steadily growing Ymir was in its various scenes. Which led to the following....

 The Ymir

Imagine my horror at doing an internet search, assuming I'd find a plethora of information on the Ymir's various sizes throughout the film, only to find NO SUCH THING exists. All my search got me was a series of terrifyingly general estimatations: "fifteen feet," "twenty feet," "ten to twenty feet," "thirty five feet," "the size of a small building," etc. Nothing solid at all. No way I'm letting that status quo continue.

Check out the following images with my quick, dirty and loose height calculations underneath (this is me taking screenshots from the film and mucking about with my on-screen ruler and half-assed math):

Okay, just eyeballing this one, I'm putting that newly (evening) hatched Ymir at 12-18 inches high. Why? Because he's a bit taller than Actor Guy's head is long, and the average male head (says the internet) is about 14 inches crown to chin.

Whoa! Next morning, maybe eight hours later, my (continued) eyeballing has Ymir at maybe three times the height he was the night before. Say, three to three and a half feet? At any rate, Ymir head to toe is the same height as Actor Guy head to knee in this image. Actor Guy was 66" tall (the internet tells me). Take away 24 inches (the average length of a male's leg, knee to toe, the internet also tells me) and that gives us 42 inches, or a 3.5 foot Ymir. See? Half-assed math....

Okay, now it's that evening (another 8 or 10 hours later?), Ymir has escaped his cage and we've got William hopper at six foot three, but his knees are slightly bent. Ymir is not quite as tall as Hopper as it stands straight across from him, so I'm going with, say, five and a half feet for Ymir. Growing like a weed!

On-Screen Ruler time! Next day, it's a fight to the finish and Flame Thrower Man is 1.75 inches in the image, and lets say that equals his actual height of 6 feet (all men are six feet tall in the movies). If 1.75 inches equals 6 feet, .29 inches equals 1 foot. Ymir is 3 inches high in the image, 3 divided by .29 makes him (about) 10.4 feet tall.

Alrighty. A few (?) days later, Ymir is recaptured and down for the count. Zoo Scientist is 2.4 inches in the image, which equals 6 feet in reel life. That gives us .4 inches equaling 1 foot, Ymir is 6 inches head to toe, giving a reel life Ymir height of 6 divided by .4 equaling 15 feet. Big!

Circumstantial evidence: Just after busting free, Ymir is ready to fight an elephant! Harryhausen wanted a fifteen foot live action elephant (fat chance) so we can assume his stop motion elephant was scaled to be fifteen feet high. Here they are together and sure enough, the two beasts are about the same height. (Wasn't this an amazing stop motion sequence in-film?)

More on-screen ruler math: Ymir is still on the rampage minutes later, six foot tall Lamp Man is 3 inches here, so .5 inches is 1 foot, making Ymir (towering at 8.3 inches) 16.6 feet tall.

Okay, Ymir disappears into the river for several hours and then reappears here, still growing. Definitely bigger here than he was with Lamppost Man.... Check out the two details pulled from this image below.

Barely Seen 6 foot Soldier is 1.3 inches tall, which translates
to one foot equaling .216 inches.

Ymir is 6.4 inches here. 6.4 divided by .216 equals
29.6 tall. Yowza!

And things go a little nuts, size-wise, here at the end as Ymir prepares to meet his demise atop the Colosseum. See that car back there next to the Colosseum? We're calling it five feet high at the roof line. It's half an inch high in the image, which means .5 inches equals five feet, or 1 inch equals 10 feet....

Now here's our scaly friend standing next to the Colosseum. His head is about even with the bottom of that railing there. Ground to that railing is 3.75 inches in the image, which translates to 37.5 feet (1 inch equaling 10 feet). So that gives us a 35 to 40 foot high Ymir right there! GrrrAnimals!!!

And this concludes our demonstration. My math is highly suspect and I do not stand by it except in fair weather. At least we now have something on the internet with reasonable size estimates....

Braaaiiiins!

Brain Counts? Ooh, that's a tough one. The novelization featured a barely readable story and plenty of typos to boot. That's circling One Brain territory right there, but its extras were cool and of course it gets points just for existing at all.... The original edition would score higher as it accesses Vintage Points, but I didn't get the original. Hmm... I'm saying the BearManor edition specifically is gonna land with...

TWO NOT QUITE ORIGINAL BRAINS

The movie? I was surprised at how little of it held my interest when stop motion creatures weren't on screen. As a film, sans creature effects, this would also be circling One, maybe Two Brain territory.... But the creature effects are Five Brain material and worth regular revisits on their own, so for the film I'm going with...

FOUR TINY VENUSIAN PUPPET BRAINS

Quint-style

And there you have it: 20 Million Miles to Earth--the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.

You know, I kept refering to the Ymir as a "he" throughout this post, but who knows? The film and novelization never say one way or the other. Could be a "she." Could be something else entirely; it is Venusian you know. Heck, the Norse giant Harryhausen took its name from was hermaphroditic....

Till next time.