interesting anthologies

Just finishing Beware After Dark. Excellent off-beat, obscure
stories. A lot of the early weird tales writers, as well as Andreyev, Stevenson, etc. *****

Tros, that sounds like a nice early-20th century anthology. It even has "Fishhead"!

Here is the TOC:

http://freepages.pavilion.net/tartarus/h115.htm

The web page states that it contains "the first appearance of "The Call of Cthulhu" by H.P. Lovecraft", by which I think they mean the first anthologized appearance.

The Monster-God of Mamurth by E. Hamilton is pretty wild;
a giant, invisible temple in the desert guarded by an invisble giant spider!

Fishhead is a really strange story, mainly because of it's realistic setting, which makes it more horrible, somehow.

I just grabbed Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown from the public library so I could read "The People of the Pit." It turns out to have a lot of interesting picks, including "Wolf" by Michael Moorcock, and "The Man in the Bottle" by Gustav Meyrink

A. Merritt is worth re-reading.

The Moon pool is available from gutenberg and The Ship of Ishtar, etc. are @

http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-a-m.html#merritt

"The People of the Pit" is our Deep Ones read this week, but I've got Seven Footprints to Satan queued up to get to soon also.

>1 tros:

The day after you posted this, tros, I ran across mention of Beware After Dark in Joshi's indispensable I Am Providence, in which he refers to the 1929 volume as "notable". Lovecraft was paid $15 for "The Call of Cthulhu", and editor Barre later met him in person in New York. There are 5 other stories from Weird Tales in the book. Lovecraft's pal and writer of weird fiction in his own right Donald Wandrei was of particular assistance in choosing the stories which were included.

Interesting selections. For non-traditional horror I recommend Andreyev's Lazarus.
The '45 reprint was a good deal.

I was able to land a copy Cemetery Dance's 2-volume The Century's Best Horror Fiction. Editor John Pelan's task was to select just one story from each year without selecting the same author twice. Interesting! Apparently, this wasn't as easy as it sounds. Check out the TOC:

Table of Contents
1901: Barry Pain — The Undying Thing
1902: W.W. Jacobs — The Monkey's Paw
1903: H.G.Wells — The Valley of the Spiders
1904: Arthur Machen — The White People
1905: R. Murray Gilchrist — The Lover's Ordeal
1906: Edward Lucas White — House of the Nightmare
1907: Algernon Blackwood — The Willows
1908: Perceval Landon — Thurnley Abbey
1909: Violet Hunt — The Coach
1910: Wm Hope Hodgson — The Whistling Room
1911: M.R. James — Casting the Runes
1912: E.F. Benson — Caterpillars
1913: Aleister Crowley — The Testament of Magdelan Blair
1914: M. P. Shiel — The Place of Pain
1915: Hanns Heinz Ewers — The Spider
1916: Lord Dunsany — Thirteen at Table
1917: Frederick Stuart Greene — The Black Pool
1918: H. De Vere Stacpoole — The Middle Bedroom
1919: Ulric Daubeny — The Sumach
1920: Maurice Level — In the Light of the Red Lamp
1921: Vincent O'Sullivan — Master of Fallen Years
1922: Walter de la Mare — Seaton's Aunt
1923: George Allen England — The Thing From—"Outside"
1924: C.M. Eddy, Jr. — The Loved Dead
1925: John Metcalfe — The Smoking Leg
1926: H.P. Lovecraft — The Outsider
1927: Donald Wandrei — The Red Brain
1928: H.R. Wakefield — The Red Lodge
1929: Eleanor Scott — Celui-La
1930: Rosalie Muspratt — Spirit of Stonhenge
1931: Henry S. Whitehead — Cassius
1932: David H. Keller — The Thing in the Cellar
1933: C.L. Moore — Shambleau
1934: L.A. Lewis — The Tower of Moab
1935: Clark Ashton Smith — The Dark Eidolon
1936: Thorp McCluskey — The Crawling Horror
1937: Howard Wandrei — The Eerie Mr Murphy
1938: Robert E. Howard — Pigeons from Hell
1939: Robert Barbour Johnson — Far Below
1940: John Collier — Evening Primrose
1941: C.M. Kornbluth — The Words of Guru
1942: Jane Rice — The Idol of the Flies
1943: Anthony Boucher — They Bite
1944: Ray Bradbury — The Jar
1945: August Derleth — Carousel
1946: Manly Wade Wellman — Shonokin Town
1947: Theodore Sturgeon — Bianca's Hands
1948: Shirley Jackson — The Lottery
1949: Nigel Kneale — The Pond
1950: Richard Matheson — Born of Man & Woman
1951: Russell Kirk — Uncle Isiah
1952: Eric Frank Russell — I Am Nothing
1953: Robert Sheckley — The Altar
1954: Everil Worrell — Call Not Their Names
1955: Robert Aickman — Ringing the Changes
1956: Richard Wilson — Lonely Road
1957: Clifford Simak — Founding Father
1958: Robert Bloch — That Hell-Bound Train
1959: Charles Beaumont — The Howling Man
1960: Fredric Brown — The House
1961: Ray Russell — Sardonicus
1962: Carl Jacobi — The Aquarium
1963: Robert Arthur — The Mirror of Cagliostro
1964: Charles Birkin — A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
1965: Jean Ray — The Shadowy Street
1966: Arthur Porges — The Mirror
1967: Norman Spinrad — Carcinoma Angels
1968: Anna Hunger — Come
1969: Steffan Aletti — The Last Work of Pietro Apono
1970: David A. Riley — The Lurkers in the Abyss
1971: Dorothy K. Haynes — The Derelict Track
1972: Gary Brandner — The Price of a Demon
1973: Eddy C. Bertin — Like Two White Spiders
1974: Karl Edward Wagner — Sticks
1975: David Drake — The Barrow Troll
1976: Dennis Etchison — It Only Comes Out at Night
1977: Barry N. Malzberg — The Man Who Loved the Midnight Lady
1978: Michael Bishop — Within the Walls of Tyre
1979: Ramsey Campbell — Mackintosh Willy
1980: Michael Shea — The Autopsy
1981: Stephen King — The Reach
1982: Fritz Leiber — Horrible Imagings
1983: David Schow — One for the Horrors
1984: Bob Leman — The Unhappy Pilgrimage of Clifford M.
1985: Michael Reaves — The Night People
1986: Tim Powers — Night Moves
1987: Ian Watson — Evil Water
1988: Joe R. Lansdale — The Night They Missed the Horror Show
1989: Joel Lane — The Earth Wire
1990: Elizabeth Massie — Stephen
1991: Thomas Ligotti — The Glamour
1992: Poppy Z. Brite — Calcutta Lord of Nerves
1993: Lucy Taylor — The Family Underwater
1994: Jack Ketchum — The Box
1995: Terry Lamsley — The Toddler
1996: Caitlín R. Kiernan — Tears Seven Times Salt
1997: Stephen Laws — The Crawl
1998: Brian Hodge — As Above, So Below
1999: Glen Hirshberg — Mr. Dark's Carnival
2000: Tim Lebbon — Reconstructing Amy

Some old favorites, some things I haven't read yet. I'm looking forward to Norman Spinrad's "Carcinoma Angels", which I've been hearing good things about.

Re Century's Best Horror - I thought the gimmick led to some obvious choices getting left out because the author needed to fill out some other year, and because more than one all-time great story appeared in a year. So the title is a bit misleading, in my opinion. Still, these big books are full of tasty stuff. The publisher frequently offers 50% off sales to previous customers, and at that rate they're a steal.

>10 rtttt01:

You're right, plus some of the selections were by rote ("The Lottery", again?!!), but overall some really good choices were made.

Here is a two-part interview with editor Pelan that provides some good detail on the selection process:

http://www.fearnet.com/news/interviews/b25331_john_pelan_on_centurys_best_horror...
http://www.fearnet.com/news/interviews/b25336_john_pelan_on_centurys_best_horror...

Just got Weird Tales #1. Another interesting collection.

>12 tros:

I have that one, and number 3, I think. I really liked those early 80's paperback versions of WT.

>9 gwendetenebre: & 11

I've been meaning to read "The Red Brain" for years.

Thanks for the interview links - sounds like some fascinating reading. 8)

ETA: I was right - a really good interview. I have a question, though: I feel like an idiot for asking this, but what the hell is "weird menace"?

>14 artturnerjr:

Stories that featured a Fu Manchu or Skull-Face like villain, or ” menace”. The stories usually provided an extra heapin' helpin' of lurid, S&M-tinged gruesome violence (for extra pulpy goodness).

>15 gwendetenebre:

Thanks!

