Perchance to Dream

by Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury (Foreword), William Shatner (Afterword)

The profoundly original and wildly entertaining short stories of a legendary Twilight Zone writer, with a foreword by Ray Bradbury and an afterword by William Shatner
 
It is only natural that Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts for The Twilight Zone—for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension. Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont’s finest stories, including five that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.

Beaumont dreamed up fantasies so vast and varied they burst through the walls of whatever box might contain them. Supernatural, horror, noir, science fiction, fantasy, pulp, and more: all were equally at home in his wondrous mind. These are stories where lions stalk the plains, classic cars rove the streets, and spacecraft hover just overhead. Here roam musicians, magicians, vampires, monsters, toreros, extraterrestrials, androids, and perhaps even the Devil himself. With dizzying feats of master storytelling and joyously eccentric humor, Beaumont transformed his nightmares and reveries into impeccably crafted stories that leave themselves indelibly stamped upon the walls of the mind. In Beaumont’s hands, nothing is impossible: it all seems plausible, even likely.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Weird Fiction, Classics

336 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 13, 2015

About the author

Charles Beaumont was born Charles Leroy Nutt in Chicago in 1929. He dropped out of high school in the tenth grade and worked at a number of jobs before selling his first story to Amazing Stories in 1950. His story “Black Country” (1954) was the first work of short fiction to appear in Playboy, and his classic tale “The Crooked Man” appeared in the same magazine the following year. Beaumont published numerous other short stories in the 1950s, both in mainstream periodicals like Playboy and Esquire and in science fiction and fantasy magazines.

His first story collection, The Hunger and Other Stories, was published in 1957 to immediate acclaim, and was followed by two further collections, Yonder (1958) and Night Ride and Other Journeys (1960). He also published two novels, Run from the Hunter (1957, pseudonymously, with John E. Tomerlin), and The Intruder (1959).

Beaumont is perhaps best remembered for his work in television, particularly his screenplays for The Twilight Zone, for which he wrote several of the most famous episodes. His other screenwriting credits include the scripts for films such as The Premature Burial (1962), Burn, Witch, Burn (1962), The Haunted Palace (1963), and The Masque of the Red Death (1964).

When Beaumont was 34, he began to suffer from ill health and developed a baffling and still unexplained condition that caused him to age at a greatly increased rate, such that at the time of his death at age 38 in 1967, he had the physical appearance of a 95-year-old man. Beaumont was survived by his wife Helen, two daughters, and two sons, one of whom, Christopher, is also a writer.

Beaumont’s work was much respected by his colleagues, and he counted Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, and Roger Corman among his friends and admirers.

-Valancourt Books

Reviews

[Eloy Cryptkeeper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tal vez soñar(relato) - Charles Beaumont

"Dicen que los sueños solo duran un par de segundos —dijo—. No sé si eso es cierto o no. No importa. Parecen durar más. A veces he soñado toda una vida. A veces han pasado generaciones. De vez en cuando, el tiempo se detiene por completo. Un instante helado, que dura para siempre"
"Entonces supe lo poderosa que era la mente . sé que los fantasmas y los demonios existen, si solo piensas en ellos lo suficiente. ¡Después de todo, uno de ellos casi me mata!"

"Morir…, ¡dormir! ¡Dormir! ¡Tal vez soñar! ¡Sí, ahí está el obstáculo!"
W.S

Un hombre,Hall, se presenta a una consulta psiquiátrica. Dice sufrir del corazón y ademas haber permanecido sin dormir durante las ultimas 72 hs. Manifiesta tener ciertos sueños muy vividos ,que se vuelven reales , y ademas son correlativos(cada vez que vuelve a soñar se reanuda donde termino el anterior). Alega, que Debido a los acontecimientos de su ultimo sueño, si vuelve a dormir morirá.

Es un brillante y sólido relato de terror psicológico.
fue guion de un capitulo de The Twilight Zone (original. De Rod Serling)
Siempre hubo rumores de que Wes Craven se influencio en este relato a la hora de crear a Freddy Krueger. Personalmente creo que tiene cierta similitud de concepto en relación a los sueños/pesadillas. simplemente eso. Pero no en cuanto al personaje en si .

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Beaumont, one of the main writers behind the success of the original Twilight Zone TV series, passed away at a young age due to early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. He left behind a wealth of short stories showing his wide range of interest and ability, not to mention a surprising maturity in theme and style for his tender age. This selection captures many, although not all, of his finest stories, including a few that were adapted to Twilight Zone episodes. As usual, the list of stories and ratings are below, along with some song lyrics that may be amusing or insightful or clever.

