Search Worlds Without End

The Castle: it looms over the streets of modern Chicago. Its stone walls conceal a maze of secret passageways and hidden rooms, private laboratories and concealed trapdoors. The Castle is home to G. Gordon Gregg, physician-murderer. His victims are young, beautiful women. His methods are swift, scientific and painless, his crime perfect. Until a newspaper reporter becomes suspicious. Investigating Dr Gregg, Crystal finds herself falling in love with the charismatic surgeon, despite the danger. It id that love that seals her doom - for what G. Gordon Gregg loves, he kills...

Table of Contents:

• Try This for Psis - (1956) - short story
• Comfort Me, My Robot - (1955) - short story
• Talent - (1960) - short story
• The Professor Plays It Square - (1957) - short story
• Block That Metaphor - (1958) - short story
• Wheel and Deal - (1962) - short story
• You Got to Have Brains - (1956) - short story
• You Could Be Wrong - (1955) - short story
• Egghead - (1958) - short story
• Dead-End Doctor - (1956) - short story
• Change of Heart - (1948) - short story
• Edifice Complex - (1958) - short story
• Constant Reader - (1953) - short story

Table of Contents:

• A Matter of Life - (1960) - short story
• The Model Wife - (1961) - short fiction
• Broomstick Ride - (1957) - short story
• The Skull of the Marquis de Sade - (1945) - short story
• Memo to a Movie-Maker - (1961) - short story
• The Thinking Cap - (1953) - novelette
• The Shoes - (1942) - short story
• The Man Who Collected Poe - (1951) - short story
• The Ghost-Writer - (1940) - short story
• The Man Who Murdered Tomorrow - (1960) - short story
• "Psycho"-logical Bloch - (1962) - essay by Sam Moskowitz

CHIPS OFF A BOLD BLOCH

--a terrifying punishment for a murderer who found immortality

--a sinister reward for putting the wrong head on the wrong shoulders

--an eerie case of one woman's sweets being another woman's poison

--a gruesome twiast of fate leads a husband to a strange revenge

ROBERT BLOCH, author of Psycho, plunges beyond the imaginable to create a blood-shilling vault of terror and fear with these twelve masterpieces of the strange and the unknown. Inside lurk the deadly spirits and supernatural dreams of madness incarnate, gleefully waiting to test the nerves of any who dare enter his CHAMBER OF HORRORS.

Table of Contents:

• 9 - The Living End - (1963) - short story
• 14 - The Head Hunter - (1950) - short story (variant of Head Man)
• 31 - Impractical Joker - (1963) - short story
• 48 - Pride Goes - - short story
• 52 - The Screaming People - (1959) - novelette
• 87 - Fat Chance - (1960) - novelette
• 98 - The Unpardonable Crime - (1961) - short story
• 103 - Method for Murder - (1962) - short story
• 110 - Two of a Kind - (1958) - short story
• 117 - Untouchable - (1961) - short story
• 123 - Beelzebub - (1963) - short story
• 131 - "Frozen Fear" - (1946) - short story

His name is Philip Dempster.

Where he goes, fire follows.

Investigating a number of phoney "churches," Dempster becomes caught up in a web of intrigue, arson, and murder. Shortly after he visits each tabernacle, the building goes up in flames--often with the preacher still inside.

Each time, Dempster is found near the fire, not knowing what he is doing there or why he is wandering the night-darkened streets.

Is Dempster the firbug or merely an innocent victim? He must learn the truth before his sanity crumbles to white-hot ash.

Expansion of "The Big Binge", published in Imaginative Tales, July 1955.

It's All In Your Mind is a story about a lonely college sophomore, who is tricked into entering a professor's Psychopathfinder, a device designed to cure the mental aberations of its subjects.

The author of Psycho presents an entertaining glimpse of his writing career, from his correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft to his screenwriting triumphs, offering anecdotes about such talents as Ray Bradbury and Boris Karloff along the way.

