rolling fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction &c. thread

i'm reading _through the valley of the nest of spiders_, i don't usually like YA fiction but this is pretty good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paCqiY1jwqc

China Mieville on Marxism, Halloween and the way octopuses use tools. He also says mentions William Morris in a funny voice.

Jeff Vandermeer, with all the stories and writers (maybe more) encountered while co-editing The Weird, still swirling around and through him (hadn't heard of several; guess I better read his anth)
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/uncanny-fiction-beautiful-and-bizarre/381794/2/

Reminds me, I got this worlds/ages-roving trove a while back; haven't tried to read it straight through, cos so mesmerizing each time I pick it up:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vSAeHjiCL.jpg

From Publishers Weekly
Originally conceived of by its Argentinian editors in 1937, and now published in English for the first time, this unusual and provocative volume is an omnibus collection. In addition to stories by Ballard, Poe, Saki, Max Beerbohm, Ray Bradbury, May Sinclair, de Maupassant and Julio Cortazar, there are shorter pieces, anecdotes, folkloric fragments, dreamlike moments. Most of the 79 selections are only a paragraph or two long, giving us brief passage into magical visions of the world culled from the work of an international array of authors of the past three centuries, including less well-known authors such as Santiago Dabove, Edwin Morgan and Niu Chiao. The keynote tale may well be Borges's own "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" in which an imaginary world, conjured up by manufactured documentation, ends up eroding our reality: reality is malleable, and imagination necessarily subverts and alters it.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Business information you can use.

http://www.argentinaindependent.com/top-story/silvina-ocampo-writing-the-feminine-into-the-fantastic/

Isn't there some sequels to the Borges/Ocampo/Casares collection? I think there were others that only had two of those authors editing.
That's a great cover too, never saw that one.

about 3/4s of the way through Two-Handed Engine and my enthusiasm for Kuttner/Moore has cooled a bit, although not altogether. Some recurring motifs: alcoholism (so much drinking in these stories! Like, everyone all the time), monstrous children beyond the control/understanding of their parents, Lovecraftian/vague indescribable horrors, loads of references to classical mythologies (greek/roman, pagan, fairies/gnomes/goblins etc.) The "science" end of things is more often than not complete window-dressing, often self-consciously silly in application. They seemed prone to using genre trappings as a cover for exploring these sort of tortured psychological profiles of confused parents, doomed lovers, or amoral idiots. Loads of very Twilight Zone-y darkly ironic twists. Surprised more of their stuff wasn't used besides just "We Have What You Need". A lot of the stories feel very much like an attempt to create "modern" fables. As such there isn't a lot of engagement with contemporary issues or ideas, apart from the occasional reference to Hitler or psychoanalysis, which is something I usually find more engaging about scifi in general.

Thanx James, will check that in a sec.
Robert, this was an expansion of the original edition; there may be others, but I haven't seen them.
Οὖτις, This A lot of the stories feel very much like an attempt to create "modern" fables. seems to contradict this: As such there isn't a lot of engagement with contemporary issues or ideas, apart from the occasional reference to Hitler or psychoanalysis, What does the "modern" attempt consist of?
which is something I usually find more engaging about scifi in general. What do you find more engaging?

Good one, James! Still need to read her and Bioy Casares.

(Looks at my terrifyingly huge shopping list) ah, it was Extraordinary Tales edited by Borges/Casares.

A lot of the stories feel very much like an attempt to create "modern" fables. seems to contradict this: As such there isn't a lot of engagement with contemporary issues or ideas, apart from the occasional reference to Hitler or psychoanalysis, What does the "modern" attempt consist of?

mostly placing things like fairies and monsters in the context of drunk adults lol (I am not entirely kidding). The settings are modern insofar as they involve the juxtaposition of things from classical antiquity/fairytales/myths against regular adults with jobs and cars and families. But there's little of the "what if [insert trend in modern society] was carried to some extreme conclusion", there's very little that explicitly connects the stories to a time and period any more specific than "some time in the 20th century".

which is something I usually find more engaging about scifi in general. What do you find more engaging?