Perchance to Dream - 4/5 - we're off to never-never land
The Jungle - 3/5 - it's gonna bring you down...huh
Sorcerer's Moon - 5/5 - do you believe in magic?
You Can't Have Them All - 3/5 - I knew she was gonna meet her connection
Fritzchen - 4/5 - mama, life had just begun
Father, Dear Father (Oh, Father of Mine) - 4/5 - you know we'll have a good time then
The Howling Man - 5/5 - here come the man with the look in his eye
A Classic Affair - 4/5 - well I'm not braggin' babe so don't put me down
Place of Meeting - 3/5 - it was many years ago that I became what I am
Song for a Lady - 3/5 - lady, from the moment I saw you, standing whoaoa all alone
Blood Brother - 3/5 - and I still believe that I cannot be saved
In His Image (The Man Who Made Himself) - 3/5 - I'm starting with the man in the mirror
The Monster Show - 3/5 - you're face to face with the man who sold the world
The Beautiful People - 4/5 - hey, you, what do you see? something beautiful or something free?
Free Dirt - 4/5 - get that dirt off your shoulder
The Magic Man - 4/5 - try, try, try to understand
Last Rites - 3/5 - would it be the same, if I saw you in heaven?
The Music of the Yellow Brass - 3/5 - south of the border, down Mexico way
The New People - 5/5 - can this still be real or some crazy dream?
A Death in the Country (The Deadly Will to Win) - 3/5 - at night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines
Traumerei - 3/5 - I've just closed my eyes again
Night Ride - 3/5 - 'cause he knows that it's me they've been comin' to see
The New Sound - 3/5 - hello darkness my old friend

[Tristan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Known primarily for his work on Rod Serling’s ‘The Twilight Zone’, Charles Beaumont’s life and writing career was cut short at the age of 38 by a then mysterious illness, which now is deemed highly plausible to have been early onset Alzheimer’s.

At time of death, it has been reported that he looked like a 95-year-old man. It’s one of life’s tragic ironies that Beaumont’s own distressing situation wasn’t too far removed from a concept you’d see dramatized on that TV show. The distinctive Twilight Zone flavour and feel is noticeable when going through this collection of his best stories (5 of them have indeed been adapted for it).

And this is the exact problem.

For while they could very well turn out to be gripping - even now - if done as those 1960’s television productions (with all the accompanying charm and sweet nostalgia), a great many of them don't cut it in written form. Put simply, there isn’t much meat on the bone here, and unfortunately Beaumont wasn’t a good enough writer (yet?) to ensure them being fresh and vibrant many decades later.


Charles Beaumont and Robin Hughes on the set of “The Howling Man” (1960)

It's not all bad though. Some tales are to be commended for their ingenuity and even work exceedingly well at times, such as 'Perchance to Dream', 'Place of Meeting', 'The Howling Man', and 'Träumerei', but these four are precious few little gems amongst the 23 tales which comprise this selection. The rest, in the main, is a slog. Beaumont’s over-reliance on the twist ending (most of which an attentive, seasoned consumer of genre fiction can see coming from a mile away), turns most tales into tired exercises in style, and makes a straight read through of this collection an absolute nightmare.

A soft recommendation if 'The Twilight Zone' floats your boat, but others might better opt to consider this a non-essential read. A slight, surprising misstep on the part of an otherwise discerning Penguin Classics here, who recently put out some excellent, simply crucial, editions of genre fiction writers. This one felt superfluous though. I hoped to find an underrated master, yet encountered a flawed, yet not wholly untalented, hack writer. Win some, lose some, I suppose.

Neglect, it seems, sometimes does occur for a reason. After all, relevance – let alone literary immortality – surely can’t be granted to everyone.

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If the name "Charles Beaumont" strikes a familiar chord with you, it is likely because you have seen that name in the opening or end credits of any number of popular entertainments. Beaumont was the screenwriter for the 1958 sci-fi shlock classic "Queen of Outer Space," "The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao," and the Roger Corman films "The Premature Burial," "The Intruder" (featuring William Shatner's finest performance ever, sez me), "The Haunted Palace" and "The Masque of the Red Death." More likely, however, you have seen his name at the ending of various episodes of the classic television program "The Twilight Zone"; Beaumont contributed 22 screenplays to the series, more than his buddies Richard Matheson (15) and (the very recently departed) George Clayton Johnson (5), but of course far, far fewer than series host Rod Serling's almost superhuman tally of 88 of the program's 151 shows. Fewer people, perhaps, know that Beaumont was also an author, with dozens of short stories and two novels to his credit. The new collection from Penguin Classics, however, may help bring Beaumont's skills as an author to a wider audience. Entitled "Perchance to Dream," the collection brings 23 stories together in one 300+-page collection, from the 10-year period 1952 – ’61.

As it turns out, this is a very wide-ranging collection, with stories in many genres. Most impressively, Beaumont changes his style of writing, seemingly effortlessly, to match any one particular story. Some of the tales are simply written, while others feature lush, almost poetical turns of phrase. Some of the tales are humorous; others quite grim. Many feature surprising plot twists; others are more straightforward. All, however, are supremely well-written little gems; there's nary a clinker in the bunch, although some are of course more successful and memorable than others. The collection also includes seven stories (although the book's back cover says five) that Beaumont later transformed into "TZ" episodes, and that fact alone should make this new volume a must-purchase for all fans of that legendary series.

