Tag: horror
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The Thermostat of Terror, or Climbing the Ladder of Dread
HP Lovecraft had a notorious, borderline pathological hatred of the cold. When the thermometer dipped in New England, the gentleman from Providence didn’t just bundle up—he practically withered away. He became physically sluggish, deeply miserable, and convinced that warmth was synonymous with comfort and life, while the frigid cold was the domain of absolute evil…
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READING A PIECE OF OLD FLASH FICTION (OR SO I THOUGHT)
“…there was a man who travelled out of life on a quest into the spaces whither the world’s dreams had fled.” -H.P. Lovecraft, ‘Azathoth’ Over the weekend I felt like finding a very short story to indulge in. The last seven months have been a roller coaster of health issues and generally fading out of…
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What is Frankenstein?
The recent movie The Bride opens with Mary Shelley’s spirit talking about writing a sequel to her most famous novel of all. She says, “The words are beginning to come. Is it a ghost story? A horror story? Or most frightening of all, a love story?” This question could be asked about the original novel.…
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Horror And Its Genres Series Introduction
You’ve come again to visit, how nice. So, horror interests you. You’ve come to the right place for an in depth look at the horror genre and sub genres. I discovered a spider lurking in the corner of my book shelf hanging by a thread checking my book about horror. We’ve become good friends and…
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The Changing Shape of the Monster
The monsters we create have become us. It sounds like a dramatic statement, but the monsters of the past threatened our bodies. Today, they are much closer. They disturb our minds, our identity, our memory, and even our own perception of ourselves, almost sounding like our thoughts. As horror authors, we extract elements and ideas…
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Ten Memorable Novels
In my last post (which you can read here), I gave you 10 memorable short stories. Many of which have been with me for decades. In this post, I want to share with you 10 memorable novels. Novels that have made a lingering impression. Novels that refuse to let me go. The list is roughly…
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Listening to Discomfort
Some music isn’t meant to comfort. It doesn’t try to distract, uplift, or resolve anything. It creates pressure and holds it there, often longer than the listener is willing to tolerate. That reaction alone is enough to make people reject it. We’re used to music doing something for us. Even when it’s dark, it usually…
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ON BEING HAUNTED
Sometimes he would for hours together walk to and fro throughout the long oak-wainscoted apartment which he generally occupied, with wild gesticulations and agitated pace, in the manner of one who has been roused to a state of unnatural excitement by some sudden and appalling intimation. -from ‘The Fortunes Of Sir Robert Ardagh’ I recently…
Threads that Bind 