I'm referring to authors extrapolating from some uniquely contemporary situation or new scientific idea into the future. The Martian Chronicles isn't really about Mars, it's about Bradbury's reservations about contemporary culture and politics. PKD writing about drugs and religious visions and figures in a way that is very late 60s/early 70s. Bester and Sturgeon writing obsessively about psychoanalysis is a very 50s thing. Cyberpunk guys reflecting the dawning 80s obsession with computers and information systems. There isn't really any of this in Kuttner/Moore, the details of their stories are deliberately vague and generalized in an attempt to occupy that archetypal space that belongs to fables and myths. Specific dates or locations or cultural references are pretty much entirely absent from their stories. There isn't anything wrong with this - these are well-written, engaging stories - they just take a tack that's a little different then what I usually like to get from sf.

enough (specific dates or locations are rarely mentioned,

hmm sorry for that text tag at the end there

here's an example - one of these stories is about a couple renting a room to a strange roommate. turns out the roommate is keeping fairies in a birdcage in his room and the fairies bring him good luck. the couple disturbs the fairies, roommate moves out but leaves the birdcage behind, and then some more slovenly, "less lucky" fairies move into it. the end. All of the tension in the story centers around this couple trying to a) find out what's in the birdcage and then b) not being able to accept that fairies are real. There's pretty much no details given about the couple, where they live, what they do, etc. beyond the fact that they like to go to a local bar to drink.

Ha ha, great descriptions, thanks!

Re the Borges collection, see also this: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/B0074YVYJ6.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg, which has lots of good stuff

Jeff VanderMeer passes along a response to the article I posted earlier today:
http://weirdfictionreview.com/2014/10/weird-france-and-belgium-a-best-of/

Found the Calvino contents list online:

Contents:

I. The Visionary Fantastic of the Nineteenth Century
The Story of the Demoniac Pacheco by Jan Potocki
Autumn Sorcery by Joseph von Eichendorff
The Sandman by E. T. A. Hoffmann
Wandering Willie's Tale by Sir Walter Scott
The Elixir of Life by Honoré de Balzac
The Eye with No Lid by Philarète Chasles
The Enchanted Hand by Gérard de Nerval
Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Nose by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol
The Beautiful Vampire by Théophile Gautier
The Venus of Ille by Prosper Mérimée
The Ghost and the Bonesetter by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
II. The Everyday Fantastic of the Nineteenth Century
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
The Shadow by Hans Christian Anderson
The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens
The Dream by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev
A Shameless Rascal by Nicolai Semyonovich Leskov
The Very Image by Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam
Night: A Nightmare by Guy de Maupassant
A Lasting Love by Vernon Lee
Chickamauga by Ambrose Bierce
The Holes in the Mask by Jean Lorrain
The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Friends of the Friends by Henry James
The Bridge-Builders by Rudyard Kipling
The Country of the Blind by H. G. Wells

Cool, I love Weird Fiction Review.

Shakey, your descriptions and analysis of Kuttner/Moore are grebt, although I don't agree with your conclusion that this is necessarily a bad thing.

Oh I dont think it's bad. It's some kind of middle ground between horror and fantasy and sf

Yeah, that's often my favorite place, like the old term "slipstream"--dunno if K&M were ever referred to that way, but they're often down with/at the crossroads, like it's their natural habitat.

All those calvino stories look like they'll be available at project Gutenberg - they look like they are all out of copyright.

I've got that Calvino anthology.

Another similar thing is Alberto Manguel's two Black Water anthologies.

Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature ed. Alberto Manguel (Picador 0-330-28141-0, 1983 [Feb ’84], £4.95, 967pp, tp) Anthology of 72 stories and excerpts, from “literary” fantasists (including Bradbury and Le Guin as well as Poe, Kafka, Calvino, etc.) A 1983 book — not seen till 1984.
xvi · Foreword · Alberto Manguel · fw
1 · House Taken Over · Julio Cortázar · ss End of the Game and Other Stories, Random House, 1967
7 · How Love Came to Professor Guildea [“The Man Who Was Beloved”] · Robert S. Hichens · na Pearson’s Magazine Oct, 1897
49 · Climax for a Ghost Story · I. A. Ireland · vi, 1919
50 · The Mysteries of the Joy Rio · Tennessee Williams · ss, 1954
62 · Pomegranate Seed · Edith Wharton · nv The Saturday Evening Post Apr 25 ’31
92 · Venetian Masks · Adolfo Bioy Casares; trans. by Alberto Manguel · ss *
110 · The Wish House · Rudyard Kipling · ss Maclean’s Oct 15 ’24
127 · The Playground · Ray Bradbury · ss Esquire Oct ’53
141 · Importance · Manuel Mujica Lainez · ss, 1978
144 · Enoch Soames · Max Beerbohm · nv The Century May ’16
171 · A Visitor from Down Under · L. P. Hartley · ss The Ghost-Book, ed. Cynthia Asquith, London: Hutchinson, 1926
188 · Laura · Saki · ss Beasts and Super-Beasts, John Lane, 1914
193 · An Injustice Revealed · Anon. · ss
198 · A Little Place Off the Edgware Road · Graham Greene · ss Nineteen Stories, Heinemann, 1947
204 · From “A School Story” · M. R. James · ex More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, Arnold, 1911
206 · The Signalman · Charles Dickens · ss All the Year Round Christmas, 1866
219 · The Tall Woman · Pedro Antonio de Alarcón · nv
235 · A Scent of Mimosa · Francis King · ss The Times Anthology of Ghost Stories, Anon., London: Cape, 1975
249 · Death and the Gardener [from Le Grand Ecart] · Jean Cocteau · ex, 1923
250 · Lord Mountdrago [“Doctor and Patient”] · W. Somerset Maugham · nv The International Feb ’39
273 · The Sick Gentleman’s Last Visit · Giovanni Papini · ss The Blind Pilot, 1907
279 · Insomnia [1956] · Virgilio Pinera · vi
280 · The Storm [“Frritt-Flacc”] · Jules Verne · ss; Le Figaro Illustre December 1884.
287 · A Dream (from The Arabian Nights Entertainments) · Anon. · vi
289 · The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar · Edgar Allan Poe · ss American Whig Review Dec, 1845
299 · Split Second · Daphne du Maurier · nv The Apple Tree, London: Gollancz, 1952
345 · August 25, 1983 · Jorge Luís Borges · ss, 1982
351 · How Wang-Fo Was Saved · Marguerite Yourcenar · ss; in Nouvelles Orientales, 1963.
361 · From “Peter and Rosa” · Isak Dinesen · ex Winter’s Tales, Putnam, 1942
363 · Tattoo · Junichiro Tanizaki · ss, 1910
371 · John Duffy’s Brother · Flann O’Brien · ss Story Jul/Aug ’41
377 · Lady into Fox · David Garnett · na New York: Knopf, 1923
430 · Father’s Last Escape · Bruno Schulz · ss Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, 1937
435 · A Man by the Name of Ziegler · Hermann Hesse · ss, 1954
440 · The Argentine Ant [1952] · Italo Calvino; trans. by Archibald Colquhoun · nv Adam, One Afternoon, Colliro, 1957
470 · The Lady on the Grey · John Collier · ss New Yorker Jun 16 ’51
478 · The Queen of Spades [1834] · Alexander Sergeievitch Pushkin; trans. by Rosemary Edmonds · nv
503 · Of a Promise Kept · Lafcadio Hearn · ss A Japanese Miscellany, Little, Brown, 1901
507 · The Wizard Postponed [from The Book of Examples of Count Lucanor, adapt. 1935] · Juan Manuel, Jorge Luís Borges, adapt.; trans. by Norman Thomas di Giovanni · ss A Universal History of Infamy, Allen Lane, 1973
511 · The Monkey’s Paw · W. W. Jacobs · ss Harper’s Monthly Sep ’02
522 · The Bottle Imp · Robert Louis Stevenson · nv New York Herald Feb 8-Mar 1, 1891
550 · The Rocking-Horse Winner · D. H. Lawrence · ss The Ghost-Book, ed. Cynthia Asquith, London: Hutchinson, 1926
565 · Certain Distant Suns · Joanne Greenburg · ss High Crimes and Misdemeanors, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1979
582 · The Third Bank of the River · João Guimarães Rosa · ss, 1967
588 · Home · Hilaire Belloc · ss
596 · The Door in the Wall · H. G. Wells · ss The Daily Chronicle Jul 14 ’06
612 · The Friends · Silvina Ocampo · ss, 1982
619 · Et in Sempiternum Pereant · Charles Williams · ss The London Mercury Dec ’35
629 · The Captives of Longjumeau · Léon Bloy · ss, 1967
634 · The Visit to the Museum · Vladimir Nabokov · ss, 1958
644 · “Autumn Mountain” · Ryunosuke Akutagawa · ss
652 · The Sight · Brian Moore · ss Irish Ghost Stories, ed. Joseph Hone, Hamish Hamilton, 1977
670 · Clorinda · André Pieyre de Mandiargues · ss, 1979
675 · The Pagan Rabbi · Cynthia Ozick · nv The Hudson Review, 1966
704 · The Fisherman and His Soul · Oscar Wilde · nv The House of Pomegranates, 1891
735 · The Bureau d’Echange de Maux · Lord Dunsany · ss The Smart Set Jan ’15
740 · The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas · Ursula K. Le Guin · ss New Dimensions 3, ed. Robert Silverberg, Nelson Doubleday, 1973
748 · In the Penal Colony · Franz Kafka · nv; Kurt Wolff Verlag, May ’19.
774 · A Dog in Durer’s Etching “The Knight, Death and The Devil” · Marco Denevi · ss, 1968
782 · The Large Ant · Howard Fast · ss Fantastic Universe Feb ’60
792 · The Lemmings · Alex Comfort · ss
800 · The Grey Ones · J. B. Priestley · ss Lilliput Apr-May ’53
816 · The Feather Pillow · Horacio Quiroga · ss, 1907
820 · Seaton’s Aunt · Walter de la Mare · nv The London Mercury Apr ’22
849 · The Friends of the Friends [“The Way It Came”] · Henry James · nv Chap Book May, 1896
874 · The Travelling Companion · Hans Christian Andersen · ss, 1835
891 · The Curfew Tolls · Stephen Vincent Benét · ss The Saturday Evening Post Oct 5 ’35
907 · The State of Grace · Marcel Aymé · ss Across Paris and Other Stories, Paris, 1947; F&SF Dec ’59
919 · The Story of a Panic · E. M. Forster · nv Independent Review Mar ’04
940 · An Invitation to the Hunt · George Hitchcock · ss San Francisco Review Mar ’60
950 · From the “American Notebooks” · Nathaniel Hawthorne · ex, 1868
952 · The Dream · O. Henry · ss Cosmopolitan Sep ’10; completed by Cosmopolitan editor.
956 · The Authors · Misc. · bg