As for the stories themselves, they can be divided into perhaps five discrete categories. First up, we have the straightforward Science Fiction tale, such as "Father, Dear Father," in which a man invents a time machine to see what will happen if he should kill his own Dad before he is conceived; "In His Image" (turned into a one-hour episode of "TZ" seven years later), in which a man visits his hometown, only to find that nobody remembers him; "The Monster Show," dealing with a futuristic TV program that turns out to be...well, perhaps I'd better say no more; "The Beautiful People," in which a homely 18-year-old girl shocks society in general by refusing to undergo state-mandated plastic surgery (recast by Beaumont 12 years later as the "TZ" ep "Number 12 Looks Just Like You"); and "Last Rites," in which a mechanical man asks a priest to confer Extreme Unction on his dying robotic body.

And then there is the type of tale in which Science Fiction is combined with a decided leavening of Horror. Examples of this hybrid tale here are "The Jungle" (transformed considerably into a "TZ" episode seven years later), where the builder of a futuristic city in the wilds of Kenya is terrorized by the local natives; "Fritzchen," a truly bizarre (and bizarrely written) tale of a very strange pet; and "Place of Meeting," where we find the last residents of a devastated Earth, and learn something of their macabre background.

The collection also offers up a half dozen tales that are most assuredly out-and-out Horror. To this bunch belong the title story, "Perchance to Dream" (transformed into a "TZ" ep one year later), in which a man is convinced that he will soon be killed by a woman in his daily nightmares (a somewhat confusing denouement mars this one for me, a bit); "The Howling Man" (turned into a popular "TZ" ep a year later), in which an ailing American is tended to in a German monastery and hears the cries of a very peculiar prisoner (a beautifully written tale that is far superior to its TV incarnation); "Blood Brother," in which a vampire tells his daily woes to a (seemingly) sympathetic shrink; "Free Dirt," suggested by Beaumont's buddy Ray Bradbury, in which one of the world's most parsimonious men, Mr. Aorta, makes a big mistake in carting home some gratis cemetery soil; "The New People," in which the friendly neighbors of a newly arrived young couple turn out to be hiding a dreadful secret (one of the grisliest stories in the collection, and one of my favorites); and "The New Sound," which tells of the decidedly peculiar hobby of one Mr. Goodhew: a "necroaudiophile." Don’t ask!

Charles Beaumont also wrote stories that smack of pure Fantasy. Examples of this genre to be found in the collection are "Sorcerer's Moon," which tells of a modern-day war being waged between two wizards; and "Traumerei" (recast, seven years later, as the "TZ" ep "Shadow Play"), in which a man who has been condemned to death in the electric chair is convinced that the world will end when he does.

Finally, this wonderful collection gives us seven more tales that must be termed Unclassifiable: tales that belong to no particular genre, but that are all wonderfully interesting pieces of short literature. First up we have "You Can’t Have Them All," in which a young man uses various computers to find and select all the most beautiful women in the world, and then goes about the task of bedding all 563 of them! (Granted, perhaps this story might be more appropriately labeled a Fantasy piece!) This is a genuinely amusing tale that turns a bit uncomfortably icky, with our protagonist using herbal concoctions to, in essence, "date rape" each of his conquests. I just knew this tale had to have first appeared in "Playboy" (Beaumont's 1954 piece "Black Country," not included in this collection, was the first short story to appear in the magazine), and as it turns out, it was, indeed; in the August '56 issue.

Other, equally Unclassifiable tales in this volume are "A Classic Affair," in which a husband falls in love with, and has an affair of sorts with...a vintage Duesenburg automobile; "Song for a Lady," a remarkably lovely story in which a young couple honeymoons aboard an old ship's final transatlantic voyage (transformed by Beaumont, three years later, into the one-hour "TZ" ep "Passage on the Lady Anne"); "The Magic Man," a Western of sorts but told in a Bradbury-like manner, in which a magician and his elderly black assistant visit a small town in Kansas in the 1800s; "The Music of the Yellow Brass," the story of a young, would-be matador in modern-day Mexico that comes off almost like a Hemingway piece; "A Death in the Country," a tale of modern-day stock-car racing, and a surprisingly suspenseful and gripping affair, even for those (like me) who couldn't care less about the sport (we know, by the title, that a death will be coming, but just whose death it is might surprise you); and finally, "Night Ride," a story concerning a 1950s jazz combo and the strange secret of its success, told using a remarkable amount of hepcat slang.

So there you have it...23 wonderful pieces from an author whose life was tragically cut short in its prime. (Beaumont, sadly, passed away in 1967, at age 38, of what is today believed to have been early-onset Alzheimer's disease.) This new Penguin collection, with a foreword by Bradbury and an afterword by Shatner, and featuring beautiful artwork on the front cover by Will Sweeney, provides us with a marvelous opportunity to get acquainted--or reacquainted--with this overlooked author. It comes more than highly recommended by yours truly....

(This review, by the way, originally appeared on the FanLit website at http://www.fantasyliterature.com/ ... a most excellent destination for all fans of this type of fare....)

