David J. Schow’s detailed Introduction gives us the basic arc of Charles Beaumont’s writing career. Beaumont was a workaholic and wrote over a 100 short stories until he died in 1967 at the age of 38. Ray Bradbury wrote this insightful comment on Beaumont for The Magic Man (Fawcett, 1965): “Some writers are one idea people. Other writers, far rarer, far wilder, are pomegranates. They bust with seed. Charles has always been a pomegranate writer. You simply never know where his love and high excitement will take him next.”
I’ve read some of Charles Beaumont’s short story collections back in the 1960s. But most of you will recognize Beaumont for his stories filmed for The Twilight Zone: “The Howling Man“, “Static“, “Miniature“, “Printer’s Devil“, and “Number Twelve Looks Just Like You“, but also penned the screenplays for several films, such as 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, The Intruder, and The Masque of the Red Death.
The Carnival and Other Stories (Subterranean, 2022) opens with a “deal with the Devil” story, “The Devil, You Say?” I enjoyed Beaumont’s comic pastiche of the Mike Hammer novels in “The Last Caper.” And I was amused by “The Love Master” and “Genevieve, My Genevieve” that were published in Rogue, a men’s magazine that featured “spicy” stories. What you will find in any Beaumont short story collection is a variety of stories, all completely different. If you’re looking for a master short story writer, the prove is in The Carnival and Other Stories. GRADE: A
Table of Contents:
- Introduction: The Return of the Magic Man by David J. Schow — 7
- The Devil, You Say? — 23
- Elegy — 51
- The Last Caper — 61
- Mass for Mixed Voices — 73
- Hair of the Dog — 87
- The Quadriopticon — 103
- The Love-Master — 129
- A World of Differents — 139
- Anthem — 147
- Mother’s Day — 163
- The Trigger — 177
- Genevieve, My Genevieve — 193
- Buck Fever — 207
- Dead You Know — 219
- Mourning Song — 227
- Something in the Earth — 241
- Insomnia Vobiscum — 253
- My Grandmother’s Japonicas — 257
- Appointment with Eddie — 269
- The Carnival — 287
- The Crime of Willie Washington — 305
- The Man with the Crooked Nose — 321
- The Wages of Cynicism — 333
- The Child — 337
- The Life of the Party — 359
- Beast of the Glacier — 367
Subterranean Press does some nice editions and they aren’t as obscenely expensive and restricted to ridiculously limited printings as some of the other specialty houses. It’s nice to see a quality hardcover collection of Beaumont’s work in print since that Penguin paperback that’s in print is so poorly printed with such terrible cover art I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. A wonderful writer who passed away horribly at a young age.
I knew I had read a Beaumont collection relatively recently, but in checking back it was September of 2016 when I read PERCHANCE TO DREAM: Selected Stories.
I do remember him from the TWILIGHT ZONE days too.
Good choice.
Jeff, I’m always impressed with volumes of wonderful (but mostly forgotten) writers that Subterranean Press publishes. THE CARNIVAL AND OTHER STORIES is one of the best books I’ve read this year!
I just compared the contents and there is no overlap between the two collections, so I guess I will have to get this one too.
George the Tempter strikes again!
Jeff, you’ll be glad I tempted you into buying THE CARNIVAL AND OTHER STORIES when you read it!
And, apparently, as with his late scriptwriting, his last short-fiction writing was often at least partially ghosted by his several very good friends among writers as he was too incapacitated to complete the work in question.
He was also, among other things, the first regular film reviewer for THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION.
Todd, Charles Beaumont joins other marvelous writers like C.M. Kornbluth who died young.
Though he had a more lingering death, sadly, than even the majority of the too-soon-vanished, such as Kornbluth and Henry Kuttner and, really, Shirley Jackson and entirely too many others.
Todd, exactly. And, it’s not just writers. I’m still grieving Siobhan O’Connor.
This book is a true bargain! It is (by my count) the twelfth collection of Beaumont’s stories. The earliest collections were paperback originals beginning in 1958 and are very difficult to find; most of the other collections were published by small houses with moderately hefty prices. Here you have 25 stories published from 1951 to 2013, plus one that had never been published before; four of the other stories had never before appeared in a Beaumont collection. Even a Beaumont completist must be salivating over this book.
Beaumont was a terrific writer and his early death was a great loss to the entire field.
Jerry, I have a couple of Charles Beaumont’s paperback collections, but THE CARNIVAL AND OTHER STORIES tops them all! George the Tempter strikes again!
I have a couple of the older paperbacks bought last year for $1 at a book fair. I don’t like all his comedic stories (I don’t care for comedy as a subgenre in most cases), but do enjoy his writing overall. And of course, The Twilight Zone.
Frank, you got a bargain for Beaumont books for a buck! Humor is subjective so it’s a lot harder to make work for a broad audience.
I read some of Charles Beaumont’s stores in Perchance to Dream, and most of them I did not care for. This has an outstanding cover though.
Tracy, thanks for reminding me to include the cover artwork credit to Matt Mahurin. That great cover really catches your eye!