October - Horror Month (2015)

[Fried Egg]

Seems to be approaching that time of year again when one's thoughts are drawn to horror...

Anyone planning on devoting the month of October to horror reads?

I'm considering:

"Carrion Comfort" by Dan Simmons
"The 3rd Mayflower Book of Black Magic Stories" edited by Michael Parry

And now after Randy's "heads up" in the Ligotti thread:

"Songs of a dead dreamer and Grimscribe" by Thomas Ligotti

 

[Randy M.]

For another forum I'll be posting a link per day (if my schedule doesn't hiccup) to some classic short stories; there's a wealth of work at Gaslight.com, Project Gutenberg and one I only recently tripped over, UNZ.com, many of the stories I doubt the majority of readers at that forum would be aware of. I don't plan on commenting much, but there are several stories I haven't reread in years so I've got an ambitious (for me) reading list:

"The Beast with Five Fingers" by W. F. Harvey
"Silent Snow, Secret Snow" by Conrad Aiken
"How Love Came to Professer Guildea" by Robert Hichens
"The Beckoning Fair One" by Oliver Onions
"Amor Dure" by Vernon Lee
"The Judge's House" by Bram Stoker
"The Damned Thing" by Ambrose Bierce
"The Horla" by Guy de Maupassant
"A Visitor from Down Under" by L. P. Hartley
"Seaton's Aunt" by Walter de la Mare
"Rappaccini's Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
"The Queen of Spades" by Alexander Pushkin
"Fishhead" by Irvin S. Cobb
"Caterpillars" by E. F. Benson
"The Sign-Painter and the Crystal Fishes" by Marjorie Bowen
"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

Possibly a couple of others, too. It's going to depend on how much reading time I squeeze out from now through October and if I get engrossed in a particular book -- I have them all in collections and anthologies which I find more convenient to read from. If I get through these ... dunno. Maybe I'll finally get to reread "Thurnley Abbey" and "The Upper Berth," which I'm aiming to do before the year ends -- or more to the point, before I get sucked into something else and forget.


Randy M.

 

[kythe]

I want to read The October Country by Ray Bradbury. It seems appropriate.

I also plan to read Faerie Tale by Raymond Feist. I picked it up a few months ago because it looks similar to Something Wicked This Way Comes, the Bradbury story I read this time last year.

 

[Randy M.]

For another forum I'll be posting a link per day (if my schedule doesn't hiccup) to some classic short stories;

Oops. There's that word, "classic" (see the Literary Fiction forum, Penguin Classics thread). Personally, I don't blame baby boomers, I blame Coca-Cola. "Classic Coke" my foot, and indeed my foot probably tasted better.

Anyway, Kythe, The October Country is great reading for October and Halloween. I hope you enjoy.


Randy M.

 

[Fried Egg]

I want to read The October Country by Ray Bradbury. It seems appropriate.

I also plan to read Faerie Tale by Raymond Feist. I picked it up a few months ago because it looks similar to Something Wicked This Way Comes, the Bradbury story I read this time last year.

Bradbury's "Halloween Tree" is a good October read too if you've not read it.

 

[Randy M.]

I second Fried on The Halloween Tree.

I finally had a chance to check the stories in The 3rd Mayflower Book of Black Magic Stories. That looks like a fun anthology.


Randy M.

 

[dask]

Reading this right now:

and probably start this next:

 

[Fried Egg]

I finally had a chance to check the stories in The 3rd Mayflower Book of Black Magic Stories. That looks like a fun anthology.

It was a random find in a second hand book store...

 

[Mark Ragland]

Seems to be approaching that time of year again when one's thoughts are drawn to horror...

Anyone planning on devoting the month of October to horror reads?

I'm considering:

"Carrion Comfort" by Dan Simmons
"The 3rd Mayflower Book of Black Magic Stories" edited by Michael Parry

And now after Randy's "heads up" in the Ligotti thread:

"Songs of a dead dreamer and Grimscribe" by Thomas Ligotti

Really enjoyed Carrion Comfort. However, it's very long.

 

[dask]

Feel fairly certain, unless something else unexpected slithers by, this will be the novel I squeeze in between the the two collections posted above:

 

[j d worthington]

Randy: That's an impressive list there. I'd be interested in seeing your thoughts on them as you go along, if you don't mind posting the link.

F.E.: Carrion Comfort -- I have a few quibbles with it here and there, but mostly minor. On the whole, when I read it back in the mid-90s (my goodness! has it been that long????) I found it to be a bravura performance, very difficult to put down. I really ought to reread it sometime but, as has been said, it is quite a long novel.... (Oh, for the days when I actually had more than a few minutes of reading time....)

dask: That WT anthology is not among the best in some ways, but I think you'll enjoy it. Kaye's anthologies are usually well worth picking up.