[E. G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Foreword: Beaumont Remembered, by Ray Bradbury

--Perchance to Dream
--The Jungle
--Sorcerer's Moon
--You Can't Have Them All
--Fritzchen
--Father, Dear Father
--The Howling Man
--A Classic Affair
--Place of Meeting
--Song for a Lady
--Blood Brother
--In His Image
--The Monster Show
--The Beautiful People
--Free Dirt
--The Magic Man
--Last Rites
--The Music of the Yellow Brass
--The New People
--A Death in the Country
--Träumerei
--Night Ride
--The New Sound

Afterword, by William Shatner

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

Charles Beaumont was a writer on the original Twilight Zone TV show who also wrote weird/fantastic short stories which are collected in Perchance To Dream. It’s easy to see why Beaumont isn’t nearly as famous as Richard Matheson, another Twilight Zone writer, because his stories are TERRIBLE.

The collection starts well with the title story where a man can’t sleep because when he does he sees an unnerving woman appear and walk towards him. He feels like he’ll die if she reaches him. I won’t give away the twist ending but it’s chilling stuff. Great start - unfortunately, this is the only good story in the 300+ page book!

I can’t emphasise this enough: Charles Beaumont is all about the twist ending. However, the device becomes predictable and worn-out quickly through overuse, especially as the twists are often very poor - two stories end with the man realising he’s a robot! It also means that everything preceding the twist becomes pointless guff. Unfortunately Beaumont isn’t a talented enough writer to make the stories entertaining so you’re essentially reading a long drawn-out setup to an underwhelming finale. It’s very, very boring stuff.

Some of the stories - irritatingly, the longest ones - aren’t really about anything like The Magic Man which features a protagonist who tells rambling, dull fiction to kids, or Night Ride, about some dreary jazz musicians. Other stories are just plain outdated to a 21st century audience like The Beautiful People which is at least original being a precursor to Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives but is basically the same thing - anyone reading this today will know how it’s going to end. Another story is about a man who falls in love with a car. I suppose some of the stories highlight people’s concerns at the time and would have seemed fresh to 1950s readers but they don’t hold up today.

Beaumont has the occasional interesting idea though, like in The Howling Man where a man discovers Satan is chained up in the basement of a remote monastery leading to a time of peace on Earth. Or in Traumerei where a death row prisoner claims to have dreamed the entire world up and if they kill him, they all die too. But these are disappointingly few and far between.

I was hoping to discover an underrated writer with Charles Beaumont but it turns out he’s little-known for a reason: his stories suuuuck! I hated reading this and can’t recommend Perchance To Dream to anyone. If you’re after Twilight Zone-esque stories that are actually fun to read, check out Richard Matheson’s story collections but whatever you do, don’t pick up Charles Beaumont’s!

… And then the reviewer realised he was really a robot! AAARGGGHHH!!!

[Janelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressive collection of stories! I’m surprised I haven’t read Beaumont before, maybe I have read the odd story in old SF story collections but these all seemed new to me. There’s a couple of duds well suited to the 1950s and playboy(many of his stories first appeared there) but then others are quite brilliant scifi/horror stories. My favourites were the title story about a mans very vivid dreams, “ Fritzchen” , an excellent monster/horror story(I particularly liked that he made the child in the story a little monster as well). “Last Rites” about a dying android who asks if he feels and believes like a human does he have a soul? “Place of Meeting” is a gathering of vampires in despair after all life has been wiped out in some sort of apocalypse. Yes some of these stories are quite dark! Some stories are surreal, some disturbing, I really enjoyed it.

[Merl Fluin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Charles Beaumont was evidently a great guy. I've lost count of the number of interviews I've read and heard with Twilight Zone alumni who talk about him with as much affection as admiration.

One of his many devoted friends was Ray Bradbury, whose introduction to this edition lovingly describes Beaumont as "a writer of ideas". Having read the book I'd call them gimmicks rather than ideas, but tomayto tomahto. I love a cheap and/or lurid gimmick as much as anyone.

The problem with these stories, though, is that nothing gets developed. The exposition of the idea/gimmick is the sole purpose of each tale. And I do mean exposition. There is never any character development,* and there is only ever the bare minimum of plot – just enough to get the gimmick across, without taking us anywhere else.

The absolute nadir of this is "Last Rites", where two characters sit in a room and expound the premise at each other for 14 pages that made me feel about ready for the last rites myself.

All would be forgiven if the stories were rooted in an exciting cosmic vision, or even just an interesting moral universe. But Beaumont's moral universe is sheer 1950s conformism – which makes the stories' casual sexism especially hard to take.

It's no longer controversial to point out that sexism and racism are endemic to a lot of classic sci-fi. And as I've indicated in some of my other GR reviews, I'm willing to let those bombs drop on my head if the payload is sufficiently poetic, imaginative or strange. Beaumont's vision fails in this regard because - on the strength of these stories, at least – he doesn't really have a vision at all.

I probably hated the book a bit less than I've just made it sound. Some of the gimmicks are fun. And if they're predictable, it may merely be that Beaumont has become a victim of his own success, because he pioneered the Twilight Zone-style "surprises" that seem so unsurprising today.

He was a great guy, and his friends loved him. Maybe his life and his friendships were a greater contribution to the world than his writing. If William Shatner says he was a good man, I'm not going to argue. But I'm not going to read any more Beaumont either.


*The one exception might be "The Magic Man", where there is a little bit of a character arc. It was easily my favourite in the collection. But then, I'm a hopeless sucker for stories set in the Old West.

