While this might seem to indicate a certain perverse obsession with self-destruction on my part, I refer you to our the Dreadful Thoughts record book. Therein we find that out of sixteen, horror-fixated, authors we have but three suicides: the pair listed above, and poor old John Polidori (who, fed up to the gills with show-off Byron getting all the credit, tore into the prussic acid). That's only 18.75%…proving that, by and large, our chosen folk are mostly jovial types who cartwheel merrily through sylvan glades (chuckling as they go).

So…um…where was I? Oh, yes. Robert E. Howard. "Pigeons From Hell". The bed-wettingly, scarifying thing we're actually here to talk about and all that.

Well, off you go. I've uncorked the cyanide-tinged Chardonnay. Be with you in a minute.

After flirting (coquettishly) with psychological/feminist/political creepiness during our last club outing, Dreadful Thoughts 16 steels itself to feast on a bloody chunk of visceral, traditional horror.¹ To serve up the gore-drenched goods, we turn to the sword-wielding titan that was Robert E. Howard. Father of Conan. Apostle of Lovecraft. Wearer of tough-guy hats.

I should add that when last I read the below I filled the days/nights by playing with my AT-AT and wetting the bed (thought not, usually, at the same time). Back then, it shook me to my core…and probably extended the bed-wetting period by another year or two. As a jaded old horror-stuffed cynic, I doubt it now retains quite the same power to affect mind and bladder, or so my wife must hope.

Read it. Return at the appointed hour. Try not to piss yourselves.²

Story: "Pigeons From Hell" (html), (html).³

Discussion Opens: Friday, 28th January @ 9 p.m. (and runs for seven full days).

1. For a tasty change of pace. [back]
2. Please. [back]
3. You'll also find it in the natty (and cheap) Wordsworth collection The Haunter of the Ring & Other Tales. [back]

Right. Littlest one curled up in bed with much-loved teddy and Minnie Mouse blanket? Check. Tasty mid-range Merlot decanting on the worktop? Check. Curry bubbling away satisfactorily? Check. Tube of Pringles on standby (in case of vino-induced munchies)? Check. The spectre of that indefatigable feminist, lecturer, and occasional writer of fiction Charlotte Perkins Gilman standing behind me and watching (with a fierce and critical gaze) each and every word I type? Er…check.

All things are present and correct. Including, hopefully, some lovely punters out there: huddled o'er their keyboards, minds ripe and ready for juicy chatter and natter about one of the creepiest (and most political) short stories of the late 19th Century.

Lash down a nerve-stiffening draught of whatever you're having yourself. Smooch your loved ones goodbye (just in case). And let's boogie – like it's 1892.

Begin.¹

1. And don't stop till this day week. [back]

To this end I'm (once again) reanimating the unkillable and beautiful monster that is the "Dreadful Thoughts Story Club". "What's that?", you ignorantly and derisively ask (sneering like a bored teen).¹ Well…it's a short story version of a "book club", set up by the bould Sinéad Gleeson and myself back in 2008. The mechanics are simple and low-tech. We choose an interesting, weird, or scarifying horror/Gothic² short story whose text is freely available to read online. We all pop off and read said story. We return here at a set time to chew over its bones and discuss its bits and bobs. Simple and delicious.

So…for your next assignment, and the "club's" 15th meeting, I'm setting Charlotte Perkins Gillman's unforgettably unsettling "The Yellow Wallpaper" as homework. Is it horror? Is it something worse? Does it matter? Return here on Friday evening at 9 pm to chatter and natter about these and other questions. If you can't make it on Friday, then worry not – for the discussion shall remain open for 7 full (disturbing) days. So just to clarify and summarise…

Story: "The Yellow Wallpaper" (html), (pdf).

Discussion Opens: Friday, 7th January @ 9 p.m.

Toodles.

