Image courtesy of J. Scott Coatsworth

Read Joe R. Lansdale’s “The Shadows In the Rock,” in the anthology “Scaring and Daring.” A fine homage to Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn. The dialogue is perfect. (“You listen right smart, that river will tell you things, and it’s a good idea to pay attention. That ole river don’t warn you twice.”) A sci-fi/horror story with tinges of Lovecraftian “otherness,” as well as some Twain-style humor.

Finished “Dogs Don’t Break Hearts” by ‘Nathan Burgoine. (See my Goodreads/Amazon review for details!)

Started reading L. Frank Baum’s “Sky Island.” A fine fantasy adventure.

Also started Dickens’ “A Tale Of Two Cities.” Which starts off in Seventeen Seventy-Five… Been reading through it in the Signet Classics edition which tells you where the chapters of the original serialization ended. It comes off like a breezy read, setting things up for drama and adventure.

And I’ve set myself the task of reading all Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore’s novels/novelettes that originally appeared in “Startling Stories” Magazine in the 1940s and ‘50s. The impetus was my copy of “The Startling Worlds of Henry Kuttner,” which came out about 1987 and which I picked up used maybe five years later. (Yes, I have the reader’s bad habit of buying books and not getting around to reading them.) So I’ve started in on “The Portal In the Picture,” which is a lot of fun so far. I have several paperback copies of the Kuttner novels that were published originally in “Startling,” and at least a few of the novelettes are in collections I have on my shelves. I just ordered a re-issue of “Lands Of the Earthquake,” another Kuttner story from Startling that has been recently released as a trade paperback.

“Startling Worlds of Henry Kuttner” also has the stories “Valley Of the Flame” and the one writers like Roger Zelazny cited as an influence: “The Dark World.” Most likely written mostly by Moore I am really looking forward to getting to that one!

NOTE: I finished “Portal In the Picture.” I posted a Writing Report Addenda on this blog the other day covering it. Also a Goodreads review.

Read the regular online offerings by E. H. Timms and Kaje Harper, as well as J. Scott Coatsworth’s weekly serial “Down The River” the latter of which has wrapped up with an epilogue! A fine send-off for characters we have come to love and which Scott handles masterfully.

I’m not the only one hoping there will be more.

Still reading the late John Maddox Roberts’ “Temple Of the Muses.” I have a big TBR pile!!