Black Water 2: More Tales of the Fantastic ed. Alberto Manguel (Random House/Clarkson & Potter 0-517-57559-0, Jan ’91 [Dec ’90], $14.95, 941pp, tp, cover by George Tooker) Anthology of 65 stories and novel excerpts, primarily by literary and mainstream authors. First American edition (Lester & Orpen Dennys 1990).
xviii · Foreword · Alberto Manguel · fw
1 · The Child Who Believed · Grace Amundson · ss The Saturday Evening Post Dec 16 ’50
17 · It’s a Good Life · Jerome Bixby · ss Star Science Fiction Stories #2, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953
36 · The Door · E. B. White · ss New Yorker, 1939
42 · Mysterious Kôr · Elizabeth Bowen · ss The Demon Lover and Other Stories, J. Cape, 1945
57 · Nights at Serampore · Mircea Eliade · na Two Tales of the Occult, Herder & Herder, 1970
99 · The Dead Fiddler · Isaac Bashevis Singer · nv, 1966
127 · The Phoenix · Sylvia Townsend Warner · ss The Cat’s Cradle Book, Viking, 1940
132 · The Spider · Hanns Heinz Ewers; trans. by Walter F. Kohn · nv The International Dec ’15
155 · Changeling · Dorothy K. Haynes · ss Modern Scottish Short Stories, ed. Fred Urquhart & Giles Gordon, Hamish Hamilton, 1978
164 · The July Ghost · Antonia S. Byatt · ss Firebird #1 ’82
180 · Poor Girl · Elizabeth Taylor · ss The Third Ghost Book, ed. Cynthia Asquith, James Barrie, 1955
200 · Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched · May Sinclair · nv The English Review Oct ’22
222 · The Complete Gentleman · Amos Tutuola · ex The Palm-Wine Drinkard, London: Faber, 1952
231 · The Professor and the Mermaid · Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa; trans. by Archibald Colquhoun · nv Two Stories and a Memory, Pantheon, 1962
255 · The Sausage · Friedrich Dürrenmatt; trans. by Alberto Manguel · vi, 1989
258 · A Woman Seldom Found · William Sansom · ss A Contest of Ladies and Other Stories, London: Hogarth Press, 1956
262 · Mummy to the Rescue · Angus Wilson · ss Such Darling Dodos and Other Stories, Secker & Warburg, 1950
269 · Aghwee the Sky Monster · Kenzaburõ Õe; trans. by John Nathan · nv Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, Grove Press, 1977
298 · Berkeley or Mariana of the Universe · Liliana Heker; trans. by Alberto Manguel · ss, 1986
305 · The Saint · Antonia White · ss Life and Letters Nov ’31
313 · The Ghost of Firozsha Baag · Rohinton Mistry · ss Quarry Spr ’86
328 · The Miracle of Ash Wednesday [1926] · Yevgeny Zamyatin; trans. by Mirra Ginsburg · ss The Dragon, Random House, 1968
336 · Heartburn · Hortense Calisher · ss The American Mercury Jan ’51
347 · The Accident · Ann Bridge · nv The Song in the House, 1936
370 · The Old Woman · Joyce Marshall · ss Canadian Short Stories, ed. Robert Weaver, Oxford, 1960
383 · A Short Trip Home · F. Scott Fitzgerald · nv The Saturday Evening Post Dec 17 ’27
405 · The Brute · Joseph Conrad · ss The Daily Chronicle Dec 5 ’06
426 · Mr. Sleepwalker · Ethel Wilson · ss Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories, Toronto: Macmillan, 1961
444 · A Self-Possessed Woman · Julian Barnes · ss The Times Anthology of Ghost Stories, Anon., London: Cape, 1975
460 · The Woman Who Talked to Horses · Leon Rooke · ss Sing Me No Love Songs, I’ll Say You No Prayers, Ecco Press, 1984
