Episode 108: Dean R. Koontz

Another exciting episode of the Paperback Warrior Podcast. In this episode, Eric discusses the life and work of legendary best-selling thriller writer Dean R. Koontz, complete with the numerous pseudonyms he used throughout his career and the many genres he contributed to. In addition, Eric reviews an iconic horror novel from the 1800s and reads a horrifying "when animals attack" story titled "Weasels Ripped My Flesh". You can stream the episode on this platform and on the Paperback Warrior blog HERE. Also, be sure to view the entirely different, exclusive video ranking Eric's favorite Dean R. Koontz novels HERE. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hi, I'm Eric, and I host the Paperback Warrior podcast
and contribute to the blog right here at Paperbackwarrior dot com,
where you can find hundreds upon hundreds of reviews of
vintage fiction and access over one hundred episodes of this
very podcast. I'm finishing out the spooky season here at
Paperback Warrior. I hope you've enjoyed all the horror reviews
and content we've posted this month. On November one, we're

(00:43):
going to get back to high octane adventure action, western
crime fiction, and so forth. Now, today's episode contains a
feature on the most popular horror author of all time
outside of Stephen King. That man is Dean R. Kootz,
and I'll provide you a little personal connection to koots,
provide a brief overview of his life, and dig into
all the series titles and various pseudonyms he used in

(01:06):
his career. In addition, I'm going to have a companion
video attached to this podcast episode that you're going to
find over on our YouTube channel. It's going to rank
my favorite Dean Arkuon's horror novels from number twenty down
to number one. That video is a Smorgas board of
awesome vintage book covers with different editions of the books
throughout the years. So please check it out because the

(01:27):
video took me days to create and I don't want
my hard work to be wasted. I'm selfish like that,
you know. But seriously, the YouTube channel has exploded. I
have shopping trip videos up there, shorts on book reviews, authors,
just all sorts of stuff posting there weekly, if not daily.
Also on this podcast episode, I've got some new books
to tell you about, and a review of a classic

(01:49):
horror novel. Maybe you've heard of this one. It's called
Bram Stoker's Dracula. Also, at the end of this episode,
I'm going to be reading the story Weasels Ripped My Flesh,
which I'm going to elaborate on in just a second.
But first, I wanted to do a little thank you
to the showdnors these past few weeks. Their generosity is

(02:12):
greatly appreciated, and I wanted to take a moment to
thank them, so sincere gratitude going out to Ida Umpers,
Bob Dice, James Seeger, Peter Robel, kr Training, Derek Wallace,
and David Kolowski. I also wanted to say thanks to
some authors and publishers that have expressed an interest in
Paperback Warrior. Whether it's this podcast, the blog, the reviews,

(02:35):
and so forth, whatever it is, I get feedback from
these fine folks and they just keep me updated with
new books and so forth. Big thanks to Starkhouse Press
and Greg Sheppard. I correspond with Greg occasionally through email
and he's such a great resource for paperback information. Also,
he keeps me on tap of books galore, and I
appreciate that. Additionally, Lee Goldberg, who's also a wonderful resource.

(02:57):
Anytime I needed to archive newspaper article, He's quick to provide.
I mean, he is a best selling author and he's
in the movie business and he still takes time out
for lowly me and that's something special. I'm also kept
in the loop on books being issued by his Brash
Books Publishing Company and his Cutting Edge Books publishing House
as well. Also a big thanks to Steven Mertz for
always being there for me. He's another excellent resource for

(03:19):
book and author information. He's a great friend and terrific writer,
and he's one of the reasons Paperback Worrior exists in
the first place. I also really appreciate author and editor
Paul Bishop, who's another excellent resource on books and publishers.
He's been a great supporter of the show and I
really value our friendship. Also, I really appreciate the folks
at Wolfpack Publishing and rough Edges Press that always make
their books available to me. Even though we don't cover

(03:41):
too many contemporary books, They're always there for me and
I do appreciate it tremendously. A gentleman I mentioned earlier,
Bob Dice. He's also one of my closest supporters and
is always just a click away from providing me resources
on Men's Action Venture magazines, cover artists, publishing, information, magazine history,
and so forth. He's a great friend. He keeps me
in the loop as well on everything that's happening with

(04:04):
the Man Quarterly magazines and the Men's Action Adventure Library
books that he edits, writes and contributes to. Plus, my
wife loves seeing Facebook photos of his lovely wife and
all the tasty cocktails she.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Drinks on Fridays, So there's that.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
I also wanted to say thanks to Claire Vigers for
recently reaching out to me recently with some recommendations on books. Also,
Michael Siroy for his recommendations on Alfred Hitchcock and the
Three Investigator books. Also thanks to Will Murray as well,
the amazing writer of contemporary pulp fiction, for assisting me
recently on a question I had about a pulp author.
And I also love Audrey and rich Over at Bold

(04:40):
Venture Press. Also thank you to Steve Hawkinsmith, Jerret Keene,
Matthew John and Terence Lahue for sending me some of
their books recently. And a big thank you to Scott Rouse,
who's promise to buy me lunch the next time I'm
in Detroit. I've never been to Detroit, but for free food. Listen,
I'll fly anywhere. All right, so outright now is the
twenty twenty four edition of the Men's Adventure magazine story

(05:05):
in art anthology Weasels Ripped My Flesh. This was first
published as a black and white edition back in twenty thirteen,
which I own, but this new version is an upgraded
edition with better quality cover and interior scans, including additional
scans and artwork, plus their special sidebars that weren't included
in the original publication. The book is available in both

(05:27):
softcover and deluxe hardcover editions, and those are available on
Amazon and in the US it's also available through Men's
pulpmags dot com. So that's exciting news. And man, I
love all of those creature attack books that BaHaB and
Wyatt collaborate on. It's really awesome to celebrate this book's
release again. I'm going to read this title story from

(05:47):
this book, Weasels ripped my flesh at the very end
of this episode, so be sure to stick around for that.
More new stuff coming out. Starkhouse Press has two books
for November listed so far. The first is Ghost of
Society by E. Philip Oppenheim. It was originally published in
nineteen oh eight and features an intro by Curtis Evans.

