MANTICHORE

3, No 3 (WN11)

A Contribution by Leigh Blackmore for the Sword & Sorcery & Weird Fiction Terminus (Sept 2 mailing), & Esoteric Order of Dagon (Oct 31 mailing) amateur press associations (2008)

Leigh Blackmore, 78 Rowland Ave, Wollongong, NSW 2500.

Australia.Email: lvxnox@gmail.com

Official Website: Blackmausoleum –

http://members.optusnet.com.au/lvxnox/

Mantic Notes (Pronunciation:'man-tik. Etymology: Greek mantikos, from mantis : of or relating to the faculty of divination :prophetic).

______________________

This issue may perforce be slimmer than usual. I have been rather ill lately (a long bout of diverticulitis, followed by a particularly nasty bout of viral illness from which I am only just recovering). I am having troubles with an ongoing chronic shoulder injury too…making most days a challenge.

This is my last session in my undergraduate Double Degree. Since

I have more or less decided to do Honours in Creative Writing next year, I have put my Journalism degree on hold for the time being. Consequently this session has a slightly less onerous workload than the first half of the year. My results for first session were pretty good overall.

Much to my regret, various factors have interfered with me completing work on Spores from Sharnoth, my forthcoming weird verse collection. Danny Lovecraft and I still hope it might be issued in time for the Conflux 5 convention in Canberra in October.

I celebrated my 49th birthday on June 30 quietly with the family. Stepson Rohan has been living & working in Sydney, so we haven’t had him home much, though he has paid a few visits back to Wollongong over the last couple of months. Margi has been working five days a week, three at TAFE studying and two at a local TAFE library where she is gaining practical experience. Graham has been sick with flu for weeks and weeks but has struggled along teaching school and anatomy classes. A small car accident was sent to try us recently but this has

been resolved now.

The first “Black Cauldron” column by myself and Margi appeared in Issue 1 of Black magazine, out in July across

Australia. We’ve written our second column as regular staffers, and we

hope that the magazine, which has been very well received, proves a success.

The second issue of Studies in Australian Weird Fiction has now appeared. It’s a nice chunky effort, with cover art by Phillip Ellis’ mum, and heaps of interviews and articles. Guidelines at: http://www.australianhorror.com/SiAWF/

Get it from: http://www.equilibriumbooks.com/siawf1.htm

Books by My Bedside

I haven’t had that much time to watch movies or read books lately, though I have managed to squeeze a few of the latter in during my

recent illness. I was required to read for one of my courses Evelyn

Waugh’s The Loved One (had done this at school 30 years ago but enjoyed reading it again); The Lovers by Marguerite Duras (had never read one of hers before; quite

enjoyed it, reminded me of Sam Beckett in places but a bit more optimistic); and Theft by Peter Carey (absolutely brilliant; I recommend it highly). I also read, while flat on my back and trying not to die of raging fever, about half of Harlan Ellison’s The Essential Ellison; Terry Dowling’s Rynemonn (the concluding volume of his superlative Tom Tyson

series); one Clark Ashton Smith story, “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis” in the Necronomicon Press restored text edition; and in the

course of commencing an essay on Robert Bloch’s crime novels for Ben Szumskyj’s forthcoming essay collection on Bloch,

I’ve read Spiderweb and Shooting Star.

The only movie we’ve been out to see was the new Batman movie The Dark Knight, which I really enjoyed. You just can’t beat a Caped Crusader movie, I always say.

There have been a lot of other ructions one way or another in the groups that Margi and I run, but here is not the place to dwell on those vicissitudes.

THE AUSTRALIAN DUNWICH

The above map shows a place called Dunwich which apparently exists in Qld, Australia! I had no idea that there was any other Dunwich than the decayed seaport of Lovecraft’s fiction, and the vanished English town. But I stumbled on this info while doing other research in the uni library. If I ever have time, could be a subject for brief article.

21ST CENTURY SPECTRES: ON WRITING HORROR NOWLeigh Blackmore © 2008

[I apologise for the fact the following is no more than a vignette. It is an unfinished piece which I started writing for a magazine in 2005 but which was never finished.]

Toddlers mauled to death by dogs, race riots, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, Kosovo, tsunami devastation, serial killers from Belanglo to Snowtown, death and mayhem on the nation’s roads…do we really need any more horror when we can turn on the nightly news and be confronted with this barrage of horror from our daily lives?