And, despite my very limited reading time these days, I've been reading the first few of Charles L. Grant's Oxrun Station novels bit by bit at bedtime lately. I hope to eventually get through the set, but after The Last Call of Mourning I'll probably space them out to something like one a month. I've also started S. T. Joshi's Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction, Volume I: From Gilgamesh to the End of the Nineteenth Century. I'll be interspersing a few shorter stories with my readings as well (such as selections from that massive collection of all of Kipling's horror and fantasy tales).

 

[dask]

dask: That WT anthology is not among the best in some ways, but I think you'll enjoy it. Kaye's anthologies are usually well worth picking up.

Not to worry J.D., with my propensity for going goo-goo-gah-gah over stories abominably written and cultivating a pulp philosophy, simply stated, "the badder the better" I'm sure Weird Tales will be a reading experience not soon forgotten.

 

[j d worthington]

Not to worry J.D., with my propensity for going goo-goo-gah-gah over stories abominably written and cultivating a pulp philosophy, simply stated, "the badder the better" I'm sure Weird Tales will be a reading experience not soon forgotten.

I don't mean to denigrate it; simply that it isn't the best of those I've seen culled from "The Unique Magazine". It's still a very enjoyable and worthwhile anthology, and I have no doubt you will find many a gem in there. If you can find them, I'd also suggest you look up Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Horrors, which prints a story per year from the history of the magazine, and Peter Haining's Weird Tales (one-volume hardbound, two-volume pb), which is about as close as one can come to experiencing reading an issue, because of the way it is set up (stories, poems, and letters from the magazine's run, including ending with a story from the very first issue which was reprinted late in the magazine's career, Anthony M. Rudd's "Ooze", which may well have influenced HPL). You might also enjoy Rivals of Weird Tales, which collects together representative stories from various magazine competitors of WT....

 

[dask]

I don't mean to denigrate it

I know you didn't, J.D. It's just I'm still smarting from "The Horror At Martin's Beach". I keep asking myself if I'm really that incapable of telling a good story from a bad one. Thought I could get a good laugh by whacking my funny bone real hard. Still I console myself with the reader's prerogative: it's only good if you like it. (There are fifty shades of good, aren't there?)

 

[Randy M.]

Randy: That's an impressive list there. I'd be interested in seeing your thoughts on them as you go along, if you don't mind posting the link.

Hi, J. D.

I've already fallen behind the schedule I'd hoped to keep. Not really surprising; I knew it was aggressive.

I'll be supplying longish commentary on other works (Countdown to Halloween). Mostly with the short stories I'll be offering an anthology of links, inviting others to read and comment and relying (probably far too much) on my memory to keep up a conversation if anyone responds to it. Anyone here is certainly welcome to join in.

Anyway, I reread "Caterpillars" by E. F. Benson. What a great, creepy story. I recall the first time I read it I came to understand what was meant by "spine-tingling." It is probably the most unique haunting I've encountered in fiction from before WWII, although ...

The haunting in "How Love Came to Professor Guildea" by Robert Hichens comes close. This story feels more substantial and no less creepy, exploring an invasive affection. I think I'd call it a slow-burn story, taking its time to set up the situation and drive home the pay-off. Hichens does a nice job of setting the reader in the scene with his description of Guildea's home and of making the exchanges between him and Murchison believable. As with the first time I read it, I had a sense of Hichens pulling together a character along the lines of Sherlock Holmes with a character along the lines of Father Brown and introducing them to something one could contend with and one could not. Really, intellectual bachelors from around the Edwardian era had the most interesting adventures.

I just started "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" by Conrad Aiken. It's been a favorite since I first read it 40+ years ago, exploring a theme Poe might have found intriguing but with an added compassion. When drawn into discussions of how something could be a ghost/horror story if it's not frightening, it's one example I point to; some of the best ghost/horror stories find a broader emotional spectrum in the material of our fears.


Randy M.

 

[j d worthington]

I know you didn't, J.D. It's just I'm still smarting from "The Horror At Martin's Beach". I keep asking myself if I'm really that incapable of telling a good story from a bad one. Thought I could get a good laugh by whacking my funny bone real hard. Still I console myself with the reader's prerogative: it's only good if you like it. (There are fifty shades of good, aren't there?)

You shouldn't be smarting from that. "To each his own", as they say. Whatever the abstract aesthetic qualities, if it works for you, then it works for you. As for myself, despite its flaws, I have a fondness for that story myself, and will admit that I find certain aspects of it quite effective. A bit too bathetic, but nonetheless an interesting tale, from different angles.

Hi, J. D.

I've already fallen behind the schedule I'd hoped to keep. Not really surprising; I knew it was aggressive.