(06:09):
This is sort of a vigilante type of novel with
these seven bright individuals that decide to form a little
gang to right wrongs, rob from the rich, and then
contribute the spoils to needy hospitals. But they unfortunately rob
the wrong man and all hell breaks loose. The other
November book from Starkhouse is The Nuremberg Papers by Jonathan E.

(06:32):
Lewis Now. This is a contemporary novel set in the
nineteen eighties and features a private detective named Mike Lavenus,
who becomes entangled in an international mystery when he's hired
to find a client's missing husband.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
To be sure to look for both of those.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Next month, Bold Venture Press will publish their newest issue
of pulp Adventures. This will be issued number forty six
and has a salute to King Kong. It'll release on
November eighth. Also from Bold Venture Press on November eight
is a brand new The Destroyer book Imagine that. It's
called Fresh Blood and features twelve new short stories based

(07:08):
on the Remo Williams character. The authors that are included
in this book are Warren Murphy, Will Murray, James Mulaney,
Mark Ellis, and Gerald Welch, among others. You can also
get this in a paperback, hardcover and ebook. New from
the Rogues in the House Presents Podcast is a new
book by Matt John titled to Walk On Worlds. It

(07:32):
is described as collecting nearly a decade's worth of dark
fantasy and a fistful of news stories. Printed here for
the first time, I like the blurb on the back here.
The blurb says, from the Burning Isle to the hellish
depths of Zanzara, beyond the demon haunted planets circling the
Black Rim. Only maxis the Meddler may walk on worlds,

(07:55):
and woe to any other who tries. This is out
now in both ebook and paperback as well, and I
should have a copy of this in the mail pretty soon,
so I'm looking forward to reading it. Okay, now that
I've cleared our plates and beverages, let's get down to
some tasty dessert. I'll turn on some dining music for
us right now.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
To serve up the feature today, I need to tell
you about three childhood friends of mine. As many of
you know, I grew up in the Bible Belt in
a small town in Virginia. I didn't really have a neighborhood.
My closest neighbor was an old woman who never had
water or septic at her house. Like seriously, she would
pump her own water from a hand well that was

(08:44):
on our property, and she carried these stainless steel buckets
of water through a little trail or pathway through the
woods back to her house. She also collected rain water
from her roof and a cistern to use four I
really don't know what she used it for anyway. The
point is I had no one else around except my buddies.
Their names were Stephen King, Dean Kotz, and John Saw.

(09:07):
They spent long summer days or snow days with me
on the back porch or inside in my room under
a lamp, just chilling. Seriously, I spent a lot of
time reading these authors, and I'm sure some of you
did as well. Stephen King was really my first horror
author that I read, but Dean kots was right there
around the same time. So the closest city to me

(09:29):
was Roanoke, Virginia, And when I was a seventh grader
in middle school, Ronoke got a Sam's Club. It was
a big deal. This was around nineteen ninety one. Up
until this point, none of us, my parents included, had
any idea what a Sam's Club was. And I can
remember going in there with my parents and just the
shock and awe of all this food. Then I found

(09:52):
the book aisle, and back then Sam's Club had a
ton of books. I remember like it was yesterday, my
parents went over to the and food section and they
just left me in the book aisle to just go
completely nuts. I think at the time I was probably
searching for a Stephen King book.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Or something.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
But I saw Dean Coons's Cold Fire hardcover book and
it had just been released. I mean, this thing had
new written all over it. The cover was amazing with
these blues and purples, and there was a lighthouse on it,
which was really a big thing for me. I love lighthouses.
And the synopsis on it sounded great because they mentioned

(10:29):
something about an old farm and something supernatural affecting the
main character. I was thinking, maybe this guy's like Stephen
King or something like that. But the problem was the
book was twenty three bucks new, and even with the
Sam's Club discount, it still made it like seventeen dollars.
I had no birthday in Christmas money left, and my

(10:50):
allowance was typically between five and ten bucks. My parents
were used to me buying the Hardy Boys books, or
my dad was buying Westerns, and those books were only
like four ninety five or something. Seventeen bucks way out
of the question. But I was able to convince my
parents that I really really needed an advance on my
allowance in the worst way, and that this Cold Fire

(11:13):
book may change my life forever.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
And it sort of did. So.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Cold Fire wasn't the greatest book ever. But it was
still pretty darn good. I then went down this rabbit
hole at my local library and found more Dean Coons.
I even discovered that they had his books at the
high school library when I landed there as a freshman.
And I know you're sick of hearing about my childhood
at this point, but one more quick thing. Each summer,
my parents drove to Arizona in a small compact Toyota Corolla.

(11:41):
Now I was an only child, so I had the
entire back seat to roam, which was pretty darn small.
But that was three straight days of interstate driving with
very little air conditioned and hot, sticky vinyl seats. But
I always brought my stack of Dean Coon's paperbacks with
me on these trips, and I can vividly remember sitting

(12:02):
in the backseat reading The Voice of the Night, The Mask,
The Face of Fear, Whispers, and so forth. How do
I remember all this because I still have all of
my Dean Kuhn's paperbacks and hardbacks from my childhood. And
somehow memories can just link up to.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
The books you read at that moment in time. Isn't
that weird? Anyway?

Speaker 1 (12:23):
That was my introduction to Dean R. Kuntz, and I
think that serves as a pretty good introduction to the
feature on this author. So, Dean Kuntz was born and
raised in Pennsylvania. His father was an alcoholic, mentally ill,
and unstable. His dad had over thirty different jobs and
put the family through this horrible hardship. Kontz was close

(12:43):
to his mother, and she died when he was just
twenty one years old. He graduated from Shippensburg State College,
where he won a fiction competition there sponsored by Atlantic Monthly.
He was later employed as a type of social worker,
communicating with underprivileged children in the Appalachian area. He eventually
started writing nights and weekends and moved on to become

(13:04):
an English teacher. Now kons really wanted to be a
full time writer, and his wife, who was also his
high school sweetheart, gave him an awesome offer. She told
him that he could quit his job and write full
time for five years. She told him if he couldn't
make it in five years, he'd never make it. After

(13:25):
five years, his wife had quit her job just to
run her husband's booming new business. He was a full
time novelist. See that's what I'm talking about I've been
writing the same book for decades because my wife refuses
to allow me a five year break from working. If
she would just agree to move into a cardboard box
with me under a bridge for just a few years,

