Tag Archives: psycho

Author of the Week, Robert Bloch, April 5

AUTHOR OF THE WEEK   April 5

Robert Bloch

(Short Stories and Novels: Crime, Horror, Science Fiction Writer)

 

 

“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.”

“Horror is the removal of masks.”

“There’s a great desire to communicate, I think, on the part of all of us. And if we are in situations where the communication is difficult due to difficult circumstances or shyness or an introversion, this is a wonderful outlet. And a direct one.”

 

Robert Albert Bloch (1917 — 1994) was a prolific American writer. Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories, over twenty novels of crime and science fiction, but was most famous for his horror fiction Psycho.

Bloch was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle, a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career.  He received a Hugo Award  for That Hell-Bound Train, the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. A good friend of the science fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum, Bloch wrote three stories for Star Trek.

Listen to Bloch’s Psycho, an audio preview of the novel (15 minutes):

 

Interested in the backstory, the inspiration for Psycho? Read it here at Galaxy Press about the Butcher of Plainfield:

The Backstory to Robert Bloch’s “Psycho”

 

“Horror is not about supernatural forces or things that go bump in the night; horror is about the fear we have within, buried deep in our brains.”

Read more at Lit Reactor about Robert Bloch: https://litreactor.com/columns/footnotes-psycho

 

 

 

More at Bloch Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Bloch/e/B001K6Q4QW

 

Please join me in my reading nook and discover an author every week at Reading Fiction Blog! And browse the Index of Authors’ Tales above to find over 200 free short stories by over 100 famous authors.

Once a month I feature a FREE short story by contemporary and classic authors.

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Filed under crime stories, crime thrillers, dark fantasy, dark literature, fiction, fiction bloggers, free horror short stories online, free short stories, free short stories online, ghost story blogs, horror, horror blogs, literature, Lovecraft, mysteries, pulp fiction, quiet horror, Reading Fiction, READING FICTION BLOG Paula Cappa, science fiction, short stories, short story blogs, tales of terror

Enoch says, “Get the Hatchet!”

Enoch by Robert Bloch  (1946)

Tuesday Tale of Terror  June 16, 2015

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 Illustration by Dan Foley at Spizwackle blogspot.

 

This is a nightmare tale, little bit of black humor, and a lot of creepy business. Seth is a young man with a serious problem. A creature lives on top of his head. No one can see this creature. No one can hear him. No one can catch him. His name is Enoch. And while Enoch spends a lot of time sleeping on Seth’s head, during Enoch’s wake time he orders Seth to kill people. “Get the hatchet!”  Hmmmm, yes, this story is not only weird, but demonstrates a macabre justice with a hefty slice of gluttony.

 

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Read the short story  Enoch with illustrations in Weird Magazine at UNZ.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Roberts Bloch was part of the Lovecraft circle and was heavily influence by him. Today most of us know Robert Bloch from  his novel Psycho, which inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous horror film of the same name.

 

Read Psycho online at English-e-books.net  (Download on the yellow box “Read Online Now.”)

 

 

Listen to another of Robert Bloch’s short stories, audio (30 minutes) of The Hell-bound Train, published in 1958 and won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in Fantasy:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GybC7BBrg2s

Other novels by Robert Bloch:

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Other Reading Web Sites to Visit

Bibliophilica       Lovecraft Ezine     HorrorAddicts.net  

Horror Novel Reviews    Hell Horror    HorrorPalace

HorrorSociety.com        Sirens Call Publications

 Monster Librarian   Tales to Terrify       Spooky Reads

HorrorNews.net     HorrorTalk.com

 Rob Around Books     The Story Reading Ape Blog

For Authors/Writers:  The Writer Unboxed

Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free Tales of Terror classic authors.

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Filed under classic horror stories, fiction, horror, horror blogs, short stories, weird tales

Psycho’s Author Robert Bloch

Greetings:

I just read The Hungry House by Robert Bloch.  Bloch is primarily a crime and horror writer (most know him from his novel Psycho, adapted by Hitchcock). The prose is a little dated (I don’t mind this usually), but the story is still very disturbing.

Hungry House is a soft horror short story about a married couple who buy a house.

… “Then it came. Perhaps it was there all the time; waiting for them in the house.”

One of the first owners of the house was Laura Bellman, an exceptional young beauty– mirrors in every room. Ahh, vanity! Then Laura grows old, ugly, and afraid.  But mirrors don’t lie … or do they?

. . . “She was all alone. Laura and her mirrors.”

I won’t tell you how Laura dies but after her death, the house spawns  mysterious disappearances and deaths. And the married couple who move in?

You can enjoy this little homespun mystery in The Weird, A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories  by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer on Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/The-Weird-Compendium-Strange-ebook/dp/B006TXZD3G.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Night+Sea+Journey+A+Tale

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Filed under horror, mysteries, novels, paranormal, quiet horror, short stories, supernatural, suspense