Tor Horror Sampler

by Graham Masterton, Chet Williamson, K.W. Jeter

Genres: Horror

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Graham Masterton was born in Edinburgh in 1946. His grandfather was Thomas Thorne Baker, the eminent scientist who invented DayGlo and was the first man to transmit news photographs by wireless. After training as a newspaper reporter, Graham went on to edit the new British men's magazine Mayfair, where he encouraged William Burroughs to develop a series of scientific and philosophical articles which eventually became Burroughs' novel The Wild Boys.

At the age of 24, Graham was appointed executive editor of both Penthouse and Penthouse Forum magazines. At this time he started to write a bestselling series of sex 'how-to' books including How To Drive Your Man Wild In Bed which has sold over 3 million copies worldwide. His latest, Wild Sex For New Lovers is published by Penguin Putnam in January, 2001. He is a regular contributor to Cosmopolitan, Men's Health, Woman, Woman's Own and other mass-market self-improvement magazines.

Graham Masterton's debut as a horror author began with The Manitou in 1976, a chilling tale of a Native American medicine man reborn in the present day to exact his revenge on the white man. It became an instant bestseller and was filmed with Tony Curtis, Susan Strasberg, Burgess Meredith, Michael Ansara, Stella Stevens and Ann Sothern.

Altogether Graham has written more than a hundred novels ranging from thrillers (The Sweetman Curve, Ikon) to disaster novels (Plague, Famine) to historical sagas (Rich and Maiden Voyage - both appeared in the New York Times bestseller list). He has published four collections of short stories, Fortnight of Fear, Flights of Fear, Faces of Fear and Feelings of Fear.

He has also written horror novels for children (House of Bones, Hair-Raiser) and has just finished the fifth volume in a very popular series for young adults, Rook, based on the adventures of an idiosyncratic remedial English teacher in a Los Angeles community college who has the facility to see ghosts.

Since then Graham has published more than 35 horror novels, including Charnel House, which was awarded a Special Edgar by Mystery Writers of America; Mirror, which was awarded a Silver Medal by West Coast Review of Books; and Family Portrait, an update of Oscar Wilde's tale, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was the only non-French winner of the prestigious Prix Julia Verlanger in France.

He and his wife Wiescka live in a Gothic Victorian mansion high above the River Lee in Cork, Ireland.

Reviews

[[on hiatus, probably forever] The rockabilly werewolf from Mars · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather peculiar item I picked up at a charity book sale. Of the various excerpts here, one (The Orchard) was already on my list of books to read, I will probably have to add The Waiting Room and Wildwood to my list of books to look for now (Soul Storm, Ghost Train, and Death Trance also look intriguing). On the negative side, one of the excerpts (Love Child) was so hilariously awful that I started laughing audibly by the third sentence (the sentence was "Her body wouldn't calm down after her sexual encounter with Johnny", which I'm sure you can appreciate why someone might find funny). In any case, it doesn't leave me wanting to read Neiderman's work any time soon, unless I'm in the mood for a comedy. Of the authors, most were people I have at least heard of, if not read, with only Walters, Relling, and Davis being complete unknowns. 3 stars because I don't know how to rate this.