Hey folks, I’m opening up the blog to a guest post by William Meikle, an author I met through the KindleBoards message boards. William is doing a blog crawl to promote his upcoming book and put together a quick post for us today. I hope you enjoy it and check out William’s work!
William Meikle is a Scottish writer with ten novels published in the genre press and over 200 short story credits in thirteen countries. He is the author of the ongoing Midnight Eye series among others, and his work appears in a number of professional anthologies. His ebook THE INVASION has been as high as #2 in the Kindle SF charts. He lives in a remote corner of Newfoundland with icebergs, whales and bald eagles for company. In the winters he gets warm vicariously through the lives of others in cyberspace, so please check him out at http://www.williammeikle.com
Single-Author Horror Short Story Collections
One of those Facebook apps got me thinking. It wanted Single Author horror collections not by Stephen King
It was hard to choose, so I went with the ones that got me started on reading beyond Dennis Wheatley in the days before Stephen King and/or The Exorcist.
1. Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood
2. H. P. Lovecraft: Tales (Library of America)
3. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
4. The Collected Ghost Stories of E.F. Benson
5. The October Country
All of these were on the shelves of a small library in a steelworking town in Scotland. I doubt that is the case nowadays.
Staggering to think that I first read Lovecraft and Bradbury forty years ago now! I’m officially an old fart.
That does also mean I’ve read a -lot- of other collections, so here are five more, from more recent times.
1. Alone With The Horrors – Ramsey Campbell
2. The Dark Country – Dennis Etchison
3. The Ice Monkey – M John Harrison
4. The White Road – Ron Weighell
5. The Books of Blood – Clive Barker
In doing this I realize I’m missing many of my favorites, from Arthur Machen through Joseph Payne Brennan, Karl Edward Wagner and up to people like Conrad Williams, Steve Duffy and Tim Lebbon. But these are the ones that I go back to and re-read so I’ll stick with these choices.
For today at least.
For William Meikle,
From one Old Fart to another (who also first read Lovecraft, Bradbury, et al 40 years ago!), it’s sometimes fun at my current age of 57 to sit back and listen to some of the old favorites tales, rather than reading them again; and it’s also fun to try recording them to share too. I had to wait until the time and voice were right for the material; and I hope you will enjoy my efforts with “The Hound,” “Fungi from Yuggoth,” and my longest effort as listed below:
“At the Mountains of Madness” the complete, unabridged William Hart reading of the original 1931 H. P. Lovecraft novella that Guillermo del Toro and James Cameron are about to base their 3D Universal Studios movie upon, is now freely available in MP3 format for downloading from several online sites.
The novella is twelve chapters long, and runs about 4-1/2 hours.
Find it, and more Lovecraftian readings at:
iTunes
Subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/cthulhuwho1sBlog
iTunes Store
Search for CthulhuWho1’s Blog
Visit CthulhuWho1’s Blog
http://cthulhuwho1.com/
Or find it as multiple “video” segments on The CthulhuWho1 YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/CthulhuWho1
Please post any comments on CthulhuWho1’s Blog.
Thanks for the suggestions. I love to read everything, but sometimes short stories fit the bill perfectly.
Thanks for the comments folks, and thanks for the links Will — always happy to see more Lovecratiana
Recently started reading short storys. They do have a time and place in my reading list.
Short story collections are perfect for standing in line, sitting on the potty and reading in shorter times slots while sipping tea and curling up on the sofa, or a quiet space while on your lunch break. 🙂
Anthologies have a special place in my heart!