Screaming Science Fiction: Horrors from Out of Space

Dust jacket and interior illustrations by Bob Eggleton

I have been asked on several occasions why I cross genres. In fact on one occasion I was asked why I “stagger” between them. But you know, that's how it was when I was coming up. I was seeing the movies, reading the comics, and I was into the pulp magazines; so that even before I knew what a “genre” was, it seemed to me that everyone was crossing them. Take a gander at those old EC Comics, you'll soon see what I'm getting at. The Haunt of Fear and Tales from the Crypt were “horror” horror, but a good many of the tales in Weird Fantasy were “fantasy” horror, and many of those in Weird Science were horror “SF.”

Even H. P. Lovecraft -- the Old Gent of Providence himself, known primarily for his superb horror stories -- had mixed his genres: The Shadow Out of Time and At the Mountains of Madness in Astounding Science Fiction, for example. And then there was Ray Bradbury’s won­derful Martian Chronicles: whimsical, yes, and written as only Bradbury can write them, but the horror undertones were there. In fact those stories were quite literally literary miscegena­tion, hybrids of all three species of our favorite fictions: Horror, Fantasy, and SF. And, I might add, classics at that.

It appears to my mind that a large percentage of spec­ulative and fantastic fiction benefits hugely from this misceg­enation, the incorporation of horror motifs, and I’m not at all unhappy to admit that most of my weird fiction has at least an element of SF in it, and often a lot more than just an element. “Hard Science Fiction” it most certainly isn't; “weird science” it may well be -- but so what? I’ve always believed that it’s my job to entertain, not to edify, though I would like to believe that every so often along the way I may even have been “guilty” of a little of that, too.

Anyway, here it is: a sampler of my Screaming Science Fict­ion from across the years, a large handful of my Horrors Out of Space.
-- Brian Lumley

Screaming Science Fiction is a full-length collection by horror master Brian Lumley, and includes a nearly 20,000 word novella (“Feasibility Study”) appearing for the first time anywhere.

Bob Eggleton has graced us with the pitch-perfect cover, as well as numerous black and white interior illustrations.

Limited: 1500 copies, hardcover, signed by author
Lettered: 26 copies, signed by author, housed in a custom made traycase

Table of Contents

• Snarker’s Son
• The Man Who Felt Pain
• The Strange Years
• No Way Home
• The Man Who Saw No Spiders
• Deja Viewer
• Feasibility Study
• Gaddy's Gloves
• The Big ‘C’

From Booklist: 
“...nine tales explore creepy encounters with everything from mutant bugs to ravenous aliens...Dedicated sf fans may find the science in these tales a little tame, but Lumley is clearly more interested in terror than technological intrigue. His fans, in particular, should find these macabre misadventures gratifyingly chilling.”

From Paul di Filippo, at SciFi.com: 
“Perhaps the writer [Lumley] most reminds me of—with this book, anyhow—is Richard Matheson. Matheson’s three 1960s collections, Shock! (1961), Shock II (1964) and Shock III (1966), are classics (perhaps overlooked and underappreciated today), the likes of which no one seems to produce anymore. It’s nice to find Lumley stepping up to the plate and hitting a home run in the same style. Additionally, a story like “Gaddy's Gloves” or “The Man Who Felt Pain” summons up the pulpish frissons that early Ellison or Silverberg might have delivered. ‘In space, no one can hear you scream’ is, of course, a cliche. But the hidden springs underlying a cliche can remain potent, as Lumley proves.

Striking B&W interior illos by Bob Eggleton are amazingly reminiscent of the work of artist Jack Gaughan—a lovely touch.”