(13:47):
we could totally totally make it off of her job
income alone, and I could write novels and make millions
of dollars off of movie options. So back to Koont's.
The first venture into publication was mostly concentrated on science
fiction and fantasy. The novel Starquest was his first book,

(14:08):
and it was published in nineteen sixty eight as part
of an ACE double with Doom of the Green Planet
by Emil Petajah.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
I'm not sure if I'm saying that name right.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
Coons followed this with more ACE double titles, including The
follow of the Dream Machine and Fear That Man in
nineteen sixty nine, and then Soft Comes the Dragons and
Dark of the Woods in nineteen seventy. Now Coons had
eleven books published by Lancer between nineteen seventy and nineteen
seventy three. Five of these books were written under the

(14:42):
pseudonym of Deanna Dwyer, and they're all Gothic romance novels.
With titles like The Dark of Summer and the Legacy
of Terror. The other six Lancer novels published during this
time were science fiction or dark fantasy.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Now.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
He also had a novel published by Curtis in nineteen
seventy one, Banham in nineteen seventy two, and Dall Books
in nineteen seventy two. He also continued with Ace as well,
with another novel in nineteen seventy two. Also in nineteen
seventy two, Random House published what I would like to
think of as the very first traditional Dean R.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Kons novel. It's called Chase.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
What I mean by that is a book that fits
his niche of suspense, field thrillers or horror. The book
was written using the pseudonym of K. R. Dwyer, which
abbreviated as just Konts's initials backwards. Coonts was twenty five
years of age upon the book's publication. This short novel
was later revised by Coonts and issued as part of
the Strange Highways collection, which we'll talk about in a

(15:43):
moment now. Tom Simon had the opportunity to read and
review the novel.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
He said, it's.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
About a young man named Ben who has just returned
to the US from service in the Vietnam War. He
became a sort of local celebrity in his hometown for
winning the Congressional Medal of Honor. Now Ben is suffering
from PTSD and spends his time in a rented room,
drinking whiskey and watching old movies. On a late night drive,
Ben parks at a lover's lane sort of spot and

(16:09):
comes to the aid of a couple teens who are
attacked by a mysterious creepy guy in the woods. The
creep kills one kid, but Ben's able to save the
other kid. Ben's heroism is thrust into the front pages
of the local paper. But this creepy guy escaped and
he's now calling Ben and stalking him. Tom really enjoyed
the book and said it's a basic suspense novel and

(16:31):
a social message on the psychological cost of war and
the way the Vietnam War veterans were treated on the
home front. Again, the book is called Chase, and it
was originally published under the pseudonym K. R.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Dwyer. Now.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
Nineteen seventy three was a very productive year for Kons.
He had the aforementioned Lancer publication, but also four more
books were published using the pseudonym K. R. Dwyer. Again,
he writes what I consider his second traditional Koontz novel.
The book is called Shattered and was also published by
Random House. Just like Chase, it was also reprinted in

(17:05):
the nineteen eighties with the coon's name.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
Attached to it.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
This is sort of a take on those road rage
horror type movies such as Joyride, Duel Road Games.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
And so forth.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
So the guy named Alex Mary's Courtney, and together with
her young brother, they travel from Philadelphia to San Francisco.
But along the way they begin being stalked by a
psychopath driving a van. You know what our parents told
us about strangers in vans will increase that paranoia by
like a hundred.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
This is one.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Long chase, and the narrative is pretty tight and convincing.
I loved the relationship the two had, and it was
almost like they were parents to Courtney's brother, because he's
really young. He's like nine or ten years old or
something like that. Of course, the suspense is finding out
who the driver is. This one was really enjoyable, and
I also loved the nineteen eighties artwork for the paperback

(17:55):
with that guy looking in the rearview mirror. You've probably
seen it before. Also in nineteen seventy three, Coons was
able to get his sexy military comedy Hanging On published
by m Evans. I've heard mixed reactions to this book
and I've never read it. Supposedly has graphic sex and
is filled with hygiens during World War II as soldiers
operate behind enemy lines. The covers always made me think

(18:18):
that this was some sort of tie in book to
the Mash television show, so I've always passed on it.
But this is a standalone book. I've never read it.
Also in nineteen seventy three, the first of a three
book series was launched. The series is unofficially titled the
Bike Tucker Series or what fans referred to as the
Black Bat Mystery Series. The three books were Blood Risk,

(18:42):
published in nineteen seventy three, Surrounded in nineteen seventy four,
and The Wall of Mask in nineteen seventy five. All
three novels were authored under the name Brian Coffee and
were published by Bob's Merrill. Now these are crime fiction
heist novels that were bably an homage to Donald Westlig

(19:02):
Lionel White, or Dan J.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
Marlow.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
The books star an art dealer and professional thief named
Mike Tucker. In the first book, his crew ends up
stealing from the mafia, which puts them in the crosshairs
of the syndicate. The second book features Mike Tucker robbing
a shopping mall in Santa Monica, but then becoming trapped
inside when police surround the place. In the Wall of
Mask Tucker's in Mexico to steal an ancient wall of

(19:28):
exotic mask I've never read these books, but I've never
met anyone who had anything bad to say about them.
From what I can gather, they're just average heist novels,
nothing more, nothing less. Also on his crime fiction kick,
Coons also wrote a crime novel titled Strike Deep in
nineteen seventy four under the pseudonym of Anthony North. This

(19:49):
book features a crew breaking into the basement of the Pentagon.
The book is supposed to feature some really forward thinking
of the part of Coon's for its early use of
data hacking. Again ever read this book either. Coontz continued
as science fiction writing in nineteen seventy four and nineteen
seventy five with two books, and then The Long Sleep
in nineteen seventy five, using the pseudonym of John Hill.

(20:13):
The Long Sleep was published by a Popular Library. In
nineteen seventy five, Berkeley published Kont's science fiction novel Nightmare Journey.
Also in nineteen seventy five, Kontz sees his science fiction
slash horror novel Invasion, published by Laser under the pseudonym
of Aaron Wolfe.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Now.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
This book would later be revised by Coots and published
under his own name as Winter Moon in nineteen ninety four.
In this novel, a guy named Jack and his wife
and kid inherit this large ranch in rural Montana. Some
sort of telepathic and physical force maybe aliens, invades their
minds and cuts off all communication during this heavy blizzard.

