William Scott Home, "Hollow Faces, Merciless Moons"

[tegeus-Cromis]

Found this today in the discount section of a used bookstore in London, Ontario. It had been reduced from $20 to $10 and then to $5 (Canadian). I had never heard of the author, but Googling him, I was intrigued. According to Thomas Ligotti, no less, "The weirdest stories I’ve ever read composed the collection Hollow Faces, Merciless Moons (1977) by William Scott Home." Apparently strongly influenced by Lovecraft. The volume was published, in an edition of 1200, as a "WEIRDBOOK special issue." It looks "typeset" on an electric typewriter. Seems to be the author's only published collection of fiction. He seems an... interesting figure, to say the least. Here is an article about him:

The Kind of Face You Slash - Day 21: Is the Trickling Oil of Rot Tastier Than Blood?

And an abortive blog dedicated to his work:

Tracking William Scott Home

I'm curious to read this, though the sight of the dense, two-column typewritten pages rather gives me a headache. Anyone read Home's work? Any thoughts?

 

[Randy M.]

Honestly, the Fabian illustrations would be enough to make me persevere. That looks very interesting.

Randy M.

 

[bdh]

Home is certainly not for everyone, but one of the stories, "The Silver Judgment, Echoing" in this collection is one of my all-time favorite weird tales. Don't want to spoil anything, but just great top to bottom. I had bought it from W. Paul Ganley on ebay on a whim and was blown away by this story, but couldn't find any info about Home at all (this was before that tracking... website came about). I even messaged Ganley about him to get additional info and I believe he wrote back that Home lived in Alaska without a computer/internet and that's why his submissions dropped off in the 1980s.

The first story in the collection is also quite good, can't remember the title off the top of my head. I have his two poetry books, Stain of Moonlight and Black Diamond Gates, that are just beyond my understanding for the most part. I'd love to see somebody collect all of his fiction in one place. I think the Ligotti market would at least take notice.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

Home is certainly not for everyone, but one of the stories, "The Silver Judgment, Echoing" in this collection is one of my all-time favorite weird tales. Don't want to spoil anything, but just great top to bottom. I had bought it from W. Paul Ganley on ebay on a whim and was blown away by this story, but couldn't find any info about Home at all (this was before that tracking... website came about). I even messaged Ganley about him to get additional info and I believe he wrote back that Home lived in Alaska without a computer/internet and that's why his submissions dropped off in the 1980s.

The first story in the collection is also quite good, can't remember the title off the top of my head. I have his two poetry books, Stain of Moonlight and Black Diamond Gates, that are just beyond my understanding for the most part. I'd love to see somebody collect all of his fiction in one place. I think the Ligotti market would at least take notice.

I'd love to see some of his poetry, but I can't find anything online. Would you mind posting, if you get a chance, maybe a snapshot or two of poems from those books?

 

[bdh]

Sure. The first two are from Stain of Moonlight and the second two are from Black Diamond Gates




These aren't actually that hard to find if you set up an Ebay saved search and wait for them to pop up. I'm pretty sure I'm the only WSH collector in the world. Again, I really think that "The Silver Judgment, Echoing" is one of the greatest weird tales of all time and wish it had been in the Vandermeers' The Weird or something. Karl Edward Wagner included Cobweb of Pulsing Veins in Year's Best Horror in 1978 and Ligotti praised (?) him, so I think those are pretty good recommendations if you can find his collection for a few bucks.

 

[BigBadBob141]

Along with Hannes Bok, Stephen E. Fabian is one of my favorite artists!
They both have such distinctive styles, a lot of Fabian's work appeared in Fantastic Magazine!!!

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

I got this message (sorry for the screenshot, but it won't let me copy and paste from it):

I suppose I understand for the poems, which I shouldn't have asked for, and didn't even get to see! (Though surely short excerpts would fall under fair use, especially for a book long out of print.) But why remove the cover of the book? Images of book covers are all over this forum, and the internet in general. (I feel like I'm stating an incredibly obvious thing, like "water is wet.")

Not quite sure whom to address this to. @Brian G Turner , maybe? And thanks, @bdh !

 

[Brian G Turner]

Yes, sorry, but I had to remove the images because they were full copies of pages from inside the book, including complete poems, which could have caused potential copyright problems. Even if the book is out of print, someone still owns the rights to them, and as the forum publisher I'm legally liable for any copyright violations.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

@Brian G Turner : I got that, but why remove the cover? (From the O.P.)

 

[Brian G Turner]

A cover is fine to post - if there was one in this thread, then I must have overlooked that due it to being among all the other images.