Table of Contents:

• Sweets to the Sweet - (1947) - short story
• The Dream-Makers - (1953) - novelette
• The Sorcerer's Apprentice - (1949) - short story
• I Kiss Your Shadow-- - (1956) - short story
• Mr. Steinway - (1954) - short story
• The Proper Spirit - (1957) - short story
• Catnip - (1948) - short story
• The Cheaters - (1947) - novelette
• Hungarian Rhapsody - (1958) - short story
• The Light-House - (1953) - short story by Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Bloch
• The Hungry House - (1951) - novelette
• Sleeping Beauty - (1958) - short story
• Sweet Sixteen - (1958) - short story
• That Hell-Bound Train - (1958) - short story
• Enoch - (1946) - short story

In his lifetime, Robert Bloch wrote more than four hundred short stories and a dozen novels, including some of the most celebrated works of psychological suspense and horror of the twentieth century. When Robert Bloch was dying, hundreds of people - fans, fellow writers, people he had been close to for decades, and others whom he had never met - wrote to thank him for his work and his impact on their lives. Their words were the inspiration for Robert Bloch: Appreciations of the Master.

This book, then, is a collection unlike any other. Thirty writers, filmmakers, and actors have opened their hearts to speak about Robert Bloch, his influence on their careers, and his friendship. The book presents examples of the very best of Bloch's short fiction, including the rarely reprinted "The Dead Don't Die!" An excerpt from an unproduced screenplay by Bloch, adapting Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson's Hoka!, appears here for the first time anywhere. Bloch's nonfiction is not neglected, for this volume also includes one of his articles on the role of violence and gore in film, "The Clown at Midnight."

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Ricia Mainhardt
• Tribute - (1984) - essay by Douglas E. Winter
• Our Bob - (1995) - essay by Frederik Pohl
• Introduction to "The Cloak" - (1995) - essay by Peter Straub
• The Cloak - (1939) - short story by Robert Bloch
• Introduction to "Beetles" - (1995) - essay by Gahan Wilson
• Beetles - (1938) - short story by Robert Bloch
• Tribute - (1995) - essay by Andre Norton
• Tribute - (1995) - essay by Christopher Lee
• Introduction to "I Do Not Love Thee, Dr. Fell" - (1995) - essay by William F. Nolan
• I Do Not Love Thee, Dr. Fell - (1955) - short story by Robert Bloch
• Introduction to "Enoch" - (1995) - essay by Richard Matheson
• Enoch - (1946) - short story by Robert Bloch
• Introduction to "Sweets to the Sweet" - (1995) - essay by Hugh B. Cave
• Sweets to the Sweet - (1947) - short story by Robert Bloch
• On Robert Bloch - (1995) - essay by William Tenn
• That Hell-Bound Train - (1958) - short story by Robert Bloch
• Introduction to "The Final Performance" - (1995) - essay by David J. Schow
• The Final Performance - (1960) - short story by Robert Bloch
• Robert Bloch - A Personal Appreciation - (1995) - essay by Randall D. Larson
• The Pin - (1953) - short story by Robert Bloch
• Introduction to "The Animal Fair" - (1995) - essay by Joe R. Lansdale
• The Animal Fair - (1971) - short story by Robert Bloch
• Bob, We Bearly Knew Ye...The Hokas, Hollywood, and Development Hell - (1995) - essay by Jeff Walker
• Scenes from a Screenplay: Earthman's Burden - (1995) - short fiction by Robert Bloch
• Introduction to "The Plot is the Thing" - (1995) - essay by Jeff Walker
• The Plot is the Thing - (1966) - short story by Robert Bloch
• One Small Anecdote Starring R. Bloch and H. Ellison - (1991) - essay by Harlan Ellison
• Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper - (1943) - short story by Robert Bloch
• The Good Old Days - (1995) - essay by Julius Schwartz
• Lessons - (1995) - essay by Melissa Ann Singer
• A Toy for Juliette - (1967) - short story by Robert Bloch
• Tribute - (1995) - essay by Arthur C. Clarke
• More than Most - (1995) - essay by Philip José Farmer
• All on a Golden Afternoon - (1956) - novelette by Robert Bloch
• Tribute - (1995) - essay by Brian Lumley
• Introduction to "Notebook Found in a Deserted House" - (1995) - essay by Ramsey Campbell
• Notebook Found in a Deserted House - (1951) - short story by Robert Bloch
• Introduction to "The Clown at Midnight" - (1995) - essay by Bill Warren
• The Clown at Midnight - (1960) - short story by Robert Bloch
• Four in the Back - (1995) - essay by Mick Garris
• Introduction to "A Good Knight's Work" - (1995) - essay by William Peter Blatty
• A Good Knight's Work - (1941) - short story by Robert Bloch
• A Chip Off the Old Bloch - (1995) - essay by Sheldon Jaffery
• The Yougoslaves - (1986) - novelette by Robert Bloch
• Robert Bloch: An Appreciation - (1994) - essay by Stephen King
• Introduction to "The Dead Don't Die!" - (1995) - essay by Stephen Jones
• The Dead Don't Die! - (1951) - novella by Robert Bloch
• Tribute - (1995) - essay by Neil Gaiman
• Introduction to "Warning: Death May Be Injurious to Your Health" - (1995) - essay by Neil Gaiman and Stephen Jones
• Warning: Death May Be Injurious to Your Health - (1991) - poem by Robert Bloch
• Remembering Bob Bloch - (1994) - essay by Ray Bradbury
• Introduction to "The Pied Piper Fights the Gestapo" - (1995) - essay by Richard Matheson
• The Pied Piper Fights the Gestapo - (1942) - short story by Robert Bloch

