NIGHTMARE AT 20,000 FEET -2002
by Richard Matheson
TOR Horror,
HC (Also available in TPB)
ISBN 0-765-30411-2 |
|
Okay,
who the hell doesn't remember that Twilight Zone? William Shatner is still
a handsome spring chicken, pounding on the window in coach, screaming
that there is a gnarled little gremlin on the wing of the airplane? And
we get the crawling awareness that he's freaking right, that there IS
something out there?
You
don't remember that?
Okay,
so picture John Lithgow in living color, shrieking and sweating and carrying
on while the musical score pounds like a horrified pulse and that icky
green THING out there keeps messing with the engine on the left
wing of the 747?
Yeah.
Now you remember.
I
first met Richard Matheson in 1983, while collaborating on a stage musical
version of his novel "Bid Time Return" (better
known as the sentimental "Somewhere In Time"). We worked
together on and off for a few years on that project, which never came
to fruition; Rich doing the book while I wrote lyrics. We became friends.
In fact, Richard's wife Ruth introduced my spouse Wendy and I back in
1989; Wendy has known the Matheson family since childhood. Sadly, in the
last twenty years I have watched Rich evolve from "well, actually,
I don't really write horror any more" to a true ambivalence about
having been one of the seminal giants in the field. It is his genuine,
ever-deepening spiritual convictions that prevent him from revisiting
the horror genre.
And
that's our loss.
NIGHTMARE
AT 20,000 FEET contains stories that go all the way back to the 1950's and now defunct
magazines like "Imagination," "Startling Stories"
and "Fantasy And Science Fiction," as well as "Playboy."
The prose style is an education in itself: lean, mean and downright relentless.
Despite having known Rich for some time, I had not read any of these pieces
since I was in my teens and twenties. I grew up watching television shows
he created; like "Duel," "Trilogy of Terror" and "The
Night Stalker." And I really loved these stories. I devoured them
all in one sitting. Know why?
They
still work.
DAMN
do they work.
"Wet
Straw" from Weird Tales (in 1953) is
nothing short of brilliant. When seen in the context of its times, it
is like comparing Mozart to his pallid competition. "The Distributor,"
an eerily bland recounting of a man doing evil work in a suburban neighborhood,
feels anachronistic in some ways; yet remains decidedly upsetting nearly
forty-five years after it was first created.
These
are not lurid, overwrought psuedo-Lovecraftian pieces which feel Victorian
and stylized. This is not pulp writing at its finest, ala Robert Bloch.
These are AMERICAN horror tales, and after devouring a few you will understand
clearly why Stephen King cheerfully wrote the introduction to this volume.
In it, he calls Matheson's appearance on the horror scene in the 1950's
"a bolt of pure ozone lightning."
In
point of fact, King makes no secret of being hugely indebted to Richard
Matheson, and he damn well shouldn't…because it's so obvious.
Interested
in writing? Get a copy of this book.
Find
a quiet place to read, dim the lights.
Then
picture the world these images first invaded: Imagine "Happy Days,"
milkshakes and juke boxes; "American Graffiti" and Vincent Price
and Christopher Lee and cheesy SciFi/horror pictures in black-and-white
and living innocently in the shadow of the bomb…
Ready?
Okay.
Now
open this book. You'll be dazzled by a mind that changed American fiction
forever and led to the work of King, Thomas Harris, Dean Koontz, Peter
Straub, Robert McCammon and anyone else who pretends to the throne. See
if you don't agree with me.
Richard
Matheson? He's the Boss. We're not worthy.
Believe
it.
5
BookWyrms
This review copyright 2009 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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