[Karl]

This is an Unpublished and Unrevised proof from Penguin Classics, the book has a different cover.

[Michael Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of short stories running the gamut from drama to horror, from SF/F to weird. It is unsurprising some of the best episodes of the Twilight Zone were derived from his works, he had a gift for storytelling. Characters, scenes, and settings come to life deftly and with a verisimilitude to the human condition that is hard to match. Very impressive, highly recommended.

[Abbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The phrase that immediately comes to mind to describe Beaumont is "a poor man's Ray Bradbury", but that's entirely too derogatory for this collection of tales. Beaumont's prose can't equal Bradbury's ecstatic, beautiful collections of metaphors and descriptions—it has a distinctly hard-boiled edge, as though his style was unable to escape the pulps to the same degree that Bradbury's did. However, his sense of twisted fun and near-endless ability to come up with damn good "What if?" ideas are equal to that of his more famous counterpart; in that regard many of these stories would be perfectly at home in The Illustrated Man or The October Country. And he does have Bradbury's gift for evoking nostalgia and emotion; to name but one example, the aching, awful sadness of "The Magic Man" is genuinely moving.

What a talent we lost when he died; who knows how many more wonderful little tales and Twilight Zone episodes he would have graced us with. While Ligotti is certainly more impressive in a literary sense, this was, no contest, my favorite Halloween read this October.

Also, this will undoubtedly be the only time you'll see a collection bookended by tributes from Ray Bradbury and William Shatner. An apt duo, though I'm unclear where the Bradbury foreword came from as he'd been dead for three years prior to the publication of this edition. I like to think he has indeed succeeded in his goal to live forever and has been in contact with Penguin Classics from the afterlife.

[Peter Landau · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories of Charles Beaumont collected in PERCHANCE TO DREAM are a mishmash of genres united by the author’s style, which I would call American. He writes of his time, mid-last-century, and sounds like a million other wise guys down on their luck and with a chip on their shoulders they’re constantly trying to flick off. The genres cross from horror to sci-fi and fantasy, but always with a noir atmosphere that keeps the collection in the same environment. You know these stories, some of them were adapted for “The Twilight Zone,” others reek of pulp in the best possible way. Beaumont sets us up in worlds that aren’t too different from ours, but there’s always a catch, a surprise often at the end, but we’re invited to come along and figure out which way the twists turn like we’re around a campfire with a grownup spinning tales without condescending to our younger age. Beaumont asks us to participate, throwing us clues, which sometimes I pieced together before the climax and other times I didn’t, but I was always entertained.

[Alex Sarll]

Ray Bradbury's foreword celebrates a friend and peer gone much too soon; William Shatner's afterword laments, as unsubtly but effectively as his acting, a young man who died an old man's death, like something from one of Beaumont's own stories – perhaps You Can't Have Them All, in which an ambitious lothario sets out to prove that, with proper planning, actually you can, but finds the project taking a terrible toll. But as with that protagonist, you certainly can't say Beaumont wasted his time. Five of these stories became Twilight Zone episodes, and plenty of the others could have; even if the ambitious young toreador of The Music Of The Yellow Brass, or the has-been racecar driver in A Death In The Country, are perhaps a little too far from genre territory for that, Beaumont wrings the same chills from them as from the duelling wizards in Sorcerer's Moon, which takes only a handful of pages to go further than its model, Casting The Runes, ever dreamed. Is it better, as well as bigger and briefer? Well, no. Comparable without embarrassment, certainly, but that breakneck quality stops it from quite making the first rank, just as the many stories which recall Bradbury tend to feel like a dash of Bradbury's abiding humanity might have elevated them from very good to true greatness. Still, if the worst thing one can say of a collection of spine-tinglers is that it falls very slightly short of Bradbury and James...

[David Agranoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few months back I read a Penguin classics edition for Richard Matheson stories. The Penguin line is devoted to the finest voices in literature. So it is really cool that in the last couple years we have seen collection from Penguin for Lovecraft, Liggoti, Philip K. Dick and Richard Matheson. I was surprised and pleased to see Charles Beaumont get the same treatment as he died at a tragically young age and didn't get the chance to build the career that the other writers did.

This edition comes with a wonderful and personal forward by Ray Bradbury written for an earlier collection, and short but heartfelt Afterword by William Shatner who played the lead role in Beaumont's most intense film script - the Intruder.

Richard Matheson had a huge impact in TV, movies and prose. Beaumont was starting to have the same kind of success when he died looking like a 95 year old man at the age of 38. Little was know about what caused his death, and it believed that had early on-set Alzheimer.

None the less with a couple of films including Roger Corman's masterpiece the Intruder that CB adapted from his own novel, and some of the most classic Twilight zone episodes, his work is remembered but fading. That is sad and that is why young writers would do themselves a favor and read this book.

If you read these in a 2018 context some might seem totally out of date and readers have to keep there mind on when they were written, most in the late 50's. Take for example Blood Brother, a simple but funny story about a Vampire who goes to get counseling. It might see silly that he decides to wear a cape, but this was written in 1956.

