Reading Report: April/May 2025

I’ve found this period I did more reading away from the house: at the laundromat and at the repair shop. Twice. (Low tires.)

Read Robert W. Chambers’ story “The Tomb of Samaris.” (Actually several chapters in his novel “The Tracer Of Lost Persons.”) First time I’d read any of the original Mr. Keen stories although I had heard the radio show. It’s in the Oldstyle Press Tales edition of Chambers’ “The King In Yellow.”

I will add here that Grant Kellermeyer is not only a fine editor and fiction writer but his non-fictional prose is elegant. For example:

The ghastly garden of Chambers’ disappointing brief career as a horror writer is more dominated by suggestive buds than fruitful blooms. —-M. Grant Kellermeyer, The King In Yellow(2nd Edition) Oldstyle Tales Press.

Read “Dragon Moon” by Henry Kuttner, the last of his Elak Of Atlantis sword-and-sorcery stories, from 1941. I was going to use that for one of my Horror MAYhem stories, but it was more adventure than horror. (“Hey!” I hear readers cry: “What about that moment when Elak…” I’ll just let you read that for yourselves!)

Am planning a larger heroic (?) fantasy story, so I’m reading some of the best in preparation: Roger Zelazny’s stories about Dilvish the Damned. “Read Passage to Dilfar” and the novella “Tower Of Ice.” Zelazny was influenced by Clark Ashton Smith so I had to read some of these to get the flavor for my own story!

Quite the surprise to stumble across the anthology “Alien Pets” which I didn’t have, and find it has a story by Jack Williamson! “The Pet Rocks Mystery” is sweet and strange with plenty of desolate local color from Portales, NM. Didn’t know he’d written for one of those fun theme anthologies. Oh, the book is edited by Denise Little.

Started reading “Ship Of the Line,” one of C. S. Forster’s novels about Horatio Hornblower. Great fun!

I’m doing “Horror MAYhem; Decades Of Dread” and reading a bunch of horror short-stories in conjunction with a Book Tube event. As I end my reading period around the middle of the month, I’ll post my Horror MAYhem list as an addenda to this report towards the end of the month.

As part of that I read A. Merritt’s “The Woman Of the Wood.” I don’t think I’d read any Merritt before. His strength is in the poetry of his words, like “…as though the fire of the young Spring moon ran in her veins.” The horror comes, not from the supernatural but from the actions of the human beings in the story. That was my 1920s story.

For the 1940s, I read (re-read) “Call Him Demon” by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore. I’d first read it about thirty years ago, and while I remembered the last lines (and the references to several of the “Oz” books, not just the famous first one) I didn’t remember how the plot ended! Brrrr! It is a masterwork of horror, and like in “Woman Of the Wood,” the horror comes not just from the unearthly but from the human child’s actions.

I will mention I was reading both the above stories from the 1981 anthology “A Treasury Of Modern Fantasy,” edited by Terry Carr and Martin H. Greenberg. Concentrating on magazine fiction it is highly recommended. It has been republished as (“Masters Of Fantasy”) minus a couple of the stories and the book and story introductions which are highly informative.

For the 1860s I read Henry James’ “The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes.” I don’t think I’d ever read James before.

For the 1870s I read Ambrose Bierce’s early “The Haunted Valley” and found it largely meh with a couple of eerie moments. So I read his story “Chicamagua.” A true horror story about the real-life horrors of war and the innocence of a child.

A wealth of stories for the turn of the last century. I hadn’t read much Algernon Blackwood, so I took a friend’s recommendation and read “The Empty House from 1906.

And I’m reading “Vampires Anonymous” by Jeffrey N. MacMahan. On that one more, anon.

And a full list of my Horror MAYhem reading will be posted in a couple of weeks.

Just enough space to list my regular reading of J. Scott Coatsworth’s ongoing serial “Down the River.” As well as the weekly stories by Kaje Harper and E. H. Timms.

That’s about it for now!——-jeff baker, May 19, 2025