Graham is a discontented Talent in futuristic America. He questions the ideology of Planned Society and gets himself in trouble for it. However, he finds an ally in the persons of Doc and Clare, who are outwardly posing as representatives of the Psycho-controlled Insanitarium, but in reality are using it as an underground headquarters for the overthrow of the present system. Together they plan and work on infiltrating the Dome and overpowering the highest leader MGMinence Archer into submission. Success is no guarantee, but they have to try--or else get brainwashed!

Contents:

• ix - Introduction (Such Stuff As Screams Are Made Of) - essay by Gahan Wilson
• 1 - The Tunnel of Love - (1948) - short story
• 11 - The Unspeakable Betrothal - (1949) - short story
• 26 - The Girl from Mars - (1950) - short story
• 34 - The Head Hunter - (1950) - short story (variant of Head Man)
• 52 - The Weird Tailor - (1950) - novelette
• 74 - Lucy Comes to Stay - (1952) - short story
• 81 - The Pin - (1953) - short story
• 96 - I Do Not Love Thee, Dr. Fell - (1955) - short story (variant of I Do Not Love Thee, Doctor Fell)
• 107 - Luck Is No Lady - (1957) - short story
• 124 - The Cure - (1957) - short story
• 132 - The Screaming People - (1959) - novelette
• 171 - The Big Kick - (1959) - short story
• 181 - The Masterpiece - (1960) - short story
• 186 - Talent - (1960) - short story
• 200 - The Final Performance - (1960) - short story
• 214 - Life in Our Time - (1966) - short story
• 223 - Underground - (1967) - short story
• 230 - A Case of the Stubborns - (1976) - short story
• 248 - The Head - (1976) - short story
• 257 - What You See Is What You Get - (1977) - short story
• 273 - Nina - (1977) - short story
• 284 - Author's Afterword (Such Stuff as Screams Are Made Of) - essay

Hugo Award winning short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1958 and was reprinted in the March 2009 edition of that same magazine. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Hugo Winners, Volume 1: (1955-61) (1963), edited by Isaac Asimov, Twenty Years of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (1970), edited by Edward L. Ferman and Robert P. Mills, A Treasury of Modern Fantasy (1981), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Terry Carr, The Fantasy Hall of Fame (1983) edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg, Sympathy for the Devil (2010), edited by Tim Pratt and The Century's Best Horror Fiction 1951-2000 (2012), edited by John Pelan. It is included in the collections Pleasant Dreams--Nightmares (1960), The Best of Robert Bloch (1977) and The Early Fears (1994).

If Psycho chilled your blood, this one will freeze it solid...

The Early Fears brings together for the first time all of the stories from his first two short stories collections, both long out-of-print, plus three previously uncollected stories - 39 stories in all. Included are such classics as 'Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper,' 'Enoch,' 'The Opener of the Way,' and the Hugo Award winning 'That Hell-Bound Train.'

