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Post by dem bones on Feb 13, 2018 12:10:16 GMT
This thread is giving me flashbacks to a decade ago, when the Barnes and Noble 100 series helped convert me from a pulp horror reader into a pulp horror fanatic. Of the four I've quite heavily sampled (still not managed to complete one), its only 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories lets the side down. There's no doubt in my mind that had the editors stuck to the same formula as ... Ghastly Little Ghosts, Creepy Little Creatures and Wild Little Weird Tales rather than concentrate on predominantly contemporary fiction it would have made for a far more entertaining read. Depending on your POV, we either dodged a bullet or were denied one of the most endearing of books-that-never-were when no-one thought to compile 100 Vile Little Vampire Stories from the late '80's-90's fangzines. Alas, I fear the moment is long past. There'd be too many copyright issues. Likewise, a pulp heavy 100 Mouldering Little Mummy Stories selection would have been much appreciated, if only by an audience of one. Robert Sampson - Relationships: ( Strange Plasma #1, 1989). Shortly following his 48th birthday, Hadley Jackson realises he can materialise any woman from his past, living or dead, just by thinking of her. Question is, is his a gift or curse? Arthur Gray - The True History of Anthony Ffryar: The Cambridge Review, Feb 16 1911). August 1551. Anthony Ffryar, alchemist, is on the verge of distilling the Magisterium, the cure for all human ills, when "the sweating sickness" descends on the college. As the death toll increases, Cambridge is evacuated but Ffryar refuses to abandon his work at so crucial a stage. The recently deceased lure him to a ghastly funeral mass in the chapel. W. C. Morrow - The Haunted Burglar ( Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, July 1897). One for the Wandering Hands thread. Anthony Ross, a housebreaker who takes artistic pride in his craft, is appalled at his recent graceless lapses into entirely unnecessary brutality resulting in three murders. He rightly concludes that his left arm has been demoniacally possessed and, resolving to be rid of it, takes work at a sawmill ....
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Feb 13, 2018 12:39:42 GMT
Of the four I've quite heavily sampled (still not managed to complete one), its only 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories lets the side down. There's no doubt in my mind that had the editors stuck to the same formula as ... Ghastly Little Ghosts, Creepy Little Creatures and Wild Little Weird Tales rather than concentrate on predominantly contemporary fiction it would have made for a far more entertaining read. I'd agree with that. Likewise for 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, which is in the mold of 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories. Likewise, a pulp heavy 100 Mouldering Little Mummy Stories selection would have been much appreciated, if only by an audience of one. Make that two.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 14, 2018 9:27:25 GMT
Steve Rasnic Tem - Shadows In the Grass : ( 19th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, 1983 [as Shadows On The Grass]). Finding it imperative that he justify his terminal depression, Mark cultivates a ghoulish appetite for the bereavement of others. Elia W. Peattie - A Grammatical Ghost: ( The Shape of Fear & Other Ghostly Tales, 1898). As frightfully proper in death as she was in life, the Misses Boggs find their late aunt's ghost impossible to vanquish ... until an unlettered relative pays a visit. Clark Ashton Smith - Thirteen Phantasms: ( Fantasy Magazine, March 1936). Despite his many amorous adventures, John Alvington only truly cared for one woman, his first, Elspeth, who died within a year of their senseless quarrel. Now on his own deathbed, Alvington is visited by his beloved - or rather, a multitude of her. Steve Rasnic Tem - Daddy: (Bill Munster [ed.], Footsteps #7, 1986). When Mom and Dad go their separate ways it's always the little ones who suffer, our narrator being no exception. Mom is granted custody, but not even death will keep Daddy out of their lives. Lafcadio Hearn - A Dead Secret : ( Kwaidan, 1904). Why is the ghost of O-Sono obsessed with the seemingly empty chest of drawers in her bedroom? A Zen priest discovers the truth and sets her soul at peace. All "good" in their very different ways, the creepy Shadows In The Grass being especially effective. Daddy is quietly nasty too. CAS suggests there's nobody can ever compete with ones first love. A Dead Secret is very .... gentle.
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Post by dem bones on May 10, 2021 8:21:07 GMT
Otto E. A. Schmidt - Shadows Cast Behind: ( Weird Tales, Apr 1927). A weird ghost-tale of the San Francisco waterfront in the days of the gold-hunting fever. A nightwatchman on duty at Broadway Dock during the 1880s, sneaks into the boiler room of the passenger steamship, Glory of the West, to warm his frozen bones. The ship is not as empty as he'd been informed. Concealed in a dark corner, he watches as a card game erupts in bloodshed when an Englishman named Mottingly, who has lost heavily, accuses the Chilean, Garcia, of cheating. It is re-enactment of events of twenty years ago when the ensuing gunfight claimed all three lives. When, inexplicably, the coroner recorded a verdict of 'suicide' against Mottingly's name, his estranged father forbade burial in the family vault. Consequently, the young man's restless ghost haunts both ship and churchyard. narrator is instrumental in giving his soul release.
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