***

A new anthology from Ann and Jeff VanderMeer that looks quite impressive in terms of both length and diversity:

http://books.google.com/books?id=CacxEi_JjoIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&...

>16 artturnerjr:

Thanks for the heads-up. ”Foreweird” by Michael Moorcock- love it!

>17 gwendetenebre:

And "Afterweird" by China Miéville (who I still have never read).

> 11 Thanks for those links to the interview with John Pelan. Much appreciated.

> 14 Weird Menace: I think this term also usually connotes that any apparently supernatural goings-on are explained in the end. In some sense, Scooby-Doo is the modern descendant of Weird Menace.

>9 gwendetenebre:

Just remembered that I've read "Carcinoma Angels" in Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions anthology and for the life of me can't recall a thing about it. I'll have to give that one a quick re-read soon.

PS On my coffee table, I now have a stack of short story anthologies containing stories I was reminded I wanted to read by posts on LT sitting beside my stack of "regular" current reading. Arrrrgh! Won't anything stop this madness? :D

Also Beware After Dark has:

Lukundoo by E. L. White, one of the strangest stories ever written.

Got my copy of Black Wings of Cthulhu in the mail on Saturday and finally had a chance to dip into it a bit yesterday, reading Joshi's introduction and Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.'s "Engravings", a sort of noirish update of "The Dunwich Horror", which I like quite a bit. Would love to sit and devour the rest in a sitting or two, but I'm finally almost finished with Cryptonomicon, so I'm afraid it's gonna have to wait at least until that one's done.

Here's the TOC for BLACK WINGS for those of you who haven't seen it:

Introduction - S. T. Joshi
Pickman’s Other Model (1929) - Caitlín R. Kiernan
Desert Dreams - Donald R. Burleson
Engravings - Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Copping Squid - Michael Shea
Passing Spirits - Sam Gafford
The Broadsword - Laird Barron
Usurped - William Browning Spencer
Denker’s Book - David J. Schow
Inhabitants of Wraithwood - W. H. Pugmire
Rotterdam - Nicholas Royle
Tempting Providence - Jonathan Thomas
Howling in the Dark - Darrell Schweitzer
The Truth about Pickman - Brian Stableford
Tunnels - Philip Haldeman
The Correspondence of Cameron Thaddeus Nash - Annotated by Ramsey Campbell
Violence, Child of Trust - Michael Cisco
Lesser Demons - Norman Partridge
An Eldritch Matter - Adam Niswander
Substitution - Michael Marshall Smith
Susie - Jason Van Hollander

Sounds like a keeper, Art. Did you say that Joshi signed it? Let me know what you think of the Michael Shea and Darrell Schweitzer stories when you get to them.

I've always liked David Schow's short stories a lot. Subterranean Press just posted a new one on their web site: http://tinyurl.com/bnz2n5o

I loved Cryptonomicon!

>23 gwendetenebre:

I'm sorry, Kenton - I am just now seeing this. Yes, Joshi did sign my copy of Black Wings of Cthulhu ("For Art - Best wishes", followed by an indecipherable scrawl which I am assuming is his signature). Haven't gotten any farther on it - am currently working on The First Men in the Moon & also somehow got sucked into a copy of Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels that I picked up at a used book sale recently. Cryptonomicon was great but man it was a mother to finish; I don't think I'm gonna tackle another long novel like that for a while. :P

Got a text from Amazon last night - my copy of Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (along with Essential Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 1) should be here on Friday. 8)

A couple of interesting anthologies:

Penguin Book of Horror Stories

Famous Monster Tales

Currently reading Cthulhu's Heirs which is (for the most part) better than I thought it would be.

New from Deep Ones discussee Joseph Pulver:

http://youtu.be/Kz0posqUUc4

So I'm at the library the other day and a volume entitled The Oxford Book of American Short Stories (Joyce Carol Oates, ed) catches my eye. Here's the table of contents:

Rip Van Winkle / Washington Irving -- Peter Rugg, the Missing Man / William Austin -- The Wives of the Dead / Nathaniel Hawthorne -- The Tell-Tale Heart / Edgar Allan Poe -- The Ghost in the Mill / Harriet Beecher Stowe -- The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids / Herman Melville -- Cannibalism in the Cars / Samuel Clemens -- The Middle Years / Henry James -- A White Heron / Sarah Orne Jewett -- The Storm / Kate Chopin -- Old Woman Magoun / Mary e. Wilkins Freeman -- The Sheriff's Children / Charles Chesnutt -- The Yellow Wallpaper / Charlotte E Perkins Gilman -- A Journey / Edith Wharton -- The Little Regiment / Stephen Crane -- A Death in the Desert / Willa Cather -- The Strength of God / Sherwood Anderson -- In a Far Country / Jack London -- The Girl with a Pimply Face / William Carlos Williams -- The Rats in the Walls / H. P. Lovecraft -- Blood-Burning Moon / Jean Toomer -- An Alcoholic Case / F. Scott Fitzgerald -- That Evening Sun / William Faulkner -- Hills Like White Elephants / Ernest Hemingway -- Red-Headed Baby / Langston Hughes -- The Man Who Was Almost a Man / Richard Wright -- A Bottle of Milk for Mother / Nelson Algren -- Where Is the Voice Coming From? / Eudora Welty -- A Distant Episode / Paul Bowles -- The Country Husband / John Cheever -- Battle Royal / Ralph Ellison -- My Son the Murderer / Bernard Malamud -- The Lottery / Shirley Jackson -- There Will Come Soft Rains / Ray Bradbury -- Sonny's Blues / James Baldwin -- A Late Encounter with the Enemy / Flannery O'Connor -- The Shawl / Cynthia Ozark -- The School / Donald Barthelme -- The Persistence of Desire / John Updike -- Defender of the Faith / Philip Roth -- The Mud Below / Annie Proulx -- Are These Actual Miles? / Raymond Carver -- Heat / Joyce Carol Oates -- The Child Screams and Looks Back at You / Russell Banks -- Give It Up for Billy / Edmund White -- Under the Radar / Richard Ford -- Hunters in the Snow / Tobias Wolff -- The Things They Carried / Tim O'Brien -- The Reach / Stephen King -- Filthy with Things / T. C. Boyle -- Today Will Be a Quiet Day / Amy Hempel -- Fleur / Louise Erdrich -- The Drowned Life / Jeffrey Ford -- Children as Enemies / Ha Jin -- How to Become a Writer / Lorrie Moore -- Good People / David Foster Wallace -- Mercy / Pinckney Benedict -- Hell-Heaven / Jhumpa Lahiri -- Edison, New Jersey / Junot Diaz

Note the inclusion of such weird fiction stalwarts as Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, H.P. Lovecraft, etc. Also note that the volume is not entitled The Oxford Book of American Weird Fiction Short Stories or The Oxford Book of American Speculative Fiction Short Stories but merely The Oxford Book of American Short Stories. I think this is further evidence that Ms. Oates has done more to further the acceptance of weird fiction as serious literature than just about anybody, and another reason why the next time I see her I'm gonna give her a great big hug. :)

>29 artturnerjr:

That's a good collection, although I wish "The Lottery" wasn't always the default selection for Shirley Jackson. I agree with you about Oates, she's definitely a critic's darling who hasn't been afraid to dip into the uncanny, as witnessed by such collections as Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque. The next time I see see Ms. Oates, I'm going to ask her why she was the only contributor who didn't sign the Donald M. Grant edition of Metahorror!

>30 gwendetenebre:

LOL! :)

My only beef with Oates is that I've always wanted to read more of her but she's so insanely prolific (53 novels and 27 short story collections? Damn, woman - do you sleep?) that I'm at a little bit of a loss as to were to begin. I've had a copy of her novel them for forever, so perhaps it'll be that one, although her novels Blonde (Oates' fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe) and Zombie (which was recently included in Nightmare Magazine's Top 100 Horror Books list (https://www.worldswithoutend.com/lists_NightmareMag.asp)) also sound interesting, so perhaps I'll get to one of those first.

Some good off-the-beaten path choices on that list - including Laird Barron. I read Zombie a long time ago and recall it as being a fictionalized rendering of the exploits of serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer. Kind of an unusual choice for Oates; this true-crime neighborhood is usually mined by Jack Ketchum. Can't really see it as a top 100 choice, although the grue quotient is pretty high.

Looks like an interesting collection. A lot of unread stories by familiar names.

I really liked Blonde and I'm 1/2 way through Give Me Your Heart
and would recommend it from what I've read. The Assignation waits in the tbr pile.

