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Charles Beaumont (1929–1967)

Author of Perchance to Dream

79+ Works 1,255 Members 35 Reviews 6 Favorited

About the Author

Series

Works by Charles Beaumont

Perchance to Dream (2015) 258 copies
The Magic Man (1965) 57 copies
Yonder (1958) 45 copies
Best of Beaumont (1982) 43 copies
The Intruder (1959) 43 copies
The Twilight Zone: The Complete First Season (2006) — Screenwriter — 43 copies
The Masque of the Red Death [1964 film] (1964) — Screenwriter — 32 copies
The Fiend in You (1962) — Editor — 26 copies
7 Faces of Dr. Lao [1964 film] (1964) — Screenwriter — 21 copies
The Haunted Palace [1963 film] (1963) — Screenwriter — 18 copies
Run from the Hunter (1957) 18 copies
The Beautiful People (2011) 16 copies
Night of the Eagle [1962 film] (1962) — Screenwriter — 15 copies
A Spy Alone (2023) 15 copies
Remember? Remember? (1963) 13 copies
Queen of Outer Space [1958 film] (1958) — Screenwriter — 13 copies
The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm [1962 film] (1962) — Screenwriter — 12 copies
The Intruder [1962 film] (1962) — Screenwriter — 11 copies
Elegy (2011) 10 copies
The Premature Burial [1962 film] (1962) — Screenwriter — 8 copies
Omnibus of Speed (1958) — Editor — 6 copies
The Edge (1966) 5 copies
Fritzchen 4 copies
Brain Dead [1990 film] (1990) — Screenwriter — 3 copies
Black Country 3 copies
The Fugitive: The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas (2010) — Author — 2 copies
The Crooked Man 2 copies
Vetřelec 1 copy
I Claude 1 copy
The Jungle (2013) 1 copy
Träumerei 1 copy
Last Rites 1 copy
In His Image (2013) 1 copy

Associated Works

The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories (1987) — Contributor — 885 copies
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (2011) — Contributor — 815 copies
American Supernatural Tales (2007) — Contributor — 442 copies
The Best American Noir of the Century (2010) — Contributor — 357 copies
Twilight Zone: The Original Stories (1985) — Contributor — 274 copies
Shudder Again: 22 Tales of Sex and Horror (1993) — Contributor — 231 copies
He Is Legend: An Anthology Celebrating Richard Matheson (2009) — Contributor — 178 copies
9th Annual Edition: The Year's Best S-F (1964) — Contributor — 161 copies
Dark Masques (2001) — Contributor — 136 copies
The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 5th Series (1956) — Contributor — 121 copies
The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy (1955) — Contributor — 117 copies
The Bradbury Chronicles: Stories in Honor of Ray Bradbury (1991) — Contributor — 104 copies
American Fantastic Tales: Boxed Set (2009) — Contributor — 92 copies
The American Fantasy Tradition (2002) — Contributor — 89 copies
Time to Come (1954) — Contributor — 87 copies
Blood Thirst: 100 Years of Vampire Fiction (1997) — Contributor — 85 copies
California Sorcery (1999) — Contributor — 76 copies
The Fantastic Pulps (1975) — Contributor — 70 copies
The Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural (1967) — Contributor — 70 copies
Demons (2011) — Contributor — 65 copies
The City, 2000 A.D: Urban Life through Science Fiction (1950) — Contributor — 63 copies
Laughing Space: An Anthology of Science Fiction Humour (1982) — Contributor — 55 copies
The Pseudo-People (1965) — Contributor — 55 copies
Masques: All New Works of Horror and the Supernatural (1984) — Contributor — 50 copies
The Century's Best Horror Fiction: Volume 2 (2011) — Contributor — 46 copies
Young Monsters (1985) — Contributor — 43 copies
The Fantastic World War II: The War That Wasn't (1990) — Contributor — 42 copies
The Playboy Book of Crime and Suspense (1966) — Contributor — 41 copies
Urban Horrors (1941) — Contributor — 40 copies
The Graveyard Reader (1958) — Contributor — 37 copies
Midnight Specials (1977) — Contributor — 33 copies
The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories, Volume Three (2018) — Contributor — 29 copies
Stories for the Dead of Night (1957) — Contributor — 28 copies
Man Against Tomorrow (1965) — Contributor — 27 copies
Wanted: Dead or Alive: The Complete First Season (2005) — Writer — 25 copies
Nursery Crimes (1993) — Contributor — 24 copies
The Fiend (1971) — Contributor — 23 copies
The Bedside Playboy (1963) — Contributor — 23 copies
Outoja tarinoita 6 (1955) 19 copies
Devil Worshipers (1990) — Contributor — 16 copies
In the Dead of Night (1961) — Contributor — 11 copies
The Playboy Book of Short Stories (1995) — Contributor — 11 copies
Social Problems Through Science Fiction (1975) — Contributor — 10 copies
Territoires de l'inquiétude. 7 (1993) — Contributor — 3 copies
Playboy Magazine | October 1963 | Teddi Smith (1963) — Contributor — 3 copies
Juvenile Delinquency in Literature (1980) — Contributor — 1 copy

