October - Horror Month (2012)

[Fried Egg]

My "horror" month is in full swing now, after a slight interruption due to other reading commitments.

Reggie Oliver's "Mrs. Midnight & Other Stories" was a good, solid collection of classically styled strange/spooky stories. Although I tended to enjoy their general execution more than the way they were ended which, more often than not, left me unsatisfied and disappointed. It's not that I need conclusive, clear-cut endings (far from it) but these sometimes felt like punchlines to a bad joke. I think also that I did not find him as effective at building up a sense of unease meaning that I wasn't at the heightened state of tension I should have been for the climax, thereby diminishing their intensity. I wouldn't say they were badly written though and I did enjoy my reading experience overall.

Daphne du Maurier's "The Birds & Other Stories" was a revelation. Only the first three stories I would describe as being in anyway supernatural but they were all enjoyable. My standout story being the superb "Apple Tree" which, like all the best haunting tales, could be interpreted as having either supernatural or psychological causes.

Now I've started Joe Pulver's "Blood will Have its Season". This is very different from the others, far more modern and experimental stylistically than the other two I've read this month. Some very cryptic poems, prose poems, vignettes (that necessitate careful re-reading) and very little in the way of a conventional story (so far anyway). Will report more fully upon completion.

 

[Connavar]

I'm on roll when it comes to horror month reading. I'm on The Trains story in Robert Aickmans The Wine Dark Sea. I'm starting to respect him alot he has that rare ability in weird, horror fiction to take the ordinary and make stories with strange atmosphere and he has real literary talent that make me enjoy his rich language.

He should really be much bigger modern great name for more readers!

 

[Fried Egg]

I believe "The Trains" is one of the first stories he ever wrote (I could be wrong). Pretty good indeed. I've always been impressed by the way that he seems equally at home with male or female protagonists...

 

[Connavar]

I believe "The Trains" is one of the first stories he ever wrote (I could be wrong). Pretty good indeed. I've always been impressed by the way that he seems equally at home with male or female protagonists...

The Trains seemded older than the other stories in the collection and i liked how different he wrote two normal humans of the opposite gender. Not easy for male authors usually. Peter Straub talks about his lack of twist,clear endings and i liked the open ending of this story. I choose to see the ending as bleak,depressing.

I liked Your Tiny Hand is Frozen more than The Trains , a more intense story that goes from creepy Hitchcock like thriller to more chilling weird,horror story. I liked the way Edmund is falling apart mentally, the disquieting calls,the studio he lives on. It was delicious strange athmosphere, making me remember my first fav Aickman story in Never Visit Vence

 

[Fried Egg]

Yes, "Your Tiny Hand is Frozen" is a great story. In case you haven't seen it, I talked about this story in depth here.

 

[Connavar]

Yes, "Your Tiny Hand is Frozen" is a great story. In case you haven't seen it, I talked about this story in depth here.

Nice to read such a long post on that story, i thought it was great too. I also thought where is the reference to title. After the last page i was like where is the tiny hands? It can be that it women has smaller hands and the last page how Nera is found. Im betting she was frozen after being found long after the fact.

I see you mentioned the undefined way Nera manifest herself and i thought that was as creepy myself as Edmund thought. I frankly didnt want to know where she was, couldnt look back like him. Great use to telling and not showing the supernatural.

 

[The Holy Drunk]

Every month is horror month for me. However I've never read any of Arthur Machen's novels much to my shame. I was thinking the Great God Pan - any one got any suggestions?

 

[j d worthington]

Um, Machen wrote few novels in the horror (or, for that matter, any) field. The Terror, of course, the episodic The Three Impostors, and the semi-autobiographical yet at moments fantastic Hill of Dreams are the main ones. Most of his work is in the short story to novelette category, "The Great God Pan" included.

Wonderful as that story is in many respects, it is far from his best (though it does have moments when it touches that). It is, however, certainly one of his most popular, and it is a memorable piece. I would also recomment "The White People" (which may well be his best artistically, though not to everyone's taste). A personal favorite of mine, though not necessarily horrific but definitely with a finely developed note of the fantastic (Machen, like Blackwood, tended to blend both the wonder, awe, and terror of fantasy), is "A Fragment of Life". I would also recommend "The Inmost Light"; and, to a lesser degree, "The Red Hand". If you like these, then searching out others of Machen will likely become a delightful task for you.

If, on the other hand, you prefer to be directed to things reasonably easily found, you might look up the S. T. Joshi-edited Penguin selection of Machen's tales, or the three-volume set which was put out by Chaosium a few years ago....

 

[Fried Egg]

I'll just add a link to a thread talking about his work that might prove helpful:

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/527916-arthur-machen-thoughts.html

 

[The Holy Drunk]

Thanks guys. Given your suggestions here and in that old thread, I think I'll go for the White People. Just checked my local library's database and they have it in stock (with one of those hideous CGI covers) so I'll pop down tomorrow.

Cheers

 

[Christopher Lee]

I will be reading Richard Matheson's I am Legend this week, for the first time ever; I've heard good things. Then some short stories from my Stephen King collections. Couple Lovecraft stories from that collection. I may even fit a Bradbury somewhere in there.