Let's Talk About Horror Fiction and Film

I'll cross my fingers that Tivo got the right ones.

 

^^ Major development Friday night.

I have just ordered The Shadow Out Of Time, the third in the Dark Adventure Radio Theater series from the Lovecraft Historical Society. I just got an email from the guy today saying that it would ship tomorrow, so I should be able to tell you about it later in the week; but I expect it to be just as good as the other two shows and their movie.

 

Ah, so he's on the team; I was expecting him to have "helpful outsider" status. What surprised me, though, is that there is no young female character. Kind of an oversight these days.

It's gone through quite a few changes, too, according to that Wiki page. It's kind of encouraging, though, that the toys won't be out for a year; that means they have a commitment to it.

I've traded a few emails with the guy there over the past couple of days. Either he works 24/7 or it's a home business, or both. He seems like a nice guy and the HPLHS is definitely a labor of love.

Nice. I love it when they do that. I don't have that one yet-- the one I have is The Black Stranger-- so I added it to my cart.

 

Nuff said. That goes right into the Shopping Cart.

What a freakin' tease. If you tell me about your weird personal connection to Sundown, I'll tell you about my weird personal connection to Blood Scarab.

Well, this reminds me that I never Posted about how much I loved The Shadow Out Of Time episode of Dark Adventure Radio Theater (it looks like it's out of print, but it's not; you're buying it from the Lovecraft Historical Society via Amazon). Well, not surprisingly, it was as great as their other CDs and their DVD of Call Of Cthulhu. I'll just quote my Amazon review:

"The Lovecraft Historical Society has done it again-- The Shadow Out Of Time is a wonderful adaptation of classic Lovecraft. Like its two predecessors, it's done in the style of the old radio shows that I love; it's a show that should have existed called Dark Adventure Radio Theater. These HPLHS guys are so good at this I wish they could do it on a weekly basis. Certainly one of the multitude of channels on Sirius or XM has room for a program like this. Ah, but I digress. The Shadow Out Of Time is a very faithful adaption of the original story-- at 77 minutes long, nothing is left out (that I noticed) and only minor changes were made to bring HPL's prose off the page and into the mouths of the actors for the sake of the dramatization. Neither vocabulary nor syntax has been sacrificed in this labor of love; everything is 100% Lovecraft. If you're a fan of either HPL or Old Radio Shows, or both, you will love this CD (and its myriad of enclosures, such as a newspaper clipping, a page torn from a British medical journal et cetera). In fact, if you haven't already done so, I recommend that you also get the previous two Dark Adventures and HPLHS's silent-movie adaption of Call Of Cthulhu as well. Great stuff!"

Seriously, I can't recommend the HPLHS stuff enough. They are pure gold for the Classic Horror fan.

 

Here's what I've read since I last checked in.

Just After Sunset by Stephen King. This is King's latest collection. He's always been at his best in the short story form, and his previous collection Everything's Eventual was perhaps his best, so I was really looking forward to this one. It didn't quite meet my expectations, but it's a fine collection with a nice range of stories. There are understated, romantic ghost stories ("Willa" and "The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates"), short, dreamlike pieces ("Harvey's Dream" and "Graduation Afternoon"), action suspense stories ("The Gingerbread Girl" and "A Very Tight Place"), and a number of unclassifiable works. All these stories are well-crafted and do what they set out to do, and King has a good eye for character these days, but only a few are truly impressive. Among these is the Lovecraft-Machen homage "N.", a long paranoid horror story that manages to blend the styles of those two authors with King's own more immediate prose. It's the best story in Just After Sunset, and a great horror tale in its own right.

Alison Lurie's Women and Ghosts is an interesting little collection of psychological ghost stories with female protagonists. Lurie has a simple, clear prose style that's appropriate to classical ghost stories. There's not a lot here that's novel, but ghost stories need style rather than novelty, and Lurie has it.