469 · The White Rooster · William Goyen · ss Mademoiselle Apr ’47
484 · The Labrenas · Tommaso Landolfi; trans. by Kathrine Jason · nv Words in Commotion, and Other Stories, Viking, 1986
508 · The Dead Fish [1955] · Boris Vian; trans. by Damon Knight · ss 13 French Science-Fiction Stories, ed. Damon Knight, Bantam, 1965
521 · Major Aranda’s Hand [1955] · Alfonso Reyes; trans. by Mildred Johnson · ss The Eye of the Heart, ed. Barbara Howes, Bobbs-Merrill, 1973
528 · Giving Birth · Margaret Atwood · ss, 1977
543 · The Jewbird · Bernard Malamud · ss The Reporter Apr 11 ’63
553 · The Misanthrope · John D. Beresford · ss Nineteen Impressions, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1918
563 · Bartleby · Herman Melville · nv Putnam’s Monthly, 1853
600 · Private—Keep Out! · Philip MacDonald · ss F&SF Fll ’49
616 · Dreams · Timothy Findley · nv Stones, Penguin Books Canada, 1988
638 · Mr. Dombey, the Zombie · Geoffrey Drayton · vi, 1951
642 · Why I Changed into a Nightingale · Wolfgang Hildesheimer; trans. by Joachim Neugroschel · ss The Art of the Tale, ed. Daniel Halpern, Viking, 1986
648 · The Troll · T. H. White · ss Gone to Ground, 1935
660 · Two Words [1989] · Isabel Allende; trans. by Alberto Manguel · ss Mother Jones Jan-Feb ’91
668 · Ch’ien-niang [from T’aip’ing Kwangchi, ca. 900 a.d.] · Chen Xuanyou; trans. by Wayne Schlepp · vi, 1990
671 · The Visiting Star · Robert Aickman · nv Powers of Darkness, Collins, 1966
696 · Ratanbabu and the Man · Satyajit Ray · ss The Unicorn Expedition, Dutton, 1987
711 · How It Happened · Arthur Conan Doyle · ss The Strand Sep ’13
716 · Same Time, Same Place · Mervyn Peake · ss Science-Fantasy #60 ’63
726 · The Enigma of Arrival · V. S. Naipaul · ss New Yorker Aug 11 ’86
728 · Faithful Peter · Lion Feuchtwanger; trans. by Renatha Oppenheimer · ss Stories from Far and Near, Viking, 1945
736 · The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship · Gabriel García Márquez; trans. by Gregory Rabassa · ss The Leaf Storm and Other Stories, London: Cape, 1972
742 · The House-Hunters · Peter Green · ss Habeas Corpus and Other Stories, World, 1963
762 · The Yellow Wallpaper · Charlotte Perkins Gilman · ss New England Magazine Jan, 1892
780 · Eckhardt at a Window · Eric McCormack · ss Inspecting the Vaults, Penguin Canada, 1987
792 · The Lefthanders · Günter Grass; trans. by Alberto Manguel · ss, 1989
799 · Mr. Arcularis · Conrad Aiken · nv, 1922
819 · The Times My Father Died · Yehuda Amichai; trans. by Yosef Schachter · ss The World Is a Room and Other Stories, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1984
830 · The Haunted House · Luigi Pirandello; trans. by Michele Pettinati · ss Medals, and Other Stories, Dutton, 1939
847 · The Finder · Elizabeth Spencer · ss New Yorker Jan 23 ’71
866 · Desire · James Stephens · ss The Dial Jun ’20
874 · The Miraculous Revenge · George Bernard Shaw · ss Time Mar, 1885; ; as “The Grave of Brimstone Billy”, EQMM Oct ’51
896 · Room of Blood · Brett Balon · ss, 1984
904 · The Shadow · Ben Hecht · ss Liberty Jan 30 ’26
920 · The Nine Billion Names of God · Arthur C. Clarke · ss Star Science Fiction Stories #1, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953
928 · The Authors · Misc. · bg

