The Patches Project

"Close enough," Brother Bill said.

Science Fiction Tales (Roger Elwood, Rod Ruth, 1973)

And finally here's Science Fiction Tales, the remaining entry in a series of hardcover science fiction/horror anthology books for children published by Rand McNally in the 70s (I previously posted on Monster Tales, Horror Tales, Tales of Terror, Baleful Beasts and Eerie Creatures, and this book's direct follow-up, More Science Fiction Tales).

Edited by Roger Elwood and illustrated by Rod Ruth, here are seven stories by seven authors, with an introduction by Theodore Sturgeon.

THE SMALLEST DRAGONBOY (Anne McCaffrey)

In the first story, Keevan, a young boy on an alien world, participates in a coming-of-age ritual that revolves around the hatching of baby dragons. The alien world is Pern, and this tale turns out to be an early entry in McCaffrey's successfull Dragonriders of Pern franchise.

ALONE IN SPACE (Arthur Tofte)

A young boy left alone in a spaceship after the death of his father must outsmart space pirates looking for rare interplanetary gems. The boy cleverly uses a display case of geological samples to disguise his valuable payload.

THE MYSTERIOUS GEM (Claire Edwin Street)

Two kids cross paths with blue-skinned aliens after happening upon a teleportation device.

THE TRIPLE MOONS OF DENEB II (David H. Charney)

In this werewolf story transplanted to an alien world with three moons, the livestock of interplanetary colonists are being killed and eaten by some mysterious animal whenever the moon and the moon and the moon is full....

THE LAUGHING LION (Raymond F. Jones)

A boy accidentally time-travels back in time to a medieval castle on the eve of its mysterious destruction. A knight wearing the crest of a laughing lion helps protect him and his egg-shaped craft from superstitious villagers.

TWO YEARS TO GAEA (Rick Bowles)

The last young survivor of a spaceship in which the rest of the crew has been killed off one by one after succumbing to madness, encounters friendly plant-like aliens.

SOME ARE BORN CATS (Terry & Carol Carr)

This humorous story suggests your pet cat just might be an alien in disguise.

More Science Fiction Tales (Roger Elwood, Rod Ruth, 1974)

Here's More Science Fiction Tales (1974, edited by Roger Elwood, illustrations by Rod Ruth), a follow up to 1971's Science Fiction Tales (also edited by Elwood and illustrated by Ruth) and belonging to a series of hardcover children's horror/sci-fi anthology books published by Rand McNally in the 70s (I've previously posted on the Elwood-edited Monster Tales and Horror Tales, Ida Chittum's Tales of Terror, and perhaps the most sought after entry, Baleful Beasts and Eerie Creatures, also illustrated by Ruth).

The full title is More Science Fiction Tales, Crystal Creatures, Bird-Things, & Other Weirdies, seven tales of science fiction by seven authors, with an introduction by Barry N. Malzberg (full table of contents posted below).

Several of the stories here could rightfully be considered belonging to the horror genre, including my favorite, A Hole In Jennifer's Room by Brian T. LoMedico.

Fourth-grader Jennifer is awakened one evening by a glowing orb that materializes out of her bedroom wall. A creature that she describes as resembling a large chicken embryo emerges from the lit portal and begins stalking around her bedroom.

Frightened, Jennifer is about to attack the alien thing with a baseball bat when the creature suddenly introduces itself, speaking perfect English. Its name is Xander, and it is an inter-dimensional traveler that took a wrong turn and ended up in Jennifer's room in Dimension Three. At first it seems like the beginnings of a friendship between the unlikely pair is starting to emerge, until Xander decides to explore the rest of the house on his own and is never seen again.

Jennifer's parents don't believe her story and she is forced to see a doctor who prescribes pills to alleviate what they presume is a hallucinatory episode.