It’s a question often asked by those dubious of horror fiction’s claim to validity. The negative image that

horror fiction, and therefore the horror writer, has with the general public, is something the horror writer is constantly having to work against.

Writing horror fiction, like writing most forms of fiction, has its fair share of challenges.

Throughout the 20th century we saw a progressive move away from a general belief in the supernatural, and so ghost stories and more traditional forms of horror fiction lost much of their traditional power to terrify entertainingly, supplying those delicious shivers that for some reason enthusiasts of horror writing crave.

As we moved towards the end of the 20th century, horror took multiple new forms. There was the horror fiction of Stephen King and his ilk, milking the terrors that might lurk unsuspected beneath the apparently normal facades of small town and suburban America. Some of this work still involved the supernatural, certain writers working hard to create the suspension of disbelief factor and to instill their work with the feeling that forces hostile or inimical to man may still lurk on the fringes of our consciousness.

Other writers sought refuge in shock tactics, writing about purely physical horrors, about the nightmarish aspects of modern civilisation and the fear that we can still feel about our lack of control despite the fact most of us live comfortably surrounded by high technology and rampant capitalism.

But what are we going to write about in the 21st century? Where is the cutting edge of horror now?

Many horror novels, however, are a perceptive treatment of the nature of reality and the human mind, the relationship between natural order and moral order, the shadow side of the human soul, the development of character, and how "good" and "evil" are judged

Many mysteries of human behavior are poorly explained by psychology, sociology, philosophy, and history. The dimensions of human experiences are poorly charted by the sciences.

Horrors real or imagined originate from the inside, within our fantasies, our dreams.

Above: 1978 article about Paul Michaud (brother of Necronomicon Press founder

Marc Michaud) making a film doco on HP Lovecraft.

A CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX TO THE AUSTRALIAN HORROR

ANTHOLOGIES[I’ll chuck in another old unfinished piece of work here to round this issue out. Maybe I’ll update this one day…ha ha…he cackled maniacally….]

Leigh Blackmore © 2008

In 1961 and 1962 Australian Charles Higham compiled a number of weird anthologies for Horwitz Publications; SPINE-TINGLING TALES; WEIRD STORIES; NIGHTMARE STORIES; TALES OF HORROR; THE CURSE OF DRACULA; TALES OF TERROR; TALES OF HORROR. With the sole exception of "The Mummy's Curse" by 'James Workman' in NIGHTMARE STORIES, these anthologies reprinted only well-known horror tales by British and American writers, primarily of the ilk of LeFanu, Poe, Bierce, Dickens, Stoker etc.

Similarly, Eclipse Books/Ure Smith published two thick weird anthologies in the late sixties or early

seventies - SHRIEK and SUPERNATURAL, edited by Kurt Singer. Though published in Sydney, they are simply omnibus selections from various of the anthologies Singer edited for UK publisher WH Allen in the late sixties, and contain no Australian fiction whatsoever.

1967: Cusack, Frank. AUSTRALIAN GHOSTS:[AUTHENTIC TALES OF AUSTRALIA'S SUPERNATURAL]. (subtitle appears on front cover only). First published by William Heinemann 1967. First paperback ed: Sydney: Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1969; reprinted under A&R paperback imprint Arkon, 1975 from which following details are taken. Where author's names are not given, the accounts are legendary non-fiction and/or unattributed. Introduction by Frank Cusack pp ix-xii; Ch. 1 "A Rattle of Leg-Irons" pp. 1-38: includes: 'Fisher's Ghost' pp. 1-3; extract from "Fisher's Ghost: An Historical Comedy" by Douglas Stewart (verse) p 4; untitled story of Fisher's Ghost, by John Lang, pp. 5-24 (from Botany Bay, or True Stories of the Early Days of Australia, 1859); "The Spectre and the Commandant" pp. 24-27; "Moreton Bay" pp. 27-28 (verse - actually a convict song); "The Singing Spectre" pp 28-29; "The Ghost of the Glen" pp. 29-34 (by J.M. Forde, from Old Sydney Series - Truth, 20 & 27 August 1922); "A Ghost in Doubt" pp. 35-37; "The Black Wraith of Yarralumla" p. 37-38. Ch 2 pp. 39-57 "Ghosts of the Gold-Dish" includes: "Alectown's Ghostly Trio" pp. 39-42; "The Road That Went Backwards" pp 42-43; "Brannigan's Ghost" pp. 43-44; "The Ashes of Feng Cheng Loo" pp. 44-47; "A Man Called Smith" pp. 48-52 (by Richard Mackay from Recollections of Early Gippsland Goldfields, 1916); "Morgan's Ghost" p. 52; "A Ghost from the Alps" p. 53; '"The Demon Snow-Shoes" by Barcroft Boake (verse) pp. 53-57 (from Where the dead men Lie and Other Poems, 1897). Ch 3 "A Legacy of Ghosts" pp 58-74 includes: "The Ghosts of Garth - and Other Tasmanian Houses" pp.58-65 (by Michael Sharland, from People magazine 12 October 1960); "The