>32 gwendetenebre:

Some good off-the-beaten path choices on that list

I thought it was nice to see two Stephen King short story collections (Night Shift and Skeleton Crew) on the list. King has written a lot of excellent short fiction over the years, but it almost always seems to get overshadowed by his novels. Besides, Night Shift was my gateway into 20th century horror fiction - if I had never picked that up, I might not be having this conversation right now. :)

Oh, yes. Night Shift is a key collection. I still pull it down every now and then. Looks like most of the major anthologies are listed, too. I was pleased to see Kathe Koja on there for her debut novel The Cipher, which is about as bleak and nasty a work as I can remember reading. It's strange to see Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly listed as a top 100 - I got this Holmes/Dracula pastiche from the SF Book Club eons ago and never read it. Maybe it bears a second look. Anyone here ever read it?

Odd that there is no Joe R. Lansdale title or Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris, but no list like this can ever be truly satisfying. I must confess that I've never heard of Nightmare magazine.

ETA

Top 30 Horror Novels of the 20th Century list moved to Off Topic-Lit.

I'll second the top four. I seem to drop out after the '30's. ;-)

>35 gwendetenebre:

It's strange to see Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly listed as a top 100 - I got this Holmes/Dracula pastiche from the SF Book Club eons ago and never read it.

Ha! Same here (although I got it from a used book store rather than a book club). Didn't realize it was Holmesian, though.

If anyone else would like to play, we can move this to the Off Topic - Lit thread.

Well, I think I would be doing well to list 30 20th century horror novels that I remember reading, but sure - if you wanna put it up there, I'll give it a go. :)

>37 artturnerjr:

My mistake! I see now that Holmes is not involved.

List from 35 above moved to Off Topic- Lit

Finally finished Black Wings of Cthulhu yesterday. You can read my review here:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1ZUZTRQPLV1CE/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

>39 artturnerjr: Sounds like a hearty endorsement.

Going forward, you can see what waits you in the second volume, Black Wings II. My review is at http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/blog/?p=18904. (No Barron story in that one, though.)

Now I have to make time to read the first one.

>40 RandyStafford:

Good review, Randy, and much more thorough than mine.

If you do get around to the first Black Wings volume, let me know - I will be very curious to hear your thoughts on it.

The Sword & Sorcery Anthology looks good. Here's the TOC:

1.“Tower of the Elephant” by Robert E. Howard
2.“Black God’s Kiss" by C. L. Moore
3.“The Unholy Grail” by Fritz Leiber
4.“The Tale of Hauk” by Poul Anderson
5.“The Caravan of Forgotten Dreams” by Michael Moorcock
6.“The Adventuress” by Joanna Russ
7.“Gimmile’s Song” by Charles R. Saunders
8.“Undertow” by Karl Edward Wagner
9.“The Stages of the God” by Ramsey Campbell (writing as Montgomery Comfort)
10.“The Barrow Troll” by David Drake
11.“Soldier of an Empire Unacquainted with Defeat” by Glen Cook
12.“Epistle from Lebanoi” by Michael Shea
13.“Become a Warrior” by Jane Yolen
14.“The Red Guild” by Rachel Pollack
15.“Six from Atlantis” by Gene Wolfe
16.“The Sea Troll’s Daughter” by Caitlín R. Kiernan
17.“The Coral Heart” by Jeffrey Ford
18.“Path of the Dragon” by George R. R. Martin
19.“The Year of Three Monarchs” by Michael Swanwick

David G. Hartwell (The Dark Descent, The World Treasury of Science Fiction, et al.) is co-editor, along with Jacob Weisman.

Eh, seeing "The Unholy Grail" in that TOC makes me want to nominate it for the DEEP ONES, but we've already got several Leiber stories in the running.

>43 paradoxosalpha:

Consider:

1) Leiber - one of the all-time masters of the weird tale - isn't doing so well in the voting for some reason.

2) You can never read & discuss too much Leiber.

Nominate on!

Forthcoming from editor Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.:

http://www.miskatonicriverpress.com/products/gp.shtml

>16 artturnerjr:

I can vouch for this anthology. I bought it solely because it contains a definitive English edition of Michel Bernanos’ “The Other Side of the Mountain”, which is not particularly easy to find, but the selection of works is nothing short of impressive.

Lately reading/stockpiling Hugh Lamb anthologies, victorian, edwardian horror with lots of obscure, interesting writers, The Man-wolf and other horrors, etc.

This came out late last year from Stone Skin Press, but I am just now finding out about it:

LETTERS TO LOVECRAFT: EIGHTEEN WHISPERS TO THE DARKNESS

‘The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.’

