Blog Archives
sThe 2016 H. P. Lovecraft Re-read: The Whisperer in Darkness
Sunday , 2, October 2016 Fiction, Short Fiction 9 CommentsH. P. Lovecraft’s next story in Weird Tales, “The Whisperer in Darkness” appeared in the August 1931 issue. It had been over two years since a story has appeared under his name. Zealia Brown Reed’s “The Curse of Yig,” essentially a Lovecraft story was in the November 1929 issue of Weird Tales. The end result […]
The 2016 H. P. Lovecraft Re-read: The Dunwich Horror
Sunday , 25, September 2016 Fiction, Short Fiction 6 CommentsH. P. Lovecraft wrote “The Dunwich Horror” during the summer of 1928. S. T. Joshi states the story is a result of a tour of Athol and central Massachusetts at that time. The story is 17,524 words so about 5,000 more words than “The Colour Out of Space” and 6,500 words more than “The […]
The 2016 H. P. Lovecraft Re-read: The Colour Out of Space
Sunday , 18, September 2016 Fiction, Short Fiction 9 Comments“The Colour Out of Space” preceded “The Call of Cthulhu” in print by six months. “Colour” appeared in the September 1927 issue of Amazing Stories. S. T. Joshi states that Lovecraft wrote “The Colour Out of Space” in March 1927. Amazing Stories was a relatively new magazine as its first issue was in April 1926. […]
The 2016 H. P. Lovecraft Re-read: The Call of Cthulhu
Sunday , 11, September 2016 Fiction, Short Fiction 4 CommentsHalloween is less than two months away. I generally shift my meager time for pleasure reading towards the weird and some horror as the days get shorter and nights get cooler. Last week I pulled out the big Barnes & Noble H. P. Lovecraft The Complete Fiction to reread some H. P. Lovecraft. My introduction […]
Cirsova Magazine, Spring 2016- Review
Sunday , 4, September 2016 Book Review, Publications, Short Fiction Leave a commentWe might be in the middle of a spontaneous movement of small press fantastic adventure fiction. Return of the Sword, Griots, Swords of Steel, Skelos, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Swords and Sorcery Magazine have a D.I.Y. attitude. I think there has been a reaction against the blandness and “whoosification” of fantasy fiction from the big book […]
Five Tips for Writing Great Short Fiction: The Case For Classic Adventure
Friday , 26, August 2016 Short Fiction 11 CommentsShort Reviews will return next week! In the meantime, enjoy this rejected bit of click-bait I wrote a while back. Short fiction has entered a strange, new and exciting phase, particularly in the realm of Science Fiction. While we hear in some quarters that short fiction is dying and no one reads short fiction any […]
There is yet another collection of Robert E. Howard’s “Conan” stories out, this time from Dover Books entitled The Weird Tales of Conan the Barbarian. I found out about the collection from Bill Thom’s indispensable Pulp Coming Attractions site (which links to the Castalia House blog posts on pulp related items). I went to Dover […]
Last week, I put up some links to my hypothetical Best of Weird Tales post. A member of both the Robert E. Howard (REHUPA) and Lovecraft (Esoteric Order of Dagon) amateur press associations mentioned “I have waited 40 years for a Nictzin Dyalhis collection.” Nictzin Dyalhis is one of the enigmatic writers for Weird Tales […]
Building a Weird Tales Library: Part 9- The Single Author Collections
Sunday , 5, June 2016 Fiction, Short Fiction, Uncategorized 7 CommentsIn addition to the multi-author paperback anthologies reprinting Weird Tales fiction, there are some single author collections that can expand your reading experience. E. F. Benson is one of the great English ghost story writers. Benson had seven stories in Weird Tales from 1929 to 1933. You can find them in the Wordsworth Night Terrors […]
Building a Weird Tales Library: Part 6
Sunday , 15, May 2016 Short Fiction, Uncategorized 3 CommentsStories that originally appeared in Weird Tales continued to pop up in anthologies in the late 1970s. Michel Parry was a prominent anthologist in the late 1970s. From the Archives of Evil (1976, Warner Books) and From the Archives of Evil II (1976) are paperback reprints of Christopher Lee’s “X” Certificate No. 1 and Archives […]
Building a Weird Tales Library: Part 3
Sunday , 24, April 2016 Fiction, Short Fiction, Uncategorized 2 CommentsIn the 1960s, Warren Magazines revolutionized comic books. Using the 8 ½ x 11 inch size with black & white interiors, the company side skirted the comic books code. Horror returned with the success of Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella. I can remember issues of the magazines making the rounds on the bus ride home from […]
Building a Weird Tales Library: Part 1
Sunday , 10, April 2016 Fiction, Short Fiction, Uncategorized 4 CommentsSo, you have read your Del Rey trade paperbacks of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. You might even have picked up the Penguin collection of Clark Ashton Smith stories. You keep hearing about a magazine called Weird Tales where Lovecraft and Howard’s stories first appeared. There is some curiosity if there were any […]