In this gripping novel, the Earth is overcrowded and its resources are being taxed to the limit. The government has a desperate plan, but will it work and at what price? Robert Bloch is the author of Psycho and Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper.

Assembled here are Robert Bloch's best essays from fan-produced magazines, including such classics as "The Seven Ages of Fan," "Through a Picture-Tube, Darkly," "The Demolished Fan," "Poe and Me," "In Memoriam: Weird Tales," and "The Incredible Head-Shrinking Man." Bloch's blend of wry humor, insight, awful puns, and verbal play make the 46 essays and 3 poems in The Eighth Stage of Fandom some of the most interesting and remarkable work in a career filled with the interesting and remarkable.

Robert Bloch's Psycho captivated a nation when it appeared in 1959. The story was all too real-indeed this classic was inspired by the real-life story of Ed Gein, a psychotic murderer who led a dual life. Alfred Hitchcock too was captivated, and turned the book into one of the most-loved classic films of all time the year after it was released.
Norman Bates loves his Mother. She has been dead for the past twenty years, or so people think. Norman knows better though. He has lived with Mother ever since leaving the hospital in the old house up on the hill above the Bates motel. One night Norman spies on a beautiful woman that checks into the hotel as she undresses. Norman can't help but spy on her. Mother is there though. She is there to protect Norman from his filthy thoughts. She is there to protect him with her butcher knife.

She was a fugitive, lost in a storm. That was when she saw the sign: motel - vacancy. The sign was unlit, the motel dark. She switched off the engine, and sat thinking, alone and frightened. She had nobody. The stolen money wouldn't help her, and Sam couldn't either, because she had taken the wrong turning; she was on a strange road. There was nothing she could do now - she had made her grave and she'd have to lie in it. She froze. Where had that come from? Grave. It was bed, not grave. She shivered in the cold car, surrounded by shadows. Then, without a sound, a dark shape emerged from the blackness and the car door opened. Psycho is not a tale for queasy stomachs or faint hearts. It is filled with horrifying suspense and the climax, instead of being a relief, will hit the reader with bone-shattering force.

Die Quellen und Verastelungen utopischer Modelle sind mit den politischen, okonomischen, religiosen Strukturen ihrer Entstehungszeit eng verbunden. Zum Gebiet der Utopie zahlt nicht nur die sie begrundende sozialutopische Litera turgattung, sondern ebenfalls die geschichts-und weltpra genden Modelle in Architektur, Kunst, Technik, Medizin, Naturwissenschaften, Recht, Religion oder Naturphiloso phie. Die oft zeitgleich aufkommenden Gegenutopien sind doppelten Charakters: zum einen konnen diese Dystopien einer nihilistischen Zukunfts diagnose dienen, zum anderen kann die in ihnen dargestellte Negation der Freiheit eben dadurch einen antithetischen utopischen Horizont eroffnen. Dem Utopiethema zugehorig sind seine Dilemmata: inwie weit namlich eine utopische Zukunftsprogrammatik zur Despotie fuhren kann. Kehrseite dessen ist die kritische Funktion der Utopie, die nicht nur als theoretische Unruhe wirkt, sondern uberdies seismographisch die Widerspruche, Stromungen und Tendenzen einer Gesellschaft aufzeigt. Ein weites, vergleichsweise wenig bereistes Gebiet ist das der Naturutopie, in der der gesellschaftliche Stoffwechsel mit der Natur anders als herkommlich perspektiviert wird. Auch dieses ist Thema des Bandes und gehort zu den Orts bestimmungen im Nirgendwo: mit der unentwegten Aufgabe der Ankunft in einem unentfremdeten Jetzt und Hier."

This Crowded Earth is a taut and compelling story about an all too possible future. Earth is overcrowded and its resources are being taxed to the limit. The government has a desperate plan, but will it work and at what price? By the author of Psycho and Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper

THE WORLD GONE PSYCHO

Harry Collins is an ad-executive in a future Chicago on an Earth whose population has exploded beyond imagining.