Table of Contents:

• The View from 1993 - (1994) - essay by Robert Bloch
• The Cloak - (1939) - short story
• Beetles - (1938) - short story
• The Fiddler's Fee - (1940) - short story
• The Mannikin - (1937) - short story
• The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton - (1939) - short story
• Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper - (1943) - short story
• The Seal of the Satyr - (1939) - short story
• The Dark Demon - (1936) - short story
• The Faceless God - (1936) - short story
• House of the Hatchet - (1941) - short story
• The Opener of the Way - (1936) - short story
• Return to the Sabbath - (1938) - short story
• The Mandarin's Canaries - (1938) - short story
• Waxworks - (1939) - novelette
• The Feast in the Abbey - (1935) - short story
• Slave of the Flames - (1938) - short story
• The Shambler from the Stars - (1935) - short story
• Mother of Serpents - (1936) - short story
• The Secret of Sebek - (1937) - short story
• The Eyes of the Mummy - (1938) - short story
• One Way to Mars - (1945) - short story
• Sweets to the Sweet - (1947) - short story
• The Dream-Makers - (1953) - novelette
• The Sorcerer's Apprentice - (1949) - short story
• I Kiss Your Shadow-- - (1956) - short story
• Mr. Steinway - (1954) - short story
• The Proper Spirit - (1957) - short story
• Catnip - (1948) - short story
• The Cheaters - (1947) - novelette
• Hungarian Rhapsody - (1958) - short story
• The Light-House - (1953) - short story with Edgar Allan Poe
• The Hungry House - (1951) - novelette
• Sleeping Beauty - (1958) - short story
• Sweet Sixteen - (1958) - short story
• That Hell-Bound Train - (1958) - short story
• Enoch - (1946) - short story
• The Bedposts of Life - (1991) - short story
• The Grab Bag - (1991) - short story with Henry Kuttner
• The Creative Urge - (1991) - short fiction

After arriving in England to claim her inheritance, Hester Jekyll, niece of Dr. Henry Jekyll, discovers she gets nothing, and suddenly her friends are untrustworthy and aloof. Hester becomes entangled in her uncle's mysterious past, and a series of brutal deaths cause her to wonder if London's seen the last of Dr. Jekyll--or Mr. Hyde.

On the loose in the shadowy, gaslit streets of London's East End - Jack the Ripper.

Baffled by the horrific series of murders in Victorian London, Detective Inspector Frederick Abberline is struck by the fact that all the killings have taken place near the London Hospital - famous for its surgeons.

A young American doctor at the hospital, Mark Robinson, comes to share Abbeline's suspicions, but finds himself caught in a hall of mirrors in which one person after another seems to be a possible murderer ...

Who was Jack the Ripper? In this chilling, harrowing tale of terror, master of the macabre Robert Bloch proposes a new answer - as shocking and ingenious as the conclusion of his classic Psycho.

Table of Contents:

• By Way of Introduction - essay
• The Cloak - (1939) - short story
• Beetles - (1938) - short story
• The Fiddler's Fee - (1940) - short story
• The Mannikin - (1937) - short story
• The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton - (1939) - short story
• Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper - (1943) - short story
• The Seal of the Satyr - (1939) - short story
• The Dark Demon - (1936) - short story
• The Faceless God - (1936) - short story
• House of the Hatchet - (1941) - short story
• The Opener of the Way - (1936) - short story
• Return to the Sabbath - (1938) - short story
• The Mandarin's Canaries - (1938) - short story
• Waxworks - (1939) - novelette
• The Feast in the Abbey - (1935) - short story
• Slave of the Flames - (1938) - short story
• The Shambler from the Stars - (1935) - short story
• Mother of Serpents - (1936) - short story
• The Secret of Sebek - (1937) - short story
• The Eyes of the Mummy - (1938) - short story
• One Way to Mars - (1945) - short story

Fame--of a sort--came early to Dan Morley.

So did temptation.

So did the easy money and the glittering women who thrust it on him, begging him to accept.

And so did murder.

But not just one, not just two...

Winner of the 1994 Stoker award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Dark Destiny (1994), edited by Edward E. Kramer. It has subsequently appeared in a number of other anthologies.

