Book excerpt: The landmark first collection by one of the masters of 20th-century American horror fiction, back in print at last Though he published over 350 short stories and more than thirty novels, most of Robert Bloch's work has long been out of print, and many readers today know him only as the author of Psycho. This new edition of his classic first collection, The Opener of the Way (1945), is the first in a series of Bloch reprints from Valancourt which aims to restore Bloch to his rightful place as one of the key 20th-century American writers of horror fiction. This volume features twenty-one early Bloch stories, most of them originally published in the famous magazine Weird Tales. Included here are such classics as the oft-imitated "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper," the chilling title story "The Opener of the Way," in which an expedition to an Egyptian tomb goes horribly awry, and "The Shambler from the Stars," a Lovecraftian tale in which Lovecraft himself appears as a character. This edition also features a new introduction by one of today's greatest horror writers, Ramsey Campbell. "Robert Bloch is one of the all-time masters."-Peter Straub "A seminal influence on just about everybody. Any time devoted to studying this master is time well spent."-Fangoria