Tagged

20th century (43) American literature (39) anthology (868) Charles Beaumont (38) collection (76) DVD (30) ebook (50) fantasy (444) fiction (658) gothic (34) hardcover (29) horror (836) Kindle (35) Library of America (37) literature (32) mystery (61) noir (31) own (25) paperback (41) pulp (30) Ray Bradbury (28) read (50) science fiction (440) sf (159) sff (61) short fiction (54) short stories (713) short story (33) signed (41) speculative fiction (31) stories (31) supernatural (47) television (32) to-read (482) Twilight Zone (35) unread (82) vampire (54) vampires (191) weird (45) weird fiction (46)

Common Knowledge

Canonical name
Beaumont, Charles
Legal name
Nutt, Charles Leroy
Birthdate
1929-01-02
Date of death
1967-02-21
Gender
male
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Place of death
Woodland Hills, California, USA
Cause of death
Alzheimer's disease
Places of residence
Valley Village, California, USA
Occupations
speculative fiction writer

Members

Reviews

Some outdated ideas about colonialism and women - but not too much. The stories that I really enjoyed elevated this to four stars, despite those outdated ideas.
 
Flagged
a2hudeck | 6 other reviews | Jan 9, 2024 |
By setting this book in the present time but having an older, now working privately, spy as the protaganist, you get the best of both modern and old-time spy work in this book. OSINT is used, Open source intelligence, plus pass-by drops all in one story that goes backwards and forwards between 2022 and 1993.

When old spies meet in shabby pubs to lament the state of the modern world, one of the things they say is that nobody learns the old skills. Anti-surveillance, counter-surveillance, it's all been forgotten. These days, its all done by tracking your phone, those little beacons we all carry with us, shining out to any of the world's intelligence agencies.
p1

The spy, Simon Sharman, is asked to investigate a Russian who wants to donate money to a university and the university doesn't want to be involved in dirty money. Sharman looks into the Russian but not everything is as it seems. It very soon turns into a much larger investigation into the heart of whether there was a spy ring at Oxford and if so, where are they now. A little problematic for Sharman who was present at Oxford during the time this was all going on.

It turns out that the UK via the prime minister is about to do a deal with Russia, through oligarchs, to develop a large data cable so the book follows a theme of the way Russian money is so deeply embedded in our economy: property in London; investments in infrastructure and general spending power. Very relevant.

I loved some of the detail. For instance, when Sharman is followed he looks at the shoes of the people around him to spot when the shoes reappear. Those tracking him changed their clothing but not their shoes and so he was able to find the people who were 'boxing' him in as they tracked him.

It is their shoes that give them away. As a lifelong fieldman, Simon Sharman hasn't forgotten the lesson: walkers might change their jackets, pull on a pair of glasses, even a wig. But nobody changes their shoes on a job. Look at their shoes.
p1

A great book that I read in two sittings. I enjoyed it much more than the short stories.
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Flagged
allthegoodbooks | Jan 6, 2024 |
This is a collection of short fiction by a man who was a very prolific writer of the 1950s and also involved in iconic TV shows such as The Twilight Zone. As the introduction by his friend Ray Bradbury makes clear, he was very much an ideas writer and his fiction does not usually develop characters particularly, with a lot of the characters being rather unpleasant. Possibly this is why quite a few of the stories didn't make much impression or I wasn't keen although some are quite vividly written, such as one about a futuristic city built in what had previously been the jungle home of tribespeople.

The best in my opinion is one about a priest who is asked to go to the house of a dying friend and the challenging conversation which ensues. That story had some emotional impact, and the ending was quite touching. So on balance I would rate this as a 3 star read.
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Flagged
kitsune_reader | Nov 23, 2023 |

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William F. Nolan Contributor, Editor
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Ray Bradbury Foreword, Contributor
Will Sweeney Cover artist
Bill Mumy Actor
Alvin Ganzer Director
Allen Reisner Director
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Alan Smithee Director
Robert Bloch Contributor
Stanley Ellin Contributor
Whit Burnett Contributor
Ronald Bradford Contributor
Richard M. Gordon Contributor
Henry Slesar Contributor
Charles E. Fritch Contributor
Esther Carlson Contributor
Robert Lowry Contributor
Fritz Leiber Contributor
Richard M. Powers Cover artist

Statistics

Works
79
Also by
64
Members
1,255
Popularity
#20,439
Rating
3.9
Reviews
35
ISBNs
88
Languages
3
Favorited
6

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