This short story originally appeared in Weird Tales, September 1945. It can also be found in the anthologies The Great Villains (1978), edited by Michel Parry and Christopher Lee, and Specter! (1982), edited by Bill Pronzini. The story is included in the collections Bogey Men (1963), The Skull of the Marquis de Sade and Other Stories (1975) and Final Reckonings (1987).

"Jack the Ripper is alive, in Chicago, and I'm out to find him."

One of Robert Bloch's most famous stories. It originally appeared in Weird Tales, July 1943. It has been reprinted many times. Anthologies that include this story are:

• Alfred Hitchcock's Fireside Book of Suspense (1947), edited by Alfred Hitchcock
• The Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural (1981), edited by Barry N. Malzberg, Martin H. Greenberg and Bill Pronzini
• The Dark Descent: The Evolution of Horror (1987), edited by David G. Hartwell
• Jack the Ripper (1988), edited by Gardner Dozois and Susan Casper
• The Horror Hall of Fame (1991), edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg
• Psycho-Mania! (2013), edited by Stephen Jones

It is included in the collections The Opener of the Way (1945), Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper (1962), The Best of Robert Bloch (1977), The Early Fears (1994) and Robert Bloch: Appreciations of the Master (1997).

A chapbook edition appeared in 1991.

Table of Contents:

• Robert Bloch: The Man Who Wrote Psycho - essay by Lester del Rey
• Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper - (1943) - shortstory
• Enoch - (1946) - shortstory
• Catnip - (1948) - shortstory
• The Hungry House - (1951) - novelette
• The Man Who Collected Poe - (1951) - shortstory
• Mr. Steinway - (1954) - shortstory
• The Past Master - (1955) - novelette
• I Like Blondes - (1956) - shortstory
• All on a Golden Afternoon - (1956) - shortstory
• Broomstick Ride - (1957) - shortstory
• Daybroke - (1958) - shortstory
• Sleeping Beauty - (1958) - shortstory
• Word of Honor - (1958) - shortstory
• The World-Timer - (1960) - novelette
• That Hell-Bound Train - (1958) - shortstory
• The Funnel of God - (1960) - novelette
• Beelzebub - (1963) - shortstory
• The Plot is the Thing - (1966) - shortstory
• How Like a God - (1969) - shortstory
• The Movie People - (1969) - shortstory
• The Oracle - (1971) - shortstory
• The Learning Maze - (1974) - shortstory
• Author's Afterword: "Will the Real Robert Bloch Please Stand Up?" - essay by Robert Bloch

Ladies' Day

Amnesia imprisoned his mind, Horror clutched his emotions, when he discovered the world was 160 years older--but he wasn't.

The year 2121 found life changed drastically, due to man made catastrophes. Man made? No, man destroyed! And strangely, women were... different.

This Crowded Earth

Seven years of being the ideal man as far as the new society was concerned go thim nothing but the promise of present and future frustration. Seven seconds of madness, of attmepted self-destruction, brought him--to near paradise. As a reward for bucking the system, the system itself has provided him wtih a life of luxury and leisure in a world where neither was thought to exist. Why?

Contents:

