Two ‘Uniques’ from Ken Krueger

I’ve posted before on some of the various publications from editor/publisher Ken Krueger (1926-2009), and I guess I will do more as I find more little publications he put out. Like these two I discovered at Windy City (thanks to Dream Haven Books out of Minneapolis): Unique Tales and Unique. Neither of which had more than one issue.

Unique Tales #1 (1974), subtitled “the weird magazine,” and boy is it. It’s 4-by-11-inches with a goldenrod cover with line art. It comes in at 50 pages and was supposedly only 500 copies from Shroud. Due to the length, we mainly get very short poems and short-short stories. Of the notable items is a poem by George Allan England and short stories by Robert Silverberg and Fred C. Adams. For me, the interesting piece was an editorial where Krueger spoke about the publication of Fantasy Classics and Fantasy Reader at Fantasy House.

Yes, a second issue was promoted, but it never appeared. I have no idea if the story promised ever saw print. And did Shroud really publish a copy of The Atom Clock by Cornel Lengyel?

Unique #1 (1978) is 8.5-by-11-inches, with a coated cardstock cover with black and blue ink. It comes in at 50 pages and was supposedly limited to 1,500 copies from Valcour & Krueger Inc.

This time we got three pulp reprints along with new artwork and several ads. We get “Monster of the Tarn” by Nelson Kent from Saucy Movie Tales (March 1936), “Black Curtains” by G. Frederick Montefiore from Weird Tales (March 1925), and “The Marble Virgin” by Kennie McDowd from Science Wonder Stories (June 1929). For some, we get the original pulp illustrations, while others get new art. I am uncertain about the source of the newer art, as most is not credited.

The editorial was interesting as Krueger spoke of the work they did to get this out. I saw an ad for Fantasy Reader #8, which would be “A Pleasant Evening” by Robert W. Chambers. Was this published? I’ve never seen it and suspect it wasn’t. The back cover promoted Blood by Hanns Heinz Ewers, which they did publish.  I have recently gotten a copy.  Both from Valcour & Krueger.

So they are an interesting pair of works to add to my collection. Has anyone done any kind of bibliography of what Ken Krueger edited and published? Even on the ISFDB, they don’t have everything listed.

While I don’t normally do this, I would recommend reaching out to Dream Haven Books, as the owner bought up a lot of Krueger’s unsold stock, so you might get many things for a decent price. Plus many include little “mini certificates” with them from Shroud. Wish I knew this before trying to hunt things down on eBay and the like.  I pretty much paid more for what were used copies vs ‘new old stock’ from Dream Haven.