(20:54):
The force then becomes a creature and the family must
fight for their lives. I thought this book was great,
and I love the panic of being trapped in a
snowstorm with this invading malevolent force. I have no way
of comparing Winter Moon to Invasion, because I've never read
the Invasion book, but I assume the two are very similar.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Now the k R.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Dwire name is used again in nineteen seventy five to
author the book Dragonfly for Random House. I haven't read this,
but the synopsis sounds great. A Chinese nationalist is carrying
a biochemical agent that will kill hundreds of thousands of
people and set off a war with China. I heard
the book was just okay. In nineteen seventy six, Kontz's

(21:37):
homage to High Adventure was published. The book is called
Prison of Ice and it was written under the pseudonym
of David Axton. Now this book was also revised and
reprinted in nineteen ninety five as Ice Bound, using Kontz's name.
The premise is kind of nuts. This salvage boat is

(21:58):
trying to tow an iceberg, which is going to be
used to provide water for droughts. Seems silly. The salvage
boat gets stranded, and then there's this assassin on board.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
I haven't read the book, but I've never really heard
anyone speak negatively of it. Now we get into what
I consider the best era of Dean R. Kunz's career,
the late seventies, the eighties and nineties. Night Chills was
published in nineteen seventy six, and it's a straight up
horror novel about a town being affected by a government
facility that's creating mind control to sway citizens into outrageous

(22:31):
acts of violence. It was followed a year later by
another traditional horror novel titled The Vision. This one concerns
a psychic who helps the police find serial killers. She
starts to gain knowledge about an upcoming murder, and there's
some mystery in there, with her husband possibly being a
homicidal maniac. Konz's nineteen seventy seven book Face of Fear

(22:53):
was authored using his crime fiction pseudonym of Brian Coffee.
Remember the same name he used on those Mike Tucker
heist books. Now, this book is really interesting. Essentially, it's
about a man named Graham and his girlfriend Connie that
are both trapped in a skyscraper with a killer nicknamed
the Butcher. The idea of being locked in a skyscraper,

(23:16):
or at least a very large building with killers trying
to find you may sound familiar.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Right.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
If it doesn't, here's two words, die hard.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Now.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Diehard was based on a book titled Nothing Last Forever,
which featured a retired detective named Joe Lalan attempting to
save his daughter from terrorists that have invaded her office
inside of a skyscraper on Christmas Eve. See some similarities.
I know it's a stretch, but I really loved the
face of fear, and I loved all the cat and
mouse stuff as the couple ran from floor to floor

(23:50):
and all the office spaces trying to hide from this killer.
They also run this elevator gauntlet just trying to avoid him.
This was also adapted into a made for TV film
in nineteen ninety. The Key to Midnight was published in
nineteen seventy nine by Pocketbooks, with Kontz using the name
Lee Nichols. I haven't read this one, but supposedly it's
about a woman singing in a Japanese nightclub that may

(24:13):
actually be a senator's missing daughter from ten years ago. Conveniently,
she has amnesia and she can't remember who captured her.
In nineteen eighty, Whispers was published by Putnam Berkeley. It's
about a crazy guy who keeps breaking in and attacking
this girl named Hillary.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
She ends up teaming with a.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
Detective and they investigate the guy's background with the very
real possibility that he's dead and how he may have
had a homicidal Twin. I really liked this book. Also
in nineteen eighty, Kontz breaks out the Brian Coffee pen
name again to write The Voice of the Night. This
one is about a new kid in town who innocently

(24:51):
befriends another kid his age. Then he learns that this
kid he befriended is really a psychopath that wants to
rape and kill Again. I liked this book as well.
I thought it was really really disturbing. Also in nineteen eighty,
The Funhouse was published, with Kont's using the name Owen West,

(25:11):
so this book has a really strange conception. Konts was
provided a screenplay for the film The Funhouse, being directed
by Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Toby Hooper. The film wasn't
released until nineteen eighty one, but Koontz's novelization of the
film was published a year or at least several months
prior to the movie, so it felt like an original novel.

(25:35):
What's not the like about this book? I love Carney
stories about the people who work on traveling carnivals. There's
a guy who's a Satan worshiper planning on impregnating this
teen girl with the Antichrist. I mean seriously. The team
then gives birth to the creature and then she kills it.
Decades later, the same teen now has a kid of
her own that gets pregnant. The mother's afraid that the

(25:57):
teen will birth another awful creature that could would in fact,
be the Antichrist. It all revolves around murders that happen
in the funhouse while the carnival's in town. It's just
a crazy, crazy book. And I'll confess I've never seen
the movie, but the book is over the top and
goofy enough to actually be enjoyable. The Mask was published
a year later in nineteen eighty one, and also used

(26:19):
the name Owen West. By the way, most of these
late seventies and nineteen eighties books with pseudonyms are all
reprinted with Kons's name on them. Now, it reminded me
of what Jack Higgins did once he became a household name,
just reprinted all of his books with that billion dollar name.
The Mask has a couple that can't have children, inviting
a child into their home in hopes of fostering her

(26:39):
or maybe even adopting her. But she could be a psycho,
or she just has psychos from her past. I like
the book, and I really like the mystery behind the Girl.
In nineteen eighty two, Konts used the Lee Nichols name
again to write The House of Thunder. This was a
really cool book with a woman with amnesia being held
prisoner in this mysterious hospital. I really really love this book.

(27:02):
Now Phantoms was published in nineteen eighty three. This is
what a lot of people consider to be his best book, Folks,
this book is freaking terrifying. So the main characters are
two sisters, Jenny and Lisa, who have returned to their
hometown in Snowfield, California. This place is tiny and it's

(27:24):
in a remote area in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. When
they arrive in town, they discover that the entire population
has vanished, aside from a few bodies that have all
been torn up or have a strange sort of death
associated with them. Also, the town's phones and I think
the power it doesn't work either. This was before cell phones, people.