But the pills don't help, as Jennifer is continually tormented by the sounds of Xander's clicking beak, and glimpses of movement caught in her peripheral vision. Xander, as it turns out, never really did leave Jennifer, as the final chilling paragraph reveals:

And sometimes, in the deep darkened corners of her mind, Jennifer heard a whispering voice, answering her as if from a great distance. It always said the same thing. "I'm right here, Jennifer. And remember, you did it all to yourself.... You should have hit me with that baseball bat."

...

In The Bend of Time (William Danton), a boy returning to a recolonized Earth in the year 4010 is able to communicate across time with another boy his age from a prior millenium, when the world was ruled by robots called Ogolots.

In Hide and Seek (Mario Martin Jr.), a boy looking for a fallen meteor encounters a friendly crashed alien who helps him defend the Earth from some not-so-friendly crab-like invaders.

The Music of Minox (Howard Goldsmith) finds an interplanetary mining camp attacked by aliens monsters resembling crystalline porcupines that emit harp-like sounds.

In The Thing From Ennis Rock (Thomas F. Monteleone), a boy brings home a large egg found in the rubble following an earthquake and soon hatches a baby pteranodon. But mama pteranodon isn't giving up on her baby that easily. This story has a surprisingly dark ending.

A Thirst For Blood (Arthur Tofte), a story of vampires and interplanetary adventure set in the year 2040, opens with a boy being forced to carry out the grim ritual of decapitating the corpse of his father to cancel a vampiric curse.

Finally, a girl is temporarily transformed into a wolf by a mad scientist in Werewolf Girl (Nic Andersson).

Horror Tales: Spirits, Spells & the Unknown (1974)

Horror Tales: Spirits, Spells & The Unknown (1974, edited by Roger Elwood, illustrated by Robert Baumgartner, with an introduction by George Zebrowski) is the fourth and final entry in the unofficial series of children's horror anthologies published by Rand McNally in the 70s (the others being Monster Tales, Tales of Terror and Baleful Beasts and Eerie Creatures. If there are any other books that belong with these four, I'm unaware of them.)
UPDATE: I'm going to add Science Fiction Tales and More Science Fiction Tales to this unofficial series of books (both are edited by Roger Elwood and illustrated by Rod Ruth!)


The complete contents:

Introduction (George Zebrowski)
The Shadow (Howard Goldsmith)
The Boy Who Could Make Things Move (Brian T. LoMedico)
A Seance In Summer (Mario Martin, Jr.)
The Voices of El Dorado (Ward Smith)
A Spell For Jonathan (Thomas F. Monteleone)
The Red Stone Key (Arthur Tofte)
Through The Crystal Ball...And Beyond (Nic Andersson)

The illustrations are suitably creepy and once again it's the first story that is my favorite.


In "The Shadow", a boy Jeff and his parents inherit their recently deceased Aunt Abigail's old house which sits on some wooded property just outside of Salem, Massachusetts.

When they first arrive to the house, which turns out to be a bit dilapidated, they are taken aback by a prominent tree in the yard.

A solitary elm tree loomed before us about ten yards away. The dark silhouette, tall and gaunt, stood out starkly against the brightness of daylight. Pieces of warped bark jutted out in thick, brittle strips. Cobwebs were strung across the leaves, and insects flitted in nervous, meandering motions. Branches crossed and recrossed in gnarled and knotted patterns. And two long, angular limbs reached toward the sky like the arms of someone in agony.

The tree is surrounded by the withered, twisted remains of other trees that were planted nearby but died. The family soon learns that the tree is the resting place of a Colonial-era witch, "Elvira", who, with her dying breath, cursed anyone who ever harmed the tree.

Young Jeff, being a modern and sensible boy, decides to challenge superstition by stabbing the tree with his pocket knife. That night, he notices the shadow of the tree cast by the moonlight is pointing right across the yard towards his bedroom, looking like two gnarled hands inching closer, closer, until they eventually reach his window and right into his room...

In an exciting finale Jeff desperately tries to chop the tree down in the midst of a thunderstorm before the ghost of Elvira can get hold of him. Great stuff.



Here's how all four of the books look side-by-side on the shelf. Tell me they don't look like they belong together as a series!