Many of my favorite stories turned out to be Twilight Zone episodes but outside of the Howling Man I had not seen them in a enough time that I didn't remember the stories.

My favorites in this book included Night Ride, The Howling Man, Place of Meeting, and the Beautiful People. Night Ride was a silky smooth tale of supernatural tied to the world of nightclub jazz. The Howling Man is probably the best episode of the twilight zone that CB wrote the concept that peace time comes because the devil is locked away in a European castle. I really enjoyed reading this tale, even though I have seen the Twilight Zone episode many times. The Beautiful People was a TZ episode with a different title, and honestly I didn't remember it. This sci-fi story written in the fifties becomes a odd surreal out of date period piece. I loved it. My favorite story however was Place of Meeting. I kinda liked the concept even though it was a little goofy.

That is the thing. I don't normally do this but I skimmed through a few goodreads reviews and read a few of the bad ones. I admit that Matheson stories felt a little more timeless. It is not just the concepts but CB pretty much always builds ALL his stories to be a twist. Can you blame him when the TZ was a huge chunk of his income? William F. Nolan is a author who came from the same circle of friends often uses the trick concept or the twist ending often. Matheson and Bradbury stories might feel more timeless because they wrote with a wider variety of style. Beaumont however was a fantastic writer and those who write Bizarro, Sci-fi or horror shorts should read this book to discover the work of a master.

[Tom Mathews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always been a big fan of the original Twilight Zone so this collection of stories by an author who wrote many of the episodes was sure to be right up my alley, and it was. Several stories, including Perchance to Dream, The Jungle, The Howling Man, The Beautiful People and Song for a Lady were made into TZ epidodes that I remember watching. Others, such as The Magic Man and The Music of Yellow Brass are really good and should be episodes, if they aren't already. as with all collections of stories, though, there are some that, while not bad, will keep the overall collection from getting five stars. So it is with this one.

Bottom line: These stories are not particularly deep, and any questions they pose aren't going to be overly profound But still, they are very entertaining, which is what The Twilight Zone was all about.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Beaumont, who died tragically early in his thirties of an aging disease, is best known as a writer of twenty-some stories for the original The Twilight Zone series. Several of those original works appear here, including "Träumerei," which was adapted into "Shadow Play," one of my favorites (a man believes that if he is executed, everyone else will cease to exist.) There is a good variety to the selections here, from serious to comic, from horror to SF to simply weird. Most of them contain some kind of fantastic element but some do not. Not as flowery as Bradbury but in the same ballpark. If you are a fan of the classic "twist endings" of TZ or Alfred Hitchcock Presents you will find much to enjoy in this collection.

[Bri Fidelity · Rating 3 out of 5]

Life lessons from Charles Beaumont stories:


1. Death is a beautiful woman.

2. Sex is fatal.

3a. Magic can kill you.

3b. Science cannot save you.

4. Magic can get beautiful women to have sex with you, and this is a harmless and wacky high-jink despite how unwilling said women were beforehand and how chillingly methodical you are about spiking their drinks.

5. Charles Beaumont is a leg man.

6. Being a vampire is overrated.

7. Being any kind of entertainer - be it piano player, racecar driver, travelling magician or Spanish bullfighter - is overrated.

8. Robots have feelings too.

9. Virginity is fatal.

10. Graveyard dirt makes excellent fertiliser.

[DeAnna Knippling · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of short Twilight-Zone-style short stories, from an author who wrote a bunch of Twilight Zone episodes.

These were all excellent stories, and some of them were great. They were extremely efficient, but you wouldn't know it until after you were done--it felt like the stories had a slow, meandering feel, but it turned out that not a word was wasted! And such lovely ending lines on several, too. And if the author wasn't an expert in every subject he wrote about, you'd never know.

Recommended if you like Twilight Zone.

[Nick Boston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read his stories here and there over the years, I was not surprised at how much I enjoyed this new collection. Each one is a fever dream of delight, accompanied by strange and unusal twists and a total rejection of reality through the imagination of the late Mr. Beaumont. I cannot recommend this book enough.

[Jazzy Lemon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories in this collection were first published between 1952-1961. Charles Beaumont was an imaginative writer, and several of his stories were episodes of The Twilight Zone. Unfortunately, Mr. Beaumont suffered from a condition that caused him to die 'of old age' whilst only in his 30s.

[Ezgi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karanlık Seri’den uzunca bir süre uzak durdum. Çok primitif bulduğum romanlarla dolu bir seri olduğunu düşünüyordum. Yakın zamanda çağdaş yazarlarından seçtiğim kitaplarıyla beni çok şaşırttı. Öylesine incelerken Bradbury’nin övgülerle dolu önsözünü görünce öykülerini denemeye karar verdim.

Yirmi üç öyküden oluşan kitap beni çok eğlendirdi. Bradbury’nin övgülerinin hepsini hak ediyor. Beaumont Bradbury’nin çağdaşı, yazdığı öyküleri ona okutup fikir alabilecek kadar da şanslı bir yazar. Öykülerin birçoğu The Twilight Zone’a uyarlanmış. Yaşım nedeniyle izlemesem de kültleşmiş bir seri. Öykülerin bazılarını çok sevdim. Sevmediğim öykü yok diyebilirim. Beaumont televizyonla uğraşmasının da bir sonucu olarak neyin dikkat çekeceğini biliyor. Hemen her öyküsünü komik, şaşırtıcı ya da ilginç yapacak bir detay ekliyor. Sanırım vasat bir öykü diyeceği sırada okura kartımı henüz oynamadım diyor.

