Yes, MTV used to show music videos.
Nearly everyone I knew professed to hate the network, but I don’t know many who didn’t watch MTV. It was perfect background fodder for the burnout generation. You could laugh at what you hated, but sooner or later something you wanted to see would air.
One of the mainstays of early MTV was Greg Kihn. Kihn had a few hits, rocking out with cheerfully depressing songs like “The Breakup Song” and “Jeopardy.” I neither loved nor hated Kihn. His stuff was harmless and rather pleasant, but I didn’t buy his records.
I don’t think anyone could have predicted that, out of the blue, Greg Kihn would publish one of the best horror novels of the ’90s. The perfectly titled Horror Show was an immediate favorite of fans everywhere.Continue Reading
The year was 1988. I had been a serious horror reader for years and things were really starting to get interesting. We had it all then. Big names, legends, were still publishing: Robert Bloch, Ray Russell, Manly Wade Wellman, Hugh B. Cave, and others. Newer writers like Dennis Etchison, Richard Christian Matheson, Ramsey Campbell, and Michael McDowell were getting into high gear. Writers were migrating from the SF field. And there was a new, streetwise style of horror breaking barriers, from writers like John Skipp, Craig Spector, David J. Schow, Ray Garton. It was a heyday, and it seemed like every new author on the scene I heard about was well worth my time and money.
It was the early years of my decades-long love affair with horror fiction. I blazed through the Stephen King books that had been published at the time, with Pet Semetery being the most current. It was 1983 — a very good year for the genre, with even better things were on the immediate horizon. I eagerly devoured the Peter Straub books that were available, and they were among the finest pieces of fiction I had ever read. I enjoyed books by James Herbert, Whitley Strieber, Ramsey Campbell, John Farris. I read landmark novels by brilliant talents such as F. Paul Wilson and T.E.D. Klein. There were numerous markets for short fiction, and I was blown away by pieces from Karl Edward Wagner, Richard Christian Matheson, and Dennis Etchison. And of course I marveled at the works of Charles L. Grant. The field was on fire, and it was an incredible time to be a fan.
I first read F. Paul Wilson’s The Touch way back in 1986. I was a twenty-five year old boy, rabidly in love with horror. And after The Keep, The Tomb, and some short pieces I had read, F. Paul Wilson was one of my favorite writers.
