John Glasby

Glasby is not well known as a crime fiction author. He is better known for his westerns and science fiction novels. Nevertheless, Glasby's Johnny Merak novels are about as good as it gets when it comes to hardboiled crime fiction. There are at least three novels in this series available in Ebola format -- Rackets Inc, Savage City, and A Time For Murder. There also appear to be several additional novels in the series not yet available as ebooks.

The premise in the Johnny Merak novels is that show more Merak is a tough as anything hoodlum framed for a crime who turns on his old cronies after doing three years at San Quentin. Merak still has a hood's mentality and he is tough, ruthless, and unrelenting. The stories, like Spillane's Hammer stories, are filled with sudden explosions of violence. And if you enjoy fifties-style car chases, fistfights, and gun battles, this is it.

This is the first novel in the series and it introduces Merak, dark haired Dawn Grahame (his gal Friday), and federal agent Grenville. The story is a battle of good versus evil and there's no gray area as to is on which side. The pace is furious and unrelenting. There are no slow parts to a Johnny Merak novel. show less

Dark Andromeda by AJ Merak (a pseudonym of John Glasby) is a 1954 classic space scifi adventure.

Earth and its 'Terran Forces' is threatened with attack from the superior forces of the Hundred Suns of Andromeda (of the Andromeda Galaxy). The only thing standing in their way is space spy Captain Blair who is dispatched to infiltrate and sew disunity within the Andromeda Galaxy.

The book starts midway through a conversation between the Chief Councillor and Captain Blair, if it weren't for the show more huge Chapter 1 just above this line I could have easily mistaken a part of the book missing. I just found it a really odd way to begin a book by just launching into things with zero backgrounding. From here you're on the back foot for awhile trying to establish what is going on and who everyone is.

I enjoy quite a bit of classic 50s scifi but this one just didn't do it for me, both the start and end seemed abrupt and I'm not at all surprised it was published by Panther Books who publish quite a bit of average material seeming to go for the throw everything against the wall and see what sticks approach rather than curating quality content.

I wouldn't recommend it. show less

Prior to reading THE THING IN THE MIST, I must confess that I was not familiar with the work of the late John S. Glasby, but what I learned of him intrigued me. Glasby, aside from being a research chemist and an astronomer, also wrote a number of what are often billed as “Lovecraftian” horror tales during the 1950s and 1960s. While we are inundated with Lovecraftian pastiches from the 1980s to the present, I hadn’t previously come across any of his fiction, nor much horror fiction of show more the Lovecraftian mold from this era. THE THING IN THE MIST is a collection of eleven of Glasby’s horror stories originally published in the British pulp magazine Supernatural Stories, along with a foreword by Edmund Glasby, one of his sons, and an afterword by Philip Harbottle, one of Glasby’s colleagues. Badger Books, a British publishing house specializing in pulp fiction, published 108 issues of the magazine Supernatural Stories between 1954 and 1967. While much of Supernatural Stories was the product of ultra-prolific pulp author Lionel Fanthorpe (under various literary guises), John S. Glasby also wrote prolifically for the magazine, ultimately writing over 300 (!) short stories and novels.

The stories contained in this collection, along with original dates of publication, are:

“The Black Mirror” (1967)
“The Sea Thing” (1954)
“The Haunting of Charles Quintain” (1967)
“The Thing in the Mist” (1967)
“The Dark Time” (1967)
“The Night-Comer” (1967)
“The Golden Scarab” (1955)
“The Pipes of Pan” (1959)
“Older Than Death” (1967)
“The Crystal Fear” (1955)
“The Creature in the Depths” (1959)

Some of the stories in THE THING IN THE MIST contain obvious Lovecraftian connections (notably “The Black Mirror,” concerning a journalist who ventures inside a newly discovered cities long-buried under the sands of North Africa). Most of the other stories in this collection are more standard horror stories in the vein of the old EC Comics from the 1950s if you remember those (e.g., “The Haunting of Charles Quintain” and the eponymous “The Thing in the Mist”). Most of Glasby’s stories, rather than containing new adventures of Lovecraft’s Elder Gods, involve voodoo, strange things crawling out of the sea, traditional demons/devils, ancient family curses, and the like. That doesn’t make these stories any less enjoyable, but I wouldn’t describe most as being particularly “Lovecraftian.” These are generally interesting, entertaining horror short stories from an era with which many of us may not be familiar. In some of these stories, their pulp roots show forth fairly clearly, so readers should be aware that they are likely not stories for those seeking detailed psychological explorations and subtleties. Having said that, Glasby’s stories are well written and no less enjoyable for their occasional lack of subtlety.

Horror tales from the pulp era are a bit of an acquired taste; if you are looking for the explicit, gruesome violence that we often see in modern horror fiction, you won’t find it here. You also won’t find, for the most part, deeply psychological or brooding tales of atmospheric horror. Glasby uses a variety of the iconic tropes of horror fiction to good effect, though, and he’s an engaging writer who crafts stories that fly right by. Personally, I enjoyed this collection of Glasby’s fiction and am curious about the remainder of his prolific output that was not collected here. Perhaps we will see a second collection of his horror fiction? Recommend, especially for those who wish to sample the classic horror tales from the pulps of the 1950s and 1960s.

Review copyright © 2013 J. Andrew Byers show less

Mike Torlin, private investigator is hired by Pete Donati to discover who is behind the strange happenings at his carnival ground. Then the first murder occurs.
A satisfying mystery and a quick read, a throwback to probably the 50's p.i. stories.