Ghosts of Prospect House" pp. 66-68 (based on a paper The Story of Graham's Castle by Dr A.A. Lendon); "The Strath Ghost of Bathurst" pp. 68-70; "The Homeless Ghosts of Bungaribee" pp. 70-71; "Of Family Ghosts and a Gippsland Waif..." pp. 71-74 (extract from Crowded Galleries by Dame Mabel Brookes, 1956). Ch 4 "Dead Men's Camp-Fires" pp. 75-90 includes: "The Mystery Lights of the Outback" p. 75; "The Min-Min Light" pp. 76-77 (by Henry G. Lamond from Walkabout magazine 1 April 1937);

1972: Ingram, Anne Bower. SHUDDERS AND SHAKES: GHOSTLY TALES FROM AUSTRALIA. (Sydney/London: Collins).Contains: Traditional "Fisher's Ghost"; anon "Ghost in the Ashes"; Nan Chauncy "A Voice from the Past"; Chamber's Journal "The Fires on King's Plains"; George Farwell "The Twilight Zone"; Bill Beatty "Ghosts from the Deep"; Henry G. Lamond "The Min-Min Light"; Chamber's Journal "The Cooee Hut"; Bill Beatty "Wailing at the Wilga Waterhole"; Mrs Campbell Praed "The Bunyip; Ernestine Hill "Ghosts Along the Cooper"; Chamber's Journal "The Trotting Cob"; Colin Thiele "The Ancient Dancers"; Patricia Wrightson "The Stone Axe"; anon "The Black Ghosts of Yarralumla"; Traditional "The Phantom of the Opera"; A Pioneer "Mirage"; Ivan Southall "The Dream of Gold"; Chamber's Journal "The Apparition"; Joan Phipson "A Night to Remember"; Bernard Cronin "The Road That Runs Backwards"; anon "The Ghosts of Two Sawyers"; H.F. Brinsmead "The Spirit of the Mist"; Lance Skuthorpe "The Champion Bullock-Driver"; anon "The Black Horse of Sutton"; anon "The White Bull"; Elyne Mitchell "A Horse of the Desert"; anon "The Guyra Poltergeist"; anon "Some Haunted Houses".

1976: Wilson, Barbara Ker (ed). A HANDFUL OF GHOSTS: THIRTEEN EERIE TALES BY AUSTRALIAN AUTHORS. Sydney: Hodder & Stoughton Australia.

Contains: Ivan Southall "Forty-Two Steps Left"; James Menzies "The Train from Moondyke"; Hesba Brinsmead "Haven't We Met Before?"; Colin Thiele "The Ghost of Gartenschmuck"; Celia Syred "Point of Contact"; David Martin "The Tortures of the Damned"; Mavis Thorpe Clark "The Haunted Hills"; Nance Donkin "Room 409"; Sally Farell "The Ghost of a Calf"; George Finkel "The Mirror"; Sinclair Buchan "Sailors' Graves"; Olaf Ruhen "The Woman of Labu"; Barbara Ker Wilson "The Honeysuckle Trap".