1. I can hear and see you doing this as I've hacked into all your webcams and spend my days voyeuristically slobbering over your every facial tic. [back]
2. Broadly defined. [back]

Snuffling and shuffling figures pick their ways gingerly o'er awesomely white icescapes. The fallen lie wailing in slush-choked gutters – hips and hopes shattered. Frozen water everywhere, but not a drop to drink (or flush the foetid loo with). Doomed cars spinning hideously into gaping chasms.

January, 2010. A non-stop horror show of chilblains, slight inconvenience, and unwashed stinkiness. God help us all…

But wait. All has not yet turned to hypothermic and frigid despair. There is still warmth (sort of) and joy (er…) left in the online world. For the next 7 days, Dreadful Thoughts will be keeping a Lovecraftian (hell)fire burning. So gather ye round this gnarled, gargantuan and ancient fireplace and let some H. P. sauce warm your brittle bones.

"The Outsider" (html) & "The Rats in the Walls" (html), (html), (pdf).

Thoughts? Reactions? Wild fancies?

January – as the fella said – is a gelid month. A hiemal, brumal, dismal and tenebrous month.

A month when the dankest and most abysmal recesses of the human mind kick into hideous half-life. Spewing forth noxious brain-fumes and strangling our seedlings of hope with worriment. A month of bad thoughts. A month of Dreadful Thoughts.

On that cheery & heartening note let's bid welcome to 2010 by bolting the doors, stoking the fires, and settling down to read (and chatter about) some choice spooky stories of yore.

For the fourteenth meeting of our Dreadful Thoughts Story Club we finally cast our baleful gazes in the direction of Howard Phillips Lovecraft – the mad 'n' bad warlock prince of 20th Century horror. He of the sinuously baroque and esoteric lingo. He of the awesome cosmic dread. He of the…er…not liking the non-white races so much.

Your (double-bill) reading assignments are as follows. See y'all next Monday.

Stories:

a) "The Outsider" (html)

b) "The Rats in the Walls" (html), (html), (pdf).

Discussion Opens: Monday, 11th January @ 9 p.m. (and runs for seven full days).

P.S: In case anyone's staring at this post, waiting for action – the discussion thread is actually located here. Refocus your gazes.

Suffragette. Modernist innovator. Paddler in the turbulent "stream of consciousness" (a phrase she allegedly coined). May Sinclair was once "one of the most successful and widely known of British women novelists". And then? Disappearance down that well-trodden path into obscurity. And then? Semi-revival by crusading Feminist scholars. And then? A starring role in this, the thirteenth (shriek!) meeting of our Dreadful Thoughts Story Club.

A 7 day discussion of her steamy & pulsating supernatural bonkbuster¹ – "The Nature of the Evidence" – starts here and starts now.

Well? Off ye go.

1. Warning: Description may not be remotely accurate. [back]

Right. Enough of this summer (such as it is) lark. Enough flip-flopping about suggestively licking 99s. Enough gambolling through meadows gaily tossing rose petals. The days are shortening and the nights will soon be growing long. Time to get back to the important things in life: horror, madness, wailing & shrieking, sobbing wretchedly. Yes, it's time for Dreadful Thoughts: Session 13.

Your homework? May Sinclair's sex-toplasmic tale of an uncanny ménage à trois: "The Nature of the Evidence" (1923). Read. Think. Make notes. Return here on Thursday for the start of a week-long chat.

Story: "The Nature of the Evidence" (html)

Discussion Opens: Thursday, 20th August @ 9 p.m. (and runs for seven full days).

After an enjoyable week spent discussing terrible slimy yokes in bunks and grimly determined brutes with small heads, we now turn our petrified gazes to Dreadful Thoughts 12 (we've reached the dirty dozen).

The singular thing about our next choice is that it's plural.¹ For the first time since DT 3 we're giving hungry punters not one but two slices of tasty horror. A double-bill of prime spooky badness.