So begins H. P. Lovecraft’s essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” arguably the most important analysis of horror ever written. Yet while hordes of writers have created works based on Lovecraft’s fiction, never before has an anthology taken its inspiration directly from the literary manifesto behind his entire mythos…until now. Like cultists poring over a forbidden tome, eighteen modern masters of horror have gathered here to engage with Lovecraft’s treatise. Rather than responding with articles of their own, these authors have written new short stories inspired by intriguing quotes from the essay, offering their own whispers to the darkness. They tell of monsters and madmen, of our strange past and our weirder future, of terrors stalking the winter woods, the broiling desert, and eeriest of all, our bustling cities, our family homes.

Corresponding with the darkness are:
Kirsten ALENE • David Yale ARDANUY • ASAMATSU Ken
Nadia BULKIN • Chesya BURKE • Brian EVENSON
Gemma FILES • Jeffrey FORD • Orrin GREY
Stephen Graham JONES • Robin D. LAWS • Tim LEBBON
Livia LLEWELLYN • Nick MAMATAS • Cameron PIERCE
Angela SLATER • Molly TANZER • Paul TREMBLAY

This was nominated for (but did not win) a Shirley Jackson Award. You can click on the "Look inside" thingy at the Amazon link below to see the TOC.

http://www.stoneskinpress.com/?p=1453
http://amzn.com/1908983108

getting "into" the unusual selections from The mammoth book of ghost stories, cheap, worth tracking down.

I just finished reading and reviewed Cthulhusattva, an attractive little package from Martian Migraine Press:

I picked up the 1986/8 Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories and was surprised to find no mention of Machen in the contents of 40+ stories, one per author. Machen is not mentioned in the introduction nor the bibliography which is larger in scope than the contents. What's up?

If you want to see the contents you can use the 'look inside' function:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Book-English-Ghost-Stories/dp/0192141635/ref=sr_...

>51 dukknt:

Well, Machen is essential for supernatural horror, but if we're strict about ghosts, I don't know. What Machen story would you propose to suit the traditional theme of haunting spirits?

I have only read his The Great God Pan, and I see what you mean. Neither was Lovecraft included. I am new to exploring weird fiction as opposed to fantasy fiction, but I consider CA Smith, Leiber, and Hodgson as central to fantasy. I am not a fan of 'tropes' and I doubt I will enjoy more orthodox ghost stories than those of MR James, which can be less straightforward than Machen.

>53 dukknt:

Well, Lovecraft albeit hugely anglophile, wasn't English, nor were his stories set in England, so I can easily imagine him not making the cut in an Oxford anthology of "English" ghost stories. Machen is quite English (when not more particularly Welsh), but not so "ghostly."

Well, the introduction explains why Irish, Scottish and American authors were included in the anthology, but you wouldn't have known that without reading the introduction. Anglophile is the key, with a huge anglo bias.

The Machen absence, even of reference, is bizarre. Maybe Cox the editor has a low opinion.

>54 paradoxosalpha:

but not so "ghostly."

I would be interested in exploring the difference between "ghostly" and "supernatural" if there is a thread already doing so?

>56 dukknt:

I don't think there's such a thread yet, but please feel free to start one!

I've just finished reading the 2014 collection The Dark Rites of Cthulhu and posted my review. (My review isn't as thorough as Randy Stafford's, but we come to the same basic conclusion.)

>56 dukknt: I would see those as being two tiers of the same thing. Ghosts would be a subgenre of sorts under Supernatural (vampire, werewolves, unexplained things, etc.).

>58 paradoxosalpha:

There is something strangely satisfying about being a member of a website where one can come across phrases like 'liturgical Yog-Sothothery'.

If you say it loud enough, you'll always sound precocious.

I'm always afraid the implementation will fall short of the promise when coming across such ideas, but I admit I'm intrigued by a Kickstarter for Brink Literacy Project's proposed Literary Tarot. One pairing of "classic story" with card from the Tarot is HPL's "The Outsider" and The Tower, as conceived by Victor LaValle.

Review (including some sample slides) in SyFy here:
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/comics-wire-exclusive-literary-tarot-death-of-doct...

Kickstarter page here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brinklit/the-literary-tarot?ref=4c2sh7

The Minor Arcana were reconceived in literary terms, replacing the conventional wands, cups, and so forth.

Such projects often flop as far as I'm concerned. Even the brilliant Umberto Eco missed the mark with his Castle of Crossed Destinies.