1978. Stewart, Gordon Neil (ed). AUSTRALIAN STORIES OF HORROR AND SUSPENSE FROM THE EARLY DAYS. Australasian Book Society. Reprinted 1983 by Hale & Iremonger, Sydney.Contains: Price Warung "How Muster-Master Stoneman Earned His Breakfast"; W.H. Suttor "Western Rebellions"; Marcus Clarke "Governor Ralph Darling's Iron Collar"; Price Warung "The Liberation of the First Three"; W.H. Suttor "Vengeance for Ippitha"; John Lang "Tracks in the Bush"; Tom Collins "The Lost Child"; Dowell O'Reilly "Crows"; Nat Gould "Chased by Fire"; Henry Fletcher "On the Land"; Morley Roberts "Grear's Dam"; Mary Gaunt "The Doctor's Drive"; Edward Dyson "The Trucker's Dream"; Julian Stuart "Wolf in Snake's Clothes"; Edward Dyson "A Hot Day at Spats'"; E.F. Squires "Judas: A Strike Incident"; Roderic Quinn "A Stripe for Trooper Casey"; Henry Lawson "Wanted by the Police"; Dowell O'Reilly "Black Peter's Last Kiss"; Louis Becke "The Revenge of Macy O'Shea"; Alexander Montgomery "Five-skull Island"; Albert Dorrington "Castro's Last Sacrament"; Alexander Montgomery "Swamp-swallowed"; Louis Becke "A Basket of Bread-Fruit"; Randolph Bedford "Fourteen Fathoms by Quetta Rock"; Barbara Baynton "The Tramp"; Ernest Favenc "The Last of Six"; Albert Dorrington "A Bush Tanqueray"; Henry Lawson "The Selector's Daughter"; J.A. Barry "Dead Man's Camp"; Henry Lawson "The Bush Undertaker"; Albert

Dorrington "A Bush Singer"; Barbara Baynton "Scrammy 'And".

1978. Hamilton, Margaret. SPOOKS AND SPIRITS: EIGHT EERIE TALES BY AUSTRALIAN AUTHORS. Sydney: Hodder & Stoughton Australia. Paperback ed published 1980. Contains: Christobel Mattingley "Katzenfell"; Elisabeth MacIntyre "The Unbeliever"; Michael Dugan "The Ghost Trick"; Jean Chapman 'Sam, Sam, the Contrary Man"; Ruth Park "Somebody Lives in the Nobody House"; Natlie Scott "Violet"; Pat Johnson "All Old Empty Houses Have Cobwebs"; James Porter "Footprints in Sepwala".

1981. Dugan, Michael (ed). THE MOVING SKULL AND OTHER AWESOME AUSTRALIAN VERSE. Sydney: Hodder & Stoughton Australia. Contains: Denzil Bentley "Eerie, Ghastly Ghost"; Douglas Stewart "The Bunyip"; Samantha Howels "Haunted House"; Pixie O'Harris "The Witches and I"; Anne Liley "Creeps in the Night"; John Manifold "The Bunyip and the Whistling Kettle"; Sarah Chisnall "The Graveyard"; Danielle Vandenbosch "The Witch"; Mary Gilmore "A Little Ghost"; John Williams "Nightmare"; Henry Kendall "Ghost Glen"; McKechnie, Janet "Winter Witches"; Troeth, Simon "Weird Dream"; Sarah Endacott "The Onfalong"; John Jenkins "The Wilderong"; Nicky Young "The Witch"; Betty Moffit "Bunyip"; High McCrae "The Murder-Night"; Wilbur G. Howcroft "Things That Go Bump in the Night"; Robyn Fraser "The Skeletons' Dance"; Kerrie Simpson "Ghosts"; Alison Churchward "Bunyip"; Robyn Fraser "The Thing"; Joseph Tischler "The Moving Skull"; Julian Prang "Miles de Montspasm the Nervous Ghost"; Julian Prang "Night scene"; Dorothea Mackellar "The Witchmaid"; Lilith Norman "Time"; Coralie Moller "The Eeriest Night"; Douglas Stewart "Fisher's Ghost: An Historical Comedy (1960)"; Michael D Sugan "Onkerpled"; Peter Wesley-Smith "The Ugstabuggle"; Michael Dugan "Witches' Outing"; Michael Dugan "Bambo Tiger"; Saskia

Beudel "Quick, Run!"; Kath Walker "The Bunyip"; Richard McOmish "Ghosts"; Debra Gladman "Witch's Wish"; Robyn Gordon "I Am the Witch's Cat"; Vanese Siburun "Vision"; Dorothea Mackellar "A Happy Ghost"; Gregory Hill " Witches"; Michael Dugan "The Ghosts of Glenrowan"; Barry Brren "Fear"; W.N. Scott "A Way to Get Rid of Bunyips"; Susan Morrison "The Old Woman"; Jennifer Dickson "Alone"; John Jenkins "Witches Have Hitches"; Michael Dugan "The Witch"; Bryn Griffiths "Ghost of Silence".

