Monster (Thomas)

Monster 1 sets up the series with essays on the nature of monster stories, what they are, why we write them, then goes on to look at vampire stories featuring Japanese snow ghosts, Pulp vampires in Weird Tales and the occult detectives who chase them. Next are tales of slime monsters, bug-eyed monsters, vampires in space, ape monsters, vampires in Fantasy stories, and finally, the little people. The appendixes to the book include writer's advice on how to create your own monsters using examples from H. G. Wells and Daphne Du Maurier. The final essay looks at false monsters in the tradition of Scooby-Doo. Authors whose works are examined include Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Seabury Quinn, Dick Donovan, Edmond Hamilton, Otis Adelbert Kline, Thorp McClusky, Joseph Payne Brennan, Fredric Brown, Arthur J. Burks, J. R. R. Tolkien and others.

Monster 2 continues the series with essays on ghostbreakers and their traditions, why the Horror genre must be scary and why to write it. There is a lengthy section on the Strange Northerns of Algernon Blackwood including a solid piece on Ithaqua the Wind-Walker and its beginnings with Blackwood. This is followed by pieces on Jim Kjelgaard and the other fantastical writers who came out of Milwaukee like Robert Bloch. We get robots in Weird Tales, as well as the early Science Ficton of John Wyndham. Articles on Francis Flagg, S. P Meek and Eando Binder. In the Sword & Sorcery section there is plenty on L. Sprague de Camp as well as the Cthulhu Mythos in the Conan saga. The appendixes of this book include pieces on leaving your legacy to your children and the One Hundred Year Test that separates fads from forever books.

Monster 3 is the third collection of posts from Dark Worlds Quarterly. G. W. Thomas has been publishing since 1987 and has appeared in hundreds of magazines, books, ezines and podcasts. He has written non-fiction for Writer's Digest, The Writer and Black October Magazine. These days he contributes articles to Innsmouth Free Press as well as publishes the daily micro-fiction newsletter FLASHSHOT. He is also one of the editors/artists of DARK WORLDS, a modern-day Pulp magazine. He has been a champion for ebooks since 1999 and was brought to tears a few months ago when he saw his first TV ad for ebooks. It's been a long road, folks.