Tüm öyküleri sevdim desem de bazıları ön plana çıkıyor. Derlemenin isminde de kullandıkları Tut Ki Bir Rüya Gördün bunlardan biri. Konusu creepypasta öykülerine benziyor kabul ediyorum. Ama heyecanlı anlatımı öyküyü çok çarpıcı yapıyor.

Hepsine Birden Sahip Olamazsınız bir takıntı öyküsü. Kurguda en sevdiğim çatışmalardan biri takıntıların etrafına örülenlerdir. Bu öyküde de belli standartlardaki tüm kadınlarla birlikte olmak isteyen bir adam anlatılıyor. Planları ve geldiği hal ilginçti. Ama en güzel yanı mizahi dili.

Klasik Bir Kaçamak, araba sevdasıyla çok relate ettiğim bir adamın öyküsünü anlatıyor. Kısacık hikayedeki değişim beni çok şaşırttı. Sürprizli öykülerinden biriydi.

Yeni Komşular görece uzun bir öykü. Taşındıkları yeni evde tatlı tatlı partileyen ailenin gecesi bir anda Eyes Wide Shut’a evriliyor. Temponun çok iyi olduğu, görsel anlatımını çok başarılı bulduğum bir öykü.

Tüm öykülerinden bahsetmek istemiyorum ama Kan Kardeş’e de değinmezsem olmaz. What We Do in the Shadows’taki Viago’nun bu öyküden esinlenildiğini düşünüyorum. Öykü vampirin vampirlikten yakınmasını anlatıyor. Tam olarak Viago’nun hassasiyetlerini içeriyor. Ama daha sinirlisi. Bu vampir gerçekten bunalmış durumundan. Çok eğlenceli bir öyküydü.

Derlemeyi büyük keyifle okudum. Çeviride bazı garip kelime seçimleri vardı ama göz ardı edilebilir. Tüm öykülerde sevilecek bir yan vardı. Beaumont’un kaleminde şeytan tüyü var desem yeri.

[Rhys · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beaumont is a bit like a wonky Ray Bradbury. Personally I regard the cover of this Penguin Classic as the best thing about the book, but in fairness I need to explain why the stories didn't grab me as much I had hoped and expected they would.

When I was 17 years old, Bradbury was my literary god. I loved his work and devoured as much of it as I could get my hands on. The general quality of his work seemed to be very high. Even back then I was aware that some of his stories were clunkers, but I was more than willing to forgive those for all the excellent tales he seemed capable of producing in vast quantities.

So when I was told that Charles Beaumont was very similar to Ray Bradbury, I was curious to try reading some of his stories, even though many years have passed since then and I am not nearly as enamored with Bradbury as I once was. The fact the cover of this Penguin Classics edition is so amazing helped to persuade me to buy the book. I love the fact that the cover artist tried to cram as many monsters and incidents from the stories as possible into one scene. The result is ludicrous but colourful and alluring.

More colourful and alluring than most of the stories, alas!

But let's take it slowly. The opening story, after which the entire collection is named, 'Perchance to Dream', is brilliant. It is brief, snappy, and has one of those twists at the end that should be obvious from the outset but isn't. After I read this story, I put the book down and said to myself, "Wow! This guy is even better than Bradbury. He has the same tone, the same style, the same gleam, but he is harder, less sentimental." I was highly impressed.

Unfortunately, almost immediately afterwards the book began to go sour. 'The Jungle' turned out to be dire, the awkward venture of a slightly tedious protagonist through a contrived premise that just doesn't hold up. I don't mind ludicrous premises at all. In fact I love them. But when they lack self-awareness and cease being deliberately absurdist or satirical, they become just clumsy. 'The Jungle' is fundamentally flawed. It is supposed to be set in Africa in the future, but the future there doesn't feel very futuristic, it feels more like the 1950s, and Africa doesn't feel at all like Africa, but only like corny 1950s Hollywood movies set in Africa. There is something about this story that reminds me of a Jack Williamson SF story that was written in the 1930s and which features a spaceman smoking a pipe inside his helmet. It has absolutely no true flavour of the future about it at all, and yet it isn't (though it could have been) a satire on the mores of the 1950s. The story is a failure in my view and worse than any of Bradbury's failures.

So I was disillusioned. But then I came to the third story and my hopes were rekindled again. 'Sorcerer's Moon' is another brilliantly brief tale with a twist at the end that ought to have been obvious from the beginning but wasn't. It takes real talent to pull off that trick.