1983. Wannan, Bill (ed). AUSTRALIAN HORROR STORIES. South Yarra, Vic: Currey O'Neill Ross. Contains: Bartlett Adamson "Torture of the Moccasins"; John Baxter "Apple"; Barbara Baynton "The Tramp"; Louis Becke "A Dead Loss" and "Dr Ludwig Schwalbe, South Sea Savant"; J. Le Gay Brereton "From the Bush" and "The King of the Cats"; Gavin Casey "The Sand Castle"; Marcus Clarke "The Valley of the Shadow of Death"; William Dick "Express from Goodway"; Very Dwyer "The Way Into My Parlour"; Edward Dyson "The Conquering Bush" and "After the Accident"; John K. Ewers "The White Dam"; J. Gaby "The Knife"; J.B. Henderson "Fear"; Eric Lambert "Victory"; Henry Lawson "The Babies in the Bush"; Sarah Maitland "Sharks Have Eyebrows"; Alan Marshall "Boot Factory"; Elinor Mordaunt "The Skipper's Yarn"; John Morrison "North Wind"; Joyce M. Nankivell "A Humble Tragedy"; Emmett O'Keefe "The Soldiers in the Trees"; Dowell O'Reilly "Black Peter's Last Kiss"; Marjorie Oughton "There Was a Little Man and Murder"; Katharine Susannah Prichard "Naninja and Janey"; John H. Ramsay "Casserole"; Roland Robinson "The Sea and the Grass" and :The Doowan, The Two Avengers"; Olaf Ruhen "The Immortal" and "The Dark of the Moon"; Charles Shaw "Mice"; Dal Stivens "Holy Sabbath"; Judah Waten "The Knife"; Michael Wilding "See You Later".

1992. Congreve, Bill (ed). INTIMATE ARMAGEDDONS. Wollongong, NSW: Five Islands Press.Contains: Robert Hood "Dem Bones"; Sue Isle "A Sprig of Aconite"; Terry

Dowling "They Found The Angry Moon"; Rosaleen Love "Holiness"; Geoffrey Maloney "Meat Puppets"; Sean McMullen "The Porphyric Plague"; A.G. Clarke "Sirensong"; Steven Proposch "Maggie's Place"; Bill Congreve "Dream"; Peter Corris "Bit Parts"; Sean Williams "Going Nowhere".

1992. Matthews, Penny (ed). HAIR-RAISING: TEN HORROR STORIES. Norwood, SA: Omnibus Books.Contains: Alison Stewart "Ribs"; Verity Laughton

"Mara"; Ursula Dubosarsky "The Golden Gate"; Caroline Macdonald "There Was No Good Reason"; Gary Crew "Sleeping Over at Lola's"; Nan Hunt "Pack"; Joanne Horniman "His Face"; Carolyn Burns "The Great Debate"; Brian Caswell "Pay-TV"; Libby Hathorn "Goodnight Daddy".

1992. Matthews, Penny (ed). SPINE-CHILLING: TEN HORROR STORIES. Norwood, SA: Omnibus Books.Contains: Garry Disher "Blame the Wind"; Allan Baillie "Bones"; Penny Matthews "The Little Thing"; Sophie Masson "Mel"; Victor Kelleher "Sunset Crescent"; Margaret Wild "Hair"; Penny Hall "Wedding Cake Doll"; Andrew Lansdown "The Room of Light"; Emma McEwin "The Owl's House"; Lucy Sussex "The Bogeyman".

1993. Blackmore, Leigh (ed). TERROR AUSTRALIS: THE BEST OF AUSTRALIAN HORROR.

Sydney: Coronet Books/Hodder & Stoughton Australia.Contains: Leanne Frahm "Catalyst"; Terry Dowling "The Daemon Street Ghost-Trap"; Paul Lindsey "The Wolves Are Running"; Sharon A. Hansen "Chameleon"; Eddie Van Helden "Mabuza's Plum"; Dr John Hugoe-Matthews "Hantu-Rimba"; Louise M. Steer "Losing Faith"; Robert Hood "Openings"; Guy Boothby "Remorseless Vengeance"; BJ Stevens "A Gift from Gehenna"; Kendall Hoffman "Johnny Twofeller"; Steven Paulsen "In the Light of the Lamp"; Christopher Sequeira "Feeling Empty"; Ann C. Whitehead "The Nicholas Vine"; Geoff O'Callaghan "The Keeper"; Rick Kennett "Out of the Storm"; Sean Williams "Twist of the Knife"; Sheila Hatherley "The Hut"; Leigh Blackmore "The Hourglass"; Michael Bryant "A Dangerous Thing"; Sue Isle "Makeover"; Dirk Strasser "Dear Reader"; Eddie Van Helden "The Vivisector"; Cherry Wilder "Anzac Day"; Bill Congreve "Red Ambrosia"; Stephen Dedman "Heir of the Wolf"; Greg Egan "Neighbourhood Watch"; Bill Fewer "Denials".