Both tales come from a poisoned pen better known for producing not-so-nasty perennial favourites like The Railway Children & Five Children and It. I "speak", of course, of E. (or Edith) Nesbit: a writer whose (memorably savage & cruel) weird tales have, alas, become almost totally over-shadowed by her output for chiddlers. A real shame, but let's save further talk of that (and other things) for the actual discussion.

Here, then, is your homework.

Stories:
a) "The Shadow"² (pdf) [The pdf is "locked" to prevent printing, but that obstacle can easily be overcome by using this simple and natty program].

b) "Man-Size in Marble" (html), (pdf).

Discussion Opens: Monday, 27th April @ 9 p.m. (and runs for seven full days).

1. Sorry about that. I know it was awful. [back]
2. Suggested by Aishwarya. [back]

Though he was (in his day) prolific,¹ popular, and commercially successful – F. Marion Crawford's posthumous "literary star" appears to have faded quite quickly.² For the next seven days, however, Dreadful Thoughts will be waving a ragged Crawford-ian flag and trying to give his largely-forgotten name a very modest boost (either by praising him or slagging him off). An apt moment for such an exercise given that the one hundredth anniversary of his death has just passed.³

Though "weird tales" were but a small part of his overall output, it is to one such weird tale that we now turn – the damp, dark, seawater-drenched "The Upper Berth" (1886). So come ye salty dogs. Come ye land lubbers. Come ye Easter bunnies. Put down the washing. Pull closed the curtains. Tell us what ye think and thought.

1. Writing over forty books. [back]
2. David Stuart Davies, in his introduction to The Witch of Prague & Other Stories (Wordsworth Editions, 2008) ISBN: 9781840220902. [back]
3. April 9th, 1909. [back]

Update 09/04/09: By an odd, but happy, coincidence today is the 100th anniversary of F. Marion Crawford's death. Uncanny stuff.

Update 06/04/09: Oops. Sorry folks. It seems I mistakenly said that discussion of "The Upper Berth" would be kicking off on the 6th of April @ 9 p.m. – i.e. tonight. What I meant to say was that it would be starting on the 13th of April @ 9 p.m. – i.e. next Monday. Balls. Apologies. Corrected the error now. Hope to see y'all back here next Monday (ye've a whole 6 days to read the thing). Seriously – Brian Cowen's genitalia have my head in a spin…

Apologies, horror fans, for slacking off unforgivably in my role as ringmaster/chair of Dreadful Thoughts 10. The picturegate/Cowengate affair sprang up unexpectedly (like a nekkid reanimated corpse) and seized my attention & imagination. I promise to refocus my gaze and have my game face back on for meeting 11.

Speaking of which, your next assignment is "The Upper Berth" by F. Marion Crawford. Crawford (though relatively obscure now) was "one of the most popular and commercially successful authors of his day"¹ – and "The Upper Berth" remains his most often-anthologised tale.

Read it, ponder on it, enjoy it, and come back to talk about it. Discussion kicks off next Monday (the sixth) at 9 p.m. and runs for 7 days. Pop in and out when you can.

While I'm at it, I'd also like to remind readers that they should feel very free to nominate stories that they'd like to see covered. 'Tis a "club" after all and suggestions are most welcome (particularly as it relieves me of the job of having to choose).

In the spirit of restating things I might mention a few general points regarding the stories I (pretty randomly) select (and why they're selected).

The intention is not necessarily to hold up any of the stories chosen as lofty pinnacles of the horror form. In other words, I'm not making selections based primarily on their "excellence" (however you want to interpret that). Rather, I'm (pretty randomly) picking tales that seem (to me) interesting, unusual, weird, fun and so on – even when said tales have pretty clear narrative/structural deficiencies. Picking and poking at the bones, themes, preoccupations and images of "genre" stories is (for me at least) where the enjoyment really lies. The extent to which they're "good", "bad", or "mediocre" (in any conventional literary sense) doesn't particularly interest me (though it may, of course, be of interest to others).

