THE CLIFFSIDE CHRONICLES


Growing up in a small town in upstate New York in the 1970s could be pretty scary.

Even without the polyester
and monsters.


If you grew up with Universal movie monsters, creepy comics, DARK SHADOWS, Aurora monster models, and “Chiller Theatre”; came of age with the steady stream of spooky TV movies of the 1970s (e.g., TRILOGY OF TERROR, THE NIGHT STALKER, and DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK); white-knuckled it, peering through your fingers every time during multiple viewings of THE EXORCIST; felt STAND BY ME was written about you and your friends when you were 12; thought Stephen King had to have based CARRIE on your high school and SALEM’S LOT on your hometown; had stacks of dog-eared paperbacks by your bed during the Eighties horror story boom; never missed an issue of FANGORIA; and rented every scary movie released during the Golden Age of VHS … you’ll feel right at home in the world of THE CLIFFSIDE CHRONICLES.


For the facts behind the frightening fiction; sample chapters dripping with nostalgia, teen angst, and gore; the author’s takes on writing and independent authoring and publishing; recommended books (from the classics to the kitschiest) and movies (golden oldies from the Golem to the Gill-Man and so-bad-they’re-good goodies from late-night cable); and the latest information on the availability of all seven Chronicles and future books featuring Sam Bennett, you’ve come to the right place.


If there’s one passage from a book that captures the zeitgeist of growing up in a small town in the Sixties and Seventies, it’s this one from Robert McCammon’s BOY’S LIFE, one of the best
coming-of-age horror
novels ever written:

We ran like young wild furies where angels feared to tread.
The woods were dark and deep, before us demons fled.
We checked Coke bottle bottoms to see how far was far.
Our worlds of magic wonder were never reached by car.
We loved our dogs like brothers, our bikes like rocket ships.
We were going to the stars, to Mars we’d make round trips.
We swung on vines like Tarzan, and flashed Zorro’s keen blade.
We were James Bond in his Aston, we were Hercules unchained.
We looked upon the future and we saw a distant land,
Where our folks were always ageless, and time was shifting sand.
We filled up life with living, with grins, scabbed knees, and noise.
In glass I see an older man, but this book’s for the boys.