Reading Report, September/October 2025

I’ve wanted to read the University Of Cosmopoli Papers by Christopher Blayre (pen-name of Edward Heron-Allen, 1861-1943) since I stumbled across a couple of the stories a year ago. Cast as the papers of faculty and staff of a university (collection cataloged by Blayre) the faculty seems to have had a number of odd, supernatural encounters. The stories were collected, but the collections are pricey. But there is a “Complete Shorter Fiction” by Heron-Allen which has all the Cosmopoli stories and more. Got it a few days ago and have been plunging in. So far read “Mano Pantea,” “The Thing That Smelt,” “The Blue Cockroach.” Fun and weird. Some of them were reprinted in anthologies with similarly weird themes.

Finally found and read Elliot O’ Donnell’s short story “The Ghost Table” online. Glad I didn’t pay money for it! If it’s well-known at all it’s because it was the cover story for the March issue of “Weird Tales” which included Lovecraft’s “The Call Of Cthulu,” a very good story. “Ghost Table” not so much. Spooky at the beginning but the explanation was kind of dorky.

O’Donnell himself seems more interesting than his fiction; lots of writers wrote about ghost detectives, but O’Donnell actually was a “ghost hunter.” He published several books of presumably non-fiction accounts of his inquiries into supernatural happenings, perhaps a bit like Hans Holzer.

It’s worth noting that he never collected “Ghost Table” in any of his books.

Also worth noting that when I finished reading the story I thought “Aw, hell, I’m gonna have to write about reading this…”

Oh, and my memory was jogged about this by an ornate antique table I saw which has inspired a flash fiction story.

Read “The Mysterious Food Truck Affair” by Christina Hoag in the online version of Saturday Evening Post. Lots of fun and very Golden Age. Plenty of references to Agatha Christie as her sleuth is a professional expert on Christie. She even ate apples like Adrianne Oliver.

Read Ramsey Campbell’s story “A Life In Nightmares,” a seriously disturbing horror story with perfect campbell touches as well as being very original.

Also read “Trinity River’s Blues” by Chesya Burk.

Both of the above stories are in the anthology “Dark Stars: New Tales Of Darkest Horror,” edited by John F. D. Taff. In his introduction he said he wanted to do with this anthology what “Dark Forces” had done: “Bring horror to a wider audience.”

From what I’ve read of “Dark Stars,” it succeeds.

Been reading through Donald A. Wollheim’s NESFA collection “Up There And Other Strange Directions.” Wollheim said he wrote the stories for fun, and they are still fun!

Started reading M. D. Neu’s novel “Hawaiian Sun.” A fun alternate history time-travel romance.

Got Jane Yolen’s collection “Sister Emily’s Lightship” and read or re-read several of her stories.

Read J. Scott Coatsworth’s “Black Cat” from the Own Voices anthology “Romance In Autumn.”

Started reading O. Henry’s collection of interrelated stories “Cabbages And Kings.” I didn’t know he’d written one like that. “Fox In The Morning” ought to be included in any anthology of stories about secret messages—very clever! I have a collected two-volume O. Henry but I’ve ordered a Selected-Stories so I can carry it around easier.

Read the regular online offerings by E. H. Timms and Kaje Harper. I miss new installments of Scott Coatsworth’s “Down the River.”

And somehow I didn’t read any of John Maddox Roberts’ “Temple Of the Muses.” I gotta get back to that!