Hope that's relatively clear. Just didn't want the club to seem (in any way) like my platform for promoting (and defending) my favourite things. I'm currently, for example, gobbling up the delicious no-frills/cheapo "Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural" series from Wordsworth Editions.² Quite a few of the authors Wordsworth have reprinted were practically unknown to me, and many of the tales they produced were/are decidedly half-baked and crude (churned out quickly perhaps, often primarily to earn a few bob). In lots of cases though, said tales do, at the very least, have a certain something about them. Something worth having a squint at and a chat about.

But enough of all that. Off you go and download the below straight into your brain matrix (or, if you're totally old school, print it out and read it with your eyes).

Story: "The Upper Berth" (html), (html).³

Discussion Opens: Monday, 6th April 13th April @ 9 p.m. (and runs for seven full days).

[Twitter Hashtag: #dtsc]

1. David Stuart Davies, in his introduction to The Witch of Prague & Other Stories (Wordsworth Editions, 2008) ISBN: 9781840220902 . [back]
2. Crawford's The Witch of Prague available at a recession-busting €3.30 (approx). [back]
3. The "Horror Masters" pdf excludes the introduction altogether. Avoid. [back]

Welsh Anglo-Catholic occultist. Member (briefly) of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Avowed anti-materialist. Inspirer of everyone's favourite pathologically racist horror grandmaster: H.P. Lovecraft. Sometime scandaliser of (an easily scandalised) Victorian society. Fearer/Lover of fauns who gambolled oftentimes in the dingly dell. These are but a few pieces of the puzzle that is/was Arthur Llewelyn Jones – a.k.a Arthur Machen (1863-1947).

This week we focus our dreadful magnifying glasses on his 1894 tale, "The Inmost Light". A story of (among other things) urban & sub-urban London – a city that became for Machen (one source suggest) "as numinous…as the Gwent of his boyhood". Oh and then there are the small matters of (what may or may not be) a human soul, its absence, and (shriek!) what rushes in to fill the void.

So pop open the nearest rotund bottle of Benedictine, repeat (endlessly) the jingle "Once around the grass, and twice around the lass, and thrice around the maple-tree", and get typing some lovely and interesting words.

Penury? Ruin? Weeping and gnashing of rotten teeth? Corpses putrefying in the streets – their strewn entrails being slurped up like spaghetti by ravenous curs? Demented pedestrians cracking open each other's heads to feast on the goo inside? All now everyday sights and experiences. The miasma of recession is choking us and changing life utterly.

There is, however, a tonic for (and antidote to) this all-consuming darkness – namely: horror. Horror by the gore-filled bucketful. Generous slices of horror served in dread-stuffed baps. Horror dripping from the walls & ceilings. Horror in the wardrobe. Horror under the bed. Horror, lovely horror.

Surrounding ourselves with (and immersing ourselves in) horror will, I guarantee,¹ free us from the crippling embrace of the recession succubus. Horror – it's the only sane choice.

And so, I find myself compelled (by forces mysterious) to channel lightning bolts of renewed enthusiasm into the comatose Dreadful Thoughts Story Club. We'll shock it from its deep slumbers and set it loose, once more, on a…er…fairly indifferent blogosphere. Hoorah!

Mewling babes, and other "adult" commitments, put paid to the club late last year, and pointed to the difficulty of gathering participants together online at a set/appointed time. Given that the dynamic created by "live" discussion was (for me) one of the best things about the "club", I recently toyed with the idea of using Twitter (or some such) to jazz things up and push the "live" side of things even more to the fore.

After consulting with a few of the club's regular "heads", however, I decided that a snappy, fast-paced commenting system just doesn't lend itself to involved and considered discussion of literature. People need time and space (if they need/want it) to think about their responses. In that spirit I've opted to slow things down instead of speeding (and funking) things up.