(27:45):
This is really a thick atmosphere of dread in town,
with these sisters being the only living people for miles. Eventually,
they get to a phone outside of town and a
sheriff arrives along with a biohazard unit. The reason for
the murders and disappearance of the population is a Lovecraft
sort of Ancient Ones type of deal. Listen, this was

(28:06):
just an extraordinary novel. There was also a film adaptation
that I thought was really good for the film's first half,
and then it just simply fell apart.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Again.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
The Lee Nichols name is used in nineteen eighty four
for Dean Kons to write Twilight.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
This book would.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
Later be reprinted under Kons's name as Servants of Twilight.
It's another good book that concerns a crazed cult trying
to capture and kill this boy that they believe is
the anti Christ.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
This was also a movie.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Darkfall was published in nineteen eighty four by Berkeley. I've
heard this book is great. I've never read it.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
I've often had it in my hand.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
To read throughout the years, but for whatever reason, I've
just never read it. It's about a detective in New
York who's investigating savage murders that may be originating from
a monster living under the city. Twilight Eyes was published
in nineteen eighty five by a Land of Enchantment Books.
This Thing goes for Big Bucks. Now it was illustrated,
but the book was reprinted as a mass market paperback

(29:04):
by Berkeley in nineteen eighty seven. This is a fantastic book,
and a lot of people point to this one also
as Kunz's best novel. If you've seen John Carpenter's film
They Live, then this is sort of.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
In that style.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
A carnival worker can see goblins that are appearing as humans.
He travels the carnival circuit so he can kill the goblins.
Of course, to everyone else that appears that he's just
killing innocent people. So the walls after him kind of
reminded me of when people were running around killing vampires.
To everyone else, that dis looks like they were killing humans,
So it's kind of on that same take. The main

(29:39):
character can throw daggers, so that element was really cool
as well. Again, this was just a fantastic novel. The
Door to December was published in nineteen eighty five using
the pseudonym Richard Page. The premise was a girl who
had secret experiments performed on her and her mother's trying
to find out more information about it. I've never read it.
Strangers wasblished in nineteen eighty six, and it's about a

(30:01):
group of people that converge at a desert stop called
Motel Tranquility. There they learned that all of them have
something in common from their past that may include secret
government experiments. I've never read this one either. I think
I've started it a few times throughout the years, but
I just never got into it. Watchers was published in
nineteen eighty seven, once again a shadowy government operation conducting

(30:25):
business in a top secret laboratory that have somehow allowed
their genetically altered creatures to escape. This was also made
into a movie starring Mark Singer from the Beast Master
Movies and also the v television show in nineteen eighty seven.
The expanded version of Twilight Eyes was published. In nineteen

(30:46):
eighty eight, Kent saw his time travel novel Lightning published.
It's about a girl who has a repeated guardian come
into her life at different times over a thirty year period.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
I love the book.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
It was really good, and of course it has time travel,
it also has romance and it has espionage set in
World War Two, so really diverse. Novel Midnight was published
in nineteen eighty nine, and I really enjoyed this one. Also,
it kind of works like a werewolf novel, but it's
really just humans that turn into ravenous, savage people due

(31:18):
to some kind of weird lab experiment. Listen Koon's loves
his lab experiments, his dogs, his women on the run
from secret government operatives. These are all in his novels
and stories, and it's one of the reasons why Dean
Kunz takes a lot of flak from readers and fans
because he recycles the same thing over and over. In

(31:39):
nineteen ninety, The Bad Place came out. In that book,
a guy wakes up and discovers he may be killing
people in his sleepwalking or in some type of unconscious state.
I've never read that book. Shadow Fires was published in
nineteen ninety and I believe this was a novel that
Coon's had originally started as Lee Nichols, but it was
reprinted with Koons's.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Name on it.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
It's a decent book about a woman on the run
from secret operatives. Obviously, Cold Fire was published in nineteen
ninety one, and we briefly talked.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
About that one earlier. I really liked it.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Sort of has like a drifter feel to it, as
the character kind of drifts along and ends up in
I think it's Maine or California or something, and there's
there's like an alien presence. Hideaway was published in nineteen
ninety two, features a guy who dies for a few minutes,
is resuscitated, and then has a psychic link with a

(32:31):
serial killer. It was made into a movie as well,
which I hated because Jeff Goldbloom was in it. Which
I also loved the movie because it had my teen crush,
Alicia Silverstone in it. She's gorgeous. I didn't love this book, though.
I'm going to sort of drop off here and just
do book counts. There's just too many books.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
To get through on this episode.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
Koontz's hot period lasted throughout the nineteen nineties, where he
had sixteen novels published either new books or reprints of
earlier novels using his household name, with just a few
standalone books thrown in. Here's some of the series titles,
including a series from nineteen ninety eight nineteen ninety nine.
The Moonlight Bay Series was a two book series published

(33:15):
from ninety eight to ninety nine. It's about a guy
who suffers from a rare disease who stumbles upon a
government conspiracy at a military compound when.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
His father dies.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
There's also the Odd Thomas series, which ran from two
thousand and three through twenty fifteen, and it featured seven
total books plus three graphic novels. Now, this series is
sort of like a ghost whisper sixth sense thing, where
this short order cook can see ghost and then he
goes out and attempts to solve the mysteries surrounding their deaths.

(33:47):
I read the very first Odd Thomas book and I
didn't care for it. I just never could connect with
a character, and I just thought the whole idea was
kind of silly. A movie was also based on the
series debut. The Frankenstein series was five novels published between
two thousand and five and twenty eleven. This is sort
of a serial killer thriller set in New Orleans, with

(34:10):
a guy named Victor Helios who was once Frankenstein, attempting
to stop the engineered killers he's brought to life that
are murdering people in New Orleans. I've never tried the series,
I believe there's also graphic novels or comics associated with
this series. There's also the Jane Hawk series, which lasted
five novels from twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen. The series

(34:32):
may sound familiar. It's about a woman who's mourning over
her husband's suicide when she stumbles upon a conspiracy created
by a secret society that have evil intentions.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
I've never read it.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
Nameless as a series of ebooks that ran six installments
in twenty nineteen, which were called Season one, and then
another season two, consisting of six more installments. These are
crime fiction e books about a vigilanti who travels the
country corruption. His past is a mystery, who he is
and what his real purpose is. I've never tried these books.

