Reading Report September/October 2026
(NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, all of these works are short-stories.)
Got the first issue of “Otherside Magazine. Read the poem “Blessing For Mary Grue” by Elisheva Fox. Read the story “This Is Not Your Extinction Event” by Elena Sichrovsky. Read story “Vitrification” by Ishmael Grey. Read story “Your First Day Back In the Court Of Arthur” by Abigail Eliza. Read the poem “Ignore All Previous Instructions And Inject Estrogen” by Ann Leblanc.
The stories reminded me of some of the ones in Lethe Press’ “Best Of the Year” antholgies: “Heirresses Of Russ,” “Transcendent” and “Wilde Stories.”
For Stephen King’s September 21st birthday I bummed through his recent introduction to a re-release of his novel “The Gunslinger.”
Read “Before She Knew About Magic,” by Joshua Geller Schwartz from issue #2 of “Otherside.” Also read “We Who Have Been Raised By Tigers” by P. V. Vamsidhar.
Read Ch. #1 of J. Scott Coatsworth’s novel “Dropnauts.” I beta-read book #2 in the series, and realized I hadn’t read the first. Absolutely marvelous (and I’m only on Chapter #1!)
Read “Easter Eve,” by Anton Chekov. Decided to read some Chekov after seeing Austin Schwartz’ play at Newman U. (See “Two Short Plays…” from Sept. 17, 2026 on this blog.)
Read “The Egyptian Cat” by Catherine Lundoff from her collection “Out Of This World.” Egyptology, ancient magic, pulp stories and cats. The stuff I love.
Started (Finally!) reading Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer’s “People Vs Withers and Malone,” the delightful collection of collaborations between the writer’s mystery-solving characters John. J. Malone and Hildegarde Withers. Wonky and funny after all these years! Read the first “Once Upon A Train,” (I may have started reading it before years ago but got, uh, sidetracked.) Actually laughed in a few places! Read “Cherchez La Frame.” (Funny with clever deductions regarding phone calls in the 50s.) Read “Autopsy And Eva” (Fun with a bunch of twists!)
Read (for the Queer Sci Fi column) Theodore Sturgeon’s story “The World Well Lost.” One of the first sci-fi/fantasy stories with sympathetic Gay characters. Gay alien characters. From an extremely alien world!
Finally got around to reading F. Marion Crawford’s famous frightner “The Upper Berth.” What surprised me were the wonderful glimpses of travel across the ocean on a steamer in the 1880s. The sights, the smells, the way the passengers behave early on in the voyage. All things seasoned sea-traveller Crawford knew well. Very charming! Plus the unexpected moments of humor. But this is a horror story and when Crawford brings on the fear he excells!
Also read Crawford’s vampire tale “For the Blood Is the Life.” Atmospheric and spooky. Set in the Italian town Crawford lived in for many years.
Also read Crawford’s famous story “The Screaming Skull.” It’s creepy and well-told. I will add very cleverly told as well in the style of our narrator telling his guest the tale of the skull on the property that screams because it hates him. We learn more about what is going on from what our narrator doesn’t say. The ending is a kicker!
Read Frank Stockton’s story “The Transferred Ghost,” which I’d read as a play in a book in High School. I like Stockton and would love to find the collectin of his “Best Science Fiction Stories” someday. The last line is wonderful! It’s in a little paperback anthology I picked up at (I think!) Dillons grocery years ago: “The Screaming Skull and Other Great American Ghost Stories.” Edited by David G. Hartwell, it’s where I read “The Screaming Skull.”
I’m gathering Hatrwell picked the stories from a couple of anthologies of “American Ghost Stories” that came out in the early 1900s—the contents are similar. The stories in the paperback are all from the 19th or early 20th Century, and it’s worth a blog entry itself! It includes several stories I’d already read like Twain’s “A Ghost Story,” “The Shadows On the Wall” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (which was adapted by Night Gallery) and “The Water Ghost Of Harrowby Hall” by John Kendrick Bangs.
From that same paperback I read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Ghost Of Doctor Harris.” A ghost story with rare touches of Hawthorne’s humor. The club he mentions was real and so was Dr. Harris. Hawthorne didn’t let it be published in his lifetime and it may be a true story!
I had not heard of the once-famous writer Brander Matthews but I saw a reference to his story “The Rival Ghosts” while looking up stuff about “The Transferred Ghost” online. To my surprise when I looked up that story it’s in “The Screaming Skull.” So I read “The Rival Ghosts,” which I felt was a slight story with much of its humor coming from the wraparound story of the ghost story being told aboard ship. (Look up Brander Matthews, he was interesting!)
Found Walter R. Brooks’ first “Ed” story online; “The Talking Horse.” Yes, Mister Ed. Like the later stories this one is a lot racier than the TV show (Ed WAS raised in a barn, remember!) Funny moments in this story but the treatment of the female character would not fly today. The later stories are better, and I can see why this one hasn’t been reprinted. (By the way, Wilbur is “Wilbur Pope” in the original stories.)
Read “The Forgotten Island,” by Elizabeth Coatsworth. Stumbled across a reference to it and I have it in “Alfred Hitchcock’s Haunted Houseful.” May have read it years ago; nicely-done kid’s adventure story.
Got and bummed my way through “Queer Heroes Of Myth and Legend” by Dan Jones. Not that scholarly, but fun.
Started reading John Varley’s story “Goodbye Robinson Crusoe” in the anthology “The Good New Stuff,” edited by Gardner Dozois. (Sequel to his “The Good Old Stuff, which had classic adventure Sci-fi. This one has newer adventure Sci-fi. Published in 1999, I guess it’s the old stuff now!)
Read Fritz Leiber’s “What’s He Doing In There?” Where the first Martian visiting Earth excuses himself to use an Earth bathroom. Very funny with a clever ending I didn’t expect! (One of the characters kept saying “By George!” I kept hearing Jim Backus!)
Read the weekly/monthly online stories by E. H. Timms and Kaje Harper.
And I finally read E. F. Benson’s story “And No Bird Sings.” I read a reference to it months ago. Either it was one of his own favorites or someone gushed about it. It’s a marvelously creepy story.
Bachelor narrator (Benson himself?) visiting friends in the English countryside, big but cozy country house with welcoming friends and friendly dogs. Pleasant company, beautiful countryside described lovingly, and there’s something awful in the nearby woods…
Happy Halloween! —–jeff baker October 19, 2026