• Mysteries of the Worm - interior artwork by Steven Gilberts
• 2 - The Secret in the Tomb - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 3 - The Secret in the Tomb - (1935) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 9 - The Suicide in the Study - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 10 - The Suicide in the Study - (1935) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 15 - The Shambler from the Stars - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 16 - The Shambler from the Stars - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1935) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 24 - The Faceless God - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 25 - The Faceless God - (1936) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 39 - The Grinning Ghoul - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 40 - The Grinning Ghoul - (1936) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 49 - The Opener of the Way - essay by Robert M. Price
• 50 - The Opener of the Way - (1936) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 62 - The Dark Demon - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 63 - The Dark Demon - (1936) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 72 - The Brood of Bubastis - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 73 - The Brood of Bubastis - (1937) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 85 - The Mannikin - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 86 - The Mannikin - (1937) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 100 - The Creeper in the Crypt - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 101 - The Creeper in the Crypt - (1937) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 110 - The Secret of Sebek - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 111 - The Secret of Sebek - (1937) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 125 - Fane of the Black Pharaoh - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 126 - Fane of the Black Pharaoh - (1937) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 141 - The Eyes of the Mummy - essay by Robert M. Price
• 142 - The Eyes of the Mummy - (1938) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 154 - The Sorcerer's Jewel - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 155 - The Sorcerer's Jewel - (1939) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 169 - Black Bargain - essay by Robert M. Price
• 170 - Black Bargain - (1942) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 185 - The Unspeakable Betrothal - essay by Robert M. Price
• 186 - The Unspeakable Betrothal - (1949) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 198 - The Shadow from the Steeple - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 199 - The Shadow from the Steeple - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1950) - novelette by Robert Bloch
• 217 - Notebook Found in a Deserted House - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 218 - Notebook Found in a Deserted House - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1951) - novelette by Robert Bloch
• 236 - Terror in Cut-Throat Cove - (1993) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 237 - Terror in Cut-Throat Cove - (1958) - novelette by Robert Bloch
• 269 - Philtre Tip - essay by Robert M. Price
• 270 - Philtre Tip - (1961) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
• 276 - Afterword (Mysteries of the Worm) - (1981) - essay by Robert Bloch
• 280 - Demon-Dreaded Lore: Robert Bloch's Contribution to the Cthulhu Mythos - (1993) - essay by Lin Carter (variant of Demon-Dreaded Lore 1981)

What men know is called science; what they have not yet learned they call magic. But both are real.... -- In the world of today and the near future, three people inexorably linked by a common interest in the work of H. P. Lovecraft, discover: --

• that the legendary creatures he created in his fantasies have hideous counterparts in reality...
• that his fiction is incredible fact...
• that his message is a warning...

Bloch was a protège of H. P. Lovecraft, and, at the age of fifteen, the youngest member of the "Lovecraft Circle." This book, based on Lovecraftian themes, is his homage to the man.

Of all the Lovecraft pastiches, Strange Eons most emphatically takes the bleak implications of his mythos to their logical conclusion.

Contents:

• Hell on Earth - (1942) - novelette
• Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper - (1943) - short story
• Catnip - (1948) - short story
• The Sorcerer's Apprentice - (1949) - short story
• The Strange Island of Dr. Nork - (1949) - novelette
• The Unspeakable Betrothal - (1949) - short story
• All Else Is Dust - (1950) - novelette
• Let's Do It My Way - (1950) - short story
• The Girl from Mars - (1950) - short story
• Tooth or Consequences - (1950) - short story
• The Tin You Love to Touch - (1951) - short story
• My Struggle by Floyd Scrilch as told to Robert Bloch - (1951) - short story
• Comfort Me, My Robot - (1955) - short story
• The Black Kiss - [Michael Leigh] - (1937) - short story by Robert Bloch and Henry Kuttner
• The End of Science-Fiction - (1951) - short story
• The Tchen-Lam's Vengeance - (1951) - short story
• The Past Master - (1955) - novelette
• You Could Be Wrong - (1955) - short story
• Corn-Fed Genius - (1956) - short story
• Founding Fathers - (1956) - short story
• Before Egypt - (1957) - novella
• Daybroke - (1958) - short story
• This Crowded Earth - (1958) - novella
• The Old College Try - (1963) - short story
• The Mannikin - (1937) - short story

The late, great Robert Bloch (author of Psycho) was a master of macabre humor: he was fond of clever, grisly one-liners, often used as twist endings. He also liked to write about psychotic and psychopathic killers. This solid anthology, put out by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and completed after Bloch's death, honors his legacy with 22 tales about murderers and crazies of various stripes. A good many of the stories, most memorably Esther Friesner's "Lonelyhearts," have Blochian twists at the end. The weakest of the bunch have no other flaw than predictability, and the strongest, such as Ed Gorman's powerful "Out There in the Darkness" are classics of traditional storytelling. You'll find excellent stories here by Denise M. Bruchman, Del Stone Jr., Edo van Belkom, Gary A. Braunbeck, and others. Stephen King contributes a little gem of a tale in which the narrator finds himself in an autopsy room: "It fits. It fits everything with a horrid prophylactic snugness. The dark. The rubbery smell.... Dear God, I'm in a body bag."

