Henry Slesar – Larque Press | The Digest Enthusiast

TDE Update June 9, 2021

20 Million Miles to Earth, the Novel

“As Shuster and Bailey rush to investigate, they find a strange reptilitan creature, eight feet tall with a prehensile tail. Dead—apparently electrocuted by the relatively low voltage of their power lines.”

Henry Slesar (1927–2002) was a prolific author, scriptwriter, and copywriter, famous for his twist endings. He is created for coining the phrase “coffee break” during his early years as an advertising copywriter. His first fiction sale was “The Brat” (Imaginative Tales Sept. 1953).

Two years later he wrote the novelization of the Columbia Pictures’ classic 20 Million Miles to Earth for Ziff-Davis in the the one-shot digest, Amazing Stories Science Fiction Novel.

Read the complete synopsis of Slesar’s novel, with highlights of the differences between film and novel in The Digest Enthusiast No. 14. Available now:
14C (full color print)–$20.00 from Lulu.com and Amazon.com
14BW (b&w print)–$12 from Amazon.com
14 Kindle (full color digital)–$4.99 from Amazon.com
14 digital (full color digital)–$4.99 from Magzter.com

Vault January 22, 2020

Mike Shayne Dec. 1957

Brett Halliday: Weddings . . . and Funerals
Contents Page
Brett Halliday “Lilies for the Bride” art by Leo Morey
John Jakes “The Affair of the Second Dracula”
D.E. Forbes “The Fifth One” art by Bowman
Rufus King “Murder on Her Mind” art by Leo Morey
Henry Slesar “Fly Home to Betsy” art by Leo Morey
Frederic (Fredric) Sinclair “Sky Caper”
John Bennett Stacey “The Dangerous Decision”
Curtis W. Casewit “You Can’t Buy Guts” art by Leo Morey
W.R. Drobnich “Who Else, Mac?

Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Vol. 2 No. 5 Dec. 1957
Publisher: Leo Margulies
Managing Editor: Cylvia Kleinman
Production: Joan Sherman
5.25” x 7.75” 128 pages 35¢

Vault October 22, 2019

Michael Shayne Feb. 1957

Most of the Mike Shayne short novels that appeared in his digest magazine were ghost written under the Brett Halliday pseudonym. But this issue features the first of a three-part series presenting a brand new full-length novel by Davis Dresser himself. “Weep for a Blond Corpse” ran in the Feb., April, and June 1957 issues. This issue was the last one with “Michael,” in the title; it was strictly ”Mike” from here on.

Brett Halliday’s Goal to Go! (intro)
Contents Page
Brett Halliday “Weep for a Blond Corpse” part one
Veronica Parker Johns “The Cannibal Oxen”
Lee E. Wells “Desert of Death”
Robert O’Niel Bristow “The Naked Trap”
Jay Carroll “A Dress for May Lou”
Irving Burstiner’s Find the Detective (puzzle)
Henry Slesar “The Right Kind of House”
Samuel W. Taylor “Night of the Full Moon”
Robert Bloch “The Real Bad Friend”
Frank Kane “The Rumble”

Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine Vol. 1 No. 6 Feb. 1957
Publisher: Leo Margulies
Managing Editor: Cylvia Kleinman
Production: Joan Sherman
5.25” x 7.75” 160 pages 35¢

Vault April 30, 2019

Alfred Hitchcock Feb. 1964

Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine Vol. 9 No. 2 Feb. 1964
Alfred Hitchcock: Dear Readers
Contents
Henry Slesar “Second Verdict”
Duane Yarnell “The Bent Frame”
Arthur Porges “Blood Will Tell”
Robert Edmond Alter “A Habit for the Voyage”
Thomasina Weber “The Handiest Man Around”
Wenzell Brown “The Lure”
Hilda Cushing “She Loved Funerals”
Clark Howard “Four and Twenty Blackbirds”
Jonathan Craig “The Baby”
Gene Pollock “The Time of His Life”
Miranda Wallace “A Touch of Magic”
Edward Wellen “Siege Perilous”
Richard Deming “The Sensitive Juror”
Carroll Mayers “The Big Grab”
Bernice Balfour “The Vision of Mrs. Hardy”

Editor: Richard E. Decker
160 pages, 50¢

Contents from Galactic Central.

Vault February 7, 2019

Amazing Stories Science Fiction Novel

Steve Carper explains his criteria for One-and-Dones in the excerpts below from part one of his series that appears in The Digest Enthusiast No. 7–9:

“My criteria are subjective, obviously. I only include fiction; anthologies and collections count alongside novels, but nonfiction is out . . . . To be included, publishers had to be legitimate companies devoted to putting out the work of others . . . . Trying to settle on a definitionof a “digest” was surprisingly difficult . . . . I do not include chapbooks . . . . This [series] is my attempt to merge all my research into a single source listing.”

Steve proceeds in alphabetical order.

“Amazing Stories Science Fiction Novel is about as awkward an appellation as publishers’ lines ever get. Fortunately, its sole book was the 1957 movie tie-in 20 Million Miles to Earth by Henry Slesar. This is a prime collectible because of its rarity and the gigantic space lizard from Venus on its cover.”

Per the criteria, not a true One-and-Done as it was published by giant Ziff-Davis, but nevertheless a fascinating one-shot.