(35:07):
The mcconnie trilogy of books was published as novella e
books and also one audio only installment. These coordinate in
some way with another novel of Konz's called Ashley Bell.
I don't know anything about these books. So Kontz has
managed to put out at least two books per year
his entire career. He's still writing, and he even has

(35:28):
a new book coming out next month called The Forest
of Lost Souls, followed by another book in May titled
Going Home in the Dark Now. An interview I read
in La Times had an interesting tidbit about Dean Kunz.
He explained to the reporter that he does not have
the Internet. He uses a computer with no Internet, and

(35:48):
at the end of a day of typing, he saves
his work to a floppy disc, which I honestly think
is probably a thumb drive. And Konz is just calling
at a floppy disk and he walks it down the
hall to his assistant. He also says that to this
day he still prints out all the pages he typed
that day, puts them in a bag in the freezer.

(36:10):
He does this in case of a fire. It's weird,
and somehow it seems admirable.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
At the time of the interview he had moved from
a twenty eight thousand foot house to a seven thousand
foot house to downsize.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
I did like in the.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Interview how he condemned the wealthy people we're talking about,
like uber rich celebrities and writers and so forth on,
how they continue to be arrogant in thinking that just
because of their social status or their money, that they
can just fix all the world's problems. Kuns is still
married to his high school sweetheart. Her name is Gerda.

(36:46):
They had no children. They've donated millions of dollars to
Canon Companions for independence. They're really big and bigger dogs
and their dog lovers. There were seventeen total films that
have been adapted from Dean Kunz's work. I thought it
would be fun to do this. Here's some popular myths
about Koontz, some true and some aren't. Did Koontz write

(37:07):
for the television show Chips. Yes, he wrote one episode
using the name Brian Coffee because the editors butchered the
episode so bad. Now, the Library of Congress or the
Copyright Office have quote verified unquote that Dean Koontz wrote
a porn novel titled Hung using the name Leonard Christ

(37:29):
in nineteen seventy. Koontz has repeatedly denied this claim and
has asked for proof from the Library of Congress on
where their sources lie in incorrectly verifying Kontz wrote this book. However,
I couldn't quite grasp whether a different book titled Hung
was actually written by Koontz and then altered so much
by an unauthorized publisher that Koontz now claims the book

(37:52):
isn't his because of all the changes. I really couldn't
get the full story behind hung If you know the story,
let me know.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
But it was a miss to me.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
Black River was never a novel. This was originally a
pitch for a movie that Kontz contributed to with a
teleplay writer that was bought by the Fox Network. This
was to be the beginning of a proposed series of
two hour movies about a creepy town. Fox ordered that
Kontz write a novelette to serve as the basis of

(38:21):
the first two hour movie. This novelette appeared in Ed
Gorman's mystery Scene. The movie was awful and the network
backed out of the movie deal, and that.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Was it for Black River.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
Darkness Comes isn't a different novel than Dark Fall. They're
the same book. Kontz never used the pseudonym of Shane Stevens,
and despite book dealers claiming they have secret books written
by Kontz's Stevens, they're all false claims. Kontz was never
Shane Stevens. Coontz doesn't make many public appearances. He's really

(38:52):
a private guy and I totally respect that. AnyWho, I
hope you enjoyed this feature on dn R Kontz My
source was the Dean Kunz website, which thankfully has a
detailed dive in the Konts's books and also a separate
section just for collectors. Also use the Collecting Kont's website
and Christynnelson dot com blog. Again, be sure to visit

(39:15):
the Paperback Warrior YouTube channel to view my top twenty
ranking of Kont's books, including capsule reviews of those books
with tons and tons of covers. Okay, on to Bram
Stoker's Dracula. This is probably the earliest book I've reviewed
here on the show, or even written about on the blog.
Dracula was written by an irishman named Bram Stoker, and

(39:38):
it was published in eighteen ninety seven. It was a
huge success and the most popular horror novel of all time,
although fifty years from now, I think that honor is
probably going to be heaped on Stephen King's it. I
see penny Wise everywhere. Pennywise is like the new Dracula.
But anyway, Dracula kicked off a ton of media, from movies,

(40:00):
to television shows, to action figures, and even to breakfast cereals.
Dracula is often the icon for vampires now. This book
is presented in a non traditional way The entire book
is made up of diary entries, letters, transcripts of phonograph recordings,
telegraph messages, and ship logs. The presentation begins with Jonathan

(40:24):
Harker's diary entries. He's an attorney who's been asked to
travel to the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania to visit Count
Dracula at his castle. The meeting is to settle some
financial affairs and to finish up some real estate purchases. However,
Harker quickly learns that he's become a prisoner, and he's
only able to communicate with his fiancee Mina through letters

(40:47):
that are read and approved by Dracula himself. Harker also
discovers that Dracula is a supernatural being when he sees
the Count behave like a lizard and crawled down the
castle walls. There's parts of the castle that are restricted,
but Harker's able to discover three vampire women that are
also in the castle as well. He also discovers a

(41:07):
cemetery and a chapel where the Count sleeps in a
dirt filled box. Now, Harker eventually returns to England and
is admitted into the hospital where he tells Mina everything
that's happened. Meanwhile, the Count has purchased an old house
in London and arrives by boat in a mysterious fashion. Then,
through diaries and letters, readers are introduced to Lucy, who's

(41:30):
Mina's friend. Lucy begins to behave in strange ways, and
readers quickly discover that she's a victim of Dracula, evident
with puncture holes at her neck and her telepathic connection
with Dracula. Doctor Sewart, who is also seeing strange behavior
in a patient named Renfield, asks for help from his mentor,
doctor van Helsing, who determines that Lucy is a vampire. Together,

(41:54):
they collaborate with other men to find Dracula's home. Eventually, horrible,
horrible things happen Lucy and the books finale has Van
Helsing and the other men chasing Dracula through the snowy mountains,
battling gypsies to kill Dracula. First off, for eighteen ninety seven,
this book is violent, like extremely violent. We have women

(42:17):
having their heads chopped off, garlic stuffed into the mouths
of corpses. There's a baby that's kidnapped and drained of blood.
There's children dying, like really out there stuffed for this
time period, which I guess probably led to the book's success.
The books beginning with Harker and the Castle was just fantastic,
and the last sixty pages is really good with the