Taken from
http://www.locusmag.com/index/b323.htm#A4564

Re the Calvino antho-- I've been looking for a long time for an English language collection of villiers de l'isle adam's stories. If anyone knows of one online anywhere lemme know

Both Villiers de l'isle-Adam collections are affordable in print and on kindle

The Scaffold and Other Cruel Tales
The Vampire Soul and Other Sardonic Tales

aha i will check the nook store and see if it's the same situation there!

Ah cool, have heard good things about him, thanks.
Departure delayed, so while cooling heels, and in honor of Hallows' Eve, a few from my village library. Haven't yet read any of these collections straight through, but for instance, Dark Descent opens with "The Reach" by Stephen King, which is pretty good for Stephen King. It's another Hartwell, so begging some questions like why "A Rose For Emily" and others almost as well known. Also why does King keep coming back (o why do I think). Anyway, looks promising overall, and I don't really remember most of the familiar titles all that well:
The Dark Descentedited by David G/ Hartwell, huge paperback ed. first pub. '97, I think
Contents:
pt. 1.
The color of evil. The reach / Stephen King --
Evening primrose / John Collier --
The ash-tree / M. R. James --
The new mother / Lucy Clifford --
There's a long, long trail a-winding / Russell Kirk --
The call of Cthulhu / H. P. Lovecraft --
The summer people / Shirley Jackson --
The whimper of whipped dogs / Harlan Ellison --
Young Goodman Brown / Nathaniel Hawthorne --
Mr. Justice Harbottle --
J. Sheridan Le Fanu --
The crowd / Ray Bradbury --
The autopsy / Michael Shea --
John Charrington's wedding / E. Nesbit --
Sticks / Karl Edward Wagner --
Larger than oneself / Robert Aickman --
Belsen Express / Fritz Leiber --
Yours truly, Jack the Ripper / Robert Bloch --
If Damon comes / Charles L. Grant --
Vandy, Vandy / Manly Wade Wellman --
pt. 2.
The Medusa in the shield. The swords / Robert Aickman --
The roaches / Thomas M. Disch --
Bright segment / Theodore Sturgeon --
Dread / Clive Barker --
The fall of the house of Usher / Edgar Allen Poe --
The monkey / Stephen King --
Within the walls of Tyre / Michael Bishop --
The rats in the walls / H. P. Lovecraft --
Schalken the painter / J. Sheridan Le Fanu --
The yellow wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman --
A rose for Emily / William Faulkner --
How love came to Professor Guildea / Robert Hichens --
Born of man and woman / Richard Matheson --
My dear Emily / Joanna Russ --
You can go now / Dennis Etchison --
The rocking-horse winner / D. H. Lawrence --
Three days / Tanith Lee --
Good country people / Flannery O'Connor --
Mackintosh Willy / Ramsey Campbell --
The jolly corner / Henry James --
pt. 3.
A fabulous formless darkness. Smoke ghost / Fritz Leiber --
Seven American nights / Gene Wolfe --
The signal-man / Charles Dickens --
Crouch End / Stephen King --
Night-side / Joyce Carol Oates --
Seaton's aunt / Walter de la Mare --
Clara Militch / Ivan Turgenev --
The repairer of reputations / Robert W. Chambers --
The beckoning fair one / Oliver Onions --
What was it? / Fitz-James O'Brien --
The beautiful stranger / Shirley Jackson --
The damned thing / Ambrose Bierce --
Afterward / Edith Wharton --
The willows / Algernon Blackwood --
The Asian shore / Thomas M. Disch --
The hospice / Robert Aickman --
A little something for us tempunauts / Philip K. Dick. (less)

Also from local library:
The Mammoth Book of Short Horror Novels, edited by Mike Ashley, 1988.

The monkey / Stephen King
The parasite / Arthur Conan Doyle
There's a long, long trail a-winding / Russell Kirk
The damned / Algernon Blackwood
Fengriffen / David Case
The uttermost farthing / A.C. Benson
The rope in the rafters / Oliver Onions
Nadelman's God / T.E.D. Klein
The feasting dead / John Metcalfe
How the wind spoke at Madaket / Lucius Shepard.

