oatcakeredux
Crab On The Rampage
I STILL know where the yellow went.
Posts: 41
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Post by oatcakeredux on Jul 9, 2012 22:11:02 GMT
Woo hoo! Nice one, Doug  ! |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jul 10, 2012 10:15:56 GMT
Incredible. the Vault - where you find things out you didn't know you didn't know. |
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Post by David A. Riley on Jul 10, 2012 13:43:17 GMT
Incredible. the Vault - where you find things out you didn't know you didn't know. Are those the unknown unknowns? |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jul 10, 2012 16:01:33 GMT
Incredible. the Vault - where you find things out you didn't know you didn't know. Are those the unknown unknowns?  |
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Post by doug on Jul 10, 2012 16:30:05 GMT
Woo hoo! Nice one, Doug ! Thanks! and I'm happy as all get up just to be able to contribute something! take care. Doug |
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Post by Knygathin on Jul 18, 2012 20:46:16 GMT
About Machen's "Little People" stories:
"The Novel of the Black Seal" is of course fantastic.
I enjoyed "The Shining Pyramid".
The "Red Hand" is perhaps my personal favorite. Only towards the end there is a short sequence, when we are actually led into a burrow to meet the "little people". Very few words, and, if I remember correctly, their appearance is actually not described to us . . . but still, this is written so incredibly powerful! The long build-up of the story justifies these few final sentences. Here, if we stumble into such a hole, we have the real "little people". And if you ask me, they are much more scary than any ghosts, or zombies or vampires.
"Out of the Earth" has some chilling stuff. It is evocative and creepy.
Now "Change", I found this one disappointing. Maybe I should re-read it, . . . but I don't think I will.
"Out of the Picture" is not in any of my Machen books, and it is not so easy to obtain. Is "Out of the Picture" a good story about "little people"? Is it worth pursuing?
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Post by dem bones on Jul 18, 2012 21:34:50 GMT
"Out of the Picture" is not in any of my Machen books, and it is not so easy to obtain. Is "Out of the Picture" a good story about "little people"? Is it worth pursuing? i loved it myself, though, from memory, i'm not sure it is a legitimate 'little people' story (it certainly features a psychotic "horrible dwarf" if that's any good to you?) Perhaps the best place to find Out Of The Picture is Brian Netherwood's Medley Macabre, because even if you hate that particular story, you're sure to find something in there that appeals |
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Post by Knygathin on Jul 19, 2012 0:07:53 GMT
i loved it myself, though, from memory, i'm not sure it is a legitimate 'little people' story (it certainly features a psychotic "horrible dwarf" if that's any good to you?) . . . Thanks, I will take a look at Netherwood's book. A "psychotic horrible dwarf". . . . Well, yes, that could be something, I guess.  Perhaps most of Machen's horrors are connected, in some way, to "the little people", in his wide and terrifying perspective on the fairy mysteries of Nature. What did you think of "Change"? I thought it seemed to lack inspiration. It went flat. |
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Post by Knygathin on Jul 19, 2012 16:24:44 GMT
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Post by Knygathin on Jul 19, 2012 16:43:17 GMT
And don't forget The Secret Commonwealth, a treatise by Mr. Robert Kirk, Minister at Aberfoyle. Published 1691.
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oatcakeredux
Crab On The Rampage
I STILL know where the yellow went.
Posts: 41
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Post by oatcakeredux on Jul 22, 2012 1:01:16 GMT
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 22, 2012 12:14:45 GMT
Great story by Margaret St. Clair. She's an under-appreciated writer. A while back I put together a table of contents for a theoretical collection of her best weird tales. By the way, "Gnoles" is a sequel to Lord Dunsany's "The Hoard of the Gibbelins," another masterpiece of dark comedy. |
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Post by beachcombing on Jul 28, 2012 23:53:52 GMT
First of all thanks to all contributors. I learnt some titles I would never have come across otherwise. I'll be spending a lot of money tomorrow...
As to good little people stories:
Bernard Sleigh, very obscure British writer, wrote some fascinating 'little people' stories that are half horror, half sexual. Look out for his Gate of Horn.
I think you didn't do justice to Blackwood: there is May Eve, the Glamour of Snow and several others.
William Sharp writing as Fiona Macleod wrote several stories incorporating traditional figures from Gaelic lore.
There is Riddell Banshee’s Warning (1867): kind of cheating here but a banshee is technically a fairy
With Le Fanu look out too for Laura Silver Bell
Some traditional stories from the 19 cent collections have a scary edge. Look for bottrell for the south west and crofton croker for Ireland. William Carleton has some frightening Irish stories too about leprechauns and the like.
Doesn't Hugh Miller have a fairy vampire in one of his early works?
Its never convinced me but what about Hewlett and Prosperine? That has about five short stories in it.
Francis Stephen's Elf Trap is oustanding.
M.R: James has After Dark in the Playing Fields
The Fairies' Revenge by Sinead de Valera
E.M Forster and Saki have pan short stories that are worth reading.
If you want to go really in depth there are the really life stories that are pretty frightening. What about the Cleary murder of 1895, for example, I find some of the news stories chilling.
Thanks again and please keep this thread going!
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Post by Knygathin on Jul 29, 2012 6:09:24 GMT
A.B.O. by Walter de la Mare? What mad genius. What strange, unusual writing. Very effective, and goes straight to the core of disintegrating terror. It made me afraid after I had put the book down, and I almost didn't dare go out into the garden in the night, for fear of bumping into a "little one".
My only disappointment in that tale, was the rational scientific explanation, (abo... you know what), suddenly turning the tale into tragedy. That was a letdown of the supernatural. Up until then, my impression was that someone, in the old mysterious past, had captured a "little one", and hid it. But in spite of the rationale, I find it open to interpretation. Changelings and others, as Machen has shown, find different paths into the world.
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doctor3
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 35 
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Post by doctor3 on Mar 2, 2013 5:03:42 GMT
Shameless plug, my own anthology, Green Unpleasant Land contains a story, The Patter of Tiny Feet about a race of pre-historic hominans surviving on Bodmin Moor.
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