So what I propose is this. We pick a story. Go read it. I put up a post relating to it on a Monday and the discussion kicks off. We leave the discussion run till the following Monday, at which time I announce the story we'll be tackling for the next meeting. And on it goes.

Nothing spectacular or wildly exciting there I know! The reason this "open thread" approach didn't work the last time, I reckon, is because someone attempting to join in the morning after the "live" discussion would find 50-100 comments to wade through. Faced with that it was hard not to feel like the party was over and that you'd missed it. The week-long discussion approach should, in contrast, hopefully mean that the comments come slowly and steadily – making it easy to pop in and out as time permits.

So…I hereby announce what we'll be tackling for "Dreadful Thoughts Story Club 10".

Story: Arthur Machen's "The Inmost Light", (pdf), (HTML).

Discussion Opens: Monday, 23rd March @ 9 p.m. (and runs for seven full days).

Let me know what you think. And to anyone who missed out on the club's original run, I say this – "Please join us". I'll even give you a badge.

1. Note: Not a guarantee. [back]

Given the current global financial apocalypse I assume that most of you are now eating shoe leather for dinner, wailing yourselves to sleep in damp & draughty cardboard boxes, and shaking your sore-encrusted fists at an indifferent god. While I can't guarantee that the following cheap/free bits 'n' bobs will rouse you from your wretched misery, they may provide some small crumbs of comfort.

1) A Ghostly Genre: Short Fiction and the Supernatural.

From some of the same team of mad geniuses who brought us "It Came from the 1950s: Popular Culture, Popular Anxieties" comes "A Ghostly Genre: Short Fiction and the Supernatural". Taking place in the august surrounds of Trinity College Dublin this coming weekend (24-25 October), the conference features tasty talks on Robert Aickman, Sheridan Le Fanu, Henry James, M. R. James, Edith Wharton and many more besides. Yummy.

It's the closest thing to "Dreadful Thoughts: The Conference" we're ever likely to see, so I encourage (nay, demand) attendance…even though I can't (alas) make it myself. Pester Bernice or Elizabeth at this address for more info (tell 'em I sent you).

2) Wordsworth Editions – Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural.

I gleefully spat in the pinched and mean face of the recession today by purchasing six books. On my meagre wage that may (at first glance) seem the foolhardy extravagance of a doomed man, but look closer. The volumes in question – part of Wordsworth's groovy "Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural" series – all clock in at well under €4.00. Thrift and classic horror – together at last.

While it is (of course) a giddy joy to be able to pick up the collected stories of renowned authors (Conan Doyle, Henry James, Ambrose Bierce etc) for a modest fee, I get even more of a kick out of snapping up lesser-known delights. Today, for example, I got my mitts on Night Shivers: The Ghost Stories of J. H. Riddell and H. D. Everett's The Crimson Blind & Other Stories. Two relatively obscure gems, with funky covers, for the price of a bog-standard lunch. How can you refuse…even if the bailiffs are kicking down the door?

3) Dreadful Thoughts: Where Do We Go From Here?

Last Monday's meeting of the story club witnessed sad and raggedy clumps of tumbleweed blow through the blog. Numbers were down. Spirits were low. Your host was deflated.

However, with the passing of a week (and the buying of the aforementioned books) a sense of reinvigoration and renewal is in the air. "Damn it", thought I the other day, "There are still so many nooks & crannies of horror to explore and discuss. Without this damn'd club I'll stop reading these lovely, lonely tales and move on to something else." I don't want to do that just yet. For one thing, it wouldn't be fair to J. H. Riddell.

And so…I ask you. Does enthusiasm for, and interest in, the project still remain? Would changing times and days make a difference in terms of gathering people simultaneously together? Are there any changes to the (low-tech) format that might jazz proceedings up?

I'm still (almost in spite of myself) feeling the love for Dreadful Thoughts. With Halloween rapidly approaching it's an apt time to ask – "Is there life in the old dog yet?".

P.S: Don't forget. It's completely free.