1993. Bartlett, Jillian; Cathi Joseph and Anne Lawson (eds). SHRIEKS: A HORROR ANTHOLOGY. Sydney: Womens Redress Press Inc.Contains: Coral Hull "66 Rose St"; Margaret Coombs "Outer Space"; Jill Jones "Nosferatu in the Suburbs"; Frances Stephans "The Wardrobe Door"; Gail Warman "Hiding"; Louise Wakeling "Kim Lan in Cabramatta"; Jane Meredith "Lullaby"; S.L. Jones "The Outing"; Sarah Rossetti "Misdealings"; Coral Hull "laughter from the window"; Creme Brulee "Crying to be Let Out"; Yve Louis "The Red Bucket"; Carmel Macdonald-Grahame "Snatche(r)s"; Christine Owen "Skinned Alive"; Lizz Murphy "New York Shooting Spree"; Louise Wakeling "The Man in the Dark Suit"; Susan Hawthorne "Rhinoceros Beetle"; Karen Maloney "File Under Carnal Knowledge"; Wendy Moulstone "Kiss Me with Your Fist" and "Snow Leopards"; Catherine Mary Keneally "A Question of Silence"; Kaaron Warren "White Bed";

Carolyn Logan "Cockhorse"; Elizabeth Cunningham " The Mermaid's Tale"; Maria V. Gabor "The Last Kitchen Caper"; Jen Craig "For the Nth Time"; Mary Haire "Cut Glass"; Frances Stephans "Death Dreams"; Victoria Reeve "A Crack in the Wall"; Karen Attard "If I Dream I Have You”; Diane Beckingham "Dali-Mania"; Janet Greason "Lest We Forget"; Brigid Lowry "Man in Blue Holden"; Stacey Smithers "I should have known"; Carolyn Logan "Horror Story"; Alison Lyssa "Why Do Fat Chicks Have to Die"; Sarah Rosetti "Lynch Pens".

Above: Australian science fiction and horror writer Vol Molesworth (spectacles and tie, centre) with staff at Sydney University. Molesworth authored numerous pulp works including the Lovecraftian “Blinded They Fly” and “Let There Be Monsters”.

MANTICHORUS: MAILING NOTES

I’m so disorganised at present that I can’t lay hands on the previous mailing to make comments. Sorry. Maxima mea culpa, etc.

A LETTER FROM ROBERT BLOCH

[transcript typed by Leigh Blackmore July 2007; aerogramme written in Bloch’s usual felt-tipped pen]

Robert Bloch2111 Sunset Crest DrLos Angeles Calif 90046

L.D. Blackmore 85 Duffy AveThornleighNSW 2120 Australia

[no date; received Sept 21, 1984]

Dear Leigh Blackmore:

We have had 25 consecutive days of temperatures over 900, with high humidity and no relief at night. In the midst of this [curse?unreadable] the World Science Fiction Convention with the record-breaking 8, 300+ attendance – where they surprised me with a special 50 year career award, but – also worked me to death. Since then the temperatures have soared to 1000-1050, with no prospect of any change.

On top of that, one of the cats is sitting on my paper here, so you won’t get much of a reply from me.

About the biblios – the perpetrators are:

H.L. Prosser1313 South Jefferson AveSpringfield, Missouri. 65803.

Randall D. LarsonPO Box 70868Sunnyvale Calif. 94086.

Rod Henshaw1512 DouglasAmes, Iowa 50010.

Yes, I’d like to see THE AUSTRALIAN HORROR & FANTASY MAGAZINE, and your article sounds interesting! I’ve read Randall’s story on me, of course.

And I’d be most happy to check out your listings for READER’S GUIDE TO THE CTHULHU MYTHOS.

I’ll try to locate the supplement when it appears.

TORTURE GARDEN is nothing to get excited about. But I do hope you will like THE NIGHT OF THE RIPPER,

which is more to my taste – or lack of same.

And I am very pleased that you are devoting your attention to HPL – I believe he would be pleased, too, as well as amazed by the posthumous stir he’s made in the world! Just a pity he couldn’t enjoy it during his lifetime,

All best – and excuse the hasty scrawl –Robert Bloch