I'll be supplying longish commentary on other works (Countdown to Halloween). Mostly with the short stories I'll be offering an anthology of links, inviting others to read and comment and relying (probably far too much) on my memory to keep up a conversation if anyone responds to it. Anyone here is certainly welcome to join in.

Anyway, I reread "Caterpillars" by E. F. Benson. What a great, creepy story. I recall the first time I read it I came to understand what was meant by "spine-tingling." It is probably the most unique haunting I've encountered in fiction from before WWII, although ...

The haunting in "How Love Came to Professor Guildea" by Robert Hichens comes close. This story feels more substantial and no less creepy, exploring an invasive affection. I think I'd call it a slow-burn story, taking its time to set up the situation and drive home the pay-off. Hichens does a nice job of setting the reader in the scene with his description of Guildea's home and of making the exchanges between him and Murchison believable. As with the first time I read it, I had a sense of Hichens pulling together a character along the lines of Sherlock Holmes with a character along the lines of Father Brown and introducing them to something one could contend with and one could not. Really, intellectual bachelors from around the Edwardian era had the most interesting adventures.

I just started "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" by Conrad Aiken. It's been a favorite since I first read it 40+ years ago, exploring a theme Poe might have found intriguing but with an added compassion. When drawn into discussions of how something could be a ghost/horror story if it's not frightening, it's one example I point to; some of the best ghost/horror stories find a broader emotional spectrum in the material of our fears.


Randy M.

On that last point... I think I'd make a strong recommendation for Kipling's "They", as well as some of Blackwood's tales. The Kipling is one of the most moving ghost stories I've ever encountered, yet it is most definitely a supernatural/ghostly tale. It is one of the few times the "benevolent" or at least neutral hauntings works tremendously well, while various of Blackwood's less terrifying tales work well as supernatural tales with a great deal of pity or pathos to them. For that matter, for all that I cite it frequently, W. H. Pugmire's "The Zanies of Sorrow" manages to blend horror/terror and pathos exceptionally well (the damned thing nearly brings me to tears each time I read it). In fact, I'd say that pathos is a major element in a fairly representative selection of Wilum's weird works.

I've decided to add another of Joshi's offerings, given its relation to the subject of the one I'm currently reading:

http://www.hippocampuspress.com/myt...of-fear-poetry-of-terror-and-the-supernatural

Like Derleth's Dark of the Moon, this is a stupendous collection of weird and fantastic poetry, and a perfect companion for his history of the supernatural tale....

 

[dask]

After setting it aside a few weeks ago I finally finished Ray Bradbury's The October Country and I'm glad I did. At first I wasn't sure I'd be able to as one story early on was so boring, so filled with go-nowhere do-nothing exposition, there was no way I felt I'd be able to finish the book if this was an example of what was to come. Fortunately it wasn't. The bulk of the book is filled with Bradbury the way he was meant to be. Magical, powerful, ethereal, it's all here. Just so you know, The October Country is not an anthology meant to be read in October, rather it is, as Bradbury puts it, "that country where it is always late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay." There's more and it's all true. A highly recommended classic.

Started Black Camelot by Duncan Kyle. Well written and interesting but may not be the dark fantasy I originally thought it to be but rather an adventure/thriller, great for any other month of the year but not October. Might have to temporarily set it aside for a few weeks and find something else.

 

[Randy M.]

[...]On that last point... I think I'd make a strong recommendation for Kipling's "They", as well as some of Blackwood's tales. The Kipling is one of the most moving ghost stories I've ever encountered, yet it is most definitely a supernatural/ghostly tale. It is one of the few times the "benevolent" or at least neutral hauntings works tremendously well, while various of Blackwood's less terrifying tales work well as supernatural tales with a great deal of pity or pathos to them. For that matter, for all that I cite it frequently, W. H. Pugmire's "The Zanies of Sorrow" manages to blend horror/terror and pathos exceptionally well (the damned thing nearly brings me to tears each time I read it). In fact, I'd say that pathos is a major element in a fairly representative selection of Wilum's weird works.

I feel as though I've read a good amount of Blackwood's short fiction, but I know I've only scratched the surface.

As for "They" -- I think I've read Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural from cover-to-cover, if piecemeal over many years, but I retain no memory of this story. Well, another to add to the pile of ghost stories I hope to get to this month. (Did I manage to make that sound resigned? Like tossing another brick onto the load on my back? We both know how silly that is given our love of ghost stories.)

And I will get to Wilum's work, I will, I will, I will, Wilum.


Randy M.

 

[Fried Egg]

So, I'm about 150 pages in on "Carrion Comfort" and so far I think it's rather good although some of the violence/rape scenes feel a little gratuitous. I will have to see how it pans out.

 

[yorelm]

"The Judge's House" by Bram Stoker

I read that for the fist time maybe a month ago and was surprised how much I liked it. I was expecting super stuffy 19th century writing, but was surprised by the readability.