And then I plunged into the fourth story. 'You Can't Have Them All' is like 'The Jungle'. It sets up a premise that isn't just absurd but stupid. It's about a man who wants to have sex with every woman on the planet (or rather with every 'desirable' woman, which turns out to be all the blonde, busty girls). It could have been a great satirical absurdist comedy but it ends up just being bad and sexist SF that not only has dated terribly but must surely have seemed rotten at the time. The premise simply is too obviously impossible. The protagonist uses a computer in order to select the women that he will sleep with and the unworkability of this solution to his problem of how to select the women merely compounds the stupidity of the premise.

Once again this awful clunker was followed by a superb story, 'Fritzchen', perhaps the best story in the entire collection, a masterful monster story.

Then we have another clunker, 'Father, Dear Father', and from this point the collection becomes more bad than good.

'The Howling Man' is almost superb but the premise once again is flawed. The idea is that the Devil has been locked up to prevent him causing trouble throughout the world. He was locked up after the First World War. He is accidentally released again, which is the reason the Second World War breaks out. The core idea of this story (as explained by one of the monks who is instrumental in locking him up) is that there has been no trouble and evil in the world between the two World Wars because the Devil wasn't in a position to create trouble at that time. This betrays a curiously blinkered view of world politics between the years 1918 and 1939. There were many many wars and terrible tragedies aplenty in that time period, but the premise of the story only works if there wasn't. Any reader with even a moderate knowledge of history is going to react negatively to the progress of this story because it operates on a badly flawed basis.

In fact, despite what so many people say, Beaumont is often at his best when he isn't trying to be a clever ideas writer. 'A Classic Affair' is a simple story in which nothing much happens other than that a man grows to become very fond of a car. It's a great story. The same with 'Song for a Lady', which is elegiac and rather touching and doesn't try to be anything more. The same with 'The Magic Man' (despite its rather cringe-worthy treatment of the black character). The same with 'The Music of the Yellow Brass' (despite its awful fake Mexican atmosphere). The same with 'A Death in the Country', which is well written and about motor racing, nothing more. The same with 'Night Ride' (despite its awkward faux-jazz slang). These are quite good stories. No twists, no monsters, no attempted ingenuity.

'Free Dirt' is one of the better supernatural stories because it has a more fabular feel. This is also true of the very last story 'The New Sound'. They are both dark fabulism. Fabulism suits Beaumont's talents better than science fiction does. The premise in each case doesn't need to be justified, there are no MacGuffins, the stories develop and conclude smoothly.

I don't want to say anything about the other clunkers in the book, but I feel I really have to bring up the appalling 'The Monster Show' because it's by far the worst story in this collection. Beaumont here makes an effort to imagine futuristic slang ("Is it sock?" It is sock and biff and bang, Daddy-O) and the result is so embarrassing I actually blushed, blushed for poor Charles Beaumont, on his behalf. This story should never have been included.

This is one of those story collections I had to crawl through. It took me more than a year.

[Bryan Ball · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fantastic collection of short stories by an author, Charles Beaumont, who should be more widely known-- even though a great majoirty of people who may not know him have seen his work on "The Twilight Zone." Many of these stories read like unaired episodes of "Twilight Zone," and some, "The Howling Man," made it onto the show as scripts he adapted. These stories wildly vary, though, and show a writer with many, many interests even beyond things that take place in that twilight zone. My favorites were "The Howling Man" and "Blood Brother," the latter of which were surprisingly funny.

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles "Chuck" Beaumont's writing is witty, smart and incredibly thought provoking. The twists in the tale are very much in the vein of 'The Twilight Zone', for which Beaumont wrote. If readers enjoy the adult fiction of Dahl, Bradbury and their like, they should enjoy this collection.

[Nikki · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Unfortunately this one just isn't for me. I admire Beaumont's creativity and I know he's arguably genre-defining, but I found myself finishing each story with only the thought "wow yeah it would be crazy if that happened...on to the next one, I guess." They didn't seem to have anything bigger to say than exactly what was on the page. It kind of felt like reading someone's responses to those Pinterest writing prompts I loved in middle school. It was a bit tiring to read the stories back-to-back and have to decipher the setting/characters/world all over again each time and for me unfortunately the payoff wasn't there.

[Paul O’Neill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A standout collection that makes me sad on the count of Beaumont being taken from us far too early. Had he continued like this, would we talk of him in the same way we talk of Bradbury? I think so.

[Cymru Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

These tales reminded me of Bioy Casares' collection of stories The Russian Doll. They both have that bygone-era feel to them, a time that inevitably evokes a profound nostalgia because it is so definitively gone.

Beaumont is considered one of the forerunners of speculative fiction. The stories gathered here are better than most that come up now; I have a feeling he'd be a real hit on the No Sleep subreddit were he churning these out in the present day. He also has the makings of a decent prose writer, which is more than can be said of many (not all) spec fiction writers in any age. He's known mainly for his work on The Twilight Zone though, and seems to have opted for the lucrative business of TV and movies instead of perfecting the art of the sentence. Can't say I blame him.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had been waiting for this one to come out, but it ended up being a bit of a disappointment. While there were a few real gems in the collection, other stories were dated and just not that appealing.

[Andy Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic collection that reminds you how thrilling stories can be.

[Marge Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enjoyable, well written --see Literary Darkness discussion of this one, enlightening! I'd say The Howling Man is my favorite collection of his best works.