The Opener of the Way

The Opener of the Way is a collection of fantasy and horror short stories by author Robert Bloch. It was released in 1945 and was the author's first book. It was published by Arkham House in an edition of 2,065 copies.

Most of the stories had appeared in the magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s and 1940s.

Contents

The Opener of the Way contains the following tales:

1. "By Way of Introduction"
2. "The Cloak"
3. "Beetles"
4. "The Fiddler's Fee"
5. "The Mannikin"
6. "The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton"
7. "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper"
8. "The Seal of the Satyr"
9. "The Dark Demon"
10. "The Faceless God"
11. "The House of the Hatchet"
12. "The Opener of the Way"
13. "Return to the Sabbath"
14. "The Mandarin's Canaries"
15. "Waxworks"
16. "The Feast in the Abbey"
17. "Slave of the Flames"
18. "The Shambler from the Stars"
19. "Mother of Serpents"
20. "The Secret of Sebek"
21. "The Eyes of the Mummy"
22. "One Way to Mars"

References

• Jaffery, Sheldon (1989). The Arkham House Companion. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, Inc.. pp. 11–12. ISBN 1-55742-005-X. 
• Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd.. p. 28. 
• Joshi, S.T. (1999). Sixty Years of Arkham House: A History and Bibliography. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. p. 31. ISBN 0-87054-176-5. 
• Nielsen, Leon (2004). Arkham House Books: A Collector's Guide. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc.. pp. 54–55. ISBN 0-7864-1785-4. 

Trivia

The creators of the game Half-Life 2 reference Bloch's work: the central villain, Dr. Wallace Breen refers to the player's character, Gordon Freeman in a televised speech saying "And yet, unsophisticated minds continue to imbue him with romantic power, giving him such dangerous poetic labels as 'the one free man, the opener of the way.'"

The Dungeons and Dragons Role-playing game features (in the third Monster Manual) a creature called Allabar, Opener of the Way. Allabar enables Aberrations to enter the world from the Far Realm by opening the way, as it were.