(42:38):
mystery determining Dracula's whereabouts and the impending chase.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
The problem is.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
The middle two hundred pages, which is the bulk of
the book. The constant perspective changes from diary entries of
one character to physician notes or letters of another character,
and the rotation.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
It just never.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
Glued me to the story. Also, Van Helsing is pretty
freaking lame. He cries a lot, he speaks like he's
a character in Shakespeare. He's just way too literary for me.
These two hundred pages read like a medical thriller with
these blood transfusions and just endless around the clock care
for Lucy. I'm not sure I would really say that

(43:19):
the book is scary, but there's some scary moments, or
at least some highly stressful tension in segments of the book.
I wish Dracula was a traditional novel, but I know
that it's wide appeal was the style of which it's
presented with these various forms of communication. Some people love it,
others are just underwhelmed by the book. Overall, I'd say

(43:40):
I really enjoyed Dracula, but I'm probably never going to
read it again. I'm one and done just because of
the sluggishness of the middle part of the book. But
if you like horror, then Dracula is a mandatory read.
You have to read it or else you really can't
substantiate your love of vampire literature or something like Salem's Lot,
for example. I also want to read The Vampire by

(44:03):
John William Polidori, which was published in eighteen nineteen. But
ending of this review, I will also say that my
reaction to Dracula may also be skewed due to my
love of all those Hammer horror movies that I'll watch
as a kid and still watch, and the nineteen ninety
two film by Francis Ford Kobola. I think if I

(44:23):
hadn't seen the movies or anything like that, this book
would have had a huge impact. Anyway, that's my review
of Dracula. Next is our final part of this episode,
which is me reading you a story called Weasels Ripped
My Flesh If don't want to listen to the story,
you can back out now. Be sure to check out

(44:43):
paperback Warrior dot COM's blog for hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of reviews. Be sure to check our YouTube channel
subscribe if you haven't done that already. Weasels Ripped My
Flesh by Mike Cammons. I was sprawled on a mound
of hay, shotgun cradled in my arms, and my head
drooping fiercely from want of sleep when that first ripple

(45:06):
of alarm surged through the duck house. Instinctively, my finger
curled on the trigger as I slowly sat upright, blinking
at the soft amber glow of the kerosene lamp suspended
from the rafter. I heard nothing, only the breeders shifting
to Morseley in their pins and their quacking. I had
two loads of fours in the shotgun and a spare

(45:28):
double dose in my pocket in case of trouble, Fox, Skunk,
bobcat trouble. I felt good when I brought the gun
up and lined along the rafter, waiting and praying for
a shot. Then I saw movement silhouetted against the rafters,
rapid and distorted and I stared incredulously as two pin
points of sheer fire suddenly loomed down at me. I

(45:51):
squinted at the animal for a long moment, and when
an instant later, another appeared directly behind it, and I
saw the undulating tail and streak of white running down
the center of its breast. I knew the calls of
my headaches weasels. In two nights, ninety ducks lost to
these murderers. I was so mad I didn't think to

(46:14):
look at the dropboards and see more weasels scampering over
a pitchfork towards me. At least a dozen of them,
big ones a foot long, and they hit me At
the precise moment I squeezed the trigger. Something tore into
my right leg, clawing and biting me, so that the
shot deflected downward, striking the kerosene lamp. Rivlets of flame

(46:36):
coursed along the hay. As I fell to the floor,
screaming and smashing my fist against the hideous, furred body.
I saw flesh and blood rip loose as I pulled
it off of me, and then the duckhouse became a
pyre for as long as it was humanly possible I
tried to smother the flames. I tried, despite the fact
that weasels were clinging to my clothes and crawling up

(46:58):
my back. Could smell the sickening odor of burning fur
and hear the picious lament of the trapped ducks, but
I couldn't get them out because I was rolling on
the floor ripping weasels off my face. It was nineteen
fifty four, a day after Hurricane Carol, and we were
still without electricity. That's the equivalent of a man in

(47:19):
a gun battle with no gun. Incubators die freshly killed,
ducks go bad, and all the vermin in the world
have a field day in the dark night. Without electricity,
the small company which I owned was speeding unalterably towards bankruptcy.
I knew it, yet there wasn't a damned thing could
be done but pray that they'd restore power in sufficient time.

(47:40):
My farm was on the east shore of Connecticut, convenient
to the hurricane, but somehow, miraculously it had been spared naturally.
A few shingles had gotten blown off, and a hunk
of roofing went flying, But on the main we were lucky.
We my wife Mary and I Actually, we were lucky
in several respects. Because of the holiday weekend Labor Day,

(48:02):
I'd sold most of my freshly killed ducks. There was
damned little left except some reserve stock and the ducklings
to be still in incubation, plus the live stock. We
were lucky until the weasels, I mean the first night
of the weasel trouble. We were so beat up from
trying to keep the roof on the house. I slept

(48:22):
right through the frantic quacking That meant sixty dead breeders.
Mary broke the news gently the following dawn. Mike, here's
a cup of coffee. You'd better get up. Time, is it,
I mumbled groggily, six thirty. Joe's back from the feed.
He's downstairs in the kitchen waiting for what I said,

(48:44):
leaning up on one elbow and sipping the coffee. More
bad news, your psychic, Mike. What tell me gently? A
lot of dead ducks? Something got into the breeder house
last night. Joe found a fair sized he said. I nodded,
gulped the coffee, dressed, and went down to the kitchen

(49:05):
to talk with my foreman. Joe Haines and I had
been friends for a long while since the Army. To
be exact, I knew Joe and Joe's thoughts before he did.
I think he and I and two pluckers made it
a fore man operation, with Mary doing the cash, registering
and bookkeeping. It was a small outfit, only a year
and a half old at the time. Fox, I said, nodding,

(49:29):
don't think so, Mike. Looks like maybe a big cat
of some sort, maybe a mink or a family of skunks,
maybe a weasel. Can't tell for sure. Whatever it was,
he went through that house like, let's go, I snapped,
might as well see the worst now thirty yards from
the house. Joe nodded at the fencing. He speculated some

(49:49):
of the wind might have ripped holes along the bottom
of the meshing. I suppose, I said, you're right, or something.
I don't remember. I was sick at my heart and
in my wallet, where it hurt more. All that season
we'd had predator trouble, the usual thing, rats, skunk, even
a bobcat or two. I expected to find the usual
collection of half eaten ducks, but I was wrong. Of