Otto Penzler! The Mystery Book Store guy does some delving: didn't know proto-modern Southern novelist Ellen Glasgow wrote supernatural, but here she characteristically skewers the abusive perks of NYC medical high priests as well, in "The Shadowy Third"--which you can also read here:
http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/10/the-shadowy-third

[The Big Book of Ghost Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original edited by Otto Penzler, 2012

BUT I’M NOT DEAD YET
Conrad Aiken: Mr. Arcularis
William Fryer Harvey: August Heat

I’LL LOVE YOU—FOREVER (OR MAYBE NOT)
Ellen Glasgow: The Shadowy Third
Ellen Glasgow: The Past
David Morrell: But At My Back I Always Hear
O. Henry: The Furnished Room
Paul Ernst: Death’s Warm Fireside
Andrew Klavan: The Advent Reunion
R. Murray Gilchrist: The Return
Rudyard Kipling: The Phantom Rickshaw
Ambrose Bierce: The Moonlit Road
Lafcadio Hearn: The Story of Ming-Y
Lafcadio Hearn: Yuki-Onna

THIS OLD HOUSE
Amyas Northcote: Brickett Bottom
E. F. Benson: How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery
G. G. Pendarves: Thing of Darkness
Edward Lucas White: The House of the Nightmare
Hector Bolitho: The House on Half Moon Street
Dick Donovan: A Night of Horror
Vincent O’sullivan: The Burned House

KIDS WILL BE KIDS
Rosemary Timperley: Harry
Michael Reaves: Make-Believe
A. M. Burrage: Playmates
Ramsey Campbell: Just Behind You
A. E. Coppard: Adam And Eve and Pinch Me
Steve Friedman: The Lost Boy of the Ozarks

THERE’S SOMETHING FUNNY AROUND HERE
Mark Twain: A Ghost’s Story
Donald E. Westlake: In At The Death
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Ghost of Dr. Harris
“Ingulphus”: The Everlasting Club
Isaac Asimov and James Maccreigh: Legal Rites
Albert E. Cowdrey: Death Must Die
Frank Stockton: The Transferred Ghost
Oscar Wilde: The Canterville Ghost

A NEGATIVE TRAIN OF THOUGHT
August Derleth: Pacific 421
Robert Weinberg: The Midnight El

STOP—YOU’RE SCARING ME
Frederick Cowles: Punch and Judy
Henry S. Whitehead: The Fireplace
H. F. Arnold: The Night Wire 400
Fritz Leiber: Smoke Ghost 406
Wyatt Blassingame: Song of the Dead

I MUST BE DREAMING
Wilkie Collins: The Dream Woman 437
Washington Irving: The Adventure of the German Student

A SÉANCE, YOU SAY?
Joseph Shearing: They Found My Grave
Edgar Jepson: Mrs. Morrel’s Last Séance
Joyce Carol Oates: Night-Side

CLASSICS
M. R. James: “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come To You My Lad”
W. W. Jacobs: The Monkey’s Paw
W. W. Jacobs: The Toll-House
Edith Wharton: Afterward
Willa Cather: Consequences
Cynthia Asquith: The Follower
Cynthia Asquith: The Corner Shop
H. P. Lovecraft: The Terrible Old Man
Erckmann-Chatrian: The Murderer’s Violin
Saki: The Open Window
Saki: Laura
Fitz-James O’Brien: What Was It?
Alexander Woollcott: Full Fathom Five
H. R. Wakefield: He Cometh and He Passeth By
Perceval Landon: Thurnley Abbey

THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES
Algernon Blackwood: The Woman’s Ghost Story
Victor Rousseau: The Angel of the Marne
Olivia Howard Dunbar: The Shell of Sense
Marjorie Bowen: The Avenging of Ann Leete

BEATEN TO A PULP
Greye La Spina: The Dead-Wagon
Urann Thayer: A Soul with Two Bodies
Arthur J. Burks: The Ghosts of Steamboat Coulee
Thorp Mcclusky: The Considerate Hosts
Cyril Mand: The Fifth Candle
August Derleth and Mark Schorer: The Return of Andrew Bentley
M. L. Humphreys: The Floor Above
Manly Wade Wellman: School for the Unspeakable
A. V. Milyer: Mordecai’s Pipe
Julius Long: He Walked by Day
Dale Clark: Behind the Screen

MODERN MASTERS
M. Rickert: Journey into the Kingdom
H. R. F. Keating: Mr. Saul
Chet Williamson: Coventry Carol
1
Categories for this book
Fiction - Horror
Tags for this book (powered by Library Thing)
horror (7)

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!
23 Hours
The Vampire Archives
32 Fangs
The Devil in Silver
COFFINS
Interview with the Vampire
Frankenstein: Lost Souls
Brother Odd
Frankenstein: Dead and Alive

I finished Dark Descent early last year and I found it quite disappointing. I think a big part of it was to show how varied horror could be and it certainly succeeded in that respect, but I think the quality is extremely uneven. I thought Stephen King's "The Monkey" was far too weak to be included.

