Reading Report, August/September 2024.

For my Poe Project I just read “Four Beasts In One.” A look back at 3830 B.C. in Antioch and a parade that does not go as planned. This was in the humor and satire section of my collected Poe and it must have been funnier back in the 1840s.

I started to read “The Assignation,” but realized that I had already read it a few months ago and hadn’t marked it on my list. And I added “Three Sundays In A Week”to the list and read it. Very short, basically a humorous trifle. The gimmick is similar to the (later) “Around the World In 80 Days” by Jules Verne. Oh and the (legal) romance between a fifteen and twenty year old mirrors Poe’s own.

Here’s the list of the first stories on my Poe Project, marking off the ones I’ve read.

The Island of the Fay

Lionizing

“Thou Art the Man” —read!

The Imp of the Perverse—read!

Four Beasts in One—read!

King Pest—read!

Von Kempelen and His Discovery—read!

The Assignation—read!

Three Sundays In A Week—read!

Read Charles Beaumont’s “The Last Caper,” a spoof of Mickey Spillane and Ray Bradbury. Played for laughs. (Trust him; he knows what he’s doing!)

Read two of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. The God In the Bowl” (which plays a little like a police procedural, at least at first!) and “The Tower Of the Elephant.” The latter recommended as one of his best stories. Lord, could Howard write. And both stories have horrific elements that top even Lovecraft!

Read “The Bleak Shore” by Fritz Leiber. Most of it done as very poetic descriptions.

Read Sterling Lainier’s “The Kings Of the Sea,” one of his Brigadier Ffellowes stories. Sort of a creepy Commander McBragg tale.

Read “The Demon Pope” by Richard Garnett. An 1888 story by an author I wasn’t familiar with. A Goodreads reviewer compared him to Terry Pratchett.

Note: “Tower Of the Elephant,” and the Garnett, Lainier and Leiber selections are all in the excellent anthology “The Oxford Book Of Fantasy Stories,” which I’ve had for years but hadn’t read all of. Stories selected by Tom Shipley.

Read “Guy Walks Into A Bar” by Simon Rich” in the August 19, 2024 New Yorker Magazine.

Very funny, very short and LGBT to boot!

Finished ‘Nathan Burgoine’s novel “Triad Blood,” first in a trilogy (I’d already read the third book “Triad Magic.”) Started reading the second book; “Triad Soul.”

Started reading Johnny Williams’ “Fairy Tales My Grandma Told Me.”

Beta read an unpublished story by J. Scott Coatsworth, featuring one of the characters who appears in his ongoing serial “Down The River.” Called “Miz Fortune.” Oh, and I’ve been reading “Down the River!” Very well done. Coatsworth understands grief and portrays it very well here.

Been reading Kaje Harper’s weekly stories and E. H. Timm’s monthly tale she sends to the Flash Fiction Draw Challenge (Thanks, E. H.!)

Celebrated Labor Day by reading from an anthology I took with me on a long-ago campout: “It Came From the Drive-In.” Read;

“Talkin’ Trailer Trash,” by Edward Bryant

“Jungle J. D.” by Steve Rasnic Tem.

Got “Glitter + Ashes,” a new LGBT post-apocalyptic hopepunk anthology and read:

“Wrath Of A Queer God” by Anthony Moll

“Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?” by Christopher Caldwell. (Magic with Biblical imagery.)

“The Descent Of their Last End” by Izzy Wasserstein.

This made me look up my own post-apocalyptic LGBT story; tweak it and send it off.

—–jeff baker, September 21, 2024