(50:11):
the sixty dead file we'd counted, only three had been
chewed apart the balance had been killed for the sheer
love of spilling blood.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
No lights.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Mike Haines sighed, bastard got in here and had a
ball kerosene lamp didn't FaZe him a damn. I nodded dourly.
Let's see where he got in. So we looked for
more than an hour. We checked the whole length of
the duck house on her.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
Hands and knees.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
We covered every bit of running floor space. Nothing. Then
Haines took the ladder to the roof and check there nothing.
Come on, Joe, I called, Finally, I'll figure something out.
We've got other work to do. Rest the day, I
and Joe and the boys got the farm squared away
as best we could without electricity. Mary drove into town

(50:55):
to plead with the electric company, and they told her
there'd be serviced maybe that evening. Maybe we'd be in
business after all. But evening came and the power was
still off. I swore upside down I'd hock my soul
for an independent motor generator system. After dinner that night,
I walked down to the ducks and checked six lanterns
i'd hung over the pins. Then I went back to

(51:15):
my gun wreck. I was still putting on my jacket,
figuring it'd be a long night's vigil sitting in the hay,
when one of the hands came charging up, Mike, something's
got in the house. A few minutes ago. Right when
my back was turned, it had come again and ripped
the throats of another thirty ducks. And so it was
that I was well on my way down the drain.
I'm not saying that ninety ducks would break us, but

(51:38):
ninety and two days and how many more after that?

Speaker 2 (51:41):
Feel? How did I feel?

Speaker 1 (51:43):
I wanted to crawl into the ground and pull the
lid over me. So I'd gone down that third night,
still no electricity, and stationed myself in a corner of
the duckhouse, the big twelve gage double barrel cradled in
my arms, waiting and praying for a shot and the
mur uttering devil's return for more. And now I had
them lined in my barrels. But it didn't quite work

(52:05):
out as I'd planned. Not now it didn't. Now the
barn was a roaring inferno, with hundreds of ducks cooking alive,
and I was being ripped to pieces by foot long weasels,
their bodies wet with my blood. In the stark reflection
of the pyre, I could see them running out of
the duck house. I clawed great fistfuls of wet hair
from my legs as they pulled on the others, already

(52:26):
tearing me to pieces. I shrieked as the pain burned
my flesh. But I stumbled back to the duckhouse and
found the pitchfork. Then, like some poor demented animal, I
began spearing everything that moved before me. I saw the long,
double pronged steel goug through squirming bodies one, two, four.
I was out of my mind with pain and grief,

(52:49):
yet I didn't stop skewing them, even as I drove
the pitchfork into my own leg to stop them. I
was soaked with blood gushing down my face, blinding me,
staggering around like a madman and shrieking at the top
of my lungs, jabbing, jabbing with that pitchfork until I
thought my arms would come off behind me. The heat
of the holocaust singed my hair. I could smell burning feathers,

(53:12):
I could hear the weird din of roasting live duck,
and it sickened me. I turned for a moment and
stared at the barn, then turned around again and drove
the pitchfork into the shining white breast that was smeared
with my blood. My hands were torn to pieces. Every
time I stopped to claw at some part of me
being attacked, I had to drop the pitchfork. In those moments,
clubbing and tearing with my bare hands, I'd get one

(53:35):
and another two would hit me from behind and start
raking my face. Time after time, I'd dropped to the
river bank and roll over, trying to smother them, but
they'd squirm out from under their fetid breath full of
my lungs, fainting like boxers. For a new attack, I
caught a weasel under his throat and dropped the pitchfork
and held on to his neck with both hands, squeezing

(53:56):
until the narrow mouth popped open and the tongue slid
between the bloody mouth. I squeezed until his body went limp,
then turned and heaved it fully into the fire. The
sound of my voice screaming merry was like an insane person's,
and no doubt I was insane at that point. My
body from the skull down felt as though hundreds of
hot pokers had been driven into the skin, driven there

(54:19):
and held by some devilish horror which I never believed
existed in real life. And then it happened. I began
to feel queasy from loss of blood and that terrible
panic in my heart. I couldn't hold the pitchfork, and
I couldn't stand. The ground moved and knocked the wind
out of me, and I began rolling. I felt hairy
bodies racing over my face. I clawed one from my

(54:41):
cheeks and tried shielding my face my blood. The taste
of warm human blood excited them still further, and the
weasels drew back in a cluster to drink it from
my clothing. I felt a hairy tail cross my face,
and I opened my mouth and bit silently on a leg.
I heard a squeaking sound in my vagueness, and opened
my eyes to see drawn fangs gnashing before me. I

(55:05):
lurched and missed, and crawled to my knees and began
moving away vaguely. I heard my wife's voice above the
roar of the nightmare. I screamed as I fell again,
my chin banging against the handle of the pitchfork, but
it didn't knock me unconscious. It reminded me I was
still in the world of the living, and if I
wanted to go on living, i'd have to get up.

(55:25):
I did, and the nightmare continued. But there were less
of them now, and I could protect myself better.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Now.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
I was a long time in recovering, four months plastic surgery,
and the best of care gave me a face that
seemed strange to me. I didn't recognize it even after
they'd finished restoring my sight. It was the face of
a new man because the old one had been eaten away.
They gave me metal fingers from my left hand in
exchange for the hand i'd lost too, but they didn't

(55:53):
give me a new memory. The old one still sends
me into paroxysms of fear every time someone mentions the
duck business. The night I died slowly by degrees comes
back in all its fantastic horror, and I see the
weasels again, and I remember the smell of blood and feathers.
It makes me wish they'd have eaten my memory along

(56:14):
with the rest of me. So there you have it.
Weasel's ripped my flesh. Two fisted stories from men's adventure
magazines of the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties, and nineteen seventies.
Some of the other authors featured in this book include
Lawrence Block, Robert F. Dorr, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, and

(56:37):
Mario Puzo. The book is edited by Robert Dice with
Josh Allen Friedman and Wyatt Doyle. And you can get
this in softback and hardback available on Amazon dot com
or at Men's pulpmags dot com. And I hope you
enjoyed this episode of the podcast, and I hope you'll
return in two weeks to hear more vintage paperback reviews

(57:00):
and features about authors. Take care and enjoy whatever it
is your doing.