When the Bates Motel loomed up out of the storm, Mary Craine thought it was her salvation. The rooms were musty but clean, and the manager, Norman Bates, seemed like a nice enough fellow, if a little strange....

Then Mary met Norman's mother. And the butcher knife.

The nightmare had just begun....

You remember Norman Bates-the shy motel manager with the fatal mother fixation. Now, years after his bout of butchery that horrified the world, Norman is at large again, breaking free from the psycho ward, cutting a shocking swath of blood all the way to Hollywood-where, so it happens, they are making a movie about Norman's life and crimes. A movie that suddenly and terrifyingly becomes a lot like real life....

The new Bates Motel is a tourist attraction, a recreation of the murder site, and the developers are already counting their profits. And there's a new exhibit, one nobody expected: the bloody corpse of a teenage girl crumpled in the front hall, stabbed to death.

Among the avalanche of press and publicity is reporter Amelia Haines, true-crime book writer. She's studying the original Psycho killings and to Amy, the new murders are a golden opportunity-if she can be part of the investigation, perhaps track down the killer herself, then her fame, and her fortune, will be assured. But catching the madman won't be easy . . . the town is full of suspects, and Amy's best informants keep turning up murdered. If she isn't careful, Amelia Haines may be the next permanent guest at the Bates Motel. . . .

Best known as the author of "Psycho", Robert Bloch is world-renowned for his stories of horror, mystery, fantasy, and science fiction. Many of the 25 stories in this first volume of "The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch" have been unavailable for decades. The stories are in his classic style of gripping suspense, science fiction and fantasy.

As Bloch writes, "These stories in this collection have a common theme; they deal with monsters. Some of the monsters are human, some are not-- but all of them embody, in one way or another, the fears common to us in our dreams. We call these monsters by many names-- ghosts, vampires, extraterrestrials, changelings. But we recognize them for what they are; manifestations of the secret dreads and desires which lurk beneath the surface of consciousness."

Table of Contents:

• Mannikins of Horror - (1939) - short story
• Almost Human - (1943) - short story
• The Beasts of Barsac - (1944) - novelette
• The Skull of the Marquis de Sade - (1945) - short story
• The Bogey Man Will Get You - (1946) - short story
• Frozen Fear - (1946) - short story
• The Tunnel of Love - (1948) - short story
• The Unspeakable Betrothal - (1949) - short story
• Tell Your Fortune - (1950) - novelette
• The Head Man - (1950) - short story
• The Shadow from the Steeple - (1950) - novelette
• The Man Who Collected Poe - (1951) - short story
• Lucy Comes to Stay - (1952) - short story
• The Thinking Cap - (1953) - novelette
• Constant Reader - (1953) - short story
• The Pin - (1953) - short story
• The Goddess of Wisdom - (1954) - short story
• The Past Master - (1955) - novelette
• Where the Buffalo Roam - (1955) - short story
• I Like Blondes - (1956) - short story
• You Got to Have Brains - (1956) - short story
• A Good Imagination - (1956) - short story
• Dead-End Doctor - (1956) - short story
• Terror in the Night - (1956) - short story
• All on a Golden Afternoon - (1956) - short story
• Founding Fathers - (1956) - short story
• String of Pearls - (1956) - short story

Twilight Zone: The Movie is a novelization by Robert Bloch based on the screenplays of John Landis; George Clayton Johnson & Richard Matheson & Josh Rogan; and Richard Matheson.

You're travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Next-stop... The Twilight Zone.

Table of Contents:

• "Time Out" (aka "Bill") - a novelette where demonic tyrants of the past live again to terrorize a man who carries the seeds of their hate into the present.
• "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (aka "Valentine") - a novelette where evil perches on a plane wing taunting the psychic who dare not believe his eyes -- and still hold onto his mind.
• "It's a Good Life" (aka "Helen")- a novella where the power to control the world rests in the fantasy-frought imagination of a lonely child.
• "Kick the Can" (aka "Bloom") - a novelette where the joys of eternal youth are offered to those who remember childhood and are not too old to dream.