Ellen Datlow's new anthology is Poe, a collection of stories in honor of the author's 200th birthday. These stories aren't cheap pastiche; they're loosely inspired by various works of Poe, but the authors went off in their own directions, producing a wide range of stories. My ridiculously long review is here; in brief, it's a strong collection with no duds and a couple masterpieces. Read it.

And then there's Gene Wolfe's An Evil Guest, which isn't really horror but which I mention because it has some interesting Lovecraftian elements. It's a slick, easy-to-read futuristic noir thriller, and worth a look if that convoluted premise excites you.

 

I definitely agree that King's greatest strength has always been the short story. I didn't know he had a new anthology out; I'll add that to my list. That volume of Poe homages sounds good, too.

 

The fourth CD installment of Dark Adventure Radio Theater is out from HPLHS; this episode is "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." I haven't had a chance to listen yet (probably tonight), but after the last three I have no doubt that it will be great.

Also today, I got the first volume of Eerie Archives. Classics to those who remember and better than new to those who don't. Creepy, by the way, is up to Volume 2.

Incidentally, I meant to Post an email I got from Wildside Press a while back, but I waited too long and it was purged. The essence of it is that HP Lovecraft's Magazine Of Horror has been "merged" with Weird Tales. The better to serve you. In other words, it's been cancelled and the excess inventory will be used in WT. WT is now not accepting submissions until the end of March.

This doesn't sound good. Even the major magazines are struggling, so I can imagine how bad it is for Small Press. To make matters worse, I've dealt with WT directly as a writer and an advertiser and they are incredibly disorganized behind the scenes. I'm worried about the future of the magazine.

 

The Goon is great.

Yeah, Weird Tales is the only Wildside Magazine that maintained anything like a regular schedule. Lovecraft and Adventure have both been delayed and erratic. Their planned Sherlock Holmes and cat-fantasy magazines were canceled before they came out and the stories published in paperback form instead (which is better than nothing, but I would have preferred the periodicals). As you say, other small press mags like Cemetery Dance are just as volatile. It's a shame.

The Creepy and Eerie books are great; you should move to the East Coast so I can loan you stuff.

 

Necroscope: The Lost Years Volume II by Brian Lumley.
Got it in a charity shop for 50p.

 

I have a soft spot for the Necroscope series. It's not for everyone, though. Lumley can get a bit carried away with the explicit, visceral (literally, at times) horror stuff, but I think that the wild metaphysical side of it is great reading. The vampire legend is explored and expanded a great deal over the entire series - and there are many books in the series - and I find it compelling, exciting stuff.

 

Right now I'm reading Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, John Langan's debut collection. Langan's story "Technicolor" was one of the best in Ellen Datlow's tribute anthology Poe, so I was looking forward to this one, and it hasn't disappointed. The first two stories, "On Skua Island" and "Mr. Gaunt," are top-notch classic horror stories with a few modern touches, while "Tutorial" is an unsettling satire on (of all things) the closedmindedness of creative writing professors and "Episode Seven" is a post-apocalyptic story with ferocious wolves, giant flowers, and a plague. I'm only a few pages into the final story, but it's promising so far.

 

Pet Sematary was indeed excellent, and a prime example of King's work when he was at the height of his powers. Sort of an expanded novel version of "Monkey's Paw." Horrific and disturbing. The Graveyard Book sounds interesting; that's quite an original idea.

Since I last Posted here, Weird Tales extended their moratorium on submissions to Memorial Day. Hopefully, next week I will be able to submit "Coyote Crosses The Ocean." They also have a couple of things on their website-- a very short form format and a contest-- that they are accepting submissions for. Luckily, the person in charge of story submissions is not the same as the person in charge of poetry submissions; I submitted "The Last Talbot" and never got a response, either to the submission or my follow-up inquiry. But the poetry guy is also the advertising guy, so I know first-hand how disorganized and unreliable he is.

 

I'm planning to make another try for New England Comics today, so I'll see if they have it. Rue Morgue should actually be on my list, anyway; it's a good magazine.