I understand promoting Aickman with 3 tales but King really didn't need three. Some other authors had two tales but I found all multiple authors but Aickman hard to justify when you don't have essentials like Machen, CA Smith and Hodgson.

For a long time it seemed like Aickman was never going to get mainstream prestige treatment but this year this nice line came out..
http://www.faber.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/index/order/date_of_publication/dir/desc/q/Robert+Aickman/
Even Fangoria (or was it Rue Morgue magazine?) did a cover feature on him.

Poe, Lovecraft, MR James, Le Fanu, Blackwood, Onions, CP Gillman, RW Chambers, Bierce and several other obvious ones were good but you expect that because they are always in anthologies. Tanith Lee, Lucy Clifford and John Collier were the highlights for me because their names aren't so big.
Michael Shea was good but I'd heard a lot about him but after his recent death it seems he was more neglected than I thought.

I got Ashley's Mammoth Short Horror Novels and Penzler's Vampire Archives.

Those Villiers ebooks are on the nook store too, yay. I have 5$ credit and now I'm torn between The Scaffold and The Vampire Soul.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?2451

They're part of an interesting series: Black Coat French Horror. I've got Gaspard de La Nuit by Aloysius Bertrand.

Is that a graphic novel adaptation???

(I'm familiar with Bertrand's piece in its guise as the inspiration for Ravel's piano suite, but I thought it was a relatively short set of prose poems)

Not a graphic novel but it includes artwork by Bertrand and essays by other people. Cover art by Gahan Wilson.

Yeah I got a lotta doubts about Dark Descent, but will prob read more of it anyway, eventually. Nice on backstory and enduring appeal of A Canticle For Leibowitz:
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/science-fiction-classic-still-smolders

It occurred to me that one dude who def owes a debt to kuttner/moore is gene wolfe, specifically his short fiction

many xxxp

Really? idgi

New Michael Faber book gets backhanded nod from NYTimes reviewer
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/books/the-book-of-strange-new-things-by-michel-faber.html
but rave from M. John Harrison
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/23/the-book-of-strange-new-things-michel-faber-review

don, here is something about Canticle from another slick, relinked from Hugo award winners part 1 (53-79)
http://harpers.org/blog/2008/11/girded-loins/

Oh yeah, Faber got rave from David Mitchell too.

Thanks. I don't remember Canticle very well, but interesting what it meant to readers, incl. budding writers; I'll have to re-read it. New issue of Clarkesworld looks promising, though only read the Cadigan story so far. Somebody want to explain the beginning(stuff that just happens to be on TV), and the ending (looping in those last two sentences from the first section)?
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/cadigan_11_14_reprint/

canticle is incredibld

incredible, even

Used to think -surprise!-that Canticle came from outside the SF ghetto, but in fact it was a fixup of three stories originally published in F&SF, I believe. Miller also published in Galaxy, won the 1955 Hugo for best novelette with "The Darfsteller", published in Astounding.

Current edition of Canticle has preface by one Mary Doria Russell, author of The Sparrow, a tale of space-faring Jesuits which I have not read.

I have, it's mostly ridiculous. Or go digging for the overlong and more positive post I wrote at the time.

Found it upthread: rolling fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction &c. thread

This thread is getting too long to access. It's like the old guy in the tower in the south of Viriconium who starts forgetting all the wisdom he had held on to for so long in The Pastel City by the end of A Storm of Wings.

There is some kind weird thing were Gardner Dozois edited a bunch of books with the nomenclature Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year Seventh Annual Collection
http://bestsf.net/best-science-fiction-stories-of-the-year-seventh-annual-collection-ed-dozois/
But then there are bunch of ebooks from a decade or two later called The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventh Annual Collection.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Years-Best-Science-Fiction-ebook/dp/B009LRWWR2/

I mean I guess they are different titles but still.

And the dozois books are published in the uk/Australia etc as The Mammoth Book of SF 32, with the number not matching the US edition. Could these buggers not just put the year in the title?

Ha, yes, exactly!

From one amazon review of The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 22

WARNING: The thirty stories in this collection are exactly the same 30 stories found in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection. In fact, these two books seem to be the same except for different titles and covers. Don't buy both expecting them to be separate books.