About

John Blackburn (1923-1993) was a British novelist who wrote thrillers, and horror novels. Blackburn was described as “today's Master of Horror” by The Times Literary Supplement. Lackburn specialised in mixing modern concerns such as germ warfare and international conspiracies with ancient traditions and curses, often to ingenious effect.

John Blackburn (1923-1993) was a British novelist who wrote thrillers, and horror novels. Blackburn was described as “today's Master of Horror” by The Times Literary Supplement.

The British thriller, replete with supernatural or science-fictional elements, had its heyday in the years just prior to WWII, when authors such as Walter S Masterman and others mixed genres and came up with truly memorable and unsettling results. In the late 1950s, the espionage novel, (with Ian Fleming's James Bond as the standard bearer), was an international success, but horror fans had their own champion, John F.

Starting with this present entry, Blackburn chronicled the adventures of General Kirk of the British Foreign Service in a series of novels that combined the tropes of science fiction, mystery, the occult, and most of all, bone-chilling horror. Borrowing liberally from the British eco-disaster novels of such masters of the form as John Wyndham, Blackburn laid bare the terrors of the Cold War for all to see. In this first outing, something is turning people into fungoid monstrosities, driven to kill; is the secret a new technology run amuck.

The leftovers of a Nazi experiment finally come to fruition? Or something else entirely. Kirk and his staff have just a short time to learn the truth and seek a cure, if, in fact, a cure is possible.

The plague has already destroyed a Russian village and appears that it is now active in England.

Edition Details

• Limited to 200 copies, each signed by Guy N. Smith and Gahan Wilson.
• Family-approved facsimile by John F. Blackburn.
• New introduction by Guy N. Smith.
• Gorgeous endpapers.
• Full Dutch cloth with blind stamp on front board.
• Ribbon marker, head and tail bands.
• Bonus short story, “The Final Trick.”.

External Links

• A Scent of New-Mown Hay. Centipede Press page for A Scent of New-Mown Hay
• John F. Blackburn (ISFDB). ISFDB entry for John F. Blackburn