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Post by jonathan122 on Aug 9, 2009 20:12:21 GMT
American Supernatural Tales - ed. S. T. Joshi (2007, Penguin)
The Adventure of the German Student - Washington Irving
Edward Randolph's Portrait - Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allan Poe
What Was It? - Fitz-James O'Brien
The Death of Halpin Frayser - Ambrose Bierce
The Yellow Sign - Robert W. Chambers
The Real Right Thing - Henry James
The Call of Cthulhu - H. P. Lovecraft
The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis - Clark Ashton Smith
Old Garfield's Heart - Robert E. Howard
Black Bargain - Robert Bloch
The Lonesome Place - August Derleth
The Girl with the Hungry Eyes - Fritz Leiber
The Fog Horn - Ray Bradbury
A Visit (The Lovely House) - Shirley Jackson
Long Distance Call - Richard Matheson
The Vanshing American - Charles Beaumont
The Events at Poroth Farm - T. E. D. Klein
Night Surf - Stephen King
The Late Shift - Dennis Etchison
Vastarien - Thomas Ligotti
Endless Night - Karl Edward Wagner
The Hollow Man - Norman Partridge
Last Call for the Sons of Shock - David J. Schow
Demon - Joyce Carol Oates
In the Water Works (Birmingham, Alabama 1888) - Caitlin R. Kiernan
I wonder if Harold Bloom knows Stephen King is now being published in Penguin Classics...
A semi-successful attempt to establish a canon of American horror literature (emphasis on the literature bit) - it struck me that Joshi had chosen most of the right authors, but not necessarily the right stories. Robert Howard's "Old Garfield's Heart" is utterly dreadful, and the Wagner and Beaumont stories, though perfectly acceptable, are nowhere near their best work. Joshi's rather grudging praise for King ("some highly able short stories") doesn't do much to dispel the impression that somewhere along the line it was decided that the book had to contain a Stephen King story, and "Night Surf" was short and didn't annoy the editor too much.
Some positives now; I've never been overly keen on what I've read of Robert Bloch's work, but "Black Bargain" (a 1942 Weird Tales piece) is great - I think it helps that, in this instance, Bloch hasn't constructed the entire story in order to get to a pre-chosen punchline. I don't think I've read anything by Norman Partridge before, but "The Hollow Man" is fantastic, a very creepy tale told from the point of view of an extremely nasty "something" (Joshi suspects a Wendigo, but Partridge never makes it completely clear) preying on hunters in the woods. "The Real Right Thing" is a true rarity - a Henry James story where every word feels necessary.
The jewel in the crown is probably T. E. D. Klein's "The Events at Poroth Farm", the novella that Klein later expanded into The Ceremonies, his first (and to date last) novel. I haven't read that version, so I don't know how they compare, but the novella here is as good as anything in Klein's Dark Gods collection, which is saying a lot.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 10, 2009 10:18:17 GMT
Joshi's rather grudging praise for King ("some highly able short stories") doesn't do much to dispel the impression that somewhere along the line it was decided that the book had to contain a Stephen King story, and "Night Surf" was short and didn't annoy the editor too much. I think you've got that spot on. Agree with your criticism of Bloch, too, and could never understand why otherwise sane commentators - Ramsey Campbell springs to mind - rave on about Bloch's 'hilarious' punning (and i actually like Bloch!). At his worst, i get the feeling he thought up a last line, chuckled heartily to himself and wrote the story from there. I'm gonna say that "America's R. Chetwynd-Hayes" thing again as i always do on these occasions. Haven't read T. E. D. Klein's The Ceremony either, but i share your high opinion of Dark Gods and Events At Poroth Farm which i first read in Richard Davis's brilliant Years Best Horror Stories 3 for Sphere before the series was taken over by DAW. |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Nov 7, 2010 19:26:31 GMT
Agree with your criticism of Bloch, too, and could never understand why otherwise sane commentators - Ramsey Campbell springs to mind - rave on about Bloch's 'hilarious' punning (and i actually like Bloch!). At his worst, i get the feeling he thought up a last line, chuckled heartily to himself and wrote the story from there. Last line? Sometimes, as with "You Got to Have Brains" (1956), all you need to know about the story is already in the title. |
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Post by jonathan122 on Nov 8, 2010 10:31:59 GMT
Last line? Sometimes, as with "You Got to Have Brains" (1956), all you need to know about the story is already in the title. I have a vague recollection of a Robert Bloch story about a cat which ripped out someone's tongue. I believe it was called "Cat Got Your Tongue?"... |
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Post by ramseycampbell on Nov 8, 2010 10:40:32 GMT
Agree with your criticism of Bloch, too, and could never understand why otherwise sane commentators - Ramsey Campbell springs to mind - rave on about Bloch's 'hilarious' punning (and i actually like Bloch!). To be honest, I don't recall saying it! Was I talking about his stand-up act at conventions? I don't feel it applies so much to his horror fiction, certainly. And how dare you call me sane... |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Nov 8, 2010 11:37:27 GMT
I have a vague recollection of a Robert Bloch story about a cat which ripped out someone's tongue. I believe it was called "Cat Got Your Tongue?"... It is called "Catnip," but close enough. He must have agonized over that one. |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 8, 2010 11:40:05 GMT
I have a vague recollection of a Robert Bloch story about a cat which ripped out someone's tongue. I believe it was called "Cat Got Your Tongue?"... It is called "Catnip," but close enough. He must have agonized over that one. Catnip was adapted for the US TV series Darkroom and there was a looong build up to that punchline! |
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Post by dem bones on Nov 11, 2010 11:29:39 GMT
Agree with your criticism of Bloch, too, and could never understand why otherwise sane commentators - Ramsey Campbell springs to mind - rave on about Bloch's 'hilarious' punning (and i actually like Bloch!). To be honest, I don't recall saying it! Was I talking about his stand-up act at conventions? I don't feel it applies so much to his horror fiction, certainly. And how dare you call me sane... Sorry Ramsey, only just saw this. You are dead right of course and i either misremembered (or, more likely, misread) the following from the introduction to The Rubber Room in New Horrors 2.  " ... Some say it is his Mr. Hyde who writes his horror stories, but it seems to me that the opposite is true; when he feels compassion for his audience he writes his horror stories, when he's feeling evil he makes some of the most atrocious puns imaginable." |
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Post by andydecker on Aug 3, 2023 10:32:05 GMT
S. T. Joshi - American Supernatural Tales (Penguin Books US, 2007, 477 pages)  Cover: Hans Neleman Cover found on the net. Thanks to the original scanner. A decent cover for this edition. Compared to Joyce Carol Oates this features with very few exceptions genre writers and has writer's introductions. As usual with these anthologies some selections are debatable if not puzzeling. Robert Howard is featured with one of his Weird Western Tales, Old Garfield's Heart, which one could argue shows a different side of his work, but Wagner's Endless Night is rather obscure. On the other hand one gets over-familiar fare like Lovecraft's Call of Cthulhu or Leiber's The Girl with the Hungry Eyes.
Still, for newcomers every important writer is featured.
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