Book Loot!

Chrispy loves to paw through old books.

Maybe I got the bug when I used to go into my grandmother's back rooms on her farm when I was ten and it was the 1960's. Old and musty stuff was everywhere - remember the days before air conditioning?

Anyway, we had a $5 coupon for use at Half Price Book Store and I yawned as I looked trough the same old once-upon-a-time-bestseller' kalems (no offence) - koonz, king, lumley, matheson ... and saw "Kolchak". My mind went "woot!", and I snathced up two books.

(I paid a somewhat steep price of $17.96 for the pair, but there was that %5 off coupon!).

Kolchak: The Night Stalker Chronicles
Kolchak: The Night Stalker Casebook

I'd not seen either, nor read either. Here was a true horrific treasure.

I was actually alive and a 15 year old kid when I turned the TV on (we had 4 !!channels by then - I barely had time to watch them all!) and saw the TV movie of the week. I'd vaguely remembered Richard Matheson from his Twilight Zone years, and as a science fiction writer of minor note. I wasn't particularly into horror in those days, but I was attuned to "weird". I stared enrapt in that glorious black and white (I'm pretty sure we didn't have a color set for a few more years - Mom was conviced the radiation would be bad for us.)

Darrem McGavin was terrific in the part.

Anyway, I just had a chance to finish reading CJ Henderson's lead story, "What Every Coin Has", his fusing of Kolchak with Lovecrfatian Mythos, and mentioning the dread Necronomicon and a minor devil known as Nyogtha.

Very cool.

Now I shall wander away from the computer and read some more of these delectably devilish tales.