Crazed by the pressures of overcrowding, he seeks escape with a suicidal leap from a skyscraper. Stopped, he is hustled off for psychiatric treatment in a odd encampment where he meets an falls in love with an accommodating nurse named Sue.

But who is the strange Dr. Leffingwell, performing experiments on the premises?

Harry's horrific discoveries in the secret lab cause him to flee into the outside world -- flee into the forces that would help change and shape this tortured world.

But then, years later, when his assassin's rifle is trained on Dr. Leffingwell himself, he is halted by the mutant product of that fateful lab.

His own son.

Here is an exciting work of science fiction by an acknowledged master of suspense and horror, Robert Bloch.

When H.P. Lovecraft first introduced his macabre universe in the pages of Weird Tales magazine, the response was electrifying. Gifted writers—among them his closest peers—added sinister new elements to the fear-drenched landscape. Here are some of the most famous original stories from the pulp era that played a pivotal role in reflecting the master’s dark vision.

FANE OF THE BLACK PHARAOH by Robert Bloch: A man obsessed with unearthing dark secrets succumbs to the lure of the forbidden.
BELLS OF HORROR by Henry Kuttner: Infernal chimes ring the promise of dementia and mutilation.
THE FIRE OF ASSURBANIPAL by Robert E. Howard: In the burning Afghan desert, a young American unleashes an ancient curse.
THE ABYSS by Robert A. W. Lowndes: A hypnotized man finds himself in an alternate universe, trapped on a high wire between life and death.

AND SIXTEEN MORE TALES OF ICY TERROR

Best known as the author of "Psycho," Robert Bloch is world-renowned for his stories of horror, mystery, fantasy, and science fiction. Many of the 25 stories in this first volume of "The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch" have been unavailable for decades. The stories are in his classic style of gripping suspense, science fiction and fantasy.

As Bloch writes, "These stories in this collection have a common theme; they deal with monsters. Some of the monsters are human, some are not-- but all of them embody, in one way or another, the fears common to us in our dreams. We call these monsters by many names-- ghosts, vampires, extraterrestrials, changelings. But we recognize them for what they are; manifestations of the secret dreads and desires which lurk beneath the surface of consciousness."

"Bloch has become a virtual fixture on the popular culture landscape." --Publishers Weekly

"If you're not familiar with Bloch's short fiction, find someone to borrow this from; if you already are familiar, you know that you want to own these volumes." --Locus

The special 300th issue of Weird Tales honors grandmaster Robert Bloch with a special issue dedicated to him. Includes a previously unpublished collaboration between Bloch and Henry Kuttner, plus contributions from Ray Bradbury, Lawrence Watt-Evans. All artwork is by Featured Artist Gahan Wilson.

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
--H. P. LOVECRAFT, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"

Howard Phillips Lovecraft forever changed the face of horror, fantasy, and science fiction with a remarkable series of stories as influential as the works of Poe, Tolkien, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. His chilling mythology established a gateway between the known universe and an ancient dimension of otherworldly terror, whose unspeakable denizens and monstrous landscapes--dread Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, the Plateau of Leng, the Mountains of Madness--have earned him a permanent place in the history of the macabre.

In Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, a pantheon of horror and fantasy's finest authors pay tribute to the master of the macabre with a collection of original stories set in the fearsome Lovecraft tradition:

¸  The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: The slumbering monster-gods return to the world of mortals.
¸  Notebook Found in a Deserted House by Robert Bloch: A lone farmboy chronicles his last stand against a hungering backwoods evil.
¸  Cold Print by Ramsey Campbell: An avid reader of forbidden books finds a treasure trove of deadly volumes--available for a bloodcurdling price.
¸  The Freshman by Philip José Farmer: A student of the black arts receives an education in horror at notorious Miskatonic University.

PLUS EIGHTEEN MORE SPINE-TINGLING TALES!